Ancient Greek Religion

This report will be about the ancient Greece legacies and their religion. The Neolithic Age between c. 6000 - c. 2900 BCE was when ancient Greece began to shape. They built permanent structures and began domestication of animals, and development of agriculture.

Ancient Greece religion
The Gods: The Greeks had a big religion Filled with 12 major gods and goddesses and hundreds of minor gods. The 12 gods were Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Poseidon, Hermes, Hera, Aphrodite, Demeter, Ares, Artemis, Hades, Hephaistos, and Dionysus. Greeks would sacrifice their tame animals to please a certain god he only goddess that had wild animals sacrificed to her was Artemis, twin sister of Apollo. Gods were believed to be the cause of disasters such as: floods,
famine, droughts and earthquakes. In the Greek imagination, literature, and art, the gods were given human bodies and characters and just as ordinary men and women, they married, had children and fought. In stories of Greek mythology it was said they directly intervened in human affairs. These stories were first shared verbally but later was written down by Hesiod in his Theogony and more indirectly in the works of Homer. Gods often became patrons with different villages for example Athena became the patron of Athens after winning a contest with her uncle, Poseidon.

Sicknesses: Greeks would leave clay replicas of different parts of their body that was affect by sickness or disease at Asclepius’s shrine.
This was because they believed Asclepius could heal them. Asclepius made many cures, including the bringing back to life of many dead people. Reviving the dead and making them basically immortal was something that outraged Hades, who thought the souls rightfully belong to him. This also worried Zeus because Asclepius was disturbing the balance of things and Nature. It is not normal for people not to die and live forever. That is why Zeus and Hades, decided to punish Asclepius for what he had caused. Zeus struck Asclepius with a thunderbolt and ended his life. Zeus wanted to make humanity understand that there is a gap between people and the gods. Zeus however had recognized the great service that Asclepius had offered to humanity and decided to turn him into a constellation to live forever in the
sky.
Afterlife: When someone died, depending on the wealth of a family they would bury them with expansive gifts to take with them in the afterlife. They would also be buried with a coin placed on their lips to pay their fee for a ferry across the river of Styx. It was believed that if you were not buried with a coin you could not cross the river of Styx and was doomed to wander the river banks, although some people managed to swim over the lake. Your family member that was not buried with a coin would come back to haunt you and your family until you died.

The legacy of ancient Greece
The legacy of ancient Greece still affects us today in many ways.
They invented many different things we use commonly such as drama, democratic government, the Hippocratic Oath, the peer jury and marathons.
The Hippocratic Oath: Hippocrates was known as the great ancient Greek physician and the father pf medicine. He taught about how sicknesses had natural causes and could be cured. He was the first to believe that medicine was not part of religion or science. Came up with Hippocratic Oath that is still sometimes used today but has been reworded over the years, although it still has the message is still the same.
Democratic Government: Athens invented the democratic government or the “demokratia” meaning “rule by the people” in 507 B.C. This government had a system of courts and selected representatives to make laws and mange foreign policy.
Drama: In ancient Greece, citizens came together for festivals, celebrations and theatrical productions. Greeks like Aeschylus wrote tragedies that served to describe political and social worries. Greeks like Menander wrote plays to mock the rich, upper class, But in the in the end, they came together to put commentaries on the worries of
society.
Peer Juries: Peer juries were used to decide important cases or to pass judgement on potential laws decided by the assembly. Juries were often filled with rich elderly rather than normal town’s people.
Geometric and mathematical deduction: Geometric and mathematical deduction was studied differently by Geeks, than those who came before them. Pythagoreans, led by Pythagoras, applied mathematical values to everything around them and studied the properties of numbers, they created new applications for mathematics.