Zeus rules in Olympus. He presides there over those gods who are at present in power. He summons them to council, he sits at meals with them. They are a very human set of beings. They are moved by ordinary human motives; love and revenge, jealousy and anger, rule in their breasts. They do not act from eternal principles, but as men do, from sudden impulses or from the desire of temporary advantages for themselves or for their favourites. They even indulge in loose amours, and are brought into ridiculous situations. They laugh at each other; the stronger god hurls the weaker out of Olympus to the earth. Taking them together, we do not find the Olympians an impressive set of beings. Taking them, however, one by one, we judge of them quite differently. The individual gods represent lofty ideals and are not unworthy of worship. Whatever they were once, powers of nature, fetishes or men, whatever village legends they have brought with them from their native place, or whatever traits of savage life still cleave to them, to the poet they are the embodiments of various moral excellences. Zeus, father of gods and men, combines in his character the attributes of righteousness and of kindness; he is the founder of social order and the defender of suppliants, he possesses all wisdom. Hera is the matron of fully unfolded beauty and matchless dignity; Apollo is the faithful son who carries out his father's counsel; Athene is the warrior-maiden skilled in battle but equipped with every kind of skill, best counsellor and guide for the mortal whom she favours; Aphrodite is the goddess of love, in whose girdle are contained all charms; Ares is the impetuous warrior, Hermes the trusty messenger, of the heavenly circle; Hephaestus, the lame and awkward smith, is the artificer for the gods of all manner of cunning work in metal. Around and under the Olympians are many other deities; such as Hebe, the budding girl, and Ganymede, the youth born of human race but taken up to heaven for his beauty to minister to the gods at their banquets. Aphrodite is attended by the graces, Apollo by the Muses, and the world is not stripped by Homer of its local deities, although the chief deities now dwell aloft; mountains, rivers, caves and isles of ocean, all have their immortal occupants.