Greek religion

The religion of ancient Greece from the 8th to the 3rd century BC, with a well-defined pantheon of deities including the supreme ruler Zeus; his consort Hera; Athena, the goddess of wisdom; Hermes, the god of war; and many others, who lived on Mount Olympus and were closely inter-related.

From the 8th century BC, a discernible form of Greek religion emerged from what was formerly a collection of local or tribal deities. Greek religion was based upon a network of mystery religions and sacred sites without a full-time professional priesthood. The mysteries were often associated with women, and appear to represent a very old strand in Greek religion. The oracles such as that at Delphi and the healing centres associated with the god of medicine, Aesculapius, formed centres for Greek worship, as did the civic gods of each town who were honoured through plays and performances. Under the influence of Plato, Greek religion of the last three centuries BC veered away from the pantheon of gods towards a more abstract notion of God as mind and as ultimate meaning, and a rejection of the notion, found in Homer, that human beings were the playthings of the gods of Mount Olympus.

The deities of Greek religion were often adopted or had an equivalent in the Roman world: Zeus and Roman Jupiter are supreme sky-gods who supplanted an older generation of divine beings, and wielded thunder and lightning; Hephaestus, the Greek god of smiths, was the eqivalent of Roman Vulcan; Ares and Roman Mars were gods of war; and Aphrodite and Roman Venus presided over love. Apollo was the god of song and art in both pantheons.