Zeus being a father to many, it might be thought that the actions of his children did not affect him personally. Although when his beloved daughter Athena, had an affair with Greek soldier Basil during the Trojan war, Zeus was not impressed, as he favoured the Trojans. Athena did not agree with her father, and favoured the Acheans. One night, Athena appeared to Basil as herself after her father brought a horrible storm on the Acheans. She came to him in the night, as he was dying. She not only healed him, but also slept with him, and bore a child. She bore a beautiful demigod who she named Zoe. When Zeus heard of this, he grew extremely angry and killed Basil as well as kidnapped baby Zoe. He renamed her Alytta, meaning rage and fury. He cursed her with a lightning shower and made her immortal, then sent her to the underworld with his brother Hades to cast revenge on her mother. Athena was enraged, but Zeus refused to undo what he had done.
As Alytta grew, anytime Zeus became angry, she became angry as well, as if she had been linked to him, which Zeus had intended. She was uncontrollable, and everytime she pent up her anger for too long, it would release from her body in a smoke like form, filling the Underworld, until it filtered up into the earth. At first, those who lived just above the Underworld would be roasted to death. Men were falling as if a plague had broken out. Volcanoes erupted, killing many, and some mortals merely burst into flames.
Alytta begged Hades to speak to Zeus about undoing what he had done. Hades said he would not, but Alytta could go and speak with him in Olympus. So Alytta did, but Zeus once again refused and said it was in her nature to be as she was, before commanding her to return to the Underworld.
Feeling her own rage swell, she descended back into the underworld, but not without making a stop first. Alytta stopped in Troy, where she appeared to a soldier and slept with him. She became pregnant, as she was aware of Zeus’ secret adoration of the Trojans. She knew Zeus would never punish the child as he had punished her, so with the help of her mother, the baby was hidden, and would remain so until Zeus undid what he had done.
Enraged yet outdone, Zeus released a rainstorm upon Alytta, and all the fury washed off of her, down upon the Earth, heating it as a whole. Alytta still remained a child of anger and rage, but no longer in accordance to Zues. She roamed where she wanted and overtime, warmed the Earth, in an attempt to make up for lost time where her identity had been forced to be a secret. She ensured her presence would forever be known by unleashing waves of heat among the Earth for the rest of eternity.
Analysis
For my aetiological myth, I decided to choose the option of global warming. I thought it would make for an interesting origin story. Since the subject itself isn’t focused on behaviour and actions of beings, I felt I could be more creative with how I went about it. I wanted to associate my origin myth with emotion and to me, global warming feels as though it should come from a negative mindset. So I focused on the feelings of gods and goddesses and how those feelings are translated to forces through action, on to the world. I wanted to show how their behaviour greatly impacts what happens in the world. From learning Greek Mythology thus far, to me one of the biggest things that has stood out is the way the gods interfere with mankind, like how Athena helped Odysseus win the war in his home during his nostoi journey. (Homer, Odyssey 22.237-239.) They really have the fate of humankind in their hands and in this case, aspects of the land they live on such as the temperature of the earth. I think my myth captures this idea of how behaviour of divinity can affect every aspect of human life.
First, I decided I wanted my origin myth of global warming to come from a birth. In my opinion that seemed fitting. I used Zeus and Athena as my two characters because of the fact that Athena is the goddess of war, and I felt their relationship was interesting to say the least. From what I have learned I get the impression that their relationship was good, and that Zeus did not neglect Athena the way he did some of his other children. He shows this neglect in the Iliad when he accuses Ares of being just like his mother and the worst of the gods. (Homer, Iliad 8.889-898.) In spite of this, I still wanted to showcase that no father daughter relationship is perfect, and Athena as well as Zeus are both very strong minded people, so it is inevitable that they would have to butt heads at some point. Although Athena is wise, she is also said to be the goddess of many crafts, which could be interpreted in the case of my myth as craftiness. “There the goddess (Athena) received that whereby she excelled in strength all the deathless ones who dwell in Olympus, she who made the host-scaring weapon of Athena. And with it (Zeus) gave her birth, arrayed in arms of war.”(Hesiod, Theogony 14.938-941.) Athena was born from her father basically ready for war and in my opinion, that in no way meant to stop her from waging war against her own family. The gods are no strangers to conflict within the family. As the birth of Apollo and Artemis came from an affair between Leto and Zeus, it ended with Hera waging her own war on Leto. (Hesiod, Theogony, 918.) A kind of parallel to my situation with Athena and Zeus. This relationship contributed to the interwoven themes of craftiness and betrayal between Zeus and Athena as well as Alytta and Zeus, but also a theme of loyalty between Athena and her only daughter.
Although he was supposed to be fair and neutral in his rulings, just like everyone else, Zeus picked favourites in the war, his being the Trojans. “But when the sun had reached mid heaven, then verily the Father lifted on high his golden scales, and set therein two fates of grievous death, one for the horse-taming Trojans, and one for the brazen-coated Achaeans; then he grasped the balance by the midst and raised it, and down sank the day of doom of the Achaeans.” (Homer, Iliad 8.67-72.) This is a clear indication to which side Zeus was on. On the other hand, Athena as well as many of her siblings appeared to favour the Achaeans. When Zeus gives his orders in the Iliad for his children to not interfere with his plans, (Homer, Iliad 8.5-8.) Athena (or Athene) is the only one who speaks up and says they will obey, yet they are sad for the Acheans and their fate (Homer, Iliad 8.30-36.) I would say this event in the Iliad is what I used for the foundation event of my myth. As I mentioned before, Athena is a goddess of crafts, which I interpreted as craftiness, so even though she says she will not do anything to interfere with Zeus’ plan for the battle, doesn’t mean she won’t do anything at all.
So Athena goes to Achea and sleeps with a soldier named Basil who is dying from the attack of Zeus’ lighting shower, and becomes pregnant. She gives birth to a baby who she names Zoe, which means “life” in Greek. I chose her name to represent how Athena saved Basil’s life, and created a new one. Zeus is obviously mad and rips the baby away from Athena and curses it by bringing down a shower of lighting on it. This shower is a symbol of Zeus' furry towards Athena for her betrayal, and now the baby shares a connection with Zeus so whenever he gets mad, she does too and it dangerously heats the earth. That part was more made up and not connected from primary sources because I’m not entirely sure what Zeus’ limitations on cursing demigods were, but here he was able to link his emotions with the babys’. Zeus is known for his extreme temper which is illustrated in (Orphic Hymn 19 to Zeus of Thunder). The behaviour described corresponds with Zeus’ behaviour throughout my myth, and provides reason for his excessive hate towards the baby. This introduces the idea of global warming, as well as the theme of revenge which is repeatedly used throughout my myth. So in a way, Zeus created global warming, even though Athena gave birth to the child.
Athena is a virgin goddess, (Hesiod, Homeric Hymns 28.1-3.) but for my myth I decided to change that. I felt as though Athena was her own person and although she didn’t necessarily need to be attached or in love, I wanted her to be able to have some fun and rebel. So I didn’t make her a virgin as she slept with the Achaean soldier to anger her father.
I used the rising tension between the gods and goddesses in my myth as a symbol of global warming and how the earth is constantly getting hotter. I wanted to really imply that the behaviour of these characters impacted the ongoings of the earth, in this case the temperature of it.
Zeus renames the baby Alytta. I first looked up greek names that represented anger, and “Lyssa” was the name I found. I then did some research and found Lyssa was an actual goddess so I changed the name of the baby to Lytta which is what the Athenians called Lyssa. (Ustinova, 2017) Then, to make her her own person, Alytta. So, I had Zeus name her Alytta after Lyssa, knowing exactly what he was inflicting upon the infant. The goddess Lyssa is known for her intentional inflictions of anger and driving people mad. It was said that she was the one who filled Heracles up with anger and drove him mad, not Hera. (Ustinova, 2017) Knowing that the baby would now become a monster and inflict pain every time Zeus got angry, Zeus was satisfied with the name he chose, and the epithets of Lyssa were given to the baby through him. Then giving her immortality, he sent the baby to the underworld with Hades, where she could not be retrieved by her mother. There is no source saying Athena cannot enter the underworld, but for the sake of my myth, I decided that she would not be able to. Although she is the goddess of war, to me the underworld seems even too dark for her.
As Alytta grows, she cannot bear the thought that humans are dying because Zues has placed a curse on her. She grows angrier and becomes more like Lyssa in ways. With the help of her mother she tricks Zeus which they know he will not like as he reacted very badly when Prometheus tricked him in the Theogony by tricking him with the portion sizes of a sacrificial ox in Mecone. (Hesiod, Theogony 10.558-563.) So through craftiness like her mother’s, Alytta successfully manages to go to Troy and get pregnant with a Trojan’s child. Just as Rhea had hidden Zues from his baby eating father with the help of her parents, (Hesiod, Theogony 9.460-471.) Alytta was able to consult her mother and hide her child, so Zeus could not take it and protect it until he released Alytta from her horrible state.
Zeus does not like this obviously, but he does use a powerful rainstorm which releases all the heat from Alytta and grants her permission into Olympus. This rainstorm heats the entirety of the earth, beginning the everlasting process we know today as global warming.
Bibliography
Hesiod. 1914. Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. Translated by Evelyn-White, H G.
Loeb Classical Library Volume 57. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press;
London, William Heinemann Ltd.
Hesiod, Theogony, Epic Cycle, Homerica. Translated by Evelyn-White, H G. Loeb Classical
Library Volume 57. London: William Heinemann, 1914.
Homer. 1924. The Iliad. Translated by Murray, A T. Loeb Classical Library Volumes1.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.
Homer. 1919. The Odyssey. Translated by Murray, A T. Loeb Classical Library Volumes.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.
The Hymns of Orpheus. Translated by Taylor, Thomas (1792). University of Pennsylvania
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Ustinova, Yulia. “Mania on the Battlefield and on the March.” Divine Mania, 1st ed.,
Routledge, 2018, pp. 217–44
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