Momus was the Greek God of ridicule and sarcasm. He sounds like the god for me, I’d definitely build him a shrine.
So this week I’ve written a quick list of my personal favourite times Greek Gods made a bit of a dick move, or had ego’s that were far too sensitive.
Because the Greek Gods were quite entertaining: they were incredibly powerful and tended to be ridiculously attractive so their ability to handle disappoint in a calm, adult manner, left a lot to be desired.
Cronus – the God of time and father of Zeus swallowed each of his children as soon as they were born
Zeus – the ruler of heaven/Olympus. This’ll take a while, he was quite a prick. We may need to do this in dot-points
- That time he was massively pissed off with Prometheus –Prometheus made an agreement with the Gods that he would slay an ox and half would be given to the Gods. Zeus selected one portion that would henceforth be set apart for them, but Prometheus tricked him by making the shittier half look more appealing and Zeus was not impressed. Zeus tried to punish Prometheus by refusing humans the gift of fire, so in retaliation Prometheus gave Zeus a big fuck you by stealing some sparks from the sun. So Zeus took it up a notch: he sent the creation of Pandora as a gift to Prometheus’ house and she opened a jar filled with all the blessing reserved by the gods for mankind, which he had been forbidden to open. All the blessing flew away except for Hope. Then Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock and sent an eagle every day FOR THIRTY YEARS to gnaw away at his liver, which would grow back again every night. Dude you’re Zeus, is the ox that big a deal? Kill your own friggen ox you lazybones!
- Tricking Europa – One day while Europa was innocently gathering flowers in a meadow, Zeus disguised himself as a white bull as some kind of bizarre dating tactic. Europa was surprised by the bull’s gentleness and seated herself on its back, Zeus immediately swam across the sea with her to the island of Crete. I like the reasoning behind this decision – I’ll dress up in a bull costume, bitches love bull’s right?
- Persephone – Another example of why you shouldn’t go wandering around a lovely meadow, they are dangerous places dammit!! Persephone was gathering flowers one day when suddenly an abyss opened at her feet and Aides (ruler of the underworld) appeared and took her away to the underworld. It was Zeus who gave Aides permission to steal his daughter, in order that she could become his wife – and no he hadn’t discussed this decision with Persephone or her mother Demeter (prick).
Eris – the goddess of Discord. This particular story really does sound like some that would be on Real Housewives. So there was a wedding between a sea-nymph, Thetis, to a mortal, Peleus, and all the Gods and Goddesses had been invited except Eris. Eris therefore was determined to ruin this wedding, and did this by throwing into the room a golden apple with the inscription ‘For the Fairest’. All the goddesses begun fighting over who was the hottest (love how no one thought maybe we should just give this to the bride to be nice), and finally after long debate it was agreed that the three finalists Hera, Athene and Aphrodite would accept Paris’ decision. Paris chose Aphrodite, and Hera never forgave him and persecuted Paris and his family.
Demeter – the goddess of agriculture. In general she was nice enough, but once she cracked the shits with a youth who made fun of her for eating porridge too quickly, and turned him into a lizard.
Phoebus-Apollo – the god of light, prophecy, music, poetry and the arts and sciences. I have two favourite times Apollo acted like a shit. The first was the contest he had with Pan (god of shepherds) over who sounded better – Pan on the flute or Apollo or his lyre. Apollo had WON this contest yet still chose to punish the one judge who disagreed with the decision by giving him the ears of a donkey.
The second story is once his favourite bird, the crow, told Apollo that his wife was in love with another. Apollo was so upset that he instantly killed her with one of his death-bringing arrows. Then he actually thought about it, realised he might have been too hasty, and decided to punish the crow by changing the colours of his feathers from white to black. The crow was just the messenger dude!
Hephaestus – the god of fire in its beneficial aspect and son of Zeus (who wasn’t though, try keeping it in your pants Zeus). As revenge he gave his mother, Hera, a golden throne which once she was seated she would be unable to get back up from.
Amphitrite – the wife of Poseidon, god of the sea. Because she was quite jealous of a beautiful maiden called Scylla, Amphitrite threw herbs into a well where Scylla was bathing and this transformed her into a monster with twelve feet, six heads and the voice that resembled the bark of a dog.
Artemis – the goddess of hunting and chastity, and interesting fun-fact was raised by a she-bear (imagine the yo’mamma jokes she survived in high school, that’s why is was angry). Once a King neglected to include her in a general sacrifice to the gods. Artemis responded to the snubbing by sending a huge boar to destroy his kingdoms grain and cause famine.
Dionysus – the god of wine. He sounded like a bit of a ragamuffin you’d find on schoolies week, and was often depicted riding a panther. Dionysus invented wine and gained a devoted following, however the King of Thrace often had to have a stern word with him as he disapproved of the behaviour of Dionysus’ followers.
Poe's very attractive cousin 