Ms. Efford
World Literature

 Greek history can be traced back over
40,000 years
 Land that is now called
Greece and
Turkey
 At the time of the myths, the area was divided into many small states –States are in all
Caps, cities are in normal print

 A story which is the product of imagination
 Myths were more than just folk tales to the
Ancient Greeks —it was more like a religion
– Closely related to the religious beliefs.
 About supernatural events and gods
 Combines a religious purpose with an explanatory purpose
– For example a mythmaker tries to interpret nature through personification (gods and mortals) through it

 Myths were attempts to explain things that would nowadays be explained scientifically.
 Ancient people had no scientific knowledge so they used their imagination to fill in the gaps.
 Explained natural phenomena that could not be explained otherwise
 Like the daily motion of the sun across the sky
 Explained how people acquired basic things
 (Speech, fire, grain, wine, oil, honey, agriculture, metal work, and other skills and arts)

 To explain human emotions
 To answer questions people asked about the world around them and the natural events that occurred in it
 To teach morals by justifying their social system and its customs


– Jason and the Golden
Fleece
– The Odyssey

– Heracles
– Theseus

– Trojan War



 Myths evolved over many centuries
– During times of war and invasions in Ancient Greece
 Conquerors and settlers brought their own gods with them
– Took over or merged with similar deity (god) figures that already existed in Greece
 Most notably Rome
– Different versions of stories about gods
 Conflicting stories of parents, birth place, etc.
 Probably changed less once the myths were written down

 The gods did many strange things in the myths
– Greeks accepted this because the gods were supernatural beings
– Ordinary people would not have been allowed to do these strange things
 Examples
– Gods often married very close members of their family such as siblings or parents
– Grew up instantly
– Able to do miraculous things right away

 The stories told in the Greek myths formed part of the religion of Ancient Greece.
– The myths illustrated the nature of the gods
– The myths taught was pleased or angered the gods
 Teaching morals, values
 The myths did not set out religious rules or ideals like the Bible or the Koran

 The Greeks thought of their gods as being like themselves
– Human shaped
– Got married and had children
– Made friends and enemies
– Had human-like faults
 Jealousy, bad temper, bad behaviors

 Religion was a part of everyday life
 Greeks often said a quick prayer to the particular god before doing something
– In hopes of it bringing success
 Each god was responsible for some aspect of life
 People worshiped the gods they found relevant
– Pan was the god of shepherds, for example.

 Many magnificent temples were built to the gods.
 Priests or priestesses looked after the temples and carried out religious ceremonies.
 People had shrines in their homes.
– Daily prayers and private ceremonies
 Remains of the temple of
Poseidon, the god of the
Ocean, at Cape Sounion.

 Greek Comic Actor
 The Greeks had special feast days for the gods
– Processions and sacrifices
– Plays were performed telling the gods’ lives.
 Much of what we now know about Greek myths comes from these plays.

 The Ancient Greek religion tried to explain how the world began.
– Again, not based on science but rather based on imagination
 It all started from Chaos
– Before anything existed, there was a dark nothingness call Chaos
– Gradually the shape of Mother Earth, Gaea, emerged from the emptiness and formed the world.

 Gaea (Mother Earth) produced a son,
Uranus, who was the sky
– They had children together
 Rain fell from the sky onto Earth
– Making plants grow and animals appeared from the rivers and the seas

 Many strangely-shaped monsters and giants were born
– Including the three one-eyed Cyclopes
 Uranus treated them cruelly and banished them to the
Underworld
 Human-shaped giants called Titans were born who became the first gods and goddesses.

 Gaea, (Mother Earth) could not forgive
Uranus for his treatment of her first children
(cyclops) and encouraged the Titans, led by
Cronos, to rebel.
– Cronos attacked and overcame Uranus with a sickle and took power.

 Cronos married his sister, Rhea, and became King of the Titans.
 They had five children
– Cronos had been warned that one of them would kill him
– He swallowed each one as it was born
 To save her sixth child, Rhea tricked Cronos into swallowing a stone wrapped in baby’s clothes and hid the real child among some lesser goddesses called nymphs.
– This child was Zeus and was raised safely by the nymphs.

 When he grew up, Zeus returned home in disguise
 Slipped a potion into Cronos’s drink
– Made him choke
 The children Cronos had swallowed were coughed out, whole and safe
– Daughters—Hestia, Demeter, and Hera
– Sons—Hades and Poseidon

 A fierce battle took place
 Zeus freed the
Cyclopes
– Made thunderbolts for
Zeus to hurl
– Made a forked trident for Poseidon
– Made a helmet that made its wearer invisible for Hades

 Most of the Titans and giants sided with Cronos
– Remember the giants and Titans (the first gods and goddesses) were children of Mother Earth and
Uranus —Brothers/Sisters of Cronos
 After a terrible struggle, the children of Cronos (the
New Gods) were victorious.
 The Titans were banished
– One of them, Atlas, was made to hold up the heavens as punishment

 The victorious gods divided the world amongst themselves by drawing lots
– Zeus became ruler of the sky and king of all the gods.
– Poseidon was made king of the Ocean
– Hades was made god of the Underworld.

 The home of the gods was the peak of Mount Olympus
 There was a real mountain in the north of Greece called
Mount Olympus
– Seemed very high and remote to most Ancient Greeks
 Seemed a likely place for the gods to live
– Gradually, Olympus was associated less with the actual mountain and became more an imaginary place high above the Earth.
 Zeus married his sister, Hera, and they ruled as king and queen.
 No-one but the gods could visit Olympus, except by special invitation.

 Ruled by Zeus’s brother, Hades
 Everyone went there when they died
 Three parts
– Asphodel Fields
 Ordinary people wandered here as “shades” where they were shadowy versions of their earthly selves
– Tartarus
 Place of punishment for really evil people
– Elysian Fields
 Exceptionally good or heroic people
 Golden, blissful place of rest

 You could be sent back to Earth to live another life, but if you earned a place in the Elysian Fields three times, you were allowed to go to the Isles of the Blessed, and never had to leave.
 The Styx
– The Styx was the name of the river you had to cross to enter the Underworld.
– You had to pay the boatman, Charon, one obol (Ancient
Greek coin) to ferry you across
 People were buried with a coin so they could pay Charon

 Poseidon’s Kingdom
– Controlled the winds and waves
– Important to sailors
 Made sacrifices to appease Poseidon
– Poseidon was powerful, but had to obey Zeus

 Where humans lived
 Many weird and dangerous creatures lived there too
– Greek heroes had to fight these monsters
 Gods frequently visited the Earth
– Sometimes made friends with humans
– Came in disguise, rewarding or punishing people according to how they treated the gods
– Sometimes they fell in love with humans and had children with them
 Heroes of the Greek myths were born in this way —half human, half god (demi-god)

 http://ludios.org/greekgods/

 Ancient Greek culture has been kept alive by the oral and later written stories handed down through thousands of years.
 Modern plays, novels, television programs, movies, and even advertisements refer to
Greek gods, goddesses, and heroes in their stories.