While being immortal, the gods were certainly not all-good or even all-powerful. All significant deities were visualized as "human" in form, although often able to transform themselves into animals or natural phenomena. Other deities ruled over abstract concepts for instance Aphrodite controlled love. For instance, Zeus was the sky-god, sending thunder and lightning, Poseidon ruled over the sea and earthquakes, Hades projected his remarkable power throughout the realms of death and the Underworld, and Helios controlled the sun. Some deities had dominion over certain aspects of nature.
There was a hierarchy of deities, with Zeus, the king of the gods, having a level of control over all the others, although he was not almighty. Early Italian religions such as the Etruscan religion were influenced by Greek religion and subsequently influenced much of the ancient Roman religion.įurther information: List of Greek mythological figuresĪncient Greek theology was polytheistic, based on the assumption that there were many gods and goddesses, as well as a range of lesser supernatural beings of various types. The religious practices of the Greeks extended beyond mainland Greece, to the islands and coasts of Ionia in Asia Minor, to Magna Graecia ( Sicily and southern Italy), and to scattered Greek colonies in the Western Mediterranean, such as Massalia (Marseille). The worship of these deities, and several others, was found across the Greek world, though they often have different epithets that distinguished aspects of the deity, and often reflect the absorption of other local deities into the pan-Hellenic scheme. 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 deity. Instead, for example, Herodotus speaks of the Hellenes as having "common shrines of the gods and sacrifices, and the same kinds of customs." Likewise, no Greek writer known to us classifies either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been questioned as anachronistic. Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices.
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