Part 5

It was really rather amusing, for Mars was not hurt. He was only taught a much needed lesson.

Just beyond the lines of Terminus which Mars had violated there lived two giant planters, Otus and Ephialtes, whose father had been a planter also and his father before him. They had been much too busy to attend the Terminalia picnic. In fact they almost never took a holiday, but toiled from sunrise to sunset on their farm which supplied the nearby market with fruits and bread stuffs. Otus and Ephialtes were very much surprised to hear the thundering crash that Mars made when he tumbled down; and they dropped their tools and ran to see what was the matter.

It is said that the fallen Mars covered seven acres of ground, but the two giants started at once picking him up and he began to shrink then like a rubber balloon when the air leaks out of it.

"What shall we do with this troublemaker?" Otus asked his brother.

"We must put him where he will not interfere with our work or the other work of the earth for a while at least," Ephialtes said as they tugged Mars, still roaring, home.

"That's a good idea," Otus agreed. "We will shut him up."

And so they crammed the troublesome Mars into a great bronze vase and took turns sitting on the cover so that he was not able, by any chance, to get out for thirteen months. That gave everyone an opportunity to plant and gather another harvest, and to place Terminus' boundary stones again.

These giant planters would have liked to keep this god of war bottled up in the vase for all the rest of time, but he was one of the family of the Olympians and so this was not possible. In time he was allowed to drive home and both the Greek and the Roman people tried to make the best of him, not as a protecting deity, but as the god of strength and brawn.

The Greeks named a hill for him near Athens, and here was held a court of justice for the right decision of cases involving life and death. That put Mars to work in a very different way. And the Romans gave him a great field for military manoeuvres and martial games. We would call it a training camp to-day. There, in Mars Field, chariot races were held twice a year and there were competitions in riding, in discus and spear throwing, and in shooting arrows at a mark. Once in five years the able-bodied young men of Rome came to Mars Field to enlist for the army, and no Roman general started out to war without first swinging a sacred shield and spear which hung there and saying,

"Watch over me, O Mars." For Mars could put muscle into a man's arm, and the heroes themselves were learning to choose the good fight.

HOW MINERVA BUILT A CITY

The sea that broke in surf on the shore of Attica became suddenly as smooth as a floor of crystal. Over it, as if he had leaped from the caverns of rock in its depths, dashed Neptune, the god of the sea, his trident held high, his horses' golden manes flowing in the wind, and their bronze hoofs scarcely touching the water as they galloped toward the shore.

At the same moment a war-like goddess appeared on the edge of the land. She was as tall and straight and strong as Mars, but her armor shone like gold while his was often tarnished. She held the storm shield of her father, Jupiter and carried a dart of lightning for her spear. Minerva, the other god of war, she was, as fearful and powerful as a storm, but also as gentle and peaceful as the warmth of the sky when it shines down on the fields when the storm is over.

"Why have Neptune and Minerva met?" the fishermen and sailors who crowded the beach asked.

"They have come together for a contest to see which shall have the honor of building a City," some of the wise men told them, and then these Greeks drew aside and waited to see what would happen, for with them was to rest the judgment in the matter.

Neptune drove his chariot up onto the land, dismounted, and blew a mighty blast on his trumpet to call the nymphs of the waters and the spirits of the winds to his aid. Then he ascended to a barren rock that lifted its head above the surrounding hills, bleak and without a single blade of grass to soften it. The Greeks watched Neptune breathlessly as he stood on its top, a mighty figure in his cloak of dripping seaweed and the white of sea salt in his flowing, dark green hair. He raised his trident, struck the rocks with it, and the age-old stone cracked in a deep fissure. Out of the crack in the rock burst a spring of water where there had been not a drop through all the centuries before.

"Neptune wins! None of the gods can excel this feat of bringing water out of bare rock," the cry went up from the people.

But Minerva ascended now to this rock of the Acropolis and took her place beside Neptune. She, also, touched the barren stone with her spear that was forged and tempered by the gods. And as she did so, a marvel resulted to her honor as well.

The green shoot of a tree suddenly appeared, pushing its way up through the hard stone. The shoot grew tall and broadened to form a trunk and branches, and then covered itself with gray-green leaves that made a pleasant shade from the brilliancy of the sun. Last, this wonder tree was hung on every branch with a strange new fruit, green balls of delicious flavor and full of oil that was healthful and healing and needed by the whole world.

The Greeks broke their ranks and gathered about the tree to taste and enjoy the fruit.

"Minerva wins!" they shouted. "Neptune's spring here in the Acropolis is like the sea, brackish in flavor, but Minerva has given Greece the olive tree."

That is just what had happened. Minerva had given the people something that they really needed, and the fair city of Athens was raised and awarded to this goddess of war as the prize of her kindness to the people.

But Neptune proved himself a very poor loser. He was a blustering, boastful old god, used from the days of his father Oceanus, when the waters were first separated from the land, to having his own way. He had wanted to own Athens himself, to be able to go and come in it whenever he liked, and it was particularly humiliating that he must give it up to a goddess. Neptune stormed down to the shore, blew another blast on his trumpet, and called all the deities of the sea and of tempests to come to his aid and destroy the city.

What an army they made as they obeyed his summons!

Triton, a son of Neptune, led the hosts and sounded the horn of battle as they approached the land, and all around him flew the Harpies, those birds as large as men with crooked claws and a hunger for human flesh. There were sea serpents that could crush a man with a single coil, and Boreas, the North Wind, drove the regiment of the high tides up on the coast. With these powers of the sea came a mighty rushing of water, and it seemed as if neither Athens or its people would be able to survive this arising of the sea.

But Minerva, the goddess of righteous, defensive war was there and on the side of the Greeks. She presided over battles, but only to lead on to victory and through victory to peace and prosperity. Few could withstand the straight glance of Minerva's eyes, valiant, conquering and terrifying, or the sight of her gloriously emblazoned shield. As the powers of Neptune advanced, Minerva raised her shield, and the tides rested and the waters receded. Then she drove the forces of Neptune back at the point of her spear, and Athens was saved.

You will remember that the gods were very much like men in wanting particular kinds of gifts which would be their very own, and which they could treasure. Jupiter had a special fondness for thunderbolts and kept piles of them behind his throne. Apollo treasured his lyre, and Mercury his shoes and his cap. Venus never travelled without a jewelled girdle which she thought added to her beauty, but Minerva had always wanted a city. Now her wish had come true, for she had a very large and beautiful one, the fair Athens.

People began coming to Athens from all parts of Greece and from neighboring countries as well, because Minerva spent so much time there tending and spreading the olive orchards, and keeping the city free from invasion. Neptune had left a horse near the hill of the Acropolis when he had to retreat, and Minerva invented a harness for it and broke it to the bit and bridle with her own hands in the market square of Athens. Having horses for ploughing and carrying loads of lumber and stone and grain helped the prosperity of Athens and brought it wealth. And when the people were at peace, Minerva laid aside her armor and crossed the thresholds of the houses, teaching the women to spin, and weave, and extract the precious oil from her olives.

Everyone was growing very prosperous and very rich. It seemed that the olive tree had brought all this wealth, for it had spread throughout Attica and plenty followed wherever it bore fruit.

Not far from Athens lay the kingdom of the Persians who were invincible in battle, having devoted themselves for many years to the arts of warfare. Through their interest in their own affairs the Athenians forgot about their warlike neighbors, until one fateful day when a runner breathlessly told them that the hosts of the Persian army waited at the boundaries of their cities.

Such confusion and terror as ensued! The Athenians were not ready for war. They consulted an oracle as to how to meet the Persian host and the oracle replied,

"Trust to your citadel of wood!"

The wise men of Athens quite misunderstood this advice and went busily to work erecting wooden fortifications around the hill of the Acropolis where Minerva's first olive tree stood as if it were guarding their prosperity. The oracle had meant for the Athenians to trust to their fleet and try to prevent the Persian army from entering along the coast, and by the time the wooden wall was built, the Persians had begun to fire Athens.

Minerva, with her flaming spear raised and her eyes filled with tears, went to her father, Jupiter, to beg for the safety of her city. She kneeled at the foot of his throne to make her plea, and it must have been hard indeed for Jupiter to refuse his favorite daughter as he looked down at Minerva, prostrate before him in her shining suit of mail. But the king of the gods told Minerva something about her city which even he was powerless to change.

"Athens, in her prosperity, has forgotten the gods," Jupiter said. "She lives and works for herself and not for others. She must perish in order that a better and nobler city may rise from her ruins."

So Minerva was obliged to watch from the clouds as fire and sword consumed Athens and the smoke of the flaming city rose like incense to the seats of the gods. When there seemed to be nothing left except the stones which had been the foundation of Athens' beauty, and those of her heroes who had not perished had been obliged to take to the sea, Minerva descended to her hill, the Acropolis. She wanted to see if the roots, at least, of her olive tree had been spared, and she found a wonder.

As a sign that she had not forsaken Athens, even in ruins, Jupiter had allowed the roots of her tree to remain, and from them there sprang a new green shoot. With wonderful quickness it grew to a height of three yards in the barren waste that was all the Persians had left, a sign that Athens was not dead, but would live and arise a new, fairer city.

Minerva held her bright shield above her golden helmet and hastened to the sea coast, calling together the heroes to man the ships and set sail against the fleet of the enemy. The Persian fleet greatly outnumbered that of the Greeks, but at last it was driven off with terrible rout and those of the Persians who were left on land were destroyed. The war was won for the Greeks through Minerva's help, but Jupiter's prophecy had been fulfilled. The old Athens was gone, and it was necessary to build a new city.

That was just the kind of undertaking that Minerva liked, to win a defensive war and then build so as to destroy all traces of it. She and the Greeks, with the help of all the other gods, went to work to make Athens such a city as had not been dreamed of before.

Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, restored the waste fields and orchards so that the olive grew again and plenty came once more. Minerva busied herself encouraging the women to do more beautiful handwork than before the war, and she taught them how to feed and tend little children so that they might grow up strong and well and be the glory of Greece. Large numbers of horses were trained and harnessed to war chariots. Apollo sent sunshine and music to the city, and the builders erected beautiful marble temples and statues and pillars and fountains.

The Athenians began doing things together, which always helps to make a city great and strong. There were parades of the soldiers and the athletes on the holidays, and public games and banquets and drills were held. The best holiday of all was Minerva's own. First, there was a procession in which a new robe for the goddess, woven and embroidered by the most skilful women and girls of Athens, was carried through the city on a wagon built in the form of a ship, the robe spread like a sail on the front. It was like a great float in a parade. All Athens followed the wagon, the young of the nobility on horseback or in chariots, the soldiers fully armed, and the trades people and farmers with their wives and daughters in their best clothes. The new robe was intended for the statue of Minerva that stood in the Parthenon in Athens. They named her Pallas Athene at last, the guardian of their beloved city.

Then came games in which the athletes took part, and the most sought for prize was a large earthenware vase on one side of which there was painted a figure of Minerva striding forward as if she was hurling her spear, and having a column on each side of her to indicate a race-course. On the other side of the vase was a picture of the game in which it was won, and it was filled to brimming with pure olive oil from Minerva's tree. For the Greeks had learned that war is sometimes necessary, but Minerva would heal their wounds with the oil of her sacred tree and the new Athens was to be known always as one of the most perfect cities of the ages.

CADMUS, THE ALPHABET KING

There are many ways of building a city, and this is how Cadmus, in the days of the myths, built Thebes, the beautiful.

Cadmus was but a youth when he began his wanderings which took him from shore to shore of the earth, for he was descended from Neptune, the god of the sea, and had been born with the spirit of the restless tides in his heart. But Cadmus had a longing to search out and make for himself a home on land where he could gather the heroes about him and make temples and a market place and set up fair statues.

So he consulted the oracle of Apollo to know what country he should settle in, and a voice issued from that strange, deep cleft in the rock at Delphi saying that he would find a cow in a field, and should pursue her wherever she wandered. Where she stopped Cadmus also should stop and build a city which he was to call Thebes.

As soon as Cadmus left the cave of the oracle, he was surprised to see a white cow wearing a garland of flowers about her neck and cropping in the grass nearby. She raised her head when Cadmus appeared, and walked slowly before him. So he followed her, and she went on until she came to a wide plain in the fertile land of Egypt. Here she stood still and lifted her broad forehead to the sky, filling the air with her lowings.

Cadmus stooped down and lifted a handful of the foreign soil to his lips, kissing it, and looking with delight at the beauties of the blue hills which surrounded this spot to which Apollo had guided him. He felt that he ought to offer his thanks to Jupiter, and so he went to a nearby fountain to draw some pure water to bathe his hands before he lifted them up to the sky.

The fountain spouted, as clear as crystal, from a cave covered with a thick growth of bushes and situated in an ancient grove that had never been profaned by an axe. Cadmus pushed his way into it, and when he was inside the cave it seemed as if he had left the world behind, so dark was it, with the shadows of the boughs and thick leaves.

Cadmus dipped a vase which his servants had brought him in the waters of the fountain, and was about to raise it, brimming full, when it suddenly dropped from his hands, the blood left his cheeks, and his limbs trembled. A venomous serpent whose eyes shone like fire and who showed triple fangs and triple teeth raised its head from the waters with a terrible hiss. Its crested head and scales glittered like burnished bronze; it twisted its body in a huge coil and then raised itself, ready to strike, to a height that over-topped the trees of the grove. And while Cadmus' servants stood still, unable to move for their fright, the serpent killed them all, some with its poisonous fangs, some with its foaming breath, and others in its choking folds.

There was only Cadmus left, and at last he crept out of the cave, screening his body behind the bushes, and made ready to take his stand against the serpent. He covered himself from head to foot with a lion's skin. In one hand he carried a javelin and in the other a lance, but in his heart Cadmus carried courage which was a stronger weapon than either of these. Then he faced the serpent, standing in the midst of his fallen men and looking into its bloody jaws as he lifted a huge stone and threw it straight. It struck the serpent's scales and penetrated to its heart. The creature's neck swelled with rage, the panting breath that issued from its nostrils poisoned the air. Then it twisted itself in a circle and fell to the ground where it lay like the shattered trunk of a tree. Cadmus, watching for his chance, went boldly up to the monster and thrust his spear into its head, fastening it to the tree beneath which it had fallen. The serpent's weight bent and twisted the tree as it struggled to free itself, but at last Cadmus saw it give up the fight and hang there, quiet in death.

Then a marvellous thing happened. As Cadmus stood, looking at his fallen foe, a voice came to him which he could hear distinctly, although he was not able to know from whence it came, and it said,

"It is decreed, O Cadmus, that you shall take out the teeth of this dragon and plant them in the plain upon which you are to found the city of Thebes."

So Cadmus obeyed the command. He pulled out the serpent's triple row of sharply pointed teeth. He made a furrow and planted them in it, and scarcely had he covered them with earth than the clods raised themselves. As happened in the days when Jason had traveled all the long way in search of the fleece of gold, the ground where the dragon's teeth had taken root was pierced by the metal points of helmets and spears. After these sprouting signs of war came the heads and breasts of an army of warriors until the entire plain was bright with their shields and the air smoked and resounded with the din of fearful fighting.

Cadmus was only one against the terrible ranks of all these earth-born brothers of his, but he made ready to do his best and encounter this new enemy. As he advanced, however, he heard the unknown voice again,

"Meddle not with civil war, Cadmus," it said.

But Cadmus' spirit was fired with his high desire to build a city which would be a place of peace and industry, and he knew that civil strife was the destruction of such a city. So he entered the battle, single handed, and smote one of these, his fighting brothers, with a sword, but fell, pierced in his side by an arrow. He was up and advancing again as soon as he staunched the flow of blood, killing four of the warriors. In the meantime the warriors seemed to become mad with the spirit of warfare and killed each other until the whole crowd was pitted against one another. At last all of the warriors fell, mortally wounded, except five. These five survivors threw aside their weapons and cried, as with one voice,

"Brothers, let us live in peace."

And they joined with Cadmus in laying the foundations of a great city which they called Thebes.

They measured and laid out roads, making them hard and strong for the wheels of heavy chariots which would bear kings to and from the city. They built houses whose decorations of carvings and precious metals were not to be equalled in all Greece, and they filled them with rare furnishings, and they painted pictures of the contests of the gods on the walls, and shaped golden plates and cups for the tables. They set up a strong citadel at the boundary line of the city to protect it from invasion, and Cadmus built factories for making tools and furniture and household utensils so as to draw traders to the city and increase its prosperity through commerce. And there were seven gates to Thebes, in honor of the seven strings of Apollo's lyre from which he drew the sweet strains that brought harmony to the earth.

When Thebes was finished, it seemed as if it had no rival among the cities of the earth, it was so good to look upon, so full of industry, and peace, and plenty. But Cadmus had yet one gift more to make to Thebes.

For a long time he worked secretly, carving with a sharp pointed tool upon a stone tablet. One day he brought forth the result of his work. Cadmus had invented the alphabet; he had given the power of learning through reading and writing to his people.

That made his city complete, for a people who are through with civil strife, and able to work and be educated can be as great as the gods if they will it so.

They became great and they made Cadmus the king of Thebes for a rule that was long and just and good.

THE PICTURE MINERVA WOVE

Arachne, the wonderful girl weaver of Greece, took a roll of white wool in her skilled hands and separated it into long white strands. Then she carded it until it was as soft and light as a cloud. She was at work out of doors in a green forest and her loom was set up under an old oak tree with the sunlight shining down between the leaves to brighten the pattern that she set up on it. In and out her shuttle flew without stopping until she had woven at last a fair piece of fabric.

Then Arachne threaded a needle with wool dyed in rainbow colors. She had all the colors of this long arch, that the sunbeams shining through raindrops make, to use in her work.

"What design will the clever Arachne embroider on her tapestry to-day?" one of the Nymphs of the forest who had clustered about her to watch her work asked. Then all the Nymphs, looking like a part of the forest in their soft green garments, crowded close as Arachne began to embroider a picture. The grass seemed to grow in it beneath her needle, and the flowers bloomed just as they always bloom in the spring.

"You weave and sew as if the great Minerva herself had taught you her arts," a Nymph said timidly to Arachne.

The girl's face flushed with anger. It was true that the goddess Minerva who presided over the arts that women need to know, spinning, weaving and needlework, had taught Arachne her skill, but the girl was vain and always denied it.

"My skill is my own," she replied. "Let Minerva try to compete with me and if she is able to finish a rarer piece of work than mine, I am willing to pay any penalty."

It was a thoughtless, daring boast which Arachne had made. As she spoke the leaves of the trees fluttered, for the Nymphs, frightened at a mortal's presumption, were moving away from Arachne. She looked up and in their place saw an old dame standing beside her.

"Challenge your fellow mortals, my child," she said, "but do not try to compete with a goddess. You ought to ask Minerva's forgiveness for your rash words."

Arachne tossed her head in disdain.