The Titans And The Twelve Great Olympians

The Titans, often called the Elder Gods, were for untold ages supreme in the universe. They were of enormous size and of incredible strength. The most important titan of all was Cronus, in Latin Saturn. He ruled over the other Titans until his son Zeus dethroned him and seized the power for himself. The Romans believed that when Zeus ascended the throne, Cronus fled to Italy and brought it in its Golden Age. Another notable Titan is Ocean, the river that is said to encircle the world; his wife Tethys; Hyperion, the father of the sun, the moon and the dawn; Mnemosyne, which means memory; Themis, usually translated by justice; And Iapetus, important because of his sons, Atlas, who bore the world on his shoulders, and Prometheus, who was the savior of mankind. The great Olympians were supreme among those who succeeded to the Titans. They were called Olympians because Olympus were their home. Olympus was first said to be on a mountain top, and generally identified with Greece's highest point, Mt. Olympus. In one passage of the Iliad, Zeus talks to the gods from the "highest peak of many ridged Olympus" clearly a mountain. But a little further he says that if he willed he could hang earth and sea from a pinnacle of Olympus, clearly no longer a mountain. Even so, it is not heaven. Homer, said to be the author of the ancient poems Iliad and Odyssey, makes Poseidon say that he rules over the sea, Hades the dead, Zeus the heavens, but Olympus is common to all three. Wherever it was, the entrance to it was a great gate of clouds kept by seasons. No wind, Homer says, ever shakes the untroubled peace of Olympus; No rain ever falls there or snow; but the cloudless firmament stretches around it on all sides and the white glory of sunshine is diffused upon its walls.

The twelve Olympians made up a divine family: (1) Zeus (Jupiter), the chief; his two brothers next , (2) Poseidon (Neptune), and (3) Hades (Pluto); (4) Hestia (Vesta), their sister; (5) Hera (Juno), Zeus's wife, and (6) Ares (Mars), their son; Zeus's children: (7) Athena (Minerva), (8) Apollo, (9) Aphrodite (Venus), (10) Hermes (Mercury), and (11) Artemis (Diana); Hera's son (12) Hephaestus (Vulcan), sometimes said to be Zeus's son.