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Class notes CLAS 2000

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CLAS 2000

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Fordham University

Class notes from CLAS 2000 T&C Greek and Roman Myths

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Myth in Greco-Roman Literature
Nicole Andranovich

M/Th 11:30-12:45
FMH 316
Jan 22nd 2024,
 Myth -> Greek muthos
o muthos “tale, narrative”
o [ the text/tradition itself]
 Mythology -> muthos + Greek logos
o logos “word, speech, story, reason”
o [study of the text/ tradition]
 Classical -> Latin classis
o Classis “group, rank, class, armed division”
o Originally = something belonging to a certain group.
o Now = something exemplifying the best qualities of a group.
o Renaissance scholars first used “classical” to describe Greek and Roman
antiquity (as the pinnacle of success in arts, politics, etc.)
o A texts survival through time is sometimes just luck and power!

Ancient Greece
 Three major periods:
o Archaic (800-500 BCE)
 “Homer” -> shorthand for “anonymos bards who composed and
proformed poems in the style of a poet we call “Homer” today”
 Iliad and Odyssey, orally composed hexameter verse poems,
developed over generations.
 Meter allowed poets to remember/combine different phrases
while telling a story – no two performances were identical!
 Recitals were likely only one or two episodes from these quite
long poems.
 Scholars debate precisely when/how the epics were first written
down.
 Perhaps 8th century BCE, when Greeks adapted the Phoenician
alphabet to their language.
 Other poems similar in style to the Homeric epics:
 Homeric Hymns, poems of varying lengths dedicated to an individual
god or goddess and performed before epic recitals.
 Theogony (births of the gods) and Works and Days (“how the world
works”), poems attributed to Hesiod
 Homeric/Hesiodic poetry helped make sense of the Greek pantheon,
detailing the gods’ traits and relationships.
 Gods could have different traits in different locations/local temples.
 Early poets created an organizational framework for local gods.

,  Helped transform these local gods into Panhellenic deities
(recognizable to all Greeks).
o Classical (500-323 BCE)
 Many Greek writers began to expand their myths in earnest during
this period.
 Linked to the revolutionary explosion in arts and sciences
(development of mathematics, philosophy, biology, etc.).
 Homeric and Hesiodic poems continued to be recited at festivals in
Athens.
 Aeschylus (525-ca. 456 BCE), Sophocles (497-406 BCE), and
Euripides (480-406 BCE) composed plays about and including the
gods.
 Historian Herodotus composed and recited his Histories, which
contained stories about the gods among his primary topic of the
Persian Wars.
 Temples like the Parthenon were constructed with elaborate
sculptures depicting the gods.
 As the mythological corpus grew, others began to critique and
investigate the myths:
 Protagoras (490-420 BCE) considered a universe where humans
were the center, not gods.
 Plato (428-348 BCE) wanted to ban myths from the ideal republic,
noting that myths persuade their listeners to adopt ideas about the
gods and society that could be erroneous.
 Palaephatus (late 4th century BCE) both collected and debunked
myths in his On Incredible Tales, trying to rationalize stories about
which audiences were increasingly skeptical.
 During this period, Athenians developed and advanced logoi about the
universe, the gods, society, and humankind.
 Logoi...
o ...are rational arguments.
o ...rely on logic and statements made in straightforward
prose.
o ...explain all the cosmos as accurately as human reason
allows.
 Muthoi...
o ...are not rational.
o ...include stories, metaphors, symbols, and images.
o ...are inaccurate fictions that do not attempt to describe
things as they are.
o Hellenistic (323-146 BCE)
 Greek scholars and teachers living in Alexandria, Egypt, began to
collect and imitate earlier Greek myths and stories.

,  Callimachus (310/305-240 BCE) composed hymns dedicated to gods
and goddesses; the poems were witty, urbane, and full of obscure
mythic references.
 Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BCE) composed a shorter epic
called the Argonautica, about the Quest for the Golden Fleece.
 After Rome conquered much of the Mediterranean, Greeks continued
to expand/explain the mythological corpus.
 Plutarch (46-120 CE) wrote biographies of famous Greek and
Roman politicians, and treatises on Greek, Roman, and
Egyptian philosophy, theology, and customs.
 Pausanias (2nd century CE) traveled throughout Greece and
described its temples, buildings, and customs.
 By the 5th century CE, the Roman Empire was largely Christianized,
and the Greek mythological system lay dormant.
 Divided into “city states” each with its own government.
o City states warred and even enslaves one another, but also fought against
common enemies.
 Ancient Near East
o Four regions:
 Anatolia/Asia Minor (Turkey)
 Hittite Empire rose in the 18th century BCE.
o Collapsed around 1200 BCE, when invasions, riots,
drought, earthquakes, or a combination of these swept
across the region.
o Song of Kumarbi and Song of Ullikummi, about the god
Kumarbi’s rise and fall from power, are similar to
Hesiod’s Theogony.
 Phrygia thrived during the 8th century BCE.
o Eventually conquered by the neighboring Lydians, then
the Persians, then Alexander the Great, and finally
Rome.
o Phrygians fought with the Trojans against the Greeks in
the Iliad.
o Worship of the Great Mother goddess (also called
Cybele) was adopted in both Greece and Rome.
 In the Iliad, Troy is located in western Anatolia.
o Scholars have suggested that the Greek god Apollo’s
origin is the Hittite god Appaliunas.
o King Alaksandus of Wilusa, whose name appears in a
treaty, may be King Alexander (Paris) of Ilios (another
name for Troy).
 Egypt
 Much of what we know about Egyptian mythology comes from
mortuary literature.

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