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HelpRe: Hera
in reply to a message by HailCthulhu
So, I have done a fair amount of reading about early Greek mythology. I may be able to shed some light on Gods and their mistresses. Or maybe not...
The earliest people in Greece as far as we know had a different set of gods, more matriarchal. As the culture with the religion of Apollo and Zeus moved through this more matriarchal culture, divinities met and combined. Often, these unions (marital, friendship, sexual, etc) represented the interaction of the new masculine conquerers with the old more foresty gods and goddesses. To complicate the process, remember that Greek civilization is famously uncentralized and has always been so. There were enormous cultural differences between different places that weren't very far away as the crow flies (largely due to the "mountainous island" nature of the geography). And they wouldn't confer with each other when creating these new hybrid mythologies, which served obviously very local needs. So you'll have Zeus marrying some goddess who was the protector of that city or special to it in some way, to represent the nature of the cultural union or new cultural reality.
I don't have my book right here or else I'd try to find some actual concrete examples.
The earliest people in Greece as far as we know had a different set of gods, more matriarchal. As the culture with the religion of Apollo and Zeus moved through this more matriarchal culture, divinities met and combined. Often, these unions (marital, friendship, sexual, etc) represented the interaction of the new masculine conquerers with the old more foresty gods and goddesses. To complicate the process, remember that Greek civilization is famously uncentralized and has always been so. There were enormous cultural differences between different places that weren't very far away as the crow flies (largely due to the "mountainous island" nature of the geography). And they wouldn't confer with each other when creating these new hybrid mythologies, which served obviously very local needs. So you'll have Zeus marrying some goddess who was the protector of that city or special to it in some way, to represent the nature of the cultural union or new cultural reality.
I don't have my book right here or else I'd try to find some actual concrete examples.
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