184 i Flora Unveiled
of myths also provides important insights into Greek ideas about gender and a wide array
of other topics. For example, the idea that female sexuality is inherently dangerous and
threatening to male authority is a recurring theme, providing Athenian men with religious
justification for the many restrictions placed on women’s freedom.^5 In Homer’s Iliad, Helen
of Troy is the classic example of the terrible power of female beauty. The satirist Semonides,
who lived in the seventh century bce, cited the example of the bee, believed to be asexual,
as a symbol of the ideal woman. According to Aristotle, bees are disgusted by sex and obtain
their young chastely from flowers, reeds, or olive trees, which are themselves symbols of
chastity. The ideal Greek wife, Semonides asserted, spends all her time toiling away at her
household chores like a bee, thus keeping her appetites and passions in check.^6
According to Hesiod, in the beginning, the sky- god Ouranos (Uranus), who was married
to Gaia, the earth goddess, imprisoned his three sons, the one- eyed Cyclopes, in his wife’s
womb (the Underworld). His motive for doing so was to prevent them from reaching adult-
hood and overthrowing him. Ouranos and Gaia then had additional children: the Titans.
Fearing that Ouranos would imprison the Titans as well, Gaia persuaded them to attack
their father. She armed one of them, Cronos, with an adamantine sickle. The choice of a
sickle, the implement used to harvest grain, alerts us to the myth’s connection to agricul-
ture. The Titans attacked Ouranos, and Cronos used the sickle to cut off his father’s geni-
tals, throwing them into the sea. But the severed genitals performed one last generative act.
From the white foam that formed around them, Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, was born.
This is Hesiod’s first example of a male deity’s parthenogenic powers.
Cronos married his sister, Rhea, the Mother of the Gods, who bore him several chil-
dren, among them Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Hoping to avoid his father’s fate,
Cronos swallowed them all. However, Rhea managed to save her infant son, Zeus, by hiding
him deep inside a cave on the island of Crete. When he had grown to a man, Zeus fought
and overthrew Cronos and forced him to disgorge the gods and goddesses he had swal-
lowed. Upon ascending the throne, Zeus ensured he would never be overthrown by his sons
by swallowing his pregnant wife, Metis. Zeus thus acquired the ability to give birth himself,
as he did in the case of Athena, who emerged fully grown from his head (Figure 7.1).
A monument dating to the middle of the fourth century bce depicts Zeus’s maternal
aspect, with multiple breasts as a symbol of fertility.^7 Figure 7.2A shows a relief of Zeus
Labrandeus, which was dedicated by King Idrieus and his wife/ sister Ada of the Kingdom
of Caria, located in the southwestern corner of Anatolia. Zeus is shown bearded and holds a
spear and a labrys, or double- headed axe. Six breasts are arranged in an inverted triangle on
his chest, reminiscent of the Ephesian Artemis. According to Herodotus, Zeus Labrandeus
was worshipped “in the sacred grove of plane trees,” the traditional domain of Bronze Age
vegetation goddesses.^8 Multiple breasts indicating fruitfulness and abundance are a stan-
dard feature of statues of Artemis of Ephesus (Figure 7.2B).
Although the names of many important Greek deities were carried over from the Bronze
Age, we have no way of knowing whether the myths were carried over as well. Linear B was
not used for literary purposes, and no known Mycenaean artwork depicts the later Greek
deities listed in the Linear B tablets. Thus, while it is tempting to assume that the myths in
He sio d ’s Theogony are directly related to those of the Mycenaean deities, it is also possible
that the identities and myths were changed substantially during the Dark Age. Only in the