January 19, 2016 (Chapter 3: Myths of Creation)

-Images address the creation of the world

-Gaia (Earth)
-Uranos (Sky; Gaia son and husband)
-How do these images relate to Greek ideas about creation? Ideas of sacred marriage;
creation of the world
-Sarcophagus: eating the flesh box; carved stone vessel; ancients used to put remains of
cremation
-Thoughts on Phaethon and Endymion
-Generational conflict; desire for overthrow of authority
-Paternal wisdom should be respected
-The importance of oaths and vows
-Father figure has the right to strike down destructive youth
-Phaethon: the glory and fragility of the human condition
-Endymion: to sleep, per chance to dream
-Modern urns: life as journey; death as arrival or beginning; soul as paradisiacal
bird; humming bird drinking lifes nectar
-Variants on the story of Endymion
-Zeus punishes Selene (Making Endymion sleep forever due to her neglecting her
duties; grant something as punishment is a threat)(Female desire must be controlled by
patriarchy; female Duties)(Females have duties and these duties must not be neglected)
-Zeus grants Selene her wish (Grant something with a gift is not aiming to punish
but desire)(Zeus as benevolent father; female desire is legitimated; attraction to male
body; female rape of (human) male; Eros as desire for control)(Eros=desire attraction;
desire for control in this variant story by lying next to a sleeping man forever)
-Zeus grants Endymion his wish (Eternal sleep relieves humans from misery;
sleep as freedom)(Freedom through sleep and losing consciousness)
-How does the message of the Endymion story change with each variant?
-What are some life realities, human behaviors, and social scenarios implicit in the story
of Eos and Tithonus? (Vanitiy-Eos; Death is there for a reason because even though
Tithounus is immortal now he is still growing old; Dont cheat death; There is a reason
for death and sometimes it is a mercy for some individuals; Physical attractions where
female attractions towards the males; Female desire for a male youthful body)
-Thoughts on Eos and Tithonus
-Be careful what you wish for
-Longevity is worth nothing without youth
-Eros is physical attraction; love (philia) is care
-Society and the elderly: love and hate relationship
-Denial and avoidance as coping strategies (Out of site out of mind)
-Psychological motifs in Uranus castration
-Father fears and antagonizes children
-Wifes discontent with husband
-Mother parentifities children
-Mother transfers loyalty to son
-Son destroys and replaces father

-Freuds Castration Compled: males fear of castration due to guilt for desiring
mother
-Cronus swallowing his children: Ancient and Modern interpretations
-Swallow his children whole because he doesnt want his power to be overthrown
by his children
-Tell the children apart from his bite marks
-Cannibalism
-Symbolic aspects of Crouns Cannibalism
-Social: intergenerational hostility
-Anthropological: fathers resentment of his children (because children represent
burden upon the household)
-Political: leaders violence against their people
-Zoological: male animals often kill their young (because they see some sort of
competition; also the mothers behavior only tends towards children not father)
-Biological: the rarity of meat; heavy stomach
-Metaphysical: human fear of chronos (time) and death
-Aesthetic: babies are vulnerable in dads hands
-Eros as creative force (Hesiod)
-Movie: The Fifth Element w/ Bruce Willis
-Why does the representation of Eros change form non-representational to
anthropomorphic?
- Incarnated as human, Eros becomes comprehensible
-Why are wings a feature of Eros?
- Wings express physiological symptoms: felling of high, jetlag, or dream state
(endorphins)
-Why is Eros represented differently in the social contexts below?
-Eros deceives women, but is more honorable with men (erastes-eromenos
protocol)
-Thoughts on Eros
-Incarnated as human, Eros becomes comprehensible
-Wings express physiological symptoms: felling of high, jetlag, or dream state
(endorphins)
-Eros deceives women, but is more honorable with men (erastes-eromenos
protocol)
-Heterosexual Eros seems younger and ore playful
January 21, 2016 (Chapter 4: The Creation of Mortals)
-Titano/Gigantomachy (almost one and the same)
-Palazzo del Te, 1524-1534
-Interpretation of Titano-Gigantomachy
-Historical: conquest and amalgamation b/tw Minonans and Myceaeans (20001000 BCE)
-Religious: progressively less fear of celestial phenomena
-Cultural: from (monstrous) chaos into (anthropomorphic) order
-Tom Tsuchiaya, Atlas Recycled, 2010
-What is a common element in these images and how does it relate to Classical myth?

-Common element is a snake and it relates to Classical myth because a sleeping

snake should never be awaken (deceit, the snake is always represented for what the
human is doing)
-The Creation of Humans (Slide Read Passage)
-Questions on Pandora
-What stereotypes of female behavior does Pandora express? Consider how she
was made and what attributes she is give by the gods? Pandora expresses female behavior
is female sexuality and beauty comes from evil, Like Eve where she destroys innocence
-What difference does Pandoras motivation make in earlier and later versions of
the myth? Difference in motivation can lead to evil
-What is hope doing in the box with the evils? Hope keeps the evil in check, hope
is an energy that can contain evil, hope is the greatest evil of all (it can be bad if it does
not meet expectation)
-Thoughts on Pandora
-Hephaestus=artificial, Athena=clever, Aphrodite=sexual, Hermes=deceiver,
animalistic
-Motivation: divine compulsion vs. free will
-Hope may be an evil (false hopes) butit is necessary to make life livable, so it
is also good
-What life realities, social scenarios and values, and generally symbolic ideas do you see
in the story of Io?
-Thoughts of Io
-Zeus dominant sexuality; disregard for wife
-Victimization of the lover
-Matronly hostility toward younger woman
-Blaming the victims of sexual violence
-Female suffering is hysterical
-Animalistic nature of the female; why bovine? Why a cow? Because they are
ugly for female jealousy; ugliness the weight
-Ultimate female purpose: childbearing (a boy)
-Divine reasoning is hidden from mortals
-Thoughts on Prometheus
-B/tw god and man; intermediate Creator
-Champion of humanity; punished fro mans sake; Christ figure
-Every man is a potential hero
-Etiology for enjoying the meat; legitimates human camaraderie and pleasure of
the feast
-Etiology for fire (ancient electricity), technology, and progress
-Represents opposition to (divine, patriarchal, political) authority
-Man can play god with interventions, but will bear consequences; the price of
knowledge
-Thoughts on Lycaon
-Ancient Hospitability= matter of life and death; respect for guests; the dangers of
being hosted
-Pastoral society=wolf is villain; totemic animal
-The loneliness of the wolf; human compassion for it

-Dog (domesticated) vs. wolf (wild) = human allegory

January 26, 2015 (The Twelve Olympians: Zeus, Hera, and Their Children
-The Olympian Family (Look On Slide)
-Zeus (Jupiter)
-Represented as the mature god
-Beard to show he is a grown up man; a king
-Overthrew his father Cronus to become ruler of the gods
-Married to Hera
-Father of many gods and heroes
-God of the sky (weather), justice, kingship
-Major Panhellenic Cult Centers of Zeus
-Panhellenic means all the Greeks
-Dodona: major oracle of Zeus
-Olympia: Zeus became the principle god there
-Cult Statue of Zeus
-Made by Athernian sculptor Pheidias
-Chryselephantine=Gold (chrysos) + Ivory (elephantinos)
-Eagle represents Zeus kingship, authority
-President of the United States Seal
-Arrow to represent force
-Olive branch represent peace
-Eagle represent leadership, authority, military force
-Eagle Standards
-Aquila, Standard of the Roman Legions
-Double-headed eagle, Russian Imperial Standard (represent the twin power of
church and state)(represent the unification of the west and the east)
-Hera (Juno)
-Powerful queen of the gods
-Wife and sister of Zeus
-Mother of Hephaestus, Ares, Eileithyia, and Hebe
-Goddess of Marriage
-Zeus owes Thetis
-Thetis went for help when Zeus was wrapped up in rope by Aphrodite ect.
-Zeus wanted to marry Thetis (prophecy of Thetis son being more powerful than
Zeus so Zeus let Thetis marry a married man)
-How is the Zeus worshipped at Olympia similar to or different than the Zeus of myth,
particularly as he appears in Iliad, Book 1?
-Both myth and cult humans go to Zeus for help
-Zeus not as just in myth
-Zeus as a Paradoxical Figure
-Dignified patriarch and ruler of gods and men
-Guarantor of justice and oaths, protector of the suppliant
-Wise, with knowledge of the future
-Patron of kinds, bestower of victory

-Not completely omnipotent: threatened by uprisings and subject to the Fates and
the power of Aphrodite
-Not completely omniscient: deceived by Prometheus and Hera
-Philanderer with uncontrollable sexual appetite and the ultimate virility and
potency
-Zeus and Ganymede
-Zeuss affair with Ganymede as lover
-Look on slide
-Hephasestus (Vulcan)
-Acts as a mediator warning Hera not to approach Zeus because Zeus is more
powerful than her
-Son of Hera (and Zeus)
-Physically lame and object of ridicule
-Object of laughter
-Possesses metis: cunning intelligence
-God of technology, crafts, and skills, especially of the forge
-Parthenogenesis
-When a female gives birth autonomously, without sexual intercourse with a male
-Virgin (parthenos) + Birth (genesis) =Parthenogenesis
-Beauty and the Beast scenario
-Hephasetus marrying a beautiful wife Aphrodite even though he is ugly
-Aphrodite cheated on Hephasetus with Ares
-Who are the winners and the losers in the Song of Demodocus? What do the narratives
of Iliad 1 and Odyssey 8 together tell us about the world and lifestyle of the gods?
-Takeaways from the Song of Demodocus
-Desirable female chooses handsome brute over deformed craftsman
-When Hephaestus outsmarts, entraps, and exposes his wife in adultery he also
exposes himself as a cuckold, and ends up again as a butt of the divine joke
-Ares becomes object of admiration more than laughter, as Hermes and Apollo
identify with him; he gets off relatively scot-free
-Male gods, but not female goddess enjoy pleasures of voyeurism
-Aphrodite is an object of voyeurism and she is exchanged b/tw male gods like a
piece of property
-The World of the Gods
-Gods each have their own decked-out houses on Olympus, but they also have an
active social life
-Gods enjoy leisure, spending most of their time feasting, listening to music, or
making love; they dont have regular work, except for Hephaestus
-There are factions, conflicts, and rivalries b/tw the gods, but these are all
resolved non-violently
-Divine social structure is patriarchal, although goddesses have some degree of
autonomy and power