The Archaic Origins of Olympian Deities

Traditional Mythological Pantheons
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The Archaic Origins of Olympian Deities

“Deities are in some respects similar to words. One word will come to acquire much of the connotation of another word, not necessarily a synonym, and thereby cause that other to fall into disuse…One deity can replace another by acquiring the major characteristics of that other, and yet be of different character. Or, as sometimes happens, when one deity acquires certain characteristics of another, the latter may simply lose those and continue on with altered or diminished character.”

~ Alex Waman

“…the Classical mythological literature of the Greeks has virtually nothing to do with their religious practice…Before the rise of literacy and the urbanised state, and long after in rural areas, the various local tribal religions each involved a more self contained cast and mythic drama…The mythological literature is, in many respects, the response of a later stage of culture grown distant from its roots. It represents attempts to rationalise or interpret allegorically the primitive elements of hundreds of local cults and their variants that had arisen in previous centuries…many older gods were either absorbed by the Olympians or demoted in status.”

~ Jake Stratton-Kent

Timeline of Ancient Greece

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*for a more extensive overview, see Goetic Timeline.

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APHRODITE

“And so soon as he had cut off the members…they were swept away…and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden…and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet.”

~Hesiod (Archaic Period)

name: unknown; it is not of Greek origin. Hesiod (incorrectly) figured her name derived from the greek word for “sea foam”.
origin: Cyprus
sacrificial animal: goat, dove

Aphrodite is a goddess of love and sexual union; she has been compared to the goddesses Ishtar, Astarte (“Aphrodite Ourania”), and Ushas. It is not wholly clear if her origins are Phoenician or Cypriot, or a combination of the two. At Amathous (Cyprus) she was venerated as the bearded and androgynous “Aphroditos”, and on Kythera she was depicted with weapons, nodding again to her possible origins as a derivation of the (also male-aspected and warlike) Astarte. At Akrokorinthos she “owned slaves” who worked as sacred prostitutes (without any priestess functions), a practice which may be linked (though distorted) to the fertility rites of Ishtar.

Her origin story in Hesiod’s Theogyny recounts how she arose from Ouranus’s genitals being castrated and flung into the ocean by his son Kronos. The beautiful, golden Aphrodite emerging from the sea is a drastic change from her Bronze Age cult at Cyprus, which pictured her as a naked and terrifying bird-faced goddess. That Aphrodite was influenced by the East is unquestioned, but whether or not she was an indigenous figure that was merged into the Astarte/Ishtar Queen of Heaven figure is not. From at least the Archaic period, she is depicted with Hermes or Ares, and in later periods frequently riding goats or descending from ladders. Her cult at Lokroi in the classical period was balanced with the local cult of Persephone, the later focusing on pre-nuptial rites and the former with women’s sexuality.

Aphrodite, whose background and original role is unclear, became a force of harmony and reproduction:

“In the fourth century we find Aphrodite separated into two aspects: higher, celestial love, Aphrodite Ourania, and the love of the whole people, Aphrodite Pandemos, who is responsible for lower sexual life and in particular for prostitution. Both names of Aphrodite are old and wide-spread cult epithets, but the original meanings were quite different. The Heavenly One is the Phoenician Queen of Heaven, and Pandemos is literally the one who embraces the whole people as the common bond and fellow feeling necessary for the existence of any state.”

~Walter Burkert

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Refs:

  • Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide (Jennifer Larson)
  • Geosophia: The Argo of Magick (Jake Stratton-Kent)
  • Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Walter Burkert)
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APOLLO

"You’ve injured me, Farshooter, most deadly of the gods; And I’d punish you, if I had the power.” "

~Homer

name: probably the Dorian Greek word for an annual tribal gathering, apella
origin: Nergal, Mesopotamian god of death, disease, and war
sacrificial animal: cow

Apollo was originally a plague-bearer with arrows of disease; a god of wolves and divine madness with a cthonic oracle. He is likely the same as the serpent (Python) that he is credited with slaying at Delphi.

“The serpent turned to stone on the occasion of the sacrifice before the Trojan expedition is reminiscent of the archaic dragon image of Apollo on the Isle of Delos. If so it may have been a primitive emblem of the pre-Olympian - one might say the original Hyperborean - Apollo…in a period before the rise of Delphi and the Classical ideals of Pan-Hellenism.”

~ Jake Stratton-Kent

Apollo, like the Archangel Michael, can trace his origins back to the Eblaite / Canaanite / Egyptian god of plague, war, and protection named Resheph. Resheph is the equivalent of the Mesopotamian Nergal, god of pestilence and the underworld. As Apollo, he becomes a guardian of pastoralists, colonizers, and civic life.

“…unable to explain why Apollo appears with a bow and arrow when he is not a god of hunters, and why he is specifically associated with the stag or roe and even has a lion in his train. In the first book of the Iliad, the arrows of Apollo signify pestilence: the god of healing is also the god of plague. this points to the Semitic god Rdep who as plague god shoots firebrands; in Ugarit and on Cyprus he is called Resep of the Arrow, and in both places he is accompanied by a lion; he is regularly equated with Apollo. The Apollo sanctuary of Amyklai perhaps preserves the name of the Semitic Rdep (A)mukal who was worshipped on Cyprus. The special role of the number seven in the Apollo cult must derive from Semitic tradition.”

~Walter Burkert

Notably, Daniel E. Gershenson disputes a Mesopotamian origin of Apollo, insisting that he is a thoroughly Indo-European “wind-wolf” archetype. Regardles of his origin, archaic Apollo was subsequently transformed into the god of healing, purification, prophetic inspiration, poetry, music, athletics, and the sun.

“The god Apollo in the Classical world…is the god of light, reason and the civilised arts…embodying everything later civilisations admired about the Greeks. Yet if anything about him is clear it is that this form was the product of layer after layer of superimposition…In Homer there is absolutely no trace of his solar nature, which dates to around 400 BCE. Indeed, our first glimpse of him in the lliad is not as a bringer of light, but of plague. The inconsistencies surrounding Apollo are evident at every turn. The closer we look the more the older traditions and attributes concerning him clash with the later developments.”

~ Jake Stratton-Kent

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Refs:

  • Apollo the Wolf-God (Daniel E. Gershenson)
  • Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide (Jennifer Larson)
  • Geosophia: The Argo of Magick (Jake Stratton-Kent)
  • Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Walter Burkert)
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ATHENA

“…dread rouser of battle-strife, unwearied leader of the host, a mistress who delights in the clamorous cry of war and battle and slaughter…”

~Hesiod (Archaic Period)

name: probably derived from the city of Athens
origin: probably Minoan (snake goddess) or Mycenaean (shield goddess)
sacrificial animal: she-goat

Athena is a warrior goddess and guardian of kings and their citadels; she has been compared to the goddesses Ishtar, Anat, and Neith. She was originally the protector of local rulers and became the champion of the state (polis) as it emerged in the classical period. She is also a goddess of domestic and martial crafts such as weaving, wool-working, carpentry, metallurgy, horse-taming, ship-building, and training soldiers.

Before being reinvented as a virgin by the cult of the polis, Athena was the partner of Hephaestus and Athenians revered the couple as household gods. Hephaestus was credited with creating the bronze axe (a symbol the archaic period) that was used to open Zeus’s head so that Athena could be born. This origin story can be traced back to pre-classical mythic artwork featuring Epimethus (brother of Prometheus, who is the likely proto-type of Hephaestus) approaching Pandora with an axe as she emerges from the colossal mountain goddess Cybele. Athena and Hephaestus are even credited with the creation of Pandora in later myth. Another myth lists Athena’s father as the giant Pallas, who she herself slew and skinned on the island of Kos. She is regularly depicted with a snake believed to be cthonic Zeus or Hades.

Athena, like Apollo, rises from ferocious origins to become a civilizing force of the state cult:

“Poseidon violently sires the horse, Athena bridles it and builds the chariot; Poseidon excites the waves, Athena builds the ship; Hermes may multiply the flocks, Athena teaches the use of wool. Even in war Athena is no exponent of derring-do- this is captured in the figure of Ares- but cultivates the war-dance, tactics, and discipline: when Odysseus, crafty and self-controlled as he is, persuades the Achaeans to join battle in spite of their war-weariness, then this is the work of Athena.”

~Walter Burkert

Interesting note: Jake Stratton-Kent attributes the origin of the protective goat-skin pentacle of grimoire lore to the goat-skin Aegis of Athena (which featured a Gorgon mask during the Archaic period).

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Refs:

  • Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide (Jennifer Larson)
  • Geosophia: The Argo of Magick (Jake Stratton-Kent)
  • Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Walter Burkert)
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Loving this compendium of god(desse)s.

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ARES

“Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar. You are the most hateful to me of all the gods who hold Olympus; forever strife is dear to you and wars and slaughter.”

~Homer (Archaic Period)

name: probably an ancient Greek word for “throng of battle; war”
origin: Mycenae
sacrificial animal: ox, rooster

Ares is the god of the bloodshed, destruction, and brutality of war (as opposed to its glory and splendor). He is not an import from the East but of Greek (possibly pre-Greek) origin. He was considered to be the son of Zeus and Hera and was not particularly popular, as testified in both the literary and archaeological record. He held an oracular function in Asia Minor. Archaic myth details his near-death binding in a bronze urn by the Aloedae (chthonic giants) and how he was freed after a lunar year by Hermes. He fought against the Greeks and Athena during the battle of Troy, and lost. Most of his myth involves defeat and humiliation. Ares does not appear to have changed much over time, though we know little about him.

“Armies waging war naturally sacrificed to Arcs from time to time, but Ares was worshiped with a temple cult in only a very few places. A famous Ares statue was made by Alkamenes. The Ares temple in the Athenian agora which Pausanias mentions was only transferred there in Augustan times; the building may have originally stood at Acharnai, or may even have belonged to a different god. It was only the Roman Mars, the Mars Ultor of Caesar Augustus, which brought Arcs a place at the centre of the Athenian polis.”

~Walter Burkert

Homeric Hymn 8 to Ares (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic 7th to 4th centuries BC)

Ares, exceeding in strength, chariot-rider, golden-helmed, doughty in heart, shield-bearer, Saviour of cities, harnessed in bronze, strong of arm, unwearying, mighty with the spear, O defence of Olympus, father of warlike Victory, ally of Themis, stern governor of the rebellious, leader of righteous men, sceptred King of manliness, who whirl your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through the aether wherein your blazing steeds ever bear you above the third firmament of heaven; hear me, helper of men, giver of dauntless youth! Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life, and strength of war, that I may be able to drive away bitter cowardice from my head and crush down the deceitful impulses of my soul. Restrain also the keen fury of my heart which provokes me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife. Rather, O blessed one, give you me boldness to abide within the harmless laws of peace, avoiding strife and hatred and the violent fiends of death.

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Attic black-figure volute-krater,570 BC. Kleitias Painter. Ares and Athena in the return of Hephaistos to Olympus.

Refs:

  • The Gods of the Greeks (Karl Kerenyi)
  • Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Walter Burkert)
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ARTEMIS

“Artemis of the wilderness, lady of wild beast. Zeus has made you a lion among women, and given you a leave to kill any at your pleasure.”

~Homer (Archaic Period)

name: unknown
origin: Minoan or Anatolian
sacrificial animal: goat, bear, boar, deer, horses, wild game

Artemis is the goddess of virgin nature, the hunt, and the initiation of girls into women. She is considered to be the daughter of Zeus by Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. Artemis is depicted as a gorgeous lady of the wood with a host of nymphs- but also as a vindictive goddess who demands sacrifices and ritual cruelty that transcend traditional piety.

“She is a paradoxical goddess: a virgin who aids women in childbirth, a fierce huntress who fosters wild beasts, and a bloodthirsty deity who both nurtures the young and demands their sacrifice. Standing at the borders, both conceptual and physical, between savage and civilized life, Artemis oversees the transition of girls to adult status, but is also a patron of warriors.”

~Jennifer Larson

She is frequently depicted in the Archaic Period as a “Mistress of Animals”, flanked by animals and birds which she grips by the neck. This iconography has been used to argue for a Minoan origin:

“Artemis is of Minoan origin; but this Artemis is not the goddess of classical mythology, the sister of Apollo, but a ruder and more primitive type of deity…this type of the Mistress of Animals has been handed on from Minoan and Mycenaean art to Greek art…From this starting point we may understand the two lines of development, which lead on the one hand to the Great Mountain Mother of Asia Minor who roams the mountains accompanied by her lions, and on the other to the virgin huntress of classical Greece…the Minoan Mistress of Animals was fused with Artemis. But this does not imply that the Greek Artemis had a purely Minoan origin…the Greeks also had deities who presided over Nature and the animals, although who they were we do not know. Greek religion is the product of a fusion of Greek and Minoan elements, as Artemis is…”

Artemis has also been compared to Cybele and Astarte:

~Nils Martin Persson Nilsson

“Ephesus amongst its mountains was a major centre of the worship of Cybele from at least the tenth century BCE. The North Syrian cult of Astarte, Artemis to the Greeks, Diana to the Romans, was built upon hers in later times, but the ecstatic festival known as the Ephesia was still celebrated in her honour in the Roman period…the high priests of Artemis at Ephesus were also eunuchs (Megabyzi or Megalobyzi). This may indicate either their original connection with the more ancient priesthood of Cybele, or the reverse, the influence of other cults upon that of Cybele.”

~ Jake Stratton-Kent

Wherever Artemis’s origins were, her savage nature as a goddess of wild animals survived her classical Greek reinvention as a virgin huntress of the untamed wood.

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*mistaken for breasts even in pagan times, the globes fixed to her torso were likely the large fruits of a date palm tree.

Refs:

  • Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide (Jennifer Larson)
  • Geosophia: The Argo of Magick (Jake Stratton-Kent)
  • Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Walter Burkert)
  • The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion (Nils Martin Persson Nilsson)
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