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Stories from the
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The stories of the Greek gods and heroes formed the sacred literature of Greek culture. To call them “myths” is to indulge in long standing Christian propaganda. They were stories that formed religious beliefs, similar to any one of the Christian system of beliefs. For fun let us give them a neutral acronym: HOMR, for Hellenistic Olympian and Mystery Religion. Thus using the same formulation the Roman stories are ROMR.
Initially the HOMR stories were orally transmitted by priests and traveling bards that performed by playing, reciting, and sometimes singing the stories. The history of the Greek and Trojan War, the adventures of the Argonauts, Hercules, the Argonauts, the Greek War against Troy and its consequences, and the stories of the Olympian Gods were the center of the traditions preserved by the bards. Eventually this oral tradition was written down.
For example the Homeric Hymns, the Iliad, and the Odyssey are all compilations of oral tradition. Each one done by a different community of scholars. When you read the Iliad and the Odyssey, both traditionally written by Homer, and it seems like they were written by completely different authors, then it your are probably right, because in Athens in the 4th century BC committees were appointed to collect and edit the oral traditions and write them down. So several committees working on different oral traditions are going to produce vastly different styles, even if the oral source of the text in history was a single individual. No one really knows if a historical Homer existed nor how much was added, deleted, or changed by the bards who repeated and perhaps enriched his stories.
Greek gods in the traditional texts are presented as human in shape and action. The word for this is anthropomorphic (human in form). They fight, gossip, have sex, dine at symposia, do nasty things to one another, and listen to music. However they are immortal, and ichor runs in their veins instead of blood. I imagine ichor as a blue-green liquid derived from blueberries and beer. The God eat and drink, but it seems plumbing is as unnecessary on Mt. Olympus as it is in heaven. In addition to the Gods, Greek literature and religious belief is populated by a variety of personifications of the natural world. Every human urge and every natural event or place had a personification. Every lake, river, stream, mountain, forest, city or plain and every part of the sea had it's own deity. Deities in nature were often called nymphs or fauns. In addition the world was filled with other races of characters: the Graces, Muses, Fates, Amazons, Giants, Centaurs, Cyclops, and various monsters. Many people in ancient times believed that giants still walked the earth, probably some do today. Mild earthquakes only served to demonstrate the truth of the belief.
Three Graces |
A Centaur
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In Greek religion and in its traditions as carried on in art, the Olympian gods, mostly the children and grand-children of the Titans: Cronus and Rhea, form one of the central elements. To understand art based on HOMR it is useful to know a little about the stories surrounding these central characters and at least a reasonable synopsis of the Greek war against Troy.
A couple of asides here:
It really helps to deepen understanding of a work of art so that you know what the image depicts. While visiting a US museum I overheard a conversation between a man and his wife looking at a picture of Christ and Lazarus. He said "That's not painted very well, look that man is painted blue and white." His wife replied: "Well, if you would ever read your Bible you'd know that Lazarus was dead ... you'd look pretty white too if you were dead." The same thing goes for the Greek gods and stories, the pictures are not very fun unless you know the background.
Mt. Olympus, the dwelling place of the gods, and the background of the picture below is in Northern Greece. Olympia, the city where the Olympic games were held, is an unrelated place on the plains of central Greece just above the Peloponnese Don't confuse them because of the similarity of the names!
Stories of the Olympian Gods.
Olympian Gods
The blocks in the above diagram make family groups; by selecting an individual with your mouse you will learn a little more information about that god or goddess. In the diagram the plus sign indicates formal partners, there are only three family groups: Cronus and Rhea, and Zeus and Hera, and Hephaestus and Aphrodite. The other siblings in the greenish box of Zeus are all siblings of Zeus independent of Hera. Zeus took his job of procreation very seriously. Even Alexander the Great thought he was the son of Zeus, at least that is what his mother told him, but then she wasn't fond of her husband, Philip II of Macedonia.
HeraklesHerakles was a mortal so strong he could lift the whole world, taking the burden off Atlas for awhile. Who after meeting his step-mother became a serial killer. To atone for the killings he then performed a dozen heroic tasks, including cleaning out some particularly gross, very smelly, stables in a single day. Along the way he hooked up with Jason and the Argonauts who were off to find the magic "golden fleece", which was supposed to be somewhere along the Black sea in central Asia. A witch Meda was mixed up in all of this. But Herakles didn't last that long, because along the way he found a cute guy and went chasing after him. Eventually for his efforts he was made an immortal. An object lesson for everyone.
The story of Herakles and his very tough life.
DionysusDionysus, god of the theater, wine, and ecstatic release, was a late arrival on Mt. Olympus. The Greeks were really suspicious of him. Sometimes he is called Bacchus, and his female followers are called Bacchae. He is another of Zeus offspring, this time by Semile, a human who Zeus seduced as a rain of gold coins. But when she insisted in seeing him as he really was, he revealed himself as a flash of lightening which burned her to a crisp.
One of the most enduring and entertaining stories is history of the Greek War against Troy. Join the Greeks in trying to recover beautiful Helen and the treasure of Sparta that had been taken by the handsome Trojan prince, Paris, and watch the politics and intrigue on Mt. Olympus as the Gods change sides in the conflict.
Read the Synopsis of the Greek war against Troy.
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2004-09-28