The life of these peasants and shepherds was very simple and patriarchal. The ox and the horse were known to them, and drew their wagons and their ploughs; the principal source of their wealth consisted in great herds of swine, sheep, and cattle. Fishermen already navigated the numerous arms of the seas that indented the land. Public life had perfectly patriarchal forms. “Kings” were to be found everywhere as ruling heads of the numerous small tribes. Religion appeared essentially as a cult of the mighty forces of nature. The deities were worshipped without temples and images, and were appealed to with prayers, with both bloody and bloodless sacrifices,--at the head Zeus, the god of the sky; at his side Dione, the goddess of earth, who, however, was early replaced by the figure of Hera; Demeter, the earth mother, the patron of agriculture and of settled life; Hestia, the patron of the hearth fire and the altar fire; Hermes, the swift messenger of heaven, driver of the clouds and guardian of the herds; Poseidon, the god of the waters; and the chthonic [_i.e._ subterranean] divinity Aidoneus or Hades. The art of prophecy was developed early; the oracle of Dodona in Epirus was universally known. We know not how long the ancient Greeks remained in the quiet Pelasgic conditions. But we can distinguish the causes that produced the internal movement and mighty ferment, from which the chivalrous nation of the Achæans finally came. Most important were the influences of the highly developed civilisation of the Orient upon the youthful, gifted Greek nation. The Phœnicians were the principal bearers of this influence. They had occupied many of the islands of the Ægean, and had planted colonies even on the mainland, as at Thebes and Acrocorinthus. The merchants exchanged the products of Phœnician and Babylonian industry for wool, hides, and slaves. They worked the copper mines of Cyprus and Argolis and the gold mines of Thasos and Thrace, but obtained even greater wealth from the purple shellfish of the Grecian waters. For about a century the Phœnicians exerted a strong pressure on the coasts of Greece, and they left considerable traces in Grecian mythology and civilisation. The gifted Greeks, who in all periods of their history were quick to profit by foreign example, were deeply impressed by the superior civilisation of the Phœnicians. The activity and skill of the men of Sidon in navigation and fortification had a very permanent effect. For a long time the Greeks made the Phœnicians their masters in architecture, mining, and engineering; later they received from them the alphabet and the Babylonian system of weights and measures. The industry and the artistic skill of the Greeks also began to practice on the models brought into the land by the Sidonians.