"Melampus was a man of exceptional piety and became a friend of Apollo."
(Const.Exc 2(1) p.211)
Melampus begot Antiphates and Mantius. Antiphas sired great-hearted Ocicles, in turn the father of Amphiaraus "whom Zeus...and Apollo heartily loved in all manners of ways."(Od 15.238). Amphiaraus was dear to the gods and did not die but was enfolded in Gaea's bosom as he fled the defeat of the seven against Thebes (Statius, Thebiad 8.329).
Amphiaraus left behind two sons Alcmaeon and Amphilocus. Amphilocus becomes a god according to Lucian (DD 10.). Meanwhile his cousin Cleitus, son of Mantius, son of Melampus "golden-throned Dawn snatched away by reason of his beauty that he might dwell with the immortals." od 15.238
So here is the lineage of Melampus, a man of exceptional piety. We have no record of his descendants' piety, but several were dear to the gods or made immortal. Though not meeting these specific criteria, other Melampides were obviously favored by the gods. So was it good genes, good upbringing or good reputation for their family that made so many of them dear to the gods?
Previous segments of this discussion include;
Part II: The
Trojans Princes
I'd wish to quote from Dodds' Greeks and the Irrational:
ReplyDelete"The later stages of the moral education of Zeus may be studied in Hesiod, in Solon, in Aeschylus; but I cannot here follow this progress in detail. I must, however, mention one complication which had far-reaching historical consequences. The Greeks were not so unrealistic as to hide from themselves
the plain fact that the wicked flourished like a green bay-tree. Hesiod, Solon, Pindar, are deeply troubled by it, and Theognis finds it necessary to give Zeus a straight talk on the subject... It was easy enough to vindicate divine justice in a work of fiction like the Odyssey: as Aristotle observed, "poets tell this kind of story to gratify the desires of their audience."... It was not so easy in real life. In the Archaic Age the mills of God ground so slowly that their movement was practically imperceptible save to the eye of faith. In order to sustain the belief that they moved at all, it was necessary to get rid of the natural time-limit set by death. If you looked beyond that limit, you could say one (or both) of two things: you could say that the successful sinner would be punished in his descendants, or you
could say that he would pay his debt personally in another life."
Continued:
ReplyDelete"The second of these solutions emerged, as a doctrine of general application, only late in the Archaic Age, and was possibly confined to fairly limited circles... The other is the characteristic archaic doctrine: it is the teaching of Hesiod, of Solon and Theognis, of Aeschylus and Herodotus. That it involved the suffering of the morally innocent was not overlooked: Solon speaks of the hereditary victims of
nemesis as... "not responsible"; Theognis complains of the unfairness of a system by which "the criminal gets away with it, while someone else takes the punishment later"; Aeschylus, if I understand him rightly, would mitigate the unfairness by recognising that an inherited curse may be broken... That these men nevertheless accepted the idea of inherited guilt and deferred punishment is due to that belief in family solidarity which Archaic Greece shared with other early societies and with many primitive cultures today. Unfair it might be, but to them it appeared as a law of nature, which must be accepted: for the family was a moral unit, the son's life was a prolongation of his father's, and he inherited his father's moral debts exactly as he inherited his commercial ones. Sooner or later, the debt
exacted its own payment..."
Maya,
Delete"It apoeared as a law of nature..." Thank you for that it gives me a theorectal bases for my research. The mortal extension of this logic is the Israelis destroying the home of arab disseants, empires destroying the village the rebels came from and romans crucifying ever tenth subjugated man until the locals settle down.
Bill
The Soviet penal code contained an article specifying a prison term for "family members of traitors of the Motherland":
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repression_of_Family_Members_of_Traitors_of_the_Motherland
Among countries considered civilized, the most striking example to me is the treatment of Lebensborn children after WWII. There babies were severely abused just because their fathers were German:
"A leading psychiatrist [in Norway] advised that a large proportion of the 8,000 (officially registered) children must be carrying bad genes and therefore would be mentally retarded; "genetically bad", he said, they "belonged in special institutions". As a result, hundreds of children were forcibly incarcerated in mental institutions. Here they were often abused, raped and their skin scrubbed until it bled. A member of the Norwegian ministry of social affairs said of them in July 1945: "To believe these children will become decent citizens is to believe rats in the cellar will become house pets." '"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-chosen-ones-the-war-children-born-to-nazi-fathers-in-a-sinister-eugenics-scheme-speak-out-771017.html
I didn't know of the Romans using this tactic. Here in Thrace, the resistance of locals was subdued by ordinary military actions.
The enemies of Israel (and us), unfortunately, themselves regard the individual as a part of the family rather than as an independent entity. In animals, self-sacrificial behavior (e.g. the worker bee stinging the attacker of the hive and dying) is explained by kin selection, i.e. the self-sacrificing individual perpetuates more copies of his genes in surviving family members by his sacrifice than he would leave if he had saved his life. It is a curious fact that human suicide bombers invariably come from societies with large families. And, of course, this leaves us helpless, because we have no efficient way to combat people who don't mind dying.
(OT: I've just read an interview with Syed Farook's father. He said he used to comfort his Israel-obsessed son: "Be calm, patience, in two years' time Israel will no longer exist." And he thought this would calm the young man! If I had said such a thing to my son, and if the story had ended in a mass murder, I would never admit it to any reporter! I wonder, who - and, more importantly, why - issues visas to such people?)
Maya,
ReplyDeleteI am reading "Hesoid" by Lamberton. He believes Hesiod worked on the moral education of Zeus because he (Hesiod) identified with the victims of power. Whereas Homer identified with the weilders of power.
Sin is rather a vague notion in Greek myth, so for the time being my research will concentrate on those lineage whose members are "dear" to the gods generation after generation. Thou of Maya's Law are you seeing any similarites between the lineages presented so far? Bill
And a little later:
ReplyDelete"it was also a misfortune that the functions assigned to the moralised
Supernatural were predominantly, if not exclusively, penal. We hear much about inherited guilt, little about inherited innocence; much about the sufferings of the sinner in Hell or Purgatory, relatively little about the deferred rewards of virtue; the stress is always on sanctions..."
You are giving examples of the opposite. Is it a coincidence that many of the gods' favorites are seers?
With my background, I of course vote for the good genes. The common denominator of the Trojan princes and the Melampidae is their beauty. It has a strong genetic component and makes them objects of sexual desire of goddesses. (And not only goddesses; Melampus was "friend of Apollo". However, Apollo is apparently unable to give or negotiate immortality. He succeeds just once, with Asclepius. Maybe it just doesn't sound right to imagine immortality as a gift exactly from the god of plague.)
ReplyDeleteThe Aeacides deviate from the rule. I don't remember anyone of them being characterized as handsome. Aeacus is a remarkable and apparently important but obscure figure. As I've complained before, I cannot understand his affair with Psamathe or the killing of their son Phocus by his half-brothers. Because Peleus and Telamon are consistently described as virtuous and blessed despite the murder, I guess that its function was merely to explain why they left Aegina and went to Phthia and Salamis, respectively.
ReplyDeleteMaya,
DeleteYou are going to hate the answer to 1202 remarks. Killing your step-mother's son is not a big crime. Just get a pig and petty king to purify you. Kill your mom or brother by the same mother and look out Erinyes are coming. Remember origionally the erinyes were all about crimes against the mother? No law against bigamy unless you count a jealous wife with a knife; plus it was rare. No law against rape or abduction unless you were violating the laws of hospitality. Regardless of societies high opinions of themselves, it isnt a sin, unless God or the gods say it is a sin. Now hubris; there is a sin!
I'm not sure it was so clear-cut.
DeleteIndeed, Pelias was likely "killed" by the Erinyes to avenge his maternal half-brother Aeson, brought by him to suicide.
On the other hand, Teucer did not even kill his paternal half-brother Ajax the Great, just had a guilty outlook because of surviving. Nevertheless, his father Telamon, who was ruler and judge as well, sent him into exile.
We have two mother-killer heroes, Orestes and Alcmaeon. The Erinyes try to avenge the killed mothers, and succeed in sending Alcmaeon into exile. Orestes gets away (unless we count the fact that his bloodline ends a generation later).
Medea kills a true brother and - nothing.
We do not know how the Erinyes would punish a patricide, because (as far as I know) there is no first-degree patricide in Greek mythology. I guess, for Greeks it was too horrible even to imagine. Oedipus kills his father without knowing the victim's identity. In Homer, he is not punished for this, but in later myth, he suffers more than Alcmaeon (let alone Orestes).
There couldn't be a law against rape as we know it, because "rape" from modern viewpoint is "sexual intercourse forced on a woman", and women in ancient Greece were not presumed to have a saying with whom to have sex. So the rape was a crime against the woman's legal guardian (father or husband), not against her. Ixion is regarded to have wronged Zeus rather than Hera. (Exception: virgin goddesses acted themselves against mortal rapists. Artemis personally punishes Acteon, who didn't even attempt rape. So I think Psamathe would revenge against Aeacus, if she was truly raped.)
My heroes (I mean, gods) have a discussion about Zeus' rapes and come to the conclusion that, as long as fathers insist to decide to whom to marry off their daughters, they are in a weak position when Zeus, "the father of gods", demands their daughters for himself.
"It isn't a sin, unless God or the gods say it is a sin."
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, God(s) rarely talk(s) directly to a National Assembly :-). So religious societies are hostages to (self-)appointed messengers of God(s).
I'll skip the depressing modern examples and look at Teiresias. He says that everything will be OK if Creon sacrifices one of his sons. Creon does it, and everything is OK for how long? - For a mere decade. Then, after a single battle, Teiresias advises the Thebans to abandon their city. Normally, if a resident of an attacked city advocates flight before all opportunities for defense have been exhausted, he is suspected to be bribed by the enemy. However, Teiresias is a holy man beyond suspicion, so if his advice is to give Thebes to a bunch of teenage thieves on a silver platter, then this is the will of the gods :-).
Maya,
DeleteStep back a bit and recall the big picture. Per the Cyria the point of two wars at Thebes was to double the body count, plus here was Olympus' final push to wipe out the divinish genes of the Theban royal family.
Of corse running didnt work out for the old seer. Didnt he die of shock when the water was so cold in the spring he drank from?
Bill
Wikipedia says, "Tiresias died after drinking water from the tainted spring Tilphussa, where he was struck by an arrow of Apollo." I don't know the original source. He had been Apollo's priest, according to some authors. Job done, employee dismissed. Maybe we see Apollo in the role of Destroyer of Cities here.
DeleteOf course the gods wanted events at Thebes to develop this way. However, why should we do as the gods want? If events had developed exactly as the Olympians want, we would still be cattle-breeding vegetarians freezing in winter :-).
This is the problem with folks like Teiresias, that they care more about what the gods' will than about fellow human beings. In all Abrahamian faiths, there are schools that foresee the coming end of the world under certain conditions. Do they try their best to avert or at least postpone the doom? No, they think there is nothing wrong with the end of the world, provided that it comes the "right" way. They try to meet the conditions for Apocalypse.
Maya,
DeletePat and I stumbled upon a minseries called "The Dig". It was about groups of fanatic Christians and Jews trying to bring on the Apocalypse. Anne Heiche and Jason Isaac starred. Real keep you on the edge if your seat television
Bill
A Muslim variety: an Iranian atheist blogger once posted a photo of a pen with an inscription on it and translated: "Do you know that the 12th Imam won't come back unless Israel is destroyed?" The souvenir was distributed among loyalists in Tehran.
DeleteI asked, "If I have grasped things right, the 12th Imam is presumed to come shortly before the end of the world. Then, if Shiites believe he will not come before Israel is destroyed, shouldn't they cherish and protect Israel in order to prolong the existence of this beautiful world? I mean, we all want to go to Heaven - but, if possible, not tonight, don't we?"
He replied, "I guess they can't wait for their 72 virgins. LOL!"
Maya,
DeleteThe Christian arguement for delaying Judgement day is it gives us more time to rescue more souls. Which might be like the Aesir delaying the same Day so the have a larger army of valkryies snatched (dead) warriors when they battle evil for the final time.
Bill
With the record of the Aesir - larcenies, oath-breaking etc. - I wonder who has a fairer claim to be the "evil" side :-).
ReplyDeleteMaya
DeleteThat is the truth! The Aesir were despicable! However, they were here. The Vanir come off as morally superior, but few stayed here to aid us. Rather than good versus evil, Raganor was more a battle between life and mindless chaos . Wasnt one of Loki's children amongst the pit of vipers gnawing at the very roots of the universal tree?
The rescuing of souls is an interesting subject.
ReplyDeleteIt becomes relevant only because God ordered Adam and Eve out of Paradise. Why did He do it? Theologians, beginning with St. Paul, keep talking about the "original sin" of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. I think this is nonsense. If God didn't want humans to seek and handle knowledge, He wouldn't have given them giant wrinkled brains. Knowledge is the most defining characteristic of man, reflected in our species' name. With the same success, God could declare that it is a sin to have binocular vision or speech.
To me, the scene is reminiscent of a father telling his adult children that it is high time to move out and find jobs.
Anyway, God puts an angel with a sword of fire to guard the entry to Paradise. I feel that there is something more significant than assigning an angel who could be called back at any time. Maybe God rearranged the Universe to remove the Paradise from the Earth and make it inaccessible to anyone in a mortal body. And this was a step even He could not reverse.
Maya,
DeleteI love your example of a father telling his grown children to get out. I dont know how many times I told my little son Jon not to touch the woodstove. But even then I knew perfectly well that he, like our first parents, would eventually touch that formidden thing.
Incidentally, I explain why my hero was named Ithax ("Fiery") exactly this way - that he as a toddler kept crawling to the fireplace.
DeleteMore heretical thoughts:
ReplyDeleteAt some moment, God decides to accept back some humans. (There is never an idea to rescue all mankind.)
The only way they can be readmitted is posthumously, as souls. However, they don't know how to get there. Someone has to show the path or possibly blaze it, like the Vedic Yama. This is of course Jesus.
How does He select the ones to be saved? He chooses some people from the neighborhood, gives them instructions and tells them to use His name as a password. I have no idea what His selection criterion was. With the working hypothesis that His father wanted company, I'd expect an intellectual criterion. However, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" contradicts this idea.
If you cannot reach the Paradise in a human body, then the Old Testament story of Elijah going alive to Heaven must be dismissed. I was satisfied to find that it is (John 3:13). I wonder what ultimately happened to the body of Jesus.
Maya,
ReplyDeleteThe primary criterion is self-selection. Both Old and New Testaments use the analogy of a feast. Wisdom cleans her house, loads her tables with food and then throws open the doirs. She ends up out front begging people to come in. Another I recall vaguely is the invited guests who cant bother showing up. The host goes out into the street to welcome the poor even giving them robes to wear.
There are people who wont walk towards the light.
Bill
Feasts are apparently important to explain how the world came / will come to be what it is / will be.
Delete