Gods

• Hermes/Mercury

  • messenger of zeus and the gods
  • shown fully grown, wide brimmed hat(roman winged) winged sandals and a caduceus
  • psychopomp-leader of souls
  • created the lyre
  • patron of thieves boundaries travel
  • popular household god

  
• Hermes killed Argus who was watching over zeus and had a hundred eyes

  hers turned argus into a peacock
• Athena/Minerva

  • grey eyed athena
  • depicted fully armed with a helmet and spear, long robe, shield or aegis with a gorgon head and an owl
  • patron goddess of athens
  • goddess of war tactics and women’s crafts
  • virginal
• athena’s main temple was the parthenon in athens
• athena nike - athena of victory
• pallas athene - athene of battle
• athena helps out many heroes such as achilles odysseus and heracles
• athena god

  
• Artemis/Diana

  • sister of apollo
  • often wearing a short dress and animal skins, bow and arrow dogs and stags
  • goddess of birth
  • goddess of hunting
  • goddess of the moon
  • worshipped in woodland areas of beauty
  • important to keep pests away from crops
  • roman temple at ephesus to cement an alliance
• acteon stumbled across naked diana she turned him into a stag and his own dogs ate and killed him
• artemis goddess

  
• Aphrodite/Venus

  • goddess of love sex beauty and fertility
  • often shown with birds like swan or dove
  • often depicted naked with one of her lovers a mirror and apple a myrtle wreath or cupid/eros
  • married to hephaestus
• aphrodite crucial to the iliad and the whole trojan war
• myrrha seduced her father and he turned her into a myrtle tree. adonis was born from this tree whom aphrodite fell in love with
• diomedes injures aphrodite
• aphrodite goddess

  
• Dionysus/Bacchus

  • often short, robed, older - later shown young and naked
  • often with vines and grapes, wreathed, dressed in fawn-skins, drinking horn, satyrs, maenads or nymphs, vine ship
  • has a fennel staff tipped with a pine-cone - thyrsus
  • roman woman Bacchic Cults
  • Festival Dionysia
  • god of epiphany
  • replacing Hestia
  • son of zeus and a mortal woman, Semele, out of zeus's thigh
• apollo/apollo

  • youth, naked or robed with a bow or lyre
  • brother of artemis
  • god of archery music prophecy male beauty law and philosophy
  • son of Zeus and Leto
• Ares / Mars

  • son of zeus and Hera
  • ares and aphrodite have affairs, but one time he gets caught in Hephaistos's net and is humiliated
  • Ares kills Adonis
  • shown wearing armour
  • god of battle, sacking, anger and violence
• Demeter/ceres

  • Depicted as a mature woman, bearing sheafs of wheat and with a cornucopia or torch
  • has an annual roman festival called the cerealla
  • goddess of agriculture, marriage, fertility
• Hades/Pluto

  • Chthonic deity
  • god of underworld, punishment
  • often showed bearded, seated, with a scepter, cerberus
  • kidnapped persephone
• Hephaestus/Vulcan

  • son of zues and hera
  • at birth he was cast away by Hera and so is shown crippled, with a donkey, with blacksmithing tools, seated
  • god of craftsmen,blacksmith
  • trapped hera in a golden chair at her wedding
• Hera/Juno

  • queen of the gods
  • wife to zeus
  • often shown wearing a diadem,robed,modest,peacock
  • persecuted Heracles
• Hestia/Vesta

  • often depicted as very plain and modest, veiled, often with a flowered branch
  • goddess of the heath
  • replaced by Dionysus
  • Roman cult of Vestal Virgins tasked with keeping the flame of rome constantly burning
• Poiseidon/Neptune

  • God of the sea,earthquakes,floods and horses
  • depicted as a mature man with a trident
  • persecutes oddyseus
  • father of polyphemus
• Zeus/Jupiter

  • son of Kronos and Rhea
  • depicted as a bearded man with a lightning bolt, often seated on a throne with a scepter or eagle
  • is involved in MANY affairs
  • god of lightning, XENIA, Kibg of the gods