The Olympian Gods - Chart of Greek Gods

Ancient Greece The Olympian Gods

The Greeks believed in many gods. Greeks thought the gods were very much like people. They had both supernatural powers and human weaknesses. The gods would fight with each other, fall in love, play tricks on one another, get angry or jealous, and steal from each other. The Greeks made up stories about all the things the gods did. These stories called myths were passed down through the generations.

The Greeks believed that Mount Olympus, the tallest mountain in Greece, was the home of the gods. The Greeks worshipped twelve major gods and goddesses. (Hades is included in the chart below even though he lived in the Underworld and is usually not counted as one of the Twelve Olympians. Hestia or Dionysus usually takes the twelfth place.) Zeus was considered the most powerful of the Greek gods. He was not the creator of the world though. The Greeks thought there had been several generations of gods. Zeus had a mother and father as well as a number of sons and daughters. The gods were immortal, but some of Zeus's children with humans, such as Heracles, were mortal. Not all the gods were pleasant. Some were ugly or deformed.

The gods made their presence known to people through signs, such as the sound of thunder. The Greeks built temples to shelter the gods from the elements.