The Olympian Gods

At a glance

The theme on the map

18 events in this theme

1. UndatedChaos, Gaia and UranusLegend

   A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Theogony. First came Chaos (the Gap), then Gaia the Earth, Tartarus and Eros. Uranus, the Sky born of Gaia, imprisoned his children inside the earth until his youngest son Cronus overthrew him.

2. UndatedCronus and the Birth of ZeusLegend

   A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Theogony. Fearing a prophecy that a son would overthrow him, Cronus, king of the Titans, swallowed each child his wife Rhea bore. Rhea gave him a stone in swaddling clothes in place of her youngest, Zeus, and hid Zeus on Crete.

3. UndatedThe Titanomachy — War of the TitansLegend

   A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Theogony. Zeus and his siblings on Mount Olympus fought Cronus and the Titans on Mount Othrys for ten years. With the thunderbolt forged by the Cyclopes and the help of the Hundred-Handers, Zeus won and shut the Titans in Tartarus.

4. UndatedZeus, Poseidon and Hades Divide the WorldLegend

   A Greek myth told in Book 15 of Homer’s Iliad. After defeating the Titans, the three sons of Cronus cast lots: Zeus won the sky, Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld, while the earth and Olympus were shared by all.

5. 700 BCHesiod Composes the Theogony

   Around 700 BC the Boeotian poet Hesiod composed the Theogony, on the beginning of the world, the generations of the gods and how Zeus became king. With his Works and Days, it is the oldest systematic account of Greek myth.

6. UndatedThe Birth of AthenaLegend

   A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Theogony and the Homeric Hymns. Fearing that Metis, goddess of wisdom, would bear a son mightier than himself, Zeus swallowed her; later Athena sprang fully armed from Zeus’ head.

7. UndatedPrometheus Steals FireLegend

   A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days and in the tragedy Prometheus Bound attributed to Aeschylus. The Titan Prometheus stole the fire Zeus had hidden, carried it to mankind in a fennel stalk, and was chained to a rock where an eagle ate his liver every day.

8. UndatedPandora’s BoxLegend

   A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony. Pandora, the first woman, made by the gods at Zeus’ command as punishment for the theft of fire, opened the lid of a great jar; every sickness and sorrow spread through the world, and only Hope remained inside.

9. UndatedThe Five Ages of ManLegend

   A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Works and Days. Mankind declined from the Golden Age under Cronus through the ages of silver, bronze and the heroes to the hard Iron Age in which Hesiod himself lived.

10. UndatedDeucalion’s FloodLegend

    A Greek myth told in Apollodorus’ Library and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. When Zeus sent a great flood to wipe out the wicked bronze race, only Deucalion, son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha survived in an ark, and they remade mankind by throwing stones.

11. 650 BCHades and PersephoneLegend

    A Greek myth told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. When Hades, god of the underworld, carried off Demeter’s daughter Persephone, Demeter searched for her and, staying at Eleusis, kept the grain from growing. In the end Persephone was to spend part of each year in the underworld.

12. 650 BCThe Eleusinian Mysteries

    For more than a thousand years, secret rites in honour of Demeter and Persephone were held at the sanctuary of Eleusis north-west of Athens. Initiates swore never to reveal what they had seen, and the heart of the rite is still unknown.

13. 800 BCApollo and PythonLegend

    A Greek myth told in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Apollo shot the great serpent (Python) that guarded the spring at Delphi and founded his oracle on the spot. The name of the Delphic priestess, the Pythia, comes from this story.

14. 800 BCThe Oracle of Delphi

    From about the 8th century BC the Pythia, priestess of Apollo, gave oracles at Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Greek cities and foreign kings came to consult her before founding colonies or going to war, and the place was held to be the “navel” of the Greek world.

15. UndatedThe Birth and Coming of DionysusLegend

    A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Theogony, the Homeric Hymns and Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae. Dionysus, son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, was born from Zeus’ thigh after his mother was burned to death, and wandered the world teaching the making of wine until he was accepted as a god.

16. 447 BCThe Contest of Athena and Poseidon for AthensLegend

    A Greek myth told by Herodotus, Apollodorus’ Library and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Athena and Poseidon competed to be patron of Athens: Poseidon brought forth a salt spring on the Acropolis and Athena an olive tree, and Athena won.

17. 447 BC – 432 BCBuilding of the Parthenon

    In 447 BC Athens under Pericles began a temple to Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin) on the Acropolis; it was dedicated in 438 BC and its sculpture finished in 432 BC. The sculptor Phidias directed the work and its sculpture.

18. 470 BC – 435 BCThe Temple of Zeus at Olympia and Phidias’ Statue of Zeus

    Around 470–456 BC the architect Libon of Elis built the Temple of Zeus in the sanctuary of Olympia, and around 435 BC Phidias made for it a seated statue of Zeus in gold and ivory, some 12 m tall, counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

Key people

• Phidias

  Sculptor of ancient Athens (c. 480 – c. 430 BC). A friend of Pericles, he oversaw the building and sculpture of the Parthenon and made the gold-and-ivory Athena Parthenos and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia

• Hesiod

  Ancient Greek poet of the Theogony and the Works and Days, who lived at Ascra in Boeotia around 700 BC; with Homer, the oldest source of Greek myth

• Pericles429 BC

  Statesman of Athens at its height who led the city for some thirty years, completed its direct democracy and built the Parthenon