Greek mythology general

ITT: Discuss ancient Greek mythology, ask questions regarding the stories such as the illiad, claim your mythological waifus, etc.

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Why is Diana such a cunt? I don't even think Juno is as much of a bitch as Diana.

i claim clio

beat me to it.

>using roman names

I'm reading The Iliad. I'm enjoying it, but there are a few things I'm confused about.

This may be a dumb question, but it's in regards to the various collective nouns that are used.

I know there are the Trojans and the Greeks, but who are the:

>Argives
>Achaeans
>Cephallenians
>Cretans

I'm sure I'm forgetting some. I feel like I know the answers to some of these, but I just want to stop for a minute and make sure I completely understand so that I don't get confused. I mean, I think Cretans and Cephallenians are probably just different Greek factions, right?

Reading Ovid right now

Yes, these are all different parts of Greece. Achaea is a region in Peloponnese, as is Argos where the Argives are from. Cretans are from Crete and Cephallenians are from Cephalonia (Ionian Islands) Greece was a bunch of city states then so they all had their own armies.

Agamemnon was the king of Argon, which at the time was the most powerful of the greek states. The reason why you have this mishmash of nations is because greece had no unified leader, but Agamemnon being the powerhouse that he was made them wage war under his banner.

it's basically the entirety of USA vs Alaska.

>it's basically the entirety of USA vs Alaska

Alaskans... and the Carians, Halizones, Kaukones, Kikones, Lycians, Maionians, Mysians, Paionians, Paphlagonians, Pelasgians, Phrygians, and Thracians.

So was Troy even considered part of Greece?

>Alaskans... and the Carians, Halizones, Kaukones, Kikones, Lycians, Maionians, Mysians, Paionians, Paphlagonians, Pelasgians, Phrygians, and Thracians.

Minus the Alaskans, are those factions that supported Troy or something?

Fair enough

>So was Troy even considered part of Greece?
Troy was located in north east Turkey but considered greek territory if I'm not mistaken.

The Iliad is a country wide epic, the reason for the plethora of greek states is because Homer wanted to include the entirety of greece, I wouldn't stress too much about the names desu.

>Minus the Alaskans, are those factions that supported Troy or something?
Yup

*north west

my bad

...

Thanks

This will be of enormous help. Thanks a lot, user.

Was it really considered Greek territory, though? If I remember correctly, one of the supplementary books on the first (?) Start with the Greeks chart says they were Hittite, not Greek.

I don't think they were Greek but I don't think they were Hittites either. The Hittites were further inland in Turkey.

The matter is still up for debate.

Whether the Trojans were Hittie, Luwians or whatever is still up in the air, but around the time when The Iliad was created (800 BC) Troy was occupied by greek settlers before being turned into part of the Roman Empire 400 years later. I'm no expert though desu lad.

bump for op

I'm on book 8 right now, Diomedes is the true MVP he reminds me of pic related

>roman empire
>400 BC

wew lad

Why wank over ancient Greek science fiction when you could be enjoying superior historical husbandos brought to you by Thucydides, Xenophon and even Plutarch?

Claiming Brasidas.

In fairness it's easy enough to argue that the Roman Republic ruled over an Empire, as an extensive amount of land ruled over by one group.

Sure but in 400 BC the Roman Republic ruled basically just Latium and was continually getting its shit pushed in by the Gauls

Yeah, not even that, they only won over Veii in 396. I was just being a pedant.

Ovidius.

Homerus.

I'll have Kalliope

Homeros.

Care to explain why?
The Greeks never used a word equivalent to 'Greek'. Rather, they used a word like 'Hellenes'.
But in Homer's day, even that word wasn't in use.
Thus to refer to what we call the 'Greeks', he uses, to fit the meter in the original, the Greek-language equivalents of the following:
>Argives
(lit. from the city of Argos)
>Achæans
(lit. from the region of Achæa)
>Danäans
(lit. descendant of Danaus)
These all basically mean the same thing.

The Trojans and their allies- who might be called Trojans too- were not Greeks at all.

The 'chief of the Muses', that of eloquence and epic, just sounds nice.

Ὅμηρος.

Does anyone know where the Athena vs. Aphrodite story can be sourced?

Basically Aphrodite has a go on Athena's loom and Athena tells her to stick to being a whore.

I believe its the original source of the classic heckler put down "I don't come and slap the cocks out your mouth when you're at work".

It's from Nonnus' Dionysiaca, book 24, verses 242-329.

The Dionysiaca is the longest poem of Western antiquity, with 20,426 lines and 48 books

Is the Dionysiaca worth reading in that hideous prose translation?

Apparently only W.H.D. Rouse dared to translate this massive work, that nobody cares about, in English.

So your choices are "that hideous prose", learning Greek (the so-called "Homeric dialect"), or hoping another translation in some other language did it right, and I wouldn't bet on that.

This is really like the even bigger Mahabharata (the whole thing, not just the Bhagavad Gita): tens of thousand lines, one English translation of the whole thing, zero readership outside the authorized professionals.

Ja, I was pretty sure there weren't any other renderings.
>5000 translations of Homer a year
>0 of anyone who actually needs to be translated
And I'm not saying the prose rendering would be particularly bad for a rendering, but long-form poetry into prose just doesn't work for me.

How much Morpheus stuff is in Metamorphoses exactly?

Is there any notable version of the Prometheus story other than Aeschylus?

Just to give you an idea of how widely read is Nonnus, I didn't know he and the Dionysiaca even existed before I went looking for that story.

He's from the 5th century so no one cares.

>How much Morpheus stuff is in Metamorphoses exactly?
Not much, he appears in one of the stories towards the end of Book XI. BTW Metamorphoses is Latin poetry.

>Is there any notable version of the Prometheus story other than Aeschylus?
Read this entire page:
theoi.com/Titan/TitanPrometheus.html

Theoi.com in general is a goldmine for Greek mythology and throws at you the primary sources.

Antigone.
I don't even like the play very much- an ending of random suicides of characters never even mentioned before- but the girl it depicts is so noble and scornful and brave and beautiful and aiming-unto-eternity. Through her death to eternity she is the most perfect a time-bound mortal can be.
But then there's also my fucking arbitrary mental image of her. White skin, black hair neck-length with a single braid, red lips in a perpetual pout, her face ever in a quiet sweet sourness or sneer. I know it's ridiculous, but d a m n.
I dream of being Hæmon in that cave, arriving just a few minutes earlier-
Ismene is like her sister, almost acidic, with longer-worn hair. Fuck I wish Antigone would blow her impious mind.

>claim your waifus
The Holy Sophia is the only correct answer

Idk if I am missing something major, but why are the Greeks so much of the favorite in the Iliad? The Trojans seem like they never had a chance, but maybe that's the point.

Am I the only one who wanted Diomedes to get killed during his rampage? Why doesn't anyone want to root for the underdog? Hector is my man

>ending of random suicides of characters never even mentioned before

Who are you referring to?

Trojans don't have a chance because the gods have already decided the Greeks are going to win. Still, you're not alone in thinking the Trojans are by and large more admirable, sure, Paris is a douche Aeneas was so popular Virgil made him the founder of the Roman people and Hector combines being a loyal citizen, a loving father and husband and a might warrior in one person. Unlike Achilles who whines when Agamemnon steals his bed slave and sits pouting until Patroclus gets killed or Menelaus whose making all the Greeks fight a war for years just so he can get his wife back, the Trojans are downright honourable. The only Greeks that are really likable are Odysseus and Nestor.

>why are the Greeks so much of the favorite in the Iliad
Because the target audience of the Iliad isn't a destroyed city in Turkey

Hæmon, Creon's wife...
Were they mentioned earlier then? It's been a while, I remember their introductions being abrupt and only after Antigone is sent to execution.
Even so, the 'everyone kills themselves' ending-style is still pathetic.

So some of the translations of Homer make it into more poetry and some into prose? Which style should I read?