Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism within ancient Greek religion is when a deity has any attribution of human characteristics. This is portrayed in L. B. Zaidman and P. S. Pantel’s work ‘Religion in the Ancient Greek City’ (1992: p215), which I find particularly interesting as they have an excellent and easy to understand grasp on the information they present. As they dictate that ‘the Greeks did not recognise one and only one mode of representing the divine, the familiar anthropomorphic statue’. This can either be describing gods or goddesses in human forms and possessing human characteristics and emotions such as jealousy, hatred, or love. For example Aphrodite in Euripides’ Hippolytus shows human emotions of jealousy and hatred because Hippolytus refuses to worship her and what she represents. Also the quarrelling of the gods on Mount Olympus displayed several human mannerisms, such as jealousy, greed, lust, and deception.

Not only could anthropomorphism relate to the emotions of the Greek gods in accordance to regular human feelings, but also to ordinary every day activities. The ancient Greek gods also eat, drink, sleep and also make love, exactly the same as humans are perceived to do, so why are they alleged to be so much different than mortals. Many of the gods and goddesses have experienced the human emotion of love within ancient stories and myths, especially Zeus. He has numerous female conquests; he was married first to Metis, then Themis, then Mnemosyne and eventually to Hera. He also acquired several lovers; Europa, Io, Semele, Ganymede, Callisto and Leto.

Another way of looking at the subject of anthropomorphism relating to the ancient Greek gods and goddesses, is by realising that they are immortal beings and because of this huge factor they are able to change their state of mind and the forms of their bodies. But Zaidman and Pantel state that ‘a god could be identified with certainty from an assemblage of attributes and postures, although, as with the pantheon as a whole, there existed a host of local representational variations’(p218), so there seems to be evidence that we can always recognise these gods and goddesses. We can look at this as an almighty power that we can lust to possess. Theses deities seem to be slightly tarnished by being able to seize human mannerisms, but I don’t particularly see this as a bad thing. Why would a divine being not want to experience love and other emotions the world has to offer? Also if they do not or cannot experience all the emotions they can, they do not have the right being an immortal god or not to place opinions on situations if they do not know what it is like to be in the same position. Therefore it is fair to conclude that the ancient Greek gods have been anthropomorphised to be able to relate better to the general public of ancient Greece.