Myth Topic 2

The Cultural Context:

“Myth reflects the society that produces them”

Greek Geography:

Poor, barren, rocky land

**MAP**

Olives

Goats

Marble (statues) Clay (pottery)

Horses rare

Metal imported

The SEA

“Greatest sea-farers of the ancient world”

(with Phoenicians)

Isolated Settlements

favored city-states over empire

Greek History:

BCE (= BC)

3000–1600: Early/Middle Bronze Age

1600–1050: Mycenaean (Late Bronze) Age

1050–800: Dark Age

750–479: Archaic Period

479–323: Classical Period

323–30: Hellenistic Period

[31 BCE – 400 CE Roman Period]

See timelines, ACM pp. liv–lvii

Early/Middle Bronze Age

Indo-Europeans show up on Balkan Peninsula

Different from Semitic people (Hebrews, Phoenicians, Arabs) and Egyptians

Mycenaean (Late Bronze) Age 1600–1050 BC

Powerful kings

Centers of power:

Thebes, Athens, near Sparta

“Achaeans”

Age of Mythic origins

(? real Agamemnon, Hercules, Oedipus, Troy)

Form of writing: Linear B

very simple accounts—

but names of gods appear

see ACM Appendix One (439–454)

Dark Age 1050–750 BC

Invasion by Greek-speaking Dorians

Overrun all but Athens

Archaic Period 750–490 BC

The Greek Alphabet

Phoenician /Semitic Alphabet adapted for Greek language

Vowels included

Huge achievement

Source of Latin alphabet (= ours) and Cyrillic alphabet

ABCD

Rise of polis:

City-state, citizens

Sea-trade

Helps avoid social stratification

Ruled by tyrants

Aristoi – “better men”

Sponsors of art and literature, so we know the most about them

When Homer probably lived

c. 700

We know little about his period

Classical Period 479–323 BC

508BC Cleisthenes makes Athens a Democracy

With all the caveats

Authority comes from the power of persuasion

Power of democracy:

the repulsion of the Persian army from Greece (479)

490BC: Marathon

480BC: Thermopylae (Leonidas, etc.)

Golden age of Culture (primarily in Athens):

· Study of Homer

· Philosophy

o Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

· History

o Herodotus and Thucydides

· Drama

o Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides; Aristophanes

Sense of Greek unity: Hellenes

Peloponnesian War (431BC-404)

Sparta v. Athens

Ends with Greece being overrun by Macedonian Phillip II

Love of Greek culture, but Monarchy

Hellenistic Period 323–30 BC

Spread of Greek culture by Alexander the Great (336-323 BC)

Esp. throughout near east (Palestine, Syria, Egypt)

Centered in Alexandria, Egypt

146BC — Greece conquered by Rome

30BC — Alexandria falls to Rome

Roman Period 31 BCE – 400 CE

Like Hellenistic Greeks / Macedonians, Romans adored Classical Greek Culture and adopt and adapt many of their myths

Most of European/American transmission of Greek culture comes through the Romans

Especially Ovid, Metamorphoses and Vergil, Aeneid

only in the 18^th century and later have western Europeans rediscovered Greek myth in the Greek language

Greek Society:

Sources are primarily from Classical Period,

from Athens

concerned with free aristocratic MALES

Archeology can help

MEN: read, write, be athletic

Pederasty—“love of boys” was common

Cup-bearers in Symposium

Problems of modern categories:

Not “homosexual” or “heterosexual”

(which suggest identities)

(what does the bible say about homosexuality?)

μαλακοὶ οὔτε ἀρσενοκοῖται

Greek men engaged in a variety of sexual activities

See ACM 373–375

Plato’s Symposium

Relationships between men were paramount

Hang out in symposium—drink

War was common

half of adult males would expect to live

Hoplites

Gymnasium—practice for war

WOMEN:

Sources limited and biased

Rarely literate

Monogamous relationships (For the women)

Married through family ASAP after sexual maturity

(14 year old girl to 30 yr old man)

dangerous “parthenos”

“Parthenon”

Weaving, run the household

Childbirth

Deal with the dead

(dangerous, and polluting—miasma)

Exposure of additional children (hence foundling)

Slavery

Essential for the leisure classes of Athens (and democracy)

Could buy freedom

Religion:

Cf. Judeo-Christian-Muslim Context

The Greek gods:

· Many Gods –“capricious and terrifying”

· Did not make “the world” but dwelt within it

· Did not impose moral codes –notion of sin was unknown

· Did not reveal their will in sacred texts

(Bible, Koran are NOT like myths, in the ancient world)

Do not love mankind

Sacrifice—at temples

Beliefs:

· Magic; oracles, divination

· Spirits, blood guilt (miasma)

· Human and natural world are intimately connected

Greece and Rome:

Rome absorbed the Greek myths, made them their own

THIS is where we got them from, until relatively recently