How Do You Think the Greek Perceived Their Gods? What Do Characteristics Ascribed to These Gods Reveal About How Greeks Saw Humankind's Role, as Well as Their Gods Role, in This World?

Essay: How do you think the Greek perceived their Gods? What do characteristics ascribed to these gods reveal about how Greeks saw humankind's role, as well as their Gods role, in this world?

It seems to me, that each God had a special characteristic or has some sort of role in the world. I think that the Greek perceived their Gods to be ones that they serve or 'look up to'. The Greeks were aware of what the Gods could do but, would not push them to that extent. The Greeks yet could still be at ease around them, but when they became angry, they became powerful and dangerous. "The Greeks made their Gods in their own image" (Hamilton, pg 8). The characteristics that each God held, told something about themselves. Whether it was Zeus, married but yet having affairs or Hercules fighting off monsters in combat; each of them carried something to describe themselves. I feel that the God's role was to protect the humankind and the humankind was to obey the God's. If you obeyed the God's, they never became dangerous and there were no worries. Mankind would be protected as long as they obeyed the Gods. Mankind became the center of God's universe, to protect from evil or "from fear of a powerful unknown" (Classic Mythology, Slide 3).

Work Cited

Hamilton, Edith. "Mythology" Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1942.

Shoemaker, Lisa. "Classical Mythology. " Mythology of the Greeks and Greek and Roman Writers of Mythology 2010.