Greek primordial deities. Genealogy and nature[edit] The primordial gods are depicted as places or realms. A common example is Tartarus, who is depicted as the Underworld, Hell, and a bottomless abyss. His sibling, Erebus, is also depicted as a place of pitch-black darkness or a vast emptiness of space. Hesiod[edit] According to Hesiod's Theogony (ca. 700 BC): Other sources[edit] Other genealogy structures[edit] Philosophers of Classical Greece also constructed their own metaphysical cosmogonies, with their own primordial deities: Pherecydes of Syros (ca. 600–550 BC) made Chronos (time) the first deity in his Heptamychia.Empedocles (ca. 490–430 BC) wrote that Aphrodite and Ares[citation needed] were the first principles, who wove the universe out of the four elements with their powers of love and strife.Plato (ca. 360 BC) introduced the concept in Timaeus, the demiurge, modeled the universe on the Ideas.
See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit] Oedipus. In the most well-known version of the myth, Oedipus was born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta. Laius wished to thwart a prophecy, so left him to die on a mountainside. However, the baby was found by shepherds and raised by King Polybus and Queen Merope as their own. Oedipus learned from the oracle at Delphi of the prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother but, unaware of his true parentage, believed he was fated to murder Polybus and marry Merope, so left for Thebes. On his way he met an older man and quarrelled, and Oedipus killed the stranger. Continuing on to Thebes, he found that the king of the city (Laius) had been recently killed, and that the city was at the mercy of the Sphinx. Oedipus answered the monster's riddle correctly, defeating it and winning the throne of the dead king - and the hand in marriage of the king's widow, (and unbeknownst to him), his mother Jocasta.
Basics of the myth[edit] Events after the revelation depend on the source. Greek mythology. 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. Archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles. Sources Literary sources The poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman ages was primarily composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise.
Archaeological sources Survey of mythic history Origins of the world and the gods. Was There a Trojan War? The Size of Troy Troy appears to have been destroyed around 1180 B.C. (this date corresponds to the end of our excavation of levels Troy VIi or VIIa), probably by a war the city lost. There is evidence of a conflagration, some skeletons, and heaps of sling bullets. People who have successfully defended their city would have gathered their sling bullets and put them away for another event, but a victorious conqueror would have done nothing with them. But this does not mean that the conflict was the war--even though ancient tradition usually places it around this time.
After a transitional period of a few decades, a new population from the eastern Balkans or the northwestern Black Sea region evidently settled in the ruins of what was probably a much weakened city. The main argument against associating these ruins with the great city described in the Iliad has been that Troy in the Late Bronze Age was a wholly insignificant town and not a place worth fighting over. The Setting of the Iliad. Argonauts. Story[edit] After the death of King Cretheus, the Aeolian Pelias usurped the Iolcan throne from his half-brother Aeson and became king of Iolcus in Thessaly (near the modern city of Volos).
Because of this unlawful act, an oracle warned him that a descendant of Aeolus would seek revenge. Pelias put to death every prominent descendant of Aeolus he could, but spared Aeson because of the pleas of their mother Tyro. Instead, Pelias kept Aeson prisoner and forced him to renounce his inheritance. Aeson married Alcimede, who bore him a son named Jason. Pelias intended to kill the baby at once, but Alcimede summoned her kinswomen to weep over him as if he were stillborn. When Jason was 20 years old, an oracle ordered him to dress as a Magnesian and head to the Iolcan court. Another oracle warned Pelias to be on his guard against a man with one shoe. Jason was accompanied by some of the principal heroes of ancient Greece. The crew of the Argo[edit] There is no definite list of the Argonauts. J. Theban Cycle. Detail of clay group with mythological scene from the Theban cycle, from the area of temple A at Pyrgi, mid-fifth century BC.
The Theban Cycle (Greek: Θηβαϊκὸς Κύκλος) is a collection of four lost epics of ancient Greek literature which related the mythical history of the Boeotian city of Thebes.[1] They were composed in dactylic hexameter verse and were probably written down between 750 and 500 BC. The 9th-century AD scholar and clergyman Photius, in his Bibliotheca, considered the Theban Cycle part of the Epic Cycle; however, modern scholars normally do not. The stories in the Theban Cycle were traditional ones: the two Homeric epics, the Iliad and Odyssey, display knowledge of many of them. The most famous stories in the Cycle were those of Oedipus and of the "Seven against Thebes", both of which were heavily drawn on by later writers of Greek tragedy.
The epics of the Theban Cycle were as follows: Select editions and translations[edit] Critical editions[edit] Translations[edit] Odyssey. Greek text of the Odyssey's opening passage The Odyssey (Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer.
The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second oldest extant work of Western literature, the Iliad being the oldest. It is believed to have been composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.[1] The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (known as Ulysses in Roman myths) and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War.[2] In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres (Greek: Μνηστῆρες) or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. The Odyssey has a lost sequel, the Telegony, which was not written by Homer.