Plagiarism In Greek Mythology

Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. Of course, in all senses, it is completely frowned upon, and can usually get people into a serious amount of trouble. However, it doesn’t just occur in high school, where laziness and procrastination are at an all time high, and writing research papers is not the most enjoyable task; plagiarism happens on a daily basis, and has been for centuries. Punch lines or funny phrases that we hear throughout the day can often be repeated and mindlessly passed off as an original thought, and while there are currently many efforts to put a stop to it, there have been countless incidents of copyrighted music being stolen, or huge disputes over who invented

Originally developed sometime around the archaic and classical periods of the middle and late Iron Age, it is said to have been fully developed approximately 700 years before the start of the Roman empire (Leeming, D. 2003). It is undoubtedly more well known than Roman mythology, as it primarily stems from Homer’s famous epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, and contains familiar names of gods and goddesses that have been adapted into fictional characters for many television shows, movies, and books (Diffen n.d.). In addition to this, it has had a widespread effect not only on Greek culture, art, and literature, but on other empires that have resided in Europe throughout the years. Another main source of information about Greek mythology are works by author Hesiod, primarily Theogony and Works and Days, both of which provide a rigorous and in-depth detail of the ins and outs of the mythology to contribute to Homer’s pieces (Adkins, A., & Pollard, J. R.

2003). Greek myths contain topics on pretty much every single aspect of human life, including the world out of chaos, the origin of the universe in relation to mankind, and the most complex of all, the lives of the gods. Describing their births, victories over monsters or rivals, love affairs, special powers, or connections with a cultic site or ritual, myths about the gods can be found in a great abundance, and are often very arduous to try and understand (Adkins, A., & Pollard, J. R. 2008). There are several standout points that clearly identify and separate Greek gods and goddesses from those of other mythologies, however, to aid in the comprehension of most myths. To start off, the gods were based of off human personality traits, and named in relation to what they were a god of (i.e. Zeus- sky/weather, Hades- the underworld, Poseidon- sea, aquatics, etc). They valued the importance of mortal life equally as much as the eventuality of the afterlife, as well as individualistic actions rather than that of an entire group. In addition to this, they knew that mortals played a huge role in their well being, so they placed a great importance on them, as is shown in some myths. And lastly, Greek gods and goddesses have always been beautifully depicted in arts and