Introduction to Myth

Question 1

myth

Answer 1

stories primarily concerned with the gods and their relations/ interactions with mortals.

Question 2

saga/ legend

Answer 2

stories containing a kernal of historical truth, despite later fictional accretions

Question 3

folktale

Answer 3

aka fairytale

stories that contain elements of the fantastic, often involve an adventure of a hero or heroine.

Question 4

protoworld

Answer 4

stories take place within a protoworld. somewhat like the one we live in now, but also different in someway. depict events that bend or break natural laws as a reflections to the connections to the gods

Question 5

purposes of myths if they are not real

Answer 5

seek answers to ontological questions.

why are we here, who are we, etc…

can replace real history by keeping the past alive, gaps in knowledge filled by stories

can explain unknown causes for natural phenomenon

Question 6

Order of texts and names of literary sources

Answer 6

1 homer= iliad/ the odyssey
2 hesiod= theogony/ works and days
3 homeric hymns = honour olympian deities
4 pindar = odes
5 apollonius of phrodes = argonautica
6 virgil = aeneid
7 livy = ab urbe condita, esp. bk I
8 ovid = metamorphoses/ heroides
9 apollodorus = the library
10 pausanias = description of greece
11 hyginus = fabulae

Question 7

Dark Age Greece

Answer 7

1100BCE – 750BCE

The s&*t hits the fan! Something happens to end the glory period of the Bronze Age but we don’t really know what!

Linear B (= the language of Mycenaean civilization) completely disappears.

BUT not all doom and gloom!

By the end of this period, culture begins to flourish again – the Olympics emerge and stories that comprise Greek mythology begin to be generated

Question 8

Archaic Greece

Answer 8

750BCE – 479BCE

Homer arrives on the scene!

Return of writing after the ‘Dark Ages’ – and the emergence of the first real alphabet (= based on Phoenician alphabet).

Stories still being told orally BUT…

Written sources now appear as well.

Also start to get written versions of older oral tales (Iliad and Odyssey said to be in this mould).

Question 9

Classical Greece

Answer 9

479BCE – 323BCE

The zenith of Greek civilization,
particularly from a political and cultural perspective.

Lots of famous thinkers, artists, politicians:

• Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides
• Phidias, Demosthenes, Plato
• Herodotus, Thucydides, Pythagoras, Hippocrates

The rise in scientific thought challenges mythic accounts & origins of universe BUT ‘mythic culture’ did not disappear – gods & heroes are still celebrated in art & literature.

Question 10

Hellenistic Greece

Answer 10

323BC – 31BC

Covers the period from the death of Alexander the Great to the emergence of the Roman Empire.

Not much ‘new’ culture BUT emphasis on preservation and a turn towards analysis:

Scholars and librarians commented on and classified texts

Produced handbooks of mythology

Library of Alexandria as the centre of this activity

Question 11

The Roman Period

Answer 11

Rome founded (according to the Romans) in 753 BC.

Ruled by 7 Kings 753BCE – 509BCE.

“Republic” established – 509BCE.

Assassination of Julius Caesar – 44BCE.

Octavian defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium – 31BCE.

Octavian changes name to Augustus and becomes first Roman Emperor – Imperial Period begins.