Greek Mythology
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Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends
belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning
their gods and heroes, the nature of the world
and the origins and significance of their
own cult and ritual practices. They were a
part of religion in ancient Greece. Modern
scholars refer to the myths and study them
in an attempt to throw light on the religious
and political institutions of Ancient Greece
and on the Ancient Greek civilization, and
to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making
itself.
Greek mythology is embodied explicitly in
a large collection of narratives and implicitly
in representational arts, such as vase-paintings
and votive gifts. Greek myth explains the
origins of the world and details the lives
and adventures of a wide variety of gods,
goddesses, heroes, heroines, and other mythological
creatures. These accounts were initially disseminated
in anoral-poetic tradition; the Greek myths
are known today primarily from Greek literature.
The oldest known Greek literary sources, the
epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on events
surrounding the Trojan War. Two poems by Homer's
near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and
the Works and Days, contain accounts of the
genesis of the world, the succession of divine
rulers, the succession of human ages, the
origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial
practices. Myths are also preserved in the
Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems
of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the
works of the tragedians of the 5th century
BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the
Hellenistic Age and in texts from the time
of theRoman Empire by writers such as Plutarch
and Pausanias. Archaeological evidence is
a principal source of detail about Greek mythology,
with gods and heroes featuring prominently
in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric
designs on pottery of the 8th century BCE
depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well
as the adventures of Heracles. In the succeedingArchaic,
Classical and Hellenistic periods, Homeric
and various other mythological scenes appear,
supplementing the existing literary evidence.
Greek mythology has had extensive influence
on the culture, the arts and the literature
of Western civilization and remains part of
Western heritage and language. Poets and artists
from ancient times to the present have derived
inspiration from Greek mythology and have
discovered contemporary significance and relevance
in classical mythological themes.
Contents
• 1 Sources of Greek mythology
o 1.1 Literary sources
o 1.2 Archaeological sources
• 2 Survey of mythic history
o 2.1 Age of gods
 2.1.1 Cosmogony and cosmology
 2.1.2 Greek gods
o 2.2 Age of gods and mortals
o 2.3 Heroic age
 2.3.1 Heracles and the Heracleidae
 2.3.2 Argonauts
 2.3.3 House of Atreus and Theban Cycle
 2.3.4 Trojan War and aftermath
• 3 Greek and Roman conceptions of myth
o 3.1 Philosophy and myth
o 3.2 Hellenistic and Roman rationalism
o 3.3 Syncretizing trends
• 4 Modern interpretations
o 4.1 Comparative and psychoanalytic approaches
o 4.2 Origin theories
• 5 Motifs in Western art and literature
• 6 Notes
• 7 References
o 7.1 Primary sources (Greek and Roman)
o 7.2 Secondary sources
• 8 Further reading
• 9 External links
Sources of Greek mythology
Prometheus (1868 by Gustave Moreau). The myth
of Prometheus was first attested by Hesiodus
and then constituted the basis for a tragic
trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting
of Prometheus Bound,Prometheus Unbound and
Prometheus Pyrphoros
The Roman poet Virgil, here depicted in the
5th century manuscript the Vergilius Romanus,
preserving the details of Greek mythology
in many of his writings.
Achilles killing a Trojan prisoner in front
of Charon on a red-figure Etruscancalyx-krater,
made towards the end of the 4th century-beginning
of the 3rd century BC.
Greek mythology is known today primarily from
Greek literature and representations on visual
media dating from theGeometric period (c.
900-800 BC) onward.
Literary sources
Mythical narration plays an important role
in nearly every genre of Greek literature.
Nevertheless, the only general mythographical
handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was
the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which attempts
to reconcile the contradictory tales of the
poets and provides a grand summary of traditional
Greek mythology and heroic legends.
Among the literary sources first in age are
Homer's two epic poems, the Iliad and the
Odyssey. Other poets completed the "epic cycle",
but these later and lesser poems are now almost
entirely lost. Despite their traditional name,
the Homeric Hymns have no connection with
Homer. They are choral hymns from the earlier
part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiod, a
possible contemporary with Homer, offers in
Theogony (Origin of the Gods) the fullest
account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing
with the creation of the world; the origin
of the gods, Titans and Giants; elaborate
genealogies and folktales and etiological
myths. Hesiod's Works and Days, a didactic
poem about farming life, also includes the
myths of Prometheus,Pandora and the Four Ages.
The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed
in a dangerous world rendered yet more dangerous
by its gods.
Lyrical poets sometimes take their subjects
from myth, but the treatment becomes gradually
less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric
poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides, Simonides,
and bucolic poets, such as Theocritus and
Bion, provide individual mythological incidents.
Additionally, myth was central to classical
Athenian drama. The tragic playwrightsAeschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides took their plots from
the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many
of the great tragic stories (e.g. Agamemnon
and his children, Oedipus, Jason, Medea, etc.)
took on their classic form in these tragic
plays. For his part, the comic playwright
Aristophanes used myths, as in The Birds or
The Frogs.
Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus,
and geographers Pausanias and Strabo, who
traveled around the Greek world and noted
the stories they heard, supplied numerous
local myths, often giving little-known alternative
versions. Herodotus in particular, searched
the various traditions presented him and found
the historical or mythological roots in the
confrontation between Greece and the East.
The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages,
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:
1. The Roman poets Ovid, Statius, Valerius
Flaccus, Seneca and Virgil with Servius's
commentary.
2. The Greek poets of the Late Antique period:
Nonnus, Antoninus Liberalis and Quintus Smyrnaeus.
3. The Greek poets of the Hellenistic period:
Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Pseudo-Eratosthenes
and Parthenius.
4. The ancient novels of Greeks and Romans
such as Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus and
Heliodorus.
The Fabulae and Astronomica of the Roman writer
styled Pseudo-Hyginus are two important, non-poetical
compendiums of myth. The Imagines of Philostratus
the Elder and Younger and the Descriptions
of Callistratus, are two other useful sources.
Finally, the Christian apologist Arnobius,
quoting cult practices in order to disparage
them, and a number of Byzantine Greek writers
provide important details of myth, some of
it sourced from lost Greek works. These preservers
of myth includeHesychius' lexicon, the Suda,
and the treatises of John Tzetzes and Eustathius.
The Christian moralizing view of Greek myth
is encapsulated in the saying ἐν παντὶ
μύθῳ καὶ τὸ Δαιδάλου μύσος
/ en panti muthōi kai to Daidalou musos ("In
every myth there is also the defilement of
Daidalos"), on which subject the encyclopedic
Sudas reported of the role of Daedalus in
satisfying the "unnatural lust" of Pasiphaë
for the bull of Poseidon: "Since the origin
and blame for these evils were attributed
to Daidalos and he was loathed for them, he
became the subject of the proverb."
Archaeological sources
The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization
by German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann
in the 19th century, and the discovery of
the Minoan civilization in Crete by British
archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in the 20th
century, helped to explain many of the questions
about Homer's epics and provided archaeological
evidence for many of the mythological details
about gods and heroes. Unfortunately, the
evidence about myth and ritual at Mycenaean
and Minoan sites is entirely monumental, as
the Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek
found in both Crete and Greece) was mainly
used to record inventories, though the names
of gods and heroes have been doubtfully revealed.
Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century
BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as
well as the adventures of Heracles. These
visual representations of myths are important
for two reasons. For one, many Greek myths
are attested on vases earlier than in literary
sources: Of the twelve labors of Heracles,
for example, only the Cerberus adventure occurs
for the first time in a literary text. In
addition, visual sources sometimes represent
myths or mythical scenes that are not attested
in any extant literary source. In some cases,
the first known representation of a myth in
geometric art predates its first known representation
in late archaic poetry by several centuries.
In the Archaic (c. 750--c. 500 BC), Classical
(c. 480--323 BC), and Hellenistic (323--146
BC) periods, Homeric and various other mythological
scenes appear, supplementing the existing
literary evidence.
Survey of mythic history
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The Greeks' mythology has changed over time
to accommodate the evolution of their own
culture, of which mythology, both overtly
and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index.
In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms,
it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson
has urged.
The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula
were an agricultural people who assigned a
spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually,
these vague spirits assumed human shape and
entered the local mythology as gods and goddesses.
When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula
invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon
of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess
in battle, and violent heroism. Other older
deities of the agricultural world fused with
those of the more powerful invaders or else
faded into insignificance.
After the middle of the Archaic period myths
about relationships between male gods and
male heroes become more and more frequent,
indicating the parallel development of pedagogic
pederasty (Eros paidikos, παιδικός
ἔρως), thought to have been introduced
around 630 BC. By the end of the 5th century
BC, poets had assigned at least one eromenos
to every important god except Ares and to
many legendary figures. Previously existing
myths, such as those of Achillesand Patroclus,
were also cast in a pederastic light. Alexandrian
poets at first, then more generally literary
mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often
adapted stories of Greek mythological characters.
The achievement of epic poetry was to create
story-cycles, and as a result to develop a
sense of mythological chronology. Thus Greek
mythology unfolds like a phase in the development
of the world and of man. While self-contradictions
in the stories make an absolute timeline impossible,
an approximate chronology may be discerned.
The mythological history of the world can
be divided into 3 or 4 broader periods:
1. The myths of origin or age of gods (Theogonies,
"births of gods"): myths about the origins
of the world, the gods, and the human race.
2. The age when gods and mortals mingled freely:
stories of the early interactions between
gods, demigods, and mortals.
3. The age of heroes (heroic age), where divine
activity was more limited. The last and greatest
of the heroic legends is the story of the
Trojan War and after(regarded by some researchers
as a separate fourth period).
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 and
Odyssey dwarfed the divine-focused Theogony
and Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity.
Under the influence of Homer the "hero cult"
leads to a restructuring in spiritual life,
expressed in the separation of the realm of
the gods from the realm of the dead (heroes),
of the Olympian from the Chthonic. In the
Works and Days, Hesiod makes use of a scheme
of Four Ages of Man (or Races): Golden, Silver,
Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are
separate creations of the gods, the Golden
Age belonging to the reign of Cronus, the
subsequent races the creation of Zeus. Hesiod
intercalates the Age (or Race) of Heroes just
after the Bronze Age. The final age was the
Iron Age, during which the poet himself lived.
The poet regards it as the worst; the presence
of evil was explained by Pandora's myth. In
Metamorphoses, Ovid follows Hesiod's concept
of the four ages.
Age of gods
Cosmogony and cosmology
See also: Greek primordial gods and Family
tree of the Greek gods
Amor Vincit Omnia (Love Conquers All), a depiction
of the god of love, Eros. By Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1601--1602.
"Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent
an attempt to render the universe comprehensible
in human terms and explain the origin of the
world. The most widely accepted account of
beginning of things as reported by Hesiod's
Theogony, starts with Chaos, a yawning nothingness.
Out of the void emerged Ge or Gaia (the Earth)
and some other primary divine beings:Eros
(Love), the Abyss (the Tartarus), and the
Erebus. Without male assistance Gaia gave
birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilised
her. From that union were born first the Titans
— six males: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion,
Iapetus andCronus; and six females: Theia,
Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys.
They were followed by the one-eyedCyclopes
and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handers.
Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible
of children") castrated his father and became
the ruler of the gods with his sister-wife
Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became
his court. This motif of father/son conflict
was repeated when Cronus was confronted by
his son, Zeus. After Cronus betrayed his father,
he feared that his offspring would do the
same, and so each time Rhea gave birth, he
snatched up the child and ate it. Rhea hated
this and tricked him by hiding Zeus and wrapping
a stone in a baby's blanket, which Cronus
ate. When Zeus was grown, he fed his father
a drugged drink which caused Cronus to throw
up Zeus' brothers and sisters, and one stone,
which had been sitting in Cronus' stomach
all along. Then Zeus challenged Cronus to
war for the kingship of the gods. At last,
with the help of the Cyclopes (whom Zeus freed
from Tartarus), Zeus and his siblings were
victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were
hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.
The 
earliest Greek thought about poetry considered
the theogony to be the prototypical poetic
genre — the prototypicalmythos — 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. Theogony
was also the subject of many lost poems, including
those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus,Epimenides,
Abaris and other legendary seers, which were
used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites.
There are indications that Plato was familiar
with some version of the Orphic theogony.
A few fragments of these works survive in
quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and
recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of
these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves
that at least in the 5th century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic
poem of Orpheus was in existence. This poem
attempted to outdo Hesiod's Theogony and the
genealogy of the gods was extended back with
Nyx (Night) as an ultimate beginning before
Uranus, Cronus and Zeus.
The first philosophical cosmologists reacted
against, or sometimes built upon, popular
mythical conceptions that had existed in the
Greek world for some time. Some of these popular
conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry
of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was
viewed as a flat disk afloat on the river
of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical
sky with sun, moon and stars. The Sun (Helios)
traversed the heavens as a charioteer and
sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at
night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds
could be addressed in prayers and called to
witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly
regarded as entrances to the subterranean
house of Hades, home of the dead.
Greek gods
See also: Religion in ancient Greece and Twelve
Olympians
The Twelve Olympians by Monsiau, circa late
18th century.
According to Classical-era mythology, after
the overthrow of the Titans, the new pantheon
of gods and goddesses was confirmed. Among
the principal Greek deities were the Olympians,
residing atop Mount Olympus under the eye
of Zeus. (The limitation of their number to
twelve seems to have been a comparatively
modern idea.) Besides the Olympians, the Greeks
worshipped various gods of the countryside,
the goat-god Pan, Nymphs (spirits of rivers),
Naiads (who dwelled in springs),Dryads (who
were spirits of the trees), Nereids (who inhabited
the sea), river gods, Satyrs, and others.
In addition, there were the dark powers of
the underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies),
said to pursue those guilty of crimes against
blood-relatives. In order to honor the Ancient
Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric
Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs). Gregory
Nagy regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as
simple preludes (compared with Theogony),
each of which invokes one god".
In the wide variety of myths and legends that
Greek mythology consists of, the deities that
were native to the Greek peoples are described
as having essentially corporeal but ideal
bodies. According to Walter Burkert, the defining
characteristic of Greek anthropomorphism is
that "the Greek gods are persons, not abstractions,
ideas or concepts". Regardless of their underlying
forms, the Ancient Greek gods have many fantastic
abilities; most significantly, the gods are
not affected by disease, and can be wounded
only under highly unusual circumstances. The
Greeks considered immortality as the distinctive
characteristic of their gods; this immortality,
as well as unfading youth, was insured by
the constant use of nectar andambrosia, by
which the divine blood was renewed in their
veins.
Zeus, disguised as a swanseduces Leda, the
Queen of Sparta. A sixteenth century copy
of the lost original by Michelangelo.
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 are 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 (e.g.Apollo Musagetes
is "Apollo, 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.
Most gods were associated with specific aspects
of life. For example, Aphrodite was the goddess
of love and beauty, Areswas the god of war,
Hades the god of the dead, and Athena the
goddess of wisdom and courage. Some deities,
such asApollo and Dionysus, revealed complex
personalities and mixtures of functions, while
others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth")
and Helios (literally "sun"), were little
more than personifications. The most impressive
temples tended to be dedicated to a limited
number of gods, who were the focus of large
pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common
for individual regions and villages to devote
their own cults to minor gods. Many cities
also honored the more well-known gods with
unusual local rites and associated strange
myths with them that were unknown elsewhere.
During the heroic age, the cult of heroes
(or demi-gods) supplemented that of the gods.
Age of gods and mortals
The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, by Hans
Rottenhammer
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 mortals moved together.
These were the early days of the world when
the groups mingled more freely than they did
later. Most of these tales were later told
by Ovid's Metamorphoses and they are often
divided into two thematic groups: tales of
love, and tales of punishment.
Tales of love often involve incest, or the
seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male
god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories
generally suggest that relationships between
gods and mortals are something to avoid; even
consenting relationships rarely have happy
endings. 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.
Dionysus with satyrs. Interior of a cup painted
by the Brygos Painter,Cabinet des Médailles
The second type (tales of punishment) involves
the appropriation or invention of some important
cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals
fire from the gods, whenTantalus 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. Ian Morris
considers Prometheus' adventures as "a place
between the history of the gods and that of
man". An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated
to the third century, vividly portrays Dionysus'
punishment of the king of Thrace, Lycurgus,
whose recognition of the new god came too
late, resulting in horrific penalties that
extended into the afterlife. The story of
the arrival of Dionysus to establish his cult
in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean
trilogy. In another tragedy, Euripides' The
Bacchae, the king of Thebes,Pentheus, is punished
by Dionysus, because he disrespected the god
and spied on his Maenads, the female worshippers
of the god.
In another story, based on an old folktale-motif,
and echoeing a similar theme, Demeter was
searching for her daughter,Persephone, having
taken the form of an old woman called Doso,
and received a hospitable welcome from Celeus,
the King of Eleusis in Attica. As a gift to
Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter
planned to make his son Demophon a god, but
she was unable to complete the ritual because
his mother Metanira walked in and saw her
son in the fire and screamed in fright, which
angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish
mortals do not understand the concept and
ritual.
Heroic age
The age in which the heroes lived is known
as the heroic age. The epic and genealogical
poetry created cycles of stories clustered
around particular heroes or events and established
the family relationships between the heroes
of different stories; they thus arranged the
stories in sequence. According to Ken Dowden,
"there is even a saga effect: we can follow
the fates of some families in successive generations".
After the rise of the hero cult, gods and
heroes constitute the sacral sphere and are
invoked together in oaths and prayers which
are addressed to them. In contrast to the
age of gods, during the heroic age the roster
of heroes is never given fixed and final form;
great gods are no longer born, but new heroes
can always be raised up from the army of the
dead. Another important difference between
the hero cult and the cult of gods is that
the hero becomes the centre of local group
identity.
The monumental events of Heracles are regarded
as the dawn of the age of heroes. To the Heroic
Age are also ascribed three great military
events: the Argonauticexpedition, the Theban
War and the Trojan War.
Heracles and the Heracleidae
For more details on this topic, see Heracles
and Heracleidae
Herakles with his baby Telephos (Louvre Museum,
Paris).
Some scholars believe that behind Heracles'
complicated mythology there was probably a
real man, perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the
kingdom of Argos. Some scholars suggest the
story of Heracles is an allegory for the sun's
yearly passage through the twelve constellations
of the zodiac. Others point to earlier myths
from other cultures, showing the story of
Heracles as a local adaptation of hero myths
already well established. Traditionally, Heracles
was the son of Zeus andAlcmene, granddaughter
of Perseus. His fantastic solitary exploits,
with their many folk-tale themes, provided
much material for popular legend. He is portrayed
as a sacrificier, mentioned as a founder of
altars, and imagined as a voracious eater
himself; it is in this role that he appears
in comedy, while his tragic end provided much
material for tragedy — Heraclesis regarded
by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great
significance in examination of other Euripidean
dramas". In art and literature Heracles was
represented as an enormously strong man of
moderate height; his characteristic weapon
was the bow but frequently also the club.
Vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled
popularity of Heracles, his fight with the
lion being depicted many hundreds of times.
Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology
and cult, and the exclamation "mehercule"
became as familiar to the Romans as "Herakleis"
was to the Greeks. In Italy he was worshipped
as a god of merchants and traders, although
others also prayed to him for his characteristic
gifts of good luck or rescue from danger.
Heracles attained the highest social prestige
through his appointment as official ancestor
of the Dorian kings. This probably served
as a legitimation for the Dorian migrations
into the Peloponnese. Hyllus, the eponymous
hero of one Dorian phyle, became the son of
Heracles and one of the Heracleidae or Heraclids
(the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially
the descendants of Hyllus — other Heracleidae
included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus,
and Telephus). These Heraclids conquered the
Peloponnesian kingdoms of Mycenae, Sparta
and Argos, claiming, according to legend,
a right to rule them through their ancestor.
Their rise to dominance is frequently called
the "Dorian invasion". The Lydian and later
the Macedonian kings, as rulers of the same
rank, also became Heracleidae.
Other members of this 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. Bellerophon's adventures are commonplace
types, similar to the adventures of Heracles
and Theseus. Sending a hero to his presumed
death is also a recurrent theme of this early
heroic tradition, used in the cases of Perseus
and Bellerophon.
Argonauts
For more details on this topic, see Argonauts.
The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica
of Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, scholar,
and director of the Library of Alexandria)
tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and
the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece
from the mythical land of Colchis. In the
Argonautica, Jason is impelled on his quest
by king Pelias, who receives a prophecy that
a man with one sandal would be his nemesis.
Jason loses a sandal in a river, arrives at
the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in
motion. Nearly every member of the next generation
of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with
Jason in the ship Argo 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 andOdyssey. Pindar, Apollonius and Apollodorus
endeavor to give full lists of the Argonauts.
Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the
3rd century BC, the composition of the story
of the Argonauts is earlier than Odyssey,
which shows familiarity with the exploits
of Jason (the wandering of Odysseus may have
been partly founded on it). In ancient times
the expedition was regarded as a historical
fact, an incident in the opening up of the
Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization.
It was also extremely popular, forming a cycle
to which a number of local legends became
attached. The story of Medea, in particular,
caught the imagination of the tragic poets.
House of Atreus and Theban Cycle
See also: Theban Cycle and Seven Against Thebes
Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's teeth, by Maxfield
Parrish, 1908
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. Behind the myth of
the house of Atreus (one of the two principal
heroic dynasties with the house of Labdacus)
lies the problem of the devolution of power
and of the mode of accession to sovereignty.
The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their descendants
played the leading role in the tragedy of
the devolution of power in Mycenae.
The Theban Cycle deals with events associated
especially with Cadmus, the city's founder,
and later with the doings of Laiusand Oedipus
at Thebes; a series of stories that lead to
the eventual pillage of that city at the hands
of the Seven Against Thebes and Epigoni. (It
is not known whether the Seven Against Thebes
figured in early epic.) As far as Oedipus
is concerned, early epic accounts seem to
have him continuing to rule at Thebes after
the revelation that Iokaste was his mother,
and subsequently marrying a second wife who
becomes the mother of his children — markedly
different from the tale known to us through
tragedy (e.g. Sophocles' Oedipus the King)
and later mythological accounts.
Trojan War and aftermath
In The Rage of Achilles by Giovanni Battista
Tiepolo (1757, Fresco, 300 x 300 cm, Villa
Valmarana, Vicenza)Achilles is outraged that
Agamemnonwould threaten to seize his warprize,Briseis,
and he draws his sword to kill Agamemnon.
The sudden appearance of the goddess Athena,
who, in this fresco, has grabbed Achilles
by the hair, prevents the act of violence.
For more details on this topic, see Trojan
War and Epic Cycle
Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan War,
fought between the Greeks and Troy, and its
aftermath. In Homer's works the chief stories
have already taken shape and substance, and
individual themes were elaborated later, especially
in Greek drama. The Trojan War also elicited
great interest in the Roman culture because
of the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero whose
journey from Troy led to the founding of the
city that would one day become Rome, as recounted
in Virgil's Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid
contains the best-known account of the sack
of Troy). Finally there are two pseudo-chronicles
written in Latin that passed under the names
of Dictys Cretensis 
and Dares Phrygius.
The Trojan War cycle, a collection of epic
poems, starts with the events leading up to
the war: Eris and the golden apple ofKallisti,
the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen,
the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis. To recover
Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition
under the overall command of Menelaus' brother,
Agamemnon, king of Argos or Mycenae, but the
Trojans refused to return Helen. The Iliad,
which is set in the tenth year of the war,
tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and
Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior,
and the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles'
friend Patroclusand Priam's eldest son, Hector.
After Hector's death the Trojans were joined
by two exotic allies, Penthesilea, queen of
theAmazons, and Memnon, king of the Ethiopians
and son of the dawn-goddess Eos. Achilles
killed both of these, but Paris then managed
to kill Achilles with an arrow. Before they
could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from
the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena
(the Palladium). Finally, with Athena's help,
they built the Trojan Horse. Despite the warnings
of Priam's daughter Cassandra, the Trojans
were persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned
desertion, to take the horse inside the walls
of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest
Laocoon, who tried to have the horse destroyed,
was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek
fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse
opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack
that followed, Priam and his remaining sons
were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed
into slavery in various cities of Greece.
The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek
leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus
and Aeneas (the Aeneid), and the murder of
Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns
(the lost Nostoi) and Homer's Odyssey. The
Trojan cycle also includes the adventures
of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g.
Orestes and Telemachus).
El Greco was inspired in hisLaocoon (1608--1614,
oil on canvas, 142 x 193 cm, National Gallery
of Art,Washington) by the famous myth of the
Trojan cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest
who tried to have the Trojan horse destroyed,
but was killed by sea-serpents.
The Trojan War provided a variety of themes
and became a main source of inspiration for
Ancient Greek artists (e.g.metopes on the
Parthenon depicting the sack of Troy); this
artistic preference for themes deriving from
the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance
to the Ancient Greek civilization. The same
mythological cycle also inspired a series
of posterior European literary writings. For
instance, Trojan Medieval European writers,
unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found
in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic
and romantic storytelling and a convenient
framework into which to fit their own courtly
and chivalric ideals. 12th century authors,
such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure (Roman de
Troie ) and Joseph of Exeter (De Bello Troiano
) describe the war while rewriting the standard
version they found in Dictys and Dares. They
thus follow Horace's advice and Virgil's example:
they rewrite a poem of Troy instead of telling
something completely new.
Greek and Roman conceptions of myth
Mythology was at the heart of everyday life
in Ancient Greece. Greeks regarded mythology
as a part of their history. They 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. Few ever doubted that there was
truth behind the account of the Trojan War
in the Iliad and Odyssey. According to Victor
Davis Hanson, a military historian, columnist,
political essayist and former Classics professor,
and John Heath, associate professor of Classics
at Santa Clara University, the profound knowledge
of the Homeric epos was deemed by the Greeks
the basis of their acculturation. Homer was
the "education of Greece" (Ἑλλάδος
παίδευσις), and his poetry "the Book".
Philosophy and myth
Raphael's Plato in The School of Athens fresco
(probably in the likeness of Leonardo da Vinci).
The philosopher expelled the study of Homer,
of the tragedies and of the related mythological
traditions from his utopianRepublic.
After the rise of philosophy, history, prose
and rationalism in the late 5th century BC,
the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythological
genealogies gave place to a conception of
history which tried to exclude the supernatural
(such as theThucydidean history). While poets
and dramatists were reworking the myths, Greek
historians and philosophers were beginning
to criticize them.
A few radical philosophers like Xenophanes
of Colophon were already beginning to label
the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the
6th century BC; Xenophanes had complained
that Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods
"all that is shameful and disgraceful among
men; they steal, commit adultery, and deceive
one another". This line of thought found its
most sweeping expression in Plato's Republic
and Laws. Plato created his own allegorical
myths (such as the vision of Er in theRepublic),
attacked the traditional tales of the gods'
tricks, thefts and adulteries as immoral,
and objected to their central role in literature.
Plato's criticism was the first serious challenge
to the Homeric mythological tradition, referring
to the myths as "old wives' chatter". For
his part Aristotle criticized the Pre-socratic
quasi-mythical philosophical approach and
underscored that "Hesiod and the theological
writers were concerned only with what seemed
plausible to themselves, and had no respect
for us ... But it is not worth taking seriously
writers who show off in the mythical style;
as for those who do proceed by proving their
assertions, we must cross-examine them".
Nevertheless, even Plato did not manage to
wean himself and his society from the influence
of myth; his own characterization for Socrates
is based on the traditional Homeric and tragic
patterns, used by the philosopher to praise
the righteous life of his teacher:
" But perhaps someone might say: "Are you
then not ashamed, Socrates, of having followed
such a pursuit, that you are now in danger
of being put to death as a result?" But I
should make to him a just reply: "You do not
speak well, Sir, if you think a man in whom
there is even a little merit ought to consider
danger of life or death, and not rather regard
this only, when he does things, whether the
things he does are right or wrong and the
acts of a good or a bad man. For according
to your argument all the demigods would be
bad who died at Troy, including the son of
Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison
with enduring any disgrace, that when his
mother (and she was a goddess) said to him,
as he was eager to slay Hector, something
like this, I believe,
My son, if you avenge the death of your friend
Patroclus and kill Hector, you yourself shall
die; for straightway, after Hector, is death
appointed unto you. (Hom. Il. 18.96)
he, when he heard this, made light of death
and danger, and feared much more to live as
a coward and not to avenge his friends, and
said,
Straightway may I die, after doing vengeance
upon the wrongdoer, that I may not stay here,
jeered at beside the curved ships, a burden
of the earth. "
Hanson and Heath estimate that Plato's rejection
of the Homeric tradition was not favorably
received by the grassroots Greek civilization.
The old myths were kept alive in local cults;
they continued to influence poetry, and to
form the main subject of painting and sculpture.
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. Yet the
subjects of his plays were taken, without
exception, from myth. Many of these plays
were written in answer to a predecessor's
version of the same or similar myth. Euripides
mainly impugns the myths about the gods and
begins his critique with an objection similar
to the one previously expressed by Xenocrates:
the gods, as traditionally represented, are
far too crassly anthropomorphic.
Hellenistic and Roman rationalism
Cicero saw himself as the defender of the
established order, despite his personal skepticism
with regard to myth and his inclination towards
more philosophical conceptions of divinity.
During the Hellenistic period, mythology took
on the prestige of elite knowledge that marks
its possessors as belonging to a certain class.
At the same time, the skeptical turn of the
Classical age became even more pronounced.
Greek mythographer Euhemerus established the
tradition of seeking an actual historical
basis for mythical beings and events.Although
his original work (Sacred Scriptures) is lost,
much is known about it from what is recorded
by Diodorus andLactantius.
Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became
even more popular under the Roman Empire,
thanks to the physicalist theories ofStoic
and Epicurean philosophy. Stoics presented
explanations of the gods and heroes as physical
phenomena, while the Euhemerists rationalized
them as historical figures. At the same time,
the Stoics and the Neoplatonists promoted
the moral significations of the mythological
tradition, often based on Greek etymologies.
Through his Epicurean message, Lucretiushad
sought to expel superstitious fears from the
minds of his fellow-citizens. Livy, too, is
skeptical about the mythological tradition
and claims that he does not intend to pass
judgement on such legends (fabulae). The challenge
for Romans with a strong and apologetic sense
of religious tradition was to defend that
tradition while conceding that it was often
a breeding-ground for superstition. The antiquarian
Varro, who regarded religion as a human institution
with great importance for the preservation
of good in society, devoted rigorous study
to the origins of religious cults. In his
Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum(which has not
survived, but Augustine's City of God indicates
its general approach) Varro argues that whereas
the superstitious man fears the gods, the
truly religious person venerates them as parents.
In his work he distinguished three kinds of
gods:
1. The gods of nature: personifications of
phenomena like rain and fire.
2. The gods of the poets: invented by unscrupulous
bards to stir the passions.
3. The gods of the city: invented by wise
legislators to soothe and enlighten the populace.
Roman Academic Cotta ridicules both literal
and allegorical acceptance of myth, declaring
roundly that myths have no place in philosophy.
Cicero is also generally disdainful of myth,
but, like Varro, he is emphatic in his support
for the state religion and its institutions.
It is difficult to know how far down the social
scale this rationalism extended. Cicero asserts
that no one (not even old women and boys)
is so foolish as to believe in the terrors
of Hades or the existence of Scyllas,centaurs
or other composite creatures, but, on the
other hand, the orator elsewhere complains
of the superstitious and credulous character
of the people. De Natura Deorum is the most
comprehensive summary of Cicero's line of
thought.
Syncretizing trends
See also: Roman mythology
In Roman religion the worship of the Greek
god Apollo (early Imperial Roman copy of a
fourth century Greek original, Louvre Museum)
was combined with the cult of Sol Invictus.
The worship of Sol as special protector of
the emperors and of the empire remained the
chief imperial religion until it was replaced
by Christianity.
In Ancient Roman times, a new Roman mythology
was born through syncretization of numerous
Greek and other foreign gods. This occurred
because the Romans had little mythology of
their own and inheritance of the Greek mythological
tradition caused the major Roman gods to adopt
characteristics of their Greek equivalents.
The gods Zeus and Jupiter are an example of
this mythological overlap. In addition to
the combination of the two mythological traditions,
the association of the Romans with eastern
religions led to further syncretizations.
For instance, the cult of Sun was introduced
in Rome afterAurelian's successful campaigns
in Syria. The Asiatic divinities Mithras (that
is to say, the Sun) and Ba'al were combined
with Apollo and Helios into one Sol Invictus,
with conglomerated rites and compound attributes.
Apollo might be increasingly identified in
religion with Helios or even Dionysus, but
texts retelling his myths seldom reflected
such developments. The traditional literary
mythology was increasingly dissociated from
actual religious practice.
The surviving 2nd century collection of Orphic
Hymns and Macrobius's Saturnalia are influenced
by the theories of rationalism and the syncretizing
trends as well. The Orphic Hymns are a set
of pre-classical poetic compositions, attributed
to Orpheus, himself the subject of a renowned
myth. In reality, these poems were probably
composed by several different poets, and contain
a rich set of clues about prehistoric European
mythology. The stated purpose of the Saturnalia
is to transmit the Hellenic culture Macrobius
has derived from his reading, even though
much of his treatment of gods is colored by
Egyptian and North African mythology and theology
(which also affect the interpretation of Virgil).
In Saturnalia reappear mythographical comments
influenced by the Euhemerists, the Stoics
and the Neoplatonists.
Modern interpretations
For more details on this topic, see Modern
understanding of Greek mythology.
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek
mythology is regarded by some scholars as
a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth
century against "the traditional attitude
of Christian animosity", in which the Christian
reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable
had been retained. In Germany, by about 1795,
there was a growing interest in Homer and
Greek mythology. In Göttingen, Johann Matthias
Gesner began to revive Greek studies, while
his successor, Christian Gottlob Heyne, worked
with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and laid
the foundations for mythological research
both in Germany and elsewhere.
Comparative and psychoanalytic approaches
Max Müller is regarded as one of the founders
of comparative mythology. In his Comparative
Mythology (1867) Müller analysed the "disturbing"
similarity between the mythologies of "savage"
races with those of the early European races.
See also: Comparative mythology
The development of comparative philology in
the 19th century, together with ethnological
discoveries in the 20th century, established
the science of myth. Since the Romantics,
all study of myth has been comparative. Wilhelm
Mannhardt, Sir James Frazer, and Stith Thompson
employed the comparative approach to collect
and classify the themes of folklore and mythology.
In 1871 Edward Burnett Tylor published his
Primitive Culture, in which he applied the
comparative method and tried to explain the
origin and evolution of religion. Tylor's
procedure of drawing together material culture,
ritual and myth of widely separated cultures
influenced both Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.
Max Müller applied the new science of comparative
mythology to the study of myth, in which he
detected the distorted remains ofAryan nature
worship. Bronisław Malinowski emphasized
the ways myth fulfills common social functions.
Claude Lévi-Straussand other structuralists
have compared the formal relations and patterns
in myths throughout the world.
For Karl Kerényi mythology is "a body of
material contained in tales about gods and
god-like beings, heroic battles and journeys
to the Underworld—mythologem is the best
Greek word for them—tales already well-known
but not amenable to further re-shaping".
Sigmund Freud introduced a transhistorical
and biological conception of man and a view
of myth as an expression of repressed ideas.
Dream interpretation is the basis of Freudian
myth interpretation and Freud's concept of
dreamwork recognizes the importance of contextual
relationships for the interpretation of any
individual element in a dream. This suggestion
would find an important point of rapprochment
between the structuralist and psychoanalytic
approaches to myth in Freud's thought. Carl
Jung extended the transhistorical, psychological
approach with his theory of the "collective
unconscious" and the archetypes (inherited
"archaic" patterns), often encoded in myth,
that arise out of it. According to Jung, "myth-forming
structural elements must be present in the
unconscious psyche". Comparing Jung's methodology
with Joseph Campbell's theory, Robert A. Segal
concludes that "to interpret a myth Campbell
simply identifies the archetypes in it. An
interpretation of the Odyssey, for example,
would show how Odysseus's life conforms to
a heroic pattern. Jung, by contrast, considers
the identification of archetypes merely the
first step in the interpretation of a myth".Karl
Kerényi, one of the founders of modern studies
in Greek mythology, gave up his early views
of myth, in order to apply Jung's theories
of archetypes to Greek myth.
Origin theories
See also: Similarities between Roman, Greek
and Etruscan mythologies
Jupiter et Thétis by Jean Auguste Dominique
Ingres, 1811.
There are various modern theories about the
origins of Greek mythology. According to the
Scriptural Theory, all mythological legends
are derived from the narratives of the Scriptures,
although the real facts have been disguised
and altered. According to the Historical Theory
all the persons mentioned in mythology were
once real human beings, and the legends relating
to them are merely the additions of later
times. Thus the story of Aeolus is supposed
to have arisen from the fact that Aeolus was
the ruler of some islands in the Tyrrhenian
Sea. The Allegorical Theory supposes that
all the ancient myths were allegorical and
symbolical; while the Physical Theory subscribed
to the idea that the elements of air, fire,
and water were originally the objects of religious
adoration, thus the principal deities were
personifications of these powers of nature.
Max Müller attempted to understand an Indo-European
religious form by tracing it back to its Aryan,
"original" manifestation. In 1891, he claimed
that "the most important discovery which has
been made during the nineteenth century with
respect to the ancient history of mankind
... was this sample equation: SanskritDyaus-pitar
= Greek Zeus = Latin Jupiter = Old Norse Tyr".
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 comparison between Uranus
and the Sanskrit Varuna or the Moirae and
the Norns.
Aphrodite and Adonis, Attic red-figure aryballos-shaped
lekythos by Aison (c. 410 BC, Louvre, Paris).
Archaeology and mythography, on the other
hand, have revealed that the Greeks were inspired
by some of the civilizations of Asia Minor
and the Near East. Adonis seems to be the
Greek counterpart — more clearly in cult
than in myth — of a Near Eastern "dying
god". Cybele is rooted in Anatolian culture
while much of Aphrodite'siconography springs
from Semitic goddesses. There are also possible
parallels between the earliest divine generations
(Chaos and its children) and Tiamat in the
Enuma Elish. According to Meyer Reinhold,
"near Eastern theogonic concepts, involving
divine succession through violence and generational
conflicts for power, found their way ... into
Greek mythology". In addition to Indo-European
and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have
speculated on the debts of Greek mythology
to the pre-Hellenic societies: Crete, Mycenae,
Pylos, Thebes and Orchomenus. Historians of
religion were fascinated by a number of apparently
ancient configurations of myth connected with
Crete (the god as bull, Zeus and Europa, Pasiphaë
who yields to the bull and gives birth to
the Minotaur etc.) Professor Martin P. Nilsson
concluded that all great classical Greek myths
were tied to Mycenaen centres and were anchored
in prehistoric times. Nevertheless, according
to Burkert, the iconography of the Cretan
Palace Period has provided almost no confirmation
for these theories.
Motifs in Western art and literature
For more details on this topic, see Greek
mythology in western art and literature.
See also: List of films based on Greco-Roman
mythology
Botticelli's The Birth of Venus (c. 1485--1486,
oil on canvas, Uffizi,Florence) — a revived
Venus Pudica for a new view of pagan Antiquity—is
often said to epitomize for modern viewers
the spirit of the Renaissance.
The widespread adoption of Christianity did
not curb the popularity of the myths. With
the rediscovery of classical antiquity in
the Renaissance, the poetry of Ovid became
a major influence on the imagination of poets,
dramatists, musicians and artists. From the
early years of Renaissance, artists such as
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael,
portrayed the pagan subjects of Greek mythology
alongside more conventional Christian themes.
Through the medium of Latin and the works
of Ovid, Greek myth influenced medieval and
Renaissance poets such as Petrarch, Boccaccio
and Dante in Italy.
In Northern Europe, Greek mythology never
took the same hold of the visual arts, but
its effect was very obvious on literature.
The English imagination was fired by Greek
mythology starting with Chaucer and John Milton
and continuing throughShakespeare to Robert
Bridges in the 20th century. Racine in France
and Goethe in Germany revived Greek drama,
reworking the ancient myths. Although during
the Enlightenment of the 18th century reaction
against Greek myth spread throughout Europe,
the myths continued to provide an important
source of raw material for dramatists, including
those who wrote the libretti for many of Handel's
and Mozart's operas. By the end of the 18th
century, Romanticism initiated a surge of
enthusiasm for all things Greek, including
Greek mythology. In Britain, new translations
of Greek tragedies and Homer inspired contemporary
poets (such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, Keats,
Byron and Shelley) and painters (such as Lord
Leightonand Lawrence Alma-Tadema). Christoph
Gluck, Richard Strauss, Jacques Offenbach
and many others set Greek mythological themes
to music. American authors of the 19th century,
such as Thomas Bulfinch and Nathaniel Hawthorne,
held that the study of the classical myths
was essential to the understanding of English
and American literature. In more recent times,
classical themes have been reinterpreted by
dramatists Jean Anouilh, Jean Cocteau, and
Jean Giraudouxin France, Eugene O'Neill in
America, and T. S. Eliot in Britain and by
novelists such as James Joyce 
and André Gide.
