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7-05-2015, 23:57

Mythology

Greek mythology has greatly informed the Western imagination as expressed in literature and art.

Date: 3000-31 b. c.e.

Category: Religion and mythology

Definition “Myth” may have originally meant “word or speech,” from the Greek mythos, including the idea of a proverb. It came to mean “tale, story, or narrative” without the suggestion of necessarily being true. For most ancient Greeks, mythologos may have first meant to “tell word for word,” since both mythos and logos carried the similar idea of something said. By the time of Plato, around 400 b. c.e., mythologos had come to mean storytelling like that of Homer, most likely beautiful fiction with a possible kernel of historical truth.

Earliest Evidence In Crete, the so-called Minoan culture provided many foundation myths, making it the birthplace of Bronze Age (30001200 b. c.e.) myths and gods such as Zeus. Alternately, Delphi’s myth history suggests that later sky gods such as Apollo were superimposed over earlier earth goddesses such as Gaia, perhaps recollecting the Dorian invasion (c. 1120-950 b. c.e.), when language also changed at the end of the Bronze Age.

Greek city-states were built over mostly forgotten ruins in Argos, Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Megara, Thebes, and other places. Greeks remembered the past as a Golden Age of Heroes whom they claimed as ancestors in stories handed down for generations. Sometimes the ruins of previous cultures were still visible at places such as Mycenae, Troy, Tiryns, and Knossos in Crete, where huge blocks of masonry were thought to have been built by the one-eyed giant Cyclops because the Greeks could not comprehend technologies required to construct them. These once-great ruins lent credence to the idea that some dynasties fell because of curses on

The baffle between the Olympian gods and the giants. (F. R. Niglutsch)

Rulers that were elaborated in myths. Thus, old myth cycles about Crete, Mycenae, Troy, and Thebes show that these were early centers of protoGreek culture.

Sources Greek mythology depends on ancient primary sources, mostly from the greatest Greek literature or art. Homer and Hesiod are two of the earliest and best sources on Greek mythology. Homer’s Iliad (c. 750 b. c.e.; English translation, 1611) and Odyssey (c. 725 b. c.e.; English translation, 1614) tell stories of the Trojan War and what followed. Homer shows how Greeks imagined the character of gods such as Zeus, Apollo, and Athena and the tales of heroes such as Achilles and Odysseus. Hesiod tells of the birth of the gods in his Theogonia (c. 700 b. c.e.; Theogony, 1728) and Erga kai Emerai (c. 700 b. c.e.; Works and Days, 1618), as well as the stories of Pandora and other figures. Homeric Hymns by unknown writers from the same period extend this early work with material on individual deities such as Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Artemis. Other great Greek poets and playwrights who developed earlier stories included the poets Bacchylides, Sappho, and Pindar in the sixth and fifth centuries b. c.e. and the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in the fifth century b. c.e. Later poets such as Apollodorus also provide extended myth detail in the fourth and third centuries b. c.e., by which time most Greek mythology was codified.

The Great Triad The greatest Greek gods were the three powerful brothers who divided the known world between them. Zeus ruled the sky and was responsible for thundering storms, especially in the mountains, with rain watering the land. Poseidon ruled the sea, which was very important in Greece, more so than other lands. The Greeks were a seafaring folk who sailed and fished everywhere they could; no place in Greece was more than fifty miles from the sea, and parts of Greece were easier to reach by sea than over land. The third brother, Hades (or Aidoneus), ruled the under

Lie mythic hero Perseus slays the Gorgon Medusa. (F. R. Niglutsch)

World, which was important because every human eventually reached Hades’ kingdom at death.

Types of Myth In Greek mythology, there are at least seven basic types of myth; they are not necessarily prioritized in this chronological order, since myths may be handed down orally for many generations before they become somewhat fixed in literary form. One myth category is origin myths (cosmology or cosmogeny) about how things were created or came to be. For example, there is the story of how Gaia developed out of Chaos or how Okeanos covered the watery world. There are also explanation myths (prescience and natural history) offering narratives of why the world operates in a certain way, such as the succession of the seasons (Persephone and the procession of winter into spring) or how the Sun moves across the sky. Religious myths (divine hierarchies) tell about gods and goddesses who were worshiped in antiquity, such as Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, or Artemis.

Ancestor (dynastic) myths relate the stories of great families or royal lineages and their offspring. For example, Greek mythology relates the legendary history of the House of Atreus or the House of Kadmos. Hero myths tell about the ordeals and victories of heroic or superhuman individuals, such as Heracles, Medea, Perseus, Antigone, or Theseus. Moral (didactic) myths instruct or exhort virtues such as arete (manly courage and esprit), honor, and love of homeland or condemn vices such as hubris (extravagant and damning pride), as seen in the tale of selfish Narcissus. Lastly, there are poignant fables (fabulae) and beautiful or tragic love stories, such as Cupid and Psyche, Pyramus and Thisbe, or Apollo and Daphne. Many myths combine more than one category in their stories.

Myths from one culture may be adopted, borrowed, or fit into myths of another culture. Greeks themselves borrowed from Egypt and the Near East, in what is called orientalizing, which were the source for monsters in Greek myths such as sphinxes and sirens. Great myths refined to their most essential elements, like those of the Greeks, survive the longest because they reach deep into the human soul however many times they are retold in different eras and languages.

Myth and Metaphor It is easy to refer to some common stories in mythology even when the original sources may be metaphorical. For example, phrases such as “between a rock and a hard place,” “herculean labors,” “Oedipus complex,” “Achilles’ heel,” “siren song,” “the Midas touch,” “narcissism,” “Pandora’s box” and “Trojan horse” are just a few of many ideas illustrating the long and pervasive influence of Greek myth on modern culture.

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Mythology