In the realm of social ideas, the same hold true - in Arabia, Persia, India, Greece, Rome, Egypt. Ritual became a very vital part of mythology, in the belief and importance placed upon the literal rendering of ritual and all other ceremonial forms. This fact helped to preserve ritual myths in a pure form for many generations.
With the coming of Zeus and the establishment of Mount Olympus as the home of the gods, the Greek pantheon as it is known today took form from the work of Homer and Hesoid. In the progressive development of that pantheon, the bronze age was followed by the heroic age. It is to this heroic age that the three subjects of this study belong, Oedipus, Theseus, and Hercules:
The Greek hero was not always a supernatural being,
related to the gods . . . the hero could also be
simply a prince of an illustrious like Odysseus
. . . (Hesoid did believe heroes were the offspring
of the fourth generation of mythical men) . . . gods
...