Greek Myth

Simeon Stakic 8A

September 19, 2010

Greek Myth

On Mount Olympus lived all the gods that controlled all things of both the human and natural world. But there was one god more powerful than any of the others, and that was Zeus, the god of the sky and lightning. He would command all the gods and they would listen to him, and there was no person on Earth dared to challenge him, that is until Basil came.

At the time that Zeus ruled, a young but courageous man named Basil became the king and ruler of Greece. With his extraordinary leadership skills and tactics, Greece conquered one civilization after another. No nation dared to stand in his path, and soon Basil became the greatest ruler of all. But as time passed he was no longer satisfied with being the greatest ruler of Earth, he wanted to become the ruler of the gods as well. But there was one big problem standing in his way, and that was Zeus. Zeus was known to cruelly punish those that either oppose or disobey him, but Basil was not afraid. He was so convinced that there was nobody greater than him that he openly challenged Zeus in public. Word quickly spread about the challenge as people were worried about the faith of the entire Greek empire. Many feared that Zeus would simply cast a huge lighting storm that would destroy everything in its path.   In terror, many fled to neighboring civilizations in fear for their lives. When word finally got to Zeus, he laughed and said “This must be a joke. Surely no mortal would dare challenge me.” But when he realized it wasn’t a joke he became furious. “How dare this foolish mortal challenge me and my authority?!” roared Zeus as the sky turned dark and a storm began. “If we allow this one mortal to challenge us”, he spoke to the other gods, “They will all challenge us and we will lose our authority over these humans”. The gods agreed that something must be done and Zeus had an idea.

Back at Basil’s kingdom, he grew anxious of waiting for an answer from Zeus. When he couldn’t wait any more, he went outside to tell all the people that the gods were afraid of him. Basil looked up to the sky and saw a cloud shaped as a lightning bolt. He thought he was imagining things so he rubbed his eyes and looked again, but the cloud was still there and it seemed to get bigger and bigger. When the cloud came close to the ground, Basil saw a figure of a man standing on it with a lightning bolt in his hand. Basil was stricken with fear when he realized the consequences of his boasting. As Zeus stepped off the cloud, everyone watched in both amazement and in fear. “Are you the one that dared challenge me?” roared Zeus. “Well…I…”stuttered Basil. As soon as Zeus heard that he threw the lightning bolt from his hand at Basil, making him drop to the floor. Zeus then waved his hand at Basil, and then turned into an eagle, proudly spreading his wings. And in an instant he took off and flew towards the sky. As he did so Basil was on the floor. His hands turned into paws, his fingernails into claws, a tail grew from his back, and brown fur grew all over his body. As he stood on all four legs he roared and ran off cowardly. Even though Basil challenged Zeus, he had pity on him and recognized a good ruler. Although Zeus turned Basil into a lion, he allowed him to be the ruler of the animal kingdom, roaming the grassy plains of the world. Basil would proudly roar, letting everyone know that he is the ruler and ordering everyone to fear him.