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Women's roles in ancient greece
Women's roles in ancient greece
Women's roles in ancient greece
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According to the Greek creation myth, the world was nothing but darkness that a bird named Nyx lived inside. Nyx laid a golden egg with the wind, and for a very long time, she sat upon the egg. After a while, the egg hatched and out came Eros, the god of love. The broken pieces became the sky and the earth also known as Uranus and Gala, and Eros made them fall in love. Uranus and Gaia had many children and after a while, their children became scared of their own offsprings power. Kronos, who was Uranus and Gala's son, feared his children so much so that he would eat them while they were infants. Kronos's wife Rhea hid their youngest child and fed Kronos a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes so that he would not know the truth. When Zeus, Kronos
The beginning of the myth of Cronus is about the father Uranus and the mother Gaea had children and the father did not like how one of them look so the other brothers took down their father Uranus .The middle of the myth is about is that Cronus, one of the children got married and he was afraid that his child would rise up against so he swallowed every one of them.At the end of the myth, Zeus one of his children did not get swallowed , he had a plan to get his siblings back and he did and he took down his father just like the prophet said would happen. In the myth had a prophecy that would someday happen and they both tried to not make it come true, but it still happened and they were both wrong trying to skip the prophet Cronus and his Titan brothers to rise up against their father and save their other brothers Cronus did
The Greeks believed that the earth was formed before any of the gods appeared. The gods, as the Greeks knew them, all originated with Father Heaven, and Mother Earth. Father Heaven was known as Uranus, and Mother Earth, as Gaea. Uranus and Gaea raised many children. Amoung them were the Cyclopes, the Titans, and the Hecatoncheires, or the
Many people would blatantly state that the importance of the gods in Greek society derives from the fact that Gods in any society are usually used to explain phenomenon that people cannot logically comprehend, but in ancient Greece gods were actually entities that took part in the workings of society itself. Even simple aspects of day-to-day life such as sex and disputes between mortals were supposedly influenced by godly workings. Unlike modern religions such as Catholicism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, where an omnipotent force supposedly controls the workings of the world, a hierarchy of Gods characterized religion in ancient Greece. Working as one big family, which they actually were, each one of the Greek gods governed a certain aspect of the world in a way that usually reflected their own humanlike personalities. These unique personalities also contained many human flaws such as envy and greed, and were where the Greek God’s importance lay. Greek religion was more concentrated on the way an individual dealt with situations that popped up in the world around him than on understanding the world itself. In other words the Greeks were more interested in the workings of the mind than in the workings of the environment around them.
In the beginning chaos was all that lived. Out of the void appeared Erebus, The place where death dwells, and with it came Night. Everything else was silent, empty, darkness, and endless. Love was then born out of no where bringing a start of order. From love came Light and Day. Once Light and Day was born, so was Gaea, the earth. Then Erebus and Night slept together, and gave birth to Ether, the heavenly light and the earthly light to Day. Then Night produced Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Dreams, Nemesis, and other things that come to man out of the darkness. In the mean time Gaea gave birth to Uranus, which were the heavens. Uranus became Gaea’s mate. Together they made the three Cyclopes, the three Hecatoncheires, and twelve Titans. Uranus was a bad father and husband. He despised the Hecatoncheires. He punished them by imprisoning them by pushing them into hidden places of the earth. This severely angered Gaea and she plotted against Uranus. She made a flint sickle and tried to convince her children to attack Uranus. All were to afraid to do so expect the youngest Titan, Cronus (“Creation of the World”).
They had similar beliefs, but also immeasurable differences. It was composed of many meaningful gods and goddesses that all played a part in the everyday life of the average Roman and Greek person of that time.
A creation myth is an explanation of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. Every creation myth is different, but there is similarity in most of them. Motifs are recurring ideas that help develop a theme and these motifs are common in many creation myths. Three similar motifs are the idea of a supreme being, the idea of people being created from organic material, and the idea of rulers being overthrown. These concepts appear in the Inuit, Greek, Hindu, Chinese, Norse, and many more myths. These three motifs connect to one another and are common in many creation myths.
Throughout history many civilizations and cultures have had their own ways of explaining the world and its creation. Each of these civilizations has created unique descriptions and accounts of such events. However, when comparing them to each other, are they really different? Look at the ancient Greco - Roman creation myths as told by Hesiod in his Theogony and Works and Days and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when compared to the creation myths as seen in the Old Testament’s book of Genesis they may not be as different as one would think. Taking a more in-depth look at both Genesis and Hesiod’s and Ovid’s work more closely, the reader can see that on multiple occasions the myths have almost identical similarities which reflect their views in society. The similarities in particular are the myths of the creation of man, women with their subsequent role of evil in ancient times, and the great floods. These similarities prove that even though these two scriptures were centuries apart, the concepts presented in each myth were almost identical to one another.
“Theogony” which means “birth of the gods,” a poem written by Hesiod meant to be sung to tell the story of how the Olympian gods and Zeus came to rule over all of the earth/ heaven and it’s inhabitants. First there was Chaos, a yawning void where Gaia (Earth), Tartaros (Hell) and a few other fundamental chief deities came from. Through parthenogenesis, Ouranos (Heaven) came from Gaia (Earth). Gaia and Ouranos had a sacred marriage, which was a sacred wedding of the heaven and earth. From this sacred marriage came the children of Gaia and Ouranos, better known as the Titans. Ouranos found his offspring to be annoying and monstrousness. He hated his children and decided to hide them away in earth and did not allow them to ever see the light of day. Gaia was not pleased with Ouranos’ actions. Hiding her children within her brought her great discomfort. Gaia tried to have all her hidden children rebel against their father but the only one brav...
Ancient Greek creation story, the earth began with darkness and nothingness- a void, or Chaos, as known to the Greeks (Genesis 1:2; Tripp 159). This Chaos was the bearer (meaning that he gave birth to) of Ge/Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (underworld), Eros (love and sex), Erebus (darkness), and Nyx (night) (Tripp 159). In the Christian creation story, God is the parallel to the Greek Chaos in that he invents the same things (with the exception of an underworld; the creation of Adam and Eve and their later reproduction could be comparable to Eros) as Chaos bore (Genesis 1:1-18).
Needless to say, this constant swallowing of her children enraged Rhea. She bore her third son, Zeus, in the middle of the night and gave him for safekeeping to Gaea (Mother Earth). She fooled Cronus into believing he had swallowed his new son by substituting a rock wrapped in baby blankets.
Secondly, both interpretations use the bird as the principal creator of all things. It is thought that Eurynome is the author of the universe. She becomes pregnant when her serpent hands coil around her. Next, she assumes the form of a dove and lays a huge egg which the serpent keeps warm until it hatches. The egg brings forth all the things that now exist: the sun, moon, planets, stars, and the earth with its mountains, valleys, stream, lakes, all living creatures, including the first humans (Switzer 11). In like manner, Raven flies through the darkness and finds a new land, for which he calls Earth. One day, he notices a giant pea pod and watches it as it splits open and produces a man. He creates the ox and caribou for the man to eat but tells him not to harm them (Ingpen 68). He continues to create animals, but then creates a woman to be the man’s companion. Soon the man and woman reproduce and there are many children.
Hero, the word strikes a universal chord making us think of exceptional and spectacular stories or deeds that far surpass any common feat. To the Greeks and many other cultures, the birth of these heroes is important. The birth of a hero sets them, apart often even before birth, from common mortals in Greek mythology. Birth is the first of many major events in our lives, our entrance into the world (Leeming). For heroes, that entrance must be as special as their lives will prove to be. A mundane birth is simply not an option for a hero, whether by the machinations of the gods or prophecies from an oracle, even the events surrounding their conception must be spectacular. From Perseus and Danaë to Theseus and Aethra, the myths surrounding their births have different settings and details but many common threads that bind them together (Leeming).
human or animal. An example is the famous sphinx of Egypt, which has a human head
There is no definite answer to how the world was created, each religion and culture has a different answer. The creation story is the telling of the development of the present world. These stories are derived from early oral tradition, that was passed down from generation to generation until they were written down. The stories vary on how the world came to be, some say it just emerged or it was created from chaos, or it came out of nothing. Some stories state that there is a world parent or a earth diver, that brought up mud from the bottom of the water to create land. Each one of theses variations have multiple creation myths attributed to them; so, there can be similarities between the different myths.
Throughout studying many myths, I came up with many new observations. Many questions came into my mind about these myths. Greek mythology takes us back to a time when people had a connection with nature and when nature played a major role in people’s lives. The religious beliefs of the people who wrote the myths are found in the background of these myths; however, they are not to be read like religious texts. The myths try to offer explanations of “how”, which makes us think deeply about the purpose of these myths and the questions they draw to our minds. According to the myths we studied in class, the world created the gods, not the other way around. The gods were always created in the image of man, which shows how much men were important in their society. Furthermore, many of these Greek myths show us the difference between the views of the Greek then and our view towards many aspects of the society, including nature. Monsters appear in Greek myths and have different representations and roles. Greek mythology reflects a view of the Greeks towards the world and how certain aspects of their lives are similar and different to modern society.