Classical mythology

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v \- t \- e

Classical mythology, otherwise known as Greco-Roman religion, is an umbrella term used to refer to many religious traditions practised within the Roman Empire and eventually syncretized and assimilated into something resembling a complex whole. It originated largely in the pre-existing mythology of ancient Greece, which was appropriated by the Romans into their own religious practices. In its latter years, when it competed with Christianity, it was referred to by followers of that religion as paganism.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 1.1 Ancient Greek religion
* 1.2 Shared mythology
* 1.3 Imported changes
* 1.4 Decline
* 1.5 Revival
* 2 Historical blending of the religions and views on morality, ethics, and the gods
* 3 See also
* 4 External links
* 5 Notes
* 6 References

## History[edit]

### Ancient Greek religion[edit]

About sums it up.

We know about Ancient Greek religion from reading sources such as Homer and Hesiod. Hesiod synthesised a wide range of earlier Greek traditions in his work Theogony. The Theogony describes the creation of the world out of chaos and the primordial deities it gave birth, and the Succession Myth tells how the original chief god Uranus (both son and husband of Gaia) was overthrown by his son Cronus, who was in turn tricked and defeated by his son Zeus. Zeus was the youngest of Cronus's six children, the main gods and goddesses that replaced a previous generation of deities (the Titans, other of Uranus' offspring), namely:

* Hestia, goddess of the hearth
* Demeter, goddess of crops and the harvest
* Hera, queen of the gods and goddess of women
* Hades, god of the underworld
* Poseidon, god of the sea and earthquakes
* Zeus, king of the gods and god of the sky

These five gods (all but Hestia, who chose to remain virgin forever) in turn had various children in different combinations (a lot of them coming from Zeus, as seen to the right), producing a pantheon considered to reside on Mount Olympus.

The Greek pantheon (the Greek word is a collective noun expressing the idea of a gang of gods) was large, dominated by the Olympian gods and goddesses (Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, etc.) but also containing many regional gods which the Hellenes added as they encountered new peoples with different gods as Hecate, with myths serving to weld them to their pantheon, as well as personifications of things as abstract concepts (ie, Eris) and celestial bodies (ie, Selene as personification of the Moon). The major pantheon of Greek gods themselves is likely based on a set of Indo-European myths that have been lost, but which would have influenced the Greeks (through the Minoans and the Mycenaeans), the ancient Hindus, the Norse, and the Middle East (Sumerians, etc), each of which share similar structures in the organization of their gods: Indra and Zeus, for example, or Parvati and Gaia.[note 1]

Historically, Mycenaean religion had a number of differences with the later Greek one. While some deities or at least their precursors can be recognized, there were a number of differences as Poseidon instead of Zeus being the top ~~dog~~ god and Aphrodite and Hades seemingly not being present, and less can be said with certainty of the Minoan religion as their language has to date not been translated even if it seems their chief deity was a goddess and some deities as Athena could have been around by then. Both, however, show evidences of human sacrifice and even cannibalism, the former being considered a last-resort measure to placate the gods[1][2][3], that would have been very frowned upon in later Greek religion at least if one goes by the myths of Tantalus and Idomeneus of Crete.

### Shared mythology[edit]

When the Romans appropriated the religion, they changed many of the gods' names, besides especially mixing the Greek ones with theirs; Zeus became Jupiter, Poseidon became Neptune, Hades became Pluto, etc. Native Roman gods such as Terminus were also preserved from earlier traditions, producing the Greco-Roman blend[note 2].

That said, Roman mythology had its own set of unique myths and their deities characteristics not present in the Greek ones, so it is inappropriate to think that they were merely copycats and the myths of the latter were adapted into the former. For example, the Roman god of time and agriculture, Saturn, was often depicted as wise, elderly, and kind while his Greek "counterpart" Cronus was depicted as a tyrant who castrated his father and devoured his children in a bid for power, and Diana and Artemis despite becoming heavily conflated (and later on with Selene, or rather her Roman equivalent Luna, and Hecate too) were in origins very different goddesses. Furthermore, the Greeks were also guilty of being copycats themselves, as syncretism between their deities and foreign ones aside, they often imported such god(esse)s as Isis or Astarte (in turn based on Ishtar), that would become Aphrodite, into their pantheons.

### Imported changes[edit]

Besides thus losing the support of a sector of the intelligentsia, the outland conquests of Greece and Rome repeatedly saw the traditional cults undermined by imported mystery cults, such as that of Bacchus in the early second century BCE and that of Mithras two centuries later, which gained large followings among the common people. They, along with philosophical traditions such as Manichaeism, became popular enough that the emperor Diocletian, the first "absolute" ruler of the Roman Empire, undertook religious reforms intended to restore the Olympians to their former stature.

### Decline[edit]

Christianity did not gain the upper hand until force was employed against the Pagans. In CE 312, the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity after a victory in battle against another contender for the imperial throne. Within a few years, he removed all legal restrictions on Christianity in the Edict of Milan. The Christians then began roving about smashing Pagan shrines in spite of laws set up to protect them. Also, Constantine and his successors began almost immediately to proscribe Pagan rites and work on converting the population to Christianity by force, culminating in the total ban of Pagan rituals in 392. Increasingly, isolated pockets of Pagans survived for some centuries longer; notably Hypatia of Alexandria, murdered in 415 in the midst of a religious dispute, and the Maniots, inhabitants of a mountainous region in southern Greece, who were the last Greco-Roman Pagans to be Christianized, in the 9th century[note 3]

### Revival[edit]

Greco-Roman deities, helped by lots of works in popular culture derived from them and their mythos, are now present in modern paganism, with the practitioners ranging from people who try to be as historically accurate as possible to standard eclectic paganism that includes practices certainly not used by ancient Greeks and Romans as Tarot readings, Crystals, and other New Agey nonsense, and everything in between.

In 2017, the Greek government recognized Hellenism as an official religion, allowing its practitioners to perform official marriage ceremonies or buy land to build temples.[4]

## Historical blending of the religions and views on morality, ethics, and the gods[edit]

Throughout most of Western history, the retellings of the Greek and Roman myths were done in a way that treated the entirety of the ancient Greco-Roman world as having had a single monolithic religion, rather than dozens of diverse cults and local variants on the worship of the same gods/goddess. This was largely because the myths were viewed through the lens of Christianity, which tended to lump all the different cults together under the label of "paganism," and did not care much about the distinctions between them. As G.K. Chesterton put it, "The term 'pagan' is continually used ... as meaning a man without any religion, whereas a pagan was generally a man with about half a dozen."[5]. Modern scholars, using techniques that put the old myths back in context, have documented much more extensively the rich and complex religious practices that existed across the Hellenic world even if it must be noted the modern concept of religion did not exist in those times[6] and at the very least Greeks both lacked a word for religion as we understand it and did not separate either each god(dess) or cult practice into independent "religions"[7] (ie, no "Church of the Twelve Olympians" or for each one of these deities as if this was a Dungeons and Dragons setting.)

Greco-Roman religion saw relationship with the gods as, in a sense, contractual — offer respect and honour to them through offerings and sacrifices ("Kharis")[8], and they'd reward you depending on what the deity you worshipped ruled over, if you were pious with the gods: a farmer would pray to Demeter, hoping she would reward him with a rich harvest, whilst a sailor would worship Poseidon, expecting a safe sea voyage in return, with extra offerings to thank them for getting what one wanted,[note 4] and always remembering to honor Hestia at the beginning and at the end of these rites (at least in some parts of Greece, save for chthonic deities).[note 5] These offerings were also practiced differently: in the case of animal sacrifices (save for Chthonic (underworld) deities, who got the entire animal burned), the gods got just the bones and fat as burned offerings, whilst everything else was eaten by all participants in a large banquet,[note 6] unlike what can be read in the Old Testament.

Additionally, unlike Judeo-Christian views of God, where his frag count is presented in a good light, Greco-Roman gods were (in some views) accepted to be fallible and imperfect, and it was argued that presenting them this way served as lessons for humans to strive and to be better than them. Despite this, morality and ethics were not as primary in these ancient societies as in modern views, [9] and hubris against the gods is punished very harshly in the myths (just ask, for example, Niobe, even if it seems that to ~~play stupid games and win stupid prizes~~ mess with the gods and see who got the harshest punishment was a sport among mortals in Greek mythology[note 7]. However, it should be noted that the precise way in which the gods are presented and interpreted in the myths were quite different depending on the worshipper. Many viewed the myths as allegorical, symbolic stories that contain a deeper insight, with the events not meant to be taken literally. With the gods being personifications of Nature, they are appropriately as fickle. However, others referred to the gods as compassionate, and viewed them as benevolent by default. Even philosophers differed on their views of the gods: Socrates noted how the gods, in the stories that featured them, were quite fickle, capricious, erratic, tyrannical, dishonorable, or just plain childish, even by human standards. As such, Plato wanted to ban such works, as they presented a distorted view quite different to his idealized vision of the gods.[10][11]

Christian-based views, finally, have also influenced the way some of these deities are now seen in popular culture, and not just due to ignorance of how myths were composed in a context very different to the modern one, or what they actually were for. Most notably Hades, who is so often perceived as an equivalent to Satan that he got a trope on TVTropes named after him[note 8]. However, it should also be noted that the ancient Greeks certainly did not like Hades, and especially disliked his wife Persephone with the latter being known as "Dread Persephone". This is mostly due to their natural fear of death and the unknown, as well as Hades being considered unbribable: no matter how much one prayed or gave offerings to him, no one was spared of dying, nor did anyone come back from the Underworld.[note 9]

## See also[edit]

* Classical antiquity
* Polytheistic reconstructionism
* Pan

## External links[edit]

* Greco-Roman religion
* Ancient Greek and Roman Religion
* Parting the Parthenon Debunking the Greek gods
* Ancient Greek Mythology

## Notes[edit]

1. ↑ The gods of the Slavs can also be included in this; for example, Perun shares Zeus's association with the sky and lightning, while Veles shares Hades' association with that which is underground.
2. ↑ It has often been claimed that for centuries, presumably due to the legacy of the Roman Empire, the Roman names of the gods were more popular than the Greek ones, until the space age began and the former ones became so heavily associated with planets instead of deities, as planets stopped being something only astronomers cared about (many people, for example, is more familiar with Jupiter instead of with the other Jupiter), that the latter became more used instead. Meanwhile, in modern Greece planets are named using the original Greek names (and the same the Sun (Helios) and the Moon (Selene)
3. ↑ Modern scholarship presents a somewhat different view, however, considering that while there was discrimination against Pagans, (more than likely) force conversions, and mob violence against them and Pagan shrines the traditional view in which Paganism was curb-stomped by Christianity is the result of Christian hagiographies depicting things such way, and it declined slowly instead lasting for centuries and being the Byzantine emperor Justinian the one who persecuted Pagans with more zealotry. See the other wiki.
4. ↑ This is a reason why artwork in which a god(dess) appears practicing a religious ritual and/or close to an altar is a common motif in religious Greek art, symbolizing them responding to such offerings and sacrifices when is not a deity honoring another.
5. ↑ It has often been argued that this is one of the reasons for spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire; someone dying gruesomely to save mankind, giving everyone a blissful afterlife, even if threats of eternal torment for idolaters are still present, in exchange for (next to) nothing, was something novel in those days. Next to such a business-like relationship, a grey, generic, afterlife, save for some selected ones, and especially the many hardships people of those times had to endure with things not improving at all after dying.
6. ↑ And since meat was a luxury back in the day, that would be the only moment poor people could eat it.
7. ↑ With presumably their subjects, since myths typically feature people from the royalty, betting on the outcome.
8. ↑ Hecate has gotten a similar treatment too due to the associations of such goddess with witchcraft, necromancy, and the Underworld
9. ↑ Still, Hades was also associated the riches given by earth (precious metals, etc.) and even its fertility. Even so, Hades was worshipped with different names in these contexts.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ Minoan Human Sacrifice?
2. ↑ Ritual human sacrifice in the Mycenaean palace of Kydonia
3. ↑ The Minoans: How They Lived, and How They Died
4. ↑ THE GREEK STATE HAS FINALLY RECOGNIZED THE HELLENIC ETHNIC RELIGION AS A ‘KNOWN RELIGION’
5. ↑ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Heretics/12
6. ↑ The Cambridge companion to ancient Mediterranean religions
7. ↑ The Oxford handbook of ancient Greek religion
8. ↑ Kharis (Χάρις); our relationship with the Gods.
9. ↑ Was Greek ‘religious’ thought linked with morality?
10. ↑ Homer's Gods, Plato's Gods
11. ↑ Summary and Analysis Book II: Section III