(*r)Hi. I am Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, here with two of my symbols, the owl and the shield with the image of Medusa. As the lecture is subtitled "repressed libido" I am probably the most suited of the Greek gods to address you. One of my names is Athena Parthenos, which means maiden or virgin. I am not married. I was born from my father's head, and therefore have a very different relationship to women, never having been born of one. (*r)The large temple on the Acropolis, which housed the original statue that you have been looking at, was called the Parthenon in reference to my maidenly status. The city was named for me, in honour of a competition I won with the people of Athens against my uncle Poseidon. I promised them olives, representing cultivation and the possibility of trade, whereas he offered them a source of salt water. I am one of the Olympic gods, housed on Mount Olympus in Northern Greece. Most of us are related to each other in some way, and we all have special roles. As goddess of wisdom, war and also inventions, I am considered one of the culture gods. I look after heroes, and protect cities. I swerve on the side of reason, and am probably the most rational of all the immortals. All of the Olympian Gods, twelve in all, have separate but complementary responsibilities, which can be understood from the stories of our births and lives. The most powerful of the Olympians is my father, Zeus, and the rest are his siblings or children. Well, that's according to Homer, the eighth-century BC poet from whom so much Greek mythology is gleaned, but there are conflicting stories regarding the most powerful Olympian goddess: Aphrodite, the goddess of Love. In Homer, Aphrodite is the daughter of Zeus, who was begotten from an otherwise unknown goddess called Dione....which coincidently means goddess and could just mean the female form of Zeus. This is all very clean and convenient, placing Aphrodite, as daughter, in a position below that of Almighty Zeus. But Hesiod, another poet of just a century later, presents a different version of Aphrodite's being, which is much more indicative of the power and control she exercises in the world, over mortals and immortals. Here is the story of her begetting, within the context of the rise of the Olympian gods.
(*r)In the beginning was Chaos, a gaping void, from which developed (*r)Tartarus (the Underworld), (*r)Eros (the potent force of Love) and (*r)Gaia, the earth. Those of you who grew up watching Captain Planet might remember her. Gaia produced Uranus, which in Ancient times was the word for sky or the heavens. (*r)They married and produced several offspring, including Cyclopes and Titans, from which were produced gods of the sun, moon and dawn. Uranus hated his children so, he hid them within the depths of Gaia's body, which did not please her overly much. She colluded with one of her children, Chronus, giving him a weapon with which to castrate his father as he attempted a sexual interlude with his wife. The severed genitals were thrown out to sea, and from the foam, a very powerful goddess was created. Some believe Aphrodite means foam. You often find her pictured in the sea. The most famous picture of this story is not ancient, but came from the Italian Renaissance. (*r)I'm sure all of you have seen "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli. Her birth led to two epithets, Kythereia and Cypris, as these were the two islands to which she was first brought. As I said, Aphrodite is very powerful, and very few can withstand her temptations. Even the immortals are swayed by her, including the mightiest of all the Olympic gods. I am one of the few able to withstand her, along with my aunt Hestia, who looks after the family hearth, and my half-sister Artemis of the hunt. She obtained special dispensation from our father not to be prey to Aphrodite. Although being able to grant this favour to Artemis, Zeus is often at the behest of goddess of Love, and many gods and heroes alike can claim his fatherhood. You must understand the the Love represented by Aphrodite was not a Christian type of Love, equated with compassion and empathy, but related to Eros and passionate desire. It is essential for life and its generation, but has its down-side. It undermines rationality, and engenders disharmony. Even the battle for Troy...probably the most famous of the mythological wars can be blamed on the machinations of Aphrodite. Even so, erotic love was not considered bad, or evil, but the stories emphasise its fundamental role in life, and attempt to engender a respect for its power. The fifth-century play by Euripides called Hippolytus describes the tragic circumstances of one person trying to defy Aphrodite and lead what would now be considered a celibate life. The tragedy extends beyond the individual to his whole family, including several deaths. The dual aspect of Aphrodite's nature, life generator but also potential cause for disharmony, is similar to other patterns within the Olympian pantheon. All the gods represent some aspect of life, and can be judged as positive or negative, depending on the extreme. The gods frequently represent extremes, and mortals need to find the balance. The stories thus become the means of guiding good social behaviour.
Now I have introduced you to Aphrodite, let me continue with the generation of the major gods. Chronus, father emasculator and my grandfather, married Rhea, and like his own father, did not relish his role as father. He devoured all of his children, except the youngest, whom Rhea managed to hide on Crete. She gave her husband a rock to swallow instead. The rescued baby was Zeus, and he grew mighty enough to overthrow his father, and rescue all of the other gods from his belly, in the reverse order of their births. (*r)These children included Poseidon, god of the sea, Hades, god of the underworld, Hestia, goddess of the hearth, Demeter, goddess of agriculture and Hera, the goddess who became the wife of mighty Zeus. Hestia and Hades, due to their responsibilities being so far from Mt Olympus did not remain part of the Olympic twelve. Although Zeus is my father, Hera was not my mother. My mother was Mêtis, which means cunning. Zeus heard a prophesy that Mêtis would produce a son more powerful than his father. You can imagine how Zeus felt about that once he heard that she was pregnant with his child. Sons did seem to have the ability to overpower their fathers....just as he had done. To protect himself, he swallowed her (just like his father, really), and thought no more of it, until he had a splitting headache. I continued to grow inside my father's head. The only remedy for Zeus was to call for his son Hephaestus, the smith, to bring his axe and relieve the pressure. (*r)Thus I was born from my father's head, and not only that, I was already fully-armed as war goddess.(*r) These images come from vases painted in Greece in the fifth-century BCE.
The prophecy of a son more powerful than the father did not stop with me. Thetis was also destined to bear such a son, and she did. This time, Zeus was clever enough to force her in marriage to a mortal called Peleus. The marriage of Thetis and Peleus was one of the most famous mythological marriages and had dire consequences, not only for themsleves, but for the whole of the Mediterranean region. It was at this event that Paris, the handsome Trojan prince, had to select the most beautiful goddess from amongst Hera, Aphrodite and myself...the Judgment of Paris...but that is another story involving Helen, all the Greeks, and the ancient city of Troy. Thetis did produce a son mightier than his father. Achilles was a glorious warrior, who far exceeded his mortal father's accomplishments. He was the famed warrior of Greece, invincible accept for his achilles' heel. His glory was made at the seige of Troy. The story of Troy is fundamental to Greek Mythology. The tale of Gods bickering and mortals playing it all out on the battle field has been handed down to us by first Homer, in the Iliad and then the Odyssey, and in more condensed forms by hundreds of authors over the centuries. The Trojan War has echoed over the centuries as different nations have defined themselves as descended from either the Greeks or the Trojans. The works of Homer themselves and their spinoffs provide much of the modern knowledge of Greek Mythology.
A mortal too was once destined to kill his father. We know this story from another fourth-century BCE playwright, Sophocles. Poor Oedipus was left for dead in the wilds so that he could not fulfil the prophecy, but luck would have it that he was found and survived to adulthood, and yes, he killed his father. Of course in this instance it was unwitting, as he did not know that the king of Thebes was his natural father...but the pattern continues. All sons will eventually be more powerful than their fathers. It might be considered a mark of their shared mortality.