How Human were the Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece?

  Today's discussion got me thinking about what humans require from gods. From a Christian background, I believe the primary aim of a god needs to be his love for the people he created, and the guidance to lead them into a better place after death. The purpose of Greek deities seems to lie more in the aetiological; their purpose is to explain why things exist, and why things behave as they do. The gods need to acquire characteristics of the things they are associated with, yet the character must be made more human to enable people to understand them. 

  The top picture is that of the Ancient Egyptian god Horus standing opposite a Pharaoh. In this picture they can be seen as very similar, the only real difference between the figures which distinguishes the figure on the left as being mythological is that the god has the head of a falcon. This may be an example of making the gods similar to humans, but also distinct enough to make them other. I would also expect this to be true with Ancient Greek deities.

  The second picture down is Michaelangelo's picture of The Creation of Adam. This picture shows the otherness and nearness between a human and the Judeo-Christian God. The hand of Adam and the hand of God are so close yet they do not quite touch. God is very near, yet remains other. This seems to be a theme in Ancient Greek Religion. The gods sometimes get close to being human but have to retain some distance so that their power can be feared and their actions made incomprehensible.

  I tried to find a depiction of Zeus with an equivalent motive and this was the closest I could find (Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Zeus 74). I thought this depiction may be appropriate (though the woman on the right is Athena rather than a mortal) as Zeus seems to be giving something from his right hand to the woman, but the woman seems to be rejecting his gift. I believe this depiction can also reflect gods' relationships with humans. Zeus can be seen as the 'heavenly father' of Athena, equivalent to the Judeo-Christian God as 'heavenly father' of humanity, thus the relationship could be seen as equivalent. Athena, the metaphorical human, tries to maintain distance from her father whilst her father desires closeness.

  Karim Arafat makes some suggestions about this depiction:
'Athena's haste and the way she looks back at Zeus suggest that she is not going to fetch an oinochoe and wine to fill Zeus's phiale, but we do not know of any ill feeling between them such as is brought to mind by such a flight.' (Arafat (1990) 102)

  Zeus appears to be trying to close the distance between himself and his daughter, yet she moves to maintain the distance. This can also be seen in Michaelangelo's painting as God's hand appears stretched whereas Adam's hand is limp; suggesting the desire for a relationship is predominantly from God's side, whereas Adam desires distance from God.

  This distancing has a purpose. It is easier to say "It is the will of the gods" if it is in your understanding that the gods do not hold the same moral values as you do. Humans make the distance between themselves and the gods to allow for understanding of the inhuman actions, such as death, disasters, famine and disease.

  The bottom picture is of Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. The discussion in class had got me considering how the character of a god is constructed. The best solution I thought was to look at god-like characters in fiction. I considered the character of Aslan to show the human construct for a god. In Narnia, a world of talking beasts, it makes sense that the god of this realm would be a lion, a creature at the top of the food chain, an animal like the others but stronger than the others. In this way he is relatable to his subjects yet is also above them. His characteristics have a balance between zoomorphic traits and anthropomorphic traits. He bites the neck of the White Witch to kill her, representative of how lions kill, but at times he shows attributes of caring which are very "un-lionlike", such as seeking comfort from Susan and Lucy's company before he is killed at the Stone Table, which is done for the purpose of saving the life of Edmund.

  In Ancient Greek Religion, a god or goddess needs to have characteristics to fear, such as Poseidon's causing of storms at sea, yet also human characteristics, such as his raising of fresh water springs. Each god appears to have a metaphorical "carrot and stick". The "carrot" involves what the god does to encourage humans to praise and worship; this could include actions, or characteristics that make them more human. The "stick" is the action which the deity uses to demonstrate its displeasure; an action defined as typically inhuman.

Sources Used

Arafat, K. W., (1990) Classical Zeus: A study in art and literature, Oxford: Clarendon.

Images from Websites

Gill, N.S., 2013. Pharaoh Hatshepsut making an offering to Horus. [online] Available at: <http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/egypt/ig/Ancient-Egypt/Horus-and-Hatshepsut.htm> [Accessed on 31/01/2013 ].

Peebles, E., 2013, Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam. Books and Blueberries, [blog] 8^th Feb,

Available at: <http://booksandblueberries.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/michelangelos-creation-of-adam.html> [Accessed on 31/01/2013 ].

Children’s Theater of Wellington, 2012, Aslan is on the Move!. Children’s Theater of Wellington, [blog] 19^th Oct, Available at: <http://ctwellington.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/aslan-is-on-move.html> [Accessed 31/01/2013 ]. 

Poseidon: Wild or Tamed?

  Writing a blog about Ancient Greek Religion is as much about me learning about it, as you reading it. As such the best way for me to start it is to take a gamble, pluck an interesting character who I find interesting, and investigate that character's role in Greek religion.

   A figure that interests me is Poseidon. For the Myths and Mythology module I investigated Athena; from this investigation I came to perceive her as "one of the good guys", a character on the side of the heroes, worthy of worship and veneration.

  When it came to deciding a character for study in this module Poseidon struck me as an interesting polar opposite. In the Odyssey Poseidon is portrayed as a villain; all of his efforts go into stopping the hero Odysseus from getting home after Odysseus blinded Poseidon's son, the Cyclops Polythemus. He seems very different from Athena, the goddess who aids heroes, such as Herakles. It seems odd, from a Christian background, to believe in a god who may, at some points, be against you, though it has also to be acknowledged that the Judeo-Christian God also destroys whole civilisations numerous times as well as flooding the whole world once in the Bible, so a destructive and vengeful god is not totally alien to my preconceptions.

This image was taken from the 

game Rome Total War (2004) 

by Activision.

 Nevertheless, I thought about what it was that might have made Poseidon important to the Ancient Greeks. Greece has an incredibly irregular coastline; its coast is huge compared to its total land mass. Sea trade was a big part of Ancient Greek culture and so asking the sea to be calm would be a common demand. The picture I have chosen is of a Trireme, a boat that Thucydides claimed originated in the city of Corinth and was used for centuries afterwards due to its technological superiority over other boats. 

Susan Deacy says '...the sea was regarded as violent, dangerous and "desolate" (atrugetos). These qualities were reflected in the nature of the god who was assigned the sea as his domain...' (Deacy (2008) 48-49)

  Deacy suggests that Poseidon is a metaphor for the sea and as his characteristics are akin to those of the sea this can be expected to true. This point could be furthered; the sea is untamed, dangerous and unpredictable, so the god whose domain it is must also have these characteristics. This would explain why the sea behaves as such, and why this god is not necessarily always on the side of mortals. Poseidon's purpose seems aetiological rather than  for salvation, a purpose associated with the Judeo-Christian God, though aetiology plays a big part in the role of the Judeo-Christian God as well. This is why I chose the two pictures which make up the background of this blog; on the left is the calm sea, on the right is its polar opposite the stormy sea. Both are the sea, but they are different from each other, Poseidon needs to have characteristics of a tame sea and a tumultuous sea.

Deacy says 'Poseidon's operations are guided by his role as an elemental force. Athena, in contrast brings to bear a duality between the 'civiliser' of the sea who promotes skilled activities and the power able to create violent storms.' (Deacy (2008) 50)

  I would now like to go back to the comparison between Poseidon and Athena. Deacy describes Poseidon's actions as temperamental as the sea, a force that cannot be quelled by reason; Athena is a sentient force who promotes human activity to overcome the elemental force of the sea. In Greek mythology, Athena invented the horse bit, which she uses to ride Pegasus, a creature whom Poseidon was involved in the creation, which shows many of the same untamed characteristics of Poseidon. This could be a demonstration of human ingenuity overcoming nature. Poseidon and Athena may both be included in the sphere of horsemanship, yet where Poseidon represents the wildness of the horse, Athena represents the taming.

'The key to the mode of intervention peculiar to Athena lies in the mythical representation of this instrument [the bit], a power at once technical and magical over the creature of Poseidon.' (Detienne (1971) 175)

  This seems to suggest that the Greeks perceived ingenuity as greater than nature. The invention of the trireme links well with this. Human ingenuity overcomes the force of the sea. Robert Parker makes a different observation:

'Poseidon embodies the power of the horse, the power needed to tame horses, and the potential of horses to resist control. Athena comes to the horse via skill and technology' (Parker (2011) 94)

  This statement initially made sense when I read it, but I have found it difficult to perceive Athena as only representing intelligence, when she is known as a warrior goddess, a role which requires a great deal of might.

 It could possibly be showing Athena subduing Pegasus, a metaphor for Poseidon, with intelligence. Maybe Athena's domination over Pegasus is a lesson to people to tell them to use both intelligence and might to overcome the forces of nature, rather than assuming might will be enough, and in a more precise message, to tell people how horses were tamed and how they should still be ridden. Where Poseidon is used for aetiological contexts, Athena's purpose is a combination of aetiology and education.

Sources Used

Deacy, D., (2008) Athena, Oxon: Routledge.

Detienne, M., 'Athena and the Mastery of the Horse'. Translated by A. B. Werth, In: History of Religions, Vol 11, No. 2 (Nov., 1971), pp. 161-184

Detienne, M., 'The 'Sea-Crow', In: R. L. Gordon (ed.) (1981) Myth, religion and society, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Parker, R., (2011) On Greek Religion, Cornell University Press: New York.