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A History of Greece, from the Earliest Times to the Roman Conquest
A History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Roman Conquest Author:William Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ajax, frmn the .Eginctan Sculptures. CHAPTER II. THE GRECIAN HEROES. § 1. Mythical character of the Heroic Age. §2. Hercules. §3. Theseus. § 4. 'Minos. ... more »§ 5. Voyage of the Argonauts. § 6. The Seven against Thebes and the Epigoui. § 7. The Trojan War as related in the Iliad. § 8. Later additions. § 9. Rcturn of the Grecian heroes from Troy. 110. Date of the fall of Troy. 8 11. Whether the Heroic legends contain any historical facts. § 12. The Homeric poems present a picture of a real state of socicty. $ 1. It was universally believed by the Greeks that their native land was in the earlier ages ruled by a noble race of beings, possessing a superhuman though not a divine nature, and superior to ordinary men in strength of body and greatness of soul. These are the Heroes of Grecian mythology, whose exploits and adventures form the great mine from which the Greeks derived inexhaustible materials for their poetry— " Presenting Thebes or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Trov divine." According to mythical chronology the Heroic age constitutes a period of about two hundred years, from the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly to the return of the Greeks from Troy. Since the legends of this period belong to mythology and not to history, they find their proper place in a work devoted to the former subject. But some of them are so closely interwoven with the historical traditions of Greece that it is impossible to pass them by entirely. Among the heroes three stand conspicuously forth : Hercules, the national hero of Greece ; Theseus, the hero of Attica; and Minos, king of Crete, the principal founder of Grecian law and civilization. § 2. Of all the Heroic families none was more celebrated than that of Danaus, king of Argos. In the fifth generation we find it personif...« less