Age of gods and mortals

Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in h
uman affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and mortals moved
together. These were the early days of the world when the groups mingled more fr
eely than they did later. Most of these tales were later told by Ovid's Metamorp
hoses and they are often divided into two thematic groups: tales of love, and ta
les of punishment.[39]
Dionysus with satyrs. Interior of a cup painted by the Brygos Painter, Cabinet d
es Mdailles.
Tales of love often involve incest, or the seduction or rape of a mortal woman b
y a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories generally suggest that
relationships between gods and mortals are something to avoid; even consenting r
elationships rarely have happy endings.[40] In a few cases, a female divinity ma
tes with a mortal man, as in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess li
es with Anchises to produce Aeneas.[41]
The second type (tales of punishment) involves the appropriation or invention of
some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods,
when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his o
wn subjects revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when Prometheus or Lycaon i
nvents sacrifice, when Demeter teaches agriculture and the Mysteries to Triptole
mus, or when Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into a musical contest with Ap
ollo. Ian Morris considers Prometheus' adventures as "a place between the histor
y of the gods and that of man".[42] An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated to the
third century, vividly portrays Dionysus' punishment of the king of Thrace, Lycu
rgus, whose recognition of the new god came too late, resulting in horrific pena
lties that extended into the afterlife.[43] The story of the arrival of Dionysus
to establish his cult in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean trilogy.[
44] In another tragedy, Euripides' The Bacchae, the king of Thebes, Pentheus, is
punished by Dionysus, because he disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads,
the female worshippers of the god.[45]
Demeter and Metanira in a detail on an Apulian red-figure hydria, circa 340 BC (
Altes Museum, Berlin).
In another story, based on an old folktale-motif,[46] and echoing a similar them
e, Demeter was searching for her daughter, Persephone, having taken the form of
an old woman called Doso, and received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the Kin
g of Eleusis in Attica. As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter
planned to make his son Demophon a god, but she was unable to complete the ritu
al because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screame
d in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do not und
erstand the concept and ritual.[47]