The body of myths which belong to the Greeks, which include their gods as well as heroes and so on, is called the ancient Greek mythology. A lot of researchers actually study Greek mythology so that they can get an insight into the way the ancient Greek politics worked as well as what their religions were.
Ancient Greek Mythology
It comes from two Greek words. The first one is mythos which means a speech act which is ritualized. The second one is logos which basically stands for a convincing story or an ordered argument.
So if you look at it from an original sense then you shall find that the mythology is like an attempt which brings sense to stylized narratives which the Greeks would recite at festivals, would whisper at shrines or would talk about at the aristocratic banquets.
There are various primary sources which are available so that people can study ancient Greek mythology. The scope of this type of mythology is humungous. It stretches from the horrid crime scenes of the ancient gods to the scenes of the bloody way of Troy and Thebes, the childhood pranks of the Hermes and also the touching grief of Demeter for Persephone.
Greek Mythology Gods
This vast sea of Greek mythology consists of gods, heroes, goddesses, heroines, daemons, satyrs, centaurs and nymphs. Although breaking up ancient Greek myth into different parts can be quite difficult, we can break up it roughly into:
- An age of the gods
- Age when gods, as well as men and women, would mingle with each other freely
- Age of heroes in which divine activity was a lot limited
Greek Mythology Zeus
When we talk about the age of gods we mean the pantheon of goddesses n gods which the ancient Greeks believed in. like, Aphrodite, who was the goddess of love, Ares the god of war, Hades the god of the dead, Zeus, the king of all gods and so on.
The age of men and gods was the age when the two would live together and co-exist. The most popular narrative is that of a rape of the mortal human woman by Zeus and hence which resulted in an offspring who was a hero. Finally, we have the age of the heroes.
Now this age can again be broken down into different parts which constitute the events like the Trojan War and the Argonautic expedition.