The Gods of Olympus: A History
Children still learn about Zeus and Athena in elementary school, a fact we take for granted. But in this history of the Olympic gods in Western culture, classicist Graziosi makes it clear how remarkable that is. After all, the Olympians started as local gods on the small Greek peninsula. Thanks to the great artistic and philosophical achievements of the Greeks, Rome adopted the gods when it became a great power. Having survived the Roman takeover of the world, the gods faced their greatest challenge yet when Christianity swept the Mediterranean. As Christianity became less a matter of choice and more a matter of force, the gods were sidelined as either demons or abstractions. The survival of classical philosophy in this new world depended on Christian scholars who found in it useful figures of allegory or traces of the true revelation still to come. In this way, the gods made it to the Renaissance and beyond as symbols of creativity and the life force. Graziosi’s volume is an engaging trek through the gods’ story of persistence and transformation and their relationship to European history. --Lynn Weber