Twelve Olympians - About

15/01/2023, 13:37 Twelve Olympians - Wikipedia
Twelve Olympians
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon,
commonly considered to be Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares,
Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus.[2] They were called Olympians because, according to
tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus.
Fragment of a Hellenistic relief (1st century BC–1st century AD)

depicting the twelve Olympians carrying their attributes in procession;
from left to right: Hestia (scepter), Hermes (winged cap and staff),
Aphrodite (veiled), Ares (helmet and spear), Demeter (scepter and
wheat sheaf), Hephaestus (staff), Hera (scepter), Poseidon (trident),
Athena (owl and helmet), Zeus (thunderbolt and staff), Artemis (bow
and quiver) and Apollo (lyre) from the Walters Art Museum.[1]
Although Hades was a major ancient Greek god and was the brother of the first generation of Olympians (Zeus,
Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia), his realm was the underworld, far from Olympus, and thus he was not
usually considered to be one of the Olympians.
Besides the twelve Olympians, there were many other cultic groupings of twelve gods.
Olympians
The Olympians were a race of deities, primarily consisting of a third and fourth generation of immortal beings,
worshipped as the principal gods of the Greek pantheon and so named because of their residency atop Mount
Olympus. They gained their supremacy in a ten-year-long war of gods, in which Zeus led his siblings to victory
over the previous generation of ruling immortal beings, the Titans, children of the primordial deities Uranus and
Gaia. They were a family of gods, the most important consisting of the first generation of Olympians, offspring of
the Titans Cronus and Rhea: Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter and Hestia, along with the principal offspring of Zeus:
Aphrodite,[3]Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes and Dionysus. Although Hades was a major deity
in the Greek pantheon and was the brother of Zeus and the other first generation of Olympians, his realm was far
away from Olympus in the underworld, and thus he was not usually considered to be one of the Olympians.[4]
Olympic gods can be contrasted to chthonic gods[5] including Hades and his wife Persephone, by mode of
sacrifice, the latter receiving sacrifices in a bothros (βόθρος, "pit") or megaron (μέγαρον, "sunken chamber")[6]
rather than at an altar.
The canonical number of Olympian gods was twelve, but besides the (thirteen) principal Olympians listed above,
there were many other residents of Olympus, who thus might be considered to be Olympians.[7] Heracles became
a resident of Olympus after his apotheosis and married another Olympian resident Hebe.[8] In the Iliad, the
goddess Themis, who is listed among the twelve Titans, dwells on Olympus alongside the other gods,[9] making
her a Titan and an Olympian at the same time. According to Hesiod, the children of Styx: Zelus (Envy), Nike
(Victory), Kratos (Strength), and Bia (Force), "have no house apart from Zeus, nor any dwelling nor path except
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians# 1/10
that wherein God leads them, but they dwell always with Zeus".[10] Some others who might be considered
Olympians include the Horae, the Graces, the Muses, Eileithyia, Iris, Dione, and Ganymede.[11]
Twelve gods
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
BC.[12] According to Thucydides, an altar of the twelve gods was established in the agora of Athens by the archon
Pisistratus (son of Hippias and the grandson of the tyrant Pisistratus), around 522 BC.[13] The altar became the
central point from which distances from Athens were measured and a place of supplication and refuge.[14]
Olympia apparently also had an early tradition of twelve gods.[15] The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (c. 500 BC) has
the god Hermes divide a sacrifice of two cows he has stolen from Apollo, into twelve parts, on the banks of the
river Alpheus (presumably at Olympia):
Next glad-hearted Hermes dragged the rich meats he had prepared and put them on a
smooth, flat stone, and divided them into twelve portions distributed by lot, making each
portion wholly honorable.[16]
Pindar, in an ode written to be sung at Olympia c. 480 BC, has Heracles sacrificing, alongside the Alpheus, to the
"twelve ruling gods":[17]
[Heracles] enclosed the Altis all around and marked it off in the open, and he made the
encircling area a resting-place for feasting, honoring the stream of the Alpheus along with
the twelve ruling gods.[18]
Another of Pindar's Olympian odes mentions "six double altars".[19] Herodorus of Heraclea (c. 400 BC) also has
Heracles founding a shrine at Olympia, with six pairs of gods, each pair sharing a single altar.[20]
Many other places had cults of the twelve gods, including Delos, Chalcedon, Magnesia on the Maeander, and
Leontinoi in Sicily.[21] As with the twelve Olympians, although the number of gods was fixed at twelve, the
membership varied.[22] While the majority of the gods included as members of these other cults of twelve gods
were Olympians, non-Olympians were also sometimes included. For example, Herodorus of Heraclea identified
the six pairs of gods at Olympia as: Zeus and Poseidon, Hera and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Graces and
Dionysus, Artemis and Alpheus, and Cronus and Rhea.[23] Thus, while this list includes the eight Olympians: Zeus,
Poseidon, Hera, Athena, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysus, it also contains three clear non-Olympians: the
Titan parents of the first generation of Olympians, Cronus and Rhea, and the river god Alpheus, with the status of
the Graces (here apparently counted as one god) being unclear.
Plato connected "twelve gods" with the twelve months and implies that he considered Pluto one of the twelve in
proposing that the final month be devoted to him and the spirits of the dead.[24]
The Roman poet Ennius gives the Roman equivalents (the Dii Consentes) as six male-female complements,[25]
preserving the place of Vesta (Greek Hestia), who played a crucial role in Roman religion as a state goddess
maintained by the Vestals.
List
There is no single canonical list of the twelve Olympian gods. The thirteen Greek gods and goddesses, along with
their Roman counterparts, most commonly considered to be one of the twelve Olympians are listed below.

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15/01/2023, 13:37 Twelve Olympians - Wikipedia

Fragment of a Hellenistic relief (1st century BC–1st century AD)

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