Mycenaean Influence On Greek Culture

Religion plays a big role in day to day life. That was just as true a few thousand years ago when Greek society was just budding. To fully understand Greek religion and its affect on the culture we must go back to the origin of both, examine both as they were developed, and look at the stories and aspects of both, individually and as a whole. Greek religion’s exact origin is vague and presumed unclear. However, it is known it started in Mycenae, an area at the foot of Greece along the Mediterranean Sea. The Mycenaean’s did not originally believe in the Greek myths that the later Greeks enjoyed. The clues as to what their religion was like, and how Greek myths were born are endless. Mycenae had a mainly male-deity religion and was often associated or compared with the war-like Indo-Europeans. They could have easily worshipped something beside gods. AG p. 39 Titans, for example, could
Paris, the prince of a place called Troy, disrespected Zeus by taking Menelaus’ wife. Zeus was also the god of hospitality. TW p. 70 Zeus, also known as the storm god, was the highest divinity in Troy. TW p.52 The Greeks also got what they considered a bad omen from Zeus. A snake ate a bird on the alter from which they were sacrificing to the gods. They had to have a wizard break the curse. With those two things in mind, it must have been scary sailing from Troy. The Greeks decide to boost the crew’s spirits with a couple of easy raids that had good results. One of the sacked cities was a place called Scythos. This attack served many purposes as it Achilles, a great man, was deeply humiliated there and sacking it would please the gods. TW p.44,53 Pre-battle speeches and oaths would have been given to boost the men’s spirits. The oaths simply stated to never desert or they would have to dress up as girls and start knitting. TW p.56 Greece’s idolatrous religion had deep, poisonous roots in their