Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Mythology: Greek and Roman
As time went on, they identified these various powers, and looked upon them as individual gods. When they beheld them struggling with each other, the wind lashing the sea, the water overcoming the fierce ?ame, and the rivers ?ooding and devastating the land, they imagined that each element had its own special deity, and that these often warred one with another. The number of gods rapidly increased, but still they ever regarded One as more mighty than the rest, and the others as subordinate.
With all the qualities which they themselves possessed they endowed their gods, only in a higher degree. Thus so long as they themselves were innocent, their gods were innocent. When, however, in the course of time, men degenerated, they endowed the gods with all their own crimes and vices. They worshipped these deities, and called upon them in all the important affairs of life, offering to them sacrifices and prayers. Sometimes one nation adopted the gods of another, but even when this was the case, they invariably adapted them to their own require ments. And for this reason it is often difficult to trace the origin of the worship of certain deities.
Occasionally ancient monarchs, heroes, and benefactors of their country were immortalized after their death; and these different myths were in time connected by the poets and Singers. Who improved, completed, and Often added, until they gradually blended them into a perfect whole.
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