This is a five-reel video slot based on a popular land-based game. As with many titles developed by Scientific Games, it comes with selectable paylines and widely varying wagers. Why not give our free play demo a shot?

Head over to casino to play for real money. It&#;s arguably the number one casino for March .

Instant Play > Start!Play Free Demo Version Directly in Your Browser

Real Money Casinos Where You Can Play Zeus

An Overview of the Rules and Features

As the God of Gods, with his name enshrined immortally as the title to this game, you&#;d expect Zeus to be the main man here, and that&#;s certainly the case. He is the highest paying symbol on these godly reels, and the rest of the symbols conjure up visions of the epic ancient Greek myths. Pegasus the unicorn is the next highest payer, followed by the Trojan boat, then a Greek soldier&#;s helmet, a harp, an opulent vase, gold and silver coins, and a wreath. The wild symbol is a temple, and it&#;s wild for all symbols except the Feature symbol, which is represented by a thunderbolt emanating from a clenched fist. The bonus feature is triggered when three or more Feature symbols appear on the reels, and this will bring you to a frenetic festival of free spins. Five scattered Feature symbols gets you free spins, and that&#;s pretty majestic as far as we&#;re concerned. Four Feature symbols gets you 25 free spins, while three nets you ten. That&#;s the main gameplay hook here, so keep your eyes peeled for those thunderbolts.

All Symbols and Payouts (total bet value of 30)

Video Preview: See it in Action!

Other Variants of this Slot

There is also a newer version of this game called Zeus The game is basically an updrade on this one. Some rules are different, including the number of paylines, but the biggest difference is a special feature which provides more rows and reels for you to spin. You can read the full Zeus review here

Conclusion – Decent not Divine

As Plato once said, the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. So, perhaps it&#;s unwise of us to suggest we know that this game is alright. It&#;s a solid effort but it lacks the touch of flair and majesty you might anticipate with a Zeus-themed slot. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad, and you&#;ll go positively crazy if you win the mega max win of , coins. With flexible wagers and selectable paylines, there&#;s no strict entry requirements to spin these reels up at Mount Olympus, although some of the gods might get a bit finicky if you don&#;t play wearing a toga and wreath. If you&#;ve played the game, let us know what you think in the box below!

For other uses, see Demeter (disambiguation).

Greek goddess of the harvest, grains, and agriculture

Demeter
A marble statue of Demeter, National Roman Museum
Other names	Sito, Thesmophoros
Abode	Mount Olympus
Symbol	Cornucopia, wheat, torch, bread
Festivals	Thesmophoria, Eleusinian Mysteries
Parents	Cronus and Rhea
Siblings	Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, Chiron
Children	Persephone, Despoina, Arion, Plutus, Philomelus, Iacchus, Hecate(Orphic)
Roman equivalent	Ceres
Egyptian equivalent	Isis

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter (; Attic: ΔημήτηρDēmḗtēr[dɛːmɛ́ːtɛːr]; Doric: ΔαμάτηρDāmā́tēr) is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over grains and the fertility of the earth. She is also called Deo (Δηώ).^[1]

Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain",^[2] as the giver of food or grain,^[3] and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; φόρος, phoros: bringer, bearer), "giver of customs" or "legislator", in association with the secret female-only festival called the Thesmophoria.^[4]

Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious tradition that predated the Olympian pantheon, and which may have its roots in the Mycenaean period c. – BC.^[5] One of the most notable Homeric Hymns, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, tells the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's search for her.

Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele, and she was identified with the Roman goddess Ceres.

Etymology[edit]

It is possible that Demeter appears in Linear A as da-ma-te on three documents (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three apparently dedicated in religious situations and all three bearing just the name (i-da-ma-te on AR Zf 1 and 2).^[6] It is unlikely that Demeter appears as da-ma-te in a Linear B (Mycenean Greek) inscription (PY En ); the word 𐀅𐀔𐀳, da-ma-te, probably refers to "households".^[7][8] On the other hand, 𐀯𐀵𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja, "Potnia of the Grain", is regarded as referring to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets.^[9]

Demeter's character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter (μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *méh₂tēr (mother).^[10] In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name. It is possible that Da (Δᾶ),^[11] a word which corresponds to Gē (Γῆ) in Attic, is the Doric form of De (Δῆ), "earth", the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is "Mother-Earth".^[12] Liddell & Scott find this "improbable" and Beekes writes, "there is no indication that [da] means "earth", although it has also been assumed in the name of Poseidon found in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".^[13][14][15]John Chadwick also argues that the dā element in the name of Demeter is not so simply equated with "earth".^[16]

M. L. West has proposed that the word Demeter, initially Damater, could be a borrowing from an Illyrian deity attested in the Messapic goddess Damatura, with a form dā- ("earth", from PIE *dʰǵʰ(e)m-) attached to -matura ("mother"), akin to the Illyrian god Dei-paturos (dei-, "sky", attached to -paturos, "father"). The Lesbian form Dō- may simply reflect a different dialectal pronunciation of the non-Greek name.^[17]

According to a more popular theory,^[18] the element De- might be connected with Deo, an epithet of Demeter^[19] and it could derive from the Cretan word dea (δηά), Ionic zeia (ζειά)—variously identified with emmer, spelt, rye, or other grains by modern scholars—so that she is the Mother and the giver of food generally.^[20][21] This view is shared by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison, who suggests that Démeter's name means Grain-Mother, instead of Earth-Mother.^[18]

Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (Greek: Πάρεδρος, Paredros) in Mycenaean cult.^[22] The Arcadian cult links her to the god Poseidon, who probably substituted the male companion of the Great Goddess; Demeter may therefore be related to a Minoan Great Goddess (Cybele).^[23]

An alternative Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through Potnia and Despoina, where Des- represents a derivative of PIE*dem (house, dome), and Demeter is "mother of the house" (from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr).^[24]R. S. P. Beekes rejects a Greek interpretation, but not necessarily an Indo-European one.^[14]

Iconography[edit]

Demeter was frequently associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with her daughter Persephone. Demeter is not generally portrayed with any of her consorts; the exception is Iasion, the youth of Crete who lay with her in a thrice-ploughed field, and was killed afterwards by a jealous Zeus with a thunderbolt.

Demeter is assigned the zodiac constellation Virgo the Virgin by Marcus Manilius in his 1st century Roman work Astronomicon. In art, constellation Virgo holds Spica, a sheaf of wheat in her hand and sits beside constellation Leo the Lion.^[25]

In Arcadia, she was known as "Black Demeter". She was said to have taken the form of a mare to escape the pursuit of her younger brother, Poseidon, and having been raped by him despite her disguise, dressed all in black and retreated into a cave to mourn and to purify herself. She was consequently depicted with the head of a horse in this region.^[26]

A sculpture of the Black Demeter was made by Onatas.^[27]

Description[edit]

As goddess of agriculture[edit]

Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling Metaneira, who offers the triunewheat (c.&#; BC)

In epic poetry and Hesiod's Theogony, Demeter is the Corn-Mother, the goddess of cereals who provides grain for bread and blesses its harvesters. This was her main function at Eleusis, and became panhellenic. In Cyprus, "grain-harvesting" was damatrizein.

The main theme in the Eleusinian Mysteries was the reunion of Persephone with her mother Demeter, when new crops were reunited with the old seed, a form of eternity.

According to the Athenian rhetoricianIsocrates, Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife.^[28]

These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults. In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonic Zeus) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong.^[29] Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley.^[30]

Demeter was also zeidoros arοura, the Homeric "Mother Earth arοura" who gave the gift of cereals (zeai or deai).^[31]

As an earth and underworld goddess[edit]

In addition to her role as an agricultural goddess, Demeter was often worshipped more generally as a goddess of the earth. In Arcadia, she was represented as snake-haired, holding a dove and dolphin, perhaps to symbolize her power over the underworld, the air, and the water.

In the cult of Flya, she was worshiped as Anesidora, one who sends up gifts from the underworld. There was a temple of Demeter under this name in Phlya in Attica.^[32][33][34]

In Sparta, she was known as Demeter-Chthonia (chthonic Demeter).^[35] The Athenians called the dead "Demetrioi",^[36] and this may reflect a link between Demeter and ancient cult of the dead, linked to the agrarian-belief that a new life would sprout from the dead body, as a new plant arises from buried seed.

This was probably a belief shared by initiates in Demeter's mysteries, as interpreted by Pindar: "Happy is he who has seen what exists under the earth, because he knows not only the end of life, but also his beginning that the Gods will give".^{[citation needed]}

In the mysteries of Pheneos in Arcadia, Demeter was known as Cidaria.^[37] Her priest would put on the mask of Demeter, which was kept in a secret place. The cult may have been connected with both the underworld and a form of agrarian magic.^[38]

As a poppy goddess[edit]

Theocritus described one of Demeter's earlier roles as that of a goddess of poppies:

For the Greeks, Demeter was still a poppy goddess

Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. — Idyll vii

Karl Kerényi asserted that poppies were connected with a Cretan cult which was eventually carried to the Eleusinian Mysteries in Classical Greece. In a clay statuette from Gazi,^[39] the Minoan poppy goddess wears the seed capsules, sources of nourishment and narcosis, in her diadem. According to Kerényi, "It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis and it is almost certain that in the Cretan cult sphere opium was prepared from poppies."^[40]

Robert Graves speculated that the meaning of the depiction and use of poppies in the Greco-Roman myths is the symbolism of the bright scarlet color as signifying the promise of resurrection after death.^[41]

Other functions and titles[edit]

Demeter's epithets show her many religious functions. She was the "Corn-Mother" who blesses the harvesters. Some cults interpreted her as "Mother-Earth". Demeter may be linked to goddess-cults of Minoan Crete, and embody aspects of a pre-Hellenic Mother Goddess.^[42]

The most common epithets of Demeter are:

Achaea, Ἀχαία (" probably from achaine: loaf ,or achos: grief").^[43][44] She was worshipped at Athens by the Gephyraeans who had emigrated from Boeotia.^[45][46]

Aganippe, Ἀγανίππη ("the Mare who destroys mercifully", "Night-Mare").

Anesidora, Ἀνησιδώρα ("sender-up of gifts") at Phlya in Attica.^[47]

Cabeiraea, Καβειραία΄ ("Related with the Cabeiri")^[48] at Thebes.

Chloe, Χλόη, ("Green"),^[49] that invokes her powers of ever-returning fertility, as does Chthonia.

Chthonia, Χθονία, ("under or beneath the earth") in Laconia.^[50]

Despoina, Δέσποινα ("mistress of the house"), a Greek word similar to the Myceneanpotnia. This title was also applied to Persephone, Aphrodite and Hecate.

Europa, Εὐρώπη, "broad face or eyes" at Livadeia of Boeotia. She was the nurse of Trophonios to whom a chthonic cult and oracle was dedicated.^[51]

Eleusinia, Ἐλευσίνια in the Mysteries at Pheneus.^[52][53][54]

Erinys, Ερινύς, ("Fury"),^[55] with a function similar with the function of the avenging Dike (Justice), goddess of moral justice based on custom rules who represents the divine retribution,^[56] and the Erinyes, female ancient chthonic deities of vengeance and implacable agents of retribution.

IouloἸουλώ, ("related with corn-sheafs") ^[57]

Karpophorus, Καρποφόρος ("fruit bearing").^[58]

Kidaria, Κιδαρία ("kidaris&#;: Arcadian dance")^[59] at Pheneus.^[60]

Lusia, Λουσία, ("Bather").^[61]

Malophorus, Μαλοφόρος, ("Apple-bearer" or "Sheep-bearer") ^[62] at Megara and Selinus. ^[63]

Melaina, Μέλαινα ("black") .^[64]

Mysia, Μυσία^[65] at Pellene.^[66][67]

Potnia, Πότνια, ("mistress") in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Hera especially, but also Artemis and Athena, are addressed as "potnia" as well.

Prosymne, Προσύμνη ("to whom one addresses hymns") at Lerna.^[68]

Thermasia, Θερμασία ("Warmth") at Hermione.^[69]

Thesmia, Θεσμία ("law goddess") in the Mysteries at Pheneus.^[70][71][72]

Thesmophoros, Θεσμοφόρος, ("giver of customs" or "legislator"), a title connected with the Thesmophoria, a festival of secret women-only rituals connected with marriage customs.^[4][73]

Worship[edit]

Terracotta Demeter figurine, Sanctuary of the Underworld Divinities, Akragas, – BC

In Crete[edit]

The earliest recorded worship of a deity possibly equivalent to Demeter is found in Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of c. – BC found at Pylos. The tablets describe worship of the "two queens and the king",^[74] which may be related to Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.^[5] An early name which may refer to Demeter, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja (Sito Potnia), appears in Linear B inscriptions found at Mycenae and Pylos.^[75] In Crete, Poseidon was often given the title wa-na-ka (wanax) in Linear B inscriptions, in his role as king of the underworld, and his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne indicates his chthonic nature. In the cave of Amnisos, Enesidaon is associated with the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth,^[76] who was involved with the annual birth of the divine child.^[77] During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cults, and Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (paredros) in the Mycenean cult.^[76] Elements of this early form of worship survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "the mighty Potnia had born a strong son."^[78]

On the Greek mainland[edit]

Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King"&#;:wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were no longer associated with Poseidon in later periods.^[74]

Major cults to Demeter are known at Eleusis in Attica, Hermion (in Crete), Megara, Celeae, Lerna, Aegila, Munychia, Corinth, Delos, Priene, Akragas, Iasos, Pergamon, Selinus, Tegea, Thoricus, Dion (in Macedonia)^[79]Lykosoura, Mesembria, Enna (Sicily), and Samothrace.

An ancient Amphictyony, probably the earliest centred on the cult of Demeter at Anthele (Ἀνθήλη), which lay on the coast of Malis south of Thessaly. This was the locality of Thermopylae.^[80][81]

After the "First Sacred War", the Anthelan body was known thenceforth as the Delphic Amphictyony^[80]

Mysian Demeter had a seven-day festival at Pellené in Arcadia. The geographer Pausainias passed the shrine to Mysian Demeter on the road from Mycenae to Argos, and reports that according to Argive tradition the shrine was founded by an Archive named Mysius who venerated Demeter.^[82]

Festivals[edit]

Main articles: Eleusinian Mysteries and Thesmophoria

Demeter's two major festivals were sacred mysteries. Her Thesmophoria festival (11–13 October) was women-only.^[83] Her Eleusinian mysteries were open to initiates of any gender or social class. At the heart of both festivals were myths concerning Demeter as Mother and Persephone as her daughter.

Conflation with other goddesses[edit]

In the Roman period, Demeter became conflated with the Roman agricultural goddess Ceres under the Interpretatio graeca.^[84] The worship of Demeter was formally merged with that of Ceres around BC, along with the ritus graecia cereris, a Greek-inspired form of cult, as part of Rome's general religious recruitment of deities as allies against Carthage, towards the end of the Second Punic War. The cult originated in southern Italy (part of Magna Graecia) and was probably based on the Thesmophoria, a mystery cult dedicated to Demeter and Persephone as "Mother and Maiden". It arrived along with its Greek priestesses, who were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention".^[85] The new cult was installed in the already ancient Temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera, Rome's Aventine patrons of the plebs; from the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at Enna, in Sicily, was acknowledged as Ceres' oldest, most authoritative cult center, and Libera was recognized as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Persephone.^[86] Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone, after the latter's abduction into the underworld by Hades (or Pluto). At the Aventine, the new cult took its place alongside the old. It made no reference to Liber, whose open and gender-mixed cult continued to play a central role in plebeian culture, as a patron and protector of plebeian rights, freedoms and values. The exclusively female initiates and priestesses of the new "greek style" mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, patrician-dominated social hierarchy and traditional morality. Unmarried girls should emulate the chastity of Proserpina, the maiden; married women should seek to emulate Ceres, the devoted and fruitful Mother. Their rites were intended to secure a good harvest, and increase the fertility of those who partook in the mysteries.^[87]

Beginning in the 5th century BCE in Asia Minor, Demeter was also considered equivalent to the Phrygian goddess Cybele.^[88] Demeter's festival of Thesmophoria was popular throughout Asia Minor, and the myth of Persephone and Adonis in many ways mirrors the myth of Cybele and Attis.^[89]

Some late antique sources syncretized several "great goddess" figures into a single deity. The Platonist philosopher Apuleius, writing in the late 2nd century, identified Ceres (Demeter) with Isis, having her declare:

I, mother of the universe, mistress of all the elements, first-born of the ages, highest of the gods, queen of the shades, first of those who dwell in heaven, representing in one shape all gods and goddesses. My will controls the shining heights of heaven, the health-giving sea-winds, and the mournful silences of hell; the entire world worships my single godhead in a thousand shapes, with divers rites, and under many a different name. The Phrygians, first-born of mankind, call me the Pessinuntian Mother of the gods; the ancient Eleusinians Actaean Ceres; and the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning, honour me with the worship which is truly mine and call me by my true name: Queen Isis.

--Apuleius, translated by E. J. Kenny. The Golden Ass^[90]

Mythology[edit]

Lovers and children[edit]

Some of the earliest accounts of Demeter's relationships to other deities comes from Hesiod's Theogony, written c. BC. In it, Demeter is described as the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.^[91]

Demeter's most well-known relationship is with her daughter, Persephone, queen of the underworld. Both Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter(2), describe Persephone as the daughter of Zeus and his older sister, Demeter,^[92] though no myths exist describing her conception or birth. The exception is a fragment of the lost Orphic theogony, which preserves part of a myth in which Zeus mates with his mother, Rhea, in the form of a snake, explaining the origin of the symbol on Hermes' staff. Their daughter is said to be Persephone, whom Zeus in turn mates with to conceive Dionysus. According to the Orphic fragments, "After becoming the mother of Zeus, she who was formerly Rhea became Demeter."^[93][94]

Before her abduction by Hades, Persephone was known as Kore ("maiden"), and there is some evidence that the figures of Persephone Queen of the Underworld and Kore daughter of Demeter were originally considered separate goddesses.^[95] However, they must have become conflated with each other by the time of Hesiod in the 7th century BC.^[89] Demeter and Persephone were often worshiped together and were often referred to by joint cultic titles. In their cult at Eleusis, they were referred to simply as "the goddesses", often distinguished as "the older" and "the younger"; in Rhodes and Sparta, they were worshiped as "the Demeters"; in the Thesmophoria, they were known as "the thesmophoroi" ("the legislators").^[96] In Arcadia they were known as "the Great Goddesses" and "the mistresses".^{[citation needed]} In Mycenaean Pylos, Demeter and Persephone were probably called the "queens" (wa-na-ssoi).^[74]

Both Homer and Hesiod, writing c. BC, described Demeter making love with the agricultural hero Iasion in a ploughed field.^[97] According to Hesiod, this union resulted in the birth of Plutus.

According to Diodorus Siculus, in his Bibliotheca historica written in the 1st century BC, Demeter and Zeus were also the parents of Dionysus. Diodorus described the myth of Dionysus' double birth (once from the earth, i.e. Demeter, when the plant sprouts) and once from the vine (when the fruit sprouts from the plant). Diodorus also related a version of the myth of Dionysus' destruction by the Titans ("sons of Gaia"), who boiled him, and how Demeter gathered up his remains so that he could be born a third time (Diod. iii). Diodorus states that Dionysus' birth from Zeus and his older sister Demeter was somewhat of a minority belief, possibly via conflation of Demeter with her daughter, as most sources state that the parents of Dionysus were Zeus and Persephone, and later Zeus and Semele.^[98]

In Arcadia, a major Arcadian deity known as Despoina ("Mistress") was said to be the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon. According to Pausanias, a Thelpusian tradition said that during Demeter's search for Persephone, Poseidon pursued her. Demeter turned into a horse in order to avoid her younger brother's advances, but he turned into a stallion and mated with the goddess, resulting in the birth of the horse god Arion and a daughter "whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated".^[99] Elsewhere he says that the Phigalians assert that the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, was not a horse but in fact Despoina, "as the Arcadians call her".^[]

In Orphic literature, Demeter seems to be the mother of the witchcraft goddess Hecate.^[]

Abduction of Persephone[edit]

Demeter's daughter Persephone was abducted to the underworld by Hades, who received permission from her father Zeus to take her as his bride. Demeter searched for her ceaselessly, preoccupied with her grief. The seasons halted; living things ceased their growth, then began to die.^[] Faced with the extinction of all life on earth, Zeus sent his messenger Hermes to the underworld to bring Persephone back. Hades agreed to release her if she had eaten nothing while in his realm; but Persephone had eaten a small number of pomegranateseeds. This bound her to Hades and the underworld for certain months of every year, either the dry Mediterranean summer, when plant life is threatened by drought,^[] or the autumn and winter.^[] There are several variations on the basic myth; the earliest account, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, relates that Persephone is secretly slipped a pomegranate seed by Hades^[] and in Ovid's version,^[] Persephone willingly and secretly eats the pomegranate seeds, thinking to deceive Hades, but is discovered and made to stay. Contrary to popular perception, Persephone's time in the underworld does not correspond with the unfruitful seasons of the ancient Greek calendar, nor her return to the upper world with springtime.^[] Demeter's descent to retrieve Persephone from the underworld is connected to the Eleusinian Mysteries.^[]

Demeter rejoiced, for her daughter was by her side.

The myth of the capture of Persephone seems to be pre-Greek. In the Greek version, Ploutos (πλούτος, wealth) represents the wealth of the corn that was stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (pithoi). Similar subterranean pithoi were used in ancient times for funerary practices. At the beginning of the autumn, when the corn of the old crop is laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter, for at this time the old crop and the new meet each other.^[]

According to the personal mythology of Robert Graves,^[] Persephone is not only the younger self of Demeter,^[] she is in turn also one of three guises of the Triple Goddess&#;– Kore (the youngest, the maiden, signifying green young grain), Persephone (in the middle, the nymph, signifying the ripe grain waiting to be harvested), and Hecate (the eldest of the three, the crone, the harvested grain), which to a certain extent reduces the name and role of Demeter to that of group name. Before her abduction, she is called Kore; and once taken she becomes Persephone ('she who brings destruction').^[]

Demeter at Eleusis[edit]

Demeter's search for her daughter Persephone took her to the palace of Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. She assumed the form of an old woman, and asked him for shelter. He took her in, to nurse Demophon and Triptolemus, his sons by Metanira. To reward his kindness, she planned to make Demophon immortal; she secretly anointed the boy with ambrosia and laid him in the flames of the hearth, to gradually burn away his mortal self. But Metanira walked in, saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright. Demeter abandoned the attempt. Instead, she taught Triptolemus the secrets of agriculture, and he in turn taught them to any who wished to learn them. Thus, humanity learned how to plant, grow and harvest grain. The myth has several versions; some are linked to figures such as Eleusis, Rarus and Trochilus. The Demophon element may be based on an earlier folk tale.^[]

Demeter and Iasion[edit]

Homer's Odyssey (c. late 8th century BC) contains perhaps the earliest direct references to the myth of Demeter and her consort Iasion, a Samothracian hero whose name may refer to bindweed, a small white flower that frequently grows in wheat fields. In the Odyssey, Calypso describes how Demeter, "without disguise", made love to Iasion. "So it was when Demeter of the braided tresses followed her heart and lay in love with Iasion in the triple-furrowed field; Zeus was aware of it soon enough and hurled the bright thunderbolt and killed him."^[] However, Ovid states that Iasion lived up to old age as the husband of Demeter.^[] In ancient Greek culture, part of the opening of each agricultural year involved the cutting of three furrows in the field to ensure its fertility.^[]

Hesiod expanded on the basics of this myth. According to him, the liaison between Demeter and Iasion took place at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia in Crete. Demeter, in this version, had lured Iasion away from the other revelers. Hesiod says that Demeter subsequently gave birth of Plutus.^[]

Demeter and Poseidon[edit]

In Arcadia, located in what is now southern Greece, the major goddess Despoina was considered the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon Hippios, Horse-Poseidon. In the associated myths, Poseidon represents the river spirit of the underworld, and he appears as a horse as often happens in northern European folklore. The myth describes how he pursued his older sister, Demeter, who hid from him among the horses of King Onkios, but even in the form of a mare, she could not conceal her divinity. In the form of a stallion, Poseidon caught and raped his older sister. Demeter was furious at Poseidon's assault; in this furious form, she became known as Demeter Erinys. Her anger at Poseidon drove her to dress all in black and retreat into a cave in order to purify herself, an act which was the cause of a universal famine. Demeter's absence caused the death of crops, of livestock, and eventually of the people who depended on them (later Arcadian tradition held that it was both her rage at Poseidon and her loss of her daughter that caused the famine, merging the two myths).^[26] Demeter washed away her anger in the River Ladon, becoming Demeter Lousia, the "bathed Demeter".^[]

"In her alliance with Poseidon," Kerényi noted,^[] "she was Earth, who bears plants and beasts, and could therefore assume the shape of an ear of grain or a mare." She bore a daughter Despoina (Δέσποινα: the "Mistress"), whose name should not be uttered outside the Arcadian Mysteries,^[] and a horse named Arion, with a black mane and tail.

At Phigaleia, a xoanon (wood-carved statue) of Demeter was erected in a cave which, tradition held, was the cave into which Black Demeter retreated. The statue depicted a Medusa-like figure with a horse's head and snake-like hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, which probably represented her power over air and water:^[]

The second mountain, Mount Elaius, is some thirty stades away from Phigalia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter surnamed Black the Phigalians say, they concluded that this cavern was sacred to Demeter and set up in it a wooden image. The image, they say, was made after this fashion. It was seated on a rock, like to a woman in all respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and there grew out of her head images of serpents and other beasts. Her tunic reached right to her feet; on one of her hands was a dolphin, on the other a dove. Now why they had the image made after this fashion is plain to any intelligent man who is learned in traditions. They say that they named her Black because the goddess had black apparel. They cannot relate either who made this wooden image or how it caught fire. But the old image was destroyed, and the Phigalians gave the goddess no fresh image, while they neglected for the most part her festivals and sacrifices, until the barrenness fell on the land.

—&#;Pausanias, &#;4.

Demeter and Baubo[edit]

In the Orphic tradition, a mortal woman named Baubo received Demeter as her guest, and offered her meal and wine. Demeter declined them both, on account of her mourning over the loss of Persephone. Baubo then, thinking she had displeased the goddess, lifted her skirt and showed her genitalia to the goddess, simultaneously revealing Iacchus, Demeter's son. Demeter was most pleased with the sight, and delighted she accepted the food and wine.^[][] This tale survives in the account of Clement of Alexandria, a Christian who tried to discredit pagan practices and mythology. However several Baubo figurines (figurines of women revealing their vulvas) have been discovered, supporting the story.

Demeter and Erysichthon[edit]

Demeter orders Famine to strike Erysichthon, Elisha Whittelsey Collection

Another myth involving Demeter's rage resulting in famine is that of Erysichthon, king of Thessaly.^[26] The myth tells of Erysichthon ordering all of the trees in one of Demeter's sacred groves to be cut down. One tree, a huge oak, was found to be covered with votive wreaths, symbols of the prayers Demeter had granted, and so Erysichthon's men refused to cut it down. The king used an axe to cut it down himself, killing a dryad nymph in the process. The nymph's dying words were a curse on Erysichthon. Demeter punished the king by calling upon Limos, the spirit of unrelenting and insatiable hunger, to enter his stomach. The more the king ate, the hungrier he became. Erysichthon sold all his possessions to buy food, but was still hungry. Finally, he sold his own daughter, Mestra, into slavery. Mestra was freed from slavery by her former lover, Poseidon, who gave her the gift of shape-shifting into any creature at will to escape her bonds. Erysichthon used her shape-shifting ability to sell her numerous times to make more money to feed himself, but no amount of food was enough. Eventually, Erysichthon ate himself.^[]

Psyche[edit]

In the tale of Eros and Psyche, Demeter along with her sister Hera visited Aphrodite, raging with fury about the girl who had married her son. Aphrodite asked the two of them to search for her; the two of them try to talk sense into her, arguing that her son is not a little boy, although he might appear as one, and there's no harm in him falling in love with Psyche. Aphrodite took offence at their words.^[]

Sometime later, Psyche in her wanderings came across an abandoned shrine of Demeter, and sorted out the neglected sickles and harvest implements she found there. As she was doing so, Demeter appeared to her, and called from afar; she warned the girl of Aphrodite's great wrath and her plan to take revenge on her. Then Psyche begged the goddess to help her, but Demeter answered that she could not interfere and incur Aphrodite's anger at her; and for that reason Psyche had to leave the shrine, or else be kept as a captive of hers.^[]

Ascalabus[edit]

While she was travelling far and wide looking for her daughter, Demeter arrived exhausted in Attica. A woman named Misme took her in and offered her a cup of water with pennyroyal and barley groats in it, for it was a hot day. Demeter, in her thirst, swallowed the drink clumsily. Witnessing that, Misme's son Ascalabus laughed and mocked her and asked her if she would like a deep jar of that drink.^[] Demeter then poured her drink over him and turned him into a gecko, hated by both men and gods. It was said that Demeter showed her favour to those who killed geckos.^[]

Minthe[edit]

Before Hades abducted her daughter, he had kept the nymph Minthe as his mistress. But after he married Persephone, he set Minthe aside. Minthe would often brag about being lovelier than Persephone, and saying Hades would soon come back to her and kick Persephone out of his halls. Demeter, hearing that, grew angry and trampled Minthe; from the earth then sprang a lovely-smelling herb named after the nymph.^[] In other versions, Persephone herself is the one who kills and turns Minthe into a plant for sleeping with Hades.^[][][]

Pelops[edit]

Once Tantalus, a son of Zeus, invited the gods over for dinner. Tantalus, wanting to test them, cut his son Pelops, cooked him and offered him as meal to them. They all saw through Tantalus' crime except Demeter, who ate Pelops' shoulder before the gods brought him back to life.^[]

Other wrath myths[edit]

In the Argive version of this myth, when Demeter arrived in Argolis, a man named Colontas refused to receive her in his house, whereas his daughter Chthonia disapproved of his actions. Colontas was punished by being burnt along with his house, while Demeter took Chthonia to Hermione, where she built a sanctuary for the goddess.^[]

Demeter pinned Ascalaphus under a rock for reporting, as sole witness, to Hades that Persephone had consumed some pomegranate seeds.^[] Later, after Heracles rolled the stone off Ascalaphus, Demeter turned him into a short-eared owl instead.^[]

Demeter also turned the Sirens into half-bird monsters for not helping her daughter Persephone when she was abducted by Hades.^[]

Other favour myths[edit]

Demeter gave Triptolemus her serpent-drawn chariot and seed, and bade him scatter it across the earth (teach mankind the knowledge of agriculture). Triptolemus rode through Europe and Asia until he came to the land of Lyncus, a Scythian king. Lyncus pretended to offer what's accustomed of hospitality to him, but once Triptolemus fell asleep, he attacked him with a dagger, wanting to take credit of his work. Demeter then saved Triptolemus by turning Lyncus into a lynx, and ordered Triptolemus to return home air-borne.^[]Hyginus records a very similar myth, in which Demeter saves Triptolemus from an evil king named Carnabon who additionally seized Triptolemus' chariot and killed one of the dragons, so he might not escape; Demeter restored the chariot to Triptolemus, substituted the dead dragon with another one, and punished Carnabon by putting him among the stars holding a dragon as if to kill it.^[]

During her wanderings, Demeter came upon the town of Pheneus; to the Pheneates that receives her warmly and offered her shelter she gave all sorts of pulse, except for beans, deeming it impure.^[] Two of the Pheneates, Trisaules and Damithales, had a temple of Demeter built for her.^[] Demeter also gifted a fig tree to Phytalus, an Eleusinian man, for welcoming her in his home.^[]

When her son Philomelus invented the plow and used it to cultivate the fields, Demeter was so impressed by his good work she immortalized him in the sky by turning him into a constellation, the Boötes.^[]

Besides giving gifts to those who were welcoming to her, Demeter was also a goddess who nursed the young; all of Plemaeus's children born by his first wife died in cradle; Demeter took pity of him and reared herself his son Orthopolis.^[] Plemaeus built a temple to her to thank her.^[] Demeter also raised Trophonius, the prophetic son of either Apollo or Erginus.^[]

Genealogy[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

Greek Gods

Welcome to our Greek Gods and Goddesses page here on History for Kids. We have some fun facts and pictures for you to color. You will learn some interesting facts about each God as you read down the page. Take your time there is a lot of information on this page, check out the quick facts also if you just need a quick understanding and characteristics of each one.

Athena

Athena was tall, strong, graceful, gray-eyed, and she liked owls. From the beginning, she was a pretty amazing goddess. In fact, even her birth was most unusual.

Zeus, the father of gods and goddesses, was also Athena’s father. Her mother was a mortal woman named Metis. Older gods had warned Zeus that he would be in trouble if Metis gave birth to a daughter. So he swallowed Metis whole.

When it came time for Athena to be born, she sprang full grown out of Zeus’s head. She was completely dressed in armor, as she always would be. She also carried a shield and a spear. As you might guess about a woman in armor, she was a great warrior.

Athena was also a goddess of wisdom. She taught people about arts and crafts. She also taught them how to think clearly and live well. She was often seen with an owl, so owls became a symbol of wisdom.

Athena didn’t get along with the sea god Poseidon. For one thing, they were often rivals over one thing or another. Once the people of a new city were looking for a god to watch over and protect them. Athena and Poseidon both wanted the job.

To impress the city’s citizens, the two gods gave them gifts. Poseidon struck the ground with his three-pointed spear, and water poured out. The water turned into a river that flowed into the sea. Poseidon told the people to build ships to sail to the sea. He said that they could travel everywhere. They could become the most powerful people on earth.

The citizens were indeed impressed. But then Athena told them to taste the water. It tasted awful. It was saltwater, which is impossible to drink.

Then Athena gave the citizens her gift. When she hit the ground with her spear, a tree magically grew up within seconds. She explained that it was a special tree—an olive tree. Its wood was good both for building houses and for heating those houses in winter. Better still, the tree’s little green fruits, called “olives,” were delicious. And oil made out of the olives was useful for cooking.

The citizens liked Athena’s gift better than Poseidon’s. Not only did they choose Athena to watch over them, they named the city after her. They called it Athens. Poseidon left in a huff, causing a serious flood on his way. But the Athenians weren’t bothered very much. With Athena’s help, their city grew to be strong and wealthy. Athens became one of the greatest cities of all time. Today it’s the capital and the largest city of Greece.

Here are some historical facts about the city of Athens:

• Athenians did their best to make their city live up to its name. Inspired by their tales about Athena’s wisdom, Athens became a center of civilization.
• Athenians turned their city into the world’s first democracy.
• Athenians wrote the world’s first plays, both comedies and tragedies. Those plays were performed in an open-air theater. They are still popular today.
• Some of history’s greatest thinkers were Athenian. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were the city’s most famous philosophers.
• The world’s first historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, lived in Athens.
• Athenians created some of the world’s most beautiful buildings. The ruins of its most famous temple, the Parthenon, are still standing today. The Parthenon once held a large statue of Athena.
• The Athenian Hippocrates is said to be the father of medicine. He wrote a famous oath that is still spoken by doctors today.

Poseidon

The brothers Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon were the most important gods of all. Zeus was the strongest and wisest of the three and ruled over the earth. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Poseidon ruled the seas. He was also the god of earthquakes and horses.

Poseidon had a beard and long blue hair. He drove a golden cart called a chariot.

It was pulled by strange beasts that were half-horse and half-snake. Fish and dolphins always swam along beside the sea god’s chariot.

Poseidon carried a three-pointed spear called a trident. He used this to start earthquakes or bring water out of the ground.

Like the sea he ruled, Poseidon could be either calm or stormy. As you might guess, the god of earthquakes had a short temper. He didn’t get along with other gods. He didn’t always get along with mortals, either.

The people of Troy once asked Poseidon to help build a wall around their city. He helped, but then he got angry when he didn’t get paid for his work. He was Troy’s enemy ever after that. When Troy fought a terrible war against Greece, Poseidon supported the Greeks.

Each god had a city to protect and watch over. The city showed its thanks by honoring that god especially. Maybe because he was ill-tempered, Poseidon had trouble finding a city to honor him. The people of Athens chose Athena instead of Poseidon as its protector. The people of Naxos chose Dionysus. The people of Aegina chose Zeus. Finally, all the gods had special cities except Poseidon. He was very unhappy and disappointed.

But at long last, the people of Atlantis chose Poseidon. Atlantis was a huge island, and its people loved and honored him. There he fell in love with a mortal princess named Clito. He built a palace for her, and they had ten sons. The sons grew up to be kings who ruled different parts of Atlantis. Those kings ruled wisely, and Atlantis became the greatest civilization in the world. Poseidon was proud and happy.

But bad times came. The first kings of Atlantis died, and their sons were bad rulers. And the sons who came after them were worse yet. Years passed, and Atlantis was no longer the world’s greatest civilization. It was actually the worst. It had become both wicked and foolish.

Finally, the people of Atlantis forgot to worship Poseidon. The sea god became angry and used his trident to start a terrible earthquake. Atlantis sank beneath the waves, never to be seen again.

Here are some historical facts about Poseidon’s story:

•Horses were very important in the ancient world. Poseidon’s earliest worshippers may have been the people who first brought horses to Greece.

•There are many earthquakes in Greece. Not surprisingly, a god of earthquakes was taken very seriously there.

•The sea was very important to the Ancient Greeks. They were great explorers whose ships sailed to distant places.

•Fishermen in the ancient world caught tuna with a trident.

•Atlantis was thought to have been in a faraway ocean. Today we call that ocean the Atlantic.

•Atlantis was probably imaginary. Even so, some people still believe that it once was real. And people keep looking for it.

•Atlantis may have been based on a real place. There once was a large island called Thera. It was destroyed by a huge volcano. Like Atlantis, it sank into the sea.

Hermes

Hermes was the messenger god. He was young and intelligent-looking. He wore a winged hat and winged sandals, and he carried a magic wand. (We know what he looked like because so many sculptors made statues of him.)

Hermes was said to be the god of the marketplace. Oddly, he was also said to be the god of thieves. He himself was a clever thief. He started stealing early in life—actually on the day he was born.

His father was Zeus, the king of the gods. His mother was a young goddess named Maia. He was born in a mountain cave, and only a few minutes after his birth, Hermes decided to make himself a toy. He picked up a tortoise shell and tied strings across it, then plucked the strings. That was how Hermes invented the first musical instrument, which was called a lyre. And he invented music too!

His playing and singing put his mother to sleep. Then, when Hermes was still only an hour or two old, he left the cave and went out to look around at the world. He soon found a herd of cattle that belonged to the god Apollo. The baby Hermes liked the cattle and decided to steal them.

When Apollo wasn’t looking, Hermes tied branches to the cows’ tails. As he led them away, the branches dragged along and erased their hoof prints. Then he hid the cattle and went back to his cave. He climbed back up into his sleeping mother’s arms. When she woke up, she had no idea that he’d even been away.

When Apollo managed to track down Hermes, he was surprised to see that the thief was just a newborn baby. Even so, he demanded his cattle back. Then Hermes started playing the lyre. Apollo was so delighted by the music that he let Hermes keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre. After that, Apollo carried the lyre everywhere and became known as the god of music.

Hermes never stopped being full of mischief. But when he grew up, the gods learned that they could count on him for one important task. With his winged hat and sandals, he ran and flew as fast as the wind, so Zeus named him the messenger of the gods.

Whenever the gods wanted to send messages to mortals, they gave the job to Hermes. Although he didn’t always tell the truth himself, he always delivered those messages just the way he was supposed to.

Here are some interesting facts about Hermes’ story.

•Along with the lyre, Hermes was said to have invented another musical instrument called a panpipe. It’s a kind of flute that is still played today.

•Hermes was said to be the god of travelers. Statues of him could be found at crossroads throughout Ancient Greece. They were put there to bring travelers good luck.

•There were no telephones and no Internet in the ancient world. Messages were usually carried by runners on foot. So the god of messengers was considered a very important god.

•One of the most famous messengers of all time was a soldier named Pheidippides. Story has it that he ran from one city to another, carrying news that the Greeks had won the Battle of Marathon. He delivered the message and died. Today’s marathon races are held in his honor.

•Hermes’ magic wand was called a caduceus. It had wings, like his hat and sandals. It also had snakes wrapped around it. Today the caduceus is the symbol of the medical profession.

Ares

Ares was the god of war. He wore armor and a helmet, and he carried a shield, sword, and spear. He was big and strong and had a fierce war cry, but his war cry was mostly just a lot of noise. Ares didn’t fight at all well. The armored goddess Athena was a much better warrior.

The Ancient Greeks didn’t like war, and they didn’t like Ares, either. They considered him a troublemaker. And like many troublemakers, Ares was a coward and a bully.

In fact, Ares was never really of use to anybody in a war. One time a group of giants declared war on the gods. The giants wanted to rule the entire universe. To keep Ares out of the fighting, they sneaked up on him and knocked him out cold, then they stuffed him into a jar.

The other gods heard Ares screaming for somebody to let him out. They just ignored him because they figured they could fight better without him. They went on to defeat the giants, and then they let Ares out of the jar after the battle was over. Ares bragged about how he could have beaten the giants if he’d been free. The other gods only laughed.

Ares never stayed loyal to one side or the other in a war. He just enjoyed watching people fighting and dying. The war between Greece and Troy was one of the worst ever fought, and even the gods joined in the battle. When the war started, Ares promised his mother, Hera, to help the Greeks. But he was in love with the goddess Aphrodite, so she easily talked him into helping the Trojans.

The Trojans would have been just as happy without Ares’s help. Always the bully, he didn’t pick fights with other gods. Instead, he challenged a mortal Greek warrior named Diomedes, but Diomedes wounded Ares.

Ares liked to cause pain for others, but he whined and complained whenever he got hurt. This time was no different. The wound he got from Diomedes wasn’t very serious, but even so, Ares didn’t keep fighting. He went running back to Olympus, the home of the gods, and wept and wailed to his father Zeus. Even though Zeus bandaged up Ares’s wound, he was not at all proud of his warrior son.

That wasn’t the only time Ares was wounded. The great hero Heracles wounded him twice, and one of those times he took away Ares’s armor and weapons. Both times Ares ran away crying to Olympus.

Here are some interesting facts about Ares’s story:

•For a long time, historians thought that the city of Troy was just a legend. But the ruins of Troy have been found in modern-day Turkey.

•The Trojan War was also thought to be only a legend. But today some historians think that there really was such a war. It was fought between Greece and Troy.

•The Greeks had good reason to dislike war. The cities of Greece fought each other in a terrible war that lasted for 27 years. It’s called the Peloponnesian War.

•Although the Ancient Greeks didn’t like Ares, the Ancient Romans admired him. They called him Mars. They told stories that made Mars sound like a hero.

•The Romans liked Ares because they thought that war was noble. The Romans spoke Latin. The Latin words for “war” and “beauty” are very similar. The word for “war” is “bellum.” The word for “beauty” is “bellus.”

Zeus

Zeus was the king of the gods. He and his brothers Hades and Poseidon were in charge of the whole universe. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Poseidon ruled the seas. Zeus, the greatest of the three, ruled the earth and the sky. He controlled the weather, causing wind and rain. He also caused thunder and lightning. He threw his thunderbolt like a spear.

Zeus was a good reminder that the gods were not perfect. For one thing, he was not all-powerful. His daughters, the three Fates, decided the futures of both gods and mortals. Zeus couldn’t overrule their decisions.

And although Zeus was often wise, he could also be foolish. He could be selfish and even cruel. He was not a good husband to Hera, the queen of the gods. And he was not a good father to many of his children. Not surprisingly, the other gods sometimes rebelled against his rule.

Still, Zeus most gods and mortals respected Zeus. He gave laws and justice to mortals. He taught them kindness and good manners. One story shows how much Zeus prized hospitality and kindness toward strangers.

Zeus liked to travel, sometimes in disguise. Once he was traveling with his son Hermes, the messenger god, in a land called Phrygia. They were both disguised as ordinary mortal men. They stopped at all the houses in Phrygia, asking for food and a place to stay the night. Time and time again, they were rudely turned away. Even rich people turned them away.

At last they arrived at the home of an elderly couple, a woman named Baucis and a man named Philemon. Baucis and Philemon were extremely poor. Even so, they treated the travelers kindly, inviting them into their home for food and drink. They allowed the disguised gods to spend the night.

The next day, Hermes and Zeus took off their disguises. Everyone could see that they were gods. Zeus punished the couple’s Phrygian neighbors with a terrible flood. All houses were destroyed, except the little hut of Baucis and Philemon. Zeus turned it into a beautiful temple.

As a reward for their kindness, Zeus offered the couple anything that they wanted. Because they had lived happily together all their lives, they asked never to be parted. Even in death they wanted to remain together. Baucis and Philemon spent the rest of their lives serving as the temple’s priestess and priest. When they died they turned into two trees growing out of the same trunk.

Here are some interesting facts about Zeus’s story:

•Weather seemed even more mysterious in ancient times than it does today. It’s no surprise that the god who controlled the weather was the most powerful god of all.

•Lightning and thunder were especially puzzling to ancient people. Many cultures have had gods of thunder and lightning. In Norse mythology, it was Thor. To the Finns, it was Ukko. To the Aztecs, it was Tlaloc.

•Lightning remained a mystery for thousands of years. During the s, the American scientist and thinker Benjamin Franklin helped solve that mystery. He discovered the lightning was made up of electricity. Then he invented the lightning rods to protect houses and buildings. He was nicknamed “the Man Who Tamed the Lightning.”

•In ancient times, travel was difficult and dangerous. Travelers depended on the kindness of people they met along the way. The Greeks even had a word for kindness toward strangers and travelers. They called it xenios.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite had an unusual birth. She rose up out of sea foam, beautiful and fully grown-up. She was the goddess of love, and she liked doves, sparrows, and swans. She was married to Hephaestus, the god of the forge, but not at all happily. She was really in love with Ares, the god of war.

Aphrodite and her son Eros were in charge of making people and gods fall in love. Eros used his magic bow and arrow to make that happen.

Oddly, this goddess of love helped start a terrible war. But she didn’t really mean to. Eris, the goddess of discord, liked to stir up trouble. So one day Eris made a golden apple. She wrote the words “For the Fairest” on it. Then she threw this apple where the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite would find it.

Each one of them thought she was “the Fairest”—the most beautiful goddess of all. They decided to hold a beauty contest. To judge the contest, they chose a mortal named Paris. He was a handsome Prince of Troy.

Each goddess took Paris aside and offered him a gift. If Paris chose Hera, she promised to make the ruler of the world. If he chose Athena, she promised to make him a victorious soldier. But Paris wasn’t very ambitious or brave. He wasn’t interested in either of those offers.

Then Aphrodite promised Paris the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. This appealed to Paris much more than the other offers did. So he judged Aphrodite “the Fairest” of the goddesses, and she got to keep the apple.

This was exactly what the troublemaking Eris had hoped for. The most beautiful woman in the world happened to be married already. Her name was Helen. She was the Queen of Sparta and the wife of King Menelaus.

When Helen and Paris ran away to Troy together, Menelaus was furious. He called all the great warriors of Greece together, and they declared war on Troy. Many thousands of warriors died in the Trojan War, which lasted ten years. It ended with the destruction of Troy.

Here are some interesting facts about Aphrodite’s story:

•Today some historians believe that there really was a Trojan war. It was fought between Greece and Troy.

•The Romans called Aphrodite by the name Venus. The planet Venus is named after her.

•Venus is the planet closest to Earth. It is also the nearest planet in size to Earth. Next to the moon, it is usually the brightest object in the nighttime sky. Venus is easiest to see in the morning and evening. That’s why it is called both the “Morning Star” and the “Evening Star.”

•The Greeks pictured Aphrodite’s son Eros as a handsome young man. The Romans called him Cupid. They came to picture him as a little boy with wings and a bow and arrow. Pictures of Cupid are very common on Valentine’s Day.

•The goddess Venus was said to be the mother of the hero Aeneas. According to legend, Aeneas helped found the city of Rome. The real-life Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar claimed to be a descendent of Venus.

Hera

Hera was the queen of the gods and the protector of women. Her husband Zeus ruled the earth and sky. She was the mother of the war god Ares and the forge god Hephaestus. Her daughter, Ilithyia, was the goddess of childbirth.

Hera was beautiful and graceful. But she was also stern and bossy. And she could be very vain about her good looks. Hera was furious when she lost a beauty contest with Athena and Aphrodite. Another time, a mortal queen claimed to be more beautiful than Hera. The goddess turned that queen into a crane.

Although Hera was the goddess of marriage, her own marriage wasn’t happy. For one thing, Zeus was always interested in other women. Hera had good reason to be jealous.
Once she sent a hundred-eyed monster named Argos to spy on Zeus. Even Zeus couldn’t get away with much with Argos watching him!

Annoyed, Zeus called upon his son Hermes, the messenger god. He ordered Hermes to kill Argos. This was hard to do, because some of Argos’s eyes were always awake and watching. But Hermes managed to put all those eyes to sleep. Then he killed Argos as Zeus had commanded.

Hera put Argos’s eyes in the peacock’s tail. The peacock was her favorite bird from that time on. Hera was also fond of cows, lions, and cuckoos.

Next, Zeus asked a young goddess named Echo for help. Echo was a wonderful storyteller. At Zeus’s orders, Echo told Hera stories. That kept Hera’s attention for hours and hours. Meanwhile, Zeus could sneak away and do whatever he wanted.

Hera figured out what was going on. She got very angry with Echo. This wasn’t fair, of course. Echo couldn’t help what she was doing. After all, she couldn’t very well disobey the king of the gods. But when Hera was angry, she could be most unfair.

Hera cursed Echo. She took away Echo’s power to tell stories. She even took away Echo’s power to speak normally. Instead, Echo could only repeat things said by others.

Echo became so sad that she disappeared completely. But it is said that you can still hear her voice. If you shout in a canyon or valley, Echo might repeat your words.

Here are some interesting facts about Hera’s story:

•Hera was the goddess of the calendar year. The ancient Athenians didn’t have just one calendar. Instead, they used a calendar for festivals, another for political matters, and another for the seasons.

•Today many cultures have different yearly calendars. The month calendar mostly used in European and American countries is called the Julian calendar.

•Hera was a goddess who protected women. In Ancient Athens, women needed a protector. Even when Athens became a democracy, women had very few rights. An unmarried girl was ruled by her father; a married woman was ruled by her husband. Women could not become full citizens. Even male slaves had more rights than women did.

•Things were different in Sparta, Athens’s warlike neighbor. Spartan men were often away fighting. When the men were gone, women took charge in many important ways. Some of the wealthiest and most powerful Spartan citizens were women. Even so, Spartan women could not hold political positions.

Artemis

Artemis was the god Apollo’s twin sister. She was goddess of the moon and of the hunt. She didn’t like cities very much, preferring to roam forests and mountainsides.

She hunted with a silver bow and silver arrows. Like all good hunters, Artemis liked to protect wildlife. She took special care to watch over small animals.

Artemis was a strong-willed goddess. She knew what she wanted from an early age. Once when she was three years old, she was sitting on her father Zeus’s knee. Zeus asked the little goddess what she most wanted in life.

First, she asked Zeus for three different names. These would fit her moods, which could be seen in the changing Moon. When she was cheerful and the moon was bright, she was called Selene. When she was in a bad mood and the moon was dark, she was called Hecate. The rest of the time she was called Artemis.

She also asked Zeus for loyal goddesses to hunt with. Zeus gave her lots of female followers called nymphs. Finally, she told Zeus that she never wanted to have much to do with men. So Zeus made sure that Artemis never fell in love with a man and never had a husband.

Although she wasn’t interested in much except hunting, Artemis could also be a good warrior. In fact, she was a much better fighter than Ares, the god of war. She was also more clever. One time some giants declared war on the gods. The giants trapped Ares in a jar, so he couldn’t do any fighting at all. Artemis tricked two of the giants by taking the shape of a deer and running between them. The giants both shot arrows at the deer, but killed each other instead.

Artemis was also clever about keeping men out of her life—both gods and mortals. The river god Alpheus fell in love with her and went chasing after her through the woods. Artemis smeared mud all over her own face, then told her nymphs to do the same. Alpheus couldn’t tell Artemis and the nymphs apart. The river god gave up and went home, sad and disappointed.

Artemis was especially honored by a legendary race of women called Amazons. They were all warrior women who never married.

Here are some interesting facts about Artemis’s story:

•The “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World” was a list made by the Greeks of man-made marvels. A temple of Artemis was on that list. The Great Pyramids of Egypt are the only wonders on the list still standing today.

•Because she was the goddess of the Moon, Artemis has a crater on the Moon named after her. A crater is a hollow place that was formed by collision with an object from outer space.

•The moon has long been believed to affect human moods and actions. One Roman name for the goddess of the moon was “Luna.” The word “lunatic,” meaning insane person, came from that name.

•A lunar eclipse happens when the earth passes between the sun and the moon. On February 29, , the explorer Christopher Columbus was on the island of Jamaica. He knew that a lunar eclipse was coming, and that the moon would seem to disappear. The islanders didn’t know what an eclipse was. Columbus used the eclipse to trick the islanders into doing whatever he wanted.

Hades

The brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were the most important gods of all. Zeus was the strongest and wisest of the three and ruled over the earth. Poseidon ruled the seas. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Hades had dark hair and a dark beard, and he drove a chariot drawn by four dark horses. He was married to Persephone, the queen of the dead.

Neither gods nor mortals liked Hades very much. This wasn’t really fair. Hades wasn’t mean or cruel. It just wasn’t his job to be kind or merciful. His duty was to make sure the dead stayed in the Underworld forever.

Few mortals ever went to the Underworld and made it back alive. One of these was the great singer Orpheus. When his wife, Eurydice, died, Orpheus went to the Underworld to bring her back.

Orpheus’s singing delighted Hades, so he agreed to let him take Eurydice back home. Hades made one rule, though. Orpheus wasn’t allowed to look at Eurydice as they fled the Underworld. But along the way, Orpheus turned to see if Eurydice was still following him. So she had to stay in the world of the dead forever.

There aren’t many stories about Hades. Because he rarely left the Underworld, he seldom had adventures. He just went about the unpleasant business of ruling the dead. When he did go out into the world of the living, it usually ended badly for him.

Once Hades left his realm in search of Sisyphus, the king of Corinth. Sisyphus was one of the cleverest mortals who ever lived. He managed to cheat death time and time again.

Hades planned to put Sisyphus in handcuffs and take him to the Underworld. Instead, the tricky king talked Hades into trying on the handcuffs himself. As long as Sisyphus held Hades hostage, nobody would ever die. The gods couldn’t allow that, so they pestered Sisyphus into letting Hades loose.

Sisyphus himself finally died and went to the Underworld. The gods knew that he might still be up to mischief even there. So they sentenced him to an impossible task.

Sisyphus had to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down again. Then he had to roll it back up the hill, only to have it roll down yet again. Poor Sisyphus had to do this again and again forever. At least it kept him from causing Hades any more trouble.

Eventually, the world of the dead itself came to be called Hades, after its king. A fierce three-headed dog named Cerberus guarded Hades. The river Styx flowed between Hades and the world of the living. A ferryman named Charon rowed dead souls across the Styx.

Here are some interesting facts about Hades’ story:

•The Ancient Greeks feared Hades so much that they avoided saying his name. Instead, they called him “Pluton,” which meant “the Rich.” This was because Hades’ realm was said to be the home of precious stones and metals. The Romans renamed Hades “Pluto.”

•Today, a plutocrat is someone who rules other people with wealth. A plutocracy is a government based on wealth.

•A small, distant object called Pluto was once thought to be the farthest planet from the sun. Today Pluto is no longer considered to be a planet at all. The farthest planet from the sun is called Neptune. This was the Roman name for Poseidon, the god of the sea.

•A task that seems pointless and endless is now sometimes called Sisyphean.

Apollo

Apollo was the twin brother of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and the Moon. Like his sister, Apollo loved hunting with a bow and arrow. He was the god of wisdom, poetry, and music.

Apollo was a handsome god, with long black hair. He drove a golden chariot drawn by swans. He was the leader of the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts.

This god liked lions, wolves, stags, crows, and dolphins. He also liked cattle, and once had a herd of his own. The baby Hermes stole that herd from him. But Apollo let Hermes keep the cattle in return for his lyre. The lyre was a kind of harp that Hermes had made out of a tortoise shell.

When Apollo was still a young god, he wanted to know his future. So he went to a town called Delphi, where a priestess was said to tell fortunes. She was called an “oracle.”

When Apollo arrived in Delphi, he found trouble awaiting him. A monster named Python was supposed to guard the oracle. But Python had turned cruel and was terrorizing the people of Delphi.

Apollo killed Python with his bare hands. Then the citizens of Delphi built a temple in his honor. The oracle kept telling people’s fortunes there.

After that, Apollo became known as the god of prophecy—which means the ability to foretell the future. He was believed to always tell the truth.

Apollo was also known as great healer. However, he sometimes caused disease as well. His son, Asclepius, was the god of medicine for a while. But Asclepius grew so powerful that he could raise the dead. The gods couldn’t allow that, so Zeus killed Asclepius with his thunderbolt.

Because Apollo was called the god of light, he was sometimes mistaken for the sun god. The real god of the sun was Helios, who drove a flaming chariot across the sky.

Helios once made a terrible mistake. He allowed his half-mortal son Phaeton to drive his chariot. But Phaeton couldn’t control Helios’s horses. He almost destroyed the world with that flaming chariot. Like Asclepius, Phaeton was killed by Zeus’s thunderbolt.

Here are some interesting facts about Apollo’s story:

•A huge snake called a python can be found in parts of Africa and Asia. It’s named after the monster that Apollo killed.

•In ancient times Delphi was said to be the center of the world. Its ruins are still visited today.

•The Pythian Games were an athletic event held every four years in Delphi. They were named after the monster slain by Apollo. Those games were something like today’s Olympics. The earliest Olympic games were also played in Ancient Greece.

•A priestess in Delphi really was believed to tell fortunes. Once she was asked about the Athenian philosopher Socrates. She said that no one in the world was wiser than he. Socrates was surprised, because he thought he knew nothing at all. He soon noticed that people who thought themselves wise knew no more than he did. So Socrates was truly wise in knowing himself to be ignorant.

•Today the word Apollonian means wise, prudent, and well thought-out. The god Dionysus was thought to be reckless and unruly, most unlike the calm and sensible Apollo. So the word Dionysian means wild, uncontrolled, and lacking reason.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was the god of fire. He was a blacksmith whose forge was in a volcano. His helpers were one-eyed giants called Cyclopes. He worked in bronze, iron, silver, and gold. He also made things out of clay, including living creatures. From clay he made Pandora, the first mortal woman in the world.

Hephaestus made many useful things for the gods. For the messenger god Hermes, he made a winged hat and winged sandals. For the sun god Helios, he made a golden chariot to ride across the sky. For the Eros, the god of love, he made a silver bow with silver arrows.

Hephaestus was a good-natured god who usually got along well with everybody. Even so, his mother, Hera, once got angry with him. She threw him off Olympus, the mountain where the gods lived. When he hit the ground, he broke his foot. A goddess named Thetis nursed him back to health. But he walked with a limp ever after that.

Good-natured though he was, Hephaestus didn’t forgive Hera. And he finally got even with her. He made a beautiful throne out of gold and offered it to her as a gift. When she sat on it, invisible chains wrapped around her wrists. She couldn’t get out of the throne, which rose up into the air.

All the gods tried to talk Hephaestus into letting Hera loose. Hephaestus finally did when the beautiful goddess Aphrodite agreed to marry him. Theirs wasn’t a happy marriage, though. Aphrodite was really in love with Ares, the god of war.

The goddess Thetis had a half-mortal son named Achilles. When Achilles was a baby, she bathed him in the river Styx. This was supposed to make him invulnerable, meaning impossible to hurt or kill. Even so, Thetis worried when Achilles got ready to go fight in the Trojan War.

Hephaestus made the best weapons and armor in the world. So Thetis asked Hephaestus to make a shield and armor for Achilles. Hephaestus was still grateful to Thetis for helping him after his fall from Olympus. So he was happy to do as she asked.

Hephaestus’s armor didn’t let Achilles down during the war. But Thetis had made one mistake. When she had dipped Achilles in the river Styx, she had held him by the heel. So his heel was not invulnerable. Achilles was killed by an arrow in his heel.

Here are some interesting facts about Hephaestus’s story:

•Pandora, the woman Hephaestus made from clay, was said to have had a box of evils. She opened the box, letting all those evils loose in the world. Today, to “open a Pandora’s box” means to cause a lot of trouble accidentally.

•The Romans gave Hephaestus the name Vulcan. That’s where the word “volcano” comes from.

•The word “vulcanization” also comes from the name Vulcan. Vulcanization is a process for hardening rubber, especially for tires. It uses extreme heat and sulfur.

•Today, a person’s weak spot is called an “Achilles’s heel,” after the story of how Achilles died.

•Human history is sometimes divided into three periods. These are named after the materials most used for tools in those times. The earliest was the Stone Age, followed by the Bronze Age, followed by the Iron Age. The stories about Hephaestus were told in the Iron Age, when blacksmithing was very important.

Hestia

The beautiful Hestia was the oldest of the gods of Olympus. She disliked gossip, so hardly any stories were told about he. But it would be a mistake to think she wasn’t important. In some ways, she was the most important of all the gods.

From the earliest times, the other gods of Olympus all had duties. Hermes carried messages, Ares was in charge of war, Artemis watched over all hunters, and Zeus ruled over everybody. Other gods had other jobs. But for a time, no one seemed to know what Hestia was supposed to do.

One day the gods Poseidon and Apollo told Zeus that they both loved Hestia. Both of them wanted to marry her. They demanded that Zeus choose between them. Otherwise, war would break out among the gods. And such a war would have been terrible indeed.

But Hestia solved the whole problem very simply. She refused ever to have a husband. Zeus was relieved and grateful to avoid a war. As a reward, he gave Hestia the keys to Olympus. He put her in charge of the gods’ everyday business. Hestia made sure that the gods always had plenty of food, clothing, and money. After all, even gods have to worry about such things!

Zeus also made Hestia the goddess of homes everywhere. It was she who taught mortals how to build houses. And every house had a sacred spot for her. That was the hearth, the center of family life.

Mortals prayed to Hestia more than to any of the other gods. Every family meal began and ended with a prayer to Hestia. Whenever a baby was born, the parents carried it around the hearth and prayed to Hestia. Mortals had a saying: “Begin with Hestia.” In other words, when doing anything, always start out in the right way.

Hestia lived a quiet life, leaving fame and adventure to others. Zeus’s half-mortal son Dionysus showed up on Olympus one day. He wanted to have a throne like the other important gods. Hestia gladly gave up her own throne for him. After all, she was too busy to spend much time sitting there.

Here are some interesting facts about Hestia’s story:

•A hearth in an Ancient Greek home wasn’t like today’s fireplaces. It wasn’t placed in a wall at the end of a room.

Instead, it was in the middle of the central room. Its coals burned all the time, whether for warmth or for cooking. In honor of Hestia, Greeks made sure that the fire never went out.

•Every Ancient Greek city also had a public hearth for all citizens. Hestia was sacred there also. When the people of one city founded another city, they took coals with them to light the new city’s hearth. As in hearths in private houses, the fires in public hearths were never allowed to die out.

•In Ancient Rome, Hestia was called by the name of Vesta. The six priestesses in her temple were called Vestals. Like Vesta herself, they never married.

•An asteroid called Vesta is named after the goddess. An asteroid is a body that orbits the sun but is much smaller than a planet. Although Vesta is only the second largest asteroid, it is the one most visible from Earth. The largest asteroid is called Ceres, the Roman name for the goddess Demeter.

At the centre of Greek Mythology is the group of powerful Gods who were said to live on Mt Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece.

Known as the Olympians, they gained control in a year-long war of Gods, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over the previous generation of ruling Gods, the Titans*.

From their perch, they ruled every aspect of human life. Olympian Gods and Goddesses looked like men and women (though they could change themselves into animals and other things) and were — as many myths described — vulnerable to human feelings, weaknesses and passions.

When things had to be decided about wars, punishments or everyday life, this council of 12 met on Mt Olympus to discuss them.

The Olympians all kept a home on Mt Olympus but Poseidon preferred his palace under the sea.

THE 12 OLYMPIANS:

1. Zeus: the King of all the Gods

2. Hera: the Queen of the Gods and Goddess of women and marriage

3. Aphrodite: Goddess of beauty and love

4. Apollo: God of prophecy, music and poetry and knowledge

5. Ares: God of war

6. Artemis: Goddess of hunting, animals and childbirth

7. Athena: Goddess of wisdom and defence

8. Demeter: Goddess of agriculture and grain

9. Dionysos: God of wine, pleasure and festivity

Hephaistos: God of fire, metalworking and sculpture

Hermes: God of travel, hospitality and trade and Zeus’s personal messenger

Poseidon: God of the sea

Other Gods and Goddesses sometimes included in the roster of Olympians are:

Hades: God of the underworld

Hestia: Goddess of home and family

Eros (also known as Cupid): God of Love

ZEUS: KING OF THE GODS
Often referred to as the “Father of Gods and men”, Zeus was a Sky God who controlled lightning, thunder and storms.

Zeus was the king of Mount Olympus, the home of Greek Gods, where he ruled the world and imposed his will on to Gods and humans.

Zeus was thought of as wise and fair, but his decisions were hard to predict at times and he could be easily angered. When he was in a bad mood, he was said to throw lightning bolts and cause violent storms that caused destruction* on Earth.

Zeus fell in love very easily and had many relationships, but he would severely punish anybody who attempted to fall in love with his wife Hera.

He is often described as a big, strong man with long, curly, hair. He was usually drawn with a beard and carried his trusty thunderbolt at all times.

Zeus was lucky to survive his birth.

His father, Cronus, King of the Titans, upon learning that one of his children was destined* to take his throne, swallowed his children as soon as they were born. But Rhea, his wife, saved the infant Zeus by substituting a stone wrapped in baby clothes for Cronus to swallow. She hid Zeus in a cave on the island of Crete. After Zeus grew to manhood he led a battle against the Titans and succeeded in forcing Cronus off the throne.

• ZEUS FACTS:
  Title: King of Olympus
• Rules over: Skies, thunder, lightning, hospitality, honour, kingship and order
• Gender: male
• Symbols: lightning, thunderbolt, set of scales, oak tree, royal sceptor
• Sacred animals: eagle, wolf, woodpecker
• Parents: Cronus and Rhea

NOTE: For more information on the other Olympian Gods, please see the story Greek Gods of Mt Olympus.

GLOSSARY

• The Titans: any of a family of giants in Greek mythology born to Uranus and Gaea and ruling the Earth until overthrown by the Olympian gods.
• destruction: damaging something so badly it falls into ruins
• destined: meant to happen in the future

EXTRA READING
Part One: What is Greek Mythology
Part Three: Greek Gods of Mt Olympus

QUICK QUIZ

1. How many Olympian Gods and Goddesses were there?
2. Where did they live?
3. Who did they defeat in the year war?
4. Which God preferred to live in his underwater palace?
5. How did Zeus’s mother save his life as an infant?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Refer to the accompanying Greek Myths and Legends classroom workbook with 25 activities. Can be purchased for $5 including GST at ingalex.de

HAVE YOUR SAY: If you could choose to be one of the 12 Olympians, who would you choose to be?
No one-word answers. Use full sentences to explain your thinking. No comments will show until approved by editors.

Greek Gods

Welcome to our Greek Gods and Goddesses page here on History for Kids. We have some fun facts and pictures for you to color. You will learn some interesting facts about each God as you read down the page. Take your time there is a lot of information on this page, check out the quick facts also if you just need a quick understanding and characteristics of each one.

Athena

Athena was tall, strong, graceful, gray-eyed, and she liked owls. From the beginning, she was a pretty amazing goddess. In fact, even her birth was most unusual.

Zeus, the father of gods and goddesses, was also Athena’s father. Her mother was a mortal woman named Metis. Older gods had warned Zeus that he would be in trouble if Metis gave birth to a daughter. So he swallowed Metis whole.

When it came time for Athena to be born, she sprang full grown out of Zeus’s head. She was completely dressed in armor, as she always would be. She also carried a shield and a spear. As you might guess about a woman in armor, she was a great warrior.

Athena was also a goddess of wisdom. She taught people about arts and crafts. She also taught them how to think clearly and live well. She was often seen with an owl, so owls became a symbol of wisdom.

Athena didn’t get along with the sea god Poseidon. For one thing, they were often rivals over one thing or another. Once the people of a new city were looking for a god to watch over and protect them. Athena and Poseidon both wanted the job.

To impress the city’s citizens, the two gods gave them gifts. Poseidon struck the ground with his three-pointed spear, and water poured out. The water turned into a river that flowed into the sea. Poseidon told the people to build ships to sail to the sea. He said that they could travel everywhere. They could become the most powerful people on earth.

The citizens were indeed impressed. But then Athena told them to taste the water. It tasted awful. It was saltwater, which is impossible to drink.

Then Athena gave the citizens her gift. When she hit the ground with her spear, a tree magically grew up within seconds. She explained that it was a special tree—an olive tree. Its wood was good both for building houses and for heating those houses in winter. Better still, the tree’s little green fruits, called “olives,” were delicious. And oil made out of the olives was useful for cooking.

The citizens liked Athena’s gift better than Poseidon’s. Not only did they choose Athena to watch over them, they named the city after her. They called it Athens. Poseidon left in a huff, causing a serious flood on his way. But the Athenians weren’t bothered very much. With Athena’s help, their city grew to be strong and wealthy. Athens became one of the greatest cities of all time. Today it’s the capital and the largest city of Greece.

Here are some historical facts about the city of Athens:

• Athenians did their best to make their city live up to its name. Inspired by their tales about Athena’s wisdom, Athens became a center of civilization.
• Athenians turned their city into the world’s first democracy.
• Athenians wrote the world’s first plays, both comedies and tragedies. Those plays were performed in an open-air theater. They are still popular today.
• Some of history’s greatest thinkers were Athenian. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were the city’s most famous philosophers.
• The world’s first historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, lived in Athens.
• Athenians created some of the world’s most beautiful buildings. The ruins of its most famous temple, the Parthenon, are still standing today. The Parthenon once held a large statue of Athena.
• The Athenian Hippocrates is said to be the father of medicine. He wrote a famous oath that is still spoken by doctors today.

Poseidon

The brothers Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon were the most important gods of all. Zeus was the strongest and wisest of the three and ruled over the earth. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Poseidon ruled the seas. He was also the god of earthquakes and horses.

Poseidon had a beard and long blue hair. He drove a golden cart called a chariot.

It was pulled by strange beasts that were half-horse and half-snake. Fish and dolphins always swam along beside the sea god’s chariot.

Poseidon carried a three-pointed spear called a trident. He used this to start earthquakes or bring water out of the ground.

Like the sea he ruled, Poseidon could be either calm or stormy. As you might guess, the god of earthquakes had a short temper. He didn’t get along with other gods. He didn’t always get along with mortals, either.

The people of Troy once asked Poseidon to help build a wall around their city. He helped, but then he got angry when he didn’t get paid for his work. He was Troy’s enemy ever after that. When Troy fought a terrible war against Greece, Poseidon supported the Greeks.

Each god had a city to protect and watch over. The city showed its thanks by honoring that god especially. Maybe because he was ill-tempered, Poseidon had trouble finding a city to honor him. The people of Athens chose Athena instead of Poseidon as its protector. The people of Naxos chose Dionysus. The people of Aegina chose Zeus. Finally, all the gods had special cities except Poseidon. He was very unhappy and disappointed.

But at long last, the people of Atlantis chose Poseidon. Atlantis was a huge island, and its people loved and honored him. There he fell in love with a mortal princess named Clito. He built a palace for her, and they had ten sons. The sons grew up to be kings who ruled different parts of Atlantis. Those kings ruled wisely, and Atlantis became the greatest civilization in the world. Poseidon was proud and happy.

But bad times came. The first kings of Atlantis died, and their sons were bad rulers. And the sons who came after them were worse yet. Years passed, and Atlantis was no longer the world’s greatest civilization. It was actually the worst. It had become both wicked and foolish.

Finally, the people of Atlantis forgot to worship Poseidon. The sea god became angry and used his trident to start a terrible earthquake. Atlantis sank beneath the waves, never to be seen again.

Here are some historical facts about Poseidon’s story:

•Horses were very important in the ancient world. Poseidon’s earliest worshippers may have been the people who first brought horses to Greece.

•There are many earthquakes in Greece. Not surprisingly, a god of earthquakes was taken very seriously there.

•The sea was very important to the Ancient Greeks. They were great explorers whose ships sailed to distant places.

•Fishermen in the ancient world caught tuna with a trident.

•Atlantis was thought to have been in a faraway ocean. Today we call that ocean the Atlantic.

•Atlantis was probably imaginary. Even so, some people still believe that it once was real. And people keep looking for it.

•Atlantis may have been based on a real place. There once was a large island called Thera. It was destroyed by a huge volcano. Like Atlantis, it sank into the sea.

Hermes

Hermes was the messenger god. He was young and intelligent-looking. He wore a winged hat and winged sandals, and he carried a magic wand. (We know what he looked like because so many sculptors made statues of him.)

Hermes was said to be the god of the marketplace. Oddly, he was also said to be the god of thieves. He himself was a clever thief. He started stealing early in life—actually on the day he was born.

His father was Zeus, the king of the gods. His mother was a young goddess named Maia. He was born in a mountain cave, and only a few minutes after his birth, Hermes decided to make himself a toy. He picked up a tortoise shell and tied strings across it, then plucked the strings. That was how Hermes invented the first musical instrument, which was called a lyre. And he invented music too!

His playing and singing put his mother to sleep. Then, when Hermes was still only an hour or two old, he left the cave and went out to look around at the world. He soon found a herd of cattle that belonged to the god Apollo. The baby Hermes liked the cattle and decided to steal them.

When Apollo wasn’t looking, Hermes tied branches to the cows’ tails. As he led them away, the branches dragged along and erased their hoof prints. Then he hid the cattle and went back to his cave. He climbed back up into his sleeping mother’s arms. When she woke up, she had no idea that he’d even been away.

When Apollo managed to track down Hermes, he was surprised to see that the thief was just a newborn baby. Even so, he demanded his cattle back. Then Hermes started playing the lyre. Apollo was so delighted by the music that he let Hermes keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre. After that, Apollo carried the lyre everywhere and became known as the god of music.

Hermes never stopped being full of mischief. But when he grew up, the gods learned that they could count on him for one important task. With his winged hat and sandals, he ran and flew as fast as the wind, so Zeus named him the messenger of the gods.

Whenever the gods wanted to send messages to mortals, they gave the job to Hermes. Although he didn’t always tell the truth himself, he always delivered those messages just the way he was supposed to.

Here are some interesting facts about Hermes’ story.

•Along with the lyre, Hermes was said to have invented another musical instrument called a panpipe. It’s a kind of flute that is still played today.

•Hermes was said to be the god of travelers. Statues of him could be found at crossroads throughout Ancient Greece. They were put there to bring travelers good luck.

•There were no telephones and no Internet in the ancient world. Messages were usually carried by runners on foot. So the god of messengers was considered a very important god.

•One of the most famous messengers of all time was a soldier named Pheidippides. Story has it that he ran from one city to another, carrying news that the Greeks had won the Battle of Marathon. He delivered the message and died. Today’s marathon races are held in his honor.

•Hermes’ magic wand was called a caduceus. It had wings, like his hat and sandals. It also had snakes wrapped around it. Today the caduceus is the symbol of the medical profession.

Ares

Ares was the god of war. He wore armor and a helmet, and he carried a shield, sword, and spear. He was big and strong and had a fierce war cry, but his war cry was mostly just a lot of noise. Ares didn’t fight at all well. The armored goddess Athena was a much better warrior.

The Ancient Greeks didn’t like war, and they didn’t like Ares, either. They considered him a troublemaker. And like many troublemakers, Ares was a coward and a bully.

In fact, Ares was never really of use to anybody in a war. One time a group of giants declared war on the gods. The giants wanted to rule the entire universe. To keep Ares out of the fighting, they sneaked up on him and knocked him out cold, then they stuffed him into a jar.

The other gods heard Ares screaming for somebody to let him out. They just ignored him because they figured they could fight better without him. They went on to defeat the giants, and then they let Ares out of the jar after the battle was over. Ares bragged about how he could have beaten the giants if he’d been free. The other gods only laughed.

Ares never stayed loyal to one side or the other in a war. He just enjoyed watching people fighting and dying. The war between Greece and Troy was one of the worst ever fought, and even the gods joined in the battle. When the war started, Ares promised his mother, Hera, to help the Greeks. But he was in love with the goddess Aphrodite, so she easily talked him into helping the Trojans.

The Trojans would have been just as happy without Ares’s help. Always the bully, he didn’t pick fights with other gods. Instead, he challenged a mortal Greek warrior named Diomedes, but Diomedes wounded Ares.

Ares liked to cause pain for others, but he whined and complained whenever he got hurt. This time was no different. The wound he got from Diomedes wasn’t very serious, but even so, Ares didn’t keep fighting. He went running back to Olympus, the home of the gods, and wept and wailed to his father Zeus. Even though Zeus bandaged up Ares’s wound, he was not at all proud of his warrior son.

That wasn’t the only time Ares was wounded. The great hero Heracles wounded him twice, and one of those times he took away Ares’s armor and weapons. Both times Ares ran away crying to Olympus.

Here are some interesting facts about Ares’s story:

•For a long time, historians thought that the city of Troy was just a legend. But the ruins of Troy have been found in modern-day Turkey.

•The Trojan War was also thought to be only a legend. But today some historians think that there really was such a war. It was fought between Greece and Troy.

•The Greeks had good reason to dislike war. The cities of Greece fought each other in a terrible war that lasted for 27 years. It’s called the Peloponnesian War.

•Although the Ancient Greeks didn’t like Ares, the Ancient Romans admired him. They called him Mars. They told stories that made Mars sound like a hero.

•The Romans liked Ares because they thought that war was noble. The Romans spoke Latin. The Latin words for “war” and “beauty” are very similar. The word for “war” is “bellum.” The word for “beauty” is “bellus.”

Zeus

Zeus was the king of the gods. He and his brothers Hades and Poseidon were in charge of the whole universe. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Poseidon ruled the seas. Zeus, the greatest of the three, ruled the earth and the sky. He controlled the weather, causing wind and rain. He also caused thunder and lightning. He threw his thunderbolt like a spear.

Zeus was a good reminder that the gods were not perfect. For one thing, he was not all-powerful. His daughters, the three Fates, decided the futures of both gods and mortals. Zeus couldn’t overrule their decisions.

And although Zeus was often wise, he could also be foolish. He could be selfish and even cruel. He was not a good husband to Hera, the queen of the gods. And he was not a good father to many of his children. Not surprisingly, the other gods sometimes rebelled against his rule.

Still, Zeus most gods and mortals respected Zeus. He gave laws and justice to mortals. He taught them kindness and good manners. One story shows how much Zeus prized hospitality and kindness toward strangers.

Zeus liked to travel, sometimes in disguise. Once he was traveling with his son Hermes, the messenger god, in a land called Phrygia. They were both disguised as ordinary mortal men. They stopped at all the houses in Phrygia, asking for food and a place to stay the night. Time and time again, they were rudely turned away. Even rich people turned them away.

At last they arrived at the home of an elderly couple, a woman named Baucis and a man named Philemon. Baucis and Philemon were extremely poor. Even so, they treated the travelers kindly, inviting them into their home for food and drink. They allowed the disguised gods to spend the night.

The next day, Hermes and Zeus took off their disguises. Everyone could see that they were gods. Zeus punished the couple’s Phrygian neighbors with a terrible flood. All houses were destroyed, except the little hut of Baucis and Philemon. Zeus turned it into a beautiful temple.

As a reward for their kindness, Zeus offered the couple anything that they wanted. Because they had lived happily together all their lives, they asked never to be parted. Even in death they wanted to remain together. Baucis and Philemon spent the rest of their lives serving as the temple’s priestess and priest. When they died they turned into two trees growing out of the same trunk.

Here are some interesting facts about Zeus’s story:

•Weather seemed even more mysterious in ancient times than it does today. It’s no surprise that the god who controlled the weather was the most powerful god of all.

•Lightning and thunder were especially puzzling to ancient people. Many cultures have had gods of thunder and lightning. In Norse mythology, it was Thor. To the Finns, it was Ukko. To the Aztecs, it was Tlaloc.

•Lightning remained a mystery for thousands of years. During the s, the American scientist and thinker Benjamin Franklin helped solve that mystery. He discovered the lightning was made up of electricity. Then he invented the lightning rods to protect houses and buildings. He was nicknamed “the Man Who Tamed the Lightning.”

•In ancient times, travel was difficult and dangerous. Travelers depended on the kindness of people they met along the way. The Greeks even had a word for kindness toward strangers and travelers. They called it xenios.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite had an unusual birth. She rose up out of sea foam, beautiful and fully grown-up. She was the goddess of love, and she liked doves, sparrows, and swans. She was married to Hephaestus, the god of the forge, but not at all happily. She was really in love with Ares, the god of war.

Aphrodite and her son Eros were in charge of making people and gods fall in love. Eros used his magic bow and arrow to make that happen.

Oddly, this goddess of love helped start a terrible war. But she didn’t really mean to. Eris, the goddess of discord, liked to stir up trouble. So one day Eris made a golden apple. She wrote the words “For the Fairest” on it. Then she threw this apple where the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite would find it.

Each one of them thought she was “the Fairest”—the most beautiful goddess of all. They decided to hold a beauty contest. To judge the contest, they chose a mortal named Paris. He was a handsome Prince of Troy.

Each goddess took Paris aside and offered him a gift. If Paris chose Hera, she promised to make the ruler of the world. If he chose Athena, she promised to make him a victorious soldier. But Paris wasn’t very ambitious or brave. He wasn’t interested in either of those offers.

Then Aphrodite promised Paris the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. This appealed to Paris much more than the other offers did. So he judged Aphrodite “the Fairest” of the goddesses, and she got to keep the apple.

This was exactly what the troublemaking Eris had hoped for. The most beautiful woman in the world happened to be married already. Her name was Helen. She was the Queen of Sparta and the wife of King Menelaus.

When Helen and Paris ran away to Troy together, Menelaus was furious. He called all the great warriors of Greece together, and they declared war on Troy. Many thousands of warriors died in the Trojan War, which lasted ten years. It ended with the destruction of Troy.

Here are some interesting facts about Aphrodite’s story:

•Today some historians believe that there really was a Trojan war. It was fought between Greece and Troy.

•The Romans called Aphrodite by the name Venus. The planet Venus is named after her.

•Venus is the planet closest to Earth. It is also the nearest planet in size to Earth. Next to the moon, it is usually the brightest object in the nighttime sky. Venus is easiest to see in the morning and evening. That’s why it is called both the “Morning Star” and the “Evening Star.”

•The Greeks pictured Aphrodite’s son Eros as a handsome young man. The Romans called him Cupid. They came to picture him as a little boy with wings and a bow and arrow. Pictures of Cupid are very common on Valentine’s Day.

•The goddess Venus was said to be the mother of the hero Aeneas. According to legend, Aeneas helped found the city of Rome. The real-life Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar claimed to be a descendent of Venus.

Hera

Hera was the queen of the gods and the protector of women. Her husband Zeus ruled the earth and sky. She was the mother of the war god Ares and the forge god Hephaestus. Her daughter, Ilithyia, was the goddess of childbirth.

Hera was beautiful and graceful. But she was also stern and bossy. And she could be very vain about her good looks. Hera was furious when she lost a beauty contest with Athena and Aphrodite. Another time, a mortal queen claimed to be more beautiful than Hera. The goddess turned that queen into a crane.

Although Hera was the goddess of marriage, her own marriage wasn’t happy. For one thing, Zeus was always interested in other women. Hera had good reason to be jealous.
Once she sent a hundred-eyed monster named Argos to spy on Zeus. Even Zeus couldn’t get away with much with Argos watching him!

Annoyed, Zeus called upon his son Hermes, the messenger god. He ordered Hermes to kill Argos. This was hard to do, because some of Argos’s eyes were always awake and watching. But Hermes managed to put all those eyes to sleep. Then he killed Argos as Zeus had commanded.

Hera put Argos’s eyes in the peacock’s tail. The peacock was her favorite bird from that time on. Hera was also fond of cows, lions, and cuckoos.

Next, Zeus asked a young goddess named Echo for help. Echo was a wonderful storyteller. At Zeus’s orders, Echo told Hera stories. That kept Hera’s attention for hours and hours. Meanwhile, Zeus could sneak away and do whatever he wanted.

Hera figured out what was going on. She got very angry with Echo. This wasn’t fair, of course. Echo couldn’t help what she was doing. After all, she couldn’t very well disobey the king of the gods. But when Hera was angry, she could be most unfair.

Hera cursed Echo. She took away Echo’s power to tell stories. She even took away Echo’s power to speak normally. Instead, Echo could only repeat things said by others.

Echo became so sad that she disappeared completely. But it is said that you can still hear her voice. If you shout in a canyon or valley, Echo might repeat your words.

Here are some interesting facts about Hera’s story:

•Hera was the goddess of the calendar year. The ancient Athenians didn’t have just one calendar. Instead, they used a calendar for festivals, another for political matters, and another for the seasons.

•Today many cultures have different yearly calendars. The month calendar mostly used in European and American countries is called the Julian calendar.

•Hera was a goddess who protected women. In Ancient Athens, women needed a protector. Even when Athens became a democracy, women had very few rights. An unmarried girl was ruled by her father; a married woman was ruled by her husband. Women could not become full citizens. Even male slaves had more rights than women did.

•Things were different in Sparta, Athens’s warlike neighbor. Spartan men were often away fighting. When the men were gone, women took charge in many important ways. Some of the wealthiest and most powerful Spartan citizens were women. Even so, Spartan women could not hold political positions.

Artemis

Artemis was the god Apollo’s twin sister. She was goddess of the moon and of the hunt. She didn’t like cities very much, preferring to roam forests and mountainsides.

She hunted with a silver bow and silver arrows. Like all good hunters, Artemis liked to protect wildlife. She took special care to watch over small animals.

Artemis was a strong-willed goddess. She knew what she wanted from an early age. Once when she was three years old, she was sitting on her father Zeus’s knee. Zeus asked the little goddess what she most wanted in life.

First, she asked Zeus for three different names. These would fit her moods, which could be seen in the changing Moon. When she was cheerful and the moon was bright, she was called Selene. When she was in a bad mood and the moon was dark, she was called Hecate. The rest of the time she was called Artemis.

She also asked Zeus for loyal goddesses to hunt with. Zeus gave her lots of female followers called nymphs. Finally, she told Zeus that she never wanted to have much to do with men. So Zeus made sure that Artemis never fell in love with a man and never had a husband.

Although she wasn’t interested in much except hunting, Artemis could also be a good warrior. In fact, she was a much better fighter than Ares, the god of war. She was also more clever. One time some giants declared war on the gods. The giants trapped Ares in a jar, so he couldn’t do any fighting at all. Artemis tricked two of the giants by taking the shape of a deer and running between them. The giants both shot arrows at the deer, but killed each other instead.

Artemis was also clever about keeping men out of her life—both gods and mortals. The river god Alpheus fell in love with her and went chasing after her through the woods. Artemis smeared mud all over her own face, then told her nymphs to do the same. Alpheus couldn’t tell Artemis and the nymphs apart. The river god gave up and went home, sad and disappointed.

Artemis was especially honored by a legendary race of women called Amazons. They were all warrior women who never married.

Here are some interesting facts about Artemis’s story:

•The “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World” was a list made by the Greeks of man-made marvels. A temple of Artemis was on that list. The Great Pyramids of Egypt are the only wonders on the list still standing today.

•Because she was the goddess of the Moon, Artemis has a crater on the Moon named after her. A crater is a hollow place that was formed by collision with an object from outer space.

•The moon has long been believed to affect human moods and actions. One Roman name for the goddess of the moon was “Luna.” The word “lunatic,” meaning insane person, came from that name.

•A lunar eclipse happens when the earth passes between the sun and the moon. On February 29, , the explorer Christopher Columbus was on the island of Jamaica. He knew that a lunar eclipse was coming, and that the moon would seem to disappear. The islanders didn’t know what an eclipse was. Columbus used the eclipse to trick the islanders into doing whatever he wanted.

Hades

The brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were the most important gods of all. Zeus was the strongest and wisest of the three and ruled over the earth. Poseidon ruled the seas. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Hades had dark hair and a dark beard, and he drove a chariot drawn by four dark horses. He was married to Persephone, the queen of the dead.

Neither gods nor mortals liked Hades very much. This wasn’t really fair. Hades wasn’t mean or cruel. It just wasn’t his job to be kind or merciful. His duty was to make sure the dead stayed in the Underworld forever.

Few mortals ever went to the Underworld and made it back alive. One of these was the great singer Orpheus. When his wife, Eurydice, died, Orpheus went to the Underworld to bring her back.

Orpheus’s singing delighted Hades, so he agreed to let him take Eurydice back home. Hades made one rule, though. Orpheus wasn’t allowed to look at Eurydice as they fled the Underworld. But along the way, Orpheus turned to see if Eurydice was still following him. So she had to stay in the world of the dead forever.

There aren’t many stories about Hades. Because he rarely left the Underworld, he seldom had adventures. He just went about the unpleasant business of ruling the dead. When he did go out into the world of the living, it usually ended badly for him.

Once Hades left his realm in search of Sisyphus, the king of Corinth. Sisyphus was one of the cleverest mortals who ever lived. He managed to cheat death time and time again.

Hades planned to put Sisyphus in handcuffs and take him to the Underworld. Instead, the tricky king talked Hades into trying on the handcuffs himself. As long as Sisyphus held Hades hostage, nobody would ever die. The gods couldn’t allow that, so they pestered Sisyphus into letting Hades loose.

Sisyphus himself finally died and went to the Underworld. The gods knew that he might still be up to mischief even there. So they sentenced him to an impossible task.

Sisyphus had to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down again. Then he had to roll it back up the hill, only to have it roll down yet again. Poor Sisyphus had to do this again and again forever. At least it kept him from causing Hades any more trouble.

Eventually, the world of the dead itself came to be called Hades, after its king. A fierce three-headed dog named Cerberus guarded Hades. The river Styx flowed between Hades and the world of the living. A ferryman named Charon rowed dead souls across the Styx.

Here are some interesting facts about Hades’ story:

•The Ancient Greeks feared Hades so much that they avoided saying his name. Instead, they called him “Pluton,” which meant “the Rich.” This was because Hades’ realm was said to be the home of precious stones and metals. The Romans renamed Hades “Pluto.”

•Today, a plutocrat is someone who rules other people with wealth. A plutocracy is a government based on wealth.

•A small, distant object called Pluto was once thought to be the farthest planet from the sun. Today Pluto is no longer considered to be a planet at all. The farthest planet from the sun is called Neptune. This was the Roman name for Poseidon, the god of the sea.

•A task that seems pointless and endless is now sometimes called Sisyphean.

Apollo

Apollo was the twin brother of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and the Moon. Like his sister, Apollo loved hunting with a bow and arrow. He was the god of wisdom, poetry, and music.

Apollo was a handsome god, with long black hair. He drove a golden chariot drawn by swans. He was the leader of the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts.

This god liked lions, wolves, stags, crows, and dolphins. He also liked cattle, and once had a herd of his own. The baby Hermes stole that herd from him. But Apollo let Hermes keep the cattle in return for his lyre. The lyre was a kind of harp that Hermes had made out of a tortoise shell.

When Apollo was still a young god, he wanted to know his future. So he went to a town called Delphi, where a priestess was said to tell fortunes. She was called an “oracle.”

When Apollo arrived in Delphi, he found trouble awaiting him. A monster named Python was supposed to guard the oracle. But Python had turned cruel and was terrorizing the people of Delphi.

Apollo killed Python with his bare hands. Then the citizens of Delphi built a temple in his honor. The oracle kept telling people’s fortunes there.

After that, Apollo became known as the god of prophecy—which means the ability to foretell the future. He was believed to always tell the truth.

Apollo was also known as great healer. However, he sometimes caused disease as well. His son, Asclepius, was the god of medicine for a while. But Asclepius grew so powerful that he could raise the dead. The gods couldn’t allow that, so Zeus killed Asclepius with his thunderbolt.

Because Apollo was called the god of light, he was sometimes mistaken for the sun god. The real god of the sun was Helios, who drove a flaming chariot across the sky.

Helios once made a terrible mistake. He allowed his half-mortal son Phaeton to drive his chariot. But Phaeton couldn’t control Helios’s horses. He almost destroyed the world with that flaming chariot. Like Asclepius, Phaeton was killed by Zeus’s thunderbolt.

Here are some interesting facts about Apollo’s story:

•A huge snake called a python can be found in parts of Africa and Asia. It’s named after the monster that Apollo killed.

•In ancient times Delphi was said to be the center of the world. Its ruins are still visited today.

•The Pythian Games were an athletic event held every four years in Delphi. They were named after the monster slain by Apollo. Those games were something like today’s Olympics. The earliest Olympic games were also played in Ancient Greece.

•A priestess in Delphi really was believed to tell fortunes. Once she was asked about the Athenian philosopher Socrates. She said that no one in the world was wiser than he. Socrates was surprised, because he thought he knew nothing at all. He soon noticed that people who thought themselves wise knew no more than he did. So Socrates was truly wise in knowing himself to be ignorant.

•Today the word Apollonian means wise, prudent, and well thought-out. The god Dionysus was thought to be reckless and unruly, most unlike the calm and sensible Apollo. So the word Dionysian means wild, uncontrolled, and lacking reason.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was the god of fire. He was a blacksmith whose forge was in a volcano. His helpers were one-eyed giants called Cyclopes. He worked in bronze, iron, silver, and gold. He also made things out of clay, including living creatures. From clay he made Pandora, the first mortal woman in the world.

Hephaestus made many useful things for the gods. For the messenger god Hermes, he made a winged hat and winged sandals. For the sun god Helios, he made a golden chariot to ride across the sky. For the Eros, the god of love, he made a silver bow with silver arrows.

Hephaestus was a good-natured god who usually got along well with everybody. Even so, his mother, Hera, once got angry with him. She threw him off Olympus, the mountain where the gods lived. When he hit the ground, he broke his foot. A goddess named Thetis nursed him back to health. But he walked with a limp ever after that.

Good-natured though he was, Hephaestus didn’t forgive Hera. And he finally got even with her. He made a beautiful throne out of gold and offered it to her as a gift. When she sat on it, invisible chains wrapped around her wrists. She couldn’t get out of the throne, which rose up into the air.

All the gods tried to talk Hephaestus into letting Hera loose. Hephaestus finally did when the beautiful goddess Aphrodite agreed to marry him. Theirs wasn’t a happy marriage, though. Aphrodite was really in love with Ares, the god of war.

The goddess Thetis had a half-mortal son named Achilles. When Achilles was a baby, she bathed him in the river Styx. This was supposed to make him invulnerable, meaning impossible to hurt or kill. Even so, Thetis worried when Achilles got ready to go fight in the Trojan War.

Hephaestus made the best weapons and armor in the world. So Thetis asked Hephaestus to make a shield and armor for Achilles. Hephaestus was still grateful to Thetis for helping him after his fall from Olympus. So he was happy to do as she asked.

Hephaestus’s armor didn’t let Achilles down during the war. But Thetis had made one mistake. When she had dipped Achilles in the river Styx, she had held him by the heel. So his heel was not invulnerable. Achilles was killed by an arrow in his heel.

Here are some interesting facts about Hephaestus’s story:

•Pandora, the woman Hephaestus made from clay, was said to have had a box of evils. She opened the box, letting all those evils loose in the world. Today, to “open a Pandora’s box” means to cause a lot of trouble accidentally.

•The Romans gave Hephaestus the name Vulcan. That’s where the word “volcano” comes from.

•The word “vulcanization” also comes from the name Vulcan. Vulcanization is a process for hardening rubber, especially for tires. It uses extreme heat and sulfur.

•Today, a person’s weak spot is called an “Achilles’s heel,” after the story of how Achilles died.

•Human history is sometimes divided into three periods. These are named after the materials most used for tools in those times. The earliest was the Stone Age, followed by the Bronze Age, followed by the Iron Age. The stories about Hephaestus were told in the Iron Age, when blacksmithing was very important.

Hestia

The beautiful Hestia was the oldest of the gods of Olympus. She disliked gossip, so hardly any stories were told about he. But it would be a mistake to think she wasn’t important. In some ways, she was the most important of all the gods.

From the earliest times, the other gods of Olympus all had duties. Hermes carried messages, Ares was in charge of war, Artemis watched over all hunters, and Zeus ruled over everybody. Other gods had other jobs. But for a time, no one seemed to know what Hestia was supposed to do.

One day the gods Poseidon and Apollo told Zeus that they both loved Hestia. Both of them wanted to marry her. They demanded that Zeus choose between them. Otherwise, war would break out among the gods. And such a war would have been terrible indeed.

But Hestia solved the whole problem very simply. She refused ever to have a husband. Zeus was relieved and grateful to avoid a war. As a reward, he gave Hestia the keys to Olympus. He put her in charge of the gods’ everyday business. Hestia made sure that the gods always had plenty of food, clothing, and money. After all, even gods have to worry about such things!

Zeus also made Hestia the goddess of homes everywhere. It was she who taught mortals how to build houses. And every house had a sacred spot for her. That was the hearth, the center of family life.

Mortals prayed to Hestia more than to any of the other gods. Every family meal began and ended with a prayer to Hestia. Whenever a baby was born, the parents carried it around the hearth and prayed to Hestia. Mortals had a saying: “Begin with Hestia.” In other words, when doing anything, always start out in the right way.

Hestia lived a quiet life, leaving fame and adventure to others. Zeus’s half-mortal son Dionysus showed up on Olympus one day. He wanted to have a throne like the other important gods. Hestia gladly gave up her own throne for him. After all, she was too busy to spend much time sitting there.

Here are some interesting facts about Hestia’s story:

•A hearth in an Ancient Greek home wasn’t like today’s fireplaces. It wasn’t placed in a wall at the end of a room.

Instead, it was in the middle of the central room. Its coals burned all the time, whether for warmth or for cooking. In honor of Hestia, Greeks made sure that the fire never went out.

•Every Ancient Greek city also had a public hearth for all citizens. Hestia was sacred there also. When the people of one city founded another city, they took coals with them to light the new city’s hearth. As in hearths in private houses, the fires in public hearths were never allowed to die out.

•In Ancient Rome, Hestia was called by the name of Vesta. The six priestesses in her temple were called Vestals. Like Vesta herself, they never married.

•An asteroid called Vesta is named after the goddess. An asteroid is a body that orbits the sun but is much smaller than a planet. Although Vesta is only the second largest asteroid, it is the one most visible from Earth. The largest asteroid is called Ceres, the Roman name for the goddess Demeter.

At the centre of Greek Mythology is the group of powerful Gods who were said to live on Mt Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece.

Known as the Olympians, they gained control in a year-long war of Gods, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over the previous generation of ruling Gods, the Titans*.

From their perch, they ruled every aspect of human life. Olympian Gods and Goddesses looked like men and women (though they could change themselves into animals and other things) and were — as many myths described — vulnerable to human feelings, weaknesses and passions.

When things had to be decided about wars, punishments or everyday life, this council of 12 met on Mt Olympus to discuss them.

The Olympians all kept a home on Mt Olympus but Poseidon preferred his palace under the sea.

THE 12 OLYMPIANS:

1. Zeus: the King of all the Gods

2. Hera: the Queen of the Gods and Goddess of women and marriage

3. Aphrodite: Goddess of beauty and love

4. Apollo: God of prophecy, music and poetry and knowledge

5. Ares: God of war

6. Artemis: Goddess of hunting, animals and childbirth

7. Athena: Goddess of wisdom and defence

8. Demeter: Goddess of agriculture and grain

9. Dionysos: God of wine, pleasure and festivity

Hephaistos: God of fire, metalworking and sculpture

Hermes: God of travel, hospitality and trade and Zeus’s personal messenger

Poseidon: God of the sea

Other Gods and Goddesses sometimes included in the roster of Olympians are:

Hades: God of the underworld

Hestia: Goddess of home and family

Eros (also known as Cupid): God of Love

ZEUS: KING OF THE GODS
Often referred to as the “Father of Gods and men”, Zeus was a Sky God who controlled lightning, thunder and storms.

Zeus was the king of Mount Olympus, the home of Greek Gods, where he ruled the world and imposed his will on to Gods and humans.

Zeus was thought of as wise and fair, but his decisions were hard to predict at times and he could be easily angered. When he was in a bad mood, he was said to throw lightning bolts and cause violent storms that caused destruction* on Earth.

Zeus fell in love very easily and had many relationships, but he would severely punish anybody who attempted to fall in love with his wife Hera.

He is often described as a big, strong man with long, curly, hair. He was usually drawn with a beard and carried his trusty thunderbolt at all times.

Zeus was lucky to survive his birth.

His father, Cronus, King of the Titans, upon learning that one of his children was destined* to take his throne, swallowed his children as soon as they were born. But Rhea, his wife, saved the infant Zeus by substituting a stone wrapped in baby clothes for Cronus to swallow. She hid Zeus in a cave on the island of Crete. After Zeus grew to manhood he led a battle against the Titans and succeeded in forcing Cronus off the throne.

• ZEUS FACTS:
  Title: King of Olympus
• Rules over: Skies, thunder, lightning, hospitality, honour, kingship and order
• Gender: male
• Symbols: lightning, thunderbolt, set of scales, oak tree, royal sceptor
• Sacred animals: eagle, wolf, woodpecker
• Parents: Cronus and Rhea

NOTE: For more information on the other Olympian Gods, please see the story Greek Gods of Mt Olympus.

GLOSSARY

• The Titans: any of a family of giants in Greek mythology born to Uranus and Gaea and ruling the Earth until overthrown by the Olympian gods.
• destruction: damaging something so badly it falls into ruins
• destined: meant to happen in the future

EXTRA READING
Part One: What is Greek Mythology
Part Three: Greek Gods of Mt Olympus

QUICK QUIZ

1. How many Olympian Gods and Goddesses were there?
2. Where did they live?
3. Who did they defeat in the year war?
4. Which God preferred to live in his underwater palace?
5. How did Zeus’s mother save his life as an infant?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Refer to the accompanying Greek Myths and Legends classroom workbook with 25 activities. Can be purchased for $5 including GST at ingalex.de

HAVE YOUR SAY: If you could choose to be one of the 12 Olympians, who would you choose to be?
No one-word answers. Use full sentences to explain your thinking. No comments will show until approved by editors.

For other uses, see Demeter (disambiguation).

Greek goddess of the harvest, grains, and agriculture

Demeter
A marble statue of Demeter, National Roman Museum
Other names	Sito, Thesmophoros
Abode	Mount Olympus
Symbol	Cornucopia, wheat, torch, bread
Festivals	Thesmophoria, Eleusinian Mysteries
Parents	Cronus and Rhea
Siblings	Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, Chiron
Children	Persephone, Despoina, Arion, Plutus, Philomelus, Iacchus, Hecate(Orphic)
Roman equivalent	Ceres
Egyptian equivalent	Isis

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter (; Attic: ΔημήτηρDēmḗtēr[dɛːmɛ́ːtɛːr]; Doric: ΔαμάτηρDāmā́tēr) is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over grains and the fertility of the earth. She is also called Deo (Δηώ).^[1]

Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain",^[2] as the giver of food or grain,^[3] and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; φόρος, phoros: bringer, bearer), "giver of customs" or "legislator", in association with the secret female-only festival called the Thesmophoria.^[4]

Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious tradition that predated the Olympian pantheon, and which may have its roots in the Mycenaean period c. – BC.^[5] One of the most notable Homeric Hymns, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, tells the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's search for her.

Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele, and she was identified with the Roman goddess Ceres.

Etymology[edit]

It is possible that Demeter appears in Linear A as da-ma-te on three documents (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three apparently dedicated in religious situations and all three bearing just the name (i-da-ma-te on AR Zf 1 and 2).^[6] It is unlikely that Demeter appears as da-ma-te in a Linear B (Mycenean Greek) inscription (PY En ); the word 𐀅𐀔𐀳, da-ma-te, probably refers to "households".^[7][8] On the other hand, 𐀯𐀵𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja, "Potnia of the Grain", is regarded as referring to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets.^[9]

Demeter's character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter (μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *méh₂tēr (mother).^[10] In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name. It is possible that Da (Δᾶ),^[11] a word which corresponds to Gē (Γῆ) in Attic, is the Doric form of De (Δῆ), "earth", the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is "Mother-Earth".^[12] Liddell & Scott find this "improbable" and Beekes writes, "there is no indication that [da] means "earth", although it has also been assumed in the name of Poseidon found in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".^[13][14][15]John Chadwick also argues that the dā element in the name of Demeter is not so simply equated with "earth".^[16]

M. L. West has proposed that the word Demeter, initially Damater, could be a borrowing from an Illyrian deity attested in the Messapic goddess Damatura, with a form dā- ("earth", from PIE *dʰǵʰ(e)m-) attached to -matura ("mother"), akin to the Illyrian god Dei-paturos (dei-, "sky", attached to -paturos, "father"). The Lesbian form Dō- may simply reflect a different dialectal pronunciation of the non-Greek name.^[17]

According to a more popular theory,^[18] the element De- might be connected with Deo, an epithet of Demeter^[19] and it could derive from the Cretan word dea (δηά), Ionic zeia (ζειά)—variously identified with emmer, spelt, rye, or other grains by modern scholars—so that she is the Mother and the giver of food generally.^[20][21] This view is shared by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison, who suggests that Démeter's name means Grain-Mother, instead of Earth-Mother.^[18]

Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (Greek: Πάρεδρος, Paredros) in Mycenaean cult.^[22] The Arcadian cult links her to the god Poseidon, who probably substituted the male companion of the Great Goddess; Demeter may therefore be related to a Minoan Great Goddess (Cybele).^[23]

An alternative Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through Potnia and Despoina, where Des- represents a derivative of PIE*dem (house, dome), and Demeter is "mother of the house" (from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr).^[24]R. S. P. Beekes rejects a Greek interpretation, but not necessarily an Indo-European one.^[14]

Iconography[edit]

Demeter was frequently associated with images of the harvest, including flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with her daughter Persephone. Demeter is not generally portrayed with any of her consorts; the exception is Iasion, the youth of Crete who lay with her in a thrice-ploughed field, and was killed afterwards by a jealous Zeus with a thunderbolt.

Demeter is assigned the zodiac constellation Virgo the Virgin by Marcus Manilius in his 1st century Roman work Astronomicon. In art, constellation Virgo holds Spica, a sheaf of wheat in her hand and sits beside constellation Leo the Lion.^[25]

In Arcadia, she was known as "Black Demeter". She was said to have taken the form of a mare to escape the pursuit of her younger brother, Poseidon, and having been raped by him despite her disguise, dressed all in black and retreated into a cave to mourn and to purify herself. She was consequently depicted with the head of a horse in this region.^[26]

A sculpture of the Black Demeter was made by Onatas.^[27]

Description[edit]

As goddess of agriculture[edit]

Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling Metaneira, who offers the triunewheat (c.&#; BC)

In epic poetry and Hesiod's Theogony, Demeter is the Corn-Mother, the goddess of cereals who provides grain for bread and blesses its harvesters. This was her main function at Eleusis, and became panhellenic. In Cyprus, "grain-harvesting" was damatrizein.

The main theme in the Eleusinian Mysteries was the reunion of Persephone with her mother Demeter, when new crops were reunited with the old seed, a form of eternity.

According to the Athenian rhetoricianIsocrates, Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife.^[28]

These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults. In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonic Zeus) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong.^[29] Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley.^[30]

Demeter was also zeidoros arοura, the Homeric "Mother Earth arοura" who gave the gift of cereals (zeai or deai).^[31]

As an earth and underworld goddess[edit]

In addition to her role as an agricultural goddess, Demeter was often worshipped more generally as a goddess of the earth. In Arcadia, she was represented as snake-haired, holding a dove and dolphin, perhaps to symbolize her power over the underworld, the air, and the water.

In the cult of Flya, she was worshiped as Anesidora, one who sends up gifts from the underworld. There was a temple of Demeter under this name in Phlya in Attica.^[32][33][34]

In Sparta, she was known as Demeter-Chthonia (chthonic Demeter).^[35] The Athenians called the dead "Demetrioi",^[36] and this may reflect a link between Demeter and ancient cult of the dead, linked to the agrarian-belief that a new life would sprout from the dead body, as a new plant arises from buried seed.

This was probably a belief shared by initiates in Demeter's mysteries, as interpreted by Pindar: "Happy is he who has seen what exists under the earth, because he knows not only the end of life, but also his beginning that the Gods will give".^{[citation needed]}

In the mysteries of Pheneos in Arcadia, Demeter was known as Cidaria.^[37] Her priest would put on the mask of Demeter, which was kept in a secret place. The cult may have been connected with both the underworld and a form of agrarian magic.^[38]

As a poppy goddess[edit]

Theocritus described one of Demeter's earlier roles as that of a goddess of poppies:

For the Greeks, Demeter was still a poppy goddess

Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. — Idyll vii

Karl Kerényi asserted that poppies were connected with a Cretan cult which was eventually carried to the Eleusinian Mysteries in Classical Greece. In a clay statuette from Gazi,^[39] the Minoan poppy goddess wears the seed capsules, sources of nourishment and narcosis, in her diadem. According to Kerényi, "It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis and it is almost certain that in the Cretan cult sphere opium was prepared from poppies."^[40]

Robert Graves speculated that the meaning of the depiction and use of poppies in the Greco-Roman myths is the symbolism of the bright scarlet color as signifying the promise of resurrection after death.^[41]

Other functions and titles[edit]

Demeter's epithets show her many religious functions. She was the "Corn-Mother" who blesses the harvesters. Some cults interpreted her as "Mother-Earth". Demeter may be linked to goddess-cults of Minoan Crete, and embody aspects of a pre-Hellenic Mother Goddess.^[42]

The most common epithets of Demeter are:

Achaea, Ἀχαία (" probably from achaine: loaf ,or achos: grief").^[43][44] She was worshipped at Athens by the Gephyraeans who had emigrated from Boeotia.^[45][46]

Aganippe, Ἀγανίππη ("the Mare who destroys mercifully", "Night-Mare").

Anesidora, Ἀνησιδώρα ("sender-up of gifts") at Phlya in Attica.^[47]

Cabeiraea, Καβειραία΄ ("Related with the Cabeiri")^[48] at Thebes.

Chloe, Χλόη, ("Green"),^[49] that invokes her powers of ever-returning fertility, as does Chthonia.

Chthonia, Χθονία, ("under or beneath the earth") in Laconia.^[50]

Despoina, Δέσποινα ("mistress of the house"), a Greek word similar to the Myceneanpotnia. This title was also applied to Persephone, Aphrodite and Hecate.

Europa, Εὐρώπη, "broad face or eyes" at Livadeia of Boeotia. She was the nurse of Trophonios to whom a chthonic cult and oracle was dedicated.^[51]

Eleusinia, Ἐλευσίνια in the Mysteries at Pheneus.^[52][53][54]

Erinys, Ερινύς, ("Fury"),^[55] with a function similar with the function of the avenging Dike (Justice), goddess of moral justice based on custom rules who represents the divine retribution,^[56] and the Erinyes, female ancient chthonic deities of vengeance and implacable agents of retribution.

IouloἸουλώ, ("related with corn-sheafs") ^[57]

Karpophorus, Καρποφόρος ("fruit bearing").^[58]

Kidaria, Κιδαρία ("kidaris&#;: Arcadian dance")^[59] at Pheneus.^[60]

Lusia, Λουσία, ("Bather").^[61]

Malophorus, Μαλοφόρος, ("Apple-bearer" or "Sheep-bearer") ^[62] at Megara and Selinus. ^[63]

Melaina, Μέλαινα ("black") .^[64]

Mysia, Μυσία^[65] at Pellene.^[66][67]

Potnia, Πότνια, ("mistress") in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Hera especially, but also Artemis and Athena, are addressed as "potnia" as well.

Prosymne, Προσύμνη ("to whom one addresses hymns") at Lerna.^[68]

Thermasia, Θερμασία ("Warmth") at Hermione.^[69]

Thesmia, Θεσμία ("law goddess") in the Mysteries at Pheneus.^[70][71][72]

Thesmophoros, Θεσμοφόρος, ("giver of customs" or "legislator"), a title connected with the Thesmophoria, a festival of secret women-only rituals connected with marriage customs.^[4][73]

Worship[edit]

Terracotta Demeter figurine, Sanctuary of the Underworld Divinities, Akragas, – BC

In Crete[edit]

The earliest recorded worship of a deity possibly equivalent to Demeter is found in Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of c. – BC found at Pylos. The tablets describe worship of the "two queens and the king",^[74] which may be related to Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.^[5] An early name which may refer to Demeter, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja (Sito Potnia), appears in Linear B inscriptions found at Mycenae and Pylos.^[75] In Crete, Poseidon was often given the title wa-na-ka (wanax) in Linear B inscriptions, in his role as king of the underworld, and his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne indicates his chthonic nature. In the cave of Amnisos, Enesidaon is associated with the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth,^[76] who was involved with the annual birth of the divine child.^[77] During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cults, and Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (paredros) in the Mycenean cult.^[76] Elements of this early form of worship survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "the mighty Potnia had born a strong son."^[78]

On the Greek mainland[edit]

Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King"&#;:wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were no longer associated with Poseidon in later periods.^[74]

Major cults to Demeter are known at Eleusis in Attica, Hermion (in Crete), Megara, Celeae, Lerna, Aegila, Munychia, Corinth, Delos, Priene, Akragas, Iasos, Pergamon, Selinus, Tegea, Thoricus, Dion (in Macedonia)^[79]Lykosoura, Mesembria, Enna (Sicily), and Samothrace.

An ancient Amphictyony, probably the earliest centred on the cult of Demeter at Anthele (Ἀνθήλη), which lay on the coast of Malis south of Thessaly. This was the locality of Thermopylae.^[80][81]

After the "First Sacred War", the Anthelan body was known thenceforth as the Delphic Amphictyony^[80]

Mysian Demeter had a seven-day festival at Pellené in Arcadia. The geographer Pausainias passed the shrine to Mysian Demeter on the road from Mycenae to Argos, and reports that according to Argive tradition the shrine was founded by an Archive named Mysius who venerated Demeter.^[82]

Festivals[edit]

Main articles: Eleusinian Mysteries and Thesmophoria

Demeter's two major festivals were sacred mysteries. Her Thesmophoria festival (11–13 October) was women-only.^[83] Her Eleusinian mysteries were open to initiates of any gender or social class. At the heart of both festivals were myths concerning Demeter as Mother and Persephone as her daughter.

Conflation with other goddesses[edit]

In the Roman period, Demeter became conflated with the Roman agricultural goddess Ceres under the Interpretatio graeca.^[84] The worship of Demeter was formally merged with that of Ceres around BC, along with the ritus graecia cereris, a Greek-inspired form of cult, as part of Rome's general religious recruitment of deities as allies against Carthage, towards the end of the Second Punic War. The cult originated in southern Italy (part of Magna Graecia) and was probably based on the Thesmophoria, a mystery cult dedicated to Demeter and Persephone as "Mother and Maiden". It arrived along with its Greek priestesses, who were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention".^[85] The new cult was installed in the already ancient Temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera, Rome's Aventine patrons of the plebs; from the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at Enna, in Sicily, was acknowledged as Ceres' oldest, most authoritative cult center, and Libera was recognized as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Persephone.^[86] Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone, after the latter's abduction into the underworld by Hades (or Pluto). At the Aventine, the new cult took its place alongside the old. It made no reference to Liber, whose open and gender-mixed cult continued to play a central role in plebeian culture, as a patron and protector of plebeian rights, freedoms and values. The exclusively female initiates and priestesses of the new "greek style" mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, patrician-dominated social hierarchy and traditional morality. Unmarried girls should emulate the chastity of Proserpina, the maiden; married women should seek to emulate Ceres, the devoted and fruitful Mother. Their rites were intended to secure a good harvest, and increase the fertility of those who partook in the mysteries.^[87]

Beginning in the 5th century BCE in Asia Minor, Demeter was also considered equivalent to the Phrygian goddess Cybele.^[88] Demeter's festival of Thesmophoria was popular throughout Asia Minor, and the myth of Persephone and Adonis in many ways mirrors the myth of Cybele and Attis.^[89]

Some late antique sources syncretized several "great goddess" figures into a single deity. The Platonist philosopher Apuleius, writing in the late 2nd century, identified Ceres (Demeter) with Isis, having her declare:

I, mother of the universe, mistress of all the elements, first-born of the ages, highest of the gods, queen of the shades, first of those who dwell in heaven, representing in one shape all gods and goddesses. My will controls the shining heights of heaven, the health-giving sea-winds, and the mournful silences of hell; the entire world worships my single godhead in a thousand shapes, with divers rites, and under many a different name. The Phrygians, first-born of mankind, call me the Pessinuntian Mother of the gods; the ancient Eleusinians Actaean Ceres; and the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning, honour me with the worship which is truly mine and call me by my true name: Queen Isis.

--Apuleius, translated by E. J. Kenny. The Golden Ass^[90]

Mythology[edit]

Lovers and children[edit]

Some of the earliest accounts of Demeter's relationships to other deities comes from Hesiod's Theogony, written c. BC. In it, Demeter is described as the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.^[91]

Demeter's most well-known relationship is with her daughter, Persephone, queen of the underworld. Both Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter(2), describe Persephone as the daughter of Zeus and his older sister, Demeter,^[92] though no myths exist describing her conception or birth. The exception is a fragment of the lost Orphic theogony, which preserves part of a myth in which Zeus mates with his mother, Rhea, in the form of a snake, explaining the origin of the symbol on Hermes' staff. Their daughter is said to be Persephone, whom Zeus in turn mates with to conceive Dionysus. According to the Orphic fragments, "After becoming the mother of Zeus, she who was formerly Rhea became Demeter."^[93][94]

Before her abduction by Hades, Persephone was known as Kore ("maiden"), and there is some evidence that the figures of Persephone Queen of the Underworld and Kore daughter of Demeter were originally considered separate goddesses.^[95] However, they must have become conflated with each other by the time of Hesiod in the 7th century BC.^[89] Demeter and Persephone were often worshiped together and were often referred to by joint cultic titles. In their cult at Eleusis, they were referred to simply as "the goddesses", often distinguished as "the older" and "the younger"; in Rhodes and Sparta, they were worshiped as "the Demeters"; in the Thesmophoria, they were known as "the thesmophoroi" ("the legislators").^[96] In Arcadia they were known as "the Great Goddesses" and "the mistresses".^{[citation needed]} In Mycenaean Pylos, Demeter and Persephone were probably called the "queens" (wa-na-ssoi).^[74]

Both Homer and Hesiod, writing c. BC, described Demeter making love with the agricultural hero Iasion in a ploughed field.^[97] According to Hesiod, this union resulted in the birth of Plutus.

According to Diodorus Siculus, in his Bibliotheca historica written in the 1st century BC, Demeter and Zeus were also the parents of Dionysus. Diodorus described the myth of Dionysus' double birth (once from the earth, i.e. Demeter, when the plant sprouts) and once from the vine (when the fruit sprouts from the plant). Diodorus also related a version of the myth of Dionysus' destruction by the Titans ("sons of Gaia"), who boiled him, and how Demeter gathered up his remains so that he could be born a third time (Diod. iii). Diodorus states that Dionysus' birth from Zeus and his older sister Demeter was somewhat of a minority belief, possibly via conflation of Demeter with her daughter, as most sources state that the parents of Dionysus were Zeus and Persephone, and later Zeus and Semele.^[98]

In Arcadia, a major Arcadian deity known as Despoina ("Mistress") was said to be the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon. According to Pausanias, a Thelpusian tradition said that during Demeter's search for Persephone, Poseidon pursued her. Demeter turned into a horse in order to avoid her younger brother's advances, but he turned into a stallion and mated with the goddess, resulting in the birth of the horse god Arion and a daughter "whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated".^[99] Elsewhere he says that the Phigalians assert that the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, was not a horse but in fact Despoina, "as the Arcadians call her".^[]

In Orphic literature, Demeter seems to be the mother of the witchcraft goddess Hecate.^[]

Abduction of Persephone[edit]

Demeter's daughter Persephone was abducted to the underworld by Hades, who received permission from her father Zeus to take her as his bride. Demeter searched for her ceaselessly, preoccupied with her grief. The seasons halted; living things ceased their growth, then began to die.^[] Faced with the extinction of all life on earth, Zeus sent his messenger Hermes to the underworld to bring Persephone back. Hades agreed to release her if she had eaten nothing while in his realm; but Persephone had eaten a small number of pomegranateseeds. This bound her to Hades and the underworld for certain months of every year, either the dry Mediterranean summer, when plant life is threatened by drought,^[] or the autumn and winter.^[] There are several variations on the basic myth; the earliest account, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, relates that Persephone is secretly slipped a pomegranate seed by Hades^[] and in Ovid's version,^[] Persephone willingly and secretly eats the pomegranate seeds, thinking to deceive Hades, but is discovered and made to stay. Contrary to popular perception, Persephone's time in the underworld does not correspond with the unfruitful seasons of the ancient Greek calendar, nor her return to the upper world with springtime.^[] Demeter's descent to retrieve Persephone from the underworld is connected to the Eleusinian Mysteries.^[]

Demeter rejoiced, for her daughter was by her side.

The myth of the capture of Persephone seems to be pre-Greek. In the Greek version, Ploutos (πλούτος, wealth) represents the wealth of the corn that was stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (pithoi). Similar subterranean pithoi were used in ancient times for funerary practices. At the beginning of the autumn, when the corn of the old crop is laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter, for at this time the old crop and the new meet each other.^[]

According to the personal mythology of Robert Graves,^[] Persephone is not only the younger self of Demeter,^[] she is in turn also one of three guises of the Triple Goddess&#;– Kore (the youngest, the maiden, signifying green young grain), Persephone (in the middle, the nymph, signifying the ripe grain waiting to be harvested), and Hecate (the eldest of the three, the crone, the harvested grain), which to a certain extent reduces the name and role of Demeter to that of group name. Before her abduction, she is called Kore; and once taken she becomes Persephone ('she who brings destruction').^[]

Demeter at Eleusis[edit]

Demeter's search for her daughter Persephone took her to the palace of Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. She assumed the form of an old woman, and asked him for shelter. He took her in, to nurse Demophon and Triptolemus, his sons by Metanira. To reward his kindness, she planned to make Demophon immortal; she secretly anointed the boy with ambrosia and laid him in the flames of the hearth, to gradually burn away his mortal self. But Metanira walked in, saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright. Demeter abandoned the attempt. Instead, she taught Triptolemus the secrets of agriculture, and he in turn taught them to any who wished to learn them. Thus, humanity learned how to plant, grow and harvest grain. The myth has several versions; some are linked to figures such as Eleusis, Rarus and Trochilus. The Demophon element may be based on an earlier folk tale.^[]

Demeter and Iasion[edit]

Homer's Odyssey (c. late 8th century BC) contains perhaps the earliest direct references to the myth of Demeter and her consort Iasion, a Samothracian hero whose name may refer to bindweed, a small white flower that frequently grows in wheat fields. In the Odyssey, Calypso describes how Demeter, "without disguise", made love to Iasion. "So it was when Demeter of the braided tresses followed her heart and lay in love with Iasion in the triple-furrowed field; Zeus was aware of it soon enough and hurled the bright thunderbolt and killed him."^[] However, Ovid states that Iasion lived up to old age as the husband of Demeter.^[] In ancient Greek culture, part of the opening of each agricultural year involved the cutting of three furrows in the field to ensure its fertility.^[]

Hesiod expanded on the basics of this myth. According to him, the liaison between Demeter and Iasion took place at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia in Crete. Demeter, in this version, had lured Iasion away from the other revelers. Hesiod says that Demeter subsequently gave birth of Plutus.^[]

Demeter and Poseidon[edit]

In Arcadia, located in what is now southern Greece, the major goddess Despoina was considered the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon Hippios, Horse-Poseidon. In the associated myths, Poseidon represents the river spirit of the underworld, and he appears as a horse as often happens in northern European folklore. The myth describes how he pursued his older sister, Demeter, who hid from him among the horses of King Onkios, but even in the form of a mare, she could not conceal her divinity. In the form of a stallion, Poseidon caught and raped his older sister. Demeter was furious at Poseidon's assault; in this furious form, she became known as Demeter Erinys. Her anger at Poseidon drove her to dress all in black and retreat into a cave in order to purify herself, an act which was the cause of a universal famine. Demeter's absence caused the death of crops, of livestock, and eventually of the people who depended on them (later Arcadian tradition held that it was both her rage at Poseidon and her loss of her daughter that caused the famine, merging the two myths).^[26] Demeter washed away her anger in the River Ladon, becoming Demeter Lousia, the "bathed Demeter".^[]

"In her alliance with Poseidon," Kerényi noted,^[] "she was Earth, who bears plants and beasts, and could therefore assume the shape of an ear of grain or a mare." She bore a daughter Despoina (Δέσποινα: the "Mistress"), whose name should not be uttered outside the Arcadian Mysteries,^[] and a horse named Arion, with a black mane and tail.

At Phigaleia, a xoanon (wood-carved statue) of Demeter was erected in a cave which, tradition held, was the cave into which Black Demeter retreated. The statue depicted a Medusa-like figure with a horse's head and snake-like hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, which probably represented her power over air and water:^[]

The second mountain, Mount Elaius, is some thirty stades away from Phigalia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter surnamed Black the Phigalians say, they concluded that this cavern was sacred to Demeter and set up in it a wooden image. The image, they say, was made after this fashion. It was seated on a rock, like to a woman in all respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and there grew out of her head images of serpents and other beasts. Her tunic reached right to her feet; on one of her hands was a dolphin, on the other a dove. Now why they had the image made after this fashion is plain to any intelligent man who is learned in traditions. They say that they named her Black because the goddess had black apparel. They cannot relate either who made this wooden image or how it caught fire. But the old image was destroyed, and the Phigalians gave the goddess no fresh image, while they neglected for the most part her festivals and sacrifices, until the barrenness fell on the land.

—&#;Pausanias, &#;4.

Demeter and Baubo[edit]

In the Orphic tradition, a mortal woman named Baubo received Demeter as her guest, and offered her meal and wine. Demeter declined them both, on account of her mourning over the loss of Persephone. Baubo then, thinking she had displeased the goddess, lifted her skirt and showed her genitalia to the goddess, simultaneously revealing Iacchus, Demeter's son. Demeter was most pleased with the sight, and delighted she accepted the food and wine.^[][] This tale survives in the account of Clement of Alexandria, a Christian who tried to discredit pagan practices and mythology. However several Baubo figurines (figurines of women revealing their vulvas) have been discovered, supporting the story.

Demeter and Erysichthon[edit]

Demeter orders Famine to strike Erysichthon, Elisha Whittelsey Collection

Another myth involving Demeter's rage resulting in famine is that of Erysichthon, king of Thessaly.^[26] The myth tells of Erysichthon ordering all of the trees in one of Demeter's sacred groves to be cut down. One tree, a huge oak, was found to be covered with votive wreaths, symbols of the prayers Demeter had granted, and so Erysichthon's men refused to cut it down. The king used an axe to cut it down himself, killing a dryad nymph in the process. The nymph's dying words were a curse on Erysichthon. Demeter punished the king by calling upon Limos, the spirit of unrelenting and insatiable hunger, to enter his stomach. The more the king ate, the hungrier he became. Erysichthon sold all his possessions to buy food, but was still hungry. Finally, he sold his own daughter, Mestra, into slavery. Mestra was freed from slavery by her former lover, Poseidon, who gave her the gift of shape-shifting into any creature at will to escape her bonds. Erysichthon used her shape-shifting ability to sell her numerous times to make more money to feed himself, but no amount of food was enough. Eventually, Erysichthon ate himself.^[]

Psyche[edit]

In the tale of Eros and Psyche, Demeter along with her sister Hera visited Aphrodite, raging with fury about the girl who had married her son. Aphrodite asked the two of them to search for her; the two of them try to talk sense into her, arguing that her son is not a little boy, although he might appear as one, and there's no harm in him falling in love with Psyche. Aphrodite took offence at their words.^[]

Sometime later, Psyche in her wanderings came across an abandoned shrine of Demeter, and sorted out the neglected sickles and harvest implements she found there. As she was doing so, Demeter appeared to her, and called from afar; she warned the girl of Aphrodite's great wrath and her plan to take revenge on her. Then Psyche begged the goddess to help her, but Demeter answered that she could not interfere and incur Aphrodite's anger at her; and for that reason Psyche had to leave the shrine, or else be kept as a captive of hers.^[]

Ascalabus[edit]

While she was travelling far and wide looking for her daughter, Demeter arrived exhausted in Attica. A woman named Misme took her in and offered her a cup of water with pennyroyal and barley groats in it, for it was a hot day. Demeter, in her thirst, swallowed the drink clumsily. Witnessing that, Misme's son Ascalabus laughed and mocked her and asked her if she would like a deep jar of that drink.^[] Demeter then poured her drink over him and turned him into a gecko, hated by both men and gods. It was said that Demeter showed her favour to those who killed geckos.^[]

Minthe[edit]

Before Hades abducted her daughter, he had kept the nymph Minthe as his mistress. But after he married Persephone, he set Minthe aside. Minthe would often brag about being lovelier than Persephone, and saying Hades would soon come back to her and kick Persephone out of his halls. Demeter, hearing that, grew angry and trampled Minthe; from the earth then sprang a lovely-smelling herb named after the nymph.^[] In other versions, Persephone herself is the one who kills and turns Minthe into a plant for sleeping with Hades.^[][][]

Pelops[edit]

Once Tantalus, a son of Zeus, invited the gods over for dinner. Tantalus, wanting to test them, cut his son Pelops, cooked him and offered him as meal to them. They all saw through Tantalus' crime except Demeter, who ate Pelops' shoulder before the gods brought him back to life.^[]

Other wrath myths[edit]

In the Argive version of this myth, when Demeter arrived in Argolis, a man named Colontas refused to receive her in his house, whereas his daughter Chthonia disapproved of his actions. Colontas was punished by being burnt along with his house, while Demeter took Chthonia to Hermione, where she built a sanctuary for the goddess.^[]

Demeter pinned Ascalaphus under a rock for reporting, as sole witness, to Hades that Persephone had consumed some pomegranate seeds.^[] Later, after Heracles rolled the stone off Ascalaphus, Demeter turned him into a short-eared owl instead.^[]

Demeter also turned the Sirens into half-bird monsters for not helping her daughter Persephone when she was abducted by Hades.^[]

Other favour myths[edit]

Demeter gave Triptolemus her serpent-drawn chariot and seed, and bade him scatter it across the earth (teach mankind the knowledge of agriculture). Triptolemus rode through Europe and Asia until he came to the land of Lyncus, a Scythian king. Lyncus pretended to offer what's accustomed of hospitality to him, but once Triptolemus fell asleep, he attacked him with a dagger, wanting to take credit of his work. Demeter then saved Triptolemus by turning Lyncus into a lynx, and ordered Triptolemus to return home air-borne.^[]Hyginus records a very similar myth, in which Demeter saves Triptolemus from an evil king named Carnabon who additionally seized Triptolemus' chariot and killed one of the dragons, so he might not escape; Demeter restored the chariot to Triptolemus, substituted the dead dragon with another one, and punished Carnabon by putting him among the stars holding a dragon as if to kill it.^[]

During her wanderings, Demeter came upon the town of Pheneus; to the Pheneates that receives her warmly and offered her shelter she gave all sorts of pulse, except for beans, deeming it impure.^[] Two of the Pheneates, Trisaules and Damithales, had a temple of Demeter built for her.^[] Demeter also gifted a fig tree to Phytalus, an Eleusinian man, for welcoming her in his home.^[]

When her son Philomelus invented the plow and used it to cultivate the fields, Demeter was so impressed by his good work she immortalized him in the sky by turning him into a constellation, the Boötes.^[]

Besides giving gifts to those who were welcoming to her, Demeter was also a goddess who nursed the young; all of Plemaeus's children born by his first wife died in cradle; Demeter took pity of him and reared herself his son Orthopolis.^[] Plemaeus built a temple to her to thank her.^[] Demeter also raised Trophonius, the prophetic son of either Apollo or Erginus.^[]

Genealogy[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

This is a five-reel video slot based on a popular land-based game. As with many titles developed by Scientific Games, it comes with selectable paylines and widely varying wagers. Why not give our free play demo a shot?

Head over to casino to play for real money. It&#;s arguably the number one casino for March .

Instant Play > Start!Play Free Demo Version Directly in Your Browser

Real Money Casinos Where You Can Play Zeus

An Overview of the Rules and Features

As the God of Gods, with his name enshrined immortally as the title to this game, you&#;d expect Zeus to be the main man here, and that&#;s certainly the case. He is the highest paying symbol on these godly reels, and the rest of the symbols conjure up visions of the epic ancient Greek myths. Pegasus the unicorn is the next highest payer, followed by the Trojan boat, then a Greek soldier&#;s helmet, a harp, an opulent vase, gold and silver coins, and a wreath. The wild symbol is a temple, and it&#;s wild for all symbols except the Feature symbol, which is represented by a thunderbolt emanating from a clenched fist. The bonus feature is triggered when three or more Feature symbols appear on the reels, and this will bring you to a frenetic festival of free spins. Five scattered Feature symbols gets you free spins, and that&#;s pretty majestic as far as we&#;re concerned. Four Feature symbols gets you 25 free spins, while three nets you ten. That&#;s the main gameplay hook here, so keep your eyes peeled for those thunderbolts.

All Symbols and Payouts (total bet value of 30)

Video Preview: See it in Action!

Other Variants of this Slot

There is also a newer version of this game called Zeus The game is basically an updrade on this one. Some rules are different, including the number of paylines, but the biggest difference is a special feature which provides more rows and reels for you to spin. You can read the full Zeus review here

Conclusion – Decent not Divine

As Plato once said, the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. So, perhaps it&#;s unwise of us to suggest we know that this game is alright. It&#;s a solid effort but it lacks the touch of flair and majesty you might anticipate with a Zeus-themed slot. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad, and you&#;ll go positively crazy if you win the mega max win of , coins. With flexible wagers and selectable paylines, there&#;s no strict entry requirements to spin these reels up at Mount Olympus, although some of the gods might get a bit finicky if you don&#;t play wearing a toga and wreath. If you&#;ve played the game, let us know what you think in the box below!

For other uses, see Demeter (disambiguation).

Greek goddess of the harvest, grains, and agriculture

Demeter
A marble statue of Demeter, National Roman Museum
Other names	Sito, Thesmophoros
Abode	Mount Olympus
Symbol	Cornucopia, wheat, torch, bread
Festivals	Thesmophoria, Eleusinian Mysteries
Parents	Cronus and Rhea
Siblings	Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, Chiron
Children	Persephone, Despoina, Arion, Plutus, Philomelus, Iacchus, Hecate(Orphic)
Roman equivalent	Ceres
Egyptian equivalent	Isis

In ancient Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus religion and mythology, Demeter (; Attic: ΔημήτηρDēmḗtēr[dɛːmɛ́ːtɛːr]; Doric: ΔαμάτηρDāmā́tēr) is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over grains and the fertility of the earth. She is also called Deo (Δηώ).^[1]

Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain",^[2] as the giver of food or grain,^[3] and Thesmophoros (θεσμός, thesmos: divine order, unwritten law; φόρος, phoros: bringer, bearer), "giver of customs" or "legislator", in association with the secret female-only festival called the Thesmophoria.^[4]

Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious tradition that predated the Olympian pantheon, and which may have its roots in the Mycenaean period c. – BC.^[5] One of the most notable Homeric Hymns, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, tells the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades and Demeter's search for her.

Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele, and she was identified with the Roman goddess Ceres.

Etymology[edit]

It is possible that Demeter appears in Linear A Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus da-ma-te on three documents (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three apparently dedicated in religious situations and all three bearing just the name (i-da-ma-te on AR Zf 1 and 2).^[6] It is unlikely that Demeter appears as da-ma-te in a Linear B (Mycenean Greek) inscription (PY En ); the word 𐀅𐀔𐀳, da-ma-te, probably refers to "households".^[7][8] On the other hand, 𐀯𐀵𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja, "Potnia of the Grain", is regarded as referring to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets.^[9]

Demeter's character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name meter (μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *méh₂tēr (mother).^[10] In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name. It is possible that Da (Δᾶ),^[11] a word which corresponds to Gē (Γῆ) in Attic, is the Doric form of De (Δῆ), "earth", the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess, and that Demeter is "Mother-Earth".^[12] Liddell & Scott find this "improbable" and Beekes writes, "there is no indication that [da] means "earth", although it has also been assumed in the name of Poseidon found in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne, "earth-shaker".^[13][14][15]John Chadwick also argues that the dā element in the name of Demeter is not so simply equated with "earth".^[16]

M. L. West has proposed that the word Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, tropicana casino Damater, could be a borrowing from an Illyrian deity attested in the Messapic goddess Damatura, with a form dā- ("earth", from PIE *dʰǵʰ(e)m-) attached to -matura ("mother"), akin to the Illyrian god Dei-paturos (dei-, "sky", attached to -paturos, "father"). The Lesbian form Dō- may simply reflect a different dialectal pronunciation of the non-Greek name.^[17]

According to a more popular theory,^[18] the element De- might be connected with Deo, an epithet of Demeter^[19] and it could derive from the Cretan word dea (δηά), Ionic zeia (ζειά)—variously identified with emmer, spelt, rye, or other grains by modern scholars—so that she is the Mother and the giver of food generally.^[20][21] This view is shared by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison, who suggests that Démeter's name means Grain-Mother, instead of Earth-Mother.^[18]

Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (Greek: Πάρεδρος, Paredros) in Mycenaean cult.^[22] The Arcadian cult links her to the god Poseidon, who probably substituted the male companion of the Great Goddess; Demeter may therefore be related to a Minoan Great Goddess (Cybele).^[23]

An alternative Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through Potnia and Despoina, where Des- represents a derivative of PIE*dem (house, dome), and Demeter is "mother of the house" (from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr).^[24]R. S. P. Beekes rejects a Greek interpretation, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, but not necessarily an Indo-European one.^[14]

Iconography[edit]

Demeter was frequently associated with images of the harvest, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, including flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with her daughter Persephone. Demeter is not generally portrayed with any of her consorts; the exception is Iasion, the youth of Crete who lay with her in a thrice-ploughed field, and was killed afterwards by a jealous Zeus with a thunderbolt.

Demeter is assigned the zodiac constellation Virgo the Virgin by Marcus Manilius in his 1st century Roman work Astronomicon. In art, constellation Virgo holds Spica, a sheaf of wheat in her hand and sits beside constellation Leo the Lion.^[25]

In Arcadia, she was known as "Black Demeter". She was said to have taken the form of a mare to escape the pursuit of her younger brother, Poseidon, and having been raped by him despite her disguise, dressed all in black and retreated into a cave to mourn and to purify herself. She was consequently depicted with the head of a horse in this region.^[26]

A sculpture of the Black Demeter was made by Onatas.^[27]

Description[edit]

As goddess of agriculture[edit]

Demeter, enthroned and extending her hand in a benediction toward the kneeling Metaneira, who offers the triunewheat (c.&#; BC)

In epic poetry and Hesiod's Theogony, Demeter is the Corn-Mother, the goddess of cereals who provides grain for bread and blesses its harvesters. This was her main function at Eleusis, and became panhellenic. In Cyprus, "grain-harvesting" was damatrizein.

The main theme in the Eleusinian Mysteries was the reunion of Persephone with her mother Demeter, when new crops were reunited with the old seed, a form of eternity.

According to the Athenian rhetoricianIsocrates, Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife.^[28]

These two gifts were intimately connected in Demeter's myths and mystery cults. In Hesiod, prayers to Zeus-Chthonios (chthonic Zeus) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong.^[29] Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley.^[30]

Demeter was also zeidoros arοura, the Homeric "Mother Earth arοura" who gave the gift of cereals (zeai or deai).^[31]

As an earth and underworld goddess[edit]

In addition to her role as an agricultural goddess, Demeter was often worshipped more generally as a goddess of the earth. In Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, she was represented as snake-haired, holding a dove and dolphin, perhaps to symbolize her power over the underworld, the air, and the water.

In the cult of Flya, she was worshiped as Anesidora, one who sends up gifts from the underworld. There was a temple of Demeter under this name in Phlya in Attica.^[32][33][34]

In Sparta, she was known as Demeter-Chthonia (chthonic Demeter).^[35] The Athenians called the dead "Demetrioi",^[36] and this may reflect a link CashOccino Slots Machine Demeter and ancient cult of the dead, linked to the agrarian-belief that a new life would sprout from the dead body, as a new plant arises from buried seed.

This was probably a belief shared by initiates in Demeter's mysteries, as interpreted by Pindar: "Happy is he who has seen what exists under the earth, because he knows not only the end of life, but also his beginning that the Gods will give".^{[citation needed]}

In the mysteries of Pheneos in Arcadia, Demeter was known as Cidaria.^[37] Her priest would put on the mask of Demeter, which was kept in a secret place. The cult may have been connected with both the underworld and a form of agrarian magic.^[38]

As a poppy goddess[edit]

Theocritus described one of Demeter's earlier roles as that of a goddess of poppies:

For the Greeks, Demeter was Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus a poppy goddess

Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. — Idyll vii

Karl Kerényi asserted that poppies were connected with a Cretan cult which was eventually carried to the Eleusinian Mysteries in Classical Greece. In a clay statuette from Gazi,^[39] the Minoan poppy goddess wears the seed capsules, sources of nourishment and narcosis, in her diadem. According to Kerényi, "It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to Eleusis and it is almost certain that in the Cretan cult sphere opium was prepared from poppies."^[40]

Robert Graves speculated that the meaning Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus the depiction and use of poppies in the Greco-Roman myths is the symbolism of the bright scarlet color as signifying the promise of resurrection after death.^[41]

Other functions and titles[edit]

Demeter's epithets show her many religious functions. She was the "Corn-Mother" who blesses the harvesters. Some cults interpreted her as "Mother-Earth". Demeter may be linked to goddess-cults of Minoan Crete, and embody aspects of a pre-Hellenic Mother Goddess.^[42]

The most common epithets of Demeter are:

Achaea, Ἀχαία (" probably from achaine: loaf ,or achos: grief").^[43][44] She was worshipped at Athens by the Gephyraeans who had emigrated from Boeotia.^[45][46]

Aganippe, Ἀγανίππη ("the Mare who destroys mercifully", "Night-Mare").

Anesidora, Ἀνησιδώρα ("sender-up of gifts") at Phlya in Attica.^[47]

Cabeiraea, Καβειραία΄ ("Related with the Cabeiri")^[48] at Thebes, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus.

Chloe, Χλόη, ("Green"),^[49] that invokes her powers of ever-returning Santa Spilleautomat Anmeldelse, as does Chthonia.

Chthonia, Χθονία, ("under or beneath the Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus in Laconia.^[50]

Despoina, Δέσποινα ("mistress of the house"), a Greek word similar to the Myceneanpotnia. This title was also applied to Persephone, Aphrodite and Hecate.

Europa, Εὐρώπη, "broad face or eyes" at Livadeia of Boeotia. She was the nurse of Trophonios to whom a chthonic cult and oracle was dedicated.^[51]

Eleusinia, Ἐλευσίνια in the Mysteries at Pheneus.^[52][53][54]

Erinys, Ερινύς, ("Fury"),^[55] with a function similar with the function of the avenging Dike (Justice), goddess of moral justice based on custom rules who Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus the divine retribution,^[56] and the Erinyes, female ancient chthonic deities of vengeance and implacable agents of retribution.

IouloἸουλώ, ("related with corn-sheafs") ^[57]

Karpophorus, Καρποφόρος ("fruit bearing").^[58]

Kidaria, Κιδαρία ("kidaris&#;: Arcadian dance")^[59] at Pheneus.^[60]

Lusia, Λουσία, ("Bather").^[61]

Malophorus, Μαλοφόρος, ("Apple-bearer" or "Sheep-bearer") ^[62] at Megara and Selinus. ^[63]

Melaina, Μέλαινα ("black") .^[64]

Mysia, Μυσία^[65] at Pellene.^[66][67]

Potnia, Πότνια, ("mistress") in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Hera especially, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, but also Artemis and Athena, are addressed as "potnia" as well.

Prosymne, Προσύμνη ("to Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus one addresses hymns") at Lerna.^[68]

Thermasia, Θερμασία ("Warmth") at Hermione.^[69]

Thesmia, Θεσμία ("law goddess") in the Mysteries at Pheneus.^[70][71][72]

Thesmophoros, Θεσμοφόρος, ("giver of customs" or "legislator"), a title connected with the Thesmophoria, a festival of secret women-only rituals connected with marriage customs.^[4][73]

Worship[edit]

Terracotta Demeter figurine, Sanctuary of the Underworld Divinities, Akragas, – BC

In Crete[edit]

The earliest recorded worship of a deity possibly equivalent to Demeter is found in Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of c. – BC found at Pylos. The tablets describe worship of the "two queens and the king",^[74] which may be related to Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.^[5] An early name which may Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus to Demeter, si-to-po-ti-ni-ja (Sito Potnia), appears in Linear B inscriptions found at Mycenae and Pylos.^[75] In Crete, Poseidon was often given the title wa-na-ka (wanax) in Linear B inscriptions, in his role as king of the underworld, and his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne indicates his chthonic nature. In the cave of Amnisos, Enesidaon is associated with the cult of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth,^[76] who was involved with the annual birth of the divine child.^[77] During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cults, and Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (paredros) in the Mycenean cult.^[76] Elements of this early form of worship survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "the mighty Potnia had born a strong son."^[78]

On the Greek mainland[edit]

Tablets KISS Slot 200 Free Spins Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for "the Two Queens and Poseidon" ("to the Two Queens and the King"&#;:wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te). The "Two Queens" may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were no longer associated with Poseidon in later periods.^[74]

Major cults to Demeter are known at Eleusis in Attica, Hermion (in Crete), Megara, Celeae, Lerna, Aegila, Munychia, Corinth, Delos, Priene, Akragas, Iasos, Pergamon, Selinus, Tegea, Thoricus, Dion (in Macedonia)^[79]Lykosoura, Mesembria, Enna (Sicily), and Samothrace.

An ancient Amphictyony, probably the earliest centred on the cult of Demeter at Anthele (Ἀνθήλη), which lay on the coast of Malis south of Thessaly. This was the locality of Thermopylae.^[80][81]

After the "First Sacred War", the Anthelan body was known thenceforth as the Delphic Amphictyony^[80]

Mysian Demeter had a seven-day festival at Pellené in Arcadia. The geographer Pausainias passed the shrine to Mysian Demeter on the road from Mycenae to Argos, and reports that according to Argive tradition the shrine was founded by an Archive named Mysius who venerated Demeter.^[82]

Festivals[edit]

Main articles: Eleusinian Mysteries and Thesmophoria

Demeter's two major festivals were sacred mysteries. Her Thesmophoria festival (11–13 October) was women-only.^[83] Her Eleusinian mysteries were open to initiates of any gender or social class. At the heart of both festivals were myths concerning Demeter as Mother and Persephone as her daughter.

Conflation with other goddesses[edit]

In the Roman period, Demeter became conflated with the Roman agricultural goddess Ceres under the Interpretatio graeca.^[84] The worship of Demeter was formally merged with that of Ceres around BC, along with the ritus graecia cereris, a Greek-inspired form of cult, as part of Rome's general religious recruitment of deities as allies against Carthage, towards the end of the Second Punic War. The cult originated in southern Italy (part of Magna Graecia) and was probably based on the Thesmophoria, a mystery cult dedicated to Metropol casino and Persephone as "Mother and Maiden". It arrived along with its Greek priestesses, who were granted Roman citizenship so that they could pray to the gods "with a foreign and external knowledge, but with a domestic and civil intention".^[85] The new cult was installed in the already ancient Temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera, Rome's Aventine patrons of the plebs; from the end of the 3rd century BC, Demeter's temple at Enna, in Sicily, was acknowledged as Ceres' oldest, most authoritative cult center, and Libera was recognized as Proserpina, Roman equivalent to Persephone.^[86] Their joint cult recalls Demeter's search for Persephone, after the latter's abduction into the underworld by Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus (or Pluto). At the Aventine, the new cult took its place alongside the old. It made no reference to Liber, whose open and gender-mixed cult continued to play a central role in plebeian culture, as a patron and protector of plebeian rights, freedoms and values, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. The exclusively female initiates and priestesses of the new "greek style" mysteries of Ceres and Proserpina were expected to uphold Rome's traditional, patrician-dominated social hierarchy and traditional morality. Unmarried girls should emulate the chastity of Proserpina, the maiden; married women should seek to emulate Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, the devoted and fruitful Mother. Their rites were Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus to secure a good harvest, and increase the fertility of those who partook in the mysteries.^[87]

Beginning in the 5th century BCE in Asia Minor, Demeter was also considered equivalent to the Phrygian goddess Cybele.^[88] Demeter's festival of Thesmophoria was popular throughout Asia Minor, and the myth of Persephone and Adonis in many ways mirrors the myth of Cybele and Attis.^[89]

Some late antique sources syncretized Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus "great goddess" figures into a single deity. The Platonist philosopher Apuleius, writing in the late 2nd century, identified Ceres (Demeter) with Isis, having her declare:

I, mother of the universe, mistress of all the elements, first-born of the ages, highest of the gods, queen of the shades, first of those who dwell in heaven, representing in one shape all gods and goddesses. My will controls the shining heights of heaven, the health-giving sea-winds, and the mournful silences of hell; the entire world worships my single godhead in a thousand shapes, with divers rites, and under many a different name. The Phrygians, first-born of mankind, call me the Pessinuntian Mother of the gods; the ancient Eleusinians Actaean Ceres; and the Egyptians who excel in ancient learning, honour me with the worship which is truly mine and call me by my true name: Queen Isis.

--Apuleius, translated by E. J. Kenny. The Golden Ass^[90]

Mythology[edit]

Lovers and children[edit]

Some of the earliest accounts of Demeter's relationships to other deities comes from Hesiod's Theogony, written c. BC. In it, Demeter is described as the daughter of Cronus and Rhea.^[91]

Demeter's most well-known relationship is with her daughter, Persephone, queen of the underworld. Both Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter(2), describe Persephone as the daughter of Zeus and his older sister, Demeter,^[92] though no myths exist describing her conception or birth. The exception is a fragment of the Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus Orphic theogony, which preserves part of a myth in which Zeus mates with his mother, Rhea, in the form of a snake, explaining the origin of the symbol on Hermes' staff. Their daughter is said to be Persephone, whom Zeus in turn mates with to conceive Dionysus. According to the Orphic fragments, "After becoming the mother of Zeus, she who was formerly Rhea became Demeter."^[93][94]

Before her abduction by Hades, Persephone was known as Kore ("maiden"), and there is some evidence that the figures of Persephone Queen of the Underworld and Kore daughter of Demeter were originally considered separate goddesses.^[95] However, they must have become conflated with each other by the time of Hesiod in the 7th century BC.^[89] Demeter and Persephone were often worshiped together and were often referred to by joint cultic titles. In their cult at Eleusis, they were referred to simply as "the goddesses", often distinguished as "the older" and "the younger"; in Rhodes and Sparta, they were worshiped as "the Demeters"; in the Thesmophoria, they were known as "the thesmophoroi" ("the legislators").^[96] In Arcadia they were known as "the Great Goddesses" and "the mistresses".^{[citation needed]} In Mycenaean Pylos, Demeter and Persephone were probably called the "queens" (wa-na-ssoi).^[74]

Both Homer and Hesiod, writing c. BC, described Demeter making love with the agricultural hero Iasion in a ploughed field.^[97] According to Hesiod, this union resulted in the birth of Plutus.

According to Diodorus Siculus, in his Bibliotheca historica written in the 1st century BC, Demeter and Zeus were also the parents of Dionysus. Diodorus described the myth of Dionysus' double birth (once from the earth, i.e. Demeter, when the plant sprouts) and once from the vine (when the fruit sprouts from the plant). Diodorus also related a version of the myth of Dionysus' destruction by the Titans ("sons of Gaia"), who boiled him, and how Demeter gathered up his remains so that he could be born a third time (Diod. Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. Diodorus states that Dionysus' birth from Zeus and his older sister Demeter was somewhat of a minority belief, possibly via conflation of Demeter with her daughter, as most sources state that the parents of Dionysus were Zeus and Persephone, and later Zeus and Semele.^[98]

In Arcadia, a major Arcadian deity known as Despoina ("Mistress") was said to be the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon. According to Pausanias, a Thelpusian tradition said that during Demeter's search for Persephone, Poseidon pursued her. Demeter turned into a horse in order to avoid her younger brother's advances, but he turned into a stallion and mated with the goddess, resulting in the birth of the horse god Arion and a daughter "whose name they are Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus wont to divulge to the uninitiated".^[99] Elsewhere he says that the Phigalians assert that the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, was not a horse but in fact Despoina, "as the Arcadians call her".^[]

In Orphic literature, Demeter seems to be the mother of the witchcraft goddess Hecate.^[]

Abduction of Persephone[edit]

Demeter's daughter Persephone was abducted to the underworld by Hades, who received permission from her father Zeus to take her as his bride. Demeter searched for her ceaselessly, preoccupied with her grief. The seasons halted; living things ceased their growth, then began to die.^[] Faced with the extinction of all life on earth, Zeus sent his messenger Hermes to the underworld to bring Persephone back. Hades agreed to release her if she had eaten nothing while in his realm; but Persephone had eaten a small number of pomegranateseeds. This bound her to Hades and the underworld for certain months of every year, either the dry Mediterranean summer, when plant life is threatened by drought,^[] or the autumn and winter.^[] There are several variations on the basic myth; the earliest account, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, relates that Persephone is secretly slipped a pomegranate seed by Hades^[] and in Ovid's version,^[] Persephone willingly and secretly eats the pomegranate seeds, thinking to deceive Hades, but is discovered and made to stay. Contrary to popular perception, Persephone's time in the underworld does not correspond with the unfruitful seasons of the ancient Greek calendar, nor her return to the upper world with springtime.^[] Demeter's descent to retrieve Persephone from the underworld is connected to the Eleusinian Mysteries.^[]

Demeter rejoiced, for her daughter was by her side.

The myth of the capture of Persephone seems to be pre-Greek. In the Greek version, Ploutos (πλούτος, wealth) represents the wealth of the corn that was stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (pithoi). Similar subterranean pithoi were used in ancient times for funerary practices. At the beginning of the autumn, when the corn of the old crop is laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter, for at this time the ohiya casino crop and the new meet each other.^[]

According to the personal mythology of Robert Graves,^[] Persephone is not only the younger self of Demeter,^[] she is in turn also one of three guises of the Triple Goddess&#;– Kore (the youngest, the maiden, signifying green young grain), Persephone (in the middle, the nymph, signifying the ripe grain waiting to be harvested), and Hecate (the eldest of the three, the crone, the harvested grain), which to a certain extent reduces the name and role of Demeter to that of group name. Before her abduction, she is called Kore; and once taken she becomes Persephone ('she who brings destruction').^[]

Demeter at Eleusis[edit]

Demeter's search for her daughter Persephone took her to the palace of Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. She assumed the form of an old woman, and asked him for shelter. He took her in, to nurse Demophon and Triptolemus, his sons by Metanira. To reward his kindness, she planned to make Demophon immortal; she secretly anointed the boy with ambrosia and laid him in the flames of the hearth, to gradually burn away his mortal self. But Metanira walked in, saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright. Demeter abandoned the attempt. Instead, she taught Triptolemus the secrets of agriculture, and he in turn taught them to any who wished to learn them. Thus, humanity learned how to plant, grow and harvest grain. The myth has several versions; some are linked to figures such as Eleusis, Rarus and Trochilus. The Demophon element may be based on an earlier folk tale.^[]

Demeter and Iasion[edit]

Homer's Odyssey (c. late 8th century BC) contains perhaps the earliest direct references to the myth of Demeter and her consort Iasion, a Samothracian hero whose name may refer to bindweed, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, a small white flower that frequently grows in wheat fields. In the Odyssey, Calypso describes how Demeter, "without disguise", made love to Iasion, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. "So it was when Demeter of the braided tresses followed her heart and lay in love with Iasion in the triple-furrowed field; Zeus was aware of it soon enough and hurled the bright thunderbolt and killed him."^[] However, Ovid states that Iasion lived up to old age as the husband of Demeter.^[] In ancient Greek culture, part of the opening of each agricultural year involved the cutting of three furrows in the field to ensure its fertility.^[]

Hesiod expanded on the basics of this myth. According to him, the liaison between Demeter and Iasion took place at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia in Crete. Demeter, in this version, had lured Iasion away from the other revelers. Hesiod says that Demeter subsequently gave birth of Plutus.^[]

Demeter and Poseidon[edit]

In Arcadia, located in what is now southern Greece, the major goddess Despoina was considered the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon Hippios, Horse-Poseidon. In the associated myths, Poseidon represents the river spirit of the underworld, and he appears as a horse as often happens in northern European folklore. The myth describes how he pursued his older sister, Demeter, who hid from him among the horses of King Onkios, but even in the form of a mare, she could not conceal her divinity. In the form of a stallion, Poseidon caught and raped his older sister. Demeter was furious at Poseidon's assault; in this furious form, she became known as Demeter Erinys. Her anger at Poseidon drove her to dress all in black and retreat into a cave in order to purify herself, an act which was the cause of a universal famine. Demeter's absence caused the death of crops, of livestock, and eventually of the people who depended on them (later Arcadian tradition held that it was both her rage at Poseidon and her loss of her daughter that caused the famine, merging the two myths).^[26] Demeter washed away her anger in the River Ladon, becoming Demeter Lousia, the "bathed Demeter".^[]

"In her alliance with Poseidon," Kerényi noted,^[] "she was Earth, who bears plants and beasts, and could therefore assume the shape of an ear of grain or a mare." She bore a daughter Despoina (Δέσποινα: the "Mistress"), whose name should not be uttered outside the Arcadian Mysteries,^[] and a horse named Arion, with a black mane and tail.

At Phigaleia, a xoanon Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus statue) of Demeter was erected in a cave which, tradition held, was the cave into which Black Demeter retreated, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. The statue depicted a Medusa-like figure with a horse's head and snake-like hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, which probably represented her power over air and water:^[]

The second mountain, Mount Elaius, is some thirty stades away from Phigalia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter surnamed Black the Phigalians say, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, they concluded that this cavern was sacred to Demeter and set up in it a wooden image. The image, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, they say, was made after this fashion. It was seated on a rock, like to a woman in all respects save the Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. She had the head and hair of a horse, and there grew out of her head images of serpents and other beasts. Her tunic reached right to her feet; on one of her hands was a dolphin, on the other a dove, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. Now why they had the image made after this fashion is plain to any intelligent man who is learned in traditions. They say that they named her Black because the goddess had black apparel. They cannot relate either who made this wooden image or how it caught fire. But the old image was destroyed, and the Phigalians gave the goddess no fresh image, while they neglected for the most part her Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus and sacrifices, until the barrenness fell on the land.

—&#;Pausanias, &#;4.

Demeter and Baubo[edit]

In the Orphic tradition, a mortal woman named Baubo received Demeter as her guest, and offered her meal and wine. Demeter declined them both, on account of her mourning over the loss of Persephone. Baubo then, thinking she had displeased the goddess, lifted her skirt and showed her genitalia to the goddess, simultaneously revealing Iacchus, Demeter's son. Demeter was most pleased with the sight, and delighted she accepted the food and wine.^[][] This tale survives in the account of Clement of Alexandria, a Christian who tried to discredit pagan practices and mythology. However several Baubo figurines (figurines of women revealing their vulvas) have been discovered, supporting the story.

Demeter and Erysichthon[edit]

Demeter orders Famine to Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus Erysichthon, Elisha Whittelsey Collection

Another myth involving Demeter's rage resulting in famine is that of Erysichthon, king of Thessaly.^[26] The myth tells of Erysichthon ordering all of the trees in one of Demeter's sacred groves to be cut down. One tree, a huge oak, was found to be covered with votive wreaths, symbols of the prayers Demeter had granted, and so Erysichthon's men refused to cut it down. The king used an axe to cut it down himself, killing a dryad nymph in the process. The nymph's dying words were a curse on Erysichthon. Demeter punished the king by calling upon Limos, the spirit of unrelenting and insatiable hunger, to enter his stomach. The more the king ate, the hungrier he became. Erysichthon sold all his possessions to buy food, but was still hungry. Finally, he sold his own daughter, Mestra, into slavery. Mestra was freed from slavery by her former lover, Poseidon, who gave her the gift of shape-shifting into any creature at will to escape her bonds. Erysichthon used her shape-shifting ability to sell her numerous times to make more money to feed himself, but no amount of food was enough. Eventually, Erysichthon ate himself.^[]

Psyche[edit]

In the tale of Eros and Psyche, Demeter along with her sister Hera visited Aphrodite, raging with fury about the girl who had married her son. Aphrodite asked the two of them to search for her; the two of them try to talk sense into her, arguing that her son is not a little boy, although he might appear as one, and there's no harm in him falling in love with Psyche. Aphrodite took offence at their words.^[]

Sometime later, Psyche in her wanderings came across an abandoned shrine of Demeter, and sorted out the neglected sickles and harvest implements she found there. As she was doing so, Demeter appeared to her, and called from afar; she warned the girl of Aphrodite's great wrath and her plan to take revenge on her. Then Psyche begged the goddess to help her, but Demeter answered that she could not interfere and incur Aphrodite's anger at her; and for that reason Psyche had to leave the horse gambling, or else be kept as a captive of hers.^[]

Ascalabus[edit]

While she was travelling far and wide looking for her daughter, Demeter arrived exhausted in Attica. A woman named Misme took her in and offered her a cup of water with pennyroyal and barley groats in it, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, for it was a hot day. Demeter, in her thirst, swallowed the drink clumsily. Witnessing that, Misme's son Ascalabus laughed and mocked her and asked her if she would like a deep jar of that drink.^[] Demeter then poured her drink over him and turned him into a gecko, hated by both men and gods. It was said that Demeter showed her favour to those who killed geckos.^[]

Minthe[edit]

Before Hades abducted her daughter, he had kept the nymph Minthe as his mistress. But after he married Persephone, he set Minthe aside. Minthe would often brag about being lovelier than Persephone, and saying Hades would soon come back to her and kick Persephone out of his halls. Demeter, hearing that, grew angry and trampled Minthe; from the earth then sprang Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus lovely-smelling herb named after the nymph.^[] In other versions, Persephone herself is the one who kills and turns Minthe into a plant for sleeping with Hades.^[][][]

Pelops[edit]

Once Tantalus, a son of Zeus, invited the gods over for dinner. Tantalus, wanting to Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus them, cut his son Pelops, cooked him and offered him as meal to them, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. They all saw through Tantalus' crime except Demeter, who ate Pelops' shoulder before the gods brought him back to life.^[]

Other wrath myths[edit]

In the Argive version of this myth, when Demeter arrived in Argolis, a man named Colontas refused to receive her in his house, whereas his daughter Chthonia disapproved of his actions. Colontas was punished by being burnt along with his house, while Demeter took Chthonia to Hermione, where she built a sanctuary for the goddess.^[]

Demeter pinned Ascalaphus under a rock for reporting, as sole witness, to Hades that Persephone had consumed some pomegranate seeds.^[] Later, after Heracles rolled the stone off Ascalaphus, Demeter turned him into a short-eared owl instead.^[]

Demeter also turned the Sirens into half-bird monsters for not helping her daughter Persephone when Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus was abducted Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus Hades.^[]

Other favour myths[edit]

Demeter gave Triptolemus her serpent-drawn chariot and seed, and bade him scatter it across the earth (teach mankind the knowledge of agriculture). Triptolemus rode through Europe and Asia until he came to the land of Lyncus, a Scythian king. Lyncus pretended to offer what's accustomed of hospitality to him, but once Triptolemus fell asleep, he attacked him with a dagger, wanting to take credit of his work. Demeter then saved Triptolemus by turning Lyncus into a lynx, and ordered Triptolemus to return home air-borne.^[]Hyginus records a very similar myth, in which Demeter saves Triptolemus from an evil king named Carnabon who additionally seized Triptolemus' chariot and killed one of the dragons, so he might not escape; Demeter restored the chariot to Triptolemus, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, substituted the dead dragon with another one, and punished Carnabon by putting him among the stars holding a dragon as if to kill it.^[]

During her wanderings, Demeter came upon the town of Pheneus; to the Pheneates that receives her warmly and offered her shelter she gave all sorts of pulse, except for beans, deeming it impure.^[] Two of Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus Pheneates, Trisaules and Damithales, had a temple of Demeter built for her.^[] Demeter also gifted a Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus tree to Phytalus, an Eleusinian man, for welcoming her in his home.^[]

When her son Philomelus invented the plow and used it to cultivate the fields, Demeter was so impressed by his good work she immortalized him in the sky by turning him into a constellation, the Boötes.^[]

Besides giving gifts to those who were welcoming to her, Demeter was also a goddess who nursed the young; all of Plemaeus's children born by his first wife died in cradle; Demeter took pity of him and reared herself his son Orthopolis.^[] Plemaeus built a temple to her to thank her.^[] Demeter also raised Trophonius, the prophetic son of either Apollo or Erginus.^[]

Genealogy[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

This is a five-reel Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus slot based on a popular land-based game. As with many titles developed by Scientific Games, it comes with selectable paylines and widely varying wagers. Why not give our free play demo a shot?

Head over to casino to play for real money. It&#;s arguably the number one casino for March .

Instant Play > Start!Play Free Demo Version Directly in Your Browser

Real Money Casinos Where You Can Play Zeus

An Overview of the Rules and Features

As the God of Gods, with his name enshrined immortally as the title to this game, you&#;d expect Zeus to be the main man here, and that&#;s certainly the case. He is the highest paying symbol on these godly reels, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, and the rest of the symbols conjure up visions of the epic ancient Greek myths. Pegasus the unicorn is the next highest payer, followed by the Trojan boat, then a Greek soldier&#;s helmet, a harp, an opulent vase, gold and silver coins, and a wreath. The wild symbol is a temple, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, and it&#;s wild for all symbols except the Feature symbol, which is represented by a thunderbolt emanating from a clenched fist. The bonus feature is triggered when three or more Feature symbols appear on the reels, and this will bring you to a frenetic festival of free spins. Five scattered Feature symbols gets you free spins, and that&#;s pretty majestic as far as we&#;re concerned. Four Feature symbols gets you 25 free spins, while three nets you ten. That&#;s the main gameplay hook here, so keep your eyes peeled for those thunderbolts.

All Symbols and Payouts (total bet value of 30)

Video Preview: See it in Action!

Other Variants of this Slot

There is also a newer version of this game called Zeus The game is basically an updrade on this one. Some rules are different, including the number of paylines, but the biggest difference is a special feature which provides more rows and reels for you to spin. You can read the Pandamania slot free demo game Zeus review here

Conclusion – Decent not Divine

As Plato once said, the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. So, perhaps it&#;s unwise of us to suggest we know that this game is alright. It&#;s a solid effort but it lacks the touch of flair and majesty you might anticipate with a Zeus-themed slot. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad, and you&#;ll go positively crazy if you win the mega max win ofcoins. With flexible wagers and selectable paylines, there&#;s no strict entry requirements to spin these reels up at Mount Olympus, although some of the gods might get a bit finicky if you don&#;t play wearing a toga and wreath. If you&#;ve played the game, let us know what you think in the box below!

Greek Gods

Welcome to our Greek Gods and Goddesses page here on History for Kids. We have some fun facts and pictures for you to color. You will learn some interesting facts about each God as you read down the page. Take your time there is a lot of information on this page, check out the quick facts also if you just need a quick understanding and characteristics of each one.

Athena

Athena was tall, strong, graceful, gray-eyed, and she liked owls, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. From the beginning, she was a pretty amazing goddess. In fact, even her birth was most unusual.

Zeus, the father of gods and goddesses, was also Athena’s father. Her mother was a mortal woman named Metis. Older gods had warned Zeus that he would be in trouble if Metis gave birth to a daughter. So he swallowed Metis whole.

When it came time for Athena to be born, she sprang full grown out of Zeus’s head. She was completely dressed in armor, as she always would be. She also carried a shield and a spear. As you might guess about a woman in armor, she was a great warrior.

Athena was also a goddess of wisdom. She taught people about arts and crafts. She also taught them how to think clearly and live well. She was often seen with an owl, so owls became a symbol of wisdom.

Athena didn’t get along with the sea god Poseidon. For one thing, they were often rivals over one thing or another. Once the people of a new city were looking for a god to watch over and protect them. Athena and Poseidon both wanted the job.

To impress the city’s citizens, the two gods gave them gifts. Poseidon struck the ground with his three-pointed spear, and water poured out. The water turned into a river that flowed into the sea. Poseidon told the people to build ships to sail to the sea. He said that they could travel everywhere. They could become the most powerful people on earth.

The citizens were indeed impressed. But then Athena told them to taste the water. It tasted awful. It was saltwater, which is impossible to drink.

Then Athena gave the citizens her gift. When she hit the ground with her spear, a tree magically grew up within seconds. She explained that it was a special tree—an olive tree. Its wood was good both for building houses and for heating those houses in winter. Better still, the tree’s little green fruits, called “olives,” were delicious. And oil made out of the olives was useful for cooking.

The citizens liked Athena’s gift better than Poseidon’s. Not only did they choose Athena to watch over them, they named the city after her. They called it Athens. Poseidon left in a huff, causing a serious flood on his way. But the Athenians weren’t bothered very much. With Athena’s help, their city grew to be strong and wealthy. Athens became one of the greatest cities of all time. Today it’s the capital and the largest city of Greece.

Here are some historical facts about the city of Athens:

• Athenians did their best to make their city live up to its name. Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus by their tales about Athena’s wisdom, Athens became a center of civilization.
• Athenians turned their city into the world’s first democracy.
• Athenians wrote the world’s first plays, both comedies and tragedies. Those plays were performed in an open-air theater. They are still popular today.
• Some of history’s greatest thinkers were Athenian. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were the city’s most famous philosophers.
• The world’s first historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, lived in Athens.
• Athenians created some of the world’s most beautiful buildings. The ruins of its most famous temple, the Parthenon, are still standing today. The Parthenon once held a large statue of Athena.
• The Athenian Hippocrates is said to be the father of medicine. He wrote a famous oath that is still spoken by doctors today.

Poseidon

The brothers Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon were the most important gods of all. Zeus was the strongest and wisest of the three and ruled over the earth. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Poseidon ruled the seas. He was also the god of earthquakes and horses.

Poseidon had a beard and long blue hair. He drove a golden cart called a chariot.

It was pulled by strange beasts that were half-horse and half-snake. Fish and dolphins always swam Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus beside the sea god’s chariot.

Poseidon carried a three-pointed spear called a trident. He used this to start earthquakes or bring water out of the ground.

Like the sea he ruled, Poseidon could be either calm or stormy. As you might guess, the god of earthquakes had a short temper. He didn’t get along with other gods. He didn’t always get along with mortals, either.

The people of Troy once asked Poseidon to help build a wall around their city. He helped, but then he got angry when he didn’t get paid for his work. He was Troy’s enemy ever after that. When Troy fought a terrible war against Greece, Poseidon supported the Greeks.

Each god had a city to protect and watch over. The city showed its thanks by honoring that god especially. Maybe because he was ill-tempered, Poseidon had trouble finding a city to honor him. The people of Athens chose Athena instead of Poseidon as its protector. The people of Naxos chose Dionysus. The people of Aegina chose Zeus. Finally, all the gods had special cities except Poseidon. He was very unhappy and disappointed.

But at long last, the people of Atlantis chose Poseidon. Atlantis was a huge island, and its people loved and honored him. There he fell in love with a mortal princess named Clito. He built a palace for her, and they had ten sons. The sons grew up to be kings who ruled different parts of Atlantis. Those kings ruled wisely, and Atlantis became the greatest civilization in the world. Poseidon was proud and happy.

But bad times came. The first kings of Atlantis died, and their sons were bad rulers. And the sons who came after them were worse yet. Years passed, and Atlantis was no longer the world’s greatest civilization. It was actually the worst. It had become both wicked and foolish.

Finally, the people of Atlantis forgot to worship Poseidon. The sea god became angry and used his trident to start a terrible earthquake. Atlantis sank beneath the waves, never to be seen again.

Here are some historical facts about Poseidon’s story:

•Horses were very important in the ancient world. Poseidon’s earliest worshippers may have been the people who first brought horses to Greece.

•There are many earthquakes in Greece. Not surprisingly, a god of earthquakes was taken very seriously there.

•The sea was very important to the Ancient Greeks. They were great explorers whose ships sailed to distant places.

•Fishermen in the ancient world caught tuna with a trident.

•Atlantis was thought to have been in a faraway ocean. Today we call that ocean the Atlantic.

•Atlantis was probably imaginary. Even so, some people still believe that it once was real. And people keep looking for it.

•Atlantis may have been based on a real place. There once was a large island called Thera. It was destroyed by a huge volcano. Like Atlantis, it sank into the sea.

Hermes

Hermes was the messenger god. He was young and intelligent-looking. He wore a winged hat and winged sandals, and he carried a magic wand. (We know what he looked like because so many sculptors made statues of him.)

Hermes was said to be the god of the marketplace. Oddly, he was also said to be the god of thieves, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. He himself was a clever thief. He started stealing early in life—actually on the day he was born.

His father was Zeus, the king of the gods. His mother was a young goddess named Maia. He was born in a mountain cave, and only a few minutes after his birth, Hermes decided to make himself a toy. He picked up a tortoise shell and tied strings across it, then plucked the strings, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. That was how Hermes invented the first musical instrument, which was called a lyre. And he invented music too!

His playing and singing put his Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus to sleep. Then, when Hermes was still only an hour or two old, he left the cave and went out to look around at the world. He soon found a herd of cattle that belonged to the god Apollo. The baby Hermes liked the cattle and Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus to steal them.

When Apollo wasn’t looking, Hermes tied branches to the cows’ tails. As he led them away, the branches dragged along and erased their hoof prints. Then he hid the cattle and went back to his cave. He climbed back up into his sleeping mother’s arms. When she woke up, she had no idea that he’d even been away.

When Apollo managed to track down Hermes, he was surprised to see that the thief was just a newborn baby. Even so, he demanded his cattle back. Then Hermes started playing the lyre. Apollo was so delighted by the music that he let Hermes keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre. After that, Apollo carried the lyre everywhere and became known as the god of music.

Hermes never stopped being full of mischief, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. But when he grew up, the gods learned that they could count on him for one important task, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. With his winged hat and sandals, he ran and flew as fast as the wind, so Zeus named him the messenger of the gods.

Whenever the gods wanted to send messages to mortals, they gave the job to Hermes. Although he didn’t always tell the truth himself, he always delivered those messages just the way he was supposed to.

Here are some interesting facts about Hermes’ story.

•Along with the lyre, Hermes was said to have invented another musical instrument called a panpipe. It’s a kind of flute that is still played today.

•Hermes was said to be the god of travelers. Statues of him could be found at crossroads throughout Ancient Greece. They were put there to bring travelers good luck.

•There were no telephones and no Internet in the ancient world. Messages were usually carried by runners on foot. Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus the god of messengers was considered a very important god.

•One of the most famous messengers of all time was a soldier named Pheidippides. Story has it that he ran from one city to another, carrying news that the Greeks had won the Battle of Marathon. He delivered the message and died. Today’s marathon races are held in his honor.

•Hermes’ magic wand was called a caduceus. It had wings, like his hat and sandals. It also had snakes wrapped around it. Today the caduceus is the symbol of the medical profession.

Ares

Ares was the god of war. He wore armor and a helmet, and he carried a shield, sword, and spear. He was big and strong and had a fierce war cry, but his war cry was mostly just a lot of noise. Ares didn’t fight at all well. The armored goddess Athena was a much better warrior.

The Ancient Greeks didn’t like war, and they didn’t like Ares, either, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. They considered him a troublemaker. And like many troublemakers, Ares was a coward and a bully.

In fact, Ares was never really of use to anybody in a war. One time a group of giants declared war on the gods. The giants wanted to rule the entire universe. To keep Ares out of the fighting, they sneaked up on him and knocked him out cold, then they stuffed him into a jar.

The other gods heard Ares screaming for somebody to let him out. They just ignored him because they figured they could fight better without him. They went on to defeat the giants, and then they let Ares out of the jar after the battle was over. Ares bragged about how he could have beaten the giants if he’d been free. The other gods only laughed.

Ares never stayed loyal to one side or the other in a war. He just enjoyed watching people fighting and dying. The war between Greece and Troy was one of the worst ever fought, and even the gods joined in the battle. When the war started, Ares promised his mother, Hera, to help the Greeks. But he was in love with the goddess Aphrodite, so she easily talked him into helping the Trojans.

The Trojans would have been just as happy without Ares’s help, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. Always the bully, he didn’t pick fights with other gods. Instead, he challenged a mortal Greek warrior named Diomedes, but Diomedes wounded Ares.

Ares liked to cause pain for others, but he whined and complained whenever he got hurt. This time was no different. The wound he got from Diomedes wasn’t very serious, but even so, Ares didn’t keep fighting. He went running back to Olympus, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, and wept and wailed to his father Zeus. Even though Zeus bandaged up Ares’s wound, he was not at all proud of his warrior son.

That wasn’t the only time Ares was wounded. The great hero Heracles wounded him twice, and one of those times he took away Ares’s armor and weapons. Both times Ares ran away crying to Olympus.

Here are some interesting facts about Ares’s story:

•For a long time, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus thought that the city of Troy was just a legend. But the ruins of Troy have been found in modern-day Turkey.

•The Trojan War was also thought to be only a legend. But today some historians think that there really was such a war. It was fought between Greece and Troy.

•The Greeks had good reason to dislike war. The cities of Greece fought each other in a terrible war that lasted for 27 years. It’s called the Peloponnesian War.

•Although the Ancient Greeks didn’t like Ares, the Ancient Romans admired him. They called him Mars, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. They told stories that made Mars sound like a hero.

•The Romans liked Ares because they thought that war was noble. The Romans spoke Latin. The Latin words for Supreme Hot Slot and “beauty” are very similar. The word for “war” is “bellum.” The word for “beauty” is “bellus.”

Zeus

Zeus was the king of the gods. He and his brothers Hades and Poseidon were in charge of the whole universe. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Poseidon ruled the seas. Zeus, the greatest of the three, ruled the earth and the sky. He controlled the weather, causing wind and rain. He also caused thunder and lightning. He threw his thunderbolt like a spear.

Zeus was a good reminder that the gods were not perfect. For one thing, he was not all-powerful. His daughters, the three Fates, decided the futures of both gods and mortals. Zeus couldn’t overrule their decisions.

And although Zeus was often wise, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, he could also be foolish. He could be selfish and even cruel. He was not a good husband to Hera, the queen of the gods. And he was not a good father to many of his children. Not surprisingly, the other gods sometimes rebelled against his rule.

Still, Zeus most gods and mortals respected Zeus. He gave laws and justice to mortals. He taught them kindness and good manners. One story shows how much Zeus prized hospitality and kindness toward strangers.

Zeus liked to travel, sometimes in disguise. Once he was traveling with his son Hermes, the messenger god, in a land called Phrygia. They were both disguised as ordinary mortal men. They stopped at all the houses in Phrygia, asking for food and a place to stay the night. Time and time again, they were rudely turned away. Even rich people turned them away.

At last they arrived at the home of an elderly couple, a woman named Baucis and a man named Philemon. Baucis and Philemon were extremely poor. Even so, they treated the travelers kindly, inviting them into their home for food and drink. They allowed the disguised gods to spend the night.

The next day, Hermes and Zeus took off their disguises. Everyone could see that they were gods. Zeus punished the couple’s Phrygian neighbors with a terrible flood. All houses were destroyed, except the little hut of Baucis and Philemon. Zeus turned it into a beautiful temple.

As a reward for their kindness, Zeus offered the couple anything that they wanted. Because they had lived happily together all their lives, they asked never to be parted. Even in death they wanted to remain together. Baucis and Philemon spent the rest of their lives serving as the temple’s priestess and priest. When they died they turned into two trees growing out of the same trunk.

Here are some interesting facts about Zeus’s story:

•Weather seemed even more mysterious in ancient times than it does today. It’s no surprise that the god who controlled the weather was the most powerful god of all.

•Lightning and thunder were especially puzzling to ancient people. Many cultures have had gods of thunder and lightning. In Norse mythology, it was Thor. To the Finns, it was Ukko. To the Aztecs, it was Tlaloc.

•Lightning remained a mystery for thousands of years. During the s, the American scientist and thinker Benjamin Franklin helped solve that mystery. He discovered the lightning was made up of electricity. Then he invented the lightning rods to protect houses and buildings. He was nicknamed “the Man Who Tamed the Lightning.”

•In ancient times, travel was difficult and dangerous. Travelers depended on the kindness of people they met along the way. The Greeks even had a word Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus kindness toward strangers and travelers. They called it xenios.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite had an unusual birth. She rose up out of sea foam, beautiful and fully grown-up. She was the goddess of love, God Odds Casino: 2022 Best Bonus Codes and 50 Free Spins she liked doves, sparrows, and swans. She was married to Hephaestus, the god of the forge, but not at all happily. She was really in love with Ares, the god of war.

Aphrodite and her son Eros were in charge of making people and gods fall in love. Eros used his magic bow and arrow to make that happen.

Oddly, this goddess of love helped start a terrible war. But she didn’t really mean to. Eris, the goddess of discord, liked to stir up trouble. So one day Eris made a golden apple. She wrote the words “For the Fairest” on it. Then she threw this apple where the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite would find it.

Each one of them thought she was “the Fairest”—the most beautiful goddess of all. They decided to hold a beauty contest. To judge the contest, they chose a mortal named Paris. He was a handsome Prince of Troy.

Each goddess took Paris aside and offered him a gift. If Paris chose Hera, she promised to make the ruler of the world. If he chose Athena, she promised to make him a victorious soldier. But Paris Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus very ambitious or brave. He wasn’t interested in either of those offers.

Then Aphrodite promised Paris the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. This appealed to Paris much more than the other offers did. So he judged Aphrodite “the Fairest” of the goddesses, and she got to keep the apple.

This was exactly what the troublemaking Eris had hoped for. The most beautiful woman in the world happened to be married already. Her name was Helen. She was the Queen of Sparta and the wife of King Menelaus.

When Helen and Paris ran away to Troy together, Menelaus was furious. He called all the great warriors of Greece together, and they declared war on Troy. Many thousands of warriors died in the Trojan War, which lasted ten years. It ended with the destruction of Troy.

Here are some interesting facts about Aphrodite’s story:

•Today some historians believe that there really was a Trojan war. It was fought between Greece and Troy.

•The Romans called Aphrodite by the name Venus. The planet Venus is named after her.

•Venus is the planet closest to Earth. It is also the nearest planet in size to Earth. Next to the moon, it is usually the brightest object in the nighttime sky. Venus is easiest to see in the morning and evening. That’s why it is called both the “Morning Star” and the “Evening Star.”

•The Greeks pictured Aphrodite’s son Eros as a handsome young man. The Romans called him Cupid. They came to picture him as a little boy with wings and a bow and arrow. Pictures of Cupid are very common on Valentine’s Day.

•The goddess Venus was said to be the mother of the hero Aeneas. According to legend, Aeneas helped found the city of Rome. The real-life Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar claimed to be a descendent of Venus.

Hera

Hera was the queen of the gods and the protector of women. Her husband Zeus ruled the earth and sky. She was the mother of the war god Ares and the forge god Hephaestus. Her daughter, Ilithyia, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, was the goddess of childbirth.

Hera was beautiful and graceful. But she was also stern and bossy. And she could be very vain about her good looks, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. Hera was furious when she lost a beauty contest with Athena and Aphrodite. Another time, a mortal queen claimed to be more beautiful than Hera. The goddess turned that queen into a crane.

Although Hera was the goddess of marriage, her own marriage wasn’t happy. For one thing, Zeus was always interested in other women. Hera had good reason to be jealous.
Once she sent a hundred-eyed monster named Argos to spy on Zeus. Even Zeus couldn’t get away with much with Argos watching him!

Annoyed, Zeus called upon his son Hermes, the messenger god. He ordered Hermes to kill Argos, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. This was hard to do, because some of Argos’s eyes were always awake and watching. But Hermes managed to put all those eyes to sleep. Then he killed Argos as Zeus had commanded.

Hera put Argos’s eyes in the peacock’s tail. The peacock was her favorite bird from that time on. Hera was also fond of cows, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, lions, and cuckoos.

Next, Zeus asked a young goddess named Echo for help. Echo was a wonderful storyteller. At Zeus’s orders, Echo told Hera stories. That kept Hera’s attention for hours and hours. Meanwhile, Zeus could sneak away and do whatever he wanted.

Hera figured out what was going on. She got very angry with Echo. This wasn’t fair, of course. Echo couldn’t help what she was doing. After all, she couldn’t very well disobey the king of the gods. But when Hera was angry, she could be most unfair.

Hera cursed Echo. She took away Echo’s power to tell stories. She even took away Echo’s power to speak normally. Instead, Echo could only repeat things said by others.

Echo became so sad that she disappeared completely. But it is said that you can Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus hear her voice, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. If you shout in a canyon or valley, Echo might repeat your words.

Here are some interesting facts about Hera’s story:

•Hera was the goddess of the calendar year. The ancient Athenians didn’t have just one calendar. Instead, they used a calendar for festivals, another for political matters, and another for the seasons.

•Today many cultures have different yearly calendars. The month calendar mostly used in European and American countries is called the Julian calendar.

•Hera was a goddess who protected women. In Ancient Athens, women needed a protector. Even when Athens became a democracy, women had very few rights. An unmarried girl was ruled by her father; a married woman was ruled by her husband. Women could not become full citizens. Even male slaves had more rights than women did.

•Things were different in Sparta, Athens’s warlike neighbor. Spartan men were often away fighting. When the men were gone, women took charge in many important ways. Some of the wealthiest and most powerful Spartan citizens were women. Even so, Spartan women could not hold political positions.

Artemis

Artemis was the god Apollo’s twin sister. She was goddess of the moon and of the hunt. She didn’t like cities very much, preferring to roam forests and mountainsides.

She hunted with a silver bow and silver arrows. Like all good hunters, Artemis liked to protect wildlife. She took special care to watch over small animals.

Artemis was a strong-willed goddess. She knew what she wanted from an early age. Once when she was three years old, she was sitting on her father Zeus’s knee. Zeus asked the little goddess what she most wanted in life.

First, she asked Zeus for three different names. These would fit her moods, which could be seen in the changing Moon. When she was cheerful and the moon was bright, she was called Selene. When she was in a bad mood and the moon was dark, she was called Hecate. The rest of the time she was called Artemis.

She also asked Zeus for loyal goddesses to hunt with. Zeus gave her lots of female followers called nymphs. Finally, she told Zeus that she never wanted to have much to do with men. So Zeus made sure that Artemis never fell in love with a man and never had a husband.

Although she wasn’t interested in much except hunting, Artemis could also be a good warrior. In fact, she was a much better fighter than Ares, the god of war. She was also more clever. One time some giants declared war on the gods. The giants trapped Ares in a jar, so he couldn’t do any fighting at all. Artemis tricked two of the giants by taking the shape of a deer and running between them. The giants both shot arrows at the deer, but killed each other instead.

Artemis was also clever about keeping men out of her life—both gods and mortals. The river god Alpheus fell in love with her and went chasing after her through Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus woods. Artemis smeared mud all over her own face, then told her nymphs to do the same. Alpheus couldn’t Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus Artemis and the nymphs apart. The river god gave up and went home, sad and disappointed.

Artemis was especially honored by a legendary race of women called Amazons. They were all warrior women who never married.

Here are some interesting facts about Artemis’s story:

•The “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World” was a list made by the Greeks of man-made marvels. A temple of Artemis was on that list. The Great Pyramids of Egypt are the only wonders on the list still standing today.

•Because she was the goddess of the Moon, Artemis has a crater on the Moon named after her. A crater is a hollow place that was formed by collision with an object from outer space.

•The moon has long been believed to affect human moods and actions. One Roman name for the goddess of the moon was “Luna.” The word “lunatic,” meaning insane person, came from that name.

•A lunar eclipse happens when the earth passes between the sun and the moon. On February 29,the explorer Christopher Columbus was on the island of Jamaica. He knew that a lunar eclipse was coming, and that the moon would seem to disappear. The islanders didn’t know what an eclipse was. Columbus used the eclipse to trick the islanders into doing whatever he wanted.

Hades

The brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were the most important gods of all. Zeus was the strongest and wisest of the three and ruled over the earth. Poseidon ruled the seas. Hades ruled the Underworld, the world of the dead. Hades had dark hair and a dark beard, and he drove a chariot drawn by four dark horses. He was married to Persephone, the queen of the dead.

Neither gods nor mortals liked Hades very much. This wasn’t really fair. Hades wasn’t mean or cruel. It just wasn’t his job to be kind or merciful. His duty was to make Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus the dead stayed in the Underworld forever.

Few mortals ever went to the Underworld and made it back alive. One of these was the great singer Orpheus. When his wife, Eurydice, died, Orpheus went to the Underworld to bring her back.

Orpheus’s singing delighted Hades, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, so he agreed to let him take Eurydice back home. Hades made one rule, though. Orpheus wasn’t allowed to look at Eurydice as they fled the Underworld. But along the way, Orpheus turned to see if Eurydice was still following him. So she had to stay in the world of the dead forever.

There aren’t many stories about Hades. Because he rarely left the Underworld, he seldom had adventures. He just went about the unpleasant business of ruling the dead. When he did go out into the world of the living, it usually ended badly for him.

Once Hades left his realm in search of Sisyphus, Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus, the king of Corinth. Sisyphus was one of the cleverest mortals who ever lived. He managed to cheat death time and time again.

Hades planned to put Sisyphus in handcuffs and take him to the Underworld. Instead, the tricky king talked Hades into trying on the handcuffs himself. As long as Sisyphus held Hades hostage, nobody would ever die. The gods couldn’t allow that, so they pestered Sisyphus into letting Hades loose.

Sisyphus himself finally died and went to the Underworld. The gods knew that he might still be up to mischief even there. So they sentenced him to an impossible task.

Sisyphus had to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down again. Then he had to roll it back up the hill, only to have it roll down yet again. Poor Sisyphus had to do this again and again forever. At least it kept him from causing Hades any more trouble.

Eventually, the world of the dead itself came to be called Hades, after its king. A fierce three-headed dog named Cerberus guarded Hades. The river Styx Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus between Hades and the world of the living. A ferryman named Charon rowed dead souls across the Styx.

Here are some interesting facts about Hades’ story:

•The Ancient Greeks feared Hades so much that they avoided saying his name. Instead, they called him “Pluton,” which meant “the Rich.” This was because Hades’ realm was said to be the home of precious stones and metals. The Romans renamed Hades “Pluto.”

•Today, a plutocrat is someone who rules other people with wealth. A plutocracy is a government based on wealth.

•A small, distant object called Pluto was once thought to be the farthest planet from the sun. Today Pluto is no longer considered to be a planet at all. The farthest planet from the sun is called Neptune. This was the Roman name for Poseidon, the god of the sea.

•A task that seems pointless and endless is now sometimes called Sisyphean.

Apollo

Apollo was the twin brother of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and the Moon. Like his sister, Apollo loved hunting with a bow and arrow. He was the god of wisdom, poetry, and music.

Apollo was a handsome god, with long black hair. He drove a golden chariot drawn by swans. He was the leader of the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts.

This god liked lions, wolves, stags, crows, and dolphins. He also liked cattle, and once had a herd of his own. The baby Hermes stole that herd from him. But Apollo let Hermes keep the cattle in return for his lyre. The lyre was a kind of harp that Hermes had made out of a tortoise shell.

When Apollo was still a young god, he wanted to know his future. So he went to a town called Delphi, where a priestess was said to tell fortunes. She was called an “oracle.”

When Apollo arrived in Delphi, he Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus trouble awaiting him. A monster named Python was supposed to guard the oracle. But Python had turned cruel and was terrorizing the people of Delphi.

Apollo killed Python with his bare hands. Then the citizens of Delphi built a temple in his honor. The oracle kept telling people’s fortunes there.

After that, Apollo became known as the god of prophecy—which means the ability to foretell the future. He was believed to always tell the truth.

Apollo was also known as great healer. However, he sometimes caused disease as well. His son, Asclepius, was the god of medicine for a while. But Asclepius grew so powerful that he could raise the dead. The gods couldn’t allow that, so Zeus killed Asclepius with his thunderbolt.

Because Apollo was called the god of light, he was sometimes mistaken for the sun god. The real god of the sun was Helios, who drove a flaming chariot across the sky.

Helios once made a terrible mistake. He allowed his half-mortal son Phaeton to drive his chariot. But Phaeton couldn’t control Helios’s horses. He almost destroyed the world with that flaming chariot. Like Asclepius, Phaeton was killed by Zeus’s thunderbolt.

Here are some interesting facts about Apollo’s story:

•A huge snake Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus a python can be found in parts of Africa and Asia. It’s named after the monster that Apollo killed.

•In ancient times Delphi was said to be the center of the world. Its ruins are still visited today.

•The Pythian Games were an athletic event held every four years in Delphi. They were named after the monster slain by Apollo. Those games were something like today’s Olympics. The earliest Olympic games were also played in Ancient Greece.

•A priestess in Delphi really was believed to tell fortunes. Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus she was asked about the Athenian philosopher Socrates. She said that no one in the world was wiser than he. Socrates was surprised, because he thought he knew nothing at all. He soon noticed that people who thought themselves wise knew no more than he did. So Socrates was truly wise in knowing himself to be ignorant.

•Today the word Apollonian means wise, prudent, and well thought-out. The god Dionysus was thought to be reckless and unruly, most unlike the calm and sensible Apollo. So the word Dionysian means wild, uncontrolled, and lacking reason.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was the god of fire. He was a blacksmith whose forge was in a volcano. His helpers were one-eyed giants called Cyclopes. He worked in bronze, iron, silver, and gold. He also made things out Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus clay, including living creatures. From clay he made Pandora, the first mortal woman in the world.

Hephaestus made many useful things for the gods. For the Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus god Hermes, he made a winged hat and winged sandals. For the sun god Helios, he made a golden chariot to ride across the sky. For the Eros, the god of love, he made a silver bow with silver arrows.

Hephaestus was a good-natured god who usually got along well with everybody. Even so, his mother, Hera, once got angry with him. She threw him off Olympus, the mountain where the gods lived. When he hit the ground, he broke his foot. A goddess named Thetis nursed him back to health. But he walked with a limp ever after that.

Good-natured though he was, Hephaestus didn’t forgive Hera. And he finally got even with her. He made a beautiful throne out of gold and offered it to her as a gift. When she sat on it, invisible chains wrapped around her wrists. She couldn’t get out of the throne, which rose up into the air.

All the gods tried to talk Hephaestus into letting Hera loose. Hephaestus finally did when the beautiful goddess Aphrodite agreed to marry him. Theirs wasn’t a happy marriage, though. Aphrodite was really in love with Ares, the god of war.

The goddess Thetis had a half-mortal son named Achilles. When Achilles was a baby, she bathed him in the river Styx. This was supposed to make him invulnerable, meaning impossible to hurt or kill. Even so, Thetis worried when Achilles got ready to go fight in the Trojan War.

Hephaestus made the best weapons and armor in the world. So Thetis asked Hephaestus to make a shield and armor for Achilles. Hephaestus was still grateful to Thetis for helping him after his fall from Olympus. So he was happy to do as she asked.

Hephaestus’s armor didn’t let Achilles down during the war. But Thetis had made one mistake. When she had dipped Nuts Commander Slots Machine in the river Styx, she had held him by the heel. So his heel was not invulnerable. Achilles was killed by an arrow in his heel.

Here are some interesting facts about Hephaestus’s story:

•Pandora, the woman Hephaestus made from clay, was said to have had a box of evils. She opened the box, letting all those evils loose in the world. Today, to “open a Pandora’s box” means to cause a lot of trouble accidentally.

•The Romans gave Hephaestus the name Vulcan. That’s where the word “volcano” comes from.

•The word “vulcanization” also comes from the name Vulcan. Vulcanization is a process for hardening rubber, especially for tires. It uses extreme heat and sulfur.

•Today, a person’s weak spot is called an “Achilles’s heel,” after the story of how Achilles died.

•Human history is sometimes divided into three periods. Alkemors Tower Slots Machine are named after the materials most used for tools in those times. The earliest was the Stone Age, followed by the Bronze Age, followed by the Iron Age. The stories about Hephaestus were told in the Iron Age, when blacksmithing was very important.

Hestia

The beautiful Hestia was the oldest of the gods of Olympus. She disliked gossip, so hardly any stories were told about he. But it would be a mistake to think she wasn’t important. In some ways, she was the most important of all the gods.

From the earliest times, the other gods of Olympus all had duties. Hermes carried messages, Ares was in charge of war, Artemis watched over all hunters, and Zeus ruled over everybody. Other gods had other jobs. But for a time, no one seemed to know what Hestia was supposed to do.

One day the gods Poseidon and Apollo told Zeus that they both loved Hestia. Both of them wanted to marry her. They demanded that Zeus choose between them. Otherwise, war would break out among the gods. And such a war would have been terrible indeed.

But Hestia solved the whole problem very simply. She refused ever to have a husband. Zeus was relieved and grateful to avoid a war. As a reward, he gave Hestia the keys to Olympus. He put her in charge of the gods’ everyday business. Hestia made sure that the gods always had plenty of food, clothing, and money. After all, even gods have to worry about such things!

Zeus also made Hestia the goddess of homes everywhere. It was she Paper Reels Slots Machine taught mortals how to build houses. And every house had a sacred spot for her. That was the hearth, the center of family life.

Mortals prayed to Hestia more than to any of the other gods. Every family meal began and ended with a prayer to Hestia. Whenever a baby was born, the parents carried it around the hearth and prayed to Hestia. Mortals had a saying: “Begin with Hestia.” In other words, when doing anything, always start out in the right way.

Hestia lived a quiet life, leaving fame and adventure to others. Zeus’s half-mortal son Dionysus showed up on Olympus one Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus. He wanted to have a throne like the other important gods. Hestia gladly gave up her own throne for him. After all, she was too busy to spend much time sitting there.

Here are some interesting facts about Hestia’s story:

•A hearth in an Ancient Greek home wasn’t like today’s fireplaces. It wasn’t placed in a wall at the end of a room.

Instead, it was in the middle of the central room. Its coals burned all the time, whether for warmth or for cooking. In honor of Hestia, Greeks made sure that the fire never went out.

•Every Ancient Greek city also had a public hearth for all citizens. Hestia was sacred there also. When the people of one city founded another city, they took coals with them to light the new city’s hearth. As in hearths in Zeus Raining Money on Mount Olympus houses, the fires in public hearths were never allowed to die out.

•In Ancient Rome, Hestia was called by the name of Vesta. The six priestesses in her temple were called Vestals. Like Vesta herself, they never married.

•An asteroid called Vesta is named after the goddess. An asteroid is a body that orbits the sun but is much smaller than a planet. Although Vesta is only the second largest asteroid, it is the one most visible from Earth. The largest asteroid is called Ceres, the Roman name for the goddess Demeter.

At the centre of Greek Mythology is the group of powerful Gods who were said to live on Mt Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece.

Known as the Olympians, they gained control in a year-long war of Gods, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over the previous generation of ruling Gods, the Titans*.

From their perch, they ruled every aspect of human life. Olympian Gods and Goddesses looked like men and women (though they could change themselves into animals and other things) and were — as many myths described — vulnerable to human feelings, weaknesses and passions.

When things had to be decided about wars, punishments or everyday life, this council of 12 met on Mt Olympus to discuss them.

The Olympians all kept a home on Mt Olympus but Poseidon preferred his palace under the sea.

THE 12 OLYMPIANS:

1. Zeus: the King of all the Gods

2. Hera: the Queen of the Gods and Goddess of women and marriage

3. Aphrodite: Goddess of beauty and love

4. Apollo: God of prophecy, music and poetry and knowledge

5. Ares: God of war

6. Artemis: Goddess of hunting, animals and childbirth

7. Athena: Goddess of wisdom and defence

8. Demeter: Goddess of agriculture and grain

9. Dionysos: God of wine, pleasure and festivity

Hephaistos: God of fire, metalworking and sculpture

Hermes: God of travel, hospitality and trade and Zeus’s personal messenger

Poseidon: God of the sea

Other Gods and Goddesses sometimes included in the roster of Olympians are:

Hades: God of the underworld

Hestia: Goddess of home and family

Eros (also known as Cupid): God of Love

ZEUS: KING OF THE GODS
Often referred to as the “Father of Gods and men”, Zeus was a Sky God who controlled lightning, thunder and storms.

Zeus was the king of Mount Olympus, the home of Greek Gods, where he ruled the world and imposed his will on to Gods and humans.

Zeus was thought of as wise and fair, but his decisions were hard to predict at times and he could be easily angered. When he was in a bad mood, he was said to throw lightning bolts and cause violent storms that caused destruction* on Earth.

Zeus fell in love very easily and had many relationships, but he would severely punish anybody who attempted to fall in love with his wife Hera.

He is often described as a big, strong man with long, curly, hair. He was usually drawn with a beard and carried his trusty thunderbolt at all times.

Zeus was lucky to survive his birth.

His father, Cronus, King of the Titans, upon learning that one of his children was destined* to take his throne, swallowed his children as soon as they were born. But Rhea, his wife, saved the infant Zeus by substituting a stone wrapped in baby clothes for Cronus to swallow. She hid Zeus in a cave on the island of Crete. After Zeus grew to manhood he led a battle against the Titans and succeeded in forcing Cronus off the throne.

• ZEUS FACTS:
  Title: King of Olympus
• Rules over: Skies, thunder, lightning, hospitality, honour, kingship and order
• Gender: male
• Symbols: lightning, thunderbolt, set of scales, oak tree, royal sceptor
• Sacred animals: eagle, wolf, woodpecker
• Parents: Cronus and Rhea

NOTE: For more information on the other Olympian Gods, please see the story Greek Gods of Mt Olympus.

GLOSSARY

• The Titans: any of a family of giants in Greek mythology born to Uranus and Gaea and ruling the Earth until overthrown by the Olympian Fruit Sensation Slots damaging something so badly it falls into ruins
• destined: meant to happen in the future

EXTRA READING
Part One: What is Greek Mythology
Part Three: Greek Gods of Mt Olympus

QUICK QUIZ

1. How many Olympian Gods and Goddesses were there?
2. Where did they live?
3. Who did they defeat in the year war?
4. Which God preferred to live in his underwater palace?
5. How did Zeus’s mother save his life as an infant?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Refer to the accompanying Greek Myths and Legends classroom workbook with 25 activities. Can be purchased for $5 including GST at ingalex.de

HAVE YOUR SAY: If you could choose to be one of the 12 Olympians, who would you choose to be?
No one-word answers. Use full sentences to explain your thinking. No comments will show until approved by editors.