JOURNEY OF THE HERO
Defining a Quest Hero
• Odysseus exemplifies the quest hero
• A quest is defined by
• The search for a precious object or person
• A long journey undertaken by a hero
• A hero with trials and tribulations
• Guardians who test the hero
• Helpers who offer necessary assistance
• A hero is a quest hero when his life is defined by
the quest
12.1 Odysseus listens to the Sirens.
Detail from a red-figure stamnos. Siren
Painter. Fifth century BCE. British
Museum, London, United Kingdom.
Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY,
ART14704.
Odysseus’s Quest
Map 12.1 Odysseus and Other Quest Heroes
Villains and Helpers
• The categories of villains and helpers overlap in a quest story, providing
drama and suspense
• Villains in many cases are not human, they represent uncivilized or
frightening behaviors, in contrast to the idealized hero
• Villains can also be non-Greeks who don’t have the Greek requirement to
provide hospitality
• Female helpers, especially princesses, tend to embody ideal feminine
traits
• They can be just as likely as villains to pose a threat to the hero, as in the
case of Medea
• This emphasizes the Greek fear of the uncontrolled female
Perseus
• Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danae,
who was imprisoned by his grandfather
Acrisius after he received an oracle that her
son would kill him
• Acrisius tries to get rid of Perseus and
Danae by setting them afloat in a large
trunk
• They are rescued and Perseus is sent on a
quest for the head of Medusa by the king
who sheltered them, who wants to marry
Danae
• Medusa is a Gorgon, and any man who
looks at her is turned to stone
12.2 Perseus chases a monstrous
Medusa. Black-figure kyathos. Theseus
Painter. 510–500 BCE. J. Paul Getty
Museum, Malibu, California, 86.AE.146.
Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s
Open Content Program.
Medusa as Villain
• In order to kill Medusa, Perseus has to gain help
from the Graeae and three nymphs
• Perseus manages to decapitate Medusa without
looking at her
• He then uses Medusa’s head as a weapon
throughout his adventures
• Medusa is most commonly depicted as a winged
monster with snaky hair, but sometimes as a
beautiful maiden who is vulnerable to Perseus’s
attack
12.3 Perseus beheads sleeping
Medusa. Detail from a red-figure
pelike. Polygnotus. 450 BCE. Image
copyright © The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Image source: Art
Resource, NY, ART500333.
Medusa and the Feminine
• When Perseus decapitates her, Medusa gives
birth to Chrysaor, a man, and Pegasus, a
winged horse, from her neck
• Even though she is dead, Medusa’s fertility
still holds danger for the world
• Her head is still capable of killing, even when
detached from her body
• Her female powers of procreation and magic
threaten to transform men and the world in
ways they cannot control
12.4 Medusa, Perseus, and the birth of Chrysaor
and Pegasus. Limestone sarcophagus. 475–460
BCE. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY,
ART500334.
Bellerophon
• Bellerophon is best known for his taming
of the winged horse Pegasus and defeat
of the Chimera
• The Chimera was a hybrid female
monster
• Bellerophon was a successful hero,
slaying several monsters, but he was
punished by Zeus when he tried to ride
Pegasus to Olympus
• He had far fewer adventures than
12.5 Bellerophon and Pegasus confront the Chimera.
Odysseus or Perseus, but their
Spartan black-figure kylix. Boreads Painter. 565 BCE. J.
memorable nature means that he was Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, 85.AE.121.
Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content
worshiped at a cult site in Corinth
Program.
The Voyages of Jason and the Argonauts
Jason was sent by his
uncle to retrieve the
Golden Fleece
His journeys are
typical for a questing
hero in that he found
or earned help in
many places along
the way
Map 12.2 The Voyages of Jason, the Argonauts, and Medea. Although some of
these sites (such as Iolcus) actually existed, many other places are mythical. Their
locations are speculative; this map reflects the conjectures of scholars and
commentators over the centuries.
Jason
• Jason completes all the tasks demanded of him to
earn to Golden Fleece, with the help of Medea
• Medea leaves with Jason and they have another set
of adventures
• In many places Medea’s story eclipses Jason because
her boldness and her skills make his victories possible
• Jason’s attempt to leave Medea for the Corinthian
princess Creusa results in her becoming the villain
who overcomes him
12.6 The death of Talos (detail).
Detail from a red-figure Attic krater.
420–390 BCE. Museo Archeologico
Nazionale Jatta Archaeological, Ruvo
Di Puglia, Italy. Scala / Art Resource,
NY, ART88902.
Odysseus
• In the Iliad, Odysseus is often
contrasted with Achilles, the best
of the Greek warriors
• Odysseus is known for his
diplomacy and his cunning
• He was a descendent of Hermes,
and his stories depict him as a
trickster figure as well as a quest
hero
• He is a master of disguise like
Hermes, and crafty and talented
like Athena, whose favorite he is
12.7 Achilles (sitting) welcomes Odysseus, followed by
Ajax. Red-figure Attic skyphos. Macron. Circa 480 BCE.
Louvre Museum, Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art
Resource, NY, ART150157.
Cunning Intelligence and Passive Heroics
• Odysseus’s cunning is considered deceitful in many cases by the Greeks, but h
• He devised the Trojan horse which won the war for the Greeks
• The tragedians who wrote plays about his adventures explore the ambiguity o
• Odysseus’s heroics are described as passive by modern scholars because of his
Polyphemus the Cyclops
• Odysseus and his men end up trapped in the
cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus on their
journey home from Troy
• Odysseus blinds Polyphemus and then he
and his men escape by clinging to the bellies
of sheep
• Odysseus’s actions are presented with a
certain amount of ambiguity
• The uncivilized nature of the Cyclopes is
emphasized, however, making Odysseus the
representative of civilized Greek culture
12.8 Odysseus escapes from Polyphemus’s
cave. Athenian black-figure column krater.
550–500 BCE. The J. Paul Getty Museum,
Malibu,
California.
Villa
Collection
96.AE.303.
Scylla
• Scylla was a hybrid female monster
who lived in the cliffs opposite
Charybdis, a female whirlpool that
swallows ships whole
• She presents a danger that is a
magnification of the dangers of all
female creatures
• Odysseus is tempted and delayed in
several places in his travels by
women
12.9 Scylla. Terracotta plaque. Fifth century BCE. Louvre
Museum, Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art
Resource, NY, ART427580.
• At the end of the Odyssey, even his wife, Penelope, has the potential to
delay the end of his quest
The Odyssey
Map 12.3 The Odyssey. Although some of these sites (such as Ithaca) actually existed, many other places are mythical. Their
locations are speculative; this map reflects the conjectures of scholars and commentators over the centuries.
Classical Mythology in Context
Odysseus and Quest Heroes
THEORY
The Quest Hero
• In “Ithaca”, C.P. Cavafy encourages the reader to see
life as a long adventure, like Odysseus’s journey
• The hero’s journey as metaphor for life explains the
timelessness of the quest myth
• American mythologist Joseph Campbell argues that
the hero’s quest is similar to the initiation ritual as
defined by van Gennep
• He labeled the hero’s journey as a “monomyth”-one
that occurs in all places and all times
• He used the work of Carl Jung to compare the hero’s
engagement with helpers and villains with
psychological processes
12.10 Polyphemus. Terracotta
head from Smyrna, Turkey.
Fourth century BCE. Louvre
Museum, Paris, France. Erich
Lessing / Art Resource, NY,
ART63124.
The Quest Hero
• We can interact with Myth on another level that is more personal.
• W. H. Auden’s definition in “The Quest Hero” is less academic, by aligning
myth to our own life’ events.
• The hero’s quest resonates with the reader’s subjective experience, rather
than the hero’s experience
• The journey reflects how individuals experience their own lives
• Some of the trials encountered are fleeting, and some are significant
• The villains and helpers encountered by heroes remind us of the people in
our own lives
Gilgamesh and Odysseus What do Share?
• A journey to the Underworld is a common
feature in the heros quest..
• Gilgamesh wanted to understand why his friend,
Enkidu had to die.
• He journeys through the waters of death in this
attempt, but fails all the tests set him, and
eventually accepts that death is inevitable
• Odysseus travels to the Underworld in order to
find out how to return home to Ithaca.
• His rejection of immortality illustrates the Greek
perception of the life lived with honor is more
valuable.
12.11 Odyssey greets Teresias, rising
from the ground, in the Underworld.
Detail from red-figure calyx krater. Dolon
Painter. 380 BCE. Bibliotheque Nationale,
Paris France. Erich Lessing / Art Resource,
NY, ART13902.
Odysseus in the Mediterranean World
Map 12.4 Odysseus from Mesopotamia to Rome
• Troy’s fall sends both Odysseus and Aeneas on long quests.
• Aeneas’s quest is far less fantastical than Odysseus'
• His quest is pointed at its mission: to found Rome
• The process of understanding this mission leads Aeneas o the
Underworld, Avernus. He must find his father to reveal to him his fate:
• This is where he finds out about the history of the land and the people
where he is fated to found a new kingdom
• The trip to the Underworld transforms him into Rome’s founder
African American Odysseus
• Odysseus is a trickster figure in that he
frequently relies on his wits to
overcome challenges
• He is also a sorrowful figure, burdened
by suffering
• Artists of the African diaspora have
found Odysseus as compelling as
Medea in describing their experiences
• Journeys have especially defined the
African American experience, from its
origins in the slave trade to the Great
Migration of the 20th century
12.12 The Sirens’ Song (1977). Collage of various
papers with paint and graphite in the series Black
Odysseus. Romare Bearden (1911–1988). Smithsonian
Institute, Washington, DC. The Sirens’ Song ©Romare
Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York.
African American Odysseus
• Toni Morrison describes this as the “Ulysses theme”
• Romare Bearden’s collage series “A Black Odyssey” recasts Homer’s epic in the
landscape of Africa, America, and the Caribbean
• Odysseus is an African American hero who makes a number of journeys,
beginning with the one from Africa to America
• Sterling A. Brown’s poem, “Odyssey of Big Boy”, is narrated by Calvin “Big Boy”
Davis, and recounts his journey through the American South in search of work
• His story represents the ability to root a life in action rather than place
• Janie Crawford, the protagonist of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were
Watching God also embarks on a quest, and like Odysseus, is a trickster figure
• Odysseus, Big Boy, and Janie all narrate their own tales, making sense of their
experience both for themselves and their audience
• The Greeks believed that Orpheus was a real person, perhaps
a poet of old maybe even an inventor of Poetry
• He is known to use through the earliest literary sources (Homer
and Hesiod) an even in archaeological records from 600 BCE a
fragment of a poem by Ibycus (6th) where we hear of the
‘renowned Orpheus’.
• Pindar makes reference to him as a member of the Argonauts.
• Three elements of his life
• musician
• descent to Hades for Eurydice
• His tragic death
• Orpheus the Musician
• Born in Thrace, the son of Oeagrus, a Thracian river god and
one of the Muses (Calliope); or the son of Apollo and Calliope
• Calliope, the most dignified of the Muses is commonly given as
his mother; but sometimes Polyhymnia or Clio is named as is
mother.
• Other stories are sure that Apollo is his father because of his
outstanding play with the lyre.
• Many consider him to be the inventor or the lyre, or cithara, and
to have augmented its number of strings from 7 to 9 to honor is
mother and aunts, the nine muses.
• As early as the playwright Aeschylus we hear that he
captivated all who heard him, wild beasts would follow him,
plants and trees would bend in the direction of his voice, and
the could calm the wild men of the world.
• Ovid also found the story to his liking for his used Orpheus’ quest for
the beginning of the 10th book of the Metamorphoses, and developed
incidents involving the singer’s death for the introduction of his 11th
book.
• Plato: several centuries earlier he cited a unique version of the quest
in the Symposium as part of a discussion on love. In fact he also used
Alcestis’ sacrifice for her husband as an illustration of a lover willing
to die for love. But not so for Orpheus; unlike Alcestis he did not
dare to die for love. Instead, according to Plato he contrived to enter
Hades alive, as a mere lyre player – so the Gods punished him by
causing his death at the hand of women. Behind Plato’s account lies
the doctrine of punishment for the mortal who presumes to transgress
the limits of his human condition
• Ovid and Vergil: Their story begins with the death of Eurydice,
a Dryad or Tree Nymph. Hotly pursued by Aristaeus, she ran
before him, and in her haste to escape him she stepped on a
poisonous snake and received the fatal bite to her ankle. Her
Dryad companions made Mount Rhodope and Pagaeum echo
with their cries. Orpheus was grief-stricken at the lost of his wife
and determined to bring her back from the underworld. He
descended to the land of the bodiless dead through the hell
mouth of Taenarum and made his plea in song before Hades
and Persephone. In the name of love he asked that his wife be
allowed to return to the world of the living on loan, so to speak,
until natural death claimed her. What was the effect Orpheus
had on those who listed to him? Ovid tells it like this:
• It was said that the jaws of Cerberus remained agape as Orpheus
sang.
• Hades and Persephone did not have the heart to refuse such a
touching plea.
• They brought Eurydice to Orpheus – she still limped a bit from the
snakebite- and gave her to Orpheus only if would not look back until
they had passed from the world of darkness into daylight.
• Orpheus readily agreed and the two climbed up to the world of the
living. But at the moment as they reached the place that separated
the two realms, Orpheus out eagerness, anticipation, (or some say
anxiety) looked back. In an instant Eurydice vanished, lost forever
leaving Orpheus stunned and inconsolable at the double death of his
love.
•
• And with his words, the music
• Made pale phantoms weep: Ixion’s wheel was still, Tityus’s
vultures left the liver
• Tantalus tried no more to reach for the water
• And Belus daughters ‘the Daiaids’ rested from their urns,
• And Sisyphus climbed on his rock to listen
• This was the first time in all the world that the Furies wept.
• Notice how Shakespeare used him in Henry VIII
• And Orpheus with his lute made trees
• And the mountain tops that freeze
• Bow themselves when he did sing
• To his music plants and flowers
• Ever sprung, as sun and showers
• There had made a lasting spring
• Everything that heard him play
• Even the billows of the sea,
• Hung their heads and then lay by
• In The Two Gentlemen of Verona
•
For Orpheus’s lute was strung with poets’ sinews,
•
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones
•
Make tiger tame, and huge leviathans
•
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sand
• Orpheus and Eurydice
• The quest for a lost spouse/love is a standard motif that is not
limited to European culture; it is found as far east as Japan,
Native North America,.
• Ovid and Vergil are our Roman sources for much of the events
in Orpheus’ life. They derived much of their material from the
accents of pathos and romance of the Alexandrian poets
• In the 4th book of Vergil’s Georgics, which is really a treatise on
beekeeping in highly polished poetic form, the poet introduces
the death of Eurydice by way of a literary digression as he tells
the story of Aristaeus, a rustic deity who had some connection to
beekeeping.
Orpheus looks back
Russell 1920
Orpheus with Lyre
Attic Pottery 5th BCE
With the Argonauts
Orpheus tames the underworld with
Song
• Traumatized at this experience he vowed to remain celibate and to have
nothing else to do with women, even if they offered themselves to him.
•
• According to Ovid – he rejected the advances of women and gave his love
only to young men in the bloom of youth.
•
• One day as he was singing drawing the trees, beasts and stones after him, a
group of Thracian women, came upon him. They remembered him as one
who had spurned him, they tore Orpheus limb from limb and flung his head
and lyre into the Hebrus river. Both head and lyre were carried to the island
of Lesbos, the home of Sappho and other famed lyric poets.
• When a serpent dared to bite the head Apollo turned it into stone.
• Dionysius then demanded vengeance upon the women who dared to kill his
singer. The women were rooted to the ground and were transformed into
oak trees.
Giorgio Lazzarini
“Orpheus and the Bacchae
• His one adventure beyond the borders of the Hellenic world
took place when he was invited to become a member of the
Argonauts on their voyage to Colchis to gain the golden fleece.
His most outstanding feat was to outplay the sirens and thereby
prevent the Argonauts from being lured to their deaths.
• The head of the poet-prophet Orpheus was supposed to have
been transported to Lesbos, where it was enshrined and visited
as an oracle. The 2nd-century geographer Pausanius reported
that the bones of Orpheus were kept in a stone vase displayed
on a pillar near Dion his place of death and a major religious
center. These too were regarded as having oracular power,
which might be accessed through dreaming in a ritual. The
accidental exposure of the bones brought a disaster upon the
town of Libretha whence the people of Dion had transferred
the relics to their own keeping.
• The life of Orpheus and his visit to the underworld captures the basic tenets
of Creation, Death, Resurrection
• Zeus Swallows Creation and becomes the beginning and the end
•
•
•
•
•
•
Purity of Soul
Corruption of the Body
Original Sin (breaking away from oneness)
Transmigration of the Soul (Pythagoras)
Purification
Apotheosis (element of the heroes journey – realizing ones weaknesses and
strengths, humility, underworld)
•
•
•
•
•
Cult of
Cult of
Cult of
Cult of
Cult of
3/15/2018
Demeter / Ancient Greece
Cybele / Asia Minor
Isis / Ancient Egypt
Dionysius / Asia Minor and Ancient Greece
Mithras / Ancient Persia
20
•
•
•
•
•
Dionysius worship and symbolism
Male god who is the master of animals
God of vegetation and wild-life
See his name on major materials beginning in 1300 BCE
His home is often considered to be Thrace on the link between
civilized Greece and the ‘east’.
• Myths of future life and reincarnation
• Identified with Zagreus who was devoured by the Titans to be
born again amid the flames of Semele's death; and it was from
this take, incorporated into the Orphic literature that there
emanated themes of future life and reincarnation.
•
•
•
•
•
Demeter/Cybele (Agriculture Deities)
Dionysius/Osiris/Mithras (Suffering,Dying,Resurrected)
Adoption of other deities into the larger Pantheon
Spiritual Awakening by many in the Ancient Near East
Mithras : Persian god of light and truth, associated with
tauroctony (slay of the bull. Very popular with Roman Military
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22
1. Rich Religious Life Religious life of the empire was rich with spiritual
variety; the growth of empire encompassed a plethora of religious
beliefs with Eastern flavors that were still to be discovered.
2. Traditional Roman practices remained ritualistic with the emphasis
on propitiation of the gods through ceremonies carried out with
precision Lead by Lay-person/not state appointed priests/priestess
• Communal Meal – familiar concept of eating and socializing
• Forgiveness/Redemption of Sin
• Uplifting and powerful ceremonies
• Suffering, dying, resurrected deity
• Pattern fit the rise of lay prophets, mystics and healers
• Afterlife
3/15/2018
26
• Orphism as a Mystery Religion taught that after death the
human soul might obtain eternal bliss
• Or perhaps eternal torment depending on behavior on Earth.
• Religious practices included a sacramental meal of bread and
wine which represented the eating of the god’s flesh and the
drinking of his blood.
• The priest/magician changed approved food and wine into the
god’s flesh and blood.
• Good shepherd – identified with caring for the most vulnerable.
O
Orpheus –Christ
4th Century Catacomb of
Domitilla Rome.
Christ-Orpheus holding a panpipe – Aquileia Floor
Mosaic 4th century Cathedral of Bishop Theodore
• Personality and legend of Orpheus is deeply imbedded in
Western Culture
• In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the iconographical affinities
between the Thracian singer and Biblical figures did not go
unnoticed.
• Orpheus represents the person of David playing a harp to
charm the sheep and wild beasts.
•
Lion and the lamb – reputed to have laid down together to
listen to Orpheus play
•
In the Catacombs of Rome he is shown as the good
shepherd caring for his flocks
• Middle Ages
• Greek realm of Hades is turned into a Celtic land of enchanting
and beautiful fairies; Hades himself is the king surrounded by
knights and ladies dressed in white and mounted on white
horses – Heurodis, the medieval counterpart of Eurydice is won
over not by death but by a spell under a fairy tree.
• Epitomizes the medieval strategy for dealing with a pagan story
• Three main strands - What are they?
• Shaman – Religious teacher – as I mentioned earlier – David the
Sheppard and psalmist and musician - Christ like as well whose ‘new
song’ harmonizes the world and makes men of stones etc. – going to
the underworld to save Eurydice as Christ descent to earth and hell.
• Boethius – SOUL wrote that Orpheus represents the human soul,
seeking to rise out of darkness to philosophical (Christian)
enlightenment, BUT in danger of backsliding if the soul is tempted to
look back at the worldly things it is leaving behind.
• MUSIC – Orpheus with Eloquence and Eurydice with wisdom – a good
musician must have Orpheus’ technical skill but also a deeper
understanding of the musical theory represented by Eurydice
• Late Middle Ages
• A different story emerges – to reflect the popular lit of the time – Chivalry
and courtly love.
•
Ideal courtly lovers – the minstrel knight and his lady
• Renaissance
• In England Eurydice fades a bit in this period – Orpheus is for the most part
what??
•
Musician and Poet
• Mathematics and Orpheus - Pythagoras and the Music of the Spheres. –
Heavenly aspects
•
Architect of civilized society
•
Orpheus as failure
•
Milton sees the death of Orpheus at the hands of the Bacchantes as a
symbol of the dangers that threaten a poet in a world hostile to poetry
• Translations and travesties
• Misogynistic humor
• Romantics
•
Shelly’s Defense of Poetry – places him in a bleak
purgatory – and not a public civilizer but a man singing of
pain in the wilderness.
• One of my favorite pieces is the entry by Browning where she
pleads Orpheus to look at her –
• Dowden’s formidable Eurydice regrets that she did not lead
them out of hell and in some versions she is less than eager to
be resurrected
The Heroine’s Quest
Justice
And
Tragedy
The Heroine’s Quest
• Carol Pearson and Katherine Pope described the
heroine’s quest as understanding, rather than
conquering, the world
• Heroines resemble heroes who are lauded for
their actions on behalf of their community
• Heroes and heroines were celebrated because
they were believed to be still powerful after death
• Some were fictional, like Homer’s heroes, but
some were historical figures
• Worship of historical heroes at their tombs
increased during the 4th century BCE, and was
eventually modified into Christian veneration of
satins and martyrs
13.1 Iphigenia in Tauris. Fresco from
the House of L. Caecilio Giocondo in
Pompeii. First century CE. Museo
Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy.
Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY,
ART71656.
Heroes in the Classical Period
• Harmodius and Aristogeiton are examples of the
increasing popularity of historical heroes in classical
Athens
• They killed the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus, which is
considered a foundational moment in the
establishment of democracy
• They were praised as liberators, yearly sacrifices were
offered to them, and gradually they gained the status
of heroes
• Greek soldiers who died in the Persian Wars were given
13.2
Harmodius
and
similar treatment
Aristogeiton, the tyrant slayers.
copy.
Museo
• The difference between historical and mythical heroes Roman
Archeologico Nazionale, Naples,
was that historical figures died for a cause that was
Italy. Alfredo Dagli Orti / The Art
Archive at Art Resource, NY,
recognized as good and necessary
AA356070.
Heroines in the Classical Period
• Historical female figures
frequently appeared in
tragedies, and several of
them were worshiped as
heroines
• Unlike epics, tragedies
were set in the home, and
therefore required female
characters
Map 13.1 Iphigenia and Other Quest Heroines
• Tragic heroines often addressed social concerns by acting publicly and
against the wishes of their guardians to right wrongs
The New Heroine
• Classicist Christopher Jones describes historical heroes worshiped for the
social and civic acts as “new heroes”
• Heroines like Clytemnestra, Medea, and Hecuba took actions that were
cruel and violent, but each acts out of a sense of betrayal, either of a
person or a principle
• Antigone fits more neatly into the category of new heroine because she
saw it as her duty to defy King Creon to bury her brother
• Her choice of suicide highlights Creon’s abuse of power
• In Euripides’s Hecuba, her daughter Polyxena chooses to die willingly,
providing a contrast to the Greeks who have sunk to the level of human
sacrifice in their pride
Iphigenia
• Euripides used the story of Iphigenia to
question Athenian leadership and actions
during the Peloponnesian War
• She was sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon,
to appease Artemis so that the Greek fleet
could sail to Troy
• Iphigenia chooses to die willingly
• In one version of Euripides’s Iphigenia at
Aulis, Artemis swapped Iphigenia for a deer,
and then sent her to be a priestess at Tauris
• Despite their social powerlessness, the new
heroines embodied the willingness to act on
behalf of others
13.3 Artemis saves Iphigenia at the altar.
“Diana of Versailles,” Roman marble copy after
the original from the end of the fourth century
to the early third century BCE. Artemis and
Ifigenia, IN 0482. Courtesy of Ny Carsberg
Glyptotek.
Classical Mythology in Context
Iphigenia and Quest Heroines
THEORY
A Paradigm for the New Heroine
• Classicist Edith Hall defines Iphigenia as a quest heroine
• A quest heroine must
• Be the protagonist of a story that does not revolve around romance,
sex, marriage, or parenthood
• Travel far
• Have a relationship with a god or goddess
• Have moral and intellectual authority
• Be courageous and lead others
• Be a role model
• Very few ancient Greek heroines fit this model other than Iphigenia
Amor and Psyche
• Feminist scholar Lee R. Edwards develops a definition of
the heroine that emphasizes love and connection as
motivation
• Psyche was the daughter of a king, and so beautiful that
Venus sent Amor to punish her
• Amor falls in love with her instead, and takes her away to
a palace to be his wife in secret
• Psyche breaks a promise not to look on her husband, and
goes on a journey to find him when he leaves her
13.4 Amor and Psyche embrace.
• She the has to perform tasks to win him back
Terracotta
statuette
from
• She easily fits the definition of a quest heroine
Myrina. First century BCE.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
Massachusetts,
USA
/
Bridgeman
Images,
BST1762526.
Defining the New Heroine
• Edwards’s definition of a heroine is derived from the work of van Gennep
and Turner
• Turner expanded van Gennep’s liminal stage to include non-initiates who
occupy an in between position
• Their outsider status is temporary, and so while they usually challenge
society, they also seek to return to it
• Marginals live on the outskirts of society permanently, and do not seek to
accept its values
• Edwards defines heroes as liminal, but heroines as marginal
• Women in patriarchal societies will never gain the same status as men, so
they are uniquely suited to challenge its beliefs
• Heroines are better suited to finding strength in love and connection than in
opposition or conquest, thereby making those connections the defining
factor in their heroism
Classical Mythology in Context
Iphigenia and Quest Heroines
COMPARISON
Thecla
• Thecla was a young
woman who lived in
Turkey during the 2nd
century
• She rejected her fiancé
to become a Christian
and a missionary
• She may or may not
have been historical, but
there are parallels
between her stories and
those of the new
heroines
Map 13.2 Thecla from Iconium to Rome
Saints and Martyrs
• Christians who were martyred by the Romans and
those who pursued lives of virtue were often
worshiped after their deaths
• Their miraculous powers remained with their
bodies after death
• In contrast to heroes, they were thought to have a
close connection with God
• Greek heroes were celebrated for their power in
life, Christian saints were celebrated for their
suffering
• Their worship was also increasingly controlled by
the Christian church as it grew more centralized
13.5 Thecla with two wild beasts.
Terracotta ampulla (flask). Sixth to
seventh century CE. Louvre
Museum, Paris, France. © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, NY,
ART167305.
New Heroines and Martyrs
• Martyrs served as witnesses to their beliefs during their deaths, which
were frequently public spectacles
• Martyrs became empowered by their public deaths, which criticized the
power of the Roman state
• This was similar to the deaths of new heroines like Iphigenia, Polyxena, and
Antigone
• Stories of Thecla most likely come from oral stories told at her tomb
• They were carried home by pilgrims and retold and reshaped in the process
• Tales of Thecla and other saints therefore came to resemble early
romances, full of harrowing adventures in search of true love-in the case of
saints, the true love of Jesus
Paul and Thecla
The African church father Tertullian (160-230)
complained that some Christians were using the
example of Thecla to legitimate women's roles
of teaching and baptizing in the church (On
Baptism 17). Acts of Paul and Thecla are
considered to be Apocryphal (not a part of
approved church doctrine/text)
Ten Years of Iphigenia in New York City
• Euripides’s plays about Iphigenia have been reinterpreted by scholars and artists alike
• Iphigenia at Aulis is more popular, especially in times
of war because of the questions it asks
• Iphigenia among the Taurians has provoked less
interest
• Both deal with the issue of human sacrifice, not a
contemporary issue
• Charles L. Mee’s Iphigenia 2.0 uses human sacrifice as
a key plot device
13.6 Playbill from the premier of Michi
Barall’s
Rescue
Me.
• Mee follows Euripides’s plot, but adds modern
http://www.broadwayworld.com/off-offbroadway/article/MaYi-Theatre-Companyreferences
Presents-RESCUE-ME-by-Michi-Barall20100322#.U6nE6Rnt214.
©Another
Limited Rebellion, Courtesy of the Ma Yi
Theater Company.
Ten Years of Iphigenia in New York City
• Mee’s Iphigenia has the Greek soldiers rather than Artemis demand the
death, using the event to question morality and leadership in times of war
• It also questions Iphigenia’s status as heroine: is she deluded by the values of
a militaristic culture, or is she using death as an escape from that culture?
• Michi Barall’s Rescue Me is an adaptation of Iphigenia among the Taurians
• Iphigenia works in an immigration agency, sacrificing all Greek visitors to
Artemis
• Barall asks the audience to consider whether there is an unbridgeable gap
between Euripides’s theme of human sacrifice and the present, where
immigration policies divide families and deny refuge to those whose lives are
threatened
Chapter 10
Classical Mythology in Context
Achilles: The Making of a Hero
HISTORY
Five Traits of Greek Heroes
• Heroes were men who had died
• They performed extraordinary
deeds that may or may not be
moral
• They die prematurely, violently,
or mysteriously
• They were worshiped at their
gravesites
• They obtained a form of
immortality through song and
cult
10.1 Heroic banquet. A hero reclines on a couch and dines
while a servant stands nearby. Such reliefs were often used
as grave markers for mortals who were worshipped as
heroes. Marble relief. Unknown, Greek, eastern
Mediterranean, 150–100 BCE. The J. Paul Getty Museum,
Malibu, California. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection
96.AA.167: Malibu, California.
Greek Heroes
Map 10.1 Achilles and Other Greek Heroes
Heroes in Cult
• Shrines to heroes were located in a
variety of places, wherever their
bodies were believed to rest
• Sometimes their spaces of worship
were simple gravesites or tombs,
sometimes they were temples or cult
statues
• Precious objects were dedicated to
them and annual festivals sometimes
took place at hero shrines
10.2 Model of a hero shrine dedicated to a local ruler in
Trysa, Lycia, Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). The shrine’s
nine-foot walls enclosed monumental tombs and were
decorated with limestone reliefs depicting heroes such
as Odysseus, Perseus, and Bellerophon. Early fourth
century BCE. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY, ART204768.
Heroes in Myth
• Stories and images ensured that heroes
would be remembered after their death
• Very few of these stories give exactly the
same account, and very few tell the whole
story of any hero
• Vertical traditions refer to incidents that are
detailed in many places
• Horizontal tradition describes the life story
of a figure gathered from multiple sources
• Horizontal traditions tend to smooth out
the contradictions inherent in vertical
traditions
10.3 Jason is disgorged by the dragon
guarding the Golden Fleece as Athena
watches. Kylix, from Cerveteri. Douris
Painter, fifth century BCE. Museo Gregoriano
Etrusco,
Vatican
Museums,
Vatican.
Universal Images Group / Art Resource, NY,
ART424807.
Heroes in Myth
• Epics about heroes emphasize their
exploits-they are rarely showed in
domestic spaces
• Lyric poetry celebrates athletes as
heroes in similar terms
• In the Classical period, epic heroes
became the protagonists of
tragedies
• Their exploits become secondary to
their relationships, which were
easier to depict onstage
10.4 Heracles, wearing the skin of the Nemean lion, leashes
Cerberus. Detail from a red-figure amphora. Andokides Painter,
530–510 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais /
Art Resource, NY, ART497632.
• Heracles had the most adventures, therefore his story is the most complex to
The Labors of Heracles
(1) Heracles sits, weary from his struggle with the Nemean lion, while
Athena watches. Heracles skins the Nemean lion with its own claws, and
he is often depicted wearing the lion’s skin, which makes his body
invulnerable. (2) Heracles kills the Lernaean hydra with the help of Iolaus,
who cauterizes its necks to prevent them from growing back. (3) Heracles
kills the Stymphalian birds by using castanets manufactured for him by
Athena to rouse the birds from their nests. (4) Heracles captures the
Cretan bull, bringing it to Marathon, in mainland Greece. (5) Heracles
devotes a year to chasing the swift, golden-horned Cerynaean hind that is
dear to Artemis. (6) Heracles defeats an Amazon, named Hippolyte, in an
attempt to gain possession of her belt. The Amazons were a warlike race
of women who dwelled in Scythia, shunned men, and fought on horses
using a bow. (7) Heracles displays the Erymanthian boar to Eurystheus,
who hides in a pot from fright. (8) Heracles defeats the man-eating, firebreathing mares of Diomedes. (9) Heracles captures the cattle of Geryon,
a three-headed, three-bodied monster who guards them. (10) Heracles
obtains golden apples, which are guarded by three females called
Hesperides along with a snake. To gain help from Atlas in accomplishing
this task, Heracles carries the world that had been resting on Atlas’s
shoulders. (11) Heracles leads Cerberus, a three-headed dog in the
Underworld, to the light of day. (12) Heracles cleans the Augean stables,
by rerouting a river through them with Athena’s assistance.
10.5 Sketches of metopes depicting Heracles’s labors on Zeus’s
temple in Olympia. Using the surviving pieces of these metopes
and a description by Pausanias (5.10.9), the order of the metopes
has been reconstructed as follows.
Heracles
• Heracles was persecuted by Hera because he was the son of Zeus and a
mortal, Alcmene
• He became famous for his twelve labors in penance for killing his wife and
sons
• By surviving Hera’s trials, Heracles earned the right to enter Olympus and
marry the goddess Hebe
• This made him unusual among heroes, and he had more cult shrines than
any other
• In the Alcestis Euripides depicts Heracles as a drunken buffoon, but also a
loyal friend
• In Heracles Maenomenus he is shown as a broken man after the death of
his wife and sons
• Sophocles’s Trachiniae shows Heracles, at the end of his life, as both
suffering and causing his family to suffer through his actions
The Adventures of Theseus
10.6 Adventures of Theseus from Troezen to
Athens. Red-figured cup, Athens. Codrus
Painter, c. 440–430 bce. British Museum,
London.
From the top center and reading to the right,
Theseus defeats (1) Cercyon, a wrestler in the
Eleusis, who would kill all those he defeated;
(2) Procrustes, who would place travelers on a
bed and would stretch them, if they were
short, or cut off their feet, if they were tall, to
make them fit his bed; (3) Sciron, a highway
robber renowned for kicking travelers off a
cliff and into the sea, where they would be
devoured by a large sea turtle; (4) the
Marathonian bull, formerly called the Cretan
bull because Heracles captured it in Crete and
deposited it Marathon; (5) Sinis, a bandit who
tied travelers to two pine trees that, when
sprung loose, tore them apart; and (6) an
enormous sow in Crommyon. In the center of
the vase, Theseus kills the Minotaur on Crete.
The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource,
NY, ART177596.
Theseus
• As a hero, Theseus resembled Heracles, with a
canonical list of adventures
• The Athenians shaped him into a civic hero
who embodied the greatness of Athens
• After killing the Minotaur, Theseus becomes
king of Athens and is credited with
accomplishments that help develop
democracy in Athens, including expanding the
worship of Athena
• Euripides’s Hippolytus shows Theseus making
amends for his mistaken punishment of his
son Hippolytus, in opposition to Heracles’s
10.7 Theseus and Ariadne on Naxos. Detail
behavior in Trachiniae
from a red-figure lekythos (oil flask). Circa , 460
BCE.
Museo Nazionale Taranto, Taranto, Italy.
Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art
Resource, NY, AA389189.
Oedipus
• Oedipus is famous thanks to Sophocles’s
trilogy of plays depicting his tragic life
• Oedipus is depicted as being heroic and
worthy of veneration, despite his tragic
fate
• He, like Heracles, was indifferent to his
sons, and both represent that the
Greeks saw heroes as being capable of
both great help and great harm to
ordinary mortals
10.8 Oedipus and the Sphinx. Detail from a red-figure
krater. Attributed to the Painter of the Birth of
Dionysus. Fifth century BCE. Museo Nazionale Taranto,
Taranto, Italy. Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at
Art Resource, NY, AA389194.
Tragedy’s Role
• Central role in the spiritual and intellectual life of the
polis.
• Wealthy citizens vied for the honor and acclaim by
undertaking the production costs of a play during the
Dionysia.
• Actors performed three dramas a day, and spectators
had to follow the intricate poetry of the chorus and
return the next day to compare the work of each
playwright.
Achilles
• Achilles is known primarily
though the Iliad of Homer
• Achilles’s part in the Iliad is
defined by his anger at
Agamemnon
• Achilles refuses to fight with
the Greeks, then relents when
his friend Patroclus is killed
• Even though he knows he will
die, Achilles helps the Greeks to
victory by killing the Trojan
warrior Hector
10.9 Achilles and his mother, Thetis, in a chariot are approached
by worshippers. Fragmentary marble relief. Unknown. 350 BCE.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, 78.AA.264, Malibu, California. Digital
image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
Gilgamesh and the Burden of Mortality
• The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of a Sumerian king
who ruled around 2800 BCE
• Gilgamesh is presented as a great king, but cruel, so the
gods create a rival for him, Enkidu
• He and Enkidu become companions, and when Enkidu is
killed, Gilgamesh grieves, but also begins to fear mortality
• He sets out to find a way to become immortal, and has
adventures in the process
• At the end, Gilgamesh finds his immortality in the
splendor of his city of Uruk
10.12 A hero (possibly Gilgamesh)
• The tales of Gilgamesh and Achilles have many
overpowering a lion. Relief from
the Palace of Sargon II at
similarities, despite the fact that they are seeking
Khorsabada. Assyrian, c. 725 BCE.
Louvre Museum, Paris, France. ©
opposite goals
RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource,
NY, ART156553.
Aeneas and the Founding of Rome
• The Roman poet Vergil modeled his Aeneid on Homer’s
Iliad and Odyssey
• Aeneas is a hero of Troy who escapes the destruction of
the city with his family
• Their journey is defined by the anger of Juno against
Trojans
• The poem follows Aeneas’s journey to Italy and his
establishment of a kingdom
• It reflects Vergil’s thoughts on the values of the Roman
Empire and the government under the rule of Augustus
• The question it finally asks is, can men restrain their 10.13 Aeneas carries his father,
Anchises, from Troy. Etruscan terracotta
appetite for revenge in order to govern wisely?
statuette. Fifth century BCE. Museo
Nazionale di Villa Giulia, Rome, Italy.
Scala / Ministero per i Beni e le Attività
culturali / Art Resource, NY, ART300543.
Achilles and War Poetry
• Dying Achilles was commissioned by a 19th
century empress of Austria to commemorate her
dead son
• The estate where it is located, the Achilleion, was
used by the military in both WWI and WWII
• The upper and middle class soldiers of WWI were
familiar with the stories of Achilles
• Many used his experiences as a touchstone to
make sense of their experiences of war
• Patrick Shaw-Stewart wrote Stand in the Trench,
Achilles, a poem which questions the purpose of
war rather than looking forward to its glory
10.14 Dying Achilles. Ernst Gustav
Herter, 1884. Achilleion, Corfu,
Greece. Brian Hoffman/Alamy,
A1BJ70.
Achilles and War Poetry
• Achilles Triumphant was commissioned by Kaiser
Wilhelm II of Germany to replace the earlier statue
with a more martial Achilles
• The American poet Randall Jarrell imagines the
differences between modern warfare and the
emotions it generates and the emotions that the
Greeks felt at the death of Achilles
• Northern Irish poet Michael Longley used Achilles to
reflect on the Irish “Troubles” and the way that war
shapes identity
• Achilles remains useful as a method of understanding
the experience of soldiers even in modern wars
10.15 Achilles Triumphant.
Johannes
Götz,
1909.
Achilleion,
Corfu,
Greece.
Brenda Kean/Alamy, CBW920.
The Odyssey
Kansas City Academy 9/23/2015
Dr. Cynthia Jones
Born to Sail
•
To reach Ithaca Odysseus must travel by sea.
•
At every turn it has been his ally and his foil.
•
The cry of the unknown and the adventure are key elements in his journey.
•
OCEAN is a deity in and of itself. Even mighty Achilles must fact OCEAN in the
Iliad.
•
Thus, our hero must again take to the sea to enter the Underworld.
•
Every great hero is destined to journey there.
•
Odysseus purpose is to speak with Tiresias and learn his fate. Only certain of the
Dead can offer this knowledge. You will find it in the Aeneid as well when
Aeneas seeks his father’s shade and learns of his fate.
Bronze Age Greece and the Aegean
Themes we explore in The Odyssey
•
Women in Myth and Literature
•
Telemachus: Lone Hero among the suitors
•
What was life like for them in Bronze Age Greece?
Women in the Odyssey
•
Perfect Wife: Penelope: wife of Odysseus – keeper of the
home and hearth
•
Perfect Maiden Nausikka: princess of Phaeacia – civilizing
factor
•
Opposite of Penelope and Nausikka
•
•
•
Circe: goddess, seductress, magician
Calypso: goddess, seductress
Represent, lonely, unmarried, sexually rapacious women
Women in Homer – Epic Lives – ‘Geras’
Wars fought for WOMEN?
•
Geras – plooty or ‘stuff’ as rewards for war lords
measurement of their prowess and status
•
Helen – the treasure of Greece and wife Menelaus Sparta
–
•
Briseis – treasure of Achilles (awarded to him by his men for
sacking an ally of Troy).
•
Chrysies – symbolic treasure of Agamemnon (Priestess of
Apollo)
Documentary Evidence: Women’s
Voices
•
“We run households and protect that which is carried
across the sea. We women play the most important part,
because women are oracles, and at the holy site of Delphi
and Sacred Oaks of Thebes we reveal the prophecy of
Apollo and Zeus. As for the sacred rituals for the Fates and
the Nameless goddesses [furies] all these would not be
holy if performed by men, but prosper in a woman’s hands.
In this way women have a rightful share in the service of
the gods and the polis”
•
Written by Melanippe, a female colonist sent out to found
a new Greek colony from Athens in 506 BCE
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Helen of
Troy (1863)
Images of Women in Domestic Work:
Weaving and Collecting Water
Max Klinger Penelope brooding over her loom (1895)
450 BCE Telemachus and Penelope
Cup Side B – British Museum
Vase 500 BCE
Homeric Men and Seduction
•
Homeric Men vs. Seductress: Homeric Greek men consider women valuable but only to
satisfy their physical needs. Zeus eventually sends Hermes as a messenger to command
Calypso to allow Odysseus to return home. Calypso complains that the gods are
allowed to take mortal lovers while someone always interferes with the affairs of the
goddesses. Calypso complains about this double standard but eventually meets Zeus'
request. This is an excellent example of the male biased Homeric Greek society
JW Waterhouse 1891 “Circe
Offer the Cup”
450 BCE , “Odysseus and
Calypso” Louvre
Seduction
•
Excess: His the stay with Calypso on her island lasts 7 years. When Odysseus tells the story
of he changes the story slightly to give the perception that he was held prisoner and
lamented the entire time he was there. However, Homer gives us some insight when he
says; "the nymph was no longer pleasing to him," (Book V, Line 153) which implies that at
some point Odysseus did enjoy himself with the goddess on the island. Calypso offered
him immortality and a life of ease.
•
Calypso and Penelope (one in the same)?? She compares herself to Odysseus' wife
Penelope saying, "I think I can claim that I am not her inferior either in build or stature,
since it is not likely that mortal women can challenge the goddesses for build and
beauty."(Book V, Line 211) When Odysseus still longs to return home, Calypso forces him
to stay on the island. This is against the ideals of Homeric Greek women
•
Calypso displays a dominant and manipulative side, which is another threat against
male dominance. Calypso's ability to impede Odysseus' voyage for seven years, signifies
the belief that powerful women can create danger. In this situation, Homer tells us, if a
woman does not accept her place as an impuissant being, she is likely to slow down or
prevent a man from reaching his goals.
Odyssey Book 11-12
•
Zeus must honor Helios and sends another storm, which
destroys the ship and sends the entire crew to its death
beneath the waves. As had been predicted, only
Odysseus survives, and he just barely. The storm sweeps
him all the way back to Charybdis, which he narrowly
escapes for the second time. Afloat on the broken timbers
of his ship, he eventually reaches Ogygia, Calypso’s island.
Odysseus here breaks from his story, stating to the
Phaeacians that he sees no reason to bore them further
(470)
Female Monsters Book XII Treacherous
Journey
•
The myth has Charybdis lying on one side of a narrow
channel of water. On the other side of the strait was Scylla,
another sea-monster. The two sides of the strait are within
an arrow's range of each other, so close that sailors
attempting to avoid Charybdis will pass too close to Scylla
and vice versa. The phrase between Scylla and Charybdis
has come to mean being in a state where one is between
two dangers and moving away from one will cause you to
be in danger of the other. Between Scylla and Charybdis is
the origin of the phrase "between the rock and the
whirlpool" (the rock upon which Scylla dwelt and the
whirlpool of Charybdis) and may be the genesis of the
phrase "between a rock and a hard place"
Book XII Treacherous Journey
•
The myth has Charybdis lying on one side of a narrow
channel of water. On the other side of the strait was Scylla,
another sea-monster. The two sides of the strait are within
an arrow's range of each other, so close that sailors
attempting to avoid Charybdis will pass too close to Scylla
and vice versa. The phrase between Scylla and Charybdis
has come to mean being in a state where one is between
two dangers and moving away from one will cause you to
be in danger of the other. Between Scylla and Charybdis is
the origin of the phrase "between the rock and the
whirlpool" (the rock upon which Scylla dwelt and the
whirlpool of Charybdis) and may be the genesis of the
phrase "between a rock and a hard place"
Between ‘A Rock and a Hard Place’
Satellite image of the straits
Of Messenia
Monsters in Art
Scylla – Minoan Museum Crete
Sirens -
Scylla – Louvre
Waterhouse Sirens
Jean Charles Cazin (18411901) Odysseus Weeps
When he finds himself
alone on the beach in
Phaecia
Valentin Serov Odysseus and
Nausicaa (1910)
Following Nausicaa to the
palace
Two Sides of Women
Daily Life in Ancient
Greece
Nature of ‘Otherness’
What is woman? “The specific virtues of women with
respect to their body are beauty and height, and with
respect to their soul prudence {sophrosyne] and love
of labor [philegia] without servility Rhet. 1361a
On one hand valuations of good and bad in respect to women and
the behavior expected of them is determined by the male ethic.
Within their own communities, women are regarded with great
respect by men. In Homer, women are not reviled or treated
contemptuously, and also appear to have more social freedom than
those of later periods. Women go freely about the countryside and
participate in festive and religious events. And although they have no
political voice, women are nevertheless part of pubic opinion. In the
house of the wanax or paramount chief, his wife is held in high
esteem, and may even partake of her husband’s authority. The
qualities of a good woman in Homer are narrowly circumscribed by
their domestic assignment as housewife and mother. They are
honored for their beauty, skill and diligence in weaving, household
management, and good practical sense. They are expected to be
modest in public and in the company of men, and above all chaste.
•
Telemachus
and Penelope
•
...my mother is like that, perverse
for all her cleverness: she'd
entertain some riff-raff, and turn
out a solid man...
Telemachus Book II
•
As you have read in Book II the suitors
desired to force Penelope to marry one
of them, essentially declaring Odysseus
dead.
•
Status of Penelope
J.W. Waterhouse Penelope and the Suitors (1912)
Tragedy Origins
•
Tragedy was born in Greece around 700 BCE
•
Originally choral presentations done to celebrate the gods
in hymn.
•
Dionysius and Apollo were worshipped with music played
on the lyre and sung in verse.
•
Dramatic lines were added as one ‘actor’ named Thespis
stepped out of the chorus and spoke specific lines.
Sophocles 496-406 BCE
▪
Most Homeric of the playwrights.
▪
He cared about the individual, their struggles and trials.
▪
His heroes and heroines endure their lot in life, with heroic
dignity.
▪
Oedipus goes through the three stages of tragedy, blinds
himself and achieves divine grace.
▪
Antigone will pit the higher purpose against the tyrannical
state.
▪
Ajax’ madness and suicide become the triumph of
reason and humanity over hate.
Rules/Patterns of Greek Drama
•
Focused on a person of noble birth who in some
cases had risen to greats heights and then fell
precipitately.
•
Humans were at the mercy of fate – moira
•
Audiences were to experience catharsis which
Aristotle describes as a purging of purifying of
emotions of pity and fear.
Founding of Thebes
•
Cadmus asks the Oracle to direct him and the Pythia has
him follow a certain cow to Boetia and there found a city.
•
Upon founding the city he wanted to sacrifice to Athena
but the only spring was guarded by a dragon loyal to Ares.
•
The dragon killed his men and he in turn killed the dragon.
He sowed the teeth in the ground and they turned into
warriors.
Monsters and Men
•
After a great battle on five of the great warriors were left;
Echion (snake man); Udaeus (Ground man) Chthonian
(Earth man); Hyperenor ( Superman) and Pelorus (Monster)
all helped Cadmus build the city.
•
The were called Spartoi, the Sown Men, and legend says
they were the ancestors of the leading families of Thebes.
Cadmus and Harmonia
▪
After serving Area for 8 years Cadmus is married to
Harmonia (the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite)
▪
First wedding in Greece
▪
Attended by the Olympians, the Muses and Graces
sang
▪
Hephaestus crafted a beautiful necklace.
▪
Cadmus gave his bride a peplos, (cloak or robe).
▪
These two gifts will later become the subject of
tragedy.
Daughters of Cadmus
▪
Semele and Zeus will be the parents of Dionysius.
▪
Agave marries Echion (a Spartoi), rejects
Dionysius and in a Bacchaic trance kills her own
son Pentheus
▪
Autonoё was the mother of Acteon, who upon
seeing Artemis bathing was turned into a dear
and torn apart by his dogs.
▪
Ino and Athamas, while protecting Dionysius from
Hera, murdered their own children in madness.
Dysfunctional Family
▪
Amphion and Zethus fall from power in Thebes
▪
Laius, grandson of Polydorus returns
▪
Laius had been fostered in the Peloponnese, but breaks
the rules of hospitality by falling in love with the King
Pelop’s son, Chrysippus. He kidnaps the young man and
sets into motion his tragic fate.
▪
Pelops curse: he might never have an heir and if he did
he would die at the hands of that son, to compensate for
Pelops’ loss.
Tragedy’s Role
•
Central role in the spiritual and intellectual life of
the polis.
•
Wealthy citizens vied for the honor and acclaim
by undertaking the production costs of a play
during the Dionysia.
•
Actors performed three dramas a day, and
spectators had to follow the intricate poetry of the
chorus and return the next day to compare the
work of each playwright.
Laius and Jocasta
•
Laius marries his cousin Jocasta. She is also a direct
descendant of the Theban Spartoi
•
Laius receives a message from the Oracle at Delphi, if a
son was born to him, he would lose his life.
•
Either drunk or mad he lays with Jocasta and she has a son
•
He orders the son’s ankles pierced and pinned, and orders
him exposed.
Oedipus and Road Rage
▪
The shepherd did not kill the boy but gave him to the
king and queen of Corinth. They named him Oedipus
(Greed for swollen foot)
▪
Oedipus hears that he is not their son, they deny it,
but he consults the Oracle who hears his fate: he
would commit incest with his mother and kill his
father.
▪
He flees fearing he might hurt his beloved parents
and on the road between Delphi and Daulis, he
encounters Laius. The old man and his retinue try to
run him off the road and he kills them in anger.
▪
He fulfills part one of the oracle’s pronouncement
and only one of Laius’ retainers escape.
Oedipus and The Sphinx
Lament of Oedipus Rex
•
Relationship between human and divine must be
reconciled for Sophocles
•
Oedipus fate is determined, but how he handles it is the
grit of the play
•
His blinding begins the next part of Oedipus’ story –
accepting the will of the gods while still asserting his own
dignity. Recognizing that both the futility of avoiding the
will of the gods – and accepting that he had
responsibilities – he committed the crimes.
•
“What man who lives his life like this [disregarding the
divine law] can protect his soul from the shafts [of Zeus]?
(Lines 893-895) Note that Creon will do just that in Antigone
Oedipus and Freud
•
In the story Oedipus the King, the protagonist, Oedipus,
fulfills a prophecy by murdering King Laius, his true father.
Coincidentally, Oedipus was unaware that Laius was his
father. Once the prophecy was fulfilled (thus removing a
curse from Thebes), he was given the hand of Queen
Jocasta, his (also unbeknownst to him) biological mother.
In the story, none of the characters were aware of the
relation between the three, therefore providing a sort of
naturalistic environment where inner desires were not
affected by this knowledge.
Hermes and Hestia
Essential Slides
Chapter 7
Hermes and Hestia
• Walter F. Otto asked what
distinguishes the Greek gods from
humans?
• Even though they are
anthropomorphic, they are not
affected by circumstances like
humans are
• Each deity is distinguished by one
essential and unchanging trait
• Hermes’ trait is joy
• He is associated with travel and
acquisition of goods
7.1 Three herms. Red-figure pelike. Pan Painter, c. 470
BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais
/ Art Resource, NY, ART194441.
Capricious Child, Messenger, Healer
Cap, Winged Shoes and the Staff of Asclepius
For Herms to Hermes
• Hermes was sometimes represented as a fully human man,
but also as a statue
• The Herms were square stone pillars featuring a bearded head
and a phallus
• They were thought to derive from piles of rocks called
‘Hermes’s hills’
• Hermes was honored by the Greeks for making roads safe for
travelers
• Hermes is also frequently depicted as the messenger of the
gods
7.2 Hermes with winged sandals, cap, and wand. Redfigured lekythos (oil flask). Attributed to the Tithonus
Painter, c. 480–470 BCE. Image copyright © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art
Resource, NY, ART414543.
Hermes and Hestia
• Hermes was
venerated by
travelers and
messengers
• He also escorted the
dead to the
Underworld
• The Anthesteria was
primarily a drinking
festival, but also
honored Hermes
and the opening of
the Underworld in
the spring
Map 7.1 Hermes and Hestia in Greece
Ithyphallic Herms
• Scholars believe that Hermes’s hills were replaced with
herms
• They are most frequently found outdoors
• The erect phallus suggests his connection to the fertility of
herd animals
• He is also connected to luck, particularly with possessions
• Ancient Greeks used the phallus as an apotropaic symbol,
suggesting that Hermes played a role as a protector,
especially of shepherds
7.3 Ithyphallic herm. Marble relief from Siphnos.
510 BCE. National Archaeological Museum, Athens,
Greece. Bridgeman-Giraudon / Art Resource, NY,
ART99250.
Hermoi
Hermes and Pan
• Hermes protected certain communities
• Tanagra celebrated him for saving them
from a plague by carrying a ram around
the city walls
• Pan, Hermes’ son, is also represented as
ithyphallic
• He is associated with satyrs and the
company of Dionysos
• A young, beardless Hermes is associated
with the transition of young men into
adulthood
• A traditional part of this process for Greek7.4 Hermes Criophorus (Hermes carrying a ram).
Parian marble statue. Imperial Roman copy of an
youths was cattle raiding
early fifth-century BCE classical Greek original by
Kalamis. Museo Barracco, Rome, Italy. © Vanni
Archive / Art Resource, NY, ART405260.
Hestia
• In many ways, Hestia was Hermes’s opposite
• She was the firstborn child of Cronus and Rhea,
but has almost no temples, rituals, or cult
shrines in her honor
• She is an eternal virgin, associated with the
hearth and fire, and therefore worshiped in the
home
• Her name means hearth
• She represented the fixed center of home and
family, in opposition to Hermes’s constant
7.5
traveling
Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth.
Detail from a red-figure kylix. Circa sixth
century BCE. Archaeological Museum,
Tarquinia, Italy. Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art
Archive at Art Resource, NY, AA389250.
• Theft of the cattle: Hermes escaped his mother and stole the cattle of Apollo
• He put boots on their feet and led them to Pylos. He kept all but two, sacrificing them (one for
Zeus) and (one to himself – as a son of Zeus)/
He’s a baby how could he take your cattle?? Ooops
The Mind Structures Myths in Archetypes
• ‘Trickster’ is a designation for a certain kind of
character found in myths and folktales
• It is linked to Carl Jung’s concept of archetypes,
which, he argued, were generated by a
“collective unconscious”-shared mental models
that all people use to make meaning out of
their experiences
• The shadow has socially unacceptable
responses to social demands, and often has
characteristics that society does not value
• The shadow can either be frightening, or it can
be a benign figure who expresses antisocial
behavior with humor
7.6 Hermes Trismegistus. Detail of a
marble pavement. Giovanni di Stefano da
Siena, 1488. Duomo, Sienna, Italy. Scala /
Art Resource, NY, ART22288.
The Mind Structures Myths in Archetypes
• Most scholars no longer accept Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious
• When they study archetypes, they catalogue the traits they exhibit
• Traits of trickster figures include:
• Mockery of social, religious, or political laws or institutions
• They disrupt situations, sometimes for their benefit but sometimes to
their detriment
• They have the ability to change form
• They exhibit creativity and boundless energy
• They are often cultural heroes to humans
• Because of their role in questioning social customs and laws, they are often
also the heroes of marginalized or powerless groups within society
Classical Mythology in Context
Comparison
Hermes and Hestia
Thoth and Hermes
Map 7.2 Egypt: Thoth and Hermes Trismegistus
Thoth and Hermes Trismegistus
• The Greeks liked to draw connections between their deities and those of
their neighbors, as with Athena and Neith
• Hermes was frequently identified with the Egyptian god Thoth
• Over time, they fused the two and developed a new deity, Hermes
Trismegistus (Thrice-Blessed)
• Hermes Trismegistus became a vehicle through which pagans articulated
abstract, philosophical arguments about the nature of divinity
Thoth
• Thoth was depicted either as a baboon or as a man with the head
of an ibis
• Originally Thoth was a creator god, but later Egyptians began to
associate him with law, language, medicine, mathematics, and
magic, and also with advocating for the dead
• Both Thoth and Hermes can be described as cultural heroes as well
as tricksters
• Thoth played a vital role in the myth of Osiris and Isis
• He is credited with inventing language and writing
• Hermes Trismegistus was believed the be the author of the
Hermetica
• His followers in late antiquity believed he was a wise man who
became a god
7.7 Thoth with ibis head. Gilded wood and bronze.
Circa 600 BCE. Werner Forman Archive / Schultz
Collection, New York, New York. Location: 47. HIP /
Art Resource, NY, AR9150290.
Classical Mythology in Context
Reception
Hermes and Hestia
Hermaphroditus in Pre-Raphaelite Art
• Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and
Aphrodite, was also a trickster figure
• He was both male and female
• Associated with fertility and sexual
abundance
• In Ovid’s Metamorphosis he is described
as having merged with the nymph
Salmacis, and therefore has both male
and female sexual organs
7.8 Sleeping Hermaphroditus. Marble. Roman copy of a Greek
original, second half of the second century BCE. Louvre Museum,
Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY,
ART434602.
• The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of artists in Victorian England who questioned existing artistic con
• Poet Charles Algernon Swinburne uses a fascination with the Sleeping
Hermaphroditus to question normal ideas of sexual difference and identity
Hermaphroditus in Pre-Raphaelite Art
• Pre-Raphaelite artists Edward Burne-Jones paintings
depicted androgynous human figures
• They challenged Victorian norms of masculinity
• Both Phyllis and Demophoon and The Tree of
Forgiveness illustrate the similarities between lovers
• In The Tree of Forgiveness the two figures are nearly
mirror images in physical appearance and pose
• Demophoon’s pose also emphasizes his confusion and
resistance: he is passive while Phyllis is active
7.9 Edward Burne-Jones, The Tree of
Forgiveness (1881–1882).
Oil on
canvas. © Lady Lever Art Gallery,
National
Museums
Liverpool
/
Bridgeman Images, WGL110282.
Hermaphroditus in Pre-Raphaelite Art
• Aubrey Beardsley is associated with art nouveau
• He used the figure of the hermaphrodite to question
the Victorian sexual code, which demanded purity of
women and promiscuity of men
• The artistic use of Hermaphroditus to question social
conventions recall the original role of
Hermaphroditus and Hermes as tricksters
7.10 Aubrey Beardsley, Hermaphrodite
amongst the Roses (1894). Black ink
lithograph. Private collection. Private
Collection/Prismatic
Pictures/Bridgeman
Images, DGC747049.
Chapter 4
Demeter and Hades
• Demeter was the goddess of fertility
• Her mysteries, rites practiced in her
honor at Eleusis, linked her to death
• Hades was the god of the underworld,
brother of Zeus
• They are bound by the myth of the
rape of Persephone, daughter of
Demeter, by Hades
4.1 Demeter (right) accompanied by a young boy, Eniautus (Year). Detail from an Apulian red-figure
loutrophoros. Painter of Louvre M NB1148, c. 350–340 BCE. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu,
California. 86.AE.680. The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology. Website © 2000–2011 Aaron Atsma.
Hades
• The other gods have an aversion to Hades
because of his association with death
• He was not the judge or punisher of the
dead, so not feared by humans
• Hades was associated with caves, but
there are no temples or festivals in his
honor
4.2 Hades (right) and Persephone in a temple-like building. Detail from a
red-figure krater. Circa 350 BCE. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples,
Italy. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY, ART200836.
Hades
• The other gods have an aversion to Hades
because of his association with death
• He was not the judge or punisher of the
dead, so not feared by humans
• Hades was associated with caves, but
there are no temples or festivals in his
honor
4.2 Hades (right) and Persephone in a temple-like building. Detail from a
red-figure krater. Circa 350 BCE. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples,
Italy. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY, ART200836.
The Changing World of the Dead
• The archaeological remains of the human dead can tell us much about their lives, but how do see their views
of the afterlife?
• During most of the Dark Ages (1200-800BCE) adults were cremated and their bones gathered from the pyre
and placed in a pottery vessel. The pot was deposited, along with the rest of the pyre refuse, other pottery,
gifts and metal objects, in a hole and then filled and pot marker was placed above.
• By 800 BCE inhumation replaces cremation.
• Necropolis on the outskirts of settlements.
• What does this tell us about the Greek’s view of their afterlife? Is it found in the mythology, the poetry, the
art?
• Three elements of Hades and his relationship to dead mortals are
developed.
• The Geography of the Underworld. A generally inconsistent outline of the
geography of the Underworld, detailing its various rivers and dwellingplaces, can be found in Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad.
• Souls in the Underworld. As Hades’ “subjects” in the Underworld, human
souls there were believed to retain the appearance and personality that
they had at the moment of death. They were also thought to exist in a sort
of suspended animation, devoid of pleasure and meaning, as they wander
aimlessly over a dank landscape.
• Funerary Rituals. Funeral rituals in Greece served to help the soul of the
dead reach the Underworld, and women played an essential and intimate
role in many of these rituals.
The Underworld
• The Underworld was divided from the lands of
the living by five rivers
• Charon, the boatman, escorted souls across
them and into Hades
• Cerberus, the many-headed guard dog, also
prevents souls from leaving
• After death, souls wander eternally throughout
the Underworld
• Punishments are reserved for special cases; as
are rewards
4.3 (left) and 4.4 (right) Charon (left) waits as Hermes (right) leads the soul of a deceased
person to his boat. White-ground lekythos (oil jug). Sabouroff Painter, c. fifth century BCE.
bpk, Berlin/Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museum, Berlin/Johannes Laurentius/Art
Resource, NY, ART301136 and ART301171.
Funerary Rituals
• In Greece they served to help the soul of the dead reach the Underworld
• Women prepared the body for burial
• Burials were accompanied by mourning songs and a feast
• Offerings continued to be made to the dead for a month afterward
4.5 Plaque of a funerary ritual (prosthesis). Black-figure plaque. Attributed to the
Burgon Group, c. 560–550 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais /
Art Resource, NY, ART147733.
Demeter
• Rituals tied Demeter to the
annual agricultural cycle
• The Proerosia was a ritual plowing
of the fields
• The Haloa used fertility symbols
to ensure the safety of the
planted seeds
• Both were performed solely by
women
4.6 Triptolemus on a winged chariot with Demeter. Detail of
an Attic red-figure krater. The Niobids Painter, c. 460 BCE.
Archaeological Museum Ferrara, Italy. Alfredo Dagli Orti /
The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY, AA356430.
Historical Overview
• Eleusis first inhabited in the Middle Helladic period (1900-1600 BCE).
• Built between 1500-1425 BCE during the reign of legendary King Celeus according to the Homeric Hymn to
Demeter.
• Strategically placed on the route from Athens to the Peloponnese, Boeotia and Northern Greece.
• Continually occupied through modern times.
• In 760 BCE at the year of the 5th Olympiad records show that a festival and sacrifice were held to Eleusis to
propitiate Demeter and end a famine.
• When Athens was ruled by Pisistratus (550-510 BCE) the Sanctuary was given new fortification walls, and a hall
for the faithful to watch the initiation.
• In 479 BCE the sanctuary was sacked by Xerxes soldiers.
• During the time of Pericles (459-432 BCE) the temple was enlarged.
• During Macedonian control the site was protected by Alexander’s guards
• In Roman times the initiation was opened to Romans (170AD)
• In 379 AD the mysteries were forbidden by Theodosius I
• Evacuations of the site were put in the hands of the Greek Archaeological Society in 1882.
Thesmophoria: A Fertility Ritual
• Another all-female rituality used similar symbols
to the Haloa
• For three days, women worshiped Demeter and
Persephone
• Fertility symbols used sympathetic magic to
associate agricultural fertility with human
fertility
4.7 Baubo (also called Iambe) on the back of a pig. Terracotta. Circa first
century BCE. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany.
bpk, Berlin/Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museum, Berlin/Johannes
Laurentius/Art Resource, NY, ART450592.
Initiation Rites
• First Day of the Mysteries the initiates made sacrifices at the alters of the goddesses (the 14th of
Boedromion) September
• Afterwards they formed a procession with the priestess of Demeter holding the sacred symbols she carried
along the “Sacred Way’ from the ancient Agora in Athens. Beginning of the path.
Public Procession / Private Ritual
• On the 15th of the month in Athens the festivities were officially opened. Anyone guilty of murder or
desecration or was not Greek-speaking was excluded.
• On the 17th the initiates purification ceremony took place in the sea at Phaleron with the sacrifice of
piglets
What we know/what is speculation
• On the 17th of Boedromion the sacrifices were made attended by many important personalities of the
day.
• On the 19th day of the month the initiates and others processed from Pharleron on the Sacred Way back
to Eleusis. At different points along the road there were altars and shrines, the participants burnt incense
and changed hymns. The procession ended at the outer court of the Sanctuary where they were greeted
by priests and priestesses and dances were performed throughout the night.
• Telesterion: this the most secret part of the rites. All that we know is some kind of rites were performed
that were a reenactment of the dromena (abduction of Kore); mystic utterances were spoken and sacred
objects displayed.
• On the 21st of the month the epopteia took place called the “ear of corn in silence reaped”
• On the 22nd initiates honored the dead with libations.
• On the 23rd they returned home nobler in spirit, contented, less fearful of death, and with raised hopes
for life
Hymn to Demeter
• Goddess Demeter disguised as an old woman, searching for her daughter came to Eleusis and sat down
in despair near the Well of Parthenos to rest.
• The daughter of King Celeus found her there and offered her hospitality in the palace.
• The Goddess lonely and sad became the nurse of Damophon, the son of Celeus; she anointed him with
ambrosia and held him over the flame to make him immortal – when his mother saw this she drove the
old woman from the palace.
• Demeter revealed herself and ordered Celeus to build a temple for her by the well
• Angry and sad she shut herself up in the temple bringing drought and famine until Zeus relented, told her
where Persephone was an allowed her to emerge from the underworld at the cave opening in the
previous photo.
• Demeter made the land fertile again and taught the Eleusinians rites to elevate their knowledge and
improve their prosperity.
The Eleusinian Mysteries
• Homer describes Demeter as
wandering to Eleusis in search of
Persephone
• She demands that a temple be built
for her, and Persephone’s return
from the Underworld symbolizes the
benefits that initiates in Demeter’s
mysteries will gain after death
• New members are initiated into the
mysteries yearly in a weeklong
festival
4.8 The temple called the Telesterion at Eleusis, Greece. The
Solonic Telesterion was erected about 600 BCE. HIP/Art Resource,
NY, AR9146068.
• Once initiated, they were able to take part in the secret rituals within the
temple itself
Myths Reinforce Social Norms
• ‘Goddess feminists’ are individuals who study
the spiritual dimensions of feminism
• ‘Matriarchy studies’ is the study of societies
where women held power
• Marija Gimbutas imagined a Neolithic Europe
of female-led egalitarian societies
• Classicist Helen P. Foley considers how women
were empowered by the worship of goddesses
like Demeter
• To Foley, myths like Demeter’s teach Greek
women to accept patriarchal rule
4.9 Demeter, Triptolemus, and Persephone. Marble votive relief
from Eleusis. Circa 440–430 BCE. Museum of Archaeology, Athens,
Greece. Nimatallah / Art Resource, NY, ART18.
Dying and Rising Gods
• Both the Sumerians and Akkadians have myths that describe a goddess
going to the Underworld in search of her lover
• Other gods like the Greek Adonis and the Phrygian Attis are believed to
annually descend to the Underworld and return
• Persephone is
unique as the only
female
4.10 Dumuzi the Shepherd. A clay impression or “printout” from a marble cylinder
seal. 3200–3000 BCE. bpk, Berlin/Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen,
Berlin, Germany/Olaf M.Teßmern/Art Resource, NY, ART497597.
Demeter’s Roman Counterpart is Ceres and
(Persephone) Proserpina
• Practiced the same in Rome as in Greece.
• Reenactment of the Quasi Death and Return.
• Symbolism of the Mother/Daughter relationship is expounded by Denzey as she uses Proba as the
model for a transitional time in Rome.
• Ceres Feast Day is April 19th – Part of the Roman calendar for planting.
• The popular practice of recognizing the loss and reunion was common on grave markings and
often used in the catacombs.
• What we have in the transition period is insight into the syncretism of symbols.
Proserpina
“Proba And The Piglet”
• Via Latina – lined with tombs – all burials must take place outside the walls of Rome
• Res religiosa – sacred space
• Both pagan and Christian Romans used the ‘funerary burial guilds’ to secure such space
• Challenge: honor Christian daughter, yet insure they are together in the afterlife as ‘Proba’ believes they will.
Proba as Ceres
Peacock and Cross
Ceres next
To Christ
Raising
Lazarus
Persephone in Contemporary Women’s Poetry
• Contemporary poets have pursued the
question of Persephone’s agency
• Rita Frances Dove turns the story of
Persephone into a modern narrative of
rape
• Rachel Zucker describes a Persephone
who goes with Hades willingly
• Alison Townsend focuses on
Persephone’s experience of the loss of
her mother
4.11 Persephone. Gouache on paper. Janet Gorzegno, 2010. Resembling a fresco (a painting on plaster), this painting
introduces the idea of Persephone’ death: she seems to be decomposing before the viewer’s eyes. Persephone, though,
is serene and seemingly unaware of her own dissolution. As such, she is an icon for our relationship to our own
mortality as much as she is the lost daughter of Demeter. Janet Gorzegno.
Mesopotamia
Universal Theme: Mother’s Searching for Lost
Children: Comparisons
• Demeter and Persephone:
•
•
•
•
Mourning
Anger
Pursuit/Capture
Return
• Dutter and Damu (Dumzi)
•
•
•
•
Mourning
Anger
Pursuit/Capture
Return
1. Cerberus. The watchdog, who is frequently depicted with two or
three heads (and even up to fifty heads) who guarded the entrance
to the Underworld. (p. 157)
1. Charon. A boatman who demanded a payment of a coin or a cake
from those who have recently died and wished to reach the
Underworld. (p. 157)
1. Demeter. A daughter of Cronus and Rhea and the mother of
Persephone. (p. 154)
1. Demophoon. The young son of King Celeus and Queen
Metaneira of Eleusis, whom Demeter tries (and fails) to render
immortal. (p. 165)
1. Eleusinian Mysteries. A week-long initiation ceremony that
began in Athens and concluded in Demeter’s sanctuary in
Eleusis, where initiates received secret knowledge. (p. 154)
1. Eleusis. A site fourteen miles from Athens
that housed a significant shrine to Demeter.
(p. 166)
1. Elysian Plain. Also called the Islands of the
Blessed, a place of perpetual springtime for
the souls of the virtuous and worthy dead
within the Underworld. (p. 158)
1. Funerary rituals. These consisted of three
parts: a laying out of the corpse
(prosthesis), a procession to the gravesite
(ecphora), and subsequent feasts at the
gravesite for a brief period of time. (p.
154)
1. Hades. A son of Cronus and Rhea who
abducted and married his niece Persephone.
(p. 154)
1. Persephone. The “slim-ankled” daughter of
Demeter and Zeus, who was kidnapped by
Hades and taken to the Underworld to be
his bride. (p. 169)
1. Tartarus. A deep and dark region within, or
below, the Underworld that is the site of
many gruesome eternal punishments. (p.
159)
1. Thanatos. Although his name is the Greek
word for “death”, he seemed a gentle, rather
than a rapacious, figure who was given the
task of stalking humankind and gathering
the dead for transport to the Underworld.
(p. 155)
1. Thesmophoria. A three-day celebration, for
women, to ensure successful marriage and
childbirth. (p. 154)
1. Triptolemus. An adolescent boy who rides
a winged chariot and to whom Demeter
gives the knowledge of agriculture to share
with humanity. (p. 162)
Chapter 9
Dionysus
• Dionysus was the son of Zeus and a mortal, Semele
• He is more closely associated with mortals than the rest
of the Olympians
• The infant Dionysus is torn apart and then is
reconstituted, associating him with death
• Many of Dionysus’ myths feature mortals who suffer, go
mad, and are torn apart by his worshipers, echoing the
suffering of the god
9.1 Birth of Dionysus from Zeus’s thigh as Hermes watches. After Zeus inadvertently immolates Semele while
pregnant, Zeus removes Dionysus from her womb, stitches him in his thigh, and gives birth to the infant himself.
Detail from a red-figure lekythos. Alkimachos Painter, c. 470–460 BCE. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts,
USA / Catharine Page Perkins Fund / Bridgeman Images, BST1762525.
Classical Mythology in Context
Dionysus
HISTORY
Viticulture, Wine, and Fertility
• Dionysus was responsible for both
agricultural and human fertility
• His main festival at Athens was the
Anthesteria, which celebrated his gift
of wine to humanity, and linked wine
with human fertility
• The first day opened the city to both
the god and the dead, who were
believed to wander the city during the
festival
• The second day of the festival
involved a drinking contest; talking 9.2 Dionysus (center) accompanied by satyrs and maenads.
Black-figure column krater. Painter of Munich, c. 520 BCE. The
was not allowed
John P. Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California. 75.AE.106.
Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
Dionysus in Greece
Map 9.1 Dionysus in Greece
The Anthesteria
• The third day of the festival
was joyful
• A queen was married to
Dionysus in a sacred marriage
symbolizing the marriage
between the god and the city,
ensuring the reproduction of
the next generation
• Celebrations of Dionysus
represent his destabilizing
effect on communities
9.3 Satyr pushing a young woman on a swing on the last day of
the Anthesteria. Attic red-figure skyphos from Chiusi. Penelope
Painter, c. fifth century BCE. bpk, Berlin / Antikensammlung,
Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany / Eva-Maria Borgwaldt / Art
Resource, NY, ART189509.
The Symposium
• Symposia were gatherings of
elite men
• They were framed as
discussions, but fueled by
wine
• Dionysus was accompanied
by satyrs, mythical hybrids
who engaged in humorous
and sexual activities and were
frequently drunk
• Symposia are frequently
depicted as leading to satyrlike behavior
9.4 Men dance and flirt at a symposium. Red-figure wine cup.
Briseis Painter, c. 480–470 BCE. The John P. Getty Museum, Los
Angeles, California. 86.AE.293. Digital image courtesy of the
Getty’s Open Content Program.
Theater and Masks
• Dionysus was the patron god of theater
• The Country Dionysia were local festivals in his
honor that consisted of a parade followed by
performances
• The Dionysia included parading a large wooden
phallus through the city or town
• The City Dionysia was a more formal, grander
version held in the city of Athens which
commemorated the beginning of Dionysus’
worship
9.5 The Theater of Dionysus at the
foot of the Acropolis in Athens,
Greece. Fifth century BCE. Album / Art
Resource, NY, alb1462719.
Theater and Masks
• In most communities,
Dionysus begins to be
worshiped only after he
punishes the community
with suffering
• Theater was an
emotional release in
ancient Greece, and so
Dionysus represents
freedom, similar to the
liberating experience of
wine
9.6 Phallophoria. Attic black-figured kylix. Circa 550
Archeology Authority of Tuscany, Florence.
BCE.
Courtesy of the
Mystery Cults
• Dionysus was worshiped in
mystery cults throughout the
Mediterranean
• Unlike the mystery cult of
Demeter, Dionysus’s was
informal and scattered
• Women held prominent roles
in Dionysus’s cult
• There is little evidence of
initiation rites, except that they
were much more individualized
than most Greek religious
events
9.7 Villa of the Mysteries. Pompeii, Italy. First century BCE. Scala /
Art Resource, NY, ART70620.
The Orgia
• Dionysian religious practices
were called orgia
• His worshipers, the Bacchae,
danced and shouted in his
honor
• Euripides’s Bacchae depicted
them tearing apart sacrificial
victims with their hands
• The Bacchae suggests that
Dionysus’s worship was joyful,
until it became violent
9.8 Pentheus with maenads. Red-figure Attic kylix. Dourisca, c. 480 BCE.
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas / Art Resource, NY, ART334333.
• The violence may have been symbolic of the potential dangers of the free
emotions encouraged by Dionysus
Classical Mythology in Context
Dionysos
THEORY
Initiations and Inversions
• Anthropologist J. W. Turner explored
theater, film, and festivals, attempting
to define how they challenged
ordinary social values
• He expanded van Gennep’s concept of
liminality from rites of passage to
include other rituals and performances
• He argued that performative genres
displayed society’s values
9.9 Eye cup used at symposia. Red-figure drinking cup.
Circa 515 BCE. Werner Forman / Art Resource, NY,
AR9156943.
• Like initiation rites, they also encouraged audiences to question them
• Dionysian rituals included theatrical elements, which, when combined with wine, lead
Classical Mythology in Context
Dionysos
COMPARISON
The Great Mother in Greece
• Euripides associates the ecstatic worship
of Cybele, the Great Mother, with the
worship of Dionysus
• Her companion in Greece was Attis, but
he has no counterpart in Phrygian
worship
• The Romans dedicated a temple to the
Great Mother in the third century BCE
• She was associated with fertility
• The ecstatic worship that her priests were
known for was not popular among
Romans
9.10 The goddess Cybele rides a chariot pulled by lions and Attis leans on a
pine tree. Relief on a marble altar dedicated to Cybele and Attis. 295 CE. The
portions of the inscription visible in this image include the name of the
dedicator (L. Cornelius Scipio Oreitus), a priest (augur) who accomplished a
bull-killing (taurobolium) and dedicated this altar to Cybele and Attis.
Archaeological Museum, Ferrara, Italy. De Agostini Picture Library/A. Dagli
Orti/Bridgeman Images, DGA501455.
• They were tolerated because they were eunuchs, and therefore outside the norms of
Dionysus in the Mediterranean World
Map 9.2 Dionysus from Phrygia to Rome
Classical Mythology in Context
Dionysos
RECEPTION
Dionysus as a God of the 1960s
• Modern artists have used Dionysus to
comment on and challenge the social order
• The themes of the Bacchae were
particularly suited to the radical social
transformation of the 60s
• Dionysus in ’69 was an adaptation of the
Bacchae which encouraged audience
participation by not dividing the audience
space from the performance space
• The play uses nudity, homosexuality, and
political commentary to question social
conformism
9.11 Birth of Dionysus. From The
Performance
Group-Dionysus
in
’69,
published in Oscar Brockett’s History of the
Theatre.© Photograph by Max Waldman,
Archive USA / All Rights Reserved.
Dionysus as a God of the 1960s
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a movie adaptation of a stage play
• It used sexual idiom to question conformity and authority
• The development of audience participation rituals in the 1970s broke down
barriers between audience and performance
• The film emphasized sexual liberation and critiques American gender and
family roles
• In The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite, Wole Soyinka uses
similarities between ancient Greek and African religion to address questions
of political freedom and religious community
• At the end of Soyinka’s play, the performers drink the blood of the dead
Pentheus, which they are told is wine
• This communion unites all the performers as equals and abolishes political
tyranny
Who is Semele?
Daughter of Harmonia, wife of Cadmus. She is a
goddess of earth and corn also known as Alcmene.
Disguised Zeus, seduces Semele who then is slain by
lightening stolen from Zeus by Hera out of jealousy.
The child Semele carries is recued by Zeus and sewn
into his thigh and after his birth he is named
Dionysius.
We can assume that these are links between the
ancient ritual patterns of Dionysus’ worship reflecting
Attic or Greek origins of Dionysius and the devotion to
the yearly festival in Athens in his honor.
Dionysius, as the Master of Illusions, was seen as the
one who was indeed the spirit of the theatre itself.
Dionysius worship and symbolism
Male god who is the master of animals
God of vegetation and wild-life
See his name on major materials beginning in 1300 BCE
His home is often considered to be Thrace on the link
between civilized Greece and the ‘east’.
Myths of future life and reincarnation
Identified with Zagreus who was devoured by the Titans to
be born again amid the flames of Semele's death; and it
was from this take, incorporated into the Orphic literature
that there emanated themes of future life and
reincarnation.
The worshiper who performed the rite was at one with
the god entheos, suggesting an idea of mystic
communion.
Associated with the eating of raw flesh as late as
276BCE at the Dionysius cult at Miletus. Eating this
war, bleeding gobbets was an eating of the god
himself, the ‘noble bull,’ as he was called in an ancient
hymn.
So this early Dionysian ritual was a cathartic that took
man outside of himself and purged his irrational
impulses, or directed them into this special channel.
There are references to snake handling which is shown
on vases recorded in the 4th century Macedonia,
mentioned in the Gospel of Mark which still form
parts of the ecstatic rattlesnake cult of the Holiness
Church in Kentucky.
The Greeks, choosing to turn ecstatic tendencies into
institutional channels, officially recognized them at
the wine-religion cults at Delphi, Corinth, Sparta and
Athens. Thus in the more civilized areas at least,
cannibalism and ritual murder, had probably come to
and end before the fifth century began- BUT coming
to life when during the Persian wars 489-479BCE)
when at Athens itself Themistocles sacrificed three
Persian youths to Dionysius Omestes (flesh eater).
The myth of Dionysius sums up the whole theme of
emotionalism as a factor in social as well as individual
life: “those things utterly non-human and non-moral’
in the words of Gilbert Murray “which brings man bliss
or tear his life to shreds without a break in their own
serenity.”
Dionysius is the spirit of the unthinking physical
enjoyment, of the instinctive group personality, of
anti-intellectual energy.
In Dionysius, are mingled joy and horror, insight and
madness, innocent gaiety and dark cruelty?
Faced with the imperative – ignore at our peril the
demand of the human spirit for a Dionysian
experience and pay the price.
Curse of Thebes
Dionysius returns to Thebes to punish those who had not supported
his divine birth. His mother’s sisters.
Once he has secured worship in Thebes and greater Greece he becomes
part of the Olympian pantheon.
As wine becomes part of the greater trade network of Attica,
celebrations such as the Dionysia in Greece are commonplace by 500
BCE.
The house of Cadmus was also plagued by the tragedy of the curse
placed upon it by Pelops (remember Laius raped his daughter).
Oedipus is the son of Laius and Jocasta and tragedy of the highest
order follows.
Chapter 5
Classical Mythology in Context
History
Aphrodite, Hephaestus, and Ares
Love and Strife
• There are two stories of
Aphrodite’s birth: she is
either the daughter of Zeus
and Dione, or produced
when Uranus was castrated
by Cronus
• Her title of Philommedes
represents her association
with sexual desire
unmitigated by social
consideration
• It can also be translated as
‘laughter-loving’
5.2 Birth of Aphrodite. Detail of the Ludovisi Throne. Greek marble
relief. Circa 460–450 BCE. Museo Nazionale Romano (Palazzo
Altemps), Rome, Italy. Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY, ART58590.
Duality of Aphrodite: Two natures
• Aphrodite Urania (celestial Aphrodite): sprung from Uranus alone –
with only heavenly attributes: aka Celestial
• Aphrodite Pandemos (of the people – common)
Aphrodite and Eros
• Aphrodite and Eros are
associated with desire and
romance
• Eros is either Aphrodite’s son
or companion
• Their behavior is fickle,
representing the nature of
desire
• They are also associated with
conflict and violence, as in
Sophocles’ Antigone
5.1 Eros playfully blindfolds a woman. Attic red-figure skyphos.
Workshop of the Ilioupersis Painter, c. 375–350 BCE. Museum of
Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.
RISD Museum Appropriation Fund, 25.089.
Marriage and Love
• Brides prayed to Aphrodite before their
wedding day
• Aphrodite is often depicted with Harmonia
(Harmony), Peitho (Persuasion), and the
Erotes (Eros, Longing, and Desire)
• Their winged nature indicates that the
emotions Aphrodite inspires are impossible
to restrain
• In Greek myths, the desire inspired by
Aphrodite disrupts marriage more often
than it sustains it
5.3 Aphrodite surrounded by Erotes and an attendant holding
a swan. Detail from a red-figure lekythos (oil flask). Circa late
fifth century BCE. Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art
Resource, NY, AA393928.
Humor and Laughter
• Among the gods, Aphrodite is often
connected with humor
• Aphrodite’s adulterous relationship
with Ares gets her laughed at, but
also represents the dangerous
consequences of infidelity
• The myth of Aphrodite and Adonis
furthered her association with
laughter, as represented in the
Adonia, a festival celebrated only by
women
5.4 Paris leads Helen by the wrist, while Aphrodite
adjusts her hair. Red-figured skyphos. Circa fifth century
BCE. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA /
Francis Bartlett Donation / Bridgeman Images,
BST487717.
Civic Harmony
• Aphrodite, with Peitho (Persuasion)played a traditional role in the
establishment and governance of cities
• Governance of cities required persuasion in courts and assemblies
• Aristotle compared the bonds of husbands and wives with the bonds
among citizens
• She was worshiped as Aphrodite Pandemos in Athens for her role as a
unifier
• She was frequently worshiped in ports and harbors, anywhere where
cooperation was necessary
Hephaestus
• Aphrodite’s husband was Hephaestus,
the god of metallurgy
• He has few sanctuaries and festivals and
was rarely worshiped
• Hephaestus was unique among the gods
because of his lameness
• He was associated with fire and
volcanoes, and manufacturing and
technology
• Hephaestus is an unlikely husband for
Aphrodite, the most beautiful of the
gods, and was frequently laughed at
5.5 The Return of Hephaestus to Olympus. Red-figured
stamnos. Group of Polygnotus, c. 440 BCE. bpk, Berlin /
Antikensammlung, Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel,
Kassel, Germany/ Art Resource, NY, ART497600.
Ares
• Ares is a war god, the son of Zeus
and Hera
• He and Aphrodite have three
children: Deimos (Terror), Phobos
(Fear) and Harmonia (Harmony)
• He represents aggression and
destruction rather than courage or
strategy
• His affair with Aphrodite
represents the dangers of
powerful emotions like lust and
aggression
5.6 Ares and Aphrodite. Marble votive relief. Circa late fifth
century BCE. bpk, Berlin/Museo Archeologico, Venice,
Italy/Alfredo Dagli Orti/Art Resource, NY, ART332617.
Eros
• Eros was either Aphrodite’s son or her companion
• He is the animating force that propels all creatures
to reproduce and thrive
• He is shown with arrows which were believed to
induce love
• Aphrodite and Eros attracted the attention of many
philosophers, who treated them as metaphors to
explain passion, love, and lust
5.7 Eros in the role of archer. Red-figure lekythos, c. 500–480 BCE. Kimbell Art
Museum, Fort Worth, Texas / Art Resource, NY, ART334291.
Eros:
• Symbolism: male counterpart of Aphrodite
• Of course he has a dual aspect to his birth: He is referred to as an
early cosmic deity in Hesiod or his parents could be Ares and
Aphrodite
• Often depicted as an attendant of Aphrodite
• Attributes: May represent all aspects of desire and love, also the god
of male homosexuality.
• Shown often as a very handsome young man – the model for
masculine beauty in the Classical Period (500-400BCE)
From Eros to Cupid
• In Classical Athens, Eros was depicted as an
adolescent boy
• He represented a social practice wherein older
men developed sexual relationships with
younger men, which was thought to benefit
their development into mature citizens
• Later he was transformed into a group of infants
• By Roman times, infant Cupids had little
association with Eros’ role as a god of desire
5.8 Eros chases Atalanta. Detail from a red-figure
lekythos. Attributed to Douris, c. 500 BCE. Cleveland
Museum of Art, OH, USA / Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund /
Bridgeman Images, CVL1761955.
Classical Mythology in Context
Theory
Aphrodite, Hephaestus, and Ares
Priapus: Son of Aphrodite
• Parentage unknown: Pan, Hermes, Dionysus, Adonis or even Zeus
• Male fertility symbol, in Archaic to Classical Period (700-400BCE)
• Later Roman Empire often referred to in comedy and used for sign of
fertility
Symposia
•
Symposia were u...
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