Greek and Roman Mythology Final

Walter Burkert bio

1931-2015

Walter Burkert

Claim: theory of socio-biology — our biology programs us to behave in certain ways that inform the shape of myth and ritual. Idea: Homo Necans instead of Sapiens, because the distinct human feature is the fact that we kill

Max Müller bio

1823-1900, German philogist and founder of comparative mythology

Max Müller

Claim: Indo-European study of myth — Prodo-Indo-Euroopeans had a concrete language, resulting in non-abstract terms for things, like the burning one sitting on his throne instead of the sun setting. As language advanced but these ways of speaking remained, cultures created myths as a way to account for this. Idea: tracking the linguistics of different ancient cultures — Example: Sanskrit god Dyaus, Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter —Dyaus pitar // Zeus Pater // Ju Pater

James Frazer bio

1854-1941, comparative anthropology

James Frazer

Claim: human cultures are mappable on the timeline of cultural forms: Ages of Magic, Religion, and Science (from the Golden Bough). Example: Biblical story of Cain and Abel — he finds parallels of other cultures, where killers wear marks to protect from ghosts

Ferdinand de Saussure bio

1857-1913, linguist

Ferdinand de Saussure

Claim: language has the power to influence how we see the world, producing the world we're capable of seeing. Idea: Language attaches not to the outside world, but to our concepts of the world. signifier: the written world/sound of the word you make, signified: concept attached to the word

Claude Lévi-Strauss bio

1908-2009, French anthropologist

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claim: structuralism — each myth is a language, pieces of the narrative (instead of words) mapping onto concepts of the world. Idea: myths are structured through making binary distinctions

Plato bio

429-347 BCE, Greek philosopher

Plato

Claim: myths are corrupting because actions (ie sex) are justified by stories of the gods doing them

Sigmund Freud bio

1856-1939, Austrian neurologist

Sigmund Freud

Claim: myths are dramatizations of psychic development, connecting the phylogenic (development of the species) with the ontogenic (development of the individual). Idea: dreams are how we express our unconscious desires, myths = dreams of an entire culture

Johann Gottfried Herder bio

1744-1803, German philosopher

Johann Gottfried Herder

Claim: romanticism — myths reveal and even constitute national character, belonging to particular peoples. Myth is not a precursor to poetry, it is poetry and it's a response of the mind to the experience of existence.

Jane Harrison bio

1850-1928, British, founder of ritualism

Jane Harrison

Claim: myth serves as an explanation for ritual

Emile Durkheim bio

1858-1917, French sociologist (founder of formal sociology)

Emile Durkheim

Claim: ritual is an important part of culture, as it's an anchor during times of change, produces cultural effervescence, and secures bonds between people

Odysseus

Son of Laërtes and Anticlea, husband of Penelope, and father of Telemachus. Known for his intelligence and cunning, and his 10-year journey home to Ithaca from the Trojan War

Telemachus

Son of Odysseus and Penelope, visits Pylos and Sparta in search of his father. Helps his father slay Penelope's suitors.

Penelope

Odysseus' wife, tricks her suitors for three years with weaving on her loom.

Laertes

Father of Odysseus, reunites with him in book 24

Demeter

Goddess of the harvest, mourns her daughter Persephone when she is abducted by Hades. In disguise as an old woman, she represents the loss of fertility as she attempts to replace her daughter with Demophoon.

Persephone

Daughter of Demeter, wife of Hades, representation of the girl's tragedy in her abduction by Hades. Spends 1/3 of the year in Hades, 2/3 with Demeter on earth.

Apollo

God of music, poetry, prophecy (Zeus' will), and medicine. Born on Delos and establishes his oracle and temple at Delphi.

Zeus

King of the gods, god of the sky. Powerful, violent.

Athena

Goddess of wisdom, friends with and always helping Odysseus.

Calypso

Goddess trapped on the island of Ogygia, where she keeps Odysseus for seven years.

Elepenor

Youngest member of Odysseus' crew. The morning of their departure from Circe's island, he falls from the rooftop and dies. Odysseus and his crew must go back after visiting the dead to bury him.

Polyphemus

The cyclops who attempts to eat Odysseus and his men. Son of Posidon — when Odysseus reveals his name to him, Posidon curses him.

Tiresias (Odyssey)

A Theban prophet who inhabits the underworld. Tiresias meets Odysseus when Odysseus journeys to the underworld in Book 11. He shows Odysseus how to get back to Ithaca and allows Odysseus to communicate with the other souls in Hades.

Gaea

Goddess of the earth, Ouranos attempts to control her reproduction by pushing children back inside her. She has her child, Kronos, castrate him.

Ouranos

God of the sky, son of Gaea, then begins reproducing with her and attempts to control it by pushing children back inside her. Becomes pretty irrelavent after he is castrated by Kronos, his son. His severed genitals cause the production of the furies and Aphrodite.

Kronos

Castrates his father, Ouranos, and then tries to control Rhea's reproduction, eating his own children. Defeated by Zeus when he is tricked into eating a stone instead of him.

Rhea

Kronos's wife, she hides Zeus in Crete and gives Kronos a stone instead of him, taking back her reproductive power.

Circe

Book 10: The beautiful witch-goddess who transforms Odysseus's crew into swine when he lands on her island. With Hermes' help, Odysseus resists Circe's powers and then becomes her lover, living in luxury at her side for a year.

Cattle of the Sun

Book 12: The treasured cattle of the sun God Helios. Circe warns Odysseus not to slaughter the cattle of the sun or he will be punished. He foolishly stops on the island and winds keep him there for a month. When he falls asleep his crew eats some cattle. His crew is destroyed as punishment.

Laestrygonians

Book 10: island of cannibals

Scylla

Book 12: Six headed monster in the sea that devours whatever ventures within her reach, including six of Odysseus' crewmen.

Charybdis

Deadly whirlpool that would kill Odysseus' entire crew, prompting him to venture into Scylla's waters

Eumaeus

A swineherd, an old and loyal slave to Odysseus, welcomes him as a stranger into his home when he returns in disguise.

Alcinous

King of the Phaeacians, to whom Odysseus tells his story. Sends him home on his ship.

Hades

God of the Underworld, captures Persephone as his wife.

Eurycleia

Old nurse of Odysseus, recognizes him when washing his feet by his scar.

Agamemnon

Former king of Mycenae and commander of the Achaean forces at Troy. Killed my his wife and her lover upon his return home, warns Odysseus about Penelope when he encounters his spirit in Hades.

Manelaus

King of Sparta and old friend of Odysseus who welcomes Telemachus as he searches for information on his father. Husband of Helen.

Orestes

Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who eventually avenged his father's murder by killing Aegisthus, his mother's lover. Known as someone who handled his family's challengers, unlike Telemachus at the beginning.

Nestor

King of Pylos and a former warrior in the Trojan War. Like Odysseus, Nestor is known as a clever speaker. Telemachus visits him in Book 3 to ask about his father, but Nestor knows little of Odysseus's whereabouts.

Metaneira

Mother of Demophoon; she hired Demeter as a nurse for her son; she unwittingly interrupted Demeter from making Demophoon immortal by "rescuing" him from the oven. Right at the edge of the end of fertility.

Demophoon

Son of Metaneira, nursed by Demeter as she tries to make him immortal (feeds him ambrosia, puts him in an oven) to replace Persephone and maintain her reproductive power as she loses fertility. Represents reproduction/fertility as immortality means forever life.

Aphrodite

Goddess of love and beauty, born out of the seafoam created by the severed genitals of Ourenos reaching the ocean.

Cicones

People living on the island where Odysseus and his crew stop first on their way home, where they conquer and pillage the land.

Hermes

Messenger of the gods, sent by Zeus to tell Calypso to send Odysseus on his way

Didactic hexameter

Form of meter/rhythmic scheme used in ancient Greek poetry. One line broken into six feet, each foot with either a long syllable and two shorts or two longs

Ring composition

Mention of a concrete object, then a digression, then back to the object to close the ring. Sometimes there are inner-rings, sometimes happens on a bigger scale, like across books.

Iambic meter

Meter for insults, used during the Eleusinian Mysteries. Perhaps based on Demeter's friend Iambe.

Euhemerus

4th-3rd century, BCE. Claim: Gods are celestial beings, gaining immortal honor and fame because they were mortals whose great actions became legendary and exaggerated.

Allegory

pre-renaissance analysis of myth. claim: myths have hidden meanings and are allegories for something else

William Bascom

20th century, claim: myth is a prose narrative that is orally delivered

David Hume

1700s Scottish philosopher. Claim: like many enlightenment thinkers, he thinks myth is emblematic of irrationalism and it’s a good thing we’ve moved past it

Heyne

18th-early 19th century. Claim: not just fear, but awe drives myth and myth is a precursor to poetry

romanticism

late 18th-early 19th century. claim: anti-enlightenment-era-rationalism, pro-individual creativity and genius, emotion and intuition, life and living

Branslow Malinowski

Stationed in Papau New Guinea during WWI, where he comes up with functionalism. Claim: myths serve a function to legitimize social norms, doing cultural work. Idea: you need to be with/live with the people you’re studying — huge impact on modern anthropology

Idea: you need to be with/live with the people you're studying — huge impact on modern anthropology

Katabasis

cave ritual where someone goes down into a cave, faces a challenge, and comes back reborn

Theoclymenus

Book 15 - he shows up as Telemachus is preparing to head back to Ithaca. He killed someone and needs to escape on his ship. His name means god-seer or god-hearer, and during his time in Ithaca, he sees that Odysseus is already there and sees the suitors covered in blood

Mekone episode

Prometheus tries to trick Zues and give him the bones and fat, which Zeus anticipates and allows to happen. As punishment, fire is taken from humans, and women are invented (Pandora implied). Establishes the sacrifice ritual of burning bones and fat for the gods.

Ethology

science of animal behavior, in relation to humans

Eleusinian Mysteries

Cult of Demeter initiation, taking place in Athens and the nearby Eleusis for a 9 day festival. About fertility and the promise of a better afterlife (one of the things initiatiates get is a code to use when they die). Myth and ritual shows similarities to Hymn to Demeter, with lambe, the water and barley drink, and similar themes.

Antinous

The most arrogant of Penelope's suitors. Antinous leads the campaign to have Telemachus killed. First to die when Odysseus returns.

Snake

The evil python that guards and raises Typho. Apollo kills the snake with his bow. The spot where she dies is called Pytho

Typho

Evil offspring of Hera, who she produces in retaliation of Zeus's production of Athena and his numerous affairs. She sends him to be raised by the Snake. — Freudian and functionalist readings

Nausicaa

Princess of the Phaeacians, daughter of Alcinous

Aeolus

God of the winds, gives Odysseus bag of winds which he and his crew misuse

Melanthius

The brother of Melantho. Melanthius is a treacherous and opportunistic goatherd who supports the suitors, especially Eurymachus, and abuses the beggar who appears in Odysseus's palace, not realizing that the man is Odysseus himself. He is caught grabbing armor for the suitors and is tortured and killed.

Agamemnon

King of Argos (in Aeschylus’ plays) and Mycenae everywhere else. Known for being not a good guy, sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia for the success of the war, is killed by his wife Clytemnestra upon his arrival home

Clytemnestra

Wife of Agamemnon. Kills him upon his return home from the war, and is then killed by her son, Orestes

Cassandra

Sister of Paris, prophet of Apollo, and enslaved prisoner of Agamemnon after Troy falls. Clytemnestra kills her after killing Agamemnon, predicting both of these deaths before they happen.

Aegisthus

Clytemnestra’s lover, helps her plan Agamemnon’s murder, killed by Orestes

The Watchmen

Use fires/torches to communicate the news of Troy’s fall

Orestes

Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, kills Clytemnestra and Aegisthus

The Eumenides

“Kindly ones,” what people call the furies. Goddesses of vengeance and justice, travel the earth punishing people. Part of the old order of justice.

Athens (during Aeschylus)

First place of democracy, with a court-style justice system

Oedipus

King of Thebes, where he does not realize he is married to his birth mother and has killed his birth father. Blinds himself and lives in exile upon finding out.

Tiresias (Ovid)

Blind prophet (we hear the story of his blinding in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when Juno is jealous of his having had sex as both a man and a woman and blinds him. Jupiter gives him divine prophesy as a reconciliation) who accuses Oedipus of killing Laius

Jocasta

Oedipus’s wife and the queen of Thebes, who is then discovered to be his birth mother. She kills herself when she finds out.

Laius

King of Thebes and birth father to Oedipus. When he and his wife, Jocasta, hear from a prophet that the baby will one day kill his father and marry his mother, he binds Oedipus’ ankles and has a servant leave the baby out. Later, is killed at a crossroads by Oedipus.

Messenger

From Corinth, comes to Thebes to tell Oedipus that his father Polybus has died and that Oedipus is now king of Corinth. Says that Polybus and Merope are not his birth parents, as the messenger was given the baby on Cithaeron to bring to them.

Herdsman

Was given baby Oedipus to leave out on Mount Cithaeron, but instead gives him to the messenger to bring to Corinth. Later, he is the one person to escape the carriage and survive when Oedipus kills them all

Cithaeron

Mountain in between Thebes and Corinth, where Oedipus is handed off to be adopted and where he later kills his father. Autochthony can be used here as the mother and nurse of Oedipus, his true home

Polybus and Merope

King and Queen of Corinth, adopt Oedipus

Dionysus/Bachus

God of wine, fertility, and ecstasy. Son of Zeus and Semele. His rites are in the wilderness, involving a drunken, liberated, frenzied affair of bear-handed killing and orgies.

Pentheus

King of Thebes who opposed the worship of the god Dionysus. He was torn apart by his own mother, Agave, and other women during a frenzied Bacchic ritual.

Cadmus

Founder of Thebes, after leaving Phoenecia to fetch/save his sister. He slays a serpent in Delphi, scatters its teeth, and warriors sprout, fighting each other. The 5 survivors are the founding families of Thebes. Father of Semele, Autonoe, Ino, and Agave. Warns his grandson Pentheus against resisting Dionysus.

Maenads/Bacchae

female followers of Dionysus

Agave

Mother of Pentheus, mistakes him for prey during a ritual for Dionysus and tears him apart with her bare hands. Part of this is Dionysus’ doing, as punishment for her spreading rumors about her sister, Semele, and not believing Dionysus to be a true god/son of Zeus

Semele

Mother of Dionysus, incinerated when she tells her lover (Zeus) to reveal his full self to her

Aeneas

Legendary Trojan hero who fled from the burning city and sailed to Italy. He was the son of Venus and Anchises, and the ancestor of the Roman people.