Introduction to Classical Mythology CLT3370 Timothy Stover o Lecture 1 The Nature of Classical Myth and the Geography of Greece and Rome 8 26 15 o What is a myth and what do myths do story tale narrative Muthos Originally no distinction between truth and falsehood Muthos eventually opposed to logos word story as fiction o Modern nuances can be misleading is opposed to the verifiable truth o But not necessarily fiction in the sense of untrue Note that the word mythology is composed of both muthos and logos thus meaning something like the science of storytelling Mythic truth distinct from scientific truths Myths use metaphor allegory and symbolism to get at Often deal with spiritual concerns hidden universal and or eternal truths o Such concerns require a mythic imagination Questions of religion not science Myths as sacred stories Myths as traditional stories Primarily concerned with gods and humankind s relations with them Part of a culture s inherited cultural idiom and ideology o Handed down orally textually and in visual plastic arts oral transmission gives way to textual transmission the stories are older than their fossilized incarnations in text o Told and retold o Susceptible to great variation in treatment Myths as etiological There is no one true or correct version of a given myth From Greek word aetia causes origins Some versions become standard or canonical o Standards established in literary form in texts of ancient Greece and Rome i e id est that is in classical texts e g exempli gratia for example Homer s Odyssey Classics the study of Greco Roman literature classical mythology the study of sacred stories found largely in Greco Roman literature o o Classical myth a perhaps cumbersome definition a story often concerning sacred and or spiritual concerns that through its classical form has attained a kind of immortality because its inherent archetypal beauty profundity and power have inspired rewarding renewal and transformation by successive generations o Lecture 2 Sources for Classical Mythology 8 28 15 o Nature of literary sources for classical mythology Very eclectic Texts span many time periods from ca circa around 800 BC AD 200 and beyond BC vs BCE AD vs CE o BC Before Christ o BCE Before the Common Era o AD anno Domini i e in the year of the Lord o CE Common Era Texts span many geographical locations Myths found in many different literary genres e g heroic epic didactic Geographical variations Greco Roman mythology spans two different ancient cultures the epic tragedy religious hymns love poetry mythological handbooks etc et cetera and others Greeks and Romans Homer ca 800 BC Cultural distinctions Iliad and Odyssey Heroic epic poetry Hesiod ca 700 BC Theogony and Works and Days Didactic epic wisdom literature o Didaxis teaching The Homeric Hymns ca 700 BC 300 BC NOT written by Homer but by various anonymous authors over 33 in all the centuries o Written in the style of Homer Honor particular Olympian gods Attic i e Athenian Tragedy 5th Century BC Shorter ones are possibly preludes to longer narrative poems The Big Three o Nature of literary sources for classical mythology Tragedy o Aeschylus o Sophocles o Euripides Aeschylus 525 456 BC Prometheus Bound Agamemnon Etc Sophocles 496 406 BC Euripides King Oedipus Antigone Etc Medea Bacchae Etc o Nature of literary sources for classical mythology Roman Sources Vergil 70 19 BC Ovid 43 BC AD 17 o Aeneid o Metamorphoses o Nature of sources for classical mythology Visual Arts o Often lighthearted and witty Sculpture Vase paintings Architectural sculpture Modern works of art Painting Sculpture Etc o Lecture 3 Myths of Creation 8 31 15 and 9 2 15 o Hesiod ca 700 BC Theogony birth of the gods Genealogy of the gods From chaos to Olympians o Hesiod s Theogony How does the poem begin Epiphany on Mt Helicon Earth Who arrives The Muses o an epiphany meant an arrival of a god or goddess on o 9 goddesses of literary inspiration o Daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne Memory Chaos From chaos come o a yawning void a nothingness Meaning Everything from nothing contradicts dictum nihil ex nihilo Gaia the earth terra firma Tartarus the Underworld Eros love procreative principle Erebus the gloom of Tartarus Night Emphasis on darkness cf confer compare Old Testament account in Genesis But their creation happens by divine fiat Ovid s Metamorphoses o Meaning Chaos Primordial elements Earth Water Air Fire At strife with each other Mundi fabricator o Order imposed by unnamed god o Elemental separation o Various creatures put in their natural places Ovid influenced by philosophy Hesiod s Theogony and the Hieros Gamos From Gaia comes o Uranus Ouranos the sky o Mountains o Pontus the sea Gaia Uranus o Union of earth and sky female and male o Hieros Gamos sacred marriage They lay together in sexual union under the Personification and anthropomorphism power of Eros Such a union will be played out again with Cronus and Rhea and Zeus and Hera From Gaia and Uranus come o 12 Titans o 3 Cyclopes o 3 Hecatonchires the hundred handed ones Cyclopes o the orb eyed ones one eyed creatures Brontes thunder Steropes lightning and Personifications of natural phenomena Arges brightness They make Zeus thunderbolts o The Titans Early generation of gods 6 male 6 female Personification of natural phenomena Example Hyperion Theia o Helius the sun o Selene the moon o Eos the dawn Hyperion and Helius and Apollo Sometimes distinct but sometimes merge in identify ef Helius Younger gods often usurp roles and names of older gods o Not always successfully o Phaethon Myth as etiology Libyan desert Appearance of the Ethiopians o The Castration of Uranus Cronus vs Uranus Violent revolution of younger god son o Castration elemental separation His genitals fall to earth and from them are born o Erinyes the Furies o Giants half human half snake creatures o Aphrodite The foam born goddess Aphros foam o The Birth of Aphrodite o Cronus and Rhea Hieros Gamos part II Gave birth to first generation of Olympian gods Hestia Roman Vesta Demeter Roman Ceres Hera Roman Juno Hades Roman Pluto Poseidon Roman Neptune Zeus Roman Jupiter or Jove o Cronus Roman Saturn Eats his children as they are born Zeus escapes o Lecture 4 Zeus Rise to Power Part I Titanomachy and Gigantonomy Will play out motif of young vs old son vs father 9 2 15 and 9 4 15 o Zeus Escape Zeus grows up on Crete Cronus vomits up children and the stone Stone later placed at Delphi to mark the omphalos navel of the world o Zeus and
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