These notions concerning the gods must have undergone many changes before they assumed the form under which they appear in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. The Greek religion, as manifested through them, reached the second period of its development, belonging to that time when the most distinguished and prominent part of the people devoted their lives to the affairs of the state and the occupation of arms, and in which the heroic spirit was manifested according to these ideas. On Olympus, lying near the northern boundary of Greece, the highest mountain of that country, whose summit seems to touch the heavens, there rules the assembly or family of the gods; the chief of which, Zeus, summons at his pleasure the other gods to council, as Agamemnon summons the other princes. He is acquainted with the decrees of fate, and able to control them, and being himself king among the gods, he gives the kings of the earth their powers and dignity. By his side his wife, Hera, whose station entitles her to a large share of his rank and dominion; and a daughter of masculine character, Athena, a leader of battles and a protectress of citadels, who, by her wise counsels, deserves the confidence which her father bestows on her; besides these, there are a number of gods with various degrees of kindred, who have each their proper place and allotted duty on Olympus. The attention of this divine council is chiefly turned to the fortunes of nations and cities, and especially to the adventures and enterprises of the heroes, who being themselves, for the most part, sprung from the blood of the gods, form the connecting link between them and the ordinary herd of mankind. At this stage the ancient religion of nature had disappeared, and the gods who dwelt on Olympus scarcely manifested any connection with natural phenomena. Zeus exercises his power as a ruler and a king; Hera, Athena, and Apollo no longer symbolize the fertility of the earth, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the arrival of the serene spring; Hephaestus has passed from the powerful god of fire in heaven and earth into a laborious smith and worker of metals; Hermes is transformed into the messenger of Zeus; and the other deities which stood at a greater distance from the affairs of men are entirely forgotten, or scarcely mentioned in the Homeric mythology.