Mythology terms
Adonia Festival
- Best documented in Athens in the 5th-4thc. BCE - Annual festival in summer - Women plant fast-growing plants like lettuce in shallow or broken pottery vessels and place them on the roof in the sun: "Gardens of Adonis" - Plants quickly sprout and then wilt due to hot sun and shallow soil - Women spend at least one night of festivities on the rooftops lamenting the death of Adonis - Women then engage in a ritual lament and procession mourning the death of Adonis, then throw dead plants into springs or the sea
Manumission in Rome
- Roman masters could choose to free slaves, though number of slaves who could be freed at once was limited - Slaves sometimes allowed to run businesses, save up to buy their freedom - Freed slaves remained under the patronage of their former master, with mutual obligations - Freed male slaves could vote but not hold office - Children of freed slaves had full citizen rights
Autochthony
- Greek autos=self, chthon- earth/ground - The idea of people (and/or monsters) being born out of the ground
Hesiod
- Hesiod's Theogony is our best evidence for early Greek creation myth - Greek sung poem, in similar style to Homeric epics, Iliad and Odyssey - Composed c.700 BCE - Author is unknown beyond what he says about himself, poetry probably traditional - Genealogy of family of gods, starting from primordial origin of universe, through establishment of Zeus' rule - Many tangential stories about divine conflicts, origins of monsters, etc.
Structuralism
- Humans see the world in terms of categories, especially binary oppositions - We should consider all versions of a myth to analyze it (extreme opposite of historicism) - Analyzing myths in this way reveals universal truths about how humans perceive and interact with the world
Ovid
- Roman poet of the time of the first emperor, Augustus; fell out with the emperor and was sent into exile in 8CE - Masterpiece is his 15 book "epic" poem, the Metamorphoses (tells many Greek and Roman myths and studies the particular question of change in myth; metamorphosis)
Link between myth and ritual
- Scholars are divided between those who think the ritual focused on agricultural fertility and those who think it involved death and afterlife - Both possible to link to myth of Demeter
Iulus/Ascanius
- Son of Aeneas and Creusa - After the fall of Troy, Ascanius and Aeneas escaped to Italy - Ascanius set off a war between the trojans and the latins by wounding the pet stag of Silvia (daughter of the royal heardsman) - Aeneas won the war, slew the Latin commander, and married Lavinia; founded Lavinium, the parent city of Alba Longa and Rome - Ascanius became king of Lavinium after his father's death - Founded alba longa
Aeneas
- Son of Aphrodite and Anchises - Survivor of Trojan war and leader of trojan refugees - Claimed as founder of other cities, ex: Aineia - Popular figure in attic vase painting - Leader on the Trojan side of the Trojan War; great Trojan hero
Elusinian mysteries
- Special ritual only open to those who elected to participate - Procession from Athens to Eleusis - Ritual shooting of obscenities and insults - Sacrifice of pig - Entry into central chamber for revelation of mystery
Hymn to Aphrodite
- Story of conception of last demigod: Aeneas - Epochal shift into a time when gods no longer interbreed with humans (recall race of heroes mentioned by Hesiod) - Celebration of power of Aphrodite, but at the same time reduction of that power: Aphrodite must be tamed for order of Zeus to be stable - Focus on human vs. divine understanding of time, lifespans (tree nymphs - Inset stories about the sky: Zeus and Ganymede, Eos and Tithonus
3 ways of analyzing myths
- Universalizing approaches o Understand myths as expressions of universal human experience - Aesthetic approaches o Focus on individual representations of myth in art and literature and consider how the artist/author tells the story - Historical approaches o Examine the historic contexts of the various tellings/versions of the myths
cosmos
- the entire natural order - Greek work carries sense of beauty and decoration (root of English cosmetics)
Pandora=Promethean fire
- Both are doloi - tricks, concealing something inside - Both are voracious; divine fire was ever-burning and abundant, but Promethean fire must be fed and its seed preserved to continue - Hesiod elsewhere uses heat and drying imagery to describe the effects of women on men (withering them up, drying them up) - "thieving disposition" vs stolen fire
Ancient Greek culture was around for a really long time
- Bronze age (3000-1000 BCE), Archaic period (1000-479 BCE), Classical period (479-323 BCE), Hellenistic period (323-30 BCE), Roman Imperial period (30 BCE-395 CE) - The Greeks were never alone
Rome gets an emperor
- By 30 BCE, a clear victor: adopted son of Caesar, Octavian - Became known as Augustus - Family of Julii traced ancestry to Venus and Aeneas
Alba Longa
- City founded by Ascanius - Ancient city of Latium, Italy - Considered the mother of Rome - Located in the Alban Hills
Hymn to Demeter
- Connected stories of rape/abduction and return of Persephone and Demeter's time in Eleusis - Origin myth for the seasons: crops die when Demeter is sad - Origin myth for Eleusinian Mysteries, Demeter's gift to humanity - Allegory of sorts for the experience of marriage from a female perspective: grief of separated mothers and daughters - Rare example of a goddess defying Zeus and getting her way: power of Demeter, food makes the world go round
Eleusis Story
- Demeter's special relationship with Eleusis
Anchises
- Father of Aeneas with Aphrodite - Dies during the journey from Troy to Italy - Continues in spirit to help his son, Aeneas, fulfill fate's decrees, especially by guiding Aeneas through the underworld and showing him what fate has in store for his descendants
Augustus Rome (30 BCE-14 CE)
Augustus dramatically increased the territory of the empire: - Developed network of roads - Established standing army, police, and firefighting services - Reformed tax system - Rebuilt many parts of the city Creative period for roman art and literature: - Famous poets, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid write poetry with mythological and imperial themes - Classic account of myths of early Rome by Livy - Artistic representations of Greek and Roman myths become more common in Europe
From about 800 BCE, the ancient Greeks always lived in city-states
City-state= polis (a town and a group of citizens); City-states= poleis - Athens - Bias of written evidence - Big producer of pottery, which survives well, preserving words and images - Wealthy and powerful (arguably an empire) after Persian war, leading to period of cultural flourishing and public projects
Rome was repeatedly shaken by civil wars throughout history
The republic falters: - The pride of success - Consequence: a series of civil wars - By 48 BCE, a winner: Julius Caesar - Ides of March 44 BCE, Caesar was assassinated leading to a further round of civil war Roman versions of myths and social violence
who were the non-greeks
barbarians (barbaroi)= people who speak languages that sound like bar-bar-bar-bar
latin words related to myth
fabula- tale
ancient Greek words related to myth
muthos- authoritative statement logos- story epos- epic poem
Creon
o Brother of Jocasta o Uncle of Antigone o Became king of Thebes after fall of Oedipus o Orders that Polynices, as a traitor of the city, must not be buried o Sentences Antigone to be buried alive, but changes his mind after condemnation of Tiresias; too late—Antigone has already hanged herself and Haimon (Creon's son, Antigone's fiancé) has stabbed himself o Creon's wife Eurydice also kills herself; Creon recognizes that he was wrong
Antigone
o Daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta o When Creon orders that Polynices, as a traitor of the city, must not be buried, she defies him (her sister Ismene refuses to participate) by scattering dirt on the corpse, a symbolic burial o Hangs herself
Homeric hymns
o Like Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns share the form of Homeric verse; anonymous authors, traditional material o Mostly date to 7th and 6th centuries BCE o Hymns praise the gods, narrate their achievements and explain their place in pantheon o Some of the hymns stem from particular festivals and rituals
Polynices
o Oedipus' and Jocasta's son o Brother of Eteocles o Agreement: either to alternate rule year by year, or to draw for one to rule and the other to inherit father's positions o In some versions, doomed to kill each other by father's curse o Eteocles rules (+ maybe refuses to switches off), Polynices goes to Argos with money, marries daughter of king Adrastos, raises army led by 7 champions (corresponding to famous 7 gates of Thebes) o attempted invasion defeated, brothers kill each other
Eteocles
o Oedipus' and Jocasta's son o Brother of Polynices o Agreement: either to alternate rule year by year, or to draw for one to rule and the other to inherit father's positions o In some versions, doomed to kill each other by father's curse o Eteocles rules (+ maybe refuses to switches off), Polynices goes to Argos with money, marries daughter of king Adrastos, raises army led by 7 champions (corresponding to famous 7 gates of Thebes) o attempted invasion defeated, brothers kill each other o died in battle and received a hero's burial
Seven Against Thebes
o Story popular throughout Greece and Rome o Tragedy by Aeschylus o 7 champions who were killed fighting against Thebes after the fall of Oedipus
Athens
o The Athenian Economy - Ancient Attica=90% agricultural economy - Modern US=5.7% - One farmer can only produce enough grain to feed 2-3 adults o Main crops - Olives - Grapes - Wheat
who did the Greeks have contact with during the Hellenistic and roman periods?
peoples of the near east, central and south Asia, and Europe; most of all, lots of exchange with Romans
Modern vestiges of Greek myth and astronomy
Moons of Jupiter named after sexual partners of Jupiter/Zeus
HUMANS
- Marriage - Agriculture - Sacrifice - Mortal - Intelligent
Prometheus
Creator of man
The Greek creation myth is a theogony
- "theogony"= "birth of the gods"
Oedipus' name
- 2 obvious possible etymologies, both of which the myth plays on: o Oidos (swelling) +pous (foot)- The aspect of Oedipus that is bound by fate and trauma, marked by his exposure as a child o Oida (I know) + pous (foot)- the aspect of Oedipus that solves the riddle of the Sphinx, exercises, free will, chooses to seek knowledge
Greek and roman myth
- A traditional story, set in the distant past - Gives its tellers and its audiences ways to think about their world (as an explanation, as a possible scenario, as an analogy, as a limit case)
Two forms of creation myth
- Acts of intervention- Genesis, Yuchi Creation Story - Process of emergence- Greek Theogony, the Big Bang
Creation of myths are a form of aetiological myth
- Aetiological (or etiological) myths: stories that tell origins of things - Greek aitios = culpable, responsible, aition= cause, reason
why is it best to take all three approaches analyzing myths
- All 3 camps criticize the others - Universalists claim the other 2 approaches miss the big picture - Aesthetic interpretations claim other 2 miss the individual artistic vision inherent in any telling of a myth - Historical view claims that universalists miss human and historical diversity and that aesthetic interpretations miss that any given myth-telling must make sense in a particular context
Aieneia
- Ancient city and city state (polis) in Greece - Aeneas founded the city
Myth variants
- Any given myth may have several surviving versions - Differences determined by time and place of creation, genre, context - A NOT HELPFUL way to think of this: "Original version," "real version," or "official version" - MORE HELPFUL: "oldest surviving version," "Homer's version," "Ovid's version" - There is no original version! Myths are by definition already traditional by the tie they are written down for the first time - Each teller recreates the traditional story for their own time and place, taking part in and adding to the myth tradition
Myths as traditional stories
- As traditional stories, the myths can and did pass from one cultural era to another - The point is not finding the origin of a myth, but seeing how different versions of a myth make sense to a particular author/artist or in a particular place/time
Greeks and sexuality
- Assumption of procreative marriage (often older man/younger woman) - Free men permitted to pursue sexual relations in addition, with either sex - Only enslaved women were legitimate female sexual partners outside marriage - Same-sex male desire around organized model of older lover (erastes) and younger beloved (eromenos) - Written sources by men rarely consider same-sex female desire
Greek (Athenian) law on rape and adultery
- Athenian definition of rape: sex obtained by violence, only when victim was free man or woman (adult or child) - Penalty: financial penalty paid to victim or (mostly true for women) to father or husband (male patriarch) - Athenian definition of adultery: sex with married woman or unmarried daughter of a free Athenian (even if consensual) - Penalty: male relative allowed to kill or harm perpetrator or demand financial recompense
Sophocles
- Athenian tragedian - Lived 497-406 BCE - Wrote over 120 plats - Credited by Aristotle with innovation of adding third actor - Known for moving portrayals of heroes in isolation, dynamic and eventful plots
important break in Greek history around 1000 BCE
- Linear B tablet- syllabic script - After the fall of Bronze Age palace societies, Greece entered a "dark age" - No surviving texts from the period of 1000-c.800 - Less impressive archaeological evidence - Homeric poems and later Greek mythological narratives seem to set their stories in the "bronze age"; the places important in the Bronze Age are important in Homer - The sorts of concepts of warrior heroism in the myths seem to accord with the evidence from places like Lefkandi - Does not mean that stories are accurate history
Roman culture was profoundly shaped by exchange with Greek culture
- Long history of contact with Greeks - Roman participation in mythic traditions i. "roman myth"= a traditional story told by someone who was a Roman of lived in roman empire ii. BUT origin of story could be from Greece or from another culture iii. Romans did not "copy" Greek myths, they joined the traditions and shaped them
Greek view of human condition (described by structuralists)
- Marriage (monogamous, procreative, non-incestuous) vs. animals (promiscuous, incestuous) and gods (also promiscuous, often incestuous, often non-procreative) - Agriculture (food must be produced by hard labor) vs. animals (eat the fruits of the earth) and gods (eat nectar and ambrosia) - Sacrifice (animal meat always eaten cooked and according to ritual, "shared" with gods) vs. animals (meat eaten raw, cannibalism common) and gods (inhale sacrificial smoke, also sometimes cannibalism)
Greek sexuality
- Modern sexual identities: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual - Greeks did not have these identities
Prometheus as creator
- Multiple variants where Prometheus creates humans out of clay o Repeatedly, Ovid says Prometheus' son Deucalion survived the Great Flood with his wife Pyrrha and repopulated the earth by throwing stones over their shoulders that transformed into male and female people respectively - Not mentioned as creator in Hesiod, more of an advocate for humans - But Pandora is made out of clay by Hephaestus, in direct response to Prometheus' efforts to improve life for humans
Stories of human creation: aetiological myths
- Not just aetiologies (orgings) for human beings, but also for male/female difference and for "human condition" - Also these myths allowed consideration of the act of creation (especially technological and artistic)
Sappho
- Only female Greek author with substantial surviving works - 7th century Lesbos; writes in Aeolic - Lyric poet famous in ancient world as "tenth muse" - Maybe ran or part of some kind of music or finishing school (we know very little) - Vivid descriptions of emotions ("lyric ego") - Erotic poems about young women, themes of desire and separation (because of marriage) - Engages with famous stories, including Homer, from a female perspective
Pandora
- Origin of woman as origin of human condition - Human condition is bad - Does this mean that women are bad? Hesiod says YES
Roman society was a free man's world
- Patriarchy (though less than Greeks in some ways, women could own property, sometimes retain it in divorce) - Slave society - Manumission in Rome -Legal categories: free people, freed people, enslaved people
Greek society was a free man's world
- Patriarchy: limitation of political action to men, largely only men who could hold property - Slave society: categorization of all Greeks into free or slave (not on racial ground); slave labor central to all elements of the economy - Male institutions: the "symposium"= "drinking together"; context for philosophy, poetry, storytelling -Almost all ancient texts and images represent an elite male perspective
The Greek Gods
- Polytheism=the idea that there are many gods - Greek gods are part of cosmic order (not transcendent) - Possibility of intimate relations with humanity
Pandora=sacrificed ox
- Presented as inviting gift - Called a dolos (trap/trick), emphasis on inside not matching outside - Called a gaster (insatiable belly) while meat portion is covered in an actual stomach (gaster) o Origin of permanent hunger for humans o Also associated with sexual voracity elsewhere in Works and Days
GODS
- Promiscuity - Bounty - No meat, cannibalism - Immortal - Super intelligent
ANIMALS
- Promiscuity - Bounty - Raw meat, cannibalism - Mortal - Unintelligent
How do we know about myths?
2 paths: texts- Latin and Greek books, transmitted through the centuries by hand copies until modern era of printing archaeology- Monuments and objects preserved in the ground and recovered by modern archaeologists
Rome was a city-state that came to have an empire
Early Rome: - Area inhabited from 14,000 years ago - Villages developed on hills near Tiber River around 1000 BCE - Populated by various Latin settlers (Italic tribe) - Developed into urban area due to greater agricultural productivity and trade with Greek colonies to the south - Roman tradition dates its founding to 753 BCE Roman republican culture: - Aristocratic families competed for prominence and political office - Best way to get elected was to have family tradition of military glory - Also claims to mythic ancestors
Ancient Greece was different from the modern "nation-state" of Greece
No unified state, but they shared: - Culture (including religion and myths, inter-city athletic competitions, festivals) - Language
Rome had an empire before it had an emperor
a. Chronology of ancient Rome i. Beginnings (rule by kings) = c.800-509 BCE ii. Republican period (Senate) = 509-30 BCE iii. Imperial period= 30 BCE-395 CE
who did the greeks have contact with during the bronze age, archaic period, and classical period?
ancient civilizations of the Near East and Egypt
