I refer to the notion that the structure of society is a microcosm of the cosmic design and that history conforms to patterns of justice and chastisement as if it were a morality play set in motion by the gods for our instruction.

the gods who protected the Greek countryside were only now putting on their sharply anthropomorphic dress.

Such songs were originally addressed to Apollo, and afterwards to other gods: to Dionysus, to Apollo Helios, to Apollo's son Asclepius the healer.

They also worshipped gods such as Indra, Varuna and Mitra, which again were to become part of the Hindu religion in India.

Tartarus was for the people that blasphemed against the gods, or were simply rebellious and consciously evil.

The two terms may not have originally been distinguished ; though in Homer's poems nectar is usually the drink and ambrosia the food of the gods ; it was with ambrosia Hera " cleansed all defilement from her lovely flesh ", and with ambrosia Athena prepared Penelope in her sleep, so that when she appeared for the final time before her suitors, the effects of years had been stripped away and they were inflamed with passion at the sight of her.

As-gard, he conjectures, is the home of the Æsir ( singular Ás ) in As-ia, making a folk etymological connection between the three " As -"; that is, the Æsir were " men of Asia ", not gods, who moved from Asia to the north and some of which intermarried with the peoples already there.

In Norse mythology, Ask and Embla ( from Old Norse Askr ok Embla )— male and female respectively — were the first two humans, created by the gods.

The völva says that the two were capable of very little, lacking in ørlög and says that they were given three gifts by the three gods:

Previously a ruler could, like Gilgamesh, become divine after death but the Akkadian kings, from Naram-Sin onward, were considered gods on earth in their lifetimes.

Then looking at him darkly Zeus who gathers the clouds spoke to him :' Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar. To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympos. Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles .… And yet I will not long endure to see you in pain, sinceyou are my child, and it was to me that your mother bore you. But were you born of some other god and proved so ruinouslong since you would have been dropped beneath the gods of the bright sky.

By 150 BC, Assyria was under the control of the Parthian Empire as Athura ( the Parthian word for Assyria ) where the Assyrian city of Ashur seems to have gained a degree of autonomy, and temples to the native gods of Assyria were resurrected.

Instead, the Celts that dwelled along the ocean were reported to venerate twin gods ( Dioscori ) that appeared to them coming from that ocean.

The Lares were Roman deities protecting the house and the family household gods.

The Penates were originally patron gods ( really genii ) of the storeroom, later becoming household gods guarding the entire house.

While Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, was absent on his expedition against Troy, Aegisthus seduced Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, and was so wicked as to offer up thanks to the gods for the success with which his criminal exertions were crowned.

The gods were afraid of them, except for Artemis who captured a fine deer ( or in another version of the story, she changed herself into a doe ) and jumped out between them.

Almost without exception in early literature, blind people could bring this condition down upon themselves through sin or trespasses against the gods, but were never the sole instruments of its reversal.

:" Being in great difficulty they fled to a neighbouring city ( ad civitatem, quæ iuxta erat, confugerunt ) and began to promise and offer to their gods -- But inasmuch as the city was not strong and there were few to offer resistance, they sent messengers to the Danes and asked for friendship and alliance.

Khmer temples were typically enclosed by a concentric series of walls, with the central sanctuary in the middle ; this arrangement represented the mountain ranges surrounding Mount Meru, the mythical home of the gods.

In antiquity, Greek reports of cannibalism, ( often called anthropophagy in this context ) were related to distant non-Hellenic barbarians, or else relegated in Greek mythology to the ' primitive ' chthonic world that preceded the coming of the Olympian gods: see the explicit rejection of human sacrifice in the cannibal feast prepared for the Olympians by Tantalus of his son Pelops.

The censors had also to superintend the expenses connected with the worship of the gods, even for instance the feeding of the sacred geese in the Capitol ; these various tasks were also let out on contract.

" His theory was that primitive man was so impressed with the gifts nature provided him for the furtherance of his life that he believed them to be the discovery of gods or themselves to embody the godhead.

Thinking that this sneeze was a favorable sign from the gods, the soldiers were impressed.

In Scandinavia, Snorri writes, they so impressed the native population that they started worshipping them as gods.

Taussig, however, criticises anthropology for reducing yet another culture, that of the Cuna, for having been so impressed by their exotic ( and superior ) technologies of the whites, that they raised them to the status of gods.

Jupiter asks Thespis whether he is impressed with the father of the gods.

He explains that his citizens must not be corrupted by any of the misrepresentations of the gods or heroes that one finds in much poetry, and he observes that all `` these pantomimic gentlemen '' will be sent to another state.

He is pictured as a terrible god, less trusted by the Greeks than other gods.

The other gods tricked Hera into letting her go by offering her a necklace, nine yards ( 8 m ) long, of amber.

Aquarius is also sometimes identified with Ganymede, a youth in Greek mythology who was taken to Mount Olympus by Zeus to act as cup-carrier to the gods.

Some belief systems, such as those in the Abrahamic tradition, hold that the dead go to a specific plane of existence after death, as determined by a god, gods, or other divine judgment, based on their actions or beliefs during life.

Death was simply a temporary interruption, rather than complete cessation, of life, and that eternal life could be ensured by means like piety to the gods, preservation of the physical form through mummification, and the provision of statuary and other funerary equipment.

It was brought to the gods in Olympus by doves, so it may have been thought of in the Homeric tradition as a kind of divine exhalation of the Earth.

In the Iliad, Aeneas is a minor character, where he is twice saved from death by the gods as if for an as yet unknown destiny.

When Troy was sacked by the Greeks, Aeneas, after being commanded by the gods to flee, gathered a group, collectively known as the Aeneads, who then traveled to Italy and became progenitors of Romans.

Thus misfortune hounded successive generations of the House of Atreus, until atoned by Orestes in a court of justice held jointly by humans and gods.

In Lokasenna, Ægir hosts a party for the gods where he provides the ale brewed in an enormous pot or cauldron provided by Thor and Týr.

He was such a favourite with the latter, that, when Greece was visited by a drought in consequence of a murder which had been committed, the oracle of Delphi declared that the calamity would not cease unless Aeacus prayed to the gods that it might.

When the work was completed, three dragons rushed against the wall, and while the two of them which attacked those parts of the wall built by the gods fell down dead, the third forced its way into the city through the part built by Aeacus.

; statements as to the origin of gods, cults and so forth, transmitted to us by Hellenic antiquarians such as Strabo, Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, etc.

Whereas other nations have soothsayers and diviners who attempt to discover the will of their gods, according to Heschel the Hebrew prophets are characterized by their experience of what he calls theotropism — God turning towards humanity.

She was beloved by two gods, Hermes and Apollo, and boasted that she was prettier than Artemis because she made two gods fall in love with her at once.

Although the Greeks and Romans typically scorned Egypt's animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive ( Anubis was known to be mockingly called " Barker " by the Greeks ), Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens, and Cerberus in Hades.

This mentality is difficult to understand in our modern age but the ancients took great stock in success as a sign of favoritism by the gods.