Encyclopedia
Greek mythology consists in part of a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. These accounts were initially fashioned and disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; our surviving sources of
Greek mythology are literary reworkings of this oral tradition. Greek mythology was also reflected in artifacts, some of them works of art, notably the repertoiry of vase painters. The Greeks themselves referred to the myths and associated artworks to throw light on
cult practices and
ritual traditions that were already ancient and, at times, poorly understood.
The Greek gods
In the wide variety of myths and legends that constitute ancient Greek mythology, the deities that were native to the Greek peoples are described as having essentially human but ideal bodies. Although each god's physical appearance is distinct, they have the power to take on whatever form they choose. The few composite or
chimerical beings that occur, such as the
Sphinx, had their origins in
Anatolia or the Near East and were imported into the Greek culture.
Regardless of their underlying forms, the Greek gods have many fantastic abilities: they can disguise themselves or make themselves invisible to humans, they can instantly transport themselves to any location, and are able to act through the words and deeds of humans, often without the knowledge of the human through whom the gods act. Most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease, can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances, and are immortal. Even though each of the gods was born, most of them growing from infancy to adulthood, once they reach their physical peak of maturity they do not age beyond that point.
Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods were called upon in poetry, prayer or cult, they are referred to by a combination of their name and epithets, that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves. A Greek deity's epithet may reflect a particular aspect of that god's role, as
Apollo Musagetes is "
Apollo, [as] leader of the
Muses." Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece.
In such mythic narratives, we are told that the gods are all part of a huge family, spanning multiple generations. The oldest of the gods were responsible for the creation of the world, but younger gods usurped their power. In many familiar epic poems set in the "age of heroes," the twelve Olympians are said to have appeared in person. In order to help out the Greeks' primitive ancestors, the gods performed miracles, instructed them in various areas of practical knowledge, taught them proper methods of worship, rewarded good behavior and chastised immorality, and even had children with them.
Nature and sources of Greek mythology
The general issues in studying myths are discussed in the mythography article. While all cultures throughout the world have their own myths, the term
mythology is a Greek coinage and had a specialized meaning within Greek culture.
The Greek term
mythologia is a compound of two smaller words:
- mythos — which in Homeric Greek means roughly "a ritualized speech act", as of a chieftain at an assembly, or of a poet or priest.
- logos — which in classical Greek stands for "a convincing story, an ordered argument".
In the original sense, therefore, a
mythology is an attempt to bring sense to the stylized narratives that the Greeks recited at festivals, whispered at shrines, and bandied about at aristocratic banquets. Since few breeds of men are more prone to squabbling than poets, priests and aristocrats, contradictions in the material are rife. Moreover, they are part of the fun.
Several types of primary source are available for the study of Greek mythology.
- The poetry of the Archaic and Classical eras — composed primarily for performance at cultic festivals or aristocratic banquets, and thus part of muthos in the Homeric sense. This includes:
...
,
Sophocles,
Euripides and
Aristophanes- the choral hymns of Pindar and Bacchylides.
- The work of historians, like Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, and geographers, like Pausanias and Strabo, who made travels around the Greek world and noted down the stories they heard at various cities.
- The work of mythographers, who wrote prose treatises based on learned research attempting to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets. The Bibliotheke by Apollodorus of Athens is the largest extant example of this genre.
- The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages, which although composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise, nevertheless contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of:
- The Hellenistic poets Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus and Antoninus Liberalis.
- The Roman poets Hyginus, Ovid, Statius, Valerius Flaccus and Virgil.
- The Late Antique Greek poets Nonnus and Quintus Smyrnaeus.
- The ancient novels of Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus and Heliodorus.
In order to better understand the meanings of the ancient texts, historians have looked to
iconic visual imagery provided by sculptures and painted objects, such as vases and bowls.
A survey of mythic history
While self-contradictions in the stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. There was first an
age of gods, then an
age when men and gods mingled freely, followed by an
age of heroes, where divine activity was more limited.
While the age of gods has often been of more interest to contemporary students of myth, the Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for the age of heroes. For example, the heroic
Iliad is, together with the
Odyssey [i], one of two ancient Greek [i] epic [i]...
and
Odyssey is one of the two major ancient Greek [i] epic poem [i] ...
dwarfed the divine-focused
Theogony and
Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity.
The age of gods
Like their neighbours, the Greeks believed in a of gods and
goddesses who were associated with specific aspects of life. For example,
Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, while
Ares was the god of war and
Hades the god of the dead. Some deities, such as
Apollo and
Dionysus, revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as
Hestia and
Helios , were little more than personifications. There were also site-specific deities: river gods, nymphs of springs, caves, and forests. Local heroes and heroines were often venerated at their tombs by people from the surrounding area.
Many beings described in Greek myths could be considered "gods" or "heroes." Some were recognized only in folklore or were worshipped only at particular locales, or during specific festivals . The most impressive
temples tended to be dedicated to a limited number of gods: the
twelve Olympians,
Heracles,
Asclepius and occasionally
Helios. These gods were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and villages to devote their own cults to
nymphs, minor gods, or local heroes. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere.
The first gods
One type of narrative about the age of gods tells the story of the birth and conflicts of the first divinities:
Chaos,
Nyx , Eros ,
Uranus , Gaia , the Titans and the triumph of
Zeus and the
Olympians.
Hesiod's
Theogony is an example of this type. It was also the subject of many lost poems, including ones attributed to
Orpheus, Musaeus,
Epimenides, Abaris and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites. A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed
papyrus scraps.
The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the
theogony, or song about the birth of the gods, to be the prototypical poetic genre—the prototypical
muthos—and imputed almost magical powers to it.
Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius'
Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to
Hades. When
Hermes invents the
lyre in the
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing the birth of the gods.
Hesiod's
Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the
Muses.
The Olympian gods
After the overthrow of the elder gods by the Olympians, another set of myths tells the story of the birth, struggles and exploits, and eventual ascent into Olympus of one of the younger generation of gods:
Apollo,
Hermes,
Athena, etc. The Homeric Hymns are the oldest source of this kind of story. They are often closely associated with cult-centers of the god in question: the
Homeric Hymn to Apollo is a compound of two earlier narratives: one telling of his birth at
Delos, the other of his establishment of the oracle at
Delphi. Similarly, the
Homeric Hymn to Demeter, with its tale of the abduction of
Persephone by
Hades, narrates the back-story of the
Eleusinian Mysteries.
The age of gods and men
Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and men moved freely together.
The most popular type of narrative that confronts gods with early men involves the seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as in the
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess lies with Anchises to produce
Aeneas. The marriage of
Peleus and
Thetis, which yielded
Achilles, is another such myth.
Another type involves the appropriation or invention of some important cultural artifact, as when
Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his own subjects - revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when
Prometheus or Lycaon invents sacrifice, when
Demeter teaches
agriculture and the
Mysteries to
Triptolemus, or when
Marsyas invents the
aulos and enters into a musical contest with
Apollo.
Myths centered around households and lineages were particularly popular, and grouped by historians under the name of the key ancestor, such as Atreus, whose household passed a curse that touched the Trojan war.
Yet another type belongs to
Dionysus: the god wanders through Greece from foreign lands to spread his cult. He is confronted by a king, Lycurgus or
Pentheus, who opposes him, and whom he punishes terribly in return. A similar theme echoes in a myth about
Demeter: The maternal goddess in search of her kidnapped daughter stops in a kingdom and out of love tries to make the royal family's son immortal by dipping him into a magical fire. When the matron finds her son being held in a fire by his nurse, the woman turns on the disguised Demeter, causing Demeter to throw him down on the floor. Before the enraged mother, Demeter strips her
mortal guise and punishes the woman for her faithlessness.
The age of heroes
The age of heroes can be broken down around the monumental events of
Heracles as the dawn of the age of heroes, the
Argonautic expedition and the
Trojan War. The Trojan War marks roughly the end of the Heroic Age.
Heracles
Among heroes,
Heracles is in a class by himself. His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk tale themes, provided much material for popular legend. His enormous appetite and rustic character also made him a popular figure of comedy, while his pitiful end provided much material for tragedy.
The descendants of Heracles, known as the Heracleidae, were the mythical ancestors of the Dorian Greek kings.
Other early heroes
Other members of this is the earliest generation of heroes, such as
Perseus,
Deucalion,
Theseus and
Bellerophon, have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border on
fairy tale, as they slay monsters such as the
Chimera and
Medusa. This generation was not as popular a subject for poets; we know of them mostly through mythographers and passing remarks in prose writers. They were, however, favorite subjects of visual
art.
The Argonauts
Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with
Jason on the expedition to fetch the
Golden Fleece. This generation also included
Theseus, who went to
Crete to slay the
Minotaur;
Atalanta, the female heroine; and
Meleager, who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the
Iliad and
Odyssey.
In between the Argo and the
Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of
Atreus and Thyestes at
Argos; also those of
Laius and
Oedipus at
Thebes, leading to the eventual pillage of that city at the hands of the
Seven Against Thebes and Epigoni. For obvious reasons, this generation was extremely popular among the Athenian tragedians.
The Trojan War and its aftermath
The
Trojan War, including its causes and consequences, was the turning point between the heroic age and what the ancient Greeks considered to be their historical era. Vastly more attention was paid to this struggle than to all the many other contemporaneous events combined. The lasting popularity of the tales related to the Trojan War have kept them in circulation for millennia. The Trojan cycle includes:
- The events leading up to the war: Eris and the golden apple of Kallisti, the Judgement of Paris
...
, the abduction of
Helen, the sacrifice of
Iphigenia at Aulis.
Theories of origin
In antiquity, historians such as
Herodotus theorized that the Greek gods had been stolen directly from the
Egyptians. Later on, Christian writers tried to explain Hellenic paganism through degeneration of
Biblical religion. Since then, the sciences of archaeology and linguistics have been applied to the origins of Greek mythology with some interesting results.
Historical linguistics indicates that particular aspects of the Greek pantheon were inherited from Indo-European society , as were the roots of the Greek language. Thus, for example, the name
Zeus is cognate with Latin
Jupiter,
Sanskrit Dyaus and Germanic
Tyr , as is
Ouranos with Sanskrit Varuna. In other cases, close parallels in character and function suggest a common heritage, yet lack of linguistic evidence makes it difficult to prove, as in the case of the Greek
Moirae and the
Norns of
Norse mythology.
Archaeology and mythography, on the other hand, has revealed that the Greeks were inspired by some of the civilizations of Asia Minor and the Near East.
Cybele is rooted in
Anatolian culture, and much of
Aphrodite's
iconography springs from the Semitic goddesses
Ishtar and
Astarte.
Textual studies reveal multiple layers in tales, such as secondary asides bringing
Theseus into tales of
The Twelve Labours of
Herakles. Such tales concerning tribal eponyms are thought to originate in attempts to absorb mythology of one tradition into another, in order to unite the cultures.
In addition to Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated on the debts of Greek mythology to the still poorly understood pre-Hellenic societies of Greece, such as the
Minoans and so-called Pelasgians. This is especially true in the case of chthonic deities and mother goddesses. For some, the three main generations of gods in
Hesiod's Theogony suggest a distant echo of a struggle between social groups, mirroring the three major high cultures of Greek civilization:
Minoan, Mycenaean and
Hellenic.
The extensive parallels between Hesiod's narrative and the Hurrian myth of Anu, Kumarbi, and Teshub makes it very likely that the story is an adaptation of borrowed materials, rather than a distorted historical record. Parallels between the earliest divine generations and Tiamat in the
Enuma Elish are possible .
Jungian scholars such as
Karl Kerenyi have preferred to view the origin of myths in universal archetypes. Though not all readers are confident of interpretations of myth in terms of
Carl Jung's psychology of dreams , most agree that myths are dreamlike in two aspects: they are not consistent, perhaps not wholly consistent even within a single myth-element, and they often reflect some epiphany which then must be assembled into a narrative thread, much as dreams are recreated as sequential happenings.
The origins of Greek mythology remain a fascinating and open question.
The Greeks' relationship to the myths
"Our own myths we call reality" is one of the axioms with which Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples commence
The World of Classical Myth; to the Greeks, mythology was a part of their history; few ever doubted that there was truth behind the account of the
Trojan War in the
Iliad is, together with the
Odyssey [i], one of two ancient Greek [i] epic [i]...
and
Odyssey is one of the two major ancient Greek [i] epic poem [i] ...
. The Greeks used myth to explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities and friendships. It was a source of pride to be able to trace one's leaders' descent from a mythological hero or a god.
Evolution of the myths
At the same time, the Greeks' construction of the gods changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their own culture. For example, while myths about love relationships between male gods and male heroes do not appear before the middle of the Archaic period, starting around the last third of the seventh century such stories become more and more frequent. All the gods with the exception of
Ares eventually acquire pederastic beloveds, and so do many of the heroes, such as
Heracles. Previously existing myths of love between men, such as that of
Achilles and
Patroclus, are now cast in a pederastic light, giving rise to significant confusion over whom to make the erastes and whom the
eromenos. These developments were meant to legitimate the parallel development of
pedagogic pederasty, thought to have been introduced around 630 BCE.
Sophisticated Greeks experienced a cultural crisis in the 5th century BC, when increased literacy and the development of logic forced a more comparative skeptical turn of mind, a crisis of which
Socrates was the most famous victim.
On the other hand, a few radical philosophers like Xenophanes were already beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the 6th century BC; this line of thought found its most sweeping expression in
Plato's
Republic and
Laws. More sportingly, the 5th century BC tragedian
Euripides often played with the old traditions, mocking them, and through the voice of his characters injecting notes of doubt. In other cases Euripides seems to be directing pointed criticism at the behavior of his gods.
Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often adapted stories of characters in Greek myth in ways that did not reflect earlier actual beliefs. Many of the most popular versions of these myths that we have today were actually from these fictional retellings, which may blur the archaic beliefs.
Hellenistic rationalism
The skeptical turn of the Classical age became even more pronounced in the
Hellenistic era. Most daringly, the mythographer Euhemerus claimed that stories about the gods were only confused memories of the cruelty of ancient kings. Although Euhemerus's works are lost, interpretations in his style are frequently found in Diodorus Siculus.
Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the
Roman Empire, thanks to the physicalist theories of
Stoic and Epicurean philosophy, as well as the pragmatic bent of the Roman mind. The antiquarian Varro, summarizing centuries' worth of philosophic tradition, distinguished three kinds of gods:
- The gods of nature: personifications of phenomena like rain and fire.
- The gods of the poets: invented by unscrupulous bards to stir the passions.
- The gods of the city: invented by wise legislators to soothe and enlighten the populace.
Cicero's
De Natura Deorum is the most comprehensive summary of this line of thought.
Syncretizing trends
One unexpected side-effect of the rationalist view was a popular trend to syncretize multiple Greek and foreign gods in strange, nearly unrecognizable new cults. If
Apollo and
Serapis and Sabazios and
Dionysus and
Mithras were all really
Helios, why not combine them all together into one
Sol Invictus, with conglomerated rites and compound attributes? The surviving 2nd century collection of
Orphic Hymns and
Macrobius's
Saturnalia are products of this mind-set.
Apollo might be increasingly identified in religion with Helios or even Dionysus, texts retelling his myths seldom reflected such developments. The traditional literary mythology was increasingly dissociated from actual religious practice.
Modern interpretations
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology lies in a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity mixed with disdain, which had prevailed for centuries", in which the Christian reinterpretation of
myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained. In Germany, a generation of
Romantic artists and poets idealized the myths created, they were convinced, by a specially-gifted nation in a time of pristine cultural nobility, unsullied as yet by Rome. This literary aspect of the
Greek Revival was an expression of the Philhellenism of the Romantic generation. On the other hand, British classicists continued to see the Greek myths as examples demonstrating how far the modern mind had progressed from its childhood simplicity and superstition. The genteel Christian tradition of Thomas Bulfinch, narrated a synthesized view of myths entirely drawn from literary sources.
In 1856 the Anglo-German
Max Müller invented comparative mythology, applying the new science of philology to the study of myth, in which he detected the distorted remains of
Aryan nature worship. A hint at the conclusion of
Darwin's
The Origin of Species by English [i] naturalist [i] ...
suggested that evolutionary principles might be applied to the study of mankind.
Edward Burnett Tylor's
Primitive Culture surveyed the field of a universally similar "primitive" religion, a form of failed science. Tyler's procedure of drawing together material culture, ritual and myth of widely separated cultures was followed by
Carl Jung and later, by
Joseph Campbell, to offer archetypes of mythic themes.
William Robertson Smith's
The Religion of the Semites provided the earliest attempt to study Semitic religion from the point-of-view of comparative religion and anthropology. Smith's assertion that "in almost every case the myth was derived from the ritual and not the ritual from the myth" informed the works of
James George Frazer and of
Jane Ellen Harrison and the Cambridge Ritualists. J.F. del Giorgio has added a new turn to that approach, insisting in
The Oldest Europeans about Greek myths being generated by the clash between a Paleolithic European population and the incoming Indo-European tribes.
Other mythographers in approximate chronological order:
Notes
Select bibliography
Standard secondary sources in English include:
- Burkert, Walter Greek Religion, Harvard University Press, 1985.
- Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths 1955.
- Hamilton, Edith, . 1942.
- Kerenyi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks 1951.
- Kerenyi, Karl, The Heroes of the Greeks 1959.
- Lenardon, R. and M. Morford, Classical Mythology: Seventh Edition, Oxford 2002.
- Rose, H.J., Handbook of Greek Mythology, 1928.
- Carl Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, 1994.
- Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870,
- Smith, William, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities is an English-language encyclopedia [i] first published ...
, 1870,
Influential, more specialized studies include:
