MOUNT OLYMPOS

The home the gods was, of course, was Mount Olympus. Though they spent much of their time on the earth, particularly in Anatolia. Mount Olympus is popularly supposed to be a peak in northern Greece, on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia. On the top of this 10,000 feet peak the palaces and gardens of the gods made up an exclusive kind of heaven.

Even the ancient Greeks, however, did not agree on the exact site of this heaven. There are at least four Mount Olympus’s in Greece, and many more in what is now Turkey.

Uludag(which means Great Mountain), near Bursa, almost directly south of Istanbul, a short distance inland from the southern shore of the Marmara, is also known as Mount Olympus. The older name for Uludağ is Kesis Dag which means Priest Mountain.

On its slopes are excellent ski trails today. Bursa, whose thermal springs have made it a health resort for many centuries, might easily have attracted the gods, who were often in need of rest and massage after their experiences among mortals.

Other mountains called Olympus were Nif Dag, east of Izmir, and other peaks in Lycia, Galatia, Clicia, and even on the island of Cyprus.

THE TROJAN WAR

Homer and Virgil have told this story much too well to have it half-bakedly told here. We'll simply comment on its locale and associations with present-day Turkey.

Helen, whom Paris abducted from her husband in Greece and took back to Troy in accordance with Aphrodite's promise, is a dim figure. Though the poet Marlowe was enthusiastic about her beauty and she is generally credited with being one of the most seductive females in history, one wonders whether she was worth all the fuss. The story is a grand one, however, and Helen of Troy has become the symbol of the femme fatale.

During the long war the gods apparently spent all their time in Anatolia, helping their favorites, getting so passionate about the bloody business that several of them took active part in battles and Zeus had to forbid further participation. The Trojans, having Poseidon and Apollo against them, not to mention Athena and Hera, who never forgave Paris for giving their beautiful sister the apple, were at a disadvantage. Even Zeus worked against the Trojans by backing the Greek warrior Achilles. With the odds so heavily against them, the Trojans, whose courage and loyalty to their leaders are evident in the Turks today, did well to hold out as long as they did. The wonder is that they didn't send back Helen and her weak lover, Paris, and save themselves much agony. That philandering couple was not worth the lives of the brave Trojans and Greeks who fought over them. It is interesting that even against the might of the invading Greeks and their friendly gods, The Trojans were finally defeated only by an act of treachery, retreating Greeks.

The Trojans seem to have had more courage than brains, for in spite of the years' experience in fighting against the wily Greeks, they tore down the wall and dragged the horse inside the city. Laocoon, the Trojan priest who tried to warn them not to trust Greeks, was crushed to death with his two sons by sea serpents sent by that old enemy of Troy, Poseidon. The Greeks hidden in the horse took the city by night and won the long war.

From Troy, we must not forget, came Aeneas, the son of Anchises, Prince of Troy, and Aphrodite. Aeneas, escaping from the burning city, wandered about the Mediterranean in search of a secure place. He and his followers fled to Thrace, to many of the Aegean islands including Crete, to Africa, and finally to Italy. Aeneas, the Trojan from Anatolia, was the ancestor of Romulus and Remus, who founded Rome. Coming full circle, the Romans conquered their founder's old enemy, Greece.

KING CROESUS

The last king of Lydia was Croesus, who ruled between 560 and 546 B.C. The capital of the city was Sardis, whose ruins may be seen today half a day's journey by automobile from Izmir.

Croesus, whose name is familiar in the cliché "as rich as Croesus", was a successful warrior, conqueror of Millets and Ephesus in Lycia, now like Sardis piles of fascinating ruins. His wealth was so great that even in his day it was proverbial. There is a story that the great philosopher Solon once visited Croesus and tried to cut him down to size by warning him of divine disapproval of too much prosperity. Solon's rather churlish comment, which may have been prompted by an uneasy digestion, was "Call no man happy till he is dead."

We may assume that Croesus enjoyed his wealth in spite of Solon until he was defeated by the Persian king, Cyrus, who attacked and captured Sardis. The historians, Herodotus and Xenophon, say that Cyrus condemned Croesus to death by fire.

The pyre was prepared and Croesus tied to a stake at the top. Cyrus ordered a torch to be applied and with barbaric cruelty watched it mount towards the miserable man, not a cent of whose money was useful in his time of need. Suddenly Apollo, who was more friendly to Croesus than to his neighbor. Laomedon, called up a heavy rainstorm, which put out the fire. Then allegedly because Croesus at that moment uttered the name of Solon, Cyrus, who must have deeply admired the Athenian lawgiver, had Croesus cut down and set free.

THE GORDIAN KNOT

Three phareses used by pompous orators for hundreds of years as classical figures of speech are "as rich as Croesus", "I came, I saw, I conquered", and "to cut the Gordian Knot". All three had their original home in Türkiye. The first applied to a Lydian king; the second was said by Julius Caesar after a battle in Anatolia, 47 B.C., in which he defeated Pharnaces II, King of Pontus; the last refers to a legend of ancient Phrygia.

The city of Gordium, now called Gordion, is about a hundred miles west of Ankara. It was the capital of ancient Phrygia. One of its rules was a peasant named Gordius, who gave his name to the city after fulfilling an oracle of Zeus.

The father of gods had ordained that when it came time for the people to select a king, they must choose the first person to ride up to the temple of Zeus in a wagon. Gordius innocently fulfilled the oracle and was made king. The system might be an improvement over a methods of election held today. Certainly it would eliminate political campaigns. In all probability, however, if a similar method of choosing, a leader were to be used today, those in on the secret would tell it to a few friends, and on the day of the election half the community would drive up in wagons. In any event, Gordius seems to have done very well. One of his first acts was to dedicate his wagon to Zeus and to place it near the temple, the yoke tied to the pole by an intricate knot of cornel bark. Another oracle declared that anyone who succeeded in untying the knot would be the conqueror of all Asia. The knot stayed tied until the arrival of Alexander the Great. Then, as everybody knows, he cheated on the oracle by cutting the knot with his sword instead of untying it. Zeus honored his initiative by making the prophecy come true.

ENDYMION

The lovers of Keats's great poem about the shepherd boy, beloved by the goddess of the moon, seldom realize that the mountain on which their love-affair took place is in Turkey. Mount Latmus is in what used to be called Caria, not far south of Ephesus in Western Turkey. Caria's ancient capital was Halicarnassus, famous for the tomb of Mausolos, another of the wonders of the world.

One night as Artemis drove her silver chariot across the sky, she looked down and saw a handsome young man asleep on a hillside. She flew swiftly down and kissed him. Only half awakened by the fleeting kiss, he saw the goddess in all her loveliness. Rubbing in silvery plendor, and thought that he had been dreaming.

Every night Artemis stopped for a moment to look at the sleeping lad. Realizing that he was a mortal who would groe less attractive with age, she took him to Mount LAtmus and hid him in a sacred cave. There he slept in eternal youth and was visited each night by Artemis.

According to another story, Endymion was the son of the king of Elis in Greece. All heroes of stories had to be princes, it seems; the number of kings in the ancient world was astonishing. Artemis in her role of Selene, goddess of the moon, fell in love with him and begged her father Zeus to grant him anything he might wish. Endymion, a vain and somewhat unambitious lad, wished for everlasting sleep on Latmus so that he would never lose his blooming youth. It is not proper for us to question the chaste goddess's preference for drowsy lovers. All we know is that by him Artemis had fifty daughters.

EPHESUS

One of the most interesting cities in Turkey is Ephesus, about fifty miles south of Izmir. At one time Ephesus, a member of the Ionian Confederation, claimed to be the first city of Anatolia over the rival claims of Smyrna and Pergamum. It is now an impressive series of ruins, going back as far as the twelfth century B.C. On this site were actually built several cities, all of them near the temple of the mother of the gods, as Asiatic deity later identified with Artemis or Diana. The temple of Diana, built originally, according to legend, by the Amazons, who set up the image of their fostering mother in a tree, was destroyed seven times in four hundred years.

Our old friend Croesus helped rebuild it about 550 B.C., but it was burned down again by a madman on the day of Alexander's birth, 356 B.C. Soon after it, was rebuilt on a colossal scale and stood for five hundred years as one of the wonders of the ancient world. In 265 A.D. the invading Goths destroyed it again. Today nothing remains of the tremendous structure but a few stones. Some of its treasures are in European museums. Scholars have estimated from early accounts that it was 370 feet long, 173 feet wide and 47 feet high, and was surrounded by Ionic columns.

The residents of Ephesus believed that Artemis, twin sister of Apollo, daughter of Leto, the goddess of dark nights, had been born at Ortygia near Ephesus, a day earlier than Apollo. Leto at the time of giving birth to the divine must have been very restless, since Apollo was born in the island of Delos, half way between Greece and Turkey. Leto undoubtedly had swift, comfortable transportation since she suffered no ill effects in bearing the children a hundred miles apart across open water.

When the Romans conquered Anatolia, Ephesus became the metropolis of Roman Asia. As it prospered commercially, splendid buildings were constructed. Its great theatre, whose ruins are visible today, was completed in the time of Emperor Trajan, at the end of the first century A.D. It seated nearly 25.000 spectators.

Christians know Ephesus from the New Testament, which contains Paul's letters to the Ephesians. Paul, who was born in Tarsus, not far from the modern city of Adana, along the southern coast of Turkey, spent three years in Ephesus. There is also legend that Mary, mother of Jesus lived in Ephesus after the death of her son and is buried there. Mary is thought to have come to Ephesus with St. John about 40 A.D. and lived until her death in a lonely house high on hill above Ephesus.

HERACLES

We have already mentioned the great hero, Heracles, who spent much of his life traveling about Anatolia, capturing the girdle of Hippolyte, accompanying Jason for a part of the way in his search for the Golden Fleece, and rescuing Laomedon's daughter in Troy. He had several adventures in other parts of the country which should be mentioned.

Heracles, we should remember, was the result of another Zeus's affairs with mortal ladies. His mother's name was Alchmene. As usual Hera was thoroughly annoyed and spent a great deal of time in trying to do in the mighty lad who is to this day the symbol of great strength. It is a curiously ironic fact that the name Heracles (the Latin form, of course, is Hercules) means "glorious gift of Hera". Hera sent a pair of large snakes to kill the infant Heracles in his cradle, but he strangled them both in a precocious grip. Later Hera made him insane: he killed his wife and children in a fit of madness. As punishment Zeus made him serve his cousin Eurystheus as a slave, performing for him the twelve famous tasks.

The first six of the tasks, including the killing of the Nemaean Lion and the cleansing of the Augean stables, took place in Greece. The rest were outside of Greece, two of them in what is now Turkey. Heracles is also associated wroth Lydia., the kingdom of Midas and Croesus, in an oddly uncharacteristic way. He fell in love with a young lady named Iole, whose father evidently did not his bulging muscles and told him to go on his way. Heracles, who had a quick temper, killed Iole's brother. Once more the gods sent him into exile, this time to be slave for a year to Queen Omphale, of Lydia.

The queen took over his lionskin and club and ordered him to spend his time spinning, sewing, and baby-sitting. For a whole year Heracles acted the part of a sissy while the queen laughed at him. Heracles, always an easy mark of pretty women, liked Omphale so well that he gladly did woman's work for her. At the end of the year, however, he departed tired of spinning and unsuccessful in his courtship of Omphale. The scolars identify her with an oriental mother-goddess; Heracles is her subordinate male consort. This is a sample of the way scholarly analysis can ruin a good story.

Heracles went on to more adventures and unhappy experiences with women. There is some comfort for unathletic men in the story of the great hero's failures as a lover. The admirers of brawn, however, will be pleased to know that when he died he was taken to Olympus where he married the goddess of youth and cupbearer to the gods, Hebe, and made up with Hera, who stopped persecuting him.

KING MIDAS

One of the early kings of Lydia, along the western coast of Anatolia, was Midas, known as the man with the golden touch.

When Midas was a young man, the faun Pan was his friend and favorite musician. One day Pan challenged Apollo to a musical contest. Apollo, as we have already seen, was a notable performer on the lyre, whose sweet music had moved the stones of Troy. Midas, certainly not an impartial observer, insisted on judging the contest, deciding in favor of Pan, though Pan, blowing his thin pipes, was no match for the great Apollo. Midas, who had evidently not heard how injudicious it was to cros to cross Apollo, awarded the prize to Pan, even though Apollo was obvisously the better musician. Apollo punished him for his bad judgment by giving him a pair of donkey's ears.

Midas was completely humiliated. How could a king appear in public with long, hairy ears? Finally, afraid that he would be a laughing stock to all his people, he called in a barber. The barber, a simple fellow, was surprised to find his king with his head tied up in a big bandage.

"Have you had an accident, Sire?" he asked.

"Yes" said midas, curtly, "and I want you to help me. First, you must swear by all the gods that you will never tell a living soul what I’m going to show you."

The barber promised. Then Midas unwrapped his head and showed his ears.

"What am I going to do about these?" he demanded. "You'll have to fix my hair to hide'em."

"How did it happen, Your Majesty?" the barber inquired.

"Never mind that," said Midas. "Now get to work."

After a great deal of experimentation with wigs and the King's own hair, the offending ears were covered and the barber allowed to go, after being warned that if ever mentioned the King's ears, he would lose his head. The abrber, like others of his profession, was a sociable, talkative fellow. He had to keep close watch over his tongue because the wonderful secret was almost more than he could keep to himself. As he shaved his customers, he'd find himself saying, "I saw the darkness thing in the King's palace the other night." Then he'd have to invent some other story so as not to tell about the ears. Finally, unable any longer to keep silent, he went out into a field and dug a deep hole. Into it he told the story ending with," Our King Midas has donkey's ears!" Afterwards he felt relieved and went about his work happily again.

Reeds grew up around the hole. As the wind blew through them, an echo from the hole murmured the last words of the barber's story "Our King Midas has donkey's ears." People who passed told what they had heard, and soon everybody knew Midas's secret. What happened to the barber no one has ever heard.

The more familiar story is about Midas's avarice. It began when the crafty king captured the satyr Silenus, half man, half goat, who was the tutor of Dionysus. He first made Silenus very drunk, mixing wine with the water of a spring from which the innocent professor was drinking. First he persuaded Silenus to teach him some of the wisdom for which the satyr was famous. After some time he took him home to Dionysus, who had missed his friend. So pleased was Dionysus to see Silenus again that he promised Midas a wish as his reward. Midas had his wish already. "I wish that everything I touch would be turn into gold"

Dionysus, who undoubtedly knew how profitable such a wish culd be, nevertheless granted it, and Midas hurried home to turn his furniture and everything else in sight into gold.

At first he was delighted. The doorknobs, the flowers on the table, the clocks the garden walls, the gates all turned into gold.

"I'm going to be the richest man in the world" he chuckled to himself. "Bring in all the rocks and other worthless stuff you can find," he told his servants. Soon he was half buried in gold.

He was somewhat dashed when his favorite cat rubbed affectionately against his leg and was turned instantly into a golden statue. The he began to realize that his magic touch had real drawbacks. His little daughter came in to see him and in the midst of a kiss was turned to lifeless gold. That night, celebrating his priceless gift, already a little dubious about it, he had a great banquet prepared. Careful not to shake hand with anybody, he called in all his friends to tell them that Lydia could pay off her public debt in another day and would be the most powerful country in the world.

Everybody was pleased to heart that there would be no more taxes and toasted the king with sincere gratitude. Midas lifted his glass to drink the toast -and was shocked to have it turn to solid, undrinkable gold. Picking up a piece of bread, he felt it too turn to gold. Popping a grape into his mount trying to beat the magic touch so that he would get some nourishment, he found himself rolling a golden marble under his tongue. In panic he realized that if he went on this way, he'd starve to death. Instead of being really crafty for a day and taking the time to build a real stockpile of gold, he rushed off to Dionysus.

"Please take away my damned wish" he begged. "I can't eat gold, and I've turned my own daughter into a statue."

"You should have thought of that before" said Dionysus, who didn't like greedy people.

"But what I am going to do?" demanded Midas. "I'm so hungry I could eat my shoes, but if tried they'd turn to gold. I've almost broken my teeth on meat and fruit I've bitten into, only to find them gold. Please take away the wish, and I'll never be greedy again as long as I live."

"All right" said Dionysus. & quotJust bathe in the Pactolus River, which will wash off the touch of gold. You can take home a jugful and pour it on your golden daughter to bring her back to life."

Happily, Midas ran to the river Pactolus, which is today called the Gediz, and jumped in. To this day the sand which he stepped on as he went to the river is golden.

Midas took home enough water to rescue his cat and daughter, but was vey careful not to spill any of it on other golden objects. He had lost his touch, but the legend does not report that he lost his love of gold or that he was a better and wiser man after his experience. He probably died regretting that he hadn't been clever enough to limit his wish to one finger or that he'd waited to touch a few more large objects before he went swimming in the Pactolus.

Recently, in Gordion, which might have been Midas's old home, an American archeologist, Rodney Young, excavated the tomv of a royal golden statue. Who knows?

THE AMAZONS

In what is now eastern Turkey, once called Pontus, a kingdom extending south from the Black Sea, once lived a tribe of warrior women, called the Amazons.

The Amazons lived under a matriarchy so strong that no men were allowed in the community. They made only one concessions to nature to keep their number at full strength: once a year they raided a neighboring tribe, called the Gargareans, and after several days of sacrifice to Aphrodite went back home to bear children, away from the pernicious influence of the anonymous fathers. Male babies were killed , but all the little girls were brought up as good Amazons. What the Gargareans thought of the annual visits of their misanthropic neighbors is not recorded, but it is assumed that the Gargerean ladies must have seemed pale and ineffectual to their husbands for some time afterwards.

So single minded were the Amazons in their training for war that they are said to have burned off their breasts, which interfered with bowstrings. The artists who portrayed the Amazons, however, did not recognize such unaesthetic disfigurement, and the Amazon is usually represented as a shapely young lady in loose-fiitng drapery, a quiver of arrows on her back, her hair done up in a neat bun, very like a hunting Artemis. Those who met them in battle, however, saw them as grimmer figures, carrying bows, spears, and axes, holding a half-shield in the shape of a crescent, and wearing helmets like Athena. Their enemies had plenty of opportunity to observe them since they went out on warlike expeditions to Scythia, across the Black Sea, to Thrace, all over Anatolia, to the islands of the Aegean, and as far away as Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. No one knows what happened when the time for visiting the Gargareans came and some of the strong-minded ladies were wandering around Egypt or Crete. They probably made do with what they had at hand.

Though the Amazons were exceedingly aggressive, they seem to have taken a great many beatings. History tells how far from home they went to twnag theor bowstrings, but all the stories that have come down to us are about their defeats. For example, they invaded Lycia, southwestern Turkey, but were defeated by Bellerephon. They frequently harassed the Phrygianson Turkey’s western coast, but when the Greeks attracted Troy, the came under their famous queen Penthesilea to help the Trojan king, Priam. Unfortunately, in the first battle Penthesilea was killed by Achilles, and the good ladies went back to the Gargareans.

Another queen of the Amazon was Hippolyte, who had a girdle so beautiful that it was known and coveted by women all over the world. A girdle in those days had nothing to do with confining the figure or holding up stockings. The Amazons, used to outdoor exercise and scorning luxurious living, had no need for such things. Their griddles were simply ornamented belts.

One of the tasks assigned to Heracles by his master Eurystheus was to o to the land of Amazons and bring back for Eurystheus's daughter the gridle of Hippolyte. Heracles made the long journey from Greece across Anatolia, to Pontus, where he presented himslf to Hippolyte. The Amazons evidently did not mind occasional men visitors, especiallymuscular ones, like Heracles. Hippolyte listened to his story which he frankly told.

"So you see, Hippolyte" he ended. "I've come all this way to ask you for your gridle."

"I understand" she answered. "You must be very devoted to Eurystheus's daughter to do so much for her."

"She is conceited , spoiled girl" he retorted. "I have no use whatsoever for her, but my father Zeus, to punish me for some pretty bad misbehavior, has made me a slave for a year to that fellow Eurytheus, who is mighty hard on me."

"What else has he made you?"

"Oh, I've had to kill the Nemaen lion," he said carelessly, shrugging the big lionskin across his shoulder. "This is his skin I wear. Then I had to cut off the Hydra's seven heads. That was a nuisance, since whenever I cut off one, seven more grew on."

"How did you manage?" the queen asked admiringly. She found this powerfully built visitor quite attractive.

"I used a torch to cauterize the neck as soon as I cut off a head." Heracles explained. "That did the trick. Then I had to clean the Augean stables. What a mess they were! I'm supposed to do one task a month. This is my ninth one. The one just before this was up in Thrace, where I had to stop King Diomedes from feeding all tourists in his country to his mean-eating horses I fed Diomedes to the horses."

"You're quite a fellow" she said. "If all men were like you, we Amazons might not be so intolerant. Now I'll think over your unusual request. Just make yourself at home in Pontus. My palace is at your disposal. The girls will fix up a room for ou."

Heracles was pleased with the way things were going. This promised to be the easiest task of all. Hippolyte was his kind of woman. What a pity the Amazons had such anti-social ideas. He had heard about the Gargareans and wondered if the speculative look in Hippolyte's eye indicated that the time for the annual visit was approaching and if, by any chance, the Amazons ever accepted any substitutes. One thing vaguely bothered him. Hera, who had hated him for years, since he was the offspring of another of Zeus's romances, had been the cause of all his misfortunes. She had tried to harm him wherever she could; it was because of her that he had to perform these twelve tasks.

His anxiety was justified. Hera, afraid that Heracles was getting along entirely too well with Hippolyte, turned herself into an Amazon and mixed with the warriors of Hippolyte's court.

"That big man in the ridiculous lionskin is here for no good," she told the other women.

"What makes you think so?"they asked. Most of them had noted with approval the wide shoulders under the lionskin.

"Well I've had it from some one in the strictest confidence that he is only pretending to want Hippolyte's girdle. Whoever heard of anyone going half way across the word for a gridle, which frankly I think is over praised. The truth is he's just using it as an excuse to get into the palace. He really intends to run off with our queen herself."

"Just wait and see" Hera said and then went off to repeat her rumor elsewhere.

In a little to whole country was buzzing with talk about the bold stranger who was going to kidnap the Queen. Quitely they assembled weapons at the ready, and at a signal they moved in on unsuspecting Heracles, who was taking a nap.

Fortunately for him, he was the son of a god and practically indestructible., almost overwhelmed by the first attack, he grabbed his big club and began laying around him, hating to see so many fine looking girls knocked senseless. After along struggle with the fierce ladies, Heracles decided that he'd better get out before they could get a second breath. He broke through the ranks, cleared the way to Hippolyte's room, unhooked her gridle, and started for home.

Hippolyte must have been disappointed that the big man had no design on her because, a little later, when Theseus came to pay a visit she eloped with him.

Theseus appears with Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons, in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, both of them spouting blank verse in a very polite way for having actually been a couple of swashbuckling personalities. In the old story he took his birde back to Athens, where he lived happily until the Amazons tried to get back their queen.

In the battle between the Athenians and the Amazons Hippolyte, who seems to have been thoroughly changed by her domestic experiences, fought against her own warriors on the side of Theseus. An arrow from an Amazon bow mortally wounded her, and she died. Her girls were again defeated and sadly returned to Pontus, where they slowly turned into Turks.

 MOUNT IDA

Now let's move eastward, past the Bosphorus again, to Mount Ida, in western Turkey, southeast of the site of Troy, which is just a little inland from the mouth of Hellespont.

Mount Ida, now called Kaz Dağı (Goose Mountain), is actually a small mountain range whose highest peak is about 5000 feet above sea level, with a view of the Marmara and the Aegean Seas. From it the gods watched the Trojan war, helping out their favorite heroes and quarreling over which side would ultimately win. Two interesting mythical events occurred on Mount Ida: the rape of Ganymede and the Judgment of Paris.

Ganymede was the son of Laomedon, and early king of Troy. He was an exceptionally handsome young man, so attractive that even the notably heterosexual Zeus was overwhelmed with his charms. As the lad was resting on the slope of Mount Ida, Zeus himself, in the shape of an eagle, flew down from Olympus to snatch him up to heaven. There young Ganymede, his beauty immortalized, serves as the cup-bearer of the gods. In this capacity, by some obscure symbolism, he was credited with the annual flood of the River Nile, for which Egyptians are still grateful to the gods.

Laomedon, Ganymede's father, who received a stud of divine horses as compensation for the loss of his son, was a prehistoric deadbeat.

Poseidon, god of the sea, had once headed a palace revolt on Mount Olympus, trying to knock his brother Zeus off the throne. Zeus was too clever for him, however, and put a quick end to the revolt. As punishment Poseidon was exiled to earth and condemned to build a wall around the city of Troy. Laomedon promised him a handsome reward for this service.

Apollo had also been exiled to earth by his father Zeus, who was sometimes very hard on his gifted relatives. He agreed to help Poseidon build the Trojan wall. Playing the lyre which Mercury had made from a tortoise shell and given to Apollo in exchange for the famous caduceus, the sun god charmed the stones into their places in the wall. When the job was done, without his having turned a finger, Poseidon demanded his reward from Laomedon, who refused payment. Poseidon, to whom a bargain was a bargain, called up one of his sea monsters, which came ashore and scared the devil out of the poor Trojans, eating a few good citizens in the process.

The Trojans, who must have taken a dim view of Laomedon's stinginess, endured the monster for a time, then consulted an oracle for ways and means to get rid of it. The oracle told them that if they would sacrifice a beautiful virgin to the monster once a year, it would keep out of the way at other times.

A young girl was chosen by lot and chained to a rock on the seashore. The serpent came out, devoured her, and, satisfied, disappeared for a year. For a number of years the Trojans paid tribute to the monster by feeding him virgins. Finally the lot fell to the only daughter of Laomedon, Hesione, sister of Ganymede. For a wonder, though, he didn't try to crawl out of his obligation, and Hesione prepared herself for the sacrifice.

Laomedon desperately tried to save his daughter by publishing notice of a great reward to anybody who would kill the monster. He seems not to have been interested in offering rewards as long as other people's daughters were involved. Luckily for him, Heracles was on hisway back from Pontus with the gridle of Hippolyte. Just as the monster crawled out of the sea to get the screaming maiden, chained to a rock, Heracles, using only his big club, knocked the brains of the sea-beast and rescued Hesione.

Again Laomedon welched on his contract. He never learned that it didn't pay to cheat the gods. After Heracles had delivered the gridle and performed a few more assorted tasks, he came back to Troy with a small band of friends. Laomedon, who had his wall and his daughter and all his treasure besides, was still pleased with himself for having outwitted Poseidon and Heracles. He got his come-uppance in a hurry when Heracles and his companions captured the city and killed him. Another son, Priam, who ruled Troy during the Trojan War, became king.

Neither Poseidon nor Apollo forgot Laomedon's trick, and during the Trojan War they strongly favored the Greeks.

Mount Ida was also the scene of the Judgments of Paris, which started the whole wretched Trojan War. Paris was the son of King Priam, who had been exposed and left for dead as an infant because an oracle had prophesied that he would be the cause of his family's death and the destruction of his city. Instead of dying, he had been rescued by a shepherd and had grown up tending sheep on Mount Ida. For some reason he was chosen by the gods to settle one of the greatest arguments of all time and become the first judge of a beauty contest.

Zeus had ducked out a romance with a beautiful sea-nymph named Thetis by arranging a suitable marriage with King Peleus, of Phthia, which sounds more like a disease than a city. The nymph was a little reluctant to make do with a mortal after having been courted by Zeus, but was finally persuaded when Zeus promised her a bang-up wedding with all the trimmings, attended by Zeus himself and all the gods.

Everything went well at the wedding feast until an uninvited guest, the goddess of discord, Eris, came into the hall where the gods were toasting the bride. Eris was a disagreeable old hag whom nobody wanted around, and Zeus had deliberately not sent her an invitation. The goddess of discord, liked the wicked fairy who came to Snow Whinte's christening, tossed in a gift designed to make everybody unhappy. Onto the banquet table Eris threw a golden apple, on which inscribed the words." To the Fairest"

You might expect that the gods, in their superior wisdom, would not be taken in by such a transparent trick. But like a crowd of vain school girls, all the goddesses argued their claims to the prize apple. If Zeus had been on his toes, he would have created enough golden apples to satisfy everybody; on the contrary, he entered into the betting on who was going to win. After a great deal of debate, all the goddesses withdrew from the contest except three: Hera, queen of the gods, Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, who was annoyed that anybody would contest her obvious right to the apple, and Athena, goddess of wisdom.

No one at the banquet was willing to serve as judge, since deciding for any one of the proud beauties would mean permanent disfavor with the other two. The choice was finally given to poor Paris, who would have stayed with his sheep and not got himself involved in such high society.

The contest was held on top of Mount Ida. There Athena appeared first before Paris. Since she depended on her brains, it is likely that she appeared in her customary shining armor rather than in the state of undress usually depicted by painters. Under the lax code of sportsmanship which the gods observed, Athena tried to tribe Paris by offering him great wisdom if he would award the prize to her.

Next came Hera, probably in her royal robes. She offered Paris wealth and power if he would choose her. Finally appeared Aphrodite, whose normal costume was a veil of sea foam or a rosy blush. Paris seems to have been in such a flutter that he failed to realize how much less her offer of the most beautiful woman on earth was than the other bribes. Having wisdom, he would have foreseen the trouble the beautiful woman would bring; having wealth and power, he could have had all the beautiful women he wanted. Nevertheless, he chose Aphrodite and started a ten years' war.