CLA204

Interpretations of the word “Classics” (lec 1)

Classical period (479-323 BCE):

• height of greek civilization (period which greeks are most known for)

Classical Civilizations (300BCE-500CE):

• study of ancient greece and rome

Classics:

• study of languages (ancient greek and latin

Classics and the west (lec 1)

• term “classics” is a value laden-term (representing an exemplary standard)

• connection to a cannon chosen and created by and for Western European men

• the “classical” label acknowledges and reinforces concept of racial and cultural superiority developed through expansion of colonial domination

• Greek and Roman origin of many concepts and powers of europeans (these myths have become myths of “Western world”, but has been home to many stories_

• to study classical myth on this land means we need to grapple w/ the role that classical tradition plays in suppressing stories of this land and its entanglement in legacies of colonial violence

Physical environment of Greece (lec 2)

• lots of sea and mountains

• Aegean maritime network (comms and trade network on sea)

• limited arable land (land for agriculture)

• regional divisions (due to mountains + islands)

• very mountainous due to being btwn European and African tectonic plates (causes lots of volcanoes and earthquakes

Climate zones (lec 2)

• Greece in btwn Mediterranean and continental climates

Continental climate (southern Greece) first graph:

• little rain in the summer

• lots of arid islands

• lots of grazing and vineyard w/ less rain and mountainous land

Mediterranean climate (northern Greece) second graph:

• More stable rain in n

• forest and cereal farming w/ more rain

Greek dialects (lec 2)

• land space causes there to be more divisions causing there to be many dialects

• Split into western, central, and eastern

Building blocks of economy (lec 2)

• Agriculture: wheat grape and olive (mediterranean triad) (southern)

• Pastoral econ: cows, sheeps, pigs, goats (northern)

Chronological terminology (lec 2)

• BCE/B.C. (before common era)

• CE/A.D. (common era)

• No year 0

• 20th century CE = 1901-200 CE

• 21st century CE = 2001-2100 CE

• Opposite for BCE, ex: 5th century BCE = 500-401 BCE or 5th century CE = 401-500 CE

Bronze age (3000-1150 BCE) (lec 2)

• Globalized trade network existed through west mediterranean (allowed for Mycenaean to have communication/trade w/ others) 

• Bronze: mix of copper and tin (needed to be access through trade bc found in limited area)

• 2 major cultures:

  • Minoan (2700-1400 BCE): named after king Minos, largely taken over by Mycenaean

  • Mycenaean (1600-1150 BCE): named after largest site, Mycenae, protogreek, spoke Greek but different from later than ancient Greek, linear B writing system

Iron age (aka Dark age: 1150-750 BCE) (lec 2)

• Broad societal collapse

• Loss of writing, monumental architecture, political structure, depopulation (evidence of ppl disappear)

• Dark age bc not many things that are found during this era

• Theory: sea peoples invading late and destroying cultures then disappearing

Archaic period (750-480 BCE) (lec 2)

• Advent of writing (ancient greek, very diff from linear B)

• Emergence of polis (city state)

• Political changes: rise of aristocracy,

  • age of tyrants (650-500 BCE)

  • democracy in Athens (508 BCE)

• Ends w/ Persian wars (490-480 BCE), invasion of empire in middle east to greece, but Greeks held on and deterred invasion

Classical period (480-323 BCE) (lec 2)

• Creation of Athenian empire

• Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), Sparta vs Athens, in 404 Sparta takes over Athens

• Significant developments in architecture, painting, sculpture, literature

Campaigns of Alexander the Great (lec 2)

• Phillip the 2nd’s son

• conquers from Greece to Pakistan

Hellenistic period (323-30 BCE) (lec 2)

• Begins w/ death of alexander

• Hellenistic kingdoms: Macedonia, Egypt, Seleucia, Pergamum

• Rise of Rome

• Greece a Roman province in 146 BCE

• Period ends w/ Roman conquest of Egypt

Timeline of Ancient Greece (lec 2)

Mythology definition (lec 2)

• Mythos + logos

• “telling of myths; a collection of myths”

• “study of myths”

• Homer (8th/7th c.) mythos definition: just something that was said, “word, speech, story”

• Plato (5th c.) mythos definition: false story that carries some truth

• Hellenistic period rhetoricians mythos definition: mythos as a fiction (as opposed to fact)

• Plato logos definition: compares mythos w/ logos meaning true word/speech (roughly)

Myth (lec 2)

• many definitions, not clearly defined

• Traditional

• collective/social importantance (reflects shared values of society)

• Ideological

• Presence of divine/supernatural

• Specificity of name, place, and time

• Embeddedness w/in larger network of relationships

• Understood to be real in some sense

• Heyne and Herder (18th c.) definition:

  • revamped word, technical term for particular kind of story (contrasts w/ fabulae (tales told for entertainment)

  • they felt myths included essential truths abt early human beliefs and practices

• Scholarly definition of myth:

  • myths are heuristic (tools to help us understand salient characteristics, not to impose rigid genre boundaries)

What mythology can tell us about (lec 2)

1. Ancient societies thought about themselves

2. What ancient societies thought about others

3. How ancient civilizations viewed/conceptualized world around them

• Ancient societies = Storyteller and their audience because there is no universal viewpoint in one society)

Mythology and ideology (lec 2)

• stories are ideological (beliefs and assumptions that are widely-held among a certain group of people and that may reflect political, philosophical, moral, and other values)

• thus, stories both reflect and generate cultural and ideological values (explicitly and implicitly)

Living mythology (lec 2)

• storytellers in diff places and times will present distinct ideological concerns, anxieties and priorities

• genre and what concerns invididual storyteller can also greatly affect concerns of narrative

• by the time an individual encountered a polished narrative form, they had probably heard and seen it in some other form

• general background hum and familiarity allowed poets to do
  more complex things with stories to convey different meanings (changing up/adding to a well-known story to tell deeper meanings)

Greek Myths (Johnston) (lec 2)

1. have to do w/ gods and heros (their exploits, interactions, and the implications these had for humans)

2. Feature a large by limit cast of specific characters - belonging to a network

3. Set in distant past continuous w/ time in which audience lived

4. Set in geographically specific places w/in Greek world

5. Greek myths are stories, meant to engage and entertain their audience, rather than simply convey information

Greek Mythology definition (lec 2)

• living, evolving system expressed in many facets of day to day experience

• massive, fragmentary and frequently contradictory collection of literary and material culture spanning a vast temporal (~1000 years) and geographic range

Cultural poetics/new historicism (lec 2)

• “New historical” study of mythology is framework that accounts for interrelationship btwn:

  • Historical period and sociopolitical context

  • genre

  • author

  • myth

  • us

• meaning is created through entanglement of context, author, genre, form, content and audience

Context components of the Theogony (lec 3)

• during the end of the bronze age to iron age to Archaic period

• 8th century Greece

• Hesiod (author)

• traveling bards and poetic festivals

• Epic poetry

• Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca

Context of Theogony: End of the Bronze age (1200BCE)

• Number of larger citadels (“palaces”)

• End of 13 BCE all destroyed

• trade significantly reduced

• administrative/political collapse

• literacy/writing lost

• High-value craftwork disappears

• No more monumental architecture

• Mass depopulation

• Not only in Greece but all over Mediterranean

Context of Theogony: Iron Age (1150-750 BCE) (lec 3)

• No literacy

• No monumental architecture

• Poor pottery (subsistence only)

• Small isolated communities

• Little to no formal social institutions/political structure

• “Warrior culture”

• spike of population around the end of era (8th century)

Context of Theogony: 8th c. Greece (lec 3)

• Expansion in population 

• Increase in trade of foreign good and in mobility around Mediterranean

• Urbanisation increased and poleis of Greece begin to form

• Greek alphabet emerges and first written texts are found

• Religious sanctuaries and open-air cult sites emerge and become centres of community (beginning of Olympic games)

• Greek colonization begins in both western and eastern Mediterranean 

• Wealthy independent land owning farmers make up privileged class

• Shift in political power from chief to class aristocrats

• Shift from individual aggrandizement to community oriented status

Context of Theogony: Hesiod (lec 3)

• One of earliest greek poet writing around end of 8th c. along w/ homer

• Perhaps lived in Ascra (town in region of Boeotia, near Mt. Helicon (home of muses)

• 2 surviving poems: Theogony and works and days, epic poems in dactylic hexameter

• Distinctive personality emerges from his works (poet is present in his poems as narrator and is a character)

• Much autobiographical info is known thanks to the Works and Days, was likely a wealthy farmer as well as poet, had a brother (Perses)

Context of Theogony: Traveling bards and poetic festivals (lec 3)

• Aoidos: singers/poets who travel around and perform songs/poems

• B4 8th c: performed in private contexts

• After 8th c: emergence of sanctuaries leads to performing for audiences at public religious festivals

• Festivals held in honour of gods, but brought together communities for entertainment as well as religious worship

• Mobility of poets- Hesiod says that he travelled to region of Greece called Euboea to complete in poetic festival where we won tripod as prize (Oral poem sung by Hesiod)

Context of Theogony: Epic poetry (lec 3)

• Epic: poem which is spoken aloud

• Origins in society w/o literacy poems (were oral, requiring memorization and off-cup composition)

• Poems performed by traveling bards and later rhapsodes

• General requirements for context:

  • Musical accompaniment

  • Rhythm and meter: dactylic hexameter

  • Constraints on length

Poetic meter (lec 3)

• Meter: particular pattern of syllables in line of poetry, arranged in ‘metrical feet’

• Dactylic Hexameter: meter of Greek epic poetry

• Hexameter: six feet

• Dactyl (finger) = syllables in each foot are (long - short - short or - u u)

Context of Theogony: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (lec 3)

• Bibliotheca = The Library

• “Psuedo”-Apollodorus vs Apollodorus of Athens

• dated to 1st-2nd c CE

• Mythography: compendium of short summaries of myths, organized by lineage

• Sections 1.1-1.7: much later depiction of creation of universe and myth of succession

• sometimes reports multiple authorities for certain myths

Basics of Theogony (lec 3)

• Theos (god) + gonia (birth/origin)

• Also a cosmogony (cosmos + gonia), gods and universe made at same time

• Description of the birth of universe and gods (mythological explanation for how universe came into being, and genealogies of gods, down to heros, and mortals

• Bridge btwn gods and audience: follows evolution of cosmos from beginning to world recognizable by audience

• Myth as science: understanding nature of universe and how things came to be

• One of the best sources for understanding Greek pantheon (all gods) in Early Greece

• Poem was well-known authority to later greeks and has formative influence on many other mythological works

• However, isn’t a sacred text in the same way as the Bible/Quran, Hesiod was one tradition among many

Structure of the THeo

1. Proem: invocation to muses (lines: 1-115)

2. Primordial Gods (116-136)

3. Castration of Ouranos (137-187)

4. Birth of Aphrodite (188-210)

5. Genealogy of Early Gods (211-455)

6. Aside on Hecate (413-455)

7. Birth of Olympians/Overthrow of Cronos (456-508)

8. Aside on Prometheus (509-572)

9. Aside on Pandora (573-620)

10. Titanomachy (621-725)

11. Descent into Tartaros (726-825)

12. Battle w/ Typhoios (826-885)

13. Zues has much sex (886-969)

14. Goddesses have much sex (970-1028)

15. Gods are about to have much sex but don’t finish (1029-1030)

Invocation to the muses: Hesiod’s inspiration (lec 3)

• Call for inspiration from gods/muses, and is hallmark of epic poetry

• Marks religious nature of poetry- made to honour gods, made to be recited at festivals

• Hesiod as a shepherd - fictional persona or real? (lines 21-33)

• Muses give Hesiod a laurel staff as a symbol as a symbol of his poetic authority

• Divine legitimacy and social authority of good poet

Invocation to the muses: birth and nature (lec 3)

• Mother is Titan Mnemosyne (memory), father is Zeus, slept together for 9 nights and bore 9 muses

• Patrons of arts

• Born in order to give respite from woe and as a mean of forgetting sorrow - role of arts in ancient world

• Described first in poem since they are most important to poets like Hesiod - w/o them, following poem wouldn’t exist

Invocation to the muses: Gift of the Muses (lec 3)

• Calliope called first of muses - status of epic poetry in ancient world

• Muses bestow power of spoken word on chosen mortals at birth (inspired genius - poems are god-given)

• Gift of spoken word also given to public speakers, judges, political leaders

• Give sense of political authority in 8th c. Greece - kinds that preside over assemblies (princely chiefs, wealthy land owning aristocrats who held authority over their community through consensus, not coercion)

• Poetry serves as means of managing emotions that could have (-) social effects

• Delights of muses support divine prescriptions about order, justice, and authority from Zeus (aka Cronion (son of Cronos)

Generations of the gods (lec 4)

1. Primordial

2. Titans

3. Olympians

First generation: Primordial (lec 4)

• first god was Chaos (void, gap, chasm, the Abyss)

• then came Gaia (the Earth)

• Tartaros (subterranean abyss) and Eros (sexual attraction/love)

• Chaos birthed chthonic deities (Erebos and Nyx to sky deities)

• Erebos (darkness) and Night birthed Aether (air, upper sky) and Day

• Gaia birthed Ouranos (heavens, sky), Mountains, and Pontos (sea)

Nature of the gods (lec 4)

• Both anthropomorphic and manifestation of the natural world

• Become more human over time (cultured)

• Anthropomorphic: described in terms of human characteristics (negative traits)

• idealized individuals, immortal w/special powers

• need to be appeased by mortals

• Omniscience? Omnipotence? (not really, because gods have been thwarted by humans, Zeus is an exception)

• have multiple roles/diff aspects

  • origin in local cult practices that became incorporated into larger mythology

• Offspring of night: gods weren’t just human figures but expression of ideas/thoughts (ex: hateful doom)

Second generation: Offspring of Gaia + Ouranos

• 3 main groups

  1. Titans, ruling figures of generation, Cronos and Rheia were parents of Olympians

  2. Cyclopes

  3. Hecatonchires (100 handers), guards the gates of Tartaros after titans imprisoned after losing Titanomachy

Offspring of Gaia and Pontus, Ancestors of Monsters (lec 4)

Castration of Ouranos (lec 4)

• Ouranos fears power of his children so prevents birth by sealing them in womb of Gaia

• Gaia comes up w/ scheme to liberate children

• Gaia creates scythe and gives it to Cronos. Cronos castrates father when Ouranos tries to have intercourse w/ Gaia

• Furies (Erinyes) (goddesses who get vengeance for kin-slayers) and giants are born from blood

• First instance of problem of succession

  • general theme of fathers fearing offspring taking power away, problem of determining authority among gods

  • reflection of tyranny

• Rule of primordial gods ends and reign of next gen of gods (Titans) begins

Birth of Aphrodite (lec 4)

• Born from fertile genitals of Ouranos 

• Goddess of love, eros/sexual passion, but also born out of violence and deceit

• Aphros =  “foam”

• Born from sexual organ, 

• Diff origin given in later accounts (daughter of Zeus and Hera)

• In this myth she is eldest of Olympians (to Heisod) and hold special privileges (technically daughter of Ouranos)

Third generation: the Olympians (lec 4)

• Cronos and Rheia are sbilings that married each other

Overthrow of Cronos (lec 4)

• 2nd instance of the problem of succession (Cronos worried children would take his power)

• Cronos would eat his children whenever they were born:

  1. Hestia

  2. Demeter

  3. Hera

  4. Hades

  5. Poseidon

• But before he could eat Zeus Rheia swaps him out for rock, and Zeus can grow up on mount Ida

• Zeus tricks Cronos to spit up all children in reverse order so Zeus oldest, Hestia youngest

• Rock was thrown up and landed at centre of universe

• Zeus and siblings overthrow Titans and become 3rd generation of ruling gods

Titanomachy “Battle of Titans” (lec 4)

• Titans rebel against rule of Zeus and next gen of gods

• Shakes universe causing many natural disasters and shaping topography of earth

• Myths of decisively overcoming previous gen

• Reflects concern abt asserting political authority

• After Titans are defeated, they are cast into Tartaros (deepest depth of underworld), where they are imprisoned

Geography of realms (lec 4)

Typhoios (Typhon) (lec 4)

• Gaia resents control of Zeus after Titans defeated

• Gaia has intercourse w/ Tartarus to birth powerful monster called Typhoios which will threaten Zeus supremacy

• Giant serpent/dragon like creature w/ 100 heads

• Zeus learns of monster and engages battle w/ it striking it down w/ thunderbolts

• Represent order overcoming Chaos, patriarch overcoming matriarch, culture over nature

• one could argue that Gaia did it on purpose to help Zeus as it helped cement his authority over gods

Filling out the Pantheon (lec 4)

Birth of Athena (lec 4)

• Birthed from head of Zeus fully clad in armor

• Third instance of the problem of succession

• As a daughter, Athena doesn’t threaten Zeus’ authority, and thus resolves the problem of succession

• Learned from mistakes of Ouranos and Cronos, so he eats Metis (mother of Athena)

Olympian gods (lec 4)

Themes of Theogony (lec 4)

• Cyclical, intergenerational competition and violence (problem of succession)

• Nature vs. culture

• Legitimization of political authority (relevant to 8th c. due to shift in political authority)

• Divine order and Greek social structure

• Reinforcement of patriarchal hierarchy (shown through Athena not posing threat to Zeus’ power)

Themes of Theogony: cyclical, intergenerational competition and violence (lec 4)

• problem of succession

• occurs 3 times but resolved the 3rd

  1. Ouranos and Cronos

  2. Cronos and Zeus

  3. Zeus and Athena

Themes of Theogony: Nature vs. culture (lec 4)

• adds linearly to Theogony

• gods slowly become cultured overtime (Olympian gods take on human characteristics, ex: Hephaistos being god of crafts)

Teleology in the Theogony (lec 4)

• teleological: assumes timeline/process proceeds toward designed/purposeful end

• Teleogical end point of Theogony:

  • movement from tyranny to balance of power, fairness and loyalty

  • Zeus as the embodiment of justice and law

    • Zeus is possessor of wisdom and knowledge, as opposed to tricky

    • elected as monarch

    • Hesiod portrays Zeus in very positive light

Hymns (lec 5)

• written in praise of god

• can include some characteristics/narrative of god

• performance/offering

Homeric Hymns (lec 5)

• collection of 33 anonymous ancient Greek hymns celebrating the gods

• were composed btwn 7th and 6th centuries BCE, although some may date from Hellenistic Period/later (4th c. BCE onwards)

• vary wildly in length, from 500+ lines to 3 lines

• called “Homeric” because they use the same epic meter (dactylic hexameter) as Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey and were attributed to Homer by ancient Greeks

• Initially composed orally? or written down in form that mimics earlier oral poetry

• Homeric Hymn 2: Hymn to Demeter

• Homeric Hymn 4: Hymn to Hermes

• Homeric Hymn 5: Hymn to Aphrodite

Big 12 Olympians (lec 5)

• Zeus

  • Apollo, Artemis (Leto)

  • Athena (Metis)

  • Ares (Hera)

  • Hermes (Maia)

  • Dionysos (Semele)

• Hera

  • Hephaistos

• Poseidon

• Demeter

• Aphrodite

• Not official:

  • Hestia (included in 12 by Hesiod, but usually replaced by Dionysos)

  • Hades

Olympians home (lec 5)

• lived on Mt Olympus

• reason why they’re called Olympians

Bronze Age gods (~12th c. BCE) (lec 5)

• presence of some familiar names from Linear B tablets, but also many unfamiliar names

• ~400-500 years prior to Homer and Hesiod

• diff religious and mythic landscape; but some continuities exist

PY Tn 316 (lec 5)

• Po-ti-ni-ja means mistress(goddess)

• Po-si-da-o (Poseidon)

• E-ma-a (Hermes)

• a-re-ja (Ares)

• Di-wo (Zeus)

• E-ra (Hera)

Deities (lec 5)

Known:

• a-re (Ares)

• di-wo-nu-so (Dionysos)

• a-te-mi-to (Artemis)

• a-pa-i-ti-jo (Hephaistos)

unknowns:

• di-pi-si-jo-i

• ma-ri-ne-u

• pa-de

• ti-ri-se-ro-e

• di-u-ja

• ma-na-sa

• etc

Zeus (Jupiter) (lec 5)

• king of gods

• God of sky, weather, law, order, destiny, fate, and kingship

• irresistible strength but also an ass

• roles/Epithets (descriptive name accompanying name):

  • Zeus Aegiochos (Aegisbearer)

  • Zeus Eleutherios (Freedom-giver)

  • Zeus Olympios (patron of Olympic games)

  • Zeus Xenios (patron of hospitality (xenia)

  • Zeus Panhellenios (of all Greeks)

  • Cronion (son of Cronos)

Zeus’ problems (lec 5)

• Lecherous, uncontrollable sexual desire

• reproductive benefits…populating universe w/ gods and heros

• Immortal (not dying) children:

  • Apollo and Artemis

  • Hermes (Maia)

  • Persephone (Demeter)

  • Athena

  • Ares

  • Fates (Themis)

  • Dionysos

• Mortal children:

  • Heracles (Alcmene)

  • Perseus (Danae)

  • Minos

  • Sarpedon (Europa)

  • pretty much every hero

• General pattern of childbearing":

  • Zeus sees someone hot

  • disguises himself and seduces/rapes them

  • Hera finds out, is pissed

  • Zeus’ lover and offspring are punished

  • Zeus and Hera make up

Zeus Iconography (lec 5)

• depicted as mature w/ beard

• lightning bolt

• eagle

• Sceptre

• throne

• crown of olive leaves

• Athena coming out of head

Hera (Juno) (lec 5)

• queen of gods and sister/wife of Zeus (although not a female version of Zeus)

• goddess of marriage and women’s fertility

• defined primarily by her relationship to Zeus and his affairs

  • Jealously and vengeful nature prominent in her stories

• Originally a pre-Greek earth goddess? Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo makes Hera mother of Typhoios

• Epithets:

  • Cow-eyed/Cow-faced (cow = symbol of fertility)

  • White-armed

• Children:

  • With Zeus: Area, Eileithyia (childbirth), and Hebe (Youth)

  • Parthenogenesis: Hephaistos (although sometimes child of Zeus)

Hera Iconography (lec 5)

• often crowned, wearing a veil

• sceptre

• standing w/ Zeus

Poseidon (Neptune) (lec 5)

• god of sea, earthquakes, and horses

• Brother of Zeus

• Epithets:

  • Earth-shaker

  • Tamer of Horses

  • Poseidon Hippios (Horse)

• volatile, unpredictable; has no love for mortals

• Children:

  • many sea related gods, mostly sea monsters

  • w/ Medousa: Pegasus

  • w/ Amphitrite (Nereid): Triton

Poseidon Iconography (lec 5)

• depicted as mature w/ beard

• trident

• sometimes sea creatures, like hippocampoi

• sometimes a big boulder

Poseidon’s failure as patron deity (lec 5)

• competition btwn Athena and Poseidon to resolve who should take possession of Cecropia (thereafter, Athens)

• Poseidon gives them salt water, Athena gives them an olive tree

Athena (Minerva) (lec 5)

• Goddess of wisdom, victory/war, crafts (weaving, pottery, carpentry)

• daughter of Zeus

• Big fan of heros:

  • likes and helps Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Heracles

• Epithets:

  • Owl-eyed, grey-eyed

  • Athena Parthenos (virgin, maiden)

  • Athena Polias (of the polis)

  • Pallas Athena (either after giant Athena kills/Pallas, daughter of Triton)

“Parthenos” (lec 5)

• Patron goddess of Athens

  • Athene: ‘ene’ = place name suffx

Athena Iconography (lec 5)

• generally depicted w/ helmet, shield, and spear

• also associated w/ owls, snakes, olive trees, and the Gorgoneion (Gorgon head)

• Wears Zeus’ aegis (snake-trimmed cloak w/ Gorgon face)

Apollo (lec 5)

• unknown origins (not listed in Linear B tablets (13th c BCE)

• god of prophecy and oracles, music, song, and poetry, archery, healing, plague, disease

• Divine twin of Artemis

• diff aspects of Apollo:

  • god who punishes and destroys wicked

  • god who affords help and wards off evil

  • god of prophecy, particularly through oracle at Delphi

• Later equated w/ Helios (the sun)

• perhaps most popular and worshipped of gods

• Epithets:

  • Far-shooter

  • Phoebus (shining, bright)

  • Delian Apollo

  • Pythian Apollo

• slaying of Python

Apollo Iconography (lec 5)

• handsome, beardless youth

• branch of laurel

• bow, arrows, and quiver

• Lyre

Artemis (Diana) (lec 5)

• goddess of hunting, wild animals, wilderness

• protector of young girls and bringer of disease for girls and women

• divine twin of Apollo, like a female Apollo (represent female sphere of his aspects)

• Epithets:

  • Artemis Argotera (of wild lands)

  • Ephesian Artemis (an early Asia minor ferility god in Ionia?)

• unpredictable and wrathful towards those who insulted her (ex: Callisto, Niobe, Aktaion)

• Retinue of nymphs and mortal girls

• Tension btwn Artemis as Apollo’s sister and Arcadian, Taurian, and Ephesian Artemis

Artemis Iconography (lec 5)

• bow and arrows, quiver

• Hair up/tied back

• dress often pulled up

• w/ animals, especially deer

Dionysos (Bacchus/Liber) (lec 5)

• god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, madness, and wild frenzy

• son of Zeus and mortal Semele (born from Zeus’ thigh)

• Presented as foreign gods in Greek myth, altough attested in Linear B tablets

  • associations w/ East, re: luxury, gender role

  • Greeks distance him due to what he represents?

  • in his myths he is resisted and needs to prove himself to be a god

• Retinue:

  • Satyrs: Bearded men w/ horse and goat features, always horny

  • Bacchants/Bacchae: women possessed by god, driven into frenzy and orgies

  • Maenads: women always possessed, filled w/ incredible strength and lust

Dionysos Iconography (lec 5)

• thyrsos (pine-cone tipped staff)

• drinking paraphernalia

• grapes and vines

• crown of ivy

• accompanied by satyrs and bacchae/maenads

• dolphins

Hephaistor (Vulcan) (lec 6)

• god of fire, smiths, craftsmen, metalworking, stonemasonry, and sculpture

• son of Hera (according to later accounts)

• son of Zeus and Hear (according to homer)

• Husband of Aphrodite

• Has physical disability: injury to his leg, either from birth or later

  • Homer: says his limp is from birth and as a consequence Hera threw him from Olympus

  • Later writers: say he was injured after Zeus hurled him from Olympus after Hephaistos took Hera’s side in argument w/ Zeus

  • connection btwn disability and metalworking? (working w/ toxic metals, lead to disability theory)

Hephaistos iconography (lec 6)

• hammer and tongs (tools of smith)

• sometimes riding a donkey

Ares (Mars) (lec 6)

• son of Zeus and Hera

• God of war/bloodlust

  • Personification of combativeness; of the force, confusion, and horror of war

  • vs. Athena, goddess of tactics/strategy (intellectual side of war

• Epithets:

  • Enualios (“warlike”)

• unpopular

  • w/ mortals (not worshipped/depicted very much)

  • w/ gods (no one likes him)

• No wife, but many children

  • w/ Aphrodite: Phoibos (Fear) and Deimos (Terror)

Ares Iconography (lec 6)

• just an average soldier dude

• in armour and helm

Hades (Pluto) (lec 6)

• king of underworld, god of funeral rites, burial, and hidden wealth of earth

• not one of main 12 Olympians

• Brother of Zeus, husband of Persephone

• 2 aspects:

  • Aidoneus, the unseen one

  • Plouton, the giver of wealth

• NOT like satan

Hades Iconography(lec 6)

• often w/ Persephone

• Cornucopia

• Sceptre

Aphrodite (Venus) (lec 6)

• goddess of love, beauty, sex, pleasure, and procreation

• personification of generative powers of nature

• wife of Hephaistos, lover of Ares

• Many versions of her parentage:

  • Hesiod and Homeric Hymn: born from Ouranos’ genitals

  • Homer and others: daughter of Zeus and Dione

• often hangs out w/ Eros/Cupid (who is sometimes her son)

• loving but also wrathful; to Greeks, her power is scary but also necessary

Aphrodite Iconography (lec 6)

• hot

• accompanied by Eros

• sometimes pictured w/ doves, geese, scallop shells, or mirrors

• in sculptures, usually naked

Aphrodite of Knidos (lec 6)

• by sculptor Praxiteles, 4th c. BCE

• 1st life-size representation of naked woman in Greece

• Originally lost, but many Roman copies survive

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (lec 6)

• Zeus, annoyed that Aphrodite keeps mocking everyone for sleeping w/ mortals, inspires in her love of the mortal man Achises, a prince of Troy

• tricks Anchises and later gives birth to Aeneas, future founder of Rome (according to Romans)

• fundamental diff btwn mortals and immortals

• Embedded narratives: story w/in a story

Homeric Hymns: Embedded narratives - Ganymede and Zeus (lec 6)

• highlights diff of mortals to immortals (immortals doesn’t think much of losing son when Zeus took son away just gave horses)

• Ganymede prince of tros (young man)

• Zeus took fancy in G and gave Tros horses in exchange for G

Homeric Hymns: Embedded narratives - Eos and Tithonos (lec 6)

• Tithonos gets older and older and becomes a cicada

• Eos loved T (mortal), so asked Zeus to give him immortality but didn’t ask for eternaly youth so T kept aging

• highlights diff btwn immortals and mortals (gods don’t sympathize to idea of time and aging or even death)

Hermes (Mercury) (lec 6)

• god of herds, flocks, travellers and hospitality, roads and trade, thievery and cunning, heralds and diplomacy, language and writing, athletic contests and gymnasia, astronomy and astrology

• son of Zeus and Maia (daughter of Atlas (titan)

• herald and personal messenger of Zeus

• Psychopompos: guide of dead, who led souls to underworld

• trickster god: eloquent in speech, cunning in word and action, shrewd, dexterous, skilled in fraud and thievery

• inventor: including alphabet, numbers, astronomy, music, gymnastics, measures and weights

• Epithets:

  • Hermes Argeiphontes (“Argus-slayer”, Argus someone who watches over one of Zeus’ lover, but Argus’ eyes put on peacocks)

Hermes Iconography (lec 6)

• Talaria (winged sandals)

• Caduceus (herald’s wand)

• Petasos (traveller’s hat/winger hat)

Herma/herm (lec 6)

• either association w/ Herme/ermata (blocks of stone)

• sculpture w/ head and penis on square plinth

• Apotropaic function (warded off evil and harm)

• used as markers at boundaries, crossings, outside buildings, and roads

Caduceus (herald’s wand) vs asklepian (rod of Asclepius)

• asklepian is a medical symbol, but should only have 1 snake

• but when trying to implement symbol they used 2 snakes which is caduceus

Homeric Hymns to Hermes (lec 6)

• recounts god’s first couple days of life

• invents: lyre and sacrifice

• steals cattle from Apollo

• human like characteristics of both Apollo and Hermes

Demeter (Ceres) (lec 6)

• goddess of agriculture, grain and bread, cycle of life

• De: attic dialect variant of Doric ge (“earth”) or related to deai (“barley”)

• Meter: “mother” in Greek

• mother of Persephone (w/ Zeus), function essentially same role and are treated as a unit

• Demeter and Persephone presided over Eleusinian Mysteries

Demeter Iconography (lec 6)

• wearing a crown

• Sheafs of wheat/cornucopia

• a torch

Homeric Hymn to Demeter (lec 6)

2 interconnected stories abt Demeter

1. Rape of Persephone

2. Demeter in Eleusis

Marriage in Ancient Greece (lec 6)

• arrangment among men

• Purpose: procreation (of legitimate citizen children) and conservation of wealth

• Betrothal (engysis = “giving a pledge”) and marriage (ekdosis = “taking away”)

• ppl involved:

  • Bride’s father/guardian

  • Husband-to-be

  • Bride (little to no role)

• Patrilineality: family and inheritance through father’s side