Tons

 

of good info here.

Satan’s Throne

"The altar was probably dedicated to Zeus and Athena, since they are in equal proportions the two most prominent deities on the eastern part of the altar’s outer frieze (the horizontal band on the face of the base), decorated with sculptures of the gods doing battle with the Giants (a group of divine beings).

"The sculptural frieze on the altar depicts the battle between the Greek gods and the Giants, as recounted in Apollodorus’s The Library. According to Greek myth, the Giants were a clan of monstrous appearance descended from Ge (Earth) and Uranus (Heaven). They were fierce warriors who attacked the Olympian gods, the clan of Zeus. The gods learned that they could defeat the Giants only if they were aided by a mortal. As a hero, Heracles counted as a mortal, born to a human mother and a god. So the gods enlisted Heracles on their side and thus were able to kill the Giants. Zeus and Athena were the leaders of the gods in this battle. In later art, including the sculptures on the Great Altar, the Giants are portrayed as men with snake-like legs. In classical and Hellenistic times, the myth was interpreted in terms of the conflict between civilization (the gods) and barbarism (the Giants)."

"The battle is thematically organized on the Great Altar. On the northwestern side of the altar, gods and goddesses associated with the sea are shown fending off the Giants attacking that part of the cosmos. On the southern side, deities connected with time are portrayed defending that aspect of order. Although portions are missing and others are hard to identify, it is likely that the whole band of sculptures was intended to portray the Olympian gods’ defense of the order of the cosmos against the Giants who attempted to transform that order into chaos."

"Although the Giants were all destroyed, the Olympian gods lived on, according to Greek mythic traditions. The existence of those gods and the practice of offering sacrifice to them was problematic for ancient Jews and Christians. They dealt with this problem by identifying the gods of other peoples with angels or daimones. Among Greeks this term was originally positive and meant “gods,” often of a minor type. Later, however, it came to mean demons. According to Paul, Greeks and Romans were really sacrificing to demons, not to gods (1 Corinthians 10:20). In the apocalyptic, dualistic framework of the Book of Revelation, Satan, as the chief of the fallen angels (compare Mark 3:22–27), would correspond to Zeus, the ruler of the gods."

Deuteronomy 32:8 states that the Most High fixed the boundaries of the peoples of the earth. He made this allocation, the Hebrew text states, according to “the sons of Israel.” But the Dead Sea Scrolls (and the Greek text of Deuteronomy in the Septuagint) indicate that the original reading was “the sons of God” or “the sons of the gods.”a This Hebrew phrase was interpreted by the second-century Christian writer Justin Martyr to mean “messengers of God” or “angels.” Justin thus concluded that God had committed the care of human beings to angels. He then concluded from Genesis 6 (which recounts how “the sons of God” fell in love with human women) that the angels entrusted with the care of human beings transgressed this appointment by having sexual relations with human women. The children who were begotten in this way were demons. Justin went on to describe how these demons then subjected human beings to themselves and taught these humans to offer sacrifices, incense and libations to themselves (the demons). Justin said that the Greek and Roman poets and mythologists did not know that it was the fallen angels and their offspring the demons who did these things, but thought that the demons were gods. From the point of view of the poets and mythologists, their people honored “God himself” (Jupiter, or Zeus) and his brothers (Neptune, or Poseidon, and Pluto, or Hades). From Justin’s point of view, however, Zeus (Jupiter) was the leader of the fallen angels or demons and thus equivalent to Satan.