Myths: stories that use fantasy to express ideas about life that cannot easily be expressed in realistic terms.

They are, at heart, religious stories. They deal with and explore the relationship between human beings and the unknown/spiritual world.

They were once believed to be true.

Scientific: explanations of things in nature

Literary: entertainment; good storytelling

Religious: give meaning to things in life; explain the role of the gods in everyday life

They depict and reveal behavior and problems common to all human beings. Remind us that human nature is the same

across time and culture. Reveal that many social, ethical, and

religious attitudes continue through time.They reflect the attitudes,

priorities, and values of the cultures that produced them.

In Greek mythology, gods “did not create the universe… the universe created the gods” (Hamilton 24).

In the beginning… there was only Chaos.

From Chaos emerged… Gaea: Mother Earth▪ In Greek culture, more

emphasis was placed on Gaea then on Ouranos, reflecting the Greeks’ reliance on the land and the Earth itself.

Ouranos: Father Heaven Gaea and Ouranos had

three types of children, all monsters, the most important of which were the Titans.

One Titan, Cronus, rebelled against Ouranos as a result of Ouranos’s treatment of some of his children.

For some time, Cronus (Saturn) and his wife/sister Rhea ruled the universe until their son, Zeus, overthrew his father and conquered the Titans, becoming supreme ruler of the universe.

It was only after Zeus took control and the Olympians and other immortals took their places that humans entered the picture.

In Greek mythology, man was not created in the image of the gods; rather, the gods were in the image of man.

Although Greek religion centered on a pantheon, separate villages worshipped separate gods in many instances.

In many cases, deities existed before the patriarchal religion of Zeus incorporated them.

The Twelve great gods who succeeded the Titans

Lived on Mt. Olympus, which could have either been The physical mountain in

Thessaly OR A mountain in a

mysterious region above the Earth.

Olympus was NOT HEAVEN.

1. Zeus (Jupiter)2. Poseidon

(Neptune)3. Hades (Pluto)4. Hestia (Vesta)5. Hera (Juno)6. Ares (Mars)

7. Athena (Minerva)

8. Apollo (Apollo)9. Aphrodite

(Venus)10. Hermes

(Mercury)11. Artemis

(Diana)12. Hephaestus

(Vulcan)

According to the Greeks, all departed souls went to the Underworld.

Two Main Divisions of the Underworld: Erebus: where the

dead pass when they die

Tartarus: the main division

The dead are ferried across the point where the River Acheron (river of woe) pours into the River Cocytus (river of lamentation) by an aged boatman named Charon. Charon will ONLY ferry

into the Underworld those who have been properly buried and who have had the passage fee placed on their lips at burial.

At the gate sits Cerberus, the three-headed dog who permits all the dead to enter, but not to exit.

The Underworld is ruled by the god Hades and his queen, Persephone.