Mythology
In ancient Greece, stories about gods, goddesses, heroes and monsters were an important part of everyday life. They explained everything from religious rituals to the weather, and they gave meaning to the world people saw around them. In Greek mythology, there is no single original text that introduces all of the myths’ characters and stories. Instead, the earliest Greek myths were part of an oral tradition that began in the Bronze Age, and their plots and themes unfolded gradually in the written literature of the archaic and classical periods. They do not, however, bother to introduce the gods and goddesses who are their main characters, since readers and listeners would already have been familiar with them. Around 700 BC, the poet Hesiod’s Theogony offered the first written origin story, of Greek mythology. A theogony is the genealogy of a group or system of gods. The Theogony tells the story of the universe’s journey from nothingness (Chaos, a primeval void) to being, and details an elaborate family tree of elements, gods and goddesses who evolved from Chaos and descended from Gaia (Earth), Ouranos (Sky), Pontos (Sea) and Tartarus (the Underworld). A myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. At the center of Greek mythology is the pantheon of deities who were said to live on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. From their branch, they ruled every aspect of human life. Olympian gods and goddesses looked like men and women (though they could change themselves into animals and other things) and were vulnerable to human weaknesses.