"subterranean house of Hades and his predecessors, home of the dead. Influences from other cultures always afforded new themes. According to Classical-era mythology, after the overthrow of the Titans, the new pantheon of gods and goddesses was confirmed. Among the principal Greek gods were the Olympians, residing on Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus. (The limitation of their number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively modern idea.) Besides the Olympians, the Greeks worshipped various gods of the countryside, the satyr-god Pan, Nymphs (spirits of rivers), Naiads (who dwelled in springs), Dryads (who were spirits of the trees),"
"Twelve Olympians In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called 'Olympians' because, according to tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus. Although Hades was a major ancient Greek god, and was the brother of the first generation of Olympians (Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia), he resided in the underworld, far from Olympus, and thus was not usually considered to be one of the Olympians. Besides the twelve Olympians,"
"goddesses most commonly considered to be one of the twelve Olympians are listed below. Most listings include either one or the other of the following deities as one of the twelve Olympians. Twelve Olympians In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called 'Olympians' because, according to tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus. Although Hades was a major ancient Greek god, and was the brother of the first generation"
"ancient Greek world also served a cosmological role as it was meant to try to explain how the world was formed and operated. The principal gods of the ancient Greek religion were the Dodekatheon, or the ""Twelve Gods"", who lived on the top of Mount Olympus. The most important of all ancient Greek gods was Zeus, the king of the gods, who was married to Hera, who was also Zeus's sister. The other Greek gods that made up the Twelve Olympians were Ares, Poseidon, Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hephaestus and Hermes. Apart from these twelve gods, Greeks also"
"of Olympian gods was twelve, but besides the (thirteen) principal Olympians listed above, there were many other residents of Olympus, who thus might be called Olympians. Heracles became a resident of Olympus after his apotheosis and married another Olympian resident Hebe. Some others who might be considered Olympians, include: the Muses, the Graces, Iris, Dione, Eileithyia, the Horae, and Ganymede. Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other various cultic groupings of twelve gods throughout ancient Greece. The earliest evidence of Greek religious practice involving twelve gods (Greek: δωδεκάθεον, ""dodekatheon"", from δώδεκα ""dōdeka"", ""twelve"" and θεοί ""theoi"", ""gods"") comes no"
"and goddesses found in distant cultures are mythologically comparable and are cognates. Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, for instance, is cognate to Indic ""Ushas"", Roman ""Aurora"" and Latvian ""Auseklis"". Zeus, the Greek king of gods, is cognate to Latin ""Iūpiter"", Old German ""Ziu"", and Indic ""Dyaus"", with whom he shares similar mythologies. Other deities, such as Aphrodite, originated from the Near East. Greek deities varied locally, but many shared panhellenic themes, celebrated similar festivals, rites, and ritual grammar. The most important deities in the Greek pantheon were the Twelve Olympians: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hermes,"
"has origins older than the Greek or Roman sources. The Greek grouping may have Anatolian, more precisely Lycian origins. A group of twelve Hittite gods is known both from cuneiform texts and from artistic representation. The Hittite Twelve are all male, with no individualizing features. They have a possible reflex in a Lycian group of twelve gods in the Roman Empire period. By 400 BC, a precinct dedicated to twelve gods existed at the marketplace in Xanthos in Lycia. Herodotus also refers to a group of twelve gods in Egypt, but this finds no confirmation in Egyptian sources. The Greek"
"seat of the gods is referred to as βηλ[ός] θεσπεσίο[ς] ""heavenly threshold"". In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, ""Olympus"" was the name of the home of the Twelve Olympian gods of the ancient Greek world. This was conceived of as a lofty mountaintop, and in all regions settled by Greek tribes, the highest local elevation tended to be so named; among the numerous peaks called ""Olumpos"" in antiquity are mountains in Mysia, Laconia, Lycia, Cyprus, Attica, Euboea, Ionia and Lesbos, and others. Thessalian Olympus is the highest peak in any territory with Greek settlement and came to be seen as"
"of Greek art inspired generations of European artists. Well into the 19th century, the classical tradition derived from Greece dominated the art of the western world. Greek mythology consists of stories belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their religious practices. The main Greek gods were the twelve Olympians, Zeus, his wife Hera, Poseidon, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, and Dionysus. Other important deities included Hebe, Hades, Helios, Hestia, Persephone and Heracles. Zeus's parents were Cronus and Rhea who also were the parents"
"Altar of the Twelve Gods The Altar of the Twelve Gods (also called the Sanctuary of the Twelve Gods), was an important altar and sanctuary at Athens, located in the northwest corner of the Classical Agora. The Altar was set up by Pisistratus the Younger, (the grandson of the tyrant Pisistratus) during his archonship, in 522/1 BC. It marked the central point from which distances from Athens were measured and was a place of supplication and refuge. The exact identities of the twelve gods to whom the Altar was dedicated is uncertain, but they were most likely substantially the same"
"Altar of the Twelve Gods The Altar of the Twelve Gods (also called the Sanctuary of the Twelve Gods), was an important altar and sanctuary at Athens, located in the northwest corner of the Classical Agora. The Altar was set up by Pisistratus the Younger, (the grandson of the tyrant Pisistratus) during his archonship, in 522/1 BC. It marked the central point from which distances from Athens were measured and was a place of supplication and refuge. The exact identities of the twelve gods to whom the Altar was dedicated is uncertain, but they were most likely substantially the same"
"abode of the Hindu deity Shiva. Volcanoes, such as Mount Etna in Italy, were also considered sacred, Mount Etna being believed to have been the home of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge. Carpathian Mountains - an arc roughly 1,500 km (932 mi) long across Central Europe. Mount Olympus is the highest mountain peak in Greece. It was once regarded as the “home of the Greek Gods/The Twelve Olympians of the Hellenistic World"". It was also considered the site of the War of the Titans (Titanomachy) where Zeus and his siblings defeated the Titans. Mount Othrys is"
"Parthenon, Athens, both over 40 feet high, were once housed in them. The religion of ancient Greece was a form of nature worship that grew out of the beliefs of earlier cultures. However, unlike earlier cultures, man was no longer perceived as being threatened by nature, but as its sublime product. The natural elements were personified as gods of completely human form, and very human behaviour. The home of the gods was thought to be Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. The most important deities were: Zeus, the supreme god and ruler of the sky; Hera, his wife and goddess"
"Ancient Greek religion Ancient Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology originating in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or ""cults"" in the plural, though most of them shared similarities. Most ancient Greeks recognized the twelve major Olympian gods and goddesses: (Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus), although philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to assume a single transcendent"
"sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, ""the god that comes"", and his ""foreignness"" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, becoming increasingly important over time, and included in some lists of the twelve Olympians, as the last of their number, and the only god born from a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of"
"there were many other cultic groupings of twelve gods. The Olympians were a race of deities, primarily consisting of a third and fourth generation of immortal beings, worshipped as the principal gods of the Greek pantheon and so named because of their residency atop Mount Olympus. They gained their supremacy in a ten-year-long war of gods, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory over the previous generation of ruling gods, the Titans. They were a family of gods, the most important consisting of the first generation of Olympians, offspring of the Titans Cronus and Rhea: Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter"
"earlier than the late sixth century BC. According to Thucydides, an altar of the twelve gods was established in the agora of Athens by the archon Pisistratus (son of Hippias, and the grandson of the tyrant Pisistratus), in c. 522 BC. The altar became the central point from which distances from Athens were measured and a place of supplication and refuge. Olympia apparently also had an early tradition of twelve gods. The ""Homeric Hymn to Hermes"" (c. 500 BC) has the god Hermes divide a sacrifice of two cows he has stolen from Apollo, into twelve parts, on the banks"
"have its own local nymph, an oread. Peak sanctuaries, a feature of Minoan civilization on Crete, are also identified in some archaic sites in mainland Greece. They are not thought to be dedicated to the mountain itself. Ourea In Greek mythology, the Ourea ( ""mountains,"" plural of ) were progeny of Gaia, members of the Greek primordial deities, who were the first-born elemental gods and goddesses. According to Hesiod: ""And [Gaia] brought forth long hills, graceful haunts""<br> ""of the goddess Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills."" The nine ""ourea"", Aitna, Athos, Helikon, Kithairon, Nysos, Olympus, Oreios, Parnes,"
"Greek sea gods The ancient Greeks had a large number of sea deities. The philosopher Plato once remarked that the Greek people were like frogs sitting around a pond—their many cities hugging close to the Mediterranean coastline from the Hellenic homeland to Asia Minor, Libya, Sicily and Southern Italy. Thus, they venerated a rich variety of aquatic divinities. The range of Greek sea gods of the classical era range from primordial powers and an Olympian on the one hand, to heroized mortals, chthonic nymphs, trickster-figures, and monsters on the other. Oceanus and Tethys are the father and mother of the"
"Odyssean gods The Odyssean gods are the ancient Greek gods referenced in Homer's ""Odyssey"". The story's major gods include Athena, Poseidon, Calypso and Circe; minor gods include Ino, Hermes, Zeus, and Heracles. The Odyssey's major gods include Athena, Poseidon, Calypso, and Circe. Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and battle strategy, and was also the patron goddess of heroes. Odysseus was a great hero among the Greeks, and so had Athena’s favor and aid in many of his exploits. She was also a key goddess in the story of ""The Odyssey"" as a divine assistant to Odysseus on his"
"are gifts from the gods, and the gods themselves are Living Enchantments. Each color has its own god: Heliod, God of the Sun (white), Thassa, God of the Sea (blue), Erebos, God of the Dead (black), Purphoros, God of the Forge (red), and Nylea, God of the Hunt (green). Each god also has their own signature weapon that shows up as a legendary artifact enchantment. The pantheon is rounded out by ten lesser gods, one for each combination of colors. There are three major cities, each known as the poleis (singular ""polis""). They are Meletis, city of learning, magic, and"
"erotic poetry), Thalia (muse of comedy), Polyhymnia (muse of hymns), and Urania (muse of astronomy). Sometimes they are referred to as water nymphs having been born from the four sacred springs on Helicon which flowed from the ground after Pegasus, the winged horse, stamped his hooves on the ground. Along with her sister Muses, Euterpe was believed to have lived on Mt. Olympus where she and her sisters entertained their father and the other Olympian gods with their great artistry. Later on, tradition also placed them on Mt. Helicon in Boeotia where there was a major cult center to the"
"mortals, but who could be perceived by the mind, especially during sleep. Epicurus believed that these gods were material, human-like, and that they inhabited the empty spaces between worlds. Hellenistic religion may still be regarded as polytheistic, but with strong monistic components, and monotheism finally emerges from Hellenistic traditions in Late Antiquity in the form of Neoplatonism and Christian theology. The classical scheme in Ancient Greece of the Twelve Olympians (the Canonical Twelve of art and poetry) were: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Ares, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Hestia. Though it is suggested that Hestia stepped down when"
"membership varied. While the majority of the gods included as members of these other cults of twelve gods were Olympians, non-Olympians were also sometimes included. For example, Herodorus of Heraclea identified the six pairs of gods at Olympia as: Zeus and Poseidon, Hera and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Graces and Dionysus, Artemis and Alpheus, and Cronus and Rhea. Thus while this list includes the eight Olympians: Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Athena, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysus, it also contains three clear non-Olympians: the Titan parents of the first generation of Olympians, Cronus and Rhea, and the river god Alpheius, with"
"whose language would evolve into Greek proper) first arrived in the Aegean and on the mainland of modern-day Greece early in the 2nd millennium BCE, they found localized nymphs and divinities already connected with every important feature of the landscape: mountain, cave, grove and spring all had their own locally venerated deity. The countless epithets of the Olympian gods reflect their syncretic identification with these various figures. One defines """"Zeus Molossos"""" (worshipped only at Dodona) as ""the god identical to Zeus as worshipped by the Molossians at Dodona"". Much of the apparently arbitrary and trivial mythic fabling results from later"
"Agora, the altar of Zeus Ayopcuos, the Altar of the Twelve Gods, the altar of the Eumenides on the Areopagus, the Theseum in the Piraeus, and the altar of Artemis, at Munichia (Meier, Alt. Proc. p. 404). Among the most celebrated places of asylum in other parts of Greece, there are the temple of Poseidon in Laconia, on Mount Taenarus (Time. i. 128, 133; Corn. Nep. Pans. c. 4); the temple of Poseidon in Calauria (Pint. Demosth. 29); and the temple of Athena Alea in Tegea (Paus. iii. 5. § 6). It would appear, however, that all sacred places were"
"result of fusion of the Olympian divinity with an older one: Poseidon Erechtheus, Artemis Orthia, reflect intercultural equations of a divinity with an older one, that is generally considered its pendant; thus most Roman gods and goddesses, especially the Twelve Olympians, had traditional counterparts in Greek, Etruscan, and most other Mediterranean pantheons, such as Jupiter as head of the Olympian Gods with Zeus, but in specific cults there may be a different equation, based on one specific aspect of the divinity. Thus the Greek word ""Trismegistos"": ""thrice grand"" was first used as a Greek name for the Egyptian god of"
"Herodotus admired and called his own age ""wicked, depraved and dissolute"" and hoped the future would produce a better breed of man for Greece. Major city-states and sacred places of pilgrimage in the Hellenic World were Argos, Athens, Eleusis, Corinth, Delphi, Ithaca, Olympia, Sparta, Thebes, Thrace and Mount Olympus, the home of the gods. The gods played an important part in the lives of the people; so much so that one could face execution for questioning - or even allegedly questioning - their existence, as in the case of Protagoras, Socrates and Alcibiades (the Athenian statesman Critias, sometimes referred to"
"a mountain in Central Greece, which is believed to be the home of the Titans during the ten-year war with the Gods of Mount Olympus. Mount Ida, also known as Mountain of the Goddess, refers to two specific mountains: one in the Greek island of Crete and the other in Turkey (formerly known as Asia Minor). Mount Ida is the highest mountain on the island of Crete is the sacred mountain of the Titaness Rhea, also known as the mother of the Greek Gods. It is also believed to be the cave where Greek God Zeus was born and raised."
"macrocarpa"" forest in Europe. Samaria Gorge is a World Biosphere Reserve and Richtis Gorge is protected for its landscape diversity. Crete has a rich mythology mostly connected with the ancient Greek Gods but also connected with the Minoan civilisation. According to Greek Mythology, The Diktaean Cave at Mount Dikti was the birthplace of the god Zeus. The Paximadia islands were the birthplace of the goddess Artemis and the god Apollo. Their mother, the goddess Leto, was worshipped at Phaistos. The goddess Athena bathed in Lake Voulismeni. The ancient Greek god Zeus launched a lightning bolt at a giant lizard that"
"for no people except the Libyans have had the name of Poseidon from the first and have paid honour to this god always. Some other Greek deities were related to Libya. The goddess Lamia was believed to have originated in Libya, like Medusa and the Gorgons. The Greeks seem also to have met the god Triton in Libya. The Greeks may have believed that the Hesperides was situated in modern Morocco. Some scholars situate it in Tangier where Antaeus lived, according to some myths. The Hesperides were believed to be the daughters of Atlas a god that is associated with"
"the status of the Graces (here apparently counted as one god) being unclear. Plato connected ""twelve gods"" with the twelve months, and implies that he considered Pluto one of the twelve in proposing that the final month be devoted to him and the spirits of the dead. The Roman poet Ennius gives the Roman equivalents (the ""Dii Consentes"") as six male-female complements, preserving the place of Vesta (Greek Hestia), who played a crucial role in Roman religion as a state goddess maintained by the Vestals. There is no single canonical list of the twelve Olympian gods. The thirteen gods and"
"Poseidon Poseidon (; , ) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth. He was god of the Sea and other waters; of earthquakes; and of horses. In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes. His Roman equivalent is Neptune. Poseidon was protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. In Homer's ""Iliad"", Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War. In the ""Odyssey"", during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his"