CH. 2 - Gods & Goddesses of Ancient Greece

Question 1

list the 14 major greek deities

Answer 1

• Zeus
• Hera
• Poseidon
• Hades
• Demeter
• Hestia
• Aphrodite
• Artemis
• Athena
• Ares
• Hephaestus
• Hermes
• Dionysus
  (12 olympians excludes Hestia and Hades)

Question 2

Zeus

Answer 2

• reigns over the heavens
• his weapon is the thunderbolt
• a weather god
• his symbols are his lightning bolt and sceptre, and an eagle

Question 3

Hera and Zeus’s offspring

Answer 3

• Ares
• Eileithya (goddess of childbirth)
• Hebe (goddess of youth)
• Hephaestus (just Hera’s offspring)

Question 4

Hera

Answer 4

• goddess of marriage, married women and childbirth
• often carrying a sceptre and a crown
• her royal bird is a peacock
• she sometimes hold a pomegranate in her iconography
• master of successful disguises

Question 5

Poseidon

Answer 5

• god of the seas
• earthshaker, his trident can stir up earthquakes
• god of horses
• ## fathered pegasus with Medusa

Question 6

Poseidon + Amphitrite

Answer 6

• she was his reluctant bride
• he sent all sea creatures after her, a dolphin found her and now it is immortalized in the sky as Delphineus
• they had a son Triton

Question 7

Demeter

Answer 7

• goddess of corn, the giver of grain and this bread
• had a daughter with Zeus, Persephone (also known as Kore)

Question 8

“The two goddesses”

Answer 8

Demeter and Persephone

Question 9

Story of Persephone’s abduction

Answer 9

• Hades wanted her as a wife, Zeus knew Demeter would not allow it so he secretly gave her away to Hades
• P was picking flowers in the garden and was stolen (tricked by a flower)
• she cries for her mother as she is swallowed by the earth, which she hears
• for 9 days and nights, she searched. Hecate sent her to Helios who told her Hades has her
• she deserts olympus and her godly duties in a rage

Question 10

Demeter & Demophon

Answer 10

when she deserts olympus in a rage after persephone is gone, she goes to Eleusis in Attica
- she is brought by the king’s (Keleos) daughters to meet the queen/mother (Metaneira) where she appoints a disguised Demeter as her sons (Demophon’s) nurse
- Demophon flourishes under her care and starts to make him immortal, secretly burning away his mortality in the fire every night and giving him ambrosia by day
- Metaneira finds the baby in the fire and is upset, Demeter has to reveal herself
- The Eleusinians build her a temple, where she stays for a year and the earth goes barren

Question 11

How does Persephone get/not get to see her daughter again

Answer 11

• the world is barren, no crops are growing
• Zeus demands her to come back, she refuses
• he sends all the gods down one by one to beg
• she will only help if she can see her daughter again
• Zeus sends Hermes to the underworld
• before she leaves the underworld, Hades gives Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat
• she now has to spend 4/12 months in the underworld because they are now intertwined

Question 12

Erysichithon & Demeter

Answer 12

• he needed some timber to build a banquet hall
• he had no hesitation as he cut down trees in Demeters sacred grove
• when a bystander tried to get him to stop he chopped his head off
• she punished him by giving him an insatiable hunger, the more food he ate the more he longed for food
• died by eventually gnawing at his own flesh

Question 13

Hestia

Answer 13

• goddess of the hearth, the sacred fire at the center of every home
• everyone saught her protection at the heart
• Zeus rewarded her for staying quietly remaining on Olympus by giving her a portion of all sacrifices made in the fire to her
• she was wooed by her bro Poseidon and nephew Apollo but swore a vow of chastity
• was almost raped by a minor god as she slept but a mule scared him away

Question 14

Aphrodite

Answer 14

• goddess of erotic love and giver of beauty and sexual attraction
• only things immune to her attraction are Athena, Hestia and Artemis (virgin gods)
• born from the sea foam around Kronos’ severed genitals
• married to Hephaestus but was frequently unfaithful with Ares

Question 15

Aphrodite & Ares vs. Hephaestus

Answer 15

• Helios (sungod that sees all) told Hep that they were having an affair
• he crafted an invisible net to trap them
• he told all the gods to come look and see this embarrassing scene, they laughed, the male gods wish they were Ares, the goddess didn’t look out of modestly
• Ares had to pay a fine?
• Ares and Aphrodite had a daughter Harmonia, and two twin sons Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror). Eros was her son in some literature

Question 16

Aphrodite and Anchises

Answer 16

• Zeus was mad that she always made ppl fall in love so he retaliated with making her fall in love with a cowherd
• she saw Anchises tending to his cattle on mount Ida and was seized with desire for him
• she assumed the form of a princess, they had sex and she gave him a son
• he was supposed to keep this from his son/everyone but he got drunk and started telling everyone. Diminishing Aphrodites honour
• Zeus struck him with a lightening bolt, crippling him

Question 17

Apollo

Answer 17

• patron god of the arts and the leader of the muses
• god of prophecy and divination, presiding at Delphi over the most famous of oracles, also the god of purification and healing
• not THE sun god (helios, A sun god
• weapon is a box, that can spread plague and death (purification)
• his attributes are the lyre, bow and sometimes the laurel
• son of zeus and the titan leto

Question 18

Apollo and Python

Answer 18

• he found Delphi, thought it was the perfect spot to establish his oracular shines
• it was already occupied by Python, a monstrous female dragon
• shot her dead and claimed the land

Question 19

Apollo and Daphne

Answer 19

• A wanted D but she ran
• she prayed to her river god father to help her escape so he turned her into the laurel tree
• he took the laurel as his sacred item, later became a symbol of victory

Question 20

Artemis

Answer 20

• she is the mistress of all wild animals, protectress of wildlife yet is the patron of the hunt (contraditction)
• goddess of childbirth, she was born first and immediately help deliver Apollo
• leader of the amazons
• not THE moon goddess (selene) but heavily associated with the luna cycle
• weapon is also a bow

Question 21

Artemis and Hippolytus

Answer 21

• he love Artemis so much that he renounced Aphrodite, calling her a prostitute
• Aph was pissed so she summoned a sea monster to scare his chariot’s horse
• he gets flung off and the horse runs off dragging him behind the chariot
• he dies

Question 22

Olympians that supported Greece vs the Trojans

Answer 22

Greek
- Hespheastus
- Hera
- Poseidon
- Athena
Troy
- Artemis
- Apollo
- Ares
- Aphrodite

Question 23

Athena

Answer 23

• the virgin goddess of war and handicrafts
• war in the sense of battle strategy and the rational use of war to protect the community
• goddess of handicrafts, spinning, the patroness of carpentry, metalworkers and potters
• she is a virgin goddess because she refuses to be dominated by man, but she dominates with war

Question 24

Zeus and Metis

Answer 24

• when Zeus first wife (metis) was pregnant with their first child, he learned that she was destined to bear him a daughter smarter than her mother and a father that was more powerful than him and would eventually overthrow his father and become king of the cosmos
• Zeus tricked metis into turning into a fly and he swallowed her whole, but he was too late because metis was already pregnant with their one and only child (Athena)
• metis raised her in Zeus’s mind and fashioned her a spear, amour and a sheild, she banged them in his head giving zeus a migrane
• Zeus got promethius to cut his head open and Athena burst out in full armour

Question 25

Ares

Answer 25

• son of Zeus and Hera
• god war, primordial and brutal aspect of war; bloodlust, cruelty, revenge
• generally disliked on earth and Olympus

Question 26

Hephaestus

Answer 26

• god of fire and metal working, the devine blacksmith
• said to be both the son of Zeus and Hera but sometimes just Hera because she was angry at Zeus
• was born with one leg shorter than the other, Hera was so ashamed that she threw him off of Olympus

Question 27

Hepheaestus and Hera

Answer 27

• said to be both the son of Zeus and Hera but sometimes just Hera because she was angry at Zeus
• was born with one leg shorter than the other, Hera was so ashamed that she threw him off of Olympus
• he grew his skill and used it to take revenge on his mother by fashioning her a throne which had invincible fetters (chains) and trapped her as soon as she sat down
• Dionysus got him drunk and brought him back to olympus and released her
• said his workshop is under mount Etna (also where typhon is)

Question 28

Hermes

Answer 28

• herald and messenger of the gods, god of boundaries
• he leads souls to the underworld
• his symbols are the herald staff, wide brimmed travellers hat, and winged boots/sandals
• son of Zeus and Maia (daughter of titan Atlas) born on mount Kyllene

Question 29

Events surrounding Hermes’ birth

Answer 29

• as soon he was born, he found a tortoise (shell for the sounding board) and a sheep (guts for the 7 strings) and made the first lyre
• that evening he sets off to steal the sacred cattle of Apollo
• he heards the 50 cows and kills/sacrifices 2
• Apollo (being a prophet he knows who stole them) confronts the baby Hermes, A is amused
• Hermes ends up giving him the lyre and becomes the god of herding

Question 30

Dionysus

Answer 30

• god of wine and intoxication, of ritual madness and ecstasy, of theatre and impersonation
• introduces wine to humans
• his mortal mother (Semele) met Zeus (disguised as an ogre) and demanded to see his true form, she was destroyed and Zeus pick up the embryo from the ashes and sewed him into his leg

Question 31

sparagmos

Answer 31

the act of tearing animals to pieces
- sparagmos is then followed by omophagia which is the consumption of raw meat
- consuming the animal meant to take up something from the animal

Question 32

Bekchai or Bacchants

Answer 32

• Maenads (frenzied women) who were followers/worshipers of Bacchus (Dionysus)
• they were a cult (secret society, not like the meaning in todays age) that met outside the city close to the winter solstice
• women got to let go from being a mother and a caretaker

Question 33

Orgy

Answer 33

• means swell up with moisture, as in grapes
• sexual connotation comes from men assuming the Bekchai were having sex

Question 34

Hades

Answer 34

• god of the underworld
• claims ownership of all metals under the earth
• carries around a scepter
• is cold and grim but not inherently evil
• punishment is literally hit job, furies would enact it

Question 35

rivers of the underworld

Answer 35

• river styx (the river of hate)
• river Acheron (river of grief)
• river coccytus (river of wailing)
• river pledgethon (river of fire)
• river Lithe (river of forgetfulness)

Question 36

What is the process of dying/going to the underworld

Answer 36

• Hermes leads you to the entrance of Hades/the underworld
• if the dead receives a proper burial (money) then Chiron will carry you across the river styx in his boat once you pay the fee
• enter the underworld/hades at the gates, guarded by Cerberus
• ## you either went left into Tartarus (bad) or right to Elysium (good)

Question 37

3 transgressors that have suffered eternal Punishment in Tartarus

Answer 37

Tityos
- Tried to rape Apollo and Aremis’s mother Leto
- tied to the ground and had 2 vultures eat his liver
Tantalos
- abused the gods trust
- punished with eternal thirst and hunger (always present but always out of reach/unattainable)
Sisyphos
- meddled in Zeus’s affairs, tried to cheat death
- has to push a stone up a hill for eternity
- rolls back down when he’s done
Ixion
- welcomed on olympus, falls in love with Hera and tries to seduce her. Violates the sanctity of marriage and hospitality
- bound to a fiery wheel that is always spinning