History, Greek Mythology And Its Gods

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History, Greek mythology and its gods

History and mythology help explain the world of antiquity, the world that the classic archaeologist seeks to illuminate. Classic archaeologists, unlike archaeologists who work in many other areas, have many written sources and unwritten stories that can use to help them understand how ancient peoples thought and acted.

Salvage statue.What is a myth? One of the most enduring legacies of ancient Greece is the collection of stories that tell the stories of gods and heroes. Together, these stories are known as myths. What do we mean when we call them myths? Today, when we say ‘Oh, that’s just a myth’, what we mean is ‘Oh, that’s not true (even if many people believe it)’ ’. Are the myths, so, stories that are not true?

The oldest definition of the Greek word Mythos comes from Homer, and means ‘word’, ‘speech’ or ‘history’, without any of the falsehood connotations that our term myth has. As time advanced, myths increasing. C.), the myths had most of the connotations that our word ‘myth’.

We have not yet defined myth. At a very basic level, a myth is a story. However, a myth is a special type of history. Fritz Graf, in his book Greek Mythology defines myth as a ‘traditional story’, with two characteristics that distinguish it from a legend or a fairy tale. First, a myth is adaptable to many literary genres. Second, although flexible, the adaptability of a myth is limited by the fact that a myth must be culturally relevant.

Since a myth is adaptable, you can adopt many forms. The most famous type of literature contains myths is epic poetry. Our first sources of Greek myths are the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, written in the seventh century to. C., although they were based on an anterior oral poetic tradition. Subsequent epic examples include Apollonius rhodius argonautics (third century to. C.), which tells the story of Jason and the Argonauts. In addition, myths are not limited to the epic. Píndaro (early fifth century. C.) made a frequent use of myth in the odes he wrote to commemorate the victors of the Olympic Games (and others). Finally, the three great playwrights of Athens, Esquilo, Sophocles and Eurpides, used the myth almost exclusively in their works;Historic dramas were quite rare.

Because the myth is so adaptable, we do not have a ‘sacred text’ that tells us all the Greek myths in its definitive forms. Each myth, in fact, did not have a definitive form, because every narrator, poet and playwright felt free to mold the myth according to their own needs. Sometimes, adaptations may seem lower. Esquilo, for example, made Agamemnon King of Argos in his work Agamemnon, while the previous tradition unanimously appointed him as king of Mycenae. Sometimes, however, adaptations are very significant. In his work Helena, Euripides feared that, as an adulteress who abandoned her husband, Helena de Troya was not a very understanding character. That’s why the story changed. Euripides Helena was in Egypt all the time and had nothing to do with the beginning of the war that killed so many Greeks and Trojans. The key point is that each new version must continue to invoke something at your audience. If the new story fails to do this, if it loses its relevance to its culture, it makes no sense and it can no longer be called myth.

Greek gods: Olympic

One of the distinctive characteristics of myth is the close interaction between gods and mortals. The gods speak with their mortal favorites and intervene in their favor. They could also cause severe damage to their enemies. Odysseus, for example, enraged the god of the posidon sea when he blinded Poseidon, the Cyclops Polyphemus. Poseidon killed all Ulysses followers and prevented the hero from getting home for ten years. The Greeks gathered their most important gods in a pantheon of twelve. Not all lists have the same twelve gods, but the following list is quite standard.

Zeus:

Zeus is the god of heaven who uses rays to hit those who offend him. The theogony of Hesiod, which gives the genealogy of the Greek gods, makes it the son of the Cronos and Rea Titans. Cronos feared that his children would someday overthrow him, so at birth he took them from Rea and ate them. Rea cheated Cronos giving him a stone wrapped in blankets, and Zeus escaped. Finally, Zeus rescued his brothers and threw his father into Tartarus. Divided the spheres of the world with his brothers Poseidon and Hades. Zeus received the sky, posted the sea and Hades the underworld. Few cities claimed to have a special relationship with Zeus, as Athens does it with Athena or Argos with Hera, but the cult of Zeus was almost universal among the Greeks. Two of the four Panhelenic games, held at regular and assisted intervals throughout the Greek world, were dedicated to Zeus. These are the Olympic Games and Nemea.

Hera:

Hera, Zeus’s wife, represents marriage. In the myth, Hera plays the jealous wife, who chases the mortal lovers of Zeus and her offspring. When Zeus laid with Semele, daughter of Cadmo, king of Thebes, Hera conspired to get rid of her. She persuaded Semele to ask to see her lover Zeus in all her splendor. The view killed her. Another of Zeus’s affairs produced Heracles, who spent his entire life facing Hera’s wrath. Hera’s most famous temples were in Argos and Samos.

Athena:

Athena statue.Athena is a civilizing goddess who is almost always represented armed. In a version of the story of his birth, he was conceived in Zeus’s mind. Unfortunately for Zeus, he got stuck there, and the God Haepheos had to release her by hitting Zeus in the head with an ax. Athena is identifiable in art because it is armed. It also usually carries an Aigis, which is a goat skin that is usually represented with the head of a Gorgon and that has a snake edge. Seeing this makes your enemies panic. Athena is especially venerated in Athens. The Athenians told the story that Athena and Poseidon competed to be the pattern of their city, each giving a gift to Athens. Athenian Athenian’s gift was the olive tree, and that tree was sacred to her.

Sagebrush:

Artemisa is the daughter of Zeus and the Titan Leto, and Apollo’s sister. She is a virgin goddess who is associated with nature and wild animals. She supervised the transition from maidens women to adulthood. I could be cruel to those who offended her. In a myth, the famous Actaion hunter ran into Artemis while bathing. The goddess caste was enraged as he was seen naked and turned act into a deer, after which his own hunting dogs killed him. On another occasion I was angry with Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greek expedition against Troy. She refused to grant a favorable navigation time to the expedition unless Agamemnon sacrifice her own daughter for her. He fulfilled. His most famous sanctuary was in Ephesus, in Asia Minor (current Turkey). It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Apollo:

Apollo is the brother of Artemis and had several spheres of interest. He was a musician and played the lyre. It was famous as a disease healer. He granted oracles to those who asked for it. His two most famous sanctuaries were in Delphi, where a oracular priestess lived, and in Delos, where he was born (according to Delos). Every four years in Delphi, the Pythian games honored Apollo. These were seconds in prestige only behind Olimpia’s. Apollo could not simply cure diseases, he could inflict damage to those who angered him. At the beginning of the Iliad, Apollo sent a plague to afflict the Greeks because Agamemnon has captured the daughter of one of her priests and refuses to return her to her father. Agamemnon finally delivers the girl, but in reward demands that Achilles give one of her own women.

Poseidon:

Poseidon in a car pulled by creatures half horse half snake.Poseidon was the god of the sea, earthquakes and horses. His lordship received on the sea after the fall of Cronos, when the world was divided between Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. In the myth he is famous for being the persecutor of Ulysses. He was worshiped throughout the Greek world, since much of Greece is coastal. One of the most famous temples was at the southern end of Attica, in Cape Sunion. The ruins of the temple are one of the most picturesque places in Greece. Another famous sanctuary is near Corinth, in Istmia. Games in honor of Poseidon were held every two years in Istmia.

Demeter:

Demeter was the goddess of grain and fertility. The most famous myth about her is the ‘Persephone Violation’. In this myth, Hades kidnaps Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, and takes her to the underworld to be his wife. An anguished Demeter refuses to allow crops to grow until he recovers his daughter. In the end, Persephone returns with his mother, but he must return to Hades for three months every year. During the time that is absent, nothing grows on earth. Demeter and Persephone were honored every year in Eleusis’ mysteries. People from all Greece came to Eleusis every year to start. The initiates were strictly warned that they did not reveal the secret rites that were carried out there.

Dionisio:

.Dionysus was the god of wine, theater and madness. His mother was Sémele, daughter of King Cadmo de Tebas, his father was Zeus. When Semele was killed after seeing Zeus throughout his glory, Dionysus was taken from his mother’s body and placed in Zeus’s thigh, from which he was born. Several important festivals honor Dionysus. Athenians, for example, honor Dionysus in anthesteria, where they drink new wine. In the major and minor dionysia, dramas were represented in honor of the god. It is at this festival where the great playwrights of the classical era present their works.

Aphrodite:

Aphrodite was the goddess of erotic love. In the myth, Aphrodite was born when Titan Cronos (Zeus’s father) castrated his own father Uranus (‘sky’) and threw his testicles into the sea. Aphrodite got up from the resulting foam. A particularly famous Aphrodite sanctuary was in Corinth.

Hephaestus:

Hefesto was the god of crafts and is associated with fire and volcanoes. He had listed feet. According to the story, Hefesto had no father, Hera gave birth to him alone. She was not happy with the result and threw it from Olympus, hurting her legs. He later avenged giving him a elaborately elaborate throne that caught her when she sat on him. Dionysus had to get him down and bring him back to Olympus to release her. The best preserved classic temple in Greece is the Temple of Hephaistos, or Hephaisteion, in Athens. Hermes: Hermes is an embaunting god, the god of messengers and thieves. In Athens, stone images called Herm were used to delimit the limits. In subsequent myths and art, it also leads the souls of the dead to Caronte,

Hermes:

Hermes is an trickster god, the god of messengers and thieves. In Athens, stone images called Herm were used to delimit the limits. In subsequent myths and art, he also carries the souls of the dead to Caronte, the stigial boatman who will take his souls to the underworld.

Ares:

Ares is God of war. While Athena is portrayed as a civilized and calculating warrior, Ares is more violent. There are few myths associated with him and has few permanent sanctuaries, although, of course, the armies that go to battle would naturally sacrifice him.

Other gods and heroes

The twelve Olympic gods do not exhaust the Greek pantheon. Hestia, goddess of the home, Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, and the Titans Prometheus and Leto, and the mysterious Hécate are just some other divinities that attracted the worship of the ancient Greeks. There were also a class of beings that stepped on the border between the human and the divine: the heroes.

Around the great heroes of Greece there were famous and exciting stories. Although the heroes of the Trojan War and the Argonauts of a previous generation were famous, the most famous of the heroes was Heracles. It was Zeus’s son, and the jealous Hera persecuted him before he was born. Zeus was aware of Heracles’s potential and predicted the day of his birth that the greatest man of the time would be born. Hera managed to delay his birth until the next day. Another of Zeus’s children was born the predicted day, Euristeo de Argos. King Euristeo fulfilled the prophecy and became the greatest king of Greece. Euristeo eventually turned Heracles into Vasallo and forced him to carry out his famous twelve jobs. According to a version of myth, Heracles was finally granted immortality.

The last category of gods is known as ‘cyclical’ gods, of the Greek word chthon (earth). The citonic gods are associated with the earth or the underworld. Hades is often placed in this category, due to its control over the kingdom of the dead. Demeter also has citonic aspects due to its association with crop growth.

What do myths do?

For more than a century there has been an ongoing debate about what the function of myth in Greek society was. Some have argued that myths arose when men tried to understand the natural world that surrounded them. When asked about the ray source, the Greeks concluded that it was Zeus’s punishing arm that launched the ray. Others have concluded that myths are a form of history, that behind each myth there is a really waiting core waiting. This is called ‘Euhemerism’, in honor of Euhemeros de Messene, who around 300 AC wrote that the gods were once kings and famous queens who died and began to be worshiped after his death. Another school of thought connects the myth with the ritual, arguing that myths arose to explain the form and places where the Greeks carried out their rites.

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