Titans and Gods of Greek Mythology

This is how it began. In the beginning there was the sunrise - and then there was the word describing that sunrise. But the sun was too powerful, too important, for words to encompass alone. And so we invented songs and rituals to celebrate the sun. (Yes, and the moon, too, and the river, and whatever was of the natural world that forced its import upon our primal consciousness.) These songs and rituals had no intellectual meaning, but they felt correct. An "explanation" was achieved somewhere in the region between the heart and the head.

When you are worshipping your primal gods, and explaining them, you want your performance of the ritual act to be perfect. Two types of perfection soon rose above the crowd of normal worshippers: the performer-priest and the leader-priest. (Sometimes, fortuitously, they were one-in-the-same.) The performer-priest became the poet, the actor and the musician - the one who provided the most beautiful worship of the gods. The leader-priest became the king - the one with the most personal, direct kinship to the gods. We know, of course, that somewhere along the line both the king and

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life and death, assumed to bear the wisdom to discern justice and morality. Oedipus and Atreus were humans, but they and their progeny lived the torrid, temptuous lives of the gods - where Truth blinds. Perhaps Oedipus and Atreus were only myths, but in the person of Alexander the Great legend and history became one. Now a pattern was set for Western civilization: its great men must be outsized - godlike heroes - both in accomplishment and prestige. Augustus Caesar was the first to understand that responsibility - and he made the Roman Senate (willingly) declare him a "god." This was only fitting to the Latin way of thinking, for they needed the legitimacy of a god to confirm the greatness of their nouveau Empire. Rise and Fall: within a few more centuries, when the God of Christianity disapproved of all pagan pretenders, the emperor became the man in control by "divine right". As the Roman Empire entered its final decline, no one seriously considered its caesars to be gods. (Such a pitiful god that would let barbarians through the gate so many times.) Still, we needed our leaders to have some touch of the godly power about them. During the dark feudal ages, the Church-granted divine right of kings was about all we
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1352
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)