A Companion to Greek Mythology E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1304

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A Companion to Greek Mythology presents a series of essays that explore the phenomenon of Greek myth from its origins in shared Indo-European story patterns and the Greeks’ contacts with their Eastern Mediterranean neighbours through its development as a shared language and thought-system for the Greco-Roman world.

• Features essays from a prestigious international team of literary experts
• Includes coverage of Greek myth’s intersection with history, philosophy and religion
• Introduces readers to topics in mythology that are often inaccessible to non-specialists
• Addresses the Hellenistic and Roman periods as well as Archaic and Classical Greece

Leseprobe

Contents

Illustrations

Maps

Tables

Notes on Contributors

To the Reader

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Abbreviations

APPROACHING MYTH

CHAPTER ONE Thinking through Myth, Thinking Myth Through

Mythology as System

Mythology as History

Local Mythology, National Mythology, Inherited Mythology

Borrowed Mythology

The Implementation of Mythology

The Problem of Rome

Religious Change

Myth and the Moderns

Omissions and Controversies

PART I ESTABLISHING THE CANON

CHAPTER TWO Homer’s Use of Myth

Epic and Mythology

Cosmogony and Beginnings

Preliminaries to the Trojan War

The Trojan War Itself

Other Myths

Uses of Myth in Homer

The Complexity of Myth

CHAPTER THREE Telling the Mythology: From Hesiod to the Fifth Century

Introduction: Mythology and Mythography

Hesiod and ‘Hesiod’ (seventh–sixth centuries BC)

Other Poets of the Seventh–Sixth Centuries BC

The Prose Tradition, Fifth Century BC

Conclusion: Apollodoros, The Library

CHAPTER FOUR Orphic Mythology

What Orphic Mythology?

The ‘Author’ and His (Strange) Work

The Myths of Orpheus

Cosmogony

The Poetry of Ritual

The Life of Orpheus

Conclusion

PART II MYTH PERFORMED, MYTH BELIEVED

CHAPTER FIVE Singing Myth: Pindar

Myth in Choral Song

Functions of Myth in Choral Song

Innovation

Conclusion

CHAPTER SIX Instructing Myth: From Homer to the Sophists

Instructive Functions of Myth

Mythic Paradeigmata in Homeric Epic

Hesiod

Philosophical Critique and Adaptation of Myth

Myth and Praise: Pindar and Isocrates

Myth in Teaching: Mythological Epideictic

Conclusion

CHAPTER SEVEN Acting Myth: Athenian Drama

Introduction: Myth and Theatre

The Choice of Subjects

Dramatic Motifs

Key Topics and Issues

Variation, Invention, Parody

Myth in the Theatre: A Prism and Not a Mirror

Conclusion

CHAPTER EIGHT Displaying Myth: The Visual Arts

Identifying Myth

Myths in Architectural Sculpture

Statues of the God within the Temple

Literary Accounts of Mythical Representations Now Lost

The Evidence from Vase Painting

Myths in Other Materials

Myths in Greek Art

APPENDIX: HOW TO IDENTIFY MYTHS DEPICTED IN IMAGES

CHAPTER NINE Platonic ‘Myths’

Mythos and Mousikē in the Republic

Characteristics of Platonic Myth

Frames and Sources of Myths

Truth, Falsehood, and the Limits of Human Knowledge

Functions of Platonic Myth

Myth and Philosophy

Myth in the Timaios

Theological Myth

Conclusion

CHAPTER TEN Myth in History

Myth or History?

Categories Ancient and Modern

Myth as Foundation and Background to the Perception of History

Myth as Stand-in for History

Conclusion: Myth as Conscious and Unconscious Shaper of Narrative

PART III NEW TRADITIONS

CHAPTER ELEVEN Myth and Hellenic Identities

The Local Character of Myth

The Mythology of Elis According to Pausanias

Panhellenic Genealogies

Local Genealogies in the Greek East

Conclusions

CHAPTER TWELVE Names and Places: Myth in Alexandria

Transcendence versus difference

Alexander’s Mythic Exploits

The Case of Kyrene and Other Mythic ‘Causes’

Kings of Egypt, Sons of Zeus

CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Myth of Rome

‘Does a Cave Prove Romulus and Remus are no Myth?’

Differences between Roman and Greek Myth

Naïve or Sentimental? Poetic or Prosaic?

Numa’s Books

Roman Myth and Roman Religion

Empire, Mythology, and Poetics

Synchronic v. Diachronic: Roman Myth and the Discipline of History

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Displaying Myth for Roman Eyes

Greek Myth in a Roman World

Myths in the Public Sphere: Temples and Baths

Fantasy and Paideia: Myths in Villas and Gardens

Programmatic Viewing in Domestic Wall-Painting

Displaying Myths in the Roman Empire

Conclusions

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Myth that Saves: Mysteries and Mysteriosophies

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Eleusinian Mysteries

Visiting the Underworld

Resurrections: Dionysos and the Titans

Retreading Old Mythology: Odysseus and Salvation

New Mythologies: Gnostics and Others

Isis and Osiris

Cybele and Attis

Mithras

Horizons of Another World

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Myth and Death: Roman Mythological Sarcophagi

Myth and the Sarcophagus: The Question of Interpretation

The Earliest Myths on Sarcophagi: Garland Sarcophagi

Mythological Frieze Sarcophagi

Mythological Frieze Sarcophagi

Third-Century Trends: Consolation or Salvation?

Conclusions

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Myth in Christian Authors

Introduction

The Apologists’ Use of Mythology

Myth and the Rejection of Greek and Roman Religion

The Persistence of Mythology

Education and the Survival of Myth

Conclusions

PART IV OLDER TRADITIONS

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Indo-European Background to Greek Mythology

An Indo-European Mythology?

Three Approaches to the IE Heritage

Case Studies

Conclusion

CHAPTER NINTEEN Near Eastern Mythologies

Mesopotamia

Anatolia

Ugarit

Theories Relating to Mesopotamian Mythology

CHAPTER TWENTY Levantine, Egyptian, and Greek Mythological Conceptions of the Beyond

Introduction: A Common Market in Beyonds

The Infrastructure for a Common Beyond

The Beyond in the Levant

The Beyond in the Odyssey and Egypt

PART V INTERPRETATION

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Interpreting Images: Mysteries, Mistakes, and Misunderstandings

A Missing Myth?

A Mistaken Inscription?

A Muddled Guidebook?

A Misidentified Myth?

A Misidentified Figure?

A Real Girl in a Mythical Context?

Conclusion

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Myth of History: The Case of Troy

The War at Troy

The Homeric Epics and the Epic Cycle

The Antiquity of the Hexameter

The Shaping of the Story

Core Personnel

The Character of Achilles

An Historical Core? When and Where?

… and which Troy?

The Ethos of the Iliad

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Women and Myth

The Case of Danaos’ Daughters

Gender and Myth in Modern Scholarship

Women in Myth as ‘Role Models’

The Case of Pandora

The Pliability of Myth: The Danaids Again

Myth in Visual Art

Female Deities on Attic Pots

Mothers and Sons: Mythic Perspectives

More than Marriage?

Mothers and Sons: Social Perspectives

Pursued – and Pursuing

The Danaids (Again) and Other Sisters

Myth in Gender Studies, Gender in Myth Studies

The Myth of Mythic Norms

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Mythology of the Black Land: Greek Myths and Egyptian Origins

Egypt in Greek Myth

Greek Myth and Egyptian Myth

Egyptian Tales in Greece

Interpretations

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Psychoanalysis: The Wellspring of Myth?

Myth and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis

Why Apply Psychoanalysis to Myth?

Case Study: Freud’s Oedipal Insights

Analysing Myth, Analysing Patients: Controlling Interpretation

Freud’s Heirs and Critics

Conclusions

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Initiation: The Key to Myth?

Rites of Passage

Iphigeneia and Girls as Animals

The Destiny of the Warrior

The Theory in a Nutshell

Qualifying the Conclusions

Conclusions

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Semiotics and Pragmatics of Myth

Greek Myth and the Logic of Narrative

Pragmatics: Performed Narratives

Myth between Fiction and Performance

PART VI CONSPECTUS

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT A Brief History of the Study of Greek Mythology

The History of Mythology

Antiquity

The Middle Ages

The Renaissance and the Early Modern Period

The Enlightenment

Nineteenth-Century German Scholarship

Myth and the British

Contemporary Approaches to Myth

Bibliography

Index of Texts Discussed

Index of Names

Index of Subjects

BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO THE ANCIENT WORLD

This series provides sophisticated and authoritative overviews of periods of ancient history, genres of classical literature, and the most important themes in ancient culture. Each volume comprises between twenty-five and forty concise essays written by individual scholars within their area of specialization. The essays are written in a clear, provocative, and lively manner, designed for an international audience of scholars, students, and general readers.

ANCIENT HISTORY

Published

A Companion to the Roman ArmyEdited by Paul Erdkamp

A Companion to the Roman RepublicEdited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx

A Companion to the Roman EmpireEdited by David S. Potter

A Companion to the Classical Greek WorldEdited by Konrad H. Kinzl

A Companion to the Ancient Near EastEdited by Daniel C. Snell

A Companion to the Hellenistic WorldEdited by Andrew Erskine

A Companion to Late AntiquityEdited by Philip Rousseau

A Companion to Ancient HistoryEdited by Andrew Erskine

A Companion to Archaic GreeceEdited by Kurt A. Raaflaub and Hans van Wees

A Companion to Julius CaesarEdited by Miriam Griffin

A Companion to ByzantiumEdited by Liz James

A Companion to Ancient EgyptEdited by Alan B. Lloyd

A Companion to Ancient MacedoniaEdited by Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington

A Companion to the Punic WarsEdited by Dexter Hoyos

In preparation

A Companion to SpartaEdited by Anton Powell

LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Published

A Companion to Classical ReceptionsEdited by Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray

A Companion to Greek and Roman HistoriographyEdited by John Marincola

A Companion to CatullusEdited by Marilyn B. Skinner

A Companion to Roman ReligionEdited by Jörg Rüpke

A Companion to Greek ReligionEdited by Daniel Ogden

A Companion to the Classical TraditionEdited by Craig W. Kallendorf

A Companion to Roman RhetoricEdited by William Dominik and Jon Hall

A Companion to Greek RhetoricEdited by Ian Worthington

A Companion to Ancient EpicEdited by John Miles Foley

A Companion to Greek TragedyEdited by Justina Gregory

A Companion to Latin LiteratureEdited by Stephen Harrison

A Companion to Greek and Roman Political ThoughtEdited by Ryan K. Balot

A Companion to OvidEdited by Peter E. Knox

A Companion to the Ancient Greek LanguageEdited by Egbert Bakker

A Companion to Hellenistic LiteratureEdited by Martine Cuypers and James J. Clauss

A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its TraditionEdited by Joseph Farrell and Michael C. J. Putnam

A Companion to HoraceEdited by Gregson Davis

A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman WorldsEdited by Beryl Rawson

A Companion to Greek MythologyEdited by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone

In preparation

A Companion to the Latin LanguageEdited by James Clackson

A Companion to SophoclesEdited by Kirk Ormand

A Companion to AeschylusEdited by Peter Burian

A Companion to Greek ArtEdited by Tyler Jo Smith and Dimitris Plantzos

A Companion to TacitusEdited by Victoria Pagán

A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near EastEdited by Daniel Potts

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A companion to Greek mythology/edited by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone.

p. cm. – (Blackwell companions to the ancient world)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-1178-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Mythology, Greek. 2. Greece–Religion.I. Dowden, Ken, 1950– II. Livingstone, Niall.

BL783.C66 2011

398.20938–dc22

2010041346

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs [ISBN 9781444396942]; Wiley Online Library [ISBN 9781444396928]; ePub [ISBN 9781444396935]

Illustrations

8.1Herakles with the Hydra and Iolaos. Attic black-figure neck amphora, 540–520 BC by the Swing Painter. Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale 1748. © Copyright: Soprintendenza per i beni archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale, foto n. 26332.8.2Bellerophon riding Pegasos, attacking the Chimaira. Attic black-figure cup, c. 550 BC. Kiel, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Antikensammlung B 539. Photo: Museum.8.3Gigantomachy: Athene and Zeus fighting giants. Attic red-figure hydria shoulder, c. 480 BC by the Tyszkiewicz Painter. British Museum. © Copyright the Trustees of The British Museum.8.4Areas for decoration on a temple. Drawing by Susan Bird after Woodford 1986: 27–8.8.5Artemis and Aktaion. From a metope on Temple E, from Selinunte, Sicily. Museo Nazionale Archeologico, Palermo. Photo Hirmer 571.0446.8.6Hekate and Artemis fighting giants. From the Great Altar, Pergamon c. 180–160 BC. Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. Photo: Museum.8.7Herakles and Apollo struggling for the tripod c. 525 BC. Pediment of the Siphnian Treasury, Delphi. Delphi Museum. Photo: Alison Frantz Collection, American School of Classical Studies, Athens.8.8Olympia, Temple of Zeus, west pediment. Drawing by Kate Morton.8.9The Judgement of Paris. Attic white-ground pyxis, c. 460 BC by the Penthesilea painter. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund 1907 (07.286.36). After Gisela M.A. Richter and Lindsley F. Hall, Attic Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, CT 1936). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.8.10The Judgement of Paris. Attic red-figured hydria, 420–400 BC, by the Painter of the Carlsruhe Paris. Badische Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe. Photo: Museum.8.11Bellerophon riding Pegasos and slaying the Chimaira, 380–370 BC. Pebble mosaic from Olynthos. After D. M. Robinson 1933: pl. 12.8.12Infant Herakles strangling snakes (silver coin of Thebes). AR stater. Early fourth century BC. British Museum. © Copyright the Trustees of The British Museum.8.13Laokoön and his sons attacked by snakes. First century BC/AD. Probably a Roman copy (or variation) of a Hellenistic original. Musei Vaticani, Vatican City. Photo: Vatican Museums.14.1Terracotta plaque showing the contest between Apollo and Hercules, from the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine. Palatine Museum, Rome. Photo by permission of il Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali – Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma.14.2Farnese Bull, from the Baths of Caracalla, Rome. Naples Archaeological Museum. Photo: Z. Newby, by permission of la Soprintendenza per i beni archeologici delle province di Napoli e Caserta.14.3Garden painting of Orpheus. House of Orpheus, Pompeii VI.14.20. Photo: Z. Newby, by permission of la Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei.14.4Portrait of the emperor Commodus as Hercules. Rome Palazzo dei Conservatori. Photo: Z. Newby, by permission of la Sovrintendenza Comunale di Roma.14.5Reconstruction of the sculptural decoration of the cave at Sperlonga. After Conticello and Andreae 1974: fig. 11, redrawn with additions.14.6Wall paintings in room n in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii VI.15.1. Photo: Z. Newby, by permission of la Soprintendenza per i beni archeologici delle province di Napoli e Caserta.16.2Niobids sarcophagus. Vatican, Galleria degli Candelabri inv. 2635. Photo: Rossa, DAI Rome Neg. 1976.0605.16.3Orestes sarcophagus. Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano inv. 10450. Photo: Singer, DAI Rome Neg. 1971.1775.16.4Medea sarcophagus. Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig BS 203. Photo: Claire Niggli, Antikenmuseum Basel.16.5Mars and Rhea Silvia, Endymion and Selene sarcophagus. Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano inv. 9558. Photo: Rossa, DAI Rome Neg. 1974.0535.16.6Adonis sarcophagus. Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano inv. 10409. Photo: Singer, DAI Rome Neg. 1971.1762.16.7Achilles and Penthesileia sarcophagus. Vatican, Cortile Belvedere inv. 932, 933. Photo: Singer, DAI Rome Neg. 1972.0572.18.1The succession myth in the Theogony and part of Arjuna’s family tree: a diagrammatic comparison.20.1Reconstruction of the Babylonian World Map. (British Museum 92687) Nanno Marinatos, after Wyatt 2001: 81.20.2Reconstruction of the Homeric Beyond. Designed by Nanno Marinatos, drawn by Briana Jackson.20.3The World of Mimnermos. Reconstruction by Nanno Marinatos and Catherine Chatton.20.4The Homeric Beyond situated in the sky. Designed by Nanno Marinatos, drawn by Catherine Chatton.20.5The Heavenly Cow from Tutankhamun’s tomb. From Wallis Budge 1904: 1.368 (illus. 32).21.1Ajax and Achilles playing a game. Attic black-figure amphora 540–530 BC, by Exekias. Musei Vaticani, Vatican City. Photo: Vatican Museums.21.2J. H. W. Tischbein, engraving of an ‘ancient vase’. Hamilton 1795: pl. 6.22.1Plan of the citadel of Troy VI (1700–1300 BC) with its mighty fortification wall and the so-called north-west bastion in squares J/K/L 3/4. After Easton 1990, fig. 8.22.2The northern corner of the stone base of the so-called north-west bastion of Troy. Photograph by D. Hertel (around 1990).22.3Plan of the citadel of Troy VIIa and VIIb (1190–1020 BC), with the reinforcements of the fortification wall in the E and SE region from the time of Troy VIIb1. After Hertel (2003): fig. HVa (at the back of the book).

Maps

1Map of the Ancient Near East. Drawn by Henry Buglass, graphic artist, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham.2Map of Anatolia. Drawn by Henry Buglass, graphic artist, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham.

Tables

2.1 Homer’s allusions to the mythology of the Trojan War as presented in the Epic Cycle 3.1 Ps.-Hesiod, Catalogue of Women (following Most (2006: lii–liii)) 3.2 Akousilaos’ Genealogies (FGrH 2 F esp. 1–4) 3.3 Hekataios’ Genealogies (FGrH 1 F 13–32) 3.4 Pherekydes’ Histories (BNJ 3 esp. F 1–41) 3.5 Hellanikos’ various mythographic works (following Jacoby, FGrH 4) 3.6 The Library of Apollodoros 7.1 Classification of extant tragedies by mythological subject 9.1 The principal Platonic myths 16.1 Periodization of the second–third centuries AD 18.1 Pentadic analysis of four contexts 19.1 A chronological chart of Mesopotamia 26.1 Initiation theory and periods of Greek culture

Notes on Contributors 

JEAN ALAUX ([email protected]) is Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the Université Rennes II. His work focuses in particular on Homeric epic, tragedy, and Greek representations of identity and kinship. His publications include Le Liège et le filet: filiation et lien familial dans la tragédie athénienne (Paris 1995), Lectures tragiques d’Homère (Paris 2007), Origine et horizon tragiques (Paris 2007). He has also edited a collection of essays on Euripides’ Phoenician Women (Les Phéniciennes: la famille d’Oedipe entre mythe et politique, Paris 2007). 

NICHOLAS J. ALLEN ([email protected]) studied first classics, then medicine, before qualifying in social anthropology at Oxford; his DPhil was based on ethnographic fieldwork in Nepal. From 1976–2001 he lectured at Oxford, where he became Reader in the Social Anthropology of South Asia. He has published on the Himalayas, kinship theory, the Durkheimian School, and Indo-European Cultural Comparativism – see, for instance, his Categories and Classifications (New York, Oxford 2000). Since retirement he has concentrated on the last three topics. 

RICHARD H. ARMSTRONG ([email protected]) is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Houston. He is author of A Compulsion for Antiquity: Freud and the Ancient World (Ithaca 2005). Recent publications include: ‘Freud and the Drama of Oedipal Truth’, in K. Ormand (ed.) A Companion to Sophocles (forthcoming); ‘Marooned Mandarins: Freud, Classical Education, and the Jews of Vienna’, in S. A. Stephens and P. Vasunia (eds) Classics and National Cultures (Oxford 2010); and ‘Being Mr. Somebody: Freud and Classical Education’, in A. D. Richards (ed.) The Jewish World of Sigmund Freud (Jefferson, NC 2010). 

JAN N. BREMMER ([email protected]) is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. Amongst his publications are Greek Religion (Oxford 1994), The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife (London 2002), Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Leiden 2008), and The Rise of Christianity through the Eyes of Gibbon, Harnack and Rodney Stark (Groningen 2010). His research interests include Greek, Roman, Early Christian, and contemporary religion. 

CLAUDE CALAME ([email protected]) is Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Most of his books have been translated into English, for instance, Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece (Lanham MD, London 1997), The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece (Princeton, Chichester 1999), Poetic and Performative Memory in Ancient Greece (Cambridge MA 2009), and most recently, Greek Mythology. Poetics, Pragmatics and Fiction (Cambridge 2009). He is currently working on a book on Greek tragedy seen in the perspective of choral song. 

KEN DOWDEN ([email protected]) is Professor of Classics and Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham. He writes on Greek mythology (Uses of Greek Mythology (London, New York 1992)), religion (European Paganism (London, New York 2000); Zeus (London, New York 2006)), on historians – usually of Greek mythic times – for the Brill New Jacoby, and on many aspects of the Latin and Greek novels, particularly Apuleius and Heliodoros, often in the pages of Ancient Narrative. 

RADCLIFFE G. EDMONDS III ([email protected]) is Associate Professor of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies at Bryn Mawr College. His current research interests include mythology, religion, and Platonic philosophy, especially the marginal categories of magic and Orphism within Greek religion. He has published Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets (Cambridge 2004) and edited a volume of essays entitled The ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets and Greek Religion: Further Along the Path (Cambridge 2010). 

MATTHEW FOX ([email protected]) studied in Oxford and Berlin, and from 1992 to 2007 lectured in Classics at the University of Birmingham. He is now Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow. He has written two books, Roman Historical Myths (Oxford 1996), and Cicero’s Philosophy of History (Oxford 2007). He has also published on ancient rhetorical theory, on gender, and on the state of Classical studies in the eighteenth century. 

FRITZ GRAF ([email protected]) is Distinguished University Professor of Greek and Latin at the Ohio State University. He has worked on Greek and Roman religion, myth and magic, often with an eye on the epigraphical record. In recent years, he has also become interested in early Christianity and its interactions with the polytheistic cults of Greece and Rome. His books include Greek Mythology (Baltimore 1993), Magic in the Ancient World (Cambridge MA 1999), Apollo (London, New York 2008), and, with Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife (London, New York 2007). 

ALAN GRIFFITHS ([email protected]) is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at University College London, where he taught in the Department of Greek and Latin for nearly forty years. He now lives in Derbyshire, attempting to manage five computers (running Linux) and two cats (running wild). His interests cover all forms of ancient narrative with a special focus on Herodotos, on whose third book he is writing a commentary; also Greek poetry, myth, and art. 

BIRGIT HASKAMP ([email protected]) studied Near Eastern Archaeology and Assyriology at Heidelberg University and is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Her interests range from the history and archaeology of Mesopotamia to the languages, culture, and history of the Hittite Empire. Together with Alasdair Livingstone she is currently working on a cultural history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. 

DIETER HERTEL ([email protected]) is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cologne. He received his PhD at the University of Bonn. His research interests include the Roman portrait art of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the archaeology and history of Troy and of the whole Aiolis. He is presently conducting a project of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft on the so-called Aiolian Colonization including a new publication – documents and finds – of the old British excavations at Antissa, Lesbos (W. Lamb). 

FRANÇOISE LÉTOUBLON ([email protected]) is Professor of Greek Literature and Linguistics at the Université Stendhal, Grenoble. She is the author of Il allait, pareil à la nuit. Les Verbes de mouvement en grec: supplétisme et aspect verbal (Paris 1985) and of Les Lieux communs du roman (Leiden 1993). She has edited La Langue et les textes en grec ancien. Colloque Pierre Chantraine (Amsterdam 1993), Impressions d’îles (Toulouse 1996), Hommage à Milman Parry: le style formulaire de l’épopée homérique et la théorie de l’oralité poétique (Amsterdam 1997), Homère en France après la Querelle (Paris 1999). She is currently working on Homeric poetry, oral poetry, mythology, and their reception, from antiquity (Greek novels) to modern times (for instance in Angelopoulos’ films). 

SIAN LEWIS ([email protected]) is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St Andrews. Her research interests lie in Greek social and political history; she is the author of The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook (London 2002) and co-editor of The World of Greek Vases (Rome 2009), and has recently published a survey, Greek Tyranny (Bristol 2009). 

ALASDAIR LIVINGSTONE ([email protected]) is Reader in Assyriology at the University of Birmingham and specializes in the cultural history and languages of the ancient Near East. He has worked extensively on Mesopotamian mythology and is the author of Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (Oxford 1986) and the Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea volume in the State Archives of Assyria series (Helsinki 1989). He is currently preparing an edition of Assyrian and Babylonian hemerologies and menologies. 

NIALL LIVINGSTONE ([email protected]) studied at Christ Church, Oxford where he also gained his DPhil. He taught at Oxford and St Andrews before joining the University of Birmingham in 1999, where he is now Senior Lecturer in Classics. His research is mainly on the history of literature and thought in the Greek world from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period, with a focus on the performance culture of democratic Athens. His publications include Pedagogy and Power (co-edited with Y. L. Too, Cambridge 1998), A Commentary on Isocrates’ Busiris (Leiden 2001), and a Greece & Rome New Survey of Epigram (co-authored with G. Nisbet, Cambridge 2010). 

NANNO MARINATOS ([email protected]) has a double specialism in Minoan and Early Greek religion, with a great interest in Egyptology. She is the author of six books: Thucydides and Religion (Königstein 1981), Art and Religion in Thera (Athens 1984), Minoan Sacrificial Ritual (Stockhold 1986), Minoan Religion (Columbia SC 1993), The Goddess and the Warrior (London, New York 2000), Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess (Urbana 2009). Since 2000 she has been Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

ANATOLE MORI ([email protected]) received her PhD from the University of Chicago and is an associate professor of Classical Studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Her research addresses the historical context of Greek poetry, particularly the political aspects of early Hellenistic literary culture. Recent publications include The Politics of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (Cambridge 2008), as well as contributions to I. Worthington (ed.) A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Malden, MA, Oxford 2007), P. McKechnie and P. Guillaume (eds), Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World (Leiden 2008), and Brill’s New Jacoby. 

PENELOPE MURRAY ([email protected]) read Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she also took her PhD, and was a founder member of the department of Classics at the University of Warwick. She works on Greek poetry and poetics, especially the views of Plato, on ancient literary criticism and on the Muses. Her books include Plato on Poetry (Cambridge 1996), Classical Literary Criticism (new Penguin edn 2000, reprinted 2004), and Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City (ed. with P. Wilson, Oxford 2004). She is currently working on the Blackwell Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (with Pierre Destrée). 

ZAHRA NEWBY ([email protected]) Reader in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on ancient art within its broader cultural contexts. In addition to publishing a number of articles, she is author of Greek Athletics in the Roman World. Victory and Virtue and co-editor (with Ruth Leader-Newby) of Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World. She is currently working on a book on the uses of Greek myth in Roman art. 

IAN RUTHERFORD ([email protected]) is professor of Greek at the University of Reading. His major interests are in early Greek poetry and religion, ancient Anatolia, and Greco-Egyptian literature. He is the author of Pindar’s Paeans (Oxford 2001) and co-editor of Seeing the Gods: Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity (with J. Elsner, Oxford 2005), of Anatolian Interfaces (with B. J. Collins and M. Bachvarova, Oxford 2008) and of Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Literature (with R. Hunter, Cambridge 2009). 

SUSAN WOODFORD ([email protected]) taught Greek and Roman art at the University of London and does research in the Greek and Roman Department of the British Museum. She writes scholarly articles and books for students and the general public such as The Parthenon (Cambridge 1981), The Art of Greece and Rome (Cambridge 20042), An Introduction to Greek Art (London 1986), The Trojan War in Ancient Art (London 1993), and Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge 2003; winner of the Criticos Prize 2003). 

NICOLAS WYATT ([email protected]), received his PhD from Glasgow in 1977 and DLitt from Edinburgh in 2008, and is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Religions in the University of Edinburgh. He has written numerous articles in Ugaritic and Old Testament studies. Amongst his books are Myths of Power (Münster 1996), Space and Time in the Religious Life of the (ancient) Near East (Sheffield 2001), Religious Texts from Ugarit (Sheffield 1998 [20022]), The Mythic Mind (Sheffield 2005), and The Archaeology of Myth (Sheffield 2010). 

To the Reader

Organization of this book

Mythology is multidimensional, but books are linear. We have structured this book to give an illusion of advancing chronology and of increasing complexity. We thought it mattered to give our view of the subject and its significance from antiquity to the present day at the outset (CH. 1), and to show, in the process, how our chapters fit into that story. Part I (Establishing the Canon) then deals approximately with archaic Greece, though with some extensions into the classical period, and approximately with the laying down of that which would later count as Greek mythology, though not without the recognition that deviance was there from early times. Part II presents the heyday of the mythology, the Classical Age, and the variety of media and occasion where myth acted on society and society acted through myth. Myth does not of course stop there, and the function of the Part III is to provide a window onto the kaleidoscope of new societies and peoples to whom Greek mythology came to matter: those who lived in a much expanded Greek world following the conquests of Alexander the Great; those strange barbarians, the Romans, whose generous adoption of Greek culture (paideia) ensured that myth spoke to the West (even in death) and eventually to Europe; those who worried for their souls and salvation but found that myth allowed their abstract religious thought to find accessible expression; and finally the Christians, whose unlikely job it would be to preserve classical culture from ancient into modern times.

With that we move, in Part IV, from history to how Greek myth came about and to its larger contexts. Like most things, Greek myth, where not freshly invented, was either inherited or borrowed. Inheritance logically takes us back to the Indo-Europeans; borrowing most visibly takes us to the world of the Near East and other urban civilizations very much more ancient than the Greek. We then, like Yudhiṣṭhira reaching Sanskrit heaven in Mahābhārata 18, arrive at Part V, whose job is explanation – how people of our times have attempted the explanation of myth (assuming, CH. 21, they know which myth they are really dealing with), and how we ourselves might account for what it does, relative to our ever-evolving world of ideas. With that, it only remains to close the collection and the single-chapter Part VI looks over the whole history of the study of Greek myth.

Any principle of organization will make some part, or some aspect, of the mythology hard to find, or scatter it. We have taken particular care to present readers with useful indexes that will empower them to defy the structure of the book and enable them to exercise their own priorities.

Companions

A certain amount of ink has been spilt on what ‘companions’ should be and whether they are a necessity or a plague. Our answer to this is simple and unrepentant: like a human companion, they should be friendly, interested in you (rather than themselves), and helpful. To try to bring this about we have adopted the same approach to our contributors, who, we feel, have all in their varied ways sought to help readers to understand the fascination of their area and provide them with the tools to look at it for themselves. But these ways are varied and not only different authors but also different areas demand different lengths of chapter, different scales of endnotes, and impose different demands on the reader. Semiotics is never going to be easy (you haven’t understood it if you think it is), and a pioneering statement of the nature of Near Eastern mythologies is not going to be arrived at in a few thousand words. Critics may demand a different balance, but this is the balance that can be delivered that will actually benefit the reader across a pretty large vista.

Details

It remains to deal with little things, which nevertheless can niggle:

Spelling of Greek names. No system works. We ourselves like to make Greek look like Greek rather than like Latin (except of course when talking about Romans, as in CH. 14). Names are spelt with k not c, with ai not ae, with oi not oe, with ou not u, with -os not -us: Herakles not Hercules, Athenaios not Athenaeus, and Dioskouroi not Dioscuri. But we cannot bring ourselves to be so consistent as to write Aischylos, Ploutarchos, Thoukydides, Oidipous, and Korinthos for Aeschylus, Plutarch, Thucydides, Oedipus, and Corinth. Those who are not classicists need to understand that this is a cross we bear and that you need to exercise a little ingenuity in consulting the index of names (e.g., it’s under K not C).References to this book. We have tried to be helpful by including a number of cross references to other parts of the book. These are distinguished in the case of chapters by small capitals – e.g., ‘see CH. 14’.Dates. We retain the traditional BC/AD terminology (rather than BCE/CE) because it is clearer and we mean nothing religious by it, any more than we worship Woden on Wednesdays.Subheadings. These represent one area of relative uniformity that we have imposed on the whole book, in order to orient the reader.Bibliographic conventions. We began with the Harvard system but have adapted it to meet our needs and to maximize simplicity and minimize punctuation. We include states and countries only to disambiguate bibliographic entries. We all know where Princeton is. We may perhaps be forgiven the Eurocentrism of taking Cambridge, London, Paris, and so forth as being in Europe unless otherwise specified.

We have taken much pleasure in this book as it has come together. We hope you will share our experience.

Acknowledgements

It is right that our debts should be registered at this point. Our Blackwell companions, Al Bertrand, Haze Humbert, and Galen Smith, have shown what very great virtues patience and friendship are. All our contributors, without exception, have made our job seem possible when we hit those black moments, but we would like to single out Susan Woodford and Nick Allen, who have endured most, for their unfailing and sympathetic support over an unreasonably vast span of time.

Megan Lewis, as an undergraduate student, formed a one-woman focus group, read absolutely everything, and delivered advice that excelled in good sense and perceptiveness. All editors should have a Megan. And finally we owe debts of gratitude for our sanity to Liz on the one hand, and Sophie on the other. But they know that.

KEN DOWDEN & NIALL LIVINGSTONEINSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY & ANTIQUITYUNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM1 AUGUST 2010

Glossary

And finally a little help on terms which can be difficult for those new to study of this area:

Aetiology An explanation of how things came to be the way they are. Some myths are therefore aetiological.Charter myth A myth which provides a justification (‘charter’) for a political situation or social institution.Chthonic Belonging to the earth and what is in or beneath it (Greek chthōn, earth), as opposed to the heavens above.Colophon Something to mark the end of a text – a few words (‘this is the end of Book 4 of …’), or an emblem or both.Corpus A body (corpus) of literature, of texts, of evidence – like the corpus of Mesopotamian mythological writings (CH 19). Plural, corpora.Diachronic‘Through time’, referring to studies which trace the development of phenomena from one period of time to another. Opposite of synchronic.Enunciative Considered as actually ‘being uttered’, being enunciated, being spoken live. For example, ‘the enunciative character of these … lines’ (p. 512), namely their significance when you think of them as performed in a particular environment, for instance in a ceremony.Eponym Person after whom someone or something is, or is said to be, named. Adjective eponymous. So Aiolos is the eponym of the Aiolian Greeks; Medea is the eponymous heroine of Euripides’ Medea.EschatologyOriginally, in Christian theology, the study of the ‘four last things’: Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell. Hence used more generally of accounts of the fate of the human soul after death, especially when a judgement is involved. Adjective: eschatological.Function ‘Role’ (French fonction). This apparently innocent word is used oddly, for the English-speaker, by two authors. Vladimir Propp (cf. CH. 27) analysed narratives (primarily folktales) as consisting of thirty-one ‘functions’, namely invariable narrative motifs which, if present, must follow each other in a certain order and play a certain role. Georges Dumézil (cf. CH. 18) analysed Indo-European ideology as focusing on three roles in society: effectively that of rulers, the military, and the economic/productive. This, in his opinion, drove Indo-European mythologies. Because he proposed three functions, his theory is trifunctional.Incipit ‘It begins.’ The first few words, or opening line, of a text. Sometimes used as a title, like When the Storm God Thunders Frightfully (p. 374). The opposite is explicit (‘it ends’).Koine A shared language (Greek koinē dialektos ‘common speech’), especially the widespread standard form of Greek that developed in the Hellenistic period; hence, by extension, any idiom shared between people and cultures. Thus CH. 20 charts an East Mediterranean koine of beliefs about the Beyond.MotifemeIn comparative narratology, a motif which is a basic significant unit of narrative.Mytheme A fundamental unit in the narrative structure of a myth. Cf. mythologem, but mytheme (modelled on the linguistic term phoneme) is a narrower technical term in structuralist analysis of myth.Mythologem An individual unit or element of a mythic narrative (Greek mythologēma, a piece of mythic narrative).Narratology The ‘science’ through which we can analyse narratives such as narratological.Parabasis In Aristophanic comedy, a portion of the play in which the chorus or chorus leader addresses the audience directly, sometimes appearing to speak in the playwright’s own voice.Paradigm An ‘example’ of how something should be. Also, in Greek, mythological paradeigma (CHS. 2, 6) – the use of myths to steer you towards (or away from) a particular sort of behaviour. The Latin for paradeigma is exemplum.PragmaticsThe study of speech and text as deriving its significance from performance in a particular context or type of context.Redaction Producing a new, definitive, version of a text, sometimes organizing it more or abridging it somewhat.Semiotics The study of ‘signs’, of how meanings are indicated, of communication and the tools of communication, for example, myths.Structuralism The study of the nature of, for example, a myth, or mythic cycle, by reference to its structure, and of how that structure reflects our thought processes and reveals a deep level of meaning.Synchronic‘At the same time’, referring to studies which trace the structures and relationships of phenomena at a given moment in time. Opposite of diachronic.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations of the titles of journals/periodicals (e.g., JHS for Journal of Hellenic Studies) follow L’Année philologique (Paris 1928 –date), whose list may be found at http://www.annee-philologique.com/aph/files/sigles_fr.pdf. Other abbreviations are as follows:

ad loc.ad locum, referring to a writer commentating ‘on that passage’.ANETJ. B. Pritchard (ed.) (1969) Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with supplement, Princeton.