The Origins Of Ancient Greek Mythology

Greek Mythology is the body of myths and teachings that belong to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. The Greeks were polytheistic in their religious beliefs. Polytheistic means they believed in and worshiped many different gods. Modern scholars refer to and study the myths in an attempt to shed light on the religious and political institutions of Ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself. In Greek Mythology, the gods often represented different forms of nature. Their religion/mythology had no formal structure with the exception of various festivals held in honor of the gods. There was no sacred book or code of conduct to live by. The most powerful Greek gods were known as the Olympians. The Greeks believed the Olympians lived on the highest mountain in Greece, Mount Olympus. The Olympian gods included: Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Hades, Hermes, Hephaestus, Poseidon and Hestia or later she was replaced in some lists by Dionysus. Greek Mythology is explicitly embodied in a large collection of narratives, and implicitly in Greek representational arts, such as vase-paintings and votive gifts. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines and mythological creatures. These accounts initially were disseminated in an oral-poetic tradition; today the Greek myths are known primarily from Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homer's epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War and its aftermath. Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary chapter of history.

*Includes pictures of important places and historic art depicting Zeus and other Greek gods. *Explains the historical origins of the god and the mythological tales about him. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "I will sing of Zeus, chiefest among the gods and greatest, all-seeing, the lord of all, the fulfiller who whispers words of wisdom to Themis as she sits leaning towards him. Be gracious, all-seeing Son of Cronos, most excellent and great!" - "The Hymn To Zeus," attributed to Homer Zeus is a god of apparent paradox: sublimely regal yet ridiculously fickle, a giver of laws but a slave to his own passions, a being of incredible power who is desperate to possess that which he cannot have. As the leader of the Greek pantheon on Mount Olympus, Zeus was the god of kingship (and the associated elements of law, oaths, the state and the protection of property) and the god of storms, controlling lightning, wind and thunder. In many ways, one of Ancient Greece's most complex gods is also the most understandable, since he seems so human, and because there is plenty of information about him that survived, including the original legends about his birth, his early deeds and his many relationships with other gods, lovers, and humans. Furthermore, scholars have been able to analyze the historical roots of "Zeus" as a concept, identifying what gods he is related to among other cultures, where the legends of Zeus originated, and what this information says about the Ancient Greeks. One of the reasons Zeus remains one of the most recognizable gods in history is because of the spread of his influence. Due to the conquests of Alexander the Great, Zeus was brought along with other elements of Hellenization to Egypt and the Near East, and a few centuries later, Rome all but adopted him as their own chief god, Jupiter. From there, he was exported around the Roman Empire and fused with numerous other local gods in the process. Ultimately, Zeus was a prominent god from the period of pre-recorded history until the Christianization of Greece, which was complete by the early 7th century A.D. It is difficult for modern observers to understand how a hot-headed, sex-obsessed god could command the love and admiration of so many Greeks, not to mention their cultural heirs throughout the Roman Empire. What did the worship of this god provide for his worshipers? How did belief in his existence fulfill their spiritual needs? How was he different from other members of his pantheon? This book explores the figure of Zeus, including his origins, the stories told about him, the way he was worshiped and how he is remembered today. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about the Greek god like you never have before, in no time at all.

*Includes pictures*Includes ancient Greek accounts of the mythology*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading*Includes a table of contents"Even Cronus, the Titan who literally had his kids for breakfast, would find these facts hard to swallow." - Tai, Cupid's Academy: Argus' Big Fat Greek Wedding Ring "The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity." This quote by Andr� Gide perfectly encapsulates the story of the Titans. Most commonly known as the antagonists of the pantheon of gods led by Zeus, the Titans embody "unrest" and "transience" for the modern reader, but for reasons less than the obvious. History, after all, is the story of the winners, and the world of the ancient Greeks was a world of a very real, highly querulous pantheon that would behoove ancient writers to glorify in their works. Unlike the other gods, the Titans' appearance in ancient Greek writing is limited, and the full treatment of their "history" appears, predominantly, in just two works: Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days. The story of the Titans appears in both works in different degrees of detail, and for that reason, any work about their story has to incorporate references from each. Rather than becoming ensnared in source criticism, it's necessary to combine the works to create a fuller picture of the mythology Hesiod expounds. For example, it's worth noting that the Theogony, at least, has all of the hallmarks of a "hymn to glory of Zeus the King." The reason for this is that, throughout the work, Zeus is lauded as being the progenitor of "order" in the cosmos, once he had defeated his enemies and ceased to battle monsters. It will soon become apparent that Zeus is not only the "lord of gods and men," but also the revolutionary leader of a new power system. This understanding of the cosmos as a political arena is vital to the interpretation of the myth of the Titans.By looking at these works of Hesiod, it's possible to get a better understanding of how the ancient Greeks viewed their cosmos, their pantheon of gods, and the power struggles their deities went through in order to become dominant celestial beings. The Titans play a much larger part in this process than they are often given credit for, and the importance of their lasting effect upon the cosmos, the mythology, and the ancient Greek psyche cannot be overstated.The Origins of Ancient Greek Mythology: The History of the Titans and the Greeks' Creation Story looks at the Titans and their role in the ancient Greeks' creation story. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the origins of Greek mythology like never before.

Surely the ancient Greeks would have been baffled to see what we consider their "mythology." Here, Claude Calame mounts a powerful critique of modern-day misconceptions on this front and the lax methodology that has allowed them to prevail. He argues that the Greeks viewed their abundance of narratives not as a single mythology but as an "archaeology." They speculated symbolically on key historical events so that a community of believing citizens could access them efficiently, through ritual means. Central to the book is Calame's rigorous and fruitful analysis of various accounts of the foundation of that most "mythical" of the Greek colonies--Cyrene, in eastern Libya. Calame opens with a magisterial historical survey demonstrating today's misapplication of the terms "myth" and "mythology." Next, he examines the Greeks' symbolic discourse to show that these modern concepts arose much later than commonly believed. Having established this interpretive framework, Calame undertakes a comparative analysis of six accounts of Cyrene's foundation: three by Pindar and one each by Herodotus (in two different versions), Callimachus, and Apollonius of Rhodes. We see how the underlying narrative was shaped in each into a poetically sophisticated, distinctive form by the respective medium, a particular poetical genre, and the specific socio-historical circumstances. Calame concludes by arguing in favor of the Greeks' symbolic approach to the past and by examining the relation of mythos to poetry and music.

"Nilsson studied the geographical aspects of the Greek myths. He proved that almost without exception, the places in the myths, especially those in the great cycle of stories, are the very same places as those now known from archaeology to have been important Bronze-Age sites ... Nilsson made it amply clear, in a host of interesting details which he worked out with ingenuity and almost always good sense, that the memory of the great Bronze-Age centres survived, and that the stories told of them ... truly reflected, in Classical times, the Mykenaian Age. To have discovered this great bridge was the triumphant achievement of Nilsson." [Back cover].

This collection offers a fresh look at the nature and development of the Greek gods in the period from Homer until Late Antiquity The Greek gods are still very much present in modern consciousness. Although Apollo and Dionysos, Artemis and Aphrodite, Zeus and Hermes are household names, it is much less clear what these divinities meant and stood for in ancient Greece. In fact, they have been very much neglected in modern scholarship. Bremmer and Erskine bring together a team of international scholars with the aim of remedying this situation and generating new approaches to the nature and development of the Greek gods in the period from Homer until Late Antiquity. The Gods of Ancient Greece looks at individual gods, but also asks to what extent cult, myth and literary genre determine the nature of a divinity and presents a synchronic and diachronic view of the gods as they functioned in Greek culture until the triumph of Christianity.

*Includes pictures *Includes ancient descriptions of Apollo *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Foolish mortals and poor drudges are you, that you seek cares and hard toils and straits! Easily will I tell you a word and set it in your hearts. Though each one of you with knife in hand should slaughter sheep continually, yet would you always have abundant store, even all that the glorious tribes of men bring here for me. But guard you my temple and receive the tribes of men that gather to this place, and especially show mortal men my will, and do you keep righteousness in your heart." "Apollo's history is a confusing one," said the renowned poet and mythologist Robert Graves. This notion is also illustrated in the above quote from the 6th century BCE Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which gives the reader a brief glimpse into the confusion surrounding Apollo's multi-faceted nature. The quote comes from the end of an episode in which Apollo is traversing the known world, looking for a place to build a temple to himself. Once he lands upon a place of his liking, however, he realizes that he needs to populate it with priests who would 'guard' and care for its ceremonies. Rather than depend upon those 'glorious tribes' to supply his temple with sycophants, Apollo has no patience for chance, and flies down to a Cretan merchant ship, landing on it in the form of a timber-shaking dolphin. After terrifying the merchants, he tells them that their lives in the sea trade are over, and they are to be priests at his temple from then on. Cautioning the merchants to eschew piracy and 'keep righteousness' in their hearts, while simultaneously confronting and sequestering them captures the youthful god's capricious character quite well. Of course, the rest of the ancient Greek gods were certainly not above hypocrisy - the adultery of Zeus alone demonstrates that - but Apollo was a brash contrarian in the face of all divine order. Unlike many of the other Olympian gods, Apollo's nature changed dramatically at the closing of his adolescence. His twin sister Artemis, in direct comparison with Apollo, immediately leapt to her mother's aide as midwife to her brother after she was born. Artemis would continue to be a goddess of midwives, while Apollo's "role" would continue to evolve over centuries. Naturally, there are many approaches to Greek myth and many variant opinions and strategies for unearthing "truths" in the mythological canon. For the purpose of unveiling the origins, development, and contemporary views of Apollo, it is necessary to see his myths firstly as remnants of the movements and actions of ancient peoples. This "Memory of Myth" can provide the modern reader with an analogous view of the history of a place and of a character. Much of Greek mythology is politico-religious history , and exploring how the episodes in these myths tie in with episodes in the historical record can reveal certain fascinating aspects of an often frustratingly murky past. Ultimately, any 21st century study of a mythological being must gather together as many strands of learning as possible in order to formulate a useful hypothesis. In the case of Apollo, these strands are expansive, permeative, and international, and at first blush, they can seem very confusing indeed. An important thing to bear in mind when approaching Apollo is that his role in the ancient Greek pantheon was eclectic, even by contemporary standards, and the expansion of Greek culture to other parts of the Mediterranean only served to compound his identity even further. The story of Apollo is an excellent example of how stories and characters can change when they're beloved across centuries, and it is for this reason that reading about the god is so enjoyable.

Chaos was the origin of everything, the beginning of time. From Chaos sprang forth three primordial deities, Gaea, Tartarus & Eros... Ancient Greece & its Mythology is Truly a Marvel of History Greek Myths were more than just stories...,Take a deeper look and you will uncover the lessons, philosophies, wisdom and even warnings that these myths taught. In truth they are still relevant to this day. Discover Everything you need to know about Ancient Greece & Greek Mythology in This Book Throughout your read, we will not simply rehash the ancient Greek myths of the time, but rather uncover the context and background behind them and the Ancient Greek world. We want to make sure that you cannot only enjoy these fascinating myths but understand what they were like when they were told thousands of years ago. All the secrets of one of the most fascinating civilizations the world has ever known lie within these pages. Inside you will discover The Ancient Origins & Story of The Olympics Lessons From The 12 Labors of Hercules How The Gods Played a Significant Role in All Aspects of Ancient Greek Society The Flight of Daedalus & Icarus - Discover One of The Most Famous Greek Myths Tales of The Most Legendary Monsters - Medusa, The Hydra, Typhon, Cerberus & More! Aphrodite - The Greek Goddess of Love, Sex, Beauty, and Fertility. How Achilles' Weak Heels Become Iconic until Now The Trojan War, Epic Battles & Facts Pandora's box, Finally The Ancient Mystery Revelead And much, much more Join us on an adventure to discover Greek Mythology and learn what life was like in Ancient Greece in This Book.