Wonder Stories - Carolyn Sherwin Bailey (sci fi books to read txt) 📗

sunset on their farm which supplied the nearby market with fruits and bread stuffs. Otus and Ephialtes were very much surprised to hear the thundering crash that Mars made when he tumbled down; and they dropped their tools and ran to see what was the matter.

It is said that the fallen Mars covered seven acres of ground, but the two giants started at once picking him up and he began to shrink then like a rubber balloon when the air leaks out of it.

"What shall we do with this troublemaker?" Otus asked his brother.

"We must put him where he will not interfere with our work or the other work of the earth for a while at least," Ephialtes said as they tugged Mars, still roaring, home.

"That's a good idea," Otus agreed. "We will shut him up."

And so they crammed the troublesome Mars into a great bronze vase and took turns sitting on the cover so that he was not able, by any chance, to get out for thirteen months. That gave everyone an opportunity to plant and gather another harvest, and to place Terminus' boundary stones again.

These giant planters would have liked to keep this god of war bottled up in the vase for all the rest of time, but he was one of the family of the Olympians and so this was not possible. In time he was allowed to drive home and both the Greek and the Roman people tried to make the best of him, not as a protecting deity, but as the god of strength and brawn.

The Greeks named a hill for him near Athens, and here was held a court of justice for the right decision of cases involving life and death. That put Mars to work in a very different way. And the Romans gave him a great field for military manoeuvres and martial games. We would call it a training camp to-day. There, in Mars Field, chariot races were held twice a year and there were competitions in riding, in discus and spear throwing, and in shooting arrows at a mark. Once in five years the able-bodied young men of Rome came to Mars Field to enlist for the army, and no Roman general started out to war without first swinging a sacred shield and spear which hung there and saying,

"Watch over me, O Mars." For Mars could put muscle into a man's arm, and the heroes themselves were learning to choose the good fight.

HOW MINERVA BUILT A CITY

The sea that broke in surf on the shore of Attica became suddenly as smooth as a floor of crystal. Over it, as if he had leaped from the caverns of rock in its depths, dashed Neptune, the god of the sea, his trident held high, his horses' golden manes flowing in the wind, and their bronze hoofs scarcely touching the water as they galloped toward the shore.

At the same moment a war-like goddess appeared on the edge of the land. She was as tall and straight and strong as Mars, but her armor shone like gold while his was often tarnished. She held the storm shield of her father, Jupiter and carried a dart of lightning for her spear. Minerva, the other god of war, she was, as fearful and powerful as a storm, but also as gentle and peaceful as the warmth of the sky when it shines down on the fields when the storm is over.

"Why have Neptune and Minerva met?" the fishermen and sailors who crowded the beach asked.

"They have come together for a contest to see which shall have the honor of building a City," some of the wise men told them, and then these Greeks drew aside and waited to see what would happen, for with them was to rest the judgment in the matter.

Neptune drove his chariot up onto the land, dismounted, and blew a mighty blast on his trumpet to call the nymphs of the waters and the spirits of the winds to his aid. Then he ascended to a barren rock that lifted its head above the surrounding hills, bleak and without a single blade of grass to soften it. The Greeks watched Neptune breathlessly as he stood on its top, a mighty figure in his cloak of dripping seaweed and the white of sea salt in his flowing, dark green hair. He raised his trident, struck the rocks with it, and the age-old stone cracked in a deep fissure. Out of the crack in the rock burst a spring of water where there had been not a drop through all the centuries before.

"Neptune wins! None of the gods can excel this feat of bringing water out of bare rock," the cry went up from the people.

But Minerva ascended now to this rock of the Acropolis and took her place beside Neptune. She, also, touched the barren stone with her spear that was forged and tempered by the gods. And as she did so, a marvel resulted to her honor as well.

The green shoot of a tree suddenly appeared, pushing its way up through the hard stone. The shoot grew tall and broadened to form a trunk and branches, and then covered itself with gray-green leaves that made a pleasant shade from the brilliancy of the sun. Last, this wonder tree was hung on every branch with a strange new fruit, green balls of delicious flavor and full of oil that was healthful and healing and needed by the whole world.

The Greeks broke their ranks and gathered about the tree to taste and enjoy the fruit.

"Minerva wins!" they shouted. "Neptune's spring here in the Acropolis is like the sea, brackish in flavor, but Minerva has given Greece the olive tree."

That is just what had happened. Minerva had given the people something that they really needed, and the fair city of Athens was raised and awarded to this goddess of war as the prize of her kindness to the people.

But Neptune proved himself a very poor loser. He was a blustering, boastful old god, used from the days of his father Oceanus, when the waters were first separated from the land, to having his own way. He had wanted to own Athens himself, to be able to go and come in it whenever he liked, and it was particularly humiliating that he must give it up to a goddess. Neptune stormed down to the shore, blew another blast on his trumpet, and called all the deities of the sea and of tempests to come to his aid and destroy the city.

What an army they made as they obeyed his summons!

Triton, a son of Neptune, led the hosts and sounded the horn of battle as they approached the land, and all around him flew the Harpies, those birds as large as men with crooked claws and a hunger for human flesh. There were sea serpents that could crush a man with a single coil, and Boreas, the North Wind, drove the regiment of the high tides up on the coast. With these powers of the sea came a mighty rushing of water, and it seemed as if neither Athens or its people would be able to survive this arising of the sea.

But Minerva, the goddess of righteous, defensive war was there and on the side of the Greeks. She presided over battles, but only to lead on to victory and through victory to peace and prosperity. Few could withstand the straight glance of Minerva's eyes, valiant, conquering and terrifying, or the sight of her gloriously emblazoned shield. As the powers of Neptune advanced, Minerva raised her shield, and the tides rested and the waters receded. Then she drove the forces of Neptune back at the point of her spear, and Athens was saved.

You will remember that the gods were very much like men in wanting particular kinds of gifts which would be their very own, and which they could treasure. Jupiter had a special fondness for thunderbolts and kept piles of them behind his throne. Apollo treasured his lyre, and Mercury his shoes and his cap. Venus never travelled without a jewelled girdle which she thought added to her beauty, but Minerva had always wanted a city. Now her wish had come true, for she had a very large and beautiful one, the fair Athens.

People began coming to Athens from all parts of Greece and from neighboring countries as well, because Minerva spent so much time there tending and spreading the olive orchards, and keeping the city free from invasion. Neptune had left a horse near the hill of the Acropolis when he had to retreat, and Minerva invented a harness for it and broke it to the bit and bridle with her own hands in the market square of Athens. Having horses for ploughing and carrying loads of lumber and stone and grain helped the prosperity of Athens and brought it wealth. And when the people were at peace, Minerva laid aside her armor and crossed the thresholds of the houses, teaching the women to spin, and weave, and extract the precious oil from her olives.

Everyone was growing very prosperous and very rich. It seemed that the olive tree had brought all this wealth, for it had spread throughout Attica and plenty followed wherever it bore fruit.

Not far from Athens lay the kingdom of the Persians who were invincible in battle, having devoted themselves for many years to the arts of warfare. Through their interest in their own affairs the Athenians forgot about their warlike neighbors, until one fateful day when a runner breathlessly told them that the hosts of the Persian army waited at the boundaries of their cities.

Such confusion and terror as ensued! The Athenians were not ready for war. They consulted an oracle as to how to meet the Persian host and the oracle replied,

"Trust to your citadel of wood!"

The wise men of Athens quite misunderstood this advice and went busily to work erecting wooden fortifications around the hill of the Acropolis where Minerva's first olive tree stood as if it were guarding their prosperity. The oracle had meant for the Athenians to trust to their fleet and try to prevent the Persian army from entering along the coast, and by the time the wooden wall was built, the Persians had begun to fire Athens.

Minerva, with her flaming spear raised and her eyes filled with tears, went to her father, Jupiter, to beg for the safety of her city. She kneeled at the foot of his throne to make her plea, and it must have been hard indeed for Jupiter to refuse his favorite daughter as he looked down at Minerva, prostrate before him in her shining suit of mail. But the king of the gods told Minerva something about her city which even he was powerless to change.

"Athens, in her prosperity, has forgotten the gods," Jupiter said. "She lives and works for herself and not for others. She must perish in order that a better and nobler city may rise from her ruins."

So Minerva was obliged to watch from the clouds as fire and sword consumed Athens and the smoke of the flaming city rose like incense to the seats of the gods. When there seemed to be nothing left except the stones which had been the foundation of Athens' beauty, and those of her heroes who had not perished had been obliged to take to the sea, Minerva descended to her hill, the Acropolis. She wanted to see if the roots, at least, of her olive tree had been spared, and she found a wonder.

As a sign that she had not forsaken Athens, even in ruins, Jupiter had allowed the roots of her tree to remain, and