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Ancient Greeks: A Vast Pantheon Of Gods For Worship

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‘Ancient Greeks’ of all periods have had a vast pantheon of gods for worship. The need to justify their emotions and to follow a moral code for their behaviour lead to anthropomorphism. While polytheism was created to concentrate each sphere of influence with its own deity. The Greeks experienced love, hate, anger, sadness and happiness among other emotions. To explain them, they used their gods as examples. Aphrodite, the common expression of love, what it’s like to fall for someone you just can’t not be around. With love comes lust, a dangerous emotion that can put its participators in danger like Amphitrite changing Scylla, a lover of Poseidon, into a hideous creature. Opposite to love is hatred, often spawning anger, like the story of Polyphemus striking Acis with the rock out of spite of him laying with Galatea. Apollo showing compassion, Zeus being just and Athena’s wisdom begin to show the basis for the apparent anthropomorphism in the Greek pantheon. …show more content…

It’s the gods’ ways of showing the Greeks the dos and the don’ts. Typically set by Zeus, the upholder of moral values, but any god or goddess can set an example. This could a direct lesson set by Zeus like when he punished Lycaon for breaking the rules of hospitality or Prometheus for trying to outsmart him by first hiding the inedible parts of the sacrifice and then stealing fire from Olympus to give to the humans. It could also be indirect, like a hidden message within a myth. The societal stance against infidelity is an example of this, as it can be seen what the punishments were for Zeus’s many mistresses by

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In Mythology, Edith Hamilton portrays the Greek gods as somewhat greedy, and they are often appeased through ritual slaughter. Thus, modern culture learns that Greeks hold value in the authority of their gods through sacrifice. For example, at the beginning of the Trojan War, unbearable winds made it impossible for the Greek army to sail to Troy. If these harsh winds were to subside, the furious goddess Artemis had to be pleased through the death of Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter. Eventually, Agamemnon succumbed to the need to appease the goddess and thus “dared the deed, slaying his child to help a war” (Hamilton 259).

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Greek mythology can be viewed as a mirror to the ancient Greek civilization. Ancient Greek myths and legends often reflected how the Greeks saw themselves. Myths were used by Greeks to make justifications of every existing aspect of earth as well as their own society. In myths, Greek gods & heroes often represented key aspects of the human civilization. From Greek mythology, we can learn about the favorable characteristics of humans, such as their behavior and valuable skills that were approved of by the ancient Greek society.

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It is revealed through Homer’s comparison of gods and men that human nature is based on that of the gods; it is inherently self interested, yet capable of good and evil. Although the

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The lives of the gods were motivated the same basic factors of love, anger, and envy. Although their situations with these factors were more drastic due to their abilities, the gods still reacted and behaved similarly to humans. In the novel, Mythology , it is shown that the behaviors of the Greek gods that were influenced by the desire of love were extremely similar to those of a human. When Cupid falls in love with a mortal girl named Psyche, in an attempt to assure that no one else would marry her, the text states, “He put some drops of water of Psyche’s lips, a charm to prevent anyone else from falling in love with her, “ (33).

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