The Gods of Ancient Greece
For as long as I can remember the Greek gods have had a profound influence on me. To this day I still remember all the movies I saw as a child in which Steve Reeves, the Arnold Schwarzernegger of those days, portrayed the amazing feats of the greatest of all legendary heroes, Hercules. Undoubtedly, this was how I was first introduced to the gods of ancient Greece and ever since I have lived under their spell.
Greek mythology originated in the Bronze Age on the shores of Crete and the forbidding citadels of the Argolid. It has since then permeated the whole of Western culture and greatly influenced the way the world perceives human and natural beauty. Who hasn't heard of the Oedipus complex, of Aphrodite, of Artemis, of Apollo, of Zeus, to name but a few of the Greek gods and goddesses. Who hasn't at least once in their lives referred to the Apollo spacecrafts and the Saturn and Poseidon missiles. And what about the stars? Many of them are named after Greek gods as well.
It is a fact that nowadays Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism occupy the minds of a far greater number of people than does Greek mythology but although the Greek gods have lost some of their power, they continue to send up springs and fountains that inspire, mould and enrich our imagination. Unwittingly, we still respond to the gods and goddesses, nymphs and heroes of ancient Greece because they appeal to some instinctual needs in us and respond to realities that go beyond the visible world. It is not through the cold prism of our rational mind that we must view these realities but by abandoning ourselves to our primeval urges, rediscovering the thread between the old legends and our present lives that will reveal their true meaning.
'Everything is full of Gods' (Thales)
The ancient Greeks lived their lives in the daily presence of the divine and could not conceive of a world without gods. Greek thinking was characterized by personification, for it was by personifying psychic powers that men's hearts and not just their minds could be acted upon. These gods had to be worshipped and propitiated if favours were to be obtained and it is well known that that was precisely what happened in every Greek city. Throughout Greece are to be found vestiges of ancient temples, altars and sanctuaries dedicated to the gods of Victory, Fortune, Friendship, Mercy, Peace etc., that attest to the active presence of supernatural powers in this ancient land.
The gods roamed the earth, clad in mist, in different guises, watched over the mortals, pronounced judgments over them, favouring some with wealth and happiness and taking them away from others. They come to the help of warriors, stirring their spirit and kindling their courage, making faltering limbs strong again. But contrary to Christian phenomena, such divine interventions are not seen as miracles but rather as the very essence of daily occurrences because these gods are seen as the source of being and reality.
The guardian quality of the gods is compellingly depicted in the Atlas Metope from the temple of Zeus at Olympia. It shows Herakles (Hercules) taking over the support of the world from Atlas. He seems to be crushed by the sheer weight on his shoulders but benevolent Athena steps behind him and with incomparable dignity of posture gently touches the burden wihtout being seen by Herakles. Suddenly, he seems to acquire new strength and performs his task with apparent ease.
Athena always intervenes at crucial moments to help the heroes she favours and protects. In the Odyssey, Homer relates how she preferred Odysseus to all other men for in her eyes he was as foremost, both in counsel and speech, as she was wise and clever. As a result of these winning traits, Odysseus wins Athena's protection at all times through all his trials. The ancients did every thing they could to win similar favours from their favourite gods and if we are tempted to laugh at such stories and dismiss them as childish, we only have to analyse our own words at times of great trials and tribulation. Don't we sometimes use the expression: 'This calamity has brought out the best in him', or 'I never thought I had the strength to do this' or 'he lifted this heavy load with bare hands'. When gods are seen in this light, they awaken in all of us hidden powers, great capacities to perform amazing miracles and undergo transcendental transformation.
'We make our destinies by our choice of Gods' (Virgil)
Modern psychologists now know what Virgil and the Ancients have always known instinctively. Our being is an arena where contending foes battle for supremacy. The Christians may have replaced the Greek gods with one omniscient and omnipotent god, but we are at heart still pagans. The state of bliss and holiness implied by Christian beliefs remains at best a pipedream for most of us. It is only when all the conflicting aspects of our personality are resolved into our true self that we will indeed have reached the real Eden. But in the meantime, we may describe our kingdom i.e. our Being, as a battlefield on which contending gods fight for our victory or defeat. All we can do is to recognize their emotional power over us, attend to them and propitiate them as best we can. Failing to do so would be foolhardy for the gods do rise and avenge themselves if neglected. Freud used new terms like complexes, archetypes, superegos etc. to describe these various states of mind we often find ourselves in but they all seem to lack the emotional content and immediacy that such forces evoke in us when they are referred to as gods and goddesses.
Antagonism among the gods runs through the whole of Greek mythology. The conflict between Apollo and Dionysos - between the need for order, balance and clarity and the yearning for freedom, ecstasy and exuberance - has provided a rich source of inspiration for countless writers in the West. These Apollonian and Dionysian qualities can be found in the same man at different stages of his life. What the Greek myths and Greek tragedy shows us in vivid terms is that unless both gods are given their due, they are bound to exact a heavy price on their victim. The Greeks took such a reconciliation of these two opposing forces very seriously and even institutionalized it in Delphi. Apollo's shrine was at Delphi but in winter it was occupied by Dionysos and the Dionysian festival was officially sanctioned with a band of Maenads.
It is important not to incur the wrath of the gods by refusing to recognize their separate claims on us. In other words, we have to propitiate all the contending gods and not favour one to the exclusion of all the others. A rejected god goes underground but sooner or later resurfaces to wreak havoc in us as happens in Euripides' Bacchae where the grim feast Dionysos demands climaxes in a mother's ritual killing of her son under the god's manic influence. Similarly, in Aeschylus' Bassarids, Orpheus neglects his worship for that of the sun and is therefore torn to pieces by the followers of the rejected god. Various religions have imposed a number of restrictions on man's natural urges and in so doing have given rise to a number of fatal dysfunctions and psychoses that have no other outlet but in death and destruction. The Ancient Greeks recognized the foolishness of the attempt to choke off and deny the elemental forces in man and provided a release for all his urges for fear of becoming mad. They too had their favourite god to whom they paid their primary allegiance but did not forget to pay their dues to the rest of their inner pantheon.
'God moves as the beloved moves the lover' (Aristotle)
In Hesiod's Theogony, Eros is the first god born out of Chaos at the beginning of creation. He represents the energy that is always present in nature, the source of all relationships and procreation. Eros appeared before the Olympian gods for it was he who embodied the spirit of relatedness without which only divisions and separatedness would exist. In later Greek mythology Eros is transformed into the son of Aphrodite (the goddess of love) and Ares (the god of war). To this day, people are said to fall in love, their hearts pierced by Cupid's (Roman name for Eros) arrows.
Eros is the god that compels us to seek physical love and go beyond it in the quest for the mysterious forces of life. He is the force that rules over both our primordial nature and our highest spiritual longings. It's no use trying to either possess him or even understand his nature although he has overwhelming control over our lives. Plato wrote that it is from the love of visible, physical beauty that stems the urge man feels for 'the beyond'. This great power impels the soul in a kind of divine madness that eventually leads it to the truth. In the Symposium, Plato refers to the highest form of birth engendered by Eros as being self-birth in the 'rebirth of the initiate as a divine being'. Eros manifests himself in man's passionate desire to love and possess another physically, in his attraction toward divine rebirth and immortality. Although he is the oldest of the gods, he is the life-force behind everything that happens in the universe.
'That which is above is as that which is below' (Hermetica)
According to Herodotus, it was 'Hesiod and Homer who provided the Greeks with a theogony, gave the gods their names, distinguished their attributes and functions, and defined the various types.' But it was Homer who gave the ancient Greeks the brilliant, clear-cut, full-fledged figures of the twelve Olympians whom we call to mind whenever we think of the Hellenic spirit. These gods were venerated by the Greeks in their daily lives at various altars and temples and when Alexander reached India, he erected an altar to the twelve Olympians to mark the easternmost limit of his dominion. The twelve Olympians (actually fourteen in all) were: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Athena, Demeter, Hephaistos, Hestia, Dionysos and Hades. To keep the number to twelve, Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, was often left at home to make a place for Dionysos, who was a later admission to the circle of the Olympians. And Hades, the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, was permanently consigned to the Underworld.
It would be an impossible feat to describe in this short account of the gods of ancient Greece all the myths and legends attributed to them as well as to the innumerable chtonic (subterranean) deities, local spirits or demons whose cults went back far earlier than the Homeric poems and whom the people continued to worship for such a long time. Suffice it to say that the Greeks could not see a river without seeing a river god, a forest without thinking of dryads, a spring without seeing a Naiad who dwelt there. To understand the Greek psyche, it is as essential to descend to the chtonic depths as it is to reach the very top of Mt. Olympus.
As we take the time to read about the legendary gods of Greece, their strengths and weaknesses, we will find ourselves more and more drawn to them for they are not impersonal gods that live in a remote heaven but are rooted right here on earth. When, like the ancients, we search for the gods in the events of our lives, in our feelings, attitudes and motives, we discover in the turmoil of our inner conflicts secret meanings and a rich source of creative possibilities. It is the rich imagination of man that gave rise to the Twelve Olympians but by a strange process of the mind it is they who have shaped Western thought and culture to such a point that the poet cannot yet conceive of beauty or truth without waxing Homeric and of love without thinking Platonic. However hard we try to move away from Greece, mysterious forces beyond our control seem to pull us back to its shores. We long to hear of Odysseus and his ordeals, of Herakles (Hercules) and the golden apples of the Hesperides and countless other legends that have thrilled us when we were children. The very name of Delos, Lesbos, Mykonos, Santorini make one dream of adventures in remote times, of Aprhodite and her irresistible spells, of Dionysos and Bacchanalian feasts in lush vineyeards and olive groves. Greece indeed has enough lore and lure to attract and retain the most demanding of poets for who can resist the charm of Sapho, the immortal appeal of Homer, the incomparable beauty of Helen of Troy who, in the words of Christopher Marlowe, "launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illyrium." The Greek Gods are still with us and in spite of our professed faith in the one Christian God, the Twelve Olympians will always reign supreme in our essential pagan hearts.
