#mt olympus

Can you draw alpha and nerd wearing the outfits you made for them.

i almost forgot.

ROAD TRIP EDITION

Hello anon and apologies for the delay! I would kindly ask you to refer to our ancients as "ancient Greeks", or "ancients", not just "Greeks". I'm certain your intentions are good, it's just that language does influence how people view us Greeks today. (Aka, the ancient Greeks were THE Greeks, while Greeks today are "The Modern Greeks", something else or imposters or people who want to pretend they are Greeks).

Ok, onto the answer!

The common people likely believed in more literal interpretations. They might not have believed every detail of every story, but they accepted the basic reality of the gods and their interventions in human affairs. Faith and nurture plays a big role on one's beliefs.

However, like Greeks today, they probably understood that the stories passed down to them were old and likely to be inaccurate or exaggerate a few things, but they kept an open mind anyway because information from previous generations and from the visions of holy people was and is appreciated.

Today modern people across religions might take their sacred texts literally, or interpret them allegorically - or fall somewhere in between. So if you have a grasp on that mindset, you're quite close to understanding the position of many ancient Greeks. Even if they believed the gods would appear in human form to them, the gods would remain in their view as symbols for natural forces and moral principles.

From the myth about the birth of Dionysus we know that Semele could not stand to see the "real" form of Zeus. This means that a view existed where the gods were considered to have a divine form that humans could not comprehend, and one more human, so they could come down to earth and communicate with humankind.

Ancient humans were as intelligent as we are today, and so they had their doubts. Hell, some philosophers were even atheists! In Aristophanes' comedy Ecclesiazouses we have concepts such as a form of communism. We have to understand these people had questioning and wandering minds like ours.

They were likely to notice how many new kings were, all of a sudden, claiming parentage from Zeus and other gods, and understood that not every religious story they heard was likely to happen. They also knew that many stories were there to explain natural phenomena. They told their kids "They say the seasons exist because..." but also left some room for realism and critical thinking.

Many educated Greeks, particularly in the Classical period, understood many myths as allegorical or symbolic. Philosophers like Plato and Xenophanes criticized literal interpretations of the gods as anthropomorphic beings, arguing that viewing the gods with human forms and flaws was arrogance.

As for Mt. Olympos it always had a religious significance like Jerusalem or Mecca. It is an impressive landmark on it's own so it was considered proof of mythical battles and formations that happened in older times. Besides, the higher you go, the rougher nature is to you, so you feel the might of nature and perhaps you interpret it in a religious way. This mountain has been a spiritual location of great significance irregardless of religion. I believe the Christian monasteries on the mountain are currently six (if not more), and even more smaller churches inside villages exist. Olympos has an important place in our literature until today, with the most known story being Olympos and Kissavos (a slightly shorter mountain) fighting about which one is the mightiest.

Gods belong both to the physical and the immaterial world so even if humans didn't see them when they climbed Olympus, that didn't matter as much. It was the choice of gods if they would appear or not, and actually their real home was "in the skies" - if not physically in the sky, then another plane entirely.

It's pretty likely the humans believed the gods would reveal their will in sacred places / temples / oracles in the area around the mountain. Such an important site is Dion, which had/has free-flowing water of excellent quality, which originates from Olympus.