Athena, Hermes, Hephaestus, Ares & Dionysus – Greek Mythology Lecture Notes

Artemis – Very Brief Recap

• Lecturer opens by reminding class of Artemis’ extreme dualities:

  • Goddess of virginity and childbirth/fertility.

  • Protector of animals and goddess of the hunt ("kills what she loves").

  • Worshiped in cities yet chooses to dwell in the wild.

• Symbolises, in the ancient Greek male gaze, the idea that femininity is closer to nature, untamed, and therefore ‘needing’ male order.

• Will be revisited during the lecture’s final synthesis.

Athena

Core Identity & Domains

• Protectress of cities (Polis), especially Athens; temples also in Sparta.

• Goddess of civilization, strategy, reason, war-cunning (contrast with Ares’ blind bloodlust).

• Patron of arts, handicraft (especially spinning/weaving), carpentry, ship-building, leather-working, wainwrights.

• Guard of sailors; seen throughout the Odyssey accompanying and advising Odysseus & Telemachus (disguised as Mentor).

Cult Centres & Architecture

• Acropolis:

  • Parthenon ≠ main temple; the Erechtheion is the true cult focus (Panathenaic robe ceremony takes place here).

  • Lecture shows photos of Erechtheion and a full-scale replica Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee.

Athena vs. Poseidon – A Structured Antithesis

• Explains why Athens honours Athena over Poseidon (naming contest myth, few temples to Poseidon in urban centres).

Patron of Democracy & Civic Order

• In Eumenides (third play of Aeschylus’ Oresteia):

  • Establishes first homicide court, urges balance between $\text{anarchy}$ and $\text{tyranny}$.

  • Calls Athenians “my people”.

  • Self-identifies with male side (“no mother bore me”; scholars sometimes debate gender identity).

• Zeus & Athena both paradoxically serve as patrons of democracy even while being monarchic deities.

Creation of Humankind (Minor Tradition)

• Marginal scholion on Apollonius Rhodius: Prometheus moulds humans from earth & water; Athena breathes life (supported by vase imagery).

Gender & Asexuality

• Virgin goddess, no husband, virtually no children.

• Sides with males in the Eumenides, acquits Orestes (matricide) because “no mother gave me birth.”

Hermes

Etymology & Social Class

• Name from Greek ἐρμός “stone/ cairn”, linked to roadside milestones – humble, non-luxurious material → god of the non-aristocracy.

• Domains: travellers, merchants, heralds, messengers, thieves, athletes, boundaries, escort of souls (psychopompos).

• Winged sandals & cap = mobility; caduceus = herald’s staff (inviolability).

Herms – “Democratisation of Art”

• Square pillar with head & phallus placed at doorways/roadsides for protection & luck.

• Cheap to mass-produce → affordable household icon for common voters vs. expensive marble statues of Athena/Apollo.

Mythic Personality: Trickster & Liar (Elite Bias)

• Hymn to Hermes:

  • Newborn steals $50$ of Apollo’s cattle.

  • Walks cattle (and himself) backwards to confuse tracks.

  • When accused, feigns innocence (“I’m only a one-day-old baby!”).

  • Slaughters a tortoise, invents the $7$-string lyre (tortoise shell + sheep-gut strings) – rustic counterpart to Apollo’s elegant kithara.

• Elite authors paint him negatively (stealing from “better” gods) because he represents trades the aristocracy disdained (commerce, itinerancy).

Athletic & Funerary Roles

• Pausanias records altar to Hermes Agonios at Olympia (god of the Games & travellers).

• Escorts newly dead to Hades; hence a chthonic aspect.

Hephaestus

Origins & Physical Traits

• Possibly born as a volcano god (cult on Lemnos; sacred volcano Mosychlos).

• Ugly & lame; Hera throws him from Olympus → lands on Lemnos (myth rationalises local cult).

• Raised by sea nymphs Thetis & Eurynome.

Artisan Supreme

• Epithet: $\text{Poly\,mêtis}$ “of many crafts”.

• Patron of smiths, metal-workers, all manual artisans (even more so than Athena).

• Massive Temple of Hephaestus dominates Athenian Agora (second only to Athena’s cult buildings) — archaeological proof of mass popularity vs. scant literary praise.

• Annual Hephaistia festival: athletic, musical contests; procession of artisans through the Agora.

Marriage & Ridicule

• Married to Aphrodite (comic mismatch: most beautiful goddess + ugliest god).

• Catches Aphrodite and Ares in unbreakable net; invites Olympians to laugh — only myth where he ‘wins’. Still framed as cuckold.

Ares

Essence

• Represents furious, indiscriminate slaughter; epithets: $\text{Anro\,phonos}$ (“man-slayer”).

• Children with Aphrodite: Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror), Harmonia, Eros (whose arrows can wound like weapons).

Literary Presence

• Few myths; main scene = caught with Aphrodite.

• In Iliad (sides with Trojans): wounded by Diomedes & Athena, screams louder than $10\,000$ warriors.

Cult & Space

• Virtually no Greek temples; feared rather than worshiped.

• Altars placed outside city walls; embodies inversion of civic order.

• Romans later build temples to Mars; Greek originals absent.

Dionysus (Bacchus)

Dual Nature & Attributes

• God of wine, vine, grape cultivation, ecstatic frenzy, theater, and both agricultural & male fertility.

• Rides animal-drawn chariot (parallels Artemis & Cybele).

• Symbolic liquids: wine, water, sap, semen.

• Followers:

  • Bacchants/Bacchoi (general)

  • Female devotees = Maenads or $\text{Bacchai}$ (“raving ones”).

Birth & Early Persecution

• Mother: Semelê (Theban princess). Hera tricks Semelê into demanding Zeus’ full lightning theophany → Semelê incinerated at $6$ months’ pregnancy.

• Zeus sews foetus into his thigh; Dionysus = “twice-born” (Διὸς + νυσαῖος?).

• Raised disguised as a girl; Hera drives him mad → world-wandering, spreading viticulture.

Return to Thebes – Euripides’ Bacchae

• King Pentheus (name ≈ “man of sorrow”) bans new cult.

• Dionysus captivates Theban women; Pentheus spies, is possessed maenadically, dismembered (sparagmos) by his mother Agave & relatives.

• First extant Greek tragedy where gruesome action occurs on stage.

Historical Bacchanalia & Roman Crack-Down

• Post–Second Punic War (~$186$ BC) young Romans adopt secret nocturnal Bacchic rites.

• Senate issues Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus (tablet in Naples) severely restricting gatherings.

Parallels with Jesus (esp. Gospel of John)

*(Scholarly consensus: gospel author(s) probably knew the *Bacchae; analogy does not negate faith.)

Cultural Function

• Embodies liberation from rigid reason & social conformity.

• Patron of theatre: Great Dionysia festival (open to all male citizens, rich & poor).

• Complements Apollo: ordered reason vs. ecstatic creativity — Greek culture thrives on dynamic tension between the two.

Synthesis: Second-Generation Olympians & Classical Athens

• Shift from primal nature gods (1st gen) → more complex, human-centric deities reflecting $5^{th}$-century $\text{BC}$ Athenian society:

  • Rise of democracy → Athena, Hephaestus, Hermes = gods of the people.

  • Loss of aristocratic monopoly → elites champion Apollo, symposium culture.

  • Growth in leisure, arts, philosophy → patronage by Athena (reason), Dionysus (artistic emotion), Hephaestus (craft).

• Tension between order/moderation (Apollo, Athena) and passion/excess (Dionysus, Ares) drives mythic narratives & mirrors real social debates.

• Lecture’s closing message (via Bacchae): a balanced polis must embrace both logic and emotion; suppressing Dionysian elements invites catastrophe.

Numerical & Miscellaneous References

• Continuous Athenian Athena worship attested since $\text{mid–2}^{\text{nd}}$ millennium $\text{BC}$.

• Hermes steals $50$ of Apollo’s cattle.

• Ares’ scream equals $10\,000$ warriors.

• Linear-B tablets (c. $13^{th}$ century BC) already mention Dionysus.

• Roman edict on Bacchanalia issued $186$ BC.

Key Terms & Names (Quick Lookup)

• Erechtheion – main Athenian Athena temple, Panathenaic robe.

• Herms – boundary/door-post pillars with Hermes’ head & phallus.

• Hephaistia – annual artisan festival in Agora.

• Sparagmos – ritual/violent dismemberment (Pentheus).

• Psychopompos – soul-guide (Hermes).

• Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus – Roman anti-Bacchic law.

• Polymêtis – “of many crafts” (Hephaestus epithet).

(End of study notes)