Myth and Religion Midterm

Definitions

Myth: A traditional tale applied, for consolation, persuasion or warning, or as an etiology

Mythology: A cohesive set of myths

Saga/legend: A myth concerned more with humans than Gods

Rite: a traditional act

Religion: a cohesive set of rites

Tradition: handing down of customs from generation, often orally

Sacrifice: Killing an animal in honour of a god, the religious rite padr excellence.

Syllabus Week

• Both tests are from the two different halves of the course

• Two textbooks

QUESTION 1: “Classics is the study of?”

• Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven

• Mustangs

• Greek and Roman language and culture

• The brand thats way better than coke

QUESTION 2: “Which of these dates is the earliest?”

• October, 312 CE

• April, 753

• April, 1158

• December, 809

QUESTION 3: “Why are English words derived from Greek spelled like that?”

• They had a thing for silent “Y’s”

• Greeks spelled words the way they sounded

• They wanted to keep the lower classes illiterate 

Historical Background of Greek Mythology 

Traditional Tales Applied

• Myth’s are often just made up!

• Plato is the first person ever to talk about Atlantis

• Until the 19th century, everyone believed that Troy was an imaginary place

• Ovid often tells myth for their entertainment value

• Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey emphasize that Helen was responsible for the war

• One can apply a myth as a paradigm to present circumstances for the purposes of

• God’s are extremely jealous

Helen of Troy

• Stasicarus believed that the real Helen of Troy was whisked off to Egypt, while a holographic version of her was placed amidst the War

  • Does Helen somehow cause the Trojan war??

• Daughter of Zeus

Chiron

• The “wisest, most just of the centaurs”

• Trained philosophers like Aristotle

Asklepios

• The inventor of medicine

• Dies, because someone paid him a lot of money to bring someone back from the dead

• People are supposed to die; that’s what makes us different from the Gods

• He is punished by Zeus because he defies the Gods

  • Thunderblasts the physician and patient out of jealousy; they are missing with the God’s rule

Achilles

• The grecian hero

• Kills Hector in battle

  • Didn’t just kill him because he’s a Trojan, but specifically targets him because Hector killed his best friend Patroclus

• Tells Pryam the story of Naiobe, and persuades Pryam to eat even though he’s in mourning

• Paris shoots Achilles in the heel

  • One can give an Aetiological explanation for this

Pryam

• The last king of Troy during the Trojan war

• Manny of his son’s had been killed

• Hector, his son, the greatest fighter on the Trojan side

  • Killed by Achilles

Naiobe

• The suffering mother of greeckmythology

• Has 6 sons and 6 daughters

• Apollo shot her sons, Artemis shot her daughters (kids of Lato)

• Cries and turns into a rock

• Can see it in Turkey

 Daedalus

• Father of Icarus

• A carpenter

• Builds wings made of wax and feathers for Icarus to fly off to Greece

• Human’s aren’t supposed to fly, the God’s get jealous

  • Warns them to not fly too close to the sun, or it will melt the wings

• Icarus collapses and gives his name to the sea

  • The “Icarian” sea

Phaethon (FYE-ah-thon)

• Son of Helios who drives the sun

• Asks Helios to drive the sun

• Since he is a demi-god, he is unable to do so and Zeus thunderblasts him 

• Sun is still able to drive itself when it’s not controlled by a teenage boy!

• Zeus turns Helios’ daughters into poplar trees out of revenge

• Their tears are amber

  • A piece of Aetiology: an explanation for something

Importance of Myth’s: used to console, persuade, warn humans not to disobey the rules of the God’s 

Q1: Where did the Greeks get their myths?

• Friends

• Neighbors

• Ancestors

Q2: What did Helios’ daughters cry of out of mourning?

• Water

• Amber

• Fire

Q3: Myths are best described

• Found only in poetry

• Lies

• Ever-evolving

Q4: Pindar is NOT offended by a muth that depicts a…

• Hero as a cannibal

• God as a child molester

• Hero as a cheater

Flexibility of Myth - Innovation

• Subjects of Greek tragedies are always Greek myths

• Euripides writes two plays whose central character is Iphigenia 

  • One play write writes the same myth very differently

  • Two play writes can also write the same myth very differently

• Narrative poets often changes stories to suit their needs!

• Stories are way more interesting when there is an imaginative twist (especially on the ending)

Pindar

• Grecian poet

• Changes many things to suit his personal ideation

Myth and Truth

• They aren’t true, but they’re not necessarily lies…

Truth: that which must not be forgotten (a-letheia)

Myth: a traditional tale, often conveyed through poetr – an exaggeration of the truth

• Greek and Romans believed in their myths because they are MEMORABLE and FANTASTICAL

  • These are what induce you to remember and believe

• Memory is the mother of the muses

• Set something to music, put it into a poem, now you can’t forget the knowledge!

• An “A” is used at the beginning of Greek words to reverse their meaning

Rule of Myth: Greeks speak of Gods in primitive terms by telling us not what they are and what they have, but what they have not, and what they lack.

Generations of Gods

The Older Generation

Zeus

• Hikesios: the God of suppliants

• Horkios: the God of oaths

• Xenios: the God of guests

• Lives on Olympus, has a preferred place on earth

• Marries his sister, Hera 

Hera

• Latin name, Juno

• Thought of as the “ox-faced’

Minotaur

• Human body with the head of a bull

• Every other Greek hybrid has the animal part on bottom, human part on top

Poseidon

• God of water

• “Husband of earth”

• Associated with the horse

Demeter

• Latin name: ceres

  • Think Cereal

• Mother of the grain

• God of agriculture

Q1: what kind of 6th century pillar is this?

• Dokanon

• Xoanon

• Aguieus

• Baityl

Q2:

The eyes of the unsleeping watchman, Argos

The Younger Generation

Hephaistos

• God of fire

• Latin name: volcanus, “volcano”

Athena

• Latin name: minerva 

• Thought of as “owl-faced”

  • Associated with little owls

• Goddess of wisdom (and women’s tasks)

Ares

• Latin name: Mars

  • Equated with the martial arts

• God of war

• Totemic animal: boar

Aphrodite

• Meaning: foam?

• Latin name: venus

Apollo

• Only god whose name is the same in Rome and Greece

• God of (groups of ) young men

• Associated with the bow and a lyre

• Totemic animal is a raven

Artemis

• Latin name, Diana

  • Means goddess of the Moon

• Goddess of the hunt (animals)

• Totemic animal: the beart

Hermes

• Meaning Cairn, a rock pile often formed at the side of a field

• Latin name: mercurius, of mercurial

• Meaning merchant

• Attribute: the Caduceus, Herald’s staff

Dionysis

• Latin name, Bacchus, of bacchanal

• God of wine and self-forgetting

• Often associated with a Cantharus

  • Greek word for Dung Beetle

Q3: The only one of the fourteen great gods who lacks his or her own Latin name

• Zeus

• Apollo

• Hera

Q4: Owls are very common in

• Sicily

• Rome

• Athens

The Non-Olympians

Hades

• Originally spelt “Ades”

  • Meaning, unseen

  • Any word in Greek that begins with an A is the opposite

  • Des means to see

• Latin name, Pluto

  • Meaning, wealthy

• God of the dead

• Attribute: helmet of invisibility

• Totemic animal: cerberus

Hestia

• Meaning, Hearth

• Latin name, Vesta

  • Meaning, being?

• God of the hearth

• Deals with the household, the hearth being the centre of the house

The Nature of the Gods

Greco-Roman Language

• Do Greeks feel sin? “Hamartia”

  • Aristotles word for Mistake

  • In Latin = “Culpa”

  • In Greco-Roman religion, the greatest offense against the gods is hubris: insolence

• The highest moral values in rome was to be Pius, meaning “dutiful”

  • Pieta, “piety and pity”

  • Roman duty to your immediate family, social class/clan, your country, to the gods

• Greek NÉMŌ

  • “To deal out, dispense, feed”

  • Nemesis - “payback”

  • Nomos - “pasture”

    • Nemus - “grove”

  • Nomos - “custom”

    • “Law”

    • Nomizo - “to believe”

Genealogy of Ruin

• Olbos = “worldly happiness”

• Koros = “satiety”

• Hubris = “arrogance

• Atē = “Moral blindness,” “an act of recklessness,” “ruin”

Greek and Roman gods’ jealousy consists of fear that humans may commit hubris by trying to live forever

Gods will always humble humans who step out of place with atē

Hero, Greek word

• Acts of heroism often occur during a war

• Homer uses “hero” to mean “the great people who fought at Troy”

  • He is the first Greek poet

• After Homer, often used the word Hero in connection with cult

• Can become a cult hero even if you did not do anything fantastic, but suffered something extraordinary

• Baby heroes: suffered something tremendous, giving them heroic power in the grave that can then be sent to us mortals

Demigod

• Identified in terms of DNA

• Defined by one who has a mortal parents and an immortal parent

  • 50% divine

• Every demigod will die

  • In order to be immortal you must be 100% divine

• Demigod’s are sometimes heroes, but not always interchangeable

• Closely resemble gods, like they mature extremely quickly

Archedemus

• A nympholept: comes from the expression “to be carried off by nymphs”

  • Think alien abduction

Medea

• Has a lot of stuff, gonna take time to pack- give me one day

• The king (who exiled her) gave her the day

• she kills the king, his daughter, her two sons, arranges a ride to athens on the chariot Sun

The gods

• The gods know the future, but the muses (who are under protection of memory) can talk about the past

Q1: Which is true

• demigods are a kind of god

• demigods are a kind of human

• none of the above

Q2: What do gods do quickly

• grow to maturity

• grow to old age

Official Time: Athenian and Roman Calendars

• not a regular seven day rotation

• had way more holidays than we have!

Egyptian calendar

• 3 seasons, each of 4 months

• Attend to the behaviour of the Nile

  • 1: the Nile empties

  • 2: can plant their crops

  • 3: the harvest season

Greek calendar

every city state had a different calendar

Athenian

• one god celebrated more often than any others: Dionysus (the god of wine)

• The winter ends with festivals in his honour

Roman calendar

• Our calendar is its direct descendent

• Originally twelve months, names of the minor gods

• year started in march, mars in roman - Aries, the god of war, in Greek

Q3: Who is the most popular god in the Athenian calendar?

• Athena

• Zeus

• Poseidon

• Dionysus

Q4: Juno, june, is a ____ time for weddings, because she is the ______

• good, happily married to Zeus

• bad, god of death

• good, god of money

• good; god of marriage

Athenian Acropolis

• Athena had a few small shrines

• Poseidon was worshipped in the Erechtheum

  • Controlled military over the sea

• Hera had no temple in Athens

Salt in Athens

• NEEDED salt to keep food good for eating

• Could mine for salt under the earth

• In italy, salt was obtained by scooping up sea water, putting it in salt pans, letting the water evaporate

• Adriatic sea was often already salinated and then shipped to Rome

Hills in Rome

• 7 hills in rome

• Number 7 is sacred in Rome, but no one can agree which 7 are the main hills

• The Pomerium 

  • By Romulus when he founded his city

  • Sacred part of the city

  • Walls built around the city built by Servius

Six bridges

Highest priest in Rome was called the Pontifex (means “bridge master”

• also built bridges between mortals and gods

Shrines at the Gates of Rome

• Shrines were on the city gates, as well as outside

• Collina: the cursed field in which those who committed unspeakable crimes were buried (including Vestal Virgins who were buried alive)

• Capena: shrine to Mars

Temples and Priests

Temples

• Altar is not inside the temple, but out in front of it

• Stairs that lead to porch (ROME ONLY)

• Foreshrine is before

• Temple is off-limits to worshippers

• Forbidden in sanctuary: sex, and other offences the gods

Greek vs Roman

• Greek temples were built very close to the ground

  • One layer would be put down to produce a level service

  • A temple would be constructed on top of this

• Greek temples are finished all the way around

• In Rome, Temples were raised off the ground

• Accessible by a staircase

• Roman temples were decorated on the facades only

  • The Pantheon in Rome is decorated on the front only

The Sanctuary of the Twelve Gods

• Often representations of the gods are anthropromorphic

• Often the oldest images of gods

• DOES NOT include a temple

Temnō Greek DEF: to cut

• Also, Temenos: precinct cut off from profane space

Templum Latin DEF: an open space that an augur marks in the heavens

Temple was only later transferred from the sky to the earth. Sky and the earth are thought to mirror one another.

Lituus Latin DEF: An augur staff shaped loke a stylized crooked hook

Doric and Ionic orders

• Doric columns are super simple at the top

• Ionic are curly and fancy at the top

• Gable is the same on both orders

• Both have a frieze which is a horizontal band of painted decoration near the top

• The Pediment is a blank space that sculptures can fill up

Prometheus: smuggles fire out of Olympus in order to create man

Erechtheum

• Breaks all the rules

• One of the rooms is on an angle

• Oddness is accentuated by the Parthenon

• The most sacred building on the Acropolis

• An attempt to host all the sacred things in the Acropolis

  • Zeus’ thunderbolt was hurled here

  • The sacred olive tree that Athena gave to the Athenians to try to win over the city

  • Salt spring, given to the Athenians by Poseidon after he loses the game for patronage to Athena

• Xoanon: cul wooden representation of a god

  • One of Athena is placed here

Q1: What part of a temple was necessary for praying to a god?

• Cult statue

• Temple

• Altar

• Pillar

Q2: The Parthenon was eventually…

• Converted into a church and then a mosque

• Used by the turkish as a powder magazine and blown up by the Venetian general

• Stripped of most of its sculptures in the 19th century

• All of the above

Priests

Priest DEF: anyone who makes a sacrifice to a god

• Some professional priesthoods in Rome, less in Greece

Cap of the Flamines

• A Hat of a Roman Priest

• Flamine’s were forbidden to go out in public without the hat

Q3: Roman priestly colleges consisted of how many members?

• 2

• 3

• 4

• 5

Q4: While walking down the street in ancient rome you could pinpoint a priest by their…

• White collars

• Boots

• Funny hat

• Trenchcoat

Poseidon

• The god of the sea

• Song of Cronus and Rhea

• Brother of Zeus

• His temple looks out over the sea

• Has at least three assistants:

  • Proteus (first)

  • Nereus (related to the english word, New)

  • Triton (related to the english word third)

  • Described as the old men of the sea

• Suggests an importance to the number three, a very important idea to ancient religious thinking

Aphrodite, Artemis and Hippolytus

Aphrodite

The Story of Pygmalion

• Takes place on the Island of Cyprus

• Hinges upon the question of prostitution

• The women of Cyprus decided to reject the worship of Aphrodite

• Uses sex to punish these women by driving them all into prostitution

• Pygmalion rejects the women of the island

• Instead, makes a stone statue of a woman who he intends to fall in love with

• Aphrodite, who admires, this brings the statue to life

• Pygmalion and Galatea (the statue) give birth to Paphos

• Paphos has Metharmē

• Metharmē has a kid named Cinyras, who has sex with him and has Adonis

  • Adonis dies and rises by his mothers’ powers

  • Very alien in Greek mythology

Cybele (Cu-BAY-lay) and Attis

• Pharoah Psamtik 1 of Egypt raised two children in a speech-free environment

• The first word they said was Bekos

  • A phrygian word for bread, or bake

• Psamtik therefore concluded that the Phrygians are even older than the Egyptians, and so was their language

• Cybele had gender dysphoria, and castrated himself to become a woman

• Eats almonds and gets pregnant

• Gives birth to Atthis

• Cybele’s priests were called “Galli”’s

Aphrodite and Sappho

• Sappho praises to Aphrodite, asking her to help guide her chariot of sparrows

Athenian Marriage

• Man would be 40

• Woman would be married the minute they reached maturity (12-13 years old)

• Husband has much more power because of age and patriarchy

• Greeks would have sex with young boys

  • Would not call them lovers

• Older man pursued the boy (lover) and the boy is the beloved

  • Erastes Greek DEF: lover

  • Eromenos Greek DEF: beloved

  • His job is to shun the gifts given to him by the old man 

  • Once he has given sufficient compensation, he will “bestow his favours” onto the man

Plato’s Symposium

Symposium Greek DEF: drinking party

• Members of the drinking party were all aristocratic

Aristophanes’ Speech

• Tells a story in order to make sense of homosexual vs heterosexual love

• Humans used to be blobs with 4 arms, 4 legs and two heads

• Because we were so capable, we believed that we should take over Olympus

• Zeus sends Hephaestus down and charges him to take all of us and saw us in half

• Ties to hold the wound together = explain our bellybutton

• When we fall in love, we are remembering our old self and are trying to recreate our original state as a whole person

• Some were whole women, whole men, and half and half = explains why some people love the same gender as themselves

Socrates’ Speech

• Claim to know nothing, would mess with the populous through philosophical debate, until they were left helpless and stunned

• Sophos Greek DEF: wise

• Sophists Greek DEF: professional wisemen

• Were the prototype for teaching post-secondary education

• Socrates coins the terms Philosophos

  • Lover of wisdom

  • Amateur Philosopher (won’t charge people)

  • Philo Greek DEF: love

Founders of Greco-Roman religion are often women

• Women were considered to have superior religious authority (in the godly realm, not necessarily in the peasant realm)

Love is created out of RESOURCE and POVERTY

• Poros (resource = father) and Penia (poverty = mother) create Eros

  • Sexual love

• Socrates declares that Eros walks around barefoot

• Eros gets resource 

Q1: Pygmalion fell in love with

• His niece

• A statue

• His mother

Q2: In order to be a priest of Cybele, one would have to be

• Castrated

• A good drummer

• A mother

Artemis (Latin: Diana)

• Apollo’s twin sister

• The mistress of animals

• Goddess of chastity

• Sanctuary at Brauron

  • Young girls were sent her to “become bears”

• She may have originally been a bear shaped goddess

  • Especially if her name had originally been “Arktemis”

• The biggest threat to Grecian humans was the bear

Hecate 

• A witch goddess

• Worshipped at night, by moonlight

• Associated with Artemis

• DEF: “she who wills”

• Relates to the story of Oedipus: exact thing that ought to happen in the place that his most sacred to her

Story of Oedipus

• Believes he is adopted, but his parents disagree

• Goes to Delphi and asks an oracle: who tells him he will kill his father and sleep with his mother

• Heads off in the opposite direction from his home (to prevent it from ever coming to fruition)

• Arrives at a crossroads: wants to turn left, but is blocked by an old man

• Oedipus kills him = his father

• Goes back and marries the queen who’s husband just got killed

• Queen = his mother

Callisto

• A follower of Artemis

• DEF: “super beautiful”

• Catches the eye of Zeus who rapes her

• She becomes pregnant = violates contract of chastity = must be punished

• Boy is named Arcas Greek DEF: bear

• Artemis turns Callisto into a bear

• Zeus, feeling guilty, turns them both into stars

• Form the constellation of the great Bear: Ursa Major and Minor

Apollo

• Artemis’ twin brother

• Could be from Lycia (not far from Phrygia)

• Epithet: Lukeios

• Apollo could be identified as a wolf

• Bear wolf (Beowulf)

Hyppolytus

• The son of an Amazon Hippolyta and prince (at the time) Theseus

• Hippollytus is a bastard child

• Sent back to Theseus, who had a wife Phaedra

• Theseus is in love with Hippolyta, which makes his wife mad

• Phaedra falls in love with Hyppolytus

• Hyppolytus, scares by women, prays to god to give men children now on only through Amazon’s

• Phaedra believes he will tell his father, so she writes a suicide note claiming Hyppolytus raped her

• Phaedra hangs herself

Phaedra 

• daughter Minos of Crete, and Pasiphae

• A bull was born in the heards of Minos

• Minos had to sacrifice on the altar to Zeus, because he was the most beautiful

• Zeus fills Pasiphae with passion and she has sex with a bull

• Gives birth to a baby boy with the head of a bull

• Called Minotaur Greek DEF: little bull of Minos

  • Minotaur’s eats 7 Athenian youth and 7 Athenian pagans each year

  • Theseus goes to rescue the youth and pagans

  • Minos’ daughter Phaedra falls in love with him, and they get married

Amazons

• Amazon’s were particularly associated with Artemis

• Were not virgins like her, but were male averse

• Fought from horseback with bows and arrows

• Amazon’s cut off their right breast to faciliate archery

  • Emphasizes their rejection of traditional femininity

• Live in a totally female society

• Baby amazons came from the Amazon’s raping men

• Boy baby’s would be shipped away, they would keep the girls

Q1: Why are Romans more prone to right angles than the Greeks?

• Greece is mountainous

• Greeks didn’t understand geometry

• Romans were more orderly than Greeks

• Both A and C

Q2: Where do baby Amazonian’s come from?

• Amazon prime

• Amazon’s bought baby ‘s off the internet

• Amazon’s raped men to get pregnant

Worship of the Gods

Greek

• A hero cannot help you unless you are in their direct presence

• As long as you are in physical contact with the altar, the God has a moral responsibility to provide you with protection

• Asylum = focuses on the sacred nature of the altar

• Naming ceremony = focuses on the sacred nature of the hearth (the fireplace)

  • Head of the household (father) can decide if he wants the child or not

  • If he doesn’t want it, he’ll put it in a pot and abandon it in the wild

    • In myth, the children who are “exposed” always survive, being reared often by a non-human entity

Hipparchus was in love with the man Harmodias, but he already had a boyfriend named Aristogeiton

• Called The Tyrranicides

• Sculpture located in Naples

• Turne

Scapegoats

• In the book of Levitacus in the Jewish Torrah 

  • The sins of the people perish with the scapegoat when it died after having being paraded around town

• Greeks were less concerned about sin, but were very concerned with pollution

• Thought that the scapegoat could be a surrogate who could remove pollution from the community

The Squire

• Perhaps meant to die in place of the hero

• Potentially a surrogate who would be killed in place of his boss?

Adonis

• Dies and is born again

• Particularly popular amongst Athenian women

• Would grow temporal herbs (like fennel) in honour of him

• Aphrodite falls in love with him

Important Festivals of Demeter

Thesmophoria

• “The festival of the law givers”

• The women at the festival would dig a pit and through piglet’s into it

• The next year, they would dig up the pit, take the dead piglet’s, stir them up, and put them back into the earth as fertilizer

• Planting crops, ensuring fertility in the soil

Haloa

• “Festival of the hallows” 

  • Hallow: a “threshing floor”

  • A circular floor with a stake in it and a donkey tied to it

  • Grain would be scattered, and stepped on by the donkey, separating the wheat and chaff

  • Must be half way up the hill, so that the wind could blow away the light chaff to the heavier wheat would fall back to the ground

• For the purpose of harvesting the crops planted at the Thesmohoria

• Suspected that the threshing floor was the prototype for the theatre (in a round)

• The hallows at Delphi zigzags up from the marketplace to the temple, then further onto the theatre

Q1: In ancient Greek hospitals, patients were required to

• Drink 

• Eat

• Sleep perchance to dream

Q2: The Athenian tyrannicides killed Hipparchus’ to

• For fun

• Castrate him

• Restore the honour of Harmodias

Latin

• Bona Dea: “good goddess”

  • Perhaps associated with Ceres (Greek, Demeter; god of the harvest)

  • Caesar (as the Pontifax Maximus) ’s wife hosted the Bona Dea, and Publius, dressed as a woman, infiltrated the festival 

  • Charged with Incesta Latin DEF: any crime that breaks laws pertaining to sex

  • Was so scandalous that he was forced to divorce her

• Penate’s: “god’s of the larder (pantry)”

  • Associated with Vesta (Greek, Hestia; god of the fireplace)

Words

• Ritus Graecus Latin DEF: praying with an uncovered heads

  • Roman’s worshipped with their heads COVERED, whereas Greek worshipped with their heads UNCOVERED

  • Roman’s would pull their toga’s over their heads

• Ricinium Latin DEF: A small veil thrown over the head by the early Romans, especially women and mourners

• Suffibulum Latin DEF: A white, four-cornered veil worn on the heads of priests and priestesses

7 Kings of the Latin Dynasty

1. Romulus

2. Numa Pompilius = Quintilius (Sabine Dynasty)

3. Tuulus Hostilius

4. Ancus Marcius (Sabine Dynasty)

5. Lucius Tarchna Priscus  = Tarquinius (Etruscan Dynasty)

6. Servius Tullius Macstrna = Magister (Etruscan Dynasty)

7. Lucius Tarchna Superbus  = Tarquinius  (Etruscan Dynasty)

Q3: What would a Roman do while sacrificing?

• Shake his head

• Shave his head

• Cover his head

Q4: In the real world, snakes eat…

• Mice

• Virgins

• Non-virgins

The Roman Triumph

• Believed that Jupiter’s face was red

  • Likely because an early version of him was carved into terra cotta

• If you dress up like Jove, there should be a mortal standing behind you in parade literally to humble you

  • Happened to Caesar 

Denova 1: Living With The Divine

• Religion as a separate entity did not exist

  • No word for “religion” in most ancient cultures

• Humans thought of their surroundings as existing on two planes

  • the physical world of everydaylife

  • the supernatural world of the divine

  • The divine was unknown and dangerous, and thus had to be separated from mundane things. 

    • In modern academic parlance, we refer to these two planes as “the sacred” and the “profane.”

• Ideation: Rome borrowed ideas from Greece

• “Religion was not external to human beings but something they created in orderto find meaning in their existence.”

• Sacred scriptures, like the Bible were investigated

• “The hierarchy among the gods and their distinctive functions reflect the hierarchy and functions of distinct social roles in society. Such beliefs validate the social order and establish the rules for social behavior.”

• Religions are performative: participants do things; they act in special-ized manners to make the sacred manifest.

• Rituals: Ritual acts are a fundamental meansof communication between humans and the divine. At the same time, ritual actshelp to establish a sense of communal bonding that transcends personal involve-ment and concerns.

• Ethnicity: When they said, “I am Greek,” or “I am Roman,” they were often referring to a cultural,ethnic identity that could transcend a geographic area.

•  The modern concept of racial distinction (and racial prejudice) as we understand it did not exist before the fifteenth century.

  • At this time, Cultural traits created the barriers between people, not physical characteristics.

• God anxieties: The sheer number of gods and goddesses populating the Mediterranean basin created anxiety: too many gods, too manymyths, too many empty rituals that caused fear and anxiety in the average per-son. 

  • According to this consensus, insecure people could find solace in Christian monotheism and the promise of eventual salvation.

• Polytheism: the belief in multiple deities

• Monotheism: the belief in the existence of a single god

• Henotheism: the belief in many powers, but elevating one deity to a higher position over the others. 

• The Western tradition of Monotheism prefers writing god with a capital God, referring to the existence of one singular God, the God of the Bible (Christianity, Judaism and Islam)

• Some believe they became monotheistic because of the production of the Bible

• “All ancient people were polytheists in the sense thatthey acknowledged the existence of other gods (powers), even if they proclaimedthe superiority of one god over all the others.”

• Ancient Western Tradition: “What made Jews and Christians unique inthe ancient world was their refusal to participate in the worship of these othergods, but they did not deny their existence.”

• Rome and Religion: 

  • Rome practiced “toleration of religion” (religio licta), the grantning of legality to religious beliiefs. 

  • Thought there was no official policy of toleration issed in the Roman Republic or Empire

  • “All the gods of differ-ent ethnic groups were acknowledged and respected” even the god’s of your enemy

  • BUT people could not freely and openly disrespect the gods. 

  • Impiety (showing no respect for gods) and Sacrilege  (damage of interference with sacred things) carried death sentences

• Charged with Impiety: Socrates, for “corrupting the youth of Athens through his teachings,”

• Atheists were not advertised

• Conversion: moving from one religious system to another. 

• Religion was mostly ethnic, and born into

  • A conversion was seen as a denial of one’s ancestral traditions, and an abandonment of one’s identity

• Pagan: the generic term for anyone who was not Christian or Jewish

• Canaanite religion: based on fertility; the Israelites claimed that sexual immorality was at the root of this idolatry (worship of idols, or images)

• Etymology of Orgy: the Greek orgia, meaning “religious ritual”

• Ancient peoples had the freedom to belong to severaldifferent cults at the same time. 

• Religion in the ancient world: the belief in something beyond oneself, belief in the powers of nature and the unseen powers that controlled one’s destiny

• The divine: elements of nature personified as gods and goddesses

  • They were everywhere and everything

  • Included the evil, monstrous powers

• Chtonic: dieties who are “beneath the earth”

• Etiology: why things occur the way they do, an explanation

• Pantheons: the collec-tion of officially recognized gods and goddesses

• Sacred: holy, anything involving the divine

  • In Greece, sacred lands were set off by temenos walls, and sacred buildings had peribolos walls

• Votive offering: an offering made to a deity in acknowledgment of a prayer answered, a wishfulfilled, or a visitation from a god or goddess.

• Greek and Roman temples differed in their architecture

• Pomerium: the plowed line for the original city drawn by Romulus

• Imperium: sacred power for certain offices

• Most sacrifice took place outdoors, under an open sky, where people gathered around the outdoor altar

• Importance of sacred images: were treated as a bridge that could connect humansto the divine.

• Male statues were nude, appreciation for the male body, while female bodies were covered, should not be shown outside of the home

• Rites of passage: rituals performed at a moment of heightened importance in one’s life

• Sacrifice: offerings of something valuable to appease, atone a violation, or receive benefit from the divine

  • served as a communal rite tohelp connect humans to the gods. 

  • Animal Sacrifice: were slaughtered on outdoor altars, or stone rectangles like tables

    • Some blood was collected and splashed against the altars, while the rest drained in runnels built into the complex

    • Sometimes, the fat and bones were offered to the gods

    • Sometimes the organs or choicest parts were shared among the priests

    • It reached the gods through the smoke of burnt offerings

  • THIS WAS FUNDAMENTAL TO THE WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY

  • Communal animal sacrifices were often the onlyoccasions when the poor had the opportunity to eat meat.

  • State involvement: sacrifices were a measure of the state’s concern for the community

• Libations: liquid offerings in a sacrifice

• Propitiation sacrifices: offered to cure diseases or avoid disasters. An innate assumption that the gods were angry, or humans had violated their relationship (intentionally or not)

• Prayers: invocations or acts that sought communication with the gods and involved the use of words or songs. Always accompanied sacrifices.

• Hymns: prayers set to music. Often represented the civic pride of their hometown, and the deity who was the object of their praise = emphasizes the connection between the two

• Curses: prayers of admonition. 

  • Cursetablets, usually made of tin or lead or some other long‐lasting material, accom-panied the dead in funeral rites. Curse tablets were not directed to the dead per-son. Rather, dead people would convey the request for a curse to the chthonicdeities below, so the body acted as a vehicle to transport the wishes of the livingagainst someone else.

• The priesthood was a part-time job

• Ablutions: ritual cleansing with water to symbolically remove any contagion before entering sacred space

• Divination (to be inspired by a god) was practiced by seers who had various methods to interpret omens that were perceived as signs from the gods

• Augury: reading the signs found in lighting and the flight of birds

• Sphagia: a ceremony performed before major battles

• Oracles: persons or agencies that could manifest or articulate the thoughts and words of the deities.

• SEERS and AUGURS would interpret signs, ORACLES were understood to “convey the literal words of a god or goddess”

• Games: the opening day was usually dedicated to a God

  • Olympia was dedicated to Zeus

  • Funeral games 

• Necromancy: oracle sites for which to contact the dead

MLS 1: Definition of Classical Mythology

• There is no consistent definition of myth – only theories. 

  • No single theory of myth can cover all kinds. 

  • No monolithic theory can achieve universal applicability. 

• Myth – Greek word mythos – meaning "word" "speech" "tale" or "story." 

• True Myth or Myth Proper and Saga or Legend 

  • True myth/myth proper is used for stories primarily concerned with the gods and humankind's relations with them. 

  • Saga or legend has a perceptible relationship to history (no matter how imaginative it is) - has its roots in historical fact. 

• Folktales and Fairytales 

  • Stories of adventure – sometimes with fantastic beings – triumphant hero or heroine in the end. 

    • Cupid and Psyche as an example. "Once upon a time" and "Happily ever after." 

• Problems with rigid definitions 

  • Odysseus story – has elements of history but full of stories that may be designated as myths or folktales. 

• Myth and Truth 

  • Myth is a many-faceted personal and cultural phenomenon created to provide a reality and unity to what is transitory and fragmented in the world that we experience. 

    • AKA myth is a story that becomes relevant to the reader in the context of their own life. 

    • Absolutes in the place of ephemeral values. 

  • Myth is truth on a different plain – bodies eternal values. 

• Myth and religion 

  • Most Greek and Roman stories reflect the universal preoccupation with creation, the nature of god and humankind, the afterlife, and other spiritual concerns. 

    • So mythology and religion are intertwined – some things are believed both factually and spiritually. 

• Myth and etiology – creator uses myths to explain facts that cannot otherwise be explained within the limits of society's knowledge at the time. 

  • Like myths that account for certain rituals or cosmology. 

  • Usually try to explain matters physical, emotional and spiritual not just literally and realistically but also figuratively and metaphorically. 

    • Origins of our physical world. 

• Rationalism vs Metaphor, Allegory and Symbolism 

  • Rationalists believed that gods were men deified for their great deeds. 

  • Antirationalists believe that traditional tales hide profound meanings. 

    • Metaphorical approaches see myth as allegory (a sustained metaphor), where details of the story are symbols of universal truths. 

  • Allegorical nature myths – Max Muller: his theory was that myths are nature myths, all referring to meteorological and cosmological phenomena. 

    • An extreme view of the allegorical approach. 

    • Except all myths are different – they aren’t all connected to one central thing in this way. 

• Myth and psychology: Freud and Jung 

  • Freud: emphasis on sexuality, his theory of the unconscious, his interpretation of dreams, and his identification of the Oedipus complex. 

    • Oedipus' fate moves us only because it might have been our own. 

      • Basically children being attracted to their parents and finding ways to fulfill that. 

    • Myths in the Freudian interpretation reflect people's waking efforts to systematize the invoherent visions and impulses of their sleep world. 

  • Jung – interpretation of myths as the projection of what he called the "collective unconscious." 

    • Aka the continuing psychic tendencies of society. 

    • Archetypes in myth to represent this – Oedipus complex is an example of one archetype. 

    • “mythology is a pronouncing of a series of images that formulate the life of archetypes.” 

    • His theory emphasizes the psychological dependence of all societies upon their traditional myths. 

  • Freud's legacy – was he even right? 

    • Other theories are based on different interpretations of the same myth. 

• Myth and society 

  • Myth and ritual – to some people, true myth is the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed in public festivals, and often recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, etc..." 

    • Myth implies ritual, therefore ritual implies myth. 

      • Not entirely true – you cannot do it for every myth. 

  • Myth as social charters – Malinowski explains that myths are charters of social customs and beliefs. 

    • Related to practical life – explaining existing facts and institutions by reference to tradition. 

      • Confirmation of the use of these establishments. 

  • Every theory that excludes the speculative element of myth is too limited. 

• Structuralist interpretations of myth 

  • Theoretical approach to mythology – an attempt to analyze myths into their component parts. 

  • Claude Levi-Strauss – sees myth as a mode of communication – it is about their structure that makes in perceivable at various levels. 

    • Assumptions in his analytical approach: human behavior is based on certain unchanging patterns, society has a consistent structure and therefore a functional unity in which every component plays a meaningful part. 

      • Myths are derived from the structure of the mind – which is binary, and constantly dealing with pairs of contradictions or opposites. 

      • So, myth is a method that society uses to find a resolution within these contradictions. 

  • Vladimir Propp – traditional tales in their constituent parts – recurrent structure applicable to all Russian folktales. 

    • One element in myth always follows another and they never occur out of order. 

      • Too rigid to apply to Greek myths, but good to compare different myths that are apparently unrelated in how some of the same functions appear in these myths. 

  • Walter Burkert – classical myths have a historical dimension with successive layers of development. 

    • Aka, myths cannot be understood without taking in their historical or cultural dimensions. 

    • Myth has reference to something of collective importance. 

    • 4 Theses: 

      • Myth belongs to the more general class of traditional tale. 

      • The identity of a traditional tale is to be found in a structure of sense within the tale itself. 

      • Tale structures, as sequences of motifemes, are founded on basic biological or cultural programs of actions. 

      • Myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance. 

    • Theses allow flexibility in exploring the structure of classical myths. 

• Comparative study and classical mythology 

  • Much emphasis in modern study on preliterate and primitive societies, so some of the developed literature of Greeks and Romans has been ignored. 

  • Oral and literary myth – many insist that true myth must be oral, some would add that it also must be anonymous. 

    • Therefore, written word would be a contamination of authorship. 

    • Myth doesn't need to be told orally – may be expressed in various ways. 

    • Many earlier stages of myth are discovered to have been rooted in another culture or other mythologies. 

• Gender, homosexuality and the interpretation of mythology 

  • Feminist approaches – some controversial takes on myth. 

    • Social criticism of the male-centered world of Greek mythology – goes back to Sappho, who contrasts what she loves (another human) with what conventional men love (the panoply of war). 

    • Feminist authors are creating new versions of traditional tales designed to illuminate their POV about conflict between men and women in our world today. 

      • But some scholars warn against these stretched interpretations – controversial reconstructions. 

    • Two major topics here: the position of women in Greece and the theme of Rape. 

  • Women in Greek Society 

    • False claim that women weren't citizens in the ancient world – they were. 

      • But they didn't vote. 

      • Were important in religious ceremonies, some that even excluded the participation of males. 

      • They did not always walk outdoors veiled, a few were intoxicated, some had affairs, and many were outspoken about their inferior positions as citizens in relation to men. 

      • Different education from the men. 

    • Women were not always nude in art. 

    • Priestesses spoke before assemblies, fixed their seals on official documents, and took their places (Hellenistic times) in the front row of theaters. 

  • The Theme of rape 

    • Greeks and Romans were fascinated with the phenomena of blinding passion and equally compulsive virginity. 

      • Passion usually evoked by Aphrodite and Eros. 

      • Devotion to chastity = devotion to Artemis. 

    • Not much distinction between love, abduction, or rape of a woman by a man and of a man by a woman. 

    • Rape of Helen – but Helen was in love with Paris quite quickly, so... 

      • In other words, rape didn't have the same sole connotations as it does today. 

    • But Rape of Persephone – Hades abducted, saw as right of the gods, yada yada yada. 

    • At the end of the day, there is no one correct interpretation of mythical stories. 

  • Homosexuality – accepted and accommodated as a part of life in the ancient world. 

    • No religious views that condemned them. 

    • Prevailing view – Athens was a paradise for homosexuals, particularly in contrast to the persecution so often found in other societies. 

      • Some truth, but it had to be pursued in accordance with certain unwritten rules. 

        • In Athens, a particular respectability was conferred when an older male became the lover of a younger man, and it was important that each play his proper role in the sexual act. 

        • Longer homosexual relationships between two mature men, promiscuity, and effeminacy were sometimes not so readily accepted. 

    • Female homosexuality was as important a theme as that of the male, but not necessarily as visible. 

      • Sapphos needing Aphrodite to win back love of a woman. 

    • Overall, law strictly enforced marriage, rewarded child bearing, and promoted the family as the core of the city-state – so homosexuality could only be practiced within the bonds of societal demands, but was encouraged and expected. 

• The Mores of Mythological Society 

  • Overall, reflects a heterosexual society in Greek and Roman mythology. 

  • Dominated by religious, familial, and patriotic mores. 

• Some conclusions and a definition of classical myths: 

  • Is the plot constructed well? 

  • Have the powerful techniques of recognition and reversal been put to the best use? 

  • Development of characterization – does the protagonist have a tragic flaw? 

  • MOST IMPORTAN – does it affect a catharsis involving emotions of pity and fear, possibly a goal for all serious mythic art? 

  • 2 indisputable characteristics of myths and legends – artistic merit and inspiration they afford to others. 

  • DEF: A classical myth is a story that, through its classical form, has attained a kind of immortality because its inherent archetypal beauty, profundity, and power have inspired rewarding renewal and transformation by successive generations. 

MLS 2: Historical Background of Greek Mythology

• Heinrich Schliemann laid out the archaeological foundations in the Mycenaean world. 

  • His character is recently under attack? 

• Greece was settled in Paleolithic times (before 70000 BC). 

  • But more abundant evidence for the Neolithic period (6000-3000 BC). 

• Bronze Age – the stone age gave way to the bronze age by migration from the east (from Asia Minor across the Aegean to the southern Peloponnesus and up into Greece). 

  • Three major periods: 

    • Early (3000-2000 BC) 

    • Middle (2000-1600 BC) 

    • Late (1600-1100 BC) 

  • Split into geographical location 

    • Crete = Minoan (king Minos) 

    • Islands = Cycladic (the Cyclades are the islands that encircle Delos) 

    • Greece = Helladic (Hellas being the Greek name for the country. 

• Minoan Civilization 

  • Pinnacle of greatness after Middle Bronze Age (when it matured). 

  • Palace of Cnossus – capital of sea-power and that Minoan power extended over the Aegean island and the mainland of Greece. 

    • Complex plan = historical basis for the legend of the labyrinth (slaying minotaur by Theseus). 

    • No walls = confident security depended upon ships and the sea. 

  • Sophisticated art and architecture, painting and artifacts – reflect highly developed sense of religion. 

    • Bull in ritual, dominant role of snake goddess, etc. 

  • 1400 BC – Cretan power eclipsed (by fire/destruction?) and the focus of civilization shifted to the mainland of Greece. 

  • Island of Thera (Santorini) indicate clear signs of destruction by earthquakes in the Minoan-Mycenaean period which could be dated back to 1600 BC. 

    • Maybe responsible for disintegration of power on the island. 

• The Mycenaean Age 

  • Invasion from the north and maybe the east brings in the worship of a supreme god of the sky, named Zeus. 

  • Reached culmination in late Helladic period. 

    • Learned a lot from the Minoans. 

  • Mycenae – the kingdom of the mythological family of Atreus. 

    • Cyclopean walls (so huge that they were said to be built by a cyclops). 

  • Tholos tombs – belief in afterlife representations. 

    • Built like beehives into the sides of hills below palace complex. 

  • Mycenaean palaces associated with legends of heroes. 

    • Pylos palace concluded to be the palace of the family of Nestor. 

  • In general the religious attitudes were not dissimilar to those mirrored in the world of Homer's celestial Olympians. 

• Linear B – clay tablets inscribed with writing found on mainland. 

  • Baked hard in the conflagrations that destroyed the Mycenaean fortresses when they fell before the onslaught of the invaders. 

  • Found many names of familiar deities: Zeus and Hera (listed as a pair), Poseidon, Hermes, Athena, Artemis, etc. 

    • Listed as recipients of offerings – suggests ritual sacrifice. 

• Troy and the Trojan War 

  • Troy I-VI 

    • There were nine settlements on the site of Troy: 

      • I – Early Bronze age 

    • Was not an important city in the historical Greek period. 

  • Troy II – Gold of Troy/Priam's Treasure is found. 

  • Troy VI-VIIA: The city of Priam 

    • City must have fallen to the Greeks because of conflict dates. 

    • Large citadel for Troy VI. 

    • Ditch as defensive system – obstacle to delay attacker before they reached a wall. 

    • Large citadels compatible with the wealth and power of King Priam. 

    • Indications within the lower town of a violent destruction for the end of Troy VIIa. 

  • The Luwian Seal from Troy 

    • Mark to identify with a stamp one's own property. 

    • Bioconvex seals – one side bearing name of an official and the other the name of their wide. 

    • Language of the seal is Luwian. 

      • Poorly preserved language and seals. 

    • Unsure if they spoke Greek or Luwian – or a mix of both, based on who of the heroes was able to communicate with each other. 

  • The Greek Armada Lands at Besika Bay – original seashore at the time of the Trojan war, with a nearby cemetery. 

  • The Tomb of Achilles – headland of Yassi Tepe. 

    • Many famous historical figures visited. 

  • The Reality of the Trojan War 

    • Troy was a major center of commerce and trade in the second millennium. 

      • So serious economic reasons could have been the cause of the Trojan War. 

    • Great Mycenaean kingdom leaders banded together to sail against Troy. 

• End of the Mycenaean Age

  • Destruction of later phases of Troy VII marked a troublesome period of transition from the late bronze age to the age of iron. 

  • Greeks had returned from Troy in triumph, but were soon after brought to a violent end. 

    • Work of Dorian invaders? Who knows? 

    • Or sea peoples. 

  • Iliad and Odyssey emerge – kept alive by oral recitation. 

  • Realization that there were two major periods of creative impetus 

    • One before the destruction of Mycenaean civilization and one after. 

  • Homeric poems were eventually set in writing thanks to the invention of an alphabet in the 8^th century BC. 

• Timeline: 

MLS 3: Myths of Creation

Birds, by Aristophanes

• Reflects earlier theory and illustrates “both the multiplicity of versions and the primacy of Eros (love)”

• Birds are much the oldest of all gods

• Eros is later called Phanes: the one who first shone forth or gave light to creation

• Aristophanes writes a parody of a myth that was the basis of a religion ascribed to Orpheus, where the world-egg was a major symbol

Metamorphoses, by Ovid

• Ovid describes chaos not as a gaping void, but rather a crude and unformed mass of elements in strife, from which an unnamed god (or higher power) formed the universe

• Included sources like Empedocles: a 5thc philosophe, who theorized that four elements are the primary materials of the universe 

• Ovid’s poem concentrates on stories that involve transformation

  • Provides a basic text for a survey of mythology

• Ovid is ROMAN, his mythology is far removed in spirit and belief than earlier conceptions

• Hesiod and Ovid’s, though both accounts are poetic, are very different

Most prevalent is Hesiod: he was “the first to give literary expression to a systematic explanation of how the gods, the universe and humankind came to be”

Theogony, by Hesiod

• Hesiod focuses on the beauty and power of the Muses: daughters of Zeus- their revelation of prophecies comes from his infallible knowledge

• Accounts that creation began with chaos: yawning void (not a deity necessarily), and that all came out of chaos

  • From Chos, came Erebus and dark Night

  • Tartarus: a place deep in the depths of the earth

  • Erebus: the gloomy darkness of Tartarus, later equated with Tartarus itself

1st Generation

Gaia, or Ge 

• The first deity 

• Also known as Mother Earth

• In latin, they call her Terra

• Her fertility is primary and divine

• Indulges in Cronus when her husband is being unruly

Uranus

• The male sky-god

• Greek name is Ouranus, this name in Latin was given to him much later

• He is produced by Mother Earth, and is equal to her

• In matriarchal societies, he is reduced to a subordinate; in patriarchal societies, is is the supreme god

• His kids despise him and his son Cronus castrate him

• Freudian sexuality is manigested in this castration

Gaia and Uranus

• Also known as Zeus and Hera

• Birth twelve titans, including: Oceanus, Tethys, Coeus, Phoebe, Hyperion, Theia, Cronus and Rhea

2nd Generation

Oceanus

• Child of Uranus and Gaia

• Marries his sister Tethys 

• Produce the Oceanids: three thousand daughters, and the same number of sons spirits of rivers, waters and springs

Hyperion

• Child of Uranus and Gaia

• Marries his sister Theia

• A god of the Sun (who is more important than her)

• Parents of Helius, Selene and Eos

  • Duplicated of divinities are common, though the younger generation will often dominate the older and take over its power

• Homer’s depiction of the sun’s orbit: the sun god dwells in the East, crosses the dome of the sky with his team of horses, descends in the West into the streams of Oceanus (which encircles the earth), and sailed back to the East

Aphrodite

• Born from Uranus

• After he is castrated, his genitals are thrown into the sea, and white foam grew around immortal flesh in which Aphrodite emerged

• Grew amidst the foam (aphros)

• Also called Cytherea, because she came to Cythera and Cyprogenes because she arose in Cyprus washed by the waves

• Also called Philommedes (genital-loving) becaus she arose from genitals

• Eros took kcare of her

• Honourable amongst humans and gods

Cronus

• God of time

• Marries his sister, Rhea

• Latin name, Saturn

• The youngest son

• Appears in art as a majestic and sad deity

• Rules in a golden age amond mortals 

• After being disposed by Zues, retires to a distant realm

• Encouraged by his upset mother, castrates his father Uranus

• Castration complex is the male’s unconscious fear of being deprived of his sexual potency

  • Springs from a feeling of giuld because of his unrecognized hatred of his father, and desire for his mother

• Devours all his children straight from the womb, except Zeus

  • Told by his parents that he was fated to be overcome by his own children

Rhea

• Another goddess of earth and fertility

• Sometimes equated with Cybele

• Attended by animals

• Marries her brother, Cronos

• Gives birth to Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus

• Depressed, she turns to her parents and asks how to deliver her last child without Cronos devouring it

• They send her to Lyctus, in the land of Crete, where she gives birth to Zeus

  • Some cretians claim he was born on a specific place on the mountain called Cretea

3rd Generation

Helius, or Apollo

• A son god

• Hyperion’s only son

• Had many lovers

• Father of Phaethon

Apollo

• Likely not originally a sun god

• Phaethon may become the son of Apollo as a sun god

• Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis, is associated with the moon (orginally probably not a moon goddess)

• Merges identity with Hyperion, Helius and Phoebus (bright)

Selene

• Daughter of Hyperion and Theia

• Goddess of the Moon

• Drives a chariot like her brother, Helius

  • Although it usually only has two horses

• Love for a handsome youth named Endymion, usually depicted as a shepard. She lay down beside him as he slept. Zeus grants him perpetual slee and perpetual youth - sometimes seen as a punishment because of Selene’s continual absense from her duties in the heavens

• Merges identity with Artemis, and Phoebe (bright)

• In roman, her name is Diana

Eos, or Aurora

• The third child of Hyperion and Theia

• Goddess of the dawn

• Drives a two-horsed chariot like her sister Selene

• An amorous deity

• Aphrodite, the goddess of love, caused her to long perpetually for young mortals because she caught her mate Ares in Eos’ bed

• Eos’ most important mate: Tithonus

  • A handsome youth of the Trojan royal house

  • Story goes that Eos avoided him once he started to look old

  • Tithonus was likely eventually turned into a grasshopper 

Zeus

• Son or Rhea and Cronus

• Fed by bees and nursed by nymphs

• Curetes guarded the infant and clashed their spears on their shields so that his cries could not be heard by his father Cronus

  • Connects to the musicality in the worship of the goddesses of earth Ge and Rhea

• The myth of the birth of Zeus reads very much like an attempt to link by geography and genealogy the religion and deities of both Cretean and Greek invader cultures. 

4th Generation

Phaethon

• Son of Helius (by one of his mistresses, Clymene), grandson of Hyperion, great grandson of Uranus

• Phaethon according to Ovid: Phaethon was challenged by the accusation that the Sun was not his real father at all. His mother, Clymene, swore that he was truly the child of Helius, and told him to ask the sun god himself. Helius confirms Clymene’s account of his parentage, lays aside the rays that shine bright from his head, and orders Phaethon to approach. They hug, and he swear on an oath by the Styx, that the boy may have any gift he likes so that he may dispel his doubts once and for all. Phaethon asks that he be allowed to drive his father’s chariot for a day. He can’t control it, and the chariot races towards Earth (resulting in the Heat in Ethiopia and Libya) anf get’s striken down by Zeus’ lightning. The river Eridanus bathes Phaethon and nymphs bury him.

MLS 4: Zeus and Hera

The Titanomachy

• When Zeus is grown, Cronus is forced to bring up all the children he swallowed

• Zeus then wages war against his father with his disgorged brothers and sisters

  • Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon

    • Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes also allied with them because Zeus releases them from the depths of the earth where their father Uranus had imprisoned them

  • The titans allied with Cronus

• Except Themis (or for Hesiod, Clymene) and her son Prometheus, who allied with Zeus

• Atlas, Prometheus’ brother, was an important leader on Cronus’ side

• The battle between them was known as the Titanomachy

• Zeus fought from Mt. Olympus, Cronus from Mt. Othrys

• Said to have lasted 10 years

The Gigantomachy

• Zeus is also threatened by the giants that Earth produced to challenge the new order of the gods

  • Some say they are born when the blood from the mutilation of Uranus fell upon the ground

• They are called Gegeneis: earthborn

• Ended with the imprisonment of the giants under the earth

  • Usually under volcanic regions – explosions explain their violent natures

  • Enceladus is under Mt Aetna in Sicily

• Typhoeus (or Typhon) was a dragon who opposed Zeus

  • Sometimes joins others, or battles alone

• Later versions declare that Heracles was an ally of Zeus in the battle, as the giants could only be defeated if that would make the giants invincible — Zeus strategically picks him for his side

• Otus and Ephialtes attempt to storm heaven by placing mountains on top of each other

  • Often linked to this battle

• A lot of confusion in the tradition about details between the Titanomachy and teh Gigantomachy

  • Both are interpreted as reflecting the triumph of nature over civilization and savagery

  • They likely represent the conquest and amalgamation between Greek-speaking invaders and brought their own beliefs of gods to triumph over residents of the Greek peninsula

The Creation of Mortals

• Dominant tradition depicts Prometheus as the creator of man

  • Sometimes woman is created later and separately through Zeus

• Universe, then animals, then the birth of mortals

• Seeds from the sky mixed with rainwater from Prometheus, and fashioned by him into the likeness of the gods who control all

• Athena breathed life into the clay

The Five Ages of Man

• Ovid describes four ages (gold, silver, bronze and iron) while Heriod accounts “The Five Ages of Man”

The Age of Gold

• The immortals on Olympus made a golden race of mortal humans

• Existed when Cronus was king in heaven

• Lived as gods without trouble, all good things were their’s

• The earth covered them, but they are still those who ward of evil, provide good, provide wealth, etc.

The Age of Silver

• Next they made a second race of silver

• Far worse than gold, unlike it mentally and physically 

• Arrogance against one another

• Did not wish to worship immortals or sacrifice at the altar

• Zeus, angry, hid them away, because they did not give the gods devotion

• The earth covered this race too

• They also dwell under the earth, also called bless by mortals

The Age of Bronze

• Terrible, mighty and pursued the painful and violent deeds of Ares

• They worked out of bronze

  • Their arms and homes were of it

• Destroyed by their own hands

• Went to hell, seized by the black death

• Earth covered this race

The Age of Heroes

• A godlike race of heroic men, called Demigods

• Preceded human race

• Some died in Theban battle, some in the Trojan war

• Cronus rules as king over them, though they are far from the gods

The Age of Iron

• Children will grow quickly

• Hair will turn gray

• Children will dishonour their parents

  • Blaming them, not knowing respect for the gods

• Shame does not exist

• No defense against evil

The Creation of Pandora

• Prometheus was born to Clymene (an Oceanid) and Iapetus

• Prometheus steals fire from Zeus, and now they feud

• Zeus orders Hephaestus to mix earth and water and implant it with a human voice, the form of a maiden with the face of a goddess

• Commands Hermes to give her “the mind of a bitch and the character of a thief”

• The evil is named Pandora, “all gifts”

• Zeus sends a messenger, Hermes, to gift it to Epimetheus 

  • Prometheus previously warned his brother Epimentheus never to accept a gift from Olympian Zeus, but he forgets

• Pandora starts the spread of evil around the world by scattering the contents of the jar, and handing mortals over to the Fates

• Hope is also in that jar

  • Mortals grow old amidst evil

• Like eve, she is created after man and is yet responsible for his troubles

• The jar that Pandora presents to Epimetheus was a pithos (a large container used to store oil or water)

• Before Pandora, the world was entirely populated by men

Io

• Priestess of Hera, but loved by Zeus

• Failed to deceive Hera, and she turns Io into a white cow to guard her new posession

Hetite Myths

• Anu, Kumarbi/Enlil, and Teshub/Marduk are parallel to Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus in Greek myth.

MLS 5: The Twelve Olympians - Zeus, Hera and Their Children

• Zeus is established as lord of gods and men. 

  • Supreme but shares powers with his brothers. 

  • His sphere: the sky. 

  • Poseidon: the sea 

  • Hades: the Underworld 

• Sister Hera as his wife. 

• Hestia and Demeter = Zeus' other sisters, sharing divine powers and functions. 

• Hestia – Goddess of the Hearth and Its Fire 

  • Rejected advances of Poseiden and Apollo and vowed to remain a virgin. 

    • She is a goddess of chastity like Athena and Artemis. 

  • Hearth – center of the family. 

    • Designated as holy, she presides over it. 

    • Precedence at banquets and in sacrificial ritual. 

• Zeus – mates with a lot of goddesses and mortal women, so he has a lot of children. 

  • Belonged to a monogamous society where male was dominant, but moral standards would have been the same – aka affairs were not condoned. 

    • But he is supreme, so he can stand above moral standards. 

  • God of justice and virtue – upholds the sacred in the moral order of the universe. 

  • Regal – presented as a mature man in his prime – usually with a beard. 

  • Aegis = goat skin – cloak for shepherds but 

    • It is his shield. 

  • Eagle and oak tree sacred. 

  • He was not supreme in everything – there were certain things he has little control over. 

• Zeus and Hera – marriage of the sky od and earth goddess. 

  • Hera's mythology mostly surrounds her marriage to Zeus. 

  • She is supposed to be the one that holds Zeus accountable for his wrongdoing. 

  • She is supposed to be regal, ox-eyed, encompassed with attributes of royalty. 

    • Argos – talked about in class, her watcher with 100 eyes. 

    • Argos – the place where a temple was erected in her honor. 

  • Worshipped less as an earth goddess and more as a goddess of women, marriage, childbirth, etc. 

    • Functions shared with other goddesses. 

• The Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia 

  • Heracles said to have founded the original Olympic Games. 

  • Olympia – sanctuary beside the river Alpheus, in the territory of the Peloponesian city Elis. 

  • Temple of Hera was older, temple of Zeus newer with a huge statue. 

    • West pediment – battle of the Greeks and centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous (son of Zeus). 

    • Another figure on the pediment – Apollo imposing order on the scene of violence and chaos. 

    • East pediment – chariot race scene between Pelops and Hippodamia (couple) and her father Oenomaus. 

    • Doric frieze – twelves labors of Heracles. 

• The Oracles at Olympia and Dodona 

  • Important centers for the worship of Zeus. 

    • To elicit a response from a god was by observation and interpretation of omens, offerings, etc. 

  • Priestesses (3) told story of the creation of the oracle – two black doves flew from Thebes in Egypt; one coming to Libya and the other to Dodona. 

    • The latter settled in an oak tree and spoke in human speech, saying that there must be an oracle of Zeus established there. 

    • Dove in Libya ordered the Libyans to establish one there as well. 

• Children of Zeus and Hera: Eileithyia, Hebe, Hephaestus, and Ares 

  • Eileithyia – goddess of childbirth (role she shares with her mother). 

    • At times her and her mother merge in identity. 

  • Hebe and Ganymede, Cupbearers to the Gods 

    • Hebe is the goddess of youthful bloom (literal meaning of her name). 

      • Also servant of the gods. 

    • Heracles' bride once he wins immortality. 

      • Different stories of whether or not they actually got married. 

    • Trojan prince Ganymede at times takes her place. 

      • His myth has many interpretations – for some represents the spiritual calling of a young man by god; others attribute a homosexual desire to bisexual Zeus – thus having the supreme god mirror yet another human trait. 

  • Hephaestus, the Divine Artisan – god of creative fire and a divine smith. 

    • Workshop in heaven or Olympus. 

    • One masterpiece – shield of Achilles. 

    • Sometimes attended by three Cyclopes (the ones who create the thunder and lightning of Zeus). 

    • Also a god of fire – including destructive. 

    • Often linked with Athena as benefactors of wisdom in the arts and crafts and champions of progress and civilization. 

    • Versions of his birth – Hera says he is just her child, not Zeus' 

      • Just like Athena came from Zeus' head. 

      • Lame from birth – ashamed of his deformity so she cast him down to earth. 

      • He mostly trusted Dionysus – got drunk with him. 

      • When hurled to earth, landed on Lemnos. 

      • Some volcanic eruptions were associated with him. 

  • Hephaestus, Aphrodite and Ares 

    • Hephaestus wife is Aphrodite – strange marriage. 

      • Marriage of beauty and deformity – intellectual vs sensual. 

      • Aphrodite unfaithful to him and turns to Ares – handsome, whole, brutal, strong. 

    • Eternal love triangle. 

  • Ares, god of war – last child of Zeus and Hera 

    • Origins probably belong to Thrace. 

    • Aphrodite = cult partner – several children attributed to them, most importantly Eros. 

    • Not thought of very highly – a lot of times just comes across as a butcher. 

      • Including Zeus didn't like him. 

    • Greeks felt strongly about the aggressive aspects of war – so Ares imposed a lot of harsh realities that they didn't love. 

      • Obviously, they were plagued by war for much of the length of their civilization. 

    • Greeks did worship Ares, Athena and Zeus as divine champions in RIGHTEOUS conflict. 

• Other Children of Zeus: The Muses and the Fates 

  • The nine muses – daughters of Zeus and Memory (Mnemosyne) 

    • Titaness Mnemosyne affair. 

    • Muses = patronesses of literature and the arts. 

      • Home often located in Pieria. 

    • Muses meaning reminders – supreme in their fields, and those who challenge them will always be defeated. 

    • Calliope – epic poetry 

    • Clio – history (or lyre playing) 

    • Euterpe – lyric poetry (or tragedy and flute playing) 

    • Melpomene – tragedy (or lyre playing) 

    • Terpsichore – choral dancing (or flute playing) 

    • Erato – love poetry (or hymns to the gods and lyre playing) 

    • Polyhymnia – sacred music (or dancing) 

    • Urania – astronomy 

    • Thalia – comedy 

    • Apollo is often their associate considering the shared realms of creativity. 

  • The three fates – daughters of Zeus and Themis 

    • Night and Erebus also said to be the parents of the Fates. 

    • Birth spirits – came depicted as three old women responsible for the destiny of every individual. 

      • Clotho (spinner) - spins the thread of life 

        • Carries the fate of each human being from the moment of their birth. 

      • Lachesis (apportioner) - measures the thread 

      • Atropos (inflexible) cuts the thread off, bringing life to an end 

        • Often depicted the smallest and most villainous. 

    • In some contexts, Zeus is still the supreme that controls it all; in others, he has to eventually bow down to the prophecies presented by the Fates. 

    • Fate often thought of in the singular – not as a concept. 

    • Not a lot written of them – none of the major authors cared much about the interrelation of god, mortals and fate and the interplay of destiny and free will. 

MLS 6: The Nature of the Gods

• Gods live in houses on Mt Olympus or in heaven

• Gods in the upper world versus the realm below

  • They eat and drink, but it is ambrosia and nectar

• Gods are often Anthropromorphized, with certain animals being associated with a particular deity

  • Zeus = Eagle

  • Hera = Peacock

  • Poseidon = Horse

  • Athena = Owl

  • Aphrodite = Dove

  • Ares = the Boar

Zeus and Monotheism 

• Zeus was the supreme lord

• Seen as “the father,” “the husband,” and “the lover”

• Primary sphere: the sky and the upper air

• Protector of all things humans hold essential

• Is he truly the most divine?

  • Hera can thwart his plans

  • Aphrodite can bend all the gods to her will (except for the three virgins Hestia, Athena and Artemis)

  • He must yield to the fates

  • Demeter has certain control over Zeus

Xenophanes (poet and philosopher pre-Socrates) attacked the conventional anthropomorphic depictions of gods

Monotheism and Polytheism are not mutually exclusive; the human religious experience tends to be anthropomorphic

• Christianity is monotheistic (there is ONE GOD) but anthropomorphic (one god in THREE FORMS: the father, the son and the holy spirit)

Greek Attitudes

• Some thought of Humanism, Greeks being the first humanists

• Mythology, philosophy and religion were intertwined

• Thought profoundly about god, the immortality of the soul, the meaning and consequences of vices and virtue

• “Greek philosophical thought can hold its own with that of any of the so-called higher religions”

Herodutus

• A 5th BC historian 

• Best representation of the Greek’s humanistic and religious attitudes

  • Monotheism and polytheism are shown side by side

• Takes his philosophy from Homer

• Greek dramatists delight in the interplay of god and fate in human life

  • Enjoy tragic depictions of demise of those they hate

• Often heroes learn through sin and suffering in order to triumph against adversity and reconcile with god

  • Story of Solon (by Herodutus) was the first, most notable of these stories

  • He was a reformer, who passed laws to make Athens more democratic

Tragedy of Croesus

• About the downfall of the King of Lydia

• Claims to Solon he was the happiest man alive

• Death of his son makes him sad for years

• Invades Cappadocia after a vision of the Delphi Oracle said that he lost the war

• Lydia was eventually absorbed into Persia

• Defeated by Cyrus the Great in the Battle of Thymbra

What the Greeks actually did in the performance of their worship began to overshadow the significance of the myths they told about their gods

Athena Polias = guardian of the city of Athens

Greek Religion

• Had no creed, book, or fixed rites

• Had no word for “religion”

  • Solely a social function

• Shared simply a common religious experience

• Polis Greek DEF: city, civilization

• Hesiod and Homer established the identifications of the gods

• Hesiod and Homer identified the main elements of Greek religion by the 6th century

• Different communities would devote their principal worship to different gods

  • Wouldn’t neglect the other Pantheonic gods, but would signify their unique relationship to the realm through their special deity

• Developed a more homogenous view when they became more cosmopolitan

• The Acropolis was the religious heart of the city

• Throughout every community, there were temples, sanctuaries and shrines

• Organized around the religion calenar

  • Half of the year was devoted to heortai Greek DEF: festival

  • Around 170 festival days in the calendar

• Religion and secularity was blurred during festivals

Cults of the Dead

• Each polis reserved special occasions to honour their heroes who were given divine status in death

• The heroes represented more localized traditions and cults

• Were like gods, in that they had power to act for good or evil from beyond the grave (especially in favour of the polis if they were honoured)

• Chthonic cults made sacrifices that different from general worship of the Olympian gods

Priesthood

• Often involved with many of the festivals

• Many served because of birth

• Was held by only two Athenian families in archaic times: the Kerkydes and the Eumolpidae

• Different Priesthoods imposed different requirements

• Important priests were not based on calling, but given special respect because of their dress, behaviour or performance of rites and rituals in processions

  • Honoured in the afterlife by statues or reliefs on their tombstones

• Priestesses were the only area in which Greek women could assumer roles that were equal to men

• Had greater role in cults of female divinities than male divinities

Seers

• A prophet whose progession was to recognize and interpret signs that were elicited through sacrifice

  • The audience believed they were sent by the gods to inform them about matters of all sorts

• A successful seer was in high demand, could become quite rich and travel around

• Involves: the interpretation of the flight and cries of birds, the behaviour of snakes, the content of dreams, natural effects like lightning, thunder, earthquakes 

• Calchas (of Homer’s Illiad) is seen as the best of bird interpreters

• Some could be possessed by the god in the performance of their prophetic skills

Mystery Religions

• Celebrated in honour of Dionysus, Demeter, Orpheus, Tartarus, Hades

• Focus on the existence of a soul, the conflict between good and evil, and reward and punishment in the afterlife

• Public cults did not demand rigid adherence to a religious dogma, while Mysteries required acceptance of a specific doctrine

  • Laid out in texts

The Sacrifice

• The most significant religious act in Greek ritual

• Homer is the earliest source of proper detailed account of sacrifice

• Everyone was dressed (including animals) in fancy garments

• Cattle were the most prestigious offering

  • Sheep were the most common, along with goats, pigs and poultry

  • Fish was rare

• The animal must appear a willing victim of the slaughter

• Temenos Greek DEF: the cut animal before sacrifice

• Ololuge Greek DEF: ritual wail performed at sacrifice

• Sacrifice provided the community with their main opportunity to eat meat

Denova 2: The Ancient Civilizations of the Sumerians 

Intro: 

• Mesopotamia and Egypt as "cradles of civilization" - in the neighborhood of Greece and Rome. 

  • Basic criterion being writing – developed in Mesopotamia. 

  • Plus class-based society with myths and priesthood, religious festivals, etc. 

Mesopotamia 

• Known as "the land between rivers." 

• Fertile crescent – prosperity due to improvements in irrigation systems. 

• Sumer – civilization flourished in 4^th millennium BCE in the south end. 

  • Sacred language. 

  • City state – Uruk – walled city with temples and central administration with a king. 

    • Most known king = Gilgamesh. 

    • Theocracy – government ruled by divine guidance. 

• Inanna – queen of Heaven (sexual love, fertility, war). 

• Anu – king of gods who was head of god triad with... 

  • Enlil (air) 

  • Enki (water). 

• Assyrian and Babylonian empires – war gods Ashur and Marduk eventually became the supreme gods. 

• Sources of religious beliefs: The Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh. 

  • Enuma – how Marduk became king of gods after slaying Tiamat (goddess of chaos/ the ocean) - human beings were created to serve the needs of the gods. 

  • Epic – adventures of the king and quest for immortality. 

    • Parallels with Noah in Genesis. 

    • Doesn't become immortal – understands that it is a gift for the gods. 

• Sumerians – worshipped anthropomorphic images of gods: human-looking with animal features. 

• Ziggurats – temples that had storage rooms for offerings and courtyards with pools for purification. 

  • Not for public worship – only priests. 

• Priests were required as elements to placate the divine and maintain harmony between gods and humans. 

  • Involvement of music, prayer, sacrifice, etc. 

• Dead exist in some sort of afterlife. 

  • Dead relatives – ancestor cults. 

  • "A man was duty-bound to produce a son to preserve the connection between the honored dead and the next generation." 

  • Place of the dead/land of no return. 

  • Humans made of god clay so they return to that form. 

Egypt 

• The gift of the Nile. 

  • Annual flooding reference. 

• Pharaoh – indication of unified and absolute rule. 

• Religious evidence = tombs and funeral existence. 

  • Tomb of Tutankhamun. 

• Hieroglyphs – last sculpted at temple of Philae in the sixth century CE. 

  • Lost meaning until Rosetta stone was uncovered. 

• Creation myths mostly engaged with development of religious and administrative centers. 

  • Heliopolis – world of darkness and endless water until earth mound emerged and Atum sat on it and emitted deities of air and moisture, then they produced the earth. 

• Human bodies and heads of animals. 

  • Didn’t worship animals, but honored animal traits of deities. 

  • Horus – head of falcon = watchful eye and protection of Pharaoh. 

• Worshipped gods in small cult temples and large temples in royal centers. 

• No entry of inner temple spaces mostly. 

• Public festivals for religious things. 

  • Like reuniting Ra (sun god) with wife and child. 

  • Celebratory vibe. 

The Egyptian Afterlife 

• Death understood as another phase of life – constant cycle of creation, death, recreation. 

• Humans all had a physical body, a name, a shadow, and a personality (ba). 

  • Ka = life force. 

  • Ba + ka = essence of the person. 

    • Released upon death but reunited with a physical body, which is why they mummified the dead. 

    • Once rejoined with the body, one could become an akh (one with the stars). 

• Middle Kingdom – morality and social justice as avenues to an afterlife. 

  • Treatment and behavior affected successful existence after death. 

The Rest of the Neighborhood 

• Anatolia – part of modern Turkey – remains of some of the world's oldest settlements and monumental structures. 

  • Gobekli Tepe – built by hunter-fatherers years before the development of agriculture. 

  • Evidence of multiple fertility deities and oracle sites. 

• Minoan on island of Crete. 

  • Particularly stuff found in the Mycenaean period in Egypt, Greece mainland, etc. 

  • Famous home of minotaur and labyrinth. 

  • Dominant fertility goddess cult, bull-reaping rituals, caves, shrines, etc. 

  • Influence on larger Aegean area. 

• Phoenicians – emergence from Semitic Canaanite tribes along Mediterranean coast. 

  • City states at Tyre and Sidon (Lebanon). 

  • A lot of trade that encouraged the spread of the alphabet which was the basis for alphabets in the region. 

  • Absorption of many religious elements from Mesopotamian culture – burial tech and funeral rites. 

  • Early colonies in North Africa and Spain. 

• Italy – various cultures and indigenous people. 

  • Roman religion included some of the indigenous Italian divinities and some ancient oracle sites. 

  • Etruscan – dominant influence on cultural and religious practices in ancient Rome. 

• Cyrus the Great overthrows Babylonians and founder of Achaemenid Empire (AKA Persia). 

  • Son conquered Egypt. 

• Older religions in Persia were centralized under a holy man named Zoroaster. 

  • God Ahura Mazda – responsible for creation. 

  • Angra Mainyu (aka Druj) - destructive spirit of chaos. 

  • Humans must practice good thoughts/deeds/words to cross Chinvat bridge over a hell equivalent – it was wide for the righteous and narrow for the wicked. 

• Independent Jewish kingdoms during the reigns of Kings David and Solomon. 

  • Death of Solomon = natural disasters, North conquered by Assyria and South by Babylonians. 

• Isreal conquered by Alexander the Great. 

• Jews known for worship of one god, but acknowledged many existences of power in the universe. 

  • Practice of circumcision, dietary laws and cease of work on seventh day. 

  • Their various disasters lead to a lot of migration to the Mediterranean. 

    • Persia, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Rome, etc. 

• All this to say Greece and Rome were heavily influenced by their surroundings. 

Greece 

• Bronze age = pottery, agriculture, writing system, law codes, centralized government, organized warfare, international trade, taxes, etc. 

  • Social hierarchies that included slavery. 

• Hills = city states, valleys = agricultural communities. 

• Minoans dominated Aegean island and parts of mainland Greece. 

  • Suffered a collapse and was conquered by Mycenaeans. 

• Mycenaean age – society becoming more hierarchical. 

  • Warrior culture and status. 

  • Age of the heroes. 

  • Written script = Linear B. 

  • End of civilizations may be a result of the Dorians? 

    • But they were maybe already settled in Greece at the time. 

  • Damage at Mycenaean sites = Dark Ages. 

    • Adoption of Phoenician alphabets. 

    • Establishment of Olympic games. 

    • Iliad and the Odyssey. 

• Archaic age – population increases and political organization of the classic city state. 

• Classical Greece – height of Greek literature, philosophy, art, drama, sciences, architecture, politics. 

  • Parthenon for Athena constructed on the Acropolis. 

  • Schools of philosophy came to fruition. 

The Greco-Persian Wars 

• People rebelling against Cyrus who appointed tyrants – Athens and Greek city-states supported rebellion. 

• First Persian invasion of Thrace and Macedonia. 

  • Athenians beat back Persians at the Battle of Marathon. 

• Second invasion – huge army, went to sack and burn Athens afterwards. 

  • Persians then lost to Greeks in the Battle of Salamis. 

• Delian League – naval alliance for future Persian incursions. 

  • Also trade and naval support. 

• Sparta = Peloponnesian League 

  • Athens eventually surrendered to Sparta. 

    • But they didn't have the leadership experience. 

The Hellenistic Age 

• Alexander the Great takes over the Macedonian throne. 

  • Conquered a lot – made it to India. 

• Hellenistic = alteration of local customs and cultures to include Greek concepts and practices (Hellen = mythological founder of Greece). 

Rome 

• Began as a small village on the Tiber River in central Italy. 

• Center of the city was a swamp that became the Roman Forum. 

• First inhabitants were Latin tribes. 

• Etruscans  

  • Absorbed Hellenic culture and art. 

  • Natural phenomena were an indication of the immanence of the divine will. 

  • Influence found in art, architecture, engineering and hierarchical structure in Rome (Roman Republic). 

  • Gladiator games originated in funeral rites – slaves fought to death at the grave. 

• The city of Rome 

  • Romulus and Remus established the city. 

    • Plowed the city around 7 hills with a valley in the middle that served as the market. 

  • Romulus killed brother and was the first King. 

  • Numa Pompilus – tribe of Sabines – second king. 

    • Established institutions of Roman religion and ritual. 

    • Inspo from nymph Egeria. 

  • Cult of Vestal Virgins. 

  • Numen – divinity/divine. 

    • Invisible power found everywhere. 

    • Lares and Penates were the guardians that protected the boundaries of the location. 

  • Ousting of last Etruscan king and establishment of the Roman Republic. 

• The Punic Wars

  • Carthiginian Empire were big rivals to Rome. 

  • First war ended in a draw despite Carthage being the dominant naval power. 

  • Second war almost destroyed Roman ambitions. 

• The social war 

  • Italians had to act as citizens – a lot of political unrest. 

  • Resentment of lower classes against the rich. 

• The end of the republic 

  • Size and nature couldn't be sustained. 

  • Presence of Caesar – assassinated. 

  • A bunch of events that was a slow decline of the civilization. 

• Subsequent centuries 

  • Imperial Rome under Augustus – some success. 

  • Rome eventual sacked by the Goths and invading of Germanic tribes. 

    • But rule continues in Constantinople until conquered by Ottoman Turks and renamed Istanbul. 

MLS 7: Poseidon, Sea Deities, Group Divinities and Monsters 

Peleus and Thetis 

• Thetis was destined to bear a son mightier than his father – so Zeus avoided mating with Thetis and she married mortal Peleus. 

  • Son was Achilles. 

Acis, Galatea, and the Cyclops Polyphemus 

• Galatea (nereid) was loved by Polyphemus – son of Poseidon. 

  • She was repelled by his intentions and loved Acis – son of a sea nymph. 

  • Polyphemus tried to mend his savage ways and he would sit and play songs that described her and what he would give to her. 

Poseidon and Amphitrite 

• Amphitrite – third Nereid – wife of Poseidon. 

  • Reluctant bride. 

• Poseidon had a weakness for women while Amphitrite was vengeful and angry. 

• Son – Triton – merman. 

  • Often blowing a conch shell. 

• Poseidon loved Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus – had children – Neleus and Pelias. 

Proteus 

• Sea divinity. 

• Either attendant or son of Poseidon. 

• Old man who can tell the future and change shape. 

• Proteus helped Menelaus on his way home from Troy by answering his questions about how to get home. 

Appearance and Character of Poseidon 

• Similar looking to Zeus but more severe and rough because he is tempestuous in nature. 

• Trident. 

• Ferocious nature. 

• Supporter of earth but the earthshaker – god of earthquakes. 

• Theory – once a male spirit of fertility. 

  • Associations with horses and bulls. 

• Mated with Demeter in the form of a stallion and pursued her when she searched for her daughter. 

  • Union of male and female fertility powers on the earth. 

Scylla and Charybdis 

• Poseidon made advances to Scylla. 

  • Amphitrite jealous and threw magic herbs into Scylla's bath and she was transformed into a scary monster with dogs heads. 

• Scylla's home was a cave in the Straits of Messina between Sicily and Italy. 

• Charybdis – daughter of Poseidon and Ge. 

• The two were natural terrors faced by mariners who sailed through the straits. 

The Progeny of Pontus and Ge 

• Two more sons beyond Nereus – Thaumas and Phorcys, plus two daughters – Ceto and Surybie. 

• Thaumas – mated with Electra and produced Iris and Harpies. 

  • Iris – goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods – sometimes particular servant of Hera. 

  • Fleet-footed and winged such as her sisters (the Harpies). 

• Harpies – more violent in nature. 

  • Conceived of strong winds but maybe birdlike with female faces. 

• Phorcys and Ceto had two groups of children – Graeae and Gorgons. 

  • Graeae – three sisters who are personifications of old age. 

    • Gray hair from birth but swanlike and beautiful. 

    • Only one eye and one tooth that they had to share amongst themselves. 

  • Gorgons – three, hair with serpents (Medusa one of them). 

    • Medusa was Poseidon's lover. 

    • Perseus beheaded her when she was pregnant, and a Pegasus plus a son sprang from her corpse (Chrysaor). 

  • They also had a dragon named Ladon – helped Hesperides. 

    • Was slain by Hercules when he stole apples of the Hesperides. 

• Chrysaor mated with an Oceanid – Callirhoe – and produced the monsters Geryon and Echidna (half nymph and half snake). 

  • Echidna + Typhon and bore Orthus, Cerebrus, the Lernaean hydra and the Chimaera. 

MLS 8: Athena

• Zeus swallowed his concert Metis after impregnating her with Athena (was afraid she would bear a son who would overthrow him)

• Some say that Hephaestus split Zeus’ head open with an ax to facilitate the birth

• Widely accepted as Zeus’ favourite daughter

The Parthenon

• A temple dedicated to Athena on the Acropolis of Athens

• Athena with her spear created an olive tree, and was proclaimed victor of ownership

• Friezes: the exterior was a Doric frieze, the interior (around the outer wall of the cella) was Ionic frieze

  • The interio frieze shows the people of Athens moving procession as they celebrate the festival of the Panathenaea in honour of the goddess

Athena Parthenos

• A monumental statue in the cella of the Parthenon

• The original, created by Pheidias, has been lost, but has been reconstructed

• Surface of the statue was og gold and ivory

• 12 meters high

• Held a figure of Nike (Victory) in her right hand

• Covered in armour: a helmet decorated with sphinxes, the aegis with the head of Medusa, a shield decorated with the battle of the Amazons on the outside and the Gigantomachy on the inside, held a spear

• Relief on the base of the statue shows the creation of Pandora

Pallas Athena Tritogeneia

• Her official title

• Perhaps refers to her birth near lake Triton in Libya

• At one time, she was maybe a goddess of the waters or sea

• Palladium DEF: a wooden statue of her host sister Pallas, who she strikes and calls in a fit of passion

  • Fell into the territory of the Trojans, who built a temple to honour it

• Athena takes the name of Pallas herself

  • Pallas also means maiden, and is anotehr designation of Athena’s chastity

Athena (Minerva) and Arachne

• Athena as the patroness of women’s household arts, like spinning and weaving

• In Ovid’s account, she becomes the roman Minerva

• Arachne, a skilled weaver (Greek DEF: spider)

• She weaves tapestries in her loom that depict scenes of Greek Myth

• She was poor, yet claimed to be better in skill than Minerva, and challenged her to a weaving contest. She is enraged that Arachne’s work was better than hers, and tears it apart. Arachne tries to hang herself, and Minerva, feeling pitiful, transforms her into a spider

  • Minerva’s punishment of Arachne’s hubris is also motivated by jealousy of her success

Athena’s Character

• The goddess of specific arts, crafts, skills, 

  • Weaving was a metaphor for human resourcefulness

• She is the goddess of wisdom and good counsel 

• Latin name is Minerva

• Represented skill AND cunning

• Skilled in taming and training horses

• Interested in ships and chariots

• The inventor of the flute

  • Quickly grew to dislike it, because her beautiful features

• She was worshipped in Athens as patroness of arts and crafts

• Closely identified with the owl, and as looking “owlish”

• Also associated with the snake, and the olive tree

  • Suggests maybe she was originally a fertility goddess

• She was sexually unapproachable

• Represents the new order of divinity

  • The younger generation who bring advancement to civilization

Denova 5: Temples and Priests

Temples

• Sacredness is behind a temenos wall

• Naos Greek DEF: Temple

• Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns

• Built on a three-stepped platform

• Pronaos Greek DEF: Poarch

• Cella Greek DEF: Center of the temples

  • In Rome, it is located at the back

  • In Greece, they’re in the middle

• Etruscan influence on Roman temples

• Aedes Roman DEF: Shrine

• Temples were previously painted, using white, blue, red and black

• Friezes typically depicted a story of myth, sometimes a battle

• Temples on elevated land were associated with sky gods, whereas those in caves and grottos were associated with birth and chthonic dieties

• Most were built on a site associated with myth where a god performed some feat or founded the town/city

  • It was believed that the deity was present in that location

• Importance in Rome: temples were associated with events in Roman history, often in thanks of military victory. They validated the structures of governance and class.

• Treasures in the temples were the donations and gifts from the gods

• Larger temples served as the first banks

• The flat top was necessary for sky dieties to receive the sacrifices

• Low lying pits were used with opening in the earth of chthonic deities to receive liquid libations

Greek Priesthood

• Functioned as mediators between humans and the divine through worship activities

• No training school, expertise was learned through experience and knowledge from other priests

• Exegete Greek DEF: official state theologist

• Priestesses in Greece were servants of different Greek goddesses

• Chiton Greek DEF: tunics from large pieces of cloth, pinned at the shoulders. Wore this in most standard art of priests.

Qualifications

1. Citizenship in the state/town where they resided (no foreigners)

2. Birth record (women could not qualify for this, sometimes family background was given)

3. Purity of the mind and body (sound mind, clear conscience, ritual washings, general hygiene)

Duties

• Calculting and maintaining the list of sacred days

• Finances and revenues (eventually taken over by the government)

• Care and maintenance of the statue and temple itself

  • Keeping it ritually pure

  • Statue was bathed and given a new set of clothing during particular holidays

• Most important function: offering sacrifice to the deity

  • Sacrificial animals were domesticated cows, oxen, pigs, sheep, goats or birds

  • Bred for sacrificial purposes in the countryside

  • The animal was cleaned and dressed with ribbons, painted and with gilden horns and wreaths and flowers, was then led in a procession to the temple

  • Sprinkled with grain, flour or seeds and water was poured on the head

    • This made the animal put their head down, acknowledging that they were allowing the sacrifice

  • Throat was slit and the blood was caught in a special receptacle

  • Seers examined the entrails of the animal

  • Bulk of the animal was distributed among the priests and the public to eat

Roman Priesthood

• Ritual experts in the relationship between humans and the divine

• Etruscans believed that human destiny was determined by the gods and that their will could be seen in natural phenomena

• Augurs Latin DEF: interpret the signs and flight patterns of birds

• Under the Roman monarchy, the king was solely responsible for the religious rites

• Tradition claimed unmarried princesses became the Vestals, while sons were the flamens for the important state gods

• Flamen Latin DEF: serving a particular deity

• Rex Sacrorum Latin DEF: “king of rites”

  • This was maintained in the republic in order to not offend the god

• Foud major colleges of priests

The Pontifices

• Highest ranking of Roman priests

• Drawn from old, wealthy family – later, plebians were included

• Pontifex = bridge builder

  • Briding humans and the divine

• College was supervised by the Pontifex Maximus

• In charge of libri pontificales (pontifical books)

• Assisted by a scribe, referred to as a pontifex minor during the Imperial period

Rex Sacrorum

• A position left over from the time when kings alone were responsible for public rituals

• Responsible for sacrificing on certain days of the month

• Selected from a slate of candidates from the patrician class whose parents had been married by confarreatio

  • Confarreatio Latin DEF: the strictest form of Roman marriage

• Had to be married to his wife through the same ceremony

• If the wife, the regina sacrorum, died, the rex would have to resign

Flamens

• Flamen Latin DEF: The priests who were assigned to the maintenance of the cult of a specific diety

• 15 major flamens, 12 minor flamens

• Three majors

  • Flamen dialis (Jupiter) – automatically a member of the senate

  • Flamen martialis (Mars)

  • Flamen quirinalis (Quirinus)

• These major flamens were always patricians and were provided with state houses on the Via Sacra in the Roman forum

• Distinctive dress

  • Laena Latin DEF: heavy wool cloak

  • Apex Latin DEF: leather skull-cap with a chin strap, with a pointed olive wood tope and a lock of wool that formed the base of the pointed wood

• Subject to severe restrictions

  • Could not ride a horse

  • Could not touch metal

  • Could not come near a corpse

• Dialis was subject to even more severe restrictions

  • Could not leave the city for even one nighy

  • Could not run for the consulship

  • Could not go near an army outside the pomerium

  • Could not swear an oath

  • Could not have knots on his clothing or shoes

  • Could not walk under vines

  • Could not eat any yeast or leaven

  • Could not get their hair cut by anyone other than a free man

  • Nails and clippings had to be buried under a tree

  • Legs of bed were covered in clay

• If the wife, the flaminica, died, he would have to resign his position

The Vestal Virgins

• Rome’s only official college of female priestesses

• Served the goddes Vesta – devoting your chastity 

• Responsiblities:

  • Keeping up the eternal flame of her hearth fire in the Roman forum

    • Could be scouraged if it went out

  • Carried water from a sacred spring and prepared food and cakes used in city rituals

  • Guarded the palladium (from Troy)

  • Organized the yearly festival of Vestalia in June

  • Keeping the wills and testaments of all citizens

• Privileges

  • Had a carpentum Latin DEF: a covered two-wheel carriage and a lictor Latin DEF: a state bodyguard

  • Had reserved seats of honor at public games and at the theatres

  • Free to own property

  • Free to vote at certain times in the priestly colleges

  • Provide evidence in courts of law without having to take an oath

  • Condemned prisoners could be freed upon encountering them, even if they were on their way to execution

• Six vestal virgins at a time

• Chief Vestal, supervisor: the Virgo Vestalis Maxima

  • Held a seat in the College of Pontifices

• Selected from a slate of candidates of girls from 6-10 years old from patrician and plebeian families

  • Must be free of physical defects

  • Must have living parents

• If selected, she was handed over from her father to the state

• Pontifex Maximus had direct supervision over the Vestals, including the supervisor Vestal

• Length of a service as a Vesta was 30 years

  • First 10: learned the rituals

  • Next 10: carrying out the rituals

  • Last 10: spent teaching and supervising the young

• At the end: they received a state pension, and could marry if they chose to do so

  • Most remained in the house

• Dressed distinctively in white with a headdress of wool and a white veil

Fetiales

• Priests devoted to Jupiter 

• Served as advisors to the Senate on foreign affairs

• The rite helped to sanctify war and peace

Triumviri Epulones

• A new college of priests created in 2BCE

• Charged with supervising the “epulum iovis” Latin DEF: feast of Jupiter

Sodales

• Additional organizations of priests and priesthoods

• Established with the permission of the state

Luperci

• Two associated of priests:

  • Luperci Quintilii (of Romulus)

  • Luperci Fabii (of Remus

• Referred to as “brothers of the world”

• Responsible for the Lupercalia, a yearly festival

Fratres Arvales

• “Brothers of the fields,” or the Arval Brotherhood

• Devoted to Dea Dia, organized her yearly festival in May

  • Rites during the festival were kept among the 12 places

  • Rites on the second day were held in a sacred grove outside

• Offered her sacrifices, as well as to Lares

• Ancient rituals and hymns

• Associatino was apparently established by Romulus, who took the place of the dead son of his nurse, Laurentia, and formed the group with her other 11 sons

Salii 

• Leaping priests of Mars

• Allegedly founded by King Numa to guard the ancilia

• Ancilia Latin DEF: the shield that fell from Heaven, as well as the 11 fake ones

• 12 young men were selected from the patrician class

• Held their festivals in the opening and closing of the war season, March and October

  • Dressed as ancient warriors

  • Paraded around the city dancing and leaping

  • Chanted archaic hymns

  • Parade ended in a day of feasting

Libitinarii

• Priesthood solely devoted to Venus Libitina, the goddess of death

• Main temple on Esquiline Hill

• In charge of funeral rites

Public Sacrifices

• Began with a procession through the city, with the criers calling everyone to attention

• Had to be done with correct epithets and prayers

  • If any part had a flaw, it would have to restart

  • A flute player was hired to filter out external sounds

  • Immolatio Latin DEF: killing of the beast

    • Priest sprinkled what or flour on the animals head

    • Took hair and threw them on a nearby brazier

    • Sipped from a cup of wine and poured the rest between the animals horns

    • Assistant takes a mallet and stuns the animal between the eyes

• Individuals held priests as if they were magistrates

• Religious duties often became “political”

MLS 9: Aphrodite and Eros

• Birth of Aphrodite = castration of Uranus. 

  • Name come from Greek word aphros (foam). 

Aphrodite Urania and Aphrodite Pandemos 

• Double tradition of her birth – suggestion of basic duality in her character or the existence of 2 separate goddesses of love: 

  • Urania – Celestial Aphrodite – sprung from JUST Uranus – ethereal and sublime. 

    • Older of the two, stronger, more intelligent, spiritual. 

    • Celestial goddess of pure and spiritual love, the antithesis of Pandemos. 

  • Pandemos – Aphrodite of All the People/Common Aphrodite – sprung from Zeus and Dione – physical in nature. 

    • Younger of the two, born from both sexes, more base, devoted primarily to physical satisfaction. 

    • Goddess of physical attraction and procreation. 

The Nature and Appearance of Aphrodite 

• Cult places – Cyprus and Cythera 

  • City of Salamis in Cyprus. 

• Universal worship in the ancient world. 

  • Port cities (Ephesus/Paphos/Corinth) - temple harlots maybe kept in her honor, but not enough evidence for temple prostitution. 

  • Athens – deity of marriage and married love. 

• Magic girdle with powers of enticement that were irresistible. 

  • Hera borrows the tool in the Iliad and uses on Zeus. 

• Early Greek art – rendered as a beautiful, usually clothed women. 

  • 4^th century – mostly portrayed nude or nearly. 

    • Idealization of womanhood in all her femininity. 

• Praxiteles established the type of her body – sensuous with soft curves and voluptuousness, 

Attendants of Aphrodite 

• The Graces (Charites) and the Hours or Seasons (Horae) - her decorative and appropriate attendants. 

• Graces – usually three of them, personifications of the aspects of loveliness. 

• Horae – daughters of Zeus and Themis. 

  • Hard sometimes to distinguish from the Graces. 

  • Clearer identity as the Seasons – usually thought of as a group of 2, 3, or 4. 

  • Horae = hours (time), so ultimately seasons. 

The Phallic Priapus 

• Priapus – her son. 

• Father could be a number of gods. 

• Fertility god – usually shown as deformed and bearing a huge and erect phallus. 

• Found in gardens and at doors of houses. 

• Part scarecrow, part bringer of luck, part guardian against thieves. 

  • Things in common with Hermes (potential baby daddy). 

• Resemblance of Dionysus and Pan (other PBDs) - sometimes confused with them. 

• Usually stories about him were comic and obscene. 

  • Worship meant not much more than a cult of "sophisticated pornography." 

Pygmalion 

• Aphrodite enraged with women of Cyprus because they denied her divinity. 

• She caused them to be the first women to prostitute themselves. 

  • This made them lose all their shame, which made them easy to turn to stone. 

• Pygmalion – he was disgusted by the women. 

  • Leading a life of sin, vices. 

  • He lived without a wife for a long time because of this. 

  • He made a sculpture, fell in love with it. 

  • Feast day of Venus comes in Cyprus – heifers were slaughtered. 

    • He asked Aphrodite to make his sculpture realm and she did. 

    • Aphrodite was present at their marriage. 

• Name of wife -  Galatea (in later versions of the tale). 

Aphrodite and Adonis 

• Ovid's storytelling is the most famous. 

• Paphos (son of Pygmalion and Galatea) had a son, Cinyras. 

  • Myrrha – Cinyras' daughter, fell in love with her own father. 

    • She was tormented by it and she was about to commit suicide when her nurse saved her and got the secret out of her – decided to help her with her affection. 

    • The plan – go to her dad's bed without him knowing of her identity. 

    • Cinyras finds out and Myrrha flees. 

      • Prays for deliverance, turned into a myrrh tree which drips with her tears. 

• Adonis – son of Myrrha and her father – born from the tree. 

  • Handsome and hunter. 

• Aphrodite saw him and fell in love, warned him of the hunt and wild beasts. 

  • He obviously was killed by the boar. 

• She found him and sprinkled nectar on his blood and a flower sprang from it. 

  • It was red. 

• Ovid story was prediction of the rites associated with the worship of Adonis involving ceremonial wailing and the singing of dirges over the effigy of the dead youth. 

• Recurrent theme = Great Mother and her lover who dies as vegetation dies and comes back to live again. 

• Another version of the Myth: Aphrodite put him in a chest as an infant and gave him to Persephone, who wouldn't give him back when she say how beautiful he was. 

  • They basically had to agree to shared custody through Zeus' negotiation. 

Cybele and Attis 

• Parallels to Aphrodite and Adonis. 

• Cybele – sprung from the earth – originally a bisexual deity but reduced to a female. 

• Severed organ made an almond tree. 

• Nana (daughter of river god Sangarios) picked blossom from a tree and became pregnant with Attis. 

• Attis born, exposed and left to die but a he-goat attended him. 

• Cybele loved him and he didn't, she drove him mad with her jealousy. 

  • So he castrated himself and died. 

• Cybele repented and obtained Zeus' promise that Attis' body wouldn't decay. 

• Ritual of Cybele – frenzy of devotion that could lead to self-mutilation. 

• Attis – resurrection-god like Adonis. 

Aphrodite and Anchises 

• Anchises in dread with fear that he will be depleted and exhausted as a man because he slept with Aphrodite. 

• In the story, she is a fertility goddess and mother as well as a divine and enticing woman – lure of sexual and romantic love. 

• 3 hearts that she cannot sway = Athena, Artemis, Hestia. 

  • So Zeus made her fall in love with a man because he didn't want her to keep bragging about how much power she had. 

• She seduces him hiding her true identity. 

• She can no longer taunt the gods with the boast that she caused them to love mortals because she has now succumbed. 

  • She tries to justify it by glorifying Anchises' family history. 

Eros 

• Male counterpart of Aphrodite. 

• Dual tradition for birth as well. 

• Father Ares. 

• Known as Aphrodite's attendant. 

• Representation of all facets of love and desire, but the god of male homosexuality predominantly in the Greek classical period. 

• Handsome young man – embodiment of masculine beauty. 

The Symposium of Plato 

• Story of Eros' conception. 

• Gathering at house of Agathon. 

• Topic at dinner parties – love. 

• Plato speech abouot the basic need of one human being for another: not necessarily specified homosexuality but pretty similar. 

Socrates' Speech in the Symposium 

• Move from conception of love that is elemental and essentially physical to a sublime elucidation of the highest spiritual attainments that Eros can inspire. 

• Myth – Diotima makes S realize that Eros is neither good and beautiful nor bad and ugly, but lies in between. 

  • Therefore he is not a god. 

• Diotima – explains how love and lovers desire what they don't possess (the beautiful and the good). 

• Human stages of hierarchy in love 

  • Of the animal inspired by the desire for children of the body. 

  • As one ascends, there is a realization of the possibility of producing children of the mind. 

• Love starts with physical and sensual desire for the beautiful person or thing. 

• Love of eternal beauty is what inspires pursuit of philosophy and the philosopher. 

• Thinking of Eros in platonic terms. 

Cupid and Psyche 

• King and queen have 3 daughters with Psyche as the youngest and most fair. 

  • Believed that she was Venus reincarnated. 

• Venus was mad about the comparison and told her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with someone super vile and gross. 

  • But he fell in love with Psyche. 

• When she remained unmarried, Psyche's dad consulted Apollo about whether a god's wrath was responsible. 

  • Apollo demanded that Psyche be adorned like a corpse and placed on top of a mountain to be wed by a terrifying serpent. 

• She was in a deep sleep on the mountain and the breezes of Zephyrus took her down to a pretty valley. 

• She woke up and entered a beautiful palace where all her wishes were taken care of. 

• Every night before bed, an anonymous groom visited her but would leave by morning. 

• Sisters went looking for her, but her husband said don't respond to them. 

  • He didn't want them to urge her to learn his identity. 

  • She got to give them riches though. 

• Sisters became super jealous. 

  • Their job was to persuade Psyche to look at the face of her lover but if that happened she would never see him again. 

• Psyche was pregnant – child to be divine. 

• Third visit of the sisters (after they suspected her to be married to a god) they told her he was a serpent. 

  • She believed them and slept with a knife. 

  • When she went to kill him, she saw his face. 

• She tried to kill herself but failed. 

• Then she tried to get freaky with him but he jumped out of the bed when the lamp got wax on him. 

  • She grabbed onto his leg and was flying away with him but he shook her and she fell to earth. 

• He said her sisters would pay. 

• Psyche attempted suicide in a river but was brought safely to its bank. 

• Pan said forget your grief and win Cupid back. 

• Venus was pursuing Psyche but abandoned the search. 

  • But she imposed a list of impossible tasks on Psyche. 

• Sort a heap of grains. 

  • Ant came to rescue her and sort the grains. 

• Riverbank with dangerous sheep and bring back wool. 

  • Reed murmured instructions to her. 

• Go to top of a mountain where a stream lead to the Underworld and bring back a jar of its water. 

  • Had to face a dragon. 

  • Eagle of Jupiter swooped down and filled the jar for her. 

• Descent into the realm of Hades 

  • Psyche was going to throw herself off a tower, but the tower gave her instructions. 

  • Said don't look into box for Persephone. 

    • Couldn't resist – but it was a deathlike sleep of the underworld. 

    • Cupid flew to her rescue, she finished her task, they got married. 

Sappho's Aphrodite 

• Lyric poetess from island of Lesbos. 

• Devoted to Aphrodite and the young women that she was associated with. 

• From Sappho comes the term lesbian and the association of Aphrodite with lesbian love. 

• One poem – calls on Aphrodite for help to win the love of a young woman that she was involved with. 

MLS 10: Artemis

• Essential features: beautiful virgin of the hunt, armed with bow and arrows. 

• Very close with twin Apollo – cult places in Asia Minor. 

• Temple of Artemis: where the river Meles flows near Smyrna, and Claros was the site of a temple and oracle of Apollo. 

The Birth of Artemis and Apollo 

• Goddess Leto mated with Zeus and bore Artemis and Apollo. 

• Artemis born first and able to help deliver her brother. 

  • Performing one of her primary goddess functions of childhood. 

  • Born on Mt. Cynthus in Delos. 

    • Cult title of Cynthia. 

• Leto was forced after their birth by the anger of Hera to wander carrying the two babies. 

  • Changed the Lycians to frogs after they wouldn't let her drink water from a marsh. 

• Closely linked with Apollo both as agents of destruction with their shafts of doom. 

  • Sudden deaths were often attributed to them. 

Niobe and Her Children 

• Famous exploits of the twins. 

• Women of Thebes bestowed upon Leto and her children by crowning their heads with laurel and offering up incense and prayers in obedience to an injunction by the goddess herself. 

  • Niobe enraged and boasted that she deserved a tribute more, being rich/beautiful/queen of Thebes. 

    • Also mother of 7 sons and 7 daughters. 

• Leto was mad at the hubris and complained to her children, who went down to the palace od Thebes. 

• Apollo struck down the sons, Artemis did the daughter. 

• Niobe jumped in front of last daughter and pleaded for her to be spared, but was turned to stone while uttering the prayer. 

  • She was taken by wind to her homeland (Phrygia) to be placed on a mountaintop. 

    • Tears still come down her face. 

Actaeon  

• Ardent hunter who lost his way and by accident had the misfortune to see Artemis naked. 

Callisto and Arcas  

• Insistence on purity and chastity and the same vehemence against defilement of any sort appear in the story of Callisto (one of the followers of Artemis). 

• Callisto became the Great Bear (Ursa Major); Arcas the Bear Wardon, or the Little Bear (Ursa Minor). 

• Myths that provide etiology for individual stars or constellations. 

  • Many of these stories cluster about Artemis herself. 

Orion 

• Traditionally a mighty and amorous hunter and associated with the island of Chios and its king, Oenopion. 

  • Famous for its wines. 

• Orion woos Oenopion's daughter Merope, becomes drunk and is blinded by the king. 

  • Regains sight through the rays of the sun god Helius. 

• Clears the island of wild beasts as a favor to the king, and tries to rape Artemis when he encounters her. 

• Artemis produces a scorpion from the earth that stings Orion to death. 

  • Both can be seen in the heavens. 

• His dog Sirius became the Dog Star. 

Arethusa 

• River-god Alpheus loved the nymph Arethusa. 

  • Nymph was either a follower of Artemis or Artemis herself. 

• He pursued her along the river and she prayed to Artemis, who covered her with a cloud. 

• The nymph melted into a stream which flowed underground and under the sea and emerged at Syracuse in Sicily. 

  • River still called by the same name. 

Origins of Artemis 

• May have had fertility connections. 

• Interest in childbirth betray concerns that are not entirely virginal. 

• Close associations with animals – Francois vase. 

• Ephesus in Asia Minor – statue of Artemis with robe of animal heads. 

• Goddess of the moon in classical times. 

  • Link with women praying to her (period/lunar cycle). 

    • Which further links her with the archetype concept of virgin/mother. 

Artemis, Selene, and Hecate 

• Hecate – fertility deity. 

  • Make the earth produce in plenty and home is in the depths of the Underworld. 

  • Descendant of the Titans and cousin of Artemis. 

  • Goddess of roads and crossroads particularly. 

    • Crossroads – center of ghostly activities specifically in the dead of night. 

  • Triple-faced statues in three manifestations of her multiple character as a deity of the moon: Selene in heaven, Artenus on earth, Hecate in the realm of Hades. 

• Offerings of food left to placate Hecate. 

  • Because she was terrible in her powers and personality. 

• Blazing torch and terrifying hounds – Fury. 

• Patron deity of sorceresses and witches – black magic practice. 

Artemis Versus Aphrodite: Euripides' Hippolytus 

• Artemis as a foil for the sensuality of Aphrodite. 

• Play begins and Aphrodite is enraged – her power is great and universal, but she is spured by Hippolytus who wants nothing to do with her. 

• Hippolytus stepmother, Phaedra – second wife of Theseus (his father), 

• Aphrodite makes Phaedra fall in love with her stepson. 

  • Her nurse knows, informs Hippolytus. 

• Phaedra commits suicide in distress – leaves a note falsely incriminating Hippolytus. 

  • His father curses him to death. 

• Artemis appears to Hippolytus while he lies dying. 

  • Promises him that she will get vengeance on Aphrodite in exchange for a lifetime of his devotion to her. 

  • She will establish a cult in honor of Hippolytus. 

• Theseus and Hippolytus end up finding understanding and reconciliation by the end. 

• 2 opposing goddesses in a play manipulating the action. 

  • How they control them – sensually versus devotion – a reveal of the goddesses esesntial characteristics. 

The Misogyny of Hippolytus 

• After he learns about his step mothers affections, he breaks out into a tirade against women as vile and evil. 

  • Similar misogyny to John the Baptist. 

• Some see as misogyny, others see as an expression of views held generally in Greek society. 

• Theseus convinces himself that Hippolytus raped Phaedra because he never believes that his boy does not like women. 

Misandry, Artemis and the Amazons 

• Misandry – hatred of men. 

  • Common theme in connection with Artemis. 

  • Religious bonds of her group that exclude the male. 

• Relevance of the Amazons – figures in many legends. 

  • Developed society not unlike that of Artemis and the huntress, exclusion of men. 

  • Devoted to pursuits of battle and determined to become invincible warriors. 

  • Their excellence was said to be different in no way to that of a male. 

Lesbian Themes 

• Virginal atmosphere and pure relationships. 

• Success of Jupiter with Callisto, takes the form of her beloved virgin goddess Diana – Freudian  overtones. 

• Tragic relationships with other virgin goddesses. 

• Appropriate over more sensual female relationships. 

• Amazon societies also open to lesbian interpretations. 

Denova 6: Worship of the Gods

Worship of the Gods: Greek 

• Community religious festivals kept the universe in balance, regulated the seasons, and ensured that the community would prosper. 

  • Apart from gods, there were many festivals that marked the calendar year – like New Year and planting/harvest cycles. 

Pilgrimage 

• Journey to a religious or holy site in search for spiritual or moral meaning and reconciliation, or to obtain a benefit from a deity. 

  • Many of the mentioned festivals involved pilgrimages. 

• Group pilgrimages – oracular sites, particularly when a city was in a crisis and needed advice. 

• Greeks traveled overland and by sea. 

The Worship of the Gods in Greece and Greek Colonies 

• Zeus – birthplace Crete, shrines and caves about the island to commemorate his early life. 

  • Shrines were pilgrimage sites – incubation (sleeping) as common source of divination. 

  • Athens – Diasia festival, oldest festival – done at night. 

    • Springtime rural and urban people. 

    • Offers of sheep, pig-shaped pastry and other sacrifices accompanied by dances, hymns, chanting. 

    • Crimes were atoned for in these rituals by offering the sacrifice as a holocaust where the god received everything. 

      • Zeus was the appeaser and purifier. 

  • Larger festivals = part of the Panhellenic Games. 

    • Truces amongst cities. 

    • Romans able to participate only after they took over Greece. 

    • 4 locations. 

    • Olympic games were oldest of the Panhellenic Games. 

      • Dedicated to Zeus at a temple with his huge statue – award ceremonies happened in front – olive wreaths to winners. 

    • 100 oxen sacrificed. 

• Hera – earliest Greek "house sanctuaries" were dedicated to her, plus early public temple at Samos. 

  • Standing example is in Agrigento, Sicily. 

  • Major temple at Olympia – site of the Heraean games (foot races for women dedicated to her). 

    • Winners = olive wreaths and meat from sacrifices, were permitted to erect statues in her temple. 

  • 2 major festivals in Plataea and Boeotia = Greater Daedala (every 14 years), Lesser Daedala (every 4 years). 

    • Oaken carved image dressed as a bride and taken as a procession throughout the city. 

    • Foundation – maybe ancient story that Hera once tricked Zeus in his philandering by having someone substitute a wooden image for his targeted lover. 

• Poseidon – major temples in larger cities and seaports. 

  • Important influence in Athens. 

    • Called upon when it was a major city to favor seafaring trade and adventures. 

  • Delphi – blessed the new undertaking - "averter of disaster." 

  • Cities with altars that had basins of seawater next to them. 

  • Panhellenic Isthmian Games dedicated to him, administered by Corinth. 

    • Athletics and arts – highlight being chariot racing because he was also the god of horses and horse-racing. 

  • Wreath of celery (fertility) and later pine wreaths to winners. 

    • Right to erect a statue and have an ode written about them, plus statues of winning horses. 

• Demeter – temples throughout the Mediterranean Basin and often with statues of her daughter Persephone. 

  • Some temples with myth of her searching for her daughter. 

  • First fruits of agricultural season offered to gods – Demeter received the first corn and grain. 

  • Thesmophoria – major festival – related to her rule in instituting agriculture laws and seasons. 

    • Restricted to married women. 

    • Husbands paid for setting up of shelters, food and drink. 

    • Fertility celebration but a period of sexual abstinence and purification. 

    • 3 days. 

    • A lot of stories told to cheer her up. 

    • Important element – digging up carcasses of pigs buried earlier in the year – mixed with ingredients as a fertilizer for the crops. 

    • Relaxed social conventions – women escaping the restrictions of home and connect with female relatives. 

• Athena – temples located throughout the Greek world. 

  • Noteworthy at Athens and Piraeus and Corinth. 

  • Combined with goddess Nike (Victory). 

  • Greater Panathenaea – every four years, thousands made pilgrimage to. 

    • Athletic competitions, poetry, musical contests. 

    • Lesser Panathenaea held yearly. 

  • Peplos – Greek dress woven between festivals, carried in a procession from agora to acropolis with offerings, draped on her statue. 

  • 100 oxen sacrificed – community meal. 

  • Pyrrhic dance – youths in battle gear. 

    • Claimed that she performed after her victory over the giants. 

• Aphrodite – Aphrodisia, celebrated throughout Greece with biggest celebration in Athens, Corinth and port city of Paphos on Cyprus. 

  • Cyprus = traditional birthplace where she emerged from the sea. 

  • Goddesses images were carried and washed in the sea. 

  • White he-goats important at ceremonies. 

  • Adonia festival – celebrated by only women. 

    • Private not public. 

    • Honored Adonis, mourning for his death and celebrating his resurrection. 

    • Women on rooftops, mourning on the first day and rejoicing the second day. 

    • Important element – planting of "Gardens of Adonis" - symbolic of fertility. 

• Ares – few major temples, but many shrines and groves. 

  • Recipient of sacrifices before armies went to war. 

  • Sparta – Enyalius statue (older version of him) was chained to keep him from leaving. 

    • Young boys sacrificed puppies as ritual of passing to adulthood. 

  • Many statues in conjunction with other gods in various temples. 

  • Many rituals on battlefields. 

• Apollo – temples everywhere and festivals, both alone and for him and his sister (Artemis). 

  • Daphnephoria – at Thebes every 9 years. 

    • Procession with young boy from noble family with adornments followed by young girls singing hymns. 

  • Boedromia – Athens. 

    • Thanking helper in distress and help during wars. 

  • Thargelia – held for the twins on their birthdays at the end of May. 

    • Agricultural and expiatory. 

    • 2 ugly men at end were selected as scapegoats who took on city problems and were stoned. 

      • DK if they died or were rescued. 

  • Delphinia – girls who processed to his temple with branches. 

  • Panhellenic Pythian games every 4 years and dedicated to Apollo commemorating his slaying of the python at Delphi + establishment of Delphic Oracle. 

    • Athletic and music/theater/art/dance competitions. 

    • Winners got laurel wreaths. 

• Artemis – transition from girlhood to puberty ("playing the bear") - rites Arkteia where they imitated she-bears and participation in ritual dancing, foot races, etc. 

  • Young girls doing rituals so they could be pure before taking up their wifely duties. 

    • Artemis as a protector of virginity and pregnancy/birth. 

  • Lakonians dedicated ritual to Artemis Orthia that contained a wooden image. 

    • Men of noble birth were scourged, young girls danced. 

    • Drops of human blood on altar. 

  • Ephesus = most famous temple. 

    • Associated with asylum – Amazons fled there for her protection. 

  • Yearly festival – procession of young women carrying an image of goddess through streets. 

  • Haloea, solstice celebration combined rites with other gods. 

    • Relaxed social conditions, specifically for women. 

• Hermes – cults in the countryside because he was god of nature, shepherds, boundaries and roads. 

  • Temples in the city often combined with those of Aphrodite. 

  • Market squares with his statues as a god of commerce. 

  • Young men sacrificed to him or initiation rites. 

  • Head of phallus – received offerings of flower wreaths and libations. 

  • Boeotia – tradition that he alleviated a plague by carrying a ram on his shoulders around the city. 

    • Most handsome youth had to make a circuit around the walls with a lamb. 

  • Hermaea was celebration throughout with sacrifices/athletics/offerings - restriction to only young boys. 

• Hephaestus – large temple overlooking the agora in Athens. 

  • Jointly celebrated with Athena yearly in Chalceia festival by craftsmen, bronzesmiths and artisans. 

  • Main cult center – island of Lemnos – secret rituals of the Kabeiroi (claimed to be sons of god). 

  • Temple on Mount Etna with sacred grove – eternal flame. 

• Dionysus – the Dionysia festival – combination of rural and city components. 

  • Celebration of vine growing and wine making. 

  • Procession in the festival. 

  • Sometimes dramatic contests. 

  • Recognition of his elimination of a plague. 

    • Cursed the genitalia of the Athenians – phalloi carried in procession. 

  • Inverted or relaxed social conventions – slaves could participate with families for opening of the casks of wine. 

  • Lenaia – another festival, basically a smaller version. 

• Hestia – sacred altars in the cities – maintained by civic officials. 

  • Hearth where morning rituals began to the goddess to protect the home and family. 

  • Newborn babies carried around hearth where they were given a name. 

  • Founding of new towns/colonies = flames from mother city-state carried to new one. 

• Hades – few temples, statues often in company of Demeter and Persephone. 

  • Temple at Elis whree doors were opened once a year for a priest to enter. 

    • Symbol that a man journeys to Hades only once in his life. 

  • Asia Province – temple cave, naked bull released and let run loose until dropped dead. 

  • Cave near Nysa – incubation for curing diseases. 

  • People avoided his powers and names – not evil but cruel. 

    • Sacrifical animals were black. 

    • Blood poured into pits on ground instead of altar. 

  • Integral to funeral rituals. 

  • Cult center at the Oracle of the Dead at Thesprotia in western Greece and at Cumae in Italy. 

• Asclepios  - worship was undertaken voluntarily as needed – health problem, disease, appeals for fertility. 

  • Athens = 2 festivals. 

    • Epidauria and Asclepieia – processions and offerings that were typical to focus on health and welfare in the community. 

  • Asclepions = healing temples. 

    • Clinics, dorms, sacred groces, gymnasiums, treasuries for collection of votive offerings. 

• Tyche – temple at Itanos on Crete. 

  • No specific festival but always on Greek minds because originator of good or bad fortunes of individuals and communities. 

  • Often appeared on coins. 

• The Fates – destiny of gods and men – concern to individuals. 

  • Directed actions of the Erinyes – powers in Hades responsible for revenge. 

  • Sacrifices. 

  • Sanctuaries in cities where they were appealed to in redirecting the harrassment of the Erinyes. 

  • Appealed to them in predicting the future of an individual. 

  • Appealed to through sacrifices to Zeus – influential at birth and death. 

• The Muses – honored as the source of music, the arts, the inspiration of ideas and inventions and schools of philosophy. 

  • One of oldest temples in Pieria in Thrace and they were believed to dwell on mountain-tops at Helican, Parnassus, Delphi and Pindus. 

    • Springs on the mountains were sacred to the Muses. 

    • Libations of water, milk and honey. 

  • Worship was an element at the tomb of Hesiod in Boeotia. 

  • Famous temple in Alexandria, Egypt. 

    • Learning complex and invited scholars and scientists from the known world to come and study – from this complex is where we get the term, museum. 

The Worship of the Gods: Rome 

• Festivals grew with the expansion of the empire – combo of ancient Etruscan, Greek and foreign cults. 

  • Festivals dedicated to several different gods at the same time. 

• Jupiter – king of the gods – sky temples located on the tops of hills and mountains. 

  • Always worshipped with the sacrifice of white animals. 

  • Any place struck by lightning was enclosed with walls and declared a sacred space. 

  • Responsible for oaths and oath-taking – magistrates of Rome took their oaths of office in his temple. 

    • This was a whole ordeal that was kind of ceremonial. 

  • Largest festival was ludi Romani (Roman Games) held in mid-September. 

    • Gratitude for vows made to the god for military victories and conquests. 

    • Performances and chariot racing. 

    • 15 days. 

  • Chariot racing in the Circus Maximus. 

    • Factions identified by the colors – white, green, blue, red. 

    • Winning drivers had the right to have their wreath laid on their funeral bier. 

• Juno – annual feeding of barley cakes to a sacred snake by virgin girls that approached the snake in blindfolds. 

  • Associated with Juno's role in fertility and the welfare of the community. 

  • February was a dangerous time – Juno called upon with Janus to purify the city from contamination from the underworld and to renew the protection of the city. 

  • March 1 – day of Matronalia – married women and mothers. 

    • Men gave stuff to their mothers. 

    • Celebration of Juno's role in childbearing – only women could participate in the rituals (many were secret). 

  • Nonae Caprotinae was another woman-only festival – joyous feasting, dancing, etc. 

    • Goddess of the new brides. 

• Neptune – association with horses was reflected to Roman temple to Neptune at the Circus Flaminius. 

  • Underground altar – associated with fertility powers. 

  • Neptunalia – during hot days of summer when bodies of water were running dry. 

    • Temporary huts or shelters out of laurel branches – feasting in the shelters. 

    • Neptune was asked to bring the rains to refill water supplies and avoid drought. 

• Minerva – Quinquatria festival in march either for birthday of Minerva, military campaign season, or as a commemoration of the founding of her temple on the Aventine. 

  • Aventine associated with plebeians and common workers – Minerva cherished as their personal protector. 

  • Women involved especially in the rites, fortune-tellers, etc. 

  • Domitian moved the festival to the Alban hills. 

  • Minerva Medica = responsible for doctors and healing. 

• Mars – had his own priest, responsible for leading all the rituals on Mars's sacred days and festivals. 

  • Salii performed the ritual war dances at opening and closing of war season. 

  • Responsible for driving away rust fungus, forests away from farmland. 

    • Farms had altars dedicated to Mars. 

  • October 15 – ritual "The October Horse" - October was end of military campaign and agricultural seasons. 

    • Chariot race that evolved to a horse race. 

    • Members of the Subura (Rome's "slum") competed for his honor. 

    • Race in Circus Maximus or forum. 

    • Winning horse sacrificed to Mars by having its head and tail ut off. 

• Venus = Vinalia Rustica celebrated wine, crop growth and fertility – gardens dedicated to Venus. 

  • Sacrificial animal was a white female lamb. 

  • April – festival of the Veneralia held to commemorate disasters of the Punic Wars which were blamed on the sexual immorality of the Romans. 

    • Remind Romans of proper marriage conduct and sexual behavior. 

  • Vinalia Urbana celebrated in conjunction with Jupiter to recognize the gift of what was known as common wine for the people. 

• Apollo – celebrated in Italy in temples that were originally Greek and Etruscan. 

  • Oracular god. 

  • Original temple dedicated after Apollo intervened in stopping an epidemic in the 430s of his healing abilities. 

  • More Games – lasted 8 days. 

• Diana – worshipped especially by the Latin tribes whose areas she had many sanctuaries. 

  • Temples offered sanctuaries for slaves – she was also a patron of the plebeians. 

  • Temple at Lake Nemi was site of pilgrimage for women in quest of pregnancy and successful births. 

  • August = festival of Nemoralia at her temple in Rome and processed to Aricia. 

    • Candlelit vigils at lake each night. 

  • Sometimes portrayed as a triple goddess that represents the wild, hunt and the moon. 

• Vulcan – particularly important god at seaport of Ostia and in the areas around Mount Vesuvius. 

  • Importance was connected to smiths and craftsmen in Ostia and his priest was highest administrative office in the city. 

  • Oldest shrine in the city of Rome – Volcanal. 

  • August – peak drought danger, Vulcanalia was celebrated with festival bonfires. 

    • Followed by games in Campus Martius. 

  • Smaller festival – the Tubilustria – trumpets used in ritual sacrifices were purified through the intervention of the god. 

  • Vulcan always placated after major fires. 

• Vesta – most commonly worshipped in the home, daily rituals centering on the hearth fire. 

  • Fire symbolized all of the good that came from the earth and protected the family and community. 

  • Public festival of Vestalia – last two weeks of June and purification ritual for all of Rome. 

    • Women could participate in the rituals. 

    • Special for bakers – Rome bread was baked in the sacred ashes of Vesta's hearth instead of ovens. 

    • Temple of Vesta's was ritually swept clean of all impurities and the detritus was taken to the Tiber River to symbolically purify the city. 

• Mercury – major temple in the Circus Maximus, because a plebeian stronghold because many of the classes were involved in commerce and trade. 

  • Sacred well used by merchants. 

    • Sprinkled a bunch of stuff on May 15, the Mercuralia festival. 

    • Water was beneficial in the forgiving of past and future sins, the luck needed ot turn a profit, and for success in cheating customers. 

• Ceres – creator of spelt (wheat) and the source of the basic food staple (bread). 

  • January received offerings of spelt and a pregnant sow at the Feriae Semetivae. 

    • Called upon more deities to help with the entire process. 

  • Cerealia in April and Ambarvalia in May, 

    • Times for planting seeds and her protection was necessary for a successful harvest. 

    • Cerealia began with Ceres's Games – included a race in the Circus Maximus. 

      • Women wore white and carried torches in search of Ceres's lost daughter. 

  • Everyday life – part of weddings and bride carried torch in the procession from her home to her husband's house. 

    • Plus funeral rites to help transition from life to death and getting rid of ghosts. 

  • Opening ground to underworld that also honored Ceres. 

• Saturn – main temple in Rome in the forum and treasury with his patronage of underground wealth. 

  • Statue was veiled and filled with oil. 

  • Major religious festival was Saturnalia – mid-December at the winter solstice. 

    • Statue unbound and carried. 

    • Social conventions relaxed. 

    • Gift-exchanges, feasting, family visits, revelry. 

      • Fun family games. 

  • Ancient ritual on the Ides of May at the Pons Sublicus – procession of priests carried straw effigies of men to the bridge and threw them into the river. 

• The Lares – Compitalia once a year for the Lares Comitales or the deities of the crossroads. 

  • Honey-cake offerings. 

  • Heads sacrificed to moter of Lares – small statue in every home. 

    • Not real heads – balls of garlic. 

  • Later, some activities banned by the Senate, but restored by Augustus. 

• Ops – deity representing plenty. 

  • Consort of Saturn. 

  • Opiconsivia festival in August at the time of the harvest season. 

  • Opalia in December. 

  • Worshipped while sitting with hands on the fround because she ruled as a chthonic power. 

  • Festivals supervised by Vestals and flamen quirimus and associated with early history of Rome. 

    • Included chariot race. 

• Bellona – goddess of war, motivated courage and valor necessary for success in battle. 

  • March 24, her special priests celebrated day, where adherents danced and slashed themselves in a frenzy and offered the blood as a sacrifice. 

• Fortuna – rituals of divination where a young boy was selected to choose one several futures that were written on oak rods. 

  • Earliest temple in Rome was built in fulfillmet of a promise of victory against the Etruscans and was located on the right bank of the Tiber River in Trastavere. 

  • June – Romans took boats down the river to other temples and then rowed back. 

    • People and boats covered with garlands and ceremonies included much festive drinking. 

  • One temple was site of worship for married women. 

• Liber/Liberia - associated with fertility, winemaking and freedom. 

  • Wine used in sacrifices. 

  • Liberalia in March with portable shrine carried through neighborhoods with offerings. 

  • Liver associated with rituals in honor of Bacchus. 

• Bacchus – largely influenced by the myths and rituals in the worship of Dionysus – both public and private cults. 

  • Similar Greek concepts of ecstasy and liberation and the celebration of wine and fertility. 

  • Senate restricted the Bacchanalia and worshippers could only meet in small numbers with permission. 

• Janus – beginning and ending of all things and was responsible for transitional areas such as gates and doorways. 

  • Prayers at new days and months. 

  • Most important time was the beginning of the New Year. 

  • October – ritual purifying soldiers from the pollution of war. 

• Pluto – god of wealth and prosperity but also Lord of the Underworld. 

  • Fear of him, not typical festivals held in his honor. 

  • Invoked in funeral rituals. 

  • Center of the Secular Games, held every hundred years, 

• Castor and Pollux – association with horses, members of the cavalry. 

  • Equestrians honored with the "Public Horse." 

• Bona Dea - "Good Goddess" - ancient fertility goddess of Italy. 

  • Worshipped by men and women, but women conducted Mystery rites twice a year. 

    • Winter festival put goddess to sleep, Spring festival woke her up. 

  • Temple with snakes that were fed bowls of milk. 

  • Winter festival organized by the Vestal Virgins and included married matrons. 

    • Ceremonies in houses of chief magistrates – all male elements of the house were evacuated. 

  • Story – Clodius Pulcher violates the rites by disguising as a woman and gaining access, later to be murdered near an ancient shrine to Bona Dea. 

    • Women of Rome were convinced that this was how Bona Dea obtained her revenge for his sacrilege. 

• Flora – ancient goddess of flowers, vegetation and fertility. 

  • Temple near Circus Maximus and another on the Quirinal Hill. 

  • Special priests – sacrifices offered in the sacred grove of Arval Brothers. 

    • Included hares and goats. 

  • Honored with festival of Floralia in April. 

    • Chariot races and theatrical productions. 

    • Noteworthy – participation of prostitutes – danced naked and reveled in the streets. 

    • People pelted with various beans which were symbols of fertility. 

• Romulus – founder of Romer, deified as Quirinus and periodically invoked as the spirit behind the Roman people. 

  • December – Larentalia held, who was the wet nurse for Romulus and Remus. 

  • Quirinalia commemorated either the apotheosis of Romulus or his murder. 

    • Commemorated in conjunction with the Fornacalia – festival for the virites (female equivalent of the citizenship virtues of the Romans). 

  • Curiae Veteres - held twice a year to celebrate the curiae of tribes of ancient Rome. 

    • Members in banquet hall on the Palatine hill. 

• The Lupercalia – a festival on the Ides of February that combined various elements and deities. 

  • Juno and her capacity to oversee women and childbirth. 

  • Februa – god of purification. 

  • Pan, Priapus and Faunus as fertility gods. 

  • Name derived from Lupercus – associated with Pan and Faunus and one of Roman gods of shepherds. 

  • Began at Lupercal (the alleged cave where Romulus and Remus were nurtured by the she-wolf on the Palatine Hill). 

    • Goats and dogs sacrificed, skins made into whips. 

    • Participants smeared blood on bodies that were naked or partially covered in goatskins. 

  • Then ran through city while women stepped out from crowds to be struck with skins. 

    • Believed it would grant fertility and an easy birth. 

  • Important elements: purification and rebirth. 

• Parentalia – Ides of February reserved – commemorated ancestors and deceased family members. 

  • Additional – Feralia in February and Lemuria in May – festivals that also involved the dead. 

• Parilia – Pales = ancient deity of shepherds with rural festival that was additionally celebrated in towns and cities. 

  • April – purification rites performed for both the person and the flock. 

  • Absorbed eventually into birthday of Romulus and the performance of the October Horse. 

  • Sheep pens decorated with branches and swept out at dawn, with remnants added to decorations that were burned. 

  • Shepherd then jumped over his bonfire followed by his sheep. 

  • Offerings: cakes and milk. 

  • After – shepherd washes face, faces east and prays for protection for him and his flock. 

    • Then consumes more milk and boiled wine and jumps through the fire three more times. 

• Hercules - "Labors of Hercules" popular art on funeral urns for Etruscans and Greek colonists of southern Italy. 

  • Rome – absorbed into founding myth of the city when he killed the monster Caucus. 

  • Temples for him in Campus Martius and Circus Flaminius. 

  • Sacrifices eaten by men only and finished before end of the day. 

  • Periods of crisis (plagues/famine) - Hercules included in propitiatory meal offered to the gods.