there was a bull in the Parthenon before there was a Parthenon

Before Athena got the hill, the hill got the bull. Every marble temple the Greeks raised to reason and order was built on ground that had already, for a thousand years, belonged to the horned god of abundance — and on quiet evenings, when the tour groups have gone, the old tenant walks back in between the columns like it still holds the lease. Reason is a much newer religion than it lets on. The bull was here first, and the bull is patient.