Everyone Hates Theseus (Except Me)

I joke a lot about how I am the only person left who doesn't hate Theseus but--fam, it is WILD to me, every time I slam up against that wall again. So this is your warning: I am UNAPOLOGETICALLY biased toward Theseus, and this post is just one gut-driven facet of my defense!

Gustave Moreau, Athenians Being Delivered to the Minotaur, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Heracles had a choice, according to his myths, and chose glory. Achilles had a choice, according to his myths, and chose glory. Theseus had a choice, according to his myths, and chose glory. But today, culturally, Theseus (and to a lesser extent Achilles) gets the most heat for making that choice (and is reduced to a self-serving gloryhound only)--even though his choices generally better the circumstances for the people he ultimately wants to serve/lead (Athens). 

Heracles's labors, in contrast, are most often framed inside his mythology as a means by which he ultimately serves himself--to redeem himself for the murder of his wife and children (or his children and nephews, or all three). He doesn't really have much of a choice about taking these labors on, because it's either DO THE THINGS, DIE, or BE FOREVER OUTCAST. And while those feats are impressive and worthy of awe, few of them are really improving things for anyone else--they're just increasing his fame. His initial choice to pursue glory despite his affliction of madness by Hera starts a war for Thebes (by another act of his madness), and then he is elevated for winning that same war he started, then he murders his family in another fit of madness and is forced to flee and seek atonement/purification through his labors. Is that really so much more sympathetic?

Theseus didn't HAVE to take the Isthmus road and clear it of the monsters who preyed upon travelers (the labors which are generally considered to be comparable to Heracles'). One could argue that he HAD to volunteer himself to go to Crete if he wanted legitimacy as a prince (and later king) of Athens, to prove himself to a people who did not know him, but it doesn't only serve him to do so--it serves as an attempt to liberate Athens from the oppression of Crete, which imho, served as a metaphor/explanation for the fall of what we today refer to as Minoan Civilization and the rise of what we consider Mycenaean/mainland Greek influence and dominance in that period. 

BUT. It's curious to me, that we have culturally chosen to elevate the hero who is most famously acting for himself (Heracles) while dismissing and undermining the heroes who took action against powerful forces seeking to subjugate or harm others. The way we have maligned Achilles also, for example, the only hero who speaks out against a leadership that is wasting the lives of its army for the ego and selfishness of one man to fight a war that should never have been fought and reduced him to someone who selfishly sulks in his tent while others die for the Achaean cause--when it was on behalf of the Achaeans dying of plague he spoke out to begin with! It's not hard to see who that narrative might serve in the modern age. 

Theseus is hated (it seems to me) primarily because he abandons or forgets Ariadne on the beach, and everything else he did (saving Athens from having to send its children to die in Crete in perpetuity, making the Isthmus road--the land connection between the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece--safe for travelers) has become meaningless in the wake of that one act, transforming the entire shape of his character in retellings of his myths--even though Ariadne ends up the consort of a god, elevated far beyond what she might have found as Theseus's wife and Queen of Athens. But how many women does Heracles take in the course of his adventures and pass off to other men or leave behind pregnant without looking back? Why don't we ever get upset on their behalf and condemn Heracles to the same degree? Why is it only Theseus who gets all that heat? 

This is not to say that there are not valid critiques of these heroes, all of them. That we should not look at Heracles and Theseus and Achilles and their actions from a modern perspective and condemn what is obviously garbage behavior. None of them really hold up well as romantic literary heroes without some massaging of their stories (though I would argue that we hold up people just as flawed and problematic and selfish and even monstrous--or more monstrous even--as heroes today in and out of literature. We have only to look at the praise heaped upon authoritarian dictators, upon billionaires making bank by strip-mining the planet and exploiting labor, at famous figures who abuse their loved ones or those they employ, to see that we are not at all immune to that same impulse in the present.) But isn't it also just as legitimate to retell their stories in ways that allow us to reconnect with these heroes of the past? To make of these figures, these stories, someone worthy of the fame they'll likely never shake? 

If they are only fiction, then maybe it makes no difference either way, except to give ourselves an aspirational ideal if we want it. But if they are and were bridges between the mortal and the divine, bringing them into the present in a way that makes them worthy (without dismissing utterly the context from which they sprang), that helps us find our own (modern) ways to the gods, feels not only important, but somehow necessary.

Leaving that aside for the moment, the most important thing I'm saying here is this: 

If we are going to forgive Heracles for being a drunken brawling brute, for literal murder and the waging of city-destroying wars, for taking lover after lover with no shortage of dubiousness on the issue of consent to say nothing of the power dynamics in play, can't we not also, maybe, just CONSIDER not ALWAYS hating on Theseus, when most of his core mythology is just him trying (not always successfully or without consequence to others) to make things better?

And if you want to read my take, you can start with HELEN OF SPARTA or TAMER OF HORSES!

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Heroes of BY HELEN'S HAND: Heracles!

Since it's been a while, and most of my posts relating to the research and reading I did to write HELEN OF SPARTA and BY HELEN'S HAND are buried in the archives, I thought it might be a good idea to bring some of them back to your attention, hero by hero and topic by topic, so when May 10th rolls around, you'll be as ready to read as I was to write!  

NB: The Myths are the Myths, but most of these posts will include my perspectives and approaches to them, which could be spoiler-ish, so proceed with caution! 

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Heracles and I have a strange history. I did not always love him -- despite Kevin Sorbo's winning charm. I just didn't get him. He seemed so one-dimensional to me for a long time. And maybe that was in part because I was thinking of him still from the perspective of my childhood's understanding vs really digging into his character as it is presented in the myths, but maybe also, it's because at first glance he does come off as a little bit... difficult to love, from the modern perspective. Like with Achilles, it took me a little more work to come to terms with him on HIS own terms.

The end result, ultimately, is that I was super excited when I realized I could include Heracles in BY HELEN'S HAND. And of course, it's always an interesting challenge to include someone so much larger than life and so well-known -- but I'd like to think I kept him from stealing the show.

Heracles Is Not My Favorite

This is an old blogpost from my Amalia Dillin blog that never made the cross-post transition, but seems relevant. These are the thoughts of 2011 me, when I first started realizing that maybe there was more to Heracles than I'd initially thought. It all started with a list of consorts, and a sculpture. And sculpture -- well, that is my favorite. (Totally Spoiler free!)

Heracles (and Euripides)

***Spoilers for By Helen's Hand!***

Mostly an introduction to the following post, but includes a couple of small interesting pieces about both Euripides' timeline of events, and Heracles himself. (I mean, if you know your myths it isn't a spoiler but! Even so. The last paragraph is definitely a little generically spoileriffic.)

Heracles and Theseus in Contrast

***Spoilers for By Helen's Hand***
In the latter part of his play, Euripides illustrates the bond between Theseus and Heracles. They’re friends, of course, and why wouldn’t they be, being the two most celebrated heroes of their time[...]. And in Heracles' most desperate hour of need, when he is contemplating for the first time the thought of suicide to revenge upon himself the murder of his wife and children, it’s Theseus who comes to his aid. (Again, SPOILERS. Like, in the first paragraph even!)



If you're an old fan of Amalia Dillin!me, you may have seen a sneak peek of a very small element of his inclusion over yonder on ye olde Good to Begin Well, in a very early incarnation. You can count it as the first scene of BHH that was written, though where it appears in the final book...you'll have to wait to find out (and it is certainly a spoiler!) I'm not going to link because technically I probably should have taken it down :P but... it's there still for anyone who wants to find it! (And doesn't mind being a little bit spoiled on the events of BHH.)

I also did a not entirely serious comparison of Heracles and Jesus. Because you can make any two mythic heroes sound the same if you include the right facts and leave out the wrong ones. But I found it interesting as an exercise all the same!

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If you enjoyed Helen of Sparta don't forget to pre-order your copy of BY HELEN'S HAND -- available May 10th in paperback, audio (cd, mp3, and audible), and for kindle! Or maybe just mark it to-read on Goodreads in the meantime :) And don't forget to subscribe to THE AMALIAD for a free short story prequel to HELEN OF SPARTA: Ariadne and the Beast!

Holiday Hiatus!

The winners of the #NAMEthatBUTT challenge have been declared over on blog.amaliadillin.com, and I have LOTS of words to write, and Helen of Sparta's sequel to proof, which means it's time for the annual the HOLIDAY HIATUS! But before I go, a few notes:

1. Just in time for Christmas, the paperback edition of HELEN OF SPARTA is on sale during the month of December for just $8.75 on Amazon.com! Give the gift of Helen and Theseus to your friends, so they'll be ready for Book Two, BY HELEN'S HAND in June!
   
2. I've got more books by Amalia Carosella in the works once Helen's story wraps, but I can't share anything more about them quite yet! Just rest assured that I'll be using December and January and February to write like the wind for your future historical fiction reading pleasure. (Which means you might just mostly be getting writing cave updates when I'm back to posting in late January/early February.)
   
3. Did I mention both HELEN OF SPARTA and BY HELEN'S HAND are getting audio book editions?! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I'm super stoked, and I hope you are, too!!

And that's a wrap for now -- here's some Santa Herc to get you through the new year, along with my warmest wishes for the happiest holidays of your choice/tradition!

See you in 2016!

Not Without Theseus: A Hero's Propaganda

Theseus has a lot of adventures. He gets around a LOT, really, and gets all kinds of accolades that maybe, just maybe he doesn't entirely deserve. Stories, in fact, which one might even go so far as to consider... propaganda.

Theseus delivering a beat down. With a club.
image by Roland Longbow, via wiki commons

You see, there was this other hero back in the day. You might have heard of him -- that guy with the immense strength and the short fuse, likes the ladies, and goes by the name of Heracles? I mean, he was awesome. Sacked Troy all by his lonesome, went on ADVENTURES constantly, with his, ah, buddies. All those twelve labors with the bonus "get with all 50 of my daughters" 13th. Totally undefeated in all things except for Love. (Love conquers all, guys. Er. Or do I mean infidelity? So hard to keep them straight.)

Heracles was pretty stiff competition for anyone. But the Athenians -- they never settle for second best. Instead, they made Theseus a companion to Heracles on some of his most famous journeys. In fact, that went ahead and made Theseus a companion to everyone on their most famous journeys. They sent him off with Jason after the Golden Fleece, with Heracles against the Amazons, they sent his sons to Troy, even though they had totally been deposed by Menestheus when Theseus was run out of Athens upon his return from the Underworld. They inserted Theseus into so many stories, that he became his own expression: Not Without Theseus. Meaning, nobody got anything awesome done without the ATHENIAN hero himself. Not even Heracles!

So, Heracles had the 12 labors? Theseus had 6 of his own -- and conquered them before he'd even reached manhood! And!! After THAT, he liberated Athens from the subjugation of Minos by shipping out to Crete as tribute and killing the Minotaur. Yeah, okay, sure, maybe Heracles did kill snakes in his crib as an infant, but Theseus could have taken the easy route to Athens by sea, he didn't need a goddess to drive him into madness to become a hero, he made a deliberate choice to be all he could be! And he taught wrestling to the Greeks. And, he was so enlightened and just, he practically created DEMOCRACY!

Heracles? pfft. He just whaled on people with his club. All he had going for him was crude power. Theseus had brains as well as a club! Because Theseus is nothing if not a reflection of the virtues of Athens. A shining example of everything the Athenians believed in.

Now, I'm not saying Theseus didn't make with all the awesome -- but I am going to say this:

In other countries where the king sets up some additional governmental body to offer advice and maybe even make a few decisions on their own, while still remaining KING, himself, we don't call that a democracy. We call it a monarchy. In fact, Elective Monarchy might be the most fitting way of describing government in Theseus' day. And it wasn't special to Athens. In those days, nobody got to be king just because he was born a prince. Sure, it gave you a leg up, but if you didn't have the support of your people? Pfft.

Your days were numbered.

Even when you're Theseus, "bringer of democracy" and Hero of Attica.

(Crossposted)

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Available now!
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Long before she ran away with Paris to Troy, Helen of Sparta was haunted by nightmares of a burning city under siege. These dreams foretold impending war—a war that only Helen has the power to avert. To do so, she must defy her family and betray her betrothed by fleeing the palace in the dead of night. In need of protection, she finds shelter and comfort in the arms of Theseus, son of Poseidon. With Theseus at her side, she believes she can escape her destiny. But at every turn, new dangers—violence, betrayal, extortion, threat of war—thwart Helen’s plans and bar her path. Still, she refuses to bend to the will of the gods.

A new take on an ancient myth, Helen of Sparta is the story of one woman determined to decide her own fate.

The Affairs of the Gods, or, How Could Their Victims Have Been So Clueless?

There are two ways to approach questions like this:
1) The Events of the Myths Really Happened
2) The Events of the Myths Are Stories/Propaganda/Explanations/Metaphors/etc

If you've been hanging around me or my blog(s) for any length of time, you probably now that the fiction writer in me favors the first approach -- and imagining these characters and trying to discover their motivations and understand the choices they might have made is where a lot of the fun of writing about them comes from. So with this question, it's only natural that I'd start with the more literal perspective. (It's more just more interesting guys!)

The Short Answer:
I suspect that they were less clueless and more just uninformed.

The Long Answer:

Here's the thing. Today, if some king's daughter were kidnapped by a really pretty bull, the whole world would know about it. Or at least the part of the world that pays attention to that kind of information, anyway. (She'd also be found and returned home, probably, rather than dumped in another country to marry into their royal bloodline, but I digress.) Back in Europa's time? It was probably more of a quiet, regional event. Why should she expect the bull of being a god in disguise, intent on stealing her away, if she'd never heard of Zeus pulling that kind of stunt?* Maybe, possibly, some kind of rumor of Zeus coming down as a shower of gold to... make sweet love? to Danae** might have been making the rounds somewhere in the Peloponnese, but it is REALLY unlikely the story would have made it as far as Phoenicia, where Europa was hanging out with her maiden friends, enjoying the attentions of a particularly tame bull.

Now maybe these two examples are cheating, because both of these women were earlier victims of Zeus' proclivities, but the fact remains that there are no guarantees that any one of the  importuned women who followed would have had extensive knowledge of the god's other exploits. There's a couple of exceptions of course. Alcmene, for example, was the granddaughter of Perseus, so the story of Great-Grandmother Danae could easily have been part of family lore before her run in with Zeus and the subsequent birth of Heracles. But since Zeus took the form of Alcmene's own husband, Amphitryon, there is really no possibly way that forewarning might have helped her avoid his attentions.

It's easy for us to see all these stories laid out neatly and chronologically, with repeated themes of Zeus putting one over on some poor beautiful girl, and wonder why these people couldn't figure it out. But the truth is, those stories weren't assembled into the written word at all until centuries after the fact. If you consider that the Trojan War was basically the end of the Age of Heroes, and all the philandering that entailed, then the majority of these events would have taken place during the Greek Bronze Age -- the Mycenaean and Minoan periods. At the end of which, civilization kind of collapsed and the Greeks not-so-promptly forgot how to write for several hundred years.

Oral history is a lot more limited, regionally, though Homer provides us with evidence that even oral stories could be spread -- if the bard thought the audience would be interested. But if he didn't?

Well. It sure makes me appreciate the bounty of the internet for self-education, that's for sure.


*Europa was mother to Minos, which means she was at least one, maybe two generations before Theseus and Heracles.

**Danae was the mother of Perseus, who was himself the very FIRST of the Greek Heroes. He did not actually ride Pegasus, and the Kraken is a sea monster out of Scandinavia. Just for the record.

Heracles and Theseus in Contrast (and Euripides II)

Theseus attacking a Centaur

In the latter part of his play, Euripides illustrates the bond between Theseus and Heracles. They’re friends, of course, and why wouldn’t they be, being the two most celebrated heroes of their time, and it goes without saying that Theseus is indebted to Heracles for rescuing him from Hades and the chair of forgetfulness. But more than that, they’re cousins. Family. And in Heracles' most desperate hour of need, when he is contemplating for the first time the thought of suicide to revenge upon himself the murder of his wife and children, it’s Theseus* who comes to his aid.

But what’s more interesting to me is the differences in ideology between the two heroes. Heracles takes upon himself all the guilt for the death of his family, in spite of the fact that Hera drove him into madness, removing from him his ability to reason, his ability even to recognize his own children and wife. Theseus feels differently, placing the guilt upon the gods, and arguing that even the gods sin and suffer. Theseus says:

“I cannot counsel you to die rather than to go on suffering. There is not a man alive that hath wholly ‘scaped misfortune’s taint, nor any god either, if what the poets sing is true. Have they not intermarried in ways that law forbids? Have they not thrown fathers into ignominious chains to gain the sovereign power? Still they inhabit Olympus and brave the issue of their crimes.”

Farnese Hercules
(with his Apples)

It’s true. The gods are absolutely guilty of incest. Zeus and Hera are brother and sister, for starters. Plus there’s Heracles – a living example of weird family relationships.** And then there’s the whole gelding of Cronus. I mean, really.

But Heracles isn’t buying what Theseus is selling. Not in the slightest. He responds:

“For my part, I do not believe that the gods indulge in unholy unions; and as for putting fetters on parents’ hands, I have never thought that worthy of belief, nor will I now be so persuaded, nor again that one god is naturally lord and master of another. For the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable fictions of the poets.”

And then, even more tellingly, in regard to Heracles’ own character:

“But I, for all my piteous plight, reflected whether I should let myself be branded as a coward for giving up my life.”

In the end, it isn’t Theseus’ argument that others have suffered what he has, or even the question of his guilt, at all. In the end, Heracles doesn’t kill himself because he doesn’t want anyone to think he was a coward. Because Heracles will not let anyone call him anything other than brave. In the end, all that matters to him is his reputation, and nothing the gods have done to him can even compare.


*my hero!
**First, some genealogy. Heracles is the son of Zeus and Alcmene, she herself a granddaughter of Perseus, who was, of course, a son of Zeus, thereby making Alcmene Zeus’s great-granddaughter, and Heracles both Zeus’s son, AND his great-great-grandson.
Just for the record.

Heracles (and Euripides)

Youthful Heracles at the Met. As Opposed to the older,
more bearded Heracles opposite him in the gallery.

As you may or may not realize by now, I like the demigods. They're tragic and sometimes incredibly jerky and unlikeable, but part of me thinks that's what makes them so fascinating, particularly when trying to reconcile them against the modern world, and what we consider to be heroic. And one of our most plentiful sources on myths and legends and the characters of these fine (or not so fine) heroes? Euripides!

He wrote plays in Classical Athens, and we have a LOT of them, in bits and bobs and fragments, but also whole, and from these plays, we can tease out some of the cultural ideas of the time. For myself (and Heracles, who I am committed to getting a strong a handle on as I have Theseus, because he's a pretty complex dude for whom I am discovering new appreciation), I'm less interested in the politics and rhetoric than I am the mythology, and what Euripides' accounts are in regard to the various heroes and their stories. Sometimes he contradicts himself -- like with Helen of Troy: did she go to Troy or not? He has it both ways in two different plays. -- but that's okay, because those contradictions are places where I can start drawing my own conclusions and maybe twist the mythology in the direction I want it to go.

So far, I've picked up two important pieces of information on Heracles:
1) He had auburn hair, according to this play.
2) He had three sons by Megara.

The other fascinating thing about this particular play, is the fact that it begins while Heracles is in the Underworld, fetching Cerberus and rescuing Theseus from Hades -- the last of his 12 labors -- and Megara and his family are under threat of death at the hands of a usurper-king, waiting for his return. Now, my understanding of Heracles and Megara, was always that Heracles murdered Megara and their children in a fit of madness (set on him by Hera) and it was AFTER this, and to be cleansed of the blood on his hands, that he went about his Twelve Labors. This does not bode well for sorting out his timeline -- or maybe it just gives me the permission I need to sort things out into a chronology that will make for the best story.

When it comes to Mythology, you can only count on one thing: nothing is EVER conveniently linear!

More: Heracles and Theseus in Contrast (Euripides II)

Santa Herc, Making His List and Checking it Twice!

I believe I did promise you some santa-hat-wearing-hero antics, didn't I?

Happy Holidays!

From me and mine (and Santa Herc, too), to yours and you!

I'll be back to blogging come February, by which time I hope to have finished writing Hippodamia's story. (So much heartbreak, so little time, and the writer-cave will not be denied.)

original image is my own

Santa Edit Credit goes to author-friend Zak Tringali!

Jason and the Argonauts

I love Classical mythology. But there is no question that it is a mess of contradictions sometimes. Parallel stories growing up from different regions, only combined later, and never reconciled results in a number of fascinating Gordian Knots of confusion and crossed-paths. Sometimes there's enough of a narrative that you can fudge it without too much of a problem -- like the relationship between Theseus and Heracles, and their shared adventures -- but sometimes, there really is just no way to make it all work together coherently.

For example, Jason and those pesky Argonauts. Let me count the ways in which I find them impossible, for me, as a writer of historical fiction:

1) No one agrees about who all took part in this famous Voyage of Heroes.
          This muddling is no fault of Jason's or his crew, but rather the city-states who each wanted to have their hero take part and so, over time and with each addition, completely obscured any truth that might have ever existed. And here's the thing that makes this so frustrating: I can totally see Castor and Pollux elbowing Joe Hero who's trying to impress some king while bargaining for a wife, winking and smiling and saying "Oh yeah, Joe? He was with us on the Argo! He's the real deal!" I imagine, with that many people taking part, it would have been easy to fudge your way onto the list. Not unlike claiming you're some by-blow of Zeus or Ares or Apollo or Poseidon, because everyone knows the gods get around, right? BUT...

2) Trying to fit the voyage of the Argonauts into an historical and linear narrative with OTHER heroic quests and adventures is completely impossible.
          If you do figure out who went, fitting it in between Heracles' 12 labors etc, Theseus' Labors (and don't forget "Not Without Theseus" was actually a SAYING because he was involved in everything, apparently), Helen's abductions and the Trojan War, and the stories of the Dioscuri (Helen's brothers) is kind of ridiculous. It all takes place AT THE SAME TIME. Frankly, I'm inclined to believe that none of the major players went with Jason at all, because there is just no way to put it all together and have everyone be where they're supposed to be later. No. Way.
          Now, if the only book you're writing is Jason's, this isn't an issue, but guys, I love Theseus, Helen, Heracles, and Pirithous, and if I'm going to write me some historical fiction, for my own sanity, I'd like it all to fit in the same world. Jason and the Argonauts would shred my already extremely delicate balancing act of a timeline into pieces that would never, ever fit together again.

3) Balancing UMPTEEN Heroes all in one cast of characters while giving them all distinct personalities and a fair shake while not IMPOSSIBLE, definitely poses challenges.
          There sure would be plenty of conflict within the party. No lack of ego and hubris as they all struggle to work as a team when each one is used to taking the lead and doing their own thing. I mean, if Jason is in charge, that makes everyone else involved his SIDEKICK, and I'm just not sure how to tackle Heracles or Theseus as a sidekick to anyone -- they're both forces to be reckoned with, to say the least. Then of course there is the potential of bad blood between heroes who had engaged in altercations pre-voyage, all confined to a ship for how long?
         This is an ensemble cast of EPIC proportions -- and I do mean Epic in the most definitive sense -- and frankly, it gives me a headache just THINKING about it. Ensembles are hard to pull off, and while one day I might be ready to tackle that mess (in a standalone totally its own continuity adventure) I just can't imagine how I could do it justice at this juncture. Remember that there were between 40 and 60 men (and women) named as Argonauts. That is a LOT of folks to work into a narrative, even after you pair it down to the essentials. And the story of Jason and the Argonauts? That is definitely a retelling that will require some cutting of characters and creative license with the source materials to make it work, no question.

So when the day comes that my books are on shelves -- there is one hero you can safely bet won't be in the mix.

Sorry, Jason, it isn't you, really, it's me.

More on Kinship, Stupid Heroes, and other Links of Win

I'm swinging into Autumn by playing catch up, so today we have a round-up of related links and such, for my reference and yours!

FIRST some insight from the academic perspective on the Kinship of Greek Heroes, from twitter. With all my own reading and education, I still would kill to go back to school and take all the Classics courses all over again, I'm not going to lie.

Second, another excellent example of things I wish I'd been able to do in my classics program -- Archaeological Researches Go Into Battle to Test Bronze Age Weapons.

Related: You would not believe how much time I spent trying to research what would happen if rubbing alcohol was applied to a bronze dagger. I never did get a definitive answer, even after I spoke to a metallurgist, a physicist, and a metalsmith. Their advice was just to get some bronze and try it for myself.

Also Related: You would not believe how hard it is to find true bronze for craft/testing purposes. Most of what's sold with a bronze appearance is brass instead, so the jury is still out, and when/if I get my hands on some proper bronze, I'll let you know how it goes.

Third: Vicky Alvear Shecter has this fantastic blog post on Stupid Heroes which you should all go read immediately.  Including such classics as Heracles trying to shoot the sun out of the sky.

And finally, "If it looks like a drama, and is structured like a drama, then it is a drama." A website about the Gospels as Dramas, and how different gospels may have been written to evoke the different heroic journeys of a couple of important cultural heroes. Definitely worth an exploration for purposes of comparative mythology.

Kinship and Greek Heroes

I should be forbidden from camera-ing
so many crooked shots of doom.
(Farnese Hercules at The National Gallery)

One of the things I find really fascinating in Classical Mythology is the familial bonds between heroes and how little emphasis is placed upon them. It's so strange to think of these other heroes as siblings and cousins to one another. So often we don't have any understanding of those bonds in the stories that surround them. Pirithous and Theseus are an exception, in some respects, since we know from more than one source that they were like brothers -- but their relationship doesn't have anything to do with their shared lineage or the idea that they're cousins. They bond over their perceptions of one another as honorable and equals in strength and cunning and bravery.

We never hear about Heracles calling up his half-brothers or sisters, or really forming relationships with his blood-relatives on his divine side. Sure, he might have buddied up with Theseus to hit on the Amazons, and there's that whole Jason and the Argonauts thing, about which we will not speak, but even when Euripides showcases the friendship between Theseus and Heracles, there isn't any mention of their familial bond. They were friends and heroes in arms, but not explicitly spoken of as cousins, either.

Of course some of the heroes are from different generations, and not at all contemporaries -- like Pirithous and Perseus, for example, or Heracles and Perseus* -- so in that case, it's a lot less strange that there's no mention of any relationship they might have shared. But Pirithous and Heracles were contemporaries AND brothers, and I'm not sure I know a single myth in which they cross paths at all. So as I read, and write, I wonder: what might Pirithous have thought of his famous brothers, living and dead? Did he consider them kin at all? And if not, why not?

*Perseus is actually an ancestor of Heracles as well as his brother. Alcmene, Heracles' mother was Perseus' granddaughter. So in this case, one would think there would be even more of an acknowledgment of that family connection. But. Not so much. Then again maybe being the great-grandfather and brother of Perseus crossed some incestual line of weirdness for the Greeks, so they just kind of tried to ignore it.

The Fall of Theseus (II)

Last week I mentioned that Theseus went on two (related) adventures, which are, in my opinion, at the heart of why we overlook his twilight years, and directly related to his fall from grace. I know the suspense has been killing you, so let's just get to the good stuff:

photo by me!
Rodin's The Bronze Age
And yes, it is the same sculpture,
different medium.

First, Theseus kidnapped Helen from Sparta, which resulted in Sparta choosing the next King of Athens; and Second, which goes hand in hand with the first, he acted against the gods and abandoned Athens by accompanying Pirithous on his quest to the underworld to steal Persephone. And he didn't mess with just any god, but Hades, the lord of the dead, to whom all Greeks entrusted their shades at the end of their lives. Not only that, Theseus returned to Athens less whole than he left it, the backs of his thighs torn off when he was pulled from the Chair of Forgetfulness. Rescued by Heracles. (If he'd only just stayed home, would he have kept his kingdom AND Helen? I wonder...)

When Theseus returns to Athens after these adventures, he wasn't warmly received by his people. In his absence, his cousin was appointed as King by Helen's brothers, who by the way, also took their sister after threatening the city, and Athens wasn't interested in giving him back his throne. Whatever good Theseus had done for them, his time was over, and his people exiled him. It isn't really a triumphant ending for a hero. It isn't even a glorious death. Possibly crippled and forsaken by his own city, Theseus seeks a quiet retirement on the island of Skyros -- where he either slips, or is pushed off a cliff to his death. The end. There isn't any elevation to godhood for Theseus, like Heracles. He just dies. Pathetically.

Ultimately, Theseus isn't a hero anymore. He's a man stripped of everything who comes to an ignominious end. So of course the stories told more frequently come from his glory days, his youth, before he messed it all up as a King. Maybe people wanted to remember him as a paragon of virtue and brilliance, not as the guy who got kicked out of his own kingdom.

And honestly? I'm still kind of hoping to find some reference to his living out the rest of his days at the bottom of the sea in Poseidon's palace. I mean, after all the rest of the tragedy that was his life, I think he at least deserves that much.

The Fall of Theseus (I)

Rodin's The Bronze Age
photo by me!

Most of the stories about Theseus revolve around his early years -- his youthful vanquishing of the monstrous men along the gates to the underworld on the Isthmus road, his defeat of the Minotaur and the subsequent abandonment of Ariadne -- and a lot less attention is paid to his later life.

Most of the people who write fiction about Theseus or Helen of Troy skate over the place where their paths cross,* and we get kind of a highlights reel of his other adventures. Maybe he went with Heracles to see the Amazons. Maybe he brought democracy to Athens. He was for sure a king, and there's that business with his stolen Amazon bride, and the war with the Amazons, the death of Hippolytus, and his epic bromance with Pirithous... But most people don't know those stories very well. Most people aren't familiar with KING Theseus.

Why?

Well, it's probably in part because Theseus wasn't adopted by the Romans the same way that Heracles was. He didn't get a new name and new adventures, and he was never played by Kevin Sorbo in a live action tv show. (We will not speak of the atrocity that was IMMORTALS.) We have Plutarch, comparing Theseus to Romulus and glorifying both of them in a propaganda piece, and to be honest, there isn't really a lot of compelling storytelling about his twilight years. Theseus doesn't get his own letter, written by Ovid. And none of the surviving plays by Euripides are titled THESEUS. (There is Euripides' play about Hippolytus, of course, which is the exception to this rule, and also Euripides' play about Heracles, in which King Theseus guest stars, and has some really interesting things to say about the gods, as a contrast to Heracles himself.)

But I think there's maybe a reason why Theseus, ultimately, didn't get adopted by the Romans. Because there are two hugely problematic adventures which Theseus undertakes after he becomes King, and neither one of them ends well for Athens.

Which adventures were they? We'll lay them out next week!

*People skate over it because it's a later addition to the mythology. But I don't think it makes it any less significant or relevant -- it was important enough that they thought it was something that SHOULD be part of his story, and that's good enough for me.

The Fall of Antaeus, Son of Poseidon

The Epic Wrestling Match
photo © me!

Antaeus was a son of Poseidon and Gaia, a giant who drew power directly from his mother -- that is, the earth itself. He was one of those jerks who wouldn't let anyone pass through his land without first defeating him in a wrestling match. (This is the kind of guy Theseus might have taken apart on the Isthmus Road, just for the record. And in fact, Theseus does defeat a similar Wrestle-or-Die figure in Kerkyon as one of his own labors. I'd imagine the parallels are deliberate.) But of course, Antaeus being Antaeus, and drawing power from the ground underneath him, he was unbeatable. The losers ended up dead, and their skulls shingled his temple roof to the glory of Poseidon.

Why those skulls didn't go to a temple to the glory of his mother, whose strength allowed him to perform these feats, I do not know. Maybe he was trying to get his dad's attention, because Poseidon was an absent father figure. Considering Poseidon and Zeus' track records, it isn't difficult to imagine that they neglected their less impressive children.

Anyway. One day, Heracles was passing through Libya (Antaeus' home turf) and Antaeus being Antaeus couldn't just let that opportunity go. I'm sure at that point he was thinking: YES. A real opponent! Or maybe something along the lines of: Haha! If I defeat Heracles I will be famous throughout all the lands and my name will be remembered for all time! Fame was, as we know from Achilles' choice, of great value to the Greeks. But either way, whether it was pride or because he just wanted to test himself, Heracles was made to wrestle him.

Now, this sculpture -- I don't know. Antaeus does not look very large for a giant, or else Heracles has got to be supersized for a man. Maybe it was a little bit of both. But regardless, the story ends the way you might expect. Heracles lifts Antaeus up off the ground in a crushing bear-hug, preventing the giant from drawing upon his mother's power. Antaeus weakens, and Heracles defeats him utterly.

Now, Heracles is kind of not the brightest crayon in the box himself, so some say that Athena told him how to win. But no matter how he figured it out, it seems kind of like dirty wrestling, to me.

...Not that Antaeus didn't deserve to reap what he sowed.

Helen and Theseus: Another Reason Athens and Sparta Don't Get Along

This is called "The Espousal" but
I can't decide if they're celebrating
or if he's abducting her. Fitting, really!
image © me!

The conflicts between Sparta and Athens run deep and long, and as we all know from reading Homer and Herodotus, it was the habit of the ancient world to take common ideas and issues along with common ways-of-doing-things and reflect those back onto the struggles of their heroes in myth. Perhaps then, it would be stranger if Sparta and Athens did not have anything to fight over during the age of heroes.

What if, in part, this was the purpose of Theseus' abduction of Helen in the myths?

The House of Atreus was known to be cursed, after all, and I have no trouble believing that if Theseus made an honest offer of marriage to Tyndareus and it was refused in favor (either in fact, or by assumption) of Menelaus and Mycenae, Athens would find that snub very offensive indeed. How dare Sparta insult their hero by choosing a cursed man as the husband of Helen over Theseus?

But that wouldn't be all. You see, the conflict goes both ways. Say that, in retaliation of this snub, or even just for funsies, Theseus chooses to take what he wants after all. He's deserving. Certainly he is, by pedigree, a better match for Helen than Menelaus could ever be. Theseus is a son of Poseidon, a (for the moment) successful and powerful king, and a hero equal only to Heracles. Add into the equation the dodgy influence of piratical Pirithous, and it's easy to see how Theseus might be persuaded to pursue Helen without her father's consent. Even to go so far as to kidnap her (because it isn't like he hasn't whisked women off before--and that kind of behavior was well established by Heracles, and even more established by the behavior of the gods who did that kind of thing with great regularity. Helen herself is a product of this same entitlement, after all!).

Sparta, taking great offense by the kidnap of their princess and HEIR, sends off their best to get her back. Helen's brothers, Castor and Pollux--the Dioscuri--find her if not in Athens, at the very least, under the power of Theseus, possibly even violated by him! I can't imagine Sparta not being highly insulted and infuriated by such a thing, and these Greeks-- they know how to hold a grudge.

Take into account the fact that in the process of Helen's retrieval, Castor and Pollux upset the inheritance of Athens by giving Menestheus control of the city, and you've got an even greater recipe for long-standing conflict. Sparta has just meddled in Athens' politics and put their man on the throne. You don't even need Athens to have been insulted by the choosing of Menelaus over Theseus first (though I will say that I find that to be pretty compelling).

In this one story, a relative latecomer to the drama and tragedy of Helen of Troy, the seeds of enmity between Sparta and Athens have been sewn. These Myths, after all, are the ancient Greek way of explaining the whys and wherefores.

So, why are Sparta and Athens constantly finding reasons to dispute with one another? Well you see, once long ago, there was a girl named Helen....

Just a thought.

Relating to Hera

Juno

As you know, Hera is the wife of Zeus, and Queen of the gods in Greek mythology. She's also pretty notorious for sentencing people to a) madness or b) death in punishment for Zeus finding them attractive and/or giving birth to them.

I'm not saying that Hera doesn't have perfectly good reason to be up in arms -- Zeus gives her justification after justification for any and all acts of vengeance, without even the slightest of apologies. His affair with Leda as a Swan, Europa as a bull, his affair with Callisto wherein he took the form of Artemis, even! There's quite an extensive list of his infidelities, and I'll tell you, if I were Hera, I'm not sure I'd be even half as reasonable as she was about the continued parade of indiscretions and lovechildren.

But Hera isn't a goddess of revenge. She's a goddess of marriage, childbirth, of women in general. The goddess of the pious wife, the loving mother. We just... don't see a lot of that in her myths. More often, we see her cursing Heracles with a madness which convinces him to murder his own wife and children, simply because he's a son of Zeus. We see the sly, deceitful Hera, seducing her husband for the sole purpose of circumventing his command in the Iliad. We see the woman who punishes other women for catching the eye of her husband, not unlike Athena punishes Medusa, when Poseidon ravages the poor priestess in the goddess's own temple. (And that, from the goddess of Wisdom and Reason!)

and her peacock

To the Romans, Hera was Juno, and their interpretation of her was slightly different, more solemn, a protector of the state. Even, perhaps, with a warrior element. There's no question that she's incredibly complex, in both interpretations. And I have to wonder, really. Was part of this complexity, this difficulty in her character, related to the difficulty men have in understanding women as mothers, wives, virgins? Is Hera's ultimate character the result of the male struggle to be anything but mind-boggled by women and their motivations?

One thing is certain: Hera makes for an easy villain in a lot of mythological retellings, and I'm always slightly baffled by how underutilized she is in that form -- especially when the most frequent substitution seems to be Hades.

images © me!

PSA: I'll be away from the blog for the next two weeks, but I'll be back again with new posts on July 3rd!

The Sins of Paris

Paris (from wiki commons)

And so Theseus rightly felt love’s flame, for he was acquaint with all your charms, and you seemed fit spoil for the great hero to steal away, [...] His stealing you away, I commend; my marvel is that he ever gave you back. So fine a spoil should have been kept with constancy. Sooner would this head have left my bloody neck that you have been dragged from marriage-chamber of mine. One like you, would ever these hands of mine be willing to let go? One like you, would I, alive, allow to leave my embrace? If you must needs have been rendered up, I should first at least have taken some pledge from you; my love for you would not have been wholly for naught. Either your virgin flower I should have plucked, or taken what could be stolen without hurt to your virgin state.

So Paris writes to Helen in the Heroides, by Ovid.

But here's the thing about Paris. Pop-culture always tries to make him into some kind of coward, probably because he steals another man's wife, certainly because of the passage in The Iliad where he challenges Menelaus and then Aphrodite whisks him off before he can see it through to the finish, and Helen herself expresses disgust for his heroic character, or lackthereof, and those readers who are paying attention will point out in their arguments that Paris' weapon of choice is the bow and arrow, the "weapon of cowards."

The truth is, though, that Paris doesn't do anything other heroes haven't done. Maybe Paris isn't a Theseus, but Ovid certainly shows us an Odysseus-like schemer. charismatic and brilliant, charming and wily. And it makes sense -- it takes an incredible amount of self-confidence and cunning to show up as a guest in another man's house and devise a plan to seduce said man's wife underneath the nose of his host with the sole purpose of stealing her. It takes nerve to challenge that man later on the field of battle, knowing his reputation as a warrior. And as for the bow and arrow, Heracles was known for employing one, too, and I don't know anyone who would consider him a coward.

What gets Paris into trouble is only the context of his actions. There's the oath of Helen's suitors, of course, where they all have sworn to protect Menelaus' possession of Helen, but even so, Paris' greatest and only real sin is breaking Xenia: the sacred laws of hospitality.

In the Heroides, Paris says:

My passion for you I have brought; I did not find it here. It is that which was the cause of so long a voyage, for neither gloomy storm has driven me hither, nor a wandering course; [...] It is you I come for – you, whom golden Venus has promised for my bed; you were my heart’s desire before you were known to me. I beheld your features with my soul ere I saw them with my eyes; rumour, that told me of you, was the first to deal my wound.

And then, later:

And do not fear lest, if you are stolen away, fierce wars will follow after us, and mighty Greece will rouse her strength. Of so many who have been taken away before, tell me, has any one ever been sought back by arms? Believe me, that fear of yours is vain. In the name of Aquilo the Thracians took captive Erechtheus’ child, and the Bistonian shore was safe from war; Pegasaean Jason in his new craft carried away the Phasian maid, and the land of Thessaly was never harmed by Colchian band. Theseus, too, he who stole you, stole Minos’ daughter; yet Minos called the Cretans ne’er to arms. The terror in things like these is wont to be greater than the danger itself, and where ‘tis our humour to fear, we shame to have feared too much.

Had Paris arrived in Sparta with a raiding party and made off with Helen in the night, it would have been just another day in the bronze age -- but because he stole her away AFTER he had accepted guest-friendship with Menelaus (falsely, I might add, because he knew why he was there from the start!), he had committed a grave, grave sin which would, without question, incite the wrath of the gods. In fact, if Paris had stolen her away in a raid, it's possible that the oath wouldn't have been enough to bind the suitors to his cause at all. Paris is an outside party, and the fact that Menelaus would not have been able to defend what was rightfully his in battle, his own wife and kingdom, no less, would almost certainly have shamed him, even if he'd known exactly who had taken Helen and where to wage a war to get her back, which would probably have been less likely in a raid-scenario.

The fact of the matter is, stealing Helen wasn't Paris' greatest crime, and it certainly wasn't the act which ruined his reputation. And Paris? He wasn't a coward. He just thought that because Aphrodite had given him the nod, he was within his rights to ignore sacred law to take what he believed was rightfully his.

That just sounds like regular old Hubris to me.

Same old, same old.

Isocrates on Helen

Isocrates makes an interesting argument regarding Helen's beauty which I think is worth sharing:

16. [...]While most of the demigods owed their existence to Zeus, she was the only woman of whom he condescended to be called the father. While he took most interest in the son of Alcmene and the children of Leda, he so far showed preference for Helen over Heracles, that, having granted such strength to the latter that he was enabled to overcome all by force, he allotted to Helen the gift of beauty, which is destined to bring even strength into subjection to it. 17. Knowing, further, that distinction and renown arise, not from peace, but from wars and combats, and wishing not only to exalt their bodies to heaven, but to bestow upon them an everlasting remembrance, he ordained a life of toil and danger for the one, while he granted to the other beauty that was universally admired and became the object of universal contention.

Basically, he says, Zeus gave Helen the ABSOLUTE most powerful gift, raising her up over Heracles, because even strength is helpless in the face of such beauty as Helen possessed.  And not only that! But as further proof of his favor, he made sure Helen would NEVER be forgotten, because, basically, she would be fought over forever by everyone.

But the thing Isocrates fails to take into consideration is this: Heracles can choose where to leverage his strength. He can decide to ransack a city, or kill a lion with nothing but a club and his bare hands. He has CONTROL over his strengths, for the most part -- unless he's being directly manipulated by the gods, or else has flown into a rage (possibly because of direct manipulation by the gods.)

Helen, on the other hand, is given this incredible gift, this incredible beauty, but left with no control over it. None. And to add insult to injury, she is BLAMED and held solely accountable for the results. She is cursed for causing the Trojan War, cursed for betraying and abandoning her husband and daughter. All the blood of all the men who follow her to Troy, and all the men who fight for her right to remain there is on her hands, all that death on her head, and her head alone.

Yes, Helen was remembered. But not as a hero. Unlike Odysseus, and Heracles, and Theseus, Helen is not famous for her noble deeds.

She is infamous for her lack of virtue.

If that's how Zeus treats his favorites, I'd rather be overlooked altogether.