Ancient Greece Essay

Grecian Mytho entery, set of diverse usanceal tales told by the antique classics nearly the exploits of deitys and heroes and their relations with ordinary mortals. The ancient Grecians worshiped galore(postnominal) another(prenominal) gods within a kindization that tolerated diversity. Un the like former(a) belief systems, Hellenic culture recognized no single truth or code and produced no sacred, indite schoolbook like the Bible or the Quran. Stories roughly the origins and actions of classic divinities varied widely, depending, for example, on whether the tale appeared in a comedy, tragedy, or epic poesy. Grecian mythology was like a daedal and rich linguistic process, in which the classics could express a capital range of perceptions about the universe of discourse. A Grecian urban center-state devoted itself to a busy god or group of gods in whose honor it built synagogues. The temple gener in ally housed a statue of the god or gods. The Grecians honored the citys gods in festivals and besides completeered sacrifices to the gods, commonly a domestic animal much(prenominal) as a goat. Stories about the gods varied by geographic status A god might digest cardinal set of characteristics in unitary city or region and quite different characteristics elsewhere.II A A1 PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY Greek mythology has several(prenominal) distinguishing characteristics, in addition to its multiple versions. The Greek gods resembled human beings in their form and in their emotions, and they lived in a society that resembled human society in its levels of post and power. However, a crucial difference existed surrounded by gods and human beings benignityings get goingd, and gods were immortal. Heroes as well as played an important role in Greek mythology, and stories about them conveyed stark themes. The Greeks considered human heroes from the past closer to themselves than were the immortal gods.Gods Given the m ultiplicity of myths that circulated in Greece, it is problematical to present a single version of the genealogy (family history) of the gods. However, 2 directs together provide a genealogy that more or less ancient Greeks would fuck off recognized. single is the account minded(p) by Greek poet Hesiod in his Theogony (Genealogy of the Gods), write in the 8th hundred BC. The otherwise account, The Library, is attri exclusivelyed to a mythographer (compiler of myths) named Apollodorus, who lived during the 2nd century BC. The Creation of the Gods According to Greek myths about creation, the god loony bin (Greek for goggle Void) was the foundation of all things.From Chaos came Gaea (Earth) the bottomless depth of the underworld, know as Tartarus and Eros (Love). Eros, the god of love, was inevitable to draw divinities together so they Greek Mythology might produce issue. Chaos produced Night, while Gaea first bore Uranus, the god of the heavens, and after(prenominal) him produced the mountains, sea, and gods kn possess as hulks. The goliaths were strong and large, and they committed arrogant deeds. The earlyest and most important Titan was Cronus. Uranus and Gaea, who came to per male childify Heaven and Earth, besides gave birth to the Cyclopes, one-eyed giants who make thunderbolts. knock against also Creation Stories. A2 A3 A4 Cronus and nandu Uranus tried to block any successors from winning over his supreme position by forcing back into Gaea the children she bore. besides now the youngest child, Cronus, thwarted his military chaplain, cutting off his genitals and tossing them into the sea. From the bloody foam in the sea Aphrodite, goddess of sexual love, was born. After wounding his father and taking a panache(p)(a) his power, Cronus became ruler of the universe. unless Cronus, in turn, feared that his sustain son would supplant him. When his sister and wife Rhea gave birth to offspringHestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and PoseidonCro nus swallowed them.Only the youngest, genus Zeus, escaped this fate, because Rhea tricked Cronus. She gave him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow in place of the baby. Zeus and the Olympian Gods When fully bring onn, Zeus forced his father, Cronus, to project the children he had swallowed. With their help and armed with the thunderbolt, Zeus made war on Cronus and the Titans, and overcame them. He established a new regime, based on full Olympus in northern Greece. Zeus ruled the sky. His blood chum salmon Poseidon ruled the sea, and his sidekick Hades, the underworld.Their sister Hestia ruled the shopping centerh, and Demeter took charge of the harvest. Zeus married his sister Hera, who became sprite of the heavens and guardian of marriage and childbirth. Among their children was Ares, whose sphere of influence was war. Twelve major gods and goddesses had their homes on raft Olympus and were known as the Olympians. Four children of Zeus and one child of Hera j oined the Olympian gods Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Ares. Zeuss Olympian offspring were Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, and A thuslya. Hera gave birth to Hephaestus.The Offspring of Zeus Zeus had numerous children by both(prenominal) mortal and immortal women. By the mortal Semele he had Dionysus, a god associated with wine and with other forms of intoxication and ecstasy. By Leto, a Titan, Zeus fathered the correspond Apollo and Artemis, who became two of the most important Olympian divinities. Artemis remained a virgin and took hunt slew as her special province. Apollo became associated with music and prophecy. People visited his oracle (shrine) at Delphi to look to his prophetic advice. By the nymph Maia, Zeus became father of Hermes, the Olympian tricker god who had the power to cross all frames of boundaries.Hermes guided the souls of the dead down to the underworld, Greek Mythology carried messages amongst gods and mortals, and wafted a magical sle ep upon the wakeful. Two other Olympian divinities, Hephaestus and Athena, had unusual births. Hera c at onceived Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, without a male partner. Subsequently he suffered the anger of Zeus, who once hurled him from Olympus for coming to the aid of his convey this mint down onto the island of Lemnos gritty Hephaestus. The birth of Athena was even stranger. Zeus and Metis, daughter of the Titan Oceanus, were the parents of Athena.But Gaea had warned Zeus that, after giving birth to the girl with whom she was pregnant, Metis would induce a son destined to rule heaven. To avoid losing his throne to a son, Zeus swallowed Metis, just as Cronus had previously swallowed his own children to thwart succession. Metiss child Athena was born from the head of Zeus, which Hephaestus split open with an axe. Athena, some other virgin goddess, embodied the power of practical intelligence in war furthere and crafts work. She also served as the protector of the city of Athe ns. other of Zeuss children was Persephone her pay off was Demeter, goddess of grain, vegetation, and the harvest.Once when Persephone was gathering flowers in a meadow, Hades, god of the underworld, live and abducted her, taking her down to the kingdom of the dead to be his bride. Her sadness-stricken mother wandered the world in search of her as a result, fertility odd the earth. Zeus commanded Hades to release Persephone, only when Hades had artfully given her a pomegranate seed to eat. Having consumed food from the underworld, Persephone was obliged to return down the stairs the earth for part of each class. Her return from the underworld each year meant the revival of nature and the beginning of spring.This myth was told especially in contact with the Eleusinian Mysteries, sacred rituals observed in the Greek town of Elevsis near Athens. The rituals offered initiates in the mysteries the hope of rebirth, just as Persephone had been reborn after her journey to the und erworld. numerous Greek myths report the exploits of the principal Olympians, exactly Greek myths also hint to a variety of other divinities, each with their particular sphere of influence. more(prenominal) of these divinities were children of Zeus, symbolizing the fact that they belonged to the new Olympian high society of Zeuss regime.The Muses, nine daughters of Zeus and the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, presided over song, dance, and music. The Fates, three goddesses who controlled human life and destiny, and the Horae, goddesses who controlled the seasons, were be blend intingly the children of Zeus and Themis, the goddess of forebode justice and law. Far different in spirit were the Erinyes (Furies), ancient and repellent goddesses who had sprung from the earth after it had been impregnated with the blood of Uranuss severed genitals. Terrible though they were, the Erinyes also had a permit role in the world to pursue those who had murdered their own kin.A5 exuberan t Deities Human existence is characterized by dis put down together as well as order, and many of the most characteristic figures in Greek mythology exert a arightly disruptive effect. Satyrs, whom the Greeks imagined as part human and part dollar (or part goat), led lives dominated by wine and lust. Myths depicted them as companions of Dionysus who drunkenly pursued nymphs, spirits of nature represented as young and beautiful maidens. some of the jugs used at Greek symposia (drinking parties) carry images of satyrs. evenly rampantly, but more threatening than the satyrs, were the savage centaurs.These monsters, Greek Mythology depicted as half-man and half-horse, tended toward uncontrolled aggression. The centaurs are known for attack with their neighbors, the Lapiths, which resulted from an attempt to carry off the Lapith women at a wedding feast. This combat was depicted in sculpt on the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena in Athens. The Sirens, usually portrayed as b irds with womens heads, posed a different multifariousness of threat. These island-dwelling enchantresses lured mariners to their deaths by the irresistible beauty of their song.The seafaring Greek hero Odysseus alone(predicate) survived this temptation by ordering his companions to block their own ears, to bind him to the mast of his ship, and to force out all his entreaties to be allowed to follow the lure of the Sirens song. B B1 B2 Mortals The Greeks had several myths to account for the origins of almsgiving. According to one version, human beings sprang from the ground, and this origin explained their devotion to the land. According to some other myth, a Titan molded the first human beings from clay. The Greeks also had a story about the destruction of humanity, similar to the biblical deluge.The Creation of Human Beings Conflicting Greek myths tell about the creation of humanity. Some myths separate how the populations of particular localities sprang directly from the ea rth. The Arcadians, residents of a region of Greece known as Arcadia, claimed this tubercle for their original inhabitant, Pelasgus (see Pelasgians). The Thebans boasted descent from earthborn men who had sprung from the spot where Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, had seeded the ground with the teeth of a sacred cream of tartar. According to another tale, one of the Titans, Prometheus, fashioned the first human being from water and earth.In the more usual version of the story Prometheus did not actually create humanity but simply lent it assistance through the gift of fire. Another tale dealt with humanitys re-creation. When Zeus planned to destroy an ancient race living on Earth, he sent a deluge. However, Deucalion, a son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrhathe Greek equivalents of the biblical Noah and his wifeput edible into a chest and climbed into it. Carried across the waters of the flood, they landed on turn on Parnassus. After the waters receded, the couple gratefully made sacrifices to Zeus.His response was to transfer Hermes to instruct them how to repopulate the world. They should cast stones behind them. Stones propel by Deucalion became men those thrown by Pyrrha, women. The Greek People According to myth, the various peoples of Greece descended from Hellen, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. virtuoso genealogy related that the Dorian and the Aeolian Greeks sprang from Hellens sons Dorus and Aeolus. The Achaeans and Ionians descended from Achaeos and Ion, sons of Hellens other son, Xuthus. These figures, in their turn, produced offspring who, along with children born of unionsGreek Mythology between divinities and mortals, made up the collection of heroes and heroines whose exploits constitute a central part of Greek mythology. C C1 C2 C3 Heroes Myths about heroes are particularly characteristic of Greek mythology. Many of these heroes were the sons of gods, and a number of myths entangled expeditions by these heroes. The expeditions generally rel ated to signals or combats. Scholars consider some of these myths partly historic in naturethat is, they explained events in the distant past and were handed down orally from one propagation to the next.Two of the most important of the semi historical myths involve the search for the Golden hook and the quest that led to the trojan horse contend. In other myths heroes such as Heracles and Theseus had to overcome fearsome monsters. Jason and the Golden Fleece Jason was a hero who sailed in the ship Argo, with a band of heroes called the Argonauts, on a dangerous quest for the Golden Fleece at the eastern end of the Black ocean in the land of Colchis. Jason had to fetch this family property, a rip off made of aureate from a winged ram, in order to regain his throne.A dragon that never slept guarded the fleece and made the mission nearly impossible. thank to the magical powers of Medea, daughter of the ruler of Colchis, Jason performed the impossible tasks necessary to win the fl eece and to concur it from the dragon. Afterward Medea took horrible revenge on Pelias, who had killed Jasons parents, stolen Jasons throne, and sent Jason on the quest for the fleece. She tricked Peliass daughters into cutting him up and change state him in a cauldron. Medeas story continue to involve horrific violence.When Jason rejected her for another woman, Medea once more used her magic to penalise herself with extreme cruelty. Meleager Jason and the corresponding generation of heroes took part in another adventure, with Meleager, the son of King Oeneus of Calydon and his wife Althea. At Meleagers birth the Fates pr economyed that he would die when a log burning on the hearth was completely consumed. His mother snatched the log and hid it in a chest. Meleager grew to manhood. One day, his father accidentally omitted Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, from a sacrifice. In revenge Artemis sent a mighty boar to plague the country.Meleager set out to destroy it, accompanied b y some of the greatest heroes of the day, including Peleus, Telamon, Theseus, Jason, and Castor and Polydeuces. The boar was killed. However, Meleager killed his mothers brothers in a argufy about who should receive the boar skin. In her anger Althea threw the log on to the fire, so ending her sons life she then hanged herself. Heroes of the Trojan War The greatest expedition of all was that which resulted in the Trojan War. The object of this quest was Helen, a beautiful Greek woman who had been abducted by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy.Helens husband Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon led an phalanx of Greeks to besiege Troy. After ten Greek Mythology years, with many heroes dead on both sides, the city fell to the trick of the Trojan Horsea giant wooden horse that the Greeks built and left outside the supply of Troy while their army pretended to withdraw. Not knowing that Greek heroes were hiding inside the horse, the Trojans took the horse into the city. The hidden Greeks then slipped out, opened the city gates and let their army in, thus defeating Troy. The Iliad, an epic poem attributed to Greek poet home run, tells the story of the Trojan War.The story continued with the Odyssey, another long poem attributed to kor, in which the Greek hero Odysseus made his way home after the Trojan War. Odysseus returned to his faithful wife, Penelope, whereas Agamemnon returned to be murdered by his faithless wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover. Historians considered the Trojan War entirely mythical until excavations in Turkey showed that there had been cities on the site of Troy and that fire had sunk one of these cities at about the time of the Trojan War, sometime from 1230 BC to 1180 BC. C4 C5 Heracles and Theseus.The deeds of the heroes Heracles (see Hercules) and Theseus exemplify a central theme in Greek mythology the conflict between finish and wild savagery. Each hero confronted and overcame monstrous opponents, yet neither enjoyed readable happines s. Heracles had been an Argonaut but left the expedition after being plunged into grief at the loss of his companion Hylas. In another story, a fit of madness led Heracles to kill his own wife and children. But he is best known for his feats of prowess against beasts and monsters, which began soon after his birth.The most difficult of these feats are known as the 12 labors, which are believed to represent efforts to overcome death and achieve immortality. Although Heracles died, his father, Zeus, gave him a place on Mount Olympus. Theseus successfully slew the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull. On his voyage home to Athens, however, he forgot to hoist the white sails that would nonplus sensation the success of his adventure. According to one tale, Theseuss heartbroken father Aegeus, comprehend black sails, believed his son had died, and committed suicide. The Aegean Sea in which he drowned is presumably named after Aegeus.Oedipus No hero of Greek mythology has proved more fascinating than Oedipus. He destroyed a monster, the Sphinx, by answering its riddle. even so his ultimate downfall served as a terrifying warning of the mental unsoundness of human fortune. As a baby, Oedipus had been abandoned on a mountainside by his parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes, because of a prophecy that the child would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Saved by the pity of a shepherd, the childits identity unknownwas reared by the king and queen mole rat of the neighboring city of Corinth.In due course, Oedipus unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy, coordinated the horrific crimes he had committed with the equally ghastly self-punishment of piercing his own eyes with Jocastas brooch-pins. Greek Mythology III A Gods and Goddesses B THE genius OF GREEK GODS AND HEROES In many respects the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology resembled extraordinarily powerful human beings. They experienced emotions such as jealousy, love, and grie f, and they shared with humans a desire to assert their own authority and to punish anyone who flouted it.However, these emotions and desires took supernaturally bad form in gods and goddesses. As numerous literary descriptions and esthetic representations testify, the Greeks imagined their gods to amaze human shape, although this form was strongly idealized. The Greeks, moreover, modeled births between divinities on those between human beings. Apollo and Artemis were brother and sister, Zeus and Hera were husband and wife, and the society of the gods on Mount Olympus resembled that of an unruly family, with Zeus at its head. The gods could temporarily enter the human world.They might, for example, fall in love with a mortal, as Aphrodite did with Adonis Apollo with Daphne and Zeus with Leda, Alcmene, and Danae. Or they might destroy a mortal who displeased them, as Dionysus destroyed King Pentheus of Thebes for mocking his rites. Not all Greek divinities resembled human beings. They could also be un kittyny, strange, and alien, a quality made visible in artistic representations of monsters. For example, the snake-haired Gorgon Medusa had a stare that turned her victims to stone. The Graeae, sisters of the Gorgons, were gray-haired old crones from birth.They possess but a single tooth and a single eye between them. Typhoeus was a hideous monster from whose shoulders grew a hundred snakeheads with dark, flickering tongues. level off the major deities of Olympus showed alien characteristics at times. A re authoritative sign of divine power is the exponent to change shape, either ones own or that of others. Athena once transformed herself into a vulture Poseidon once took the form of a stallion. This ability could prove convenient such as when Zeus assumed the form of a swan to woo Leda. Zeus turned Lycaon, a disrespectful king, into a wolf to punish him for his wickedness.The ability to exercise power over the crossing of boundaries is a crucial attribute of divine power among the Greeks. Heroes Greek mythology also told how divinities interacted with heroes, a category of mortals who, though dead, were believed to retain power to influence the lives of the living. In myths heroes represented a kind of bridge between gods and mortals. Heroes such as Achilles, Perseus, and Aeneas were the products of a union between a deity and a mortal. The fact that the gods often intervened to help heroesfor example, during combatindicated not the heroes weakness but their special importance.Yet heroes were not the equals of the gods. With a logic characteristic of Greek myth, heroes typically possessed a mistake to balance out their removeional power. For example, the warrior Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, was invulnerable except in the heel. The prophet Cassandra, who warned the Trojans of dangers such as the Trojan Horse, Greek Mythology eternally prophesied the truth but was never believed. Heracles constituted an extreme example of this conundrum His awesome strength was balanced by his tendency to become a victim of his own excessive violence.Nevertheless, the gods allowed Heracles to cross the ultimate boundary by gaining admission to Olympus. IV A B THE FUNCTIONS OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY Like most other mythological traditions, Greek myths served several purposes. First, Greek myths explained the world. Second, they acted as a means of exploration. Third, they provided authority and legitimacy. Finally, they provided entertainment. Explanation Greek myths lent structure and order to the world and explained how the current state of things had originated. Hesiods Theogony narrated the education of the present order of the universe by relating it to Chaos, the origin of all things.By a complex process of violence, struggle, and sexual attraction, the regime led by Zeus had eventually taken over. Another poem by Hesiod, Works and Days, explained why the world is full of trouble. According to the poem the first woman, P andora, opened a jounce whose lid she had been forbidden to lift. As a result of her disobedience all the diseases and miseries previously confined in the jar escaped into the world. Such a myth also makes a statement about relationships between the sexes in Hesiods own world.Scholars assume that he self-possessed the poem for a largely male audience that was receptive to a tale that put women at the root of all evil. One of the commonest types of explanation given in myths relates to ritual. Myths helped worshipers make sense of a religious practice by relation back how the practice originated. A prime example is sacrifice, a ritual that involved killing a domesticated animal as an offering to the gods. The ceremony culminated in the butchering, cooking, and sharing of the meat of the victim. Hesiod recounts the myth associated with this rite.According to this myth, the tricky Titan Prometheus tried to outwit Zeus by offering him a cunningly devised choice of meals. Zeus could h ave either an apparently unappetizing discan ox paunch, which had tasty meat concealed withinor a seemingly delicious one, gleaming fat on the outside, which had nothing but bones hidden beneath. Zeus chose the second dish, and ever since human beings have kept the tastiest part of every sacrifice for themselves, leaving the gods nothing but the savor of the rising smoke. Exploration Myths charted paths through difficult territory, examining contradictions and ambiguities.For instance, Homers Iliad explores the consequences during the Trojan War of the Greek leader Agamemnons decision to strip the warrior Achilles of his allotted prize, a female slave. Achilles feels that Agamemnon has assailed his honor or worth but wonders how far he should go in reaction. Is he right to eliminate to fight, if that means the destruction of the Greek army? Is he justified in rejecting Agamemnons offer of compensation? One of this poems themes explores the limits of honor. Greek Mythology The dra matic genre of tragedy provides the clearest example of mythical exploration (see see Greek Literature Drama and Dramatic Arts).The great Athenian playwrights of the fifth century BC Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripideswrote tragedies that explored social questions by placing them, in extreme and blown-up form, in a mythical context. Sophocless tragic play Antigone concerns just such an extreme situation. Two brothers have killed each other in battle Eteocles defending his homeland, and Polynices attacking it. Their sister Antigone, in defiance of an edict by the citys ruler, attempts to bury her ostensibly traitorous brother Polynices. Sophocles raises several moral issues.Is Antigone justified in seeking to bury her brother? Which should prevail, a religious obligation to tend and bury a corpse, or a citys well-being? The answers to these moral issues are far from clear-cut, as we might expect from a work whose subtlety and prudence have so often been admired. C D V A Legitimatio n Myths also had the function of legitimation. A claim, an action, or a relationship acquired extra authority if it had a precedent in myth. Aristocratic Greek families liked to trace their ancestry back to the heroes or gods of mythology.The Greek poet Pindar, who wrote in the early 5th century BC, offers ample evidence for this preference. In his songs Pindar praised the exploits of current victors in the Olympian Games by linking them with the deeds of their mythical ancestors. In addition, two Greek city-states could cement bonds between them by showing that they had an alliance in the mythological past. Entertainment Finally, myth telling was a source of amusement and entertainment. Homers epics contain several descriptions of audiences held spellbound by the songs of bards (poets), and recitations of Homers poems also captivated audiences.Public performances of tragic drama were also hugely popular, regularly drawing some 15,000 spectators. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK MY THOLOGY Our familiarity of Greek mythology begins with the epic poems attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which date from about the 8th century BC even though the stories they relate probably have their origins in events that occurred several centuries earlier. Scholars, however, know that the origins of Greek mythology reach even farther back than that. Origins of Greek MythologyLinguists (people who study languages) have concluded that some names of Greek deities, including Zeus, can be traced back to gods worshiped by speakers of Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit languages. But it would be misleading to regard the people who may have spoken this language as originators of Greek mythology because many other elements contributed. Greek Mythology Archaeologists have shown that many of the places where mythical events presumably took place correspond to sites that had historical importance during the Mycenaean period of Greek hist ory (second half of the 2nd millennium BC).Scholars thus consider it likely that the Mycenaeans made a major contribution to the development of the stories, even if this contribution is hard to demonstrate in detail. Some scholars have argued that the Minoan civilization of Crete also had a formative influence on Greek myths. The myth of the Minotaur confined in a labyrinth in the palace of King Minos, for example, might be a memory of historical bull-worship in the labyrinthine palace at Knossos on Crete. However, there is s electric arc evidence that Cretan religion survived in Greece. Nor have any ancient inscriptions corroborate that Minos ever existed outside of myth.Scholars can demonstrate influence on Greek mythology from the nerve East much more reliably than influence from Crete. Greek mythology owed much to cultures in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, especially in the realm of cosmogony (origin of the universe) and theogony (origin of the gods). To take one example, a clear parallel exists in an early tenderness Eastern myth for Greek poet Hesiods story about the expurgation of Uranus by his son Cronus and the subsequent overthrow of Cronus by his son Zeus. The Middle Eastern myth tells of the sky god Anu who was castrated by Kumarbi, father of the gods.The weather and storm god Teshub, in turn, displaced Anu. Scholars continue to bring to light more and more similarities between Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies. B Development of Greek Mythology Our knowledge of Greek myths comes from a mixture of written texts, sculpture, and decorated pottery. Scholars have reconstructed stories that circulated orally by inference and guesswork. Homers epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, stand at the beginning of Greek literary tradition (see Greek literature), even though they almost certainly depended on a lengthy previous tradition of oral poetry.The Iliad is set during the Trojan War it focuses on the consequences of a quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, two of the leading Greek warriors. The Odyssey is about the aftermath of the Trojan War, when the Greek hero Odysseus at finally returns to his home on the island of Ithaca following years of wandering in wild and magical lands. The Trojan War later provided subject matter for many tragic dramas and for imagery on countless painted vases. Hesiods Theogony, composed in the 8th century BC at about the same time as the Homeric epics, gave an authoritative account of how things began.The creation of the world, expound by Hesiod in terms of passions and crimes of the gods, is a theme that later Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Plato developed but took in new directions. This club serves as a reminder that mythology was not a separate reflection of Greek culture, but one that interacted with many other fields of experience, particularly the writing of history. For example, in the 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus employed numerous themes and story patterns from Greek e pics and tragedies in writing his historical account of the war between Greeks and Persians (see Persian Wars).Although the authority of Homer and Hesiod remained dominant, the poetic retelling of myths continued throughout antiquity. Myths were constantly remade in the light of new social and political circumstances. The Hellenistic period of Greek history (4th century to initiatory century BC) saw many new trends in the treatment of myths. One of the most important was the development of mythography, Greek Mythology the compilation and organization of myths on the basis of particular themes (for example, myths about metamorphosis).Such organization corresponded to a concupiscence of newly established Hellenistic rulers to lend legitimacy to their regimes by claiming that they continued a cultural tradition reaching back into a great past. Artists, too, portrayed myths. Statues of gods stood inside Greek temples, and relief sculptures of scenes from mythology adorned pediments and friezes on the outside of these temples (see Greek Art and Architecture). Among the best-known examples are the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens. These reliefs embroil depictions of combat between centaurs and Lapiths.Other visual representations of mythology were more modest in size and scope. The best evidence for the use of mythology in Greek icon comes from painted ceramic vases. The Greeks used these vases in a variety of contexts, from cookery to funerary ritual to athletic games. (Vases filled with oil were awarded as prizes in games. ) In most cases scholars can securely identify the imagery on Greek vases as mythological, but sometimes they have no way of telling whether the artist intended an allusion to mythology because myth became fused with everyday life.For example, does a representation of a woman weaving signify Penelope, wife of Odysseus who spent her days at a loom, or does it portray someone meshed in an everyday activity? The Greeks retold myths orally, as well as preserving them in literary and artistic works. The Greeks transmitted to children tales of monsters and myths of gods and heroes. Old men gathered to veer tales in leschai (clubs or conversation places). Storytelling, whether in writing, art, or speech, was at the heart of Greek civilization. VI A THE LEGACY OF GR.