Read History with Jack 24 - Greek Deities with Human Traits

   Greek mythology is the origin of Greek culture; it embodies many of the great values of Greek culture. In Greek mythology, there are twelve main gods, or commonly called the twelve Olympians. Most of the gods and goddesses have complicated personalities and traits, just like us, which attract us to delve more into their fantastic stories.

Zeus is the mightiest god and king of all other living beings on Earth. He possesses many notable traits. Firstly, he is very courageous and full of valor. Facing the tyranny of his father Cronus, he waged a 10-year long war against the Titans. Zeus and the gods eventually defeated the Titans, and he then became king. He also loved most of his children, and supported most of them. However, Zeus being the ultimate leader had his own problems. Firstly, he is very cruel when someone stands against his side. For example, the humane Titan Prometheus felt sympathetic to sufferings of humans. Prometheus tried to steal fire from heaven and gave it to humans. This enraged Zeus because he didn’t allow Prometheus to do this. Therefore, Prometheus got pinned on a sheer cliff in the Caucasian mountains and had to endure unspeakable pain. Secondly, Zeus treats his subject people unequally and does not tolerate them very much. He has prejudices on the human race, thinking that humans are of a lesser kind than gods and are primitive. For instance, Zeus ordered the creation of Pandora, the beautiful and treacherous woman who opened the box full of evil things, which were meant to torment humans. Zeus caused the flood that wiped out nearly all humans due to his wrong reckoning that humans were indecent. Thirdly, Zeus is not loyal to his many spouses. He married for so many times that I even lose count of how many wives he has.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom and war. She has blue eyes that burn like flames of wisdom. She has striking beauty from the outside and from within. She loves peace and fights for peace. Athena also is the protector of Athens. But, she is not perfect. Athena, being so wise, is sometimes jealous. That trait is evident when the three goddesses were competing for the golden apple before the Trojan War. After Aphrodite won, Athena was a little bit jealous and she said to the Troy prince that he would regret choosing Aphrodite.

    Apollo is the god of light, healing, music, and poetry. Apollo is the guardian of my horoscope, and among all the gods andgoddesses, I like him the best. He is enthusiastic, always happy, and loves playing music. He cares for his family a lot, and he is reliable and easy-going. However, he can sometimes be too competitive, and that sometimes leads him to be unable to control jealousy and other bad emotions inside him. For instance, once a god of the forests Marsyas challenged him to have acompetition on whether who could play better music. After the first round, it was hard to discern who was better, but Apollo became jealous and used a dirty trickto win the second round. Then, he flayed the forest god alive. Jealousy, the horrible character in a person can even get hold of Apollo, who is nearly perfect.

    Ares is the war god. He is robust, good-looking, and is ferocious in battle. However, he is very self-centered and loves bloodshed. He doesn't care which side won a battle as long as there are a lot of soldiers getting slain. Moreover, Ares doesn't pay much attention to family life and most of the gods and goddesses dislike him very much.

   Last but not least, there is the famous battle hero and demigod Achilles. He is a strong and brave general and is immortal unless being mortally wounded at his ankle. However, that is his weak spot, and from that, we can also see that even the strongest person has his own weakness. 

There are many philosophical ideas in many Greek myths. For example, in the famous story of Oedipus, he couldn't get rid of the destiny that was set upon him. In fact, everyone cannot really change their destiny thoroughly. In the story of Odyssey that was about how the Greek hero Odysseus returned to his home, he was held captive for seven years in the island that was occupied by the goddess Calypso. She tried to tempt Odysseus that he could be immortal if only he remained on this island for the rest of his life. When in a circumstance you need to choose, if you choose one thing then you will always lose the other. Also, the temptation can get us in the wrong direction when pursuing a goal, so we have to be careful when facing temptation.

   To conclude, Greek mythology can really tell us a lot of things. It embodies many great Greek values and has philosophical meanings in all stories. All of the characters are just like normal people; they have their positive traits and also negative ones. They all have a connection to reality in an interesting way. The Greeks were actually not only praising and worshipping their gods and goddesses, they were also praising for themselves.