Who Was The Eldest Of The Twelve Great Olympian Gods?

While there were many deities, spirits and minions known to the ancient Greek religious world, usually twelve were touted above the rest. The ranking of which gods and goddesses should be in the top twelve Olympians was frequently contested, but certain gods always made the cut. Ten Olympians without fail made the list: Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Ares and Aphrodite. Fighting over the last two coveted slots on the roster of the great Twelve were four more well-known deities: Hades, Hephaestus, Dionysus and Hestia—who among them received a place in the Twelve depended on the location, preference and motivation of the myth-teller. These fourteen powerful and respected deities are difficult to rank based on sheer might and influence, but many of the ancient sources claim that, if the question is who is the eldest among them, one of the fourteen can be easily singled out for being the first to be brought into creation. Curiously, the eldest among the fourteen is not necessarily the strongest, nor the tallest, or even the most magically destructive. The eldest of the fourteen mentioned above, according to many sources, is not even a male deity.

As the original Olympians had children, several of the Twelve can easily be crossed out. Athena, Ares, Hephaestus, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Dionysus were the offspring of the original Titan-born Olympians. The second generation came from the original six Olympians, listed in order of birth—Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, all of which were born to the Titan couple, Kronos and Rhea. Before settling down to father this first generation of Olympian gods, the Titan Kronos had been involved in a gruesome crime which led to the birth of the eldest deity among the Twelve.

For the birth of the eldest, we have to go back all the way to the reign of the primordial deities, Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Heaven). They were the parents of the Titans, as well as the Cyclopes and the monstrous-looking Hecatoncheires. Ouranos feared his children, especially the latter two groups, and began imprisoning his offspring in the earth without Gaia’s consent or approval. Gaia, suffering abuse and witnessing the mistreatment of her children, plotted with the Titan Kronos to punish Ouranos. She gave Kronos a specially-made weapon that could harm the primordial god of the heavens. With this blade in hand, Kronos waited in ambush for an intimate time when the god of the heavens would soon press down on the primordial earth goddess.

Ouranos, unfortunately, soon felt the temptation and went to Gaia. Yet, instead of love or release, the god would only find Kronos with a sickle. Pulling Ouranos’ delicate bits with one hand, and swinging the blade with the other, Kronos castrated his father and tossed what he had severed into the sea. At the spot where the mutilated member hit the water, foam bubbled up to cover the waves, and out of that froth came the eldest of the Twelve Olympian deities—Aphrodite.

Of course, Aphrodite’s origin was disputed even in ancient times, and even though the tale of her emerging from the gruesomely-produced seafoam was the most commonly told explanation of her birth, the poet Homer instead proposed a less-popular theory that she was a daughter of Zeus and Dione. Even if this were the case, a goddess would curiously still be the eldest among the Twelve, for, with Aphrodite out of the way, the goddess Hestia would be the next eldest.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Social media crop Venus painted by William Blake Richmond (1842–1921), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Theogony and Works and Days by Hesiod, translated by M. L. West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, 1999, 2008.
• https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite.html 
• http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekTexts&query=Hom.%20Il.%205.370&getid=1

The Legendary Greek Hero, Heracles, Supposedly Split Into Two Beings Upon His Death

Heracles is perhaps the most famous human figure from ancient Greek myth. Despite this, there was no known definitive copy or original author of the great hero’s story. Instead, the famous character of Heracles randomly made appearances in separate tales developed by different authors. The many separate stories about Heracles were thankfully gathered and combined in the poetic works of Euripides and Sophocles, and even more so in the scholarly texts of Apollodorus and Diodorus Siculus. Yet, even after the hard work of these aforementioned writers, it is difficult to place the different accounts of Heracles’ feats in a chronological order.

Of all of the events that occurred in the tale of Heracles, his death and ascendance to godhood is likely the easiest point to place on a chronological table, as those chapters of the tale usually served as the ending of the Heracles myth. As the story goes, the downfall of Heracles came not long after he married his second wife, Deianeira. Sometime after their marriage, Deianeira was kidnapped by a lusty centaur by the name of Nessus. Heracles easily caught up to the centaur and downed the creature with a poisoned arrow shot from his bow. Yet, before the centaur died, Nennus tricked Deianeira into believing that his spilled blood would act as a love potion powerful enough to keep Heracles from straying to other women. Convinced by the centaur’s dying words, Deianeira collected some of the centaur’s poisoned blood, thinking it to be a simple love charm. Unfortunately for Deianeira and Heracles, the centaur’s poisoned blood was anything but harmless.

Deianeira’s fear became reality several years into her marriage with Heracles. She felt powerless as her husband grew to love another woman by the name of Iole. In an effort to regain her husband’s affection, Deianeira laced one of Heracles’ shirts with the poisoned blood of the centaur, hoping the bloodied shirt would rekindle her husband’s fading love. Tragically, the shirt did not restore Heracles’ love for Deianeira, but instead it gave the hero a fatal dose of painful poison. After putting on the poisoned shirt, Heracles felt such constant anguish that he eventually burned himself alive.

As the story goes, upon his self-immolation, Heracles ascended to Mount Olympus, was accepted into the community of the gods, and took the goddess of youth, Hebe, as his godly wife. Yet, according to Homer, something strange occurred during that time of mortal death and immortal transcendence. According to The Odyssey, a bloodthirsty wraith bizarrely split from the burning demigod and was sent down to the realm of Hades. The wraith was said to have been “like black night” and he could be found prowling the underworld with bow in hand, stalking the souls of the dead as if they were wild game. The wraith comes across as a conscious being—it had memory, speech and personally identified as Heracles. Yet, it also had knowledge that another less wild version of Heracles was also present on Mount Olympus.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (heavily modified adaptation of an image from "A classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography...revised.." (1894), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and Flickr).

Sources:

• The Odyssey by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and edited by D. C. H. Rieu. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009. 
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+2.4.8&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022 
• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html 
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Heracles 
• http://www.theoi.com/greek-mythology/heracles.html 
• https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Heroes/Heracles/heracles.html 
• http://www.livius.org/articles/mythology/heracles/ 
• https://pantheon.org/articles/h/heracles.html 
• http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/heracles.html  

The Lethal Temple Of Death In Ancient Hierapolis

King Eumenes II of Pergamum is thought to have founded the city of Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale) around 190 BCE in the region of ancient Phrygia, located in western Anatolia. Built around beautiful hot springs, the city would serve both as a luxurious spa and a religious center. Along with public baths, a gymnasium and the all important community agora, the city of Hieropolis also had a unique temple, constructed atop a cave or crevice in the earth, which was dedicated to the god of the underworld.

The temple of Hades in Hierapolis, like several other ancient Greek temples (especially the ones that housed oracles), was built atop multiple fault lines that allowed natural gasses to permeate into the structure. Yet, while other temples had fumes that caused delirium or hallucinations, the noxious smog in the temple at Hierapolis caused extreme illness and death. The temple was so dangerous that it was considered a portal to the domain of Hades. When the Romans expanded their empire over the region, they were also impressed with the temple and confirmed that it was a Ploutonion, a temple of their god of the dead, Pluto.

The Ploutonion of Hierapolis was an awesome sight. It was said to have included a tiered theater, and it hosted many sacrifices, where live offerings were carried into the temple to die of the poisonous fumes. One of the more striking accounts of the Ploutonion was written by the geographer and historian, Strabo (c. 64 BCE – 21 CE), who wrote that the temple featured a dark pathway that led under the ground, which was heavily fogged over with lethal vapor. He witnessed that any animals, from small birds to beasts as large as bulls, all quickly died when they were brought down into the temple’s noxious depths.

The Ploutonion remained open until the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, when its entrance was eventually sealed and forgotten. The city remained populated well into the Byzantine Era, until it was abandoned around the 14th century.

The ancient city was rediscovered in the 19th century, when archaeologists began to excavate the region. The immense historical and cultural value of the site was internationally recognized in 1988, when Hierapolis was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Modern archeologists have found that potent carbon dioxide gasses, to this day, infest the temple and make the ruins deadly—several curious birds died while archeologists excavated the Ploutonion. It is believed that the priests who carried out the sacrifices in the temple of the dead simply held their breath to safely enter and exit the Ploutonion, as they carried out their religious duties.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture attribution: (Theater of Hierapolis, [Public Domain] via pixabay.com).

Sources:

• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/04/130414-hell-underworld-archaeology-mount-olympus--greece/  
• https://www.britannica.com/place/Hierapolis-ancient-Phrygian-city 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Strabo  
• http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/485 
• http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/04/ancient-gates-of-hell-found-in-pamukkale-turkey-3582937/