Greek And Roman Mythology

Divine Myth;
“True myths” or “myth proper”. Stories in which the main characters are super natural beings. Generally explain some aspect of the world
Example would be Zeus over throwing his father and the related stories; creation of myths and of the ancient greeks
Nyx (Night): the abstract concept of night given to a few human characteristics. Union of Nyx and Erebus (Darkness) produced their opposites, aether ”Radiance” and herma “day”
Legends (Sagas)
Latin word is Legenda “something that must be read”. Originated referred to Christian Stories of the saints.
Stories of great deeds from humans. (Semi-divine), usually narrates the events of the human past
Stories of the Trojan war and the exploits of Achilles and the other Greek heroes fit into this category.
Troy and Legend
Heinrich Schliemann 1822-1890
Believed that Homer’s stories about Troy were based on historical truth
Funded archaeological digs at Troy and later at Mycenae
Founded a huge horde of gold and jewels, “Priam’s Treasure”
Folktales
Stories whose characters are ordinary people or animals; folk takes serve both to entertain and teach or justify.
Greeks had a work for folk talk, “Ainos” (Simple fable)
Hesiod Works and Days “The hawk and the nightingale”
Motifs
Regular appearance of certain identifiable narrative patterns in a story
The modern novel we see the motif of water or light which consistently comes up n the story, serves as a thread running throughout
Simple motifs include; double (Twins, doppelgangers); dragons, etc
Theories of Myth
Allegory
Greek word meaning “say something differently”
Similar to symbolism
Physical Allegory
Theagenes (6th century B.C.)
First use of allegory to interpret myth
Myths about battles between gods really represented natural conflicts between natural causes
Based his interpretations on opposites.
One god may represent fire and another water. Clashes represent eternal conflicts between fire and water
False Etymologies
Means getting to the root of a word
Cronus (father of Zeus)
Greeks tried to relate Cronus to Crono (Time)
Cronus eats children (Time devours everything)
However Cronus and Crono are not etymologically related words
Historical Allegory Euhemerism
An interpretation created by Euhemerus (ca 300 B.C.)
Opposed to physical allegory, Euhemerism says myths tell us historical truths not philosophical truths
Gods are historical figures, human kings ruled long ago and were transformed into stories by gods
Related to Euhemerism and false etymologies is the idea that myths were formed by an understanding.
Actaeoniane are not torn apart by his dogs, but ruined by spending all his money on hunting dogs
The Minoans
Ca 2200 B.C.E – ca 1450 B.C.E
Elaborate palaces; significant wealth and technology
Bull is an important religious symbol
Worshipped female fertility goddess
No defensive structures- mastery of the sea
Non Indo-Europeans
Non Greek Speakers (Linear A script not deciphered)
Thera (Modern Santorini)
A rich Minoan culture that was destroyed ca 1630 BCE
The End of the Minoans ca 1450 B.C.E Minoan Civilization was destroyed and palaces burned
Palace at Cnossus
Mycenaean
Ca 1600 B.C.E- 1150 B.C.E
Indo-European Greek Speakers (linear B script)
Mycenae’s ruled by powerful king
Warlike people- Bronze weaponry, chariots.
1150 B.C.E, palaces destroyed by fire. Linear B language lost for 400 years until Archeic Period
Re-emerged as Greek Alphabets
Near Eastern Influence
Mesopotamia “Land between Rivers” (Tigris and Euphrates, modern Iraq) Important source for myths
Non Indo-Europeans speaking society. ( linguistic group than the Greeks)
Greek myths of the origin of the present world order, a universal flood and other myths show the influence of the near east.
Other important peoples that influenced Greek myth; Sumerians, Semites, Akk
September 12, 2013
Creation Myths 1: Hesiod’s Theogony
Ca. 700 B.C.E
2 works survive intact (fragments of some of his other works are extent)
About the origin of the universe and the ascension of Zeus to “kings of the gods”
Works and Days: The account of the fall of man from a golden age to one of the iron
Elaborated on the personification of various aspects of life. Eg Gaea is the mother nature
Gaea is in pain because of Uranos’ hatred of their off spring
Uranos imprisons his youngest children to Tartarus
Succession myth (Uranos feared that his children would take his power away from him)
Gaea encourages Cronus to exact revenge
Cronus threw Uranos genitals into the sea, which gave rise to Aphrodite (God of love/sexuality)
The Giants (Erinyes, Furies) and Melian ash-tree Nymphs sprang from Uranos spilled blood
Cronus warned by Gaea (Mother) and Uranos (Father), would be afraid of their off springs
Cronos (Time) and Rhea had ;Zeus, Poseidon (Earth Shaker), Hades, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia
Once born, Cronos eats his children to prevent from being overthrown
Rhea, advice from her parents hid her youngest child, Zeus on the island of Crete in a cave.
Rhea gave Cronus a stone in place of Zeus’s place
Zeus raised in a cave by nymphs and fed milk from the goat Amalthea and the honey from the bee Melissa
Protected by the Corybantes (Whirlers)/ Curetes “young men”
Metis (Cleverness) give Cronus an emetic (causes him to vomit his sons and daughters)
The stone become the famous omphalos placed in Delphi (Center of the earth)
Rhea and Cronos, and Gaia and Uranus
The Titanomachy (War against the Titans)
Titans led by Cronus, Olympians led by Zeus
Some of the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires (the “Hundred-handers”) helped Zeus. The Cyclopes fashioned Zeus’s thunderbolt.
Eventually the Olympians won
Zeus banishes Cronus to Tartarus, along with the other Titans where they are watched by the Hundred-handers
The women were neutral, they were not banished. Epimetheus, Prometheus, and Atlas were spared.
Atlas’s punishment was that he had to hold up the sky at the edge of the world
Typhoesus/Typhons/Typhus
Typheous is the youngest son of Tartarus and Gaea
He was so terrifying that the Olympian gods fled to Egypt and disguised themselves as animals.
In a fierce battle (hurled, torn to sinews) Zeus defeated Typheous- Mt. Etna(Typheous was being held down there)
Dragon combat motif (Characteristics where they are born inside the earth) (Dragons represent feminity; Zeus represents masculine values
Birth of Athena
Zeus escapes the pattern of the succession myth (overthrown)
Zeus has married Metis and she was pregnant
Zeus swallowed Metis (Assimilated intelligence into himself)
Gave him a headache (Cracks his skull into allowing Athena to come out of his head)
One of Zeus’s favorite children
Gigantomachy
Not mentioned by Hesiod
Giants were urged to attack Olympus
Another test of Zeus’s powers
The Olympians defeat the Giants, in a great battle.
Zeus, Poseidon and Hades divide the world among themselves
Prophecy of the son of a mortal mother; Hercules. (Was the hero Zeus needed to defeat the giants)
Giants urged to attack by Gaea
Creation Myths 2: The Fall of Man The Punishment of Prometheus
Prometheus cultural hero (Gives mortals a chance)
Said to be the creator of humans
Prometheus tricked Zeus at Mekone unto reserving the edible parts of the sacrifice for humans
Gods get the bones and fat
Etiology (Explains the reason) Greek sacrificial custom
For the trick, Zeus punishes the humans (Withholds the fire)
Prometheus and Fire
Prometheus steals the fire back from heaven in a fennel-stalk
Punishment for this trickery Zeus sends Pandora to men and chains Prometheus, years later freed by Hercules.
Prometheus gets a visitation from an eagle every day to peck out his liver
Pandora (All gifted)
Name means “all-gifted” because of all the gods contributed to her creation and endowed her with many charms.
Hephaestos- Fashions her from the earth
Athena- Gives her domestic skills
Aphrodite- gives her grace, beauty, desire and the ability to spark sexual longing
Graces and Persuasion: Necklaces
Epimetheus (after thought) is told by his brother Prometheus (fore thought) to not accept any gifts from Zeus
He sees Pandora and accepts Pandora
She carries a JAR ( not a box)
In the jar, it contains all the evil and good things
When she opens the jar, all the evil things fall to earth while the good things fly to heaven/
Only “hope” is caught in the jar
4/5 Ages of Men; Hesiod’s Works and Days and Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Ovid
43 B.C.E – 17 B.C.E
Works include Art of Love and the Metamorphoses
Exiled by Augustus

Zeus : Father of Gods and Men
Derived from the Indo-European Sky God: di-cf. Germanic Tiu and Indic Dyaus Ritar – Roman Jupiter
“Cloud Gather”
Aegis bearing Zeus – “Goat Skin” a magical object that represented Zeus power, it often represented as a shield with snake headed tassels. Zeus lent it to Athena
Many Lovers: (Eurynome (Graces); Mnemosyne (Muses): Ganymede (cup-bearer to the gods): Themis (rules and order)
Many offspring (Sarpedon, Zeus’s Son, Minos’s brother; Moerae “fates”: Clotho “spinner”, Lachesis “apportioner” and Atropos “she who cannot be turned aside”; Horae “Seasons”.
Zeus is renowned for his physical strength which guarantees his preeminence over all beings
Signature weapon which was the Lightning Bolt; Zeus Kataibates – “Zeus who descends”
Zeus is associated with the bull (Crete, power, fertility) and the Eagle
God of law and justice Dike- from the root “to point out”
Xenia (Formal guest friendship) cf. Xenophobia
As “The father of gods and men”, Zeus is a figurative father who oversees all that occurs on earth and in the heaven.
Literal father to a large number of gods and heroes- famous for his numerous consorts and paramours. 114 at some counts.
Sexual procreation as a metaphor for agricultural production- rain; semen, earth- the womb
Famous story from IIiad associates Zeus’s exploits and the growth of vegetation – Aphrodite’s girdle/belt (a symbol of sexuality and sexual consent) & Hera’s use of it leads to grasses, flowers and plants springing from the earth on which they reclined.
Hera: Who sits on a Golden Throne
Hera (Juno)
Zeus’s wife
Marriage and child birth
Mother of Ares (by Zeus), Eileithyia, Hebe(personification of youth) & Hephaestus (Crippled and made fun of ) (Two versions of parentage)
Persecutes Zeus’s mistresses and illegitimate children
Quarrels with Zeus incessantly
Seduces Zeus to turn tide of the Trojan War – Zeus; “remember when I strung you up…”
Poseidon: Dark-Haired Lord of the Deep
God of the sea and earthquakes
Associated with the horse (drowned in a pool to sacrifice to Poseidon)
Produced Pegasus with the Gorgon Medusa (grotesque offspring: Polyphemus)
Hades :Pluto’s “Wealthy One”
Name means “invisible” – unseen dead and the facelessness of death (Helm of invisilibty)
Never willingly allows anyone who comes to his “house” to leave
An immortal god but not an Olympian.
Apollo
Origin of Apollo unknown; Lycian = Lycia (Asia Minor)? Or association with Hyperborean ( 3 Winters mos. In the far north)= Nordic Origin?
Born on Delos ( Floating island – Hera’s persecution of Titaness Leto “light of day”
Artemis is his twin sister
Depicted as a physically perfect young man and un-bearded and with long hair.
God of music, aristocratic concerns and light (later came to be associated with the sun)
God of illness (arrows- “Lord of mouse”, they bring disease) and healing (Asclepius, his son was the god of medicine)
God of prophecy; killed Python to establish his Oracle of Delphi (Dragon-combat: cf. Marduk vs Tiamat and Zeus vs Typhoeus)- shaman.
Known for his unhappy loves: Daphine, Cassandra, Sibyl at Cumae, Coronis (Asclepius Mother)
Hermes; Psychompus; Mercury (Soul guide, or the leader of the souls)
God of travel, commerce, boundaries, theft and trickery (God that was worshipped from the thieves and bandits, and try to trick people)
Messenger to the gods (Called quicksilver because he was fast)
Important myths: Births, Invention of Lyre( by killing and gutting a Tortoise), Killing of Argus (Monster with 100 hundreds, watcher of 1 of Zeus’s lovers)
Worshipped as a Herm at crossroads and even doorways
Zeus had an affair with a star, and Hermes was born
Pan
Son of Hermes
Hoofs and legs of a goat with human features
The god’s name is likely from Indo-European root meaning “to feed” (cf Pasture)
The inspiration for later representations of the devil
Hephaetus, God of Smiths
Lame smith god- highly skilled and ingenious
2 versions of his birth: Born from Hera alone (b/c of Athena) or son of Zeus and Hera
2 versions of expulsion from Olympus: Zeus threw him off for taking Hera’s side in an argument(landed on Lemnos); or Hera threw him from Olympus in disgust (Hephaetus’ golden throne of revenge and his subsequent return to Olympus)
Typhoeus’s jailer in Mt.Etna
Husband of Aphrodite (Ares & Aphrodite trapped in bed)
“Hateful” Ares (God of War)

Aphrodite, Artemis, and Athena Sept 24
Aphrodite “Of the Golden Daughty”
Goddess of Love
Born from sea-foam (ophros)- Hesiod (Roman: Venus
Always accompanied by Eros (Winged boy with bow and arrows or flaming torch) Also Himmeros= desire and the Graces)
Only Athena, Artemis and Hestia (Virgins for life, did not want to endeavor into Aphrodite’s powers) were immune to Aphrodite’s powers
Not originally Greek (cf. Eastern fertility goddesses, Inanna, Ishstar, Astarte)- Cyprus (transit point) “Cypris” & “Cythera”. Cyprus is the doorway between the East and the west
Temple prostitution (Corinth & Cythera)
Important Myths
Birth (theogony)
Hermaphroditus (fused with Nymph Salmacis, became both genders by fusing with him)
Priapus (Dionysus or Hermes)- Boned
Aphrodite & Ares-Boned
Aphrodite & Anchises (Aeneas; lone survivor of the Trojan War)-Boned
Artemis Potnia Theron
Mistress of Animals
Not a Greek Name- earlier (possibly as far back as the Paleolithic Period)
Twin sister of Apollo (Roman: Diana)
Virgin goddess, but alluring (dangerous)
Huntress (bow and arrows, deer)
“Struck by the arrows of Artemis”
Scared animals include the bear – (Braurania ritual and the Arktoi- “little bear”)
Important Myths
Iphigenia (Sacrifice) Daughter of the great Greek general
Niobe (Boast about having more kids than Leto) Leto ask Apollo and Artemis to honor
Orion (constellation) tried to rape Artemis and Artemis put a scorpion on his head and he died.
Actaeon (Human Sacrifice?) Turned into a Stagg because he saw Artemis nude. Then Actaeon’s dogs killed him
Athena “Mistress of the City”
Takes her name from the city of Athens ( Not the other way around)
Roman: Minerva
Associated with the owl (owl-eyed)
Often represented with the helmet, shield and spear, wears the Aegis around her shoulders
Goddess of war (justified, defensive, strategic)
Goddess of domestic crafts ( especially weaving)
Important Myths
Birth
Contest with Poseidon Birth of Erichthonius (1st king of Athens) Hephatus jizzed on Athena’s hips and she wiped it off and she threw it off the ground on Athens and spawned the legendary king Erichthonius, he was snaky because he spawned in the earth
Arachne (Athena turned her in a spider) She weaved something that made fun of the gods. Athena slashed her face. She then committed suicide. Athena felt sorry for her suicide and turned her into a spider
September 26, 2013 Demeter
Meter means “mother”, De- unknown meaning
Greek Goddess most closely associated with the great mother-goddess
Goddess of grain and the harvest
Story of Demeter and Persephone comes from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
Close association between the female, the underworld and the cyclical nature of existence
Demeter’s daughter by Zeus is Persephone, also known as Kore—Daughter or girl
D. and P. are often called “the two Demeters” or “the two goddesses”
The rape of Persephone
Persephone is taken to the underworld with Zeus’s permission- cf. marriage in ancient Greece
Persephone picked flowers as Hades arose from the depths to abduct her
Only Hecate and Helius heard her cries
Finally, Demeter heard her daughter’s cries and searched the entire earth for her
Demeter’s Search
Nobody mortal or immortal would tell Demeter what happened
She wandered the earth for nine days with torches in her hands
Refused to eat ambrosia or drink nectar and did not bathe
Hecate finally told Demeter part of the story and then Helius filled in the rest
In disguise, Demeter left Olympus and descended to the towns and cities of men where she eventually came to Eleusis (Town outside Athens, center of the Eleusinian Mysteries)
The Eleusinian Mysteries
At Eleusis, Demeter rested at the “Well of the Maiden” where she was approached by the daughters of Eleusis’ king Celeus
They asked where she was from and offered her hospitality
They hired Demeter as a nanny to their mother, Metaneira’s child, Demophoon
Lambe tries to entertain Demeter by telling her dirty jokes
Metaneira offered Demeter, Kykeon, as barley-drink
Demeter tried to repay their kindness by making Demophoon immortal. (Demeter would take the baby and put him in the fire, burning away his mortality)
Eventually, Celeus decreed a glorious temple be built in honor of Demeter.
Tough Times for Humanity
In anger over her daughter’s abduction, Demeter withdrew all agriculture from the earth
Zeus demanded that Demeter relent but she refused.
Zeus sent Hermes to Hades to convince him to release Persephone and he agreed (etiological myth re: seasons).
The Epic of Gilgamesh and Heroic Myth Oct 1
Legends are stories about exceptional humans doing exceptional things which are said to narrate episodes from the human past- heroes.
Heroes were noble or well-born, originally living and breathing people-Homeric kings and warriors.
Eventually these great individuals came to be worshipped as powers dwelling beneath the earth
The name of places of the individual’s cult where they were worshipped, were called Heroa
Heroa were often huge earthen mounds visible on the landscape for great distances eg Achilles at Troy’s Pelops at Olympia and Aenea’s near Rome.
The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Heroic Pattern
Few ancient cultures produced heroic myths; however the Mesopotamians and Greeks did
The Epic of Gilgamesh greatly influenced later Greek heroic myth(movement of ideas from the East to West in Archaic period)
Gilgamesh was a real man who rules the Sumerian City of Uruk c 2600 B.C.E (cuneiform lists of kings) evidence that heroes likely lived at one time.
This influence on Greek heroic myth is shown by shared motifs:
Shared Motifs
One of the hero’s parents may be divine (eg Gilgamesh) but he is like all humans, destined to die.
Miraculous or unusual birth of which we know little (Part is missing from the Epic Gilgamesh)
Hero is outstanding in his strength and is a menace to those around him, friend, and foe alike.
Hero has a male companion (Enkidu created by the gods from clay to temper Gilgamesh’s spirit)
Hero falls under enemy power and is forced to complete impossible tasks (eg. Kills Humbaba)
Taboo broken by hero, terrible price demanded (Enlil the storm-god was angry that Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed Humbaba)
Hero resists the temptations of a dangerous woman (Ishtar asks her father Anu to send Bull of Heaven)
Hero responsible for friend’s death (Enkidu dies after he and Gilgamesh kill Bull of Heaven – cf. Patroclus & Achilles)
Hero goes on a quest to defeat death; even traveling to the underworld (Gilgamesh travels across the waters of death to see Utnapushtim (cf. Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Noah, Deucallion)
Has help of gods, spirits, or magical objects (Gilgamesh magical stilts/poles)
Hero returns home, atones for his misdeeds and accepts his mortality (after failing twice to achieve immortality- unable to stay awake for 7 days, loss of prickly herb at the bottom of the sea)
Hero given a great reward (Gilgamesh honored by people of Uruk)
Hero given a great funeral and may become a god (Gilgamesh given a fine funeral and his memory will never die)
Rationalism and Allegory
Theagenes (6th Century B.C.E) theorized that battles between the gods represented clashes between natural elements (e.g in the Lliad 20.54ff Apollo (representing fire) fights Poseidon (water)
Cronus is identified with time ( Cronos)- all things are begotten by time and devoured by it as well, just like Cronus’s children. Because of this false etymology, we still envision Father of time as the grim-reaper (with sickle) on account of Cronus’s castration of his father
Another false-etymological example stems of Hera sounding like the Latin word for “air”, “Air” lay just beneath the upper-atmosphere. Or “aether” ie. Jupiter/Zeus lays just about Juno/Hera.
Historical Allegory
Euhemerism: myths reveals a historical truth (Euhermerus wrote of a golden column inscribed with the names with early human kings)
The conflicts between Uranus, Cronus and Zeus were representative of palace intrigues
During his reign Zeus traveled the earth teaching the arts of civilization, banning cannibalism, and founding temples. Died on Crete after a long life
Gods may have been kings and heroes of real men who founded cities and did great deeds.
Moral Allegory
The interpretation that a myth is a system of advice on good and bad behavior
Eg. Daphine was an example of chastity and Harpies who steal men’s food are really prostitutes who ruin men with their fees.
When Paris gives his famous judgment, he is really choosing between 3 kinds of life: active (Hera), contemplative (Athena), amorous (Aphrodite) which all men must choose.
Perseus and the Myths of the Argive Plain
Rich Bronze Age area
Tiryns- Perseus was the king of Tiryns when he founded Mycenae
Argos not important in the Bronze Age, but is often confused in the myth with the Mycenae which was
The Wanderings of Io
The River god Inachus and Melia- parents of Io
Io – ancestor of 3 great dynasties: the houses of Argos, Crete & Thebes
Zeus’s passion and Hera’s jealousy (spots mysterious clouds)
The “cow”, Hera took her and takes the cow puts a monster to watch her, so Zeus doesn’t see her again
Argus (Hundred Eyes)
Hermes (Argeiphontes; Killer of Argus)
Ionian Sea, Byzantium- the Bosporus “cow-missing”, the Caucasus Mountains(Meets Prometheus; things will get better), Egypt (Regains human form)
Gives birth to Epaphus “he who has been touched”
Crimes of the Danaids
Epaphus + Memphis (name of the ancient Egyptian capital, daughter of the Nilus the Nile River)= Libya (country west of the Nile river in North Africa)
Libya + Poseidon are parents of
Agenor (Ancestor to the houses of Crete and Thebes)(Arabia)
Belus (ancestor of Perseus & Royal house of Argo, means “lord” in Semitic language)(Libya)
Crimes of the Danaids
Aegyptus has 50 sons
Danaus has 50 daughters= the Danaids
They flee to Argos to prevent proposed marriages (feared a takeover of Libya)
The sons of Aegyptus eventually marry to Danaids….(Danaus gives all his daughters daggers to kill every husband)
Only Hypermnestra spared her husband Lynceus- “all but one” motif
All the daughters/Sisters were doomed on the underworld, they had to fill a jar that would never fill
The Legends of Perseus
Danae and the Shower of Gold
Lynceus (the one sparred) in Argos after Danaus
His sons Abas has twins ( hate each other-quarreled in womb cf. Jacob & Esau and Isis, Osiris & Seth)
Acrisius has a daughter, Danae but wants sons (Heirs)
Oracles say that Danae will have a son, but that he will kill his grandfather (Acrisius) (Forbidden to Marry- prohibition)
Acrisius builds underground bronze chamber to imprison Danae (folktake; Seclusion)
Zeus “shower of gold” impregnates her (Folktale motif: violation of prohibition. Heroic motif: extraordinary birth)
Perseus and Danae set adrift in a wooden box (folktake motif: threat of death)
Dictys (“netman”) at Seriphos saves Danae and Perseus (folktale motif: liberation)
Dicty’s brother Polydectes (“much-receiver”, the king of Seriphos) demands Danae’s hand in marriage
Perseus tricked into going on a quest for the head of a Gorgon: he had no horse as a wedding gift for Polydecates- Perseus boasts “I will bring anything, else Polydecates wants, even a Gorgon’s head (Heroic motif: hero falls under enemy power and is forces to complete impossible tasks)
Perseus, the Gorgon Slayer
Gorgons:
Stheno
Euryale
Medusa (The only mortal Gorgon)
Instructions from Athena: find the Graeae “grey-haired women” and learn whereabouts of helpful Nymphs (grabs eye, demands answers – “where are they”)
Perseus receives magical objects from the Nymphs: Hade’s cap of invisibility, winged sandals; special pouch. Hermes also provides a sword and a polished bronze shield (Heroic motif: has the help of the gods, spirits, or magical objects) The killing of Medusa
Uses shield as a mirror to avoid the gaze of the Gorgons, sneaks up on Medusa and cuts off her head
From the body of Medusa, who was at the time pregnant by Poseidon
Pegasus (Later tamed by Bellerophon)
Chrysaor
Puts his head in pouch, flies off with winged sandals with the Stheno and Euryale in pursuit (can’t see him with the cap of invisibility)
Perseus free’s his mother by showing the Medusa’s head to Polydecates
Perseus and Andromeda
A variant has Perseus returning to Seriphos after a few adventures
Came to Joppa (near Modern Tel Aviv) ruled by Cepheus
Cepheus’s daughter, Andromeda, is about to be sacrificed to a sea monster, because of a rash boast by her mother, Cassiopeia (more beautiful than the Nereids)
Perseus given Andromeda’s hand in marriage and the kingdom for having freed her
Phineus (Cepheus’s brother) to whom Andromeda has been betrothed, bursts in a banquet in Honor of Perseus and is turned into stone with his men by the head of Medusa
Perseus stays in the East for a year and gives birth to Perses, ancestor to the Persian people.
The Death of Acrisius
Wanting to meet his grandfather Perseus returns to Argos
Acrisius flees (it is fated that Perseus will kill him)
At a sports contest in Thessaly, Perseus accidentally kills him with a stray discus (Motif: heroes can be a threat to civil society, even without meaning harm)
Ashamed to receive the kingdom from his death grandfather, Perseus trades Argos for Tiryns with Megapenthes (cousin)
Perseus also builds Mycenae (rules, begets dynasty) and lives there with Andromeda for many years. At their deaths, Athena placed them among the stars as constellations, remembered forever.
Heracles Oct 8
Herakles Alexikakos (Wards off evil)
Obscure origins- Argive plain? (Eurystheus) or Thebes? (Birth place). Belong to all Greeks
Associated with an earlier time – club, bow & arrows
Excessive (Heroic)
Shaman figure- “Master of Animals” provided food and protection to his people
Heraclids (Dorians/Spartans)
Perseus’s granddaughter is Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon
While Amphitryon (H’s stepdad) was off fighting pirates, Zeus disguised himself as Amphitryon
As Zeus leaves, the real Amphitryon appears
In his way, Alcmena gave birth to a child of Zeus (Herakles) and of Amphitryon (Iphicles)
Hera is not happy… (Tricks Zeus into swearing his 1st offspring born that day would rule. Hera’s delay tactics- Eurystheus (Perseus’s descendent, Heracle’s cousin) born before Herakles.
Received an aristocratic education (wrestling, archery, warfare, playing lyre… Kills Linus for telling Herakles that he is bad at playing the lyre (poor linus)
Herakles sent away to tend cattle in the mountains cf. cattle of Geryon- Herakles as master of animals
Hunted a lion (Ravaging flocks) for king Thespius of Thespaie by day, stayed at his house by night (50 daughters-Heraclids, sons of Heracles, founded the noble family of the Spartans)
Herakles marries Megara daughter of Creon (King of Thebes) and has 3 children
Goes mad and kills his family (driven insane by Hera; he believes that they are his enemies)
Went to Delphi to learn what he must do to atone for his crime- must leave Thebes, go to Argive plain serve Eurystheus (Herakle’s cousin, king of Mycenae)
12 Labors
Miasma is that his blood is tainted and his blood his contagious. ( blood guilt) Must be purified by a God.
12 Labors. 1st labor, faces a monstrous lion; skin that is impenetrable. Nemean Lion. Wrestles with the lion and kills him. Use’s the lion’s claws to skin the lion. Wears the skin
2nd Herakle slays the Hydra (Offspring of Typheous; Gaea) Similar situation where they overcome the older generation. Herakle has help from his nephew, kills the Hydra by having his nephew torch the heads of which he cuts off, so they do not grow back. Hydra’s blood is poisonous, arrows dipped in it.
3rd Herakles and Athena was to capture the Golden Hind of Ceryneia who is scared to Artemis. By taking the stag when it was asleep. Told Artemis on the way back that he had to.
4th Told to retrieve the Girdle of Hippolyta from the Amazons. It is to exert sexual dominances.
5th Herakles told to bring the Erymanthian boar to Eurysethus who hides in pithos. (Eurysethus is scared and builds himself a jar to hide from)
6th Mares of Diomedes 4 man eating horses who were owned by Diomedes. In the end he fed Diomedes to his mares because the mares kill his favored companion Abderus
7th triple Body Geryan, the cattle’s where he killed Geryan and his brother who guarded the cattle. Eurytheus sacrificed the cattle to Hera.
8th Apples of Hesperides (Wedding gives to Hera when she married Zeus) these apples are immortal. They are grown on the edge of the world. Atlas taunt’s Herakle’s with the Apples of the Hesperides. Herakles took the world on his shoulder. Atlas gets the apples, Herakle’s trick Atlas by telling Atlas to hold the world while Herakle’s adjust his neck. Atlas takes the world, and Herakle takes the apples from him.
9th Cerberus is Hade’s hound of hell. He make sure you never leave hell. Drags back the hounds of hell

10th Augean Stables; Cleanses the Augean. It is a big stable, stable of 1000 divine cattle’s that poop a lot. Re-routed a couple of rivers and flush the stables out.
11th Hercules was to drive away an enormous flock of birds which gathered at a lake near the town of Stymphalos. Hercules had no idea how to drive the huge gathering of birds away. The goddess Athena came to his aid, providing a pair of bronze krotala, noisemaking clappers similar to castanets. These were no ordinary noisemakers. They had been made by an immortal craftsman, Hephaistos, the god of the forge.
12th Labor; Hercules easily disposed of the Cretan Bull. Brings the bull back to Eurytheus King Midas was to sacrifice whatever animal that the Poseidon sent. The god sent a bull so beautiful that he couldn’t. Made the bull rampage all over Crete and made Midas’s wife fall in love with it, making the Minotaur. He put the Minotaur in the labyrinths, feed’s him with the prisoners of Athens.
After the Labors
Wished to merry Lole, daughter of Eurytus, a local king. He refused remembering Megara’s fate
Eurytus discovers 12 prize mares missing, sends Son to question Herakles- son is killed (violate of Xenia)
Herakles goes to Delphi to find out how to atone for crimes, Pythia refuses to respond
Herakle steals tripod runs off and boasts that he will establish his own oracle!
Apollo prescribe 3 years as a woman’s slave (Omphale the Lydian queen)
Afterwards marries Deianaira “man killer”
Tricked by the centaur Nessus; told that his blood and semen would make potent love potion to use on Heracles.
The blood is poisoned by the Hydra blood used to kill him
Undergoes Apotheosis (became a god of Olympus) after his mortal self is killed by the poison
Hercale marries Hebe (personification of youth) after ascending to Olympus
Oct 10 Athens and Theseus
Psistratus (Tyrant of Athens) ruled 561-527 BCE (propaganda)
Theseus’s legend built up in the 6th and 5th century BCE from two older myths: Labyrinth/Minotaur & Centauromachy
By 5th century. Athenians credited Theseus with founding their democracy (really happened in 580 BCE) the federation Attica, founding Panathenaic games & inventing coinage
490 BCE- before Battle of Marathon (Persian Wars) Theseus’s ghost was said to have appeared to the Athenian army led by Miltiades cf. capture of the Bull of Marathon
Miltiade’s son of Cimon went to the island of Scyros to clear a pirate threat and found the “thomb of Theseus”- giant skeleton, bronze spear and sword (bronze age thomb?) and returned the bones to Athens
Myth as propaganda: traditional legends were remade or reformed for Athenian political purposes.
Athenians “origins”
Different versions: descended from Cecrops (legendary king); autochthonous- “sprung from the earth” or descended directly from Athena
Story of Erichthonius birth combines autochthony and Athena verisons (Hephaetus)
Erichthonius placed in basket and given to 3 daughters of Cecrops with warning not to peek. Two couldn’t resist, went mad and leaped from Acropolis to their deaths- Arrhephoria “festival of the dew carriers”
Procne and Tereus
Pandion, son of Erichthonius had two daughters: Procne and Philomela.
Athens at war with Thebes, Tereus (Thracian King, son of Mars) aids Pandion and he gives Tereus, Procne for a wife. They have a son, Itys
Procne asks new husband to bring her sister Philomela to visit…
Tereus rapes Philomela on the way home, cuts out her tongue and tell Procne her sister died on voyage
The locked-away Philomela weaves her tale on tapestry….
Procne sees tapestry, contemplates revenge against her husband
Procne kills Itys and feeds him to his father
Tereus “Let Itys be brought inside!”
Prcone “Itys is already inside, INSIDE YOU!!!!!”
All turned into birds: a hoopoe (Tereus), nightingale (Procne), &Swallow (songless, like Philomela)
Birth of theseus
Erechtheus (Procne & Philomela’s brother) new king after Pandion dies. Cecrops (II) succeeds his son Pandion (II) succeeds him
Pandion II +Creusa = 4 sons (including Aegeus & Pallas)
Aegeus needed an heir, went to the Oracle at Delphi for the fertility advice – “do not open the wineskin until you come to the pinnacle of Athenians-“ wanders to Troezen in confusion
Pittheus (Troezen’s king) understands oracle and gets Aegeus drunk & sends in his daughter Aethra….
Aethra instructed to go to the sea in a dream… (Poseidon)
Sandals & sword placed under rock by Aegeus.
The Labors of Theseus
Theseus grows into manhood, retrieved sword and sandal and goes to Athena via land-route (dangerous)
Periphetes (Son of Hephaestus iron club)
Sinis (“pine bender”, take his guest and tie his guest to a pie and flung his guest) Theseus flung him (violated Xenia)
Crommyonia Sow (Huge pig)
Siron (Feet- washing) Violated Xenia, make people wash his feet, kicked them off
Cercyon ( wrestler, crusher)
Procrustes violated Xenia (big bed & little bed) Taking tall people in the little bed and taking small people in bed big. Stretch the small people and cut the limbs off on small bed.
Theseus at Athens
Father of Aegeus doesn’t recognize him (under the influence of Medea, great sorceress)- sends Theseus against Bull of Marathon (father of Minotaur, Herakles brought it to mainland, Theseus caught and sacrificed it to Apollo)
Medea tries to poison Theseus, Aegeus recognizes sword, Medea flees to Asia & gives birth to Medus the Medean’s ancestor (Persians)
Although ambushed by them, Theseus kills the 50 kills of his uncle Pallas (Brother of Augeus, doesn’t want Theseus to be the heir to the kingdom) and leaves town
Theseus goes to Crete (Minotaur) and then returns to Athens (black sail hoisted, Aegeus’s death- Augean sea). Aegeus told Theseus that if he survived to put a white flag, but he forgot, and he kills himself (motif that heroes bring accidental tragedy to those around them.)
Amazons
Seeking Adventure, Theseus sails to the land of the Amazons to abduct their queen Antipoe (Hippolyta)
A=”no” + Mazos= “breast”
They received him well and offered gifts. When Antiope brought them to his ship, Theseus abducted her. (caused the Amazonomachy- Athens overrun until tide of battle turned)
Amazons as Persians became pervasive in art after Persian Wars
Hippolytus
Antiope bore Hippolytus (Theseus’s son) but Theseus rejects her and takes a new wife, Phaedra
Hippolytus became a devotee of Artemis (sexual abstinence)
Stepmother Phaedra falls in love with Hippolytus, has nurse proposition him
Hippolytus refuses and Phaedra hangs herself with a note saying Hippolytus raped her
Theseus curses his son, Poseidon’s bull rises from the sea, and drags him to his death
Theseus and Pirithous
Pirithous (king of Lapiths) deides to test Theseus’s legendary prowess by stealing his flocks, Theseus catches him and they were about to fight then Pirithous apologizes and offer to the Theseus’s slave- friendship (cf. Gilgamesh and Enkidu)
Pirithous was marry to Hippodamia and invited the Centaurs (his cousins), tried to rape the bride and attendants
Lapiths vs Centaurs= Centauromachy
After Phaedra and Hippodamia die, the news decide to find new wives.
Journey of the Underworld
Theseus chooses Helen (of troy) a daughter of Zeus who lived in Sparta. Pirithous chooses Persephone and they go to the underworld together.
Hades listened to their proposal offering to have them sit for a meal.
Both men inescapably fixed to their chairs, later while Heracles was coming to fetch Cerberus, he rescued Theseus
Death
Theseus returned to Athens in turmoil; a tyrant, the demagogue Menesethus controls the city
Theseus escapes to Scyros, the jealous king leads Theseus to see view from a cliff and pushes him off to his death (killed shamefully and by treachery)
Dionysus
God of grape harvest, wine making, and wine.
Ritual of madness and ecstasy
Worshipped by the Mycenaean Greeks (Linear B)
Also known as Bacchus
Son of Zeus and mortal Semele
Semele was the daughter of the king Cadmus of Thebes
Hera discovered the affair and befriended Semele
Hera planted seeds of doubtfulness in Semele that Zeus was not the father
Semele asked Zeus to show himself, when Zeus did, she died.
Zeus felt sorry for the Fetus, sowed the fetus to his thighs
Dionysus was born on Mount Pramnos in the island of Ikaria
Returns to his city Thebes, which is ruled by his cousin Pentheus.
Exact revenge on the people of Thebes and his cousin for not accepting his divinity and believing his mother Semele had a child with Zeus
Drives Pentheus mad by, leads him to the forest of Mount Cithaeron, convinces him to spy on the Maenads (worshippers of Dionysus)
Maenads in an insane frenzy, they caught Pentheus spying and torn him to pieces, even his mother.
Oct 15 Myths of Crete
Long before the Indo-Europeans culture developed on the Island of Crete
Huge palace complexes with colorful wall-paintings
Sir Arthur Evan excavated there in 1900s
He called the civilization Minoan after mythical king Minos who is said to have ruled in Knossos, the largest of Crete’s palaces
Linear A writing (non Indo-European)- not yet deciphered
Worshipped the female deity we call the Great Goddess
Bull featured prominently in art
Developed during the Bronze Age (3000-1600 B.C.E) collapse c. 1450 B.C.E (Mycenaean invaders)
Europa and the Bull
Descendants of Zeus and Io (4th Generation)- Europa, Cadmus, Phoenux, Cilix in Phoenicia (Eastern Mediterranean)
Europa catches Zeus’s eye….
Smitten girl climb on bull’s (Zeus’s back) and gets taken to Crete
Her father Agenor sends brothers to look for her. Unsuccessful, they settle in various lands: Phoenix (Phoenicia, modern Lebanon), Clixi (Cilicia, south eastern Turkey), Cadmus (Thebes, central Greece)
Zeus and Europa have children: Minos, Sarpdeon (Died In the Trojan War) & Rhadamanthys
Minos & Pasiphae
Zeus tired of Europa and went back to Olympus, Asterius, a local Cretan, married Europa & adopted Minos & his brothers
Minos married Pasiphae (Daughter of Helius)
When Asterius died, Minos claimed kingship- he said Poseidon promised him the throne and a bull rising from the sea, which vowed to sacrifice to the god, would prove it
Didn’t sacrifice bull, Poseidon angered
Pasiphae made to fall in love with the bull
Daedalus (famous craftsmen, exile from Athens- killed nephew because of invention of saw) constructions a hollow, wooden bull
Pasiphae climbs into wooden bull and is impregnated by Poseidon’s bull—Minotaur conceived.
Minos orders Daedalus to create a prison to house the Minotaur- the Labyrinth (from Labrys, the double-axe that was an important symbol to the Crete)
None could enter and come out, Minotaur would devour them
Later, Mino’s son Androgeus traveled to Athens to complete in Athletic games and was so successful, he annoyed King Augues (Theseus’s dad) who ordered him to fight the bull which was terrorizing the plain of Marathon (same bull from Crete – brought over by Herakles and later killed by Theseus)-Androgeus killed
Minos launched a punitive expedition against Athens
Athens attacked( Zeus sent famine, and plague), oracle advises capitulation- 7 boys and girls to be sent to Crete as sacrifice yearly ( or every 9 years)
Theseus volunteers to go to Crete
Theseus and the Minotaur
Ariadne, Minos daughter fell in love with Theseus as he arrived to Crete
Promised to show him how to defeat the Minotaur if he promised to marry her
Daedalus gave her instructions that she followed and she gave a ball of thread to Theseus (modern word “clue” comes from Greek for “ball” of “thread”)
Theseus went into the Labyrinth, tying the thread to the entrance, kills Minotaur with sword, and followed thread back out
Theseus and Ariadne escape to Naxos where, disgusted with Ariadne’s treachery, he abandons her (later becomes Dionysus’s Bride)
Possibly a mythological representation of hostiles between Athens and Crete
Daedalus & Icarus
Minos was furious with Daedalus (wooden cow, ball of thread) and imprisoned him and his son, Icarus, inside the Labyrinth
Daedalus begged to be allowed to return to home land, denied by Minos he constructed wings of feathers and wax for him and his son to use to escape
Icarus does not heed his father’s advice not to fly too close to the sun (“everything in moderation”) and plunges to his death
Minos chased Daedalus to Sicily, where he was at the court of a King Cocalus
Promised a prize to whoever could wind a thread through a spiral conch (Only Daedalus that clever; ant & honey used) Cocalus solves problem (via Daedalus) and in doing so exposes Daedalus
Minos demands Daedalus be handed over, takes a bath first- killed by boiling water poured in by Cocalus’s daughter- in death Minos becomes a judge in the underworld.
Oedipus and the Myths of Thebes Oct 22 "Seven Gated Thebes"
Principle city of Boeotia "cow raising place"
An important region in the Mycenean period (1600-1200BCE) as suggested by its prominent place in Greek myth
Boeotians were reputed to be boorish and ignorant- "Boeotian pig" was a common epithet
Thebes was an enemy of Athens and was occupied by the Athenians from 457-447 BCE
The citadel of Thebes was called the Cademia after Cadmus
After this the Boeotians formed a defensive league
Repelled the Athenians in 425 BCE
Later the Thebans destroyed the Spartans land forces and became premier power in Greece (Scared Band)
In 325 BCE, Alexander the Great razed the city to the ground

Foundation Myth(s)
Europa went missing and her father Agenor ordered his sons to find her
Cadmus kept looking for his sister after her other older brothers gave up
Brought writing to Greece from Phoenicia
Consulted oracle at Delphi where the Pythia told him to give up instead he should follow a cow with special markings to where it would stop and lay down exhausted (area of Thebes) cf (Carthage horse's head. oxhide)
Wishing to sacrifice the cow, Cadmus sent his companions to nearby spring to fetch water for the sacrifice
A dragon who was the offspring of Ares killed his companions at spring (motif: dragon guarding a water source)
Cadmus defeats the dragon (dragon-combat). Ovid stats that when Cadmus gazed upon the dead serpent, he heard a voice that said "Why do you gaze upon the dead serpent? You too will be looked at as a serpent"
Upon the advice of Athena, Cadmus knocked out the serpent's teeth and sowed them in the ground
Upon the ground where Cadmus had sown the teeth, sprang armed men "Sparti=sown men"
The warriors, alarmed by Cadmus pelting them with stone, started fighting each other until only five survived
These 5 were the mythical ancestors of the aristocratic families of Thebes cf. The Heraclids and the Peloponneseus
Cadmus had to serve Ares for 8 years to atone for killing the dragon
Afterwards, Cadmus married Harmonia daughter of Ares & Aphrodite on the Cadmeia which he founded
Wedding gift: cursed necklace made by Hephaestus and given by Aphrodite
All who owned it in later generations ended by badly: Ino killed by own child, Semele was burnt to a crisp, Agave tore her son Pentheus to pieces, Autonoe son Actaeon was devoured by his hounds
Cadmus and Harmonia left Thebes, were turned into serpents and lived forever in the Elysian Fields
Pentheus, Cadmus's grandson took over as king and after his death (his story told in Euripedes' Bacchae)
Labdacus Cadmus's other grandson started a new dynasty and his son Liaus would eventually become king
Amphion and Zethus (twins) were born from the union of Zeus and Antiope (Cadmus's daughter in-law)
Ashamed of affair, she ran away to Sicyon and married the king. Later her uncle (lycus), on the orders of her father, made war to Sicyon, took Antiope prisoner and brought her back to Thebes. She left her twins to be raised by a shepherd in the mountains
Lycus's wife Dirce hated Antiope, locked her in a dungeon and tortured her
After escaping to the mountains, Antiope encounter her children by chance in a mountain hut and they took their revenge (tied Dirce to a wild bull and killed uncle Lycus as well) From Dirce blood sprang a fountain at Thebes named after her
Zethus=practical herdsman
Amphion=Artistic musician
The brothers set out to build Thebe's fortifications- Zethus struggled with the heavy stones, while Amphion played the lyre and they spontaneously arranged themselves into the walls
Amphion married Niobe and Zethus married Thebe after whom he named the city of Thebes
Thebes has two foundation stories- one about fountain of the acropolis, the Cadmeia and one about the lower city's wall.
Oedipus the King
Made famous by Sophocle's play Oedipus Tyrannos (Oedipus Rex in Latin) c. 430 BCE
Dramatic tragedy
Great-grandson of Cadmus= Laius
Laius left Thebes, raped the son of his host Pelops- violation of Xenia which resulted in Pelops laying a curse upon Liaus (motif of the sins of the father affecting offspring)
Laius fled back to Thebes and was proclaimed king and he married Jocasta, a descendant of the Sparti
Warned by an oracle that he would be killed by his own son, he refused to sleep with Jocasta until, one night, he got drunk and did
Laius ordered the child to be exposed, pinned child's feet together and ordered a shepherd to place the child in the mountain-side to die
Shepherd took pity and gave child to a friend who gave him to king Polybus of Corinth and his wife Merope who raised him (given the name Oedipus= "swollen foot")
While growing up, other children taunted Oedipus saying he was adopted
While his parents were unwilling to divulge any information, Oedipus went to Delphi to consult about his lineage- Pythia declared "you're going to kill your father and marry your mother"
Oedipus fled Corinth believing he would kill his adoptive parents
Ran into a man at a crossroads, got in a confrontation and, in rage killed the man and all his companions but one
Oedipus arrived in Thebes which was being terrorized by the Sphinx, a daughter of Typhoeus who devoured all who couldn't answer he riddle
Q:"What goes on four legs in the morning, two at midday and three in the evening?"
When Liaus had gone to Delphi for advice about the Sphinx, Creon the interim king, he heared he'd been killed by bandits on the road....
Creon declared that whoever could solve the riddle and save the city would be made king and marry the queen
Oedipus answers the riddle "man" The defeated Sphinx threw herself from a cliff
Oedipus assumes kingship and marries Jocasta. Children: Polynices and Eteocles. Antigone and Ismene
A plague falls upon the city - miasma - Oedipus orders all to find the killer of Laius and lays a curse upon him(self)
A messenger arrives to tell Oedipus that his (adoptive) father Polybus has died at Corinth. Oedipus is glad to have avoided the prophecy (seemingly) and says he'll still stay away from Corinth just to be safe
Messenger says he need not to worry about that: he brought baby Oedipus to Corinth after his real parents exposed him
Joccasta, realizing the truth, leaves in despair
Oedipus summons the shepherd, who is also the survivor from the crossroads incident and he tells Oedipus that he received him from Laius and gave him as an infant to the messenger who was instrumental in Oedipus being given to Corinthian royal family
Oedipus "sees" the truth now after having been "blind" to it for so long
Jocasta kills herself and Oedipus took the pins from her robe and pokes out his own eyes with them "Never again will these eyes ever watch me doing or suffering that I have done or suffered!" Goes into exile
By trying to obey the gods and to his people Oedipus curses himself and precipitates his own destruction
A study in "appearances can be deceiving" not Corinthian but Theban: Solves riddles but ignorant of his own secrets: a judge of right and wrong but

Psychological Theories of Myth
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) postulated that myth was a by-product of psychological forces- saw dreams as important translation of reality into symbolism
Condensation : several things from the waking world are fused in a dream : Displacement: Where something in a dream stands for something quite different in the waking world
These two ideas are important because they represent true thought that is mortally or emotionally repugnant to the waking world
The mind deals with this repulsion by treating the problem indirectly- dreams are symptoms of psychological tensions
Freud saw myths as the collective and recurrent dreams of the human race
Freud take on Oedipus: the son wishes sexual contact with his mother (feeds her from her breasts and is embraced by her body) resents the father's sexual demands on his mother - wants to kill father and have mother to himself
Carl Jung (1875-1961) an associate of Freud's continued the study of in conscious aspect of human nature
Unlike Freud, Jung did not believe all symbols were sexual
Jung saw the consciousness of the individual as a sea of psychic, activity, the collective unconscious. This sea has floating within it certain archetypes, timeless recurrent images on which our emotional world and myths are built: eg. wise old man, earth mother, divine child
Jung's follower Erich Neumann (1905-1960): dragon-combat symbolizes the breaking away of individual consciousness from the collective unconsciousness. Dragon/Great Mother Goddess (collective) trying to swallow hero (individual) with the hero's triumph symbolizing the assertion of personal identity and the taming of the collective unconsciousness
Oct 24 Myths of Thebes Continued
Oedipus is considered a “hero” but without the element of divine parentage we have come to associate with heroic legend
Tragic hero: anagnorisis “recognition” and peripateia “turning around/downfall” – a be king and is seen to be a criminal and breaker of taboos) Aristotle called Oedipus the King the “perfect” tragedy
He does, however display many common elements of heroic legend : unusual birth & mission to free world of a monster (Sphinx) comes into contract with a deadly woman and dies a mysterious death
Key differences: Hesiod showed us Cronus and Zeus overthrowing their fathers to establish order out of chaos: Oedipus overthrows his father and creates chaos. The dangerous female is translated to a figure within the family: gives life and sows the seeds of death with her protective love
Oedipus was worshipped at a shrine in the scared grove of Colonus near Athens cf. herooa & funeral tumuli
Will of the Gods
Oedipus says “It was Apollo that brought about my evil sufferings but no one but myself in my misery, struck my own eyes.
Oedipus recognizes the god’s power and the futility of a human resisting the divine will but also his own responsibility
The final lines of Oedipus Tyrannos: Call no man happy until he reaches the end of his life without suffering
The Seven against Thebes
Title of Aeschylus play staged in 467 BCE
After Oedipus self-imposed exile, his sons Eteocles and Polynices, agree to rule alternately each for a year
Eteocles (“true glory”) refused to give up the kingship as his year came to an end and drove his brother Polynices (“filled with contention”)from the city
Polynices fled to Argos learned from an oracle that he “must yoke his daughters to a boar and a lion”???
Answer reveals itself when Polynices and Tydeus (an exile from Calydon, brother of Heracles, wife Deianira) fight in front of Adrastus palace (boar and lion on their shields)
Adrastus settles quarrel, marries his daughters to the men and promises to restore them to their respective cities (Thebes and Calydon)
Adrastus gathered the leaders for a great campaign against Thebes to restore Polynices to the throne but a seer named Amphiaraus foresaw that all the leaders but Adrastus would perish in the war and argues vehemently against the campaign
Beforehand Adrastus had arranged to have his sister Eriphyle marry Amphiaraus on the condition that she would take her brother’s side in mediating future arrangements between the two men
Polynices knew of the arrangement and offered Eriphyle the necklace of Harmonia if she would decide the dispute in favor of those urged war.
The army consisted of seven heroes: 4 from Argos, Polynices from Thebes, Tydeus from Calydon and another guy from Arcadia
While the army heads towards Thebes, Oedipus is at scared grove near Athens (Colonus) and his daughter Ismere reports that the oracle at Delphi stated that whichever city possesses the bones of Oedipus cannot be captured.
Creon (representing Eteocles) and Polynices both try to kidnap Oedipus. Theseus steps in and tells both men to leave. Oedipus curses his sons and predicts that they will both die at each other’s hand in the coming war (from the play Oedipus at Colonus)
After uttering the curse. Oedipus goes into the scared grove and disappears (mysterious death motif) and becomes a protector of Athens from her enemies.
The invaders arrived at Thebes and a made a blood-oath that they would level Thebes or die trying
Seven commanders each defended one of Thebe’s seven gates against the seven invaders
A blind seer, Tiresias foretold that the Thebans would be victorious if Creon’s son was sacrificed to Ares (he overhears and kills himself)
The Thebans draw lots to see who will face whom and Eteocles is paired with his brother Polynices
Tydeus and Melanippus each mortally wounded each other and Athena, seeking to keep Tydeus alive, asked for an immortality potion
Amphiaraus hated Tydeus because he was in favor of the war and knew what Athena was planning: he cut off Melanippus head and gave it to Tydeus who cracked open Melanippus skull and started eating his brains. Athena threw down the potion in disgust and Tydeus died.
Ampiharus fled on his chariot and was about to be speared in the back when Zeus, who loves Seer, opened up the earth and had him swallowed up by it. An underground oracle gave prophecies where this happened (chthonic (earth) cult)
Polynices says that he has justice on his side (his shield says as much). Eteocles knows that he must face his brother in mortal conflict and says, “When the gods give evil, you cannot escape their gift”
Eteocles and Polynices kill each other in combat, fulfilling the curse of their father; the dying Polynices uses his last bit of strength to stab his brother and they died by side.
Everyone dies except Adrastus (as the seer Ampiaraus foretold)
Ten years later, Ampiharaus’s son Alcmeon avenged his father by killing Eriphyle, escaped to nearby kingdom, and gave the necklace to Harmonia to the queen. A famine occurred had he left, driven insane by the matricide (miasma) he eventually was murdered. Finally the necklace was dedicated at Delphi.
Antigone
Subject of famous play of Sophocles
The deaths of Eteocles & Polynices posed difficult religious and social dilemmas
Creon, now the king of Thebes cast the bodies of the invaders, including Polynices, out of the city to rot on the Theban plain
He decrees that no one is to bury them or they will be put to death
Antigone determined to bury her brother Polynices despite this (law of man versus law of gods)
Creon hears that someone has thrown a handful of dust of the corpses and believes a conspiracy is afoot
Creon cast as a strongman (audience is of Athenians- Democracy)
When the culprit is revealed to be Antigone, his future daughter-in-law (his son Haemon’s future bride) he condemns her to die (polis vs family)
She is to be buried alive in a cave (bride of death- Persephone)
When she is taken away she laments the destiny of her family and to this family she now returns in the afterlife “accursed, unmarried, childless”
As Antigone is about to be entombed and she says “What justice of the gods have I violated?, Although I acted piously, I stand convicted of impiety”
The seer Tireseias reports terrible omens in the city (gods are mad) and finally convinces Creon to back off
Creon rescinds the sentence and goes to the cave only to find Antigone has hanged herself and Haemon is clinging to her corpse
Haemon is inconsolable and attacks his father, misses and then kills himself
Creon then hears that his wife has killed herself having heard about Haemon
Creon has created a vast wasteland because of his obstinate refusal law of the gods while upholding the law of the city “I am the law”
Oct 29 Jason and the Myths of IoIcus and Calydon
Thessaly is the northernmost region that the Hellenes occupied before colonization began in the Archaic Period
Famous as the birthplace of Achilles
Noted for horses and horse-breeders
IoIcus a city at foot of Mt. Pelion
The event of Jason and his Argonauts occur a generation before the Trojan War (voyage of Argonauts mentioned in homer’s Odyssey- 8th Cent. B.C.E)
Apollonius of Rhodes provides for us the most completely literary version of the adventures of the Argonauts in his Argonautuca (3rd Cent BCE – reflective of Greek tastes after Alexander of the Great’s Conquest in the east)
Euriphedes Medea (431 BCE) gives us the story of Jason’s later years
Back Story
Jason belonged to the Aeolids descendants of Aeolus and is the grandson of Deucalion & Pyrrha (story of the Great Flood-lycanon) the son of the three principals groups of Greeks
Aeolus’s son Athamas had children by Nephele (cloud) named Phrixus and Helle
Athamas then divorced Nephele and married Ino (Cadmus’s daughter and nurse to Dionysus)
Descended from Hellen’s sons are the Aeolians (Aeolus), Dorian (Dorus), and Ionians (from Ion, Xuthus’s son) the three principle of the Greeks.
Ino bored two sons and was jealous of Phrixus concerned that her would inherit the throne instead of one of her children
Ino has the local woman parch the seed grain so that it would not grow- Famine ensued
Athamas sent messengers to Delphi who were intercepted by Ino and bribed to say the solution was to sacrifice Phrixus, his own son.
Athamas reluctantly prepared to sacrifice Phrixus when a golden ram appeared (Cf. Abraham and Isaac in Bible Gen.22.13)
Phrixus and his sister climbed on the ram and were spirited away to the east
Helle fell off the ram and into the sea (this is where “Hellespont” got its name)
The ram continued its journey and landed on the far eastern coast of the Black Sea at Colchis and in the land of Aea (modern Georgia)
Aeetes a son of Helius (the sun) ruled at colchis
Phrixus sacrificed the golden ram to Zeus and hung its Fleece from an oak in a grove sacred to Ares where it was protected by a dragon (born from the blood for Typhoeus)
Phrixus was given the one of Aeetes’s daughter to marry.
Back to IoIcus
(a couple of generations later) two descendants of Aeolus emerge, the half-brothers of Aeson and Pelias (a son of Poseidon)
Pelias is arrogant and jealous of his half-brother’s chance at ruling
Aeson is imprisoned in Pelias palace
Aeson has a child (Jason – means “healer” cf. iatros)
Fearing for jason’s life, his parents spread rumors that he was still born and sent him to the mountains to be raised by the wise Centaur Chiron
Meanwhile Pelias learned from an oracle that he would be undone by a man with one sandal.
When Jason reached manhood he headed to IoIcus to claim the throne from Pelias
On his way he came to a swollen river where an old women (Hera in disguise) sat by the banks, He placed her on his shoulders and carried her across losing a sandal in the river
Hera decided that Jason would be the means by which she would introduce Medea to Greece to destroy Pelias who refused to honor her
While sacrificing, Pelias heard that a one-sandaled man was in town...
Pelias: “What would you do if you knew someone over whom you had power was going to kill you?”
Jason: “I’d send him to fetch the Golden Fleece”'
Pelias: “I’ll do as you suggest...go!” The Voyage of the Argo
Jason enlisted Argus (swift) Phrixus son to construct the biggest ship ever made (it could hold 50 men). Athena cut a beam from Zeus’s oracle oak at codona which could speak and put it into the ship’s prow-Thus the Argo was built
Jason assembled the best fighters around to join him on his mission: Heracles, Orphedus, Castor and Polydeuces (Zeus’s son, brothers of Helen of Troy) Zetes and Calais (son of the Both Wind), Telamon (Ajax Father), Peleus (Achille’s father), Idmon the seer and other notables
Idmon read the entrails (Haruspicy) of a sacrificed animal and saw that all would return except for himself
The Argo headed out with the beam talking about its desire for adventure
They made way towards Lemnos where there were no men (wives killed them all) where they stayed for a year and repopulated the island.
The Argonauts then traveled east again coming to the eastern shore of the Propontis where they encountered Phineus the king of the area
Phineus had abused the gift of the prophecy granted him by Apollo and was blinded and unable to eat because the Harpies would snatch the food
In exchange for information on where to go to continue the quest Zetes and Calais set a trap and killed the harpies
When telling them of the course they should set, Phineus warned the Argonauts of the Symplegades “clashing rocks” at the entrance to the black sea
Released a dove (if it could make it, so could they) lost a tail feather and Argo lost its banner
Medea
As Jason arrived at Colchis. Hera had Aphrodite and Eros strike Medea with mad love for the hero so that she would turn against her father the king Aeetes
Acting on the advice from the oracle. Aeetes treated the adventurers badly
In order to take the fleece, Jason had to yoke 2 fire breathing,bronze- hoofed bulls, plow a field with them and sow the remaining dragon’s teeth left over from the foundation of Thebes and kill the warriors who would spring up from the ground.
Jason saw no solution but Medea offered to help and he promised to marry her.
She gave him a magic ointment to protect him from the bulls, etc and drugged the dragon guarding the fleece and he obtained the Golden Fleece (helper-maiden)
Pelias: “What would you do if you knew someone over whom you had power was going to kill you?”
Aeetus then tried to kill the Argonauts and gave them chase as they fled
Medea’s brother Apsyrtus was chopped to pieces to delay her father who was in pursuit
In this way the Argonauts escaped and made their way home
A rumor spread at IoIcus that all the Argonauts had died on the voyage and Pelias congratulated on being the first man to escape a prophecy; he killed Aeson by giving him bull’s blood (a poison apparently)
Jason arrived and presents the Golden Fleece to Pelias but he refused to abdicate his throne
Medea tricked Pelias daughters, promising their father renewed youth if they would allow her to use her magic (cuts him into bits)
The IoIcans were angered by the death of their king and drove Jason and Medea out of the city.
They went to Corinth where they had 2 sons
Jason spurned Medea to marry Glauce,a local princess
Euripides Medea relates to the events
After Jason spurns Medea, she concocts her revenge and gives a poisoned garments and tiara to the princess. Medea then takes the ultimate revenge against Jason and kills their children
She flies off in her grandfather Helius’s chariot and goes to Athens where she has a child by Augeus, Medus the ancestor of the Medes, A Persian people and the great enemy of the Greeks
Jason, for his part, never is the same and finishes his life a depressed, sick and old shadow of his former self. He sat beneath the rotting hulk of the Argo where he is killed by the rotten prow of the ship which breaks off and strikes him in the head (Jason, homeless)
Trojan War I (Prelude) Oct 31
Nostoi (Nostalgia of home, home coming)
“Historical” Background
Homer’s works the Illiad and Odyssey represent the earliest poems in Greek literature
We know nothing for the certain of Homer’s life, or even if such a man actually existed- later tradition has him born in Asia Minor or on the island of chios and he is described to be blind
It is believed, because of the relative lack of reference to writing (just once in his works) that the alphabet and the written word were new technology. Primarily for this reason, Homer is supposed to have been active in the 9th century BCE
The Illiad ca 16,000 lines and the Odyssey ca 12,000 lines, represent the class of poetry called “epic” (from the Greek epos=”song”). Epic poetry is characterized both by its meter and by its subject matter of the deeds of heros.
The poems in the form we have them are likely later compilations drawn from earlier oral traditions.
There are diverse views on the world depicted by Homer’s poem : Heinrich Schliemann, claimed to have found the ruins of Troy in northwestern Turkey in 1876 and felt that the works of Homer were literal accounts from the Bronze Age (ca 1200 BCE); however there are elements that do not fit with his appraisal ie in Homer the dead are burned on the large pyres and their remains are gathered in urns, but the archaeological evidence from this period shows that the Mycenaean Greeks buried their dead in graves lined with stone slabs or in beehive-shaped tombs for those that were from royalty
Homer also described a society ruled by chieftains, each ruling over a small territory while in the Bronze Age large centers of power controlled the economy via a professional literate bureaucracy (Linear B evidence shows this)
Other details, however fit well with the Bronze Age eg Boar’s tusk helmets
Some believe the poems describe the conditions in the Dark Age, or that a mixture of details from various periods is described. It seems most likely, however that homer incorporated various features from earlier periods transmitted through the oral tradition and that his poems reflect social and religious values of the 8th century BCE
The Beginning
The House of Atreus ruled from the Argive plain from either Argos or Mycenae
This house was cursed on account of the transgressions of the early members the family
Tantalus the found of this house attempted to test the omniscience of the gods by feeding them his son in a stew at a banquet- Only Demeter, preoccupied with her missing daughter Persephone had a bite. This is why the son, Pelops was missing his shoulders. Hephaestus fashioned a prosthetic one from ivory
Oenomaus, King of the area where the Olympic Games were held, had a daughter (Hippodamia) with whom he fell in love and with whom he tried to have an incestuous relationship. She resisted but he would not allow her to marry another.
Oenomaus set up an impossible task, set up a chariot contest for the hand of his daughter- carry Hippodamia off and don’t get caught by Oenomaus the offspring of the wind. Of course, the suitors were caught and killed and their heads were nailed to the door of the palace.
Pelops (Ivory shoulder, Tantalus son) wished to win Hippodamia’s hand and entered the contest. He had horses which could never tire, gifts from Pelop's lover Poseidon
To the certain of victory, Pelops bribed by Myrtilus the king’s charioteer promising the first night with Hippodamia if he would replace the chariot’s bronze lynch-pins with the ones of wax
As the chariot’s axle heated up, the wax melted and the wheel fell off causing Oenomaus to be killed
Pelops did not honor his promise and threw Myrtilus from a cliff into the sea. As he fell Myrtilus cursed Pelops and his entire line.
Pelops was purified of the murder and returned to the land he renamed the Peloponnesus “island of Pelops” and had many sons including Thyestes (father of Aegisthus) and Atreus (father of Menelaus and Agamemnon)
After Eurytheus’s death (last descendant of Perseus), an oracle advised that the son of Pelops should take the Mycenaean throne. Sibling rivalry, unfaithful Aerope (Atreus’s wife), Thyestes eventually banished.
When Atreus founded out about Thyestes’s affair with his wife and recalled him from abroad
Atreus invited his brother to a feast where he fed Thyestes’s three sons to him. When he found out (shown the heads and limbs), Thyestes cursed his brother and all his line to perpetuity
Thyestes eventually got his revenge when his son Aegisthus, by his daughter Pelopia (oracle)knifed Atreus in the back of; Atreus’s son Menelaus and Agamemnon fled to Sparta and the hospitality of its king Tyndareus
Tyndareus was married to Leda whom Zeus seduced in the guise of a swan on the same night that her husband made love with her – thus Helen and Polydeuces (semi- divine) and Castor and Clytemnestra (mortal) were born
Castor and Polydeuces shared Polydeuces’s immortality on altering days.
Oath of Tyndareus
Clytemnestra was married to Agamemnon and Helen remained unmarried
Helen, bring the most beautiful women in the world was sought by many suitors
Odysseus from an impoverish rocky island knew he had no chance at marrying Helen by devised a solution to the dilemma facing Tyndareus: the rejected suitors were likely to turn on Helen’s father and to seek to overturn the marriage.
Odysseus suggested that all the suitors swear an oath to protect the marriage of the eventual winner of Helen’s hand
The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis
Earlier we learned that Zeus was warned by Prometheus that he would be usurped by the offspring of the union if he gave in to his desire for Thetis. For this information Zeus allowed Heracles to shoot the eagle that devoured Prometheus’s liver and he was released. In order to avoid the prophecy, Zeus had Thetis marry Pelus
Hera, being grateful that Thetis did not sleep with Zeus, arranged a glorious wedding for the couple to which were all invited except Eris “strife”
Angered because she wasn’t invited, Eris rolled a golden apple with a tag stating “to the fairest” into the wedding hall
Hera, Aphrodite and Athena all vied for the apple and were upsetting the reception
Zeus, angered by the ruckus, demanded that an impartial judge decided who was the fairest goddess of them all, Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, a famous ladies man, was chosen to judge.
After Paris’s mother Hecabe had become pregnant with him, she had a dream that she would give birth to a fire brand; a seer interpreted this to mean that her next child would bring about destruction of Troy
In order to stave off this fate, Hercabe had Paris exposed on Mount Ida; however a shepherd found the child and raised him
Paris watching over his flocks, was suddenly faced with the appearance of the three goddesses and was offered bribed by them for a favorable judgment: Hera offered dominion over all the world; Athena offered a glorious military career, Aphrodite offered Paris the most beautiful women in the world.
Paris chose Aphrodite and was consequently given Helen’s love; however she was already married and all the prominent warriors in Greece were bounded by Tyndareus oath to protect his marriage
The Gathering At Aulis
Menelaus rightly angered by the violation of Xenia, appealed to his brother Agamemnon who ruled Mycenae to help and the brothers invoked the oath of Tyndareus and called for all those who swore the oath to gather at Aulis to launch a campaign against Troy
Odysseus although bound to oath tried to avoid going to war by acting like a mad man- he was found ploughing the sand with a plough hitched to a bull and donkey
Palamedes (famed for intelligence, credited with inventing Greek alphabet) wasn’t fooled and grabbed Odysseus young son Telemachus from his mother’s arm and threw the child before the plough; if Odysseus was mad he would push on and kill his child, if not he would stop and prove his sanity. He stopped and in this way, the clever Odysseus was forced to join the expedition.
Calchas, seered declared that the Greek would never succeed at Troy without the help of Achilles who had been hidden by his mother on the island of Scyros
Achilles’s mother Thetis afraid of her son would die in the Trojan War hid him and dressed him as a women
Odysseus devised a plan to find Achilles; He had a girlish trinkets laid out as well as a sword and spear which the “girls” were perusing when a trumpet blast sounded to warn of pirate attack. One “girl” jumped up, grabbed the sword and shield and girded for the fight. In this war, Achilles was found out and he eagerly agreed to go to war
When the Greeks were ready to sail for troy. They found the winds persistently blowing against them
Calchas revealed that Artemis was angered by Agamemnon’s (or Menelaus) boast that even Artemis couldn’t cast a better spear-thrown as they hunted a deer
Agamemnon was told to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis
Iphigenia was summoned, being told she would married to Achilles, and her throat was cut. Another tradition had it that Artemis replaced Iphigenia was a doe and whisked her away to a far-off land where she became a priestess of an even more vengeful foreign, Artemis who demanded human sacrifice of all strangers
The expedition left for Troy and the greatest war ever raged was set to begin
Trojan War Nov 5 the Wraith of Achilles
The theme of the illiad is the rage of Achilles as he quarrels with Agamemnon
The action takes place in the tenth year of the Trojan War
The poem depicts a culture characterized by a Heroic Code that the main characters plays
This world is marked by the horrors of the war presented in an unsentimental fashion as the heroes seek glory and renown
Important Characters
Achilles “The swift runner/swift-footed” Leader of the Myrmidons “ant”, son of Peleus and Thetis raised on Mt.Pelion by the wise Centaur Chiron. Patroclus is his BFF. When still a child, Thetis placed Achilles in a fire to burn away his mortality and make him immortal, but was interrupted…. Another version has it has that she dipped Achilles’ in the River Styx, holding the child by the heel (hence “Achille’s heel and subsequently “Achilles’s Tendon)
Agamemnon “lord of men”- son of Atreus and commander of the Greek forces at Troy
Priam “old and noble” King of Troy and father of Hector and 49 other sons who all die in the conflict
Hector “man killing”- son of Priam, a noble warrior who fights to protect troy. He is Troy’s only hope and his destiny is entwined with Troys.
Menelaus “dear to Ares”- brother of Agamemnon and husband to Helen
Aeneas- The only lone survivor of the royal house of Troy (Anchises, his father was Priam’s cousin), son of Aphrodite. He was destined, as Poseidon states “to rule the men of Troy in power- his sons, sons and the sons born in future years” (Illiad 20.335-6). He later established the beginnings of the Roman people in Italy after many wanderings and hardships. The Romans believed they were the descendants of these Trojans
Chryseis- father of Chryseus, a girl captured by Agamemnon as a war prize (Chryses, a priest of Apollo, calls on the god to help return her and he unleashes his arrows bringing plague to the Greek camp)
Briseis- Achille’s war prize taken from him by Agamemnon and the source of the quarrel between the two men
The Gods are an active part, Hera is stinging and unhappy with the Trojans. Apollo was on the side of Trojans (Worshipped), Poseidon, Zeus (over seer) holding up scales, weighs the fate of states.
The Plot
Agamemnon is forced by the plague that is raging through Achaean, Argive/ Danaan/ Greek camp to return Chryseis, but his pride demands that he take another girl instead. He seizes Achille’s war-prize Briseis and inflames Achilles anger
The quarrel almost leads to blows as Achille’s contemplate assassination, he had started to draw his sword when, Athena persuades Achilles to calm down and to use words rather than weapons against Agamemnon
As a result of Agamemnon’s actions. Achilles withdraws to his tent and refuses to fight. He also ask his mother Thetis, to whom Zeus owes a favor, to make the Greeks pay so that they will see how wrong they were in allowing Agamemnon to insult Achilles.
Meanwhile, without Achilles in the ranks, the Trojans are gaining the upper hand
A famous scene occurs when Hector leaves the fighting to return to the city and to see his family. Hector’s wife Andromache pleads with him not to return to war fearing for his life. She asks him to remember his son Astyanax and herself doomed to widowhood
Hector states that he worries for the considerations she has brought up, but even more for his reputation in the eyes of the people of Illium (Troy). This is an all-important aspect of the heroic code.
When Hector goes to hold his child, Astyanax is terrified by the crest of his helmet and his armor. He removes his helmet and has a very touching moment as he cradles his son in his arms and prays.
When Achilles withdrawn from battle, the Greeks are now losing the war and Agamemnon begins to regret his actions and sends an embassy to Achilles offering great rewards if Achilles will rejoin the fight
Achilles refuses the offer stating
As much as I hate the gates of Hades, Do I hate the man who says one thing, secretly another” (Illiad 9.312-3)
Achilles knows what type of man Agamemnon is and does not trust his word
Achilles states that because of Agamemnon’s greed, the coward and the brave man gets the same reward.
While giving his response to the embassy sent by Agamemnon, Achilles reveals the choice placed before him by his mother
Now things are even worst for the Greeks and Patroclus, Achilles best friend comes to him asking to use his armor so that he would strike fear in the Trojan hearts and drive them back from the Greek ships. Achilles reluctantly agrees, but warns Patroclus about Hector
Patroclus enters the battle in Achilles armor and kills many Trojans including Sapredon (Zeus’s son) and the god is tempted to save him, as Hera gives him this advice
Despite Achille’s warning, Patroclus faces Hector near the city walls and is killed
Achilles is now filled with murderous rage and rejoins the battle. He is more of a demon than man at his point and kills so many Trojans that the Scamander River becomes clogged with bodies. The warrior’s ethos of death is well articulated by Achilles
The death of Hector
All the Trojans warriors except Hector, retreat behind the city walls to avoid Achilles wraith
Hector’s mother and father call down to him from the walls, but he refuses to retreat and faces Achilles
Hector runs around the city walls three times and then makes his stand. First trying to make a pact that the victor treat the defeated man’s body with respect
Achilles is unmoved.
Athena helps Achilles by impersonating the Trojan Deiphobus (Hector thinks he’ll have some help) and furthermore and returns Achilles spear to him after he launches it
Hector launches his own spear, but Achilles shield deflects it and when Hector calls to Deiphobus for another he realizes he is not present and doomed
Achilles spears the charging Hector in the throat (misses the windpipe- lets us the last words “don’t let the dogs devour my body, give it over to my parents”)
Achilles refuses and lashes Hector’s corpse to his chariot and drags him around the city walls
Later, king of Priam sneaks into the Greek camp at night and begs for his son’s corpse. Achilles
Nov 7 The Fall of Troy
Paris with Apollo’s help, killed Achilles by shooting him in the heel with an arrow
There was a fierce fighting surrounding the body of the fallen hero. Ajax finally recovered the corpse and brought it back to the Greek Camp
A great funeral was held for Achilles – 17days of Mourning
Achilles was cremated with his ashes being placed an urn mixed with those of his friend Patroclus
A great tumulus was raised and Thetis held funeral games for her son.
After Achilles death, his armor was offered as a prize to the next-best warrior
Ajax was widely viewed as the most likely candidate and he and Odysseus gave speeches before an assembly
Athena presided and asks him if he knows a greater living hero than Ajax, Odysseus replies that he does not but pities his folly nevertheless: “We men who live are nothing more than ghosts and weightless shadows”
Odysseus got the armor by convincing the Greeks, with testimonials from captured Trojans that it was Odysseus intelligence, not Ajax martial prowess that caused the Troy the most harm
Ovid Metamorphoses 13.382 ff. “The eloquent man took away the armor of the great warrior, Ajax who opposed iron missiles and fire and Jupiter’s will, could not resist one thing, anger”
In his madness, Ajax believed he was cutting down the Greek commanders as he slaughtered a flock of sheep…
With many of the greatest warriors on both sides dead, the Trojan war continued seemingly interminable
Calchas, the seer that laid out the conditions for the Greeks to obtain victory Troy
Neoptolemus (Achille’s Son) would have to join the Greek forces
The Palladium, a wooden statue of Athena had to be obtained by the Greeks (taken either by Odysseus and/or Diomedes)
The bow of Heracles would have to be used in the battle (it was left with Philoctetes on Lemnos)
These conditions were met and Philoctetes even killed Paris with Heracles bow but the city did not fall
The Trojan Horse
Odysseus, famed for his intelligence, instructed an artisan to construct a huge wooden horse
Fifty warriors concealed themselves within it
The Greeks burned their camp and feigned their return to Greece
The Trojans awake the next day to find no troops, only a giant horse, on the plain where the battle had raged for so long.
Sinon, a badly injured Greek, emerged from the bush and told the Trojans that the Greeks had left giving up hope that they could take Troy
He said that the horse was an offering to Athena from the Greeks for a safe passage back to their homeland
Laocoon, a Trojan priest of Poseidon, suspected the horse contained Greek warriors and came forward denouncing Sinon, like all Greeks, as a liar:”beware Greeks, even bearing gifts” Urging that they destroy the horse, he he hurled his spear at it
At that the very moment, two serpents arose from the sea and strangled the priest and his sons at the spot. The Trojans (wrongly) took this as a sign that Laocoon had angered the gods by refusing the offering. (Laocoon was fucking in Poseidon’s temple and Poseidon was angry)
The Trojans brought the horse within their walls
They had a raucous party and when the Trojans had all passed-out the Greek troops descended from the horse and open the city gates to their remaining force which had been hiding on the nearby island of Tenedos
Greeks slaughtered the men and took the women as captives
King Priam met his pitiable end at the hands of Neoptolemus, Achilles’s son, at the altar of Zeus
Menelaus found Helen in her bedroom and was about to kill her, but she bared her breasts begging for her life and he put aside his anger
Another Ajax (son of Oileus) raped Cassandra as she clung to a statue of Athena, thus inciting Athena’s anger and creating much trouble for the Greeks as they returned home
Odysseus commanded that Astyanax, Hector’s son, be thrown to his death from the city walls “Only a fool kills the father and allows the son to live.”
Neoptolemus sacrificed Polyxena, Priam’s youngest daughter at the tomb of Achilles
Few Trojans males survived, most notable Aeneas who carried his father Anchises on his shoulders as he led his young son Ascanius (lulus) from the burning Troy
Nov 14 The Cursed House of Atreus
Aeschylus Oresteia produced in 458 BCE
Tragic reinterpretation of Homeric Myth
3 plays (only surviving trilogy): Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers (Choephori, Eumenides (The Kindly Ones)
Family conflicted and murder
The Eumenides are spirits of blood vengeance personifying revenge (Vendetta)
Movement from violence and retribution to a more “civilized” mode
Issues of blood vengeance and filial duty at Argos become ones of civic law and religious ethics in Athens
Epic scope (as far as tragedies go)- starts in Argos ends at Delphi ten years later
Aeschylus saw radical change at Athens in his lifetime (democratic reform)
Veterans of battles of the Marathon 490 BCE (Greeks vs Persians)
Aeschylus plays comment on Athens’ young democracy
What is justice? Revenge (ancient unwritten law Unending cycles of violence: Tantalus and Pelops, etc Thyestes slept with Atreus wife; Atreus feeds Thyestes’s son
Agamemnon
Thyestes and Atreus conflict over the throne of Mycenae and the Thyestes curse
Clytemnestra (helen’s mortal sister) has been having an affair with Aegisthus (Agamemnon’s cousin, son of Thyestes)
Athena anger over Cassandra’s treatment at her sanctuary- a great storm destroys the Greek fleet (Agamemnon one of the few survivors)
Agamemnon is returning from Troy to his palace at Argos
A signal fire gives notice that Troy has fallen
Agamemnon arrive in chariot with Cassandra at his side
Cassandra foretells trouble, but no one believes him
Clytemnestra wastes no time and murder Agamemnon (net)
Aegisthus an accessory (Thyestes’ curse)
Clytemnestra says Agamemnon had it coming (Iphigenia)
Play ends with Aegisthus joining Clytemnestra on stage
The Libation Bearers
Named for the chorus of women (feature of Tragedy)
Orestes (Agamemnon’s son, now grown) returns from Delphi with his friend Pylades
Oracle orders him to avenge his father
Orestes strops at his father’s grave
Clytemnestra dreams she gave birth to a viper which bites her breasts
Concerned the dreams are Agamemnon’s doing, Clytemnestra sends her daughter Electra to Agamemnon’s grave to make a libation
At their father’s grave, Orestes reveals himself to his sister Electra (bitter about things)
They plot their mother’s death
Orestes pretends he is a messenger bringing news of his own death and enters palace
Aegisthus comes to hear the news and Orestes kills him
When Clytemnestra hears this shout she asks a servant “what is the meaning of that shout?” He responds, “It means the living are being killed by the dead.”
Hesitant at first, Orestes at the urging of Pylades (“ remember the oracle; better that men hate you than the gods”) kills his mother
Orestes: “It is not I, it is you who killed yourself”
Clytemnestra’s last words are “Ah me, I gave birth to a snake and not a son.”
At that very moment the Furies (Erinyes) creates that demand blood vengeance for the murdered kin appear and torment Orestes haunting him constantly and drive him mad
The Eumendies (the kindly ones)
The play opens with Orestes having gone to Delphi to be purified of his crime
The ghost of Clytemnestra urges the furies (born from Uranus blood) on, demanding vengeance, “blow about his head your blood breath, consume his flesh in bellyfuls of fire”
The furies go to Delphi to hound Orestes and Apollo holds them off threatening to use his arrows against them
The furies say that it is Apollo’s fault for all the matricide (oracle): Apollo says he told Orestes to avenge his father (Agamemnon’s demand of vengeance)
Apollo orders Orestes to go to be tried at a law court at Athens presided over by Athena
Orestes arrives at Athens and throws himself at the statue of Athena as a supplicant
The Furies arrive, declaring it is their divine right to persecute those who kill their own blood kin, and the Olympians have no right to interfere with this ancient prerogative (Apollo has purified Orestes)
Athena sees justice on both sides so she turns the case over to a jury of twelve Athenian citizens who hear the case on the Areopagus “hill of Ares” near the Acropolis (First court room drama in western lit)
The furies acts as the “pr
Apollo finishes with the centerpiece of his legal argument –the parent is the man, the mother merely the nurse of the man’s seed
Apollo gives proof of this argument in the “fact” that a man can bear a children without a women ie Zeus and Athena, therefore, technically Orestes didn’t kill his own kindred blood (as the prosecution groans)
Ancient agricultural metaphor of reproduction (fact of Greek beliefs at this time)
There is a hung jury evenly split between conviction and acquittal
Athena always sides with the male, cast her vote acquittal
“No women ever laboured through my birth…. Thus siding with the father, I cannot place an equal value on the woman’s death who killed her husband, guardian of the home.”
Athena appeases the Furies (Erinyes) by giving them a permanent place of honor of Athens (a cave still visible today on the side of the Acropolis) and renamed them the “Kindly ones” (Eumenides)
Other sources tell us that Orestes returned home and ruled Mycenae, Argos and Sparta
Athens and Argos has a traditional alliance based on Orestes gratitude to Athena
Aeschylus overall allegory is that Athens, the ideal city state (polis) replaces a violent, archaic and heroic world with one based on isonomic principles which display the human capacity for intelligent resolution of primitive and self-destructive practices that may seem innate.
Nov 21 the Odyssey: Odysseus’ homeward Journey
Odysseus displays the bravery, fighting skills, and leadership qualities of the epic hero, but is defined by his extraordinary intelligence
Unlike other heroes, he deals with problems with cunning instead of brute force
A great grandson of Hermes (Odysseus grandfather Autolycus was a thief and liar who could make himself and other things he stole invisible)
Though brainy, he’s also brawny (no one could string his bow but him)
Athena is his greatest ally (helps him disguise when necessary). The Odyssey opens with Zeus promising Athena that Odysseus will return safely to lthaca
Zeus statues that morals blame the gods for their troubles but bring more than their share of suffering on themselves- major theme for the ancients
A type of “comedy” to lliad’s “tragedy”
Odysseus recounts the harrowing tale of his homeward journey at the court of King Alcinous of Phaeacia
He has been away for 20 years (10 years at Troy, 3 wandering at sea and 7 on the island of the Nymph Calypso)
Odysseus, commander of 12 ships, raids Ismaurus the city of the Cicones, losses six men from each ship because the men refused to leave, wishing to enjoy the spoils of their
Those who escape are caught in the storm and driven south of lthaca
They end up in the land of Lotus Eaters (locals consume a drug that makes men forget their home and purpose)
The land of the Cyclopes
Odysseus goes to the island of the Cyclopes and encounters Polyphemus “much-reowned”
The Cyclopes are uncivilized: they don’t cultivate the land, build ships, have any form of government and are hermits
The island seems like paradise to the men: perfect harbor, plentiful sheep, lot of fresh water, and pleasant surroundings
The men feast on the fresh meat and wash it down with “mellow wine” (From the Ciconian raid)
On the following day, Odysseus and a few comrades go explore the island and its people, and catch the sight of Polyphemus sleeping in his cave: “his frame was enormous, atrocious, unlike bread-eating humans”
Odysseus and a dozen of his men set out from their ship. Odysseus brings some potent wine given to him by Maron, a priest of Apollo at Ismaurus, which he thought might come in handy
When they get to the cave, the monster isn’t there and Odysseus and his comrades wonder at the baskets full of cheese and at the abundance of lambs
The men urge that they grab some food and run: Odysseus wants to see what gifts Polyphemus might offer in the spirit of Xenia
The men were eating when Polyphemus returned from his daily routine and closed them all in with a giant rock.
Polyphemus catches sight of the men cowering in the corner, is angry and asks where the men are keeping their ship (red flag) and the quick thinking Odysseus say that they were shipwrecked
Odysseus tells them of their difficulties after Troy and he asks one thing: “Grant us a kindly reception…we kneel before you, whom Zeus defender of strangers defends as full as who those to whom honor is owed to as guest”
“We Cyclopes pay no attention to Zeus or the other immortal because we are stronger by far.” Then Polyphemus grabs two crewmen and smashes them to the ground, killing them. He then proceeds to eat the two men and have a nap
Odysseus thinks of stabbing the monster, but thinks of the immovable rock at the cavern entrance, and thinks again; the next morning Polyphemus eats two more men for breakfast.
Polyphemus removes the boulder from the cave and goes out to tend to his flocks. Odysseus finds a long take, has his men sharpen it and harden it in the fire and they wait for him
Polyphemus eats two more of Odysseus comrades. Odysseus “drink up now that your cannibal orgy is over.”
Odysseus then plies Polyphemus with the wine from the Maron he had brought from the ship (so strong a 1/20 wine/water mix recommended)
Polyphemus gets drunk, becomes chatting and ask Odysseus his name: The hero replies “nobody”
Polyphemus says, “I’ll eat you last, Nobody. That will be your gift” and then vomits and passes out
Odysseus and his men then take the opportunity to drive the sake into the unconscious Polyphemus eye
Hearing him screaming, the other Cyclopes come running and ask what’s wrong?” “Nobody wants to kill me by treachery and not by brute force!
The next morning the blinded Polyphemus moved the rock from the entrance and Odysseus and his men escaped under the bellies of the giants ram
Odysseus then even tells Polyphemus his real name as he and his men escape and tells him to spread of the word: “Tell them Odysseus put out my eye, Odysseus sacker of cities…. Who dwells in lthaca, lord of its palace”
Polyphemus is Poseidon’s son and asks his father to punish Odysseus
Poseidon’s curse: Odysseus will suffer a ten year delay in reaching home, lose all his men and have great troubles at home when he gets there.
After the island other of Cyclopes, Odysseus finds himself at the island of Aeolus, the wind-king. He gives Odysseus a bag in which are trapped all the dangerous winds
Odysseus’s men open the bag just as they catch sight of lthaca and they get thrown off in another direction
They arrive at the land of Laestrygonians, who pelted the fleet with the giant boulders and scoop up and eat the men. All perish except Odysseus and his crew who escape Aeaea, the land of Circe
Circe turns Odysseus companions into pigs
Odysseus is given a herb called moly by Hermes, which will protect him from Circe’s magic
Odysseus is protected and eventually sleeps with Circe and they all stay there for a year.
After a year, Odysseus men convince him of their purpose and they leave
Circe tells them that they must cross the river ocean and question Tiresias, survive Scylla and Charybdis, and that they were prohibited from eating the cattle of Helius (the sun)
The men approach the island of the Sirens and are attracted by their deadly song
Odysseus stops up him companions ears with wax and has himself tied to the ship’s mast, ordering his men to keep him tied up no matter how much he resists.
They must face Scylla (monster with six-heads) and Charybdis (a whirlpool) situated in a narrow strait
Odysseus skirts the cliff-face to avoid Charybdis and Scylla snatches up 6 of his crew
They arrive at the island of Helius, where he keeps his cattle, Stuck there, the men have to resort eating fish!
Finally the men rebel, and when Odysseus is sleeping they kill and cook some of the cattle
Helius complains to Zeus, who strikes the ship with his lightning bolt and all die except Odysseus
Odysseus washes up on Ogyia, Calypso’s island is a beautiful nymph who loves Odysseus and offers him immortality. He refuses, thinking of his wife Penelope
He stays with Calypso for seven years and finally Athena convinces Zeus to release Odysseus from his suffering at the hand of Poseidon
Hermes arrives to deliver the message from Zeus that Calypso must let Odysseus go…
Nov 26 Odysseus ll Odysseus Returns to lthaca
Odysseus raids Ismarus
Bad weather- Lotus Eaters
Polyphemus- Cyclope
Aeolus (Wind god)
Laestrygonians (fleet lost)
Odysseus & Circa (1 year Odysseus directed to visit the underworld)
Sirens, Scylla & Charybdis
Cattle of Helius (Zeus sinks Odysseus ship & his crewmen)
Calypso (7 years then Odysseus allowed to build raft & leaves)
Odysseus nears the shore of Scheria, Island of the Phaeacians, ruled by the King Alcinous, Poseidon sends a storm and Odysseus raft is destroyed and he nearly drowns
Odysseus swims for three days; he gets help from the sea-goddess Leucothea (formerly Ino, Semele’s sister)
Odysseus washes ashore at Scheria and goes to sleep
The night before Athena visited Nausicaa, King Alcinous’s daughter, in a dream. The goddess advised her to do laundry next day
Nausicaa and her friends awake Odysseus and he emerges naked from the bushes
All of Nausicaa’s friends flee, but she remains and Odysseus compliments he beauty (compares her to a goddess)
Nausicaa calls back her maids who bathe Odysseus and give him some clothes
The group returns to the city with Odysseus shrouded in a mist
When they arrive at the court of King Alcinous Odysseus recounts his tale
The Phaeacians treated Odysseus well, give him gifts and transported him back to Ithaca (back in 20 years)
Odysseus at Ithaca
Odysseus lands on Ithaca in a fog
He seeks out his swineherd Eumaeus who does not recognize Odysseus
Although he doesn’t recognize Odysseus, Eumaeus treats him well according to custom
Meanwhile Penelope, Odysseus’s wife (Tyndareus niece), is under pressure from a number of suitors to abandon Odysseus’s memory to take one of them as a husband
Because of these suitors, Telemachus Odysseus’s son is in danger and leaves for Sparta and Pylos to find news about his father
Telemachus returns and meets his father and tells him what has been happening in his palace.
Odysseus disguised as a beggar, makes his way to the palace
Argus the dog
When he enters the palace Odysseus is abused by the suitors led by Antinous
After throwing things at Odysseus, they complain of how Penelope promised to marry one of them when she’d finish weaving burial shroud of Laertes
Penelope speaks to her husband in disguise (back soon)
Nurse Euryclea washes the beggar’s feet (scar on thigh)
Showdown at the Palace
Encouraged by Athena, Penelope tells the suitors she will marry the winner of a contest on the following day
The winner will be who can string Odysseus’s bow and shoot an arrow through the holes of twelve axe handles
All the suitors try and are unsuccessful and so Telemachus suggests they let the beggar try
Odysseus easily strings the bows and shoots an arrow through the axe handles
Throwing off his rags, Odysseus stood in the doorway, poured out his arrows before him on the ground and addressed the suitors
Odysseus shoots the suitors with his arrows and kills all 108 of them.
Dragon-combat (vs something voracious “devouring his substance” and sexually-threatening “whoring with the maidservants”- 108 heads) often overcome by a trick, often at a drunken banquet (cf. Perseus & Phineus) gets “princess” as a reward.
In Mesopotamian myth and in Hesiod, stories such as this represent the triumph of order over disorder, life and progress over death cf. also Apollo vs. she-dragon at Delphi- “a dread female dragon…crimson plague that she was if anyone stumbled upon her, doomsday carried him off- until Apollo… let fly a death dealing bow.”
The hero’s victory over death is a preoccupation: Odysseus repeatedly battles with sleep and other allies of death: falls asleep on Helius’s land, stupefied state with Lotus eaters, a darkness of Polyphemus’ cave (regaining of identity) cf. recognition scene with Penelope after killing suitors.
Ambiguous females in Odyssey- helpful and harmful (cf. Gaea a symbol of death and an enemy of the “civilized” world but she also comspires with Cronus as does Rhea with Zeus to help establish the new order)
Calypso and Circe are dangerous and seductive females, cf. Inanna/Ishtar
Circle literally threatens to castrate the hero and turns men to lustful animals
Calypso promises immortality but also stasis = death for the hero.
Positive female relationships: Athena (protector); Nausicaa, Penelope
Penelope is the ideal women in the Homeric world: long-suffering, ever faithful, intelligently defends honor of her home, and shows she is a match of Odysseus’s wits with her test re: marriage-bed
The relationships between Odysseus and the women of Odysseus help shape the store and define the hero himself.
Odysseus may be contrasted with Agamemnon and Telemachus with Orestes
Near the beginning of the Odyssey, Zeus lays blame for human misery with humans themselves, citing Clytemnestra. She gave in to sexual desire, committed adultery and killed her husband and she represents the opposite of Penelope
After the fighting ends, Penelope comes down from her room and sees the massacre that has occurred, but is leery of the blood-soaked stranger
Penelope tests Odysseus by telling the nurse to prepare the bed which Odysseus had built, now placed outside the room
Odysseus then tells Penelope the secret of the bed’s construction.
Nov 28 Roman Myth 1
Roman myth was informed by Greek myth (8th cent. BCE contact with Greek colonist)
Greeks & Romans in the ancient world (146 BCE)
No creation myth and almost no divine myths
Roman myth= Roman legend = early Roman History
Propaganda and myth at Rome
Moral of the story more important than its historical accuracy (politics and myth)
Started as a small village on the Tiber river and the surrounding hills and became the centre of an empire which held sway over much of the known world
Traditionally founded in 753 BCE (ad urbe condita…)
Contact with the Greeks and Phoenicians (inscriptions with the names of gods- Roman acceptance and assimilation of cultural aspects from other societies)
Roman Government
Roman was ruled by an Etruscan monarchy (overthrown, instituted republic=res publica in 509 BCE)
Patrician oligarchy excluded the plebeians (lower class) who fought for more political rights
Senate (senex= “old man”) passed laws and made decisions of peace and war, Consuls (two elected yearly, originally in charge on alternate months, alternate days at war)
Fasces the consular symbol for the power of imperium (power to command army and to enforce the law ( 12 lictors carrying the fasces, accompanied the Consuls & dictator)
Patrician families created legendary traditions about their ancestors to justify their monopoly on power
The old patrician oligarchy began to disintegrate because of infighting within the ruling elite
Julius Cesar (100-44 BCE) used the plebeians to gain power and became so powerful he was named hostis (public enemy) by his enemies in the Senate at Rome. He crossed the Rubicon river and a civil war against Pompey (Neptune) ensued.
Caesar named dictator for life, assassinated by Marcus Brutus (he claimed descent from Lucius Junius Brutus, the legendary founder of Roman Republic). By this action the leading families hoped to re-establish their oligarchy.
Caesar’s party rallied under his right-hand man Mark Antony (Herakles) and his grandnephew Octavian (Venus- from Caesar) and they defeated the Senatorial armies
Mark Antony and Octavian eventually had a falling out and the victor Octavian eventually became Augustus, Rome’s first Emperor.
Roman Religion
Whereas Greek religion regarded its deities as possessing immortality, superhuman power and human psychology, indigenous Roman deities tended to be personifications with only the power of assent or dissent
The Latin verb nuo “nod” give us the name numina for such deities
These are spirits that can inhabit any object and can be petitioned
Does characterized the transactional nature of Roman religion e.g the Robigalia (in exchange for the healthy crop, they offered wine, incense and a sheep’s gut)
The ceremony where the exchange was made as called a sacrificium
The will of the numina was discerned through divination
With time the abstract and the colorless numina started to take on more “personality”
Janus, originally just a numen of bridges…
Augustus closed gate of Janus in 30 BCE after they have been opened for more than 200 years
Roman & Greek Deities
Emperor Augustus saw the usefulness of poetry as a means of communicating the ideals, aims and justification of his power
These poets came into contact with Greek poetic conventions and began to equate numina with Greek Gods
Jupiter is etymologically linked to Zeus (di- “shining”). Jupiter as a numen was worshipped by the Romans in various manifestations; rain and lightning- his animal, the eagle came to be associated with Roman power
Juno- numen of women and childbirth = Hera
Ceres – wheat = Demeter
Diana- spirit of the woods, associated with women and childbirth = Artemis.
Mercury is a direct import from the Greek Hermes and is given name evocative of hus commercial activities (merx= merchandise )
Mars is the protector of flocks and a god of war associated with Ares
Minerva was numen of handicrafts and subsequently associated with Athena
Liber, god of wine = Dionysus
Faunus is numen of the terror of the dark forest and is associated with Pan (cf. Pan-ic)
Venus is associated with the springs and water sources, therefore fertility and consequently is identified with Aphrodite
Hercules=Heracules
Dis, Roman god of death is short for diues = rich, a translation of the Greek Pluto
Roman Gods of Family and State
Despite the Greek influence of Roman religion, there were aspects that were completely Roman with no Greek equivalent
The Lar, plural Lares are protective spirits, worshipped at crossroads
Every year at the Lararium a small doll for each family member is a ball of wool for every slave was suspended (possibly a substitute for human sacrifice)
Penates were spirits of storehouse originally- penus means “cupboard” which late came be to associated with the welfare of the state
Vesta was equated with Hestia – associated with the hearth and the health of the state as a whole (six Vestal Virgins tended to the fire which Aeneas brought from Troy)
The Legend of Aeneas
Vergil was one of Augustus top poets
The Aeneid was left unfinished when Vergil died in 19 BCE (poet ordered it to be burned)
Pius Aeneas, a Trojan prince was the son of Venus and Anchises and was destined to survive the Trojan war and establish the Roman people in Italy
He sails from Troy and, on one of the stops (Strophades) gets the prophecy from a Harpy that they will wander until “hunger” will make them eat their tables”
Polyphemus attacks them in Sicily
Having sailed around Mediterranean for 7 years they came to Carthage, ruled by Dido (fell in love, he left, she commits suicide)
Explains why Rome & Carthage were enemies.
When they arrive in Italy, Aeneas consults with Sibly (prophetess who informs that he must travel to the underworld)
Sibly drugs Cerberus with a honey cake
Aeneas encounters Dido
When in the underworld Aeneas is shown famous sinners by the Sibyl and glorious Romans are pointed out by his father Anchises with the Roman “mission statement”
After returning to the upper world, Aeneas and his men sail north to the mouth of the Tiber River
Latium is ruled by Latinus whose daughter, Lavinia is betrothed to Turnus king of the local Rutlians
Latinus receives oracular advice that tells him to marry his daughter to a foreigner – Aeneas
War erupts between the indigenous Italians and the Trojans
Aeneas makes an alliance with Evander, a local king and promises to look after his son Pallas
Turnus kills Pallas in battle and takes his sword-belt
Aeneas faces Turnus in battle, Turnus begs for his life and Aeneas nearly relents, until he sees Turnus wearing Pallas’ sword-belt and he kills him (what about: “forgive the beaten and the humble”??)
Dec 3 Romulus and Remus
Like Venus, Mars as a father of Romulus and Remus was also one of the progenitors of the Roman people
Rome’s civil was issues has early precedent in Romulus and Remus (Mars Ultor “Mars the avenger”)
12 generations after Aeneas’s son Ascanius/lulus founded a royal dynasty at Alba Longa, Romulus and Remus were born
Numitor and Amulius fought for the throne of the Silivan Dynasty (after Aeneas grandson Aeneas Silivus- Numitor driven into exile, sons all killed and his daughter Rhea Silvia forced to become a Vestal Virgin)
Rhea Silvia gives birth to twins, says Mars is the father (violated taboo)
She is thrown into a dungeon cf. Danae (traditional punishment: shut-in a tomb with a loaf of bread, jug of water and a lighted lamp) and her babies were ordered thrown in swollen Tiber river.
When the waters receded, the babies were suckled by a she-wolf (cf. Paris & bear, Zeus
& goat).
Remus is captured by bandits, handed over to his hated uncle Amulius who, inexplicably hands him over to Numitor recognizes Remus as his grandson
They conspire and kill Amulius and restore their grandfather to the throne
The twins settle the area around where they were exposed as infants and occupy two of Rome’s seven hills
The twins quarrel over who will be king (portents: vultures 6 for Remus, 12 for Romulus)
2 verisons: Remus killed in a melee as supporters of each twin battled; or Romulus killed Remus for jumping over his half-finished city wall: “this is what will happen to all else who try the same!”
City was then named at Romulus
The rape of the Sabine Women
Rome was not founded, but only people to populate it were runaway slaves, bandits and murderers – no women
Romulus went to nearby communities to find wives for his people but all refused, so he came up with a plan of snatching women from a neighboring town
Romans held a festival and invited neighboring townspeople to attend
When the festival began, the Romans seized the Sabine women and took them away.
The abducted woman were afraid and angry but Romulus promised them they would be wives and mothers and come to love their husbands
The Sabine King Titus Tatius declared war on the Romans and it dragged on for years
Tarpeia betrayed her homeland by showing the Sabines the back way up the Capitoline hill either because she fell in love with a Sabine or because she was bribed
She demanded “what the Sabines wear on their left arms” for payments (she thought gold bracelets); the Sabine’s crushed her under the weight of their shields (also worn on the left arm)- the Tarpeian Rock
On the day of the decisive battle, the forces assembled ready to fight when the Sabine women rushed between the lines and begged the men, their fathers and brothers on one side and their husbands on the other, not to kill each other in battle.
The Horatii and the Curiatii
Sometime during the Roman monarchy (seven kings) the story of the Horatii takes place
The Romans were at war with Alba Longa and it was decided to settle the issue with a 3 on 3 combat of the Horatii (Roman) vs the Curiatii (Alban)
The Horatii swear on an oath to return with their shield or on it
Straightway, two of the Horatii were killed. The remaining Horatius turned and ran, causing the pursuing Curiatii to become separated from each other, Horatius turned back and killed them 1 by 1.
When Horatius returned, he found his sister crying for her dead fiancée (one of the Curitaii) and killed her with his sword: “Go to your lover, since you have forgotten your brothers… and your country too!” May every Roman women die who laments an enemy!”
Horatius tried for murder, but acquitted and forced to walk beneath a yoke (ancient convention)
Tullia and Tarquin the Proud
Tullia was the daughter of the sixth king of Rome, Servius Tullius
She conspired with her brother in-law Tarquin to kill his wife (Tullia’s sister) and her own husband and to kill King Servius Tullius so they could rule Rome together
Tarquin sat down in the king’s seat in the Senate- house and when the king Servius Tullius came to see what was happening, Tarquin threw the old king down the steps to his death
Tullia drove her carriage over her father’s dead body and was spattered with his blood
Tarquin “the proud” became the final king of Rome.
Lucretia and the end of the Monarchy
The son Tarquin the Proud, Sextus Tarquin fell in love with Lucretia, the wife of another
Sextus Tarquin came to Lucretia’s house and was received as a guest. When everyone went to sleep he entered Lucretia’s bedchamber and threatened to kill her if she didn’t submit to him
On the next day she summoned her family and some friends (including Lucius Junius Brutus) and recounted her tale and then killed herself.
Brutus removed the dagger from Lucretia and swore on it to drive out the monarchy
The republic was established with Brutus and Tarquin Collatnius (Lucretia’s husband) as the first consuls.
Later , Brutus had his sons executed for plotting against the republic while he kept his eyes fixed on the execution
Lars Porsenna, The Etruscan King, raised an army to help restore Tarquin to the throne of Rome
City could not be taken unless the bridge over the Tiber was crossed
Horatius cocles and two others went to the far side of bridge and made a stand while the bridge was destroyed behind them
Horatius Cocles swam back in his armor- Roman bravery
Mucius Scaevola snuck into Lars Porsenna’s camp and killed the King’s secretary. When brought to before Porsenna, Mucius said there were 300 men as committed as him. To show his commitment, he burned off his right hand in a fire. King Posenna was impressed, let Mucius “lefty” Scaevola go back to Rome and gave up the attack
Thus the Roman Republic was firmly established
Dec 5 Myths of Death
Ancient Greeks held a dismal view of the after live
The Greek view of death prompted them to seek happiness in this world
A major theme in the Greek mythology, particularly heroic myth is the evasion of death; some figures achieve this by becoming gods or obtaining immortality in another way
Another recurring theme is that of the hero facing death, literally with a descent and return from the underworld
Among others there are three important figures who travel to the underworld: Odysseus, Orpheus and Aeneas.
The Greek conception of Death
Whereas we think of death as a natural process, the ancient Greeks saw it as influenced by outside forces
These hostile forces included: natural phenomena (storms, earthquakes, etc): enemies in battle: the inexplicable powers of gods, ghosts, sorcerers and priests which were believed to be manifested as disease
Ancients saw choice and action as responsible for every eventuality and believed that humans are victims of these choices (cf. Zeus’s statement at the beginning of the Odyssey)
Even when external event was clearly a cause of death, a malevolent god or spirit could be blamed. In the lliad we see the gods protect and harm humans at their will
Hades, who received the underworld when he and his brothers divided the world among themselves, ruled over the dead.
Hades was euphemistically called: Pluto “the enricher” (Dis or Dives- “rich” to the Romans): Polydegmon “receiver of many”; Polyxeno “host to many”. In the same way many today avoid the word die or death, so too did the ancients avoid calling Hades by his real name
Most ancient Greeks believed that after the individual continued to exist, but in a diminished form
The body would decay, but the soul would remain as a dim reminder of the former life (an eidolon “image” only remained)
The soul was associated with the breath ie. Greek would psyche (originally meant breath) and the Latin anima which derives from the Greek anemos “wind” cf. “psychology and animal”- breathing distinguishes the living from the dead
The breath is what remains as a wisp of the former life and having been separated from the living body continues on as a ghost
Ghosts aren’t always hostile but are more often than not. These ghosts are jealous of the physical pleasures afforded to the living.
Many customs are a result trying to ward off the anger of the dead: valued possessions such as weapons and jewelry buried with the dead or burned on the pyre (so the dead wouldn’t think of the living were benefitting from their death): to show their sadness at the fate of the dead, women wore mourning clothes, there hair was left disheveled and they beat and scratched their faces and breasts
Tombs imitated the houses of the living to appease the dead
Ghosts were considered unintelligent and easily confused and, therefore, Hermes role as psychhopompos was so important
Loud noises frighten ghosts- eg mourners made a lot of noise and people make a lot of noise at weddings where ghosts jealously congregate to watch the living celebrate
The dead were permitted to mingle with the living for a time, at the Athenian festival called the Anthesteria and then were commanded at the end of the festival “out the door you go, souls of the dead, the Antheseteria is finished” cf. Halloween
Odysseus and the Underworld
Homer’s Odysseus gives us our first detailed look at a popular Greek belief regarding death
Odysseus is instructed by Circe to seek the advice of Tiresias in the underworld
Tiresias, descended from the Sparti “sown men” was turned into a woman at one point and stated to Zeus and hero who were arguing over the subject that women enjoyed sex more than men; Hera blinded him, Zeus gave him a gift of prophecy and a long life to compensate for the loss of his vision.
When Odysseus arrives at the entrance to the underworld, he offers milk, wine, water, barely and sacrifices sheep to the dead pouring their blood in a trough (blood draws the ghost forward) and he encounters a number of spirits
The first is his crewman Elpenor who died after getting drunk and falling off of Circes roof and died- “please bury me with my weapons and belongings”
He encounters his mother Anticlea but keeps her from the blood so Tiresias may drink it.
After speaking with Tiresias, Odysseus allows his mother to drink the blood and she recognizes him. Odysseus tries to embrace her three times, but merely grabs at the air- “Once the soul has abandoned the body, the poor homeless spirit must flutter about like a dream and vanish forever” cf. Aeneas & Anchises
Next Odysseus encounters Achilles and tries to soothe him by saying he must be a big deal in the underworld- “Id rather serve as a slave to a landless and hungry owner than be the ruler of all the shriveled- up dead”
While in the underworld, Odysseus encounters the shade of Heracles but not his true self which had been raised to Olympus
Finally there was a bit of a bright spot in the underworld- Elysium or the Elysian fields, Menelaus is fated to end up here because he is the son-in-law of Zeus.
Notorious Sinners
When in the underworld, both Odysseus and later Aeneas are presented with the ghost of infamous sinners
Tantalus (served gods his son Pelops)- standing in a swamp with the water up to his chin which he could never drink it as it receded whenever he tried. Above his head fruit trees grew luscious fruit which eternally retreated from his grasps (in English we “tantalize”)
Sisyphus (tricked and imprisoned Death and escaped the underworld) Doomed eternally roll a boulder up a hill only to have it end up at the bottom again.
Aeneas hears of a number of sinners in Tartarus including: Ixion who tried to rape Hera and was punished by being bounding to a flaming wheel that endlessly turns in the underworld; Tityus tried to rape the pregnant Leto and lies spread-out and tied- down while two vultures peck at his liver.
Also in Tartarus are those who hated their family, cheated their dependents, were miserly and greedy, were killed in the action of adultery and who were the breakers of oaths.
Orpheus & Eurydice
Orpheus was the first “rock star”
His music enchanted wild animals spotted birds in the sky and caused trees and rocks to move, drawn to his music
He loved Eurydice whom he was set to marry when a beekeeper named Aristaeus tried to rape her and chased her through a field where she was a bit on the heel by a snake and died
Orpheus resolved to bring her back from the dead
Went down to hades and enchanted the ghosts with his song and even softened Hades and Persephone’s hearts with his music, so that they agreed to release Eurydice
One condition: don’t look back while leaving the underworld
While exiting the underworld, Orpheus seized by doubt and look back to see Eurydice receding back into the shadows
Unable to reenter Hades, the inconsolable Orpheus wandered the earth playing his lyre. Orpheus wanted nothing to do with any other women and invented male homosexuality
He was killed in his homeland Thrace, torn by pieces by Bacchae because he refused intercourse with women or because he neglected Dionysus or excluded women from his sacred mysteries. His head was thrown in a river and even without a body, it grasped, “alas my lost Eurydice”.
Orphism: in the 6th cent. BCE religious teachings began to spring up about Orpheus and the knowledge he gained in the underworld
These teachings offered salvation (cf. Eleusinian Mysteries)
Humans being contains a divine spark in a crude body and should strive to free the soul from the prison of the body (Orphic slogan: “The body is a tomb”) – coupled with Platonic philosophy, Orphism had an important influence on Christianity
Metempsyhosis (reincarnation) was also a part of Orphic teachings – with effort, austerity and Orphic knowledge one could purify the soul and emerge renewed.
Aeneas’s Descent
Aeneas must descent to the underworld to speak with his father before he can fulfill his destiny and found the Roman race in Italy
He must find the Sibly of Cumae (prophetess and former lover to Apollo) who acts as his guide. After this, Aeneas must pick a golden bough from a wood (magical token)
At the frontier of the land of the dead (the river Acheron) they encounter Charon the ferryman of the dead and present the golden bough to Charon as payment
In the underworld, Aeneas encounters Dido, views infamous sinners and great future Romans, and then sees the Elysian fields
Vergil’s Elysian fields are populated by the heroes who died in battle as well as sages and poets (more inclusive than Homer’s Elysium)
At the end of Aeneas journey to the underworld, he is shown in the souls of great Romans waiting to be reborn into the world by Anchises his father
Anchises explains a cosmology in which there is a cyclical nature to everything. The flesh of the living is corrupted by life and is then purified in the underworld for a thousand years to return to a new life in a new body
There are two gates of dreams to the upper world: the first is of horn and issues forth true dreams and the second is the ivory and form it false dreams emerge. Finally Aeneas and the Sibly are directed by Anchises to exit the underworld via the ivory dream (false dreams) with no explanation ever given