India. Those Indians knew how to fight. They had their own magic, their own gods, their own bunch of nasty secret weapons. Their holy men, the Brahmans, would sit on the field of battle, looking all peaceful, and Dionysus’s army would roll up, thinking the enemy was surrendering. As soon as the Greeks got close, the Indians would fire rockets into their midst—jets of flame and blinding light, massive explosions that caused panic in the troops.
After a bunch of tough battles, Dionysus finally made it to the Ganges River, which was the holy river of India. He assaulted one last fortress—a big castle on a hill as tall as the Acropolis back in Athens. His centaurs and satyrs tried a frontal assault, climbing up the rocks, but the Indians set off some magic explosions that were so powerful the Greek front lines were vaporized. Supposedly you can still see the afterimages of satyrs and centaurs burned into the cliffs where the battle happened.
At that point, Dionysus decided enough was enough. They’d made it to India. They’d introduced wine. Dionysus had collected a sweet assortment of exotic predator cats, like tigers and leopards. He’d even taken the leopard as his new sacred animal and started a fashion craze by wearing a leopard skin as a cape. The army had taken a lot of treasure. They’d met new and interesting people, killed most of them, and generally had a good time.
Dionysus built a pair of pillars on the banks of the Ganges to prove that he’d been there. He bade the Indians a tearful farewell and marched back to Greece. He dropped off a load of treasure at the Oracle of Delphi in honor of the gods, and for a long time, there used to big silver bowl in the Delphic treasure room inscribed: TAKEN FROM THE INDIANS BY DIONYSUS, SON OF ZEUS AND SEMELE. (One of the old Greek writers saw it. I’m not making this up.)
Anyway, Dionysus finally ascended to Mount Olympus and became the last of the major gods. Cue the theme music! Cue the closing credits! Our camera pans away from the Olympian throne room, where twelve gods are rolling around on their wheelie thrones. And CUT!
Phew. We did it, gang.
Twelve Olympians—we collected the whole set, plus a few extra bonus gods like Persephone and Hades!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sleep. I feel like I just got back from the Dionysian revels, and I’ve got a splitting headache.
AFTERWORD
SO THOSE ARE THE BASICS.
I know some of you are going to be complaining, like, Ah, you forgot to talk about Cheez Whiz, the god of mice! You forgot to mention Bumbritches, the god of bad fashion statements! Or whatever.
Please. There are about a hundred thousand Greek gods out there. I’m a little too ADHD to include every single one of them in a single book.
Sure, I could tell you how Gaea raised an army of giants to destroy Olympus. I could tell you how Cupid got his girlfriend, or how Hecate got her farting weasel. But that would take a whole other book. (And please don’t give the publisher any ideas. This writing gig is HARD!)
We’ve covered most of the major players. You probably know enough now to avoid getting zapped into a pile of ash if you ever come across any of the twelve Olympians.
Probably.
Me, I’m late to meet my girlfriend. Annabeth is going to kill me.
Hope you enjoyed the stories. Stay safe out there, demigods.
Peace from Manhattan,
LIST OF
ILLUSTRATIONS
(Tap on an image title to be taken to that image.)
Title page: Mount Olympus
The Beginning: Chaos
“The first god, if you can call it that, was Chaos—a gloomy, soupy mist with all the matter in the cosmos just drifting around.”
The Beginning: Ouranos, Gaea, and some of their children
“Without a word, he wrapped them in chains and tossed them into Tartarus like bags of recycling.”
The Beginning: Kronos
“When Kronos saw the scythe, his eyes gleamed.”
The Golden Age: Kronos’s palace
“…in gratitude for their freedom, they constructed a massive palace for Kronos on top of Mount Othrys…”
The Golden Age: Prometheus creates humans out of clay
“One day he…sculpted a couple of funny-looking figures similar to Titans, only much smaller and easier to smash.”
The Golden Age: Kronos with Rhea’s fake baby
“She marched right up to King Cannibal and shouted, ‘This is the best baby yet! A fine little boy named, uh, Rocky!’”
The Olympians: Mount Ida
“Zeus had a good childhood on Mount Ida.”
The Olympians: Zeus confronting Kampê
“She raised her whip and howled, ‘RAWRGGGGWRRR!’”
The Olympians: