Join us for a deep dive into the Greek and Roman pantheons. We look at the Classical Gods as archetypes and discuss how they have come down to us as literature versus how they were worshipped and thought about in the ancient world.
SHOW NOTES
Theoi.com - excellent resource on the original written and visual works of the Greek Pantheon
U Penn comparison of Greek and Roman gods chart
Jean-Auguste_Dominque Ingres Jupiter and Thetis
Neptune’s Horses by Walter Gray on the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood website
We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu
Join us for a deep dive into the Greek and Roman pantheons. We look at the Classical Gods as archetypes and discuss how they have come down to us as literature versus how they were worshipped and thought about in the ancient world.
SHOW NOTES
Theoi.com - excellent resource on the original written and visual works of the Greek Pantheon
U Penn comparison of Greek and Roman gods chart
Jean-Auguste_Dominque Ingres Jupiter and Thetis
Neptune’s Horses by Walter Gray on the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood website
We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu
Hello, and welcome back to Mythic U. I'm Erin
Karen Foglesong:And I'm Karen Foglesong. Welcome. Branham.
Erin Branham:We haven't yet talked in any of our episodes about the kinds of bodies of myth that most people think about as mythology. So we thought it was about time we should do that. So we're gonna start with one of the key pantheons to Western culture, one most everybody will probably be familiar with, at some point or another, the Greek and Roman Pantheon. Tell us a little bit about why those are important.
Karen Foglesong:So this, these pantheons are important because, kind of Western culture, classical ideas are based on them. And like Carl Jung used them as a way to embody his idea of archetypes. These, I hope everybody remembers that these are not gods and goddesses from a practiced religion. They're all pieces that have kind of been strung together by Western academics. But I feel like that they're very important because they're giving us kind of a baseline for dealing with archetypes in our modern culture, because number one, they're not connected to any religion right now. So we can talk about them in any way we want, because we're not going to offend anybody. And number two, this is where our archetype, archetype baseline is at. Because academia has used them for so long, like in arts and literature and whatnot. So and psychology.
Erin Branham:Definitely, you know, Western culture, America is based on is based deeply in European culture with many, many other influences, of course, being America, but the sort of our national identity, a lot of our core sort of governmental myths and things like that, Lord, our capital is built to look Roman, on purpose. That was a very conscious choice to make that
Karen Foglesong:Right. look Roman. So these are absolutely key. They also were deeply, deeply core ideas of Greek philosophy. And things that developed when this was an active religion, are deeply embedded as well in Christianity, which came in important, very important. We've, yeah. And I have a quote contact with the classical Pantheon in ancient Rome. And, and melded with it in some very interesting ways. I remember that's a quote, that was one of my quotes by by Joseph Campbell here by from Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By - he says, our that I love Karen, where he would say, so we're supposed to stay in a kind of Greek rational, philosophical state of mind six days of the week, and on the seventh day, go and engage in the great mystery, because he talked about how the, outward oriented consciousness addressed to the demands of the the core Eastern influence of the Christian religion was this mystery religion, right? Three gods are one, right? When you die, that means you're the Savior when you know all these day may lose touch with these inward forces and the myth, kinds of things that are sort of paradoxical. And it's like, so we're supposed to go six days of the week, he's like this is what's wrong with Western people, basically, he was saying is that we go six days a week, in the Greek rational frame of states Jung, when correctly read are the means to bring us back mind, and that we're supposed to instantly turn over, be in the mystical frame of mind and then go right back into the rational. Right, interesting influences within our culture. But these in touch. So, this is Campbell talking about Jung's ideas and are also the, you know, when people say, gods, or a pantheon of gods, most people in the West, or at least most white people, let's say that way, most white people are probably going in, in direct correlation to these, what we call the Greek to think of these. They're going to think we know them because they're in Western art history over and over and over again, they're all over Western literature, who did Shakespeare reference? The Greek and Roman gods. So there's a yeah, they're and Roman Pantheon. And I thought it it connected to what deeply, deeply embedded all throughout our culture, even though since modernism, which was the whole point of modernism, like 100 years ago, was to break away from classical you were saying about the six days week of the, of the logic ideas and classical, they were all like, Forget Plato, we're done with him. Finally, during the, you know, modern revolution of like, Picasso and all those people, we're not going to do and one day in the mystery, because here, here we are, that kind of painting anymore. We're not going to do that kind of thinking anymore. Anyway, that was a little bit of a digression. Um, so again, talking about it. I just want to point out that you have to remember that there's no absolute good or evil in this Well, in the Greek and Roman Pantheon, there pantheon. It's, it's not set up to be heaven and hell. And there's no like secret way to get to heaven. In what we're going to talk about. It's simply a process of living and all the was no heaven, it just didn't exist. When you died, everybody shades in between. went to Hades. Yep.
Erin Branham:And you either went to you either just became a ghost or shade. If you were really bad, if you really pissed off the gods, you might end up in Tartarus, where you would be tortured. And if you were a great legendary hero, which is like we're talking point 001% of humans, you get to go to the Elysian Fields. But like you said, that was not something you were like, as a regular everyday person trying to do so like it doesn't one of the things that makes me craziest in depictions of ancient Greek myths is if they show Hades is like a fiery pit.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, that drives me nuts, too. Yeah.
Erin Branham:Very upsetting. Hercules, Disney Hercules, I'm looking at you.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, Disney Hercules. Yes. Made Hades the bad guy just like - ugh!
Erin Branham:Oh, don't even like that was so bad at what does not, not, not an accurate reference - fine movie for a kid, not an accurate reference to this pantheon. Alright, anyways, about Karen, Karen did a whole like she had a whole couple of lectures on this when she taught her mythology course. So she's going to walk us through it. And I'm going to throw in some commentary. I worked for a number of years at a museum that had specifically a classical collection, Greek, ancient Greek and Roman art. Therefore, I studied it very deeply, very much learned about what these - how these things worked in the ancient world. So every once in a while, I'm just gonna, like throw in some interesting facts about because Karen's very much going to be talking about how this has come to us as literature. And the stories that we know about it, and I'm going to be able to talk a little bit about well, you know, in the ancient world, this, this meant that or this meant that it's very different now in the modern world, because myths transform over time. And that's part of why they're really rich and interesting area to study.
Karen Foglesong:I'm listening to a book on tape right now, her CD or whatever you want to say nowadays, that's not dated. Audio book, right. He's talking about how
Erin Branham:Audio book! the evolution of God is in so important, because it's coming from the culture, God is influencing the culture and cultures influencing God. So and these, like we've said at the beginning, are like, kind of building blocks in our symbol language, how we talk to each other. So there's a whole pre history in this pantheon that references the Titans and, and this, this world is very interesting, but we don't have time within this podcast to go through the Titans and the Pantheon. So we're just gonna say that at the beginning, there was Gaia, and because Gaia, you've heard of this is Mother Earth, right? And Uranus. And she gave birth to 100 headed monsters and all these crazy creatures that existed before the Titans. And then there's a story in there about how it turns over. And then we go to Rhea and Kronos, who is actually the father of Zeus. And again, there's another story in there, okay? We're gonna start with Zeus. All right? Zeus is the kind of the ruler of this pantheon and in the Roman, his, he's translated to Jupiter. And he's associated with being a father, a ruler. Some of his symbols are the eagle, like, think the eagle is the giant sky predator, right? So this is Zeus. He's associated with the sky and one of my favorite things is the Thunderbolt. Because the as I mean, you might have already figured it out, like by me laughing there's no thunder bolt, right. There's thunder and there's a lightning bolt. And in art, he's usually symbol, usually symbolized with a lightning bolt. So he's the big daddy that sits on Mount Olympus. And one of my favorite images of him is Mount Olympus - Zeus, and that is on Mount Olympus by Jean, or Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1811. And this is a great example of how you would interact with Zeus. She's like, bent, crouched really low below his throne, and he's sitting there in all his glory, and she's reaching up to kind of tickle his beard, so that she can influence him.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, it's great. And it gives you a great
Erin Branham:That's specifically referenced- It may be the Iliad, that image is specifically referenced, in which Thetis goes to ask for mercy from Zeus upon her son, Achilles, who was in the middle of the Trojan war, and even down to the tickling the beard is specifically mentioned. And then that artist did, yes, a lovely rendering of it. And we will link to that in the show notes. Because it's quite excellent and you should see that. idea of how our patriarchal system is set up like you're not supposed to go head to head with the great patriarch, you're supposed to find a way to ease him into his decisions in a kind way. Right?
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:Definitely. Well, as then, here's where I will interject a little bit. While this has come, come like they come down to us in a variety of different ways through literature, through references to art, it has to be remembered That was saying you just weren't doing your job. that particularly Ancient Greece was an incredibly patriarchal, like the most patriarchal that you can possibly think of society, which is what generated these myths. It was positively misogynistic, if you are familiar with the great Parthenon, the architectural structure that was a temple to Athena that's in Athens, on the Acropolis, the man who oversaw the building of that, Pericles, who was the sort of Mayor, basically the head man, there was a specific title for it in ancient Greece, of Athens, he made a very famous speech one time in which he said that the greatest virtue of any woman was that she would never be mentioned. Let that sink in. And which is interesting about him, his Pericles had a very, very powerful partner, who had come up from being a prostitute to become his consort, and was said to influence him very much. But you have to remember if in ancient Greece, if you were a man who was said to have been influenced by a woman very much, that was an insult. And so this yes, very, very much. And that's a great point, Karen, that that image is such a terrific visual of that. Yeah. Because not only is she like down, crouching and supplicating before him, but he's gigantic.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:And she appears tiny beside him. That's another thing to know about classical art. And it's interesting that the artists here pick that up was that your importance was shown in your size.
Karen Foglesong:In size. Yeah, absolutely.
Erin Branham:You're describing him and it's reminding me of the Tarot deck, which I think at one point or another, we will probably also do an episode on the there's a card called the Emperor, which -
Karen Foglesong:Yes!
Erin Branham:Represents this same archetype. And is a, you know, a king on a throne and is
Karen Foglesong:Yes. very influenced by images of Zeus in that same way, and yes, very much all these things authority, judgment, judgment, meaning, keen judgment, meaning, like, the ability to really discern things as they should be. Yeah. All those things are those are the very positive aspects of that archetype. Yes, right. But there's another side of it, which is like punishing and cruel and all those things. Capricious, because something you said earlier about Hades is was a great to me it's not about whether you are good or bad or met any rule system - it'ss whether or not you pissed off the gods. That's it.
Erin Branham:Oh, 100% that was it!
Karen Foglesong:Yeah. So that made a lot of sense. And Zeus could be like, quick with judgment. And, and here's my favorite thing about Zeus is that he could not keep it in his pants for no amount of reason. And we'll talk more about that soon.
Erin Branham:That's part of the masculine archetype too, though.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:Father of ALL.
Karen Foglesong:Spread the seed spreading other other Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so Zeus has two brothers, and they make up this kind of triad at the top of this pantheon and Hades who is also known as Pluto, and Poseidon who is known as Neptune. So Hades, we've already mentioned is head of the underworld, brother of Zeus, not evil we've already mentioned as pictured in Disney, though I'm sure most of our listeners have seen the Disney cartoon. So there's that. Hades simply represents death. And he is not the incarnation of death. Thanatos is a minor God and he would be the actual incarnation of death. Hades is the ruler of the underworld. And, but he is associated with death and darkness. And he's pretty stoic and not like he's not singing ballads. He doesn't interact with heroes a lot. And so people don't really the other gods don't really want him around. So he mostly stays in his own realm. He's not hanging out on Olympus. He is also often kingly. He is also associated with judgment, but associated with darkness, and often linked to the subconscious.
Erin Branham:Certainly.
Karen Foglesong:Because of the darkness. Anything you want to add in here?
Erin Branham:I would say a couple of things that are interesting. It's it's hard for our modern world to wrap our, our heads around Hades, because as you're saying, he simply represented death in and not only he was the eldest of the brothers.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:So Zeus was the most powerful and after he and his brothers and his children defeated the Titans or his sisters, excuse me, his brothers and sisters defeated the Titans that is their parents generation,
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:They were dev- you know, going about dividing up the realms. And Zeus did get to pick first because he had proven himself the most powerful in battle. Zeus is also the most warrior of the gods, of this little triad of of gods.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, Hades is definitely more philosophical.
Erin Branham:Yeah, and then Hades got to pick next because he was the eldest. And he chose the underworld. That was what he wanted. Yeah, over the sea. And Neptune got this, I mean, and Poseidon got the sea, and part of the reason that he wanted the underworld is because he also represents riches. He represents
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:Ores,
Karen Foglesong:Metals.
Erin Branham:Jewels and gems, and great thing about this in the ancient world, particularly, that is great wealth. So he was most wealthy, of all of the main gods. And, and he didn't, he didn't just not go to Olympus, because they didn't want him there. He wasn't interested. He liked staying in. Yeah, he liked staying in his realm. And that was always the quality of him. You know, interestingly, I've been going back and rereading A Song of Ice and Fire, the Song of Ice and Fire books. Because once again, they're teasing that we might get the sixth books this year. And I'm always, I always want to read them again. I've been caught this way a couple of times. And they have a God in the pantheon of the seven, the stranger who represents death. And I love the stranger because the stranger reminds me of Hades. Yeah, yeah, just the stranger like that he has that quality of an outsider, of not, being like the stranger. You can't get to know him. He's unfathomable in a kind of a way. But it's interesting, because then he's Roman name, Pluto, has come down to us in plutocracy, which means the rule by the very, very rich. So just a neat little...
Karen Foglesong:So he never goes away, y'all, that's the important part with what Erin is saying, too is that we can stash him wherever we want, but he, just like death, he's going to show up over and over again as part of life.
Erin Branham:That's true. He reflects and reflects through our culture.
Karen Foglesong:So his third brother is Poseidon or Neptune. And as Erin said, he is ruler over the sea, remember, not the oceans because the Titan Oceanus is associated with the oceans. And this is important because we're talking about a group of island cultures, right? So the sea, the areas in between those islands were very important to the trade and survival of these cultures. So Neptune is a very important God. He's basically the travel God for this pantheon. And that links him to horses, which would be I mean, think about it, this is the fastest travel on land would be associated with the ocean and we see like, in art, we see the ocean wave coming and in that froth at the top is the you know, Poseidon's horse White Horse heads coming out of the ocean spray. It's it's very interesting.
Erin Branham:There's a beautiful work of art depicting that too. I'll see if I can find it.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, there it is. For those of you who are Disney aficionados, the connection with Neptune is Triton from The Little Mermaid. This is the Son of Neptune. or Poseidon. Triton, whenever you see this kind of Merman, that's a benevolent ruler, this is the son of Poseidon -Triton. Poseidon has a trident. Also the three prongs kind of fishing spear, or I think mostly it's used for frogging in modern culture. But this is associated with his power. And he's also associated with the subconscious because of the depth of the water connection. He's also very temperamental, he can be helpful, but he can also be destructive - think sudden storm on the, on the sea, right? And Amphitrite. Amphitrite is - Yeah, Amphitrite Yeah, and she is the granddaughter of the Titan Oceanus. And she and Poseidon's son, again was Triton. And their offspring supposedly also included seals and dolphins. And I like to point out to folks that during the time of ancient Greece, when sailors would be moving around these islands, or this ancient time, and moving around these islands, seals and dolphins would be way more, the populations would be way bigger than they are now. And you would be they would be interacting with them on a regular basis. And this is a connection to the intelligence that we observed in these creatures in our historic past to connect them to this couple. Right. We're seeing intelligence here. That's why we're gonna associate them. Anyway, it's just one of my pet peeves that people think animals are stupid. So I like to bring that point in.
Erin Branham:Good for you!
Karen Foglesong:Sorry. Get that. Right.
Erin Branham:Yeah, definitely, I think, besides, of course, has had a big Renaissance recently, because he's Percy Jackson's father.
Karen Foglesong:Oh, yeah!
Erin Branham:If you have read any of the Rick Riordan's young adult series, oh, gosh, what's the name of the Lightning Thief. And it's Percy Jackson and the Olympians I believe is the name of the whole series.
Karen Foglesong:Those are so much fun.
Erin Branham:They're so much fun. They have so much fun with the, with the myths, they really circle back to them and get a lot of the kind of core ideas from them. So they're super fun, I think about Poseidon is is very interesting, because as you say, it's not the ocean, like the ancient Greeks had no real concept of the ocean, right? It was the Mediterranean that they're talking about. And the Mediterranean is a very stormy and treacherous place a lot of the time, I just we don't think of it that way. But if you're like running around in little tiny triremes, which were these little boats that the that the Greeks had, and they were a very much they were a boat and sea people. As you say there's all the Greek islands, that's where this is coming from. This is a really interesting thing. What I like to get into this is because you have to think about the geography affects the mythology. And that true of us, right? The geography of our lives affects the mythologies of our souls. And when you look at a culture, you can often see how these various aspects of the history and the geography have affected what's important in it. So yeah, I mean, when you say you end up with Poseidon, who is the god he's not just the god of the sea and of horses. I don't know if you know this. I believe he's the father of Pegasus -
Karen Foglesong:Depends on -
Erin Branham:He turns himself into a horse. There's one set of stories. Yes. There's one set of stories that says he's the father of Pegasus, right. He's the god of the sea. He's the God of horses. He's also the God of earthquakes. This is an earthquake zone. And if you're familiar with the legend of Atlantis, the legend of Atlantis originally comes from a writing by Plato of ancient Greece, who records this tale of a city or civilization that was devastated by an earthquake. And there's a lot of scholars who think that even that was based on a sort of folk memory of what is now the islands of Santorini, which had been a much larger island, it was the top of a volcano, part of it blew off at one point in ancient time and think they think that's sort of where the idea of Atlantis made its way to Plato. So if you're also thinking about this, right, if you're out on the sea, and it's an earthquake zone, and you have a god of the sea and earthquakes, that is a super important, very important, God. All around Greece, you know, they ran out and they colonized all of these all along the coasts of what is today Europe, and that's part of the reason why they're very influential because they didn't stay in what is today Greece, they were all over the whole coastal area of what is today Europe, right? And they are bringing these ideas so all along the coast, you find these temples to Poseidon and it was actually incredibly important. We talk about these as mythology, but in the ancient world, it was a religion, right? And so it was incredibly important that you stop and you make the ritual sacrifices at the Temple of Apollo. Otherwise, he might kick your ass out on the sea. And it was taken quite literally. And this Yeah, it's just a really interesting thing. And I'm always I love the temples of Apollo because they're always like on a cliff. overlooking the sea. They're gorgeous. They're good stuff.
Karen Foglesong:Do you mean Poseidon or Apollo?
Erin Branham:Did I say Apollo? Poseidon! Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, Poseidon. Yeah. So okay. We're getting to Apollo. John jumped the gun.
Erin Branham:I know. I didn't mean to jump ahead. No. Poseidon, there's all these beautiful temples to Poseidon(laughs) along the coast.
Karen Foglesong:But I'm very glad that you brought in this idea of earthquakes too, because Poseidon could slam his trident down on the ground and the Earth would shake. He is called the Earth Shaker. Right. But again, this indicates a kind of real knowledge, we now know that earthquakes often start under the ocean or in the sea, right. So this is a true connection that was made, that has proven to have some scientific merit in the, in our modern world, right. So those are the things that I find really interesting, too. Next, we're gonna get to our first woman, this is Hera or Juno. And Hera is the sister/ wife of Zeus. And their marriage doesn't start out great, it starts out from a trick to begin with, she doesn't really want to marry him. She is associated with the peacock. And she is also a good judge. But she's often portrayed in stories as this kind of angry shrew. And I think that this is on purpose, because we want to systematically create or, or let's let me stop, we want to create a system that is always pushing down on feminine culture because we're coming out of such a misogynistic perspective, right? So Hera, like, although she's needed by these women, because she's also a household goddess, she's helping to manage the, not the hearth, but the household itself. And this is who you would turn to if you had trouble with your marriage. But the problem is, is that like I said earlier, Zeus can't keep it in his pants. He's busy spreading the seed. And so often stories about Hera are her attacking the victim of Zeus, because she has no power over Zeus. So all she can do is attack the woman. And we have story after story of her, like many of the gods, other gods and goddesses are born from Zeus as infidelity. Hera is portrayed as ineffectual and powerless, often, in this regard, and and it pits women against one another. We can't trust one another at all. There's no camaraderie between women.
Erin Branham:No as I said, it was a it was a very misogynistic culture. Hera it is, indeed, she is, indeed, powerless. She is his wife, she - like this is a culture that women were the property of their fathers until they were the property of their husbands.
Karen Foglesong:Husbands, yeah.
Erin Branham:Women were typically married at the age of 13, as a girl to a man of 30, at least, that was just the way
Karen Foglesong:Nice! that it was. And so yes, that power dynamic that you see there
Erin Branham:And the gods - depictions of the Gods work the is absolutely accurate to the ancient world. And that really was was all she could do, because there wasn't anything else. And you know, that, that set of stories - it's so unfortunate, because like when we think of Hera, because those are the stories that have come down to us through the literature as the mythology, again, it just loses so much of what she was about in the ancient world, she was the goddess of marriage. She is the eternal bride when you see her attribute. So in ancient art, if again, remember, very, very few people were literate. Words were just not a thing very much in the ancient world or in ancient Greece. And so everything had to be told in images. So every single one of the gods had what was called attributes. Attributes work exactly the same exact same way. So if you walk into you know, you see a vase way that superhero costumes do. So like if you walk into a room and you see a picture of a tall guy in a blue suit with a big and on it is a guy sitting on a throne or guy holding a red S on his chest. You know who that is. Doesn't matter what the thunderbolt. You know who that is. Hera's attribute was the guy's face looks like. Doesn't - you know who that is. bridal veil so she actually is you always see if you ever see a female figure where she is holding a kind of flimsy cloth off to the side or covering over her face. That's Hera. She literally represented the bride, the energy of marriage. The Greeks did value marriage because what they wanted most was more Greek men. And you can't have Greek men, more Greek men without some Greek women to bear those children. And so they were -
Karen Foglesong:Some vessels.
Erin Branham:Yeah, so that was incredibly important. And, and so Zu- Hera, I think has gotten a raw deal, because when you go back again and look at her actual worship, she was very important. Yes, she represented a kind of pillar of society that kept things operating. And she had a lot of, there were things associated with her worship that have not come down to us. All we have is the stories of her running around being terrible to other women that Zeus mostly had raped. So it's like, it's all just bad, Hera like, yeah, in our modern world, we all just like ugh! Hera! Because of that, when she really was not so terrible in the ancient world. She was doing the best that she could, damnit!
Karen Foglesong:Yet, when she was probably a very powerful goddess, before this patriarchal Pantheon started taking over. And what we're seeing is the limitation, like the limiting of her power, not her actual power. And remember that marriages were contracts before they were anything else. We're not talking about young Greeks going around falling in love and praying to Hera for a good marriage, or a happy marriage or a good wedding. We're talking about a fruitful contract, right? Like -
Erin Branham:For the men. For the women, the women were really, were really praying to her, please, please let me have a man who won't beat me, please, you know, please Hera, give me a peaceful home like they really meant it.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, but I mean, prior I was also kind of trying to reference prior to her being brought down by the - this male Pantheon, the marriage contract would have still been important in a matriarchal society as well. It will add more weight. Yeah, but yes, as she gets shifted, then you're just like basically please don't let my daddy marry me to a monster please. Because nobody cares if you're being beaten. That's your fault for not taking care of your husband, right? Like
Erin Branham:It definitely was not a societal concern.
Karen Foglesong:Right? Oh, it's so horrifying. Okay, so let's move on to the good one, then Aphrodite. Venus is when I was younger and first introduced to this Pantheon was not one of my favorites. But as I've gotten older I've really begun to enjoy her power because, you guys, she is not from - she just kind of hangs outside of this pantheon. She comes from when Zeus castrates Cronus basically the sperm that spills into the oceans water births Aphrodite, and she floats to the shore right? Every There's a famous image to do you know, I didn't write this one down either. Where she's Venus on the half shell right
Erin Branham:Boticelli's Birth of Venus. Yes,
Karen Foglesong:there we go Boticelli. Yeah, this, she's connected to love and lust. But note that there are clues like the, in
Erin Branham:Yes, love and lust. Absolutely. Not, and again, not love like we think of love today. That did not happen. That did not, that concept didn't exist in this culture. No, men cursed being sort of overcome with a lust or desire to have a woman. But the idea of love is just not really a thing. And then Aphrodite has a son, Eros, who we know as Cupid, who that's her attribute. Usually, if you see a lady, see a goddess with a little winged Boy, that's Aphrodite. But Eros is this, is what - we got to get into it now, Karen, about the different versions, because, again, we have a set of stories that will come down to us you read, if you read Edith Hamilton's Mythology, mythology, or any other kind of core textbooks, Bullfinches Mythology, of these, these are distillations of a variety of different stories. They are actually often conflicting stories, especially if you look at these myths over time, right? So these myths go way back. They go deep, deep into antiquity, even into pre history far before the Greeks. Some Yes, figures are older than others. Eros, for example, is a very, very old god. Eros was around before the rest. If you look at it the, in this pantheon. She's born in the sea, and she floats, historically, not within the mythology if you look at it, historically, Eros was around long before most of these other gods. And as the other gods developed over history, eventually he becomes Aphrodite's son, because that was a way to put him, this preexisting God into this more ordered pantheon. Aphrodite also got placed into the Greek pantheon with that Uranus story because there are other stories and older stories, the base of her worship when you go all the way back like 3000 years was on Cyprus, which is an island far, far to the east in the Mediterranean Sea. So she was actually an Eastern Goddess that the Greeks encountered as they were sailing around, right? So they keep leaving their islands going around and running into all these other people. And if they ran into a God that they liked, they would often adopt it into their pantheon. So right, so again, Aphrodite kind of pre dates, some of this stuff, and they needed a way to get her into the Pantheon. So they're like, Oh, well, Zeus, cut off his dad's genitals and threw them into the ocean, therefore, isn't it? Cypress is where she lands. Right. So I certainly blah, blah. But just the idea of her having been birthed from the sea foam was much older. Yes, and that she just sort of spontaneously came to be. have a clue as to where she's actually coming from. Right, right. Yeah. It's preserved in the mythology, right? The historical fact Yes, preserved within the mythology.
Karen Foglesong:And also note that this kind of lustful experience is greater than any other logic, this this lustful, powerful feeling, can throw you off your game, no matter what it is, it can make you start a war because you are lusting after someone else's wife. Right? So I love this kind of acknowledgement of the power of this kind of sexual energy.
Erin Branham:Definitely. And that's a great way to put it because it is sex, Aphrodite, as far as I understand, again, we've made it the goddess of love and all these things, but these are very modern ideas. In the ancient world she was the goddess of sex, period.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah. And the power of sex.
Erin Branham:Oh, 100%. Because like you said, Love as an overpowering concept didn't, in the way that we think of romantic love, did not really exist. Lust definitely did. And the kind of lust likes the kind of lust of a man just like I must have her. That's what the whole Trojan War story is built on. Right? The whole thing about Helen of Troy and all of that Right? And if you track that story back Aphrodite is at the was all just like this king had major lust for this woman and had said, She's mine. And this one came and said, I have major lust for that woman. Now I say she's mine and the other guy went, you can't take what's mine, let's have a war. root of that, too. Oh, yes she is!
Karen Foglesong:She instigates that, so in a negative way. She's associated with the power of sexuality, the capricious, envious kind of idea and kind of plotting aspects of the feminine character in our modern culture.
Erin Branham:Yes, we certainly got into, we make her very scheming, but I don't know that that's in the mythology. Aphrodite didn't have to scheme.
Karen Foglesong:Well, it is in the mythology, like with the beginning of the Troy story, or
Erin Branham:that wasn't scheming to get her some. No, that was scheming to get a prize.
Karen Foglesong:Yes. It's just scheming in general.
Erin Branham:Well, but again, I have to say, I gotta tell, I have - no I have to say something about that. We - it's been, it has come down to us characterized as scheming. But if you look at the way that the ancient Greeks regarded that story, okay, so we're talking about the story of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. Okay, so we were talking about Thetis earlier. These are the parents of Achilles. And when they get married, it's a whole big deal that they're getting married, because he is a mortal man, and she is a goddess. And that never happens. Because again, it has to do with the power dynamics, right? In a marriage, the man is supposed to be the most powerful. A mortal can never be more powerful than an immortal, which is what the gods are. And so marrying a mortal man to a goddess is just all messed up.
Karen Foglesong:That's how manly he was. That's how manly -
Erin Branham:Well, he forced her. There's a whole story about he caught her and raped, always there's a story about how he caught her and raped her and all that stuff. So now she's forced to marry him. She's not happy about it. And so all the Goddesses are basically like, look, we know this sucks that you got to marry the icky mortal guy. So we're gonna give you the best wedding that has ever been seen. Right? The best wedding! All the gods are invited except for one. They decide not to invite Eris, the goddess of discord because you don't want discord at a wedding. Right? Right. So they leave her out. She hears about it, of course, because she can't you know, she wakes up on Mount Olympus one day and she's like, where is everybody? And she looks down at the Earth and she sees her having this awesome party that she wasn't invited to. Not a good day for, not a good day for Eris so she decides she is going to do what she does best. And she gonna bring a little discord So she goes down the party, she takes out a golden apple upon which is written "for the fairest", and she tosses it into the middle of the party, and it rolls along the ground, and it stops at the feet of three of the most powerful goddesses in existence.
Karen Foglesong:Two of which we haven't said yet!
Erin Branham:That's true. We haven't said yet. But if you're one of the three most powerful goddesses in existence - no, we've said two of them. Then what are you going to see? What are you going to think when you see "for the fairest" on the golden apple at your feet? It's mine. Right? So all three of them go for it.
Karen Foglesong:It's mine. And now we have a really huge problem, right? Like a really big problem because they are starting to throw down and the three goddesses are Hera, the queen of the Pantheon, Queen of Mount Olympus, like super powerful, and Aphrodite, goddess of sex, and lust and all those things. And Athena, who we haven't gotten to yet, and we'll get to her. She's also one of most powerful goddesses, so they get a huge fight. It's getting really ugly. Things, earthquakes and shit are starting to happen on earth. So some of the other gods run over to Zeus and Zeus. You gotta fix this. Like, right now bad things are happening. And he goes, Are you kidding me? My wife and my daughter are in that fight? Ah, no, no. Tell you what, y'all go talk to Prince Paris of Troy. He's over there in the hills. Y'all go over there. And he's supposed to be very fair. And he has a real eye for the ladies. So he's gonna decide. And so they all go over there. They*poof*. He's like hanging out as a shepherd, because he's doing the like, poor boy thing before he becomes the full prince of Troy. He's also a second son, which is, they don't have anything to do, right, when you're a princely family. So they *poof*, hey, and they so they *poof* in front of Paris. And they're like, which one of us is the prettiest? And so, yeah, it was just like a whole thing. Now, the next thing that happens is that they all offer him a bribe. Now we think of this, like I said, when we say Aphrodite, schemed to win. She didn't really because in ancient Greece, the absolute - winning was the most important thing. They were an incredibly competitive society. They made up sports. Yeah, and the Olympics, and all that stuff. They were super competitive. It was built into the like, we wonder where that competition drive comes to, in our culture comes from in our culture, it's from the ancient Greeks. Yeah, they all offer him a bribe, because of course, you're going to offer him a bribe, you want to win. All right, that was not considered out of bounds at all in ancient Greek culture. They were like, Yeah, you would have been stupid not to. So they all offer him a bribe, and he likes her bribe best. So she gets the apple and the what he likes his her bribe is that she says, You can have the most beautiful woman in the world. Thus, he needs Helen thus the Trojan War, But it just so happens that she's already married.
Erin Branham:She's married. It's a whole thing. Read your Homer.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, read your Homer.
Erin Branham:Yeah. Exactly. I gotta do so. So that's I just wanted to point that out, because that's a great story. And also, like, it wasn't really that she schemed. She just did what you do to win.
Karen Foglesong:Right. You're right. Okay. I could see the point. You're right. But we asked, but we do interpret her as being a schemer, often, because of the patriarchy
Erin Branham:Now we do. Yeah, absolutely. perspective.
Karen Foglesong:We don't, like even in our modern culture, we have this idea that women like sneak up on men and like, scheme them into falling in love. It's not like two people meeting, it's an evil spell that a woman casts on you, right. All right. Okay, so let's move on. Let's go to Hermes. Mercury, who is the messenger of the gods, and he's also one of my favorite in this pantheon, because he's associated with the Trickster archetype, because he is very tricky. He likes to play tricks. One of his main attributes, like we were talking about earlier, is the winged sandals. Because he is fleet like the wind. And in my generation, this was associated with FTD florists, because they were the first florist that could deliver around the country, right. Yeah. Now it's no big deal. We can get flowers wherever we want. But back in the day before the internet, y'all it was hard to get flowers to your mommy if she lived far away, right?
Erin Branham:Very true.
Karen Foglesong:Hermes, is associated with the invention of the lyre. L-Y-R-E, the instrument but Apollo is also credited with it and there's a story about Apollo's cattle that Hermes tricks him and Apollo almost kills him and then I know you're not supposed to be able to kill a god but he was very angry. Anyway, so part of this to kind of to appease Apollo is to hand him this instrument. But Apollo is credited with the invention of music anyway. So right they have this kind of inborn kind of rivalry happening, right?
Erin Branham:The most interesting thing I learned when
Karen Foglesong:That's important. I really got to do some deep classical world stuff about
Erin Branham:That was all, that was like that was how they did Hermes, is that you said he was like the messenger god. He was also the god of commerce. He was the guardian of thieves. And he was about communication. That's commerce, right? You bartering and doing a deal with somebody, all that stuff fell under Hermes. Oh, and he was, so he's the god of travel, because commerce has to do with trade, right. So he's the god of sort of going down the road and taking your stuff here and there. So crossroads, were a big area for him. And he was first worshiped at the crossroads, as people would build these little it old days, man.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:Because I will say, I will say this, this is mounds of stones that were called her herms. And he would one of the ways that ancient myths help get us past some of our modern hang ups. Right, we have like that was the way they build a soul. That, at the crossroads, you've always found did it, because they recognized the generative forces of the universe. They recognized that sex is a generative force of universe, that our genitals have a purpose. And that purpose is a this little mound of stones that represented Hermes. And if you kind of energy that has to be dealt with, that has to be reckoned with. It's not like I read something earlier today go way back, and then over time, as you move along into the that was talking about how these days, it's like we think we are a world unto ourselves. And we think that we just have to ancient, you know, the classical Greek period, and then the figure out all of these incredible, like cosmic energies that are running through our bodies, but we just like have to Hellenistic period that followed it, you get these statues that figure it out instead of interchanging with the world around us. And understanding that like the force of our sexual desires, the same thing that's motivating you know, the were actually put at the crossroads and more than in birds and the bees that are running literally, literally understanding that. Like getting in touch with that. So I love the idea that I could be walking down the streets and cities and things like that. And they will be a rectangular doing commerce like a mall right, we need a you know, herm at a mall. And there's this statue there that represents in pedestal. And then they will have a lovely, accurately, like a kind of humanized but not quite, form that says like, you think about the image of that it's a kind of geometric thing realistically sculpted head of the god on top of the pedestal. with a human head and human genitals on it, which says to you, we are one and a part of all of these things. Our energy And then right at the middle of the pedestal, there will be just is its energy, the energy of this road is the energy of your genitals. You know, all these things moving and circulating in a little penis and balls. Just on just in the middle of the a way, it's why, this is why mythology just gets me so excited.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:It's a way to enter. It's a way to enter that pedestal, the flattened surface of the pedestal. and to and to help it let it help mediate those energies that are flowing in and out of us all the time.
Karen Foglesong:You guys, this is one of the very first pantheons that I discovered when I was a kid. So I get, we both get really excited about it. So
Erin Branham:It's good stuff.
Karen Foglesong:Next up is let's talk about Apollo because I've mentioned him with Hermes, Mercury. So we have Apollo or Phoebus, the light and he represents the sun and music and truth. He is said to have never a false word never was uttered by his lips. But remember that you can lash somebody with the truth just as well as you can set them free with the truth, right? So don't get the idea that Apollo is the ultimate good in this pantheon. Because that is not true. He could be a little pretty boy to
Erin Branham:Oh, he can be horrible. Yes, terrible.
Karen Foglesong:Awful. Yes.
Erin Branham:They all are. They all are just capricious and mean and
Karen Foglesong:yes, no, there's no like they could be your friend one minute and the next they're turning you into a tree or deciding that you must be theirs or whatever it is. But note, this is like life, right? You could be going along la, la la and then the Thunderbolt hits you in the head literally, right?
Erin Branham:Yeah, there are many times when I understand exactly where the Greeks are coming from where they're like the gods, or you never know what they're gonna do, you never know, right? Knock You Down or lift you up.
Karen Foglesong:Apollo is associated with the sun like, but he is not the actual sun. So there was a god before him that was called Helios. And he is actually the one that drives the chariot across the sky, with the sun. But Apollo takes this on, and we end up with a chariot that Apollo ends up driving as this kind of morphs. And in many stories, Apollo has a twin named Artemis, or Diana, who was this is one of my, one of my favorite goddesses of this pantheon. And she's associated with the moon. She is the Huntress, the goddess of wild things. And she's another, she's a virgin goddess, right. So the only way that you could kind of have freedom in this culture as a female is if you did not interact with sexuality. So you could be a virgin, and then you could remain unmarried. Artemis is never married. And if you are looking at the version of the stories were these, this, Apollo and Artemis are twins, then they are the children of Zeus, and another rape victim, basically. But there's if you really study the history of these two gods, then you can find that they are brought together under this pantheon in various ways and kind of forced into being twins. Artemis has a long history of existing prior to this pantheon in various guises. And a modern association for her would be The Hunger Games. Many of her attributes, the bow and quiver, the bird, and the moon are all associated with the main character Katnis Everdeen. Yes. So that's how she's brought forward in a spectacular way. Artemis is also like I said, associated with the moon, but just as Helios was first associated with the sun Selene is also first associated with the moon. And then you have a chaos kind of being that's associated with the night as well. But just to kind of handle to talk about them. Let's just say Apollo and Artemis are twins. And they are kind of representing day and night. Apollo is civilization, right music, the Greek style music is very task oriented thing. It wasn't like we listen to music. As a side note the music had a purpose. And it was used to drive specific moves. Right. So and then the wild things with the, with his sister, what do you got there?
Erin Branham:The Romans really loved these two, the later neoclassical artists really loved these two. They are very compelling ideas. There are specific myths to both of them, you know, that tell different stories about both of them - some where they're being wonderful, and some where they're being terrible. And because that's sort of the way it goes. With some of these Apollo I know is also some of the other things he was also associated with - the truth, he was associated with prophecy, the Oracle at Delphi, yes, the Oracle, Delphi was his temple. And there's a whole story about how he defeated the creature that was there in order to turn it into his temple. He's also the, the father, right of the god or the demigod who invents medicine. And so he's associated with illness and disease and the heal and healing as well. Like I say Artemis is also the goddess of as part of being the goddess of wild things as being the goddess of childbirth, meaning she's the goddess of, she's the goddess of newborn creatures, which is a very interesting thing. And we've said many times throughout all of this, that, you know, oh, there's this other kind of God who's associated with this or with that. I think one of the things it's particularly hard for modern people to get their heads around as well is the way that in the ancient world, everything was animated with divine power. The trees, every tree had a nymph, right was that you know, which the idea of the nymph was some kind of a spirit that animated it. This was often thought of or brought into a human form. And there was an idea that you could interact with them in a kind of human form, but the kind of core idea is that everything is animated by some kind of divine power. The other thing that Apollo and Artemis made me think of, since we've already gone through Hermes and we're about to hit some more children of Zeus. Here it is. One day when I was working at the classical Museum, there was a great meme that went around and it was just making fun of how many Greek stories start with unfortunately, Zeus was horny. Yes. So so that was and one
Karen Foglesong:last association with modern culture. She's everywhere you guys but one big one that Erin and I are both fans of is Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, right?
Erin Branham:deeply Yes, deeply associated with the Artemis Diana kind of archetype. The other thing I was gonna say, because you were mentioning this sort of the only way you could have any kind of freedom, and both Artemis and Athena, right, where we're gonna get to, in a second, represent these kinds of weird ways that the Greek pantheon couldn't deal with feminine energy. And so they created these weird little carve outs for some of these gods goddesses. So they created this kind of carve out for, for Artemis, where she didn't have to belong to a man by her remaining a virgin. And she eschewed men completely. Absolutely very, very famous for never wanting anything to do with males at all. And thus, she has become in the modern world, quite the lesbian icon.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:And there's a million paintings, a million paintings of Diana with her nymphs in the forest. And it's like her and a bunch of really hot naked chicks. Yeah, I see where they're getting it,
Karen Foglesong:right. I'm sorry. I'd rather be with Artemis camp than the Apollo camp. I'm okay. All right. So that leads us to the next virgin goddess who is Athena, or Minerva. And she is associated with wisdom and strategy. So she's associated with war. But this is not the god or goddess that you would perpetuate, to bring about war. She's one that you would perpetuate to like bringing into a war because she's strategizing. She's helping you make the best maneuver. She's also associated with weaving. And she's the only god or goddess that is allowed to touch Zeus' thunderbolts. She carries them into battle, and she hands them to Zeus. This goddess actually was not born of a woman, which makes her even more special than just being a virgin. She supposedly stepped out of Zeus' head, like Zeus' head either was cracked open with a hammer by Hephestus or it cracked open on its own, depending on the version you're reading, and Athena steps out fully armed, and fully clothed, and becomes his right hand kind of ruler. And again, sublimating Hera right, it pushes Hera a little bit out. Because Hera is not about strategy. Athena can just like all the rest of them can be capricious, and there are stories about her being jealous or forcing the story into a specific direction based on her belief of what is right or wrong.
Erin Branham:Definitely. Well, Athena is interesting because if you really wanted to look at a kind of symbolic psychological set of myths, the birth of Athena is a good one because it starts off with Zeus had a wife before Hara Yes. Metis. Yep, who was wisdom. And he basically didn't really like the idea that Metis had any kind of freedom, even his wife as his wife, and was worried that she would get away from him. And so he swallowed her. And the sort of mythological logic was, she was already pregnant. And so that was how Athena ended up in his head was through this process, but when you really like like, say, if we didn't really look at that, or take it apart, symbolically forming his wisdom, man doesn't want him to get away, you know, basically absorbs her, eats her. Yes, it's pretty weird. Freud would have a field day if he had ever did what you probably.
Karen Foglesong:He did!
Erin Branham:I haven't read all the Freud.
Karen Foglesong:He did!
Erin Branham:He did actually talked about that, but I can only imagine how he went at it because he was such a patriarch. He didn't you know, he didn't have any concept that women have any autonomy.
Karen Foglesong:No.
Erin Branham:My been my sort of experience of him. A thing that is fascinating - there are two gods of war in the Greek pantheon, which is fascinating in and of itself. Yes, Athena is one of them. As Karen said, She's not the she doesn't necessarily start wars. She's the strategic - she was the god of strategy, the goddess of wisdom and war strategy and and she was also the goddess of crafts. And so she has an aspect much like Apollo of kind of embodying civilization. And she had an aspect of Athena the who was sort of the city patron, yes, Goddess. That's something else in the ancient world. Gods didn't have just one form. So like if you had gone to Athens, there were se - in ancient Greece, there were several temples to Athena. Each one was dedicated to a different aspect of her, which is because they embodied so many different kinds of things. So you could go to the temple of Athena the craft maker, you could go to the temple of Athena the strategist, you could go to the temple of Athena, the city patron. So yeah, all of these different kinds of things going on within her. Yeah, definitely. So they're very complex. It's another reason why they're really fascinating archetypes, and they're just layers upon layers upon layers, with all of the Greek gods. So Athena was always one I really liked a lot. The other god of war was Ares. Ares represents bloodlust, yes, that's why he and Aphrodite ended up together because they're both about a kind of lust, right? Yes, she's about the lust to fuck and he's about the lust to kill. And so obviously, that's just like an explosive combination. They were bound to get together. And yeah, it's just a different like Ares represents that kind of, if you've ever seen somebody get hit and just lose it.
Karen Foglesong:Beserker.
Erin Branham:Like just their face turns a different color and they go berserk or that's Ares. That's the energy of Aries right there. Athena is the exactly opposite of that. Like Athena is sitting over in a corner going, hmm - if we do this next and then go over here and then bring it back over there in two days time, we'll destroy them. Yeah, that's her energy.
Karen Foglesong:There's an earlier goddess, Inanna, from the Sumerian and again, another amalgamated pantheon from island cultures but Inanna was the goddess of war and love, like so it's not uncommon to pair those two ideas together, because these are the things that will make you overcome reason and home and hearth and all those things.
Erin Branham:Absolutely.
Karen Foglesong:Okay, everybody, we're gonna continue with a deeper dive on the next episode, but we're gonna end right here today. Thanks for joining us. Next episode, we're looking at the remaining aspects of the so called Ancient Greek pantheon. So we'll see you next time. Take care.
Erin Branham:Bye, everybody. Thank you for joining us at Mythic U, we want to hear from you. Please visit our website at mythic u.buzzsprout.com That's MYTHIC u.buzzsprout.com. For more great information on choreographing your own spirituality. Leave us a comment and donate if you have the means and the interest. If you'd like to support our work more regularly, please visit our Patreon and become a member of mythic you. Depending on the level at which you join members receive early access to new episodes, bonus episodes and free Mythic U gifts.