Classic writers abound with references, not simply to a plurality of gods among the heathen, but to a trinity in unity and unity in trinity, sometimes approaching in the similarity of their broad outlines the doctrine as held by orthodox religionists. Herodotus calls the deity of the Pelasgians, _Gods_, and it is admitted that the passage evidently implies that the expression was used by the priests of Dodona. The Pelasgians worshipped the Cabiri, and the Cabiri were originally three in number, hence it is inferred that these Cabiri were the Pelasgian Trinity, and that having in ancient times no name which would have implied a diversity of gods, they worshipped a trinity in unity. The worship of the Cabiri by the Pelasgians is evident, for Herodotus says, in his second book, "that the Samothracians learnt the Cabiric mysteries from the Pelasgians, who once inhabited that island, and afterwards settled in Greece, near Attica." Cicero testifies that the Cabiri were originally three in number, and he carefully distinguishes them from the Dioscuri. A passage in Pausanias states that at Tritia, a city of Achaia, there is a temple erected to the Dii Magni (or Cabiri); their images are a representation of a god made of clay. "We need not be surprised," said a writer once, "that Pausanias should be puzzled how to express the fact that, though it was the temple of the three Cabiri, yet there was only one image in it. Is not this the doctrine of a trinity in unity?" Potter informs us that those who desired to have children were usually very liberal to the gods, who were thought to preside over generation. The same writer also says:--"Who these were, or what was the origination of their name, is not easy to determine: Orpheus, as cited by Phanodemus in Suidas, makes their proper names to be Amaclides, Protocles, and Protocleon, and will have them to preside over the winds; Demo makes them to be the winds themselves." Another author tells us their names were "Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, and that they were the sons of heaven and of earth: Philocrus likewise makes earth their mother, but instead of heaven, substitutes the sun, or Apollo, for their father, where he seems to account, as well for their being accounted the superintendents of generation, as for the name of [Greek: tritopateres]; for being immediately descended from two immortal gods, themselves," saith he, "were thought the third fathers, and therefore might well be esteemed the common parents of mankind, and from that opinion derive those honours, which the Athenians paid them as the authors and presidents of human generation."