Greek gods represented many things, and some came from many other religions surrounding Greece. However, they all had a job, and they all have many worshippers depending on everyone’s situation. If you were near death you might pray to Hades, if you were a blacksmith wishing to craft great armor or weapons, Hephaestus is your god. Theres a god for any problem, which is why they closely related to the nature of man. Each god has a job to make people’s problems go away, and to punish others. If the punishment is unfit then Zeus can keep that god in check, keeping order, being king of the gods, associated with lightning. After overthrowing his father Cronus, he took charge, and gave jobs to the current gods of that time, such as giving Poseidon rule over the sea, and Hades the underworld, giving order to the world, ending his fathers chaotic rule.
Aphrodite represented the nature of attraction, fertility, and love. If you weren’t fertile, it was considered a punishment from Aphrodite for your sins. Greeks with a strong desire to meet a man or woman would pray to her. She’d most likely punish those who weren't faithful, even though it was a fact that Aphrodite herself cheated on her husband multiple times, and had five children with Ares, the god of violence. “Aphrodite, the enchanting goddess of beauty and love, was married to the ugly, deformed god of fire, Hephaestus, Ares Brother. Ares and Aphrodite fell in love and had an affair.” A bit odd that these two would be in any love, the god of violence with the god of love, but opposites attract.
Apollo had a wide range of representation, more than most gods. He dealt with light, arts, knowledge, medicine, plague, darkness, prophecy, and poetry. Being the god of so many subjects, inclu...
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...ent to, and they each did their own region, Asia, Europe, and Greek were all split amongst them.
Greek religion was amazingly complex but for the most part made sense. The only problem with it is they had a few gods that were taken from other nations, and mixed a few stories with the original gods. It also gave anyone, no matter what your situation, a god to worship.
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(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.indepthinfo.com/greek-gods/hephaestus.htm
Skidmore, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/sisyphus.html
Skidmore, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mythweb.com/gods/Poseidon_easy.html
From the beginning, the gods emerged from “cosmic forces” and slowly defined their individual personalities and forms, “their functions articulated in relation to each other” (Clay 105). The authority of Zeus forces the rest of the gods to keep their powers balanced by filling certain niches. In the Eumenides, Pythia begins by singing a prayer to honor the gods. Although she first honors Gaia, Pythia spends a few lines talking about Apollo and his relation to Zeus. When she calls on Zeus, she calls him “the Fulfiller, the highest god” (Aeschylus, Eumenides, p. 112, 17-19). Her approval and reverence towards Zeus is made clear immediately. Even before that, Pythia acknowledges that Apollo was “Zeus inspired” and the “spokesman of Zeus,” thus making him higher up in her hierarchy of gods (Aeschylus, Eumenides, p. 112, 17-19). Zeus is known for his many godly offspring who were all “Zeus inspired”. Along with Apollo, god of music and arts, this list also includes Athena, goddess of wisdom and war. Being made from the same cosmic forces, all of the gods developed their own strengths to fulfil certain niches (Clay 106) At the end of this individualization process, there is the “emergence of a stable, ordered, and harmonious cosmos” (Clay 106). As a result, new standards of conforming and being uniform became apparent through the
The ancient Greeks practiced a religion that was in effect, a building block to many ensuing pagan religions. This religion revolved around their reverence to the gods. Essentially, the Greeks worshipped numerous gods, making their religion polytheistic. They believed that exercising the opportunity to choose between a wide array of gods to worship offered them a great sense of freedom that they treasured. After all, the Greeks were known for their intellectual distinction of which their means of worship played a huge part. Each city-state, or polis, thus had an affiliated god who protected and guided its residents. Within a given polis, the belief in common gods unified the people. Ultimately, the Greeks yearned for this unity and order in the universe, which is a characteristic that is not unlike that of people today. It might seem contradictory that they believed in many gods and sought organization at the same time, for larger numbers are inherently unstable. But, to the god-fearing Greeks, each god represented a different facet of life that together upheld an organized universe if each of these gods was properly appeased. To satisfy these gods, the Greeks participated in activities such as prayer and sacrifice and erected divine temples and centers for oracles in honor of specific gods. There is evidence of this institutionalization early on in the reign of the Olympian gods, thus forming the Olympian religion.
In the Greek society women were treated very differently than they are today. Women in ancient Greece were not allowed to own property, participate in politics, and they were under control of the man in their lives. The goddess Aphrodite did not adhere to these social norms and thus the reason the earthly women must comply with the societal structure that was set before them. Aphrodite did not have a father figure according to Hesiod, and therefore did not have a man in her life to tell her what to do. She was a serial adulteress and has many children with many men other than her husband. She was not the only goddess from the ancient Greek myths to cause doubt in the minds of men. Gaia and the Titan Rhea rise up against their husbands in order to protect their children. Pandora, another woman in the Greek myths, shows that all evil comes from woman. Aphrodite, Gaia, Rhea, and Pandora cause the ancient Greek men to be suspicious of women because of her mischievous and wild behavior.
She places in people the desire to have sexual relations and causes fear in men of the power of seduction by women. Her marriage to her husband was ignored as she had affairs with immortal and mortal men. Her infidelity in her marriage places her on the side with Greek men, rather than Greek women because only Greek men were able to cheat on their wives; not the other way around. In conclusion, the three important rules discussed in this paper that Greek women were required to obey, can be seen in the myths of the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Whether or not the Greek goddesses obeyed or did not obey these rules, their importance to the Greek culture is ever strong.
Hermes (Latin name Mercury) is the messenger of the gods. He is the fastest of all the gods and goddesses. He is the son of Zeus and Maia. He is a guide who knew the way to the underworld. So he would show the dead souls the way to the underworld. Hermes is also known as the patron of traders, merchants, thieves and everyone who lived by their wits.
Mythology was an integral part of the lives of all ancient peoples. The myths of
Aphrodite is known as the Greek Goddess (Roman Venus) of love, desire, beauty, fertility, the sea, and vegetation. It is said that when Cronus was castrated by Uranus, and his genitalia were thrown into the sea, Aphrodite was thus born and arose on a large shell, which West Wind then carried to Cyprus where she was clothed by the Season, thus her name being translated "foam-risen." The sea nymphs dressed her and adorned her with flowers and gold. She now represents Erotic Love as a form of Divine influence, which has resulted in many men becoming capable of falling in love with her.
As I said before, Zeus is the father of all gods and humans. He represents the idea of an independent moral code that all humans and immortals must obey. If any god or mortal did not follow this moral code, Zeus would enforce justice and watch over the punishment of the wrongdoers (Cunningham and Reich 33). Although Zeus is known for representing a moral code, Zeus’ behavior was far from moral. “Zeus was subject to pleasure, pain, grief, and anger, but he was most susceptible to the power of Eros – love, which often got the objects of his desire in a lot of trouble with his wife, Hera. Zeus wa...
The Archaic Greeks and Hebrews, two nations of people with very distinct worldviews, were driven to make sense of their vast ever-changing world while trying to survive it. The earlier ancient Hebrews lived nomadically, facing turmoil and enslavement. The Archaic Greeks, coming out of an isolated dark age, began to civilize and grow. Despite having over a millennia difference between their emergences, the need for social and political structure stood paramount. The key differences between the cultures are the way they interpreted and used their separate religions, governed themselves, and created a standard by which to live by.
Over population forced men to move away from the overcrowding into lowly populated areas which caused Greek colonies to spread from the Mediterranean to the Black sea. Each of the 1500 colonies was considered its own city-state, which meant they were not ruled by other city-states but instead were free to rule themselves. After some time the independent city-states began to create other things to sell or trade other than the basic farming goods. The people sold and traded pottery, cloth, and metalwork which even made some of the people wealthy. Some of these self made people hated the unruly power of the political people in charge so they joined forces with the hoplites (soldiers), who were trained in a formation called phalanx which just means they stood shoulder to shoulder to create one massive shield to protect one another, so that they could put a new chief in charge. Unforunatly these new leaders, called tyrants, were no better than the men they took over for. Some of the leaders , were magnificent and actually made a huge impact on their communities. Some examples of the leaders and their accomplishment are Pheidon who started a system of weights and measures, and Theagenes that brought running water to his city. Even though not all the leaders were bad , when the Classical period came so did a new democratic government that replaced all the
She tempted many, even Zeus: “she beguiles even his wise heart . . . mates him with mortal women, unknown to Hera” (Hesiod). The goddess of love, “she was a particular favourite with the city’s many prostitutes but also supervised the sexual life of married women” (Blundell, 1998). To curb her promiscuity, Aphrodite was married to Hephaistos (god of the forge), who cared deeply for her, and made he...
Aphrodite and Athena were both great powerful women who were revered as goddesses in greek mythology. They both were greatly worshipped, however due to their distinct personality traits they were worshipped and spoken about and very different ways. Both goddesses are immortal and female, and both seem to distinguish the incongruous gender roles between men and women throughout ancient Greece. What makes these two goddesses interesting, however, is their differences, which will determine how they will be reflected in myth. On one hand you have Athena, the androgynous goddess of war and wisdom. On the other you have Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sexuality. During this time, even among the immortals, women were seen as inferior and less
One of the best summarizes of Greeks’ gods attitude toward human is the claim of Aphrodite in Euripides’ Hippolytus that she will treat well the people who revere her power, but will “trip up” those who are proud towards her, and this pri...
Throughout all Greek myths, the gods were always created in the image of man. This shows how Greeks viewed men in a positive way and thought that they were more powerful and superior to women. In addition, they thought men and women are unequal and that men were given jobs that required more physical strength. Although women played a role in Greek myths, they were not as important as men. Women had a more easier and feminine jobs than men. In the Greek creation myth, we see Hades as the god of underworld and Aphrodite as the goddess of love. The difference between th...