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Greek mythology consists of an extensive collection of narratives detailing the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, which were first envisioned and disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition. Our surviving sources of mythology are literary reworkings of this oral tradition, supplemented by interpretations of iconic imagery, sometimes modern ones, sometimes ancient ones, as myth was a means for later Greeks themselves to throw light on cult practices and traditions that were no longer explicable. The historian must sometimes deduce from hints in imagery, such as in vase paintings, and offhand references the recognition of mythic themes tacitly expressed in cult practice.

In the wide variety of Greek legends and stories, the ancient gods all appear in human form: the few chimerical beings such as the Sphinx all have Near Eastern or Anatolian origins. Despite the fact that many Gods have birth myths attributed to them, none of them ever age. No sicknesses affect them, and there are prescious few ways to wound a god. They have the ability to conceal themselves from human beings, they can transport themselves anywhere in the blink of an eye, and they are able to speak through people without their knowledge. Each god possesses a distinct appearance, descends from his or her own geneology, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods were called upon in poetry, prayer or cult, they are referred to by a combination of their name and epithets, that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves. A Greek deity's epithet may reflect a particular aspect of that god's role, as Apollo Musagetes is "Apollo, [as] leader of the Muses." Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece.

In such mythic narratives, we are told that the gods are all part of a huge family, spanning multiple generations. The oldest of the gods were responsible for the creation of the world, but younger gods usurped their power. In many familiar epic poems set in the "age of heroes," the twelve Olympians are said to have appeared in person. In order to help out the Greeks' primitive ancestors, the gods performed miracles, instructed them in various areas of practical knowledge, taught them proper methods of worship, rewarded good behavior and chastised immorality, and even had children with them.

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[edit] Nature and sources of Greek mythology

The general issues in studying myths are discussed in the mythography article. While all cultures throughout the world have their own myths, the term mythology is a Greek coinage and had a specialized meaning within Greek culture.

The Greek term muthologia is a compound of two smaller words:

  • muthos — which in Homeric Greek means roughly "a ritualized speech act", as of a chieftain at an assembly, or of a poet or priest.
  • logos — which in classical Greek stands for "a convincing story, an ordered argument".

In the original sense, therefore, a mythology is an attempt to bring sense to the stylized narratives that the Greeks recited at festivals, whispered at shrines, and bandied about at aristocratic banquets. Since few breeds of men are more prone to squabbling than poets, priests and aristocrats, contradictions in the material are rife. Moreover, they are part of the fun.

Several types of primary source are available for the study of Greek mythology.

Achilles binds the wound of Patroclus: the Trojan War formed a context for many cycles of Greek myth. Patroclus' penis is exposed to the sexual aspect of their pederastic relationship. Such relationships were a common element of Greek mythology, most notably that of Zeus and Ganymede.
Achilles binds the wound of Patroclus: the Trojan War formed a context for many cycles of Greek myth. Patroclus' penis is exposed to the sexual aspect of their pederastic relationship. Such relationships were a common element of Greek mythology, most notably that of Zeus and Ganymede.
  1. The poetry of the Archaic and Classical eras — composed primarily for performance at cultic festivals or aristocratic banquets, and thus part of muthos in the Homeric sense. This includes:
  2. The work of historians, like Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, and geographers, like Pausanias and Strabo, who made travels around the Greek world and noted down the stories they heard at various cities.
  3. The work of mythographers, who wrote prose treatises based on learned research attempting to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets. The Bibliotheke by Apollodorus of Athens is the largest extant example of this genre.
  4. The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages, which although composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise, nevertheless contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of:
  5. The ancient novels of Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus and Heliodorus.

[edit] An overview

The span of stories and characters in Greek mythology is incredibly far-reaching. Events ranging from the atrocities of the early gods to the brutal wars of Troy and Thebes, from the youthful pranks of Hermes to the heartfelt grief of Demeter for Persephone are related in detail. The number of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, monsters, daemons, nymphs, satyrs, and centaurs waiting to be discovered by anyone interested enough to delve into the myths of the ancient Greeks is truly mind-boggling..

Greek mythology has an approximate internal chronology. While contradictions in the material make an absolute timeline impossible, it breaks down roughly into:

  1. an age of gods,
  2. an age when men and gods mingled freely, and
  3. an age of heroes where divine activity was more limited.

While the myths of the age of gods have often been more interesting to contemporary students of myth, Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for those of the age of heroes: the heroic Iliad and Odyssey, for example, dwarfed the divine-focused Theogony and Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity.

Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

[edit] The age of gods

Like their neighbors, the Greeks believed in a pantheon of gods and goddesses who were associated with specific aspects of life. For example, Aphrodite was the goddess of sexual desire, while Ares was the god of war and Hades the god of the dead. Some deities like Apollo and Dionysus revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others like Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more than personifications. There were also site-specific deities, such as river gods and nymphs of springs and caves, and venerated tombs of local heroes and heroines.

Many beings described in Greek myths could be considered "gods" or "heroes," but some were recognized only in folklore or were worshipped locally in certain places (e.g. Trophonius) or at specific festivals (e.g. Adonis). The most impressive temples were for the most part dedicated to a limited number of gods, mainly the twelve Olympians, Heracles and Asclepius and occasionally Helios. These gods were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and villages to devote their own cults to nymphs, minor gods, or local heroes. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere.

[edit] The first gods

One type of narrative about the age of gods tells the story of the birth and conflicts of the first divinities: Chaos, Nyx (Night), Eros (Love), Uranus (the Sky), Gaia (the Earth), the Titans and the triumph of Zeus and the Olympians. Hesiod's Theogony is an example of this type. It was also the subject of many lost poems, including ones attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites. A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps.

The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogony, or song about the birth of the gods, to be the prototypical poetic genre—the prototypical muthos—and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in the Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When Hermes invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is to sing the birth of the gods. Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses.

[edit] New gods

Another type tells the story of the birth, struggles and exploits, and eventual ascent into Olympus of one of the younger generation of gods: Apollo, Hermes, Athena, etc. The Homeric Hymns are the oldest source of this kind of story. They are often closely associated with cult-centers of the god in question: the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is a compound of two earlier narratives: one telling of his birth at Delos, the other of his establishment of the oracle at Delphi. Similarly, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, with its tale of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, narrates the back-story of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

[edit] The age of gods and men

Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and men moved freely together.

The most popular type of narrative that confronts gods with early men involves the seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god (most often Zeus), resulting in heroic offspring. In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess lies with Anchises to produce Aeneas. The marriage of Peleus and Thetis, which yielded Achilles, is another such myth.

Another type involves the appropriation or invention of some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his own subjects - revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when Prometheus or Lycaon invents sacrifice, when Demeter teaches agriculture and the Mysteries to Triptolemus, or when Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into a musical contest with Apollo.

Yet another type belongs to Dionysus alone: the god wanders through Greece from foreign lands to spread his cult. He is confronted by a king, Lycurgus or Pentheus, who opposes him, and whom he punishes terribly in return.

[edit] The age of heroes

The age of heroes can be broken down around the monumental events of the Argonautic expedition and the Trojan War. The Trojan War marks roughly the end of the Heroic Age.

[edit] Early heroes

Perseus with the Head of Medusa.
Perseus with the Head of Medusa.

Among heroes, Heracles is practically in a class by himself. His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk tale themes, provided much material for popular legend. His enormous appetite and rustic character also made him a popular figure of comedy, while his pitiful end provided much material for tragedy.

The other members of the earliest generation of heroes, such as Perseus, Theseus and Bellerophon, have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border on fairy tale, as they slay monsters like Medusa and the Chimera. This generation was not as popular a subject for poets; we know of them mostly through mythographers and passing remarks in prose writers. They were, however, favorite subjects of visual art.

[edit] The generation of the Argonauts

Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with Jason on the expedition to fetch the Golden Fleece. This generation also included Theseus, who went to Crete to slay the Minotaur; Atalanta, the female heroine; and Meleager, who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the Iliad and Odyssey.

[edit] Royal crimes

In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of Atreus and Thyestes at Argos; also those of Laius and Oedipus at Thebes, leading to the eventual pillage of that city at the hands of the Seven Against Thebes and Epigoni. For obvious reasons, this generation was extremely popular among the Athenian tragedians.

"The Rage of Achilles" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
"The Rage of Achilles" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

[edit] Troy and aftermath

As the turning point between the Heroic Age and what the Greek considered the historical period, the Trojan War, its preludes and epilogues, outweighs the rest of the age combined in the sheer amount of source material available. The Trojan cycle includes:

[edit] Theories of origin

In antiquity, historians such as Herodotus theorized that the Greek gods had been stolen directly from the Egyptians. Later on, Christian writers tried to explain Hellenic paganism through degeneration of Biblical religion. Since then, the sciences of archaeology and linguistics have been applied to the origins of Greek mythology with some interesting results.

To begin with, extant literary sources indicate that the ancient Greeks used the word Αιθιοπία to refer to a peoples:

  • whom they considered sacred, favored by the gods, and
  • living immediately to the south of ancient Egypt.

For example, Memnon was regarded as one of Ancient Greece's noblest heroes. Also, a mosaic discovered in the ruins of Pompeii vividly depicts Hercules as a black man ([1], [2]).

But, historical linguistics, on the one hand, demonstrates that particular aspects of the Greek pantheon were inherited from Indo-European society, as were the roots of the Greek language. Thus, for example, the name Zeus is cognate with Latin Jupiter, Sanskrit Dyaus and Germanic Tyr (see Dyeus), as is Ouranos with Sanskrit Varuna. In other cases, close parallels in character and function suggest a common heritage, yet lack of linguistic evidence makes it difficult to prove — as in the case of the Greek Moirae and the Norns of Norse mythology.

And archaeology, on the other hand, has revealed that the Greeks were inspired by some of the civilizations of Asia Minor and the Near East. Cybele is rooted in Anatolian culture, and much of Aphrodite's iconography springs from the Semitic goddesses Ishtar and Astarte.

Textual studies reveal multiple layers in tales, such as secondary asides bringing Theseus into tales of The Twelve Labours of Herakles. Such tales concerning tribal eponyms are thought to originate in attempts to absorb mythology of one tradition into another, in order to unite the cultures.

In addition to Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated on the debts of Greek mythology to the still poorly understood pre-Hellenic societies of Greece, such as the Minoans and so-called Pelasgians. This is especially true in the case of chthonic deities and mother goddesses. For some, the three main generations of gods in Hesiod's Theogony (Uranus, Gaia, etc.; the Titans and then the Olympians) suggest a distant echo of a struggle between social groups, mirroring the three major high cultures of Greek civilization: Minoan, Mycenaean and Hellenic.

The extensive parallels between Hesiod's narrative and the Hurrian myth of Anu, Kumarbi, and Teshub makes it very likely that the story is an adaptation of borrowed materials, rather than a distorted historical record. Parallels between the earliest divine generations (Chaos and its children) and Tiamat in the Enuma Elish are possible (Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins: NY, Biblo-Tannen, 1974).

Jungian scholars such as Karl Kerenyi have preferred to view the origin of myths (and dreams) in universal archetypes. Though not all readers are confident of interpretations of myth in terms of Carl Jung's psychology of dreams (by Kerenyi or Campbell for examples), most agree that myths are dreamlike in two aspects: they are not consistent, perhaps not wholly consistent even within a single myth-element; and they often reflect some momentary experience of the essence of the godhead, some epiphany, which then must be assembled into a narrative thread, much as dreams are recreated as sequential happenings.

In sum, the origins of Greek mythology remain a fascinating and open question.

[edit] Did the Greeks believe their myths?

"Our own myths we call reality" is one of the axioms with which Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples commence The World of Classical Myth; to the Greeks, mythology was a part of their history; few ever doubted that there was truth behind the account of the Trojan War in the Iliad and Odyssey. The Greeks used myth to explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities, and friendships. It was a source of pride to be able to trace one's descent from a mythological hero or a god.

Sophisticated Greeks experienced a cultural crisis in the 5th century, when increased literacy and the devopment of logic forced a more comparative skeptical turn of mind, a crisis of which Socrates was the most famous victim.

On the other hand, a few radical philosophers like Xenophanes were already beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the 6th century BC; this line of thought found its most sweeping expression in Plato's Republic and Laws. More sportingly, the 5th century BC tragedian Euripides often played with the old traditions, mocking them, and through the voice of his characters injecting notes of doubt. In other cases Euripides seems to be directing pointed criticism at the behavior of his gods.

Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often adapted stories of characters in Greek myth in ways that did not reflect earlier actual beliefs. Many of the most popular versions of these myths that we have today were actually from these fictional retellings, which may blur the archaic beliefs.

[edit] Hellenistic rationalism

The skeptical turn of the Classical age became even more pronounced in the Hellenistic era. Most daringly, the mythographer Euhemerus claimed that stories about the gods were only confused memories of the cruelty of ancient kings. Although Euhemerus's works are lost, interpretations in his style are frequently found in Diodorus Siculus.

Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the Roman Empire, thanks to the physicalist theories of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy, as well as the pragmatic bent of the Roman mind. The antiquarian Varro, summarizing centuries' worth of philosophic tradition, distinguished three kinds of gods:

  • The gods of nature: personifications of phenomena like rain and fire.
  • The gods of the poets: invented by unscrupulous bards to stir the passions.
  • The gods of the city: invented by wise legislators to soothe and enlighten the populace.

Cicero's De Natura Deorum is the most comprehensive summary of this line of thought.

[edit] Syncretizing trends

One unexpected side-effect of the rationalist view was a popular trend to syncretize multiple Greek and foreign gods in strange, nearly unrecognizable new cults. If Apollo and Serapis and Sabazios and Dionysus and Mithras were all really Helios, why not combine them all together into one Deus Sol Invictus, with conglomerated rites and compound attributes? The surviving 2nd century AD collection of Orphic Hymns and Macrobius's Saturnalia are products of this mind-set.

But though Apollo might in religion be increasingly identified with Helios or even Dionysus, texts retelling his myths seldom reflected such developments. The traditional literary mythology was increasingly dissociated from actual religious practice.


[edit] Modern interpreters

A bibliography of modern works on Greek myth, beginning from Boccaccio's Genealogia degli Dei de Gentili: Carlos Parada, Greek Mythology Link. The developers of modern mythography and hermeneutics, starting from Bulfinch's genteel Christian tradition, in approximate chronological order:

[edit] See also

[edit] Greek cosmology

[edit] Related subjects

[edit] External links

[edit] Sources

The main sources for Greek myth are Homer, Hesiod, the Greek dramatists, Pindar, Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollodorus, and the Latins Ovid, Hyginus and Nonnus.

Standard secondary sources in English include:

Influential, more specialized studies include:

  • Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans, Johns Hopkins, 1979.
  • Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 1903
  • Karl Kerenyi, Eleusis: archetypal image of mother and daughter, 1967.
  • Karl Kerenyi, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, 1976