By the Gods!

Pan

Pan is the semi-lovable faun-type-thing from Greek mythology. His parentage is unclear, with Zeus, Hermes, or Dionysus all contenders for fatherhood, but his mother is almost definitely a nymph. Even though he’s often thought of as a lesser deity, he had renowned parentage, and maintained status of an important Greek god. He is usually depicted with goat-like horns, a shaggy face and hair, and the legs and hooves of a goat. 

Pan is known for being playful and energetic, with his preferred musical instrument, the pipes/pan flute, always on hand. Pan could be a frightening god when he wanted to be, blowing on a conch to inflict terror on any who heard the sound it made. He used this fear-inducing conch to help scatter the Titans and aid the Olympians in their war, and is also credited with putting panic in the hearts of the Persian armies in the Battle of Marathon. 

Music was his thing, and he wouldn’t shut up about how talented he was. He even claimed to be better than Apollo, god of the lyre, in this regard, and Apollo wasn’t about to suffer a little half-goat rival. After whooping Pan in a straight-up music contest, the faun demanded a rematch. Apollo set the terms that they would play upside-down, and while his lyre-playing was unaffected, Pan couldn’t operate his pipes in that position, and Apollo took the win.

Mars 

Mars is the Roman god of war. To those of you thinking “but I just read about him in the post about Ares!”: not so fast! Mars and Ares are similar, granted. The Roman Pantheon was derived from the Greek to a certain degree. However, Mars has a different level of importance to the Romans along with different stories and symbols.  Essentially, the Greek god Ares and the Roman god Mars are cousins, not clones. This is the case for most of the gods regarding their changes from Greek to Roman perspectives.

Mars is the Roman God of war, but initially he was the god of fertility and vegetation and the protector of cattle, field and boundaries. So if you’re stuck in Greek mode, Mars was originally more of a Demeter-meets-Hermes type god rather than an Ares.  The Romans began life as farmers (back in the days before Romulus and Remus) and Mars protected them from the invading hordes of pests that ate and ruined crops. When the overall Roman mentality switched to a more warlike tone, Mars followed suit. As Mars had protected crops from invading pests, he now protected the people from invading barbarians and became the god of war. Mars was also considered the most revered god in the Roman pantheon. Even though Jupiter (the Roman analogue for Zeus) was the king of the gods, Mars was deemed the most powerful. The Romans also claimed a hereditary attachment to Mars through Romulus and Remus, the progenitors of the truly defined, “new” Roman people at the birth of expansion and republic, as some saw it.

Mars’ symbols are the dog, sword, vulture and bloodshed. Unlike Ares, Mars had a wife: Bellona, a Roman war goddess. However, like Ares, Mars also had an affair with the love goddess, Venus. Sure, just go ahead and do what everyone’s expecting you to do. Together they had four children, Cupid, Deimos, Phobos and Hermonia.

The differences between Mars and Ares (with particular regard to their origins) outweigh the similarities. The next time someone suggests that the Roman and Greek gods were carbon copies, you can put on your Mythologian cap, and intellectually decimate them in the name of Mars.

Oceanus

Oceanus was a Titan, the son of Ouranos and Gaia, but never an enemy of Zeus (a wise decision). On the contrary, he protected Zeus’ wife, Hera, and mother, Rhea, when the Olympians fought the Titans. He was the ruler of the encircling sea, which the Greeks believed to be the world-ocean that wrapped around the earth. You could think of him as Poseidon-Alpha, as some scholars believe that Oceanus originally represented all known bodies of salt water until Poseidon came around, who had control of the Mediterranean. 

Oceanus is always depicted as a rugged-lookin’ dude with a major beard and serious hair, but his lower half’s representation differs. Sometimes he’s all man, but occasionally he’s been seen with the lower half of a fish or snake. Maybe it changes depending on what mood he’s in, or something. He also sometimes has crab-like pincers for horns. Oceanus’ consort was his sister, Tethys, and from their union came the ocean nymphs, also known as the three-thousand Oceanids, who were all the rivers, fountains, and lakes of the world.

Hephaestus

The smith god of the Greek Pantheon was Hephaestus, whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He was sometimes also seen as a god of fire, and is believed to have originated in Asia Minor, where iron mines date from an early period. If you’re an ancient miner, you’d probably want to worship a mining/smith god. Makes sense to me! In Greek myth, Hephaestus has two competing origin stories: the tradition attested in Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad has Hephaestus born of the union of Zeus and Hera. However, a version that pops up regularly in later-recorded texts has Hephaestus born of Hera alone. Zeus produced Athena, one of the mightiest Olympians, all by himself, and Hera wanted to prove she could best Zeus. All she came up with was ol’ busted-leg Hephaestus, though, giving Zeus the win in the “make-a-kid-solo” competition.

Important thing about Hephaestus: he had a gibbled leg. He was lame, the poor feller. As mentioned above, one tradition states that he was born lame. Another story has him thrown off Mount Olympus by a furious Zeus, ruining his leg in the process. Either way, it ain’t easy bein’ Hephaestus. He was married to Aphrodite, whose disinterest and infidelity were legendary. Writing about Hephaestus is making me sad. Dude had it rough.

Fun bonus story: trying to have sex with Athena but being met with rejection, the semen of Hephaestus fell to earth where it gave birth to a snake that would go on to be the king of Athens. The more you know!

Aphrodite

The Greek goddess of love, beauty and fertility was, of course, the one, the only, the sexy: Aphrodite. Unlike her Roman counterpart, Venus, with whom she was identified, Aphrodite was not only a goddess of sexual love, but also of the affection that sustains social life: the type affection you might have for your best friend, your community do-gooders, and your dog. Make no mistake, the sexual aspect was still important; I’m sure Aphrodite was the subject of many inappropriate thoughts for the blossoming teenagers of ancient Greece. 

The meaning of her name is uncertain, though the ancient Greeks came to believe it referred to foam. This belief may have arisen through the story of her birth. When Kronos, the Titan, castrated his father, Ouranos, with a sickle, (ouch) he cast the immortal dong/unit/member/thing into the sea, where it flowed amid the foam. Aphrodite was born from this strange union of floating member and foam, and washed up on the beaches of Cyprus. Cyprus is pretty far from Greece, and indeed there is evidence that suggests she was a West-Asian goddess brought to Greece by sea-traders. She was married to Hephaestus, the crippled smith-god, but made it with half of the guys on Olympus, and some important mortals (Adonis and Anchises).

Romulus and Remus

The twin sons of Mars, the God of War, torn from their mortal mother at birth by a king nervous of their power and lineage, Romulus and Remus were thrown into the river Tiber. The river couldn’t get the job done, however, and their cradle washed up on a mud bank a few miles away. Mars sent his sacred animal, the wolf, to look after his sons, and they were nourished by the wolf’s milk and protected by her until being found by a shepherd.

Time passed, and long story short, they founded the city of Rome. At one point, the twins got into a bit of a tiff, and Romulus killed Remus with a spade. Romulus, though, went on to rule Rome with a strong hand, and the city flourished. 

The Romulus and Remus myth for Rome’s founding was about as popular as that of Aeneas. The she-wolf became the symbol of Roman nationhood around 500 BCE.

A friend recently asked what the deal was with the whole “Saturn-eating-his-kids” thing. Saturn, henceforth referred to as Cronus (his original name from Greek antiquity) was told a prophesy that his son would destroy and usurp him. To prevent this, as soon as Rhea, his wife, birthed a child, he swallowed it. Zeus, the last child of Cronus and Rhea, was secretly given to Gaia for safekeeping, while Rhea dressed up a rock in baby clothes and fed that to the inattentive Cronus.

Zeus grows up, frees his brothers and sisters, and would wage a war on Cronus and the Titans ending in Zeus’ ascension to the throne of Olympus, and the casting of the Titans into the pits of Tartarus. 

The above pictures are both titled Saturn Devouring His Son.