Human Like Behaviours of Gods in Ancient

Greece
Mehmet Kelleci
December 23, 2012

In ancient Greece gods are depicted like immortal humans. Discussions,

satisfactions, fights, loves and etc. among the gods are significantly close to
these facts among mankind. Only the understanding of ethics are different
from mankinds. For instance, incest relations are strongly forbidden among the
humans but it is free among the gods. A clarifying example is the marriage
of Zeus and Hera. Zeus and Hera are brothers and sisters. Except from the
incest relations there not much difference between humans and gods. Fights,
discussions, hierarchy, lies, cheatings are seen among the gods. To get a deeper
understanding of relations among the gods, and among the gods and humans
two figures will be examined in this essay.
In the first figure Thetis, mother of Achilles, and Hephaestus are seen. Thetis
is the goddess of water and Hephaestus is the god of handcraft and technology.
It is believed that in the ancient Greece, all the houses of gods are made by
Hephaestus. His work of hand is simply accepted as excellent. In the figure 1, it
is seen that Thetis receives armor for his son Achilles. Like humans, gods have
characters too. Thetis is female immortal married with a mortal who is Peleus.
She is a devoted mother. Thetis knows the destiny of his son Achilles from the

Figure 1: Thetis Receives Armor From Hephaestos for Achilles.

day he was born. She tries to make him invulnerable by dipping him to the
water of Styx. It is believed because of her holding Achilles by the heel, the heel
is not dipped to the water, as a result Achilles couldnt become invulnerable. In
the purpose of changing the destiny of his son, Thetis tries to hide the sexuality
of his son by clothing him as a girl. Eventually, one day, Odysseus realizes that
there is a boy in a group of girls clothed like a girl. To expose this fact, Odysseus
dresses as a merchant and exhibits valuable objects.[1]
All the girls interest in ordinary valuable object except one. Achilles picks
up the golden sword and then his sexuality is achieved by the people. After this
event, Thetis accepts her sons destiny and goes to Hephaestus to make her son
an armor. This famous armor shows itself in the Homers Iliad. Patroclus wants
permission to fight against the Trojans to repel them from the ships. Because
they decide to return to their motherland but Trojans start to burn their ships.

Achilles gives permission to the Patroclus and gives him his armor made by
Hephaestus. Patroclus walks against the Trojans, repels them from the ships
and chases them to the gates of the Troja. But he is said to stop at the gates
and not to attack to the city. He does not listens the orders given by Achilles
and loses his life. After this fact Achilles joins the battle.
At the beginning of the Iliad, Achilles gets mad at Agamemnon and refuses
to fight against Trojans because his honor is ignored by Agamemnon in front of
all the Achaeans. That night Achilles cries desperately, and his goddess mother
shows up. Achilles demands her to to to Zeus and asks for the victorious for the
Trojans because he does not want Achaeans to get a victory without him while
he is in sadness for his honor. He wants to understand Agamemnon his mistake
against him. After this, Thetis goes to Zeus and begs for her sons wishes. Zeus
accepts her pleas and in the book, it is seen that, things get worser for Achaeans
without Achilles. With the events mentioned above are considered, when the
character of Thetis is examined, it is seen that she is a devoted mother more
than a goddess. She is an immortal mother of a mortal son. This is a saddening
fact for Thetis, because she is aware of the mortality of her son, from the day he
was born. She tries to hide the sexuality to prevent him to become a warrior,
she tries to dip him to river Styx to make him invulnerable, she asks Hephaestus
to make his son an armor and to make herself assure that her son is in safe,
she even goes to the father of all the gods Zeus to make her sons wishes real.
She does everything that she can to make her son live longer and better but
destiny does not release her sons collars. Considering Thetis, her approaching
to her child, and her relations with other gods are not different from the human
behaviors. For instance, she goes to Zeus to beg, and before Zeus accepts the
pleas, he hesitates. Because his wife wants Troyes to be destroyed and if Zeus
accepts the pleas of Thetis, the wishes of Hera will not come true. He does

not want go his relationship with Hera bad. Zeus is depicted as most powerful
immortal creature on Olympus, even so, he hesitates to go against Hera. When
the figure is examined it is seen that both Thetis and Hephaestus depicted
anthropomorphic. Hephaestus uses a hammer to do his work, sits down on
a chair, both Thetis and Hephaestus have clothing look like humans used in
ancient Greece.
It would not be fair to say that gods live a life totally similar to humans
life. History of gods is written by humans. Because of their depiction of being
immortal and having unlimited power and wisdom, their daily lives, angers,
loves, greeds are strengthened by the poets. When a god gets angry, there is no
comparison between this anger and a manly anger. Likewise, other emotions.
But the desired point to emphasize is the supernatural facts related to love
issues. In the figure 2, the birth of Athena from the Zeus head is depicted. The
myth behind this fact is the following. Zeus makes love with goddess Metis.
Metis gets pregnant by this relation. Zeus gets a prophecy that if Metis gives
birth, this child will overthrone Zeus. In order to avoid the prophecy Zeus
eats Metis. As a result, the child borns from the Zeus head. In the figure 2,
Hephaestus cleaves the Zeus head and Athena borns with her armor suited on.
This is a supernatural event which can not happen in humans life. Poets do
that in the history to sound the gods above the humans and show them powerful
and extraordinary. Unacceptable events are possible in the world of Olympus
and fatal wounds for a human are nothing to a god.
From the beginning of the history there is always a depiction of a god figure
made by humans. Beliefs vary as monotheism or polytheism. But the logic
of all the beliefs, especially in polytheism, are very similar. People needs a
divinity to believe that they are protected by, they look for these divinities and
eventually and actually they created gods. People wanted godly creations to

Figure 2: Athena Borns From Zeus Head with Her Armor On.
feel themselves secure and they build up temples for gods and figures of gods.
In polytheism, there are big similarities about depiction of gods. They assumed
that gods are living like them and look like them. Like Xenophanes sayings
Greeks depicted the gods like men, Ethiopians depicted gods as black and snub
nosed, Thracians red-haired and with blue eyes. So it is natural their giving
the characteristics of gods from the mankind and writing stories parallel to
the mankind.Thetis, a goddess and a devoted mother, father of all the gods
mighty Zeus and a husband, Hephaestus, god of technology and handcraft and
an immortal worker with a handicap in the leg are pointed out. It is obvious
that in the ancient Greece, gods are believed to have the same behaviors and
emotions only stronger than the humans.

References
1. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=791
2. http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/P13.4.html
3. http://arthuride.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/resurrection-immortality-trinity/