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MYTHS OF THE DAY
GREEK MYTHOLOGY EXPLAINED
Myth of the Day
Family: Son of Iapetus (Titan) and
Clymene (nymph)
Prometheus sided with Zeus
against the other Titans
 Prometheus
was a son
of the Titan Iapetus
and one of the older
Greek gods who sided
with Zeus in his fight
against his father
Cronos.
Prometheus’s fame
was due to his
affection for
mankind, for whom
he gave fire.
 Prometheus
created
the first men out of
clay — no women!

Prometheus loved his
creation!
 His
brother began
giving all the creatures
gifts—fur, claws, wings,
etc.
 By the time he got to
man, he was out of
gifts!
 Zeus,
the leader of the
new and stronger gods,
had hidden fire away,
but Prometheus stole it
and brought it to Earth
with him because he
felt sorry for Man.
 But this drew
Prometheus into conflict
with Zeus, who chained
the rebellious Titan to
a rock and sent an
eagle to eat his liver.
 As
he was immortal, his liver
would grow back at night, and
each day the bird would peck it
out and consume it again.
 Prometheus was only released
when he gave Zeus the
information that the sea
nymph, Thetis, whom both Zeus
and Poseidon were pursing,
would give birth to a son
mightier than his father.
 By making sure Thetis married a
mortal ruler, the newly victorious
gods protected themselves
because her son turned out to be
the warrior Achilles.
 Zeus’
anger with mankind was on
occasion explained by poor
sacrifices. But Prometheus
himself was not a straightforward
helper either.
 He gave fire, an essential of
civilized life, but other gifts were
perhaps less helpful.
 Out of the flaming forge came
weapons of war, plus all the
miseries that follow the
disruption of a simple way of life.
The Unseeing Seer
His Exploits
 Tiresias was the son of a
nymph, Chariclo.
 Scaling Mount Cithaeron
one day, he comes across a
couple of snakes who are
entwined, entangled,
embracing.
 Frightened by the sight, he
seperates them and strikes
the female with his staff,
killing her. The male
escapes.
 That very moment he is
A Big Change
transformed into a woman.
Surprised not to be
bothered by the absence of
his male member, he
nonetheless finds the pair
of breasts he has just
sprouted rather
cumbersome.
 He doesn’t mind—at last
he is going to discover what
a woman feels when
making love.
 But now he is the keeper of
a great secret.
 Seven years later, Tiresias
comes across another couple of
snakes. He kills the male,
chases the female away, and at
that very moment, he is
transformed back into a
man!
 He doesn’t lose any of his
memories as a woman.
 This sparks a furious quarrel
between Hera and Zeus over
who feels the most pleasure in
love—the man or the woman.
Zeus insists it’s the woman,
despite what Hera says.
 They call judges, who don’t
have a clue!
An Argument
Breaks Out
Someone loses an Eye (or both)
 So they call Tiresias,
who has lived as
both man and
woman, and he
doesn’t hesitate.
 Furious that
woman’s secret
had been
revealed, Hera
strikes him blind!
Gift of Prophecy
 Zeus generously grants
Tiresias the power of
prophecy to make up for
what Hera had done.
 Tiresias, the male-female
prophet, thus becomes
the famous blind
soothsayer of Thebes.
 He will show up in quite a
few other myths, warning
heroes and others of the
tragic fates they will face,
including Odysseus,
Oedipus, and Narcissus!
Do you have an Oedipus Complex?

What creature goes on four feet in the
morning, on two at noonday, and on three in
the evening?
A HUMAN BEING!
We crawl on all fours as
babies.
Then we walk on two
legs as adults.
Then we age and require
a cane or third leg.

King Laius of Thebes was
warned by an Oracle that he
would die by the hands of his
son.
 To attempt to act in such a way
that the prophecy would be made
void was as futile as to set oneself
against the decrees of fate.

In an attempt to escape his
fate, Laius took his child,
bound its feet together, and
left it to die of exposure on a
mountain. He felt sure that he
had avoided the Oracle’s
prophecy.




King Laius happily lived
without the fear of being
killed by his son.
Years later, a band of
robbers attacked and killed
the King and all his
attendants.
The matter was not
investigated thoroughly, as
Thebes was having a rough
time.
A fearful Sphinx had taken
residence outside the city.
Anyone who wanted to
pass had to answer a riddle
correctly, under pain of
death. No one could get in
or out.


So matters stood when there
came into the country a stranger,
whose name was Oedipus.
He had left his home, Corinth,
where he was held to be the son
of the King, Polybus.
 The reason for his exile was another
Delphic oracle. Apollo had declared
that he was fated to kill his father!

Horrified, Oedipus resolved
never to see his father again.
Like his REAL father, Oedipus
tried to change his fate.
In his lonely wanderings
he came into the country
around Thebes and he
heard what was
happening there. He was
a homeless, friendless
man to whom life meant
little and he determined to
seek the Sphinx out and
try to solve the riddle.
 After answering correctly,
Oedipus was welcomed
into the city. The grateful
citizens made him their
King, and he married the
dead king’s wife, Jocosta.





For some time, Oedipus
reigned over Thebes happily
with his wife, and their two
sons.
By the time their sons had
grown, however, disaster
struck. Disease was rampant,
and famine. Oedipus sought
to end his people’s suffering.
Apollo announced that their
suffering would end only
when King Laius’ murderer
was punished.
Oedipus was enormously
relieved. He thought it would
be easy to find the villain and
bring him to justice!
They consulted the blind
prophet, Teiresias, who at
first refused to answer
them. Eventually, he caved
and told Oedipus that he
had murdered Laius.
 Oedipus banished him from
his sight. Obviously, the
prophet was lying or crazy.
 Oedipus returned home to
his wife, and told her what
Teiresias had said.
 She laughed, saying it was
ridiculous. After all, her
husband had been killed on
the road by robbers outside
of Thebes.




Oedipus froze in his tracks.
This sounded familiar. He
began to ask for details, and
the only witness that was
left from Laius’ party.
At this point, some divine
intervention comes in to
help convince Oedipus that
he is indeed the son of
Laius, not Polybus.
Their fates?
 Jocosta, after learning she
had married her son and
begot her own grandchildren,
kills herself in her chamber.
 Oedipus, finding Jocosta
dead, bore out his own eyes,
and blocking out any light
and succumbing to darkness.
Myth of the Day- Antigone
 In Greek mythology, Antigone
is the daughter of Oedipus and
Jocasta, Oedipus' mother.
 The name has been suggested
to mean "opposed to
motherhood", "in place of a
mother". It may also mean
"against men" since men were
dominant in the Ancient Greek
family structure, and Antigone
clearly defied masculine
authority, or "anti-generative",
from the root gonē, "that which
generates"
Roots
 Antigone is a daughter of the
accidentally incestuous
marriage between King
Oedipus of Thebes and his
mother Jocasta.
 She is the subject of a popular
story in which she attempts to
secure a respectable burial for
her brother Polynices, even
though he was a traitor to
Thebes and the law forbids
even mourning for him, on
pain of death.
How the story
goes…
 After her father, the king, dies,




her tthree brothers are
supposed to share the throne.
The elder brother does not
want to share and seizes
power.
The young brother leaves
Thebes and gathers an army.
The brothers kill each other.
The first power-hungry
brother receives a proper
burial, but the second brother
is denied one by the new man
in charge
Antigone breaks the law in
bringing her brother’s body
into the city and giving it a
traditional burial herself.
Metis
 The first wife of Zeus was
Metis, a titaness and the
goddess of wisdom and
deviousness. According
to a prophecy of that
time, Zeus would lose his
Kingdom by his first
descendant, so he
decided to swallow Metis
when she became
pregnant to Athena.
Themis
 Next, Zeus married the willowy
Themis, the Titaness of justice,
who bore him:
 the Horae(the Hours)
 1st generation- Auxo (the grower);
Carpo (the fruit-bringer) and Thallo
(the plant-raiser)
 2nd generation- Dike (justice) Eirene
(peace); Eunomia (order of law)
 the Moirae (the Fates)
 Three babies born old, who spin
thread. When they cut the thread, a
mortal’s life ends.
 They control Fate, for both mortals
and the gods



Clotho (the weaver)
Lachesis (the lot-caster)
Atropos (the inevitable)
Others
 Eyrynome, Oceanid
 The Graces- goddesses of joy,
charm and beauty
 Demeter, goddess
 Persephone
 Leto, Titaness
 Apollo
 Artemis
 Maea, nymph
 Hermes
 Mnemosyne, Titaness
 The Muses- goddesses of the
arts

Epic Poetry, History, Music/Song,
Lyric poetry, Tragedy, Hymns,
Dance, Comedy, and Astronomy
Hera
 Hera and Zeus finally





married.
Together they had four
children:
Eilithya, the protector of
childbirth
Ares, the god of war
Hebe, the goddess of youth
Hephaestus, the god of
Metallurgy.
Mortals
 However, Zeus kept being
fixated on affairs even after
his marriage, cheating on
Hera constantly with several
mortals, such as Europa,
Semele and Alcmene, the
mother of Heracles,
outraging this way Hera, who
was constantly seeking for
revenge.
 Other mortal lovers include:
 Leda, Alcmene, Semele,
Europa, Callisto, Antiope,
and Danae
 Offspring include:
 Heracles, Perseus, Dionysus,
Minos, Helen (of Sparta),
Sarpedon, Arcas
The Founding of Athens
A Long Time Ago…
 Once, a long, long time ago
first king of Athens, King
Cecrops (quite an
extraordinary king himself
as he was part human and
part snake) set out to find a
patron deity for his city
state; already a prosperous
and vibrant city.
 He called on Athena and
Poseidon because both in
fact desired to be the
patron of this beautiful city.
Rivalry
 Their rivalry was so
intense that they almost
went to war and just as
they were about to attack
each other, Athena, with
her typical, wise approach
suggested that they should
hold a contest for the city.
 With King Cecrops the
judge they set up the
contest and decided that
whoever presented the city
with the best gift would be
rewarded with the city
itself as the grand prize.
 In the midst of a huge crowd,
with King Cecrops presiding over
the contest they went up to the
Acropolis to present their gifts to
the city.
 Poseidon was to go first, and he
lifted his massive trident (three
pointed spear) and struck the
earth with it.
 At the point where the spear
struck, a frothy spring burst out
producing a sea which is now
called Erekhtheis.
 The people loved it but as they
went closer to taste the water, to
their dismay the water was salty.
Don’t forget that Poseidon was
ruler of the sea and the water
sources he controlled were
inevitably salty, just like the seas
he ruled.
The Gifts
 When it was Athena's turn her
The Gifts
act was far less dramatic. She
quietly knelt and buried
something in the ground
which in time grew into an
olive tree.
 This turned out to be a much
more useful gift, granting the
Athenians, not only the olives
themselves as sustenance, but
also a source of oil for their
lamps and for cooking their
food as well as the wood from
the olive tree to build their
boasts and houses.
Athens
 Clearly Athena's gift was
deemed by far the better by
Cecrops and he declared her
Parthenon:
Temple of Athena the winner, and the patron
deity of Athens.
 Athena became the
protector of the city (polis),
many people throughout
the Greek world worshiped
her as Athena Polias (Ἀθηνᾶ
Πολιάς “Athena of the city").
 As patron of Athens she
fought in the Trojan War on
the side of the Achaeans.
A Deformity Pays Off
Birth
 In one last fling, Aphrodite
hooked up with Dionysus,
the god of wine, and
becomes pregnant.
 But Hera, envious of
Aphrodite’s beauty, casts a
spell on her by touching
her belly…and has her
deliver a deformed child
with a gigantic male
member. This is Priapus.
A Curse
 As a handsome teenager, the
god seduces all the ladies of
Lampsacus, for whom his
deformity is anything but
off-putting.
 But the jealous husbands
chase him out of town.
 And they are punished for
it: a cruel disease hits them
where it hurts—in the very
spot of that divine
deformity. They all have
“the clap”!
 Health class should have
taught you that this is an
STI called gonorrhea
 Faced with this epidemic,
the men of the city consult
the Oracle, who delivers
judgement:
 BRING PRIAPUS BACK AND
YOU WILL ALL BE CURED!
 He returns to much acclaim,
and the poor husbands find
themselves obliged to
worship the very god who
stole their wives, to bow
down before him and pay
him homage.
 He is connected to other
gods associated with virility,
like Adonis, Dionysus, and
Hermes.
The Remedy