What is Greek mythology? The gods, the heroes and the stories

Greek mythology is the collection of stories the ancient Greeks told about their gods, their heroes and the beginnings of the world. The myths were passed down by word of mouth long before they were written, first set down in poems by Homer and Hesiod around 700 BCE, and retold for centuries by poets, playwrights and painters. There was never one official version: each storyteller and city told its own.

In short

• The myths come from oral tradition, written down in Homer's epics and Hesiod's Theogony, then reshaped by the tragedians of Athens and much later by Roman and modern writers.
• The twelve Olympians, led by Zeus, ruled the world after overthrowing the Titans, who had themselves overthrown the first gods.
• Myths were part of Greek religion, but also explained the world, taught how to live and gave cities their stories about themselves.

Where do the Greek myths come from?

The myths are older than Greek writing. Bards recited stories of gods and heroes for centuries before the Greek alphabet came into use in the 8th century BCE, and every retelling could change them (World History Encyclopedia). What survives comes from a handful of kinds of source, each from a different time and with its own aims.

Source	When	What it preserves
Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey	c. 8th–7th century BCE	The Trojan War and the hero Odysseus's voyage home; the gods as quarrelsome actors in human affairs
Hesiod, the Theogony and Works and Days	c. 700 BCE	The birth of the gods and the world in order; Prometheus, Pandora and the ages of humankind
The Homeric Hymns	7th–6th century BCE onward	Poems to single gods, such as the story of Demeter and Persephone
Painted pottery and temple sculpture	From the 8th century BCE	Myths as most Greeks saw them, often in versions no surviving text tells
The Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides	5th century BCE	Myths reworked as drama: Oedipus, Medea, the house of Atreus
Later mythographers, such as the Library attributed to Apollodorus	1st–2nd century CE	Summaries that try to tidy the many versions into one

Because the stories had so many tellers, they contradict each other freely. Aphrodite is born from the sea foam in Hesiod but is a daughter of Zeus in Homer. There was no Greek Bible, no creed and no single correct version of a myth, and Greeks did not think there had to be.

How did the world begin, in Greek myth?

The fullest account is Hesiod's Theogony, "the birth of the gods". It tells the beginning as a succession of three generations, each overthrown by the next:

1. First, Chaos. "Verily at the first Chaos came to be", Hesiod begins: not disorder, but a yawning gap (Theogony, trans. Evelyn-White). After it came Gaia, the Earth, Tartarus, the deep pit below, and Eros, desire.
2. Gaia and Ouranos. Gaia bore Ouranos, the Sky, and with him had the twelve Titans, the one-eyed Cyclopes and three monstrous Hundred-Handers. Ouranos hated his children and kept them hidden inside the earth.
3. Cronus's revolt. Gaia made a sickle, and her youngest Titan son, Cronus, attacked Ouranos with it and took his power. Cronus married his sister Rhea.
4. The swallowed children. Warned that a son would overthrow him too, Cronus swallowed each child Rhea bore. When the last, Zeus, was born, he was hidden on Crete, and Cronus was given a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow instead.
5. Zeus's war. Grown, Zeus made Cronus bring up his brothers and sisters, and led them in a ten-year war against the Titans, the Titanomachy. The defeated Titans were shut in Tartarus.
6. The new order. The victorious gods asked Zeus to rule, and he shared out their honors among them. Homer's Iliad adds the familiar detail that Zeus, Poseidon and Hades drew lots: Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld, with the earth and Mount Olympus shared.

The pattern of son overthrowing father, and of order won by force from chaos, runs through the whole story. It ends with Zeus, unlike his father and grandfather, keeping power, partly by swallowing his first wife, Metis, wisdom herself.

Who were the twelve Olympians?

The Olympians were the main gods, named for Mount Olympus, where they were said to live. The number twelve was fixed, but the membership was not quite: Hestia, goddess of the hearth, is in some lists and Dionysus, a god who arrived later, is in others. Hades, though a brother of Zeus, lived in the underworld and is usually not counted.

Greek god	Domain	Symbols	Roman name
Zeus	King of the gods; sky, thunder, justice	Thunderbolt, eagle, oak	Jupiter
Hera	Queen of the gods; marriage, women	Peacock, cow, diadem	Juno
Poseidon	Sea, earthquakes, horses	Trident, horse, dolphin	Neptune
Demeter	Grain, harvest, fertility of the earth	Sheaf of wheat, torch	Ceres
Athena	Wisdom, war strategy, crafts; patron of Athens	Owl, olive tree, aegis	Minerva
Apollo	Prophecy, music, healing, light	Lyre, bow, laurel	Apollo
Artemis	Hunting, wild animals, childbirth	Bow and arrows, deer, cypress	Diana
Ares	War and its violence	Spear, helmet	Mars
Aphrodite	Love, beauty, desire	Dove, myrtle, rose	Venus
Hephaestus	Fire, metalworking, craftsmen	Hammer, anvil, tongs	Vulcan
Hermes	Messenger; travelers, trade, thieves; guide of the dead	Winged sandals, herald's staff	Mercury
Hestia or Dionysus	The hearth; or wine, theater and ecstasy	Hearth fire; or vine, ivy, the thyrsus	Vesta; or Bacchus

Most of the Roman names are not translations but different gods, Roman ones, whom the Romans identified with the Greek ones and gave their stories to. Apollo the Romans took over directly, and Hercules is simply the Latin form of the Greek Heracles. Many myths best known today, such as Narcissus, Echo and Pygmalion, are known chiefly from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, written in Latin in the early 1st century CE, in the world of the Roman Empire. Modern retellings, from films to novels, take further liberties, and are a third layer again.

Who were the heroes?

Below the gods stood the heroes: mortals, often with one divine parent, who did extraordinary things and were worshipped at their tombs after death. Heracles performed twelve labors and became a god. Perseus beheaded the Gorgon Medusa. Theseus killed the Minotaur in the labyrinth of Crete and became the founding hero of Athens. Jason led the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece. The greatest cycle is the war at Troy, where Achilles, Hector and Odysseus fight, and which may echo real events, as the archaeology of Troy suggests. Odysseus's ten-year journey home is the story of the Odyssey.

What were the myths for?

For the Greeks, myths did several jobs at once.

• Religion. The gods of the myths were the gods of the temples, who received sacrifices, prayers and festivals. But Greek religion centered on ritual, not on believing the stories, and a Greek could honor Zeus without believing every tale about him.
• Explanation. Myths accounted for the world. Persephone, carried off by Hades, must spend part of each year in the underworld, and her mother Demeter's grief while she is gone is winter.
• Moral lessons. Many myths warn against hubris, overreaching pride, and its punishment, nemesis. Niobe boasted that she had more children than the goddess Leto, and Apollo and Artemis killed them.
• Civic identity. Cities told stories about themselves. Athens held that Athena won it in a contest with Poseidon by giving it the olive tree.

Greek thinkers argued about the myths from early on. The philosopher Xenophanes complained in the 6th century BCE that the poets credited the gods with theft and adultery, and Plato wanted most of the stories kept from the young. That questioning is one of the threads that runs from myth toward philosophy, and part of why scholars debate where myth ends and religion begins.

Check yourself

• Why is there no single correct version of a Greek myth, and where do the surviving versions come from?
• Without looking back, tell the three generations of gods in Hesiod's account and how each fell.
• Why is Jupiter not just the Roman word for Zeus, and why do many of the best-known myths reach us through Ovid?

Sources

• Greek Mythology — World History Encyclopedia, Mark Cartwright, 2012
• Theogony, translated by H. G. Evelyn-White — Theoi Project, from the Loeb edition of 1914
• Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica — Project Gutenberg
• Twelve Olympians — Wikipedia
• Greek mythology — Wikipedia