This is Part II on
my research into situations where the gods seem to confuse an ancient Greek
hero with his lineage and vice versa. Part
I was TFBT
Looking at His Lineage Rather than the Man
Homer tells us that; "Tros, who was lord of the Trojans, and to
Tros in turn there were born godlike Ganymedes who was the loveliest born of
the race of mortals, and therefore the gods caught him away to themselves, to
be Zeus' wine-pourer, for the sake of his beauty, so he might be among the
immortals” [i] This is the first instant of the Olympians’ love of Trojan princes, apparently due to their
beauty. Ganymede consequently became
immortal and unaging. He never had any
children. However his brother unfaulted
Ilus fathered Capys and his other brother Assaracus fathered the universally
hated Laomedon.
Laomedon in turn
sired Priam and Tithonus. Of Tithonus we
hear that golden-throned Eos (Dawn) snatched
up Tithonus presumeable because he was as beautiful as the deathless gods and
brought him to Ethiopia, and there consorting with him she bore two sons,
Emathion and Memnon.[ii]
At some point the rosy fingered goddess went to ask the dark-clouded Son of Cronos
that he should be deathless and live eternally; and Zeus bowed his head to her
prayer and fulfilled her desire.”[iii]
When Memnon died as men do, the gods
so loved him that once again the granted immortality to a descendant of Tros.[iv] Memnon’s
cousin Hector too is “dear to the gods.”
[v]
Meanwhile the
descendants of Capys though not made immortal seemed to be dear to the gods
also because of their great beauty.
Hence we hear;
"Anchises, (son of Capys) most glorious
of mortal men, take courage and be not too fearful in your heart. You need fear
no harm from me nor from the other blessed ones, for you are dear to the gods:
and you shall have a dear son who shall reign among the Trojans, and children's
children after him, springing up continually. His name shall be Aeneas, because
I felt awful grief in that I laid me in the bed of mortal man: yet are those of
your race always the most like to gods of all mortal men in beauty and in
stature.” (Homeric
Hymn to Aphrodite 191)
Of Aeneas’ son Ascanius supposedly Virgil says in the Aeneid
“Blessings
on your fresh courage, boy, scion of gods and ancestor of gods yet to be, so it
is man rises to the stars."
Ascanius was
ancestor of the Emperor August of Rome.
He as also the ancestor of Queen Victoria who ruled a quarter of the
planet and upon whose empire the sun never set.
These two other descendants of Tros seem pretty favored by the gods too!
It is strange to me that the Greeks, a culture preoccupied with male beauty, acknowledged the superior beauty of their enemies.
ReplyDeleteTrojan princes were descendants of Zeus, via Dardanus. Zeus systematically destroyed them. He abducted Ganymedes and arrested his development, caught Aphrodite at her word to deny eternal youth to Tithonus and "killed" Memnon, Priam and his sons in the Trojan War.
An exception is the line of Anchises, where Aphrodite intervened.
Maya,
DeleteAre tou forgetting Maya's Law? "Zeus doesn't like real women!" As I recall the Olympiian gods perferred Ionian and foreign women. Might be true of mortal men too
Bill
My explanation for Zeus' infatuation with Ganymedes:
ReplyDelete"As time passed, Zeus was becoming more and more worried. The prophecy and the bets made at each pregnancy started to disturb him. So when Apollo met a young man named Hyacinthus and made him his friend and even more than friend, Zeus decided to follow his example and to find a male favorite unable to conceive a son. He liked the handsome young Ganymedes of the house of Dardanus..."
Negotiating his release, Prometheus says to Hermes, "Contrary to what you are claiming, I behaved quite loyally. At the very beginning, I revealed that the source of the danger was a new marriage. If I hadn't told this, Zeus would surely have come across that woman and would have fallen from his throne a long time ago. Now, to stay in power, all he has to do is to stay by the side of Hera and all other women he already has, and also that boy he has kidnapped from Phrygia. As long as he controls himself, he will rule the world..."
Maya,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you make apollo the first t go gay? You could be right. Hyacinthus and Ganymede are about the same generation. Does something bad always happen to Apollo's lovers? Off-hand there seems an over abundance of people getting turned into plants and what not.
As to Ganymede he didnt seem to slow Zeus escapades too much
I did some research once on the olympian homosexuality. Only Hera's brother Hades and Her sons Hepheastus and Ares were strictly heterosexual. Hmm.
Bill
Thracian gods are red-haired, cat gods catch mice, and Greek gods are bisexual :-). I admit that, to me, the widespread male homosexuality isn't the most admired feature of ancient Greek society. I suppose that this was a measure of population control, together with the habit of men not to marry until well into their 30s. We know of another even more desperate such measure, the widespread exposure of unwanted infants. (And there seems to have been no "pro-life" movement.)
ReplyDeleteI understand that free Greek men used their young male slaves for sex. What I don't understand is how free ephebes found themselves in the same situation. How on Earth did their fathers allow this?
Maya,
DeleteOlder men and younger male lovers was almost a rite of passage in some parts of Greece. It was ritualized and legislated. As to why parents allowed it, it was part of their culture. Nit was what the ancient Greeks did.
Of course, if Zeus was able to control himself and be satisfied with his wife and his numerous already tested paramours (of either sex), the succession prophecy would be made void. To be meaningful, it implies Zeus' irresistible urge to sleep with everything that moves.
ReplyDeleteMy Ganymede refuses to sail to the Isles of the Blessed and insists to be let to return to his race and resume his human life. He threatens that otherwise he will stop eating ambrosia. The gods finally leave him in Athens because his Troy is no more.
Maya,
DeleteBecoming immortal is a "once and for always" thing. Just because you stop eating ambrosia and nectar doesnt mean you die. Which means your Ganymede is still around. What's he doing?
Bill
In my world, if you haven't enough copies of immortality genes and you stop eating ambrosia, you are doomed. This is how Chiron and the Cyclopes become mortal and eventually die. The monopoly over ambrosia production and distribution is an important power tool for Zeus.
DeleteGanymede isn't a very inspiring character, but there is no way I could leave someone to be kept in sex slavery indefinitely. Besides, I have some sympathy to Hera. I've just checked Ganymede's Theoi page. It turns out that Byzantine authors also "kill" him. By this time, "love" between an adult male and a teen boy was no longer mainstream Greek culture :-).
Apollo is the archetype of a psychopath. I find it curious that he is borrowed from Asia Minor, Marsyas is also from Phrygia, and we read in Mika Waltari that the Hittites skinned their prisoners (it seems that actually this was a habit of the Assyrians, or at least their rulers bragged about it in the annals, but anyway, it is roughly the same region).
ReplyDeleteSuch a male will not be liked by normal women, except maybe some very naive ones. And when he likes a woman, it will not end well for her.
I avoided "marrying" characters that are not married in at least one version of the myth, with one exception: Apollo and Hermaphroditus.
ReplyDeleteHermaphroditus has an apparently normal development until puberty, when he fails to develop male characteristics. His parents want him treated, but he himself wishes to stay as he is. Apollo, one of the very few gods competent enough in medicine, refuses to treat him. All wonder why - it cannot be for ethical reasons, because Apollo doesn't have such a thing as ethics. Only Prometheus' wife guesses the true reason - that Apollo likes Hermaphroditus more as he is.
It seems to me that refusing to admit who you are and to accept yourself facilitates the transition to the Dark Side. Psychopathy is thought to result from a combination of hereditary and environmental factors. Apollo is Zeus' son, so the heredity is there. What is the contribution of environment? Apollo has never been loved by anyone. And I add another reason: he pretends to be heterosexual, which he isn't. Meeting Hyacinthus helps him to know and accept himself.
A major reason why my gods let Zeus keep his throne (at least nominally) is because who is the alternative? - Yes, exactly. Nobody wants Assad replaced with ISIS.
At the end of my story, the Muses will ask Apollo how he was reformed. He will say that loving his son and being loved by Hermaphroditus has helped, but at the same time will admit that he is not quite as reformed as he looks.
The awful truth of my divine history is that the gods need a person like Apollo to win their freedom. I do not like this, but it is a fact. I also do not like when war is needed in the real world, but it often is.
ReplyDeleteMaya,
DeleteI have always considered Apollo as the maintainer of the status quo. He most constantly affirms the distance between gods and men. His pro persian attitude during the wars says that the Greeks (us) with divine blood in their veins were still a threat to Olympus
I am not quite sure that Apollo is pro-Persian. Different authors hold opposite opinions. Besides, worry about the Greek divine genes is not the only possible reason. Some Trojans (e.g. Hector) also have divine ancestry and nevertheless Apollo supports them.
DeleteYou are quite right that Apollo defends a boundary, or even a buffer zone, between gods and men. He is against men aspiring for divine privileges (except his son, of course). However, he is not a loyal subject of Father Zeus. He shoots the Cyclopes and is sentenced to serve Admetus. He also serves Laomedon, together with Poseidon. For what were they punished? Some think that Apollo took part in the attempted coup mentioned by Homer. And remember the beginning of his Homeric hymn, Apollo approaching Zeus' throne armed and other gods trembling.
BTW, Hesiod does not mention what gifts Apollo and Artemis gave Pandora, although they must have been born by this time. In my story, Apollo fills the jar.
BTW, homo-erotic relationships give powerful tools to epic poets: to externalize part of the hero's soul as another person, and to allow the hero to be active after experiencing (vicarious) death. This seems to be the case with Achilles and Patroclus, and also with Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
ReplyDelete