The god who serves is for the time degraded: but the supreme god who commands the servitude is in the like proportion exalted, whilst the idea of some sort of order and government among these superhuman beings was never lost sight of. Nevertheless the mythes respecting the servitude of the gods became obnoxious afterwards, along with many others, to severe criticism on the part of philosophers. [126] Strabo, viii. p. 374. According to the old poem called Eumolpia, ascribed to Musæus, the oracle of Delphi originally belonged to Poseidôn and Gæa, jointly: from Gæa it passed to Themis, and from her to Apollo, to whom Poseidôn also made over his share as a compensation for the surrender of Kalaureia to him. (Pausan. x. 5, 3). [127] Apollodôr. iii. 14, 1; iii. 15, 3, 5. [128] Plutarch, Sympos. viii. 6, p. 741. [129] Iliad, ii. 716, 766; Euripid. Alkêstis, 2. See Panyasis, Fragm. 12, p. 24, ed. Düntzer. [130] Iliad, vii. 452; xxi. 459. [131] Iliad, v. 386. The proud, jealous, and bitter Hêrê,—the goddess of the once-wealthy Mykênæ, the _fax et focus_ of the Trojan war, and the ever-present protectress of Jasôn in the Argonautic expedition,[132]—occupies an indispensable station in the mythical world. As the daughter of Kronos and wife of Zeus, she fills a throne from whence he cannot dislodge her, and which gives her a right perpetually to grumble and to thwart him.[133] Her unmeasured jealousy of the female favorites of Zeus, and her antipathy against his sons, especially against Hêraklês, has been the suggesting cause of innumerable mythes: the general type of her character stands here clearly marked, as furnishing both stimulus and guide to the mythopœic fancy. The “Sacred Wedding,” or marriage of Zeus and Hêrê, was familiar to epithalamic poets long before it became a theme for the spiritualizing ingenuity of critics. [132] Iliad, iv. 51; Odyss. xii. 72. [133] Iliad, i. 544; iv. 29-38; viii. 408. Hêphæstos is the son of Hêrê without a father, and stands to her in the same relation as Athênê to Zeus: her pride and want of sympathy are manifested by her casting him out at once in consequence of his deformity.[134] He is the god of fire, and especially of fire in its practical applications to handicraft, and is indispensable as the right-hand and instrument of the gods. His skill and his deformity appear alternately as the source of mythical stories: wherever exquisite and effective fabrication is intended to be designated, Hêphæstos is announced as the maker, although in this function the type of his character is reproduced in Dædalos. In the Attic legends he appears intimately united both with Promêtheus and with Athênê, in conjunction with whom he was worshipped at Kolônus near Athens. Lemnos was the favorite residence of Hêphæstos; and if we possessed more knowledge of this island and its town Hêphæstias, we should doubtless find abundant legends detailing his adventures and interventions.