Glencoe Literature: The Reader's Choice

From Zeus to Apollo, Poseidon to Dionysus, the Olympian gods and goddesses were all-powerful and unpredictably fickle. Overlooking Greece from atop Mount Olympus, these mighty beings boiled the oceans, electrified the skies, and split the earth. The Greeks honored them with magnificent temples where rituals, sacrifices, and ceremonies of birth, death, and other mysteries were carried out. Yet Homer dared to poke fun at the gods in his classic epics. Were these figures divine or political? Did they represent brutal warrior-kings or genuine spiritual beings, or some combination of both?