Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 17. Lover of Clytaemestra, plays a minimal role in killing of Agamemnon in Aeschylus. Aegisthus is the last remaining son of Thyestes (the only one not to be eaten). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 23. Son of Anchises and Venus / Aphrodite, Aeneas is chosen by destiny to lead the remaining Trojans to found a new city after the fall of Troy. He is the "man" whom Virgil refers to in the first line of the poem, and he is the central figure throughout. Aeneas is a variant spelling for Aineias (the child whom Aphrodite refers to in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 23. Epic poem written by the Roman poet Virgil, written during the age of Augustus (left unfinished at Virgil's death in 19 BCE). The Aeneid tells the story of Aeneas' journey from Troy to Italy, where he founds the race that will one day become the Romans. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 16. Athenian playwright of the 5th century BCE (Classical period), wrote the Oresteia which consists of three plays: Agamemnon; Libation Bearers; Eumenides (aka "The Kindly Ones"). The triology was performed at the Dionysia festival in Athens in *458 B.C., where it won first place. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 26. An example of a myth that explains something about a custom or ritual in Greek society (eg sacrifice in Hesiod's story of Prometheus tricking Zeus),or - in the case of Ovid - explains natural world. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 22. Euripides' Bacchae. Daughter of Cadmus and mother of Pentheus, she is driven wild by Dionysus and ends up tearing her son to pieces in a sparagmos. Only at the end of the play does she see clearly and realise what she has done. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 6. Lec. 23. Mortal whom Aphrodite falls in love with and sleeps with, conceiving the child Aineias. He also appears in Virgil's Aeneid. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 24. The Ara Pacis was decorated with imagery to promote the Augustan program. Its sculptural reliefs include imagery of abundance and representations of children. The altar includes a relief of Aeneas sacrificing a sow with the household gods represented in a small temple in the background. The altar was part of a larger Augustan complex that included a sundial and his mausoleum (image will be posted under 'images' page). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 18. Aeschylus, Eumenides. The Areopagus was a rocky hill in Athens which gave its name to the court where homicide trials took place. This is also where Aeschylus has Orestes' crime tried in the last play of the trilogy. This is an Aeschylean invention to the myth. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 23. Virgil's Aeneid. Son of Aeneas and Creusa, Ascanius is the hope of the future race of Rome. His name is also Ilius (from Ilium, another name for Troy), which gets changed to Iulius when he rules in Italy. See Aeneid p. 13. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 26. Aeschylus' Oresteia; Seneca's Thyestes. Grandson of Tantalus who plots horrible revenge for brother Thyestes in Seneca's play. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 24. Augustus was Julius Caesar’s nephew and adopted son. He defeated Marc Antony at Actium in 31 BCE. He changed his name from Octavian to Augustus in 27 BCE and assumed control of the Roman government in 23 BCE. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 24. The Augustus Prima Porta represents Augustus in military garb. The statue was based on Classical Greek sculpture. The cuirass was elaborately carved with divinities and an example of successful Roman diplomacy (image will be posted under 'images' page). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 20. Levi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth". We learned a few lectures ago that 'chthonic beings' such as the Furies, are particularly connected with the earth. Autochthony is the phenomenon of actually being born from the earth, rather from a set of human parents. Many cultures have myths about the autochthonous origins of mankind (where men are born from mud, stones, etc.), at the same time as they have other myths telling of the origins of man from 1 or 2 parents. When Oedipus at the end of Sophocles' Oedipus the King starts to call Mount Cithaeron his parent, we can see this also as an attempt to distance himself from parent-birth and associate himself with autochthony. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 19. Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Founder of Thebes, who kills the dragon and sows its teeth into the earth. From them spring up the Spartoi (sown men), who fight one another. The remaining few become leaders of the founding families of Thebes. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 24. Aeneid bks 1, 4. Carthage is the new city being built by queen Dido in the Aeneid. It is the favorite city of Juno and will eventually become Rome's greatest enemy. Carthage rose to great prominence as a super-power in the 3rd century BCE. This led to clashes with Rome in the 3rd and 2nd centuries, BCE (the 3 Punic Wars). Carthage was eventually destroyed by Rome. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 17. Aeschylus' Agamemnon. priestess of Apollo, daughter of Priam. Broke her word to Apollo and was cursed with knowing the truth but never being believed. Brought back as a war prize by Agamemnon and killed by Clyteamestra.~ |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 17. See also archaic period; tragedy. Follows the Archaic period in Greece, often described as the 'golden age' of Greek arts and literature. Athens is a very prominent city in the Classical period |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 18. Aeschylus, Libation Bearers. Clytaemestra dreams in the Libation Bearers that she has given birth to a serpent who bites her breast when she feeds it. The dream prompts her to send libations to the tomb of Agamemnon |
|
|
Term
| Clytemnestra, Clytaemestra |
|
Definition
| Lec. 11. Lec. 17. In the Odyssey, left under the charge of a poet by husband Agamemnon when he went to war, but still seduced by Aegisthus (Od. 3.255-300, p.36). In Aeschylus' Agamemnon,kills Agamemnon upon his return from war and is in turn killed by Orestes. Also plays an important role throughout the trilogy. Alternative spelling: Clytaemestra. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 27. Lec. 28. Ovid Metamorphoses; Vergil, Aeneid (beginning of book 6); W.H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts (CR), Brueghel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (on images page). Daedalus is a master craftsman (he built the labyrinth which held the minotaur killed by Theseus, a myth we haven't had time for but which you can read about in Ovid). Held in exile on Crete, he devises wings for his son, Icarus, and himself to escape. But Icarus flies too close to the sun and plummets to his death. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 26. Ovid Metamorphoses. The story of Daphne and Apollo introduces the theme of erotic love in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Daphne is chased by Apollo and turns into the laurel tree. Compare Io and Syrinx (and several other characters who are loved by/ raped by/ escape attentions of a god. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 21. Best known of Greek oracles, consulted on personal and political matters. Founded by Apollo and consulted by both Oedipus and Orestes. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 24. Aeneid books 1, 4, 6. Dido is the queen of Carthage, a new city in North Africa which she has escaped to from Tyre (modern Lebanon) after learning that her brother secretly killed her husband. Visited by Aeneas on his way to Italy, she has a love affair (what she thinks is a marriage) with him that ends disastrously, not only for her but also for the future relations of Carthage and Rome. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 22. Euripides' Bacchae. The last god to join the Pantheon, Dionysus is portrayed as a new god in the Bacchae who asserts his divinity and role in a city which had refused to take his birthright seriously. He is associated, among other things with wine and theater.~ |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 16. Aeschylus' Agamemnon. image used by the chorus in their first song to describe omen that made Artemis angry with pity. The eagles rip open the belly of a hare and eat its unborn young. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 18. Aeschylus' Libation Bearers. Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytaemestra, helps plot with Orestes to kill Aegisthus and her mother. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 18. Aeschylus' Oresteia. In Greek this word means the "Kindly Ones". It is the name given to the Furies at the end of the trilogy when Athena offers them a benevolent role in her city. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 22. Euripides was the third of the three best-known Athenian tragic playwrights, and author of the Bacchae. Euripides was known for his witty and subversive style |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 3. Lec. 20. Inventor of psychoanalytic theory. Freud identified the 'Oedipus Complex' which has been applied to the Theogony by the Classical scholar Richard Caldwell (see Caldwell, Theogony, 87-103) and his essay on the Oedipus myth in the course reader. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 18. Aeschylus, Libation Bearers and Eumenides. These gruesome creatures are the avenging spirits who chase and torment Orestes after he kills his mother. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 25. Aeneid book 6. Aeneas must find and pull up the golden bough in order to gain entry to the underworld. He later gives the bough to Charon, the ferryman of the dead, in order to get a passage over the river.~ |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 16. Aeschylus' Oresteia. household that begins with Tantalus but which is first officially cursed with Pelops and his dishonorable actions during the chariot race. Pelops' sons Atreus and Thyestes fight, continuing the curse, and it is then passed down, through Atreus, to his son Agamemnon (and his son after him... when will it ever end?). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 23. Virgil's Aeneid. The Roman household gods are called the Lares and the Penates. They symbolize the hearth and the supply of food. Aeneas brings them with him from Troy to Italy. He escapes from Troy at the end of book 2 carrying his father Anchises, his son Ascanius, and the household gods. This displays his sense of duty (pietas) to family, household, and ultimately - since he is off to found the future race of Romans - community |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 28. Ovid, Metamorphoses. Io is yet another virgin whose beauty catches the eye of a god - in this case Jove's, who rapes her under a dark cloud so that Juno will not be able to see. Juno is turned into a cow and sadly scratches her name in the dust for her father to realise who she is |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 19. Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Mother and wife of Oedipus; sister of Creon. Queen of Thebes who hangs herself when she discovers her unwitting crime. See also Odyssey 11. 275 ff. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 24. Julius Caesar was a dynamic and charismatic military leader. He assumed role of dictator for life - a move that was resented by members of the senate. He was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BCE. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 24. Julius Caesar was a dynamic and charismatic military leader. He assumed role of dictator for life - a move that was resented by members of the senate. He was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44 BCE. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 19. Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Father of Oedipus, wife of Jocasta, son of Labdacus. Laius fell in love with and abducted the son of Pelops (this was before he returned to Thebes and married Jocasta). In some versions of the myth Pelops cursed him for his transgression. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 20. A French structural anthropologist, born in 1908. Author of many books that dealt with myth and mythic structures, including "The Raw and The Cooked," and an analysis of the Oedipus myth. See also universalism, and explanation of his chart on images page of course website.~ |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 26. Ovid Metamorphoses. The title of Ovid's epic poem, which collects together a whole array of myths from Greco-Roman culture. Composed in the first decade of the 1st century CE (either finished just before or just after Ovid is exiled by Augustus in 8 CE). Metamorphosis means change. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 22. Sophocles' Oedipus the King; Euripides' Bacchae. The mountain on the outskirts of the city of Thebes on which Oedipus is abandonned and to which the women run when driven into a divine state of ecstasy by Dionysus. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 28. Ovid's Metamorphoses. Myrrha developed an all- consuming lust for her father, which she acted on with the help of her nurse. When her father discovers their crime she runs away and is transformed into the Myrrh tree. The child Adonis is born from the tree. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 25. Seneca's Thyestes. As the fifth emperor of Rome, Nero built the Domus Aurea and was known for his excessive behavior. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 19. Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Child of Jocasta and Laius, but brought up in Corinth as the child of Polybus and Merope. Fated to kill his father and marry his mother. See further Freud, Levi- Strauss, Propp (lecture 20). His name means "swollen foot". |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 27; Ovid's Metamorphoses. Orpheus is so upset at the death of his wife (on their wedding day) that he goes down to the Underworld and charms its inhabitants with his song (including Persephone). She allows him to take Eurydice out of the underworld as long as he doesn't look back at her on the journey out. But Orpheus unfortunately looks back, and loses Eurydice for a second time.~ |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 25. Aeneid book 6. This is the parade of future heroes in Rome that the now dead (died at end of book 4) Anchises shows to Aeneas in the Underworld. In this way Virgil is able to dramatically reveal all the future heroes of Italy and Rome, from Aeneas down to Augustus and Marcellus, the adopted son of Augustus who tragically died young at around the time of the Aeneid's composition |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 22. Euripides' Bacchae. Son of Agave, grandson of Cadmus, Pentheus is the king of Thebes who tries to resist the introduction of the religion of Dionysos to his city in the Bacchae. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 27. Ovid Metamorphoses. Child of the Sun, he asks his father to prove his parentage by granting him any wish. When the Sun agrees, Phaethon then asks if he can drive his father's chariot. In doing so he loses control and burns the earth, forcing Jove to kill him. In grief at Phaethon's fall, the sun goes into eclipse, and his sisters and lover (Cycnus) themselves go through processes of transformation in their grief. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 28. Ovid's Metamorphoses. Philomela is the sister of Procne, who is raped by Procne's husband, Tereus, and locked up in the woods. Tereus cuts Philomela's tongue out, to stop her from reporting the deed, but she weaves the story into a tapestry and sends it to her sister. Procne rescues Philomela and the two punish Tereus by serving him up his son, Itys, to eat. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 23. Virgil's Aeneid. The Roman word for loyalty, duty, or piety. This quality characterizes Aeneas for much of the epic, and especially at the beginning of the poem. Pietas is a distinctively Roman quality, and creates a different kind of hero than the one we are used to from the Greek tradition. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 28. Ovid, Metamorphoses. Procne is the wife of Tereus (although the marriage takes place under less than auspicious circumstances), who eventually turns into a swallow. She kills her child, Itys, and feeds him up to Tereus in revenge for his (Tereus') rape of her sister. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 20. Theories of Oedipus myth. Vladimir Propp was a Russian folklorist, who wrote "The Morphology of the Folktale." He categorized every folktale, including the popular Oedipal story, into 31 functions. See a list of them on "material from lecture" page for lecture 20. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 23. Virgil's Aeneid p.13. The twin sons of Ilia and Mars, suckled by a she-wolf. Together they build the city of Rome but Romulus kills Remus (in some versions because he jumped over an unfinished wall: a bad omen) and gives his name to Rome. The Romans dated the founding of Rome to 753 BCE. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 16. Aeschylus' Agamemnon. Demanded by Artemis in response to seeing the omen of the eagles and hare, to atone for the spilling of innocent blood at Troy. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 22. Euripides' Bacchae; Ovid's Metamorphoses (coming soon). Semele is the mother of Dionysos, burned to death in the thunderbolt that Zeus came to her as in bed. She is the Theban daughter of Cadmus and sister of Agave. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 25. Roman philosopher and playwright from the Silver age. composer of the play the Thyestes. Connections to the court of Nero and forced to commit suicide by him. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 19. Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Sometimes claimed to be the greatest of the 3 playwrights. Author of Oedipus the King, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus, and other plays. Was known for his portrayal of complex and strong characters. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 22. Euripides' Bacchae. The ritual tearing to pieces of a live animal or human body, which is associated with the cult of Dionysos. Pentheus experiences a sparagmos at the hands of his bacchant relatives in Euripides' Bacchae |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| lec. 19. Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Monstrous being who terrorizes Thebes and whom Oedipus releases them from by being the only man wise enough to answer her riddle |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 25. Seneca's Thyestes; House of Atreus (ID); Odyssey 11; Aeneid 6. Eternally punished in Underworld for carving up his son Pelops and serving him to the gods for dinner. Tantalus appears as a ghost at the opening of Seneca's play (in this way he foreshadows certain Elizabethan ghosts who motivate revenge plots, such as the ghost of Hamlet's father).~ |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 28. Ovid Metamorphoses. Thracian king who marries Procne but who then falls in lust with her sister Philomela. While bringing Philomela back to his wife he takes her to a deserted hut, rapes her, and then cuts out her tongue. Philomela and Procne eventually have their revenge on Tereus by serving him up his son, Itys, to eat. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 26. Seneca's Thyestes; Aeschylus' Oresteia; House of Atreus (ID). Brother of Atreus - sleeps with Atreus' wife and ends up eating his own children in Seneca's play. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 17. An art form that developed in Athens in the Classical period, performed in a large open air theater, with a chorus and 2 or 3 actors (depending on the playwright) playing all of the characters. In the vast majority of cases, tragedy drew its subject matter from myth.~ |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Lec. 20. Theories of Oedipus. We call certain theories of myth 'universal' because they argue that myths mean the same thing everywhere and at every time. For e.g., it is the nature of the human psyche to want to sleep with your mother, etc.. Universal theories of myth tend to neglect the historical and social context of the group which tells the myth. |
|
|
