Deity

In religious belief, a deity (ⁱ/ˈdiː.ᵻti/ or ⁱ/ˈdeɪ.ᵻti/) is either a natural or supernatural being, who is thought of as holy, divine, or sacred. Some religions have one supreme deity, while others have multiple deities. A male deity is a god (though "God" is used in a gender-neutral way in monotheistic religions), while a female deity is a goddess.

C. Scott Littleton's Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology defined a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". Historically, various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God. A deity need not be omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent or eternal. A monotheistic God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent and eternal.

Deities are depicted in a variety of forms, but are also frequently expressed as having human form. Deities are often thought to be immortal, and are commonly assumed to have personalities and to possess consciousness, intellects, desires, and emotions comparable but usually superior to those of humans.

List of Greek mythological figures

The following is a list of gods, goddesses and many other divine and semi-divine figures from Ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion. (The list does not include creatures; for these, see List of Greek mythological creatures.)

Immortals

The Greeks created images of their deities for many purposes. A temple would house the statue of a god or goddess, or multiple deities, and might be decorated with relief scenes depicting myths. Divine images were common on coins. Drinking cups and other vessels were painted with scenes from Greek myths.

Major gods and goddesses

Primordial deities

Titans and Titanesses

The Titans and Titanesses are depicted in Greek art less commonly than the Olympians.

Eos (Dawn) and the hero Memnon (490–480 BC)

Eos (Dawn) and the hero Memnon (490–480 BC)

Helios in his four-horse chariot (3rd century BC)

Helios in his four-horse chariot (3rd century BC)

Themis, from the Temple of Nemesis (ca. 300 BC)

Themis, from the Temple of Nemesis (ca. 300 BC)

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and teachings that belong to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Modern scholars refer to and study the myths in an attempt to shed light on the religious and political institutions of Ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.

Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a large collection of narratives, and implicitly in Greek representational arts, such as vase-paintings and votive gifts. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines and mythological creatures. These accounts initially were disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; today the Greek myths are known primarily from Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homer's epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War and its aftermath. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age, and in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias.

Greek

Greek may refer to:

Greece

Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: