Even historical individuals who displayed outstanding powers-warriors, athletes, founders of colonies-could become heroes.
Above all, perhaps, it was the restricted and local scope of the heroes that made them popular. The hero retained the limited
and partisan interests of his mortal life. He would help those who lived in the vicinity of his tomb or who belonged to the
tribe of which he himself was the founder. Gods had to be shared with the world, but a village or a kinship group could
have exclusive rights in a hero. (Heracles with his Panhellenic scope was a rare exception.) Thus hero-cults were the best
focus for particular loyalties; and heroes were in general the great local helpers, particularly in battle, their natural sphere.
The Temple Of Apollo At Delphi, showing the foundations and restored columns and looking south-east over the lower
sanctuary terrace (Marmaria), with a Temple of Athena, and to the pass leading east to Boeotia. The other approach led up
from the Gulf of Corinth, at Itea, from the south west. The dramatic sanctuary site is built on a steep slope beneath the
gleaming cliffs (Phaedriades) on the flanks of Mount Parnassus. At the left is the gully with the sacred spring of Castalia.
Greek religion had no single origin. The Greeks were an Indo-European people who settled in the non-Indo-European
Aegean basin; they thus came into contact with the many advanced civilizations of the ancient Near East. Elements from all
these sources contributed to the amalgam. Only one god bears a name that can be interpreted with certainty: Zeus pater
('father') is the equivalent of Roman Diespiter (Juppiter) and Indian Dyaus pitar, all descended from the Indo-European god