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coloricioso · 6 years

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Can you quickly explain some more myths people take and interpret the wrong way? Like myths concerning Zeus having children with other women and Hera getting jealous? How would you take that from a religious viewpoint? Your blog helped me realize these myths had meaning because before I would seriously think "ohh Zeus a fuckboy and Hera a jealous wife"; your art also on point!!

Hi! Yay, thank you! :D

I will cover the part of Zeus and Hera as shortly as I can (because there are a lot of elements to consider, so it’s a bit hard to summarize). And a very quick summary of common bad approaches to Greek myths.

ON ZEUS:

What we must acknowledge in first place is thatin Ancient Greek cosmology the gods are born from each other. They didn’t existfrom the beginning of time like the Christian god. First came the protogenoi (primordialgods, basic components of universe). Among them, Gaia (Earth) gave birth toOuranos and together they gave birth to the Titans. Rhea and Cronos (titans)conceived Zeus and the other gods (Hades, Demeter, etc).

So, we have this notion of gods who have aphysical body (human shape) and who need to have sexual intercourse to procreate,right?

Then, there was a religious need of organizingand structuring this divine family under a proper hierarchy. And in veryancient times, the father was the basic figure at the top of the hierarchy, soZeus is going to have the role and title of “Father of the gods”. For example,in the Oddyssey, we can see that gods who aren’t Zeus’ children (like Poseidon,who is actually his brother) address Zeus as “Father Zeus”.

In Christianism you have God being the Creatorand “father” of everything; the universe is subject to his will. In the case ofAncient Greek cosmology, the world belonged to Zeus as the chief god, but with somedifferences: i) he didn’t create everything by himself, ii) to create new godshe had to mate with another deity.

So… Since we have this conception of godsprocreating instead of creating offspring by mere thought, Zeus is going to “sleeparound” a lot to increase the divine family. He didn’t have another way to doit according to Ancient Greek cosmology.

Another important thing to consider is that someancient societies were very closed, and practiced endogamy (habit of marrying partnersinside the same group). There was a strong belief that to keep the grouptogether and preserve its nature the members of the group shouldn’t mixthemselves with other people from outside the group. This was common speciallyfor elite groups or royalty (and in many cultures and many periods of history,not only Greek). Now, this is just a vague introduction, because not in all territoriesand not through all Ancient Greek timeline, endogamy was a thing. Also, byendogamy I don’t necessarily mean “incest”.

The idea of endogamy is important because thatis what happens in the “society of Greek gods”. Their relationships are mostlyendogamous. Ancient Greek gods were a closed group and they didn’t interactwith humans unless for very specific and temporary reasons. In Hesiod we aretold that there was a golden age were gods and humans befriended each other andlived together, but leaving that aside, gods had their own society, far fromhumans.

When gods had intercourse with mortals, was mostlyto conceive heroes or aristocracy members (princes, kings, etc.) And here youhave an actual human need: preserving high classes and justifying that one’sfamily is more important than other families. How could one achieve that? Divinelineage. So, many aristocratic families needed to say they descended from thegods “hey you know, my grandpa is Zeus so you owe me respect and some lands and etc…”. That happened even in Roman timeswith emperors saying they were related to gods or in Christian times with Kingssaying they descended from God. It’s a human need. (Despite some heroes hadreligious cult and I’m not going into further detail).

So, as you can see, there was a religious need ofhaving Zeus as the progenitor and king of the gods, but there was also a human’sneed (mainly of aristocracy) to relate themselves to the gods.

ON HERA:

We also mustremember, that not all myths had a religious function. Some of them were just “stories”and in them you can see Hera as this jealous and annoyed wife. If you think ofit, if you have a myth where the purpose is linking a mortal family to Zeus,there isn’t much need of portraying other gods, the focus there is Zeus (orApollo, or Poseidon, or the god they wanted to be related to). And naturally,if Zeus had to “sleep” with a mortal woman to give birth to a mortal hero, Herawas going to be upset. But, we should also remember that not all gods had thesame level of cult or popularity in all cities -or all times-. Sometimes you hada city where Hera was super popular, but Poseidon not that much, and so on. So,it could also be that a certain myth -where Hera wasn’t portrayed so well- maybe camefrom a town where her cult was not the most important one or simply, people were totally aware ofthe “fictional” purpose of the myth and didn’t feel offended by seeing her as the “annoying wife”. Or even, some wanted to see her like that since men were free to sleep around and probably many women felt portrayed on Hera’s mood and actions, etc.

On the contrary, when there was a religiouspurpose, or a human need regarding the celebration of marriage, the relationshipof Zeus and Hera had nothing to do with mortal affairs and jealousy. There wasa month called “Gamelion” were most people got married and it was sacred toHera and Zeus, people celebrated their sacred union and wished to repeat theirdivine love by their own human marriage. In this way, we leave aside all thosestories were Hera and Zeus have so many flaws, and keep the joyful andbeautiful expression of union and love.

You follow my idea so far? Depending on thepurpose, the narratives and methods change. That’s why sometimes we have mythsthat seem to contradict each other, and so on.

To finish, Hera’s part, I’m quoting Jennifer Larson’s bookof Ancient Greek Cults: a Guide, which is very great:

Insome of her cults, Hera is likewise viewed primarily as a bride or wife, and herstatus as Zeus’ consort is central for worshipers. But in her most famous cults(Argos and Samos) Hera is a powerful city goddess who fosters economic andmilitary success. In these cases her relationship to Zeus is not a crucial factor,and the literary portrait of a jealous, scheming wife seems far removed fromthe cultic experience of an awe-inspiring deity who brings success in battle, multiplies the herds of cattle, frees the enslaved, and protects the young forher chosen people.

COMMON MISTAKES ABOUT GREEK MYTHS

I think that unfortunately, there are many “mythmanuals” that cover Greek mythology in a very basic or even prejudiced way. Forexample, the typical notion that Greek gods are just “flawed super humans”and that Ancient Greek religion as messy and “not as formal as Christianism”.

Many manuals summarize Ancient Greek myths deprivingthem from their historical-local context. For example, most Greek myth manualsmake Persephone’s myth like “…and this is why it snows on winter!!” whenit has nothing to do with that but with agriculture cycles, death and life, andmarriage.

But the 2 main mistakes I can think of now are:

1) Portraying gods are evil, uncaring or wicked.An important concept to understand Greek mythology is “hubris” which is humantransgression of cosmic order by exceeding limits. In Ancient Greek universe everything hastheir place and human’s place is below gods. When mortals say or act as if theywere better than the gods, that is hubris. And hubris cannot remain unpunished.So here come all the stories like Arachne was turned into a spider, Medusa,Minthe, etc. Unlike many people believe, Greek gods don’t punish mortalsbecause their immortal life is boring, and they have fun torturing humans. Greekgods punish mortals when they do wrong. Persephone does not turn Minthe into aplant because she was jealous, she does it because Minthe (a nymph) dared tosay she was better than her (a goddess).

2) Mistranslating seduction and/or abduction as rape(forced sexual intercourse). Most of the tales of gods approaching mortal womendon’t involve rape. What happens is that they seduce women and take them faraway from their homes to a magical or beautiful place where they can have consensual sex. Usually, the verb of “taking off” or “taking away” is badlytranslated as “rape”. There are many bad translations, for example, saying Zeusdisguised as a cuckoo bird and raped Hera. If you go to the original Greeksource there is NO mention of rape at all. Also, another important thing toconsider is that in many versions where real rape happens are not even Greekbut later roman additions. One Greek example of rape, is a myth of Demeter andPoseidon in the shape of horses, but we must acnknowledge that this story is so tied to a local religious cult, that it must be understood in a “symbolic level” and not just as a literal story.

:D and that’s what I can think of now, if you have more questions feel free to ask! I love helping.

#writings on greek myth

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