Greek & Roman Mythology Midterm 2 Terms

Critical Thinking

not having the answers before you ask the question

Historicism

ideas that human beings had different ideas of how the world worked in the past

Humanism

assumption that human beings were essentially the same in the ancient world as in the present

Idealism

belief that categories exists independent of language and human beings

Textualism

because categories and even mythic figures are constructed by language it is better to try to understand categories and mythic figures as subject to limited change over time rather than imperfect copies of an ideal hero or category

Charter Myth

A myth that presents society as something inevitable and natural without drawing attention to its origin

Allegory

a narrative that conveys hidden meanings through symbols, figures, actions, imagery, and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, or political meaning the author wishes to convey

Katabasis

A literary motif wherein a character descends into the underworld and meets a number of famous men and heroes

Zeus

- Areas of Concern: the sky, kingship

- Attributes: Beard, Eagle, Thunderbolt

- Based on the same root as Roman Iu in Iupiter (Jove) and Sanskrit Dyaush pita (both "sky father")

- Associated with Egyptian Amun and Persian Ahura-Mazda

Demeter

- Area of Concern: Agriculture

- Attributes: Grain Sheaf, Crown of Wheat

- Mother of Persephone

Persephone

- Daughter of Demeter and Zeus

- Wife of Hades

- Attributes: Pomegranate, Torch, Flowers

- Areas of Concern: Queen of the Underworld, Vegetation

Athena

Attributes: Helmet, Owl

Areas of Concern: Crafts and War

Patron goddess of Athens

Virgin Goddess born from the head of Zeus

Ares

Concern: War

Attributes: Sword, Shield

Roman name "Mars"

Hephaestus

- Son of Hera

- Attributes: Hammer, Tongs, Donkey

- Areas of Concern: Metal working, fire

- Associated with Roman Vulcan

Apollo

- Son of Zeus and Leto

- Areas of Concern: Music, Healing, Prophecy

- Attributes: Kithara, Bow, Laurel

- Roman Apollo and Etruscan Aplu

Dionysus

God of wine, fertility, and ritual madness.

represents chaos

Mount Parnassus is sacred to him

Aphrodite

- Attributes: Cupids, Doves

- Areas of Concern: Love, Desire, Fertility

- Associated with Roman Venus

Hera

- Sister and Wife of Zeus

- Attributes: Crown, Peacock

- Areas of Concern: Marriage, Family

Cupid

God of desire, erotic love, attraction.

has a daugher named Pleasure with Psyche

Psyche

means soul

has a child with Cupid

falls in love with Eros

Hades

God of the underworld and the dead.

Husband of Persephone

Demophoon

Son of Celeus and Metanira, raised by Demeter.

failed to make immortal by Demeter

Agamemnon

King of Mycenae, leader in the Trojan War.

Father of Orestes

Murdered by wife's lover

Sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis

Heracles

Hero known for his strength and twelve labors.

Went to and left the Underworld while alive

Son of Zeus

Pygmalion

Sculptor who fell in love with his creation/wife

Myrrha

Woman cursed to fall in love with her father.

(Pseudo-) Apollodorus

- Lived sometime in the 2nd CE

- Author of the Library of Greek Mythology

Apuleius

- ca 124 to 170 CE

- Born in modern Algeria but visited Greece, Italy, and Egypt

- Author of the Metamorphoses (Cupid and Psyche)

Ovid

- born March 23rd 43 BCE Sulmo, Italy

- Died ca 17 CE in exile

- Roman Poet. Author of the Metamorphoses, the Heroides, and other poems

- Exiled for a "poem and a mistake" at the end of his life

Iliad

Epic poem about the Trojan War by Homer.

Odyssey

Epic poem detailing Odysseus's journey home.

Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Hymn celebrating Demeter and Persephone's story.

Polyphemus

Cyclops

- Son of Poseidon and Thoosa

- Unrequited lover of the nymph Galatea

- Blinded by Odysseus

Orestes

- Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

- Avenges his father by killing his mother

- Suffers punishment for killing for mother from the Furies

Iphigenia

- daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

- sacrificed by Agamemnon to Artemis so the Greek fleet could sail to Troy

Sisyphus

- Mythical King of Ephyra (Corinth?)- Sometimes named as the illegitimate father of Odysseus

- Punished for sometimes being by being forced to push a rock up a hill until it falls back down right before it reaches the top

Odysseus

- Son of Laertes, Husband of Penelope, Father of Telemachus

- King of Ithaca

- Greek hero who took ten years to return after the end of the Trojan war

Achilles

- son of Peleus and the sea Nymph Thetis

- Invulnerable expect for his heel

- "Best of the Achaeans" in the Iliad

Eleusis

- A deme or village of Athens that was formerly independent

- Home of the Eleusinian Mysteries, an initiation ceremony of which the details were secret but had something to do with Eleusinian triad and an afterlife

Nag Hammadi

Site of ancient texts, including Gnostic writings.

story of the union of love (Eros) and the soul (Psyche)

Hissarlik

- An archaeological site in modern Turkey

- location of Roman Ilium

- Excavated by Heinrich Schliemann who claimed he found the lost city of Troy

Sicily

- a large island south of the Italian peninsula

- heavily colonized by Greeks and Carthaginians from 800 BCE

- Thought to be the location of the Cyclops episode in the Odyssey

Ithaca

- Island off the western coast of modern Greece

- Location of a recently discovered late bronze age complex similar to Mycenae and Pylos

- Believed in the ancient world to be the home to Odysseus

Heinrich Schliemann

- German businessman

- Excavated Hissarlik (maintained he found Troy)- Excavated Mycenae (made spectacular discoveries in tombs)

Milman Parry

- 1902-1955

- Studied under Antoine Meillet at the Sorbonne

- Put forth the thesis that Homeric poetry is part of an older oral tradition

James George Frazer

- Born 1854 in Glasgow

- Died 1941 Cambridge

- Author of the Golden Bough

- Argued that myth is designed to explain ritual

Friedrich Nietzsche

- 1844-1900

- Developed the concept of Dionysian and Apollonian in The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

- Claimed that Apollo represented order while Dionysus represented chaos