Terms E-I Flashcards
Ecstasy
a trance like state
Eleusinian Mysteries
the annual rites performed by the ancient Greeks at the village of Eleusis near Athens in honor of Demeter and Persephone.
Elysian Fields
resting place in the underworld for the souls of heroes
enthousiasmos
to be inspired or possessed by a diving being
Epic
a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.
epithet
a descriptive word that accompanies a recurring word; swift-footed Achiles
eponym
a name shared between a person and a place
Eros
the greek god of sexual attraction (roman counterpart is cupid); said to be the son of aphrodite
eschatology
the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind.
etiological
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek αἰτιολογία, aitiología, “giving a reason for
Estruscans
the ancient civilization that inhabited italy prior to the greeks/romans
Euhemerism
the approach of studying mythological ideas presuming they are based of real historical events
Eumenides
the third part of The Oresteia; contains the murder and avenging of Agamemnon by Clymtaemestra
Euripedes
was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom a significant number of plays have survived
Europa
daughter either of Phoenix or of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. The beauty of Europa inspired the love of Zeus, who approached her in the form of a white bull and carried her away from Phoenicia to Crete. There she bore Zeus three sons: Minos, ruler of Crete; Rhadamanthys, ruler of the Cyclades Islands; and, according to some legends, Sarpedon, ruler of Lycia
Goerges Dumezil
a French comparative philologist best known for his analysis of sovereignty and power in Proto-Indo-European religion and society. He is considered one of the major contributors to mythography, in particular for his formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis of social class in ancient societies.
Heinrich Schliemann
a german man who discovered the site of Troy
Hellas
What current day greek use to be called by the ancient greeks; they called themselves Hellans
herm
a sacred stone object associated with Hermes; usually a tiny sculpture
heroon
a shrine dedicated to a hero that was used to commemorate them
Homeric Hymns
The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three anonymous ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. The hymns are “Homeric” in the sense that they employ the same epic meter—dactylic hexameter—as the Iliad and Odyssey
ithyphallic
statues of a diety or other carved figure that posses an erect penis
