Greek Beliefs In Ancient Greek Mythology

Greek Beliefs In Ancient Greek Mythology

Greek mythology is one of the most interesting topics to come out of ancient Greek culture. The idea of sincerely believing that every move or choice that is made all goes back to the gods and goddesses fascinates me. In ancient Greece, the normal thing was to believe in multiple higher powers instead of today were majority dictates that there is only one higher power. I was aware of some facts about the Greek's belief in the god and goddesses from previous history classes but I have never at the freedom to choose to write a paper solely on them. The goal of my research was to find out what made the gods and goddesses so special to the Greeks and why a civilization would worship them for centuries.

The start of believing in the gods and goddesses started as a way to explain daily life and to give life a purpose . Without a reason for living majority of people would descend into madness with no morals. Unlike other religions that had a holy text, mythology was based primarily on word of mouth. The stories were passed down from generation to generation to create the outlandish but captivating mythology that we have in modern society. While there were countless gods and goddesses, students do typically learn the 12 that are called the "Olympian Gods" . This group was led by Zeus, who is perhaps is the most well known Greek god. The next 11 were named as followed, Athena, Apollo, Poseidon, Hermes, Hera, Aphrodite, Demeter, Ares, Artemis, Hades, Hephaistos, and Dionysus. I have attached a family tree to help showcases how majority of the gods and goddesses were related . Each god had their own followers and were all considered the god of something. For example, Athena is known as the Goddess of Wisdom and Hades is the God of the Dead or God of the Underworld. Greek citizens built large temples to honor a particular god where the god was thought to live.

Within these temples, religious ceremonies were not held as we hold mass in a church. Instead, the temple for each god and goddess were considered the living place of whoever it was built in honor to. The most notable would the be the temple to Athena which is showcased in the photo to the left . In each temple, a statue of the god was placed for worshipers to live

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