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Text originally published in 1952 under the same title.
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THE TWELVE OLYMPIANS:
GODS AND GODDESSES OF GREECE
BY
CHARLES THEODORE SELTMAN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
THE GREEK GODS 4
PREFACE 6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 8
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY 9
THE PRINCIPAL GREEK DEITIES with their Roman equivalents 11
THE PICTURES 13
I—THE BELIEFS OF THE GREEKS 15
II—HERA 22
III—ZEUS 26
IV—ATHENE 39
V—HERMES 46
VI—APHRODITE 58
VII—HEPHAISTOS 69
VIII—ARES 87
IX—APOLLO 93
X—ARTEMIS 105
XI—POSEIDON 114
XII—DEMETER 121
XIII—DIONYSOS 131
XIV—OLYMPUS 139
MAPS 145
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 146
THE GREEK GODS
OURANOS
GE——KRONOS, RHEA, TITANS, GIANTS
KRONOS
RHEA——POSEIDON, ZEUS, HERA, HESTIA, HADES, DEMETER
POSEIDON
DEMETER——PERSEPHONE, ARION
AITHRA——THESEUS
MEDUSA——CHRYSAOR, PEGASUS
AMPHITRITE——
TYRO——PELIAS, NELEUS
ZEUS
——ATHENE
HERA——HEBE
MAIA——HERMES
SEMELE——DIONYSOS
LETO——APOLLO, ARTEMIS, ARES
DIONE——APHRODITE
DANAE——PERSEUS
ALCMENE——HERAKLES
HERA
——HEPHAISTOS
HEPHAISTOS
APHRODITE——EROS, HERMAPHRODITOS
ATHENE——ERICHTHONIOS
HERMES
PENELOPE——PAN
CHIONE——AUTOLYKOS
HERSE——KEPHALOS
DAEIRA——ELEUSIS
PANDROSOS——KERYX
APHRODITE
ANCHISES——AENEAS
APOLLO
CORONIS——ASKLEPIOS
CYRENE——ARISTAIOS
HADES
PERSEPHONE
PREFACE
THIS little book, had it been written twenty years ago, would have been poorer in its content and more dependent on older conventional ideas about ancient religion. Certain fresh revelations, compelling us to the revaluation of former conceptions, have in recent times arisen from the researches and reflections of four particular scholars. Professor M. P. Nilsson of the University of Lund has found the true explanation of the Greek attachment to Athene, Professor H. G. Güterbock of the University of Ankara has accounted for the crudities in early tales about the parentage of Zeus and Aphrodite, Mrs. J. Chittenden of the University of Edinburgh has thrown a flood of fresh light on that fascinating deity Hermes, and Professor W. K. C. Guthrie of the University of Cambridge has recently published a work which admirably describes certain trends in Greek religion. The works of these scholars, to whom I owe much, are mentioned in the short bibliography. As for my own interest in the goddesses and gods of the Greeks, I must confess that it goes back to an early childhood part-spent in wandering and daydreaming among the sun-baked ruins of Pompeii. Yet such impressions would have faded without the stimulus which I was fortunate to receive from a teacher unrivalled in humanitas. No work on ancient religion more learned and more instructive than Professor A. B. Cook’s Zeus has so far been written. The first volume appeared before I became his pupil in Queens’ College, but I had the good luck to watch the growth of most of the second and all of the third volumes during more than two decades. The ‘honourable mention’ which I have won in some of the footnotes to that great work must be my excuse for writing this book in a spirit, I hope, of deference and moderation.
For the group of photographs which have been included I tender thanks to the Directors and Heads of Departments in Athens (National Museum), Boston (Museum of Fine Arts), London (British Museum), New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Paris (Musée du Louvre), and Providence (Rhode Island School of Design); also to Mrs. Robert Emmet of Wilton, New Hampshire, for the picture of her Artemis. Furthermore, I am much indebted to the Rev. H. St. J. Hart, Fellow of Queens’ College, for valuable suggestions; and to the learning of Mrs. J. Chittenden who has given help in various ways, especially about the cults of Hermes and Artemis. On matters involving expert knowledge within their own specialised spheres, I owe thanks to the Very Rev. Dr. Selwyn, Dean of Winchester, as well as to Dr. A. E. Dunstan and the Management of the Exhibition produced by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Shell Petroleum Company in July 1951 in the University of Cambridge.
The first chapter must not be misunderstood. It is not a proclamation of my own personal views—which are touched upon at the end of the final chapter—but an attempt to learn the facts about a religious climate that differs from ours. I am endeavouring, while I seek to understand the old beliefs, to keep my mind detached from those pieties of childhood which are engendered in the nursery and proclaimed in the Litany. But I in no way wish to derogate from the official and recognised faiths of the Western World, rather only to indicate—with such scientific impartiality as it may be possible to attain—the differences between ancient and modern modes of approach to godhead; and also to point out that a Greek would have raised the eyebrows of surprise at a variety of prevalent views, practices, and ways of religious life. Yet these require consideration in order to contrast them with ancient Greek views, practices, and ways of religious life, and in order to account for the weakness of a cultured, fancy-free paganism unconstrained by and unobedient to sanctified persons or writings. It is not possible to understand ancient myth, cult, and faith until we have been made aware that these things were vulnerable not because they were, like some of their modern equivalents, absurd, but because they were too fragile and too fine.
Queens’ College, Cambridge, 1952
C. S.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author’s thanks are due to the following for permitting quotations: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. (H. B. Cotterill’s Odyssey); Mr. F. L. Lucas and J. M. Dent & Co. Ltd. (“Hymn to Aphrodite” in Greek Poetry for Everyman); Dr. E. V. Rieu and Penguin Books Ltd. (Odyssey and Iliad); the Editors of the Loeb Classical Library (H. G. Evelyn-White’s Hesiod and Homeric Hymns and A. W. Mair’s Callimachus), published by Wm. Heinemann Ltd.; Mr. J. E. Powell and the Clarendon Press (Herodotus); Mr. D. W. Lucas, Mr. F. J. A. Cruso, and the Cambridge Greek Play Committee (Euripides’ Bacchæ and Aristophanes’ Frogs); Mr. R. C. Trevelyan and Allen & Unwin Ltd. (Translations from Greek Poetry); a
nd the Editors of History Today for allowing the author to quote in extenso from two of his own articles.
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Some abbreviations used:
AAC=H. BOSSERT, Art of Ancient Crete, 1937
AGA=CHARLES SELTMAN, Approach to Greek Art, 1948
AJA=American Journal of Archæology
CAH=Cambridge Ancient History
HESP=Hesperia
NC=Numismatic Chronicle
OCD=Oxford Classical Dictionary
RE=Real-Encyclopädie
Some books and articles relevant to the subject:
COOK, A. B., Zeus, 3 vols., 1914–1940
GUTHRIE, W. K. C., The Greeks and their Gods, 1950
MURRAY, GILBERT, Five Stages of Greek Religion, 1925
NILSSON, M. P., Minoan-Mycenæan Religion, 2nd Edition, 1950
ROSE, H. J., Handbook of Greek Mythology, 1928
and note especially:
(i) CHITTENDEN, J., “The Master of Animals” in HESP, 1947
(ii) CHITTENDEN, J., “Diaktoros Argeiphontes” in AJA, 1948
(iii) GÜTERBOCK, H. G., “Hittite Version of Hurrian Kumarbi Myths”; “Forerunners of Hesiod” in AJA, 1948
Translations (recent):
LUCAS, F. L., Greek Poetry for Everyman, 1951
RIEU, E. V., Homer: The Odyssey, 1946
RIEU, E. V., Homer: The Iliad, 1950
POWELL, J. E., Herodotus, 2 vols., 1949
THE PRINCIPAL GREEK DEITIES with their Roman equivalents
The Twelve Olympians: Special Concern
ZEUS—Jupiter—sky
HERA—Juno—marriage
POSEIDON—Neptune—sea
DEMETER—Ceres—corn
APOLLON—Apollo—law
ARTEMIS—Diana—hunting
HERMES—Mercury—commerce
ATHENE—Minerva—learning
HEPHAISTOS—Vulcan—handicrafts
APHRODITE—Venus—procreation
ARES—Mars—war
DIONYSOS—Bacchus—wine
Other Important Deities:
HESTIA—Vesta—hearth
EROS—Amor—love
HELIOS—Sol—sun
SELENE—Luna—moon
PAN—Pan—flocks
PERSEPHONE—Proserpina—springtime
HADES—Pluto—underworld
Mortals become Gods:
HERAKLES—Hercules—labour
ASKLEPIOS—Æsculapius—healing
Remoter Gods, more vaguely remembered:
GE—Tellus—earth
KRONOS—Saturn—father of Zeus
RHEA—Ops—mother of Zeus
OURANOS—Uranus—father of Kronos
THE PICTURES
(between text pages 96 and 97)
PLATE
I. ZEUS hurling a thunderbolt; bronze, 7 feet high, made about 460 B.C. Found in the sea near Cape Artemision in 1926; now in the National Museum, Athens.
II. ATHENE letting fly an owl; bronze, about 6 inches high, made about 460 B.C. Acquired in Athens by the seventh Earl of Elgin, presumably early in the nineteenth century; now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
III. HERMES carrying a ram; bronze, about 10 inches high; made about 500 B.C. Perhaps from Sparta; now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass.
IV. APOLLO, marble; the gigantic figure from the centre of the western gable of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia; made about 460 B.C. His right arm is raised to quell the strife between Lapiths and Centaurs. At Olympia.
V. ARTEMIS carrying a small doe; bronze, about 9½ inches high, made about 500 B.C. Found near Olympia; now in the collection of Mrs. Robert Emmet, Wilton, New Hampshire.
VI. HEPHAISTOS riding on a donkey followed by a Seilen. From a large mixing-bowl painted in Athens by Kleitias, about 560 B.C.; now in Florence.
VII. ARES kneeling, conscious of his failure. From a large mixing-bowl painted in Athens by Kleitias, about 560 B.C.; now in Florence.
VIII. HERA, wearing a little crown, a veil, a cloak, and a chiton, holding a sceptre. From a perfect little ointment-jar painted in Athens by the Penthesileia Painter about 470 B.C.; now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
IX. DIONYSOS in high boots; bronze, 9 inches high; made about 470 B.C. Found at Olympia, now in the Louvre in Paris.
X. APHRODITE putting on a necklace; bronze, about 18½ inches high; made about 330 B.C. In the Rhode Island School of Design at Providence, R.I.
XI. DEMETER, marble; over life-size, made about 330 B.C. by Leochares. Found at Cnidus; now in the British Museum.
XII. POSEIDON holding a horse’s head; bronze, about 4 inches high, made about 300 B.C.; now in the British Museum.
XIII. The summits of MOUNT OLYMPUS, the Abode of the Gods. The farther massive block is known as ‘the throne of Zeus’.
The photographs have been kindly supplied by Directors and Curators of the respective museums. Plate IV is by permission of ‘Atlantis’, Zurich, and Plate XIII by permission of Mr. Paul Boissonnas, Geneva.
I—THE BELIEFS OF THE GREEKS
GREECE, the eastern outpost of civilised Europe, vital in our own day, a country still great despite its small size—that we can envisage. And the Greeks we have met who often surprise us because, in contrast to some Europeans, their attitude to life seems very much like our own—these are real. So is ancient Greece in a way, because always there are the names that seem a part of our own heritage: Homer and Sophocles, Pericles and Plato, Aristotle and Alexander, Athens, Sparta, and Corinth. There exists no kind of barrier, intellectual or emotional or spiritual, to separate us from the land and its people. But once we begin to try to understand something about the gods and about the beliefs held in ancient Greece, then barriers of spirit, emotion, and intellect close down to hold us back. We must pay toll to pass through, divesting ourselves of some of our ancient prejudices and inhibitions, in order to enter into an enchanted realm where we shall discover that Zeus and Apollo, Hermes and Aphrodite, were of a truth utterly real to living intelligent people who were curiously like ourselves.
Like ourselves in many ways; and also very different; but they differed from us in the realm of Custom and Conduct rather than in the realm of Values and Virtue. Generally we may be more like those Greeks than like our own mediæval ancestors, for we think more like the Greeks and live more like them. Yet, as far as religious and social Custom and Conduct are concerned, we are more like timorous sinners in mediæval Europe, and more like our own grandparents. The inhabitants of Great Britain and of North America have, until fairly recent times, been very religious people, and large numbers still are; for one must count in not only the independent spirits who desire to be masters of their fates and captains of their souls, but also those who surrender to any Church that claims a divinely guaranteed mission. In addition to these there are people who still pay a kind of mental lip-service to some form of authoritarian faith, and whose attitude savours of adherence less to dogma than to expediency. With such folk it is a case of
...always keep a-hold of nurse
for fear of meeting something worse.
‘Nurse’, of course, may be a good thing; but professionally she must hinder our initiative and curb our free thought, for she is an expert on Custom and Conduct, but no judge of either Values or Virtue. In fact, anyone who wants to know about Greek religion and about the goddesses and gods of the Greeks must decide to slip away for a while from ‘Nurse’.
The Renaissance too—a kind of ‘Schoolmarm’ with much knowledge and more enthusiasm about the ancient Greeks—had likewise better be forgotten if one wants to comprehend Greek religion. For the Renaissance—through the work of Raphael, Rubens, and many another genius—has painted a vision of robust and nearly naked figures, heroic in dimension, meant to depict pagan gods. Nevertheless, such are not the gods and goddesses of the Greeks. They are not symbols of Greek religion—of the Greeks’ living belief in the Divine.
Supposing a man to have a free and enquiring spirit,
then he will observe and note the facts about the religion of the Greeks with the same degree of interest which may be given to other phenomena of the human kind, if, on the other hand, he is an adherent of one of the faiths that have stemmed from Mediterranean regions—Jewish, Orthodox Greek, Roman Catholic, Moslem, or Protestant of the North—then a little adjustment of mind, though not of belief, is needed for a better understanding. Those of the strictly monotheistic living faiths will be the most shocked at Greek polytheism and at the depiction of divinities in the guise of naked human beings. For believers within the Christian groups these phenomena are actually less shocking; for while ‘Nurse’ maintains a dogma of monotheism, she holds to several aspects of divinity and believes in the Prince of Darkness. Meanwhile, our ‘Schoolmarm’ has told us that “goodness is beauty; beauty, goodness”. Ergo beautiful gods and goddesses are good. The aspects of Greek religious belief and practice that are really strange to us are other than these, and they arise from the fact that Mediterranean paganism was not a robust growth; therefore one observes the absence of certain elements which have enabled more forceful faiths to stay the course. Let us, accordingly, consider the strange deficiencies in Greek religion.
(1) Among the ancient Greeks there was no class or caste of priests.{1} This one fact by itself is of such outstanding importance that it really controls all that is to follow. Further, it happens to be an almost unique state of affairs. The permanent, and often hereditary, priestly castes in Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, Syria, and the various Anatolian regions, as well as Druid-priests among the Celts of Central and Western Europe, wielded immense power. Any man who held ideas which clashed with the traditional, accepted, and therefore holy decrees and dogmas of the priesthood, expressed his heterodoxy at his peril. After the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity a priesthood of authority gradually won unchallenged dominion in Judæa and became the ruling class, though in this case, for special reasons, it was at first different from the priesthood of a state religion.{2}
The Twelve Olympians Page 1
