*Greek Mythology
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*Introduction
Greek Mythology is a set of diverse traditional tales told by the ancient
Greeks about the exploits of gods and heroes and their relations with
ordinary mortals.
The ancient Greeks worshiped many gods within a culture that tolerated
diversity. Unlike other belief systems, Greek culture recognized no single
truth or code and produced no sacred, written text like the Bible or the
Qur’an. Stories about the origins and actions of Greek divinities varied
widely, depending, for example, on whether the tale appeared in a comedy,
tragedy, or epic poem. Greek mythology was like a complex and rich
language, in which the Greeks could express a vast range of perceptions
about the world.
A Greek city-state devoted itself to a particular god or group of gods in
whose honor it built temples. The temple generally housed a statue of the
god or gods. The Greeks honored the city’s gods in festivals and also
offered sacrifices to the gods, usually a domestic animal such as a goat.
Stories about the gods varied by geographic location: A god might have one
set of characteristics in one city or region and quite different
characteristics elsewhere.
*Principal Figures in Greek Mythology
Greek mythology has several distinguishing characteristics, in addition to
its multiple versions. The Greek gods resembled human beings in their form
and in their emotions, and they lived in a society that resembled human
society in its levels of authority and power. However, a crucial difference
existed between gods and human beings: Humans died, and gods were immortal.
Heroes also played an important role in Greek mythology, and stories about
them conveyed serious themes. The Greeks considered human heroes from the
past closer to themselves than were the immortal gods.
*Gods
Given the multiplicity of myths that circulated in Greece, it is
difficult to present a single version of the genealogy (family history) of
the gods. However, two accounts together provide a genealogy that most
ancient Greeks would have recognized. One is the account given by Greek
poet Hesiod in his Theogony (Genealogy of the Gods), written in the 8th
century bc. The other account, The Library, is attributed to a mythographer
(compiler of myths) named Apollodorus, who lived during the 2nd century bc.
*The Creation of the Gods
According to Greek myths about creation, the god Chaos (Greek for “Gaping
Void”) was the foundation of all things. From Chaos came Gaea (“Earth”);
the bottomless depth of the underworld, known as Tartarus; and Eros
(“Love”). Eros, the god of love, was needed to draw divinities together so
they might produce offspring. Chaos produced Night, while Gaea first bore
Uranus, the god of the heavens, and after him produced the mountains, sea,
and gods known as Titans. The Titans were strong and large, and they
committed arrogant deeds. The youngest and most important Titan was Cronus.
Uranus and Gaea, who came to personify Heaven and Earth, also gave birth to
the Cyclopes, one-eyed giants who made thunderbolts.
*Cronus and Rhea
Uranus tried to block any successors from taking over his supreme
position by forcing back into Gaea the children she bore. But the youngest
child, Cronus, thwarted his father, cutting off his genitals and tossing
them into the sea. From the bloody foam in the sea Aphrodite, goddess of
sexual love, was born.
After wounding his father and taking away his power, Cronus became ruler of
the universe. But Cronus, in turn, feared that his own son would supplant
him. When his sister and wife Rhea gave birth to offspring—Hestia, Demeter,
Hera, Hades, and Poseidon—Cronus swallowed them. Only the youngest, Zeus,
escaped this fate, because Rhea tricked Cronus. She gave him a stone
wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow in place of the baby.
*Zeus and the Olympian Gods
When fully grown, Zeus forced his father to disgorge the children he
had swallowed. With their help and armed with the thunderbolt, Zeus made
war on Cronus and the Titans, and overcame them. He established a new
regime, based on Mount Olympus in northern Greece. Zeus ruled the sky. His
brother Poseidon ruled the sea, and his brother Hades, the underworld.
Their sister Hestia ruled the hearth, and Demeter took charge of the
harvest. Zeus married his sister Hera, who became queen of the heavens and
guardian of marriage and childbirth. Among their children was Ares, whose
sphere of influence was war.
Twelve major gods and goddesses had their homes on Mount Olympus and were
known as the Olympians. Four children of Zeus and one child of Hera joined
the Olympian gods Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Ares.
Zeus’s Olympian offspring were Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, and Athena. Hera
gave birth to Hephaestus.
*The Offspring of Zeus
Zeus had numerous children by both mortal and immortal women. By the
mortal Semele he had Dionysus, a god associated with wine and with other
forms of intoxication and ecstasy. By Leto, a Titan, Zeus fathered the
twins Apollo and Artemis, who became two of the most important Olympian
divinities. Artemis remained a virgin and took hunting as her special
province. Apollo became associated with music and prophecy. People visited
his oracle (shrine) at Delphi to seek his prophetic advice. By the nymph
Maia, Zeus became father of Hermes, the Olympian trickster god who had the
power to cross all kinds of boundaries. Hermes guided the souls of the dead
down to the underworld, carried messages between gods and mortals, and
wafted a magical sleep upon the wakeful.
Two other Olympian divinities, Hephaestus and Athena, had unusual births.
Hera conceived Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, without a male partner.
Subsequently he suffered the wrath of Zeus, who once hurled him from
Olympus for coming to the aid of his mother; this fall down onto the island
of Lemnos crippled Hephaestus. The birth of Athena was even stranger. Zeus
and Metis, daughter of the Titan Oceanus, were the parents of Athena. But
Gaea had warned Zeus that, after giving birth to the girl with whom she was
pregnant, Metis would bear a son destined to rule heaven. To avoid losing
his throne to a son, Zeus swallowed Metis, just as Cronus had previously
swallowed his own children to thwart succession. Metis’s child Athena was
born from the head of Zeus, which Hephaestus split open with an axe.
Athena, another virgin goddess, embodied the power of practical
intelligence in warfare and crafts work. She also served as the protector
of the city of Athens.
Another of Zeus’s children was Persephone; her mother was Demeter, goddess
of grain, vegetation, and the harvest. Once when Persephone was gathering
flowers in a meadow, Hades, god of the underworld, saw and abducted her,
taking her down to the kingdom of the dead to be his bride. Her
grief-stricken mother wandered the world in search of her; as a result,
fertility left the earth. Zeus commanded Hades to release Persephone, but
Hades had cunningly given her a pomegranate seed to eat. Having consumed
food from the underworld, Persephone was obliged to return below the earth
for part of each year. Her return from the underworld each year meant the
revival of nature and the beginning of spring. This myth was told
especially in connection with the Eleusinian Mysteries, sacred rituals
observed in the Greek town of Elevsís near Athens. The rituals offered
initiates in the mysteries the hope of rebirth, just as Persephone had been
reborn after her journey to the underworld.
Many Greek myths report the exploits of the principal Olympians, but Greek
myths also refer to a variety of other divinities, each with their
particular sphere of influence. Many of these divinities were children of
Zeus, symbolizing the fact that they belonged to the new Olympian order of
Zeus’s regime. The Muses, nine daughters of Zeus and the goddess of memory,
Mnemosyne, presided over song, dance, and music. The Fates, three goddesses
who controlled human life and destiny, and the Horae, goddesses who
controlled the seasons, were appropriately the children of Zeus and Themis,
the goddess of divine justice and law. Far different in temperament were
the Erinyes (Furies), ancient and repellent goddesses who had sprung from
the earth after it had been impregnated with the blood of Uranus’s severed
genitals. Terrible though they were, the Erinyes also had a legitimate role
in the world: to pursue those who had murdered their own kin.
*Disruptive Deities
Human existence is characterized by disorder as well as order, and many of
the most characteristic figures in Greek mythology exert a powerfully
disruptive effect. Satyrs, whom the Greeks imagined as part human and part
horse (or part goat), led lives dominated by wine and lust. Myths depicted
them as companions of Dionysus who drunkenly pursued nymphs, spirits of
nature represented as young and beautiful maidens. Many of the jugs used at
Greek symposia (drinking parties) carry images of satyrs.
Equally wild, but more threatening than the satyrs, were the savage
centaurs. These monsters, depicted as half-man and half-horse, tended
toward uncontrolled aggression. The centaurs are known for combat with
their neighbors, the Lapiths, which resulted from an attempt to carry off
the Lapith women at a wedding feast. This combat was depicted in sculpture
on the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena in Athens.
The Sirens, usually portrayed as birds with women’s heads, posed a
different sort of threat. These island-dwelling enchantresses lured
mariners to their deaths by the irresistible beauty of their song. The
seafaring Greek hero Odysseus alone survived this temptation by ordering
his companions to block their own ears, to bind him to the mast of his
ship, and to ignore all his entreaties to be allowed to follow the lure of
the Sirens’ song.
*Mortals
The Greeks had several myths to account for the origins of humanity.
According to one version, human beings sprang from the ground, and this
origin explained their devotion to the land. According to another myth, a
Titan molded the first human beings from clay. The Greeks also had a story
about the destruction of humanity, similar to the biblical deluge.
*The Creation of Human Beings
Conflicting Greek myths tell about the creation of humanity. Some myths
recount how the populations of particular localities sprang directly from
the earth. The Arcadians, residents of a region of Greece known as Arcadia,
claimed this distinction for their original inhabitant, Pelasgus (see
Pelasgians). The Thebans boasted descent from earthborn men who had sprung
from the spot where Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, had sown the ground with
the teeth of a sacred dragon. According to another tale, one of the Titans,
Prometheus, fashioned the first human being from water and earth. In the
more usual version of the story Prometheus did not actually create humanity
but simply lent it assistance through the gift of fire.
Another tale dealt with humanity’s re-creation. When Zeus planned to
destroy an ancient race living on Earth, he sent a deluge. However,
Deucalion, a son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha—the Greek equivalents
of the biblical Noah and his wife—put provisions into a chest and climbed
into it. Carried across the waters of the flood, they landed on Mount
Parnassus. After the waters receded, the couple gratefully made sacrifices
to Zeus. His response was to send Hermes to instruct them how to repopulate
the world. They should cast stones behind them. Stones thrown by Deucalion
became men; those thrown by Pyrrha, women.
*The Greek People
According to myth, the various peoples of Greece descended from Hellen,
son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. One genealogy related that the Dorian and the
Aeolian Greeks sprang from Hellen’s sons Dorus and Aeolus. The Achaeans and
Ionians descended from Achaeos and Ion, sons of Hellen’s other son, Xuthus.
These figures, in their turn, produced offspring who, along with children
born of unions between divinities and mortals, made up the collection of
heroes and heroines whose exploits constitute a central part of Greek
mythology.
*Heroes
Myths about heroes are particularly characteristic of Greek mythology.
Many of these heroes were the sons of gods, and a number of myths involved
expeditions by these heroes. The expeditions generally related to quests or
combats. Scholars consider some of these myths partly historical in
nature—that is, they explained events in the distant past and were handed
down orally from one generation to the next. Two of the most important of
the semihistorical myths involve the search for the Golden Fleece and the
quest that led to the Trojan War. In other myths heroes such as Heracles
and Theseus had to overcome fearsome monsters.
*Jason and the Golden Fleece
Jason was a hero who sailed in the ship Argo, with a band of heroes
called the Argonauts, on a dangerous quest for the Golden Fleece at the
eastern end of the Black Sea in the land of Colchis. Jason had to fetch
this family property, a fleece made of gold from a winged ram, in order to
regain his throne. A dragon that never slept guarded the fleece and made
the mission nearly impossible. Thanks to the magical powers of Medea,
daughter of the ruler of Colchis, Jason performed the impossible tasks
necessary to win the fleece and to take it from the dragon. Afterward Medea
took horrible revenge on Pelias, who had killed Jason’s parents, stolen
Jason’s throne, and sent Jason on the quest for the fleece. She tricked
Pelias’s daughters into cutting him up and boiling him in a cauldron.
Medea’s story continued to involve horrific violence. When Jason rejected
her for another woman, Medea once more used her magic to avenge herself
with extreme cruelty.
*Meleager
Jason and the same generation of heroes took part in another adventure,
with Meleager, the son of King Oeneus of Calydon and his wife Althea. At
Meleager’s birth the Fates predicted that he would die when a log burning
on the hearth was completely consumed. His mother snatched the log and hid
it in a chest. Meleager grew to manhood. One day, his father accidentally
omitted Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, from a sacrifice. In revenge
Artemis sent a mighty boar to ravage the country. Meleager set out to
destroy it, accompanied by some of the greatest heroes of the day,
including Peleus, Telamon, Theseus, Jason, and Castor and Polydeuces. The
boar was killed. However, Meleager killed his mother’s brothers in a
quarrel about who should receive the boar skin. In her anger Althea threw
the log on to the fire, so ending her son’s life; she then hanged herself.
*Heroes of the Trojan War
The greatest expedition of all was that which resulted in the Trojan
War. The object of this quest was Helen, a beautiful Greek woman who had
been abducted by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. Helen’s husband Menelaus
and his brother Agamemnon led an army of Greeks to besiege Troy. After ten
years, with many heroes dead on both sides, the city fell to the trick of
the Trojan Horse—a giant wooden horse that the Greeks built and left
outside the gates of Troy while their army pretended to withdraw. Not
knowing that Greek heroes were hiding inside the horse, the Trojans took
the horse into the city. The hidden Greeks then slipped out, opened the
city gates and let their army in, thus defeating Troy. The Iliad, an epic
poem attributed to Greek poet Homer, tells the story of the Trojan War. The
story continued with the Odyssey, another long poem attributed to Homer, in
which the Greek hero Odysseus made his way home after the Trojan War.
Odysseus returned to his faithful wife, Penelope, whereas Agamemnon
returned to be murdered by his faithless wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover.
Historians considered the Trojan War entirely mythical until excavations in
Turkey showed that there had been cities on the site of Troy and that fire
had destroyed one of these cities at about the time of the Trojan War,
sometime from 1230 bc to 1180 bc.
*Heracles and Theseus
The deeds of the heroes Heracles (see Hercules) and Theseus exemplify a
central theme in Greek mythology: the conflict between civilization and
wild savagery. Each hero confronted and overcame monstrous opponents, yet
neither enjoyed unclouded happiness.
Heracles had been an Argonaut but left the expedition after being plunged
into grief at the loss of his companion Hylas. In another story, a fit of
madness led Heracles to kill his own wife and children. But he is best
known for his feats of prowess against beasts and monsters, which began
soon after his birth. The most difficult of these feats are known as the 12
labors, which are believed to represent efforts to conquer death and
achieve immortality. Although Heracles died, his father, Zeus, gave him a
place on Mount Olympus.
Theseus successfully slew the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and
half bull. On his voyage home to Athens, however, he forgot to hoist the
white sails that would have signified the success of his adventure.
According to one tale, Theseus’s heartbroken father Aegeus, seeing black
sails, believed his son had died, and committed suicide. The Aegean Sea in
which he drowned is presumably named after Aegeus.
*Oedipus
No hero of Greek mythology has proved more fascinating than Oedipus. He
destroyed a monster, the Sphinx, by answering its riddle. Yet his ultimate
downfall served as a terrifying warning of the instability of human
fortune. As a baby, Oedipus had been abandoned on a mountainside by his
parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes, because of a prophecy that
the child would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Saved by
the pity of a shepherd, the child—its identity unknown—was reared by the
king and queen of the neighboring city of Corinth. In due course, Oedipus
unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy, matching the horrific crimes he had
committed with the equally ghastly self-punishment of piercing his own eyes
with Jocasta’s brooch-pins.
*Gods and Goddesses
In many respects the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology resembled
extraordinarily powerful human beings. They experienced emotions such as
jealousy, love, and grief, and they shared with humans a desire to assert
their own authority and to punish anyone who flouted it. However, these
emotions and desires took supernaturally intense form in gods and
goddesses. As numerous literary descriptions and artistic representations
testify, the Greeks imagined their gods to have human shape, although this
form was strongly idealized.
The Greeks, moreover, modeled relationships between divinities on those
between human beings. Apollo and Artemis were brother and sister, Zeus and
Hera were husband and wife, and the society of the gods on Mount Olympus
resembled that of an unruly family, with Zeus at its head. The gods could
temporarily enter the human world. They might, for example, fall in love
with a mortal, as Aphrodite did with Adonis; Apollo with Daphne; and Zeus
with Leda, Alcmene, and Danae. Or they might destroy a mortal who
displeased them, as Dionysus destroyed King Pentheus of Thebes for mocking
his rites.
Not all Greek divinities resembled human beings. They could also be
uncanny, strange, and alien, a quality made visible in artistic
representations of monsters. For example, the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa
had a stare that turned her victims to stone. The Graeae, sisters of the
Gorgons, were gray-haired old crones from birth. They possessed but a
single tooth and a single eye between them. Typhoeus was a hideous monster
from whose shoulders grew a hundred snakeheads with dark, flickering
tongues.
Even the major deities of Olympus showed alien characteristics at times. A
recurrent sign of divine power is the ability to change shape, either one’s
own or that of others. Athena once transformed herself into a vulture;
Poseidon once took the form of a stallion. This ability could prove
convenient such as when Zeus assumed the form of a swan to woo Leda. Zeus
turned Lycaon, a disrespectful king, into a wolf to punish him for his
wickedness. The ability to exercise power over the crossing of boundaries
is a crucial feature of divine power among the Greeks.
*The Functions of Greek Mythology
Like most other mythological traditions, Greek myths served several
purposes. First, Greek myths explained the world. Second, they acted as a
means of exploration. Third, they provided authority and legitimacy.
Finally, they provided entertainment.
*Explanation
Greek myths lent structure and order to the world and explained how the
current state of things had originated. Hesiod’s Theogony narrated the
development of the present order of the universe by relating it to Chaos,
the origin of all things. By a complex process of violence, struggle, and
sexual attraction, the regime led by Zeus had eventually taken over.
Another poem by Hesiod, Works and Days, explained why the world is full of
trouble. According to the poem the first woman, Pandora, opened a jar whose
lid she had been forbidden to lift. As a result of her disobedience all the
diseases and miseries previously confined in the jar escaped into the
world. Such a myth also makes a statement about relationships between the
sexes in Hesiod’s own world. Scholars assume that he composed the poem for
a largely male audience that was receptive to a tale that put women at the
root of all evil.
Myths helped worshipers make sense of a religious practice by telling how
the practice originated. A prime example is sacrifice, a ritual that
involved killing a domesticated animal as an offering to the gods. The
ceremony culminated in the butchering, cooking, and sharing of the meat of
the victim. Hesiod recounts the myth associated with this rite. According
to this myth, the tricky Titan Prometheus tried to outwit Zeus by offering
him a cunningly devised choice of meals. Zeus could have either an
apparently unappetizing dish—an ox paunch, which had tasty meat concealed
within—or a seemingly delicious one, gleaming fat on the outside, which had
nothing but bones hidden beneath. Zeus chose the second dish, and ever
since human beings have kept the tastiest part of every sacrifice for
themselves, leaving the gods nothing but the savor of the rising smoke.
*Exploration
Myths charted paths through difficult territory, examining
contradictions and ambiguities. For instance, Homer’s Iliad explores the
consequences during the Trojan War of the Greek leader Agamemnon’s decision
to deprive the warrior Achilles of his allotted prize, a female slave.
Achilles feels that Agamemnon has assailed his honor or worth but wonders
how far he should go in reaction. Is he right to refuse to fight, if that
means the destruction of the Greek army? Is he justified in rejecting
Agamemnon’s offer of compensation? One of this poem’s themes explores the
limits of honor.
The dramatic genre of tragedy provides the clearest example of mythical
exploration (see see Greek Literature; Drama and Dramatic Arts). The great
Athenian playwrights of the 5th century bc—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides—wrote tragedies that explored social questions by placing them,
in extreme and exaggerated form, in a mythical context. Sophocles’s tragic
play Antigone concerns just such an extreme situation. Two brothers have
killed each other in battle: Eteocles defending his homeland, and Polynices
attacking it. Their sister Antigone, in defiance of an edict by the city’s
ruler, attempts to bury her ostensibly traitorous brother Polynices.
Sophocles raises several moral issues. Is Antigone justified in seeking to
bury her brother? Which should prevail, a religious obligation to tend and
bury a corpse, or a city’s well-being? The answers to these moral issues
are far from clear-cut, as we might expect from a work whose subtlety and
profundity have so often been admired.
*Legitimation
Myths also had the function of legitimation. A claim, an action, or a
relationship acquired extra authority if it had a precedent in myth.
Aristocratic Greek families liked to trace their ancestry back to the
heroes or gods of mythology. The Greek poet Pindar, who wrote in the early
5th century bc, offers ample evidence for this preference. In his songs
Pindar praised the exploits of current victors in the Olympian Games by
linking them with the deeds of their mythical ancestors. In addition, two
Greek city-states could cement bonds between them by showing that they had
an alliance in the mythological past.
*Entertainment
Finally, myth telling was a source of enjoyment and entertainment.
Homer’s epics contain several descriptions of audiences held spellbound by
the songs of bards (poets), and recitations of Homer’s poems also
captivated audiences. Public performances of tragic drama were also hugely
popular, regularly drawing some 15,000 spectators.
*Origins and Development of Greek
Mythology
Our knowledge of Greek mythology begins with the epic poems attributed to
Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which date from about the 8th century bc
even though the stories they relate probably have their origins in events
that occurred several centuries earlier. Scholars, however, know that the
origins of Greek mythology reach even farther back than that.
*Origins of Greek Mythology
Linguists (people who study languages) have concluded that some names
of Greek deities, including Zeus, can be traced back to gods worshiped by
speakers of Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Greek, Latin,
and Sanskrit languages. But it would be misleading to regard the people who
may have spoken this language as originators of Greek mythology because
many other elements contributed.
Archaeologists have shown that many of the places where mythical events
presumably took place correspond to sites that had historical importance
during the Mycenaean period of Greek history (second half of the 2nd
millennium bc). Scholars thus consider it likely that the Mycenaeans made a
major contribution to the development of the stories, even if this
contribution is hard to demonstrate in detail. Some scholars have argued
that the Minoan civilization of Crete also had a formative influence on
Greek myths. The myth of the Minotaur confined in a labyrinth in the palace
of King Minos, for example, might be a memory of historical bull-worship in
the labyrinthine palace at Knossos on Crete. However, there is little
evidence that Cretan religion survived in Greece. Nor have any ancient
inscriptions confirmed that Minos ever existed outside of myth.
Scholars can demonstrate influence on Greek mythology from the Middle East
much more reliably than influence from Crete. Greek mythology owed much to
cultures in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, especially in the realm of cosmogony
(origin of the universe) and theogony (origin of the gods). To take one
example, a clear parallel exists in an early Middle Eastern myth for Greek
poet Hesiod’s story about the castration of Uranus by his son Cronus and
the subsequent overthrow of Cronus by his son Zeus. The Middle Eastern myth
tells of the sky god Anu who was castrated by Kumarbi, father of the gods.
The weather and storm god Teshub, in turn, displaced Anu. Scholars continue
to bring to light more and more similarities between Greek and Middle
Eastern mythologies.
*Development of Greek Mythology
Our knowledge of Greek myths comes from a mixture of written texts,
sculpture, and decorated pottery. Scholars have reconstructed stories that
circulated orally by inference and guesswork.
Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, stand at the beginning of Greek
literary tradition (see Greek literature), even though they almost
certainly depended on a lengthy previous tradition of oral poetry. The
Iliad is set during the Trojan War; it focuses on the consequences of a
quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, two of the leading Greek warriors.
The Odyssey is about the aftermath of the Trojan War, when the Greek hero
Odysseus at last returns to his home on the island of Ithaca following
years of wandering in wild and magical lands. The Trojan War later provided
subject matter for many tragic dramas and for imagery on countless painted
vases.
Hesiod’s Theogony, composed in the 8th century bc at about the same time as
the Homeric epics, gave an authoritative account of how things began. The
creation of the world, described by Hesiod in terms of passions and crimes
of the gods, is a theme that later Greek philosophers such as Empedocles
and Plato developed but took in new directions. This connection serves as a
reminder that mythology was not a separate aspect of Greek culture, but one
that interacted with many other fields of experience, particularly the
writing of history. For example, in the 5th century bc Greek historian
Herodotus employed numerous themes and story patterns from Greek epics and
tragedies in writing his historical account of the war between Greeks and
Persians (see Persian Wars).
Although the authority of Homer and Hesiod remained dominant, the poetic
retelling of myths continued throughout antiquity. Myths were constantly
remade in the light of new social and political circumstances. The
Hellenistic period of Greek history (323-331 bc) saw many new trends in the
treatment of myths. One of the most important was the development of
mythography, the compilation and organization of myths on the basis of
particular themes (for example, myths about metamorphosis). Such
organization corresponded to a wish of newly established Hellenistic rulers
to lend legitimacy to their regimes by claiming that they continued a
cultural tradition reaching back into a great past.
Artists, too, portrayed myths. Statues of gods stood inside Greek temples,
and relief sculptures of scenes from mythology adorned pediments and
friezes on the outside of these temples (see Greek Art and Architecture).
Among the best-known examples are the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in
Athens. These reliefs include depictions of combat between centaurs and
Lapiths.
Other visual representations of mythology were more modest in size and
scope. The best evidence for the use of mythology in Greek painting comes
from painted ceramic vases. The Greeks used these vases in a variety of
contexts, from cookery to funerary ritual to athletic games. (Vases filled
with oil were awarded as prizes in games.) In most cases scholars can
securely identify the imagery on Greek vases as mythological, but sometimes
they have no way of telling whether the artist intended an allusion to
mythology because myth became fused with everyday life. For example, does a
representation of a woman weaving signify Penelope, wife of Odysseus who
spent her days at a loom, or does it portray someone engaged in an everyday
activity?
The Greeks retold myths orally, as well as preserving them in literary and
artistic works. The Greeks transmitted to children tales of monsters and
myths of gods and heroes. Old men gathered to exchange tales in leschai
(clubs or conversation places). Storytelling, whether in writing, art, or
speech, was at the heart of Greek civilization.
*The Legacy of Greek Mythology
interwoven with ritual and other aspects of social existence. Yet the
question of how far people believed the myths is a difficult and probably
unanswerable one. Some intellectuals, such as Greek writer Palaephatus,
tried to interpret the myths as having figurative (nonliteral) meanings.
Writing in the 4th century bc, Palaephatus interpreted the stories of
Diomedes, a king devoured by his own mares, and of Actaeon, a hunter torn
apart by his own hounds, as concealing perfectly credible accounts of young
men who had spent too much money on their animals and so been figuratively
eaten alive by debt.
Other thinkers, such as the 4th-century-bc philosopher Plato, objected to
some myths on moral grounds, particularly to myths that told of crimes
committed by the gods. Yet such skepticism seems hardly to have altered the
imaginative power and persistence of Greek myths. As late as the 2nd
century ad, the Greek traveler and historian Pausanias described the myths
and cults in the places he visited as if they constituted a still-living
complex of religious discourse and behavior.
*Ancient Rome and Early Christianity
The ancient Romans eventually took over Greek civilization and
conquered Greece. In the process, they adapted Greek mythology, and myths
remained a vehicle for reflecting on and coping with the world. In his poem
the Aeneid, written in the 1st century bc, Roman poet Virgil used the theme
of the wandering Trojan hero Aeneas and his eventual foundation of a
settlement that became Rome. The Aeneid not only continues story patterns
developed in Homer’s epics, but it also makes frequent and detailed
allusions to the texts of Homer and other Greek writers. The long poem
Metamorphoses by Roman poet Ovid embraces an enormous number of Greek
myths, reworked into a composition that later had unparalleled influence on
European culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Greek mythology survived during Christian antiquity by its interpretation
as allegory (expressive of a deeper or hidden meaning). Early Christians
incorporated pagan stories into their own worldview if they could
reinterpret the story to express a concealed, uplifting meaning. In the 5th
century ad, for example, Latin mythographer Fulgentius gave an allegorical
reading of the Judgment of Paris. The Greek myth told of a young Trojan
shepherd faced with a choice between the goddesses Hera, Athena, and
Aphrodite. Each goddess tried to bribe Paris to name her the most
beautiful: Hera offering power, Athena offering success in battle, and
Aphrodite offering a beautiful woman. Fulgentius explained that the choice
was actually a moral one, between a life of action, a life of
contemplation, and a life dominated by love. The allegorical approach to
the myths has never died out; we find it today in the writings of those who
regard myths as expressions of basic, universal psychological truths. For
example, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, borrowed from Greek
mythology in developing his ideas of human psychosexual development, which
he described in terms of an Oedipus complex and an Electra complex. Swiss
psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that certain psychic structures he called
archetypes were common to all people in all times and gave rise to
recurring ideas such as mythological themes.
*European Art, Music, and Literature
The influence of Greek mythology on Western art, music, and literature
can hardly be exaggerated. Many of the greatest works of painting and
sculpture have taken myths as their subject. Examples include the Birth of
Venus (after 1482) by Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, a
marble sculpture of Apollo and Daphne (1622-1625) by Italian baroque
sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini, a terrifying Cronus Devouring One of His
Children (1820-1823) by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, and Landscape
with the Fall of Icarus (about 1558) by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel. In
the Bruegel painting peasants continue with their daily toil oblivious of
the mythological drama being played out in the sky above.
Musicians too, especially composers of opera and oratorio, have found
inspiration in ancient myths. Operatic dramatizations of these stories
begin with Orfeo (Orpheus, 1607) and Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (The
Return of Ulysses to His Homeland, 1641) by Italian composer Claudio
Monteverdi. They continue into the 20th century with Elektra (1909) by
German composer Richard Strauss and Oedipus Rex (1927) by Russian composer
Igor Stravinsky.
the 20th century the story of the murderous revenge of Orestes on his
mother Clytemnestra (for killing his father, Agamemnon) has inspired
writers as diverse as American dramatist Eugene O’Neill (in Mourning
Becomes Electra, 1931), American-born poet and playwright T. S. Eliot (in
The Family Reunion, 1939), and French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul
Sartre (in Les Mouches [1943; The Flies, 1946]). Among the most notable of
all literary works inspired by Greek mythology is Ulysses by Irish writer
James Joyce. In this intricate novel, Ulysses (Odysseus) becomes Dublin
resident Leopold Bloom, while Bloom’s wife, Molly, combines characteristics
of faithful Penelope (wife of Odysseus) and seductive Calypso (a sea nymph
who holds Odysseus captive on his journey home).
The influence of Greek mythology shows no sign of diminishing. Computer
games (see Electronic Games) and science fiction frequently use combat- or
quest-oriented story patterns that have clear parallels in classical
mythology. Greek myths developed in a specific ancient society, but the
emotional and intellectual content of the stories has proved adaptable to a
broad range of cultural contexts.
*Principal Figures in Greek Mythology
Greek mythology has several distinguishing characteristics, in addition
to its multiple versions. The Greek gods resembled human beings in their
form and in their emotions, and they lived in a society that resembled
human society in its levels of authority and power. However, a crucial
difference existed between gods and human beings: Humans died, and gods
were immortal. Heroes also played an important role in Greek mythology, and
stories about them conveyed serious themes. The Greeks considered human
heroes from the past closer to themselves than were the immortal gods.
