Week 4

Question 1

Hestia (vesta)

Answer 1

• one of the most forgotten goddesses that were kicked out and forgotten out of the main 12
• eternal virgin, first born of the Olympian gods and tends to the hearths and home of the world
• appears as a veiled woman

Question 2

Dionysius (Bacchus)

Answer 2

God of wine, vegetation, fertility for men
- drama, religious ecstacy
- ivy, grapevines, leopard skins, wine cup
- has a mystery cult: an ecstatic religion related to rebirth
- born to semele and Zeus: jealousy of hera and born from Zeus’ thigh (he basically showed himself in true form and semele dies)
- God of drama and theater too

Question 3

Travels of dionysius

Answer 3

• written by euripides in 405 bc
• dionysius travels around and shares his cult in order to get power to join the olympians
• goes to the underworld and takes his dead mother back

Question 4

The story of Bacchae by Euripides

Answer 4

• scene written where dionysius claims his power and his arrives in thebes
• shows how his cult is popular now
• his worships transcend cultural boundaries

Question 5

Demeter (ceres) and persephone (kore)

Answer 5

• demeter: goddess of fertility and grain/harvest
• has a cult: the eleusinian mysteries about rebirth, death, life
• ear of wheat, torch
• tales about demeter could have been made later 7th c BC rather than 8 C BC
• Persephone was daughter of demeter, kidnapped and made the bride of Hades. Distraught and whatnot, demeter makes everything die around her. Demeter returns at seasons which explains weather

Question 6

Homeric hymn to demeter

Answer 6

• describing the moment of the kidnapped where Hades steals persephone only heard by helios and hekate
• she makes everything die since she’s a goddess of fertility and harvest
• basically winter and starvation and Zeus commands Hades to release persephone
• he tricks persephone to him by eating pomegranate seeds so she stays with him 1/3rd of the year

Question 7

The eleusianian mysteries

Answer 7

• important sanctuary of demeter - property of Athens after 7th century bc
• rituals are secret, but a fertility/harvest cult
• even in the important even in the Roman period
• has a festival in spring for demeter and persephone

Question 8

Hades (Pluto or dio)

Answer 8

• ruler of the dead/underworld
• brother of Zeus and poseidon
• stays in the underworld
• cap of invisibility

Question 9

Orpheus and orphism

Answer 9

• when mortals go down into tartarus, they don’t return
• the death of Orpheus (torn apart by dionysius)
• mortal who went in and out of the underworld

Question 11

Hermes (mercury)

Answer 11

• messenger and herald for the gods
• god of travelers, traders, boundaries, conducts the dead to hades
• a trickster
• winged boots/sandals,travelers hat, heralds staff

Question 12

Iris (iris/arcus)

Answer 12

• personification of the rainbow
• cupbearer of the gods on mount Olympus
• also a messenger god for hera specifically
• Wings, herald hat