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Mythical Marvels: The Love Triangle of Olympus
We’ve all heard some version of the love triangle between Aphrodite, Hephaestus, and Ares. But weirdly enough, there’s also some straight up unfounded versions of the story floating around that need to be debunked. So, I wanna talk about the relationship between these three gods, give a chronology of events, and set the record straight.
The Romance of Aphrodite and Ares
Aside from one snippet that states that Eros caused Aphrodite and Ares to fall in love, there seems to be little mythical explanation for how the pair came together. The only version I found had Ares taunting Eros’ small bow compared to the size and weight of Ares’ spear. Eros agreed the spear was too heavy for him, and handed it back, and when Ares and Aphrodite both touched the spear, they fell in love. A few things, this myth mirrors the myth of Apollo and Daphne, except when Apollo mocked the size of Eros’ weapon, Eros cursed him. But when Ares mocked Eros, he fell in love. There’s also the fact that Ares is the father of Eros, so this could Primordial Eros, a being older than Gaea. There’s also the Ancient Greek ideal that a small “spear” was a sign of intellect, while a large “spear” was a sign of brutish barbarism. So Aphrodite might just like Ares because he has a big “spear” making the whole myth of why they fell in love a sexual inuendo. Which, knowing the Greeks, sounds about right. However, it is important to note a few key things. Firstly, both Aphrodite and Ares would get jealous of each other’s lovers, such as Aphrodite cursing Eos to become boy crazy, or Ares turning into a boar to skewer Adonis. But they didn’t seem to be upset when the other slept around, as Ares is the father of literally all of the Amazons, and Aphrodite bears no mythical grudge against his many bastard daughters, nor does Ares hunt down every man who glances at Aphrodite. They only seem to get violent when the affair is more than a casual fling. Once feelings are involved, then the jealousy seeps in. Which suggests they have an open (but still “monogamous”) relationship. Secondly, while Eros or Cupid is the most famous child of Aphrodite and Ares, he is not the only one. Their first pair of children were actually two sons: Deimos and Phobos, the gods of fear and panic. These sons were the followers of their father, riding beside him in battle, and in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, even being allowed to use Zeus’ Lightning and Thunderbolt against Typhon. Their other children include Eros, the god of lust and desire, Harmonia, the goddess of harmony and peace, and debatably Anteros, the god of requited love. It’s unclear whether Aphrodite and Ares are the parents of all the Erotes or only Eros himself, but some accounts do make Ares the father of Anteros.
The Birth of Hephaestus
It’s safe to say that most people believe Hephaestus to be the offspring of both Zeus and Hera, but this is only upheld by Apollodorus and Cicero. Far more often, Hephaestus was solely the creation of Hera and Hera alone. Following the birth of Athena, created only by Zeus when he split his own head open to rid himself of a headache, a jealous Hera chose to create a god of her own too. But the resulting child was so ugly that she threw him from Olympus in both disgust and frustration. Now, this is commonly contradicted by the thought that Zeus had his head split open by Hephaestus, which may be part of why the Zeus as Hephaestus’ father is the more widely known story despite the Hera as the sole mother being the more popular version told.
The Marriage of Aphrodite
If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard the alternate version of this myth. That after washing ashore following her birth, Aphrodite had every god fighting over her hand, and in order to prevent an all-out war, one of two versions happened: Either A. Zeus forced Aphrodite to marry Hephaestus to prevent infighting, or B. Aphrodite chose Hephaestus. Yeah, so first of all, Aphrodite was born way before Hephaestus, so this myth is already bunk. She was born when Kronos castrated his father in a coup to usurp his throne, and her presence is why Kronos fell in love with and married Rhea. Her existence led to the siring of Hestia and the rest of the Olympians. The more accurate story goes that after Hephaestus was flung from Olympus and handicapped as a result, he was bitter toward his mother. He built her a magnificent throne and placed an enchantment on it. When she sat in the throne, it bound her to it, and only Hephaestus could release her. Zeus promised Aphrodite’s hand in marriage to whoever could bring Hephaestus to Olympus to undo the binding. Ares, along with his sons Deimos and Phobos, went to Hepheastus’ forge to try and drag Hephaestus back by force, but being on his own turf, the blacksmith was able to keep the war gods at bay, and they slumped back to Olympus defeated. Dionysus then went down and told Hephaestus about Zeus’ offer, and Hephaestus willingly came to Olympus. And since he had been the one to deliver himself to Olympus, he got Aphrodite’s hand in marriage. And keep in mind, she’s already had two children with Ares at this point.
The Affair of Aphrodite and Ares
After being forced to marry Hephaestus, Aphrodite continued to see her lover in secret, and bore at this time, the child Eros. The child was so beautiful that Hephaestus knew the child was not his. So, he crafted a net to catch Aphrodite and her secret lover red-handed, and in fact, he did. In the carnal act that would beget the goddess Harmonia, Ares and Aphrodite were caught in Hephaestus’ net, and Hephaestus brought all the gods to the chamber to laugh at the adulterers. However, depending on the version, the gods would laugh at either the couple… or at Hephaestus.
The Curse of Hephaestus
The Necklace of Harmonia is an artifact given to Harmonia by Hephaestus as a wedding present for her marriage to Cadmus of Thebes. Two versions of this story exist. In the first version, Hepheastus had made the necklace as a gift to Aphrodite out of joy that Eros had been born without any handicaps, and she had given the necklace to Harmonia. In the other version, the necklace was a false gift, crafted by Hephaestus to get revenge on Harmonia for his wife’s adultery. The Necklace of Harmonia would give whoever wore it youth and beauty, but it would also curse whoever wore it to be doomed to tragedy.
The Divorce of Aphrodite and Hephaestus
If you’re like me, you’ve probably never even heard this before. It sounds like crazy fanfic. Surely if Aphrodite and Hepheastus had gotten a divorce, it would be a well-known part of their tale, right? It’s only been mentioned in irrelevant stories like the Odyssey. After seeing Aphrodite and Ares canoodling, Hepheastus screams to Zeus (or more accurately, the sky) that he’s fed up with Aphrodite, and he shows up in the Iliad married to Aglaea, one of the Three Graces, the beautiful servants of Aphrodite. In Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, he delivered a lovely necklace to Persephone, having begrudgingly rebuked his claim over Aphrodite, and sought to make Persephone his new bride. Which he did prior to her being married to Hades. He also chased Athena when she came asking him to forge weapons for her.
So, I really like Bacchus/Dionysus. I don't work with him or anything, I just like his queerness and feminist agenda. But there is something that has been annoying me... His staff is not a pine cone.
Here are some examples of said staff(held by him, some maenads, and his wife):
The staff is described as a pine cone with oak leaves around it, he is also said to be wearing an oak leaf crown.
Here's the thing, why would the god of wine and drunken parties have a pine cone with oak leaves?
The answer is that he wouldn't.
So what is this plant? You may ask, well as a gardener and plant enthusiast as well as a study of Greek art and myth, I give you:
HOPS!!!!!!!!!
This is literally what they make beer with, wheat and hops.... And Dionysus is the god of alcohol. So the reasonable assumption should be that this is the plant that he is holding!!!
But I can't find a single article about this! Not even any speculation!! Why!! It's driving me crazy so I thought I'd share it with you all.
(Now I can understand a little why no one has ever realized this, hops are like two inches long a piece so it is a giant hop, but he's a god!!! He could totally create giant hops!!)
Hey quick question princess andromeda from the myth with Persus is from Ethiopia ? But then how come in paintings she is white ?
Quick question, long answer. Yes and no. It’s a little confusing. There are several parameters to this.
Aethiopia, an etymologically Greek name, is the name different Greeks gave to different places of the world. In the classical era (440 BCE), Herodotus called all the area south of the Sahara and the Nile as Aethiopia, making thus the most relevant description. Pindar however, a contemporary of his (~450 BCE), calls Aethiopia the region around Elam (Southwest Iran). Same as Hesiod, who did that in 700 BCE already. In ~500 BCE, both Scylax of Caryanda and Hecataeus of Miletus seem to agree Aethiopia is east of the Nile and expands throughout the Arabian peninsula all the way to the Indus Valley and the Indian Ocean. The first mention of Aethiopians is by Homer (~800 BC) who vaguely says that they lived in the extremities of the world, in the far east and west.
So as you see, the earlier back in time, the more generic and distant the term’s meaning is. Herodotus is likely the one who seals the association of Aethiopia with only sub-Saharan Africa and the country south of Egypt in particular.
The origins of Greek mythology precede all these writers. In general many historians suggest that the Aethiopia of the myth of Perseus and Andromeda was supposed to be in west Asia and perhaps somewhere around Israel and Palestine. Some believe it is Jaffa, Tel Aviv in particular. I am not totally sold on the explanations why. The point is however that Aethiopia’s geographical definition especially before Herodotus and even more before Hesiod was very vague and fluid. It seems it described places that in general were too hard for Greeks to reach, exotic.
The name itself can help us understand. Aethiopian means the one who looks burnt, smoked. From αίθω (aétho - burn) and όψη (ópsi - look, face). Now, this sounds low-key horrible in English but in Greek it’s not derogatory, but I have no better way to explain it. Ancient Greeks had written quite a few times about the attractiveness of the Aethiopians (whoever they were) so they didn’t associate the term with a repulsiveness like that of burnt flesh but just as the effect of the sun on their complexion.
In short, at least prior to Herodotus, Aethiopia was all the land inhabited by POC, even if that included large parts of Africa and Asia all the way to India. It did not include Libya (North Africa) and Egypt. This was not so much due to skintone (although it could be too - as North Africans can be way more white passing than people far from here believe) but because Greeks were well aware of these regions. Aethiopia was associated with exotic, distant places with darker people. This could be black people and brown people and all their various tones. Perhaps simply anyone who was noticeably darker than a Greek.
Now if we compare Jaffa (Andromeda’s Aethiopia) with modern day Israel or Palestine, then Andromeda and her parents could be medium brown or light brown or white / white passing.
However, I seriously doubt Ancient Greek art was concerned about skintone accuracy, simply because it was art made by Greeks and viewed by other Greeks. Everyone depicted usually followed the Greek standards of beauty. Besides, it’s a Greek myth, right? If we wonder about Andromeda’s complexion, then we should also wonder about her name! And her mother’s name! Why are they Greek? Well, simply, because it’s Greek mythology, which provides a genealogy where all progenitors are kin to Greek progenitors. Cepheus, Andromeda’s father, is brother of Danaus and has Argive ancestry (since this is a myth from Argos!). So if that’s true, Andromeda has Greek ancestry and might be white-passing because of that. But these is just exhaustive and in my opinion unnecessary nitpicking.
In Ancient Greek art complexion is almost always not depicted accurately but men are usually depicted as dark and women as fair because this was the beauty standard.
No this doesn’t mean Perseus was black and Andromeda white! It only shows the beauty standards of the time. Corinthian vase. Archaic period.
Andromeda, Perseus and Cepheus. Apulian vase, Classical Period. All look white or white passing.
Here although the skintone is the same, the artist makes Perseus blonde in order to stress Andromeda’s darkness through the haircolour. Zeugma, Roman period.
And… look at that!
In this ‘mildly’ racist art, Andromeda is depicted as a dude as the tall white-passing person in the middle and she is getting tied for the beast by fellow Aethiopians who however look nothing like her. They are shorter and clearly African. Andromeda wears Phrygian, thus non-African clothing, but also nothing like the Greek clothing. This artist wanted to provide some diversity but apparently not for the beautiful princess lol Attic vase, probably Classical period.
Anyway so, Andromeda was either brown or black or white passing at most, because of Jaffa and the argive ancestry. Once Aethiopia - Ethiopia’s location had become more specific though, western artists depicting Andromeda as pretty fair of skin or blonde is misrepresentation with questionable motives. My opinion is that there is a wide range of looks Andromeda can be depicted to have, but not something that makes her look whiter or even just as white as Perseus.
I wish Hera wasn't villainized as much as she is in media. I know the myths about her vary but at best she is in an emotionally neglectful marriage with a serial cheater. At worst Zeus took advantage of her love of animals, violated her and as a result she was shamed into marrying him. Not only that but Hera is held at a higher moral standard than her husband since as a goddess of marriage she needs to remain faithful to Zeus and she does it anyways. Every time she has had children outside of marriage was due to self induced pregnancy or are statistical outliers like the one kid she might have with Dionysus or the child she had after a giant took advantage of her.
Plus she literally can't direct her anger at Zeus for his affairs anymore. The last time Hera directed her anger at Zeus was when she helped usurp him and when that failed he chained her up in the sky, threatened to beat her and coerced her to swear an oath of fealty to him. She has every right to resent him for his unfaithfulness, she just can't act on that anger in any way that threatens Zeus due to an implied threat of violence. He doesn't respect her, she's not his equal in any real sense and she has been made to depend on him in order to keep any authority she has. Sure there are times where they reconcile, there are even times when Zeus protects Hera from other unsavory men but this is Zeus we're talking about. He is a hedonistic, violent man who constantly cheats on her with willing (and many unwilling) partners while simultaneously being responsible for several murders and torturous punishments for people like Prometheus, Ixion and Arke. He literally cannibalized his first wife Metis in order to preserve his power, what in the hell keeps Hera safe from him if he feels threatened by her?
Tl;Dr: While Hera isn't a good person her toxic behavior mainly stems from being trapped in a marriage with a psychologically abusive serial cheater with the capabilities to kill her at any moment if she threatens his power. While her anger is usually misdirected she can't directly confront Zeus and she has every right to feel jealous with a husband like him. Literally the only thing that can't be justified at all is how she treated Hephaestus.
Sure, everyone talks about Hera resenting and persecuting other women Zeus has children with, but let's also talk about Themis and Dione, both consorts of Zeus, coming to support Leto on Delos during her labour (Homeric Hymn 3), Maia raising Kallisto's son by Zeus (Apollodoros, Library 3.101), Leto raising a son of Zeus and Europa (Pausanias, Description of Greece 3.13.5), and Artemis and Athena being reared together with Persephone (Diodoros of Sicily, Library of History 5.2.3), which leads me to believe that (at least in this tradition) Demeter and Leto are on good terms and raised their daughters (and Athena) in common.
Ganymedes: The Adolescent Boy Zeus Abducted and Raped - Tales of Times Forgotten
The truth about Medusa and her rape... Mythology breakdown time!
With the recent release of the Percy Jackson television series, Tumblr is bursting with mythological posts, and the apparition of Medusa the Gorgon has been the object of numerous talks throughout this website… Including more and more spreading of misinformation, and more debates about what is the “true” version of Medusa’s backstory.
Already let us make that clear: the idea that Medusa was actually “blessed” or “gifted” by Athena her petrifying gaze/snake-hair curse is to my knowledge not at all part of the Antique world. I still do not know exactly where this comes from, but I am aware of no Greek or Roman texts that talked about this – so it seems definitively a modern invention. After all, the figure of Medusa and her entire myth has been taken part, reinterpreted and modified by numerous modern women, feminist activist, feminist movements or artists engaged in the topic of women’s life and social conditions – most notably Medusa becoming the “symbol of raped women’ wrath and fury”. It is an interesting reading and a fascinating update of the ancient texts, and it is a worthy take on its own time and context – but today we are not talking about the posterity, reinvention and continuity of Medusa as a myth and a symbol. I want to clarify some points about the ACTUAL myth or legend of Medusa – the original tale, as told by the Greeks and then by the Romans.
Most specifically the question: Was Medusa raped?
Step 1: Yes, but no.
The backstory of Medusa you will find very often today, ranging from mythology manuals (vulgarization manuals of course) to Youtube videos, goes as such: Medusa was a priestess of Athena who got raped by Poseidon while in Athena’s temple, and as a result of this, Athena punished Medusa by turning her into the monstrous Gorgon.
Some will go even further claiming Athena’s “curse” wasn’t a punishment but a “gift” or blessing – and again, I don’t know where this comes from and nobody seems to be able to give me any reliable source for that, so… Let’s put this out of there.
Now this backstory – famous and popular enough to get into Riodan’s book series for example – is partially true. There are some elements here very wrong – and by wrong I do mean wrong.
The story of Medusa being raped and turned into a monster due to being raped does indeed exist, and it is the most famous and widespread of all the Medusa stories, the one people remembered for the longest time and wrote and illustrated the most about. Hence why Medusa became in the 20th century this very important cultural symbol tied to rape and the abuse of women and victim-blaming. HOWEVER – the origin of this story is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from the first century CE or so. Ovid? A Roman poet writing for Roman people. “Metamorphoses”? One of the two fundamental works of Roman literature and one of the two main texts of Roman mythology, alongside Virgil’s Aeneid. This is a purely Roman story belonging to the Roman culture – and not the Greek one. The story of Medusa’s rape does not have Greek precedents to my knowledge, Ovid introduced the element of rape – which is no surprise given Ovid turned half of the romances of Greek mythology into rapes. Note that, on top of all this, Ovid wasn’t even writing for religious purposes, nor was his text an actual mythological effort – he wrote it with pure literary intentions at heart. It is just a piece of poetry and literature taking inspiration from the legends of the Greek world, not some sort of sacred text.
Second big point: The legend I summarized above? It isn’t even the story Ovid wrote, since there are a lot of elements that do not come from Ovid’s retelling of the story (book fourth of the Metamorphoses). For example Ovid never said Medusa was a priestess of Athena – all he said was that she was raped in the temple of Athena. I shouldn’t even be writing Athena since again, this is a Roman text: we are speaking of Minerva here, and of Neptune, not of Athena or Poseidon. Similarly, Minerva’s curse did not involve the petrifying gaze – rather all Ovid wrote about was that Minerva turned Medusa’s hair into snakes, to “punish” her because her hair were very beautiful, and it was what made her have many suitors (none of which she wanted to marry apparently), and it is also implied it is what made Neptune fall in love (or rather fall in lust) with her. I guess it is from this detail that the reading of “Athena’s curse was a gift” comes from – even though this story also clearly does victim-blaming of rape here.
But what is very fascinating is that… we are not definitively sure Neptune raped Medusa in Ovid’s retelling. For sure, the terms used by Ovid in his fourth book of Metamorphoses are clear: this was an action of violating, sexually assaulting, of soiling and corrupting, we are talking about rape. But Ovid refers several other times to Medusa in his other books, sometimes adding details the fourth-book stories does not have (the sixth book for examples evokes how Neptune turned into a bird to seduce Medusa, which is completely absent from the fourth book’s retelling of Medusa’ curse). And in all those other mentions, the terms to designate the relationship between Medusa and Neptune are more ambiguous, evoking seduction and romance rather than physical or sexual assault. (It does not help that Ovid has an habit of constantly confusing consensual and non-consensual sex in his poems, meaning that a rape in one book can turn into a romance in another, or reversal)
But the latter fact makes more sense when you recall that the rape element was invented and added by Ovid. Before, yes Poseidon and Medusa loved each other, but it was a pure romance, or at least a consensual one-night. Heck, if we go back to the oldest records of the love between Poseidon and Medusa, back in Hesiod’s Theogony, we have descriptions of the two of them laying together in a beautiful, flowery meadow – a stereotypical scene of pastoral romances – with no mention of any brutality or violence of any sort. As a result, it makes sense the original “romantic” story would still “leak” or cast a shadow over Ovid’s reinvented and slightly-confused tale.
Step 2: So… no rape?
Well, if we go by Greek texts, no, apparently Medusa was not raped in Greek mythology, and only became a rape victim through Ovid.
The Ancient Greek texts all record Poseidon and Medusa sleeping with each other and having children, but no mention of rape. And the whole “curse of Athena” thing is not present in the oldest records – no temple of Athena soiling, no angry Athena cursing a poor girl… “No curse?” you say “But then how did Medusa got turned into a Gorgon”? Answer: she did not. She was born like that.
As I said before, the oldest record of Medusa’s romance but also of her family comes from Hesiod’s Theogony (Hesiod being one of the two “founding authors” of Greek mythology, alongside Homer – Homer did wrote several times about Medusa, but only as a disembodied head and as a monster already dead, so we don’t have any information about her life). And what do we learn? That Medusa is part of a set of three sisters known as the Gorgons – because oh yes, Ovid did not mention Medusa’s sister now did he? How did Medusa’s sisters ALSO got snake-hair or petrifying-gaze if only Medusa was cursed for sleeping with Neptune? Ovid does not give us any answer because again, it is an “adaptational plot hole”, and the people that try to adapt Ovid’s story have to deal with the slight problem of Stheno and Euryale needing to share their sister’s curse despite seemingly not being involved in the whole Neptune business. Anyway, back to the Greek text.
So, you have those three Gorgon sisters, and Medusa is said to be mortal while her sisters are not. Why is it such a big deal? Because Medusa wasn’t originally some random human or priestess. Oh no! Who were the Gorgons’ parents? Phorcys and Keto/Ceto, aka two sea-gods. Not just two sea-gods – two sea-gods of the ancient, primordial generation of sea-gods, the one that predated Poseidon, and that were cousins to the Titans, the sea-gods born of Gaia mating with Pontos.
So the Gorgons were “divine” of nature – and this is why Medusa being a mortal was considered to be a MASSIVE problem and handicap for her, an abnormal thing for the daughter of two deities. But let’s dig a bit further… Who were Phorcys and Ceto? Long story short: in Greek mythology, they were considered to be sea-equivalents of Typhon and Gaia. They were the parents of many monsters and many sea-horrors: Keto/Ceto herself had her name attributed and equated with any very large creature (like whales) or any terrifying monster (like dragons) from the sea. The Gorgons themselves was a trio of monsters, but their sisters, that directly act as their double in the myth of Perseus? The Graiai – the monstrous trio of old women sharing one eye and one tooth. Hesiod also drops the fact that Ladon (the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperids), and Echidna (the snake-woman that mated with Typhon and became known as the “mother of monsters”) were also children of Phorcys and Ceto, while other authors will add other monster-related characters such as Scylla (of Charybdis and Scylla fame), the sirens, or Thoosa (the mother of Polyphemus the cyclop). Medusa herself is technically a “mother of monsters” since she birthed both Pegasus the flying horse and Chrysaor, a giant. So here is something very important to get: Medusa, and the Gorgons, were part of a family of monsters. Couple that with the absence of any mention of curses in these ancient texts, and everything is clear.
Originally Medusa was not a woman cursed to become a monster: she was born a monster, part of a group of monster siblings, birthed by monster-creating deities, and she belonged to the world of the “primordial abominations from the sea”, and the pre-Olympian threats, the remnants of the primordial chaos. It is no surprise that the Gorgons were said to live at the edge of the very known world, in the last patch of land before the end of the universe – in the most inhuman, primitive and liminal area possible. They were full-on monsters!
Now you might ask why Poseidon would sleep with a horrible monster, especially when you recall that the Greeks loved to depict the Gorgons as truly bizarre and grotesque. It wasn’t just snake-hair and petrifying gaze: they had boar tusks, and metallic claws, and bloated eyes, and a long tongue that constantly hanged down their bearded chin, and very large heads – some very old depictions even show her with a female centaur body! In fact, the ancient texts imply that it wasn’t so much the Gorgon’s gaze or eyes that had the power to turn people into stone – but that rather the Gorgon was just so hideous and so terrifying to look at people froze in terror – and then literally turned into stone out of fear and disgust. We are talking Lovecraftian level of eldritch horror here. So why would Poseidon, an Olympian god, sleep with one of these horrors? Well… If you know your Poseidon it wouldn’t surprise you too much because Poseidon had a thing for monsters. As a sort of “dark double” of Zeus, whereas Zeus fell in love with beautiful princesses and noble queens and birthed great gods and brave heroes, Poseidon was more about getting freaky with all sorts of unusual and bizarre goddesses, and giving birth to bandits and monsters. A good chunk of the villains of Greek mythology were born out of Poseidon’s loins: Polyphemus, Antaios, Orion, Charybdis, the Aloads… And even his most benevolent offspring has freaky stuff about it – Proteus the shapeshifter or Triton half-man half-fish… So yes, Poseidon sleeping with an abominable Gorgon is not so much out of character.
Step 3: The missing link
Now that we established what Medusa started out as, and what she ended up as… We need to evoke the evolution from point Hesiod to point Ovid, because while people summarized the Medusa debate as “Sea-born monster VS raped and punished woman”, there is a third element needed to understand this whole situation…
Yes Ovid did invent the rape. But he did not invent the idea that Medusa had been cursed by Athena.
The “gorgoneion” – the visual and artistic motif of the Gorgon’s head – was, as I said, a grotesque and monstrous face used to invoke fright into the enemies or to repel any vile influence or wicked spirit by the principle of “What’s the best way to repel bad stuff? Badder stuff”. Your Gorgon was your gargoyle, with all the hideous traits I described before – represented in front (unlike all the other side-portraits of gods and heroes), with the face being very large and flat, a big tongue out of a tusked-mouth, snake-hair, bulging crazy eyes, sometimes a beard or scales… Pure monster. But then… from the fifth century BCE to the second century BCE we see a slow evolution of the “gorgoneion” in art. Slowly the grotesque elements disappear, and the Gorgon’s face becomes… a regular, human face. Even more: it even becomes a pretty woman’s face! But with snakes instead of hair. As such, the idea that Medusa was a gorgeous woman who just had snakes and cursed-eyes DOES come from Ancient Greece – and existed well before Ovid wrote his rape story.
But what was the reason behind this change?
Well, we have to look at the Roman era again. Ovid’s tale of Medusa being cursed for her rape at the hands of Neptune had to rival with another record collected by a Greek author Apollodorus, or Pseudo-Apollodorus, in his Bibliotheca. In this collection of Greek myths, Apollodorus writes that indeed, Medusa was cursed by Athena to have her beautiful hair that seduced everybody be turned into snakes… But it wasn’t because of any rape or forbidden romance, no. It was just because Medusa was a very vain woman who liked to brag about her beauty and hair – and had the foolish idea of saying her hair looked better than Athena’s. (If you recall tales such as Arachne’s or the Judgement of Paris, you will know that despite Athena being wise and clever, one of her main flaws is her vanity).
“Wait a minute,” you are going to tell me, “The Bibliotheca was created in the second century CE! Well after Greece became part of the Roman Empire, and after Ovid’s Metamorphoses became a huge success! It isn’t a true Greek myth, it is just Ovid’s tale being projected here…” And people did agree for a time… Until it was discovered, in the scholias placed around the texts of Apollonios of Rhodes, that an author of the fifth century BCE named Pherecyde HAD recorded in his time a version of Medusa’s legend where she had been cursed into becoming an ugly monster as punishment for her vanity. We apparently do not have the original text of Pherecyde, but the many scholias referring to this lost piece are very clear about this. This means that the story that Apollodorus recorded isn’t a “novelty”, but rather the latest record of an older tradition going back to the fifth century BCE… THE SAME CENTURY THAT THE GORGONEION STARTED LOSING THEIR GROTESQUE, and that the face of Medusa started becoming more human in art.
[EDIT: I also forgot to add that this evolution of Medusa is also proved by strange literary elements, such as Pindar's mention in a poem of his (around 490 BCE) of "fair-cheeked Medusa". A description which seems strange given how Medusa used to be depicted as the epitome of ugliness... But that makes sense if the "cursed beauty" version of the myth had been going around at the time!]
And thus it is all connected and explained. Ovid did invent the rape yes – but he did not invent the idea of Athena cursing Medusa. It pre-existed as the most “recent” and dominating legend in Ancient Greece, having overshadowed by Ovid’s time the oldest Hesiodic records of Medusa being born a monster. So what Ovid did wasn’t completely create a new story out of nowhere, but twist the Greek traditions of Athena cursing Medusa and Medusa having a relationship with Poseidon, so that the two legends would form one and same story. And this explains in retrospect why Ovid focuses so much on describing Medusa’s beautiful hair, and why Ovid’s Minerva would think turning her hair into snake would be a “punishment fit for the crime”: these are leftovers of the Greek tale where Medusa was punished for her boasting and her vanity.
CONCLUSION
Here is the simplified chronology of how Medusa’s evolution went.
A) Primitive Greek myths, Hesiodic tradition: Born a monster out of a family of sea-monsters and monstrous immortals. Is a grotesque, gargoylesque, eldritch abomination. Athena has only an indirect conflict with her, due to being Perseus’ “fairy godmother”. Has a lovely romance with Poseidon.
B) Slow evolution throughout Classical Greece and further: Medusa becomes a beautiful, human-looking girl that was cursed to have snake for hair and petrifying eyes, instead of being a Lovecraftian horror people could not gaze upon. Her conflict with Athena becomes direct, as it is Athena that cursed her due to being offended by her vain boasting. Her punishment is for her vanity and arrogant comparison to the goddess.
C) Ovid comes in: Medusa’s romance with Poseidon becomes a rape, and she is now punished for having been raped inside Athena’s temple.
[As a final note, I want to insist upon the fact that the story of Medusa being raped is not less "worthy" than any other version of the myth. Due to its enormous popularity, how it shaped the figure of Medusa throughout the centuries, and how it still survives today and echoes current-day problems, to try to deny the valid place of this story in the world of myths and legends would be foolish. HOWEVER it is important to place back things in their context, to recognize that it is not the ONLY tale of Medusa, that it was NOT part of Greek mythology, but rather of Roman legends - and let us all always remember this time Poseidon slept with a Lovecraftian horror because my guy is kinky.]
EDIT:
For illustration, I will place here visuals showing how the Ancient art evolved alongside Medusa's story.
Before the 5th century BCE: Medusa is a full-on monster
From the 5th century to the 2nd century BCE: A slow evolution as Medusa goes from a full-on monster to a human turned into a monster. As a result the two depictions of the grotesque and beautiful gorgoneion coexist.
Post 2nd century BCE: Medusa is now a human with snake hair, and just that
Epithets, Explained
Introduction
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I’m just making this post to help explain exactly what epithets are, how they’re used, and the different types. I know that for beginners, getting a hold of all the terms used in relation to deity worship and/or work can be tough, and I’ve seen this subject trip people up in the past when they read about certain deities or translations of ancient texts.
For a quick definition, epithets are “an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned”. In relation to epithets of deities, you might also see them called ‘surnames’ and they're basically nicknames or bynames to refer to specific aspects or forms of a deity. Typically, they’re used alongside the actual name of the deity but there’s also plenty of times where only the epithet is used, such as calling Apollo by simply “Phoebus” and not “Phoebus Apollo” or calling Athena by only saying “Pallas”. This happens a lot in texts like the Iliad or the Aeneid where using the full name paired with the epithet every time would eventually end up sounding too repetitive but also, to ancient people, certain epithets would have been easily recognizable on their own and they wouldn’t need to have the actual name given. They can come before or after a deity’s actual name, order doesn’t really matter, it’s just whatever grammar rules you’re following.
Types & Examples
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Generally speaking, there are four main types of epithets used in polytheistic religions: regional, functional, syncretic/fusion, and poetic. And just as a note; most of my religious experience is with Greek, Roman, and Gaulish religions so that’s where I’m gonna be getting most, if not all, of the examples used below.
The categories are, for the most part, arbirtrary but can be helpful when understanding epithets in a general sense when you come across them. Some types overlap with each other, for example, Dionysos Melanaigis (lit. Dionysos of the black goatskin) refers jointly to a functional/cultic role his worship played in a ritual during the Apaturia festival in Athens AND to a story in myth where he wears a black goat skin and comes to the aid of a guy named Melanthus (which is the mythic explanation for why he’s worshipped during Apaturia) but it makes Melanaigis a regional epithet (only used in Athens), a functional cult epithet (was only during rites to him for a specific event) and a mythic epithet (as it refers to a specific mythic event). Similarly, there's examples with Apollo; Delphios Apollo refers to both the form of Apollo specifically in Delphi (regional epithet) AND to Apollo in his function as an oracular deity of prophecy (functional), and Pythian Apollo refers to Apollo around the area where he slayed the mythical Python (so both a reference to myth as well as regional, in this case referring to the area around Delphi) and also functional, since it can refer to his oracular function.
Additionally, epithets can be shared by multiple deities, “Phoebus” was used to refer to both Apollo and Helios, “Antheia” was both the name of a standalone deity as well as an epithet to Hera and Aphrodite, “Bacchus” was an epithet for the Etruscan god Fufluns and to Dionysus and would eventually become to go-to byname for Dionysos in Rome. There are also epithets such as “Aetnaeus” which refers to any number of deities associated with Mount Etna, including Zeus and Hephaestus, and “Eleutherios” which could refer to Dionysos, Zeus, or Eros.
i. Regional Epithets
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The first type is regional or locative/toponymic epithets. These are used when referencing a form of a deity that is unique to a certain place for whatever reason or originated there. Sometimes deities will have unique local forms because of the inevitable variations of religion in any given culture (no religion is or was a monolith) and there may or may not be pseudo-historical/mythical reasons for the specific local variation. But it's pretty much just saying “the form of this deity that resides in Town A” or “the form of this deity representing a specific thing they did at this site”, examples include:
➻ Diana Nemorensis — literally: “Diana of Nemi”, used specifically to refer to her cult at Lake Nemi and was the form of Diana celebrated there during Nemoralia.
➻ Apollo Palatinus and Apollo Delphios — literally: “Apollo on the Palatine” referring to the temple built to him on the Palatine Hill in Rome by Augustus, this form of Apollo was also Augustus’ personal protector. Apollo Delphios was mentioned earlier but it refers to the oracular-centric form of Apollo in Delphi.
➻ Artemis Ephesus — literally: “Artemis of Ephesus”, refers to a form of Artemis unique to the city of Ephesus who had a very different representation to the other forms of Artemis. This manifestation of her was transported to multiple other cities such as Massalia and it was a form that was a sort of mother-goddess.
➻ Zeus & Hephaestus Aetnaeus — literally: “of Mount Etna”, for Zeus it refers to the form of him which has a small shrine and festival there and for Hephaestus, it refers to where he has his workshop.
ii. Functional Epithets
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These epithets are ones that reference a specific (often cultic) function of the god. Many deities have multiple roles or concepts they embody and have domain over, so epithets can be used to zero-in on just the side of a deity relevant to why you’re praying to them or giving offerings. There are also festival-specific epithets which can be used on specific festivals in honor of that aspect of the given deity. Some examples include:
➻ Hercules Olivarius & Hercules Augusti — literally: “Hercules of the Olive Merchants”, referring specifically to his ability to guard the olive industry in Rome and also “Hercules of the Emperor” which was used to refer to the aspect of Hercules that guarded Roman emperors. (Gotta say, if I had to choose, it's Olive-Merchant Hercules every time for me)
➻ Hermes & Apollo Theoxenios — literally: “of the Theoxenia festival” and was the name used to invoke both Hermes and Apollo during that specific festival.
➻ Aphrodite Areia — literally: “Warlike Aphrodite” or “Aphrodite of War”, used to call specifically on Aphrodite’s war function.
➻ Apollo Acestor & Apollo Kataibates — literally: “Apollo the Healer”, was used when calling on Apollo to aid in healing, and Apollo Kataibatês literally meant “Apollo, Protector of Travelers” (also used for for Hermes) and was used by people to thank him for a safe journey or to ask for protection on a journey they were about to take.
➻ Poseidon Isthmia — literally: “Poseidon of the Isthmian Games” which was used only to call on him during this athletic festival.
➻ Ceres Legifera — literally: “Ceres, Keeper of the Laws (of marriage)”, was used to invoke her in marriage processions and during the confarreatio (a type of Roman marriage ritual where the couple eats a cake made with sacred wheat)
iii. Syncretic Epithets
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Another form of epithets are those that serve to equate or combine deities. Oftentimes, foreign deities from one culture may transform into epithets of deities from other cultures or two deities within a single culture might be combined into one. This was especially common with Iron-Age Celtic deities in places that adopted aspects of Roman and Greek religion due to being governed by or just from existing in close proximity to them. Within Greek religion, it was common for more “archaic” or minor deities to become epithets of deities that held more cultural prominence. Some examples include:
➻ Apollo Grannus, Apollo Maponos, & Apollo Belenos — Grannus, Maponos, and Belenos were all standalone deities in Gaulish culture that became associated with Apollo once Roman religious influence spread. Each has their own unique nuance but all seem to be related to Apollo’s healing function
➻ Mars Condatis & Mars Toutatis — Both Condatis and Toutatis are also independently attested Celtic gods and both were interpreted to be a form of Mars. Through some of his Celtic epithets, Mars gained a traditionally uncharacteristic healing function.
➻ Sulis Minerva — Sulis is a Brythonic healing goddess and through her identification with Minerva, enjoyed a pretty large cult in Roman Britain.
➻ Poseidon Erechtheus — a fusion of Poseidon and a mythical king of Athens who was most likely a minor deity at some point. It would go on to be used as a name for Poseidon when in relation to Athens.
➻ Dionysos Zagreus — This is an equation that happened mostly in Orphism and other mystic cults but the earliest evidence suggests that Zagreus was originally a standalone deity or an aspect of Hades which later became an aspect of Dionysos.
➻ Mars Quirinus — Quirinus simultaneously became an epithet to Mars and also maintained an independent presence in Roman religion. It’s partly through his identification with Mars that the latter started to be more warlike as opposed to an agricultural deity.
➻ Pallas Athena — In some tellings, notably in pseudo-Apollodorus’ “Bibliotheca”, this name is the result of Athena taking the name of a Titaness named Pallas, daughter of Triton. Could also be a fusion of Athena and the giant named Pallas.
➻ Serapis/Osorapis/Userhapi — Userhapi and Oserapis are transliterations of the coptic name for Osiris-Apis which became Hellenized as “Serapis” under the Ptolemaic dynasty. It is the result of identifying Apis (a sacred bull turned deity during the Second Dynasty) and the Egyptian god Osiris.
iv. Poetic Epithets
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Poetic (or literary) epithets are, well, epithets just used poetically in ancient literature. They don’t refer to cult or ritual functions and usually either are physical descriptors, compliments, or mythic achievements. It can also include any epithets used to describe mythic standing in relation to other gods, such Ovid calling Aurora “Pallantias” to signify that in his telling, she’s the daughter of the titan Pallas. They can be used in a devotional sense and in a more solely creative one to evoke a certain feeling from the reader and set a scene and they may be referred to as “Homeric epithets” as well since many come from Homeric works. Another function of Homeric epithets can be to help a line of poetry satisfy the line/format requirements of dactylic hexameter. Here's a nifty overview of the grammatical and descriptive purposes for various epithets in the Iliad and Odyssey. If you’ve ever read ancient epic poetry then you’ve encountered loads of poetic epithets, examples including:
➻ Eos Rhododactylos: literally “Rosy-Fingered Eos”, Eos Erigenia: literally “Early-Born Eos”
➻ Aphrodite Philommeides: literally “Laughter-Loving Aphrodite”, Aphrodite Eustephanos: literally “Richly-Crowned Aphrodite”
➻ Artemis Khrysenios: literally “Artemis Who Holds Golden Reins”, Artemis Keladeinos: literally “Strong-Voiced Artemis”
➻ Hermes Argeiphontes: literally “Hermes, Slayer of Argos” (a shepherd he killed in myth), Hermes Kharidotes: literally “Hermes, Giver of Joy”
➻ Hades Polysemantor: literally “Hades, Ruler of Many”, Hades Nekron Soter: literally “Hades, the Savior of the Dead"
Using Epithets
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When it comes to using epithets in your practice, it's largely a personal choice. By no means is it something that you MUST do but, it's also not something that doesn't have a place in modern polytheism. I, for one, tend to find that it can connect my worship to a certain form/aspect of a deity (for instance, Apollo) more quickly or serve to "set the mood" more effectively. I tend to pray to epithets of him for his healing/protective/oracular roles, however, I'm not as personally connected to his musical/artistic roles so on the relatively rare occasions that I find myself wanting to invoke those aspects, using epithets related to that makes me feel closer to them. They can also be used to enhance prayers if you're someone who enjoys having very artistic wording or just wants to glorify the deity you're praying to.
Another way I like to use epithets is to create my own to use in prayers or as a devotional activity. This could mean creating new poetic epithets as compliments to a deity, creating an epithet to invoke them at a local place, or even making an epithet for a role they have in your UPG but do not traditionally have. I usually try to make them in various forms of Ancient Greek, Latin, Gaulish, or in English but you could utilize any language you feel like, it doesn't need to be the language of the ancient culture(s) where the deity was worshipped. And importantly, it doesn't need to perfect. I am certainly not fluent in any form of Ancient Greek or in Latin so it can take a while to get the correct (or even just loosely acceptable) grammatical set-up and lots of comparison with actual ancient epithets. Just for some examples, here's some epithets I've created for various deities:
➻ Dionysos Tautoteus: literally "Dionysus of Identity" but I made it to refer to him as a protector/affirmer of self-identification in relation to sexuality and/or gender.
➻ Eos Dendrokhoria & Eos Anthestephanos: literally "Eos who Dances in the Trees" to refer to when the sunrise is barely visible above the tree line (I usually pray to her at dawn and there's a forest in that direction from my house lol) and the second is literally "Flower-Crowned Eos", just a reference to her being traditionally described as wearing flowers.
➻ Sirona Lindaia: literally "Sirona of the Lake" which I made to use when praying or giving offering to her at lakes, pretty self-explanatory but I also have made a bunch of others for her such as Sirona Nantaia (Sirona of the Stream), Sirona Natrix (Sirona of the Snake), and Sirona Dumnorigana (Sirona, the Queen of the Depths).
Some Useful Resources for Epithets
For most Greek deities, you can find lists of epithets to them online on places such as Theoi.com, within classical texts such as various Homeric Hymns, epics, histories, etc. Theoi is a great site in general, however it can occasionally lack further explanation and context for epithets so if you find that one isn't clarified enough, try searching it up independently.
Wiktionary.com is actually a really great free resource for looking up etymology and the ways different words are/were used in various languages.
For other languages, check things such as epigraphy [for example, CIL databases (Latin) or this EDH CIL database (across the Roman sphere), RIB databases (Roman Britain), IG databases (Greek)], curse tablets, papyri, etymological dictionaries or regular dictionaries. These can be really useful for obvious reasons. For non-Latin Italic languages and ancient Celtic languages, I tend to use etymological/reconstructed dictionaries this for Celtic languages and this for Etruscan. But again, you can make epithets just in the language you already speak, there's no need for them to be in some ancient or reconstructed one. Its literally whatever you want.
This was originally a blogpost of mine on the P&W Amino but has been reformatted for (and reshared) here since amino is heading towards its inevitable end... rip
List of interesting ressources pertaining to norse paganism, scandinavian folklore and history, and nordic religions in general
These are sources I have personally used in the context of my research, and which I've enjoyed and found useful. Please don’t mind if I missed this or that ressource, as for this post, I focused solely on my own preferences when it comes to research. I may add on to this list via reblog if other interesting sources come to my mind after this has been posted. Good luck on your research! And as always, my question box is open if you have any questions pertaining to my experiences and thoughts on paganism.
Mythology
The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion
Dictionnary of Northern Mythology
The Prose and Poetic Eddas (online)
Grottasöngr: The Song of Grotti (online)
The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes
The Wanderer's Hávamál
The Song of Beowulf
Rauðúlfs Þáttr
The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings (Kevin Crossley-Holland's are my favorite retellings)
Myths of the Norsemen From the Eddas and the Sagas (online) A source that's as old as the world, but still very complete and an interesting read.
The Elder Eddas of Saemung Sigfusson
Pocket Hávamál
Myths of the Pagan North: Gods of the Norsemen
Lore of the Vanir: A Brief Overview of the Vanir Gods
Anglo-Saxon and Norse Poems
Gods of the Ancient Northmen
Gods of the Ancient Northmen (online)
Two Icelandic Stories: Hreiðars Þáttr and Orms Þáttr
Two Icelandic Stories: Hreiðars Þáttr and Orms Þáttr (online)
Sagas
Two Sagas of Mythical Heroes: Hervor and Heidrek & Hrólf Kraki and His Champions (compiling the Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks and the Hrólfs saga kraka)
Icelandic Saga Database (website)
The Saga of the Jómsvíkings
The Heimskringla or the Chronicle of the Kings of Norway (online)
Stories and Ballads of the Far Past: Icelandic and Faroese
Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway
The Saga of the Volsungs: With the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok
The Saga of the Volsungs (online) Interesting analysis, but this is another pretty old source.
The Story of the Volsungs (online) Morris and Magnusson translation
The Vinland Sagas
Hákon the Good's Saga (online)
History of religious practices
The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia
Nordic Religions in the Viking Age
Agricola and Germania Tacitus' account of religion in nordic countries
Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions
Tacitus on Germany (online)
Scandinavia and the Viking Age
Viking Age Iceland
Landnámabók: Book of the Settlement of Iceland (online)
The Age of the Vikings
Gesta Danorum: The Danish History (Books I-IX)
The Sea Wolves: a History of the Vikings
The Viking World
Guta Lag: The Law of the Gotlanders (online)
The Pre-Christian Religions of the North This is a four-volume series I haven't read yet, but that I wish to acquire soon! It's the next research read I have planned.
Old Norse Folklore: Tradition, Innovation, and Performance in Medieval Scandinavia
Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings
The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood
Landnámabók: Viking Settlers and Their Customs in Iceland
Nordic Tales: Folktales from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark For a little literary break from all the serious research! The stories are told in a way that can sometimes get repetitive, but it makes it easier to notice recurring patterns and themes within Scandinavian oral tradition.
Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction
Saga Form, Oral Prehistory, and the Icelandic Social Context
An Early Meal: A Viking Age Cookbook and Culinary Oddyssey
Runes & Old Norse language
Uppland region runestones and their translations
Viking Language 1: Learn Old Norse, Runes, and Icelandic Sagas and Viking Language 2: The Old Norse Reader
Catalogue of the Manks Crosses with Runic Inscriptions
Old Norse - Old Icelandic: Concise Introduction to the Language of the Sagas
A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture
Nordic Runes: Understanding, Casting, and Interpreting the Ancient Viking Oracle
YouTube channels
Ocean Keltoi
Arith Härger
Old Halfdan
Jackson Crawford
Wolf the Red
Sigurboði Grétarsson
Grimfrost
(Reminder! The channel "The Wisdom of Odin", aka Jacob Toddson, is a known supporter of pseudo scientific theories and of the AFA, a folkist and white-supremacist organization, and he's been known to hold cult-like, dangerous rituals, as well as to use his UPG as truth and to ask for his followers to provide money for his building some kind of "real life viking hall", as supposedly asked to him by Óðinn himself. A source to avoid. But more on that here.)
Websites
The Troth
Norse Mythology for Smart People
Voluspa.org
Icelandic Saga Database
Skaldic Project
Life in Norway This is more of a tourist's ressources, but I find they publish loads of fascinating articles pertaining to Norway's history and its traditions.
Another reminder that Greek mythology is always somehow symbolic, metaphorical, allegorical, since we are dealing with anthropomorphic personifications and other embodiments of cosmic powers.
For example: Demeter has sex with both Zeus and Poseidon. Something-something about the relationship of the Earth with the Sky and the Sea (or the celestial and chthonian powers). ESPECIALLY since these relationships are said to happen at the beginning of the world, in the primordial times during which the world settled itself for what it is now.
Herakles' wedding with Hebe, the personification of youth, checks in with when he becomes an immortal god (aka, an eternally young entity). What better way to symbolize a hero escaping the clutches of death than by him becoming the husband of the spirit of eternal youth?
Why is Hestia never leaving Olympus? Something-something about her being the literal personification of the hearth, which is at the center of the house/community and does not move.
Why is Ares getting his ass kicked by Athena? Because Athena is civilization, and Ares savagery, and in the Ancient Greek mindset intelligence, wisdom and craft will always be above brutality, bloodlust and random cruelty.
Do I need to spell it out that the myth of Persephone-Hades-Demeter is about the cycle of the seasons, and how the earth renews itself and brings back life after a time of death?
And I wonder why Ares' companions during his mass-slaughters are called Phobos, Deimos and Eris - Fear, Panic and Discord... Why would the goddess that breaks harmony and sows feuds and chaos be depicted as the close sister of the god of the ravages of war and of the brutality of conflicts, what a strange mystery!
And I can go on, and on, and on. Remember, the Greek gods aren't just super-heroes or wizards (that's more in line with more "humanized" mythologies, like the Irish or Nordic ones). They are embodiments of concepts and ideas, personifications of natural forces and cosmic powers, they are living allegories and fleshed metaphors. Zeus wields the lightning because he IS the lightning and thunder. Dionysos is both the bringer of joy and madness because he IS alcohol. Hades is both the name of the god of the dead, and of the realm of the dead. Hestia's name is literaly "hearth" in Greek, Hebe "youth", Nyx "night", Gaia "earth", Eros "desire". You can write "Eris met Helios at Okeanos' palace" or you can write "Strife encountered the Sun at the palace of Ocean" and that is the EXACT SAME THING!
[Mind you to limit the gods to being JUST allegories is also a mistake not to make. Greek deities are much more than just X concept or X idea... But one part of the myths will always be, down the line, some weather metaphor or some natural cycle motif]
I've got a strange question about Zeus' affairs... Do Ancient authors elaborate on these supernatural seduction stories or do they just day "Zeus seduced her taking the form of X"...
Like, do they tell us if, after catching the girl's attention Zeus goes back to a more human form, or does the "deed" take place while Zeus has an animal form (that would be more weird)?
I don't want to seem offensive / graphic, I'm just curious about how Ancient writers and storytellers tell this stories, a story can be very different depending on how you tell it and I suppose "a beautiful swan caught my eye, then turned in this handsome divine man and I wanted to bed him" is a much more compelling version of events than "a strange swan flew where I was sitting and assaulted me, that's why im pregnant".
I love your posts on Greek Myths, especially the oned related to Perseas and Medusa. XOXO
Hello! Thank you for the good words! I like those posts as well xD
Well, Greek myths were not meant to be taken that literally, or given so much thought. The deed takes place when Zeus is back in a more human form, usually, except in the case of Leda where he was in a swan form, and she birthed eggs that hatched.
But even in Leda's case, it's implied that there was some type of.... affection on her part?? Which is definitely weird because when you like a swan the next logical step is not "I want to bed it". But from what I read the coupling was more... divine in nature and beyond human logic. Like, Leda didn't bed an actual swan and she knew that it wasn't a swan. I'm just trying to explain it. I definitely don't mean that humans and swans should do anything else than look at each other in the park 😅😂😅😂😅😂
Usually, when the deity has an animal form, the children also have animal forms. (Poseidon raping Demeter as a stallion comes to mind)
Again, we are not meant to seek the logistics of these couplings. They were more like explanations than stories, and one needed the context of the time to fill in the blanks. So the story goes "Zeus wanted this woman, he seduced her in the form of X and from their coupling, she gave birth to our Hero and King. The End." It's often that simple, and the focus point is the result, aka how the hero/god/king/deity/genealogical line came to exist. The other details are unnecessary.
Sometimes we might get an extra story about how the hero/deity etc had to defend their mother from Hera or someone else's wrath which is only a means to another explanation of why a mountain/river/sea/animal exists. Again, the focus is on the result.
Which makes sense if you think more of it like this:
Imagine if, in the tale of Snowhite, we started asking "Is there an economy of magic mirrors? Is there a theme of exploited labor when it comes to The Mirror? Does the court system work in favour of the mother or father? And can we assume there is welfare for Little people in the Snowhite universe?" These are... possibly related questions to the story, but the story chooses not to explore them, and - let's be honest - we don't ask ourselves about those. Because they are so beyond the point.
Finally, the stories weren't probably created by one random guy who wanted to entertain the kids around the fire. The stories were most likely the result of divination or oracles and visions since they were about the gods. That's why they don't have all the characteristics of a traditional tale that is meant to entertain.
The first paragraphs from this post will answer your question additionally, I think!
I have a question about Greek Mythology, more specifically Hades.
What's the deal with Hades?
What was his original role in Greek mythology and religion, and how and when did the subsequent demonization happened?
Oh, and how correct is it the modern perception that he was "one of the nicest Greek gods"?
Oh a most interesting question indeed! I will try to be as simple and efficient as possible - but since people spend their entire lifetime dissecting this kind of topics I am bound to miss or oversimplify certain details. (I'll put this under a cut because it will be quite long!)
I. Basic stuff
So... In Greek mythology, Hades is one of the "three kings of the world" (not an official term! It is just a random denomination, the same way the Riordan books use "The Big Three"). The six first Olympians, born of Cronos and Rhea, were three sisters and three brothers - and after vanquishing the Titans, the three brothers split the world between them. Zeus had the sky, Poseidon the sea, Hades the underworld.
The role of Hades in Ancient Greek mythology/religion is that he was the ruler of the Underworld and the "king of the deads" so to speak. The underground realm where all the shades went after their physical death is his, and in fact it is often called "Hades" - showing the true connection between the two, since both the realm and the ruler share the same name, Hades the god being LITERALY the personification of the underworld. (I use "shades" because the concept of "souls" would come much later and mostly in philosophico-religious currents, by the old mythological texts the dead were "shades" or "shadows").
Hades main "role" or "function" in the greater scope of things is to maintain not the balance, but the divide between the livings and the dead. On one side, his job is to keep the dead in the Underworld and make sure they do not return or stay among the living. This is why he got VERY pissed off at Sisyphus for cheating death and returning among the living ; and this is why only the greatest and mightiest heroes could manage to bring back a soul from the Underworld (Orpheus, Dionysos). It is also why Hades' main threat, during the whole Persephone debacle, was to unleash the dead upon the world if he wasn't allowed to keep his wife: one thing to understand is that, in the mindset of Ancient Greek religion/mythology, death was not a nice thing. It was a scary and dirty thing - literaly. Death was seen as something impure, the shades of the dead were perceived as being frightening and horrifying. The gods absolutely HATE death and dead things (since you know, they are immortal) - and if the sight of the shades is mostly just unpleasant to them, if the dead returned to earth the humans would all perish in horror and fright upon merely seeing them. (I'm exaggerating a bit - but the Ancient Greeks did have an immense fear of dead spirits and what is beyond death, and so in their mythology going to the Underworld is always a horror movies and even the bravest men shiver in horror merely Upon seeing the shadows even of their loved ones. See Odysseus' journey to the Underworld, not a happy camping trip)
On the reverse, Hades job was also to prevent the living from accessing the Underworld - the living should stay with the living, the dead with the dead. This is why there are so many guardians around the Underworld - Charon, Cerberus and more. Not just to prevent souls escaping, but also to make sure no living being can come down there - hence why very frequently in hero legends a trip to the Underworld must happen at some point to prove their heroism (Herakles, Theseus, Odysseus, Orpheus and more). This clear-cut "isolationism" is part of why Hades very rarely leaves his realm - in fact almost never outside of important business (like snatching a girl out of a field as if she was the last orange juice bottle at a store). Because that's something that is needed to be established: Hades is and is not an Olympian. As in, Ancient Greeks did NOT recognize him as one of the Twelve Olympians, and Hades did not live on or even visited Mount Olympus - mostly because the Underworld is literaly the sort of opposite realm/opposite pole to the celestial, immortal Olympos. But he "was" an Olympian, as in during the Titanomachy he was one of the six gods who dwelled on Olympos and made it their "headquarters" for the war, and he was originally an "Olympian". And while he is not part of the Twelve Gods anymore, he is still one of the major gods of Greek mythology - as proven by one of his famous titles, "Chthonian Zeus". He is literaly the "dark twin" or "dark clone" of Zeus - both supreme masters over their respective realms, the sky and the underground, the up and the above, immortality and death.
If you want a more technical term to designate Hades' Olympian/notOlympian status, you can use Cronid, a term designating the children of Cronos.
II. Was Hades nice?
Now that the basis were laid down, I'll tackle your specific questions. What about the modern "Hades was the nicest god"? Well... it is a yes or no. It is important to fight off the "demonization" of Hades and to point out he was not an evil god. Depictions of Hades in the Disney Hercules movie or the remake of the Clash of Titans, depicting him as some sort of evil plotter out there to overthrow Zeus - that's deeply wrong. I'll return to the demonization later. Yes, Hades (unlike Zeus or Poseidon) wasn't a womanizer who went around sleeping with everything ; yes, Hades did not meddle with human businesses, caused wars or threw curses left and right ; yes, Hades always stuck to his word, and always respected the law, and just did his job and didn't bother anyone else with it. And that, indeed, makes him much more positive than what we usually think of him as. However! Positive does not mean "nice". Hades was FAR from being a "nice" or "benevolent" god.
The thing with Hades is that he is neutral. A neutral entity, in all that it entails. As a result yes he is "positive", as much as neutrality can be. But the key trait of Hades is that he is what you would call today "heartless" ; or rather "flint-hearted" to take more ancient poetic imagery. Hades always stick to his word and to the rules and just does his job and duty, true... But he is also an extremely stern, austere authority figure who never allows for any nuance or compromise (the fact the whole Persephone deal could even be settled by a compromise is like a big WOW!). Hades does not have pity or compassion for people. He is not moved by tears, by cries, by begging, by anything. If he felt pity every time someone begged him to release a dead back to the living, well he wouldn't do his job anymore so to speak. Hades is a cold and uncaring figure in many ways: the whole reason Orpheus' plea to Hades is remembered as the peak of his legend, is because Orpheus managed to MOVE Hades. He managed, with his magic and emotion, to touch Hades' heart, something that NEVER happened before and that no other mortal ever did. This is VERY important. Hades embodies the cosmic rule of "the dead are dead, and the living are the living, and that's it." In a sense he is a form of cosmic balance and justice who maintains the world in order ; but to human eyes, he is still an unfair oppressor who enacts and defends the principle of death in all that is unfair to our mortals' eyes. This is part of the complex beauty of the Persephone legend: you have Demeter and Hades, life and death, battling over the young girl (who embodies all young people), and both are in the right and both are in the wrong. Because Hades stands by a stern, cosmic point of view: what belongs to the dead belongs to the dead, there's no return and no use in obsessing over what is gone. But Demeter stands by a human point of view: she is a mother who saw her young child being taken by an early and unpredicted death, and she tries her best to mourn and return her daughter to her.
Another thing people tend to forget is that Hades is not a joyful or humoristic or enjoyable god to be around. There's a lot of takes of Hades as a, I don't know, shy little thing or joyful person. But Hades was in the image of his realm. A cold, dark, damp place devoid of laughter or smiles or light. Nobody is happy in the Underworld in the sense we understand it. Yes the Greek Underworld has the Elysian Fields, which is the Ancient Greek equivalent of Paradise - but it also has Tartaros, the Ancient Greek equivalent of Hell. And here's the thing... The Elysian Fields and Tartarus are not the "regular" Underworld. They are extremes and special cases. The Elysian Fields are only for mighty heroes - and heroes are not your regular Joe, and they are above regular humans. Tartaros is for those that perosnally offended the gods, and again this is not an everyday occurence. Regular people, be them good or bad, rich or powerful, famed or unknown, ended up in an Underworld that people describe mostly today as the "Asphodean Fields". Just... a life of endless wandering and awaiting. As shades, living shadows without any body (and thus without any need or desire). They don't even have a voice - one must bring them blood sacrifice for them to speak again - and they sometimes don't have memories thanks to the whole Lethe deal. This is just... the very typical Antique conception of the drab and dreary underworld that you find back from Hel's realm to Ereshkigal's domain. A place of shadows and silence, or forgetfulness and endless, meaningless wandering, a place without punishment or reward, just to keep what doesn't live anymore. "All equal in death", but this equality is not pleasant. And thus Hades himself is not pleasant. Heck, one of his epithets, Agelastos, was tied to the concept of "melancholy", and another, Stygeros, means "horrible".
While Hades seems to a modern audience much more pleasant and decent due to his role (or non-role) in myths compared to other deities, we have to remember how the Ancient Greeks themselves considered him. And the Ancient Greeks DREADED Hades. They feared him - one had to avoid calling him directly by his name (hence his numerous nicknames, often pleasant in the old apotropaic logic of calling negative entities by nice names not to anger them - like the Erynies becoming the Eumenides, the "kind ones". Similarly Hades was "The Rich One", "The Host of Many", "the Chthonian Zeus", all names based on his traits but twisted in a way that sounds more pleasant). Hades was at the core of Ancient Greek superstitions because there was the belief that attracting Hades' attention would cause one to have an early death, or to be "welcomed" too early in his realm. You know, it is the old logic of "death calls for death", "since death is a soilure, it can corrupt the living who interact too much with it", "if the god of the dead pays too much attention to you, he might send his underlings go get you". And while Hades was dreaded, his underlings were EVEN MORE SO (Hades wasn't the god of death per se... but he was the god who could boss around the personification of death, Thanatos, and he had "hired" numerous primordial monsters, such as Cerberus).
So while Hades was more positive than, let's say Ares or Hera in mythologies... It doesn't mean he was liked or perceived as a jolly good fellow. The most accurate thing we can say is that Hades was a lot like Hestia: the most neutral of the "Olympians". But "neutral" doesn't mean "good", "nice" or "pleasant"...
III. The demonization of Hades
Now that I took down the recent "moeification" of Hades, I do need to talk about his demonization, since you asked. Hades might have not been a pleasant guy or a good guy, he was dreaded and hated by the Ancient Greeks, and by extension the other gods were known to be uneasy with him or not particularly wishing to interact... But there was a big demonization inflicted upon him that clearly turned him into an evil caricature of what was just a scary neutral big force of the dark side of the world.
When did it start? I would guess with Christianity. And it isn't just how Christianity, when it came to the Greco-Roman world, slowly started taking actual deities and turned them into devils and demons (the most famous example being Pan and the satyrs who provided most of the devilish imageries of the Middle-Ages). You see, one key element must be taken into account: Bible translations. One of the most famous and spread out Bible translations was the Greek one, and the Greek translation used the term "Hades" quite regularly - to designate very negative and unpleasant death-places like the Sheol or the Gehenna, that would later become the Christian Hell. A Hell typically called "Hades" in Greek - clearly divided from the Heaven/Paradise of God and angels. And this would be the start of Christian culture assimilating Hades with the devil, demons, and the torments of the dead.
This religious confusion still exists today in many countries with a dominant Christian culture. For example, in France there is this famous linguistic complexity. French languag does not have a single world for "underworld" as the English have - or rather they are, but they are not commonly used. So in common language, the mythical underworlds of various cultures are designated by "enfer"... a world which means "hell", in the Christian sense of the term. Which always forces people to explain "Greek Hell wasn't Christian Hell". In fact, the tacit rule is that to designate the Christian Hell, you must use "l'enfer", singular, while for a mythical underworld you must use "les enfers", in plural. But it is still very, very confusing.
And so, through Christianity, Bible translations, demonization of Greek principles, etc etc, we ended up with stuff like the Disney Hercules movie, whose original concept-art for Hades was literaly just the Christian "red horned devil living in flames":
IV. The technical details
Now this post is already a bit long so I'll move on to the last thing you specifically asked - origins and religion. (Because so far I speak mostly of mythology or broad point of views)
Hades did have a cult and worship, since he was one of the main gods of Ancient Greece. But it was a careful worship, due to the superstitions I evoked above. For example you did sacrifices to Hades, of black-colored animals whose blood was thrown on the ground or in a pit - but by avoiding looking at Hades' faces (well his statue's). You could praise Hades, pray him or call for him, even banging the earth with your hands to make sure he heard you - but you avoided saying his name, and you certainly did NOT use his name for oaths.
Mind you Hades HAD a worship... but not a big one. In fact, his sanctuaries and temples were so rare in Ancient Greece that a scholia of the Iliad went as far as to claim there were none at all and Hades was a cult-less god. Pausanias did note that the only place where he knew of a real cult of Hades was the Peloponesse city of Elis, where Hades had a temple opened only once a year, to welcome Hades' priest and him only, and then it was closed for another year ; but he evoked other cults he heard about elsewhere, and Strabo did mention an Hades worship at another Peloponese city, Hermione. Though, again, reports are conflicting - some authors claiming Hades had libations of the blood of black sheep and bulls, others like Euripides saying Hades never had any libation... And we do know of some "peasant ritual" or "agrarian superstitions" where before sowing a field, the farmer had to call and pray to the Chthonian Zeus (aka Hades). That was because Hades, as the master of the underworld, also was seen as having ownership and influence over everything located below ground - be it the grain under the soil, or the various metals and stones dug out of mines. This is why his most famous and common epithet was "Plouton", "The Rich One, "The Wealthy One" - and also why Hades got involved with Demeter, as the Persephone myth can be read in an agrarian angle (Demeter is the life-force force of plants and the goddess of harvest and crops ; Hades is the one who keeps the grains under the earth until they grow out of the surface).
Finally, Hades' name is written in Ancient Greek "Aides", or variations "Aidos, Aidoneus", which is commonly agreed to etymologically mean "The Unseen One". A good reflection of Hades as the master of all the things located beyond life (afterlife) and below earth (underworld), associated with darkness and shadows and the things you SHOULD NOT SEE. Plus there's how, during the early Titanomachy, of the Cyclops' three gifts, Hades received a "helmet of invisibility" that prevented anybody from seeing him.