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Before the gladiators started sticking it to each other, before men in tight shorts started running and jumping around for the benefit lusting
female fans, there were the Greek gods themselves. These were the
original players, inspiration for the first game developers, to keep the gods amused so they'd leave us the hell alone. Let the Games begin!
ZEUS: The supreme ruler of heaven and earth from Mt. Olympus. Overthrew his father Cronus for the spot. Often cheated on his wife
Hera, and was once forced to turn a lover into a cow to disguise her. (He might have turned a cow into a Jessica Simpson lookalike, as in
“moooove over, Extreme Makeover,” but we’ll never know since Homer doesn’t tell us.)
POSEIDON: Lord of the seas. Brother to Zeus, he cruised for chicks in an amphibous chariot pulled by mermaid-like horses with gold manes.
This macho display of horsepower led to his scoring with the stunning Medusa in Athena’s temple. Too bad for Medusa, though, because when
Athena found out, she turned her luscious tresses into snakes. From then on, anyone who looked at Medusa got turned to stone. (Was Athena
jealous, or what??)
ATHENA: Goddess of wisdom, peace and war. Scholars may debate whether she had the hots for Poseidon, but they generally agree she was one
powerful and crafty bitch. She even went up against Poseidon once, and got the Parthenon built in her honor by the Athenians. Then, when she
was challenged to a weaving competition by Arachne, she not only beat
Arachne, but turned her into a spider to keep her weaving forever. (Now you know why Poseidon didn’t buy her any drinks.)
HADES. God of the underworld, this brother of Zeus tormented hordes of sinners and fallen demi-gods. For instance, for trying to trick the
gods, Tantalus was placed before some fruit trees beside a lake, which disappeared or stretched away whenever he tried to eat or drink.
(Hence, the word “tantalize.”) Sisyphus once snitched on the randy Zeus, and was doomed to push a boulder uphill, well, forever. Then,
with Zeus’ permission, Hades kidnapped the beautiful Persephone for himself. . . that is, until her mother Demeter found out and brought
winter on the world. That’s when Hades relented and let Persephone visit her a few months of the year. That’s also when crops were
allowed to grow, and why we have what we now call “the seasons.” (Try
telling that to Sports Illustrated, though!)
DEMETER: Goddess of the harvest. (In case you were wondering.)
APHRODITE: Goddess of love. One hot mama, Aphrodite nonetheless married an ugly, lame man because it made her seem all the more
beautiful. Still, she was no saint. (None of the gods were, by a long shot.) In a beauty pageant judged by a prince of Troy, Aphrodite won
by bribing the judge with a beautiful woman of his own. She went on to have an affair with Ares, the god of war, that produced two
offspring--Phobos and Deimos. (Meaning “Fear” and “Terror.”)
APOLLO: God of music and poetry, Apollo was the original rock star of Ancient Greece. Young and handsome, he had groupies, a pre-Fender lyre
given to him by Hermes, and numerous affairs with both women and men alike. (Naturally enough, one of his conquests was Dionysus, the god
of wine.) His ill fated tryst with Cassandra, though, resulted in the
fall of Troy when Apollo shot an arrow into the foot of a famous warrior named Achilles (to spite Cassandra after their nasty breakup.)
HERMES: The messenger god Hermes is the one to whom everyone drank, with hopes of receiving good luck in return. But one of his children
was truly spooky. Pan was half man and half goat (wonder how that
happened?), and would follow people into the woods and play an insane but soft tune on a flute from somewhere behind them. This usually
resulted in what became known as “panic.”
PROMETHEUS: Legend has it that this god stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the humans he’d been empowered to create. This angered Zeus (the
control freak), so Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock and let an eternally ravenous eagle feast on his liver forever. (Do you see a
pattern here?) Zeus was not done there, either. Oh, no. He also gave a human named Pandora a box that looked like a present, and told her
never to open it. When she did, evil and misery flew out, but not hope, which had no wings. (Zeus, you’re one sick, vindictive son-of-a-)
EROS: At last, the god of love. Son of Aphrodite, Eros went around shooting arrows at people to get them hot and bothered. One time he
shot Apollo, who fell in love with a river goddess named Daphne. But he shot Daphne with an arrow made of lead, which turned her off to him. So Daphne turned herself into a laurel tree, and that’s why Apollo
began the custom of crowning the Olympic Games winners with laurel
leaves. (Sorry, Daphne, you’ll grow more.)
ECHO: This was a minor deity who was cursed by Hera, the wife of Zeus, after Echo delayed her with endless talking while she was trying to
catch Zeus in the hay with some other forest nymphs. After that, Echo couldn’t talk except in echoes, and so was rejected by Narcissus, the
man she fell in love with. After Echo ran off, other nymphs then cursed Narcissus so that he would only love himself, and so when he
tried to kiss his own reflection in a pool, he fell in and drowned. (Nonetheless, he’s Bill Clinton’s favorite, after Aphrodite.)
And finally, HOMER: Writer of “The Iliad.” Also, the little known original creator of the game of baseball. The original bat was an
olive branch, and the ball was made of yarn. How far the yarn unraveled determined the number of points achieved by making base.
There were five bases, and you had to get there on your knees while flogging yourself with the bat. Luckily, the bases were only twelve
meters apart. This game only lasted three years, and so didn’t make it
into the Olympic Games, yet many of the game's principles survived into the modern recreation played today, including the chewing of tobacco. .
. although the tobacco then consisted of a variety of hemp known to alleviate pain. (And which led to the phrase: “you’ve got some balls
there. . . or are they just yarn?”)
(Jonathan Lowe is author of "Fame Island" and "Geezer." A bachelor, he lives in Tucson.)
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