GREEK
MYTHOLOGY
GODS AND GODDESSES
The gods, their myths, and why
they're worshipped.
Meet the Greek Gods and Goddesses:
I’ve realized I’ve started doing long lists of pantheons to augment and expand my Absolutely Massive List of Gods, so I figure that I should return to my roots and do a similar list of Greek gods before I continue onward. I’m mostly going by memory for most of this information, but aside from that, my main source is Theoi.com. The Olympians and Other Major Gods: Zeus: The King of the Gods, god of the sky and storms. Zeus is the youngest of the six children of Kronos, and the only one who he didn’t swallow. His mother, Rhea, put a stone wrapped like a baby in his place and spirited him away to the Dictaean Cave on Crete. Zeus eventually overthrew his father and became the Lord of the Universe. He is worshipped as the god of rulership, divine justice, destiny, and fatherhood. He is well known for his infidelity, and his many divine and semi-divine children. His sacred animal is the eagle, and he is also associated with bulls. He wields thunderbolts, the most powerful and terrifying weapon of the gods. Hera: The Queen of the Gods, the goddess of marriage and fidelity, Zeus’ sister and his wife. She’s best known for being extremely jealous of Zeus’ other lovers, which would be understandable, except that she takes out her anger on the innocent women and on Zeus’ children. Many myths are kicked into motion by her actions in retaliation. She is worshipped as a goddess of marriage, childbirth, political power, and womanhood. Her sacred animal is the peacock. Poseidon: Zeus’s brother, an Olympian and the god of the sea. He rules as king over many other sea gods, alongside his wife Amphitrite. He is thought to cause natural disasters, especially floods and earthquakes, by striking the ground with his trident — hence, his epithet “earth-shaker.” He is worshipped as a god of safe sea travel. His sacred animal is the horse, which he is said to have invented from breaking waves, and he is also associated with all sea creatures. Demeter: Zeus’s sister, an Olympian and the goddess of the grain harvest. She taught humanity how to cultivate land and gather crops. This is because she fell into such despair after her daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, the land itself became desolate and barren. She had to teach humans how to survive during the long winters while her daughter was away from her. She is worshipped as a goddess of abundance and nourishment. Her sacred animal is the sow, and she is also associated with snakes. Hephaestus: The god of blacksmithing, an Olympian and the son of Zeus and Hera. He became lame when his parents were having an argument and he sided with one of them, angering the other, who threw him off Olympus. His legs were permanently damaged, but he makes up for it with his powerful arms and genius skills as an inventor and artist. He makes most of the gods’ regalia and magical weapons. He is worshipped as a god of artisans and smiths, and also as the god of fire. Volcanoes were said to be his forges. His sacred animal is the donkey. Aphrodite: The goddess of love, sex, and beauty, one of the Olympians. There are different accounts of her origins, but she’s usually considered to have sprung from sea foam when the severed genitals of the sky, Ouranos, fell into the sea. She is unhappily married to Hephaestus, but is in love with Ares. She is mainly worshipped as a goddess of sex and relationships, but also personifies celestial divine love. She is even worshipped as a war goddess in Sparta and some other places. Her sacred animal is the dove. Athena: The goddess of wisdom, war, and craftsmanship, an Olympian and daughter of Zeus. While Ares personifies the frenzy of battle, Athena is the goddess of the political and strategic aspects of war. She bears her father’s magic shield/breastplate, the Aegis. She is also the goddess of arts and crafts, especially those considered “women’s work,” and weaving in particular. She is associated with science, industry, innovation, and invention — she invented many useful tools like the chariot, the plow, the bridle, and the loom. She is the patron goddess of the city of Athens, and considered a protectress of civilization and law. She is known for her prudence and good counsel, and in mythology, she frequently helps heroes out. She is worshipped for victory and courage in war, prudence when making decisions, protection, prosperity, health, and peace. Her sacred animal is the owl. Apollo: The god of light, archery, reason, music, healing, disease, and prophecy; an Olympian, the son of Zeus and Leto and the twin brother of Artemis. Apollo is the god of illumination in a literal and figurative sense. He inspires musicians and poets, he reveals the truth with logic, he drives off evil and punishes the wicked. He is also particularly associated with oracular divination; he won for himself the most famous oracle in Greece, the Pythia of Delphi, by slaying the dragon Python. He personifies the elegance and order of civilization, while his sister personifies the wilderness. He is also the god of health and medicine, and he sends plagues when he is angry. He is worshipped for inspiration, insight, purification, protection, and health. His sacred animal is the raven. Artemis: The goddess of the hunt, archery, and the wilderness; an Olympian, the daughter of Zeus and the twin sister of Apollo. When she was born, she asked her father never to make her marry, and she runs wild in the woods with her nymphs as an eternal virgin. When a man happened upon her bathing, she turned him into a stag so that he would be torn apart by his own hunting dogs. She is associated with young women and children. Like her brother, she is worshipped for health and purification, and also for protection of young women and successful hunts. Her sacred animals are her hunting dogs, and deer (though she’s associated with wild animals in general). Hermes: The god of travel, commerce, communication, magic, and trickery; an Olympian and a son of Zeus and Maia. Hermes is the herald of the gods, and can fly all over the world with a winged hat and winged sandals to transmit messages and perform tasks for Zeus. He carries a magic wand called the caduceus, with wings and two entwined serpents. He is known for having a silver tongue and literally talked Hera’s watchman Argus to death, which is why he is associated with persuasion and deception. The first thing he did when he was born is steal fifty cows from one of Apollo’s herds, and Apollo only forgave him because he invented the lyre. He is also a psychopomp who accompanies the souls of the dead to Hades. He is worshipped for protection while travelling, business success, eloquence, and luck. His sacred animals are the ram and hare, and he is also associated with hawks. Dionysus: The god of wine, ecstasy, madness, and theater, an Olympian and the son of Zeus. Dionysus is the only Olympian god whose mother is a mortal, the princess Semele of Thebes. Hera tricked her into asking to see Zeus’s true form, and she was burned to cinders, so Dionysus was born from Zeus’s thigh. He travels about the earth with his band of satyrs and madwomen, teaching humans how to make wine and bringing them joy. He carries a pinecone-topped magic staff called the thyrsus. Though he is kinder than most gods, he is still very dangerous to anger — he is known for driving mortals mad or having them dismembered by his Maenads when they offend him. He is also associated with the cycles and process of viticulture, and also with death and rebirth. The art of theatre was developed as part of his worship, and the most famous Greek plays premiered at his festivals. He was worshipped for joy, ecstasy, bountiful grape harvests, mental health, liberation, and pleasure. His sacred animals are the panther and the bull. Hestia: Zeus’s eldest sister, the goddess of the hearth. She and Dionysus are interchangeably considered the twelfth Olympian (though there isn’t actually any myth in which Hestia gives up her seat for Dionysus). Though she mostly stays out of mythological drama, she is immensely important because she rules all aspects of domestic life, and thus was relevant to most Ancient Greeks’ daily lives. She is the goddess of the practice of ritual; sacrifices and offerings are dedicated first to her, and then to other gods. She is worshipped for blessings in all aspects of home life, and her sacred animal is the pig. Hades: Zeus’ eldest brother and the Lord of the Underworld, who presides over the souls of the dead. He is also the god of wealth, because all the precious metals and stones in the earth belong to him. He rules funerary rites and necromancy. Contrary to popular belief, Hades does not resent his lot. (Most people are well aware by now that he isn’t at all similar to the Abrahamic Satan, but this stereotype that he hates being the Lord of the Underworld remains. Even the game Hades has a little bit of it, and it gets almost everything else right.) Hades is a grim, silent god, and though he was not perceived as evil, the Ancient Greeks feared to attract his attention by naming him and usually referred to him euphemistically. He was rarely actively worshipped. Despite this dreaded reputation, his judgements of mortals are usually fair and proportionate, and he does not cheat on his wife. His sacred animal is the screech-owl, and he also famously has a three-headed watchdog, Cerberus. Persephone: The goddess of life and death, the seasons, and Queen of the Underworld, Hades’ wife and Demeter’s daughter. Persephone was once an innocent maiden, Kore, who was kidnapped by Hades and brought to the Underworld to be his queen. Demeter demanded she be released from the Underworld, holding the entire earth hostage by refusing to allow anything to grow until then. But Persephone ate four (or six) pomegranate seeds from a tree in the Underworld, condemning her to return to the Underworld for that many months each year. Though she is on the surface for half the year, Persephone almost always appears in mythology as the dread Queen of the Underworld, and therefore it can be assumed that she settled into her role as Lady of the Dead. She controls ghosts, and is associated with reincarnation. She and Hades also have one of the most stable marriages of Greek mythology, and modern media tends to interpret it as happy (or relatively so). Persephone was worshipped for bountiful harvests, health, abundance, long life, and blissful afterlife. Minor, Primordial, and Titan Gods: Eos: A Titan goddess and the personification of the dawn, usually described as “rosy-fingered” in the Homeric epics. She brings the morning dew and heralds the arrival of her brother Helios. She is the mother of the Four Winds, and is sometimes depicted with wings. She had numerous lovers, the most famous of which is the youth Tithonus. She begged Zeus to grant him immortality, but forgot to ask for eternal youth, so he eventually shriveled from age and turned into a cicada (or a grasshopper). Selene: A Titan goddess and the personification of the moon, the sister of Eos. The lunar disk is her chariot, which she drives across the sky. She also fell for a mortal man, but she learned from her sister’s mistake and asked for eternal sleep. Her beloved, Endymion, eternally remained a handsome young man in blissful sleep. Helios: A Titan god and the personification of the sun, the brother of Eos and Selene. Helios drives the solar chariot across the sky every day, and retreats to his golden palace at night. He’s also the god of vision, because he sees all things from his place in the sky. Once, his son Phaethon tried to drive his chariot, but lost control and caused such devastation that Zeus struck him down. Helios has many children, including Circe and Pasiphae. Pan: The satyr god of the wilderness, a son of Hermes. Pan is the god of wild and domestic animals, shepherds and herdsmen, and other aspects of pastoral life. Like all satyrs, he is known for being lascivious, and often chases after nymphs. He gives his name to a type of reed flute, the panpipe, which he plays in the woods. He also gives his name to a particular type of fear that is induced by his terrifying screams — panic. The Nine Muses: The goddesses of the arts, knowledge, and inspiration. They are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the Titaness of memory: Calliope (epic poetry), Erato (lyric poetry), Euterpe (music), Clio (history), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (hymns), and Urania (astronomy). They are attendants of the god Apollo, and live on Mt. Parnassus (or Mt. Helicon). It is their job to sing and retell all the stories of the gods. They provide inspiration to writers, poets, and artists, and they are always invoked at the beginning of epics. Nyx: A primordial goddess and the personification of the night. She leaves Tartarus when the sun sets to bring night across the world. She is the mother of many daimones, anthropomorphic personifications of natural forces, including Hemera (day), Aether (light), Hypnos (sleep), Thanatos (death), Morpheus (dreams), Eris (discord), Nemesis (vengeance), Styx (hatred), and the Moirai (fates). Erebus: Nyx’s mate, the personification of darkness. He and Nyx emerged from primordial Khaos at the beginning of time. He is the mists of the Underworld, which obscure the heavenly light of his son Aether. His daughter, Hemera, the personification of day, scatters his dark mists every morning. His name is sometimes used as a synonym for Hades (the place) or Tartarus. Eros: The god of love, specifically sexual love, and progenation. He’s usually Aphrodite’s mischievous little son in later myths, appearing as a baby or as a young man with wings. He has a bow and a quiver full of arrows that can incite lust, infatuation, or revulsion in those whom they hit. He is responsible for a lot of the gods’ more sordid flings, like Apollo’s love for Daphne. However, in some creation myths, Eros (the driving principle of creation) was one of the first beings in existence, having hatched from a cosmic egg at the beginning of time. Eros eventually finds love of his own when he falls for the mortal Psyche, and they are happily married. Iris: The goddess of the rainbow, and the messenger of the gods before Hermes was born. She travels along the rainbow to bring information to and from Olympus. She mostly runs errands for Zeus, and fills rain clouds with water from the sea. Hebe: The goddess of youth, a daughter of Zeus and Hera. She is a cupbearer of the gods alongside Ganymede, serving them ambrosia and nectar. When Heracles experienced apotheosis and became a god, Hebe became his wife. Nike: The goddess of victory, an attendant of Athena. She is a daughter of Styx, and has three siblings, one of which is Kratos. She is almost always depicted with wings. She symbolizes both victory in war and victory in peaceful athletic competitions, and she crowns victors with olive wreaths. Eris: The goddess of strife and discord, an attendant of Ares. She is best known for throwing her magical golden apple among three Olympian goddesses, causing them to fight over it and setting in motion the chain of events that would lead to the Trojan War. This was all because she wasn’t invited to Peleus and Thetis’ wedding. Ouranos: A primordial god and the personification of the sky. He is the father of the Titans by Gaia, and the first Lord of the Universe. He was dethroned by his son Kronos, who castrated him with a sickle. This is because Gaia was resentful that Ouranos locked his and Gaia’s more monstrous children, like hundred-armed giants, in Tartarus. Gaia: A primordial goddess and the personification of the Earth. In some sources, she is the first being to emerge from Khaos. She plotted against her husband Ouranos when he locked her monstrous sons in Tartarus, and helped Kronos to overthrow him and Zeus to overthrow Kronos. After Zeus became Lord of the Universe and threw the Titans into Tartarus, Gaia started plotting against him. She mated with Tartarus to give birth to the Gigantes and Typhon, but failed to put an end to Zeus’s rule. Khaos: The primordial chasm from which all things emanate. Khaos was conceived of as a kind of atmosphere beneath the Earth, an abyss full of dark mist (Erebus). Khaos is the mother of everything that exists, but the order in which primordial beings emerge from Khaos depends on the source. Sometimes Gaia and Ouranos are first, sometimes Erebus and Nyx are first, sometimes Ananke and Khronos are first, and sometimes Eros or Phanes is first. Khaos is usually conceived of as female, the airy equivalent of Gaia and Thalassa, and thus is associated with birds (as Gaia is associated with land animals and Thalassa with fish). Kronos: A Titan and the Lord of the Universe after Ouranos, succeeded by his son Zeus. When he learned that one of his children would overthrow him, he swallowed each one of his children. With Gaia’s help, Rhea saved her youngest son, Zeus, and he eventually overthrew his father. Sometimes he is characterized as the god of time, who consumes all things the way he did his children. Sometimes he is distinct from the primordial god of time, Khronos. Kronos’ rule was described as a Golden Age, during which life was long and peaceful and prosperous. In Rome, as Saturn, he became a more peaceful agricultural deity, and the festival of Saturnalia was a brief return to his Golden Age. According to some accounts, Zeus eventually released him from Tartarus and made him the king of the Isles of the Blessed in Elysium. Rhea: A Titaness and the wife of Kronos, the Queen of the Universe alongside him. After her son Zeus succeeded in becoming King, she became the goddess of motherhood, fertility, and comfort. She raised Dionysus to protect him from Hera. She was eventually syncretized with the Phrygian mother goddess Kybele, and had her own mystery cult as Kybele. She was worshipped as the Great Mother goddess, and her sacred animal is the lion. Themis: A Titaness, the goddess of justice and one of Zeus’s first wives. She represents divine law and morality. She (or her daughter Dike) is still depicted as “Lady Justice.” She is also the mother of the Horae (seasons), and according to some accounts, the Moirai (fates). Hecate: A Titaness and the goddess of witchcraft, magic, ghosts, the night, and the crossroads. She is the daughter of second-generation Titans Perses and Asteria. She was one of the few Titan gods whom Zeus allowed to keep her power over the heavens, earth, and underworld after the Titans were dethroned. Hecate taught pharmakeia (use of herbs) to Medea and Circe, and travels with a parade of ghosts on the Dark Moon. She is often depicted with three heads, representing a crossroads, and holds torches and keys to illuminate one’s path and open gateways. She has been identified with many other goddesses, including Artemis/Diana, Rhea/Kybele, and Eileithyia. Her sacred animal is the dog. Hypnos: The god of sleep, a son of Nyx and Erebus and the twin brother of Thanatos. He is usually depicted with wings on his back or head. He follows his mother Nyx out of Tartarus each night, accompanied by the Oneiroi, the gods of dreams. Hera once requested that he put Zeus to sleep, but he refused because of what happened last time. Thanatos: The god of death, a son of Nyx and Erebus and the twin brother of Hypnos. He is specifically the god of peaceful death (in contrast to the Keres, the spirits of violent death), his touch is as gentle as Hypnos’ touch of sleep, and he is also depicted with wings. Sometimes, Sisyphus captures and binds him instead of Hades. He was not depicted with a scythe; instead, he had an inverted torch, representing the extinguishing of life. His sacred animal is the butterfly, which symbolizes the souls of the dead. Morpheus: The god of dreams, and the king of the Oneiroi, the daimones of dreams. He is a divine messenger for the gods, bringing significant or prophetic dreams to mortals. He is either another child of Erebus and Nyx, or the son of Hypnos. He is called Morpheus because he takes human shapes in dreams. Nemesis: The goddess of vengeance, the personification of resentment. She avenges or punishes mortals for getting unfair treatment. She also acts on the commands of gods who have felt wronged by other gods, sometimes with horrifying results. She is a daughter of Nyx and Erebus, and works to maintain equilibrium among humans. Her sacred animal is the griffin. The Moirai: The Three Fates, who handle the thread of life and determine the destinies of gods and mortals. They are Clotho, who spins the thread of life, Lachesis, who measures it, and Atropos, who cuts it. They are goddesses of birth, prophecy, and death. Sometimes they are the daughters of Nyx and Erebus, and sometimes they are the daughters of Zeus and Themis.
Dionysus
Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, ecstasy, madness, savagery, effeminacy, viticulture, theater, joy, and resurrection. Dionysus is an unbelievably complex deity, even by Greek god standards, and that’s saying a lot. Often, Dionysus is dismissed as a standard hard-drinking frat boy in media, or worse, treated as a joke. (Everything about the portrayal of the Greek gods in Thor: Love and Thunder was terrible, but their portrayal of Dionysus was particularly insulting.) So, allow me to introduce you to my dear patron deity, and tell you what makes him so special. Dionysus is an incredibly ancient god. Scholars thought for a long time that he might have been a foreign god introduced late to the pantheon, because he is canonically the youngest of the Olympians, and many of his myths have him arriving from elsewhere (usually Asia Minor). But Dionysus is a native Greek deity — his name appeared in the Mycenaean language of Linear B (top left of the image below). The first part of his name, “Dios,” refers to Zeus. It’s possible that Dionysus may have originally been an aspect of Zeus, though we cannot say for sure. His name could also mean “son of Zeus” or, taken more abstractly, “divine child.” Some Myths of Dionysus Dionysus has one of the weirdest origin stories of any Greek deity. There’s at least two of them. In the conventional one, his mother is the mortal princess Semele of Thebes. Hera tricked Semele into asking to see Zeus in his true form, and Zeus, having sworn by the Styx, had no choice but to oblige. He revealed himself to Semele as a lightning storm, and it incinerated her. Zeus managed to rescue her unborn child and sew him to his thigh (“thigh” might be a euphemism), and Dionysus was born from Zeus’ thigh. This alone is already packed with spiritual significance — Semele looks upon the true face of the Divine, and experiences a mystical revelation so powerful and overwhelming that she does not survive it. Zeus being briefly pregnant with Dionysus also foreshadows his general twisting of gender roles. In the other origin story, which derives mainly from the Orphic Mystery tradition, Dionysus is the son of Persephone. Zeus met her in a cave in the form of a serpent (a chthonic animal in a chthonic place), and the resulting child had a bull’s horns. Delighted, Zeus took the horned child to Olympus, named him Zagreus, and gave him thunderbolts. Giving Zagreus thunderbolts is almost literally passing the torch, naming Zagreus as the heir to the universe (this is significant because, in other myths, Zeus actively goes out of his way to avoid having an heir). Hera is furious about this, and sends the Titans to dismember and eat Zeus’s baby son. Zeus, in retaliation, strikes the Titans with lightning and reduces them to cinders — mankind is born from these ashes, containing both the divine essence of Zagreus and the base essence of the Titans. Apollo and Athena collect what’s left of Zagreus; Athena gives his heart to Zeus, and Apollo buries the rest on Parnassus. The story then proceeds as normal, and Dionysus is reborn from Zeus and Semele. This myth of death and resurrection held enormous significance to initiates of the Orphic Mysteries, who believed that they could similarly transcend death and be reincarnated. After his second birth, Dionysus is hidden away from Hera in the mythical valley of Nysa, and raised by a group of nymphs, the satyr Silenus, and his aunt Rhea. They disguise him as a girl to further hide him from Hera. Dionysus discovers how to make wine (there are various myths about this, too), and begins to wander the earth to teach winemaking to mortals. Dionysus also spends more time on earth than any other Olympian, and is intimately connected to humans. Throughout his travels, Dionysus accumulates a merry band of followers — nymphs, satyrs, madwomen called Maenads, and social outcasts. One of my favorite myths of Dionysus is the story of the Tyrrhenian pirates. Dionysus is lying asleep on a beach, and looks like a beautiful young man wearing stumptuous purple robes. A pirate ship sails by, and the pirates assume he’s a prince whom they can hold for ransom or sell into slavery. They bring Dionysus aboard the ship, but find that they’re unable to bind him. The helmsman realizes that the boy is probably a god, but the other pirates just laugh at him. Then, vines rise from the ocean and cover the ship, twining up the mast and dripping wine over the sails. The air fills with the sound of flutes and tambourines, and Dionysus turns into a lion. The pirates are terrified, and throw themselves overboard; Dionysus, in his mercy, transforms them into dolphins. He spares the helmsman, who recognized him for what he was, and became his priest. Dionysus is relatively merciful and kind, as gods go, but the only thing that really seems to piss him off is denying his divinity. There’s multiple myths of Dionysus’ worship being actively persecuted by mythological characters, usually because it’s just so transgressive and unsettling. The most famous of these is undoubtedly the story of Pentheus, which is told in The Bacchae by Euripedes. Pentheus is Dionysus’ maternal cousin, the King of Thebes, who rejects Dionysus’ worship when Dionysus returns with his cult to his mother’s city. Pentheus views Dionysus worship as depraved and a threat to his power, and suppresses it, throwing Dionysus and his Maenads in prison. After giving him multiple chances, Dionysus becomes fed up with Pentheus’ disrespect, and has him dismembered by the madwomen — including his own mother. In another, similar myth, King Lycurgus of Thrace also rejects Dionysus’ worship, and attacks his worshippers. One of the only mentions of Dionysus in the Homeric epics describes how he fled to the sea and cried to Thetis, who protected him from Lycurgus. In other versions, however, Dionysus curses Lycurgus with madness, and he turns his murderous rampage on his own family. In yet another myth, three princesses called the Minyades scorned Dionysus’ worship. They preferred to sit at their looms and honor Athena than dance in the woods for Dionysus. Dionysus made milk drip from their looms, and turned their weaving to vines, but they still refused to worship him. Finally, he turned them into bats. Dionysus may be silly, effeminate, perpetually drunk, and extremely weird, but if you refuse to take him seriously, you do so at your peril. Dionysus had many lovers, some male and some female. His first love was a pretty satyr named Ampelos, who died tragically and turned into a grapevine. Dionysus had an affair with Aphrodite, which produced the fertility god Priapus. And of course, his true love is the beautiful princess Ariadne, whom he rescued from the island of Naxos after she was abandoned by Theseus. He gave her a crown set with seven jewels as a wedding present, which became the constellation Corona Borealis. Ariadne and Dionysus have a very happy relationship, which I think is super underrated (in comparison to Hades and Persephone’s). Though personally, I interpret Dionysus as polyamorous. After Ariadne died, Dionysus journeyed to the Underworld to bring her and his mother to Olympus. He couldn’t find the entrance to the Underworld, so he asked a local mortal, Polymnos. Polymnos saw that Dionysus was a beautiful, androgynous young man and was very taken with him. He promised Dionysus the information he wanted, in exchange for sex. Dionysus agreed to this, with the condition that Polymnos wait until after he had returned from the Underworld. By the time Dionysus came back, Polymnos had died, so he made a wooden dildo and used it to honor his promise. And according to Clement of Alexandra, this is why there are parades of giant dildos at Dionysus’ festivals. The Cult of Dionysus Dionysus’ real-life worship is almost as fascinating as the myths say. It wasn’t the target of persecution in real life nearly as often as in myth (the Bacchanalia was persecuted in Rome, but for mostly political reasons, rather than religious reasons). Do I even have to say why the god of wine and festivity is popular? Dionysus’ worshippers believed that by drinking wine, they could invoke the god and receive spiritual insights directly from him. Dionysus’ worship is based primarily around achieving an ecstatic trance state — not just through drinking, but also through dancing, shouting, swinging, drumming, and sex. Dionysus’ worship provided social permission to let loose and behave in ways that would be unacceptable most of the time. He’s called Eleutherios, the Liberator, because he frees people from their own inhibitions, the constraints of socially acceptable behavior, the need to impress or to appear “civilized,” from rigidly established gender roles, and from the limits of the mundane. He allows you to be your true and authentic self. Athens dedicated four festivals of of its calendar to him! These festivals usually involved parades in which a statue of the god would be brought through the streets, accompanied by revellers. The most interesting festival, in my opinion, is Anthesteria, a festival of flowers in mid-February. During this festival, Dionysus would bring a host of ghosts from the Underworld to visit their mortal families for three days, and newly opened wine jars would be left out for the dead. This festival also included a sacred marriage between Dionysus and the queen of Athens. Two of the other festivals, the Lenaia and the Greater Dionysia, included dramatic competitions. The tradition of Greek theater started as literal Dionysian worship, and eventually evolved into theater as we know it today. It’s not really surprising that acting is an inherently Dionysian exercise — the wearing of masks, as Greek actors always did, also produces an altered state of consciousness. Just like intoxication, it removes your inhibitions. Mask-wearing can therefore be an effective shamanic technique. When you wear a mask, you cease to be yourself, and temporarily shapeshift into something else entirely. You can express and embody emotions and concepts that you would never dare to associate yourself with. Being in the audience produces a similar effect: Watching a tragedy allows you to process difficult emotions that you would suppress most of the time. Watching a comedy shamelessly subverts and questions social paradigms and systems that are sacrosanct most of the time. Outside of Athens, Dionysus was worshipped over the course of a two-year period. During the summer, he would be his bright, loud, ecstatic self, but during the winter, he would become gentle and quiet. This Persephone-like tradeoff represented the winemaking process, with the quiet and chthonic Dionysus representing the fermentation stage and the ecstatic Dionysus representing the enjoyment of the wine. Dionysos Khthonios, hear my pray’r, Awakened rise with nymphs of lovely hair: Great Amphietos Bakkhos, annual god, Who laid asleep in Persephone’s abode, Did’st lull to drowsy and oblivious rest, The rites triennial, and the sacred feast; Which rous’d again by thee, in graceful ring, Thy nurses round thee mystic anthems sing; When briskly dancing with rejoicing pow’rs, Thou move’st in concert with the circling hours. Come, blessed, fruitful, horned, and divine, And on these rites with joyful aspect shine. Accept the general incense and pray’r, And make prolific holy fruits thy care. —Orphic Hymn 52 Dionysus was worshipped in this chthonic capacity around Apollo’s sacred site of Delphi, where the remains of Zagreus were buried. When Apollo left the site in the winter, Dionysus watched over the site for him. In a weird, late source called Saturnalia, Macrobius explains how Apollo and Dionysus are recognized as aspects of the same deity at Delphi, and how they are the respective bright and dark aspects of the sun: But given the earlier proof that Apollo and the sun are the same, and the subsequent demonstration that father Liber is the very same as Apollo, there can be no doubt but that the sun and father Liber must be considered aspects of the same godhead—yet the point will be proved to perfection by the following, still more transparent arguments. They observe the holy mystery in the rites by calling the sun Apollo when it is in the upper (that is, daytime) hemisphere; when it is in the lower (that is, night-time) hemisphere, it is considered Dionysus, who is Liber. —Saturnalia, Book 1 And that’s just the mainstream stuff. That’s not even touching on the Orphic Mysteries, and their treatment of Dionysus, which is even weirder. I’ve already touched on how Dionysus has aspects relating to life and death. If Dionysus could resurrect after dying, why can’t you? The initiates had knowledge of a secret password that they could give to Persephone, which would allow them to pass into the Elysian Fields after death: Now you have died and now you have been born, thrice-blessed, in this one day. Tell Persephone that it was the Bacchic One himself who set you free. —Orphic lamella from Thessaly There’s a lot that I haven’t touched on here, but I’ve covered most of my spiritual interpretations in other essays. This is just a general overview that should give you an idea of just how much more there is to Dionysus than meets the eye. Fundamentally, he is a god of mystical experience, and the bridge between human and divine.
Hecate
Hecate is the Greek goddess of witchcraft (or more specifically, pharmakeia), the crossroads, the night, the moon, ghosts and necromancy. Although I’ve read whole books on her by now, Hecate remains an enigma to me. I think she always will. That’s part of her nature. Hecate’s first mention in Greek literature is in the Theogony: "And [Asteria] conceived and bare Hecate whom Zeus the son of Kronos honoured above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea. She received honour also in starry heaven, and is honoured exceedingly by the deathless gods. For to this day, whenever any one of men on earth offers rich sacrifices and prays for favour according to custom, he calls upon Hecate. Great honour comes full easily to him whose prayers the goddess receives favourably, and she bestows wealth upon him; for the power surely is with her. For as many as were born of Earth and Ocean amongst all these she has her due portion. The son of Kronos did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea. Also, because she is an only child, the goddess receives not less honour, but much more still, for Zeus honours her. Whom she will she greatly aids and advances: she sits by worshipful kings in judgement, and in the assembly whom she will is distinguished among the people. And when men arm themselves for the battle that destroys men, then the goddess is at hand to give victory and grant glory readily to whom she will. Good is she also when men contend at the games, for there too the goddess is with them and profits them: and he who by might and strength gets the victory wins the rich prize easily with joy, and brings glory to his parents. And she is good to stand by horsemen, whom she will: and to those whose business is in the grey discomfortable sea, and who pray to Hecate and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, easily the glorious goddess gives great catch, and easily she takes it away as soon as seen, if so she will. She is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock. The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or makes many to be less. So, then. albeit her mother's only child, she is honoured amongst all the deathless gods. And the son of Kronos made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes the light of all-seeing Dawn. So from the beginning she is a nurse of the young, and these are her honours." —Hesiod, Theogony There are a few things that are notable about Hecate just from this. One, she’s technically a Titan goddess, being the daughter of Perses and Asteria, two of the second-generation Titans. But, she is one of the few Titan gods to keep all of her power under Zeus. In fact, she actually gains power under Zeus. For her to be “honoured exceedingly among the deathless gods” while most of the other Titans were cast into Tartarus, is a big deal. Given Zeus’ general attitude towards women, even goddesses, that even Zeus respects her is really saying something. What’s weird about her mention in the Theogony is that this early Hecate lacks most of her later associations. There’s no insinuation of pharmakeia. There’s no explicit mention of the Underworld, of ghosts, of the moon, or of any of the other distinctly chthonic attributes that Hecate has. There’s not even a mention of a crossroads, at least, not a literal one. This early Hecate is more of a sovereignty goddess, who rules the land and who grants power, fame, and abundance to humans at her jurisdiction. She is a more general Great Goddess figure, who holds dominion over the whole universe, who gives blessings to men or takes them away, and whose greatness is acknowledged even by domineering Zeus. She retains power in all three of the domains that were divided up between Zeus and his brothers — Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld. There aren’t many gods that can boast such. This is also the first sign of Hecate’s triplicity. That last bit is significant, because it establishes Hecate as a liminal goddess. Very few gods and goddesses can travel between realms at will, with most being either ouranian (celestial) or chthonic (of the underworld). Hecate can move between all three realms as she wishes. Her association with liminal spaces is one of her key attributes as a goddess, especially in terms of how she was actually worshipped. Ancient Greeks would leave offerings for Hecate at crossroads on dark moons, which would satisfy her and the band of ghosts and monsters that she traveled with. She has three faces because she is a goddess of the crossroads, with each face looking a different direction. Gateways and crossroads are places where the spirit world is more active, where magic is more possible. This is true in a metaphorical, spiritual sense as well. Hecate is practically the embodiment of II The High Priestess, the second card of the Major Arcana in a tarot deck. The High Priestess represents initiation, the doorway to the shadowy realm of the subconscious — the source of magic, story archetypes, dreams, and mystical secrets, as well as nightmares and monsters. She is the second person the Fool meets on their journey, after the powerful Magician (Hermes), ushering them towards the rest of the Major Arcana with her wisdom and insight. Like I The Magician, she is knowledgeable about occult and mystical matters, but she directs her power inward rather than outward. In a spread, she usually indicates that you should trust your intuition and/or be introspective. She is not XVIII The Moon, but she is still closely associated with the Moon, and in the Rider-Waite deck she wears a triple-moon crown. This is who Hecate is, and what she does. She facilitates initiation. She opens gateways to other realms with her keys, and reveals pathways through shadowy places with her torches. She walks in darkness, but she brings light with her. She has no fear of darker places, and teaches you not to be afraid of them, either. She’s comfortable in liminal places where most people feel unsettled. She, like the dark, is terrifying at first glance, but compassionate and motherly once you get to know her. She accepts as her familiars women who have been transformed into animals. She waits in the dark for people to come to her to learn her secrets. The subconscious is also a scary place. It’s the home of the Shadow, the aspects of yourself that you have repressed for whatever reason. Working with Hecate demands Shadow work, but she is uniquely suited to helping you through the process of confronting the darker aspects of yourself. Hecate also has her own Shadow aspect. She is accompanied by a retinue of ghosts of the dead, of empusai, and hounds. One of her most common epithets is Brimo, “angry, terrifying.” In one source, she was the mother of the monster Scylla. She was explicitly associated with Nekyia, necromancy, which in Ancient Greece meant actually digging up a corpse to talk to its spirit. In the Orphic Mysteries, Persephone’s daughter (and Dionysus-Zagreus’ sister) Melinoe is likely a variant of Hecate, being a goddess of ghosts who is associated with psychotic disorders. Thy colour'd members, men by night inspire When seen in specter'd forms with terrors dire; Now darkly visible, involv'd in night, Perspicuous now they meet the fearful fight. Terrestrial queen expel wherever found The soul's mad fears to earth's remotest bound; With holy aspect on our incense shrine, And bless thy mystics, and the rites divine. —Orphic Hymn 70, to Melinoe Hecate was also the goddess with pharmakeia, which refers to witchcraft, but specifically to the practice of using herbs, potions, and drugs to cast (usually baneful) spells. Hecate personally instructed Circe and Medea in these arts, and according to some sources, they were her daughters. Hecate was associated specifically with poisonous plants like aconite, belladonna, mandrake, and yew. She also is mentioned repeatedly in the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM), a real magical text of ancient Graeco-Egyptian spells and rituals, most of which would not be considered ethical by today’s standards. For example, this ritual, a love spell to compel someone to be attracted to you by using graveyard dirt taken from the grave of someone who has died a violent death, and supplicating Hecate: …Three-headed Goddess, Lady Of Night, Who feed on filth, O Virgin, thou Key-holding Persephassa, Kore out Of Tartaros, grim-eyed, dreadful, child girt / With fiery serpents, he, NN, has mixed With tears and bitter groans leftovers from His own food, so that you, O luckless heroes Who arc confined there in the NN place, May bring success to him who is beset With torments. You who've left the light, O you Unfortunate ones, I bring success to him, NN, who is distressed at heart because Of her, NN, ungodly and unholy. So bring her wracked with torment-and in haste! […] EIOUT ABAOTH PSAKERBA ARBATHIAŌ LALAOITH / IOSACHŌTOU ALLALETHO You too as well, Lady, who feed on filth SYNATRAKABI BAUBARABAS ENPHNOUN MORKA EKESCHIGAL NEBOUTOSOUALETH, and send the Erinys ORGOGORGONIOTIUAN, Who rouses up with fire souls of the dead Unlucky heros, luckless heroines, Who in this place, who on this day, who in This hour, who in coffins of myrtlewood, Give heed to me and rouse / her, NN, on This night and from her eyes remove sweet sleep, And cause her wretched care and fearful pain, Cause her to follow after my footsteps, And / for my will give her a willingness Until she does what I command of her. O mistress Hekate PHORBA PHORBOBAR BARO PHORPHOR PHORBAI O Lady of the Crossroads, O Black Bitch. —PGM IV. 1390-1495 In this incantation, Hecate is conflated with Persephone. Ereshkigal’s name is also mentioned. (“NN” is a placeholder for the names of the caster and the target.) Hecate is given some dark epithets, like “who feed on filth” and “grim-eyed, dreadful.” (“Black Bitch” is meant literally, since Hecate is closely associated with dogs.) The caster of this spell is asking Hecate to send the Erinyes (Furies) and ghosts of the dead to torment the target until she falls in love with the caster. It’s not really any wonder that Shakespeare cast her as the Witch Queen, even if he pronounced her name wrong. Hecate’s lunar associations come mostly from her being conflated with Artemis, Selene, and other goddesses, but going back to tarot, I think that XVIII The Moon is a pretty good representation of Hecate in her darker aspect. The Moon represents imagination and dreams, as well as forbidden passions that you would never dare show the light. Like Hecate’s torches, it illuminates the darkness, but it also has a light and dark half itself. It also induces “lunacy,” madness, and can represent illusion and deception. It rules everything cryptic and macabre. If you can reconcile and balance the duality of dark and light that the Moon represents, you can receive divine inspiration. If you can’t, then you will lose your mind. So, we’re back to Shadow work. And that’s still not everything! The Chaldean Oracles describe Hecate as the “world-soul,” the literal personification of the universe itself. The Chaldean Oracles are really a thing unto themselves, more like Kabbalah than anything else I can think to compare them to, so I’m not going to talk about it here. But still, the fact that Hecate is portrayed there as a great primordial celestial being, the Feminine Divine, is notable. So, who is Hecate? She is a liminal goddess. She is a mediator between the celestial, earthly, and chthonic realms. She guides people through transitions in their lives — birth, initiation, death, reincarnation. She makes magic possible by throwing open the gates to the subconscious mind, and escorting initiates on their descent into the Underworld. She is the Queen of Shadows who rules all creatures and spirits who lurk in the night. I call Hecate Einodia, Trivia, lovely dame, Of earthly, wat'ry, and celestial frame, Sepulchral, in a saffron veil array'd, Leas'd with dark ghosts that wander thro' the shade; Perseis, unconquerable huntress hail! The world's key-bearer never doom'd to fail On the rough rock to wander thee delights, Leader and nurse be present to our rites Propitious grant our just desires success, Accept our homage, and the incense bless. —Orphic Hymn 1
Hermes
Hermes gets underestimated a lot. Even I often forget him when listing the Twelve Olympians off the top of my head. Hermes’ role is often delegated to just a courier — that’s all he does, carry messages back and forth. He’s known for that and for having some cool-ass winged shoes, and that’s it. Right? In a Saturday Night Live sketch about Greek gods, the gods are discussing how to solve an economic crisis in Greece that was going on at the time the sketch aired. The joke is that all of the gods are unhelpful, mostly interested in war, and there’s no god who handles financial problems. When Zeus asks Hermes what to do, his only advice is, “…we could send them a message?” to which Zeus responds, “You’re the worst.” When Hermes blames Dionysus for the economic crisis, Zeus and Dionysus both yell “SHUT UP YOU LITTLE BITCH!” The irony is that Hermes actually is the god of finance. I don’t know if the SNL writers actually knew that and that’s the underlying joke, or if they relegated Hermes to his stereotypical herald role without understanding everything else Hermes does. In a former answer, I took to listing all of the domains of the gods to find out which one of them has the most. Hermes won, by a long shot. So what else does Hermes do? In his basic aspect as a messenger god, he can get in and out of anywhere and moves at the speed of the wind. Sometimes he helps heroes out. He is also a psychopomp — in his chthonic aspect, he shepherds souls to the Underworld. Being a god of messages also means that Hermes rules all forms of communication, including writing, oration, rhetoric/persuasion, and language itself. He also is associated with memory and with learning. This is why in Western occultism, the planet Mercury rules over communication and intellect. The Romans conflated Mercury (Hermes) with Odin of all gods, because Odin invented the Norse writing system. Hermes was also conflated with the Egyptian god of wisdom and knowledge, Thoth, who invented writing and is also associated with magic. We’ll get back to that. I said above that Hermes is the god of finances, and he is. He rules all trade and commerce. His Roman name, Mercury, is literally just a job description — the Latin word “mercari” means “to trade.” That means that Hermes rules everything having to do with business and marketing. (He and Hephaestus probably co-rule industry.) His association with eloquence also makes him silver-tongued and crafty. He can literally talk you to death. Hermes was also the god of thieves, and the first thing he did upon being born was steal cattle from Apollo (giving him pastoral associations, specifically animal husbandry and selling cattle and sheep). Hermes is the trickster god of the Greek pantheon, with everything that implies. He is a god of stealth and deceit, kind to mortals but ultimately amoral, much like other trickster deities across cultures. All of this makes Hermes a liminal god. He travels all the way from Olympus to the Underworld and back without a hitch, something very few figures in Greek mythology can do (and that includes gods). He is a god of honest merchants and of thieves. And, like Hecate, he is the god of boundaries, gateways, roads and travellers. He protects people while they travel in the wild space between cities. He takes his name from herms, piles of stones on the side of a road that would act as a marker. Eventually, herms became stone pillars with a bust of Hermes at the top and a carved phallus at the bottom. This, and Hermes’ pastoral associations, may be relics of an earlier connection with Pan (see video below). Also like Hecate, Hermes has magical associations. Originally, this was just divination, especially types of divination that didn’t fall into Apollo’s formal prophetic system — astrology, cleromancy, augury. I expect this probably filters into his “messenger” association because divinations were literally meant to be information from gods, but that’s a guess. He also had some associations with healing magic, like when he gives the moly to Odysseus (though it’s worth noting his later association with medicine comes through confusion between the Caduceus and the Rod of Asclepius). Through conflation with Thoth, he gained more academic magical associations. Hermes and Thoth were combined into the pseudo-historical figure Hermes Trismegistus, who is credited with having invented the ancient magical/philosophical system that bears Hermes’ name — Hermeticism. Hermes’ later alchemical associations are the topic of another answer. To sum up, he came to symbolize prima materia, transmutation, and the Philosopher’s Stone itself. He is a combination of both fire and water, male and female, making him “airy” and androgynous. He represents the “volatile” spirit that animates the body, mediating between man and God just as he does in myth. Honestly, relegating Hermes purely to the “messenger” role is like doing the same thing to angels. Angelos literally means “messenger” (and was an epithet of Hermes, to boot), and like Hermes, angels act as intermediary forces between men and God. But most people who know anything about angels know that they are a lot more than that. Imagine a market where people are selling food, crafts, and all sorts of oddities, where pickpockets lurk, and a curious street magician in a feathered cap performs real magic while making it look like clever tricks. If you look closely, you’ll see that his wand has two carved snakes twining up it. That’s the most mercurial setting I can imagine, but to be honest… Red isn’t wrong when she says that Hermes is the Greek god with the most influence over your life, especially if you’re American. America’s whole “thing” is capitalism, right? The free market, buying and selling, corporations, marketing and advertising… it’s no secret that big business runs America. And Hermes’ image (or things related to him) is used all over the place in logos. And then you have the communication aspect — the internet basically runs all of our lives, because the point of it is lightning-fast communication and information sharing. Information and messages travel faster than ever before. How would any of us handle quarantine (dammit, Apollo!) without it? WiFi is practically lifeblood! We can communicate more effectively than ever before, meaning we can stay physically isolated without being socially isolated. Hermes basically runs the modern world. If he wasn’t the most powerful Greek god then, he probably is now.
Apollo
Apollo is the Greek god of light, music, poetry, rational thinking, archery, healing, medicine, plague, prophecy, purification, and civilization. Apollo wears a lot of different “hats,” even in comparison to other deities, because of the sheer breadth that his domains cover (beaten out only by Hermes, in my opinion). He is one of the most important and most instantly recognizable of the Olympian gods, but he sort of got Flanderized overtime when his solar aspect eclipsed all the rest. So it’s about time I did a deep dive into Apollo, and what makes him special. Apollo is actually one of the only Olympians who is not from Greece. His name does not appear in Linear B (though one of his most common epithets, Paean, does, so some version of him may still have existed in Mycenaean Greece). One of the common theories of his origins is that Apollo comes from Anatolia. This might be why Apollo fights for the Trojans in the Trojan War, and is portrayed very negatively through the Iliad. Despite that, Apollo is almost synonymous with the Greek civilization itself. Some Myths of Apollo Apollo’s birth was less miraculous than that of some other gods, but it still has a story behind it. Hera (being Hera) tried to prevent his mother Leto from giving birth to her twins. Leto traveled all over Greece, almost in labor, but never actually able to give birth anywhere. Eventually, she was welcomed onto the island of Delos (for various reasons, usually having something to do with Delos not technically being a piece of land yet). She gave birth to Artemis first, who, being a goddess of midwifery, helped Leto deliver her brother. As a young god, Apollo proved himself by claiming the holy site of Delphi. Delphi was thought to be the center of the world by the Ancient Greeks, the navel of the goddess Gaia. Gaia was originally worshipped at the site (in myth, if not in reality), and it was guarded by a gigantic black dragon with poisonous breath called Python. In some sources, such as the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Python is conflated with Echidna (the mate of Typhon and the mother of some of Greece’s most terrible monsters). Apollo arrived on a chariot drawn by swans, and slew Python with a million golden shafts. Having lost a bit of its chthonic presence with the death of Python, Mt. Parnassus became one of Apollo’s most important centers of worship. He ruled over Delphi in the summer, and left it in the winter (when the sun is less strong), leaving it in the care of Dionysus. Parnassus also became the home of the Muses, Apollo’s retinue and the goddesses of the arts. Despite Apollo’s defeat of Python being an obvious victory, he still had to be formally punished for it, because Python was sacred to Gaia. Zeus temporarily banished Apollo to the mortal realm. (In some sources, Apollo is instead punished for having killed the elder Cyclopes, lashing out for Zeus having killed his son Asclepius with a thunderbolt forged by the Cyclopes.) To atone, he had to serve the mortal king Admetus as a shepherd for nine years. Though Apollo was stuck on earth and disguised as a mortal, he retained all of his divine power. He fell in love with Admetus, and doted on him. Apollo blessed Admetus with abundance for the duration of the nine years, and helped Admetus fulfill an impossible task to win the princess Alcestis. One of Apollo’s less proud moments concerns Daphne, a nymph. She was one of Artemis’s huntresses, who eschewed all contact with men. Apollo fell in love with her (or rather, madly lusted after her), and chased her. She ran all the way to the river’s edge and prayed to her father, the river god, to save her from Apollo. Her prayer was answered, and she was transformed into a laurel tree. Apollo was distraught, but claimed the laurel as his sacred tree, and crowned himself with its leaves. In Ovid’s telling, Apollo’s out-of-character lechery is a result of one of Eros’ arrows, which Eros struck him with in retaliation after Apollo claimed to be the better archer god. Apollo doesn’t have very much luck in love. He’s one of the few Olympians with no official consort, despite his many lovers. The most tragic example is Hyacinthos, a beautiful mortal boy whom Apollo fell in love with and had a happy relationship with, until Apollo accidentally killed him with a discus. Sometimes, Hyacinthos’ death is the fault of Zephyros, the West Wind, who also lusted after him and resented Apollo. As usual, Hyacinthos turned into a flower (no points for guessing which one). One time, a satyr called Marsyas challenged Apollo, the god of music, to a music contest. You can imagine how well that went. Apollo played his lyre, and Marsyas played an aulos (double-flute). The Muses and King Midas were the judges. They declared it a draw, and then decided that the tiebreaker would be who could successfully play their instrument upside-down. Apollo flipped over his lyre and played just as well as before, but Marsyas could not play the flute upside-down. Having won, Apollo mercilessly skinned Marsyas, and then punished King Midas for having voted for Marsyas anyway. He declared that Midas’ taste in music was so stupid he may as well have a donkey’s ears, and Midas was cursed with permanent donkey’s ears. Cult of Apollo Apollo is one of those deities that can be called truly Panhellenic — worshipped everywhere and by everyone in Greece. The most important site of his worship is, of course, Delphi. The Oracle of Delphi was one of many oracles in Greece, but she was certainly the most famous and prestigious. She would go into a trance and speak the words of Apollo to whoever was there to listen. Apollo was especially associated with oracular divination, which was respected above other forms of divination — the reason you see so many mythological kings (like Acrisius and Laius) consulting oracles is because that’s something kings actually did. You can actually find a list of the Pythia’s known prophecies on Wikipedia. Apollo was closely associated with the things that make civilization what it is. If Artemis is the goddess of the wilderness, then Apollo is the god of cities. He’s the god of architecture, and presides over large construction projects. The shining walls of cities are his, from the acropolis of an ancient city-state to the spires of a modern metropolis. Apollo is also the god of reason and logical thinking, which the Ancient Greeks thought is one of the things that separates humankind from animals. His status as the god of poetry and music make him the god of artistic achievement, the triumphant and beautiful cornerstones of human culture. Finally, Apollo was considered the ideal of male beauty. He is always portrayed as youthful and beardless. (Hermes and Dionysus, the other two gods who are commonly depicted as beautiful young men, were more often shown as mature and bearded in vase paintings.) Statues of him represent the most desirable male form. Apollo also has a pastoral aspect as the god of herding. It’s not as emphasized as some of the others, but it shows up in a few myths, like the one in which he’s tending Admetus’ flocks. He passes this domain to Hermes in the myth where Hermes steals fifty of his cows. They essentially share it. One of Apollo’s most important aspects is as Paean, the healer. This is probably also related to his role as a god of civilization, because diseases will spread when people live together in close quarters, especially in the ancient world. It was believed that disease was spread through being struck with Apollo’s arrows. Of all the Olympians, Apollo is the most closely associated with medicine, and he was prayed to in order to banish disease and uncleanliness. There’s one such desperate prayer in Oedipus Rex: Zeus! Great welcome voice of Zeus, what do you bring? What word from the gold vaults of Delphi comes to brilliant Thebes? Racked with terror — terror shakes my heart and I cry your wild cries, Apollo, healer of Delos I worship you in dread… what now, what is your price? some new sacrifice? some ancient rite from the past come round again each spring? what will you bring to birth? Tell me, child of golden Hope warm voice that never dies! […] No, no the miseries numberless, grief on grief, no end— too much to bear, we are all dying O my people… Thebes like a great army dying and there is no sword of thought to save us, no and the fruits of our famous earth, they will not ripen no and the women cannot scream their pangs to birth— screams for the Healer, children dead in the womb and life on life goes down you can watch them go like seabirds waging west, outracing the day’s fire down the horizon, irresistibly streaking on to the shores of Evening Death so many deaths, numberless deaths on deaths, no end— Thebes is dying, look, her children stripped of pity… generations strewn on the ground unburied, unwept, the dead spreading death and the young wives and gray-haired mothers with them cling to the altars, trailing in from all over the city— Thebes, city of death, one long cortege and the suffering rises wails for mercy rise and the wild hymn for the Healer blazes out clashing with our sobs our cries of mourning— O golden child of Zeus, send rescue radiant as the kindness in your eyes! —Sophocles, Oedipus Rex Pissing off Apollo is incredibly dangerous. I mean, pissing off any god is dangerous, but Apollo’s anger tends to involve collateral damage. In this play, Oedipus Rex, all of Thebes is suffering because Oedipus unknowingly committed incest. It puts pressure on Oedipus to solve the mystery — ignorance is not bliss in this case — but it creates a lose/lose situation (which, one could easily argue, Apollo set up in the first place). At the beginning of the Iliad, Apollo spreads a disease throughout the entire Achaian army, in retribution for Agamemnon having mistreated one of Apollo’s priests. The soldiers didn’t do anything, but still got sick and died. Apollo and Artemis are both merciless gods. That said, in real life Apollo was believed to actually answer prayers for healing, if he was given proper offerings in return. He is also the father of Asclepius, the god of medicine, whose staff (with one snake, not two) is still a symbol of the medical field (such as in the WHO’s logo). In addition to physical healing, Apollo was also associated with spiritual cleansing. One of his epithets, Alexikakos, describes him as an averter of evil. He drives evil spirits away from the polis, and can cleanse human beings of a kind of spiritual dirt or stain called miasma. He appears in this aspect in The Oresteia, when he expels the Furies from his temple in Eumenides: Get out, I tell you, go and leave this house. Away in haste, from your presence set the mantic chamber free, else you may feel the flash and bite of a flying snake launched from the twisted thong of gold that spans my bow To make you in your pain spew out the black and foaming blood of men, vomit the clots sucked from their veins. This how is no right place for such as you to cling upon […] The whole cast of your shape is guide to what you are, the like of whom should hole in the cave of the blood-reeking lion, not in oracular interiors, like mine nearby, wipe off your filth. Out then, you flock of goats without a herdsman, since no god has such an affection as to tend this brood. —Aeschylus, Eumenides Apollo is willing to take in Orestes after he has committed the crime of kinslaying (on Apollo’s orders), and thus has become tainted with miasma. Apollo then defends him in court against the Furies — though, the argument he uses to win the case is both sexist and completely incorrect, so it hasn’t exactly held up to the ages. The point is that Apollo provides refuge to those who are spiritually tainted, and purifies them. Apollo has a very overlooked association with magic. A syncretized Apollo-Helios is the most commonly evoked god in the Greek Magical Papyri, a Graeco-Egyptian text that’s basically an ancient spellbook. For example, this divination spell: Charm for a direct vision from Apollo: In a ground-floor room without light, while you are crowned with a wreath of marjoram and while wearing wolf-skin sandals, recite this formula: Formula: / “Helios, ruler of light, MER … EIPHIRA GARGERI PHTHA ER … OIE … GERLYCHA MER … [OPHO] R ITHARA PHERXEI AR … EID … PHORITHARZEI ERPHIBILCHIE ZEIRABELBE BICHA ARTHIA MELICHIA ERGA GERPHI IO CHERPHEI KARGOOARA EARMILICHA ATHERTHATPHTHO ATHTHERTHAPHI ARNACHERBBI.” / After you have said these things, the god Apollo will come having a cup for a drink offering. Then you inquire concerning what you want. He gives from memory if you want, and if you ask, he will let you drink from his cup. Dismissal: “ERKIKCHI BELTEAMILICHA ARCHARZEIR PHIZOR GEIRPHEI.” —PGM VII. 727–39 Most of the spells that evoke Apollo request the answers to questions about the future (or whatnot), or request for the god to send a daimon to do the caster’s bidding. Apollo’s association with magic therefore seems to be grounded in his role as an oracular god. In my opinion, the common thread connecting all of Apollo’s different domains and associations is a literal and figurative illumination or enlightenment. Actually, neither of those words really encapsulates what I’m talking about. Apollo is… the driving force behind the beautiful things in civilization. I tend to disdain Nietzsche’s Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy for being too simplistic and pitting two amicable gods against each other, but he is right in that they represent counterbalancing forces. If Dionysus is the god of otherness, savagery, the dark underbelly of civilization that nonetheless brings its life spark, Apollo is the idealized face that civilization presents to the world. He is the polished beauty of magnificent architecture, the admirable quality of human reason, the spark of inspiration behind good music and poetry that preserves a culture’s stories. He is the ability to guard against potential threats to this beauty, to heal the sickness and corruption within it, to drive out the darkness when it is no longer needed. He is inspiration to do better. No wonder the Greeks loved him.
Zeus, the Most Powerful God
Lately it’s become… I’ll say, fashionable to hate on Zeus. To a certain extent, it’s not hard to see why. I don’t have any grudge against the endless number of jokes about Zeus being unable to keep it in his pants. But the animosity has reached such a crescendo that mythology fans on the internet have collectively forgotten what Zeus is actually supposed to be. The arguments against him have started to become disingenuous and spiteful. I’ve had multiple arguments in just the past week with people who look for any excuse to tear Zeus down, comparing him unfavorably to everyone from Nyx to Thor, because they want there to be some way that Zeus loses. (I’m not making that up; one commentator said that.) And so, because I’m very tired of making the same argument again and again and again, I figured I should just make the argument once and be done. Though interpretations of gods can be inconsistent, one of the most universally-agreed-upon ideas in Greek mythology and religion is that Zeus is supremely powerful, and that he is benevolent. This is expressed in different ways depending on what version of Zeus we’re talking about, and in what context: The Mythological Context: This is the myths themselves, treated mostly at face-value. In this context, Zeus’s power is political, and he can be defeated (though never actually is). In this context, Zeus usurped his power from his father. The Symbolic/Mystical Context: This is the myths taken figuratively and used to illustrate “higher” spiritual truths or mystical insights. In this context, Zeus already is the god of power by nature and the stories serve to explain or justify that. The Religious Context: This is the cult of Zeus and the way he was interpreted by real people who actually existed. Zeus’s worshippers interpreted him as the most powerful god on principle, and also perceived him as benevolent, which the myths don’t always reflect. All of this is to say that portrayals of Zeus are necessarily inconsistent. In some contexts he can be defeated, in others he is inherently unconquerable. In some he is primarily benevolent, while in others he is more punishing. I learned while writing this answer that looking to individual lines to prove some objective measure of power for Zeus or any of the other gods is impossible, because Greek mythology is not the same thing as scripture, and will never sustain a consistent narrative. All I can really do is point out a pattern, and that pattern is that, in most contexts, Zeus is interpreted as the most powerful god in some capacity. Part One: Zeus Pankrates First, it’s important to define our terms. What do we mean by “powerful”? Half of the issues I run into in these discussions is a semantic dispute. Firstly, while Zeus is called Pankrates, “all-powerful,” this isn’t identical to the Christian concept of omnipotence. Being “all-powerful” means that Zeus controls everything — it does not mean that he is invincible (at least in mythology), nor does it mean that he is capable of doing literally anything conceivable. Impossible logic loops like “if God were omnipotent, then he could create an object that’s impossible for him to lift!” are pretty irrelevant to Greek gods. That’s because these sorts of questions don’t carry any broader implications. There’s no reason why any of the Greek gods should be literally able to do anything conceivable. Hell, I haven’t even seen philosophers like Plato, Cicero and Sallustius make that argument, and they have some unique takes on the gods. (Zeus is sometimes conflated or associated with the Platonic idea of the Demiurge. There’s little bit of Orphic commentary below, but I’m mostly going to ignore the Neoplatonic interpretations for simplicity’s sake.) So, when we say that Zeus is “all-powerful,” we’re are saying that Zeus exerts his influence over the whole universe, not that there is literally nothing outside his capabilities. Therefore, it’s not really a “gotcha” to point out that Zeus is capable of defeat. That might be a valid argument if we were talking about the Abrahamic God — if God can do literally anything, then he wouldn’t allow himself to be defeated. But this isn’t how Greek gods work. So, Zeus’s defeat of Typhon actually justifies, rather than undercutting, his rule over the universe. I usually shy away from comparing mythology to superhero media, but in this instance, it makes for a good analogy: When you want to show that a supervillain is really powerful and scary, you have them initially defeat the heroes. Everything up to that point, the heroes have easily crushed, but the Big Bad throws them for a loop and forces them to get stronger and/or embrace the power of friendship in order to take him down. Typhon’s defeat of Zeus shows how powerful and scary he is, and Zeus’s defeat of Typhon shows that he is still able to triumph even after having been incapacitated. That makes him more powerful, not less so. "Zeus the father fought on: raised and hurled his familiar fire against his adversary, piercing his lions, and sending a fiery whirlwind from heaven to strike the battalion of his innumerable necks with their babel of tongues. Zeus cast his bolt, one blaze burnt the monster’s endless hands, one blaze consumed his numberless shoulders and the speckled tribes of his serpents; heaven’s blades cut off those countless heads; a writhing comet met him front to front discharging a thick bush of sparks, and consumed the monster’s hair. Typhon’s heads were ablaze, the hair caught fire; with heaven’s sparks silence sealed the hissing tresses, the serpents shrivelled up, and in their throats the poison-spitting drops were dried." —Nonnus, Dionysiaca If even Typhon couldn’t dethrone Zeus, then nothing will, so Gaia gives up trying, which permanently cements Zeus’s station as Lord of the Universe. The story of Zeus and Typhon isn’t really any different from those of the demigod heroes who rise up to defeat their respective monsters. We don’t begrudge any of those heroes for having failed the first time around, or for needing outside help, so why Zeus? It is important to remember that myths are not literal, and they should not be taken at face-value. Taken metaphorically, this myth represents Zeus’s ability to maintain order in the face of ultimate chaos. To the Ancient Greeks, Zeus represented cosmic order and power structures. Zeus is who you pray to when your life is crashing down around you and you feel helpless. Zeus’s defeat of Typhon demonstrates that even when things are at their worst, even when the chaos of life has defeated you, the gods will always set it right. Zeus, as the god of order, will always restore it, even when that seems impossible. Zeus’s ability to ask for help is also one of his strengths as a leader, and is one of, if not the reason why his reign lasts so long. Zeus’s power over the universe is more akin to political power than magical power. Gods and goddesses do not have superpowers; instead, they have domains, which they rule over in the same way a human king or queen would rule over a piece of land. The god therefore can control or influence everything within its domain, in the same way a monarch can control or influence everything within their domain. As Lord of the Universe, Zeus therefore occupies the highest divine political position. Zeus is Lord of the Universe — he rules over everything — but unlike his predecessors, he permits other gods to hold dominion under his rule. He’s more like a High King, a king who acts as a common leader of other kings and queens. He shares his seat on Olympus with his siblings and six of his children (and Aphrodite). He divides up his domain with his two brothers, giving them each a share of the Universe, and keeping the earth common to all. He gives Hecate a share of all three, and increases the power of both Hecate and Styx, acquiring the powerful chthonic goddesses as allies. The other gods’ relative sovereignty under Zeus make them more amenable to him, and that’s one of the reasons they support him. Any king needs allies, no matter how powerful he is, but ultimately he rules over them all: "Olympian Lightener called all the deathless gods to great Olympus, and said that whosoever of the gods would fight with him against the Titans, he would not cast him out from his rights, but each should have the office which he had before amongst the deathless gods. And he declared that he who was without office and rights as is just. So deathless Styx came first to Olympus with her children through the wit of her dear father. And Zeus honoured her, and gave her very great gifts, for her he appointed to be the great oath of the gods, and her children to live with him always. And as he promised, so he performed fully unto them all. But he himself mightily reigns and rules." —Hesiod, Theogony The reason why I stress this political dimension is because it’s easiest to understand the gods’ relationships to each other in this way. Their actual abilities are too inconsistent to be any sort of metric for how powerful they are, and they’re also pretty prone to being reinterpreted according to personal biases (e.g. “The Sun is what allows all life to exist, therefore Helios is the most powerful god!”). Just because you think the god of the Sun or the Night or Primordial Khaos or whatnot should be the most powerful god, doesn’t mean that it is according to the sources that we’ve got. Power scaling is basically impossible, so the only way to assess how powerful they are in relation to each other is to look at their relative placements in the divine hierarchy. Even that is inconsistent, but that’s the best we’ve got. Since Zeus is always at the top of the hierarchy, Zeus is the most powerful god. This is why, for example, Eros and Aphrodite aren’t more powerful than Zeus, despite directly and personally exerting their influence over him on a regular basis. (Perhaps Zeus could stop them from inflicting him with rabid lust if he wanted to, but I don’t think he’s complaining.) The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite says straight-up, “though he is greatest of all and has the lot of highest majesty, she beguiles even his wise heart whensoever she pleases, and mates him with mortal women, unknown to Hera…”, i.e. The hymn maintains that Zeus is the greatest and most powerful god, even though Aphrodite can influence him in spite of that. Now, what about the gods whom Zeus has to answer to? Part Two: Zeus Kosmetes Zeus isn’t just the King of the Gods — Zeus is Lord of the Universe, replacing his father Kronos, who replaced his grandfather Ouranos. This is an important point, because Zeus’s status as Lord of the Universe is what makes him more powerful than everybody else. One epithet of Zeus is Kosmetes, “the Orderer,” becuase it’s Zeus that maintains the natural order of the cosmos. His second wife, Themis, is the personification of divine law. She represents everything from the laws of physics to traditional codes of morality enforced by the gods (like the importance of sacred hospitality, for example). With her, Zeus has two sets of daughters that represents the workings of the universe: the Horae (“Hours” or “Seasons”) that control the flow of time and the turning of the constellations, and the Moirai (Fates) that control the lives of mortals. Through these goddesses, Zeus ensures that the universe is running smoothly. "Next he married bright Themis who bare the Horae (Hours), and Eunomia (Order), Dike (Justice), and blooming Eirene (Peace), who mind the works of mortal men, and the Moerae (Fates) to whom wise Zeus gave the greatest honour, Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos who give mortal men evil and good to have." —Hesiod, Theogony The Fates are one group of gods who are supposedly “more powerful than Zeus.” But this isn’t exactly the case. The Fates work under Zeus’s authority, just as the other gods do, and Zeus himself is often associated with fate in Ancient Greek literature. He has the epithet Moiragetes, “leader of the Fates,” and it’s often emphasized that Zeus knows the fates of all mortals. Apollo, as the god of prophecy, is a spokesman for Zeus, communicating information about human destinies from Zeus to his oracles. Therefore, Zeus is as much aware of and in control of Fate as the Moirai themselves are. An episode in the Iliad makes it clear that Zeus can defy the Moirai if he really wants to, but chooses not to: "And watching them the son of devious-devising Kronos [Zeus] was pitiful, and spoke to Hera, his wife and his sister: “Ah me, that it is destined that the dearest of sons, Sarpedon, must go down under the hands of Menoitios’ son Patroklos. The heart in my breast is balanced between two ways as I ponder, whether I should snatch him out of the sorrowful battle and set him down still alive in the rich country of Lykia or beat him under at the hands of the son of Menoitios.” In turn the lady Hera of the ox eyes answered him: “Majesty, son of Kronos, what sort of thing have you spoken? Do you wish to bring back a man who is mortal, one long since doomed by his destiny, from ill-sounding death and release him? Do it, then: but not all the rest of us gods shall approve you. And put away in your thoughts this other thing I tell you; if you bring Sarpedon back to his home, still living, think how then some other one of the gods might also wish to carry his own son out of the strong encounter; since around the great city of Priam are fighting many sons of the immortals. You will waken grim resentment from among them. No, but if he is dear to you, and your heart mourns for him, then let him be, and let him go down in the strong encounter underneath the hands of Patroklos, the son of Menoitios; but after the soul and the years of his life have left him, then send Death to carry him away, and Sleep, who is painless, where his brothers and countrymen shall give him due burial with tomb and gravestone. Such is the privilege of those who have perished." She spoke, nor did the father of gods and men disobey her; yet he wept tears of blood that fell to the ground, for the sake of his beloved son, whom now Patroklos was presently to kill, by generous Troy and far from the land of his fathers." —The Iliad, Book 16 433–61 In this scene, Zeus is grieving for his son Sarpedon, whom he knows is about to die. He briefly considers defying Fate and saving Sarpedon, but Hera talks him down, because the rest of the gods will resent him for it. If Zeus does defy Fate, then he undermines the natural order that he himself set up. The other gods will want to save their own children from their inevitable deaths on the Trojan battlefield, and that risks screwing with Fate on a much larger scale. Despite his grief, Zeus lets Sarpedon die, because he can’t risk losing the respect of the other gods by breaking his own rules. Therefore, the reason Zeus does not defy the Moirai is not because they are more powerful than he is; it is a political decision. Zeus mostly does not intercede in other gods’ spheres of influence, even if he can, for the same reason. For the Ancient Greeks, the ideas of cosmic order (i.e. the laws of physics and the regularity of the Earth’s movements), fate, justice, rulership, and morality were all tied together. In fact, they were all basically the same thing, expressed in different ways and affecting different aspects of life. All of these things therefore fall within Zeus’s domain. In an essay called “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic,” William Allan points how how the smooth functioning of the universe is dependent on Zeus’s authority: "…Zeus’s decision to maintain cosmic order is not only presented as re-enforcing human mortality. For as well as defining a hierarchy of gods and mortals, it also marks out the structure of power among the gods themselves, since cosmic order is closely connected throughout early Greek thought to the status and power of Zeus, which are in turn defined by his personal relations with the other gods. No less than Hesiod, the Homeric epics reflect the fact that the evolution of the cosmos is a violent process, and that its maintenance may involve further violence or the threat of it. The stability of the universe therefore rests upon a balance of power that is vulnerable to the turbulence of competing divine wills. Yet the structuring of the Olympians as a divine family creates a hierarchy of power that goes some way to resolving the rivalries of the gods." —William Allan, “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic” Zeus isn’t just the most powerful of the gods, he’s also the god of power, on every possible scale. Most aspects of Zeus somehow relate to the expression of and wielding of power. He is a storm god, becuase storms are one of the most powerful natural phenomena that humans experience on a regular basis. I realized this when I saw a bolt of lightning crack across the sky, and was completely awed by it, despite knowing that lightning is static electricity and not literally a divine weapon. Just as he represents the power of the sky and the laws of the universe, Zeus is also associated with power on a human level and the enforcing of laws in society: Fatherhood is the most basic state of power in society, so that’s why Zeus has so many children and why the Olympians function as a divine family. Kingship is the highest level of power in society, so Zeus is the god of governance and political power. Mythology reflects this, because Zeus looks and behaves the way kings are expected to. Power is critical to what Zeus is as a deity. In that sense, it’s almost irrelevant to ask whether any of the other gods are more powerful than Zeus. It doesn’t matter whether they could take him in a fight or not, because even if they could, Zeus would still be the divine personification of power. Zeus would still be the chief god because Zeus is defined by power. And yet… people always insist on comparing him against the Protogenoi. Part Three: Zeus Hypatos In debates about how powerful Zeus is, Nyx inevitably gets brought up. She’s the other god whom Zeus supposedly has to answer to, because Zeus is wary of angering her: “…Zeus awakened in anger and beat the gods up and down his house, looking beyond all others for me [Hypnos], and would have sunk me out of sight in the sea from the bright sky had not Night who has power over gods and men rescued me. I reached her in my flight, and Zeus let be, though he was angry in awe of doing anything to swift Night’s displeasure." —The Iliad 14, 256–261 This often gets sensationalized into “Zeus is afraid of Nyx!!!” And, while that’s not wrong, it requires a bit of contextualizing. Nyx, Night Herself, is certainly a frightening and eldritch goddess, who spawned a whole host of anthropomorphic personifications of natural functions like Sleep, Death, Discord, Deceit, Day, Dreams, and so on. Zeus is right to fear her. But does that make her more powerful than Zeus? We’re back to asking what exactly that means. I would say no, she’s not more powerful than Zeus, because she’s not Lord of the Universe and he is. (In Orphism, Nyx was actually the second Lord of the Universe, following Phanes and preceding Ouranos, but she mentored Zeus in the structuring of the Universe when he came to her for advice.) So the real question is, would Nyx be capable of dethroning Zeus if she was angry enough? People seem to take this passage as evidence that Nyx would crush Zeus if he angered her, but the truth is, we have no idea what Nyx would do if she got angry. What would it look like, if Nyx were to rebel against Zeus? Would she march up to Olympus in the shape of a woman? Would she cover the Earth in eternal night? Would she loose her daimons on the Olympians? We don’t know. Maybe she would threaten to throw off the day/night cycle, and upset the cosmic order that Zeus works so hard to maintain. That would definitely be bad. Zeus himself would not be hurt by that, but his power would be disrupted, making it inadvisable to anger Nyx. My personal interpretation, based on what I know of Nyx’s personality and the rest of her relationship with Zeus, is that she would be “not angry, but disappointed”, like when a kindly old grandmother looks over the top of her glasses and you know you’re in trouble. Regardless, the existence of this line does nothing to undermine the fact that Zeus is Lord of the Universe. I’ve noticed that the importance and power of Protogenoi is often overblown by modern commentators. Protogenoi have a certain glamour around them, I guess. People like the idea of cosmic entities battling it out; there’s an endless barrage of “who would win” questions on Quora concerning the most powerful beings from all fictional universes, like “Who would win, Azathoth or Eru Iluvatar?” That question isn’t just unanswerable, it’s an ontological paradox. Once you’re dealing with entities that have no apparent limits or defined power sets, you can’t make any judgements about how they would relate to each other. All of these power scaling questions give people an inaccurate sense of what the Protogenoi are and what they do. Our modern idea of power scaling suggests that the Protogenoi “should” be the most powerful gods becuase they’re the fundamentals of existence, or because they’re creator gods, or something like that. And… I guess? But that’s like calling the Lonely Mountain more powerful than Smaug. The mountain is still there when Smaug dies, but… it’s a mountain. It doesn’t do anything, it’s just there. Ouranos is literally the sky. Look up. That sky. Nyx is what happens when it gets dark. Gaia is literally the ground that you’re standing on. What’s the ground going to do? The only thing she can do to try to defeat Zeus is birth ever-nastier monsters that all get defeated. Actually, wait, let me back up: The Protogonoi fluctuate between various levels of anthropomorphization. Sometimes Ouranos is a divine king, who has testicles which can be cut off. Other times he’s just the sky — technically, Ouranos (and Nyx’s son Aither) are what Zeus’s domain consists of. Pontus is the sea, which Poseidon rules over. Tartaros is the pit beneath the Underworld, which got absorbed into Hades’ domain. Gaia is the most anthropomorphized, plotting against Zeus on the regular, but she’s also the physical earth beneath our feet. If you further anthropomorphize the Protogenoi, then you end up with the Olympians. A fully-anthropomorphized Gaia is just Demeter (whose name means “earth mother”). A fully-anthropomorphized Pontus would just be Poseidon. A fully-anthropomorphized Ouranos is just Zeus, the kingly god of the sky. This is what I mean when I say that myths should be interpreted metaphorically. They have this thing going on that I’ve come to call the “looping-effect,” which means that the same symbols reassert themselves over and over again in different contexts. One particularly interesting example is Phanes, the firstborn of the gods and first Lord of the Universe in the Orphic cosmology, a personification of the drive that causes things to exist. It might be easy to say that Phanes is the most powerful god, partly because our Christian cultural lens encourages us to interpret creator gods as being the most powerful, but also becuase nothing would exist without Phanes. However, Zeus is sometimes understood as an evolution of Phanes, being one of his successors as Lord of the Universe. This is represented symbolically by a myth (mentioned in the Orphic Theogonies) of Zeus having swallowed Phanes, thereby gaining his ability to cause things to come into being: "Zeus when, from his father the prophecy having heard, strength in his hands he took, and the glorious daimon [Phanes], the reverend one, he swallowed, who first sprang forth into the Aither. […] And with him all the immortals became one, the blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that then existed: he became the only one." --Orphica, Theogonies Fragment (from the Derveni Papyrus). Translation from Theoi. Zeus must be more powerful than Phanes if he was able to swallow him, right? How was Zeus even able to swallow a fiery primordial entity? Well, this is where myths get weird and need to be approached as a series of symbols instead of as internally consistent narratives. “Swallowing” the divine progenitor makes Zeus the cosmic progenitor, the cause and culmination of everything that exists. Essentially, he makes Phanes part of himself (and then gives birth — literally, gives birth — to the next iteration of Phanes in the form of Dionysus). Absorbing Phanes makes Zeus an almost pantheistic Supreme Being, of whom all other gods and all that exists are apart. "If, then, Zeus is the one who holds ‘the sole sovereignty’, who swallows up Phanes, in whom the intelligible causes of the universe exist primarily, who brings forth all things in accordance with the counsels of Night, who hands over authority to the other gods and also the three Kronides, this god is indeed that single and whole Demiurge of the entire cosmos. He has the fifth rank among the Kings, as has been marvellously demonstrated by our teacher in the Orphic Conversations." —Proclus, Commentary on Timaeus. This is an unusual interpretation of Zeus, specific to a particular mystery cult. But it’s worth noting that this story of Zeus having swallowed Phanes is very similar to Zeus having swallowed Metis, his first wife, which is sometimes held up as an example of Zeus’s cruelty and hypocrisy — “He killed/trapped his first wife by swallowing her! That’s exactly the same thing Kronos did!” In Metis’s case, she is the goddess of thought, and her being in Zeus’s head makes her literally the personification of his thoughts. It therefore makes sense that her daughter would be Athena, the goddess of intellect and strategic thinking — Athena was born from Zeus’s thoughts. That’s what I mean when I say that myths should be taken symbolically and not literally. Part Four: Zeus Panhellenios So, who was Zeus to the Ancient Greeks? It almost goes without saying that Zeus was a Big-Ass Deal, even by the standards of the Olympians. Most gods have localized cult centers, but Zeus was worshipped all over Greece, giving him the epithet Panhellenios, “of all Greeks.” It’s possible that the reason Zeus is the most powerful god in mythology is because of his relative ubiquity in religion. It’s worth emphasizing that, no matter what reputation Zeus may have now, the Ancient Greeks interpreted Zeus as fully benevolent. This becomes obvious when you look at Zeus’s epithets, which give you a sense of why he was worshipped: Zeus Epidotes is the “giver of good things” who dispenses blessings unto mortals. Sometimes he was conflated with the Agathos Daimon, the “Good Spirit,” a friendly daimon in the shape of a snake that protects the household (sort of similar to the Egyptian Bes). Zeus Ombrios brings the rains, which are a critical part of agriculture, making him a god of abundance. Under the epithets Xenios and Phyxios, Zeus protects foreigners and refugees, and punishes those who fail to show strangers respect and kindness. One of Zeus’s important roles in religion is as a god who punishes or deflects evil, and who grants absolution and blessings to the good. Zeus Alexikakos, “averter of evil,” and Alastor, “avenger” demonstrate Zeus’s capacity as a god who destroys and deflects evil. It’s Zeus’s job to maintain and enforce natural law, which is why he dispenses harsh punishments for hubris. Zeus gets a modern reputation as a hypocritical arbiter of divine punishment because of the number of myths in which he carries out divine justice, but the context is lost, because we compare Zeus to the Abrahamic God. The latter’s interpretation of divine justice appears inconsistent and arbitrary, and is sometimes literally interpreted as such (“God works in mysterious ways”). Zeus’s approach towards divine punishment is a lot less arbitrary when understood in the context of Ancient Greek values. When Zeus punishes mortals, it’s mostly for the same things: hybris (see this answer), kinslaying, and failure to honor xenia (sacred hospitality). The flip side of this aspect is Zeus Katharsios, “purifier,” who cleanses you of spiritual pollution. "For easily he makes strong, and easily he brings the strong man low; Easily he humbles the proud and raises the obscure, And easily he straightens the crooked and blasts the proud. —Zeus who thunders aloft and has his dwelling most high. Attend thou with eye and ear, And make judgements straight with righteousness." —Hesiod, Works and Days The Orphic Hymn to Zeus characterizes him as a supreme divine king, who rules the whole universe, and who can bestow good things upon mortals: "Highly honored Zeus, imperishable Zeus, we verily offer you This redemptive testimony and prayer. Oh King, by means of your accomplishment all things are made clear, Earth Goddess mother, and the towering high places of the mountains, The sea, and everything, as many as are arranged within the sky; Kronian Zefs, bearing the scepter, descending in thunder and lightning, strong-hearted one, All-generating Father, origin and end of everything, Earth-shaker, increaser, purifier, shaker of everything, Bearing lightning, thundering and wielding it, yet you are the great nurturer of life. Hear me, God of changeful form. Grant me blameless health, With godly peace, as well as riches and good reputation. Self-generated one; father of the happy Gods and men. In gratitude for our libations, fulfill all fitting aspirations. A happy life, united with queen Health, And the brightly-venerated child-loving Goddess of peace; And a life always rich with cheerful thoughts." —Orphic Hymn to Zeus. Literal translation from Hellenicgods.org This hymn describes Zeus as having dominion over the heavens, the earth (and in this version, the sea; it also uses the epithet “earthshaker,” implying some conflation between Zeus and Poseidon). It also describes him as the beginning and the end of all things, similar to the Abrahamic God’s “Alpha and Omega” epithet, and making this the Demiurge version of Zeus described in other Orphic sources. Overall, this hymn emphasizes Zeus’s associations with kingliness, storms, and abundance, and it asks him for health, wealth, happiness, and general prosperity. The religious interpretation of Zeus is as positive, paternal influence that is simultaneously overarching (a heavenly overlord) and personal (a friendly house spirit). Zeus is also accessible. His worship isn’t locked behind initiation, nor does it require anything in particular of you. I think that this must be taken into account when interpreting the mythological Zeus, because the religious understanding of the gods is in the background of the myths, which usually are intended to justify whatever associations already exist. Ancient Greek sources are not ambiguous about this — no matter how Zeus may come across, he is the most powerful god and the Lord of the Universe. "I will sing of Zeus, chieftest among the gods and greatest, all-seeing, the lord of all, the fulfiller who whispers words of wisdom to Themis as she sits leaning towards him. Be gracious, all-seeing Son of Kronos, most excellent and great." —Homeric Hymn to Zeus
Are There Evil Gods?
The Ancient Greeks didn’t really conceive of any of their gods as being “evil,” per se. They had no equivalent to Satan; no god blamed for all the bad things that happen in the world. In general, gods simply do not work like that. For example, a god often described as “evil” in modern media is Ares. Ares is the god of war, specifically, the god of bloodlust. Ares is the personification of pure battle frenzy, of the wild ecstasy that comes only from slaughtering one’s enemies and becoming drenched with their blood. Ares is known for rushing into combat, screaming, and doesn’t really care who wins or loses as long as there’s a lot of bloodshed. Ares is certainly ruthless, and of the Olympians, he comes the closest to being “evil.” He was rarely worshipped in comparison to the other Olympians, and he is often a laughingstock in mythology (like when he was trapped in a bronze jar for a year because no one bothered to rescue him). In the Iliad, when Ares is wounded in battle and complains to Zeus about Athena, Zeus outright tells Ares that he hates him. However, interpreting Ares as evil is very unfair to him. War is an ugly thing, but it was a fact of life in Ancient Greece, and any ubiquitous aspect of life is going to have a god to go with it. Ares, like all gods, has hidden complexity. For one thing, his treatment of women is better than almost any other major deity. As far as I know, there isn’t a single myth in which he so much as attempts to rape a woman, divine or mortal. (Even Dionysus has such a myth, so that’s saying a lot.) His love affair with Aphrodite is held up in literature and artwork as a perfect example of reciprocal love (represented by their son, Anteros), despite the fact that it’s adulterous. One of Ares’ epithets, Gunaikothoinas, means “feasted by women.” This refers to a time when women turned the tide of a war and literally celebrated Ares with a feast, but… you do the math. The Amazons, known for being powerful and badass warrior-women, were daughters of Ares (which is why it’s ironic that he’s the villain in Wonder Woman). Ares can even dance: "The Paphian [Aphrodite] also, [Harmonia’s] lovely mother, decorated her daughter’s newbuilt bower for Cadmos, while she sang of the god-ordained marriage; her father [Ares] danced with joy for his girl, bare and stript of his armour, a tame Ares! and laid his right arm unweaponed about Aphrodite, while he sounded the spirit of the Loves on his wedding-trumpet answering the panpipes: he had shaken off from his helmet head the plumes of horsehair so familiar in the battlefield, and wreathed bloodless garlands about his hair, weaving a merry song for Love." —Nonnus, Dionysiaca This image challenges the notion of Ares as a savage god of destruction and carnage. That’s absolutely what he is on the battlefield — and he’s usually on the battlefield — but when he’s off the battlefield, he becomes surprisingly peaceful, kind, even gentle. In real life, people prayed to Ares for courage and strength in battle, but more often they prayed for peace. The Homeric Hymn to Ares entreats Ares to restrain the devotee’s violent passions, so that there will be peace instead of strife: "Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life, And strength of war, that I may be able to drive away bitter cowardice from my head And crush down the deceitful impulses of my soul. Restrain also the keen fury of my heart Which provokes me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife. Rather, O blessed one, give you me boldness to abide within the harmless laws of peace, Avoiding strife and hatred and the violent fiends of death." —Homeric Hymn to Ares It is my personal interpretation that Ares hates the state of modern war, because it is almost completely impersonal. Shooting at a distance means that you don’t even see the faces of those you kill. There is no warm gush of blood on your hands, no ecstasy of battle. There is no communion with the slain soldier, no true acknowledgement of the taking of an individual human life. And that’s without even mentioning things like bombs and drone strikes. Whatever spirituality there was in war, is now gone. The same goes for the rest of the Olympians. Though all of them have done things that can be considered “evil,” all of them have just as many layers of complexity. They are fickle because they represent different aspects of the natural world and of human culture. Ancient Greeks interpreted them as being mainly benevolent, and willing to help and support humanity if they were properly respected. (Values Dissonance also comes into play — there are many things that are considered evil now that wouldn’t have been in Ancient Greece, like slavery and misogyny.) All gods have dark aspects, but these are essential to their natures. No god can really be branded as “evil.” Gods are a means of understanding Things That Exist, be they natural forces or aspects of human culture. Gods are nuanced because humans are nuanced. *** The Greek god most often interpreted as evil in modern media is, of course, Hades. Hades is the Lord of the Dead, who rules the Underworld. Interpreting Hades as evil is passé by now. He’s been likened to Satan far too many times, but really doesn’t have that much in common with Satan. For the most part, Hades calmly does his job, presiding over the shades of the Underworld. That being said, the Greeks mostly did not worship Hades actively. They feared even to attract his attention, and referred to him using euphemistic epithets instead of by name. Hades is not evil, but he is grim, unyielding, and quite terrifying. There’s also his treatment of Persephone to contend with, but this is ambiguous — the Ancient Greeks drew no distinction in their artwork between rape, kidnapping, and marriage. All things considered, Hades and Persephone’s marriage is a stable one. Hades is a faithful husband, and Persephone is just as powerful and feared as he is. They both stay out of the drama of the rest of their family. One of the biggest misconceptions about Hades is that he somehow resents his lot, that he hates being the King of the Underworld and wishes he was on Olympus with the rest of the gods. I’m pretty sure that the prevalence of this stereotype is a result of the common modern interpretation of Hades as being like Satan, especially since “Hades” became a word for Sheol or (eventually) Hell in the Greek part of the Bible. If Hades was allotted to rule Hell, then that means he must really hate it there and resent his brothers who get to live on Olympus… right? (Honestly, I blame Disney.) This idea is so prevalent that it even shows up in the video game Hades, which has one of the most mythologically accurate depictions of Hades I’ve ever seen. But it’s almost completely unsubstantiated in Greek mythology. Here’s a selection of quotes from primary sources (from Theoi.com) describing the division of the cosmos: "We are three brothers born by Rheia to Kronos, Zeus, and I [Poseidon], and the third is Aides [Hades] lord of the dead men. All was divided among us three ways, each given his domain. I [Poseidon] when the lots were shaken drew the grey sea to live in forever; Aides drew the lot of the mists and the darkness, and Zeus was allotted the wide sky, in the cloud and the bright air. But earth and high Olympos are common to all three." —Homer, The Iliad "Aidoneus Polysemantor (Hades, Ruler of Many), is . . . your [Demeter's] own brother and born of the same stock : also, for honour, he has that third share which he received when division was made at the first, and is appointed lord of those among whom he dwells." —Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter "By Homer's account, Zeus, Poseidon, and Plouton (Pluton) [Hades] divided the sovereignty amongst them when they took it over from their father [Kronos]." —Plato, Gorgias "The three gods [Zeus, Poseidon and Haides] overpowered the Titanes, confined them in Tartaros . . . The gods then drew lots for a share of the rule. Zeus won the lordship of the sky, Poseidon that of the sea, and Plouton (Pluto) the rule of Hades' realm." —Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca "[Zeus speaks :] ‘My rank is no greater [than Hades]. I hold court in the sky; another rules the sea [Poseidon], and one the void [Hades].’" —Ovid, Fasti "Dis [Hades] himself, who drew a lot equal to Jove's [Zeus's]." —Seneca, Hercules Furens "The king [Hades] of the third estate." —Seneca, Hercules Furens "Heaven, hell, and ocean . . . there remains no further lot; three kingdoms know me." —Seneca, Phaedra "The third hazard [drawn lot] hurled me [Hades] defeated from the mighty heaven, and I guard the world of guilt." —Statius, Thebaid "The Warden of the Larvae (Shades) [Hades] and the third heir of the world, after the lot's unkind apportioning, leapt down from his chariot and grew pale, for he was come to Tartarus and heaven was lost forever." —Statius, Thebaid "Lord Zeus holds the starry hall on Olympos; he has given the briny sea to his brother [Poseidon] the water king for his prerogative; he has given the cloudy house of darkness to your [Persephone's] consort [Hades]." —Nonnus, Dionysiaca Out of all these sources, the only one that says Hades is unsatisfied with his lot is Statius. Almost all of the other sources either don’t describe Hades’ reaction to his lot at all, or don’t imply that he has any problem with being King of the Underworld. In fact, some of them actually go out of their way to say that Hades’ domain is equal to that of Zeus. Therefore, Hades doesn’t have any reason to resent his brother Zeus, let alone want to overthrow him. Hades even asks favors of Zeus in some instances — he asks Zeus for Persephone’s hand, he asks Zeus to force Sisyphus to let him go, and he asks Zeus to stop Asclepius from raising the dead. I don’t know enough of the context surrounding the Thebaid to tell why that one is different. The quotes from the Thebaid describe Hades in terms that sound uncannily like Milton’s Lucifer — “hurled defeated from mighty heaven,” “heaven was lost forever.” It says outright that Hades’ lot is “unkind” — that the Underworld is inferior to the heavens, much like the Christian Hell, instead of saying that Hades’ and Zeus’ domains are equal. My first thought was that the weirdly Satanic-sounding characterization of Hades might have more to do with the translation than the original text. I know enough Latin that I could roughly translate the original, so I went and found it on Perseus. Here’s the Latin, and my translation: "qualis demissus curru laevae post praemia sortis umbrarum custos mundique novissimus heres palluit, amisso veniens in Tartara caelo." "The guardian of shadows and last heir to the world paled after having dropped from the chariot after such an unlucky lot, having lost heaven in coming to Tartarus." My grammar might be a little off but that’s the basic idea. In-context, this is a brief analogy meant to dissuade one of the characters in the epic from going to battle. I think it’s meant to mean, “you might die, and even the Lord of the Dead thinks the Underworld sucks so don’t die.” That context makes it sound a lot less like Paradise Lost. Also, this could be an instance of a mortal projecting onto Hades. Mortals, unambiguously, do not like the Underworld. It’s a dark, dismal place that has nothing to make humans happy. That’s pretty consistent throughout Greco-Roman mythology, even after Elysium becomes a thing. But apart from this one late source, Hades doesn’t seem to mind being Lord of the Underworld at all. Do not confuse Hades’ naturally sombre nature for dissatisfaction. Hades isn’t depressed or bitter, and he certainly isn’t evil. However, he is grim, stringent, and mortals find him terrifying. He is known for being just, but unforgiving. He mostly does his job calmly, diligently, and competently. He stays out of the drama of the rest of the family. Ancient Greek people weren’t necessarily fond of him, but Hades has gained popularity on the internet for being one of the least problematic gods overall. As for Thanatos, Thanatos is Death. Just… Death. Is Death evil? People usually don’t like Death. Death is an uncomfortable and often terrifying fact of life. Humans often shun things associated with death. But is it evil? Not really. Death just is. A natural force that just exists regardless can’t really be given a moral alignment. Is Death ruthless? I mean, sure. Death often comes swiftly and without warning, and it will come for every living thing eventually. In that sense, Thanatos could be called ruthless. But again, Thanatos is just doing his job. Things have to die and decay, so that new things can be born and nourished. Death is less an ending than a point on an endless cycle of existing, which is why the XIII Death card in the Tarot represents transition and change rather than a finite ending. On top of all that, Thanatos is specifically the god of peaceful death (as opposed to the Keres, the goddesses of violent death). He is the god of those for whom death is an end to suffering. Thanatos claims your soul if you die calmly in your sleep. So, that’s even less reason to consider him evil. There are other daemons that could be considered more “evil,” so to speak. There’s Eris, the goddess of strife, who threw the Apple of Discord among three goddesses and indirectly started the Trojan War. There’s the Erinyes, who are terrifying goddesses that whip mortals as divine punishment, but they have their role to play as dispensers of justice. The same is true of Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance. Even Kronos, Zeus’s Titan father whom he imprisoned in Tartarus, isn’t really evil. His reign was the mythological Golden Age, when human lives were long and peaceful. Some sources claim that Zeus eventually forgave Kronos, and made him king of Elysium in the Underworld. *** There’s one more god with “evil” connotations that’s worth a more in-depth discussion, and that’s Hecate. Hecate is a chthonic goddess of the night, witchcraft, necromancy, and ghosts, who is associated with midwifery, roadways, and thresholds. Hecate is a Titan goddess who kept her power after Zeus overthrew his father, instead of being imprisoned in Tartarus. Her worship was quiet and somewhat out-of-the-way, but the Ancient Greeks revered her. They certainly did not consider her evil. However, her associations — like Hades’ — were quite dark. She led a procession of ghosts, offerings for which were left at crossroads on the first day of every month (a dark moon on the lunar calendar). She is associated with pharmakeia, the practice of using drugs in witchcraft, and was said to have taught it to Circe and Medea. (Some sources even name her as their mother.) She is invoked in necromantic rituals found in the Greek Magical Papyri. One of her epithets is Brimo, “the angry” or “the terrifying.” She is associated with demonesses like the Empousai. Her role in mythology is almost uniformly benevolent, with most of her myths involving her showing compassion. However, there are a few exceptions, and this is one of them: "And Perses had a daughter Hekate, who surpassed her father in boldness and lawlessness; she was also fond of hunting, and when she had no luck she would turn her arrows upon human beings instead of the beasts. Being likewise ingenious in the mixing of deadly poisons she discovered the drug called aconite and tired out the strength of each poison by mixing it with food given to the strangers. And since she possessed great experience in such matters she first of all poisoned her father, and so succeeded to the throne, and then, founding a temple of Artemis and commanding that strangers who landed there should be sacrificed to the goddess, she became know far and wide for her cruelty. After this she married Aeetes and bore two daughters, Kirke (Circe) and Medea, and a son Aigialeus (Aegialeus)." The source for this is Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliotheca Historica, and he makes Hecate sound like an evil queen out of a fairy tale. She hunts humans for sport, poisons her own father for political gain, and sacrifices “strangers” to Artemis. There’s two layers of context to that last part; One, strangers in Ancient Greece are protected by xenia, the law of sacred hospitality, so killing strangers specifically is even more of a moral transgression. Two, Hecate was conflated with Artemis, so… this is really a description of Hecate sacrificing humans to herself. Otherwise, Hecate seems to be a mortal queen in this passage. It’s weird and uncharacteristic. Diodorus isn’t the last person to characterize Hecate as evil. Fast-forward a thousand years to the Renaissance. The first person to present Hecate as the Queen of Witches is Shakespeare: FIRST WITCH: Why, how now, Hecate! you look angerly. HECATE: Have I not reason, beldams as you are, Saucy and overbold? How did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth In riddles and affairs of death; And I, the mistress of your charms, The close contriver of all harms, Was never call'd to bear my part, Or show the glory of our art? And, which is worse, all you have done Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you. But make amends now: get you gone, And at the pit of Acheron Meet me i' the morning: thither he Will come to know his destiny: Your vessels and your spells provide, Your charms and every thing beside. I am for the air; this night I'll spend Unto a dismal and a fatal end: Great business must be wrought ere noon: Upon the corner of the moon There hangs a vaporous drop profound; I'll catch it ere it come to ground: And that distill'd by magic sleights Shall raise such artificial sprites As by the strength of their illusion Shall draw him on to his confusion: He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear He hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear: And you all know, security Is mortals' chiefest enemy. Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me. [Exit] FIRST WITCH: Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again. —Macbeth, Act 3, scene 5 Hecate chides the witches for dealing with Macbeth without her approval, and she decides to intervene. She reminds me of Maleficent, angry for not having been included. A satirical Renaissance-Era depiction of Hecate shows her as an ugly hag with three crowned heads and clawed feet, holding her characteristic torch. She rides a goat that stands in a magic circle, and is accompanied by various spirits. In the background are a bunch of people being hanged, likely for witchcraft. A medieval lawbook called the Canon Episcopi mentions that some women go on night rides with the goddess Diana: "It is also not to be omitted that some wicked women, who have given themselves back to Satan and been seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that, in the hours of night, they ride upon certain beasts with Diana, the goddess of pagans, and an innumerable multitude of women, and in the silence of the dead of the night to fly over vast spaces of earth, and obey her commands as of their lady, and are summoned to her service on certain nights." This is a sort of early version of the idea of the Witches’ Sabbath, which would gain prominence during the witch hunts of the Renaissance. In Ancient Greece, Hecate is associated with nocturnal processions of the restless dead, which would be left a meal as offering on the Dark Moon. Hecate was often conflated with Artemis and Diana, so perhaps the goddess of witches as described by the Canon could also be Hecate. So, Hecate was explicitly considered evil by being associated with witches in the Renaissance, when witches were people who had sold their souls to the Devil in exchange for malevolent magic. Hecate was associated with witches like Circe and Medea in Ancient Greece, too, having taught them the art of pharmakeia (herbalism). But, ironically, it is Hecate’s later status as Witch Queen that has given her the most significance to modern worshippers. She is one of the most popular goddesses among modern neopagans, especially those who identify as witches.
Are the Gods Evil?
The Greek gods were part of a religion first, mythology second. It’s easy to forget this, because most modern people were exposed to Greek mythology as stories. I’ve loved Greek mythology since I was about seven, but everything I’ve learned about Ancient Greek religion has been in the past two years. The Ancient Greeks did not worship the figures in the stories, they told stories about the figures they already worshipped. That is a very important distinction. This means that gods were not necessarily interpreted by their worshippers in the same ways that they are portrayed in myth. In myth, the gods are very humanized, but even myth itself is extremely complicated. Each myth that has survived is one interpretation from one point in time, a “fossilized” snapshot of the gods it depicts. It belies the depth, complexity, and contradiction surrounding any individual deity, and the sheer magnitude of cultural context. There is no one definitive version of any myths. Mythology is an oral tradition, and the same stories would have been told in many different places all over Greece, over hundreds of years. There are bound to be some variations. The next town over may have a completely different version of any given myth from the one that you tell. In short, mythology is not consistent. To say “the gods were douchebags” is to ignore all of that surrounding context. Authorial bias also factors in. Many of the most famous versions of myths come from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which he wrote in 8 CE. Ovid was a Roman, not a Greek, so he was already writing his own interpretation of an oral tradition that had existed for thousands of years by that point. Ovid had an anti-authoritarian bent, so some of his interpretations of myths make gods look much worse than they do in other contexts. The story about Athena cursing the beautiful Medusa to be a monster, and the story of Athena turning Arachne into a spider after losing a weaving contest, both come only from Ovid. They both make Athena look really bad, and a bit out-of-character in comparison to her other portrayals. In Greek versions of Medusa’s story, she was a monster to begin with, the daughter of Phorkys and Keto. Athena is much more justified in wanting her dead, and aiding Perseus is an example of her kindness and patronage of heroes. The Ancient Greeks would not necessarily have interpreted Athena the way Ovid portrays her. Part of the reason why the gods are so often interpreted as jerkasses in modern media is because Ovid’s portrayal of them is so famous. But, even Ovid doesn’t always portray gods this way. He’s also our main source for the story of the golden touch, and in that story, Dionysus is portrayed more sympathetically. He rewards Midas for being kind, and when the golden touch proves to be a curse, he takes it back without issue. Ovid even remarks, “How patient are the gods!” [1]And indeed, for every myth of a god acting like a jerk, you can find another one about the same god being kind. Apollo gave humans music, poetry, logic, and medicine, and bestowed the gift of prophecy on human oracles. He was once forced to spend a year as a herdsman for a mortal king, Admetus, and was so smitten with Admetus that he doted on him and helped him win a princess in a chariot race. Dionysus taught humans how to make wine, and spent a long while living among them and partying alongside them. Athena gave humans wonderful gifts and inventions, like the plough, the loom, the bridle, and the olive tree. Demeter taught humans how to grow their own food and store it for the long winters while she grieved. Aphrodite granted Pygmalion’s wish for Galatea to become a real woman, helped Hippomenes beat Atalanta in a footrace, and became the protectress of Rome. Zeus and Hermes blessed an old couple for their wonderful hospitality (a moral value in Ancient Greece) by turning them into trees once they died, so they would forever stand entwined together over their lake. Even Hera favored Jason, and helped him in his quest. Another major reason why the gods might come off as jerks to us today is because of plain Values Dissonance. The Ancient Greeks did not have the same values and morals that we do now. Divine punishments for hubris or inhospitality, which may seem barbaric to us now, may have seemed justified to them. Niobe insulted a goddess, and if she’s going to denigrate Leto’s children because there’s only two of them, she deserves to lose all of hers. That’s unfair from a modern perspective because the children didn’t do anything and don’t deserve to die, but within the cultural framework of Greek mythology, it makes sense. Apollo sends a plague to weaken Agamemnon’s troops because his priest was treated badly — the other soldiers didn’t do anything, but in context it makes sense for the god to feel slighted. The gods are fickle, explaining the apparently random cruelty of nature, but they also work according to a particular logic. I’ve also realized that myths tend to blow things out of proportion — in most cases, you have to screw up on a literally mythic scale for a god to be really pissed off at you. Yes, there are some times when mortals are genuinely screwed over by gods, like poor Hippolytus drawing Aphrodite’s ire just for being asexual, or all the times Hera made someone’s life miserable. But those who are eternally punished in the pits of Tartarus are almost always there because they fucked up on the most colossal scale. Sisyphus attempted to escape death more than once, imprisoning Hades (or Thanatos) and then tricking his way out of the Underworld, before he finally died naturally and was given a punishment that really drove home the concept of inevitability. Tantalus fed Zeus (his father) and the other gods the flesh of his own child. Ixion tried to rape Hera. I think that all speaks for itself, doesn’t it? And even those who don’t end up in Tartarus but suffer violent deaths aren’t necessarily in everyday situations — you aren’t going to try to drive the sun, or catch a goddess while bathing, or try to fly to the palace of the gods and demand to be let in, are you? And then on top of all that, myths are not meant to be taken literally! Even the most clean-cut of morality plays may have some deeper spiritual metaphor embedded in it. Pentheus’ death in The Bacchae is disturbing — from an Ancient Greek perspective, he deserves it because of his impiety, but his dismemberment is also loaded with spiritual significance within the Dionysian mystery tradition. Because he dies as Dionysus himself died, he acts as a stand-in for the god himself, implying a spiritual rebirth. Pentheus’ punishment doesn’t only carry the basic message of “don’t insult a god,” it also demonstrates that old and repressive ways of thinking must be destroyed to make way for new ones; if that transition cannot happen peacefully, then it will happen violently. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the stories of divine punishment carried similar metaphors. Zeus is an excellent example of Values Dissonance in play. Zeus has a lot of sexual encounters with women throughout Greek mythology, and many of them are not consensual. This is disturbing to modern people for obvious reasons, but in Ancient Greece it didn’t seem that way. The Ancient Greeks were a rigidly patriarchal society, and Zeus is the archetypal divine patriarch. That means he behaves in myth as men in power are expected to, and that means acquiring “conquests.” Zeus’ womanizing tendencies are an expression of his power over all of Greece, because many of these mythological women are symbolic representations of the parts of Greece that they come from. Some of them may have been local goddesses, so, Zeus’ having sex with local goddesses represents his power over them and the lands they rule.. The Ancient Greeks also made no distinction, not even in artwork, between rape and marriage. Both were depicted as kidnapping. Because the Ancient Greeks didn’t recognize that this is abhorrent, it did not factor into their interpretation of Zeus. In Greek mythology, Zeus may seem tyrannical, but in Greek religion, he was the embodiment of benevolent rulership. To the Ancient Greeks, Zeus represented good governance, protected foreigners, and was an arbiter of moral goodness. Yes, really. None of this excuses fictional rape, but ultimately, it is fictional. Zeus may have been interpreted as a rapist in Ancient Greece, but we do not have to interpret him that way now. Some modern worshippers of Zeus[2] have chosen to interpret the god in this more abstract context. What is important about Zeus is that he is a personification of power. What matters is his association with storms, one of the most powerful things in nature, and his association with governance and leadership among humans. The stories about Zeus are just that — stories. They are a product of their time, which was several millennia ago, and no longer reflect the values of modern people. They do not need to be taken literally or at face value. If the core of his nature is that of power and good governance, what does that look like now? In what ways does that matter now? Zeus protects immigrants, upholding the law of xenia (sacred hospitality) so that they will feel welcomed. He avenges those who have been wronged by justice systems. He teaches mankind how and why good leadership is important. One more factor here is that many of us in the West are used to Abrahamic conceptions of what a god is and what a god does, most of which do not apply here. The Greek gods never claim to be omnipotent or omnibenevolent. The following quote is often attributed to Epicurius: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” This argument first appears in early Christian writings, and of course it does. If some version of it did originate with Epicurius, it probably was not phrased this way, because nothing about it makes sense in the context of Ancient Greek theology. There is no “problem of evil” in Ancient Greek theology because the gods are not necessarily benevolent, but not necessarily malevolent either. Nor are they all-powerful — their powers are limited to their domains and relevant associations. And they are not supposed to be omnipotent or omnibenevolent. They’re gods because they encapsulate the essence of the ineffable in nature and in humans. They’re gods, because they give a human shape to things that are much bigger and much older than humans, to make those ancient things more comprehensible. The reason why the Abrahamic God is full of so many contradictions is because the Old Testament version of God behaves like any other polytheistic deity, but this is inconsistent with his later characterization. Gods waging war or assisting their favorites or being jealous is normal, but if the God that is supposed to know everything and love everyone acts like that, it comes across as hypocritical and unsettling. The Greek gods make no secret of the fact that they are flawed and complex beings, like humans. And that’s a good thing, because that makes them easier to relate to. In many ways, despite their seemingly-human emotions and impulses, they’re less cruel: They do not care who you are or where you’ve come from, they do not care about your race or gender or sexual orientation, they do not police your thoughts for signs of sin or demand you hold yourself to an unrealistic standard of morality, or use the afterlife to cajole or threaten you. All they want is a bit of meat and incense, and for you to not insult them. In Ancient Greece, gods are allowed to be inconsistent. Gods are wildly inconsistent! This goes back to what I was saying before about different locales interpreting gods in different ways. This results in something called epithets — bynames that describe the capacity in which a god is worshipped. All the major gods have epithets. Some describe the version of the god from a particular part of Greece: The epithet Kypris describes Aphrodite, referencing her birthplace on the island of Cyprus. Kythereia represents her cult center on Cythera. Sometimes they represent different domains of the god: Aphrodite Ourania is the goddess of “celestial,” divine love. Aphrodite Pandemos is the goddess of sexual love. Aphrodite Areia is a war goddess. Sometimes they reference particular deeds of the god: Argeiphontes, “slayer of Argus,” is an epithet of Hermes. Sometimes they describe a god’s attributes — the epithet Daphnaeus describes Apollo as the god of the laurel tree, and Phoebus describes him as physically bright and shining. Sometimes they describe something a god does for mortals; many of Athena’s epithets describe her as a protector of people and of cities. Some of them represent syncretism — Hecate Eileithyia is a syncretism of Hecate and Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. Hermes Trismegistus is a syncretism of Hermes and Thoth. Zeus Ammon is a syncretism of Zeus and the Egyptian god Ammon. Some epithets describe the god’s fundamental nature or personality: Dionysos Bromios (“the loud”) is boisterous and crazy and the life of the party, representing the summer when wine is opened and enjoyed. Dionysos Meilichios (“the mild”) is dark, gentle, and quiet, representing the winter when wine ferments in caves. Dionysos Eleutheros (“freeing”) liberates mankind from their inhibitions and gives them a safe space to enjoy themselves. Dionysos Omaphagos (“eater of raw flesh”) is savage and maddened, roaming the wilderness and tearing wild animals to shreds with his bare hands. Gods can be all of these contradictory things at the same time. In the context of religion, the gods’ relationships with mortals are complicated. Yes, the gods are fickle, and their temper tantrums are a way of explaining the harsh unpredictability of the natural world. If there’s a plague, Apollo is angry. If there’s an earthquake or a tsunami, Poseidon is angry. If there’s a famine, Demeter is angry. If there’s a hurricane, Zeus is angry. But it’s not as simple as “pacify the gods, or they’ll kill you.” In real life, worshippers of the Greek gods prayed to them and gave them offerings in exchange for favors from them. The Homeric Hymns[3] are a great example of the types of things that Ancient Greeks would pray to their gods for. In the Homeric Hymn 8 to Ares, the speaker prays that the god will give him strength and fortitude and other soldier’s virtues, and also that the god will help him restrain his bloodlust so that he can live peacefully. Homeric Hymn 10 to Athena praises her for protecting soldiers so that they will return home, and prays for happiness and good fortune. 18 to Hermes describes the god as a “giver of grace, guide, and giver of good things.” 22 to Poseidon prays that the god will protect sailors. On a small day-to-day scale, this is how the ancients thought of their gods. If you gave the gods gifts and devotion, they would shower you with blessings. That’s a much more transactional relationship than many modern people are familiar with, especially those from Abrahamic religions, but it makes sense. If you want a friend to do something for you, you do something for them in return. The hymns are sung with the expectation that the god will give good things in response. They are not a desperate plea for the god to choose not to hurt you today. The Ancient Greeks were not stupid or primitive. They didn’t live their whole lives in fear of an incomprehensible cosmos and its angry gods. So, why worship the Greek gods? Pray to Apollo to heal you and prevent disease. Pray to Poseidon to keep you safe at sea, and from natural disasters. Pray to Zeus when you are a stranger in a strange land, or when your government is corrupt and unjust. Pray to Demeter for a good harvest, and thank her for your bread. Pray to Hermes to keep you safe while travelling, and to help your business flourish. Pray to Athena when you need to strategize or are unsure of what choice you should make. Pray to Artemis for good hunting, and to protect young women from sexual assault. Pray to Aphrodite when you need help in your love life. Pray to Ares to conquer your fears and survive your battles. Pray to Hera for empowerment and to fulfill your ambitions. Pray to Hephaestus for success and prosperity, and for technology to work. Pray to Dionysus when you need more joy in your life, or are struggling with your mental health. They’ll be nice to you, I promise. They’re so thrilled to get the attention.
Domains of Hermes
Hermes has more domains than almost any other major god in the Greek pantheon, and all of them have something to do with movement, exchange, discourse, or transference between things. Communication: Hermes’ principal domain is communication, of all kinds and in all contexts. He’s best known as the Greek messenger god, which means that he is defined by ferrying information back and forth between Zeus and everyone else. Hermes therefore rules all kinds of information and the exchange of it: Eloquence and speech: Speech is one of the most basic and essential forms of communication, so, as the god of language, Hermes rules all kinds of oration and speech. Words are powerful — They can boost someone’s mental health and self-image, or destroy them. They can change the course of lives and of history. They are what give life to human ideas. Deception and trickery: Hermes is the designated trickster god of the Greek pantheon. Most of Hermes’ tricks are relatively harmless pranks, or else examples of him manipulating people with words. Hermes is known for his wiles. He rules persuasion and rhetoric, and can lie through his teeth at a moment’s notice. He is eloquent, and literally talked a person to death that one time. He’s also silver-tongued, connecting this with his status as the god of merchants. Writing: If speech is powerful, writing is more powerful, becuase it lasts. Hermes is credited with having invented the Greek writing system. Further, he is a god of interpretation and translation. Magic and Divination: In the Ancient World, magic was closely associated with words and the ability to speak or write them. This is because to speak an idea is to bring it into existence. To speak or write is to create — the ability to create consciously is one of the things that makes us human, and one of the things that makes us akin to gods. Most gods of magic in other pantheons are also gods of writing, like Odin and Thoth, and Hermes is no exception. Hermes was also associated with augury, oneiromancy, and other more “rustic” divination (as opposed to formal oracular divination), probably because divinings are literal messages from gods. Memory and Intellect: Related to all of the above, Hermes is a god of all mental faculties — intelligence, memory, learning. In Western occultism, the planet Mercury rules all of these “airy” intellectual qualities. Speed: One of Hermes’ most recognizable attributes is his pair of winged boots or sandals that allow him to run across the sky in a flash. In mythology, this serves the practical purpose of allowing Hermes to get anywhere he needs to at Zeus’ command, in as little time as possible. That’s a useful ability if you’re a herald or a courier. Symbolically, what is faster than a thought, an idea? Commerce: For some reason this aspect of Hermes is often overlooked, even though it was very significant, and “merchant” and “Mercury” are cognate. Hermes rules all forms of trade and commerce, becuase it also represents an exchange — this time, of goods and services for currency. Therefore, all business and finance falls within his sphere, regardless of whether it’s reputable or not; Hermes also rules thieves and con-artists. Travel and Roadways: A much more literal form of transference is the physical movement of people from place to place. Hermes is a protector of all travelers, and is usually depicted wearing a (winged) traveler’s hat and cape. Hermes takes his name from herms, piles of stones used to mark roadways. Alongside Zeus, he maintains the law of xenia, sacred hospitality. Gateways: Hermes’ image was sometimes placed at gateways and thresholds, the places where the outside world meets the city. Psychopomp: It was Hermes’ job to accompany mortals on their final journey to the gates of Hades. This further cements Hermes as a liminal god, existing in the space between this life and the next. Animal Husbandry: The story of Hermes having stolen Apollo’s cows establishes him both as a god of trickery and as a god of herding. He protects herds of cows, goats, sheep, and horses, but also wills their destruction. Herders prayed to him so that their animals would survive and multiply. Feasts and Banquets: Related to the above, Hermes also presided over banquets (alongside Hestia), which would usually involve the slaughter of animals. Athletics: Hermes also presides over athletic competitions, and was said to have taught mortals how to wrestle. Alchemy: Hermes’ alchemical associations came later, in the Middle Ages, but he became the most integral symbol of alchemy itself. In alchemy, he represents both the Philosopher’s Stone and the process of making it. He is both the ghastly prima materia and the refined divine androgyne. He acts as the mediating principle between the masculine and feminine principles. This is all because Hermes’ function is to bridge the gap between divine and mortal. Hermes is a busy god. With all of the above being his domains, I interpret the internet to be under his jurisdiction. Hermes is a busy god, but that suits him. His personality comes across to me as a jovial, fast-talking workaholic with a fondness for pranks and legit wisdom buried beneath the surface.
Domains of Apollo
Apollo has a lot of divine domains. When I was a kid and still understood the gods in their most simplified forms, before I came to appreciate their complexity, Apollo still had a lot of domains. Light: If nothing else, Apollo is bright. One of Apollo’s most common epithets is Phoebus (Phoibos), “the bright.” This is an old epithet, so he has always had solar connotations. I also interpret Apollo as representing illumination in a more figurative sense — inspiration, knowledge, reason, protection, purification, civilization. Light is a symbol of all these things. The Sun: Despite being associated with light, Apollo isn’t technically a sun god. Helios is the literal sun. Apollo doesn’t drive the sun chariot in Greek mythology, but is depicted as the literal Sun driving the chariot in Renaissance art. The reason why his solar aspects are so well-known now is because Apollo and Helios were conflated. Apollo is associated with summer and the lighter half of the year, during which he occupies his cult site at Delphi. When the sun goes away in the winter, Apollo leaves the site in the care of Dionysus. Divine Inspiration: Apollo is a personification of that wonderful “Aha!” feeling when you suddenly get a marvelous idea that you have to write down (very appropriately represented by a light-bulb turning on), or recieve a sudden revelation through mystical experience. Music and Poetry: Apollo is the god of music, especially the refined music of stringed instruments (as opposed to rustic music) and beautiful choral songs. He is the leader of the Nine Muses. One time, a satyr challenged him to a music contest, and Apollo beat him decisively. Apollo is also often the father of Orpheus, the greatest (mortal) musician of all Greek mythology. Prophecy and Divination: Apollo in particular is associated with oracular divination. The Oracle of Delphi, the most famous and esteemed oracle in all of Greece (and possibly the entire ancient Mediterranean), was the oracle of Apollo. Apollo is something of a mediator between Zeus and mortals, but in a different manner from Hermes; Apollo acts as a prophet of Zeus. He brings divine knowledge to mortals by speaking through the oracle, who channels him. He could grant the gift of prophecy to mortals. Driving off Evil: It is from this aspect that Apollo gets his name, “destroyer.” Ancient Greeks prayed to him to smite the wicked with his arrows. One of his most famous myths is the myth of his slaying of the dragon Python, claiming Delphi from it. Apollo’s aspect as a god of plague also relates to this — it’s sort of a divine taking out the trash. Healing, Medicine, and Disease: Another common epithet of Apollo is Paean, “healer.” (Hymns to Apollo are also called paeans.) Ancient Greeks would pray to Apollo to heal their ailments and protect them from disease. Apollo is the father of Asclepius, the god of medicine. However, being a god, Apollo encompasses the dual conditions of health and illness. If you anger Apollo, he will strike you with his arrows and cause plagues. Ritual Purification (Katharsis): Apollo is called upon for spiritual health and hygiene as well as physical health and hygiene, because of course those things are connected. Ritual practices like washing with khernips (a kind of herb-infused holy water) gets rid of spiritual “dirt” called miasma or lyma, which is accumulated by living (especially encountering birth, sex, death, and menstruation). Apollo can also purify the much more serious spiritual stain of miasma, as was the case with Orestes. Archery: Apollo’s status as a god of archery is a representation of his ability to kill things from a distance. Several of his epithets refer to this, for example, Hekatos (“worker from afar,” or more colloquially, “sniper”). His darts also represent solar rays. Herding: Apollo is the caretaker of divine herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and a patron deity of herders. Hermes also plays this role, and the myth of Hermes’ theft of Apollo’s cows explains this Civilization: Apollo is closely associated with the literal and figurative foundation of civilization — the formation of civil institutions, virtues, the physical building of cities. He’s the patron god of architects. Reason and Logic: Apollo is a personification of “higher” forms of thought — logic, rational thinking, philosophy, truth. All the things the pre-frontal cortex does. This is a figurative sort of illumination, and also the ideas that form the foundations of civilization. (Think of “The Enlightenment.”) Youth: Apollo and Artemis were both gods of young people. Artemis is the goddess of little girls and unmarried women; likewise, Apollo is the god of young men. While Dionysus and Hermes are often shown as mature, bearded men, Apollo is almost always depicted as a beautiful young man with no beard, a slender and athletic body, and long hair bound on top of his head. He was considered the ultimate ideal of masculine beauty.
Domains of Aphrodite
Aphrodite is well-known as the goddess of love, sex, and beauty, but there are many dimensions to her. Sexual Attraction and Desire: Aphrodite is, of course, the goddess of sexual love. This manifests both as primal lust for someone you find attractive and also as intense erotic passion for someone you love dearly. In mythology, she can inspire love in other people, and also drive them mad with desire. She also rules over impotence, and is the patron goddess of prostitutes. Procreation: Aphrodite also rules over literal procreation, be it that of humans, animals, or gods. She incites the urge to have sex in all beings. Therefore, she is the goddess of the genesis of life. Marriage: She is one of the deities associated with marriage (alongside Zeus, Hera, Eileithyia, and Hymenaios). Specifically, she presides over the consummation of marriage. Romantic Love: This speaks for itself. Divine Love: Aphrodite Ourania, the celestial Aphrodite, represents love in its purest and most divine form. This could be modernized as the idea of “true love,” and also refers to humans’ love for the gods. Friendship: Aphrodite also rules over platonic forms of love, like love for one’s friends and family. She encourages friendships between people. Love Poetry: She’s the patron goddess of love poetry, i.e. love songs. This is presumably true in the modern sense as well. Beauty: All kinds of beauty fall within her sphere, including simple aesthetic appreciation of things. She’s especially associated with physical beauty, and is almost always depicted as an extremely attractive woman. Pleasure: Mostly self-explanatory. Aphrodite also has some associations with festivals and merrymaking (though not to the same extent as Dionysus) — specifically, she rules the sensual enjoyment of material abundance. Peace: In contrast to Ares, who represents war. Aphrodite’s relationship with Ares symbolizes gentle Love “defanging” the violent masculinity of War. People are free to enjoy themselves during peacetime. Political Power: This aspect of Aphrodite is interesting, because it’s one that she lost and then gained back. Aphrodite is basically the local Ancient Greek variant of the Phoenician Astarte or Mesopotamian Ishtar/Inanna, and those goddesses had a much more pronounced association with war, sovereignty, and political power. The Greek Aphrodite mostly lacks this association (which goes to other goddesses like Hera and Athena), but she gains it back as Venus in Rome. This is because Venus is the mother of Aeneas, Rome’s mythological ancestor, and that made her the patron goddess of Rome. Also, because Aphrodite is such a widely-worshipped goddess whose main association is bringing people together in various ways, this applies in a political context as well. Aphrodite unites people. War: Aphrodite mostly lacks Astarte’s warlike associations in most of Greece, but she retained them in Sparta, where she was worshipped as a true war goddess. She gradually lost this association in the rest of Greece, but she’s still responsible for the Trojan War.
Eros
Eros is the god of love, usually understood as the son of Aphrodite. The modern Eros is best known as “Cupid,” a mischievous little god depicted as a winged baby who giggles as he shoots people with arrows of love. This depiction of him is so common that putti are mistakenly called “cupids.” But, like most gods, Eros is much more complicated than this basic popular characterization. The Ancient Greek Eros is a far more complex and frankly terrifying being than modern depictions of him would suggest. His name is the source of the word “erotic,” with everything that implies. As the son of Ares and Aphrodite, he is a personification of sexual desire, which the Ancient Greeks understood to be a kind of affliction or madness. His arrows sting. Ancient Greek love spells from the PGM usually call upon various restless spirits to torment the target until she (it’s usually a she) is compelled to sleep with the caster. Not even the gods are immune to Eros (with the exceptions of Athena, Artemis, and Hestia). Eros is to blame for many of the gods’ more lecherous actions: He shot Apollo to make him chase Daphne. He shot Dionysus to make him rape Aura (on behalf of Artemis through Nemesis). He’s shot Zeus many, many times: "Now Eros the wise, the self-taught, the manager of the ages, knocked at the gloomy gates of primeval Khaos (Chaos). He took out the divine quiver, in which were kept apart twelve firefed arrows for Zeus, when his desire turned towards one or another of mortal women for a bride. Right on the back of his quiver of lovebolts he had engraved with letters of gold a sentence in verse for each— The first takes Kronion [Zeus] to the bend of heifer-fronted Io. The second shall Europa woo for the bold bull abducting. The third to Plouto's (Pluto's) bridal [Persephone] brings the lord of high Olympos. The fourth shall call to Danaë a golden bed-companion. The fifth shall offer Semele a burning fiery wedding. The sixth shall bring the King of Heaven an eagle to Aigina (Aegina). The seventh joins Antiope to a pretended Satyros. The eighth, a swan endowed with mind shall bring to naked Leda. The ninth a noble stallion gives unto Perrhaibid Dia. The tenth three fullmoon nights of bliss gives to Alkmena's (Alcmena's) bedmate. The eleventh goes to carry out Laodameia's bridal. The twelfth draws to Olympias her thrice-encircling husband." —Nonnus, Dionysiaca The Ancient Greeks didn’t draw much of a distinction between infatuation, romantic love, and sexual desire, so Eros technically represents all three. Though, in some sources, he’s one of multiple “Erotes” that represent multiple forms of love. The Erotes are Eros, Himeros, Anteros, and Pothos. Eros is “Love” most generally. Himeros represents specifically sexual desire or infatuation. Pothos is passion. Anteros is requited love, i.e. the closest thing to romantic love that the Ancient Greeks recognized. In some depictions, Anteros and Eros are represented as opposing forces. Anteros, mutual love, is almost an opposite force from the violent lust that is Eros. The most famous myth concerning Eros is his own love story, relayed by Apuleius. He “accidentally” shot himself in the foot and fell in love with a princess named Psyche, considered the most beautiful woman in the world in her time, who was being worshipped in place of Aphrodite. Psyche was prophesied to marry a monstrous serpent, but found that her husband was instead a beautiful god. Aphrodite was furious, and threw numerous impossible tasks in Psyche’s way to keep her from her immortal husband. Eventually, however, Psyche achieved apotheosis and became the immortal goddess of the soul and wife of the god of love. There’s another, more obscure layer to Eros that rarely gets mentioned: that of the primordial Eros. The idea of Eros as a primordial god is actually older than his identity as the archer god of love. The primordial Eros is the god of progenation — nothing would exist if not for the drive that causes things to exist. Eros is not a creator god so much as the driving force behind creation itself. "Verily at first Khaos (Void) came to be, but next wide-bosomed Gaia (Earth), the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympos, and dim Tartaros (the Pit) in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love) [Procreation], fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them." —Hesiod, Theogony "At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light." —Aristophanes, The Birds. Primordial-Eros was understood as fiery, brighter than the sun, and downright terrifying (in the sense of being awesome or sublime) even to the Olympians. The primordial Eros may be identical with Phanes, the god of progenation in Orphism. (Theoi lists them separately, but uses the same image for both.) Phanes’ name means “bring to light” or “cause to appear.” Both the Primordial-Eros and Phanes were born from a cosmic egg, are bright and fiery, and exist as a personification of progenation. Phanes is an interesting and complex figure, sometimes equated with Dionysus or Priapus. He’s about as close as Ancient Greece gets to a “biblically-accurate angel,” with multiple pairs of wings and eyes, and multiple heads (including those of a bull, a snake, and a lion, reminiscent of the Four Living Creatures). The myth of Cupid and Psyche as relayed by Apuleius never gives us a concrete reason why Psyche is prophesied to wed a terrible serpent or dragon whom the gods themselves fear, but ends up married to the beautiful god of love. Though Cupid is unambiguously the son of Aphrodite in this story, I interpret the prophecy as being fulfilled — Eros is also the cosmic serpent of creation, the ouroboros, the source of life, Phanes. It’s not a contradiction for Eros to be both the little winged god that inspires love and sexual desire, and the great winged god that caused the universe to exist. Love, after all, is both a personal (and often difficult) experience, and a cosmic force. Love is the most ancient thing, Love is eternal, Love is what causes all other things to exist. Aphodite’s son is a particular “incarnation” or manifestation of this great primeval thing. "I Call great Eros, source of sweet delight, Holy and pure, and lovely to the sight; Darting, and wing'd, impetuous fierce desire, With Gods and mortals playing, wand'ring fire: Cautious, and two-fold, keeper of the keys Of heav'n and earth, the air, and spreading seas; Of all that Deo’s fertile realms contains, By which th' all-parent Goddess life sustains, Or dismal Tartarus is doom'd to keep, Widely extended, or the sounding, deep; For thee, all Nature's various realms obey, Who rul'st alone, with universal sway. Come, blessed pow'r, regard these mystic fires, And far avert unlawful mad desires." —Orphic Hymn 58 "Oh mighty First-Begotten, hear my prayer, Two-fold, egg-born, and wand’ring through the air, Bull-roarer, glorying in thy golden Wings, From whom the race of Gods and Mortals springs. Erikapaios, celebrated power, Ineffable, occult, all-shining flower, From eyes obscure thou wip’st the gloom of night, All-spreading splendor, pure and holy light. Hence Phanes call’d, the glory of the sky, On waving pinions thro’ the world you fly. Priapos, dark-eyed splendor, thee I sing, Genial, all-prudent, ever-blessed King. With joyful aspect on our rites divine And holy sacrifice propitious shine." —Orphic Hymn 6
Athena's Characterization
Athena has been getting a bad rap recently, mostly because of two stories from Ovid. Among the most famous of the stories that come from Ovid are the Arachne story, and the specific telling of Medusa’s story in which she’s punished for having been raped. Both of these stories make Athena look pretty bad. Ovid had some gripes with Augustus (long story short), so his work has a noticeable anti-authoritarian bent. The gods in the Metamorphoses are not impartial divine arbiters, nor are they depicted as being Always Right in every instance just by virtue of being gods. Ovid generally encourages his readers to empathize with the human characters, often portraying them as hapless victims in the face of divine wrath. This has become a very popular interpretation of Medusa, but I’ve already written plenty about Medusa, so let’s talk about Arachne. Ovid’s telling of Arachne’s story, which is the only one we have, opens with Athena [Minerva] insisting that anyone who dares slight her will face retribution. Being the goddess of craftsmanship, it was she who gave Arachne her skill in the first place. Arachne denies that her skill has anything to do with Athena, which is a little bit like having studied under a legendary artist and then claiming to be “self-taught.” She also challenges Athena directly. Athena appears to Arachne in disguise, and advises her to give Athena credit for her skill, telling her that Athena will forgive her if she does. Arachne mocks the friendly old woman for being senile, and challenges Athena to come herself. So Athena throws off her disguise, and has gone from forgiving to very pissed off. They set to a weaving contest. Athena weaves the story of her contest with Poseidon over the city of Athens, which she won. Arachne weaves Zeus’ and the other gods’ dalliances, especially those involving shapeshifting and deception. It’s obviously meant to be a callout post. Athena is furious, both because Arachne dared to mock the gods even further, and because her technique really is that good. Athena tears up the tapestry and hits Arachne on the head with her shuttle. Arachne is so humiliated that she tries to hang herself, and Athena saves her by turning her into a spider (using magic herbs from Hecate, by the way). Athena’s first motivated out of pity for Arachne, but only has so much sympathy for her, so being a spider is also meant to force Arachne to live with her humiliation. When I first heard this story, Arachne’s ability to continue to weave was presented as a triumph, a last defiance against Athena. Honestly, neither Arachne nor Athena comes out of this story looking particularly good. On the one hand, Arachne really is arrogant. She’s mean to an old lady (whom she has no reason to suspect is Athena), and refuses to give Athena credit for teaching her. Athena gives her the opportunity to say she’s sorry, and is perfectly willing to forgive her until she doubles down. On the other hand, Arachne’s right when she calls out the gods for their misbehavior! Athena’s reaction is completely immature, almost out-of-character. But hitting Arachne on the head is not exactly an expression of divine wrath. It’s only after Arachne decides to kill herself that Athena uses magic (not her own magic, which is interesting — I’ve never heard Hecate mentioned in any retelling of this story before) to change Arachne into a spider. Athena is driven both by pity and by a desire to punish her further, i.e. “she deserves to suffer for her hubris, but not to the point of suicide.” The ending is a pretty straightforward “and that’s why spiders weave”; it’s left up to interpretation whether Arachne’s web is part of the punishment or if it’s an expression of defiance, or neither. Unlike with Medusa, I don’t know much about the development of this story. For all I know, Ovid may have made it up wholesale. If there were earlier versions of it, I have no idea whether they are intended to portray Arachne as being in the wrong, or if the circumstance was completely different. Hell, I have no idea if spiders were associated with Athena at all before this story. In terms of Athena’s characterization, however, there are many more sources to draw from than just this one. In particular, Athena is associated with heroes. It really isn’t fair to perceive her as always punishing mortals who piss her off, when a lot of myths show her directly aiding mortals who call upon her help. She helps Heracles with a few of his labors, giving him noisemakers to scare off the Stymphalian Birds and guiding him out of Hades. She gave Bellerophon the golden bridle that helped him tame Pegasus. She gave Perseus her shield to help him kill Medusa. She instructed Jason to build the Argo. She turned a girl into a crow to save her from being raped by Poseidon. She adopted another rape victim, Nyctimene, who became her owl companion. She prevented Achilles from killing Agamemnon in a fit of blind rage at the beginning of the Iliad, and gives Diomedes the ability to wound gods. She also helped Odysseus a bunch of times. Actually, I think it’s worth taking a closer look at Athena’s role in the Homeric epics. They don’t always make her look good. Though she advises her brother Ares to stay out of the fighting, she also gives Diomedes the ability to distinguish gods from mortals and literally tells him to stab Aphrodite. Aphrodite complains to her mother, Dione, who points out that Athena has essentially doomed Diomedes by giving him the power to wound gods: It was the goddess gray-eyed Athena who drove this man against you; poor fool, the heart of Tydeus’ son [Diomedes] knows nothing of how that man who fights the immortals lives for no long time… —The Iliad, Book 5, 405–407 (trans. Lattimore) Athena mocks Aphrodite by claiming she wounded her hand on a pin doing girly things. Zeus favors Athena, so he tells Aphrodite to go do girly things and leave war to Ares and Athena. Ares enters the battlefield to avenge Aphrodite, and Diomedes stabs him too. Ares goes to complain to Zeus, blaming Athena for all the infighting among the gods: “It is your fault we fight, since you brought forth this maniac daughter accursed, whose mind is fixed forever on unjust action. For all the rest, as many as are gods on Olympus, are obedient for to you, and we all have rendered ourselves submissive. Yet you say nothing and do nothing to check this girl, letting her go free, since yourself you begot this child of perdition. See now, the son of Tydeus, Diomedes the haughty, she has egged on to lash out in fury against the immortal gods.” —Book 5, 875–83 Zeus, who favors Athena, tells Ares that everyone hates him and that if he weren’t his [Zeus’] own son, he would be in Tartarus by now. Dad of the Year, everybody! Is Ares right? After all, Athena did tell him to stay out of the conflict (which Ares never wants to do) at the start of the chapter. It’s pretty hypocritical of her to indirectly influence the war through Diomedes, using him to wound her own siblings! Eventually Zeus has to put his foot down and ban any of the gods from interfering with the war at all. In the Odyssey, Athena aids Odysseus at multiple points along his journey. She disguises herself as a pretty shepherd boy, and tells Odysseus that he’s finally arrived at Ithaka. Odysseus lies about his identity, and Athena half-chides-half-praises him for his dishonesty: The goddess, gray-eyed Athena, smiled on him, and stroked him with her hand, and took the shape of a woman both beautiful and tall, and well versed in glorious handiworks, and spoke aloud to him and addressed him in winged words, saying: “It would be a sharp one, and a stealthy one, who would ever get past you in any contriving; even if it were a god against you. You wretch, so devious, never weary of tricks, then you would not even in your own country give over your ways of deceiving and your thievish tales. They are near to you in your very nature. But come, let us talk no more of this, for you and I both know sharp practice, since you are far the best of all mortal men for counsel and stories, and I among all the divinities am famous for wit and sharpness; and yet you never recognized Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, the one who is always standing beside you and guarding you in every endeavor.” —Odyssey, Book 13, 287–301 (trans. Lattimore) Athena is clearly fond of Odysseus, and attributes his constant inclination towards deception as a part of his nature and not a deliberate insult. She’s just as conniving as he is, making her a good match for him. She says outright that she has been protecting and supporting him the whole time. She uses magic to disguise him so that he can sneak unnoticed into his own palace, and thoroughly punish those impudent suitors: “I will indeed be at your side, you will not be forgotten at the time when we two go to this work, and I look for endless ground to be spattered with the blood and brains of the suitors, these men who are eating all your substance away.” —Book 13, 393–95 What a graphic image that is! Athena is downright giddy at the prospect of Odysseus ruthlessly slaughtering all those young men, and painting the ground with blood and gore. At the end of the epic, after all the suitors have been massacred and their fathers are pissed, Athena literally tells them all to up and go home instead of going to war with Odysseus. Whether this makes Athena good or evil depends a lot on your perspective on the story. Technically, she’s helping out the protagonist, so that’s a good thing by the story’s standard. That’s not the only example of Values Dissonance making Athena look worse than she’s probably intended to be. In The Eumenides, the last play of the Oresteia, Athena serves as judge in Orestes’ murder trial. Apollo, as defense lawyer, makes the case that Orestes can’t be considered guilty of kinslaying because mothers aren’t technically related to their own children, they’re just incubators. Obviously, this is laughably wrong from a biological standpoint. But Athena takes it, because sexism: "It is my duty to give the final judgment and I shall cast my vote for Orestes. For there was no mother who gave me birth; and in all things, except for marriage, whole-heartedly I am for the male and entirely on the father's side. Therefore, I will not award greater honor to the death of a woman who killed her husband, the master of the house. Orestes wins, even if the vote comes out equal. Cast the ballots out of the urns, as quickly as possible, you jurors who have been assigned this task." —Aeschylus, Eumenides, 734–743 (translation from Theoi) This scene really hasn’t aged well. It’s meant to show how wise and just Athena is for establishing the Athenian legal system, and for ruling in favor of Orestes (the protagonist). But this play was written by an Athenian man, and would have been performed by Athenian men, for Athenian men. So of course they would want their patron goddess to uphold the extremely sexist social order that they all believed in and enforced. Speaking as a pagan, I don’t think that Athena (or Apollo, for that matter) is actually this misogynistic. Finally, it’s extremely important to remember that Greek mythology is complementary to a religion. How is Athena portrayed in a religious context? Of Pallas Athena, guardian of the city, I begin to sing Dread is she, and with Ares she loves deeds of war. The sack of cities and the shouting and the battle. It is she who saves the people as they go out to war and come back. Hail, goddess, and give us good fortune with happiness! —Homeric Hymn 11 to Athena (translation from Theoi) …deliverer from sorrows, victorious divinity, Gleaming, inventor of crafts, queen besought by many prayers Day and night even into the final hours: Hear my prayer, give me peace and wealth, And satisfaction and health with prosperous seasons. —Orphic Hymn to Athena, 13–17 (translation from HellenicGods.org) Just from this, we can tell that Athena can protect her worshippers during war, that she grants strength in battle and skill in crafts, that she destroys sorrow and evil, and that she can bring her worshippers luck, health, prosperity, and happiness. This means that, fundamentally, Athena is a benevolent goddess. I admit that I am usually biased in Athena’s favor. Athena is one of my favorite deities, becuase she (through her association with Pegasus) introduced me to the entire world of Greek mythology in the first place. For me personally, Athena has always loomed large even in comparison to the other Olympians. And yet, I cannot pretend that Athena is always impartial, or always moral, or always kind. My interpretation of all this is that Athena’s wisdom usually manifests as cunning. She’s not “wise” in the sense of your local village wise woman or a guru on a mountaintop — she’s “wise” in the sense of a general, who has to make strategic and informed decisions, and who will use every trick in the book to lead her soldiers to victory. The Trojan Horse (which was Odysseus’ idea, by the way) was presented to the Trojans as an “offering to Athena” — and it was wise, because the tactic was successful. Athena’s defining character trait is strategic thinking, which is often cold, prioritizing efficacy and efficiency over kindness or honesty. But Athena does not lack mercy, nor does she go out of her way to be cruel. That’s why I get so frustrated when people decide they hate her, based mainly on two myths from Ovid. She deserves better.
Obscure Facts about Athena
She has a son… sort of. Athena is well-known for being a virgin goddess with no children, but she did have an adoptive son. Hephaestus tried to rape Athena and was not successful. Athena, in disgust, wiped off Hephaestus’ semen, where it fell on the earth (Gaia) and spawned a half-man-half-snake being called Erikhthonios. Athena felt responsible for him, and adopted him. He became the first King of Athens. She invented many useful tools and techniques. Credited to Athena are the inventions of the plough and yoke, the bridle, the chariot, the loom, the flute, and sometimes writing (though sometimes it’s Hermes who invents writing). She taught humans most handicrafts, how to make and use agricultural tools, and how to ride horses. The Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus credits Athena and Hephaestus with having taught humanity skills related to agriculture, industry, and the arts, which helped establish civilization. She invented the (Athenian) justice system. Aeschylus’ play The Eumenides tells of how Athena invented the justice system to settle the matter of Orestes’ having killed his own mother to avenge his father. She served as judge, Apollo was the defense lawyer, and the Erinyes were the prosecutors. Her owl is a rape victim whom she rescued. Nyctimene was a beautiful princess of Lesbos who was raped by her own father. She ran into a forest and hid in shame, appearing only at night. Athena pitied her and turned her into an owl, adopting Nyctimene as her familiar. She gave Bellerophon the bridle to tame Pegasus. Bellerophon, despairing over how exactly he was to kill the Chimera, went to sleep inside one of Athena’s temples. She appeared to him in a dream and presented him with a golden bridle that he could use to tame the winged horse, Pegasus. She accidentally killed her best friend. Athena was born fully-grown, but spent the early days of her life being taught martial arts by Triton (here a river god, not the son of Poseidon). His daughter, Pallas, was Athena’s friend and sparring partner, but during one match Athena accidentally killed her. (According to Pseudo-Apollodorus, this was because of the intervention of Zeus.) Devastated, Athena made a statue of Pallas, the Palladium, that eventually became revered by the city of Troy as a safeguard against its inevitable downfall. She also adopted the name “Pallas” as one of her own epithets. (It’s my personal headcanon that Athena was in love with Pallas, and, after accidentally killing her, swore off romance forever.) She gave Tiresias his gift of prophecy. Tiresias manages to get himself mixed up with multiple Olympians and somehow escapes with his life and his sanity. There was that time he temporarily became a woman to help settle a debate between Zeus and Hera about whether men or women experience more pleasure during sex, and there was also that time he caught Athena bathing and was instantly stricken blind. Athena felt bad about it, because it was a genuine accident that Tiresias saw her naked, so she gave him the gift of prophecy to make up for his lack of eyesight. She often disguises herself as men. It’s pretty common for gods to disguise themselves as mortals, but less common for them to disguise themselves as opposite-sex mortals. She disguises herself as a man three times in The Odyssey: First as Mentes, the king of a nearby island and a friend of Odysseus; then as Mentor, a wise old man who is also a friend of Odysseus; and finally, as a “delicate boy,” a herdsman who greets Odysseus when he arrives home on Ithaka. (Athena’s relationship to womanhood and her own gender identity seem somewhat complicated, which was partly a reflection of Athenians’ misogyny, but may also simply be the way she is.)
Obscure Facts about Apollo
He spent a year as a slave to a mortal king… and fell in love with him. When Zeus killed Apollo’s son Asklepios with a thunderbolt, Apollo in a fit of rage murdered the Cyclopes who forged the thunderbolt. As punishment, Zeus sent him to live on Earth as a mortal for a year, in service to Admetos, the King of Thessaly. You would expect Apollo to resent this, but instead, Apollo fell in love with Admetos and doted on him. Apollo made all of the animals he tended bear twins, and kept them healthy and productive. He also helped Admetus win the princess Alcestis. He supported the Trojans in the Trojan War. Most of the Olympians supported the Achaians in the war, but Apollo was on the side of the Trojans. He literally dropped Patroclus off the walls of Troy when Patroclus tried to scale them, four times. He also is technically responsible for the death of Achilles, guiding Paris’ arrow towards Achilles’ heel. He’s one of the most often-mentioned (male) deities in magic spells. Many spells in the Greek Magical Papyri supplicate Apollo (or a syncretised Apollo-Helios), usually in his capacity as a god of prophecy. The magician asks Apollo to answer questions, give prophetic dreams, and cause or cure disease (or asks for a daimon sent by Apollo, who will do all these things). He spent his winters in the mythical land of Hyperborea. Past a frozen wasteland called Pterophoros and over the Riphean Mountains lies a beautiful land of eternal spring, Hyperborea. In the winter, Apollo leaves his shrine at Delphi (entrusting it to Dionysus in the meantime) and travels there, where he is worshipped by its people in beautiful cities and gardens. Although Apollo technically isn’t the literal sun (that would be Helios), his departure from Delphi in the winter represents the relative absence of the sun, which lingers in the far north (where the sun never sets). He led a Cretan ship to Delphi in the shape of a dolphin. The Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo details how Apollo was looking for people to serve him at his new shrine. He found a group of Cretan sailors that he judged worthy, and leapt up onto their deck in the shape of a dolphin. That’s why the site is called Delphi. Apollo’s presence on the ship directed its course to Delphi, where he instructed the sailors to become his priests and tend the shrine. He turned the raven’s feathers black. Ravens are sacred to Apollo. According to Ovid, ravens used to be white, until a raven informed Apollo that his lover Koronis was in bed with somebody else. In a rage, Apollo shot Koronis, and instantly regretted it. So, he further vented his frustration with his own actions upon the raven, turning its feathers black. He doesn’t canonically have a consort. Despite being gloriously handsome and talented with a spectacular singing voice, many of Apollo’s recorded attempts at romance fail miserably. He accidentally killed Hyacinthus with a discus, Daphne turned into a tree just to get away from him, Koronis cheated on him, and Cassandra rejected him. Of course, these make for more entertaining stories than the successful romances, but most of these don’t last either. He is one of the only male Olympians who does not have a wife (or a husband, for that matter). One interpretation is that he loves all nine of the Muses, but because he can’t have nine official consorts, chooses to remain unmarried. He collected what was left of Zagreus. One of Apollo’s epithets is Dionysodotes, “bestower of Dionysus.” In Orphic mythology, Apollo collected what was left of Zagreus’ body after the Titans dismembered him. He buried Zagreus’ remains at Delphi, which is why Dionysus attends it in his chthonic aspect. He plays music at the weddings of the gods. Apollo plays on his lyre and sings at the weddings of gods or those attended by gods, including the weddings of Eros and Psyche, Cadmus and Harmonia, and Thetis and Peleus. It seems as though Apollo actively enjoys playing the role of minstrel and entertaining the gods with his musical ability.
Obscure Facts about Dionysus
He is a god of death and rebirth. Wine may be the most iconic of Dionysus’ domains, but it’s really only a symbol of the experiences that Dionysus actually represents, like altered states of consciousness, ego-death, and resurrection. In one version of his origin story, he was originally a god called Zagreus, the son of Zeus and Persephone. Hera sent Titans to dismember and eat the baby Zagreus, but he was resurrected as Dionysus. Dionysus’ death/rebirth cycle is reflected in the process of viticulture (crushing grapes into must and letting it ferment in caves, an underworld location, to create wine). In various myths and cultic contexts, he acts as an inverse-psychopomp, bringing souls up from the Underworld. He is Zeus’s heir. In Orphism, the universe is ruled by six gods in succession: Phanes, Nyx, Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus, and eventually Dionysus. Zeus brings the baby Zagreus (Dionysus) to Olympus, puts him on his throne, and gives him thunderbolts, almost literally passing the torch. This is notable, because in most other myths, Zeus goes out of his way to avoid having a child that will succeed him. Their origin stories are also very similar, suggesting that Dionysus is the next evolution or incarnation of the entity that rules the universe. His first love was a pretty satyr boy named Ampelos. Early in his life, Dionysus fell head-over-heels in love with a beautiful boy, Ampelos, whose name means “vine.” If you know anything about the track record of pretty boys loved with Greek gods, you know where this is going. Ampelos died tragically, gored to death by a bull after mocking Selene in Nonnus’ account, or simply falling while picking grapes in Ovid’s account. Ampelos became a grapevine, which Dionysus adopted as his most sacred of plants. Dionysus also put Ampelos in the sky as the constellation Bootes. He has horns. Although he’s rarely depicted as having horns (his image having been sanitized over time), Nonnus describes him as having horns in the shape of a crescent moon. Dionysus is described in many sources as having the horns of a bull. In The Bacchae, Pentheus begins to hallucinate Dionysus as having bull’s horns after Dionysus dresses him up like a girl, which represents him finally becoming aware of Dionysus’ divinity. He turned a group of princesses into bats. Dionysus is slow to anger, but the two things that really piss him off are denial of his divinity and crimes against his worshippers. For these offenses, he reserves some of his most brutal punishments, like driving you to violent madness or having you dismembered by his Maenads. But in this particular case, when the daughters of Minyas refused to worship him, Dionysus covered their looms in ivy and turned them into bats. They got off easy. In some stories, he was raised as a girl to hide him from Hera. Some accounts describe how Rhea raised Dionysus as a girl and dressed him in girls’ clothes to help keep him hidden from Hera. This explains Dionysus’ propensity for crossdressing, which was a part of his rites in both mythology and in real life. It also makes him relatable to modern worshippers who are trans, nonbinary, or gender-non-conforming. He brought Hephaestus back to Olympus. Hephaestus was thrown off Olympus by one of his parents (sources differ on which one) because he got between them in an argument. His fall permanently damaged his legs, so he couldn’t get back to Olympus on his own. Dionysus was wandering the earth in those days, having been inflicted with madness by Hera (whether or not he ever recovered is debatable). Dionysus found Hephaestus, and they returned to Olympus together, with Hephaestus riding on the back of a donkey. He conquered India. Dionysus, alongside Heracles, invaded India and successfully conquered it. This was the Greek way of explaining why Indians had ecstatic rituals that are very similar to those practiced in honor of Dionysus. Alexander the Great identified himself with Dionysus because of his own efforts to conquer India.
Hephaestus is Underrated
Hephaestus is best-known as the “ugly” god who hammers away at his forge all day, and also as the loser whose hot wife cheated on him with his brother. Speaking of, Ares tends to get dragged through the mud, but at least he’s talked about! People just sort of forget that Hephaestus exists. All of this does him a massive disservice. At first glance, it may seem like Hephaestus is only relevant to a small handful of people. In today’s industrialized world, most Americans aren’t constantly surrounded by artisans the way ancient people might have been. You’re unlikely to see a village blacksmith outside of a Renaissance faire or historical reenactment. But not only is Hephaestus still relevant to the modern world, he is arguably more relevant than he has ever been. Hephaestus isn’t just the god of blacksmithing and metalworking. He is the god of technology, all technology. The Ancient Greeks believed that the Hephaestus could create technology that did not yet exist, like an ancient version of sci-fi, or magitek. This ancient god was creating androids, long before any such thing was a remote possibility for humans to physically create. For example, he made golden robots shaped like young women who help him to walk: "[Hephaistos] took up a heavy stick in his hand, and went to the doorway limping. And in support of their master moved his attendants. These are golden, and in appearance like living young women. There is intelligence in their hearts, and there is speech in them and strength, and from the immortal gods they have learned how to do things. These stirred nimbly in support of their master, and moving to where Thetis sat in her shining chair." — The Iliad, Book 18 Magic brings the golden women to life, but their construction is explicitly mechanical. It’s the same deal with Talos, the colossal bronze robot that guards the island of Crete: "He had one blood vessel that extended from his neck down to his ankles, the lower end of which was held in place by a bronze stud. This Talos would run round the island [of Krete] three times a day as a security patrol." — Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca. I don’t think it’s a stretch to associate all modern devices, analogue and digital, with Hephaestus. With technology of some kind or another infusing almost every aspect of modern life, we are dependent upon the blessings of Hephaestus. Hephaestus isn’t merely a craftsman. He’s also an artist, and places just as much emphasis on beauty as practicality. He created all kinds of beautiful things for the gods and favored mortals, including palaces and thrones, chariots, jewelry, cups and bowls, and intricately-decorated armor and weapons. This description of Achilles’ shield, crafted and lovingly decorated by Hephaestus, always stuck with me. The full description is very long, so here’s a little excerpt of it: "He made on it a great vineyard heavy with clusters, lovely and in gold, but the grapes upon it were darkened and the vines themselves stood out through poles of silver. About them he made a field-ditch of dark metal, and drove all around this a fence of tin; and there was only one path to the vineyard, and along it ran the grape-bearers for the vineyard’s stripping. Young girls and young men, in all their light-hearted innocence, carried the kind, sweet fruit away in their woven baskets, and in their midst a youth with a singing lyre played charmingly upon it for them, and sang the beautiful song for Linos in a light voice, and they followed him, and with singing and whistling and light dance-steps of their feet kept time to the music." — The Iliad, Book 18 Technology and art are, in my opinion, two of the biggest things that make humanity what it is. The Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus credits him and Athena with having taught humanity the technological advancements that would create civilization as we know it, and bring it forward: "Sing, clear-voiced Muse, of Hephaistos famed for inventions (klytometis). With bright-eyed Athene he taught men glorious crafts throughout the world, — men who before used to dwell caves in the mountains like wild beasts. But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaistos the famed worker (klytotekhnes), easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round. Be gracious, Hephaistos, and grant me success and prosperity!" — Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus. It is because of Hephaestus that we have technological advancements, everything from the wheel to the iPhone. He inspires humans with ideas for technology to better ourselves and make our lives easier, and he and Athena taught us the skills needed to create that technology. I believe they’re still doing that. Come to think of it, that’s probably why Hephaestus is disabled. Most sources go out of their way to emphasize that the Olympians are physically perfect, but Hephaestus stands out as the sole exception. I don’t believe he’s ugly — to my knowledge, no ancient source describes him as looking ugly, but they do emphasize that his legs are “shrunken” and that he limps when he walks. Why is it even possible for a god — a god! — to be permanently disabled? I think because technology helps us to overcome our limitations. Technology lets us do things that we could not do before it existed — send messages to any place in the world and receive replies in an instant, travel anywhere in under a day by flying, curing diseases, harnessing the magic of Zeus himself (electricity) to power absolutely everything, going to literal space. Things that only gods would have been capable of! It is our own limitations as humans that inspires us to create these things, and they have improved our lives in a lot of ways. I tend to be very wary of new technology. I sometimes feel like we’re living in a sci-fi dystopia, which has always been one of my least favorite genres of fiction. If I’d lived in a time before the internet, and you described to me how inseparable it is from modern life and my own dependence on it, I would have been terrified of it. I try to keep that in mind whenever discussions around AI get brought up. Hephaestus teaches me that I don’t need to be afraid of new technology. I went to visit him recently in meditation, and this is what I saw: I imagine most of the gods generally retain the aesthetic of Classical antiquity (or at least, what I associate with Classical antiquity), but my internal impression of Hephaestus is completely modernized. He seems to have embraced the crystal-spires-and-togas aesthetic, with his workshop resembling a Silicon Valley tech building with a gigantic glass dome rather than a grimey blacksmith’s forge. He smoothly and quickly traverses this great divine workshop in a sleek, high-tech wheelchair. Hephaestus is absolutely psyched that humans finally have the capability, the knowledge, and the tools to start implementing some of his better ideas. I find it difficult to have that sort of optimism about tech, but the waves of excitement reverberating off of this gruff old forge god are contagious, and reassuring. So, I pray to Hephaestus whenever my tech doesn’t work properly, or when I want to ensure I have the right hardware to play a game I’m excited for, or when I get anxious about tech. I’m hoping that he’ll help me change my perspective on and relationship to technology, and keep my view of the future bright. "Strong, mighty Hephaestus, bearing splendid light, Unwearied fire, with flaming torrents bright: Strong-handed, deathless, and of art divine, Pure element, a portion of the world is thine: All-taming artist, all-diffusive pow’r, ’Tis thine supreme, all substance to devour: Aether, Sun Moon, and Stars, light pure and clear, For these thy lucid limbs to men appear. To thee, all dwellings, cities, tribes belong, Diffus’d thro’ mortal bodies bright and strong. Hear, blessed power, to holy rites incline, And all propitious on the incense shine: Suppress the rage of fires unwearied frame, And still preserve our nature’s vital flame." — Orphic Hymn to Hephaestus
