Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks. These stories concern the origin and the nature of the world, the lives and activities of.
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In Ancient Roman times, a new Roman mythology was born through syncretization of numerous Greek and other foreign gods. This occurred because the Romans had little mythology of their own, and inheritance of the Greek mythological tradition caused the major Roman gods to adopt characteristics of their Greek equivalents. In addition to the combination of the two mythological traditions, the association of the Romans with eastern religions led to further syncretizations. The Asiatic divinities Mithras that is to say, the Sun and Ba'al were combined with Apollo and Helios into one Sol Invictus , with conglomerated rites and compound attributes.
The traditional literary mythology was increasingly dissociated from actual religious practice. The worship of Sol as special protector of the emperors and of the empire remained the chief imperial religion until it was replaced by Christianity. The surviving 2nd-century collection of Orphic Hymns second century AD and the Saturnalia of Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius fifth century are influenced by the theories of rationalism and the syncretizing trends as well.
The Orphic Hymns are a set of pre-classical poetic compositions, attributed to Orpheus, himself the subject of a renowned myth. In reality, these poems were probably composed by several different poets, and contain a rich set of clues about prehistoric European mythology. In Saturnalia reappear mythographical comments influenced by the Euhemerists, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists. The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the eighteenth century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained.
The development of comparative philology in the 19th century, together with ethnological discoveries in the 20th century, established the science of myth. Since the Romantics, all study of myth has been comparative. Wilhelm Mannhardt , James Frazer , and Stith Thompson employed the comparative approach to collect and classify the themes of folklore and mythology. Sigmund Freud introduced a transhistorical and biological conception of man and a view of myth as an expression of repressed ideas. Dream interpretation is the basis of Freudian myth interpretation and Freud's concept of dreamwork recognizes the importance of contextual relationships for the interpretation of any individual element in a dream.
This suggestion would find an important point of rapprochment between the structuralist and psychoanalytic approaches to myth in Freud's thought. Segal concludes that "to interpret a myth Campbell simply identifies the archetypes in it. An interpretation of the Odyssey , for example, would show how Odysseus's life conforms to a heroic pattern. Jung, by contrast, considers the identification of archetypes merely the first step in the interpretation of a myth".
In , he claimed that "the most important discovery which has been made during the nineteenth century with respect to the ancient history of mankind It appears that the Mycenaean religion was the mother of the Greek religion [] and its pantheon already included many divinities that can be found in classical Greece.
Archaeology and mythography have revealed influence from Asia Minor and the Near East. Adonis seems to be the Greek counterpart—more clearly in cult than in myth—of a Near Eastern "dying god". Cybele is rooted in Anatolian culture while much of Aphrodite's iconography may spring from Semitic goddesses. There are also possible parallels between the earliest divine generations Chaos and its children and Tiamat in the Enuma Elish. In addition to Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated on the debts of Greek mythology to the indigenous pre-Greek societies: Crete , Mycenae, Pylos , Thebes and Orchomenus.
Nilsson asserts, based on the representations and general function of the gods, that a lot of Minoan gods and religious conceptions were fused in the Mycenaean religion. The widespread adoption of Christianity did not curb the popularity of the myths. With the rediscovery of classical antiquity in the Renaissance , the poetry of Ovid became a major influence on the imagination of poets, dramatists, musicians and artists. In Northern Europe, Greek mythology never took the same hold of the visual arts, but its effect was very obvious on literature.
The English imagination was fired by Greek mythology starting with Chaucer and John Milton and continuing through Shakespeare to Robert Bridges in the 20th century. Racine in France and Goethe in Germany revived Greek drama, reworking the ancient myths. By the end of the 18th century, Romanticism initiated a surge of enthusiasm for all things Greek, including Greek mythology. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Scenes from Greek mythology depicted in ancient art. Clockwise from top left: Satyrs Centaurs Dragons Demogorgon. Greek primordial gods and Family tree of the Greek gods.
Heracles , Heracleidae , and Hercules. Theban Cycle and Seven Against Thebes. Trojan War and Epic Cycle. Modern understanding of Greek mythology. Mycenaean religion ; Mycenaean deities ; and Similarities between Roman, Greek and Etruscan mythologies. Greek mythology in western art and literature. List of films based on Greco-Roman mythology and Greek mythology in popular culture.
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Retrieved 26 March City University of New York. An epic poem about the Battle of Troy. New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. Richard Aldington and Delano Ames. Burkert, Greek Religion , ; T. Retrieved 25 September Johns Hopkins University Press , p. Mallory , Douglas Q. Oxford University Press, p.
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Apollodorus, Library and Epitome. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica , Book I. See original text in Sacred Texts. See original text in the Latin Library. Herodotus, The Histories , I. See original text in the Sacred Texts. Hesiod, Works and Days. Translated into English by Hugh G. Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. Translated into English by Gregory Nagy. Homeric Hymn to Demeter. See original text in Perseus project. Homeric Hymn to Hermes. Pindar, Pythian Odes , Pythian 4: See original text in the Perseus program.
Greek and Egyptian Mythologies. University of Chicago Press. Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology. Archaic and Classical translated by John Raffan. University of Texas Press. Medieval A Companion to Tragedy. University Press of Florida. Approaches to Greek Myth. Johns Hopkins University Press. The Gay Greek Myths.
The Spartans translated in Greek. The Uses of Greek Mythology. The History of Fiction. Foley, John Miles Myth and Poetry in Lucretius. The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Hanson, Victor Davis; Heath, John The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Rose's "A Handbook of Greek mythology". Essays on a Science of Mythology Reprint ed. An Outline of Greek and Roman Mythology. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen University of California Press. The Nature of Greek Myths. Mary, Brazouski Antoinette Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae.
Classical Mythology in English Literature: University of Illinois Press. Archaeology As Cultural History. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy. Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece. Etude de mythologie comparee indo-europeenne by Georges Dumezil " ". Reinhold, Meyer October 20, Rose, Herbert Jennings Archived from the original on January 7, Univ of Massachusetts Press.
Stoll, Heinrich Wilhelm translated by R. Handbook of the religion and mythology of the Greeks. Francis and John Rivington. Walsh, Patrick Gerald Thus, the Homeric Hymns to Demeter , a goddess of agriculture, and to the Delian and Pythian Apollo describe how these deities came to be associated with sites at Eleusis , Delos , and Delphi , respectively. Poseidon god of the sea was unusually atavistic in that his union with Earth, and his equine adventures appear to hark back to his pre-marine status as a horse or earthquake god.
Many myths are treated as trivial and lighthearted, but this judgment rests on the suppressed premise that any divine behaviour that seems inappropriate for a major religion must have seemed absurd and fictitious to the Greeks. As time went on, an accretion of minor myths continued to supplement the older and more authentic ones. Such etiological myths proliferated during the Hellenistic era, though in the earlier periods genuine examples are harder to detect.
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Of folk deities, the nymphs nature goddesses personified nature or the life in water or trees and were said to punish unfaithful lovers. Water nymphs Naiads were reputed to drown those with whom they fell in love, such as Hylas , a companion of Heracles.
Even the gentle Muses goddesses of the arts and sciences blinded their human rivals, such as the bard Thamyris. Like sea deities, sileni possessed secret knowledge that they would reveal only under duress.
Greek mythology
Charon , the grisly ferryman of the dead, was also a popular figure of folktale. Hero myths included elements from tradition, folktale, and fiction. The saga of the Argonauts , for example, is highly complex and includes elements from folktale and fiction. Even heroes like Achilles , Hector , or Diomedes are largely fictional, though doubtlessly based on legendary prototypes. The Odyssey is the prime example of the wholesale importation of folktales into epic. All the best-known Greek hero myths, such as the labours of Heracles and the adventures of Perseus , Cadmus , Pelops , or Oedipus, depend more for their interest on folktales than on legend.
Certain heroes—Heracles, the Dioscuri the twins Castor and Pollux , Amphiaraus one of the Argonauts , and Hyacinthus a youth whom Apollo loved and accidentally killed —may be regarded as partly legend and partly religious myth. Thus, whereas Heracles , a man of Tiryns, may originally have been a historical character, the myth of his demise on Oeta and subsequent elevation to full divinity is closely linked with a cult. Similarly, the exploits of the Dioscuri are those of typical heroes: After their death they passed six months alternately beneath the Earth and in the world above, which suggests that their worship , like that of Persephone the daughter of Zeus and Demeter , was connected with fertility or seasonal change.
Certain myths, in which goddesses or heroes were temporarily incarcerated in the underworld, were allegories of seasonal renewal. Perhaps the best-known myth of this type is the one that tells how Hades Latin Pluto , the god of the underworld, carried Persephone off to be his consort, causing her mother, Demeter , the goddess of grain, to allow the earth to grow barren out of her grief.
THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGY
In less benign climates, she was said to spend six months of the year in each. Myths of seasonal renewal, in which the deity dies and returns to life at particular times of the year, are plentiful. An important Greek example is the Cretan Zeus, mentioned above. Many Greek myths involve animal transformations, though there is no proof that theriolatry animal worship was ever practiced by the Greeks.
Gods sometimes assumed the form of beasts in order to deceive goddesses or women.
Greek Mythology
Zeus , for example, assumed the form of a bull when he carried off Europa , a Phoenician princess, and he appeared in the guise of a swan in order to attract Leda , wife of a king of Sparta. Poseidon took the shape of a stallion to beget the wonder horses Arion and Pegasus. These myths do not suggest theriolatry. No worship is offered to the deity concerned. The animals serve other purposes in the narratives. Bulls were the most powerful animals known to the Greeks and may have been worshipped in the remote past.
Other types of myth exemplified the belief that the gods sometimes appeared on Earth disguised as men and women and rewarded any help or hospitality offered them. Baucis, an old Phrygian woman, and Philemon , her husband, for example, were saved from a flood by offering hospitality to Zeus and Hermes, both of whom were in human form.
Similar to such stories are the moral tales about the fate of Icarus , who flew too high on homemade wings, or the myth about Phaethon , the son of Helios, who failed to perform a task too great for him controlling the horses of the chariot of the Sun.
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Also popular were myths of fairylands, such as the Garden of the Hesperides in the far west or the land of the Hyperboreans in the far north , or encounters with unusual creatures, such as the Centaurs, or distinctive societies, such as the Amazons. Western people of all eras have been moved and baffled by the deceptive simplicity of Greek myths, and Greek mythology has had a profound effect on the development of Western civilization.
The earliest visual representations of mythological characters and motifs occur in late Mycenaean and sub-Mycenaean art. Mythological and epic themes are also found in Geometric art of the 8th century bce , but not until the 7th century did such themes become popular in both ceramic and sculptured works. During the Classical and subsequent periods, they became commonplace.
The birth of Athena was the subject of the east pediment of the Parthenon in Athens, and the legend of Pelops and of the labours of Heracles were the subjects of the corresponding pediment and the metopes a space on a Doric frieze of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The battles of gods with Giants and of Lapiths a wild race in northern Greece with Centaurs were also favourite motifs. Pompeian frescoes reveal realistic representations of Theseus and Ariadne , Perseus, the fall of Icarus, and the death of Pyramus.
The great Renaissance masters added a new dimension to Greek mythology. The German composers Christoph Gluck 18th century and Richard Strauss 20th century , the German-French composer Jacques Offenbach 19th century , the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky 20th century , and many others have set Greek mythological themes to music. We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind.
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Hercules known in Greek as Heracles or Herakles is one of the best-known heroes in Greek and Roman mythology.
Greek Mythology - HISTORY
His life was not easy—he endured many trials and completed many daunting tasks—but the reward for his suffering was a promise that he would live forever among the gods Cleopatra VII ruled ancient Egypt as co-regent first with her two younger brothers and then with her son for almost three decades.
She became the last in a dynasty of Macedonian rulers founded by Ptolemy, who served as general under Alexander the Great during his conquest of The term Ancient, or Archaic, Greece refers to the time three centuries before the classical age, between B. Archaic Greece saw advances in art, poetry and technology, but most of all it was the age in which The classical period was an era of war and conflict—first between the Greeks and the Persians, then between the By turns charismatic and ruthless, brilliant and power hungry, diplomatic and This website uses cookies for analytics, personalization, and advertising.
Click here to learn more or change your cookie settings. By continuing to browse, you agree to our use of cookies. The Olympians At the center of Greek mythology is the pantheon of deities who were said to live on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece.