Intro

• myths means word, speech tale
• some myths are based on historical realty
• elements that are not considered truth, but explore certain absolute truths of human nature and existence
• three categories, Homeric hymns (myth proper, how gods interact with humans), Saga/Legend (connection to history), folktale (fantastical adventure of a hero, like Hercules)

Interpretive Theories

• etiological greek word “aitia” means “cause”
• explains the causes or origins of certain things which cannot be explained in other ways
• Oedipus Complex Freud believed that a boy wants to sleep with his mother and a girl wants to sleep with her father

Greek and Roman History Mythology

Neolithic period:

• people entered Greece over 40,000 years ago
• around 6500 BC
• not greek speakers

Early and Middle Bronze Ages:

• economy, trade, settlements

Late Bronze Age (Mycenaean):

• in 1450 BC Myceneans took over Crete
• around 1200BC the Mycenaean civilization collapsed (unclear why) and Greece entered a dark age

Dark Age c. 1150-900 and revival period 900 - 750:

• development of iron and alphabet

Archaic Period 750-500 BC:

• Hesiod, Homer, Homeric Hymns, colonization, expansion

Classical period c. 500-323 BC:

• rise of Democracy

Hellenistic Period c. 323-30BC:

• death of Alexander the Great

Foundation of Rome and Roman Republic c. 753BC - 27 BC:

• traditional foundation of Rome 753BC
• founded around 507/507 BC
• Julius Caesar

Early and High Roman Empire 27BC - 200 AD:

• Vergil, Ovis rose to fame
• innovative time

Hesiod’s Theogony:

• Homer Iliad and Odyssey
• hexameter verse
• retold in performance
• Chaos
• Earth (Gaia), Tartaros, Love (Eros), Erebos (dark gloom of the underworld), (Nyx) night also come form chaos
• Ether (air), Hemera (day), Ouranos (sky or heavens), Pontus (sea)
• Titans , Cyclopes, Hundred-Handers
• Kronos plans with Gaia to lop off Ouranos genitals and it is done
• from those genitals, Aphrodite is born
• Kronos and Rhea give birth to Zeus and the Olympian generation

Kronos and Rhea:

• Zeus is concealed and not eaten as Kronos’s children do not overpower him
• Kronos eats a stone and Zeus rules with his thunderbolt
• similar to Hittite culture of Anatolia

Prometheus:

• gave humanity fire
• humans take the meat and gods receive the smoke of burnt fat and bones
• Zeus was angry
• Prometheus steals fire and hides it in a stalk of fennel
• fire is like technology industry and power

Pandora:

• evil
• contrived by Zeus
• The lame One (Hephaestus) made it and did a favour for Zeus
• eat up man’s products and make him poorer
• she opened a jar of evil of every type

Zeus:

• weather god, storm god
• hurler of thunderbolts
• powerful god wielding the thunder-bolt, king seated on throne
• zeus the liberator
• sexual powerful
• married to Hera
• father of Apollo and Artemis by Leto
• father of Hermes with Maia
• father of Persephone by Demeter
• father of Dionysos by Semele
• Athena was born from his head
• Ganymedes abducted by Zeus

Zeus and Danae:

• oracle foretells that Danae’s son will kill Arcrisius, so he locks her in a room
• Zeus breaks into the room and she gives birth to Perseus

Zeus and Europa:

• Zeus disguises as a bull

Zeus and Io:

• Hera becomes mad
• turns Io into a white heifer and guards her with the snake Argus so Zeus can’t change her back

Olympia:

• northwest Peloponnese
• Elis and the river Alpheios runs through it
• occupied since the second millennium BC
• Pausanias, Greek historian
• two origins
• Pelops triumphed over Oinomas by having his charioteer Myritlos sabotage his chariot, and he was thrown off and killed
• Pelops married Hippodameia
• other origin is that Hercules cleaned the stables of King Augeias of Elis with the river Alpheios and established the sanctuary of Zeus and the Olympic games
• Nike minor goddess of victory personified
• Olympic games every 4 years, until it was banned in 394AD by Theodosius I

• Olympic games truce and received a wreath of wild olive leaves from the sacred grove of Zeus

• Zeus was father of many in pantheon

Apollo

• connected with the Sun
• Paean is treated as a god of healing (separate from Apollo)
• healing, purification, destruction, care for the young, prophecy, poetry, music
• Delos and Delphi are two cults of Apollo
• Zeus and Leto bore Apollo
• hosioi, holy men

Apollo and Marpesa:

• Marpesa chose Idas over Apollo because he was mortal, and it was a motif of unsuccessful love affair

Apollo and Cyrene:

• nymph Cyrene
• Apollo falls in love when she is wrestling a lion
• son with Apollo named Aristaeus

Apollo and Daphne:

• Cupid strikes Apollo with a golden arrow
• Cupid shoots Daphne with a lead arrow to shun love

Apollo and Cassandra:

• Cassandra could tell the future (Troy)
• Apollo wanted her, but she refused
• Apollo cursed her so no one would believe what she was saying
• she became frustrated

Apollo and Coronis:

• Coronis cheated on Apollo
• Apollo shoots her with an arrow
• tries to heal her, but cannot save her
• power of revenge and healing meet tragically

Apollo and Hyancinthus:

• Hyancinthus fetches the discus but it kills him
• male youth

Marsyas:

• part goat, part man, satyr
• challenges Apollo to a music contest on his flute, loses and was skinned alive

Artemis

• wilderness, bow and arrow
• prizes virginity
• contrast to aphrodite
• deity who brings punishment and death

Niobe:

• boasts that she is better than Leto because she has 6 boys and 6 girls
• Diana and Apollo kill Niobe’s sons and daughters and is changed into a rock

Actaeon:

• he sees Artemis naked
• she turns him into a stag

Callisto:

• huntress who is raped by Zeus
• Artemis banishs her from the band for pregnancy
• Hera turns her into a Bear
• turns into a constellation alongside Arcas, her son

Orion:

• famous hunter tried to rape Artemis
• Artemis made a scorpion sting Orion to death

Birth:

• born from Zeus and Leto on Ortydia
• closely linked to Selene

Aphrodite

• Athena, Artemis and Hestia could not be tamed by Aphrodite’s power
• juxtaposition from Aphrodite and Artemis

Hippolytus (By Euripides):

• Aphrodite makes his step-mom Phaedra fall in love with Hippolytus
• Phaedra leaves a note for her husband Theseus that it was Hippolytus who lusted for her, and curses his son to die

Anchises:

• Zeus employs Aphrodite to fall in love with Anchises, irony where Aphrodite will be conquered by her own power
• gives birth to Aeneas, who will found Rome

Ares and Hephaestus:

• Hephaestus (Aphrodite’s husband) learns of Aphrodite’s affair with Ares sets a trap
• all of the gods stand around and laugh at her
• goddess of love suffers shame before the gods

Adonis and Persephone:

• Aphrodite falls in love with Adonis
• Aphrodite hides him in a chest and gives him to Persephone
• spends 4 months a year with Aphrodite and 4 months a year with Persephone (decided by Zeus)

Cupid:

• scratches Venus with one of his arrows and falls in love with his mother Venus
• is not locked in a chest, but killed while on the hunt of a tusk of a boar, and changed into a flower by Aphrodite
• Pygmalion is disgusted with the prostitution, he makes a statue he falls in love with
• prays to Aphrodite to have the statue as his wife, named Galatea, son Paphos
• Paphos granddaugher falls in love with her father Cinyas (famous hero of Cyprus)
• he is furious and she is turned into a myrrh tree which drips tears and Adonis is born of the tree

Eros/Cupid

• son of Aphrodite

Cupid and Psyche:

• Psyche is extremely beautiful
• has Cupid make Psyche fall in love with a terrible man
• Cupid falls in love
• father consults the oracle
• her lover hides her from the serpent in the mountains
• Psyche is in grief after almost trying to kill Cupid and tries to commit suicide
• Psyche does impossible tasks, sort mixed grains (ant helps), wool from dangerous sheep (reed helps her), go to a tall mountain and bring back water (eagle of Jupiter gets it), take a fragment of Persephone’s beauty and not look in the box
• she uses food to calm cerebus and money for charon
• she looks in and has a deathlike sleep
• Cupid tries to save her, and psyche is made a goddess

Demeter

• meter = mother
• tamer of the earth
• search for persephone
• goddess of corn and wheat, controls vegetation and growth of crops

Hades and Persephone:

• Hades carries off Persephone
• Demeter disguises as an old woman and tells them she was kidnapped by pirates in Crete
• tries to make Demophon immortal, by feeding ambrosia and putting him in the fire, but Metaneira cries out that her son is in the fire
• Demophon is removed and Demeter demands a temple and altar
• creates a famine for the world because she is angry at the loss of her daughter
• Hades gives Persephone a pomegrante, and binds her to Hades forcing her to return to him for a time each year
• lives in Olympus for 2/3 the year, and 1/3 with Hades
• Persephone’s stay in the underworld is a aition (explanation of the cause) for winter

Hermes

• son of Zeus and Maia, nypmh and daugther of Atlas
• messenger god
• part in birth of Dionysus, Zeus shows Semele the true form and Semele is burned to ashes
• clever, trickster
• inventor of Lyre
• hymn of Hermes’ birth
• steals cattle of Apollo
• does not actually eat the cattle
• Hermes is father of pan, inventor of panpipe
• Hermes two snakes wrapped around a staff confused with Apollo’s son Asclepius with two snakes sign of physician
• conductor of souls
• crosses boundaries

Aphrodite and Hermes:

• Hermaphroditus is born, goes into hills
• nypmh Salmacis falls in love and eventually blends into him
• aition for both sexual organs

Athena

• born from Zeus’s head
• goddess of war
• Athena’ mother is Metis, meaning wisdom, embodiment of craft and cleverness

Arachne:

• challenges Athena to a weaving contest
• Athena reveals herself and Arachne hangs herself, but Athena takes punishment and turns her into a spider
• Athena Ergane, craft maker

Ares

• god of war
• destructive and hateful to Zeus
• Zeus’s son

Poseidon

• carries trident
• fish and other animals
• earthquakes
• has the seas
• also controls the earth and taming horses

Odysseus:

• tricks the Cyclops and drives a stake into his eye
• Poseidon is mad since the cyclops Polyphemus is his son, and constantly drives him off course and from getting home

Amphitrite:

• married to amphitrite, nereid, daugher of nereus, son of sea (Pontus) and earth (Ge)
• Poseidon falls in love with Scylla, daughter of Hecate and Amphitrite puts magic herbs to transform Scylla into a horrible monster
• Scylla attacks Odysseus’ crew in Homer’s Odyssey

Dionysus

• god of wine, celebration
• son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes

Pirates:

• abduct Dionysus and everyone except the helmsman doesn’t know he is a god
• Dionysus brings punishment among the pirates

Pentheus:

• Pentheus does not believe that Semele and Zeus bore Dionysus
• Dionysus makes all the women go to the mountains intoxicated to celebrate Dionysus
• Dionysus convinces him to dress up like a female celbrant and then Pentheus is torn apart by his mother Agave

Orpheus

• searches for Eurydice his wife
• he is a singer and poet
• Eurydice is bitten by snake
• Hades and Persephone give Orpheus a chance
• he cannot look at her to see if she is alright, and fails
• he gives up women and he plays charming music
• the women fall in love with him, and Bacchantes dismember him
• he punishes the Bacchantes who killed Orpheus by turning them into trees
• connection of ancient worlds with death and afterlife