Amazons, Theseus and Kastor/Polydeukes

Question 1

Who are the Amazons? Where are they from?

Answer 1

A mythical people believe to inhabit the North East of Asia Minor, Their society resorted men for the purpose of procreation only, female children raise, males left to die. Essentially a collective equivalent to Artemis, except mortal.

Question 2

Who was the leader of the Amazons, during the time of Heracles?

Answer 2

Hippolyte

Question 3

What did Heracels do to Hippolyte?

Answer 3

Killed her and took her belt.

Question 4

Which two heroes campaigned shoulder to shoulder against the Amazons?

Answer 4

Heracles and Theseus

Question 5

What started Theseus and Heracles campaign against the Amazons? What was the final result and why?

Answer 5

Theseus abducted one of the Amazon women, so the Amazon’s laid siege to the Acropolis itself (in Athens).

It would have been mythically unthinkable for so ‘unnatural’ a tribe to achieve final victory over male heroes,
so of course Theseus’s army won the battle.

Question 6

Who were the Dorians?

Answer 6

The Dorians were one of the four major ethnic groups into which the Hellenes (or Greeks) of Classical Greece divided themselves

Question 7

Who was Theseus’s parents?

Answer 7

Aigeus and Aithra, father may have been Poseidon*

Question 8

What happens when Theseus gets to Athens to see his father?

Answer 8

Aigeus married Medea, who sees Theseus as a threat and she tries to poison him.

Aigeus recognized the sword and stopped her. He then casted her and away, so she returned to her father in Colchis.

Question 9

Who provided Theseus with advice in his journey against the Minotaur?

Answer 9

Ariadne, daughter of King Minos

Since she betrayed her father, she fled Crete with Theseus after he killed the Minotaur

Question 10

Who does Theseus end up marrying?

Answer 10

Phaidra, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae

Question 11

Who does Phaidra, Theseus’s wife actually desire sexually?

Answer 11

Her step-son, Theseus son from the Amazonian he abducted; Hippolytos

Question 12

What happened when Phaidra made sexual advances to her step-son Hippolytos?

Answer 12

He rejected and she hanged herself.

She wrote a suicide note falsely accusing Hippolytos of rape.

Question 13

What did Theseus do to his son Hippolytos after reading Phaidra’s suicide note?

Answer 13

He casted a curse granted to him by his “father” Poseidon. A monstrous bull appeared from the sea wrecking Hippolytos’s chariot and he was torn to pieces.

Question 14

What two noble deed of Theseus are described on pg 129 of the textbook?

Answer 14

He extended to the the blood-polluted Heracles the hand of friendship and the prospect of asylum.
And he welcomed into Athens an even more horrifically polluted outcast, the self blinded transgressor Oedipus.

Question 15

Who were the best remembered heroes of the city of Sparta?

Answer 15

The Dioscuri, four twins including Kastor and Polydeukes and their two sisters.

Question 16

Who is Leda, who did she have an affair with? How did it happen?

Answer 16

Lesa was married to the Spartan king Tyndareos.
She has an affair with Zeus.

Zeus appearded in disguise as a swan, she hatched one or two eggs, the children were Helen (of Troy) and the Dioskouroi (“children of Zeus”) that is Kastor and Polydeukes

Question 17

What is St. Elmo’s fire and who does it refer to?

Answer 17

The electric discharge which can manifest itself around a ship’s mast during a storm, it was twins Kastor and Polydeukes were riding to the rescue.

Question 18

What were the three main adventures of Kastor and Polydeukes?

Answer 18

1. The Calydonian Boar hunt
2. The were part of the Argonauts
3. The rode to the rescue of Helen their sister, after she was kidnapped by Theseus

Question 19

In the Heracles myth, what was unique about all four of the Dioscuri (children of Zeus)?

Answer 19

They were Fraternal twins, 
Polydeukes was son of Zeus and Immortal
Kastor was son of Tyndareus and mortal
Helen was the daughter of Zeus but mortal
Clytemnestra was mortal

Question 20

What was the final exploit of the twins Castor and Polydeuces? Why was it ironic?

Answer 20

They kidnapped two young girls and were persued and overtaken by the women’s fiances (who were brothers mirroring C&P).
The brothers are Idas and Lynceus who were their shipmates on the Argo.

In the ensuring combat all three mortal men are killed, the only survivor was the immortal Polydeuces.

Its ironic because they’re famously known for chasing down Theseus for kidnapping their sister

Question 21

When Polydeuces stands over his brother’s corpse what does who does he pray to? What happens in return?

Answer 21

He prays to Zeus to allow him to die with his brother.

By Zeus’ decree, both brothers would share death and immortality alike. Together, they would divide eternity, one day at time, moving between the Underworld and Mt. Olympus.

Question 22

As an overall analysis of Kastor and Polydeukes, what do they have in common with the hero Heracles?

Answer 22

Like Heracles, the twins were favourites of worship in real-life ancient Greece. They were thought of as both human and divine, partaking of both natures and therefore particularly sympathetic to human prayers and suffering: They were thought to be ready to intercede with their father Zeus, on behalf of us mortals.