Theogony Research Articles

Hesiod und Die 'Könige'. Zu 'Theogonie' 79-103

Several independent linguistic, substantive, and compositional features of Hesiod Theogony 79-103 suggest that it was not composed as a coherent unity but is in fact a conglomeration of two different versions of the Proem. The original draft contained vv. 79 and 94-103; the second version, intended not as an addendum but as an alternate version, contained vv. 79-103. The second draft seems to have been, as West already sensed, a captatio benevolentiae to an audience of 'kings'. It is probable that Hesiod himself changed his text on the occasion of a performance before 'kings'. It was only later transmission that placed the two compositions, which were designed to be alternatives, side-by-side in our text. (Indeed, there seem to be within the Theogony other cases of later additions or reformulations by the author himself).

The Birth of God: The Bible and the Historian (review)

The Birth of God: The Bible and the Historian (review)

The Programmatic Message of the "Kings and Singers" Passage: Hesiod, Theogony 80-103

In Hesiod's Theogony, the Kings and Singers passage, lines 80-103, parallels the poem's Dichterweihe, lines 22-34, in that both portray contact between the Muses and mortals on whom they bestow gifts. The gifts granted Hesiod in the Dichterweihe, a divine voice and a laurel scepter, represent the persuasive powers of eoidOw and basileEw as described in Th. 80-103. The latter passage is thus programmatic for how Hesiod perceives his role as narrator and how he intends to use the Muses' gifts for didaxis. The Prometheus and Hekate passages later in the poem show Hesiod's didaxis in action.

Chimeric creatures in Greek mythology and reflections in science

“The Chimaera” in Homer's Iliad, “was of divine stock, not of men, in the forepart a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and in the midst a goat, … Bellerophon slew her, trusting in the signs of the gods.” In Hesiod's Theogony it is emphasized that “Chimaera … had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion, another of a goat, and another of a snake…”. In addition to this interspecies animal chimera, human/animal chimeras are referred to in Greek mythology, preeminent among them the Centaurs and the Minotaur. The Centaurs, as horse/men, first appear in Geometric and early Archaic art, but in the literature not until early in the fifth century B.C. The bullheaded-man Minotaur, who is not certainly attested in the literary evidence until circa 500 B.C., first appears in art about 650 B.C. Attempts, in the fourth century B.C. and thereafter, to rationalize their mythical appearance were in vain; their chimeric nature retained its fascinating and archetypal form over the centuries. Early in the 1980s, experimental sheep/goat chimeras were produced removing the reproductive barrier between these two animal species. Late in the 1990s, legal, poli- tical, ethical, and moral fights loomed over a patent bid on human/animal chimeras. Chimeric technology is recently developed; however, the concept of chimerism has existed in literary and artistic form in ancient mythology. This is yet another example where art and literature precede scientific research and development. © 2001 Wiley-Liss. Inc.

The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture by Jacques Cauvin, translated by Trevor Watkins (New Studies in Archaeology.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-521-65135-2 hardback £37.50 & $59.95 Reviewed by Ian Hodder, Gary O. Rollefson, Ofer Bar-Yosef with a response by Trevor Watkins

When, almost a century ago, Raphael Pumpelly put forward the ‘oasis theory’ for the origins of farming in the Near East, his was one of the first in a long series of explanations which looked to environment and ecology as the cause of the shift from hunting and gathering to cultivation and animal husbandry. Pumpelly envisaged climatic desiccation at the end of the last Ice Age as the primary factor, forcing humans, plants and animals into ever closer proximity as the arid zones expanded around them. Subsequent fieldworkers took the closer investigation of environmental changes as a key aim of their research, both in the Near East and elsewhere, and this has remained a fundamental theme in theories for the emergence of agriculture. More recent advances in our understanding of environmental change have placed particular emphasis on the cold Younger Dryas episode, at the end of the last Ice Age. The impact of this sudden reversal of climate warming on the complex Natufian hunter-gatherers of the Levant may, it is argued, have forced or encouraged these communities to explore novel subsistence modes.Not everybody accepts such a chain of reasoning, however, and in The Birth of Gods and the Origins of Agriculture, French archaeologist Jacques Cauvin rejects this emphasis on ecology and environment as the cause of change. Instead, he argues that primacy should be accorded to a restructuring of human mentality from the thirteenth to the tenth millennium BC, expressed in terms of new religious ideas and symbols. Cauvin's book, originally published in French in 1994 under the title Naissance des divinités, naissance de l'agriculture, adopts an ideological approach to explaining the Neolithic which is at odds with many traditional understandings, but which resonates closely with the idea that the Neolithic is much more than an economic transition, and coincided with a transformation in the world view of the prehistoric societies concerned. The present English translation appeared in 2000, and is based on the second French edition (1997) with the addition of a postscript summarizing relevant discoveries made since that date.Owing to illness, Jacques Cauvin has been unable to contribute to this Review Feature as had been hoped, but we are fortunate that his translator, Trevor Watkins, has agreed to draft a response to the comments made by our invited reviewers. These include Ian Hodder, whose own work on the Neolithic transition has been influenced by Cauvin's research, and Ofer Bar-Yosef and Gary Rollefson, both specialists in the prehistory of the Levant. At Dr Watkins' suggestion, the introductory piece which opens the Review Feature is a translated extract from Jacques Cauvin's contribution to a similar review treatment in Les Nouvelles de l'Archéologie (No. 79, 2000, 49–53). As our reviewers make clear, the significance of the book, and the debate which it has initiated, will make it akey text for many years to come.

Chimeric creatures in Greek mythology and reflections in science.

"The Chimaera" in Homer's Iliad, "was of divine stock, not of men, in the forepart a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and in the midst a goat, ellipsis Bellerophon slew her, trusting in the signs of the gods." In Hesiod's Theogony it is emphasized that "Chimaera ellipsis had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion, another of a goat, and another of a snakeellipsis". In addition to this interspecies animal chimera, human/animal chimeras are referred to in Greek mythology, preeminent among them the Centaurs and the Minotaur. The Centaurs, as horse/men, first appear in Geometric and early Archaic art, but in the literature not until early in the fifth century B.C. The bullheaded-man Minotaur, who is not certainly attested in the literary evidence until circa 500 B.C., first appears in art about 650 B.C. Attempts, in the fourth century B.C. and thereafter, to rationalize their mythical appearance were in vain; their chimeric nature retained its fascinating and archetypal form over the centuries. Early in the 1980s, experimental sheep/goat chimeras were produced removing the reproductive barrier between these two animal species. Late in the 1990s, legal, political, ethical, and moral fights loomed over a patent bid on human/animal chimeras. Chimeric technology is recently developed; however, the concept of chimerism has existed in literary and artistic form in ancient mythology. This is yet another example where art and literature precede scientific research and development.

Back in the Cave of the Cyclops

Back in the Cave of the Cyclops Pura Nieto Hernández It is many years now since Denys Page (1955) demonstrated how the story of the Cyclops, as presented in book 9 of the Odyssey, is the product of a conflation of two distinct folklore themes that are well attested over a wide geographical area: on the one hand, that of the ogre-type giant who devours human flesh and is, in the end, blinded, and, on the other hand, the "No-man" theme. In his study Page highlighted certain details in which the Odyssey differs from its possible sources: examples are the substitution of a wooden stake for the metal skewer as the instrument with which the hero blinds the monster, and the use of wine to put the giant to sleep. But the business of Polyphemus and the strange company of Cyclopes has posed other problems, which are very likely due to the number and diversity of themes that the composer of the Odyssey has skillfully woven together in this episode, and which relate the episode to the entire epic as we have it.1 We may note, in the first place, a topic that is all but obsessive in the poem: the exchange of hospitality gifts (xeinia), which is closely related in turn to the theme of food—how, when, and with whom one ought or ought not to eat—and to the respect due the gods (sacrifices, etc.). These and other themes may be subsumed under the opposition between nature and culture, which scholars have carefully studied,2 often arriving at the conclusion that the Cyclopes represent [End Page 345] one pole (the total absence of civilization), and the other pole—that of culture—is represented by the Phaeacians.3 Another theme, no less central to the epic and which is raised in this episode as well, is that of revenge, and, in particular, revenge for an attack against a member of one's own family, since, in blinding Polyphemus, Odysseus arouses the wrath of the Cyclops' father, Poseidon, who attempts to avenge the harm the hero has done to his son. The episode of the Cyclops also puts on display the relationship between Odysseus and his companions, along with the special qualities that characterize the hero: his "cleverness," his ability to solve problems, his ambiguous identity, his capacity to be "reborn,"4 etc. The way these themes are intertwined, together with the poet's ingenious adaptation of folklore motifs, makes this episode not only unforgettable even to casual readers of the Odyssey but important for a complete understanding of the poem. The Cyclopes themselves, as Homer presents them in this episode, are problematic in various respects. One is the strange nature of the society (if this collection of creatures indeed forms a society) in which they live. It is described as a world that resembles the Golden Age, in which the earth yields its fruits continually and without toil, and yet the Cyclopes themselves seem wholly uncivilized: they live isolated from one another, have no assemblies, are unacquainted with justice, and, above all (as critics have particularly noted), they eat their guests.5 Again, their relationship with the gods is ambiguous, since they seem to live on the periphery of the divine world. Some scholars have seen a contradiction between 9.107, where we are told that the Cyclopes "trusted in the gods" and 9.274-77, which state clearly that the gods do [End Page 346] not matter to them.6 Another problem is that one of them—the only one with whom Odysseus has any contact and who is granted a name of his own (Polyphemus)—appears as the son of Poseidon. In other branches of the tradition (especially in Hesiod's Theogony) the Cyclopes are the sons of Heaven and Earth, or of Uranus and Gaia. That Polyphemus, and only he, it would seem, of this strange bunch is the son of Poseidon has been a source of some confusion.7 In this essay, I reconsider these problems and offer some solutions which, while taking account of the possible conflation of several folktale motifs, nevertheless may enable a more global understanding of...

The Functional Brain in Depth and Breadth

This book gives a comprehensive account of the functional neuroanatomy of the brain. The first edition, Neuropsychology, Neuropsychiatry, and Behavioral Neurology (1990), consisted of topics traditional for this subject matter, such as “The Cerebral Hemispheres,” “The Limbic System,” and “Neuroanatomy and Pathophysiology of Head Injury, Stroke, Neoplasm, and Abnormal Development.” With the addition of eleven new chapters, the second edition is impressive and unique in its range of topics. The new chapters cover evolution and ontogeny of the brain, social–emotional intelligence, and such unusual topics as the neurophysiology of repression and religious experiences, and the origins of life. One section is titled “The Birth of God and Limbic Hyperactivation.” The writing style is clear and compelling. Most topics are well referenced with scientific literature and include informative illustrations. More theoretical topics are presented with logical arguments.

L'insoutenable légèreté de la victoire. Niké chez Homère et Hésiode

The main characteristic of homeric νίκη is inconstancy : always hazardous, mobil, doubtful at the same time she is proclaimed, transient when given by gods. By the first appearence of Niké as a goddess in Hesiod's Theogony, she is said to stay for evermore on Zeus' side, like other deities, both mobil and "domesticated" (so to say) by Zeus to become supporters of his power. The further pictures of a winged Niké take possibly their rises in such an old conception of inconstant νίκη.

Greek myths and Mesopotamia: parallels and influence in the Homeric hymns and Hesiod

This book investigates the nature and extent of Mesopotamian influence in Greek myths of the early archaic period. Beginning with myths of the goddess Inanna, her consort Dumuzi and the heroic warrior god Ninurta, the author examines major Greek works in the light of central Mesopotamian ideas, principally those incorporated in the journeys of the gods. Connections between Mesopotamian ideas and motifs shed light on the Homeric hymns to Apollo, Demeter and Persephone, Aphrodite and Athena, and on Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days.

Mythos and logos in Hesiod's Theogony, circa 700 B.C.

Hesiod's Theogony, a completely preserved poem, is dated from about 700 B.C. It depicts partly a development, partly a situation that has arisen in the course of time in the world. It constitutes an attempt to understand the cosmos as the product of a genealogical evolution, which can be seen as a process of successive separation, differentiation, and hierarchization. In this attempted picture of the world myth and reality are inextricably interwoven. Observations of natural phenomena as far as of congenital malformations are accordingly exaggerated and undergone mythical transformation. Entities enumerated in this genealogical poem, no matter whether they stand for parts and concrete phenomena of the physical world or intellectual properties and abstract concepts, behave, think, and act, and are accordingly though of, in anthropomorphic terms. Monogamy, polygamy, endogamy, exogamy, asexual and sexual reproduction, multiple conceptions and births, dominantly and recessively inherited traits, normal and abnormal offspring, and perceptions and notions on cosmogony, isogamy, and teratogenesis could be observed in the writing of the Theogony and interpreted by rational modern concepts.

Introduction: “Mythos and logos in hesiod's theogony, Circa 700 B.C.”

Introduction: “Mythos and logos in hesiod's theogony, Circa 700 B.C.”

Ab Ovo

It is well known that sometime before 700 b.c. the Greeks took over from the Near East a complex theogonic myth about the succession of rulers in heaven, involving the motifs of the castration of Sky and a swallowing and regurgitation by his successor, and that this story forms the framework of Hesiod's Theogony. It is less well known that at a later epoch, sometime before the middle of the sixth century b.c., a quite different and no less striking oriental myth about the beginning of things was introduced to Greece: the myth of the god Unaging Time, who created the materials for the world from his own seed, and of the cosmic egg out of which the heaven and the earth were formed. I have discussed this myth and its variants elsewhere. My purpose in re-examining it here is firstly to clarify various details of the Phoenician versions of the cosmogony as reported in Greek sources, secondly to obtain a sharper picture of its original form, and thirdly to argue that the world model of the early Ionian philosophers, which to some extent set the pattern for subsequent Greek cosmology, owed more to the myth than has generally been appreciated.

The Origin of the Gods: A Psychoanalytic Study of Greek Theogonic Myth

This innovative study posits that myths in general, and Greek theogonic myth in particular, have a latent meaning that is responsible both for the emotional energy inherent in myths, and for the special attraction they have even to those who no longer believe in their literal meaning. Caldwell describes, in clear and comprehensible language, aspects of psychoanalytic theory relevant to the understanding of Greek myth, implementing a psychoanalytic methodology to interpret the Greek myth of origin and succession, particularly as stated in Hesiod's Theogony. In reassessing this work, which tells the story of the world's beginning from unbounded Chaos to the defeat of the Titans, Caldwell addresses several unexplained problems-- why does the world begin with the spontaneous emergence of four uncaused entities, and why in this particular order? Why does Ouranos prevent his children from being born by confining them in their mother's body? Why is Ouranos castrated by his son, and why is Aphrodite born from the severed genitals? Why is it always the youngest son who overthrows his father, the sky-god, and what is the logic of the steps taken by Zeus to prevent the same thing happening to him? Presenting a new definition and analyses of the psychological functions in myth, this new study should appeal to a wide range of classicists, teachers and students of mythology, psychoanalysts, and those interested in the application of psychoanalytic methods to literature.

Polish Christmas Carols and Their Cultural Context

The carol is one of the keys unlocking the door to Polish culture, Polish customs, and perhaps even to the Polish mentality.' A carol is a Christmas song and, at the same time, something much more. It refers to a large body of themes connected with singing these songs, with understanding them, and with the feelings they evoke. These themes are expressed in many different ways, in multicode: through words and music, sonic language and activities, and through textual, situational, and religious contexts. Carolling is the name given to this whole rich cultural phenomenon. Despite numerous changes in Polish customs in recent years, the phenomenon continues to have a significant cultural position both in rural areas and in the cities, in contemporary culture in Poland, and also, it seems, among emigrants. Studies of customs carried out in Warsaw in the mid-70s show that even young people in urban centers have, to some extent, kept up the tradition of carolling (Konorowska). In the southeastern part of Poland, very old forms of ritual carolling have survived-forms which ethnographers and folklorists had not known about until very recently. What makes Polish carolling so vital? Briefly speaking, this is the result of a fortunate fusion of seemingly unrelated forms and subjects: religious and secular, national and universal, elements inherited from the distant past and elements which look far ahead, anticipating an order yet to come. The old Polish name for the carol-symfonia (symphony)-can be metaphorically applied to the whole carolling tradition as a cultural phenomenon. Its inner, dominating tendency is harmony. The carol seeks some hidden unity beyond the limits of forms of expression, models of culture, environmental traditions, national differences, or historical periods. As the foundation of this unity, the carol presents Christian values and the Good News of the birth of God as Man. Let us have a

Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days

Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days

Theogony; and, Works and days

Theogony; and, Works and days

Hecate: A Transfunctional Goddess in the Theogony?

Hecate: A Transfunctional Goddess in the Theogony?

Hesiod and Parmenides in Nag Hammadi

J. Doresse' and after him A. Bdhlig2 have suggested that the author of NHC II, 5 knew Hesiod's Theogony, was influenced by it, and argued against it. At the beginning of the treatise (II, 5, 97, 24f.) we are promised a demonstration that the common view according which nothing has existed prior Chaos [cf. Th. 116] is mistaken. Ib., 102, 27ff. we are told of an attack upon heaven and of the casting down of the troubler [no further identification] to Tartarus [cf. Th. 617-733]. The most interesting section, perhaps, is that on Eros, II, 5, 109, 1-26 [cf. Th. 120-2]. B6hlig argues that this section is an interpolation in the original Szene von der Seduction des Archontes.3 His [sc. Eros'] masculine nature is (109, 3); Bohlig compares Th. 201, where both Eros and Himeros accompany Aphrodite.4 That what we have here reminds one of Hesiod cannot, of course, be denied. Are we, however, believe that the author of NHC II, 5 had read the whole Theogony,5 and that Hesiod constitutes his main source? The cosmological section of the poem (from Th. 104 onwards) was widely quoted in antiquity by a variety of authors, beginning, for us, with Plato (Symp. 178b; Th. 116-7 + 120).6 In Christian authors such as Theophilus and Hippolytus substantial chunks of poetry are quoted (Theoph., Ad Aut. III 5-6, Hipp., Ref I 26).' Quotations of this size from Th. 617-733, however, are lacking, and even individual lines are only sparsely quoted. Th. 201, which has no organic connection either with the cosmogony or with the theomachy in the Th. and which, moreover, is only a partial parallel the relevant lines in NHC II, 58 is only quoted in the Et. Gen. Consequently, such knowledge of Hesiodic .items as the author of the present version may have possessed is likely be not direct, but tralaticious, although he may have read the cosmogonical section in authors such as Theophilus and Hippolytus (or in the sort of sources or anthologies from which these had derived their quotations).

Poets and Kings in the "Theogony" Invocation

Poets and Kings in the "Theogony" Invocation