Transcript THE DEITIES OF EARTH

THE DEITIES OF EARTH
• Supreme Deities
– Demeter
– Dionysus
DEMETER (CERES)
 Goddess of the Corn and Grains
 The earth goddess who taught
mankind the art of sowing seeds
and ploughing
 When her child Persephone was
abducted she wandered the earth,
during which time the earth gave
no grains
 Only in summer Persephone
would be with her (1/3 of the
year) so she would let things
grow
DIONYSUS (BACCHUS)
 God of Wine, Agriculture
 Patron of Drama
 Son of Zeus & Semele
 Born from Zeus’s thigh
 Name meaning twice-born
 Wine: Cheer & Sadness
 Comedy & Tragedy
THE DEITIES OF EARTH
• Lesser Deities
– Pan
– Leda
– The Satyrs
– Aeolus
The Centaurs
The Gorgons
The Graiae
The Sirens
PAN
 God of Shepherds and Flocks
 Son of Hermes
 A fertility god representing male
sexuality
 Always pursued the nymphs but
was rejected; hairy body, goat’s
horns, goat’s hoof
 Player of the reed pipe
 The noises he made in the forest
at night put travellers in “panic”
LEDA
Wife of King Tyndareus of Sparta
Mother of mortal Castor and Clytemnestra
(Agamemnon’s wife), and immortal (from Zeus)
Pollux and Helen of Troy
Zeus visited Leda in the form of a swan
THE SATYRS
 Deities of the woods and
mountains
 Goat-men, upper part
human, lower part goat
 They accompany Dionysus
 Dance, music, drinking and
chasing the nymphs
AEOLUS
 King of the Winds
Four chief winds
BOREAS
ZEPHYR
NOTUS
EURUS
North Wind
West Wind
South Wind
East Wind
Viceroy of the Gods
Son of Hellen, the father of Greek nations
 Greece = Hellas
THE CENTAURS
 Half human, half horse creatures
 Followers of Dionysus
 Mostly savage creatures
 Notorious for drunkenness and
abducting helpless young maidens
 Only good centaur was the kind
and wise Chiron, the teacher of
Achilles
THE GORGONS
 Dragon-like female creatures
with wings, hair of living
snakes, hands made of brass
 Three gorgons, Medusa is the
only mortal one
 Their look turned men into
stone (petrification)
 They lived in the ultimate west
and guarded the entrance to
the underworld
THE GRAIAE
 Three old women with gray hair
Sisters of the Gorgons
Three of them share one eye and one tooth
Lived on the farther bank of the Ocean
THE SIRENS
 Creatures with the head of a
female and the body of a bird
 They lived on an island
 With their enchanting song
they lured sailors to death
 Their charm of their song was
irresistible
 Odysseus listened to their song