To earn the title of Master of Olympus, Zeus took many important steps, and overcame many challenges. His story is one of an incredible conquest of power, dating back to time immemorial, when the world began. Born from Chaos, Gaia – Mother Earth – mated with Uranus, the sky. After defeating his father, who was…

The Primordial Deities of Ancient Greece Were the Gods and Goddesses Who Were Almost Always There. Some of Them WERE Always There! The Primordial Deities Were Called the “Protogenoi” of Ancient Greek Mythology. Gaea was the first of Ancient Greece’s gods and goddesses. She was a primordial deity. Gaea emerged from Chaos, which was another primordial deity–presumably…

The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd, 1923. University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain During the era of Ancient Greece, the boundaries of Greece also included parts of Turkey, Italy, and Sicily. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons On the preceding map, the area around Ephesus, which is across the Aegean Sea from Athens,…

The Ancient Greeks adored Classical Beauty. Some of the most incredible sculptures and architecture were created by them, at least 2000 years ago. But the ideal of classical beauty, that inspired Ancient Greek sculpture, has resurfaced in several of the more recent eras of art history. The Feast of Acheloüs – Painted by Peter Paul Rubens in…

The Story of Greece by Mary MacGregor MacGregor, Mary. The Story of Greece. London, T. C. and E. C. JACK, Ltd., 1914. CHAPTER I WONDERLAND The story of Greece began long, long ago in a strange wonderland of beauty. Woods and winds, fields and rivers, each had a pathway which led upward and onward into the beautiful…

Dorothy Mills – 1925 Mills, Dorothy. The Book of the Ancient Greeks. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925. CRETE AND THE CIVILIZATION OF THE EARLY AEGEAN WORLD CHAPTER I THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD To the people of the ancient world the Mediterranean was “The Sea”; they knew almost nothing of the great ocean that lay beyond the Pillars…

“The Aegean world is a very beautiful one. The Islands rise out of the sea like jewels sparkling in the sunshine. It is a world associated with spring, of “fresh new grass and dewey lotus, and crocus and hyacinth,”[1] a land where the gods were born, one rich in legend and myth and fairy tale,…

Terracotta amphora (jar) ca. 490 B.C. Attributed to the Berlin Painter “This work is a masterpiece of Greek vase-painting because it brings together many features of Athenian culture in an artistic expression of the highest quality. The shape itself is central to the effect. Through the symmetry, scale, and luminously glossy glaze on the obverse, it offers a…

Before the era of Ancient Greece, artists and artisans depicted the human figure as a straight and rigid form. The Ancient Greeks discovered that the more natural, the more human way, to depict the figure is that presented in Contrapposto. In simplistic terms, a figure standing in Contrapposto will place his weight on only one…