OLYMPUS  , the name of many mountains in

Greece and Asia Minor, and of the fabled home of the gods, and also a city name and a personal name . I . Of the mountains bearing the name the most famous is the lofty ridge on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia . The river Peneus, which drains Thessaly, finds its way to the sea through the great gorge of Tempe, which is close below the south-eastern end of Olympus and separates it from Mount Ossa . The highest peak of Olympus is nearly Io,000 ft. high; it is covered with snow for great part of the year . Olympus is a mountain of massive appearance, in many places rising in tremendous precipices broken by vast ravines, above which is the broad summit . The lower parts are densely wooded; the summit is naked rock . Homer calls the mountain ayavvu j,os, fcaKpos, 7roXvaeipas: the epithets vu oeis, aoXvbevbpos, frondosus and opacus are used by other poets . The modern name is "EAv nro, a dialectic form of the ancient word . The peak of Mount Lycaeus in the south-west of Arcadia was called Olympus . East of Olympia, on the north bank of the Alpheus, was a hill bearing this name; beside Sellasia in Laconia another . The name was even commoner in Asia II Minor: a lofty chain in Mysia (Keshish Dagh), a ridge east of Smyrna (Nil Dagh), other mountains in Lycia, in Galatia, in Cilicia, in Cyprus, &c., were all called Olympus .

II . A lofty peak, rising high above the clouds of the lower

atmosphere into the clear ether, seemed to be the chosen seat of the deity . In the Iliad the gods are described as dwelling on the top of the mountain; in the Odyssey Olympus is regarded as a more remote and less definite locality; and in later poets we find similar divergence of ideas, from a definite mountain to a vague conception of heaven . In the elaborate mythology of Greek literature Olympus was the common home of the multitude of gods . Each deity had his special haunts, but all had a residence at the court of Zeus on Olympus; here were held the assemblies and the common feasts of the gods .