Antiquity Representation

Olympus was the home of the Olympian family, the twelve most important ruling gods

and goddesses of ancient Greece. There they all lived together in a big palace, that is above

the clouds. Olympus is generally identified with Mount Olympus in Thessaly, which is the

highest mountain in Greece, but very often it is identified also as some mysterious place above

the earth.

It is written that Zeus talks to the gods from the top peak of many ridged Olympus, and

only a little later he says that if he willed he could hang the earth and sea from a pinnacle of

Olympus. Olympus is not the equivalent of heaven. According to the writer Homer, Poseidon

says that he rules the sea, Hades the dead, Zeus the heavens, but Olympus is common to all

three.

The entrance to Olympus was a great gate of clouds, kept by the Seasons. Within were

the gods’ dwellings where they lived and slept and held court. In its great halls they feasted on

ambrosia and nectar and were entertained by Apollo’s lyre, the Graces and the Muses.

The builders of the palace at Olympus were the Cyclopes, gigantic one-eyed Titans who

were freed by Zeus from Tartarus and in thanks gave him his famous thunderbolts. Hephaestus,

the talented god of the smiths and the forge created all the furnishings and artwork on Olympus,

even making some of the chairs and tables able to move themselves in and out of the celestial

hall.