Seltman Dr. Charles T. - The Twelve Olympians

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Text originally published in 1952 under the same title.

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THE TWELVE OLYMPIANS:

GODS AND GODDESSES OF GREECE

BY

CHARLES THEODORE SELTMAN

Contents

OURANOS

GEKRONOS, RHEA, TITANS, GIANTS

KRONOS

RHEAPOSEIDON, ZEUS, HERA, HESTIA, HADES, DEMETER

POSEIDON

DEMETERPERSEPHONE, ARION

AITHRATHESEUS

MEDUSACHRYSAOR, PEGASUS

AMPHITRITE

TYROPELIAS, NELEUS

ZEUS

ATHENE

HERAHEBE

MAIAHERMES

SEMELEDIONYSOS

LETOAPOLLO, ARTEMIS, ARES

DIONEAPHRODITE

DANAEPERSEUS

ALCMENEHERAKLES

HERA

HEPHAISTOS

HEPHAISTOS

APHRODITEEROS, HERMAPHRODITOS

ATHENEERICHTHONIOS

HERMES

PENELOPEPAN

CHIONEAUTOLYKOS

HERSEKEPHALOS

DAEIRAELEUSIS

PANDROSOSKERYX

APHRODITE

ANCHISESAENEAS

APOLLO

CORONISASKLEPIOS

CYRENEARISTAIOS

HADES

PERSEPHONE

THIS little book, had it been written twenty years ago, would have been poorer in its content and more dependent on older conventional ideas about ancient religion. Certain fresh revelations, compelling us to the revaluation of former conceptions, have in recent times arisen from the researches and reflections of four particular scholars. Professor M. P. Nilsson of the University of Lund has found the true explanation of the Greek attachment to Athene, Professor H. G. Gterbock of the University of Ankara has accounted for the crudities in early tales about the parentage of Zeus and Aphrodite, Mrs. J. Chittenden of the University of Edinburgh has thrown a flood of fresh light on that fascinating deity Hermes, and Professor W. K. C. Guthrie of the University of Cambridge has recently published a work which admirably describes certain trends in Greek religion. The works of these scholars, to whom I owe much, are mentioned in the short bibliography. As for my own interest in the goddesses and gods of the Greeks, I must confess that it goes back to an early childhood part-spent in wandering and daydreaming among the sun-baked ruins of Pompeii. Yet such impressions would have faded without the stimulus which I was fortunate to receive from a teacher unrivalled in humanitas . No work on ancient religion more learned and more instructive than Professor A. B. Cooks Zeus has so far been written. The first volume appeared before I became his pupil in Queens College, but I had the good luck to watch the growth of most of the second and all of the third volumes during more than two decades. The honourable mention which I have won in some of the footnotes to that great work must be my excuse for writing this book in a spirit, I hope, of deference and moderation.

For the group of photographs which have been included I tender thanks to the Directors and Heads of Departments in Athens (National Museum), Boston (Museum of Fine Arts), London (British Museum), New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Paris (Muse du Louvre), and Providence (Rhode Island School of Design); also to Mrs. Robert Emmet of Wilton, New Hampshire, for the picture of her Artemis. Furthermore, I am much indebted to the Rev. H. St. J. Hart, Fellow of Queens College, for valuable suggestions; and to the learning of Mrs. J. Chittenden who has given help in various ways, especially about the cults of Hermes and Artemis. On matters involving expert knowledge within their own specialised spheres, I owe thanks to the Very Rev. Dr. Selwyn, Dean of Winchester, as well as to Dr. A. E. Dunstan and the Management of the Exhibition produced by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Shell Petroleum Company in July 1951 in the University of Cambridge.

The first chapter must not be misunderstood. It is not a proclamation of my own personal viewswhich are touched upon at the end of the final chapterbut an attempt to learn the facts about a religious climate that differs from ours. I am endeavouring, while I seek to understand the old beliefs, to keep my mind detached from those pieties of childhood which are engendered in the nursery and proclaimed in the Litany. But I in no way wish to derogate from the official and recognised faiths of the Western World, rather only to indicatewith such scientific impartiality as it may be possible to attainthe differences between ancient and modern modes of approach to godhead; and also to point out that a Greek would have raised the eyebrows of surprise at a variety of prevalent views, practices, and ways of religious life. Yet these require consideration in order to contrast them with ancient Greek views, practices, and ways of religious life, and in order to account for the weakness of a cultured, fancy-free paganism unconstrained by and unobedient to sanctified persons or writings. It is not possible to understand ancient myth, cult, and faith until we have been made aware that these things were vulnerable not because they were, like some of their modern equivalents, absurd, but because they were too fragile and too fine.

Queens College, Cambridge, 1952

C. S.

The authors thanks are due to the following for permitting quotations: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. (H. B. Cotterills Odyssey ); Mr. F. L. Lucas and J. M. Dent & Co. Ltd. (Hymn to Aphrodite in Greek Poetry for Everyman ); Dr. E. V. Rieu and Penguin Books Ltd. ( Odyssey and Iliad ); the Editors of the Loeb Classical Library (H. G. Evelyn-Whites Hesiod and Homeric Hymns and A. W. Mairs Callimachus ), published by Wm. Heinemann Ltd.; Mr. J. E. Powell and the Clarendon Press ( Herodotus ); Mr. D. W. Lucas, Mr. F. J. A. Cruso, and the Cambridge Greek Play Committee ( Euripides Bacch and Aristophanes Frogs ); Mr. R. C. Trevelyan and Allen & Unwin Ltd. ( Translations from Greek Poetry ); and the Editors of History Today for allowing the author to quote in extenso from two of his own articles.

Some abbreviations used:

AAC =H. BOSSERT, Art of Ancient Crete , 1937

AGA =CHARLES SELTMAN, Approach to Greek Art , 1948

AJA = American Journal of Archology

CAH=Cambridge Ancient History

HESP = Hesperia

NC = Numismatic Chronicle

OCD = Oxford Classical Dictionary

RE = Real-Encyclopdie

Some books and articles relevant to the subject:

COOK, A. B., Zeus , 3 vols., 19141940

GUTHRIE, W. K. C., The Greeks and their Gods , 1950

MURRAY, GILBERT, Five Stages of Greek Religion , 1925

NILSSON, M. P., Minoan-Mycenan Religion , 2 nd Edition, 1950

ROSE, H. J., Handbook of Greek Mythology , 1928