CLAS170

Zeus/Jupiter/Jove

Spheres: Sky/Weather, king of the gods, protector of hosts, guests, and suppliants

Attributes: Thunderbolt, throne, scepter, eagle, oak tree, mature/bearded man

Epithets (nicknames): Cloud-gatherer, Father of gods and men, Son of Cronus

Hera/Juno

Spheres: Women in their roles as wives and mothers. Marriage

Attributes: Crown, Throne, peacock, mature woman

Epithets: Argive, ox eyed

Athena/Minerva

Spheres: Cunning, battle, weaving, crafts, fertility of olive tree

Attributes: Helmet, Armor, Spear, woman dress, aegis, snake, owl.

Epithets: Parthenos, Grey-eyed Goddess, Pallas

Poseidon/Neptune

Spheres: The sea, rivers, springs, earthquakes, horses

Attributes: Fish, sea creatures, horses, tridents, mature bearded man

Epithets: Earth-Shaker

Aphrodite/Venus

Spheres: Sexual desire, human and animal fertility

Attributes: Shown naked, doves, chariot drawn by birds, graces

Epithets: Cyprian, Cytherea, Uranian, Laughter-loving goddess

Hephaestus/Vulcan

Spheres: Metal working and crafts, fire as technology,

Attributes: Hammer/Anvil, shrunken legs

Epithets: Lame god, Smith

Ares/Marss

Spheres: war

Attributes: armor, helmet, young, handsome

Epithets: Man slaughtering, Brazen

Eros/Cupid

Spheres: Sexual desire
Attributes: wings, bow and arrow, young man or baby

Epithets: none

Apollo

Spheres: Purification, interpretation of religious law/prophecy, healing/plague, music and poetry.

Attributes: Tripod, dolphins, bow and arrow, laurel, lyre.

Epithets: Loxias, Far shooter, Paean (healer) , Pheobus (bright)

Artemis/Diana

Spheres: Hunting, fertility of wild animals, childbirth, transition of women into sexual maturity

Attributes: Bow and arrow, short dress, wild animals/deer

Epithets: Chaste, Goddess of the golden bow.

Hermes/Mercury

Spheres: Stone heaps and pillars (herms), travel, boundaries, theft, luck, fertility

Attributes: Travelers hat, sandals, wings, caduceus, sometimes beardless

Epithets: The Guide, Psychopompus, Slayer of Argus

Hestia/Vesta

Sphere: Hearth

Attributes: never displayed

Epithets: None

Dionysus/Bacchus + Liber

Spheres: Fertility of vines, vegetation, life giving fluids, release from social constraints, drama

Attributes: vines, grapes, ivy, wine cups, fawn skin, thyrsus, maenads, satyrs

Epithets: Bromios (Roarer), Lusios (Releaser)

Demeter/Ceres

Spheres: Fertility of Grain, Eleusian Mysteries

Attributes: stalks of wheat, torches, often shown with persephone, mature woman

Epithets: Deo, Dread goddess, the two godesses

Persephone/Kore + Proserpina

Spheres: fertility of grain, queen of the underworld

Attributes: Stalks of wheat, pomegranate, often shown with mommy or Hades, young woman

Epithets: Same as Demeter

Hades/Pluto + Dis

Spheres: king of the underworld

Attributes: Throne, rooster, shown with Persephone

Epithet: Receiver of many

What is a succession motif

A pattern of younger gods/beings replacing the older ones and assuming power.

This is found in Theogony through Ouranos being replaced by Cronos, then Cronus by Zeus.

What is a charter myth

A myth that provides a precedent or justification of a social norm or institution. An example of this would be the Eluesian Mysteries in the Hymn of Demeter or the reason why the Greeks sacrifice the bones of animals to the gods.

Eschatology

Myths that delve into the beliefs about the afterlife and what happens after death

Found in the Odyssey and Aeneid

Kleos

Glory through “heroic” deeds in combat. Can be in the form of prizes, fame etc. Does not mean that the person is good but rather that they are a skilled combatant/warrior. Fame after death

Arete

Excellence in battle

Time

Honor in the present, reward for immediate excellence

Aidos

Duty, Obligation, shame if you do not fufill them

What is an etiological myth

A myth that explains the origin of something. Could be the birth of a god, why something is the way it is, etc.

Examples: Hymn to Demeter = Seasons

What is focalization and how is it used

Focalization is how the message and ideas of a story can change depending on whose perspective it is told from.

An example would be in Daphne, she is clearly terrified of Apollo when told through her POV.

Idea of myth as a process

According to Morales, myth is a process because they are not static. They change over time to reflect changes in culture, values and whatever story the author is trying to tell.

Examples of myths as agents of misogyny

Morales: myth can be "a powerful agent of misogyny." E.g. Pandora/Eve as sources of evil; Hera as jealous/punishing; female desire as dangerous.

Theogony (Archaic Period, Hesiod)

The Theogony is Hesiod's account of how the cosmos and the gods came into being. It begins with Chaos — a primordial void — from which Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (the underworld), and Eros (desire) emerge. Gaia produces Ouranos (Sky), who becomes her consort. Ouranos fears his children and pushes them back into Gaia; enraged, she conspires with her son Cronos, who castrates Ouranos with a sickle. From Ouranos's severed genitals cast into the sea, Aphrodite is born.

Cronos takes power but repeats the pattern — swallowing his own children to prevent being overthrown. His wife Rhea hides the infant Zeus and tricks Cronos into swallowing a stone instead. Zeus grows up, forces Cronos to vomit his siblings, leads the Olympians in the Titanomachy (war against the Titans), and defeats them. The Titans are imprisoned in Tartarus.

Zeus then fights Typhoios, the last great monster (born of Gaia and Tartarus), defeats him, and establishes absolute cosmic order. The poem ends with a catalog of Zeus's divine unions and offspring — including Athena, born from his head after he swallows the Titaness Metis to prevent the prophecy that her son would surpass him.

Prometheus appears as the trickster benefactor of humanity: he divides a sacrificial ox so humans keep the meat and gods get bones wrapped in fat (charter myth for sacrifice), and later steals fire for humanity. Zeus punishes this by ordering the creation of Pandora.

Works and Days (Archaic Period, Hesiod)

Works and Days is addressed to Hesiod's brother Perses, whom Hesiod accuses of laziness and injustice. The poem opens with the myth of Prometheus and Pandora: Zeus, angry at Prometheus's theft of fire, orders Hephaestus to create Pandora, the first woman, as punishment for humanity. She opens her jar (pithos), releasing all evils and diseases into the world; only Hope remains inside.

Hesiod then narrates the five ages of mankind: Gold (humans lived like gods, no toil, no suffering), Silver (inferior, impious, destroyed by Zeus), Bronze (warlike, violent, self-destructive), Heroes (the Homeric heroes — a brief improvement), and Iron (the present age — full of toil, injustice, and moral decay). Hesiod laments living in the Iron age and predicts it will only get worse.

The rest of the poem is practical and moral: Hesiod instructs Perses on how to work hard, live justly, respect the gods, and follow proper ritual and seasonal farming practice. It's essentially a farmer's almanac wrapped in moral philosophy.

Hymn to Demeter (Archaic)

Persephone is gathering flowers in a meadow when the earth opens and Hades abducts her, dragging her to the underworld. Demeter hears her daughter's cry but cannot find her. She wanders the earth for nine days, grief-stricken, disguised as an old woman, refusing to eat or drink.

She arrives at Eleusis, where she is taken in by the royal family. In her grief, she withholds all grain from the earth — crops fail, humanity begins to starve, and the gods receive no sacrifices. Zeus eventually sends Hermes to retrieve Persephone. But Persephone has eaten pomegranate seeds in the underworld, binding her there for part of each year. A compromise is reached: she spends two-thirds of the year with Demeter and one-third below with Hades.

Before leaving Eleusis, Demeter reveals her true identity and instructs the people to build her a temple and institute the Eleusinian Mysteries — sacred rites promising initiates a blessed afterlife.

Hymn to Apollo

The hymn has two main parts. In the first, Leto wanders in labor — no land will accept her for fear of Apollo's power — until the island of Delos agrees. Apollo is born there, immediately declares his role (prophecy, music, archery), and the island blooms. This establishes Delos as Apollo's sacred birthplace and the Delian sanctuary (charter myth).

In the second part, Apollo travels to Delphi, where he slays the serpent Python who has been terrorizing the area. He founds his oracle there and establishes the Pythian games in the serpent's memory. This establishes Delphi as Apollo's prophetic sanctuary (charter myth). The hymn also contains a notable variant on Typhoios: Hera, furious at Zeus for giving birth to Athena alone, prays to the Titans and gives birth to Typhoios herself — a competing origin story to Hesiod's version.

Hymn to Hermes

On the very day of his birth, Hermes crawls out of the cave where his mother Maia lives, finds a tortoise, and invents the lyre by stretching strings across its shell. He then sneaks to Pieria and steals fifty of Apollo's sacred cattle, driving them backwards to confuse their tracks. He sacrifices two and roasts them — the first sacrifice — then returns to his cradle and pretends to be asleep.

Apollo discovers the theft and hauls Hermes before Zeus, who finds the whole affair amusing. Hermes plays the lyre for Apollo, who is so entranced that he trades all the cattle for it. The two brothers reconcile, and Apollo gives Hermes a golden staff (the caduceus) and the gift of prophecy-through-omens. Hermes is established as the god of thieves, trade, music, and exchange.

Hymn to Aphrodite

Zeus, tired of Aphrodite making all the gods fall helplessly in love with mortals, decides to humble her: he makes Aphrodite herself fall passionately in love with the mortal Anchises, a Trojan shepherd. She disguises herself as a mortal princess and seduces him. Afterward, she reveals her true identity; Anchises is terrified (sex with a goddess could destroy a mortal).

Aphrodite reassures him that he will not be harmed, but asks him to keep their union secret. She tells him she will bear his son — Aeneas — who will be raised by nymphs. She also grieves, knowing that Anchises will age and die while she remains immortal. The goddess of desire now knows the pain of desiring a mortal: the grief of watching them age.

Hymn to Dionysis and Artermis

Hymn 7 (Dionysus): Dionysus, disguised as a young man, is captured by pirates who plan to sell him as a slave. Vines and ivy miraculously grow over the ship, wine flows, and Dionysus transforms into a lion. Terrified, the pirates leap overboard and are transformed into dolphins. Only the helmsman, who recognized the god and begged mercy, is spared. The hymn establishes Dionysus's power, dangerous unpredictability, and the origin of dolphins.

Hymn 27 (Artemis): Brief praise hymn. Establishes Artemis as a huntress, roaming mountains with her bow, sister of Apollo, goddess of the wild. She dances with the Muses and Graces on Olympus after the hunt.

Odyssey (Homer, Archaic)

Song of Ares and Aphrodite: The bard Demodocus sings of how Hephaestus learned that his wife Aphrodite was having an affair with Ares. He forged an invisible net, pretended to leave for Lemnos, and trapped the lovers in bed. He called all the gods to witness the humiliation; the goddesses stayed away out of modesty, but the male gods came and laughed. Poseidon eventually negotiated Ares's release. The scene plays adultery as divine comedy — male honor is restored through humiliation rather than violence.

Helen in Odyssey Book 3: At Sparta, Menelaus and Helen entertain Telemachus. Helen drugs the wine with a painkiller and narrates a story presenting herself admirably — she helped Odysseus when he snuck into Troy. Menelaus tells a different story putting himself at the center. Helen here is calm, dignified, and re-integrated into Greek society; the poem is ambivalent about assigning blame.

Book 11 — Nekyia (Underworld): Odysseus performs ritual and the shades of the dead gather. He speaks with his dead mother (devastating — she died of grief for him), with the prophet Tiresias (who gives navigation advice), and with Achilles. Achilles' declaration — he would rather be the lowest living man than king of the dead — is the poem's most striking eschatological statement. The underworld is bleak, democratic, and stripped of the heroic code's promises.

Illiad (Homer, Archaic)

Book 1: The poem opens with plague in the Greek camp — Apollo punishing Agamemnon for dishonoring his priest. Agamemnon is forced to return his war-prize Chryseis but takes Achilles' prize Briseis in compensation. Achilles is furious, withdraws from battle, and asks his mother Thetis to petition Zeus to punish the Greeks so they'll see how much they need him. Zeus agrees — the entire war machinery now runs against the Greeks because of one man's wounded honor.

Book 6: Hector returns to Troy briefly. He meets his mother Hecuba, his brother Paris, and then his wife Andromache at the city walls with their infant son Astyanax. Andromache begs Hector not to fight — he is all she has. Hector refuses, stating his duty to his kleos and to Troy, even though he knows Troy will fall. He reaches for Astyanax, but the child cries at his father's plumed helmet. Hector laughs, removes it, holds his son. One of the most humanizing scenes in all of epic.

Book 9: The Greeks are losing badly. Agamemnon sends an embassy — Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix — to offer Achilles enormous gifts if he returns. Achilles refuses everything. He articulates the central dilemma: he can stay, win glory, and die young, or go home, live long, and be forgotten. For now he chooses life — but his grief over Patroclus will later change everything.

Book 18: Patroclus, who borrowed Achilles' armor to inspire the Greeks, has been killed by Hector. Achilles receives the news and breaks down completely — his grief is described in visceral, undignified terms. Thetis commissions new divine armor from Hephaestus. The Shield of Achilles is forged: it depicts the entire cosmos — two cities (one at peace, one at war), farmland, a vineyard, a herd of cattle, a dance floor, the river Ocean — a universe of human life surrounding the one man who has chosen war and death.

Book 22: The decisive confrontation. Hector stands alone outside Troy's walls as all others flee inside. He briefly considers negotiating, then panic sets in and he runs — Achilles chases him three times around the walls. Athena tricks Hector by disguising herself as his brother and offering support, then disappearing. Hector faces Achilles knowing he will die. Achilles kills him and drags the body behind his chariot around the walls — a desecration that exceeds even the heroic code's terms.

Book 24: King Priam, guided by Hermes, enters the Greek camp alone at night to ransom his son's body. He kneels before Achilles — enemy, killer of his son — and begs. Achilles is moved: he sees his own aged father Peleus in Priam. Both men weep together. Achilles returns Hector's body, grants eleven days of truce for the funeral. The poem ends not with Greek victory but with Hector's burial — mortality and shared grief are the poem's final answer to the heroic code.

Herodotus — Histories (Croesus; Helen in Egypt) (Classical)

Croesus and Apollo: Croesus, king of Lydia, is fabulously wealthy and wants to expand his empire. Before attacking Persia, he tests all the major oracles and finds Delphi's most reliable. He showers Apollo with lavish gifts and asks: will he succeed if he attacks Persia? The oracle answers that a great empire will fall. Croesus attacks — and destroys his own empire. Captured by Cyrus of Persia and about to be burned alive, Croesus calls on Apollo. It begins to rain, saving him. He learns the oracle was literally true, just not in the way he assumed. The story is a classic lesson in human hubris and the opacity of divine communication.

Egyptians on Helen: Herodotus reports an Egyptian priestly tradition claiming that Paris stopped in Egypt on his way back from Sparta; Proteus, the Egyptian king, judged Paris's behavior disgraceful and kept Helen there, sending Paris away. According to this version, Helen never went to Troy — the Greeks were fighting ten years over a phantom. Herodotus finds this version plausible. It is also, he notes, the version that makes Homer's Iliad a retelling of a war fought for nothing.

Ovid — Metamorphoses Books 1–3 (Roman)

Creation (Book 1): An unnamed god (or Nature) imposes order on chaos, separating earth, sea, and sky. Humans are made last, upright and god-facing. Ovid's tone is literary and slightly detached — he is retelling familiar myths with elegant Roman wit, not writing theology.

Ages of mankind (Book 1): Gold (paradise, no toil, no law, no seasons), Silver (Zeus introduces seasons, agriculture begins, humans must work), Bronze (more warlike), Iron (crime, greed, war, impiety — the gods abandon earth). Parallels Hesiod but Ovid omits the heroic age and moves faster, with more irony.

The flood / Deucalion and Pyrrha (Book 1): Jupiter, disgusted by human wickedness (especially Lycaon, who served him human flesh), decides to destroy humanity with a flood. Only Deucalion (son of Prometheus) and his wife Pyrrha survive on a mountain. After the waters recede, an oracle tells them to throw their mother's bones over their shoulders — they interpret this as the bones of Gaia (earth), throw stones, and they become new humans.

Apollo and Daphne (Book 1): Apollo, fresh from killing Python, mocks Eros's bow. Eros retaliates: he shoots Apollo with a gold arrow (inflaming love) and Daphne with a lead arrow (repelling love). Apollo pursues Daphne relentlessly; she prays to her father Peneus, who transforms her into a laurel tree. Apollo declares the laurel his sacred tree forever. Key focalization: the narrative is driven by Apollo's desire, but Daphne's transformation enacts her will — her victory over pursuit, even at the cost of her bodily form.

Io (Book 1): Jupiter lusts after Io, a priestess of Hera. He rapes her and transforms her into a cow to hide the affair. Hera, suspicious, asks for the cow as a gift; Jupiter cannot refuse without revealing himself. Hera sets the hundred-eyed Argos to watch the cow. Mercury (Hermes), sent by Jupiter, lulls Argos to sleep with his flute and stories, then kills him. Hera puts Argos's eyes on the peacock's tail and sends a gadfly to torment Io endlessly. Io wanders to Egypt, where Jupiter finally restores her human form. She becomes the goddess Isis. Morales: Io's perspective — unending suffering as the direct consequence of a god's desire — shifts the ideological framing away from the rapist's.

Jupiter and Europa (Book 2): Jupiter, in love with the Phoenician princess Europa, transforms into a beautiful white bull. Europa is charmed, garlands him with flowers, and climbs on his back; he swims with her to Crete, where he reveals himself and she becomes the mother of Minos.

Birth of Dionysus (Book 3): Semele, pregnant with Jupiter's child, is visited by Hera in disguise as her nurse. Hera plants doubt — is her lover really Jupiter? She encourages Semele to demand he appear in his full divine form. Jupiter reluctantly complies; Semele is incinerated. Jupiter sews the unborn Dionysus into his thigh; Dionysus is born from it. Hera's strategy: she cannot confront Jupiter directly, so she uses manipulation and mortal vulnerability as her weapon.

Virgil — Aeneid Book 6

Virgil · Roman · 19 BCE

Aeneas, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae, descends into the underworld to find his dead father Anchises. They pass through the various regions: the limbo of the unburied, the fields of mourning (where those who died for love wander — Aeneas sees Dido there, and she turns away from him), the realm of famous warriors, and finally Tartarus (for the wicked — they cannot enter but hear the screams). They reach Elysium, the paradise of the virtuous, where Anchises shows Aeneas a pageant of future Roman souls — the great men of Roman history who will be born from his lineage. The visit culminates in the revelation of Rome's destiny and Aeneas's mission. He exits through the ivory gate of false dreams.