Greek art and architecture (F1, F2)

Seeing that I've probably written about every Greek god and goddess you can think of, I'm going to write about Greek culture, art, and rulers throughout Greek history. This is a little different than my usual blogs, but the unfortunate case of limited choices is the reasoning for this change in the regular blogs I used to post.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Greeks, at least in my eyes, is all of the art and architecture. The Greeks, especially the Athenians were remembered for their styles in art and architecture. One of the most popular and well-known pieces of art is the Greek Parthenon. This Parthenon was built by the Ancient Greeks to show their worship to one of their Greek deities, Athena. (See I'm incorporating Greek mythology into this!). Athena is a Greek goddess, the daughter of Zeus. She is the wisest out of all of the Greek deities because she was born by the splitting of Zeus's head by the metal working god, Hephaestus. Athena and Poseidon fought over who was going to be the patron deity of the Athenians. It's pretty obvious who won out of the two gods seeing that ATHENs and ATHENa are extremely similar in their spelling. If you didn't get it, Athena became the patron deity for the Athenians and they named their capital after her, Athens. They built this out of marble, and it is slowly deteriorating due to the acid rain in the region. It took the Greeks a total of nine years to complete the building of the Parthenon before common era. The Parthenon generally comes to mind whenever someone hears about Ancient Greek architecture. It is the representation of other Greek achievements, such as the Athenian invention of the government system of democracy. The Athenian legacy obviously still lives on because here in the United States, our government system is democracy. The Parthenon is forty feet high.

Another form of Greek art and architecture was in the Greek sculptures of that time, Greek art was mainly prominent during the hellenistic age led by Alexander the Great in early centuries. Alexander the Great was a conqueror and as he conquered new lands, he spread culture and eventually united the people he conquered under one main culture, Hellenism. Hellenism is the blending of Persian and Greek cultures. This blending of cultures was a form of cultural diffusion because it was the spreading and combination in this case of different cultures from one group to another throughout Alexander the Great's vast and what was then a rapidly expanding empire.

Some of the most popular pieces of artwork during the Hellenistic Age and even before was of sculptures. The Greeks would usually create sculptures of their Greek gods and goddesses to show their worship of them. There would never be a sculpture of Hades, the god of the underworld, in Greece. This was because Hades was feared and no one wanted to worship the most brutal god and the god that watched over the dead.


These Greek sculptures are seen in later time periods, such as the Renaissance. An example of the would be Michaelangelo's David. This was created during the Renaissance and showed aspects of humanism and individualism. Humanism and individualism were seen mainly during the Renaissance and onward, not really in Ancient Greek societies.The Greeks also created other pieces of art for their Greek gods and goddesses, such as foundations or temples. An example of this would be the Parthenon, which I talked about in the beginning of this blog. Even though the Greeks created their art and architecture for mainly religious reasons, it's still interesting to see what the impact the Greeks had on society.

Beginning of myth 2/? (EE 1,2)

After the creation of everything in Greek myth, such as the belief in the creation of Chaos, the underworld, Gaia and her children that she had alone: Uranus, Pontus, and Ourea; Uranus came to power. He fathered children with Gaia, as mentioned in the last post, three Cyclopes, the Hundred Handed Giants (I think that there might be three of them as well), and the beginning of the Titans, such as the most known, Cronus. Uranus was a very cruel and brutal leader and he abused his power. He thought that the Hundred Handed Giants and the three Cyclopes would overpower him, so Uranus put them in the lowest layer in the underworld in order to preserve his title of being the supreme ruler of the Greek world. Uranus’s mother, who is also his wife, Gaia did not like how her son/husband was running the Greek world, and confronted Cronus, the most powerful of the children of Gaia and Uranus, and told him about how she wanted to get rid of Uranus’s brutality and selfish rule. Gaia mainly wanted her children, the Hundred Handed Giants and the three Cyclopes, to return from the underworld. Gaia missed them and wanted them back on Earth to be with her and the rest of her family.

  Cronus then, along with his brothers, sisters, and his mother, overruled the brutal Titan and took control. Because they couldn’t kill Uranus, because the Greeks believed that all gods and goddesses were immortal, they dismembered him and through his limbs into the River Styx, which was seen as the sacred river for the Greek gods and goddesses. Some people believed that when Uranus was “killed” and thrown into the River Styx that foam rose out of the River. In this belief, which was seen in many other very different ways, Aphrodite was born out of the foam. Another way people believe that Aphrodite was born was that her father was Zeus, Uranus’s grandchild or great grandchild? I don’t know how that would work seeing that Uranus married Gaia and had the Titans with her, but he was also the son of Gaia, so… Cronus then became the leader of the Greek world, given permission by his mother, Gaia, to rule. Cronus released the Hundred Handed Giants and the Cyclopes from the underworld immediately after the war between the Titans and Uranus.

Cronus received of prophesies by what would be a fortune teller in modern times, that one of his children would overrule him and take over the throne. Cronus was also a brutal leader like his father, but no one knew that would happen until they declared him the ruler of the Greek world. He put the Hundred Handed Giants and the Cyclopes (I still think that there were three of them) back into the underworld, where Uranus originally put them. Cronus then married his sister, Rhea and they had the six Olympians. They are probably the most well-known out of the Greek gods and goddesses. These children were Zeus, Hades, Hestia, Hera, Poseidon, and Demeter. Because Cronus was afraid to lose his place on the throne, he ate his children. He couldn’t actually eat his children seeing that the children are gods and goddesses, making them immortal. Cronus consumed the children and they were trapped in his stomach for a number of years. Rhea became considerably more depressed after she handed over each child to Cronus to consume, before she took action. When Cronus asked to see the final child, Zeus, Rhea gave him a rock covered in a baby blanket instead of the child to trick him.

Beginning of myth 1/? (D1, D2)

In the beginning of Greek mythology, the Ancient Greeks that believed in this form of polytheism through the worship of multiple gods and goddesses believed that the beginning of time just started with Chaos. Chaos was just complete emptiness. This is similar to the scientific belief of the Big Bang Theory, where there was just emptiness until there was suddenly everything. In the Greek point of view, they believed that Gaia was the first to exist out of all of the gods. Gaia was seen as Mother Goddess and created planet Earth and the entirety of the universe itself. By herself Gaia had a total of three children. They were called Uranus (the sky), Pontus (the sea), and Ourea (the mountains). Her children together were the factors of planet Earth; therefore she is seen as the creator of the Earth. It makes sense if you think about it. Uranus also ended up becoming the husband of his mother, Gaia. There was a lot of interbreeding and incest in Greek myth because they had a little amount of gods and goddesses at the time, but it continues throughout all Greek mythology through popular gods and goddesses. For example, Aphrodite and Hephaestus (in the case in which Zeus is the father of Aphrodite rather than some beliefs that Uranus was the true father of Aphrodite); Zeus and Hera; Hades and Persephone (Persephone was his niece); etc. etc. She ended up having many more children with Uranus.

The children Uranus had with Gaia were the three Cyclopes; the Hundred Handed Giants; the Titans: Cronus, Rhea, Tethus, Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Crius, Iapetus, Mnenosyne, Phoebe, and Themis; and then in some cases Uranus is seen as the father of Aphrodite rather than some beliefs that Zeus is the father of Aphrodite. In the point of view and belief that Uranus was the father of Aphrodite, she was born from the water in which Uranus’s body was thrown into after it was dismembered. In some other cases also she is believed to be born from foam from the ocean, in which in this point of view, Poseidon would be seen as the father rather than Uranus or Zeus. The first children Uranus and Gaia had together had been the three Cyclopes and the Hundred Handed Giants. Uranus received of prophesies that one of his children would overpower him and take over his throne as the ruler. Because of this reason, he took his children that consisted of the three Cyclopes and the Hundred Handed Giants and jailed them in the Underworld. The people of Ancient Greece also believed that the Underworld was created when planet Earth, Gaia and her first children: Uranus, Pontus, and Ourea were created. They believed that the Underworld was as old as the entirety of the Universe and planet Earth. That is in the Christian point of view, hell in which the devil rules over. In the Greek point of view, they also see it as hell or as a place of misery, but in this case it is ruled by Hades, the most despised out of all of the gods and goddesses in Greek mythology. The people of Greece didn’t want to meet Hades for obvious reasons; they would have to die in order to meet him. The people feared death, and Hades was their symbol for death and the afterlife, and the people of Greece obviously didn’t want to die anytime soon. Hades, talked about in a previous blog entry of mine, was one of the children of Rhea and Cronus and was given the underworld to rule after losing the sky and seas to his brothers, but that’s a different story.

Hecate (CC 1,2)

In Greek mythology, Hecate is a goddess associated with entrance-ways, fire, light, the Moon, magic, witchcraft, etc. She is usually seen holding a key or torches. She was a protecting goddess, mainly worshiped in Athenian households in Greece. Athens is where the first statue of the goddess, Hecate, was found. It was believed that she would provide the family with daily blessings. It is seen that she has a universal role and is a savoir. Hecate is also seen as an Earth deity or a worldly spirit. She is identified as Trivia in the Roman gods and goddesses, which originated from the Greek gods and goddesses, but they were renamed. In some cases, she is seen in three different forms, but is often found in only one. In some cases, she is actually seen in four forms, but that is very rare. When she is seen in three forms, she has three heads composed of a dog, a serpent, and a horse. This is seen more commonly among Egyptian art. She is also seen in Classical Greek art with torches, a key, serpents, daggers, and other items. There are also pieces of classical art of the goddess with a dog by her side.

Hecate was an only child, a rarity in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of Perseus and Asteria. Asteria was the daughter of two Titans, Phoebe and Coeus. Asteria was also the sister of Leto. Leto was a mortal, who was one of the parents of the twin gods, Artemis and Apollo. The other parent was the lightning god, Zeus. Asteria was also seen as the star goddess, of shooting stars and of oracle. She was a Titan. This is the reason that Hecate is seen as a Titan. Hecate is seen as a pre-Olympian goddess, because she was seen in the beginning of time rather than later with gods like Cronus and later, Zeus. Asteria was seen fleeing into the Aegean Sea as a quail in order to escape the oncoming Zeus, it is obviously seen that he chose Leto rather than Asteria because she fled into the Aegean Sea before Zeus could get to her.

Hecate is seen in different ways in Ancient Greek writings. An example of this would be the writings of Theogony. In this writing, she is depicted more as a household goddess and a goddess of humble household worship rather than the temple goddess that she was actually seen as in Greek mythology. This did have a positive effect on the goddess’s myth, though. It spread the knowledge of the goddess and made her more popular than what she was at the time. In Athens, she was seen as a goddess that was worshipped in daily life. This was along with the more popular gods and goddesses of Zeus, Hermes, Hestia, and Apollo. They were the main gods and goddesses of the household. In some ways, she was seen as a foreign goddess, who was later accepted in Greek mythology. The reasoning behind this was the numerous amounts of art and statues that were seen for worship of Hecate, but it was seen at a later time in different parts of the world. Sometimes she is seen as a helper or protector of the humans. She is seen in a more positive way than other Titans because she was on the Olympian side of the Battle of Gods and Titans, which took place in order to get rid of the brutal ruler, Cronus. She was also not sent to the underworld after this war. The Titans who were against Zeus in the war were sent to the underworld or were greatly punished in a different way, such as Atlas holding up the world.

Hebe (BB 1,2)

In Greek mythology, Hebe is a god, the daughter of his well-known parents, Hera and Zeus. She was also known as Ganymeda. Hebe’s name means ‘Flower of Youth’ and this makes sense because she was the goddess of eternal youth. Because she was the daughter of Zeus and Hera, Hebe had many siblings. Some of these siblings were Ares, Athena, Apollo, Helen, Hercules (oddly enough he would become her future husband when Hercules becomes a mortal), Eileithyia, Eris, Artemis, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Helen of Troy (who was half mortal and half immortal), Hephaestus, Perseus, Minos, the Muses, and the Graces. She has many more half mortal and half immortal brothers and sisters because her father is Zeus, but the ones that are listed above are the most prominent of those children. Hebe was the cupbearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus. She would serve them their nectar and ambrosia, until she was married to Hercules. She isn’t that famous of a goddess because she served the more popular and powerful gods and goddesses, rather than becoming one herself. She is also the goddess of young people. She can grant people youth, but she cannot delay aging for older people. She drew baths for Ares and helped Hera into her chariot when her assistance was needed by the gods. This is her only power.

                Hebe was the god that granted Iolaus his wish to become young again. Iolaus was the nephew of Hebe’s future, Hercules. Iolaus was known for helping Hercules on some of his labors. He was one of the reasons that he had to complete twelve labors instead of the ten labors he was originally given to complete. Eurystheus, who was in charge of the labors, declared that he was cheating on the labors because he was given help by Iolaus. He also thought that Hercules cheated on some of his labors, but that is a different story. Hercules gave Iolaus his first wife, Megara and they had a daughter together. Iolaus wanted to be young in order to fight Hercules’ tormentor, Eurystheus, the man in charge of Herucles’ twelve labors.

                Hebe was Herucles’ fourth and final wife. His third wife, Deianira, thought that he was cheating on her with another god, Iole. She soaked on of his shirts in poison in order to kill him but he was half mortal and half immortal at the time seeing that he was the son of Zeus. This shirt was called the poisoned shirt of Nessus. When he put on the shirt, it burned his skin. He tried to take off the shirt and it stuck to his flesh, so when he tried it separated his flesh from his bones. He then chose to die voluntarily and had a pyre constructed in order to kill him. He couldn’t completely dies seeing that he was half mortal and half immortal. After he was “killed,” he became a god on Mount Olympus. The mortal part of Hercules died and he was completely immortal. The gods transformed him completely into an immortal so he could join his father on Mount Olympus. This is when he met Hercules. When Hebe was married to Hercules, they had two daughters together. They were named Alexiares and Anicetus.

                                There are multiple fountains and artwork created in praise to this goddess. There are multiple in the United States. An example of this would be in Vicksburg, Mississippi. There is a fountain there and also a rose garden located near it. There are also different statues of Hebe in international locations, such as Birmingham city centre in England and Forli, Italy. 

Greek Monsters (1/?) (AA)

                One animal in Greek mythology was Chimera. It was an animal depicting of three different parts. It was a lion, snake, and a goat. It was generally seen as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and its tail is of a snake. It was a monstrous fire breathing animal. Chimera was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. Typhon was a giant Greek monster that threatened the Olympians. It was unleashed by Uranus so that he would remain in a powerful state.  He was eventually captured and put underneath a mountain, Mount Aetna, to spend eternity. The Greeks believed that when any volcanoes erupted it was Typhon getting angry.

Chimera was also the sibling of Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. Cerberus is the guard dog of the underworld for the god, Hades. The Lernaean Hydra was defeated by Hercules. Whenever one of the five Hydra’s heads was cut off, two more would regrow in its place. When Hercules had to defeat it for one of his five labors, he burned where the head would regrow to prevent two more heads from reappearing. He was helped on this labor, and it didn’t count for his punishment of performing twelve labors completely.

The Chimera is generally seen as a female because of its mention in Ancient Greek writings, such as The Iliad. “Sightings” (It is a mythical animal after all. It could not be seen even if someone wanted to see it) of the Chimera were generally seen as omens for storms, disasters, or wreckage of some sort.

In one version of Greek mythology, Chimera is seen as the wife of her brother, Orthus. Orthus was a two-headed dog, similar to his brother Cerberus that had three heads total. He was owned by a three-bodied giant, Geryon. Geryon is often described as a Greek monster with human faces. Orthus was the guard for Geryon’s herd of red cattle in the “sunset” land of Erythria. For Hercules’s tenth labor, he needed to capture these red cattle to move onto his next task. When he arrived on this land, he killed Geryon, Orthus, and Eurytion and left with the cattle. Eurytion was the master of Orthus, who was also involved in guarding the cattle of Geryon. He was also mentioned in the modern novel Percy Jackson: The Battle of The Labyrinth.

Chimera was killed by Bellerophon, helped by Pegasus who is the offspring of Medusa, under the order of King Iobates of Lycia. Bellerophon was a great hero of Greek mythology. With Pegasus, who could fly, Bellerophon flew overhead Chimera and killed her. He did this while maintaining a distance from her so he would not be killed by the fire in which she would kill with if provoked. This monster is often seen in Greek art.

Another kind of Greek monsters were the Gorgons. There were three Gorgons: Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale. Out of these three Gorgons, Medusa was the only mortal. They are commonly seen as three women with snakes as their hair and women whose glance will turn a person into stone. Medusa was killed by the mortal hero, Perseus in his quest to save his mother from her dreaded faith. Perseus killed Medusa when she was sleeping so that he would not turn into stone by looking into her eyes. These Gorgons are mainly seen in the writing of Homer. The name Gorgon is derived from the Greek word, “gorgos.” This literally translates into dreadful or terrible, suitable for these monstrous Greek women. They supposedly live on their own island in order to prevent massive killings.

Greek monsters in The Odyssey (2/2) (Z1, Z2)

The next isn’t necessarily a Greek monster, but it is an obstacle that prevents the protagonist of The Odyssey, Odysseus from continuing on his adventure home. The Lotus Flower was that obstacle. The Lotus Flower was found on one of the islands that Odysseus and his crew had landed on. When the men landed on the island, they were extremely hungry. They ate the only thing available, and that was the Lotus Flower. This flower is highly addictive, preventing the men from wanting to leave the island. There were other men there also; they seemed to be there for a long time. This flower made the men have very strong hallucinations, making them forget about their families and homes. Odysseus received advice from Athena telling him not to consume the flower, so he remained sane. Odysseus had to drag his crew back to the ship in order to leave or they would be stranded on the island for forever. These flowers are representation of drugs in today’s society, making a person completely forget about everything important in their life. It also stands for a certain thing that distracts a person from getting to a place or destination that can make you forget about everything important in your life.
                Scylla is the next Greek monster that Odysseus encounters on his journey home. Scylla is a six headed monster that takes six men from each boat that passes by, one man for each of the heads. She lives in a cave opposite of a whirlpool, Charybdis. Odysseus had to decide which side he wanted to go on. If he went to the whirlpool, everyone on the ship would drown, but if he went on the Scylla route, he would end up losing six of his men. He chooses to go the Scylla route and doesn’t scare his men by telling them that six of them will die.

            Charybdis is the whirlpool that is opposite of Scylla. It is seen as a sea monster, and people in Greek myth generally try to avoid it. Odysseus was the exception of this, but he did avoid the whirlpool by going the Scylla route of his journey. This resulted in the loss of six of his men, but it would have been better than losing all of his men, including himself, and his ship; everyone would have died. Later in the story, Odysseus is one a raft going down the same narrow pathway where Charybdis and Scylla are. This time, he goes down the path of Charybdis because by himself, he would have been killed instantly by Scylla. His raft was sucked into the Charybdis whirlpool, but he survived by holding on to a fig tree that was fortunately positioned right above the Charybdis darkness. In the next burst of water, his raft was thrown out of Charybdis’ mouth. Odysseus miraculously got ahold of his raft and paddled away to safety. This was the only story in Greek mythology in which a Greek mortal hero survived with Scylla and Charybdis. 

            The Cattle of the Sun were also among the Greek animals in which Odysseus encountered. They weren’t exactly monsters, but because of them, Odysseus and his men were punished by Zeus. These cattle belonged to Helios, the god of the sun. Odysseus and his men were trapped on the island, Thrinacia. The only food on the island was the cattle, so the men slaughtered them and ate them. They were trapped there from winds blowing the wrong way after the wind god gave them a bag of air to steer them home. When it was opened, it took them to this island.