The Tale of the Apollonian Urn
A wondrous thing indeed did Phoebus Apollo possess – a thousand-faceted urn of glass, that when the rays of his chariot touched the mouth, they were fashioned inside into a piercing warm light. From each of the thousand facets then a beam of this light shone, down from lofty Olympus upon earth, the dwelling-place of mortals. Every man struck by one of these uttered forth some word of insight or truth, and the urn glittered so, hit countless times throughout the day while the chariot of Helios passed above, that on earth men exchanged many words of wisdom and prudence. Rumour, that winged monster, shied from these keen rays, and upon the light-struck men her screeches had no effect.
Apollo, averter of evil, dearly treasured this urn. Every daybreak, when Eos announced the new day, he set it forth on a golden stand outside the Olympian gates; every night, when the horses of the Sun retired, he returned it to his chambers. But one day, when far-darting Apollo had left for the faraway land of the Ethiopians, by ill-fated chance the god Ares, bane of mortals, knocked it down in his passing. The urn plummeted from its stand of gold and fell for half a day until it landed in the forests of the East. So divinely well-crafted was it that it was not shattered, but lay there until a band of wild Mainades happened upon it. Convinced it hid some prize inside, they tore it apart in the madness of their frenzy, sullying the glass with wine-stained fingers and nails, but on finding nothing inside, they shrieked with rage and scattered the tarnished pieces.
When Apollo, Lord of the Silver Bow, returned from Ethiopia he soon realized the absence of his treasured urn. Looking down on earth he saw that men had lost reason and sense; Rumour, sailing over cities and towns, shrieked with glee as mortals passed on words mixed with truth and lies. The Muses, daughters of mighty Zeus, brought to him the dirtied and shattered pieces of the urn. These pieces Phoebus Apollo brought to Hephaestus, the master-craftsman, and asked him to restore the urn to its original glory. But Lord Hephaestus told him, shaking his great head, that while the urn could be reformed, it would no longer radiate as it once had. When heavy-hearted Apollo placed the repaired urn back on its golden stand the next daybreak, many of the facets remained soiled, failing to cast a beam. The light shining down on earth was greatly reduced and weakened; only a few men were struck by delicate rays.
Thus why men sometimes entertain foolish things and accept appeals to emotion; the shafts of illumination come and go among the human race and strike only from time to time. Deceit comes easier to mortals, as does tainted truth. Through this has one man’s truth become different from another man’s truth, and one man’s truth becomes another’s lie.
Analysis
The point of this myth is to provide an aetiology for disinformation and the post-truth era. Post-truth involves the observable inclination towards statements supported by emotional appeal rather than statements that are empirically true (McIntyre 5). Coming from this is the idea of subjective truth, with each person choosing different, modified forms of truth for themselves. I selected this topic because I thought it lent itself well to Greek mythology, especially as the process of handing tales down often results in the discrepancy and alternativity that is also a mark of post-truth. We can find in mythology many instances of different takes on stories. As an example, the typical Trojan tale is that Aphrodite sides with the Trojans because Paris chose her as the most beautiful among three goddesses (Proclus Chrestomathy A). The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite extends a little further as it describes the occurrence when “Zeus sent into her heart sweet desire for Anchises” (Hymn. Hom. Ven. 5b), who was a mortal man and a Trojan, thus sealing her alliance with Troy further. However, the mythographer Acusilaus mentions a very different version of the story; he claims that on account of an oracle proclaiming “that when the rule of the family of Priam was ended, the descendants of Anchises would be kings of the Trojans…Aphrodite slept with Anchises…and, wanting to create a pretext to depose the family of Priam, she filled Alexander [Paris] with desire for Helen” (fr. 39a). Her actions during the Trojan war were then attributed to giving Troy hope while secretly waiting for the fall of Priam (Ibid.). This divergence between the two accounts resembles the alternative truths that we often find as part of the post-truth era.
The main inspiration for this myth came from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. I found this especially appropriate as Hermes is known as the trickster god, which area relates to the topic of post-truth and disinformation. In both the myth I wrote and the Hymn to Hermes, there is the idea of a possession being lost or stolen, and then part of that possession being irrevocably lost. The Hymn to Hermes narrates the stealing of Apollo’s herd by the newborn Hermes, where Hermes “confused the hoof-marks, the front behind, the hind in front, and himself went backward” (Hymn. Hom. Merc. 4c) in an attempt to hide what had happened – a twisting of the truth. He then sacrifices two cows, which angers Apollo when he discovers their loss (Ibid., 4h). I chose to reflect a version of this by having an item precious to Apollo also being lost and then some portion of it being irreparably damaged.
I did not incorporate Hermes into this story, but I chose the characters of Apollo and the Mainades, followers of Dionysus, to represent one of the binary oppositions often found in myth (Calame 508). The theme of Apollonian vs. Dionysian represents that of culture vs. nature, as well as structure and rational thought vs. wildness and insanity (Kreis). Interestingly enough, the man who first popularized this Apollonian vs. Dionysian concept was none other than Friedrich Nietzsche (Kreis), who was also one of the first proponents of post-truth ideology. In the case of the myth I wrote, this difference was especially pronounced because the urn itself also represented clarity and brought order, like Apollo; and the primary actions of the Mainades here involved destruction and madness that brought chaos. Furthermore, I mentioned Ares as part of the equation for the urn’s damage because of his often rash and cruel personality, which also opposes the Apollonian notion of prudence and reason. An example of this is seen in Homer’s Iliad, where Ares is wounded by a mortal and complains to Zeus, who responds angrily and declares that “Strife, conflict, and war are all you care for” (5.846-909). Later on, Homer proceeds to describe how the other Olympians compel Ares, “the bane of the living, to end his murderous progress” (Il. 5.909). Both these selections show Ares’ characteristic savagery and present him as a danger to humans. In my myth, this links well as Ares is the one who causes distress for humans by knocking the urn over.
I also mentioned Rumour a few times throughout my myth. In much of Greek mythology, especially in works such as Hesiod’s Theogony, anthropomorphism occurs insofar as non-concrete concepts like Night and Sleep are personified as gods or goddesses. These characters are then in some way described to be responsible for their respective natural counterparts: Night brings darkness to earth; she “traverses the earth while the other [Day] remains…[and] holds Death’s brother, Sleep, in her arms” (Hesiod Theog. 758-761). The figure of Rumour stems from the Roman Virgil’s Aeneid, where she is responsible for spreading a rumour about the protagonist, Aeneas, and Queen Dido to a neighbouring hostile king (4.173-197). However, in the process readers learn about Rumour herself. Virgil describes her as an enormous, screeching, flying monster that never tires in spreading her tales: “in delight she filled the ears of the nations / with endless gossip, singing fact and fiction alike” (Aen. 4.189-190). I chose to incorporate her into my myth because I thought she made a great parallel with what we see today as the sometimes unreliable spread of news that depends upon the sharing of news between acquaintances. Furthermore, the mixing of truth and lies that Virgil describes is something that often accompanies this, as sometimes accounts include a combination of information – some of which is backed up by facts, some of which may not be. And whenever rumour is involved today, it very often depends upon the emotional weight given to it, which makes it part of the post-truth tendency towards emotional appeals.
Finally, the reason I elected for a more ancient Greek setting was partly for mostly because of the Apollonian vs. Dionysian dynamic. I felt that the dynamic between Apollonian reason and Dionysian madness would be easier to express in the traditional setting, where for example Mainades typically roamed the forests and Apollo could set the urn outside the palace of the gods on Mount Olympus. This setting also meant that I could write of a time when men had the fullness of wisdom and truth such as in the Gold Age from Hesiod’s Works and Days, where mortals “did their work peaceably and in prosperity” (Op. 140). It made it easier to show the difference before and after the change, thus lending itself better to the aetiological aim.
Bibliography
Acusilaus. “Fragment 39.” Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited and translated by Stephen M. Trzaskoma, et al., Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, pp. 1.
Calame, Claude. “The Semiotics and Pragmatics of Myth.” A Companion to Greek Mythology, translated by Ken Dowden, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 507-524, doi: 10.1002/9781444396942.ch27.
Hesiod. Works and Days and Theogony. Translated by Stanley Lombardo, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1993.
Kreis, Steven. “Nietzsche, Dionysus and Apollo.” The History Guide, 13 Apr. 2012, www.historyguide.org/europe/dio_apollo.html.
McIntyre, Lee C. Post-Truth. MIT Press, 2018.
Proclus. Chrestomathy. Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited and translated by Stephen M. Trzaskoma, et al., Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, pp. 378-382.
“To Aphrodite.” Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited and translated by Stephen M. Trzaskoma, et al., Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, pp. 197-202.
“To Hermes.” Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited and translated by Stephen M. Trzaskoma, et al., Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, pp. 187-197.
Virgil. The Aeneid. Translated by A. S. Kline, Poetry in Translation, 2002, www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasaeneid.php.
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