CLA 10
Coronis becomes pregnant with Asclepius by Apollo
Apollo turns raven black after it tole him Coronis cheated
Chiron the centaur
Male deities
reflect a range of activities consistent with the roles Greek men played in their society
model of positive qualities: good looks, courage, appropriate action
also get drunk, lust, fight
control men yet they are a reflection of men
hephaestus’ Mixed status
skilled artison, maker of great art and tools to advanced civilization
got hands dirty and did real work
aristocratic men looked down on manual labor so this explains why he has mixed status
married as a ‘joke’ to Aphrodite; “beauty and the beast”
Ares
incarnation of blood-lust in battle, hence not appealing outside of battle
Ares vs Hephaestus
ares best known for his adultery with aphrodite
hephaestus catches ares and aphrodite naked in bed with his metal web
Hermes (mercury)
name= ’he of the stone heap’
protector of travelers
symbols: traveler’s hat, winged sandals
caduceus: 2 snakes interwined
The Homeric Hymn to Hermes
He invents his sandals (of wicker) and the lyre from a tortoise, which he kills.
He steals Apollo’s cattle, eventually offers recompense by giving him the lyre.
Maia lives in cave, hence Hermes’ chthonic connections?
hermes in magic
side A: Hermes of the underworld and Hekate of the underworld
side B: Let Pherenikos be bound before Hermes of the underworld and Hekate of the underworld. I bind Pherenikos’ girl Galene to Hermes of the underworld and to Hekate of the underworld I bind her. And just as this lead is worthless and cold, so let that man and his property be worthless and cold...Also bind Pherenikos’ soul and mind and tongue and plans and the things that he is doing and the things that he is planning concerning me. May everything be contrary for him
two sons of hermes
autolycus
Pan, the Goatherd’s God
Plays reed pipe, the ‘Pipes of Pan’ (Syrinx)
His cry induces ‘panic’ in the solitude of the woods
hestia goddess of the hearth
Goddess of the house
Name = “hearth”
Few stories told about her
Defined the internal space of the female world
Never leaves Olympus, where she tends the hearth fire of the gods
Virgin goddess, given honor instead of marriage: refused the amorous approaches
hestia and the city
the city hearth = symbolic of the city as a family (tholos)
In Rome, Hestia = Vesta
aphrodite (venus) goddess of sexual desire
Overwhelming urges and passions of desire
Shares traditions with Near Eastern deities
Born from the foam (aphros) of Uranus’ genitals (or from Zeus and Dione?)
Cyprus and Cythera both claimed she came out of the sea there: hence she is known as Cypris or Cytherea
Has son with Ares: Eros (aka Cupid)
Chaos also said to have produced Eros (in Hesiod’s Theogony)
tenth muse
The 'Tenth Muse' refers to the idea of a new source of inspiration for creativity beyond the traditional nine Muses of Greek mythology. These nine Muses were goddesses who inspired artists and scientists. The 'tenth muse' can represent an extraordinary or unique influence on creativity, sometimes used to refer to a specific person whose work stands out and inspires others.
Hermaphroditus
Son of hermes and aphrodite
Was fused with the nymph salmacis
Priapus
Child of Aphrodite and Hermes (or Dionysus)
Enormous penis wards of evil
‘Priapism’:medical condition that results in permanent penile erection
Romans associated him with prosperity
Pygmalion and Galatea
Fashions a perfect woman out of marble; falls in love with her.
Aphrodite gives his statue (Galatea) life during her feast day at Cyprus.
Aphrodite and Anchises
In retaliation for his many love affairs (Zeus blames Aphrodite for them), Zeus punishes Aphrodite with an inescapable desire for a mortal man.
Anchises, Prince of Troy, is the unlucky victim
Anchises and Aeneas
Anchises’ reward: a son Aeneas, whose offspring will rule over generations and generations.
Aeneas will escape Troy and found the Roman race (Aeneid of Vergil).
Artemis, Mistress of Animals
Homer calls her Potnia Thêrôn, ‘Queen of the Beasts’ (or ‘Lady of the Animals’)
Artemis the Virgin Huntress
Special patron of girls before marriage, wild spaces, and women in childbirth.
Artemis the killer
If woman suddenly died in childbirth (at other times too, if inexplicable), she was said to have been ‘struck by the arrows of Artemis’.
Moment of birth thus her domain, but not the act of getting pregnant.
Artemis and niobê
Niobê, Queen of Thebes, challenged the honor of Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo.
‘Leto has only two kids, while I have twelve’
Apollo and Artemis then kill all of Niobê’s children
Artemis and Actaeon
Actaeon, a Theban prince, when out hunting one day, accidentally came upon Artemis naked and bathing (read Ovid’s version in our text!)
She turns him into a stag to be hunted.
His own dogs then chase him and tear him to pieces.
Athena, mistress of the city
Daughter of Zeus (her mother Metis swallowed by Zeus when she was pregnant), she pops fully formed from Zeus’ head.
Powerful virgin; usually depicted with helmet and spear, with shield or aegis of Zeus
Epithet: Pallas Athena
Patron goddess of the city of Athens above all, her name appears to be derived from that city.
Athena and civilization
Represents man’s reason; control over elemental forces
Established first court of law in Athens
Aeschylus’ Oresteia, great trilogy of tragedies (458)
Goddess of the crafts of civilization (‘wisdom’)
Athena and arachnê
parethenon
Acropolis = natural height over city of Athens
Greatest monument = Temple to Athena Parthenos (the Virgin) (c. 440 BCE)
Panathenaea (or Panathenaic Festival), on the birthday of Athena
No one Greek deity responsible for all aspects of fertility
Fertility myth themes
Fertility of the earth connected to sex and reproduction
Goddess loses her companion
Cycle of life, death, renewal of life, etc.
Necessity of sacrifice for renewal
de-meter
Name = ‘Wheat’ mother? (not likely)
Force that makes grain sprout from the seed
Demeter’s daughter is Persephonê (Proserpina)
The homeric hymn to demeter
Persephonê is abducted by Hades
Demeter is caught trying to make Demophoön
Hades offers Persephone the status of being the Queen of the Underworld,
Persephone is joyfully returned to Demeter.
Demeter explains that if Persephone has ‘tasted a morsel’ with Hades, she must return to spend one-third of the year with him.
Demeter accepts that she must share her daughter with Hades, restores growth to the crops.
Demeter then explains her sacred rites to the kings of Eleusis.
These rituals are not to be revealed, but “Blessed is the man who in life has viewed the mysteries’ ritual.”
Interpreting the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
Generally thought to explain agricultural seasons:
8 months Persephone with Demeter = growing season
4 months she is with Hades = dormant season
Yet is winter or summer the dormant season?
Myth of Persephone offers an etiology of the seasonal cycle of life and death.
The fertility of the earth cannot be separated from the presence of death.
Death is necessary to end one cycle, which means that the next cycle of life can begin (spring always comes after winter).
The migration of Persephone is the link between life on the earth and death below it.
An allegory for the coming of age of young girls?
Symbolic of a mother’s loss of any child who dies young?
grieving then acceptance of the inevitability of death
a girl who died unmarried was said to be a ‘bride of hades’
Did Persephone lose her virginity to Hades?
She experiences pleasure and takes seed within her.
Pomegranate: blood red (blood of life?) and seedy (seeds = future offspring?)
The Eleusinian Mysteries
Culmination of the festival was a ceremony in the ‘Hall of Initiation’ (Telesterion)
Initiate = ‘one who has gone in.’
To divulge what happened in the Telesterion was punishable by death
what might of happened
The chief priest, the hierophant, revealed the hiera (the sacred things, whatever they were: grain?)
hierophant = shower of the sacred things
All who could speak Greek and hadn’t committed murder could participate (even women and slaves).
Initiates felt blessed and were thought to be rewarded with an afterlife that was better than the uninitiated.
Offered a better afterlife, but not immortality, worship continued there until 395 CE.
Inanna and Dumuzi
Sumerian myth, much older than the Greek
Inanna = goddess of sex and war (also known as Ishtar and Astarte)
Inanna goes to the underworld to visit her sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld.
She seeks to usurp the throne and realm of Ereshkigal.
She is turned into a side of meat (already green with decay) and hung on a hook (!)
All sexual activity on earth comes to a halt.
The Price of Inanna’s Return
How about that decaying side of meat?
Food of life and water of life sprinkled on meat (Inanna returns to her former shape).
Inanna can go ONLY if she sends someone back down to take her place.
She returns home to find her man, the shepherd Dumuzi, decidedly not mourning but dressed in royal robes and seated on a throne.
‘Take this one!’
Interpreting inanna and dumuzi
Fertility itself (Inanna) dies, but is reborn through a sacrifice of a male (Dumuzi to return once a year)
I.e., the male has to plant the seed, but then is expendable (?)
Other near eastern parallels
Isis (≈ Demeter) and Osiris (Egyptian myth)
Seth and his perfectly measured box: kills Osiris
14 pieces recovered but not phallus: was eaten by fishes
The offspring, Horus, is the next king, hence the myth explains the succession of the pharaohs.
The new ruler (Horus) is the son of the former pharaoh (Osiris).
Isis and osiris
Powell, Isis is the rich river land along the Nile.
Osiris is the river that comes to life once a year and floods (impregnates) the rich river land.
Seth is the evil and lifeless desert.
Fertility myth themes
Fertility of the earth connected to sex and reproduction
Death a part of life’s processes
Goddess loses her companion
Near East: Male
Greece: Daughter (Persephone)
Cycle of life, death, renewal of life
Necessity of sacrifice for renewal
Female is key, man is necessary but expendable
The Many Facets of Dionysus (Bacchus)
Most basic role: God of Wine
Replaced Hestia among the usual list of 12 Olympians
Male fertility god: complements Demeter
Symbols: ivy, phallus, horns of a bull, and thyrsus
Frequently resisted by peoples in myth, whose stories often end in violence.
Originally thought to be a relative newcomer to the Greek pantheon, but his appearance in Linear B changed that.
Dionysus’ Birth and Early Youth
Semelê, Princess of Thebes, gets pregnant by Zeus, who appears to her as a mortal.
Zeus is bound to honor her wish, which incinerates her in the form of a thunderbolt; Hermes saves the fetus.
Zeus sews the fetus into his thigh and gives birth to Dionysus three months later.
Birth and early youth
Dionysus disguised as a girl (feminine attire and women generally are often associated with this male fertility god).
The wanderings of dionysus
Bacchae = “women possessed by Bacchus”
Also called Thyiades = “the frenzied ones”
Also called Maenads = “the raging women”
Bacchantes = “men and/or women of Bacchus”
Other male followers = satyrs
Part human, part horse or goat, and often ithyphallic
Silenus (in plural = Sileni) = another name for a satyr, or the chief satyr, portrayed as plump, ugly, and drunk.
Maenad and the thyrsus
Followers of Dionysus carry the thyrsus, a staff wound with ivy leaves and crowned with a pine-cone
The wanderings of dionysus
Destroys all who oppose his cult.
Marries Ariadnê, discovers her right at the (very dramatic) moment she realizes Theseus has abandoned her (Theseus = Chapters 16-17).
Resistance to the god
Lycurgus (Thrace)
Lycurgus is then killed by his own people to appease the god.
Dionysus and pirates
Dionysus performs miracles on the ship.
Wine fills the hull, and vines grow out of the mast.
Then he exacts vengeance on the captain and crew, but he spares the helmsman.
He turns into a lion and kills the captain.
The other sailors jump ship, are turned into dolphins, sound familiar?
Dionysus journey to the land of the dead
Wants his mother Semelê to come with him, so decides to get her from Hades.
Shown the entrance to the underworld by a shepherd from Argos.
Death and the phallus
Dionysus successfully persuades Hades to give his mother back, but when they return, the shepherd has since died.
One soul in exchange for the other?
Dionysus as fertility god
“he of the trees” (such as the fig and pine).
Pine pitch used in Greek wine (retsina), pine-cone crowns the thyrsus (fertility symbol—evergreen, pointy, and many seeds)
God of blossoms, esp. vine blossoms
Ivy: tenacious, strong, luxuriant, always green
God of the “wet” (cf. Demeter the “dry” grain)
Born twice, resurrected his mother, yet leaves death behind him as much as he fosters life
The cult of dionysus
Different from other cults
Other Olympians somewhat remote and known through their external works
Dionysus’ presence direct and personal
Dionysus = “The god who comes”
Close connection between devotees and the god
The cult of dionysus: some key greek terms
enthousiasmos = enthusiasm (< ἔνθεος)
‘being filled with the god’
ekstasis = ecstasy
‘standing outside oneself’; freedom from normal identity and the boundaries of the self
Lysios = Dionysus the Deliverer
from the ordinary world into divine madness
sparagmos and ômophagia
The vengeance of dionysus
It was once thought that Dionysus was a newcomer to the Greek pantheon from the East. But when Linear B was deciphered, there he was already!
Why, then, so much resistance to his cult in myths?
Greek aversion to violence and irrationality
Dionysus = the unbounded aspect of the human.
That unity with a group, loss of individuality, is both appealing and dangerous.
Dionysus and tragedy Euripides bacchae
Athenian festivals for Dionysus gradually tame and regularize his worship.
Dionysus = popular god, a god of the people.
This perhaps explains why mass entertainment becomes particularly associated with his festivals.
Dionysus and tragedy
Acropolis: The Theater of Dionysus.
Thespis, creator of first tragedy? (goat song), added a prologue and speech to a chorus.
Euripides’ bacchae
Best known story of resistance to Dionysus told by Eurpides in his tragedy, the Bacchae.
His mother’s sisters, Autonoë and Agavê, have been saying that Semelê was lying about having Zeus as a lover and thus he blasted her.
The King of Thebes, the young Pentheus, opposes the cult and thinks all the women are sex crazy
Pentheus is about to march out to capture the women, but
Dionysus ensnares him by appealing to Pentheus’ own desire (lines 810-816).
Pentheus’ own dark desire reveals the hypocrisy of his earlier stance against this new god and his worshippers.
Dionysus helps disguise Pentheus as a woman and leads him out to the country.
Dionysus then invokes his Bacchae to avenge themselves against Pentheus.
His aunts rip his arms off!
His own mother, Agavê, rips off his head!
The play ends as a moral tale: Do not deny the power of the gods, and especially the god of the irrational, for he is also part of our nature.
Dionysus as a dying god
He is conceived and ‘killed’ by Zeus’ appearance (as a thunderbolt) to Semele.
He is saved by Hermes.
Born a second time from Zeus’ thigh.
Descends to Hades to recover his mother.
A Departure and a Return, a Death and a Resurrection.
Christian adaptation of dionysus
On the one hand, he is associated with the devil’s form (along with Pan): goatish qualities and sexual and alcoholic excesses.
But he’s also positive, see p. 287 of your text.
Christus patiens, a Christian tragedy of the death and suffering of Christ compose of lines from the text of Euripides’ Bacchae!
The greek view of death
Greeks mostly believed in a life after death, but it was a bleak vision.
Happiness to be found in actions of life on earth.
Hades = (‘the unseen one’), Lord of the Dead.
Pluto (Dis), the “enricher”; great wealth down there
The soul associated with the breath of life leaves the material body upon death.
Gk. psyche, Lat. anima = breath, soul
greek death
Hermes leads souls to their place of rest (psychopompus); his role as messenger/traveler.
Odysseus visits death’s realm
Book 11 of the Odyssey, our earliest account of Hades, perhaps reflects some actual beliefs.
Odysseus among the dead
The spirits of the dead want to drink the blood, which gives them life enough to talk.
He tries three times to hug her, but she is a mere shadow.
Souls elsewhere in the Odyssey described as bats squeaking and swooping about.
Life of the dead does not involve happiness or punishment and it is generally boring.
A very, very few souls of great heroes get a happier afterlife somewhere at the edge of the earth, called Elysium or the Elysian Fields.
Punishments in hmers hades
The only souls punished are those who have committed crimes against the gods.
Tityus, who tried to rape Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis
Tied down with vulture eating his liver
Tantalus, who tried to trick the gods into eating his son Pelops; Demeter did eat his shoulder.
Stood in water under branches of fruit, both of which would perpetually move away from him (hence our word ‘to tantalize’)
Sisyphus, who tries to escape Death, etc.
Forever pushing a boulder, which would roll down again, up a hill (hence, a Sisyphean task is a futile one, just like his attempt to cheat death.)
Tiresias the unusual prophet
One reason Tiresias was regarded as the greatest of mortal prophets was because he had lived both as a man and as a woman.
Hera is shocked, fears that this knowledge will promote adultery, and so blinds Tiresias.
Zeus is impressed, however, and so awards Tiresias the gift of prophecy and a lifetime lasting seven times that of the average mortal.
Orpheus and Eurydicê
Orpheus the greatest of singers: could hypnotize animals, plants (!), stop water from flowing.
Loses his fiancée Eurydicê at their wedding. She is bit by a snake while fleeing a potential rapist.
Can take Eurydicê back on one condition:
DO NOT LOOK BACK AT HER IN HADES
His doubt and fear increase as he leads her out of Hades: was he tricked?
At the last minute, he looks back and so loses her.
Orphic creation continued
At Hera’s instigation, Dionysus is torn up, boiled, and eaten by the Titans, who catch the baby off guard with toys.
Humans made from ashes of Titans and remains of Dionysus: our nature is therefore flawed but is mixed with elements of the divine.
Orphic rituals
Orphics (if we can even call them a sect), believed in metempsychosis (the transmigration of souls, i.e., reincarnation).
Plato and vergil: teaching about hades
The Underworld becomes a moral place, whereas Achilles (Iliad) was mostly bored.
Plato’s Myth of Er (at the end of the dialogue Republic). Again, we see the idea of metempsychosis. Man named Er has near death experience and describes what he sees happen in the afterlife in Hades.
Vergil’s aeneid
Seeks to be the Roman Homer, writes Aeneid.
The main character, Aeneas (son of Anchises and Aphrodite), wanders like Odysseus and fights like Achilles to found the Roman race.
Whole Underworld episode is thus now moral and political: ‘Do the right thing because that is what will make Rome great.’
Vergil’s underworld
Yet Underworld divided into regions where good and bad (everyday) people are punished.
Tartarus: where the bad suffer (compare, e.g., Christian Hell)
Elysium: where the good live happily (e.g., Anchises, the future great Romans)
Famous elements of Vergil's underworld
Cerberus, the 3-headed dog, guards Hades
Sibyl, his guide, has drugged doggie treats (Cf. Dante).
The Crossing of the river Acheron/Styx
Charon the Ferryman, needs a coin for passage