GREEK ROM MYTHY MID TERM 2

Critical Thinking:

- Not having the answer before asking the question

Thesis:

- A statement based upon facts that a reasonable person could disagree with

Observation:

- A statement about more than one fact that everything reasonable person will agree with

Humanism:

- A way of thinking that emphasizes the human experience and values human potential

Historicism:

- The idea that human beings has fundamentally different ideas of how the world worked

in the past and their motives cannot always be understood

Idealism:

- The belief that categories exist “out there independent of language and human beings

- Sometimes these categories are referred to as “natural”

Textualism:

- Because categories and even mythic figures are constructed by language, it is better to

understand categories and mythic figures as subject to limited change over time rather

than imperfect copies of an ideal hero or category

Ritual:

- A sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a

sequestered place, and performed according to a set sequence that is usually prescribed

by a community or religion

Allegory:

- A narrative that conveys hidden meanings through symbols, figures, actions, imagery,

and/or events, which together create the moral, spiritual, and political meaning the author

wishes to convey

Rationalizing:

Zeus:

- Areas of Concern: the sky, kingship

- Attributes: bears, eagle, thunderbolt

Hera:

- Sister and wife of Zeus

- Attributes: crown and peacock

- Areas of concern: marriage and family

Hermes:

- God of transitions and boundaries

- Patron of thieves and travelers and other things

- Messenger of the gods and guide of the dead into the underworld

Apollo:

- Son of Zeus and Leto

- Areas of concern: music, healing, prophecy

- Attributes: Kithara, Bow, Laurel

- Roman Apollo and Etruscan

Ares:

- Concern: War

- Attributes: sword, shield

Athena:

- Attributes: helmet, owl

- Areas of concern: wisdom and war

- Born from Zeus’ head

Prometheus:

- Brother of Epimetheus

- Attributes: Fire, Eagle, caring for man

- Areas of Concern: Technology and Man

Demeter:

- Area of concern: agriculture

- Attributes: grain sheaf, crown of wheat

- Mother of Persephone

Heracles:

- Attributes: Lion, skin club

- Areas of concern: strength, spreading culture

- Associated with Phoenician Melqart and borrowed by Romans as Heracles

Atlantis:

Cupid:

- Known as Eros in On the Origin of the World

- Cupid means desire

- Cupid and Psyche are a double allegory for the union of love and soul as the way to

achieve pleasure

- Has a daughter with Psyche named Hedone (means pleasure)

Psyche:

- Psyche means soul

- Psyche sees Cupid by means of a lamp

- Psyche is driven by curiosity to know secret things

- Rescued by Cupid

- To complete impossible tasks assigned by Venus, Psyche receives help from Jupiter

Venus:

- Aka Aphrodite; the goddess of love

- Jealous of Psyche’s beauty

- Venus sends her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fail in love with an ugly creature, but Cupid

failed for Psyche

- Venus discovers that Cupid and Psyche are lovers so she forced Psyche to complete

impossible tasks

Jupiter:

- Aka Zeus

- He who steals it will be called the son of Jupiter

- Protector of laws

- King of gods

Perseus:

- Son of Zeus and Danae

- Slayer of Medusa

- Rescued Andromeda from a sea monster and married her

Andromeda:

- Daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, king and queen of Ethiopia

- Sacrificed to a sea monster because her mother boasted she was more beautiful than the

water nymphs

- Rescued by Perseus, who marries her

Bellerophon:

- Tamed the Pegasus and killed Chimaera

- Son of Euryname and Poseidon

Chimera:

The Metamorphoses:

- Collection of Greek myths and stories about transformation

- Stories: Echo and Narcissus, Apollo and Daphne, Hermaphroditus, Iphis, Caeneus

- Cupid and Psyche

Apuleius:

Odyssey:

- Son of Laertes, Husband of Penelope, Father of Telemachus

- King of Ithaca

- Greek hero who took ten years to return after the end of the Trojan War

Homer:

- It was Homer and Hesiod who created for the Greeks a genealogy of the gods, gave the

gods their epithets, distributed their honors and competences, and stamped them with

their forms

Theogany:

- Embodies the desire to articulate reality as a whole

Hesoid:

- Believed to be the poet of the Theogony and Works and Days

- Supposedly lived in Boeotia

- Supposedly defeated Homer in a poetic contest

Library of Greek Mythology:

Pseudo (Apollodorus)

Homeric Hymn to Demeter:

- Hymn celebrating Demeter and Persephone’s story

Eleusis:

- A village (Deme) of Athens that was formerly independent

- Home of the Eleusian mysteries, an initiation ceremony that had something to do with the

Eleusinian triad and an afterlife

Nag Hammadi:

- Village in modern Egypt once near a monastery dedicated to St. Pachomus

- Location of a group of non canonical texts buried likely after the use of such texts was

condemned in 367 CE

Argos:

- A Greek city state located in central Greece famous for its temple of Hera

- Continually occupied since the Stone Age through the Mycenaean to the historical period

- Extremely powerful in the seventh century BCE but eclipsed by Sparta and Athens by the

sixth century BCE

Crete:

- Mythical home of Minos, Pasiphae, Ariadne, Phaedra, and the Minotaur

- Historical home to the Minoan Civilization

- An island in contact with Egypt, Phoenicia, and mainland Greece for many centuries

Heinrich Schliemann:

- German businessman

- Excavated Hissarlik

- Excavated Mycenae

Ovid:

- Born March 23rd

- Roman Poet, Author of The Metamorphoses, The Heroids, and other poems

- Exiled for a “poem and a mistake” at the end of his life

Plato:

- Follower of Socrates

- Founder of the Academy where Aristotle was educated

James George Frazer:

- Author of the Golden Bough

- Argued that myth is designed to explain ritual