A Mycenaean background for Hēraklēs as a model for athletes
2019.07.19 | By Gregory Nagy
§0. As I argued in the previous posting, Classical Inquiries 2019.07.12, the name of Olympia as a setting for the myth about the founding of the Olympics by Hēraklēs is linked with the name of Mount Olympus as the setting for the myth about the immortalization of this hero after death. In the present posting here, 2019.07.19, I take the argument further: the various different versions of the myth about the founding of the Olympics by this same hero reveal a Mycenaean background for the figuring of Hēraklēs himself as a model for athletes competing at the Olympics in particular and at any other athletic festival in general. I say “a Mycenaean background” and not “Mycenaean origins” for reasons I will explain in what follows. These reasons, as we will see, have to do with methodologies I generally use in my various efforts to reconstruct the past. As for the actual argument I am about to offer, the image I show at the very start of this posting is directly relevant. What we see here is the picturing, by a Renaiassance artist, of a celebrated ancient myth that told about a primordial athletic event: it was a wrestling match between Hēraklēs and a homicidal ogre named Antaios, who was figured as an enemy of the civilized world.
[Essay continues here…]
The apotheosis of Hēraklēs on Olympus and the mythological origins of the Olympics
2019.07.12 | By Gregory Nagy
§0. As I indicated in the previous posting, in Classical Inquiries 2019.07.06, the aim of the brief follow-up essay that I offer here in the present posting, 2019.07.12, is to connect a myth about the apotheosis of Hēraklēs on Mount Olympus with a myth that credits this same hero with the original founding of the Olympics.
[Essay continues here…]
Olympus as mountain and Olympia as venue for the Olympics: a question about the naming of these places
2019.07.06 | By Gregory Nagy
§0. The question is, can we connect the name for Mount Olympus with the name for Olympia, the place where the festival of the Olympics was traditionally celebrated every four years? Aiming for a unified answer to this question, which seems simple only on the surface, I will collect here seven facts that may lead to a satisfactory formulation showing a genuine connectedness between the names Olympus and Olympia. Part I will present my collection of the seven facts, and then Part II will connect these facts with my overall question about the naming of Olympus and Olympia. The connecting of these seven facts, which are mostly well-known, can be seen as a game of connect-the-dots.
[Essay continues here…]
Sensations of agony and ecstasy while indexing a book about ancient Greek heroes
2019.06.28 | By Gregory Nagy
§0. Authors who opt to write their own general index for their own book are conventionally instructed to concentrate on those things that their readers will want to look up in the book. Having just finished writing such an index for a second edition (2020) of my book The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours, the first edition for which (2013) had only an index locorum, I can report mixed feelings as I come away from my experience. I am reminded here of the painting “The Scribe,” by Arthur Szyk (1927), as shown in the main illustration for this posting. Like that scribe, whom we see in the act of writing “his” message while surrounded by a world of stories told in a dazzling variety of images, I as the writer of an index for a general book about Greek heroes and their gods feel comparably dazzled by their own stories as told in both words and images stemming from their distant past. My feelings in this case could be described as intermittent sensations of agony mixed with ecstasy as I relived a veritable lifetime of thinking about these heroes and their gods. The agony had to do with choosing which words and terms and names I could include or exclude as entries in the index. Each entry I included had to be in some way relevant to my overall thinking. But here is where I found also the ecstasy, since each included entry had its own story to tell—and tell it all over again. Or, I should really say stories, not one story. A radiant example, as we will see, is the case of the god Zeus—and all the various stories about his interactions with heroes and with their other gods. These stories had not only shaped my thinking for the book: they are still there now, ready to shape the reader’s own thinking, independently of anything written by the worrying scribe of this essay.
[Essay continues here…]
On a fable about the hawk as a strongman
2019.06.21 | By Gregory Nagy
§0. In what is generally agreed to be the earliest attestation of a fable in Greek literature, we read about a hawk that has just captured another bird. The fable is embedded in the Hesiodic Works and Days, lines 202–212, where the captor is boastfully saying to his captive that he has the power to do anything with his prey. Since the hawk is a predatory bird, we can already guess what he will say next in the story. And he does say it: I have the power to devour you. In the illustration for this posting, I show a logical ending for such a story: we see a hawk, with beak already dripping with blood, as he starts feasting on a bird he has just caught. In terms of the fable, as I will argue, the hawk is like a predatory strongman, feasting on the lives of his fellow humans—since he has power over them. But there is more to the story, as I hope to show.
[Essay continues here…]
A comparative approach to beast fables in Greek songmaking, Part 3: A dog’s craving for meat as a signal foretelling the death of Aesop
2019.06.11 | By Gregory Nagy
§0. It is a commonplace in storytelling to picture the stealing of meat by a hungry dog, as we see in the illustration for this posting. After all, dogs have a natural craving for meat—also for other rich sources of protein, such as cheese. In Part 3 here, I pick up from where I left off in Part 2, where I was analyzing the fable “Aesop and the Bitch,” printed as Aesop Fable 423 in the edition of Perry (1952)—the story of which is attested only in the Wasps of Aristophanes, lines 1401–1405. In the internal logic of the story, the dog is barking furiously at Aesop because it craves to devour a portion of meat that Aesop is presumably carrying. I say presumably because Aesop has just left an evening feast, and so he must be carrying away with him a “doggie bag.” What I just expressed in colloquial American English does seem apt for describing the presumption—at least, in the inner logic of the story. But Aesop has no meat to give to the hungry dog, and the barking won’t stop. So, what will happen now, if neighbors are roused out of their evening’s repose amidst all this continued barking? Won’t they presume that the dog is barking at a thief in the night? Well, if the setting for this story happens to be Delphi, as I think it is, then Aesop will now be accused of stealing. Then an improvised jury of some kind will swiftly find him guilty. And then, the next thing you know, he will be put to death.
[Essay continues here…]
