Gods and Goddesses of Olympus



Gods and Goddesses of Olympus

JUPITER (Latin form Iuppiter; Greek name Zeus) was the supreme god of the Olympians. He was lord of the sky, the rain god and the cloud gatherer. His weapon was a thunderbolt, which he hurled at those who displeased him. He was married to Juno (Hera) but was famous for his many affairs. An eagle attended him as a minister of his will, and for a page and cup-bearer he had Ganymede, a boy so beautiful that Jupiter had him stolen from Mount Ida to make him immortal in heaven. He was also known to punish those that lie or break oaths. His tree was the oak, and his oracle was at Dodona, the land of the oak trees.

Jupiter was the youngest son of the Titans Saturn (Greek name Cronus) and Rhea. When he was born, his father Cronus intended to swallow him as he had all of Jupiter’s siblings: Neptune, Pluto, Vesta, Ceres and Juno. But Rhea hid the newborn in a cave on Mount Dicte in Crete. (To this day, the guides at the "cave of Jupiter" use their flashlights to cast shadow puppets in the cave, creating images of baby Jupiter from the myth.)

When he had grown up, Jupiter caused Cronus to vomit up his sisters and brothers, and these gods joined him in fighting to wrest control of the universe from the Titans and Cronus, their king. Having deposed his father and the other Titans, Jupiter imprisoned most of them in the underworld of Tartarus.

Then he and his brothers Neptune and Pluto divided creation between them. Neptune received the sea as his domain, Pluto got the Underworld, and Jupiter took the sky. Jupiter also was accorded supreme authority on earth and on Mount Olympus.

POWERS: Judgment, Weather, Oaths

SYMBOLS: Thunderbolt, Eagle, Oak tree

JUNO (Latin form Iuno; Greek name Hera) was the goddess of marriage. Juno was the wife of Jupiter and Queen of the Olympians.

Juno hated the great hero Hercules, since he was the son of her husband Jupiter and a mortal woman. When he was still an infant, she sent snakes to attack him in his crib. Later, she stirred up the Amazons against him when he was on one of his quests.

On the other hand, Juno aided the hero Jason, who would never have retrieved the Golden Fleece without her sponsorship.

POWERS: Marriage, Childbirth

SYMBOLS: Peacock, Cow

NEPTUNE (Latin form Neptunus; Greek name Poseidon) was the god of the sea, earthquakes, and horses. Although he was officially one of the supreme gods of Mount Olympus, he spent most of his time in his watery domain.

His weapon was a trident, which could shake the earth, and shatter any object. He was second only to Jupiter in power amongst the gods. Under the ocean, he had a marvelous golden palace, its grottos adorned with corals and the sea-flowers, and lit with a phosphorescent glow. He rose forth in a chariot drawn by dolphins, sea-horses, and other marine creatures.

As god of horses, Neptune often adopted the shape of a steed. Neptune sometimes granted the shape-shifting power to others. And he granted the request of the maiden Caenis that she be transformed into the invulnerable, male warrior Caeneus.

POWERS: Sea, Earthquakes, Shape-shifting

SYMBOLS: Horses, Trident (three-pronged spear)

PLUTO (Greek name Hades) was the brother of Jupiter. He was made lord of the underworld, ruling over the dead. He was a greedy god, who was greatly concerned with increasing his subjects. He was exceedingly disinclined to allow any of his subjects to leave. Pluto sat on a throne made of ebony, and carried a scepter. People avoided speaking his name, lest they attracted his unwanted attention. With their faces averted, they sacrificed black sheep, whose blood they let drip into pits, and when they prayed to him, they would bang their hands on the ground. The narcissus and the cypress are sacred to him.

He was also the god of wealth, due to the precious metals mined from the earth. He had a helmet that made him invisible. He rarely left the underworld. He was unpitying and terrible, but not capricious. His wife was Proserpina, whom Pluto abducted. He was the King of the Dead, but Death itself is another god, Thanatos.

POWERS: Underworld, Spirits of the Dead, Wealth, Invisibility Helmet

SYMBOLS: Narcissus, Cypress

MINERVA (Greek name Athena) was the goddess of crafts and the domestic arts and also those of war. She was the patron goddess of Athens. Her symbol was the owl.

Minerva was the daughter of Jupiter. She sprang full-grown in armor from his forehead; thus she has no mother. She was fierce and brave in battle but only fought to protect the state and home from outside enemies. She was the goddess of the city, handicrafts, and agriculture. She invented the bridle, which permitted man to tame horses, the trumpet, the flute, the pot, the rake, the plow, the yoke, the ship, and the chariot. She was the embodiment of wisdom, reason, and purity. She was Jupiter's favorite child and was allowed to use his weapons including his thunderbolt. Her favorite city was Athens. Her tree was the olive. The owl was her bird.

Both Minerva and Neptune wanted to be patron deity of Athens. To prove her worthiness for the honor, Minerva caused an olive tree to spring up on the citadel of Athens, the Acropolis. Neptune sought to outdo her by striking the ground with his trident and causing a spring of water to gush forth. But as he was god of the sea, the water was salty. Minerva's gift to the Athenians was considered to be more useful, so she became the city's patron deity.

POWERS: Wisdom, War, Crafts

SYMBOLS: Owl, Olive Tree

APOLLO (Greek name Apollo) was the god of prophecy, music, and healing, the god of light, and the god of truth, who cannot speak a lie.

One of Apollo's more important daily tasks was to harness his chariot with four horses and drive the Sun across the sky.

He was famous for his oracle at Delphi. People traveled to it from all over the Greek world to divine the future.

When someone died suddenly, he was said to have been struck down by one of Apollo's arrows. Homer's epic of the Trojan War begins with the god causing a plague by raining arrows down upon the Greek camp.

As god of music, Apollo is often depicted playing the lyre. He did not invent this instrument, however, but was given it by Mercury in compensation for cattle theft. Some say that Apollo did invent the lute, although he was best known for his skill on the lyre.

He won several musical contests by playing this instrument. In one case he bested Pan, who competed on his own invention, the shepherd's pipe. On this occasion, King Midas had the bad sense to say that he preferred Pan's music, which caused Apollo to turn his ears into those of a donkey.

POWERS: Music, Prophecy, Healing, Light

SYMBOLS: Lyre, Sun, Crow, Laurel Tree, Dolphin

DIANA (Greek name Artemis) was the goddess of the hunt. She helped women in childbirth but also brought sudden death with her arrows.

Diana and her brother Apollo were the children of Jupiter and Leto. In some versions of their myth, Diana was born first and helped her mother to deliver Apollo.

Diana is generally depicted as a young woman clad in buckskins, carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows. She is often accompanied by wild creatures, such as a stag or a she-bear.

POWERS: Hunting, Unmarried Maidens, Childbirth

SYMBOLS: Bow and arrows, Deer, She-bear, Moon, Cypress Tree

VENUS (Greek name Aphrodite) was the goddess of love, beauty and fertility. She was also a protectress of sailors.

The poet Hesiod said that Venus was born from sea-foam. Homer, on the other hand, said that she was the daughter of Jupiter and Dione.

The love goddess was married to the homely craftsman-god Vulcan. She was unfaithful to him with Mars, and Homer relates in the Odyssey  how Vulcan had his revenge.

Elsewhere in classical art she has no distinctive attributes other than her beauty. Flowers and vegetation motifs suggest her connection to fertility. Her son Cupid (Greek name Eros) shot the arrows that caused people to fall in love.

POWERS: Love, Beauty

SYMBOLS: Dove, Swan, Sparrow, Myrtle Tree

MARS (Greek name Ares) was the god of war, or more precisely of warlike frenzy. Though an immortal deity, he was bested by Hercules in battle and was almost killed when stuffed into a jar by two giants. When another hero wounded him during the Trojan War, he received scant sympathy from his father Jupiter.

In appearance, Mars was handsome and cruel. He is often depicted carrying a bloodstained spear. His throne on Mount Olympus was said to be covered in human skin.

The Roman god Mars, with whom the Greek god Ares was identified, was the father of Romulus and Remus, the mythological founders of Rome. Thus he was more important to the Romans than his Greek counterpart. He was also more dignified.

POWERS: War frenzy

SYMBOLS: Spear, Vulture, Dog

CERES (Greek name Demeter) was the goddess of agriculture. Ceres was the sister of Jupiter and the mother of Proserpina.

Proserpina was gathering flowers in a meadow one day when a huge crack opened up in the earth and Pluto, King of the Dead, emerged from the Underworld. He siezed Proserpina and carried her off in his chariot, back down to his his realm below, where she became his queen. Ceres was heartbroken. She wandered the length and breadth of the earth in search of her daughter, during which time the crops withered and it became perpetual winter.

At length Pluto was persuaded to surrender Proserpina for one half of every year, the spring and summer seasons when flowers bloom and the earth bears fruit once more. The half year that Proserpina spends in the Underworld as Pluto's queen coincides with the barren season.

POWERS: Harvest

SYMBOLS: Sheaf of grain

VULCAN (Latin form Vulcanus; Greek name Hephaestus) was the lame god of fire and crafts or the two together, hence of blacksmiths. Vulcan was the son of Jupiter and Juno or, in some accounts, of Juno alone. He limped because he was born lame, which caused his mother to throw him off Mount Olympus. Or, in other accounts, he interceded in a fight between Jupiter and Juno, and Jupiter took him by the foot and threw him from Olympus to the earth far below.

Vulcan accomplished numerous prodigies of craftsmanship, such as the marvelous palaces that he built for the gods atop Mount Olympus, or the armor that he made for Achilles during the siege of Troy (the description of which occupies a great many lines of Homer's epic of the Trojan War). He was kind and peace-loving.

Vulcan also created the first woman, Pandora, at the command of Jupiter, in retaliation for the various tricks by which the Titan Prometheus had benefited mortal men at the expense of the gods. Pandora was given to the Titan's brother, Epimetheus, as his wife. For her dowry, she brought a jar filled with evils from which she removed the lid, thereby afflicting men for the first time with hard work and sickness. Only hope remained inside the jar.

POWERS: Fire, Crafts, Blacksmiths, Weavers

SYMBOLS: Volcano, Fire

MERCURY (Latin form Mercurius; Greek name Hermes) was the messenger of the gods and guide of dead souls to the Underworld. A prankster and inventive genius from birth, Mercury aided the heroes Odysseus and Perseus in their quests.

Mercury was the son of Jupiter and a mountain nymph. As a newborn, he was remarkably precocious. On his very first day of life, he found the empty shell of a tortoise and perceived its utility as a sounding chamber. Stringing sinews across it, he created the first lyre.

Mercury was known for his helpfulness to mankind, both in his capacity as immortal herald and on his own initiative. When Perseus set out to face the Gorgon Medusa, Mercury aided him in the quest. According to one version of the myth, he loaned the hero his own magic sandals, which conferred upon the wearer the ability to fly.

Some say that Mercury loaned Perseus a helmet of invisibility as well. Also known as the helmet of darkness, this was the same headgear that Mercury himself had worn when he vanquished the giant Hippolytus. This was on the occasion when the gargantuan sons of Earth rose up in revolt against the gods of Olympus.

Mercury's symbol of office as divine messenger was his staff, or caduceus. This was originally a willow wand with entwined ribbons, the traditional badge of the herald. But the ribbons were eventually depicted as snakes. To support this mythologically, a story evolved that Mercury used the caduceus to separate two fighting snakes, which forthwith twined themselves together in peace.

It was Mercury's job to convey dead souls to the Underworld. And, as patron of travelers, he was often shown in a wide-brimmed sun hat of straw. His most famous depiction, a statue by Bellini, shows him alight on one foot, wings at his heels, the snaky caduceus in hand and, on his head, a rather stylized combination helmet-of-darkness and sun hat.

POWERS: Travelers, Messenger, Thieves, Mischief, Commerce

SYMBOLS: Flying sandals, Caduceus, Sun hat, Helmet of Darkness

PAN was a god of shepherds and flocks. Pan was the son of Mercury and a nymph. He was born with the legs and horns of a goat, which caused his own mother to spurn him.

Nor was the adult god more popular with the nymphs. Echo ran away from him and lost her voice as a consequence, being condemned only to repeat the words of others. Another fleeing nymph was transformed into a reed, which inspired Pan to invent the shepherd's pipe, or "panpipe," of bound reeds of varying lengths.

Pan was considered to be the cause of the sudden fear that sometimes comes for no reason, especially in lonely places. That's why it's called "panic".

POWERS: Shepherds, Flocks

SYMBOLS: Panpipes

Text adapted from and .

Images are used courtesy of Windows to the Universe, .

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