Category Archives: Greek Gods

Ancient Religious Mysteries

Posted on by

In A Murder of Furies, Martis undergoes an initiation in order to embark upon several quests.

Although I imagined most of what Martis endures, I read widely about the ancient mysteries, particularly about Dionysus and Artemis. Both are very old Gods and it is believed both were present in the pantheon of Bronze Age Crete. Because these were mysteries, known only to the initiated, not much was known about either.

However, we can make some educated guesses.

Since Dionysus was the God of wine, ecstasy, and music, it is thought his rites involved all three. (Both wine and hallucinogenics, as well as sex , dancing and singing.) The following is a quote from The Bacchae by Euripides.

“Following the torches as they dipped and swayed in the darkness, they climbed mountain paths with head thrown back and eyes glazed, dancing to the beat of the drum which stirred their blood’ ‘In this state of ekstasis or enthusiasmos, they abandoned themselves, dancing wildly and shouting ‘Euoi!’ [the god’s name] and at that moment of intense rapture became identified with the god himself. They became filled with his spirit and acquired divine powers.

Dionysus predates the Olympian pantheon so this wild release is wholly different from the cool logic of an Athena or measured behavior of Apollo.

The other God, or Goddess in this case, that I researched was Artemis. Her great temple at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Like Dionysus, she is thought to be of pre-Greek origin, a goddess in her own right, before the Classical Greeks tied her to Zeus and put her in with their Olympic Gods. In Minoan Crete, there was a link between a goddess Britomartis and Artemis. Both were hunters, nurturers of the young, and virgins. In both cases, the bear was sacred to them. (In Murder of Furies, I begin with a ceremony in which little girls dress as bears, a ceremony also described as occurring in Classical Athens.

In both cases, we know very little of the mysteries involving their rites. (No one talked, apparently.) My takeaway, though, was that the initiations involved a transformation into someone different and that is what I tried to convey with Martis (whose name I adapted from Britomartis. I will add that the initiation was as difficult as the final quest itself.

Aphrodite

Posted on by

Like several other of the Greek Gods we are familiar with, Aphrodite’s origins are much earlier than Classical Greece.

There are two myths about her birth. One is a fairly standard one in which Zeus was her father and Dione, a sea nymph, her father. The other is much darker. Gaia, the earth goddess, married her own son Uranus. This was a loveless marriage. He hated their children (the Titans and the Cyclops among others) and trapped them under Gaia’s belly in the earth. Gaia persuaded another of her sons, Cronus, to help her. He did so by castrating his brother. (I told you it was dark.) His male parts fell into the sea and drifted east from the island Cyprus. From the foaming mess arose Aphrodite.

The historical past of this Goddess is more prosaic. Fertility Goddesses were common in the Bronze Age Middle East. These Goddesses went by various names: Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte. (One theory of Aphrodite’s name is that it is a corruption of Asteroth.) All of these Goddesses inhabited the sky in the form of a star – actually the planet we still call Venus.

The Pomegranate is her fruit and birds are sacred to her. I want to point out that Birds were also sacred to the Supreme Goddess in Crete. In the beginning of the third Crete mystery, (coming soon), Martis participates in a ritualistic bird dance honoring the Goddess.

Another interesting point. Aphrodite was not only the Goddess of romantic and carnal love, but also of the lust for battle and conquest.

The cult of Aphrodite spread throughout the Mediterranean, with its center in Cyprus. (Supposedly her birth place.) Aphrodite is also associated with copper – which is mined on Cyprus.

Medusa

Posted on by

One of the Greek myths that has captured even modern imaginations is that of Medusa.

In the Greek myth, Medusa was a priestess for Athena. Poseidon violated her inside Athena’s temple and Athena was so enraged by the sacrilege she changed Medusa from a beautiful girl into a monster with venomous snakes for hair and a gaze that turned people into stone.

Medusa and her two sisters were banished to a small, faraway island where they lived until Perseus slew Medusa. (He used her head as a weapon but that is another story.)

Here are my takeaways. Athena was supposed to be the goddess of wisdom but she chose to punish Medusa instead of Poseidon. Athena was a powerful goddess but instead of confronting another God she attacked a mortal woman.

Clearly, the attitudes toward rape haven’t changed much. Many of the rape victims in the Greek myths, like Medusa, are the ones punished, not the rapists.

According to some of the sourcesI read, this is an example of the unfairness of divine retribution in the Greek myths. The Gods were frequently unfair.

What color was the Minoans Hair?

Posted on by

I’m sure the overwhelming response is black. After all, dark hair and eyes are consistent with Mediterranean coloring. What then, does one make of Apollo, whose hair was a golden blond? When I asked my Greek guide several years ago why Apollo was supposed to have blond hair, she replied that his hair fit in with his role as the sun god.

Fast forward a few years and a lot more research. It turns out that, although blond hair was uncommon, it was not that unusual. Some of the ancient pottery depicts warriors with blond hair and Achilles in fact was supposed to be fair. Another famous blond – Helen of Troy. She literally was fair. They were not the only ones.

DNA evidence confirms that although the prevailing hair colors were black and dark brown, blond and red hair were not unknown. Partly that was due to contact with people from the steppes.

My takeaway: people have always traveled from place to place, intermarrying with local populations. We are all mutts.

I hope to see everyone at the Cohoes Public Library this Saturday, 11 – 4.

Hecate: was she a witch?

Posted on by

Don’t forget! I’ll be at the Rensselaer Public Library this Saturday from 1 to 3. Six authors will discuss their works, answer questions and sign books.

Since it is Halloween, I thought I’d discuss Hecate. By Shakespeare’s time – in fact, long before, Hecate was a witch, a powerful dark force. The three Weird Sister answer to her calling on her for help and suffering from her wrath.

But in Ancient Greece, Hecate was not a witch. She was a Goddess, not a child of Zeus, but, like Dionysus, a divinity far older than even the Mycenaeans. She could slip easily between the world of the living and the world of the dead. When Hades took Persephone, Demeter asked Hecate to find her daughter, which Hecate did, locating Persephone in the Underworld.

Hecate, triple bodied, was the goddess of the crossroads, and, by extension, of boundaries. Her eyes could see into the souls of me and her torch was brighter than the moon. Since she was not a witch, she did not rely on magic or spells. (She evolved into a witch throughout the centuries.)

Hecate is usually represented holding torches, a key or snakes. That suggests to me that her roots go all the way back to Minoan times and the Priestess for whom snakes were divine. Her frequent companion was a large black dog. Together they were so fearsome that when she went to Hades, even the spirits of the dead stepped aside.

Happy Halloween everyone!

The island of Delos

Posted on by

According to Greek myth, this small, rocky island was the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. (OK, how many knew Artemis is Apollo’s twin?)

Leto, the mother of the twins, was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. Hera was so jealous that she decreed Leda could not find any solid ground on which to rest or to deliver her babies.

But Delos was a floating island so Leto was able to deliver her children there, under a palm tree. Since Artemis was born first, she helped her mother with Apollo’s birth and thus became a protector of women especally during childbirth. (Artemis must have been very precocious since she was, what?, ten minutes old at the most.)

Delos is home to the iconic Terrace of the Lions, a wide pathway lined on both sides by statues of lions. Originally, there were nine to twelve but now only five remain. This terrace was erected by the people of Naxos and dedicated to Apollo. It faces east, toward the Sacred Lake of Delos.

I imagine it was quite scary walking past these lions, with their mouths open as though roaring.


Creator: Mark Cartwright | Credit: Mark Cartwright / World History Encyclopedia
Copyright: Mark Cartwright – CC BY-NC-SA – 

Delos is covered with excavations, including the Terrace of Lions. But now, with rising seas, Delos is in danger of being swamped.

More about Artemis

Posted on by

Further proof that Artemis is linked with the Minoan Cretan hunting Goddess Britomartis (or Diktynna which means of the nets.) By the 5th century B.C, this goddess had been completely assimilated into Artemis.

Britomartis, whose name means sweet maiden, was said to have invented hunting nets. This is thought to be one reason she was also called Diktynna. And yes, I took Martis from her name as the name of my main character in the Bronze Age Crete series.

In one of the myths, Britomartis jumps into the sea to escape King Minos and his lust. Fishermen hid her in their nets (an alternate reason for the name Diktynna.)

Am I the only one appalled by the constant stories of rape of all the women in the myths? It does make Artemis’s reaction to the men who watched her or pursued her – frequently death – a little more understandable.

Who is the Minoan Lady of the Beasts?

Posted on by

Artemis is described in the Iliad as Potnia Theron or the Lady of the Beasts. (Potnia is a term of respect, meaning Lady or Mistress.) It is also a title formerly used by a Minoan Goddess – the Lady of the Beasts.

A similar goddess was worshipped throughout the Aegean. In fact, the Mistress of the Beasts – or something similar – was worshipped as far back as the Neolithic, including Crete. I don’t think it is a big stretch of the imagination to believe that Artemis either took over the role of her precursor or was the Lady of the Beasts under a different name.

What do we know about Artemis? She was a beautiful winged Goddess, usually associated with the Moon. (Although, since her twin brother was Apollo, the sun, there are solar elements as well. Both were children of Leto and Zeus.) She was passionate about her virginity and could be quite cruel to her nymphs when they lost their theirs, even if usually by rape. Young girls were frequently dedicated to her at the age of somewhere between 9 and fifteen. (Scholars disagree about the age.) Suidas and Arktos e Brauroniols wrote that the Athenians decreed that no virgin could be married unless they played the bear for the Goddess. (Interesting and odd to me in light of the beliefs about young girls who die before marriage and children – who become spirits, or willies.) Martis would have been dedicated as well but, unlike most of her peers, she plans to remain a virgin and dedicated to the Virgin Goddess.

Artemis is also a patron of childbirth, again an interesting juxtaposition with a virgin goddess. Women prayed to her for an easy and safe childbirth and shrines to her were present well into Roman times.

She was also a huntress and is frequently pictured with her golden bow and arrows and a pack of hunting dogs. This is the piece that fits in with the Lady of the Beasts. As a beautiful but unattainable woman, she was frequently the object of men’s attentions. With the Greek predilection for violent drama, her reaction toward them tended to be fatal. In one myth, a mortal saw her bathing naked. Artemis turned him into a stag and his own hunting dogs tore him apart.

Although Artemis is a hunter and a protector of women in childbirth, the apparent disconnect does make sense. Fertility of both women and animals, domestic and wild, was necessary for prosperity.

In Classical Greece, Artemis is a daughter of Zeus. But her history is far older than that.

Linear A and B

Posted on by

I am fascinated by words and language. I’m not sure if that is because I’m a big reader or I became a reader and eventually an author because of it.

In any event, when I began researching the Minoans for my latest series, (In the shadow of the Bull and On the Horns of Death),

I quickly ran into the question of these old, probably the oldest, written languages. Unlike the hieroglyphics, which were finally deciphered thanks to the Rosetta Stone, Linear A and B resisted decoding.

Linear A, which was used by the Minoans, still has not been deciphered. And Linear B was not deciphered until the 1950s. An Englishman from Hertfordshire, Michael Ventris, finally succeeded, using a multi-disciplinary approach.

Tablets with this writing have been found in Knossos and Pylos, as well as other places, and was very early on recognized as the earliest form of Greek. Deciphering changed the way we understand the Aegean Bronze Age, especially the complex societal structures and the far flung trade networks. Linear B has been determined to be a very early form of Greek

I suspect when Linear A is deciphered, it will include primarily trade information but we can hope it will open a window into this exotic and still mysterious culture.

Artemis

Posted on by

As I’ve discussed in earlier posts, Artemis is one of the Gods who, it is believed, was a goddess in Bronze Age Crete and was adopted by the mainland Greeks. She remained virtually unchanged, unlike Hera who diminished from a goddess in her own right to the jealous wife of Zeus in Classical Greece.

Artemis was a virgin goddess and a goddess of the hunt, of vegetation, and of birth. Women in labor prayed to her.

In the myths of Classical Greece, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo. (Daughter of Leto by Zeus.) And since those myths all seemed to be dark and full of cruelty, Artemis too could be cruel. She turned a young hunter, Acteon, who accidentally saw her bathing, into a stag and his own hunting dogs took him down.

In my Ancient Crete mystery series, Martis, my protagonist, is a follower of Artemis.

Coming April 24, 2024

As a devotee of Artemis, Martis plans to remain a virgin her whole life.

As part of my research, I hope to visit Ephesus where the ruins of a temple to Artemis still stand. Enormous in scale, the temple boasted a double row of columns that became a model for other Greek temples. Besides honoring Artemis, the temple also served as a place of sanctuary. Recent excavations have shown the stalls, where refuge seekers slept.

Historical note: Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe was double-crossed and murdered on the temple steps before she could reach the safety of the temple.