s a rude and imperfect attempt;
since Greece, everything has been a rude and imperfect imitation.

Sec. 3. The Gods of Greece before Homer.

The Theogony of Hesiod, or Book of Genesis of the Greek gods, gives us the
history of three generations of deities. First come the Uranids; secondly,
the Titans; and thirdly, the gods of Olympus. Beginning as powers of
nature, they end as persons.[218]

The substance of Hesiod's charming account of these three groups of gods
is as follows:--

First of all things was Chaos. Next was broad-bosomed Earth, or Gaia. Then
was Tartarus, dark and dim, below the earth. Next appears Eros, or Love,
most beautiful among the Immortals. From Chaos came Erebus and black
Night, and then sprang forth Ether and Day, children of Erebus and Night.
Then Earth brought forth the starry Heaven, Uranos, like to herself in
size, that he might shelter her around. Gaia, or Earth, also bore the
mountains, and Pontus or the barren Sea.

Then Gaia intermarried with Uranos, and produced the Titans and Titanides,
namely, Ocean, Koeos, Krios, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis,
Mnemosyne, Phoebe with golden coronet, and lovely Thethys. Lastly came
Kronos, or Time; with the Cyclopes and the hundred-headed giants. All
these children were hid in the earth by Uranos, who dreaded them, till by
a contrivance of Gaia and Kronos, Uranos was dethroned, and the first age
of the gods was terminated by the birth from the sea of the last and
sweetest of the children of the Heaven, Aphrodite, or Immortal
Beauty,--the only one of this second generation who continued to reign on
Olympus; an awful, beauteous goddess, says Hesiod, beneath whose delicate
feet the verdure throve around, born in wave-washed Cyprus, but floating
past divine Cythera. Her Eros accompanied, and fair Desire followed.

Thus was completed the second generation of gods, the children of Heaven
and Earth, called Titans. These had many children. The children of Ocean
and Tethys were the nymphs of Ocean. Hyperion and Theia had, as children,
Helios, Selene and Eos, or Sun, Moon, and Dawn. Koeos and Phoebe had Leto
and Asteria. One of the children of Krios was Pallas; those of Iapetus
were Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas. Kronos married his sister Rhea,
and their children were Hestia, Demeter and Here; Hades, Poseidon, and
Zeus,--all, except Hades or Pluto, belonging to the subsequent Olympian
deities.

The Olympian gods, with their cousins of