Ancient Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology originating in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the plural, though most of them shared similarities.
Many of the ancient Greek people recognized the major (Olympian) gods and goddesses (Zeus,Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes,Demeter, Hestia, and Hera), although philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonismused language that seems to posit a transcendent single deity. Different cities often worshiped the same deities, sometimes with epithets that distinguished them and specified their local nature.
The religious practices of the Greeks extended beyond mainland Greece, to the islands and coasts of Ionia in Asia Minor, to Magna Graecia (Sicily and southern Italy), and to scattered Greek colonies in the Western Mediterranean, such as Massalia (Marseille). Greek religion was tempered by Etruscan cult and belief to form much of the later ancient Roman religion.
Beliefs
While there were few concepts universal to all the Greek peoples, there were common beliefs shared by many.
heology
Ancient Greek theology was polytheistic, based on the assumption that there were many gods and goddesses. There was a hierarchy of deities, with Zeus, the king of the gods, having a level of control over all the others, although he was not omnipotent. Some deities had dominion over certain aspects of nature. For instance, Zeus was the sky-god, sending thunder and lightning, Poseidon ruled over the sea and earthquakes, Hades projected his remarkable power throughout the realms of death and theUnderworld, and Helios controlled the sun. Other deities ruled over an abstract concept; for instanceAphrodite controlled love.
While being immortal, the gods were certainly not all-good or even all-powerful. They had to obey fate, which overrode any of their divine powers or wills. For instance, in mythology, it was Odysseus' fate to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, and the gods could only lengthen his journey and make it harder for him, but they could not stop him.
