Greek & Roman Myths

This is a FLAME TREE Book

Publisher & Creative Director: Nick Wells

Contributors, authors, editors and sources for this series include:

Loren Auerbach, Norman Bancroft-Hunt, E.M. Berens, Katharine Berry Judson, Laura Bulbeck, Jeremiah Curtin, O.B. Duane, Dr Ray Dunning, W.W. Gibbings, H. A. Guerber, Jake Jackson, Joseph Jacobs, Judith John, J.W. Mackail (translator of Virgil’s Aeneid) Chris McNab, Professor James Riordan, Rachel Storm, K.E. Sullivan.

FLAME TREE PUBLISHING

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First published 2014

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PRINT ISBN: 978-0-85775-819-4

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-78755-632-4

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Contents

Series Foreword

GREEK MYTHS

Introduction to Greek Myths

Foundation of Greek Mythology

Myth in Society

Olympian Gods

Origins of Humanity

The Trojan War

Creatures and Monsters

Human Heroes and Demigods

Sources of Greek Myth

The Underworld

The Beginning

Chaos and Nyx

The Egg Myth

The Titans

Birth of Zeus

The Giants’ War

Prometheus

Pandora

The Great Deluge

Tales of Troy

The Judgement of Paris

Helen and Paris

The Seeds of War

The Trojan War

The Wanderings of Odysseus

The Cicones

The Lotus-Eaters

The Cyclopes

The Island of Aeolus

The Laestrygonians

Circe and the Island of Aeaea

The House of Hades

The Sirens

Scylla and Charybdis

The Flock of Helios

Calypso’s Island

Nausicaa and the Phaeacians

Penelope and Telemachus

The Battle for Ithaca

Jason and the Argonauts

Aeson

The Golden Fleece

The Argo Launches

Giants and Doliones

Harpies and Stymphalides

Arrival at Colchis

The Field of Ares

Jaosn Secures the Golden Fleece

The Voyage Home

Tales of Heracles

Young Heracles

Heracles and Eurystheus

12 Tasks: The Nemean Lion

12 Tasks: The Hydra

12 Tasks: The Horned Hind

12 Tasks: The Erymanthian Boar

12 Tasks: The Augean Stables

12 Tasks: The Stymphalian Birds

12 Tasks: The Cretan Bull

12 Tasks: The Mares of Diomedes

12 Tasks: The Girdle of Hippolyte

12 Tasks: The Oxen of Geryon

12 Tasks: The Apples of the Hesperides

12 Tasks: Cerberus

Heracles’ Freedom

Death of Heracles

The Heraclidae

Myths of Love and Courage

Orpheus and Eurydice

Echo and Narcissus

Perseus and the Gorgon

Icarus and Daedalus

Theseus

Bellerephon

Pelops

Ion

Philemon and Baucis

Loves of the Gods

Eros and Psyche

The Rape of Persephone

Zeus’ Affairs

Helios

Eos and Tithonus

The Loves of Apollo

Dionysus and Ariadne

Crime and Punishment

Tartarus

The Punishments of Apollo

The Calydonian Boar Hunt

The Cattle of Admetus

The Theban Cycle

Cadmus

Oedipus

The Seven Against Thebes

Epigoni

Alcmaeon and the Necklace

ROMAN MYTHS

Introduction to Roman Myths

The Birth of Roman Mythology

The Foundation of Rome

A Multitude of Gods

Public Religion

Heroes and Emperors

Mystery Religions

Adventures of Aeneas

The Sack of Troy

Dido and Aeneas

The Underworld

Embassy to Evander

The Death of Pallas

The Slaying of Turnus

The Founding of Rome

Romulus and Remus

The Sabine Women

Lucretia

Series Foreword

Stretching back to the oral traditions of thousands of years ago, tales of heroes and disaster, creation and conquest have been told by many different civilizations in many different ways. Their impact sits deep within our culture even though the detail in the tales themselves are a loose mix of historical record, transformed narrative and the distortions of hundreds of storytellers.

Today the language of mythology lives with us: our mood is jovial, our countenance is saturnine, we are narcissistic and our modern life is hermetically sealed from others. The nuances of myths and legends form part of our daily routines and help us navigate the world around us, with its half truths and biased reported facts.

The nature of a myth is that its story is already known by most of those who hear it, or read it. Every generation brings a new emphasis, but the fundamentals remain the same: a desire to understand and describe the events and relationships of the world. Many of the great stories are archetypes that help us find our own place, equipping us with tools for self-understanding, both individually and as part of a broader culture.

For Western societies it is Greek mythology that speaks to us most clearly. It greatly influenced the mythological heritage of the ancient Roman civilization and is the lens through which we still see the Celts, the Norse and many of the other great peoples and religions. The Greeks themselves learned much from their neighbours, the Egyptians, an older culture that became weak with age and incestuous leadership.

It is important to understand that what we perceive now as mythology had its own origins in perceptions of the divine and the rituals of the sacred. The earliest civilizations, in the crucible of the Middle East, in the Sumer of the third millennium

bc

, are the source to which many of the mythic archetypes can be traced. As humankind collected together in cities for the first time, developed writing and industrial scale agriculture, started to irrigate the rivers and attempted to control rather than be at the mercy of its environment, humanity began to write down its tentative explanations of natural events, of floods and plagues, of disease.

Early stories tell of Gods (or god-like animals in the case of tribal societies such as African, Native American or Aboriginal cultures) who are crafty and use their wits to survive, and it is reasonable to suggest that these were the first rulers of the gathering peoples of the earth, later elevated to god-like status with the distance of time. Such tales became more political as cities vied with each other for supremacy, creating new Gods, new hierarchies for their pantheons. The older Gods took on primordial roles and became the preserve of creation and destruction, leaving the new gods to deal with more current, everyday affairs. Empires rose and fell, with Babylon assuming the mantle from Sumeria in the 1800s

bc

, then in turn to be swept away by the Assyrians of the 1200s

bc

; then the Assyrians and the Egyptians were subjugated by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans and so on, leading to the spread and assimilation of common themes, ideas and stories throughout the world.

The survival of history is dependent on the telling of good tales, but each one must have the ‘feeling’ of truth, otherwise it will be ignored. Around the firesides, or embedded in a book or a computer, the myths and legends of the past are still the living materials of retold myth, not restricted to an exploration of origins. Now we have devices and global communications that give us unparalleled access to a diversity of traditions. We can find out about Native American, Indian, Chinese and tribal African mythology in a way that was denied to our ancestors, we can find connections, match the archaeology, religion and the mythologies of the world to build a comprehensive image of the human experience that is endlessly fascinating.

The stories in this book provide an introduction to the themes and concerns of the myths and legends of their respective cultures, with a short introduction to provide a linguistic, geographic and political context. This is where the myths have arrived today, but undoubtedly over the next millennia, they will transform again whilst retaining their essential truths and signs.

Jake Jackson

General Editor

Greek Myths

Introduction to Greek Myths

The stories of Greek mythology forged the common Greek identity and have been a key influence in the development of Western European art, music and literature since their debut in the eighth century

bc

, via the epic poems of Homer. These poems mark the introduction of the Olympians; divinities with human flaws, who presided over the fortunes of mortal men.

In about 1900

bc

, Greek-speaking peoples from the Caucasus migrated to the southern European peninsula known today as Greece (or Hellas). There they found a land of valleys and mountains, one of which, Mount Olympus, was so high (2917 m/9750 ft) it seemed to touch the heavens – it therefore had to be the home of the gods. Since this peninsula was bounded on three sides by seas (the Ionian, Aegean and Mediterranean), the newcomers naturally looked for trade to neighbouring maritime peoples, as far afield as Asia Minor (eastern Turkey) and North Africa. From these ancient cultures, the Greeks took music, poetry and names of exotic deities, like Hera and Athene; they also took their alphabet, probably from the Phoenicians (southern Syria).

Foundation of Greek Mythology

As city-states, like Athens and Sparta, grew and colonization developed, by the fifth century

bc

hundreds of Greek communities had arisen, lying round the shores of the Mediterranean (‘like frogs about a pond’, as Plato put it), the Black Sea, southern Italy and North Africa. Small wonder that the Greek imagination peopled the seas with monsters, giants and sirens whom heroes such as Jason, Odysseus, Theseus and Heracles had to overcome.

In 338

bc

Greece fell to Philip II of Macedonia and soon became part of Alexander the Great’s empire. But less than two centuries later, in 146

bc

, the expanding power of Rome saw Greece reduced to a Roman province. That was not the end of Greek culture however, for many of its gods and heroes were adapted by the Romans under different names (Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite – Venus, and Heracles – Hercules).

Greek belief in gods reached its peak between 800

bc

and 330

bc

. Every city of the ancient Greek world possessed its own myths, heroes and festivals. Despite the diversity, there were rites and festivals, such as the Olympic Games, in which all freeborn Greeks could take part. In addition, the great epic poems of Homer, Hesiod and other bards were known throughout the Greek world. Universal themes – of the Argonauts journeying in search of the Golden Fleece, of the 12 tests of Heracles, of Odysseus’s adventures on his return from the Trojan War – helped form a sense of nationhood.

The myths were passed on and adapted by the storytelling tradition, from mouth to mouth. So the pantheon of gods was well established by the time the myths were written down in about 750

bc

. When Athens became the centre of Greek intellectual life in the fifth century

bc

, well over half the adult male population of the city could read and write. The level of literacy in all Greek cities of this period was higher than at any period of Western culture before the twentieth century. It is also important to bear in mind two factors. First, for many purposes Greek culture remained an oral culture. Second, literacy did not extend to slaves (who in Athens accounted for a third of the population) or women. Ancient Greece was not a true democracy and the polis was essentially a male association. True, the most powerful figures seen in Greek tragedy are women, and several goddesses (Hera, Athene, Demeter) show more independence than their sisters in other pantheons, but only men were supposedly endowed with reason (logos) and were therefore the decision-makers in the real society.

Myth in Society

For many centuries, Western civilization looked upon mythology as Greek mythology. Only when collections of myths were made from other cultures was it clear how unique Greek myths were and what an important role they played. Over the centuries, faith in the absolute veracity of the old tales gradually faded. But Greeks had never wholly believed in their own interpretations of nature and history, so there is no standard version of a myth or epic.

In the traditional early versions of Jason and the Golden Fleece (of which only fragments remain), Jason’s ill-fortune is put down to the wiles of his wife Medea. Yet, later, Apollonius of Rhodes gives us a different version in which Medea is described as a victim of Jason’s infidelity and madness. Again, Homer has the beautiful Helen as prize for Paris of Troy; he elopes with her, so causing the Trojan War. Later poets (Stesichorus, Euripides), however, deny that Helen ever went to Troy at all. The historian Herodotus sums it up when he says that, ‘Homer knew the story, but it was not such an attractive subject for verse’. In his Republic, the philosopher Plato rejects virtually all the old myths, calling them immoral, and suggests new ones.

Each new bard, therefore, had the right to interpret historical tradition in his own way and the audience did not feel obliged to accept any one as received truth. In fact, the very dynamic nature of myth was intended to stimulate discussion of such virtues as truth, morality and ethics.

Greek myth is unusual in other ways. It very rarely involves talking animals, unlike myths from other parts of the world. Mostly the incidents described are no more than an embellishment of everyday life rather than fantasy adventures. The great bulk of Greek tales also features heroes: men and women from a particular time and place. True, they have greater powers than ordinary mortals, but they are not all-powerful. In Homer’s Iliad, when Diomedes and Patroclus attack the gods, Apollo reminds them: ‘Remember who you are! Gods and men can never be equal.’ By contrast, for example, Norse and Egyptian mythologies are far more concerned with gods than heroes.

Another quality of the myths is the educational role they played in society. In fifth-century

bc

Athens, aristocratic boys had as many as 12 years of schooling, divided into literature, music and physical education. The literature element mainly meant learning verse-myth by heart, taking in its moral content and debating issues raised. From Homer to the late tragedies, it is through myths that poets develop their deepest thoughts. The myths also provide a history of the Greek people, as well as contributing rich material for philosophical debates. In addition, they give ample subject matter for all the visual arts, from the great sculptures and statues adorning temples to mosaics and pottery paintings.

Olympian Gods

Ancient Greece had its cosmogonies, myths of how the world began and other stories of the gods. Although the gods travel far and wide, they always return to their homes beyond the clouds on Mount Olympus. Hence they are known as the Olympic gods or Olympians. Each god has his or her own home, although they usually come together in the palace of Zeus, father of the gods. There they feast on ambrosia and nectar, served by the lovely goddess Hebe and entertained by Apollo on his lyre. It is an immortal world of feasting and discussion of the affairs of heaven and earth.

Zeus, though known as the father of the gods, has a beginning. His father and mother are Cronus and Rhea, of the race of Titans, themselves children of heaven/Uranus and earth/Gaea. They, in turn, sprang from Chaos (‘the yawning abyss’). Zeus and his two brothers, Poseidon and Hades, shared out the world, with Zeus taking the heavens, Poseidon the seas and Hades the underworld.

The lame god Hephaestus was architect, smith and artist for the gods; he even forged thunderbolts which Zeus hurled at his enemies. In gratitude, Zeus gave him Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, as his wife. Some myths say that she was born of sea foam and clothed by the seasons. Eros, god of love, is her son; armed with his bow and arrows, he fires his love darts into the hearts of gods and humans. Athene, goddess of wisdom, sprang fully adult from the head of Zeus; it was she who gave her name to the city of Athens and to the most famous of all Greek temples, the Parthenon (built between 447 and 438

bc

) or Athene Parthonos (Athene the Virgin).

Hermes, messenger of the gods, is usually seen wearing a winged cap and sandals. He is also the god of trade, wrestling and other sports, even thieving – whatever requires skill and dexterity. Dionysus, god of wine, presides over sacred festivals to mark the grape harvest, wine being sacred and its drinking ritualized. Dionysus is often portrayed with male and female satyrs (horned creatures, half human, half-goat) and maenads (fauns). Since he is also the god of passion, many temples were named after him and festivals held in his name.

The nine Muses, who were daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory), were originally goddesses of memory, but later each becomes identified with song, verse, dance, comedy, tragedy, astronomy, history, art and science. The three Graces (also Zeus’s daughters) bestow beauty and charm on humans and preside over banquets, dancing and all elegant entertainment.

The three Fates control every person’s birth, life and death. Also known as the Cruel Fates, they spend their time spinning the threads of human destiny and cutting them with shears whenever they wish. Finally, the three Furies punish all transgressors mercilessly, usually with a deadly sting. Greeks preferred to call them the Eumenides (Good-Tempered Ones), as it would have been bad luck to use their proper name.

Origins of Humanity

Early Greek mythology had no agreed account of the origin of humanity. Sometimes humans emerged from clay, stones or ash trees. Much later, Plato claimed that the first man was a round ball with eight limbs but Zeus cut him in half to form the first man and woman. The best-known origin tale is that concerning the Titan Prometheus, who one day made a man out of clay and water in the image of the gods. But he had to pay for his bold deed.

To help men, Prometheus (whose name means ‘forethought’) stole fire from the sun’s chariot and took it to earth hidden in a fennel stalk. Zeus was furious. He ordered Hephaestus to make a woman out of clay and send her down to earth. Her name was Pandora and, being made in heaven, she possessed every possible gift – including curiosity. At the home of Prometheus’s brother, the slow-witted Epimetheus (meaning ‘afterthought’), was a sealed jar that Pandora was told never to open. Of course, she opened it, so releasing all the suffering and torment that beset human lives to this day. In fear, she replaced the lid, trapping just one thing inside: hope. The jar became known as Pandora’s Box.

Zeus then took revenge on Prometheus. He had him chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus where an eagle pecked out his liver. Being immortal, he could not die; the liver grew back in the night, and his torment started again with each new day.

In another myth, Zeus sent a flood to drown all humans. Deucalion, Prometheus’s son, and his wife Pyrrha (daughter of Pandora and Epimetheus) built an ark in which they survived the flood, ending up on Mount Parnassus. They prayed at the Oracle of Delphi and were told to throw stones over their shoulders as they walked along. Those tossed by Deucalion turned into men, those by Pyrrha into women. Thus the human race was recreated on earth.

According to Hesiod, in his Works and Days, there were five ages of humanity. In the first, the golden age, people lived in peace and plenty. The earth gave its riches freely, wine flowed from the vine and milk came of its own accord from cows and sheep. Inasmuch as people never grew old, death was no more terrible than falling asleep. In the course of time, the golden age gave way to the silver age. For the first time the year was divided into seasons and people had to build houses to protect themselves from winter wind and autumn rain. Since all sons were subject to their mothers, there was no cause for war.

It was not until the bronze age that evil entered people’s hearts and wars started. Fear, greed and hatred ruled the earth. Next came the heroic age, when Zeus restored some human virtues in order to see heroes through the Trojan War and other semi-mythical events of early Greek history. But the worst age of all was the iron age, when weapons of iron helped people destroy each other. Yet people always lived in hope that the ages would be repeated over time: one day Cronus would return and bring back the golden age, and nature would again produce her gifts freely, snake and weed would lose their poison, goat and sheep would come home without need of a shepherd and sheep would grow fleece in different colours.

The Trojan War

The heroic period of myth is not some remote and dateless past. It spanned only two or three generations, focusing on the Trojan War. This can be dated to the twelfth century

bc

: based on archaeological findings, scholars have calculated that Troy fell around 1190

bc

. The reason that the myths of this period are so well known is thanks to the oral storytelling tradition, from which one man, Homer, stands out. Homer’s epic poetry, especially his Iliad and Odyssey, is truly a jewel in the crown of Western literature.

The tales related by storytellers were important to Greeks because they told the story of their ancestors and glorious past. Homer’s epics and other verses were widely performed and children learned them in school. They described a heroic age in which gods freely intervened in human affairs, though mortals had to know their limits. But heroes were brave and adventurous, unafraid of self-sacrifice. Thus, when the warrior-hero Achilles is offered a choice by the Fates of a long life of ease or a short one with immortal glory, he naturally chooses the latter.

Troy (called Ilium in antiquity – hence the Iliad) was a city located near the coast in Asia Minor (eastern Turkey). Troy was strategically important because it guarded the Hellespont Straits. The story starts with Paris of Troy who is asked to judge a beauty contest between Hera, Athene and Aphrodite. Each promises him a reward: Hera – untold wealth, Athene – wisdom and fame; and Aphrodite – the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris opts for Aphrodite, so earning Paris the eternal enmity of Hera and Athene.

Paris’s prize is Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Enchanted by ‘the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium’ (Christopher Marlowe), Paris elopes with Helen to Troy. Alone among the Trojans, Paris’s sister, Cassandra, foretells the destruction of Troy brought by the abduction. With his brother Agamemnon, King of Argos, Menelaus organizes a great fleet to sail to Troy. The Greeks set up camp outside Troy and besiege it for nigh on ten years. It is at this point that Homer takes up the story.

Two of the most famous Greek warriors, Achilles and Odysseus, at first refuse to join the expedition, but are finally tricked into going. Achilles is a typical Greek hero: strong and proud, but also brutal and headstrong, embodying the paradox of the hero, as seen especially in Heracles. Like many other heroes, he was brought up in the hills by the wise tutor Chiron, a centaur. His mother, hoping to make him invincible, dipped the young Achilles into the River Styx; the heel by which she held him remained the only vulnerable part of his body.

During the siege, Achilles falls out with Agamemnon over the king’s acceptance of a Trojan priest’s daughter, Chryseis, as war spoils. Achilles refuses to fight and lends his armour to his best friend Patroclus, who is killed in battle by the Trojan commander Hector, King Priam of Troy’s eldest son. Achilles returns to the fray bent on revenge. He pursues Hector three times round the walls of Troy and finally kills him in a sword fight. Such is Achilles’s fury that he mutilates Hector’s corpse and refuses to return it to Priam for burial. However, the angry gods force him to hand over the body and, recklessly, he continues fighting, before being killed by an arrow shot in his heel by Paris. In turn, Paris is killed by a Greek archer. The Iliad ends with the games held for Hector’s funeral.

Creatures and Monsters

Many are the horrifying monsters sent to test the strength and guile of Greek heroes – Jason, Heracles, Odysseus, Perseus, Theseus. They all have to journey to the very edge of known civilization and beyond into realms of fantasy where, time and again, they have to overcome giants, dragons, many-headed serpents, sirens, huge bulls and sea monsters of every sort.

The creatures of Greek myth are the archetypal villains of the European consciousness, rich material for the fertile imagination of artists, poets and children.

Some monsters, notably the giants, differ from men mainly in their size and ugliness. The human giants, such as the Cyclops (with one eye in the middle of their forehead), King Amycus of Bebryces (covered in thick black hair and beaten by the Argonaut Polydeuces in a boxing match) or Antacus (who is defeated by Heracles at wrestling) resemble ordinary mortals in proportions, and join in love and war with them.

Superhuman giants, on the other hand, war even with the gods and are of vastly grander proportions: Typhon, with his 100 arms, makes war on Zeus who slays him with a thunderbolt. He is so huge that it takes Mount Etna to cover the corpse. His brother Enceladus provides the flames of Mount Etna’s volcano with his breath. For his part in the war against Zeus, the Titan Atlas has to hold up the heavens on his shoulders. It is Atlas’s three daughters, the Hesperides, who bring Heracles the magical golden apples.

It can hardly have been coincidence that many of the monsters who test heroes are female. Oedipus (who has further troubles with women, unwittingly marrying his own mother) has a trial with the Sphinx, which has a woman’s head and breasts, a lion’s body and a bird’s wings. The Harpies, fierce winged creatures with sharp claws, possess women’s faces. These filthy beasts snatch food from the blind Phineus during Jason’s journey to Colchis. The three Gorgon sisters, led by Medusa, have writhing snakes for hair and can turn their victims to stone with a