Olympians- Greek GroupCollective"The Twelve"

Rise to Power

The story begins with Kronos, lord of the Titans, who had seized power from his father Ouranos and feared a prophecy that his own child would do the same. To prevent it, Kronos swallowed each child at birth. Five gods disappeared into his belly before Rhea found a way to stop him. When Zeus was born, she hid him on Crete and gave Kronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Zeus grew to maturity in secret, and when the time came, he forced Kronos to disgorge his siblings, fully grown and ready for war.

The Titanomachy lasted ten years. Zeus freed the Hundred-Handed Ones and the Cyclopes from Tartarus, where Kronos had imprisoned them. The Cyclopes forged Zeus's thunderbolt and Poseidon's trident. Hades received the cap of invisibility. With these weapons and the Hundred-Handed Ones hurling three hundred boulders at a time, the younger gods prevailed. The Titans were cast into Tartarus and bound there.

After the victory, the three brothers divided the cosmos by lot. Zeus took the sky and supreme kingship. Poseidon drew the seas. Hades received the underworld and went below. The earth and Olympus remained common ground.

Olympus

Homer describes the gods dwelling in palaces built by Hephaestus on a peak beyond mortal reach, its summit above the clouds. They feasted on ambrosia and nectar, which kept them immortal and perfumed their skin. Golden ichor, not blood, ran in their veins. Ganymede poured their wine. Zeus's eagle had stolen the Trojan prince from his father's fields for this purpose.

The gods assembled in Zeus's great hall to deliberate on mortal and cosmic affairs. These councils were rarely calm. Gods argued and defied Zeus's decrees, though the thunder always won in the end. The Horae, goddesses of the seasons, opened and closed the cloud gates to admit the gods in their chariots. Beyond the gates lay a world the gods could not leave alone.

The Gigantomachy

Olympian supremacy was tested again when Gaia, enraged at her Titan children's imprisonment, roused the Giants against Olympus. A prophecy declared the Giants could not be killed by gods alone: a mortal champion was needed. Zeus fathered Heracles for this purpose.

The battle was savage. The Giants piled mountains on one another to scale the heights. Athena struck down Enceladus and hurled the island of Sicily on top of him, where he still writhes beneath Aetna. Porphyrion dared assault Hera herself before Zeus's thunderbolt struck him and Heracles's arrow finished him. After each Olympian brought a Giant low, the mortal hero delivered the killing blow. The victory secured Olympian rule.

Typhon

Gaia sent one final challenge. Typhon's heads reached the stars. Fire blazed from his eyes. Hesiod calls him the most fearsome creature ever born. The other gods fled in terror, but Zeus stood and fought. Thunderbolts clashed against jets of flame and the sea boiled. Zeus pinned Typhon beneath Mount Aetna, where the monster's struggles cause the volcano's eruptions.

Even within Olympus, Zeus's authority was not absolute. Homer preserves a tradition in which Hera, Poseidon, and Athena conspired to bind Zeus in chains. They succeeded. The king of the gods lay bound until the sea goddess Thetis summoned Briareos of the Hundred-Handed Ones, and no god dared challenge him. Zeus was freed, but the conspiracy had happened.

The Sacrifice at Mekone

At Mekone, gods and mortals sat together for the last time to decide how sacrifice would work. Prometheus slaughtered an ox and divided it into two portions. In one he hid the meat and fat beneath the stomach lining, so it looked unappetizing. In the other he arranged the bare bones beneath a glistening layer of fat, so it looked rich and desirable. He offered Zeus the choice.

Zeus chose the fat-covered bones. Whether he was truly deceived or chose knowingly to give himself a grievance against mankind, the Theogony does not say. The result was the same: mortals kept the meat, and the gods received the smoke of burning bones and fat. Every Greek sacrifice afterward followed this division. The best parts went to the humans. The gods got the smell.

The War at Troy

The Trojan War split Olympus. Aphrodite and Apollo fought for Troy. Athena and Hera fought for the Greeks. Poseidon worked the sea against the Trojan fleet. Zeus tried to hold the balance. He failed.

The Iliad describes two wars fought at once: mortals on the plain below, gods in the clouds above. When Athena strengthened the Greek hero Diomedes, he did what no mortal was supposed to do. He drove his spear into Aphrodite's wrist, and golden ichor flowed. Then he charged Ares himself and wounded the god of war. Ares screamed with the voice of ten thousand men and fled to Olympus to show his father the gash. Zeus looked at the wound and told Ares he was the most hateful of all his children.