Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Mythology Book

MYTHTOHELOGY BOOK



MYTHTOHELOGY BOOK

DK US/LONDON DK DELHI TOUCAN BOOKS AMERICANIZER SENIOR ART EDITOR EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Nathalie Mornu Mahua Sharma Ellen Dupont US EDITOR ART EDITORS Kayla Dugger SENIOR DESIGNER Rupanki Kaushik, Debjyoti Mukherjee Thomas Keenes US EXECUTIVE EDITOR ASSISTANT ART EDITOR Lori Hand Mridushmita Bose SENIOR EDITOR SENIOR EDITOR Abigail Mitchell PROJECT ART EDITOR Anita Kakar EDITORS Duncan Turner ASSISTANT EDITORS Rishi Bryan, Aishvarya Misra John Andrews, Guy Croton, Sue George, ILLUSTRATIONS JACKET DESIGNERS Larry Porges, Anna Southgate, Dorothy Stannard, James Graham Suhita Dharamjit, Juhi Sheth SENIOR DTP DESIGNERS Rachel Warren Chadd JACKET EDITOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Claire Gell Harish Aggarwal, Shanker Prasad DTP DESIGNER Michael Clark SENIOR JACKET DESIGNER Vikram Singh INDEXER Mark Cavanagh PICTURE RESEARCHER Marie Lorimer JACKET DESIGN Aditya Katyal PICTURE RESEARCHER DEVELOPMENT MANAGER JACKETS EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Sharon Southren Sophia MTT Priyanka Sharma PROOFREADER PRODUCER, PRE-PRODUCTION MANAGING JACKETS EDITOR Marion Dent Andy Hilliard Saloni Singh ADDITIONAL TEXT PRODUCER Andrea Jovanovic, Cynthia O’Brien, Joan Strasbaugh PICTURE RESEARCH MANAGER First American Edition, 2018 Alex Bell Taiyaba Khatoon Published in the United States by DK Publishing MANAGING EDITOR 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 PRE-PRODUCTION MANAGER Copyright © 2018 Dorling Kindersley Limited Angeles Gavira Balwant Singh DK, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC MANAGING ART EDITOR 18 19 20 21 22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 PRODUCTION MANAGER 001–305931–May/2018 Michael Duffy Pankaj Sharma ASSOCIATE PUBLISHING DIRECTOR All rights reserved. SENIOR MANAGING EDITOR Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved Liz Wheeler Rohan Sinha above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ART DIRECTOR in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in MANAGING ART EDITOR Karen Self Sudakshina Basu any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, DESIGN DIRECTOR photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior original styling by Philip Ormerod written permission of the copyright owner. PUBLISHING DIRECTOR STUDIO 8 Published in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited A catalog record for this book is available from the Library Jonathan Metcalf of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4654-7337-0 DK books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. For details, contact: DK Publishing Special Markets, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 [email protected] Printed and bound in China A WORLD OF IDEAS: SEE ALL THERE IS TO KNOW www.dk.com

CONTRIBUTORS PHILIP WILKINSON, CONSULTANT MICHAEL KERRIGAN Philip Wilkinson has written more than 50 books on history, Michael Kerrigan contributed to the Chambers Dictionary of religions, the arts, and mythology. His titles include Mythology Beliefs and Religion (1993) and The Times World Religions (2002). and Religions in Dorling Kindersley’s Eyewitness Companions His books include BBC Ancient Civilizations: Greece (2001) and series, Myths and Legends, and A Celebration of Customs and Ancient Rome (2002); The Ancients in their Own Words (2009); Rituals of the World, which was endorsed and adopted by the and Celtic Legends (2016). United Nations. NEIL PHILIP GEORGIE CARROLL Neil Philip is the author of numerous books on folklore and Georgie Carroll is a PhD candidate at SOAS University of London mythology, including Mythology of the World; The Great Mystery: working on eco-aesthetics in Indian literature. She is author of Myths of Native America; and Dorling Kindersley’s Eyewitness Mouse (Animal) (2015), and a fiction writer. Companions: Mythology. DR. MARK FAULKNER DR. NICHOLAUS PUMPHREY Dr. Mark Faulkner lived and worked in Africa for 17 years before Dr. Nicholaus Pumphrey is the Assistant Professor of Religious returning to academia and gaining his PhD, which focused on the Studies and Curator of the Quayle Bible Collection at Baker Boni hunter-gatherer community. He now lectures in Religions of University in Baldwin City, Kansas. He specializes in Biblical Africa at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University Studies, Ancient Near Eastern History and Literature, and Islamic of London. Studies. Currently, he is a senior staff member on the Tel Akko Total Archaeology project in Akko, Israel. DR. JACOB F. FIELD JULIETTE TOCINO-SMITH Dr. Jacob F. Field is a historian who is currently a research associate at the University of Cambridge. His academic work focuses on the Great Juliette Tocino-Smith is a postgraduate student at University Fire of London and British social and economic history. He has also College, London. During her undergraduate studies, she spent a written five books for a popular audience. semester in South Korea, where she became fascinated by the way in which fiction and mythology had come together in shaping DR. JOHN HAYWOOD contemporary Korean society. Dr. John Haywood studied medieval history at the universities of Lancaster, Cambridge, and Copenhagen. He is the author of over 20 books, including Viking: the Norse Warrior’s Unofficial Manual (2013) and Northmen: the Viking Saga 793-1241 (2015).

CONTENTS 10 INTRODUCTION 42 Zeus had many women, both mortal and immortal The many affairs of Zeus ANCIENT GREECE 48 Mighty Hades who dwells in houses beneath the earth 18 Gaia first gave birth to her Hades and the Underworld equal, Ouranos Origin of the universe 50 He slipped a pomegranate, 64 This pair of tyrants. They 24 Rhea swaddled up a stone sweet as honey, murdered my father into her hand Orestes avenges Agamemnon and passed it to Kronos The abduction of Persephone 66 Tell me oh muse, the to swallow 52 The raving ladies hero’s story The birth of Zeus The quest of Odysseus streamed out of 32 Zeus in his first their homes youth battered the 72 After the labors had been earthborn Titans The cult of Dionysus accomplished, he would be immortal The war of the gods and Titans 53 Turning ’round, he caught The labors of Herakles a glimpse of his wife and 34 No wind beats roughly she had to return below here, no snow nor rain Orpheus and Eurydice 76 He had the face of a bull, Mount Olympus 54 A bringer of dreams but the rest of him Hermes’s first day was human 36 He bound cunning Theseus and the Minotaur Prometheus in 56 Athena presents the olive 78 Disdaining his father’s inescapable fetters tree, Poseidon the wave warnings, the exhilarated Prometheus helps mankind Icarus soared ever higher 40 Her impluse introduced The founding of Athens Daedalus and Icarus sorrow and mischief to 58 I will give infallible 82 Watching the Gorgon’s the lives of men counsel to all who seek it head in the polished Pandora’s box Apollo and the Oracle shield, he beheaded her of Delphi Perseus and Medusa 60 One loved; the other fled 84 Hate is a bottomless cup, the name of love I will pour and pour Apollo and Daphne Jason and Medea 62 Life and death are 86 Unfortunate Oedipus— balanced on the edge of all men, least to of a razor be envied! The Trojan War The fate of Oedipus

88 She wants Adonis NORTHERN EUROPE more than she does heaven itself 130 From Ymir’s flesh the Aphrodite and Adonis earth was made Creation of the universe 90 Whatever I touch, may it be transformed into 112 I love you as I love my 134 The ash of Yggdrasil is tawny gold own soul the noblest of trees King Midas Cupid and Psyche Odin and the World Tree 91 In a single day and night 114 I am on fire with love for 140 The first war in the world the island of Atlantis my own self War of the gods disappeared beneath Narcissus and Echo the waves 142 They mixed honey with The legend of Atlantis 115 She yet spins her thread, the blood and it turned as a spider into mead ANCIENT ROME Arachne and Minerva The Mead of Poetry 96 I sing of arms and 116 I pay the due penalty 144 Thor might smite as hard the man in blood as he desired and the Aeneas, founder of Rome Cybele and Attis hammer would not fail The treasures of the gods 102 A desire seized Romulus 118 Mithras is the Lord and Remus to build a city of generation 146 Am I wrong in thinking The founding of Rome Mithras and the bull that this little fellow is Thor? 106 The father of gods spurts 120 He carved a statue out of The adventures of Thor and red flames through snow-white ivory Loki in Jötunheim the clouds Pygmalion Numa outwits Jupiter 148 The unluckiest deed 121 For lying with me, take ever done among 108 Conceive of Vesta control of the hinge gods and men as naught but the Carna and Janus The death of Baldur living flame Vesta and Priapus 122 No wood nymph could 150 Brother will fight brother tend a garden more and be his slayer 110 The fates will leave me skilfuly than she The twilight of the gods my voice, and by my Pomona and Vertumnus voice I shall be known 158 When the worm comes The sibyl of Cumae 124 Even death shall not to the water, smite him part us in the heart Pyramus and Thisbe Sigurd the dragon slayer 125 Those whom the gods care 160 Wonderful the magic for are gods sampo, plenty does Philemon and Baucis it bring to northland The Kalevala

164 The Dagda was eighty 198 Two spirits, one good, 216 The 10 suns all rose at years in the kingship the other evil, in thought, once, scorching the of Ireland word, and deed sheaves of grain A complex god Ahura Mazda and Ahriman Yi shoots the sun 165 As soon as he touched 200 Brahma opened his eyes 218 I’ll roam the corners the earth, he was and realized he was alone of the oceans and go a heap of ashes Brahma creates the cosmos to the edge of the sky The voyage of Bran The adventures of the 201 Siva placed the elephant’s Monkey King 166 One will be long head on the torso and forgetting Cúchulainn revived the boy 220 Having finished making The cattle raid of Cooley The birth of Ganesha the lands, they went on to make its spirits 168 He has the name of being 202 O king, it is wrong to Izanagi and Izanami the strongest and bravest gamble oneself! man in Ireland The game of dice 222 All manner of calamities Finn MacCool and the arose everywhere Giant’s Causeway 204 Rama is virtuous and the Susanoo and Amaterasu foremost among all 170 So they took the blossoms righteous men 226 Your rice of the Skyworld and produced from them The Ramayana is good a maiden Fire and rice Blodeuwedd 210 I am the lady, ruler of the worlds 228 There was a man 172 Who so pulleth out Durga slays the buffalo demon called Dan’gun this sword is the Wanggeom who created a rightwise king born 211 O! Meenakshi! Fish-eyed city and founded a nation of all England goddess! Grant me bliss! The legendary foundation The legend of King Arthur The fish-eyed goddess finds of Korea a husband ASIA 212 You are to be the king 230 Hae Mosu made the over all the world sun shine and its 182 From the great heaven The origins of the Baiga rays caressed the goddess set her mind Yuwha’s body on the great below 214 Yang became the heavens, Jumong The descent of Inanna Yin became the earth Pangu and the creation of THE AMERICAS 188 Command and bring the world about annihilation and re-creation 236 The Earth is a giant island Marduk and Tiamat floating in a sea of water Cherokee creation 190 Who can rival his 238 It will not be well if they kingly standing? omit it The epic of Gilgamesh Spider Woman

240 Begin a Deerskin Dance 308 Spear me slowly. I still for it because everything have more to teach you will come out well The killing of Luma-Luma from that The Woge settle a dispute 310 The world of myth is never far off 242 She was the shade The Déma of the whale The raven and the whale 274 Isis lived in the form of 316 Master of everything a woman, who had the that is 244 And the sun belongs knowledge of words Ta’aroa gives birth to to one and the moon of power the gods to the other Ra’s secret name The Hero Twins 318 Death obtained power 276 He will not die! Osiris will over mankind 248 So then the sun went into live a life forever Tane and Hine-titama the sky Osiris and the underworld The legend of the five suns 320 But the redoubtable 284 If they built fires, evil Maui was not to 256 In the beginning, and would come be discouraged before this world San creation myth Maui of a thousand tricks was created, there was a being called Viracocha 285 I will give you something 324 What would you say to Viracocha the Creator called cattle our driving the birds En-kai and the cattle to Easter Island? 258 The canoe was Makemake and Haua a wonder 286 Tie the calabash behind The first canoe you and then you will be 326 When I utter his name, able to climb the tree he hears in the heavens 260 The creator of the Ananse the spider Mapusia and the Work of world has always existed the Gods The sky makes the sun 288 The life-force of the earth and earth is water 332 I do not forget the The Dogon cosmos guiding stars ANCIENT EGYPT Aluluei and the art AND AFRICA of navigation 266 I was alone with the 294 The queen wants to 334 DIRECTORY Primeval Ocean kill you The creation and the Eshu the trickster first gods OCEANIA 344 INDEX 272 Hail to you, Ra, perfect 351 QUOTE ATTRIBUTIONS each day! 302 Come and hear our 352 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The night barque of Ra stories, see our land The Dreaming

INTRODU

CTION

12 INTRODUCTION W ith rare exceptions— immortality. Such a quest was the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian such as a recently repeated in myths the world over. myth of Creation, with the force of discovered Amazonian Subsequent Mesopotamian a magical incantation in their ritual tribe, the Pirahãs—every human civilizations developed, demoted, reenergizing of the cosmos. culture has developed its own or culled the Sumerian gods and mythology to explain its origins the myths associated with them. Great cultures and make sense of the phenomena The powerful goddess Inanna, for Myths had a great influence on the observed in the natural world. example, became Ishtar in the societal fabric of history’s greatest Babylonian pantheon and later the civilizations. The rich and complex The word “mythology” comes Phoenician goddess Astarte. mythology of ancient Egypt from the Greek muthos, meaning emphasized the creation of order “story,” and logia, “knowledge.” Like other civilizations, ancient out of chaos. Such stories validated Myths tell of the creation of the Mesopotamia was shaped by the the governance of society and world or predict its end; they narratives it used to explain the legitimized a status quo in which explain how animals were made cosmos. Its rulers were guided by the pharaoh himself was viewed and the land formed; they bridge the gods, whose capricious will as divine and therefore worthy of the world of humans and the world was interpreted by priests. The being served. The Egyptians also of the spirits or gods; they try to gods had to be continually praised saw time as cyclical; events that impose order on a terrifying chaos, and placated. During the Akitu, happened in their society were and to confront the mysteries of a 12-day festival held in the great merely repeating what had death. Crucially, myths are also the temple of Marduk, people chanted happened before and had been foundation of religions: they define recorded in their myths. cultures and codify their values. In ancient Greece and Rome, Ancient civilizations Myth is the facts of the the foundation myths of city-states The mythologies of the ancient mind made manifest in a were fundamental to the concepts world take up much of this book. of citizenship; they bound ideas of In ancient Mesopotamia—in the fiction of matter. patriotism and common interest crucible of civilization of the 4th Maya Deren with divine authority. In Greece, millennium BCE, when humankind which consisted of more than 1,000 first learned to live in cities—the Anthropologist city-states, each had a founding Sumerians developed the first myth and a protective deity, which recorded pantheon of deities. It led to a highly complex set of myths was preserved in statues, carvings, that was often contradictory. It took and ancient texts, such as The Epic the poets Homer and Hesiod to of Gilgamesh, in which the create a comprehensive, pan- eponymous hero searches for Hellenic record of Greek mythology.

INTRODUCTION 13 Homer’s epic stories—the Iliad and In preliterate societies, myths were secret, or they have not been Odyssey—and Hesiod’s Theogony recited and passed along orally. collected or translated, or they have comprised the first and most The written recording of a myth been lost as exposure to outsiders authoritative attempts to weave depended on luck, which probably has attacked and destroyed the disparate Greek myths into led to the disappearance of a great indigenous cultures. one narrative thread. many mythologies. Even in literate societies, such as the Viking-Age Mythology is the territory of In ancient Rome, the local Norse, some myths survived poetic imagination, and the stories myths of Italic peoples, such as the through only a single source. Had individual cultures tell are a Latins and the Etruscans, blended the manuscripts of the mythological profound expression of the creative with the Greek myths that had poems known as the Edda—and of impulse. Yet myths are more than gone before them. The poet Virgil Snorri Sturluson’s later Prose simply stories; they are the stories composed a foundation myth for Edda—been destroyed, we would cultures tell themselves about the Rome, the Aeneid, consciously know as little about Norse great mysteries that perplex and modeled on the epics of Homer, mythology as we do about the intrigue us all: questions of birth while Ovid retold many Greek myths of the ancient Britons. and death and everything in myths in his narrative poem between. Even now, myths remain Metamorphoses, and recorded the Living religions the bearers of tradition and the myths of a number of purely Roman Many tribal peoples—including the spiritual and moral guide of peoples deities in his poem on the religious Dogon of Mali, the Baiga of central all across the globe. ■ year, Fasti. The Romans enriched India, the Tikopia of the Solomon the mix by adding deities from Islands, and the Ifugaos of the Myth … takes all the things Phrygia (such as the Great Mother Philippines—still live in a world you know and restores to them Cybele), Egypt (the goddess Isis), suffused by what outsiders might and Syria (Elagabal, or Sol Invictus, call myths. Oral tradition in these the rich significance hidden briefly the chief god of Rome). societies is remarkably enduring: by the veil of familiarity. as proven by the abundant myths C. S. Lewis Preserving myths or Dreamings of the Aboriginal The line between literature, myth, Australians, the myths of the Writer, scholar, and author of and folktale is blurry; many myths déma (creation spirits) among the The Chronicles of Narnia have been preserved as literary Marind-Anim people of New works. The popular tales of King Guinea, or the eloquent Chantways Arthur are rooted in Celtic myth, of the Navajo in North America. while the Ramayana and the Many myths from these peoples, Mahabharata, the great works of however, have not reached the Hindu mythology, are celebrated outside world because they are masterpieces of epic poetry.

ANCIENT

GREECE

16 INTRODUCTION In the Bronze Age Hesiod’s Theogony In On Nature, Aeschylus stages collapse of Aegean tracks the origins Heraclitus the Oresteia, a and Mediterranean and genealogies discourses on kingdoms, Troy is of a wide array of ethics, theology, trilogy that retells destroyed by war. and the universe. a blood-soaked Greek deities. cycle of myths. CA.1200 BCE CA.700 BCE CA.500 BCE CA.458–430 BCE CA.800 BCE CA.600 BCE 432 BCE CA.450–400 BCE Homer’s epic poems, the The Homeric The Parthenon temple In Oedipus Rex, Iliad and Odyssey, Hymns, written is dedicated to the Sophocles contrasts are among the oldest anonymously, are fate and free will in a surviving works in devoted to the goddess Athena, and sinister tale of murder Western literature. praise of 33 gods. marks the zenith of Classical Greece. and incest. T he ancient Greeks first as agricultural and trading hubs. other for dominion over Greece. entered the territory now Greece became a collection of As the preeminent power, Athens associated with them in separate city-states—such as was the setting for many Greek about 2000 BCE, when Egypt was Athens, Sparta, and Corinth— myths, from its origins under the still a great power and the Minoans united by a shared language and care of its patron goddess, Athena, of Crete were evolving into a highly the worship of common gods. to tales such as Jason and Medea. sophisticated society. The first However, Greek religion was not migrants, who probably came from standardized; there was no book Many of the surviving Greek Russia and central Asia, settled of doctrines to tell people how they myths come to us via Athenian in the mountainous north and the should worship. Their mythology dramatists: from the tragedies Peloponnese to the south, where borrowed from their ancestors — of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and the city of Mycenae was founded the myth of the Minotaur came Euripides in the 5th century BCE ca.1600 BCE. Described by Homer from the Minoans in Crete, and the to the comedies of Aristophanes as “rich in gold,” the Mycenaean Mycenaean era was the setting for (ca.446–c.386 BCE) and Menander civilization prospered thanks to the Trojan War, immortalized in (ca.342–c.291 BCE). These works trade networks across the Aegean Homer’s Iliad. told stories about the gods and and Mediterranean seas. heroes of Greek mythology and Athenian dominance inspired later writers such as With the Bronze Age collapse The Classical era in Greece began Shakespeare, whose A Midsummer of palace culture and the end of with the fall of the powerful Persian Night’s Dream and Romeo and Mycenaean civilization ca.1100 BCE, empire in 479 BCE. Having defeated Juliet borrow from Greek myth. Greece entered its Dark Age. the Persians, the city-states of By the 8th century BCE, poleis Athens and Sparta fought each The era of Athenian dominance (“city-states”) began to emerge ended in the 4th century BCE, when the Macedonian ruler Alexander

Euripides’s The Plato’s dialogues Greece is defeated ANCIENT GREECE 17 Bacchae explores Timaeus and Critias in battle and faces the dual nature of introduce the idea Roman rule, leading The Library of man—the rational to the integration of Pseudo-Apollodorus versus the instinctual. of the legendary documents a variety city of Atlantis. the two cultures. of Greek myths and legends. 408–405 BCE CA.360 BCE 146 BCE CA.100 CE CA.370 BCE CA.250 BCE CA.30 BCE CA.150 CE Xenophon’s Apollonius of Diodorus Siculus Pausanias explores Anabasis contains Rhodes depicts the includes the myth of famous sites and the story of King adventures of Jason Icarus and Daedalus Greek identity and his band of men Midas and his in the Argonautica. in his 40-book in Description golden touch. Historical Library. of Greece. the Great built his empire. Thanks appearances. Because Homer’s epic Hades was a way of accounting to Alexander’s conquests, Greek poems were set in an aristocratic for the changing cycles of the culture and mythology were and feudal society—which preceded agricultural year. exported as far as Asia Minor, the birth of democracy in Athens Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India. in the 5th century BCE—his gods The rise of the cult behaved like chieftains, motivated At the end of the 5th century BCE, The major deities solely by their own desires. various mystery cults arose in It was the poets Homer and Hesiod the Greek-speaking world. Chief who imposed order upon the myriad Like other ancient agrarian among these were the Eleusinian gods and beliefs inherited from peoples, the Greeks were local in mysteries, an ancient agrarian cult earlier times. Homer set down his their focus. They ordered their honoring Demeter and Persephone poetry from oral tradition around religious life around local places, and promising paradise for the 800 BCE, after the migrations that identifying different hills, streams, dead. The Dionysian cult, which followed the collapse of the and plains with different deities. originated in Asia, worshipped Mycenaean culture. His two epic This mythic lore invested every Dionysus and involved wild poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, gave corner of the land with spiritual dancing, drinking, and ecstasy. the Greeks a history, a pantheon, significance. The Earth was the Unlike the public worship of the and guidelines for how to live their source of existence: divine power gods, which was well documented, lives. As the Olympian family of 12 originated in its depths, as did these mystery cults consisted of principal gods dwelling on Mount the crops. Myths sought to explain secret rites and doctrines that Olympus gradually replaced older aspects of agrarian life. The tale remain enigmatic to this day, but beliefs, Homer and Hesiod gave of Persephone—daughter of the would go on to influence the beliefs them distinct characters and harvest goddess Demeter—and her and myths of ancient Rome. ■ imprisonment in the Underworld by

GAIA FIRST HOGAEUVRERBEAIQRNTUHOATLSO, ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE



20 ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE IN BRIEF I n the beginning was Chaos, Gaia, the Earth Mother, sits with an open chasm of emptiness— her two godly progeny at her side in THEME infinitely deep, dark, and an ancient Greek stone relief. It was Creation by Mother Earth silent. In his vision of the universe’s said that an oath sworn by Gaia origin, set down in Theogony, the would prove irrevocable. SOURCES Greek poet Hesiod saw creation as Theogony, Hesiod, ca.700 bce; the imposition of a positive reality ultimately, creatively, just as night Argonautica, Apollonius of on this negativity and absence. Key does with day, darkness with light, Rhodes, ca.250 bce; Natural to that reality was the capacity for and death with life. History, Pliny the Elder, 79 ce; change. The nothingness of Chaos Library, Pseudo-Apollodorus, could have continued, eternally Kinship and conflict ca.100 ce. unaltered, but existence, once While creative, these conjunctions created, brought with it endless inevitably cast opposing principles SETTING cycles—the comings and goings into a never-ending struggle for Chaos—a vast and infinitely of the seasons, generations of supremacy. Hesiod’s portrayal dark void at the origin of the humans, birth, and death. These of primal sexual relations was universe. cycles were set in motion by the essentially violent: male and female making of the original division forces as complementary but also KEY FIGURES between night and day; time was competing. It was far from an Gaia The primordial earth- now measurable and meaningful. idealized world view, and the mother goddess, and depiction of Ouranos was even personification of the Earth mother more extreme; the despotic solid world. The first Greek goddess, Gaia, was patriarch would brook no rival— the earth in its mineral form—its not even his own children. Ouranos The sky god, Gaia’s rocks and soils, its mountains and spontaneously conceived its plains. From its solid and Ouranos’s jealousy of his sons son; later father of the Titans, seemingly inert state, it became and daughters was such that, at the Hecatoncheires, the vibrant with the potential for new each birth, he took them away and Kyklopes, the Erinyes, life. The first manifestation of that stowed each one in some hidden Aphrodite, and many other new vitality was Ouranos, god of recess of the earth—which was gods and goddesses. the sky, spontaneously conceived actually his wife’s body. He did this within the womb of the great Earth to establish his ownership of Gaia. Kronos A Titan who castrated Mother Gaia, with whom he would his father, Ouranos; also subsequently father children. associated with the harvest. Though he was Gaia’s son, Out of the Chasm came Ouranos was her equal. Hesiod Night, and from Night in wrote that she bore him specifically so that he could “cover her.” While turn came Day. this was a statement of fact—the Theogony sky lies above the earth—it adds more than a hint of sexuality to the relationship between the earth and heaven. The Greeks were as horrified at the idea of incest as we are. Its function in their mythology appears to have been to show that all the different aspects of existence are intensely conflicted, yet intimately linked. The sky was not simply positioned above the earth; it conjoined with it dynamically and,

ANCIENT GREECE 21 See also: The Olympian gods 24–31 ■ The war of gods and Titans 32–33 ■ The many affairs of Zeus 42–47 ■ The fate of Oedipus 86–87 The sky god Ouranos is depicted as a benign father with offspring draped around him in a wood engraving after a fresco by the Prussian artist Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841). Her sexual attentions had to be entirely and eternally available to him, so their offspring could not be allowed to see the light of day. Successive infants were consigned to subterranean depths. First came the 12 Titans—the sisters Theia, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Themis, Tethys, and Rhea, and their brothers Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Kronos. Each in his or her turn was rammed into some convenient crack or crevice of the earth and left there, trapped. After the Titans came three giant brothers, the Kyklopes, each of whom had a single eye at the center of his forehead. Like their siblings, they were consigned at birth to be buried in the heart of the earth. Then came three more giants of even greater strength—the Hecatoncheires, whose name ❯❯ Hesiod and his The ancient Greek poet Hesiod human beginnings, while the Theogony may well be a myth in his own Theogony, Hesiod’s most famous right, for there is no evidence that work, focuses on the birth of the any such person actually existed. gods and is the source for much The works attributed to him— of what we know about Greek assorted poetry from the 8th and myth. Hesiod was not the only 7th centuries bce—may simply available authority; other more have been conveniently bundled mystic-minded thinkers and together. They include a writers promoted an alternative miscellany of poems, from brief “Orphic” tradition, built around narratives to genealogies that the myth of Orpheus, the bard record the heroic ancestries and musician. For the most part, of important families. however—and for well over 2,000 years now—it has been The importance of these works the version of mythical events in tracing back traditions and attributed to Hesiod that has uncovering origins is undeniable. held sway. The genealogical poems discuss

22 ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE means “hundred-handed” in leapt out from his hiding place to A white foam arose where Greek. Each was also said to aid his mother. Wielding his sickle, the immortal skin touched have 50 heads, making them and with one fell swoop, he sliced water: amidst the waves, formidable—they, too, were off his father’s genitals. a beautiful maiden took form. incarcerated by Ouranos deep inside the earth. It was the ultimate patriarchal Theogony nightmare—the father not just The upstart son supplanted by his son but castrated Ouranos’s wound-spatter landed in As for Gaia, the Earth Mother felt by him, with the connivance of the ocean, this most beautiful of both physically burdened by the his wife. Even now, however, goddesses was born. She stepped number of infant bodies literally Ouranos’s potency was not quite from the waves, bringing with her forced back inside her and also spent. The splashes of blood and all the delights of erotic love. deeply upset by the attempted semen that flew from his wound suppression of her children. Finally, sowed spirit life wherever they she rebelled and appealed to her landed, bringing into being sons for help. She secretly made a a vast assortment of new-born sickle out of adamant—by legend nymphs and giants, good and bad. an unbreakable mineral—and gave The Erinyes, three baleful sisters it to Kronos. The next time Ouranos better known to us now as the spread himself over her, attempting Furies, were angry and avenging to force her into intercourse, Kronos spirits. Aphrodite was a deity of a very different kind. Where Titans of all trades When Kronos had finally freed his brothers and sisters from captivity in the earth, the Titans were to serve a twofold mythic function. First, they were living, breathing, loving, and fighting personalities. Each of them symbolized a different aspect of existence, so that collectively they represented a way of ordering and enriching the world. The eldest daughter, Mnemosyne, for instance, stood for the faculty of memory and all it brought with it in terms of history, culture, and heritage. Later, having lain with her nephew Zeus, she would give birth to the nine Muses—divine patronesses of scientific study, historical study, poetry, and the performing arts. Tethys, who married her brother Oceanus, went on to bear him 3,000 sons—all river gods—and as Beautiful Aphrodite emerges from the ocean, where the seed of her brutal father had fallen. The Birth of Venus (her name in Roman mythology) was painted by Peter Paul Rubens (ca.1637).

Gaia ANCIENT GREECE 23 Thousands of Greek deities, unanimously descended from Gaia and Ouranos, all embodied the values, virtues, and vices of humans, vividly dramatized in the colorful mythology of ancient Greece. Ouranos Oceanus Coeus Crius Theia Mnemosyne Phoebe Kronos Hyperion Iapetus Rhea Tethys Themis Hestia Demeter Hera Hades Poseidon Zeus many daughters, the Oceanids, mother’s association with justice of his attack upon his father. The who were nymphs of springs, rivers, to violent extremes; as her name sickle also has more mundane and lakes, and seas. Her younger sister suggests, she became notorious as practical associations. Kronos came Theia, too, took a brother, Hyperion, the personification of punishment to be seen as the godly guarantor for her husband; she bore him and divine retribution. of a successful harvest. The Helios, the sun, and his sister Eos, connection between these two goddess of dawn. Helios and Eos The name of the youngest male functions—the idea that one had a sister, Selene, who was a Titan, Iapetus, comes from iapto, generation had effectively to be goddess of the moon, though her a Greek word meaning “wound” or destroyed for its successor to aunt Phoebe—sister to Tethys, “pierce.” The implications of this survive and thrive, took an early Mnemosyne, and Theia—also translation have long been debated. hold on the Greek consciousness. had lunar associations. Ancient poets seem to have been unsure whether he was given Kronos, having killed his father, Themis, the youngest female this name because he sustained now replaced him as the head of Titan, was associated with reason, an injury or because he made the household. He then married his justice, and the orderly conduct of the weapon that inflicted it. sister Rhea and began to produce existence in the universe. Like her Meanwhile, in classical literature, children of his own. Much like his sister Mnemosyne, she would for a Iapetus appears both as a deity of father, Kronos would soon confront time become consort to her nephew mortality and of skill in crafts. the idea that human life can only Zeus. Of their children, the Horae advance through intergenerational (“Hours”) would oversee the Patricidal patriarch struggle. This theme runs through measurement and passage of the Artists in ancient Greece almost the Greek mythological tradition, seasons and of time. Another invariably represented Kronos and is most notoriously associated daughter, Nemesis, took her carrying a sickle—an emblem with the story of King Oedipus. ■

KRONOSRAHNEADSWPAADSDLSEDEUDP AITSTTONOE TO SWALLOW THE OLYMPIAN GODS



26 THE OLYMPIAN GODS K ronos, Titan son of the Kronos, known as Saturn by earth goddess Gaia and the Romans, as depicted in Saturn IN BRIEF the sky god Ouranos, Devouring His Son, Francisco Goya, proved every bit as possessive a (1821–1823). The work is part of the THEME patriarch as his father had been. artist's “Black Paintings” series. Origin of the Olympian After just one generation, a dismal gods pattern of godly conduct was down before he could utter his first emerging; just as Ouranos had helpless cry, swiftly followed by SOURCES dominated Gaia, Kronos required the next son, Poseidon, who met Theogony, Hesiod, ca.700 bce; his wife and sister Rhea to be the same fate. Library, Pseudo-Apollodorus, exclusively and endlessly available ca.100 ce. to him in order to meet his sexual The despairing Rhea finally needs. No one else, least of all his turned to her mother, the elderly SETTING children, would be allowed to Gaia, and her neutered father, Crete. compete for her attention. Having deposed his own father to become KEY FIGURES king of the Titans, Kronos knew Kronos King of the Titans; how dangerous it was to let a child son of Gaia and Ouranos. grow in envy and rage. Rhea Sister and wife of Determined that no one should Kronos. pose such a threat to him, Kronos ensured that the children Rhea Hestia Goddess of the hearth. bore him were destroyed just as quickly as they were conceived. Demeter Goddess of the As soon as she gave birth to a new harvest. baby, he would swallow it whole. Hestia, the first child that Rhea Hera Queen of the Olympian bore, was gone in a single gulp, gods. before her mother could even cradle her in her arms. Another daughter, Hades Lord of the Underworld. Demeter, soon followed: she, too, was swallowed promptly. Hera, the Poseidon God of the seas. third daughter, went the same way, and Kronos’s sons fared no better. Zeus King of the Olympian First came Hades—swallowed gods; killer of Kronos. Both Earth and Sky Kronos castrates Kronos becomes a cruel foretold him that he and kills his cruel father in turn. would be dethroned father, Ouranos. Tricked by Rhea, he Kronos eats his children by his own son. misses Zeus, who comes to prevent them from Library back to kill him. supplanting him.

ANCIENT GREECE 27 See also: Origin of the universe 18–23 ■ The war of the gods and Titans 32–33 ■ Mount Olympus 34–35 ■ The founding of Athens 56–57 ■ The sybil of Cumae 110–11 Ouranos, for help. Together they was frightened that Kronos— squealed, or cried, the Kouretes hatched a devious plan to save thanks to his universal authority danced and chanted to disguise their daughter’s next child. over the earth, sea, and sky—would the sound. As a result, Kronos be able to see where his son was was completely unaware that Switched with a stone being hidden. To prevent Kronos his youngest son was still alive. Rhea followed her parents’ advice. from finding him, she hung Zeus As soon as she had given birth from a rope that dangled between Zeus seeks his father to Zeus, the last of her sons, and the earth and the heavens but was In no time at all, it seemed, before his father, Kronos, had had a in neither one realm nor the other. Zeus grew to manhood. He was chance to see him, she hid the hungry for revenge against his baby away. Then she wrapped Adamanthea cared for Zeus cruel father. Yet if Zeus was ever a stone in swaddling clothes and and nursed him with milk from to emerge from hiding, some sort of handed it to her unsuspecting a herd of goats that grazed nearby. showdown between them would ❯❯ husband in place of the infant. Whenever the baby gurgled, Kronos, in his rapacious greed, did not even look at the bundle before he tipped back his head, opened his mouth wide, and dropped it in. The “baby” tumbled straight down into his stomach, ready to join the jostling crowd of children already there. Unknown to Kronos, they had all survived in the deep darkness of his belly. There they grew in size and resentment. Brought up in safety Meanwhile, Rhea, on the recommendation of the child's grandmother, Gaia, spirited the infant Zeus away, carrying him across the sea to the fertile island of Crete. There, in a concealed cave on the thickly wooded slopes of Mount Ida (now known as Psiloritis, the highest mountain on Crete), Rhea left her son in the care of a warlike tribe called the Kouretes. They, in turn, gave the baby to a nymph named Adamanthea (Amalthea in some sources), who nursed Zeus in secret. According to Hesiod, the nymph Zeus is protected from all-seeing Kronos by his attentive nymph carers and the noise of the Kouretes, as shown in this 17th-century painting, The Childhood of Zeus on Mount Ida.

28 THE OLYMPIAN GODS be inevitable. Kronos could not First he vomited up the stone, victory, the gods set up their seat afford to let a potential usurper live. which he had swallowed last. of power on Mount Olympus and If he became aware of Zeus’s Zeus set it up to be a sign … drew lots to decide who would take existence, he would view his son which role in ruling the universe. only as a threat to his power. a wonder to mortal men. The three sons of Kronos divided Theogony the cosmos up between them; Kronos’s fear of being usurped one would take control of the sky, was fully justified. When he finally provide them messages of wisdom another would have the sea, and met his son, whom he believed to that were said to come directly the third would preside over the be dead, he was forced to yield to from the gods. Underworld. Zeus, whose weapon Zeus in the most brutal way: Zeus of choice was the thunderbolt, simply turned up one day and, with Great deities disgorged became ruler of the sky and leader the help of his grandmother, Gaia, After vomiting up the stone, Kronos of all the Olympian gods. ambushed his father. He kicked began to disgorge his offspring. Kronos violently in the stomach One by one, Zeus’s older brothers Hades, the first son to be born and forced his father to vomit up and sisters came out of their and the last to be regurgitated, the contents of his stomach. First father’s mouth—no longer babies became lord of the Underworld. to emerge was the stone Kronos now, but fully grown. Once reborn, His name came to stand for both had swallowed, believing it to be they became the Olympian gods the deity and his unseen realm, the infant Zeus. The young god and were revered for their powers. where souls go after death. Hades took this stone and set it upright was not happy to have been in the earth as a monument to Soon after their rebirth, the allocated this dismal domain, Kronos’s cruelty, and a symbol of sons and daughters of Kronos went but there was nothing he could his triumph over the wicked god. to war with the mighty Titans for do about it. Meanwhile, Poseidon, control of the cosmos. After their who had been the tiniest baby, Zeus placed the stone at the became the almighty “Earth- omphalos, or “navel,” of the Greek Shaker,” the god of the sea in ancient world—at Delphi, in the all its awesome power. very center of Greece. In future ages, the stone would become Disparate goddesses a shrine, renowned for its oracle. The three female children of Kronos Pilgrims would visit it to seek also had important roles to play. the guidance of the priestess, Hestia, goddess of the hearth, ruled or Sibyl, regarding their personal over people's domestic lives. As problems, and the Sibyl would Hestia home, with domesticity and all its blessings. In particular, her realm Kronos and Rhea’s eldest child, was that of the hearth—the fire Hestia (\"hearth\"), was the first that was a household’s warm and to be swallowed by her father— hospitable center. The hearth was and the last to reappear when also the site of the altar where Zeus forced him to vomit up his sacrifices were offered to any offspring. Given that she was domestic gods; she presided over both the oldest and youngest of these rituals, too. the children, she was widely referred to as “Hestia, First and Though herself a sworn virgin, Last.” Like the later Roman god having refused all proposals of Janus, Hestia was seen as the marriage, Hestia was considered embodiment of all of life’s the protector of the family. The ambiguities and ambivalences. metaphorical family of the state Like Janus, too, she quickly was also part of her realm, and came to be associated with the she would look after the public altar or hearth within a city.

ANCIENT GREECE 29 Zeus and Hera become man and associated with feminine beauty, described her as Kronos's sister, wife in a scene from a decorative sexuality, and erotic pleasures. who was born from sea foam after marble-and-limestone frieze that The Greeks had these two different the castration of Ouranos. Despite was part of a temple in Selinunte, deities for what, in ancient times, being of the same generation as Sicily, dating from the 5th century bce. were considered two separate Kronos and Rhea, she was always spheres of affection. One deity considered an Olympian, rather goddess of the harvest, Demeter represented marital love, the other than a Titan, and one of the gods was a life-giver to the worshippers romantic and erotic love. While and goddesses who eventually who relied on her annual bounty. this distinction may now be alien made up the Dodekatheon—the 12 She proved a fickle protector, to many people, in most cultures most important Olympians in the however, ready not just to cross and at most times in history, the Greek pantheon. The Dodekatheon swords with her siblings but to majority of marriages were included Zeus, Demeter, Hera, withhold favors from humankind at arranged—as transactions for the Poseidon, and Aphrodite from the any perceived slight. management and transmission of first generation of Olympians. The property and land. The idea of hearth goddess Hestia was not Hera’s role was more prominent “companionate” marriage—in among them, as she later chose to than that of her sisters, and she which the love between a husband live on Earth to avoid her siblings’ became the foremost female deity and wife is the driving factor—is squabbles. Hades, similarly, was following her marriage to her a relatively modern convention. not included because he resided brother Zeus. To her great dismay, permanently in the Underworld. however, Hera never quite received The Dodekatheon the recognition and honors she After the war between the gods expected as the queen of the gods. Aphrodite was the only member of and the Titans established the As the goddess of women and this first generation of Olympians Olympians as rulers of the cosmos, marriage, Hera was supposed to who was not a child of Kronos and the first generation of gods went on represent the archetypal wedded Rhea; some accounts suggest she to have many children. Many of the state, but she became known for was the daughter of Zeus, but gods and other figures in Greek her marital troubles. Hesiod, Pausanius, and Ovid all mythology were children of Zeus. ❯❯ Nor was Hera the goddess who inspired men’s passions. While Hera was portrayed as a wifely figure, Aphrodite was the goddess Aphrodite had an illicit affair with another Olympian—Ares, the god of war. They were caught in bed by her husband, Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, who threw a net over the pair.

30 THE OLYMPIAN GODS Athena and her uncle Poseidon battled over Athens—a family squabble that the goddess won. The struggle is illustrated in this Venetian fresco by Giambattista Mengardi (1787). Of the second generation of gods, attained his seat at the table only the gods by attempting to emulate several joined the Dodekatheon, after Hestia left Olympus to reside them, instead treating them as they and were powerful deities in their on Earth. might a powerful human ruler by own right. The gods Apollo, Ares, offering sacrifices and celebrating Dionysus, Hephaestus, and Hermes Human personalities the deities at regular festivals. all joined the ranks of Zeus and his The Olympian gods were all too At its core, this was a system of siblings on Mount Olympus, as did human in their personalities, exchange: people offered gifts to the goddesses Artemis and Athena. and often lacked the lofty the gods in the hope that the gods The Dodekatheon met as a council transcendence of the supreme would give them what they asked to discuss matters in their ruling of beings in later religions. In a for. The gods often rewarded the cosmos; Dionysus, god of wine, dramatic soap opera of fierce mortals who treated them well rivalries and petty spats, their and showed them the appropriate Marble sculptures from the Parthenon actions were influenced not by deference and respect. temple on the Acropolis in Athens show a desire to work for the good of the gods—from left to right: Dionysus, humankind, but by their own Zeus and his siblings could be Demeter, Persephone, and Artemis— selfish desires and whims. The needlessly cruel and were often reacting to the birth of Athena. Greeks therefore did not worship subject to jealousies and petty fights. His brothers Poseidon and Hades often used humans as pawns in these squabbles, which usually stemmed from a reluctance to accept the supreme god's authority as unquestionable. Still more reluctant was his sister Demeter, a strong-willed deity in her own right. After she was pursued and raped by Poseidon, and Hades abducted her daughter Persephone, Demeter wreaked havoc across the world.

ANCIENT GREECE 31 The 12 Olympians Description Symbols of the gods Demeter was wroth Aphrodite, the goddess of love Scepter Myrtle Dove with the gods and and beauty, was often shown with a scepter, myrtle, and dove. Bow Lyre Laurel quitted heaven. Apollo was an archer, but also Spear Library played the lyre, while the laurel symbolized his love for Daphne. Bow Deer Olive Infidelity, too, was a major theme Ares was the bloodthirsty god Aegis Owl in all Greek myths—not just in the of war. His love of arms was affairs (and assaults) committed by usually represented by a spear. Scepter Torch Grain Zeus that riled the jealous Hera. Artemis, the hunting goddess and Apollo’s twin, was shown Grapevine Ivy Thyrsos Between gods and mortals with a bow and her sacred deer. Despite their power, in many ways Athena, goddess of wisdom, Axe Greek deities appear to have had bore the Aegis shield; her bird an intermediate status, hovering was the owl, her tree the olive. Scepter Diadem Peacock somewhere between the spiritual Demeter, the scepter-wielding and the real. Their attributes reflect harvest goddess, carried a torch Caduceus Winged boots the countless aspects of Greek in a bid to find her daughter. everyday life in which the gods Dionysus, god of wine, was Trident Bull Horse played an implicit part. All the gods crowned with ivy and bore a had specific areas of influence, thyrsos—a symbol of pleasure. such as Zeus and Athena, who Hephaestus was the god of were among the theoi agoraioi smiths, craftsmen, and fire. His (gods of the agora—the marketplace axe was never far from his side. and people’s assembly). Both Zeus Hera, Zeus’s queen, carried a and the goddess Hestia were also scepter and wore a regal crown. gods of the home (theoi ktesioi). Her bird was the peacock. Hestia, Dionysius, and Aphrodite Hermes, the gods’ messenger, were among the theoi daitioi, who wore winged boots and carried presided over feasts and banquets. a caduceus, a magical staff. Poseidon, the sea god, wielded The gods themselves also a trident to shake the earth. Bulls needed sustenance. According and horses were sacred to him. to Greek tradition, they lived on a Zeus, the supreme god, tossed diet of nectar and ambrosia, carried thunderbolts at foes. The eagle to Mount Olympus by doves. To was his bird, the oak his tree. later belief systems, the notion that deities needed material sustenance Thunderbolt Eagle Oak seems at odds with their divinity. Ancient Greek authorities, however, agreed on the importance of this nourishment for the gods to empower and sustain them. ■

32 EZYEAOURUSTTHHINBBOHARITSNTEFTRIIRTEASDNTTSHE THE WAR OF THE GODS AND TITANS IN BRIEF Z eus slipped easily into a Zeus, with the support of his position of authority over siblings, launched a concerted and THEME his brothers and sisters: determined attack against the Olympians take power though the youngest, he had been Titan gods. The siblings were in the world by far the longest. His joined by some of Ouranos’s cast- SOURCES siblings supported him as he strove out sons. The three Kyklopes—the Iliad, Homer, 8th century bce; to overthrow his father and assert one-eyed giants Brontes, Steropes, Theogony, Hesiod, ca.700 bce; his primacy across the cosmos. and Arges—sided with Zeus after Library, Pseudo-Apollodorus, So began the Titanomachy—the he freed them from the Underworld. ca.100 ce. War of the Gods and Titans. They were skilled craftstmen who made weapons for the gods: a SETTING mighty thunderbolt for Zeus, The slopes of Mount Olympus a cloak of invisibility for Hades, and the plains of Thessaly, and a trident for Poseidon. The northern Greece. Hecatoncheires—Briareos, Kottos, and Gyges—also fought for the KEY FIGURES gods. Each of these terrifying Olympians The gods Zeus, giants had 50 heads and 100 hands, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, and howled as they rampaged Demeter, and Hestia. across the battlefield. Titans Oceanus, Hyperion, Total war Coeus, Tethys, Phoebe, Rhea, The war was fought on the lower Mnemosyne, Themis, Theia, slopes of Mount Olympus and Crius, Kronos, and Iapetus. across the open plains of Thessaly, but the earth-shattering conflict Kyklopes The one-eyed encompassed the entire world. giants Brontes, Steropes, Huge rocks were hurled around; and Arges; sons of Ouranos. Zeus, leader of the gods, stands Hecatoncheires The giants beside an eagle in this 4th-century Briareos, Kottos, and Gyges; statue. The eagle, Zeus’s messenger, sons of Ouranos and Gaia. remained a symbol of power from ancient Rome to Nazi Germany.

See also: The Olympian gods 24–31 ■ War of the gods 140–41 ■ A complex ANCIENT GREECE 33 god 164 ■ The game of dice 202–03 Warfare in ancient entire mountaintops were ripped The Fall of the Titans by Giulio Greece up and sent flying back and forth Romano (1532–1535). Depicting the war as projectiles; bolts of lightning of the Titans, this continuous fresco After the rise of the city-states flashed like javelins across the sky. covers the walls and ceiling of the Sala of Athens, Sparta, and beyond, Flames rose up to the farthest dei Giganti in the Palazzo Te, Italy. warfare became a way of life heights of heaven; the thud of for the people of ancient marching feet caused quakes in to Hesiod, “the heroic spirits grew Greece. The states fought the most remote reaches of the in all their hearts” after Zeus gave each other for territory, trade, Underworld; swirling dust clouds it to the giants. and power in highly ritualized darkened the sky, and the din of wars—both sides would the conflict was deafening. Ultimate triumph consult with oracles and sing Reinvigorated, the Hecatoncheires hymns to the gods before According to Hesiod, the were the tipping point. With such meeting for set-piece battles. intensity of the fighting “pained the formidable allies and weapons, the Scholars use the term “limited soul.” The advantage tipped back gods were at last able to defeat warfare” to describe the and forth without any real interval the Titans. They banished them ancient Greek model, in which for a full 10 years. Neither side to Tartarus, the lowest pit of the cities were destroyed but would yield, so finally Zeus rallied Underworld, where the Titans were the victors were honorable, his cohorts. He refreshed the imprisoned for all eternity under fighting within a set of rules Hecatoncheires with nectar and the watch of the Hecatoncheires. of conduct. ambrosia—the divine and exclusive Zeus and his siblings now had full sustenance of the gods, which control over the cosmos. They set Some city-states, such conferred immortality on any up their imperial seat on the top of as Sparta, became very mortal who consumed it. This may Mount Olympus, from where they militaristic. This perhaps not have been the effect it had on ruled the universe. ■ explains the recurrence of the the Hecatoncheires, but according idea of a war in heaven. Such stories dramatized real-life shifts in theological and spiritual thinking in ancient societies. For example, the Titanomachy could explain the shift from an earth cult, centered around deities who lived in the Underworld, to the more sky-based theology found in ancient Greece. Zeus’s bolts flew thick and fast from his mighty hands, with flash and thunder and flame. Theogony

34 NNROOOUSWGNIHNOLWDYBHNEEOARRTESR, AIN MOUNT OLYMPUS IN BRIEF O riginally, the dwellings of there, he hurled his thunderbolts at the ancient Greek deities those who displeased him in the THEME were not in the heavens world below. Home of the gods but in the heart of the earth. Once Zeus and his siblings defeated the Life on Olympus SOURCES Titans, however, the Greeks turned The council of the gods typically Theogony, Hesiod, ca.700 bce; their eyes heavenward to worship met in Zeus’s golden courtyard to Illiad and Odyssey, Homer, the new generation of gods and discuss their rule of the cosmos, ca.800 bce; Description of goddesses. Hephaestus, god of fire and gathered in Zeus’s hall to while Greece, Pausanias, ca.150 ce. and the forge, built them palaces away the evenings with feasting. in the sheltered ravines of Mount Apollo sang to them, accompanying SETTING Olympus. Hesiod described the himself upon his lyre. Sometimes Mount Olympus, mountain as “many-folded,” a the Muses came up from their northeastern Greece. phrase suggestive of a sky-high home at the foot of Olympus to stronghold full of secrets. sing, dance, and tell stories. KEY FIGURES Zeus King of the Greek gods. The palaces were built of stone Mount Olympus, home of the Greek on bronze foundations. They were gods, rises from the Plain of Thessaly. Hera Wife and sister of Zeus; both gigantic and luxurious, their Thessaly was the site of the decade-long queen of the gods. floors inlaid with gold and precious war the Titans fought against Zeus and stones. Zeus set up his throne at his siblings. Hephaestus The blacksmith the top of the peak of Stefani. From god; son of Hera. The Muses Children of Zeus. The Horai Three sisters; goddesses of time and the seasons. The Moirae Three sisters; goddesses of fate.

ANCIENT GREECE 35 See also: The Olympian gods 24–31 ■ The war of the gods and Titans 32–33 ■ Cupid and Psyche 112–13 ■ Pangu and the creation of the world 214–15 ■ The legendary foundation of Korea 228–29 The gods pressed far-seeing Zeus of Olympus to reign over them. Theogony The council of the gods meets Much of the time, its upper slopes Japanese religious scheme; and among the clouds on Olympus in are wreathed in snow or dense Inca priests in Peru offered sacrifice this fresco by Italian Renaissance cloud, cutting off the summit from high up on the Andean summits. master Raphael (1518), which shows the view of mortals down below. Zeus conferring immortality on Psyche. It is no wonder that the ancient In mythology, the mountain Greeks held this to be the royal seat peak has often seemed to occupy There were separate stables for of their reigning dynasty of gods. a separate physical space from the the creatures that drew the gods’ Earth. Homer underlined this by chariots—most famously, those The idea of the sacred mountain showing Mount Olympus from that pulled the blazing chariot of existed long before the Greeks different perspectives. Viewed from Apollo, the sun god. Zeus had one began to worship the Olympians, Earth, it was described as “snow- drawn by the four Anemoi, gods and is found in many other cultures. topped” or “cloud-enveloped”; for of the winds—Boreas (north), Euros Mount Meru, for example, towered the gods, however, their home (east), Notos (south), and Zephyros at the cosmological center of Indian was a place of permanent sunshine (west). Poseidon’s chariot was religions; Mount Fuji dominated the and clear blue sky. ■ pulled along by fishtailed horses of the sea, while Aphrodite’s was Changing gods was supplanted and one of drawn by a team of doves. Zeus’s many wives, Dione, was Anthropologists use the term worshipped at Dodona. The Horai—the sisters Eirene, “syncretism” to describe the Eunomia, and Dike—guarded the merging of strands from different Isthmia—on the narrow land gates to Olympus and saw to the religious systems. Ancient connecting the Peloponnese orderly passage of time and the Greece had many examples of peninsula with the rest of seasons. Another trio of goddesses, this. The sanctuary of Dodona, Greece—was the obvious site the Moirae (Fates), sat at the foot in northwestern Greece, lay in a for a shrine to Poseidon, god of of Zeus’s throne and watched over valley surrounded by a grove of the sea, beset on the narrow the lives of mortals. oak trees. The site seems to have strip of land by roaring waves been sacred to a matriarchal on either side. Yet archaeologists Physical and symbolic earth goddess since at least the have found remains at Isthmia What we refer to today as “Mount” 2nd millennium bce—before dating back long before the era Olympus is actually a massif, the idea of Zeus took root. of the Olympians, dedicated to with over 50 distinct peaks almost After the ascendancy of the a deity or deities unknown. 9,850 feet (3,000 m) above sea level. Olympians, the earth goddess

36 IN BRIEF IPFHNEREETOBSTMOCEEUARTPNSHADEBCULUSENINNING THEME Origin of humanity PROMETHEUS HELPS MANKIND SOURCES Theogony and Works and Days, Hesiod, ca.700 bce; Library, Apollodorus, ca.100 ce SETTING Greece, the Aegean, and the Caucasus Mountains, Western Asia. KEY FIGURES Zeus King of the gods. Iapetus The youngest Titan, son of Ouranos and Gaia. Klymene A sea nymph, daughter of the Titan Oceanus. Prometheus Son of Iapetus and Klymene. Deukalion Human son of Prometheus. Pyrrha Wife of Deukalion. Hephaestus The blacksmith god. Z eus’s victory in the war with the Titans had been hard won but decisive. He and his brothers held unchallenged sway over the heavens, Earth, and sea. The usurper of a usurper, he had seized supremacy by dethroning Kronos, who had himself toppled the tyrant Ouranos. No ruler could afford to become complacent, however seemingly unassailable their position—and a challenge to the authority of Zeus was fast approaching. Spirit of rebellion Prometheus, a young Titan and therefore a survivor of the old regime, was the son of Iapetus and

ANCIENT GREECE 37 See also: Origin of the universe 18–23 ■ The war of the gods and Titans 32–33 ■ Pandora’s box 40–41 ■ The many affairs of Zeus 42–47 Prometheus Carrying Fire, by the Flemish painter Jan Cossiers (1671), shows the young Titan stealing the precious resource for mankind. Klymene, celebrated for quick Zeus and his subjects. Despite Prometheus shaped intelligence, dexterity, and skill. this, all sources regard him as men out of Prometheus’s very name meant a central part of the conflict. “Thinking Ahead”: he was an water and clay. inventor and a strategist. Different Self-confident in his cleverness, Library sources disagree on the precise Prometheus was independent- part Prometheus played in the minded, irreverent, and defiant. daughter-in-law to save themselves continuing struggle between His contempt for Zeus’s authority by building a floating wooden chest was all too clear. Worse still, he in which to ride out the deluge. appeared to pass on this rebellious spirit to Zeus’s human subjects. Deukalion survived the great flood and its aftermath by showing From clay to stone more tact than his father. He According to Apollodorus’s Library, thanked Zeus for letting him and Prometheus was the creator of Pyrrha live, built an altar, and humanity, shaping the first man offered sacrifice. Zeus was so and woman from moist clay. This pleased to see this submissive first race of humans walked the spirit that he not only allowed Earth for only a single generation Deukalion and Pyrrha to go on before being swept away by an living but told Deukalion how angry Zeus in a worldwide flood. he could re-create humanity. Prometheus’s human son, He and his wife were told to ❯❯ Deukalion, and his wife, Pyrrha, were the only survivors. Typically, Prometheus had outmaneuvered Zeus, prompting his son and his Klymene’s children another of Klymene’s sons, Atlas, Atlas carries the heavens on was made to suffer for his role in his shoulders. Although commonly According to Hesiod’s Theogony, leading the Titan forces. He was mistaken for an Earth globe, the “Iapetus took Klymene, sentenced by Zeus to carry the round structure weighing on Atlas Oceanus’s elegant-ankled heavens on his shoulders as represents the celestial sphere. daughter to his bed.” Other punishment for resisting the ancient authors, however, Olympian ascendancy. referred to her as “Asia.” With Iapetus, Klymene bore four sons, Epimetheus, Klymene’s third each of whom was, ultimately, son, was every bit as foolish as fated for misery. Prometheus was cunning. Against his brother’s advice, he was duped During the war of the Titans, into accepting Pandora as a gift Zeus killed Klymene’s prideful and marrying her. He had no idea son, Menoetius, by hurling him that she had been created to into the underworld with a be both beautiful and deceitful, lightning bolt. Following the and was sent by Zeus to bring all victory of the Olympian gods, manner of sorrows into the world.

38 PROMETHEUS HELPS MANKIND Mortal men and women sprung up fully formed from the stones thrown by Deukalion and Pyrrha and repopulated the Earth, as shown in Peter Paul Rubens’s 1636 painting. pick up stones and throw them existing during the reign of Kronos, thenceforth. Zeus appeared to have backward over their heads. They but only incidentally, emerging into fallen for the trick, asking for the did so and wherever Deukalion’s the foreground only in the age of outwardly appealing bag of stones landed, the bodies of living the Olympian gods. bones—though Hesiod hints the men immediately took form; where king of the gods may have chosen Pyrrha’s came to rest, women When Zeus summoned this deliberately, to have an excuse sprang up out of the ground. humans for a meeting on the sort for hating humans. of sacrifices they would have to A trick backfires offer him, Prometheus intervened Either way, Zeus was enraged. Unlike Appolodorus, Hesiod’s on their behalf. Wrapping some Far from easing people’s plight genealogy incorporated mortal choice beef inside an ugly oxhide, as he had intended, Prometheus’s humans almost from the beginning, and a bundle of bones inside some cunning made them victims of though he said little about their of the most delicious meat, he Zeus’s rage. The angry god hid origins. They were mentioned as offered Zeus the choice of which the secret of fire from his human sacrifices should be made to him subjects. This not only deprived them of warmth and comfort but also hindered human progress. Out in the cold Without fire or the technologies it makes possible, mortals existed in a miserable state of subsistence. They foraged for food in darkness, damp, and cold, with only animal skins for clothes, surviving on raw roots, berries, and fruits (when they were in season) and uncooked carrion. They used twigs as The stones which The Five Ages when they finally grew up, they Deucalion threw were foolish and quarrelsome. Kronos’s reign may have been An “Age of Bronze” came became men; unpleasant for the Titan’s next: its men were warriors, the stones which children but was, says Hesiod, who spent their short lives a “Golden Age” for mortal squabbling and fighting. The Pyrrha threw humans. Sickness, war, and “Heroic Age” which followed became women. discord were unknown; men was an improvement on the and women lived for centuries, Bronze Age in the sense that its Library while trees and fields yielded perennial wars took on a noble their produce freely through an and epic character. This was endless spring. The rise of Zeus the age of Homer’s Trojan War, saw an immediate decline in and very different from Hesiod’s human fortunes. The men and “Iron Age” in which he himself women of this “Silver Age” lived lived—and in which we all live only a hundred years, most of it now—in fearfulness, scarcity, spent in an extended childhood; misery, and toil.

rudimentary tools and old bones for hammers to spears and swords. ANCIENT GREECE 39 weaponry, in what could scarcely Each new innovation opened qualify even as a “primitive” the way to others—suddenly, Prometheus fashions the existence. As they fought a daily humanity was progressing at first man from clay … battle to stave off starvation, any a breakneck pace. … saves his son from possibility of shaping their wider Zeus’s flood … destiny was unthinkable. Harsh punishment Zeus was enraged by Prometheus’s … tricks Zeus with false Stolen fire theft of fire. Not only had he been sacrifices … Prometheus came to humanity’s defied in the most public way, rescue. He took some glowing but his power over humanity had … and steals fire from embers from a blaze built by the been significantly weakened. Zeus the gods. gods high up on Mount Olympus decided that Prometheus deserved and, secreting this fire inside a an eternal and painful punishment. Prometheus is punished hollow fennel stalk, he carried it He had the thief seized by his for his defiance. down to the little encampments henchmen, Bia (“Violence”) and where mortal men and women Kratos (“Power”), and carried to a It stung anew Zeus, shivered on the plains below. Soon, high mountain peak. Here, with the high thunderer in his spirit, “visible from afar,” fires twinkled help of Hephaestus, the blacksmith and he raged in his heart across the length and breadth of god, they chained Prometheus to a when he saw among men the peopled world. In that moment, rock. An eagle flew down, tore at human life was instantly and his abdomen, then pulled out the the far-seen beam permanently transformed. living, pulsing liver, and gorged on of fire. it. Despite the agony of this torture, Heat, warmth, light, and safety it was no more than a beginning for Theogony from predatory beasts was just the the rebellious Titan. Each night his start. In no time at all, humankind internal organs and his skin grew began to thrive—smelting metal, back, ready to be attacked afresh fashioning fine jewelry and strong by the eagle the next day. tools, and blacksmithing all kinds of weapons, from hoes and For centuries, Prometheus was tied to the rock. He was finally rescued from his torments by Herakles, who found him while hunting for the elusive apples of the Hesperides. Prometheus would only give Herakles the apples’ location after he killed the eagle and set Prometheus free. Prometheus was not the only one punished for stealing fire from the gods. Zeus also inflicted his rage upon humankind, instructing Hephaestus to create the woman Pandora to punish the humans by bringing them hardship, war, and death. ■ Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving humans fire. He was chained to Mount Caucasus to endure constant torture, as depicted by Jacob Jordaens (1640).

40 IHTANHNETREDRLIOMMIDIVPSUEUCCSLHESOIDEEFFSMOTERONROW PANDORA’S BOX IN BRIEF I n Hesiod’s account of prosper. As punishment, however, humanity’s mythic origins, Prometheus would be held captive THEME Works and Days, man was first and tortured eternally at the hands Origins of evil created alone, with no female mate of Zeus, who was a jealous and to accompany him on his journey grudging deity. Far from rejoicing SOURCE through the world. Woman would in man’s improving fortunes, the Works and Days, Hesiod, make her first appearance not as god felt threatened by humanity’s ca.700 bce. man’s helpmate and partner, but growing confidence. as his punishment. SETTING Zeus concluded that in order to The foot of Mount Olympus, A jealous god correct the balance between divine Greece. When the Titan Prometheus stole and human power, some great fire from the gods, he did much calamity in the world was required. KEY FIGURES to empower humanity, at high That calamity was woman. On Prometheus Titan brother personal cost. In an existence Zeus’s orders, the blacksmith and of Epimetheus; creator that had been largely trouble-free, fire god Hephaestus set to work, of humanity—and its humanity, to whom he gave the shaping soft clay into a female mate greatest benefactor. gift of fire, continued to thrive and for man. Zeus King of the gods The glorious lame god Gilding the lily of Mount Olympus. molded clay into the The other Olympians then added shape of a demure and their own contributions to the Hephaestus Olympian decorous young maiden. woman’s make-up: Aphrodite gave blacksmith god and creator Works and Days her beauty and attractiveness; of the first woman. Athena gave her skill in sewing; Hera gave her curiosity; and so on. Pandora The first woman; Hermes, the gods’ messenger, gave created on Zeus’s instruction. woman the power of speech to help her communicate—but he also Epimetheus Titan brother gave her the dangerous gift of of Prometheus. guile. This new woman was enchanting in her beauty, seductive in her softness, inspiring in her smile, and soothing in her gentleness. In light of these traits,

ANCIENT GREECE 41 See also: The Olympian gods 24–31 ■ Prometheus helps mankind 36–39 ■ The Mead of Poetry 142–43 ■ Nanga Baiga 212–13 Prometheus had warned Pandora, as depicted by the British Death. Horrified, Pandora hastily him never to accept Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel pushed the lid back on—just in a gift from Zeus. Rossetti (1828–1882). She is holding the time to prevent Hope from Works and Days infamous box from which all the escaping. With hope, the world troubles of the world poured forth. could still persevere, despite the she was given the name Pandora adversity that the jealous Zeus (literally meaning “all gifts”). Her After.” He was gullible and did had inflicted on mankind. ■ name alone would have caused not stop to think when Zeus’s Prometheus concern. He had messenger Hermes presented him previously warned his brother with Pandora as a goodwill present Epimetheus not to accept any to humanity from Zeus. Nor did he offering from Zeus, in case it give a second glance to the present unleashed “some evil thing for that she herself brought with her, a mortal men.” However, due to pithos or ceramic jar (usually the punishment of Prometheus, reimagined as a richly ornamented Epimetheus had been left in charge box in modern retellings). The all- in the world of men. Whereas gifted girl was both gift and giver. Prometheus’s name meant “Thinking Ahead” or “Foresight,” Fatal curiosity Epimetheus’s meant “Thinking There was nothing inherently evil about Pandora. Although she had been warned against opening the pithon, it was her innocent curiosity—a characteristic given by Hera—that led to her downfall. When she could not resist peeping inside the jar, she pulled back the lid, and all the ills and misfortunes of the world flew out: Hunger, Sickness, Loss, Loneliness, and Hephaestus At least one source states that “blacksmith god” and presided Hephaestus was ugly and squat over manufacture in its broadest from birth, which explains why he sense—perfecting his craft in was thrown from the top of Mount everything from metalwork and Olympus by his disgusted mother, the manufacture of weapons Hera. Landing further down the to fine jewelry and intricate mountain with a crash, he was items of clothing. then rendered lame as well. Of all his many creations, The unprepossessing Pandora is certainly the most appearance of this first divine wonderful—and the most artisan was in sharp and highly flawed. According to Hesiod, it symbolic contrast to the beauty of was Hephaestus who created the the many things that he created. first woman, thereby enabling He was often aided by attendants, each generation of humanity to such as Cedalion, who helped repeatedly replicate itself. In this with his creations. Hephaestus sense, the craft of Hephaestus is widely known as the Greek gave birth to humanity’s future.

ZWEUSOHMADEMANNY, IBMOTHMMOORRTATLAANLD THE MANY AFFAIRS OF ZEUS



44 THE MANY AFFAIRS OF ZEUS IN BRIEF T he sexual adventures of Hesiod after invoking their help Zeus, the king of the gods, in Theogony, his poem about THEME made up a significant the genealogy of the gods. With the Lovers of the gods strand of ancient Greek mythology. inspiration of the Muses, Hesiod Without Zeus’s many infidelities, said, musicians and poets could SOURCES the myths suggest that knowledge relieve a suffering mind of its cares. Iliad, Homer, 8th century bce; and artistic expression of any Theogony, Works and Days, kind—poetry, music, drama, or Hera and the cuckoo The Shield of Heracles, Hesiod, works of art—would not exist. Zeus’s instinct for trickery was an ca.700 bce; Library, Pseudo- integral part of his character and Apollodorus, ca.100 ce. One of Zeus’s first affairs was informed all of his erotic exploits. with Mnemosyne, the Titan He had assumed the form of a SETTING goddess of memory. After he slept mortal—a handsome shepherd—to Greece and the Aegean. with her on nine consecutive seduce Mnemosyne, and many of nights, nine daughters were born. his other love affairs involved KEY FIGURES Collectively known as the Muses, similar sorts of shape-shifting. Zeus Father of the gods. each of these daughters became responsible for inspiring mortals Hera, Zeus’s wife, had also been Hera Zeus's wife; queen of in a particular area of artistic won this way. The notoriously the gods. endeavor: Calliope inspired epic formidable goddess had dismissed poetry; Clio, history; Euterpe, lyric Zeus disdainfully when he had first Mnemosyne Goddess of poetry and song; Erato, love poetry; approached her, forcing him to take memory. and Polyhymnia, sacred poetry. deceptive measures to win her Melpomene became responsible for affections. First, he summoned Europa Phoenician princess. inspiring tragic drama; Thalia took a thunderstorm, then he stood charge of comedy and pastoral outside her window and took on Antiope Daughter of the river poetry; Terpsichore inspired dance; the form of a fledgling cuckoo, its god Asopos. and Urania, astronomy. The nine Muses lived on Mount Leda A Spartan princess. All through the classical period, Helicon, central Greece. In this scene musicians and poets called on by Jacques Stella (ca. 1640) they are Metis Daughter of Oceanus. the Muses for assistance as they visited by Minerva (Athena), goddess worked. “Blessed is he whom the of wisdom and patron of the arts. Athena Daughter of Metis. Muses love,” said the Greek poet The Muses gladden the great spirit of their father Zeus in Olympus with their songs, telling of things that shall be. Theogony

ANCIENT GREECE 45 See also: The birth of Zeus 20–23 ■ The war of the gods and Titans 32–33 ■ The Olympian gods 24–31 Zeus in disguise A cuckoo to seduce Hera. A shepherd A bull Hera to seduce Mnemosyne. to seduce Europa. As the daughter of the Titans A cloud A satyr Kronos and Rhea, and wife to seduce Io. to seduce Antiope. and sister of the mighty Zeus, it might seem odd that Hera An eagle A swan was commonly associated to seduce Semele. to seduce Leda. with cattle. She was often pictured with a sacred cow A shower of gold and in the Iliad is described to seduce Danaë. as “cow-faced” or “ox-eyed.” Such imagery was probably expression helpless and its feathers fell into her arms, but when she more flattering than it sounds. ruffled up as if chilled and battered cradled him protectively, Zeus To the ancient Greeks, the cow by the wind-blown hail. Hera could raped her. In the case of the was an emblem of motherhood not bear to see this tiny creature Theban princess Semele, his choice and prosperity; wealth was suffering. She cupped the cuckoo in of species—a raptor—clearly often measured in the number her hand and placed it inside her signaled his predatory intentions. of livestock owned. dress against her bosom, so that it Taking the form of an eagle, his could get warm. At this point, Zeus royal emblem, he visited Semele While Hera was clearly assumed his normal quasi-human and made her pregnant. Dionysus, no sex symbol—a role more form and seduced her. god of wine and festivity, was the associated with the goddess result of their union. of beauty, Aphrodite—she did The conquest of Hera was not exemplify the importance the only time Zeus took the form of Ruined innocence of women in everyday life in a bird. Zeus took on the shape of a Zeus’s conquest of Alcmene—a Greece. She was celebrated swan in order to seduce the mortal princess with whom he as a goddess of both marriage Spartan princess Leda. As with fathered Herakles—was more and virginity. At Kanathos, in Hera, he took advantage of his sinister. Alcmene was a paragon of the Peloponnese, she was victim’s compassion. Apparently beauty, charm, and wisdom. She ❯❯ worshipped as Hera Parthenos fleeing from an attacking eagle, he (“Virgin”) and was said to renew her virginity by bathing in the spring every year. The Heraion of Argos—possibly the first of many temples dedicated to Hera—honored her as Zeus’s consort and queen. Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae, according to Homer, were the cities she loved best.

46 THE MANY AFFAIRS OF ZEUS was betrothed to Amphitryon, the on the form of a fine, white bull and Suddenly, the bull, possessed son of a Theban general. Zeus mingled among her father’s cattle. of his desire, jumped up and assumed his guise to approach Picking flowers, Europa noticed the galloped off towards the sea. Alcmene while her fiancé was away new bull and was struck by its avenging the deaths of her brothers. beauty and its seeming gentleness. Europa When she drew near to pet it, the King Acrisius of Argos was bull lay down and she climbed onto Zeus took the shape of a satyr—a particularly anxious to keep his its back. Suddenly, the bull leapt half-man, half-goat who roamed only daughter Danaë chaste. He up and sped away across the fields the wild woods. Usually associated had been warned by an oracle that and over the sea while the terrified with the idea of lechery, satyrs were she was destined to bear a son who girl clung on for dear life. The bull often depicted with erections in would one day slay him. To avoid only stopped when it reached the ancient art; Zeus had disguised his this fate, he placed her in a cell so island of Crete, where Zeus at last identity, not his lust. that no one could come near her. revealed himself and bedded his However, Zeus took the form of a young victim. Zeus rewarded Hiding from Hera shower of gold to pour himself Europa by making her Crete’s first In some stories, it was Zeus’s through her prison skylight. The queen. In time, she gave birth to quarry who had to take a different child of the encounter, Perseus, Minos, the island’s first king. shape. In the case of Io—the would later unwittingly cause her Scholars think the story of Europa daughter of the king of Argos, and father’s death. may have originated in Crete, a priestess in the temple of Zeus’s where the cult of the bull also wife, Hera—Zeus transformed Zeus as beast produced the story of Theseus and himself into a cloud to make his Despite her name, Europa was the Minotaur. approach and conceal it from the a child of Asia, a princess from watchful Hera. Once he had raped Phoenicia, a region covering parts For his assault on Antiope, the Io, he turned her into a beautiful of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. daughter of Asopos, a river god white heifer, to hide her from his Smitten by her charms, Zeus took from Attica in central Greece, wife. Hera saw through the trick and asked if she could have the heifer as a gift. Zeus had no option but to agree. Hera consigned Io to the care of the hundred-eyed giant Argus to watch over. Maddened with frustration, Zeus sent his son Hermes to slay the all-seeing herdsman; the divine messenger blinded Argus with a A fearful Europa rides the waves, clinging to Zeus, who took the form of a bull to abduct her. This powerful image was painted in 1910 by the Russian artist Valentin Serov.

ANCIENT GREECE 47 Athena springs from a gash in Zeus's head, in a scene decorating an amphora (ca.500 bce) from Attica, Greece. Behind Zeus, Prometheus holds the axe that made the wound. touch from his kerykeion, or staff. As the giant lay there dead, Hermes collected up his hundred eyes and set them in a peacock’s tail: the bird was sacred to Hera from that time on. If Zeus thought the way was now clear for him to pursue Io, he was wrong. Hera sent a fly to attack her. Buzzing about, and biting her again and again, the insect put Io to flight and chased her across the Earth. Io was never to find rest. The birth of Athena own father—was on his guard transformed herself into another Metis, Zeus’s cousin—and in some against this child. Just before bird—the timid quail—in a accounts, his first wife—wrought Metis was due to give birth, Zeus desperate bid to escape and finally her own transformation in a bid to challenged her to a shape-shifting dove into the sea. There she shake off Zeus’s pursuit. Metis match. She was vain enough to changed her shape again and assumed a series of different forms agree. When Zeus told her that he was preserved forever as an island, to avoid him, but Zeus eventually did not believe she could transform later variously identified as Delos succeeded in catching her and herself into a tiny fly, she promptly or Sicily. It was on this island that making her pregnant. Nevertheless, did—and was swallowed by a Asteria’s younger sister Leto was Zeus was worried: Metis was triumphant Zeus. to find sanctuary some years later, renowned for her sharp intellect after she, too, caught the lecherous and wiliness, and an oracle had It was a clever trick, but it did eye of Zeus. Here she gave birth to told him that Metis was destined not succeed. When Zeus developed twins: Apollo, the god of the sun to bear a child who matched her an unbearable headache, the Titan and of poetry, prophecy, and strength and cunning. Zeus—a god Prometheus swung an axe at healing; and the divine huntress usurper who had overthrown his his head, splitting it wide open. Out Artemis, goddess of the moon. from the wound sprang Athena, the Asteria in the form of goddess of war and wisdom, in a Mythology relates scores of a quail flew across the sea, full suit of armor. She became one Zeus’s exploits, highlighting a of the most important deities on sexual appetite that apparently with Zeus in pursuit. Olympus and the patron goddess of drew little censure in ancient Library the powerful city state of Athens. Greece. Despite his countless acts of rape, deception, and infidelity, Both transformed the king of the gods was not In some stories, both predator and seen as a villain. In his dialogue prey underwent changes. Zeus Euthyphro, the ancient Greek again disguised himself as an philosopher Plato declared, “Do not eagle to pursue Asteria, the Titan men regard Zeus as the best and goddess of shooting stars. She most righteous of the gods?” ■

48 DBMWEIGNEHELTALTYSHHITANHDHEEOSEUAWSREHTSOH HADES AND THE UNDERWORLD IN BRIEF While Zeus ruled over the ferryman, Charon, with a coin to skies and Poseidon over grant them passage into Hades. THEME the seas, their brother Because of this belief, the ancient The Underworld Hades guarded his subject-souls in Greeks were sometimes buried the Underworld—the kingdom that with a coin in their mouth, known SOURCES bore his name, where mortal as “Charon’s obol.” Iliad and Odyssey, Homer, humans went when they died. 8th century bce; Theogony, On the other side of the river Hesiod ca.700 bce. Five dark rivers marked the lay a dark and dismal realm. There, boundaries of Hades’s kingdom. the new arrivals had to go through SETTING Acheron was the river of sadness, a large gate, guarded by the three- The Underworld. Cocytus that of mourning. Lethe headed, snake-tailed monster, was the river of forgetfulness, and KEY FIGURES Phlegethon an impassable river of Hades and his abducted bride, Hades Brother of Zeus; god fire. The River Styx marked the Persephone, watch over the tortured of the Underworld. main border between Earth and the souls of the dead in François de Underworld. The dead queued on Nomé’s 17th-century depiction of Charon Ferryman of the one side of the river and paid the the Underworld. River Styx. Cerberus Three-headed guardian of the Underworld; son of the serpentine Typhon and Echidna. Tantalus A Phrygian king held captive by Hades. Sisyphus King of Corinth, who tricked Hades into letting him go free. Hecate Goddess of witchcraft and necromancy.