The latest sort of testimony as to Greek myths must be sought in the writings of the heathen apologists or learned Pagan defenders of Paganism in the first centuries during Christianity, and in the works of their opponents, the fathers of the Church. Though the fathers certainly do not understate the abominations of Paganism, and though the heathen apologists make free use of allegorical (and impossible) interpretations, the evidence of both is often useful and important. The testimony of ancient art, vases, statues, pictures and the descriptions of these where they no longer survive, are also of service and interest. After this brief examination of the sources of our knowledge of Greek myth, we may approach the Homeric legends of the origin of things and the world's beginning. In Homer these matters are only referred to incidentally. He more than once calls Oceanus (that is, the fabled stream which flows all round the world, here regarded as a PERSON) "the origin of the gods," "the origin of all things".(1) That Ocean is considered a person, and that he is not an allegory for water or the aqueous element, appears from the speech of Hera to Aphrodite: "I am going to visit the limits of the bountiful earth, and Oceanus, father of the gods, and mother Tethys, who reared me duly and nurtured me in their halls, when far-seeing Zeus imprisoned Cronus beneath the earth and the unvintaged sea".(2) Homer does not appear to know Uranus as the father of Cronus, and thus the myth of the mutilation of Uranus necessarily does not occur in Homer. Cronus, the head of the dynasty which preceded that of Zeus, is described(3) as the son of Rhea, but nothing is said of his father. The passage contains the account which Poseidon himself chose to give of the war in heaven: "Three brethren are we, and sons of Cronus whom Rhea bare--Zeus and myself, and Hades is the third, the ruler of the folk in the underworld. And in three lots were all things divided, and each drew a domain of his own." Here Zeus is the ELDEST son of Cronus. Though lots are drawn at hazard for the property of the father (which we know to have been customary in Homer's time), yet throughout the Iliad Zeus constantly claims the respect and obedience due to him by right of primogeniture.(4) We shall see that Hesiod adopts exactly the opposite view. Zeus is the YOUNGEST child of Cronus. His supremacy is an example of jungsten recht, the wide-spread custom which makes the youngest child the heir in chief.(5) But how did the sons of Cronus come to have his property in their hands to divide? By right of successful rebellion, when "Zeus imprisoned Cronus beneath the earth and the unvintaged sea". With Cronus in his imprisonment are the Titans. That is all that Homer cares to tell about the absolute beginning of things and the first dynasty of rulers of Olympus. His interest is all in the actual reigning family, that of the Cronidae, nor is he fond of reporting their youthful excesses.