The Greek Gods, Explained
Vložit
- čas přidán 20. 05. 2024
- PATREON: patreon.com/generalistpapers
While not worshipped by many anymore, the Greek gods are still in our lives. They are depicted in the compendium of western art and literature. They indirectly give us the names of our planets, days of the week, and names of the months.
Speaking of weekdays and months, check out these videos:
Where did the Months get their Names- • Where did the Months g...
The Origins of the Seven Day Week- • The Origins of the Sev...
Sources:
The Theogony by Hesiod
Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
theoi.com by Aaron J. Atsma
Music:
Decline and Dreamy Flashback by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Celtic Atmosphere by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License
I think the most important one you missed was Prometheus. During the Golden Age, he created Humanity. Although a Titan, he sided with Zeus in the Titanomachy because he was the god of foresight, and knew that Zeus would win since the prophecy said so. For this, he wasn't imprisoned in Tartarus, but he also didn't like that Zeus treated Humanity as slaves who had to till the earth for bread, as opposed to the Golden Age under Chronos where Humans had a much easier life and ate from abundant groves of fruit. So Prometheus stole fire from Olympus and gave it to Humanity so they could have technology to make their lives easier. Zeus was angry at Prometheus's deceit and decided to punish him and Humanity. So Zeus had the Olympians create the first woman, Pandora, and they made her a jar full of all kinds of plagues and evils, and gave her a deceitful nature. They then gave her to Prometheus's brother Epimetheus, the Titan god of afterthought who also sided with Zeus in the Titanomachy at Prometheus's behest. Prometheus warned Epimetheus not to take any gifts from Zeus, but being the physical embodiment of hindsight, he was so taken by Pandora's beauty that he married her anyway and then realized his mistake when she opened the jar and released the plagues on Humanity. And just for good measure, Prometheus was chained to a rock so an eagle could peck out his liver every day for eternity.
❤
Excellent video! I especially appreciated your making it very clear that the Greeks had no "canonical" version of these stories and so the details will vary somewhat with every book you pick up or every video you watch. This is much less likely to drive you crazy if you already know to expect it.
Absolutely amazing video like always! Keep up the amazing work, I always love the topics you cover!
This is great work! this was really easy to understand and entertaining as well. Looking forward to your next video 👍
This was on point, thank you so much for making this
Great video! For a follow up, Id like to hear about Nemesis!
Actually the season when everything dies in Greece is summer. As Mediterranean climate is known for extremely hot summers and very mild winters. It rarely snows in Athenes.
Awesome explanation.
Such an absolutely lovely and respectful explanation of the gods. I found you when seeking out history on the English language, I thoroughly enjoyed this brief introduction and learned some new history I hadn’t prior. I’m so glad and thankful you put together this video and am subscribing, your very knowledgeable and your videos are so easy to digest compared to other CZcamsrs on similar topics ❤🏛️🔱🫶
Favs are Dionysus and Artemis. Great vid
Nice video!👏🏻
That’s correct!
There’s wasn’t like one book to tell you our religion (then) mythology (today).
Some basic stories were the same but in some cases you could find 2-3 different stories about one event or God. Some areas of Hellas🇬🇷 had different “opinions” let’s say about a God’s origin.
Something bad though is the fact that when Romans adopted our Pantheon they read our religion and they added their versions creating their religion.
Roman mythology is basically our myths with a twist.
Many times I hear or read wrong Roman adaptations of our myths and people are getting really confused and don’t know what really happened.
99% one or two versions are the original Hellenic myth and the other one or two are the Roman adaptation!
If I had to add something to the video, I would say to always remember the difference between Olympian Gods, the Titans and Primordial Deities.
Erebus(Darkness) Uranos (Sky) Gaia (Earth) Eros (love) are *primordial deities*
Kronos, Rhea, Helios (personification of the Sun) Hecate… are *Titans*
Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Dionysus, Hestia are *Gods* or Olympian Gods.
The difference between Gods and Olympian Gods is to where they were living.
Hades is not an Olympian but he’s definitely a God.
Hestia even though she was living in Olympus and she was one of the most beloved and respect Goddess of our mythology is lesser known and some times even forgotten because she wasn’t that involved in love affairs and battles.
Hestia was the most honoured Goddess after Zeus!!! Every household had a place to honour Hestia! The hearth of the House was the place to honour Hestia.
As protector of the Households, Hestia was often considered to be the protector of the State in general.
As a general protector of all the Hellenic “state”
Of course there weren’t states and countries as we know them today, but she was seen as the protector of our nation🇬🇷
Eros is the idea of falling in love!
In our language we have two district terms for it:
Αγάπη / agàpi is the love. To love and care about someone. It’s both an erotic term but you can feel agàpi/love for your family and friends and things and places… without sexual background.
We also have the term έρωτας/èrotas which is not exactly love but this feeling of falling in love, the madness and the rush of the first glance, the sexual desire…
Eros and love are two separate conditions in our language and myths!
So, Eros is a primordial deity. It’s like a feeling an idea being personified in that deity.
Later we see Eros as the God of Ares and Aphrodite but it’s not well accepted all around Hellas🇬🇷
We have another minor God names Ίμερος / Himeros in English.
Ares was born in Thrace🇬🇷 He was living here and in other myths we see that (maybe?) with Aphrodite had another son Θράξ / Thráx.
Thracian people considered ourselves as the sons of Ares and the first Thracian was the son of Ares!
Himeros was also a love/passion/desire God and he was also living in Thrace when we have an ancient city and a lake with his name from the times of Homer!!!!
Also, we didn’t had many Sun and Moon God and Goddesses!
Let me explain:
Hellenes🇬🇷 worshipped basically the Olympian Gods and some specific other deities.
The worship of the Titans was FORBIDDEN since they fought against the Gods. When Zeus and the rest of the Olympians defeated them, they were imprisoned in Tartarus.
Helios is the personification of the Sun!
Apollo is not the Sun, he is the God of Light!
Hellenes didn’t worshipped the Sun like the Romans! Hellenes🇬🇷 loved and worshipped Apollo as the God of Light!
As twins Apollo was seen as the light of the Day Sun ☀️ and Artemis as the light of the night Moon 🌙
The goddess Σελήνη / selíni > Selene was the personification of the Moon.
Hecate was not a Goddess, she was a generation older than the Olympians.
Εκάτη / ekáti > Hecate was a Titan!
During the Titanomachy she was with the side of the Olympians and helped them defeat the Titans.
Hecate was a fearsome and extremely powerful deity! Zeus was afraid of her powers and because they won because of her help (she also told them to release the Cyclopses and the Hecatoncheires from their prison to help them).
Zeus gave honours to Hecate and let her roam the Earth without contain her because as we said, he didn’t knew how powerful she was and he was a bit afraid of her…
As a Titanid (female Titan) and powerful as hell, Hecate had dominion over Sky, Earth and the Underworld.
She was portrayed as a three-women-Deity. She had three hypotheses: the maiden, the woman and the old lady.
Her symbol was the moon because she was a deity of the magic witchcraft, sorcery, herbs, medical remedies and healing magic.
She was also a deity of the Crossroads and the allies and the darkness.
She was definitely not a malevolent deity! People respected her beyond measure! They believe that with Hecate’s blessing they could achieve everything so they asked her help after important battles.
Hecate was also an Underworld Deity. She had dominion and power over both sides. She was like a guide to the Underworld.
Hecate was spending her time to Earth not Olympus. Her realm was the forests of Thrace! Thracian people adored and worshipped Gaia, Hecate, Ares, Dionysus, Hestia and Apollo more than any other God!
We can see marks of her worship all around Thrace, in caves curved with symbols of her power and in scattered stones that those days might be her temples inside the Thracian forests!
Ah, also in Thracian tombs we have found golden tags with prayers to Hecate. They have text with guidance form Hecate for the soul of the dead to find his way to the other side!!!
Love it
I love your videos as always! I love the illustrations and your narration.
Anyway, people frequently miss the fact that Hades is the least crazy among the Olympians and is actually a decent and just god. Him "kidnapping" Kore/Persephone is rooted in Greek culture and should not be judged with a modern lens. That said, apart from that, he's such an introverted best boy who loves his wife faithfully and takes good care of his dog, Spot, aka Cerberus. He once allowed Heracles to take Spot on a walk in a condition that he not harm him.
“while not worshiped anymore”
me a pagan: i do not have such weakness
I know she's not a god but I have to mention Xena Warrior Princess.
Well... she could be if she truly was child of ares
Yes. Yes, you do. Seconded.
She kinda went off the deep end
It looks like you got all of the main ones except perhaps Heracles (who was a hero also) and possibly Pan or Asclepius. Good video.
And Hercules
In the Hellenistic Pantheon, Hercules is called Heracles. That said, I do agree (Disney's Hercules is one of my favourite movies!)
He later became a god and married Hebe, the daughter of Hera and Zeus, however, he wasn't that much significant in the Olympian circle.
@@markjosephbacho5652 I don't know why people think Heracles wasn't significant in the Olympian circle. As early as the Theogony, he was separated out and grouped with the major sons and daughters of Zeus. Coming right after Dionysus. His worship was widespread and on the level of many of the 12. In fact, according to some versions, he was offered a position in the 12 and refused it.
They report of Heracles further that Zeus enrolled him among the twelve gods but that he would not accept this honour; for it was impossible for him thus to be enrolled unless one of the twelve gods were first cast out; hence in his eyes it would be monstrous for him to accept an honour which involved depriving another god of his honour. - Diodorus Siculus
Please more from the Greek pantheon, as well as the epithelial differences like how Roman and Etruscan pantheons were so similar and yet so different. As well as more distant pantheons eventually, that of Indian and Nordic varieties. And lastly maybe to tie together the Euroasian links to someday show the base myths that all these cultures shared with the sky father and earth mother that the PIE cultures almost unanimously shared.
Tell us about Nemesis! Please!
She is represented in the opening bit (where you give a summing up of the origins of names of the days of the week and so on), as a brandname: Nike! The goddess of victory.
Furthermore I would like to broaden this story to Phobos and Deimos, the somewhat demented, unruly and frightening sons of Ares. Also the atributes of Athens, the owl and the spider are intrresting. For a next time maybe?
Hercules
ITS HERACKLES NOT HERCULES
How about Hecate?
What is interesting also is the way these gods reflect the development from stone age to bronze age, which can be taken from their dominions, the "terrains" they ruled over.
10:01 why is apollo holding his golden lyre whilst heroes is showing him the first ever lyre he just invented 🤣
please mention hebe in another video! nobody talks about her but i believe she is said to be a daughter of zeus and hera, along with eileithyia.
Oceanus and nyx
the days of the week i believe are more Roman, to the Spanish version at least. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn
Romans adopted the Hellenic pantheon. Our days and months were after our (obviously) Gods.
When the Romans translated the names into Latin yes, the days etc took Latin names.
For centuries before the Romans create their empire the five known planets had Hellenic🇬🇷 names:
Gi deriving from Gaia = Earth
Our satellite was Selene/Moon
Helios = Sun
Aphrodite = Venus
Ares = Mars
Hermes = Mercury
Zeus = Jupiter
Nowadays, the days’ names deriving from the Northern mythology/religion
For example Thursday is a modern version of an Old English term meaning Thor’s day.
Friday is Freya’s day… etc
Asclepius, an Olympian, and thus “lesser” god of Apollo & a mortal woman, although, if you get sick, there’s nothing lesser about healing. Unless I’ve missed your take on Asclepius then I’d like to hear/see it…. Oh, ja, I’m a Registered Nurse, so, healing is of major interest.
What about Kratos?
Prometheus??
Was Prometheus not considered one of these gods?…
well done. of course Metis and Themis might think otherwise. ;-)
Well you got some things wrong.
Athena's mother is Metis Who Zeus swallowed pregnant fearing a similar fate as his father before him. The Titaness Metis was Zeus first wife as she was the one who gave the poison to Zeus for his father Cronus to vomit his siblings.
When Athena was born she never seeked the throne and so became Zeus's favourite.
Hephaestus is the God who opens Zeus's head for Athena to come out.
Homer describes Hephaestus as the child of Zeus and Hera's.
Hephaestus had a limp leg because he was thrown off Olympus because in Hera's eyes he was not worthy of the other god's especially in beauty like Apollo.
Hera after Athena's birth want's another child with Zeus equal and better than Athena but this time a son to be ere to the throne. And so they bare Ares but because he was conceived in such a way he turned out to be yes a great warrior but bloodlust and always bringing pain fear and destruction.
Hope I helped.
Well you got several things wrong too:
In the version where Metis is the first wife of Zeus (Hesiod's Theogony), Hephaestus is conceived, by Hera alone, after Athena's birth so he plays no role in it.
In the account in which Metis is the one who gives Kronos the drug that makes him vomit his children (Pseudo-Apollodorus Bibliotheca) she is not the first wife of Zeus or indeed a wife of his at all, but is assaulted by him long after his marriage to Hera.
Hephaestus is either born deformed or becomes so when Zeus throws him from Olympus.
Ares is almost always born before Athena. The only exception is Ovid's Fasti, where Juno has Mars on her own in retaliation to Minerva's birth from Jupiter.
I believe these were Jinn and their sons were definitely half Jinn half man known as the nephilim before the flood destroyed them
It's like a soap opera.
Why would you skip over athenas mother, a titan, and that zeus swallowed her up which is why athena came out of his head
The Greek gods were cool gods, doing cool things and knew how to Partáy!
The Abrahamic god is like an abusive relationship --
"I love you so much I'm going to test you, until you fail, then you die and suffer for eternity because you are not perfect like me!!!"
www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.154233.html
According to the National Gallery of Art, Zeus is depicted as a “handsome bull” rather than a “cow” as labeled in this video. Note the lack of udders.
Great video
2nd
First.
I’m so Artemis an aversion to men, that is me.
You missed Jesus Christ 😅
the hell does that even mean
?
I hope you're joking. We're talking about Greek mythology here. Jesus is neither a Greek nor a mythology. He historically existed.
@@markjosephbacho5652 wait what? I thought he was the son of Zeus and also had a special ghost. Probably it was his uncle then. But maybe I confused him with another god...
@@JanHans Jesus is never part of Greek mythology. Maybe you're talking about Dionysus.
Look at the title of this video: "The GREEK Gods Explained."
Jesus was not Greek nor was He part of the Greek pantheon.