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CLCV 2000 Classical Mythology

Ancient and Modern Definitions of Myth

I. Preconceptions

A. Everyone knows something about Greek mythology, from mere names (Zeus)

to some details of stories (Oedipus).

B. The word ‘myth’ has wider semantic field for us than it did for the Greeks.

Myth can be used to mean falsehood.’ Interchangeable with other words like

legend, fable, saga, folktale, fairy tale.

C. There is a need to set some ground rules so we know what it is we are talking

about

D. What is a myth? (a myth, not Myth). We ought to consider specific instances

before trying to determine the essence of myth.

II. How did the Greeks define Myth?

A. The relevant word is mythos (Greek μῦθος)

1. etymology uncertain

2. basic meanings: ‘word, speech, thing said, story, narrative’

B. Four important opinions:

1. Homer (ca. 750)

a. Mythos is an emphatic, authoritative utterance; sometimes an injunction,

advice or a threat; contrasted with ἔργον.

b. Mythos is a kind of story, sometimes relating a past event; relevant to the

present discussion

c. Mythos never implies a lack of truth.

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2. Pindar (522-438 BC)

a. There is a possible distinction between a true and a false mythos

b. A mythos is persuasive but potentially untrue

3. Plato (428-347 BC)

a. A mythos is a traditional story of dubious truth

b. Mythos contrasts with λόγος lógos ‘account,’ which accords with reason

and truth

4. Aristotle (384-322 BC)

a. Mythos is a ‘false account’ or the ‘plot’ of a drama

b. Lógos is a ‘reasoned account’ or ‘analytical statement’

c. By now the two are consistently contrasted

d. Mythos now thought of as a possibly untrue story that may nonetheless

present some greater truth.

e. There is a progressive movement to the point where mythos = falsehood.

C. In spite of this, it is true to say that in many instances mythos and logos are not

contrasted, but seem to be used interchangeably. At most we can say that a

distinction between the two words and concepts was sometimes made, but not

always.

D. The Greek evidence is actually not so helpful.

III. Modern definitions of myth

A. There is no widespread agreement on the definition of myth or on the distinction

between myth, legend, fable, folklore, saga or other similar words.

B. Some would dismiss attempts to classify and just call all such stories myths.

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C. Others use ‘folklore’ as a comprehensive term for traditional, orally transmitted

literature.

D. A workable modern definition of myth

1. Commonly, if vaguely, myth is viewed as a ‘traditional tale’ or narrative with

some collective importance to the community in which it is told.

2. A concise definition is given by Richard Buxton. 1994. Imaginary Greece.

Cambridge. p. 15: “A Greek myth is a narrative about the deeds of gods and

heroes and their interrelations with ordinary mortals, handed on as a

tradition within the ancient Greek world, and of collective significance to a

particular social group or groups.”

Wisely, Buxton wasn’t adamant about this: “a definition makes a good

servant but a bad master.”

a. There are four parts to this definition:

i. “A Greek myth is a narrative

ii. about the deeds of gods and heroes and their interrelations with

ordinary mortals,

iii. handed on as a tradition within the ancient Greek world,

iv. and of collective significance to a particular social group or groups.”

3. The notion of tale or narrative implies a plot (as in fact mythos meant ‘plot’ for

Aristotle),

a. The simplest plot is merely beginning, middle, and end. It possibly

includes all of the narrative devices available to its teller.

b. Under narrative we should probably include not only verbal forms of

expression, but, in a looser sense, also visual forms—those works of art

that also communicated mythical stories. (power point on Circe,

Polyphemus)

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4. ‘Traditional’ implies the following

a. handed down, often orally (e.g. Homeric poems)

b. traditional but changing and multiform (e.g. tale of Oedipus)

c. set in the distant past

d. anonymous

e. important enough to endure among the group

5. May express social values, norms of behavior, the consequences of deviating

from the norm.

6. The modern definition is not concerned with the issue of truth – focuses on

the social origin of myth.

E. Legend

1. Traditional tales about human characters with some basis, perhaps very little,

in historical events

2. Usually involve a particular city or family (sagas) and the interaction between

gods and heroes. Central characters human, not divine, and usually

heroes/heroines, nobles, aristocracy.

3. Ex. George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, Johnny Appleseed.

F. Fable

A story in which the characters are usually animals with human traits. The

primary purpose is moral and didactic.

G. Folktale

1. Like legends, which usually handle aristocratic elements of society, but

focused on lower strata of society, common people (i.e. folk) and witches,

elves, giants, fairies (fairytale).

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2. The hero is often some sort of lowly victim—the youngest child, siblings of a

wicked stepmother, orphaned. His or her gifts are unrecognized until some

reversal of fortune brings about a happy ending. Think Snow White,

Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel.

3. Can also be ‘traditional’ (e.g. the multiformity of Little Red Riding Hood)

4. Folktales from around the world have been rigorously studied and broken

down into several different types and motifs.

a. One example is the quest (power point): hero travels to a foreign/strange

land to fight a foe (dragon/monster/evil human), hero assisted by

animals/spirits/deities/magical weapons, the hero is clever while the foe is

brutish/stupid, the foe imprisons hero but through some trick the hero

gets free and kills the foe, hero returns home and is rewarded with

princess in marriage/rule of kingdom/some treasure.

b. (Read plot summary of The Hobbit). Applicable to other stories (Star Wars,

Perseus).

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Plot summary of The Hobbit from SparkNotes

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/hobbit/summary.html

Bilbo Baggins lives a quiet, peaceful life in his comfortable hole at Bag End. Bilbo lives in a hole because he

is a hobbit—one of a race of small, plump people about half the size of humans, with furry toes and a great love of

good food and drink. Bilbo is quite content at Bag End, near the bustling hobbit village of Hobbiton, but one day his

comfort is shattered by the arrival of the old wizard Gandalf, who persuades Bilbo to set out on an adventure with a

group of thirteen militant dwarves. The dwarves are embarking on a great quest to reclaim their treasure from the

marauding dragon Smaug, and Bilbo is to act as their “burglar.” The dwarves are very skeptical about Gandalf’s

choice for a burglar, and Bilbo is terrified to leave his comfortable life to seek adventure. But Gandalf assures both

Bilbo and the dwarves that there is more to the little hobbit than meets the eye.

Shortly after the group sets out, three hungry trolls capture all of them except for Gandalf. Gandalf tricks the

trolls into remaining outside when the sun comes up, and the sunlight turns the nocturnal trolls to stone. The group

finds a great cache of weapons in the trolls’ camp. Gandalf and the dwarf lord Thorin take magic swords, and Bilbo

takes a small sword of his own.

The group rests at the elfish stronghold of Rivendell, where they receive advice from the great elf lord

Elrond, then sets out to cross the Misty Mountains. When they find shelter in a cave during a snowstorm, a group of

goblins who live in the caverns beneath the mountain take them prisoner. Gandalf leads the dwarves to a passage out

of the mountain, but they accidentally leave behind Bilbo.

Wandering through the tunnels, Bilbo finds a strange golden ring lying on the ground. He takes the ring

and puts it in his pocket. Soon he encounters Gollum, a hissing, whining creature who lives in a pool in the caverns

and hunts fish and goblins. Gollum wants to eat Bilbo, and the two have a contest of riddles to determine Bilbo’s fate.

Bilbo wins by asking the dubious riddle, “What have I got in my pocket?”

Gollum wants to eat Bilbo anyway, and he disappears to fetch his magic ring, which turns its wearer

invisible. The ring, however, is the same one Bilbo has already found, and Bilbo uses it to escape from Gollum and

flee the goblins. He finds a tunnel leading up out of the mountain and discovers that the dwarves and Gandalf have

already escaped. Evil wolves known as Wargs pursue them, but Bilbo and his comrades are helped to safety by a

group of great eagles and by Beorn, a creature who can change shape from a man into a bear.

The company enters the dark forest of Mirkwood, and, making matters worse, Gandalf abandons them to

see to some other urgent business. In the forest, the dwarves are caught in the webs of some giant spiders, and Bilbo

must rescue them with his sword and magic ring. After slaying his first spider, Bilbo names his sword Sting. Shortly

after escaping the spiders, the unlucky dwarves are captured by a group of wood elves who live near the river that

runs through Mirkwood. Bilbo uses his ring to help the company escape and slips the dwarves away from the elves

by hiding them inside barrels, which he then floats down the river. The dwarves arrive at Lake Town, a human

settlement near the Lonely Mountain, under which the great dragon sleeps with Thorin’s treasure.

After sneaking into the mountain, Bilbo talks to the sly dragon Smaug, who unwittingly reveals that his

armorlike scales have a weak spot near his heart. When Bilbo steals a golden cup from the dragon’s hoard, Smaug is

furious and flies out of the mountain to burn Lake Town in his rage. Bard, a heroic archer, has learned the secret

about Smaug’s weakness from a thrush, and he fires an arrow into the dragon’s heart, killing him. Before Smaug dies,

however, he burns Lake Town to the ground.

The humans of Lake Town and Elrond’s elves of Mirkwood march to the Lonely Mountain to seek a share of

the treasure as compensation for their losses and aid, but Thorin greedily refuses, and the humans and elves besiege

the mountain, trapping the dwarves and the hobbit inside. Bilbo sneaks out to join the humans in an attempt to bring

peace. When Thorin learns what Bilbo has done, he is livid, but Gandalf suddenly reappears and saves Bilbo from the

dwarf lord’s wrath.

At this moment, an army of goblins and Wargs marches on the mountain, and the humans, elves, and

dwarves are forced to band together to defeat them. The goblins nearly win, but the arrival of Beorn and the eagles

helps the good armies win the battle.

After the battle, Bilbo and Gandalf return to Hobbiton, where Bilbo continues to live. He is no longer accepted by

respectable hobbit society, but he does not care. Bilbo now prefers to talk to elves and wizards, and he is deeply

content to be back among the familiar comforts of home after his grand and harrowing adventures.

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H. These categories are often mixed. There are folktale characteristics in myth, as we

will see when we study the Odyssey.

I. An entirely satisfactory definition of myth is elusive.

1. The definition of myth given above is, you might have thought, a bit vague

and somewhat arbitrary. Does it cover all myths (not just Greek myths?)

No. Not all stories recognized as ‘myths’ recount the deeds of gods, or heroes

or their contact with mortals. They may be traditional, but they are not

primarily oral.

2. Are there characteristics that we can add to the definition of myth? In fact,

many definitions of myth have been offered that differ from the one I gave

you, and many scholars consider different factors to be important.

3. Some scholars, for example, would distinguish between serious and

unserious myth, the former describing those myths that include the presence

of gods. Sometimes these are called divine myths, true myths, or myths

proper.

a. Divine myths were often etiological, that is they served to explain why a

particular thing is the way it is or why the world is as it is.

b. Such myths involve creation and destruction of the gods or the universe,

human institutions, customs.

4. Other scholars would limit myths to only those stories that are concerned

with the sacred.

5. The simple problem with most of these attempts is the fact that there are

always exceptions to definitions that are precise.

a. The gods are not always serious.

b. Myths do not always involve gods.

c. Stories widely recognized as mythic are not always concerned with the

sacred.

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6. In fact, it has even been argued that the concept of ‘traditional,’ which we just

discussed may not be appropriate. Some stories, for example, only survive in

a single author and we are unable to determine to what extent that story is

traditional or unique to the author.

J. In the end, attempts to find some single quality that applies to all myths fail.

There is a great diversity of types of myth and attempts to construct global

theories to explain or define them are doomed to failure.

The point of this is not to confuse ourselves with definitions and get lost in

qualifications. The main point is to understand a few things: (power point)

1. It is impossible to find universals in myths

2. There are individual examples of myths. These we can fruitfully discuss.

3. It is probably impossible to form a single all-inclusive definition that

adequately accounts for all myths.

IV. Ideology and myth: moving from definition to function

A. Consider the words of Eric Csapo, Theories of Mythology.

Csapo argues that it is an arbitrary method of dealing with the problem of

definition by coming up with a list of essential characteristics and defining these

as myth while any story that doesn’t meet these criteria are called legend,

folktale, or whatever.

“Definition is never the innocent first step in a process of empirical discovery

that it is sometimes made to seem: it is rather always the final precipitate of an

already elaborate theory. To begin with a definition is therefore in an important

sense to begin at the end, and to urge acceptance of a position before presenting

the arguments or the evidence. If I begin with a discussion of the problems of

defining myth, it is to urge suspicion.”

B. The problems of myth are endlessly fascinating. Or maybe just endless.

James G. Frazer: “The longer I occupy myself with questions of ancient

mythology, the more diffident I become of success in dealing with them, and I

am apt to think that we who spend our years in searching for solutions to these

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insoluble problems are like Sisyphus perpetually rolling his stone uphill only to

see it revolve again into the valley.”

C. In this class, this is all we have to say about what myth ‘is’. We will be more

concerned to look at what myth ‘does’:

1. Myth as a function of social ideology.

2. As Bruce Lincoln says, myth as “ideology in narrative form.”

Exactly what this means is the subject for the rest of this class.

The 4 major points of today’s lecture:

1. Preconceptions

We all have them. We must recognize they might not fit the facts.

2. How did the Greeks define Myth?

In general there was a change in meaning from ‘speech, story’ to ‘falsehood’, but

without consistency.

3. Modern definitions of myth

An entirely satisfactory definition of myth is elusive. Certain characteristics are

common, and in general it is helpful to differentiate among myth, legend,

folktale, etc.

4. Ideology and myth: moving from definition to function

Myth does more than simply tell a story. It is a means to convey an ideology.

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CLCV 2000 Classical Mythology

Myth in Time and Space

I. Preliminaries

If we want to be able to think and speak intelligently about Classical Mythology, it is

important for us to take some time before we look at the myths themselves and learn

a little about the people who were responsible for those myths.

Knowing some of this context, even if incompletely or imperfectly, helps us to

understand how the myths functioned in ancient society and what they might have

meant to the people who knew them.

Today I want to talk in particular about three things in particular: space, time, and

performance.

II. Space/Geography

A. Let’s orient ourselves geographically

Major Areas Crete

Peloponnesian peninsula

Mainland Attic plain, Athens

Boeotian plain

Thessaly

Thrace

Asia Minor, Troy

Cyclades

Water Aegean Sea

Ionian Sea

Mediterranean

B. We should keep in mind a few things. Ancient Greece was mostly a dry and

barren land with small rivers that dried up in the summer, with high rocky

mountains over most of the land occasionally broken up by small plains that

were used for agriculture.

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C. It was the isolation of the plains areas, which became centers of civilization, that

often led to the independent organization of local affairs.

D. Only about 1/5 of area cultivatable. They grew grains, vines, olives (cleansing,

lamp oil), cultivated bees, kept goat, sheep, pigs, horses (scarce).

E. Most metals were imported, though Greece had some gold and silver mines.

What it had in abundance was marble, which no doubt was crucial to developing

an excellence in sculpture, and extremely fine clay, which provided material for

some of the greatest pottery ever made.

F. The sea played a very important role in Greek culture both as a source of food

and, since overland travel was difficult, as a means of transportation and trade.

Most people lived near the coast.

G. Greece located at the crossroads of the Mediterranean

H. Most of these factors will play some role in the myths we study this term.

1. The fact that Greece was located at a crossroads meant that their literature

and mythology was influenced by neighboring non-Greek peoples. This is

true of Homer and the early cosmologies.

2. Many Greek legends focus on those local isolated places we just mentioned,

recalling stories of their founders or early rulers. This isolation also accounts

for the fact that there are sometimes so many different versions of a Greek

myth.

3. The sea figures big in Greek mythology, for example, in the stories of

Odysseus and Jason and the Argonauts, both of which we will read later.

4. Gold was rare and highly prized. Even though it is a soft metal, in Homer’s

Iliad gold armor is treated as though it is better than bronze or iron.

III. Chronology

A. For our purposes, we should keep in mind a broad division of ancient Greek

history into the following periods:

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Paleolithic before 7000

Neolithic 6000-3000 BCE

Early/Middle Bronze Age 3000-1600 BCE

Late Bronze Age 1600-1150 BCE

Dark Age 1150-800 BCE

Archaic Period 800-490 BCE

Classical Period 490-323 BCE

Hellenistic Period 323-30 BCE

B. Greece was occupied in the Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age before 7000 BCE, but

little is known of inhabitants.

C. Neolithic 6000-3000 BCE remains of houses, pottery, stone tools, graves.

Agricultural society.

1. Evidence is slight, ambiguous (ceramics, pottery, painted images, clay

figurines), hard to interpret.

2. What survives is haphazard, accidental.

3. Modes of behavior, ideas only comprehended indirectly.

4. Burkert, “More can be known of burials than of life itself.”

D. Early Middle Bronze Age, 3000-1600 BCE

1. Inhabitants of mainland Greece in the Early Bronze Age were not Greek.

From archaeological evidence it is clear that their cultural traditions were

different, though we know nothing about their race or language. They were

farmers.

2. We know considerably more about the inhabitants of Crete at this time,

known as Minoans, and we will talk about them in more detail in Thursday’s

lecture.

3. The centers settled in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age became Mycenaean

centers, and later centers of the great myth cycles of classical Greece.

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E. Late Bronze Age, 1600-1150 BCE

1. This period is characterized by a number of huge stone fortresses erected in

the Peloponnesus, extremely wealthy tombs, and the first evidence of a

written language identifiable as Greek.

2. This is also called the Mycenaean age, named after a huge citadel in Mycenae.

We will also discuss the Mycenaeans in greater detail in a coming lecture.

3. For now it is good to know simply that almost all of the centers of power in

the Mycenaean Age play important roles in later Greek myth.

4. Although none of the writing from this period is literature, it is mostly just

palace inventory lists, it is likely that many Greek legends and myths

originated during this period.

F. Dark Ages, 1150-800 BCE

1. By 1150 BCE, most of the Mycenaean palaces on the mainland had been

destroyed by fire.

2. The cause of the destruction is controversial – we will pick this up again in a

later lecture, but the following period known as the Dark Ages is often

characterized as impoverished and socially disorganized. The archeological

record is now much different: no indication of writing, no large building

complexes, less extensive trading.

3. It was a period of extensive migration to the East

4. Euboea was an important cultural center at this time and appears to have

been exceptional. Recent archaeology has uncovered rich burials and

evidence of direct trade with the Near East.

G. Archaic Period, 800-490 BCE

1. The Archaic Period is characterized by political and cultural revival that

includes three vital ingredients:

a. The invention of the Greek alphabet, adopted in large part from the

Phoenicians

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b. The development of the polis, a politically independent city-state. Rather

than defining group status by family connections, the members of the polis

were a social connection among a small number of individuals based on

geographical proximity. Aristotle, “Man is a political animal.”

i. With the polis came the ideas of citizenship, constitution, law, military

personnel, and taxation.

ii. By 800 BCE most poleis were ruled by the aristocracy, a small number

of wealthy families who replaced earlier kings.

iii. The aristocracy maintained power by controlling land. This led to

emigration and colonization among the lower classes as a means to

making a living. Control overseas of colonies and the growth of trade,

which was controlled by the lower-classes (since the aristocracy

generally did not participate in trade), created a new middle class. The

wealthier they grew, the greater their demand to share in the political

power.

iv. From about 650-500 many poleis were subject to the reign of a tyrant

supported by the new wealthy class. Tyrant in this case means merely

an unconstitutional ruler, not necessarily a despot.

c. The resumption of commerce and trade. Coinage.

H. Classical Period, 490-323 BCE

1. 508 BCE at Athens Cleisthenes reorganizes the polis and places executive

powers in the hands of the adult male citizens. The first democracy.

2. 490 BCE the Persian army invade mainland Greece and are defeated at

Marathon, about 25 miles NE of Athens. 10 years later the Persians were

defeated in a decisive naval battle. The initial defeat conveniently marks the

beginning of the classical period.

3. It was during the classical period, an age of stunning advances in philosophy,

literature, politics and art, that some of the greatest thinkers of Greece lived:

Herodotus, Thucydides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes,

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, all living in Athens.

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4. After the Persian Wars, the Greek world fell into two rival leagues, the

Spartan League, a military state ruled by an aristocracy, and the Athenian

League, which was democratic.

5. From 431-404 the two fought in the Peloponnesian War, from which Greece

never really recovered.

6. The old ways of Greece and the polis system was altered irrevocably when

Philip II of Macedon seized power in 338 BCE.

7. When Philip died in 336, his son Alexander, later Alexander the Great, took

the throne, conquered the Persian empire and territories as far as India.

8. Alexander died in 323, of a fever or by poisoning. His death marks the

transition to the Hellenistic period.

I. Hellenistic Period, 323-30 BCE

1. After Alexander’s death, although the empire fell apart, Greek culture spread

everywhere across the Mediterranean and Near East.

2. The new cultural capital was Alexandria, in Egypt.

3. In 146 BCE the mainland was conquered by Rome, in 30 BCE Alexandria also

fell to Rome, when Cleopatra, the last descendant of Alexander’s generals,

committed suicide.

III. Performance

A. By performance I mean not only the physical locations in which myths were told

or enacted, but I intend also in a metaphorical sense those realms of culture in

which myth made a significant contribution.

B. The domestic sphere is the most obvious place to begin, with tales told to little

children mostly, according to our ancient sources, by mothers, nurses and old

women. One such group of stories involved female bogey monsters like Gorgo or

Lamia. Lamia kidnapped and murdered little children.

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1. We are told that the story of Theseus and Ariadne, which we will study later,

was a favorite.

2. “Old wives tales” were usually disparaged by ancient authors

C. Local festivals were also the occasion for the telling of myths.

1. During the rites performed at some of these festivals the children took part in

recitation of poetry or where told particular myths that supposedly explained

the origin of the rituals that were performed.

2. Choral singing, boys’ and girls’ choirs, often took mythical themes as its

subject. Choral training was often the only form of schooling adolescents

received. Choral training could last as long as up till the age of 30 for young

men and competition in singing took place annually in some regions in the

theatre.

3. Festival performances of Homer and Hesiod.

4. Festival performance = publication

D. Schools, which were rare until the 5th century and which only the wealthy could

afford, taught rote learning of mythological poetry and fables. Homer was

required reading then as it is now. Story of Alcibiades (student of Socrates,

general in Persian war).

E. Athletic victories were celebrated by especially commissioned odes that would

praise the victor against the backdrop of the deeds of gods and heroes. Pindar,

whom we mentioned earlier, was one of the greatest composers of these victory

odes and is a rich source of myth for us today.

F. Myths also figured big in the lives of adults. In the so-called social rituals of

conviviality such as banquets, symposia, marriage celebrations, songs and stories

about the gods and heroes were especially frequent.

G. Visual arts. Mythical themes were painted on all kinds of ceramic ware: wine

jars, wine coolers, pouring vessels, drinking cups, and jewelry boxes. Painted

walls and statuary depicted mythical scenes.

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H. Lyre singers, whose repertoire included Homeric verses and mythological

themes, competed at major festivals throughout the year and throughout

Greece.

I. The development of Athenian tragic drama in the 6th century is hard to

overestimate in terms of contribution to mythical repertoire.

1. We will deal with this in greater detail when we read some works of tragedy,

but simply note for now that the subject matter of tragedy is without

exception mythic material.

2. The surviving tragic plays form one of our best sources of Greek myth

J. To a lesser extent, fifth and fourth century Attic comedy often mentioned mythic

subjects.

K. Mythic associations or mythic stories were often a part of religious ritual.

L. In sum, it is not too much to say that myth saturated every-day life in ancient

Greece.

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CLCV 2000 Classical Mythology

The Indo-European and Near Eastern background

Today we are going to fill in the background to our study of myth by looking at 3 major

influences in classical, and especially Greek, mythology:

I. The Indo-European background

II. The Near Eastern background

III. The Minoan and Mycenaean background

I. The Indo-European background

A. 18th century awakening to languages of the East

1. Synopsis of origin of Historical Linguistics

a. Greek and Roman Tradition

b. Middle Ages: spread of Christianity and increased knowledge of different

languages

c. 1498 Vasco de Gama discovers sea-route to India

e. Renaissance:

i. Search for the original language

ii. Growing awareness of languages

iii. Increased knowledge of languages of the East

iv. The ‘discovery’ of Sanskrit

Greek Latin Sanskrit

‘father’ patēr pater pitā

‘mother’ mētēr mater mātā

‘is’ esti est asti

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‘seven’ hepta septem saptam

‘foot’ pod- ped- pad-

‘god’ — deus devas

2. Sir William Jones, from the Third Anniversary Discourse, On the Hindus, 2

February 1786:

“The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure;

more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more

exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity,

both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly

have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could

examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some

common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason,

though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic,

though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the

Sanskrit; and the Old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were

the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia.”

3. Overhead of Rg-veda, Gothic

4. Overhead of various reconstructions

5. Overhead of map of IE language map; cf. Fortson p. 11, full list of languages

on p. 10.

B. After the establishment of a common language family has come the recognition

of a common culture and attempts to identify relics of a common mythology.

Some Kurgan characteristics:

1. Seasonal settlements

2. Semi-subterranean dwellings

3. Pastoral economy

4. Hierarchic social structure

5. Strongly patriarchal familial system

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6. Aggressive warfare

7. Burial of dead in a hut-like chamber beneath a tumulus (Russian kurgan)

8. Animal sacrifice

9. Use and veneration of the horse

10. Use of wheeled vehicles

11. Worship of solar deities

C. Some relevant characteristics of IE mythology:

1. Worship of solar deities (e.g. Deus, Aurora)

2. Patriarchal hierarchy

3. Georges Dumézil’s trifunctionalism

a. PIE society divided into three functions

i. sovereignty and religion: priests, kings, keepers of religious and legal

order

ii. martial force: warrior class

iii. fertility: pastoralists and producers of goods

b. Certainly some truth to this but the trifunctionalism has been the source of

many incredible theories and it is debated how extensively the theory can

be applied.

c. Applies clearly in the ancient Indian caste system, where the division was

priestly, warrior, and herder-cultivator classes, plus a fourth class

originally made up of subjugated non-Indian peoples.

d. Also applies to early Celtic society, which included a three-fold division

into Nobles, Men of Art, and an Order of Farmers.

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4. Fortson mentions three myths or types of myths in particular, which we will

have opportunity to discuss in further detail later in the semester

a. Dragon-slaying myth

b. Creation myths

c. Theft of Fire

d. He also mentioned fire-worship, the horse sacrifice, a figure known as the

“grandson of the waters”

E. Note also the elevated position of the poet in IE society, a theme which survives

in depictions of the bard in Homer.

Bardic training in guild association; evidence in Vedic literature it was a family

affair, in Old Irish of training of adolescent males.

II. The Near Eastern background

A. Increasingly, scholars are recognizing the debt Greek culture owes to earlier Near

Eastern and Mesopotamian society. This is especially true in the area of

mythology.

Puhvel p. 22, “. . . it is not always easy to say where ancient Greece ends and the

Near East begins, owing to extensive cultural interpenetration.”

B. We’ve talked about the Indo-European inheritance of some of the content of

Greek myth, when we turn to the Near East we must recognize something

different. In particular we are going to focus on Mesopotamian sources and

Hittite sources. Today we will just talk about the Mesopotamian sources, in a

later class we will pick up on Hittite.

C. Mesopotamian Literature

1. Wide variety of literature

2. Epic of Gilgamesh, story of a universal flood: such stories, it was soon

realized, were borrowed heavily by the later accounts in the biblical book of

Genesis.

22

3. Creation and origin myth, battle of the gods.

4. In his chapter on chapter Creation Myth in the Ancient Near East Jan Puhvel

makes a number of points, I want to highlight seven of them (especially since

the chapter is a difficult read)

a. “Traditions of origin and creation tend to be the most mythical matter of

all.”

b. cosmogony – creation of the cosmos

theogony – creation of gods

anthropogony – creation of humans

c. Judeo-Christian tradition of time as teleology

vs.

Near Eastern and Classical culture’s cyclical worldview

d. Judeo-Christian tradition of monotheism and “insurmountable gulf

separating divinity and humanity”

vs.

Oriental and Classical culture’s notion of dying gods, semidivine beings,

and heroes

e. Two contrasting traits of Creation Myth

Since creation myths supposedly deal with universal truths, they have the

potential to spread internationally , but they can also be used locally to

serve nationalistic or dynastic purposes.

f. The ancient Near East was a melting pot of civilizations. The diffusion of

myths of all types among these cultures.

Two important sources of myth from Mesopotamia:

i. Sumerians:

α. Lived in a broad area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

β. They flourished ca. 3000 BCE, unknown race.

23

γ. Language known as Sumerian; unrelated to any others. Living

language in 3rd millennium, survived in schools until the 1st. Used

cuneiform writing.

δ. Polytheists with hundreds of gods.

ε. Anthropomorphic gods whose society is similar to that of

humanity’s. The gods are related to each other, devoted/capricious,

angry, lustful, gossips, etc. constantly fighting amongst themselves.

ii. Semitic sources:

α. By 2000 Sumer was overtaken by Semites, originally probably a

semi-nomadic group. The term Semitic indicates a linguistic group

with unique cultural patterns. Akkadian is the oldest attested

Semitic language, dating back to 2500 BCE, named after the city of

Akkad. Spoken by 2nd and 1st millennium Babylonians. Two major

dialects, that of Babylonia (South Mesopotamia) and Assyria

(North Mesopotamia).

β. The Semitic Akkadians adopted Sumerian culture and myths,

which the refashioned, and preserved them in cuneiform tablets.

γ. The Babylonian Akkadians were responsible for the Enūma élish.

The Mesopotamian pantheon:

Sumerian Akkadian/Babylonian Area of influence

An Anu god of the heavens

Innana Ishtar goddess of sexual love, fertility, war

Enlil Ellil, Marduk storm god

Enki Ea god of sweet water, trickster type, arts

and crafts

Ninhursag, Ki — mother goddess

Ereshkigal — goddess of death, underworld

24

Utu Shamash sun god

g. Elements of creation myth: overthrow, usurpation, succession, challenge,

consolidation

p. 26, “A shadowy first god is succeeded by one whose name means heaven.

‘Heaven’ is deposed and castrated by his son, who in his turn feels threatened

by his unborn or newborn offspring and tries cannibalism as a prophylactic.

But nothing avails; he is overthrown by his son, who becomes the ruling

storm-god. The deposed father creates a monstrous enemy as his last-ditch

champion, but the storm-god and his cohorts eliminate this threat and

consolidate their rule.”

We find this in Theogony of Hesiod.

25

CLCV 2000 Classical Mythology

The Minoan and Mycenaean Background

I. Minoan and Mycenaean Greece

A. We are going to look closer at two civilizations that flourished in the Bronze Age,

the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.

B. Beginning of archeology

1. Heinrich Schliemann, German merchant b. 1822, from 1870-1890 excavates at

Troy, Mycenae, mainland Greek to prove the reality of Homer’s Trojan War.

a. Boyhood determination

b. Grocer

c. Made fortune in Russia and US

2. Sir Arthur Evans excavated from 1900 on, uncovering an earlier non-Greek

palace culture named Minoan after the legendary king Minos.

a. Wealthy family

b. In pursuit of script

C. Minoans

1. Begin with maps of Crete. Point out main cities. Note small size of island.

2. We date different periods of Cretan Minoan history based on the building

and destruction of the palaces.

First human habitation in Crete ca. 7000-6000

Pre-Palace period ca. 3100-1925

Old Palace period ca. 1925-1725

26

New Palace period ca. 1725-1380

Post-Palace period ca. 1380-1000

3. The old Palace period came to an end with a violent earthquake that

destroyed the palaces on the island. They were quickly rebuilt in a more

lavish style that ushers in the New Palace period.

4. The New Palace Period is generally considered the flowering of Minoan

civilization.

a. We know a lot less than we would like to about this period, mostly

because all we have to go by is the archeological record.

b. There were some written records, which we will discuss in a moment, but

they are still undeciphered.

c. During this period large palaces were constructed, the largest on Knossos,

Mallia, Phaistos, and Kato Zakro. These were administrative, ceremonial,

manufacturing, and storage centers.

d. Evidence suggests they were a strong naval power.

e. It is difficult to say anything certain about Minoan religion. All we have to

go by is the art left behind.

f. We assume that the bull and the double ax, were important in their

religious worship. The ax may have been the instrument by which the bull

was sacrificed.

g. They appear to have worshipped a fertility goddess sometimes known as

the snake goddess.

5. The New Palace period came to an end suddenly and somewhat

mysteriously.

a. It used to be supposed that an immense volcanic explosion on Thera,

modern Santorini, 69 kilometers north of Crete brought about the

destruction of the palaces on Crete. But it now seems that the eruption

must be dated to an earlier period.

27

b. In fact, there is evidence for widespread destruction at the time of Minoan

collapse throughout the Aegean and it is now generally supposed that it is

attributable to invasion from a mainland people, the Mycenaeans.

6. The importance of Minoan culture for the study of myth

a. Theseus and the Minotaur, Minos

b. Labyrinth

c. Cretan Liar appears in the Odyssey

D. Mycenaeans

1. With Mycenaean we are talking about a mainland culture, as opposed to

Minoan Crete. The name Mycenaean was given to the period after the site of

Mycenae, one of the earliest recovered cites and one of the most important.

2. Schliemann, you will remember, was driven by the desire to prove that the

Homeric stories were historically valid. His big idea was to go dig around

what was thought to the site of ancient Troy, to see if there were any ruins,

and then to Mycenae, where king Agamemnon was said to have ruled.

3. Few at this time would have been able to predict the startling success of this

venture.

a. Schliemann discovered the walls of Troy and a hoard of golden

ornaments.

b. At Mycenae he discovered a series of burial mounds and graves and a

spectacular hoard of gold, including a series of golden death masks placed

over bodies.

4. Subsequent years of study have revealed a network of Mycenaean palaces on

the mainland, in places like Pylos and Tiryns and Knossos on Crete, and

detailed studies of Mycenaean art, architecture, sculpture, painting and

pottery.

5. The Mycenaean period is usually broken down as follows:

28

Early Helladic 3000-2000

Middle Helladic 2000-1675

Late Helladic I and II (Mycenaean) 1675-1425

Late Helladic IIIA (Mycenaean) 1425-1340

Late Helladic IIIB (Mycenaean) 1340-1190

Late Helladic IIIC and Sub-Mycenaean 1190-1020

6. What we know of Mycenaean culture:

a. kingship with tremendous palace bureaucracy, elaborate social

organization based mainly on agriculture and trade.

b. warlike people, fortified cities (unlike Minoans), advanced architecture,

sophisticated art, highly decorated palaces, advanced ivory and metal

working

c. religion elusive, many of later gods found on tablets.

d. Linear A and B tablets discovered in Crete and now all over mainland

e. Linear B deciphered by Michael Ventris in 1952. Story of Ventris.

7. Mycenaean civilization came to an end in the 12th century with a series of

catastrophes, major centers were destroyed or abandoned, population

numbers dropped, there was widespread emigration to different areas.

8. The causes of this are hotly debated among scholars of the period.

9. Significance for mythology:

a. All of the major Mycenaean cites figure prominently in later mythology as

homeland of heroes of Greek legend

b. Many Greek legends probably originated in Mycenaean period

c. Trojan War

Site to visit: http://www.stoa.org/metis/

29

CLCV 2000 Classical Mythology

Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days

Read: Hesiod’s Theogony, Works and Days pp. 37-46

I. Introduction to Hesiod’s Theogony

A. First author of a (somewhat) systematic mythology.

1. From Ascra in Boeotia, lived in late 8th century (750-700 BCE)

2. He tells us his father came from Cyme and made a living by sea trading

3. Brother Perses

4. Poetic inspiration from Muses while a shepherd, poetic competitions

5. Attachment to Zeus

B. No agreed account of origin in early Greek thought.

C. No standard or orthodox version of a myth; Hesiod was influential but not

universally accepted.

D. Nature of oral poetry and dactylic hexameter

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hiawatha

On the Mountains of the Prairie,

On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry . . . .

E. The ‘Kingship of Heaven’ myth

1. Myth of successive generation culminating in organization of the cosmos

under Zeus. Usually 3 generations, 3rd sets his fate by overcoming a monster.

2. Active metaphor is the family/human society.

3. Birth as a manifestation of power

30

II. Prologue: Invocation of the Muses pp. 3-6

Muses of Helicon and Hesiod’s inspiration

Importance of poetic inspiration

The Muses know lies and truth

Origin of the Muses, daughters of Zeus and Memory.

Names them on p. 5

Muses and mortals: “Every man is fortunate whom the Muses love”

Ring composition

III. Theogony begins with primordial gods and their offspring, pp. 6-7

Begin with Chaos/Chasm, Earth, Tartara, Eros

o Chasm bears Erebos, Night

o Night and Erebos bear Air and Day

o Earth bears Heaven, Mountains, Nymphs, and Sea

IV. Earth and Heaven bear the Titans:

Oceanus, Koios, Kreios, Hyperion, Iapetos, Thea, Rhea, Themis, Memory, Phoebe,

Tethys, Kronos, the Cyclopes, the Hundred-Handers (Kottos, (O)briareos, Gyges)

Note that the primordial gods are not created or born, they just are from the

beginning.

Creation account in Book of Genesis

1:1 In the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth 2 the earth was a

formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God

swept over the face of the waters. 3Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there

was light. 4And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light

from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 6And God said,

“Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let is separate the waters

from the waters.” 7So God made the dome and separated the waters that were

under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8God

called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second

day.

Hebrew account generally considered an edited version based on earlier

sources, perh. reaching its final form ca. 400 BCE.

31

Note that this text, like Mesopotamian antecedents thinks of creation mostly

as a process of separation.

Also similar in that the watery mass split into two parts making heaven and

earth.

Unlike antecedents, the elements of nature are not deified.

Like the Hesiodic account we begin with Chasm/Void.

V. Heaven hides his children but is overthrown by Kronos, pp. 7-9

Heaven hides his children under the Earth.

Earth encourages her children to revolt against their father, Heaven.

Kronos hides in ambush and cuts off Heaven genitals with a sickle.

Note that the sickle theme is reminiscent both of Kumarbi biting off the genitals

of Anu but also of Ea cutting Ullikummi off at the base.

From the dismembered members grow Erinyes, the race of Giants, the Meliai,

and Aphrodite

VI. The Children of Night, pp. 9-13

Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, the tribe of Dreams, Cavil, Misery, Hesperides, Fates,

Furies, Resentment (Nemesis), Deceit, Intimacy, Old Age, Strife.

VII. The Children of Strife:

Toil, Neglect, Starvation, Pain, Battles, Combats, Bloodshed, Slaughter, Quarrels,

Lies, Pretences, Arguments, Disorder, Disaster, Oath.

It is hard to know whether these are traditional genealogical material or

something invented by Hesiod himself.

Note at least that the offspring of Night and Strife make thematic sense.

VIII. The Offspring of Sea:

32

Nereus (the old man of the Sea), Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, Eurybia

o The 50 daughters of Nereus (Nereids)

o Thaumas and Electra bear Iris, the Harpies (Aello and Ocypeta)

o Phorcys and Ceto bear the Old Women (Graiai, Pemphredo and Enyo), the

Gorgons (Sthenno, Euryale, Medusa)

Medusa and Poseidon bear Chrysaor and Pegasus

Chrysaor and Callirhoe (< Oceanus) bear three-headed Geryoneus

o Ceto bears Echidna (nymph/serpent)

Echidna with Typhaon bear Orthos (dog), Cerberus (dog), Hydra

(serpent)

Echidna or Hydra bore Chimaera

Chimaera and Orthos bear Sphinx, Nemean Lion

o Ceto and Phorcys bear serpents

IX. Offspring of the Titans, pp. 13-16

Tethys and Oceanus bear the Rivers, the Nymphs (3,000 Oceanids)

Thea and Hyperion bear Sun, Moon, Dawn

Kreios and Eurybia (< Sea) bear Astraeus, Pallas, Perses

o Dawn and Astraeus bear Winds (Westerly, Northerly, Southerly), Morning

Star, other stars

Styx (< Oceanus) and Pallas bear Aspiration, Victory, Power, Strength

Phoebe and Koios bear Leto, Asteria

o Perses and Asteria bear Hecate

Rhea and Kronos bear: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus

pp. 15-16 on Hecate

o Odd addition to pantheon. She comes from Asia Minor, perh. family tradition

of worship with Hesiod

o In later sources she is usually represented as a ghoulish sort of demon but

here she is only given positive attributes.

X. Kronos devours his children but is overthrown by Zeus, pp. 16-18

Kronos devours his children as they are born except Zeus, who is raised in secret.

When he grows up he overthrows Kronos and brings up all the children Kronos

swallowed and sets free the Cyclopes whom Kronos had imprisoned

33

Recall the fact that Kumarbi, from the Hittite Song of Kumarbi, wanted to swallow

his children after they were born and at one point bites something hard, perhaps

also a stone.

XI. The story of Prometheus, pp. 18-21

(Tyrrell & Brown) Sacrifice as a means of defining civilization by hierarchy;

animals sacrificed and eaten, men sacrifice and eat cooked meat, gods receive

sacrifice and eat no meat. Every sacrifice an enactment of this division.

Etiology sacrifice, fire.

XII. The story of Pandora

Iapetos and Clymene (< Oceanus) bear Atlas, Menoitios, Prometheus,

Epimetheus.

Pandora not named here

Etiology of women

Pandora mirrors the bones wrapped in fat; deception

XIII. Titanomachy, pp. 21-25

Zeus and the Hundred-handers fight against the Titans, who are banished to

Tartarus

Zeus persuades the Hundred-handers to fight with the children of Kronos

against the Titans. The Titans are banished to Tartarus.

XIV. Description of the Underworld, pp. 25-27

Tartarus, Chasm, Atlas, Sleep and Death, House of Hades, Cerberus, Styx

XV. Typhoeus, pp. 27-29

Earth and Tartarus bear Typhoeus who rises up but is defeated by Zeus and cast

into Tartarus.

34

XVI. Zeus declared king, privileges allotted to other gods, pp. 29-31

Recall the theme of consolidation mentioned by Puhvel and seen in the Babylonian

Creation poem with Marduk.

XVII. Zeus’s wives:

Metis (‘cunning’), whom he eats as she is about to bear Athene

Themis, who bore the Horai (‘Watchers’), Lawfulness, Justice, Peace, the Fates

(Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos; the same Fates said to be children of Night above)

Eurynome, who bore three Graces (Aglaïa, Euphrosyne, Thalia)

Demeter, who bore Persphone

Memory, who bore the nine Muses

Leto, who bore Apollo and Artemis

Hera, who bore Hebe, Ares, Eileithyia, Hephaestus

XVIII. Athene is born from Zeus’s head

Maia, who bore him Hermes

Semele, who bore him Dionysus

Alcmene, who bore him Heracles

XIX. Offspring of other Olympians:

Amphitrite (< Nereus) and Poseidon bear Triton

Cytherea and Ares bear Terror, Fear, Harmonia

Hephaestus weds Aglaïa

Dionysus weds Ariadne

Heracles weds Hebe

Perseïs and the Sun bear Circe and Aeetes

o Aeetes and Idyia bear Medea

XX. Close of poem, invocation of the Muses, pp. 31

XVI. List of immortal women who wed mortal men:

Demeter and Iasius bear Wealth

Harmonia and Cadmus bear Ino, Semele, Agaue, Autonoe, Polydorus

Callirhoe and Chrysaor bear Geryoneus

Dawn and Tithonus bear Memnon, Emathion

Dawn and Cephalus bear Phaëthon

Medea and Jason bear Medeios

35

Psamathe (< Nereus) and Aeacus bear Phocus

Thetis and Peleus bear Achilles

Aphrodite and Anchises bear Aeneas

Circe and Odysseus bear Agrius and Latinus

Calypso and Odysseus bear Nausithous and Nausinous

I. Hesiod’s Works and Days

A. Preliminaries

1. Varied content, disordered; stream-of-conscience toward the end

2. Wisdom literature, West calls it ‘moral-didactic poetry’

3. Addressed in particular to his brother Perses, who seems to have cheated

Hesiod of his share of the family estate and then reduced to poverty through

laziness.

4. Also addressed to kings or local nobles, bribe takers.

5. May be a literary device. Oriental parallels also often come from the point of

view of a victim.

6. Other Near Eastern influences seen in animal fable, myth of the ages of man,

calendar of good and bad days

7. Gloomier stories of Prometheus and Pandora, who is not simply evil for men

but releases all sorts of evils into the world

B. Outline

1. Invocation of Muses; pp. 37-40

Note how this invocation sets the scene and lays out the main themes for

what is to follow; Zeus humbles the powerful and strengthens the weak

2. Dispute with Perses

a. Two strifes

36

Alteration of his earlier poem

b. Perses encouraged to work

c. Prometheus’ theft of fire

Food concealed

Fire concealed

Pandora given to Epimetheus

i. The entire episode of Prometheus is now told to illustrate why men

must labor and that it is impossible to escape the sight of Zeus, who

sees all evil doers and punishes them accordingly.

ii. The point for Perses is that he must stop being lazy and that he and the

Kings can expect to be punished for wrong-doing.

iii. The story is an aetiology: why men have fire, but why they must labor

for food, why the bones of an animal are sacrificed to the gods (not real

reason), where woman comes from, where the evils of the world come

from.

iv. Hesiod has covered up the fact that in the original story Zeus really

was tricked.

v. The strange episode with Hope/Expectation. What does it mean?

2. Five ages of Man: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroes/Demigods, Iron; pp. 40-42

a. This theme taken from the Near East but the age of Heroes stuck in by

Hesiod or Greek source. Note the heroes are better than those of the

Bronze age – disrupts the flow of the pattern from best to worst.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream in the Book of Daniel

2:31

Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose

brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

2:32

This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and

his thighs of brass,

37

2:33

His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

2:34

Thou sawest still that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image

upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.

2:35

Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces

together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind

carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote

the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

2:36

This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

2:37

Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a

kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.

2:38

And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls

of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them

all. Thou art this head of gold.

2:39

And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third

kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

2:40

And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in

pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break

in pieces and bruise.

2:41

And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron,

the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron,

forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

2:42

And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom

shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

2:43

And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle

themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even

as iron is not mixed with clay.

2:44

38

And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which

shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it

shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

2:45

Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without

hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the

gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass

hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

3. The Just and Unjust; pp. 42-46

a. Fable of the hawk and nightingale

i. The fable adapted somewhat ineptly to Hesiod’s point. The crucial

point, the moral, is given by the eagle, which is simply that there is no

point in competing against the stronger.

ii. Hesiod tells the story, then uses it to make the point that the strong

will be punished

b. The repayment of the Just and Unjust

c. The value of being industrious

4. Moral imperatives; pp. 46-49

theft, adultery, treatment of relative, sacrifice, hospitality, thrift, work.

5. The ordering of the house pp. 49-55

home, woman and ox, timber, plow, oxen, workers, when to plough,

work during winter, spring and summer, and harvest

6. Sea-faring; pp.55-57

7. More advice; pp. 57-61

Acquiring a wife, making friends and enemies, cleansing and bodily

functions, various superstitions, good and evil days of the month (probably

also Near Eastern influence)

39

CLCV 2000 Classical Mythology

Enūma eliš

I. Background

A. The poem is a cult hymn, a part of the liturgy sung or chanted by a priest in the

holiest part of the main temple of Marduk, the supreme god, directly in front of

his statue, at the annual New Year’s festival (beginning around March 21, the

spring Equinox), an 11-day festival celebrated at Babylon.

B. It recounts a divine myth, the making of the world and its present arrangement.

C. The poem is an account of creation, a cosmology. Other cosmologies known at

this time—this not the only one.

D. Takes its name from first words of the text:

enūma élish lā nabū shamāmu

sháplish ámmatum shúma lā zákrat

‘When there was no heaven , no earth, no height, no depth, no name . . . .’

E. Probably dates to well before the 12th cent. BCE, perhaps as early as the 20th.

F. Written on 7 tablets. Discuss colophons.

II. Outline of the Enūma élish

A. Tablet One

1. The birth of the gods

Apsu (male primeval sweet waters), Tiamat (female primeval bitter waters),

and Mummu (a vaguely defined male ‘original form’)

Apsu and Tiamat give birth to:

40

Lahmu and Lahāmu (male and female silts), who give birth to

Anshar (horizon of the sky) and Kishar (horizon of the earth), who give birth

to

Anu (heaven; sky god), who gives birth to

(Nudimmud-)Ea (god of sweet waters and wisdom), who is father of

Marduk

2. Discord among the offspring

3. Apsu and Mummu decide to destroy the children

4. Nudimmud-Ea revolts

He binds Apsu and kills him, imprisons Mummu.

Introduction of Damkina, wife of Ea, and Marduk, their son

5. Physical description of Marduk

6. Anu and other gods stir up Tiamat against Ea

They plot against Ea and make monsters to use in battle

Qingu appointed by Tiamat as her war commander

B. Tablet Two

1. Ea consults Anshar, who counsels Ea to kill Qingu

2. Ea approaches Tiamat for reconciliation, but fails

3. Anshar next bids Anu to reconcile with Tiamat

4. Anu also fails to confront Tiamat

5. The Council of the Anunnaki (rebel gods), plans to overthrow Tiamat

a. The gods decide that only Marduk can overcome Tiamat

41

b. Marduk agrees to kill Tiamat on the condition that he is given supreme

authority over gods and creation

C. Tablet Three

1. Anshar sends his adviser, Kakka to Lahmu and Lahamu (the primordial silts)

to call them to feast with the younger gods and confirm the destiny of

Marduk

2. The gods in assemble in Ubshukinna, The Chamber of Destinies.

3. There is a banquet and festivities

D. Tablet Four

1. Marduk enthroned, sceptered, robed

2. The constellation scene

3. Marduk sets off armed with a bow, mace, net and the seven winds (including

Imhullu) and Abuba, four horses, etc.

4. Qingu flees at the sight of Marduk

5. Marduk and Tiamat engage in one-on-one combat

Marduk drives the winds into Tiamat’s belly

He shoots an arrow into her distended belly

6. Marduk rounds up the rest of the gods fighting with Tiamat, chains the

monsters, mashes Tiamat’s skull

7. Marduk splits Tiamat’s body in half, creates the sky from one half, stations

himself above the abyss and marks it out.

E. Tablet Five

1. Marduk establishes order:

a. makes places for gods in the heavens, measures time, establishes celestial

bodies,

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b. creation of nature (bodies of water, clouds, mountains, springs, founded

temples

2. The gods receive Marduk with ceremony

3. Marduk makes Usmu warden of the sanctuaries of Eridu

4. Gods declare Marduk king

5. Marduk announces creation of earth and the city of Babylon

F. Tablet Six

1. Marduk creates humans out of the corpse of Qingu

2. Marduk allots to the gods their positions in Heaven or under earth

3. The gods build the tower of Babel

4. More festivities

5. The naming of the bow

6. Marduk’s authority ratified by oath

7. Recitation of the 50 names of Marduk (continued on 7th tablet)

III. Interpretation

A. The following is one possible interpretation of the Enuma elish.

B. It relies on the idea that, as stated earlier, the poem is a cult hymn, a part of the

liturgy sung or chanted by a priest in the holiest part of the main temple of

Marduk, at the annual New Year’s festival in Babylon.

C. The meaning of the poem is tied directly to the ritual during which it was sung.

Think of this not as a poem to be read, but as a song to be performed for a

specific occasion and for a specific purpose.

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1. The New Year and Cosmic renewal

a. The occasion for the festival was the New Year

b. Significance of the New Year

i. I want to borrow some insights from a well-known historian of

religions named Mircea Eliade, who also wrote a great deal about

myth.

ii. Eliade studied a wide range of ancient and modern cultures and was

particularly interested in the role of the New Year in aboriginal

cultures of America and Australia.

iii. Eliade thought that in these cultures the New Year served not just as a

time of renewal but as a means, actually, of recreating the world anew.

iv. This belief had ramifications in the cosmos. It meant that everything

was re-created.

“The greatest of renewals takes place at the New Year, when a new

time cycle is inaugurated. But the renovation effected by the new Year

ritual is, basically, a reiteration of the cosmogony. Each New Year

begins the Creation over again.” Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 41

v. Eliade detected a strong belief in these cultures in the idea of annual

renewal. This annual renewal was tied directly to a cosmogony or

creation of the universe:

Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 42

“. . . the archaic peoples believe that the World must be annually

renewed and that this renewal is brought about by following a

model—the cosmogony, or an origin myth that plays the role of a

cosmogonic myth. . . .”

vi. It was clear to Eliade that the ancients felt a certain need for renewal.

“. . . the ‘return to the origin’ that makes it possible to relive the time

when things were first manifested is an experience of primary

importance for the archaic societies.” Eliade, p. 34

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Why?

“The return to origins gives the hope of a rebirth . . . . We get the

impression that for archaic societies life cannot be repaired, it can only

be re-created by a return to sources. And the “source of sources” is the

prodigious outpouring of energy, life, and fecundity that occurred at

the Creation of the World.” (Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality p. 30)

“In other words, the cosmogony is the exemplary model for every

creative situation: whatever man does is in some way a repetition of

the preeminent “deed,” the archetypal gesture of the Creator God, the

Creation of the World.” (Eliade, p. 32)

vii. What Eliade is working toward is this; that the ultimate function of

myth is to act as a sort of time machine, taking a person into the time

of myth and, most importantly, bringing him/her closer to god.

“But since ritual recitation of the cosmogonic myth implies re-

actualization of that primordial event, it follows that he for whom it is

recited is magically projected in illo tempore, into the ‘beginning of the

World’; he becomes contemporary with the cosmogony.” Eliade, The

Sacred and the Profane, p. 82

2. The Role of Ritual

a. Eliade would push his theory even further, by claiming that there was

much more to all this than just an annual story-telling festival. As he says:

“There is more than a mere theoretical curiosity here. It is not enough to

know the ‘origin’, it is necessary to re-establish the moment when such-

and-such a thing was created.” Eliade, p. 37

b. One re-establishes such moments through ritual.

“A ritual is a complex of actions effected by, or in the name of , an

individual or a community. These actions serve to organize space and

time, to define relations between men and the gods, and to set in their

proper place the different categories of mankind and the links which bind

them together.” Zaidman & Pantel.

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c. The claim is that not only does one re-enact cosmogony at the New Year,

but that through one’s actions one creates the universe anew at New Year.

“For us there is an essential difference between an act and a ritual or

symbolical performance. But this distinction was meaningless to the

ancients. . . . It would be meaningless to ask a Babylonian whether the

success of the harvest depended on the skill of the farmers or on the

correct performance of the New Year’s festival. Both were essential to

success” (Frankfort, H. and H. A. Frankfort. 1949. Before Philosophy. The

Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Penguin. p. 22).

d. We can think of this in a different way.

i. J. L. Austin, an Oxford philosopher in the 1930s, was the founder of

something now known as Speech-act theory.

ii. Austin argued that it is untrue that a declarative sentence always

describes some state of affairs or some fact (descriptive fallacy).

iii. Many sentences do not describe, report, or state anything.

iv. Sentences like “I do” at a marriage ceremony, or “I name this ship the

Queen Elizabeth” uttered by the appropriate person smashing a bottle

against the hull of a ship, or “I bequeath my watch to my brother”

written in a will, or “I bet you five bucks it will rain tomorrow” are all

statements that do not describe what you are doing but actually

constitute doing it or are part of doing it.

v. Austin calls these performative utterances, because they actually are or

are part of the doing of some action.

vi. The Enuma elish hymn is one of these performative utterances. It is not

simply the description of a myth, it is part of creating the cosmos anew

every New Year.

3. The Babylonian The New Year’s festival

Background of the city: shipping the statues of the gods in processional

from temples to Babylon; entering through the gate of kingship; Ishtar

gate as processional way.

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Babylon 3-4 ½ kilo. wide, 900 hectares (Carleton 62 hectares), largest city

until Rome. Located on Euphrates in the plain.

City surrounded by moat and the Euphrates, looked as if it rose out of the

sea (made from Tiamat).

Glowing walls of the Ishtar gate, Esagila (‘House whose Top is High’)

temple, Etemenanki (tower).

“The gods’ visit had both a cosmic and a political meaning. In cosmic terms it

repeated the gathering of the gods described in the Babylonian creation myth.

That composition was important in the New Year’s festival, and it was recited

in the evening of the fourth day” Marc van de Mieroop, p. 271.

a. “This was above all a time of cosmic renewal when the whole natural and

divine order—sun, moon, stars and all their gods—were confirmed in

their nature and functions; the moment, both in time and out of time,

when the cosmic order was secured with the participation of king, priests

and, in a lesser degree, people.” N.K. Sandars

b. The New Year festival is especially concerned with establishing a

prosperous year to come. The performance of the ritual is part of a process

devoted to ensuring that it will be so.

c. The poem also recounts the establishment of absolute celestial monarchy

ruled by Marduk and by recounting the story it re-establishes a world

order that would last for the coming year. The poem is naturally

concerned with the establishment of political hierarchy and the stability

that follows from that hierarchy.

This is reflected in the fact that poem is about the ordering of chaos into a

hierarchically governed universe. Creation is depicted as a matter of

forming and ordering, not creating ex nihilo.

Aside: comment on the low place of humans in this creation—substitute

labor for the rebel gods, formed out of Tiamat and Qingu.

d. The directly relates to the earthly king, too.

Eliade, p. 40

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“It is clear how the cosmogonic scenario of the New Year can be

incorporated into the coronation ceremony of a king. The two ritual

systems pursue the same end—cosmic renewal.

Stephanie Dalley p. 232

“All of these subjects would have listened to the epic, and its recital would

have impressed upon them how an orderly universe and its kingship

should be organized: an ideal state of affairs used for propaganda

purposes. When the king’s subjects kiss his feet, they are doing no less

than the great gods of heaven and earth did for Marduk. There is no

question of rivalry; loyal support is absolute.”

e. The poem involves a sort of propaganda to show that the Esagila temple is

the most important, and that Babylon is the most important city and

center of the empire, that Marduk is the supreme god, that the king is

divinely protected.

f. “Three aspects of time merged together: the specific moment, the cyclical,

and the eternal. The specific was the moment at the beginning of time

when the gods in assembly decreed the fate of Marduk to become their

king. The cyclical was the annual repetition of that event during the New

Year’s festival. The eternal was the constant presence of a divine assembly

in Marduk’s temple, constantly re-establishing the god’s function as king.”

Marc van de Mieroop, p. 271.