Classics 102 Lecture 1
What is Greco-Roman Mythology?
Intro
- Today's lecture is mostly about establishing parameters for the course, explaining what is and is not the object of study
- Also want to talk about a few basic cultural-background things
Geography and Chronology
- We're talking here about how mythology operated during a particular cultural unity that we can call "Greco-Roman antiquity," this periodization used in other fields too:
○ From about 1000 BCE to about 500 CE, although almost everything we'll be looking at comes from about 750 CE (Homer) to 200 CE (Lucian)
○ Geographically we're talking about Greece expanding later in the course into the whole Mediterranean world
§ Greek mythology started off in Greece. A small world, the base of the Aegean Sea- Athens (archaic world)
§ Hellenistic world 250 BCE- Greek world and Greek culture expands with more areas. Which then adds and changes cultures and stories
§ Roman Empire early 2c CE- the use of Greek myths in Roman stories.
○ Dividing line between "Greek" and "Roman" can be fuzzy
- Several unifying factors to this period, prevalence of Greek myth is an important one but not only one, also several key points of development:
○ Greek language and religious and cultural institutions, form of Greek civil life. These are things that are mostly the same throughout this entire time period
§ From localized Greek to Hellenistic to Roman, broadening at every step as aspects of Greek culture are adopted by others
§ From lesser to greater sophistication, from a subsistence-agricultural society to one with large urban elite (though also lots of subsistence agriculture)
□ From everyone helping out and doing their part because to them its still a small world. By the time the Roman Empire comes around, everything changes because the Roman Empire is so sophisticated
® The Roman Empire is the biggest city right now. Class system, trade all over the Mediterranean, the movement and creation of goods and products
§ From oral poetry to written literature (prose and poetry) that is part of a very self-conscious tradition referring back to the earlier stuff
□ He was creating poems as apart of oral traditions
□ All the authors from early years have read the old works of the older authors. They build on them and make them their own. New versions
What Is Myth in General and What Are Greek Myths?
- Myth is explored by many different types of cultures and people
- Functional definition of a set of traditional, collectively important stories about the imagined distant past, typically involving gods or exceptional human beings:
○ Traditional means that it's existed in a given culture as long as anyone can remember and isn't attached to any one author (legends, folktales)
§ Integrated part of their culture
§ No one made it up. These things happened. Trojan war for example
○ "Stories" is strangely difficult concept, myths are outlines that are turned into real narratives through cultural forms (art, literature, performance)
§ Complex
§ The telling of myths does not make the whole story a myth. It’s the underlying myth that is then expanded and added to a real life story.
○ Collective importance means that they are widely known within the culture, and are used to talk about a wide range of topics, explain phenomena
§ Myths are stories that are about more than their explicit context. Used to create connections between one another. It brought people together. Using the references of mythology to describe someone because everyone knows the stories.
§ Being called Hercules
□ big and strong
□ Heavy course load because he had to complete his things before he could become a god
- Greco-Roman myth is a set of such stories that were current in the Greek world from before 1000 BCE and in the rest of the Mediterranean world in later periods:
○ Exact origins don't concern us too much here; as in any culture, there are influences from a lot of different places (Indo-European, Near East)
§ Into-European is like Central Europe and in Asia where stories about myths are similar
○ People often think of myths as possible stories or explanations and can interact with lots of them from different cultures without "believing in" one exclusively
§ Roman Empire esp. is a multi-cultural, multi-layered environment
§ There is nothing that prevents someone from believing in other gods, Egyptian gods-Roman gods-Greek gods- Norse- keltic
- These myths concern a relatively small set of gods and a very extensive set of human heroic figures
○ Greek had few gods. 12 plus a few extra
○ Greek mythology is more or less human based. Making it less creative and doesn’t have the crazy creativity with rocks speaking or magical things. Not a lot of play with the natural world. The gods go through realistic human issues, making them seem more like them.
○ Greek myth less notable for complexity of divine myth or for variety of wild folktale elements, but heroic myth is uniquely rich and prevalent
○ Aren't nearly as concerned as some myth systems with upholding a given moral code or ideology
§ This influences who is considered good and who is considered bad.
- Greek myth very early on gets adopted and assimilated by cultures all over Italy, serves similar role in Roman art and literature to Greek
○ Continues on into modern culture as part of heritage from GR world
Ways of Studying Mythology
- Since pretty much all cultures seem to have some set of stories that function in the way I've described, people are anxious to find commonalities across these cultural lines:
○ This is more something anthropologists and psychologists are into than classical-studies types like me
○ Important to realize myth systems are interestingly different as well as interestingly similar, not just variants on same template
§ Fertility, moon sun gods, etc
§ Some cultures have extensive myth about certain topics in their cultures
- There are lots of different ways that myths can be used to understand the way human cultures work, though none of them really covers all mythology too well (no one "real meaning"):
○ Evidence of worldview, how people explain natural phenomena and so forth
○ How cultures explain their own specific practices and institutions
§ How do cities get founded
○ Religious dimension, how cultures interact with the divine
§ Sacrifices, sacred places for the gods
○ Expression of psychological fundamentals (Freud etc.)
○ How cultures negotiate key cultural structures of opposition (Levi-Strauss etc.)
§ Tend to do it like men and women. Human and non human. Living and death. Creation and ruin and chaos
○ Figurative readings and creative appropriation (often in modern literature)
§ The same myth can go any direction in how people choose to interpret them
Myth of Alcyone and Ceyx as told by Ovid (p. 262-271) is one of my favorites:
- Husband Ceyx leaves loving wife to attend to feud business, killed in shipwreck, lots about separation and longing for reunion
- Nice detail that she's related to Aeolus, king of the winds, prays to gods uselessly until they finally give in
- Lovely final scene with bird metamorphosis
- Part of larger saga, characterization of gods, explanation of natural phenomenon just incidentally
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