Grievous Greek Gods
Spencer Cowan
Period 6, Honors English
Mrs. Dickey
Throughout the various tellings of Greek Mythology, the gods could be seen as extremely rude, spiteful, and malevolent and a whole other laundry list of things. Some justification for this was because some mortals or humans would attempt to dare the gods, to try to get the gods/goddesses to prove their godliness, which would be a prime example of the mortals or humans trying to be provocative towards the gods, and possibly even abuse their power. Bullfinch’s Mythology is a collection of various stories, compiled by Thomas Bullfinch. Within this assemblage of stories, it is relatively easy to find an instance where a god has abused their power. Some examples are, Eurystheus and the tasks that Hercules was expected to complete for him. Another example would be the tale of Minerva and Medusa. In this story, Minerva is just completely flabbergasted when she is faced with her rivalry, who is a girl named…show more content… According to the assemblage of stories, some tasks that needed to be carried out by Hercules were the decimation of the hydra, excoriate a lion, and scrub tables. A quote exemplifying the cruelty here is “The Twelve Labors of Hercules”, for a mortal, this seems very unreasonable because humans can only do so much for others; and themselves for that matter. “As Juno was always hostile to the offspring of mortal mothers, she declared war against Hercules from the time of his birth.” Is it his fault he was born by a mortal mother? No. Yet another unjust move by the gods and goddesses. Hercules is best known as the greatest of all mortals. Stronger than many gods. So strong he was the deciding factor in allowing the Olympians to overcome the giants. He was the last mortal son of Zeus. He is the only mortal to become a god upon his