an, the gods of the Greeks rose out of nature and did not
transcend it. Some of them were personifications of the forces of
nature; others were merely, according to Greek ideas, the highest
conceptions of what was admirable in man and woman. When we consider the
goddesses of the Olympian Pantheon, we see that this conception of the
ideal in woman must have been very high, manifesting itself in the
characters of Hera, the goddess of marriage and of the birth of
children; Athena, "intellect unmoved by fleshly lust, the perfection of
serene, unclouded wisdom;" Demeter, goddess of agriculture and of the
domestic life; Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty and the
idealization of feminine graces and charm; Artemis, the maiden divinity
never conquered by love, and the protectress of maidens; and Hestia,
goddess of the hearth and preserver of the sanctity of the home.

It is difficult for us to appreciate the passionate love of beauty which
animated the Greeks.

"What is good and fair
Shall ever be our care.
That shall never be our care
Which is neither good nor fair."

This immortal burden from the stanzas of Theognis, sung by the Muses and
Graces at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, "strikes," says Symonds,
"the keynote to the music of the Greek genius." This innate love of
beauty, fostered by natural surroundings and held in restraint by a
sense of measure, was the most salient characteristic of the Greek
people. It is impossible for us to realize the intensity of the Greek
feeling for beauty; and to them the human body was the noblest form of
earthly loveliness. To illustrate, we may recall the incident of
Phryne's trial before the judges. Hyperides, her advocate, failing in
his other arguments, drew aside her tunic and revealed to them a bosom
perfectly marvellous in its beauty. Phryne was at once acquitted, not
from any prurient motives, but because "the judges beheld in such an
exquisite form not an ordinary mortal, but a priestess and prophetess of
the divine Aphrodite. They were inspired with awe, and would have deemed
it sacrilege to mar or destroy such a perfect masterpiece of creative
power." Nor was the Greek conception of beauty purely sensual. Through
the perfection of human loveliness they had glimpses of divine beauty,
and "the fleshly vehicle was but the means to lead on the soul to what
is eternally and imperishably beautiful." Thus the lesson of the
_Phaedrus_ and _Symposium_ o