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Greek mythology
The Oricoli bust of Zeus, king of the gods, in the collection of the Vatican Museum
The term Greek mythology refers to the collection of tales belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their
pantheon of gods as well as their heroes, which outline their own cultic and ritual practices and view of the world. [1]
This corpus of material includes a large collection of narratives, some of which explain the origins of the world, and
others that detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, and other
mythological creatures. These accounts were initially fashioned and disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition, though
they are known today primarily through written Greek literature.
Contents
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1 Etymology
2 Sources of Greek mythology
o 2.1 Literary sources
o 2.2 Archaeological sources
3 Survey of Mythic History
o 3.1 Historical Development of Greek Mythology
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3.2 Mythic Chronology
3.3 Age of gods
 3.3.1 Cosmogony and cosmology
 3.3.2 Greek gods
3.4 Age of gods and men
3.5 Heroic age
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Greek mythology has exercised an extensive and profound influence on the culture, arts and literature of Western
civilization. Indeed, Greek mythological themes have remained continually relevant throughout western literary
history.[2] Though the ancient Greek religions based upon these tales have long since faded into obscurity, Greek
myths remain the archetypal sources for much of Western fiction, poetry, film and visual art. Greek mythology has
played a pivotal role in the development of modern studies of mythology, psychology, and philology, and it
continues to be a part of the heritage and language of the global community.
Etymology
While all cultures throughout the world have their own myths, the term mythology itself is a Greek coinage, having a
specialized meaning within classical Greek culture. Specifically, the Greek term mythologia is a compound of two
smaller words:
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mythos (μῦθος)—Classical Greek, roughly "the oral speech," "words without action" (Aeschylus: "ἔργῳ
κοὐκέτι μύθῳ," “from word to deed”)[3] and, by expansion, a "ritualized speech act," as of a chieftain at an
assembly, or of a poet or priest,[1] or a narration (Aeschylus: Ἀκούσει μῦθον ἐν βραχεῖ λόγῳ, “The whole
tale you will hear in brief space of time.”).[4]
logos (λόγος)—which in Classical Greek stands for: a) the (oral or written) expression of thoughts and b)
the ability of a person to express his thoughts (inward logos). [5]
Sources of Greek mythology
Prometheus (Gustave Moreau, 1868)—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, depicted here in the fifth-century manuscript Vergilius Romanus, preserved details of Greek
mythology in many of his writings
The Greek myths are known today primarily from Greek literature. However, in addition to the written sources,
there are mythical representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period (c. 900-800 B.C.E.) onward.[6]
Literary sources
Despite the oral-poetic origins of Greek mythology, the modern understanding of this tradition has been largely
based upon the surviving textual remains of the classical period. The oldest known literary sources, Homer’s epic
poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, focus on events surrounding the Trojan War. Two poems by Homer's nearcontemporary 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 fifth century B.C.E., in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic
Age and the Roman Empire (for example, Plutarch and Pausanias).
As mentioned above, the earliest literary sources of the Greek mythical tradition are Homer's two epic poems, the
Iliad and the Odyssey. These two accounts provide a clear indication of the Greek appetite for fantastic tales, as well
as their understanding of the complex, often antagonistic relationship between men and gods (and between the gods
themselves).
Hesiod, a possible contemporary of Homer, offers in the Theogony (Origin of the Gods) the fullest account of the
earliest Greek myths, dealing with folktales, etiological tales, creation accounts, and descriptions of the origin of the
gods, Titans and giants (including elaborate genealogies). His other notable production, Works and Days, a didactic
poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora and the Four Ages. In it, the poet gives
advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world rendered yet more dangerous by its gods. [7]
Likewise, the lyrical poets (composers of the Homeric hymns) often took their subjects from myth, though their
treatments gradually became less narrative and more allusive. [8] These lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides,
Simonides, and the later bucolic poets, such as Theocritus and Bion, provided individualized depictions of
mythological incidents.[9]
Myth was also central to classical Athenian drama. The tragic playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides took
their plots from the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories (i.e. Agamemnon and his
children, Oedipus, Jason, Medea, etc.) took their classic form in these tragic plays. For his part, the comic
playwright Aristophanes also used myths, as in The Birds or The Frogs, though he typically used them as a means of
critiquing Greek society.[10]
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 providing little-known,
alternative versions.[9]
Finally, the poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages, though composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise,
contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The Hellenistic poets Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Pseudo-Eratosthenes and Parthenius
The Roman poets Ovid, Statius, Valerius Flaccus and Virgil
The Late Antique Greek poets Nonnus, Antoninus Liberalis and Quintus Smyrnaeus
The ancient novels of Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus and Heliodorus
Archaeological sources
In addition to the textual sources described above, the modern understanding of Greek mythology has also been
refined through archaeological exploration. The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by German amateur
archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the nineteenth century, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete
by British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, in the twentieth century, have helped to explain many questions about
Homer's epics and have provided archaeological support for many mythological claims about Greek life and
culture.[7] The visual representations of mythical figures discovered at these (and other) archaeological digs are
important for two reasons: on one hand, visual sources sometimes represent myths or mythical scenes that have not
survived in any extant literary source. For example, archaeologists have found pottery (dated to the eighth century
B.C.E.) that depicts unknown scenes from the Trojan cycle and from the adventures of Heracles.[7] On the other hand,
pictorial depictions of many mythic events can also predate their inclusion in literary sources, which allows students
of classic Greek culture to assess the dates of their composition more accurately. In some cases, these visual
representations predate a myth's first known representation in archaic poetry by several centuries. [6] In both ways,
archaeological finds that include depictions of mythological scenes can be seen to supplement the existing literary
evidence.[7]
Survey of Mythic History
Historical Development of Greek Mythology
The mythological world postulated by ancient Greek thinkers evolved in tandem with their overall cultural system.
The earliest known inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who animistically assigned
spirits to various features of the natural world. Eventually, in a process mirroring the development of polytheism
elsewhere in the world, these spirits began to assume human forms and to enter the local mythology as gods and
goddesses related to the agrarian lifestyle of these early people. [11] When these territories were invaded by tribes
from the north, the attackers brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle,
and violent heroism. Many of the older pastoral/fertility deities fused with those of the more powerful invaders,
became incorporated into the pantheon, or else faded into insignificance. [12] This syncretic process created the
cultural-narrative system that survives into the modern day as classical Greek mythology.
However, this system underwent another sea change under the literary mythographers of the early Roman Empire,
who preserved and propagated Greek myths after the collapse of native Hellenic society. However, in doing so, they
often adapted the stories in ways that did not reflect earlier beliefs. Many of the most popular versions of these
myths emerged from these inventive re-tellings, which may blur our modern understanding of the archaic beliefs.
Mythic Chronology
The achievement of epic poetry was to create cycles of stories and, resultantly, to develop a sense of mythical
chronology. When thus contextualized, Greek mythology unfolds as a description of the emergence of the gods, the
world and humanity.[13] While self-contradictions in the stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an
approximate chronology dividing history into three or four broad periods may be discerned:
1.
2.
3.
The myths of origin or age of gods (Theogonies, "births of gods"): stories about the origins of the world, the
gods, and the human race.
The age when gods and mortals mingled freely: stories of the early interactions between gods, demigods,
and mortals.
The age of heroes (heroic age), where divine activity was more limited. The last and greatest of the heroic
sagas are the stories surrounding (and immediately following) the Trojan War (which is regarded by some
researchers as a fourth (and separate) period). [14]
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" led to a restructuring of spiritual life, expressed in the separation of the Olympian from the
Chthonic, of the realm of the gods from the realm of the dead (the Elysian Fields, which were reserved for deceased
heroes).[15]
Regardless, the historical schema postulated above is visible in Hesiod's Works and Days, which makes use of a
chronological division into Four Ages: Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. These ages each have distinct foci, with the
Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronus, the Silver to the creation of Zeus, and the later Bronze period to the
Age of Heroes. The final age (Iron) is seen by Hesiod as his own era, which he regarded as the worst (in terms of
morality and quality of life).[16] This "Four Age" periodization is followed in Ovid's Metamorphoses.[17]
Age of gods
Cosmogony and cosmology
Cosmogonic and cosmological myths (concerned with the origins and nature of the universe) represent an attempt to
render the natural world comprehensible in human terms.[18] The most widely accepted account of these origins is
found in Hesiod's Theogony, which postulates that creation began from Chaos, a yawning nothingness. Out of this
void emerged Ge or Gaia (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (Love), the Abyss (Tartarus), and
Darkness (Erebus).[19] Without any male involvement, Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the sky) who then proceeded to
fertilize her. From that union were born the Titans (including Zeus's father, Cronus), the one-eyed Cyclopes and the
Hecatonchires ("Hundred-Handers"). Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of [Gaia's] children" [19])
castrated his father and became the ruler of the gods, with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other titans as
his court. Eventually, Cronus was unseated by his son Zeus in an epic battle (the Titanomachy), which resulted in
the triumph of the Olympians and the banishment of Cronus and the Titans to the depths of Tartarus. [20]
The earliest Greek aesthetic thought considered theogony (myths of the origins of gods) to be the prototypical poetic
genre—the prototypical mythos (myth)—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, 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.[21] Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving cosmic origin
story, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function. Theogony, as a genre, was the subject of
many poems, though the vast majority of them have been lost, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus,
Epimenides, Abaris and other legendary seers. These poems, which were of tremendous significance in ancient
Greek religion, were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites. These rites (and the religious poems
pertaining to them) were so central to Greek religious thought that traces of them can be found in the writings of
Plato and the later Neoplatonist philosophers.[22]
Greek gods
The Twelve Olympians by Monsiau, c. late eighteenth century
After the overthrow of the Titans, a new pantheon of gods and goddesses emerged. Among the principle Greek
deities were the Olympians (who resided atop Mount Olympus under the watchful eye of Zeus), and various (likely
more ancient) gods of the countryside, including the goat-god Pan, satyrs, the Nymphs, the Naeads (who dwelt in
springs), the Dryads (who dwelt in trees), the Nereids (who inhabited the sea), and various gods of rivers and other
landscape features. Some of the most important deities from the "Silver Age" (as attested in both surviving mythic
literature and archaeological evidence) include Zeus, the sky god and ruler/patriarch of the pantheon; Hera, the
divine wife of Zeus, who is often driven to jealous rages by her husbands philandering; Hades, the god of the
underworld; Poseidon, the god of seas, rivers and earthquakes; Demeter, the goddess of fertility; Apollo, the god of
prophesy, music, healing, disease and medicine; Athena, the goddess of wisdom, the crafts (especially weaving,
pottery and carpentry) and defensive war; Hephaestus, the god of fire, artisans, and blacksmiths; Ares, the god of
offensive war and slaughter; Aphrodite, the goddess of love, sexuality, and attraction; Hermes, the god of
boundaries (and transgressing them); Hestia, the goddess of home and hearth; and, Dionysus, the god of wine,
vegetation, and male fertility.[23][24] As noted by famed classicist Walter Burkert, these Olympian deities were
understood anthropomorphically: as they were seen as "persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts." [25] However,
despite their predominantly human forms, the ancient Greek gods did possess many fantastic abilities, including
immunity from disease, eternal youth, and superhuman stamina and resilience. [26]
The second (or "silver") age of the mythic chronology is concerned with the ahistorical (i.e. pre-human) interactions
between these deities. Each of the major gods and goddesses was the subject of a complex of myths, which detailed
their origins, roles and responsibilities, relationships with other deities, and their interactions with the human
populace (with this last point being discussed below, in the section on the "Age of Bronze"). [27] Those deities that
captured the Greek imagination, such as Apollo and Dionysus, figured into numerous mythical tales and,
consequently, come to possess complex personalities and to become patrons for a variety of human and worldly
concerns. Those deities that did not, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were relegated to
being little more than personifications of abstract themes or phenomena. Many of the Silver Age tales provided
etiological explanations for worldly phenomena (i.e. the myth of Persephone's death and resurrection as explication
of seasonal variations in weather), while others (like the tale of the marriage between the disfigured dwarf
Hephaestus and the comely Aphrodite) existed more for entertainment than edification.
Age of gods and men
After the primordial age of the Olympians, Greek myths describe a transitional age when gods and men co-existed in
the world.[28] The encounters between them were generally momentous, and often took one of two prototypical
forms: tales of sexual encounter and tales of punishment.[29]
Tales of sexual encounter often involve the seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, which was thought
(due to the divinity of the seed) to result in heroic offspring. Despite these genetic advantages, the stories generally
suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are something to avoid, as even consenting relationships rarely
have happy endings.[30]
The second type (the tales of punishment) describe the horrific consequences that a mortal could face if they offend,
displease or otherwise irritate the often-capricious Olympians. A small sampling of these offenses includes
Marsyas's defeat of Apollo at a musical contest, and Lycurgus's fatal ignorance Dionysus's divinity, and the theft of
divine nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table by Tantalus.[31] Whether the vengeful gods harried an individual while
alive or tormented them in the hereafter, the punishments were often poetically just (though extremely harsh).
Regardless, it seems likely that these tales were crafted to explain away the random cruelties of fate that were (and
continue to be) the province of mortal life.
Heroic age
The next age in the mythic chronology concerns the exploits of the heroes, who were typically semi-divine humans
borne of the union between a god and a mortal woman. [32] Based on the surviving evidence, the heroic tales were the
most popular genre in Greek narrative, drama and poetry. These accounts created cycles of stories clustered around
particular heroes or events and established the family relationships between the heroes of different stories—creating
an ever-expanding "continuity" of mythic, potentially-interacting characters.[13] In contrast to the relatively fixed
pantheon of Olympians, the roster of heroes proposed during this period was never given a fixed and final form:
while great gods are no longer born, new heroes can always be raised up from the army of the dead.
The hero myths co-evolved alongside various hero cults, which began to spring up throughout the early Greek
empire as early as the eighth century B.C.E.[33] After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes were both seen to
constitute the sacral sphere, and began to be invoked together in oaths and prayers. [15] However, while the cults of
gods often extended throughout the entire peninsula, hero cults were often strongly tied to individual communities,
where they often became the locus of local group identity. [15]
The Heroic Age is generally thought to have begun with the labors of Heracles. In time (both mythic and
chronological), various other heroes emerged, including Theseus, Perseus, Jason, and the numerous heroes of the
Homeric epics (most notably Achilles in the Iliad and Odysseus in the Odyssey).[34][35] While their adventures have
provided plots, conflicts and tropes that remain common in narrative fiction to this day, these tales often lack the
cosmological scope of the myths described above—meaning that they tend to reveal less about the religious and
cosmic imagination of the ancient Greeks.