Gods can be portrayed as darker skinned but they can't be portrayed as a different race without a single trace of Greek or Italian. bro there are people who draw them as black or islanders.
It's been a while since I've physically rolled my eyes at an ask, so thanks ig.
The ancient Greeks depicted their gods as being anthropomorphic, but it was never stipulated that they had to be Mediterranean-looking.
Zeus Aithiops (literally "the Black") was worshipped on the island of Chios during late antiquity (Lycophron, Cass. 537), and an instantiation of Artemis that was surnamed "Aithiopa" was worshipped elsewhere. Already, there is no reason why the gods can't be portrayed as Black. And need I remind you that Afro-Hellenes exist lmao??
IIRC, the Greek gods were also occasionally surnamed Aigyptios/Aigyptia, denoting them as being Egyptian. I know for certain that Dionysos and Artemis were viewed and portrayed as "foreign gods"; Jennifer Larson talks about their "foreignness" (both literal and metaphorical) at length in her book "Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide."
You're demonstrating a severe lack of faith in the agency of the gods, and making yourself out to be historically illiterate.
They are universal gods. The ancient Greeks were eager syncretists, often equating their gods with the divinities of other foreign populations to demonstrate their universality. If you have a problem with the gods being portrayed as not Greek, take it up with the ancient Greeks. There's also the fact that the gods aren't Greek in origin. Scholars maintain that the gods we know are Hellenic instantiations of preexisting gods that were imported from elsewhere. Herodotos even expresses a similar view in his Histories.
My brain is melting having to explain this to you.
