What is Mythology?

1. What is Mythology? ?

2. Myths provide an aetiology; that is, they explain otherwise unanswerable questions, they provide reasons that things are the way they are. • Myths tackle such staggering topics as: • Where did the world come from? • Who created the first human being? • Why do the moon and stars light up at night? • Where does the sun go after it travels across the sky each day? • Why do the mountains give off an echo? • How did humans learn to harness the power (the light and heat) of fire? • What is the difference between humans and gods? • What is love?

3. Well, who wrote these myths? And why should I listen to them? The answer to that question is complex. Ancient cultures each had their own set of myths to explain many of the questions their people once had. We will study classic mythology, or the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Later, you will find myths from other cultures to include in your Mythology Notebook. Myths from many other cultures surrounding ancient Greece may have influenced the creation of the classical myths!

4. Well, who wrote these myths? And why should I listen to them? Myths served to explain questions that had no answers. For example: Ancient Greeks did not understand why the sun rose in the morning, moved across the sky as the day went on, and then disappeared in the evening. They created a myth, the story of Helius, God of the Sun, to explain this phenomenon. According to this myth, Helius emerged each day in the east, driving his chariot of the sun across the sky and then disappeared each night as he passed the westernmost horizon. Because the world was not round in those days, Helius had to ride the river Oceanus around the perimeter of the earth in a large golden cup to return to the east before the morning. As a modern people, we have scientific fact to explain the events of our world. We know, for example, that the rising and setting of the sun is caused by the rotations of our own earth. While myths no longer serve an explanatory purpose, they still are interesting to read, and can teach us much about those who came before us.

5. The Purpose of Myth • Other reasons for the creation of myths: • Religion • Stories of the gods and goddesses became the basis for their religions beliefs and practices. • Individual myths told the Greeks and Romans which gods to pray to for specific types of help. For example, the ancients prayed to: • Hestia (Vesta) for the safety of home and family • Athena (Minerva) for wisdom or courage • Demeter (Ceres) for a plentiful harvest • Artemis (Diana) for a successful hunt • Ares (Mars) for military might • Hermes (Mercury) for traveler’s aid • Poseidon (Neptune) for a safe sea voyage • Zeus (Jupiter) for justice • Aphrodite (Venus) for love

6. The Purpose of Myth • Other reasons for the creation of myths: • Order in Society • Myths also helped to create order in society. • Myths set rules for acceptable behavior in interactions with both men and gods. • Those that broke the laws of a god suffered the wrath of that god. For example: • Those who committed crimes against family members were tormented by Erinyes (Furies). • Hosts who scorned the laws of hospitality – or guests who sinned against their hosts – suffered the wrath of Zeus. • By encouraging socially acceptable behavior and discouraging crimes and other sins, myths helped to uphold and protect social order, while recognizing and respecting its fragility.

7. The Purpose of Myth • Other reasons for the creation of myths: • Rulers, social standing, and admired traits • The Romans used mythology to establish a line of descent for their kings and emperors. • The Babylonian myth Enuma Elish told the story of the first lord to govern the universe and also set up the authority of early kings. It also gave the royals the divine mandate to rule their people. • Many myths describe the adventures of heroes. These heroes often possess traits that a society views as admirable or heroic, for example honor, hospitality, loyalty, devotion to family, and thirst for adventure. • Although myths describe valued human traits they seldom included a moral. In only rare cases did myths include morals. This is what distinguishes the myth from the fable.

8. Exactly who wrote these myths? Were they poets? Kings? • The myths of Greece and Rome (and many other cultures, as well) come from an oral tradition. • In societies where most people were illiterate, myths were passed down from generation to generation or from storytellers to an audience. • We do not, however, know who originally created these myths. It seems reasonable to assume that they existed for centuries before anyone wrote them down. • We only know the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans because their oral traditions eventually became part of a written tradition. • Our knowledge of classical myth comes primarily from the works of eight poets and writers, or the “Big Eight”. • Two members of the “Big Eight”, Homer and Hesiod are recognized as the oldest sources of myth that we have only because they – or someone else who heard their recitations – took the trouble to write down the stories they narrated. Both Homer and Hesiod composed their works in the 8th or 7th century B.C.E.

9. The “Big Eight” Homer: Greek poet who (probably) composed the two greatest Greek epics: The Iliad and The Odyssey, which dealt with the events of the Trojan War (7/8th cent.) Hesiod: Greek poet who composed Theogeny, a poetic narrative of the creation of the world and the succession of gods (7/8th cent.) Aeschylus: Greek dramatist whose plays include the Orestia and Prometheus Bound (5th century) Sophocles: Greek dramatist whose plays include Electra, Antigone, and Oedipus Rex (5th century) Euripides:Greek dramatist whose plays include Medea, Hippolytus and Heracles (5th century) Apolodorus: a mysterious mythographer who wrote The Library, which describes everything from the creation of the world to the tales of gods and heroes (?) Vergil: Roman poet who wrote Rome’s greatest epic, The Aeneid, the tale of the hero Aeneas and his journey from Troy to Italy where he founded the Roman race (1st century) Ovid: Roman poet who wrote Metamorphoses, which is a collection of tales of people transformed into other shapes and sizes (1st century)

10. Elements of classical mythology • Mythology focuses on a wide range of topics overall, but each story includents, more or less, the same ingredients: • The pantheon of gods and goddesses, each with his or her own domain and attributes • Human and often superhuman characters (heroes who – though usually mortal – descended from the gods themselves) • Tales of extraordinary events, things that did not happen in everyday life (e.g. divine intervention, encounters with terrifying monsters, journeys to Olympus or the Underworld) • Specific places at unspecified times (mythic events occurred at places known to listeners but outside the realm of day-to-day experience – in other words, in a mythic time)

11. Elements of classical mythology • Mythology focuses on a wide range of topics overall, but each story includents, more or less, the same ingredients: • Separation or distance from ordinary, everyday human experience (gods intervened in the lives of heroes but not poets or their audiences) • The strong hand of destiny (future events were foretold by oracles, and no one could escape the hand of fate) • A reflection of the culture that gave rise to them (myths give us insights into how the ancient Greeks and Romans thought and felt about nature, society, gender and other aspects of their culture)

12. In The Beginning . . . Creation, according to the Greeks The World Began with Chaos. Depending on which version you read, Chaos is either an enormous chasm or a shapeless, mutable matter. After Chaos came Gaia, the earth. Gaia either rose on its own or was born of Chaos. Ovid stated that Gaia brought order to Chaos. Hesiod states that the Earth came into being to serve as a solid foundation for the home of the gods. The first four beings, Chaos, Gaia, then Tartarus (the lowest level of the underworlds), and finally Eros (love), the fairest of all immortals, sprang into being in Ovid’s creation without cause or explanation. Ovid attributes much of creation to a Divine Creator, who shaped the globe and then molded everything upon it: ponds, marshes, rivers, oceans, mountains, valleys, plains and forests. This Divine Creator also formed the Sky (which consisted of the stars and the heavens, the home of the gods). The Divine Creator added fish to the sea, beasts to the land and birds to the air.

13. In The Beginning . . . Creation, according to the Greeks Chaos gave birthto Erebus (darkness of the underworld) and Nyx (night). All other forces of darkness or negativity came from Chaos. Gaia gave birth to Uranus (Sky and god of the sky) and Pontus (Sea and god of sea). Uranus came first and emerged as Gaia’s equal, so that he might envelop her. Erebus, Nyx, Uranus and Pontus were born through parthenogenesis, which is creation resulting from just one gender.

14. In The Beginning . . . Creation, according to the Greeks Gaia and Uranus also brought forth the 12 Titans. Two of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys continued creation by mating and producing the 3,000 rivers of the earth, all of which draw from the mighty stream of Oceanus. They also produced 3,000 Oceanids, all of which were ocean goddesses. Nyx mated with Erebus and produced Hemera (day) and Aether (the upper air). Nyx and Hemera share a house, which is forever shrouded in the clouds of Tartarus(lowest level of underworlds). They never dwell in the house together, instead each waits for the other to depart before crossing a bronze threshold and entering their house. WhenNyx departs she cradles Hypnos (sleep, also Thanatos’s brother), and greets her daughter Hemera but only in passing. Nyxalso spawnedMoros (Doom), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), Nemesis (goddess of retribution), Eris (Strife), The Keres(female death-spirits charged with the collection and carrying off of the bodies of the dead), and The Moirai (Fates). Eris (Strife)bred a host of woes ranging from Famine and Sorrows to Lies and Murder, according to Hesiod.

15. In The Beginning . . . • Creation, according to the Greeks • Before the Titans, Gaia and Uranus (Earth and Sky) gave birth to six other children: • Cottus, Briareus and Gyges: all giants, these three brothers each had 50 heads and 100 arms. They were the mightiest of Gaia and Uranus’s children. • The giants had great strength and imposing presence and were feared even by the mightiest of the Titans and later gods. Zeus, who envied their incredible strength, cast them down into Tartarus. • Brontes, Steropes and Arges: all Cyclopes (had only one eye), these children later became the forgers of thunder and lightning. They were also arrogant, powerful and unwilling to bow to authority. To punish their behavior, and to prevent them from become a threat to him, Zeus threw them down into Tartarus as well, imprisoning the Cyclopes with their brothers in the deepest, gloomiest section of the Underworld.

16. The Titans Gaia and Uranus produced 12 other children, later known as the Titans: Theia: an early goddess of light Rhea: an earth goddess, later the mother of the Olympian gods Themis: an earth goddess or mother goddess like Rhea and Gaia Mnemosyne: a personification of memory Phoebe: an early moon goddess Tethys: the most ancient goddess of the sea Oceanus: the first-born of the Titans, both the god of the river Oceanus and the river itself, which flowed from the Underworld in a circular and never-ending stream around the edge of the earth Coeus: the father of Leto Crius: the father of Astraeus Iapetus: the father of Prometheus Cronus: the youngest of the Titans but the craftiest and most daring of all

17. It’s All Relative More Titans Gaia also bore: the Erinyes (Furies) – Alecto, Tisiphone and Megara who avenge perjury and crimes against one’s own family (such as patricide, or castrating one’s own father) the race of Giants – born in full armor with spears in their hands the “Ash Tree Nymphs” – later inhabited the forests of Greece.

18. The Next Generation Offspring of the first Titans Theia and Hyperion fell in love and married each other, and produced three children: a son, Helius and the actual sun; Selene, the moon; and Eros, the dawn. Phoebe and Coeus were brought together by the moon and conceived two daughters, Leto, the sweetest and most gentle of the goddesses,and Asteria. Oceanus and Tethys joined to produce all of the 3,000 rivers each with its own god, and the 3,000 female Oceanids. Cronos and Rhea, the father and mother of the gods, produced the Olympians: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.