Asiatic Aryans had possessed themselves of the entire Continent of Europe.

It is a strange fact that knowledge and civilization have always, like the
sun, arisen in the East, and moved steadily toward the West!

Probably the first spot in Europe touched by the rays of the coming day
was the little island of Crete! Minos, who was King of Crete in this time
of fable, was always worshipped as the deity who first established
civilization and social order!

Theseus also, King of Athens at this time, was one of their great heroes.
And you must read about his slaying the Minotaur in Crete, and about the
beautiful Ariadne who fell in love with him, and gave him the clue to the
labyrinth where her father, Minos, kept the monster hid. These things
about the classic little island have an especial interest for us now.

At this earliest period the people were called, not Greeks, but
Pelasgians. In the course of time the Hellenes, a more powerful Aryan
race, overpowered them, and after that their country was called Hellas,
and its people Hellenes, until a much later period, when they were known
as Greeks.

The Hellenes, like the ancient Pelasgians, had a system of religion which
we call mythology. They worshipped twelve principal deities and countless
smaller ones, who, they believed, ruled the lives and fortunes of men.
Jupiter was the chief of these, and his will and that of the other gods
were communicated to the people by priestesses, in the form of "Oracles."
These were mysterious utterances, the meaning of which had to be guessed
like riddles. But for centuries no war was undertaken nor a single
important thing done without first consulting the "Oracles."