The Gods of Olympus: A History

Barbara Graziosi

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781846683220
  9781846683213
• eBook ISBN:
  9781847654281
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Elegant and entertaining, this is the history of the most vibrant characters in classical civilisation. With their vast appetites, great beauty and warlike tendencies, it's hard to resist their pull on the imagination, even though, in antiquity, the gods of Olympus were just as often seen as cruel, over-sexed, mad or just plain silly. And yet they were survivors, whose story only began with classical civilisation.

Masters of re-invention (though never too hard to identify), they began to resemble pharaohs in Egypt and lead respectable Roman citizens in orgiastic rituals of drink and sex. Under Christianity and Islam they went undercover as demons, allegories, and planets, waiting for a triumphant re-emergence in a Renaissance vision of ancient beauty. They travelled east along the Silk Route to the walls of cave-temples in China, and west, colonising the Americas. They featured on Wedgwood teapots, attacked the poet Hölderlin, haunted Nietzsche, and visited Borges in restless dreams. Barbara Graziosi deftly traces the travels and transformations of these pagan deities from the distant past to the present, showing that the gods of Olympus remain potent symbols that help us to feel part of a broad and fascinating humanity.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface: Simonides Was Wise
• Introduction: A Family Portrait
• Part I Birth: Archaic Greece
• Part II Dialogue: Classical Athens
• Part III Travel: Hellenistic Egypt
• Part IV Translation: The Roman Empire
• Part V Disguise: Christianity and Islam
• Part VI Born Again: The Renaissance
• Epilogue: A Marble Head
• Appendix: The Twelve Gods
• List of Illustrations
• Further Reading and Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Index