The Greeks have a lot of gods, but I'm just talking about the major "Twelve Olympians," aka Dodekatheon, with this list. This technically leaves out a few important gods like Hades, but maybe Hades should have lived on Olympus if he wanted to matter. You'll quickly notice that this list of twelve Olympians contains thirteen gods though. That's because the magic number of twelve was pretty solid throughout Greek history, but different sources had different lists. In the majority of sources, eleven of the twelve are consistent - with only Hestia and Dionysus swapping out.
13. Hestia - Speaking of Hestia, there is a reason why she was frequently left off the list of twelve. She's boring. Who cares about Hestia? She's the goddess of the hearth and represents domestic and home life. She's also supposedly a virginal goddess, which means she has no interesting stories because all the best Greek mythological stories are about crazy sex and violence. I really can't think of any interesting stories involving Hestia at all. People burned chunks of food as a sacrifice to her. That's about it.
12. Hephaestus - The god of blacksmiths, fires, volcanoes and stuff like that - which sounds cool. But he's also supposed to be ugly, "lame" (disabled), and deformed, which really sucks for him. In most legends, he's married to the beautiful and sexual Aphrodite - which I guess is supposed to be ironic or something. But even that's not a high point for him, since she's always cheating on him by banging Ares and others. Poor cuckold Hephaestus.
11. Demeter - Demeter was mainly the goddess of agriculture, which I suppose would have been pretty important in ancient Greece. Sometimes she's also given some attributes as a "law giver" too, which makes no sense. Unless the Greeks somehow foresaw the amazing sway of agricultural lobbyists. Still, not too many interesting stories in mythology about her - she's mainly just a supporting character in the stories of her daughter, Persephone, getting kidnapped and sent to the underworld to live with Hades.
10. Hermes - The god of expensive leather handbags and sandals with wings on them, Hermes is supposed to be the young, fast messenger and emissary of the gods. Big deal. He runs fast and delivers messages. Sometimes he's also portrayed as a trickster, I guess because he's young and brash. But mainly if he shows up in some Greek legend it's just to deliver exposition from the gods as a messenger. Hermes was essentially invented as a convenient and lazy plot device so that mortals could get updates from gods.
9. Hera - Poor Hera, almost always depicted as some sort of villainess. She's depicted as vengeful, jealous, tantrum-throwing bitch who is always trying to harm humans. Which is pretty messed up because she's also the goddess of marriage and wife of Zeus, who is constantly transforming himself into animals and shit to cheat on her with humans. And she's supposed to be the bad one? She's literally the embodiment and personification of the idea of marriage, and yet she's cheated on constantly by an asshole husband. The fuck?! You know why she's jealous and why she's angry? Because her dick husband is always traveling to earth to put his cock into anything with a pulse. And the vengefulness to humans? Yeah, she's generally pretty mean to the women who Zeus sleeps with. Most of the time her ill will to these mortal girls is unfair, given that their "relationships" with Zeus almost always fit a textbook definition of rape victim.
8. Apollo - Generally sun gods are more important than Apollo. Sun gods are usually a chief god, right? Like Amun-Ra. Apollo seems more "meh" to me. He doesn't even get to always be sun god because the Greeks also have the Titan Helios. Apollo is also depicted as a music and poetry god, which seems like a fairly steep demotion from controlling the sun. As if to make up for it, they also dumped a lot of other crap on him like being the god of healing, truth, prophesy, plague (despite the fact that he's a god of healing), colonists, shepherds, flocks, and sometimes archery (which is more his sister's thing). Given his role in everything, he does feature in a lot of stories - so he's got that going for him.
7. Artemis - Artemis is pretty badass. Usually Apollo's twin sister, she's the goddess of the hunt and wild animals - so she always goes around with her bow and arrow shooting things. Is it just me - or is it strange to be both the goddess of wild animals as well as the goddess of killing wild animals? Does she prance around the woods with her animal best friends until she gets hungry and then shoots and kills one of them? Why do all the deer continue to hang out with her if she's always killing them? Anyway, she's in a load of stories in mythology and features prominently in the Trojan War and stories about Adonis, Orion, Callisto, Atalanta, etc.
6. Zeus - I'm ranking Zeus this low because he's kind of just a boring, over-powered rapist who constantly throws thunderbolts at things. The "allfather" and chief of the gods is obviously in a crapload of stories - but he's honestly not that interesting. He's horny and he controls the weather. Big deal. I'm sure there is an X-Men porn parody where Storm is exactly the same.
5. Ares - God of war, yesssssssssss! Usually depicted going around on a chariot and slaughtering people, Ares has sons named Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror). How awesome is that? He's also got a number of consorts and children because he had game like his father, Zeus. The only downside to Ares is the number of stories about him is somewhat limited, although he does have a substantial role in the Iliad.
4. Dionysus - For one of the two gods who is sometimes completely left out of the "big twelve," Dionysus is pretty awesome. I can totally see why people would swap boring-ass Hestia for this awesome god of wine, drunkenness, revelry, ritual madness, orgiastic parties, and "unrestrained consumption." Who wouldn't like this guy? He was originally depicted as older and bearded, but over time came to be depicted as a younger figure. Probably after the Greeks invented the concept of frat bros.
3. Aphrodite - Goddess of love, desire, beauty, pleasure, and making the sexy time. Sometimes she's a daughter of Zeus and sometimes she's just the result of the foamy residue from Uranus's genitals being cut off and thrown into the sea (gross). Aphrodite is one of the most memorable and interesting goddesses and probably the most commonly depicted one in art. She plays a role in the Trojan War (especially kicking it off with the Judgment of Paris), and is important in the myths of Adonis, Eros, Psyche, and others. Married to gross-ass Hephaestus as part of a plan made by Zeus to ensure that the gods didn't all go to war to win her - it didn't really work as she had affairs with everyone and especially Ares. You'd think Aphrodite's natural soul mate would be Dionysus - but I guess not. Still, they did hook up and the result was Priapus - who is depicted as exactly you'd think the child of the gods of drunkenness and sex should be depicted.
2. Poseidon - Poseidon (which all cool people pronounce as "Paw-say-dawn" rather than "Poe-sigh-dun") is so much more cool than Zeus. Commonly just thought of as a water god, Poseidon is so much more. The actual meaning and etymology of his name is debatable, although one good theory holds that it's from posis ("lord", "master" or "husband") and dâwon (water), which would make him the lord/master/husband of the waters. But more important than his name itself is his epithet - Enosichthon, which has origins going back to Linear B text from the 15th Century BC. And that epitheth means "Earth Shaker," since Poseidon is also the god of Earthquakes. He's also a god of horses, for some odd reason. This dude is usually depicted holding his trident and ready to kill some stupid mofos. In surviving Linear B text, his name appears more commonly than Zeus's, since it makes a lot more sense that a water god who could offer safe passage to a seafaring culture of island-dwellers would be more important than his lame ass brother who just sat on Olympus thinking of ways to have sex. He's a key figure in both the Trojan War as well as Trojan War Part II: Odysseus's Electric Boogaloo, less commonly known as The Odyssey. He's also an important co-founder of Athens in mythology, associated with Atlantis (which makes sense), and probably even got more game than Zeus. All the sea-related gods, creatures and demi-gods? Yeah, pretty much hid kids. Poseidon's list of consorts and offspring is long as hell. He even banged Medusa - which probably led to some sort of hilarious mid-coitus pun about, "you're damn right it's hard as a stone!"
1. Athena - While Ares is the god of war, he's really more like the god of "brutal, savage, run into battle while screaming like an idiot and cutting heads off" war. Athena was more of the tactician. She planned out battle strategies and gamed her enemy. She only fought for just causes and never fought without a purpose. Athena is Sun Tzu while Ares is, uh, Donald Rumsfeld. While Ares sided with the Trojans in the Trojan War - Athena sided with the Greeks. So she's an actual winner because we all know how that one ended. And she's more than just a war god - she's most famously the goddess of wisdom. Pretty crazy that the same Greek culture that made Hera a fussy bitch villainess for being cheated on would also personify wisdom itself as a female. The city of Athens is obviously named after her and she's mentioned as the founder of it (Poseidon and her had a rivalry and she won... she always won!). The most common story of her birth is that she just emerged from Zeus's head like some sort of Xenomorph, already fully primed and cladded in armor. She also has that awesome robot owl that does her bidding. Or maybe
that's just from the 80's and not actually ancient mythology - but
whatever.
13. Hestia - Speaking of Hestia, there is a reason why she was frequently left off the list of twelve. She's boring. Who cares about Hestia? She's the goddess of the hearth and represents domestic and home life. She's also supposedly a virginal goddess, which means she has no interesting stories because all the best Greek mythological stories are about crazy sex and violence. I really can't think of any interesting stories involving Hestia at all. People burned chunks of food as a sacrifice to her. That's about it.
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| A typical day - Hephaestus watching his wife sleep with someone else. |
11. Demeter - Demeter was mainly the goddess of agriculture, which I suppose would have been pretty important in ancient Greece. Sometimes she's also given some attributes as a "law giver" too, which makes no sense. Unless the Greeks somehow foresaw the amazing sway of agricultural lobbyists. Still, not too many interesting stories in mythology about her - she's mainly just a supporting character in the stories of her daughter, Persephone, getting kidnapped and sent to the underworld to live with Hades.
10. Hermes - The god of expensive leather handbags and sandals with wings on them, Hermes is supposed to be the young, fast messenger and emissary of the gods. Big deal. He runs fast and delivers messages. Sometimes he's also portrayed as a trickster, I guess because he's young and brash. But mainly if he shows up in some Greek legend it's just to deliver exposition from the gods as a messenger. Hermes was essentially invented as a convenient and lazy plot device so that mortals could get updates from gods.
9. Hera - Poor Hera, almost always depicted as some sort of villainess. She's depicted as vengeful, jealous, tantrum-throwing bitch who is always trying to harm humans. Which is pretty messed up because she's also the goddess of marriage and wife of Zeus, who is constantly transforming himself into animals and shit to cheat on her with humans. And she's supposed to be the bad one? She's literally the embodiment and personification of the idea of marriage, and yet she's cheated on constantly by an asshole husband. The fuck?! You know why she's jealous and why she's angry? Because her dick husband is always traveling to earth to put his cock into anything with a pulse. And the vengefulness to humans? Yeah, she's generally pretty mean to the women who Zeus sleeps with. Most of the time her ill will to these mortal girls is unfair, given that their "relationships" with Zeus almost always fit a textbook definition of rape victim.
8. Apollo - Generally sun gods are more important than Apollo. Sun gods are usually a chief god, right? Like Amun-Ra. Apollo seems more "meh" to me. He doesn't even get to always be sun god because the Greeks also have the Titan Helios. Apollo is also depicted as a music and poetry god, which seems like a fairly steep demotion from controlling the sun. As if to make up for it, they also dumped a lot of other crap on him like being the god of healing, truth, prophesy, plague (despite the fact that he's a god of healing), colonists, shepherds, flocks, and sometimes archery (which is more his sister's thing). Given his role in everything, he does feature in a lot of stories - so he's got that going for him.
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| Naked killing machine |
6. Zeus - I'm ranking Zeus this low because he's kind of just a boring, over-powered rapist who constantly throws thunderbolts at things. The "allfather" and chief of the gods is obviously in a crapload of stories - but he's honestly not that interesting. He's horny and he controls the weather. Big deal. I'm sure there is an X-Men porn parody where Storm is exactly the same.
5. Ares - God of war, yesssssssssss! Usually depicted going around on a chariot and slaughtering people, Ares has sons named Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror). How awesome is that? He's also got a number of consorts and children because he had game like his father, Zeus. The only downside to Ares is the number of stories about him is somewhat limited, although he does have a substantial role in the Iliad.
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| Not creepy at all. Hang out with this booze dude! |
3. Aphrodite - Goddess of love, desire, beauty, pleasure, and making the sexy time. Sometimes she's a daughter of Zeus and sometimes she's just the result of the foamy residue from Uranus's genitals being cut off and thrown into the sea (gross). Aphrodite is one of the most memorable and interesting goddesses and probably the most commonly depicted one in art. She plays a role in the Trojan War (especially kicking it off with the Judgment of Paris), and is important in the myths of Adonis, Eros, Psyche, and others. Married to gross-ass Hephaestus as part of a plan made by Zeus to ensure that the gods didn't all go to war to win her - it didn't really work as she had affairs with everyone and especially Ares. You'd think Aphrodite's natural soul mate would be Dionysus - but I guess not. Still, they did hook up and the result was Priapus - who is depicted as exactly you'd think the child of the gods of drunkenness and sex should be depicted.
2. Poseidon - Poseidon (which all cool people pronounce as "Paw-say-dawn" rather than "Poe-sigh-dun") is so much more cool than Zeus. Commonly just thought of as a water god, Poseidon is so much more. The actual meaning and etymology of his name is debatable, although one good theory holds that it's from posis ("lord", "master" or "husband") and dâwon (water), which would make him the lord/master/husband of the waters. But more important than his name itself is his epithet - Enosichthon, which has origins going back to Linear B text from the 15th Century BC. And that epitheth means "Earth Shaker," since Poseidon is also the god of Earthquakes. He's also a god of horses, for some odd reason. This dude is usually depicted holding his trident and ready to kill some stupid mofos. In surviving Linear B text, his name appears more commonly than Zeus's, since it makes a lot more sense that a water god who could offer safe passage to a seafaring culture of island-dwellers would be more important than his lame ass brother who just sat on Olympus thinking of ways to have sex. He's a key figure in both the Trojan War as well as Trojan War Part II: Odysseus's Electric Boogaloo, less commonly known as The Odyssey. He's also an important co-founder of Athens in mythology, associated with Atlantis (which makes sense), and probably even got more game than Zeus. All the sea-related gods, creatures and demi-gods? Yeah, pretty much hid kids. Poseidon's list of consorts and offspring is long as hell. He even banged Medusa - which probably led to some sort of hilarious mid-coitus pun about, "you're damn right it's hard as a stone!"
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| Originator of the "I can't even" pose. |
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