I’d just finished [b:Circe|35959740|Circe|Madeline Miller|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565909496l/35959740._SY75_.jpg|53043399] when The Gods of Olympus leapt out at me from my bookshelves. I knew little about the origins of the Ancient Greek pantheon and even less about its durability. Graziosi quickly drew me in to this readily accessible story as she traces the influence of the gods through civilizations. That they came into being through human inspiration – the invention of poets, may be more related to her interest in the invention of Homeric verses than to evidence.

More convincing was the way the Romans adopted the pantheon as an astute and meticulous diplomatic strategy. Ditto, Alexander the Great.

One sparkling moment in the story was when Mark Anthony summoned Cleopatra after (her lover) Julius Caesar’s murder. Cleopatra sailed to Tarsus

…in a barge with a gilded bow, purple sails, and a crew plying silver oars to the sound of music. The scene as so dazzling, Plutarch said, that “a rumour spread that on every land that Aphrodite had arrived to revel with Bacchus for the good of Asia.” (p. 150)

The source of this durability appears to be that the Ancient Greek pantheon, as described by poets, does not distinguish between cosmic principles, anthropomorphic deities, material realities, or even allegory and metaphor. The Greek gods gained new prominence through Arabic astronomy.

Thanks to an ambiguous translation, for example, Hermes suddenly found himself holding a surprising implement in his hand: a penis, rather than his traditional staff. (p.190)

Truth can be extracted where necessary or, for the Christians, who turned these gods into pagan demons, truth can reside separately. Remarkably, the ability to shape-shift installed Jupiter in the guise of a monk on Giotto’s campanile in Florence. Here we can appreciate Graziozi’s remarkable scholarship in tracing how the Greek gods survived beyond the demise of their worshippers.

Even today, the pantheon is alive and as relevant to the urge for story-telling and artistic expression as it has always been. Hard to ignore David Malouf's [b:Ransom|6460814|Ransom|David Malouf|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1241983288l/6460814._SY75_.jpg|6651239] and Mary Renault's [b:The King Must Die|39359728|The King Must Die (Theseus, #1)|Mary Renault|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521860840l/39359728._SY75_.jpg|2758229], Madeline Miller’s [b:The Song of Achilles|13623848|The Song of Achilles|Madeline Miller|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1357177533l/13623848._SY75_.jpg|16176791] and Circe. ( )

76. The Gods of Olympus : A History by Barbara Graziosi
2014, 276 page paperback
read Nov 26-29
Rating: 3.5 stars

This was fun, but was a little less than what I was hoping. Graziosi traces the history of the Greek gods from their origins within the Greek cultural area through their evolution in time, merging with various Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern gods, falling out of their religious context then being reinvented anew.

One of the interesting insights was how the Greek pantheon served as cultural unifying force, establishing norms across the Greek world and essentially establishing what was Greek. It was also interesting to see how gods were force-molded in such strange ways, such as how the Romans combined their very important god Mars into the minor and rather pathetic Greek God Ares.

What was missing, I felt, was a good sense of who these gods were in the religious and mythological context. She not only doesn't bring them alive, but doesn't really even spend much time on them. She walks through the Elgin marbles and gives a short bit on each of the twelve gods there, which I did find of interest. But she pretty much leaves off the biographies at that and moves on to their evolution.

2015
https://www.librarything.com/topic/197329#5368437 ( )

Even though the tone was light and energetic, I just couldn't get into this book. Perhaps it's because I've been out of school for a while, but I felt like there was so much information being thrown at me but nothing was sticking, partly because the information was all so foreign and there were few points of reference to help me retain anything. So, it's not totally the author's fault. It's also the reader's fault (aka me). I guess I didn't want to learn about the gods as badly as I thought I did. Or maybe the author didn't go a good enough job of maintaining my interest. Or maybe both. I would, however, suggest this book to those who a) are already familiar with mythology, or b) willing to put in enough brainpower to ensure they retain enough information to make reading this book worthwhile. ( )

This book traces the development of the Olympian gods, with a focus on the twelve depicted on the Parthenon's frieze (Zeus, Hera, Ares, Apollo, Demeter, Dionysus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Hephaistos, Athena, Poseidon, and Artemis), and their adaptation into other religions and societies.

The book is divided into six sections, each dealing with a particular time period and society and further divided into three chapters. The first two sections deal with the basic development of the pantheon, mostly by Homer and Hesiod, and the rise of Athens and Athenian views. The next sections cover their spread under Alexander the Great and his successors and their adoption by the Roman Empire and association with its (less defined) deities. The fifth details their near-disappearance and very significant changes during the rise of Christianity and Islam, while the sixth covers the re-emergence of something closer to their classical images during the Renaissance. After this, an appendix covers, in a somewhat rushed fashion, some of their cultural usage since the Renaissance.

For the most part, the book is well-written, making its case without getting too bogged down in obscure detail or stretching interpretations to fit its arguments. As noted above, the appendix is somewhat cursory and, possibly because of this, feels like it is reaching at times (in particular, one work mentioned sounds, from the description, more like an adaptation of Greek theater than the Olympians specifically). I also was slightly annoyed by the author's habit of describing things as if the Olympians were actively working to maintain some sort of relevance, but that's a matter of taste.