The Immortals
| Name | Description/(Keywords) | Roman Name |
| Aphrodite | Aphrodite, the golden goddess of Love; born of the blood of Ouranos (the Heavens) and the foam of the sea. | Venus |
| Apollon | Apollon, the son of Zeus and Leto; the brother of Artemis. | Apollo |
| Ares | Ares, the god of War; the son of Zeus and Hera. | Mars |
| Artemis | Artemis, Diana | Diana |
| Athene (Athena) | Athene, the goddess of Wisdom; the daughter of Zeus and Metis; the virgin goddess of intellect and invention. | Minerva |
| Demeter | Demeter, the goddess of the Harvest; the daughter of Kronos (Cronos) and Rheia (Rhea). | Ceres |
| Dione | Dione, the Mother Goddess of | |
| Eos | Eos, the Dawn; mother of the Winds. | |
| Enyo | Enyo, one of the Graiai (the Gray Sisters); the daughters of Keto (Ceto) and Phorkys (Phorcys). | Bellona |
| Erida | Erida, the wearisome goddess of Hate. | |
| Erinyes | Erinys, the Mist-Walking and the Kindly One; punisher of the unfaithful. | Furiae |
| Eris | Eris, the goddess of Discord and Strife. | Discordia |
| Eros | Eros, the primal god of Love; using arrows of gold and lead, he would wound the hearts of mortals and Immortals alike. | Cupid |
| Eurynome | Eurynome, one of the many daughters of Ocean; the mother of the Graces. | |
| Fates | The Fates, the Daughters of Necessity; born of Zeus and Themis. | Morae |
| Gorgons | Gorgons, the daughters of Phorkys and Keto (Ceto); with snakes about their heads and wrists, Medusa, Sthenno and Euryale were so hideous, the shock of seeing them would turn anyone to stone. | |
| Graces | Graces, the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome; the attendants of Aphrodite (goddess of Love) and the incarnations of Grace and Charm. | Charities |
| Hades | Hades, Lord of the Underworld; the son of Kronos (Cronos) and Rheia (Rhea). | Pluto |
| Hebe | Hebe, the goddess of Youth; the daughter of Zeus and Hera; the wife of Herakles (Heracles). | |
| Helios | Helios, the Sun; the son of Hyperion and Eryphaesa; he sees everything his light touches. | Apollo |
| Hephaistos (Hephaestus) | Hephaistos, the god of the Smith; the son of Hera and artificer of the Olympians. | Vulcan |
| Hera | Hera, the daughter of Kronos (Cronos) and Rheia (Rhea); the wife to Zeus; the most beautiful of the Immortals. | Juno |
| Herakles (Heracles) | Herakles, the ultimate hero; the son of Zeus and Alkmene (Alcmene). | Hercules |
| Hermes | Hermes, the wing shod messenger of the Olympians; the son of Zeus and Maia. | Mercury |
| Hestia | Hestia, the virgin goddess of the Hearth and humble domestic joy. | Vesta |
| Hyperion | Hyperion, the Titan; father of Helios (the Sun), Eos (the Dawn) and Selene (the Moon). | |
| Hypnos | Hypnos, the god of Sleep; a child of Nix (Night) and the brother of Thanatos (Death). | Somnus |
| Io | Io, the Heifer-Maiden who rejected the love of Zeus. | |
| Iris | Iris, the Wind-Footed messenger of the Immortals. | |
| Kalypso (Calypso) | Kalypso, the queenly Nymph and lover of Odysseus. | |
| Kheiron (Chiron) | Kheiron, the most righteous of the Centaurs; the powerful master of many arts and sciences. | |
| Kirke (Circe) | Kirke, the Dread Goddess; the daughter of Helios and the mistress of potions and spells. | |
| Kronos (Cronos) | Kronos, the Titan; father of the Olympians. | Saturn |
| Leto | Leto, the consort of Zeus and mother of Apollon and Artemis. | |
| Muses | The Muses attend the festivals on Olympos and entertain and inspire the other gods with their wit and charm. | |
| Nereids | The Nereids, the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris. | |
| Odysseus | Odysseus, the hero of the Trojan War and the long suffering traveler in The Odyssey. | Ulysses |
| Orai, | Orai, the three sisters, Eunomia (Harmony), Dyke (Justice) and Eirene (Peace) assist the Olympians by organizing the Seasons and adding balance to Nature. | Horae |
| Pan | Pan, the Goat-God; he prances through the fertile countryside in the company of Nymphs playing his seven-reed pipe in wild abandon. | Faunus |
| Persephone | Persephone, the daughter of Demeter and Zeus; the wife of Hades and queen of the Underworld. | Proserpina |
| Poseidon | Poseidon, the lord the Sea; son of Kronos (Cronos) and Rheia (Rhea). | |
| Prometheus | Prometheus, the rebel god; in defiance of Zeus, he gave fire and other comforts to the mortals on the earth. | |
| Rheia (Rhea) | Rheia, the wife of devious Kronos (Cronos) and mother to the Olympians. | |
| Rivers | Rivers; the children of Okeanos (Ocean); Immortals who have chosen rivers as their earthly bodies. | |
| Skylla | Skylla, the man-eating she-beast with six heads. | |
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| Thanatos | Thanatos, the god of Death; a child of Nix (Night) and the brother of Hypnos (Sleep). | |
| Thetis | Thetis, one of the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris; the wife of Peleus and the mother of Akhilleus (Achilles). | |
| Winds | The Winds are Immortals who have chosen the air as their earthly bodies. | |
| Zeus | Zeus, the Olympian; the son of Kronos (Cronos) and Rheia (Rhea); lord of the Sky. | Jupiter |
Greek Myths are all that’s left of the ancient Greek religion. About 1200 b.c.e., the residents of, what we would call,
The distillation of the various regional beliefs into a coherent central religion was probably not as tidy and uniform as we would prefer, but it’s fair say that the stories of the Olympians survived because they had the largest number of followers and, most importantly, The Olympians did not forbid or punish the pursuit of knowledge. Beauty, poetry and creative activities are the blessings of The Immortals and are a vital part of the Greek tradition.
The Olympians are descended from the primal, self created gods, begining with Kaos. The Olympians are ruled by Zeus. He is the strongest and, as you will see, without him, the other Olympians would still be held captive inside their devious father, Kronos. The Olympians are only a small part of the family of Immortals that rule the earth and sky. The various rivers, mountains and forces of nature are the ‘bodies’ of the Immortals and proper respect must always be shown if you wish to have peace at home and safe passage when you travel.
The ancient texts we call Greek Myths are mostly from the period known as Classical Greece, circa 500 b.c.e. The stories behind the myths are from a much earlier time but written versions don’t exist before Classical times.
The oldest myths can be traced to three main sources: Homer, Hesiod and The Homeric Hymns, circa 800 b.c.e. That means that by the time they were written down, these works had survived 400 years of additions, subtractions and mutations to finally become the versions we now call ‘authentic’. The Greek Myths are our window into the distant past, a view of a world that existed not only in the mind of the Greek poets but in the hearts of the humble and long suffering natives of ancient
The names are NOT hard to pronounce, The Greeks don’t use C’s... they use K’s instead. For example, Aphrodite is known as Our Lady of Kypros because the island we call
The most famous legend in Greek Mythology
Herakles or Hercules?
Was the Greek Herakles the same hero that the Romans worshiped as Hercules? The answer devolves from Yes to Maybe and then No.
The differences between the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses have become so blurred over the centuries that it is sometimes difficult to tell one from the other. Instead of comparing the Greek and Roman deities, many books and mythology web sites use the term "equivalent" as if the Greek and Roman deities were identical. There are numerous popular translations of ancient Greek literature in which the Greek gods and goddesses are never called by their Greek names! Zeus becomes Jove, Ares becomes Mars and Herakles becomes Hercules etc. The translators substitute the Roman names for the Greek names and no one seems to notice or care. The result has been that many people are convinced that the ancient Romans did not have an original religion at all and that the essence of their spiritual life was nothing more than a revival of the ancient Greek religion with the addition of a few Roman flourishes and new Latin names for the gods and goddesses. Both religions have been relegated to the category of myth and today it would seem that to quibble over their unique differences is unimportant. The ancient religions of
One of the main problems with the heritage of the Roman deities is that there is no Theogony to document their interconnections. To refresh your memory, Theogony is a poem written by the Greek poet Hesiod in the mid-seventh century BCE in which he methodically lists the Greek gods and goddesses, their parents, their descendants, their role in the cosmos and, most importantly, their true names and pseudonyms. Sadly, our knowledge of the ancient Roman religion does not include a definitive text such as Theogony to delineate their gods and goddesses. I believe that this gap in our knowledge is one of the primary reasons we so easily confuse these two ancient religions.
It's true that the Greeks and the Romans saw forces of nature as the personifications of divine beings. It's also true that they both believed that their gods and goddesses could assume the guise of mortal humans. From these basic beliefs the Greeks and Romans each built an elaborate and distinctly different pantheon. The two pantheons were similar in many ways but not, as some would have you believe, the same gods and goddesses with different names. If we consider the difference in time, the difference in language and, most importantly, the difference in culture which separated these two civilizations, it should be clear that it would be impossible for them to have the same exact religion. Similar, yes. Identical, no.
There is a modern example of this concept that makes the differences between the Greek and Roman religions seem like night and day. In the
Most myth researchers are quick to say that the Greek Herakles was taken into the Roman pantheon directly from the ancient Greek religion and that, aside from the spellings of their names, there is no inherent difference between the Greek Herakles and the Roman Hercules. However, when we get to the details of his existence, the Roman Hercules becomes more and more Roman and less and less Greek.
The story of Cacus and the Roman Hercules is an example of the way in which the Romans incorporated the Greek Herakles into their pantheon and simultaneously made him a Roman. When the Roman Hercules was returning from his Tenth Labor (Taking the Cattle of Geryon), he encountered the half-human monster, Cacus, and slew him. Not surprisingly, Cacus lived in
Other lessons can be learned from the Aeneid about how the Romans disdained the ancient Greek religion and, in fact, did not adopt or admire the Greek gods, goddesses or traditions. The Aeneid was written by the Roman poet, Virgil, between the years 29-19 BCE during the reign of Augustus Caesar (a.k.a. Octavian). The Aeneid was an undisguised attempt to re-instill the noble values on which
After his adoption into the Roman pantheon, the Roman Hercules was given an alter in
The Greek Herakles was the son of Zeus and Alkmene (a mortal woman). He lived and died a generation before the Trojan War and fathered scores of children. His descendants ruled many cities and regions of the Greek world for hundreds of years after his death. The cult of Herakles was popular throughout the prehistoric and historic Greek world. Greek historians such as Herodotus and Xenophon wrote of Herakles as if he was a flesh-and-blood man and made no apologies for their sincere beliefs.
In the ancient Roman religion, Jupiter is the father of Hercules. No matter how you bend and stretch the facts, Zeus and Jupiter can not be equated. The best argument I've seen which attempts to equate Zeus and Jupiter is strictly semantic and not very convincing. This argument assumes that Zeus' name was derived from the Indo-European word Dyeus which means Sky. It would follow that Jupiter's name was derived from Dyeu-Pater which might be read as Sky-Father. This argument adds assumption to assumption and seems to unravel when the same logic is applied to the Roman names of other gods and goddesses. How did Poseidon become
If we rely solely on the historical record we have more evidence that the Greek Herakles was forced into the Roman pantheon and not a natural part of it. The earliest date for the founding of Roman culture (not
There are many convincing arguments which theorize that religious beliefs have evolved along the same geographic paths as technology and culture. These theories assumes that ideas have generally migrated from the east to the west. If true, that would mean that the Egyptian religion had elements of the Sumerian and other Asian religions. In turn, the Greeks borrowed from the Egyptians. Likewise, the Romans used ideas from the Greek pantheon to create their own religion. With every step along the evolutionary road, religion, technology and culture have become more sophisticated. The Roman religion was thus more mature and refined than the ancient Greek religion and there are historical instances where the Romans banned certain Greek religious customs and traditions because they seemed barbaric to Roman sensibilities. The Bakkhanalia (Bacchanalia) is one example. The Bakkhanalia was a festival in honor of the god Bakkhus (Bacchus). It was fueled by wine and intended to incite frenzy in the participants. The Romans banned this longstanding Greek festival in the second century BCE because they considered the festivities to be of a depraved and wanton nature. Please consider what it might take to offend Roman sensibilities in those ancient times. Slavery, crucifixion and gladiatorial combat were common fare in Rome. The subjugation of the known world did not offend the Romans, why would wild revelry and drunkenness offend them? Perhaps it was not the behavior of the worshipers but rather the god which the Bakkhanalia honored that irritated the Romans. The Romans did not preserve and perpetuate the ancient Greek religion, they banished it.
Another example of how the Greek and Roman names have become interchangeable and confused might come from the worlds first historian, Herodotus. When Herodotus was traveling in Egypt and Asia Minor, he repeatedly referred to the local deities by their Greek names. He states that he visited the temple of Zeus and Ares and a host of other gods and goddesses with Greek names while he was in those foreign lands. What he was actually saying was that the Egyptians, Skythians, Babylonians and so forth, worshiped deities which reminded him of his own gods and goddesses and he simply used the Greek names for these foreign deities to make it easier for his Greek audience to appreciate what he was describing. This is essentially what has happened to the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, i.e. for the sake of convenience, not accuracy, the names of the deities of the two pantheons have been interchanged and, with the passing of time, the differences between the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses have become indistinguishable to the casual observer.
When the Greek Herakles was inducted into the Roman pantheon, his character and attributes were modified to suit the firmly established Roman culture. The underlying traits which made him such a powerful influence on the ancient Greek world were transplanted into the new fertile mythos of Rome and, as with any belief system, did not remain static but transmuted the old, dead Greek Herakles into the new, living Roman Hercules. The hero is dead, long live the hero.
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