Greek Mythologies

Lecture 3

Going back to last lecture, the 12 Gods although were powerful and had attributes to them, their behaviour didn’t match that. Their behaviour sometimes would be extremely childish, angrily, etc. There are 2 elements to each God/Goddess. The main focus of Greek mythology is the childish behaviours of the Gods rather than their attributes.

Artemis

Twin sister of Apollo. Associated with Bow and Arrow. Associated with certain animals. Deer, Bear, wild boar. She is imagined as a virgin goddess who is goddess of wilderness places, mountains, the abundance of forest, the sanctity of wilderness place. She is virgin because nature and forest have such a virgin nature. She is visually imagined around animals. Particularly 2 lions (see page 76 for picture). She also referred to as Potnia Theron: Mistress of wild animals. Picture on a vase where Artemis is holding a cat (apparently playing with it). Another picture on a vase shows her playing with 1 panther (lion) and 1 deer. Artemis is a striking image. She oversees “the hunt” to protect the animals. As a virgin goddess, she watches over young girls growing up “maidens”.  She also oversees child birth, as does Hera. Kind of ironic that a virgin Goddess oversees child birth. We happen to know this fact about artemis in Athens. She used to teach young citizens girls who were enrolled in Athens to learn cooking, sewing, etc. The beginnings of a daughter’s help in the house. The girls enrolled in this program was called “little bears of Artemis”. There is a story of her behaviour, however, when she destroyed Archias into a stag.  when he saw her naked by accident. The hounds killed him when they saw him as a stag. Artemis was also associated with the moon, menstrual cycle, etc. Her BROTHER is Apollo. In late antiquity, Apollo becomes associated with the sun, however that is originally not correct. You can say he EVENTUALLY became god of the sun.

Hermes (pg 78)

Messenger of the Gods. He brought instructions from Zeus and work from Zeus. He also leads dead souls into the underworld. Once someone dies, they get in line to be brought down into the underworld by hermes. He is the god of land travels, connections, transitions, commerce, theft, public speaking, and wrestling. What these have in common is making connections / making transitions. Roman name for Hermes was Mercury (Mercurius). Commerce has merc in it (mercury). Also the world mercurial which means changeable. Of a nature that’s often changed. Also when mercury was discovered, it was named mercury because it was slipping all over the floor, and had changing elements. He gave safety and sanctity to diplomats. You would travel under the protection of hermes if you wanted to parlay with another state. The origin of the God’s name seems to be Herma in Greece. A herma was a pile of stones, kind of like an inuk-shuk. This pile of stones might be a signal or a symbol to help travellers. It makes sense, because he was the “guider” of travel, and communication.

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