Charles Kovacs - Ancient Greece

The Greeks lived in a country called Greece which is part of the continent of Europe. Greece is not a large country; it is a peninsula, which means it is surrounded on three sides by the sea. Around its coasts lie many islands both large and small. The winter is short and wet, and snow is rare, while the summer is long, dry and often very hot. While the stories about ancient India, Persia, Babylon and Egypt happened a very long time ago, the stories in this book are only about three thousand years old. King Arthur lived about a thousand years ago, Christ lived on earth a thousand years before that, and if we go back another thousand years we come to the time of ancient Greece.

The people of Greece loved stories about gods and heroes. They did not have books, but there were men who travelled from village to village telling the people such stories. In the evening, when the sun sank into the glittering blue sea, the people stopped work. The men came back from the fields, the fishermen came from the shore, the women came from their little houses, the children stopped playing, and they all gathered in the market square and sat down around the story-teller. He did not tell his stories as I tell them to you now. He had a harp and he told his tales, which were in verse, as if he was singing a song.

And one of these stories or songs went like this: High are the mountains you see from your village, but far in the north of Greece there towers a mountain whose snow-covered peak reaches into the clouds. It is called Mount Olympus. And the heights of Olympus are the home of the gods. There the Olympians live. They are the immortals who never die, who never grow old.

And their ruler is mighty Zeus, his long hair falls to his broad shoulders; a full beard frames his face. In his hands he holds thunderbolts, and at his feet is perched the eagle, his messenger.

Great was Zeus, the King of the Gods, but he and the other gods did not always rule the world. A race of wild giants, called Titans, had been masters of the world until Zeus and his companions defeated them in a terrible battle. And the defeated Titans were banished to caves deep in the earth, to be imprisoned forever.

But two of the wisest Titans, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus, had helped Zeus in the battle. They knew that the wild, savage ways of the giants had to come to an end, and they were not imprisoned with their fellow Titans.

At that time, life on earth was difficult. There were many wild animals around but people had no weapons to fight them with and lived in fear and dread. However these people were also wild and lawless and Zeus often thought the best thing to do would be to destroy them all. But Prometheus took a liking to these uncivilized people and he often wondered how he could help them to master the animals they were so afraid of.

But Zeus, the King of the Gods, had no wish to see the human race become more powerful. One day, however, Prometheus decided he would help the human race whether Zeus liked it or not. And the Titan thought that the red flower of the gods was what would help man most. What was the red flower? It was fire. Today we take fire for granted. We use it to cook our food, to light our houses at night and to keep us warm. But in those days people ate their food raw and huddled together in the cold and dark for warmth and protection from the wild beasts. Prometheus also knew that animals are afraid of fire. If, for instance, you were in the wilds at night and you made a blazing fire, no wild animals would come near you.

Now, the ancient Greeks believed the sun was a fiery chariot that the Sun God Helios drove across the sky each day. Prometheus climbed a high mountain and as Helios chariot passed by he held out a long, dry stalk of the fennel plant and it soon began to smoulder. Carrying the smouldering stem, Prometheus hurried down to bring his gift to the human race. People looked on with awe and wonder when, from tiny sparks, he kindled a roaring fire. Then Prometheus told them that the red flower would not only keep the wild beasts away but would also keep them warm and cook their food. The Titan also explained that they could use fire to make metal from the earth into weapons sharper and more deadly than any animals claws.

Once the human race received the gift of fire, mankind began to master the forces of nature and make weapons and tools. However, it was not long before Zeus found out that Prometheus had disobeyed him by bringing the red flower to mankind. The King of the Gods was very angry. He has stolen the fire from us but he shall not go unpunished, Zeus cried.