GREEK AN INTRODUCTION

MYTHOLOGY

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS

Baltimore and London
FRITZ GRAF
TRANSLATED BY THOMAS MARIER
This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the
David M. Robinson Fund CONTENTS
Originally published as Griechische Mythologie.
Copyright© 1987 by Artemis Verlag, München und Zürich

© 1993 The Johns Hopkins University Press

All rights reserved
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Translator's Note ix
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Preface to the English-Language Edition xi
Graf, Fritz. Introduction: A Provisional Definition 1
[Griechische Mythologie. English]
Greek mythology : an introduction / Fritz Graf; translated by I. THE RISE OF THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF MYTH 9
Thomas Marier. The Beginnings of Modern Mythology 9
p. cm. The Eighteenth-Century Forerunners of Heyne and
Translation of: Griechische Mythologie. 1987.
Includes bibliographical references and index. Herder 13
ISBN 0-8018-4657-9 (he: alk. paper) The Romantics 19
ISBN 0-8018-5395-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) The Science of Myth in the Nineteenth Century 22
1. Mythology, Greek. I. Title. The New Romantics 31
BL782.G6713 1933 Mythology from Fontenelle to Frazer 32
292.1'3-dc20 93-10774

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
II. NEW APPROACHES TO THE INTERPRETATION OF
MYTH IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 35
Myth and Psychoanalysis 36
Myth and Society: From Myth-and-Ritual Theory to
Functionalism 39
The Structures of Myth and of Mythical Narrative 43
The Myth-and-Ritual Theory Revised 50
The Semiotic Approach 53
( 78) GREEK MYTHOLOGY

cal memory not long before 800 B.C. Nonetheless, the epic poet
declares that he can span these centuries by "remembering" CHAPTER IV
with the aid of the Muses. Such declarations are found in the
epic poetry of many peoples. It is also possible that the poet is
claiming to reproduce the beginning of the tradition, the heroic THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD
age, with historical accuracy. Such a claim presupposes a desire
for such historical knowledge. The moment at which that desire
was first felt by the Greeks came in the eighth century-the
AND THE GODS
fi!st century of flourishing since the collapse of Mycenaean civi-
lization and the intervening period of relative poverty and isola-
non." The earliest temples known to archaeologists were built
at this time; contacts within Greece multiplied and were increas-
ingly regarded as normal; Greeks began to colonize territories
to the east and west, far from the Greek mainland; Ionian traders Hesiod's Theogony
advanced into the Black Sea. As they came into contact with Nearly contemporary with the Homeric poems, and no less im-
other cultures and achieved greater inland mobility, they grew portant for the study of Greek myth, was another epic poem,
aware of themselves as an independent group, as Hellenes. The ~he Theogon~ ("The Origin [and Descent] of the Gods"), by Hes-
foundation of the Panhellenic Olympic Games, traditionally as- 10d of A~cra m Boeotia. Unlike Homer, Hesiod was unquestion-
signed to the year 776 B.C., is a sign of this growing awareness. ably a historical figure. A later work, the Works and Days, gives
In the second half of the century the heroes of epic poetry began biographical details, and the Theogony opens with a prologue in
to be worshiped in the fallen Mycenaean cities and at Mycen- which the poet tells of his personal encounter with the Muses.
aean tombs. Survivals from the past began to raise questions, They explamed to him, he says, that they could tell many lies,
the answers to which took the form of the tales of epic poetry but also the truth, and they gave him the ability to sing about
(not necessarily that of Homer, that is, of the Iliad and Odyssey the past and the future. Hesiod claims to have heard the truth
as they are known to us). In the epic tradition was found a his- m person.
tory that was common to all Greeks. It is not surprising that epic The Theogony is therefore just as reflective and carefully
poetry about the Trojan War met with such a strong response. planned as the Iliad or the Odyssey. To be sure, creation myths-
The myth of Troy found expression in a supreme artistic accounts of. the origin ~f the world and the gods-are firmly
achievement, the Iliad, but it was also appealing for other rea- established m the mythical traditions of many cultures. In this
sons. It told of a Panhellenic expedition against non-Hellenic res~ect Hesiod's poem was no different: it was not produced ex
peoples, and it offered an explanation for the passing of the he- ~ihilo but was based on a tradition. As a bard, too, Hesiod stood
roic age: in accordance with Zeus's plan, the heroes killed one m a poetic tradition. To a large extent, his language and formulas
another off at Troy, as a fragment from the opening of the Cypria are consistent with those of the Homeric tradition, and there are
shows (F 1 EGF.). pomts of contact between his myths and those of Homer. To
( 80) GREEK MYTHOLOGY
THE. WORLD AND THE GODS ( 81)

what extent he was dependent on a Boeotian tradition of epic cording to which sky and earth were separated at the begin-
poetry is a point of contention.1 Hesiod's peculiar talent was not ning of creation.2 From the blood that dripped upon Gaea
so much for innovation as for the selection, disposition, and from Uranus's wound were formed the Giants, the Erinyes
combination of traditional material. On the other hand, the The- (goddesses of retribution), and the Dryads (tree nymphs).
agony soon became a part of the rhapsodes' repertory, and inser- From the foamy semen that gushed from his severed organ,
tions and accretions have been ascribed to the rhapsodes, but it which Cronus had flung into the sea, grew the goddess
is uncertain how extensive they were (in the past, their number Aphrodite (aphros means "foam"; cf. 195-98).
may often have been overestimated). In the oral rhapsodic tradi- The rather lengthy account of the first generation of the
tion, a plot was unlikely to be transmitted without alteration. gods is followed by more genealogies: the progeny of Night
This may have been especially true of the Theogony, whose plot (mostly dark powers such as Sleep, Death, and Strife), the
is not so densely and purposefully woven as that of the Iliad or water or sea deities descended from Gaea and Pontus, the
children of the Titans, and finally the offspring of Cronus
the Odyssey.
and Rhea, his sister. As a father, Cronus was no better than
Hesiod's account of the ongm of the gods begins with Uranus. He had learned of an oracle foretelling that one
Chaos (Chasm). Then "broad-chested Gaea" (Earth) came of his sons would overthrow him, and to prevent this he
into existence, and Eros, the principle of sexual reproduc- swallowed them as they were born. But the future predicted
tion. From then on, every new creature (with some excep- by oracles is fixed. Rhea tricked Cronus by giving him a
tions) would have a father and a mother. For the time being, stone wrapped in rags to swallow in place of their youngest
however, there was a shortage of sexual partners. From son, Zeus, whom she hid on the island of Crete. Zeus grew
Chaos were formed Erebus (Nether Darkness) and black up quickly and overthrew his ·father "by wiles and force"
Nyx (Night). The children of Nyx were bright Aether (Up- (496), causing him to disgorge the stone along with his
per Air) and Hemera (Day). Gaea gave birth to Uranus brothers and sisters (in Hesiod's day this stone marked the
(Sky), the Mountains, and finally Pontus (Sea). Gaea and navel of the world at Delphi). He then freed the Cyclopes,
Uranus united to become the first couple. Their children whom Cronus had imprisoned beneath the earth, and he
were the Titans, the one-eyed Cyclopes, and the enormous received from them the thunderbolt as an expression of
Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handers): Gaea and Uranus, their gratitude.
half-formed forces of nature, had a tendency to produce Still more genealogies follow. Hesiod tells how each of
hulking offspring. Terrified at the hideousness of his chil- the rebellious sons of the Titan Iapetus was punished by
Zeus, ending with Prometheus. Zeus chained him to a col-
dren, Uranus prevented their emergence from Gaea by cop-
ulating with her continuously. In answer to his mother's umn; an eagle fed on his liver by day, but the liver regener-
pleas, and with her aid, Cronus, a child of Uranus and Gaea, ated itself by night; much later, he was released from his
severed his father's genitals with a "toothed sickle" (175). torment by Zeus's son Heracles. To explain this bizarre pun-
Uranus parted from Gaea, the children were freed, and Cro- ishment, the poet tells at length how Prometheus attempted
nus made himself ruler over the second generation of the to deceive Zeus. The date that Hesiod assigns to this at-
gods. Such is Hesiod's version of a widespread myth ac- tempt is an odd one: "when gods and mortals reached a
 THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 83)
( 82) GREEK MYTHOLOGY

settlement at Mecone" (535-36). On that occasion, Pro- younger gods. Typhoeus would have become ruler of mor-
metheus divided up a slaughtered ox, placing to one side the tals and immortals, Hesiod says, had not Zeus thundered
meat and entrails, which he wrapped in skin and paunch, to and scorched him with lightning. Defeated, the monster
the other the bones, which he concealed in savory fat. Zeus was cast into Tartarus. From him originated the harmful
protested that the division was uneven, and Prometheus in- winds; the beneficial ones, Notus, Boreas, and Zephyrus,
vited him to choose between the two portions, whereupon had been produced by Eos (Dawn) long before then. Zeus,
Zeus at once claimed the outwardly more appetizing one. his regime finally secured, assigned to the gods their vari-
From that time on, mortals have been immolating the ous privileges or functions (timai).
bones and the fat as offerings to the gods, and eating the There follows a long catalogue of Zeus's marriages. His
meat and entrails themselves. Zeus, Hesiod emphasizes, de- first wife was Metis. On the advice of Gaea and Uranus,
liberately made the wrong choice, for he was brooding evil Zeus swallowed her to forestall the birth of a son who
designs against mortals (the revision shows that Hesiod was would depose him. Afterward he became pregnant with
working with an older source). In retaliation Zeus concealed Athena, who was born from his head. His subsequent
fire from mortals, but Prometheus stole it and gave it back unions are listed-first those with other goddesses, then
to them. Zeus countered by sending them woman, a "beau- those with mortal women. The marriages of the other male
tiful evil" (kalon kaken, 585): Pandora, as she is called else- Olympians are also mentioned. An epilogue-like distich
where. Since that time, whoever marries embarks on a po- (963-64) is followed by a second invocation (965-68) intro-
tentially ruinous adventure, whereas whoever does not will ducing a catalogue of goddesses who bore children to mor-
have no children to nourish and care for him in his old age, tal men: this ending (from 963 to the end of the poem) is
and his possessions will be divided among strangers after obviously an appendage that served to link the Theogony
with the Catalogue of Women (see Chapter 6).
his death.
Zeus's struggle with Cronus and the Titans dragged on
for ten years, and there was a deadlock until Zeus, again The foregoing synopsis shows that the Theogony gives promi-
on the advice of Gaea, freed the three Hecatoncheires and nence to Zeus and his regime: the poem is an interpretation of
enlisted them as his allies. In the. subsequent clash, heaven the present universal order, over which Zeus presides. There
and earth rumbled, Olympus and Tartarus quaked. Zeus have been three generations of divine rulers since the creation
deployed the thunderbolt (perhaps for the first time), and of the world. The first is that of Uranus and Gaea, the second
the Hecatoncheires drove the Titans into Tartarus and fet- that of Cronus and Rhea, the third that of Zeus. The gods of the
first generation, under Gaea and Uranus, constitute the physical
tered them there.
A description of Tartarus and its inhabitants (a passage framework (Earth, Sky, Sea, and Mountains). Also to this era
that some scholars consider spurious) is followed by an ac- belong the enigmatic and inimical monsters of the distant past,
count of Zeus's last battle. After the expulsion of the Titans, who were subdued by the children of Cronus and the heroes
Gaea bore the monster Typhoeus, who rose against Zeus. It Perseus, Bellerophon, and Heracles. Carefully distinguished
is unclear what Gaea's motives were in producing this rebel, from the children of Uranus are the descendants of Night, the
for up to this time she had been the loyal counselor of the daughter of Chaos. They are Bright Air and Day, but also the
( 84) GREEK MYTHOLOGY THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 85)

destructive and eerie powers that lurk in the depths of all being. to receive cult, was not worshiped as the beneficent "Earth
With the appearance of the gods of the second generation under Mother" (as she was once seen by romanticizing historians of
Cronus and Rhea, the cosmos becomes mobile. Sun, Moon, and religion) but as an ambivalent deity, a somewhat eerie power on
Stars, Rivers and Winds are formed, as are the intellectual prin- the margin of the polis religion, to whom curiously taboo-laden
ciples, which form the foundation of the present era: Themis sacrifices were made.4
(Divine Justice), Mnemosyne (Memory-she who. preserves What is missing in this account of the origin of the world and
tradition, without which human society ceases to exist), Metis of the gods-the bipartition is alien to the thought of Hesiod,
(Resourcefulness), and the ambivalent forces Glory, Victory, for whom the world is the gods-is the origin of mankind. Hu-
Strength, and Violence. Not until Zeus overcomes Cronus and man beings suddenly appear at the division of the sacrificial ani-
his monstrous henchmen, however, does the world become the mal at Mecone, where they are curiously obscure behind their
one that the Greeks of Hesiod's day would have recognized as champion Prometheus. The first human beings-to borrow a
their own. Zeus, the son of Cronus, and the grandson of Uranus, piece of information from the Works and Days-lived during
is the third in a line of rulers, each of whom must use force to the reign of Cronus; they had been created by the gods of that
depose his predecessor. In each case, a son's act of violence is era, the Titans. If the appearance of mankind reaches back to
justified as a requital for an atrocity on his father's part .. By s~al- that distant time, then Zeus had to deal with it from the start.
lowing Metis, Zeus becomes the first ruler to make his regime This may explain why the Titan Prometheus defended them.
secure. In addition, by single-handedly defeating Gaea's son Ty- (Later, from the fourth century on, Prometheus was represented
phoeus, he frees himself from Gaea's control. . . as the creator of mankind, indeed of all living beings, and it was
Zeus's prominence in the Theogony corresponds to his promi- on this later account that Goethe, among others, based his Pro-
nence in the pantheon of a Greek polis. The privileges or func- metheus poem.) What took place between Prometheus and Zeus
tions (timai) that he apportions are expressed, in the world of was of great importance for the men of Hesiod's time. However
mortals, in sacrifices and prayers to individual gods. The cultic men understood their earliest status, the sacrifice at Mecone was
role characterizes even those gods of the distant past who were seen as integrating them into Zeus's world. The events at Mee-
actually worshiped by the polis, above all Cronus and Gaea. So one also explained the tripartite division of their existence into
far as the polis cult was concerned, Cronus was excluded from the religious (sacrifice), the technological (fire and the arts de-
Zeus's world, just as he is in the Theogony. It is true that Cronus rived from it), and the cultural (Pandora and the family). The
received sacrifices-at the Athenian Cronia, for example. But division of the sacrificial victim does not just explain the norma-
these sacrifices were made only when Zeus's order was tempo- tive Greek sacrifice, with its uneven and offensive distribution
rarily suspended-when, during the interval between the en.d of the offerings; it also defines the attitude of mortals toward
of one year and the beginning of the next, there was a carru- the gods. Men approach the gods offering sacrifice, and not with-
valesque interregnum. This accounts for Cronus's ambivalent out fear, for they remember that the sacrifice is the result of an
status in myth, where he is not only Zeus's adversary but also act of deception. The fire that Prometheus brought to men was
the ruler of the golden age. This temporary release from every- a part of the sacrifice (the offerings were, after all, roasted on
3
day obligations aroused feelings of extraordinary happiness. the altar). The possession of fire was also a cause for anxiety, and
Similarly, Gaea, the only deity of the first generation regularly it had been jeopardized since Zeus was no longer as munificent,
 THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 87)
( 86) GREEK MYTHOLOGY

says. The exploits of the gods (erga theön) formed a part of the
nor as careless in his munificence, as he once was. Again, the oral tradition of the epic bard no less than those of men (Odyssey
Works and Days offers an explanation. By concealing fire from 1.338). As one might expect, stories about heroes are more
mortals, Zeus deprived them of their bios (42), their "liveli- abundant in epic poetry than are stories about gods; in particu-
hood," and since then they have had to toil arduously and unre- lar, references to the history of the Olympians are rare. Homer
mittingly. In addition to sacrifice and labor, there was woman, says repeatedly, however, that Zeus's sovereignty was threatened
that is, the necessity, for a man, of marrying and begetting chil- by Cronus, whom Zeus banished along with the Titans into low-
dren, if he was to avoid suffering in his old age and vanishing ermost Tartarus (Iliad 8-478-81; 14.200-204, 273-74; 15.225),
without a trace after his death, without his name remaining and by Typhoeus, whom he struck down with his lightning bolt
bound to family property. The Greeks generally regarded sacri- m the land of the Arimi (Iliad 2-781-83). Zeus is the eldest and
fice, fire, and marriage as characteristic of the human condition. wisest of the sons of Cronus; he shared his dominion with them
(These were the elements of civilization, philosophers would (Iliad 15.187-93); for this reason even Poseidon has to obey him
later say, that were absent in early times, when men lived like (Ilzad 15.165-66; this datum-that Zeus was the eldest child of
wild animals, and that were absent among the "savages" who Cronus and Rhea-is consistent with the Hesiodic account so
could still be found at the fringes of the known world.) What long as, in determining the ages of the children, one reckons
Hesiod is offering here, in an apparent excursus at the center of from their second birth or, more properly, disgorgement from
the Theogony, is a definition of mankind under Zeus, one that is Cronus's stomach). In the Iliad it is stated explicitly that Cronus
essential to the poem. Compared with this definition, physical is their father (Zeus bears the epithet Kronion or Kronides, the
creation is of secondary importance: religious and cultural inte- "son of Cronus") and that Rhea is their mother (Iliad
5
gration is what defines humanity. 15.187-88), whereas the Titans are sons of Uranus, Ouraniönes
(Iliad 5.898). The succession Uranus-Cronus-Zeus is there-
fore as old as Homer. By contrast, the Homeric poems do not
The Eastern Background
mention the ancestry of the pair Oceanus and Tethys, to whose
If Hesiod was an organizer and interpreter of traditional tales, protection Rhea entrusted her daughter Hera during Zeus's
then the question arises: can these traditional tales be recovered, struggle with Cronus. Homer does say, however, that Oceanus
at least in part? One clue comes from the Theogony itself, where and Tethys. are the origin (genesis) of the gods (Iliad 14.201,
Hesiod says that Zeus was not deceived by Prometheus at Mee- 302). This is our earliest piece of evidence for a non-Hesiodic
one (550-53). The passage is manifestly a revision, that is, a re- theogonie tradition. In the Theogony, Oceanus and Tethys are
interpretation of an already existing tale. Although there is no called Titans, parents of the rivers and Oceanids, curiously paral-
way of knowing what his sources were or to what extent he di- lel to Pontus and his descendants. Such aberrations tend to occur
verged from them, similar tales explaining the distribution of in myths about the first generation of gods. This may be ex-
the slaughtered animal are known from ethnology. The myth of plained by their remoteness from the current regime. In general,
the theft of fire and that of the separation of heaven and earth the more remote the myth is from Zeus's universal order, the
were probably also traditional, for these subjects are found in looser are its ties to cult, and it is just these ties that restrict
many cultures-again, the specifics are lacking. What Homer mythical speculation.
tells us about the gods is no less informative than what Hesiod
- ( 88) GREEK MYTHOLOGY THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 89)

While there are no complete theogonie myths in the Homeric swallows his children, Kumarbi swallows something-the next
poems, such myths are found not far from the Greek world, in generation, as it were, in the form of a phallus-and perhaps a
the Near East, in Anatolia, on the Syro-Phoenician coast, and in stone as well. Like Zeus, Teshub, the storm god (Zeus is a storm
Mesopotamia, and they are at least as early as the Greek epic and weather god), must defend himself not only against the pre-
poems that have come down to us. The parallels between these ceding generation but also against monsters created by an earlier
mythical tales and Hesiod's Theogony attracted the attention of deity out of revenge (Typhoeus, it was later said, was created by
scholars long ago. In particular, the Hittite tales about the god Gaea in retaliation for Zeus's suppression of the Titans).
Kumarbi, the "Hittite Cronus," caused quite a sensation. The Yet the differences are inescapable. Unlike Uranus, Anu has a
most important of these is the Kingship in Heaven (ANET predecessor, Alalu; the "father of the gods" is not Teshub but
- ),6 which took written form in the thirteenth century B.C. Kumarbi; Ullikummi is a stone giant, not a rnultipartite creature
120 21
It is a succession myth not unlike that of Hesiod's Theogony. The like Typhoeus; genealogies, which constitute a way of interpre-
first king in heaven was Alalu; he was overthrown by his vizier ting the world in Hesiod's poem, are almost entirely absent.
Anu (Heaven), who in turn was overthrown by Kumarbi. As More important, Hesiod, on the one hand, seems to preserve
Anu fled upward, Kumarbi bit off his phallus. Having thus been a more tightly constructed, typologically older version of the
made pregnant, Kumarbi gave birth to the storm god Teshub, succession myth, for he places the separation of heaven and
among other children. The ending is fragmentary; other tales earth at the beginning. On the other, only Hesiod traces the suc-
report, however, that Teshub deposed Kumarbi and banished cession down to the consolidation of the youngest god's regime.
him, along with his retinue, to the underworld. Kumarbi sought By contrast, there is some doubt as to whether the myth of the
vengeance on Teshub. According to the Song of Ullikummi Song of Ullikummi is a continuation of the succession myth of
(ANET 121-22), the sequel to the Kingship in Heaven? Kumarbi the Kingship in Heaven: no direct link can be established be-
impregnated a huge rock, and in this way begat Ullikummi, a tween the two.
monster made of diorite, who grew up rapidly and threatened A different text, the Hedammu, tells of another attack by Ku-
Teshub's palace and regime. Not until Teshub, using the sickle marbi on Teshub's dominion.8 According to Hedammu, Kumarbi
with which heaven and earth had once been separated, severed begat, in union with the daughter of the sea god, a serpentlike
Ullikummi from Upelluri, who had been carrying him on his sea monster, Hedammu, who began to devour the earth. Man-
shoulder (Upelluri was a giant who supported heaven and earth, kind was threatened with extinction, and the gods with starva-
like the Greek Atlas), was he able to put the monster out of tion, since they were dependent on the labor of mortals
action (presumably-again, the ending is fragmentary). for nourishment. Ishtar, the goddess of love, then managed to
The Hittite tales, like Hesiod's Theogony, trace a line of divine outwit the monster with her charms (the sequence in which
rulers, each of whom deposes his predecessor by force, down to the goddess bathes, puts on perfume, and decks herself out
the reign of the youngest god. One of the kings is "Heaven," bears striking resemblances to the scene in the fourteenth book
Anu. Like Uranus, he is deprived of his phallus and flees upward of the Iliad in which Hera does the same to outwit Zeus
(to be sure, the myth of the separation of heaven and earth be- (Iliad 14.153-223). Hedammu is tempted to the shore and, like
longs in another context, as the mention of the sickle shows-a Ullikummi, destroyed (presumably-again the ending is not
sickle is used to sever Uranus's organs, too). Like Cronus, who extant).
 THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 91)
( 90 ) G R EE K M Y T H O L O G Y

Thus, Hesiod probably knew closely related Hittite myths, of Tiamat's name in a later Greek text, Tauthe, comes close to
though it cannot be said that he was directly dependent on any Tethys.9 What is strange is that the cosmos, as mankind knew it,
of the extant mythical tales, so far as we can make them out was created only at the end of the succession. Where the Babylo-
from the written record. The same is true of his relationship to nian poem is fundamentally different from the Theogony is in
the Babylonian creation poem, known after its opening words as the place it assigns to mankind: the gods created man to release
Enuma Elish (ANET 125-26). In the form in which it has come them from the need to work. Indeed, at the beginning of the
down to us, Enuma Elish cannot have been composed before flood story it is said that originally the gods performed agricul-
B.C. Before heaven and earth existed, Apsu and Tiamat tural work themselves, until they grew tired of it and fashioned
1100
were the only gods. Apsu embodied the male, fresh waters, Tia- man to do it for them; from then on, man nourished the gods
mat the female, salt waters. They had two sets of children: a by working and offering them sacrifice-that is, the fruits of his
group of gods whose succession led to the wise Ea, t~e _great- labor." In the Mesopotamian temple economy, doing farm work
grandson of Apsu, and another group that remained within Tia- and serving the gods were one and the same activity. For Hesiod,
mat, until Apsu, annoyed at their boisterousness, plotted to de- too, man's place was defined by agriculture and sacrifice. In the
stroy them. But the plot was forestalled by Ea, who cast a spell economy of the small farmer, however, agriculture and sacrifice
on Apsu, appropriated his power, then killed him and built a were distinct institutions, and there was yet a third institution
temple and a palace over his corpse. To avenge Apsu. Tiamat that defined the condition of man: that of marriage. Man was
raised an army of monsters against the younger gods, who were not created just to help the gods; he had dignity and, in a sense,
helpless against the threat until Marduk, Ea's son, promised to independence; accordingly, he existed already prior to the acces-
defend them if in return they promised to make him ruler of the sion of Zeus.
universe. The gods agreed to meet this condition. Marduk routed Where more material is available, we are able to see that the
Tiamat's army and, with the aid of the evil winds, defeated Tia- relationship between, Greek and Near Eastern myths could be
mat in single combat. He split her into. halves, from which he quite complex. A case in point is the myth, or mythical pattern,
fashioned heaven and earth, and went on to create the rest of in which the supreme god faces a serpentlike adversary." In the
the cosmos. Eventually he made human beings from the blood Hittite tales, Teshub, the storm god, has to fight not just
of the god K.ingu, Tiamat's firstborn and her vizier. Then he gave the monsters Ullikummi and Hedammu-the stone giant and
the gods their places in the cosmos. They in turn built him the the sea snake-but also the monster Illuyankas, whose name
city of Babylon, replete with its main temple to his godhead. means "snake." In their first encounter, Teshub is vanquished
For the reader of the Theogony, the Babylonian creation poem, and maimed by Illuyankas, but ultimately he is able to kill the
like the Hittite texts, is a blend of the familiar and the strange. monster with the aid of other gods (ANET 60-72). It is possible
What is familiar, if more confused in its particulars, is the suc- that Tiamat, the adversary of Marduk in Enuma Elish, had the
cession from an elemental force, Apsu, to the supreme god in form of a snake; several Akkadian representations show a god
the contemporary pantheon, Marduk. Also familiar is the way slaying a dragon (cf.fig. 4; admittedly, the interpretation of these
in which the children of the primeval couple were kept inside representations is uncertain). The battle between Marduk and
their mother, until a younger god revolted. Apsu and Tiamat, as Tiamat in the Babylonian poem may be compared with the battle
water deities, recall the Homeric Oceanus and Tethys; a variant between Zeus and Typhoeus in the Theogony: both accounts ex-
( 92) GREEK MYTHOLOGY
THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 93)

plain the origin of the evil winds, although they do not corre- recounts a myth that is strikingly reminiscent of the Hittite
spond to one another in all details. Hesiod says that the moist, Kingship in Heaven, and the Neoplatonist Damascius, following
unpleasant winds were formed from Typhoeus after he was Aristotle's pupil Eudemus (Eudemus, fr. 150 Wehrli), tells of a
overcome by Zeus's thunderbolts (Theogony 869; the good winds cosmogony that resembles the Babylonian creation poem. In
had been created by Eos [Dawn] long before then, 378-80). In Damascius's account, Tiamat is called Tauthe, Apsu Apason;
Enuma £fish, by contrast, the supreme god, Marduk, creates the Marduk, however, has become Belos, the Babylonian Bel (and
winds to aid him in his struggle against Tiamat (ANET 66, tablet the Phoenician Ba' al).
IV, line 45; Marduk had received the four good winds from his An even more interesting mixture of the familiar and the
grandfather Anu). strange is found in another local Babylonian tale, the fragmen-
Hesiod's Zeus easily defeated Typhoeus. However, according tary Theogony of Dunnu.12 It, too, is a tale of succession, begin-
to a later account, preserved in the Library of Apollodorus ning with the elemental pair Plow and Earth and unfolding in a
(1.6.3), Zeus was initially defeated and maimed by the monster, long sequence of generations. In later generations the succession
here called Typhon. In northern Syria Zeus was pinned by his is usually effected by a brother and a sister who mate and over-
adversary, who cut the tendons from his arms and legs. Not until throw the ruling parent or parents. In the first three generations,
Hermes stole and replaced the tendons was Zeus victorious. however, a mother and a son mate, and this is followed by a
After a long chase, Zeus threw Mount Etna on top of him. Ori- parricide or a matricide. Thus, Earth seduces her son Amakandu,
ental influence is apparent elsewhere in this account. In Enuma the Cattle God, who then kills his father Plow; Amakandu's son
Ef ish, Marduk is also called Sirsir, which means "he who heaped Ga'um, God of Flocks, marries his mother Sea, who promptly
up a mountain over Tiarnat" (ANET 71, tablet VII, line 70). kills her mother, Earth. Whereas in its details as well as in its
Apollodorus's Typhon was debilitated by the "ephemeral fruits." overall development this tale differs markedly from Hesiod's
In one version of the myth (ANET 125) of Tesh ub and Illuyan- Theogony (and from Enuma £fish), several of its motifs are fa-
kas, the monster is tricked into eating a huge meal, which ren- miliar: marriages between siblings, especially between Titans
ders him vulnerable. In Apollodorus's account, Zeus's initial de- (Cronus and Rhea) and between the children of Cronus (Zeus
feat takes place on Mount Casius in Syria, which is called Sapon and Hera) occur frequently in Hesiod's poem; as for the incestu-
in Ugaritic; scholars have tried to show that the name Typhon is ous relationship between mother and son, Gaea mates with her
derived from Sapon. At all events, the setting of the battle in sons Uranus (Theogony 132) and Pontus (Theogony 238); parri-
northern Syria, Typhon's home according to authors as early as cide is absent in Hesiod's poem, but the mutilation of Uranus
Aeschylus and Pindar, clearly indicates that the myth is of Near may be seen as a mitigated form of it. In the last generation
Eastern origin. It is well to remember, however, that no Greek mentioned in the fragmentary text of the Theogony of Dunnu,
tale can be derived from the Near East in its entirety, and one a son seizes, imprisons, and succeeds his father, as Zeus does
also cannot help but suspect that Apollodorus's version of the Cronus. The datum that the son "took over his father's dominion
myth was a late importation from that region, since its date is ... at the New Year" suggests a ritual background analogous to
relatively late. In fact, oriental succession myths continue to be that of the Greco-Roman Cronus-Saturnus.13 Not only does this
documented for centuries. The historian Philo of Byblus (FGrH local theogony remind us of the many local myths that, al-
790 F 1-7), for example, writing in the early imperial period, though they have not come down to us, may have influenced the
( 94) GREEK MYTHOLOGY THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 95)

Greek tradition; it also shows that often what was transmitted the term written can be applied to a culture such as the Babylo-
from one culture to another was not so much single stories or nian or Assyrian, in which the scribe played an important part
motifs as story patterns, narrative strategies, solutions to similar as the transmitter of a highly specialized knowledge (since the
narrative problems. How, after all, was one to initiate a succes- system of writing was quite complex, and therefore difficult to
sion tale that began with a single primeval couple? How was one learn); in such a culture there was much room for the oral trans-
to explain the role of an otherwise unremarkable god in the New mission of its narrative inheritance.
Year festival? If Near Eastern myths were transmitted orally to the Greeks,
This brings us, finally, to the questions when, where, and how then Greeks must have been in the Near East, most likely in
the Greeks became acquainted with tales from the Near East. As Cilicia. Indeed, we know that Greeks lived and were active com-
we have seen, traces of these tales can be found in the poems of mercially in that region in both the Mycenaean and the archaic
Hesiod and, occasionally, Homer; thus, from an early date they periods." During these two periods-the period before the col-
were firmly established in the corpus of Greek myths." lapse of Mycenaean civilization in the early twelfth century and
Of these three questions, the last-how the tales were trans- the period of renewed con tact with the East after the "dark ages,"
mitted-is the easiest to answer. The many differences of detail from the latter half of the ninth century onward-the Greeks
between the Greek myths and their Near Eastern sources sug- were open to oriental influence. There is one consideration that
gest that the Greeks were introducing orally transmitted mate- makes the later period more likely. It is surprising that among
rial into their own oral tradition. If so, then the extant Near the tales told by Hesiod we do not find any Canaanite myths
Eastern texts are literary crystallizations of a narrative heritage such as are known from texts excavated at Ugarit in northern
15
whose chief vehicle of transmission was the oral performance. Syria, although the presence of Mycenaeans in Ugarit is well
We lack information on the Hittite oral tradition, but we do attested. The texts in question were composed in the fourteenth
know something about the conditions under which tales were century, while Ugarit itself remained powerful and important
transmitted in Mesopotamia. On the one hand, written tradi- until the incursion of the Sea Peoples, who also put an end to
tions are readily discernible in Mesopotamia-much more so Mycenaean power. Had the Greeks taken over the bulk of the
than in Greece. Akkadian tales were handed down from scribe oriental tales and motifs at that time, the Hittite and Meso-
to scribe; they show traces of priestly erudition, as in the list of potamian myths would hardly have been so prominent. Another
the fifty names of Marduk at the conclusion of Enuma Elish. On argument in favor of the second of the two possible periods of
the other hand, Mesopotamian societies had their singers: we influence is that in the ninth and eighth centuries the cities of
even possess a mythical tale that begins with a fictive dialogue northern Syria (in the rough triangle between Hama, Ugarit,
between a bard and his audience, a device by which the former and Iskenderun ), most though not all of which were coastal,
aspires to win over the latter.16 The numerous variants of well- stood under the influence of Assyria, while the area to the north
known myths, in particular the different versions of the myth of these was occupied by the so-called Neo-Hittites. The latter
of the creation of mankind, make it probable that there was a preserved the Hittite traditions, including, one presumes, the
living oral tradition. The phonetically modernized names of the myths, whereas the Assyrians transmitted the Mesopotamian
gods (as against those of Enuma Elish) in the cosmogony of Da- ones. One of the earliest extant objects imported into ninth-
mascius also point in this direction. Only in a limited sense can century Athens from the East, a bronze cup of Neo-Hittite prov-
( 96) GREEK MYTHOLOGY
THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 97)

enance, is emblematic of the impact of the Near East on Greece.18 placed before Uranus; after Cronus and Zeus was placed Zeus's
We cannot exclude the possibility, however, that some tales were son Dionysus. Thus, there were six generations in all. With Dio-
already being transmitted to Greece during the Mycenaean nysus was ass_ociated an account of the origin of mankind, ac-
period. cordmg to which Hera, out of jealousy, incited the Titans to kill
boil, roast, and devour the child Dionysus, the son of Zeus and
Persephone. Zeus, however, struck them dead with a bolt of
Theogony and Cosmogony after Hesiod
lightning, and from the soot of the scorched Titans man was
Hesiod's account of the origin of the world and the gods, includ- formed. The _m yth, whose first traces are found in Pindar (fr.
133
ing his interpretation of the human condition, never became ca- Snell), explams the nature of humanity: being descended from
nonical. What he said about the Olympians, about Cronus and the insurgent and ungainly Titans, human beings harbor an im-
Gaea, had some support in cult, epic poetry, and perhaps also the pulse to rebel against the gods. Thus, the mythical tale was, to a
local myths of individual cult centers. This the Greeks of the greater degree than Hesiod's Theogony, a vehicle for speculative
following centuries accepted, for the most part, without objec- thought, which was expressed in a traditional form. Such a tale
tion. However, whatever was not rooted in religion, poetry, or was not of general relevance, but was meaningful only for the
myth was open to further speculation. Subsequent cosmogonical closed circle of Orphics (Orphikoi), if indeed such a circle ever
and cosmological speculation followed two separate paths. One existed.
was that of mythological poetry, the other that of philosophical All this contrasts sharply with philosophical speculation. So
reflection-in short, Orphism and Presocratic philosophy, about far as we can tell, the earliest Greek philosopher was Thales of
which only a few remarks can be made here. Miletus, who predicted a solar eclipse, which took place in s
5 5
None of the post-Hesiodic poems about the origin of the B.c. Of his cosmology only one statement has been preserved:
world and of the gods has been preserved in its entirety. Allu- that the earth floats on water (DK 11 A 12). This statement has
sions to them show how much has been lost, and that the term been compared with those myths from the Near East in which
Orphic cannot be applied to them without qualification. The water was said to have been the origin of all things and in which
fragments of the works of the choral lyric poet Aleman, who the earth was occasionally likened to a raft built by the creator
flourished around 600 B.c., include a cosmogony (fr. 5 PMG). on the surface of this primeval ocean. It is entirely possible that
Most of these poems, however, were attributed to legendary or Thales, who, as a citizen of one of the leading commercial cities
semilegendary authors, above all the two bards Musaeus and of the day, had many associations with the Near East, took this
Orpheus.19 References to poems under their names are attested and_ other ideas from Mesopotamia; he may have based his pre-
from the late sixth century onward. Of the two it was Orpheus diction of the solar eclipse on data acquired there. The crucial
who, in the course of the following centuries, came to be re- fact about Thales, of course, is that he abandoned the mythical
garded as authoritative on matters of cosmogony and theogony. mode of expression. Water, according to him, was not a divine
Common to all the poems attributed to Orpheus is the lengthen- force belonging to the earliest age but a physical element and a
ing of the line of ruling deities by the addition of one generation cosmic reality. What was being developed here was a model of
or more to both its beginning and its end. Two rulers, Phanes the world explained on rational rather than mythical grounds."
Protogonos ("Phanes the Firstborn") and Nyx ("Night") were The shift from the Hesiodic explanation of the world to that of
-, ( 98) GREEK MYTHOLOGY
THE WORLD AND THE GODS ( 99)

the Presocratic philosophers was a fundamental and momentous century later, the Greeks, relying on their own power of reason-
one. To say, as some nineteenth-century scholars did, that with ing, would begin to question the cultural relevance of myth (see
Thales man made the leap from the torpor of myth to the clarity Chapter 8).
of logic is certainly an overstatement. Reacting against this, The impulses behind this trend can be traced back as far as the
twentieth-century scholars have emphasized that Presocratic eighth century, long before Thales' day. In the course of that
thought had its irrational side, that the theories of the Milesian century, with the rise of inland trade, of travel to the East, and
thinkers bore strong similarities to Near Eastern myths, and of colonization, the Greek world grew increasingly receptive to
that the expressions used by the philosophers in their descrip- new influences both internal and external (see Chapter 3 n. 24).
tions of physical principles often came close to those of reli- Perhaps the strongest single impulse was the emergence of the
gion-to Thales, after all, is attributed the (admittedly obscure) polis. More and more Greeks took an active part in its formation,
statement that "all things are full of gods" (DK 11 A 22). These despite occasional setbacks, and in so doing they experienced the
scholars have also called attention to the many personifications power of rational argumentation and independent thinking. It is
21
of abstract powers that appear in the Theogony. Nonetheless, no accident that our earliest piece of evidence for the boulë, the
the shift from Hesiodic or Orphic to philosophical cosmogony- democratic council, is an inscriptîon contemporary with Thales,
the replacement of gods imagined in human form or personifi- and that it belongs to Chics, a large island to the northeast of
cations with physical elements or abstract principles, and the Miletus that was famous for the prowess of its seafaring mer-
abandonment of the idea that cosmic events are brought about chants."
by gods whose actions resemble those of human beings, in favor Those Presocratic philosophers who came after the Milesians
of the assumption that underlying these events are purely phys- and who employed a mythical mode of expression offer further
ical processes-had two consequences whose significance should testimony to this trend. The poem entitled On Nature by Par-
not be underestimated. With the disappearance of the names of menides of Elea (before 520 to after 450 s.c.), which offers a
the gods, accounts of the origin of the cosmos were released rational account of physical reality, opens with a myth in which
from their former bonds and associations with religious wor- the author describes how divine horses conveyed him to the pal-
ship, and thus from the traditions of Greek society. Even when ace of the goddess Aletheia (Truth). This journey into the be-
the theogonie poets innovated, they still arranged their state- yond has parallels in Greek religious texts as well as in shaman-
ments within the framework of traditional, suprapersonal narra- istic tales, as scholars have emphasized.23 Thus, the poem poses
tion; they employed the traditional names of the gods, and they as mythical revelation. The purpose of the prefatory myth is to
ascribed their works to great poets of the past. The Milesian phi- give suprapersonal sanction to the doctrine that follows. For the
losophers (Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes), by contrast, same reason the poem is written in the traditional form of epic
created a new mode of expression. By using appellatives, they poetry. In effect, Parmenides claimed divine inspiration, just as
set their language apart from that of the tradition and made it epic poets had done before him. He judged his invention of on-
wholly their own. Similarly, by writing in prose instead of po- tology to be so fundamental to his thought-as it turned out,
etry, they distinguished themselves from their predecessors; at ontology became a cornerstone of European philosophy-that
the same time, the new medium enabled them to sort what they he could not formulate it as a matter of personal opinion.
were saying into categories that lay within the realm of human Different from Parmenides' poem in this respect was another
experience. These were signs of an incipient trend: less than a scientific poem composed in hexameter verse, that of Emped-
( 100) GREEK MYTHOLOGY

odes of Acragas in Sicily (ca. 483 to 423 B.C.). Unlike Pannen-

ides, Empedocles speaks in the first person throughout, and his CHAPTER V
doctrine vacillates between the exposition of physics and the
narration of myth. Although he does refer to the four ele-
ments-his enduring contribution to the history of philoso- MYTH.SANCTUARY.AND
phy-as "fire, water, earth, and the boundless height of air" (DK
31 B 17, 18), he nevertheless introduces them in the guise of
gods: "Hear, first, the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life- FESTIVAL
giving Hera, Aidoneus. and Nestis, who with her tears supplies
mortal springs with water" (DK 31 B 6). By characterizing the
elements as gods, Empedocles was attempting to distinguish
them (as the eternal elements from which all things are derived)
from the four substances-fire, air, earth, water-as they are Herodotus remarks in a much-cited passage that Homer and
perceptible to the senses. The "mortal springs" are not identical Hesiod "composed a theogony [theogonië, i.e., an account of the
with the element water but are produced by it; moreover, all b_irth and ~escent of the gods] for the Greeks, gave the gods their
four elements are indestructible and eternal-qualities that the titles, assigned them their privileges and skills, and described
religious tradition ascribed to the gods. When Empedocles makes their appear~nces" (2.53). The representation of myth in poetry
a statement about physical reality in mythical terms-when he shaped and influenced the Greek conception of the gods, even
allegorizes-he does so with a purpose. It is no accident that he those who actually received cult, and this conception cannot be
calls the two primal forces Neikos (Strife) and Philotes (Love), separated from religion. For the Greeks, the gods and heroes
which, by mixing and separating the elements, cause the uni- were always operative; therefore, they had temples and altars
verse to come into being and pass into nothingness (DK 31 B 17, and received sacrifices, prayers, and votive offerings. Exactly how
20-26). They are abstract powers: his purpose in representing myth and religion were related to one another, however, is not
them as gods was no different from his purpose in representing immediately apparent, and has often been a matter of contro-
the elements as gods.24 versy. It is certain that the Greeks never regarded myth as the
In the philosophy of Empedocles, mythical figures were mere unalterable manifestation of the divine will, as Christians un-
code words for the things of nature. In Empedocles' day, myth derstand their sacred scripture. Just as certainly, Greek myth did
had already been called into question, and the allegorical inter- not represent, as Mircea Eliade thought, "the triumph of the
pretation of myth was not original with him. The earliest known l~terary work over religious belief."1 That presupposes an opposi-
practitioner of allegoresis was Theagenes of Rhegium, Em- tion between literature and belief that was alien to early cul-
pedocles' senior by some two generations, who understood ~ures. For myth, of which the privileged medium of expression
traditional mythical narration as a veiled form of physics. is language, is governed by the laws of narration; it is itself liter-
(Theagenes, and the trend that he initiated, will be discussed in ature.
Chapter 8.) Looking beyond the handful of tales that have been counted