29
Zeus and Hera become man and
wife in a scene from a decorative
marble-and-limestone frieze that
was part of a temple in Selinunte,
Sicily, dating from the 5th century bce.Aphrodite had an illicit affair with
another Olympian—Ares, the god of
war. They were caught in bed by her
husband, Hephaestus, the blacksmith
god, who threw a net over the pair.goddess of the harvest, Demeter
was a life-giver to the worshippers
who relied on her annual bounty.
She proved a fickle protector,
however, ready not just to cross
swords with her siblings but to
withhold favors from humankind at
any perceived slight.
Hera’s role was more prominent
than that of her sisters, and she
became the foremost female deity
following her marriage to her
brother Zeus. To her great dismay,
however, Hera never quite received
the recognition and honors she
expected as the queen of the gods.
As the goddess of women and
marriage, Hera was supposed to
represent the archetypal wedded
state, but she became known for
her marital troubles.
Nor was Hera the goddess who
inspired men’s passions. While
Hera was portrayed as a wifely
figure, Aphrodite was the goddessassociated with feminine beauty,
sexuality, and erotic pleasures.
The Greeks had these two different
deities for what, in ancient times,
were considered two separate
spheres of affection. One deity
represented marital love, the other
romantic and erotic love. While
this distinction may now be alien
to many people, in most cultures
and at most times in history, the
majority of marriages were
arranged—as transactions for the
management and transmission of
property and land. The idea of
“companionate” marriage—in
which the love between a husband
and wife is the driving factor—is
a relatively modern convention.The Dodekatheon
Aphrodite was the only member of
this first generation of Olympians
who was not a child of Kronos and
Rhea; some accounts suggest she
was the daughter of Zeus, but
Hesiod, Pausanius, and Ovid allANCIENT GREECE
described her as Kronos's sister,
who was born from sea foam after
the castration of Ouranos. Despite
being of the same generation as
Kronos and Rhea, she was always
considered an Olympian, rather
than a Titan, and one of the gods
and goddesses who eventually
made up the Dodekatheon—the 12
most important Olympians in the
Greek pantheon. The Dodekatheon
included Zeus, Demeter, Hera,
Poseidon, and Aphrodite from the
first generation of Olympians. The
hearth goddess Hestia was not
among them, as she later chose to
live on Earth to avoid her siblings’
squabbles. Hades, similarly, was
not included because he resided
permanently in the Underworld.
After the war between the gods
and the Titans established the
Olympians as rulers of the cosmos,
the first generation of gods went on
to have many children. Many of the
gods and other figures in Greek
mythology were children of Zeus. ❯❯US_024-031_Olympian-Gods.indd 29 05/12/17 4:16 pm