Myths of Early Athens; Theseus Amazons Euripides’ Hippolytus

Myths of Early Athens; Theseus Amazons Euripides’ Hippolytus

1. Athens didn’t have the robust Pan-Hellenic mythology that some other Mycenaean cities had (e.g. Mycenae, Argos, Corinth, Pylos, Thebes, Knossos), but as it grew in power and prestige through the late Archaic and Classical age it sought to remedy this deficiency primarily by expanding what native mythology it had and by grafting the myths of others onto their existing myths (e.g. Oedipus, Oedipus’ children, Herakles, Herakles’ children, Orestes, and others find their way into Athens’ orbit).
2. The myths that the Athenians did have primarily concerned themselves with their early kings and the earliest history of their land. Their accounts are confused, complicated, often self-contradictory and inconsistent. But generally they make three claims: they were descended from a king named Cecrops; they sprung from the land itself (autochthony means both living in their land from time immemorial and more literally, sprung from the land itself); and they were descended from Athena and bore a close relationship with other gods. A natural consequence of the nature of Athenian myths is that they are very closely tied with religion/cultic practice.

• Cecrops, Athens’ first king, was literally sprung for the land itself and is presented in art as half man and half snake. In the reign of Cecrops, Athena and Poseidon waged a contest for the right to be the patron deity of Athens. Athena won, obviously; but Poseidon remained a very important deity at Athens.
• Erichthonius/Erechtheus is also born from the earth when Hephaestus’ botched rape attempt of Athena led to his seed landing on the earth – from which Erichthonius/Erechtheus was born. Athena takes the child and places him in a box (guarded by snakes or a snake) and hands the box over to the 3 daughters of Cecrops (Pandrosus, Aglauros, & Herse) with instructions not to open the box. Curiosity gets the better of at least two of them (Aglauros & Herse) and when they open the box, they see the snake and in a panic leap over the north wall of the Acropolis. The cult of Aglauros is at the bottom of the north wall of the acropolis. Pandrosus obeyed Athena’s command and is honored with a cult in the Erechtheum. The snake remained there as well and was a protector of the sanctuary.
• The most important myth of Erechtheus is that during his kingship Athens found itself at war with its neighbor Eleusis. He learns from an oracle that Athens’ only chance of victory was if a noble virgin were sacrificed. His own daughter volunteers and the Athenians were subsequently victorious. During the battle Erechtheus was killed by Poseidon. After the war with Eleusis, Athena commands that a temple be built (this being the Erechtheum), which housed the cults of Athena, Poseidon-Erechtheus, Boutes, Pandrosus, Zeus, and others.
• The lines of descent of these autochthons were not perpetuated (numerous daughters, but few male heirs). The sons either die childless or kill each other in conflict. Among the most important kings is Ion, the son of Erechtheus’ daughter Creousa and the god Apollo (another instance of rape). Ion is the eponymous ancestor of the Ionians – one of the major tribes of the Greeks. With this myth, the Athenians assert, perhaps rightly, that they are the oldest and most prestigious of the Ionian tribes and the rightful head of the Ionian colonies.

3. Theseus: Son of Aegeus (or maybe Poseidon) and Aethra, the daughter of Pittheus. The earliest and among the most important stories about Theseus involve the killing of the Minotaur but beginning in the mid-6^th century there develop many other stories of Theseus. Most important is his role as the synoikistes (the “unifier”) of Attica. For this see Plutarch, Life of Theseus, chapters 24-25. In the Archaic and Classical periods Athens began assimilating the surrounding lands and making them part of its ever-expanding state. Here, as often in myth, a relatively recent practice is projected into the distant past. One might also see the Labors of Theseus as part of this movement: what Theseus was doing was removing the various threats to easy travel through the various districts of Attica.
4. In the 6^th/5^th century Athenians made a concerted effort of make Theseus into its great national hero. In addition to the 6 labors, many other exploits were attributed to him. If one tries to arrange these into any reasonable chronological order, it quickly becomes clear that it won’t work.
5. Most important elements in Theseus’ life

• Son of Aethra (daughter of Pittheus) and either Aegeus or Poseidon: if one wants to stress his role as legitimate king of Athens, he’s the son of Aegeus. If one wants to stress his divine lineage, then Poseidon. Simply put, he is both, and no effort is made to make a final determination.
• As a young man, he sets out for Athens, along the way he accomplishes his 6 labors (most important are the killing of Procrustes and Sinis). Once there, he is nearly poisoned by Medea. After being recognized as Aegeus’ heir, he immediately sets out on the quest to kill the Minotaur. (Which he does with the help of King Minos’ daughter Ariadne).
• On his return to Athens he forgets to change the ship’s sails and is thereby responsible for his father’s death.
• The most important of his accomplishments as king are the unification of Attica and (paradoxically) the institution of democracy (really, a process beginning at the end of the 6^th century).
• Theseus’ first wife was the Amazon queen, named either Hippolyte or Antiope. Hippolytus is their son.
• Later, he marries Phaedra, a daughter of King Minos. Euripides’ Hippolytus takes place a non-specific number of years after his marriage to Phaedra. They have children of an unspecified age.

6. Sidebar: Amazons: One of the best examples of an inverted culture. The Amazons are a race of female warriors who take on the roles normally in the Greek world assumed by men. They engage in warfare, agriculture, pasturing cattle, raising horses, hunting on horseback. They remain virgins while serving in the military, but after their time in military service, they engage in sex with the neighboring tribe, the Gargarians. This “hooking up” takes place on a mountain that separates the two groups. They meet on the mountain top to perform ritual sacrifices, and the sexual unions take place in the dark & anonymously. If the resultant child is a female the Amazons keep and raise her; the males, they give to the Gargarians to rear (or in some versions, the Amazons kill them).

Note the many ways the Amazons are thus an inverted mirror of the Greek world. How do modern views of such matriarchal cultures differ from the Greeks?

Euripides’ Hippolytus: some considerations

1. Behind the myth we will immediately see a recurrence of the Potiphar motif. What, if anything, does the Potiphar motif have to do with the values that Euripides seems interested in exploring on this play?

2. Examine Aphrodite’s first speech: are there hints that we should understand her as an allegorical figure?

3. What are we to make of Hippolytus’s relationship with Artemis? Is it possible, in a polytheistic culture, to take such a monotheistic approach to life as Hippolytus is doing?

4. Why does Hippolytus reject sex? In what ways is his rejection of sex like some of the young women we’ve encountered who do the same (e.g. Daphne, Callisto, Atalanta)?

5. Might we relate this rejection of sex to rites of passage? What are rites of passage and are rites of passage relevant to Artemis/Hippolytus? Rites of passage (initially introduced by the Belgian anthropologist Arnold van Gannep in 1909) see life-changes that move someone from one group to another as a 3-stage process which van Gannep labels pre-liminal, liminal, and post-liminal. There is a recognizable process, for instance, that religious and other heroes go through, for instance, from celibate to married, from non-religious to religious.

6. Is it possible to view both Phaedra and Hippolytus as heroic figures? If so, what specific qualities make them heroic? Might it be helpful to think of high/low characters in the way we did with Euripides’ Alcestis?

7. Phaedra is trying to live up to the standards of a “good wife.” As such we might compare her with Alcestis or even Medea (who is able to fake it quite successfully just before she sends her children to the princess with the deadly gifts).

8. On the first day of class I referenced some of the modern approaches to Greek myth. Among them, one might invoke (a) psychological approaches and (b) charters (i.e. the use of myth to justify the social order, its institutions, practices, customs, and moral codes). Are these applicable to our understanding of either the Theseus myth in general or of the Hippolytus in particular?