What is a cosmogony?

What was the ancient Greeks’ primary source of information on where the world came from?

What is a theogony? What is the relationship between a cosmogony and a theogony?

Who are the first four beings/creatures/entities to appear in the world?

 CHAOS

GAEA (Earth) – just shows up

TARTARUS (Under the Earth) – a place

EROS (Sexual Attraction)

Gaea asexually produced three beings/objects. What are their names and what do they represent?

Uranus the sky, Pontus the sea, and the mountains all on her own.(Asexually) 

Who are the parents of the Titans, Cyclopes, and Hecatonchires?

Give a brief physical description of the Titans, Cyclopes, and Hecatonchires.

Cyclopes: were blacksmiths, made lightening, late Greeks thought they lived in volcanoes

Hectaonchires: giant arms

The two most important Titans are Rhea and Cronus. What is their relationship to each other?

How did Uranus treat his “wife” Gaea and their children?

Who punished Uranus for his behavior? How?

Who are the Erinyes and where did they come from?

Who are the Giants and where did they come from?

Where does Aphrodite come from?

What are the children of Gaea and Pontus called? (collectively, not individual names)

How did Cronus, as the first king of the world, maintain his power? How did he deal with his children? Why?

You should be able to briefly outline how Zeus overthrew his father to become king of the gods.

What is a Titanomachy? Who were the principal character involved?

Who is Typhoeus? How was he overcome? By whom?

What is a Gigantomachy? Who were the main participants in this event?

Who is Metis? How does Zeus treat her? What is the result of Zeus’s actions?

What was the realm/domain of Zeus’s power? (That is, what did he preside over?)

What are Zeus’s attributes? (What objects/animals/symbols are associated with him?)

What are Hera’s attributes?

What is the realm/domain of Poseidon’s power?

At an early stage in Greek myth, Apollo was closely associated with what animal? With what place?

brief description of the Birth of Apollo.

You should be able to give a brief description of the founding of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi

Sanctuary of Apollo on Delos

Eileithyia (Childbirth)

Delian Apollo

You should be able to list the five failed loves of Apollo and briefly describe why the relationship went wrong

Cassandra

- Princess at Troy

- Wouldn’t sleep with him until he gave her power

- Gave her the gift of prophecy, no one would believe what she said

- She could tell the future but no one believed her

Daphne

- She prayed to her father, turned into a tree than have anything to do with Apollo

What is the specific realm of Hephaestus? What are his attributes? Who are his parents?

Lemnos- Native

Mother was Hera. Took Hera's side between her and Zeus. Zeus got angry and threw him from Mt. Olympus and he ladned on Lemnos

What does Hestia oversee?

What does Demeter oversee?

What does Aphrodite embody?

From what eastern goddess does Aphrodite (both her name and the goddess herself) derive?

 Where did Aphrodite fist come ashore after rising from the sea foam? (Two places!)

Pythera and Cyrus

Who are the parents of Hermaphroditus? You should be able to briefly describe his “misfortune.”

hermes and aphrodite

a nymph fell in love with him, she surprised him one day, embraced him, held him, and they turned into one person (MALE&FEMALE)

 Who is Pygmalion? Why does he carve a statue of a woman? How does he treat it? How does he get it to come to life?

KING OF CYPRUS

he's lonely, carved a woman out of ivory, asked APHRODITE for him to find a woman to marry. Statue turns into real woman. GALATEA.

 What happens to Pygmalion’s grandson Paphos and his granddaughter Myrrha?

What does Artemis oversee? What sort of goddess was she originally (i.e., what was her early role)?

What is the Potnia Theron? Who are two examples of a Potnia Theron?

Who were the main targets of Artemis’s arrows?

You should be able to briefly summarize the story of Niobe.

What are the attributes of Athena?

What does Athena protect?

What is an aegis? Where did Athena get her aegis? (One account says she got it from Zeus, the second account is presented in Powell chapter 8 or 9.)

You should be able to briefly summarize the story of Arachne.

What specific kinds of fertility do Artemis, Aphrodite, and Hera govern?

Hera: Women's fertility

Artemis: 

Aphordite: Human fertility

What is another name for Persephone?

What is the realm of Dionysus? What are his attributes?

Fertility, wine, the east, leopards, panthers, drunkenness

PLANTS AND FERTILE

(FIG AND PINE TREE)

You should know the story of the birth of Dionysus, especially the roles of Zeus, Semele, and Ino. You should also be able to name the royal house to which Semele belonged.

What were the three names for female followers of Dionysus? What did they often carry, and what was it made of?

What are two names for male followers of Dionysus?

Who did Dionysus marry? How did they meet?

What happened to Lycurgus when he refused to worship Dionysus? What happened to the Minyads? The Proetids?

What happened to the ship when pirates kidnapped Dionysus and brought him on board?

According to the ancient Greeks, what caused death?

Hades was also called Polydegmon and Polyxenos. What does each word mean?

Describe an eidolon (“image” or “ghost”)

What sort of existence do disembodied souls lead? What sort of interactions do souls have with living humans?

explain how various burial customs are ways of warding off the dead.

bury or burn with all valuables to show that you have not benefited from their death. don't come back

wear dark clothing, tear off your hair, scratch face, body, visible mourning.

nice burial place

cut body up into pieces, burn it, and bury it, put a stone over it

What is our most comprehensive source for ancient Greek beliefs about death?

Why does Odysseus go to the underworld? Who does he need to talk to? How does he summon ghosts?

What is the ancient Greek definition of “myth?”

What is the modern academic definition of “a myth?”

What is the difference between myth and religion (cult)?

You should be able to define each of the words used in the modern definition of a myth.

Story= Plot + character + setting

Traditional= Transmitted from one generation to the next

Collective Importance= Having meaning for a group of people

What are the three types of myth?

Divine myth

Legend

Folktale

You should be able to list the principal characters, settings, and function of each type of myth.

Divine:

Principal= supernatural beings (humanlike)

Setting= before or outside the present world order

Function= theorretical sciences (why is the world the way it is)

Legend:

Principal= heroes and heroines (human or half human nobility) queens

Setting= the distant past(still within the current world order)

Function= hustory (what happened in the human past)

Folktale=

Principle: humans (ordinary, below avg)

Setting: the distant past

Function: entertainment 

What is the definition of “etiological?”

Why does it make sense that Eros is one of the Primordial Beings? Why does he have to come into existence before most of the other gods?

Who are the First Generation of gods? Along with Gaea (Earth), the First Generation establishes ___________ in the world.

The children of Hyperion (a Titan) establish _____________ in the world.

Birth to Helius (SUN), Selene (MOON), Eos (DAWN)

make time

What two groups of beings were born from the blood of Uranus?

Who were the Aristoi? What is the relationship between the Aristoi and industrial workers/craftsmen in ancient Greece?

What is the realm of Ares? What are his attributes?

Who are two children of Ares?

What is the realm of Hermes? What are his attributes?

What is a herm? What does ithyphallic mean? What does apotropaic mean?

stood at crossroads and other boundaries (house, doorway of shop, marks the borders)

ithyphallic: HUGE ERECTION

potropaic : TURNING AWAY EVIL

What does “Psychopompus” mean (in relation to Hermes)?

How does Hermes acquire the epithet “Argeiphontes?”

giant killer

hera put Argeis in charge of a women that Zeus slept with, zeus sent hermes to kill argeis

Demeter is especially associated with what agricultural crop? Why was the fertility of this crop so important to the ancient Greeks?

What is the realm of Hestia? What is her attribute?