Chap 11 Flashcards
(75 cards)
1
Q
what is the most famous labors of Heracles?
A
-defeat of the Nemean lion, whose skin could not be pierced by arrow or sword.
-defeats the lion by wrestling it and thereafter wears its skin to make himself invulnerable
2
Q
what is the common illustration of Heracles?
A
This common depiction of Heracles recalls Nietzsche’s aphorism—those who fight with monsters become monster-like. This paradox makes heroes ambiguous figures. Heracles, like many Greek heroes, is both an ideal and an outlaw.
3
Q
what is the function of a hero in society?
A
-Heroes frequently confront and defeat monsters
-Monsters identify the political, economic, sexual, and cultural boundaries around which a community is organized because they violate them. A hero restores and reaffirms these boundaries when he defeats a monster.
4
Q
what are the significance of Odysseus victory against Cyclops?
A
His victory also demonstrates several important hierarchies in Greek thought:
- cleverness over brute strength and Greek over non-Greek.
- A heroic encounter with a monster may affirm any number of values cherished by the Greeks
-human over animal
- civilization over savagery
-male over female
5
Q
what is the commonality among Heracles, Theseus, and Perseus?
A
- all are closely linked to a monster. Heracles with the Nemean lion, Theseus with the Minotaur, and Perseus with Medusa.
6
Q
what is the result of Heracles victory in general?
A
establishment of many Greek culture and religious practices. superiority of Greeks in region.
7
Q
how Perseus and Theseus are linked to Heracles?
A
- Perseus is a distant ancestor of Heracles, primarily known for his defeat of the monstrous Medusa, he and Heracles are considered early Greeks heroes because their exploits are the first recognizable pictorial representations on Greek vases and temples
-Theseus’s adventures are directly modeled on Heracles, yet they are fewer and more limited: almost all are linked to Athens.
8
Q
Who’s and which institution are build by Theseus?
A
He rids the Athenian countryside of villains and establishes many Athenian institutions, including, for example, coinage and military tactics.
9
Q
who was Heracles’s mother?
A
Alcmene wife of Theban general Amphitryon.
10
Q
who fulfill the prophecy of Zeus and became the king of Tiryns?
A
twine of Heracles, Eurystheus—who is also distantly descended from Zeus.
11
Q
what is canonical labor?
A
Some stories claim Heracles must serve Eurystheus for other crimes.) Twelve such deeds were sculpted on the temple of Zeus in Olympia, and these have become the canonical labors (athloi, or athlos [singular]; the Greek root of the English word “athletes”) for which Heracles is best known
12
Q
what is parerga/parergon?
A
all other trials and journeys of Heracles were called side labors.
13
Q
how Heracles got to enter Olympus?
A
After surviving the trials Hera has imposed, the gods recognize the valor, strength, and endurance of the hero. Heracles is allowed to enter Olympus, where he marries Hebe, a goddess whose name means “youth.”
14
Q
what distinct Heracles from other heros?
A
His ascension to Olympus makes him unique among Greek heroes.
15
Q
where Heracles was worshipped?
A
throughout the Mediterranean world, from Egypt to Spain and Italy, where the Etruscans and the Romans called him Hercules.
16
Q
what Heracles means?
A
the glory of Hera. his identity’s tiness with Hera.
17
Q
what is the Heracles’s first heroic act?
A
although only an infant, he wrestles and defeats snakes that Hera places in his crib
18
Q
What was his title?
A
Scholars have identified his origins in a divine or semidivine figure who has dominion over wild and domestic beasts called a “master of animals.”
19
Q
who’s called mistress of animal?
A
Artemis
20
Q
what is Walter Burkert’s opinion about Hercules?
A
Walter Burkert (1931–2015), a classical scholar, connects Heracles to Mesopotamian cylinder seals from the third millennium bce that show a lone hero fighting bulls, lions, and a multiheaded snaky figure.
21
Q
according to Burkert how the to understand the link between the master of animals and heroic tales?
A
by examining story patterns. The master of animals becomes a less vital figure for a society that has developed widespread agriculture and domesticated animals for consumption; it no longer needs to appeal to the master of animals for success in a hunt for food upon which its existence depends. Over time, stories about the master of animals become less important. Because these tales are familiar, however, they are not easily forgotten or revised. Thus tales about the hunt for food become the architecture on which the heroic quest for a scared object develops.
22
Q
what is the argument of Burkert regarding the Vladimir Propp’s observation?
A
He argues that Propp’s list of events in a hero’s tale detailing his quest for a sacred object or a villain also describes a hunter’s chase for an animal.
1.Both hero and hunter depart and go to an uninhabited realm,
2. receive help or face difficulties
3. find a desired object, obtain it, and return home.
-This story pattern explains how tales about the master of animals could readily evolve into tales of heroic quests. Each of Heracles’s labors, most which concern animals, fits this pattern and, along with the pictures on Mesopotamian cylinder seals, suggests a distant connection between the master of animals in the Near East and the distinctly Greek hero, Heracles.
23
Q
what is the main objective of the Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale?
A
-Propp studied a small number of Russian fairy tales in order to understand why so many fairy and folk tales were similar to one another.
24
Q
Name the component parts of tales according to Propp?
A
-Propp determined that there are seven broad types of characters: the hero, the false hero, the princess (or the prize), the villain, the dispatcher, the donor, and the helper.
-Propp then organized the actions of these seven types into thirty-one broad categories, which he called functions.
25
what was Hercules's first labor?
In his first labor, he defeats the Nemean lion and thereafter is depicted wearing its skin (discussed earlier). Heracles maintains an intimate connection with the lion: its impenetrable skin protects him and its jaws enclose his head.
26
what is the takeaway from Hercules's labor?
These labors suggest Heracles’s commonalities with these beasts because his strength and endurance match theirs—he chases the hind for a full year and wrestles the boar into submission.
by removing these animals to protect the human communities they harass, he establishes the spatial boundaries between cities and their surrounding uninhabited lands, thus separating human from animal, civilized from uncivilized.
27
what is the connection between Hercules and cultural institutions?
Heracles’s victories over animals lead to important cultural institutions, like athletic games.
-Bacchylides praises Pytheas of Aegina for winning the pancratium, a wrestling and boxing competition, known for its brutality. He provides a history of the contest: Heracles’s wrestling match with the Nemean lion provides its model and a foundation story for its establishment. By recalling Heracles’s achievement, Bacchylides elevates Pytheas and implicitly reminds him to harness his success to the advantage of his community.
28
how did Pinder describes athletic events?
Pindar describes Heracles’s inauguration of the most important athletic event in Greece: the Olympian games honoring Zeus. When praising an athlete, named Hagisdamus, Pindar recalls a labor that only loosely concerns animals—cleaning king Augeus’s stables.
29
what did Heracles do to Augeus's city in Greece and why?
Despite Heracles’s success at this grim task (Athena advises him to reroute a river through them), Augeus’s two nephews prevent him from receiving his just rewards. In response, Heracles kills them and destroys Augeus’s city. He then establishes an altar to Zeus in Olympia and demarcates its surrounding land as sacred. Thus Pindar presents Heracles as the founder of Zeus’s sanctuary and the quadrennial games in Olympia.
30
how Heracles's labor sets social norms?
Heracles’s twelve labors affirm social norms that animals have violated or challenged. His defeat of the “malicious and grisly” Lernaean hydra reinforces the boundary between human and beast as well as male and female.
31
who was Lernaean hydra?
The hydra is a female offspring of Echidna, “an iridescent monster eating raw flesh in sacred earth’s dark crypts,” and Typhaon, who is often identified with Typhoeus, an enemy of Zeus.
32
What is the commonality between hydra and Typhoeus?
Both creatures have many heads, making them formidable opponents. Both are associated with unruly female reproduction and resistance to Zeus’s rule.
-Typhoeus has only one parent, his mother Gaia; she dispatches him to challenge Zeus
33
how Heracles defeats Lernaean hydra?
The Lernaean hydra, like Typhoeus, challenges Heracles as the behest of a female: Hera. He fights the hydra with the help of Athena, who advises his companion Iolaus to cauterize the hydra’s necks to stop their regrowth of heads, as soon as Heracles decapitates them.
-This strategy allows Heracles to limit the hydra’s unrestrained self-replication and defeat her. His victory asserts the benefits of male control over female reproduction for society
34
who were Amazon?
Another labor that treats the relative social authority between men and women concerns the Amazons, an all-female tribe of nomadic archers, known for their hostility to men.
> Heracles must obtain the belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons
35
what are the significant of Amazon's war with Heracles?
His success signals that they are vulnerable to the military, and perhaps sexual, prowess of Greek men and reasserts the hierarchy of male over female. In addition, Heracles’s victory affirms another important hierarchy: Greek over non-Greek.
36
what Heracles defeat of Geryon?
Heracles’s defeat of Geryon, a three-headed and three-bodied monster, also explores contested boundaries between Greeks and non-Greeks in foreign lands.
37
Why Heracles fought with Geryon?
Heracles travels to Erytheia (“red land”), a mythical island near Sicily, to steal Geryon’s red cattle. Geryon’s skin is also red, the color of his island’s soil, and thus links him to its indigenous population. His three bodies and heads are a combination of disparate parts and symbolically represent the blurring of boundaries between Greeks and non-Greeks through marriage in Greek colonies.
38
What is the Heracles's labors near the underground portraits?
two of Heracles’s labors near the Underworld explore the boundaries between humans and divine and foreshadow his apotheosis into a god. Heracles must obtain three golden apples guarded by the Hesperides (nymphs) and a snake. The Hesperides live in the far west, where the Greeks located the entrance to the Underworld. Because these apples are gold and cannot die, they symbolize immortality. Second, Heracles must enter the Underworld to capture Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards its entrance. By obtaining the apples and Cerberus (both are eventually returned), Heracles conquers death. These labors, unlike his previous ones, blur boundaries between mortality and immortality.
39
how Heracles is portrait in the city?
Greek tragedies present him in domestic settings, where his strength threatens his family and does not benefit society. In Heracles Mainomenos (or The Madness of Heracles), Euripides presents Heracles as a murderer and would-be suicide.
40
Who is Lycus?
He returns from his labors and discovers that King Lycus believes he has died. To keep control of the city, Lycus plans to kill Heracles’s wife, Megara, their two sons, and his father, Amphitryon. As soon as Heracles slays Lycus, Hera drives him into a maddened state during which he kills his wife and children
41
Why Heracles didn't kill himself?
Theseus, King of Athens and friend of Heracles, happens by and persuades him to conquer his shame and grief and to live.
42
Who is Trachiniae?
Sophocles’s play, the Trachiniae (Women of Trachis), treats the last few hours of Heracles’s life and shows him breaking boundaries, rather than establishing them.
43
who is Deianira?
Heracles is married to Deianira, whom he once saved from the centaur Nessus. While ferrying Deianira across a river on his back, Nessus attempted to rape her; Heracles, coming to Deianira’s rescue, shot the centaur with a poisonous arrow
44
how did Heracles died?
Before dying, Nessus told Deianira that his blood was a love potion. as Deianira awaits Heracles’s return (as Megara did in Heracles Mainomenos). Heracles arrives, accompanied by his lover, a young girl named Iole. Jealous, Deianira drenches his clothes with Nessus’s blood in an attempt to win back his affections. Yet because this blood has been mixed with the very poison Heracles used to kill the centaur, it, too, is deadly. Heracles’s clothing burns and tears at his skin. As he endures this grievous pain, he learns that Deianira has poisoned him by mistake and has killed herself in grief.
45
how the differences between male and female gets blurred by Heracles's dead?
As Heracles builds a pyre for himself on Mount Oeta, he laments that his pain has made him cry like a little girl. Athena arrives to escort him to Olympus, where he will live as a god. His self-proclaimed transformation into a girl and his apotheosis into a god blur the differences between male and female, mortal and immortal.
46
What is his final personality as he dies?
He identifies the boundaries of his world, by breaking them. At the play’s end, he is both man and god, both woman and man, both savage and civilized. After defeating many monsters throughout the Mediterranean, Heracles has become one.
47
Who is Theseus?
Theseus is a hero who resembles Heracles in that they both slay beasts and noxious men and win princesses. Yet historical traditions, Athenian festivals, hero shrines, and tragedies transformed Theseus from a Greek hero into a distinctly Athenian, democratic one.
48
What is the Theseus position in Athens?
the Athenians made Theseus, although a king in myth, a leader responsible for uniting the populations in and around Athens through shared religious and cultural practices. This unity later enabled the people around Athens to create a democratic polity
49
Name the festivals dedicated to Theseus?
the Pyanopsia, the most important Athenian festival concerning Theseus, young boys imitated Theseus and his companions when they set out to Crete to destroy the Minotaur
50
What was the impact of Pyanopsia on youths?
to imitate Theseus’s willingness to serve Athens through military and political skill.
51
Name the Shrines of Theseus?
-at least three hero shrines in Athens.
-The oldest of these, the Theseion, was believed to contain Theseus’s bones. Cimon (510–450 bce), a great Athenian statesman and general, claimed to have found Theseus’s bones on Delos, a strategically and religiously important island in the Aegean Sea, and deposited them in the Theseion.
52
who was the father of Theseus?
Some myths claim Theseus is the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea, but most myths describe him as the son of King Aegeus of Athens.
53
what is the story of King Aegeus and Aethra?
King Aegeus, while traveling through Troezen, slept with and impregnated Aethra, the daughter of his host, and then left his sandals and sword under a rock. Aegeus instructs Aethra to send the child to him when and if he is strong enough to lift the rock and retrieve the items left there. Once reaching maturity, Theseus succeeds at this task. As he travels to Athens, he defeats bandits and thieves
54
Where is the pectoral evidence of Theseus's defeat of bandits and thieves?
These were depicted on the Temple of Hephaestus (also called the Hephaesteion) near the Athenian agora, where nine of Heracles’s labors were also carved, and on the Athenian treasury in Delphi. Both buildings canonized Theseus’s adventures, implicitly comparing them to Heracles’s labors and highlighting differences.
55
What is the difference between Theseus's adventures and Heracles's labor?
Theseus opponents are men, not animals, who rob and kill travelers. Theseus’s victory over them foreshadows that he will become king in Athens and will establish law among its people.
56
who was Minotaur?
* Minotaur: a man-eating monster that Theseus fought. Athens ought to pay tributes every year (boys and girls) to be killed. To Crete. A monster that would kill the tribute as sport.
The Minotaur is the monstrous offspring of the Queen of Crete Pesiphae.
57
who helped Theseus to kill Minotaur?
Theseus free the Athens from Minotaur with the help of Cretan princess Ariadne (give a silver threat to find his way out of the maze).
58
how Pasiphae helped Theseus to kill Minotaur?
– Pasiphae and Poseidon’s bull: give him a special yarn (not destroyed) and kill the monster. Athens a submissive trade network of the Crete.
59
What is mentioned in Suppliants by Euripides about Theseus?
In Suppliants, also by Euripides, Theseus agrees to meet the request of some Argive women (the suppliants of the play’s title) who beg him for help. On their behalf, Theseus travels to Thebes and uses both rhetorical persuasion and military might to convince the Thebans to release the bodies of the Argive war dead so that the women can bury them. Theseus succeeds and, on receiving the Argive bodies, prepares them for burial himself. This extraordinary gesture characterizes Theseus as a leader who is open to persuasion (the hallmark of democracy), respectful of cultural and religious norms, and militarily strong. In historical traditions, cults, and on the tragic stage, Theseus provided Athenians with an aspirational image of themselves.
60
What was the debt of Athens to Crete and why?
Athens must send seven boys and seven girls to Crete to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, a ransom due because the Athenians lost a war with the Cretans (or, in some myths, in recompense for the murder of King Minos’s son in Athens). Theseus sets out to free Athens of this terrible debt, by volunteering to be one of the seven boys sent to Crete along with two (or sometimes seven) boys who dress as girls to assist him
61
what is the difference between Minotaur and centaur?
In contrast to centaurs who have horse bodies with human heads and torsos, the Minotaur has a human body with a bull head. The arrangement of the Minotaur’s parts suggests that his bestial side dominates. In imagination and in laws, Greeks often exhibited a potent fear of foreigners and miscegenation, especially when such breaches take place because of female desire.
62
Who were the women that Theseus encounter?
Ariadne, Phaedra, and Hippolyta, also express a concern with the boundaries between Greek and non-Greek and female desire.
63
Who was Ariadne?
The Cretan princess Ariadne betrays her parents to help Theseus defeat the Minotaur (her half-brother), by giving him a silver thread so that he can find his way out of the Minotaur’s maze. Despite her help, he abandons her on the island of Naxos during their voyage back to Athens
64
Who was Phaedra?
He then marries Phaedra, Ariadne’s sister. Like her mother Pasiphae, Phaedra is filled with a desire for a socially unsanctioned union; she desires her stepson, Hippolytus who is the child of Theseus and an Amazon, Hippolyta (in some versions Antiope). When Hippolytus refuses to respond to her solicitations, she falsely accuses him of rape.
65
What happened when Hippolytus was accused of rape?
Euripides’s play Hippolytus, Phaedra’s accusation causes Hippolytus to die in a gruesome way, and she commits suicide in shame.
66
What is the Theseus's relationship with foreign women describes?
Theseus’s relationships with these three foreign women warn against marriage between Greeks and non-Greeks which the Athenians prohibited in a law (451 bce) that restricted Athenian citizenship to those who had two Athenian parents. This prohibition also protected the Athenian democracy from political alliances between elites in different Greek communities. Theseus chose foreign women to his detriment; nonetheless, he became an ideal Athenian leader and hero, not because he was perfect but because he was not.
67
who is Perseus?
Son of Zeus and Danae, His grandfather, Acrisios, is the king of Argos. Having received a Delphic oracle that his grandson would kill him and usurp his throne, Acrisios imprisons Danaë in a room. But Zeus appears to her in the form of a shower of gold and impregnates her. When Perseus is born from this union and Acrisios overhears the baby crying, he locks both Danaë and the child in a large trunk and sets it out to sea in order to avoid putting them to death directly and thereby incurring the wrath of the gods.
68
who rescues the Danae's trunk?
The trunk floats close to the island of Seriphus, where it is hauled out of the sea by a fisherman named Dictys, who is the brother of Polydectes, the king of Seriphus. Dictys welcomes and shelters Danaë and her child. But Danaë’s freedom is short-lived; Polydectes, rebuffed as a suitor by Danaë, imprisons her in his house and sends Perseus to the Temple of Athena, where he spends his youth. (In other versions, Danaë and Perseus live out the next few years in Dictys’s hut.) Upon reaching adulthood, Polydectes asks Perseus to retrieve the head of Medusa as a way to dispense with the young man so that he might marry Danaë.
69
How Perseus killed Medusa?
n order to find Medusa and her sisters, the Gorgons. He must find nymphs called the Graeae (Gray Ones) or the Phorcydes, who are also Medusa’s sisters, because they alone know where she may be found. Collectively, the Graeae have one eye and one tooth, which they share among themselves. Perseus snatches the tooth and the eye, promising their return in exchange for the information he needs. They also give him winged sandals that enable him to fly, a bag in which to hide Medusa’s head from view, and a cap that has the power to make its wearer invisible. (In other versions, Hermes, Athena, and Hephaestus give Perseus these gifts, as well as a sickle and a mirror, which Perseus uses to decapitate Medusa while avoiding looking directly at her.) Perseus succeeds in finding the Gorgons and then decapitates Medusa, stowing her head in his bag.
70
Who is Medusa?
Medusa, along with her Gorgon sisters, are daughters of Phorcys, a sea deity, and Ceto, a sea creature. Of the three Gorgons, Medusa alone is mortal and is especially dangerous to mortal men: if a man looks at her, he will become immobilized and turn to stone. Medusa is usually depicted as winged, wearing a short tunic and boots. Although her face is especially terrifying, with its grimacing mouth, protruding tongue, bulging eyes, and animal-like nose, Medusa is most familiar for the snakes she has instead of hair. In many representations of Medusa and her sisters, they are frequently depicted facing the viewer in a frightening manner (as anyone who looked at her directly was said to be turned to stone). Medusa is also often shown running from Perseus, attempting in vain to escape a gruesome decapitation at his hands
71
how did Perseus used Medusa's head?
During Perseus’s return to Seriphus, he has several adventures in which he uses the head of Medusa to protect himself. He encounters the Titan Atlas, who threatens Perseus and thus provokes him to reveal Medusa’s head. One glimpse of the head immediately immobilizes Atlas, turning him into a large mountain. In Ethiopia, Perseus finds a princess, Andromeda, tied to a rock and left to be devoured by a sea monster. Andromeda’s punishment was demanded by the Nereids (sea nymphs), who were angry at her mother Cassiopeia for bragging that Andromeda was more beautiful than they. Cepheus, Andromeda’s father, promises Perseus that he may marry his daughter if he saves her but then plots with Andromeda’s actual betrothed, Phineus, to kill Perseus so that Phineus might still marry her. In other versions, Cepheus honors his promise, but Phineus and a troop of men attempt to kidnap Andromeda during the celebration of her wedding to Perseus. Perseus uses Medusa’s head as a weapon, turning Phineus and his men to stone, and then marries Andromeda. With her, he sires seven sons and two daughters.
72
How Acrisios was killed?
After these adventures, Perseus and Andromeda return to Seriphus to release Danaë from Polydectes. Perseus shows Polydectes Medusa’s head, turning the treacherous king into stone, and establishes the faithful Dictys as the new king of Seriphus. Finally, Acrisios learns of the survival of both Danaë and Perseus. Although the accounts vary, some say that during an athletic contest attended by Acrisios, Perseus hurls a disc that accidentally hits and kills him. In this way, the Delphic oracle predicting that Acrisios would be killed by his grandson is fulfilled.
73
What was born as a result of Medusa's death?
First, when Perseus decapitates her, Medusa gives birth to Chrysaor, a mortal male, and Pegasus, a winged horse, from her neck.
Although frequently described in written sources, the birth of Medusa’s offspring (the result of her rape by Poseidon in Athena’s temple) is rarely shown in surviving visual sources. A sarcophagus from Cyprus is an exception.
-At the point of dying, she produces two male offspring. Second, when Medusa is decapitated, she or her sisters were said to wail so beautifully that Athena invents a flute to imitate their sound. Medea’s gruesome death, therefore, brings both beautiful music and the magical winged horse Pegasus into the world, provoking fascination and repulsion simultaneously.
74
how monsters define heroes?
The story of Medusa suggests that female monsters are often credited with the powers of procreation and artistic creation—alluring properties that threaten to transform men in ways they cannot control. Her bewitching, beautiful, appalling head retains its creative powers because it transforms men into stone, making them sculptures. It transforms Perseus, too, although he escapes her petrifying gaze. When Perseus uses Medusa’s head to turn his enemies into stone, he usurps her power and becomes like her. He becomes the monster he sought to defeat, just as Heracles becomes invulnerable like the Nemean lion whose skin he wears. Similarly, Theseus defeats the Minotaur, and joins their families together, by courting one of the Minotaur’s sisters (Ariadne) and marrying another one (Phaedra). In these ways, the monsters define the heroes who pursue and destroy them.
75
What does Euripides Heracles/ Mainnomenus/ The madness of Heracles examines?
Heracles’s return to Thebes after he has completed his labors. In the first section of the play, Heracles acts as a savior and kills King Lycus, who is threatening to kill his wife, children, and father. Hera sends Lyssa (Madness), a female divinity, to drive him mad. Her appearance on stage and the chorus’s reaction is included in this excerpt (lines 821–886). Under her influence, Heracles kills his wife and sons and falls into a deep slumber. When he awakes and learns that he has killed his family, he hides his head in shame and determines to kill himself. Serendipitously, Theseus, King of Athens, arrives in Thebes and convinces Heracles to stay alive and seek refuge in Athens as his guest. The play concludes with their discussion of the gods, religious notions of pollution, friendship, and mortality (included here, 1146–1427 [end]). (Translated by George Theodoridis.)
