Home›Greek Deities›Worshipped InBrowse ByWorshipped InThis page groups deities by the religion whose adherents actively worship them, connecting a god to the living or historical community that maintains their cult. Wikipedia defines cult, in the religious sense, as "the care (Latin: cultus) owed to deities or saints and their temples, shrines, or churches." Browsing this way lets a visitor see every deity that belongs to one religion's worship, rather than reading about gods religion by religion.FactsLearn MoreWorshipped InSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsOverviewWhat Defines This GroupingWell-attestedThe gods of ancient Greek religion, among the best documented pantheons of the ancient world. The grouping rests on a literary record from Homer and Hesiod onward together with inscriptions, temple accounts and archaeology. The Olympian family of the poets and the gods actually worshipped in a given city are not the same list, and cult titles vary from place to place. 2AttestationEra of AttestationWell-attestedSeveral of the Olympian names are already present on Linear B tablets of about 1400 to 1200 BCE, and the cult ran continuously until the closing of the temples in the late fourth century CE. 2Veneration TodayWell-attestedThe public cult ended in late antiquity; no continuous worship survives. 2DirectoryCategoryWell-attestedDeities 1Learn MoreThe gods of ancient Greece This group holds the deities of ancient Greek religion, among the best documented pantheons of the ancient world thanks to a rich literary record from Homer and Hesiod onward. At its centre are the twelve Olympians (Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, Demeter and either Hestia or Dionysus), who dwell on Mount Olympus and govern the ordered cosmos. Around them the browser will find the older generation of Titans they overthrew, primordial powers such as Gaia and Chronos, chthonic and underworld figures led by Hades and Persephone, and a wide company of lesser gods, nymphs and personifications.Myth, cult and afterlife Greek religion was practised through local cult, festival and sacrifice for well over a thousand years; the myths preserved in poetry and drama are one part of it, the civic and mystery cults another. The same god could be worshipped under many local titles and take a different character from city to city. The tradition was later absorbed and renamed by Rome, and its gods became the common vocabulary of Western art and letters long after the temples closed. The entries note both the classical Greek figure and its Roman counterpart where the two were identified.Worshipped InFilter Results3 entriesAlso Known AsAllThe Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone (1)Current StatusAllNo initiations have taken place at Eleusis since antiquity, and the site today is preserved as an archaeological park rather than an active cult centre. (1)Era of DeclineAllThe Greek texts are lost to the Latin West until 1463 (1)The Neoplatonic school at Athens is closed in 529 CE (1)The sanctuary and its rites were finally suppressed, and initiations ended for good, in the late fourth century CE as Christianity became the established religion of the empire. (1)Era of Decline End YearAll529 (1)600 (1)Era of Decline Start YearAll300 (1)380 (1)Era of Modern RevivalAllThe Corpus Hermeticum's rediscovery and Latin translation by Marsilio Ficino in 1471 sparked a major revival of Hermetic thought in early modern Europe. (1)Era of Modern Revival End YearAll1471 (1)Era of Modern Revival Start YearAll1463 (1)FounderAllNone; the Hermetica are attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus (1)How the Expectation Is EnforcedAllCodified Obligation With Consequences (1)Observance NoteAllInitiates swore an oath never to describe what they witnessed inside the Telesterion; the penalty for violation was death, and no surviving ancient account fully describes the climactic rite (1)Sacrifice at open air altars, civic festivals such as the Panathenaea at Athens, and the great Panhellenic games at Olympia and Delphi were central to its practice. (1)Origin AccountAllGreek religion developed from Bronze Age Mycenaean and, further back, Indo-European antecedents, without a single founder or founding revelation. (1)Hermeticism takes its name and its supposed original teacher from Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary sage merging the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth; its core texts, the Corpus Hermeticum, were composed in Greco-Roman Egypt in the early centuries CE, though long believed in the Renaissance to be far older. (1)The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, composed around the 7th century BCE, is the mythic charter recited to explain the rite's founding (1)Origin PeriodAllCult activity at Eleusis reaches back to the Mycenaean period; the historical Mysteries are documented from the 7th century BCE (1)The Panhellenic system is in place by the 8th century BCE (1)Origin Period End YearAll700 BCE (1)300 (1)396 (1)Origin Period Start YearAll1400 BCE (1)700 BCE (1)1 (1)Place of OriginAllEleusis, Attica, Greece (1)Mainland Greece, the Aegean islands and the Greek colonies (1)Roman Egypt, chiefly Alexandria (1)Point in DisputeAllThe prohibition on disclosure held for the whole life of the cult and no initiate left an account in any surviving text. Ancient writers describe the effect of the rite rather than its content, and the only reports that claim to give content are Christian polemicists writing centuries later from outside the cult, with an interest in making it appear trivial or obscene. (1)Practice StatusAllClosed ceremonial knowledge, described but not reproduced (1)Discontinued as a state religion (1)Living, and practised in varied local forms (1)Practice Status DetailAllEnded. Suppressed under Emperor Theodosius I's edicts against pagan cult of 391 to 392 CE, and the sanctuary was destroyed by Alaric's Goths in 396 CE (1)Standing as a Comparative CategoryAllWhether the kykeon drunk before initiation carried a psychoactive effect (1)Standing Giving ExpectationAllInitiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries carried a real, fixed monetary cost, set out in the sanctuary's own regulations rather than left to a worshipper's discretion. A surviving Athenian inscription regulating the Mysteries, dated to roughly 475 to 450 BC, states on its own text that the priestess of Demeter was to take one obol from each initiate at the Lesser Mysteries and a further obol at the Greater Mysteries, and that the Eumolpidai and the Kerykes, the two priestly families who administered initiation, were to take five obols from a male initiate and three obols from a female one; one thousand six hundred drachmas taken from the collected obols was set aside each year to cover the sanctuary's own running expenses. The fee was a genuine precondition of initiation rather than a suggested offering: without paying it, a would be initiate was not admitted to the rite. Later evidence shows the cost had risen further by the fourth century BC, thirty drachmas recorded for the initiation of two slaves in 329 BC, consistent with a real, collected and apparently rising cost of entry rather than a voluntary gift. (1)Status TodayAllHistorical; not practised continuously (3)Revived or reconstructed in the modern era (1)Supreme BeingAllAncient Greek religion recognised no single supreme being; Zeus held authority as king of the gods among the Olympians without being their sole creator or an object of exclusive worship. (1)TheologyAllEmanationist: reality proceeds from an ineffable One (1)Monistic: one ultimate reality behind all appearance (1)Polytheistic: many gods (2)Theology DetailAllA chthonic mystery cult centred on Demeter, goddess of grain, and her daughter Persephone, queen of the dead; initiation promised a more fortunate lot after death (1)BrowseCompareAncient Greek ReligionWorshipped In67 entriesThe Eleusinian MysteriesWorshipped In2 entriesHermeticismWorshipped In1 entrySources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 12. Greek Religiontier 1Walter Burkert, Harvard University Press, 1985chs. 2-4View the SourceDivinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.