Oh My Gods, page 40
SIRENS, women with wings of birds who lured sailors to their death with their beautiful singing
SISYPHUS, king of Corinth who was punished by the gods in Hades by forever being forced to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down once he reached the top.
SKY (Greek Ouranos, Latin Uranus), child and husband of Earth, father of many children, including Cronus.
SPHINX, daughter of Echidna, a monster with a human head, lion’s body, and eagle’s wings. She killed herself after Oedipus solved her riddle at Thebes.
STRIFE (Greek Eris), the goddess of discord, a child of Night, created at the beginning of the world.
STYX, chief river of Hades by which the gods swore unbreakable oaths.
SYRINX, a nymph transformed into a flower to avoid the amorous advances of Pan.
TALUS, bronze giant who guarded Crete until disabled by Medea.
TANTALUS, Lydian king and father of Pelops who served his son as a dish in a banquet for the gods.
TARPEIA, vestal virgin who betrayed Rome and was crushed to death by Sabine shields.
TARTARUS, the dark region sprung from Chaos, located far beneath Hades. It was the prison of the defeated Titans.
TELEMACHUS, son of Odysseus and Penelope.
TEREUS, evil Thracian king who married Procne, then raped and cut out the tongue of her sister, Philomela.
TERPSICHORE, muse of lyric poetry and dancing.
TETHYS (see Sea)
THALIA, muse of comedy.
THEIA, daughter of Earth and Sky, mother of Eos, Helios, and Selene.
THEMIS, daughter of Earth and Sky, onetime goddess at Delphi, she was associated with order and justice.
THEOPHRANE, maiden turned into a ewe by Poseidon, then raped by him in the form of a ram. She gave birth to the ram that provided the Golden Fleece sought by the Argonauts.
THESEUS, son of Aegeus, king of Athens, and the maiden Aethra of Troezen. He had many adventures, including the defeat of the Minotaur in Crete.
THETIS, sea goddess who gave birth to Achilles by her mortal husband, Peleus.
THISBE, beloved by Pyramus, she killed herself after finding him dead.
THYESTES, son of Pelops and brother of Atreus.
TIBER, god of river that flows through Rome.
TIRESIAS, great seer of Thebes, sought out by Oedipus and Creon in life, then by Odysseus in the underworld.
TITANS, name given to the first generation of gods defeated by Zeus and his allies.
TITHONUS, handsome prince taken by Eos to her palace as a lover until she turned him into a cicada.
TITYUS, giant who attempted to rape Leto, he was punished in Hades by being staked to the ground and having his liver eternally eaten by vultures.
TRITON, sea god and namesake of Lake Triton in north Africa.
TURNUS, Italian foe of Aeneas and rival for the hand of Lavinia.
TYNDAREUS, king of Sparta and husband of Leda.
TYPHON, powerful monster sprung from Earth and Tartarus, he challenged Zeus and was beaten after the war with the Titans.
ULYSSES (see Odysseus)
URANIA, muse of astronomy.
VENUS (see Aphrodite)
VERTUMNUS, Roman fertility god who wooed and won the goddess Pomona.
VESTA (see Hestia)
VESTAL VIRGINS Roman maidens sworn to virginity who served the hearth goddess Vesta.
VULCAN (see Hephaestus)
ZEPHYRUS or Zephyr, god of the west wind, said to have caused the death of Hyacinth.
ZETES, Argonaut and winged son of the north wind.
ZEUS (Latin Jupiter or Jove), son of Cronus and Rhea, brother of Poseidon and Hades, and husband of Hera, he was the most powerful of the gods.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
There are many excellent academic and popular surveys of Greek and Roman mythology. I would particularly recommend Richard Martin’s Myths of the Ancient Greeks, Barry Powell’s Classical Myth, and, especially for its superb photographs and illustrations, Richard Buxton’s Complete World of Greek Mythology. For those readers who want to delve into the original sources, many of the shorter tales are collected in the Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation edited by Stephen M. Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, and Stephen Brunet. There are also many good editions of classical authors from Homer to Ovid in most bookstores and libraries. I have found the essays in the Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology edited by Roger D. Woodard very helpful, as well as the detailed studies by Timothy Gantz in Early Greek Myth. Walter Burkert offers a clear introduction to ancient ritual and worship in Greek Religion, while Mary Lefkowitz’s Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn from Myths is a wonderful exposition of why ancient mythology is still meaningful today.
Many of the Mesopotamian, Anatolian, and Egyptian stories so influential to Greek mythology are found in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament edited by James B. Pritchard. Hittite Myths, a more recent collection by Harry Hoffner, provides a glimpse into the ancient mythology of Asia Minor. What we know of Indo-European myths is covered ably in Jaan Puhvel’s Comparative Mythology, revealing just how little of this tradition survived among the Greeks. For stories from Italy, I recommend Etruscan Myths by Larissa Bonfante and Judith Swaddling, along with Roman Myths by Jane F. Gardner.
The names of the gods can be confusing (Hesiod lists over three hundred alone in the Theogony). The glossary in this book is a good start, but I also recommend a full listing of names, places, and terms such as those found in Pierre Grimal’s Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Edward Tripp’s Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology, and the Oxford Classical Dictionary.
CREATION
The primary source for the Greek story of creation and early tales of gods and men is Hesiod’s Theogony, though later Greek and Roman authors contribute as well. The Theogony (116–210) tells of the birth of the gods from Chaos and the castration of Sky by Cronus. As in the beginning of the biblical book of Genesis and in Near Eastern mythology, the world is not created from nothing (ex nihilo). In the opening chapter of Genesis (1.2): The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the water.
Whereas the Babylonian Enuma Elish begins (1–3):
When on high heaven was not yet named
nor was the ground yet named,
there was nothing but primordial Apsu.
The conflict between generations of gods in Greek mythology is also paralleled in the Near Eastern tradition. The young Babylonian god Marduk defeats his elders along with an array of monsters to become ruler of heaven. In the Song of Kumarbi, a story from Hittite mythology, Alalu is king of the gods until Anu defeats him in battle, only to be overcome himself by Kumarbi, who bites off his genitals.
Modern readers are sometimes troubled by contradictory stories in Greek mythology, such as multiple origins of the Fates, who rule our destiny, the various mothers of Typhon, or conflicting accounts of the creation of humanity. The Greeks were not so bothered by discrepancies, which are often due to stories arising in different regions of Greece. In the text, I try to smooth over these differences with “Some say… but others say,” though I cannot include all the known variants of a particular myth.
The story of the five generations of humanity is found in Hesiod’s Works and Days (106–201), with interesting parallels to the Hebrew Bible (Daniel 2.31–35). The passage at the end of this story is one of the few examples of eschatology—an often cataclysmic story of the world’s end—found in Greek mythology. Readers of the Christian New Testament (Matthew 10.34–36, Luke 12.49–53) may find the parallels instructive.
The charming story of the three types of spherical humans split apart by Zeus comes from a later source, Plato’s Symposium (189C–194E).
The creation of man by Prometheus does not occur in Hesiod, but is described in Pausanias (10.4) and the Odes of the Roman poet Horace (1.16). The deception of Zeus at the banquet by Prometheus is recorded in Hesiod’s Theogony (535–561), while his theft of fire and his subsequent punishment occur in multiple sources, including Hesiod (Theogony, 520–525, 565–567) and more dramatically in the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus. The typically misogynistic Hesiod records the Pandora story twice (Theogony, 567–612; Works and Days, 53–104) with minor variants.
The Greek flood story has parallels with the biblical account (Genesis 6–9) and with the Near Eastern mythology, such as the stories of the righteous man Ziusudra/Atrahasis saved by the intervention of the god Enki/Ea, and Utnapishtim saved by Ea in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The tale of Deucalion occurs in classical mythology in relatively late sources (Apollodorus 1.7.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.163–415).
GODS
Modern readers sometimes wonder if the ancient Greeks and Romans really believed in their gods. After all, how could anyone take a libido-driven divinity like Zeus seriously as a moral guide? The answer is that, yes, the people of the classical world believed in their gods—but not, perhaps, in the way some modern readers would think. The ancients saw the gods as guardians and benefactors of particular facets of life and the world, such as justice, sea travel, marriage, childbirth, and healing. The proper role of humans was to appease and bargain with the gods through sacrifices to achieve a specific goal. The Greeks and Romans would never expect the gods to love them or provide them with moral examples. Of course, there were always skeptics and atheists, but this role was generally reserved for a few intellectuals who often risked their lives in expressing their views. Some scholars did view the stories of the gods through an allegorical lens or as remnants of tales once told of actual human beings who in time came to be seen as divine (euhemerism), but to the average Greek or Roman, the gods were real and powerful beings neglected at great peril.
The warning from Zeus to the gods is found in Homer (Iliad, 8.17–27). The story of Salmoneus is from Apollodorus (1.9.7), while the tale of Ixion comes from Apollodorus (Epitome, 1.20) and Pindar (Pythian Ode, 2.21–49). The myth of Asclepius raising mortals from the dead is also from Apollodorus (3.10.3–4).
The story of hapless Io is found in many passages of Greek and Roman literature with a wide degree of variant stories. I have for the most part followed the narration of Io herself to Prometheus in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (561–886), along with scattered references in the same author’s Suppliant Women, in Apollodorus (2.1.3), and in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1.568–779).
Europa is first mentioned in Homer (Iliad, 14.321–322) as a daughter of Phoenix, not Agenor, but I have followed the most common version of the tale from Apollodorus (3.1.1–2), Ovid (Metamorphoses, 2.833–3.25), and especially the Hellenistic poet Moschus (2).
The tale of Callisto occurs in many ancient authors with variations, including Apollodorus (3.8), but I have relied primarily on Ovid (Metamorphoses, 2.401–535). The story of Antiope likewise varies widely, with the main sources being Apollodorus (3.5), Hyginus (Fabulae, 7–8), and Pausanias (2.6, 9.17). The often contradictory myths involving Aegina and her son Aeacus are found in Apollodorus (1.9, 3.12), Pausanias (2.5), Hyginus (Fabulae, 52), and Ovid (Metamorphoses 7.501–660). The stories of Electra and her sister Taygete are found in Apollodorus (3.10, 12), Hyginus (Astronomica, 2.21), and Pindar (Olympian Ode, 3.29–30). The myth of Leda and her sons Castor and Pollux is from Apollodorus (3.10), Euripides (Helen, 16–22), Pindar (Nemean Ode, 10.54–91), Pausanias (3.16), and Hyginus (Fabulae 77–80).
The story of Phaenon is found in Hyginus (Astronomica, 2.42) and Ganymede in Homer (Iliad, 20.231–235), the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5.202–217), and Hyginus (Astronomica, 2.16, 29). The name of Ganymede was corrupted via Etruscan to Latin Catamitus, hence the modern word catamite, a male who submits passively to the sexual attention of another man.
The ancient hymn is from the Homeric Hymn to Poseidon (22). The account of Poseidon’s brief rebellion against Zeus is from Homer (Iliad, 1.401–406). Pausanias (10.5–6) quotes the poem about Delphi from a passage of the Eumolpia by the legendary Musaeus and tells how Poseidon once shared the oracle with the goddess Earth.
Pausanias tells of the fight between Poseidon and Helios for Corinth (2.1.6) and Hera for Argos (2.15.5, 2.22.4). Apollodorus (3.14.1) records the best version of the contest between the sea god and Athena for Athens, though he says Zeus appointed all twelve Olympian gods as judges rather than King Cecrops alone.
Poseidon’s wife Amphitrite is rarely mentioned in ancient sources. Her disputed genealogy is from Hesiod (Theogony, 243, 254) and Apollodorus (1.2.2, 1.2.7), while the brief myth of her flight from her would-be husband is found in Hyginus (Astronomica, 2.17).
The stories of Poseidon and the unlucky objects of his affection are told in many sources. The rape of Demeter as a mare and her subsequent children by the god comes from Pausanias (8.25, 8.42) and Apollodorus (3.6.8). The assault on Medusa is from Ovid (Metamorphoses, 4.790–803) and Apollodorus (2.4.3). The story of Theophane is from Hyginus (Fabulae, 188), while the tale of Canace, her willing daughter Iphimedea, and the brothers Otus and Ephialtes is from Apollodorus (1.7.4) and Hyginus (Fabulae, 28). The rape and sex change of Caenis/Caenus comes from Hyginus (Fabulae, 14). The story of Pelops the boy lover is from Pindar (Olympian Ode, 1.35–45).
The tale of Poseidon’s labors at Troy comes primarily from Homer (Iliad, 21.434–460), but also from Apollodorus (2.5.9) and Hyginus (Fabulae, 89).
References to both the god and place Hades are frequent in classical literature from the time of Homer, though there are few myths about him. The words of the doomed Alcestis are from Euripides (Alcestis, 259–264). Homer (Odyssey, 11) contains the fullest description of the underworld in Greek mythology. Other notable passages are Homer (Iliad, 8.366–368), the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hesiod (Theogony, 310–312, 758–819, 850), Aristophanes (Frogs, 138–140, 180–269), Apollodorus (2.5.12), Virgil (Aeneid, 6), and Ovid (Metamorphoses, 7.408–419, 10.65–67).
The alternate view in the myth of Er comes from Plato (Republic, 10.614b–621d). This story is not a traditional myth but a creation of the philosopher himself, yet the tale draws on ancient stories from the cult of Orpheus practiced throughout Greece and the doctrines of the famous mathematician and religious leader Pythagoras. The story of Er influenced many later writers and makers of myths, such as the Roman author Virgil.
The stories of Leto and the birth of Apollo are found in many sources, especially the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3), but also Homer (Odyssey, 11.576–581), Hesiod (Theogony, 918–920), Apollodorus (1.4), Hyginus (Fabulae, 53, 140), and Ovid (Metamorphoses, 6.339–381). The establishment of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi is from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3), which makes the great serpent a female, along with Apollodorus (1.4.1) and Hyginus (Fabulae, 140). The story of Niobe is from Homer (Iliad, 24.605–620), Ovid (Metamorphoses, 6.146–312), Pausanias (1.21.3), and Hyginus (Fabulae, 9, 11). That of Marsyas and Midas is from Ovid (Metamorphoses, 6.382–400, 11.146–193), Hyginus (Fabulae, 165, 191), and Apollodorus (1.4.2).
The tale of Daphne is told best in Ovid (Metamorphoses, 1.452–567), while the side story of unlucky Leucippus is from Pausanias (8.20). The chilling story of the Sibyl is from Ovid (Metamorphoses, 14.129–153) and Petronius (Satyricon, 48). T. S. Eliot quotes Petronius in the epigraph to his poem “The Waste Land.” The myth of Marpessa and Idas is from Apollodorus (1.7.8–9), while Sinope comes from Apollonius Rhodius (2.946–954), with the addition that she successfully played the same trick on Zeus and the god of the Halys River. Cassandra’s rejection of Apollo is found in Apollodorus (3.12.5), Hyginus (Fabulae, 93), and Aeschylus (Agamemnon, 1212).
The story of Hyacinth is from Ovid (Metamorphoses, 10.162–219), along with Euripides (Helen, 1465–1474) and Apollodorus (1.3.3). The transformation of Cyparissus is likewise told in Ovid (Metamorphoses, 10.106–142). The story of Ion comes primarily from Euripides’ play Ion, along with Pausanias (2.14.2, 7.1.2–5). The tale of Chione is from Ovid (Metamorphoses, 11.291–345).
The two stories of the origin of Hephaestus are both found in Homer (Iliad, 1.584–600, 18.368–409), while the tale of the failed mating with Athena comes from Hyginus (Fabulae, 166). The humorous account of the cuckolding of Hephaestus by Ares is also from Homer (Odyssey, 8.266–366).
Ares appears frequently as a character in Homer’s Iliad (the quote by Zeus is from 5.889–893) and in the genealogies of Hesiod’s Theogony, but the genuine myths about him are as rare as those of Hades or Hephaestus. The story of Alcippe and Halirrhothius is from Euripides (Electra, 1258–1261) and Apollodorus (3.14.2).
Hermes appears as a secondary character in countless Greek myths, but the charming story of his theft of Apollo’s cattle is from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4).
The birth of Pan is from the Homeric Hymn to Pan (19), while the tale of Syrinx is from Ovid (Metamorphoses, 1.689–712).
The sun god Helios was one of the oldest Greek deities, though he does not feature prominently in myth or cult worship. In later stories he was often identified with Apollo, but he was a distinct divinity until at least Hellenistic times. His genealogy is told by Hesiod (Theogony, 371–374) and his association with the island of Rhodes by Pindar (Olympian Ode, 7.54–76). Ovid is the source for both the story of Leucothoe/Clytie (Metamorphoses, 4.167–270) and the famous tale of Phaethon (Metamorphoses, 1.747–2.400).
