According to the "Theogonic" order, Zeus came after Cronos and Ouranos, but in the poems of Hesiod and Homer as well as in the minds of the Greek people, Zeus occupied the predominant position. He was the greatest god, the one who maintained the supervision of all others. The patriarchal element of the Greek religion turned him into an insatiable womanizer so that he maintains total control of his environment and bears many children (perhaps this amorous side, with both goddesses and mortal, is supplied to him by the kings, thus ensuring a divine lineage to their genealogy). He rapes, thus referring to the destruction of the old religion by the new. When he lusted after Metis (Titan) he produced goddess Athena (who sprang out of her father's head after he had swallowed her mother out of fear that she would give birth to a patricide son.
He married Hera, his twin-sister, daughter of Cronos and Rhea; her name meaning "Protector" and being the pre-Hellenic "Great Goddess", she maintained some of her attributes such as the concept of fertility and rejuvenation through the annual renewal of her virginity in the waters of the spring Canathos. Her marriage to Zeus symbolized the end of the pre-Hellenic, matrilineal societies and their submission to the new patriarchal world. Their union produced Ares, Hephaestos and Hebe. Their marriage was marked by constant fighting and intrigues generated by Zeus' infidelity, as in the case of Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo (Hera sent the serpent Python to chase her not allowing her to deliver wherever the sun shone) or Semele, mother of Dionysus (whom she tricked into asking Zeus to appear before her in his true form - as thunder and lightning - thus consuming her).
The worship of Apollo is the most widely diffused. His birth was adventurous as his mother, Leto, was chased by the serpent Python (Hera's intrigue); he grew up miraculously fast (in seven months he assumed the appearance of a grown man)
Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera and one of the Twelve Olympian Gods. His birthplace and true home was placed far away, among the barbarous and hostile Thracians.
Artemis is special among the other goddesses of Olympus. She was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and twin sister to Apollo.
Athena was the daughter of Zeus and Metis, the Titan and goddess of cunningness and wisdom. According to the myth Zeus received a prophecy that one of his off springs would bring the end to his reign.
Atlas was a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Asia. He was well-known to everyone because his task was no less than to support the sky and the heavens over the earth.
Zagori is an area of great natural beauty and unique architecture in the Pindus Mountains in Epirus in Northwestern Greece. The area is of about 1.000 square kilometers and contains 46 villages. Zagoria villages is called by Greeks “Zagorochoria” meaning the villages behind the mountain.
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In 1989, Professor of Byzantine Studies, Helen Ahrweiler is appointed Chairman of the Cultural Centre Pompidou in Paris