Intro to Greek Myth Ids 1

Mycenaean Age

Late Bronze Age in Greece (c. 1600-1200 BCE), named for Mycenae and its Lion Gate. It is the era in which the Trojan War is set (Fall of Troy c. 1184 BCE). It was followed by the Dark Age (1200-800 BCE).

Homer

Oral epic poet credited with the Iliad and Odyssey, dated to the later 8th century BCE. His poems tell of the "glorious deeds of men" (klea andron) and show gods interacting with heroes. We don't know if there was one "Homer," and the poems were fixed in writing by the 6th century BCE.

Zeus

King of the gods, son of Cronos and Rheia, god of sky and weather, and also of hospitality and justice. Attributes: thunderbolt, eagle, scepter. He won power through cunning (Theogony 138) and kept it through force, then divided power among the gods (divine allotment).

Hera

Sister and wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage, consumed by jealousy. She persecutes Zeus's lovers and children (e.g. Heracles). In Iliad 1.536-43 she scolds Zeus for secretly planning with Thetis.

Hephaestus

Craftsman god and son of Hera. In Iliad 1.568-579 he calms the fight between his parents. He recalls that Zeus once hurled him from Olympus and he fell on Lemnos, where the Sintians cared for him (Iliad 1.590-594).

Thetis

Sea goddess, daughter of Nereus, and mother of Achilles. Zeus and Poseidon stopped pursuing her when they learned she was destined to bear a son greater than his father, so Zeus married her to the mortal Peleus. According to the Iliad (1.393-400), she once saved Zeus when the other gods tried to bind him.

Briareus (Briareos)

One of the three Hundred-Handers (with Cottos and Gyges), born to Gaia and Ouranos (Theogony 147-149). Ouranos bound them, Zeus freed them, and they helped him defeat the Titans (Theogony 617-735). Iliad 1.405-406 links him to Thetis's rescue of Zeus.

Hesiod

Oral poet of the late 8th or early 7th century BCE from Boeotia, inspired by the Muses on Mount Helicon. He wrote the Theogony (birth of the gods) and Works and Days. In Works and Days he describes a quarrel with his brother Perses.

Privileged variant

The idea that once Hesiod's Theogony was written down, it became the fixed, standard version of how the world began, favored over the other oral variants by later Greek poets.

Cosmogony

An account of the origin of the world. Architectural: a god designs and creates the world (Genesis, Plato's Timaeus). Automatic: the world generates itself and order comes through struggle (Hesiod's Theogony, Enuma Elish).

Gaia (Ge)

Earth, one of the first beings in Hesiod's Theogony (with Chaos, Tartarus, Eros). She bore Ouranos on her own, then mated with him to produce the Titans, Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers. She plots against Ouranos and later helps Zeus.

Ouranos

Sky/Heaven, born from Gaia and then her mate. He pushed each child back into her womb, "keeping them from the light" (Theogony 158). Cronos castrated him, and the Furies, Giants and Ash-Tree Nymphs sprang from his blood.

Cronos

Youngest Titan, an "arch-deceiver" (Theogony 137-8), who overthrew Ouranos with a weapon Gaia made. Since he was fated to be overthrown by his own child, he swallowed the children Rheia bore. Zeus forced him to vomit them up.

Rheia

Titan wife and sister of Cronos and mother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. She bore Zeus secretly on Crete and gave Cronos a swaddled stone to swallow instead (Theogony 467ff.).

Titanomachy

The ten-year war between Zeus and the Titans (Theogony 617-735). Zeus freed the Cyclopes, who gave him the thunderbolt, and the Hundred-Handers, who did most of the fighting. The defeated Titans were imprisoned in Tartaros, guarded by the Hundred-Handers.

Typhoios (Typhon)

Youngest child of Gaia, born from her and Tartaros, a monster with a hundred snake heads and terrifying voices. Zeus defeated him with his thunderbolt (Theogony 836ff.; Apollodorus, Library 1.6.2). He was cast into Tartaros and became the source of destructive winds.

Metis

Goddess whose name means "Cunning" or "Wisdom" and the first wife of Zeus. She was fated to bear a daughter equal to Zeus and a son who would rule gods and men. Zeus swallowed her while she was pregnant with Athena, who was born from his head, which ended the cycle of sons overthrowing fathers.

Zeus Xenios

Zeus in his role as protector of hospitality (xenia), guests and strangers. Violating the guest-host relationship offends him, as in the Cyclops Polyphemus episode of the Odyssey.

Poseidon

Brother of Zeus and god of the sea, also associated with earthquakes. Attribute: trident, often shown with sea creatures. He is prominent in the Odyssey.

Poseidon Hippios

Poseidon "of Horses," one of his universal epithets along with Pelagaios ("Marine") and Asphalios ("Securer"). Pausanias (7.21.7) guesses he got the name as inventor of horsemanship.

Hades

Brother of Zeus and lord of the Underworld, ruler of the dead. He has a cap that makes him invisible. His house holds his wife Persephone and Cerberus.

Cerberus (Kerberos)

Monstrous watchdog of the Underworld, who lives at the house of Hades and Persephone and guards the entrance to the realm of the dead.

Erebos

Dark region of the Underworld where the dead go, good and bad alike. Hansen calls it "not a heaven or a hell": souls exist in a minimal, smoke-like way, in a place with no light.

Tartaros

The lowest part of the Underworld, where the Titans are imprisoned (guarded by the Hundred-Handers). Zeus threatens to hurl disobedient gods there (Iliad 8), and it is also a primordial deity who fathered Typhoios with Gaia.

Perses

Hesiod's brother (or just the conventional addressee of didactic poetry) in Works and Days. He is foolish and understands neither justice nor work. Either he bribed the kings to get an unfair share of the estate, or he squandered his share and begged Hesiod for help.

Myth of the Races

Hesiod's account in Works and Days (106-201) of five successive human races, showing decline from gold to iron (with the heroes as an interruption). It ties to justice (dike) versus violent arrogance (hybris) and explains the present world.

Gold race

First race, who lived like gods without pain, cares or toil, with the earth giving food freely. They lived in peace and were loved by the gods. They became daimones, and they had no work but also no justice.

Silver race

Raised as big babies for 100 years. Once grown they were recklessly violent and neglected the gods. They were foolishly dependent, then excessively violent, and they too became daimones.

Bronze race

Dreadful and strong, devoted to war. They did not practice agriculture and destroyed each other through violence. They went to Hades.

Race of the Heroes

Fourth race, which interrupts the metal sequence. They were destroyed by war but have a peaceful afterlife where the land yields food three times a year. Hesiod inserted them to fit existing Greek ideas about the recent heroic past.

Iron race

The present race of humans, worn down by toil and cares and headed for breakdown. Children won't resemble fathers, guests won't be honored, oaths will be broken, and Shame and Nemesis will leave for Olympus. They must seek self-sufficiency and justice.

Polyphemus

Cyclops in Odyssey 9 who traps Odysseus and his men in his cave and eats several of them. He lives without laws or agriculture, ignores the justice of Zeus, and perverts the guest-host relationship. Odysseus blinds him and escapes.

Circe

Daughter of Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, a goddess-enchantress on the island of Aeaea (Odyssey 10). She drugs Odysseus's men and turns them into pigs. Protected by the herb from Hermes, Odysseus threatens her with his sword, frees his men and stays a year feasting.

Apollo (Apollon, Phoibos)

Young god, son of Zeus and Leto, who establishes his place in the Olympian order in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. God of music (mousike: sung text, instrumental music, group dancing), light, archery, plague, healing and prophecy, with the lyre and bow as attributes. The Hymn shows his two sides, bringer of destruction and bringer of order, and has two parts, Delos and Delphi. He and Artemis kill Niobe's children, and his son is Asklepios.

Apollo Paean

Cult title meaning "Healer." Aeschylus calls him an iatromantis, "healer-seer." Healing is most strongly tied to his son Asklepios (staff), whose healing sanctuaries are often connected to Apollo's cult, as at Epidauros.

Apollo Delphinios

Apollo "of the dolphin," tied to the story of the Cretan priests in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. He takes the form of a dolphin, leaps onto the Cretan sailors' ship and guides them to Crisa to be his priests. It connects him to the sea.

Leto

Daughter of the Titans Koios and Phoibe, and mother of Apollo and Artemis by Zeus. In the Theogony she is the sister of Asteria, the mother of Hekate. Only Delos agreed to receive her while she was pregnant. In the Hymn she unstrings Apollo's bow and hangs it by Zeus's seat.

Eileithyia

Divine midwife, daughter of Zeus and Hera. Out of jealousy, Hera delays Apollo's birth by restraining Eileithyia on Olympos until Iris bribes her to come to Delos (Homeric Hymn to Apollo).

Marsyas

Satyr or silenus (animal-human hybrid) from Phrygia in Asia Minor who challenged Apollo to a musical contest, lyre vs. aulos (double pipe). The Muses judged and he lost. Apollo punished him by flaying him alive.

Delos

Island where Apollo was born and his first major cult site. Only Delos agreed to receive the pregnant Leto, in exchange for an altar and temple to Apollo. The Hymn describes a festival there with long-robed Ionians, boxing, dances and music, and Delian maidens who mimic "the chattering of all men."

Delphi (Pytho)

Apollo's second major cult site, the "center of the world," where people came to consult the oracle. In the Hymn Apollo kills the female snake that guards the site and nurses Typhaon, a monster Hera made to challenge Zeus. Its rotting corpse gives the place the name Pytho. Other sources say an oracle of Gaia or Themis was already there, but in the Hymn Apollo is first.

Telphousa

Nymph of a spring who tricks Apollo when he wants to found his temple near her. She sends him on to Crisa on the foothills of Mt. Parnassus, which is where Delphi ends up.

Daphne

Nymph whom Apollo falls in love with at first sight (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.452-567). She flees him and is turned into the laurel tree to escape, and the laurel becomes his sacred plant. Ovid says he burned like stubble and that his own gifts of prophecy deceived him.

Hermes (Argeiphontes)

Son of Zeus and the nymph Maia, and the last-born Olympian. God of thieves, merchants, trade and profit, shepherds, lucky finds (hermaion), and boundaries and boundary-crossing (marked by herms), bringer of dreams, and the psychopomp who leads souls to Hades. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes he gains honor through exchange (the lyre for the cattle) and deception (stealing Apollo's cattle), invents sacrifice, and allies with Apollo.

Maia

"Modest nymph" and the mother of Hermes by Zeus. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes he is born to her in a cave in Arcadia.

Artemis

Daughter of Zeus and the Titaness Leto, older twin of Apollo, and goddess of the hunt (Roman Diana). Her virginity represents her autonomy, and she is associated with transitions for young girls and with childbirth. An archer who "draws her golden bow" (Homeric Hymn 27).

Artemis Kynthia

Cult title for Artemis from her birth on Mt. Kynthos on Delos. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo instead says she was born in Ortygia.

Brauronia

Festival of Artemis held every four years at Brauron on the east coast of Attica. Girls aged 5 to 10 "played the bear" for Artemis as a necessary rite before marriage, with song, dance and a yellow robe. Founding myth: a bear sacred to Artemis scratched a girl and was killed by the girl's brothers, so the goddess sent a plague and was placated by the rituals.

Artemis of Ephesus

Artemis as worshipped at her famous temple at Ephesus, where two traditions blended and she was merged with a fertility goddess. Her statue (mid-2nd century CE) looks quite different from the usual huntress.

Callisto

"Most beautiful," a maiden hunter in Artemis's band who took a vow of chastity. Zeus disguised himself to win her trust, and she hid her pregnancy from Artemis. After she bore a son, Arcas, she turned into a bear and became the constellation Ursa Major (Arcas is Ursa Minor).

Euripides

Athenian tragic playwright (484-406 BCE) who first competed in 455 BCE. He wrote about 88-92 plays, of which 19 survive, and won only 4 victories (2 after his death). Controversial in life and hugely popular after death, he is now seen as a radical political thinker and social commentator.

Hippolytus

Son of Theseus and an Amazon mother, chaste and devoted to hunting, horses and Artemis. Early evidence is thin, and the earliest images are Italian vases inspired by Euripides' tragedy. He had local cult worship in Athens and Troezen, still active in Pausanias' time (2nd century CE). In Euripides' play he sings to Artemis and the chorus of huntsmen hail her as the "most beautiful of virgins."

Athena

Goddess of war, and also of the city, justice and the arts, born fully armed from Zeus's head and daughter of Metis. Trademarks are the helmet, spear and aegis. Unlike Ares (war as chaos and violence), she orders and systematizes war and inspires menos (strength), not mad fury. She is a virgin but not isolated from men, upholds her father's will, and is linked to weaving.

Metis

"Crafty Intelligence" and the mother of Athena. Zeus swallowed her because of a prophecy that her offspring would overrule him, and Athena was then born from his head (Theogony; Homeric Hymn 28).

Athena Polias

Athena as patron goddess of Athens ("of the city"). In the contest with Poseidon she won by giving the olive tree (fruit, oil, wood) against his spring of salt water. Solon (fr. 4) says the city will never be destroyed because Athena holds her hands over it.

Parthenos

"Virgin," an epithet of Athena. It gives the Parthenon on the Akropolis its name, the temple built in her honor.

Erichthonios

Child born when Hephaistos tried to have sex with Athena and his seed landed on her thigh. She threw the wool she wiped it with to the ground, and Erichthonios was born from the earth. She wanted to make him immortal in secret, so she put him in a chest and entrusted it to Pandrosos, daughter of Kekrops. Pandrosos's sisters (Herse and Aglauros) opened it and saw the child encircled by a serpent, and were killed by it or threw themselves from the Akropolis.

Callimachus

Scholar-poet (c. 305-240 BCE) writing at Alexandria in the Hellenistic period for an erudite, elite audience that liked the sensational and the refined. Author of the Hymn to Athena (a mimetic hymn).

Mimetic Hymn

A hymn that reenacts a traditional ritual as if it is happening now, unlike the Homeric Hymns, which are musical hymns that narrate. Callimachus's Hymn to Athena continuously addresses the bath attendants ("All you attendants of Pallas' bath, come forth").

Tiresias

A young man who, with his hunting dogs, comes to a spring to drink and unwittingly looks upon Athena bathing. She is angry, and night takes his sight. In Callimachus’s hymn his mother appeals to Athena, who explains that it is the law of the gods and compensates him with prophecy.

Actaeon

A hunter who unwittingly looks upon Artemis bathing. He is turned into a stag, his own hounds eat him, and his mother collects his bones. (Callimachus uses it as a parallel to Tiresias; Artemis and Actaeon appear on a metope from a temple of Hera, c. 470 BCE.) The point is that unintentional sight of a goddess’s body is still punished.

Eros

Romantic/sexual love and desire, and the name of two deities. (1) Primordial immortal in Hesiod's Theogony, the fourth to come into existence, "loveliest of all the Immortals," who makes bodies go limp and masters minds and wills (Theog. 121-123). (2) Son of Aphrodite in later myths and standard iconography (Roman Cupid), often shown with wings and magical arrows. Epithet: lysimeles, "limb-loosening."

Aphrodite

One of the twelve Olympians, goddess of romantic affection, physical attraction, sexual union, beauty, seduction and procreation. Epithets: Cypris, Cytherea, Chrysea ("Golden"), Philommeides ("laughter-loving"). Married by arrangement to Hephaestus and has an affair with Ares. In Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5, Athena, Artemis and Hestia are immune to her power.

Aphrodite Urania

The "heavenly," ancient Aphrodite born from violence. In Hesiod's Theogony and Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 6, she is born from the sea foam (aphros) that formed around the severed genitals of Ouranos after Cronos castrated him.

Aphrodite Pandemos

The "common" Aphrodite, the younger, more conventional goddess in the tradition that makes her the daughter of Zeus and Dione.

Dione

Mother of Aphrodite in the tradition that makes her Zeus's daughter. Sources disagree on whether she is a Titaness, Oceanid or goddess. In the Iliad, Aphrodite goes to her for comfort after Diomedes wounds her.

Ares

God of war and Aphrodite's lover despite her marriage to Hephaestus. In Odyssey 8.265-366, Helios tells Hephaestus, who traps the lovers in an invisible bronze net and summons the gods. The gods laugh but Poseidon persuades Hephaestus to release them, promising Ares will pay a penalty. Ares embodies war as chaos and violence.

Harmonia

Goddess of harmony and daughter of Ares and Aphrodite (siblings: Phobos, fear, and Deimos, terror). In Heraclitus's allegory (Homeric Problems 69), Ares is strife (neikos) and Aphrodite is love (philia), and because they were perfectly fitted together (harmonesthai) they had a daughter, Harmonia.

Anchises

Trojan prince who herds cattle on Mt. Ida, the mortal Zeus makes Aphrodite fall for as punishment (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5). She disguises herself as a Phrygian maiden and they sleep together, then she reveals herself, and he fears becoming a "strengthless shadow." Their son is Aeneas, raised by nymphs for five years. She cites Ganymede and Tithonus to explain why she cannot make him immortal.

Adonis

Beautiful mortal youth and one of Aphrodite's most famous mortal lovers (with Anchises). He is killed by a boar while hunting and mourned by Aphrodite, and commemorated in the Adonia festival.

Sappho

Archaic lyric poet from Lesbos (c. 630-570 BCE), called the "Tenth Muse," whose poetry explores love, desire, longing and intimacy ("sapphic" and "lesbian" derive from her name and island). Her Prayer to Aphrodite (Sappho 1) is her only surviving complete poem and presents Aphrodite as approachable and playful, in an intimate dialogue with the poet.