Greek Mythology: Olympian Gods, Titans, and Creation Myths Explained

The Greek religion centered on a series of myths concerning creation and nature. While myths grew out of a variety of needs, especially to explain nature and its influence, both human and physical, they attempted to cast the various aspects of life in terms that could be readily understood. This in turn allowed stories to spring up that explained the origins of complex actions and events in terms that would allow people to understand and reconcile their lives to the surroundings.

Many of the myths competed with each other and were based upon different regions and slants. These tales show competition with a younger generation of deities who had the same attributes as earlier gods and overthrew them to establish themselves as supreme. This struggle may represent the infusion of new ideas from a different and more recent society superseding an earlier native group, but keeping the earlier stories and fusing them with the more recent additions.

Statues of 12 Olympian gods, Greek pantheon, from the Acropolis Museum in Athens

This fusion may be seen in the various creation myths, in which some Greek gods have similar attributes. For example, the god of the sun, Hyperion, one of the Titans, begot Helios, who was also the god of the sun; his power was then transferred to Apollo, probably not originally a sun god, although he shared the same epitaph, “Phoebus” meaning bright with the sun god; as such Hyperion, Helios, and Apollo were all seen as gods of the sun. Likewise, Selene, the sister of Helios, and Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo, merged into the moon goddess with both Selene and Artemis given the name depending upon the situation and location. The two deities, Apollo and Artemis, were the offspring of Zeus and Leto, who was a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, the feminine version of Phoebus, who could have been another moon goddess like her granddaughter Artemis.

The story of the Olympian gods relates to their interactions with humans. They were often seen as vindictive, immoral, petty, and disruptive to society. These attributes may be posited to show how the world was not perfect, and the gods represented human behavior so that society could learn. The first deed was the overthrow of the titan Cronus by his children. Zeus with his siblings, along with the Cyclopes, who forged for Zeus thunder and lightning, and others such as Cronus’ sister Themis and her son Prometheus banded together to fight Cronus. Opposed to Zeus were Cronus and his fellow Titans, as well as Atlas, the brother of Prometheus. For ten years, Zeus from Mount Olympus and Cronus from Mount Othyrs struggled for dominance, with Zeus finally winning and imprisoning Cronus and his Titan allies in Tartarus; Zeus punished Atlas by forcing him to hold up the world for eternity.

Zeus then had to battle the Giants, produced earlier from the blood of the sky god, Uranus. These two great battles may be seen as the subjugation of nature by the gods (i.e., humans). One of the casualties was Prometheus, who had helped Zeus but then brought fire to humans and was now punished by the chief deity. But Prometheus knew the secret to Zeus’s potential downfall—namely, that the son of the sea-nymph Thetis would be mightier than his father; when Zeus found this out, he refused to mate with the sea nymph.

With Zeus supreme, he ruled his sphere, the skies. He gave his siblings certain powers and regions to control. His brothers Poseidon and Hades were given the seas and the underworld, respectively. One story has the three brothers casting lots to see who would control which region; in another, Zeus claimed the right to decide the matter himself. Zeus then took his sister Hera as his wife, and although she was his queen and wife, she was subordinate to him. His sisters Hestia and Demeter were given other powers. The original group consisted of fourteen: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Hestia, Hephaestus, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes, and Dionysus. Ultimately, the list was reduced to twelve by removing Hades, as he had his own world to rule; and Hestia, who was replaced with Dionysus; Hestia became a limited goddess, although she was the eldest of Cronus and Rhea’s children, and was put in charge of the hearth and home.

The major emphasis of the Olympian stories was Zeus and his amorous exploits. These stories are set in a monogamous society in which men were dominant and a double standard existed. His exploits may point to how society dealt with immorality in such a structured system. He mated with the Titaness Mnemosyne (Memory) to produce the nine Muses. Zeus’s union with Themis, anther Titan, begot the Fates as well as the four seasons. His marriage with Hera (another Sky-Earth relation) produced Eileithyia (the goddess of childbirth), Hebe (the goddess of youth), Hephaestus (the god of fire and blacksmithing), and Ares (god of war). Hera is the goddess of women and childbirth. She is known for her jealousy and vengeful behavior against Zeus’s (many) paramours. Hebe is known for providing services to the gods as a cupbearer, and when Heracles becomes a god, she became his wife. Hephaestus, a cripple from birth, was known for his work as a smith and fashioner of armor for Achilles, the son of Thetis.

He was often abused by his parents but was an expert in his craft and known for his love of his wife, Aphrodite, with whom he was joined in a tempestuous union. She had contempt for him and turned to his handsome, strong, and virile brother Ares for love. The triangle would be common enough to Greek society and echoed the struggles of normal life. Ares, the final son, embodied the ideal male in the Greek world. His origins came from Thrace, and his union with Aphrodite produced Eros. One of his mistresses was Dawn (Eos), who evoked great jealousy in Aphrodite.

Zeus also mated with others. With the goddess Leto, he had the twins Artemis and Apollo. Artemis was born first and helped deliver her brother Apollo, a duty, child birthing, early associated with Artemis along with Hera and Eileithyia. She was the goddess of the hunt and chastity. This chastity is in counterbalance, and in some ways opposite, to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, for whom she acts as a foil. Her brother was Apollo, sacred to Delos and Delphi, as well as Crete, showing the universality of the god.

At Delphi, the Pythian Games were celebrated in his honor, games second only to his father’s Olympic Games at Olympia. Whereas Artemis was chaste, Apollo was most definitely not. His many loves included Cassandra, the daughter of Priam. She initially agreed to give herself to Apollo in return for the gift of prophecy, which he agreed to give her. But then she refused him. He asked for a kiss, which she gave him. When they kissed, he spat in her mouth but did not revoke his gift; instead, all of her prophecies were true, but no one would believe them. It seems that his affairs were tragic. One example was Daphne, who turned into the laurel tree for refusing his advances. He attempted to seduce the mortal Marpessa, daughter of Evenus, and granddaughter of Ares, who chose instead the mortal Idas because she feared as a mortal that Apollo would abandon her when she grew old.

One who did not spurn his love was Cyrene, a nymph with whom Apollo grew enamored when wrestling a lion. He took her in his golden chariot to Libya, to the city that would bear her name, and they had a son, Aristaeus. In addition to prophecy and piloting the Sun, Apollo was associated with music and medicine, the latter of which was taken over by his son, Asclepius. When Zeus killed Asclepius, Apollo killed the Cyclopes, who had forged the thunderbolt. The story related to the concept of community blood guilt, and Apollo was sentenced to a one-year exile. Apollo was viewed as the rational god compared to the irrational Dionysus, even though both were often presented in the same vein.

Zeus’s brother Poseidon was ruler of the oceans. He was not the first god of the seas, as Pontus had formerly held that honor, as well as the numerous children of the Titans, Oceanus, and Tethys. Pontus mated with his mother, Ge, and produced Nereus, who had fifty daughters or Nereids, and one of the mermaids was Thetis, who was destined to bear a son who was foretold to be mightier than his father. She mated with a mortal, Peleus, and had a son called Achilles, who was mightier than his father, Peleus. Another was Galatea, who was the amorous object of Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and a boorish giant; she spurned him for Acis, who was then killed by Polyphemus.

A third Nereid, Amphitrite, became the wife of Poseidon. Like his brother Zeus, he had a compulsion to seek out other women, and like Hera, Amphitrite was jealous. Together, they had a son, Triton. Poseidon physically appeared like Zeus and was known as the Earth shaker, the one who brought earthquakes. He was associated with horses and bulls, which may point to his origins as a male fertility god. He mated with his sister, Demeter, as a stallion when she changed into a mare to attempt to escape him; their union produced a daughter, Arion. He mated with Ge and produced the giant Antaeus, who would fight Heracles, and Charybdis, a sea monster who aided her father Poseidon against Zeus who then punished her by transforming her into a monster with a thirst for the sea and a companion to Scylla together creating the hazards of the Straits of Messina.

Zeus had mated with Metis (wisdom) and swallowed her when she was pregnant with Athena, afraid that she would bear a son who would topple him. When Zeus suffered a severe headache, Hephaestus splits Zeus’s head with an ax, and giving a great cry, Athena sprang out in full military uniform. Her three characteristics were displayed in that one action: her prowess, wisdom, and masculine virginal (Parthenos) nature, which came from the male side (Zeus). She became his favorite daughter. Beautiful and wise, she was the goddess of war, but also of the household. Another goddess was Aphrodite; one story has her born from the castrated genitals of Uranus, while another says that she was born from the union of Zeus and Dione (a feminine form of Zeus), perhaps showing that there were two goddesses named Aphrodite that merged into one goddess over time before the Archaic period with the migration of Near Eastern religions during the Dorian invasion.

She was the goddess of love and marriage, the opposite of Athena and Artemis. She was honored in various ways, in Athens, her followers were chaste and pure, while at Corinth, they were temple prostitutes. She bragged that she had never succumbed to human lusts or bore a child from such a relation. Zeus, annoyed at her boasts, caused her to fall in love with Anchises of Troy, and they had Aeneas, who later traveled to Italy and founded the ancestors to Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.

Hermes was Zeus’s son by the goddess Maia and was often associated with Apollo, who reared him, and the two are often presented as similar. He is mischievous but fun. Hermes is a thief, but also the divine messenger of Zeus, his herald. His statues, called Herms, are represented with the phallic symbol, which probably associates him with fertility. Another son of Zeus was Dionysus, born from Semele, the daughter of Cadmus. Hera found out about his advances, and she tricked Semele by telling her to have Zeus appear in his divine form, and when he did, that caused her to burn up.

The unborn child was not consumed, however, and Zeus sewed him into his thigh until he was born. His arrival in Greece indicates that he was a latecomer to the Greek religion and world. His origin is from Phrygia coming to Greece through Thrace probably during the period of Mycenae (Linear B tablets have his name) or after, during the Dorian invasion where he becomes an important god. He is the god of wine and revelry, sponsor of the Dionysian Mysteries. He is not an immoral god, as seen in his acts; rather he is a nonmoral. He leaves chaste women alone while pursuing lewd ones.

Similar to the orgiastic celebrations of Dionysus, Demeter, the sister of Zeus, is credited with the creation of the Eleusinian Mysteries associated with her daughter, Persephone, whom she bore by Zeus. When Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and made his wife in the underworld, Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, searched for her, and in so doing neglected her duties. As crops withered and died, Zeus brokered a compromise, arranging for Persephone to return to her mother for six months (spring and summer), allowing the crops to grow during that time, and going back to Hades for six months (autumn and winter), when the crops faded.

The story dealt with the eternal struggle of life and death. It also shows how Hades acted and was represented. A brother of Zeus, he was originally associated with fertility. Desiring a bride, he took the Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility. Upset Demeter grew sad and caused nothing to grow. Zeus demanded Hades return Persephone and still desiring her as his bride made her eat some pomegranate seeds, which was the food of the underworld, which forced her to return to the underworld since she was tied to it.

These major stories relayed the many issues facing the Greek world and how they attempted to explain difficult issues. Many of these myths dealt with basic emotions facing humans, including dealing with birth, life, and death, while others show the foibles of people, such as adultery, greed, and warmaking. The myths allowed people to anthropomorphize the forces of nature so they could relate to their power. The gods lived in a house, on Mount Olympus, a natural setting, looking down upon the world and interfering with it. Their powers, such as speed and strength, are merely amplified. Their form can change at will, but they are familiar to people. In addition to these gods, there were numerous others created by the gods themselves. Some humans were also in line to become divine, and these demigods or heroes, such as Heracles, became idolized.