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THE HEROIC AGE THE TROJAN WAR. 51that heroic spirit,which is the characteristic of the age. Inthose later centuries of the middle age which embrace theChristian heroic age,a devotional spiritformed a prominentfeature in the character of a knight ; but nothing like thisis to be found the Greeks.amongThe Grecian heroes always preserve a belief in the ,-gods aro intimately and directly united with them; are sometimes persecuted andsometimes protected by them ;but they do not fightfortheir religion,like the Christian knights. Such an ideacould never occur to them ;for their representations of theirgods did not admit of it. And here we remark one greatpointof difference between the Grecian and Christian heroiccharacter. A second, to which we shall return directly, results from the different condition of the other sex. But another prominent trait is common to both ;the propensity toextraordinary and bold undertakings, not only at home, butin foreign lands, in countries beyond the sea, and of whichtradition had, for the most part, spread none but indistinctaccounts. This propensitywas first awakened by the earlyimmigrationsof the Hellenes. But the exploits of the oldestheroes among the Greeks, Meleager, Tydeus, and others,before Hercules and Jason, were performed at home ;andeven those which are said to have been performed by Hercules out of Greece, are probably a later fiction, invented atthe time when his name was first added to the number of theArgonauts, and the Grecian Hercules was confounded withthe Phoenician. Adventures in foreign regions begin withJason and the Argonautic expedition and those adventures;were destined soon to end in a general union of the nationthe sea.for the purpose of carrying on a war beyondAs far as we can judge amidst the uncertainty of thechronology of that period, this adventurous spirit appears tohave been awakened in the century immediately precedingthe Trojanwar. According to all possible chronologicalcombinations, we must refer to this period the expedition of the Argonauts and the undertaking of Theseusagainst Crete which events ; happened soon after the dominion of the sea had been gainedfor that island by Minos.The generalcondition of Greece in that period explains,insome measure, why the limits of that country began to growtoo narrow, and a new theatre for the display of enterprise