AESCULAPIS(Asclepius, Greek Asklepios): legendary Greek physician, later deified as god of the healing arts and son of Apollo
and Coronis. He was able not only to heal the sick, but to bring back the dead to life, and therefore Zeus destroyed him with a thunderbolt lest men learn to evade death. Those who visited his temple in Epidaurus, in Greece, would sleep there in order to receive, in their dramas, the means of recovering their health. Serpents and cocks were sacred to him.ANANKE: personified Greek goddess of unalterable necessity, or fate. Her functions are related to those of the fates
, or carried out by them.APHRODITE(Lat. Venus): Greek goddess of love, beauty and sexual rapture. She is directly related to the ancient fertility and mother goddesses of the East, e.g. Isis, Hathor, Ishtar(Asherah, Astate), Anath, etc..., and many authorities believe that her worship came into Greece through Cyprus, one of the focal points of culture between the ancient Near East and Greece. According to the most popular account, she rose from the sea off Cyprus and established her temple there, and the Cyprian city of Paphos was in fact the site of one of the oldest centers of her worship. The same account is given of the island of Cythera, and hence she is often referred to as Kypris and Cytherea. Homer calls her the daughter of Zeus
and Dione. According to a more widely current belief, reported by Hesiod, Aphrodite's origin goes back to the myth of the castration of Ouranous, Kronos threw the severed genitals into the sea, which began to churn and foam about them. From this foam arose the goddess, and in the sea she was carried to Cyprus or Cythera. The Greek word aphros, "sea foam," was hence incorrectly explained by popular etymology as the origin of her name. Aphrodisia, the festivals of Aphrodite, were celebrated in various centers of Greece, particularly Corinth and Athens. Her priestesses were not "prostitutes," but women who represented the goddess, and union with them was considered one of the methods of worship. Aphrodite was officially the wife of HephaestusAPOLLO: Son of Zeus
and Leto. The latter bore both Apollo and his twin sister ArtemisARES: Greek god of war, to whom the Mars of the Romans corresponded. He was the son of Zeus
and Hera, and according to Homer he inherited his mother's fierce temper and hence his delight in battles and bloodshed. He is attended by his sister Eris("strife, discord"), his sons Deimos and Phobos("fear and fright") and Enyo, an old war-goddess. He personifies mainly blind, bloodthirsty rage, and is often outwitted by his rival war-deity, Athena, who combines wisdom and cunning with her war-like qualities. His most famous love affair is with Aphrodite, and the story of the latter's husband Hephaestus catching the guilty pair in flagrante is delightfully told by Homer.ARETEMIS: Greek goddess chiefly associated with the wild life of the earth and with human birth, and originally one of the great mother and fertility goddesses typical of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world. In classical times, emphasis was placed upon her aspect of virgin huntress of wild creatures and patroness of chastity. In her most ancient aspects, the great goddess is at the same time mother, virgin, mistress of wild creatures, of fertility and desire, and fighting goddess of war, but in many cases these attributes spilt off into their component personifications: in Greece, e.g., as Hera
and Demeter, Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena. At Ephesus in Asia Minor, Artemis retained some of her original features as Great Mother and was represented as many-breasted(the "Diana of the Ephesians"). Like Hecate and Selene, she is associated with the moon, as were many of the ancient mother and fertility goddesses. In Greece, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and twin sister of Apollo.ASOPUS: god of the river of that name, and father of Aegina, whom Zeus
carried off to the island named after her.ATHENA: Greek goddess of both war and wisdom, with whom the Romans identified their goddess Minerva. According to modern scholars she was the ancient protective goddess of the citadel of Athens from Mycenaean times and adopted by the invading Greeks when they conquered the city. According to the usual story of her birth, she was the daughter of ZEUS and Metis("wise counsel"), daughter of Oceanus. In fear that Metis would bear a son mightier then himself, Zeus swallowed her. The child of Metis then grew within the head of Zeus, which Hephaestus
had to cleave open with an ax. Athena then sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus in full amour, with helmet, wield and spear. She contended with Poseidon for the supremacy over Athens, and won by producing the olive tree, which the Athenians preferred to the salt spring produced by Poseidon. Besides her armor, her usual attribute is the owl, the ancient, probably totemis, patron bird of Athens. Upon her breastplate she wears the Aegis and the head of Medusa the Gorgon. She is represented as being a virgin and the Parthenon at Athens was her temple.BOREAS: Greek god of the North Wind, son of the Titan Astraeus and Eos
, and brother of Eurus, Zephyrus and Notus.CALYPSO: a sea nymph who inhabited the island of Ogygia, upon which Odysseus was wreaked. He spent eight years with her, and she tried to persuade him to stay with the promis of immortality and eternal youth. But Odysseus longed for his home, and Calypso was compelled to release him at the command of Zeus.
CHLORIS: Greek goddess, personification of Spring, and so identified with the
Roman Flora. AS divinity of blossoming flowers, she is the spouse of Zephyrus DEMETER: Greek earth-goddess, who brings forth the fruits of the earth, particularly
the various grains. In the systematized theology, she was the daughter of Kronos and geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5798/titans.html>Rhea
DIONYSUS: Greek god of the awesome potency and teeming fertility of nature, and of the divine ecstasy inspired by surrender to and union with these powerful and irrational forces of generation. Through participation in his orgiastic rites, the worshipper felt within himself such a surging vitality resulting from this communion with the great life forces that he felt himself born anew. The ecstasy was induced by wild dancing and by wine. hence wine and the vine became his most common symbols, as a typical product of the fertility of th earth, and capable of inducing a heightened state of awareness and a temporary release from the inhibitions necessitated by society. The bull, the goat and the serpent, powerful fertility symbols to all ancient peoples, are the animals associated with him. He is represented as carrying the thyrsus, a long staff crowned with a clump of vine leaves or a pine cone, obvious phallic symbols. Other symbols of generation such as certain fruits, the ceremonial basket , as well as the phallus itself, were carried in his cult processions. Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele the daughter Cadmus, founder and king of Thebes. Hera
persuaded the pregnant Semele to persuade Zeus to appear before her in all his divine glory. Unwillingly, Zeus appeared to her in his blots of lightning, and Semele was engulfed in the flames. Zeus, however, took her child and sewed him up in his thigh, from which the infant Dionysus was born. He traveled through Asia, Syria and Egypt as well as the Mediterranean world, introducing his rites, and incidentally taking as his bride Ariadne, daughter of Minos of Crete, who had been abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos. His most frequent epithet is Bacchus, and he is son termed in Roman literature. Many aspects of his worship partook of the nature of a secret cult, into which the worshipper was initiated, and it was through the ritual the initiate was reborn promised the blessings of eternal life and/pr potency. These secret rites were known as the Mysteries. Other deities had their Mysteries also: Demeter, Zeus, the Cabeiri and Orpheus. The Mysteries of Orpheus were later assimilated to those Dionysus. Associated with Dionysus in the myths are Silenus, Pan, the Styrs, the Nymphs, and his wildly ecstatic priestesses, the Maenads.EILEITHYIA: ancient Greek goddess who aided women in labour and presided over childbirth. She became identified with Heran and Artemis
, and among the Romans with Juno and Juno Lucina.ENYO: among the Graiae, a minor Greek goddess of war and waster of cites, and a member of the entourage of Ares
.EOS: Greek goddess of the dawn, daughter of Hyperion and sister of Helios
(the Sun) and Selene(the Moon). As night draws to a close, she rises from the couch of her spouse Tithonus and ascends in a chariot drawn by white horses from the river Oceanus, which encircles the world, to berald the coming light of the sun. The Romans called her Aurora.EREBUS: personification of the primevaldarkness in the ancient Greek cosmology, born together with Nox
(Night) from the primordial Chaos. In a later period, Erebus was the dark region beneath the earth through which the shades must pass to the realms of Hades below, and is often used metaphorically for Hades itself.ERIS: Greek goddess of discord and strife, considered to be the sister of Ares
and member of his entourage in battle. It was Eris who threw the "Apple of Discord" into the midst of the assembled guests at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, which act ultimately brought about the Trojan War.EROS: Greek god of love and sexual desire. According to an ancient source he was one of the first deities to emerge from primeval Chaos and hence the oldest of the gods, the power which strives to unite the elements of the Cosmos into harmony. According to the later and more common tradition he is one of the younger deities, represented as a beautiful nude youth or boy, son of Aphrodite
by Zeus, Ares, or Hermes. He flies about on wings, capriciously wounding both gods and men with his unerring and irresistible arrows of desire. In the Orphic theology of the DIonysian Mysteries, Eros is again a most ancient deity and referred to as Protogonos, "the firstborn," having emerged from the comis egg of Nox, goddess of night. Some times is accorded a brother Anteros, "return or opposite- love," who either struggles against love or punishes those who not return the love of others.EURUS: Greek god of the East Wind, son of the Titan Astreaus and Eos, and brother of Boreas, Zephyrus
and Notus.