CLAS131 Exam 1
Simple Personifications
- 'names' are simply common nouns - rarely appear in art and rarely feature as characters in myths - some variety, from Themis and Nyx on one hand, to Helios, Eos, and Selene on the other
Structure of Theogony 2: Succession of Dominant Gods
- 1st generation: Chaos generates Gaia, Eros, etc. - 2nd generation: Gaia (Earth) produces Uranus (Heaven); they mate Uranus's rule is brought to an end when his son castrates him - 3rd generation (Titans): Cronus and Rhea, Cronus' reign goes to an end when his kid (Zeus) overthrows him - 4th generation (Olympians): Zeus: his reign never comes to an end, he defends the throne against Typhoeus and swallows Metis
Pausanias
- 2nd century CE Greek man of leisure - traveled Greece for years taking notes on local monuments and landmarks resulting in a nine-book long "Description of Greece," which archaeological findings have generally proven reliable - He remains an invaluable source for archaeologists, art historians, and mythologists
Roman Republic
- 510-31 BCE - "Regal" period: 753-510 BCE -A series of wars with Carthage and other powers leads to the Roman conquest of Mediterranean world: c. 250-150 BCE - Greek Influence: the Romans had their own native Italian deities and spoke their own language, Latin but they were heavily influenced by Greek culture, identifying their deities with Greek ones and adopting Greek literary forms like epic and tragedy
Myth
- A traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance (Burkert) - traditional: handed down over time, typically oral, anonymous, and variable - many go through a process of standardization - "Widely believed but false information" - mythos: word, speech, story - mythos vs. logos: "traditional tale vs. rational analysis" - some items display some but not all of the characteristics, so labeling something as a "myth" is a way to open up discussion about its meaning and cultural significance, not close it off º characteristics: Traditional? (handed down over time, oral, anonymous) Tale? (narrative of events, is it a folk tale or fable?) Collective Importance?
Hermes as a messenger and Herald
- Attributes: Caduceus, Petasos (broad-rimmed traveler's hat, sometimes a winged helmet), traveler's cloak, traveler's boots--often winged - in later art he is depicted as a younger man
Homeric Hymns to Hermes
- Author unknown, - late 6th or early 5th century BCE - longest of the hymns in the collection - notably light-hearted and humorous - hymns are meant to praise the deity: in this hymn, Hermes is honored by emphasis on his superhuman power--performs amazing deeds even as a day-old baby, wins a place for himself and his mother among the other gods - particular form his power takes in this hymn: guile, trickery, deception--which only represent one aspect of Hermes' personality, not even the most common - hymnist focuses on Hermes' trickery and mentions many other of his roles and powers in passing: - Hermes as a Herald, Kêryx, (assistant to kings or officials, with job of making announcements and bearing messages, position indicated by special staff, kêrkeion=Latin caduceus) - Hermes as a Shepherd, Kriophoros "ram-bearer" - Hermes as god of Trade: thievish craftiness is turned into Trade, he sometimes is shown with a bag of coins, merx-merchandise - Hermes as Messenger to the Underworld, between the worlds of the living and the dead - Hermes Pyschopompos: "leader of souls". At moment of death, Hermes leads the soul into the underworld
Athena/Minerva
- Domain/ Powers: Goddess of wisdom and women's crafts, like weaving, war, strength, courage, patron of heroes - Attributes: woman with arms (helmet, spear, shield); Aegis: goat skin shawl, often fringed with snakes, gorgon head; Animals: snake, owl
Demeter / Ceres
- Domain/ powers: goddess of grain and crops, mother of Persephone - Attributes: ears of grain, sometimes bundled; cornucopia (horn of plenty), snakes
Dionysus / Bacchus
- Domain/Attributes: god of wine, viticulture (growing grapes), divinely-inspired frenzy, Dionysiac rituals - Attributes: ivy crown, sometimes with hanging grapes; Drink in hand--sipping from a big cup; Thyrsus (ritual staff topped with a pinecone); Revelers in company; sometimes looks drunk; can be any age
Hephaestus / Vulcan
- Domain/Power: god of fire, blacksmithing, craftsmanship, uniquely disabled and not supernaturally handsome among the gods, married to Aphrodite - Attributes: blacksmithing tools: hammer, tongs, anvil; often seated
Poseidon/Neptune
- Domain/Power: god of the Sea, earthquakes, horses - Attributes: Adult male (bearded), trident, marine animal friends
Zeus/Jupiter
- Domain/Powers: God of lightning, rain, weather, the sky, king of the gods and also "god of kings", represents law, order, authority - Attributes: Adult male (bearded), Eagle, Scepter, Lightning bolt
Aphrodite/Venus
- Domain/Powers: Goddess of love, beauty, and sex, married to Hephaestus (but has many other lovers) - only goddess to appear naked or half-naked, sometimes with a gesture of modesty, her son Eros (Cupid) sometimes attends her
Hermes/Mercury
- Domain/Powers: Messenger of the gods, but sometimes a lot more - Attributes: Caduceus: staff, Petasos (broad-rimmed traveler's hat) or winged helmet, traveler's cloak, traveler's boots--often winged
Apollo/Apollo
- Domain/Powers: god of music, poetry, the arts, associated with light and the sun, god of prophecy and oracles, also archery medicine, and colonization - Attributes: Youthful male (no beard), bow and arrows, Lyre, Laurel
Ares / Mars
- Domain/Powers: god of war - Attributes: armor, especially prominent are spear, shield, and helmet
Hestia / Vesta
- Domain/powers: goddess of the hearth, home, family life - Attributes: Fire--usually in a bowl, but also torches
Major styles of Greek vase painting
- Early iron age c. 1100- c. 800 BCE Geometric style (c. 900-700 BCE): ex. the funeral on the vase, war chariot depictions showing a story set in the past, perhaps mythic scene Proto-Attic: c. 650 BCE: representation of a specific story, not much later than our earliest literary representations of mythic stories - Archaic period c. 800 - 500 BCE) Black Figure (c. 625- c. 475 BCE). Background: natural clay; Figures: painted in black (and white, red), Detail: etched with a pin - Classical Period (c. 500-c.323 BCE) Red Figure, opposite of black figure (c. 525 - c. 300 BCE). Background: painted black; figures: left unpainted in natural clay; detail: painted in black, allowed for more fluid lines
Personification of Things: Aspects of Physical World
- Eos = "Dawn" - Helios = "Sun" - Selene = "Moon" - Nyx = "Night" - Gaia = "Earth" - Okeanos = "Ocean"
Titles and Epithets
- Epithets: adjectives or brief descriptive phrases that capture one of their subject's characteristic qualities; are to texts what attributes are to images - typically link the god to a particular place, genealogy, quality, or sphere of power. ex. Zeus's epithets include: father of gods and men, son of Cronos, cloud-gatherer, lord of thunder - Epithets of Hermes: "son of Zeus and Maia", "lord of Cyllene and Arcadia rich in sheep", "fortune-bearing", "herald of the gods"
'Our' Conception of God
- Eternal and transcendent, outside/above the physical cosmos - creator of the cosmos - supremely powerful over all aspects of the cosmos - supremely good: defines and judges moral behavior
Greek Idenitity
- Greece wasn't a unified nation in antiquity but separated into scores of independent political entities - nevertheless, the Greeks did perceive themselves as a unique ethnic group, united by language and culture, regardless of individual polis affiliation - many myths feature heroes from all over Greece joining forces, as in the Trojan War (such myths are called "Panhellenic")
MMT 4: Etiology
- Greek Aetion: the "cause" or "origin" of something - an explanatory account of why things are the way they are - myths have an explanatory function: they explain how the world came to be the way it is today - when myths tell stories that reveal the origins of something (like a plant, cultural tradition), they are called etiological ex. the seasons: again, Demeter and Persephone: compromise was that Persephone would spend half her time in the underworld and half out in Olympus with Demeter, which explains how we have an agricultural cycle divided into different seasons
Homeric Hymns
- Greek hymnos, 'song', especially 'song in honor of god' - Homeric: use of Homeric meter, vocab, style; epithets, repetition--oral composition - Now thought to be composed by different poets at different times in Archaic period and gathered into a collection at a later date - Greek hymns share a common structure: invocation of deity, praise of deity--enumeration of titles and epithets, description of powers and attributes, narration of birth and/or other famous deeds; Farewell and/or request for blessings; often a transition to another poem - context: sung by solo performer called a rhapsode; not by groups of worshippers; 'Preludes' to performances of other poems?; longer hymns performed at festivals of gods?
Greek Alphabet
- Greeks and Phoenicians traded heavily - economic interactions led to other forms of interaction, including the adaption of the Phoenician alphabet for use with the Greek language
Archaic Period: Trade and Colonization
- Greeks sail to lands unknown to them - trade led to settlement and soon the Greeks had colonies throughout much of the Mediterranean world - Greeks weren't the only ones trading and colonizing during this period: Phoenician trade and colonization (c. 900- c. 500 BCE) - Phoenicians: homeland in what is now Lebanon, spoke a language closely related to Hebrew - Greeks and Phoenicians largely aimed for different regions but sometimes settled close to one another, as in Sicily and Iberia
Theogony: Sources
- Hesiod got the material from Myth!, Traditional tale and probably a lot from oral tradition - some of his stories have clear parallels to myths known from ancient Near Eastern cultures, such as his succession myths - he selected, organized, and elaborated into an ordered genealogy, reworked and shaped individual stories
Vase painting/shapes
- Kylix Type A (the wine glass) - Hydria (the one for oils and such? - Neck Amphora (for water and such)
Personifications and Abstractions: Aspects of Human Culture
- Metis = "Cunning Intelligence" - Themis = "Custom, traditional law" Themis followed by three nymphs - Hebe = "Youth" marriage of Hebe and Herakles - Mnemosyne = "memory"
'The' Ancient Greek Conception
- Not "God" but "gods": multiple deities, Polytheistic - Deities conceived like humans: anthropomorphic. Human form, including gender, human sexuality and growth, human emotions and social interactions (conversations, meals, relationships, positive and negative, with both gods and humans)
Ex. 3-eyed Zeus
- Pausanias describes seeing a wooden image of Zeus with three eyes, but he can only conjecture why the image has a third eye (his explanation is that it represents the three realms Zeus has power over) - ex. of how images can both inspire or hinder our interpretation of myth
Pausanias and Myth
- Pausanias reinforces several points: Myth is very variable (ex. story of Phegyas and his daughter who had a kid and left it on the mountain, kid had healing powers. many versions of this); there is an etiological myth for almost everything; myth is still oral, even in the 2nd century CE
Conventions in Greek vase painting
- People having their hands up: gestures of surprise, amazement. ex. in the Birth of Athena - poses: running, looks like they are lunging or something - black figure: some figures are white to depict females and males. Females were white, males were black. Ex. combat of Achilles and Penthesileia, queen of the Amazons - Adult males: beards - Young adult males: no beards - labels are sometimes used: ex. Achilles and Ajax Play Dice
Structure of Theogony 1: Genealogy
- Preface: Hymn to Muses (1-115) - 1st to 3rd generation of gods - 4th generation: children of the Titans - 4th generation: establishment of Zeus's rule - 4th and 5th generations: children born to the Olympians
MMT 3: Rites of Passage
- Process by which children become full-fledged adults - in heavily patriarchal societies such as Greece and Rome, this process was highly gendered - Heroic Lads: must leave homes and prove themselves by defeating terrible foes/going on epic quests (like any movie ever ex. Harry Potter) - for girls it is different: Marriage, transition from birth family to the household of her new family--called Exogamy, "marrying out" which myths show how that can be a traumatic transition. ex. Persephone
Major Media of Ancient Greco-Roman Art
- Sculpture: free-standing (often bronze), reliefs (often architectural) - metalwork: jewelry, coins - Textiles - Painting: wall and vase
Personifications
- The ancient Greek alphabet had only capital letters. ex. The Greek word HELIOS denoted simultaneously the physical entity, the sun, and the person, Sun -Thus, you can see why Hesiod's THEOgony also functions as a COSMOgony: for the Greeks, the constituent parts of the world were divine
Works of Hesiod
- Theogony: theos (god) + gonê (offspring): compare 'genesis' and 'genealogy' - Theogony = genealogy of the gods, but also cosmology = how the present world order (kosmos) came to be - Works and Days: 'wisdom literature', presented as advice to his brother Perses
Zeus and Metis (Theogony)
- Within these stories, Zeus swallows his wife Metis so that no one but Zeus would hold the title of King among the eternal gods, because it was predestined that very wise children would be born from her, including Tritogeneia, equal to her father in strength and wisdom and also a son. - significance: Zeus brings an end to the cycle of succession: what happened to Uranus and Cronus won't happen to him
4th Generation: Children of Titans (Theogony)
- Zeus appears in the 4th generation, the children of Cronus and Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus - *These are the gods that the Greeks actually worshipped* - Zeus leads the other Olympians in a battle against the Titans, the Titanomachy - Zeus's victory represents.?
Rule of Zeus (Theogony)
- Zeus officially becomes king of the gods - marriages and children of Zeus - Marriages and children of other Olympians - Goddesses and heroes
Pausanias and Art
- also gives us insight into how ancient people experienced works of art depicting myth - for ancient Greeks and Romans who were steeped in myth, the sight of a mythic scene would trigger knowledge of that story, or reflection on an entire complex of stories - largely encounters artworks in temples and sanctuaries, scattered throughout the city and beyond, ex. next to the gymnasium, beside theater, even in sacred caves, etc. but also free-standing sculptures in marketplaces, as well as grave markers in the country
The Nature of the Gods: Hermes
- ancient Greek conception of Hermes: a very complex figure, with many different associations--messenger and herald of gods; god of herding; god of trade; psychopompos - the idea of 'exchange' or 'connection' is an underlying element/idea in all these associations: Hermes is the medium through which: Messages are transferred, souls transition from the land of the living to the dead, property is exchanged (whether commercially or illegally, through theft) - Hermes has further associations: luck and good fortune, god of dreams
Hesiod: Identity and Date
- ancient greeks regarded him as one of their earliest and most important poets - Information from his poems: - Theogony 23-24: the Muses taught 'Hesiod the art of singing verse while he pastured his lambs on holy Helicon's slopes' - Works and Days 699-710: father a sailor in Greek city of Cyme (coast of modern Turkey), gave it up to settle as a farmer in Ascra near Mt. Helicon. 720-730: performed in a song contest at funeral games at Chalcis and won first place - usually date to c. 700 BCE but he lived in the earliest stages of the introduction of literacy to the Greek world, so stories about him became like myths themselves
Depicting the Gods: Visual Representation
- anthropomorphic gods create a problem for visual artists: how to distinguish gods from ordinary humans? - Attributes!!! distinctive objects, articles of clothing, or animals associated with particular deities. Visual conventions that identify a particular god and often signify his/her particular area of power
coins
- circulated in individual cities, often bore images related to the city's mythological past - like the ones today, they typically featured a bust on one side (usually a god) and a small image on the reverse - also an important method of political advertisement: generals and politicians could mint coins advertising their power through mythological symbolism
Myth vs. Fable
- ex. Tortoise and the Hare vs. Oedipus - Question: what is the "moral" of each of these stories - myths rarely have a simple moral message while fables are made up specifically to make a distinct point
gods vs. humans
- gods are born and grow up but never grow old and die - physical perfection: more beautiful than humans, never touched by illness - power: beyond that of humans, often associated with particular aspects of the physical or cultural world
The Nature of the Gods
- gods imagined as simple personifications vs. gods imagined as individuals with distinct names: an important distinction but not clear cut; rather it marks two ends of a spectrum. Some personifications feature as real personalities in myth (ex. Helios,etc.) Olympian gods are sometimes identified as aspects of the physical world All gods are in some way, whether more or less directly, related to aspects of the physical and cultural world
Importance of visual sources for the study of myth
- images were an important medium in a culture with more limited literacy than our own. Images provide important insight into how the Greeks and Roman understood their gods and heroes -Images aren't just "illustrations" of myth but offer independent evidence for myth on par with textual sources
'The' Ancient Greek Conception of gods from 'our' conception of God
- immortal rather than eternal - part of the physical cosmos rather than outside it; created along with it rather than the creators of it - not supremely powerful: each god limited by other gods (and by fate?) - Not the authors of a moral code (although sometimes associated with it)
The Gods
- important in myth but not as important as one might think, most myths featured humans as protagonists, with gods as supporting characters
Zeus and Typhoeus (theogony)
- in the battle of Hero vs. Monster, the monster typically represents Disorder, visually he is a disordered amalgam of creatures and had many heads with voices/noises, he unites a variety of sounds in horrible cacophony; monsoons that scattered ships and destroyed sailors - if Zeus hadn't shown up Typhoeus would have ruled, which the author imagined as CHAOS - significance of Zeus's victory over Typhoeus: establishment of secure order in the cosmos--as guaranteed by Zeus's reign--over the forces of chaos
Nature of the Gods
- many Greek gods are simple personifications of natural phenomena or abstract concepts, with little personality or individuality. ex. Helios=sun, Nyx=the night, Dike=Justice - major Olympian deities not only have unique personal names and distinctive characters, but also much more complex associations, ex. Apollo is associated with: light, archery, music (lyre), poetry, etc.
MMT 7: Humanity and Divinity (Death)
- many myths reflect on the limitations inherent in the human condition, including the big one-- death - a lot of myths deal with questions like, what happens after you die?, how should the living treat the dead?, can you get out of dying? - ex. Sisyphus, king of Corinth wanted to avoid dying so he told his wife to treat his corpse with contempt and then told Hades he needed to come back to life to punish her but didn't come back for long bc the gods saw what was up and made him roll that rock up the hill for the rest of eternity - truly exceptional heroes can transcend the limits of ordinary humanity: most famously, Hercules becomes a god through Apotheosis but he is the exception to the rule
Learning and Acculturation
- many visual conventions are so pervasive that you probably don't remember even learning them (ex. bathroom signs) - looking at images from other cultures reveals how indispensable knowledge of visual conventions really is (meaning of images is not self-evident)
MMT 5: Heroes vs. Monsters
- mythic narrative often involves violence - clear protagonist and antagonist: "good guy" fights on the behalf of good and the gods, the "bad guy" fights on behalf of evil and represents a perversion of the gods' order and authority - bad guy is often a monster: a giant, abnormal, dangerous creature - victory of divine hero over monster ultimately reinforces the rule of the gods over natural order
Collective Importance
- myths are stories first, which can only later be "used" to address issues of collective importance - myth is traditional tale applied and its relevance and seriousness stem largely from this application (Burkert) - Applied... to big ongoing questions all people have about things like: the nature of the world and the role of human beings within it;mrelationships between people, individual, family, community, nations; individual and communal identity: who am I? Who are We?
MMT 2: Divine Favor and Wrath
- myths often explain why good or bad things happen to people in terms of relationships with the gods. Humans were thought to interact more regularly with gods in mythic times: with plenty of opportunities to get on their good side/piss them off - could explain great fortune/fame or misfortune/hardship - in the Odyssey, hero Odysseus has his own divine patron, Athena goddess of wisdom, who helps him throughout his adventures and a divine antagonist--Poseidon, who throws many obstacles in his way on the sea
Greek Literature is born
- re-adoption of writing allowed myths to be recorded and survive down to our time - crucial in transformation of myth from stories that were only passed down orally to stories that could take fixed forms
Reworking Traditional Stories (Theogony)
- some evidence that Hesiod deliberately changed received traditions, rewriting them for the Theogony: could provide clues as to his worldview and purpose in writing the poem - Zeus, Prometheus, and the division of the ox: a myth about the origins of ancient Greek sacrificial procedure. It is an Etiological myth, explaining why sacrifices involve leaving the bones to be offered entirely to the gods, while human worshippers partake of the meat after it is cooked. The plot is odd because Prometheus tries to trick Zeus into taking the worse portion of the sacrifice, Zeus sees through the trick but takes the worse portion anyway. A possible explanation is that in the traditional tale, Zeus really was tricked like Uranus and Cronus before him but Hesiod changes it by insisting that Zeus wasn't really deceived. Hesiod could've changed it to emphasize Zeus' supreme wisdom.
Elaborating Material (Theogony)
- some of the figures Hesiod mentions in his genealogies never appear elsewhere in Greco-Roman literature: may suggest that Hesiod invented some of these figures in order to fill in the gaps connecting the gods to one another
Olympian Gods
- the ancient greeks conceptualized the relationship between olympian gods and the world by imagining them as anthropomorphic individuals with power over certain forces, but could also regard them as identical with those forces
MMT 1: Geneology
- this and birth are major sites of fascination: - sexual relations between gods and humans produce Heroes (or "demigods") who receive extraordinary powers from their parentage - Divine birth is an important element of any hero's backstory: ex. the mightiest Greek hero, Hercules, is the son of Zeus which is why he could do so much even as a baby
Archaic Period
- three major bodies of poetry make up the earliest Greek literature - Homer: epic, Iliad, Odyssey. From oral tradition to written poem - earliest Greek literature: - Hesiod (c. 700 BCE?), geneological and 'wisdom' poetry (didactic), Theogony and Works and Days - Homeric Hymns (c. 700-500 BCE?): anonymous hymns celebrating the Greek gods in Homeric verse
Selecting Material (Hesiod's Theogony)
- we know from other archaic poets that there were other versions of some of the stories that Hesiod tells (ex. Homer says that Oceanus was the primordial god, not Chaos) - he had to be selective, choosing which version of any given myth he was going to include
Hesiod's Purpose in composing the Theogony
- what is its major theme, main trust, culmination of its plot? Possible thesis: "to organize and synthesize a wide range of traditional stories into a coherent account of how the present cosmic order, under the unending rule of the supremely wise and powerful Zeus, came into existence"
Structure of Theogony
- work does what title says: gives a family tree of the gods - mixed in with genealogy are select stories about the gods--not random - Hesiod interweaves genealogy of the gods with sort of cosmic history, tracking the rulers of the cosmos in each divine generation: Uranus, Cronus, Zeus (who defends the title against Typhoeus)
Evidence from images
-often provide evidence for myths and variants of myths either unknown or poorly known from textual sources ex. Jason and the Dragon: has the golden fleece, Athena, dragon, etc. The question is, what is Jason doing in the dragon's mouth? this occurs in no surviving literary version of the myth bc in literary sources Jason either slays the dragon in combat or has the dragon magically put to sleep so he can steal the fleece
Organizing Material (theogony)
-represents a massive undertaking just by virtue of systematizing an enormous body of myth
Major Mythic Themes (MMT's)
1. Genealogy 2. Divine Favour and Wrath 3. Rites of Passage 4. Etiology 5. Heroes vs. Monsters 6. Civilization 7. Humanity and Divinity (Death)
Bronze Age
1800-1100 BCE - this is the most important metal, esp. for weapons - highly developed civilisations in Near East (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia) while Greece is considerably less developed at this time - two civilisations appear in Greece: Minoan (island of Crete), and Mycenaean, based in mainland Greece - political and social organisation centered on "palaces" ruled by kings - Mycenaeans preserve the earliest traces of Greek writing: Mycenaean Script--Linear B which was used only for inventories and not literature
Major Historical Periods of Greek and Roman Antiquity
Bronze Age: c. 1800 - 1100 BCE Early Iron Age: c. 1100 BCE - 800 BCE Archaic Period: c. 800 BCE - 500 BCE Classical Period: c. 500 BCE - 323 BCE Hellenistic Period/Roman Republic: c. 323 BCE - 31 BCE Roman Imperial Period: c. 31 BCE - 300 CE
Hades/ Pluto
Domain/Powers: god of the underworld and the dead, brother of Zeus and Poseidon - Attributes: Adult male (bearded), similar to Zeus and Poseidon, staff, cornucopia, sometimes with Cerberus, guardian of underworld (3 headed dog)
How did the ancient Greeks use myth to conceptualize the relationship between the gods and the world?
Greeks treated the constituent parts of the world, both the physical world and human culture as divine -ex. Zeus: he represents the lightning, storm, sky of the physical world; his relation to the sky is that 'Zeus is raining' - ex. Hephaestus: fire, metal-working, his relation to fire is "they roasted the meat over Hephaestus" - ex. Demeter: Attribute: ears of grain, agricultural fertility, especially grain, name used as a synonym for bread: Oppian/Ceres in Latin - ex. Aphrodite: sexual desire, commonly used as a noun meaning "sexual desire" or "attractiveness", Her son Eros too--a personification but also has developed a personality
Myth vs. Folk Tale
Myth is a traditional tale: a narrative of events with a basic structure--initial situation, complication, and resolution - not all traditional tales are myths: ex. folk tales fairy tales, fables. - Greek Myth: ex. Oedipus, vs. little red riding hood - Differences: characters, situations/concerns, setting (time and place) - characters: ordinary people/animals vs. aristocrats/gods - situations and concerns: everyday vs. profound - setting: 'once upon a time' vs. the primordial past or historical (or "legendary") time
Hera/Juno
Queen of the gods, wife of Zeus, and also his sister -Domain/Powers: family, marriage, the household, notoriously vengeful against mortals--especially Zeus' lovers and illegitimate offspring - Attributes: staff, sometimes enthroned, circular crown or tiara
Eros / Cupid
Son of Aphrodite and Ares - Domain/Powers: his arrow makes the target fall in love - Attributes: winged, bow and arrow, sometimes a baby or child, sometimes adolescent
Early Iron Age
c. 1100 - c. 800 BCE - major upheavals throughout the Near East and eastern Mediterranean in the end of the Bronze age c. 1200-1100 - Greece went through a "Dark Age:" End of Minoan and Mycaean civilizations, collapse of palace societies, loss of literacy - Echoes of this period (and even of the Bronze Age) seem to appear in some Greek myths. ex. wars fought over cattle, lack of writing in Homeric epics
Roman Imperial Period
c. 31 BCE - 300 CE - series of civil wars in the first century BCE led to the establishment of the Roman Empire led by Agustus (ruled from 31 BCE - 14 CE) - Vergil and the Aeneid (written 29-19 BCE): an epic to glorify Augustus, which quickly became the national epic of Rome
Hellenistic Period
c. 323 -31 BCE - Hellene= Greek, Hellenize = to adopt Greek culture, Hellenistic: period of adopted Greek culture - characterized by the death of Alexander the Great - Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) conquered lots of land in Africa and Asia, stretching to the Indus River - After his death this territory was divided among various Greek successor kingdoms - Spreading Hellenistic culture often infused with indigenous cultures ex. (Greek-ish Buddha) Buddha depicted in Greco-Buddhist style - Literature became self-consciously "literary" and scholarly for the first time. Geeks began to curate and categorize their literary heritage; birth of PHILOLOGY - literature was massively influential on Roman authors like Vergil
Classical Period
c. 500 - 323 BCE - Persian Wars: 490 and 480-79 BCE - Greek wins, which is impressive considering how small of a nation they were in comparison. Unity achieved against Persians, but short-lived. - Rivalry among Greek city-states, political decline - Three literary genres appear Tragedy (Verse drama): Aeschylus (525-456 BCE) and Euripides (485-406 BCE) Comedy (verse drama): Aristophanes (c. 446-386 BCE) - Philosophy: critique of traditional wisdom, begins in 6th century BCE, Plato (c. 429-347 BCE): prose!
Archaic Period
c. 800- c. 500 BCE - origins of "classical" Greek culture - Greek arche = "beginning" --formation of the polis ex. Athens, Thebes, Sparta; Overseas trade and colonisation; introduction of alphabet from Phoenicia - polis: "city-state", a city that was a sovereign political unit, but also unified social/religious communities
Establishment of Zeus's Rule (Theogony)
inaugurates a new age, ruled by a new generation of gods, the Olympians - Battle of Zeus and Typhoeus: the Typhonomachy, represents a major mythic theme the Hero vs. Monster
Artemis/Diana
sister of Apollo - Domain/Powers: Goddess of hunting, wild animals, girlhood (unmarried virgins) and childbirth - Attributes: like Apollo, armed with a bow and/or quiver of arrows, usually in hunting gear, wild animal friends (and prey)
MMT 6: Civilization
the mythic hero is a champion of civilization. By defeating monsters, he fosters the growth of human communities. Oftentimes heroes will found cities of their own, and ancient cities commemorated their founding heroes. - The founding of cities represents the advancement of the gods' order on earth. Ex. before the city of Thebes could be founded, the hero Cadmus had to make the land safe at first by defeating the monstrous serpent
Autochtony
these myths were promoted in Athens and many other Greek communities: belief that their earliest ancestors were literally born from the ground - ex. Cecrops, an early mythic Athenian king who is a "snake man" bc snakes are closely associated with the earth in Greco-Roman thought. "Loyal to my soil" in Athenian Identity: validates Athenian possession of their land, presents Athenians as purely Greek--no immigrant ancestry at all, justifies exclusion of foreigners from full citizenship in the city (Classical Athens had some of the most exclusive citizenship laws in the Greek world)
Relief Sculpture
used especially in certain architectural elements, three of which are useful to know: metope, frieze, pediment