Midterm Flashcards
Zeus
Areas of Concern: The Sky, Kingship
Attributes: Beard, Eagle, Thunderbolt
Based on the same root as Roman Iu - (in Iupiter Jove) and Sanskirt Dyaush pita (both “sky father)
Associated with Egyptian Amun and Persian Ahura-Mazda
Prometheus
Brother of Epimetheus
Areas of Concern: Technology and Man
Attributes: Fire, Eagle, Caring for man
Has a rivalry with Zeus after stealing fire to give to mankind
Deceived Zeus into taking intestines as a sacrifice and giving the meat of the animal to humans
Hera
Wife and Sister of Zeus, Only parent of Hephaestus
Areas of Concern: Marriage, Family
Attributes: Crown, Peacock
Rivals with anyone Zeus sleeps with
Associated with Roman Juno and Carthaginian Tanit
Apollo
Son of Zeus and Leto
Areas of Concern: Rational, Civilization, Order
Attributes: Reason, Music, Medicine, and Prophecy
Athena
Pre-Hellenic Mycenaean goddess, Daughter of Zeus and Metis, Sprang from Zeus’ head after he consumed Metis, Wears Aegis given to her by her father Zeus, Virgin goddess
Attributes: Wisdom, crafts, warfare, Heros
Sanctuary: Athens
Ares
Son of Zeus and Hera
All war but often violence that is just or defensive
Spouse: On going affair with Aphrodite
Poseidon
Native Greek God, Son of Kronos and Rhea
Freshwater, sea, horses, earthquakes
Attributes: Trident
Spouse: Amphitrite
Ishtar
Love, sex, fertility, and war
Staff with snakes and headdress
Akkadian name for summarian Innana
Immortal
Enki (Ea)
God of water
Called ea made humans in Atrahasis
Warns Atrahis of Naphishtim
Deucalion
Son of Prometheus
Connected to the flood myth
Restarted the human race after the Bronze Age
Zeus was mad a the pride of the people getting too close to the gods
Pandora
wife of Epimetheus, the first mortal woman, created by the gods as a punishment for Prometheus after he steals fire from Zeus, she is a gift
Heracles
Lion skin, club, strength, spreading culture, associated with Phoenician Melqart
Theseus
Son of Aegeus or Poseidon, Husband to Phaedra
First king of Athens and all it’s territory
Slayer of the Minotaur
Achilles
Son of Peleus and the sea Nymph Thetis
Invulnerable except for his heel
Chose “unwithering fame” and a short life over a long life in obscurity
Diomedes
Hero that participates in the Trojan War
King of Argos
From the Illiad
one of the best warriors of all of the Achaeans
Killed the son of Phainops and Eurydamas
Odysseus
Son of Laertes, Husband of Penelope, Father of Telemachus, King of Ithaca, Greek hero who took ten years to return after the end of the Trojan war
GIlgamesh
King of Uruk, a city-state in Sumer, he wanted to be immortal and went on a quest to find the key to immortality. Helped build a wall
Critical Thinking
Not having the answer before asking the question
Thesis
Statement based on facts that a reasonable person can disagree with
Observation
Statement about multiple facts that multiple people agree with
Humanism
Humans were the same in ancient times therefore understandable
Historicism
The ideas that human beings had fundamentally different ideas of how the world worked in the past and their motives cannot always be understood
Idealism
The belief that categories exits “out there” independent of language and human beings. Sometimes these categories are referred to as “natural”
Textualism
Story subject language
- limited change (variations allowed)
- Because categories and even mythic figures are constructed by language it is better to try to understand categories and mythic figures as subject to limited change over time rather than imperfect copies of an ideal hero or category.
Enkidu
Formed from clay and saliva
becomes friends with Gilgamesh
dies
Shamat
Sacred Prostitute
- brings Enkidu into contact with civilization
- feminine
Humbaba
Guardian of the cedar forest of Labininu, put there by the god Enlil, killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu for being in the way
Utanapishtim
a legendary king of Shuruppak in southern Iraq, who survived the Flood by making a boat
Pyrrha
the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife of Deucalion of whom she had three sons, Hellen, Amphictyon, Orestheus; and three daughters Protogeneia, Pandora II and Thyia
Cyclops (Polyphemus)
Son of Poseidon and Thoosa (Cyclops)
- man-eating giant
- the story of Odysseus and the sheep (got giant drunk blinded him and then escaped by tieing themselves to the undersides of sheep)
SIlk Road
a network of trade networks that connected regions from Europe across Asia, ideas and languages also traveled back and forth, including stringed instruments
Uruk
One of the first cities in Sumer, home of the temples of Innana and Anu, mythical home of Gilgamesh
Hissarlik
- Archaeological site of turkey, (claimed to be lost city of troy)
- modern name for ancient troy
Argos
- a city located in central Greece and it’s known for the temple of Hera
- continually occupied from the Stone Age to today
Homer
- Believed to be the author of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Homeric Hymns
- Allegedly born in different places such as Chios or Smyrna
- Most professionals now believe that Homer is a name for a tradition rather than a person
Pseudo - Apollodorus
author of Library of greek mythology
George Smith
Born in London, 1840, discovered “The Epic of ‘Iz-Du-bar’” while reading cuneiform tablets at the British Museum
Berossus
- Active early 3rd C BCE
- Author of The History of Babylonia
- First (only?) author to use sources written in Akkadian for his history
