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Author
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Topic: Ancient Greece
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QueenofSheeba
Knowflake Posts: 1043
From: California
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted August 22, 2002 10:03 PM
 
Ancient Greece
OK,here goes on Greece!
In the beginning,there was Raea(Earth) and Uranus(Universe).They had children:six Titans,and six Titanesses,who intermarried.Uranus was pleased.Then came some more children,who offended Uranus with their ugliness.He cast them into a deep pit,called Tartaruss.
Having her children treated this way made Raea unhappy,so she gave a magic sickle to Cronos,the youngest,strongest,and bravest of the Titans.With this sickle he defeated his father,Uranus,and assumed his powers.But Cronos refused to free his uglier siblings from Tartaruss,so Raea hatched a plot to have Cronos deposed by his children.
Cronos had six offspring:Zeus,Poseidon, Hades,Hera,Demeter,and Hestia.They led a revolt,led by Zeus,who beat and castrated his father.The Titans were overthrown,and the Olympians took their place(so called because they lived on Mt. Olympus).
The Greeks had dozens of deities,to many to remember,so I'll list only the principal ones:
Zeus,king of the gods,wielder of lightning.
Hera,Zeus's shrewish and frustrated queen(Zeus had many affairs with mortal women,on whom Hera would take revenge).Patron of women.
Poseidon,lord of the sea and horses.
Hades,god of the underworld and death.
Demeter,goddess of the harvest.
Persophone,Demeter's daughter,and unwilling bride of Hades.
Hestia,goddess of the hearth(Hestia eventually left Olympus because of the constant bickering).
Zeus's children:
Hephaestus,the smith,and a cripple.He built robots.
Aphrodite,goddess of love and luck,who rose from the foam of Cronos's...let's not go there! 
Athena,sometimes Pallas Athena,who sprang fully grown and armed from Zeus's head.Goddess of war,wisdom,olives,and weaving.
Aries,god of war.Disliked by all.
Phoebus Apollo,or just Apollo,god of the sun,art,archery,music,prophecy,and healing(my personal favorite!).
Diana,virgin goddess of the hunt and wild animals,and also of archery.
Hermes,god of communication,merchants,thieves,and travel.
Dionysius,god of wine,revelry,and madness(Dionysius was in a state of perpetual erection).
That's all the major ones!Greek cities always had a patron deity,to whom they would build a temple.Average Greeks had a built in belief in these deities,to whom the pious would pray and offer libations,and on whom the cynical would blame their troubles.Each deity had an order of priests dedicated to him or her,who would celebrate their Mysteries annually,along with a festival.The Olympians were really just elevated mortals,with all the vices of such.
The Greeks and Egyptians decided that some of their deities were really the same,just with different names:Hermes-Thoth,for example.The Greeks also assimilated Eastern mysticism into their beliefs:when summoning a demon,priests would call it by names in several different languages,as well as using Middle Eastern rituals.
Greek gods were renamed by the Romans,but otherwise remained the same.With their Roman names,they became the basis for planetary associations in astrology.For example,Aphodite became Venus,and influences Libra with her romance,love of pleasure,and infidelity.Hades,god of death,became Pluto.
That's all for now.Gotta run!!------------------
"When you come to the end of your rope,tie a knot and hang on"-Thomas Jefferson IP: Logged |
aquamoon
Knowflake Posts: 883
From:
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted August 23, 2002 07:07 AM
This is going to make for a very interesting string, Queen of Sheeba and Sue!  Here's a variation that I've read. Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Sky) conceived a bunch of monsters with fifty heads and a hundred arms. 
Uranus was so apalled by their ugliness that he wouldn't allow Gaia to bear them, and they remained inside her making her moan in pain till she could bear no more.
She then devised a plan with her children to teach Ouranos a lesson. This plan was so wicked that only Kronos (Saturn) was bold enough to go through with it. The next time Ouranos got..er..lonely and came down to Gaia, Kronos reached up and castrated his father. Ouranos's blood ran onto the land and gave birth to Erinyes (the furies) and his seed ran into the oceans and thus was born Aphrodite. Kronos usurped his father's position and was a selfish and cruel ruler. He married his sister (will check and tell you her name) but would not allow her to keep any of the children she bore him because his parents had told him that the planets indicated that he would be done in by one of his own children. So everytime she gave birth, he swallowed the child whole.
Till one day, she and Kronos's mother Gaia decided to smuggle the baby out of Kronos's reach and have him brought up by someone else. She presented Kronos with a stone wrapped in a baby's blanket which he swallowed. This baby, Zeus, (Jupiter) would grow up to be a powerful young man who would lead his other brothers (who Kronos let out of his belly, somehow - the story's getting a bit hazy now - I'll have to check and tell you) to overthrow Kronos and banish him to another world where he would learn wisdom and grow to be a just and well-loved ruler.  IP: Logged |
Cat
Knowflake Posts: 3308
From: England
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted August 23, 2002 10:15 AM
Hi QueenofSheeba and Aquamoon
This is a great string - very very interesting 
Sue  IP: Logged |
QueenofSheeba
Knowflake Posts: 1043
From: California
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted August 26, 2002 01:27 PM
Cronos was made to vomit with an herb his wife fed him,I think.Up came all the little children!
And by the way,the virgin goddess of the hunt should be Artemis,not Diana(that's her Roman name).------------------
"When you come to the end of your rope,tie a knot and hang on"-Thomas Jefferson IP: Logged |
Aphrodite
Knowflake Posts: 4911
From:
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted August 26, 2002 01:47 PM
QueenofSheeba  it's okay, i know where Aphrodite comes from too  IP: Logged |
aquamoon
Knowflake Posts: 883
From:
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted August 27, 2002 03:02 AM
Kronos's wife's name as promised - Rhea.  IP: Logged |
QueenofSheeba
Knowflake Posts: 1043
From: California
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted August 31, 2002 06:01 PM
Ooops,guess I got some names mixed up :grin:
In Crete,they worshipped a female "fertility goddess" who suffered a drop in status and became Hera.Also,liberal philosophers were fond of making up their own existence theories,wich didn't make conservatives happy.IP: Logged |
Crystal
unregistered
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posted September 28, 2002 09:28 PM
This is not new to me. If you have read enough about mythology you will find that almost all of the ancient tales from around the world have very similar subjects, plots and morals. ------------------
"Dance like no one is watching, sing like no one can hear you and love like you have never been hurt before." -someone who found it in a birthday card and told me at a folk fest party. IP: Logged |
Randall
Webmaster Posts: 24362
From: Columbus, GA USA
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted September 29, 2002 05:39 AM
Cool string, you guys!  ------------------
"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark IP: Logged |
Annie Kuzma
Knowflake Posts: 416
From: Kettering ,Ohio ,USA
Registered: Jan 2003
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posted March 27, 2003 07:06 AM
to the top!!!IP: Logged |
aquamoon
Knowflake Posts: 883
From:
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted April 09, 2003 02:04 PM
To get this string moving again - After overthrowing Kronos, Zeus established his symbols of power as thunder and the lightening bolt (in keeping with his fiery volatility) to create a hierarchy of gods of whom he was King. He was regarded as the God of Friendship and protector of man.
He is said to have created a cloud in the form of Hera, (Goddess of Marriage and Childbirth), his consort,to prevent Ixion (son of Aries) from making love to her. From this union with the make-believe Goddess came Chiron, the Wounded Healer. He was the King of the Centaurs and was kown to be extremely spiritual and wise and was so given the task of imparting this wisdom to all the little Greek prince chappies.
One day, Hercules, just returning from slaying the Hydra with nine heads, stopped by and accidently grazed Chiron's thigh with an arrow that had been dipped in the hydra's blood. This blood was poisonous and would kill any mortal. But Chiron, being immortal, had to suffer the pain without having the option of death as a release and so had to sacrifice his life to living in pain yet continuing to share his spiritual wisdom with the rest of the world forever. 
Aquamoon IP: Logged |
StarLover33
Moderator Posts: 3061
From: King Arthur's Camelot
Registered: Jun 2002
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posted August 14, 2003 06:14 PM
IP: Logged |
Gia
Knowflake Posts: 1154
From: California
Registered: May 2004
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posted May 31, 2004 07:46 AM
According to legend,Aphrodite travelled to Cyprus from the Phoenician mainland. Her true genealogy must go back to the Phoenician queens of heaven, of love and fertility, to the mother-goddesses of Assyria, Babylon and Sumeria. Which if true, does suggest she was the Phoenician goddess Astarte.Tradition says, she stepped ashore on the south west coast of the island of Cyprus not far from the old temple city of Paphos. She emerged in all her beautiful glory at a point where thick and creamy foam boils up out of the sea and surges on a stunning beach under pink rocks and cliffs. The actual spot is called Petra tou Romiou. It is in Cyprus she founded her immortal kingdom and it is there that all the gods flocked to marry her. By the way, I have travelled to that rock myself many times. It's like a bridge between the visible and invisible worlds. It is a place of 'knowing' where one can feel the most amazing knowledge. It's a presence waiting to be dicovered, it beckons you to an ancient time when the worlds were no longer separate. Funny thing, I really did feel an almost erotic charge of the earth there, or perhaps it was some sort of magnetized energy point. Petra tou Romiou - is translated as the rock of Romeo. It's a very romantic place. I had a great time visiting. Euripides wrote in his play The Bacchae "O to visit Cyprus,
Aprodites island,
Where her Erotes
Dwell, who stroke
Their spell on
Mortal men.... IP: Logged |
Everlong
Knowflake Posts: 931
From: Southeast Florida
Registered: Nov 2003
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posted June 01, 2004 12:31 AM
Though I knew most of this, thanks for some of the things I didn't! I've always been really into mythology, Greek included. In fact, I have big ideas and ambitions about writing a novel based on Greek mythology- I'm still a teen, but I figure I might as well start early if I want to succeed when I grow up!------------------
"Out of your depth or not, it's up to you whether you sink or swim." IP: Logged |
maklhouf
Knowflake Posts: 1245
From:
Registered: Nov 2003
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posted July 07, 2004 05:30 AM
Wanting to be physically immortal = wanting to be God?
There is a hilarious sentence in the book of Genesis. It refers to God the father walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Makes him sound like somebody's maiden aunt. But I often wonder how "God" spends "his day". Someone in another thread suggested an ineffably tedious lifestyle for immortals, consisting (of course) of having children or instructing other people's children in moral values. I think looking at the greek gods may be the best way to approach the question. IP: Logged |
lotusheartone
Knowflake Posts: 11547
From: Heaven
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 21, 2007 12:28 AM
WOW! I wrote about some of this is the OOber Galaxy, some time ago..Uranus and Gaia..Mom and Dad
Cronus and Rhea..brother and sister-in-law
Zues and Hera..Zues, takes his mother Rhea as wife, or is she re-incarnated, to daughter of Cronus and Rhea..she is now Hera SEE the letters, EARTH-HEART RHEA-HERA I believe that all that happened between Cronus and Rhea, caused them to suffer a very long separation.. Now Isis and Osiris..their Son Horus..then somehow Isis is consort to Horus...and remember Horus = Hours, which again links him to Father Time, Cronos-Saturn.... .... perhaps they re-incarnate, into these positions, but at that ancient time, they remembered each life, knew who they had been..thus all the names, that cause all the confusion, for then, they knew who they had been... Just thoughts rambling in my Mind. ... LOve and Reverence to ALL... . IP: Logged |
lotusheartone
Knowflake Posts: 11547
From: Heaven
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 21, 2007 02:39 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rSA0Va-xTQ&mode=related&search= hehe IP: Logged |
silverstone
Knowflake Posts: 1863
From:
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted August 25, 2007 11:25 AM
------------------
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year....
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. ~Robert Frost IP: Logged | |
Lindaland
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