"The old gods had a way of hanging on, if only under cover. Even when the new ones were imposed by the sword, the old-timers lurked in dark and secret places... ready to burst forth at a convenient time. That happened all over Mesopotamia in the days of the great invasions, and the result was a hierarchy of gods that became enormously complicated, and even more or less antagonistic. Similarly in early America, when the Spaniards imposed Christianity upon the Aztecs and Mayans, the old gods of those peoples were not abandoned, but simply went into retirement and were soon peeping out again."
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Treatise on the Gods
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