extent and the unity of the Hellenic race.

The Greek institutions of religion were still more powerful
instruments of unity. It was the genius of a race destitute of
an organized priesthood, and not the fancy of the poet, which
animated nature by personifying its forces. Zeus was the
all-embracing heavens, the father of gods and men; Neptune
presided over the seas; Deme'ter gave the harvest; Juno was the
goddess of reproduction, and Aphrodi'te the patroness of Jove;
while Apollo represented the joy-inspiring orb of day. The same
imagination raised the earth to sentient life by assigning Dryads
to the trees, Naiads to the fountains and brooks, O're-ads to
the hills, Ner'e-ids to the seas, and Satyrs to the fields; and
in this many-sided and devout sympathy with nature the imagination
and reverence of all Greece found expression. But Greek religion
in its temples, its oracles, its games, and its councils, provided
more tangible bonds of union than those of sentiment. Each city
had its tutelary deity, whose temple was usually the most beautiful
building in it, and to which any Greek might have access to make
his offering or prayer. The sacred precincts were not to be profaned
by those who were polluted with unexpiated crime, nor by blood,
nor by the presence of the dead: Hence the temples of Greece were
places of refuge for those who would escape from private or judicial
vengeance. The more famous oracles of Greece were at Dodo'na, at
Delphi, at Lebade'a in Boeotia, and at Epidaurus in Ar'golis.
They were consulted by those who wished to penetrate the future.
To this superstition the Greeks were greatly addicted, and they
allowed the gravest business to wait for the omens of the diviner.
A people thus disposed demanded and secured unmolested access to
the oracle. The city in whose custody it was must be inviolable,