Sneak Preview 75 Classical Myths Condensed from Their Primary Sources By David Mulroy Included in this preview: • Copyright Page • Table of Contents • Excerpt of Chapter 1 For additional information on adopting this book for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x501 or via e-mail at [email protected] Sneak Preview University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Bassim Hamadeh, Publisher Michael Simpson, Vice President of Acquisitions Christopher Foster, Vice President of Marketing Jessica Knott, Managing Editor Stephen Milano, Creative Director Kevin Fahey, Cognella Marketing Program Manager Al Grisanti, Acquisitions Editor Jamie Giganti, Project Editor Copyright © 2012 by University Readers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this pub- lication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereaft er invented, including photocopying, microfi lming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of University Readers, Inc. First published in the United States of America in 2012 by University Readers, Inc. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trade- marks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. 15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-60927-034-6 Contents Introduction: The Historical Context of Classical Myths 1 The Stories 7 1. The Castration of Uranus 7 2. The Birth of Zeus 9 3. Zeus’s Victory over the Titans 9 4. The Children of Zeus 10 5. The Theft of Fire 11 6. Pandora 11 7. The Ages of Man 12 8. Prometheus’s Punishment (Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound) 13 9. Another Version of Io’s Story 15 10. The Great Flood 16 11. Zeus Vanquishes the Giants 17 12. The Crash of Phaethon 18 13. Endymion 20 14. The Love of Aphrodite and Anchises 20 15. The Deeds of Baby Hermes 22 16. Hermaphroditus 24 17. Apollo’s Birth on Delos 25 18. Apollo Establishes His Temple at Delphi 25 19. Apollo and Daphne 26 20. Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus’s Songs, and His Death 27 21. The Misadventures of King Midas 31 22. Silenus’s Advice to Midas 32 23. Actaeon 32 24. Niobe 33 25. Arachne 34 26. The Abduction of Persephone 35 27. The Birth of Dionysus 36 28. Dionysus and the Pirates 37 29. How Tiresias Became a Prophet 38 30. Dionysus in Thebes (Euripides’ Bacchae) 38 31. The Adventures of Perseus 41 32. The Calydonian Boar Hunt 43 33. The Life of Heracles 45 34. The Death of Heracles (Sophocles’ Trachiniae) 50 35. The Death of Eurystheus 54 36. The Origin of the Golden Fleece 56 37. The Voyage of the Argo (Apollonius’s Argonautica) 56 38. The Death of Jason’s Uncle Peleus 60 39. Medea Kills Her Children (Euripides’ Medea) 61 40. The Early Kings of Athens 63 41. Procne and Philomela 63 42. Cephalus and Procris 64 43. The Origin of the Minotaur 65 44. The Adventures of Theseus 66 45. The Death of Hippolytus (Euripides’ Hippolytus) 68 46. The Foundation of Thebes by Cadmus 71 47. Cadmus: The Final Chapter 72 48. Amphion and Zethus, Kings of Thebes 72 49. King Oedipus Learns His True Identity (Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex) 73 50. The Death of Oedipus (Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus) 75 51. The Death of Antigone (Sophocles’ Antigone) 78 52. The Beginning of the Trojan War 80 53. The Judgment of Paris 81 54. Peleus and Thetis 82 55. Achilles on Scyros (Statius’s Achilleid) 83 56. The Sacrifi ce of Iphigenia (Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis) 84 57. The Anger of Achilles (Homer’s Iliad) 87 58. The Death of Achilles 96 59. The Death of Ajax (Sophocles’ Ajax) 97 60. Philoctetes 98 61. The Fall of Troy 100 62. Priam’s Family in Captivity (Euripipdes’ Trojan Women) 101 iv Contents 63. The Death of Agamemnon (Aeschylus’s Agamemnon) 104 64. The Deaths of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (Aeschylus’s Libation Bearers) 108 65. The Trial of Orestes (Aeschylus’s Eumenides) 110 66. Helen Found Innocent! (Euripides’ Helen) 112 67. Iphigenia Found Alive! (Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians) 114 68. The Return of Odysseus (Homer’s Odyssey) 116 69. The Death of Odysseus 129 70. Episodes from the Earlier Lives of Scylla, Polyphemus, and Circe 129 71. Aeneas Leads Trojan Survivors to the Promised Land (Vergil’s Aeneid) 130 72. Romulus and Remus 136 73. The Rape of the Sabine Women 137 74. The Death of Romulus 138 75. The Foundation of the Roman Republic 139 Appendix 1: Some Myths of Other Nations 143 1. The Hittite Cronos 143 2. Enuma Elish, The Babylonian Creation Myth 144 3. The Saga of Gilgamesh 145 4. The Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers 148 5. Isis and Osiris 150 6. The Death of the Daughter of the Sun 152 7. Geriguiaguiatugo’s Revenge 153 Appendix 2: Three of Plato’s Philosophical Myths 157 1. The Origin of Love According to Aristophanes 157 2. The Allegories of the Line and the Cave 159 3. The Myth of Er 160 Appendix 3: Pronouncing Glossary 163 1. Names 163 2. Places 177 Contents v Acknowledgments Th e interest and encouragement of my friend and colleague, Bruce Precourt, a great teacher of both classical and Egyptian myth, persuaded me to enlarge and publish this work, which was originally just a set of xeroxed handouts for my own mythology students. Bruce pointed out some important omissions in my original list of myths and contributed several synopses of his own, e.g., Philoctetes, Helen, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Isis and Osiris, and a mercifully succinct Enuma Elish. Th e condensed myths found in the body of this work are based on the original Greek or Latin—with the occasional help of the Loeb Library translations. Portions quoted directly from the Greek and Latin sources, e.g., the choral song at the begin- ning of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, are my own original translations. Th e sources of the nonclassical myths in Appendix 1 are cited in head notes. Th e pronunciations given for names and places represent my best judgment, based on consulting the Tenth Edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary; the glossary in Morford and Lenardon, Classical Mythology, Oxford 2003; the glossary in Powell, Classical Myth, Prentice Hall 2007; and my own experience. Geographical information in the glossary of places, e.g., mountain heights and the square mileage of various islands, comes from Wikipedia. Needless to say, readers whose interests are stirred by these condensed stories should go on to read them in their entirety. Numerous, fi ne English translations of the works involved are readily available for that purpose. Given the time to read them, the original works are far more rewarding than any condensed versions. On the other hand, there are many good reasons that a person might want a shorter version of the stories told in one, several—or all—of the works that constitute the world of classical myth. In fact, a plurality of the questions directed to me as a classicist over the years boil down to asking for a quick summary of one or another of these great tales. With the publication of 75 Classical Myths, I feel as though I will be able to go on answering such questions indefi nitely. By way of dedication: It is my special hope that my granddaughters, Cassandra and Isabel, will have occasion to dip into this book at some time in the future when they’re a little older. Acknowledgments vii Introduction The Historical Context of the Classical Myths he earliest human cultures are classifi ed by archeologists as representing either T the Paleolithic Era (Old Stone Age) or the more advanced Mesolithic Era (Middle Stone Age). In the former, people survived by hunting and gathering; in the latter, they made the gradual transition to producing food. Th e Mesolithic Era lasted in the Near East until somewhere between 8000 and 6000 B.C. It was followed by the Neolithic Era (New Stone Age), when people settled in permanent communities, practicing agriculture, domesticating animals, and using fi nely carved stone implements. Th e next stage of civilization was the Bronze Age, which began around 3500 B.C. in the Near East. Th e Bronze Age is marked by the development of cities with monumental walls and buildings, armies, wealthy kings, and the use of tools and weapons made of metal. Th e earliest Bronze Age civilizations to aff ect the Mediterranean area were those in Egypt and the Near East, in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Under the infl uence of these two areas, the eastern Mediterranean basin became the site of many powerful Bronze Age kingdoms by 2000 B.C., including one on the island of Crete. At this point, however, there was no trace of the ancestors of the Greeks. Archeological remains show that the Greeks established a Bronze Age culture on the mainland of Greece at some time between 2000 and 1600 B.C. Fortifi ed citadels with wealthy royal tombs, dated to about 1600, have been found in several sites. Th e most famous are those at Pylos on the southwestern coast of the Peloponnesus (southern Greece) and Mycenae in its northeastern corner. Th e period of Greek history that began with these palaces is known as the Mycenaean era, which lasted from 1600 to about 1200 B.C. It represented the fi rst blossoming of Greek civilization. Mycenaean tombs have yielded precious gold and silver objects and other fi ne works of art.