[Footnote 173: "Intellectual Syst.," vol. i. p. 483.] [Footnote 174: "There is, in truth, one only God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, air, and winds," etc.] [Footnote 175: "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 322.] Whether we regard the poets as the principal theological teachers of the ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers, and artistic embellishers of the theological traditions and myths which were afloat in the primitive Hellenic families, we can not resist the conclusion that, for the masses of the people Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of gods" as Plato calls him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or less local and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village and to every clan. "He is at home on Ida,[176] on Olympus, at Dodona.[177] While Poseidon drew to himself the Æolian family, Apollo the Dorian, Athene the Ionian, there was one powerful God for all the sons of Hellen--Dorians, Æolians, Ionians, Achæans, viz., the Panhellenic Zeus."[178] Zeus was the name invoked in their solemn nuncupations of vows-- "O Zeus, father, O Zeus, king." In moments of deepest sorrow, of immediate urgency and need, of greatest stress and danger, they had recourse to Zeus. "Courage, courage, my child! There is still in heaven the great Zeus; He watches over all things, and he rules. Commit thy exceeding bitter griefs to him, And be not angry against thine enemies, Nor forget them."[179] [Footnote 176: "Iliad," bk. iii. 324.] [Footnote 177: Bk. xvi. 268.] [Footnote 178: Müller, p. 452.] [Footnote 179: Sophocles, "Electra," v. 188.] He was supplicated, as the God who reigns on high, in the prayer of the Athenian-- "Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the land of the Athenians and on their fields."