This is a picture of Hades stealing Persephone away from her mother Demeter. Demeter was pissed to say the least, so she and Hades made an agreement. Half of the year Persephone would stay w/ Mom, and half with Hades. Demeter is the godess of the fields, harvest, etc. so hence the seasons.
This is Aphrodite(Venus) and Adonis, Goddes of Love, and basically God of the young ladies (virginity I think).
Zeus- do I need to say more?
I think this is Aries (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus). God of War and Godess of Love who are 'married' which probably meant something different than it does today.
So this scuplture tells part of the story of the origin of the universe. Before there was the Gods, there was the Titans. The leader of the Titans was Cronus (base word for 'time'). He was uber paranoid b/c he has rebelled against the begins before the Titans ususally called the Monsters or something like that, I think I also remember reading something about a prophesy that said Cronus would be overthrown by his offspring. SO, paranoid Cronus would eat everyone of his babes, hense this sculpture. Finally, Rhea, Cronus' wife, stole away her son Zeus- and well the rest is history. Final cool thing about this origin myth is that the three brothers (Zeus, Posideon, and Hades) that were instrumental in the rebellion decided to divide up the world and each take reign over one division. They decided who would choose first, second, third over a game of dice. Zeus won, and chose the heavens, which was fine w/ Posideon, b/c he wanted the sea anyway, and the unlucky brother, Hades got the underworld.
A final note, I simply love how women were included in this religion. Why the fuck did we take the turn we did w/ patriarchal Christianity?
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