Sky Deities

Light, darkness, sunrise and sunset, weather and the seasons generated questions in the minds of men and aroused their fantasies. Thus they fashioned deities which were rulers of space and were also responsible for these phenomena.In the orb of the sun , they saw the facve and the golden hair of a god they named Helios. As he traveled across the sky daily they believed that he did so in a chariot of fire drawn by horses. They believed that he travelled from his palace in the east to his palace in the west daily and at night a winged bed carried him from west to east. Helios, Selene and Eos were the grandchildren of Uranos and Gaia and were children of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. Helios produced Circe and Aeetes with Okeanida Perse.With Klymene, wife of Merops, king of Ethopia, he produced Phaethon who when he was grown tried to get Helios to acknowledge him as a son. He asked to be able to drive the golden chariot. Helios gave it to him but the horses bolted and he was killed by Zeus. Passionately in love with Rhodos he produced three sins from her. With Neiara he produced daughters, the Heliades that tended his sacred herds. His role in the War of the Giants and in the Trojan War was ancillary in so as he carried out the orders of Zeus and Hera. First bringing the dawn later as instructed by Zeus and then bringing sunset later, following Heras desire that the war should end. Selene whose name means brilliant became the wife of Helios even though she was his sister and she bore him the hours- the seasons of the year.She later had a relationship with Endymion which produced fifty daughters and also Pan, the goat hoofed one.Eos, goddess of the dawn was the third sister. She too was represented in a winged chariot. She fell in love with the handsome Tithonos and asked Zeus to make him immortal. When he grew old he became ugly and she no longer wanted him. She turned him into a cicada. >From him she produced Memnon, later king of Ethiopia and Imathion.


Earth Deities

In the begining there was Earth, Choas and Eros. The Earth gave birth to Pontos (the sea )the mountains and Uranos (the sky )with whom she united and brought forth the Titans, the Cyclops and the Hundred - Handed Ones. She formed an alliance with her son Kronos, and managed to put aside Uranos and eventually took power from him. Kronos felt as threatened by his own children as his father had and gobbled them up. His wife Rhea managed to save Zeus and helped him to become the king of the gods. Cybele goddess of fruitfulness and verdant growth was an import from Phrygia to Greece. She was also known as the goddess of the mountains and of wild animals and was worshipped in the countryside with dances and was depicted with her favorite animal the lion. She roamed the mountains dancing and singing with Cybele, Dionysos and the goat footed Pan. Pan was the son of Hermes and a nymph who abandoned him after his birth because of his uglyness. The god that invented the panpipes had a great reproductin urge and managed to lay with Selene herself, covered with a fleece. The diety associated with fecundity par excellence was Priapos, the god with the enormous phallus. Old ugly and often exhibiting zoomorphic characteristics such as rams horns, he lived in the countryside and protected the plants and animals.

Sea Deities

Also known as the sea daemons, the sea deities were illusive spirts with magic and priphetic capabiities. They could also transform themselves. Nereus was the son of Gaia and Pontos and he married Doris who was the daughter of Okeanos and Tethys. They had fifty daughters who were known as the Nereids- nymphs of the waters. Nereus was called the old man of the sea either because he was the first child of Pontos, or because he was wise and famous for his love of truth and justice.Proroteus came from the east and founded his own kingdom in Thrace, married and had two sons Telegonos and Polygonos. Herakles came to Thrace and killed the two sons. Proteus threw himself into the sea from grief.He then became a water-sprie and out of respect the sailors called him the old man of the sea. Ttiton son of Poseidon was a sea spirit. Half -man and half-fish he lived constantly in the sea, taking care of his fathers chariot and playing with the Nereids. He made beautiful sounds by blowing into seashells. Glaukos was a mortal until he discovered a plant that wrought wonders and thus he became a god.


Eros

The son of Aphrodite and Ares, he instigated the amorous coexistence of couples. A young. naked god with golden wings, he was said to shoot arrows at both the gods and men arousing their hearts and awakening their erotic appetites.

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