The Themes of Mythology

Because Myths were spread by word of mouth in the ancient history, the stories varied. Sometimes myths are compared with the Bible but in this respect they differ from eachother. The Bible is a collection of written events from the time of the events itselves. Myths were not based on written sources and therefore could be and were interpreted in many ways.

In contradiction to the above the storie of the myths are told within a plaincadre. The world of the ancient Greek was dominated by a number of deities of which Zeus was the supreme god. He lived at the top of the Olympus mountain, the highest mountain of Greece. He was married to Hera, a strict and serious woman. The other deities were either his brothers and sisters or his children. E.g. Athena was born out of the head of Zeus in full armour. She became the patroness of peace and the goddess of wisdom.

The Greek deities were not seen as threathning. In many ways they did show human behaviour beceause of which the became very close to the people. The stories about Zeus and other deities who did not really upheld the rules like marital loyalty are very famous. Other weaknesses like jalousy and vanity also were shown by the Greek deities. Such heoric stories were told in later history and therefore formed a sign for the authors of later times that in the late Greek period the stories were not taken very seriously anymore.