Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/205

 The Age of the Nobles and the Ty7'a7its m Greece l6i and the leader He thus were sung responsively by chorus and leader illustrated with gestures the story told in the song, became the fore- runner of the actor in a play, and in Athens, not long after, such songs led to the drama actually presented in a theater (Fig. 94). Such literature reveals the pro- found changes in the religion of this age — changes due to the growing dis- crimination be- tween right and wrong. Men could no longer believe that the gods led the evil lives pic- tured in the Ho- meric songs. Ste- sichorus had so high an ideal of womanly fidelity that he could not accept the tale of the beautiful Hel- en's faithlessness, and in his festival songs he told the ancient story in another way. Men now felt that even Zeus and his Olympian divinities must do the right. Mortals too must do the same; for men Fig. 81. View over the Valley and Ruins of Delphi to the Sea This splendid gorge in the slopes of Mount Par- nassus on the north side of the Corinthian Gulf (see map, p. 146) was very early sacred to Apollo, who was said to have slain the dragon Pytho which lived here. The white line of road in the foreground is the highway descending to the distant arm of the Corinthian Gulf. On the left of this road the cliff descends sheer a thousand feet, and above the road (on its right) on the steep slope are the ruins of the sacred buildings of ancient Delphi, excavated by the French in recent years. We can see the zigzag road lead- ing up the hill among the ruins just at the right of the main road (compare also Fig. 82) New power of moral feeling