GREEK MYTHOLOGY: MEET THE ANCIENT GREEK GODS AND GODDESSES

Did you know that there are more than twenty Greek gods and goddesses in existence in Greek mythology, and that they provide us with a fascinating range of characters? 

The stories of the Greek gods and goddesses in Greek mythology provide us with a fascinating range of characters. Their stories also help us to learn about how the ancient Greeks lived many years ago. The following is a list of gods, goddesses, and many other divine and semi-divine figures from ancient Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion.

▪️ZEUS

Zeus, in ancient Greek religion, chief deity of the pantheon, a sky and weather god who was identical with the Roman god Jupiter. His name may be related to that of the sky god Dyaus of the ancient Hindu Rigveda. Zeus was regarded as the sender of thunder and lightning, rain, and winds, and his traditional weapon was the thunderbolt. He was called the father (i.e., the ruler and protector) of both gods and men.

▪️HERA

In ancient Greek religion, Hera is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Olympus, sister and wife of Zeus, and daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. One of her defining characteristics in myth is her jealous and vengeful nature in dealing with any who offend her, especially Zeus' numerous adulterous lovers and illegitimate offspring. Her Roman name is Juno.

▪️POSEIDON 

Poseidon, in ancient Greek religion, is the god of the sea (and of water generally), earthquakes, and horses. He is distinguished from Pontus, the personification of the sea and the oldest Greek divinity of the waters. The name Poseidon means either “husband of the earth” or “lord of the earth.” Traditionally, he was a son of Cronus (the youngest of the 12 Titans) and of Cronus’s sister and consort Rhea, a fertility goddess. Poseidon was a brother of Zeus, the sky god and chief deity of ancient Greece, and of Hades, god of the underworld. When the three brothers deposed their father, the kingdom of the sea fell by lot to Poseidon. His weapon and main symbol was the trident, perhaps once a fish spear.

▪️DEMETER 

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although she is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Underworld. She is also called Deo. In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings but Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus. She is symbolized as a torch, corn plant and she is known in Roman as Ceres.

▪️ARES 

Ares is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality. He is symbolized with a bloody spear and a wild boar. His Roman name is Mars.

▪️ATHENA 

Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, is the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. Yet the Greek economy, unlike that of the Minoans, was largely military, so that Athena, while retaining her earlier domestic functions, became a goddess of war. Athena is always accompanied by at least one owl, her sacred animal. She helped out Odysseus, sponsored the entire city of Athens and made sure the Greeks won the Trojan War. Her Roman name is Minerva.

▪️APOLLO

Apollo is one of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all the gods. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. He is symbolized with the lyre and laurel wreath.

▪️ACHILLES

In Greek mythology, Achilles was the son of Peleus, who was a mortal, and the king of the Myrmidons, and Thetis, who was a sea nymph (Nereid). Achilles was renowned for his bravery and stunning good looks, and was the best warrior in the army of Agamemnon in the Trojan War. Achilles was raised by his mother in Pthia, which was a district in ancient Thessaly, along with his close companion Patroclus. The legend around Achilles states that he was completely invincible, apart from his heel, which is how we get the term ‘Achilles’ heel’. This apparently came about because Thetis dipped him into the River Styx, holding him by his heel. As his heel was not touched by the waters, it became his one point of weakness. This weakness would be Achilles’ downfall, as he was eventually killed in battle by Priam’s son Paris, whose arrow was said to have been guided by Apollo to Achilles’ heel.

▪️ARTEMIS

Artemis, in Greek religion, is the goddess of wild animals, the hunt, and vegetation and of chastity and childbirth; she was identified by the Romans with Diana. Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. Among the rural populace, Artemis was the favourite goddess. Her character and function varied greatly from place to place, but, apparently, behind all forms lay the goddess of wild nature, who danced, usually accompanied by nymphs, in mountains, forests, and marshes. Artemis embodied the sportsman’s ideal, so besides killing game she also protected it, especially the young; this was the Homeric significance of the title Mistress of Animals. She is symbolized with the moon and the deer, and the Romans called her Diana.

▪️HEPHAESTUS 

Hephaestus, Greek Hephaistos, in Greek mythology is the god of fire. Originally a deity of Asia Minor and the adjoining islands (in particular Lemnos), Hephaestus had an important place of worship at the Lycian Olympus. His cult reached Athens not later than about 600 BCE (although it scarcely touched Greece proper) and arrived in Campania not long afterward. His Roman counterpart was Vulcan. He is symbolized as the anvil and hammer.

▪️APHRODITE

Aphrodite is the ancient Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, identified with Venus by the Romans. The Greek word aphros means “foam,” and Hesiod relates in his Theogony that Aphrodite was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus (Heaven), after his son Cronus threw them into the sea. Aphrodite was, in fact, widely worshipped as a goddess of the sea and of seafaring; she was also honoured as a goddess of war, especially at Sparta, Thebes, Cyprus, and other places. However, she was known primarily as a goddess of love and fertility and even occasionally presided over marriage. Although prostitutes considered Aphrodite their patron, her public cult was generally solemn and even austere. Her Roman name is Venus.

▪️HERMES 

Hermes is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife. He is symbolized with the caduceus and the Roman calls him Mercury.

▪️DIONYSUS 

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. As Dionysus Eleutherios ("the liberator"), his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. He is symbolized with the leopard, the grape vine. His Roman name is Bacchus.

▪️HADES 

Hades in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, standing to his side. His Roman name is Pluto.

▪️HYPNOS 

Hypnos is the Greco-Roman god of sleep. Hypnos was the son of Nyx (Night) and the twin brother of Thanatos (Death). In Greek myth he is variously described as living in the underworld or on the island of Lemnos in a dark, musty cave in the land of the Cimmerians, through which flowed the waters of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness and oblivion. Hypnos lay on his soft couch, surrounded by his many sons, who were the bringers of dreams. Chief among them were Morpheus, who brought dreams of men; Icelus, who brought dreams of animals; and Phantasus, who brought dreams of inanimate things. His Roman name is Somnus.

▪️NIKE 

In Greek mythology, Nike was a goddess who personified victory in any field including art, music, war, and athletics. She is often portrayed in Greek art as Winged Victory in the motion of flight; however, she can also appear without wings as "Wingless Victory" when she is being portrayed as an attribute of another deity such as Athena. In Greek literature Nike is described as both an attribute and attendant to the gods Zeus and Athena. Nike gained this honored role beside Zeus during the Titanomachy where she was one of the first gods to offer her allegiance to Zeus. At Athens, Nike became a servant to Athena as well as an attribute of her due to the prominent status Athena held in her patron city. The fusion of the two goddesses at Athens has contributed to the ambiguity surrounding Nike's origins. Her Roman name is Victoria.

▪️JANIS

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius). According to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs, Juno was mistaken as the tutelary deity of the month of January, but Juno is the tutelary deity of the month of June.

▪️NEMESIS 

Nemesis was the goddess of indignation against, and retribution for, evil deeds and undeserved good fortune. She was a personification of the resentment aroused in men by those who commited crimes with apparent impunity, or who had inordinate good fortune. Nemesis directed human affairs in such a way as to maintain equilibrium. Her name means she who distributes or deals out. Happiness and unhappiness were measured out by her, care being taken that happiness was not too frequent or too excessive. If this happened, Nemesis could bring about losses and suffering. As one who checked extravagant favours by Tykhe (Tyche) (Fortune), Nemesis was regarded as an avenging or punishing divinity.

▪️IRIS 

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Iris is a daughter of the gods Thaumas and Electra, the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods, a servant to the Olympians and especially Queen Hera. Iris appears in several stories carrying messages from and to the gods or running errands but has no unique mythology of her own. Similarly, very little to none of a historical cult and worship of Iris is attested in surviving records, with only a few traces surviving from the island of Delos. In ancient art, Iris is depicted as a winged young woman carrying a caduceus, the symbol of the messengers, and a pitcher of water for the gods. Iris was traditionally seen as the consort of Zephyrus, the god of the west wind and one of the four Anemoi, by whom she is the mother of Pothos in some versions. Her Roman name is Iris or Arcus.

▪️HECATE

Hecate was the chief goddess presiding over magic and spells. She witnessed the abduction of Demeter’s daughter Persephone to the underworld and, torch in hand, assisted in the search for her. Thus, pillars called Hecataea stood at crossroads and doorways, perhaps to keep away evil spirits. Hecate was represented as single-formed, clad in a long robe, holding burning torches; in later representations she was triple-formed, with three bodies standing back-to-back, probably so that she could look in all directions at once from the crossroads. She was accompanied by packs of barking dogs.

▪️TYCHE

Tyche, in Greek religion, is the goddess of chance, with whom the Roman Fortuna was later identified; a capricious dispenser of good and ill fortune. She was also associated with the more beneficent Agathos Daimon, a good spirit, protective of individuals and families, and with Nemesis, who, as an abstraction, represented punishment of overprosperous man and so was believed to act as a moderating influence. She was often shown winged, wearing a crown, and bearing a sceptre and cornucopia; but she also appeared blindfolded and with various devices signifying uncertainty and risk. Her Roman name is Fortuna.

▪️ATLAS

In Greek mythology, Atlas was the son of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene. He was also the brother of Prometheus, the creator of humankind. A lot of the information we have about Atlas comes from Homer’s Odyssey. In Homer’s Odyssey, Book I, Atlas is depicted as a marine creature who held in the place the pillars that separated heaven and earth. These pillars are thought to have been placed beyond the most western horizon. Later, Atlas’ name was given to a range of mountains in northwestern Africa, which meant that Atlas was seen as the king of that district. Atlas himself is said to have been transformed into a rocky mountain by the hero, Perseus. This was as punishment for Atlas’ inhospitality. Perseus did this by showing Atlas the Gorgon’s head, which immediately turned any man who saw it into stone.

Source:

Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia, Twinkl