Where the allegorical mark is clearly set upon any particular character, or attribute, or event, to that extent we may recognize it; but we can rarely venture to divine further, still less to alter the legends themselves on the faith of any such surmises. The theogony of the Greeks contains some cosmogonic ideas; but it cannot be considered as a system of cosmogony, or translated into a string of elementary, planetary, or physical changes. [2] It is sufficient, here, to state this position briefly: more will be said respecting the allegorizing interpretation in a future chapter. In the order of legendary chronology, Zeus comes after Kronos and Uranos; but in the order of Grecian conception, Zeus is the prominent person, and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory precursors, set up in order to be overthrown and to serve as mementos of the prowess of their conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the Greeks universally, Zeus is the great and predominant god, “the father of gods and men,” whose power none of the other gods can hope to resist, or even deliberately think of questioning. All the other gods have their specific potency and peculiar sphere of action and duty, with which Zeus does not usually interfere; but it is he who maintains the lineaments of a providential superintendence, as well over the phænomena of Olympus as over those of earth. Zeus and his brothers Poseidôn and Hadês have made a division of power: he has reserved the æther and the atmosphere to himself—Poseidôn has obtained the sea—and Hadês the under-world or infernal regions; while earth, and the events which pass upon earth, are common to all of them, together with free access to Olympus.[3] [3] See Iliad, viii. 405, 463; xv. 20, 130, 185. Hesiod, Theog. 885. This unquestioned supremacy is the general representation of Zeus: at the same time the conspiracy of Hêrê, Poseidôn, and Athênê against him, suppressed by the unexpected apparition of Briareus as his ally, is among the exceptions. (Iliad, i. 400.) Zeus is at one time vanquished by Titan, but rescued by Hermês. (Apollodôr. i. 6, 3).