Greek mythology

The Oricoli bust of Zeus, King of the Gods, in the collection of the Vatican Museum.

Greek mythology is the body of myths and stories developed by the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and their own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars referred to the myths and studied them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and, in general, on the ancient Greek civilization.

Greek mythology consists in part of a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. These accounts were initially fashioned and disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; the Greek myths are known today primarily from Greek literature. The oldest known literary sources, the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on events surrounding the Trojan War. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Homeric Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians of the 5th century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age and in writers of the time of the Roman Empire, for example, Plutarch and Pausanias.

Monumental evidence at Mycenaean and Minoan sites helped to explain many of the questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeological proofs of many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Greek mythology was also depicted in artifacts; Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. In the succeeding Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.

Greek mythology has had extensive influence on the culture, the arts and the literature of Western civilization and remains part of western heritage and language. Greek mythology has been a part of the educational fabric from childhood, while poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in classical mythological themes. Therefore, western literature is diachronically heavy with allusiins to the heritage of the ancient Greek myths.

Etymology

See also: logos

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 mythologia is a compound of two smaller words:

• mythas (μῦθος) — which in Classical Greek means roughly "the oral sex", "words without action" (Aeschylus: "ἔργῳ κοὐκέτι μύθῳ" [from word to deed]) and, by expansion, a "ritualized speech act", as of a chieftain at an assembly, or of a poet or priest, or a narration (Aischylus: Ἀκούσει μῦθον ἐν βραχεῖ λόγῳ [The whole tale you will hear in brief space of time]).
• logos (λόγος) — which in Classical Greek stands for: a) the (oral or written) expression of thoughts and b) the ability of a person to express his thoughts (inward logos).

Sources of Greek mythology

The Greek myths are known today primarily from Greek literature. In addition to the written sources, there are mythical represantions on visual media dating from the Geometric period onward.

Literary sources

Prometheus (1868 by Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus was first attested by Hesiodus and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus Pyrphoros

Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. Neverheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends.

Among the literary sources first in age are Homer's two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the "epic cycle", but these later and lesser poems are now almost entirely lost. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the earlier part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiod, contemporary with Homer or a little earlier, offers in Theogony ("Origin of the Godes) the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing with the the creation of the world and the origin of the gods, Titans and Giants; his elaborate genealogies are accompanied by folktales and etiological myths. Hesiod's Works and Days, a didactic poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus and Pandora and the Four Ages. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world rendered yet more dangerous by its gods.

Lyrical poets sometimes take their subjects from myth, but the treatment becomes gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides, Simonides, Theocritus and Bion, provide individual mythological incidents. Myth becomes central to classical Athenian drama. The tragic playrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides took their plots from the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories (Agamemnon and his children, Oedipus, Jason, Medea etc.) took on their classic form in the tragic plays. For his part, the comic playright Aristophanes uses occasionally the myth, as in The Birds or The Frogs.

The Roman poet Virgil, here depicted in the 5th century manuscript the Vergilius Romanus, preserved details of Greek mythology is many of his writings.

Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, and geographers Pausanias and Strabo, who made travels around the Greek world and noted down the stories they heard at various cities, supply numerous local myths, often giving alternative little-known versions. Herodotus, in particular, searched in a plurality of traditions presented to him in various ways and endeavored to find the historical or mythological roots of the confrontation between Greece and the East.

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:

1. • The Hellenistic poets Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus and Antoninus Liberalis.
   • The Roman poets Hyginus, Ovid, Statius, Valerius Flaccus and Virgil.
   • The Late Antique Greek poets Nonnus and Quintus Smyrnaeus.
2. The ancient novels of Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus and Heliodorus.

Archaeological sources

File:Cratère en calice étrusque2.jpg

Achilles killing a Trojan prisoner in front of Charon on a red-figure Etruscan calyx-krater, made towards the end of the 4th century-beginning of the 3rd century BC.

The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by Heinrich Schliemann, a 19th century German amateur archaeologist, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete by Sir Arthur Evans, a 20th century English archaeologist, helped to explain many of the questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeological proofs of many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Unfortunately, the evidence about myth and ritual at Mycenaean and Minoan sites is entirely monumental, because the Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek found in both Crete and Greece) was mainly used to record inventories, though the names of gods and heroes have been doubtfully revealed.

Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. These visual representations of myth are important for two reasons; on the one hand, many Greek myths are attested on vases earlier than in literary sources (of the twelve labors of Heracles, only the Cerberus adventure occurs for the first time in a literary text) and, on the other hand, visual sources sometimes represent myths or mythical scenes that are not attested in any extant literary source. In some cases, the first known representation of a myth in geometric art predates its first known representation in late archaic poetry by several centuries. In the Archaic (c. 750–c. 500 BC), Classical (c. 480–323 BC), and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.

A survey of mythic history

While self-contradictions in the stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. There was first an age of gods, then an age when men and gods mingled freely, followed by an age of heroes, where divine activity was more limited.

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

The age of gods

The Twelve Olympians by Monsiau, circa late 18th century.

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 love and beauty, while Ares was the god of war and Hades the god of the dead. Some deities, such as Apollo and Dionysus, revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more than personifications. There were also site-specific deities: river gods, nymphs of springs, caves, and forests. Local heroes and heroines were often venerated at their tombs by people from the surrounding area.

Many beings described in Greek myths could be considered "gods" or "heroes." Some were recognized only in folklore or were worshipped only at particular locales, (e.g. Trophonius) or during specific festivals (e.g. Adonis). The most impressive temples tended to be dedicated to a limited number of gods: the twelve Olympians, Heracles, 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.

Evolution of the relevant myths

The Greeks' construction of the gods changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their own culture. The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who assigned an evil spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human shape and entered the local mythology as gods and goddesses. When tribes from the north of the Greek Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older deities of the agricultural world fused with those of the more powerful invaders or else faded into insignificance.

After the middle of the Archaic period myths about love relationships between male gods and male heroes become more and more frequent, indicating the parallel development of pedagogic pederasty (Eros paidikos, παιδικός ἔρως), thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the 5th century BC, poets had assigned at least one eromenos to every important god except Ares and to many legendary figures (Previously existing myths, such as that of Achilles and Patroclus, were also cast in a pederastic light). 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.

The first gods

Amor omnia vincit (Love Over All), a depiction of the god of love, Eros. By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1600.

One type of narrative about the age of gods tells the story of the birth and conflicts of the first divinities: Eurynome and Ophion, 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 (myth)—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 Apollonius' 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 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.

The Olympian gods

After the overthrow of the elder gods by the Olympians, another set of myths 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.

Characteristics of the Greek gods

Zeus, disguised as an swan seduces Leda, the Queen of Sparta. A sixteenth century copy of the lost original by Michelangelo.

In the wide variety of myths and legends that constitute ancient Greek mythology, the deities that were native to the Greek peoples are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies.

Regardless of their underlying forms, the ancient Greek gods have many fantastic abilities: they can disguise themselves or make themselves invisible to humans, they can instantly transport themselves to any location, and are able to act through the words and deeds of humans, often without the knowledge of the human through whom the gods act. Most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease, can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances, and are immortal. Even though each of the gods was born, most of them growing from infancy to adulthood, once they reach their physical peak of maturity they do not age beyond that point.

Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, 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.

The age of gods and men

The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, by Hans Rottenhammer

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, 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.

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Dionysus with satyrs. Interior of a cup painted by the Brygos painter, Louvre Museum.

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.

Myths centered around households and lineages were particularly popular, and grouped by historians under the name of the key ancestor, such as Atreus, whose household passed a curse that touched the Trojan war.

Yet another type belongs to Dionysus: 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. A similar theme echoes in a myth about Demeter: The maternal goddess in search of her kidnapped daughter stops in a kingdom and out of love tries to make the royal family's son immortal by dipping him into a magical fire. When the matron finds her son being held in a fire by his nurse, the woman turns on the disguised Demeter, causing Demeter to throw him down on the floor. Before the enraged mother, Demeter strips her mortal guise and punishes the woman for her faithlessness.

Achilles binds the wound of Patroclus, on a late archaic Kylix by the Sosias painter.

The age of heroes

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

Heracles

Among heroes, Heracles is 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 descendants of Heracles, known as the Heracleidae, were the mythical ancestors of the Dorian Greek kings.

Other early heroes

Other members of this is the earliest generation of heroes, such as Perseus, Deucalion, 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 such as the Chimera and Medusa. 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.

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.

The Seven against Thebes and 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 Trojan War and its aftermath

In The Rage of Achilles by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1757, Fresco, 300 x 300 cm, Villa Valmarana, Vicenza) Achilles is ouraged after the death of Patroclus and draws his sword to kill Agamemnon. The sudden appearance of the goddess Minerva, who, in this fresco, has grabbed Achilles by the hair, prevents the act of violence.

For more details on this topic, see Trojan War and Trojan War cycle

Greek mythology culminates with the Trojan War and its aftermath. In Homer's works the chief stories have already taken shape, and individual themes were elaborated later, especially in Greek drama. The Trojan War aquired also a great interest for the Roman culture because of the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, whose from Troy led to the founding of the city that would one day become Rome, is recounted in Virgil's Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy). Finally there are two pseudo-chronicles written in Latin that passed under under the names of Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius.

The Trojan cycle fought between the Greeks and Troy starts with the events leading up to the war: (Eris and the golden apple of Kallisti, the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen, the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis). To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon, king of Argos or Mycenae, but The Trojans refused to return Helen. The Iliad, which is set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles' friend Patroclus and Priam's eldest son, Hector. After Hector's death the Trojans were joined by two exotic allies, Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, and Memnon, king of the Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess Eos. Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium). Finally, with Athena's help, they built the Trojan Horse. Despite the warnings of Priam's daughter Cassandra, the Trojans were persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the Aeneid), and the murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns (Nostoi; lost) and Homer's Odyssey. The Trojan cycle alsoincludes the adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g. Orestes and Telemachus).

El Greco was inspired in his Laocoon (1608-1614, oil on canvas, 142 x 193 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington) by the famous myth of the Trojan cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest who tried to have the Trojan horse destroyed, but was killed by sea-serpents.

Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of inspiration for ancient Greek artists (e.g. metopes on Parthenon picturizing the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance for the the ancient Greek civilization. The same mythological cyrcle also inspired a series of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan Medieval European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and a convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric ideals. 12th century authors, such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure (Roman de Troie [Romance of Troy, 1154–60]) and Joseph of Exeter (De Bello Troiano [On the Trojan War, 1183]) describe the war while rewriting the standard version they found in Dictys and Dares. They thus follow Horace's advice and Vergil's example: they rewrite a poem of Troy instead of telling something completely new.

Origin and interpretation theories

Origin theories

The origins of Greek mythology remain a fascinating and open question. 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. According to the Scriptural theory, all mythological legends (including Greek mythology) are derived from the narratives of the Scriptures, though the real facts have been disguised and altered. Thus Deucalion is another name for Noah, Hercules for Samson, Arion for Jonah etc. According to the Historical Theory all the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the legends relating to them are merely the additions of later times. Thus the story of Aeolus is supposed to have risen from the fact that Aeolus was the ruler of some islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Allegorical theory supposes that all the ancient myths were allegorical and symbolical. According to the Physical theory the elements of air, fire, and water were originally the objects of religious adoration, and the principal deities were personifications of the powers of nature.

The sciences of archaeology and linguistics have been applied to the origins of Greek mythology with some interesting results. Historical linguistics indicates that particular aspects of the Greek pantheon were inherited from Indo-European society (or perhaps both cultures borrowed from another earlier source), as were the roots of the Greek language. Prominent Sanskritist Max Müller attempted to understand an Indo-European religious form by tracing it back to its Aryan, Vedic, "original" manifestation. In 1891, he claimed that "the most important discovery which has been made duting the nineteenth century with respect to the ancient history of mankind [...] was this sample equation: Sanskrit Dyaus-pitar = Greek Zeus = Latin Jupiter = Old Norse Tyr (also Greek Ouranos = 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.

Archaeology and mythography, 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. Martin P. Nilsson, Professor of Classical Archaeology, worked on the structure, origins and relationships of the Indo-European languages, and concluded that all great classical Greek myths were tied to Mycenaen centres and were anchored in pehistoric times.

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).

Greek and Roman conceptions of myth

Mythology was at the heart of everyday life in ancient Greece. Greeks regarded mythology as a part of their history. They 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 leaders' descent from a mythological hero or a god. Few ever doubted that there was truth behind the account of the Trojan War in the Iliad and Odyssey. According to Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian, columnist, political essayist and former Classics professor, and John Heath, associate professor of Classics at Santa Clara University, the profound knowledge of the homeric epos was deemed by the Greeks the basis of their acculturation. Homer was the "education of Greece" (Ἑλλάδος παίδευσις), and his poetry "the Book".

Philosophy and myths

Raphael's Plato in The School of Athens fresco (probably in the likeness of Leonardo da Vinci). The philosopher expelled the study of Homer, of the tragedies and of the related mythological traditions from his utopian Republic.

After the rise of philosophy, and history, prose and rationalism in the late 5th century BC the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythical genealogies gave place to a conception of history which tried to exclude the supernatural (such as the Thucydidean history). While poets and dramatists were reworking the myths, Greek historians and philosophers were beginning to criticize them.

A few radical philosophers like Xenophanes of Colophon were already beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the 6th century BC; Xenophanes had complained that Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods "all that is shameful and disgraceful among men; they steal, commit adultery, and deceive one another". This line of thought found its most sweeping expression in Plato's Republic and Laws. Plato created his own allegorical myths (such as the vision of Er in the Republic), attacked the traditional tales of the gods' tricks, thefts and adulteries as immortal, and objected to their central role in literature. Plato's criticism (he called the myths "old wives' chatter") was the first serious challenge to the homeric mythological tradition. For his part Aristotle ctiticized the Pre-socratic quasi-mythical philosophical approoach and underscored that "Hesiod and the theological writers were concerned only with what seemed plausible to themselves, and had no respect for us [...] But it is not worth taking seriously writers who show off in the mythical style; as for those who do proceed by proving their assertions, we must cross-examine them".

Nevertheless, even Plato did not manage to wean himself and his society from the influence of myth; his own characterization for Socrates is based on the traditional homeric and tragic patterns, used by the philosopher to praise the righteous life of his teacher:

But perhaps someone might say: "Are you then not ashamed, Socrates, of having followed such a pursuit, that you are now in danger of being put to death as a result?" But I should make to him a just reply: "You do not speak well, Sir, if you think a man in whom there is even a little merit ought to consider danger of life or death, and not rather regard this only, when he does things, whether the things he does are right or wrong and the acts of a good or a bad man.For according to your argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy, including the son of Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as he was eager to slay Hector, something like this, I believe,

My son, if you avenge the death of your friend Patroclus and kill Hector, you yourself shall die;

for straightway, after Hector, is death appointed unto you (Hom. Il. 18.96) [...] "

Hanson and Heath estimate that Plato's rejection of the homeric tradition was not favorably received by the grassroots Greek civilization. The old myths were kept alive in local cults; they continued to influence poetry, and to form the main subject of painting and sculpture.

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. Yet the subjects of his plays were taken, without exception, from myth. Many of thses plays were written in answer to a predecessor's version of the same or similar myth. Euripides impugns mainly the myths about the gods and begins his critique with an objection similar to the one previously expressed by Xenocrates: the gods, as traditionally represented, are far too crassly anthropomorphic.

Hellenistic and Roman rationalism

Cicero saw himself as the defender of the established order, despite his personal scepticism with regard to myth and his inclination towards more philosophical conceptions of divinity.

During the Hellenistic period, mythology took on the prestige of élite knowledge that marks its possessors as belonging to a certain class. At the same time, the skeptical turn of the Classical age became even more pronounced. Greek mythographer Euhemerus established the tradition of seeking an actual historical basis for mythical beings and events. Although his original work (Sacred Scriptures) is lost, much is known about it from what is recorded by Diodorus and Lactantius.

Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the Roman Empire, thanks to the physicalist theories of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy. Stoics presented explanations of the gods and heroes as physical phenomena, while the euhemerists rationalized them as historical figures. At the same time, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists promoted the moral significations of the mythological tradition, often based on Greek etymologies. Through his Epicurean message, Lucretius had sought to expel superstitious fears from the minds of his fellow-citizens. Livy, too, is sceptical about the mythological tradition and claims that he does not intend to pass judgement on such legends (fabulae). The challenge for Romans with a strong and apologetic sense of religious tradition was to defend that tradition while conceding that it was often a breeding-ground for superstition. The antiquarian Varro, who regarded religion as a human inistitution with great importance for the preservation of good in society, devoted rigorous study to the origins of religious cults. In his Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum (which has not survived, but Augustine's City of God indicate its genreal approach) Varro argues that whereas the superstitious man fears the gods, the truly religious person venerates them as parents. In wis work he 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.

Roman Academic Cotta ridicules both literal and allegorical acceptance of myth, declaring roundly that myths have no place in philosophy. Cicero is also generally disdainful of myth, but, like Varro, he is emphatic in his support for the state religion and its institutions. It is difficult to know how far down the social scale this rationalism extended. Cicero asserts that no one (not even old women and boys) is so foolish in the terrors of Hades or the existence of Scyllas, centaurs or other composite creatures, but, on the other hand, the orator elsewhere complains of the superstitious and credulous character of the people. De Natura Deorum is the most comprehensive summary of Cicero's this line of thought.

Syncretizing trends

In Roman religion the worship of the Greek god Apollo (early Imperial Roman copy of a fourth century Greek original, Louvre Museum) was combined with the cult of Sol Invictus. The worship of Sol as special protector of the emperors and of the empire remained the chief imperial cult until it was replaced by Christianity.

During the Roman era appears a popular trend to syncretize multiple Greek and foreign gods in strange, nearly unrecognizable new cults. Syncretization was also due to the fact that the Romans had little mythology of their own, and inherited the Greek mythological tradition; therefore, the major Roman gods were syncretized with those of the Greeks. In addition to this combination of the two mythological tradition, the association of the Romans with eastern religions led to further syncretizations. For instance, the cult of Sun was introduced in Rome after Aurelian's successful campaigns in Syria. The asiastic divinities Mithras (that is to say, the Sun) and Ba'al were combined with Apollo and Helios into one Sol Invictus, with conglomerated rites and compound attributes. Apollo might be increasingly identified in religion with Helios or even Dionysus, texts retelling his myths seldom reflected such developments. The traditional literary mythology was increasingly dissociated from actual religious practice.

The surviving 2nd century collection of Orphic Hymns and Macrobius's Saturnalia are influenced by the theories of rationalism and the syncretizing trends as well. The Orphic Hymns are a set of pre-classical poetic compositions, attributed to the culture hero Orpheus, himself the subject of a renowned myth. In reality, these poems were probably composed by several different poets, and contain a rich set of clues about prehistoric European mythology. The stated purpose of the Saturnalia is to transmit the Hellenic culture he has derived from his reading, even though much of his treatment of gods is colored by Egyptian and North African mythology and theology (which also affect the interpretation of Virgil). In Saturnalia reappear mythographical comments influenced by the euhemerists, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists.

Modern interpretations

The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology lies in a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity mixed with disdain, which had prevailed for centuries", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained. In Germany, a generation of Romantic artists and poets idealized the myths created, they were convinced, by a specially-gifted nation in a time of pristine cultural nobility, unsullied as yet by Rome. This literary aspect of the Greek Revival was an expression of the Philhellenism of the Romantic generation. On the other hand, British classicists continued to see the Greek myths as examples demonstrating how far the modern mind had progressed from its childhood simplicity and superstition. The genteel Christian tradition of Thomas Bulfinch narrated a synthesized view of myths entirely drawn from literary sources.

Comparative approaches

The development of comparative philology in the 19th century, together with ethnological discoveries in the 20th century, established the science of myth. Since the Romantics, all study of myth has been comparative. Wilhelm Mannhardt, Sir James Frazer, and Stith Thompson employed the comparative approach to collect and classify the themes of folklore and mythology. Max Müller applied the new science of comparative mythology to the study of myth, in which he detected the distorted remains of Aryan nature worship. Bronislaw Malinowski emphasized the ways myth fulfills common social functions. Claude Lévi-Strauss and other structuralists have compared the formal relations and patterns in myths throughout the world. Edward Burnett Tylor surveyed the field of a universally similar "primitive" religion, a form of failed science. Tyler's procedure of drawing together material culture, ritual and myth of widely separated cultures was followed by Carl Jung and later, by Joseph Campbell, to offer archetypes of mythic themes.

William Robertson Smith's The Religion of the Semites (1890) provided the earliest attempt to study Semitic religion from the point-of-view of comparative religion and anthropology. Smith's assertion that "in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual and not the ritual from the myth" informed the works of James George Frazer (The Golden Bough) and of Jane Ellen Harrison and the Cambridge Ritualists. J.F. del Giorgio has added a new turn to that approach, insisting in The Oldest Europeans about Greek myths being generated by the clash between a Paleolithic European population and the incoming Indo-European tribes.

Psychoanalytic Interpretations

Sigmund Freud put forward the idea that symbolic communication does not depend on cultural history alone but also on the workings of the psyche. Thus Freud introduced a transhistorical and biological conception of man and a view of myth as an expression of repressed ideas. Dream interpretation is the basis of Freudian myth interpretation and Freud's concept of dreamwork recognizes the mportance of contextual relationships for the interpretation of any individual element in a dream. This suggestion would find an important point of rapprochment between the structuralist and psychoanalytic approaches to myth in Freud's thought.

Carl Jung extended the transhistorical, psychological approach with his theory of the "collective unconscious" and the archetypes (inherited "archaic" patterns), often encoded in myth, that arise out of it. According to Jung, "myth-forming structural elements must be present in the unconscious psyche". Karl Kerenyi, one of the founders of modern studies in Greek mythology, gave up his early views of myth, in order to apply Jung's theories of archetypes to Greek myth.

References

Primary sources (Greek and Roman)

• Aeschylus, The Persians. See original text in Perseus program.
• Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound. See original text in Perseus program.
• Cicero, De Divinatione. See original text in the Latin Library.
• Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes. See original text in the Latin Library.
• Homer, Iliad. See original text in Perseus program.
• Plato, Apology. See original text in Perseus program.
• Plato, Theaetetus. See original text in Perseus program.

Secondary sources

• Albala Ken G, Johnson Claudia Durst, Johnson Vernon E. (2000). "Origin of Mythology". Understanding the Odyssey. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-41107-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Allen, Douglas (1978). "Early Methological Approaches". Structure & Creativity in Religion: Hermeneutics in Mircea Eliade's Phenomenology and New Directions. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9-027-97594-9.
• Bulfinch, Thomas (2003). "Greek Mythology and Homer". Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-31330-881-0.
• Chance, Jane (1994). "Helicocentric Stoicism in the Saturnalia: The Egyptian Apollo". Medieval Mythography. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-81301-256-2.
• Dunlop, John (1842). "Romances of Chivalry". The History of Fiction. Carey and Hart.
• "Euhemerus". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2002.
• "Greek Mythology". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2002.
• Caldwell, Richard (1990). "The Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Greek Myth". Approaches to Greek Myth. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-801-83864-9.
• Cartledge, Paul A. (2002). "Inventing the Past:History v. Myth". The Greeks. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19280-388-3.
• Cartledge, Paul A. (2004). The Spartans (translated in Greek). Livanis. ISBN 9-60140-843-6.
• Foley, John Miles (1999). "Homeric and South Slavic Epic". Homer's Traditional Art. Penn State Press. ISBN 0-27101-870-4.
• Gale, Monica R. (1994). "The Cultural Background". Myth and Poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52145-135-3.
• Griffin, Jasper (1986). "Greek Myth and Hesiod". The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World edited by John Boardman, Jasper Griffin and Oswyn Murray. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19285-438-0.
• Hacklin, Joseph (1994). "The Mythology of Persia". Asiatic Mythology. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 8-12060-920-4.
• Hanson Victor Davis, Heath John (1999). Who Killed Homer (translated in Greek by Rena Karakatsani). Kaktos. ISBN 9-60352-545-6.
• Hard, Robin (2003). "Sources of Greek Myth". The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek mythology". Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-41518-636-6. {{cite book}}: horizontal tab character in |id= at position 6 (help)
• Jung, C.J. (2002). "Troy in Latin and French Joseph of Exeter's "Ylias" and Benoît de Sainte-Maure's "Roman de Troie"". Science of Mythology. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-41526-742-0.
• Kelly, Douglas (2003). "Sources of Greek Myth". The Conspiracy of Allusion. Douglas Kelly. ISBN 0-41518-636-6. {{cite book}}: horizontal tab character in |id= at position 6 (help)
• Klatt J. Mary, Brazouski Antoinette (1994). "Preface". Children's Books on Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology: An Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-31328-973-5.
• Miles, Geoffrey (1999). "The Myth-kitty". Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-41514-754-9.
• "myth". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2002.
• North John A., Beard Mary, Price Simon R.F. (1998). "The Religions of Imperial Rome". Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52131-682-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Percy, William Armostrong III (1999). "The Institutionalization of Pederasty". Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-25206-740-1.
• "Trojan War". Encyclopaedia The Helios. 1952.
• "Troy". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2002.
• "Volume: Hellas, Article: Greek Mythology". Encyclopaedia The Helios. 1952.
• Walsh, Patrick Gerald (1998). "Introduction". The Nature of the Gods. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19282-511-9.
• Wood, Michael (1998). "The Coming of the Greeks". In Search of the Trojan War. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21599-0.

Further reading

Standard secondary sources in English include:

• Burkert, Walter (1985) Greek Religion, Harvard University Press, 1985.
• Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths 1955.
• Hamilton, Edith, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. 1942.
• Kerenyi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks 1951.
• Kerenyi, Karl, The Heroes of the Greeks 1959.
• Lenardon, R. and M. Morford, Classical Mythology: Seventh Edition, Oxford 2002.
• Rose, H.J., Handbook of Greek Mythology, 1928.
• Carl Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, 1994.
• Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870, [1]
• Smith, William, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1870, [2]

Influential, more specialized studies include:

• 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
• Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans, Johns Hopkins, 1979.
• Veyne, Paul Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on Constitutive Imagination English translation by Paula Wissing (1988) University of Chicago ISBN 0-226-85434-5 (paper)
• West, Martin Litchfield, The Orphic Poems, 1983.

See also

• List of Greek mythological figures
• List of Greek mythological creatures
• Classical mythology
• Entheogen Ritual use of entheogens (psychoactive substances) in classical mythology and cults
• Family tree of the Greek gods
• Ancient Greek religion
• Similarities between Roman, Greek, and Etruscan mythologies

Greek cosmology

• Elysium
• Helicon
• Hyperborea (Hyperboria)
• Lethe
• Mount Olympus (Olýmpos)
• Styx
• Tartarus (Tartaros)

Related subjects

• List of movies based on Greco-Roman mythology
• Mythology of same-sex love
• Paganism
• Roman religion

External links

• Theoi Project, Guide to Greek Mythology contains stories of gods and monsters with quotes from original sources and images from classical art
• Greek Mythology Link
• Timeless Myths: Classical Mythology provides information and tales from classical literature.