Commerce  was  yet  in  its  infancy.  Although  the  Greeks  were  to
become  a  great  maritime  people,  still  in  the  Homeric  age  they  had
evidently  explored  the  sea  but  little.  The  Phoenicians  then  ruled
the  waves.  The  Greeks  in  those  early  times  knew  scarcely  any-
thing of  the  world  beyond  Greece  proper  and  the  neighboring
islands  and  shores.  Scarcely  an  echo  of  the  din  of  life  from  the
then  ancient  and  mighty  cities  of  Egypt  and  Chaldaea  seems  to
have  reached  their  ears.
INTRODUCTORY.  101


CHAPTER   XI.
RELIGION  OF  THE  GREEKS.
Introductory. — Without  at  least  some  little  knowledge  of  the
religious  ideas  and  institutions  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  we  should
find  very  many  passages  of  their  history  wholly  unintelligible.
Hence  a  few  remarks  upon  these  matters  will  be  in  place  here.
Cotmography  of  the  Greelu. — The  Greeks  supposed  the  earth
to.be,  as  it  appears,  a  plane,  circular  in  form  like  a  shield.  Around
it  flowed  the  "  mighty  strength  of  the  ocean  river,"  a  stream  broad
and  deep;  beyond  which  on  all  sides  lay  realms  of  Cimmerian
darkness  and  terror.  The  heavens  were  a  solid  vault,  or  dome,
whose  edge  shut  down  close  upon  the  earth.  Beneath  the  earth,
reached  by  subterranean  passages,  was  Hades,  a  vast  region,  the
realm  of  departed  souls.  Still  beneath  this  was  the  prison  Tarta-
rus, a  pit  deep  and  dark,  made  fast  by  strong  gates  of  brass  and
iron.  Sometimes  the  poets  represent  the  gloomy  regions  beyond
the  ocean  stream  as  the  cheerless  abode  of  the  dead.
