The Gods of Homer

Extract

There is a question relating to the gods of Homer which is obvious enough, when one thinks of it, and yet has never, so far as I know, been clearly answered, or even envisaged. Professor Nilsson, for instance, in his works on Homer and on Mycenaean and Minoan religion, has nothing definite to say about it. The question I mean is this: where did Homer get his gods? Or it would be better to say, where did he get his pantheon? The question I have in mind is not the origin of the individual gods. That has been discussed repeatedly. Nor is it the origin of the Olympian monarchy, for that, it is generally agreed, is modelled on the monarchies of early Greece. It is rather how all those deities came to be present in Olympos, or at least how Homer and his audience knew that they were there.