Abound'st and eloquence, and I throughout
All heaven have praise for wisdom and for art."
--COWPER'S Trans.

To the foregoing it may be added that "Zeus deceives both gods
and men; the other gods deceive Zeus; in fact, the whole Homeric
society is full of guile and falsehood. There is still, however,
an expectation that if the gods are called to witness a
transaction by means of an oath, they will punish deceit. The
poets clearly held that the gods, if they were under no restraint
or fear of punishment from Zeus, were at liberty to deceive as
they liked. One safeguard yet remained--the oath by the Styx,
[Footnote: see the index at the end of the volume.] the penalties
of violating which are enumerated in Hesiod's Theogony, and
consist of nine years' transportation, with solitary confinement
and hard labor. As for oaths, the Hymn to Hermes shows that in
succeeding generations their solemnity was openly ridiculed.
Among the Homeric gods, as well as among the heroes, there were,
indeed, old-fashioned characters who adhered to probity. The
character of Apollo is unstained by deceit. So is that of
Menelaus."

The Greeks in the Heroic Age were divided into the three classes
--nobles, freemen, and slaves. Of the first we have already
spoken. The condition of the freemen it is difficult to fully
ascertain; but the majority possessed portions of land which
they cultivated. There was another class of freemen who possessed
no property, and who worked for hire on the property of others.
"Among the freemen," says one writer, "we find certain
professional persons whose acquirements and knowledge raised