Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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Jupiter, seeing this state of things, burned with anger and summoned the gods to council. They obeyed the call and started for the palace of heaven along a road which any one may see on a clear night. It stretches across the face of the sky, and is called the Milky Way. Having considered his offence, Prometheus was declared an enemy of the gods and Jupiter had him chained to a rock at the summit of Mt. Kazbek in the Caucasus, where a vulture preyed forever upon his liver, which was renewed as fast as devoured. This state of torment might have been terminated at any time by Prometheus if he had been willing to submit to Jupiter, but he disdained to do so. He was a friend of mankind, who had interposed in their behalf when the gods were incensed against them, and had taught them civilization and the arts. He has therefore been used as a symbol of magnanimous endurance, of unmerited suffering, and strength of will to resist oppression.

The range is about seven hundred miles long, although the distance looks much shorter on the map, and it bisects the Russian province of the Caucasus northwest and southeast, dipping so low as it approaches the Caspian Sea that for thirty miles the coast is only a few feet above tide-water.