The Greek Gods, Explained

I think the most important one you missed was Prometheus. During the Golden Age, he created Humanity. Although a Titan, he sided with Zeus in the Titanomachy because he was the god of foresight, and knew that Zeus would win since the prophecy said so. For this, he wasn't imprisoned in Tartarus, but he also didn't like that Zeus treated Humanity as slaves who had to till the earth for bread, as opposed to the Golden Age under Chronos where Humans had a much easier life and ate from abundant groves of fruit. So Prometheus stole fire from Olympus and gave it to Humanity so they could have technology to make their lives easier. Zeus was angry at Prometheus's deceit and decided to punish him and Humanity. So Zeus had the Olympians create the first woman, Pandora, and they made her a jar full of all kinds of plagues and evils, and gave her a deceitful nature. They then gave her to Prometheus's brother Epimetheus, the Titan god of afterthought who also sided with Zeus in the Titanomachy at Prometheus's behest. Prometheus warned Epimetheus not to take any gifts from Zeus, but being the physical embodiment of hindsight, he was so taken by Pandora's beauty that he married her anyway and then realized his mistake when she opened the jar and released the plagues on Humanity. And just for good measure, Prometheus was chained to a rock so an eagle could peck out his liver every day for eternity.

Excellent video! I especially appreciated your making it very clear that the Greeks had no "canonical" version of these stories and so the details will vary somewhat with every book you pick up or every video you watch. This is much less likely to drive you crazy if you already know to expect it.

Absolutely amazing video like always! Keep up the amazing work, I always love the topics you cover!

This is great work! this was really easy to understand and entertaining as well. Looking forward to your next video 👍

This was on point, thank you so much for making this

Such an absolutely lovely and respectful explanation of the gods. I found you when seeking out history on the English language, I thoroughly enjoyed this brief introduction and learned some new history I hadn’t prior. I’m so glad and thankful you put together this video and am subscribing, your very knowledgeable and your videos are so easy to digest compared to other YouTubers on similar topics ❤🏛️🔱🫶

Actually the season when everything dies in Greece is summer. As Mediterranean climate is known for extremely hot summers and very mild winters. It rarely snows in Athenes.

Great video! For a follow up, Id like to hear about Nemesis!

Awesome explanation.

I know she's not a god but I have to mention Xena Warrior Princess.

I love your videos as always! I love the illustrations and your narration. Anyway, people frequently miss the fact that Hades is the least crazy among the Olympians and is actually a decent and just god. Him "kidnapping" Kore/Persephone is rooted in Greek culture and should not be judged with a modern lens. That said, apart from that, he's such an introverted best boy who loves his wife faithfully and takes good care of his dog, Spot, aka Cerberus. He once allowed Heracles to take Spot on a walk in a condition that he not harm him.

Favs are Dionysus and Artemis. Great vid

Love it

It looks like you got all of the main ones except perhaps Heracles (who was a hero also) and possibly Pan or Asclepius. Good video.

Nice video!👏🏻 That’s correct! There’s wasn’t like one book to tell you our religion (then) mythology (today). Some basic stories were the same but in some cases you could find 2-3 different stories about one event or God. Some areas of Hellas🇬🇷 had different “opinions” let’s say about a God’s origin. Something bad though is the fact that when Romans adopted our Pantheon they read our religion and they added their versions creating their religion. Roman mythology is basically our myths with a twist. Many times I hear or read wrong Roman adaptations of our myths and people are getting really confused and don’t know what really happened. 99% one or two versions are the original Hellenic myth and the other one or two are the Roman adaptation! If I had to add something to the video, I would say to always remember the difference between Olympian Gods, the Titans and Primordial Deities. Erebus(Darkness) Uranos (Sky) Gaia (Earth) Eros (love) are primordial deities Kronos, Rhea, Helios (personification of the Sun) Hecate… are Titans Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Dionysus, Hestia are Gods or Olympian Gods. The difference between Gods and Olympian Gods is to where they were living. Hades is not an Olympian but he’s definitely a God. Hestia even though she was living in Olympus and she was one of the most beloved and respect Goddess of our mythology is lesser known and some times even forgotten because she wasn’t that involved in love affairs and battles. Hestia was the most honoured Goddess after Zeus!!! Every household had a place to honour Hestia! The hearth of the House was the place to honour Hestia. As protector of the Households, Hestia was often considered to be the protector of the State in general. As a general protector of all the Hellenic “state” Of course there weren’t states and countries as we know them today, but she was seen as the protector of our nation🇬🇷 Eros is the idea of falling in love! In our language we have two district terms for it: Αγάπη / agàpi is the love. To love and care about someone. It’s both an erotic term but you can feel agàpi/love for your family and friends and things and places… without sexual background. We also have the term έρωτας/èrotas which is not exactly love but this feeling of falling in love, the madness and the rush of the first glance, the sexual desire… Eros and love are two separate conditions in our language and myths! So, Eros is a primordial deity. It’s like a feeling an idea being personified in that deity. Later we see Eros as the God of Ares and Aphrodite but it’s not well accepted all around Hellas🇬🇷 We have another minor God names Ίμερος / Himeros in English. Ares was born in Thrace🇬🇷 He was living here and in other myths we see that (maybe?) with Aphrodite had another son Θράξ / Thráx. Thracian people considered ourselves as the sons of Ares and the first Thracian was the son of Ares! Himeros was also a love/passion/desire God and he was also living in Thrace when we have an ancient city and a lake with his name from the times of Homer!!!! Also, we didn’t had many Sun and Moon God and Goddesses! Let me explain: Hellenes🇬🇷 worshipped basically the Olympian Gods and some specific other deities. The worship of the Titans was FORBIDDEN since they fought against the Gods. When Zeus and the rest of the Olympians defeated them, they were imprisoned in Tartarus. Helios is the personification of the Sun! Apollo is not the Sun, he is the God of Light! Hellenes didn’t worshipped the Sun like the Romans! Hellenes🇬🇷 loved and worshipped Apollo as the God of Light! As twins Apollo was seen as the light of the Day Sun ☀️ and Artemis as the light of the night Moon 🌙 The goddess Σελήνη / selíni > Selene was the personification of the Moon. Hecate was not a Goddess, she was a generation older than the Olympians. Εκάτη / ekáti > Hecate was a Titan! During the Titanomachy she was with the side of the Olympians and helped them defeat the Titans. Hecate was a fearsome and extremely powerful deity! Zeus was afraid of her powers and because they won because of her help (she also told them to release the Cyclopses and the Hecatoncheires from their prison to help them). Zeus gave honours to Hecate and let her roam the Earth without contain her because as we said, he didn’t knew how powerful she was and he was a bit afraid of her… As a Titanid (female Titan) and powerful as hell, Hecate had dominion over Sky, Earth and the Underworld. She was portrayed as a three-women-Deity. She had three hypotheses: the maiden, the woman and the old lady. Her symbol was the moon because she was a deity of the magic witchcraft, sorcery, herbs, medical remedies and healing magic. She was also a deity of the Crossroads and the allies and the darkness. She was definitely not a malevolent deity! People respected her beyond measure! They believe that with Hecate’s blessing they could achieve everything so they asked her help after important battles. Hecate was also an Underworld Deity. She had dominion and power over both sides. She was like a guide to the Underworld. Hecate was spending her time to Earth not Olympus. Her realm was the forests of Thrace! Thracian people adored and worshipped Gaia, Hecate, Ares, Dionysus, Hestia and Apollo more than any other God! We can see marks of her worship all around Thrace, in caves curved with symbols of her power and in scattered stones that those days might be her temples inside the Thracian forests! Ah, also in Thracian tombs we have found golden tags with prayers to Hecate. They have text with guidance form Hecate for the soul of the dead to find his way to the other side!!!

Please more from the Greek pantheon, as well as the epithelial differences like how Roman and Etruscan pantheons were so similar and yet so different. As well as more distant pantheons eventually, that of Indian and Nordic varieties. And lastly maybe to tie together the Euroasian links to someday show the base myths that all these cultures shared with the sky father and earth mother that the PIE cultures almost unanimously shared.

She is represented in the opening bit (where you give a summing up of the origins of names of the days of the week and so on), as a brandname: Nike! The goddess of victory. Furthermore I would like to broaden this story to Phobos and Deimos, the somewhat demented, unruly and frightening sons of Ares. Also the atributes of Athens, the owl and the spider are intrresting. For a next time maybe?

What is interesting also is the way these gods reflect the development from stone age to bronze age, which can be taken from their dominions, the "terrains" they ruled over.

“while not worshiped anymore” me a pagan: i do not have such weakness

10:01 why is apollo holding his golden lyre whilst heroes is showing him the first ever lyre he just invented 🤣