Myth
After the gods had created humanity, Prometheus gave them the gift of fire at the expense of his own freedom. Though Pandora, through her ignorance, had released disease, deceit, malice into the world, the humans of the Bronze Age lived in relative harmony. Though conflicts and disagreements invariably broke out periodically, humanity came to understand that they were all united by their mortality and this fostered decades of peace across the Earth. This was a time when all men and women shared a common culture, language, and skin tone.
Though humanity was well aware of their inferiority to the gods, they also learned that it was their sacrifice that sustained the gods and bestowed upon them their time, and thereby that this dependence could be manipulated to the benefit of humanity. As a result, humanity collectively banded together to collectively withhold sacrifice to the gods until their demands for greater status were met. They reasoned that while this would surely invoke the wrath of Olympus, when humanity was united, the gods could not unleash their fury on them for fear of permanently extinguishing their sole source of sacrificial offering.
Wishing to punish humanity for their insolence, the earth-shaker Poseidon unleashed earthquakes and tsunamis that devastated humanity. Fair-haired Demeter made all the crops wither and bode the trees to cease bearing fruit. Cloud-gathering, loud-thundering Zeus sent storms that devastated the cities of humanity. Though many humans died at the hands of the gods, the surviving portion of humanity remained resolute, confident in their hypothesis that the gods were dependent on the labours of humanity.
Growing ever-agitated, the pantheon of gods begged Zeus to devise a plan that would compel humanity to return to making sacrifices to the gods. Peering down at the earth from the heavens, Zeus prepared a thunderstorm that would completely decimate what remained of human civilization. Just before he was about to unleash the culmination of his wrath on the Earth, his hand was stayed by Athena, his grey-eyed, wise daughter.
“Oh Zeus, father of gods and men. Your great power surpasses all of the gods combined, let alone the pitiful vestiges of humanity. Your strength is so great that even the smallest of your fingers contains enough might to completely crush humanity. Yet if you do so, who will be left to make sacrifices that extol the greatness of the gods? Lions, eagles, and sharks are great hunters, but cannot spark the flames that are necessary for sacrifice. To discipline humanity, we must break their unity” counseled Athena, ever-perceptive and rational.
Zeus, realizing the veracity of her counsel, briefly pondered a solution. When he had conjured a solution, he first summoned Eris, Dolos, and Apate — strife, trickery, and deceit. He then bade them to break the unity of mankind by altering them so that they would no longer comprehend their shared humanity. And so, humans were made to speak different languages, possess varying skin tones, and have differing cultures. Though humanity continued to worship the gods, they began to use differing epithets and names for them. Some humans would subsume the worship of all of the gods under the banner of one God.
Because of their perceived differences, infighting broke out across humanity. When one group of humans encountered another that looked and spoke differently, they called them barbarians and sought to crush them in order to introduce what they believed was “civilization”. When they encountered people who worshipped the gods using different names and epithets, they called them heathens, unaware of the fact that all of humanity gave praise to the same gods. Because of this, humanity began to make sacrifices to the gods again, as various factions sought to vie for divine favours that would give them an advantage over their competitors.
Analysis
For this assignment, I have devised a myth that seeks to explain the existence of the plurality of races, cultures, and languages that exist throughout humanity. Additionally, the myth exalts the gods by recounting an instance where their wit and might surpasses that of humanity. An aetiological basis is also provided to explain why the various Greek city-states and foreign civilizations vied for the support of the gods through supplication and sacrifice.
The main premise of my myth is a conflict between the gods and humans. This is a situation that arises on numerous occasions in ancient myth, though not to the scale of all of humanity against the entire pantheon. Examples of conflicts between man and the divine are Odysseus drawing the ire of Poseidon in the Odyssey and Hera’s disdain for Heracles. Ultimately, the situation is resolved through a divine intervention that ultimately provides an aetiological basis for the creation of race. The victory of the gods asserts their supremacy over humans and exalts them in a manner similar to the Homeric Hymns. The epithets that I have used for Demeter, Athena, Zeus, and Poseidon function to further honour the gods in a manner that is consistent with epic poetry and the Homeric Hymns.
The idea of humans withholding sacrifice to the gods, which surely would have been a sacrilegious thought to have put into practice in ancient times, comes from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. In this myth, mankind is unable to do so as a result of Demeter’s withdrawal from her divine duties, halting agricultural productivity and consequently, sacrifice to the gods. Homer describes the consequences of this: “gods who hold mansions in Olympos would have lost the share and renown of gift and sacrifice” (Homer, Hymn to Demeter 310-312). This implies that constant sacrifice from humans was vital to the well-being of the gods. The purpose of sacrifice was to honor the gods and the divine portions can be perceived as a tangible expression of their time. This Greek concept was explored at length in the Iliad. When Achilles is stripped of his time (in the form of his warbride Briseis), he is enraged in a similar manner to the gods in my myth (Homer, Iliad 1.180-195).
Another analogue to the Hymn to Demeter in my myth is the pantheon imploring Zeus to devise a solution to their problems and Zeus commanding other gods to use their powers to rectify the situation according to his plan. In the case of Hesiod’s myth, Zeus recognizes that only Demeter can restore fertility to the earth and sends fleet-footed Hermes to the underworld to entreat with Hades (Homer, Hymn to Demeter 334–389).
A conundrum arises when the gods are unable to destroy humanity because it would permanently deprive them of their only source of sacrifice. This is because, according to Hesiod, fire, a prerequisite for sacrifice, was a gift bestowed upon humanity by Prometheus (Hesiod, Theogony 556). In my myth, it is Athena who makes Zeus aware of this fact. She appears to stay his hand in a manner similar to her appearance in the first book of the Iliad, in which she descends from the heavens to prevent Achilles from unleashing his rage on Agamemnon (Homer, Iliad 1.194-221). This befits her divine allotment as the goddess of wisdom.
The solution to this problem is an act of divine trickery that sows enmity and discontent throughout humanity. This was inspired by Eris’ trickery at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, which ultimately led to the events of the Trojan War (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E3.2). In my myth, the racialization of humans is carried out by Eris, Dolos, and Apate, who are respectively the divine manifestations of strife, deceit, trickery. I have elected to characterize this intervention as an act of deceit rather than physiological change due to the socially constructed nature of race. Though I do not mean to imply that all conflict stems from perceived racial or cultural difference, the civilizing mission has been used as a justification for conquest throughout human history.
Temporally, my myth is meant to be understood as occurring in the Bronze Age of humanity. My myth could not have occured any earlier because according to Hesiod, the humans of the Golden Age lived during the rule of Cronus and thus prior to Zeus ascending to power (Hesiod, Works and Days 109-120). The humans of the Silver Age were destroyed by Zeus because they refused to honor the gods, which would conflict with the necessity of sparing humanity in my myth (Hesiod, Works and Days 121-139). Hesiod writes that the humans of the Bronze Age were “destroyed by their own hands” which conforms to the discord described in the conclusion of my myth (Hesiod, Works and Days 152). I have opened my myth with an allusion to other myths describing the creation of humanity in order to maintain a continuity with these myths as they were told by Hesiod.
In my myth, as humanity devolved into factionalism, they began to compete for the favours and patronage of the gods. This has precedent in ancient myth and culture. In the Trojan War, many of the gods openly sided with either the Greeks or the Trojans. For example, Hera and Athena supported the Greeks while Artemis and Apollo backed the Trojans. Sacrifice was partially promoted as a means of currying favour with the gods and this also applied at the inter-state level.
My myth is meant to function as an analogue to the Tower of Babel, a story that appears in the Abrahamic religions. This story, found in the Bible and the Torah, recounts an instance where humanity sought to build a tower tall enough to reach heaven. To punish humanity for their arrogance, God scatters humanity across the world and gives them different languages to speak (New International Version, Gen. 11.1-8). This parallel to other religions is meant to highlight the fact that Ancient Greece was not isolated from the rest of the world and that cross-cultural exchange did frequently occur. Another case of mythological parallels between Greece and the Near East are the similarities between Heracles and Gilgamesh in their katabasis myths where they descend to the underworld.
Bibliography
Hesiod, Theogony 556.
Hesiod, Works and Days 109-120.
Hesiod, Works and Days 121-139.
Hesiod, Works and Days 152.
Homer, Hymn to Demeter 310-312.
Homer, Hymn to Demeter 334–389.
Homer, Iliad 1.180-195.
Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E3.2.
The Bible. New International Version.
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