YDS READING PASSAGES / TEST 6 58. Soru

-20.THE ORIGINAL OLYMPIANS

The legends of ancient Greece are more familiar because they have become so permanently embedded in literary traditions of Western civilisation. Greek mythology followed the pattern of other mythologies: the forces of nature were given personalities and were worshipped. There was no worship of animals or of gods in animal form, however, as there was in Egypt. Pan, for example, had a goat's horns, hoofs and tail, but his head was like that of a man. Greek gods and goddesses were pictured as being much like men and women. The gods were conceived as more heroic in stature, more outstanding in beauty and proportion, and more powerful and enduring than humans. They were nevertheless endowed with many human weaknesses. They could be jealous, envious, spiteful and petty. Among them only Zeus was known as the Just. The Greeks believed that their gods lived on Mount Olympus. They dwelt there together in a community of light and pleasantness, and from this height they mingled with, and often interfered with, the lives of mortals, inhabiting the plains.

The gods of Greek mythology were ------ .