THE NATURE OF THE GODS 129
dition, a deity who desires to do so can take the form of an animal. There is no
concrete evidence, however, to show that the Greeks at an early period ever wor-
shiped animals as sacred.
THE DIVINE HIERARCHYMany of the preceding remarks apply for the most part only to the highest or-
der of divinity in the Greek pantheon. Such wondrous and terrible creations as
the Gorgons or Harpies, who populate the universe to the enrichment of mythol-
ogy and saga, obviously represent a different category of the supernatural. Of a
different order, too, are the divine spirits who animate nature. These beings are
usually depicted as nymphs, beautiful young girls who love to dance and sing
and, in some cases, are extremely amorous. Very often nymphs act as attendants
for one or more of the major gods or goddesses. The Muses are a kind of nymph,
and so are the Nereids and Oceanids, although some of them assume virtually
the stature of deity. More typically, nymphs are rather like fairies, extremely
long-lived but not necessarily immortal.^1
Demigods are another class of superhuman beings, or better, a superior kind
of human being—that is, supermen and superwomen. They are the offspring of
mixed parentage, the union of a god with a mortal, who may or may not be ex-
traordinary.^2 Demigods are therefore limited in their powers, which are rather
less than those of full-fledged gods; and they are mortals, often little more than
figures made larger than life because of their tragic and epic environment.
Heroes sometimes are demigods, but the terminology is not easy to define
precisely. Mortals like Oedipus and Amphiaraus are not, strictly speaking,
demigods, although they are far from ordinary beings. They may be called he-
roes, and certainly they become so after death, honored with a cult largely be-
cause of the spiritual intensity of their lives and the miraculous nature of their
deaths; they thus assume a divine status. Heracles, too, is a hero and a demigod,
but he is an exception because he joins the company of the immortal gods on
Olympus as a reward for his glorious attainments in this world. The difficulty
in establishing absolute definitions is complicated because of the use of the des-
ignation "hero" in the vocabulary of literary criticism. Achilles is a demigod,
that is, the son of a mortal Peleus and the nymph-goddess Thetis. His powers
are extraordinary, but it is ultimately as a mortal, the dramatic and epic hero of
the Iliad, that he is to be judged.
It is apparent that a hierarchy of divinities existed in the Greek pantheon.
The Olympians, along with the major deities of the lower world, represent as it
were a powerful aristocracy. Although individual gods and goddesses may be
especially honored in particular places (e.g., Athena in Athens, Hera in Argos,
Hephaestus in Lemnos, Apollo in Delos and Delphi), in general the major di-
vinities were universally recognized throughout the Greek world. At the top is
Zeus himself, the king, the father of both gods and mortals, the supreme lord.