Talk:Greek mythology/Archive 1

message: (Warning: amateur hypothesis to follow!) Some would query, "Why so many stories about sex?".  It would seem that (in reality) many Greek sailors were on journeys that lasted for (literally) years... so were all horny so-and-so's.
:Not if they were shagging each other! 
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In ancient days, strong men were fertile, and fertile men were strong and potent.  Naturally, as the gods were greater than men, they were much more potent.  The chief god (Zeus) in particular was always after a girl.  Since Zeus was all-powerful, every time he had sex with a woman, she became pregnant.  As he didn't confine himself to goddesses, this resulted in many half-human, half-god people (demigods??). -- firepink
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~Well. Zeus wasn't always after a girl - there's the handsome youth Ganymede as well, you know. Just thought I'd throw that in ;) *Which of them got pregnant?
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Actually they are called semigods.
::"Demigod" (or semigod) isn't a genuine Greek category. Heroes might fill the gap. Wetman 05:31, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The word "demigod" (hēmitheoi) occurs in Homer (Iliad 12.23), Hesiod (Works and Days 123), and a couple of other places. It's not a very common word, though. The problem with "hero" is that it refers both to men with one divine parent and to men with mortal parents. Akhilleus 00:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Ganymede is mentioned in the Iliad, so I'd say that myth was accepted all over the Greek world. Don't forget Poseidon's abduction of Pelops, either--this was part of the foundation myth of the Olympic games. Akhilleus 00:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think the Greeks necessarily drew that much of a line between sex and everything else, the way we do. So it would have been strange to not have lots of stories about sex, seeing how powerful it is and how much it rules our lives. As for the Ganymede myth, it was one of dozens of such myths, again, not much of a line between the boy myths and the girl myths, it was all love in the end (and jealousy, desire, betrayal, pride, and whatever other ingredients make up that mix). Haiduc 01:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You forgot Sparta. --Victim of signature fascism 20:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sex talk

message: In early Greece, there were many smaller cultures, each with their own "head god." As two cultures encountered one another, their beliefs clashed, and whichever culture was dominant had their head god absorb the other head god, along with all his myths. This was often accompanied with a new myth about this defeat, usually in the form of some sort of sexual conquest. Hence all the stories about rape and pursual attributed to Zeus, who is essentially the aggregation of dozens or hundreds of the head gods of these smaller cultures.
:This is only one POV theory. I'm sceptical of all such POV theories. We certainly don't find such things in Mesopotamia (where Marduk essentially took over from Enlil and Anu) or from Egypt where Amon essentially absorbed Re. The theory might be true in the matter of Horus and Set.
:But simple explanatory theories are so often the bane of true scholarship. But unfortunately  they are attractive to readers who like to be among the in-crowd who delights in supposedly knowng what something really means. So misapplied solar theories are replaced by misapplied vegetation god theories are replaced by alleories of invididuation while ideas that the tales in some way indicate historical conflicts between cults and so many other theories get mixed into the brew. New Age books have their own irreconicable explanations. jallan 23:01, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Local deities

message: This comment is not so much about this article (which is so short that I'm confused as to its status as a featured article), but about how Greek mythology articles should be written, in general.
I think that there's a significant problem with many of Wikipedia's articles on this subject, as there seems to be a tendency to weed out contradictory versions and give one "real" story of how these things work.  This is tempting, of course, but seems to me to be wrong.  It is also wrong, I think, to just say "He was this, or possibly this, or maybe that."  What we should be doing is being very clear about the sourcing.  If Apollodorus says one thing, Hesiod another, and Homer still something different, and then Euripides gives a completely different recasting of the same story, we should be clear on the differing sources, and how they differently report the same basic stories.  For instance, the Orestes article, which I was just looking at, basically tells the story as Aeschylus tells it, up through the Oresteia trilogy, and then switches over to Euripides's Iphigenia in Tauris, and then brings in some details about the end of his life from Apollodorus and maybe Pausanias.  In the part about his murder of his mother and Aegisthus, only Aeschylus's version is described, in spite of the existence of two plays by Sophocles and Euripides on the subject (I added a brief mention of them, but I think all the different versions of the story should be told there).  Then, there is absolutely no mention of the content of Euripides's play Orestes, which gives a completely different version of the resolution of the story from Aeschylus's Eumenides.  And this kind of problem pervades the Greek mythology articles.  At any rate, I thought I'd see if anyone else had any thoughts on this. john k 01:37, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Amen! Bullfinch and his ilk are much to blame IMHO - the popularized versions just present one version, and don't mention scholars' suspicions that an episode was added for literary purposes, or that an oddball bit has deep anthropological significance. OCD has good examples to follow; for Helen, its key point is that she is likely a "faded goddess", but it also recounts the various versions and attributes them. Stan 06:14, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think John has 2 good points: 1) why was this article featured at this point? I am very surprised myself. 2) citing the different versions of myths and sources... Well, Wikipedia is a work in progress. If the articles about myths are not as detailed as John would like to, then it is simply because they are not YET that detailed. Anyone having a good knowledge of the matter is more than welcome to modify the articles and shed light on the "making of the myths". olivier 07:03, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)
The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology does a good job, I think of explaining the different versions.  Graves also did so in his book on the myths, although there was also a lot of irritating theorizing.  At any rate, the problem isn't so much that the articles aren't that detailed.  The problem is that the articles are structured in such a way as to be highly misleading.  The featuring is really weird, though.  This simply isn't featured article material at the moment.  Can anyone more patient than me point us to the Featured article candidate discussion of this article?  john k 08:54, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: Perhaps, some articles get to be "featured" because when we see them on the front page our ears turn pink and we get to work. Like the recent feature of Academia, eh! If featuring Greek mythology sparked John Kenny, Olivier and Stan Shebs' discussion, then it's a good firecracker!  I added wikilinks to mythographers ("Interpreters") who define the post-Bulfinch tradition, taken as a group. Who's still omitted in that list? Wetman 05:31, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criteria for Greek Mythology Articles 

message: The Xena-inspired nonsense formerly here can be better understood by reading the entries Golden Hind and Deer (mythology). Any issues? Please don't thoughtlessly revert again. Wetman 20:37, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "Golden hind'

message: This mediocre article is Featured simply because its subject is interesting and important. The treatment here is not really up to par yet. Wetman 20:37, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Now in September, you need to hit the "History" link even to see why I was carping back in June. Now Greek mythology is getting to be worthy of its "Featured" status! And look at the range of contributors, too. Wetman 20:45, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Featured

message: I just did a big revision.  I tried to cut down repetition (e.g. the great many "contradictions in the sources" disclaimers, or "decline from Hellenistic era onwards" sentences) and make more distinctions between the kind and quality of sources.  I also revised the Hellenistic Rationalism section.  Please revert if it sucks beyond your wildest imaginings, or revise if it's just barely tolerable.  Bacchiad 05:14, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: In general I think the changes are good, although some of my precious words were cut. :-) A couple general observations are that we have an article on  Greek religion, and some of the religious material here should be xrefed rather than repeated, and that we really need to hammer on the "contradictions in the sources" because most people think there is one single canonical version, and there just isn't. Otherwise we get a bunch of volunteers to "fix" mythology-related articles that seem inconsistent with each other (citing of specific sources in each article will help too). Stan 07:01, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: Yes, a link from Overview would make sense, or else in the lead; the part above the TOC is the only part that most readers will look at, and it could use another sentence or two to delineate the topic - "for instance, worship of Demeter is part of Greek religion, while the story of Demeter and Persephone is mythology", but worded better. :-) Stan 13:20, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel like the "Etymology" section is a distraction, especially since there's already a long article on mythology that could be linked to. On the other hand, I do like the fact that we link in a couple of places to the article on Greek religion. J. Brad Hicks 01:32, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Logos and Ergon

message: I'm trying out a new table for the front.  The old one is saved at Template:Greek myth (old).  The intention is to build off TUF-KAT and others' work and make this page a stronger launching-off point for the various sub-topics.  If you want to edit it, it's at Template:Greek myth (big).  I'm also trying to come up with a smaller version that might be appropriate for putting on subpages.  It should show up at right (see Template:Greek myth; it's similar to Template:Roman myth). Bacchiad 07:51, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Why did you delete the link to Template:Greek myth? I think it looks pretty good. J. Brad Hicks 14:59, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: As extensively as the other stuff in the table is linked in the body of the article, and as huge and unwieldy as the big table is, I'd even be tempted to use it here. Truthfully, I only got here a couple of days ago, and have only barely started in on the various Greek mythology pages, so I can't tell you for sure how widely I'd be tempted to copy it in. I'm just saying that it's a sweet-looking piece of work; you might as well leave it in here so it's available if somebody does want to use it. J. Brad Hicks 21:20, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

text: I've beefed up the overview so that it now has more about the various sub-topics.  The abbreviated table (Template:Greek myth) is now at the top, with the large one (Template:Greek myth (big)) removed.  Feedback? — Bacchiad 01:45, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New Table

message: Ril, your addition looks pretty speculative to me -- can you provide sources so that the information is traceable?  If this is an academic theory, I'm fine with having it presented....though not sure this is the ideal article for it...but it needs to be tied to a citable source, or else it risks being seen as Wikipedia's "position" on the origins of the gods. Jwrosenzweig 19:42, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, internal consistency is a real plus....is it possible to determine what sources provided the info for those articles?  Well, while you make an excellent point, I'd still be more comfortable with citing at least a couple of names of scholars who support some of these ideas -- I think the ideas are quite reasonable, but we're starting to be more strict around here about Wikipedia:Cite your sources and I think it would be great if that could be done for this section. Jwrosenzweig 20:02, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ril's addition

message: A list of brief entry fragments: Wikipedia:Shortpages/Mythology/Greek. I try to turn them into redirects to entries with more context when I can. --Wetman 08:41, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Shortpages

message: Please review the Nymph article and the types of nymphs. There was ieimakid, which was moved to Leimakids, because it was typed with capital "I", a common source of confusion. Now because  of wikispamming the web I cannot quickly verify any of them, so I leave this to the experts. Thank you, mikka (t) 22:52, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nymphs 

message: I moved the following here: it seems like a blond-chaser's fantasy with little to do with Greek myth --Wetman 19:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Belles and Beaus of Greek Mythology?"

message: I'm having a difficult time following the structure of the section dealing with the various epochs of gods, heros, and mankind.  The subsections seem to be trying to describe the "ages" but instead get a bit side-tracked and discuss comparative pantheons and the focus and styles of extant narratives.   It seems to me that setting out a loose chronology is more useful for this article than talking about the nature of the narratives, which seems more appropriate for an article about literary analysis. I'm guessing that most of the difficulty stems from multiple but un-coordinated edits.  Does anyone have any ideas about the best way to treat these subsections? Ande B. 10:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The "age of gods and men" and the "age of heroes" are the same thing. The whole "ages" idea seems a bit odd to me, because Greek mythology itself doesn't seem all that concerned with distinguishing between heroic and divine mythology. As an example, Heracles and Pandora, both of whom belong in the so-called "age of gods and men", are very prominent in the Thegony. It's certainly useful to have a loose chronology, as long as it is clear that there wasn't one master narrative that all poets/writers followed. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Ages", including the Devonian "Age of Fisdhes" etc, stem from C19 views of a cumulative upward linear history, leading to railroad locomotives and top hats. --Wetman 16:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Periodization. Period. :-) Carcharoth 05:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ages of gods, heros and men

message: I have tried to make the initial paragraph a bit more readable by simplifying the sentence structure.  Many of the paragraphs in this article pose significant structural and grammatical challenges to comprehension and editing.  I realize many people have worked very hard to bring order and substance to this article so I have tried to retain the essential spirit, purpose and direction of this section while making it easier for readers.  Ande B 15:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sentence construction of Introduction

message: In the section of origins of the myths the article it says that Ouranos comes from Varuna. However, in the article on Ouranos it states that all serious scholars find no evidence for this claim. Which is it to be? --217.41.240.15 10:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is correct, so it should be removed. However, in the Ouranos article, I'm not sure the etymology originating with Graves is correct since it was Georges Dumezil who popularized the comparison between Ouranos and Varuna. A distinction should be made between anthropological comparison and etymology. There's much scholarly work on the comparison if not the etymology. Zeusnoos 13:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology of Ouranos from Sanskrit Varuna?

message: We are led to believe that Tantalos actually stole nectar and ambrozine from the gods, but actually the Tantalos had such a good relation with the gods they invited him for dinner, until, of course, he served them his son cut to pieces to test their wisdom. It may be good to change that... Marten15 21:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tantalos

message: What is the purpose of this section? Are the references relating purely to the article notes or is it meant to be a reference guide for Greek mythology in general? If its meant to represent the ancient Greco-Roman sources of myth it seems a somewhat odd list. --Theranos 16:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They relate to the notes. This is the use of this section.--Yannismarou 17:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References section: Greek and Roman sources 

message: In working on the copy-edit I have a few questions. First off let me say that this article is really very good and I'm surprised at how quickly it has been turned around. Now for my questions/suggestions.
*I think the final two paragraphs in the section "Literary Sources" should be combined. It appears they both discuss poetry. 
*In the section "Cosmogony and cosmology", the second paragraph discusses "theogony." Is this a refernce to Hesiod's poem or a type of poetry? If it's a reference to Hesiod, it should be capitalized and italicized, but if it is a reference to a type of poetry it should be linked. The only article that appears when I search for theogony is the article on Hesiod's poem. Should a stub be created?
:*A type of poetry. I agree that a stub should be created. But personally I donot have the time to create it during this period. I will fix the italics etc.--Yannismarou 08:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Nice question. Probably, Theranos is right. We speak about a more complex and slightly different theogony. For instance, as I read in Burkert, Nyx is regarded as being created before Chaos. Something like that. But I'll check that again. Maybe rephrasing per Theranos would be the best solution.--Yannismarou 08:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

text: There are/were numerous theogonies (= descriptions of the origins of the gods) in classical literature. A stub article for the general term "theogony" would be a good idea. The self-named work by Hesiod is only the most famous. I'll fix the literary sources section - the classifications should be numbered 1-4. I'm not sure what is meant by the Derveni "outdo" - presumably in the sense that it is a more complex theogony than Hesiod's. --Theranos 19:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *See my comments above.--Yannismarou 08:30, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *Reading Bulfich who was my source for that, I think he means the Old Testament, because all the examples he brings are from there.--Yannismarou 20:00, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: *I think that the term "dying god" was invented by Frazer in 1890. In his thesis Frazer speaks of many Mediterranean religions as having been founded on the cult of a god who was fundamentally a god of fertility of the earth. He was as a rule a male god (Persephone is an exception), and he is represented as related to a female principle of whol me is sometimes the son, sometimes teh lover and sometimes the victim (see Adonis and Aphrodite). The myth associated with the deity usually tells of his death. He is victim either of the female principle he is attached either of something respresenting the dead or sterile part of the year. Thus, according to a theory, Adonis is killed by a boar who represents the winter.--Yannismarou 20:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Questions from Copy-edit