CHAPTER THREE
A Land Full of Gods:
Nature Deities in Greek Religion
Jennifer Larson
In most introductions to Greek religion, the nature deities are briefly noted as minor
gods in the pantheon, overshadowed by the towering personalities and presences of
the Olympian gods. Yet a quantitative analysis, were such a thing possible, would
show that the vast numbers of river gods, nymphs, and other local deities accorded
divine status by the Greeks made them a constant presence in daily life. Greek authors
focus primarily on the city and its festivals, yet most Greeks were peasants who lived in
the countryside and supported the towns through farming and herding. The experi-
ence of this majority certainly included a much closer acquaintance with the gods of
the landscape than our literary sources suggest.
The category of ‘‘nature deities’’ is a modern construct. All of the Greek gods were
connected in one way or another with natural phenomena, so in some sense all are
nature deities. Zeus was a god of rain, Poseidon of earthquakes, Artemis of wild
beasts. Even deities like Athena whose panhellenic personae were focused on the
cultural rather than the natural sphere could be called upon in a variety of contexts to
influence natural processes, such as stopping a plague or helping to ensure good
crops. A number of lesser deities, however, were nature gods in the sense that they
personified specific features in the landscape or phenomena in the environment.
They will be the subject of this chapter.
In terms of the audience of prospective worshipers, these deities fall into two
groups. First are the innumerable gods of the rivers and springs, mountains and
lakes. While myths of the river gods and nymphs occasionally became known to a
panhellenic audience, their cults were geographically limited to a particular town or
region. In this respect, they were like the heroes and heroines, and made a similar
contribution to the self-definition of the communities who worshiped them. The
second group is comprised of divine entities perceived and recognized by all: the
deities representing the earth, sun, moon, sea, and winds. Among the classical Greeks,
these aspects of the environment were everywhere recognized as divine, but their