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found at
Otricoli (
Vatican Museums)
Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the
Ancient Greece concerning their Polytheism and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own Cult (religious practice) and ritual practices. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of Ancient Greece and on the Ancient Greek civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.
Greek mythology is embodied explicitly in a large collection of narratives and implicitly in representational arts, such as Pottery of ancient Greece and Votive deposit. Greek myth explains the origins of the world and details the lives and adventures of a wide variety of
List of Greek mythological figures, and other
List of Greek mythological creatures. These accounts were initially disseminated in an oral tradition; the Greek myths are known today primarily from Greek literature. The oldest known literary sources, the
Epic poetrys
Iliad and
Odyssey, focus on events surrounding the Trojan War. Two poems by
Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the
Theogony and the
Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the
Epic Cycle, in Lyric poetrys, in the works of the tragedians of the
5th century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic civilization and in writers of the time of the
Roman Empire, for example, Plutarch and Pausanias (geographer).
Monumental evidence at Mycenaean Greece and
Minoan civilization sites helped to explain many of the questions about Homer's epics and provided Archaeology evidence of many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Greek mythology was also depicted in artifacts; Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. In the succeeding Archaic period in Greece, Ancient Greece and Hellenistic Greece periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.
Greek mythology has had extensive influence on the culture, the arts and the literature of
Western culture and remains part of Western heritage and language. It has been a part of the educational fabric from childhood, while poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in classical mythological themes.J.M. Foley,
Homer's Traditional Art, 43
Sources of Greek mythology
{| border= "0" style="float: right;"| (1868 by
Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus was first attested by Hesiodus and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of
Prometheus Bound,
Prometheus Unbound and
Prometheus Pyrphoros], preserved details of Greek mythology in many of his writings.|-| killing a Trojan prisoner in front of
Charon (mythology) on a
red-figure Etruscan civilization calyx-krater, made towards the end of the 4th century-beginning of the 3rd century BC.|}
Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric Style (c. 900-800 BC) onward.F. Graf,
Greek Mythology, 200
Literary sources
Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the
Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus) of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 1
Among the literary sources first in age are Homer's two epic poems, the
Iliad and the
Odyssey. Other poets completed the "epic cycle", but these later and lesser poems are now almost entirely lost. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the earlier part of the so-called Lyric poetry.Miles,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 7 Hesiod, a possible contemporary with Homer, offers in
Theogony (
Origin of the Gods) the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing with the creation of the world; the origin of the gods, Titans and
Giant (mythology); elaborate genealogies and folktales and etiological myths. Hesiod's
Works and Days, a didactic poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus,
Pandora and the
Ages of Man. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world rendered yet more dangerous by its gods.
Lyrical poets sometimes take their subjects from myth, but the treatment becomes gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides,
Simonides of Ceos, and bucolic poets, such as
Theocritus and
Bion, provide individual mythological incidents.Klatt-Brazouski,
Ancient Greek nad Roman Mythology, xii Additionally, myth was central to classical Ancient Athens drama. The tragic playwrights
Aeschylus, Sophocles and
Euripides took their plots from the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories (i.e.
Agamemnon and his children,
Oedipus,
Jason, Medea etc.) took on their classic form in these tragic plays. For his part, the comic playwright
Aristophanes used myths, as in
The Birds (play) or
The Frogs.Miles,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 8
Historians Herodotus and
Diodorus Siculus, and geographers Pausanias (geographer) and
Strabo, who traveled around the Greek world and noted the stories they heard, supply numerous local myths, often giving little-known, alternative versions. Herodotus in particular, searched the various traditions presented him and found the historical or mythological roots in the confrontation between Greece and the East.P. Cartledge,
The Spartans, 60, and
The Greeks, 22
The poetry of the
Hellenistic and
Ancient Rome ages, which although composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise, nevertheless contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of:
The Roman poets Ovid, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, Seneca and Virgil with Servius's commentary.
The Greek poets of the Late Antiquity period: Nonnus, Antoninus Liberalis and Quintus Smyrnaeus.
The Greek poets of the Hellenistic period: Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Eratosthenes and Parthenius.
The ancient novels of Greeks and Romans such as Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus and Heliodorus of Emesa.
The
Fabulae and
Astronomica of the Roman writer styled Gaius Julius Hyginus are two important, non-poetical compendiums of myth. The
Imagines of
Philostratus the Elder and Younger and the Descriptions of Callistratus, are two other useful sources.
Finally, the Christian apologist
Arnobius, quoting cult practices in order to disparage them, and a number of Byzantine Greek writers provide important details of myth, some of it sourced from lost Greek works. These preservers of myth include Hesychius of Alexandria' lexicon, the
Suda, and the treatises of John Tzetzes and Eustathius. The Christian moralizing view of Greek myth is encapsulated in the saying /
en panti muthōi kai to Daidalou musos ("In every myth there is also the defilement of Daidalos"), on which subject the encyclopedic
Sudas reported of the role of
Daedalus in satisfying the "unnatural lust" of Pasiphae for the bull of Poseidon: "Since the origin and blame for these evils were attributed to Daidalos and he was loathed for them, he became the subject of the proverb." Pasiphae, Encyclopedia: Greek Gods, Spirits, Monsters
Archaeological sources
The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by German amateur
archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the
19th century, and the discovery of the
Minoan civilization in
Crete by British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans in the 20th century, helped to explain many of the questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeoloical evidence of many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Unfortunately, the evidence about myth and ritual at Mycenaean and Minoan sites is entirely monumental, as the
Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek found in both Crete and Greece) was mainly used to record inventories, though the names of gods and heroes have been doubtfully revealed.
Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. These visual representations of myths are important for two reasons; on the one hand, many Greek myths are attested on vases earlier than in literary sources (of the twelve labors of Heracles, only the Cerberus adventure occurs for the first time in a literary textHomer,
Iliad, 8. An epic poem about the Battle of Troy. 366–369) and, on the other hand, visual sources sometimes represent myths or mythical scenes that are not attested in any extant literary source. In some cases, the first known representation of a myth in geometric art predates its first known representation in late archaic poetry by several centuries. In the Archaic (c. 750–c. 500 BC), Classical (c. 480–323 BC), and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.
Survey of mythic history
The Greeks' mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their own culture. The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who assigned a spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human shape and entered the local mythology as gods and goddesses.Albala-Johnson-Johnson,
Understanding the Odyssey, 17 When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older deities of the agricultural world fused with those of the more powerful invaders or else faded into insignificance.Albala-Johnson-Johnson,
Understanding the Odyssey, 18
After the middle of the Archaic period myths about relationships between male gods and male heroes become more and more frequent, indicating the parallel development of
Pederasty in ancient Greece (Eros paidikos, παιδικός ἔρως), thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the 5th century BC, poets had assigned at least one
eromenos to every important god except Ares and to many legendary figures.A. Calimach,
Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths;, 12–109 Previously existing myths, such as that of
Achilles and
Patroclus, were also cast in a
Mythology of same-sex love.W.A. Percy,
Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece, 54 Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often adapted stories of Greek mythological characters.
The achievement of epic poetry was to create story-cycles, and as a result to develop a sense of mythological chronology. Thus Greek mythology unfolds like a phase in the development of the world and of man.K. Dowden,
The Uses of Greek Mythology, 11 While self-contradictions in the stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. The mythological history of the world can be divided in 3 or 4 broader periods:
The myths of origin or age of gods (Theogonies, "births of gods"): myths about the origins of the world, the gods, and the human race.
The age when gods and mortals mingled freely: stories of the early interactions between gods, demigods, and mortals.
The age of heroes (heroic age), where divine activity was more limited. The last and greatest of the heroic legends is the stories of the Trojan War and after (regarded by some researchers as a separate fourth period).G. Miles, Classical Mythology in English Literature, 35
While the age of gods has often been of more interest to contemporary students of myth, the Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for the age of heroes. For example, the heroic
Iliad and
Odyssey dwarfed the divine-focused
Theogony and Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity. Under the influence of Homer the "hero cult" leads to a restructuring in spiritual life, expressed in the separation of the realm of the gods from the realm of the dead (=heroes), of the Olympian from the
Chthonic.W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 205 In the
Works and Days, Hesiod makes use of a scheme of Four Ages of Man (or Races): Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are separate creations of the gods, the Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronus, the subsequent races the creation of Zeus. Hesiod intercalates the Age (or Race) of Heroes just after the
Bronze Age. The final age was the Iron Age, during which the poet himself lived. The poet regards it as the worst; the presence of evil was explained by Pandora's myth.Hesiod,
Works and Days, 90–105 In
Metamorphoses (poem) Ovid follows Hesiod's concept of the four ages.Ovid,
Metamorphoses, I, 89–162
Age of gods
Cosmogony and cosmology
(
Love Conquers All), a depiction of the god of love, Eros. By
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1601–1602."Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to render the universe comprehensible in human terms and explain the origin of the world.Klatt-Brazouski,
Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology, 10 The most widely accepted account of beginning of things as reported by Hesiod's
Theogony, starts with
Chaos (mythology), a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Ge or Gaia (mythology) (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (god) (Love), the
Abyss (religion) (the
Tartarus), and the Erebus.Hesiod,
Theogony,
s:Theogony Without male assistance Gaia gave birth to
Uranus (mythology) (the Sky) who then fertilised her. From that union were born, first, the
Titans: six males and six females (
Oceanus,
Coeus and
Crius and Hyperion (mythology) and
Iapetus (mythology), Theia and
Rhea (mythology), Themis and
Mnemosyne, Phoebe (mythology) and Tethys (mythology), and Cronus); then the one-eyed
Cyclops and the
Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handers. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of children")castrated his father and became the ruler of the gods with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became his court. This motif of father/son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Zeus, persuaded by his mother, challenged him to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes, (whom Zeus freed from Tarturus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.Hesiod,
Theogony,
s:TheogonyThe earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogony to be the prototypical poetic genre — the prototypical
mythos — and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius'
Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When
Hermes invents the
lyre in the
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing the birth of the gods.
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, 414–435 Hesiod's
Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses. Theogony was also the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus, Epimenides, Abaris and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and
mystery religion. There are indications that Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony.G. Betegh,
The Derveni Papyrus, 147 A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonism philosophers and recently unearthed
papyrus scraps. One of these scraps, the Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the 5th century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence. This poem attempted to outdo Hesiod's
Theogony and the genealogy of the gods was extended back with
Nyx (mythology) (Night) as an ultimate beginning before Uranus, Cronus and Zeus.W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 236
* G. Betegh,
The Derveni Papyrus, 147
The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as a flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon and stars. The Sun (Helios) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades, home of the dead.
* K. Algra,
The Beginnings of Cosmology, 45
Greek gods
by
Nicolas-André Monsiau, circa late 18th century.
According to Classical-era mythology, after the overthrow of the Titans, the new Pantheon (gods) of God (male deity) and
goddesses was confirmed. Among the principal Greek deities were the Olympians (The limitation of their number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively modern idea),H.W. Stoll,
Religion and Mythology of the Greeks, 8 residing atop
Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus. Besides the Olympians, the Greeks worshiped various gods of the countryside, the goat-god
Pan (mythology),
Nymphs (spirits of rivers), Naiads (who dwelled in springs), Dryads (who were spirits of the trees),
Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods,
Satyrs, and others. In addition, there were the dark powers of the underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those guilty of crimes against blood-relatives. In order to honor the ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs).J. Cashford,
The Homeric Hymns, vii Gregory Nagy regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as simple preludes (compared with
Theogony), each of which invokes one god".G. Nagy,
Greek Mythology and Poetics, 54
In the wide variety of myths and legends that Greek mythology consists of, the deities that were native to the Greek peoples are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies. According to
Walter Burkert, the defining characteristic of Greek anthropomorphism is that "the Greek gods are persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts".W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 182 Regardless of their underlying forms, the ancient Greek gods have many fantastic abilities; most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease, and can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances. The Greeks considered immortality as the distinctive characteristic of their gods; this immortality, as well as unfading youth, was insured by the constant use of
nectar and ambrosia, by which the divine blood was renewed in their veins.H.W. Stoll,
Religion and Mythology of the Greeks, 4 seduces Leda (mythology), the Queen of Sparta. A sixteenth century copy of the lost original by
Michelangelo.Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods were called upon in poetry, prayer or cult, they are referred to by a combination of their name and
epithets, that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves (e.g.
Apollo Musagetes is "
Apollo, leader of the
Muses"). Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece.
Most gods were associated with specific aspects of life. For example,
Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty,
Ares was the god of war,
Hades the god of the dead, and Athena the goddess of wisdom and courage.H.W. Stoll,
Religion and Mythology of the Greeks, 20ff Some deities, such as Apollo and Dionysus, revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more than personifications. The most impressive
Temple (Greek)s tended to be dedicated to a limited number of gods, who were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and villages to devote their own cults to minor gods. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere. During the heroic age, the cult of heroes (or demi-gods) supplemented this of the gods.
Age of gods and men
Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and men moved together. These were the early days of the world when the groups mingled more freely than they did later. Most of these tales were later told by Ovid's
Metamorphoses and they are often divided in two thematic groups: tales of love, and tales of punishment.G. Mile,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 38
Tales of love often involve incest, or the seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories generally suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are something to avoid; even consenting relationships rarely have happy endings.G. Mile,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 39 In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as in the
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess lies with Anchises to produce Aeneas.
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, 75–109 The marriage of
Peleus and
Thetis, which yielded Achilles, is another such myth.
with satyrs. Interior of a cup painted by the Brygos Painter, Cabinet des Médailles
The second type (tales of punishment) involves the appropriation or invention of some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his own subjects—revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when
Prometheus or Lycaon (mythology) invents sacrifice, when
Demeter teaches agriculture and the
Eleusinian mysteries to
Triptolemus, or when Marsyas invents the
aulos and enters into a musical contest with
Apollo. Prometheus' adventures mark "a place between the history of the gods and that of man".I. Morris,
Archaeology As Cultural History, 291 An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated to the third century BC, vividly portrays Dionysus' punishment of the king of
Thrace, Lycurgus (Thrace), whose recognition of the new god came too late, resulting in horrific penalties that extended into the afterlife.J. Weaver,
Plots of Epiphany, 50 The story of the arrival of Dionysus to establish his cult in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean trilogy.R. Bushnell,
A Companion to Tragedy, 28 In another tragedy, Euripides'
The Bacchae, the king of Thebes, Greece, Pentheus, is punished by Dionysus, because he disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads, the female worshippers of the god.K. Trobe,
Invoke the GOds, 195
In another story, based on an old folktale-motif,M.P. Nilsson,
Greek Popular Religion, 50 and echoeing a similar theme,
Demeter was searching for her daughter,
Persephone, having taken the form of an old woman called
Doso, and received a hospitable welcome from
Celeus, the King of
Eleusis in Attica, Greece. As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make Demophon as a god, but she was unable to complete the ritual because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do not understand the concept and ritual.
Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 255–274
binds the wound of Patroclus, on a late archaic
Kylix (drinking cup) by the Sosias painter.
Heroic age
The age in which the heroes lived is known as the heroic age.F.W. Kelsey,
An Outline of Greek and Roman Mythology, 30 The epic and genealogical poetry created cycles of stories clustered around particular heroes or events and established the family relationships between the heroes of different stories; they thus arranged the stories in sequence. According to Ken Dowden, "there is even a saga effect: we can follow the fates of some families in successive generations".
After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes constitute the sacral sphere and are invoked together in oaths, and prayers which are addressed to them. In contrast to the age of gods, during the heroic age the roster of heroes is never given fixed and final form; great gods are no longer born, but new heroes can always be raised up from the army of the dead. Another important difference between the hero cult and the cult of gods is that the hero becomes the centre of local group identity.;Raffan-Burkert,
Greek Religion, 206
The monumental events of Heracles are regarded as the dawn of the age of heroes. To the Heroic Age are also ascribed three great military events, the
Argonauts expedition and the Trojan War as well as the Theban War.F.W. Kelsey,
An Outline of Greek and Roman Mythology, 30
* H.J. Rose,
A Handbook of Greek Mythology, 340
Heracles and the Heracleidae
For more details on this topic, see Heracles and Heracleidae
,
Paris).
Some scholars believe that behind Heracles' complicated mythology there was probably a real man, perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of
Argos. Some scholars suggest the story of Heracles is an allegory for the sun's yearly passage through the twelve constellations of the zodiac.C. F. Dupuis,
The Origin of All Religious Worship, 86 Others point to earlier myths from other cultures, showing the story of Heracles as a local adaptation of hero myths already well established. Traditionally, Heracles was the son of Zeus and
Alcmene, granddaughter of Perseus. His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk tale themes, provided much material for popular legend. He is portrayed as a sacrificier, mentioned as a founder of altars, and imagined as a voracious eater himself; it is in this role that he appears in comedy, while his tragic end provided much material for tragedy —
Heracles (Euripides) is regarded by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great significance in examination of other Euripidean dramas".W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 211
* T. Papadopoulou,
Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy, 1 In art and literature Heracles was represented as an enormously strong man of moderate height; his characteristic weapon was the bow but frequently also the club. The vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled popularity of Heracles, his fight with the lion being depicted many hundreds of times.W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 211
Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology and cult, and the exclamation "mehercule" became as familiar to the Romans as "Herakleis" was to the Greeks. In
Italy he was worshipped as a god of merchants and traders, although others also prayed to him for his characteristic gifts of good luck or rescue from danger.
Heracles attained the highest social prestige through his appointment as official ancestor of the Dorian kings. This probably served as a legitimation for the Dorian migrations into the Peloponnese.
Hyllus, the eponymous hero of one Dorian phyle, became the son of Heracles and one of the
Heracleidae or
Heraclids (the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially the descendants of
Hyllus — other Heracleidae included
Macaria, Lamos, Manto (Greek mythology),
Bianor, Tlepolemus, and
Telephus). These Heraclids conquered the
Peloponnesus kingdoms of
Mycenae,
Sparta and Argos, claiming, according to legend, a right to rule it through their ancestor. Their rise to dominance is frequently called the "
Dorian invasion". The Lydian and later the Macedonian kings, as rulers of the same rank, also became Heracleidae.Herodotus,
The Histories, I, 6–7
* W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 211
Other members of this earliest generation of heroes, such as Perseus, Deucalion, Theseus and Bellerophon, have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border on
fairy tale, as they slay monsters such as the
Chimera (mythology) and Medusa (mythology). Bellerophon's adventures are commonplace types, similar to the adventures of Heracles and Theseus. Sending a hero to his presumed death is also a recurrent theme of this early heroic tradition, used in the cases of Perseus and Bellerophon.G.S. Kirk,
Myth, 183
Argonauts
The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the
Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, scholar, and director of the Library of Alexandria) tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the
Golden Fleece from the mythical land of Colchis. In the
Argonautica, Jason is impelled on his quest by king
Pelias, who receives a prophecy that a man with one sandal would be his
Nemesis (mythology). Jason loses a sandal in a river, arrives at the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in motion. Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with Jason in the ship
Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece. This generation also included
Theseus, who went to
Crete to slay the
Minotaur; Atalanta, the female heroine; and
Meleager, who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the
Iliad and
Odyssey. Pindar, Apollonius and Apollodorus endeavor to give full lists of the Argonauts.Apollodorus,
Library and Epitome, 1.9. 16
* Apollonius,
Argonautica, I, 20ff
* Pindar,
Pythian Odes, Pythian 4. 1
Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the
3rd century BC, the composition of the story of the Argonauts is earlier than
Odyssey, which shows familiarity with the exploits of Jason (the wandering of Odysseus may have been partly founded on it).
* P. Grimmal,
The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, 58 In ancient times the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the
Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization. It was also extremely popular, forming a cycle to which a number of local legends became attached. The story of Medea, in particular, caught the imagination of the tragic poets.P. Grimmal,
The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, 58
House of Atreus and Theban Cycle
, by
Maxfield Parrish, 1908In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of Atreus and
Thyestes at Argos. Behind the myth of the house of Atreus (one of the two principal heroic dynasties with the house of Labdacus) lies the problem of the devolution of power and of the mode of accession to sovereignty. The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their descendants played the leading role in the tragedy of the devolution of power in Mycenae.Y. Bonnefoy,
Greek and Egyptian Mythologies, 103
The Theban Cycle deals with events associated especially with
Cadmus, the city's founder, and later with the doings of Laius and Oedipus at Thebes; a series of stories that lead to the eventual pillage of that city at the hands of the Seven Against Thebes (it is not known whether the Seven against Thebes figured in early epic) and
Epigoni.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 317 As far as Oedipus is concerned, early epic accounts seem to have followed a different pattern (in which he continued to rule at Thebes after the revelation that
Iokaste was his mother and subsequently married a second wife who became the mother of his children) from the one known to us through tragedy (e.g. Sophocles' "Oedipus the King") and later mythological accounts.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 311
Trojan War and aftermath
(1757, Fresco, 300 x 300 cm, Villa Valmarana,
Vicenza) Achilles is outraged that Agamemnon would threaten to seize his warprize, Briseis, and he draws his sword to kill Agamemnon. The sudden appearance of the goddess Minerva, who, in this fresco, has grabbed Achilles by the hair, prevents the act of violence.
For more details on this topic, see Trojan War and Epic Cycle
Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan War, fought between the Greeks and
Troy, and its aftermath. In Homer's works the chief stories have already taken shape and substance, and individual themes were elaborated later, especially in Greek drama. The Trojan War acquired also a great interest for the
Roman culture because of the story of
Aeneas, a Trojan hero, whose journey from Troy led to the founding of the city that would one day become Rome, is recounted in Virgil's
Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy).
* Finally there are two pseudo-chronicles written in Latin that passed under the names of
Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius.J. Dunlop,
The History of Fiction, 355
The
Trojan War cycle, a collection of
epic poems, starts with the events leading up to the war: (Eris (mythology) and the
golden apple of
Kallisti, the
Judgement of Paris, the abduction of Helen of Troy, the sacrifice of
Iphigenia at
Aulis). To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon, king of Argos or Mycenae, but The Trojans refused to return Helen. The
Iliad, which is set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles' friend Patroclus and Priam's eldest son, Hector. After Hector's death the Trojans were joined by two exotic allies,
Penthesilea, queen of the
Amazons, and
Memnon (mythology), king of the
Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess Eos. Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium (mythology)). Finally, with Athena's help, they built the
Trojan Horse. Despite the warnings of Priam's daughter Cassandra, the Trojans were persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the
Aeneid), and the murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns (
Nostoi; lost) and Homer's
Odyssey. The Trojan cycle also includes the adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g. Orestes and
Telemachus).,
Washington DC) by the famous myth of the Trojan cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest who tried to have the Trojan horse destroyed, but was killed by sea-serpents.The Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of inspiration for ancient Greek artists (e.g. Metope (architecture)s on the Parthenon depicting the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance for the ancient Greek civilization. The same mythological cycle also inspired a series of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan Medieval European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and a convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric ideals. 12th century authors, such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure (
Roman de Troie of Troy, 1154–60) and Joseph of Exeter (
De Bello Troiano the Trojan War, 1183) describe the war while rewriting the standard version they found in
Dictys and
Dares. They thus follow Horace's advice and Virgil's example: they rewrite a poem of Troy instead of telling something completely new.D. Kelly,
The Conspiracy of Allusion, 121
Greek and Roman conceptions of myth
Mythology was at the heart of everyday life in ancient Greece.Albala-Johnson-Johnson,
Understanding the Odyssey, 15 Greeks regarded mythology as a part of their history. They used myth to explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities and friendships. It was a source of pride to be able to trace one's leaders' descent from a mythological hero or a god. Few ever doubted that there was truth behind the account of the Trojan War in the
Iliad and
Odyssey. According to
Victor Davis Hanson, a military
historian, columnist, political essayist and former
Classics professor, and John Heath, associate professor of Classics at Santa Clara University, the profound knowledge of the Homeric
epic poetry was deemed by the Greeks the basis of their acculturation. Homer was the "education of Greece" (Ἑλλάδος παίδευσις), and his poetry "the Book".Hanson-Heath,
Who Killed Homer, 37
Philosophy and myth
's Plato in
The School of Athens fresco (probably in the likeness of Leonardo da Vinci). The philosopher expelled the study of Homer, of the tragedies and of the related mythological traditions from his utopian Republic.
After the rise of philosophy, and history, prose and
rationalism in the late 5th century BC the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythological genealogies gave place to a conception of history which tried to exclude the supernatural (such as the
Thucydides history).J. Griffin,
Greek Myth and Hesiod, 80 While poets and dramatists were reworking the myths, Greek historians and philosophers were beginning to criticize them.G. Miles,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 7
A few radical philosophers like Xenophanes of Colophon were already beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the 6th century BC; Xenophanes had complained that Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods "all that is shameful and disgraceful among men; they steal, commit adultery, and deceive one another".F. Graf,
Greek Mythology, 169–170 This line of thought found its most sweeping expression in
Plato's
Plato's Republic and
Laws (dialogue). Plato created his own allegorical myths (such as the vision of Er in the
Republic), attacked the traditional tales of the gods' tricks, thefts and adulteries as immoral, and objected to their central role in literature. Plato's criticism (he called the myths "old wives' chatter")Plato,
Theaetetus, 176b was the first serious challenge to the Homeric mythological tradition. For his part Aristotle criticized the Pre-socratic quasi-mythical philosophical approach and underscored that "Hesiod and the theological writers were concerned only with what seemed plausible to themselves, and had no respect for us But it is not worth taking seriously writers who show off in the mythical style; as for those who do proceed by proving their assertions, we must cross-examine them".
Nevertheless, even Plato did not manage to wean himself and his society from the influence of myth; his own characterization for Socrates is based on the traditional Homeric and tragic patterns, used by the philosopher to praise the righteous life of his teacher:Plato,
Apology, 28b-c
{{cquote|But perhaps someone might say: "Are you then not ashamed, Socrates, of having followed such a pursuit, that you are now in danger of being put to death as a result?" But I should make to him a just reply: "You do not speak well, Sir, if you think a man in whom there is even a little merit ought to consider danger of life or death, and not rather regard this only, when he does things, whether the things he does are right or wrong and the acts of a good or a bad man. For according to your argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy, including the son of
Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as he was eager to slay Hector, something like this, I believe,
My son, if you avenge the death of your friend Patroclus and kill Hector, you yourself shall die;
for straightway, after Hector, is death appointed unto you (Hom. Il. 18.96) "-->
Hanson and Heath estimate that Plato's rejection of the Homeric tradition was not favorably received by the grassroots Greek civilization. The old myths were kept alive in local cults; they continued to influence poetry, and to form the main subject of painting and sculpture.
More sportingly, the 5th century BC
tragedy Euripides often played with the old traditions, mocking them, and through the voice of his characters injecting notes of doubt. Yet the subjects of his plays were taken, without exception, from myth. Many of these plays were written in answer to a predecessor's version of the same or similar myth. Euripides impugns mainly the myths about the gods and begins his critique with an objection similar to the one previously expressed by Xenocrates: the gods, as traditionally represented, are far too crassly
anthropomorphism.
Hellenistic and Roman rationalism
During the Hellenistic period, mythology took on the prestige of elite knowledge that marks its possessors as belonging to a certain class. At the same time, the skeptical turn of the Classical age became even more pronounced.M.R. Gale,
Myth and Poetry in Lucretius, 89 Greek mythographer
Euhemerus established the tradition of seeking an actual historical basis for mythical beings and events. Although his original work (
Sacred Scriptures) is lost, much is known about it from what is recorded by Diodorus and
Lactantius.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 7
Rationalizing hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the
Roman Empire, thanks to the physicalist theories of Stoicism and
Epicureanism philosophy. Stoics presented explanations of the gods and heroes as physical phenomena, while the euhemerism rationalized them as historical figures. At the same time, the Stoics and the
Neoplatonism promoted the moral significations of the mythological tradition, often based on Greek etymologies.J. Chance,
Medieval Mythography, 69 Through his Epicurean message, Lucretius had sought to expel superstitious fears from the minds of his fellow-citizens.P.G. Walsh,
The Nature of Gods (Introduction), xxvi Livy, too, is sceptical about the mythological tradition and claims that he does not intend to pass judgement on such legends (fab
found at Otricoli (Vatican Museums)Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their Polytheism and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own Cult (religious practice) and ritual practices. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of Ancient Greece and on the Ancient Greek civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.
Greek mythology is embodied explicitly in a large collection of narratives and implicitly in representational arts, such as Pottery of ancient Greece and Votive deposit. Greek myth explains the origins of the world and details the lives and adventures of a wide variety of List of Greek mythological figures, and other List of Greek mythological creatures. These accounts were initially disseminated in an oral tradition; the Greek myths are known today primarily from Greek literature. The oldest known literary sources, the Epic poetrys Iliad and Odyssey, focus on events surrounding the Trojan War. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in Lyric poetrys, in the works of the tragedians of the 5th century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic civilization and in writers of the time of the Roman Empire, for example, Plutarch and Pausanias (geographer).
Monumental evidence at Mycenaean Greece and Minoan civilization sites helped to explain many of the questions about Homer's epics and provided Archaeology evidence of many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Greek mythology was also depicted in artifacts; Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. In the succeeding Archaic period in Greece, Ancient Greece and Hellenistic Greece periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.
Greek mythology has had extensive influence on the culture, the arts and the literature of Western culture and remains part of Western heritage and language. It has been a part of the educational fabric from childhood, while poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in classical mythological themes.J.M. Foley, Homer's Traditional Art, 43
Sources of Greek mythology
{| border= "0" style="float: right;"| (1868 by Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus was first attested by Hesiodus and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of
Prometheus Bound,
Prometheus Unbound and
Prometheus Pyrphoros], preserved details of Greek mythology in many of his writings.|-| killing a Trojan prisoner in front of Charon (mythology) on a
red-figure Etruscan civilization calyx-krater, made towards the end of the 4th century-beginning of the 3rd century BC.|}
Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric Style (c. 900-800 BC) onward.F. Graf,
Greek Mythology, 200
Literary sources
Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the
Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus) of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 1
Among the literary sources first in age are Homer's two epic poems, the
Iliad and the
Odyssey. Other poets completed the "epic cycle", but these later and lesser poems are now almost entirely lost. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the earlier part of the so-called Lyric poetry.Miles,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 7 Hesiod, a possible contemporary with Homer, offers in
Theogony (
Origin of the Gods) the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing with the creation of the world; the origin of the gods, Titans and
Giant (mythology); elaborate genealogies and folktales and etiological myths. Hesiod's
Works and Days, a didactic poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora and the
Ages of Man. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world rendered yet more dangerous by its gods.
Lyrical poets sometimes take their subjects from myth, but the treatment becomes gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including
Pindar,
Bacchylides,
Simonides of Ceos, and bucolic poets, such as Theocritus and
Bion, provide individual mythological incidents.Klatt-Brazouski,
Ancient Greek nad Roman Mythology, xii Additionally, myth was central to classical Ancient Athens drama. The tragic playwrights Aeschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides took their plots from the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories (i.e.
Agamemnon and his children, Oedipus,
Jason, Medea etc.) took on their classic form in these tragic plays. For his part, the comic playwright Aristophanes used myths, as in
The Birds (play) or
The Frogs.Miles,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 8
Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, and geographers
Pausanias (geographer) and Strabo, who traveled around the Greek world and noted the stories they heard, supply numerous local myths, often giving little-known, alternative versions. Herodotus in particular, searched the various traditions presented him and found the historical or mythological roots in the confrontation between Greece and the East.P. Cartledge,
The Spartans, 60, and
The Greeks, 22
The poetry of the
Hellenistic and
Ancient Rome ages, which although composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise, nevertheless contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of:
The Roman poets Ovid, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, Seneca and Virgil with Servius's commentary.
The Greek poets of the Late Antiquity period: Nonnus, Antoninus Liberalis and Quintus Smyrnaeus.
The Greek poets of the Hellenistic period: Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Eratosthenes and Parthenius.
The ancient novels of Greeks and Romans such as Apuleius, Petronius, Lollianus and Heliodorus of Emesa.
The
Fabulae and
Astronomica of the Roman writer styled
Gaius Julius Hyginus are two important, non-poetical compendiums of myth. The
Imagines of
Philostratus the Elder and Younger and the Descriptions of Callistratus, are two other useful sources.
Finally, the Christian apologist
Arnobius, quoting cult practices in order to disparage them, and a number of Byzantine Greek writers provide important details of myth, some of it sourced from lost Greek works. These preservers of myth include
Hesychius of Alexandria' lexicon, the
Suda, and the treatises of John Tzetzes and Eustathius. The Christian moralizing view of Greek myth is encapsulated in the saying /
en panti muthōi kai to Daidalou musos ("In every myth there is also the defilement of Daidalos"), on which subject the encyclopedic Sudas reported of the role of
Daedalus in satisfying the "unnatural lust" of
Pasiphae for the bull of Poseidon: "Since the origin and blame for these evils were attributed to Daidalos and he was loathed for them, he became the subject of the proverb." Pasiphae, Encyclopedia: Greek Gods, Spirits, Monsters
Archaeological sources
The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by German amateur archaeologist
Heinrich Schliemann in the
19th century, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete by British archaeologist,
Sir Arthur Evans in the 20th century, helped to explain many of the questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeoloical evidence of many of the mythological details about gods and heroes. Unfortunately, the evidence about myth and ritual at Mycenaean and Minoan sites is entirely monumental, as the
Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek found in both Crete and Greece) was mainly used to record inventories, though the names of gods and heroes have been doubtfully revealed.
Geometric designs on pottery of the 8th century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. These visual representations of myths are important for two reasons; on the one hand, many Greek myths are attested on vases earlier than in literary sources (of the twelve labors of Heracles, only the
Cerberus adventure occurs for the first time in a literary textHomer,
Iliad, 8. An epic poem about the Battle of Troy. 366–369) and, on the other hand, visual sources sometimes represent myths or mythical scenes that are not attested in any extant literary source. In some cases, the first known representation of a myth in geometric art predates its first known representation in late archaic poetry by several centuries. In the Archaic (c. 750–c. 500 BC), Classical (c. 480–323 BC), and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear to supplement the existing literary evidence.
Survey of mythic history
The Greeks' mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their own culture. The earlier inhabitants of the
Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who assigned a spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human shape and entered the local mythology as gods and goddesses.Albala-Johnson-Johnson,
Understanding the Odyssey, 17 When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older deities of the agricultural world fused with those of the more powerful invaders or else faded into insignificance.Albala-Johnson-Johnson,
Understanding the Odyssey, 18
After the middle of the Archaic period myths about relationships between male gods and male heroes become more and more frequent, indicating the parallel development of Pederasty in ancient Greece
(Eros paidikos, παιδικός ἔρως), thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the 5th century BC, poets had assigned at least one eromenos to every important god except
Ares and to many legendary figures.A. Calimach,
Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths;, 12–109 Previously existing myths, such as that of
Achilles and
Patroclus, were also cast in a
Mythology of same-sex love.W.A. Percy,
Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece, 54 Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often adapted stories of Greek mythological characters.
The achievement of epic poetry was to create story-cycles, and as a result to develop a sense of mythological chronology. Thus Greek mythology unfolds like a phase in the development of the world and of man.K. Dowden,
The Uses of Greek Mythology, 11 While self-contradictions in the stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. The mythological history of the world can be divided in 3 or 4 broader periods:
The myths of origin or age of gods (Theogonies, "births of gods"): myths about the origins of the world, the gods, and the human race.
The age when gods and mortals mingled freely: stories of the early interactions between gods, demigods, and mortals.
The age of heroes (heroic age), where divine activity was more limited. The last and greatest of the heroic legends is the stories of the Trojan War and after (regarded by some researchers as a separate fourth period).G. Miles, Classical Mythology in English Literature, 35
While the age of gods has often been of more interest to contemporary students of myth, the Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for the age of heroes. For example, the heroic
Iliad and
Odyssey dwarfed the divine-focused
Theogony and Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity. Under the influence of Homer the "hero cult" leads to a restructuring in spiritual life, expressed in the separation of the realm of the gods from the realm of the dead (=heroes), of the Olympian from the Chthonic.W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 205 In the
Works and Days, Hesiod makes use of a scheme of Four
Ages of Man (or Races): Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are separate creations of the gods, the Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronus, the subsequent races the creation of Zeus. Hesiod intercalates the Age (or Race) of Heroes just after the
Bronze Age. The final age was the
Iron Age, during which the poet himself lived. The poet regards it as the worst; the presence of evil was explained by Pandora's myth.Hesiod,
Works and Days, 90–105 In
Metamorphoses (poem) Ovid follows Hesiod's concept of the four ages.Ovid,
Metamorphoses, I, 89–162
Age of gods
Cosmogony and cosmology
(
Love Conquers All), a depiction of the god of love, Eros. By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, circa 1601–1602."Myths of origin" or "creation myths" represent an attempt to render the universe comprehensible in human terms and explain the origin of the world.Klatt-Brazouski,
Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology, 10 The most widely accepted account of beginning of things as reported by
Hesiod's
Theogony, starts with
Chaos (mythology), a yawning nothingness. Out of the void emerged Ge or
Gaia (mythology) (the Earth) and some other primary divine beings: Eros (god) (Love), the
Abyss (religion) (the Tartarus), and the
Erebus.Hesiod,
Theogony, s:Theogony Without male assistance Gaia gave birth to Uranus (mythology) (the Sky) who then fertilised her. From that union were born, first, the
Titans: six males and six females (
Oceanus,
Coeus and Crius and Hyperion (mythology) and
Iapetus (mythology), Theia and Rhea (mythology),
Themis and
Mnemosyne,
Phoebe (mythology) and
Tethys (mythology), and Cronus); then the one-eyed
Cyclops and the Hecatonchires or Hundred-Handers. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of children")castrated his father and became the ruler of the gods with his sister-wife Rhea as his consort and the other Titans became his court. This motif of father/son conflict was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus. Zeus, persuaded by his mother, challenged him to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes, (whom Zeus freed from Tarturus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus.Hesiod,
Theogony,
s:TheogonyThe earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogony to be the prototypical poetic genre — the prototypical
mythos — and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus, the archetypal poet, was also the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius'
Argonautica, and to move the stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades. When
Hermes invents the
lyre in the
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the first thing he does is sing the birth of the gods.
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, 414–435 Hesiod's
Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods, but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the
Muses. Theogony was also the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus,
Musaeus, Epimenides,
Abaris and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery religion. There are indications that
Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony.G. Betegh,
The Derveni Papyrus, 147 A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by
Neoplatonism philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of these scraps, the
Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the 5th century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence. This poem attempted to outdo Hesiod's
Theogony and the genealogy of the gods was extended back with Nyx (mythology) (Night) as an ultimate beginning before Uranus, Cronus and Zeus.W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 236
* G. Betegh,
The Derveni Papyrus, 147
The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as a flat disk afloat on the river of
Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon and stars. The Sun (
Helios) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades, home of the dead.
* K. Algra,
The Beginnings of Cosmology, 45
Greek gods
by
Nicolas-André Monsiau, circa late 18th century.
According to Classical-era mythology, after the overthrow of the Titans, the new
Pantheon (gods) of God (male deity) and
goddesses was confirmed. Among the principal Greek deities were the Olympians (The limitation of their number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively modern idea),H.W. Stoll,
Religion and Mythology of the Greeks, 8 residing atop Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus. Besides the Olympians, the Greeks worshiped various gods of the countryside, the goat-god
Pan (mythology), Nymphs (spirits of rivers), Naiads (who dwelled in springs),
Dryads (who were spirits of the trees),
Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods, Satyrs, and others. In addition, there were the dark powers of the underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those guilty of crimes against blood-relatives. In order to honor the ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs).J. Cashford,
The Homeric Hymns, vii Gregory Nagy regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as simple preludes (compared with
Theogony), each of which invokes one god".G. Nagy,
Greek Mythology and Poetics, 54
In the wide variety of myths and legends that Greek mythology consists of, the deities that were native to the Greek peoples are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies. According to Walter Burkert, the defining characteristic of Greek anthropomorphism is that "the Greek gods are persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts".W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 182 Regardless of their underlying forms, the ancient Greek gods have many fantastic abilities; most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease, and can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances. The Greeks considered immortality as the distinctive characteristic of their gods; this immortality, as well as unfading youth, was insured by the constant use of
nectar and ambrosia, by which the divine blood was renewed in their veins.H.W. Stoll,
Religion and Mythology of the Greeks, 4 seduces
Leda (mythology), the Queen of Sparta. A sixteenth century copy of the lost original by Michelangelo.Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods were called upon in poetry, prayer or cult, they are referred to by a combination of their name and epithets, that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves (e.g.
Apollo Musagetes is "Apollo, leader of the Muses"). Alternatively the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece.
Most gods were associated with specific aspects of life. For example, Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty,
Ares was the god of war, Hades the god of the dead, and Athena the goddess of wisdom and courage.H.W. Stoll,
Religion and Mythology of the Greeks, 20ff Some deities, such as Apollo and
Dionysus, revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more than personifications. The most impressive
Temple (Greek)s tended to be dedicated to a limited number of gods, who were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and villages to devote their own cults to minor gods. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere. During the heroic age, the cult of heroes (or demi-gods) supplemented this of the gods.
Age of gods and men
Bridging the age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and men moved together. These were the early days of the world when the groups mingled more freely than they did later. Most of these tales were later told by Ovid's
Metamorphoses and they are often divided in two thematic groups: tales of love, and tales of punishment.G. Mile,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 38
Tales of love often involve incest, or the seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories generally suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are something to avoid; even consenting relationships rarely have happy endings.G. Mile,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 39 In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as in the
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where the goddess lies with
Anchises to produce
Aeneas.
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, 75–109 The marriage of Peleus and Thetis, which yielded
Achilles, is another such myth.
with
satyrs. Interior of a cup painted by the
Brygos Painter,
Cabinet des MédaillesThe second type (tales of punishment) involves the appropriation or invention of some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when
Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his own subjects—revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when
Prometheus or
Lycaon (mythology) invents sacrifice, when Demeter teaches
agriculture and the
Eleusinian mysteries to
Triptolemus, or when Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into a musical contest with Apollo. Prometheus' adventures mark "a place between the history of the gods and that of man".I. Morris,
Archaeology As Cultural History, 291 An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated to the
third century BC, vividly portrays Dionysus' punishment of the king of Thrace, Lycurgus (Thrace), whose recognition of the new god came too late, resulting in horrific penalties that extended into the afterlife.J. Weaver,
Plots of Epiphany, 50 The story of the arrival of Dionysus to establish his cult in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean trilogy.R. Bushnell,
A Companion to Tragedy, 28 In another tragedy, Euripides'
The Bacchae, the king of
Thebes, Greece,
Pentheus, is punished by Dionysus, because he disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads, the female worshippers of the god.K. Trobe,
Invoke the GOds, 195
In another story, based on an old folktale-motif,M.P. Nilsson,
Greek Popular Religion, 50 and echoeing a similar theme,
Demeter was searching for her daughter,
Persephone, having taken the form of an old woman called
Doso, and received a hospitable welcome from
Celeus, the King of
Eleusis in
Attica, Greece. As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make Demophon as a god, but she was unable to complete the ritual because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do not understand the concept and ritual.
Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 255–274
binds the wound of
Patroclus, on a late archaic
Kylix (drinking cup) by the Sosias painter.
Heroic age
The age in which the heroes lived is known as the heroic age.F.W. Kelsey,
An Outline of Greek and Roman Mythology, 30 The epic and genealogical poetry created cycles of stories clustered around particular heroes or events and established the family relationships between the heroes of different stories; they thus arranged the stories in sequence. According to Ken Dowden, "there is even a saga effect: we can follow the fates of some families in successive generations".
After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes constitute the sacral sphere and are invoked together in oaths, and prayers which are addressed to them. In contrast to the age of gods, during the heroic age the roster of heroes is never given fixed and final form; great gods are no longer born, but new heroes can always be raised up from the army of the dead. Another important difference between the hero cult and the cult of gods is that the hero becomes the centre of local group identity.;Raffan-Burkert,
Greek Religion, 206
The monumental events of Heracles are regarded as the dawn of the age of heroes. To the Heroic Age are also ascribed three great military events, the
Argonauts expedition and the Trojan War as well as the Theban War.F.W. Kelsey,
An Outline of Greek and Roman Mythology, 30
* H.J. Rose,
A Handbook of Greek Mythology, 340
Heracles and the Heracleidae
For more details on this topic, see Heracles and Heracleidae
, Paris).
Some scholars believe that behind Heracles' complicated mythology there was probably a real man, perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of Argos. Some scholars suggest the story of Heracles is an allegory for the sun's yearly passage through the twelve constellations of the zodiac.C. F. Dupuis,
The Origin of All Religious Worship, 86 Others point to earlier myths from other cultures, showing the story of Heracles as a local adaptation of hero myths already well established. Traditionally, Heracles was the son of Zeus and
Alcmene, granddaughter of Perseus. His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many
folk tale themes, provided much material for popular legend. He is portrayed as a sacrificier, mentioned as a founder of altars, and imagined as a voracious eater himself; it is in this role that he appears in comedy, while his tragic end provided much material for tragedy —
Heracles (Euripides) is regarded by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great significance in examination of other Euripidean dramas".W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 211
* T. Papadopoulou,
Heracles and Euripidean Tragedy, 1 In art and literature Heracles was represented as an enormously strong man of moderate height; his characteristic weapon was the bow but frequently also the club. The vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled popularity of Heracles, his fight with the lion being depicted many hundreds of times.W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 211
Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology and cult, and the exclamation "mehercule" became as familiar to the Romans as "Herakleis" was to the Greeks. In Italy he was worshipped as a god of merchants and traders, although others also prayed to him for his characteristic gifts of good luck or rescue from danger.
Heracles attained the highest social prestige through his appointment as official ancestor of the
Dorian kings. This probably served as a legitimation for the Dorian migrations into the Peloponnese. Hyllus, the eponymous hero of one Dorian phyle, became the son of Heracles and one of the
Heracleidae or
Heraclids (the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially the descendants of
Hyllus — other Heracleidae included
Macaria,
Lamos, Manto (Greek mythology), Bianor, Tlepolemus, and
Telephus). These Heraclids conquered the
Peloponnesus kingdoms of Mycenae,
Sparta and Argos, claiming, according to legend, a right to rule it through their ancestor. Their rise to dominance is frequently called the "
Dorian invasion". The Lydian and later the Macedonian kings, as rulers of the same rank, also became Heracleidae.Herodotus,
The Histories, I, 6–7
* W. Burkert,
Greek Religion, 211
Other members of this earliest generation of heroes, such as Perseus,
Deucalion,
Theseus and
Bellerophon, have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border on
fairy tale, as they slay monsters such as the Chimera (mythology) and Medusa (mythology). Bellerophon's adventures are commonplace types, similar to the adventures of Heracles and Theseus. Sending a hero to his presumed death is also a recurrent theme of this early heroic tradition, used in the cases of Perseus and Bellerophon.G.S. Kirk,
Myth, 183
Argonauts
The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the
Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, scholar, and director of the Library of Alexandria) tells the myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the
Golden Fleece from the mythical land of
Colchis. In the
Argonautica, Jason is impelled on his quest by king
Pelias, who receives a prophecy that a man with one sandal would be his Nemesis (mythology). Jason loses a sandal in a river, arrives at the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in motion. Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with Jason in the ship
Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece. This generation also included Theseus, who went to
Crete to slay the
Minotaur; Atalanta, the female heroine; and Meleager, who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the
Iliad and
Odyssey. Pindar, Apollonius and Apollodorus endeavor to give full lists of the Argonauts.Apollodorus,
Library and Epitome, 1.9. 16
* Apollonius,
Argonautica, I, 20ff
* Pindar,
Pythian Odes, Pythian 4. 1
Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the
3rd century BC, the composition of the story of the Argonauts is earlier than
Odyssey, which shows familiarity with the exploits of Jason (the wandering of Odysseus may have been partly founded on it).
* P. Grimmal,
The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, 58 In ancient times the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization. It was also extremely popular, forming a cycle to which a number of local legends became attached. The story of Medea, in particular, caught the imagination of the tragic poets.P. Grimmal,
The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, 58
House of Atreus and Theban Cycle
, by
Maxfield Parrish, 1908In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of
Atreus and Thyestes at Argos. Behind the myth of the house of Atreus (one of the two principal heroic dynasties with the house of
Labdacus) lies the problem of the devolution of power and of the mode of accession to sovereignty. The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their descendants played the leading role in the tragedy of the devolution of power in Mycenae.Y. Bonnefoy,
Greek and Egyptian Mythologies, 103
The Theban Cycle deals with events associated especially with
Cadmus, the city's founder, and later with the doings of
Laius and Oedipus at Thebes; a series of stories that lead to the eventual pillage of that city at the hands of the Seven Against Thebes (it is not known whether the Seven against Thebes figured in early epic) and Epigoni.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 317 As far as Oedipus is concerned, early epic accounts seem to have followed a different pattern (in which he continued to rule at Thebes after the revelation that
Iokaste was his mother and subsequently married a second wife who became the mother of his children) from the one known to us through tragedy (e.g. Sophocles' "Oedipus the King") and later mythological accounts.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 311
Trojan War and aftermath
(1757, Fresco, 300 x 300 cm, Villa Valmarana, Vicenza) Achilles is outraged that Agamemnon would threaten to seize his warprize, Briseis, and he draws his sword to kill Agamemnon. The sudden appearance of the goddess
Minerva, who, in this fresco, has grabbed Achilles by the hair, prevents the act of violence.
For more details on this topic, see Trojan War and Epic Cycle
Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan War, fought between the Greeks and
Troy, and its aftermath. In Homer's works the chief stories have already taken shape and substance, and individual themes were elaborated later, especially in Greek drama. The Trojan War acquired also a great interest for the
Roman culture because of the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, whose journey from Troy led to the founding of the city that would one day become Rome, is recounted in Virgil's
Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy).
* Finally there are two pseudo-chronicles written in Latin that passed under the names of Dictys Cretensis and
Dares Phrygius.J. Dunlop,
The History of Fiction, 355
The
Trojan War cycle, a collection of
epic poems, starts with the events leading up to the war: (
Eris (mythology) and the
golden apple of Kallisti, the Judgement of Paris, the abduction of
Helen of Troy, the sacrifice of
Iphigenia at Aulis). To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon, king of Argos or
Mycenae, but The Trojans refused to return Helen. The
Iliad, which is set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles' friend
Patroclus and Priam's eldest son, Hector. After Hector's death the Trojans were joined by two exotic allies, Penthesilea, queen of the
Amazons, and Memnon (mythology), king of the Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess Eos. Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium (mythology)). Finally, with Athena's help, they built the Trojan Horse. Despite the warnings of Priam's daughter
Cassandra, the Trojans were persuaded by Sinon, a Greek who feigned desertion, to take the horse inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of the Greek leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the
Aeneid), and the murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns (
Nostoi; lost) and Homer's
Odyssey. The Trojan cycle also includes the adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g.
Orestes and
Telemachus).,
Washington DC) by the famous myth of the Trojan cycle. Laocoon was a Trojan priest who tried to have the Trojan horse destroyed, but was killed by sea-serpents.The Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of inspiration for ancient Greek artists (e.g.
Metope (architecture)s on the Parthenon depicting the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance for the ancient Greek civilization. The same mythological cycle also inspired a series of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan Medieval European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and a convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric ideals.
12th century authors, such as
Benoît de Sainte-Maure (
Roman de Troie of Troy, 1154–60) and Joseph of Exeter (
De Bello Troiano the Trojan War, 1183) describe the war while rewriting the standard version they found in
Dictys and
Dares. They thus follow Horace's advice and Virgil's example: they rewrite a poem of Troy instead of telling something completely new.D. Kelly,
The Conspiracy of Allusion, 121
Greek and Roman conceptions of myth
Mythology was at the heart of everyday life in ancient Greece.Albala-Johnson-Johnson,
Understanding the Odyssey, 15 Greeks regarded mythology as a part of their history. They used myth to explain natural phenomena, cultural variations, traditional enmities and friendships. It was a source of pride to be able to trace one's leaders' descent from a mythological hero or a god. Few ever doubted that there was truth behind the account of the Trojan War in the
Iliad and
Odyssey. According to Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian,
columnist, political essayist and former
Classics professor, and John Heath, associate professor of Classics at
Santa Clara University, the profound knowledge of the Homeric
epic poetry was deemed by the Greeks the basis of their acculturation. Homer was the "education of Greece" (Ἑλλάδος παίδευσις), and his poetry "the Book".Hanson-Heath,
Who Killed Homer, 37
Philosophy and myth
's Plato in
The School of Athens fresco (probably in the likeness of
Leonardo da Vinci). The philosopher expelled the study of Homer, of the tragedies and of the related mythological traditions from his utopian Republic.
After the rise of philosophy, and history, prose and rationalism in the late 5th century BC the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythological genealogies gave place to a conception of history which tried to exclude the supernatural (such as the Thucydides history).J. Griffin,
Greek Myth and Hesiod, 80 While poets and dramatists were reworking the myths, Greek historians and philosophers were beginning to criticize them.G. Miles,
Classical Mythology in English Literature, 7
A few radical philosophers like
Xenophanes of Colophon were already beginning to label the poets' tales as blasphemous lies in the 6th century BC; Xenophanes had complained that Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods "all that is shameful and disgraceful among men; they steal, commit adultery, and deceive one another".F. Graf,
Greek Mythology, 169–170 This line of thought found its most sweeping expression in
Plato's
Plato's Republic and
Laws (dialogue). Plato created his own allegorical myths (such as the vision of Er in the
Republic), attacked the traditional tales of the gods' tricks, thefts and adulteries as immoral, and objected to their central role in literature. Plato's criticism (he called the myths "old wives' chatter")Plato,
Theaetetus, 176b was the first serious challenge to the Homeric mythological tradition. For his part Aristotle criticized the Pre-socratic quasi-mythical philosophical approach and underscored that "Hesiod and the theological writers were concerned only with what seemed plausible to themselves, and had no respect for us But it is not worth taking seriously writers who show off in the mythical style; as for those who do proceed by proving their assertions, we must cross-examine them".
Nevertheless, even Plato did not manage to wean himself and his society from the influence of myth; his own characterization for Socrates is based on the traditional Homeric and tragic patterns, used by the philosopher to praise the righteous life of his teacher:Plato,
Apology, 28b-c
{{cquote|But perhaps someone might say: "Are you then not ashamed, Socrates, of having followed such a pursuit, that you are now in danger of being put to death as a result?" But I should make to him a just reply: "You do not speak well, Sir, if you think a man in whom there is even a little merit ought to consider danger of life or death, and not rather regard this only, when he does things, whether the things he does are right or wrong and the acts of a good or a bad man. For according to your argument all the demigods would be bad who died at Troy, including the son of Thetis, who so despised danger, in comparison with enduring any disgrace, that when his mother (and she was a goddess) said to him, as he was eager to slay Hector, something like this, I believe,
My son, if you avenge the death of your friend Patroclus and kill Hector, you yourself shall die;
for straightway, after Hector, is death appointed unto you (Hom. Il. 18.96) "-->
Hanson and Heath estimate that Plato's rejection of the Homeric tradition was not favorably received by the grassroots Greek civilization. The old myths were kept alive in local cults; they continued to influence poetry, and to form the main subject of painting and sculpture.
More sportingly, the 5th century BC
tragedy Euripides often played with the old traditions, mocking them, and through the voice of his characters injecting notes of doubt. Yet the subjects of his plays were taken, without exception, from myth. Many of these plays were written in answer to a predecessor's version of the same or similar myth. Euripides impugns mainly the myths about the gods and begins his critique with an objection similar to the one previously expressed by Xenocrates: the gods, as traditionally represented, are far too crassly anthropomorphism.
Hellenistic and Roman rationalism
During the
Hellenistic period, mythology took on the prestige of elite knowledge that marks its possessors as belonging to a certain class. At the same time, the skeptical turn of the Classical age became even more pronounced.M.R. Gale,
Myth and Poetry in Lucretius, 89 Greek mythographer
Euhemerus established the tradition of seeking an actual historical basis for mythical beings and events. Although his original work (
Sacred Scriptures) is lost, much is known about it from what is recorded by Diodorus and Lactantius.R. Hard,
The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology, 7
Rationalizing
hermeneutics of myth became even more popular under the
Roman Empire, thanks to the physicalist theories of
Stoicism and
Epicureanism philosophy. Stoics presented explanations of the gods and heroes as physical phenomena, while the
euhemerism rationalized them as historical figures. At the same time, the Stoics and the Neoplatonism promoted the moral significations of the mythological tradition, often based on Greek etymologies.J. Chance,
Medieval Mythography, 69 Through his Epicurean message,
Lucretius had sought to expel superstitious fears from the minds of his fellow-citizens.P.G. Walsh,
The Nature of Gods (Introduction), xxvi Livy, too, is sceptical about the mythological tradition and claims that he does not intend to pass judgement on such legends (fab
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