The Gods Love The Least Among Us Too - Poseidon's Wrath

As a historian, I have always said that no culture has a clean slate. We have all done things in the past we are not proud of, but then again, we are humans, we make mistakes. This is normal. The important thing is the recognition and correction of those errors. For those who may not know, the City of Sparta had a significant slave population at one point called the Helots, from a neighboring village in the south called Helos, that Sparta had conquered. When Sparta lost to the Thebans of Greece in 371 BCE, the Thebans ended slavery in the City, which resulted in a notable decline for Sparta at that point.

But in 464 BCE, another strike against the slave system took place, this time from a God. Some of the Helots sought refuge in the Temple of Poseidon Asphaleius (Poseidon of Safety) in Tainaron, which rested in the South Peloponnese, but the sanctuary itself predates the enslavement era. When the Spartans found the refugee Helots, they took them out of the temple and killed them. I'd say this was a huge violation of Xenia, since the slaves were suppliants in the presence of the God. Shortly after this, a great earthquake (Poseidon is the Earth Shaker), struck Sparta and destroyed it. This event was interpreted at the time to be punishment from Him. The Gods were believed to protect the Sacred Law of Xenia, and would deal out punishment for violating it. Still to this day, we Hellenists uphold that Law. Not to mention the obvious transgression of interrupting the worship of Poseidon and killing His worshipers.

To me, it shows not only that the Gods protect Sacred Law, but that they care for everyone who comes to them, even if they are at the lowest level of society. The slave can be loved by the Gods the same as the master, the poor the same as the rich, etc. I think that if wealth or status mattered, Poseidon would have reacted less harshly at the violation, but it was one of the most devastating natural disasters to happen to Sparta.

The moral of this post is, whenever you feel like you are a disappointment or someone the Gods don't care about, think again. 

In the Goodness of the Gods,

I'll see you at the next Herm down the road,

Chris Aldridge.

Links To Information:

Temple Of Poseidon Tainaron, Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, 2025, accessed on November 8th, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Poseidon_(Tainaron).

Sparta, Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, 2025, accessed on November 8th, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta.

Sparta Earthquake, Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, 2025, accessed on November 8th, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/464_BC_Sparta_earthquake.

Xenia, Hellenic Faith, accessed on November 8th, 2025, https://hellenicfaith.com/xenia/.

Mythology/Theology: To The Greeks, There Was A Difference

If you've been a Hellenic Polytheist for at least five minutes, you've no doubt heard others equate the Gods with the myths entirely. 

The first things to realize is that the ancient Greeks did not have a "holy book" of religion and myth.

Not only was ancient Greece a collection of City States completely independent from one another in government and beliefs, but there was no law dictating how someone could view the Gods or what stories they could accept or not.

In fact, it's kind of inaccurate to call it "The Ancient Greek Religion" because there were, in fact, many forms of ancient Greek religion and Cult. Sparta and Athens, for example, believed in the same Gods but did not have the same religion or culture. Not to mention the fact that there were cults everywhere that adhered to their own identities. 

So for instance, someone today might say that my beliefs on Artemis being gracious and kind to people is contradicted considering the myth of Actaeon, but there's literally nothing in Hellenic religion which says I have to accept that story as literal fact or accept it at all.

We do know that we believe in Artemis as She is, of course. But I don't have to believe everything that everyone tells me about Her. I have the right to my own experiences and perspectives, and it does not denote me as a Hellenist. 

It's also true that not only could a given myth vary in detail from City to City, but many of them were handed down by word of mouth, which can change and modify with each teller, especially as the time and culture changes. 

In fact, some of the myths we accept today as Greek, were not even composed by the Greeks. The story of raped Medusa that people commonly call Greek in our time, was actually written by a Roman. The original story, which says nothing of rape or punishment, was written by the Greek Hesiod.

This is also not a modern change to Hellenism either. Greeks were not forced to accept a given story. Historically, it's accepted that around the time of the Hellenistic Era, the myths as literal facts began to waiver as a concept. 

But considering people like Plato and Sokrates, I think it began much sooner than that. Those men clearly believed in the Greek Gods but were also philosophers and not necessarily mythologists. They wrote about people's experiences with the Gods instead of taking written myths and saying, "Here's the 100% truth."

Hellenic religion can be hard to understand, but once you manage to grasp the core, it'll make perfect sense to you.

In the Goodness of the Gods, I'll see you at the next Herm down the road.

Chris Aldridge.

Athens & Sparta ~ A Lesson For Our Time

We are approaching one of the world's defining anniversaries this October 1st, the day that His Majesty Alexander the Great of Macedon along with the Hellenic League crushed the overwhelming Persian forces of Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela, completely releasing Greece from the threat of Persian tyranny for a conceivable future. Persia not only lost its power and empire to Greece on this day, but would also be ruled by a Greek, Alexander. The Greeks did more than just destroy the Persian army this time. They placed the Greek government on the Persian throne. This was the time when Hellas had its strongest empire and ruled the world.

But a unified front didn't normally last with the Greeks once the threat of Persia had been vanquished. Even though Sparta and Athens, for example, had stood together against Persian invasion before Alexander, they turned on one another in the Peloponnesian War some time after, resulting in brutal devastation across the ancient Greek world. 

As an historian and a Hellene, it pains me so greatly to see the great Greek cities harmed not by a foreign enemy, but from within, among each other over their inabilities to live together peacefully. Had the city-states united, and remained that way, focusing on common good and not letting cultural differences break them, Greece may have ruled the known world before Alexander and after. She may have been able to prevent plague, bankruptcy, and unnecessary wars that devastate economies and societies.

The lesson to learn from the times of division is the power of unity. Sometimes it is true that unity cannot be possible. You can't be friends with someone who wants to kill or destroy you. But many other times, our fights are avoidable, especially if we are basically the same people. It's ridiculous, for example, for American states to fight one another. Illinois and North Carolina may have different cultures, but we're more similar than we are different, and we're both the same nationality. Unity helps us far more than division. One of the reasons America is so strong is because she is composed of 50 different states, all united in their common interests, using their individual powers and resources to help obtain and keep those interests for the common good. Peace among us is more profitable than war.

The God of war, to my mind, reminds me that He's there for a reason, and His invocation to ignite an actual battlefield is never to be done on a whim. Sometimes war is necessary. Most of the time, it's not.

In the Goodness of the Gods,
Courage and Honor,
Chris Aldridge.