36 LANDSCAPE AND IMAGINATION 



opposite mountain ranges of Olympus and Othrys be- 

 came the respective strongholds of the opposing hosts. 

 The convulsions of that ten years' struggle, whether 

 suggested or not by the broken features of the ground 

 and the conflicts of the elements, assuredly took their 

 poetic colouring from them. The riven crags piled 

 in confusion one above another, the rock-strewn slopes, 

 the trees uprooted by landslips, the thunder-peals that 

 resound from the misty mountain-chains, seem still to 

 tell of that primeval belief, wherein the Titans were 

 pictured as striving with frantic efforts to scale the 

 heights of Olympus by piling Ossa on Pelion, hurling 

 huge rocks and trees through the darkened air, and 

 answering the thunderbolts of Zeus with fierce peals 

 from the clouds of their lofty citadel. In the mag- 

 nificent description of Hesiod, beneath all the super- 

 natural turmoil we catch, as it were, the tumult of a 

 wild storm among the Thessalian hills, with such added 

 horrors as might be suggested to the imagination of 

 the poet from the recollection or tradition of former 

 earthquake or volcanic eruption. 



Long after the time of the primitive mythology, the 

 more striking features of the land continued to appeal 

 to the Hellenic imagination and to perpetuate the 

 prowess of gods and heroes, even down to genera- 

 tions of men among whom belief in these legends 

 was already beginning to grow dim. The narrow 

 gorge of Tempe may be cited in illustration of this 

 influence. Cleft between the precipices of Olympus 

 and Ossa, and serving as the only outlet for the 

 drainage of the wide Thessalian plain, this chasm 

 must have arrested the attention of the earliest settlers, 



