Basic guide to Greek Mythology
The perception and understanding of Ancient Greece, is made through the historical sources from Greek and Roman authors and the Greek artifacts that were found all over the Mediterranean Sea. Both our sources and physical evidences of Greek culture, interfere or take inspiration in various degrees with Greek Mythology. But what exactly is mythology?
«A canon of stories created by a culture and passed down through the generations of that culture.»
Elizabeth Vandiver
Although people of all countries, eras, and stages of civilization have developed myths that explain the existence and natural phenomena, recount the deeds of gods or heroes, or seek to justify social or political institutions, the myths of Ancient Greeks have remained unrivaled in the Western world as sources of universal, imaginative and appealing ideas.
Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered universal significance and relevance in the Ancient Greek mythological themes.
Keep in mind that myths were an important part of the education of Ancient Greek citizens: they were often recited aloud, not simply to entertain, but to teach about many subjects: Responsibilities of humans, Weaknesses and strengths of humans, Emotions, Rivalry and conflicts, Ideas and Perceptions of evil and good, Ideas about love and hate, Right and wrong behavior, Ideas about the nature and role of women, men, and children, Family, inter-generational relationships and conflicts, Explanations of nature and the physical world, Stories of origins, Attitudes toward heroism and courage, Explanations of the mysteries of life.
The transmission of Greek mythology
There is no single original text, like the Christian Bible or the Hindu Vedas, that introduces all Greek myths’ characters and stories. Instead, the earliest Greek myths were part of an oral tradition that began in the Bronze Age, and their plots and themes unfolded gradually in the written literature of the archaic and classical periods of the ancient Mediterranean world.
Authors in antiquity took considerable liberties with the standard arrangement of events and by the sheer force of their genius compelled a reordering of mythological history, sometimes simplifying things and sometimes not. Therefore, one cannot expect from classical myth and literature the sort of exactness found in history.
However, behind any myth may lurk a real historical event of some sort, nevertheless peculiar or unlikely the connection may seem to us.
Time & places of Greek Mythology
In the kosmos (κόσμος = world, univers) of the Ancient Greek world there were older gods who preceded and engendered newer gods, and later mortal or semi-mortal heroes who succeeded and supplanted earlier ones. To say these fit within a strict chronology would be an overstatement, but the ancients had a clear sense certain mythological events followed or preceded or precipitated others.
The concept of time and cycles in mythology serves as a fundamental framework through which ancient cultures, including the Greeks, understood their existence and the universe. Time in Greek mythology is not linear; instead, it reflects a cyclical nature, often intertwining with the stories of gods and creation.
Greek myths (and literature) do not take place in a vacuum land inhabited by imaginary creatures and completely removed from human reality. Instead, they occur for the most part in specific locales in and around Greece, regions which carried great and concrete meaning to the audiences of their day. Thus, many of the characters in Greek literary works were as real for their audiences.
The major themes/cycles of Greek mythology and their sources
- The myths of origin.
Main sources are the poems of Hesiod (700 BC). Theogony (in Greek Θεογονεία = birth of Gods) offered the first written cosmogony (κοσμογονεία = origin story) of Greek mythology. The poem tells the story of the universe’s journey from nothingness (Chaos, a primeval void) into being, and details an elaborate family tree of elements, gods and goddesses who evolved from Chaos and descended from Gaia (Earth), Ouranos (Sky), Pontos (Sea) and Tartaros (the Underworld).
- the Epic cycle of Greek Mythology
The poems of Homer, Iliad and Odyssey, together with a collection poems related to the story of the Trojan War, like the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the so-called Little Iliad, the Iliupersis, the Nostoi, and Telegony, form a group known as the Epic Cycle.
It was the distillation in literary form of an oral tradition that had developed during the Greek Dark Age, which was based in part on localized hero cults. The traditional material from which the literary epics were drawn treats Mycenaean Bronze Age culture from the perspective of Iron Age and later Greece.
The 2nd century BC Greek mythographer Apollodorus of Athens and the 1st century BC Roman historian Gaius Julius Hyginus compiled the ancient myths and legends for contemporary audiences.
- the Theban Cycle
The Theban Cycle (Greek: Θηβαϊκὸς Κύκλος) is a collection of four lost epics of ancient Greek literature which tells the mythological history of the Boeotian city of Thebes. They were composed in dactylic hexameter verse and believed to be recorded between 750 and 500 BC. The epics took place before the Trojan War and centered around the Theban royal family.
The epics of the Theban Cycle were the Oedipodea, the Thebaid, the Epigoni, and the Alcmeonis.
- Other early Greek epics
Titanomachy, ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth
Heracleia, said to have been stolen from Pisinous of Lindus by Pisander of Camirus
Capture of Oechalia, said to have been given by Homer to Creophylus of Samos
Naupactia, ascribed to Arctinus of Miletus or Carcinus of Naupactus
Phocais, ascribed to Thestorides of Phocaea or Homer
Minyas, ascribed to Prodicus of Phocaea
Danais or Danaides
Europia, perhaps also called Bougonia, ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth
Mythology and Delphi
Delphi, with its dual role - as a religious center and oracle of Apollo - is more than any other historical place of Ancient Greece, the epitome of Greek Mythology. The Museum's exhibits are directly intertwined with the most important Greek Myths (from which they draw their inspiration), while the archaeological site is the place where some of the formation myths of the Greek Kosmos take place.
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- Get your tickets
- Find a guide
- Get museum's map
- Audio guide
- Facilities
