Once in a while
Zeus and all his courtiers went on a festal excursion to the land of
the blameless Ethiops, which lay somewhere over the ocean, where they
banqueted twelve days. Why such a special honor as this was shown to
these Ethiops is not explained. Within their borders were evidently the
summer resorts, Newport and Baden-Baden, frequented by the Olympians.
Only in great crises was the whole mythic host of the Grecian religion
summoned to meet in full forum on the heights of the immemorial
mountain. At such times, all the fountains, rivers, and groves of
Hellas were emptied of their guardian daemons, male and female, who
hastened to pay their homage to and receive their orders from the
Cloud-Gatherer, sitting on his throne, in his great skyey Capitolium,
and invested with all the pomp of mythic majesty, his ambrosial locks
smoothly combed and brushed by some Olympian _friseur_, his eagle
perched with ruffled plumes upon his fist, and everything else so
arranged as most forcibly to impress the country visitors and rural
incumbents with salutary awe for the occupant of their sky-Vatican.
Whether these last were compelled to salute the Jovine great toe with a
kiss is not recorded, there being no account extant of the ceremonial
and etiquette of Olympus.
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