gods mythweb

8/14/2019 GODS Mythweb

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ZEUS (zoose or zyoose; Roman name Jupiter) was the

supreme god of the Olympians. He was the father of

the heroes Perseus and Heracles, the latter of whom

once wrestled him to a draw. Zeus was the youngest

son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. When he wasborn, his father Cronus intended to swallow him as he

had all of Zeus's siblings: Poseidon, Hades, Hestia,

Demeter and Hera. But Rhea hid the newborn in a

cave on Mount Dicte in Crete. (To this day, the guides

at the "cave of Zeus" use their flashlights to cast

shadow puppets in the cave, creating images of baby

Zeus from the myth.)

When he had grown up, Zeus caused Cronus to vomit

up his sisters and brothers, and these gods joined him

in fighting to wrest control of the universe from the

Titans and Cronus, their king. Having vanquished his

father and the other Titans, Zeus imprisoned most of

them in the underworld of Tartarus.

Then he and his brothers Poseidon and Hades divided

up creation. Poseidon received the sea as his domain,

Hades got the Underworld and Zeus took the sky. Zeus

also was accorded supreme authority on earth and onMount Olympus.


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HERA (HEE-ruh; Roman name Juno) was the goddess of marriage. Hera was the wife of Zeus and Queen of the Olympians. Hera

hated the great hero Heracles since he was the son of her husband Zeus and a mortal woman. When he was still an infant, she sent

snakes to attack him in his crib. Later she stirred up the Amazons against him when he was on one of his quests.

On the other hand, Hera aided the hero Jason, who would never have retrieved the Golden Fleece without her sponsorship.

In Greek mythology, Hera was the reigning female goddess of Olympus because she was Zeus's wife. But her worship is actually far

older than that of her husband. It goes back to a time when the creative force we call "God" was conceived of as a woman. TheGoddess took many forms, among them that of a bird.

Hera was worshipped throughout Greece, and the oldest and most important temples were consecrated to her. Her subjugation to

Zeus and depiction as a jealous shrew are mythological reflections of one of the most profound changes ever in human spirituality.

Tens of thousands of years ago, as the evidence of cave art and artifacts makes clear, humanity was focused on the female body,

either pregnant or fit to bear children. Childbirth was the closest humans came to the great power that caused the earth to bring forth

new life in the spring. To the extent that these distant ancestors of ours were evolved enough to think of worshipping this power, we

may safely conclude that they thought of it as female.

Thousands of years later (and some five to nine thousand years before our own time), the European descendants of these people

lived in large villages, with specialized crafts and religious institutions. It is clear from the artifacts they left behind that they worshipped

a power (or a group of powers) that came in many forms--a bird, a snake, perhaps the earth itself. And this great power was female.

For the human female has the ability to procreate--to bring forth new life.It is said that it was only when humanity discovered man's role in procreation that male gods began to be worshipped. There is no

reason to doubt, though, that male gods were worshipped before the mystery of birth was fully known. In all probability the greatest

powers were thought of as female but there were male deities as well. And it is clear that even after procreation was properly

understood, the more peaceful Europeans--perhaps down to the "Minoans" of Crete--continued to worship the Great Mother.

And there were many peaceful Europeans. Many of the largest villages of that distant era were unfortified. The culture known as "OldEuropean" did not fear aggression from its neighbors. But then things changed and a great period of violence began. Invaders swept

into Europe from the vast central plains of Asia. They brought the Indo-European language family that today includes French, Italian,

Spanish and English. They also brought a sky god, the supreme male deity that in Greek mythology became known as Zeus.

Little is known of these early Indo-Europeans, but the peaceful settlements of Old Europe were no match for them. In some places

their new culture became supreme, in others there was merger. Hardier mountain folk resisted, though many were displaced from theirstrongholds, moved on and displaced others in a domino effect. The Dorian invasion of Mycenaean Greece can be seen as a result of

this chain reaction.

The old order seems to have held out longest on Crete where, protected by the Aegean Sea from invasion by land, the high Minoan

civilization survived until almost three thousand years ago. Abruptly, then, from the perspective of human existence, the gender of the

greatest power changed from female to male. And many of the stories that form the basis of Greek mythology were first told in their

present form not long after the shift.

Zeus's many adulterous affairs may derive from ceremonies in which the new sky god "married" various local embodiments of theGreat Goddess. That there was some insecurity on the part of the supplanter god and his worshippers is seen in the mythological birth

of Athena from Zeus's head--as if to say that the sky god could do anything any Great Goddess could do.

This Goddess continued to be worshipped in some form down into historical times. Her worship is sometimes dismissed as a "fertility

cult", largely because religious practices degenerated under new influences. But we may look for traces in the myths of the old order,in which Athena, whose name is pre-Greek, was the Goddess herself.

Under the influence of the Indo-Europeans, this bird goddess became the chief deity of war. Her earlier guise may be glimpsed in

Athena's symbol, the owl, which derives from the preceding thousands of years of sacred bird imagery.


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APHRODITE (a-fro-DYE-tee; Roman name Venus) was the goddess of love, beauty and fertility. She was also a protectress of sailors. The poet

Hesiod said that Aphrodite was born from sea-foam. Homer, on the other hand, said that she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione.

When the Trojan prince Paris was asked to judge which of three Olympian goddesses was the most beautiful, he chose Aphrodite over Hera and

Athena. The latter two had hoped to bribe him with power and victory in battle, but Aphrodite offered the love of the most beautiful woman in the

world. This was Helen of Sparta, who became infamous as Helen of Troy when Paris subsequently eloped with her. In the ensuing Trojan War,

Hera and Athena were implacable enemies of Troy while Aphrodite was loyal to Paris and the Trojans.

IN HOMER

In his epic of the Trojan War, Homer tells how Aphrodite intervened in battle to save her son Aeneas, a Trojan ally. The Greek hero Diomedes, who

had been on the verge of killing Aeneas, attacked the goddess herself, wounding her on the wrist with his spear and causing the ichor to flow.

(Ichor is what immortals have in the place of blood.) Aphrodite promptly dropped Aeneas, who was rescued by Apollo, another Olympian sponsor of

the Trojans. In pain she sought out her brother Ares, the god of war who stood nearby admiring the carnage, and borrowed his chariot so that shemight fly up to Olympus. There she goes crying to her mother Dione, who soothes her and cures her wound. Her father Zeus tells her to leave war

to the likes of Ares and Athena, while devoting herself to the business of marriage. Elsewhere in Homer's Iliad, Aphrodite saves Paris when he is

about to be killed in single combat by Menelaus. The goddess wraps him in a mist and spirits him away, setting him down in his own bedroom in

Troy. She then appears to Helen in the guise of an elderly handmaiden and tells her that Paris is waiting for her. Helen recognizes the goddess in

disguise and asks if she is being led once more to ruin. For Aphrodite had bewitched her into leaving her husband Menelaus to run off with Paris.

She dares to suggest that Aphrodite go to Paris herself. Suddenly furious, the goddess warns Helen not to go too far, lest she be abandoned to the

hatred of Greeks and Trojans alike. "I'll hate you," says the mercurial goddess, "as much as I love you now." Even though Zeus's queen Hera and

Aphrodite are on different sides in the Trojan War, the goddess of love loans Hera her magical girdle in order to distract Zeus from the fray. This

garment has the property of causing men (and gods) to fall hopelessly in love with whomever is wearing it. Homer calls Aphrodite "the Cyprian",

and many of her attributes may have come from Asia via Cyprus (and Cythera) in Mycenaean times. These almost certainly mixed with a

preexisting Hellenic or Aegean goddess. The ancient Greeks themselves felt that Aphrodite was both Greek and foreign.

JASON

Aphrodite involved herself on other occasions in the affairs of mortal heroes. When Jason asked permission of the king of Colchis to remove theGolden Fleece from the grove in which it hung, the king was clearly unwilling. So the goddess Hera, who sponsored Jason's quest, asked her

fellow-Olympian Aphrodite to intervene. The love goddess made the king's daughter Medea fall in love with Jason, and Medea proved instrumental

in Jason's success.

AENEAS

Another time, Zeus punished Aphrodite for beguiling her fellow gods into inappropriate romances. He caused her to become infatuated with the

mortal Anchises. That's how she came to be the mother of Aeneas. She protected this hero during the Trojan War and its aftermath, when Aeneas

quested to Italy and became the mythological founder of a line of Roman emperors. A minor Italic goddess named Venus became identified with

Aphrodite, and that's how she got her Roman name. It is as Venus that she appears in the Aeneiad, the poet Virgil's epic of the founding of Rome.

And on still another occasion,

HEPHAESTUS

The love goddess was married to the homely craftsman-god Hephaestus. She was unfaithful to him with Ares, and Homer relates in the

Odyssey how Hephaestus had his revenge.

IN ART

Elsewhere in classical art she has no distinctive attributes other than her beauty. Flowers and vegetation motifs suggest her connection to fertility.

Aphrodite was associated with the dove. Another of her sacred birds was the goose, on which she is seen to ride in a vase painting from antiquity.

Hesiod's reference to Aphrodite's having been born from the sea inspired the Renaissance artist Botticelli's famous painting of the goddess on a

giant scallop shell. Equally if not better known is the Venus de Milo, a statue which lost its arms in ancient times.

WAR GODDESS?

The ancient travel writer Pausanias describes a number of statues of Aphrodite dressed for battle, many of them in Sparta. Given the manner in

which the militaristic Spartans raised their girls, it is not surprising that they conceived of a female goddess in military atti re. She also would have

donned armaments to defend cities, such as Corinth, who adopted her as their patroness. This is not to say that she was a war goddess, although

some have seen her as such and find significance in her pairing with the war god Ares in mythology and worship. The two most recent editions of

"The Oxford Classical Dictionary" are at variance over this aspect of the goddess. The 1970 edition sees her as a goddess of war and traces this to

her Oriental roots. It is true that she has resemblances to Astarte, who is a goddess of war as well as fertility. The 1996 edition of "The Oxford

Classical Dictionary", on the other hand, offers several counterarguments. It sees her being paired with Ares, for instance, not because they are

similarly warlike but precisely because love and war are opposites. In any case, Aphrodite's primary function was to preside over reproduction,

since this was essential for the survival of the community.


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There were many OTHER GODS besides the

Olympians. A number of them were said to live atop

Mount Olympus with the supreme twelve. For

instance, Heracles was made into a god when he

died, and he was given the goddess Hebe as his wife.

They lived together in a palace on Olympus. Only the

Olympians themselves, however, met in supreme

council, seated together in Zeus's royal hall on twelveornate thrones.

For that matter, the composition of the Olympians

changed over time. Originally Hestia, goddess of the

hearth, was one of the twelve, but she grew tired of

the godly bickering and gladly gave her place to the

god of wine, Dionysus. On the other hand, Hades,

god of the dead and brother of Zeus and Poseidon,

isn't included in our assembly because he dwelt in the

Underworld and not on Olympus. His Roman namewas Pluto.

PAN

Pan (who is pictured above in the act of sneaking into

a gathering of the twelve Olympians) was a god of

shepherds and flocks. Pan was the son of Hermes

and a nymph. He was born with the legs and horns of

a goat, which caused his own mother to spurn him.

Nor was the adult god more popular with the nymphs.

Echo ran away from him and lost her voice as a

consequence, being condemned only to repeat the

words of others. Another fleeing nymph was

transformed into a reed, which inspired Pan to invent

the shepherd's pipe of bound reeds of varying

lengths. Pan was considered to be the cause of the

sudden fear that sometimes comes for no reason,

especially in lonely places. That's why it's called

"panic".


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ARES (AIR-eez; Roman name Mars) was the

god of war, or more precisely of warlike frenzy.

Though an immortal deity, he was bested byHeracles in battle and was almost killed when

stuffed into a jar by two giants. When another

hero wounded him during the Trojan War, he

received scant sympathy from his father Zeus.

In appearance, Ares was handsome and cruel.

He is often depicted carrying a bloodstained

spear. His throne on Mount Olympus was saidto be covered in human skin.

The Roman god Mars, with whom Ares was

identified, was the father of Romulus and

Remus, the mythological founders of Rome.

Thus he was more important to the Romans

than his Greek counterpart. He was also more

dignified.


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HEPHAESTUS (he-FEE-stus or he-FESS-

tus; Roman name Vulcan) was the lame

god of fire and crafts or the two together,

hence of blacksmiths. Hephaestus was the

son of Zeus and Hera or, in some

accounts, of Hera alone. He limped

because he was born lame, which caused

his mother to throw him off Mount

Olympus. Or in other accounts he

interceded in a fight between Zeus and

Hera, and Zeus took him by the foot and

threw him from Olympus to the earth far

below.

Hephaestus accomplished numerous

prodigies of craftsmanship, such as the

marvelous palaces that he built for thegods atop Mount Olympus, or the armor

that he made for Achilles during the siege

of Troy (the description of which occupies a

great many lines of Homer's epic of the

Trojan War).

Hephaestus also created the first woman,

Pandora, at the command of Zeus, in

retaliation for the various tricks by which

the Titan Prometheus had benefited mortalmen at the expense of the gods. Pandora

was given to the Titan's brother,

Epimetheus, as his wife. For her dowry she

brought a jar filled with evils from which

she removed the lid, thereby afflicting men

for the first time with hard work and

sickness. Only hope remained inside the

jar.


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ARTEMIS (AR-ti-mis; Roman name

Diana) was the virgin goddess of the

hunt. She helped women in childbirth but

also brought sudden death with her

arrows. Artemis and her brother Apollo

were the children of Zeus and Leto. In

some versions of their myth, Artemis was

born first and helped her mother to

deliver Apollo.

Niobe, queen of Thebes, once boasted

that she was better than Leto because

she had many children while the

goddess had but two. Artemis and Apollo

avenged this insult to their mother by

killing all or most of Niobe's children with

their arrows. The weeping Niobe wastransformed into stone, in which form

she continued to weep.

When Apollo noticed that Artemis was

spending a great deal of time hunting

with the giant Orion, he decided to put

an end to the relationship. He challenged

Artemis to prove her skill at archery by

shooting at an object floating far out at

sea. Her shot was perfect. The targetturned out to be the head of Orion.

Artemis is generally depicted as a young

woman clad in buckskins, carrying a bow

and a quiver of arrows. She is often

accompanied by wild creatures such as

a stag or she-bear.


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DEMETER (dee-MEE-tur;

Roman name Ceres) was the

goddess of agriculture. Demeter

as the sister of Zeus and the

mother of Persephone.

Persephone was gathering

flowers in a meadow one day

when a huge crack opened upin the earth and Hades, King of

the Dead, emerged from the

Underworld. He seized

Persephone and carried her off

in his chariot, back down to his

his realm below, where she

became his queen. Demeter

was heartbroken. She

wandered the length andbreadth of the earth in search of

her daughter, during which time

the crops withered and it

became perpetual winter.

At length Hades was persuaded

to surrender Persephone for

one half of every year, the

spring and summer seasons

when flowers bloom and the

earth bears fruit once more.

The half year that Persephone

spends in the Underworld as

Hades' queen coincides with

the barren season.

When depicted in art, Demeter

is often shown carrying a sheaf

of grain.


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HERMES (HUR-meez; Roman name Mercury) was the

messenger of the gods and guide of dead souls to the

Underworld. A prankster and inventive genius from birth,

Hermes aided the heroes Odysseus and Perseus in their

quests. Hermes was the son Zeus and a mountain nymph. As

a newborn he was remarkably precocious. On his very first

day of life, he found the empty shell of a tortoise andperceived its utility as a sounding chamber. Stringing sinews

across it, he created the first lyre.

Hermes was known for his helpfulness to mankind, both in his

capacity as immortal herald and on his own initiative. When

Perseus set out to face the Gorgon Medusa, Hermes aided

him in the quest. According to one version of the myth, he

loaned the hero his own magic sandals, which conferred upon

the wearer the ability to fly. Some say that Hermes loaned

Perseus a helmet of invisibility as well. Also known as thehelmet of darkness, this was the same headgear that Hermes

himself had worn when he vanquished the giant Hippolytus.

This was on the occasion when the gargantuan sons of Earth

rose up in revolt against the gods of Olympus. Hermes'

symbol of office as divine messenger was his staff, or

caduceus. This was originally a willow wand with entwined

ribbons, traditional badge of the herald. But the ribbons were

eventually depicted as snakes. To support this mythologically,

a story evolved that Hermes used the caduceus to separatetwo fighting snakes which forthwith twined themselves

together in peace. It was Hermes' job to convey dead souls to

the Underworld. And as patron of travelers, he was often

shown in a wide-brimmed sun hat of straw. Hermes was

known to the Romans as Mercury. His most famous depiction,

a statue by Bellini, shows him alight on one foot, wings at his

heels, the snaky caduceus in hand and, on his head, a rather

stylized combination helmet-of-darkness and sun hat.


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DIONYSUS (dye-oh-NYE-sus; Roman name Bacchus) was the god of wine. Dionysus was the son of

Zeus and the mortal heroine Semele. Dionysus rescued Ariadne after she had been abandoned by

Theseus. Dionysus also saved his mother from the Underworld, after Zeus showed her his true nature as

storm god and consumed her in lightning.

It was Dionysus who granted Midas the power to turn whatever he touched into gold, then was kind

enough to take the power back when it proved inconvenient.


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POSEIDON (puh-SYE-dun or poh-SYE-dun; Roman name Neptune) was the god of

the sea, earthquakes and horses. Although he was officially one of the supreme gods

of Mount Olympus, he spent most of his time in his watery domain. Poseidon was

brother to Zeus and Hades. These three gods divided up creation. Zeus was ruler of

the sky, Hades had dominion of the Underworld and Poseidon was given all water, both

fresh and salt.

Although there were various rivers personified as gods, these would have been

technically under Poseidon's sway. Similarly, Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, wasn't

really considered on a par with Poseidon, who was known to drive his chariot through

the waves in unquestioned dominance. Poseidon had married Nereus's daughter, thesea-nymph Amphitrite. In dividing heaven, the watery realm and the subterranean land

of the dead, the Olympians agreed that the earth itself would be ruled jointly, with Zeusas king. This led to a number of territorial disputes among the gods. Poseidon vied with

Athena to be patron deity of Athens. The god demonstrated his power and

benevolence by striking the Acropolis with his three-pronged spear, which caused a

spring of salt water to emerge. Athena, however, planted an olive tree, which was seen

as a more useful favor. Her paramount importance to the Athenians is seen in her

magnificent temple, the Parthenon, which still crowns the Acropolis. The people of

Athens were careful, all the same, to honor Poseidon as well (as soon as his anger

calmed down and he withdrew the flood of seawater with which he ravaged the land

after his loss in the contest with Athena). Poseidon was father of the hero Theseus,

although the mortal Aegeus also claimed this distinction. Theseus was happy to havetwo fathers, enjoying the lineage of each when it suited him. Thus he became king of

Athens by virtue of being Aegeus's son, but availed himself of Poseidon's parentage in

facing a challenge handed him by King Minos of Crete. This monarch threw his signet

ring into the depths of the sea and dared Theseus to retrieve it. The hero dove beneath

the waves and not only found the ring but was given a crown by Poseidon's wife,

Amphitrite. Poseidon was not so well-disposed toward another famous hero. Because

Odysseus blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus, who was Poseidon's son, the god not only

delayed the hero's homeward return from the Trojan War but caused him to face

enormous perils. At one point he whipped up the sea with his trident and caused a

storm so severe that Odysseus was shipwrecked. Poseidon similarly cursed the wife of

King Minos. Minos had proved his divine right to rule Crete by calling on Poseidon to

send a bull from the sea, which the king promised to sacrifice. Poseidon sent the bull,

but Minos liked it too much to sacrifice it. So Poseidon asked Aphrodite, the goddess of

love, to make Minos's queen, Pasiphae, fall in love with the bull. The result was the

monstrous Minotaur, half-man, half-bull. As god of horses, Poseidon often adopted the

shape of a steed. It is not certain that he was in this form when he wooed Medusa. But

when Perseus later killed the Gorgon, the winged horse Pegasus sprang from her

severed neck. Poseidon sometimes granted the shape-shifting power to others. And he

ceded to the request of the maiden Caenis that she be transformed into the

invulnerable, male warrior Caeneus.


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ATHENA (a-THEE-nuh; Roman name Minerva) was the

goddess of crafts and the domestic arts and also those of

war. She was the patron goddess of Athens. Her symbol was

the owl. She was originally the Great Goddess in the form of

a bird. By the late Classic, she had come to be regarded as a

goddess of wisdom Zeus was once married to Metis, a

daughter of Ocean who was renowned for her wisdom. When

Metis became pregnant, Zeus was warned by Earth that ason born to Metis would overthrow him, just as he had

usurped his own father's throne.

So Zeus swallowed Metis. In time he was overcome with a

splitting headache and summoned help from the craftsman

god Hephaestus (or, some say, the Titan Prometheus).

Hephaestus cleaved Zeus's forehead with an ax, and Athena

sprang forth fully armed. The poet Hesiod tells the story to

account for Zeus's great wisdom, since he can be said to

have literally incorporated Metis. One can also read into themyth wishful thinking on the part of the mythmakers who

replaced the worship of the Great Goddess, mother of all

growing things, for that of the male sky-god Zeus. Zeus gave

birth to Athena himself, as if to say, Who needs a woman in

order to bring forth new life? Athena aided the heroes

Perseus, Jason, Cadmus, Odysseus and Heracles in their

quests. Both Athena and Poseidon wanted to be patron deity

of Athens. To prove her worthiness for the honor, Athena

caused an olive tree to spring up on the citadel of Athens, the

Acropolis. Poseidon sought to outdo her by striking the

ground with his trident and causing a spring of water to gush

forth. But as he was god of the sea, the water was salty.

Athena's gift to the Athenians was considered to be more

useful, so she became the city's patron deity. Athena

sponsored Perseus in his quest to slay Medusa because she

wanted the Gorgon's head to decorate her shield.


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APOLLO (uh-POL-oh; Roman name Apollo) was the god of prophesy,

music and healing. Like most of his fellow Olympians, Apollo did not

hesitate to intervene in human affairs. It was he who brought about the

demise of the mighty Achilles. Of all the heroes besieging the city of

Troy in the Trojan War, Achilles was the best fighter by far. He hadeasily defeated the Trojan captain Hector in single combat. But Apollo

helped Hector's brother Paris slay Achilles with an arrow.

When someone died suddenly, he was said to have been struck down

by one of Apollo's arrows. Homer's epic of the Trojan War begins with

the god causing a plague by raining arrows down upon the Greek

camp. As god of music, Apollo is often depicted playing the lyre. He did

not invent this instrument, however, but was given it by Hermes in

compensation for cattle theft. Some say that Apollo did invent the lute,

although he was best known for his skill on the lyre. He won several

musical contests by playing this instrument. In one case he bested

Pan, who competed on his own invention, the shepherd's pipe. On this

occasion, King Midas had the bad sense to say that he preferred Pan's

music, which caused Apollo to turn his ears into those of an ass.

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