Greek mythology

Greek mythology consists of collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. These accounts were initially fashioned and disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; our surviving sources of Greek mythology are literary reworkings of this oral tradition. Greek mythology was also reflected in artifacts, such as vase paintings.

Greek gods
In the wide variety of legends and stories that constitute ancient Greek mythology, the deities that were native to the Greek peoples are described as having essentially human but immortal bodies. Although each god's physical appearance is distinct, they have the power to take on whatever form they choose.

Regardless of their forms, the Greek gods have many fantastic abilities: they can disguise themselves or make themselves invisible to humans, they can instantly transport themselves to any location, and are able to act through the words and deeds of humans, often without the knowledge of the human through whom the gods act. Most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease, can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances, and are immortal. Even though each of the gods was born, most of them growing from infancy to adulthood, once they reach their physical peak of maturity they do not age beyond that point.

Each god descends from their own genealogy, and has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods were called upon in poetry, prayer or cult, they are referred to by a combination of their name and epithets, that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves. A Greek deity's epithet may reflect a particular aspect of that god's role, as Apollo Musagetes is "Apollo, [as] leader of the Muses." Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece.

In such mythic narratives, we are told that the gods are all part of a huge family, spanning multiple generations. The oldest of the gods were responsible for the creation of the world, but younger gods gained control of their power.