The Mythology Book

3434

NO WIND BEATS

ROUGHLY HERE,

NO SNOW NOR RAIN

MOUNT OLYMPUS

O

riginally, the dwellings of

the ancient Greek deities

were not in the heavens

but in the heart of the earth. Once

Zeus and his siblings defeated the

Titans, however, the Greeks turned

their eyes heavenward to worship

the new generation of gods and

goddesses. Hephaestus, god of fire

and the forge, built them palaces

in the sheltered ravines of Mount

Olympus. Hesiod described the

mountain as “many-folded,” a

phrase suggestive of a sky-high

stronghold full of secrets.

The palaces were built of stone

on bronze foundations. They were

both gigantic and luxurious, their

floors inlaid with gold and precious

stones. Zeus set up his throne at

the top of the peak of Stefani. From

there, he hurled his thunderbolts at

those who displeased him in the

world below.

Life on Olympus

The council of the gods typically

met in Zeus’s golden courtyard to

discuss their rule of the cosmos,

and gathered in Zeus’s hall to while

away the evenings with feasting.

Apollo sang to them, accompanying

himself upon his lyre. Sometimes

the Muses came up from their

home at the foot of Olympus to

sing, dance, and tell stories.

IN BRIEF

THEME

Home of the gods

SOURCES

Theogony, Hesiod, ca.700 bce;

Illiad and Odyssey, Homer,

ca.800 bce; Description of

Greece, Pausanias, ca.150 ce.

SETTING

Mount Olympus,

northeastern Greece.

KEY FIGURES

Zeus King of the Greek gods.

Hera Wife and sister of Zeus;

queen of the gods.

Hephaestus The blacksmith

god; son of Hera.

The Muses Children of Zeus.

The Horai Three sisters;

goddesses of time and

the seasons.

The Moirae Three sisters;

goddesses of fate.

Mount Olympus, home of the Greek

gods, rises from the Plain of Thessaly.

Thessaly was the site of the decade-long

war the Titans fought against Zeus and

his siblings.

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ANCIENT GREECE 35

See also: The Olympian gods 24–31 ■ The war of the gods and Titans 32–33 ■ Cupid and Psyche 112–13 ■

Pangu and the creation of the world 214–15 ■ The legendary foundation of Korea 228–29

There were separate stables for

the creatures that drew the gods’

chariots—most famously, those

that pulled the blazing chariot of

Apollo, the sun god. Zeus had one

drawn by the four Anemoi, gods

of the winds—Boreas (north), Euros

(east), Notos (south), and Zephyros

(west). Poseidon’s chariot was

pulled along by fishtailed horses

of the sea, while Aphrodite’s was

drawn by a team of doves.

The Horai—the sisters Eirene,

Eunomia, and Dike—guarded the

gates to Olympus and saw to the

orderly passage of time and the

seasons. Another trio of goddesses,

the Moirae (Fates), sat at the foot

of Zeus’s throne and watched over

the lives of mortals.

Physical and symbolic

What we refer to today as “Mount”

Olympus is actually a massif,

with over 50 distinct peaks almost

9,850 feet (3,000 m) above sea level.

Much of the time, its upper slopes

are wreathed in snow or dense

cloud, cutting off the summit from

the view of mortals down below.

It is no wonder that the ancient

Greeks held this to be the royal seat

of their reigning dynasty of gods.

The idea of the sacred mountain

existed long before the Greeks

began to worship the Olympians,

and is found in many other cultures.

Mount Meru, for example, towered

at the cosmological center of Indian

religions; Mount Fuji dominated the

Japanese religious scheme; and

Inca priests in Peru offered sacrifice

high up on the Andean summits.

In mythology, the mountain

peak has often seemed to occupy

a separate physical space from the

Earth. Homer underlined this by

showing Mount Olympus from

different perspectives. Viewed from

Earth, it was described as “snow-

topped” or “cloud-enveloped”; for

the gods, however, their home

was a place of permanent sunshine

and clear blue sky. ■

The council of the gods meets

among the clouds on Olympus in

this fresco by Italian Renaissance

master Raphael (1518), which shows

Zeus conferring immortality on Psyche.

Changing gods

Anthropologists use the term

“syncretism” to describe the

merging of strands from different

religious systems. Ancient

Greece had many examples of

this. The sanctuary of Dodona,

in northwestern Greece, lay in a

valley surrounded by a grove of

oak trees. The site seems to have

been sacred to a matriarchal

earth goddess since at least the

2nd millennium bce—before

the idea of Zeus took root.

After the ascendancy of the

Olympians, the earth goddess

was supplanted and one of

Zeus’s many wives, Dione, was

worshipped at Dodona.

Isthmia—on the narrow land

connecting the Peloponnese

peninsula with the rest of

Greece—was the obvious site

for a shrine to Poseidon, god of

the sea, beset on the narrow

strip of land by roaring waves

on either side. Yet archaeologists

have found remains at Isthmia

dating back long before the era

of the Olympians, dedicated to

a deity or deities unknown.

The gods pressed

fa r-seei ng Zeu s

of Olympus to reign

over them.

Theogony

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