And in the many Greco-Roman myths where a god impregnates a human woman as an animal or other non-human creature, the child is always a human, and almost always a Greek or Roman.
The term originated in the 1520s as a direct translation (or calque) of the Latin word semideus (literally "half-god"). The Roman poet Ovid coined the Latin term to refer to lesser deities, and it closely mirrors the ancient Greek equivalent, hemitheos (from hemi- meaning "half" and theos meaning "god"). No it existed before the books and has a greek equivalent
The modern conception of a demigod as a distinct species originates from fiction adaptations, earlier instances of hemitheos should be considered more like Homeric epithets
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u/OscarMMG 13d ago
And in the many Greco-Roman myths where a god impregnates a human woman as an animal or other non-human creature, the child is always a human, and almost always a Greek or Roman.