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Greek mythology

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Myths

   The Oricoli bust of Zeus, King of the Gods, in the collection of the
   Vatican Museum.
   Enlarge
   The Oricoli bust of Zeus, King of the Gods, in the collection of the
   Vatican Museum.

   Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the ancient Greeks,
   concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and their own
   cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars referred to the myths and
   studied them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and
   political institutions of ancient Greece and, in general, on the
   ancient Greek civilization.

   Greek mythology consists in part of a large collection of narratives
   that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and
   adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and
   other mythological creatures. These accounts were initially fashioned
   and disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; the Greek myths are known
   today primarily from Greek literature. The oldest known literary
   sources, the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on events surrounding
   the Trojan War. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the
   Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the
   world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages,
   the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices.
   Myths are also preserved in the Homeric hymns, in fragments of epic
   poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians
   of the 5th century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the
   Hellenistic Age and in writers of the time of the Roman Empire, for
   example, Plutarch and Pausanias.

   Monumental evidence at Mycenaean and Minoan sites helped to explain
   many of the questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeological
   proofs of many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Greek
   mythology was also depicted in artifacts; Geometric designs on pottery
   of the 8th century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as
   the adventures of Heracles. In the succeeding Archaic, Classical and
   Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes
   appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.

   Greek mythology has had extensive influence on the culture, the arts
   and the literature of Western civilization and remains part of western
   heritage and language. It has been a part of the educational fabric
   from childhood, while poets and artists from ancient times to the
   present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have
   discovered contemporary significance and relevance in classical
   mythological themes. Therefore, western literature is diachronically
   heavy with allusions to the heritage of the ancient Greek myths.

Etymology

   While all cultures throughout the world have their own myths, the term
   mythology is a Greek coinage and had a specialized meaning within Greek
   culture.

   The Greek term mythologia is a compound of two smaller words:
     * mythos (μῦθος) — which in Classical Greek means roughly "the oral
       speech", "words without action" ( Aeschylus: "ἔργῳ κοὐκέτι μύθῳ"
       [from word to deed]) and, by expansion, a "ritualized speech act",
       as of a chieftain at an assembly, or of a poet or priest, or a
       narration (Aeschylus: Ἀκούσει μῦθον ἐν βραχεῖ λόγῳ [The whole tale
       you will hear in brief space of time]).
     * logos (λόγος) — which in Classical Greek stands for: a) the (oral
       or written) expression of thoughts and b) the ability of a person
       to express his thoughts (inward logos).

Survey of mythic history

   The Greeks' construction of mythology changed over time to accommodate
   the evolution of their own culture. The earlier inhabitants of the
   Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who assigned an evil
   spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits
   assumed human shape and entered the local mythology as gods and
   goddesses. When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded,
   they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest,
   force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older deities of
   the agricultural world fused with those of the more powerful invaders
   or else faded into insignificance.

   After the middle of the Archaic period myths about love relationships
   between male gods and male heroes become more and more frequent,
   indicating the parallel development of pedagogic pederasty (Eros
   paidikos, παιδικός ἔρως), thought to have been introduced around 630
   BC. By the end of the 5th century BC, poets had assigned at least one
   eromenos to every important god except Ares and to many legendary
   figures. Previously existing myths, such as that of Achilles and
   Patroclus, were also cast in a pederastic light. Alexandrian poets at
   first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman
   Empire, often adapted stories of characters in Greek myth in ways that
   did not reflect earlier actual beliefs. Many of the most popular
   versions of these myths that we have today were actually from these
   inventive retellings, which may blur the archaic beliefs.

   The achievement of epic poetry was to create cycles of stories and as
   result to develop a sense of mythical chronology. Thus Greek mythology
   unfolds like a phase in the development of the world and of man. While
   self-contradictions in the stories make an absolute timeline
   impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. The
   mythological history of the world can be divided in 3 or 4 broader
   periods:
    1. The myths of origin or age of gods (Theogonies, "births of gods"):
       stories about the origins of the world, the gods, and the human
       race.
    2. The age when gods and mortals mingled freely: stories of the early
       interactions between gods, demigods, and mortals.
    3. The age of heroes (heroic age), where divine activity was more
       limited. The last and greatest of the heroic sagas is the stories
       of the Trojan War and after (regarded by some researchers as a
       separate fourth period).

   While the age of gods has often been of more interest to contemporary
   students of myth, the Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras
   had a clear preference for the age of heroes. For example, the heroic
   Iliad and Odyssey dwarfed the divine-focused Theogony and Homeric Hymns
   in both size and popularity. Under the influence of Homer the "hero
   cult" leads to a restructuring in spiritual life, expressed in the
   separation of the realm of the gods from the realm of the dead
   (=heroes), of the Olympian from the Chthonic. In the Works and Days,
   Hesiod makes use of a scheme of Four Ages (or Races): Golden, Silver,
   Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are separate creations of the
   gods, the Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronus, the subsequent
   races the creation of Zeus. Hesiod intercalates the Age (or Race) of
   Heroes just after the Bronze Age. The final age was the Iron Age,
   during which the poet himself lived. The poet regards it as the worst;
   the presence of evil was explained by Pandora's myth. In Metamorphoses
   Ovid follows Hesiod's concept of the four ages.

Age of gods

Cosmogony and cosmology

   Amor omnia vincit (Love Over All), a depiction of the god of love,
   Eros. By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1600.
   Enlarge
   Amor omnia vincit (Love Over All), a depiction of the god of love,
   Eros. By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1600.

   "Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to render
   the universe comprehensible in human terms and explain the origin of
   the universe. The most widely accepted account of beginning of things
   as reported by Hesiod's Theogony, starts with Chaos, a yawning
   nothingness. Out of the void emerged Ge or Gaia (the Earth) and some
   other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (the Tartarus), and
   the Erebus. Without male assistance Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky)
   who then fertilised her. From that union were born, first, the Titans:
   six males and six females ( Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and
   Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys, and
   Cronus); then the one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires or
   Hundred-Handers. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of
   [Gaia's] children")castrated his father and became the ruler of the
   gods with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans
   became his court. This motif of father/son conflict was repeated when
   Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Zeus challenged him to war for
   the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes,(whom
   Zeus freed from Tarturus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while
   Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.

   The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogony to be
   the prototypical poetic genre — the prototypical mythos (myth) — and
   imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was
   also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas
   and storms in Apollonius' Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of
   the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When Hermes invents the
   lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing the
   birth of the gods. Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving
   account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the
   archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the
   Muses. Theogony was also the subject of many lost poems, including
   those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris and other
   legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and
   mystery-rites. There are indications that Plato was familiar with some
   version of the Orphic theogony. A few fragments of these works survive
   in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed
   papyrus scraps. One of these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves
   that at least in the 5th century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of
   Orpheus was in existence. This poem attempted to outdo Hesiod's
   Theogony and the genealogy of the gods was extended back with Nyx
   (Night) as an ultimate beginning before Uranus, Cronus and Zeus.

   The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes
   built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek
   world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned
   from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as
   a flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a
   hemispherical sky with sun, moon and stars. The Sun ( Helios) traversed
   the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden
   bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed
   in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly
   regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades, home of the
   dead.

Greek gods

   The Twelve Olympians by Monsiau, circa late 18th century.
   Enlarge
   The Twelve Olympians by Monsiau, circa late 18th century.

   After the overthrow of the Titans, a new pantheon of gods and goddesses
   emerged. Among the principle Greek deities were the Olympians (The
   limitation of their number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively
   modern idea), residing atop Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus.
   Besides the Olympians, the Greeks worshiped various gods of the
   countryside, the goat-god Pan, Nymphs, Naeads (who dwelled in springs),
   Dryads (who dwelled in trees), Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river
   gods, Satyrs, and others. In addition, there were the dark powers of
   the underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those
   guilty of crimes against blood-relatives. In order to honour the
   ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of
   thirty-three songs). Gregory Nagy regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as
   simplex preludes (compared with Theogony), each of which invokes one
   god".

   In the wide variety of myths and legends that constitute ancient Greek
   mythology, the deities that were native to the Greek peoples are
   described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies. According
   to Walter Burkert, the defining characteristic of Greek
   anthropomorphism is that "the Greek gods are persons, not abstractions,
   ideas or concepts". Regardless of their underlying forms, the ancient
   Greek gods have many fantastic abilities; most significantly, the gods
   are not affected by disease, and can be wounded only under highly
   unusual circumstances. The Greeks considered immortality as the
   distinctive characteristic of their gods; this immortality, as well as
   unfading youth, was insured by the constant use of nectar and ambrosia,
   by which the divine blood was renewed in their veins.
   Zeus, disguised as an swan seduces Leda, the Queen of Sparta. A
   sixteenth century copy of the lost original by Michelangelo.
   Enlarge
   Zeus, disguised as an swan seduces Leda, the Queen of Sparta. A
   sixteenth century copy of the lost original by Michelangelo.

   Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing
   interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique
   personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of
   archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another.
   When these gods were called upon in poetry, prayer or cult, they are
   referred to by a combination of their name and epithets, that identify
   them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves
   (e.g. Apollo Musagetes is "Apollo, [as] leader of the Muses").
   Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized
   aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the
   classical epoch of Greece.

   Most gods were associated with specific aspects of life. For example,
   Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, Ares was the god of war,
   Hades the god of the dead, and Athena the goddess of wisdom and
   courage. Some deities, such as Apollo and Dionysus, revealed complex
   personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia
   (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more
   than personifications. The most impressive temples tended to be
   dedicated to a limited number of gods, who were the focus of large
   pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and
   villages to devote their own cults to minor gods. Many cities also
   honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and
   associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere. During
   the heroic age, the cult of heroes (or demi-gods) supplemented this of
   the gods.

Age of gods and men

   The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, by Hans Rottenhammer
   Enlarge
   The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, by Hans Rottenhammer

   Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine
   interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in
   which gods and men moved together. These were the early days of the
   world when the groups mingled more freely than they did later. Most of
   these tales were later told by Ovid's Metamorphoses and they are often
   divided in two thematic groups: tales of love, and tales of punishment.

   Tales of love often involve the incest, seduction or rape of a mortal
   woman by a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories
   generally suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are
   something to avoid; even consenting relationships rarely have happy
   endings. In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as
   in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess lies with Anchises
   to produce Aeneas. The marriage of Peleus and Thetis, which yielded
   Achilles, is another such myth.
   Dionysus with satyrs. Interior of a cup painted by the Brygos painter,
   Louvre Museum.
   Enlarge
   Dionysus with satyrs. Interior of a cup painted by the Brygos painter,
   Louvre Museum.

   The second type (tales of punishment) involves the appropriation or
   invention of some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus
   steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia
   from Zeus' table and gives it to his own subjects - revealing to them
   the secrets of the gods, when Prometheus or Lycaon invents sacrifice,
   when Demeter teaches agriculture and the Mysteries to Triptolemus, or
   when Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into a musical contest with
   Apollo. Prometheus' adventures mark "a place between the history of the
   gods and that of man". An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated to the
   third century BC, vividly portrays Dionysus' punishment of the king of
   Thrace, Lycurgus, whose recognition of the new god came too late,
   resulting in horrific penalties that extended into the afterlife. The
   story of the arrival of Dionysus to establish his cult in Thrace was
   also the subject of an Aeschylean trilogy. In another tragedy,
   Euripide's The Bacchae, the king of Thebes, Pentheus, is punished by
   Dionysus, because he disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads, the
   female worshippers of the god.

   In another story, based on an old folk-tale motif, and echoeing a
   similar theme, Demeter was searching for her daughter, Persephone,
   having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, and received a
   hospitable welcome from Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. As a
   gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make
   Demophon as a god, but she was unable to complete the ritual because
   his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed
   in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do
   not understand the concept and ritual.
   Achilles binds the wound of Patroclus, on a late archaic Kylix by the
   Sosias painter.
   Enlarge
   Achilles binds the wound of Patroclus, on a late archaic Kylix by the
   Sosias painter.

Heroic age

   The age in which the heroes lived is known as the heroic Age. The epic
   and genealogical poetry created cycles of stories clustered around
   particular heroes or events and established the family relationships
   between the heroes of different stories; they thus arranged the stories
   in sequence. According to Ken Dowden, "there is even a saga effect: we
   can follow the fates of some families in successive generations".

   After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes constitute the sacral
   sphere and are invoked together in oaths, and prayers which are
   addressed to them. In contrast to the age of gods, during the heroic
   age the roster of heroes is never given fixed and final form; great
   gods are no longer born, but new heroes can always be raised up from
   the army of the dead. Another important difference between the hero
   cult and the cult of gods is that the hero becomes the centre of local
   group identity.

   The monumental events of Heracles are regarded as the dawn of the age
   of heroes. To the Heroic Age are also ascribed three great military
   events, the Argonautic expedition and the Trojan War as well as the
   Theban War.

Heracles and the Heracleidae

   Herakles with his baby Telephos (Louvre Museum, Paris).
   Enlarge
   Herakles with his baby Telephos ( Louvre Museum, Paris).

   Behind Heracles' complicated mythology there was probably a real man,
   perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of Argos. Traditionally,
   however, Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene, granddaughter of
   Perseus. His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk tale
   themes, provided much material for popular legend. He is portrayed as a
   sacrificier, mentioned as a founder of altars, and imagined as a
   voracious eater himself; it is in this role that he appears in comedy,
   while his tragic end provided much material for tragedy — Heracles is
   regarded by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great significance in
   examination of aother Euripidean dramas". In art and literature
   Heracles was represented as an enormously strong man of moderate
   height; his characteristic weapon was the bow but frequently also the
   club. Tha vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled popularity of
   Heracles, his fight with the lion being depicted many hundreds of
   times.

   Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology and cult, and the
   exclamation "mehercule" became as familiar to the Romans as "Herakleis"
   was to the Greeks. In Italy he was worshipped as a god of merchants and
   traders, although others also prayed to him for his characteristic
   gifts of good luck or rescue from danger.

   Heracles attained the highest social prestige through his appointment
   as official ancestor of the Dorian kings. This probably served as a
   legitimation for the Dorian migrations into the Peloponnese. Hyllus,
   the eponymous hero of one Dorian phyle, became the son of Heracles and
   one of the Heracleidae or Heraclids (the numerous descendants of
   Heracles, especially the descendants of Hyllus — other Heracleidae
   included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus).
   These Heraclids conquered the Peloponnesian kingdoms of Mycenae, Sparta
   and Argos, claiming, according to legend, a right to rule it through
   their ancestor. Their rise to dominance is frequently called the "
   Dorian invasion". The Lydian and later the Macedonian kings, as rulers
   of the same rank, also became Heracleidae.

   Other members of this earliest generation of heroes, such as Perseus,
   Deucalion, Theseus and Bellerophon, have many traits in common with
   Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border
   on fairy tale, as they slay monsters such as the Chimera and Medusa.
   Bellerophon's adventures are commonplace types, similar to the
   adventures of Heracles and Theseus. Sending a hero to his presumed
   death is also a recurrent theme of this early heroic mythological
   tradition, used in the cases of Perseus and Bellerophon.

Argonauts

   Engraving (Digitally enhanced for visibility) from the Cista Ficoroni,
   an Etruscan ritual vessel (Galleria Borghese, Rome), picturing two
   Argonauts before a hunt. The personages have been tentatively
   identified as Heracles and Hylas.
   Enlarge
   Engraving (Digitally enhanced for visibility) from the Cista Ficoroni,
   an Etruscan ritual vessel ( Galleria Borghese, Rome), picturing two
   Argonauts before a hunt. The personages have been tentatively
   identified as Heracles and Hylas.

   The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica of Apollonius of
   Rhodes (epic poet, scholar, and director of the Library of Alexandria)
   tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the
   Golden Fleece from the mythical land of Colchis. In the Argonautica,
   Jason is impelled on his quest by king Pelias, who receives a prophecy
   that a man with one sandal would be his nemesis. Jason loses a sandal
   in a river, arrives at the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in
   motion. Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well
   as Heracles, went with Jason in the ship Argo to fetch the Golden
   Fleece. This generation also included Theseus, who went to Crete to
   slay the Minotaur; Atalanta, the female heroine; and Meleager, who once
   had an epic cycle of his own to rival the Iliad and Odyssey. Pindar,
   Apollonius and Apollodorus endeavor to give full lists of the
   Argonauts.

   Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the 3rd century BC, the
   composition of the story of the Argonauts (a highly complex legend) is
   earlier than Odyssey, which shows familiarity with the exploits of
   Jason (the wandering of Odysseus may have been partly founded on it).
   In ancient times the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an
   incident in the opening up of the Black Sea to Greek commerce and
   colonization. It was also extremely popular, forming a cycle to which a
   number of local legends became attached. The story of Medea, in
   particular, caught the imagination of the tragic poets.

House of Atreus and Theban Cycle

   Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's teeth, by Maxfield Parrish, 1908
   Enlarge
   Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's teeth, by Maxfield Parrish, 1908

   In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known
   chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of Atreus and
   Thyestes at Argos. Behind the myth of the house of Atreus (one of the
   two principal heroic dynasties with the house of Labdacus) lies the
   problem of the devolution of power and of the mode of accession to
   sovereignity. The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their descendants
   played the leading role in the tragedy of the devolution of power in
   Mycenae.

   The Theban Cycle deals with events associated especially with Cadmus,
   the city's founder, and later with the doings of Laius and Oedipus at
   Thebes; a series of mythological stories that lead to the eventual
   pillage of that city at the hands of the Seven Against Thebes (it is
   not known whether the Seven against Thebes figured in early epic) and
   Epigoni. As far as Oedipus is concerned, early epic accounts seem to
   have followed a different pattern (in which he continued to rule at
   Thebes after the revelation that Iokaste was his mother and
   subsequently married a second wife who became the mother of his
   children) from the one known to us through tragedy and later
   mythological accounts.

Trojan War and aftermath

   In The Rage of Achilles by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1757, Fresco, 300
   x 300 cm, Villa Valmarana, Vicenza) Achilles is outraged after the
   death of Patroclus and draws his sword to kill Agamemnon. The sudden
   appearance of the goddess Minerva, who, in this fresco, has grabbed
   Achilles by the hair, prevents the act of violence.
   Enlarge
   In The Rage of Achilles by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1757, Fresco, 300
   x 300 cm, Villa Valmarana, Vicenza) Achilles is outraged after the
   death of Patroclus and draws his sword to kill Agamemnon. The sudden
   appearance of the goddess Minerva, who, in this fresco, has grabbed
   Achilles by the hair, prevents the act of violence.

   Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan War, fought between the Greeks
   and Troy, and its aftermath. In Homer's works the chief stories have
   already taken shape, and individual themes were elaborated later,
   especially in Greek drama. The Trojan War acquired also a great
   interest for the Roman culture because of the story of Aeneas, a Trojan
   hero, whose from Troy led to the founding of the city that would one
   day become Rome, is recounted in Virgil's Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's
   Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy). Finally
   there are two pseudo-chronicles written in Latin that passed under the
   names of Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius.

   The Trojan War cycle, a collection of epic poems, starts with the
   events leading up to the war: ( Eris and the golden apple of Kallisti,
   the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen, the sacrifice of
   Iphigenia at Aulis). To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great
   expedition under the overall command of Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon,
   king of Argos or Mycenae, but The Trojans refused to return Helen. The
   Iliad, which is set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel
   between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and
   the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles' friend Patroclus and
   Priam's eldest son, Hector. After Hector's death the Trojans were
   joined by two exotic allies, Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, and
   Memnon, king of the Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess Eos.
   Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles
   with an arrow. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal
   from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium).
   Finally, with Athena's help, they built the Trojan Horse. Despite the
   warnings of Priam's daughter Cassandra, the Trojans were persuaded by
   Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse inside the
   walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, who tried
   to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the
   Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of
   Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons
   were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various
   cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek leaders
   (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the Aeneid), and the
   murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns ( Nostoi;
   lost) and Homer's Odyssey. The Trojan cycle also includes the
   adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g. Orestes and
   Telemachus).
   El Greco was inspired in his Laocoon (1608-1614, oil on canvas, 142 x
   193 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington) by the famous myth of the
   Trojan cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest who tried to have the Trojan
   horse destroyed, but was killed by sea-serpents.
   Enlarge
   El Greco was inspired in his Laocoon (1608-1614, oil on canvas, 142 x
   193 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington) by the famous myth of the
   Trojan cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest who tried to have the Trojan
   horse destroyed, but was killed by sea-serpents.

   The Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of
   inspiration for ancient Greek artists (e.g. metopes on the Parthenon
   depicting the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes
   deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance for the ancient
   Greek civilization. The same mythological cyrcle also inspired a series
   of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan Medieval
   European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the
   Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and a
   convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric
   ideals. 12th century authors, such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure (Roman de
   Troie [Romance of Troy, 1154–60]) and Joseph of Exeter (De Bello
   Troiano [On the Trojan War, 1183]) describe the war while rewriting the
   standard version they found in Dictys and Dares. They thus follow
   Horace's advice and Vergil's example: they rewrite a poem of Troy
   instead of telling something completely new.

Greek and Roman conceptions of myth

   Mythology was at the heart of everyday life in ancient Greece. Greeks
   regarded mythology as a part of their history. They used myth to
   explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities
   and friendships. It was a source of pride to be able to trace one's
   leaders' descent from a mythological hero or a god. Few ever doubted
   that there was truth behind the account of the Trojan War in the Iliad
   and Odyssey. According to Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian,
   columnist, political essayist and former Classics professor, and John
   Heath, associate professor of Classics at Santa Clara University, the
   profound knowledge of the homeric epos was deemed by the Greeks the
   basis of their acculturation. Homer was the "education of Greece"
   (Ἑλλάδος παίδευσις), and his poetry "the Book".

Philosophy and myths

   Raphael's Plato in The School of Athens fresco (probably in the
   likeness of Leonardo da Vinci). The philosopher expelled the study of
   Homer, of the tragedies and of the related mythological traditions from
   his utopian Republic.
   Enlarge
   Raphael's Plato in The School of Athens fresco (probably in the
   likeness of Leonardo da Vinci). The philosopher expelled the study of
   Homer, of the tragedies and of the related mythological traditions from
   his utopian Republic.

   After the rise of philosophy, and history, prose and rationalism in the
   late 5th century BC the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythical
   genealogies gave place to a conception of history which tried to
   exclude the supernatural (such as the Thucydidean history). While poets
   and dramatists were reworking the myths, Greek historians and
   philosophers were beginning to criticize them.

   A few radical philosophers like Xenophanes of Colophon were already
   beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the 6th
   century BC; Xenophanes had complained that Homer and Hesiod attributed
   to the gods "all that is shameful and disgraceful among men; they
   steal, commit adultery, and deceive one another". This line of thought
   found its most sweeping expression in Plato's Republic and Laws. Plato
   created his own allegorical myths (such as the vision of Er in the
   Republic), attacked the traditional tales of the gods' tricks, thefts
   and adulteries as immortal, and objected to their central role in
   literature. Plato's criticism (he called the myths "old wives'
   chatter") was the first serious challenge to the homeric mythological
   tradition. For his part Aristotle ctiticized the Pre-socratic
   quasi-mythical philosophical approoach and underscored that "Hesiod and
   the theological writers were concerned only with what seemed plausible
   to themselves, and had no respect for us [...] But it is not worth
   taking seriously writers who show off in the mythical style; as for
   those who do proceed by proving their assertions, we must cross-examine
   them".

   Nevertheless, even Plato did not manage to wean himself and his society
   from the influence of myth; his own characterization for Socrates is
   based on the traditional homeric and tragic patterns, used by the
   philosopher to praise the righteous life of his teacher:


   Greek mythology

   But perhaps someone might say: "Are you then not ashamed, Socrates, of
   having followed such a pursuit, that you are now in danger of being put
    to death as a result?" But I should make to him a just reply: "You do
   not speak well, Sir, if you think a man in whom there is even a little
   merit ought to consider danger of life or death, and not rather regard
   this only, when he does things, whether the things he does are right or
      wrong and the acts of a good or a bad man. For according to your
   argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy, including the
   son of Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any
   disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as
        he was eager to slay Hector, something like this, I believe,

          My son, if you avenge the death of your friend Patroclus and
          kill Hector, you yourself shall die;
          for straightway, after Hector, is death appointed unto you (Hom.
          Il. 18.96) [...] "


   Greek mythology

   Hanson and Heath estimate that Plato's rejection of the homeric
   tradition was not favorably received by the grassroots Greek
   civilization. The old myths were kept alive in local cults; they
   continued to influence poetry, and to form the main subject of painting
   and sculpture.

   More sportingly, the 5th century BC tragedian Euripides often played
   with the old traditions, mocking them, and through the voice of his
   characters injecting notes of doubt. Yet the subjects of his plays were
   taken, without exception, from myth. Many of thses plays were written
   in answer to a predecessor's version of the same or similar myth.
   Euripides impugns mainly the myths about the gods and begins his
   critique with an objection similar to the one previously expressed by
   Xenocrates: the gods, as traditionally represented, are far too crassly
   anthropomorphic.

Hellenistic and Roman rationalism

   Cicero saw himself as the defender of the established order, despite
   his personal scepticism with regard to myth and his inclination towards
   more philosophical conceptions of divinity.
   Enlarge
   Cicero saw himself as the defender of the established order, despite
   his personal scepticism with regard to myth and his inclination towards
   more philosophical conceptions of divinity.

   During the Hellenistic period, mythology took on the prestige of élite
   knowledge that marks its possessors as belonging to a certain class. At
   the same time, the skeptical turn of the Classical age became even more
   pronounced. Greek mythographer Euhemerus established the tradition of
   seeking an actual historical basis for mythical beings and events.
   Although his original work (Sacred Scriptures) is lost, much is known
   about it from what is recorded by Diodorus and Lactantius.

   Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the
   Roman Empire, thanks to the physicalist theories of Stoic and Epicurean
   philosophy. Stoics presented explanations of the gods and heroes as
   physical phenomena, while the euhemerists rationalized them as
   historical figures. At the same time, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists
   promoted the moral significations of the mythological tradition, often
   based on Greek etymologies. Through his Epicurean message, Lucretius
   had sought to expel superstitious fears from the minds of his
   fellow-citizens. Livy, too, is sceptical about the mythological
   tradition and claims that he does not intend to pass judgement on such
   legends (fabulae). The challenge for Romans with a strong and
   apologetic sense of religious tradition was to defend that tradition
   while conceding that it was often a breeding-ground for superstition.
   The antiquarian Varro, who regarded religion as a human inistitution
   with great importance for the preservation of good in society, devoted
   rigorous study to the origins of religious cults. In his Antiquitates
   Rerum Divinarum (which has not survived, but Augustine's City of God
   indicate its genreal approach) Varro argues that whereas the
   superstitious man fears the gods, the truly religious person venerates
   them as parents. In wis work he distinguished three kinds of gods:
     * The gods of nature: personifications of phenomena like rain and
       fire.
     * The gods of the poets: invented by unscrupulous bards to stir the
       passions.
     * The gods of the city: invented by wise legislators to soothe and
       enlighten the populace.

   Roman Academic Cotta ridicules both literal and allegorical acceptance
   of myth, declaring roundly that myths have no place in philosophy.
   Cicero is also generally disdainful of myth, but, like Varro, he is
   emphatic in his support for the state religion and its institutions. It
   is difficult to know how far down the social scale this rationalism
   extended. Cicero asserts that no one (not even old women and boys) is
   so foolish in the terrors of Hades or the existence of Scyllas,
   centaurs or other composite creatures, but, on the other hand, the
   orator elsewhere complains of the superstitious and credulous character
   of the people. De Natura Deorum is the most comprehensive summary of
   Cicero's this line of thought.

Syncretizing trends

   In Roman religion the worship of the Greek god Apollo (early Imperial
   Roman copy of a fourth century Greek original, Louvre Museum) was
   combined with the cult of Sol Invictus. The worship of Sol as special
   protector of the emperors and of the empire remained the chief imperial
   cult until it was replaced by Christianity.
   Enlarge
   In Roman religion the worship of the Greek god Apollo (early Imperial
   Roman copy of a fourth century Greek original, Louvre Museum) was
   combined with the cult of Sol Invictus. The worship of Sol as special
   protector of the emperors and of the empire remained the chief imperial
   cult until it was replaced by Christianity.

   During the Roman era appears a popular trend to syncretize multiple
   Greek and foreign gods in strange, nearly unrecognizable new cults.
   Syncretization was also due to the fact that the Romans had little
   mythology of their own, and inherited the Greek mythological tradition;
   therefore, the major Roman gods were syncretized with those of the
   Greeks. In addition to this combination of the two mythological
   tradition, the association of the Romans with eastern religions led to
   further syncretizations. For instance, the cult of Sun was introduced
   in Rome after Aurelian's successful campaigns in Syria. The asiatic
   divinities Mithras (that is to say, the Sun) and Ba'al were combined
   with Apollo and Helios into one Sol Invictus, with conglomerated rites
   and compound attributes. Apollo might be increasingly identified in
   religion with Helios or even Dionysus, texts retelling his myths seldom
   reflected such developments. The traditional literary mythology was
   increasingly dissociated from actual religious practice.

   The surviving 2nd century collection of Orphic Hymns and Macrobius's
   Saturnalia are influenced by the theories of rationalism and the
   syncretizing trends as well. The Orphic Hymns are a set of
   pre-classical poetic compositions, attributed to the culture hero
   Orpheus, himself the subject of a renowned myth. In reality, these
   poems were probably composed by several different poets, and contain a
   rich set of clues about prehistoric European mythology. The stated
   purpose of the Saturnalia is to transmit the Hellenic culture he has
   derived from his reading, even though much of his treatment of gods is
   colored by Egyptian and North African mythology and theology (which
   also affect the interpretation of Virgil). In Saturnalia reappear
   mythographical comments influenced by the euhemerists, the Stoics and
   the Neoplatonists.

Modern interpretations

   The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by
   some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth century
   against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity", in which the
   Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been
   retained. In Germany, by about 1795, there was a growing interest in
   Homer and Greek mythology. In Göttingen Johann Matthias Gesner began to
   revive Greek studies, while his successor, Christian Gottlob Heyne,
   worked with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and laid the foundations for
   mythological research both in Germany and elsewhere.

Comparative and psychoanalytic approaches

   Max Müller is regarded as one of the founders of comparative mythology.
   In his Comparative Mythology (1867) Müller analysed the "disturbing"
   similarity between the mythologies of "savage" races with those of the
   early European races.
   Enlarge
   Max Müller is regarded as one of the founders of comparative mythology.
   In his Comparative Mythology (1867) Müller analysed the "disturbing"
   similarity between the mythologies of "savage" races with those of the
   early European races.

   The development of comparative philology in the 19th century, together
   with ethnological discoveries in the 20th century, established the
   science of myth. Since the Romantics, all study of myth has been
   comparative. Wilhelm Mannhardt, Sir James Frazer, and Stith Thompson
   employed the comparative approach to collect and classify the themes of
   folklore and mythology. In 1871 Edward Burnett Tylor published his
   Primitive Culture, in which he applied the comparative method and tried
   to explain the origin and evolution of religion. Tylor's procedure of
   drawing together material culture, ritual and myth of widely separated
   cultures influenced both Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Max Müller
   applied the new science of comparative mythology to the study of myth,
   in which he detected the distorted remains of Aryan nature worship.
   Bronislaw Malinowski emphasized the ways myth fulfills common social
   functions. Claude Lévi-Strauss and other structuralists have compared
   the formal relations and patterns in myths throughout the world.
   For Karl Kerényi mythology is "a body of material contained in tales
   about gods and god-like beings, heroic battles and journeys to the
   Underworld -- mythologem is the best Greek word for them -- tales
   already well-known but not amenable to further re-shaping".
   Enlarge
   For Karl Kerényi mythology is "a body of material contained in tales
   about gods and god-like beings, heroic battles and journeys to the
   Underworld -- mythologem is the best Greek word for them -- tales
   already well-known but not amenable to further re-shaping".

   Sigmund Freud introduced a transhistorical and biological conception of
   man and a view of myth as an expression of repressed ideas. Dream
   interpretation is the basis of Freudian myth interpretation and Freud's
   concept of dreamwork recognizes the importance of contextual
   relationships for the interpretation of any individual element in a
   dream. This suggestion would find an important point of rapprochment
   between the structuralist and psychoanalytic approaches to myth in
   Freud's thought. Carl Jung extended the transhistorical, psychological
   approach with his theory of the "collective unconscious" and the
   archetypes (inherited "archaic" patterns), often encoded in myth, that
   arise out of it. According to Jung, "myth-forming structural elements
   must be present in the unconscious psyche". Comparing Jung's
   methodology with Joseph Campbell's theory, Robert A. Segal concludes
   that "to interpret a myth Campbell simply identifies the archetypes in
   it. An interpretation of the Odyssey, for example, would show how
   Odysseus’s life conforms to a heroic pattern. Jung, by contrast,
   considers the identification of archetypes merely the first step in the
   interpretation of a myth". Karl Kerenyi, one of the founders of modern
   studies in Greek mythology, gave up his early views of myth, in order
   to apply Jung's theories of archetypes to Greek myth.

Origin theories

   Jupiter et Thétis by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1811.
   Enlarge
   Jupiter et Thétis by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1811.

   There are various modern theories about the origins of Greek mythology.
   According to the Scriptural theory, all mythological legends are
   derived from the narratives of the Scriptures, though the real facts
   have been disguised and altered. According to the Historical Theory all
   the persons mentioned in mythology were once real human beings, and the
   legends relating to them are merely the additions of later times. Thus
   the story of Aeolus is supposed to have risen from the fact that Aeolus
   was the ruler of some islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Allegorical
   theory supposes that all the ancient myths were allegorical and
   symbolical. According to the Physical theory the elements of air, fire,
   and water were originally the objects of religious adoration, and the
   principal deities were personifications of the powers of nature. Max
   Müller attempted to understand an Indo-European religious form by
   tracing it back to its Aryan, Vedic, "original" manifestation. In 1891,
   he claimed that "the most important discovery which has been made
   duting the nineteenth century with respect to the ancient history of
   mankind [...] was this sample equation: Sanskrit Dyaus-pitar = Greek
   Zeus = Latin Jupiter = Old Norse Tyr". In other cases, close parallels
   in character and function suggest a common heritage, yet lack of
   linguistic evidence makes it difficult to prove, as in the comparison
   between Uranus and the Sanskrit Varuna or the Moirae and the Norns.
   Aphrodite and Adonis, Attic red-figure aryballos-shaped lekythos by
   Aison (c. 410 BC, Louvre, Paris).
   Enlarge
   Aphrodite and Adonis, Attic red-figure aryballos-shaped lekythos by
   Aison (c. 410 BC, Louvre, Paris).

   Archaeology and mythography, on the other hand, has revealed that the
   Greeks were inspired by some of the civilizations of Asia Minor and the
   Near East. Adonis seems to be the Greek counterpart — more clearly in
   cult than in myth — of a Near Eastern dying god; Cybele is rooted in
   Anatolian culture; much of Aphrodite's iconography springs from Semitic
   goddesses, and parallels between the earliest divine generations (Chaos
   and its children) and Tiamat in the Enuma Elish are also possible
   According to Meyer Reinhold, "near Eastern theogonic concepts,
   involving divine succession through violence and generational conflicts
   for power, found their way [...] into Greek mythology". In addition to
   Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated
   on the debts of Greek mythology to the pre-Hellenic societies; Crete,
   Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes and Orchomenos figure so large in later Greek
   mythology. Historians of religion were fascinated by a number of
   apparently ancient configurations of myth connencted with Crete (the
   god as bull, Zeus and Europa, Pasiphae who yields to the bull and gives
   birth to the Minotaur etc.) Professor Martin P. Nilsson concluded that
   all great classical Greek myths were tied to Mycenaen centres and were
   anchored in pehistoric times. Nevertheless, according to Burkert, the
   iconography of the Cretan Palace Period has provided almost no
   confirmation of all these theories.

Motifs in western art and literature

   Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (c. 1485-1486, oil on canvas, Uffizi,
   Florence) — a revived Venus Pudica for a new view of pagan Antiquity--
   is often said to epitomize for modern viewers the spirit of the
   Renaissance.
   Enlarge
   Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (c. 1485-1486, oil on canvas, Uffizi,
   Florence) — a revived Venus Pudica for a new view of pagan Antiquity--
   is often said to epitomize for modern viewers the spirit of the
   Renaissance.

   The widespread adoption of Christianity would not curb the popularity
   of the myths; with the rediscovery of classical antiquity in
   Renaissance, the poetry of Ovid became a major influence on the
   imagination of poets, dramatists, musicians and artists. From the early
   years of Renaissance, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo,
   and Raphael, portrayed the pagan subjects of Greek mythology alongside
   more conventional Christian themes. Through the medium of Latin and the
   works of Ovid, Greek myth influenced medieval and Renaissance poets
   such as Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante in Italy.

   In Northern Europe, Greek mythology never took the same hold of the
   visual arts, but its effect was very obvious on literature; first the
   English Elizabethans and later Chaucer and John Milton, Shakespeare,
   and Robert Bridges turned for inspiration to Greek mythology. Racine in
   France and Goethe in Germany revived Greek drama, reworking the ancient
   myths. Although during the Enlightenment of the 18th century a certain
   reaction against Greek myth spread throughout Europe, the myths
   continued to provide an important source of raw material for
   dramatists, including those who wrote the libretti for Handel's and
   Mozart's operas. By the end of the century, Romanticism initiated a
   surge of enthusiam for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. In
   Britain, new translations of Greek tragedies and Homer inspired
   contemporary poets (such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Keats, Byron and
   Shelley) and painters (such as Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema).
   Christoph Gluck, Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach and many others set
   Greek mythological themes to music. American authors of the 19th
   century, such as Thomas Bulfinch and Nathaniel Hawthorne, held that the
   study of the classical myths was essential to the understanding of
   English and Americal literature. In more recent times, classical themes
   have been reinterpreted by dramatists Jean Anouilh, Jean Cocteau, and
   Jean Giraudoux in France, Eugene O'Neill in America, and T.S. Eliot in
   England and by novelists such as the Irish James Joyce and the French
   André Gide.
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