Lesson Three: the Nature of Mythology and the Greekgods

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Lesson Three: The nature of mythology and the GreekGods.

One of the most widely known and popular bequest of the civilization of ancient Greece is the surviving collection of Greek myths and legends.

These stories are often told in a form suitable for children. The original tales had deeper meanings for those who told and those who listened. They were intended for adults, as they are complex, detailed and contain a great deal of violence and sex.

What are myths?

A traditional tale. This means it is a story with characters and a plot and it has been passed down through successive generations.

The Greek term MUTHOS means something that is spoken, and, in most societies, Greek myths were made up and passed on by word of mouth in an age before writing was invented or was in general use.

The Greek myths also regularly involve the gods or contain some element of the supernatural. Belief in the supernatural was widespread and sincere.

Poets and writers throughout the Greek world later reworked these primitive tales. Some were ‘cleaned up or tidied up. Sometimes details were inserted for political reasons, and sometimes the poet inserted messages/themes of his own.

The basic tales of Greek mythology were turned into sophisticated literature and were often retold in other media such as dance, plays, music, song, painting and sculpture.

Ever since classical times, artists have found the myths a source of inspiration – it is now used in the new media of films and tv.

Myths and other types of story

Myths are often coupled with LEGENDS which are traditional tales based on some historical facts. Eg the stories of the Athenian hero Theseus include details of how he linked all the small settlements of Attica into a confederation with Athens as the leading city. This was a historical event, though it happened several centuries after Theseus is supposed to have lived! So the tales of the Trojan War exist as legend rather than myths.

THE SAGA - is a lengthy tale told in episodes, of the adventures of a hero or heroes. The Odyssey is a saga. The adventures of the Argonauts in search of the golden Fleece may be called sagas.

FOLK TALES – simple adventure stories in which a hero or heroine fulfils a basic human dream by marrying a princess, or prince, making a fortune, overcoming a villain or a monster, and living happily ever after. They include magic objects and cloaks or rings to give invisibility. But they rarely include divine beings like gods. Eg the story of Perseus, with his winged sandals and helmet of invisibility, who slew monsters and rescued and married a princess, has some of the elements found in folk tales.

It is not a simple matter to sort out where myth ends and legend, saga or folk tale begins.

Types of Myth

It is difficult to find anything that all myths have in common. Most include gods and the supernatural, but for some this is a prime concern, while in others the gods scarcely rate a mention.

Most myths convey a deeper meaning or message, but again the nature of these messages varies.

Most myths will fall into at least one of the following categories:

CREATION MYTHS – explain how the world and how human beings came into existence.

RELIGIOUS MYTHS – look at the nature of the gods and their relationship to each other and to their world. Eg. The tales of Zeus and his family.

Other religious myths explore the relationship of humans with their gods, the meaning of like and the nature of death. Many myths fall into this category. Eg the stories of Orpheus and Achilles.

QUEST MYTHS OR PUNISHMENT MYTHS – Some myths deal primarily with the relationship of humans with one another or with their world. A hero proves his greatness or a hero atones for crimes. Eg The myths surrounding Heracles.

NATURE MYTHS – explain phenomena like the weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, day and night, the cycle of the seasons, the growth of crops, human conception …eg The tale of the rape of Persephone explains the seasons, while the story of Eurynome reflects an ancient belief that women were fertilized by the wind.

CHARTER MYTHS explain and justify existing social values, customs, beliefs and rituals. Athenian democracy did not extend the vote to women, and according to myth they lost this right when they voted for Athene as patron of their city, in preference to Poseidon who angrily demanded this revenge for being slighted typical!

PSYCHOLOGICAL MYTHS – may reflect human dreams and desires. Eg the story of King Oedipus who unwittingly murdered his father and married his mother. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud decided that the tale reflected how all males subconsciously see their fathers as rivals and want to get rid of them so they can marry their mothers, the first women they loved!

Interpreting myths in this way is SPECULATIVE AND CONTROVERSIAL as it carries the assumption not only that the ancient Greeks thought the same as we do but also that such thoughts are universal among all peoples.

If it is accepted that such interpretations are valid, much of the behaviour of gods like Zeus and heroes like Heracles can be explained.

Do both act with the strength and freedom all men crave but few can have?

HISTORICAL MYTHS may reflect actual events that happened long ago. Does the tale of the Deluge of the great flood reflect the flooding of the Black Sea basin after the last Ice Age? Does the tale of Phaethon recall the destruction caused by a comet or asteroid? Does the relentless and often brutal subjection of goddesses, Titanesses, nymphs and mortal women reflect the suppression by Achaean invaders of the Mother Goddess cult? Explanations are speculative and often controversial.

How and when did Greek myths come into being?

Most Greek myths had their origins in the Greek world of the second millennium BC, that is between 2000 and 1000 BC, and to understand those origins it is necessary to go back at least another thousand years to look at that world and at the people who lived in it.

Look at the map and find the following four regions.

1. On the right, the coast of Asia Minor with the city of Troy.

2. In the centre, mainland Greece with the city of Mycenae in the southern peninsula of the Peloponnese.

3. Between Greece and Asia Minor, the group of islands called the Cyclades, including Thera to the South.

4. Further to the south the large island of Crete with the city of Knossos.

Around 3000 BC the peoples living in these four regions were probably of similar ethnic origins and probably spoke a similar language. It is likely that they migrated from the east, from somewhere in the vicinity of Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, where agriculture had largely replaced hunting as a way of life several thousand years earlier.

They had brought with them the lifestyle of cultivating crops, primarily grains, and domesticating animals such as sheep and goats. Their religion appears to reflect their way of life.

Since their livelihood might be threatened by natural events such as drought or storms, to prevent disasters they tried to placate destructive spirits, whom they generally thought of as male.

Their prime worship, by contrast, was devoted to female spirits, whom they believed were responsible for the fertility of crops, animals and women.

Although there are no written records from this time, archaeologists have unearthed permanent agricultural settlements with the remains of houses, pottery and burials, and also small female figures with rudimentary heads and limbs but well-developed breasts and buttocks, the bellies usually swollen as if in advanced pregnancy. These were fertility figures, stressing the desired results of sexual intercourse rather than the act itself, in an effort to influence and cause bountiful reproduction in animals and vegetation as well as in humans.

Modern taste often considers these figures grotesque, because the lives of most people these days are remote from concerns about fertility.

Today the ‘ideal’ woman is a beautiful, seductive and currently an impossibly thin ‘sex object’, apparently quite unconnected with child-bearing.

Greek mythology and religion 3000BC when metal replaces stone.

Before 3000BC the inhabitants of the Mediterranean world used tools and weapons of wood or stone, and the era is called Neolithic, meaning the new or last Stone Age.

Around 3000 BC the techniques of working metals, especially bronze, began spreading throughout all these regions, and civilization began to flourish.

The name Bronze Age covers the period from 3000 to 1100BC. It is probable that in the early Bronze Age the worship of generalized female spirits came to focus on a single fertility goddess, equated with the earth and thought of as a mother figure.

According to some myths, settlements were ruled by a queen representing the goddess, who each year took as her consort a youth whose status was much lower than hers. Each year this ‘king’ was sacrificed so that his blood might symbolically fertilise the earth. It is even suggested that at this time family lines were traced through the mother, who was in effect the head of the family. This is what is called a ‘matriarchal society’. Writers sometimes call these early people the Pelasgians.

The arrival of the Acheans

Around 2000 BC another group of migrants came in from the east.

Mainland Greece was invaded from the north by several waves of migrants who were culturally less advanced but militarily more aggressive than the Pelasgians.

These people overran the Pelasgians, slaughtering and burning as they advanced.

Eventually they settled and absorbed those they had spared.

Civilisation was set back for many years, and Greek religion took a new turn.

The conquerers’ prime devotion was given to male gods of hunting and war, who dominated both earth and sky from their homes on mountain peaks.

The social structures were strongly patriarchal, meaning family descent was traced through the father, who was the head of the family. These people still practiced fertility rituals but the whole emphasis changed so that the male contribution instead of the female was thought of as the prime source of fertility.

In the new myths, the mother goddess had to become the consort of the supreme male god, and tales from all parts of Greece relate how females, both goddesses and mortals, were subordinated to males – usually by being raped!

Homer refers to these invaders as the Achaeans. They were the first true ancestors of the classical Greeks.

They spoke the language that would some day be used for the first western literature, and worshipped the gods which would feature in classical mythology.

The Civilisation of Crete

The invaders of the Cycladic Islands and Asia minor seem to have been more civilized than the Achaeans, and life in these areas was less disrupted.

Some of the newcomers settled in a highly strategic coastal location commanding trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, and some 700 years later legends would make their descendants victims of a Greek invasion in the Trojan War.

But no invaders reached the island of Crete to disrupt its way of life, and for the next 500 years its civilisaton, centred on Knossos, was by far the most advanced, culturally, in the eastern Mediterranean.

It is generally called the Minoan civilization from the name of the legendary King Minos. Archaeologists have demonstrated that there was a high degree of skill in arts and crafts, including writing.

It appears that, although the Minoans worshipped many divinities, both in caves and at sanctuaries on mountain peaks, the most important was the earth goddess, or mother goddess.

There were also some ceremonies or sports connected with bulls.

None of the Minoan towns that have been excavated to date show remnants of walls. This suggests that its citizens had a navy powerful enough to repel any attack.

At some stage this navy may have been used to demand some form of tax from cities on mainland Greece, and the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur may reflect this.

The destruction of the Minoan civilization.

On the mainland, the Achaeans were slowly building a culture of their own. There were a number of important settlements but the main centre was Mycenae, and the term Mycenaean is usually applied in general to this civilsation.

They were still a warlike people and each important settlement consisted of a town surrounding a strongly fortified citadel ruled by a warrior kind.

Attacks on neighbours were not uncommon, and around 1450BC mainland warriors appear to have crossed the sea and invaded Crete, burning most of its towns.

It is a common pattern throughout history for culturally advanced cities to become militarily weak over a period of time and to be overrun by more vigorous ‘barbarians’, and Crete’s downfall may simply have been due to natural social decay.

Another possibility is that when one of the most southern islands in the Cyclades, the volcano Thera, erupted on an enormous scale in about 1500, it devastated Crete, some 90km to the south, with ash and tidal waves.

Perhaps the Mycenaeans simply took advantage of this disaster.

In any event, a Greek-speaking group briefly ruled Crete from Knossos until it too was burnt around 1380, and one of the most brilliant ancient civilisations ended. But is was to leave an indelible mark in Greek myth. The complex ruins of the palace of Knossos were seen as the labyrinth of the Minotaur, and the eruption of Thera, which blasted most of the little island into oblivion, may have given rise to the story of the destruction of Atlantis.