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The Twelve Olympians

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                                                                      The Twelve Olympians The twelve great Olympians were supreme among the gods who succeeded to the Titans. They were called the Olympians because Olympus was their home. What Olympus was, however, is not easy to say. There is no doubt that at first it was held to be a mountaintop, and generally identified with Greece's highest mountain, Mt. Olympus in Thessaly, in the northeast of Greece. But even in the earliest Greek poem, the Iliad, this idea is beginning to give way to the idea of an Olympus in some mysterious region far above all the mountains of the earth. In one passage of the Iliad Zeus talks to the gods from "the topmost peak of many-ridged Olympus," clearly a mountain. But only a little further on he says that if he willed he could hang earth and sea from a pinnacle of Olympus, clearly no longer a mountain. Even so, it is not heaven. Homer makes Poseidon say that he rules the sea, Hades t
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TITANS

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                                                                                        THE TITANS The Greeks did not believe that the gods created the universe.  It was the other way about: the universe created the gods. Before there were gods heaven and earth had been formed. They were the first parents. The Titans were their children, and the gods were their grandchildren. The Titans, often called the Elder Gods, were for untold ages supreme in the universe. They were of enormous size and of incredible strength. There were many of them, but only a few appear in the stories of mythology. The most important was CRONUS, in Latin- Saturn. He ruled over the other Titans until his son Zeus dethroned him and seized the power for himself. The Romans said that when Jupiter, their name for Zeus, ascended the throne, Saturn fled to Italy and brought in the Golden Age, a time of perfect peace and happiness, which lasted as long as he reigned. The other notable Titans were OCEAN the river
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ORIGIN OF THE WORLD

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                                                Uranus and Gæa The ancient Greeks had several different theories with regard to the origin of the world. It is believed that in the beginning, came the two first great deities of the Greeks, Uranus and Gæa.   Uranus represented the light and air of heaven,  possessing the qualities of light ,heat, purity, and omnipresence, while Gæa, the firm,life-sustaining earth, was worshipped as the grea t all-nourishing mother. The first-born child of Uranus and Gæa was Oceanus, the ocean stream. The  ocean is formed from the rains which descend from heaven and the streams which flow from earth.  However, Uranus, the heaven, the embodiment of light and heat produced offspring who were not as powerful as his son Oceanus. These other children of his were supposed to occupy the space which divided him from Gæa. Nearest to Uranus, and just beneath him, came Aether (Ether), representing the atmosphere which immortals alone could breathe. T
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Introduction to Greek Mythology

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                              Introduction to Greek Mythology D ifferent people find Greek mythology to be meaningful for different reasons. For some, the wondrous tales and their larger-than-life characters make for great literature. For others, the value of the Greek myths and the religion of which they were a part lies in their importance for understanding the history of Western civilisation and thought. Still others might be interested in the subject for spiritual or scholarly reasons. But whatever it is that draws you to Greek mythology, you’ll find information on this blog that fits what you’re looking for. Before entering upon the many strange beliefs of the ancient Greeks, and the extraordinary number of gods they worshipped, we must first consider what kind of beings these divinities were. In appearance, the gods were supposed to resemble mortals, whom, however, they far surpassed in beauty, grandeur, and strength; they were also more commanding in stature, height being
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