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    Greek Mythology: Sources: Bronze Age

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    april
    The document summarizes the origins and sources of Greek mythology. It discusses how the myths originated in an oral tradition and were first written down in Homer's epics, which introduced gods and characters without explanation since the audience already knew them. Later, Hesiod offered the first written cosmogony in Theogony, detailing the evolution of gods from primordial elements. Greek writers and artists then elaborated on these original sources in their own works. The document also provides an overview of the main Olympian gods and goddesses and notes that Greek myths featured important human heroes and fearsome monsters in addition to the divine figures.

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    Greek Mythology: Sources: Bronze Age

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    april
    37 views3 pages
    The document summarizes the origins and sources of Greek mythology. It discusses how the myths originated in an oral tradition and were first written down in Homer's epics, which introduced gods and characters without explanation since the audience already knew them. Later, Hesiod offered the first written cosmogony in Theogony, detailing the evolution of gods from primordial elements. Greek writers and artists then elaborated on these original sources in their own works. The document also provides an overview of the main Olympian gods and goddesses and notes that Greek myths featured important human heroes and fearsome monsters in addition to the divine figures.

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    Mythology

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    The document summarizes the origins and sources of Greek mythology. It discusses how the myths originated in an oral tradition and were first written down in Homer's epics, which introduced gods and characters without explanation since the audience already knew them. Later, Hesiod offered the first written cosmogony in Theogony, detailing the evolution of gods from primordial elements. Greek writers and artists then elaborated on these original sources in their own works. The document also provides an overview of the main Olympian gods and goddesses and notes that Greek myths featured important human heroes and fearsome monsters in addition to the divine figures.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    37 views3 pages

    Greek Mythology: Sources: Bronze Age

    Uploaded by

    april
    The document summarizes the origins and sources of Greek mythology. It discusses how the myths originated in an oral tradition and were first written down in Homer's epics, which introduced gods and characters without explanation since the audience already knew them. Later, Hesiod offered the first written cosmogony in Theogony, detailing the evolution of gods from primordial elements. Greek writers and artists then elaborated on these original sources in their own works. The document also provides an overview of the main Olympian gods and goddesses and notes that Greek myths featured important human heroes and fearsome monsters in addition to the divine figures.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    “Myth has two main functions,” the poet and scholar Robert Graves

    wrote in 1955. “The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions


    that children ask, such as ‘Who made the world? How will it end? Who
    was the first man? Where do souls go after death?’…The second
    function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for
    traditional rites and customs.” In ancient Greece, stories about gods
    and goddesses and heroes and monsters were an important part of
    everyday life. They explained everything from religious rituals to the
    weather, and they gave meaning to the world people saw around them.

    Greek Mythology: Sources


    In Greek mythology, there is no single original text like the Christian
    Bible or the Hindu Vedas that introduces all of the myths’ characters
    and stories. Instead, the earliest Greek myths were part of an oral
    tradition that began in the Bronze Age , and their plots and themes
    unfolded gradually in the written literature of the archaic and classical
    periods. The poet Homer’s 8th-century BC epics the Iliad and the
    Odyssey, for example, tell the story of the (mythical) Trojan War  as a
    divine conflict as well as a human one. They do not, however, bother to
    introduce the gods and goddesses who are their main characters, since
    readers and listeners would already have been familiar with them.

    Did you know? Many consumer products get their names from Greek mythology. Nike sneakers
    are the namesake of the goddess of victory, for example, and the website Amazon.com is named
    after the race of mythical female warriors. Many high school, college and professional sports
    teams (Titans, Spartans and Trojans, for instance) also get their names from mythological
    sources.
    Around 700 BC, the poet Hesiod’s Theogony offered the first written
    cosmogony, or origin story, of Greek mythology. The Theogony tells
    the story of the universe’s journey from nothingness (Chaos, a
    primeval void) to being, and details an elaborate family tree of
    elements, gods and goddesses who evolved from Chaos and
    descended from Gaia (Earth), Ouranos (Sky), Pontos (Sea) and
    Tartaros (the Underworld).

    Later Greek writers and artists used and elaborated upon these
    sources in their own work. For instance, mythological figures and
    events appear in the 5th-century plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and
    Euripides and the lyric poems of Pindar. Writers such as the 2nd-
    century BC Greek mythographer Apollodorus of Athens and the 1st-
    century BC Roman historian Gaius Julius Hyginus compiled the ancient
    myths and legends for contemporary audiences.

    Greek Mythology: The Olympians


    At the center of Greek mythology is the pantheon of deities who were
    said to live on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. From
    their perch, they ruled every aspect of human life. Olympian gods and
    goddesses looked like men and women (though they could change
    themselves into animals and other things) and were–as many myths
    recounted–vulnerable to human foibles and passions.

    The twelve main Olympians are:

     Zeus (Jupiter, in Roman mythology): the king of all the gods (and
    father to many) and god of weather, law and fate
     Hera (Juno): the queen of the gods and goddess of women and
    marriage
     Aphrodite (Venus): goddess of beauty and love
     Apollo (Apollo): god of prophesy, music and poetry and
    knowledge
     Ares (Mars): god of war
     Artemis (Diana): goddess of hunting, animals and childbirth
     Athena (Minerva): goddess of wisdom and defense
     Demeter (Ceres): goddess of agriculture and grain
     Dionysos (Bacchus): god of wine, pleasure and festivity
     Hephaistos (Vulcan): god of fire, metalworking and sculpture
     Hermes (Mercury): god of travel, hospitality and trade and Zeus’s
    personal messenger
     Poseidon (Neptune): god of the sea
    Other gods and goddesses sometimes included in the roster of
    Olympians are:

     Hades (Pluto): god of the underworld


     Hestia (Vesta): goddess of home and family
     Eros (Cupid): god of sex and minion to Aphrodite
    Greek Mythology: Heroes and Monsters
    Greek mythology does not just tell the stories of gods and goddesses,
    however. Human heroes–such as Heracles, the adventurer who
    performed 12 impossible labors for King Eurystheus (and was
    subsequently worshipped as a god for his accomplishment); Pandora,
    the first woman, whose curiosity brought evil to mankind; Pygmalion,
    the king who fell in love with an ivory statue; Arachne, the weaver who
    was turned into a spider for her arrogance; handsome Trojan prince
    Ganymede who became the cupbearer for the gods; Midas, the king
    with the golden touch; and Narcissus, the young man who fell in love
    with his own reflection–are just as significant. Monsters and “hybrids”
    (human-animal forms) also feature prominently in the tales: the winged
    horse Pegasus, the horse-man Centaur, the lion-woman Sphinx and
    the bird-woman Harpies, the one-eyed giant Cyclops, automatons
    (metal creatures given life by Hephaistos), manticores and unicorns,
    Gorgons, pygmies, minotaurs, satyrs and dragons of all sorts. Many of
    these creatures have become almost as well known as the gods,
    goddesses and heroes who share their stories.

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