in the empire of heaven. So their wrath was great against Prometheus, and he was regarded as the foe of the gods and the friend of the upstart tribes of men, and Zeus condemned him to be bound upon a peak of Mount Caucasus, there to linger out the long years of eternity; and all the other gods, who enjoyed their prerogatives only through his aid, joined in rejoicing over his fall. Only a few who, like himself, were victims of the tyranny of the new Ruler, were found to sympathise with his troubles.
Supplied with this knowledge, which nearly every citizen of Athens possessed, we may now take our places in the theatre under the Acropolis, and watch the play.
When the great curtain has been removed which hung over the back wall of the stage, the wild scene in which all is to take place is opened to our view. Barren craggy cliffs rise up in front and on one side, while on the other we can see down a great precipice, over lower hills and slopes, marked with the course of mountain streams, to the sunny rippling sea. This spot is a peak of Caucasus, and before we can duly estimate the scene, we must just remember what it meant to an Athenian. To us, mountains are beautiful and picturesque. We see them only in our holidays, and have not to cross them in hardship and famine; but a Greek had no friendly feeling for them. A mountain was to him only a hard cruel place, barren and ugly.[1] And besides the horror that attached to mountain scenes in general, we must remember that
- ↑ See, on the Classical Landscape, Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. iii.
