In my last post I referred to Peter Jones' article on the Royal Mint's new coins in celebration of the London Olympics. The man behind the coins mistakenly depicted Jupiter and Juno as the "Gods of Olympia" on the coins. Obviously these are the Roman gods, and not the Greek gods of Mount Olympus, who would have been more appropriate given that the Olympic Games originated in Greece in 776BCE.
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| The Olympic coins featuring Roman deities. |
In their Mythography workshop, my students designed their own Olympic coins, choosing Greek gods and sports that were appropriate to those gods. We came up with the following list of deities and sports. Can you add anything?
Poseidon, God of Water (and horses)
Water sports - Swimming, Diving, Kayaking, etc.
Equestrian sports - show jumping, dressage, etc.
Hermes, God of Travel
Running events - track events, Marathon, Triathlon, etc.
Ares, God of War
'Fighting' (or strength) sports - Wrestling, Boxing, Weight-lifting, Fencing, etc.
Apollo, God of Archery
Archery (Maybe Cupid could work here!)
Athena, Goddess of Wisdom
Javelin (she holds a spear, but this could also be Ares or even Artemis)
Hephaestus, God of Metalwork
Field events - Hammer throw, Shotput
And, of course, although there is no sport for her, special mention should be made of Nike, Goddess of Victory. I'm sure all the athletes will be praying to her...
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