Greek mythology is the study of sets of narratives related to the myths of the ancient Greeks, their meanings and the relationship between them and the countries or people - as with that comes from Christianity, just as allegorical fiction. Many modern scholars to understand the Greek myths is the same as shed light on the understanding of ancient Greek society and behavior, and their ritual practices. The Greek myth explains the origins of the world and details the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines and other mythological creatures.

Over time, these myths are expressed through an extensive collection of narratives that constitute the Greek literature and also on behalf of other arts such as painting of ancient Greece and Greek pottery painting in red. Initially released in oral-poetic tradition, Today these myths are treated only as part of Greek literature. The literature covers the best known literary sources of ancient Greece: the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey (both attributed to Homer and to focus on the events surrounding the War of Troy, highlighting the influence of gods and other beings), and the Teogonia and work and the Dias, both produced by Hesíodo. The myths are also preserved in the Homeric hymns, in fragments of poems of the Epic Cycle, in poetry, in the work of the tragedies of the fifth century BC, the writings of poets and scholars of the Hellenistic period and other documents of poets of the Roman Empire, as Plutarch and Pausania. The main source for details on the research of Greek mythology are the archaeological evidence found and discovered that furnishings and other artifacts such as geometric designs on pottery, dating from the VIII century BC, which depict scenes from the Trojan cycle and the adventures of Hercules. successor to the Archaic period, Classical and Hellenistic, Homer and many other personalities appear to supplement the literary evidence such stocks.

The Greek mythology has assigned a significant influence on the culture, the arts and literature of Western civilization and still be part of the heritage and language of the West. poets and artists - as well as intellectuals, scholars and others concerned with human - the most remote times until the present have acquired most of the inspiration of ancient Greek mythology had as a method of discovering the many meanings and relevance to the classical mythological themes have with their contemporary.

Greek mythology was the main subject of children's learning in ancient Greece, as a means to guide them in understanding natural phenomena and other events that occurred without the means of humans. The ancient Greeks did not have modern means of calculating the time, so that poets used their imagination to attribute the cause of the phenomena around them, and was just invented when the schedule and started to understand the heat and sun and rain that the myths declined. The poets gave these thermal states, but also the relations and human characteristics to gods and other legendary stories, and they served for a long time as religious ritual in ancient Greek society. In addition to the children being educated through the myths, the aristocratic families of Greece and the Kings and other professional groups such as doctors, had the tradition to connect the genealogy mythical ancestors, usually divine, or even heroic. The merchants, too, worship gods, and Hermes, in an attempt to make him happy, and so succeed in sales. In addition to being accustomed to the sacrifices of animals and prayers, the ancient Greeks adopting a particular god or group of them to their city and the people built temples and  worship. These cities did not have any official religious organization, but honor the gods in some places, as Apollo in Delphi only.

For the Greek people, the full and complete knowledge belonged to the gods, but men may want it and love it, becoming philosophers (philo = friendship, brotherly love, respect, Sophia = wisdom).

Although often confused with religion, Greek mythology is a set of beliefs rooted in reporting fictitious and imaginary, while the other involves rituals within procedures with the aim of establishing links with spirituality. Meanwhile, the mythology the Greeks believed that all things seemingly inexplicable actions were the result of divine beings that no one was able to see, or work of heroes of the past, religion, the man of ancient Greece, was to worship the gods of Olympus held common in temples or altars, and also worship the heroes, made in their tombs. Dedicated to a god or a hero, the temples, decorated with sculptures (of gods or heroes) in relief between the roof and top of the columns were made of fine stones such as marble, used in top of the acropolis. The ancient Greek theaters, too, were constructed for a particular mythological figure, gods or heroes, as the theater of Dionysus in the Sanctuary of Apollo in Delfos.

Besides the religion was practiced in festivals, it is believed that the gods interfered directly in human affairs and the need to pull them through sacrifices. The Greeks often had designs of the gods in many features of nature . The guess, for example, have believed in the divine messages flight of birds and dreams. In the cities, the oracles - sacred places - were used by a priest who, taken by ecstasy or divine madness, serving as intermediary between the dialogue of a believer and his god to worship. Therefore, we conclude that the mythology of the ancient Greeks is all the fabulous stories of heroes and gods (constituting an entire literature of Greece), while their religion is Basically, the worship and rituals that are, in order to establish links with the gods of mythology.

The mythical narrative played an important role in almost all genres of Greek literature. However, the only manual mitográfico that survived the ancient Greek was the famous Library mythology, the writer called Pseudo-Apolodor, which attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a summary of Greek mythology and historical legends.

Among the literary sources of the first era, there are the two epic poems of Homer, Iliad and Odyssey. Completing this epic cycle, we have written to poets whose documents were lost over time. Despite its traditional name, the Homeric hymns, choral anthems in the first phase of the so-called poetry, do not have any relationship with Homer. Hesíodo possible contemporary of Homer, Teogonia produced, the most recent document on Greek myths, which produces a genealogy of the gods, and explains the origin of the Titans and Giants. The Works and Days, also Hesíodo, is a didactic poem on the life of agriculture shows that the myths of Pandora and the Age of Men. The poet gives advice on how best to succeed in a dangerous world made more dangerous by the gods. The Works and Days also presents the myth of Prometheus, who later formed the basis of a trilogy of tragedies, possibly started by Aeschylus, which are chained Prometheus, unchain Prometheus and Prometheus, the driver of the fire.

The lyrical poets sometimes directed his subjects to myths, but the treatment was becoming smaller, while its allusions to the story grew. The Greek lyrical poets, as Pindaré and Simónides of CEOs, and the bucolic poets, including Teócrito, provide individual mythological incidents. [30] Furthermore, the myth was a central theme in Athenian tragedy: the tragic playwrights Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus produced his plots involving the Age of Heroes and the Trojan War many of the great tragic history (ie Agamemnon and his children, Oedipus, Medea and Jasa, etc..) brought in its classic form these pieces tragic.

The historians Herodotus and Diodoro Sicula, and geographers Pausania and Strabo, who traveled around the Greek world and noted that the stories heard, provided numerous local myths, presenting several times little known alternative versions of the myths. Herodotus, especially has presented the various traditions and finding the historical or mythological roots in the conflict between Greece and the East.

The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman eras, which although composed as literature more than a year to worship the myths, it contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes:

     1. The Roman poets Ovid, and Virgil Sêneca.
     2. The Greek poets of late antiquity: Antonino and Liberal fifth of Smyrna.
     3. The Greek poets of the Hellenistic Period: Apolônio for Rhodes, Calímaco, Eratosthenes and Partenio.
     4. Novels of ancient Greeks and Romans, as Apuleio, and Heliodoro Petrônio.

In contrast with the lyric genre, the Fabulae and Astronomy of the Roman writer Higino compositions are two important non-poetic about the myth. The works Photos and descriptions of Filóstrato and Calístrato (respectively), are two literary works useful for the study of Greek myths. Finally, the Christian apologetic Arnóbio, citing religious practices to discredit them, and several other Byzantine writers provide important details of the myths, some of them from lost Greek works over the years. Among these, is included in the glossaries Hesíquio, the Suda, and treaties of John Tzetzes and Eustácio. The view Christian moralizing about the Greek myths is summarized in that ἐν παντὶ μύθῳ καὶ τὸ Δαιδάλου μύσος (en panta kai muthōi to Daidalou musos, "in all desecration of myth is Dédalo") on which said that the Suda mentions the role of Dédalo to meet the "unnatural lust" of the throne of Pasiphae Posidonos: "Since the source and the blame is attributed to these evils Dédalo and was hated by them, became the object of the proverb."