Download Gods and Goddesses of Olympus

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Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
JUPITER (Latin form IUPPITER; Greek
name ZEUS) was the supreme god of
the Olympians. He was lord of the sky,
the rain god and the cloud gatherer.
His weapon was a thunderbolt, which
he hurled at those who displeased him.
He was married to JUNO (HERA) but was
famous for his
many affairs. An
eagle attended
him as a minister
of his will, and
for a page and
cup-bearer he
had GANYMEDE, a
boy so beautiful
that JUPITER had
him stolen from
Mount Ida to
make him immortal in heaven. He was
also known to punish those that lie or
break oaths. His tree was the oak, and
his oracle was at Dodona, the land of
the oak trees.
JUPITER was the youngest son of the
Titans SATURN (Greek name CRONUS)
and RHEA. When he was born, his
father CRONUS intended to swallow him
as he had all of JUPITER’S siblings:
NEPTUNE, PLUTO, VESTA, CERES and JUNO.
But RHEA hid the newborn in a cave on
Mount Dicte in Crete. (To this day, the
guides at the "cave of JUPITER" use their
flashlights to cast shadow puppets in
the cave, creating images of baby
JUPITER from the myth.)
When he had grown up, JUPITER caused
CRONUS to vomit up his sisters and
brothers, and these gods joined him in
fighting to wrest control of the
universe from the Titans and CRONUS,
their king. Having deposed his father
and the other Titans, JUPITER
imprisoned most of them in the
underworld of Tartarus.
Then he and his brothers NEPTUNE and
PLUTO divided creation between them.
NEPTUNE received the sea as his
domain, PLUTO got the Underworld,
and JUPITER took the sky. JUPITER also
was accorded supreme authority on
earth and on Mount Olympus.
POWERS: Judgment, Weather, Oaths
SYMBOLS: Thunderbolt, Eagle, Oak
tree
JUNO (Latin form IUNO; Greek name
HERA) was the goddess of marriage.
JUNO was the wife of JUPITER and Queen
of the Olympians.
JUNO hated the great hero HERCULES,
since he was the son of her husband
JUPITER and a mortal woman. When he
was still an infant, she sent snakes to
attack him in his crib. Later, she stirred
up the Amazons against him when he
was on one of his quests.
On the other hand, JUNO aided the hero
JASON, who would never have retrieved
the Golden Fleece without her
sponsorship.
POWERS: Marriage, Childbirth
SYMBOLS: Peacock, Cow
NEPTUNE (Latin form NEPTUNUS; Greek
name POSEIDON) was the god of the
sea, earthquakes, and horses.
Although he was officially one of the
supreme gods of Mount Olympus, he
spent most of his time in his watery
domain.
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Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
His weapon was a trident, which could
shake the earth, and shatter any
object. He was second only to JUPITER
in power amongst the gods. Under the
ocean, he had a marvelous golden
palace, its grottos adorned with corals
and the sea-flowers, and lit with a
phosphorescent glow. He rose forth in
a chariot drawn by dolphins, seahorses, and other marine creatures.
As god of horses,
NEPTUNE often
adopted the shape of
a steed. NEPTUNE
sometimes granted
the shape-shifting
power to others. And
he granted the
request of the maiden
CAENIS that she be transformed into the
invulnerable, male warrior CAENEUS.
POWERS: Sea, Earthquakes, Shapeshifting
SYMBOLS: Horses, Trident (threepronged spear)
PLUTO (Greek name HADES) was the
brother of JUPITER. He was made lord of
the underworld, ruling over the dead.
He was a greedy god, who was greatly
concerned with increasing his
subjects. He was exceedingly
disinclined to allow any of his subjects
to leave. PLUTO sat on a throne made of
ebony, and carried a scepter. People
avoided speaking his name, lest they
attracted his unwanted attention. With
their faces averted, they sacrificed
black sheep, whose blood they let drip
into pits, and when they prayed to him,
they would bang their hands on the
ground. The narcissus and the cypress
are sacred to him.
He was also
the god of
wealth, due to
the precious
metals mined
from the earth.
He had a
helmet that
made him
invisible. He
rarely left the
underworld. He was unpitying and
terrible, but not capricious. His wife
was PROSERPINA, whom PLUTO
abducted. He was the King of the
Dead, but Death itself is another god,
THANATOS.
POWERS: Underworld, Spirits of the
Dead, Wealth, Invisibility Helmet
SYMBOLS: Narcissus, Cypress
MINERVA (Greek name ATHENA) was
the goddess of crafts and the domestic
arts and also those of war. She was the
patron goddess of Athens. Her symbol
was the owl.
MINERVA was the daughter of JUPITER.
She sprang full-grown in armor from
his forehead; thus she has no mother.
She was fierce and brave in battle but
only fought to protect the state and
home from outside enemies. She was
the goddess of the city, handicrafts,
and agriculture. She invented the
bridle, which permitted man to tame
horses, the trumpet, the flute, the pot,
the rake, the plow, the yoke, the ship,
and the chariot. She was the
embodiment of wisdom, reason, and
purity. She was JUPITER'S favorite child
and was allowed to use his weapons
including his thunderbolt. Her favorite
city was Athens. Her tree was the olive.
The owl was her bird.
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Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
Both MINERVA and NEPTUNE wanted to
be patron deity of Athens. To prove
her worthiness for the honor, MINERVA
caused an olive tree to spring up on
the citadel of Athens, the Acropolis.
NEPTUNE sought to outdo her by
striking the ground with his trident and
causing a spring of water to gush forth.
But as he was god of the sea, the water
was salty. MINERVA'S gift to the
Athenians was considered to be more
useful, so she became the city's patron
deity.
POWERS: Wisdom, War, Crafts
SYMBOLS: Owl, Olive Tree
APOLLO (Greek name Apollo) was the
god of prophecy, music, and healing,
the god of light, and the god of truth,
who cannot speak a lie.
One of APOLLO'S
more important
daily tasks was to
harness his chariot
with four horses and
drive the Sun across
the sky.
He was famous for
his oracle at Delphi.
People traveled to it
from all over the Greek world to divine
the future.
When someone died suddenly, he was
said to have been struck down by one
of APOLLO'S arrows. HOMER'S epic of the
Trojan War begins with the god
causing a plague by raining arrows
down upon the Greek camp.
As god of music, APOLLO is often
depicted playing the lyre. He did not
invent this instrument, however, but
was given it by MERCURY in
compensation for cattle theft. Some say
that APOLLO did invent the lute,
although he was best known for his
skill on the lyre.
He won several musical contests by
playing this instrument. In one case he
bested PAN, who competed on his own
invention, the shepherd's pipe. On this
occasion, King MIDAS had the bad
sense to say that he preferred PAN'S
music, which caused APOLLO to turn his
ears into those of a donkey.
POWERS: Music, Prophecy, Healing,
Light
SYMBOLS: Lyre, Sun, Crow, Laurel
Tree, Dolphin
DIANA (Greek name ARTEMIS) was the
goddess of the hunt.
She helped women in
childbirth but also
brought sudden death
with her arrows.
DIANA and her brother
APOLLO were the
children of JUPITER and
LETO. In some versions
of their myth, DIANA
was born first and
helped her mother to deliver APOLLO.
DIANA is generally depicted as a young
woman clad in buckskins, carrying a
bow and a quiver of arrows. She is
often accompanied by wild creatures,
such as a stag or a she-bear.
POWERS: Hunting, Unmarried
Maidens, Childbirth
SYMBOLS: Bow and arrows, Deer, Shebear, Moon, Cypress Tree
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Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
VENUS (Greek name Aphrodite) was
the goddess of love, beauty and
fertility. She was also a protectress of
sailors.
The poet HESIOD said that VENUS was
born from sea-foam. HOMER, on the
other hand, said that she was the
daughter of JUPITER and DIONE.
The love goddess was married to the
homely craftsman-god VULCAN. She
was unfaithful to him with MARS, and
HOMER relates in the Odyssey how
VULCAN had his revenge.
Elsewhere in classical art she has no
distinctive attributes other than her
beauty. Flowers and vegetation motifs
suggest her connection to fertility. Her
son CUPID (Greek name EROS) shot the
arrows that caused people to fall in
love.
POWERS: Love, Beauty
SYMBOLS: Dove, Swan, Sparrow,
Myrtle Tree
MARS (Greek name ARES) was the god
of war, or more precisely of warlike
frenzy. Though an immortal deity, he
was bested by HERCULES in battle and
was almost killed when stuffed into a
jar by two giants. When another hero
wounded him during the Trojan War,
he received scant sympathy from his
father JUPITER.
In appearance, MARS was handsome
and cruel. He is often depicted
carrying a bloodstained spear. His
throne on Mount Olympus was said to
be covered in human skin.
The Roman god MARS, with whom the
Greek god ARES was identified, was
the father of ROMULUS and REMUS, the
mythological founders of Rome. Thus
he was more important to the Romans
than his Greek counterpart. He was
also more dignified.
POWERS: War frenzy
SYMBOLS: Spear, Vulture, Dog
CERES (Greek name DEMETER) was the
goddess of agriculture. CERES was the
sister of JUPITER and the mother of
PROSERPINA.
PROSERPINA was gathering flowers in a
meadow one day when a huge crack
opened up in the earth and PLUTO, King
of the Dead, emerged from the
Underworld. He siezed PROSERPINA and
carried her off in his chariot, back
down to his his realm below, where
she became his queen. CERES was
heartbroken. She wandered the length
and breadth of the earth in search of
her daughter, during which time the
crops withered and it became
perpetual winter.
At length PLUTO was persuaded to
surrender PROSERPINA for one half of
every year, the spring and summer
seasons when flowers bloom and the
earth bears fruit once more. The half
year that PROSERPINA spends in the
Underworld as PLUTO'S queen
coincides with the barren season.
POWERS: Harvest
SYMBOLS: Sheaf of grain
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Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
VULCAN (Latin form VULCANUS; Greek
name HEPHAESTUS) was the lame god of
fire and crafts or the two together,
hence of blacksmiths. VULCAN was the
son of JUPITER and JUNO or, in some
accounts, of JUNO alone. He limped
because he was born lame, which
caused his mother to throw him off
Mount Olympus. Or, in other accounts,
he interceded in a fight between
JUPITER and JUNO, and JUPITER took him
by the foot and threw him from
Olympus to the earth far below.
VULCAN accomplished numerous
prodigies of craftsmanship, such as the
marvelous palaces that he built for the
gods atop Mount Olympus, or the
armor that he made for ACHILLES during
the siege of Troy (the description of
which occupies a great many lines of
HOMER'S epic of the Trojan War). He
was kind and peace-loving.
VULCAN also created the first woman,
PANDORA, at the command of JUPITER, in
retaliation for the various tricks by
which the Titan PROMETHEUS had
benefited mortal men at the expense
of the gods. PANDORA was given to the
Titan's brother, EPIMETHEUS, as his wife.
For her dowry, she brought a jar filled
with evils from which she removed the
lid, thereby afflicting men for the first
time with hard work and sickness.
Only hope remained inside the jar.
POWERS: Fire, Crafts, Blacksmiths,
Weavers
SYMBOLS: Volcano, Fire
MERCURY (Latin form MERCURIUS;
Greek name HERMES) was the
messenger of the gods and guide of
dead souls to the Underworld. A
prankster and inventive genius from
birth, MERCURY aided the heroes
ODYSSEUS and PERSEUS in their quests.
MERCURY was the son of JUPITER and a
mountain nymph. As a newborn, he
was remarkably precocious. On his
very first day of life, he found the
empty shell of a tortoise and perceived
its utility as a sounding chamber.
Stringing sinews across it, he created
the first lyre.
MERCURY was known for his helpfulness
to mankind, both in his capacity as
immortal herald and on his own
initiative. When PERSEUS set out to face
the Gorgon MEDUSA, MERCURY aided
him in the quest. According to one
version of the myth, he loaned the hero
his own magic sandals, which
conferred upon the wearer the ability
to fly.
Some say that MERCURY loaned PERSEUS
a helmet of invisibility as well. Also
known as the helmet of darkness, this
was the same headgear that MERCURY
himself had worn when he vanquished
the giant HIPPOLYTUS. This was on the
occasion when the gargantuan sons of
Earth rose
up in revolt
against the
gods of
Olympus.
MERCURY'S
symbol of
office as
divine
messenger
was his staff,
or caduceus.
This was
originally a
willow wand
with entwined ribbons, the traditional
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Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
badge of the herald. But the ribbons
were eventually depicted as snakes.
To support this mythologically, a story
evolved that MERCURY used the
caduceus to separate two fighting
snakes, which forthwith twined
themselves together in peace.
It was MERCURY'S job to convey dead
souls to the Underworld. And, as
patron of travelers, he was often shown
in a wide-brimmed sun hat of straw.
His most famous depiction, a statue by
Bellini, shows him alight on one foot,
wings at his heels, the snaky caduceus
in hand and, on his head, a rather
stylized combination helmet-ofdarkness and sun hat.
POWERS: Travelers, Messenger,
Thieves, Mischief, Commerce
SYMBOLS: Flying sandals, Caduceus,
Sun hat, Helmet of Darkness
PAN was a god of shepherds and
flocks. PAN was the son of MERCURY and
a nymph. He was born with the legs
and horns of a goat, which caused his
own mother to spurn him.
Nor was the adult god more popular
with the nymphs. ECHO ran away from
him and lost her voice as a
consequence, being condemned only
to repeat the words of others. Another
fleeing nymph was transformed into a
reed, which inspired PAN to invent the
shepherd's pipe, or "panpipe," of
bound reeds of varying lengths.
PAN was considered to be the cause of
the sudden fear that sometimes comes
for no reason, especially in lonely
places. That's why it's called "panic".
POWERS: Shepherds, Flocks
SYMBOLS: Panpipes
Text adapted from <http://www.mythweb.com/> and <http://www.classicsunveiled.
com/mythnet/html/index.html>.
Images are used courtesy of Windows to the Universe, <http://www.windows.ucar.
edu>.
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