Ancient Greek History Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 07-05-2023

Many cultures create a mythology to help explain the workings of the world. Western civilization is most familiar with the gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology, who have comparable powers, but different names. And mythology is created often in response to human history, so a historical timeline can be a good reference to have.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 04-08-2022

Ancient Greece is famous for its history, literature, architecture, philosophy… the list goes on! Here you will find a basic introduction to this fascinating civilization, including a map of the empire and a timeline detailing important periods and events that shaped this part of history.

Article / Updated 08-08-2019

The predominant mythologies handed down through the ages are those of the Greeks and Romans. The Greek mythology names and the Roman mythology names of each culture include gods and goddesses who interacted with humans, with good, bad, and indifferent motives. Zeus (a Greek god) is depicted here throwing lightning. However, the Romans would assume this was a depiction of Jupiter, the king of gods. The Greek mythology names of the gods and goddesses varied from the Roman names, although each culture ascribed to deities with comparable powers and spheres of influence. The following table shows those areas and the names of the important deities in each mythology: Greek and Roman Mythology Names Greek Name Roman Name Description Zeus Jupiter King of Gods Hera Juno Goddess of Marriage Poseidon Neptune God of the Sea Cronos Saturn Youngest son of Uranus, Father of Zeus Aphrodite Venus Goddess of Love Hades Pluto God of the Underworld Hephaistos Vulcan God of the Forge Demeter Ceres Goddess of the Harvest Apollo Apollo God of Music and Medicine Athena Minerva Goddess of Wisdom Artemis Diana Goddess of the Hunt Ares Mars God of War Hermes Mercury Messenger of the Gods Dionysus Bacchus God of Wine Persephone Proserpine Goddess of Underworld Eros Cupid God of Love Gaia Gaea Goddess of Earth Besides the gods and goddesses named here there were many other gods and immortals in Greek mythology. The Greek mythology names of other gods include the goat-god Pan; Rhea, Cronos's sister and the mother of his children; Heracles, the son of a mortal and Zeus who had to earn his immortality; Ganymede, a beautiful prince that Zeus brought to Olympus to be his cup-bearer; and the four winds: Zephyrus, Eurus, Notus, and Boreas. Like the Christian god, Jehovah, Zeus/Jupiter was considered the all-mighty father, but instead of being the father of man, he was the father of the lesser gods. Zeus actually was a third-generation god. So, who were the first- and second-generation gods? Glad you asked. Gaia was the first goddess, also known as Mother Earth, and gave birth (with her son Uranus being the father) to the second-generation Titans. The Titans were led by Cronos or Saturn, and he seized power from Uranus. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are the sons of Cronos, and Zeus was considered primarily responsible for overthrowing his father. The Olympians as teachers Hera/Juno was his mate, although not the mother of all of his children. Zeus, Hera, and the other third-generation gods of Ancient Greece were Olympians; that is, they lived at the top of Mount Olympus, the highest peak in Ancient Greece, or a heaven in the skies. Sometimes, these gods intermingled with mortals, even falling in love and bearing children with mortal men and women. Although modern man views these Greek gods and goddesses as creatures of mythology, remember that to the ancient Greeks, they were no less real than current beliefs in God or Buddha. With the passage of time, modern society has come to view the stories of the gods as metaphors for teaching lessons about behaviors and actions, although the gods and goddesses in Greek and Roman mythology exhibited many of the weaknesses and pettiness that modern man would never associate with deities. One lesson that the Greek myths loved to teach was the lesson of hubris, or pride. Whenever a mortal (or god) exhibited hubris, thinking he or she was better than the gods, they inevitably would also experience a resulting tragedy. If one of the lesser gods started thinking he was more powerful than Zeus, then he, too, would be knocked down a peg or two. This type of metaphorical lesson continues in the stories of the Bible, Shakespearian tragedies, and even into modern literature and art. Of course, the stories of these ancient gods were not just provided as a way to guide the behavior of men. Many of the myths explain various aspects of the world. Of course, there's a story about how the world was created, but there are also stories to explain things such as the changing of the seasons. Persephone or Proserpine (Zeus and Demeter's daughter in Greek mythology and Jupiter and Ceres's daughter in Roman mythology) was stolen by Hades or Pluto to be his queen in the underworld. Her mother, the earth goddess, was saddened by her loss and refused to fulfill her duties. A compromise was reached whereby Persephone would spend 4–6 months (depending on the version of the myth) with her mother, and the rest of the year in the underworld. Thus, when she is with Hades, the earth goddess refuses to fulfill her duties, resulting in fall and winter, but Persephone returns, resulting in spring and summer. Parallels to Christianity and other modern religions Every religion has a creation "myth," although those who currently practice a religion would argue that it isn't myth. Christianity has the story of God created the Heavens and the Earth, and the story of the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden. The Greeks actually had several creation myths including one involving an egg from which all planets, the Earth, and all creatures hatched. It is interesting to note some other parallels. For example, Eve, the first woman in Christianity, was tempted into sin by the serpent and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As a punishment, Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden of Eden where they had everything they desired. In Greek mythology, the first woman is Pandora. Ring a bell? Pandora is tempted to open a forbidden box (jar in some versions) and brings chaos by releasing all the ills of the world. The first humans were destroyed in a great flood sent by Zeus. The only survivors were one man, Deucalion, and his wife. Of course, this parallels the story of Noah and his ark. Mount Olympus itself is often considered to be the Ancient Greek's version of Heaven, and Hades, named for the god who ruled the underworld, is the equivalent of the Christian's Hell. Interested in other culture's mythologies?

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

The most complete version of the Greek creation myths that survives is a poem called the Theogony ("Birth of the Gods") by a poet named Hesiod, who lived in the late eighth or early seventh century B.C. (that is, the low-numbered 700s or high-numbered 600s BC). Not much is known about Hesiod except that his dad lost all of his money when his ship sank, and his brother tried to rob him of his inheritance. These two facts may account for the tone of what you're about to read. Remember that this is just one version of the Greek creation myth — a particularly good and complete one, but by no means the only one. And fans of the Hercules and Xena TV series will certainly recognize many of the names. In the beginning, there was Chaos. Darkness covered the earth. Hesiod's creation story doesn't involve something being created from nothing; there was stuff (Chaos), but it was shapeless, mixed-up, and dark. The first generation of gods After Chaos, five divinities came into being (it isn't clear how) and began giving shape to things, separating the muddle into specific places and times, and to set the stage for more creation. The divinities were: Gaia (the mother Earth), Tartarus (the underworld), Erebus (the darkness that covers the underworld), Night (darkness that covers Earth), and Eros (Love). Night and Erebus got together and had some children: Hemera (Day), Phôs (Light), and (a cheery set of quintuplets) Doom, Death, Misery, Deceit, and Discord. Discord later gave birth to the following other forces: Murder, Slaughter, Battle, and Crime. The earth is born Earth held the Sky up above itself. Or rather "herself," because Earth, called "Gaia," was female, and the Sky, called "Uranus" (Earth's child), was male. Gaia and Uranus had a bunch of kids. First, they had a bunch of monsters; then, perhaps having worked out the kinks in the system, they produced some gods known as Titans. Our children are real monsters! Gaia and Uranus's first three kids were monsters with 100 hands (Hekatoncheires) and 50 heads each, which must have been a bit surprising to their parents. The next three were the Cyclopes, giants with one eye in the middle of their foreheads. They were as big as mountains and immensely strong. The three Cyclopes were Brontes ("Thunderer") Steropes ("Lightning Flash") Arges ("Shining Guy") Eventually, these three would get jobs manufacturing the thunderbolts that Zeus (their nephew who hadn't been born yet) used to blow folks up. The word Cyclops means round-eyed or wheel-eyed. The first part of the word is in the modern words "cycle," "bicycle," and "encyclopedia"; the second part gives us words such as "optical," "optician," and "myopia" (nearsightedness). If you have only one of these round-eyed monsters, you have a "Cyclops," which rhymes with "high-tops"; if you have a bunch of them, you have "Cyclopes," which rhymes with "high-top, please." Meet the Titans, the second generation of gods Uranus and Gaia had many more children, but their most famous batch of kids was the Titans. They were big and strong, too. Uranus hated all these kids, and as each one was born, he shoved it back up into Gaia. Gaia didn't like that. Nevertheless, the Titans, their six sons and six daughters, were Oceanus: God of the Sea. Thetis: Sister and wife of Oceanus. Hyperion: God of the Sun. Theia: Sister and wife of Hyperion. Themis: An earth goddess. Rhea: An earth goddess. Mnemosyne: Goddess of Memory. Iapetus: No notable responsibilities. Coeus: No notable responsibilities. Phoebe: No notable responsibilities. Crius: No notable responsibilities. Cronos : The brightest, strongest, and cleverest of all. These Titans were the generation before the better-known Olympian gods — Zeus and others. Gaia's sweet revenge and the prodigal son Gaia was understandably mad about Uranus shoving her kids back up into her body (they were still alive in there), so she asked her other children, the Cyclopes and the Titans, to help her out. One of her sons, the Titan Cronos, agreed to attack his dad for her. Gaia made a huge sickle out of flint and gave it to Cronos with some pretty explicit instructions. When Uranus came to have sex with Gaia, he found a nasty surprise waiting for him. Cronos (who was, remember, inside Gaia's womb) reached out with the sickle and attacked Uranus, or specifically, that part of Uranus that was nearest at hand. Cronos cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea. From the blood were born several more monsters: the Giants and the Furies. As Uranus's genitals fell into the water, the sea foamed up like certain headache remedies, and the foam produced the goddess Aphrodite. Her name means "gift of the sea foam." She floated around in the sea for a while, and then came to shore on the island of Cyprus, which is why she is often called Cyprian Aphrodite. The third generation of gods: The Olympians The third generation of Greek gods were known as the Olympian Gods, because they eventually made their home on Mount Olympus. After Cronos castrated his father Uranus, Cronos set himself up as king of Heaven. He married his sister, the Titan Rhea, and they had a bunch of kids. Like his father, Cronos didn't want all of his kids to live. He had heard a prophecy that one of his sons would dethrone him and he had no intention of allowing that to happen. So every time Rhea had a baby, he swallowed it whole. Rhea, like Gaia, wasn't at all happy to see all of her children eaten by their father. So she did what you would expect a young bride to do: She asked her parents, Gaia and Uranus, for help. Gaia and Uranus had some experience in these matters (and apparently had gotten over any lasting bitterness from their own marital difficulties), so they came up with a plan. When Rhea had her sixth child, Zeus, she smuggled him away to the island of Crete and gave her husband a baby-sized rock wrapped in a blanket instead. Cronos obviously didn't know much about babies, because he swallowed the stone and never gave it another thought. First among equals: Zeus After his mother smuggled him away, Zeus grew up safely on Crete. The Nymphs gave him milk from a magical goat named Amalthea, and the Curetes, minor gods who had the job of protecting him, banged their spears against their swords every time baby Zeus cried, and that way Cronos never heard him. Zeus had no particular reason to love his dad, so he got together with his grandmother Gaia and they made Cronos throw up the children he had eaten. The first thing Cronos tossed was the stone Rhea had given him instead of Zeus, so he knew he had been tricked. The other five babies had grown up in his belly, and they emerged as full-fledged deities. These deities were the Olympians: Hera: Goddess of marriage. Poseidon: God of the sea. Hades: God of the underworld. Hestia: Goddess of the hearth. Demeter: Goddess of crops and the harvest. During his fight with his father, Zeus cut off Cronos's genitals — like father like son! — which dropped into the sea just as Uranus's privates had. Dirty Harry feels lucky: Zeus punishes the Titans and battles the Giants After castrating his father Cronos, Zeus bound the Titans in Tartarus, the underworld. He sentenced Atlas, Prometheus's brother, to hold up the sky on his shoulders. Zeus gets his thunderbolts Gaia had one more baby, the monster Typhon. Typhon had 100 heads and was covered with flame. But Zeus by now had taken control of thunder and lightning, and shot down Typhon with his thunderbolt. Typhon's hopes of terrorizing the universe were ended, but he still needed a job, so he moved to Sicily, where he supplied the volcanic magma for Mount Etna. Cool thrones for everybody! After this, the Giants (the ones born when Cronos cut off Uranus's testicles) rebelled against Zeus's control. Zeus and his siblings, aided by the hero Heracles (a.k.a. Hercules, a.k.a. Kevin Sorbo), beat the Giants and sent them down to the underworld. Now, Zeus and his brothers and sisters were the ultimate rulers of heaven and earth. Zeus really showed his stuff in the way he escaped the fate of his father, Cronos, and his grandfather, Uranus. After the dust had settled from the Battle with the Titans, Zeus married Metis (a goddess who was the personification of "Cunning Intelligence"). Just like his father before him, Zeus received a prophecy that his wife would bear a child who would become King of the Gods. Instead of waiting for the child to be born, Zeus was proactive, and swallowed his wife. The child was born anyway, but it came out of Zeus's head — thus avoiding the important detail of the prophecy that Metis would bear the child. The baby was Athena, the wise goddess, who, although she was Daddy's girl, had a lot of her mom's cunning intelligence in her.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Keep this helpful timeline in hand to remind yourself of the significant periods of time and essential events that took place throughout this important part of world history. 2600 BC: Beginning of the Minoan Period 1450 BC: Development of Linear B writing 1400 BC: Foundation of Mycenaean Palaces Bronze Age 1370 BC: Palace complex at Knossos destroyed. Minoan civilisation comes to an end. c.1250 BC: The Trojan War 1200 BC: Destruction of Mycenaean Palaces. Doric invasions 1000 BC: End of Mycenaean civilisation Iron Age 776 BC: First Olympic Games c.750 BC: The Iliad and the Odyssey composed. Greek alphabet established. Greek colonies established in Sicily and Southern Italy 630 BC: Colony of Cyrene established 594 BC: Solon renews the laws of Athens. 508 BC: Kleisthenes reforms the Athenian constitution and Athens becomes a democracy! 490 BC: Battle of Marathon: Greece versus Persia I (Greece wins!) 483 BC: Athenians discover silver in the mines at Laureion. 480 BC: Battle of Thermopylae: Greece versus Persia II. Battle of Salamis 479 BC: Battle of Plataea (Greece wins . . . eventually!) 477 BC: Athens establishes the Delian League. 461–445 BC: First Peloponnesian War: Athens versus Sparta (draw) 431–404 BC: Second Peloponnesian War: Athens versus Sparta (Sparta wins.) 430 BC: Plague in Athens 429 BC: Death of Pericles 415 BC: Athenian expedition to Sicily defeated 399 BC: Socrates tried and executed 359 BC: Philip II becomes king of Macedonia. 356 BC: Alexander the Great born 331 BC: Alexander the Great defeats the Persians at Gaugamela and becomes the new King of Persia! 323 BC: Death of Alexander the Great 322 BC: Death of Aristotle 300 BC: Ptolemy the Great founds the library at Alexandria. 214 BC: Philip V of Macedon defeated by the Romans 172 BC: Macedonia becomes a Roman province. 146 BC: Romans invade Greece and take control. Ancient Greece comes to an end.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Want to impress people with your knowledge of Ancient Greece? Print out and pin up this handy map as a quick and useful point of reference.