How the Greek and Roman Gods & Goddesses Came to Be

The gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome were far closer to human beings than some of the gods of other types of mythology. In fact, they constantly interacted with mankind on the human level whereas many other ancient gods remained "above" it all.

Because of this constant interaction between the gods and mankind, it was an unwritten law of the land that Greeks and Romans should be kind to all strangers, lest one of them prove to be a god who had taken on human form. The Egyptians often went a step further by equating certain humans like the pharaoh as the earthly form of a living god or goddess.

Some of the gods preferred interacting, and even mating, with humans over their own kind. Unfortunately, they weren't always up front and honest about who they were when they chose to mate with a human, resulting in a range of half-human, half-god like creatures that didn't fit into either world. In that respect, they weren't that much different than the inter-racial or inter-culture pairings of modern time.

Many myths, of course, merged right into history itself. A good example of this would be the Trojan War. Historians of our era are still trying to prove that no such war ever took place. The problem is that there are also a lot of proof that points to the very real possibility that it did, albeit not necessarily as originally told in myth.

To get a clear understanding of how Greek mythology grew to eventually spout Roman, Norse, Egyptian and other mythical cultures, let's take a look at the hierarchy of the Greek gods and goddesses. There was no "father" god among the Greek pantheon. In truth, Olympus became more of a tale of betrayal, conspiracy, and murder between parents and their children.

One god after another claimed total power. According to the Greeks, Gaia - - the earth mother - - was the giver of life and all beings and creatures of the earth. For more information on her, see my separate article that deals specifically with her mythology. Gaia was alone in the world until she gave birth to her son, Uranus. From their union was born the first of the Titans.