Paul Chrystal - War in Greek Mythology

War in Greek Mythology

Women in Ancient Rome (2013)

Roman Women: The Women Who Influenced Roman History (2015)

In Bed with the Romans (2015)

Wars and Battles of the Roman Republic (2015)

Roman Military Disasters* (2015)

In Bed with the Ancient Greeks (2016) Ancient Greece in 100 Facts (2017) Women in Ancient Greece (2017)

When in RomeA Sourcebook for Daily Life in Ancient Rome (2017) Women at War in the Classical World* (2017 and 2020 in Paperback) How to be a Roman (2017)

Wars and Battles of Ancient Greece (2018)

Roman Record-Keeping & Communications (2018)

Emperors of Rome: The Monsters* (2018)

Rome: Republic into Empire The Civil Wars of the First Century BCE * (2019)

The Romans in the North of England (2019) Reportage from Ancient Greece and Rome (2019) War in Roman Myth and Legend* (in press)

Marvels, Mysteries & Magic in the Ancient World (in press)

* Denotes titles in print with Pen & Sword Books

Paul Chrystal

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Paul Chrystal 2020

ISBN 978 1 52676 616 8

eISBN 978 1 52676 617 5

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52676 618 2

The right of Paul Chrystal to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Greek myths, early Roman history, is configured around violence against women. And I think we need to get in there, get our hands dirty, face it, and see why and how it was.

Mary Beard

The higher Greek poetry did not make up fictitious plots; its business was to express the heroic saga, the myths.

Gilbert Murray

Front Cover Image: Triumphant Achilles: Achilles dragging the dead body of Hector in front of the gates of Troy. The original painting (1892) is a fresco on the upper level of the main hall of the Achilleion at Corfu, Greece.

Franz Matsch (18611942)

Photographer: User: Dr.K.

M y thanks to Susan Deacy, Professor of Classics, University of Roehampton, London for permission to quote from her work on Greek myth and autism which has resulted in a project whose goal was to develop activities for autistic children focused around classical myth. This can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=susan%20deacy&epa=SEARCH_BOX Please also have a look at http://myth-autism.blogspot.com/ , Susan Deacys blog on autism and the Greek myths.

P aul Chrystal has Classics degrees from the Universities of Hull and Southampton. He then went into medical publishing for more than thirty years but now combines this with writing features for national newspapers and history magazines such as Minerva Magazine , BBC History Magazine , Ancient History Magazine , Omnibus and Ad Familiares . He has appeared regularly on BBC local radio on the BBC World Service and Radio 4s PM programme. He has been history advisor for a number of York tourist attractions and is the author of 100 or so books on a wide range of subjects, including many on ancient Greece and Rome, and specifically women, sexuality, war and conflict in those civilizations. He is a regular reviewer for and contributor to Classics for All and a contributor to the Classics section of OUPs Oxford Bibliographies Online . He is a prepublication referee for Yale University Press. He is the editor of York Historian , the journal of the Yorkshire Architectural & York Archaeological Society. Paul is also guest speaker for the prestigious Vassar College New Yorks London Programme in association with Goldsmith University. He lives near York and is married with three grown-up children.

York, May 2020

www.paulchrystal.com

T his is the first of two books on war and conflict in Greek and Roman mythology and legend.

Even though war, and conflict generally, form a seminal part of Greek and Roman mythology and Roman legend, comparatively little has been written on the subject either in books or in scholarly articles. A search through the indexes of the most influential books on Greek mythology published in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries will reveal few entries for war as a specific topos: Giants, Titans, Trojan heroes and Hercules are all there but it is only indirectly and tangentially that war per se is treated. This is perhaps surprising because wars and battles in the mythologies and legends of both civilizations are freighted with symbolism and were laden with meaning and significance; historical, political, social and cultural. The gods and goddesses of war are prominent members of the pantheons of both Greece and Rome; in addition many other deities and heroes were by no means averse to belligerence and dabbled in conflict in one form or another. In Greece the Theban and Trojan Wars were of major significance culturally; for Rome the battles to secure its very foundations were similarly crucial.

These books then the second is War in Roman Mythology and Legend are an attempt to collect together the mythologies relating to war and conflict in Greece and Rome as depicted both in literature and the visual arts and to explain, where possible, their symbolism and significance.

The battles fought by and between Titans, Giants and Amazons, between centaurs and Lapiths, and by heroes like Heracles were pivotal in the annals of Greek civilization. The Trojan War itself had massive consequences for the troubled Greek houses of Atreus and Thebes and for the many heroes who battled relentlessly around the Mediterranean on their various ways home.

All of this is covered here in this first book which shows how conflict in mythology and legend resonated loudly as essential, even existentialist symbols in Greek culture and how they are represented in classical literature, philosophy, religion, feminism, art, statuary, ceramics, architecture, numismatics, etymology, astronomy and even vulcanology.

The book concludes with a survey of how Greek mythology and legend has been adapted, repurposed and rewritten and put to good use in modern culture and society, not just in retellings but in radical literary and theatrical interpretations, and indeed the use of Greek myths in the treatment of those on the autistic spectrum. To ensure the ongoing survival of these wonderful myths we need to harness, harvest and encourage, more than ever, the ingenuity and inventiveness of those who are striving to keep them dynamic, vigorous and relevant.