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Ancient Greeks have invented gods that are cruel and their decisions are not in all cases fair. The cruelty of gods that the ancient Greeks prayed to was caused by the insignificance of the people in comparison to nature, their feeling of helplessness in the dangerous world, and the cruelty of the society which was a norm at that time.
Zeus is the central deity in Greek mythology. He is the main god that ancient Greeks believed in. In myths he is described very powerful and all-mighty. He was more powerful than all the rest gods combined. As the king of all gods he had a right to punish them just as he could punish people.
Zeus was also honoured as the god of weather and air, and his main and most powerful weapon were thunderbolts with which he stroke those who were unwilling to obey to his power.
Zeus was also considered a god of justice. Irrespective of this, many of his actions and decisions from the modern point of view can be seen as cruel, unjustified and unfair. An example of such cruelty is the way he punished Prometheus who has stolen the fire from the Olympus to bring it to the people. Although it was not a great crime and in fact the fire made the life of simple people much easier and brought them comfort Zeus has decided to punish Prometheus in a very cruel way: to strap him to a mountain and let the eagle eat his liver every day. The liver renewed and so the suffering of Prometheus was eternal.
It can be easily noticed in the Greek mythology that in many cases the Greek gods that we can learn about from the mythology were cruel both to humans and to each other. For example, Hera was more than mean to Hercules as he was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, and tried to destroy him many times, inventing new ways to make his life more difficult. She stopped only after Zeus punished her. This can be explained by the fact that Greek gods were pompous and egoistic to a large extent. They understood their strengths and power over the people and did not treat them as ones who can change something, who are powerful enough to take care over their lives. The people were totally dependent on the will of gods, in every aspect of their life: be it personal relationship, well-being, happiness or big harvests.
People were insignificant to Greek gods. They were mortal and their feelings did not mean much. Zeus, for example, has often seduced mortal women and did not feel bad about it. People’s desires, dreams and intentions seemed too little and not important to Greek gods. They could win their attention only after immolation, which by the way was also a very cruel ritual. Gods often played games with men and put them through trials and difficult challenges. They did those actions only for their own amusement and because of the power to do so.
Gods were invented by humans and so they possessed many features of character similar to those that humans have. They experienced the same emotions: fear, anger, joy, envy, passion etc. The same was with cruelty: because the society ancient Greeks lived in was cruel, so were their gods.
Moreover, in the world of ancient Greece were many natural forces were not properly explained, where people died from flood and fires and it was difficult to survive it was much easier to personificate the nature and its forces and imagine that they have features of humans. Ancient Greeks had less fear for the nature that was human-like. The responsibility for the actions of humans and their results was on the gods, and ancient Greeks were very likely to believe in faith and understand that nothing in this big world depends on them.
Life was difficult for the people in ancient Greece, and there were objectively a lot of threats and dangers to them. The only way out was to believe in the might of gods that rule their lives and decide what will happen. In this way, the ancient Greeks took off some responsibility over their lives from themselves, and found new ways to change their faith and make their lives better.
As a conclusion it should be stated that in the ancient Greece people lived in a society that was cruel, so their gods had similar features of character and were cruel, too. Life was difficult for the people and they had to invent ways to fight for the favour of gods. The injustice of gods often reflects the injustice among people in everyday life of the ancient Greeks.
