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Final Mythology
Review!
Feraco
English 9
18 January 2011
Zeus (Latin: Jupiter)
 Domain/Realm: Heavens
 Temperament: Varied; can be moved to anger,
follows passions easily, yet somehow stands
regal
 Miscellany: His portrayal shifts over the
course of many stories, partly because of
changing attitudes/authors and partly
because of cultural absorption
 Rules over Olympus after the war because he
wins the “lot-draw,” not because he led the
gods into battle
 Power greater than all others, but could still
be tricked or opposed (think Prometheus)
 Wields thunderbolts as his main weapon,
which he learned to use from the monsters
during the war, and also the aegis, which he
gives to Athena
Hera (Latin: Juno)
 Domain/Realm: Marriage
 Temperament: Frequently jealous
and easily angered; persecutes
Zeus’s lovers and even their
children; often portrayed
negatively
 Miscellany: Zeus’s sister-wife
 Her portrayal, along with Zeus’s,
helps give us a window into Greek
cultural values
Poseidon (Latin: Neptune)
 Domain/Realm: Ocean
 Temperament: A fusion of Zeus’s and Hera’s;
easily angered, and terrible when he loses his
temper, yet still regal and worthy of honors
 Miscellany: Rules the sea as the result of the
“lot-draw”
 Second-most-powerful among the gods
 Flooded Athens when he lost the contest for
their worship
 Watches over horses, his gift to mankind
 Wielded a trident
 Causes earthquakes (“The Earthshaker”)
 Father of the Cyclopes in The Odyssey, and
Odysseus’s main deistic foe
Hades (Latin: Pluto)
 Domain/Realm: Underworld
 Temperament: Grim, serious, but not
evil
 Miscellany: Rules the underworld as
the result of the “lot-draw,” not as a
reflection of inner evil
 God of Wealth as well (think precious
metals buried underneath the earth)
 Kidnapped Persephone, Demeter’s
daughter, and made her his queen
 Famously owned a headpiece
(alternately a helmet or cap) which
granted its wearer invisibility
 King of Death, not Death itself
Athena (Latin: Minerva)
 Domain/Realm: Wisdom/City
 Temperament: Can be fierce and
ruthless (think Trojan War), but
also wise, loyal, and powerful
 Miscellany: Emerged from Zeus’s
head
 Often carries his thunderbolt and
aegis
 Parthenos the Virgin Goddess,
worshipped at the Parthenon
 Athens worships her (olive tree),
as did the Trojans
Phoebus Apollo
 Domain/Realm: Light and prophecy
 Temperament: An extremely varied
personality; could be downright
vicious, yet often held up as the
master of truth, healing, and
purification
 Miscellany: The “most Greek” of the
gods
 Wields arrows that he shoots
unerringly
 Oracle is at Delphi
 Loses Daphne when she turns into a
tree (laurel = his tree)
 Often serves as the sun-god, although
that’s Helios’s job
Artemis (Latin: Diana/Cynthia)
 Domain/Realm: Hunting, the wild, and the
moon
 Temperament: Fierce; often angry or
vindictive, but forceful even in her better
moments
 Miscellany: Apollo’s twin
 Loved Orion deeply (virgin goddess)
 Hunts, but loves animals and protects them
fiercely
 Bringer of painless death to women
 Wields silver arrows that she shoots
unerringly
 Protected youth
 When Apollo would serve as the Sun, she
would be the Moon (Selene, Phoebe, Luna –
not her names originally)
 The “goddess of three forms” (Hecate,
Artemis, Selene)
Aphrodite (Latin: Venus)
 Domain/Realm: Love/Beauty
 Temperament: Light, laughing,
lovely, but also soft, weak, and
treacherous
 Miscellany: Created from sea
foam in later myths (originally
the child of Zeus and Dione)
 Married to Haphaestus
 Exerted a dangerous power over
men
Hermes (Latin: Mercury)
 Domain/Realm: Messenger
 Temperament: Graceful, but
cunning (master thief)
 Miscellany: Wielded the caduceus,
and wore winged shoes/hat
 In addition to his duties for Zeus,
he leads souls to the underworld
after death
 Appears more frequently in
myths than any other divinity
Ares (Latin: Mars)
 Domain/Realm: War
 Temperament: Cowardly, vicious,
and angry
 Miscellany: His parents (Zeus and
hera) hated him
 Doesn’t appear in many myths,
yet remains famous anyway
(more a figurehead than a
distinct personality)
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Haphaestus (Latin: Vulcan/Mulciber)
Domain/Realm: Fire and forge
Temperament: Kind and peaceful,
despite the nature of his work
Miscellany: Sometimes said to be born
to Hera alone (the vengeful parallel to
Athena’s motherless birth)
Married to Aphrodite
Born lame/crippled, although in some
stories it is claimed that Zeus hurled
him out for defending Hera (for the
most part, he’s honored in Olympus)
Often blamed for volcanic eruptions
(said to be the byproduct of his
hammer striking the forge)
Just as Athena protected the arts
(weavers), so did he (smiths)
Hestia (Latin: Vesta)
 Domain/Realm: Home and hearth
 Temperament: Indistinct
 Miscellany: A virgin goddess like
Athena and Artemis
 No distinct personality, and
doesn’t play a role in the myths
(think Ares)
 Every city had an eternal flame in
its public hearth for her
Eros (Latin: Cupid)
 Domain/Realm: Love
 Temperament: Fair and serious in
early stories, mischievous in later
ones
 Miscellany: Equipped with bow
and arrow
 Loved Psyche
Dionysus (Latin: Bacchus)
 Domain/Realm: Wine
 Temperament: Deeply
contradictory; capable of
tremendous joy and terrible
violence
 Miscellany: The only god with a
non-divine mother, one he
retrieved from the underworld
(think Disney’s Hercules and
Megara)
 Followed by “mad women” known
as the Maenads
Demeter (Latin: Ceres)
 Domain/Realm: Corn and harvest
 Temperament: Alternately joyful
and sad
 Miscellany: Loses her daughter to
Hades for a third of the year; the
Greeks used her resultant sorrow
to explain the changing seasons
(joy in spring, enjoyment in
summer, dread in fall, grief in
winter)
Cronus (Latin: Saturn)
 Domain/Realm: Heavens
 Temperament: Alternately fearful,
forceful, and wise
 Miscellany: Castrated Ouranos, his
father
 Feared the prophecy about his
children so deeply that he consumed
each of them
 Thrown out of power by Zeus and the
other gods
 In Rome, he was believed to have
retreated to Italy after the war and
ushered in that nation’s Golden Age
Prometheus and Epimetheus
 Epimetheus’s dealings during the
war are unclear; Prometheus
fought on the side of the gods
 May have been responsible for
creating humans (Epimetheus’s
pile of parts), although the Ages
(Gold/Silver/Brass/Heroic/Iron)
are an alternate explanation
 Tricking Zeus
 Gift and Punishment
 Pandora
Olympus and the Underworld
 Olympus is ometimes a physical place, at
other times a place that seems to defy
physical description
 The high seat first of Ouranos/Cronus, then of
the gods
 In the underworld, Tartarus and Erebus are
sometimes distinct; Tartarus is the Titans’
prison, while Erebus is the place the dead
must pass
 The Elysian Fields are a place of quiet
blessedness, open only to the good; the bad
must suffer eternally elsewhere
 Five rivers: Acheron (woe), Cocytus
(lamentation); Phlegethon (fire); Styx
(unbreakable oath); Lethe (forgetfulness)
Others
 Gaea (Earth) and Ouranos (Heaven)
 Rhea (Cronus’s sister-queen)
 Creatures: Fifty-headed/hundredhanded monsters; Cyclopes; Titans;
Furies/Erinyes; Giants; Typhon
 Atlas: A Titan who held the world on
his shoulders as punishment for the
God/Titan war
 Iapetus: The Titan who fathered
Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas
Others
 Hyperion: A Titan who was the father of the sun,
moon, and dawn
 Helios: The sun-god fathered by Hyperion
 Ocean: A Titan whose body formed the river that
encircled the world
 The Graces: Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth),
and Thalia (Good Cheer); Zeus’s daughters and Ocean’s
granddaughters; always treated as a combined unit,
invoked as a trio, and they were forever wonderful
 The Muses: Nine daughters of Zeus; presided over
music and the arts (note invocation in The Odyssey);
originally treated as indistinct from one another, then
granted specialties in later years; Clio (history),
Urania (astronomy), Melpomene (tragedy), Thalia
(comedy), Terpsichore (dance), Calliope (epic poetry),
Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (songs for gods), and
Euterpe (lyric poetry)
 The Fates: Equipped with scissors, thread, and
measuring stick; could be even more powerful than
Zeus, although this isn’t consistent