Though founded on the same ideas as most of the religions of the East, and particularly of Asia Minor, the earliest religion of the Greeks was richer and more various in its forms, and took a loftier and a wider range. The Grecian worship of nature, in all the various forms which it assumed, recognized one deity, as the highest of all, the head of the entire system, Zeus, the god of heaven and light; with him, and dwelling in the pure expanse of ether, is associated the goddess of the earth, who, in different temples, was worshiped under different names, as Hera, Demeter, and Dione. Besides this goddess, other beings are united with the supreme god, who are personifications of certain of his energies powerful deities who carry the influence of light over the earth, and destroy the opposing powers of darkness and confusion as Athena, born from the head of her father, and Apollo, the pure and shining god of light. There are other deities allied with earth and dwelling in her dark recesses; and as life appears not only to spring from the earth, but to return whence it sprung, these deities are, for the most part, also connected with death; as Hermes, who brings up the treasures of fruitfulness from the depths of the earth, and Cora, the child, now lost and now recovered by her mother, Demeter, the goddess both of reviving and of decaying nature. The element of water, Poseidon, was also introduced into this assemblage of the personified powers of nature, and peculiarly connected with the goddess of the earth; fire, Hephaestus, was represented as a powerful principle derived from heaven, having dominion over the earth, and closely allied with the goddess who sprang from the head of the supreme god. Other deities form less important parts of this system, as Dionysus, whose alternate joys and sufferings show a strong resemblance to the form which religious notions assumed in Asia Minor. Though not, like the gods of Olympus, recognized by all the races of the Greeks, Dionysus exerted an important influence on the spirit of the Greek nation, and in sculpture and poetry gave rise to bold flights of imagination, and to powerful emotions, both of joy and sorrow.