The Mythology Book

Euripides’s The

Bacchae explores

the dual nature of

man—the rational

versus the instinctual.

Xenophon’s

Anabasis contains

the story of King

Midas and his

golden touch.

Apollonius of

Rhodes depicts the

adventures of Jason

and his band of men

in the Argonautica.

Greece is defeated

in battle and faces

Roman rule, leading

to the integration of

the two cultures.

Diodorus Siculus

includes the myth of

Icarus and Daedalus

in his 40-book

Historical Library.

Plato’s dialogues

Timaeus and Critias

introduce the idea

of the legendary

city of Atlantis.

The Library of

Pseudo-Apollodorus

documents a variety

of Greek myths

and legends.

Pausanias explores

famous sites and

Greek identity

in Description

of Greece.

the Great built his empire. Thanks

to Alexander’s conquests, Greek

culture and mythology were

exported as far as Asia Minor,

Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India.

The major deities

It was the poets Homer and Hesiod

who imposed order upon the myriad

gods and beliefs inherited from

earlier times. Homer set down his

poetry from oral tradition around

800 BCE, after the migrations that

followed the collapse of the

Mycenaean culture. His two epic

poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, gave

the Greeks a history, a pantheon,

and guidelines for how to live their

lives. As the Olympian family of 12

principal gods dwelling on Mount

Olympus gradually replaced older

beliefs, Homer and Hesiod gave

them distinct characters and

appearances. Because Homer’s epic

poems were set in an aristocratic

and feudal society—which preceded

the birth of democracy in Athens

in the 5th century BCE—his gods

behaved like chieftains, motivated

solely by their own desires.

Like other ancient agrarian

peoples, the Greeks were local in

their focus. They ordered their

religious life around local places,

identifying different hills, streams,

and plains with different deities.

This mythic lore invested every

corner of the land with spiritual

significance. The Earth was the

source of existence: divine power

originated in its depths, as did

the crops. Myths sought to explain

aspects of agrarian life. The tale

of Persephone—daughter of the

harvest goddess Demeter—and her

imprisonment in the Underworld by

Hades was a way of accounting

for the changing cycles of the

agricultural year.

The rise of the cult

At the end of the 5th century BCE,

various mystery cults arose in

the Greek-speaking world. Chief

among these were the Eleusinian

mysteries, an ancient agrarian cult

honoring Demeter and Persephone

and promising paradise for the

dead. The Dionysian cult, which

originated in Asia, worshipped

Dionysus and involved wild

dancing, drinking, and ecstasy.

Unlike the public worship of the

gods, which was well documented,

these mystery cults consisted of

secret rites and doctrines that

remain enigmatic to this day, but

would go on to influence the beliefs

and myths of ancient Rome. ■

ANCIENT GREECE

408–405 BCE

CA. 370 BCE CA. 250 BCE CA. 30 BCE CA. 150 CE

CA. 360 BCE 146 BCE CA. 100 CE

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