Greek Gods

Greek gods give their stories to mythology walks and day trips with a host. These outings run in Athens, Olympia, Crete and Thessaloniki. The stories start with the twelve Olympians, then Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hephaestus and Ares. Older gods and Titans come next, then four common questions close the page. Related stories run through Greek mythology tours, Greek mythology places and temples in Greece. More outings across the mainland and islands appear under Greece tours.

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Who are the Greek gods?

Greek gods, in ancient religion and myth, include a group known as the twelve Olympians. Lists commonly name Zeus, Athena, Hera, Apollo, Demeter, Poseidon, Aphrodite and Artemis. The group also holds Ares, Hephaestus and Hermes, plus either Hestia or Dionysus as its twelfth member.

The Olympians came chiefly from the third and fourth generations of beings who never die. The oldest Greek gods of Olympus were the offspring of Cronus and Rhea, two Titans. Titans were an earlier race of gods in the myths. This generation held Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter and Hestia, who were brothers and sisters.

A second circle of Greek gods came from Zeus himself. His main children among the Olympians were Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes and Dionysus. The hero Heracles also came to live on Olympus. This followed his apotheosis, a word for being raised to the rank of a god. There he married Hebe, another resident of the mountain.

Olympia appears to have kept an early tradition of twelve gods. Hymns are songs that honour a god, and one Homeric Hymn honours Hermes. In that poem, Hermes takes two cows he stole from Apollo. Beside the river Alpheus, he divides their meat into twelve portions as a sacrifice.

• Six pairs: Herodorus of Heraclea set six pairs of gods at Olympia, each pair sharing one altar.
• Roman twelve: The poet Ennius gave the Roman version, the Dii Consentes, as six male and female pairs.
• Two ranks: In the epic poem the Iliad, Themis lives on Olympus, so she counts as Titan and Olympian.

Groups of twelve gods were honoured beyond Olympia. Delos, Chalcedon, Magnesia on the Maeander and Leontinoi in Sicily all held cults of twelve. Each of these cults fixed its group of Greek gods at twelve. The names inside each group still changed from cult to cult.

How did Zeus watch over oaths and markets among the Greek gods?

Greek gods carried titles, called epithets, and those of Zeus stressed different sides of his wide authority. As Zeus Horkios, he was the keeper of oaths. As Zeus Agoraeus, he watched over the agora, or marketplace, and punished dishonest traders.

An exposed liar had to dedicate a votive statue to Zeus. A votive statue is a figure offered to a god. The sanctuary at Olympia was a common home for these statues. Olympia also held an altar of Zeus made of ash rather than stone. The ash came from the remains of animals sacrificed there over centuries.

Certain rituals for Zeus were held in common across the Greek world. Rituals are fixed acts of worship offered to Greek gods. One was the sacrifice of a white animal over a raised altar. A raised altar stands above the ground, unlike a pit. Yet popular ideas about Zeus differed widely from one Greek place to another.

Among the Greek gods, Zeus began as a sky god. Yet Greek cities also honoured local forms of him living underground. Athenians and Sicilians worshipped Zeus Meilichios, a title meaning kindly or honeyed. Art showed these underground forms as snakes or as humans. A single image sometimes joined both shapes for emphasis.

• Aegina: Zeus Panhellenios, meaning Zeus of All the Greeks, was worshipped at the temple of Aeacus on Aegina.
• Athens: Athenians worshipped Zeus Eleutherios, a title that means Zeus the freedom giver.
• Crete: The writer Euhemerus proposed that Zeus had once been a great king of Crete.

Zeus fathered a long line of heroes and featured in their local cults. In the religion of the Greek gods, a cult means worship given to one god or hero. On Mount Aetna, worshippers honoured him as Zeus Aetnaeus, with a statue and the Aetnaea festival.

What do the myths of the Greek gods say about Athena’s birth and titles?

Greek gods of the classical pantheon counted Athena as the favourite child of Zeus. A pantheon is the full set of gods of a people. Myth says she was born from his forehead, fully armed. She was also honoured as a goddess of peace.

The Homeric Hymn to Athena, an ancient song of praise, describes her birth. In it, the other Greek gods stand in awe of her appearance. Even Helios, god of the sun, halts his chariot in the sky. The poet Pindar adds that she gave a loud cry with a mighty shout.

One title of Athena, Atrytone, meant the Unwearying, a word for someone who never tires. The scholar Walter Burkert notes that Athenians sometimes called her simply the Goddess. He calls this plain form an ancient title. Plutarch records that Pericles dedicated a statue to her as Athena Hygieia, meaning Health.

As Athena Hippia, meaning of the horses, she was credited with inventing the bit and bridle. The same title also covers the chariot and wagon. Riders steer horses with the bit, a metal piece held in the mouth. Her best-known title is Pallas. It comes from a word meaning to wave a weapon, or from one meaning young woman.

• Palladium: The Palladium was a statue of Athena said to keep Troy safe while it stayed there.
• Mechanitis: Worshippers of the Greek gods also called her Mechanitis, meaning skilled in inventing.
• Corinth: The geographer Pausanias placed the temple of Athena Chalinitis near the tomb of Medea’s children.

A myth of the Greek gods ties the name Pallas to a friendship. Pallas was a daughter of the sea god Triton and a childhood friend of Athena. Pallas died by accident during a sparring match. Athena then took the name Pallas as a sign of her grief.

Which titles and festivals belonged to Poseidon among the Greek gods?

Greek gods of the sea include Pontus, the oldest of them, but Poseidon is a separate god. Homer gives him the title Kyanochaites, meaning dark-haired. In the Iliad, his golden palace stands at Aegai, deep under the sea.

Among the Greek gods, Poseidon caused earthquakes in myth, yet he also guarded against them. One protective title was Asphaleios, meaning securer or protector. He held a temple under that name at Tainaron. Another title, Themeliouchos, meant upholding the foundations. In building, the foundations form the lowest part and carry the walls.

In Thessaly, Poseidon carried the title Petraios, meaning of the rocks. Myth says he struck a rock there, and the first horse, Skyphios, appeared. The Greek gods’ lord of the sea is also called the father of Pegasus. The name Pegasus comes from pege, a Greek word for a spring. Springs bring water up from under the earth.

Tinos, an island of the Cyclades, held a great festival called the Poseidonia. Its temple had large banquet halls, a sign of crowds of worshippers. A banquet is a large formal meal. There Poseidon was worshipped as a healer-god. On Mykonos, a festival honoured him as a god of fishing, and women were not allowed.

• Panionia: Delegates of twelve Ionian cities met at Mycale to celebrate the Panionia in his honour.
• Tuna: Among the Greek gods, Poseidon was the god of fishing, with the tuna as his attribute.
• Trident: Pindar called him Eutriaina, meaning with goodly trident, his three-pronged spear.

At Onchestos in Boeotia, a famous temple of Poseidon hosted a festival with horse racing. At the start of the race, charioteers jumped down. They prayed to Poseidon for protection if a chariot fell in the sacred grove. Grove is an old word for a small wood.

Where was Aphrodite worshipped, and which symbols marked her out from other Greek gods?

Greek gods in Athens included Aphrodite, who was honoured there each year at the Aphrodisia festival. Her main cult centres, meaning chief places of worship, were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth and Athens. The fourth day of every month was also sacred to her.

Pausanias reports that very old cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed Aphrodite bearing weapons. A cult statue is an image set up for worship. Spartan worshippers of the Greek gods gave her other titles too. They called her Ambologera, meaning She who Postpones Old Age, and Morpho, meaning Shapely.

A common title for Aphrodite in poetry about the Greek gods was Philommeides, meaning smile-loving. In Athens she was known as Aphrodite of the Gardens. Cape Colias is a headland on the Attic coast. Attica is the land around Athens. There she was honoured as Genetyllis, the protectress of births. A protectress is a female protector.

The dove was Aphrodite’s leading bird symbol. It first served as a symbol of Inanna-Ishtar, a goddess of the Near East. Scholars see Inanna-Ishtar as an earlier model for Aphrodite. Rose and myrtle flowers were both held sacred to her. Her chief fruit emblem was the apple.

• Cyprus: On Cyprus, worshippers of the Greek gods sometimes called her Eleemon, meaning the merciful.
• Paphos: Her title Paphian comes from Paphos on Cyprus, where she rose from the sea at birth.
• Sparrows: Sappho’s Ode to Aphrodite describes her riding in a chariot pulled by sparrows.

The Romans linked Aphrodite with their own goddess Venus. The historian Livy says the two were officially joined in the third century BC. That step came as the cult of Venus Erycina reached Rome. It came from a sanctuary of Aphrodite on Mount Eryx in Sicily.

What role did Hermes play for the Greek gods?

Greek gods had Hermes as their herald, the bearer of their messages. He also protected human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants and orators. Orators are skilled public speakers. Winged sandals let him pass quickly and freely between mortals and the Greek gods.

The main symbol of Hermes is the caduceus, a winged staff wound with two snakes. A staff is a long rod carried in the hand. His other signs include the rooster, the tortoise and a satchel, or shoulder bag. The palm tree, the goat, incense and the number four were his too.

In Roman religion, much of his character belongs to Mercury. That name comes from the Latin word merx, meaning merchandise, or goods for sale. Merx is also the root of the words merchant and commerce. The cult of Hermes took root in remote parts of Greece. Scholars think he therefore began as a god of nature, farmers and shepherds.

Only three temples built for Hermes alone are known from the Classical Greek period, all in Arcadia. In Attica, Arcadia, Crete and Samos, temples honoured two Greek gods together, Hermes and Aphrodite. At Pheneus, the Tricrena mountains, whose name means Three Springs, were sacred to Hermes. Legend says nymphs washed the newborn god there.

• Pharae: At Pharae, fish in the spring called Hermes’s stream were never caught, as they were sacred.
• Offerings: Sacrifices to Hermes included honey, cakes, pigs, goats and lambs, according to ancient sources.
• Tanagra: People of Tanagra believed Hermes had been nursed under a wild strawberry tree.

As a patron of the gym and of fighting, Hermes had statues in gyms. At Olympia, he was honoured in the sanctuary of the twelve Greek gods. His statue there stood on an altar he shared with Apollo. Greeks held the Olympic Games at that site.

How is Hephaestus remembered as the smith of the Greek gods?

Greek gods on Olympus took all their weapons from Hephaestus, their smith. He was the god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen and fire. His other fields were metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. Smiths heat metal in a fire, then hammer it into shape.

Greek households placed small statues of Hephaestus near the hearth, the fireplace of a home. These little figures are the oldest of all his images. Poets gave him the title Klytotekhnes, meaning renowned artificer. An artificer is a skilled maker of things. Another title, Aitnaios, tied him to a workshop said to lie under Mount Aetna.

Hephaestus had his own palace on Olympus, with a workshop inside. It held an anvil and twenty bellows that worked whenever he wished. Bellows are devices that blow air onto a fire to make it hotter. He also designed every throne in the palace of the Greek gods on Olympus.

Homer says Hephaestus built automatons, metal figures that move by themselves. Among them were tripods with golden wheels. Tripods stand on three legs. These tripods rolled in and out of the Greek gods’ assembly hall at his wish. He also made handmaidens of gold that looked like living young women and helped him walk.

• Golden throne: In an early story, he forged Hera a golden throne that held her fast.
• Return: Dionysus later led him back to Olympus on a mule, a scene on Attic and Corinthian pottery.
• River fire: In the Iliad, he used flames to dry the river Scamandrus and drive back its god.

Scholars connect Hephaestus, blacksmith of the Greek gods, with a Linear B inscription from Knossos. Linear B is the script of Mycenaean Greek, an early form of the language. The inscription is read as a name formed from his own, a sign he was worshipped then.

Who was Ares within the family of Greek gods?

Greek gods include Ares, the god of war and courage, a son of Zeus and Hera. He stands for the physical valour, or bravery, needed to win in war. His sister Athena, by contrast, covers military strategy and generalship, the skill of leading armies.

Ares drew a mixed response from worshippers of the Greek gods. A large number of Greeks felt ambivalent towards him. Ambivalent means holding mixed feelings at the same time. His name also served as a plain word. In the Iliad, the noun ares simply means battle. A noun is a word that names a thing.

Sparta kept an archaic statue of Ares in chains, in the temple of the war god Enyalios. Pausanias claimed the chains kept the spirit of war and victory inside the city. After a battle, Spartans offered Ares an ox for a victory won by cunning. A rooster was his reward for a victory won by direct attack.

His attributes were the tools of war: a helmet, a shield, and a sword or spear. An attribute is an object that marks one of the Greek gods in art. Two companions followed him into war. They were Deimos, whose name means Terror, and Phobos, meaning Fear. Hesiod calls them his sons by Aphrodite.

• Bronze urn: The giants Otus and Ephialtes held Ares in a bronze urn for thirteen months.
• Rescue: Ares stayed trapped in the urn until Hermes, another of the Greek gods, came to rescue him.
• War-cry: Alala, the spirit of the Greek war-cry, lent her name to the war-cry of Ares.

In Roman religion, the closest match to Ares was Mars. Mars held a more dignified place, as ancestral protector of the Roman people and state. In later Western art and writing, the myths of Ares and Mars became almost impossible to tell apart.

Where does Gaia stand among the Greek gods?

Greek gods of Olympus descend from Gaia, the Earth pictured as a goddess. With Uranus, the Sky, she conceived the Titans, an older race of gods who became parents of Olympians. Her name is a poetic form of Ge, meaning land or earth.

Hesiod’s Theogony tells how the gods came into being. In it, Gaia brought forth Uranus as her equal, so that the Sky covered her on every side. She also bore the Ourea, or Mountains, without any father. Her equivalent among the Roman gods was Terra, the Latin word for earth.

Gaia tended to share her worship with other Greek gods and goddesses. At Olympia, her altar bore the name Gaios. Pliny describes her shrine at Aigai in Achaea. There her priestess drank a little bull’s blood before entering a secret cave. A priestess was a woman in charge of rites for a deity.

At Patras, the oracle of Ge used a sacred well to foretell causes of illness. An oracle was a shrine giving a god’s answers. In Athens, the temenos of Ge-Olympia stood near the Olympieion. A temenos is a sacred plot set apart for a god. Thucydides counts it among the oldest sanctuaries for Greek gods in Athens.

• Mykonos: Seven black lambs were offered to Zeus Chthonios and Ge-Chthonia, titles meaning of the earth.
• Flood myth: Deucalion and Pyrrha read the mother as Gaia, mother of all living things, and her bones as rocks.
• Old script: In Mycenaean Greek, the form Ma-ka is thought to stand for Mother Gaia.

Among the Greek gods, Gaia received a chthonic rite in Athens, meaning one tied to the earth below. The Genesia, a festival of mourning, fell in the month of Boedromion. A sacrifice went to Ge, and citizens brought gifts to the graves of the dead.

Why does Cronus matter in the story of the Greek gods?

Greek gods of the Olympian age replaced Cronus, the leader and youngest of the Titans. He ruled through the Golden Age of myth until his son Zeus overthrew him. Art showed him holding a harpe, a curved blade, or a scythe or sickle.

In the myths of the Greek gods, Cronus threw his sickle into the waves after overthrowing his father. The blade came to rest hidden under the island of Corfu. People had noted the sickle-like outline of Corfu since ancient times. That outline gave the island its old name, Drepane, a Greek word for sickle.

In the Golden Age of his rule, people needed neither laws nor rules, because everyone acted rightly. Cronus is thought to have begun as a harvest god. Across regions of Greece, the harvest month carried the name Cronion after him. In classical antiquity he was matched with Saturn, a Roman god.

In one story of the Greek gods, Cronus fathered Chiron, a wise centaur, half human and half horse. Chiron’s mother was Philyra, an Oceanid, or daughter of Oceanus. The episode was said to take place on Mount Pelion. The poet Pindar has Cronus freed from Tartarus, the prison of the Titans. He rules the Isles of the Blessed.

• Cicero: The Roman philosopher linked the name Cronus with chronos, the Greek word for time.
• Father Time: In the Renaissance, the blend of Cronus and Chronos produced Father Time holding a harvest scythe.
• Campe: One later source says Cronus jailed the one-eyed Cyclopes again, with the dragon Campe as their guard.

In tales of the Greek gods, the Isles of the Blessed were a home for heroes after death. In a poem by Pindar, the road of Zeus ends at the tower of Cronus. Ocean breezes blow around the island, and golden flowers blaze there.

Which roles did Rhea play for the Greek gods?

Greek gods of Olympus had Rhea as their mother, in the view of classical Greeks. She belonged to the Titans, the children of Uranus and Gaia. Rhea was both sister and wife to Cronus. The Romans matched her with Magna Mater, the Great Mother.

After Zeus rose to power, Rhea gave up her role as queen of the Greek gods. She still stood by her children and their households. Rhea was said to ease childbirth for women. She was present when her grandson Apollo was born. She also raised Dionysus and gave him the amethyst, a gem believed to prevent drunkenness.

Rhea was first worshipped on Crete, the island of Zeus’s childhood in myth. Her rites used rhythmic chants and dances to stir religious ecstasy, a trance-like joy. The tympanon, a wide drum held in the hand, sounded with them. Her priests took the parts of the Curetes and Dactyls, her attendants in myth, clashing shields and cymbals.

Among the Greek gods, Rhea bore the title Meter Theon, meaning Mother of the Gods. The ancient writer Pausanias names her temple in the Kerameikos of Athens, with a statue by Pheidias. At Olympia, a small temple called the Metroion held no image of her. Statues of Roman emperors stood inside instead.

• Akriai: Locals in this Laconian town called her temple the oldest of her sanctuaries in the Peloponnese.
• Pelops: The poet Bacchylides says Rhea herself brought Pelops back to life after his death.
• Name: One theory links the name Rhea with old Greek words for the pomegranate fruit.

In the early age of the Greek gods, Ophion and Eurynome were said to rule snowy Mount Olympus. Rhea and Cronus fought the pair and cast them into the Ocean’s waves. Rhea, a skilled wrestler, battled Eurynome, a daughter of Oceanus.

What honours did Hestia receive as hearth goddess of the Greek gods?

Greek gods included Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and the home. Her name means hearth, fireplace or altar. A hearth is the fireplace at the heart of a house. As goddess of sacrificial fire, she received the first offering at every household sacrifice.

Two Greek gods, Poseidon and Apollo, fell in love with Hestia and competed to marry her. She refused them and went to Zeus to swear a great oath. She vowed never to marry and to stay a virgin forever. Zeus gave her the task of feeding the Olympian hearth with fatty parts of sacrifices.

Images of Hestia are rare and seldom certain. Classical Greek art at times shows her modestly wrapped in a head veil. Her seat is a plain wooden throne, padded with a white cushion of wool. Elsewhere she holds a staff or appears beside a large fire. The animal sacrificed to her was a domestic pig.

In public life, the hearth of the prytaneum served as her official sanctuary. A prytaneum was a city hall with a common hearth. When Greeks founded a colony, a flame from her public hearth in the mother city went with them. At Naucratis, the birthday of Hestia Prytanitis was marked by a meal in the Prytaneion.

• Elis: Pausanias writes that the Eleans sacrificed first to Hestia, then to the other Greek gods.
• Athens: Pausanias reports a statue of Hestia in the Prytaneum, beside one of Eirene, or Peace.
• Rome: Her Roman equivalent was Vesta, goddess of Rome’s public and household hearths.

Two Homeric Hymns, ancient poems in praise of the Greek gods, take Hestia as their subject. Hymn 29 gives her the highest honour. It says mortals owe their banquets to her. They pour wine in her name first and last.

What realm fell to Hades when three Greek gods drew lots?

Greek gods Zeus, Poseidon and Hades were brothers who drew lots to share out the world. Zeus gained the sky and Poseidon the seas, while Hades received the underworld. He is the god of the dead and of riches, and king of that realm.

The name Hades has been read as the unseen one since ancient times. From about the 5th century BC, Greeks began to call him Plouton instead. Its root means wealthy, since riches such as crops and metals come from the soil. Saying the word Hades frightened people, so they used gentler names.

Of the Greek gods, Hades was one the living were in no hurry to meet. So they hesitated to swear oaths in his name. At his sacrifices, they turned their faces away. To be sure he heard them, they beat the ground with their hands. Black animals, such as sheep, were the victims offered to him.

His chariot was drawn by four black horses. The narcissus flower and the cypress were his plants, and the Key of Hades his emblem. On pottery, he wears a dark beard and sits as a stately figure on an ebony throne. Greeks pictured him rarely, because they were so afraid of him.

• Pylos: Heracles wounded Hades in the siege of Pylos, where the god had sided with the Pylians.
• Orpheus: At Persephone’s urging, Hades showed rare mercy to Orpheus, a living visitor to the underworld.
• Thanatos: Among the Greek gods, Thanatos, son of Nyx and Erebus, is death in person, not Hades.

Hades made sure that his subjects never escaped his realm. As ruler of the dead among the Greek gods, he raged at anyone who tried to cheat death. Pirithous entered the underworld to carry off Persephone, so Hades forced him onto the Chair of Forgetfulness.

How do myths of the Greek gods picture Persephone?

Greek gods’ worship gave Persephone the cult name Kore, meaning the Girl. In Latin her name became Proserpina. Classical Greek art shows her robed every time, and she frequently carries a sheaf of grain. A sheaf is a bundle of cut stalks.

The origin of the name Persephone is unclear. One recent theory reads it as a thresher of grain, one who beats the ears of corn. Threshing frees seeds from the stalks. Its long list of forms shows that Greeks found the name hard to say. A popular folk reading links it to bringing death.

Plutarch writes that Persephone was identified with spring. Cicero describes her as the seed of field crops. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus sacrifices a ram to her and to the ghosts of the dead. The ghosts drink the blood of the slain animal. Among the Greek gods, she was a chthonic goddess, linked with the world under the ground.

The lake of Avernus, an entrance to the lower world, was sacred to her. Ascalaphus kept the orchard of Hades in the underworld. Persephone splashed him with water from the river Phlegethon and turned him into an eagle owl. Her sacred groves lay at the far west of the earth, on the edge of the underworld.

• Adonis: Aphrodite gave the newborn Adonis, a mortal, into Persephone’s care to raise.
• Shared year: Zeus ruled that Adonis spend one third of each year with each goddess.
• Myrtle: Dionysus, another of the Greek gods, gave Persephone a myrtle plant for his dead mother, Semele.

Athens honoured Persephone in the mysteries of Agrae, secret rites for initiates. This local cult by the river Ilissos was held in spring, in the month Anthesterion. A temple of Demeter and Kore, mother and daughter among the Greek gods, stood there.

Why was Helios a witness to oaths among the Greek gods?

Greek gods of nature include Helios, the Sun given human form. Because of that position, he was believed to see everything. Greeks therefore called on him as a witness in oaths. He kept watch over oaths and was the god of sight as well.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Helios kept his sacred cattle on Thrinacia, his holy island. Odysseus warned his men, but they killed and ate the cattle anyway. Helios asked Zeus to punish those who had wronged him. Zeus struck their ship with a thunderbolt and killed all on board except Odysseus. He alone had left the cattle unharmed.

In art, Helios appears as a beardless youth in a chiton, a simple tunic. He holds a whip and drives his quadriga, a chariot pulled by four horses. Eumelus of Corinth gave names to the team. The two mares under the yoke were Bronte, meaning Thunder, and Sterope, meaning Lightning. White horses were held sacred to him.

Helios, like other Greek gods, had places of worship across ancient Greece. One altar stood near Mycenae. Troezen honoured him as the God of Freedom. Its people had escaped slavery under Xerxes. At Thalamae in Laconia, Helios and his daughter Pasiphae shared an oracle. There the goddess told visitors what they needed to know through their dreams.

• Standing: In Classical Greece, Helios was a fairly minor one of the Greek gods.
• Julian: In the 4th century AD, Emperor Julian placed Helios at the centre of his revival of Roman rites.
• Moly: Helios killed the giant Picolous, and the herb moly grew from his spilled blood.

Among the Greek gods, Helios carries two epithets: Hyperion, the one above, and Phaethon, the shining. An epithet is a descriptive title joined to a name. His chief role in myth is the tale of Phaethon, his mortal son.

What do travellers ask about Greek gods, and what are the answers?

Greek gods arrive in early Greek cosmology after Chaos, the very first being to exist. Cosmology is the study of how the ordered universe came to be. Erebus, the darkness, and Nyx, the night, were clearly born from Chaos itself.

Among the Greek gods, what does the name Chaos mean?

The Greek word khaos means emptiness, a vast void, a chasm or an abyss. Passages in Hesiod’s Theogony place Chaos below the Earth but above Tartarus, the lower part of the underworld. Aristophanes tells another story in his comedy Birds. In it, the race of birds springs from Eros, god of love, and Chaos.

In Plutarch, which of the Greek gods dies?

In Plutarch’s work on the decline of oracles, Pan is the one Greek god who truly dies. Pan has the legs, hindquarters and horns of a goat. News of his death came to Thamus, a sailor heading to Italy past the island of Paxi. A divine voice told him to announce it at Palodes.

What signs mark Hecate out among the Greek gods?

Art shows Hecate holding a pair of torches, a key or snakes, or with dogs beside her. Hesiod’s Theogony, her earliest appearance in writing, calls her a goddess of great honour. Her domains there are the sky, the earth and the sea. Athenaeus notes that the red mullet, a fish, was sacred to her.

Which daughters do stories of the Greek gods give Selene?

In the Homeric Hymn to Selene, the Moon goddess bears Zeus a daughter, Pandia, or All-brightness. The poet Alcman makes Ersa, or Dew, a daughter of Selene and Zeus. The pair were named parents of Nemea, the nymph who gave Nemea its name. Pausanias says Selene had fifty daughters by her lover Endymion.

Featured photo: MattiPaavola, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.