Greek Mythology Family Tree: The Gods and Heroes According to Homer

The Short Version

In Homer’s Greek mythology family tree, the gods “proceed” from Oceanus and his wife Tethys. Cronus and Rhea are the parents of three brothers, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, who drew lots to divide the world, and of Hera, Cronus’s eldest daughter, who is both Zeus’s sister and his wife. Zeus then fathers the next generation of gods: Ares, Hephaestus and Hebe with Hera, Apollo and Artemis with Leto, Aphrodite with Dione, Hermes with Maia, plus Athena, whose mother Homer never names.

This is the Greek gods family tree according to Homer only, built from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Every link carries a book number (“Iliad 15”, “Odyssey 1”) so you can check it. I read Samuel Butler’s prose translations, the same ones behind our Odyssey summary and Iliad summary. Butler uses Roman names, so I give the Greek name first and his in brackets once. Where Homer differs from Hesiod’s better-known version, a table near the end says so.

Jump to: The tree · Zeus’s parents · The three brothers · Zeus’s children · Poseidon’s children · Monsters and nymphs · Odysseus’s family · Full table · Homer vs Hesiod · Twelve Olympians

The Greek Gods Family Tree in One View

Each indent is one generation. A plus sign marks a couple. Every line carries the book where Homer states the link; where Homer leaves a parent out, the tree says so instead of filling the gap.

Who Were Zeus’s Parents?

Zeus’s parents are Cronus (Saturn) and Rhea. Homer says it in one line, spoken by Poseidon in Iliad 15: “We were three brothers whom Rhea bore to Saturn—Jove, myself, and Hades who rules the world below.”

The poems also call Zeus “the son of Saturn” again and again; it is close to his everyday title in Butler’s Iliad. Homer gives Cronus a grim fate. Zeus tells Hera she may go “where Iapetus and Saturn dwell in lone Tartarus” (Iliad 8), and Hera says she was handed to Oceanus and Tethys to be raised “when Jove imprisoned great Saturn in the depths that are under earth and sea” (Iliad 14).

Above Cronus, Homer’s family tree goes back to Oceanus and Tethys. Hera calls Oceanus the one “from whom all we gods proceed,” and Tethys “mother” (Iliad 14). Homer never calls them Cronus’s parents in so many words, and he never mentions Uranus at all, so I leave that link out of the tree. The only time Gaia, the Earth, appears as a parent is as mother of the giant Tityus (Odyssey 7 and 11).

Who Is Hera to Zeus?

Hera (Juno) is both Zeus’s sister and his wife. She says so herself: “I am Saturn’s eldest daughter, and am honourable not on this ground only, but also because I am your wife” (Iliad 4). The narrator calls her Zeus’s “wife and sister” in Iliad 16, and “his sister-wife” in Iliad 18.

One surprise for readers who know the later myths: in Homer, Zeus is the older brother. Iliad 13 says of Zeus and Poseidon that “Jove was elder born and knew more.”

How Did Zeus, Poseidon and Hades Divide the World?

The three sons of Cronus drew lots. Poseidon tells the story in Iliad 15, when he is angry at being ordered out of the battle:

• Poseidon (Neptune) drew the sea, “to have my dwelling in the sea for evermore.”
• Hades drew “the darkness of the realms under the earth.”
• Zeus (Jove) drew “air and sky and clouds.”
• The earth and Mount Olympus stayed “the common property of all.”

That is why Poseidon argues he is “of like honour” with Zeus. In the Odyssey, Hades rules the dead with Persephone (Proserpine): Circe sends Odysseus “to the house of Hades and of dread Proserpine” (Odyssey 10). Homer pairs them as rulers, but he never names Persephone’s parents.

Who Are the Children of Zeus?

Homer gives Zeus more children than any other god, and names the mother for most of them. Zeus himself lists his affairs in Iliad 14, while trying to charm Hera: the wife of Ixion (mother of Pirithous), Danae (mother of Perseus), the daughter of Phoenix (mother of Minos and Rhadamanthus), Semele (mother of Dionysus, Butler’s Bacchus), Alcmena (mother of Heracles, Butler’s Hercules), “queen Ceres again, and lovely Leto.” Ceres is Demeter; Homer names her as a lover of Zeus but gives her no child in either poem.

Here are the children, grouped by mother:

• With Hera: Ares, whom Zeus calls “my own offspring” while scolding him (Iliad 5); Hephaestus, who calls Zeus “my dear father Jove” and Hera “my mother” (Iliad 1); Hebe, “daughter of Jove and Juno” (Odyssey 11); and the Eileithyiae, goddesses of childbirth, “daughters of Juno” (Iliad 11).
• With Leto: Apollo, “the son of Jove and Leto” (Iliad 1), and Artemis, who runs to “the knees of her father” while Leto picks up her bow and goes after “her daughter” (Iliad 21). Iliad 20 calls Artemis the “sister of far-darting Apollo.”
• With Dione: Aphrodite, who flees to “the lap of her mother Dione” after Diomedes wounds her (Iliad 5). The Odyssey calls her “Jove’s daughter Venus” (Odyssey 8).
• With Maia: Hermes, “Mercury the son of Maia” (Odyssey 14). In Iliad 24 he says “my father sent me” when Zeus sends him to guide Priam.
• With Laodameia: Sarpedon, the Lycian prince (Iliad 6).
• Mother not named: Athena, endlessly “daughter of aegis-bearing Jove” and “the Trito-born”; Helen, “daughter of aegis-bearing Jove” (Iliad 3), which makes Menelaus “Jove’s son-in-law” (Odyssey 4); the Muses (Iliad 2); the Prayers (Iliad 9); the Naiad nymphs of Ithaca (Odyssey 13); and Ate, whom Butler calls Folly, “eldest of Jove’s daughters” (Iliad 19).

Hermes has a mortal son of his own: Eudorus, born to Polymele, daughter of Phylas (Iliad 16).

Homer never says how Athena was born, and never names her mother. That matters, because the famous version of her birth comes from somewhere else (see the Homer vs Hesiod table).

Who Is Hephaestus Married To?

Here the Iliad and the Odyssey disagree with each other. In Iliad 18, Hephaestus’s wife is Charis, who greets Thetis at the door as “wife to the far-famed lame god.” In the bard’s song in Odyssey 8, his wife is Aphrodite, and the song is about her affair with Ares. Hephaestus traps the lovers in a net of chains and demands that “her father” Zeus repay what he paid for his bride.

Hephaestus is also thrown out of heaven twice. In Iliad 1, Zeus “caught me by the foot and flung me from the heavenly threshold,” and he falls all day to Lemnos. In Iliad 18 it is his “cruel mother” Hera who throws him because he was lame, and Eurynome, “daughter of the ever-encircling waters of Oceanus,” and Thetis hide him for nine years.

Ares (Mars), for his part, has a sister, Strife, his “sister and friend” (Iliad 4), and sons: Ascalaphus and Ialmenus by Astyoche (Iliad 2) and Panic, who rides into battle with him (Iliad 13).

Who Are Poseidon’s Children?

Poseidon’s family drives half of the Odyssey’s plot:

• Polyphemus the Cyclops: “son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys” (Odyssey 1). Polyphemus himself says “Neptune and I are father and son” (Odyssey 9). Blinding him is why Poseidon persecutes Odysseus.
• Nausithous, born to Periboea, youngest daughter of Eurymedon, king of the giants. Nausithous fathered Alcinous and Rhexenor, and Rhexenor’s daughter Arete married her uncle Alcinous (Odyssey 7). So the Phaeacian royal family who carry Odysseus home are Poseidon’s descendants.
• Pelias and Neleus, twins born to Tyro (Odyssey 11). Neleus lived in Pylos, and Nestor is “son of Neleus” (Iliad 2), which makes the wise old king of Pylos a grandson of Poseidon.
• Otus and Ephialtes, sons of Iphimedeia, who tried to pile Ossa on Olympus and Pelion on Ossa until Apollo killed them (Odyssey 11).

Athena calls Poseidon “my uncle Neptune” (Odyssey 13), which fits the tree: he is her father’s brother.

Who Are the Parents of Calypso, Circe and Polyphemus?

The Odyssey’s monsters and nymphs come with parents, and Homer usually names them in a single phrase:

• Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa (Odyssey 1; see above).
• Calypso is the “daughter of the magician Atlas,” who “carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth asunder” (Odyssey 1, again in Odyssey 7).
• Circe is “own sister to the magician Aeetes,” and both are “children of the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Oceanus” (Odyssey 10). So Circe is a granddaughter of Oceanus.
• Phaethusa and Lampetie, who guard the Sun’s cattle, are “children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera” (Odyssey 12). Butler calls the Sun both “Hyperion” and “son of Hyperion.”
• Eidothea, who helps Menelaus, is “daughter to Proteus, the old man of the sea” (Odyssey 4). She hedges it herself: “people say he is my father.” Proteus is “Neptune’s head man,” not his son.
• Scylla’s mother is Crataiis (Odyssey 12); Homer names no father.
• Ino, also called Leucothea, who gives Odysseus her veil, is “daughter of Cadmus,” a mortal “raised to the rank of a marine goddess” (Odyssey 5).
• Thetis, mother of Achilles, lives “by the old man her father” in the sea and calls the Nereids “sisters, daughters of Nereus” (Iliad 18).

Odysseus Family Tree

Odysseus (Ulysses) comes from a line of only sons. Telemachus says it plainly in Odyssey 16: “Laertes was the only son of Arceisius, and Ulysses only son of Laertes. I am myself the only son of Ulysses.”

On his mother’s side, Odysseus’s grandfather is Autolycus, “the most accomplished thief and perjurer in the whole world,” whose skill came from Hermes because he sacrificed to him (Odyssey 19). Homer says Hermes favoured Autolycus, not that he fathered him. Autolycus also names the baby: “name the child ‘Ulysses,’ or the child of anger” (Odyssey 19). His grandmother is Amphithea, and a boar hunt with “the sons of Autolycus” gives him his famous scar.

His mother Anticlea, “daughter to Autolycus,” appears as a ghost in Odyssey 11. Eumaeus remembers being raised with “her daughter Ctimene, the youngest of her children” (Odyssey 15), so Odysseus has a sister, even in a family of only sons.

Penelope is “daughter of Icarius” (Odyssey 1 and many times after), and her sister Iphthime married Eumelus and lived in Pherae (Odyssey 4). Odysseus has no divine parent in Homer. Athena is his patron, not his relative.

Greek Gods Family Tree: Every Link in One Table

Homer vs Hesiod: Where the Family Tree Changes

Most “Greek mythology family tree” charts online follow Hesiod’s Theogony, a poem from around the same early period that sets out the gods’ family in order. I have not read or quoted Hesiod for this page; the Hesiod column below gives only the standard, well-established points of his version, so you can see where Homer differs.

Who Are the Twelve Olympians?

Homer never lists twelve Olympians. The phrase does not appear in the Iliad or the Odyssey, and the poems simply speak of “the gods who dwell in Olympus” (Iliad 1). The list of twelve is a later convention: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus.

Against that list, Homer’s Olympus is uneven. Ten of the twelve act in the Iliad, and they pair off against each other in the battle of the gods (Iliad 20). Demeter appears only in passing, as “Ceres” (Iliad 14). Dionysus gets brief references, such as Lycurgus chasing him into the sea (Iliad 6). Hestia does not appear by name in either translation.

How I Built This Tree

I searched both translations for every “son of,” “daughter of,” “bore,” “mother” and “father” attached to a god or a named monster, and kept only links the text states. Butler’s names map like this: Jove is Zeus, Juno is Hera, Neptune is Poseidon, Minerva is Athena, Venus is Aphrodite, Mars is Ares, Vulcan is Hephaestus, Mercury is Hermes, Diana is Artemis, Latona (or Leto) is Leto, Saturn is Cronus, Ceres is Demeter, Proserpine is Persephone, Bacchus is Dionysus, Hercules is Heracles and Ulysses is Odysseus.

Where a later myth fills a gap (Athena’s birth, Persephone’s parents, Autolycus as Hermes’s son), I left the gap open. For the stories behind these names, the Odyssey summary follows Odysseus home book by book, and the Iliad summary covers the war where most of these gods take sides. To test yourself on the gods afterwards, try our Greek god quiz.