I.

Introduction

Greek Mythology, set of diverse traditional tales told by the ancient Greeks about the exploits of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, and their interrelations with ordinary mortals.

Greek religion was polytheistic, and the culture within which it was practised was pluralistic: there was no single orthodoxy, and no equivalent of the Christian Bible or the Muslim Koran—that is, no sacred, written text in which all adherents were expected to believe. In Greece, therefore, stories about the origins and actions of divinities could and did vary widely, depending on the context in which they were told: different types of narrative—epic, tragedy, comedy, for example—portrayed widely differing and even conflicting aspects of the divine world. There were geographical variations too: a god might have one set of characteristics in one city or region, and quite different characteristics elsewhere. Greek mythology was like a complex and rich language, in which a vast range of perceptions about the world could be expressed.