Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece at 2,919 m high. Since its base is located at sea level, it is one of the highest mountains in Europe, in real absolute altitude from base to top. It is situated in mainland Greece and is noted for its very rich flora with several endemic species. In the Greek mythology, Mount Olympus is the home of the Olympians, the principal gods in the Greek pantheon. Mount Olympus (Greek: Όλυμπος; also transliterated as Ólympos, and on Greek maps, Óros Ólimbos) is the highest mountain in Greece at 2,919 metres high (9,577 feet).[1] Since its base is located at sea level, it is one of the highest mountains in Europe in terms of topographic prominence, the relative altitude from base to top. It is located in Macedonia, about 100 km away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus is noted for its very rich flora with several endemic species. The highest peak on Mount Olympus is Mitikas at 2,919 metres high (9,577 feet), which in Greek means "nose" (an alternative transliterated spelling of this name is "Mytikas"). Mitikas is the highest peak in Greece, the second highest being Skolio (2912 m). In Greek mythology the mountain was regarded as the "home of the gods", specifically of the Twelve Olympians, the twelve principal gods of the ancient Hellenistic world.[2] Any climb to Mount Olympus starts from the town of Litochoro, which took the name City of Gods because of its location on the roots of the mountain. Traditionally regarded as the heavenly abode of the Greek gods and the site of the throne of Zeus, Olympos seems to have originally existed as an idealized mountain that only later came to be associated with a specific peak. The early epics, the Illiad and the Odyssey (composed by Homer around 700BC) offer little information regarding the geographic location of the heavenly mountain and there are several peaks in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus that bear the name Olympos. The most favored mythological choice is the tallest mountain range in Greece, the Olympos massif, 100 kilometers southwest of the city of Thessaloniki in northern Greece. The highest peak - shown in the photograph - is Mytikas at 2918 meters (9570 feet).
The deities believed to have dwelled upon the mythic mount were Zeus, the king of the gods; his wife Hera; his brothers Poseidon and Hades; his sisters Demeter and Hestia; and his children, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes and Hephaestus. It is interesting to note that these Olympian gods and goddesses were understood in ancient times as archetypes representing idealized aspects of the multi-faceted human psyche. Worship of the deities was a method of invoking and amplifying those aspects in the behavior and personality of the human worshipper. Zeus was the god of mind and the intellect, and a protector of strangers and the sanctity of oaths; Hera was a goddess of fertility, the stages of a woman's life and marriage; Apollo represented law and order, and the principles of moderation in moral, social and intellectual matters; Aphrodite was a goddess of love and the overwhelming passions that drove humans to irrational behavior; Hermes was the god of travelers, of sleep and dreams and prophecy; Athena was spiritual wisdom incarnate; Hephaestus was the god of the arts and fire; and Ares represented the dark, bloodthirsty aspect of human nature. These gods and goddesses did not actually live upon Olympos, rather the ancient myth can be understood to be a metaphor for the power of the sacred mountain. This spiritual power had drawn hermits and monks to live in the caves and forests of the mountain since long before the dawn of the Christian era. With the coming of Christianity the myths and legends of the old Greeks were suppressed and forgotten, and the holy mountain was seldom visited. Today, weekend hikers and young travelers on the vagabond trail through Europe dash up and down the peak in a single day. It is certainly a beautiful place for such a hasty hike, yet to draw upon the real magic of Olympos one must come as a pilgrim and stay some quiet days in the woods. The author has lived for a month in the forests of the sacred peak and experienced that the spirits of the old gods and goddesses are still powerfully present.
Olympus was the residence of the divine family, the twelve most important ruling gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, who therefore were called the Olympians. There they all lived together in an enormous palace, high above the clouds. Olympus is generally identified with Mount Olympus in Thessaly, which is the highest mountain in Greece, but very often it is identified also as some mysterious region far above the earth. It is written that Zeus talks to the gods from "the topmost peak of many-ridged Olympus," and only a little later he says that if he willed he could hang the earth and sea from a pinnacle of Olympus, clearly not a mountain. In either case, Olympus is not the equivalent of heaven. According to the writer Homer, Poseidon says that he rules the sea, Hades the dead, Zeus the heavens, but Olympus is common to all three. The entrance to Olympus was a great gate of clouds, kept by the Seasons. Within were the gods’ dwellings where they lived and slept and held court. In its great halls they feasted on ambrosia and nectar and were entertained by Apollo’s lyre, the Graces and the Muses. Nectar was a sweet drink made from fermented honey, and ambrosia was said to be an uncooked mixture of honey, water, fruit, olive oil, cheese and barley, disgusting as that sounds... Others claim that a specie of speckled mushrooms were the true food of the Olympians, created whenever Zeus' thunderbolts struck the earth, and that this was what kept them immortal. The Olympians were fond of the smell of roast beef and mutton, but didn't like the taste, so mortals would sacrifice sheep and cattle to them, but afterwards would eat the meat themselves. The deities who did not live on Olympus, such as the gods of the Underworld, the earth or the sea, would arrive when summoned by Zeus. The builders of the palace at Olympus were the Cyclopes, gigantic one-eyed Titans who were freed by Zeus from Tartarus and in thanks gave him his famous thunderbolts. Hephaestus, the talented god of the smiths and the forge created all the furnishings and artwork on Olympus, even making some of the chairs and tables able to move themselves in and out of the celestial hall.
