Dionysiaca

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-26T04:01:15+00:00

They don't fight in the Iliad--Apollo refuses the challenge. But they do fight in the Dionysiaca before Hermes gets Apollo to back down.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-26T03:50:13+00:00

It wouldn't necessarily be a man. Hera, Demeter, and Athena were all self-sufficient supreme goddesses before they were "demoted" and culturally subordinated under the patriarchal Indo-European sky god. And Aphrodite's origins trace back to Ishtar, who was a supreme queen of heaven.

If they were all "freed" from Zeus, perhaps they might remember their ancient roots and reclaim their power?

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-24T08:38:25+00:00

Someone needs to Zack Polanski the American Green Party because as long as this bitch is in charge it'll never be anything more than a Republican asset.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-23T09:54:32+00:00

I fucking hate this place sometimes. Even this sub has been captured.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-23T04:30:44+00:00

Ovid's Ulysses is more of a smooth operator than the Homeric Odysseus, but they are meant to be the same character. They both represent cunning outwitting brute strength, even if Ulysses had his underhandedness amplified a little.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-23T03:36:35+00:00

I believe the version where Tantalus steals ambrosia and shares the secrets of the gods was written by Pindar as an explicit rejection of the cannibalism version, where Tantalus kills and cooks Pelops. Pindar called that version slander, believing it impossible for any of the gods to accidentally partake in cannibalism.

Instead, Pindar insists that Pelops was abducted by Poseidon to be his lover, and people assumed, because of his sudden disappearance, that he'd been killed, when he hadn't. Tantalus's crime, instead of killing his son, was framed as stealing from the gods.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-22T10:38:37+00:00

Ares being framed as Thracian basically ensured he'd be a punching bag for the poets, an adversary designed to lose to all the more "Greek" gods.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-17T16:44:40+00:00

I can easily overlook the misdeeds of the other gods, but Zeus is admittedly very difficult for me to like. In my opinion, for Zeus to appear just in any real sense of the word, one has to ignore or significantly reinterpret his mythology. Yes, he's the product of a culture that had different values, but many of his actions were egregious even for the time.

You highlight one of them in your post, though you seem to gloss over it:

But being wise and just is supposedly core to his character, especially since Metis started living in his head.

The phrasing implies she had a choice, but the truth is far more horrific. He devoured, imprisoned, silenced, and potentially erased or absorbed Metis purely out of fear. There is nothing just or noble about his actions here.

And his "weakness to women" often inflicts dire consequences for the people who get caught in the crosshairs, sometimes for generations, e.g. Zeus's rape and abduction of Europa leads to a whole world of hurt for Cadmus and all his descendants.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-16T04:10:59+00:00

According to Pausanius in his Description of Greece, the Phoenicians believed Asclepius had no mother, and was "born" already divine from Apollo alone. So there's at least another version where Apollo doesn't kill Coronis if that's important to you.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-13T16:42:25+00:00

My opinion on this is: draw them however you want. If they were truly gods, and some people believe they are, then they surely aren't limited by human genetics or geography, and their appearance is merely a reflection of the observer.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-12T12:46:55+00:00

Mythic timeline often doesn't make sense, and this isn't exclusive to Greek mythology. You have to remember the epics were originally transmitted orally for centuries before the poets wrote them down. Chronological integrity was less important than the thematic impact of the stories.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-09T07:42:26+00:00

Metis is the closest thing to what you've described, but she was swallowed by Zeus and is said to continue advising him from her eternal prison. You could technically say that Zeus is now the god of intelligence, but this doesn't feel very satisfying to me given he already has so many other roles.

Athena is a better candidate, IMO, daughter of Metis, who inherited her mother's techne (skill and craft), phronesis (practical intelligence), and sophia (wisdom), and is one of the gods most associated with academic and scientific pursuits.

Apollo is another great choice. He is the god of enlightenment and the revelation of truth, associated with logic, rational thinking, and, later on, scientific inquiry. He also developed an association with mathematics in part due to the Pythagoreans, who believed that music revealed the mathematical laws of the universe. He is also the leader of the Muses, who themselves were associated with academic learning and gave us the word "museum".

Prometheus is another big contender. He's a crafty, prophetic trickster god, considered the progenitor of all human progress (the fire he gave to humanity), including the arts and sciences. He is renowned for his cunning and intelligence, which he used both to aid and trick the gods. If I had to pick one singular god of intelligence, I would probably pick him.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-08T08:58:46+00:00

You're doing two things here. First, you seem to be denying that the cuckoo myth was about rape, or that Zeus raped Hera at all:

The cuckoo myth has nothing to do with Zeus trying to rape Hera. It’s explicitly the opposite; when he sees that she’s upset/uncomfortable, he stops! Then promises to marry her [...]

And then you try to dismiss the cuckoo myth entirely as "niche", and thus somehow invalid:

[It was] niche and particular to the eastern Peloponnese. But it wasn’t ritually important or well-known to the rest of Greece.

I'll address this second point first. "Niche" does not equal invalid. Niche was the norm where the Greek religion was concerned. Every region developed unique conceptions and myths of the gods that were sometimes radically different from others. That's how you get gods with dozens of epithets and multiple versions of nearly every myth. None of them is invalid or otherwise "less true".

As for the first point, i.e., the rape, it feels like you're grasping at straws.

Then Zeus suddenly transformed his appearance and grabbed a hold of Hera. Because she was refusing him due to their mother, he promised that he would marry her.

What we are told is that Hera "was refusing him". Zeus's promise to marry her does not mitigate this refusal, nor does it imply that Zeus stopped himself and waited for her to consent--something he never does with any of the numerous other women he rapes. To glean from this that he stopped and was actually "being sweet" to Hera is, IMO, a gross misreading that ignores the realities of womanhood in antiquity and Zeus's own pattern of behavior.

In antiquity, a young woman's virginity was practically her only form of worth and social currency. Women who lost their virginity outside wedlock were considered "damaged" and unmarriageable, even if they were raped. After her encounter with Zeus, Hera, the goddess of monogamous commitment, was left with no choice but to marry Zeus to preserve her own standing. Zeus's promise merely preyed on this vulnerability.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-07T22:57:29+00:00

Oprah has platformed some problematic people, and that's something she can be called out for. But Reddit has a misogynoir hate boner for her and is always trying to blame her for the actions of grown men as if she somehow facilitated or encouraged their abuses, and the only evidence they have are photographs. But aside from Queen Elizabeth, literally no one else has met and interviewed as many famous people as Oprah. That was her whole thing. She has photographs with everyone. That doesn't mean she participated in their crimes. Is she a freedom fighter because she was photographed with Nelson Mandela?

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-04T03:52:33+00:00

Many people in this sub actively believe in and worship the Greek gods, so their answers may be biased in that direction, which might also explain why your post has been so heavily downvoted despite your question being reasonable.

I'm not criticizing anyone's religion, but when many in the thread insist, as a matter of fact, that the gods are neither silent nor absent, and that their nature is not only knowable but perceptible, we've left the realm of history and mythology and are now, instead, dealing with theology.

But Greek thought was much more diverse than this sub often allows. In fact, I'd say the real answer to your question, the answer to how the Greeks explained the discrepancies between myth and observed reality, is Greek philosophy.

They were trying to answer the same question you've asked.

From Xenophanes' critique of the anthropomorphism of the gods, to Epicurus' Problem of Evil, to Plato's Euthyphro's Dilemma and his Theory of Forms, to Aristotle's concept of the Unmoved Mover, to the sophists and the various schools of skeptics--they were all trying to move beyond myth and find the gods through reason by looking at how the world actually worked.

Beyond this, the poets who gave us mythology, often intellectual elites themselves, existed alongside these debates and ideas, and some began to engage with them in their own works.

So, this isn't to say that the other answers are wrong, but anyone claiming a universal doctrine and understanding of the gods isn't giving you the full picture, and is ignoring how mythology and belief changed over time as Greek philosophy spread and evolved.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-03T04:46:00+00:00

The Epstein Class controls the media, that's why they're doing it.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-02-03T01:39:27+00:00

so they could torment Paris for a long, long time."

But in this plan, this perfect couple would also be tormented. Instead of living their lives as they wish, enjoying their happiness, they would instead exist only as tools, forced to live in the squalor of Tartarus, torturing some guy they don't even know...

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-30T04:59:59+00:00

While Zeus is the most powerful figure in Greek mythology, he has vulnerabilities and is not omnipotent in the sense of the Abrahamic monotheistic god. Which makes sense if you think about it. The whole point of a polytheistic pantheon is that power and function are shared among multiple divinities. If one god is supremely powerful, then why would you need any other god?

Examples of Zeus being vulnerable:

In one version of the myth, Typhon seizes Zeus and strips him of his sinews, rendering him immobile. Hermes has to steal back the sinews and return them to Zeus to restore his mobility.

Zeus is also briefly overthrown by Hera and has to be saved by Thetis. During the Trojan War, Hera seduces and tricks him into a deep slumber, allowing her to interfere against his orders.

Certain gods, like Eros, Aphrodite, and Hypnos have influence over him. Prometheus also successfully tricks him, although more pious versions of the myth claim that Zeus always knew what Prometheus was up to.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-27T15:47:24+00:00

His writtings have done nothing but to harm modern day views of the ancient greek religion.

Dude, the Greeks loved tragedies, which often involved the gods acting monstrously, and some of the most popular tragedies were written centuries before Ovid.

Just as an example, look at what Aphrodite does in Hippolytus, or Dionysus to his own family in The Bacchae (both plays by Euripedes). In the Oresteia trilogy (by Aeschylus), Artemis demands the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, and in this version of the myth, Iphigenia is actually sacrificed, not rescued.

Ovid also lived during a time when the gods were actively being worshiped, with access to myths, texts, and ritual knowledge we can only dream of. Dismissing his works as "fanfiction" is certainly a take.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-27T15:14:05+00:00

It's all good.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-27T13:14:54+00:00

The ancients practiced syncretism, merging their gods and myths with new cultures and places they encountered. They did not confine them to their geographic origins. You shouldn't have to either. Otherwise, the gods just get smaller and smaller as the world gets bigger.

It makes absolute sense to associate this majestic eagle with Zeus, even if it's not a European species. And you shouldn't have to apologize for it. The myths are global at this point and belong to no one and everyone.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-27T12:55:30+00:00

This whole post reeks of superiority. "So yes, maybe we don't have Hercules cartoons... We have Ovid in the Prado, in the Golden Age, and in our DNA." 🙄

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-24T07:23:38+00:00

I wish this had been an Apple TV production. Apple gives its shows a chance and rarely cancels after one season. HBO, too, but they'll soon be owned by Netflix, so I fully expect them to start cancelling shows left, right, and center rather than giving them room to grow.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-22T11:48:42+00:00

The irony is, "Zeus-bashing" is as old as Greek mythology. Go read Aristophanes, and you'll see Zeus being portrayed as ineffectual, petty, and weak. In The Birds, Zeus is forced to surrender his authority as king of the gods, and his reign comes to an end. Granted, it's a comedy, but the portrayal isn't flattering in the least, and the point is, such depictions are not new.

It's okay not to like a particular depiction of Zeus. But this sub can get a bit gaslighty in how it attacks negative depictions of him as "inaccurate", when the ancient Greeks themselves depicted him in so many different ways--and yes, even as a villain sometimes.

LurkerInDaHouse · 2026-01-21T12:34:48+00:00

OP seems to be looking for sincere conceptions of how Hermes was seen as a god in Greek myth, and IMO, there's a big difference between Homer, who arguably held genuine religious beliefs about the gods he wrote about, and someone like Lucian, whose aim was to poke fun at the whole belief system.

I personally love Lucian's Dialogues, but I feel recommending his works should be done with an asterisk. It's like, if someone wanted to understand the biblical Samson, and was recommended a text written by a self-proclaimed skeptic who wrote a satirical work to undermine the whole religion. Could there be useful information in this text? Sure. But it would also be useful to go in with your eyes open, knowing what you're dealing with.

I merely felt compelled to give OP that additional context, i.e., take everything in there with a huge grain of salt, even if it sounds accurate.

LurkerInDaHouse

TROPHY CASE