Human Like Behaviours of Gods in Ancient

Greece

Mehmet Kelleci

December 23, 2012

In ancient Greece gods are depicted like immortal humans. Discussions,

satisfactions, fights, loves and etc. among the gods are significantly close to

these facts among mankind. Only the understanding of ethics are different

from mankinds. For instance, incest relations are strongly forbidden among the

humans but it is free among the gods. A clarifying example is the marriage

of Zeus and Hera. Zeus and Hera are brothers and sisters. Except from the

incest relations there not much difference between humans and gods. Fights,

discussions, hierarchy, lies, cheatings are seen among the gods. To get a deeper

understanding of relations among the gods, and among the gods and humans

two figures will be examined in this essay.

In the first figure Thetis, mother of Achilles, and Hephaestus are seen. Thetis

is the goddess of water and Hephaestus is the god of handcraft and technology.

It is believed that in the ancient Greece, all the houses of gods are made by

Hephaestus. His work of hand is simply accepted as excellent. In the figure 1, it

is seen that Thetis receives armor for his son Achilles. Like humans, gods have

characters too. Thetis is female immortal married with a mortal who is Peleus.

She is a devoted mother. Thetis knows the destiny of his son Achilles from the

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Figure 1: Thetis Receives Armor From Hephaestos for Achilles.

day he was born. She tries to make him invulnerable by dipping him to the

water of Styx. It is believed because of her holding Achilles by the heel, the heel

is not dipped to the water, as a result Achilles couldnt become invulnerable. In

the purpose of changing the destiny of his son, Thetis tries to hide the sexuality

of his son by clothing him as a girl. Eventually, one day, Odysseus realizes that

there is a boy in a group of girls clothed like a girl. To expose this fact, Odysseus

dresses as a merchant and exhibits valuable objects.[1]

All the girls interest in ordinary valuable object except one. Achilles picks

up the golden sword and then his sexuality is achieved by the people. After this

event, Thetis accepts her sons destiny and goes to Hephaestus to make her son

an armor. This famous armor shows itself in the Homers Iliad. Patroclus wants

permission to fight against the Trojans to repel them from the ships. Because

they decide to return to their motherland but Trojans start to burn their ships.

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Achilles gives permission to the Patroclus and gives him his armor made by

Hephaestus. Patroclus walks against the Trojans, repels them from the ships

and chases them to the gates of the Troja. But he is said to stop at the gates

and not to attack to the city. He does not listens the orders given by Achilles

and loses his life. After this fact Achilles joins the battle.

At the beginning of the Iliad, Achilles gets mad at Agamemnon and refuses

to fight against Trojans because his honor is ignored by Agamemnon in front of

all the Achaeans. That night Achilles cries desperately, and his goddess mother

shows up. Achilles demands her to to to Zeus and asks for the victorious for the

Trojans because he does not want Achaeans to get a victory without him while

he is in sadness for his honor. He wants to understand Agamemnon his mistake

against him. After this, Thetis goes to Zeus and begs for her sons wishes. Zeus

accepts her pleas and in the book, it is seen that, things get worser for Achaeans

without Achilles. With the events mentioned above are considered, when the

character of Thetis is examined, it is seen that she is a devoted mother more

than a goddess. She is an immortal mother of a mortal son. This is a saddening

fact for Thetis, because she is aware of the mortality of her son, from the day he

was born. She tries to hide the sexuality to prevent him to become a warrior,

she tries to dip him to river Styx to make him invulnerable, she asks Hephaestus

to make his son an armor and to make herself assure that her son is in safe,

she even goes to the father of all the gods Zeus to make her sons wishes real.

She does everything that she can to make her son live longer and better but

destiny does not release her sons collars. Considering Thetis, her approaching

to her child, and her relations with other gods are not different from the human

behaviors. For instance, she goes to Zeus to beg, and before Zeus accepts the

pleas, he hesitates. Because his wife wants Troyes to be destroyed and if Zeus

accepts the pleas of Thetis, the wishes of Hera will not come true. He does

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not want go his relationship with Hera bad. Zeus is depicted as most powerful

immortal creature on Olympus, even so, he hesitates to go against Hera. When

the figure is examined it is seen that both Thetis and Hephaestus depicted

anthropomorphic. Hephaestus uses a hammer to do his work, sits down on

a chair, both Thetis and Hephaestus have clothing look like humans used in

ancient Greece.

It would not be fair to say that gods live a life totally similar to humans

life. History of gods is written by humans. Because of their depiction of being

immortal and having unlimited power and wisdom, their daily lives, angers,

loves, greeds are strengthened by the poets. When a god gets angry, there is no

comparison between this anger and a manly anger. Likewise, other emotions.

But the desired point to emphasize is the supernatural facts related to love

issues. In the figure 2, the birth of Athena from the Zeus head is depicted. The

myth behind this fact is the following. Zeus makes love with goddess Metis.

Metis gets pregnant by this relation. Zeus gets a prophecy that if Metis gives

birth, this child will overthrone Zeus. In order to avoid the prophecy Zeus

eats Metis. As a result, the child borns from the Zeus head. In the figure 2,

Hephaestus cleaves the Zeus head and Athena borns with her armor suited on.

This is a supernatural event which can not happen in humans life. Poets do

that in the history to sound the gods above the humans and show them powerful

and extraordinary. Unacceptable events are possible in the world of Olympus

and fatal wounds for a human are nothing to a god.

From the beginning of the history there is always a depiction of a god figure

made by humans. Beliefs vary as monotheism or polytheism. But the logic

of all the beliefs, especially in polytheism, are very similar. People needs a

divinity to believe that they are protected by, they look for these divinities and

eventually and actually they created gods. People wanted godly creations to

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Figure 2: Athena Borns From Zeus Head with Her Armor On.

feel themselves secure and they build up temples for gods and figures of gods.

In polytheism, there are big similarities about depiction of gods. They assumed

that gods are living like them and look like them. Like Xenophanes sayings

Greeks depicted the gods like men, Ethiopians depicted gods as black and snub

nosed, Thracians red-haired and with blue eyes. So it is natural their giving

the characteristics of gods from the mankind and writing stories parallel to

the mankind.Thetis, a goddess and a devoted mother, father of all the gods

mighty Zeus and a husband, Hephaestus, god of technology and handcraft and

an immortal worker with a handicap in the leg are pointed out. It is obvious

that in the ancient Greece, gods are believed to have the same behaviors and

emotions only stronger than the humans.

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References

1. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=791

2. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/P13.4.html

3. http://arthuride.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/resurrection-immortality-trinity/