Category: Classics

Anonymous asks:

What book(s) on comparative mythology would you recommend to a beginner?

To be honest, I’ve not read a book on comparative mythology that I’ve liked all that much.  It’s a good idea in principle but one that lends itself to overreaching, and making some strange comparisons between cultures that have little in common.  Actually, you’ll probably not do yourself a huge disservice by just bingeing a few Wikipedia articles, and as a university teacher I’m not supposed to say that but, well, it has a mix of the actual content of myths and interpretation of them, and can generally point you to respectable books and articles that will tell you more if you’re interested.  Just don’t take anything it says on the interpretive side as the gospel truth, and you’ll be fine.

Random Access asks:

So the fundamental concepts of modern physics is older than the concept of the four classical elements?

(follow-up to this)

Ehhhhh, I wouldn’t go that far.  It’s more that Thales lived in a time of… let’s call it experimentation.  The Greek philosophers of the 6th century BC were kinda throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick.  His notion that water might be the one fundamental “stuff” was just one of several ideas being tossed around at the time; other philosophers suggested air, or aether, and of course the idea that wound up dominating was Empedocles’ belief that there were four different kinds of fundamental “stuff” (earth, water, fire and air). Continue reading “Random Access asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

I’ve been reading about monism and ancient monistic philosophers (particularly Thales), and I find it absolutely fascinating! Could you please explain the topic a little more in-depth, in your usual easy-to-read style? 🙂 I’m also wondering if our current scientific knowledge points to a neo-monistic view of the universe (in that everything is made up of atoms)? (although I understand that atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons) (matter and energy are the same thing, aren’t they?)

Well, pre-Socratic philosophy is not exactly my “thing” but here goes

So Thales was a Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus (modern Milet, western Turkey), probably around the early 6th century BC, who was famous for predicting eclipses, and discovering that any angle in a semicircle is always a right angle, good stuff like that.  We don’t have anything written by Thales himself, but we know a fair bit about his thinking and his achievements in engineering and mathematics because he gets quoted a lot by later Greek philosophers.  Apparently, one of the things that Thales believed was that everything is water. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of claims of pre-Colombian contact between East Asian and Indigenous American peoples?

Not something I really know a whole lot about.  It doesn’t strike me as wildly implausible – we know there was probably occasional contact at some point between Polynesian and South American peoples, because (among other things) New Zealand and other Polynesian islands had potatoes before European colonisation, and the Pacific Ocean is not naturally a tenable habitat for a potato.  I’m not aware of any hard evidence for, say, Imperial Chinese missions to the Americas pre-15th century, though.

Nakedviolentedpenguin asks:

What makes a society polytheistic or monotheistic? “When” is the point when a god is “created”? Does exist register of the specific starting of a cult to a god in a culture? Tradition has to begin at some point. Game freak is attempting to create a new generarion based in Greece. And they invite you to work in the plot/background/mythology as an expert. Would you leave your actual work to go with that (in case they are incompatible)? What things would you implement in that games? Game’s names?

1. I assume you’re not just looking for a definition of the words, but why some societies worship many gods and some worship one?  No idea.  I mean, the three major monotheistic world religions today (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all come from the same place, so we don’t exactly have a large sample size.  Also, all of them do recognise multiple divine beings that are lesser than the supreme god, some of which can be the focus of worship – Mediaeval Christians basically worshipped saints and archangels as minor gods, and don’t even get me started on this asshole, who is either a Catholic saint, the Devil, or an ancient Maya god… possibly all three.  No one is quite sure. Continue reading “Nakedviolentedpenguin asks:” →

Vikingboybilly asks:

I hate that third wave feminists complain about Odysseus sleeping with Circe and that random nymph, when they FORCED him to stay with them or they’d let his crew die. It was an act of long-term, consensual rape. Penelope had it way better than him.

…weeeeelllll, I’d hesitate to attribute the idea specifically to third-wave feminists, since there seems to be a hint of it in Penelope’s letter to Odysseus from Ovid’s Heroides (published c. 25 BC, and therefore predating the feminist movement somewhat)… and Odysseus’ stay with Circe lasted a full year after he had defeated her and freed his crew, and is presented as something of a lapse of judgement on his part even by Homer in the Odyssey itself… and in some accounts he has a child with Circe, Telegonus… and I’m assuming that by “that random nymph” you mean Calypso, daughter of the Titan Atlas and mistress of far-flung Ogygia, in which case, well, he does keep sleeping with her even after the gods have ordered her to let him go and they have begun to make preparations for his departure…

…but other than that, yeah, sure.

Random Access asks:

No concept of heresy? Wasn’t Socrates put to death for being an atheist though?

It’s not quite the same thing.  Denying the existence of the gods altogether is a problem for them, although in Socrates’ case that was probably just a pretext to get rid of him (as far as we can tell, he wasn’t an atheist at all, at least not in the sense that we understand it).  The late antique and mediaeval notion of heresy, though, presupposes that there are wrong and unholy things to believe about God(s), or wrong and unholy ways to worship God(s), even if no one disputes that he/they exist(s).  For instance, for a 4th century Christian to say that God the Son is inferior to God the Father, when the central authorities of the church believe that they are equal, is heresy (specifically, the Arian heresy) and can get you excommunicated.  There isn’t really any equivalent in the polytheistic religions of the classical period, because they have no dogma and more or less take it for granted that different communities have different ideas about what the gods are, how they act, and how they should be worshipped.

EDIT: An illustrative example.  Hesiod’s Theogony says that Aphrodite was born from the blood of Ouranos, the primordial sky god, when it mixed with the foam of the sea.  Homer’s Iliad says that Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus and a minor goddess named Dione.  These are two fundamentally incompatible origin stories for one of the most popular goddesses in the Greek world, and they come from the two most respected and authoritative Greek poets.  You can believe either.  Or neither.  Or even both, if you can wrap your head around it (that was Plato’s answer).  No one particularly cares.

Random Access asks:

What ARE the main differences between the Greek Ares, and the Roman Mars?

Well, Ares is… not a popular god, put it that way.  In scenes from the Iliad depicting interactions between the gods, he’s consistently treated as something of an outcast, Zeus’ least-favourite child (in stark contrast to perfect daughter Athena).  Not a lot of people really worship Ares – he personifies bloodlust, the madness of battle and war.  Mars, on the other hand, was originally a god of agriculture in pre-classical Italy before he became a martial god closely identified with Ares, and was one of the foremost patron deities of the Roman state; he stood for martial discipline, justice and vengeance upon the guilty.  In a polytheistic society, it’s not uncommon to note a couple of similarities between one of your gods and one worshipped in another neighbouring culture, and decide “eh, it’s probably the same guy,” even if you wind up glossing over a few differences in the process.  They’re gods; they can be several mutually contradictory things at once if they want to.

Anonymous asks:

Does it irk you that most people seem to refer to Heracles as Hercules, even when they’re talking about the Greek version of the hero?

Eh… not really.  It’s not often that the distinction is important, unless you’re in a technical context, since they’re basically the same guy (unlike, say, Ares and Mars, where the Italian conception of the god is actually different enough that it sort of matters which one you’re talking about).  The ancient Greeks had at least three different ways of spelling “Heracles” anyway.

Cavedraconem adds: I don’t know, I think that Hercules Olivarius, as protector of olive merchants, is a pretty important Roman version of Hercules whom one might want to specifically refer to.

Well, I did specify “unless you’re in a technical context.”  But yes, if you’re a classicist talking about Roman religion and you call him “Heracles” then you should absolutely be shot.