races
of the process through which they have passed: of an origin among the
old conquering Achaioi, a development in the Ionian epic schools, and a
final home in Athens.[49:1]

For example, what gods are chiefly prominent in Homer? In the _Iliad_
certainly three, Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, and much the same would hold
for the _Odyssey_. Next to them in importance will be Poseidon, Hera,
and Hermes.

Zeus stands somewhat apart. He is one of the very few gods with
recognizable and undoubted Indo-germanic names, Djeus, the well-attested
sky- and rain-god of the Aryan race. He is Achaian; he is 'Hellanios',
the god worshipped by all Hellenes. He is also, curiously enough,
Pelasgian, and Mr. A. B. Cook[49:2] can explain to us the seeming
contradiction. But the Northern elements in the conception of Zeus have
on the whole triumphed over any Pelasgian or Aegean sky-god with which
they may have mingled, and Zeus, in spite of his dark hair, may be
mainly treated as the patriarchal god of the invading Northmen, passing
from the Upper Danube down by his three great sanctuaries, Dodona,
Olympus, and Olympia. He had an extraordinary power of ousting or
absorbing the various objects of aboriginal worship which he found in
his path. The story of Meilichios above (p. 14) is a common one. Of
course, we must not suppose that the Zeus of the actual Achaioi was a
figure quite like the Zeus of Pheidias or of Homer. There has been a
good deal of expurgation in the Homeric Zeus,[50:1] as Mr. Cook clearly
shows. The Counsellor and Cloud-compeller of classical Athens was the
wizard and rainmaker of earlier times; and the All-Father surprises us
in Thera and Crete by appearing both as a babe and as a Kouros in spring
dances and initiation rituals.[50:2] It is a long way from these
conceptions to the Zeus of Aeschylus, a figure as sublime as the Jehovah
of Job; but the lineage seems clear.

Zeus is the Achaean Sky-god. His son Phoebus Apollo is of more complex
make. On one side he is clearly a Northman. He has connexions with the
Hyperboreans.[50:3] He has a 'sacred road' leading far into the North,
along which offerings are sent back from shrine to shrine beyond the
bounds of Greek knowledge. Such 'sacred roads' are normally the roads by
which the God himself has travelled; the offerings are sent back from
the new sanctuary to the old. On the other side Apollo reaches back to
an Aegean matriarchal Kouros. His home is Delos, where he has a moth