During the beginning era's of Ancient Greek mythology, there were many intense battles among gods and citizens. Wars became stronger causing the earth to grow weaker and more fragile. Forests being demolished and cities torn away. Battles between Gods and civilians began to harm society at a great volume. One god, of the name Alilengis, had the gift of solidarity. He was the child of Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea and wife of Poseidon. Alilengis was given the ability to provide healing to damaged necessities of citizens. He was able to heal crops, forests, and other harm done to the earth from such wars. After the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC, Alilengis has an immense amount of rejuvenation to perform on the earth. This war harmed much of Greece due to its extreme violence against the Sparta (Thucydides 1.1-23). Demolitions of cities and towns also added onto his list which made it very hard for him to keep up. With the earth having the constant need to be fixed, Alilengis had to employ all his power into the planet to heal it. This caused a lot of tension in the ground which accumulated and released a mass amount of heat to the atmosphere of the earth. The tension and pressure from Alilengis’ strength to heal the planet resulted in what we know today as global warming. The creation of this global phenomenon has carried throughout our modern ways of life creating immense harmful change to our earth’s external fragments. It all started with one god trying to save humanities greed and aggressiveness during battle that lead to the production of global warming.
Visual representation of Alilengis, god of solidarity.
{Image drawn by Cassandra Kiosses}
Analysis
“The Presure of Alilengis” showcases the hardships during the battle of global warming and the destruction of the earth. This myth begins with the annihilation of the earth’s outer layers due to wars and battles of gods and citizens. Aspects such as crops, forests, and cities were corrupted due to extensive wars brought upon them. The god of solidarity is created, by his maternities Poseidon and Amphitrite, in order to heal the outer wounds of the planet. He is able to release his own energy and strength into the planet to repair its damages. The main climax of the myth is triggered by The Peloponnesian War which was a battle between Greece and Sparta in 431 BC (Bolmarcich, 2011). This war is a very well-known event in the Ancient Greek time period as it created a huge impact on society, culture, as well as the relationships between its fighting colonies which is why I decided to have it lead to the origin story of global warming (Thucydides 1.1-23). Alilengis became weaker and unable to heal all the damage done fast enough which ended in him overexerting himself and cause a large amount of heat and pressure to accumulate in the earths core. This slowly began to travel through the planet’s lithosphere and push itself into the atmosphere created global warming.
A major theme in the myth I have created is selfishness and greed. The way global warming is developed is through the gods and populaces being careless and only thinking about themselves. They do not care about how much work Alilengis is putting into healing the planet which then causes the major creation of global warming. This unsympathetic attitude is also foreseen in our modern domain in the ways that climate change and global warming is affecting us. In order to connect these, we must look at the similarities in relation to wants. Gods and citizens in Greek mythology want power and intend to do whatever it takes to get it. As focused on in the myth above, people do not care about how harmful they are to the world because they are determined to win whatever battle comes their way. We see a huge connection to our world now but instead, these battles represent the economy. Everyone wants to make money and thrive, but we are impacting our world much more than we know. Factories and greenhouse gasses is what’s causing global warming on our planet. I wanted to develop an origin story that we are able to connect to now so that it impacts us, as a reader, even more.
As we know, the main character in my myth is Alilengis, the god of solidarity. In the Greek language, the word for solidarity is pronounced as “allilengýi” so I thought naming him after this would be most appropriate. I made Alilengis’ parents Poseidon and Amphitrite as they were already coupling in traditional Greek mythology (Theoi, n.d.). I learned about one of their many offspring, Triton, who was their first child together and rules the sea (Hesoid, Theogony 13.930-932). I got the idea of Alilengis’ character while reading about many of the gods and goddesses in a variety of classical encyclopedias. Some gods and goddesses that I found with similar sovereignties were Apollo and Asclepius, the gods of healing, Hygieia the goddess of health, and Harmonia the goddess of harmony (Theoi, n.d.). I knew I wanted to make Alilengis have the power to heal the earth, but I did not know what name to give this supremacy. After much consideration, I settled with solidarity because it represents his ability to bring peace and agreement to the earth by healing its wounds caused by battles and forms of harm. I pictured Alilengis with a helmet like head piece made out of iron and nickel. I imagined these two metals because the solid core of our planet is essentially a solid sphere of iron and nickel (Pushcharovsky, 2019). Since his character essentially embodies the earth, having parts of the planets form as his attire were affective.
The main concept for this myth originated from what knowledge I already have about global warming. I knew that global warming was the result of the earth heating immensely, therefore, I had an idea of what gods and themes I must include. I did some research about myths relating to climate, environment, and battles that are already out there. Some popular stories that I read were about “The Anemoi” also known as the wind gods which included Boreas the North-Wind, Nostos the South-Wind, Euros the East-Wind, and Zephryos the West-Wind (Theoi, n.d.). Poets like Homer and Hesiod wrote about these gods and how they relate to the seasons and storms (Theoi, n.d.). I also did research on Thucydides work on the Peloponnesian War to learn about its tragic outcomes and affects (Bolmarcich, 2011). I then continued to come up with a main storyline and tragedy that I start would connect to the origin of global warming completing the process of creating my aetiological myth.
Bibliography
Atsma, Aaron J. “ANEMOI.” ANEMOI - Greek Gods of the Winds (Roman Venti), Theoi Project, www.theoi.com/Titan/Anemoi.html.
Atsma, Aaron J. “TRITON.” TRITON - Greek Sea-God of Waves & Calm Seas, Herald of Poseidon, Theoi Project, www.theoi.com/Pontios/Triton.html.
Atsma, Aaron J. “AMPHITRITE.” AMPHITRITE - Greek Goddess & Nereid Queen of the Sea, Theoi Project, www.theoi.com/Pontios/Amphitrite.html.
Hesiod, Homeric Hymns 13. 930-932
Pushcharovsky, D. Yu. “Iron and Its Compounds in the Earth’s Core: New Data and Ideas.” Geochemistry International, vol. 57, no. 9, Aug. 2019, pp. 941–955, doi:10.1134/S0016702919090088.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 1. 1-23
Bolmarcich, Sarah. “The Peloponnesian War.” The Classical Review, vol. 61, no. 1, April 2011, p. 190-191, https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1017/S0009840X10002490.