The Toys of Zeus: Part One Flashcards
What were the first humans made from?
Clay sculpted from Gaia by Prometheus –plus the spittle of Zeus –breathed into life by Athena.
What were humans forbidden by Zeus to have? And why?
Fire
Because it could cause them to challenge the gods and think themselves their equal
In what way do humans embody the four elements?
Earth –Gaia’s clay
Air –breath of Athena
Fire –sun of Apollo
Water –spittle of Zeus
Where did Prometheus steal fire from, and with what?
Hephaestus’s forge, with the stem of a narthex plant
What was the significance of giving fire to man?
It allowed them to forge tools and fire pots, but also gave them divine fire of curiosity
How did Zeus punish humans for adopting fire?
He commanded Hephaestus to create a female, using goddesses as a model. Called Pandora –all-gifted.
Also gave her a container filled with secrets, and told her never to open it.
Gifted her as wife to Epimetheus (Prometheus’s brother)
What was Pandora’s box really?
A pithos –a glazed and sealed earthenware jar
How did Pandora try to remove the jar from her attention?
Buried it in garden under a sundial
What was in the jar that Pandora could not resist opening?
Mutant descendants of Nyx and Erebus: Ilness, Violence, Deceit, Misery and Want
What did Pandora accidentally leave in the jar?
Elpis – hope
The opening of Pandora’s box heralded the end of the _______ _____ and the start of the _______ ____.
The opening of Pandora’s box heralded the end of the Golden Age and the start of the Silver Age.
Who is Pyrrha?
The daughter of Pandora and Epimetheus
Who is Deucalion?
Son of Prometheus and either his mother Clymene (ew) or Hesione an Oceanid
Who was Lycaon and what happened to him?
King of Arcadia –son of Pelasgos, one of original clay figures.
Roasted own son Nyctimus and served to Zeus.
Zeus, disgusted, brought boy back to life and turned Lycaon into a wolf.
Who was Pelasgos?
One of original clay figures, ethnically Hellenic
Gave name to Pelasgians –tribe thought barbaric by the Greeks
What happened during the reign of Nyctimus?
His 49 brothers ravaged the land and behaved so disgustingly that Zeus caused a flood to end mankind.
Who survived Zeus’s great flood and how?
Only Deucalion and Pyrrha, upon a wooden chest built for them by Prometheus.
Chest settled on Mount Parnassus.
Where is Mount Parnassus?
Central Greece on Gulf of Corinth. Place of Oracle of Delphi.
How was the world repopulated after the flood of Zeus?
Deucalion and Pyrrha consulted oracle of Themis for advice. Told to “cover heads and throw bones of mother over shoulders”.
Threw rocks over shoulders, and from the earth sprung up humans.
Contemporary humans are the descendants of whom?
Deucalion and Pyrrha –and the stones of Gaia.
Who escorts the dead to Hades?
Depends –if important person then Hermes Psychopomp. Otherwise Thanatos.
To which place in the underworld are the dead first led?
To meeting of River Styx (Hate) and Acheron (Woe).
What is this?
An example of Charon’s obol (or obolus). Placed in the mouth of dead to pay for carriage across the Styx.
This is a ceremonial coin –thinner than one used for currency.
What’s this? Where might you find it? And what would you have to do to get there?
An asphodel flower, found in the Meadows of Asphodel, for those who lead a blameless life.
Who is this?
Prometheus (c 550BC)
Who is this?
Hecate
Roman sculpture after a Hellenistic original
Who is this?
Hermaphroditus
