gods and goddesses in greek mythology

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U MYTHOLOGY U

GODS AND GODDESSES IN

GREEK MYTHOLOGYMichelle M. Houle



Copyright © 2001 by Michelle M. Houle All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Houle, Michelle M. Gods and Goddesses in Greek Mythology / Michelle M. Houle. p. cm. — (Mythology) Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: Discusses various Greek myths, including creation stories and tales of principal gods and goddesses. ISBN 0-7660-1408-8 1. Mythology, Greek—Juvenile literature. [1. Mythology, Greek.] I. Title. II. My

thology (Berkeley Heights, N.J.) BL782 .H68 2000 398.2’0938’01—dc21 00-028782 Printedin the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Our Readers: All Internet Addresses in this book were active and appropriate when we went to press. Anycomments or suggestions can be sent by e-mail to [email protected] or to the address on the back cover.

Cover and illustrations by William Sauts Bock



CONTENTSChart of Major Gods and Goddesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Map . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6 8

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 The War Betweenthe Titans and the Olympians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Prometheus andEarth’s First Inhabitants . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Pandora . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Demeter and Persephone . . . . . . . . . .. 60 Dionysus and His Followers . . . . . . . . . 75 Baucis and Philemon . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 89 Echo and Narcissus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Helius and Phaethon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109 Glossary . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119 Chapter Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .121 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124 InternetAddresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .127



PREFACEThe word myth comes from the Greek word mythos, 1 which means “story” or “speech.” Mythis often the word used to describe a story that explains events or objects thatoccur in nature, such as the creation of certain flowers or animals, the location of deserts or oceans, and even the origin and cycle of the seasons. Myths mayalso be stories about the origins of customs or traditions. While some real events or characters may be represented in myths, these stories should not be read a

s if they are history. Though there may be elements of fact intertwined in theirtelling, these stories happen in a time and place that does not really exist, regardless of how real the setting may seem.

The Greek LandscapeThe landscape of Greece has always played a great role in the development of itspeople and its myths. The country of Greece is located on the European continent to the east of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea. It is a country surrounded by many islands—some very small and some quite large, like the island of Crete. The Peloponnesus is a peninsula in the southern part of Greece. It is connected to themainland by a thin strip of land, an isthmus, that is watched over by the old hill city of Corinth. The Peloponnesus is home to the important cities of Sparta

and Olympia. Athens, on the other hand, is on the southern tip of the mainland in a region known as Attica. There are many hills and mountains rolling across the Greek countryside. Therefore, while it might be snowy and cold in one part ofthe country, it can also be hot and dry 6



Preface

in another. On the whole, however, the weather in Greece is warm, with sunny skies and relatively mild winters. The soil is dry and rocky due to the intense sunand rolling hills, and farming has always been difficult. Grains, such as wheatand barley, and fruits, such as olives and grapes, have been common crops throughout history. However, because it was difficult to tease crops out of this roug

h soil, the people who live in this area have also always depended, at least inpart, on the sea. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks were already great seafarers, and they sailed all over the Mediterranean. Because of their travels, the Greeks came into contact with people of many different backgrounds. They met and traded goods with people in Asia Minor and Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Every time the sailors came into contact with people from different backgrounds, they listened to the foreigners’ stories and added them to their own collection. Theextensive travel of early Greek culture helps to explain why there are many different versions of each myth, and why the myths of many different cultures oftenseem very similar.

History

People lived in the area now known as Greece for thousands of years, but very little is known about the area’s earliest inhabitants. Archaeology, or the study ofancient civilizations, has taught scholars a little bit about the people who lived there between 6000 and 3000 B.C. Scholars believe that the early Greeks relied on farming 2 and lived in small village-like communities. The years 3000 to 1600 B.C. are often considered the beginning of Greek culture and Western civilization in general. Scholars do not know much about the daily lives 7



Gods and Goddesses in Greek Mythology

and customs of the people who lived on the mainland of Greece during this period. Like their predecessors, they seem to have been farmers. A lot of information,however, exists about the civilization then thriving on the island of Crete, where the legendary King Minos was thought to have lived. Beginning in about 2200B.C., the people of Crete, called the Minoans, built fabulous palaces and ruled

the seas with a strong hand. In about 1650 B.C., Mycenae became an important center of Greek culture. Mycenae was a wealthy and powerful city, located in the Peloponnesus. The people who lived there spoke a language that is similar to modern Greek. Other cities also began to blossom on the mainland. Thebes, Sparta, andAthens are just a few of the cities that were founded in the same era as Mycenae. Though the palaces of the Minoans on Crete were destroyed in about 1450 B.C.,Minoan civilization had a great influence on its mainland neighbors in terms ofart, 3 religion, and culture. As their civilization spread, the people of Greece lived in towns that were independent of each other. The people who lived in what is known today as Greece were united by two factors: they spoke roughly the same language, and they thought of themselves as “Hellenes,” or fellow descendants ofHellen, the legendary founder of the Greek people. (Today the modern Greek word

for the country of Greece is Hellas.) There was no single ruler, and there wereoften wars between the different communities. It is important to remember thatthe people we call Greeks today were, at one time, not unified at all. In the eleventh century B.C., an unknown enemy destroyed the ancient city of Troy, located in the western part of Asia Minor. It was against this city that the Greeks supposedly fought as a single group in order to rescue 10



Preface

Helen, the wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta. Soon after this event, many major cities on the Greek mainland were destroyed. Later, Greeks blamed this massive destruction on an invading group of Greek-speakers whom they called the Dorians. In about 800 B.C., the Greek alphabet was created, using the Phoenician alphabet as a model. This invention began a period of great political and commercial

development on the Greek mainland and the surrounding islands. At that time, thevarious communities began to think of themselves as living in separate political entities known as city-states. The Greek word for city-state is polis. In 508B.C., Athens became the world’s first democracy when free adult males were allowedto vote on matters concerning the city. The word democracy comes from the Greekword democratia, which means “ruled by the demos, or the people.” It is important to note, however, that only citizens could vote in this democracy, and not everyone living in Athens was considered a citizen. At that time, many Athenian families owned slaves, who were often captives of war. Slaves were not considered citizens, and, therefore, not allowed to vote, and women held a nonvoting status ascitizens. During the rise of Athenian democracy during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., great strides were made in the fields of philosophy, history, medicin

e, and the arts. It was a period of great development, especially in Athens, where some of the world’s most influential thinkers could be found. This era is oftenreferred to as the “Golden Age of Greece” or the “Golden Age of Pericles,” referring tothe ruler at the time. In 338 B.C., Phillip II, a ruler from Macedonia, an areain the northern part of Greece, took control of most of the Greek mainland. Phillip and, after his death, his son, 11



Gods and Goddesses in Greek Mythology

Alexander, led military campaigns to build up their empire. At the height of hispower, Alexander’s empire stretched as far east as India. By late in the third century B.C., however, the Roman empire was beginning to gain strength, and by themiddle of the second century B.C., Greece had come under Roman control completely. When Rome conquered Greece, the Romans adopted many of the customs, religiou

s beliefs, and myths of their new subjects.

LiteratureThe Greek myths we are familiar with today are the product of generations of storytelling. Many were adaptations of stories that the Greeks gleaned from other cultures. Before about 800 B.C., when the Greek alphabet was developed, myths were passed down from one generation to the next by word of mouth. It was also through oral storytelling that myths and legends traveled from one part of Greece tothe next, as well as to other parts of the world. However, after 800 B.C., stories began to be written down, including most of the tales that we now recognizeas the basic core of Greek mythology.

The Greek Alphabet and the English Equivalent:Α Β Γ ∆ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ ΛΜΝ Ξ ΟΠΡ Σ Τ Υ ΦΨΧΩ

¡

¢

D£

¤

£

¥

h¦

§

©

s

¥

/

h

s

¡

ecause the¢

reek alphabet is different from the one we use in£

nglish, scholarswill differ in choosing the

£

nglish equivalent for a¢

reek word.

or example, the name of the god of fire may be spelled

ephaistos or

ephaestus, depending onthe writer.

¦

n this book, we 12



reface

have tried to spell words and names so that they sound similar to their¢

reek equivalents but are also easy to read.

ometime in the eighth century

¡

.

., the poet

omer is thought to have composed¥ he

¦ liad and

¥ he

dyssey (although many scholars debate his authorship).

¥

hese two epic poems contain famous stories aboutlegendary events in

¢

reek history.¥ he

¦ liad tells the story of the tenth year

of the ¥ rojan War, which may actually have taken place around 1250¡

.

. when thereal city of

¥ roy was destroyed.

¥ he

dyssey recounts the adventures of

dysseus, a legendary ruler from

¦

thaca, a real island, located off the west coast of the

¢

reek mainland.

o one knows much about

omer.

egend has it that he was a blind poet who may have lived in

sia©

inor or on

hios, one of the islands off the coast of

sia©

inor.¡

ecause oral storytelling was such an important traditionbefore the advent of writing,

omer’s stories may have been told for generationsbefore they were ever written down.

nother important figure at this time was apoet known as

esiod, who was born around 700¡

.

.

is two surviving poems are the

¥ heogony, which tells the story of the mythic creation of the world, and Work

s and Days, which tells other important stories.¥

hese two works tell us a lot about the prevailing myths surrounding the various gods and goddesses in

¢

reek le

gend and religion at this time. During the time when democracy was developing in

thens, literature and the arts were also prospering.¥

heater was one of thesearts.

¥

hree of

thens’ greatest playwrights were

eschylus,

ophocles, and£

uripides.

©

any of the myths we know today come from their plays.

or scholars today, another important source of

¢

reek myths is actually the work of

omans. When theyconquered the

¢

reeks, the

omans absorbed many aspects of¢

reek culture.¥

he poet

vid, who lived from 13



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

around 43¡

.

. to

.D. 17, was both a prolific writer and an influential figurein

ome.

ne of his most significant contributions to modern scholarship is hisfifteen-volume work called

¥ he

©

etamorphoses, which retells the stories of many¢

reek myths.

or centuries, this text has inspired other artists and poets.

eligion and

ulture¥ he ancient

¢

reeks were polytheistic, which means they believed in the existenceof many gods and goddesses.

group, or collection, of gods and goddesses is called a pantheon, and the leader of the

¢

reek pantheon was¤ eus, the king of the

gods and ruler of the sky.¥ he

¢

reeks believed that the gods had enormous powerover the world and that they controlled nature in all its forms.

¥ he gods were o

ften worshipped in temples erected in their honor.©

ost cities had a particulargod or goddess whom they considered a special protector.

thens, for example, looked to the goddess

thena and the god

oseidon as its particular protectors.¥ h

e cities also held festivals in honor of individual gods at various times of theyear.

t many of these festivals, poets would dramatically recite the stories of the gods’ adventures.

ne of the most famous festivals in the ancient¢

reek worl

d was the festival in

thens honoring Dionysus, the god of wine. During the festivities, plays would be performed and judged in a competition, and it was duringthis festival that modern theater was born.

¥

he worship of the gods often included a sacrifice.

sually, it was an animal, such as a goat, that was offered.¥ h

e¢

reeks also believed in oracles, or prophets.

t the temples of various gods,the priests, who could be either men or women, were often called upon to interpret 14



reface

omens, such as the sighting of a certain kind of bird or the appearance of someother natural event.

ne of the most famous oracles was located at Delphi wherethere were many important temples.

eople would travel from all over the¢

reek world to visit the temples and honor the gods.

¥

he gods and goddesses were a major part of everyday life in ancient

¢

reece, and each god had a particular role.

ometimes the gods had several jobs. ¤ eus, for example, the ruler of the sky andthe leader of the gods, was also a protector of guests and travelers.

era,¤ eus’s

wife, was the goddess of marriage and childbirth.

thena was the protectress of

thens, but she was also the goddess of wisdom and war.

oseidon was another protector of

thens but, as the ruler of the sea, he was an important god for sailors and those who traveled by boat.

ephaestus was the god of fire, and he alsoserved in the role of blacksmith for the gods.

¥

he¢

reeks believed that the godslived on

©

ount

lympus, a real mountain in the central part of¢

reece called¥ h

essaly.

owever, according to¢

reek tradition, the gods could leave their mountain and go anywhere.

©

yths and legends often told of the gods taking on human forms and walking among the people. Within the pantheon, the gods often married each other, and some of them had more than one spouse or partner at a time.

ometim

es the gods married their siblings, parents, or children.¥

he god¤

eus, for example, had many partners other than his wife,

era, who was also his sister.¥

hroughout the various mythological stories,

¤

eus appears to have had more than one hundred fifteen 4 mistresses!

¥ he gods and goddesses were often paired in differe

nt ways because the myths were always developing and being retold.

s people began to believe different things about different gods, they associated the gods with 15



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

one another in new ways.¤ eus, as the most powerful god, often seemed to be a pa

rt of all the other gods’ lives.¥ hough the gods had affairs and children by many

different partners, real¢

reek marriage customs were very strict. Women were married at a young age, often to men who were much older; and the marriages, at least in

thens, were usually arranged by families based on economic needs and poli

tical tactics, rather than affection. ¦ t was not socially acceptable for women to have romantic relationships with men outside of marriage, regardless of what the gods and goddesses were thought to do.

¦

n addition to being part of the playsand poems recited at festivals, the stories of the gods and goddesses were alsofrequently told at home and in schools.

¥ he following myths, therefore, were an

important part of the everyday social and religious life of the ancient¢

reeks.

16



1

£

¥ ¦



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

©

ost cultures have myths that help to explain the creation of the universe and the beginning of time.

¡

ecause the origin of the universe is unknown, each culture has tried its best to make sense of this mystery.

n important¢

reek creationstory comes to us through

esiod’s poem, the¥ heogony.

¥ he

¥ heogony seems to have

been the earliest surviving literary version of the creation of the earth and the birth of the gods in the

¢

reek pantheon.¦ n the

¥ heogony,

esiod appeals to th

e©

uses, the patronesses of the arts, for inspiration and wisdom as he begins torelate the succession of gods and the story of creation.

¦ nvoking the

©

uses’ helpwas a common way for poets to begin their work:

¥ ell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, andthe gods who were born of them, givers of good things, and how they divided their wealth, and how they shared their honors amongst them. . . .

¥

hese things declare to me from the beginning, you

©

uses who dwell in the house of

lympus, 1 and tell me which of them first came to be.

¦

n this creation myth, the development of the earth coincides with a rise in thepowers of the ruling gods.

¥ he first entity that ruled the universe was called

haos.¥

he word chaos literally means a wide-open space, but it can also describe a deep cavern or chasm.¥

he goddess¢

aia’s name literally means “earth” or “land.”¥

he name of

¢

aia’s child and husband,

ranus, means “sky” or “heaven.”¥

here is a close connection between these god-like figures and the physical elements suggested by theirnames.

¦ n this sense, then,

¢

aia is both a goddess and the earth itself, and, similarly,

ranus is both a god and the heavens.

18



£

¥ ¦

¡

efore there was land or sea, people or gods, nothing existed, except

haos.

haos was a space of neither order nor disorder. During

haos’s reign, there was no organization of any kind in the universe.

¥ here was no sun or moon.

¥ here were no

mountains or rivers, nor any such features on earth.¦ n fact, there was no eart

h at all.¦

t was a period of vast emptiness.£

ven time did not exist.£

ventually,

haos divided itself into the earth, the sky, and the sea. When the division w

as complete, everything was peaceful and perfect.

fter

haos divided into the earth, sky, and sea, one goddess came into being without being born to any mother.

er name was¢

aia, which means earth, and she took control over the earth as it took shape.

©

ountains became separate from the plains, and rivers and oceans were formed.

ike an artist at a canvas,¢

aia was busy creating a beautiful masterpiece.

oon, however, the goddess began to long for children to help populate a

nd rule this magnificent new world.¢

aia’s desire for children was so great that eventually she became pregnant by herself.

¥ he child she bore was named

ranus, and he became the ruler of the sky.

¦ n every way,

ranus was the equal of his mother, and soon

¢

aia and

ranus had children together. 19



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¢

aia’s first three children were monsters, called the

undred-handed

nes.¥ hey we

re giants, and each had fifty heads and a hundred hands.

lthough¢

aia loved herchildren and was proud of them,

ranus was afraid that someday one of these children would overthrow him.

¡

ecause of this fear,

ranus hated the children and forced them back into

¢

aia’s womb.

fter the hundred-handed monsters had been born

and were pushed back into their mother’s womb,¢

aia gave birth to three more monstrous children.

¥ hese were giants called the

yclopes.£

ach had but a single eye,which was positioned directly in the middle of his forehead.

lthough they werefrightening to look at, these young gods were exceedingly strong, and they wereexcellent craftsmen who made thunder and lightning for

20



reation

their mother to use as tools and weapons.

nfortunately,

ranus was afraid of these children, too.

o, in order to get rid of them,

ranus tied the

yclopes upand threw them into a deep cavern called

¥ artarus.

¥ artarus was far, far away, a

nd

ranus felt safe in believing that he would never see these monster-childrenagain.

addened by the loss of the

undred-handed

nes and the

yclopes, and ang

ry at the cruel

ranus,¢

aia gave birth to a third group of children. ¥ hese werecalled the

¥ itans, and there were twelve of them—six goddesses and six gods.

¥ hey

were very different from their older siblings.¥

he¥

itans were beings with human characteristics, and they were not monsters at all.

¥ he goddesses’ names were

¥ e

thys,¥ heia,

©

nemosyne,

hea,¥ hemis, and

hoebe.

21



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¥ he gods’ names were

ceanus,

yperion,¦ apetus,

ronus,

rius, and

oeus.

ranuswas still afraid that one day one of his children would overthrow him.

¡

ecause of this fear, he pushed the

¥ itans back into

¢

aia’s womb alongside their siblings,the

undred-handed

nes.¢

aia was enraged by

ranus’s refusal to allow her children to live freely.

he desperately wanted her children to live without restraints

and to enjoy the world.

inally, she came up with a plan that would allow her children to be born into the world and remain there.

¢

aia could speak to the children in her cavernous womb, and she had no trouble convincing them to help withher plan.

ronus, the youngest of the twelve¥ itans, was the most eager to help

his mother. o, the two set out to trick

ranus and free the¥ itans and the

undredhanded

nes from their mother’s prison-like womb.

ronus and¢

aia waited for the perfect opportunity to enact their plan.

inally, one night, when

ranus cameto

¢

aia’s bed,

ronus crept out of¢

aia’s womb and stabbed his cruel father with a sickle, a curved knife used to harvest crops.

s

ranus lay dying, his fears of being overthrown by one of his children having come true,

ranus leaned forward and cursed his son: “

ronus,” he pronounced, gasping for breath, “it will come to passthat one of your children will do to you what you have just done to me.”

¥ hen, wit

h a final shudder,

ranus died, a look of anger and betrayal in his eyes.

fter

ranus died,¢

aia and her children felt free for the first time.¥

he¥

itans andthe

undred-handed

nes were reborn from their mother’s womb, and the

yclopes were freed from

¥ artarus.

ll of¢

aia’s children decided to make

ronus their king.

ronus married his sister, the¥ itan named

hea, and ruled over the universe fora long, peaceful time.

22



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:What existed before the earth was formed?

haos is the name for the empty spacethat existed before the earth, the sky, and the sea were formed.

haos was a space of neither order nor disorder. Who was

¢

aia?¢

aia was the first goddess to exist after the division of

haos.

er name means “earth,” and she gave the earth allits attributes.

ow was

ranus related to¢

aia?

ranus was¢

aia’s son, who became

the ruler of the sky.

ranus was also the father of¢

aia’s other children.

e didnot have a father himself. Why did

ranus hate all of the children¢

aia bore him?

e was afraid that one day, one of his children would overthrow him. What wasunique about

¢

aia’s first children, and what happened to them?¢

aia’s first childrenwere monsters.

£

ach

undredhanded

ne had fifty heads and a hundred hands.

ranus pushed these three children back into their mother’s womb. Who were

¢

aia’s secondchildren, and what happened to them?

¥

hree

yclopes were born after their hundred-handed siblings.

£

ach

yclopes had a single eye set in the middle of his forehead.

¥ he

yclopes were strong, and they were excellent craftsmen.

ranus lockedthem in a deep cavern called

¥ artarus. 23

!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:!

:

:

!

:

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¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

!

:

:

Who were¢

aia’s third set of children, and what happened to them?¢

aia’s youngest children were the

¥

itans who had characteristics similar to humans.

ranus pushedthese twelve children back into

¢

aia’s womb with the

undred-handed

nes. Who was

ronus, and how did he save the ¥ itans?

ronus was the youngest of all¢

aia’s children, one of the

¥ itans.

e killed his father,

ranus, with a sickle.¡

y committing the act,

ronus was able to set the gods free from their mother’s womb. What was

ranus’s final curse?

s he was dying,

ranus cursed

ronus, predicting that one day, one of

ronus’s children would rise up and overthrow him, just as

ronus had overthrown

ranus.

!

:

:

!

:

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24



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

¥ he myths of the gods and goddesses were as important in

¢

reek society as religion itself.

©

ost people were familiar with these stories, and many could even recite them in their entirety.

cholar

ucilla¡

urn notes:¢

reek myths permeated¢

reek life, private and public.¦ n the well-documented soc

iety of

thens in the fifth century¡

.

., for example, it is clear that a majorpart of education was learning and reciting epic poems on heroic subjects.

¢

uest

s at drinking parties might entertain each other by reciting stories from myths,or they might listen to a professional performer, who would sing of the deeds of heroes while accompanying himself on the lyre.

rivate homes contained potteryvessels decorated with scenes from the adventures of the gods and heroes; thesesame vessels accompanied their owners to the grave.

cenes of myth 2 could also

be woven into fine textiles.

lthough there are many stories about the first generation of gods, in many waysthey still remain a mystery to modern scholars.

¥ he author of

¥ he

ses of¢

reek

©

ythology,§

en Dowden, explains:¥

he¥

itans are a puzzle. We do not know where their name comes from and individually they are a rag-bag of persons, abstractions and even monsters.

nyone born

of

eaven and

£

arth, rather than from [

ronus] and

hea like the

lympian 3 gods, must apparently on that account be a “¥

itan.”

¥ he story of the first immortal generation may have been symbolic of some kind of agricultural or fertility activity among the early

¢

reeks.¦ n his book

¢

reek©

ythology, John

insent suggests:

or

ranus is cut with the sickle, an instrument which however well suited for the purpose may legitimately suggest that the story has been also influenced by stories of the 4 annual sacrifice of the corn or its representative.

25



2¥

£

W

¡ £

¥ W

£ £

¥

£

¥ ¦ ¥

D¥

£

¨ ©

¦



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

ometimes real places are named in a myth.

©

ount

lympus, for example, is a realmountain in the central part of

¢

reece, not far from the

egean ea. When

©

ount

lympus is referred to in myths, however, it becomes more than a mere geographical site.

¦ t becomes the home of the

lympians, the generation of gods who succeeded the

¥

itans.¥

hese two generations of gods eventually became rivals, fighting a great war for power over the universe.

¥ he winners claimed

©

ount

lympus as

their home.

lthough there is an actual mountain, in these stories,©

ount

lympus is a mythical place that humans cannot visit.

¦ t is a place outside real time

and space.©

ount

lympus is not the same as

lympia, a town in the western partof the

eloponnesus.

ike©

ount

lympus,

lympia was named for the

lympian gods.

¥ here were important shrines in

lympia, an area which 1 was settled even as early as the third millennium

¡

.

.¥ he first

lympic¢

ames were probably held there sometime in the eighth century

¡

.

., although they seem to have been 2 a carryover from an earlier tradition.

¥ he purpose of the games was thought to be a ki

nd of reenactment of the rivalry between the

lympian gods and the¥ itans, and a

commemoration of the triumph of the

lympian gods over the¥ itans in their war.

During the

lympic¢

ames, quarrels were supposed to be set aside in order thatathletes be allowed to take part in peaceful competition.

lthough people did no

t believe that the gods took an interest in their individual lives, they often went to the temples to ask the gods for insight and help.

lympia was an important site in this respect.

ccording to©

ark

. .©

orford and

obert J.

enardon,professors of

¢

reek 27



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

mythology, the gods were thought to send humans messages in the form of naturalsigns or omens, which were then interpreted by priests at the shrines of the various gods:

¥

he traditional methods for eliciting a response from [¤

eus] were by the observation and interpretation of omens, for example, the rustling of leaves, the sound

of the wind in the branches of his sacred oaks, the call of doves, and the condition of burnt offerings.

t

lympia inquiries were usually 3 confined to the chances of the competitors at the games.

¥ he story about the war between the

¥ itans and the

lympians is a vital one in¢

reek mythology.¦ n this myth, we learn that even the evolution of the immortal g

ods was wrought with conflict.

othing came easy for the

lympian gods, but, although the odds were stacked against them, they never gave up.

s was also true in the daily lives of the

¢

reek people, perseverance was an important quality—so important that it was central to their stories and their religious beliefs.

28



¥

£

W

¡ £

¥ W

£ £

¥

£

¥ ¦ ¥

D¥

£

¨ ©

¦

fter the death of

ranus, the world was at peace again.

ronus, the king of the

¥ itans, and

hea, his most noble sister and wife, had matters well in hand.

nfortunately, the curse of his father,

ranus, haunted

ronus day and night. Was it possible that one day he, too, would have a child who would overthrow him?

neday,

hea announced that she was going to have a baby, but her husband was nothappy.

ronus was so afraid that history would repeat itself that he did, in fac

t, manage to repeat history.

ike his father before him,

ronus reasoned that ifhe could keep his children from growing up, none could ever become strong enough to overpower him.

o, when

hea gave birth to her first child,

ronus quicklygrabbed it and swallowed it whole.

hea was both horrified and saddened at the loss of her firstborn child.

¦ n a similar manner,

ronus swallowed all of the next four children that she gave birth to, and

hea vowed to get them back, any wayshe could.

¡

y the time

hea discovered that she was pregnant for the sixth time, she had figured out a plan to trick her husband and save the newborn child from being swallowed whole.

o, when it was nearly time for her to 29



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

give birth,

hea pretended to have her baby. he took a large stone and wrapped

it in a baby’s blanket. When

ronus came to gobble down the newborn child,

hea gave him the wrapped-up stone.

!

uickly,

ronus swallowed the stone, just as he hadswallowed the other children.

¦

n fact,

ronus’s focus on swallowing the newborn god was so great that he did not even realize that he had been tricked.

ater, wh

en the time came for

hea actually to have her child, she fled to the island of

rete.¥ here, away from the glaring eyes of her husband,

hea secretly gave birth to a son, whom she named

¤

eus.

e was a beautiful and strong baby, and

hea knew that when he grew up, he would be a truly powerful god.

hea realized that she could not return home to her husband with the child.

ronus would only try todestroy the newborn god, as he had done with the others.

¥ herefore, for his prot

ection,

hea left¤

eus to grow up secretly on

rete where he was suckled by a goat and raised by minor native deities called nymphs. While

¤ eus was a child,

ronus never suspected that he had been tricked and that he actually had a stone resting solidly in his stomach. When he had grown into a young man,

¤ eus left

rete to join his mother.

hea arranged for¤

eus to become a servant to his father.

ronus did not know that his new servant was actually his son.

ne day,¤ eus bro

ught his father a cup of wine, which

ronus drank quickly.¥

his cup of wine contained a special potion, which made

ronus throw up.

ronus was so violently illthat he even threw up the stone wrapped in a blanket.

¥

hen he threw up all of the children he had swallowed before.

¥ he children emerged from their father’s stoma

ch as fully grown adults.¥ heir names were

oseidon,

ades,

era, Demeter, and

estia.¥

hese were¤

eus’s brothers and sisters, and they were all 30



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

glad to see each other in the light of day.

lthough they were happy to be free,the six siblings knew they must do something immediately, or their father wouldswallow them all over again.

!

uickly, they ran away while their father continued to moan and clutch his stomach.

¥

his young generation of gods fled to©

ount

lympus to escape their irate father, and because they claimed

©

ount

lympus as th

eir home, the young gods were called the

lympians.

fter they had fled to safety, the

lympians quickly formed a plan.

t once, they declared war on

ronus andmany of the other

¥

itans.¥

he young gods wanted to rule the world in their father’s place.

et their struggle had a dual purpose: while they were fighting for control over the earth, they were also fighting for their lives, since they knew that

ronus would swallow them again if he ever got the chance.

nd so a great war began.

t first, it seemed likely that the¥

itans would be victorious and remain in control of the earth.

¥ he young

lympian gods felt outnumbered and overpowered.

¥ he tide began to turn, however, when a few

¥ itans changed sides and fough

t with¤ eus and his siblings.

rometheus, the son of the¥ itans

¥ hemis and

¦ apet

us, was one who switched his allegiance.

rometheus’s name means “one who thinks ahead,” and with his ability to see the future he could foresee that the

¥ itans would

lose the battle against the

lympian gods.

rometheus and his brother

£

pimetheus refused to fight against the

lympians because of this foresight.¥

he

yclopesand the

undred-handed

nes also joined the

lympians in their fight against the

¥ itans.

¥ hey did not feel bound to the

¥ itans, and they believed that the

lympian gods would rule with steadier hands.

¤ eus asked the one-eyed

yclopes to make weapons for his army, and these skilled craftsmen made a special weapon 32



¥ he War

¡

etween the¥ itans and the

lympians

for each of the gods.

or¤ eus, the leader, the

yclopes fashioned a special thunderbolt, which could be thrown long distances with great force.

or

oseidon, they created a magnificent trident, or three-pronged spear, which could defeat any enemy.

inally, knowing that resistance came in many forms, the

yclopes made

ades a magic helmet that could make him invisible, even to the immortal eyes of

ronus and the other ¥ itans.

33



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¥ he war between the

¥ itans and the

lympians was terrible. With the help of the

undred-handed

nes, who fought bravely without ever tiring, the

lympians soonforced the

¥ itans to surrender.

fter the¥ itans had given up,

¤ eus challenged

ronus to a wrestling match.¥

he winner would control©

ount

lympus, to which the

¥ itans were still laying claim.

fter beating

ronus three times,¤ eus declared

the

lympian gods to be the winners.

fter the war, the

lympians sent most ofthe

¥ itans to

¥ artarus to be locked up for eternity.

¥ he victors built a bronze

gate over the mouth of the cavern, and the

undred-handed

nes were placed outside as guards.

tlas, another child of¦ apetus and

¥ hemis, who had led the

¥ itans

into battle, received a special punishment.

e was forced to hold the world onhis back for all eternity.

¥ his turned out to be a far more challenging task tha

n imprisonment in¥

artarus.

ronus, the former ruler of the universe, was not sent to

¥ artarus with his siblings.

¥ hough

ronus had swallowed his children whole,

¤ eus and the other

lympians did not want to destroy him in revenge.¦ nstead,

ronus was sent away to live on the¦ sland of the Dead, where he stayed forever.

lthough originally he had wanted to destroy the

lympian gods,

ronus, once defeated and exiled, sent dreams to his son

¤ eus to guide him from afar.

fter all

the punishments were handed out,¤

eus,

ades, and

oseidon made a bet to determine who would rule each part of the world.

ades became the lord of the dead andthe

nderworld, which was sometimes called

ades in his honor.

oseidon gainedcontrol of the seas and all the waters on earth.

¤ eus became the lord of the sky

; and since the sky covers everything on earth, he became the king, or father, of the gods. 34



¥ he War

¡


lympians

fter these important decisions were made, the other

lympian gods were also given jobs. Demeter became the goddess of agriculture and of all growing things.

estia became the goddess of the hearth, or fireplace, and the home.

era, too, protected the home and became the goddess of marriage and childbirth after she married her brother,

¤ eus.

nce the

lympians had defeated the¥ itans and taken on

their new roles, they, too, had children. ome of these gods were born under rather extraordinary circumstances.

thena, for example, was born out of the side of

¤

eus’s head.

he became the goddess of wisdom and the protector of

thens.

erabecame pregnant on her own and gave birth to

ephaestus.

ephaestus was the godof fire and became the blacksmith of the gods.

res was the child of

era and¤ e

us, and he became the god of war.

pollo, the god of light and music, and his twin sister,

rtemis, the maiden goddess of the hunt, were the children of

eto, who was the daughter of the

¥ itans

hoebe and

oeus.¥ he goddess of love and beau

ty,

phrodite, had an unusual birth: she was born out of the waves of the sea.

ermes was another son of¤ eus.

is mother was©

aia, one of the daughters of

tlas.

ermes grew very quickly, and he was swift-footed, even as a baby.

ater, hebecame the official messenger of the gods because he was so fast.

e was often d

epicted with wings on his hat and sandals, and because he was always moving about, he was a particular protector of travelers.¥

hese gods and others lived on©

ount

lympus after their victory over the¥

itans.

rom the height of this great mountain, the new rulers could look down on all of

¢

reece and keep watch over theworld, for the control of which they had fought so hard.

35



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:Why was

ronus afraid of his children?

ronus feared that one of his children would rise up and overthrow him, just as he had done to his own father.

ranus hadcursed

ronus, predicting that history would repeat itself.

ow did

ronus getrid of his children?

e swallowed them whole. Why and how did

hea trick her husband?

hea was angry and upset at

ronus’s practice of devouring their children, s

o she planned a trick for him. When it came time for

ronus to grab the sixth newborn child,

hea gave him a large stone wrapped in a baby’s blanket.¡

ecause he did not expect the trick,

ronus swallowed the stone, blanket and all. What kindof weapons did the

yclopes make for the

lympian gods? ome of the weapons that

the

yclopes made were a thunderbolt for¤ eus, a trident for

oseidon, and a magic helmet for

ades.

ow did the

lympian gods punish the¥ itans?

¥ he

lympiangods locked most of them away in the cavern called

¥

artarus.¥

he

undred-handed

nes stood guard over this prison.¥ he

lympians also set

tlas to work holdingthe world on his shoulders.

e received this punishment because he had led the¥

itans in battle. 36

!

:

:!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:



¥ he War

¡


lympians

!

:

:

What happened to

ronus?¥ he

lympians did not utterly destroy

ronus.¦ nstead,

they sent him to the¦

sland of the Dead where he lived for eternity.

ow did

ronus wind up helping his son

¤ eus?

rom his exile on the¦ sland of the Dead,

ron

us sent dreams of advice to his son.

ow did ¤ eus,

ades, and

oseidon divide upthe control of the universe?

¤ eus became the king, or father, of the gods and r

uled the sky.

ades became the ruler of the

nderworld, or the land of the dead.

oseidon gained control of the seas and all the waters on the earth.¥ hey deter

mined these roles through a bet.

!

:

:!

:

:

37



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

©

any words in£

nglish can be traced to the¢

reek language.

owever, because many

¢

reek words sound alike to the foreign ear, sometimes they are easily confused.

cholar

ichmond

.

athorn explains:£

ven in pre-classical times the name of

ronus seems to have been confused withthe

¢

reek word chronos, “time.”

erhaps the god’s connection with the year-cycle contributed to the confusion.

¥ he result was a spate [stream] of poetical and philoso

phical speculation.

ronus swallowing his children was not merely, on the agricultural level, a picture of the fertile earth engulfing the seeds, but a statement 4 of the grim truth that

¥

ime devours everything it produces.

¥ he names of places were often taken from the names of the gods.

uthor John

insent writes:

tlas stood in the west in the sea that is beyond

cean, and 5 is called

tlantic after him. . . .

¥ he scholars

©

orford and

enardon suggest the blending, or assimilation, of different sets of beliefs and traditions in shaping the myths:When the inhabitants of

rete began to build their great civilization and empire

(ca. 3000), the religion they developed (insofar as we can ascertain) was

©

editerranean in character, looking back to earlier£

astern concepts of a mother-goddess.

¥

he northern invaders who entered the peninsula of¢

reece (ca. 2000), bringing with them an early form of

¢

reek and their own gods (chief of whom was¤ eus)

, built a significant©

ycenaean civilization on the mainland, but it was strongly influenced by the older, more sophisticated power of

rete.¥

he myth of the birth of

¤

eus reads very much like an attempt to link by geography and 6 genealogythe religion and deities of both cultures.

38



3

© £

¥

£

D£

¥

’

¦

¥

¦

¡

¦ ¥

¥



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

©

any of the myths show the gods acting in response to something a human has saidor done.

owever, in their daily lives, and in the practice of ancient¢

reek religion, the people remained distinctly aloof from the gods.

¦ n fact, the people

did not believe the gods loved them—and, in return, they did not feel compelled tolove the gods back.

¥

he people simply accepted the gods as all powerful and 1 understood that their power was never to be questioned.

ome of the stories about

the creation of mankind show the gulf that lay between the mortals and their heavenly counterparts.

ne of these stories involves

rometheus and his brother£

pimetheus.

¥

hese brothers were sons of¥

itans who had crossed sides and fought against their relatives in the war between the

¥ itans and the

lympians.

rometheus’s name means “the one who thinks ahead,” and he behaved as his name suggests, oftenmaking wise and anticipatory decisions.

£

pimetheus’s name, on the other hand, means “the one who thinks afterwards,” and he, too, behaved according to his name.

rometheus was an important figure in the mythical development of the earth and the creation of human beings.

¥ he

¢

reeks believed it was

rometheus who had taught them how to survive in the newly created world.

owever, in trying to help the humans,

rometheus got into trouble with the gods.£

ventually, the gods punished

rometheus by tying him to a rock on the top of a mountain.

¥ he

aucasus©

ountains

that are mentioned in the story are real, geographical mountains, located to the east of the¡

lack

ea, far away from the¢

reek mainland.

40



© £

¥

£

D£

¥

’

¦

¥

¦

¡

¦ ¥

¥

fter the world was created and the gods had fought their wars, the land that lay below

©

ount

lympus remained unpopulated, even though¢

aia, the first goddess,had long yearned to make creatures to inhabit the earth.

inally,¤ eus decided

it was time.¦ t was a good time to be created.

o monsters roamed the earth, andthe world was at peace.

¤

eus began to make creatures to populate this beautifulworld.

owever, just as he was beginning, he was called away to settle a matter

dividing his fellow

lympians.

e decided to appoint

rometheus and£

pimetheus,sons of

¥ itans who had fought with the

lympians, to continue the project of creating earth’s first inhabitants.

lthough the brothers were¥

itans by birth, theyhad sided with the

lympians in the war against

ronus and the other¥ itans bec

ause, blessed with the gift of being able to see the future,

rometheus had foreseen the

lympian victory.

rometheus was the more sensible of the two brothers,and he always planned ahead.

£

pimetheus, on the other hand, always meant well,but he never planned ahead.

£

pimetheus never thought about the consequences of his actions until after he had completed them. 41



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¤ eus had chosen these brothers for the project of creating the first people andanimals on earth because

rometheus was an excellent potter and sculptor.

rometheus could make just about anything, and he had a good imagination.

£

pimetheus was invited to work on the project because he was always eager to help his brother.

¡

ecause¤ eus had only just started to make the various earth creatures, the b

rothers had a lot of work ahead of them.

fter using clay to sculpt the new creatures into their basic shapes,

rometheus went to

thena, the goddess of wisdom,for advice on how to complete the work.

£

pimetheus stayed behind to give the unfinished creations their final distinguishing features.

thena’s advice was simple.

he told

rometheus that since the creatures were already composed of earth and water, having been fashioned from clay, the only element lacking for life wasair.

o,

thena advised

rometheus to hold each of the newly shaped creatures upto the sky. When the wind blew into them, she promised, they would breathe andbe truly alive.

©

eanwhile,£

pimetheus continued to work.

e enjoyed showing offhis creative powers and granted a wide variety of interesting physical attributes to all the different creatures.

£

pimetheus gave some of them fur and hair, which would protect them from the elements.

e gave others teeth and claws so that

they could easily collect and eat food.¦

n addition, he gave some of the creatures strength and speed. When

rometheus returned from his talk with

thena, he found that once again, his brother had acted before thinking.

£

pimetheus had beenso excited about designing the new animals and so generous with his creative powers that he had completely forgotten to save any special gifts for the human beings.

¡

y the time the sculptor had gotten 42



rometheus and£

arth’s

irst¦ nhabitants

around to the humans, he had run out of ideas.¥ hey were left weak and defensele

ss, and they would have remained so forever if

rometheus had not stepped in.

nce he realized that his brother had created a species unable to stand on its ownin the new world,

rometheus set forth to fix the mistake and make human beingsstrong and capable of surviving among earth’s other inhabitants.

irst,

rometheu

s decided to help the humans stand upright like the gods.

e turned their headsupward to the sky.

¥ his adjustment gave them the power to reason.

¥ hen he raced

to the heavens where he lit a torch, using the fire of the sun.

e used this fire to light up the new creatures’ powers of thought and speech.

¥ hese special power

s helped set the humans apart from the other animals.

t first, the gods approved of

rometheus’s work.¥ hey were glad to see that there was a species on earth th

at had the ability to think and speak.¡

ut

rometheus was still not satisfied.

e saw that£

pimetheus’s poor planning had left the new humans physically weak compared to the other inhabitants of the earth.

¥ hey were hungry, sad, and scared.

inally, to help the humans,

rometheus left©

ount

lympus and went to live on earth with the people, in order to teach them the skills they would need to survive in the new world.

irst,

rometheus showed the humans how to build houses so t

hey would not have to live in caves.¥

hen he taught them how to read, and how towrite numbers and letters.

e helped the people learn how to tame animals and how to sail on the seas.

e showed them how to heal themselves when they were sick.

fter he had shown the people how to foretell the future and recognize omensby looking at the way birds flew, some of the other gods became impressed by thenew people.

¥

hey decided to help, too. Demeter, the

lympian earth goddess, taught the 43



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

new race of creatures about edible plants. With this help, the humans had betteraccess to food, and they began to prosper and live happily for the first time.

lthough some of the gods were excited about the development of the humans, other gods were beginning to worry that the humans were becoming too powerful.

owever, despite the growing concerns of his fellow gods,

rometheus was so pleased w

ith his creations that he decided to help the humans even more.

ntil this time,humans were only allowed to slaughter other animals if they were performing a sacrifice to the gods.

¥

hey ate only the plants that Demeter instructed them to eat.

rometheus could see that the humans would probably need to eat the meat ofother animals to survive.

o

rometheus came up with a plan.

irst, he cut up anox, as if for a sacrifice.

¥ hen, he divided the sections into two piles.

¦ n one

pile,

rometheus wrapped up the bones of the ox and hid them under shiny morsels of fat.

¥ his pile looked like the more attractive offering in a sacrifice.

orthe other pile,

rometheus took the lean meat and other edible parts of the oxand wrapped them in hide, topping the pile with entrails to make the offering look disgusting.

nce this was done,

rometheus asked¤

eus to choose one of the two piles and keep it as the sacrificial offering; the humans would take whichever

pile¤

eus rejected.

ot knowing that the good meat was actually hidden beneaththe hide and entrails,¤

eus chose the pile shimmering with fat.

nce¤

eus had made his choice, he had to stick with it, even after he discovered that he had chosen a pile with no edible meat in it.

rom then on, people offered the fat and bones of animals to the gods, and they kept the savory parts of the animals for themselves.

¤

eus was outraged that

rometheus had tricked him, but he decided tosave his revenge for later. 44



rometheus and£

arth’s

irst¦ nhabitants

¥ his was not the only trick

rometheus played on the

lympian gods for the sakeof the humans.

ince the new race of creatures had no fur, they were often cold,

and even though they were now allowed to eat meat, they had no way to cook it.

uman beings did not know about fire or how to control it because, until this point, fire belonged only to the gods.

rometheus decided to change things.

e wen

t up to heaven and secretly stole fire from the gods.

iding the fire inside thestalk of a fennel plant,

rometheus brought it back to the people on earth.¥ he

n he taught the people how to cook grains and meat, and how to keep fire burningso that it would always be available.

rometheus also showed the humans how they could use fire to forge metal, just as

ephaestus, the god of fire and the forge, was doing on

©

ount

lympus.

rometheus did all these things to help the humans because he wanted them to survive in the world now populated by other, more physically powerful creatures.

nfortunately,

rometheus’s efforts angered some ofthe other gods.

¥ he new people were getting too powerful and too smart.

¤ eus tho

ught they needed to be stopped before they believed their own powers were supreme and they no longer heeded the authority of the gods.

urthermore,¤

eus was furious with

rometheus for all his tricks.¥ o punish

rometheus for tricking the k

ing of the gods and for making humans so powerful,¤

eus had him captured and chained to a rock on the crest of one of the

aucasus©

ountains.£

very day, an enormous eagle came to the spot where

rometheus was tied.¥

he eagle was fierce andrelentless, and each day it swooped down and pecked away at

rometheus’s liver, devouring the greater part of it.

¡

ecause

rometheus was immortal, his liver grewback every night, and he never died. Despite this 45



rometheus and£

arth’s

irst¦ nhabitants

intense torture, he endured the punishment for thirty years until

ercules cameand freed him.

nfortunately, punishing only

rometheus did not satisfy¤ eus’s des

ire for revenge.¥ he king of the gods had other plans that would affect the enti

re human race, and it was a punishment that would last forever.

47



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:!

:

:What are the meanings of the names

rometheus and£

pimetheus?

rometheus means “the one who thinks ahead.”

£

pimetheus means “the one who thinks afterwards.” What job were

rometheus and£

pimetheus given, and why were they chosen for this honor?

rometheus and

£

pimetheus were given the job of finishing the creation of earth’s first inhabitants.

¥ hey were chosen for the job because

rometheus was an excellent

potter and sculptor, and he had a good imagination.£

pimetheus was reliable andcould be counted on to help his brother. What element did

thena advise

rometheus to add to the creatures?

thena explained that since¤

eus had used clay whenhe began to make the creatures, they were already made of earth and water, twoessential elements.

he told

rometheus that the only element the creatures lacked was air; when the creatures were held up in the wind, they would breathe andbecome alive.

ow did£

pimetheus fail to think ahead in completing earth’s creatures?

£

pimetheus gave all the qualities of power and strength to other animals. o

me of them were given wings, claws, teeth, and fur for protection and to help them survive.

umans were left defenseless, with no special gifts. 48

!

:

:

!

:

:



rometheus and£

arth’s

irst¦ nhabitants

!

:

:

ow did

rometheus help make humans capable of surviving in the new world?

irsthe helped humans stand upright so they could turn their heads up toward the sky.

e gave humans souls and the power to think and speak.

rometheus also taught

humans skills like building, reading and writing, and medicine.

rometheus tricked the other gods into allowing humans to eat meat.

inally, he gave humans fireand showed them how to use it. Why were the gods angry at

rometheus for givinghumans fire?

¥ he gods feared humans would become too wise and too powerful.

¥ he

y were afraid that the people might be able to compete with the gods.

ow did¤ e

us punish

rometheus?

e chained

rometheus to the top of one of the

aucasus©

ountains, where every day an eagle devoured most of his liver.

!

:

:

!

:

:

49



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

¤ eus’s method of punishing

rometheus for helping the humans seems excessively cruel to our modern sensibilities.

owever,¡

arry¡

.

owell, a professor at the

niversity of Wisconsin, explains that it would have been a punishment familiar topeople in ancient

¢

reek society:¥

his method of punishment actually existed: Vicious criminals were taken to theboundaries of a territory, stripped naked, nailed to a post, and allowed to die

miserably, when 2 eaters of carrion [dead meat] consumed their flesh. . . .

lthough

esiod and many other poets had told this story earlier, the myth of

rometheus and his punishment was immortalized in the fifth century

¡

.

. by the

thenian dramatist,

eschylus, in his play

rometheus¡

ound.¥ hrough these early w

riters,

rometheus became known as mankind’s greatest helper.£

ven today, he is often referred to as the symbolic father of creativity.

©

ark

. .©

orford and

obert J.

enardon write:

undamental to both

esiod and

eschylus is the conception of¤ eus as the oppres

sor of humankind and

rometheus as its benefactor.¦ n

eschylus the clash of divine wills echoes triumphantly through the ages.

is portrait, more than any other, offers the towering image of

rometheus as the¥ itan, the bringer of fire, th

e vehement and weariless champion against oppression, the mighty 3 symbol for art, literature, and music of all time.

50



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

¦ n ancient

thenian society, women lived very difficult lives.¥ hey had no econo

mic or political independence, and even in the home, women were treated as inferior and often lived in a special part of the house known as the women’s quarters.¢

irls were not formally educated like their brothers.¥ hey lived in their father’s

house until they married as young teenagers, at which time they moved to theirhusband’s home.

¥ hey did not speak to men outside the intimate circle of family me

mbers. When

thens became a democracy at the start of the fifth century¡

.

., women could not vote. Despite the fact that

thenian women were not offered equalopportunities in their society, women often play important, and sometimes menacing, roles in

¢

reek mythology.¦ t is a contradiction then that, in both myth and

reality, women were expected to be virtuous and good; at the same time, however,it was commonly believed that they were devious and wicked beneath their noblefaçade.

¦

n mythology,

andora was the first human woman, and her story may represent the contradictory issues associated with

¢

reek women.

ephaestus, the god offire and the forge, created

andora at¤ eus’s command.

¤ eus intended her to be a f

orm of punishment for the newly created human males.¤ eus and some of the other

gods wanted to put the humans back in their place after their powers had been sogreatly enhanced by

rometheus.¥ o achieve the gods’ ends,

andora is endowed wit

h many gifts, among them great beauty and charm.¥

he gods also give her a gift that will ultimately set free all the evils in the world—an ornate box, or a jar, depending on the version of 52



andora

the tale. Despite her own good intentions, the first female causes much grief and pain for mankind.

¥ he story of

andora and her intriguing but destructive boxcomes to us through

esiod’s¥ heogony.

andora is a figure who has been interpreted in many different ways.

©

uch of the contradiction surrounding this famous mythological character is thought to come from

esiod’s understanding, or misunderstan

ding, of her name.©

ythology scholar

ichmond

.

athorn explains, “ ¥ he name

andora does not mean ‘she who was endowed with all gifts’ [as in

esiod’s version of the story] but rather ‘she who is giver of all,’ and as such it was an epithet 1 [name] of the earth-goddess.”

53



D

¤ eus was furious.

rometheus had tricked him, and the king of the gods wanted revenge.

e also wanted to remind the humans that they would never be as powerfulas the gods.

o far, there were only men in the human population. Women did not

yet exist, although certainly there were female gods, or goddesses.¦ ntroducing

women to the human race was part of¤

eus’s plan for revenge.

irst,¤

eus went to the forge of

ephaestus and asked him to design a human being that would be femal

e.

arefully, ¤ eus explained that she should be like the men on earth, yet somehow slightly different.

ephaestus was happy to do¤ eus a favor, and he went righ

t to work.¥

he god of fire and the forge was a very talented smith.£

verything he made was beautiful, and his new creation was no different. When he was finished with the creature he showed his work to

¤ eus, who was very pleased with the re

sults.¥ he new creature was named

andora. he was human, but she was clearly a

woman.

he was very beautiful and looked like a goddess.

he had long flowing hair, flawless skin, and bright shining eyes.

he was as graceful as a soft breeze

, and she had a smile precious to see.¤ eus hoped that her beauty would make the

male humans accept and trust her. 54



andora

fter

ephaestus had put the finishing touches on the first human woman, the gods showered her with many gifts, including golden-threaded clothes, shining jewelry, and fragrant smelling flowers.

mong the gifts was a box that was covered with jewels, intricate carvings, and decorations.

¥

he box was very pretty, and

andora was certain that such a beautiful object must surely contain something of e

qual magnificence.

owever, the gods had given

andora the beautiful box on onecondition:

he could look at it as much as she liked, but she was never to open

it.

andora did not understand the reasoning behind this rule, but because the box was so pretty, she agreed to follow the warning of the gods.

oon

andora went to live on earth with the other humans. When she got there, she met

£

pimetheuswho was living among the humans with his brother

rometheus.£

pimetheus was overwhelmed by

andora’s dazzling beauty, and he fell in love with her instantly.

rometheus, aware of his brother’s infatuation with

andora, became suspicious that¤

eus and the other

lympians were planning a trick.

rometheus warned his brotherto be wary of any gift sent to earth by the

lympian gods.

s usual,£

pimetheusdid not listen to his brother.

e was very much in love with

andora, and despite his brother’s warning, he married the wonderful new creature and brought her to

his home.

£

pimetheus never thought to ask his new bride about the beautiful boxshe always carried with her.¥

he couple lived very happily after their marriage.

£

very day,

andora would lovingly admire her beautiful box, but she obeyed theorder of the gods and never opened it.

oon, however, looking at the box was no

t enough.

er curiosity became stronger and stronger, and finally one day she could no longer resist the urge to open the box, regardless of the consequences. 55



andora

When

andora opened the box and discovered what was hidden inside its beautifulexterior, she knew at once that

¤ eus’s revenge had been accomplished.

¦ nside the m

agnificent box were all the evil spirits known to the gods.

ow that the lid wasopen, they all quickly flew out.

orrow, hunger, anger, disease, madness, and ahundred other horrible conditions filled

andora’s room and, like smoke, they esc

aped out into the world to plague mankind for the rest of time.

s the evils swarmed around her,

andora became frightened.

s quickly as she could, she slammedshut the lid of the box, but

andora realized that it was too late to regret not having obeyed the gods.

¥ heir revenge was final.

owever,

andora noticed thatone spirit still remained in her box.

¥ his was the spirit of hope.

oon, when t

hey felt the effects of the various plagues and evil spirits that had flown outfrom

andora’s box, the people on earth understood that their time of peace had ended.

¥ he people recognized the power of the gods’ revenge, and understood that for

ces existed that were stronger than their own modest powers.

rom that time on,the people vowed to do their best to keep from angering the gods any further andwere comforted by the fact that hope was safe in

andora’s box.¥

he knowledge that hope had not been destroyed gave the people faith that peace would return some

day.

57



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:!

:

:Why did

¤ eus want revenge against the humans?

e feared that with

rometheus’s help the people on earth had become too smart and powerful. Who was

andora and howwas she created?

andora was the world’s first woman.

ephaestus, the blacksmithgod and expert craftsman, made her at the request of

¤

eus.¤

eus wanted to use

andora to punish the humans who were, until that point, all men. What did the god

s give

andora? ¥ hey gave her many wonderful gifts, like beauty, grace, lavish clothes, and fragrant flowers.

¥ hey also gave her a beautiful box covered with je

wels and intricate carvings.¦

t was filled with every conceivable kind of evil.What warning did the gods give

andora?¥ he gods warned her never to open the bo

x they had given her. Why did

andora open the box?

er curiosity had grown toostrong. What happened when

andora opened the box?£

vils of every kind, like sorrow, hunger, anger, pain, disease, and madness flew out of the box and into theworld, where they plagued mankind for all time. What remained in the box?

ope remained in the box.

!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:!

:

:

58



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

¦ n the story of

andora, human curiosity is a key ingredient.

andora’s box has come to represent the temptations of curious minds, but there is also much confusion regarding the contents of the box.

©

orford and

enardon write:Details in the story of

andora are disturbing in their tantalizing ambiguity [lack of clarity]. What is

ope doing in the jar [or box] along with countless evils?

¦ f it is a good, it is a curious inclusion.

¦ f it too is an evil, why is it

stopped at the rim? What then is its precise nature, whether a blessing or a curse?

¦ s

ope the one thing that enables human beings to survive the terrors of this life and inspires them with lofty ambition?

et is it also by its very character delusive and 2 blind, luring them on to prolong their misery?

¥ he story of

andora and her role in the gods’ revenge against mankind suggests that women were considered a mixed blessing in ancient

¢

reek society.¡

arry¡

.

owell recognizes this apparent misogyny, or hatred of women, as it is presented in

esiod’s version of the story:©

odern readers are struck by the virulence [extreme bitterness] of

esiod’s attackon women, although it is not different in message from the biblical story of

£

ve.

¥ he roots of misogyny are varied and not easily understood, especially in an

age when women’s rights are a prominent political issue. . . .

mong the

¢

reeks, however, misogyny seems to be based not so much on primitive magical terror, or economic resentment as in

esiod’s surly complaint, as on a male resentment of theinstitution of monogamy [marriage with one partner] itself.

¢

reek myth is obsessed with hostile relations between the sexes, especially between married couples.

¦

n reading such passages we need to remember that, with only minor exceptions,ancient literature was composed by males for males in an environment 3 ruled bymales (as was the

¡

ible).

59



5D

£ © £

¥

£

D £

£

£



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

Demeter, the daughter of the¥ itans

ronus and

hea, was one of the first

lympian gods.

fter the war between the

lympians and the¥ itans, Demeter became an i

mportant goddess of agriculture.

er name meant “earth mother” or “grain mother.” With¤

eus, her brother, Demeter had a daughter named

ersephone who was also called§

ore, which means “maiden.”

¥

he people of ancient¢

reece prayed to Demeter for healthycrops and abundant harvests.

he was often associated with Dionysus, the god of

wine, who was also worshipped at harvest time.

eople thought that it was Demeter who allowed vegetation to grow in the spring, summer, and part of the fall, and to die in the winter. When the ground was fertile and the grains grew successfully, Demeter seemed like a kind goddess; but when winter came, or when there was a drought, people thought she must be angry or upset.

er followers prayed that she would always be happy and therefore kind to the earth.

¦ n one of the most

important myths about Demeter, her beloved daughter

ersephone is abducted, orkidnapped, by

ades, the lord of the

nderworld.

ades, another

lympian god, was an important figure in

¢

reek mythology:

e was the ruler of the dead and of unseen ghosts. During the war against the

¥ itans, the

yclopes had given

ades a helmet that made him invisible; even his name seems to come from the

¢

reek word meaning “the unseen.”

lthough

ades played an extremely significant role in¢

reek re

ligion, he was considered an unlucky god to invoke.¥

hus, not many religious ceremonies were dedicated to him, and he had few individual followers.

s the rulerof the world under the earth,

ades was 61



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

thought to give the earth richness in the form of crops; at the same time, he was respected and feared as the governor of the dead.

¡

ecause of his connection tothe earth,

ades is appropriately connected to Demeter and

ersephone, two goddesses who were thought to control the fertility of the land and the abundance ofthe harvest.

ntil the fourth century

.D., the greatest temples to Demeter cou

ld be found in£

leusis, a town located near the sea not far from

thens.£

very autumn, there were festivals to honor Demeter in

£

leusis, and they were some of the most famous celebrations in the ancient world.

nfortunately, no one knows exactly what went on at these festivals because they were kept secret.

¥ oday the f

estivals are known as the£

leusinian©

ysteries.¥ he people who took part in the

ceremonies, called “initiates,” were sworn to secrecy about the sacred rites that were performed.

©

any scholars believe that the main purpose of the£

leusinian©

ysteries was to thank the goddess for the 1 harvest and to pray to her for continued bounty.

¥ he infertility of winter and its resulting hardships were undoubtedly

a great mystery to the ancient¢

reeks.¥ he myth of Demeter and her daughter

ersephone is one way that the people of ancient

¢

reece came to explain this inhospitable season.

62



D£ © £

¥

£

D £

£

£

Demeter and¤ eus had a daughter named

ersephone. With two powerful gods as parents, it is not surprising that the little girl grew up to be a beautiful maiden.

er mother loved the child more than anything else in the world and cringed atthe idea of ever being apart from her.

fter she had grown up and become a youngwoman,

ersephone’s beauty caught the eye of

ades, the ruler of the

nderworld.

ades fell in love at the very first sight of her.

e knew he wanted to marry no

one else.

vercome with love,

ades went to ¤ eus, his brother and

ersephone’s father.

e said, “¡

rother,¦ am in love with your daughter,

ersephone.

et me haveyour consent to marry her.

¦

will make her the queen of my kingdom in the

nderworld.”

¤ eus thought that

ades would be a good husband for

ersephone.

ades was afair and powerful god.

owever,¤ eus also knew that Demeter would never allow h

er daughter to marry

ades and go to live far away in the

nderworld.¦ f the mai

den were to marry

ades, the mother and daughter would be separated indefinitely.

¤ eus also knew that Demeter, the goddess of growth and fertility, would never

wish her daughter to live in the stark, 63



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

bleak world of the dead where nothing ever grew.

lthough he was king of the gods,

¤ eus was wary of Demeter’s powerful influence over all the things that blossome

d on earth.

e did not want to upset her.¤ eus pondered his dilemma for quite so

me time.

e wanted to please his brother and allow the marriage, but he did notwish to cause a conflict with Demeter.

inally,¤ eus found a clever way to grant

his brother’s request without actually saying so.

arefully wording his response,

¤ eus said, “

¡

rother,¦ cannot approve of a marriage between you and

ersephone.”¤ e

us was telling

ades that although he could not officially approve the marriage,he was not forbidding it

64



Demeter and

ersephone

either.

ades understood¤ eus’s intention.

e realized that¤ eus was encouraging h

im to mary

ersephone without her parents’ blessing.

ades felt certain that if heacted in this prescribed manner,

¤ eus would not be angry with him.

e understood that

¤

eus was just trying to keep the peace by officially saying neither yes nor no to the marriage proposal.

atisfied,

ades returned to the

nderworld to p

lan the details of exactly how he would go about kidnapping

ersephone.

ne day,soon after

ades’s meeting with¤ eus,

ersephone went to pick wildflowers with her friends near the town of

£

leusis.

o one expected trouble in the peaceful meadow, and the girls were looking forward to

65



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

an amusing and relaxing day.

fter a little while,

ersephone wandered away fromher friends, picking flowers here and there and adding them to her basket.

¦ n a

small wooded glen near the meadow, out of sight and earshot of her friends,

ersephone spotted a beautiful narcissus that she thought would make a lovely addition to the bouquet she was making for her mother. Dreamily,

ersephone knelt to

pick the flower. he was surprised to find that its roots were so deep that shecould not wrench it out of the ground.

uddenly, as she tugged mightily on the f

lower, a huge hole opened up in the middle of the glen.¥

he god of the

nderworld raced out of the chasm, the roaring noise of his chariot filling the air.

!

uickly,

ades grasped the frightened maiden by the wrist and pulled her up beside him onto his chariot.

acing off to the

nderworld,

ersephone cried out in fearto her mother and her friends.

p on©

ount

lympus, Demeter heard her daughter’s terror-filled cries.

he hurried to the area where the girls had been playing.

ersephone’s friends had been frightened when their friend failed to return, but noone could tell where she had gone. Distraught, Demeter roamed the earth for ninedays and nine nights, searching in vain for her beloved daughter.

n the tenthday, Demeter met

ecate, a goddess who lived in a cave near the spot where

erse

phone and her friends had been playing.

ecate had indeed heard

ersephone’s criesfor help, but alas, she had not seen what had happened to the girl.¥

hough shecould offer no new information about

ersephone’s disappearance,

ecate offered tohelp Demeter look for her daughter.

¥ ogether, the two goddesses set out on thei

r search.¥ he next morning, the goddesses came upon

elius, the god of the sun.

elius could see everything from his 66



Demeter and

ersephone

lofty perch in the sky, so Demeter begged him for information about her daughter’sdisappearance.

elius pitied Demeter and promised to tell her everything he knew.

e confessed that he had seen

ades kidnap

ersephone, and that the girl hadcried uncontrollably when she was made

ades’s bride.

elius was sorry for Demeter’sloss, but he hurried to point out that as ruler of the

nderworld,

ades exerte

d power over a third of the world.

e tried to console Demeter by saying, “ ¦ knowyou are sad to be separated from your daughter, but the powerful

ades is a goodmatch for the fair

ersephone.”

owever, Demeter would not be consoled.

he cried, “

©

y beautiful daughter? Why should she be taken so far away among the sunless dead?”

¥ hinking about her daughter’s situation all over again, Demeter became so upset

that she left

ecate and

elius and began to shun her fellow immortals. oon De

meter took to wandering the earth in the guise of a mortal woman.

he allowed the grain harvest to fail and the fields to become parched.

he was so transformed

by her grief that no one could recognize her. he looked like a gnarled, old wo

man, as sad and weak as the parched and unyielding fields that were beginning topatch the earth.

fter wandering for many months, Demeter came again to the town of

£

leusis where she stopped to rest by a well. While she was sitting in the s

hade of an olive tree, four beautiful princesses came to draw water.¥

hey were the daughters of

eleus, the king of£

leusis, and all four were kind and well-mannered. When they saw Demeter, they pitied her because she looked so sad and weary.

¥ hey had no idea that she was really a goddess.

¥ rying to help the old woman,

the girls asked if she would be interested 67



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

in being a nurse to their baby brother, Demophoon. Demeter gladly accepted thisoffer. When Demeter entered the palace, her golden hair had turn to gray, her skin was wrinkled and loose, and all her inner radiance was hidden beneath a darkrobe.

evertheless, the princesses’ mother,!

ueen©

etanira, sensed that the new nurse was not an ordinary old woman.

¥ he queen noticed a special glow about the ne

wcomer, despite her dark robe and sad face.©

etanira offered Demeter her best chair and asked one of the servants to bring some sweet wine, but Demeter, too sadto accept comfort, refused the chair and the wine.

¦

nstead, she sat on a low stool and drank only water mixed with barley mead.

¥ hen Demeter asked to see the c

hild for whom she would be caring. When Demeter first took the baby Demophoon inher arms, he smiled and gurgled.

!

ueen©

etanira was glad to see that her newborn son was comfortable in the arms of his new nurse. Demeter was happy watching over the young prince.

he began to love the child so much that, eventually, she

decided to make him immortal.¡

y doing so, Demeter hoped to thank the royal family for their kindness and, at the same time, to relieve some of the sadness of losing her own child.

o each night, after the family was asleep, Demeter lathered the boy with ambrosia, an ointment of the gods. When he was well oiled, she pl

aced him in the heart of the hearth’s fire to burn away all traces of his mortality.¥

hough the baby was in the fire, Demeter watched him intently, and the flamesnever hurt him.

¥

he ambrosia treatment worked wonders, and the baby grew stronger and healthier every day.

¥ he royal family was amazed at the baby’s rapid develo

pment. Demophoon was growing much faster than a normal child. oon, however,

!

ueen

©

etanira became suspicious 68



Demeter and

ersephone

of her son’s remarkable growth.

ne night she did not go to bed.¦ nstead, she hid,

hoping to see what the nurse was doing each night to her youngest child. When©

etanira peeked into Demeter’s room, she was shocked at what she saw.¥ here was the

nurse, turning her baby in the fire like a pig on a spit!©

etanira screamed atthe sight.

¦ nterrupted at her magic, the goddess angrily jerked the child from t

he fire and threw him to the ground where he began to cry— unhurt but frightened.

earing his wife’s scream,§

ing

eleus came running into the room, just in time tosee the old nurse transform herself into a towering, beautiful goddess.

s herform changed, a blaze of light burst forth and filled all the gloomy corners ofthe palace room.

¥ hough she was furious with

©

etanira for the interruption, Demeter’s anger quickly turned to sadness.

he decided not to punish the family for th

eir reaction.

he had, after all, loved the baby, and although he could never become immortal without continuing the ambrosia treatments, he could still be honored, since a goddess had been his nurse. Demeter told the king and queen to havethe people of

£

leusis build a temple in her honor. While it was being built, she told the townspeople how to grow corn and how to perform special ceremonies ather temple.

¦ n this way, the town continued to appease and pay tribute to the i

nconsolable goddess, whose grief once again became focused on her lost daughter.When the temple at£

leusis was completed, Demeter went to live there, far from©

ount

lympus and the other gods and goddesses.

adly, she sat silently in her temple for an entire year. While she sat, no crops grew, and the people became hungrier with every passing day.

oon it seemed like every living thing on earth w

as in danger of starving. 69



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¤ eus feared that Demeter’s mourning was becoming destructive.

e begged her to endthe famine, but Demeter repeatedly refused the request.

he said she would neve

r grant her life-giving power to the earth so long as

ersephone remained so faraway in the

nderworld.

inally,¤

eus realized that

ades would have to give uphis bride so that the world could be healed. With a heavy heart,

¤ eus sent

erm

es, the official messenger of the gods, to the

nderworld to deliver a message to

ades. When

ermes reached the

nderworld, he found

ades and his bride sitting side by side on their thrones.

ersephone looked miserable.

he was weeping because she missed her mother and the world above. When she heard

ermes’s message from

¤ eus, she cried out in joy.

ades knew that he had no choice but to obey¤ eu

s and let

ersephone go home to her mother.

e begged his wife not to think of him harshly.

ades said, “©

y beloved wife, remember that here you are the queen, the most powerful woman of all.

s the queen of the

nderworld, you even have power over the living, because you have control over what happens to people when they die.

¡

ecause of this, you have the power to be merciful, which is the greatestgift of all. Do not think ill of me or this kingdom when you are far away fromhere.”

eluctantly,

ades prepared to let

ersephone go, but before she left, he g

ave her four pomegranate seeds to eat.

ades knew, although his wife did not, that if she ate anything from the world of the dead, she would have to return to his kingdom someday.

aving eaten the seeds,

ersephone rode happily out of the

nderworld with

ermes. When their chariot finally reached£

leusis,

ersephone joyfully embraced her mother.

¥ he mother and daughter laughed and cried, and talke

d as they had before.

inally, Demeter asked her 70



Demeter and

ersephone

daughter if she had eaten anything during her stay in the

nderworld.

ersephonereplied, “

©

other, what a strange question.

ll¦ ate was four pomegranate seeds.

Why should that matter?” Demeter became so upset by this news that she took her daughter directly to

¤

eus to discuss what could be done.

n the way to©

ount

lympus, Demeter explained to

ersephone that because she had eaten food from the

nd

erworld—the seeds of the pomegranate—she would have to return there. ¥ hat rule was unbreakable.

¤ eus had witnessed the happiness of mother and daughter when they we

re reunited, and now he could see the unbearable sadness in their eyes at the thought of having to part again.

evertheless,¤ eus had to respect the rules of th

e universe.¥ herefore, to follow the rules, the king of the gods decreed that

ersephone must return to the

nderworld.

owever,¤ eus offered a compromise: inst

ead of returning permanently to live in the

nderworld,

ersephone need only live there for four months out of the year, one month for each pomegranate seed shehad eaten.

ppeased by¤ eus’s compromise, Demeter allowed the crops on earth to g

row again.

rom that time on, mother and daughter spent two thirds of the year together. During their time together, the earth bloomed and the crops flourished.

¡

ut when

ersephone returned each year to spend four months with

ades in the

nderworld, the earth became as cold as ice while Demeter mourned for her daughter’s lost company.¥

hen, every spring, when

ersephone returned to her mother, theworld would become green again in celebration of their joyous reunion.

71



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:What was Demeter’s role as a goddess?

he was the goddess of agriculture. Demeter

was responsible for providing healthy crops, fertility, and bountiful harvests.Who was

ades?

ades was the god who ruled the

nderworld, or the world of the dead. Why did

¤

eus refuse to give his consent for

ades to marry

ersephone?¤

eusdid not want to anger Demeter,

ersephone’s mother and the goddess of agriculture

, who could cause the earth to become barren. Why did

ades kidnap

ersephone?

e wanted to marry her.

e knew that Demeter would never allow her daughter to marry someone who lived in the

nderworld.

e also realized that although¤

eus would not grant his consent for

ades to marry

ersephone,¤ eus did not precisely f

orbid the marriage. Without her parents’ official consent,

ades knew he had no choice but to kidnap

ersephone. What did

ersephone eat while in the

nderworld?

he ate four pomegranate seeds. What is the significance of the four seeds?¥

hefour seeds came from the

nderworld.

nce she had eaten food from the

nderworld,

ersephone would be bound to return there. 72

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:

:

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:!

:

:!

:

:



Demeter and

ersephone

!

:

:

What compromise did¤ eus make for Demeter and

ersephone, and why did he make it?

¦

nstead of forcing

ersephone to return permanently to

ades and the

nderworld,

¤ eus allowed

ersephone to spend two thirds of the year on earth with her mot

her.

ersephone had to return to the

nderworld for four months out of every year, one month for each seed she had eaten.

¤ eus allowed this compromise because h

e wanted to keep Demeter happy.

e knew that if she remained sad, the earth would dry up and become barren.

ow does the myth of Demeter and

ersephone help toexplain the seasons?

£

ach year, when

ersephone went to the

nderworld, Demetergrew sad.

he did not let anything grow on earth, and winter set in.

¥ hen, when

ersephone left the

nderworld to return to her mother, the earth became fertileagain, and spring returned.

!

:

:

73



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

¥ he story of Demeter and

ersephone is often considered to be the basis for manyother myths, including some stories in modern

hristianity.©

ichael¢

rant, a respected historian, writes:

¥ he tale of Demeter and

ersephone, perhaps more than any other classical myth,has embodied and directed man’s accumulated thoughts about being born and dying.

¦

t anticipates both£

aster (in which life and death co-exist) and 2

hristmas (th

e time of annual rebirth and hope).

¥

his myth and the celebrations of the£

leusinian©

ysteries, provide the£

nglishlanguage with some important words.

rofessor¡

arry¡

.

owell explains:¥ he word mystery, which has entered our language from this

£

leusinian cult to Demeter, comes from the

¢

reek [word] mystês (plural mystai) meaning “one who closes his eyes,” in order to enter the temple or during the sacred rites.

rom the

atin translation of the word, initiatus, comes our word initiate, literally, “one who has gone in,” that is, into the 3 temple of Demeter to participate in the secret ritual.

¥ he myth of Demeter and

ersephone is also significant to modern scholars becaus

e it helps to illustrate the fate of women during this period in

¢

reece.

owellwrites:

ersephone’s fate resembles that of¢

reek girls who, at age fourteen, were marriedto war-hardened men twice their age, whom they scarcely knew. . . . Demeter’s fate is also typical of many

¢

reek women.

s Demeter lost a child to

ades, the lord of death, so did many lose a child to war or disease.

¦

n the myth we see thatDemeter’s loss causes her first to grieve and to rage, before she finally acceptsthat, although things have changed, the world will go on.

©

any¢

reek women wouldeasily have identified with this 4 sequence of emotions.

74



6D

¦

D

¦

¨

W£



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

lthough

thens may have been the most important, ancient¢

reece had many othercities that were significant to the development of culture and religion.

¥ hebes,

for example, was the major cultural and military center of¡

oeotia, an area tothe northwest of

thens on the¢

reek mainland.

ccording to legend, the hero

admus had come to the land of

¡

oeotia by following a cow there. (¥

he word¡

oeotiais related to the

¢

reek word for cow.)

e had sown the teeth of a dragon into th

e earth like seeds, and after battling the race of men who had sprung out of theground from these seeds,

admus took control of the area and built the city of¥

hebes.

admus and his wife

armony, the daughter of

res and

phrodite, had four daughters:

utonoe,¦ no,

gave, and emele.

¥ he character

admus is believed to have originated in

£

astern religion, and the story about the foundation of¥ he

bes may 1 reflect the influence of a foreign group on the area.¥ hebes was thoug

ht to be the birthplace of a very significant member of the¢

reek pantheon. Dionysus was the son of

¤ eus, the ruler of the

lympian gods, and emele, one of

admus’s daughters. Dionysus, the god of wine, was also called

¡

acchus.

e was an important god of agriculture, and he was often closely associated with other earthgods, such as Demeter.

¡

ecause he was affiliated with grapes and wine, the¢

reeks believed that Dionysus could control a person’s state of mind, in the same way t

hat alcohol does, and he is often connected to scenes of madness or various forms of wild behavior. During the fifth and sixth centuries¡

.

., theater as we know it was born during the

thenian festivals dedicated to Dionysus.¥

hese festivals placed a heavy emphasis on 76



Dionysus and

is

ollowers

the recitation of poetry, and the theatrical forms of comedy and tragedy that weknow today developed out of the performance of this poetry.

¥ he most famous pla

ywrights of the time were

eschylus, ophocles, and

£

uripides, who often based their plays on the prominent myths and historical events of the day.

¥

his story about Dionysus, and the development of his importance, has been passed down to us

through the play ¥ he¡

acchae by£

uripides. ¦ n the story, ¤ eus makes a promise and seals it by pledging an oath on the name of the

iver tyx.

¥ his is the mytho

logical river that must be crossed in order to enter the

nderworld.

ny promisesworn upon it could never be broken, not even by a god.

77



D¦

D

¦

¨

W£

emele’s father was

admus, king of¥ hebes.

he lived a happy and luxurious life i

n the palace, along with her sisters

utonoe,¦ no, and

gave.

s the girls grewolder, everyone remarked on their outstanding beauty.

ife seemed perfect for these lovely princesses, until the day

emele fell in love with a tall, handsome s

tranger.

aught up in her new romance,

emele ignored the fact that she did notknow much about her lover.

he kept him a secret from her family and friends, an

d although her sisters noticed a new radiance about emele, none suspected her frequent absences.

emele had no idea that her secret lover was actually

¤ eus, th

e king of the gods, who was visiting her in the form of a mortal man.¤

eus was very much in love with the beautiful, quiet, and somewhat solitary princess, buthe could not visit her in his true godlike state.

¦ f he were to reveal his true

self, emele would die, since no human could look on an immortal in his or her t

rue form without being consumed by the immortal’s power.¥

herefore, when a god wished to show himself to a mortal, he needed to cloak his glory.

owever, after e

mele and¤ eus had continued their love affair for some time,

¤ eus finally 78



Dionysus and

is

ollowers

decided to reveal his true identity to emele.

lthough she was shocked, the princess believed her lover.

£

ven though¤ eus was in love with

emele, he was, in f

act, already married to

era, the queen of the gods. When she learned of her husband’s affair with

emele,

era became enraged with jealousy.¦

n fact,¤

eus oftenpursued other women, both mortal and immortal, and although she was used to her

husband’s affairs,

era still always reacted with the same intensity. he often took out her revenge on her husband’s various accomplices.

¥ his time,

era, disguised as a servant, paid a visit to

emele’s bedchamber. With mock sympathy,

era toldthe girl that she knew all about the secret romance.

omehow she convinced the

princess that it would be wise for her to behold her lover in his true form. em

ele had just discovered that she was pregnant, and although she trusted her lover, she now became persuaded to be certain about the identity of her unborn child’sfather.

o

emele sent the servant out of the room and awaited the arrival of h

er lover. When¤ eus entered the room through a door from the garden,

emele jump

ed up and threw her arms around his neck. “©

y love,” she said, “my servant knows all about us. We must be very careful or my father will discover our affair!

¡

ut thisis not my only news. Darling,

¦ am going to have a child.

wear to me that you

will grant me the favor¦

am about to ask you.”¤

eus was surprised at the princess’sardent tone of voice, but because he was so much in love with her, he agreed and said, “

¦

swear on the

iver

tyx in

ades that¦

will do whatever you ask of me.” emele took her lover’s hand and led him into the room.

itting down, she begged t

o see him in his true form.¤ eus was caught off-guard and did not know what to d

o about this new dilemma.

e knew that

emele would not 79



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

be able to look at him without dying, and he did not want to hurt her.¡

ut the god had also made an unbreakable promise, for any promise sworn on the

iver tyx

must be fulfilled, and now he could not refuse her request.¥ hough

¤ eus tried t

o explain the consequences to

emele, the princess insisted that, although she truly loved him, she still needed proof of his identity.

¥ herefore, reluctantly,

¤ eus kept his word.

s he began to transform, the room filled with light, and flames shot out from his immortal body.

emele screamed as the sight of her lover

burned into her eyes.¥

hen, consumed by the fire of¤

eus’s immortality, her own body was engulfed in flames. Just before she died,

¤ eus snatched

emele’s unborn bab

y from her womb.!

uickly, he sewed the baby into his thigh to keep it safe fromharm.

¥ hen

¤ eus wept for his love, and he left the

¥ heban palace in the same sec

ret manner by which he had come. When nine months had fully passed,

emele’s childwas born out of

¤ eus’s thigh.

¥ he king of the gods named his son Dionysus, and he

asked some nymphs to raise the baby and keep him a safe distance away from!

ueen

era who was still angry at¤ eus for his affair with

emele.

©

any years later,after Dionysus had grown up, he bade a tearful farewell to the nymphs who had mothered him and set off to travel the world, slowly making his way toward

¥ hebes

.

e was a handsome young man with long flowing hair that fell in waves about his shoulders.

e wore clothes made out of the skins of animals, and often he looked like he would be more comfortable in the wilds of the forest than in the cities and towns that he visited.

s the young god wandered, he showed the¢

reeks how to grow grapes and how to use the grapes to make wine.

e was often followed and worshipped by groups of wild-looking women called

¡

acchae or bacchantes.¥

hese women also 80



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

wore clothes made from the skins of animals, and they usually had flowers or leaves scattered in their hair.

ften the bacchantes would sing and dance like untamed animals in their rituals of worship, and they caused quite an uproar wherever they visited.

fter many years of travel, Dionysus finally arrived in his mother’s hometown, and he was shocked at the poor reception he received.

¥ he people of

¥ hebes did not believe that Dionysus was a god, nor did they believe he was emele’s lost son. Dionysus also learned that his mother’s memory had been dishonored by the people of

¥

hebes.¥

he¥

hebans considered

emele to have been a disrespectful daughter; they disapproved of her secret affair and felt she had received a just punishment in her death! Dionysus was furious at the

¥ heban people for both

their disbelief of his immortality and their cruel treatment of his mother’s memory.

t this time, the king of¥

hebes was Dionysus’s cousin

entheus, the son of

emele’s sister,

gave.

ike the other¥ hebans,

entheus did not believe that Dionysus was a god, nor would he recognize him as his cousin.

entheus thought that this stranger was merely a troublemaker whose wild and unruly followers were disturbing the peace of his orderly city.

ngrily,

entheus commanded his guards to arrest Dionysus and his disciples.

lthough Dionysus was, in fact, enraged by

ent

heus’s behavior, the god went to prison peacefully.

owever, extraordinary thingsbegan to happen at the palace prison.¥

he guards were amazed when they realizedthat it was impossible to lock up their peculiar prisoner.

o matter how many times they worked the locks attached to them, the chains on Dionysus’s wrists alwaysfell to the ground, and the doors of his jail cell refused to stay closed.

¥ hen

, suddenly, a huge earthquake rocked the city of¥

hebes, 82



Dionysus and

is

ollowers

flattening both the palace and the prison to the ground.©

any¥ hebans came to re

alize that this devastation must have been the work of an angry god. Despite these strange events,

entheus refused to believe that Dionysus possessed any supernatural powers, even after the prisoner had walked out of the rubble of the prison without a scratch on his body.

©

any¥ heban women, however, became convinced o

f Dionysus’s powers, and after the earthquake, they joined Dionysus’s followers.

fter dressing in animal skins, the women went to the hills outside

¥ hebes where th

ey cavorted like animals, jumping and dancing in praise of Dionysus, whom they now recognized as a god.

oon, a messenger came to

entheus to tell him that hismother,

gave, and his aunts were among the¡

acchae dancing in the hills.¥ he me

ssenger also told

entheus that guards had tried to talk to

gave and the otherwomen, but when they had approached, the women chased the men away.

¥

he guard added that the women had torn the woods apart with their bare hands and ruined allthe villages in their path with their wild revelry.

entheus was furious at this news!

e paced in front of his crumbling palace, fuming. “©

y own mother!” he cried. “

cting like one of those crazy¡

acchae! Whatever will happen next?”

s

entheus grew visibly more and more upset, Dionysus approached, already planning his reven

ge.

entheus still did not believe that Dionysus was a god, but soon he fell into a trance and agreed with everything Dionysus said to him, no matter how strange.

irst, Dionysus convinced

entheus that he needed to climb the hill and see for himself how the women were behaving.

nly then would

entheus be able to figure out a way to make them stop their outrageous behavior. 83



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

till in a trance,

entheus begged Dionysus to help him find a disguise so thatthe women on the hill would not recognize him.

¥ hen Dionysus dressed

§

ing

entheus in a long, flowing wig and a wild, multicolored dress.

nder Dionysus’s spell,

entheus thought he looked quite dashing when, in fact, he looked very silly.

inally, Dionysus led the king to the hill where the

¡

acchae were celebrating.

nc

e they reached the top of the hill, Dionysus convinced the king to climb a treeto get a better look at the scene.

¥ hen, when

entheus had settled himself in the tree, Dionysus disappeared.

¥

he king was surprised that Dionysus would leave him so suddenly, but he was confident that the women could not see him hiding inthe tree.

nfortunately for

entheus, Dionysus had put the women in a trance aswell.

¥ hus, when they looked up at the tree, they did not see

entheus hiding there but a mountain lion readying for attack.

¥

errified at the sight of what shethought was a vicious, man-eating creature,

gave shouted, “§

ill the lion!”

ike animals stalking their prey, the women attacked

entheus and pulled him from the tree.

¥ hough he begged for mercy, the women could not understand him since his wor

ds sounded like the growls of a wild lion, not like cries for help from their own king. Dionysus had endowed the women with superhuman strength, and now, with t

heir bare hands, the women tore

entheus to shreds.¥

hen, still in a trance, thewomen marched back to¥

hebes.¦

n tribute to their proud victory,

gave led themarch, parading the head of the victim above her like a trophy. When the women entered the city carrying

entheus’s head before them, the people of¥ hebes were so

horrified that they stood in silence as the shocking parade passed by. 84



Dionysus and

is

ollowers

When the marchers reached the grounds of the palace ruins,

gave called out to her father,

admus, to show off their prize. When

admus saw what

gave held in her hands, his face paled, and he began to weep.

olding the head of her victim high above her,

gave said, “

ather, why do you weep?

ook how¦

have killed a mountain lion!

ook how strong and brave your daughter is! Why are you not proud?” Wee

ping for his dead grandson, and for his daughter who loved her son

entheus morethan anyone in the world,

admus said, “Dear

gave, look again at what prize youhave been blessed with, and then you will understand why

¦

am weeping.”

admus’s sadwords broke

gave’s trance, and when she looked again at the head in her hands, her proud laughter quickly turned to terror.

he saw that she had killed her own

son!

alling to the ground,

gave wept, finally coming to understand the powersof the god Dionysus, whom her family had so vilely offended by their disbelief.

85



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:!

:

:Who were Dionysus’s parents? Dionysus was the child of

¤ eus, the king of the gods,

and emele, the daughter of

§

ing

admus of¥ hebes.

ow did Dionysus’s mother, em

ele, die?¡

ecause she was mortal, emele could not look at

¤ eus unless he was di

sguised. When she persuaded¤

eus to reveal himself in his true form,

emele wasunable to withstand the power of the god’s immortality, and she was burned to ashe

s.

ow did ¤ eus save the baby emele was carrying?

s emele’s body was engulfed in flames,

¤ eus took the unborn baby from her womb and sewed it into his thigh.

ater, the baby was reborn out of¤

eus’s thigh. Why did Dionysus become angry withthe people of

¥ hebes?

¥ he

¥ hebans did not respect the memory of his mother,

eme

le, nor did they respect his godlike powers and nature. Why did

entheus arrestDionysus?

entheus thought the young visitor was a troublemaker, not a god.

entheus thought Dionysus and his followers were disturbing the peace of the city. Why did

gave kill her son,

entheus?

nder a spell induced by Dionysus,

gave mistook

entheus for a mountain lion. When she came out of the trance,

gave was shocked and horrified by what she had done.

!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:

86



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

Dionysus was often thought to be a late addition to the¢

reek pantheon, or set of gods.

s was true in this story, he was sometimes only reluctantly accepted, and often he was viewed as an outsider.

e was known as the god of wine and of altered states.

¦ t is important to note that people believed that Dionysus had the

power not only to cause the intoxication of the body, as through the consumption of wine, but also the intoxication of the spirit, as through ecstatic or frenz

ied behavior.

ichmond

.

athorn writes:¦ n his myths Dionysus invades from without because it was his nature as a god toapparently invade the individual from without: of all deities he was the one who most characteristically “possessed” his devotee; he “filled the devotee with the god,” sometimes through the medium of wine, more often directly, since he was essentially the wild spirit of intoxicated joy that thrills throughout the whole realmof 2 nature.

Dionysus was also known in¢

reece by the name¡

acchus, and it is from this namethat we have derived the term bacchanalia, which is a riotous celebration or scene of revelry.

¥

he people who worshipped Dionysus were considered wild and out of control.

¦ n fact and in fiction, the supporters of Dionysus were associated wi

th nature and insanity.¦

n

©

ythology,

n¦

llustrated

¢

uide, editor

oy Willis explains:¥

he mythical male followers of [Dionysus] were the satyrs, creatures who were part man and part goat with horses’ tails.

is female followers, both in myth and reality, were called

¡

acchants (“women of¡

acchus”) or maenads 3 (“mad women”).

87



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¥ he worship of Dionysus is also connected to the birth and development of Western theater.

rofessor¡

arry¡

.

owell writes:Dionysus also played an important role in

¢

reek culture through his associationwith the theater.

©

any of the bestknown¢

reek myths are preserved as the plots of tragedies performed in his honor.

¡

eginning in the sixth century¡

.

., tragedi

es were performed at a spring festival of Dionysus in

thens known as the

enea.. . .

thers were performed at the more important

ity Dionysia [or festivals to Dionysus], probably reorganized sometime in the middle of the sixth century

¡

.

. . . . ome elements in

¢

reek drama seem to be traceable to the cult of Dionysus, in whose honor these festivals were held, but more than a hundred years of intensive scholarship have been unable to clarify the precise rela4 tionship between the cult and

¢

reek drama.

88



7¡

¦

D

¦

¨ £ ©



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

¢

reece has always had a close and tumultuous relationship with its neighbors tothe east.

¦ n the ancient world, the civilizations in

sia©

inor had an importantrole in the development of

¢

reek religion and culture.¥ he groups of people in

sia©

inor, a great part of which is now¥ urkey, and the people of

¢

reece oftenhad much in common. Due to trade and travel, they had many opportunities to share myths and religious beliefs.

¥ he story of

¡

aucis and

hilemon probably crossed

the cultural divide. ¥ he myth was written down by the

oman poet,

vid.

hrygia, the land where

¡

aucis and

hilemon live, was located in

sia©

inor, but in this story,

¤

eus and

ermes, gods who are¢

reek in origin, visit the area as if itwere just another part of their

¢

reek landscape.¡

ecause travel was so central to the lives of the ancient

¢

reeks, there were many customs related to the treatment of guests and travelers.

or example, it was considered an honor to have a guest in one’s home.

ll guests were to be respected and treated kindly, even if they were strangers.

¤ eus was the particular protector of guests, and

ermes, thefleet-footed messenger of the gods, was considered to be a protector of travelers and the god of the highway.

¦ n the myths and folktales of many cultures, a dis

guised king or god sometimes visits common people.¥

hese stories remind people always to offer kindness to strangers, since the true identity of a stranger can

never be known.¥

he story of

¡

aucis and

hilemon demonstrates the importance ofthe custom of respecting visitors.

90



¡

¦

D

¦

¨ £ ©

¡

aucis and

hilemon lived in

hrygia, a part of

sia©

inor.¥ hey had been marrie

d for many years, and although they were very poor, they were happy and loved each other dearly.

¥ heir farm was small, and they could grow only enough to feed t

hemselves. ometimes conditions made it difficult to coax any crops out of the l

and, so they often relied on the eggs of the single goose that lived on the farm.

¥ he goose not only laid eggs, but it acted like a watchdog, protecting the cou

ple’s meager possessions.

ne day, ¤ eus and

ermes decided to visit

hrygia. ¤ eus,the protector of guests, wanted to see if the people in

hrygia were being kindto visitors.

¤

eus and

ermes wore ragged clothes so that no one would recognizethem.

¥ hey knew that as gods they would be treated royally, but they wanted to

see how they would be welcomed as ordinary travelers.¥ hus disguised, the gods w

ent from house to house in

hrygia.

t the door of each house the ragged strangers asked the owners if they could rest by the fireplace and have something to eat and drink.

¡

ut each door was slammed rudely in their faces.

fter this had happened many times,

¤ eus began to worry.

e turned to

ermes 91



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

and asked, “

ow can anyone travel in such an inhospitable country where everyone seems so rude and disrespectful?

re there no people in

hrygia who are kind to strangers?

¥ ravelers far from home should not have to go hungry.

¦ wonder how the

se rude people would feel if they were treated the same way they have been treating us?”

ermes had no ready answer for¤ eus, and the pair trudged along.

inally,

after knocking on hundreds of doors and being refused hospitality at each one,the disguised gods found themselves before a hut that was smaller and more rundown than any of the houses they had yet visited.

¥

he house was situated near thebottom of a tall hill, and although the farm around the house was small, the grounds were well-tended. When the strangers knocked on the door of the modest hut,a ragged couple appeared.

¦ mmediately and with open arms, they invited the stra

ngers into their home. Ducking under the low doorway, the disguised gods enteredinto the small but spotless single room.

¥ he couple’s names were

¡

aucis and

hilemon.

¡

aucis was a small woman with graying hair, a sweet face, and a friendly smile; and her husband,

hilemon, was hard-working and strong despite his years.¥

hey were kind and happily went to work preparing a meal and trying to make theirguests feel comfortable.

¡

aucis and

hilemon asked neither the visitors’ names no

r their origins; the couple understood that it was up to the visitors to offer this information only if they so chose. With sincere attention to their visitors’ comfort, the couple invited their guests to sit near the warm hearth, and

¡

aucisthrew a thin pillow over the single hard bench.

¥ hen

¡

aucis heated up the fire and began to boil water. While she cooked the evening meal,

¡

aucis spoke happilywith the guests. “We are so glad to have you with us,” she said. 92



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

“We do not have much, my

hilemon and¦ , but we are happy to share whatever we hav

e with our friends.”

s she said this, her husband smiled and nodded in agreement.

inally, the meager meal was ready.¡

aucis propped up their rickety table witha broken dish and served her guests.

hilemon made sure that the guests had whatever they might need.

¥ he couple were so busy enjoying their company that nothin

g seemed unusual.¢

radually, however,

hilemon and¡

aucis both noticed that although they had already used up their small supply of wine, the wine jug was as full as ever, even though it had been emptied several times.

learly, their guestscould not be the poor travelers they appeared to be.

uch a miracle must be the

magic of immortals.¦ mmediately, the couple fell to their knees, begging the go

ds’ forgiveness for the meager dinner they had served and the shabbiness of theirtiny home.

£

mbarrassed at his poverty,

hilemon got up quickly from his knees and ran outside, hoping to catch the couple’s goose in order to cook it as a more appropriate dinner offering for the gods.

¡

ut the goose sensed the old man’s purposeand ran away.

inally, the goose ran straight into the house and jumped into¤ e

us’s lap for protection.¤

eus laughed, and told the old man to stop his chasing.¥

he god assured the couple that he did not wish to eat their only goose. till sm

iling,¤

eus and

ermes said, “

ome with us,

¡

aucis and

hilemon.

ou have been wonderful hosts, and you shall be rewarded.

owever, the rest of the people in thiscountry shall be punished for their rudeness.”

ervously,¡

aucis and

hilemon followed as the gods hiked to the top of the hill behind their house. When they turned to look down at the valley, the couple was dismayed to see that all the houses in the village—except 94



¡

aucis and

hilemon

their own—had disappeared under the waters of a huge flood.

ow, only the tips ofthe highest rooftops could be seen peeking out above the raging waters.

¥ he floo

d had swept in so quickly and so silently that the entire village had been surprised.

¡

aucis and

hilemon could not see a soul left in their town.

ll that wasleft was their own tiny home, the floodwaters lapping at its doorway.

n the hig

h hill, safe and dry above the flood,¡

aucis and

hilemon looked down again at their farm, unable to speak.

mazed, they watched as their house changed before their eyes into a magnificent temple made of gold and marble.

¥

hey had no idea why this was happening. When they looked questioningly to the gods for an answer,

¤ eus smiled kindly and said, “

ou shall have your reward now.¥ ell me your wish, a

nd you shall have it.”

or a moment,¡

aucis and

hilemon whispered together; theyneeded only a minute to decide what their wish would be.

irst, they asked the gods if they could be priests in the shiny gold temple that now stood in place oftheir house.

¥ hen they begged the gods to allow them to die both at the same mo

ment, so that neither would ever have to live without the other.¤ eus granted th

e couple their first wish right away.¡

efore returning with

ermes to©

ount

lympus,

¤ eus sent

¡

aucis and

hilemon off to serve in the great temple that now sto

od where their farm used to be.¥

he couple lived happily there for many years, growing very old but remaining ever faithful to the gods and to each other.

ne day, while standing outside the temple,

¡

aucis saw her husband’s body stiffen.

ight before her eyes,

hilemon’s feet grew into the ground, and leaves sprouted out of his hands.

¡

aucis was shocked, but suddenly she realized that her own body wasalso sprouting roots and leaves.

¥

he couple had only a moment to say a loving 95



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ods and¢

oddesses in¢

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ythology

goodbye before they both turned into trees, their trunks touching and their leaves mingling.

¦ n this way, the gods fulfilled their promise to

¡

aucis and

hilemon—they would never be apart, even in death.

fter this startling event, the peoplewho came to live again in

hrygia always told the couple’s story and hung wreathson the trees that grew twisted together outside the golden temple.

¦ n this way,

the people of

hrygia honored the spirit of¡

aucis and

hilemon, the kind and faithful couple who were rewarded by the gods for their kindness to others.

96



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:

ow was one supposed to treat a guest in ancient¢

reece?¦ t was customary to tre

at guests or strangers with respect and hospitality.£

ven if a visitor was a complete stranger, he or she was expected to be treated with kindness. Why did

¤ eus

and

ermes visit

hrygia in disguise?¥

he gods disguised themselves so they could see how the people treated ordinary guests and strangers. What happened to th

e people who refused to invite the strangers into their homes? ¥ hey disappearedunder the waters of a huge flood. Why did

¤ eus and

ermes punish the people of

hrygia?¥

he people of

hrygia had been rude and inhospitable.¥

his made the godsangry. Why did the gods reward

¡

aucis and

hilemon?¥ he couple was kind and fol

lowed the¢

reek custom of respecting strangers and travelers.

lthough they werepoor and had little to eat, they shared whatever they had. Why did

¡

aucis and

hilemon turn into trees?¡

y becoming trees,¡

aucis and

hilemon were able to remain together, even after their deaths.

¥ he touching trees are a symbol of their

everlasting life together.

!

:

:!

:

:!

:

:!

:

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:

97



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

¥ he story of

¡

aucis and

hilemon includes a devastating flood, a symbolic eventthat appears in the creation stories of many cultures as well as in other

¢

reekmyths.

ichmond

.

athorn explains the frequency of flood stories in mythology:

loods are a recurrent natural phenomenon, and flood-stories are a worldwide mythical phenomenon.

¥

o connect any particular flood-story with any particular flood is to confound myth, science, and history. . . .

¥ here are lesser flood-stories

in¢

reek mythology; the best-known in other mythologies are, of course,

oah’s inthe

¡

ible and 1

tnapishtim’s in¥ he

£

pic of¢

ilgamesh.

athorn goes on to explain why floods are such a useful symbol.

e writes:

loods suitably symbolize the end of one era and the beginning of another because they are baptisms in extenso: water destroys, kills, cleanses, purifies, revivifies, and is the 2 stuff of new life.

¥ he importance of hospitality in ancient

¢

reece was also an expectation well known to people of other cultures.

lassicist¡

arry¡

.

owell explains:

bove all,¤

eus protected the custom called xenia, which we can roughly translate as “a formal institution of friendship.”

enia enabled¢

reeks to travel safely to

distant lands where other

¢

reeks lived.

relationship was established when a wanderer [xenos means “guest,” or stranger] was received into someone’s household, entertained, and given a gift.

hould the host one day visit the wanderer’s home, he could expect to be received similarly.

bligations of reciprocal hospitality fellnot only on the individuals involved originally, but also on their entire families and on their 3 descendants.

98



8£

D

¦



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

©

any myths rely on the metamorphosis, or transformation, of a character in orderto explain the existence or appearance of certain animals, plants, strange landformations, or odd events that occur in the world.

©

etamorphoses are a common theme in

¢

reek myths.¦ n many, the climax of a story is reached when a main chara

cter changes from a person into an entirely different creature.¥

his type of change occurs through the intervention of a god.

¥ he story of

£

cho and

arcissus is

one such story. ometime around

.D. 8, the

oman poet

vid wrote one version of this story in his work called

¥ he

©

etamorphoses, a fifteen-volume epic poem that relates more than two hundred stories.

¦

ronically, the

oman work¥

he©

etamorphoses remains one of the most significant contributions to our knowledge of

¢

reek mythology today.

¥ he tale of

£

cho and

arcissus relates the story of the tragic love of a nymph for a young man.

ymphs were minor nature goddesses who wereusually represented as beautiful maidens living in the mountains, forests, trees, or water.

£

cho was a talkative mountain nymph who fell in love with

arcissus,the son of the river-god

ephisus.

either£

cho nor

arcissus was worshipped aspart of any religious ceremony in ancient

¢

reece, but their story became important to explain otherwise unfathomable natural occurrences.

100



£

D

¦

£

cho was a beautiful mountain nymph who was a favorite friend of

rtemis, the goddess of the hunt and a special protector of maidens.

£

cho, friendly and fun-loving, adored talking to her many sisters and friends.

evertheless, no one ever complained that she talked too much, because

£

cho was so much fun to be with, andeveryone loved her.

ne of the other nymphs was having a love affair with¤

eus,the king of the gods.

ften, the couple would meet in a secret glade in the for

est, far from the jealous eyes of

era, ¤ eus’s wife.£

cho did not know about the affair, and she did not mind when her friends and sisters asked her to stand guard outside the secret glade.

he never even thought to ask them why the glade needed guarding.

ll that£

cho knew was that her sisters and friends warned her that her most important job was to keep

era away from the glade.¡

efore long,

eraheard rumors that her husband was having an affair, and she became determined to find out which nymph was tempting her husband away.

s she entered the forestand neared the glade,

era saw£

cho lounging near a shady group of trees.¦ t was

clear to£

cho that

era wanted to enter the glade, and, remembering 101



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

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ythology

her sisters’ warning,£

cho struck up a friendly conversation with the goddess, trying to distract her. While

£

cho was busy chatting with

era,¤ eus and his lover

heard

era’s unmistakable voice and managed to escape before they could be discovered. When

era finally insisted on entering the glade and found that her husbandhad gotten away, she was furious!

nd even though£

cho had played no part at al

l in ¤ eus’s affair,

era decided to punish her. ¦ n a high, shrill voice, the queenof the gods pronounced, “

oung lady, your chattering has done you in, and you will be punished for it!

rom this moment forward, the only words you will ever beable to utter will be exactly those words, no more and no less, that other people have said to you first.”

£

cho was very upset. he had not meant to make

era angry.

he had only been helping her sisters and friends.

ow she was burdened withan unbearable punishment, especially for someone who loved to talk!

¦

t seemed like nothing could be worse than silence or being doomed to repeat someone else’s words.

adly,

£

cho left the glade, waving silently to her sisters and friends andwondering what she was going to do. Distracted by her thoughts,

£

cho suddenly found herself near a beautiful pond.

¥

here, sitting at the water’s edge, was the handsomest young man

£

cho had ever seen. Desperately,£

cho wished to make conversa

tion with this youth, whose name was

arcissus, but since she had no way to talkto him, the young nymph hid herself behind a tree and watched to see what he was doing.

arcissus was so good-looking that people were constantly falling in love with him at first sight.

e was tall and naturally strong, and his curly hairwas cut in such a way that it framed his elegant face.

aving never seen himself, however,

arcissus had no idea how handsome 102



£

cho and

arcissus

he was, and he never understood why he received so much attention from those around him.

¦ n fact, that very day he had come into the forest trying to get away f

rom all the people who had been gawking at him.¥ hirsty from his long walk,

arcissus decided to stop at the pond for a drink.

s he knelt before the still water, he saw the most beautiful face staring back at him from beneath the wet surfa

ce.¡

ut when he reached down to touch the beautiful person in the water, the face got blurry and quickly disappeared.

arcissus was so saddened at the disappearance of the beautiful water person that he sat back on the bank and cried.

fewminutes later, he looked into the pond.

¥ here was the beautiful face, looking b

ack at him.¥ his time there were sad tears streaming down the handsome face.

arcissus felt sorry for the beautiful water person.

e reached into the water to try to comfort him, but once again, the water person disappeared.

uddenly,

arcissus heard a rustling in the leaves behind him.

e did not know that£

cho was hiding nearby, waiting for her chance to attract his attention.

tartled and sadde

ned by the disappearance of the beautiful person in the water,

arcissus calledout, “Who’s there?”

¦

n reply,£

cho answered, “Who’s there?”

ince she could only repeat thyouth’s words, as

era had commanded her, this was all the conversation she could

manage.

£

cho thought

arcissus was beautiful indeed, and she was beginning to fall in love with him.

shamed of her inability to speak, however, she remained hidden.

arcissus was surprised to hear his words flung back to him, and he was alittle annoyed. Why would anyone be so rude as to repeat the words of someone else?

£

xasperated,

arcissus turned his attention to the person he saw in the water.

£

ach time

arcissus tried to touch the water, the beautiful person disappeared.

arcissus did not realize 103



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

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ythology

that there was no person living beneath the surface of the water and that he wasactually seeing his own reflection.

¥ here was only

arcissus sitting on the bank, looking into the pond.

s the sun set behind the trees, the youth could no longer see his reflection in the water.

alling out to the person he believed to live under the surface of the pond,

arcissus cried, “Wait!

ou are so beautiful!¦

love you!”

ll he heard in reply was the sound of£

cho’s voice repeating his wordsfrom her hiding place among the trees.

arcissus had fallen deeply in love withthe person he

104



£

cho and

arcissus

thought he saw in the water, just as£

cho had fallen in love with him. Day afterday, the youth and the nymph sat near the pond,

arcissus staring at his reflection and

£

cho staring at him.

arcissus pined for his appearing and disappearinglove, and

£

cho sat nearby, fists clenched in frustration, wishing she could speak her own thoughts.

s time went by, the unhappy lovers forgot to sleep, eat, o

r drink, so distracted were they by their unfulfilled loves.

fter some time,

arcissus noticed that the person in the water had grown thin and tired.

e did not

105



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

understand that it was he who was withering away.

rom her hiding place,£

cho could see

arcissus wasting away, but she could not see how equally gaunt she wasbecoming herself. Day after day,

arcissus became more and more distraught as hesat by the bank of the pond, staring mournfully at the water.

ne day, overcomewith frustration, he called out, “

©

y love, why do you ignore me? Do you not see t

hat ¦ am dying for you?”

iding in the woods,£

cho responded, “©

y love, why do you ignore me? Do you not see that

¦ am dying for you?”

onsumed by his own overwhelming sadness,

arcissus took no notice of the nymph’s repetitive answers.

e leaned down, clutching at the water, but he could no longer go on.

£

xhausted,

arcissusdied by the water’s edge, trying to embrace his mysterious lover.

t the moment ofhis death, the gods took pity on the youth and his misdirected love and turnedhim into the flower called the narcissus.

£

cho, watching her love transform intoa beautiful flower before her eyes, wept silently from her hiding place in theforest.

¥ hus weeping, she died too, leaving only her echoing voice behind.

106



! £

¥ ¦

D

W

£

!

:

:!

:

:What type of goddess was

£

cho? he was a mountain nymph, a type of minor nature

goddess. Why did

era punish£

cho?

era had come to the forest to find her husband,

¤ eus, with his lover.

¡

ecause£

cho chatted so much and distracted her,

erawas unable to catch him.

he punished£

cho for interfering with her plans. Whatwas

£

cho’s punishment? he would no longer be able to speak her own mind.

he woul

d only be allowed to repeat what others had said first. What happened when

arcissus looked in the pond?

e saw his reflection in the water and thought there was a beautiful person living beneath the water.

arcissus fell so deeply in lovewith the person he saw in the water that he did not realize he was actually seeing a reflection of himself. Why did

£

cho and

arcissus die?£

cho and

arcissus both died of unrequited, or unfulfilled, love.

¥ hey became so obsessed by their l

ove that they stopped taking care of themselves and withered away. What are someaspects of nature explained by the connected myths of

£

cho and

arcissus?¥ he c

onnected stories of£

cho and

arcissus help explain the reflection of sound, known as echoing, and the nature of sight-reflection, such as images in water or mirrors.

¥

he introduction of the narcissus flower is also suggested here. 107

!

:

:!

:

:

!

:

:

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:



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

t the end of this story, both characters change, or metamorphose, into different aspects of nature.

£

cho becomes the repetition of sound, and

arcissus becomesa flower.

¡

efore

vid, the myths of£

cho and

arcissus seem to have been considered separately.

ichmond

.

athorn explains:£

ither

vid . . . or some predecessor must have combined the stories of£

cho and

arcissus because of the associated 1 ideas of sound-reflection and sight-refle

ction.

¥

here is also a moral to this story.

arcissus’s death and transformation demonstrate the danger of excessive self-love.

¥ he

£

nglish language has borrowed

arcissus’s name to decribe the term now commonly used for such self-obsessive love: narcissism.

¥ he story of

arcissus illustrates the dangers of this type of behavior:

eople with narcissistic personality disorder have a grandiose sense of self-importance.

¥ hey seek excessive admiration from others and fantasize about unlimite

d success or power.¥ hey believe they are special, unique, or superior to others

.

owever, they often have very fragile 2 self-esteem.

£

cho’s story is one that inspired much superstition in ancient¢

reece.

lthough sh

e was not worshipped as a goddess,

£

cho was regarded as an important figure in

¢

reek mythology.

athorn describes her place in ancient¢

reek society:£

cho had a shrine in

thens, but seems not really to have had a place in¢

reek cult.

er myth owes more to superstition than to religion; in folklore echoes areoften thought to 3 be answers given by supernatural voices.

108



9 £

¦

D £

¥



¦

¥

D

¥ ¦

©

any¢

reek myths illustrate the trials and errors of human existence.

ften characters are punished for failing to recognize their limitations.

¥ he

¢

reek word hubris is often used to describe the human tendency to overstep one’s boundaries.

ometimes people in myths exhibit hubris by challenging the authority of a ruleror a god.

ubris is sometimes thought to be the result of excessive pride.

nfortunately, acts of hubris usually end in tragedy.

ubris and the way it may be en

couraged by peer pressure are touched on in the story of

elius and

haethon.

elius, the god of the sun (helios is the

¢

reek word for sun), was the son of the¥

itan gods,

yperion and¥

heia.

lthough he was an important figure because of his power over the sun,

elius was not worshipped in any significant way by the ancient

¢

reeks.

ften he was linked to, and sometimes confused with,

pollo, thegod of light.

elius had many mistresses with whom he had many children.

ne ofhis lovers was

lymene, an oceanid, or spirit of the sea, the daughter of the¥

itan gods

ceanus and¥ ethys.

elius and

lymene had a son,

haethon, whose namemeans “shining.”

¥ he story of

elius and

haethon is told by

vid in his©

etamorphoses.

¦ t is another story that helps explain certain wonders of nature.

¦ n this st

ory, we are offered explanations for the origins of the©

ilky Way galaxy and thedeserts of

frica.¥ he story also mentions real places—

£

thiopia in

frica and th

e

£

ridanus

iver, which is often 1 thought to be the modern

o

iver in¦

taly.

110



£

¦

D £

¥

elius was the god of the sun.

e ruled no particular area on the earth’s surfacebecause he had not been present when

¤ eus was busy assigning jobs to the gods.

elius’s main job was to ride a chariot across the sky each day.¥ his chariot was v

ery important because, in fact, it was the sun itself.¥ he sun gave light and wa

rmth to the earth, and its travels across the heavens caused day and night.

elius was careful never to let anything jeopardize the daily rising and setting of

the sun.

lthough he was very busy,

elius had an affair with

lymene, a mortalwoman.

lymene lived in the geographical area that is now known as£

thiopia.¥ he

couple had a son named

haethon.

oon after the birth of

haethon, the love affair ended, and

lymene married a prince who raised the boy as his own son.¥ he p

rince and

lymene had other children after their marriage, and they all lived very happily for many years.

¥ he happiness of the royal family was shattered, howe

ver, when

lymene confided to

haethon that her husband, the prince, was not theboy’s real father.

lymene told

haethon that his father was

elius, the sun god.

haethon was amazed at what his mother told him. 111



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oddesses in¢

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haethon was so obsessed with this shocking news that he bragged about his important father to the other boys at school.

owever, the other boys did not believehim, and although they were his friends, the boys teased

haethon about his story.

¥

hey just could not believe that their friend was the son of a god, suspecting instead that this story was just another one of

haethon’s fantasies.

ne of hi

s friends challenged

haethon and said, “ ¦ f

elius is really your father, show ussome proof.

¥ hen we will believe you.” Determined to show his friends that he was

telling the truth,

haethon went home and asked his mother to help him prove that

elius was really his father.

lymene had no physical evidence available to prove that the god was her son’s father.

owever, she promised to show

haethon theway to

elius’s palace where he could ask the god himself for some proof. With hismother’s directions,

haethon easily found the god’s palace.

e could hardly believe his eyes when he saw it for the first time.

¦ t was the most magnificent buildi

ng the boy had ever seen.¦ n fact, it was probably one of the most beautiful pal

aces ever built.

ervously,

haethon approached the majestic dais where

elius was sitting.

¥

he boy could not help but gawk at the splendor of everything aroundhim.

uge pillars of bronze and gold held up the ceiling of the throne room, ma

king the chamber sparkle with light.

£

ven the god’s throne, carved out of solid emerald, was exquisite.¥

here were lesser gods, who acted as

elius’s servants, milling about the room, adding to the god’s majesty.

¥

hese various gods were called Day,

©

onth,

ear, the

enturies, the

ours, and the easons.

haethon looked so much like his beautiful mother with his striking physique and intense eyes that

elius 112



elius and

haethon

recognized him as his son right away.¥ he god told

haethon that, indeed, he washis father, just as

lymene had said. When

haethon explained that he wished tohave proof to show his friends,

elius was surprised but understanding.

e told

haethon, “¡

y the

iver

tyx in

ades,¦

swear to give you whatever proof you askfor.”

haethon knew that the god was serious when he said this because no one, no

t even a god, could go back on a promise sworn by the

iver tyx. ¥ hen, with theassurance of this promise,

haethon turned to

elius and said, “

ather,¦ believe

that¦

am your son.¡

ut¦

would like to prove it to my friends who teased me and claimed that

¦ am only pretending that you are my father.

¦ know that you are

very careful about driving your chariot across the sky each day, but if¦ am you

r son, you will allow me to drive the chariot tomorrow so that everyone may seeme riding in your place.

¥

hen they will believe that¦

am your son.¥

hey will see that

¦ can be as strong and as brave as a god.

emember your promise, and letme drive your chariot.”

s soon as he heard his son’s request,

elius wished that hehad not made such a rash, unbreakable promise.

¥ he sun god never allowed anyone

else to drive his chariot for the simple reason that it was extremely difficultto manage.

¥ he horses were so unruly that they would obey no one but

elius.£

v

en¤

eus, the king of the gods, could not drive

elius’s chariot.

elius begged hisson to reconsider his request and to ask for some other kind of proof.

e triedto make

haethon understand the danger and futility of trying to drive the chariot.

£

ven if he were¤ eus himself,

elius stressed,

haethon could easily be killed by trying to ride across the sky. Despite these warnings,

haethon was determined to drive the sky chariot.

e reminded the god of his oath 113



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

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ythology

upon the

iver tyx.

¥ hus,

elius was forced to allow the boy his wish, and he told his servants, the

ours, to hitch up the horses to prepare for the boy’s departure.

haethon was bursting with excitement.

e could hardly keep from shoutingfor joy as he watched the

ours prepare the horses. While the servants held thehorses steady,

haethon climbed into the chariot, grinning at his father, who lo

oked on with dismay. “

ather,”

haethon said assuringly, “Do not worry. ¦ will show you all what a good driver

¦ am.

ou will be so proud!” With a final wave, the youngprince dismissed the servants and tugged on the flaming gold reins to urge themagnificent horses onward into the sky.

or one brief moment, the earth was bathed in a calm morning light.

elius began to breathe an audible sigh of relief—perhaps

haethon would be able to drive the horses after all.

nfortunately, this moment of calm was soon shattered.

lmost immediately after leaving his father’s palace with the chariot,

haethon lost control of the horses.

e just could not keep them on their path.

¥ he horses left the road they usually traveled and began t

o race in different directions.¥ he boy did not feel at all like the powerful so

n of

elius, the ruler of the day and night.¦

nstead, he was terrified, and he clutched the side of the chariot to keep from falling out.

©

ournfully,

elius wat

ched his son’s wild ride from his shimmering throne, but he could do nothing to stop the disobedient horses.

irst, the chariot took

haethon into the night sky where he caused such damage that a huge burnt trail was left behind wherever thechariot happened to touch down.

¥ his scar became the

©

ilky Way, and even now theetchings of

haethon’s chariot ride can be seen streaking across the sky.

fter leaving the night, the horses raced 114



¢

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oddesses in¢

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back toward earth, dragging their frightened driver behind them.¥ he horses swoo

ped down over the area near the earth’s equator, where the land caught fire when the chariot touched it.

¥ hese burned areas became the deserts of

frica.

ews of

haethon’s disastrous ride soon made its way to©

ount

lympus.¢

aia, the first mother of the gods, begged the other gods to help save the earth from destruction.

s they watched, the gods began to realize that the entire world would soon be burned to a crisp if they did not step in soon and somehow manage to stop the racing chariot.

lthough he did not want to kill

elius’s son,¤

eus knew that this idea would be the only way to save the earth.

o

¤ eus hurled a bolt of lightning a

t

haethon.

is aim was good, and

haethon fell out of the chariot to his deathin the

£

ridanus

iver.¥ he wild horses and the splintered chariot also fell into

the river.

lthough they were sorry that the boy had died, most of the gods were relieved to see that the earth had been merely scorched and not completely destroyed.

t his forge,

ephaestus the blacksmith made

elius a new chariot so that the world would continue to enjoy day and night.

¥ he new chariot—covered in jewe

ls and intricate carvings—was even more beautiful than the first, in memory of thegod’s lost son.

elius’s daughters, the

eliades, were so upset about their brother’s

death, however, that they gathered along the

£

ridanus

iver to weep for him.¥

hey cried so many tears and for so many years that the gods took pity on them andturned them into poplar trees that grew along the banks of the river; their abundant tears were turned into amber, which dropped from the trees into the river.

116



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¥ ¦

D

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!

:

:Who were

haethon’s parents?

haethon’s father was

elius, the god of the sun.

is mother was

lymene, a mortal woman who lived in a land that is now£

thiopia.

ater

lymene married a prince who raised

haethon as his own son. Why did

haethonwant proof that

elius was his father?

haethon’s friends did not believe that hewas the son of a god.

¥ heir disbelief caused

haethon to prove to his friends, a

nd the world, that he was the child of a famous and important god. Why was

elius upset by

haethon’s request to drive the sun chariot?

elius knew how dangerousit would be for his son to drive the chariot.

elius realized that he alone could control the horses.

e knew that

haethon would surely be hurt if he attemptedsuch a dangerous ride. What astrological and geographical areas did

haethon’s disastrous chariot ride create? When the runaway chariot raced off into the sky, the

©

ilky Way was marked out for eternity. When it touched the earth, the desertsof

frica were created. What is hubris?

ubris is the¢

reek word to describe akind of pride that comes over people when they try to be better than the gods insome way.

haethon committed an act of hubris when he insisted that he could drive the sun chariot across the sky.

haethon refused to recognize his limitations.

s a result, his life ended tragically.

!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:

!

:

:

117



£ £

¥

© © £

¥

¡

arry¡

.

owell suggests that

vid’s version of the story has some very strong moral lessons.

owell writes:¦ t is a good example how, in the hands of the urbane

oman

vid, descriptions ofthe world’s early days become a prettified fantasy embodying the teasing morals, “Don’t be too curious about your origins, and don’t get too big for your 2 breeches!”

¥ he figure of

elius is often associated with the island of

hodes. ¦ n his encyclopedia of

¢

reek mythology,

ichard toneman writes:

¥

o make up for [being allotted no specific region on earth],¤

eus allotted [

elius] the newly arisen island of

hodes, of which he became the patron.¥ he

olossus of

hodes was a bronze statue of

elius.

is portion is an appropriate one as

hodes claims to receive more hours of sunshine per 3 year than any other placein the

©

editerranean.

¥ he

¢

reeks, like people of many other cultures, often looked up into the sky atnight and saw constellations, or pictures in the arrangements of stars.

¥ he

¢

reek poets

omer and

esiod both mention constellations in their 4 works.¦

n his book,

¢

reek©

ythology,

ichmond

.

athorn explains that the story of

haethon’s wil

d ride across the sky was sometimes used to remember the location of certain stars.

e says:£

ventually the whole drama was transported to the sky:£

ridanus became a constellation;

haethon became

uriga, “the

harioteer”; and his sisters became the 5

yades, “the

ainy

nes.”

118



¢

ambrosia—

drink, ointment, or perfume used by the gods. Demeter used such an ointment to anoint Demophoon, the baby prince of

£

leusis. archaeology—¥ he study of anc

ient civilizations. bacchantes—

emale followers of the god Dionysus.¥ hese women o

ften behaved like wild animals and seemed to have superhuman strength. chaos—¥ he d

isordered order of the universe before the beginning of time.£

ventually,¢

aia,the first goddess of the new world, divided it into earth, sky, and sea.

¥ he

¢

re

ek work could also mean a wide open space or a deep cavern.

yclopes— ¥ he giant children of

¢

aia and

ranus who each had only one eye in the middle of the forehead.

¥

hey were skilled craftsmen and made weapons for the

lympians in their revoltagainst the

¥ itans. dais—

raised platform where a throne is often placed. echo—¥ he

reflection of sound in nature.¥ he word comes from the name of the nymph who wa

s restricted to repeating what other people said to her.£

leusinian©

ysteries— ecr

et religious ceremonies in honor of the goddess Demeter.¥

hey were held in£

leusis, the town where Demeter was thought to have stayed while mourning the marriage of her daughter to

ades, the god of the

nderworld. glade—

shady part of the forest. hubris—

£

xcessive pride.

eople commit acts of excessive pride when they ignore their limitations and go beyond their bounds.

uch actions often end in tragedy. metamorphosis—

change or transformation.¦ n

¢

reek myth, there are many insta

nces where a person is changed into something else.

or example,

arcissus undergoes such a change when he is turned into a flower.

119



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

narcissism— elf-love. nymph—

minor goddess or divinity of nature.¥ he nymphs were u

sually represented as beautiful maidens who dwelled in the mountains, forests, trees, or water. oceanid—

spirit of the sea.

lympia—

town in the western part of the

eloponnesus that has major temples to the

lympian gods, the ruins of whichone can still visit.

lympians—¥ he group of gods and goddesses, including

¤ eus, wh

o were descended from the ¥ itans. omen—

natural sign or occurance that can be interpreted to predict the future. oracle—

prophet who interprets signs and omens. pantheon—

group of gods and goddesses. polytheistic—¡

elieving in more than one god or goddess.

iver tyx—

n important river in the

nderworld.¦ f a vow was made on t

he name of this river, it could never be broken, not even by a god. sickle—

curved knife used to harvest crops.

ronos used one to kill his father,

ranus.¥ arta

rus—

deep cavern where many of the¥

itans were locked up after the war between the

¥ itans and the

lympians.¥ itans—

¥ he gods and goddesses who were children of

¢

aia and

ranus.¥ heir leader was

ronus, the father of the

lympian gods. trident—

three-pronged spear.

¥ he

yclopes made one for

oseidon, the god of the oceans,during the war between the

¥

itans and the

lympians.

120



¥

£

¥

£

reface 1.

iddell & cott,

¢

reek-£

nglish

exicon (

xford,£

ngland:

larendon

ress, 1948).

ll further definitions of¢

reek words will rely on

iddell & cott.

2.©

ark

.©

orford and

obert J.

enardon,

lassical .©

ythology, 6th ed. (

ew

ork:

ongman, 1999), p. 16. 3.¡

arry¡

.

owell,

lassical©

yth, 2nd ed. (

pper

addle

iver,

. J.:

rentice

all, 1998), pp. 25-27. 4.

nne

.¡

aumgartner,

omprehensive Dictionary of the¢

ods (

ew

ork: Wing¡

ooks, 1995), p. 201.

ha

pter 1.

reation 1.

esiod, ¥ heogony, lines 110–115, <http://www.perseus. tufts.edu/cgibin/ptext?doc=

erseus%3

text%3

1999.01. 0130&query=card%3D%234&loc=63> (

ctober 30, 2000). 2.

ucilla¡

urn,¢

reek©

yths (

ustin:

niversity of¥

exas

ress,1990), p. 9. 3.

§

en Dowden,¥ he

ses of¢

reek©

ythology (

ew

ork:

outledge, 1992), p. 135. 4. John

insent,¢

reek©

ythology (

ew

ork:

aul

amlyn, 1969), p.22.

hapter 2.¥ he War

¡


lympians 1. pyros

hotinos,

lympia:

omplete¢

uide, trans.¥

ina©

c¢

eorge and

olin©

acDonald (

thens,¢

reece:

lympic

ublications, 1989), p. 5. 2.¦ bid., p. 7. 3.

©

ark

.©

orford and

obert J.

enardon,

lassical .©

ythology, 6th ed. (

ew

ork:

ongman, 1999), p.75. 4.

ichmond

.

athorn,¢

reek©

ythology (¡

eirut,

ebanon:

merican

niversity of

¡

eirut

ress, 1977), p. 8. 5. John

insent,¢

reek©

ythology (

ew

ork:

aul

amlyn, 1969), p. 25. 6.©

orford and

enardon, p. 48.

hapter 3.

rometheus an

d

£

arth’s

irst¦

nhabitants 1.

¡

arry

¡

.

owell,

lassical

©

yth, 2nd ed. (

pper

addle

iver,

. J.:

rentice

all, 1998), p. 46.

121



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

2.¦ bid., p. 115. 3.

©

ark

.©

orford and

obert J.

enardon,

lassical .©

ythology, 6th ed. (

ew

ork:

ongman, 1999), p. 61.

hapter 4.

andora1.

ichmond

.

athorn,¢

reek©

ythology (¡

eirut,

ebanon:

merican

niversity of

¡

eirut

ress, 1977), p. 47. 2.©

ark

.©

orford and

obert J.

enardon,

lassical .

©

ythology, 6th ed. (

ew

ork:

ongman, 1999), p. 60. 3.¡

arry¡

.

owell,

lassical©

yth, 2nd ed. (

pper

addle

iver,

. J.:

rentice

all, 1998), p. 122.

hapter 5. Demeter and

ersephone1.

¡

arry¡

.

owell,

lassical©

yth, 2nd ed. (

pper addle

iver,

. J.:

rentice

all, 1998), pp. 237-241. 2.©

ichael¢

rant,©

yths of¢

reeks and

omans (

ew

ork:

©

eridian, 1995), p. 136. 3.

owell, p. 239. 4.¦ bid., p. 237.

hapter 6. Dionysus and his

ollowers1.

ichmond

.

athorn,¢

reek©

ythology (¡

eirut,

ebanon:

merican

niversity of

¡

eirut

ress, 1977), p. 282. 2.¦ bid., p. 135. 3.

©

ythology,

n¦ llustrated

¢

ui

de,

oy Willis, ed. (

ew

ork:

¡

arnes and

oble,¦

nc., 1998), p. 141. 4.

¡

arry

¡

.

owell,

lassical©

yth, 2nd ed. (

pper

addle

iver,

. J.:

rentice

all, 1998), p. 267.

hapter 7.¡

aucis and

hilemon1.

ichmond

.

athorn,¢

reek©

ythology (¡

eirut,

ebanon:

merican

niversity of

¡

eirut

ress, 1977), p. 18. 2.¦

bid. 3.¡

arry¡

.

owell,

lassical©

yth 2nd ed.(

pper addle

iver,

. J.:

rentice

all, 1998), pp. 140-141.

hapter 8.£

cho and

arcissus1.

ichmond

.

athorn,¢

reek©

ythology (¡

eirut,

ebanon:

merican

niversity of

¡

eirut

ress, 1977), p. 106. 2. “

ersonality Disorders,”©

icrosoft®£

ncarta®£

ncyclopedia 99. © 1993–1998

©

icrosoft

orporation. 3.

athorn, p. 106.

122



hapter

otes

hapter 9.

elius and

haethon 1.¡

arry¡

.

owell,

lassical©

yth 2nd ed. (

pper

addle

iver,

. J.:

rentice

all, 1998), p. 81. 2.¦ bid. 3.

ichard toneman,

¢

reek©

ythology:

n£

ncyclopedia of©

yth and

egend. (

ondon: Diamond¡

ooks, 1995), p. 84. 4. “

onstellation (astronomy),”©

icrosoft®£

ncarta®£

ncyclopedia 99. © 1993–19

©

icrosoft

orporation. 5.

ichmond

.

athorn,¢

reek©

ythology (¡

eirut,

ebanon

:

merican

niversity of¡

eirut

ress, 1977), p. 51.

123



¥

£

£

D¦

¢

¡

arber,

ntonia.

pollo & Daphne:©

asterpieces of¢

reek©

ythology.

ew

ork:

xford

niversity

ress, 1998. D’

ulaire,¦ ngri and

£

dgar

arin D’

ulaire. D’

ulaire’s¡

ookof

¢

reek©

yths.

ew

ork:¡

antam Doubleday Dell, 1992.

leischman,

aul. Dateline

¥ roy.

ambridge,©

ass.:

andlewick

ress, 1996.¢

raves,

obert.¢

reek¢

ods and

eroes.

ew

ork:¡

antam Doubleday Dell, 1995.

amilton, Virginia.¦

n the¡

eginning:

reation tories from

round the World.

ew

ork:

arcourt¡

race Jovanovi

ch, 1988.

ies,¡

etty¡

onham.£

arth’s Daughters: tories of Women in

lassical©

ythology.

¢

olden,

ol.:

ulcrum

ublishing, 1999.

oewen,

ancy.¤ eus.

©

ankato,©

inn.:

apstone

ress, 1999. ———.

thena.

ew

ork:

iver

ront¡

ooks, 1999. ———.

ercules.

ork:

iver

ront¡

ooks, 1999.©

c

aughrean,¢

eraldine.¢

reek¢

ods and¢

oddesses.

ew

ork: imon &

chuster, 1998.

tephanides,

©

enalaos.¥ he

¢

ods of

lympus.

thens,¢

reece: igma, 1999. Vinge, Joan D.

¥ he

andom

ouse¡

ook of¢

reek©

yths.

ew

ork:

andom

ouse, 1999.

eoh

ong

am.¢

reece.©

ilwaukee, Wis.:¢

areth

tevens,

¦ nc., 1999.

124



¦

¥

£ £

¥

DD £

£

¥ he

ncient

ity of

thens <http://www.indiana.edu/~kglowack/athens/>

photo tour of archeological sites in

thens.

¥ he

£

ncyclopedia©

ythica <http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/>£

xplores articles about various¢

reek gods.

lso covers other types of mythology.

¢

reek©

ythology <http://www.greekmythology.com/index.html>

list of gods, myths, and places.¡

rief descriptions with links throughout.

¢

reek©

ythology:

ook¡

ack in¥ ime <http://library.thinkquest.org/18650/>

¥ hink

!

uest site written by students for students.¦ ncludes information about c

onstellations.

¢

reek©

ythology:

rom the¦ liad to the

ast¥ yrant <http://www.messagenet.com/my

ths>¦

nformation, links to other interesting sites, and a fun quiz game for all ages.

¢

reek

©

ythology

ink <http://hsa.brown.edu/~maicar/>

ome pages also available in

panish.

or the advanced reader.

125



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¥ he

¦ llustrated

£

ncyclopedia of¢

reek©

ythology <http://www.cultures.com/greek_resources/greek_ encyclopedia/greek_encyclopedia_home.html>

©

ythweb <http://www.mythweb.com/>

¦

llustrations, interesting facts and stories, and information for teachers.

¥ he

erseus

roject <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/>¦ nformation about classical texts and their translations, archaeology, and more.

126



¦

D£

egean ea, 27

eschylus, 13, 50

frica, 7, 110,116, 117

gave, 76, 78, 82–86

lexander, 12 alphabet, 11, 12 ambrosia, 68–69

phrodite, 35, 76

pollo, 35, 110

res,35, 76

rtemis, 35, 101

sia©

inor, 7, 10, 13, 90–91

thena, 14, 15, 35, 42, 48

thens, 6, 10, 11, 13–16, 25, 35, 52, 62, 76, 88, 108

tlas, 34, 35, 36, 38

utonoe, 76, 78

£

£

cho, 100–108£

leusinian©

ysteries, 62, 74£

leusis, 62, 65, 67, 69, 70£

pimetheus,32, 40–43, 48, 55

£

ridanus

iver, 110, 116£

thiopia, 110, 111, 117£

uripides, 13,77

farmers, 7, 10, 110 festival, 14, 16, 62, 76–77, 88 flood, 95, 97, 98

¢

¢

aia, 18–4, 41, 116 guests, 15, 25, 90–98

ades, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 61–74, 79, 113

armony, 76 harvest, 61, 62, 67, 72

ecate, 66–67

elen, 11

eliades, the, 116

elius, 66–67, 110–118 helmet of invisibility,33, 36, 61

ephaestus, 12, 15, 35, 45, 52, 54, 56, 58, 116

era, 15, 30, 35, 79,80, 101–103, 107

ermes, 35, 70, 90–97

esiod, 13, 18, 50, 53, 59, 118

estia, 30,35

omer, 13, 118 hope, 57, 58, 59 hospitality, 91–98

ours, the 112, 114 hubris,110, 117

undred-handed

nes, 20–24, 32–34, 36

yperion, 22, 110

¡

bacchantes, 80–84, 87¡

acchus, see Dionysus¡

aucis, 90–98¡

oeotia, 76

admus, 76, 78, 85, 86

aucasus©

ountains, 40, 45, 49

eleus,§

ing, 67, 69

entu

ries, the, 112

ephisus, 100

haos, 18, 19, 23

hios, 13

lymene, 110–113, 117

oeus, 22, 35 constellation, 118

orinth, 6 creation, 18–25,40, 48, 98

rete, 6, 10,30, 38

rius, 22

ronus, 22–25, 29–38, 41, 61

yclopes, 20–23, 32–33, 36, 61

DDelphi, 15 Demeter, 30, 35, 43–44, 61–74 democracy, 11, 13, 52 Demophoon, 68-69 Dionysus,14, 61, 76–77, 80–88

¦

¦ apetus, 22, 32, 34

¦ liad,

¥ he, 13 initiates, 62, 74

¦ no, 76, 78

127



¢

ods and¢

oddesses in¢

reek©

ythology

¦ sland of the Dead, 34, 37

¦ thaca, 13

©

©

acedonia, 11©

aia, 35 marriage, 15, 16, 35, 56, 59, 63–65, 72, 111©

editerranean ea, 6, 7, 38, 118

©

enelaus,§

ing, 11©

etamorphoses,¥ he, 14, 100, 110 metamorph

osis, 100©

etanira,!

ueen, 68–69©

ilky Way, 110, 114, 117©

inos,§

ing, 10©

nemosyne, 21

©

ount

lympus, 15, 18, 27, 32, 34, 35, 41, 43, 45, 66, 69, 71, 95 monster,20, 21, 23, 25, 41

©

uses, 18©

ycenae, 10, 38

hrygia, 90–92, 96, 97 playwrights, 13, 77 poets, 13, 14, 18, 50, 90, 118 polis, 11 pomegranate seeds, 70–73

oseidon, 14, 15, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37

rometheus, 32, 40–50, 52, 55, 58

religion, 10, 13, 14–16, 25, 28, 38, 40, 61, 76, 90, 108

hea, 21, 22, 25, 29–30, 36, 61

hodes, 118

omans, 12, 13, 90, 118

sacrifice, 14, 25, 44

easons, the, 112 seasons, 6, 62, 73

emele, 76, 78–80, 82,86 sickle, 22, 24, 25

ophocles, 13, 77

parta, 6, 10, 11

tyx,

iver, 77, 79, 80, 113, 114

narcissism, 108

arcissus,100, 102–108 narcissus (flower), 66, 106, 107 nymph, 30,80, 100, 101, 102, 105–107

¥

¥

artarus, 21, 22, 23, 34, 36¥

ethys, 21, 110 theater, 13, 14, 76–77, 88¥

hebes, 10, 76, 78–86

¥ heia, 21, 110

¥ hemis, 21, 32, 34

¥ heogony,

¥ he, 13, 18, 53

¥ itans, 21–2

2, 24, 25, 27–29, 32–36, 40, 41, 50, 61, 110 trident, 33, 36¥ rojan War, 13

¥ roy, 10

, 13

oath, 77, 113–114 oceanid, 110

ceanus, 22, 110

dyssey, ¥ he, 13

lympia, 6, 27, 28

lympians, 25, 27, 28, 32–38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 55, 61, 76

lympic¢

ames, 27 omens, 15, 28, 43 oracles, 14, 15

vid, 13–14, 90, 100, 108, 110, 118

nderworld, 34, 37, 61, 70–73, 77

ranus, 18-23, 29, 36

andora, 52–59 pantheon, 14, 15, 18, 76, 87

eloponnesus, 6, 10, 27

entheus, 82–86

ericles, 11

ersephone, 61–74

haethon, 110–118

hilemon, 90–98

hoebe, 21, 35

Wwine, 14, 30, 61, 68, 76, 80, 87, 94 Works and Days, 13 women and society, 11, 16, 52, 59

¤

¤ eus, 14–16, 28, 30-38, 41, 42, 44–50, 52, 54–58, 61, 63–65, 70–73, 76–80, 86, 90–98, 101–07, 111–113, 116, 118

128

gods and goddesses in greek mythology

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