“For we are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. “ In the 5th century BC, the golden age of Athens, the historian Thucydides quoted Pericles the leader of the Athenians open, democratic society with the close barracks state of their rivals, the Spartans. But Pericles might have been speaking in general of Greek culture and its ideal of humanistic education and life. With this paper I want to shed light on the Greek origins and how they portrayed the Gods and themselves in regards to their culture and lifestyle. For the Greeks, humanity was what mattered, and humans were, in the words of philosopher Protagoras, the “measure of all things.” This view is what contributed to the Greeks creating democracy and the people to make contributions to the fields of art, literature, and science. The Greek praise of humanity and the honoring of individuals are so immersed in modern westernized state of mind that most people have no idea where these ideas have originated or that they came from the Greeks. GODS AND HUMANS Even the gods of the Greeks assumed human form and although they were noble, they were not free from human frailty. Unlike the Egyptian and Mesopotamian Gods, the Greek Deities were only separated and different from humankind only because of their immortality. Over the centuries it has been said that the Greeks made their gods into humans and their humans into gods. With humans becoming “the measure of all things”, in turn must represent, if all things in their perfection are beautiful, the unchanging standard of the best. This meant that the perfect individual became the Greek ideal. GREEK ORIGINS The Greeks, or Hellenes, as they called themselves, appear to have been the product of the intermingling of groups of Aegean people and Indo-European invaders. They never decided to form a single nation but rather established many independent city-states. The Dori