Hey everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained.
In today’s video, we’re going to discuss ten of the most powerful gods in Greek mythology,
gods so powerful that their powers often dwarfed those of the other deities in the Greek mythos.
Just a quick comment before we get started: this list isn’t ranked and is by no means
comprehensive, so let us know in the comments who else you think deserved to be included.
Also, this video will only feature male deities; we’ll make a separate video for female deities
later on.
And lastly, the final five entries are the same as the ones in the top 5 version of this
video, so if you’ve already watched the other one, the halfway point might be as far
as you go.
Let’s get into it.
Starting off our list is Hyperion.
Called “The One on High” and “He Who Walks above”, Hyperion was one of the 12
first-generation titans born to the primordial deities Uranus, the personification of the
sky, and to Gaia, the personification of the earth.
His consort was Theia, called “Far-Shining”, another of the 12 first-generation Titans,
and together, they had three children” Selene (the “Moon”), Helios (the “Sun”),
and Eos (the “Dawn”).
Of Hyperion’s three children, Eos most followed in her father’s footsteps in that she produced
many of the other manifestations of the material world, including: Boreas, the North wind,
Notus, the South wind, Zephyr, the West wind, and all the stars in the sky, including Eosphorus,
better known by his Latin name, Lucifer, the Morning Star.
Hyperion was a solar deity.
Thus he was identified with his son, Helios, and later with Apollo.
One thought is that Hyperion’s original role was to oversee the cycle in which his
children shined in the sky.
Like the other Titans that fought against the Olympians during the Titanomachy, Hyperion
was cast into the depths of Tartarus, the cavernous abyss beneath the earth.
The only exception to this was Atlas, who was saddled with a special punishment, condemned
to bear the vault of the heavens upon his shoulders for eternity.
Coming in at number 2 is Hades.
The Lord of the Dead and the ruler of the Underworld, Hades and his five siblings, Hera,
Hestia, Demeter, Poseidon, and Zeus, were born to Cronus and Rhea, two of the first-generation
Titans.
Like his brothers and sisters, Hades was swallowed by his father at birth.
Cronus did this to forestall his usurpation at the hands of one of his children the same
way he himself usurped his own father.
Zeus, the youngest, of course wasn’t swallowed.
He was raised in secret and made a triumphant return when the bloom of manhood was upon
him.
Hades and his siblings were rescued when Zeus caused Cronus to disgorge them, so began the
Titanomachy, the cataclysmic 10 year war that raged between the gods and the titans.
Gifted to Hades by the elder cyclopes, the three born to Uranus and Gaia, was the helm
of darkness, an armament that bestowed its wearer with amazing power, that of perfect
invisibility.
Working in concert, the Olympians, the Heacatonchires, and the Cyclopes overwhelmed the Titans, who
were defeated and cast down into Tartarus.
With the war won, the next task was to divide the gouvernance of the world's three domains.
To ensure that each was assigned fairly, the three brothers drew lots.
To Zeus went the skies, to Poseidon the seas, and to Hades the underworld.
The etymology of the name Hades is a topic of some contention, but one proposed definition
is that it may mean “invisible one”.
Regardless of the definition, though, his name was seldom used.
Hades wasn’t an evil god, but still people avoided invoking him, instead favouring oblique
titles, such as “Chthonic Zeus”.
However, not all of Hades' aspects were unsettling to the denizens of ancient Greece.
As Pluto, meaning “Wealthy One”, he was seen as the wellspring that produced the precious
gems and metals of the earth.
The most famous myth in which Hades features is the abduction of Persephone.
Because of his grim abode, goddesses were reluctant to marry him, so he was forced to
resort to less scrupulous tactics in winning a wife, which, in his case, involved capturing
Persephone, not just capturing Persephone’s heart.
He came upon her while she picked flowers in a meadow and, in his chariot, whisked her
away down to his chthonic kingdom.
Demeter, Persephone’s mother, was dejected, bereft of her daughter as she was, so Hades
was forced to return Persephone to the land of the living, but not before he tricked her
into eating pomegranate seeds in the underworld, which forced her to return to him for a portion
of each year.
At number 3 we have Deified Hercules
Hercules was the champion of both mortals and gods alike, and the feats he accomplished
before his ascension to Olympus were far beyond what any other Greek hero could have lived
through.
In speed, strength, endurance, and resiliency he rivaled the gods as a mortal man, so it
would make sense that, following his deification, in these attributes, he became an even more
overwhelming force, earning him a place on this list.
Of course, this is pure speculation, but I thought him an interesting addition.
Though the culmination of his exploits and escapades reached the loftiest of heights,
residing in a tier of their own and breathing rarified air that no other Greek hero even
sniffed, Hercules’ life was also one of tragedy and misfortune.
The son of Zeus and of Alcmene, Hercules was a demi-god, and his prophetic strength was
apparent from the moment of his birth, as is demonstrated by the myth that describes
him strangling two snakes to death in his crib.
Hercules married Megara, and together they had five sons; but unfortunately, they were
not to live out their days in blissful matrimony.
Hera, Hercules' perennial enemy, cursed him with a fit of madness.
In this state - his mind not his own - Hercules murdered his sons and his wife.
To atone for this atrocity, a great penance was demanded, so, as decreed by the Oracle
of Delphi, Hercules began his mighty work, his legendary 12 labours, which included tasks
like slaying the Nemean Lion, destroying the Lernean Hydra, fetching the golden apples
of the Hesperides, and hauling Cerberus, the Hound of Hades, to the land of the living.
Having paid his debt, Hercules wished to remarry, but this embroiled him in a strange situation
that ended with another fit of madness in which he murdered Iphitos.
To cleanse himself of this latest sin, Hercules became a slave for three years.
Hercules’ last wife, Deianeira was tricked into making what she thought was a love potion
but was actually a deadly poison.
She kept it for many years, but eventually decided to use it when she thought Hercules
might be in love with another woman.
She applied it to Hercules’ tunic, but it burned him grievously and made it so that
the tunic ripped off Hercules’ skin when removed.
Deianeira hanged herself out of grief.
Hercules climbed a mountain, built a pyre, and climbed into the flames.
Instead of burning to death, though, a cloud lifted him off the pyre and bore him to Olympus,
where Hercules and Hera finally reconciled.
Hercules then married the goddess Hebe, Hera’s daughter.
They had two children, Alexiares and Anicetos.
Coming in at number 4 is Apollo.
Apollo boasted an eclectic sphere of influence that was connected to many facets of ancient
Greek society.
Healing, archery, prophecy, poetry, and music were all provinces over which he presided.
(Also, Apollo was later identified with the sun.)
In appearance he was portrayed as smooth-faced, athletic, and youthful.
The Bow was the weapon he favoured, and the lyre and cithara were the instruments he most
loved.
He numbered among the 12 Olympians and was the son of Zeus and the Titan goddess Leto.
His twin sister was Artemis, goddess of the wilds and of the hunt.
As one of the most important gods in the Greek pantheon, it comes as no surprise that his
titles were many.
He was called Phoebus (“Bright One”), Hiator (“Healer”), Mousagetes (“Leader
of the Muses”), Daphnephoros (“Laurel-Bearer”), Hekebolos (“He Who Strikes From Afar”),
and Pythian, this last title alluding to Apollo’s slaying of Python, a great serpent or dragon.
The monster was a scourge on the land and a bane to those who lived nearby.
Apollo established his own priestess as the oracle at Delphi; she sat atop a tripod situated
above a fissure that emitted gas vapours.
These were said to be what induced the ecstatic trances in which the will of Apollo was conveyed.
She only spoke in verse and what was said was interpreted by the attending priests.
Much of Apollo’s mythology is intertwined with music contests and with, unexpectedly,
toiling for mortals.
Both Pan, the god of shepherds and their flocks, and the Satyr Marsyas challenged Apollo to
a music contest.
They both lost, but the consequences were radically different for each of them.
In Pan’s case, it was the judge who was punished.
Incidentally, it was King Midas, the king with the golden touch, who sat in judgment.
For his poor taste, Apollo changed his ears to those of a donkey.
In Marsyas’ case, he was hung from a tree and skinned alive.
Concerning toiling for mortals, Apollo found himself in the service of two Greek kings.
First, He and Poseidon built the walls of Troy, but the king reneged on his promise
to pay them, so to exact vengeance, Apollo sent a pestilence and Poseidon sent a sea
monster.
Later, for the crime of killing the Cyclopes, Zeus sentenced Apollo into the service of
Admetus, the king of Thessaly.
Though Apollo had been sent as a slave, Admetus treated him with respect and a friendship
blossomed between them.
At number 5 we have Eros.
The personification of sexual desire, Eros - along with Gaia, Uranus, Nyx, and Erebus
- was one of the first-generation primordial deities.
He emerged from Chaos and was the elemental force that drove procreation.
Described in Hesiod’s Theogony as the most beautiful of all the gods, Eros, though not
overly powerful in a more conventional sense, was said to have had the ability to, on a
whim, overcome any god or mortal with love and lust, and this power was not always wielded
by one with pure intentions, as he could be cruel and capricious.
Extrapolating from that, it isn’t too difficult to conceptualise a scenario in which a wrathful
Eros turns the whole Greek pantheon against itself by making them all relentlessly pursue
each other’s wives and husbands.
Eros was thought of as a cosmic force of nature less and less as time went by.
He became anthropomorphized.
Greek poets characterised him as young, beautiful, and golden-haired, with flowers about him
and a pair of golden wings, bow in hand, an arrow ready to strike some unsuspecting victim
with maddening desire.
His human-like appearance won out, and in this form, he became the son of Ares and Aphrodite.
With Pothos (“Longing”), the Charities (“Graces”), Peitho (“Persuasion”),
and Himeros (“Desire”), Eros became another of the gods that accompanies the goddess of
love.
Coming in at number 6 is Atlas.
Atlas’ case for making this list is explained through the punishment he was saddled with
when the Titans were finally defeated by the gods after 10 years of war.
Unlike the other titans that fought in the war, Atlas wasn’t banished to Tartarus,
the great, cavernous abyss that existed beneath the earth; No, he was singled out and perpetually
subjected to his own personal hell, which was to forever be the pillar that held up
the heavens, stabilising creation itself by keeping earth and sky separate.
This, of course, begs the question: why was Atlas given special treatment?
Well, the reason for this was that Atlas was an implacable force for the Titans.
His leadership and battle prowess greatly bolstered the overall strength of his side.
His presence, both as counselor and as warrior, was a core reason that the war between the
gods and the titans extended into the protracted 10 year conflict that it was.
When the gods finally won, their greatest adversary was condemned to suffer the greatest
punishment.
Atlas came to be defined by his unending plight.
In this way, his constant, crushing burden associated him with endurance and resilience.
But he wasn’t all brawn.
He was known as a wise man, and the art of astronomy, the tracking of the myriad of stars
embedded in the firmament he pressed upwards, was said to come from him.
At number 7 we have Cronus.
Cronus was the youngest of the 12 first generation titans.
His mother, Gaia, the personification of the earth, was kept in constant agony by having
her older children, the cyclopes and the Hecatonchires, trapped inside of her by her consort, Uranus,
the personification of the sky, who was repulsed by his earlier children, thinking them abominations
that needed to be hidden away, which he did by pressing them back inside Gaia.
This unbearable predicament was the catalyst that forced Gaia to turn to her children for
help, beseeching them to rise up against their father.
Only Cronus had the potency of character, a combination of audacity and ambition, to
answer his mother’s call.
He lay in wait, stone sickle in hand, then ambushed his father, castrating him, casting
the severed genitals into the sea.
And so, Cronus deposed his own father, superseding him to become the new king of the cosmos,
ushering in the era of titan rule.
Later, Cronus would swallow his children, one at a time as they were born, a preemptive
effort to prevent his own usurpation at the hands of one of his children as he himself
had done.
But his efforts would be to no avail, and the drums of war would soon sound as the gods
and titans laid waste to the surface of the earth as they fought for supremacy, a conflict
that would end badly for the Titans, the belligerents of their number heaved into Tartarus, sentenced
to banishment, forever.
Coming in at number 8 is Poseidon.
By the three cyclopes, Poseidon was gifted a trident that bestowed him with the power
to shake and sunder the earth, a power that would help control the seas.
Once the Titans were defeated, Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus drew lots to see how creation would
be divided amongst them.
To poseidon went the seas, to Hades the underworld, and Zeus the heavens.
As the lord of the seas, Poseidon controlled their waters, able to pacify them with placidity
or create tempests that could rip sails off masts and splinter ships.
As such, he was the patron god of any human pursuit that took people to his element.
Navigation, fishing, maritime warfare, any who engaged in these activities were subject
to the whim of Poseidon’s will, which could be as capricious as the winds.
He was also the lord of earthquakes.
Fissures were sacred to him, monuments to his power.
And anything equestrian was his province; riding, racing, taming, training, and breeding,
success in these were his to bestow or withhold.
At number 9 we have Uranus
Gaia independently produced three children, three aspects of the world.
They were Uranus, the sky, Ourea, the mountains, and Pontus, the sea.
Gaia took Uranus as her consort, and many children came from their union.
First there were two trios of children, the one-eyed Cyclopes and the hundred-handed Hecatonchires.
Uranus thought these first children an affront to some undisclosed, arbitrary aesthetic standard,
which must have been of superlative importance to him, because it pushed him into a radical
course of action, which was to keep his children trapped inside of Gaia, preventing them from
being born.
As we know from the Cronus entry, this is what led to his castration, a sort of gruesome
and grotesque passing of the torch from father to son, with Cronus seizing the title of most
powerful male deity and ruler of the cosmos.
Uranus’ severed sex fell into the sea, and the water churning about them began to foam;
and from this foam emerged the goddess Aphrodite.
At the same time, droplets of blood dripped from the disembodied genitals arcing through
the air on their way towards a water-bound landing.
They fell to the ground, wetting the earth, thereby impregnating it.
From this blood-soaked union came the giants, a mortal race with god-like strength and endurance,
and the Erinyes, spirits of vengeance, also known as the Furies.
Following this, Uranus was, at times, the bearer of prophecy; one of these times was
Gaia and Uranus revealing to their son Cronus that he was destined to be supplanted by one
of his children just as he had supplanted his own father.
Wrapping up this list is Zeus.
Zeus was the supreme god in Greek mythology.
His was the highest seat in Olympus, the celestial abode of the gods.
Wind, rain, lightning, thunder, these phenomena were his servants.
Though the earth was too sacred for any god to claim as their own, leaving its domain
to Gaia, mountains, being the geological feature that reached farthest up into the sky, were
of special significance to Zeus.
Zeus was undeniably powerful.
He led the gods to victory in their war against the titans; he led the gods to victory against
the giant uprising; and finally, he defeated Typhon, the most powerful monster in Greek
mythology.
Now, there are different lenses through which you can look at these accomplishments, and
there are different versions, too; but regardless of this ambiguity, Zeus was a paragon of power.
Cronus' attempt to swallow each of his children, imprisoning them inside himself, was thwarted
when Zeus was whisked away and raised in secret.
This was made possible when Cronus unwittingly swallowed a stone wrapped as a baby, thinking
it his youngest son.
Later, when the bloom of manhood was upon Zeus, he freed his siblings, then freed the
Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires from the cavernous depths of Tartarus.
The Cyclopes joined the war effort by forging awesome weapons for the gods.
Zeus was gifted the lightning bolt, the most powerful weapon in Greek mythology, one that
he would use to devastating effect, smiting his enemies as if he were a thousand storm
incarnate.
And that’s it for this video!
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