Lecture 2 Flashcards
(45 cards)
Agon
Gathering for contest
Athlon
Prize, Labor, Athletics
2 Types of Strife
Good Eris - Competition Bad Eris - War
Polythemism
Many gods
Anthropomorphism
In the shape of humans
“The Greeks distinguished in the cosmos between different types of powers- multiple forms of power that could take action on every level of reality….making interventions within man himself as well as in society, nature, and in the Beyond.”
Jean Pierre Vernant, “The Society of Gods”
“Thus their religion and their pantheon can be seen to be a system of classification, a particular way of ordering and conceptualizing the universe, distinguishing between multiple types of force and power operating within it.”
Jean Pierre Vernant, “The Society of Gods”
But mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form.
Xenophanes
Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds.
Xenophanes
Theogony literally means
Birth of gods
Hesiod: Works and Days
Advice on farming
1st Generation Cosmos
Ouranos (Heaven), Gaia (Earth)
Ouranos
Heaven
Gaia
Earth
2nd Generation Cosmos
Titans, Cyclopes, Hundred Handers
3rd Generation Cosmos
Olympians, Non-Olympians, Non-Titans
Titanomachy
Battle between Titans and Olympians
Bie
Force
Metis
Deception
And Styx, Ocean’s daughter, made love with Pallas and bore Envy (Zelos) in her house and beautiful Victory (Nikê) and Strength (Kratos) and Force (Biê)- notable children she bore, and they have no house apart from Zeus, no dwelling or path except where the god leads them, and they dwell forever with deep-thundering Zeus.
Hesiod, Theogony
Timé
Perceived honor
For this was how Styx, Ocean’s daughter, made her decision on that fateful day when the lord of lighting summoned the gods to the slopes of Olympos. He told them that he would not deprive of anyone of rights and honors, who fought along with him against the Titans . Or if they had no rights under Kronos before, he would promote them to rights and honors (timê) as was just.
Hesiod, Theogony
If ever a god who lives on snowcapped Olympos pours a libation of this (water of Styx) and breaks his oath, he lies a full year without any breath, not a taste of ambrosia, not a sip of nectar comes to his lips, but he lies breathless and speechless on a blanketed bed, an evil coma upon him. But when the long year brings this disease to an end, another more difficult trial is in store, Nine years of exile from the everlasting gods, no converse in council or at their feasts for nine full years. In the tenth year finally he rejoins the Immortals in their homes on Olympos. Upon this the gods swear, the primordial, imperishable water of Styx.”
Hesiod, Theogony
Our minds are bent therefore, and our wills fixed on preserving your power through the horror of war.
Hesiod, Theogony