Greek Mythology (LL)

Though it flourished 2,500 years ago, no other civilization has had as much influence on the spirit of the western world as ancient Greece. Our most basic and dearly held convictions, such as a man's right to liberty, to be ruled by a democratic government, and the inherent worth of the individual, are directly descended from Greek thought.

Geographically, ancient Greece was very much the same as modern Greece. Located at the southern tip of the Balkan land mass, it is a region of hard, limestone mountains separated by deep valleys, and cut almost in two by the narrow Strait of Corinth. To the east, hundreds of isles dot the clear blue Aegean sea, and the mighty island of Crete marks its southern edge in the Mediterranean. It is a small country, no larger than the state of Florida (even at the height of its expansion). Yet it also sits at the hinge of the European and Asian continents, and its shores once touched the waters of six separate seas.

Considering its central location, it is no surprise that a sophisticated culture developed at these crossroads. The ancient Greeks believed they were descended from a legendary race of heroes who would sail to the ends of the earth in search of the golden fleece, who would gladly fight a bitter ten-year war over a single beautiful woman, and who lived in a society of splendor and luxury. There is more than a kernel of truth to this legend. However, Greece was not the first civilization to rise in the Eastern Mediterranean.

From 1700 to 1400 B.C., the ancient and little-known civilization of the Minoans flourished on the island of Crete and in the waters of the Aegean sea. From what little is known of them, they were a vibrant and pleasure-loving people with a highly developed trading system that linked the islands of the Aegean sea together. Their civilization came to an abrupt end around 1400 B.C., probably when the volcano at Thera (modern Santorini) erupted with a force three times as great as that of the explosion of Krakatoa. Thera was buried under a blanket of pumice as much as 130 feet deep, cities on nearby islands were showered with fire and ash, and ships, harbors, even entire cities were washed away by tidal waves.

The Minoan society never recovered. But a new culture arose on the shores of the mainland. Building on the heritage left by the Minoans, a new sort of man established a spectacular civilization centered at the city of Mycenae that united many other early Greek cities under its influence. The Mycenaeans were great builders who erected citadels with walls ten-feet thick, and who buried their leaders in enormous beehive tombs made of stones weighing as much as 120 tons. They were immensely wealthy, especially when it came to gold—a great deal of which they earned through piracy and brigandage. Unlike the Minoans, the Mycenaeans were a warlike people who wandered far on adventurous missions undertaken in the search for gold, and it was their exploits that the famous poet Homer portrayed.

Their lust for warfare seems to have been the downfall of the Mycenaeans. It was one of their kings, Agamemnon, who led them into the long war with Troy. This bitter war left Mycenae weak and shattered by civil strife, with disrupted trade routes and no political allies to help them rebuild.

While Mycenae crumbled, it was infiltrated and finally obliterated by waves of less civilized Greeks from the north, the Dorians. They eventually succeeded in destroying it altogether, and Greece fell into a Dark Age that lasted from 1200 to 750 B.C. Citadels fell into ruins, record- keeping vanished, the art of writing disappeared, and the secrets of fine craftsmanship were lost.

After the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, each city, with its surrounding hamlets and farms, was a separate social unit. In chaos of the Dark Ages, they became little more than garrisons ruled by a commander and his captains. Military governments evolved into hereditary monarchies, and the king became the religious as well as secular head of the community.

The many city-states developed along different lines, giving rise to a wide variety of ideas that would later serve as the basis for the intellectual and political freedom so crucial to the development of Greek culture. Yet the Greeks still shared the same language and many other common characteristics. Despite the many different patterns along which the city-states developed, the Greeks shaped a national character that encompassed all of the individual variations of the city-states.

As the Dark Ages stabilized, the Greeks began sharing the discoveries and insights of their individual cities. They relearned and improved upon the arts that had fallen into decay with Dorian migrations. Trade began to flourish again and, in 776 B.C., the first Olympic games were held in honor of Zeus.

Perhaps the most important rediscovery, however, was the revitalization of the written word with the appearance of a Greek alphabet well-suited to literature and other needs. The reappearance of writing allowed the precise and widespread communication of new ideas, and increased the cohesion of Greek society.

As the economic revival spread through Greece, the military role of the kings began to decline (though it did not disappear entirely). In city after city, the kings were deposed or reduced to figureheads. They were replaced by a council of local aristocrats who shared the power formerly held by one man, laying the foundations for what would later become the world's first true democracy.

The New Age

As Greece emerged from the Dark Ages, each of the city-states (known as polises) developed a unique character and culture. The extremes of this diversity are best illustrated by two of the most famous polises, Athens and Sparta.

Sparta was established by the same uncivilized Dorian invaders that plunged Greece into the Dark Age, and remained essentially Dorian until the collapse of ancient Greece itself.

It was always organized as a stern, military camp, ruled by two kings from its earliest days to its last. Citizens of Sparta were pawns of the polis, rigidly controlled from birth to death. From the age of seven onward, children were trained for war, learning to use weapons, accept harsh discipline, and endure physical hardship without complaint. The average citizen's home life was also extremely limited and controlled. The men ate in a common mess, could not live with their wives until the age of 30, and children were considered property of the polis to do with as it pleased.

At the other extreme was Athens, which had resisted the Dorian invasions by virtue of its location. Sitting atop the rocky acropolis, it repulsed the invaders and served as Greece's repository of ancient knowledge through the Dark Ages. The Athenians established the world's first true democracy, in which all free adult males met 40 times a year to vote upon questions important to the polis. Its small population was extremely civic-minded, and every man cheerfully volunteered to do his part to keep Athens and its democratic government strong.

The Athenians felt they had an exalted duty to spread liberty and democracy to all parts of Greece. Toward this end, in 478 - 477 B.C., they established the Delian League, a confederation of over 250 polises allied in the name of mutual defense. In addition to their mutual military needs, however, the members of the Delian League were bound together by a far stronger force: cultural affinity.

Although each polis was (at least in theory) a free and independent state, the ancient Greeks recognized that they shared a common heritage. They spoke some form of the same language, worshiped the same gods, and followed the same customs. Despite the constant bickering between city-states, each man recognized that, after his own polis, he owed his loyalty to the diverse conglomeration of cities that made up the Greek nation.

More importantly, however, each man held a well-defined philosophy of life that marked him as being distinctly Greek. The Greeks believed that a man must be honored for his individual worth and treated with respect just because he was himself. They believed that a man's talents were a gift from the gods, and, therefore, that he should make the most of them. They viewed death as a dismal state that could not be avoided, and believed the only escape from death lay in carving an imperishable legend through magnificent accomplishments. Therefore, they lived their lives to the fullest, and pursued fame with astonishing energy. Each of these cultural threads, all vital in their own right, was woven together to form the fabric of the vibrant Greek culture.

The Greek quest for excellence in all things led to the development of many principles that remain the foundation of free societies today. The Greeks were the first to establish laws that could not be changed at the personal whim of a ruler, and designed their legal systems to secure life and property for all their citizens. They learned to diagnose diseases through the careful observation of its symptoms, laying the foundations for modern medicine. They were the first people to carefully and truthfully record history in the form of verifiable facts, establishing the basic premise for all historical study that has followed.

Despite their idealistic lifestyle, the Greeks were more keenly aware of the shortcomings of humanity than any other ancient civilization. In the ancient world, the Greeks were famous for their churlish tempers, especially where honor or reputation was concerned. In legend and drama, their heroes always suffered from serious failings that often led to their downfall. Even the greatest of their idols had flaws such as overweening pride, rashness, cruelty, vengefulness, stubbornness, and every form of foible known to man.

The Greek Pantheon

To the Greeks, man was the measure of all things, and their gods mirrored them faithfully. Like men, the gods were noble and proud, but they were also quarrelsome, scheming, and lecherous. These deities appeared in more or less human form, though they were always more beautiful than any mortal could hope to be. Invariably, the gods suffered from human faults and engaged in very human behavior, such as falling in love, resorting to treachery to win a cherished goal, and hungering for power. Unlike the gods of many ancient civilizations, the deities of the Greeks were far from remote or mysterious. Their motives could almost always be understood in human terms.

There were two important differences between the gods and men, however. Although the gods were moved by the same emotional forces that ruled the lives of men, they were not expected to follow the rules of human behavior. They were free to engage in all sorts of conduct that would never be tolerated in human society: thievery, lechery, gluttony, adultery, and so on.

The second important difference between gods and men was power. The Greek gods were all, to some degree, embodiments of power, whether in the physical world or in the minds of men. They controlled literally everything, from the storms that ravaged the seas to the love that bound men and women together. It was because of this power that the greeks sought the favor of the gods through prayers and sacrifices. When the Greeks honored excellence in any domain, it was the gift of some of this godly power that they were praising.

The Greek gods, who were thought to live atop the snowy heights of Mount Olympus, were ruled by the mighty Zeus. But this was not always so, for the Mycenean gods were older than the Greek gods, and the Minoan gods were older still. Thus, the Greek gods had a history of their own, just as the Greek culture did.

In the beginning, there was only Chaos, from which were formed Gaea (the earth), Tarterus (beneath the earth), and many other primeval gods such as Eros, Night, and Day. Gaea created Uranus, the Mountains, and the Sea, then she married Uranus and gave birth to the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires.

Uranus turned out to be a harsh and jealous husband who cruelly kept the Hecatoncheires prisoner inside their mother. In retaliation, she called upon her other children to avenge her, and the Titan Cronus wounded his father so severely that the cruel Uranus was vanquished. The Furies, the Ash- Tree Nymphs, and the Giants were created when the deposed ruler's blood fell to earth.

After assuming his father's reign, Cronus married Rhea. But, fearing that one of his offspring (who were the gods) would usurp his throne as he had his father's, he swallowed all of his children as Rhea gave birth to them. The furious Rhea managed to hide her sixth born child, Zeus. After growing to manhood on the island of Crete, he returned to his father disguised as a cupbearer. Zeus served Cronus a potion that caused the Titan to vomit up the young god's siblings and the gods united to overthrow their despotic father.

The task was far from over, however. After their victory over Cronus, Zeus and the other gods had to battle the rest of the Titans. After more than a decade of cosmos-shaking warfare, in which the elements of nature raged unchecked, the gods finally managed to confine the Titans to Tartarus, the Greek underworld. Next, the gods had to fight a similar battle against Typhoeus, a hundred-headed dragon that Gaea had created to attack the gods after the defeat of her Titans. The gods had no sooner buried the monster beneath Mt. Etna than the Giants challenged their rule. It required all of their prowess and the assistance of the mortal Heracles to kill the giants. Finally, after vanquishing the Titans, Typhoeus, and the Giants, the gods were at last the unchallenged rulers of Olympus and the earth.

Their domain was far different than the world we know today, however. The home of the gods, Mount Olympus, stood at the center of the earth. Around the earth ran a limitless river called Ocean. On the far shore of this river lived the Hyperboreans, a race of blessed men who did not know care, toil, illness, or old age. Their home was isolated from the rest of the world, being completely unapproachable by land or sea.

To the West was Hesperia, populated by such monstrous beings as the Cyclops, the cannibalistic Laestrygonians, Scylla, Charybdis, and the Sirens. Beyond Hesperia lay the Elysian Fields, where certain favored heroes went when they died.

To the South were the Ethiopians, the lucky, virtuous people with whom the gods banqueted. In the East were the barbarians, fierce peoples who could not speak Greek and did not know the blessings of civilization.

Directly beneath the earth was the kingdom of Hades, where the dead went to fade into nothingness. Below Hades was Tartarus, the vast realm of nebulous darkness where the gods had confined the Titans.

New Spells

• Enhance (Wizard Spell) - 8th Level Wizard Spell
• Favor (Priest Spell) - 5th Level Priest Spell

New Magic Items

• Aegis II (Magic Shield)

Sage Advice (Dragon Issue #202)

These are unofficial suggestions for using the optional spheres of priest spells from the Tome of Magic with the deities of the Greek pantheon in Legends & Lore:

• Gaea: Major: Time; Minor: None.
• Uranus: Major: Chaos; Minor: None.
• Cronus: Cronus cannot grant spells.
• Rhea: Major: Time; Minor: None.
• Zeus: Major: Law; Minor: Wards.
• Hera: Major: Chaos; Minor: Wards.
• Aphrodite: Major: Time; Minor: Chaos.
• Ares: Major: Chaos, War; Minor: None.
• Artemis: Major: None; Minor: Time, Travelers.
• Athena: Major: War; Minor: Numbers, Wards.
• Demeter: Major: none; Minor: Time, Travelers.
• Dionysus: Major: None; Minor: Chaos, Time .
• Hephaestus: Major: None; Minor: Thought, Wards.
• Hermes: Major: Travelers; Minor: Chaos, Time.
• Apollo: Major: None; Minor: Thought, Time.
• Poseidon: Major: None; Minor: Chaos, Time.
• Hades: Major: None; Minor: Law, Time.
• Hecate: Major: None; Minor: Thought, Time .
• Titans: Major: None; Minor: One of the following, as appropriate: Thought, Time, or Wards!
• The Furies: The Furies do not grant spells, as they have no worshipers.