Greek Mythology Research Paper

For my DIY course, I had researched mythology, mainly Greek mythology though. So in the beginning of Greek mythology, the first gods were Gaea, the Earth and Uranus, the Sky and Heavens. Some stories say that Gaea had made Uranus. Together they had twelve children in all and they were known as the first generation of Titans. Six of them were females and their names were Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Rhea, Theia, Themis and Tethys. The six males were named Coeus, Cronus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Oceanus. The Titans arose to power when Cronus, his mother, Gaea, and his brothers made a plan to take the rulership of the Cosmos from their father, Uranus, resulting with Cronus who the youngest brother to be in control.

One thing that I had found interesting was that the Titans married their siblings and had children together. Hyperion and Theia gave birth to Eos, Helios and Selene. Coeus and Phoebe children were Leto and Asteria. Oceanus and Tethys gave birth to Oceanids and Potamoi. Oceanids and Potamoi were not usually referred to as Titans. Cronus and Rhea gave birth to the younger gods and goddesses. These gods are more well known today as the
Olympians and they included Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Hestia and Demeter. Eventually the Olympians would defeat their father Cronus in a war that took ten years to complete, a war that was known as Titanomachy.

The story goes that Cronus heard a prophecy about himself saying that his children will one day come to defeat him. Knowing this information, every time his wife Rhea would have a child he would go and swallow the child whole. Rhea finally had enough of this so she went to her mother Gaea who helped her hide her last son, Zeus, in a deep cave with creatures called nymphs to care for him. Rhea wrapped a rock in a blanket to look like baby Zeus and gave it to Cronus to swallow. Years went by and Zeus grew strong and became more intelligent. When Zeus was older he tricked his father into drinking some kind of drink that made him throw up Zeus’s other siblings, who together defeated Cronus.

The Olympians lived on Mount Olympus and were also largely worshiped by humans.
They became patrons of cites. For example Sparta worshiped the god Ares, Corinth worshiped Poseidon and Athens worshiped the goddess Athena.
The story for how Athena became the patron of Athens was that both Athena and Poseidon wanted to be the patrons of this city. So, Zeus decided to have both Athena and Poseidon bring a gift for the people of this city and then he would decide which gift was better. Poseidon decide to bring a strong and beautiful horse as his gift to the people to provide the people protection. But Athena said to the people that the horse could also bring war and sadness. So she gave the people an olive tree which represents a sign of peace, happiness and freedom. Zeus finally chose Athena and named the city Athens after
her.

During this project I also learned about mythological creatures. One of them was Cerberus which was Hades's three headed dog, that guarded the gates of Hell. Sirens were creatures that would lure sailors to come to them and then they would eat the sailors. Their appearances were the head of a women and the body of a bird. Nymphs were spirits of Nature but their were different types of Nymphs. Ones of the forest were called dryads, ones of the rivers and springs were called Naiads and Nymphs of the mountains were called oreads. Sphinx were female animals with the head or upper body of a woman, bird wings, breast and paws of a lion and the tail of a snake. The last creatures i'm going to talk about are called Gorgons. Gorgons are the three daughters of Typhon and Echidna. They were hideous creatures that could turn people into stone if anyone looks into their eyes. Their physical appearances included scales all over their body, long fangs, brass hands and have living snakes where their hair is supposed to be. Their names were Sthena, Euryale, and Medusa. Medusa was the only gorgon that was mortal.

Medusa was turned into a gorgon because one day she went into Athena’s palace and started saying that she was prettier than Athena was and everyone knows that Athena hates it when she is compared to other people so she curse Medusa to be a gorgon.