The ancient Greeks would pray on their feet, with their hands up to the sky while they were praising Zeus and the other heavenly gods. When they wanted to worship Hades, the King of the Underworld, or other deities of the underworld, they would kneel down to the earth, powerfully hitting the earth with their hands in order to be heard loudly.

In their prayers, the ancient Greeks asked for help and support from the god or the goddess they were referring to, reminding them all the good deeds they had done for them. They offered goods such as wine, oil, milk, sweets and nuts and sacrificed rams, ewes, cows, bulls, goats, depending on what they believed that their gods preferred. According to some beliefs, it had even come to attempts of human sacrifices, in order to worship deities such as Hades or Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.

Would a god find out that a human did not praise him like he should, the punishment was usually heavy and oftentimes eternal, like in the case of Meropis, who was transformed by Athena, the goddess of wisdom, into an owl because of her impudence.