What is the difference between primitive and classical mythology

Athena herself as victorious war goddess was called Athena Nike and the simple but elegant temple of Athena Nike stands to the right of the entrance to the Acropolis. Athena and Poseidon vied for control of Athens and its surrounding territory, Attica. The contest took place on the Acropolis. Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and produced a salt spring or a horse. Athena brought forth an olive tree from the ground by the touch of her spear and she was proclaimed the victor.

The olive was fundamental to Athenian economy and life. Important in the ceremonies were sacrifices and games; the prizes for winners in the games were special Panathenaic amphoras -- vases inscribed and decorated with a depiction of Athena and containing sacred olive oil. A Panathenaic procession wound its way through the city ending with the presentation of an embroidered robe peplos to Athena on the Acropolis.

Athenians young and old, male and female carrying sacred implements, leading sacrificial animals, with chariots or on horseback, figured in the procession. It is a most beautiful Doric temple even in its ruined state today , and its sculpture created under the aegis of the great Athenian sculptor Pheidias bears tribute to Athena herself and her city and all that they mean forever. Other divine figures are present at the miracle.

At the corners, the horses of Helius the Sun and those of Selene the Moon set the momentous event in cosmic time. On either side figures of Athenian divinities and heroic kings are witnesses.

Athenian men and women are shown as marshals, attendants, horsemen, hoplites and assistants in the worship, along with the animals of ritual sacrifice. At the climax the ceremonial robe is presented to a priestess of Athena while, on either side, enthroned Olympian deities witness the joyous celebration of civic piety.

The surfaces of the standing goddess were made of gold and ivory and she held a figure of Nike Victory in her right hand; she wore a helmet and the aegis with the head of Medusa, and a spear and shield are at her side; elaborate decorative reliefs enhanced the statue, which has not survived. As the result of a quarrel, Athena impulsively wounded Pallas. When Pallas died, Athena was distraught when she fully realized what she had done.

Through the agency of Zeus this Palladium fell into the territory of the Trojans, where, as a talisman, it carried with it the destiny of their city. The word Pallas probably means "maiden" and designates Athena's virginity like the epithet parthenos, "virgin.

She quickly grew to dislike her invention because her beautiful cheeks became distorted when she blew into the instrument and so she threw it away. When Athena or Minerva in Ovid's account learned that Arachne's fame as a worker of wool rivalled her own, she was determined to destroy her. Arachne was foolish enough not to admit that Athena was her teacher and challenged her to a contest. Disguised as an old woman, Athena warned Archane about the danger of her hubris but Arachne persisted.

Athena in anger threw off her disguise and accepted the challenge. She wove at her loom, with surpassing skill, a tapestry depicting noble scenes from mythology. Arrogant Arachne, on the other hand, wove into her tapestry scenes of the gods' less honorable amorous conquests. Athena was furious, particularly since she could find no fault with Arachne's excellent work. She tore up the embroidered tapestry and beat Arachne's face with the shuttle.

Grief-stricken, Arachne strangled herself with a noose, but Athena took pity and transformed her into a spider; as such, she and her descendants practice the art of weaving forever. Aphrodite Urania. We know that Aphrodite arose amidst the foam aphros from the severed genitals of Uranus that were cast upon the sea. Hesiod's account of her birth allegorizes the powerful sexuality of her nature.

Aphrodite Pandemos. In stark contrast to celestial Aphrodite, another Aphrodite was identified, the daughter of Zeus and his mate DIONE [deye-oh'nee], about whom we know little. In general, Aphrodite was the captivating goddess of beauty, love, and marriage and her power was very great.

Her universality led to a gamut of conceptions of this goddess, who presided over everything from hallowed married love to temple prostitution.

Depictions of her in art, literature, and music reflect not only the duality but also the multiplicity of her nature. The Three Graces. The Hours or Seasons. Their number increases from two to four, and they represent the attractive attributes of the various times of the year.

He bears a huge and erect phallus and began as a respectable fertility god bringing good fortune for crops and procreation. He developed into an erotic and sometimes obscene inspiration for later art and literature. Venus, enraged because the women of her own cult-place of Cyprus denied her divinity, caused them to be the first women to prostitute themselves. The sculptor Pygmalion would have nothing to do with these licentious women.

In his loneliness, he fashioned an ivory statue of surpassing beauty, so realistic that he fell in love with his creation and treated it as though it were alive.

On the feast day of Venus, Pygmalion timidly prayed to Venus that his ivory maiden would become his wife. He returned home to find that his lovely statue was alive. He gave thanks to Venus, who was present at the marriage of the happy couple. The classic version of this myth is by Ovid. So Myrrha carried on an incestuous relationship with her father, who was unaware of her identity.

When Cinyras found out, he pursued his daughter, who fled from his rage. In answer to her prayers, Myrrha was turned into a myrrh tree. She had become pregnant by her father and from the tree was born ADONIS [a-don'is], who became a most handsome youth and keen hunter. Aphrodite fell desperately in love with Adonis and warned him of the dangers of the hunt, but to no avail.

While he was hunting a wild boar, it buried its deep tusk into his groin and Adonis died in the arms of a grief-stricken Aphrodite. The goddess ordained that from his blood a flower, the anemone, should arise. Here is allegorized the important recurrent theme of the Great Mother and her lover, who dies as vegetation dies and comes back to life again. This motif of death and resurrection becomes even clearer in the following variation.

But Persephone looked upon the child's beauty and refused to give him back. It was agreed that Adonis would spend one part of the year below with Persephone and one part in the upper world with Aphrodite. Celebrations honoring the dead and risen Adonis share similarities with Easter celebrations for the dead and risen Christ. Cybele originally was a bi-sexual deity who was castrated.

From the severed organ an almond tree arose. Nana, daughter of a river god, put a blossom from the tree to her bosom; it disappeared and she became pregnant. The beautiful Attis was born, and when he grew up, Cybele fell passionately in love with him. But he loved another, and Cybele, because of her jealousy, drove him mad. In his madness Attis castrated himself, and a repentant Cybele obtained Zeus' promise that the body of Attis would never decay.

Religious ceremonies in honor of Attis celebrated resurrection and new life through the castration and death of the subordinate male in the grip of the eternal, dominant female. This is the powerful theme of Catullus' great poem, translated in the Archives section of this web site.

Using all her wiles, Aphrodite seduced Anchises by tricking him into Aphrodite of the Melos believing that she was a mortal. Discovering that he had slept with a Venus de Milo , late second goddess, he was terribly afraid that he would be enfeebled, "for no man century B. He came out of Chaos, and he attended Aphrodite after she was born from the sea-foam.

He or a different Eros? Eros was a young, handsome god of love and desire in general, but by the fifth century B. Plato's dialogue presents a profound analysis of love, the topic of this famous dinner-party. Two of the speeches are particularly illuminating. The Speech of Aristophanes. Since this speech is by the famous writer of Greek Old Comedy, not surprisingly, it is both amusing and wise.

Aristophanes explains that originally there were not just two sexes but a third, an androgynous sex, both male and female. These creatures all three sexes were round in shape with four hands and feet, one head with two faces exactly alike but each looking in opposite directions, a double set of genitals, and so on. They were very strong and they dared to attack the gods.

Zeus, in order to weaken them, decided to cut them in two. So all those who were originally of the androgynous sex became heterosexual beings, men who love women, and women who love men. Those of the female sex who were cut in half became lesbians and pursued women; those bisected from the male became male homosexuals who pursue males.

Thus, like our ancestors, according to our own nature, we pursue our other half in a longing to become whole once again. Eros is the yearning desire of lover and beloved to become one person not only in life but also in death. Aristophanes by his creative humor has given a serious explanation through mythic truth of why some persons are heterosexual while others are homosexual; he also articulates a compelling definition of love, reiterated throughout the ages: Eros inspires that lonely and passionate search for the one person who alone can satisfy our longing for wholeness and completion.

The Speech of Socrates. The great philosopher Socrates elucidates Platonic revelation about Eros. A new myth is told about the birth of Eros to explain his character. He is squalid and poor, not beautiful himself, but a lover of beauty and very resourceful, forever scheming and plotting to obtain what he desires passionately but does not himself already possess - beauty, goodness, and wisdom.

This is the Eros who must inspire each of us to move from our love of physical beauty in the individual to a love of beauty in general, and to realize that beauty of the soul is more precious than that of the body. When two people have fallen in love with the beautiful soul of each other, they should proceed upward to pursue together a love of wisdom. Platonic Eros is a love inspired in the beginning by the sexual attraction of physical beauty, which must be transmuted into a love of the beautiful pursuits of the mind and the soul.

Although Socrates' discourse dwells upon male homosexual attachments as his paradigm, his message transcends sexuality. Platonic lovers of both sexes, driven by Eros, must be capable of making the goal of their love not sexual satisfaction at all nor the procreation of children, but spiritual gratification from the procreation of ideas in their intellectual quest for beauty, goodness, and wisdom.

The Greek Eros develops into the Roman Cupid, still a very familiar deity today. This mischievous little darling with a bow and arrows, who attends Venus, can inspire love of every kind, often very serious or even deadly, but usually not intellectual. Thus Eros is called Cupid, who appears as a handsome, winged youth. PSYCHE [seye'kee] means "soul," and here is an allegory of the union of the human soul with the divine.

Once upon a time, a king and queen had three daughters, of whom Psyche was so beautiful that Venus was jealous. She ordered Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the most vile of creatures, but instead Cupid himself fell in love with Psyche. She was transported to a magnificent palace, where each night Cupid, as an anonymous bridegroom, visited her and departed quickly before sunrise.

Psyche's two sisters, who were very jealous, visited her. Cupid warned of their treacherous purpose to persuade Psyche to look upon his face. He told her that she was pregnant and that she must keep their secret. Nevertheless, Psyche was tricked by her sisters into believing that she was sleeping with a monster and, at their advice, she hid a sharp knife and a burning lamp with the intention of slashing her lover in the neck when he was asleep.

In the night her husband made love to Psyche and then fell asleep. As she raised the lamp, knife in hand, she saw the gentle and beautiful Cupid. Overcome by desire, she kissed him so passionately that the lamp dropped oil on the god's shoulder.

Cupid leaped out of bed, and as he flew away, Psyche caught hold of his leg and soared aloft with him. Her strength gave way and she fell to earth, only to be admonished by Cupid for ignoring his warnings.

In her despair, Psyche attempted unsuccessfully to commit suicide. As she wandered disconsolate she encoutered her two evil sisters and lured each to her death. When Venus learned from Cupid all that had happened, she was enraged and imposed upon Psyche four impossible tasks.

First, Psyche had to sort out a vast heap of a mixed variety of grains. She did this successfully with the help of an army of ants. Next, Psyche had to obtain the wool from dangerous sheep with thick golden fleeces. A murmuring reed told her to shake the trees under which the sheep had passed to gather the wooly gold clinging to the branches.

Then, Psyche was ordered to climb to the top of a high mountain, face the terrors of a frightening dragon, and collect in a jar chill water from a stream that fed the Underworld river of Cocytus. This she accomplished with the help of Zeus' eagle. Finally, Venus imposed the ultimate task, descent into the Underworld itself. Psyche was commanded to obtain from Persephone a box containing a fragment of her own beauty.

As Psyche, in despair, was about to leap to her death from a high tower, the tower spoke to her and told her to take sops to mollify Cerberus, the dread hound guarding the realm of Hades, and money to pay the ferryman Charon; most important of all, she was not to look into the box.

Of course Psyche looked into the box, which contained not the beauty of Persephone but the sleep of the dark night of the Underworld, and she was enveloped by this death-like sleep. At last Cupid flew to the rescue of his beloved. He put sleep back into the box and, after reminding her that curiousity once before had been her undoing, told her to complete her final task. In the end, Venus was appeased. Psyche became one of the immortals, and on Mount Olympus Jupiter ratified the marriage of Cupid and Psyche with a glorious wedding.

A daughter was born to them called Pleasure Voluptas and they lived happily ever after. In some accounts, Artemis was born first and helped in the delivery of her brother.

Thus she revealed at once her powers as a goddess of childbirth, which she shares with Hera and Eileithyia. The birth of the twin deities Artemis and Apollo links them closely together from the very beginning.

Lovely Artemis will on occasion join her handsome brother in supervising the dances of the Muses and the Graces and they both delight in the bow and arrow. The skill in archery of Apollo and Artemis is exemplified by their defense of the insulted honor of their mother Leto. The women of Thebes greatly honored Leto Death of the and her two children. Their tributes seemed excessive to NIOBE [neye'o-bee], who Children of Niobe, attic red-figure boasted that she was better than Leto because she was not only rich, beautiful, krater ca.

Leto complained to her drawing an arrow children about Niobe's hubris and they exacted a swift vengeance. With unerring out of her quiver to arrows, Apollo killed all seven sons of Leto, and Artemis all seven daughters.

As kill the Niobids below. Artemis was about to shoot the youngest, Niobe attempted to shield the girl and begged that this last one be spared, to no avail. Niobe herself was turned to stone and brought by a whirlwind to a mountain-top in her former homeland, Phrygia. There, tears trickling down wear away her face. Once when he wandered off alone, away from his companions, he stumbled upon, by accident or fate, a woodland cave with a pool of water, where Artemis or Diana, in Ovid's version of the tale was bathing accompanied by her attendant followers, as was their custom.

When they saw Actaeon entering the cave, they screamed and Diana, outraged that a man had seen her naked, took swift revenge. She splashed water in his face and immediately horns began to grow from his head and he was transformed into a stag, completely except for his mind. He ran away in fear and was sighted by his own hunting dogs who turned on him and tore him to pieces.

Zeus or Jupiter, as Ovid tells it no sooner saw Callisto than he fell in love with her and was determined to win her. He disguised himself as Artemis, knowing full well that in this transformation he could best win her confidence and affection. When Zeus pressed his attentions too ardently, his deception became only too clear to poor Callisto, who struggled in vain. Callisto rejoined Artemis and her companions but eventually, when they bathed together, she could not disguise the fact that she was pregnant.

Artemis was furious with Callisto for her betrayal and expelled her from the sacred group. She turned Callisto into a bear but her mind remained intact; thus alone and afraid, she wandered the forests. Arcas grew up and, in his fifteenth year, while hunting he encountered his mother Callisto, a bear whose human and relentless gaze frightened him. As he was about to drive a spear through her body, Zeus intervened and prevented the matricide. He brought them both up to the heavens where he transformed them into constellations.

He wooed Merope, the daughter of Oenopion "wine-face" , king of the island of Chios, famous for its wines. While clearing the island of wild beasts, he encountered Artemis and tried to rape her. Enraged, the goddess produced a scorpion out of the earth that stung Orion to death. Both are seen in the sky. Artemis became predominantly a vehement virgin as the stories above make terrifyingly clear.

Yet she also possesses characteristics that suggest the fertility goddess, e. Also at Ephesus, a statue depicts her with what seem like multiple breasts. As a moon-goddess she was worshipped by women who linked her with the lunar cycle and their menstrual period. Nevertheless, above all, Artemis is the virgin huntress, the goddess of nature itself, not concerned with its teeming procreation like Aphrodite but with its pristine purity. Artemis, like the moon, appears as a symbol, cold, white, aloof, and chaste.

Hecate's Suppers. In particular she is a goddess of the crossroads, a place thought to be the center of ghostly activity in the dead of night. Skilled in the arts of black magic, Hecate is invoked by sorceresses and murderers e. Medea and Lady Macbeth. Offerings of food were made to her called Hecate's suppers at triple-faced statues, erected at crossroads and depicting three aspects of the moon: Selene in heaven, Artemis on earth, and Hecate in the Underworld. Theseus married Phaedra, the daughter of Minos, and Hippolytus grew up to be a young man troubled by his illegitimacy and obsessed with maintaining his virginity.

Aphrodite, in a typically Euripidean prologue, describes her great power and her vehement anger against Hippolytus, a hunter who hubristically rejects love and prefers to follow Artemis.

Aphrodite exacts her revenge by making Phaedra fall desperately in love with her step-son, a passion impossible to fulfill, which could only lead to tragedy. Phaedra first saw Hippolytus while he was being initiated into the Mysteries and was smitten by a hopeless lust. For two years Phaedra has suffered and now she lies ill, overcome by her guilty secret and determined to die because she is a noble woman and cannot commit this abominable adultery, unlike other unfaithful wives who could be false to their husbands under any circumstances.

She desperately desires to preserve her own honor and also that of her sons, Theseus' legitimate heirs. Her faithful nurse wrests the truth from her and the solution that she takes upon herself determines the tragic outcome. The nurse has Hippolytus swear an oath of secrecy, but when she tells him of Phaedra's passion, he is enraged and cries out that his tongue swore but not his mind.

Phaedra overhears the angry exchange and fears Hippolytus will tell all to her ruin but he never does violate his oath. She hangs herself, but before doing so leaves an incriminating note to save herself and her children by claiming that Hippolytus violated her.

Theseus too quickly believes her accusation against the protests of his innocent son, whose purity and religious fanaticism he had always resented.

With a curse given him by his father, Poseidon, he orders his son into exile. Poseidon sends a bull from the sea which frightens the horses of Hippolytus' chariot, and he is entangled in the wreckage.

As he is dying, he is brought back to his father for a heartbreaking reconciliation, engineered by the deus ex machina Artemis, who explains to Theseus the truth and promises Hippolytus honors after his death for his devotion and that she will get even with Aphrodite.

In one version of Adonis' death, Artemis causes the boar to kill him. Leto roamed far and wide in her search for a refuge where she might give birth, but the many places she approached were afraid to receive her.

Finally the island of Delos accepted her, but only after she assured the island which is personified in the Hymn with a great oath that a sacred precinct of Apollo would be built there and that it would become a place of prosperity, wealth, and prestige. When Leto had endured nine days and nights of labor, Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, was summoned by Iris from Olympus to help in the delivery.

Goddesses present at the birth attended to the newborn child, and as soon as Apollo had been nursed on nectar and ambrosia, he miraculously became a mighty god who declared that the curved bow and the lyre were his and that he would prophecy to mortals the unerring will of Zeus. Leto was delighted with her son and all of Delos blossomed with joy.

In the conclusion of this part of the Hymn, the poet sometimes erroneously believed to be Homer describes the great festival of Apollo at Delos with its famous chorus of maidens who can sing in all dialects and identifies himself as a blind man from Chios, "whose songs are the best forevermore.

The second part of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo "To Pythian Apollo" tells how Apollo travelled in Greece until he found the proper place for the foundation of his oracle, Crisa, under Mt. Originally at this site there had probably been an oracle of the great mother-goddess Gaia, and the slaying of the dragon may symbolize conquest by the Hellenes and their god Apollo, who thus becomes yet another to add to our list of dragon-slayers.

The OMPHALOS [om'fa-los], "navel," an archaic stone shaped like an egg with two birds perched on either side, was thought to designate the location of the sanctuary at the center of the world. After Apollo had established his sanctuary, he needed to recruit attendants. He spotted a ship sailing from Crete and he sprang aboard in the form of a dolphin.

The crew were awed into submission and followed a course that led the ship to Crisa. Yet the sacred area and the temple built on the lower slopes of Mt. Parnassus are particulary awe-inspiring, and the many dedications made to the god remind us of how Greek religion was responsible for the development of great and universal literature, poetry, drama, sculpture, and architecture.

The Pythian games, celebrated every four years, included both physical and intellectual competitions and the worship of the god. The Oracle and Pythia at Delphi. The Panhellenic sanctuary at Delphi was the most Apollo Belvedere, important oracle in the Greek world.

People in general and representatives of Roman marble copy of a 4th century states in particular came from all over the Greek world and beyond to ask Apollo Greek bronze. The Pythia, the prophetess of Apollo, uttered the responses of the god as she sat on a tripod. Her answers came in incoherent ravings, which were transcribed by a nearby priest into intelligible prose or verse. In Plato's Apology we are told that Socrates learned from the Delphic oracle that he was the wisest of men, a response that this great philosopher took very seriously.

The Cumaean Sibyl. The Sibyls at Cumae in Italy were famous. We learn about this Sibyl from Ovid. Apollo offered her anything that she wished, if only she would yield to him. She picked up a heap of sand and asked for as many birthdays as the individual grains but forgot to ask for continuous youth along with the years. Nevertheless, Apollo would have given her long life and eternal youth, if she agreed to succumb to him. When she refused him, the god granted her original wish, and she withered away eventually to become only a voice.

This story of the Cumaean Sibyl once again illustrates how our ignorant wishes may be granted to our woe cf. When Cassandra changed her mind and rejected his advances, Apollo asked for one kiss and spit in her mouth, thus insuring not only that Cassandra would keep her gift, but also that her true prophecies would never be believed. Apollo stole her away from Idas in a similar fashion and the two rivals met face to face. Zeus ordered that Marpessa chose between her lovers.

She chose the mortal Idas because she feared the immortal Apollo would leave her when she grew old. Primitive science or religion mythology pertains to natural phenomena in the cosmos, the origin of creatures, and how humans should treat gods. Primitive history or legend mythology portray legends, sagas, or historical facts.

Classical mythology is from a more civilized time than primitive mythology. Primitive mythology deals with the ugliness and terror found everywhere. Greek mythology is more inclined to deal with nymph-like creatures in forests, heroes, explanations of the world, and other more pleasant topics. What is her Edith Hamilton explanation for differing views of the same gods? Mythology changes as people develop and change.

There are different versions of a single story because these stories come from different times and from different authors. Percy Jackson is based on the Greek Demigod Perseus mainly. However, he is actually based on many different demigods. Percy Jackson After nearly dying in a muskeg in Alaska, he developed a fear of suffocation so intense, that it actually made him wary about traveling underwater, despite knowing that he can breath underwater. Poseidon does very much love percy, he himself said that Percy was his favorite son.

But the gods are very limited on how much they can interact with their children and how much they can help them. The details and the architectural features between both of these great Arts show ingenuity, symmetry, geometry and balance from two very diverse time periods.

The aspects of their values, religious beliefs, culture, and mythology play key roles in the beliefs of both timepieces of Art. The architectural medium is not only impressive, but it is captivating to the eye as well. One can only. He also published a famous paper on Individual and Collective Representations and a series of seminal papers. Jung explored association tests with his patients and became fascinated by their.

Creating an Environmental Ethic Traditionally, Western views of environment ethics has been unclear and for the most part unnecessary. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides — the greatest playwrights of Greece F. Aristophanes — a great writer of Greek comedy G. Plato — a great Greek philosopher H. Virgil — Roman author who writes about but does not believe in mythological events 2.

What is the best guide to Greek mythology? Briefly identify the twelve gods of Olympus by both Greek and Roman names. Zeus Jupiter — Lord of the Sky; he falls in love many times. His power is greater than all the gods combined. Hera Juno — wife of Zeus; her job is to protect marriage. She often punishes Zeus and his female lovers.

Poseidon Neptune — God of the Sea; he is second in power to Zeus. He provides humans with the use of the horse. Hades Pluto — ruler of the underworld; he marries Persephone. The kingdom of the dead carries his name, Hades. Athena Minerva — the daughter of Zeus; she is Goddess of the City. Her job is to defend the city against any enemies. Phoebus Apollo Apollo — the god of light and truth.

He is supposed to guide man to know the truth of the link between the gods and man. She is also the Goddess of the Hunt. Aphrodite Venus — the Goddess of Beauty and Love; she is usually surrounded by beautiful things. She can entice men with her beauty.

Hermes Mercury — the messenger of Zeus; he is graceful and swift. He appears in more myths than any other god.