Download Monsters:

Monsters:
Sphinx:
Egypt:
 Lion/ human composite
 Dynasty IV (mid 3rd millennium BCE)
 Giza (Cairo)
 Sphinx is a representation of pharaoh (Cheops at Gaza)
 Not just Cheops: other pharaohs shown as sphinxes
 Composite creature = indication of power, of higher than human status
Greece:
 Lion/ human composite with wings
 Often shown as giving riddle to Oedipus
 Monster, enemy of humanity
 Has been devouring the inhabitants of Thebes and won't stop until someone solves
her riddle, which Oedipus does and she throws herself off her crag
What is a 'monster'?
 Latin monstrum literally mean 'warning'
 Portent/ prodigy
 Violation of expected order
 Consequences feared
 Romans particularly alert to such signs
 Reflected in Roman myth
 Laocoon in Vergil's Aeneid 2
 Monsters in myth act as threats - to gods, or humans
 Defeat -> triumph of a more civilised force
Heroes and Monsters: examples & themes
 monsters not all that common in Greek & Roman myth
 Humans & gods more the focus
 Monsters often located in distant realms
 Minotaur in Crete
 Chimera in Lycia
Ancient
narrators sometimes distanced from monster stories

The Minotaur ('bull of Minos')
 Cretan king, Minos, neglects worship of Poseidon
 Poseidon sends a bull to rampage around Crete
 This Cretan bull becomes one of Heracles' 12 labours
 Minos' wide, Pasiphae, falls in love with it
 Daedalus builds heifer for Pasiphae
 A mythical craftsman, with own set of myths
 First sculptor to make images of Gods
 Builds artificial wings to himself & son Icarus (who dies)
 Pasiphae conceives & bears the Minotaur
 Bull head, human body
 Daedalus constructs a labyrinth to contain Minotaur
 Fed on human offerings
 Minos's son Androgeus killed at Athens
 Therefore they must send 7 youths and 7 maidens to feed the minotaur, including:
Theseus:
 Illegitimate son of king Aegeus
 And of Poseidon in some versions
 Minos' daughter, Ariadne, falls in love with him
 Provides ball of thread to help Theseus through the labyrinth
 Theseus kills the minotaur and abducts Ariadne
 Theseus leaves Ariadne on Naxos on his way home
 Explanations differ
 She becomes the consort of Dionysus
 Theseus returns to Athens and;
 Father Aegeus commits suicide because Theseus forgets to change the sails from
black to white therefore suggesting Theseus was dead
History in this myth?
 Crete home to one of the earliest great cultures, the Minoans (3000-1000BCE)
 Named from the mythical king
 Literate (Linear A); non-Greek people
 Mycenaeans learned to write from them; Linear B adopted& adapted for writing
Greek
 Palace complexes on Crete excavated by Sir Arthur Evans (1900)
 Bulls very common in Minoan art
 Other references; Zeus (in the form of a bull) abducts Europa and brings her to Crete
The Cretan Labyrinth:
 Story inspired by palace?
 Not Indo-European word
 Presumably come in from Minoans
Crete & Athens: a real relationship?
 Sending offerings to Crete: was Athens really once subordinate to Cretan power in some
way?
 Crete believed by classical Greeks to have once been a great naval power
 Building of unfortified palaces perhaps hints at naval strength
Theseus - History Shaping Myth:
 Athens becomes increasingly important in 6th & 5th centuries BCE
 Theseus' legend expanded for Athenian prestige
 Athens not VIP in Homer, Hesiod
 Tyrant Peisistratus perhaps influential?
Theseus & Heracles:
 Cycle of feats modelled closely on Heracles
 Defeat bulls/ other wild animals
 Descent into the underworld
 Defeats of robbers, bandits
 Benefactor
 Both aided by Athena