Myth Quiz 1 - CLT3370

Classical Period

480 - 323 BC, Democracy, philosophy, aristotle, alexander Heyday of the Greek empire 323 is the year Alexander dies; ;ends this reign & era ABRUPTLY

Moerae (Fates)

Born of Night and Darkness together - Nyx and Erebus

The Hecatonchires (100 Hands)

Born of Uranus and Gaia, Zeus will use them in the rebellion against the Titans Cronus

The Cyclopes

Born of Uranus and Gaia; Craftsmen and the first metallurgists; The gods' workers; make the thunderbolts for Zeus (different from later Cyclops. These guys are smart.)

Tragedy

Develops from poetry Overwhelmingly set in long mythical past (as opposed to comedy, which is all about current events, public figures) Three greats of tragedy Aeshylus - the oresteia Sophocles - theban plays Euripides - medea, alcestis, bacchae, etc.

Ovid - Metamorphoses

Augustan Age Poet. Collection of myths. Our greatest source since Hesiod

Bronze Age

3000 - 1150 BC, Bronze age collapse is important~12th C BC, civilation comes to a rapid and abrupt end Myths have a Bronze age setting (bc of dark age loss of information/knowledge/contact w other civilizations)

Hellenistic Period

323 - 30 BC, Greece becomes less of an empire and more of a diffuse culture, everyone speaks greek, uses greek coins etc. 30: the roman empire completely conquers Greece & everything else becomes roman history

Archaic Period

750 - 480 BC, 750 is when they start writing (adopt the Phoenician alphabet)

Alexandria (Library) - Alexandrian Poets

World's biggest library, at least one copy of every known work in Greek and Latin Apollonius of rhodes is head librarian there Wrote a four-book epic (no one had messed in epics since the times of homer) Called The Argonautika The whole bit in traditional hexameter, a big novelty Told of jason & the argolid Important cause the story was well known to his audience but not to us, & we have only his version instead of any other evidence (Medea play we have tells what comes after, but not the journey itself) Apollonius was the remake guy

Nemesis (Retribution)

born asexually of Nyx (Night)

Division of Power (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades)

After the Gigantomachy, the world is divided Zeus gets heaven, Poseidon gets the sea, Hades gets the underworld Hades gets the short stick for sure

Giants ('Earthborn Ones')

Also from the blood of Uranus's castration touching earth

Amalthea, Melissa

Amal's goat milk nourishes baby Zeus on Crete; Melissa's ("bee's") honey nourishes him. The Corybantes (or Curetes): (real life men in Greek history = men who dress up in full armor and play hand symbols in worship of freisian goddess) In the myth, these guys are placed in front of the cave to distract from the sound of the babe Zeus crying

Virgil - The Aeneid

Augustan Age Poet. The roman homer; this is their epic Tells the story of the founding of the roman race, descended from Trojan Aeneis who fled after walls fell & travelled about (not true but doesn't matter)

Nyx (Night) - Erebus (Darkness)

Born from Chaos after the first primordial four; birth the Moerae (Fates) together, Nyx creates Nemesis (Retribution) asexually

Erinyes (the Furies)

Born from the blood & semen of uranus's castraded cock; Their modus operandi is to harass those who shed family blood

Aphrodite ('The Foam Born')

Born from the foam born up when the genitals themselves fall into the sea Name means the foam born -- takes several years for her to form from the foam Goddess of sexual love She's actually not always such a good goddess Very destructive goddess Represents the destructive power of sexual attraction in greek myth

Eileithyia, Hebe, Ares

Children of Hera and Zeus. Eileithyia is childbirth personified. Hebe is youth personified.

Mnemosyne

Goddess of memory. Mother of the nine muses with Zeus

Five Races (Ages) of Man Golden, Silver, Bronze, Age of Heroes, Iron

Golden race lives among gods, expanded lifespans. When they died, they became guardian spirits, Dimones. Silver Race Still pretty awesome, have longevity with youth but were sometimes violent, impous. They become underground spirits after death. Bronze race were born from the ash trees; stubborn, oxheaded, warlike men. First ones to use bronze. First people that go to the realm of Hades as shades when they die, like modern men. Hesiod inserts Age of Heroes to explain why the good guys were in the Bronze Age people; only race to try to improve upon their predecessors. Iron race is the modern man technically, but now we're plastic age/computer age really. We have the same generational shifts as the gods, except while they get better and better we get worse and worse.

Hesiod

Theogony (birth of the gods); Works and Days (how to be a good farmer, using mythology about seasons, etc.) Our primary basis for myths, greatest source ever

Lycaon

Greek flood story is about personal vendettas, because that's how Greek gods are. Lycaon wants to test whether Zeus is all-knowing, so he tries to feed Zeus a child/servant to see if he'll know. Zeus knows, and he's pissed, and he turns Lycaon into a werewolf. This is the original werewolf; first werewolf story we have. Zeus is STILL too mad so he brings about the flod.

Creation Myths Cosmogony and Theogony

Hesiod (ca 650) - wrote theogony Cosmogony explains the origins of the universe Theogony explains the origins of the gods To the Greeks these two were very much one and the same

Heracles

Introduced during the gigantomachy b/c A prophecy says Zeus can only beat the giants if a mortal fights on his side Hercules is this mortal (son of Z and a mortal woman) Herc drags this one giant (unbeatable on home soil) to a different ****ing soil & pummelled him to death

Hittite creation myth

Kingship in Heaven; Alalush vs anush (sky) Anush vs kumarbi Kumarbi vs Teshub (storm god) Multiple generations; son defeating elder; castration story (the way to defeat your elder male god as a younger male god is to de-male him)

Olympus

The olympians settle on olympus, obviously; Zeus is called "cloud-gathering Zeus" b/c the olympic peak always has a ring of clouds around it

Horae

The seasons (3). Winter, summer, spring. Represented by Goddesses, daughters of Zeus

Aeolus, Dorus, Xuthus

The sons of Hellen who birth the different dialects/tribes of greeks. Xuthus' son Iolan makes the Iolic, Doric, Aeolic dialects.

Omphalos

The stone that he vomitted up was later displayed for all to see in Apollo's shrine at Delphi Called omphalos - "navel" b/c supposedly it was the very center of greece, which was the center of the earth (Zeus had his eagles fly about to check this)

Enuma elish

babylonian poem Primordial gods = tiamat (saltwater) and Apsu (freshwater) They birth Anu (sky) and Ea Marduk (here storm god) Anu gives marduk wind and tiamat is disturbed by the noise; they fight and he defeats her with the spOKEN WORD (issues a poem) -- acknowledging importance of modernization winning out, etc.

Titanomachy

clash of the titans, war of the titans. Prometheus is the only titan that sides with the Olympians (bc he has foresight always) The olympians settle on olympus, obviously, & war breaks out b/n titans and olympians Role of Hecatonchires ("100 hands") and Cycolpes; Kronus buried them in Tartartus; Zeus needs their help, frees them, and gives them ambrosia and nectar to bring them back to full power Zeus is victorious b/c they made him his thunderbolts out of gratitude

Metis

cleverness personified; Zeus' wife, is pregnant with Athena when he eats her

Atlas

either a Titan or a Giant (for our purposes, Titan) Was condemned by Zeus to live at the end of the world, where he held up the heavens Got this punishment b/c he fought against Zeus with the Titans The place that he holds up the edge of the world at Gibraltar, edge end of the Meditteranean, that's why it's called the Atlantic ocean now "Body of a greek god" thing comes from Atlas

Aetiology

explaining why things are the way they are

Helios

first sun god, drags the sun across the sky. Son of Hyperion. Father of Phaeton.

Flood Myths

man reaches such a bad point the gods have to flood them and start over Oldest flood myth we have is Sumerian. Wipe out mankind but save one pious person, Ziusudra, on a boat. Atrahasis, just Ziusudra in another Arcadian language, another myth of the same kind. Atrahasis's sacrifice to the gods makes them realize they're reliant on man for food so they let him repopulate the earth Noah is this figure in the Old Testament. Story with most striking sim to Noah is Gilgamesh. 1300 BC. Utnapishtim is saved in this story, gets immortality at the edge of the world.

Greek oral-formulaic poetry Key principles of oral composition

memorized passages formulaic building blocks spontaneous innovation repetition Fluid content, lyrics subject to change without significant change of the content (semi-improvisational) Guslars - nomadic shepherds in yugoslavia - still do this By the 500s BC we know they had written some down; they may have done so before but we don't know Work with traditional stock of material (like Shakespeare, rewriting known tales/ characters) Education/memorization of the subject matter Bards are skilled laborers like artists & potters; they have years of practice & training, usually through an apprenticeship Bard-ing often kept in the family; uncles/fathers teaching sons Compositional Triad: 1 Memorized passages recited on command 2 Use of formulaic building blocks Standard phrases and line-fillers ("crooker-counseling Cronus," "rosy-fingered dawn," "wine-dark sea," "so spoke the hero _____ in reply") 3 Ability to innovate spontaneously, responding to surroundings or reactions of the crowd Common stock phrase in Iliad = two lines "diomedes ran him through with his spear, and his blood spilled forth onto the ground" (said when they needed to think of the next thing)

Transmission of Myth Oral traditions Poets and Poetry Epic Poetry - Dactylic Hexameter

meter of choice, they were quite strict to it The dactyl is like a finger having one long syllable followed by two short syllables Each line has 6 feet

Pandora

name means "all gifts" b/c of the gifts the gods gave her to attract men. She was given to Epimetheus as a punishment to man, says a lot about greek ideas about women. Epimetheus Hephaestus Hermes

Hellen

son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. Births Aeolus, Dorus, Xuthus. Father of the Greeks.

The three graces

symbolic of what makes women attractive. chill of ceanid and zeus

Selene

the moon herself, daughter of Hyperion

Milman Parry

(1902-1935), American classicist, creator of the oral-formulaic theory of homeric composition

Dark Age

1150 - 750 BC, As dark as a dark age can possibly be, lose all technology, even the potter's wheel Lose the writing system, maintain the language, but lose almost all knowledge about mycenaean civilizations Things that occurred pre-dark age begin to become myth

Hephaestus

Another child of Zeus & Hera.

Uranus (Sky)

Asexually produced by Gaia, then becomes Gaia's eternal husband

Nine Muses

Daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus. Occasionally Cleo is mentioned, but for them most part they are all Muse. Epic poems all start with the invocation of the muses.

Eos

Dawn. Son of Hyperion. Eos is important cause that's when the days start, how they measured time, miracle

Hydra

Descendent of Gaia and Pontus, Multi-headed serpent

Cerberus

Descendent of Gaia and Pontus, a fifty headed (later, three-headed) dog who guarded the gates of Hades Hades = the place (underworld) and the god)

Chimera

Descendent of Gaia and Pontus, a monster with a lion's body, a snakes' tail, and a goat's head growing from its back More asiatic influence: love to combine things in eastern myth, so in greek too cause they're stealers He does breathe fire In one version, the chimera is just killed by Jason, but in others he buried it and his fire still comes out of the Lycian fire rocks (to this day), actual fire, chemical thing

Sphinx

Descendent of Gaia and Pontus, adopted from Egyptian myth and altered Egyptian sphinx - male (usually), guardian figure Greek Sphinx - female, deadly Greek sphinx has wings bc the Persian one did too Persian, Indian, Egyptian sphinx are all good grave guardians Only greek one is bad

The Archaic Period

Development of the alphabet and writing, Homer, Hesiod

Moerae (fates)

Either created by Themis & Zeus or Nyx. Clotho - Spinner. Lycestes - partitioner. Atropos - Scissor-wielder. Not even Zeus will ever interfere in the workings of the fates, even if he wants to, b/c to overstep them will undo the natural order of things.

Chaos, Gaea, Tartarus, Eros

First four deities are primordial, not born, always there Chaos comes first Out of Chaos comes Gaia -- Earth Tartarus - the underworld's pit, bottom of the bottom Then Eros -- Love & Lust By most myths Eros is the son of aphrodite, but Hesiod claims there is also a Primordial Eros B/c there has to be lust in order for the gods to have mated Then Aphrodites has little Eros who is an agent of Aphrodite and affects humans

Metis

First wife of Zeus, mother of Athena, personified cleverness.

Oceanus and Tethys

Get together to birth the Oceanids (river gods, nymphs, etc.)

Hyperion

Hyperion = he who goes above- the primordial sun God & father of helios (first sun god, drags the sun across the sky), selene (the moon herself), and Eos (dawn)

Mythos ('Story') vs. Logos ('Account')

Logos Attempts to relate only what actually happened and Discredits alternate versions. Mythos, Author assumes no responsibility for veracity and Ignores alternate versions. Same author can give different versions of myths (ex: Sophocles) Settings and characters differ b/n mythos and Logos In logos, though there may be mythical elements of storytelling, the time & place is concrete & real; the characters are recently(ish, but real) historical characters Myth takes place in the deep past; so the setting is always diff, even if the myth takes place in Greece Instead of fighting foreign enemies they're dealing with gods & monsters

Themis

Lover of Zeus. Personified custom/order.

Lyric Poetry

Lyre invented Step down from epic poetry; not as elite Broad array of styles Odes, hymns, paeans, dithyrambs, etc Odes = praise Songs dedicated to gods, dedicated to patrons (victory odes, etc.) Mythological ties in all, even when about contemporary figures

Hesiodic Corpus

Not actually by Hesiod, just in his style. Catalogue of Women (literally catalogue of women who slept w gods & bore demigods), Shield of Hercules Not by Hesiod, like homeric hymns they're just like him

Areas of Greece

Nothern Greece is Macedonia, Thrace, Thessaly.

Egyptian creation myths

Nut = sky but WOMAN Geb = earth but MAN (one of only cultures to make earth male) Shu = holds nut up & lowers her onto Geb; Atlas figure except not punishment

Four races of Man

Ovid uses only the normal four ages of man. This is more in line with other Eastern cultures.

The Titans

Six male and six female deities born of Uranus and Gaia. They include Rhea, Kronos, Oceanus, and Tethys. Oceanus and Tethys get together to create the Oceanids (river gods, nymphs, etc.)

Athena

Prometheus fixes Zeus' headache by cleaving his head open with an axe (friendly way) and Athena springs out fully formed in battle armor She's masculine in many senses, but also feminine Virgin, unmarrying, goddess of wisdom and war and cleverness and homecrafts (weaving, etc.) She's bout to be Zeus' favorite, right-hand woman forever Often called "Zeus-born Athena" He will always support her in whatever she does.

Deucalion and Pyrrha

Prometheus's son is Deucalion. Prom tells him to build a boat to survive the flood (foresight) and he does and brings his wife with him. They land on mount parnassus and give birth to their son Hellen. This boy is why the Greeks are Hellenes.

Creation of Mortals Prometheus

Romantics really take to Prometheus; he's a tragic figure, symbolic figure of standing up against a tyrant in the name of the common man. He's the Titan of foresight and the only titan that sides with the olympians through the titanomachy The trick at Mecone Punishment of Prometheus

Phaëthon

Son of Helios & Clymene (Cly is oceanid) WE KNOW BOUT THIS guy from ovid, not hesiod Steals his father's sun chariot and goes cantering around Zeus zaps him with thunderbolt; it can kill/harm lesser gods

The Plastic Arts

Statuary (figurines, etc.) Pottery Athenian style -- black figure & red figure Architectural statuary Friezes, pediments The parthenon, Hephaesteion, etc.

Homer

The Iliad and The Odyssey (ca 750 bc) "Homeric" Hymns(7th-6thC) Hymn to Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, etc Written in the same meter & roughly same period so called Homeric but "Homer" not actually associated with him as possible creator All to Gods

Gigantomachy

The giants rie up and fight Zeus Gigantomachy is the name for the battle fought b/n Zeus & giants The giants are defeated; many were buried under mountains Esp mountains w one huge peak will be explained as being there b/c giants were buried under them

Typhoeus (Typhon)

Typhoeus (or Typhon) = son of Gaea and Tartarus Hesiod and Apollodorus (2nd C AD, Bibliotheca) give different accounts Hesiod says that along with his head, he had 100 hissing snakes on his shoulders Apollodorus says he's got wings and tons of serpents for legs Typhon beats Zeus in a fight & imprisons him Zeus is helped by Aigipan (proto-pan) and Hermes Sneak into cave where he's imprisoned and bring him his thunderbolts Zeus pops off Typhon is buried under Mount Etna in Eastern Sicily by Zeus after being beaten Etna still active volcano that erupts every so often; this is an explanation for it spewing fire, since grecians could say it was his fire-breathing serpents or the remnants of Zeus's lightning attacks on him

The Succession Myth Uranus v. Cronus Cronus v. Zeus Roles of Gaea, Rhea

Uranus v. Cronus Cronus v. Zeus Roles of Gaea, Rhea

Augustan Age Poets

Virgil & Ovid

Birth of Zeus

Zeus is hidden away in an Earthern cave on Crete, where is nourished on milk and honey by Amalthea (Goat goddess) and Melissa (modern translates to "Bee") Corybantes (real life men in Greek history = men who dress up in full armor and play hand symbols in worship of freisian goddess) In the myth, these guys are placed in front of the cave to distract from the sound of the babe Zeus crying