Gods in Classical Myth

Margaret Kim
  Greek Polytheism and Humanism
 Human but greater than human
 Immortal
 Live in the upper sphere
The Gods  Ambrosia for food
 Nectar for drink
 Ichor flows in their veins
  Primordial beginning: Gaia (mother earth) and Uranus (father sky)

Gods:  Titans and minor Titans: Offspring of Gaia and Uranus and the
offspring of some of these offspring
Generations  Olympians: Pantheon of 12 gods on Mt. Olympus presided over by
Zeus + god of the underworld Hades
  Mnemosyne
 Tethys
 Theia
 Phoebe
Titans:  Rhea
Offspring of  Themis

Gaia and  Oceanus

 Hyperion
Uranus  Coeus
 Cronus
 Crius
 Iapetus
  Hyperion’s offspring: Helius, Selene, Eos
 Coeus’ offspring: Lelantos, Leto, Asteria
 Iapetus’ offspring: Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Menoetius

Minor Titans  Oceanus’ offspring: Metis

 Crius’ offspring: Astraeus, Pallas, Perses
  Cronus overthrows Uranus to establish his rule as the head of the
Titans
Sons  Cronus then swallows all of his children as soon as they are born,
since he finds out from Gaia and Uranus that his son will overthrow
overthrow him as he had overthrown his own father a generation before.
fathers  At the birth of Zeus, the youngest, Rhea gives Cronus a rock to
swallow and keeps the baby away from Cronus.
 Zeus overthrows Cronus to establish his rule as the head of the
Olympians
  Hebe (Juventas): Youth; cupbearer to the gods; same function as
cupbearer as Ganymede, sometimes known as Ganymeda
Minor gods on  Iris: Messenger god; the rainbow
Olympus  Themis: Justice; one of the Titans; prophetess at Delphi; authority
on proper order, correct custom, tradition, etiquette, and protocol
 1. Zeus (Jupiter)
2. Hera (Juno)
3. Poseidon (Neptune)
4. Dionysus (Bacchus)
5. Hephaestus (Vulcan)
12 Major Gods 6. Ares (Mars)
on Mt. 7. Apollo (Phoebus / Apollo)
8. Artemis (Diana)
Olympus 9. Demeter (Ceres)
10. Aphrodite (Venus)
11. Athena (Minerva)
12. Hermes (Mercury)
13. Hades: Not on Olympus but in the Underworld (Pluto)
Gods as
Primordial
Forces
Gaia and
Uranus: Family
Tree
Descent from
Titans
Zeus, his
women, and
their offspring
  Prometheus as creator of man OR as champion of man
 Steals fire to give to man
 Champions man in dispute against the gods
Prometheus  In revenge Zeus creates woman
and  Pandora and her box
Humankind  Prometheus: Before-thinker
 Epimetheus: After-thinker
Jupiter of
Smyrna
The Louvre (middle 2nd century
C.E.)
  Zeus impregnates Io, a priestess of Zeus’ wife Hera and the daughter
of the river Inachus.
 Zeus attempts to hide Io’s pregnancy by turning her into a white cow
 Hera asks Zeus for the white cow and sends Argus (Panoptes), the
monster who is all eyes (some say 100 eyes) to watch over her
 To free Io from Hera’s watchful malice, Zeus sends Hermes to kill
Argus. Hermes goes to the monster, sings him a lullaby until all of his
Zeus and Io eyes are closed. Hermes then beheads Argus, and from then on is
known as the Argeiphontes (“Argus-killer”)
 Hera also places Argus’ eyes in the feather of the peacock, her
favorite bird
 Conflation of Hera and Io
 Io is the ancestress of many great heroes as foretold her by
Prometheus: Her son is Epaphus, king of Egypt, and Perseus and
Heracles are her descendants
  Athena Pallas (Pallas meaning “virgin”; Pallas also the name of
Athena’s best friend, whom she killed accidentally in a quarrel)
 Zeus impregnates Metis (daughter of Titan Oceanus and his sister
Tethys)
 Zeus finds out from Gaea that Metis’ first child would be a girl and
her second child would be a son that overthrows Zeus, repeating
the family stories of the earliest generations of gods
 Zeus swallows Metis whole while she is in her first pregnancy
Athena
 Zeus then suffers an unbearable headache. Hermes correctly
diagnoses Zeus, tells Hephaestus to take a hammer and split open
Zeus’ skull.
 Athena born out of Zeus’ skull, with a full set of armor
 Because of the way she was born, Athena is the goddess of
wisdom
Parthenon
Today
Athena
Parthenos
Modern reconstruction
  Born with a deformity in the foot and rejected by Hera at birth
 Thrown into the ocean, he is picked up by Thetis (daughter of
Nereus and granddaughter of Titan Tethys) and raised by Thetis
(mother of Achilles)
 Another account: Thrown by Zeus from the heavens as he tries to
fend for his mother (Hera), and falling into the island of Lemnos,
Hephaestus he is raised there and trained to be a master craftsman by the
Sintians
 Lame from birth, or lame from his second fall from the heavens by
Zeus
 Greek ambivalence towards craftsmen and metal workers: These
workers were despised by the Greeks as low-class, but they also
made the greatest achievements in Greek art
  The intimate relationship between love and war
 Marriage of Hephaestus and Aphrodite as a mockery and
perversion of the ideal marriage, the union of beauty and beast
 The deadly seriousness of Hephaestus in his art and in his love as a
Ares and husband of Aphrodite
Aphrodite  Hephaestus sets a contraption to catch Ares and Aphrodite in bed
together
 Aphrodite: Fathered by Zeus (according to Homer), or born from
the foam of the severed genitals of Uranus when Cronus cuts them
off and throws them into the sea
Birth of Venus:
Botticelli (late
15th century)
Venus and
Mars:
Tintoretto
16th century
Mars and
Venus
surprised by
Vulcan:
Guillemot 19th
century
  Twin of Artemis (Diana), son of Leto
 Dragon-slayer, god of music, medicine, archery (along with
Artemis)
 Pastoral
 Later function as Sun-God: Conflation with Hyperion and Helius
 Tragic loves: Cumaean Sibyl, Cassandra, Daphne, Coronis of Larissa
Apollo  Coronis gives birth to Asclepius after Apollo mortally wounds her
for having an affair
 Father of Asclepius, who takes over the function of the god of
medicine
 Oracle at Delphi
 Classical ideal: Order (disorder), rationality (violence), harmony
(passion)
Apollo
Apollo Belvedere (ca. 120 – 140
C.E
Apollo and
Daphne
Antonio de Pallaiolo, late 15th
century
Apollo and
Daphne
Bernini, 1622 – 1625
Helius
(British
Museum; Attic
origin)
The Birth of
Asclepius: By
Caesarean
Section?
Alessandro
Beneditti, Re
de medica
(1549)
Oracle of
Apollo at
Delphi
Pythia at
Delphi:
Aegeus (father
of Theseus)
before Themis
  Associated with Thebes and its royal family
 Grandson of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and his wife Harmonia,
daughter of Ares, nephew of Ino, Agave, and Autonoe, daughters
of Cadmus and Harmonia and Semele’s sister
 God of the grape vine, wine, vegetation, nature and ecstasy
Dionysus  The bestial and the sublime at the same time: the counter-Apollo
 Married to Ariadne at Naxos
 Ecstasy and mysticism: Irrational, disorderly,
  Mother Semele tricked by her own jealous sisters (or jealous Hera)
into asking Zeus for a favor
 Zeus makes “hasty oath” or “rash promise”
Zeus and  Semele asks Zeus to show himself to her in his real divine splendor
Semele  When Semele is burned to a crisp, Zeus rescues the fetus from his
womb and sews the fetus into his thigh
 Dionysus born a few months later: Known as the “twice-born”
  Largely female followers
 Possession by the god of his followers
 Rending apart of the sacrificial animal and the eating of raw flesh
 Omophagy as the way to achieve ritual communion with the god
 Earliest form of omophagy: cannibalism
Dionysiac
 Ecstasy and mysticism: Wine coursing through you veins, you
religion throb with the excitement of nature, and achieve ecstatic
communion with your god and attain a mystical understanding of
yourself and the divine
 The gender of his followers as a reflection on society in the ancient
world
Bacchic Orgy
Death of
Pentheus
Athenian kylix
ca. 5th century
B.C.E.
Dionysus and
Ariadne:
Titian
16th century
  Aphrodite
 Hera (also goddess of motherhood and birthing)

Fertility gods  Demeter

 Artemis: also goddess of the moon, goddess of chastity
Artemis of
Ephesus
Ephesus Archaeological
Museum (1st century C.E.)
Actaeon and
Diana
Titian
16th century
Actaeon and
Diana
Titian
16th century
  Demeter and Persephone
Resurrection  Dionysus
gods  Orpheus
  Hermaphroditus: Son of Hermes and Aphrodites; lusted after by
the nymph Salmacis
Sexuality  Priapus, child of Aphrodite and Dionysus or Hermes, a popular god
with the Romans and represented as a giant phallus
Priapus:
Roman
painting
  Demeter and the worship of Demeter at Eleusis: Eleusinian
mysteries
 Belief in immortality and the life after
 Rape of Persephone by Hades: Young girl who dies before
marriage is known as bride of Hades
Demeter and  Demeter arranges for Persephone’s return above ground upon the
condition that she does not consume anything in the underworld:
Persephone But Persephone bites into Hades’ offer of pomegranate
 Persephone as Death’s proper partner, with whom she rules over
the land of the dead
 Story of Demeter and Persephone explains the seasons: Growth
on this earth while Persephone on the ground with Demeter, and
the lack of harvest when Persephone is underground with Hades