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The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. Likewise, no Greek writer is known to have classified either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. [2] Instead, for example, Herodotus speaks of the Hellenes as having "common shrines of the gods and sacrifices, and the same kinds of customs". [3]
The early Athenian tradition, followed by the 3rd century BC Parian Chronicle, made Cecrops, a mythical half-man half-serpent, the first king of Athens. [5] The dates for the following kings were conjectured centuries later, by historians of the Hellenistic era who tried to backdate events by cross-referencing earlier sources such as the Parian Chronicle.
Worship was the means by which the Greeks honoured their gods, as they believed deities had the power to bring to their lives various positive outcomes which were beyond their own control. [19] Greek cult, or religious practice, consisted of activities such sacrifices, prayers, libations, festivals, and the building of temples. [20]
This is an index of lists of mythological figures from ancient Greek religion and mythology. List of Greek deities; List of mortals in Greek mythology; List of Greek legendary creatures; List of minor Greek mythological figures; List of Trojan War characters; List of deified people in Greek mythology; List of Homeric characters
In order to honor the Ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs). [31] Gregory Nagy (1992) regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as simple preludes (compared with Theogony), each of which invokes one god." [32]: 54 The gods of Greek mythology are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies.
The following is a family tree of gods, goddesses, and other divine and semi-divine figures from Ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion. Chaos The Void
Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other various cultic groupings of twelve gods throughout ancient Greece. The earliest evidence of Greek religious practice involving twelve gods (Greek: δωδεκάθεον, dōdekátheon, from δώδεκα dōdeka, "twelve", and θεοί theoi, "gods") comes no earlier than the late sixth century ...
They were the older gods, but not, apparently, as was once thought, the old gods of an indigenous group in Greece, historically displaced by the new gods of Greek invaders. Rather, they were a group of gods, whose mythology at least, seems to have been borrowed from the Near East (see "Near East origins," below). [35]