Greek Gods Research Paper

In the ancient times many cultures were polytheistic, this meant they worshipped multiple gods. One of the most famous culture to have multiple gods was Greece. Greek mythology is now widely known and studied. The Greek gods are now longer worshipped but they are a source of much fascination for many people. Most say there are 12 major gods of Olympus, however there is some debate about which gods they are. There are myths regarding all of them in some way or another. However, many Greek myths aren’t just about the gods, but about Greek heroes. Sometimes the stories even blur the lines between whether one was a god or not. In the

myths and stories, the gods showed great wrath, they effected the earth, in ways they were similar to humans,

By the end of the contest Athena came out victorious but was enraged by the art that Arachne had created belittling the gods. As punishment Athena turned her into a spider and Arachne became the first arachnid to walk to the earth. Athena is one of the most prime examples of the gods wrath.

Sometimes the gods needed to explain things that they hadn’t created a scientific explanation for yet, such as the weather. A fantastic example of how the gods effected the earth is the story of Hades and Persephone. The myth follows the daughter of Demeter, whose name was

Persephone. She was young a beautiful, and her mother kept many suitors away from her wanting her daughter to remain by her side. Then one day the god of the underworld and brother to Zeus, Hades catches a glimpse of her in the world above. He and Zeus concoct a plan for

Hades to marry Persephone. One day while she was frolicking in a meadow the ground below her opens and she plummets down into the underworld where hades awaited. At first, she denied his love, but he treated her fairly and not as property like many of the other gods treated

They bind whoever eats them there. “

Up until that point, Persephone had resisted eating anything offered to her–she knew that if she ate any food from the Underworld, she would be bound to it forever. But that morning, Persephone was so hungry, she took the pomegranate and ate six of its seeds

” (Brave New World, n.d., n.p.).

When Demeter discovered her daughter was in the underworld she bargained with Zeus to bring her back. When he did not she grew sad and plunged the world into great cold, for she was goddess of the harvest. The crops and livestock died, famine spread. If there had not been a solution developed soon then there would be nothing left of humanity. Zeus finally made a deal with Hades and

Demeter that since Persephone ate six of the pomegranate seeds she would spend 6 months with each god. The six months that she spent with Demeter were warm and happy. The six months she spent with Hades the world grew cold and miserable. This is how the ancient Greeks explained the seasons. They were controlled by the emotions of the goddess of the harvest.

While the gods were almighty compared to humans they still shared similarities. Their

personalities are similar to that of many people. They are very vain and narcissistic. That