In ancient Greek mythology, ambrosia () is sometimes the food or drink of the Greek gods ( or demigods ), often depicted as conferring ageless immortality upon whomever consumed it.

The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars, who as a father of the Roman people held a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion for his agricultural and tutelary functions.

Catullus and Callimachus did not describe the feats of ancient heroes and gods ( except perhaps in re-evaluating and predominantly artistic circumstances, e. g. poems 63 and 64 ), focusing instead on small-scale personal themes.

* The multiple gods of pan-and polytheistic faiths ( as in the ancient Greek and Roman )

In Saxo's Gesta Danorum, however, the gods and goddesses are heavily euhemerized, and Saxo's view on pagan deities is extremely biased, therefore most stories related to pagan gods written in it might not exist in ancient lore.

Indeed, amongst many ancient writers, Moses himself was seen as an Egyptian rather than a Jew, and two manuscripts likely dating to the 4th century, both of which purport to be the legendary eighth Book of Moses ( the first five being the initial books in the Biblical Old Testament ), present him as a polytheist who explained how to conjure gods and subdue demons.

When the gods were believed to be duly propitiated ... Armour, weapons, and other things of the kind were ordered to be in readiness, and the ancient spoils gathered from the enemy were taken down from the temples and colonnades.

Modern scholarship has disproved Margaret Murray's theory, however various horned gods and mother goddesses were indeed worshipped in the British Isles during the ancient and early Medieval periods.

While the ancient Egyptian beliefs usually recognized many gods, worship was often focused primarily upon a supreme deity, and this focus also changed from time to time.

Incestuous unions were frowned upon and considered as nefas ( against the laws of gods and man ) in ancient Rome.

Unlike other ancient Near Eastern gods, the Hebrew God is portrayed as unitary and solitary ; consequently, the Hebrew God's principal relationships are not with other gods, but with the world, and more specifically, with the people He created.

The Jewish Bible ( Tanakh ) records and repeatedly condemns the widespread worship of other gods in ancient Israel.

Julian's personal religion was both pagan and philosophical ; he viewed the traditional myths as allegories, in which the ancient gods were aspects of a philosophical divinity.

In the 19th century, Biblical syncretists associated the sons of Noah with ancient pagan gods.

In some instances, such as Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto, kami are personified deities, similar to the gods of ancient Greece or Rome.

The ancient Egyptians credited one of their gods, Thoth, with the invention of music, which Osiris in turn used as part of his effort to civilize the world.

He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages: anthropomorphic figures of speech, necessary in such languages, were eventually taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were conscious beings, gods.

The Mesopotamians believed their kings and queens were descended from the City of Gods, but, unlike the ancient Egyptians, they never believed their kings were real gods.

The ' gods ' of most polytheistic pantheons are actually powerful, immortal human-like races from other dimensions who visited Earth in ancient times, and became the basis of many legends.

" A practicing Wiccan herself, Adler used her own conversion to paganism as a case study, remarking that as a child she had taken a great interest in the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, and had performed her own devised rituals in dedication to them.

In many ancient legal systems ( e. g. early Roman law ), religious sites ( e. g. temples ) were considered property of the God or gods they were devoted to.

* Pantheon, Rome, now a Catholic church, once a temple to the gods of ancient Rome

I had a one-room studio which overlooked an ancient courtyard filled with flowers and plants, blooming everlastingly in the southern sun.

Foster Lukuklu Frayne made a sign over his heart with his two linked thumbs: I recognized it as an ancient Manu gesture intended to propitiate the Devil.

Only what else was she singing but the old Song of Songs, that most ancient of tunes that nature plays with such unfailing response upon young nerves??

My own stern hand has rent the ancient bond, And thereof shall the ending not have end: But not for me, that loved her, to be fond Lightly to please me with a newer friend Then hold it more than bravest-feathered song, That I affirm to thee, with heart of pride, I knew not what did to a friend belong Till I stood up, true friend, by thy true side ; ;

He had not yet undertaken the great exploit of his later years, the rediscovery of the ancient Inca highway, the route of Pizarro in Peru, but he had climbed to the original El Dorado, the Andean lake of Guatemala, and he had scaled the southern Sierra Nevada with its Tibetan-like people and looked into the emerald mines of Muzo.

Each dancer follows the ancient Oriental pattern -- she glides sideways with shoulders motionless while her stomach migrates, and, through breathing and muscle control, she sends ripples across her body to the fingertips and away to the far end of the room.

Built upon seven hills, Istanbul, like Rome, is one of the most ancient cities in the world, filled with splendor and contrast.

Once he has been identified, however, a new melody is used to accompany his narrative, a bleak motif with barren octaves creating a rather ancient effect:

Some time later the missing part of the relic was found and the complete inscription, together with other new evidence, fully corroborated the ancient priest's information.

Nellie Harris wasn't old, she was ancient -- a tiny shriveled woman with a face like a tan prune.

The Senate launched the 87th Congress with its own version of an ancient liberal-conservative battle, but in contrast with the House's guerrilla war it seemed as pro forma as a Capitol guide's speech.

She had come to make her peace with the past, and of that past this ancient of the earth was only a kind of shadow.

I could see the ancient cynicism reinforce itself in her eyes, and I wondered how many men she had picked up with this same gambit.

Richard left America with his clothes, his biwa and his image of Acala and, on the freighter which took him to Japan, he plucked at the biwa, trying to make the sounds he wrought resemble an ancient Japanese tune he had once heard.

Most modern Pueblo peoples ( whether Keresans, Hopi, or Tanoans ) assert the ancient Pueblo did not " vanish ", as is commonly portrayed in media presentations or popular books, but migrated to areas in the southwest with more favorable rainfall and dependable streams.

Egyptians also believed that being mummified and put in a sarcophagus ( an ancient Egyptian " coffin " carved with complex symbols and designs, as well as pictures and hieroglyphs ) was the only way to have an afterlife.

In ancient Egypt and Mycenae, gold was often alloyed with copper to produce red-gold, or iron to produce a bright burgundy-gold.

The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including " hidden ", " esoteric ", " spurious ", " of questionable authenticity ", ancient Chinese " revealed texts and objects " and " Christian texts that are not canonical ".

* The Bürgerfest is celebrated on the first weekend of July, when the palace gardens with their ancient walls are transformed into a medieval camp.

The ancient Greeks used baskets of stones, large sacks filled with sand, and wooden logs filled with lead, which, according to Apollonius Rhodius and Stephen of Byzantium, were formed of stone ; and Athenaeus states that they were sometimes made of wood.

In it he gathered a large library, a collection of ancient furniture, arms and armour, and other relics and curiosities, especially connected with Scottish history, notably the Celtic Torrs Pony-cap and Horns and the Woodwrae Stone, all now in the Museum of Scotland.

Afterwards, the earth rises again from the sea, is fairer than before, and where Asgard used to be a remnant of the Æsir gather, some coming up from Hel, and talk and play chess all day with the golden chessmen of the ancient Æsir, which they find in the grass ( Section 58 ).