Greek Mythology. Jessie M. Tatlock
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as classical mythology is a product of Greece, and that in general the Latin writers have merely retold stories that were not original with their people. The Greek names have therefore been employed primarily, even though they are less familiar than the Latin. It may seem inconsistent that this has been done even when the version of a tale as it appears in the work of some Latin poet, e.g., Ovid, has been followed, but it is not the nomenclature, which-is Latin, but the subject matter and the conception of the tale, which is Greek, that has been followed. Where the story is mainly of Latin development Latin names have been used. Perhaps it may seem that too scant attention has been paid to Roman gods, but when one deals with Roman deities one quickly gets out of the realm of mythology into that of ritual and history, subjects which seem out of place in such a book as this.
In spelling Greek names the most familiar and the simplest English spellings have been used. In most cases ει has been transliterated by English i, (Poseidon is a common exception, and e takes the place of ει before the terminations a, as, us, as Me de’a, Au ge’as.) K has been rendered c, αι by æ οç by Latin us. In these inconsistencies the usual and permissible custom is followed. In the index and upon their first mention the accent on names of more than two syllables is indicated, and in an appendix a few simple rules of pronunciation are given.
While in many instances in a foot-note the version of a story followed has been indicated, and in case of direct quotation the reference has been given, in an elementary book such as this the use of many notes has been avoided as undesirable. In many stories one author has not been followed exclusively, but various features have been borrowed from various sources. Those chiefly followed are: Homer, the Homeric Hymns, Hesiod, Pindar, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Apollodorus, Apollonius Rhodius, Hyginus, Pausanius, Vergil, and Ovid. In quoting from the Iliad the translation of Lang, Leaf, and Myers has been used; from the Odyssey, that of Butcher and Lang; and from the Homeric Hymns, that of Lang. Of modern authorities consulted the most important are: Preller's Griechische Mythologie revised by Robert (unfortunately incomplete) ; Wissowa's Religion und Kultus der Römer; separate articles in Roscher's Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie; the Pauly-Wissowa Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Frazer's Golden Bough, Jane Harrison's Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Lawson's Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, Warde Fowler's Roman Festivals, and many other books and articles have been helpful and suggestive. The comprehensive works of Collignon, Baumeister, Overbeck, Furtwängler, and others have, of course, been taken as authorities in dealing with representations in art.
J. M. Tatlock.
December, 1916.
INTRODUCTION
Primitive people, as they have looked out on the world about them, on the sea and the trees, on the sky and the clouds, and as they have felt the power of natural forces, the heat of the sun, the violence of the wind, have recognized in these things the expression and action of some being more powerful than themselves. Able to understand only those motives and sensations that are like their own, they have conceived these beings more or less after their own nature. The Hebrews, indeed, at an early time recognized one supreme God, who had created and who directed all the world according to his will, but most other early people have seen living, willing beings in the forms and powers of nature, and have worshiped these beings as gods or feared them as devils. Physical events, such as the rising and setting of the sun, or the springing and ripening of the grain, are to them actions of the beings identified with sun or grain. In accounting for these acts, whether regularly recurring, as the rising of the sun, or occasionally disturbing the ordinary course of nature, as earthquakes, eclipses, or violent storms, stories more or less complete grow, are repeated, and believed. These stories told of superhuman beings and believed by a whole people are myths, and all these myths together form a mythology.
The mythology of any people is interesting because it reflects their individual nature and developing life; that of the Greeks is more interesting to us than any other, first, because it expresses the nature of a people gifted with a peculiarly fine and artistic soul; secondly, because our own thought and art are, in great part, a heritage from the civilization of Greece. Much of this heritage comes to us quite directly from the Greek writers and artists whose works have been preserved. The dramas of Sophocles and Euripides hold an audience in America as they held those in Athens, because their art is true and great; the noble youth of the Hermes of Praxiteles, 'or the gallant action of the horsemen in the frieze of the Parthenon satisfy us in the twentieth century as they did the Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. But more of this heritage comes down to us through the Romans, whose genius taught them to conquer and govern without destroying, and who learned from the nations that they conquered, Egypt, Asia, and Greece, all that centuries of rich civilization had to give. The civilization of the modern world, America as well as Europe, is rooted deeply in the civilization of Rome, and through Rome in that of Greece. Greek thought and Greek principles run through our law, our government, our standards of taste, our art, and our literature. The very personages of Greek mythology are familiarly known to-day in the United States, divorced from religious meaning but set up before our eyes as symbols of truths that are in the very nature of things. The winged Mercury (the god of travelers, whose Greek name was Hermes) waves his magic wand above the main entrance to the Grand Central Station in New York; the noble head of Minerva (the Greek Athena, the goddess of wisdom) is set above the doors of our libraries and colleges, and the adventures of Ulysses (or Odysseus) and of many other Greek heroes are painted on the walls of our Congressional Library. Even in our daily language there is still a hint of mythology: our troops still march to martial music, the music of the war-god Mars, and we eat at breakfast cereals, the gift of the corn-goddess Ceres; the Muses of Pieria are not too far away to inspire the music of our western world.
These beliefs and stories have been handed down through so many ages and modified in so many ways that confusion as to their real origin has naturally arisen. It is Greek, not Roman. The Romans did not develop an original mythology but took over stories from the Greeks and others and told them of their own gods. It was the Greek Zeus, not the Roman. Jupiter, who had so many love adventures; it was the Greek Aphrodite, not the Roman Venus, who received the golden apple from Trojan Paris. Classical mythology is the expression of the nature and thought of the Greeks, not that of the Romans. For the Greeks were by nature artistic; they instinctively expressed their ideals, the truth as they saw it, in poetry, story, and sculpture, and because imagination, insight, and love of beauty were united in them, their stories and their art have an appeal that is universal
The religion and mythology of the Greeks was not a fixed unchanging thing; it varied with different localities and changed with changing conditions. For when we speak of Greece we do not speak of a nation in the strict sense — that is, a people under one central government — but of the Greek race: " Wherever the Greeks are, there is Greece." So the mythological stories grew and changed as they passed from Asia Minor to Greece, or from Greece to the islands of the Ætan Sea, to Italy and Sicily. Moreover, the independence of the individual in the Greek states, where men thought for themselves, and no autocratic government or powerful priesthood exerted undue restraint, fostered variety and permitted artists and poets so to modify tradition as to express something of their individual ideas. This added infinitely to the richness of mythology and art. Local conditions, too, and local pride, in a country broken both geographically and politically into small divisions, added variety to religious customs. In mountain districts the god of the sky and storms was most feared and worshiped, in the fertile plains, the gods of earth and harvest, while on the coast men needed the favor of the gods who were powerful over the sea and protected "commerce. Local heroes gathered stories about themselves, and local pride led people to place important events, such as the birth of a god or some important manifestation of his power, in their own localities. Many different places claimed to be the birthplace of Apollo, and the fires of Hephæstus burned within many a volcano (called after his Latin name, Vulcan). Furthermore, as they came in contact with other peoples and became familiar with their