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Lecture 9
Good morning and welcome to LLT121 Classical Mythology. In our last exciting class, we were discussing the various sea gods. You’ll recall that, in the beginning, Gaia produced, all by herself, Uranus, the sky, Pontus, the sea and various mountains and whatnot. Pontus is the Greek word for “ocean.” Oceanus is another one. Oceanus is one of the Titans. Guess what his name means in ancient Greek? You got it. It means “ocean.” What we have here is animism, pure and simple. By and by, as Greek civilization develops, they come to think of the sea as ruled by this bearded god, lusty, zesty kind of god. Holds a trident. He’s seriously malformed. He has an arm growing out of his neck this morning. You get the picture. This is none other than the god Poseidon, otherwise known to the Romans as Neptune. One of the things that I’m going to be mentioning as we meet the individual Olympian gods, aside from their Roman names—Molly, do you have a problem with my drawing? Oh, that was the problem. Okay, aside from their Roman names is also their quote/unquote attributes. Here’s what I mean by attributes: recognizable features of a particular god or goddess. When you’re looking at, let’s say, ancient Greek pottery, all gods and goddesses look pretty much alike. All the gods have beards and dark hair. All the goddesses have long, flowing hair and are wearing dresses. The easiest way to tell them apart is by their attributes. You know that if you’ve got a god with a big, long, bushy beard who is holding a trident, that is Poseidon. Poseidon’s major attribute is the award winning trident. Okay? And so on. Athena, for example, has an owl and carries a shield and a spear. Dionysus, well, we’ll talk about Dionysus later. Attribute. Trident. Yeah. The only gum your mom lets—do we do commercials on here? It’s the only gum my mom lets me chew. Okay? We were talking about the various love affairs of Poseidon in our last adventure. We were talking about how his wife caught him in bed with Medusa and made Medusa very, very ugly. I think I mentioned the love affair of Polyphemus and Galatea and that sort of thing. It illustrates one of the downfalls of having an anthropomorphic conception of deities. That is to say, these deities become so humanlike they become almost unbelievable. Taking Poseidon, again, as another example. I hope I’m giving you plenty of fodder for your essay question here. Poseidon has lots and lots of weird children. One of his children is a whirlpool. Another one of his children is a horse. Another one of his children is a flying horse who popped out of the stump of its mother’s head. This is pretty strange. It is, however, I think, not quite as strange when you consider, one: Poseidon almost has to be a very promiscuous god. He has to be a promiscuous god because of all the weird sea monsters that people imagine out there, all the river gods and goddesses, all of the stream gods
and goddesses. Look, if you’re going to believe that a particular sea monster has a parent. It’s going to be the god of the sea, right? If you’re going to believe that your city was founded by a great hero, you don’t want to think that your city was founded by Mr. and Mrs. Hero. You know, by Michael and Jennifer Hero or something like that. You want to think that the father of your cities hero is? One more time. Zeus. Where did I go wrong? Zeus, darn it. And, since Zeus has to be the father of all these… like the nine muses, their father is Zeus. The three fates, their father is Zeus. The three Fates are Clotho, Lachesis , and Atropos. Clotho, supposedly, is the one who weaves the thread of a baby’s life when he or she is born. Lachesis is the one who measures the thread and determines how long the baby’s life is to be. Atropos, the unturnable one, is the one who cuts the thread and determines, effectively, the child’s life. These are three influential goddesses who have, literally, life or death power over every human being that is born—in the ancient Greek mind. Their dad is not going to be Cronus. Let’s put it that way. Cronus has been deposed. Their dad is not going to be Uranus. Uranus is that big, blob of blue stuff over our heads. Their dad is not going to be Poseidon, Dionysus, or Apollo. Their father is going to be Zeus. That makes sense. Any goddess who, literally, determine a human being’s life span are going to be the daughters of Zeus. So Zeus does have to be a sort of lusty, zesty god. He has to kind of like get around and stuff like that, doesn’t he? On the other hand, the anthropomorphic view of deity demands that Zeus is married to Hera. Because the ancient Greeks were monogamous, Zeus and Hera must be monogamous. Does that make sense, Regina? Okay, good. Does it not make sense to anybody? The ancient Greeks are going to inflict upon their gods and goddesses—their completely anthropomorphic gods and goddesses—the behaviors of ancient Greek people have. Does that make sense? Okay. Very good. The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes was kind of a scoffer. He once let loose the crack that if horses could paint gods, gods would look like horses. It follows that if cows could paint goddesses, goddesses would look like cows. We have two people that are awake this morning. What Xenophanes is saying is tantamount to, “humans are creating gods and goddesses in their very own image.” That’s fine to the extent that now that we know the universe is ruled by a god with thoughts and hates and passions just like mine, I can persuade him or bribe him or understand him. The bad point is he’ll also come up with the worst pickup line in all of western literature, if you let him. I pause for your questions up to this point. I think I’m pretty well done with the unit on sea gods and sea goddesses. Farrah Lynn… okay, well, again, think of this as the heel of Italy. This is Sicily. Okay Scylla and Charybdis, one Charybdis is a whirlpool who sucks the water down three times a day. She’s Poseidon’s kid. Uh, probably
well established. And Mitch, it was so bad that it bothered you, it bothered me, and the ancient Greeks. This was so bad even the ancient Greeks couldn’t let it go past. So they said, “Oh, it’s called the ‘Hippocrenie,’” or in ancient Greece, the Horse Spring, a spring named after a horse.” Pretty lame, huh, Mitch? Be honest with me. That is pretty lame. So that’s the best the ancient Greeks could do. Please don’t get on my case if I can’t do any better. Well, it’s all immaterial anyway, because Athena came, looked at the horse or the spring, or the horse spring, and went zap and created an olive tree, the very first supposed olive tree. The olive tree is very pretty and it produces olives, which you eat and also squeeze into an oil—olive oil—that, in ancient times, was used as just about everything: a drink, cooking oil, massage oil, deodorant, you name it—the ancient lubricant for axles and stuff like that. You name it. The olive became the one and only cash crop of this city, which is now known as Athens. You can guess who won the competition. Supposedly, Poseidon got really angry and sent a huge flood. He is, after all, Poseidon. Sea gods have proverbially bad tempers. But, eventually, Poseidon and Athena straighten things out and had a good uncle and niece relationship. They’re always in cahoots in the Iliad. They’re hanging around together, always getting along with each other, and supporting the Greek side on the Iliad. In the Odyssey, they are always on opposite sides bickering with each other, even though they love each other and get along fine. They are just kind of mad about something. Okay, I think that is it for the sea gods. If you know, basically, the names of the sea gods, the basic myths of the sea gods, you should be in good shape. I point out that the sea gods afford a very good example of the transition from animistic conception of deity to anthropomorphic conception of deity. You can’t get anymore animistic than the god, Pontus, which is ancient Greek for ocean. You can’t get anymore anthropomorphic than Poseidon, who gets so mad that he lost a competition with his niece. I mean a little girl, and she beat him, that he sends a giant flood to take out a city. That’s bad. Yeah, it was probably more likely to be some sort of tidal wave or something like that, because Athens is very close to the sea. It’s not very likely that it’s going to flood. Okay? Very excellent. Then with that having been said, we’re going to get to a topic which just about every ancient society becomes obsessed with by and by. The answer of what happens to you after you die. After every civilization has come to grips— more or less—with their own existence, once they have explained—more or less —to their satisfaction how it was that the universe was born or how it was created. Once they have come up with a reasonably satisfactory answer about how is the universe run. Is it run by an anthropomorphic god? Is it run by an anthropomorphic god who will just fry you no matter what for whatever reason? That is the Zeus that Hesiod saw. Or is it, perhaps, a supreme god that rules by
trial and error and is so anthropomorphic that he finds himself compelled to react to how humans develop. This is the Zeus that Aeschylus believed in; the Zeus that realized that he had been a little bit rough on Prometheus, that he should relent and let Prometheus down. After people have that straightened out, more or less to their liking, they wonder what’s going to happen to them after they die. Oddly enough, this is probably my favorite unit out of the whole class. I know what the book does. If I recall correctly, the book will give you these big, huge, long stories of people who descended to the underworld and came back. I’d like to mess up the order just a little bit. I would like to start out by giving you an idea of the topography of the underworld, that is to say, the layout and places that you can stop and see, and then proceed from there. We will probably also meet today the top 53 sinners of the Greco-Roman underworld. I will expect you, on your next quiz—I don’t know how much more blatant I can be—to know all 53 of the top sinners of the Greco-Roman underworld. Okay, we have three major sources for our knowledge of the underworld, such as it is. Let me erase Poseidon, with his permission. They come to us from three distinctly different times. Each of these is a so-called katabasis myth. I’ll get to that in just one second. Yes, just when you thought it was safe we haul out the katabasis stories. Katabasis story number one occurs in the Odyssey of Homer, 750 BC. The next one occurs in the Republic of Plato right around 375 BC. Look how neatly I made the numbers work out this time. The third is in the Aeneid of Vergil, which was written about 25 BC. Those are sort of nice round numbers. Each of these is a quote/unquote katabasis story. A katabasis is something, oddly enough, that I have published about, which means I’m faintly obsessed with it, which means it’s never a bad word to throw out on an essay test. I have taught, in the presidential pre-college program, a class on katabasis. I’m going to be offering university honors college seminary on katabasis next semester. I love katabasis stories. The premise is very simple. A person goes down to the underworld—let’s erase Xenophanes, Poseidon, and Neptune. A person go down—or a hero goes down—to the underworld, visits the underworld, and finds out what’s going on in the underworld—that’s the easy part—and then returns and maybe even shares his or her learning with the rest of humanity. We’re going to find out that Odyseus―otherwise known as Ulysses―goes down to the underworld, visits with various people, finds out what happens to you after you die, then returns to his swift black ships and goes on. In Plato’s Republic, this character, whose name is Er —don’t write it down yet—is thought to be dead. He goes and visits the afterlife, and comes back and reports on what he’s seen. In the award winning Aeneid of Vergil―who is the hero of the Aeneid? Aeneas goes down to the underworld, consults with various people, learns a whole lot, and comes back.
want to be. One nickname of Hades is Pluto, which is ancient Greek for the rich one. He’s rich―and here comes the bad joke―he’s rich in souls. He is wealthy in souls of dead people. How Persephone god to be queen of the underworld, I think I told you the short version. You’ll also find out the long version later on this week. The other famous features associated with the underworld are Charon. Charon is the ferryman who carries the souls of dead people across the River Styx. If you do not get to make it across the River Styx, if you do not have the money to pay the ferryman, so to speak, you are doomed to wander forever on the banks of the River Styx. Now, even before you can ask me this, Mark, I know what you’re going to say. How do you punish somebody who’s already dead? So what if I can’t make it over the River Styx because I don’t have the money. How much more miserable can it get than what I’m doing right now? The correct answer is are you threatening me? I don’t have an answer for that question. Very much so. This is the afterlife. Everybody goes there. The landings are crowded. The boat is old and ratty. It’s almost sinking. There’s people pushing and shoving. Oh, Mark. You turn into a pumpkin and spend your life mooing like a cow to the tune of “Feelings.” Another character you meet in the underworld is Cerberus who is the three headed hound of hell. He’s not there to keep people and I know every dog I’ve tried to draw looks like Snoopy. He’s actually a big, mean, nasty three-headed dog. He’s not there to keep people out. He’s there to keep people in. Well, that sure made you really quiet. Okay, in some mythological traditions there are also three judges down in the afterlife. I’m erasing that terrible picture I drew before Matt gets a chance to zoom in on it. Rhadamanthys , you don’t need to know these guys. I just love that name, Rhadamanthys, and Minos. We’ll meet him later—a good bull story—and Aeacus. Each of these three was a king who is famous in Greek mythology. Now I know that I’ve just finished telling Mark that there was no real moral compulsion to lead either a good or a bad life in ancient Greece. But the ancient Greeks did not like to think of their kings enduring the same fate that every other person. Does that make sense, Carrie? I, your glorious king, am basically going to go the same place that you go when we’re all dead. I should get some perks. I should get some privileges, right? So these three are considered to be kind of like judges in the underworld in some versions of the story. You might almost see in this, Mark, an attempt to start using moral leverage on people. You know, Aeacus is going to find you guilty of telling bald jokes and you’ll be sentenced to the jukebox in hell. This is very nebulous, very rare and not very well defined. Also here in the underworld or afterlife are the Furies, three sisters whose names are Allecto, Megaera , and Tisiphone. They were born when the blood from the severed genitalia of Uranus splashed down on the earth. Their job is to
punish people who have murdered their parents. So there’s an example of one crime that will get you hard time down in the afterlife. They use whips and torches. That’s a good one you can tell your kids, Molly. They will be driven around by Furies. Parents that kill kids? We don’t have anything for that. You can tell this was written by parents and not kids. Okay, some features of the afterlife, some features of the underworld include the five rivers of the underworld. There’s only two I really demand you to know. There’s Flegathon , which you don’t have to know. It is the river of fire. There is Caucatus , the river of wailing. There is Acheron , the river of woe. There is Lethe , —which I do require you to remember—the river of forgetfulness. Then there is Styx , the river of hatred and really bad music from the 70s and 80s. That is the river you need to cross. Crystal…yes, okay that’s a good question, Crystal. Let’s say that you are the goddess, Crystal, and you have sworn an oath by the River Styx that you will be there at 5 o’clock for a meeting of the gods and goddesses. You swear by the River Styx and you’re not there. That means that you have to be dead for seven years. This is a very disrespectful thing to have happen to a goddess such as yourself because the rest of us gods and goddesses will be walking by the place where you’re lying there dead and go “deadie, deadie, deadie,” and stuff like that. It’s kind of like that. Okay? The thing is if a god or goddess swears by the River Styx, the river of hatred, it means that he or she is going to do that thing or suffer about the biggest embarrassment a god or goddess can suffer. Good question, well answered. Other questions. Okay, very good. It’s time for the top 53 sinners of the Greco-Roman underworld. I’m going to have to erase some space for these people. If you are extremely good, extremely good, you get to go to the Elysian fields. For example, the age of heroes that Hesiod spoke about, these people live in the Elysian fields. Has any of you ever been to Paris? Do any of you speak French? Are you familiar with the Champs-Elysees that is French for the Elysian fields? Okay, a popular name for a popular place. If, on the other hand, you are very, very, very bad like the 53 top sinners of the ancient Greco-Roman world, you must then spend time in Tartarus. Now I know what you’re going to say. It’s one of the five original kids of Chaos. That’s how far back Tartarus goes. It is a place, which defines the outer reaches of the underworld. I know. For our purpose here, it’s kind of like a compound, a segregated place in the underworld, the afterlife, where the top 53 sinners of Greco-Roman antiquity. Sinner number one is a fellow by the name of Ixion. Ixion’s bad career move—does anybody know?—will somebody raise their hand and tell me what Ixion’s bad career move was? He tried to rape Hera, a very bad career move. This story is terrible, of course, as is any story about rape, attempted or real. It’s almost comical because, the first time it happens, Zeus says, “You’re
Number three is Sisyphus. Sisyphus cheated death. Yes, he did. He’s there now. Here’s what happened, you wiseacre you, you little nut. He died one day, but as he was dying, he said to his wife, who’s name might as well be Mrs. Sisyphus, “Don’t perform the death sacrifices for me. Don’t sacrifice any food. Don’t sacrifice any food, don’t sacrifice any wine, don’t sacrifice any anything to my departed soul.” Okay, so Sisyphus dies. He pays the ferryman. He goes by Cerberus. Hades says, “Hey, wait a minute joker. No sacrifices. Gimme. Give me sacrifices. Give me wine. give me food. You’re dead. Sacrifice.” Sisyphus says, “That idiotic wife. That bimbo didn’t make any of the normal death sacrifices? Why, I’ve got a... Hades, would you mind if I went up there and kicked her butt for not providing the sacrifices?” To which Hades replies, “okay.” Sisyphus scurries up and lives out the rest of his lifetime. Zeus is not pleased by this. Zeus doesn’t like the idea of people being able to trick death. What if everybody starts tricking death? Then people will reproduce, but not die. There will be just too many people all over the place, wall to wall people. It’ll all be like the elevator, I guess. So he punishes Sisyphus, once he does die, by sentencing him to roll a rock up a hill. As soon as he gets the rock up to the top of the hill, it rolls down. That’s what he gets to do for all infinity. The number four sinner, top sinner of the ancient Greek world, is a fellow who revels in the name of Tidyus. Very simply, he attempted to rape Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo. We’ll get to her later. He’s staked out on the ground and vultures tear out his liver everyday. I’d give that one about a C-, myself. That has been used already in the Prometheus legends. How many more do we got left? The 49 Danaides. The ancient hero, Danaus and his wife, Mrs. Danaus, had 50 daughters that they married off to 50 ancient Egyptian brothers. These 50 ancient Greek women are married to ancient Egyptian husbands and they’re living in ancient Egypt. One day, they find out that the ancient Egyptians are going to invade the ancient Greeks. So, to stop this horrible fate, 49 of the Danaides, the Greek women, kill their ancient Egyptian husbands. Of course, one of them doesn’t. She just tells dad. “Hey, dad our husbands are going to invade you.” The 49 Danaides who killed their husbands… there’s another crime that’s punishable by something really horrible, killing your husband. Killing your wife is not so. They are sentenced to fill up their dad, Danaus, is sitting in a bathtub, and they have to fill his bathtub up with water with urns that have holes in the bottom. You know, or a wastebasket with sieves. Make it sieves. They have to take sieves and fill his bathtub up. Good luck girls. I pause for another question. Yes, in a logical frame of mind, the 20th century frame of mind, these women are, indeed, patriotic daughters of ancient Greece. But in the patriarchal mythological scheme of 1500 BC, let’s say, just to make up a nice round number, they are uppity women who kill their lord and master. That is a good question and
that’s not an enjoyable answer I had to give, but I believe that is the correct answer. Okay? Today they would be patriots. Back then, they were husband killers. Okay, we didn’t have time for the worst come on line in all of western civilization, but it’s still here in my lecture notes, just in case we ever get the time to do it. Thank you for being such a good class. In our next exciting class, we’ll actually visit the underworld. I’ll try very hard to have your stuff graded for you. See you later.
