Exam 1 - Ritual and Myth

Question 1

Temenos

Answer 1

= sacred space consecrated/given to a god or hero
basics include - *altar, *priest, statues, treasuries
+ Iliad: Odysseus leads girl to altar, performs a sacrifice at altar

Question 2

Temple

Answer 2

= seen as home of the god (elaborate treasury building)
- oriented to the east (altar oriented east)
+

Question 3

Sacred Time

Answer 3

= ceremonial acts to set apart time, passing boundary of human time to divine time
+ sacrifice and prayer, Iliad: chryses prays to Apollo, trying to reach him and reach the ‘divine time’

Question 4

Sacred Space

Answer 4

= set apart, set above, holy purpose, limited access
- marked by boundary, usually temenos
- often in areas of natural beauty, location must have significance
+ Poseidon at Sunium, this temple over looks the sea, something closely related to poseidon
- never moved even if the god worshipped changes

Question 5

Priests/Priestesses

Answer 5

= underwent/doing the rituals properly
- male or female corresponding to gender of god or hero
- most likely the elder of a family
- responsible for handling offerings, sacrifices, and sanctuary
+ Plato Politicus: priests were “experts in giving gifts for humans”
+ Plutarch Moralia: priests must determine purity of sacrificial victim
- serve only 1 diety
- indistinguishable from the rest of community except on festival days

Question 6

Ritual

Answer 6

= actions made to draw believer into some relationship with the divine
- needed to show eusebia (proper respect) and hosiostes (religious correctness) in rituals
+ sacrifice explained in Theogony (Prometheus while tricking Zeus), Odyssey (Chryses and his daughter, King Nestor of Pylos), Aristophanes, Peace (humorus account of a sacrifice)
+ festivals, Mikalson: 8th day of each month offering to Poseidon, offer prayer then possibly a feast
+ ritual purity, Aeschylus, Eumenides: describes how one person was purified, ritual like

Question 7

Myth

Answer 7

= traditional narrative in which the many layered significance of human situations is explored through the application of story
- began as oral poetry
- myth is long long ago, history is not AS long ago
- myth attempts to answer “why”
+ Theogony: Prometheus tricks Zeus, offers bones. After telling the story Hesiod says, ‘this is why you offer bones tot he gods’
+ Theogony: why women exist
+ all, organization and social norms (succession of power, sons overtaking their fathers)

Question 8

Sacrifice

Answer 8

= slaughter and offering of animal to god
1 wash
2 prep, choose animal
3 procession
4 animal purified
5 barely groats thrown
6 cutting off hair
7 slaughter
8 thigh bones in fat for gods
9 communal feast
+ Theogony: prometheus offers bones and fat to zeus, it is done this way as ritual ‘because of the myth’
+ Iliad: sacrifice outlined in regards to Chryses and his daughter
+ Aristophanes, Peace: outlined in the comical telling of sacrifice

Question 9

Hesiod

Answer 9

= author of Theogony and Works and Days
- flourished ~ 750 BCE
- farmer in Boetia
+ claims in Theogony the myth was given to him by the gods directly “breathed into me the wonderus voice”

Question 10

Ouranic Gods

Answer 10

= sky gods, not all olympians are ouranic but a lot of them are thought to be
- offerings performed in daylight, directed upwards, often resulted in a feast
+ Zeus of thunder and lightening, sky things
+ Odyssey: vow to Athena - feast prepared, and burnt offering, as common with ouranic gods

Question 11

Cthonic Gods

Answer 11

= earth/underworld gods
- offerings during the night, directed downwards, liquid offerings poured into low lying altar or pit
- animals must be black, no feast after
+ Theogony: Tartarus, place where Kronus and Titans are imprisoned, described as a recess within the earth, kronus and titans are cthonic gods.
+ Iliad: text speaks of pouring wine on the ground for libation to kronus

Question 12

Polytheism

Answer 12

= many gods worshipped at the same place at the same time by the same community and people
- could have favorites but couldn’t neglect other gods
- different gods for different functions
+ as we have spoken about in class, Athena for childbaring, Poseidon for seafairing. Gods were tied with certain specialties

Question 13

Hero

Answer 13

= a class of beings located between Gods and humans
- mostly mortal with a few exceptions
- not worshipped in temenos but in a Heroon (usually a tomb)
- most times they have divine powers from their parents (Acheles)
+ Theogony: Heracles from Alcmena and Zeus (mortal and god)
+ Pausanians: Marathon and Heracles as Heros

Question 14

Aphrodite

Answer 14

= olympian goddess of sexual desire and procreation
+ Theogony: born from foam created when Kronus castrates Heaven
+ Iliad: wounded by Diomedes, bleeds mortal blood

Question 15

Poseidon

Answer 15

= olympian god of the sea, earthquakes, horses… etc.
- son of Kronus and Rhea
- different epithets: seafairing (Soter), earthquakes (Asphaleros), horses (Hippios)
+ Iliad: “won the grey salt sea”
+ Theogony: “loud sounding Earth shaker”

Question 16

Kronos

Answer 16

= cthonic god, Titan king
+ Theogony: castrated Heaven by command of Earth
+ Theogony: Zeus imprisons him and Titans in tartarus
+ Theogony: Zeus helps Rhea feed Kronos a stone so that he must purge the other children he swallowed

Question 17

Prometheus

Answer 17

= titan god, son of Iapetus, god of forethought (trickster)
- brought fire to humans and good parts of sacrifices
+ Theogony: tricks Zeus to take fat and thigh bones

Question 18

Ritual and Myth examples

Answer 18

+ Theogony: prometheus and zeus, now done this way in ritual
+ Works and Days: pray to Zeus and Demeter before harvest, ritual of asking for favor from gods
+ Iliad: sacrifice by Chryses and daughter, washed hands and took barley corn, things done in ritual (purity/cleansing and throwing barley)
+ Iliad, Theogony: laying out sequence of sacrifice in both texts, laid groundwork for the ritual of sacrifice