the sanctuary by
which they were performed 'Olympia'.[45:3]

As soon as this point is clear, we understand also why there is more
than one Mount Olympus. We can all think of two, one in Thessaly and one
across the Aegean in Mysia. But there are many more; some twenty-odd, if
I mistake not, in the whole Greek region. It is a pre-Greek word applied
to mountains; and it seems clear that the 'Olympian' gods, wherever
their worshippers moved, tended to dwell in the highest mountain in the
neighbourhood, and the mountain thereby became Olympus.

The name, then, explains itself. The Olympians are the mountain gods of
the old invading Northmen, the chieftains and princes, each with his
_comitatus_ or loose following of retainers and minor chieftains, who
broke in upon the ordered splendours of the Aegean palaces and, still
more important, on the ordered simplicity of tribal life in the
pre-Hellenic villages of the mainland. Now, it is a canon of religious
study that all gods reflect the social state, past or present, of their
worshippers. From this point of view what appearance do the Olympians of
Homer make? What are they there for? What do they do, and what are their
relations one to another?

The gods of most nations claim to have created the world. The Olympians
make no such claim. The most they ever did was to conquer it. Zeus and
his _comitatus_ conquered Cronos and his; conquered and expelled
them--sent them migrating beyond the horizon, Heaven knows where. Zeus
took the chief dominion and remained a permanent overlord, but he
apportioned large kingdoms to his brothers Hades and Poseidon, and
confirmed various of his children and followers in lesser fiefs. Apollo
went off on his own adventure and conquered Delphi. Athena conquered the
Giants. She gained Athens by a conquest over Poseidon, a point of which
we will speak later.

And when they have conquered their kingdoms, what do they do? Do they
attend to the government? Do they promote agriculture? Do they practise
trades and industries? Not a bit of it. Why should they do any honest
work? They find it easier to live on the revenues and blast with
thunderbolts the people who do not pay. They are conquering chieftains,
royal buccaneers. They fight, and feast, and play, and make music; they
drink deep, and roar with laughter at the lame smith who waits on them.
They are never afraid, except of their own king. They never tell lies,
except in love and war.

A few dedu