/SWTG/ Start with the Greeks: Day One

I'm not trying to be obstinate, but I'm not sure the glory is for the kindness. It seems to me that the glory is for his deeds in war; the kindness allows the gods' anger over his excesses in abusing Hector to be lifted. Only when that anger is removed can he enjoy the rewards of his fame, which, I think, his deeds have already won for him.

Does that make sense? From the passage you gave, it looks like Zeus is acknowledging Achilles has already done great things, but cannot be given the glory for them if he continues tainting his deeds with keeping Hector's body.

> I am rising over them all in deathless wrath that he in heartsick fury still holds Hector’s body

Doesn't look to me like he's glorifying Achilles for giving up the corpse; that's just something that needs to be taken care of so Achilles can get out of the doghouse.

...aaaaand we're off to a great start.

I haven't read yet, will post later

So in the introduction to her book, Hamilton talks about how the Greeks were the first people to create their gods in their own images and compares this specifically to Egyptian and Mesopotamian myth. But there are clearly human gods in both of those.
Is she bullshitting to strengthen her point about the Greeks being the first civilised and rational people or am I missing something?

I think she means that Greek gods had imperfections, human feelings and passions, and they lived in the same realm humans live. It wasn't just a matter of physical appearance.

I've read:
>Mythology (Hamilton)
>History (Pomeroy)
>Iliad (Lattimore)
>Odyssey (Lattimore)
>Pre-Socratics (Waterfield)
>Herodotus (Waterfield)
>Thucydides (Hammond)
>Ovid
>Nietzsche's early stuff (classical lectures/essays)

Not sure about following the schedule for some re-reading, or to just continue with my own and plug the gaps.

Hey, haven't read any of this. I'll try to keep up with these threads and I hope you continue making them

I agree that only when Achilles' anger is removed he is permitted to enjoy the rewards of his fame, and I agree that his deeds (killing Hector, past successes in battle, nobility towards suppliants) have given him glory already. However, I disagree that the kindness he shows to Priam does not also include the giving up of Hector's body. The main thing in that quote I posted is that Zeus says he will grant Achilles glory, and then the only major actions after that involving Achilles are Priam coming to his hut, both of them crying (the final cooling of his anger), and Achilles giving up the body of Hector. So either Achilles is not given his glory in the end of the Iliad, or Zeus decided that the real glory was for Achilles to come back down to the human level, which is supported by him, after abstaining from it since Patroclus' death, eating, sleeping with a woman, and accepting a suppliant's ransom.

That's how I see it, anyway. Please let me know how you feel about it.

What are the chances this goes the way of Infinite Summer every year and ends within a week?

i'm a bit unsure of the distinction between greek mythology and greek religion. have i got the right idea in thinking that in both using the same gods, greek mythology attempted to explain how the universe and elements of it came about, while religion sought to teach them how they should live?

I finished mythology part one that was quite tedious to read. Not sure if i should just skip the rest and read wikipedia if i want to more details

Why don't you follow along with the threads and ask us good discussion questions informed from your readings?

were the geeks really child fucking scumbags?

is there anything wrong with what the did?

just some questions to make your noodle spoodle

Quality thread OP.

Because the OP's claim to being a teacher is dubious. And this anachronistic, linear format that is constantly fizzling out (Infinite Summer): we're a real-time web forum, not a women's library group.

>There is a certain kind of thoroughness which is but the excuse for inactivity. Think of what Goethe understood about antiquity: certainly not as much as any classicist, and yet quite enough to enable him to engage in fruitful struggle with it. One -should- not, in fact, know more about a thing than one can oneself digest creatively. Moreover the only means of truly understanding something is one's attempt to -do- it. Let us try to live in the manner of the ancients – and we shall instantly come a hundred miles closer to them than with all our learnedness. Our classicists nowhere demonstrate that they somehow strive to vie with antiquity; that is why -their- antiquity is without any effect on the contemporary.
-Nietzsche

OP has no goal or purpose, doesn't display any selectivity, excerpting or interpretation. He has simply compiled a list of corpses that we should look at from head to foot, over and over again. Instead he could have used links, ebooks (with completeness), images, video, memes. He could have lead (read: tripcoded, evidence of knowledge and fluency) the readings instead of leaving it to anonymity and chaos.

This is just a poor mishmash of university and leisurely reading. A failure at both.

Is there a better alternative too Hamilton?

I tried reading it twice and stopped around 100 pages because it's so fucking dull to read.

I'm the guy re-reading her and if anything I thought her prose was nice. Especially compared to more recent academics who are afraid of sounding too biased or emotional.

Or do you mean the translations were boring?

There was a group that was attempting to read through the western canon like 1 or 2 years ago which was led by a very dedicated and knowledgeable tripfag, but it still failed. It is all about how much are people willing to participate, not about who created it.

Three things. One, it's a generalization for lay people. Two, much like Greek religion, Egyptian religion changed significantly over thousands of years, including the conversion of previously animal-based gods into humanized ones where they just stick the animal head onto a human. And three, most of them are never human like in Greece which I think is her main point. The Greek gods are very human both in their appearance (which I think is what you're focusing on) and in their behavior. This is what is unique to the Greek religion.

It is generally understood by historians that Greeks are more rational than the Sumerians or Egyptians. In many respects they are more civilized in that their accomplishments show a greater curiosity and focus on empiricism, far more than Egypt which was content with barely any innovations in art or technology for thousands of years.

You're pretty far ahead, but it's probably worth your while to take a look at the schedule and just read the things you missed. You can also participate in the discussion threads.

I am new OP, not old OP. Old OP was teacher. I am not and have never claimed to be.

Pretty low, so join in!

If you didn't enjoy it, I recommend switching to the Handbook of Classical Mythology. It's a great text and I plan to pull some excerpts from it. I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to go with the Handbook or Edith Hamilton's, but I went with hers because more people probably have it and it's aimed at more casual readers. You could also check out Greek Mythology: An Introduction by Fritz Graf. It's a popular text for university classes as well.

Two other classics in the field:
>G.S. Kirk. The Nature of Greek Myths
>G.S. Kirk. Myth: Its meaning and functions in ancient and other cultures

Thank you for this, OP. I´ll be lurking, since I´m just ignorant.

Why is the introduction to the illiad scheduled after the work itself?

All of you fags should watch this series for a start:

youtube.com/watch?v=CcwsDcXeW7g&list=PLAoVp7qvZKP4YWyrMWAUVTaBaCIVzyOPD

>were the geeks really child fucking scumbags?

yes

>is there anything wrong with what the did?

no

So, what you are saying is that presocratic philosophy is rooted on eastern thought as far as their inquiry on the origins of the universe? Even though, if I recall correctly from very imperfect knowledge of eastern conceptions at the time (talking about pre-Sixth Century B.C.), cultures aside from the greeks' were heavily dependent on an absolute leader and his legitimacy conferred by gods, on conformity upon the existing order and their current social-economical-ethnic position.
From all this, it seems to me improbable that presocratic thought should have derived from them, although it is true most of the philosophers then came from Asia Minor.
This is what seems to me, but tell me if I am making false claims or wrong.

Hamilton does say at the start that there is a difference between myth and religion, since, in Greek Mythology, you can see very unimportant gods and godesses. For example, Hera, who doesn't play such an important role on stories of mythology, she is venerated at home, as married women turned to her for help. As such, religion played on gods as long as they were venerated, but it didn't mean that Zeus, for example, had colorful stories about his infidelity and they were told either for entertainment or tradition. Myths were then not necessarily cannon to praise gods nor needed to understand them.

I remember being confused by a lot of stuff in the introduction to mythology, specifically how she pointed out that the greek myths didn't feature ghosts, despite like 50 percent of Greek tragedy and both homeric epics having ghosts.

I previously tried reading the Iliad but gave up because the writing style was difficult to take in naturally. When I read I don't want to have to slow down to be able to process all the information.

I feel like the book is best read as intended, in Greek (or Latin) and since I cannot speak those I just decided that reading ancient classics was just not for me. The hexameter for example translates poorly into English. I also was confused by how men and gods are both featured as regular characters due to the fact it's a mythic story.

Take the first chapter, where Apollo is requested to rain arrows on Agamemnons army which is subsequently destroyed. What is happening here? (rhetorical question, but still. A Plague? Actual battle? Storm?)

Does anyone else feel that way? I hope that by following this 'class' with other Veeky Forumsizens I can finally ascend pleb-tier reading and become Well Read. Sorry for the blogpost.

I've never felt that way reading Greek stuff. You just get used to it after reading enough.

>Optional texts:
>Edith Hamilton. Mythology

probably because the Introduction is riddled with spoilers and things that would only be beneficial if you had read the work. I've had this happen a few times.

that d/l link doesn't seem to work for me, anybody know why or has an alternative?

Everything that was in the folder:
www1.zippyshare.com/v/qRWAKFuU/file.html

That just takes me on endless pages requesting to d/l extension, which doesn't let me download after I've done it. Thanks for the effort though.

I feel stupid asking this but will this be a daily or weekly thread?

How are people this fucking retarded. How do they exist in society. How did they manage to find Veeky Forums.

Just kys user. There's no hope for you.

And why is that?..

You offered no reasons and just spewed out negativity. Says a lot about the type of person you are.

Did you press the large orange button labeled "download now"/ do you have adblock

Yeah, I have adblock. But after trying several times it eventually let me through. Thanks for the effort.

I really appreciate your enthusiasm, OP. You're doing a good job.

...

I was waiting for this, I heard the voice of faith calling me to come to this board.

I believe what she meant is there are no ghosts who are there with the purpose to scare, just like witches, where she even provides examples, this is to strengthen her theory that the myths of Greece are ones of beauty and not of horror.

I did the two readings for the day. Combined, they gave a nice timeline of names and literary trends that helped me synchronized things I've only heard of out of context. Both authors stressed the importance of early, primary sources and cautioned against reading too hard into later interpretations of myths.

Is it a waste of time to read past part one of Mythology other than the Trojan War Prologue?

Sorta. The group is going to go over a number of the primary sources used by later chapters, so it will be a spoiler and just a summary. But some of the chapters have rarer stories we won't cover, or include synthesis of sources we won't cover.

At this point I'd say if you have extra time to devote to a book on Mythology, start reading from the Handbook of Classical Mythology or Greek Mythology: An Introduction by Fritz Graf.

Or take a look at:
>G.S. Kirk. The Nature of Greek Myths
>G.S. Kirk. Myth: Its meaning and functions in ancient and other cultures

I started about a week ago and am not following the schedule, but I really enjoy seeing such knowledgeable anons in this thread.
I am reading the Oxford Brief history, and want to clarify a few points that I think I understand

>OG Aegeans 40,000 years ago
>Crete doing its own thing
>Indo-Europeans come in and bring ancient Greek and fuse with Aegeans eventually
>Minoans form (take over?) on Crete
>Mycenaeans form from Indo/Aegean mainlanders
>Mycenaeans go to Crete and take it from Minoans

Is that right? I am trying to distinguish between Minoans, Mycenaeans, Aegeans, and Indos.

Fuck, maybe? I've read a ton of the greeks and can safely say you will not be remembering those kinds of details unless you stick with this time period in an actual academic environment, as your thesis or master's topic. It's definitely good to understand what's going on as best as possible while you read, but know that these details (especially places, names, most dates, and certainly prehistory) will fall away in due time.

Keep in mind that that's okay, and actually a good thing; you don't need to remember those details, and really have no use for them. It'll take a few weeks/months with the Greeks to get comfortable with this idea, but you'll soon see that the big ideas, the ones that you should and will remember, are much more general and don't depend on names, dates, etc., which are ultimately just trivia. The real lessons you learn will rise above the details of historical setting, and will thereby be able to inform you as you read history/literature from any time period and any region, not just classical Greece. So for example, you may forget the relevant geographies of the Greco-Persian wars described in Herodotus, but you won't forget that the Greeks fought against seemingly impossible odds for the sake of liberty. That seems fairly unimportant at first glance, except that you've just witnessed the first instance in historical writing of the human themes of innate desire of liberty, of preferring good death to shameful life, etc., which will recur in almost every military/political history from then on, and will, by many ancient writers, be considered constants of the human condition.

You'll still recall the broad strokes of the Greek stories themselves, just don't sweat the small stuff. But again, coming to realize what is and isn't necessary to recall is a big part of what "starting with the Greeks" teaches, and is something everyone needs to go through on their own.

PS Fuck prehistory. Boring as shit. Slog through it to set the stage for classical Greece, and then enjoy the ride.

Thank you user. That takes pressure of of trying to remember details of this book. I think I am so accustomed to having to remember facts and fill out study guides for classes in my head that I am not sure how to study outside of a class for personal fulfillment.

The only reason I'm particularly concerned with understanding this time period is so I get a feel for the time periods of Homer's stuff.

I will try to understand the 'why' and its implications more, as you're suggesting.

Yeah you're on the right track, and there isn't too much to learn about Homer's times, so no sweat there.

>I will try to understand the 'why' and its implications more

And to tag onto that, this may seem obvious if you have background reading history, but keep in mind the difference between "causes" and "pretexts" of events, with probably the most obvious modern example being the death of Franz Ferdinand not really "causing" but still kicking off WWI. I didn't really notice the distinction for a while, and taking stock of it helped clear up a lot of stuff, especially when you get to Thucydides and start reading more about diplomacy.

Hope I helped; best of luck!

What would you read after the Greeks

R O M A N S

They are very different but very, very fun. Their philosophy is generally agreed to be inferior, but they offer a lot more in terms of political history, and are much more relatable to modern institutions of law and government.

Not that user but holy shit my roots are of Greeks if that pic isn't a troll.

DAY 2

>Poll (take pls)
strawpoll.me/12177364

Reading
>Edith Hamilton. Mythology. pp. 21-40
>Pomeroy. A Brief History of Ancient Greece, Introduction. pp. 1-11

Can one directly jump to the Iliad to get into the greeks?

No.

Why?

Yeah you'll be fine. There's a bit of mythology that you probably won't be familiar with when beginning, but you're probably at least vaguely familiar with the personalities of the main gods, and will have no trouble figuring out what's going on. is just being difficult.

>but you're probably at least vaguely familiar with the personalities of the main gods
Yea, I am not entirely but pretty much. Have also seen Clash of Titans and couple of Greek movies and have read a lot of Wonder Women comics in the past.

This is only kind of related but it was prompted by the readings and I hadn't thought about it before. How did the Romans adopt Greek religion and synthesize it with their own so thoroughly and so early on? I know there have been Greek settlements in southern Italy since before the Roman literary record starts. Still seems extraordinary. As far as I know the Italic peoples and the Greeks aren't so closely related that they would have had such similar cultures before contact, no more than the Italic peoples and the Gauls?

30 pages a day seems somewhat doable. I've only read Hamilton's Mythology, but the Greeks is definitely something I want to get a better understanding of.

Was reading The Trojan War: A New History before the Illiad considered?

It sounds silly when you put it like that, but yeah you'll be okay. The only thing that might not be immediately apparent is that the gods have "picked sides" for the fight, which is why they are supporting different factions/heroes.

The ancient world thought the Romans were literally descended from Trojans, who were thought by at least some to be Greek colonists (the main premise of the Roman histories of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is aiming to prove that the Romans who ruled the Greek world in his time were no "barbarians," but were really Greeks who had colonized Troy, and then moved to Italy with Aeneas). The legend of Aeneas according to Diodorus (not sure if this part is in the Aeneid, but definitely in the general legend) entails that he literally "carried off his household gods" when departing Troy and starting the journey that would eventually bring him to Italy.

Now, that's not "true" and certainly isn't the modern historical answer. Honestly I have no idea how it actually happened that the Roman pantheon adopted the Greek one, beyond the legendary inheriting of it which the Romans considered to be their cultural foundation. But at least that's how they saw things.

>since before the Roman literary record

Eh, this can never be sure evidence. There is VERY little "old latin." Almost everything we have is from the 1st century BC onwards, and Rome was (supposedly) founded in 753BC. And although "Rome" didn't enter international consciousness until the mid 3rd century BC (first Punic war; first overseas military engagement for Rome), there was certainly contact between Greece and Rome before then; Pythagoreans were noted in Italy in the 5th century BC, and there was almost certainly earlier contact.

But yeah, I have no idea how and how early they first contacted and shared religious traditions. It does seem remarkable that Rome would basically "copy" Greece, and that hints heavily towards the legendary Greek ancestry of Rome, which we nowadays know is false.

This is explained in the readings btw.

The Indo-Europeans brought with them the main proto-Greek gods when they settled in Rome. The sky-father (Zeus/Jupiter) existed in Indo-European religion and so during the Indo-European migrations to Greece and Rome they continued their belief in it.

The other part is that the Roman gods were much mere religious-based and they didn't have much mythological narrative if at all to them. You prayed to them to get things done, but they didn't go on adventures like the Greek ones did. So this made it easy for them to combine because they were sorta a blank slate.

The Trojan War: A New History is a pop history polemical, so I don't think it really fits with the academic focus of the group.

Check the review jstor.org/stable/25691295
I can upload a PDF of the review if you like.

Should I buy "The Classical Tradition" by Grafton et al.? It looks like a great book, and it's pretty cheap too (for its size).

La Tepiteada (The Tepitiad)?
Anyone?

Reading the introduction of A Brief History of Ancient Greece got me thinking. Were there significant discoveries of writing in the last few centuries? Do we have access now to material that, say, Shakespeare did not have?

If you think that Achilles is "unlikeable" or "childish" or "petty" you don't understand the poem.

The Greeks did not see him that way at all. The Greeks knew he was the hero of the work.

Anybody reading the Iliad should chew that over.

>several generations and city-states all thought the same thing

They literally did, you dip.

modern turks are still indo europeans for the most part, turkic/east asian admixture is miniscule

Fair! I don't know much about the work, but that is a bit disappointing to learn.

I'd love a PDF of the review, if that's not too much effort.

>The Trojan War: A New History

I've been fairly disappointed, lots of interesting info inbetween retelling of the Iliad as if it was an actual bronze age war. Basically too poppy.

He talks about how the style of the poetry has parallels in bronze age texts from Egypt etc. but quotes hardly any.

I thought it was interesting to look at the Titans and see which concepts were worthy of inclusion at the first round, so to speak. Notably, I thought, were Mnemosyne and Hyperion. Also, the Titans had different fates within mythology, some being seen more as gods than others. I wonder if it is known whether there was a time when the Titans were revered but the gods had not yet been conceived of, or if they their conceptions were interspersed.

On the gods, It was interesting that some preferred certain cities, and each had a specific domain where they could be found. Also that the gods held human traits, both positive and negative. It must have made them very relatable to a person of the time, and seems conducive to "folk religion" and more individual religious experiences. It is interesting to me because this is not found as much in later, more organized and authoritarian religions, where deities tend to be more divine and impersonal, thereby requiring the church as a middleman.

It would be interesting for me to know the degree to which the gods played a role in peoples everyday lives, how they were referenced culturally, venerated, made fun of, etc. Were there people at the time who just saw them as characters in stories, or was belief more literal? (This was touched on regarding Mount Olympus transitioning from an actual place to a more abstract location).

>I thought it was interesting to look at the Titans and see which concepts were worthy of inclusion at the first round, so to speak. Notably, I thought, were Mnemosyne and Hyperion. Also, the Titans had different fates within mythology, some being seen more as gods than others. I wonder if it is known whether there was a time when the Titans were revered but the gods had not yet been conceived of, or if they their conceptions were interspersed.

I wonder about that a lot too. I don't think it's a settled question since there's not that much evidence to go on. People say the Titans were the pre-Greek religion in that area but the Titans mostly have Greek names, while there are gods in the Olympian pantheon that are not Greek at all.

>Also that the gods held human traits, both positive and negative. It must have made them very relatable to a person of the time, and seems conducive to "folk religion" and more individual religious experiences.

This is another thing I've wondered about a lot but have never had answered. I'm not sure to what extent everyday pagans had religious experiences. So much of the religion is about maintaining these binds with heaven, but not with higher morality or mysticism or philosophy or anything we associate with religion. But people do write about piety and reverence. It's just very hard to know what they mean by it. Would a pagan walk around thinking in their heads 'I love Aphrodite!' and praying and stuff the way a Christian might with God? I have no idea.

>Were there people at the time who just saw them as characters in stories, or was belief more literal?

Both views were around. Some people definitely thought the gods were totally real, some people thought they were metaphors of deeper truths, and some people didn't really believe in them at all - and often still sacrificed to them anyway.

just reading hamilton where she mentions how dreams ascended from the underworld and how there were both true and false dreams.
did the greeks take their dreams seriously and try to interpret them?

The only thing I really learned from Homer's tales is that ancient greeks were morally bankrupt. There are many examples to choose from.

>Your wealth is taken or used up in a frivolous manner? Rape and pillage a neighboring city. Still not enough? Tax the commoners to pay for that lavish feast you had.

I feel like this goes along with them being human and sharing our foibles. Just look at Republicans

>anachronistic moralizing
Plebs.

Hamilton talked about how in Greek mythology the Gods were not regarded as the omnipotent creators of the universe, but in fact, they were themselves creatures created by the universe. Besides Fate which she talks about, could it be that Gaea and Uranus are the two strongest beings in the universe.

Also, I found it quite weird that Athena was not born, but just sprung out of Zeus's head, is this meant to indicate her being born out of his wisdom, which would be logical seeing that she was venerated as the goddess of wisdom.

Another thing I noted which is not at all related to the Greeks is that Hamilton described Thrace as "home of rude, fierce people". I find this statement to be a bit inaccurate, in the sense that it might give a flawed understanding of who the Thracians were. While it is true that they were considered barbaric by both Romans and Greeks and they did their share of warfare, they were not a bunch of rude wildlings living in caves, they were quite civilized. In fact the oldest piece of gold to be shaped by human hands has been identified as Thracian and is dated as far as back as the 4th milennia BC.

>I find this statement to be a bit inaccurate, in the sense that it might give a flawed understanding of who the Thracians were. While it is true that they were considered barbaric by both Romans and Greeks and they did their share of warfare, they were not a bunch of rude wildlings living in caves, they were quite civilized. In fact the oldest piece of gold to be shaped by human hands has been identified as Thracian and is dated as far as back as the 4th milennia BC.
Your inference is even more inaccurate. We know that the Near East was the cradle of Western Civilisation, that doesn't stop it from being a shithole today.

>This is another thing I've wondered about a lot but have never had answered. I'm not sure to what extent everyday pagans had religious experiences. So much of the religion is about maintaining these binds with heaven, but not with higher morality or mysticism or philosophy or anything we associate with religion. But people do write about piety and reverence. It's just very hard to know what they mean by it. Would a pagan walk around thinking in their heads 'I love Aphrodite!' and praying and stuff the way a Christian might with God? I have no idea.

The readings mention of prayers for sailors suggest a little bit of the kind of internal dialogue you see in modern Christianity. I was not imagining religious practice like that until I came across that though. Rather I was imagining an appreciation for natural beauty say, in the forest, and linking that to the god or demigod associated with that domain, like Pan and the Dryads. Maybe that inspired you sing a tune. That sort of thing.

>Both views were around. Some people definitely thought the gods were totally real, some people thought they were metaphors of deeper truths, and some people didn't really believe in them at all - and often still sacrificed to them anyway.

Thank you, that is very interesting.

You're pretty shallow, maybe you should stick to computer games.

>Besides Fate which she talks about, could it be that Gaea and Uranus are the two strongest beings in the universe.

Nah Zeus is.

And you're ignorant as shit, pic related. I'm not getting into the debate about whether Thracians were "civilized" or not unless someone decides what they mean by that term, but if you're going to take treasure into account, this is from the 5th century BC. They were uncivilized in the sense that they didn't have a written literature etc but they weren't cannibals with bones sticking out of their noses or something either. That's all he was saying but you just had to have your .02, which was completely pointless and wrong.

Yes, tons. Shakespeare died in 1616. Discoveries after him:

>The Epic of Gilgamesh
>the plays of Menander (Dyskolos, Samia, Perikeiromene) found in 1907
>Gospel of Thomas 1945
>Oxyrhynchus Papyri
>every piece of Ancient Egyptian literature that was written in hieroglyphics (deciphered in 1822)

>The Trojan War: A New History Review
docdro.id/VFs2dJz

I imagine like with w&p it'll be a case of starting a new thread when this one reaches limit

>Would a pagan walk around thinking in their heads 'I love Aphrodite!' and praying and stuff the way a Christian might with God?
Yes. They would pray, sing, devote sacrifices to, tell stories about, and participate in extravagant rituals to gain sway with the gods. They also held ritualized festivals in their honor.

On Day 8 we are reading the Cambridge Companion to Ancient Mediterranean Religions' entry for Greece which should explain things better.

I believe so. Interpretation of dreams is present in both Iliad and Odyssey.

where should todays reading take me up to in mythology? it says pg 40, but the page count on my computer varies depending on the window size

I just read the first chapter which discusses the twelve Olympians and the lesser deities and assumed that was all the reading.