What is a Goddess?

When looking at ancient Greek religion we must remember to keep an open mind, as I have already mentioned in an earlier blog that modern day religion is extremely different in certain ways, for example ‘the Greek city knew neither Church nor dogma’, from Zaidman and Pantel’s ‘Religion in the Ancient Greek City’ (1992: p11). Looking at the subject of ancient Greek goddesses in particular, we must realise that that concept of ancient Greek religion is predominantly different to modern day religion, for example Christianity, mainly because Christianity holds believe in one God, who is also depicted as a male.

In reference to mortal females, goddesses come across a lot different to them as well. As Jan Bremmer articulates in her book ‘Greek Religion’ (1999: p69) that ‘recent studies of Greek religion have mainly analysed positions and representations of women, in so far as they have focused on gender differences at all’. Yes I could argue that goddesses can be anthropomorphised to have certain traits that normal women in ancient Greece would have, such as emotions of love, lust and hatred. But we simply cannot solely compare female deities to ordinary women due to the fact that they have so much more power than them. Another piece of information which distances goddesses from mortal females is that; ordinary women in the eyes of ancient Greek civilisation are illustrated to be under the strict reign of men and have their specific roles, as the inscription of Dionysia’s tombstone in Athens, 4^th cent. BC shown in M, R, Lefkowitz and M, B, Fant’s book ‘Women’s life in Greece and Rome’ (2005: p16) depicts that ‘it was not gold that this woman admired during her lifetime; it was her husband and the good sense that she showed in her behaviour’, this is used as a good example of a woman from antiquity. Whereas in the realm of the Great Olympians this rule did not abide, proving this point we can look at the character of Aphrodite the goddess of love. She is seen to overpower Zeus many times as he falls victim to various sexual conquests. This makes her in some ways look more powerful than a male deity, also her power could be highlighted here as Zeus is known to be the almighty, and she has somewhat defeated him as already mentioned.

This can be expressed more clearly if we take a look at the Homeric Hymn 5 as it states apart from the three goddesses Athena, Artemis and Hestia ‘there is nothing among the blessed gods or among mortal men that has escaped Aphrodite. Even the heart of Zeus, who delights in thunder, is led astray by her; though he is greatest of all and has the lot of highest majesty, she beguiles even his wise heart whensoever she pleases’. This successfully gives us the impression of the amount of power a goddess could possess.

Goddesses are the same as the gods in the respect that they all have their own specific power assigned to them, and they all have extremely different personalities, which in retrospect match their dominion of power. We can look at different goddesses and instantly notice that they are not the same, they all have many similarities to one another, but they have vast differences in their characteristics and mannerisms which all contribute to their own personalities. Focusing on Athena, Aphrodite and Hera, they are all completely different divine women, which reinforces that fact that we cannot be stereotypical in describing what actually is a goddess, and the same could go for male deities. Also we cannot determine that just because the goddesses are female that they have to possess stereotypical feminine personas. As we have examples of female goddesses being in charge of things which are stereotypically male, for example Artemis is described as the ‘wild goddess of the hunt’. L. B. Zaidman and P. S. Pantel depict in their work ‘Religion in the Ancient Greek City’ (1992: p6) Artemis as having a ‘dual role of ‘Mistress of Animals’ and goddess of hunting she assumes the two complementary aspects of the principle function that is peculiarly hers’. Then and now we would perceive hunting to be a particularly male attribute.  Therefore in my opinion we must observe the gods and goddesses as individuals not as two groups, divided into male and females. As one of the deities has a special power and their personalities contribute to what they do and what they represent, not what sex they are.