Greek Mythology in Ten Minutes

Greek Mythology in Ten Minutes

Thank you for being part of the Civic Renaissance community—and for registering for this inaugural CR course offering, Greek Mythology in Ten Minutes!

This course is meant to be an introduction to the basics of Greek mythology, and also an overview of why these stories still matter for us today. I hope this course does what all good courses do, and merely whets your appetite to keep learning about this subject matter.

Here’s an overview of this course:

• First, we’re going to explore what, exactly, myth is.
• Second, we will establish why we should study Greek myth today.
• Third, we’ll cover some of the major stories and characters foundational to Greek mythology.
• Finally, we will reflect on what these major stories of Greek myth reveal about the moral and cultural framework of the ancient Greeks, and what discuss what lessons they offer us today.

First, what is myth?

• Myths are stories that reveal a culture’s values. There’s an ambiguous relationship between history and myth—often historical people and happenings are embellished over time and become myth. In America, for example, we know that George Washington existed—but the story about him cutting down his father’s cherry tree isn’t true. Yet that story reveals important cultural values in America: honesty and integrity. 

Second, why does Greek myth matter to us today? 

• Greek myth matters because of something called the Great Conversation. Across history, great minds have been in dialogue with those that came before them—and some of the original great minds, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle for example, wrote and thought in a cultural context underpinned by the stories and values of Greek mythology. The thinkers we know and are familiar with, and who helped create the world we live in today—John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine of Hippo, Cicero, and many others—were intimately familiar with Greek history and myth. When we understand Greek myth, we better understand these thinkers—and better understand ourselves. These ideas help us ask, and find answers to, questions that thoughtful people have been asking for thousands of years: What does it mean to be human? Why are we here? What is the best way to live? So, whether you’re fifteen or fifty, this course has something for you. And I’m thrilled that you’re here. 

Third, the what, where, and who of Greek mythology

• Many of these stories, names and ideas will sound familiar while still seeming alien. This is because these stories provide the basis of the intellectual well from which those who made our world have sipped for thousands of years.

The beginning of world

• Let’s begin at the beginning—the creation of the universe. The account is from the work of Hesiod’s Theogony, a poem transmitted orally and composed about 800 BC. It’s important to understand that these figures are both deities and aspects of the created world. These figures and stories embody how the ancient Greeks thought the universe came into being. In the beginning, according to Hesiod, there was Chaos—not disorder, but just a gap of nothingness.

• Gaia, which literally means earth—mates with Ouranos—the sky—and they produce the sun, moon, and stars. Tartaros—or Hades—is the god of the underworld, through which flows the River Styx, and which is also the place where souls go after they die.

• Ouranos does not want his children to be born and tries to keep Gaia from giving birth. Gaia invokes the help of her son, Cronos, who hides inside his mother, and then castrates Ouranos at the first opportunity, tossing his genitals into the sea—then, from the sea and sea foam, Aphrodite, the goddess of eros, or sexual desire, is born! One of the most famous works of art in history is Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, the Roman counter part to Aphrodite, which sits at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and depicts this scene. (You can see Botticelli’s painting of the birth of Venus on the home page of this course.)

• Cronos, the son of Gaia and Ouranos, marries his sister Rhea. They and their brothers and sisters are the Titans—the second generation of gods. Cronos and Rhea have six children: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. These children of Rhea and Cronos are the third generation of gods. They, as well as some of Zeus’s children, are called the Olympians.

• Cronos—like his father Ouranos before him—doesn’t want his children to be born, so he eats them. All except Zeus. Rhea gives Cronos a stone to eat in Zeus’s place, and Zeus escapes and is raised in Crete.

• After he’s grown, Zeus tries to overthrow his father, Cronos. A ten-year battle ensues, which is known in Greek mythology as “The Battle Between the Titans and the Gods.” Zeus and the Olympians ultimately win, and the order of the universe, with Zeus as the chief god, is forever established

• Zeus marries his first wife, Metis, the goddess of practical wisdom. But again, like his father and grandfather before him, Zeus doesn’t want his children to be born—so he swallows his wife whole. His daughter Athena is still born, however, fully formed as she emerges from Zeus’s head. This story can be interpreted metaphorically: in eating Metis, Zeus incorporated wisdom—and Athena is the offspring of that incorporation, which is why she represents wisdom in Greek mythology. 

• Hesiod also gives us the story of Prometheus—a Titan and a brother of Cronos—who felt compassion on humanity for their hard labors and toil. Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man so that man could build civilization. Zeus punishes Prometheus for this theft by chaining him to a pillar and causing an eagle to eat his liver. Every night Prometheus’s liver regenerates, and the punishment happens all over again—forever.

• Throughout history, some thinkers have likened the story of Prometheus to that of Jesus Christ—a figure that makes a sacrifice and suffers in order to save humanity. John Milton, conversely, based his protagonist of Paradise Lost—Satan, depicted as a tortured figure who chose to engage in a power struggle with God—on the work of the Greek tragedian Aeschylus, in particular his depiction of Prometheus in Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound.

• Zeus punishes mankind through Pandora, the first woman. We get this story from Hesiod’s other famous work, Works and Days.

• Pandora is sent to Earth with a jar that contains all the evils of the world—but also Hope. Pandora opens the jar, and the evils and suffering fly out. Hope remains just under the lid of the jar.

• You might see the similarities between this account of Pandora—who is the origin of human suffering in the world—and the story of Eve in the Book of Genesis. In Eve’s story in the Hebrew Bible, her tasting of the forbidden fruit is the first sin. She then tempts her husband, Adam, whose fall to sin constitutes the fall of mankind from God’s grace, and the entry of death into the world. Both stories had enormous influence on why and how women were mistreated in the ancient world, and throughout western history.

• Both traditions also contain elements of hope—hope was left in Pandora’s jar. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there is a promise of a savior to redeem the world from suffering. For Christians, that hope is found in Jesus Christ. Jewish people still await a Messiah, or an anointed one, who will deliver them from suffering and bondage.

Artemis, Apollo and Dionysus

• Artemis is associated with wildness. She is a huntress, a patron of wild beasts, and the protector of the young of all species. Apollo is the god of youth, medicine, healing, music, prophecy, and, in general, moderation and rationality; yet he is also associated with sudden death and the plague.

• Dionysus, also a son of Zeus, is a complex god whose domains include fertility of plants, wine, frenzy, irrationality, and drama.

• In The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche identified the “Dionysian” and the “Apollonian” as the two main strands of Greek thought, constantly in tension with one another. 

Theseus

• Theseus is seen as the father and unifier of Greece, and is an important figure in Greek mythology. The most famous story of Theseus concerns his journey to Crete to free Athens from its tribute to Cretans’ Minotaur. Every year, Athens sent seven men and seven women to be eaten by the Minotaur, a man-eating half-man and half-bull that lived in a massive labyrinth.

• Ariadne, the daughter of the king of Crete, gave Theseus a ball of thread which allowed him to navigate his way out of the labyrinth after he killed the Minotaur

• Heracles—Hercules is the Romanized name that we’re most familiar with—is the most famous Greek hero. Son of Zeus and a human woman, Heracles is partially divine. Hera, Zeus’s wife, hates Heracles, as he is a living reminder of her husband Zeus’s infidelity. She therefore does whatever she can to make Heracles’ life miserable, yet Heracles consistently overcomes these challenges. For example, she sends snakes to kill Heracles in his cradle, but the baby Heracles strangles them. Heracles is a man of passion and of courage—and of extremes. In one bout of rage, Heracles kills his wife and children, which leads to his famous twelve labors. Most famous of these labors is the vanquishing of the multi-headed hydra—this fight required some strategic thinking on Heracles’s part, since every time he sliced off one of Hydra’s heads even more would grow back in its place.

Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey 

• The Iliad centered around the story of Achilles—and his rage—and recounts the final days of the Trojan War. The Trojan War began with the Judgement of Paris. Achilles’s parents—his mother was a goddess and his father was a man— were getting married. All the gods on Mount Olympus were invited except for the goddess Strife. Upset that she wasn’t invited, she threw a golden apple into the wedding, which had inscribed on it “To the fairest one.” Aphrodite, Hera and Athena each assumed the apple was for them. Zeus, not wanting to get in the middle of this argument, deferred to Paris, the prince of Troy. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena each offered Paris a bribe to induce him to select her as the fairest one. In the end, Paris accepted Aphrodite’s bribe—the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy. 

• Helen was at this time married to the Greek king Menelaus, so when she ran away with Paris—the prince of a foreign nation—the Greeks declared war, and the Trojan War began.

• The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus—the king of a Greek city called Ithaca—returning home from the Trojan War. Odysseus was the mastermind behind the famous Trojan horse that led to the demise of Troy. Greeks hid inside the belly of the horse. The Trojans brought the horse into their city walls, and at night the Greeks climbed out and sacked the city, killing everyone in it. 

• The gods on Mount Olympus were not happy with how the Greeks treated the Trojans, and ensured that all of the Greeks had an unhappy time getting or arriving home. Odysseus’s journey home takes ten years, and along the way he meets strangers and goddesses and leaders of foreign lands, who in turn show him hospitality (Xenia) and hostility in equal measure. 

Finally, what myth reveals about the values of the Ancient Greek world 

• On the Temple at Delphi, a place of enormous religious importance to the Ancient Greeks, there are inscribed two Maxims: “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.” Knowing one’s self means knowing what kind of creatures we are, knowing our limitations—remembering, for example, that we are nor immortal deities—and acting accordingly. Having nothing in excess requires moderation—that is, acting within our limitations. These two maxims encapsulate a theme that runs throughout Greek myth: Humans are liable to transgress the boundaries that separate them from the gods, which inevitably brings suffering. 

• Myths also teach us about the Greek worldview: The Ancient Greeks lived in a world defined more by fate than by human agency. Despite being good and doing the right thing, a person might suffer or be punished. What we do diverges greatly from what happens to us in life. Human beings were pawns, subject to the caprice of the gods on Mount Olympus. 

These stories matter because they form the cultural, religious, and moral backdrop for great thinkers who have made the world we live in today. This includes creative geniuses such as Shakespeare, who was steeped in the works of Ovid, who was in turn steeped in the works of Homer. Shakespeare can be difficult to understand not just because of his language but also because of his frequent allusions to Greek culture and myth, allusions that many of us today simply do not recognize. But as we learn these foundational stories of Greek myth, we are better able to understand the wisdom and creative works of those who have come before us.

The more we are able to understand the wisdom of the past, the more we come to better understand ourselves, who we are and where we have come from—and where we want to go in the future.

Thank you for being here, and please be sure to subscribe to Civic Renaissance to stay up to date on future course offerings, and also please recommend this free mini course to others who you think might enjoy it!