An Introduction to Classical Mythology

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Greek Mythology and Religion
This module goes with the Creation portion of the text.
Module/Chapter Learning Objectives
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Instructions: Here are the objectives for this section.
Here are the learning objectives for the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Penguin Book of Classical Myths.
Appraise the importance of Greek mythology
Examine the various sources used to compile the myths, i.e. Greek vs. Roman sources
Explain Hesiod's creation myth
Describe the origins of man within Greek mythology
Identify the main Greek gods and their attributes
Describe the myths of the main Olympians
Summarize the human qualities of the gods
Describe the 12 labors of Herakles
Summarize the themes in Greek hero mythology
Greek Mythology and Religion Introduction
An Introduction to Classical
Mythology
Because it's important for readers of classical literature to be familiar with the deities which populate the works of
ancient authors, we'll first review the Olympian gods, that is, Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite and the like. Then we'll glance
over the general "history" of classical mythology, the basic framework of chronology in which Greek myths take
place.
I. The Principal Olympian Deities
The following is a list of the most important Olympian deities. To the extent possible, it's best to memorize these
gods and goddesses. At least, learn to spell their names correctly and acquaint yourself with their major powers,
domains and attributes. A. The First Six
The Olympians fall into two groups: (1) the "First Six," gods of Zeus' generation who are, for the most part, his
brothers and sisters, and (2) the "Second Eight," those of the following generation many of whom are Zeus'
children. The spellings used below are transliterations of the Greek names, in some cases Latinized. We will use
the Greek names for gods and heroes, until we study Roman myth when we will employ the names of their
Roman equivalents.
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1. Zeus
Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods, was born to Cronus, an earlier king of the gods, and his spouse Rhea. Zeus
usurped the throne of heaven from his father by organizing a revolt of the gods, just as Cronus had earlier
deposed of his own father Uranus (see below, Aphrodite). This story recalls the rise of tyrants in the early history
of Greece, most of whom came to power through warfare and bloodshed. As is often true in classical mythology,
this story pattern reflects in an abstract way the actual course of history. Thus, myth was one way in which the
Greeks remembered and understood the remote past.
Zeus controls the sky, evidenced in his name which means "bright(ness)," or "day(father)." Although the
figurehead of Olympian government in heaven, he's not omnipotent. For instance, he doesn't hold sway over fate.
Indeed, more than once in Greek myth he's forced to act against his wishes. Moreover, his brothers Poseidon and
Hades have command of the land and sea, respectively, and his wife Hera who is the goddess of marriage
frequently exerts her will over him, especially when he's seeking, as he frequently does, an illicit sexual
relationship.
Appropriate for a skygod, Zeus' great attribute is the lightningbolt which he wields in anger at those who defy
him. On occasion, he even threatens to use it when his family on Olympus becomes disorderly. In Greek art he's
sometimes depicted holding a thunderbolt. He also has an awesome shield, the aegis, on which is depicted the
face of the Gorgon, a monster so hideous it turns enemies to stone. In modern English, aegis means "protection,
sponsorship." The eagle and the oak tree are also sacred to Zeus and symbols of his power.
2. Hera
Hera is Zeus' sister and wife whom Zeus married after a rocky courtship. Having spent much time suing
unsuccessfully for Hera's love and hand in marriage, Zeus finally resorted to a sort of trickery he often deployed.
He transformed himself into animal, in this case, a sad little cuckoo seeking shelter from the rain. When Hera saw
the miserable bird, she took it in and warmed it by her breast. Zeus immediately resumed his divine form and
ravished her, leaving her no choice but to marry him. Their wedding night lasted threehundred years.
As the idealized form of a Greek wife, Hera is eternally faithful to her husband and at the same time suspicious of
his dalliance with nymphs, demigoddesses and the like. When she discovers any such activities, typically she's
vengeful in punishing not her husband—she doesn't have the power to punish him—but his consorts and their
offspring. The hero Heracles (Hercules) and the hapless cowgirl Io are among the many mortals who felt the
wrath of her jealousy.
Of Zeus' manifold offspring only a few are Hera's: the god of war Ares, the cupbearer of the gods Hebe, the
goddess of childbirth Eileithyia and the lame blacksmithgod Hephaestus (see below, Hephaestus). Hera may
originally have been an earthgoddess whose name was Dione, a feminine form of the name Zeus.
3. Poseidon
Poseidon is the god of the sea and waters in general. Like Zeus, he inherited his domain from an earlier deity,
Oceanus who was the progenitor of many marine divinities, especially rivergods and theOceanids (seanymphs).
Poseidon is a passionate, quicktempered god, the personification of the fickle and violent sea. He carries a trident
with which he stirs up waters or causes earthquakes on land. He rides through the ocean in a chariot drawn by
white horses escorted by creatures of the sea.
As a strong masculine figure second only to Zeus, he's the father of numerous demigods and goddesses as well
as mortal heroes, including Theseus of Athens. He's associated with the horse and the bull, symbols of male
sexuality. Curiously, however, his name appears to translate as "the consort/husband of Da"—Da is an archaic
name for the Earth Mother (see below, Demeter)—hinting that he may once have played a secondary role in a
matriarchal religion of some kind. In that light, it's appropriate that as the god of waters he's seen to fertilize or
inseminate the Earth Mother Da, causing things to grow.
4. Hestia
The least important of the Olympians, Hestia is the goddess of the hearth and home. She never married or
engaged in disputes. That alone exempts her from involvement in most Greek myths and literature which deal for
the most part with love and war. The centrality of fire in the archaic house for warmth and cooking led to her
inclusion in the first six Olympians, but her passive role as the goddess who stays at home and tends the hearth
left her with a meagre mythology. Her name in Greek means "hearth."
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5. Hades
A shadowy figure, Hades is the god of the Greek underworld. As with Hestia, few myths revolved around him but
for a different reason. Where Hestia is too removed from the turmoil of life to figure in myth, Hades as lord of the
dead is too potent and awesome to play a role in most legends.
One important myth, however, involves him extensively, the rape of Demeter's daughter Persephone ("Persian
Voice"). When Demeter finds that Hades has seized Persephone by force and is keeping her in his gloomy
kingdom beneath the ground, she demands her return. Hades strikes a deal with her, agreeing to release the girl
for six months out of the year on the grounds that Persephone had eaten six pomegranate seeds while in the
underworld and to that extent had partaken of death. Thus Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, rejoices when
Persephone visits her and during the other half of the year mourns and refuses to let plants grow, which explains
the change of seasons.
Hades is a solemn god unlike either the Christian Devil or the Grim Reaper. He receives the dead when they are
brought down to him and keeps them from returning to the upper world but he neither brings death upon them
nor even collects souls on earth. Those are the jobs of Thanatos ("Death"), the god of death, and Hermes
the psychopompos (see below).
Nor does Hades' kingdom resemble Hell in the modern sense. Often called by the same name as the god, Hades is
only a dimly lit world with gloomy swamps and black rivers, where the dead sustain a flavorless, semiconscious
semblance of existence. And although some souls in Hades are punished for crimes they committed on earth,
usually it's not Hades himself who carries out their torture but demons like the Furies who dwell in Tartarus, a pit
of unending blackness at one end of the classical underworld.
Meaning in Greek "the Unseen One," Hades isn't so much a name as a description. This euphemism—that is, a
nice way of saying a bad thing—betrays a certain superstitious reluctance on the part of the Greeks to refer to this
god by his actual name, whatever that was, since to call him by name was to invoke him and thereby death. In
that vein, the Greeks also called him Pluto from their word ploutos("wealth") because they credited him in part
with the fertility of crops, the richness of the earth and its mineral resources, especially gold.
6. Demeter
Demeter is the goddess of grain and agriculture, whose name is sometimes rendered in Greek Dameter meaning
"Earthmother." The da base is related to gê, the Greek word for "earth." Because it's hard to find clear linguistic
and religious cognates for Demeter in other IndoEuropean cultures, some historians suggest that Demeter was a
goddess worshiped originally by the Pelasgians, the people who lived in Greece before the Greeks as we know
them arrived. Demeter was important enough in this native culture to have been absorbed by the invading Greeks
and included among the principal Olympians. In support of this hypothesis, most of her myths have a primitive
aura about them and she's largely absent from later legends and myth.
The great exception to that is the Eleusinian Mysteries, an influential cult which survived well into Roman times
and in which Demeter played a central role. Because it was a mystery cult whose devotees were sworn to secrecy,
we today don't know exactly what the Eleusinian Mysteries entailed, but there can be little doubt they revolved
around the most important myth in the Demeter cycle, the rape of Persephone (see above, Hades).
B. The Second Eight
1. Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the goddess of sexual love and beauty. According to one story she was born as a result of Cronus'
revolt against his father Uranus. After Cronus castrated Uranus and flung his genitals into the ocean, Aphrodite
arose from the foam of the sea that formed around Uranus' dismembered organs, a story stimulated, no doubt, by
the interpretation of her name as "foam (aphro) born (dite)," a dubious etymology. The goddess floated to
shore on a shell, inspiring among other things one of the Renaissance painter Botticelli's most famous paintings. A
tamer version of her birth coexists alongside this in Greek myth, that she was the child of Zeus and Dione, not
Hera but a demigoddess of that name.
Although she was technically wed to the ugly Hephaestus, Aphrodite had liaisons with quite a few gods and
mortals and is the only one of the Olympian goddesses outside of Demeter to have children by mortals, e.g. her
son Aeneas by the Trojan shepherd Anchises. As such, she was a popular goddess and appears in many Greek
myths. In some she assists young lovers, but more often she's depicted as vengeful and angry, chastising those
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who defy or deny her.
Her punishments are often highly creative and unusual. For instance, the women of the island Lemnos ignored
her, and so she made them all smell so bad that their husbands divorced them and imported new foreign wives.
Out of madness and frustration the Lemnian women killed all the men on their island, hardly a well thoughtout
solution to the problem. The women were then left alone and lonely on their island until the Argonauts happened
by and solved their problem, incidentally repopulating the island at the same time.
Despite her eternal youth and beauty, Aphrodite was a very ancient goddess, perhaps borrowed by the Greeks
from their eastern neighbors. Originally a mothergoddess, a type worshiped widely throughout the ancient Near
East, Aphrodite bears close resemblance in many ways to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar or the Canaanite
Ashtoreth (Astarte). For example, Aphrodite's priestesses in several Greek towns were prostitutes just as Ishtar's.
According to Herodotus, the worship of Mylitta, Aphrodite's equivalent in Babylon, required that women offer
themselves at least once during their lives in the goddess' temple to strange men for any price. This, Herodotus
notes with a smirk, posed a problem for ugly women who might have to remain in the temple for many years
awaiting an offer.
In general, Aphrodite is treated rather lightly by the Greeks, especially Homer who makes her subordinate to Hera
and Athena. A famous exception is Euripides' portrait of the goddess in his tragic masterpiece Hippolytus, where
she emerges as allpowerful and highly dangerous. Also, the Romans who called her Venus worshiped her with
great solemnity. One famous Roman clan, the Julii to which Julius Caesar belonged, traced its ancestry back to
Venus.
2. Hephaestus
The god of fire and the forge, Hephaestus is one of the few legitimate children of Zeus and Hera. According to a
different story, Hera grew angry at Zeus' perpetual infidelity and gave birth to Hephaestus parthenogenetically,
that is, without her husband's involvement. Either way Hephaestus was largely ignored by his father along with
the majority of ancient poets and playwrights.
Indeed, so preternaturally ugly and lame, the newborn baby Hephaestus was flung out of Olympus by his own
mother disgusted at his deformity. He fell for many days, according to myth, finally landing on the island of
Lemnos where there was a cult to him in antiquity. Hephaestus is associated with volcanic eruptions, often
accredited to his working in a smithy deep below the earth. He was best known for his many inventive creations,
for instance, the shield of Achilles (The Iliad, Book 18), palaces for the gods and golden robots which speak and
think and assisted him in his work at the forge.
Most myths concerning Hephaestus center around his wife Aphrodite. Having been awarded her as wife in order to
prevent a violent quarrel among the other more powerful and handsome gods who wanted her, Hephaestus won
last place in her heart, a sentiment she proved by having numerous affairs. Homer, for instance, describes in The
Odyssey (Book 8) how Hephaestus thought he'd gotten revenge on her for her frequent infidelities. He trapped
her and her current lover, Ares the god of war, in bed by dropping a mesh of chains on them as they were making
love. The indignant cuckold then called the gods to the scene—the goddesses refused to come out of shame—to
witness her adultery. Some gods laughed, others expressed their disgust, but none refused to look at the naked
Aphrodite and in the back Apollo whispered to Hermes, "Would you suffer these humiliating chains, if you could lie
down with golden Aphrodite?" And Hermes replied, "Put three times these chains on me and let all the gods laugh,
only let me lie down with her!" Beauty lives by its own rules.
3. Ares
Ares is the god of war and an exceptionally unpleasant character. In many stories he's little more than a bully
and a butcher, loved only by Hades because he's the deathgod's best wholesale supplier. Like Hephaestus, Ares
is the son of Zeus and Hera and further evidence that his parents' marriage wasn't a very good match.
Moreover, for all his vainglorious boasting Ares isn't very successful in war. In mythological combat, he's defeated
by his sister Athena, the hero Heracles four times(!) and, according to Homer, even wounded by the Trojan mortal
Diomedes (The Iliad, Book 5). When he complains of his mistreatment to his father, Zeus calls him a twofaced
brute, tells him to quit whining and says that his quarrelsome nature comes from his mother Hera, and that if he
were not his son he would have kicked him out of Olympus long ago. The Greeks' scorn of war comes through
clearly in this depiction of Ares, and in the fact that archaeologists have found relatively few shrines to him in
Greece. Most of his centers of worship were in northern Greece from which this deity may have been exported to
the cities of the south.
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4. Athena
As a deity of war, Athena was far preferable to most Greeks, especially in Athens the city named after her. Also a
goddess of wisdom and crafts, her prominence is at least in part due to Athens' dominance of our historical and
literary sources. Had we more records from ancient cities outside of Athens, we would, no doubt, see a more
balanced picture of Athena. As it is, she comes across as a strong, virgin goddess, the protectress and patron of
civilized man against errant barbarians. The personification of ingenuity and genius, she is attributed with inspiring such remarkable inventions as the
Trojan horse, the double flute, the ship Argo, the magic bridle used to harness the flying horse Pegasus and the
mirrored shield with which Perseus killed the Gorgon Medusa. Her wisdom was, thus, rarely the abstract sort we
tend to associate with philosophers and poets, more often the practical kind linked with cunning and technical
expertise.
Athena was born in a highly unusual manner. Her father Zeus ate her mother Metis ("Wisdom") in fear that the
pregnant Metis would give birth to a child who would be greater than he was. Metis survived, however—she was
clever, after all—living on in Zeus' head where eventually she went into labor causing Zeus to have a great
headache. Hephaestus—or in some stories the Titan Prometheus—split Zeus' skull open and out came the goddess
Athena fully grown and armed.
In art she can be identified by her crested helmet, spear and shield emblazoned with a Gorgon's head, a present
from Perseus for her help in killing the Medusa. She's also often depicted with an owl, the bird that symbolized
wisdom and her city Athens. Sometimes she's called Pallas Athena in memory of her childhood
friend Pallas whom she killed accidently while playing wargames.
5. Apollo
Apollo represents a wide amalgam of powers and attributes. He's the god of the sun, wisdom, prophesy, music,
flocks, wolves, mice, entrances, plagues and medicine. How he came to be included in the Greek pantheon and
was introduced to Greece is not at all clear, but some historical data suggest he may have been an eastern god
originally—possibly Apulunas, a god of the Hittites who occupied central Asia Minor (Turkey) in the second
millennium BCE—though the ancient Greeks linked him with the peoples of the far North. Whatever the truth, it's
evident from both the many spheres he controls and his other names, Loxias (see below) and Phoebus—
sometimes combined with Apollo to make "Phoebus Apollo"—that he represents the conflation of several deities,
native and foreign perhaps.
The story of his birth is one of the most famous myths in the Greek canon. His mother the Titaness Leto was
impregnated by Zeus, extramaritally as usual. When Hera discovered this, she became enraged and wished to
prevent the birth of Leto's child—or children, as it turned out, since Leto had twins, Apollo and Artemis. When she
felt their birth coming on, Leto searched for a place to have her children, but out of fear of Hera's anger no place
would receive her until she came to the island Delos in the Aegean Sea east of Greece. She persuaded the island
to allow her to stay there with the promise that it would become an important center of worship. There under a
palm tree she gave birth to Apollo and Artemis, and henceforth the island was sacred to Apollo.
Despite his birth on Delos, Apollo was more closely associated with Delphi in central Greece on the northern shore
of the Gulf of Corinth. There, as a precocious babe of only four days, Apollo killed a huge snake named Pytho and
established a center of worship in Delphi from which he prophesied. This socalled Oracle of Delphi was
maintained by a succession of prophetesses, each called the Pythia after the snake, lasting well into historical
times.
The Pythia often spoke in riddles, words which were true but hid their truth from plain view in some way. One of
the most famous prophesies of the Oracle of Delphi was that delivered to King Croesus of Lydia who asked the
Pythia what would happen if he attacked the Persians. The oracle replied that "a great kingdom will fall." Thus,
Croesus, thinking he had the god's sanction, energetically attacked the Persians and was horribly defeated. Only
too late he realized that the "kingdom" the oracle meant was his own! Thus, as the god of prophesy, Apollo is
often called Loxias ("slanting").
Apollo was very popular in the Classical Age and appears often in later myth and literature. He provided much
fodder for mythmaking in that he had many love affairs with women, nymphs and young men and was heavily
involved in the Trojan War and its aftermath. He's often held up as the ideal—or the anomaly—of the perfect male
according to the classical Greeks. Despite his personal excesses and often outrageous behavior, he preached a
philosophy of selfawareness and moderation seen on his temple in Delphi which bore the inscriptions "Know
yourself" and "Nothing in excess." As the god of enlightenment through knowledge, he's commonly counterposed
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to Dionysus, the god of mystery and revelation.
6. Artemis
Apollo's twin sister Artemis is both his antithesis and counterpart. She represents the moon, where he represents
the sun; she darkness, he light; she primitive chastity, he civilized intercourse; she the child, he the adult; she
black magic, he science; she death, he healing. Yet in spite of their fundamental differences the brother and sister
share some important similarities. Both are often depicted carrying a bow and arrows and both are associated
with plagues. In later mythology she was given the name Phoebe, the feminine form of her brother's alternate
name Phoebus. In origin, she may be related to eastern goddesses, such as the Minoan "mistress of the wild
beasts" or the Phrygian Cybele, another "mistress of the wild."
The story of Artemis' birth is the same as her brother Apollo's. Compared to Apollo, however, there are few myths
involving her. Her virgin nature restricts her from love stories so popular in mythology. She's often seen as the
personification of wilderness and unbounded nature, as in the myth of Actaeon, the mortal hunter who accidently
came across her bathing naked in a stream. When he stopped and stared, she flung water on him and changed
him into a stag. He died when his own hunting dogs tracked him down and tore him to pieces.
Such tales of her swift and uncompromising vengeance are rife, such as the story of Niobe, the queen of Thebes.
Niobe boasted that she had many beautiful children but Leto had only two, Apollo and Artemis. The divine siblings
took badly this comparison to mere mortals and killed all of Niobe's children with their arrows. Niobe wept so
much in grief for her children that the gods in pity turned her into a rock from which a spring continually flowed.
7. Hermes
Hermes is the messenger of the gods and the patron of all who traveled and live by their wits, including athletes,
gamblers and thieves. As a symbol of the seedy underbelly of society, he's often characterized as a lowerclass
deity. Aeschylus in his drama Prometheus Bound calls him the "lackey of the gods."
It makes sense, then, that the story of his birth is comical. The son of Zeus and a nymph named Maia, almost the
moment he was born the baby Hermes sneaked away from his mother and went out looking for trouble. He found
a tortoise, killed it, scraped out its shell and by stretching strings across the shell invented the lyre. He then sat
down with his new musical instrument and, of course, sang the song of his own glorious birth.
But that was hardly enough for this villainous Wunderkind, this Mozart of mischief. Baby Hermes was hungry and
wanted beef. His brother Apollo happened to keep a large herd of cattle nearby, so the newborn decided to
invent cattle rustling, too, but with an ingenious twist. He made Apollo's cattle walk away in reverse(!) so that
their hoofprints seemed to lead backwards to their home, and he wore sandals of brushwood to hide his own
prints. When he had led them to his cave, although only a baby, he slaughtered and ate two entire cows.
When Apollo discovered his cattle missing and saw the hoofprints heading toward home but nothing there, the
god of wisdom was momentarily confused until an old man told him that he had seen a baby leading the cattle
away. Apollo knew just who that child was. He went to Hermes, who had tucked himself back in bed and was
looking every bit the innocent babe, and accused him of theft. Little Hermes defended himself with deft lies: "How
can you accuse a little baby of such things? What kind of fool do you take me for? It's not like I wasn't born
yesterday!" Sure that he had the culprit now, Apollo took the infant into court, an assembly of the gods. Zeus was
not taken in by Hermes' innocent act and ordered him to return the cattle, which he did out of respect to his
father. In recompense for the two cattle he had eaten, he gave Apollo the lyre he'd just invented and they were
fast friends ever after.
Hermes is often shown wearing winged sandals and a traveler's hat—the flat, widebrimmed petasus—and
carrying a wand called a caduceus around which two snakes have wrapped themselves. Some florists today use
this image of Hermes as a symbol of their delivery service. To the ancients, Hermes also served
as psychopompos ("soulguide"), the god who escorts the dead to the Underworld.
8. Dionysus
We can be certain that Dionysus, the youngest and latest entry into the Olympian pantheon, is a god imported
from the Near East, since his own myth includes the tale of his migration from Asia Minor to Greece. Although
born in Thebes (Greece), he was raised in the East and represents eastern notions of ecstasy and release. Unlike
his aged and debauched Roman counterpart Bacchus, the Greek god is young and beautiful in a feminine way.
Those characters in myth, however, who foolishly confuse this effeminacy with weakness are shown to be
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tragically misguided. The god is merciless in destroying his mockers, disbelievers and heretics. On more than one
occasion he literally rips his enemies to bits in a ritual called sparagmos ("rending") after humiliating them by
releasing their secret passions. Euripides dramatized the quintessential example of this in his masterful study of
human psychology and religious hysteria, The Bacchae. All in all, Dionysus is more than a god of drunkenness;
he's the warden of our dark side, the parole officer of that terrifying bliss which comes with the release of
inhibitions, in Dionysus' own words, "the god most dreadful and most soothing to humankind" (Bacchae 8601).
As with few other gods, we can feel fairly certain of Dionysus' origin. He was originally a Phrygian agriculture god
from Asia Minor. The tendency associated with his worship to encourage ecstatic oneness with the god is foreign
to the religion of the Greeks which emphasized the unbreachable gulf between god and man. The ancients often
envisioned him leaping and dancing to the accompaniment of flutes and cymbals, holding a special wand called
the thyrsos in his hand and wearing long eastern robes, his blond curls bound up with a band of ribbons. C. Lesser Deities
Greek myth and literature abounds with lesser deities who run, work and conspire with or against the Olympian
gods. The following is a brief overview of some of the more important of these minor divinities.
1. The Muses
First and foremost in Greek literature are the Muses ("reminders"), personifications of artistic and scientific
inspiration. Often invoked at the outset of an epic poem, the Muses provided a bard with a continual stream of
creativity allowing him to carry his ideas out in poetry before an audience. They were imagined to live on Mount
Helicon in Boeotia, where they dance around the Hippocrene ("horsespring") fountain or on Mount Pieria in
northern Greece near Mount Olympus. As patronesses of the arts and music, they were often associated with
Apollo.
2. The Fates
Another of the lesser deities populating classical myth and literature are the Fates. Imagined as three old women
spinning wool into thread, the Fates were the daughters of Zeus but at times controlled him. At some point they
were given distinct names and functions: Clotho ("I spin") spins out the wool, Lachesis ("allotment") twists the
wool into thread and Atropos ("inflexible") cuts it. This division of duties represents the three stages of a person's
life: birth is the spinning out of the wool; destiny is the twisting of the thread; and death is its severing. The Fates
are implacable and except on a few rare occasions cannot be swayed once they have chosen a certain course.
3. The Furies
A third important contingent of lesser goddesses is the Furies (or Erinyes), torchbearing female earthdemons
with blood dripping from their eyes and snakes for hair. These terrifying spirits of vengeance brought madness
and death on those who had committed murder, especially the murder of parents. According to some sources,
they were born from the ground where the blood of Uranus had spilled after Cronus castrated him. When not
pursuing and tormenting parentkillers, they live in Hades where they are charged with tormenting sinners.
Before being absorbed into the mainstream Olympian religion, the Furies may have been part of an earlier form of
worship revolving around the ghosts of the dead, especially those seeking the recompense of blood for blood like
Hamlet's father in Shakespeare's play. Amidst the scientific revolution that engulfed the Classical Age of Athens,
however, the Furies seemed outdated and came to represent the older order in which social justice was reciprocal
("an eye for an eye") as opposed to the newer, more enlightened method of "procedural" justice which was
practiced in the Athenian trial courts, themselves a recent invention. During this time, they assumed a new name,
the Eumenides ("goodminded ones")—a euphemism if ever there was!—on the logic that calling something
horrible by a nice name encourages it to act nicer.
4. Woodland Deities
Finally, the forests and wetlands of the classical world supported their own brand of minor deities, in
particular Pan, a capering nature god most often depicted with goat's ears, horns and legs. Originally a shepherd
divinity from Arcadia, he features in few classical myths but shows up more than once in Greek history. For
instance, when the Persians invaded Greece the first time, the Athenians routed them partly because, according
to the Greeks, Pan suddenly appeared on the battlefield, inspiring great fear in the Persians. From this sort of
sudden fear this god could cause comes the word "panic."
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Also denizens of woodlands and landscape are the nymphs, a catchall category of minor female divinities who,
like fairies in English literature, usually occupy and are restricted to specific ecological niches: trees, fields, rivers,
springs, lakes, and seas. Often they attend a god or goddess in large bands. Nymphe in Greek means "bride,"
which is appropriate insofar as they are largely sexual prey and spend much of mythology avoiding lustful male
gods, most unsuccessfully. Not many nymphs are singled out in mythology. Exceptions include Achilles' mother
Thetis and Apollo's beloved Daphne. Thetis, at least, may have been a more important deity in earlier myth who
was later recycled as a nymph. Terms, Places, People and Things to Know
Zeus
Cronus
aegis
Hera
Poseidon
Oceanids
Hestia
Hades
Persephone
Tartarus
Pluto
Demeter
Eleusinian Mysteries
Aphrodite
Hephaestus
Ares
Athena
Pallas
Apollo
Phoebus
Leto
Delos
Delphi/Delphic Oracle
Loxias
Artemis
Hermes
psychopompus
Dionysus
sparagmos
Muses
Fates
Furies/Erinyes
Eumenides
Pan
nymphs
II. An Overview of Classical Myths: The
Chronology of Myth
Classical mythology constitutes a history of sorts, inasmuch as both share a sense of chronology, evolution and
the centrality of certain events and people. Contrary to popular opinion, Greek myths and literature do not take
place in a vacuum or a magical neverneverland peopled by imaginary creatures and completely removed from
human reality. Instead, they occur for the most part in specific locales in and around Greece, regions which
carried great and concrete meaning to the audiences of their day. Thus, many of the characters in Greek literary
works were as real for their audiences as Columbus and George Washington are to most Americans today.
At the same time, myths encompass as much of the distant past as the ancient Greeks understood. Despite this,
scholars and artists in antiquity studied them with the same precision we examine biblical scripture and
archaeological remains. They debated what could or might have happened in remote times, and in the gaps where
data were lacking they supplied plausible embellishments. If by the standards of modern research and
historiography their efforts end up looking rather dismal, we must admit how well they did with what they had.
Indeed, the questions they posed still lie at the heart of most modern sciences and arts: how did the world begin?
why is it the way it is? what purpose do humans serve? The Greeks' answers, therefore, matter less than that
they founded methods of historical inquiry we still use today.
In the cosmos of the classical world there were older gods who preceded and engendered newer gods, and later
mortal or semimortal heroes who succeeded and supplanted earlier ones. To say these fit within a strict
chronology would be an overstatement, but the ancients had a clear sense certain mythological events followed or
preceded or precipitated others.
Below we will glance over the general progression of events in Greek mythology. Bear in mind that some—and
often the best—authors in antiquity took considerable liberties with the standard arrangement of events and by
the sheer force of their genius compelled a reordering of mythological history, sometimes simplifying things and
sometimes not. Therefore, one cannot expect from classical myth and literature the sort of exactness found in
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history. Conversely, however, behind any myth may lurk a real historical event of some sort—too many times this
has been shown to be true—however peculiar or unlikely the connection may seem to us. A. Chthonic Deities
The narration of creation according to the ancient Greeks is best preserved in the epic, The Theogony ("The Birth
of the Gods"), composed by Hesiod in the seventh century BCE. There is narrated the creation of the world out of
chaos ("the gap, the yawning"), the usurpation of the throne of heaven by Cronus who castrated his father
Uranus, Zeus' subsequent rebellion against his father Cronus and the establishment of the Olympian deities.
Amidst this come many a hideous monster: earthborn demons, manyheaded giants and hideous, huge hybrids
like halfsnake halfhuman mongrels. Also populating Hesiod's early world are abstractions of physical or natural
features, such as Earth and Sky, and the embodiment of abstract principles like Memory and Law.
Today these gods are called chthonic ("from the earth, subterranean"), meaning that they were born directly
from Mother Earth and are thus primitive and uncivilized. Chthonic gods include Uranus, Cronus, Rhea, the Fates,
the Furies and certain nymphs. Compared to later, more sophisticated narrative, their myths seem on the surface
barbarous, filled as they are with castration, incest, bestiality and other monstrous activities. Closer examination
of later, more civilized myths, however, shows a similar fascination with extreme behaviors but among people,
not chthonic gods. On reflection, the poised decadence of later myth may be in some ways less palatable than the
honest vulgarity of its predecessor. B. The Age of Heroes and the Founding of Cities
After the gods established themselves on Mount Olympus, the focus of Greek mythology shifts from gods to
humans. Heracles, the son of Zeus and a mortal woman Alcmena, helped clear the earth of chthonic beasts, such
as the giant snake called the Hydra and the Nemean lion whose pelt was impervious to metal. Theseus, the
Athenian hero, killed the Minotaur, a halfbull, halfman monster. Perseusof Argos slew the hideous Medusa. A
golden era of peace and prosperity, this is often called "The Age of Heroes."
With the extinction of these abominable creatures, cities began to rise and heroism to yield to the pedestrian
nature of urban life. Sparta in the Peloponnese (southern Greece) was settled by Heracles' sons. Cadmus, a prince
of Phoenicia seeking a lost sister whome he ended up never finding, established the city of Thebes in northern
Greece. Athens was founded by an autochthonous (i.e. indigenous, native) line of kings sprung from the god
Hephaestus. Although not gods but greater than mortals, quite a few great champions lived in this age, heroes
like Jason who brought back from Asia Minor to Greece the Golden Fleece, the skin of a sheep that grew golden
wool. C. The Trojan War
As the Age of Heroes waned, mortal affairs returned to the abysmal level of backbiting chthonic gods, a dismal
situation qualified only by the relative weakness of humans. Oedipus who inherited Cadmus' throne in Thebes
married his own mother accidently—or so some authors claimed—and sired illstarred, incestuous, quarrelsome
offspring. In the Peloponnese the descendants of King Pelops for whom the Peloponnese is named fought bitterly
among themselves. In Athens Theseus' son died horribly cursed mistakenly by his father.
This miserable infighting came to a temporary standstill when the Greeks banded together to fight a common war
against the Trojans who lived across the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor. The war was ignited when Helen, the
beautiful wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, was abducted by a renegade prince from Troy. All Greek men rose as
one to defend the honor of Greek women. For ten years the best Greek warriors besieged Troy and finally took
the highwalled citadel by means of a trick, the famous Trojan Horse. At the price of much suffering and death on
both sides and the complete destruction of Troy, its city and its people, Menelaus finally reclaimed the lovely
Helen. D. The Nostoi (The Return Sagas)
The Greeks had no less trouble returning home than fighting in Troy, as recounted in series of epic adventures
called The Nostoi ("The ReturnVoyages"). Odysseus, for instance, took ten years getting back to his home on
the island of Ithaca, only to find his house besieged by freeloaders seeking to compromise his everfaithful wife
Penelope. Conversely, Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon who was Menelaus' brother and another Greek
chieftain, capitulated in both mind and body to a usurper and, when her husband much to her displeasure showed
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up safe and sound in Argos after a decade of war at Troy, she stabbed him to death in his bath. Ironically,
Menelaus whose wife Helen had caused the whole problem returned home safely—according to some ancient
authors, they experienced some minor travails on their way back to Greece—and they lived more or less happily
together for many years.
The consequences of the Trojan War didn't end there, however. In the aftermath of war, the next generation
suffered as well. Agamemnon's son Orestes requited his father's death by killing his murderous mother and was
visited by the Furies because of his atrocious act of matricide. He nearly died mad but was rescued by Apollo, the
very god who had ordered him to slay Clytemnestra in the first place. Chronologically Orestes' tale is one of the
latest stories in Greek myth, marking the end of the mythological tradition and the onset of the Iron Age, the
ancient Greeks' way of describing the modern world. Henceforth, the task of recording Greek history is handed
from the poets to the historians.
Hesiod
Instructions: Here is a section on the poet/author Hesiod.
Hesiod
Hesiod lived in the 8th century BCE, probably about the same time or shortly
after Homer. He refers to himself as a farmer in Boeotia, a region of central
Greece, but other than that we know little. His poetry codified the chronology
and genealogy of the Greek myths. Works and Days and the Theogony are
the only two complete works we have of Hesiod, other than the first few lines
of a poem called the Shield of Heracles.
In Works and Days Hesiod divided time into five ages:the Golden age, ruled
by Cronos, when people lived extremely long lives 'without sorrow of heart';
the Silver age, ruled by Zeus; the Bronze age, an epoch of war; the Heroic
age, the time of the Trojan war; and lastly the Iron age, the corrupt present.
This is similar to Hindu and Buddhist concepts of the Kali Yuga. The idea of a
Golden Age has likewise had a profound impact on western thought. Works
and Days also discusses pagan ethics, extols hard work, and lists lucky and
unlucky days of the month for various activities.
The Theogony presents the descent of the gods, and, along with the works of
Homer, is one of the key source documents for Greek mythology; it is the
Genesis of Greek mythology. It gives the clearest presentation of the Greek
pagan creation myth, starting with the creatrix goddesses Chaos and Earth,
from whom descended all the gods and men; it mentions hundreds of individual gods, goddesses, demigods,
elementals and heroes.
From: http://www.sacredtexts.com/cla/hesiod/
Here are the full text links for his other work if you are interested in reading more. This is optional. You are only
required to read the Theogony in this module. Works and Days
Relationships According to Hesiod
Here is a chart of Hesiod's version of Greek mythological relationships.
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Hesiod Theogony
theogon.pdf
Greek Religion
Instructions: Here is a section on Greek religion.
Here is a fun video to introduce you to ancient Greek gods (mythology).
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The Greek Gods
Greek Gods Family Tree
greekmythologyfamilytree.pdf
Gods and Goddesses
Greek and roman gods and goddesses.pdf
Greek Religion
The ancient Greeks worshipped many gods, each with a distinct personality and domain. Greek myths explained
the origins of the gods and their individual relations with mankind. The art of Archaic and Classical Greece
illustrates many mythological episodes, including an established iconography of attributes that identify each god.
There were twelve principal deities in the Greek pantheon. Foremost was Zeus, the sky god and father of the
gods, to whom the ox and the oak tree were sacred; his two brothers, Hades and Poseidon, reigned over the
Underworld and the sea, respectively. Hera, Zeus's sister and wife, was queen of the gods; she is frequently
depicted wearing a tall crown or polos. Wise Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, who typically appears in full
armor with her aegis (a goat skin with a snaky fringe), helmet, and spear, was also the patroness of weaving and
carpentry. The owl and the olive tree were sacred to her. Youthful Apollo, who is often represented with the
kithara, was the god of music and prophecy. Judging from his many cult sites, he was one of the most important
gods in Greek religion. His main sanctuary at Delphi, where Greeks came to ask questions of the oracle, was
considered to be the center of the universe. Apollo's twin sister Artemis, patroness of hunting, often carried a bow
and quiver. Hermes, with his winged sandals and elaborate herald's staff, the kerykeion, was the messenger god.
Other important deities were Aphrodite, the goddess of love; Dionysos, the god of wine and theater; Ares, the god
of war; and the lame Hephaistos, the god of metalworking. The ancient Greeks believed that Mount Olympos, the
highest mountain in mainland Greece, was the home of the gods.
Ancient Greek religious practice, essentially conservative in nature, was based on timehonored observances,
many rooted in the Bronze Age (3000–1050 B.C.), or even earlier.
Ancient Greek religious practice, essentially conservative in nature, was based on timehonored observances,
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many rooted in the Bronze Age (3000–1050 B.C.), or even earlier. Although the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer,
believed to have been composed around the eighth century B.C., were powerful influences on Greek thought, the
ancient Greeks had no single guiding work of scripture like the Jewish Torah, the Christian Bible, or the Muslim
Qu'ran. Nor did they have a strict priestly caste. The relationship between human beings and deities was based on
the concept of exchange: gods and goddesses were expected to give gifts. Votive offerings, which have been
excavated from sanctuaries by the thousands, were a physical expression of thanks on the part of individual
worshippers.
The Greeks worshipped in sanctuaries located, according to the nature of the particular deity, either within the
city or in the countryside. A sanctuary was a welldefined sacred space set apart usually by an enclosure wall.
This sacred precinct, also known as a temenos, contained the temple with a monumental cult image of the deity,
an outdoor altar, statues and votive offerings to the gods, and often features of landscape such as sacred trees or
springs. Many temples benefited from their natural surroundings, which helped to express the character of the
divinities. For instance, the temple at Sounion dedicated to Poseidon, god of the sea, commands a spectacular
view of the water on three sides, and the Parthenon on the rocky Athenian Akropolis celebrates the indomitable
might of the goddess Athena.
The central ritual act in ancient Greece was animal sacrifice, especially of oxen, goats, and sheep. Sacrifices took
place within the sanctuary, usually at an altar in front of the temple, with the assembled participants consuming
the entrails and meat of the victim. Liquid offerings, or libations, were also commonly made. Religious festivals,
literally feast days, filled the year. The four most famous festivals, each with its own procession, athletic
competitions, and sacrifices, were held every four years at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and Isthmia. These
Panhellenic festivals were attended by people from all over the Greekspeaking world. Many other festivals were
celebrated locally, and in the case of mystery cults, such as the one at Eleusis near Athens, only initiates could
participate.
Takes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/grlg/hd_grlg.htm
This is a longer documentary, but it does a great job in describing ancient Greek religion as well as the gods and
goddesses. You may use this for your film report.
Greek Mythology God and Goddesses D...
Greek Gods overview
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British Museum Greek Gods
Greek Heroes Herakles and Theseus
There are two great Greek heroes that both had to undergo labors as retribution for something. They are Herakles
(Hercules) and Theseus. Here is an overview of the two heroes from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. The Birth and Infancy of Herakles Herakles is directly descended from the hero Perseus, one of the subjects covered in the previous section. His
story begins with Zeus mating with the beautiful Alcmena (the granddaughter of Perseus) while he was disguised
as her husband Amphitryon.
Zeus' wife Hera was angry with his affair and made trouble for the child right from the time that he was born; she
sent two snakes to attack the baby while sleeping in his crib. But to everyone's surprise, little Herakles fearlessly
grabbed the snakes and crushed them in his fists, displaying his courage and strength even as an infant.
This scene appears here in a redfigure vase painting, alongside his mortal twin brother Iphicles, who is terrified
and clinging to his mother. The same scene appears in this wall painting from Pompeii, along with a photograph of
the room in which it is found, known as the house of the Vettii.
The painting by Tintoretto depicts another story of an encounter between Hera and Herakles when he was a
baby: Hera was deceived into breastfeeding him, and he bit down with his powerful teeth, injuring her breast.
When she threw him down, he spewed a mouthful of milk, which is still visible today as the Milky Way in the sky.
Red figure
Pompeii
House of the Vettii
Tintoretto
Herakles As an adult, Herakles was the strongest man of all time. He is depicted as a large, muscular man, usually
bearded, and wearing his lionskin garment. The first image is from the Classical period, one of the figures from
the pediment of the Aphaia temple at Aegina (which was introduced in section 5), with Herakles aiming a now
missing bow and arrow. The next image is a Hellenistic portrait statue known as the "Farnese Hercules", which
shows his muscular body exaggerated to an almost ridiculous degree; the contrast between these two
underscores the difference between these two styles. In the Classical period, he is athletic, but not overly so, as
was typical of the later Hellenistic.
The painting following is one of the main panels of the 'Camerino', a portion of the Farnese gallery by
Carracci, known as "Hercules at the Crossroads", from 1596. It is more of an allegory than a myth, a scene
using the hero Herakles as a symbol for everyone. As a young man, he came to a crossroads, uncertain which
way to go. Two women appear and each tries to persuade him to follow her path: the one on the right
is Pleasure, and on the left is Virtue, who points up a steep rocky path. Herakles had to decide between them,
and chose Virtue, for even though her path was harder, the reward at the end would be immortality. Notice that
Herakles lacks his beard and lion skin at this early point in his life, but can be recognized by his size and
traditional club.
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Pediments
Aphaia
Farnese
Carracci
The Twelve Labors The most famous part of the Herakles' career was his series of great undertakings known as the Twelve Labors.
These tasks were actually a punishment for a tragic event in his life; he had a fit of insanity and lost control of his
strength, killing his wife Megara and their children. But he was informed that by completing these tasks, he will
not only have atoned for the murders, but also will have earned immortality at the end of his life, thus the story of
the Twelve labors is also one of the conquest of death itself.
His first labor was slaying the Nemean lion, seen here in a redfigure vase painting. After killing the creature, he
skinned it and made the pelt into a garment, seen being worn in most of the artwork which depicts him.
The second labor was the slaying of the Lernaean Hydra, a monstrous multipleheaded serpent, whose bite was
extremely venomous. This has always been one of the most popular of the twelve labors in artwork, presumably
because of the visual impact of the monstrous Hydra is more interesting than an ordinary opponent. Here are
three different artists' versions: the first is by Pollaiuolo (1470), one of the most important artists of the early
Renaissance. His interest in painting the human body led to an analytical approach, using corpses to better
understand the anatomy in order to depict the human body more realistically. Another artist of the later
Renaissance, Rosso Fiorentino, made this glazed plate with the scene in 1570; notice that he has included
Herakles' assistant, his nephew Iolaus, using a torch to sear the stumps of the Hydra. The final version is the
painting by Moreau, now in the Art Institute of Chicago.
His third labor was the capture (without killing) of the Cerynean Stag, a deer that was sacred to Artemis, seen
here in a blackfigure vase painting.
Lion
Hydra
Rosso
Moreau
Deer
The fourth labor was again the capture, without killing, of the Erymanthian Boar. It is seen here in a black
figure vase painting (which looks to be by the same artist as the previous image), with Herakles using the boar to
terrify Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae who is the one who assigns Herakles his tasks; Eurystheus is seen hiding
in a giant jug, halfburied in the ground.
The fifth labor was one of a different type altogether, for Eurystheus ordered him to clean out the stables of
Augeas of Elis, something which had never been done before, so there were years of accumulated manure and
filth. But Herakles came up with a clever solution to avoid doing this the hard way, for he simply carved a channel
to redirect the course of a nearby river to flush the filth out. This is seen in one of the 12 metopes from
the temple of Zeus at Olympia (seen previously in sections 3 and 5); Athena watches as Herakles performs his
task.
The sixth labor was the slaying of the Stymphalian birds, animals which were said to be made of metal, whose
beaks and wings were razoredged. In this blackfigure vase painting we see him shooting at these birds with a
type of sling.
The seventh labor was the capture of the Cretan bull (an animal we will here more about in the section
on Theseus, following Herakles) which is seen here in a recent photograph of another metope from Olympia. Do
you recognize the sculpture in the background? It's one we looked at in section 5.
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The eighth labor was the defeat of Diomedes, a wicked king of Thrace who owned a team of maneating horses.
After defeating him, Herakles decided that the most fitting punishment for Diomedes was to be fed to his own
horses, the scene we see in this painting by Gustave Moreau. After they ate Diomedes, the spell was broken and
they no longer wanted to eat people.
Boar
Stables
Birds
Bull
Horses
Before the next labor, Herakles had one of his numerous lesser adventures, here the rescue of Alcestis, the wife
of Admetus, an old friend of Herkales. During his travels Herakles visited his friend and found that a tragedy had
just occurred: Admetus had been granted a wish from the gods and got an extension of his allotted lifespan, but
only if someone else gave up their life for him, which his wife Alcestis volunteered to do. But Herakles challenged
the spirit of Death itself for the soul of Alcestis, and won. This struggle between Herakles and Death is seen in
this dramatic painting by Frederick Leighton.
His ninth labor was rather unusual, for he was ordered to retrieve the girdle (or belt) of Hippolyta, the leader
of the Amazons, a tribe of warriorwomen who dwelled in the far east of the Black Sea. Although he intended to
negotiate peacefully for the girdle, Hera intervened and instigated a violent fight, during which Hippolyta was
killed. This conflict is shown here in a blackfigure vase painting, with Herakles fighting an Amazon
labelled Andromache (the same name, but not the same character, as Andromache the wife of Hector of Troy).
The tenth labor carried Herakles to the most distant West, to retrieve the cattle of Geryon, a huge giant who
had three bodies in one. This black figure vase painting shows Herakles aiming his arrow at the triplebody
of Geryon, having already slain his ferocious dog. The second view of this shows the whole scene in black and
white; we see Athena and the cattle he was seeking in the background. Alcestis
Amazons
Geryon 1
Geryon 2
The eleventh labor was to obtain the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, a group of goddesses who dwelled in a
mystical garden in the furthest west, the land of eternal twilight (Hesperus means 'evening' in Greek). These
apples were said to have been Zeus' wedding gift to Hera, and now protected by a monstrous serpent
named Ladon. The first image below is a portrait of the Hesperides and the serpent byFrederick Leighton.
Some say that Herakles battled and slew Ladon to obtain the apples, but another version of the story
involves Atlas, who was said to be the father of the Hesperides. In this version Herakles asked Atlas to retrieve
the apples for him, which he agreed to do as long as Herakles was willing to substitute for him in his duty of
holding up the sky (Herakles being the only human strong enough to do so). In another metope from Olympia,
we see Herakles in the center, supporting the sky, with a little help from Athena on the left; Atlas is returning on
the right with the basket of apples (now missing).
Before the final labor, Herakles had several lesser adventures, including his encounter with the giant Antaeus,
who challenged anyone who wanted to go past him to a wrestling match. Herakles accepted the challenge, but
became a little concerned when he realized Antaeus was getting stronger as they fought. But he realized the
reason: as a giant, he gained strength from his mother Gaea (Earth), as long as he was in contact with the
ground. Herakles knew then the key to beating him was to lift him up, separating him from the earth, as seen in
two versions by Pollaiuolo, a painting and a bronze sculpture.
Another adventure before the last labor was the liberation of Prometheus, who was being punished by Zeus for
stealing fire and giving it to humans (see section 3), until the day Herakles killed the bird which ate his liver daily.
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This is seen first here in a black figure vase painting with Zeus and his bird on the left, Prometheus and Herakles
shooting an arrow on the right. Hesperides
Atlas
Antaeus
Bronze
Prometheus
Another version of the liberation of Prometheus appears here by Griepenkerl, late 1800s. For the twelfth and
final labor, Eurystheus gave Herakles a task which he thought to be impossible, to bring the threeheaded
dog Cerberus up from the Underworld. Herakles accepted the challenge and descended, where he encountered
his friend Theseus, a living man who was trapped in the Underworld, stuck on a chair he could not get up from.
Herakles grabbed Theseus by the arm and ripped him from the magical chair, as seen in the redfigure vase
painting below (and will be seen a second time in the Theseus portion following).
He obtained the permission of Hades to borrow Cerberus, and returned to the surface world with the monstrous
dog. In this blackfigure vase painting, Herakles has once again startled Eurystheus, who has gone again to his
giant jug to hide. Griepenkerl
Theseus
Cerberus
The Later Life and Death of Herakles After the conclusion of the final labor, Herakles was on his own again, now having been guaranteed immortality at
the end of his human lifespan. But before that, he had a few more noteworthy exploits. One involved a visit to
the oracle of Delphi, as he was seeking atonement again, this time for the death of Iphitus, whom he had killed
in a fit of rage. The oracle responded harshly to him, refusing to tell what his punishment would be, and Herakles
became enraged and tried to snatch away the tripod on which the oracle sits (as seen in section 5). The red
figure vase painting here shows Heracles in a 'tugofwar' with the tripod against Apollo, the god of the oracle.
Zeus then intervened to settle this dispute; after his two sons calmed down, Herakles released the tripod and was
given his punishment: he must be the servant to a woman, Queen Omphale of Lydia, for a set period of time.
What made their relationship unique is that it is said these two exchanged their clothes while he was with her,
seen here in two paintings, the first by Bartholomeus Spranger (about 1600), and the other by Francois
Lemoyne (1724). Delphi
Spranger
Lemoyne
After serving his time under Omphale, Herakles returned to Greece, and soon after married again. His new wife
was named Deianeira from Aetolia, and for a time the two lived happily together. But one day an incident
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occurred which would eventually result in Herakles' death.
While the couple was traveling through the countryside, they came to a wide, rapid river, which would be very
difficult for her to cross. But a centaur named Nessus happened by, who offered to carry her across the river on
his back. Herakles then went across first, and turned to see that the centaur was trying to run away with his wife,
instead of carrying her as he had agreed. Herakles quickly reacted by shooting Nessus from across the river with
one of his poisoned arrows.
The first image below is a very early blackfigure vase painting which deviates from the story a little by showing
him stabbing Nessus at close range. Pollaiuolo produced two versions of the scene see here, one a painting and
the other a bronze sculpture (as he did with the Antaeus story above). The final version here shows the painting
by Guido Reni; note that Herakles is visible in the background. Black fig.
Pollaiuolo
Bronze
Reni
It was some time later that this incident brought about Herakles' death. As he was dying, Nessus had told
Deianeira that his blood could make a lovepotion which would ensure that Herakles remained forever faithful to
her. When a day arrived when she suspected he was in love with someone else, she used the centaur's blood on
him, but discovers that Nessus had been lying: his blood was in reality a deadly poison (from the poisoned arrow
which killed him), not a love potion. Nessus had gotten his revenge through her, and Herakles chose to be
cremated to put himself out of his agony.
But he had been promised immortality for completing the twelve labors; so after his mortal body was consumed
by fire, his immortal body remained, ascending to the heavens to join the other Olympian gods. Here we see the
departure of Herakles in his chariot by Rubens, and finally a blackfigure vase painting with Athena formally
escorting him to meet their father Zeus.
Rubens
Black figure
The Myths of early Athens: Cecrops and
Erechthonius We have already looked at one of the key events in the story of Athens, namely the contest of Athena and
Poseidon, which was won by Athena and hence the name Athens was given to it. In the redfigure vase painting
here we see the mythical first king of Athens, Cecrops, shown with a snake's tail in place of legs to indicate that
like a snake (so the ancients believed) he was born directly from the earth.
The next king was Erecthonius, who was conceived in an unusual manner; Hephaestus was lusting
after Athena, who as a virgin goddess wanted no part of that, but he ejaculated upon her leg; she threw the
sperm to the ground (mother Earth) and a child was born. Athena felt some responsibility for the child so she
became his foster mother; the painting here by Bordone shows Hephaestus going after Athena, who repulses
him; the redfigure vase painting shows the child Erecthonius being handed by Gaea (Earth)
to Athena while Hephaestus watches.
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Cecrops
Bordone
Erechthonius
Theseus Several generations later, the descendant of the early kings was named Aegeus, who fathered a son
with Aethra, the daughter of Pittheus, the ruler of Troezen. Aegeus returned to Athens, after giving Aethra
instructions for his son when she determined he was old enough, strong enough to lift a huge boulder under which
Aegeus had deposited a sword and a pair of sandals.
The first image here is a terra cotta relief showing Aethra pointing to these items as Theseus lifts the rock, as
seen also in the painting by Poussin. Now Theseus was ready to go to Athens and find his father, but along the
way had a series of encounters sometimes known as the 'labors of Theseus', obviously patterned after the
adventures of the more famous hero Herakles. This redfigure vase painting shows a total of six separate scenes
with Theseus on these labors, and his defeat of the Minotaur in the center.
One of the minor adventures included in this is scene by itself in the blackfigure vase painting, Theseus' capture
of the bull of Marathon (a city close to Athens). This was the same bull that Herakles had brought over from
Crete as his seventh labor, and was now causing trouble until Theseus captured and sacrificed it.
After Theseus arrived at Athens and meets his father, he learns of the annual sacrifice made by the Athenians,
who are forced to send seven boys and seven girls to be victims of the Minotaur on the island of Crete, a
punishment inflicted upon them by king Minos. But before relating Theseus' fight with the Minotaur, we need to
learn how this strange creature came to be born.
Aethra
Poussin
Red figure
(Rotated)
Marathon
The Myths of Crete: Zeus & Europa; Minos and
Pasiphae The story begins in the Near East, in the land known as Phoenicia (modern day Lebanon), where the
king Agenor had a beautiful daughter named Europa. Zeus was attracted to her and came to earth in the form of
a bull, which she did not suspect was Zeus. After coaxing her into climbing onto his back, Zeus swam away with
her, eventually bringing her to the island of Crete, where she gives birth to the future king Minos.
The abduction of Europa is seen here in four different versions; the first is an Archaic metope (notice the fish
below to make it clear this bull is crossing the sea), then a wall painting from Pompeii, followed by a dramatic
version by Titian and one other by d'Arpino.
After Minos grew up, he married a woman named Pasiphae. Minos then angered the gods by failing to sacrifice a
special bull given to him from Poseidon, and the punishment was bizarre; his wife Pasiphae was driven mad with
an insatiable lust for the bull. Minos turned this strange task over to his great craftsman Daedalus, who is seen
here in another Pompeiian wall painting presenting Pasiphae with a hollow cow into which she can be enclosed in
order to mate with the bull.
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Metope
Pompeii
Titian
d'Arpino
Pompeii
Theseus & the Minotaur The result of this strange union was a creature that was halfbull, halfhuman, called the Minotaur (the Minos
bull), seen in a portrait by George Frederick Watts from the late 1800s. The next picture is an ancient wall
painting from the palace of Knossos, the reallife location of the story of the Minotaur, showing some acrobats
engaged in 'bullleaping', somersaulting over the animal. This, and other artifacts demonstrate that the bull was a
very important symbol to these people, and it is a recurrent image throughout the myth.
The myth goes on to say that Daedalus then designed a huge mazelike structure to contain the monster, known
as the Labyrinth, seen here in a mosaic from a Roman city of North Africa. When Theseus went along with the
latest victims, he received invaluable help from Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, who had fallen in love with
Theseus at first sight; she gave him the secret of escaping the Labyrinth. which is seen here in the sketch
by BurneJones; as simple as a ball of string which he unrolls going in, which he could then follow to find the
way out.
When the Minotaur emerged to take its latest victims, Theseus killed the monster with his sword, seen here in a
vivid blackfigure vase painting, followed by two works from Pompeii, the first a mosaic with the two figures
wrestling, and then in a wellpreserved wall painting with the Minotaur already dead, while Theseus is being
thanked by the rescued victims.
Watts
Knossos
Mosaic
BurneJones
Black fig.
Pompeii 1
Pompeii 2
Ariadne After helping Theseus escape the Labyrinth, Ariadne fled with him on his return trip to Athens. But halfway home
they stopped on the island of Naxos to spend the night, and when Theseus departed the next morning, he
neglected to take Ariadne with him. She awoke to find herself alone and abandoned by the man she had loved, as
seen in this wall painting from Pompeii.
But immediately after that, the god Dionysus approaches and explains that the gods fogged Theseus' mind to
forget about her, because it was her destiny to be his wife, becoming a goddess herself. This scene is depicted
here by the two great artists of Venice, Titian and Tintoretto. Titian shows the arrival of Dionysus (or
Bacchus) with all his followers, the satyrs and maenads, while Tintoretto has just one other figure,
namely Aphrodite, hovering in between joining their hands in love. Notice that both artists have included a crown
of stars, a reference to a particular constellation associated with Ariadne.
Pompeii
Titian
Tintoretto
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The later life of Theseus; Hippolytus After he returned to Athens from Crete, he inherited the throne, for his father Aegues had committed suicide
when he mistakenly thought that Theseus had failed. During the time he was king, Theseus was involved in a
battle with the Amazons, the warriorwomen whom Herakles had fought during one of his labors. Theseus fell in
love with one of the Amazons and took her back home as his bride, the scene shown here on this redfigure vase
painting.
They had a son named Hippolytus, but soon after his birth his mother died during a counterattack of the
Amazons. Theseus remarried after that, and his new wife was Phaedra, another daughter of Minos. When
Hippolytus had grown up, he swore absolute devotion to Artemis, the virgin huntress, which angered Aphrodite.
She then punished Hippolytus by causing Phaedra, his stepmother, to try to seduce him. When he refused her
advances, she committed suicide out of shame, but left a message for Theseus, that she did so
because Hippolytus had tried to assault her. Theseus believed this lie, and called down a curse upon his son,
which results in his death. This scene is shown in a painting by Rubens, with a monstrous seacreature terrifying
Hippolytus' horses so that he is thrown from the chariot and fatally wounded; but before he dies, he tells his
father what really happened between him and Phaedra.
One final story about Theseus was already mentioned previously; his rescue from the Underworld by Herakles.
Theseus had been trapped there for some time after having been apprehended with his friend Pirithous when
they tried to steal Persephone away from Hades. As we learned above, Herakles pulled him free from the chair
and he returned to the surface to live out his remaining lifetime.
Amazon
Rubens
Herakles
Daedalus and Icarus Certainly one of the bestknown Greek myths, this story relates how Daedalus, the craftsman/inventor who
designed the Labyrinth for Minos wanted to leave Crete, but Minos forbid it; no ship leaving the island was to take
Daedalus away. But he used his skills to invent a way to escape, a set of wings which could make a person fly like
a bird. He made a pair for himself and another for his son Icarus, and warned him about flying too high, since
this would bring him near to the sun whose warmth would melt the wax that held the wings together.
But Icarus ignored his father's warning and did fly too high, and his wings fell apart, and he plummeted to his
death in the sea below.
This is seen here first in a romanticized painting by Herbert Draper, and then in a very different way by Baroque
artist Pieter Bruegel the elder. "Landscape with the death of Icarus" is the title, but you must look very
closely to find Icarus; only a glimpse of his leg appears, splashing into the sea. Bruegel is clearly making a
statement here, that Icarus was in the end very insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Draper
Bruegel
Herakles Video
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Hercules and the 12 labors
Theseus
In the ancient Greek world, myth functioned as a method of both recording history and providing precedent for
political programs. While today the word "myth" is almost synonymous with "fiction," in antiquity, myth was an
alternate form of reality. Thus, the rise of Theseus as the national hero of Athens, evident in the evolution of his
iconography in Athenian art, was a result of a number of historical and political developments that occurred during
the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.
Theseus's life represents that of a real person, one involving change and maturation. Theseus became king and
therefore part of the historical lineage of Athens.
Myth surrounding Theseus suggests that he lived during the Late Bronze Age, probably a generation before the
Homeric heroes of the Trojan War. The earliest references to the hero come from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the
Homeric epics of the early eighth century B.C. Theseus's most significant achievement was the Synoikismos, the
unification of the twelve demes, or local settlements of Attica, into the political and economic entity that became
Athens.
Theseus's life can be divided into two distinct periods, as a youth and as king of Athens. Aegeus, king of Athens,
and the sea god Poseidon both slept with Theseus's mother, Aithra, on the same night, supplying Theseus with
both divine and royal lineage. Theseus was born in Aithra's home city of Troezen, located in the Peloponnese, but
as an adolescent he traveled around the Saronic Gulf via Epidauros, the Isthmus of Corinth, Krommyon, the
Megarian Cliffs, and Eleusis before finally reaching Athens. Along the way he encountered and dispatched six
legendary brigands notorious for attacking travelers.
Upon arriving in Athens, Theseus was recognized by his stepmother, Medea, who considered him a threat to her
power. Medea attempted to dispatch Theseus by poisoning him, conspiring to ambush him with the Pallantidae
Giants, and by sending him to face the Marathonian Bull.
Likely the most famous of Theseus's deeds was the slaying of the Minotaur. Athens was forced to pay an annual
tribute of seven maidens and seven youths to King Minos of Crete to feed the Minotaur, half man, half bull, that
inhabited the labyrinthine palace of Minos at Knossos. Theseus, determined to end Minoan dominance,
volunteered to be one of the sacrificial youths. On Crete, Theseus seduced Minos's daughter, Ariadne, who
conspired to help him kill the Minotaur and escape by giving him a ball of yarn to unroll as he moved throughout
the labyrinth. Theseus managed to flee Crete with Ariadne, but then abandoned her on the island of Naxos during
the voyage back to Athens. King Aegeus had told Theseus that upon returning to Athens, he was to fly a white sail
if he had triumphed over the Minotaur, and to instruct the crew to raise a black sail if he had been killed. Theseus,
forgetting his father's direction, flew a black sail as he returned. Aegeus, in his grief, threw himself from the cliff
at Cape Sounion into the Aegean, making Theseus the new king of Athens and giving the sea its name.
There is but a sketchy picture of Theseus's deeds in later life, gleaned from brief literary references of the early
Archaic period, mostly from fragmentary works by lyric poets. Theseus embarked on a number of expeditions with
his close friend Peirithoos, the king of the Lapith tribe from Thessaly in northern Greece. He also undertook an
expedition against the Amazons, in some versions with Herakles, and kidnapped their queen Antiope, whom he
subsequently married. Enraged by this, the Amazons laid siege to Athens, an event that became popular in later
artistic representations.
Greek Religion video
Here is a video on the Greek Gods. You may use this for your Greek Film Report.
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Greek Mythology God and Goddesses D...
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An Introduction to Classical Mythology

Transcription

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