In many societies, tales of gods and ancient heroes have been told and passed over from one generation to another. Such stories mainly talked about supernatural powers or gods and some of their deeds during their interactions with human beings. Greek society has been distinguished over time as one of the societies that possess such great myths that have been captured in several great ancient writers from their society. Stories of goods, nymphs, and men who performed heroic exploits exist in a lot of Greek literature (Payment). Great works from writers such as Homer have placed Greece in a class of its own in terms of world mythology, Myths in the ancient Greek society focused on imaginary as well as real events that took place during early times in the Greek world.
One most common and commonly loved myth is the story of the Iliad by Homer which captures the Trojan war between the Greeks and the people of Troy after the capture of Helen, the wife of Agamemnon. who was a military leader in the Greek army (SerVI). Myths acted as away of explaining some concepts such as creation. birth or even death in Greek society because there were no religious discourse that could have acted as an answer or point of reference for key questions over the mentioned concepts. The myths further gave important teachings about the importance of holding certain Virtues and the consequences of holding some Vices. In some of the works obtained from Greek literature, key Vices like pride, dishonesty as well as jealousy have been greatly explored showing the consequences of holding such vices.
These myths were a means by which members of society were to learn the correct way of living in harmony. One such example is how the gods transformed Arachne into a spider just because she kept on boasting about her great skills in weaVing (Payment,). The myths further acted as a way of providing explanations to some phenomena that existed in ancient Greek society but for which the natives lacked explanations to their nature. The existence of gods such as Poseidon was intended to offer an explanation as to why there existed the earthquake as well as turbulent sea waters, especially for the Greek sailors. Poseidon was the god of the sea whose constant mood changes could be felt by human beings through heavy storms and earthquakes (Payment).
Greek mythology has received a lot of appreciation across the world, especially through the various forms that it is captured in numerous collections that include the plays and narratives from great writers like Homer and Sophocles to paintings and sculptures. The works mention numerous gods and goddesses. mythological beings, nymphs as well as heroes and heroines. They also capture some origins of human struggles and sufferings that have affected society over ages in time (Fritz Graf). Great writers across the world have appreciated Greek mythology in different ways for it has greatly impacted on the civilization and cultural influence of many nations, especially in Europe and other parts of the world.
Great writers that have come up lately have obtained a lot of inspiration from the Greek mythology for they unanimously identify With it. From Great Roman writers like Virgil to Shakespeare and other well known writers, it is clear that greek mythology has been appreciated in different forms to an extend that even some of these writers emulate everything from Ancrent Greece and try to apply it in their societies through literature and other forms of artwork, The Roman Empire through Julius Ceaser created the Aeneid as a way of countering the Greek literature and mythology dominant but ended up confirming how the Greek mythology has had influence on Roman culture.
Roman gods created were all emulated from Greek ones as it is for the instance of Zeus being represented by Venus (Fritz Graf). It is important to note that heroism played a central role in Greek mythology and this is represented by the numerous Greek heroes that performed great fits that left them to be admired. Some of the great heroes presented by Greek poets and writers include Achilles who commanded a very revered Battalion of fifty soldiers and was significant In helping the Greek Army conquer the Trojans. Others included men like Odysseus who roamed for twenty years after the Troian war and had to fight enemies and sea storms by the aid of gods and returned home safe (Francrs).
In conclusion, Greek mythology greatly centered on gods heroes creatures and family trees that show the relationship between men and nature through the creatures, and great family trees that showed lines of successful lineages that characterized an element of inheritance. Some of the great Greek scholars such as Plato and Aristotle have recognized the myths and considered them as fictional works of art. For ordinary citizens, these myths carry significant weight and most people believed that they were real. It is therefore important to note that Greek mythology has set the standard for world mythology. Even though myths exist in almost all societies around the world, Greek mythology has been well presented by its great writers and hence needs to be appreciated.