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Was Hades an Olympian?
Olympian adjective : of or relating to Mount Olympus in Thessaly
This seems like a simple yes or no question doesn't it? But this question actually causes much argument. If you were to search for the answer to the question, "was Hades an Olympian?" elswhere on the internet, you would find that some believe he was and others believe he wasn't. This confusion is really all about what exactly an Olympian was. The definition of an Olympian has to do with both the Titans and with the twelve gods of Mount Olympus.
The Titans vs Olympians
The Titans were a generation of Gods who were all descended from Uranus and Gaia. Cronos was the strongest son of all Uranus' children, and he defeated his father and became king of the Gods. Cronos did not want one of his sons to defeat him as well, so he swallowed each of his children shortly after they were born to keep them from growing up. But his sixth son, Zeus, was hidden from him. Zeus grew up, defeated his father, and freed his brothers and sisters.
Zeus became the king of the Gods. He took the sky as his domain and his older brothers Poseidon and Hades took the Sea and the Underworld respectively, as their domains. Mount Olympus was made the meeting place of these new ruling Gods. The six children of Cronos (the Cronides) , and their immortal children are never referred to as Titans. Instead, after their meeting place, they are called Olympians.
The Twelve Gods of Mount Olympus
On Mount Olympus lived Zeus and many other gods. There were However, only twelve thrones in the meeting hall where the Gods met. These thrones were reserved for Zeus, his brothers and sisters, and some of Zeus' children. Namely:- Zeus
- Poseidon: Zeus' Brother
- Hera: Zeus' Sister and Wife
- Demeter: Zeus' Sister
- Hestia: Zeus' Sister
- Athena: Daughter of Zeus and Metis
- Aires: Son of Zeus and Hera
- Hephaestus: Son of Zeus and Hera
- Apollo: Son of Zeus and Leto
- Artemis: Daughter of Zeus and Leto
- Aphrodite: (sometimes said to be Zeus' Daughter via Dione)
- Hermes: Son of Zeus and Maia
Later, Dyonisis took Hestia's place. These twelve gods were known as the Gods of Olympus, or the 12 Olympian Gods. Hades would have had a throne as well, but he chose not to be involved in most of the affairs of the earth.
Hebe, Cupid, Heracles, and others lived on Olympus as well. So if one considers the Olympian Gods to be those that lived on Olympus, then there were more than twelve.
Was He or Wasn't He?
Hades was a member of the Olympian generation of Gods, but he did not live on Olympus, nor was he one of the twelve Gods who had thrones on Olympus. Depending on what you mean by Olympian, Hades either is one, or isn't one. I prefer to think of the generation of gods that followed the Titans as Olympians, the Gods who lived in Olympus as Gods of Olympus, and the twelve Olympian Gods as the twelve Olympian Gods.
The question of whether Hades was an Olympian reminds me of a friend of mine whom I knew in college. She was a Caucasian woman who was born in South Africa, but she became a United States Citizen. Was she an African American?
