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Zeus and his family. God of ancient Greece Zeus - what the god of thunder looked like, the myth of the birth of Zeus

The God of Ancient Greece, Zeus, is known to us as the main Olympian god, ruling the whole world, the sky, thunder and lightning. The God of Ancient Greece, Zeus, is associated with real rock, fate. This is justified by the fact that people were protected by him: asking and praying. Zeus obeyed not only subjects, but also kings and other gods.

Ancient Greek God Zeus

The Greek god distinguished between good and evil, introduced people to the concepts of shame and conscience. Zeus, the supreme god of Olympus, had three brothers with whom he shared power. The location of the god was Mount Olympus, because the patriarchy of Zeus was called Olympian. The power of the patron did not satisfy the other gods, because they tried to overthrow him from the throne. They failed to carry out a coup d'etat, therefore all violators were punished.

What does the god Zeus look like?

The God of Ancient Greece, Zeus was the father of all people and gods, and Roman mythology identified him with Jupiter. Thanks to Zeus, Greece had an established social order. The traditional description of the god Zeus is an image of a mature man with a noble face, thick snow-white curls, a beard and a strong powerful camp, strong slender arms. Later artists depict God in a huge variety of guises, among which Zeus appears as a deceiver of women, a character in love affairs.

What did Zeus patronize?

The third son of Kronos was different from the rest of the Gods. He was not only a fair, honest and decent leader, but also responsible for the welfare of the entire population. The main tasks of Zeus were:

protect city life;
prevent disorder and chaos;
direct life in the right direction;
protect all offended;
protect the family hearth;
monitor the implementation of laws and observance of customs.

This is not the whole list of what Zeus was responsible for. The ancient Greek god of the sky and thunder was able to solve any pressing issue, calm and pacify everyone who needed help at a certain point in his life. Thanks to his "power" everyone was sure that justice would always prevail. The energy of the god spread to the entire Olympus and delighted with its purity.

Attributes of the god Zeus

Each attribute gave Zeus the Thunderer strength and was an integral part of the overall image. The main association with Zeus is lightning, which is in the hands of the patron, and serves as a material weapon. However, this is not all the attributes of God.

The first and one of the main symbols of power is the eagle, which is associated with Zeus.
The shield of Zeus is a symbol of anger and rage.
Chariot drawn by eagles.
Scepter.
Hammer or labrys.

Zeus family

Zeus belongs to the generation of titans. His father Kronos knew even before birth that his own son would overthrow the power of his father, so he swallowed every baby born to Rhea. As evidenced by the myth of the birth of Zeus, his mother deceived Kronos and gave birth to a baby, hiding it. It is impossible to know the exact place of birth of the child, but the island of Crete is considered the leader among all versions. So that the smart Kronos did not notice the birth of his son, he had to swallow a stone in a diaper. The born Zeus laughed for a week - after that, the number 7 began to be considered sacred.

The Cretan version of the myth insists that Zeus was brought up by the Curetes and Corybantes, fed on goat's milk, and ate bee honey. It is difficult to consider this information as the only true one. Another version of the legend says that the boy fed with goat's milk was guarded by guards every minute. In cases where the child cried, the guards banged their spears on the shields to deceive Kronos' hearing.

The grown god created a potion with which he freed his brothers from Kronos. Mighty brothers started a fight with their father, lasting 9 years. After a while, it was not possible to determine the winner. But, the savvy Zeus the Thunderer found a way out, freeing the Cyclopes and the Hundred-armed. They helped bring down the titan and bring him down. After a protracted struggle, the three brothers finally took over the rule of the island.

Father of Zeus

According to ancient Greek mythology, Kronos was the supreme deity. Another version insists that Kronos, the god of titans, the father of Zeus was the god of agriculture, was identified with Chronos. The reign of Kronos is considered the golden age in Greece. The main attribute of Kronos is the sickle. Kronos was the supreme god, and due to seniority, he became king.

Mother of Zeus

The mother of the god Zeus Rhea was considered the goddess of the earth, was a Titanide and the daughter of Gaia and Uranus. Rhea was the mother of Hestia - the goddess of the hearth, Demeter - the goddess of fertility - the goddess of families, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus. Rhea was remembered by mythology as a brave and courageous titanide who was able to go against the will of her husband by secretly giving birth to a child. Rhea possessed the power of healing, which was useful to her in order to save the life of Dionysus.

Zeus' wife

According to some myths, Zeus was very attached to Thetis, he wanted to part with his wife for her sake. The only obstacle to this was prophecy. Zeus seduced the chosen ones, taking on various forms: a swan, a bull, a snake, rain, an ant, a bird, a beetle. Zeus was not distinguished by constancy and had many wives and lovers, among them:

Metis is the only wife of Zeus who was swallowed;
Themis;
Gera - last spouse god
Demeter;
Thebe;
Phthia;
Aytos;
Ganymede.
Calliroy.

Son of Zeus

Zeus contributed to the birth of the strongest sons, who made an imprint in the history of ancient Greek mythology. But, strong and courageous sons are opposed to the gentle, intelligent and prolific daughters of Zeus. The sons of Zeus were:

Aphrodite-born love god Eros;
the god of wrestling Ares;
the fiery god Hephaestus, who patronized blacksmithing;
Hermes, patron of trade;
the horned baby Sabazius;
the god of wine Dionysus;
Apollo is the son of Zeus, the god of light, music, medical craft.
Aegypan;
patron of the herd Pan;
Karpos.

Daughters of God Zeus

Zeus is the father of most of the goddesses known to the world. Based on their number, a division into groups was made according to the tasks performed.

9 Muses of Zeus led by Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polyhymnia, Urania and Calliope. The goddesses were responsible for science, poetry, art.
Charity, responsible for fun, life joy and pleasure.
Moira, including Cloto, Atropos, Lachesis - were responsible for.
Orami controlled the seasons.
Erinyes committed acts of revenge and rebellion.
The elder muses include Telksiope, Aeda, Arch and Melet.

Greek god Zeus was the lord of the earth and the dungeon, judged the dead. The fair and strong Zeus performed both good deeds and real feats in the name of the common good. Zeus is not only a real supreme god, patron and leader, he was a symbol of brotherly love, intelligence and logic. From an early age, Zeus differed from his peers in his thirst to live, fight for justice, and win. The legendary titan was a true fighter and builder of general order.

The future father of Zeus Kronos, or otherwise - Kronos, was a difficult child as a child. He began with the fact that he castrated his own father Uranus with a sickle. True, he did this at the instigation of his mother, Gaia, exhausted by her husband's indefatigable fertility. Such a radical measure had an effect, and since then the titans, to which Kron belonged, have become absolute masters of the cosmos.

Difficult children

It should be noted that Uranus was generally unlucky with offspring. In the beginning, terrible monsters were born from his marriage to Gaia, which terrified their parents. Among them were such monsters as hundred-armed and fifty-headed hecatoncheirs and one-eyed giants - cyclops. We will talk about those and others later, they will still show what they are capable of. Uranus was so terrified of their ever-increasing strength and power that he considered it good to tie his children and throw them into Tartarus. Then things got even worse. Seven titanid sisters and six titan brothers were born, among whom the youngest was the future father of Zeus and Hades - Cronus.

The unfortunate Gaia, shedding tears for her hundred-armed children languishing underground, decided to take revenge on Uranus and for this purpose prepared an uprising of the titans and titanides. They, following the will of their mother, treacherously attacked their father. The only exception was one of them, named Ocean. A special role was assigned to Kron. Gaia handed him a sickle made of some particularly durable material (perhaps even a diamond), and with it he deprived his father of further opportunities to produce offspring. By the way, historians say that this was quite consistent with the mores of the ancient world - it was customary to cut off the genitals of enemies and save them as a trophy. Having fulfilled the instructions of his mother, Kronus reigned in the world.

Gracious times of Hellas

According to the testimony of the first historically reliable poet of ancient Greece, Hesiod, the period when the future father of Zeus ruled the world was the happiest time, the like of which all mythological history did not know. According to him, people were like gods and knew neither grief, nor sadness, nor everyday work. Since I didn’t have to work, but I still wanted to occupy myself with something, the sons Ancient Hellas divided into poets, painters and sculptors. Thus, the fertile era gave humanity countless masterpieces of art.

Eater of own children

Having taken a place on the throne, the future father of the god Zeus Kronos thought about the heirs of his power and got married. As his wife, he took his own sister - the titanide Rhea, but this marriage can hardly be called happy, and not at all because he was consanguineous - in mythology this is a common thing. His mother Gaia, a wise and far-sighted woman, warned that one of his future sons would do with him the same way he did with his father Uranus: if he didn’t castrate, then he would certainly deprive him of power. Nothing could be worse for Kron, and he thought hard about how to help grief.

Perhaps a modern ruler would have chosen a different path, but the ancient gods had their own ideas about what was right and what was wrong. Kron did not think for a long time, but simply devoured all the babies that Rhea produced in abundance. "O times, o manners!" - this is how the Roman philosopher Cicero will exclaim after many centuries. But what is Cronus to some kind of Romans, the main thing is the strength of state power, and to achieve it, all paths are good.

Zeus' father is deceived by his own wife

But only a man, moreover, blinded by the brilliance of glory, could argue like that. His wife did not approve of such views at all, and one day, having once again been relieved of the burden, she decided to save her child. Instead of another victim, she slipped Krona a stone wrapped in diapers. Either the fear generated by the mother's prediction turned out to be so great, or the ruler of the world was already very undiscriminating in food, but he only swallowed this cobblestone like a sweet bun and calmed down.

Meanwhile, Rhea, inwardly triumphant, hid her baby in a cave on the island of Crete, where she raised him, despite all the deceit of her husband. She named her son Zeus and entrusted his protection to the Kurets - terrible, demonic, but completely domesticated creatures. Hesiod, already mentioned in the story, tells that they drowned out the cries and cries of the baby with their roar, which helped to keep the place where he was hidden secret. Under their vigilant care, young Zeus grew up powerful, beautiful and extremely smart. Affected, apparently, heredity and upbringing.

The trick of the wife of young Zeus

Having reached the proper age, the young man married the beautiful Metis. I must say that his chosen one was from birth prone to all kinds of intrigues and really wanted to help her husband achieve supreme power. At this time, Kronos - the father of Zeus - ruled without suspecting anything, and was absolutely sure of his complete safety. It was this delusion of his that Metis took advantage of.

She got a miraculous drink, which Zeus secretly gave his daddy to drink. It was not a banal poison, it was something exceptional. Having tasted it, the bloodthirsty father of Zeus suddenly felt nauseous and, to the great joy of those around him, vomited out of himself all his former children, swallowed by him during the entire time of his marriage. Needless to say, they were alive, healthy and full of strength... History has preserved their names: Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter and Hestia.

Ten Years' War

The brothers and sisters liberated in such a miraculous way, led by Zeus, declared war on the titans - their relatives, born of Gaia and Uranus before the latter was castrated. Since Zeus's father, Cronus, was their younger brother, it follows that they themselves were the uncles and aunts of the rescued rebels. There were six titans and six titanides. The war with them lasted ten years and went on with varying success.

Zeus had a secret weapon - the Cyclopes, whom he brought out of the gloomy depths of Tartarus on the occasion of the war. These ferocious one-eyed creatures fought with fury and desperation, but could not overcome those whom Zeus's father set against them. Witnesses of this battle speak of terrible lightning that fell from the sky on the titans, and of thunder that shook the earth, but everything was in vain. And here came the long-awaited turning point in the course of the battle.

When the titans were ready to celebrate the victory, the hundred-armed creatures of the hecatoncheira suddenly appeared from the bowels of the earth, which Zeus saved there in the most extreme case. In addition to a hundred arms, each of them had another fifty heads. These monsters lifted entire rocks into the air and threw them at their opponents when they got close enough. Ancient authors do not skimp on the description of the horror that their appearance produced among the army of the unlucky father Kron. The intervention of these creatures decided the outcome of the case - the enemy was defeated, and justice prevailed.

Poetry of Ancient Greece

Today, some skeptics, who are not inclined to trust the testimonies of Hesiod, Homer and other poets who described the events of that era in their works, see in this ten-year war only a reflection of the natural disasters that once raged on the planet. Let's not dissuade them - they are deprived of the ability to enjoy the play of poetic fantasy. It seems that the ancient authors themselves did not claim to be documentary of what they set forth, but with their poems they made the hearts of many generations of people freeze sweetly.

Celebration of the winners

But let us return to the foot of Mount Olympus, where until recently everything was burning and shuddering, engulfed in a crazy battle. A long-awaited peace reigned there. The titans, horrified at the sight of the hundred-armed creatures, trembled and fled, but soon they were thrown into the depths of the earth's bowels, bound in chains. The god-titan, the father of Zeus, shared the common fate and became a prisoner of Tartarus. The dominance of wild and impersonal cosmic forces has come to an end. They were replaced by humanoid deities - the Olympians.

As follows from a number of sources, the father of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades - the old man Kron - was forgiven, reconciled with his children and went to reign over the Ocean - that was the name of the greatest of the rivers of the ancient world, separating the kingdom of the living from the world of shadows. He showed himself there as a wise and generous ruler, which is why the time of his reign is considered to be happy and blessed. Leaving for the kingdom of the dead, the frivolous father of Poseidon and Zeus left behind, in addition to legitimate children, also those that were the fruit of his momentary hobbies. The most famous of them is Chiron, a wise centaur born of the young nymph Filira.

immortal time

It should be noted that according to the consonance of names in the generally accepted etymology, the name Kronos is often identified with the name of the god of time - Chronos. Many researchers see the symbolism of the change of generations in the children who were born and devoured by Kron. This was the reason that in the mythology of the ancient Romans, the father of Zeus Kron received a new incarnation in the image of Saturn, symbolizing the inexorability and transience of time.

Celebrations were dedicated to him, at which servants and gentlemen changed roles, as if illustrating the inconstancy and variability of the age. In general, such holidays were in the nature of fun carnival activities. What was the name of the father of Zeus the ancient Greeks - Kronos or Kronos, it is now difficult to say, but in modern language there are words in the roots of which his name is preserved, for example: chronometer, chronology, timing, and so on. All of them are connected in one way or another with the concept of "time". It was in them that the titan, the father of Zeus, found his true immortality.

According to the myths about the gods of Ancient Greece, the universe was based on Chaos - the original emptiness, the world disorder, from which, thanks to Eros - the first active force - the first ancient Greek gods were born: Uranus (sky) and Gaia (earth), who became spouses. The first children of Uranus and Gaia were hundred-armed giants, superior in strength, and one-eyed cyclops (cyclops). Uranus bound all of them and threw them into Tartarus, the dark abyss of the underworld. Then the titans were born, the youngest of whom Kronos castrated his father with a sickle given to him by his mother: she could not forgive Uranus for the death of her firstborn. From the blood of Uranus, Erinyes were born - a terrible-looking woman, the goddess of blood vengeance. From the contact of a part of the body of Uranus, thrown into the sea by Kronos, with sea foam, the goddess Aphrodite was born, who, according to other sources, is the daughter of Zeus and the Titanides Dione.

Uranus and Gaia. Ancient Roman mosaic 200-250 A.D.

After the god Uranus separated from Gaia, the titans Kronos, Rhea, Oceanus, Mnemosyne (goddess of memory), Themis (goddess of justice) and others came to the surface of the earth. Thus, the titans were the first creatures to live on earth. The god Kronos, thanks to whom his brothers and sisters were freed from imprisonment in Tartarus, began to rule the world. He married his sister Rhea. Since Uranus and Gaia predicted to him that his own son would deprive him of power, he swallowed his children as soon as they were born.

Gods of Ancient Greece - Zeus

Gods of Ancient Greece - Hera

See separate article.

The goddess Hera, considered in ancient Greece the sister and wife of Zeus, was glorified as the patroness of marriage, the personification of marital fidelity. In ancient Greek literature, she is depicted as a guardian of morality, cruelly persecuting her violators, especially her rivals and even their children. So, Io, the beloved of Zeus, was turned by Hera into a cow (according to other Greek myths, the god Zeus himself turned Io into a cow to hide her from Hera), Callisto into a bear, and the son of Zeus and Alcmene, the mighty hero Hercules, the wife of Zeus pursued throughout his life, from infancy. Being the protector of marital fidelity, the goddess Hera punishes not only Zeus's beloved, but also those who try to persuade her to infidelity to her husband. So, Ixion, taken by Zeus to Olympus, tried to achieve the love of Hera, and for this, at her request, he was not only thrown into Tartarus, but also chained to an ever-rotating fiery wheel.

Hera is an ancient deity revered in the Balkan Peninsula even before the Greeks arrived there. The birthplace of her cult was the Peloponnese. Gradually, other female deities joined in the image of Hera, and she began to be thought of as the daughter of Kronos and Rhea. According to Hesiod, she is the seventh wife of Zeus.

Goddess Hera. Hellenistic period statue

One of the myths of Ancient Greece about the gods tells how Zeus, irritated by Hera's attempt on his son Hercules, hung her on chains to the sky, tied heavy anvils to her feet, and subjected her to scourging. But this was done in a fit of intense anger. Usually, Zeus treated Hera with such respect that other gods, visiting Zeus at councils and feasts, showed high respect to his wife.

The goddess Hera in ancient Greece was assigned such qualities as lust for power and vanity, pushing her to reprisal those who put their own or someone else's beauty above her beauty. So, throughout the entire Trojan war, she assists the Greeks in order to punish the Trojans for the preference given by the son of their king, Paris, to Aphrodite over Hera and Athena.

In a marriage with Zeus, Hera gave birth to Hebe - the personification of youth, Ares and Hephaestus. However, according to some legends, she gave birth to Hephaestus alone, without the participation of Zeus, from the scent of flowers, in retaliation for the birth of Athena from his own head.

In ancient Greece, the goddess Hera was depicted as a tall, majestic woman dressed in a long dress and crowned with a diadem. In her hand she holds a scepter - a symbol of her supreme power.

Here are the expressions in which the Homeric hymn praises the goddess Hera:

“I glorify the Golden Throne Hera, born of Rhea,
The ever-living queen with a face of unusual beauty,
Loud thundering Zeus sister and wife
Glorious. All on the great Olympus are blessed gods
She is reverently revered on a par with Kronidoma
(Articles 1–5; translated by V. V. Veresaev)

God Poseidon

The god Poseidon, who was recognized in ancient Greece as the lord of the water element (he received this inheritance by lot, like Zeus - the sky), is depicted as very similar to his brother: he has the same curly broad beard as Zeus, the same wavy hair to the shoulders , but he has his own attribute, by which it is easy to distinguish him from Zeus, a trident; with it he sets in motion and calms the waves of the sea. He rules over the winds; obviously, the concept of earthquakes was associated with the sea in Ancient Greece; this explains the epithet “earth shaker” used by Homer in relation to the god Poseidon:

“He shakes the barren land and the sea,
He reigns on Helikon and on the wide Eglas. Double
Honor, O Earth Shaker, the gods granted you:
To tame wild horses and save ships from the wreck"
(from the Homeric hymn to Poseidon, pp. 2–5; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

The trident, therefore, is needed by Poseidon in order to cause the earth to shake, and in order to, by pushing the mountains apart, create valleys abundant in water; with a trident, the god Poseidon can strike a stone rock, and a bright spring of pure water will immediately gush out of it.

Poseidon (Neptune). Antique statue of the 2nd century. according to R.H.

According to the myths of Ancient Greece, Poseidon had disputes with other gods for the possession of this or that land. So, Argolis was poor in water because, during the dispute between Poseidon and Hera, the hero of Argos, Inah, who was appointed judge, transferred this land to her, and not to him. Attica, on the other hand, was flooded due to the fact that the gods decided the dispute between Poseidon and Athena (who should own this country) in favor of Athena.

The wife of the god Poseidon was considered Amphitrite, daughter of the Ocean. But Poseidon, like Zeus, had tender feelings for other women. So, the mother of his son, Cyclops Polyphemus, was the nymph Foos, the mother of the winged horse Pegasus - the Gorgon Medusa, etc.

The magnificent palace of Poseidon was, according to ancient Greek legends, in the depths of the sea, where, in addition to Poseidon, there were numerous other creatures that occupy secondary places in the world of the gods: the old man Nereus- an ancient sea deity; Nereids (daughters of Nereus) - sea nymphs, among which the most famous are Amphitrite, who became the wife of Poseidon, and Thetis- mother of Achilles. To inspect his possessions - not only the depths of the sea, but also the islands, and coastal lands, and sometimes the lands lying in the depths of the mainland - the god Poseidon set off on a chariot drawn by horses that had fish tails instead of hind legs.

In Ancient Greece, the Isthmian Games on Isthma, the Isthmus of Corinth, by the sea, were dedicated to Poseidon as the sovereign ruler of the seas and patron of horse breeding. There, in the sanctuary of Poseidon, there was an iron statue of this god, erected by the Greeks in honor of their victory at sea, when the Persian fleet was defeated.

Gods of Ancient Greece - Hades

Hades (Hades), called in Rome Pluto, received the underworld by lot and became its lord. The idea of the ancients about this world is reflected in ancient Greek names the underground god: Hades is invisible, Pluto is rich, since all wealth, both mineral and vegetable, is generated by the earth. Hades is the lord of the shadows of the dead, and he is sometimes called Zeus Katakhton - the underground Zeus. Considered in ancient Greece as the personification of the rich bowels of the earth, it was not by chance that Hades turned out to be a husband Persephone daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter. This married couple, who did not have children, in the view of the Greeks, was hostile to all life and sent a continuous series of deaths to all living things. Demeter did not want her daughter to remain in the kingdom of Hades, but when she asked Persephone to return to earth, she replied that she had already tasted the “apple of love”, that is, she had eaten part of the pomegranate received from her husband, and could not return. True, she nevertheless spent two-thirds of the year with her mother at the behest of Zeus, because, yearning for her daughter, Demeter stopped sending the harvest and taking care of the ripening of the fruits. Thus, in the myths of Ancient Greece, Persephone personifies the interaction between the goddess of fertility, who gives life, makes the earth bear fruit, and the god of death, who takes life, dragging all the creatures of the earth back into her bosom.

The Kingdom of Hades had different names in Ancient Greece: Hades, Erebus, Orc, Tartarus. The entrance to this kingdom, according to the Greeks, was either in southern Italy, or in Colon, near Athens, or in other places where there were failures and clefts. After death, all people go to the kingdom of the god Hades and, as Homer tells, they drag out a miserable joyless existence there, deprived of the memory of their earthly life. The gods of the underworld retained full consciousness only for a select few. Of the living, only Orpheus, Hercules, Theseus, Odysseus and Aeneas managed to enter Hades and return to earth. According to the myths of Ancient Greece, the sinister three-headed dog Cerberus sits at the entrance to Hades, snakes move with a formidable hiss on his neck, and he does not allow anyone to leave the kingdom of the dead. Several rivers flow in Hades. Through the Styx, the old boatman Charon transports the souls of the dead, who charged a fee for his work (therefore, a coin was put in the mouth of the deceased so that his soul could pay off Charon). If a person remained unburied, Charon did not let his shadow into his boat, and she was destined to wander the earth forever, which was considered the greatest misfortune in Ancient Greece. A man deprived of a burial will be forever hungry and thirsty, since he will not have a grave where relatives would make libations and leave food for him. Other rivers of the underworld are Acheron, Piriflegeton, Cocytus and Lethe, the river of oblivion (after taking a sip of water from Lethe, the deceased forgot everything. Only after drinking the sacrificial blood, the soul of the deceased temporarily regained its former consciousness and the ability to speak with the living). The souls of a very few chosen ones live separately from other shadows in Elysia (or on the Champs Elysees), mentioned in the Odyssey and Theogony: there they are in eternal bliss under the auspices of Kronos, as if in the Golden Age; later it was believed that everyone initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries entered Elysium.

Criminals who have offended the ancient Greek gods in any way endure eternal torment in the underworld. So, the Phrygian king Tantalus, who offered the meat of his son for food to the gods, forever suffers from hunger and thirst, standing up to his neck in water and seeing next to him ripe fruits, and also is in eternal fear, because a rock is hanging over his head, ready to collapse. The Corinthian king Sisyphus always drags a heavy stone up the mountain, which, having barely reached the top of the mountain, rolls down. Sisyphus was punished by the gods for greed and deceit. The Danaids, daughters of Danae, king of Argos, forever fill a bottomless barrel with water for the murder of their husbands. The Euboean giant Titius, for insulting the goddess Latona, lies prostrate in Tartarus, and two kites forever torment his liver. The god Hades administers his judgment on the dead with the help of three heroes famous for their wisdom - Aeacus, Minos and Rhadamanthus. Aeacus was also considered the gatekeeper of the underworld.

According to the ideas of the ancient Greeks, the kingdom of the god Hades is immersed in darkness and inhabited by all sorts of terrible creatures and monsters. Among them - the terrible Empusa - a vampire and a werewolf with donkey legs, Erinyes, Harpies - the goddess of the whirlwind, half-woman half-snake Echidna; here is the daughter of Echidna Chimera with the head and neck of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a snake, here are the gods of various dreams. All these demons and monsters are dominated by the three-headed and three-body daughter of Tartarus and Night, the ancient Greek goddess Hekate. Her triple appearance is explained by the fact that she appears both on Olympus, and on earth, and in Tartarus. But, for the most part, it belongs to the underworld, is the personification of the darkness of the night; she sends bad dreams to people; she is called upon to perform all kinds of witchcraft and spells. Therefore, the service of this goddess was performed at night.

The Cyclopes, according to the myths of ancient Greece, forged an invisibility helmet for the god Hades; Obviously, this idea is connected with the idea of the invisible approach of death to its victim.

The god Hades is depicted as a mature man sitting on a throne with a rod or bident in his hand, with Cerberus at his feet. Sometimes next to him is the goddess Persephone with a pomegranate.

Hades almost does not appear on Olympus, so he is not ranked among the Olympic pantheon.

Goddess Demeter

The ancient Greek goddess Pallas Athena is the beloved daughter of Zeus, born from his head. When Zeus's beloved oceanid Metis (goddess of reason) was expecting a child who, according to a prediction, was to surpass her father in strength, Zeus slyly made her decrease in size and swallowed. But the fetus with which Metis was pregnant did not die, but continued to develop in his head. At the request of Zeus, Hephaestus (according to another myth, Prometheus) chopped his head with an ax, and the goddess Athena jumped out of it in full military armor.

Birth of Athena from the head of Zeus. Drawing on an amphora of the second half of the 6th century. BC

"Before Zeus auspicious
She jumped quickly to the ground from his eternal head,
Shaking with a sharp spear. Under the heavy jump of the light-eyed
The great Olympus hesitated, they moaned terribly
Surrounding the lying lands, the wide sea trembled
And it boiled with crimson waves ... "
(from the Homeric hymn to Athena, pp. 7–8; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

As the daughter of Metis, the goddess Athena herself became "Polymetis" (much-thinking), the goddess of reason and intelligent war. If the god Ares revels in all bloodshed, being the personification of a disastrous war, then the goddess Athena introduces an element of humanity into the war. In Homer, Athena says that the gods do not leave unpunished the use of poisoned arrows. If the appearance of Ares is terrifying, then the presence of Athena in battle disciplines, inspires and brings reconciliation. Thus, in her person, the ancient Greeks opposed reason to brute force.

Being an ancient Mycenaean deity, Athena concentrated in her hands the control of many natural phenomena and aspects of life: at one time she was the mistress of the heavenly elements, and the goddess of fertility, and the healer, and the patroness of peaceful labor; she taught people to build houses, bridle horses, etc.

Gradually, ancient Greek myths began to limit the activities of the goddess Athena to war, the introduction of rationality into the actions of people and women's craft (spinning, weaving, embroidery, etc.). In this respect, she is related to Hephaestus, but Hephaestus is the elemental side of the craft, associated with fire; in Athena, the mind also prevails in crafting: if to give nobility to the art of Hephaestus, his union with Aphrodite or Charita was needed, then the goddess Athena herself is perfection, the personification of cultural progress in everything. Athena was honored everywhere in Greece, but especially in Attica, which she won in a dispute with Poseidon. In Attica she was a favorite deity, in her honor main city Attica was named Athens.

The name "Pallas" apparently appeared after the merger of the cult of Athena with the cult of the ancient deity Pallant, who, in the view of the Greeks, was a giant defeated by Athena during the war of the gods with the giants.

As a warrior she is Pallas, as a patroness in peaceful life she is Athena. Her epithets are “blue-eyed”, “owl-eyed” (the owl as a symbol of wisdom was the sacred bird of Athena), Ergana (worker), Tritogenea (an epithet of unclear meaning). In ancient Greece, the goddess Athena was depicted in different ways, but most often in a long sleeveless robe, with a spear and a shield, in a helmet and with an aegis on her chest, on which the head of Medusa was fixed, given to her by Perseus; sometimes with a snake (a symbol of healing), sometimes with a flute, since the ancient Greeks believed that Athena invented this instrument.

The goddess Athena was not married, she was not subject to the charms of Aphrodite, therefore her main temple, located in the acropolis, was called "Parthenon" (parthenos - virgin). In the Parthenon, a huge “chryselephantine” (that is, made of gold and ivory) statue of Athena with Nike in her right hand (the work of Phidias) was installed. Not far from the Parthenon, inside the walls of the acropolis, stood another statue of Athena, bronze; the gleam of her spear was visible to the sailors approaching the city.

In the Homeric hymn, Athena is called the city defender. Indeed, in the period of ancient Greek history we are studying, Athena is a purely urban deity, in contrast, for example, to Demeter, Dionysus, Pan, etc.

God Apollo (Phoebus)

According to the myths of Ancient Greece, when the mother of the gods Apollo and Artemis, the beloved of Zeus, Latona (Summer) was to become a mother, she was severely pursued by Hera, the jealous and ruthless wife of Zeus. Everyone was afraid of Hera's wrath, so Latona was driven from everywhere, wherever she stopped. And only the island of Delos, wandering, like Latona (according to legend, it was once floating), understood the suffering of the goddess and accepted her to his land. He was, moreover, seduced by her promise to give birth to a great god on his land, for whom there, on Delos, a sacred grove would be laid out and a beautiful temple erected.

In the land of Delos, a goddess Latona gave birth to twins - the gods Apollo and Artemis, who received epithets in honor of him - Delius and Delia.

Phoebus-Apollo is the most ancient deity of Asia Minor origin. Once he was revered as the guardian of herds, roads, travelers, sailors, as the god of medical art. Gradually, he took one of the leading places in the pantheon of ancient Greece. His two names reflect his dual nature: clear, bright (Phoebus) and destructive (Apollo). Gradually, the cult of Apollo supplanted in ancient Greece the cult of Helios, originally revered as the deity of the sun, and became the personification of sunlight. The rays of the sun, life-giving, but sometimes deadly (causing drought), were perceived by the ancient Greeks as the arrows of the “silver-bowed”, “far-striking” god, therefore the bow is one of the constant attributes of Phoebus. His other attribute of Apollo - the lyre or cithara - is shaped like a bow. God Apollo is the most skilled musician and patron of music. When he appears with a lyre at the feasts of the gods, he is accompanied by muses - goddesses of poetry, arts and sciences. The Muses are the daughters of Zeus and the goddess of memory Mnemosyne. There were nine muses: Calliope - the muse of the epic, Euterpe - the muse of lyrics, Erato - the muse of love poetry, Polyhymnia - the muse of hymns, Melpomene - the muse of tragedy, Thalia - the muse of comedy, Terpsichore - the muse of dances, Clio - the muse of history and Urania - the muse of astronomy. The mountains of Helikon and Parnassus were considered the favorite places for the Muses to stay. Here is how the author of the Homeric hymn to the Pythian Apollo describes Apollo-Musagetes (leader of the Muses):

“The immortal garments are fragrant on the god. strings
Passionately under the plectrum they sound golden on the divine lyre.
Thoughts quickly moved from the earth to Olympus, from there
He enters the chambers of Zeus, the assembly of other immortals.
Immediately the desire of all appears songs and lyres.
The beautiful Muses begin the song with interchangeable choirs ... "
(Articles 6–11; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

The laurel wreath on the head of the god Apollo is a memory of his beloved, the nymph Daphne, who turned into bay tree, preferring death to the love of Phoebus.

The medical functions of Apollo gradually passed to his son Asclepius and granddaughter Hygieia, the goddess of health.

In the archaic era, Apollo the arrowhead becomes the most popular god among the ancient Greek aristocracy. In the city of Delphi, there was the main sanctuary of Apollo - the Delphic oracle, where both private individuals and statesmen came for predictions and advice.

Apollo is one of the most formidable gods of Ancient Greece. Other gods are even a little afraid of Apollo. This is how it is described in the hymn to Apollo of Delos:

“He will pass through the house of Zeus - all the gods, and they will tremble.
Jumping up from their chairs, they stand in fear when he
He will come closer and begin to draw his shining bow.
Only Summer remains near the lightning-loving Zeus;
The goddess dissolves the bow and closes the quiver with a lid,
From Phoebe's shoulders, powerful weapons shoot with their hands
And on a golden peg on a pillar near the seat of Zeus
Hangs up bow and quiver; Apollo sits in a chair.
In a golden bowl for him, dear welcoming son,
Father gives nectar. And then the rest of the deities
They also sit on chairs. And Summer's heart is merry
Rejoicing that she gave birth to a bow-bearing, powerful son "
(Articles 2–13; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

In ancient Greece, the god Apollo was portrayed as a slender young man with wavy curls to his shoulders. He is either naked (the so-called Apollo Belvedere has only a light veil falling from his shoulders) and holds a shepherd's staff or a bow in his hands (Apollo Belvedere has a quiver with arrows behind his shoulders), or in long robes, in a laurel wreath and with a lyre in his hands - this Apollo Musaget or Kifared.

Apollo Belvedere. Statue by Leohar. OK. 330-320 BC

It is noteworthy that although Apollo was the patron of music and singing in ancient Greece, he himself plays only string instruments- lyre and cithara, which the Greeks considered noble, opposing them to "barbarian" (foreign) instruments - flute and pipe. No wonder the goddess Athena refused the flute, giving it to the lower deity, the satyr Marsyas, because when playing this instrument, her cheeks puffed out ugly.

Gods of Ancient Greece - Artemis

God Dionysus

Dionysus (Bacchus), in ancient Greece - the god of the plant forces of nature, the patron of viticulture and winemaking, in the 7th-5th centuries. BC e. gained immense popularity with common people as opposed to Apollo, whose cult was popular with the aristocracy.

However, this rapid growth in the popularity of Dionysus was, as it were, the second birth of the god: his cult existed as early as the 2nd millennium BC. e., but then was almost forgotten. Homer does not mention Dionysus, and this testifies to the unpopularity of his cult in the era of the domination of the aristocracy, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e.

The archaic image of Dionysus, such as the god was thought, apparently, before the change in the cult, is a mature man with a long beard; in the 5th-4th centuries. BC e. the ancient Greeks depicted Bacchus as a pampered, even somewhat effeminate youth with grapes or an ivy wreath on his head, and this change appearance god testifies to a change in his cult. It is no coincidence that in ancient Greece there were several myths that told about the struggle with which the cult of Dionysus was introduced, and about the resistance that met his appearance in Greece. One of these myths is the basis of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae. Through the mouth of Dionysus himself, Euripides very plausibly tells the story of this god: Dionysus was born in Greece, but was forgotten in his homeland and returned to his country only after he gained popularity and established his cult in Asia. He had to overcome resistance in Greece, not because he was a stranger there, but because he brought with him an orgiasm alien to Ancient Greece.

Indeed, Bacchic festivities (orgies) in the classical era of Ancient Greece were ecstatic, and the moment of ecstasy was, obviously, the new element that was introduced during the revival of the cult of Dionysus and was the result of the merger of the cult of Dionysus with eastern fertility deities (for example, the cult coming from the Balkans Sabasia).

In ancient Greece, the god Dionysus was considered the son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of the Theban king Cadmus. The goddess Hera hated Semele and wanted to destroy her. She convinced Semele to ask Zeus to appear to her mortal lover in the guise of a god with thunder and lightning, which he never did (appearing to mortals, he changed his appearance). When Zeus approached the house of Semele, lightning slipped out of his hand and hit the house; in the flames of a fire that broke out, Semele died, giving birth before her death to a weak, unable to live child. But Zeus did not let his son die. Green ivy grew out of the ground, which covered the child from the fire. Zeus then took the rescued son and sewed him into his thigh. In the body of Zeus, Dionysus grew stronger and was born a second time from the thigh of a thunderer. According to the myths of Ancient Greece, Dionysus was brought up by mountain nymphs and the demon Silenus, whom the ancients imagined as an eternally drunk, cheerful old man, devoted to his pupil-god.

The secondary introduction of the cult of the god Dionysus was reflected in a number of stories not only about the arrival of the god in Greece from Asia, but also about his travels by ship in general. Already in the Homeric hymn we find the story of Dionysus moving from the island of Ikaria to the island of Naxos. Not knowing that God was in front of them, the robbers seized the handsome young man, tied him with rods and loaded him onto a ship in order to sell him into slavery or get a ransom for him. But on the way, the fetters fell off the hands and feet of Dionysus, and miracles began to happen before the robbers:

"Sweet above all on a fast ship everywhere
Suddenly fragrant wine murmured, and ambrosia
The smell has risen all around. The sailors looked on in amazement.
Instantly stretched out, clinging to the highest sail,
Vines hither and thither, and clusters hung in abundance...”
(Articles 35–39; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

Turning into a lion, Dionysus tore the leader of the pirates to pieces. The rest of the pirates, with the exception of the wise helmsman, whom Dionysus spared, threw themselves into the sea and turned into dolphins.

The miracles described in this ancient Greek in the hymn - the spontaneous fall of the fetters, the emergence of fountains of wine, the transformation of Dionysus into a lion, etc., are characteristic of the ideas about Dionysus. In myths and in the fine arts of ancient Greece, the god Dionysus is often represented as a goat, bull, panther, lion, or with the attributes of these animals.

Dionysus and satyrs. Painter Brigos, Attica. OK. 480 BC

The retinue of Dionysus (fias) consists of satyrs and bacchantes (maenads). The attribute of the Bacchantes and the god Dionysus himself is thyrsus (a stick entwined with ivy). This god has many names and epithets: Iakh (screaming), Bromius (wildly noisy), Bassarei (the etymology of the word is unclear). One of the names (Lei) is obviously associated with the feeling of liberation from worries experienced when drinking wine, and with the orgiastic nature of the cult, freeing a person from ordinary prohibitions.

Pan and the forest deities

Pan was in ancient Greece the god of forests, the patron of pastures, herds and shepherds. The son of Hermes and the nymph Dryope (according to another myth, the son of Zeus), he was born with goat horns and goat legs, because the god Hermes, caring for his mother, took the form of a goat:

“With bright nymphs, he is goat-legged, two-horned, noisy
Wanders through the mountain oak forests, under the dark canopy of trees,
Nymphs from the tops of rocky cliffs call him,
Pan they call with curly dirty wool,
God of merry pastures. Rocks were given to him as inheritance,
Snowy mountain heads, paths of flint cliffs"
(from the Homeric hymn to Pan, pp. 2–7; translated by V. V. Veresaev).

Unlike satyrs, who had the same appearance, Pan was depicted by the ancient Greeks with a flute in his hands, while satyrs were depicted with grapes or ivy.

Following the example of the ancient Greek shepherds, the god Pan led a nomadic life, wandering through the forests, resting in deaf caves and inducing “panic fear” on lost travelers.

There were many forest gods in ancient Greece, and unlike the main deity, they were called panisks.

Name: Zeus

A country: Greece

Creator: ancient Greek mythology

Activity: god of the sky, thunder and lightning, in charge of the whole world

Family status: married

Zeus: Character Story

The mythology of Ancient Greece, which is closely intertwined with the religion of this people, originated on the path of the formation of mankind, but is still popular, which was facilitated by cultural monuments.

Eminent directors and talented writers are inspired by the titans, Olympians, muses, cyclops and others fictional characters, and legends involving gods and incredibly strong heroes captivate the spirit. Zeus, the head of the ancient Greek Pantheon, who is in charge of the whole world, is quite often found in ancient texts. The name of this thunderer, perhaps, is familiar to everyone and everyone.

Mythology

A person looks very weak against the background of the surrounding world, a representative of the Homosapiens species does not have the same physical strength as, for example, a bear; humans cannot run fast like lions or cheetahs, nor do they have sharp teeth and strong claws.

But on the other hand, by nature, a person tries to explain what he feels and observes. No wonder he discovered physical laws, invented chemical table, but asked the question of philosophy. But earlier when scientific knowledge were not so strong, people explained this or that natural phenomenon through myths and believed that the gods were able to bring prosperity to the house, help win the war and protect the crop from drought.

According to history, from the first half of the second millennium BC, the third generation of gods led by Zeus began to reign in the world, who overthrew the titans. The chief of the Olympian gods became the third son of the titan Kronos and his wife Rhea. The fact is that the seer predicted to Kronos that his own son would take the crown of his father. The Lord of Time did not want to put up with such a fate, therefore, without a twinge of conscience, he ate newborn children, just in case, swallowing even daughters.

Rhea did not intend to put up with the arbitrariness of her husband, therefore, as a wise woman, she decided to act by cunning. The pregnant titanita went to a deep cave in Crete, where she gave birth to the future usurper of power.

So that Kronos would not notice the trick, his beloved put a Baytil stone wrapped in diapers instead of the baby, which the giant immediately swallowed. And when the enraged titan found out about the tricks of his wife, he went to look for little Zeus. The Kurets saved the boy: they banged with spears and swords when the baby cried so that Kronos would not guess where his son was.

The fatal prediction that Kronos learned came true: when Zeus matured, he started a war against his father, winning a crushing victory and sending his parent into the abyss under the kingdom of Hades - Tartarus. According to another legend, the Thunderer gave Kronos a honey drink to drink, and when he fell asleep, he castrated it. Further, Zeus forced his ancestor to spit out brothers and sisters with the help of a potion, whom he made gods and settled on Olympus. According to other sources, the Olympian ripped open the belly of a titan.

The war between the gods and the titans lasted ten years, and the Cyclopes were called to help. But, since the forces were equal, the opponents could not determine the winner for a long time. Then Zeus freed the hundred-armed giants from the abyss, who swore allegiance to him, and they helped send the former rulers to Tartarus. Desperate, the earth goddess Gaia gave birth to a terrible monster with a hundred dragon heads - Typhon, but he was defeated by Zeus.

When peace reigned, Zeus, along with his brothers, divided power with the help of lots. Poseidon became the lord of the sea, Hades began to manage the gloomy and frightening kingdom of the dead, and Zeus got dominance in the sky.

Scientists even made an assumption: it is likely that the Greeks presented human sacrifices to the owner of Olympus, but others refute these conjectures. Perhaps, only separate and few tribes were engaged in killings for the sake of the owner of the sky, in order to ask for an end to volcanic eruptions. Basically, in ancient Greece, animals and food were given to the gods, arranging holidays.

Image

The Thunderer, who frightens the inhabitants of the Earth with lightning and dark clouds, appears in mythology as the father of gods and people. Zeus tried to make this world the most harmonious, distributing good and evil, and also put shame and conscience into a person. A powerful god sits on his throne and watches over the city order, protecting the weak and offended and granting patronage to those who pray.

Zeus, who followed the laws all over the world, could not only send rain and punish guilty people with lightning, but also foresaw the future, predicting the future with the help of dreams. But sometimes Zeus himself depends on the goddesses Moir - women weaving the threads of fate.

Often, the Thunderer is depicted in paintings and sculptures as a middle-aged man with kind features, which were framed by thick curls and a lush beard. In the hands of Zeus is a lightning bolt, which is a three-pronged fork with notches. From legends it is known that lightning for the god was made by one-eyed cyclops. The deity also has a scepter, and sometimes he is depicted with a labrys or hammer, similar to a tool.

God cuts in a chariot drawn by eagles: as you know, this noble bird is associated with greatness and power. It was the eagle that pecked the liver of the unfortunate Prometheus - thus Zeus punished his cousin for stealing the fire from Hephaestus, passing it on to people.

Among other things, Zeus knows how to transform into any earthly creature: once an Olympian turned into a bull in order to kidnap a princess. However, the master of the sky was not distinguished by constancy. Hundreds of beauties visited his bed, whom he seduced in different guises: either he would appear to the girl in the form of a cloud, or he would appear as a white swan. And in order to take possession of Danae, Zeus turned into a golden shower.

Family

As you know, in ancient Greek mythology, all the gods are in some sense relatives to each other, who descended from the titans. In addition, judging by the legends, some married their sisters. The Thunderer was not an exemplary family man and seduced far more than one beauty; wide-eyed Europe, Leda, Antelope, Io and other charmers became victims of the spell of Zeus.

But three women were considered "official" wives. The first is the wise Metis, who predicted to her husband that the son of Zeus born from her would surpass his father. The upset guardian of lightning followed the example of Kronos, only he swallowed not a newborn baby, but his wife. After that, the patroness of organized war, Athena, was born from the head of the god, and Metis, sitting in the womb of her husband, became his adviser.

The second wife of Zeus - the goddess of justice Themis - gave her husband three daughters: Eunomia, Dike and Eirene (according to other sources, Themis is the mother of Moira or Prometheus). The last beloved of the Olympian was the patroness of marriage, Hera, who is distinguished by cruelty and jealous disposition.

Movies

Zeus can be seen on TV screens, the Thunderer appeared before the audience in several cinematic works:

1969 - "Hercules in New York"
1981 - "Clash of the Titans"
2010 - Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
2010 - "Clash of the Titans"
2011 - "War of the Gods: Immortals"
2012 - Wrath of the Titans

actors

In the adventure film Hercules in New York, where he starred, the little-known actor Ernest Graves appeared in the image of the Thunderer. Further, in 1981, the adventure film by Desmond Davis, Clash of the Titans, was released.

This time, the image of the Lord of Olympus was tried on by the Briton, familiar to the audience from the films "" (1986), "King Lear" (1983), "" (1979) and other noteworthy film works.

In 2010, the family film Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief was released. They played in this picture. In 2011, the film "War of the Gods: Immortals" was released, reincarnated as the main of the gods, dividing film set with , and .

Zeus kidnapped not only the fairer sex. Reincarnated in the guise of a giant eagle, the arbiter of destinies stole a beautiful young man, the son of the Trojan Tros - Ganymede. The Thunderer gave this father young man a golden vine, and Ganymede received eternal youth, becoming a "cupbearer" who gave nectar and ambrosia to the gods.
Zeus owns a magical cape made of goatskin - Aegis, which, like a shield, has protective properties. Legends say that the daughter of the owner of the lightning - Athena - wore this skin as a robe, attaching a brooch depicting the Gorgon Medusa to it.

In the 5th century BC, Olympia was home to the third of the seven wonders of the world - a marble statue of Zeus, which surpassed even temples in size. The monument was built by the sculptor Phidias, who was picky about materials, especially ivory. According to rumors, 200 kg of pure gold were brought to the feet of Zeus and gems. Unfortunately, the giant statue of the Thunderer died after wars and robberies.
Zeus appears both in cinematic works and on computer screens, for example, in the game Dota2 there is such a hero who bears the name of the son of Kronos and kills opponents with lightning.
Zeus was raised by the nymph Kinosura. After the Thunderer became the ruler of the sky, he placed her among the stars as a token of gratitude. According to other legends, Melissa raised the offspring of the titan, feeding the boy with honey and goat's milk, as well as the shepherd's family, while setting an ultimatum that all sheep would be saved from wolves.

The power of Zeus on Olympus was strengthened in another way. He entered into illegal relationships for the sake of procreation. But, what is most interesting, the children from these non-canonical marriages were in no way inferior to his other, legal ones. On the contrary, Zeus established himself on Olympus precisely through the goddesses he loved, for the sake of which he endured humiliation from the jealous Hera and for the sake of which he had to indulge in tricks.

Eurynome and the birth of Charit

EURINOME AND THE BIRTH OF HARIT. The first illegitimate wife of Zeus (according to the total number of all his seven marriages - the third) was the Oceanid Eurynomus (Hes. Theog. 907-911). She gave birth to Zeus three charming and lovely Charites (Greek charis - mercy). They embodied the good, joyful and eternally young beginning of life. The names of Harit are Aglaya (Shining), Euphrosyne (Good-thinking), Falia (Blossoming). Here, nature is turned to man with its beneficent side, despite the evil and destructive elements of the archaic.

Charites, one might say, are absolutely necessary in a world approved by Olympian Zeus and built on harmony and order. Kindness, affection, joy along with high deeds, passions and sufferings of heroes are the privilege of classical mythology. This is something that is so lacking in the archaic, which was absolutely alien to it and which ennobled and raised in their own eyes a person capable of severe courage and kind compassion for his own kind.

Demeter and the birth of Persephone

DEMETRA AND THE BIRTH OF PERSEPHONE. But it turns out that Zeus also claims to be an assistant in obtaining a livelihood. Having entered into an illegal relationship with his sister Demeter (the fourth marriage in a row), the goddess of fruitful land and harvest, Zeus begins to be responsible for feeding people, for their vitality, for their physical well-being (ibid. 912-914). And if we take into account that his daughter from Demeter, Persephone, became the wife of Hades and the mistress of the kingdom of the dead, then Zeus, as it were, again, already in his offspring, returns to the functions of the ancient deity Zeus the Underground, or Chthonius, and not just Heavenly Zeus.

Mnemosyne and the birth of the Muses

Mnemosyne and the birth of the Muses. Even more significant love union Zeus with the Titanide Mnemosyne (Greek mnemosyne - memory), although he is not consecrated by law (the fifth marriage in total). This marriage is absolutely necessary to strengthen Zeus in the world of cultural classical values (ibid. 915-917; 56-62).

After all, without memory and without memory, forward movement is unthinkable, any development is impossible. Zeus unites with Memory (as he previously united with Thought) and gives birth to nine sisters, who are called Muses.

These Muses, born in Pieria, bear the name of the Olympians. Their names - Calliope, Clio, Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato, Terpsichore, Thalia, Polyhymnia, Urania - indicate the connection of the Muses with singing, dancing, music and, in general, with the refined pleasure of the spirit. Urania (Heavenly) and Clio (Giving glory) endow a person with the ability to study heaven and earth, the course of heavenly bodies and earthly affairs.

Further, no longer mythological, but real history ancient culture had every reason to consider Urania the patroness of astronomical studies, and Clio - historical research. Erato became the Muse of lyric poetry, Euterpe - the music accompanying the lyric song, Calliope - epic poetry, Melpomene - tragedy, Polyhymnia - hymn songs, Terpsichore - dance and Thalia - comedy art.

These nine Olympian muses seem to have their origins in the three muses of archaic mythology, where they expressed the first beginnings of the wisdom of the earth. Archaic muses were revered not by singers and poets, but by the giants of Aloada (Pave. IX 29, 1-2), who once made sacrifices on Mount Helikon and gave them characteristic names- Meleta (Experience), Mnema (Memory), Aoyda (Song). It turns out that once there were so-called older muses, the daughters of Uranus and Gaia, and those who are from Zeus are the younger muses. So, pre-Olympic mythology already had a number of prerequisites for the formation of not purely physical, but some new, higher needs and abilities of a person who had to consciously navigate life, fixing his knowledge in memory, and feel a certain delight of the soul.

Apparently, after all, the chthonic past of the Olympian muses made itself felt in classical mythology, because they sometimes had offspring of a clearly orgiastic and spontaneous type, for example, Corybantes and Sirens, along with such singers of heroic times as Orpheus and Lin.

Let us listen to what Hesiod, a poet and farmer from the village of Askra, located at the foot of Helikon, tells about the Olympic Muses.

In "Theogony" - a poem about the birth and generations of the gods, one of the main sources of mythology - Hesiod tells, not embarrassed by the improbability of events, about his meeting with the Muses on the Helicon peaks. It turns out that the nine Olympian sisters are in the habit of dancing round dances there, bypassing the altar of Zeus and the source of "violet-dark" water. They wash their bodies in the currents of Permes or in the spring of Hippocrene (he was knocked out of the rock with a hoof winged horse Pegasus), and then indulge in dancing. When night falls, then, dressed in impenetrable fog, the Muses descend from the sacred mountain and come down, closer to the people. They sing wonderful songs, glorifying the great Olympians - Zeus and Hera, Athena and Apollo with Artemis, Poseidon and Aphrodite with Themis, Hebe, Dione and her daughter Leto, - the ancient titans Iapetus and Kronos, Dawn and Night, the Sun and the Moon, mother Earth and ocean waters.

It was these Olympian muses who met Hesiod when he was grazing sheep at the foot of Helikon, told him about how they were skilled at cunning inventions, about how you can turn false stories into the purest truth.

In fact, the Muses revealed to Hesiod the secret of poetic fiction - what we now call fantasy. And after that, they handed Hesiod a staff carved by them from green laurel, the tree of Apollo's favorite singers and poets. Presenting their gift, the Muses breathed into the shepherd Hesiod the gift of divine songs. Unbeknownst to himself, Hesiod gave a wonderful example of a fetishistic understanding of poetic inspiration. It turns out that it, like a living being, lives in a laurel, and therefore in a laurel staff, along with which it purely physically passes into the possession of Hesiod.

So, the Muses taught Hesiod songs and created a poet, and he, in turn, glorified the daughters of Zeus in Theogony (1-116).

Their mouths pour out sweet sounds, to which no less sweet songs of the inhabitants of Olympus sound in response. The Muses sing of the divine world in all its integrity, from Earth and Heaven to Zeus and his descendants. As befits the deities of classical mythology, they not only endow people with the gift of a pleasant word, but sing the laws established by Zeus, the good morals that reign on Olympus, inspire reasonable thoughts, quench sadness, and stop quarrels.

Thus, the Muses fix in the memory of people and in the poetic word all the good undertakings of Olympian Zeus, supporting, like the Charites, Oras and Moiras, the harmonious arrangement of the world, obedient to Zeus's laws and quite consciously meaningful.

Summer gives birth to Zeus Apollo and Artemis

SUMMER BIRTH ZEUS APOLLO AND ARTEMIS. These common cultural functions of Zeus are further strengthened on Olympus with the birth of Apollo (Ges. Theog. 918-920).

Poor Leto, persecuted by the Hero, who forbade the solid earth to give shelter to her future mother, found a place with difficulty when it was time to give birth. She wanders through the cities, mountains and islands of Greece - she was in Athens, Miletus, Euboea, Samothrace, in the mountains of Pelion, Ida, on the islands of Imbros, Lemnos, Lesbos, Knidos, Naxos, Paros, Skyros, Aegina. And finally, rocky Delos (it was then called Ortigia and was floating, that is, it was not a solid land) gives her shelter in response to Leto's plea and her oath that the island will become the sacred haven of Apollo and will be revered for centuries glorified magnificent temple.

Summer suffers for nine days. She is assisted in childbirth by the mother of Zeus - Rhea, his ex-wife - Themis, the mother of Aphrodite - Dione, the wife of Poseidon - Amphitrite. Only the evil Hera delays Ilithyia, her daughter, the goddess of childbirth. However, the goddesses find a way out. They bribe Ilithyia with rich gifts. Then Leto, clasping the palm tree with her hands, gives birth to Apollo right in the soft meadow carpet (according to Apollodorus I 4, 1, Leto first gave birth to Artemis, and with her help - Apollo). And immediately the earth smiles, and the goddesses, having washed the baby, twist it with a thin white cloth, tie it with a golden belt. Themis lets nectar and ambrosia into the child's lips.

The golden belt unravels, the diapers fall off, and now Apollo demands a bow, a lyre and declares his future prophecies.

Having received what he wanted, the "far-striking" Phoebus walked along the earth, "the goddesses were dumbfounded", and "Delos shone all over, like gold", as if all bloomed with forest flowers. And mother Leto rejoiced in her heart, rejoicing that she had given birth to such a powerful son (Hom. hymn. I 25-139; Kallim. IV 55-274).

So, Summer, as the illegitimate wife of Zeus, experienced the wrath of Hera, but she also turned out to be the happy mother of the twins Apollo and Artemis. And if the image of Artemis, the virgin hunter, is rooted in ancient layers of mythology as the image of the mistress of forests and animals, then Apollo is an example of a deity in which his classical essence tried in every possible way to suppress its own archaic past.

The powerful figure of the bright solar god, the archer who punishes monsters, Musaget (Driver of the Muses), the inspired singer, the wise soothsayer and healer, the patron of shepherds, the builder of cities and the founder of legislation, could not completely supplant the werewolf, the destroyer of shepherd's herds, the phytomorphic demon, the gloomy killer of people, the sender of deadly diseases, the destroyer of cities.

However, the more Zeus strengthens on Olympus, the more power Apollo gains, gradually becoming some kind of universal classical god, identical with the world of light, and finally, the light itself, shining, and even the Driver Moir (Moiraget), holding together all world harmony. In the end, this universalism of Apollo reaches such an extent that later mythographers on the slope of antiquity will identify him with Zeus. But if you do not go into the extremes of late mythography, configured philosophically and symbolically, then Apollo of the classical period is indeed, along with Athena, one of the main pillars of Olympus and, in general, the heroic principle of being. True, unlike Athena, who was unfailingly faithful to her father, in Apollo there are noticeable tendencies towards rivalry with Zeus and self-affirmation against his father's will.

Aphrodite - daughter of Dione

APHRODITE - DIONE'S DAUGHTER. According to the traditional classical version of Homer (Il. V 370), Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and the goddess Dione, who lives peacefully with Hera on Olympus. According to the ancient version, she was born from the blood of Uranus castrated by Kronos, which fell into the sea. However, classical mythology, alien to crude chthonicism, transforms this gloomy picture and depicts the birth of the goddess of love and beauty full of splendor and splendor, outside of which the Olympian gods are not conceived.

Driven by the breath of the Zephyr along the waves, Aphrodite sailed to the island of Cyprus in airy foam. The daughters of Zeus, Ora, joyfully meet the goddess, dressing her in imperishable clothes, crowning her head with a golden crown, putting golden earrings in her ears, and wrapping a golden necklace around her neck. Accompanied by the charming Or - Eunomia, Diki, Eirena - a newcomer to the world, named Cyprida, marches to the Olympian gods. Those, as a sign of greeting, shake her right hand and, marveling at the violet-crowned Aphrodite, are ignited with passion to introduce her wife into own house(Hom. anthem. VI). The beauty and power of Aphrodite are subject to the gods (everyone except Athena, Artemis, Hestia), heroes and even wild animals - gray wolves, bears, fiery-eyed lions, leopards - meekly wagging their tails at the sight of the goddess (ibid. IV 2-72).

So the mysterious creature, born in the bloody foam of castrated Uranus, which fell into the sea (and Erinyes and giants were born from drops of the same blood in the earth), turns into a golden-crowned, smiling, tender Aphrodite with curved eyelashes, marking this, as it were, the second birth of Zeus Olympus and affirmation of beauty on it.

Hermes - son of Maya

HERMES - SON OF MAYA. The birth of Hermes is also associated with amazing events on Olympus (ibid. III). If this ancient, pre-Greek, perhaps Molo-Asiatic deity in origin was once a fetish, a pile of stones, a stone pillar (germ), which marked burial places, property boundaries, gates of the house, protective signs on the roads, then Olympic mythology knows another Hermes. This is the son of Zeus and Maya, one of the daughters of Atlas, the granddaughter of the titan Iapetus. He was born in Arcadia. His mother was a mountain nymph who lived in a shady cave - an oread, which Zeus visited at night, when the "white-elbowed" Hera slept peacefully.

The infant Hermes grew up as fast as the other divine children of Zeus. He was born early in the morning, at noon he was already playing the cithara, and in the evening he stole cows from Apollo.

He managed to make Kifara from the shell of a turtle he found. He simply gutted a turtle with a knife, then cut the reed stalks, strengthened them on the shell, covered them with an oxhide, made a crossbar, fitted seven strings from sheep intestines and immediately tried the strings with a plectrum, singing along with his playing.

The first thing Hermes did was to sing of his own birth, glorifying Zeus and Maya, as well as the house of his mother and happy life in him. In the evening, he was terribly hungry for meat, and he stole a herd of Apollo cows, leading them away by cunning (he led them backwards, while he himself walked barefoot, also backwards, throwing his sandals into the sea).

Having tasted abundantly the fried meat from the slaughtered two cows, having returned home, having made his way through the keyhole, he lay down in the cradle, clutching the lyre to himself and talking with his mother about his future clever tricks, dreaming of cracking the wall of the Delphic temple and stealing gold there.

However, Hermes has to part with the lyre, which he gives to Apollo in exchange for a herd, especially since the angry god threatens to throw the nimble Hermes into the foggy Tartarus, from where neither father nor mother will bring him out. Reconciled by Zeus on Olympus, the half-brothers fell in love with each other. Hermes handed Apollo a flute made by him in addition, but he received a golden rod and the art of divination as a gift from Apollo (Apollod. III 10, 2), having sealed the gifts with an oath by the waters of Styx.

So from the ancient fetishistic demon and primitive deceiver, Hermes, only one day after his birth, reaches the position of an assistant on the paths of the living and the dead (thanks to the golden rod), and therefore the patron of heroes (the lyre is given to Apollo for the builders of Thebes, he hands Perseus a sword for the murder of Medusa, Odysseus - a magical herb that saves from witchcraft, etc.) and, therefore, an intermediary between gods and people, which was extremely necessary for the classical Olympus.

Pan - grandson or son of Zeus

PAN - GRANDSON OR SON OF ZEUS. Cheerful confusion on Olympus was caused by the birth of the grandson of Zeus, the son of Hermes and the tree nymph, the daughter of Dryop (Oak-shaped), Pan (Home hymn. XIX). This deity with the rudiments of chthonicism and mixanthropism (wool, goat horns, hooves) in classical mythology not only frightens those he meets with his tricks, but favors people, guarding the herds and increasing the offspring.

A terrible, bearded baby, overgrown with wool, was thrown away by her mother in horror, but Hermes, taking him in his arms and wrapping him in the skin of a mountain hare, brought him to Olympus. The gods laughed merrily, looking at such a cute monster, called him, "all" pleased, Pan (Greek pan - all) and adopted him into their family. Pan's position in the Olympic circle of the gods turned out to be so strong that, according to some versions, he is even the son of Zeus and the Arcadian nymph Callisto or Zeus and the goddess Hybris - Insolence, Apollo's mentor in divination (Apollod. I 4, 1).

Birth of Dionysus, son of Zeus and mortal woman Semele

THE BIRTH OF DIONYSUS, THE SON OF ZEUS AND THE MORTAL WOMAN SEMELE. Another deity, Dionysus - the embodiment of the fruitful forces of the earth - also of chthonic origin, powerful irrational spontaneity and orgiasm, turns out to be the son of Zeus in classical mythology, who is in different guises.

Either this is the most ancient Dionysus Zagreus (Great Hunter), associated with Cretan mythology, the son of Zeus the Serpent and Persephone, or it is no less ancient Dionysus Iacchus, the son of Zeus and Demeter, associated with the Eleusinian mythology of the earth. But at the Olympic level, Dionysus is the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Semele, daughter of the Theban king Cadmus.

His birth is also unusual, like all children of Kronion who are not related to Hera. However, the cunning of Hera also affected here: she made Zeus the unwitting killer of Semele. Hera, taking the form of an old nanny, inspired Semele with the idea to demand from Zeus his appearance before his beloved in all his divine power. Bound by an oath, Zeus appeared before Semele, who was expecting the birth of a child, in thunder and lightning.

When thunder and lightning incinerated Semele and burned her tower, Dionysus, born prematurely (he was only six months old), was snatched out of the flames by Zeus (Apollo also snatched his son Asclepius from the flames of the fire), sewn into his thigh, carried to required time and was born again by the father himself (Ges. Theog. 940-942; Eurip. Bacchus. 1-9, 88-98, 266-297), just as Athena was born.

Zeus gave his son through the mediation of Hermes to be raised by nymphs in the distant mountains of Nisa, and the baby grew up in a fragrant cave, topped with hops and laurel (Home hymn XXVI).

However, Dionysus, who miraculously escaped death, was pursued by the wrath of Hera, who brought madness on him, forcing him to wander through the East as far as India. This is a violent god, who, in turn, induces madness on enemies, opponents of his cult (on his relative the Theban king Pentheus, on the Thracian king Lycurgus), rushing in ecstasy, surrounded by bacchantes and bacchantes, a werewolf, forever changing his face, changeable as nature itself. Now ivy and vine, now bull and goat, lion and panther, he crushes fetters and walls, frees a person from the usual and boring measured life (no wonder he is Liei - the Liberator).

Having absorbed the orgiasm of nature, Dionysus enables a person, limited by institutions, traditions, laws, to express the excess of forces hidden in everyone, to join the boundless divine element, to feel the immensity of freedom from any bonds, to feel their own power. But Dionysus, as an Olympian deity, does not prevent the return of his adherents to a peaceful and active life, demonstrating the unity of destruction and creation, harmony, infinity and limit, the free familiarization of man with both. Dionysus, who in his most ancient incarnation was torn to pieces by the Titans and revived by Athena, this demigod of classical myths, eventually reaches the heights of Olympus and immortality as a reward for all his sufferings and even claims to be one of the twelve great Olympian gods.

Born outside of Olympus, Dionysus is especially characteristic of Olympic mythology, since in his image, which goes into the depths of chthonicism, there are remarkable tendencies of growing heroism in every possible way, which, thanks to incredible trials, suffering and exploits, will open rivalry with the gods, albeit not always successful, even punished by immortals, but nevertheless boldly affirmed by mortal people.

In the future, we will witness how the children of Zeus, who came into the world in such an amazing way, will become helpers and intercessors of heroes who were also born in an unusual way from the marriage of gods and mortals and dream of the miracle of immortal life.

So, the birth of the children of Zeus is not the senseless excess fertility of the old chthonicism with its monsters breathing murder.

The heirs of Zeus were born for great purposes, they come to life, fulfilling the lofty plans of their father, establishing new reasonable relationships, fighting all irrationality and cleansing the earth from the destructive forces once generated by Gaia and her descendants.