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The Sarpedon Vase, also known as the Euphronius vase along with
the Persephone tablet, are extremely significant, as they form the
very basis of the concept and uniqueness of basic Greek mythology.
On the Persephone tablet, Persephone, the goddess of spring and
her mother Demeter , the goddess of the harvest, grains, fertility
of the earth, and seasons, are sending the young boy Triptolemus,
the son of King Celeus of Eluesis in Attica, to Earth to teach man
agriculture. This shows that the Ancient Greeks believed that the
Greek gods had powers, and they are benevolent so that they
created and are responsible for Man's developed lifestyle today.
However, the Sarpedon vase shows the entire uniqueness of Greek
mythology. On it, Hermes, the messenger god, is watching while
Hypnos, the god of sleep, and Thanatos, the god of death, carry
the dead Sarpedon, son of Zeus and Laodamia, away from the
Trojan War's battlefield to Sarpedon's homeland, Lycia. In Greek
mythology, Sarpedon was given three generations to live as a
demigod by Zeus.
A point would be the moral character of the Greek Gods. In
Greek mythology, Sarpedon was actually the son of Laodamia, one
of the many extra-marital lovers of Zeus kept from his wife, Hera.
Due to Zeus's infidelity, he caused many of his extra-marital lovers
and demigod offspring to suffer horribly due to his lackluster
attitude. Apart from this horrible deed, the gods have been guilty
of numerous sins in Greek mythology that were terribly distinct.
One example would be:
1. To challenge Zeus's omniscience, the titan Prometheus wrapped
bones in glistening fat and hid choice selections of meat inside a
cow's stomach in a ritualistic meeting to finally decide the
items Man will sacrifice to the gods. Zeus, feeling that the
bones were heavier, and attracted by the glistening fat, chose
the bag of bones, thus causing Man to be able to consume meat
and sacrifice fat and bones to the gods. This not only shows
that even the king of all Greek gods is not omniscient, but that
even the king of all gods is unable to avoid a severe moral,
mortal sin: greed. Zeus, even with all his power, fails to put
others before oneself and chooses the heavier bag of "meat".
2. Cronos, titan and husband to the titan Rhea, overthrowed his
father Uranus from his throne and crowned himself as King.
After he had been warned that there was a prophecy that one
of his children would overthrow him like he did to his father,
Cronos swallowed his newborn children one by one. However,
Rhea and Gaia, her mother, wrapped a stone in swaddling
clothes and gave it to Cronos, while they sent Zeus to Crete, to
be raised in a cave on Mount Dicte by the divine goat
Almaltheia . When Zeus matured, he returned to his father’s
domain, castrated him and slit his stomach to retrieve the five
swallowed children. He than defeated the Titans and sent all
the Titans, including his parents to Tartarus, the lowest region
of the Eath, lower than the underworld.
This shows that the gods were unable to forgive and forget, and
was wrathful and unmerciless to their own people even if they were
family. Referring to the Charioteer of Delphi, which expresses the
Greeks’ ideals for civilization, by comparing the two artefacts, we
can see that the Greeks were expressing the Gods as especially
wrathful and unable to control themselves.
So, we may be able to infer that the Greeks thought that the Gods
were also capable of committing moral, mortal sins, and are not all
benevolent and incapable of sin, such as had been expressed in
Christianity of Jesus and in Buddhism of Buddha.
Another point, not inferred from the artefacts, is that the most
powerful gods: Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, were created by the
Titans Cronus and Rhea. It was the first time in all of mythology
that there was a proposed idea that the origins of gods were from
being created. In other mythologies, they always express the god
as the Holy Creator, and he created everything. It was only during
this time came the idea the creators were created. Another
similarity to Man.
Thus this leads me to propose a thought: The Greeks believed that
the Gods were had very close ties with Man, and though powerful,
do not breach their many similarities, unlike other mythologies
where they describe the god in a way until Man seems inferior.