The 5th-century-bce Greek historian Herodotus remarked that Homer and Hesiod gave to the Olympian gods their familiar characteristics. Few today would accept this … See more

The fullest and most important source of myths about the origin of the gods is the Theogony of Hesiod (c. 700 bce). The elaborate genealogies mentioned above are accom… See more

Fragmentary post-Homeric epics of varying date and authorship filled the gaps in the accounts of the Trojan War recorded in the Iliad and Odyssey; the so-called Homeric Hymns (sh… See more

The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by Heinrich Schliemann, a 19th-century German amateur archaeologist, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete (from whic… See more