Immortality in Graeco-Roman myth didn’t simply mean “living forever” – it meant becoming something transcendant, something greater, something beyond human entirely. Mortal beings are defined by the fact they will die. But the Gods were immortal by nature: they did not age, they were unable to die, and they existed outside of time in a state of perpetual, frozen, ageless perfection.
Immortality was sometimes used in mythology as a reward or even as a curse: while Heracles was granted full divinity and joined the Olympians after his death as a “full” immortal, the likes of Tithonus were granted eternal life… but not eternal youth. The Greeks recognised that, while death made humans weak and pitiable, it was also what made human achievements so meaningful and heroic. Life unending could be a blessing… or an eternal prison.
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