HERMIS THE GOD OF TRADE
Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is the god of trade, heraldry, merchants, commerce, roads, thieves, trickery, sports, travelers, and athletes in Ancient Greek religion and mythology; the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia, he was the second youngest of the Olympian gods (Dionysus being the youngest).
Hermes was the emissary and messenger of the gods.[1] Hermes was also “the divine trickster”[2] and “the god of boundaries and the transgression of boundaries, … the patron of herdsmen, thieves, graves, and heralds.”[3] He is described as moving freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, and was the conductor of souls into the afterlife.[4] He was also viewed as the protector and patron of roads and travelers.[5]
In some myths, he is a trickster and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or for the sake of humankind. His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, satchel or pouch, winged sandals, and winged cap. His main symbol is the Greek kerykeionor Latin caduceus, which appears in a form of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff with carvings of the other gods.[6]
In the Roman adaptation of the Greek pantheon (see interpretatio romana), Hermes is identified with the Roman god Mercury,[7] who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics such as being the patron of commerce.
APOLLO THE PROPHETIC DEITY OF THE DELPHIC ORACLE
Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: Ἀπόλλων, Apollōn (GEN Ἀπόλλωνος); Latin: Apollō) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all gods. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.[1]
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle.
Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague.
Apollo is the god of archery and the invention of archery is credited to him and his sister Artemis. He had a golden bow (silver bow, sometimes) and a quiver of golden arrows. He is said to have never missed his aim, and his arrows could inflict harm by causing sudden deaths or deadly plague.
As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musegetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functions as the patron god of music, dance and poetry. He is the inventor of string-music. The Cithara and the lyre are also said to be his inventions. The lyre is a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.
Apollo favors and delights in the foundation of towns and the establishment of civil constitution. Hence is associated with dominion over colonists. Additionally, he is the god of foreigners, the protector of fugitives and refugees. Apollo is the giver and interpreter of laws. He presides over the divine law and custom along with Zeus, Demeter and Themis.
As the protector of young, Apollo (kourotrophos) is concerned with the health of children. He presides over their education and brings them out of their adolescence. Boys in Ancient Greece, upon reaching their adulthood, cut their hair and dedicated it to Apollo.
Apollo is the patron of herdsmen and protector of herds and flocks. He is causes abundance in the milk produced by cattle, and is also connected with their fertility. As an agricultural deity, Apollo protects the crops from diseases, especially the rust in corns and grains. He is also the controller and destroyer of pests that infect plants and plant harvests.
Apollo is the god who affords help and wards off evil. He delivered men from the epidemics. Various epithets call him the “averter of evil”.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the 5th century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, Titan god of the sun.[2] In Latin texts, however, there was no conflation of Apollo with Sol among the classical Latin poets until 1st century AD.[3]Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 5th century CE.
MEDUSA THE GORGON MONSTER
In Greek mythology, Medusa (/mɪˈdjuːzə, -sə/; Μέδουσα “guardian, protectress”)[1] was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those who gazed upon her face would turn to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto,[2] though the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto.[3]According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on an island named Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. The 2nd-century BCE novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth, as part of their religion.
Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon[4] until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.
HADES THE GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD
Hades (/ˈheɪdiːz/; Greek: ᾍδης Hádēs; Ἅιδης Háidēs), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous.[14] Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although the last son regurgitated by his father.[15] He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father’s generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, available to all three concurrently. Hades was often portrayed with his three-headed guard dog Cerberus.
The Etruscan god Aita and the Roman gods Dis Pater and Orcus were eventually taken as equivalent to Hades and merged into Pluto, a Latinization of Plouton (Greek: Πλούτων, Ploútōn)[16], itself a euphemistic title often given to Hades.