v3.1
Version: 2017-07-10
To the spirit of Margaret Reynolds and all classics teachers everywhere—DJN
For the newest member of the gang—Ethan Croucher—CB
DEMETER Goddess of the Harvest
HEPHAESTUS God of Metalworking
APHRODITE Goddess of Love & Beauty
HERACLES The Hero Who Became Immortal
Some things about daily life can be counted on. The sun rises, crosses the sky, sets. Stars come out at night. Rivers flow toward the sea. The air and land and waters burst with life. These life-forms feed one another: Plants are eaten by animals, which are eaten by other animals. But there are also interruptions: volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, storms. Life on Earth is complex.
From our earliest records of human activity, we can conclude that people recognized this complexity and wanted to explain it. So far as we know, humans are the only creatures who entertain a wide variety of questions about the nature of existence. The questions that people from different societies raise are often quite similar, but the answers they give and the relative importance they assign to these answers can be significantly different. And those answers define the human values of our societies. They are at once based on intellect, experience, and emotion. And from them, we draw our ethics, our rituals, and our storytelling.
In this book we find answers offered by the ancient Greeks to many of the questions humans long to understand. But we also find gods, goddesses, heroes, and monsters who love and hate and grow jealous and get duped; they are blessed and cursed with all the emotions that enrich and plague ordinary humans. In reading the myths, we begin to understand that the ancient Greeks must have wanted more than just the big answers from their gods. They must have also wanted their gods to be a reflection that could help them understand themselves.
A note to ebook readers: We hope you find the art in this book as enchanting as we do. To experience it in more detail, you may be able to enlarge it. In most reading systems, you can double tap on the image to bring up a full-screen viewer with zoom and pan functionality.
From the earliest nothingness came air and water and earth, all churning and whirling until they were inextricably bound and life became inevitable: A tree sprouted and grew strong and unruly, fruited with gods and goddesses whose powers thrived under the sun and moon and stars, stretching into every corner of the universe. That tree would nourish and confound the lives of the simple mortals yet to come.