Exam 1: The Gods

A myth requires a…

cultural context

Myths can occur in…

many forms

The content of a myth is blank, not the plot

meaning

A myth is

• (1) a narrative, which

• (2) has meaning for some community and

• (3) is passed down from generation (“traditional”), but

• (4) is sufficiently malleable that it can be reshaped for new communities.

Divine Myths

• Primary protagonists are gods

• Explain why the world looks the way it look

Legends

• Primary protagonists are (super)humans

• Accounts of great deed that also affected the way the world looks now

Folktales

• Primary protagonists are (admittedly fictional) regular humans

• Provide paradigms of proper behavior

Myths are blank (yet flexible) stories told over time by communities.

traditional

Myths are often concerned with explaining origins

• Of the natural world (e.g., volcanoes, seasons, specific trees)

• Of names (e.g., cities, bodies of water, specific trees)

• Of cultural institutions (e.g., festivals, societal norms)

Myths, traditionally are spread first by…

word of mouth

Myths may, and often do, eventually get…

written down

How do the earliest myths spread or survive without writing or reliable long-distance communication?

a class of illiterate performers called aoidoi 

In Ancient Greece, we have a class of illiterate performers called aoidoi (singular adios), who

• Apprenticed in the craft of “oral composition” from a young age.

• Traveled around the Greek-speaking world performing at royal courts and at public festivals,

• And sang their songs to the accompaniment of the lyre.

Hesiod

• The Theogony

• The Works and Days

• The Homeric Hymns

Sources in the Archaic Period:

• VASE PAINTING

• The Iliad and the Odyssey

• Hesiod

Sources in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods

• VASE PAINTING

• Tragedies

• The Library of Alexandria

Tragedies

• Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides

• Largely stagings of known stories

The Library of Alexandria

• New focus for literary works

• Pausanians’ Periegesis

Where do Greek myths come from?

• Ancient greeks are part of a cultural group called Indo-Europeans

• Material Evidence

• Linguistic Evidence

Material evidence

(Remember, writing isn’t invented in Greece until about 800 BCE, and the myths are already very well-established by that point)

Linguistic Evidence

Greek “Zeus” and Roman “Jupiter” share a root, *dyeu-, “shining”

Sumerian Myth

• Stories “must be inferred from cryptic texts inscribed on badly broken clay tablets in a difficult script recording a dead language that is poorly understood.”

• major contributions:

Major Contributions:

• Strong association between gods and cities

• First god (An) is a sky god who fades into obscurity

• Goddess with interest in love and war (Ishtar / Inanna)

• King of the gods (Entil) is a storm god

• Gods are basically just giant, powerful, humans

How does Rome fit?

Virgil’s Aeneid

• Basically just Homer fanfic

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

• Myths about transformation, which ends with Caesar’s transformation into a star

Livy’s history

• Rome’s origins

Which of these was not invented during the so-called Archaic Period of Greek history?

The idea of imperialism

Why did the Romans not produce mythical texts in the same volume that the Greeks did?

Roman authors primarily concerned themselves with Rome and its history

Whose death marks the starting point of the Hellenistic Period of Greek history?

Alexander the Great

Why is material evidence (such as vase-painting) so important for our knowledge of the origins of myths?

Mythological stories predate the invention of writing, so things like vases are the only thing we have to go on for the early history of the stories

Which island in the Mediterranean rose in power Earlier than all the sites on the Greek mainland, and was occupied by a people we call the Minoans?

Crete

Why is it difficult to form an accurate picture of the lives of women in Ancient Greece?

Men overwhelmingly produced the historical sources that we have

What is the name of the writing system that was invented on Crete to record an early version of the Greek language?

Linear B

What do most of the original myths produced in Rome have to do with?

Rome's founding and early history

What is the difference between the religious concepts of orthodoxy and orthopraxy?

Orthodoxy is concerned with proper belief, orthopraxy is concerned with proper practice

Who were the primary combatants in the Peloponnesian War?

Athens and Sparta

What is the name of the father of the first 6 Olympian gods, who ate them as soon as they were born?

Kronos

In Hesiod’s classification of the Five Races of mankind, which one does he say we live in?

Iron

What was the last thing left inside of Pandora’s jar after she opened it?

Hope

What is the name of the wicked human whom Zeus turns into, essentially, a werewolf?

Lycaon

What does the word “cosmogony” mean?

Origin of the universe

Which god was born from the severed testicles of the titan Kronos?

Aphrodite

Which one of the titans sided with Zeus in the Titanomachy, and then constantly defies Zeus in order to help humans?

Prometheus

From which part of the world do we see the earliest myths of a worldwide flood?

Mesopotamia

What is the difference between Ovid’s and Hesiod’s accounts of the ages of mankind?

Hesiod has 5, Ovid has 4

What are the names of the couple that survived the Greek universal-flood story?

Pyrrha and Deucalion

What was the title of the chief priestess of Apollo at his temple at Delphi?

Pythia

What do the gods eat?

Most of the time it's Ambrosia, but it can be Nectar too sometimes

The goddess of the hearth in Greek is called Hestia. What is the name of her Roman counterpart?

Vesta

Which of these things does Apollo not deal with?

Weaving

What is the name of the small island where Apollo was born?

Delos

What most accurately describes the relationship between Zeus and Hera?

Sister-wife and brother-husband

What was the name of the blind prophet who had lived both as a man and as a woman?

Tiresias

What was the name of the woman who was turned into a laurel-plant as she fled from Apollo?

Daphne

Which animal is Poseidon somewhat unexpectedly associated with?

Horses

What was the name of the snake Apollo killed at the future site of his temple at Delphi?

Python

Whose famous temple at Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world?

Artemis

The Parthenon in Athens is a temple dedicated to which god?

Athena

Who built the temple to Mars Ultor in the Roman forum?

Augustus

Which of these gods does Aphrodite not have power over?

Athena

Which of these functions did a herm not perform?

Acting as a meeting-place

Who teamed up to kill all of Niobe’s children, after she insulted their mother?

Apollo and Artemis

Who are Hephaestus’ parents?

Hera solo

Whose cows does Hermes steal in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes?

Apollo

What kind of animal did Artemis turn Actaeon into after he accidentally witnessed her bathing?

Stag

Who took Hephaestus in after he was thrown off Mount Olympus and into the Ocean?

Thetis