Greek God Symbols

Where the symbols come from

Most divine attributes are not arbitrary. Each one usually ties back to a specific myth, a cult practice, or a title the god was called by.

• Apollo's laurel goes back to the nymph Daphne, who was turned into a laurel tree while fleeing him. In Ovid's version Apollo declares the tree will be his forever, and laurel wreaths became the prize at the Pythian Games at Delphi. See Apollo and Daphne.
• Athena's olive comes from her contest with Poseidon for Athens: he produced a salt spring on the Acropolis, she produced an olive tree, and the city chose hers. Herodotus reports that the sacred olive burned when the Persians sacked the Acropolis in 480 BC and had put out a new shoot a cubit long by the next day. See Poseidon vs Athena.
• Hermes' lyre and tortoise come from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, in which the newborn god scoops out a tortoise, strings its shell, and later gives the lyre to Apollo to settle the theft of Apollo's cattle. That is why the lyre belongs to Apollo even though Hermes invented it.
• Hera's peacock is tied to Argus, the hundred-eyed guard she set over Io. When Hermes killed Argus, Ovid says Hera set his eyes in the tail of her bird. The peacock was also kept at her great temple on Samos.
• Hera's pomegranate and cuckoo appeared on Polykleitos' gold-and-ivory statue at the Argive Heraion. Pausanias says she held a pomegranate in one hand and a sceptre topped by a cuckoo in the other, because Zeus had courted her in the form of a cuckoo. He pointedly declines to explain the pomegranate, calling its story a secret.
• Dionysus' thyrsus was a stalk of giant fennel topped with ivy or a pinecone, carried by his maenads. In Euripides' Bacchae it is a weapon as well as an emblem: the women strike rocks with it and water or wine springs out.

Symbols that are later additions

Several attributes in modern lists are not ancient, or are rare in ancient art.

Cronus's hourglass and scythe. In Hesiod, Cronus uses a jagged sickle (harpe) of adamant. The hourglass belongs to Father Time, a medieval and Renaissance figure created by blending Cronus with Chronos, the personification of time, whose names sounded alike. Ancient Greek images of Cronus do not show him with an hourglass.

Atlas's globe. Atlas holds up the sky, not the earth. The famous Farnese Atlas in Naples, a Roman copy, carries a celestial sphere marked with constellations. The idea of Atlas carrying the planet comes from much later maps and book covers, including Mercator's use of the name for a collection of maps.

Hades' bident. Ancient vase painters usually give Hades a royal sceptre, sometimes a cornucopia (as Plouton, the giver of wealth), or a key. The two-pronged bident is mostly a modern invention to make him match his brothers' trident and thunderbolt.

The caduceus as a medical symbol. The single snake-entwined staff of Asclepius is the true emblem of medicine. The two-snaked, winged caduceus of Hermes belongs to heralds, merchants, and travellers. The confusion became widespread after the U.S. Army Medical Department adopted the caduceus in the early twentieth century.

Heroes, monsters, and how to read a vase

Mortal heroes had attributes too, and they are often the easiest way to identify a scene on pottery. Heracles wears the skin of the Nemean Lion, usually with the jaws over his head like a helmet, and carries a club. Perseus carries a curved harpe and a shoulder bag (kibisis) for Medusa's head, and often wears Hermes' winged boots and the cap of invisibility. Theseus is often shown beardless, wrestling the Minotaur or fighting bandits. Odysseus is recognisable by his conical felt traveller's cap, the pilos.

When two gods share a symbol, context decides. A bearded god with a trident is Poseidon, but a dolphin alone could signal Apollo Delphinios or Aphrodite. An eagle usually points to Zeus, and the bronze god from the sea off Cape Artemision is still argued over because his weapon is lost: if he threw a thunderbolt he is Zeus, if a trident, Poseidon.

Epithets often grew out of animal associations. Homer calls Athena glaukopis, often translated "grey-eyed" or "owl-eyed", and Hera boopis, "cow-eyed", a compliment about large, dark eyes. The owl on Athenian silver coins was so common that "bringing owls to Athens" became a proverb for something pointless, the Greek equivalent of coals to Newcastle; Aristophanes plays on it in the Birds.

The Gorgon's head, or gorgoneion, deserves a separate mention: it appears on Athena's aegis, on shields, temple pediments, and drinking cups as a protective device meant to turn evil back on itself. See also weapons of Greek mythology.

Ancient sources

• Ovid, Metamorphoses 1 — tells how Daphne became the laurel and how Argus' eyes ended up on Hera's peacock (in Ovid's Latin, Juno's).
• Homeric Hymn to Hermes — the invention of the tortoise-shell lyre and its gift to Apollo.
• Herodotus, Histories 8.55 — the olive tree and salt spring on the Acropolis, and the olive's regrowth after the Persian burning.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.17.4 — Polykleitos' statue of Hera at Argos holding a pomegranate and a cuckoo-topped sceptre.
• Hesiod, Theogony — Cronus's jagged sickle, made by Gaia and used against Uranus.
• Euripides, Bacchae — the thyrsus, ivy, and fawnskins of Dionysus' worshippers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the symbol of Zeus?

The thunderbolt is his main weapon and emblem, with the eagle as his sacred bird and the oak as his tree, especially at his oracle at Dodona, where priests interpreted the rustling of oak leaves.

Why is the owl a symbol of wisdom?

Because it was Athena's bird. The link is mostly Athenian: the city put the little owl on its coins, and Athena's role as goddess of wisdom carried over to the bird.

Is the caduceus or the rod of Asclepius the symbol of medicine?

The rod of Asclepius, a staff with a single snake, is the ancient symbol of healing. The caduceus, with two snakes and wings, belongs to Hermes and was adopted for medicine by mistake.

What does the pomegranate symbolise in Greek mythology?

It is linked with Persephone, who ate pomegranate seeds in the Underworld and so had to return there each year, and with Hera as a goddess of marriage. It came to stand for fertility, marriage, and the bond between life and death.

Books to read next

• Edith Hamilton, Mythology
• Stephen Fry, Mythos
• Robert Graves, The Greek Myths

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