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Nyx, Styx, and Hekate in Hesiod’s Theogony
Jenny Strauss Clay (University of Virginia) In Hesiod’s Theogony, Nyx, Styx, and Hekate, three divinities, all non-Olympians, are from either separate (Nyx) or secondary collateral lines (Styx, Hekate) of the divine family tree. Each of them poses problems for Zeus’s regime, not least because they are powerful females. In quite different ways, they are not only absorbed and integrated into Zeus’s order, but they are also given critical positions of power that serve to uphold that order. Night, her offspring mainly but not exclusively negative, is demoted in the Hesiodic cosmos from a position of priority that she holds in other theogonies, but nevertheless possesses a place and a role in Zeus’s dispensation, even as her destructive brood is either neutralized or banished from Olympus. Styx, whose special status is indicated by her being both river and Okeanid, allows Zeus to adopt her powerful children and, although consigned to the Underworld, contributes to the stability of the Olympian order. Finally unlike Styx with her thousands of sibling and formidable children, Hekate, an only child and herself childless, concentrates vast powers in her person. These too are harnessed and deployed so as to guarantee the Olympian order. |
Zeus let be, though he was angry, in awe of doing anything to swift Nyx’ displeasure." |
Aides drew the lot of the mists and the darkness" |
Hell is for the living: the allegorization of Hades as air and its consequences
Marco Antonio Santamaría Álvarez (University of Salamanca) The allegorization of the god Hades (and, consequently, of his realm) by several ancient authors has garnered little attention from specialists in the netherworld or in allegoresis. However, this insight is crucial for the interpretation of certain conceptions of Hades and the netherworld which play a remarkable role in the work of some thinkers, but have not been understood in their full complexity. This idea is documented for the first time in Empedocles, who in fr. 6 DK designates the four roots with divine names: Zeus, Hera, Aidoneus and Nestis. There are robust arguments to support the idea that Aidoneus is the name given to air, since the usual etymology of Hades is “invisible”, the most defining feature of air, and most ancient interpreters agreed with this view. As a result, our world is assigned the attributes of underworld (frs. 118-122 DK). This idea is compatible with the Orphic tenet that the human body is a tomb for soul (sôma-sêma), which in Magna Graecia was interpreted by some Orphics or Pythagoreans, according to Plato (Gorg. 493a), in the sense that the punishments for sins take place in this world, inside the soul. This allegoric view that Hades’ realm is actually among us would later be adopted by the Stoics and by Lucretius (3.978-1023). The decisive consequence of this view is that the lower world as a distinct spiritual sphere is transferred to the upper world and its terrors to man’s innermost sanctum. |
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Eros as a nethergod
Natasha M. Binek (Cornell University) When we first meet Eros in Apollonius’ Argonautica, he is gleefully playing in Zeus’ Olympian orchard (3.114-118). From this and similar vantage points, the god of love appears well-integrated within the Olympian family. After all, he is the son of Aphrodite and Ares, two of Zeus’ Olympian children. This paper, however, looks at how an exploration of certain elements within the scope of this mythical perspective, along with an examination of other traditions, either undermines or explicitly challenges Eros’ Olympian identity. For one, a consideration of his parentage reveals ‘cracks’ in the Olympian facade, as a number of texts, including the Iliad and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, showcases the deep tension between the Olympian patriarch and both Ares and Aphrodite. Indeed, Hesiod’s Theogony makes Eros not the grandchild of Zeus, but a parentless primordial force that emerges at the birth of the universe, and this primordiality resonates with other - albeit more peripheral - theogonies, one of which actually renders him an ancient ruler of the world (Simias, Pteruges). In turn, Eros’ affinity with cosmological configurations beyond the rule of Zeus, a rule which is fundamentally aligned with the regulatory structures of Greek civilization, complements his numerous depictions as a dangerous elemental power that threatens to destabilize ordered existence. In short, this paper argues that, in light of Eros’ mythical origins and his figuring by a significant number of Greek texts - from Archaic to Hellenistic - as a dark agent of chaos who imperils the rational mechanisms embedded in the Olympian order and even the control of Zeus himself, the god of love can be productively understood as a nethergod. |
O cruel Eros, crafty of counsel, of all gods fairest to behold with the eyes" |
For Hades is mighty in holding mortals to account under the earth" |
Hades, Zeus, Demeter: the ruler, the farmer, and the god of death
Diana Burton (Victoria University of Wellington) Hades is rarely found outside of the underworld and therefore has limited interaction with Olympian divinities, few of whom can enter his dark realm. Nonetheless, he is a powerful figure in his own right, and one whose varied roles run the gamut from the isolated ruler of the underworld to an (ostensibly) benign god of agriculture. In this paper, I will explore Hades’ nature and role as an agricultural deity through his relationships both in myth and in cult with his siblings Zeus and Demeter. These relationships, at times hostile, at times amicable, offer a framework within which the tensions between the god’s affiliation to the underworld and his agricultural role can be negotiated. In particular, I will be looking at how these familial relationships are worked out in myth of the rape of Persephone and the related cults of Plouton, Kore, and Demeter. |
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Negotiating Immortality or Ablating Bodies: the Ouranian Eos in Zeus’ Weighing of Souls
Eleonora Colangelo (Paris Diderot University - AnHiMA Centre / University of Pisa) γέρανος, “crane”, is how Pollux (IV 130) defines the tragic mēchanē used by Eos to ablate scenically. ἁρπάζουσα, Memnon’s body in Aeschylus’ lost tragedy Psychostasia (A. frs. 279-80a R.). Conceived according to Plutarch (Mor. 17a) from Zeus’ weighing of souls in Il. XII 210-13 and XXII 210, in this tragedy Eos is depicted while standing next to the Zeus πλάστιγξ, opposed to Thetis. By discussing the poorly explored case of Eos’ crane in the Aeschylean account, the aim of this paper is to rehabilitate the mediatic function of the Titaness as ouranian paradigm in psychostasia myths. Imploring for the immortality of his son, promised but not assured by Zeus in the Aethiopis version (cf. arg. 2e West 2013), in psychostatic scenes Eos rises in fact to the ouranian entity charged to release physically a judged soul towards the sky; and her act of ἁρπάζειν becomes the element crowning the kinetic flux started by Zeus’, or Hermes’, harmonic weighing of two polarities, ἂνω and κάτω, Memnon and Achilles. Iconography also witnesses an Eos-centric mise en image of Zeus’ weighing, as is the case of many pre-Aeschylean vases which depict a winged Eos lifting Memnon’s lifeless body, in such a vectorised posture that seems to traduce in images what Pollux definition of Ἠὼς ἁρπάζουσα would be to say. How did Eos’ power interact with the Zeus one, and how did she oppose her ouranian force to Zeus’ final determination of fates? Finally, can psychostasia be interpreted as piece of a nethergod-centred mythology? |
Eos rose from her bed, where she lay by haughty Tithonos, to carry her light to men and to immortals." |
But come, here is a dream that I wish you to listen to and interpret." |
Heralds of light and messengers of darkness – Dreams and the poetics of miscommunication
George A. Gazis (Durham University) Divine communication with the mortal realm is an important aspect of Greek poetry and myth. The way a god chooses to convey information to a mortal, or even another divinity, betrays a lot about the nature, importance and aim of the message and its sender. In Homer, the role of the messenger is reserved for Iris and Hermes, the official envoys of Olympus, who, apart from their message, carry also the splendour of their heavenly abode, reflected in the epithets accompanying their names (e.g. Iris χρυσόπτερος at Il. 8.397, 11.185, Hermes χρυσόρραπις at Il. 5.87). In the Homeric universe of vividness such brightness is to be expected: everything happens under the light of the sun, in full view of gods and mortals, while the audience can almost see before their eyes the events narrated. However, even in Homer’s universe some messages are not for all ears (or eyes) and need to be conveyed in absolute privacy, even from the divine, omniscient gaze. In this paper I will be looking at the dark counterparts of the Olympian messengers who are charged with the task of delivering a concealed message, known only, besides the sender and recipient, to the poet and the audience. Those messengers are no others than the deified Dreams, the children of the Night and siblings of Death and Sleep, who find their home in the outermost reaches of the universe. By examining how dreams are understood and portrayed in Archaic Greek epic poetry we can, I argue, further explore and understand the divide between the shining Olympian order and that “Other Crowd” which occupies the dark recesses of the Greek cosmos. |
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Divine dealers and distributors – Demeter, Damia, and other daimones
Fritz-Gregor Herrmann (Swansea University) Among the Greek gods of archaic and classical times, there were many whose province was the distribution of valuable resources to mankind. The outmoded label ‘fertility gods’ captures at best one aspect of this, and is at any rate based on a conceptualisation of the world not derived from an analysis of Greek religion. The ‘givers’ and ‘distributors’ of the Greek pantheon were responsible for the distribution of grain and the fruits of the earth, but also more widely of health and healthy offspring, of prosperity, and of the ‘lot’ of an individual human being. Aeschylus lets the Erinyes transform into just such divinities at the end of the Eumenides. In this paper, I propose to look at the divine dealers and distributors among the Greek gods – in their mythical contexts – from the point of view of their names. Starting from the minor female divinities Damia and Auxesia, whose cult on the Peloponnese is mentioned by Herodotus and Pausanias, I shall try to make plausible that at the root of Damia, of Demeter, and possibly also of (Aphrodite) Pandemos, there is the same concept which is attested in the very word daimones, the term which the Greeks throughout antiquity used of divinities as and when they were felt to intervene in human affairs. Demonstrating how the concept of dealing and distributing is both behind the names and behind the stories of these gods can advance our understanding of a central element of early Greek religiosity. |
The priestess bade them set up images of Damia and Auxesia [...] of the wood of the cultivated olive." |
Strong Ephialtes and Otos, sons of Aloeus, chained [Ares] in bonds that were too strong for him, and three months and ten he lay chained in the brazen cauldron." |
New gods? Gigantomachy and the old generation of heroes in the Iliad and the Odyssey
Katarzyna Kostecka (University of Warsaw) The Gigantomachy, one of attempts to overthrow the Olympic order, appears late in the preserved archaic sources – first on 6th century pottery. The Gigantes themselves are mentioned scarcely in archaic epic poems. Thus, their meaning in this period is often overlooked, even though some scholars suggest that the allusions in the epic poems indicate their role was vital. In this paper, I want to explore the idea of the Gigantomachy by inspecting a variant of the Gigas' figure which appears in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Digressive mentions in both poems depict a generation of heroes living before the Trojan war, who differ radically from their antecedents. Enormously big, they abate monsters with ease and, most significantly, they attempt to fight or challenge the gods by various means – bow, bronze jar or ox-goad. Their attitude and characteristics evoke strongly the descriptions of the Gigantes. Some are connected to them quite directly: Eurymedon reigns over the Gigantes, Tityus (the attacker of Leto) is the son of Gaia and the Aloadae make an assault on Olympus after the fashion of the Gigantes. Others, seemingly more remote (i.a. Eurytus, Lycurgus, Heracles), are built around the same model: a combination of strength and audacity, usually punished by Zeus' thunderbolts or Apollo's arrows. In my paper, I intend to discuss the significance of such figures in Homeric poems and consider what they can contribute to our understanding of the meaning and development of the idea of the Gigantomachy. |
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Locals in the Underworld: Demeter, Hades, and Persephone in Hermione
Ellie Mackin (University of Leicester/Institute of Classical Studies) The Underworld, as a place, is a convergence of location and divinity: Hades, often ambiguously referenced in literature, is both the god and the location he rules over. Hades himself has very little cult, but several of his aliases do receive worship. One place this occurs is at Hermione, on the south-eastern coast of the Argolis. Here, there is a sanctuary dedicated to Demeter Chthonia, and Pausanias (2.35.4-10) relates ‘places’ (χωρία) of Klymenos, Plouton, and the Archerousian lake, and claims this is the site that Herakles dragged Kerberos into the world. Klymenos is an indigenous hero who fills the shoes of Hades in local variations of the Demeter-and-Persephone myth. The gods at Hermione are transgressive, and the myths and rituals associated with them no less so. This paper will look at the rituals that took place here, and closely examine the myths that fed into them. I will focus on how the characterisation of Demeter, Hades (as both Klymenos and Plouton), and Persephone in this local context feeds into wider panhellenic versions of the Underworld gods, and what this context tells us about the worship of Underworld gods in ancient Greece. |
You must first complete another journey, and come to the house of Hades and dread Persephone" |
Echidna, who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake." |
Drakainai: the phenomenon of the female anguipede
Daniel Ogden (University of Exeter) This paper contends that the term drakaina, the relatively rare feminine/female-denoting reflex of drakon, normally had a more specific connotation than its masculine counterpart. It tended to signify an entity in which the forms of serpent and of female humanoid were somehow combined. The most typical manifestation of this combination was in the shape of the anguipede, a creature with a female-humanoid upper half and a serpentine lower half. A surprisingly broad range of creatures corresponded, or corresponded on occasion, to the female-anguipede type: Delphyne, Echidna(s), Hecate, Lamias, Campe, inter alias. None of these creatures had much by way of a mythology of their own in traditional terms, this despite an extensive cult in Hecate’s case. Delphyne seems to have ceded place to her male counterpart Python at an early stage in the Delphic myth. The Lamias, however, did thrive in a folklore that manifested itself in several different forms, and which can be considered to offer an alternative sort of mythology. The female anguipede often incorporates a (destructive) beauty into her monstrosity. |
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Gods gone native? Kirke, Aeëtes and Medea pitted against Olympian-backed heroes
Maciej Paprocki (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) Appearing in one of the densest and thorniest passages of Theogony (956-962), Kirke, Aeëtes and his daughter Medea remain something of an ontological enigma. Descended from Helios and the Okeanid Perseis, they belong neither with Zeus’ relations (886-955) nor with mortals; the subsequent text section catalogues Kirke and Medea (Kirke’s doublet) as goddesses who coupled with mortal men (992-1002, 1011-1016), with Aeëtes’ godhood implied but not confirmed. In contrast, the Odyssey and Argonautica de-emphasise and question their divinity, re-imagining Kirke and Aeëtes as a powerful witch and an arrogant warrior king respectively. I argue that, despite their human bearing, the Homeric Kirke and Apollonian Aeëtes and Medea are deities who settle on earth and adopt mortal ways (χθόνιοι θεοὶ αὐδήεντες), acting as supernatural foils to marauding Olympian-backed heroes. Ever-young yet possibly vulnerable to violent death, descendants of Helios employ gender-dependent strategies to deal with their peculiar type of immortality, alternatively embracing isolation on Aiaia or communal life in Colchis, powers of herbalist witchcraft or bronze-wrought automata. As a Colchian king, Aeëtes cannot freely express his masculine divinity and must emphasise his heroic mortality instead, but his female relatives transcend such limitations: Apollonius' Medea rejects her father and re-embraces familial powers of witchcraft, whereas the Homeric Kirke enjoys a fragile form of immortality in her secluded domain. Fascinating offshoots of early Greek mythical imagination, these curious characters focalise ambiguities of ancient Greek godhood. Liminal beings ontologically intertwined with invading heroes, Kirke, Aeëtes and Medea read as obstacles from which Odysseus and Jason extract their own undying fame by besting (Aeëtes) or co-opting (Kirke/Medea) the potentially undying being, sharply delimiting their fragile (im)mortality from its more stable Olympian variety. In short, I argue, both heroes confront descendants of Helios on Olympus’ behalf, because these independent and formidable deities—the only branch of the Titan family that has not been co-opted or imprisoned—can potentially threaten Zeus’ rule. |
Fair-tressed Kirke, a dread goddess of human speech, own sister to Aeëtes of baneful mind" |
Hypnos, lord over all mortal men and all gods" |
Characterisation and Colour within the Representation of Sleep in the Iliad
Yukiko Saito (University of Liverpool / Kyoto Seika University) This paper attempts to explore the significant role of Hypnos, the god of Sleep. The god himself has been variously discussed elsewhere, but I propose an unconventional angle on his symbolic representation, concerning colour presentation. Focusing on the Iliad in this case, I investigate the subtle interconnection between Hypnos’ representation and colour description. Ὕπνος, with the Υ capitalized, occurs ten times out of 46 instances in total in the Iliad and his appearance delivers dual connotations, i.e., positiveness and negativeness. Sleep eases your stress but also covers you with blackness/darkness. The association between sleep and death is reasonably comprehended, as Sleep’s brother is Death (14. 231, 16. 672 and 16. 682), and falling into a profound sleep certainly suggests a parallel with death. The phrase “bronze sleep,” χάλκεον ὕπνον in 11. 241, which appears once, is particularly intriguing and how those factors interact with each other is analysed. Additionally, pursuing the interrelationship of colour with sound and motion in context, I should like to extract their delicate composition shedding light on the figure of Sleep. Whereas he appears to be set aside from the mainstream, the god’s ability to drastically change the storyline is indeed vital. His actions are crucial for important turns of the plot. It seems that Hypnos is controlled by superior gods, but in fact he controls the story (14. 233). With the cleverness of the personification as ‘sleep’ that indicates invisible and silent swiftness, his true power behind the scenes is elucidated. |
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Death casts 'bones' - Greek embodiments of fate
Karolina Sekita (Oxford University) Greek is rich in expressions for death and dying, and also for fate and punishment; many characterisations or personifications of death appear in contexts which concern fate. This paper will assess and attempt to untangle the nexus of deities or personifications who appear at the intersection of fate, death and punishment, with particular attention to their role and importance in Greek religion, and whether they had, or lacked, cult. Of central importance are: Ker (Keres) and Moros, which will be juxtaposed with Thanatos, Moira (Moirai) and Erinyes. It seems that the semantics of Ker and Moros oscillate around death, fate, punishment, but achieve a specific meaning only in a given context or genre. It is important to ask why the Greeks needed so many divine forces to express these concepts: was it, for instance, a mark of a particular (local?) tradition? Were the roles of these deities perceived as compartmentalised, complementary, or overlapping? Is one individual or group, such as Ker / Keres, logically prior to the rest? How are conceptual links between death and punishment encoded in the relationships of these deities? Is it that death is somehow abstracted from the idea of fate? In seeking to understand why and how these entities interact, and how they were viewed by Greeks, this paper will also pay due attention to the significance of artistic representations. |
So man to man dealt death; and joyed the Keres and Moros, and fell Eris in her maddened glee shouted aloud." |
The plain of Phlegra, where the gods withered the pride of the Gegenees (Sons of Earth) with their shafts." |
Gigantomachy and Titanomachy: Cosmic Stasis
David J. Wright (Rutgers University) The Titans and Giants (who were conflated) are often thought of as distinct entities from the “civilized” Olympians. This study challenges such a sweeping dichotomy. First, I examine Zeus’ Giant-like characteristics in the Theogony through his close association with Gaia (626-8, 479-84) and intertextual echoes that connect him with two chthonic figures: Echidna and a monstrous snake (300, 334, 483). Later poets, such as Aristophanes in Knights (as Bowie (1993): 58-66 argues), use Gigantomachic language similarly to confuse protagonist and antagonist. I also explore the conflation of the opponents in the war between the Olympians and their Chthonic opponents. Some versions of the myth feature clearly chthonic figures such as Styx (Hes. Th. 383-403), Prometheus (A. PV. 197-241), Briareus, Cottus and Gyges (Hes. Th. 644-73), all of whom take up the cause of Zeus. There are even accounts of Gigantic figures such as Musaeus defecting to the opposing side (Diod. 5.71). Finally, I examine the complex picture of the supposed Olympian/Chthonic dichotomy that arises when the familial connections between the Olympians and Titans who come into conflict are highlighted in works such as PV (12, 39) and Eum. (1-8). This familial strife serves as a microcosm for stasis within the cosmos. This manner of conflict indicates not a war between “civilized” and “uncivilized” figures, but a group of mirroring individuals. These factors lead to an association between stasis and these chthonic figures that can be traced elsewhere in Greek literature (Xen. fr. 1, Pi. Pyth. 8.1-20, A. PV. 200). |
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A Faux Hesiodic Genealogy in the Aeneid: Fama’s Stemma and Its Ramifications
Gary Vos (University of Edinburgh) It is still sometimes claimed that one does “not find an orderly system of belief” (Horsfall 2013, 1.xxv) in Aeneid 6; rather, we are looking at a literary construct. Though perhaps not a philosophical system, it should be possible to plumb the philosophical depths of Vergil’s epic. This paper looks at the theological inflections of the personification of fama, ‘fame’ or ‘repute,’ and the ways Vergil rethinks his sources. Fama is crucial to propelling the Aeneid’s plot (Syson 2013, Hardie 2014, Guastella 2017), particularly the events of Books 4-6. Our sources often describe Fama in terms that are strongly reminiscent of infernal deities. Undoubtedly, her long-established reputation as ‘chthonian Phama’ (E. El. 1066) has preceded her. In my talk, I focus on the ‘bogus’ genealogy that Vergil has given to his Fama (Aen. 4.178-183), the ‘sister of Coeus and Enceladus and last-born child of Earth’. Curiously, Fama’s genealogy and its significance have been overlooked by commentators, probably because the stemma seems genuinely Hesiodic. In Hesiod, the Giants are the children of Gaia and the blood of Ouranos, but Hyginus preserves a tradition that Enceladus is precisely a son of Gè and Tartaros (and so properly connected to the underworld); Vergil's Giant Coeus in Hesiod is a Titan (Th. 134), born, again, of Gaia and Ouranos. So, is Fama a Giant or a Titan? And what does this mean for a Vergilian theology? Decidedly un-Hesiodic, this genealogy reveals much about Vergil’s mythographic and religious programme, as it comes to the fore in Book 6. It culminates in a crucial mission statement for Aeneas in which the politics of Olympus are reconfigured and pressed into service of a nascent Roman empire. |
"Gossip never disappears entirely once many people have talked her big. In fact, she really is some sort of goddess." |
