The gods, The

creation and
The earliest
heroes
group 1
I THE GODS
the titans and the twelve great olympians .............4
the twelve olympians made up a divine family .......5
the lesser gods of olympus .....................................7
The gods of the waters ...........................................12
The underworld ............................. .........................15
The lesser gods of earth .........................................20
The Roman gods ............................. ........................33
II. THE TWO GREAT GODS OF EARTH
Demeter (Ceres)
Dionysus and Bacchus
III. HOW THE WORLD AND MANKIND WERE
CREATED
IV. THE EARLIEST HEROES
Prometheus and Io
Europa
The Cyclops
Polyphemus
Flower-myths;
Narcissus, Hyacinth,
Adonis
T H E GODS: The titans and the twelve great Olympians

Who are the titans and

Who are the olympians?
The Titans, often called the
Elder Gods, were for untold
And the twelve great
ages supreme in the
Olympians were
universe. They were of
supreme among the
enormous size and of
gods who succeeded to
incredible strength.
the Titans.
They were called the
Olympians because
Olympus was their home.
 T H E GODS: the titans and the twelve great Olympians

The twelve Olympians

made up a divine family
The chief, ZEUS also known as JUPITER
His two brothers, POSEIDON also
named after NEPTUNE, and HADES also
called as PLUTO;
Their sister, HESTIA also known as
VESTA;
Zeus’s wife,HERA also named after
JUNO;
T H E GODS: The twelve Olympians made up a divine family

The twelve Olympians

made up a divine family
Their son ARES also called as MARS;
Zeus’s children:
ATHENA also known as MINERVA
APOLLO, APHRODITE also named
after VENUS, HERMES also called as
MERCURY, and ARTEMIS also know as
DIANA;
Hera’s son HEPHAESTUS also named after
VULCAN
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of Olympus

The lesser gods of

There were other divinities in
Olympus heaven besides the twelve great
Olympians. The most important of
them was the G o d of Love, EROS;
Cupid in Latin. Homer knows
nothing of him, but to Hesiod he
is the Fairest of the deathless
gods.
T H E GODS: The lesser gods of Olympus

The lesser gods of

Olympus
Sometimes she appears as
cupbearer to the gods;
sometimes that offi ce is held
by Ganymede, a beautiful
young Trojan prince who was
seized and carried up to
Olympus by Zeus’s eagle.
T H E GODS: The lesser gods of Olympus

The lesser gods of

Olympus
IRIS was the Goddess of the
Rainbow and a messenger
of the g od s (Zeus and
Hera), in the Iliad the only
messenger. She is the
daugther of Titan Thaumas
and Electra.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of Olympus

The lesser gods of

Olympus
There were also in Olympus two
bands of lovely sisters
THE G R A C E S were three: Aglaia (Splendor ),
Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia (Good Cheer ).
They were the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome,
a child of the Titan, Ocean. They “give life its
bloom.” Together with their companions, the
Muses, they were “queens of song,” and no
banquet without them could please.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of Olympus
THE MUSES were nine in number, the
daug hters ofZeus and Mnemosyne,
Memory. For though a man has sorrow
and g rief in his soul, yet when the
servant of the Muses sings, at once he
forgets his dark thoughts and remembers
not his troubles. Such is the holy gift of
the to men. Acoording to Hesiod
The lesser gods of
Olympus
There were also in Olympus two
bands of lovely sisters
In later times each had her own special
field. Clio was Muse of history, Urania
of astronomy, Melpomene of tragedy,
Thalia of comedy, Terpsichore of the
dance, Calliope of epic poetry, Erato
of love-poetry, Polyhymnia of songs
to the gods, Euterpe of lyric poetry.
 T H E GODS: The gods of the waters

The gods of the waters

The ancient Greeks had numerous water deities.

POSEIDON (Neptune) was the Lord and Ruler of the

Mediterranean Sea and the Friendly Sea (the Euxine, now
the Black Sea). Underground rivers, too, were his.

OCEAN, a Titan, was Lord of the river Ocean, a great

river encircling the earth. His wife, also a Titan, was Tethys.
The Oceanids, the nymphs of this great river, were their
daughters. The gods of all the rivers on earth were their
sons.
 T H E GODS: The gods of the waters

The gods of the

waters
The ancient Greeks had numerous water
deities.
NEREUS was called the Old Man of the Sea (the TRITON was the
Mediterranean)—“A trusty god and gentle,” Hesiod trumpeter of the
says, “who thinks just and kindly thoughts and never Sea. His trumpet
lies.” His wife was Doris, a daughter of Ocean. They was a great
had fifty lovely daughters, the nymphs of the Sea, shell.
He was the son
called NEREIDS from their father’s name, one of of Poseidon and
whom, Thetis, was the mother of Achilles. Poseidon’s Amphitrite.
wife, AMPHITRITE, was another.
 T H E GODS: The gods of the waters

The gods of the

waters
The ancient Greeks had numerous water deities.

PROTEUS was sometimes said to be Poseidon’s son,

sometimes his attendant. He had the power both of
foretelling the future and of changing his shape at
will.
THE NAIADS were also
water nymphs. They
dwelt in brooks and
springs and fountains.
 T H E GODS: The underworld

The
The kingdom of the dead was ruled by one of the
underworld
twelve g reat O lympians, Hades or Pluto, and his
Q ueen,
Persephone.

It lies, the Iliad says, beneath the secret places of the earth.
In the Odyssey, the way to it leads over the edge of the
world across Ocean.
In later poets there are various entrances to it from the
earth
through caverns and beside deep lakes.
 T H E GODS: The underworld

The underworld
Tartarus and Erebus are sometimes two divisions of the
underworld

Tartarus the deeper Erebus where the

of the two, the prison dead pass as
of the Sons of Earth soon as they die.

there is no distinction between the two, and either is used,

especially Tartarus, as a name for the entire lower region.
 T H E GODS: The underworld

The underworld
In Homer the underworld is vague, a shadowy place inhabited by
shadows. Nothing is real there.
The later poets define the world of the dead more and more clearly
as the place where the wicked are punished and the g o o d
rewarded. Virgil, is the only poet who gives clearly the geography
of the underworld.:
"The path down to it leads to where Acheron, the river of woe, pours into
Cocytus, the river of lamentation. An aged boatman named Charon ferries the
souls of the dead across the water to the farther bank, where stands the
adamantine gate to Tartarus. Charon will receive into his boat only the souls of
those upon whose lips the passage money was placed when they died and
who were duly buried."
 T H E GODS: The underworld

The underworld
O n guard before the gate sits CERBERUS, the three-headed,
dragon-tailed dog, who permits all spirits to enter, but none to
return.
O n his arrival each one is brought before three judges,
Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Aeacus, who pass sentence and send the
wicked to everlasting torment and the g o o d to a place of
blessedness called the Elysian Fields.
Three other rivers, besides Acheron and Cocytus, separate the
underworld from the world above:
Phlegethon, the river of fire; Styx, the river of the unbreakable oath
by which the go ds swear; and Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.
 T H E GODS: The underworld

The underworld
THE ERINYES (the FURIES) are placed by Virgil in the underworld,
where they punish evildoers. the are the three avenging deities
They were usually represented as three: Tisiphone (the avenger of
murder), Megaera (the jealous one), and Alecto (unceasing in
anger).
SLEEP (hypnos), and his twin brother, DEATH (thanatos),
dwelt in the lower world.
They passed through two gates, one of horn through
which true dreams went, one of ivory for false dreams.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of

earth
Earth herself was called the All-Mother, but she
was not really a divinity. She was never separated
from the actual earth and personified.
The G o d d e s s o f t h e C o r n , D E M E T E R (CERES),
a daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and the G o d o f
t h e Vine, D I O N Y S U S , also called BACCHUS,
were the supreme deities of the earth and of
great importance in Greek and Roman
mythology.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of earth

PAN was the chief. He was Hermes’ son;
a noisy, merry god, the Homeric Hymn in his honor calls him;
he was part animal too, with a goat’s horns, and goat’s hoofs
instead of feet.
He was the goatherds’ god, and the shepherds’ god, and also
the gay companion of the woodland nymphs when they
danced.
All wild places were his home, thickets and forests and
mountains, but best of all he loved Arcady, where he was born.
He was a wonderful musician. Upon his pipes of reed he
played melodies as sweet as the nightingale’s song.
He was always in love with one nymph or another, but always
rejected because of his ugliness.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of earth

SILENUS was sometimes said to be Pan’s son;
sometimes his brother, a son of Hermes. part man
and part beast
He was a jovial fat old man who usually rode an
ass because he was too drunk to walk.
He is associated with Bacchus as well as with Pan;
he taught him when the W i n e - g o d was young,
and, as is shown by his perpetual drunkenness,
after being his tutor he became his devoted
follower.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of earth

C A S T O R and P O L L U X

Besides these g o d s of the earth there was a very

famous and very popular pair of brothers,
C A S T O R and P OL L U X (Polydeuces), who in most
of the accounts were said to live half of their
time on earth and half in heaven.
They were the sons of LEDA, and are usually
represented as being gods, the special protectors
of sailors
of sailors T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of earth

C A S T O R and P O L L U X
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of earth

C A S T O R and P O L L U X

They were also powerful to save in battle. They were

especially honored in Rome, where they were worshiped
as
"The great Twin Brethren to whom all Dorians pray."
But the accountso f them are c o ntradicto ry.So metimes
Pollux alone is held to be divine, and Castor a mortal who
won a kind of half-and-half immortality merely
because of his brother’s love
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of

earth LEDA
LEDA was the wife of King Tyndareus of Sparta,
she bore two mortal children to King Tyndareus, Castor
and Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife;
and to Zeus, who visited her in the form of a swan, two
others who were immortal, Pollux and Helen, the heroine of
Troy.
Castor and Pollux, were often called “sons of
Zeus”; the G reek name they are best known
by,
the Dioscouri, means “the stripling s of Zeus.”
the Tyndaridae“sons of Tyndareus,”
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of

earth SILENI
SATYRS
AND

THE SILENI were creatures

part man and part horse. THE SATYRS, like Pan,
walked on two legs, not four,
They were goat-men, and
but they often had horses’
like him they had
hoofs instead of feet,
their home in the
sometimes horses’ ears, and
wild places of the
always horses’ tails. There
earth.
are no stories about them,
but they are often seen on
Greek vases.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of

earthOREADS AND
HAMADRYADS

In contrast to these the Dryads, sometimes

unhuman, ug ly g ods the called HAMADRYADS,
goddesses of the woodland nymphs of trees,
were all lovely maiden whose life was in
forms, the O READS, each case bound up
nymphs of the mountains, with that of her tree.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of

earth AEOLUS
AEOLUS, King of the Winds, also lived on the earth.
An island, Aeolia, was his home.
He was only regent of the Winds, viceroy of the
gods. The four chief Winds were BOREAS:
the North Wind, in Latin AQUILO; ZEPHYR,
the West Wind, which had a second Latin name,
Favonius; Notus,
the South Wind, also called in Latin AUSTER;
the East Wind, EURUS, the same in both Greek and
Latin
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth
The lesser gods of
earth
THE CENTAURS AND THE
GORGONS
THE CENTAURS. They
were half man, half horse,
and for the most part they
were savage creatures,
more like beasts than
men. O ne of them,
however, C HIRO N, was
known everywhere for
his g oodness and his
wisdom.
THE GORGONS were also
earth-dwellers. There were
three, and two of them
were immortal. They were
dragonlike creatures with
wing s, whose look turned
men to stone. Phorcys, son
of the Sea and the Earth,
was their father.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth
The lesser gods of
earthSIRENS
THE GRAIAE AND THE
THE GRAIAE were their
sisters, three gray
women who had but one
eye between them. They
lived on the farther bank
of Ocean.
THE SIRENS lived on an
island in the Sea. They had
enchanting voices and their
singing lured sailors to their
death. It was not known
what they looked like, for no
one who saw them ever
returned.
 T H E GODS: The lesser gods of earth

The lesser gods of

earth THE FATES
Very important but assigned to no abode whether in heaven
or on the earth were THE FATES, Moirae in Greek, Parcae in
Latin. The goddesses were often thought of as weavers. They
were three:
Clotho, the Spinner, who spun the thread of life;
Lachesis, the Disposer of Lots, who assigned to each man
his destiny;
Atropos, she who could not be turned, who carried
“the abhorrèd shears” and cut the thread at death.
 T H E GODS: The Roman gods

How the world an

mankind were
created
The Titans, often called the
Elder Gods, were for
untold
ages supreme in the
And the twelve great
universe. They were of
Olympians were supreme
enormous size and of
among the gods who
incredible strength.
succeeded to the Titans.
They were called the
Olympians because Olympus
was their home.
Breakout
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