Of Gods and Men

So I was watching "Atlantis" on BBC America this morning, and the King, I noticed, seemed to think that he was a god. Now, the gist of this series is this: The hero of the story, whose name escapes me, has been transported back in time to Atlantis, which bears a passing resemblance to ancient Crete and the Minoan civilization, which only makes sense since Atlantis was supposed to have been an island in the Mediterranean or possibly the Atlantic Ocean. (I, personally, think that Plato made the whole story up, but that's a whole nuther issue.)  And ancient Crete did bear a passing resemblance to a combination of ancient Phoenicia and ancient Egypt. And the ancient Egyptians and ancient Phoenicians did tend to think of their kings as gods, especially the ancient Egyptians. The Babylonians, Syrians, and other Middle Eastern sorts, also tended to have kings who thought of themselves as gods and demanded to be treated as such.

The ancient Greeks, however, did not think of their kings as gods. As a matter of fact, they made a big damn deal about it. If a king, prince, or just a mortal man thought of himself as a god, or tried to emulate the gods, or set himself up to be worshiped as a god, the real gods, according to the myths, went after him big time. Not even those few demigods who were promoted to full god-head were originally kings. Princes maybe. Illegitimate off-spring of gods and mortal women or semi-mortal women or Titanesses, usually.  But not kings. And even those kings who were considered, or considered themselves, the offspring of gods or goddesses did not get promoted to full god-head and go to live on Olympus with the other immortal beings.

By the way, as near as I can figure (thanks, Wikipedia!), in Greek mythology, only three demigods were promoted to Olympus: Asclepius, Dionysus and Heracles. The rest of them, and there were probably hundreds of them, became constellations, founded cities, founded dynasties, had poems written about them, and/or had shrines erected to them, but none of them, besides the aforementioned three, were promoted to Olympus. Of these three sons of the gods Apollo and/or Zeus, two were princes and one was a commoner, but they were so uncommon that they became the gods of healing, wine and strength, respectively.

What is interesting to note about the Greek gods and goddesses is how very human they were, themselves. They got pissed off. They got jealous. They fell in love. They fell in lust. They did not want mortals honing in on their particular specialty. They were tender with some and vindictive with others. They did not respond well to ridicule. They liked to torment some people and loved others as one would love a pet. In short, they didn't pretend to be perfect, emotionless, and as immovable as stone.

Most importantly, you could blame the gods or goddesses or Fate for whatever happened to you that you didn't deserve, and the gods and goddesses would not punish you for assigning blame to them. Furthermore, if you said the right prayers and offered the right sacrifice, you felt as though you might be able to coax them into removing their curse. I bet that the ancient Greeks were not even half as guilt-ridden and neurotic as we modern folk are wont to be.