Ancient Greek Mythology
Mvthology includes both those explanations which the imagination of man, primitive or civilized, has devised to account for natural phenomena and for the relations between the various parts of the universe, and also a wide range of other tales, probably invented solely to please the narrator and his audience. Both classes of stories frequently deal with powers superior to man so that in ordinary speech, mythology is generally understood to mean tales with regard to superhuman beings.
It is natural for man to refer whatever he thinks strange or marvelous to beings more powerful than himself, who have a superior control over both animate and inanimate worlds; between these two realms, however, simple man knows no distinction; all nature is animate to him. In classical antiquity, as in modern times, many theories and explanations of the origin of myths were offered. Since myths are often of immemorial antiquity, and therefore may contain many elements which seem crude and repulsive to men of an enlightened age, it frequently comes to pass that the rude tales about the gods are felt to conflict with the more advanced religious beliefs, so that it is necessary to explain the myths in some reconciling fashion, or to reject them altogether; the latter course is not easy, for nothing is more deeply rooted in the minds of a people than its mythology.
In the 6th century B.c the bolder thinkers among the Greeks began openly to protest against the epic stories concerning the gods. Xenophanes of Colophon (fl. 540-500 B.c) declared that "Homer and Hesiod have imputed to the gods all that is shame among men." On the other hand defenders of the poets, like Theagnes of Rhegium (fl. c. 525 BC), maintained that there was a deeper meaning in their works than that which lay on the surface; that the gods represented elements of nature or mental powers of man. So Athene was wisdom; Ares, folly; Hermes, reason; Leto, forget fulness; Apollo, fire; Poseidon, water; Hera, air; and so forth. Thus arose the school of allegorical interpretation, which has had an influence down to the present time. At the end of the 4th century before our era, Euhemerus offered a rationalizing explanation of myths in his 'Sacred History,' where he set forth the view that the gods were only mortals who by their deeds had won high renown.
Few peoples have a mythology so rich as that of the Greeks. For convenience we may distinguish between their cosmological myths, myths relating to superhuman beings of every grade, and tales of the after-world. The earliest extant Greek literature shows that a long period of myth-making had preceded it. In Homer there is no elaborate cosmogony, because such did not suit the purpose of the poet, but it is evident that cosmological stories were familiar to him. Hesiod, on the other hand, offers an explanation of the derivation of the world from Chaos, and knows two dynasties, those of Uranus and Cronos, which had preceded that of Zeus. Literary fragments show us that there were many other cosmogonies, notably those of the Orphics.
There were many myths of the creation, of plants, of animals, and of man; explanations of the origin of the arts and practices of civilized society, as in the tale of Prometheus; attempts to account for the origin of evil, as in the story of Pandora's fatal curiosity; and tales of the degeneration of the inhabitants of the world, the most famous of which is that set forth in Hesiod's account of The Five Ages, ranging from the Age of Gold through the Silver, the Bronze, and the Age of Heroes, to the present wicked Age of Iron. The Greeks, like many other peoples, had also a story of the great deluge, in which all perished save one mortal pair by whom the world was repeopled.
The myths of the greater gods often tell of their birth, rearing, relations, and characteristics in detailed fashion. In Homer Olympus, the home of the divinities of the upper air, is organized like an aristocratic mortal city, with Zeus as supreme king, his sister and consort, Hera, being far inferior to her lord in power.
Zeus himself was the aboriginal god of the Hellenic stocks and universally regarded as the supreme divinity; although in the Homeric epics he is sometimes cheated and deceived by the other gods, still his supremacy is not questioned. Originally he seems to have been the bright sky, and therefore the god who controls all meteorological phenomena. It is impossible even to touch on the numerous myths that were told of him. He undoubtedly absorbed into himself numerous local divinities, so that in many parts of Greek lands the birthplace of Zeus was pointed out. In the most common version he was the son of Cronus and Rhea, who brought forth Zeus in the island of Crete, where, during his infancy, he was proteoted from his father by his attendants, the Couretes. His moral nature contained most complete contradictions; wholly faithless himself, he was also the god who guarded morals, protected oaths, humbled the proud, and punished evil doers. His supremacy was such that at times Greek religion rose almost to monotheism, although the step was never completely taken.
Hera likewise was a Pan-Hellenic divinity, but it is difficult to determine her original nature. In Homer she is represented as a good deal of a scold and, we may suspect, she was regarded somewhat as a comic figure; but in general the marriage relations between Zeus and Hera were good, as far as the goddess was concerned. Her powers were occasionally exerted in directing the phenomena of nature, but she was pre-eminently the protectress of women.
Athena, the virgin goddess, was regarded as the embodiment of wisdom. She was also a valiant fighter on the field of battle. The myth told how she sprang fully armed from the head of her father Zeus, and this tale furnished the central motif of the east pediment of the Parthenon. In her functions she was above all the goddess of practical life, presiding over handicraft of every sort.
Apollo, in the Homeric epics, is the god of archery and of music; but in the later period he was primarily the divinity of prophecy, with his chief seat at Delphi. He also had a shrine of great antiquity on the island of Delos, where, it was said, his mother, Leto, had given him birth. He also practised the healing art, but was second in this to Asclepios, whom postHomeric legends made his son.
Apollo's sister, Artemis, was his counterpart in many ways, but far less prominent. She was a huntress, a goddess of all wild life, and she also practised the art of healing; women in child-birth were especially under her protection.
Ares, the god of war, was probably in his origin, a Thracian divinity. He is the embodiment of the wild rage of battle, and as such is represented by Homer as bawling and blustering, a character which he never lost in later story.
Aphrodite was the goddess of sexual love, whether legitimate or not. She had irresistible power over gods and men alike. Wedded to Hephestus, she herself had slight regard for her marriage vows, but had many amours, the most famous being those with Ares and with Anchises, the father of the hero of the '^Eneid.' There can be little doubt that Aphrodite came to Greek lands at some remote period from Phcenicia, for many of her functions and attributes were identical with those of Astarte or Ishtar. Aphrodite's attendant son, Eros, is not mentioned in Homer, but in Hesiod he appears associated with her, although he is there regarded as of independent origin.
The god of fire was Hephestos, the handicraftsman of Olympus, who wrought many wondrous works for gods and favored princes. He was the teacher of the Cyclops and the patron of smiths. He appears somewhat as the butt of the other Olympians, apparently because of his lameness. This affliction was due, according to one account, to the hasty act of his father Zeus, who in a fit of anger, seized him by the foot and threw him out of heaven. Another, perhaps older, tradition made him the illegitimate son of Hera, who believing him a weakling cast him out at his birth.
Poseidon, the brother of Zeus, had as his realm the sea and all other waters. As lord of the ocean he was also supporter of the earth, which he rocked by stirring his element. He was furthermore the creator of the first horse and hence the patron of horses and of horsemanship.
Hermes is the herald and messenger of the gods in the Homeric epics. For example he carries from Zeus to Calypso the order to let Ulysses go, and he escorts Priam safely to the Greek camp that he may ransom Hector's body. He also conducts the shades of the dead to Hades or brings them back to earth. Many myths deal with his character as the patron of thieves and the giver of wealth. It is said that in his earliest infancy he invented the lyre, which he presented to Apollo in atonement for the theft of SO cattle. In his function as herald he became the god of oratory, and indeed of all speech; as protector of high roads, he was the god of the traveler and merchant; and he was also patron of athletic contests.
Hades, the second brother of Zeus, presided over the realm of the dead, but his cult never obtained any great prominence in Greece, and few tales were told of him in post-Homeric legends. Persephone became his bride.
Dionysus was the god of all life, especially of plant life. In Homer he has not yet been admitted to Olympus, but many myths are referred to showing the opposition which was offered to the establishment of his worship. In fact this god was of Thracian or Phrygian origin and only gradually made his way into Greece, being first domiciled at Athens possibly as late as the 8th century BC In a common myth Dionysus appears as the son of Zeus and a mortal, Scmele. At his birth his mother was consumed by lightning but the babe was sewn into the thigh of Zeus, whence he was reborn to be reared by the nymphs on Mount Nisa. The functions of this divinity were varied. As a god of vegetation, under the name of Zagreus, he was said to have been torn in pieces by the Titans and then to have been revived; thus he became by his rebirth a warrant of human immortality, and as such played an important role in the Orphic religion. The spread of the worship of Dionysus across the seas is celebrated by the legend that Tyrrhenian pirates once seized the young god and attempted to bear him away in their ships, but he burst his bonds and, when his captors refused to believe him a god for the miracles he worked, he changed them all into dolphins. A later scries of myths told of his travels to India. Out of the songs and dances in honor of Dionysus developed the dithyramb and both tragedy and comedy.
Demeter was principally the goddess of the tilled soil and especially the giver of grain to men; and since well being and good social order depend on agricultural prosperity, she became the giver of wealth and of laws. Persephone, who was obviously a parallel to Demeter, in myth was the latter's daughter and was stolen away by Hades to be his bride. Demeter wandered in the guise of an old woman over the earth mourning until she came to Eleusis, where she was kindly received by the king's daughters and established as nurse to the king's son. When she was discovered in her attempts to make the child immortal by repeated baptisms of fire, she revealed herself and ordered a temple to be bulit in her honor. Yet in her sorrow over her daughter she kept back the gifts of earth, so that men began to die, until Zeus commanded Hades to allow Persephone to return for two-thirds of the year to her mother. Then Demeter established her rites, the Elcusinian mysteries, which developed from an agricultural festival into one of the most potent Greek religious festivals.
Asclepios, the god of healing, in the epics is a mortal, but apparently he was originally a chthonic divinity possessing general oracular powers. The centre of his worship seems to have been Thessaly, whence his cult spread over Greek lands. Coming into conflict with Apollo at Delphi he became in myth the son of that god. In course of time his functions became specialized, and his shrines at Epidaurus and on the island of Cos became for centuries miracle centres to which great numbers of people resorted that they might sleep within the sacred precincts and in a vision learn the means by which their diseases could be cured, or that they might receive the benefit of a miracle directly.
Besides these greater gods there was a multitude of lesser divinities of sky, air, earth and water, not to speak of abstract gods, of whom mythology has much to tell; but it is impossible here to enter into this field.
There are also two great groups of historic myths which furnished many elements for epic and dramatic poetry — the Trojan and the Theban Cycles; the former concerns the fortunes of Troy from the time when King Dardanus established himself in the land where his descendant Ilos founded Ilium, through the causes and the course of the Trojan War to the return of the Greek heroes to their homes. The tale of Thebes deals with the fortunes of the house of Labdacus, with the stories of King CEdipus, the Seven against Thebes, and the Epigonoi. Other famous cycles deal with the labors of Heracles, the adventures of Theseus, the voyage of the Argo after the Golden Fleece and with the histories of Minos, king of Crete, and his sons, and of lesser heroes.
Greek mythology had far less to say of the lower world than of the upper. The realm of the dead was generally placed beneath the earth where Hades reigned with Queen Persephone. In Homer this other world is represented as a cheerless, unsubstantial place for all, where there is no system of rewards or punishments, save for three offenders who had sinned excessively against the gods; but in later literature we find the joys of Elysium and the tortures of Tartarus fully developed and used for moral purposes. Hcsiod and Pindar give us the earliest references to the Islands of the Blest where those who have divine blood in their veins, or those who have remained true to the highest ideals throughout their lives, are to find eternal happiness.
There were tales also of descents to Hades by the living: The most famous were the descent of Orpheus to recover his lost Eurydice, and rtiat of Heracles who carried off the watchdog, Cerberus. Both these were celebrated in literature and art.
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