0:00:01.890,0:00:04.760
[dramatic music]

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Athens, Greece.

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A city alive with commerce and culture.

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It is also a city of faith—[br]Greek Orthodox faith,

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part of the great eastern[br]arm of Christianity.

0:00:25.610,0:00:27.950
[man singing]

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But there was another world[br]here once, of which only

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tantalizing fragments remain.

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Those who reach back[br]through time, both above

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ground and below, are in search[br]of a world that was equally alive

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and equally devout:

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The world of the Ancient Greeks.

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It still speaks to us today through one of[br]its legacies, Greek mythology.

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It was populated by many gods and[br]goddesses, each with certain powers

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in the world and each[br]with a story of their own.

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[mysterious music]

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For tens of thousands of years,[br]predating biblical times,

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accounts of the gods and their doings were[br]passed down by storytellers.

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[King Constantine] It is extremely[br]hard, but one tries to fantasize of

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what was it like in those days.

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I think favored stories of gods,[br]uh, must have been,

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thinking back, what did a child think[br]and was impressed about was, how did

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Zeus give birth to Athena[br]from a headache?

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Apollo, who was a very wise young man,

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who then developed into being the god[br]of order, of music, of arts.

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Poseidon, who created storms[br]when he was angry.

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Athena, who was the protector

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of our capital city and was in favor of peace.

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[narrator] Presiding over all was Zeus,[br]god of the sky, god of thunder.

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[thunder]

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[Thomas F. Scanlon] Zeus is a sky god[br]and you're in the domain

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of Zeus when you're out there in nature.

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Zeus had some control over whether you

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had a good day or a bad day[br]and a good life or a bad life.

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He had two jars on

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the door sill and there was a jar of good[br]and a jar of evil, and to each man,

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Zeus would pour out a portion[br]of good and a portion of evil.

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[narrator] There was Aphrodite and Artemis,[br]two sides of the same coin.

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Aphrodite, and what[br]is she the goddess of?

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Um, she is the goddess of[br]sexuality—female sexuality.

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She's the goddess of beauty.

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She's associated with[br]lots of fertility issues.

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You have Artemis on the other side,

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Artemis who is this chaste, chaste virgin.

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[narrator] And Apollo, who, like all the[br]gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece,

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had more than one power.

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[Richard Martin] He is the organizer,[br]the civilizer, he's the one who

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brings roads to places where[br]there were never roads before.

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He's the one who heals,

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but he also can bring plague.

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And this is something that happens in the

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case of many Greek gods.

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If they can cause something,[br]they can also stop it.

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He was a god—I heard[br]it most brilliantly put—a god of

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distance, and therefore he would deal with[br]people not face to face and hand to hand.

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He was better at shooting his bow and[br]killing people from a very far-off

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distance, and therefore his loves, perhaps,[br]are best kept at a distance too.

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[narrator] These gods and goddesses[br]evolved as the Ancient Greeks sought

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to find meaning, and perhaps faith,[br]in an often challenging world.

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[mysterious music]

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Their stories were embellished[br]and changed over time as

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different civilizations came into contact[br]with Ancient Greece.

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[Christina Sorum] Greece has been[br]inhabited since about 70,000 BCE, and

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there were invasions of people from[br]the Middle East and from the north,

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and each invasion led to—not another set[br]of divinities—but further layers of

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divinity added to the existing divinities.

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So Greek gods are a real amalgam of

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multiple cultures, cultures[br]of the Middle East mostly.

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[Thomas F. Scanlon] The Greek gods were[br]of such diversity that they are unlike any—

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many of the other gods from around the[br]Mediterranean, because they

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incorporated elements of a lot of different[br]peoples around them, and they

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don't clearly match a lot of the other peoples,[br]say, in Celtic or Italian religions.

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[narrator] These stories were passed[br]down through oral tradition, but

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sometime around 750 BC, they were collected,[br]organized and written down.

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Although scholars debate whether one author[br]or many authors were involved

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in this effort, the popular belief is that[br]there was just one—Homer.

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[Thomas F. Scanlon] As far as we know,[br]the real crystallization of Greek

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mythology was around the[br]time of Homer, 750 BC.

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And with Homer, we find the

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creation of Greek mythology[br]and the creation of the gods.

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Homer gave the Greeks their gods.

0:06:06.410,0:06:10.050
Homer was effectively the closest thing the[br]Greeks had to a bible.

0:06:11.929,0:06:17.110
[narrator] In the beginning, Homer tells[br]us, there was Okeanos, a spirit in

0:06:17.110,0:06:24.629
the form of a great, circular, endless river[br]flowing eternally back upon itself.

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There was another presence too—[br]Tethys, sometimes called the first mother.

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When they finally mated, they began the line[br]of descent, which eventually

0:06:35.860,0:06:39.919
produced the gods and[br]goddesses of the Ancient Greeks.

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[peaceful music]

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Some 50 years after Homer,[br]the poet Hesiod composes

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the <i>Theogony</i>, in which he too[br]describes the creation of the gods.

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But according to Hesiod,[br]the world began differently.

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First, there was a

0:06:57.159,0:07:03.489
supernatural presence called Chaos,[br]by which Hesiod means emptiness,

0:07:03.489,0:07:04.909
not disorder.

0:07:06.889,0:07:12.830
[Christina Sorum] Once upon a time, there[br]was Chaos, and after Chaos there

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was a goddess called Gaia, "earth."

0:07:17.949,0:07:22.680
And Gaia slept with—married, mated—

0:07:22.680,0:07:24.419
Uranus, "heavens."

0:07:25.659,0:07:28.649
[narrator] Uranus, however,[br]did not want children.

0:07:28.649,0:07:30.050
He felt threatened by

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them and kept them from being born.

0:07:32.030,0:07:33.849
[dramatic music]

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Gaia conspires with Cronus,[br]one of her unborn children, who

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castrates his father, presumably[br]from within his mother's womb.

0:07:43.740,0:07:46.079
[dramatic music]

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Uranus' severed genitals fall[br]into the sea, from which a

0:07:51.050,0:07:58.900
surprising entity emerges:[br]Aphrodite, goddess of love.

0:07:58.900,0:07:59.900
These stories make up

0:07:59.900,0:08:04.819
what is known as Greek mythology, derived[br]from the Greek word "mythos."

0:08:04.819,0:08:11.010
It implies something untrue, but for the[br]Ancient Greeks, these stories were a matter

0:08:11.010,0:08:12.270
of faith.

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They helped explain how and[br]why the world works as it does.

0:08:17.889,0:08:22.590
[Thomas F. Scanlon] Interestingly, love[br]and war, or violence and sex, are

0:08:22.590,0:08:27.139
deeply connected in Greek mythology, and not[br]only in Greek mythology but in

0:08:27.139,0:08:29.300
a number of mythologies.

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Why are these two things deeply connected?

0:08:33.020,0:08:39.890
I think that the ancient peoples, and certainly[br]the Greeks, felt that deeply passionate

0:08:39.890,0:08:47.040
feelings were somehow connected in the human[br]mind and in the human emotions.

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That is, great desires and great fears or[br]great hatreds were somehow linked.

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[narrator] In this way, the stories and[br]characters of Greek mythology had

0:08:58.920,0:09:00.080
real-life application.

0:09:00.080,0:09:02.010
[dramatic music]

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Hesiod's creation story goes[br]on to tell how Cronus frees his

0:09:06.480,0:09:09.779
brothers and sisters from Gaia's womb.

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These beings would be known as the

0:09:12.880,0:09:18.060
Titans, born only after their[br]father has been castrated.

0:09:18.920,0:09:20.380
The theme of conflict

0:09:20.380,0:09:26.990
between father and son continues as Cronus[br]himself now kills his own children.

0:09:28.230,0:09:30.390
[Christina Sorum] Cronus married Rhea.

0:09:30.390,0:09:32.040
Every time Rhea gave birth, he'd

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swallow the children.

0:09:34.050,0:09:38.620
Rhea desperately wanted to[br]have some children, and so

0:09:38.620,0:09:43.472
she took one baby, Zeus, when he was born,[br]and wrapped him up and hid him in

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a cave in Crete to be raised, and gave Cronus[br]a stone wrapped up in swaddling

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clothes that he swallowed, so that he[br]thought he was swallowing the baby.

0:09:55.700,0:10:00.839
Well, Zeus grew up, came attacked his father,[br]and all the children emerged,

0:10:00.839,0:10:06.440
and those were the beginnings[br]of the Olympian gods.

0:10:07.450,0:10:11.489
[narrator] Zeus retrieves the rock with[br]which his mother deceived his father.

0:10:12.270,0:10:17.249
It can be seen even now at[br]the sacred shrine of Delphi.

0:10:18.180,0:10:21.690
There's always a kind[br]of inherent conflict and tension

0:10:21.690,0:10:24.190
between fathers and sons.

0:10:24.190,0:10:27.020
Greece has been, really,[br]until this century,

0:10:27.020,0:10:32.780
a subsistence economy, and so if you have a[br]small farm, the father is in charge of that.

0:10:32.780,0:10:35.870
The son, even the first son, is not going[br]to get any kind of rights

0:10:35.870,0:10:38.440
until the father moves on—retires or dies.

0:10:39.340,0:10:40.740
[Christina Sorum] What is[br]the concern there?

0:10:40.740,0:10:42.260
There's a real concern,

0:10:42.260,0:10:46.639
obviously, about issues[br]of succession and power.

0:10:49.069,0:10:53.279
[narrator] After Zeus rescues his brothers[br]and sisters from their father,

0:10:53.279,0:10:55.160
they seize Mount Olympus.

0:10:55.160,0:10:59.449
From this stronghold, they[br]battle for control of the

0:10:59.449,0:11:05.300
world against their father, aunts,[br]and uncle—all of whom are Titans.

0:11:06.070,0:11:10.110
Finally, the gods and goddesses[br]of Olympus prevail.

0:11:10.110,0:11:11.680
They acknowledge Zeus, who

0:11:11.680,0:11:15.460
is also god of the sky, as their king.

0:11:16.140,0:11:17.899
But human beings have yet to appear

0:11:17.899,0:11:19.570
on the scene.

0:11:20.380,0:11:23.370
[ominous rumbling and music]

0:11:25.380,0:11:30.251
The story of creation in Greek[br]mythology goes on in Hesiod's telling.

0:11:35.139,0:11:39.810
Generations of gods continue[br]to struggle with one another,

0:11:39.810,0:11:42.280
all before humanity's arrival in the cosmos.

0:11:42.280,0:11:47.569
I think it says something[br]very interesting about a

0:11:47.569,0:11:54.980
culture, whether it considers its formative[br]moments to be ones of conflict or

0:11:54.980,0:11:59.930
ones of sort of unified production—[br]peaceful production.

0:12:01.100,0:12:02.640
I am overwhelmed each

0:12:02.640,0:12:08.629
time I study or teach a course that deal with[br]Greek mythology, how persistent

0:12:08.629,0:12:10.259
these conflicts are.

0:12:11.389,0:12:15.179
[narrator] After triumphing over the[br]Titans, the great god Zeus marries

0:12:15.179,0:12:21.329
Metis, a Titan herself, and[br]therefore his aunt.

0:12:21.329,0:12:22.990
Eventually, they have a daughter

0:12:22.990,0:12:27.069
who births fully grown and[br]armed from his forehead.

0:12:27.919,0:12:32.180
This is Athena, goddess of warriors.

0:12:32.900,0:12:38.030
Other gods and goddesses enter the world,[br]each with different functions.

0:12:38.030,0:12:42.129
They all have, however, one thing[br]in common, an attribute which

0:12:42.129,0:12:47.919
sets them apart from virtually all other[br]divinities in the ancient world—

0:12:47.919,0:12:50.440
their images are human.

0:12:53.310,0:12:56.760
[Richard Martin] If you think of Egyptian[br]religion, with its gods having

0:12:56.760,0:13:04.529
animal heads, various animal bodies, or Near[br]Eastern, Akkadian, Mesopotamian,

0:13:04.529,0:13:10.319
Hittite religion, where you see divinities[br]associated with lions and other

0:13:10.319,0:13:11.860
fierce animals,

0:13:11.860,0:13:14.480
the Greeks' decision to somehow[br]represent the gods as

0:13:14.480,0:13:17.190
being like Greeks is really an innovation.

0:13:17.190,0:13:18.759
We're not really sure where it

0:13:18.759,0:13:19.790
came from.

0:13:21.160,0:13:25.720
[Christina Sorum] When you think about[br]divinity, you're talking about

0:13:25.720,0:13:31.920
the unknown, and you really can only talk[br]about the unknown in terms of the known.

0:13:31.920,0:13:37.509
In the Hebrew bible, in Genesis, it says God[br]came down and he walked

0:13:37.509,0:13:40.879
in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening.

0:13:40.879,0:13:43.339
It's almost impossible to talk

0:13:43.339,0:13:49.499
about divinities without[br]doing something like that.

0:13:49.499,0:13:52.069
Xenophanes said if horses

0:13:52.069,0:13:55.990
could draw, horses would[br]draw their gods as horses.

0:13:57.410,0:14:01.199
[narrator] In Homer's telling, it is[br]only after the gods and goddesses

0:14:01.199,0:14:06.249
take up residence on Mount Olympus that the[br]story of human beings begins to unfold.

0:14:10.649,0:14:13.290
The Judeo-Christian account[br]of the world's beginning

0:14:13.290,0:14:19.019
culminates in God's creation of man, who is[br]given dominion over all the other

0:14:19.019,0:14:22.149
creatures on Earth.

0:14:23.219,0:14:27.190
However, the Ancient Greeks believe[br]the birth of humans is

0:14:27.190,0:14:29.819
of little importance to the cosmos.

0:14:32.389,0:14:35.769
[Thomas F. Scanlon] Although the Greeks[br]had a human-centered universe,

0:14:35.769,0:14:39.450
their view of man was almost as an afterthought.

0:14:39.450,0:14:41.209
He was a smaller creature

0:14:41.209,0:14:44.829
in the universe, something[br]certainly lesser than the gods.

0:14:44.829,0:14:45.829
And therefore,

0:14:45.829,0:14:51.430
the creation of humans had to take a[br]second or third place down the line in the

0:14:51.430,0:14:55.220
Greek world of the cosmos[br]and the Olympian deities.

0:14:55.220,0:14:58.310
So why was the creation of

0:14:58.310,0:15:02.620
man given such a small role in the creation[br]of the universe?

0:15:03.820,0:15:07.939
[Richard Martin] It could be that Greeks[br]just assumed that human beings

0:15:07.939,0:15:11.540
were always around, that human beings are[br]in fact so important that there was

0:15:11.540,0:15:14.110
never a stage when they didn't exist.

0:15:14.110,0:15:16.360
Um, it's still something of a mystery.

0:15:17.320,0:15:22.959
[Greg Thalman] I like to think that[br]Greek myth reflects a certain understanding

0:15:22.959,0:15:26.060
by the Greeks of humans' place in the world.

0:15:26.060,0:15:27.730
That humans are not the center

0:15:27.730,0:15:34.619
of things, that there's a whole wealth of[br]created world into which humans

0:15:34.619,0:15:36.279
have to fit.

0:15:36.279,0:15:40.639
This is a great contrast with a number of[br]other cultures and belief systems.

0:15:40.639,0:15:43.209
[15:41 peaceful music]

0:15:43.209,0:15:47.120
[narrator] As with the dawn of the gods,[br]Greek mythology contains

0:15:47.120,0:15:51.519
different tellings of the creation of man.

0:15:51.519,0:15:53.389
In none of them are mankind's

0:15:53.389,0:15:55.370
beginning's auspicious.

0:15:56.570,0:15:59.490
[Christina Sorum] We lived like ants[br]in the ground and we couldn't read

0:15:59.490,0:16:02.589
and we didn't know the seasons and we didn't[br]know the weather and we couldn't think

0:16:02.589,0:16:04.180
and we couldn't hear.

0:16:04.180,0:16:09.410
We were just despicable[br]worms and worth despising.

0:16:11.200,0:16:14.849
[narrator] In Homer's version of the[br]creation of humans, the god

0:16:14.849,0:16:20.000
Prometheus forms the first man out of mud[br]and breathes life into him.

0:16:22.350,0:16:27.230
In Hesiod's telling, Zeus[br]creates succeeding races of men—

0:16:27.230,0:16:32.089
gold, silver, bronze, and iron.

0:16:32.979,0:16:35.519
It seems that each race symbolizes different

0:16:35.519,0:16:38.420
aspects of the human condition.

0:16:39.520,0:16:42.219
The first race of men is made of gold.

0:16:42.219,0:16:45.209
Their lives are easy, their crops abundant.

0:16:45.209,0:16:47.860
They literally feast with the gods.

0:16:49.160,0:16:52.389
[Christina Sorum] In the beginning,[br]there was a golden age, and people

0:16:52.389,0:16:58.920
lived on the Earth and all the crops grew[br]of their own accord and everybody was

0:16:58.920,0:17:02.259
good and everybody was just.

0:17:02.259,0:17:05.619
And those people, after[br]a while, just disappeared.

0:17:05.619,0:17:11.010
[narrator] The golden race appear to[br]have lived a perfect existence,

0:17:11.010,0:17:14.190
seemingly in paradise.

0:17:14.190,0:17:21.130
And yet this race vanishes[br]without explanation.

0:17:21.130,0:17:25.180
In the biblical account of paradise, life's[br]hardships are seen as a result of

0:17:25.180,0:17:30.311
Adam and Eve's fall from grace[br]in the Garden of Eden.

0:17:31.861,0:17:36.980
For the golden race of men in Greek[br]mythology, there is no such explanation

0:17:36.980,0:17:39.290
for their disappearance.

0:17:39.290,0:17:42.720
The reason for their fate remains a mystery.

0:17:44.120,0:17:48.100
[Richard Martin] The Greek system, in[br]which humans and their creation

0:17:48.100,0:17:52.560
are not really a topic of concern, is so[br]different from what you find in Genesis,

0:17:52.560,0:17:56.170
where we have this focus on[br]the creation of the first man.

0:17:56.170,0:17:57.170
Of course, in Genesis

0:17:57.170,0:18:01.770
it's related to the further story, what[br]happened after the first man and woman

0:18:01.770,0:18:03.130
disobeyed God.

0:18:03.130,0:18:08.400
In Greek myth, disobeying the gods is not[br]such a big deal as it

0:18:08.400,0:18:09.400
is in Genesis.

0:18:10.380,0:18:15.200
So doesn't Hesiod have an answer,[br]or why doesn't Hesiod give an

0:18:15.200,0:18:20.210
answer to why the golden race came to an end?

0:18:20.210,0:18:23.630
With the Judeo-Christian myth[br]of the fall from the

0:18:23.630,0:18:30.010
Garden of Eden, because that clearly was the[br]fault of Adam and Eve, and what that

0:18:30.010,0:18:36.740
means is there is no real, really good[br]explanation for why the world is

0:18:36.740,0:18:41.840
so difficult now—why humans[br]can't have an easy time.

0:18:42.830,0:18:47.060
[narrator] After the golden race becomes[br]extinct, Zeus fashions men

0:18:47.060,0:18:50.830
from silver, but this race is not very evolved.

0:18:52.270,0:18:56.140
[Christina Sorum] The silver age people[br]were babies forever, and then they

0:18:56.140,0:19:01.010
had this short period of maturity, and then[br]they had a horrible old age.

0:19:01.010,0:19:04.510
And they disappeared under the Earth.

0:19:04.510,0:19:08.170
They were more arrogant and did not

0:19:08.170,0:19:10.290
worship the gods sufficiently.

0:19:11.090,0:19:14.910
[narrator] Next come men of bronze,[br]who exterminate themselves through

0:19:14.910,0:19:17.790
constant warfare.

0:19:18.930,0:19:23.580
Eventually, the race of men[br]who live today appears.

0:19:23.580,0:19:26.030
They are said to be men of iron.

0:19:29.250,0:19:33.260
[Thomas F. Scanton] So basically, this[br]story of degeneration has moved

0:19:33.260,0:19:38.210
to the present age, where actually it shows[br]a balance in these various views of

0:19:38.210,0:19:40.310
the important things in life for the Greeks.

0:19:40.310,0:19:42.510
Namely, your attitudes to the gods

0:19:42.510,0:19:47.550
and your attitudes towards warfare and fighting[br]for your city-state and how you

0:19:47.550,0:19:50.320
can get along or not get along with each other.

0:19:51.070,0:19:54.880
[narrator] Interestingly, all these[br]stories account for the creation of

0:19:54.880,0:19:58.500
only half the human race, man.

0:20:01.610,0:20:07.091
Woman is created as an[br]affliction—a punishment—

0:20:07.091,0:20:09.780
and all because of a trick.

0:20:11.230,0:20:16.250
[Thomas F. Scanlon] The first woman[br]was sent to the Earth as a punishment

0:20:16.250,0:20:18.020
to mankind.

0:20:18.020,0:20:22.130
This sounds incredibly misogynistic,[br]and it was an incredibly

0:20:22.130,0:20:26.580
misogynistic story on the part of Hesiod,[br]who told this in 700 BC.

0:20:26.580,0:20:33.070
But the story goes that one of the gods,[br]Prometheus, tried to trick the master and king of

0:20:33.070,0:20:35.180
all the cosmos, Zeus.

0:20:35.180,0:20:38.780
[Christina Sorum] Prometheus is a trickster[br]god, he's a smart god.

0:20:38.780,0:20:40.740
"Prometheus" means "forethought."

0:20:40.740,0:20:44.500
Um, he—he killed a sheep[br]and he took the sheep

0:20:44.500,0:20:50.330
and he took all the good, wonderful meat and[br]he put it inside the disgusting belly,

0:20:50.330,0:20:54.670
and he took all the bare bones and[br]he wrapped them up in the beautiful

0:20:54.670,0:20:58.293
white shining fat, which is of course what[br]burns in a sacrifice.

0:20:58.293,0:21:03.200
And he presented these two bundles[br]to Zeus, and he said, "You pick."

0:21:03.850,0:21:10.010
[narrator] Zeus knows he is being tricked[br]by Prometheus, who represents humankind.

0:21:10.010,0:21:15.500
In retaliation, Zeus punishes[br]man by taking away fire.

0:21:15.500,0:21:18.300
[ominous music]

0:21:18.300,0:21:21.970
Prometheus, in return, steals[br]the fire back and gives it

0:21:21.970,0:21:23.400
to humanity.

0:21:27.360,0:21:30.220
[Thomas F. Scanlon] And by stealing[br]and giving men this gift of fire, he

0:21:30.220,0:21:37.610
he was therefore punished indirectly by having[br]a woman created who was given to

0:21:37.610,0:21:39.090
human beings.

0:21:39.090,0:21:44.820
Now, Zeus didn't just sort of give[br]this evil thing, as he thought,

0:21:44.820,0:21:46.420
to mankind.

0:21:46.420,0:21:48.880
He called it a beautiful evil.

0:21:52.330,0:21:54.040
She's one you can't[br]do without.

0:21:54.040,0:21:55.970
She's a <i>kalon kakon</i>

0:21:55.970,0:21:58.590
in the terms of the Greek—[br]a "beautiful bad thing."

0:21:58.590,0:22:01.310
And so Greek myth, Greek poetry,

0:22:01.310,0:22:03.160
likes to have it both ways.

0:22:03.160,0:22:07.310
Women are beautiful, women[br]are something irresistible.

0:22:07.310,0:22:11.790
At the same time, women make you[br]work and so they're a bad thing.

0:22:11.790,0:22:18.990
[Christina Sorum] I do think that,[br]throughout Greek mythology, you see a

0:22:18.990,0:22:23.900
repeated emphasis on the[br]threat that women pose.

0:22:23.900,0:22:26.420
The threat they pose because of

0:22:26.420,0:22:35.130
your need for them, the need to have[br]children, and the very real fear of losing

0:22:35.130,0:22:37.610
control because of desire.

0:22:37.610,0:22:42.690
The overwhelming feminine[br]sexuality threatens men.

0:22:45.410,0:22:50.010
[narrator] Zeus does not give[br]just any woman to men.

0:22:50.010,0:22:51.330
Indeed, he gives men

0:22:51.330,0:22:55.210
a <i>kalon kakon</i>, a beautiful evil.

0:22:55.210,0:22:58.510
Her name is Pandora, and she comes with a

0:22:58.510,0:23:04.371
jar full of evils to let loose in the world.

0:23:10.281,0:23:14.600
The first woman in Greek[br]mythology is Pandora, and her story

0:23:14.600,0:23:19.490
echoes that of Eve and the forbidden fruit[br]in the Garden of Eden.

0:23:21.310,0:23:29.230
Given a jar and told not to open it,[br]Pandora does so anyway, and all the evils

0:23:29.230,0:23:31.520
of the world are let loose.

0:23:31.520,0:23:36.810
All sickness, pain, suffering, disease.

0:23:37.780,0:23:39.030
Too late,

0:23:39.030,0:23:44.640
she closes the jar leaving[br]only one thing behind: hope.

0:23:44.640,0:23:45.960
But what is hope doing

0:23:45.960,0:23:48.600
in Pandora's jar full of evils?

0:23:51.020,0:23:58.170
Hope is there as an evil,[br]which is, I think, fascinating.

0:23:58.170,0:24:04.860
Hope is an evil because hope allows[br]you to act with the sense that you

0:24:04.860,0:24:12.270
can control the future, and in Hesiod,[br]that is a very dangerous thing to do.

0:24:12.270,0:24:13.590
You can't control the future.

0:24:13.590,0:24:16.330
And to be—it's to act under a delusion.

0:24:18.410,0:24:22.290
[Thomas F. Scanlon] Is hope something[br]good or something bad?

0:24:22.290,0:24:28.030
And the Greeks love this kind of dilemma[br]because hope was—could be good, could be bad.

0:24:28.030,0:24:33.850
And so it was ambiguously left back in the[br]jar for humans to use or to avoid.

0:24:34.900,0:24:38.930
[narrator] Pandora is perhaps the most[br]prominent, but certainly not the

0:24:38.930,0:24:44.460
only example of women being a[br]source of evil in Greek mythology.

0:24:44.460,0:24:49.970
Some scholars find a deeper meaning for this[br]disparagement of women, and point

0:24:49.970,0:24:52.830
to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

0:24:54.800,0:24:58.309
[Christina Sorum] If you look at the[br]myths of Aphrodite, that she was the

0:24:58.309,0:25:05.890
most beautiful and the most sexually desirable[br]thing ever, men are afraid of her.

0:25:05.890,0:25:12.540
She—she sees a man, a human being,[br]Anchises, on a hill outside of Troy,

0:25:12.540,0:25:14.870
and she wants to sleep with him.

0:25:14.870,0:25:19.060
And she goes to him and he says,[br]"You are too beautiful to be a human.

0:25:19.060,0:25:22.800
You must be a goddess and I[br]don't want to sleep with you."

0:25:22.800,0:25:26.830
And she says, "Oh, no, I'm just a[br]maiden from the neighborhood."

0:25:26.830,0:25:32.900
They go to bed together, and and when he[br]wakes up, she's become her goddess self,

0:25:32.900,0:25:34.040
and he's terrified.

0:25:34.040,0:25:36.480
He's terrified he's going to be[br]emasculated—that he'll lose

0:25:36.480,0:25:38.050
his strength.

0:25:40.440,0:25:44.710
[narrator] In contrast, the Ancient[br]Greeks believed that Athena,

0:25:44.710,0:25:48.360
the goddess without a sexual[br]role, is a great force for good.

0:25:48.360,0:25:50.060
[dramatic music]

0:25:50.060,0:25:52.550
[Fritz Graf] Athena is the protector.

0:25:52.550,0:25:55.130
Athena is the warrior divinity who

0:25:55.130,0:25:59.000
leads the just defense war.

0:25:59.000,0:26:03.540
She is the city goddess and, in many respects,

0:26:03.540,0:26:07.290
the most important divinity the Athenians have.

0:26:07.290,0:26:09.420
And that might be true for many

0:26:09.420,0:26:16.010
other city, where you have an acropolis[br]with the temple of Athena on top.

0:26:16.010,0:26:20.020
[narrator] And thus the world of Greek[br]gods and goddesses is not merely

0:26:20.020,0:26:25.671
a collection of colorful stories, but[br]a window on an ancient civilization,

0:26:25.671,0:26:28.230
its thoughts and its values.

0:26:29.390,0:26:32.460
[Richard Martin] The kind of non-linear[br]thinking that you see in myths,

0:26:32.460,0:26:37.480
the sort of narratives that leap all around,[br]that introduce strange creatures,

0:26:37.480,0:26:39.670
look a lot like dreams.

0:26:39.670,0:26:44.510
And so the question, I think,[br]is whether Greek myths are

0:26:44.510,0:26:49.420
somehow the collective unconsciousness of[br]Greek civilization at an early period.

0:26:50.570,0:26:54.330
[narrator] Whether conscious or[br]unconscious, the gods are very much

0:26:54.330,0:26:57.850
present in the everyday[br]lives of ancient Greeks.

0:26:59.990,0:27:03.760
[Thomas F. Scanlon] In each of the[br]mountains, in each of the plants,

0:27:03.760,0:27:08.100
in each of the emotions they felt,[br]they felt that there was a god in control

0:27:08.100,0:27:09.540
behind this.

0:27:09.540,0:27:12.300
[peaceful music]

0:27:14.600,0:27:17.610
One of this attractive[br]and unusual things about Greek

0:27:17.610,0:27:23.170
religion from the beginning is its[br]responsiveness to environment.

0:27:23.170,0:27:27.330
There are nymphs, for example,[br]who inhabit watery places.

0:27:27.330,0:27:28.700
There are nymphs of the

0:27:28.700,0:27:31.390
mountains, nymphs of the trees.

0:27:31.390,0:27:36.030
There's an acknowledgement that[br]rivers are a kind of religious force.

0:27:36.030,0:27:39.220
And Greek religion in this way has a certain

0:27:39.220,0:27:43.990
affiliation with modern ecology—[br]the recognition that individual places have

0:27:43.990,0:27:47.460
a value, a kind of numinous[br]quality, a sacred quality.

0:27:50.140,0:27:53.130
[Richard F. Scanton] The Greeks had[br]particular terms for "sacred."

0:27:53.130,0:27:53.980
In fact,

0:27:53.980,0:27:56.060
they had several terms for "sacred."

0:27:56.060,0:27:59.370
One of them is <i>heras.</i>

0:27:59.370,0:28:00.900
And <i>heras</i> means that

0:28:00.900,0:28:02.830
it belongs to the gods.

0:28:02.830,0:28:07.500
In fact, the Greek word[br]for religion is <i>ta hiera,</i>

0:28:07.500,0:28:09.320
"the sacred things."

0:28:10.470,0:28:13.710
[narrator] And so, the stories in Greek[br]mythology are used to explain an

0:28:13.710,0:28:16.610
often difficult and random world.

0:28:16.610,0:28:19.880
[mysterious music]

0:28:19.880,0:28:25.520
Winter is born when Persephone,[br]daughter of the goddess Demeter,

0:28:25.520,0:28:31.550
is kidnapped by the god Hades and[br]taken to the underworld to be his bride.

0:28:32.900,0:28:37.030
[Christina Sorum] Demeter was horrendously[br]upset to have lost her daughter

0:28:37.030,0:28:40.340
and began searching the world[br]looking for her daughter.

0:28:40.340,0:28:44.820
Couldn't find her daughter,[br]wept, cried, crops didn't grow.

0:28:44.820,0:28:47.880
Hence, the gods weren't getting sacrifice.

0:28:47.880,0:28:51.960
So finally, some gods went to Zeus and said,[br]you know, you've got to

0:28:51.960,0:28:54.990
get Persephone back, so her mother makes the[br]crops grow so that we get our

0:28:54.990,0:28:57.880
sacrifices and all the people don't die.

0:28:59.050,0:29:03.430
[narrator] Eventually, Persephone is[br]allowed to return to her mother

0:29:03.430,0:29:05.350
on one condition.

0:29:06.640,0:29:10.990
Each year, Persephone must[br]spend three months with Hades.

0:29:11.890,0:29:16.980
It is during this time that her mother, Demeter,[br]goddess of agriculture,

0:29:16.980,0:29:19.250
is inconsolable.

0:29:19.250,0:29:25.800
And thus, each year, the fields lie[br]barren in the cold of winter.

0:29:25.800,0:29:30.600
And thus, life's larger hardships were explained.

0:29:30.600,0:29:31.910
Personal difficulties,

0:29:31.910,0:29:36.100
however, were often explained[br]by some offense to the gods.

0:29:36.860,0:29:38.150
Those who offended

0:29:38.150,0:29:42.380
the gods were punished not by[br]some earthly authority, but by the

0:29:42.380,0:29:44.340
gods themselves.

0:29:45.240,0:29:47.120
[thunder]

0:29:49.420,0:29:56.240
[Greg Thalmann] There's a Greek word, in fact,[br]<i>deisidaimonia</i>, which means a fear of the gods

0:29:56.240,0:30:00.400
or respect for the gods, and this[br]was a positive thing.

0:30:00.400,0:30:07.000
Life was felt to be fairly precarious and you[br]needed to do everything you could to get

0:30:07.000,0:30:11.400
whatever powers ruled the world[br]on your side to keep you safe.

0:30:11.400,0:30:13.090
Many of them

0:30:13.090,0:30:18.940
lived one drought away from starvation,[br]and you just didn't mess around with

0:30:18.940,0:30:20.260
the world like that.

0:30:21.600,0:30:25.121
One of the things[br]I love about Greek myth is it never

0:30:25.121,0:30:27.280
lets people off the hook.

0:30:27.280,0:30:31.260
It never says, "This happened because[br]the gods made it happen."

0:30:31.260,0:30:32.720
It's <i>our</i> fault.

0:30:32.720,0:30:34.680
If we can just understand why.

0:30:34.680,0:30:35.680
It's sort of a,

0:30:35.680,0:30:39.030
I think, a difficult world to exist in.

0:30:41.200,0:30:45.761
[narrator] In a difficult world, people[br]often look for a hero, someone

0:30:45.761,0:30:50.980
to bring deliverance from a life seemingly[br]filled with adversity.

0:30:50.980,0:30:52.020
Some believe

0:30:52.020,0:30:57.940
a child born of a Greek god and an earthly[br]woman prefigures the appearance of Christ.

0:30:59.490,0:31:02.050
Was this destined to happen?

0:31:06.990,0:31:10.880
One of the most famous figures[br]in Greek mythology may possibly

0:31:10.880,0:31:15.690
have helped pave the way for a later event[br]pivotal to human history.

0:31:17.130,0:31:22.900
Heracles, better known to us as Hercules,[br]is born because the great god Zeus

0:31:22.900,0:31:26.140
lusted for a beautiful mortal woman.

0:31:27.050,0:31:30.870
She, however, is a faithful wife.

0:31:30.870,0:31:35.610
Zeus takes on the appearance of her[br]husband and manages to have her.

0:31:37.640,0:31:40.740
The outrage is compounded[br]by the fact that Zeus himself is

0:31:40.740,0:31:45.380
married to one of his sisters, Hera.

0:31:46.980,0:31:50.780
[Greg Thalman] The notion that[br]the gods are not always ethical,

0:31:50.780,0:31:55.810
not always honest, is also one that[br]makes sense when you think about it.

0:31:55.810,0:32:00.110
And the Greeks seem to have been[br]comfortable with it for many centuries.

0:32:00.110,0:32:01.310
It makes sense

0:32:01.310,0:32:10.740
because if the god are humans, but[br]better off somehow—more strong,

0:32:10.740,0:32:16.740
more powerful, immortal—they never have[br]to take consequences of anything they do,

0:32:16.740,0:32:18.480
whereas humans do.

0:32:18.480,0:32:23.450
The burden of acting ethically,[br]of thinking about consequences,

0:32:23.450,0:32:26.640
falls on human beings, not on gods.

0:32:27.840,0:32:30.870
[narrator] Hera is unable to[br]vent her anger upon Zeus.

0:32:30.870,0:32:32.550
[thunder]

0:32:32.550,0:32:38.420
In a move entirely characteristic[br]of a Greek god, she turns

0:32:38.420,0:32:42.280
her wrath on the child born[br]from her husband's infidelity.

0:32:42.280,0:32:43.820
Heracles is perhaps

0:32:43.820,0:32:50.340
the most famous Greek hero, a figure[br]particularly important in Greek mythology.

0:32:51.550,0:32:56.640
Even in his infancy, Heracles is a god with[br]extraordinary strength.

0:32:57.420,0:33:00.800
Hera sends deadly serpents to his cradle,

0:33:00.800,0:33:03.030
and Heracles strangles them both.

0:33:03.030,0:33:04.910
[dramatic music]

0:33:04.910,0:33:09.010
[Greg Thalman] Many of the Greek heroes[br]did in fact have one divine

0:33:09.010,0:33:11.590
parent and one mortal parent.

0:33:11.590,0:33:16.380
More generally, a hero was a man of more than

0:33:16.380,0:33:25.720
normal strength who was somehow marked out[br]for a life of achievement, but also

0:33:25.720,0:33:28.980
a life of enormous difficulty.

0:33:28.980,0:33:32.300
Uh, they were very difficult,[br]uh, to integrate

0:33:32.300,0:33:36.750
into society precisely because[br]of their great capacities.

0:33:36.750,0:33:39.900
[narrator] The vengeful Hera continues[br]to pursue her husband's

0:33:39.900,0:33:45.500
illegitimate son throughout his life,[br]periodically driving him into fits of

0:33:45.500,0:33:48.320
anger and madness.

0:33:50.360,0:33:53.990
Deeply regretting the murders[br]and other crimes he commits

0:33:53.990,0:34:01.200
during these fits, Heracles undertakes great[br]tasks of repentance, often the

0:34:01.200,0:34:03.760
killing of tyrants and monsters.

0:34:07.330,0:34:13.190
At the end of his life, Heracles[br]is granted immortality,

0:34:13.190,0:34:17.110
and taken by his father Zeus to[br]live with him on Mount Olympus.

0:34:23.090,0:34:27.659
And thus, the story of Heracles[br]may have paved the way for

0:34:27.659,0:34:33.960
the Apostle Paul, who brought word of a new[br]faith to the Greeks centuries later.

0:34:35.870,0:34:40.889
[Richard Martin] They had a story of[br]a son of god, Heracles, who suffered

0:34:40.889,0:34:46.580
and died and then went through an apotheosis,[br]himself went up to Olympus,

0:34:46.580,0:34:51.949
and so the story of another son of God who[br]suffered and died and went to heaven

0:34:51.949,0:34:54.940
would not be all that non-familiar.

0:34:54.940,0:34:57.500
In the same way, the notion that a god could

0:34:57.500,0:35:02.150
take on human form and look exactly like one[br]of us, was completely acceptable

0:35:02.150,0:35:04.410
to a pagan Greek audience.

0:35:04.410,0:35:09.150
And so early Christianity[br]proceeded in Greece and struck

0:35:09.150,0:35:11.180
roots in Greece quite easily.

0:35:12.460,0:35:18.340
Not quite a Christ figure,[br]but elements of that, because

0:35:18.340,0:35:24.730
it was someone—someone who through toil[br]and suffering and labor and loyalty

0:35:24.730,0:35:27.070
achieved divinity.

0:35:27.670,0:35:33.630
[narrator] While Heracles is unique,[br]he is only one of many heroes who

0:35:33.630,0:35:36.930
walk among the Greeks.

0:35:36.930,0:35:42.590
There are Achilles and Ulysses,[br]great warrior of the Trojan War.

0:35:42.590,0:35:46.730
And Theseus, whose feats[br]include killing the dreaded Minotaur,

0:35:46.730,0:35:50.570
the creature that feasted on[br]the flesh of Greek youths.

0:35:50.570,0:35:53.350
[foreboding music]

0:35:53.350,0:35:58.640
[narrator] But heroes did not have to[br]be offspring of the gods, nor were

0:35:58.640,0:36:03.560
they necessarily heroic in today's terms,[br]risking grave danger for the sake

0:36:03.560,0:36:05.470
of others.

0:36:06.590,0:36:10.480
For the ancient Greeks, a hero was[br]someone who broke the bonds of

0:36:10.480,0:36:15.190
ordinary life, regardless of the consequences.

0:36:16.610,0:36:20.320
[Richard Martin] It's not necessary[br]that a hero be descended from a god or

0:36:20.320,0:36:25.000
a goddess, it's not necessary that a hero[br]even do something good in life.

0:36:25.000,0:36:29.570
And so achievement is more doing something[br]extraordinary and being recognized

0:36:29.570,0:36:30.880
for it.

0:36:30.880,0:36:34.960
Now the extraordinary thing that a[br]hero could do could even be killing

0:36:34.960,0:36:39.300
a number of the enemy, or killing[br]people in his own community,

0:36:39.300,0:36:45.730
in such a strange fashion that the gods[br]have to be consulted, so the heroes are

0:36:45.730,0:36:50.650
dangerous, unusual individuals,[br]extraordinary but not necessarily

0:36:50.650,0:36:52.760
extraordinary good.

0:36:52.760,0:36:57.490
Heroes really are a projection[br]of what it is to be human on

0:36:57.490,0:36:58.630
a large scale.

0:36:58.630,0:37:02.880
They really focus both the great[br]potential of human beings at

0:37:02.880,0:37:07.510
their best and also the, uh,[br]the vulnerabilities of humans.

0:37:09.560,0:37:16.080
[narrator] Another unlikely hero is[br]Oedipus, who kills his father and

0:37:16.080,0:37:17.910
marries his mother.

0:37:19.730,0:37:24.990
Having fulfilled his terrible[br]fate, Oedipus then blinds himself

0:37:24.990,0:37:27.010
and seeks redemption.

0:37:29.020,0:37:32.880
It is a story for the ages,[br]speaking to the darker side of

0:37:32.880,0:37:36.960
feelings between parents[br]and their children.

0:37:38.670,0:37:42.450
I think there definitely[br]was a thread of Greek

0:37:42.450,0:37:47.110
culture and of Greek mythology which was[br]interested in the conflict between

0:37:47.110,0:37:48.750
father and son.

0:37:48.750,0:37:53.550
Obviously Freud—Sigmund Freud—[br]saw this and picked up on it

0:37:53.550,0:37:57.240
in the story of the Oedipus[br]and the Oedipus Complex.

0:37:57.240,0:37:59.370
And I think there was a

0:37:59.370,0:38:04.990
threat of generational conflict that the Greeks[br]actually feared, but recognized

0:38:04.990,0:38:07.530
as real at the same time.

0:38:08.750,0:38:14.650
[narrator] The story of Oedipus and[br]his parents raises another age-old question:

0:38:14.650,0:38:17.320
Are the lives of humans preordained?

0:38:17.320,0:38:19.360
Or do humans have the

0:38:19.360,0:38:21.600
power to exercise free will?

0:38:26.340,0:38:31.530
Oedipus is someone who[br]for no reason ever given has—has

0:38:31.530,0:38:36.340
this fate that he will kill his father and[br]marry his mother.

0:38:36.340,0:38:39.130
When Oedipus has

0:38:39.130,0:38:46.010
realized that he is not the son of the king[br]of Corinth as he thought he was,

0:38:46.010,0:38:50.250
he says I'd count myself as the child of chance.

0:38:50.250,0:38:51.440
And by chance, he means

0:38:51.440,0:38:53.540
something very random.

0:38:53.540,0:38:58.750
Uh, there is no plan.[br]Uh, by the end of the play,

0:38:58.750,0:39:04.870
it's turned out that everything he's ever[br]done has fit into a plan and that, uh,

0:39:04.870,0:39:11.130
if he is the child of chance, it's chance[br]in a sense that's closely aligned with fate.

0:39:13.090,0:39:19.220
[Christina Sorum] He, Oedipus,[br]the man, made choices.

0:39:19.220,0:39:20.220
When he learned he

0:39:20.220,0:39:24.510
was going to kill his father and marry his[br]mother, he fled his home not

0:39:24.510,0:39:26.270
knowing he was adopted.

0:39:26.270,0:39:29.370
Um, and of course meets his father[br]on the road and kills him and

0:39:29.370,0:39:31.940
then arrives in the city[br]and marries his mother.

0:39:31.940,0:39:35.620
Um, he chose to leave his home.

0:39:35.620,0:39:40.970
Uh, he did a terrible thing, but he didn't[br]do it trying to do evil.

0:39:40.970,0:39:41.970
And fate

0:39:41.970,0:39:43.940
didn't make him do it.

0:39:46.170,0:39:50.800
[narrator] The question of a person's[br]fate versus the role of free will

0:39:50.800,0:39:57.400
was of such importance to the ancient Greeks[br]that they personified fate in

0:39:57.400,0:40:00.470
the form of three goddess.

0:40:02.580,0:40:07.380
[Richard Martin] When you read the poetry[br]of Homer, it seems that it goes two ways.

0:40:07.380,0:40:11.540
On the one hand, the Fates are[br]a group of three women,

0:40:11.540,0:40:14.450
Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.

0:40:14.450,0:40:17.489
Their names meaning[br]"the weaver," "the alloter,"

0:40:17.489,0:40:20.040
and "not turning back."

0:40:20.040,0:40:23.450
And they weave a thread for each person's[br]life when that

0:40:23.450,0:40:27.670
person is born and determine when[br]that person's life is gonna end.

0:40:27.670,0:40:28.720
On the other hand,

0:40:28.720,0:40:33.870
we see in Homer's poetry that fate is[br]power above the gods.

0:40:33.870,0:40:34.870
The gods

0:40:34.870,0:40:37.880
bow to fate in several instances.

0:40:38.730,0:40:42.970
[Christina Sorum] You can look at the[br]story of Oedipus and talk about fate.

0:40:42.970,0:40:47.070
Was he fated to kill his father[br]and marry his mother?

0:40:47.070,0:40:48.070
Yes.

0:40:48.070,0:40:49.470
What does that mean?

0:40:49.470,0:40:52.050
Does that mean he didn't have any free will?

0:40:52.050,0:40:53.050
No.

0:40:53.050,0:40:54.180
It doesn't mean that.

0:40:54.180,0:40:55.280
It means

0:40:55.280,0:40:58.440
that's what was going to happen.

0:40:58.440,0:41:02.510
The Greeks had a complicated[br]view of how the world worked.

0:41:02.510,0:41:08.450
On the one hand, the gods controlled a lot[br]of actions of human beings or

0:41:08.450,0:41:10.550
had an effect upon it.

0:41:10.550,0:41:14.330
But yet, the humans also[br]could control their own

0:41:14.330,0:41:17.670
individual destinies and[br]call a lot of the shots.

0:41:17.670,0:41:18.670
So there's this funny

0:41:18.670,0:41:23.680
relationship between what the gods control[br]and what humans control.

0:41:23.680,0:41:24.600
And you know what?

0:41:24.600,0:41:26.900
They loved this ambiguity.

0:41:27.940,0:41:31.070
[narrator] And so the ancient Greeks[br]came to terms with the fact that

0:41:31.070,0:41:34.310
there were no guarantees in life.

0:41:35.860,0:41:38.090
Some of their concerns seem hauntingly

0:41:38.090,0:41:39.900
familiar today.

0:41:41.500,0:41:46.070
[Richard Marin] This consciousness that[br]the Greeks have, that you cannot

0:41:46.070,0:41:50.180
have too many generations on the Earth at[br]the same time, is even expressed in a myth,

0:41:50.180,0:41:54.740
the myth of the beginning of the Trojan War,[br]which says that the Earth

0:41:54.740,0:42:00.940
was burdened with too many people and cried[br]out to Zeus to relieve her buden.

0:42:00.940,0:42:05.200
And so Zeus invented the Trojan War[br]to get rid of a lot of people.

0:42:05.200,0:42:07.050
[dramatic music]

0:42:07.550,0:42:10.290
[mysterious music]

0:42:16.360,0:42:19.550
The stories of the gods and[br]goddesses of ancient Greece

0:42:19.550,0:42:21.520
are eternal.

0:42:21.520,0:42:24.230
They still speak to us today.

0:42:27.860,0:42:31.080
Among the deities were two[br]groups of lovely sisters who

0:42:31.080,0:42:33.870
dwelt on Mount Olympus:

0:42:33.870,0:42:36.410
The Graces and the Muses.

0:42:36.410,0:42:38.310
The Graces bestowed beauty,

0:42:38.310,0:42:42.920
charm, and gratitude on the mortal world.

0:42:42.920,0:42:45.170
The Muses had a profound impact on

0:42:45.170,0:42:49.451
how generations since have passed the[br]tales of the gods and the sagas of that

0:42:49.451,0:42:52.030
long-gone era through oral tradition.

0:42:52.030,0:42:54.050
[peaceful music]

0:42:56.290,0:43:00.300
From their lofty plain, they[br]descended to the Earth teaching

0:43:00.300,0:43:03.570
history, astronomy, and the arts.

0:43:05.570,0:43:08.850
[Katerina Zacharia] Each one of the[br]nine Muses is associated with a

0:43:08.850,0:43:13.600
particular subject, usually concerning the[br]arts and sciences.

0:43:13.600,0:43:14.600
For instance,

0:43:14.600,0:43:19.440
Cleo, the proclaimer, is the one[br]that is associated with epic poetry

0:43:19.440,0:43:22.510
and is the Muse of history.

0:43:22.510,0:43:25.610
Now the Muses are very[br]well known because we have

0:43:25.610,0:43:31.280
words like "museum," the [inaudible] of the[br]Muses that are in contemporary English

0:43:31.280,0:43:33.240
and of course Greek.

0:43:34.870,0:43:40.720
[Christina Sorum] Greek stories are[br]about those things that people regard

0:43:40.720,0:43:41.810
as important.

0:43:41.810,0:43:44.560
They wouldn't have persisted if they weren't.

0:43:44.560,0:43:45.560
I mean, if stories

0:43:45.560,0:43:50.790
are going to last and be retold for several[br]thousand years, there must be

0:43:50.790,0:43:54.610
something in them that has meaning for the[br]people who hear them

0:43:54.610,0:43:57.819
across generations.

0:43:57.819,0:44:00.400
[narrator] Evidence of the[br]divine was everywhere.

0:44:00.400,0:44:03.030
To the Greeks, the gods

0:44:03.030,0:44:07.040
were as real as the fields they tilled and[br]the families they raised.

0:44:09.290,0:44:13.290
[Greg Thalman] The number of little[br]shrines that would be all around

0:44:13.290,0:44:19.170
the city, the number of dedications to gods[br]in big sanctuaries, really does speak

0:44:19.170,0:44:23.580
to a pretty strong belief in them.

0:44:23.580,0:44:28.660
Life was felt to be fairly precarious and

0:44:28.660,0:44:32.910
you needed to do everything you could to get[br]whatever powers ruled the world

0:44:32.910,0:44:36.110
on your side to keep safe.

0:44:36.690,0:44:41.630
[narrator] From cradle to grave and[br]from season to season, every phase of

0:44:41.630,0:44:45.460
human life was intertwined with the gods.

0:44:46.720,0:44:51.750
[narrator] As ever-present as they[br]were for the ancient Greeks, the

0:44:51.750,0:44:55.869
same gods were not always[br]worshiped throughout the land.

0:44:55.869,0:45:03.330
3,000 years ago, Greece was a patchwork of[br]independent city-states linked by

0:45:03.330,0:45:06.620
a common language, culture, and trade.

0:45:07.900,0:45:11.060
But while the principle deities[br]such as Zeus, Prometheus,

0:45:11.060,0:45:15.950
and Demeter were worshiped in all of[br]the more than 700 different city-states,

0:45:15.950,0:45:20.690
each town and village laid claim to[br]its own god.

0:45:23.870,0:45:28.150
Richard Martin] The landscape[br]of Greece is just full of gods,

0:45:28.150,0:45:30.950
gods who might not even be[br]heard of in the next village.

0:45:30.950,0:45:32.611
Every little stream,

0:45:32.611,0:45:37.660
every spring of fresh water—something you[br]come to appreciate in the dusty Greek

0:45:37.660,0:45:40.570
climate—has its own divinity.

0:45:41.720,0:45:44.390
[Thomas F. Scanlon] The hills[br]divided up village from village

0:45:44.390,0:45:46.320
and people from people.

0:45:46.320,0:45:50.700
So each village was encouraged to have its[br]own favorite gods and

0:45:50.700,0:45:52.540
its own favorite heroes.

0:45:52.540,0:45:55.360
And I think that, in terms[br]of the natural layout of

0:45:55.360,0:46:00.470
the land, was very important in the formation[br]of myth and of their religion.

0:46:02.090,0:46:06.480
[narrator] The gods were many,[br]as were their functions.

0:46:06.480,0:46:11.460
Hermes was the protector of flocks and herds[br]of domesticated animals.

0:46:11.460,0:46:16.180
Hera was the goddess of[br]marriage as well as paternity.

0:46:16.180,0:46:19.980
Eros prevailed over matters of love.

0:46:19.980,0:46:23.180
Hephaestus was the god of fire and volcanoes.

0:46:24.240,0:46:27.460
Poseidon ruled over the sea.

0:46:27.460,0:46:30.740
There was Pan, part human and part goat.

0:46:30.740,0:46:33.780
He was recognized as the shepherds' god.

0:46:35.360,0:46:40.690
And there was Artemis, protector[br]of nature and the young.

0:46:41.970,0:46:46.530
Artemis is associated[br]with young, blooming nature,

0:46:46.530,0:46:48.160
with young animals.

0:46:48.160,0:46:52.950
But Artemis is also associated with the initiation[br]of young women.

0:46:52.950,0:46:57.400
So there's a continuum in Greek thinking between[br]what happens in the

0:46:57.400,0:47:01.180
natural world and what happens in what we[br]would identify as a very different

0:47:01.180,0:47:02.990
human social sphere.

0:47:02.990,0:47:05.660
To Greek mythological thinking, these are[br]all part of the

0:47:05.660,0:47:06.860
same phenomenon.

0:47:06.860,0:47:09.870
And that's why Artemis can be the huntress,[br]the one who is

0:47:09.870,0:47:14.790
associated with the wild, but also the one[br]who tames young girls.

0:47:16.070,0:47:20.190
[narrator] Of all the deities that influenced[br]human life, Demeter was

0:47:20.190,0:47:22.420
one of the most important.

0:47:22.420,0:47:26.240
Celebrated once every five years,[br]she was the goddess

0:47:26.240,0:47:28.140
of corn and crops.

0:47:30.610,0:47:34.040
Greeks looked at[br]and lived with their landscape for an

0:47:34.040,0:47:39.600
awfully long time and developed stories by[br]watching nature and by living with it.

0:47:39.600,0:47:44.340
And the worship of a kind of Earth-goddess[br]who protected the Earth and

0:47:44.340,0:47:50.270
saw to the welfare of the crops and withheld[br]the crops if people didn't behave themselves,

0:47:50.270,0:47:53.359
all of that was part of the Greek view of[br]the cycle of nature.

0:47:53.359,0:47:58.970
[narrator] The relationship between[br]man and the divine was not simple.

0:47:58.970,0:48:02.030
However, theirs was an uneasy alliance.

0:48:02.030,0:48:04.170
Though the gods were powerful and

0:48:04.170,0:48:08.330
immortal, they were not[br]beyond human questioning.

0:48:08.330,0:48:09.460
The ancient Greeks often

0:48:09.460,0:48:12.480
criticized the immoral behavior of the gods.

0:48:15.620,0:48:18.340
They could act in excess.

0:48:18.340,0:48:20.140
Each one had passions,

0:48:20.140,0:48:27.119
had made mistakes, but the mortals[br]had to respect their own boundaries.

0:48:27.119,0:48:30.609
This is the main difference[br]between gods and mortals.

0:48:30.609,0:48:31.730
Gods could do anything

0:48:31.730,0:48:35.100
they liked, do as they please.

0:48:35.100,0:48:39.060
Mortals had to refrain from excess.

0:48:39.060,0:48:45.460
Greek gods and goddesses are facets of[br]what could become of a deadly passion,

0:48:45.460,0:48:49.960
what could happen to mortals if they[br]really step over a boundary.

0:48:52.660,0:48:55.360
[Richard Martin] Now we might think[br]of criticizing the gods as a kind of

0:48:55.360,0:48:59.470
blasphemy, but in fact it reinforces the notion[br]that the gods do exist.

0:48:59.470,0:49:05.250
I think what was really being criticized[br]were other Greeks' attitudes about the gods.

0:49:05.250,0:49:08.440
Something that's very hard for us to understand[br]is that the Greeks could play

0:49:08.440,0:49:10.180
with their notions of gods.

0:49:10.180,0:49:16.150
[narrator] Superior to the humans over[br]whom they held sway, the gods were

0:49:16.150,0:49:21.030
nevertheless subject to the same passions,[br]failures, and weaknesses of mortals.

0:49:22.220,0:49:26.190
They knew love, despair, and tragedy.

0:49:27.330,0:49:29.640
They took on human form and were

0:49:29.640,0:49:32.700
vulnerable to injury and illness.

0:49:32.700,0:49:36.310
But unlike people, they healed quickly.

0:49:37.780,0:49:40.400
Thomas F. Scanlon] Of course, they[br]weren't just humans.

0:49:40.400,0:49:42.840
They were different from[br]humans in many ways.

0:49:42.840,0:49:45.520
They first of all obviously never died,

0:49:45.520,0:49:49.800
secondly they had incredible[br]powers of strength and knowledge.

0:49:49.800,0:49:56.200
But the reason why they're in human form [br]is that the Greeks had tremendous pride

0:49:56.200,0:49:58.230
in the human form.

0:49:58.230,0:50:01.780
The Greeks had such high value[br]for the perfection of human

0:50:01.780,0:50:07.930
intelligence and physicality that they could[br]not imagine a more perfect form to

0:50:07.930,0:50:09.560
attribute to the gods.

0:50:10.860,0:50:17.620
[Greg Thalman] This notion that the[br]gods are "humans-plus" seems to have

0:50:17.620,0:50:20.890
answered a very deep need in the Greeks.

0:50:20.890,0:50:23.710
It's a sort of fantasy of overcoming

0:50:23.710,0:50:27.520
all the weaknesses that make[br]us humans what we are.

0:50:27.520,0:50:30.610
[dramatic music]

0:50:31.280,0:50:36.220
[narrator] The gods were also subject[br]to similar laws which governed humanity.

0:50:37.360,0:50:40.790
Hermes was the guardian of travelers.

0:50:40.790,0:50:42.100
When he cleared a pathway

0:50:42.100,0:50:49.140
by killing the hundred-eyed monster called[br]Argos, he had to stand trial for the deed.

0:50:50.570,0:50:51.950
[Christina Sorum] Well, he killed.

0:50:51.950,0:50:54.050
He's a god but he's polluted.

0:50:54.050,0:50:56.070
And so he had to stand trial.

0:50:56.070,0:51:00.410
And the way the gods all cast their votes[br]was by putting a stone at his foot,

0:51:00.410,0:51:04.300
which made a stone heap,[br]which is called a "herm."

0:51:05.870,0:51:09.630
[narrator] Though the gods were not[br]perfect, they were not powers to

0:51:09.630,0:51:12.040
be trifled with.

0:51:12.690,0:51:18.130
[Greg Thalman] What you did need to[br]do was be careful not to offend the

0:51:18.130,0:51:24.910
gods, not to set yourself up as the gods' equal,[br]not to be arrogant in that way,

0:51:24.910,0:51:27.180
because that was inviting disaster.

0:51:27.180,0:51:29.550
Not from any other humans, but from the

0:51:29.550,0:51:30.550
gods themselves.

0:51:31.940,0:51:37.200
There's the story of Salmoneus,[br]who had himself driven

0:51:37.200,0:51:44.470
around on a cart, banging on shields or some[br]noise-making implement, saying that

0:51:44.470,0:51:50.540
he was Zeus and trying to imitate Zeus' thunder,[br]and he was probably dispatching

0:51:50.540,0:51:51.860
a thunderbolt.

0:51:51.860,0:51:53.510
[thunder]

0:51:55.320,0:51:58.170
I think everybody believed[br]that somebody really

0:51:58.170,0:52:02.350
powerful had to be in charge of lightning,[br]and the obvious candidate was Zeus.

0:52:02.350,0:52:05.000
Zeus was a weather god, primarily.

0:52:05.000,0:52:07.870
In fact, when it rained,[br]you said "Zeus is raining."

0:52:07.870,0:52:09.650
You didn't say "It's raining."

0:52:09.650,0:52:13.060
And so lightning, this powerful,

0:52:13.060,0:52:16.830
strange thing that can kill you, obviously[br]had to be under the control of

0:52:16.830,0:52:19.040
someone like Zeus.

0:52:20.250,0:52:24.700
[narrator] In Athens, the people also[br]worshiped a god with no name,

0:52:24.700,0:52:28.740
one who was simply referred[br]to as the "unknown god."

0:52:30.030,0:52:32.369
[Richard Martin] The shrine to the unknown[br]god was probably the

0:52:32.369,0:52:36.580
Athenians' way, in their own[br]religious system, of covering their bets.

0:52:36.580,0:52:40.340
Just in case there was a god out there that[br]they hadn't managed to worship, a god

0:52:40.340,0:52:41.520
that might do something to them,

0:52:41.520,0:52:44.080
they had a shrine to the unknown god.

0:52:45.440,0:52:49.190
[narrator] The Greeks rationalized the[br]world around them.

0:52:49.190,0:52:52.430
Philosophy and intellectual[br]thought flourished,

0:52:52.430,0:52:56.060
most of all, in Athens.

0:52:56.060,0:52:57.619
It was here that Athena

0:52:57.619,0:53:01.710
presided in noble splendor over the people.

0:53:01.710,0:53:04.630
Goddess of war and patron of the arts,

0:53:04.630,0:53:10.650
she was honored in the form of a gold[br]ebony and ivory statue at the Parthenon.

0:53:11.590,0:53:14.930
It was believed that her symbolic presence[br]would make the city

0:53:14.930,0:53:17.650
invincible to attack.

0:53:19.820,0:53:23.660
Thousands came to pay tribute to her here[br]in one of the

0:53:23.660,0:53:25.890
finest buildings ever constructed.

0:53:26.650,0:53:32.290
But of all the sacred places[br]in Ancient Greece, few approached

0:53:32.290,0:53:38.880
the significance of a tree-lined valley of[br]unsurpassed beauty and strange power.

0:53:40.110,0:53:44.630
For it was here that the Greeks[br]came to learn of their future.

0:53:48.900,0:53:51.810
This is Olympia.

0:53:53.000,0:53:58.300
2,500 years ago, a[br]40-foot-high statue stood here.

0:53:59.770,0:54:04.020
It was made of gold and ivory and was[br]considered one of the seven wonders

0:54:04.020,0:54:05.910
of the ancient world.

0:54:06.530,0:54:11.170
Dedicated to Zeus in celebration[br]of his omnipotence, this

0:54:11.170,0:54:17.740
ancient wonder presided over the oldest known[br]organized sporting event on Earth,

0:54:17.740,0:54:20.240
the Olympic games.

0:54:22.680,0:54:26.190
[Richard F. Scanton] Every four years,[br]the Greeks from all over the Greek

0:54:26.190,0:54:30.910
world and the islands in Italy would come[br]to Olympia to celebrate this festival.

0:54:31.900,0:54:37.170
[narrator] Restricted to only males,[br]including spectators, naked athletes

0:54:37.170,0:54:43.130
competed for crown and glory[br]under a burning sun in five events:

0:54:43.130,0:54:50.510
the broad jump, discus throwing,[br]javelin hurling, wrestling, and the

0:54:50.510,0:54:52.400
200-yard dash.

0:54:52.400,0:54:54.400
[triumphant music]

0:54:55.280,0:55:01.170
While the object of the games[br]was to win, the purpose was to worship.

0:55:02.510,0:55:06.250
[Richard F. Scanton] According to one[br]scholar, David Sansone, he believed

0:55:06.250,0:55:12.750
that the athletic event is an expenditure[br]of ritual energy for the gods.

0:55:12.750,0:55:19.140
And in fact, one way of showing this is that[br]what the athletes did was sweat.

0:55:19.140,0:55:22.770
And they sweat and they had dirt[br]on them and they had olive oil on.

0:55:22.770,0:55:23.770
And after

0:55:23.770,0:55:30.780
they finished competing, they cleaned off[br]the scum from their skin using a strigil.

0:55:30.780,0:55:35.080
And they actually collected the scum from[br]the athletes, which was

0:55:35.080,0:55:37.180
thought to have magical properties.

0:55:37.180,0:55:40.580
And in a sense, they were reaping the

0:55:40.580,0:55:47.890
product of human energy and having this as[br]a magical potion that the gods would honor.

0:55:49.740,0:55:53.609
[narrator] This, then, was Olympia.

0:55:53.609,0:55:55.520
And to this day around the world,

0:55:55.520,0:56:01.010
winning an Olympic event remains an[br]accomplishment beyond comparison.

0:56:04.330,0:56:07.829
[Constantine] Winner had the[br]luck to win the Olympic games and

0:56:07.829,0:56:09.930
come first.

0:56:09.930,0:56:14.690
My country hadn't had the first place in any[br]Olympics for over fifty years.

0:56:14.690,0:56:18.410
All this was very exciting for a young person.

0:56:18.410,0:56:20.170
You know, the idea that

0:56:20.170,0:56:21.820
you get on to the podium.

0:56:21.820,0:56:24.590
Your achievement is honored only by a

0:56:24.590,0:56:26.910
medal and nothing else.

0:56:26.910,0:56:29.780
You hear the national anthem[br]of your country, you see

0:56:29.780,0:56:33.170
the great flag going up,[br]these things remain in your mind.

0:56:33.170,0:56:34.210
And I—I've often

0:56:34.210,0:56:38.230
said that that is the greatest feeling in[br]my life, other than getting engaged

0:56:38.230,0:56:40.520
to my wife.

0:56:41.810,0:56:46.760
[narrator] Another site central to the[br]ancient Greeks is Delphi.

0:56:46.760,0:56:51.470
Mystical and mysterious, Delphi is perhaps[br]best known as a place where a

0:56:51.470,0:56:55.640
famous oracle resided.

0:56:55.640,0:56:59.650
Also known as the Oracle of Apollo,[br]she provided clues

0:56:59.650,0:57:02.349
to those who sought insight into the future.

0:57:02.349,0:57:04.560
[mysterious music]

0:57:05.380,0:57:10.030
[Richard F. Scanton] The Oracle of Apollo[br]was a priestess who was named

0:57:10.030,0:57:16.630
the "Pythia," people would come from all over[br]the known world to seek the advice

0:57:16.630,0:57:20.140
of this priestess for important questions—

0:57:20.140,0:57:24.360
often affairs of state,[br]political questions and direction.

0:57:26.120,0:57:32.120
[narrator] Unfortunately, the oracle spoke[br]in a language no one could understand.

0:57:32.120,0:57:36.970
Her pronouncements on the future[br]had to be translated by a prophet,

0:57:36.970,0:57:40.750
but even then her prophecies were[br]often obscure.

0:57:40.750,0:57:47.900
There's one famous[br]ambiguous answer in which

0:57:47.900,0:57:52.330
a great king asks the oracle,[br]"Should I go to war?"

0:57:52.330,0:57:54.500
And the oracle says, "If you go

0:57:54.500,0:57:57.400
to war, you will destroy a great kingdom."

0:57:57.400,0:57:59.230
And so the guy goes to war, and

0:57:59.230,0:58:01.820
of course his kingdom is[br]the great one destroyed.

0:58:01.820,0:58:03.850
He should've read that the right way.

0:58:03.850,0:58:08.580
The oracle always gives you a[br]kind of question in return—a puzzle,

0:58:08.580,0:58:11.300
an enigma—that you have to answer.

0:58:12.720,0:58:17.090
[Christina Sorum] Humans are born,[br]and they grow up, and they make a

0:58:17.090,0:58:19.340
choice to do this and to do that.

0:58:19.340,0:58:21.500
At any point in their life, they could go

0:58:21.500,0:58:28.730
to Delphi, and hear an oracle, like,[br]"Beware of the sea because it will kill you."

0:58:28.730,0:58:34.270
And you spend your whole life avoiding the[br]sea so that you won't get killed.

0:58:34.270,0:58:39.349
Then one day, you're in an aquarium and a[br]tank bursts and you drown in the

0:58:39.349,0:58:44.070
seawater in this salt-water aquarium, or[br]something more sensible than that.

0:58:44.070,0:58:45.800
Did fate make that happen?

0:58:45.800,0:58:46.590
No.

0:58:46.590,0:58:49.150
It's just the god knew the[br]future and could say

0:58:49.150,0:58:51.460
that it was going to happen.

0:58:51.460,0:58:53.040
[peaceful music]

0:58:53.040,0:58:58.070
[narrator] Delphi was also the place[br]where the son of Zeus presided.

0:58:58.070,0:59:01.290
His name was Apollo.

0:59:01.290,0:59:05.700
In addition to presiding over Delphi,[br]Apollo had other responsibilities.

0:59:07.660,0:59:12.610
He was the god associated[br]with sexuality and love.

0:59:12.610,0:59:13.860
Ironically,

0:59:13.860,0:59:17.770
Apollo himself was never[br]known to be a great lover.

0:59:19.470,0:59:22.000
[Christina Sorum] Apollo is beautiful.

0:59:22.000,0:59:24.010
He's the most beautiful male,

0:59:24.010,0:59:27.450
as Aphrodite is the most beautiful female.

0:59:27.450,0:59:31.690
He is the best athlete, he is a

0:59:31.690,0:59:39.640
beautiful singer, he is strong and a marvelous[br]archer, he's your perfect

0:59:39.640,0:59:41.790
human being—your perfect male.

0:59:41.790,0:59:45.390
And he has this sad, sad life.

0:59:45.390,0:59:46.390
He falls in love

0:59:46.390,0:59:49.710
over and over and over and[br]none of the women want him.

0:59:49.710,0:59:56.950
And he attempted to rape girls[br]at certain occasions in his life.

0:59:56.950,1:00:03.830
He's really a god, I think, of distance and[br]rationality more than a god of love.

1:00:05.110,1:00:08.480
[narrator] Perhaps the most tragic[br]of Apollo's romantic escapades was

1:00:08.480,1:00:15.609
his love for Cassandra,[br]daughter of the king of Troy.

1:00:15.609,1:00:18.010
As Greek mythology would have it,

1:00:18.010,1:00:21.950
Apollo and Cassandra's tragic affair[br]would directly impact the course

1:00:21.950,1:00:23.590
of history.

1:00:25.840,1:00:29.120
[Christina Sorum] He falls in love[br]with Cassandra, who is a princess in

1:00:29.120,1:00:34.860
Troy, and he says, you know, "I'll give you[br]the gift of prophecy if you will

1:00:34.860,1:00:36.460
sleep with me."

1:00:36.460,1:00:43.880
And she says "Okay" and he does, and[br]then he—she rejects him, and he makes

1:00:43.880,1:00:48.460
it so no one will ever believe[br]any of her prophecies.

1:00:49.680,1:00:54.210
[narrator] And thus, according to[br]Homer, a seemingly insignificant

1:00:54.210,1:00:58.369
lovers' squabble later played a major role[br]in one of the classic battles of the

1:00:58.369,1:01:03.359
ancient world: the Trojan War.

1:01:05.809,1:01:11.200
The Greek stories[br]of Homer told of a glorious day

1:01:11.200,1:01:15.130
in which all the Greeks actually[br]did one thing together.

1:01:15.130,1:01:16.820
They did an expedition,

1:01:16.820,1:01:19.559
and they fought the Trojans.

1:01:20.710,1:01:24.910
[narrator] According to Homer, the[br]conflict begins when Paris, son of

1:01:24.910,1:01:29.410
the king of Troy, kidnaps the[br]beautiful daughter of a Greek king.

1:01:31.050,1:01:33.330
Furious at the abduction,

1:01:33.330,1:01:36.310
the king and his brother unite[br]all the leaders of the Greek world

1:01:36.310,1:01:38.960
to join in an attack on Troy.

1:01:38.960,1:01:41.210
[1:01:38 dramatic music]

1:01:42.690,1:01:49.320
For ten long years, they[br]lay siege to the city, but to no avail.

1:01:49.320,1:01:56.010
Troy is a fortress—all but impenetrable.

1:01:56.010,1:01:57.400
And then, a Greek general named

1:01:57.400,1:02:01.190
Odysseus comes forward with[br]a plan that will echo through history.

1:02:05.260,1:02:08.440
He suggests that the Greeks[br]build an enormous wooden horse

1:02:08.440,1:02:13.690
and pretend to leave Troy, as if the[br]great horse were a parting tribute.

1:02:15.360,1:02:19.220
But Helen, the Greek princess,[br]who has now fallen in love

1:02:19.220,1:02:26.810
with her captor, knows her people[br]well and suspects a trick.

1:02:29.080,1:02:33.800
Helen, who went[br]and imitated the voices of many

1:02:33.800,1:02:40.030
wives of the companions of the Greeks, and[br]walked around the Trojan horse,

1:02:40.030,1:02:46.040
hoping that some of them might hear the[br]voices of their wives and really cry out.

1:02:46.040,1:02:50.150
Odysseus was the one that restrained[br]his companions from revealing themselves.

1:02:51.150,1:02:53.140
[indistinct yelling]

1:02:53.140,1:02:56.950
[narrator] And so tragedy awaits the[br]unsuspecting Trojans.

1:02:57.870,1:03:01.280
The horse is brought inside the walled city.

1:03:01.280,1:03:05.230
But they have one more[br]chance when Cassandra,

1:03:05.230,1:03:10.390
the Trojan woman who spurned the god[br]Apollo's advances, also tries to warn

1:03:10.390,1:03:13.270
her fellow citizens.

1:03:15.330,1:03:19.280
Another warning came from[br]Cassandra, the Trojan princess.

1:03:19.280,1:03:23.760
She had been given the gift of prophecy by[br]Apollo in exchange for

1:03:23.760,1:03:25.290
sleeping with him.

1:03:25.290,1:03:26.940
But in the end, she refused.

1:03:26.940,1:03:28.520
So Apollo made sure that

1:03:28.520,1:03:30.780
nobody would believe in her prophecies.

1:03:32.160,1:03:37.950
[narrator] And thus the god Apollo[br]gets his revenge on Cassandra,

1:03:37.950,1:03:40.440
the mortal who spurred him.

1:03:40.950,1:03:44.060
It is unfortunate for the citizens of Troy.

1:03:44.060,1:03:48.230
After much feasting and celebrating,[br]the Trojans fall asleep.

1:03:50.180,1:03:52.970
Late at night, under cover of darkness,

1:03:52.970,1:03:56.250
the Greek armies return.

1:03:57.090,1:03:59.940
Within the walled city of Troy, Odysseus and

1:03:59.940,1:04:05.310
his men slip quietly out of the wooden horse's[br]belly and unlock the city gates.

1:04:11.230,1:04:14.980
The Greeks storm through[br]the now-open gates and lay waste

1:04:14.980,1:04:16.670
to the city.

1:04:16.670,1:04:19.520
[intense music and battle sounds]

1:04:21.580,1:04:24.750
But revenge does not a[br]better lover make.

1:04:24.750,1:04:26.520
Apollo would remain

1:04:26.520,1:04:30.680
a failure in affairs of the heart.

1:04:32.150,1:04:36.400
In stark contrast to Apollo[br]and the area of romance

1:04:36.400,1:04:41.730
is the other god who presided[br]over Delphi: Dionysus.

1:04:43.280,1:04:46.360
Dionysus, on the other hand,[br]is a guy you'd expect to

1:04:46.360,1:04:48.730
have a lot of luck with the ladies.

1:04:48.730,1:04:52.480
He's a god who is a god of the vines,

1:04:52.480,1:04:59.720
he's a god of wine, he's a god of[br]vegetation, he's a god of the sea.

1:04:59.720,1:05:01.170
So he's a god

1:05:01.170,1:05:06.310
who has been described as a god[br]of the fluid element—a god of fluidity.

1:05:06.310,1:05:11.470
And I think that's an excellent description,[br]because he's a god who can induce madness

1:05:11.470,1:05:13.190
on the individual.

1:05:13.190,1:05:16.420
Your mind can turn to a fluid[br]mush if you're under the

1:05:16.420,1:05:19.730
influence of Dionysus, whether it's[br]through drink or through some

1:05:19.730,1:05:21.410
religious ecstasy.

1:05:23.520,1:05:26.060
[Katerina Zacharia] Strong[br]emotion is Dionysus.

1:05:26.060,1:05:28.800
Formal expression is Apollo.

1:05:28.800,1:05:33.590
Of course, that idea, which is as well known[br]as the division between

1:05:33.590,1:05:38.240
classical and romantic, is no longer valid.

1:05:38.240,1:05:41.760
Yet, the idea of relating Apollo and

1:05:41.760,1:05:46.270
Dionysus was one that was[br]quite pertinent in antiquity.

1:05:46.270,1:05:48.530
During the three winter months

1:05:48.530,1:05:54.930
at Delphi that Apollo was absent,[br]Dionysus replaced him.

1:05:54.930,1:05:56.100
Dionysus is

1:05:56.100,1:06:02.339
the god of civic disorder, but also the god[br]of imperial democracy, whereas Apollo

1:06:02.339,1:06:04.160
is the god of civic order.

1:06:04.160,1:06:09.870
[narrator] And thus, as is so often[br]the case with the gods of ancient Greece,

1:06:09.870,1:06:12.880
there is a moral to the story.

1:06:12.880,1:06:14.980
In this case, the lesson lies in the

1:06:14.980,1:06:19.890
very contrast between Apollo and Dionysus.

1:06:20.690,1:06:25.700
Dionysus is a god who—[br]who is worshiped by women

1:06:25.700,1:06:32.170
and is worshiped in the countryside,[br]and leads women out of their homes,

1:06:32.170,1:06:37.940
away from their looms, into the tops of[br]mountains where they dance all night

1:06:37.940,1:06:42.430
and carry torches, and, men[br]thought, drank a lot.

1:06:42.430,1:06:44.930
We think about Apollo as a god

1:06:44.930,1:06:48.060
of reason, as a god of order.

1:06:48.060,1:06:50.520
On his temple at Delphi,[br]there are all these things.

1:06:50.520,1:06:56.710
It says "nothing too much"—<i>medan[br]agan</i>, moderation in all things.

1:06:58.050,1:07:02.970
[1:06:50 narrator] While the gods loved to[br]battle and ruled over earth and sky,

1:07:02.970,1:07:07.490
beneath the fertile folds and sun-drenched[br]landscape of ancient Greece lay

1:07:07.490,1:07:13.470
another domain—[br]a dark and foreboding place.

1:07:19.060,1:07:22.530
When the Greeks of ancient[br]times died, they were either

1:07:22.530,1:07:25.000
buried or cremated.

1:07:29.440,1:07:34.140
Beyond death lay the underworld,[br]a type of shadow existence

1:07:34.140,1:07:37.110
where there was no conscious afterlife.

1:07:38.600,1:07:40.810
No one went to heaven.

1:07:40.810,1:07:44.160
That was the exclusive[br]domain of the gods.

1:07:45.750,1:07:49.880
After death, we[br]have a soul, according to the

1:07:49.880,1:07:55.930
Greeks, which is called <i>psykhe</i>, which goes[br]fluttering off like a shadow of smoke

1:07:55.930,1:07:58.310
into the underworld.

1:07:58.310,1:08:04.120
Now, when you get to the underworld,[br]this place is called "Hades."

1:08:04.120,1:08:08.170
Or it's sometimes called "the House[br]of Hades," because Hades is the

1:08:08.170,1:08:10.670
god of the underworld.

1:08:11.650,1:08:15.439
And there's a journey that[br]the soul has to take.

1:08:17.398,1:08:21.739
[narrator] The journey was[br]across the fabled River Styx,

1:08:21.739,1:08:27.019
or "River of Hatred," with a man named[br]Charon to ferry the soul over.

1:08:29.959,1:08:34.578
You have to pay Charon[br]your obols or two obols

1:08:34.578,1:08:38.279
to get across the river, and that's why[br]these coins were put in the mouths of

1:08:38.279,1:08:41.139
the corpse upon death.

1:08:41.139,1:08:44.769
When you got there, the first[br]thing you meet is Cerberus,

1:08:44.769,1:08:48.019
this three-headed guard dog, at[br]the door to the underworld.

1:08:48.019,1:08:51.529
You went by—because you were a[br]dead man, you were allowed in.

1:08:51.529,1:08:52.459
But if you tried to get in

1:08:52.459,1:08:55.350
as a live man, you were[br]eaten alive by this thing.

1:08:55.350,1:08:58.080
[intense music]

1:08:59.640,1:09:05.248
[narrator] In Homer's telling, Hades[br]is a grim and dreadful place.

1:09:05.248,1:09:10.779
It is so bleak, no temple[br]for Hades exists anywhere.

1:09:10.779,1:09:12.139
The underworld is described

1:09:12.139,1:09:17.850
as a place where human spirits[br]suffer an eternity of empty dreams.

1:09:21.080,1:09:24.880
[Katerina Zacharia] Hades is terrible[br]and inexorable, but he is not the

1:09:24.880,1:09:29.429
punisher of souls like Satan in Christianity.

1:09:30.289,1:09:32.920
<i>Psykhe</i> in Greek means "breath,"

1:09:32.920,1:09:37.158
It comes from a verb[br]<i>psykhein</i>, which is "to breathe."

1:09:37.158,1:09:39.158
Now one—when someone

1:09:39.158,1:09:42.599
dies, he no longer breathes.

1:09:42.599,1:09:46.979
<i>Psykhe</i> has really been translated as "soul."

1:09:46.979,1:09:50.488
Now, <i>psykhes</i> in the underworld[br]have no consciousness.

1:09:53.019,1:09:55.999
[narrator] There are two[br]levels to the underworld.

1:09:55.999,1:09:57.439
The first,

1:09:57.439,1:10:02.479
called Erebus, is where the human[br]soul passes immediately after death.

1:10:03.839,1:10:09.719
The second is a deeper and more[br]terrible place called Tartarus.

1:10:10.769,1:10:15.340
Those unrepentant and violent souls[br]who have offended the gods are

1:10:15.340,1:10:17.679
banished to dreaded Tartarus.

1:10:17.679,1:10:20.650
[eerie music]

1:10:24.380,1:10:27.130
One of the most famous[br]characters who was put into

1:10:27.130,1:10:34.879
Tartarus was a fellow named Tantalus,[br]and Tantalus was made to stand

1:10:34.879,1:10:41.400
in a river with a fruit tree over his head,[br]and he was eternally thirsty and eternally

1:10:41.400,1:10:46.410
hungry because whenever he reached to[br]drink out of the river, the water would flow

1:10:46.410,1:10:49.679
through his hands and he couldn't get[br]it to his mouth, and when he reached

1:10:49.679,1:10:53.999
for the fruit of the tree over his head,[br]it would always move just out of reach.

1:10:53.999,1:10:59.179
And so he was eternally "tantalized,"[br]as we have the word from it now.

1:11:00.489,1:11:03.459
narrator] Thus the gods of their[br]stories gave meaning to the different

1:11:03.459,1:11:10.059
cycles of life and even the[br]possibility of an afterlife.

1:11:10.059,1:11:13.689
They also helped the Greeks establish[br]a morality and a body of ethics.

1:11:16.769,1:11:20.440
In ancient Greece, one of the[br]most advanced civilizations

1:11:20.440,1:11:27.429
of its time, these stories eventually inspired[br]the birth of a new art form—

1:11:27.429,1:11:29.590
the theater.

1:11:30.400,1:11:34.749
Later, playwrights such as[br]Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes

1:11:34.749,1:11:39.400
dramatized them, allowing the epic tales to[br]come alive for people throughout

1:11:39.400,1:11:40.679
the centuries.

1:11:43.249,1:11:46.489
[Greg Thalmann] The relation of[br]literature to myth and religious belief

1:11:46.489,1:11:49.739
among the Greeks is[br]a very complicated one.

1:11:49.739,1:11:50.780
You have to remember

1:11:50.780,1:12:00.679
that for them, literature—poetry,[br]especially—was not the preserve of an

1:12:00.679,1:12:02.959
educated elite.

1:12:02.959,1:12:07.159
It was not even originally,[br]uh, meant to be read.

1:12:07.159,1:12:09.349
It was publicly performed.

1:12:09.349,1:12:11.719
It was accessible to everyone.

1:12:13.050,1:12:17.730
Richard Martin] They had various[br]kinds of performances, they had oral

1:12:17.730,1:12:22.909
poetry, choral dancing, drama, but they[br]would never think of it as something

1:12:22.909,1:12:24.719
like one category.

1:12:24.719,1:12:27.699
Especially, they would never[br]think of reading this material.

1:12:27.699,1:12:32.519
You had it performed, and therefore[br]it's much more deeply embedded in

1:12:32.519,1:12:34.050
the local culture.

1:12:34.050,1:12:36.960
It's not something that only a[br]few people do—read these works.

1:12:36.960,1:12:40.099
It's something that[br]everybody hears and sees.

1:12:40.859,1:12:44.170
[narrator] Some of the early authors[br]crafted their plays and their poetry

1:12:44.170,1:12:47.970
around themes which[br]were critical of the gods—

1:12:47.970,1:12:49.400
something which later

1:12:49.400,1:12:52.160
philosophers vehemently condemned.

1:12:53.869,1:12:58.809
Plato's criticism of traditional[br]literature and of the

1:12:58.809,1:13:04.400
stories in them was that the gods[br]essentially didn't act like gods.

1:13:04.400,1:13:11.090
I think Plato especially was very uncomfortable[br]with that, because of his own notion

1:13:11.090,1:13:14.400
of what a god ought to be.

1:13:14.400,1:13:17.479
You can see some of the[br]same critique in Euripides—

1:13:17.479,1:13:22.809
in his tragedies, his sense that, you know,[br]gods shouldn't really act the way

1:13:22.809,1:13:27.530
that a lot of the myths he's treating[br]dramatically show them.

1:13:28.690,1:13:31.789
Certainly, when you look at a[br]drama like the <i>Ion</i>, in which

1:13:31.789,1:13:37.761
Apollo is represented as a rapist, you[br]begin to question the value of a god

1:13:37.761,1:13:39.070
like that.

1:13:40.050,1:13:43.379
[narrator] Some philosophers believe[br]that redemption is the moral

1:13:43.379,1:13:45.589
of the story.

1:13:46.839,1:13:50.209
By the end of the play, the woman[br]who is raped becomes the

1:13:50.209,1:13:52.660
mother of Apollo's son, Ion.

1:13:54.450,1:13:58.630
He goes on to become the[br]leader of the city-state of Athens.

1:13:59.789,1:14:03.880
Many of the plays reflected[br]the more tempestuous side

1:14:03.880,1:14:06.719
of human nature in the conduct of the gods.

1:14:07.969,1:14:10.280
Sexuality and affairs of the heart

1:14:10.280,1:14:14.699
were controlled by Aphrodite, the goddess[br]of beauty, love and fertility.

1:14:16.799,1:14:21.230
Just like Apollo, Aphrodite[br]lived a turbulent life.

1:14:24.639,1:14:29.409
Aphrodite was connected[br]with warfare through her

1:14:29.409,1:14:33.959
union, her affair, with[br]Ares, the god of war.

1:14:33.959,1:14:35.790
And they were two famous lovers.

1:14:35.790,1:14:40.480
Aphrodite wasn't actually married to Ares—[br]she was married to Hephaestus

1:14:40.480,1:14:42.969
or Vulcan, the god of the forge.

1:14:42.969,1:14:45.830
But she had this flaming affair with Ares,

1:14:45.830,1:14:47.309
the war god.

1:14:47.309,1:14:50.679
And the question is, why are[br]these two always getting together?

1:14:50.679,1:14:57.190
It's the fury of their mutual passions,[br]which made them two gods that were

1:14:57.190,1:15:01.179
beyond the control of all the other gods.

1:15:01.179,1:15:03.110
And as the saying goes, you know,

1:15:03.110,1:15:06.980
that every lover is a soldier on a campaign.

1:15:07.730,1:15:13.300
[narrator] Thus, early Greek writings[br]conveyed life's everyday lessons.

1:15:13.300,1:15:19.029
And yet, some of the works reflected a[br]blatantly sexist attitude towards women.

1:15:20.349,1:15:23.599
One example is the story of Hippolytus.

1:15:24.959,1:15:29.139
He despised women,[br]he despised female sexuality,

1:15:29.139,1:15:31.139
he was chaste, chaste, pure.

1:15:31.139,1:15:36.710
We'd send him to a psychiatrist, but—[br]pure, pure as the snow.

1:15:36.710,1:15:42.380
His stepmother's nurse, handmaid,[br]went to Hippolytus and told

1:15:42.380,1:15:46.370
Hippolytus that his stepmother[br]was in love with him.

1:15:46.370,1:15:48.030
Hippolytus was appalled.

1:15:48.030,1:15:49.960
He was horrified.

1:15:49.960,1:15:53.139
When Greek men got[br]together at the drinking parties at

1:15:53.139,1:15:57.860
the symposia, we know that they told stories,[br]that they produced poetry,

1:15:57.860,1:15:59.959
which made fun of women.

1:15:59.959,1:16:03.459
In early Greek culture, women[br]were seen as consumers

1:16:03.459,1:16:04.780
of men's effort.

1:16:04.780,1:16:08.730
The man had to farm, the woman[br]simply consumed the efforts—

1:16:08.730,1:16:13.109
stayed at home, cooked, and[br]was always on the man's back.

1:16:13.109,1:16:16.599
And it's a strong misogynistic string in[br]Greek literature all the way through

1:16:16.599,1:16:19.229
the 5th and the 4th century.

1:16:20.149,1:16:24.260
[narrator] And so, Greek dramas and[br]comedies unfolded in amphitheaters

1:16:24.260,1:16:30.400
throughout the land, with all-male casts[br]playing the roles of gods as well

1:16:30.400,1:16:35.609
as goddesses, mortal men, as well as women.

1:16:37.759,1:16:41.070
But the Greeks were not[br]the only ones absorbed by stories

1:16:41.070,1:16:43.350
of deities and heroes.

1:16:43.350,1:16:46.069
Others were watching too.

1:16:48.499,1:16:53.739
Far to the west, across[br]the Mediterranean, a great new

1:16:53.739,1:16:56.350
empire was being born.

1:16:57.260,1:16:59.709
[dramatic music]

1:17:02.819,1:17:07.039
The Greek gods and goddesses,[br]like classical Greece itself,

1:17:07.039,1:17:09.540
would know the ravages of time and change.

1:17:10.989,1:17:14.309
As functioning deities,[br]they would eventually slip into

1:17:14.309,1:17:16.240
the mists of history.

1:17:17.970,1:17:22.009
And yet, they have not[br]completely disappeared.

1:17:23.960,1:17:28.709
Even though they're[br]not part of our religion, we still

1:17:28.709,1:17:30.139
need these stories.

1:17:30.139,1:17:35.639
They're wonderful, rich,[br]richly suggestive tales about

1:17:35.639,1:17:40.929
how the world works and[br]what we are as human beings.

1:17:40.929,1:17:42.499
Generation after generation

1:17:42.499,1:17:48.310
of modern students love—they're[br]fascinated by these myths.

1:17:48.310,1:17:55.179
And I think that springs from something we[br]all have in us, which is a desire to make

1:17:55.179,1:18:01.920
stories, a need to understand the[br]world by making stories about it.

1:18:03.320,1:18:06.039
[narrator] Greek mythology has[br]transcended the centuries coming

1:18:06.039,1:18:11.829
down to us not only from the great poets[br]and playwrights, but through the

1:18:11.829,1:18:14.600
conduits of many other cultures.

1:18:16.130,1:18:19.860
One of the first was Rome, far to the west.

1:18:19.860,1:18:24.339
It absorbed much of what Greece had to offer.

1:18:26.060,1:18:30.519
[Richard Martin] The Romans[br]discovered Greek religion, really,

1:18:30.519,1:18:37.200
in the third century BC, and began to make[br]a bigger deal of it than it had been before.

1:18:37.200,1:18:41.230
We know that there had been cultural[br]contact for a long time, but there

1:18:41.230,1:18:46.369
was a kind of prestige of the Greeks that[br]the Romans felt they didn't have.

1:18:46.369,1:18:53.320
And so they took over, really, the Olympian[br]system, and aligned their own local gods

1:18:53.320,1:18:57.589
with more recognizable,[br]high-status Greek gods.

1:18:59.229,1:19:03.349
[narrator] In adopting the gods of[br]the Greeks, the Romans imbued the

1:19:03.349,1:19:08.050
pantheon of deities with[br]distinctly Roman characteristics.

1:19:08.050,1:19:09.829
The first priority

1:19:09.829,1:19:12.469
was to assign them Roman names.

1:19:13.659,1:19:17.019
Zeus became Jupiter[br]in their terms.

1:19:17.019,1:19:19.280
Ares became Mars.

1:19:19.280,1:19:21.000
Athena became Minerva.

1:19:21.000,1:19:23.969
When I say became, I mean that[br]they had these gods

1:19:23.969,1:19:28.510
existing already—Minerva, Mars, Jupiter—[br]but they now aligned them in a new way

1:19:28.510,1:19:35.120
that said, "Yes, we're part of a continuum[br]of culture with the higher-status Greeks."

1:19:36.290,1:19:40.410
[narrator] Other gods adopted by the[br]Romans include Hera, who became

1:19:40.410,1:19:42.479
known as Juno.

1:19:42.479,1:19:45.969
Poseidon was renamed Neptune.

1:19:45.969,1:19:49.280
Hades reemerged as Pluto.

1:19:49.280,1:19:54.220
Aphrodite would forever be immortalized as[br]the goddess Venus.

1:19:54.220,1:19:55.189
And so,

1:19:55.189,1:20:00.289
the Greek pantheon, to a large[br]extent, became the Roman pantheon.

1:20:01.640,1:20:05.769
As mighty Rome developed[br]into an empire, it eventually

1:20:05.769,1:20:10.940
occupied a little-known dusty corner of the[br]Middle East called Judea.

1:20:11.789,1:20:14.589
Here, the Hebrews clustered[br]around their capital city,

1:20:14.589,1:20:19.719
Jerusalem—where a new[br]religion was being born.

1:20:20.879,1:20:23.820
Following the crucifixion of Christ,

1:20:23.820,1:20:27.690
word rapidly spread of his teachings.

1:20:27.690,1:20:29.269
Even Christianity found

1:20:29.269,1:20:32.769
connections in Greek[br]and Roman philosophies,

1:20:32.769,1:20:35.709
particularly through the Apostle Paul.

1:20:37.149,1:20:42.179
We know that Paul was[br]educated in Greco-Roman terms.

1:20:42.179,1:20:46.840
He quotes Euripides at least[br]several times in his epistles.

1:20:46.840,1:20:48.599
Later on, notions

1:20:48.599,1:20:54.170
that had developed in Platonism, especially,[br]became crucial in the ways in which

1:20:54.170,1:20:59.349
early Christians tried to make their religion[br]more understandable to highly

1:20:59.349,1:21:02.679
educated class in the Greco-Roman world.

1:21:03.489,1:21:08.330
In the Orthodox Church even today,[br]the Greek Christian church,

1:21:08.330,1:21:11.480
you still see some of the[br]mysticism that you can identify in

1:21:11.480,1:21:14.769
the works of Plato in the 4th century BC.

1:21:16.999,1:21:20.999
[narrator] The Christian belief that[br]Jesus was the son of God, yet born

1:21:20.999,1:21:25.319
of a mortal woman, also resonated[br]with the early Greeks.

1:21:27.470,1:21:30.760
[Richard Martin] Because Greek religion[br]was completely comfortable

1:21:30.760,1:21:35.050
with the notion of gods interacting with[br]human women, I think it helped in

1:21:35.050,1:21:40.170
the spread of Christianity, in an early[br]period, that a narrative like that was

1:21:40.170,1:21:42.119
at its core.

1:21:42.119,1:21:45.160
And so we'll never know cause[br]and effect, and I certainly don't

1:21:45.160,1:21:51.239
want to attribute early Christianity wholly[br]to the Greeks, but it helped that

1:21:51.239,1:21:52.929
the groundwork was laid.

1:21:52.929,1:21:56.760
[narrator] Despite the enormous cast[br]of divinities that ruled over

1:21:56.760,1:22:03.070
the Greeks just a few centuries before Christ[br]was born, a new idea sprang

1:22:03.070,1:22:09.670
up among the people—the notion of[br]the existence of only one true god.

1:22:10.969,1:22:15.500
The Greek world shifted[br]towards monotheism,

1:22:15.500,1:22:23.569
I would say sometime around the 400s[br]and 300s BC, with the advent of philosophy.

1:22:23.569,1:22:29.439
And philosophers like Plato and Aristotle[br]who were skeptical of

1:22:29.439,1:22:34.059
the Greek religion—the way it was written[br]in mythology—but they did believe in

1:22:34.059,1:22:36.909
some supreme force.

1:22:36.909,1:22:42.500
Some supreme all-good,[br]all-knowing kind of power.

1:22:42.500,1:22:45.929
[narrator] This movement toward[br]monotheism in ancient Greece did not

1:22:45.929,1:22:48.859
go unnoticed by the Apostle Paul.

1:22:50.690,1:22:54.219
One day in Athens, Paul[br]found himself addressing Greek

1:22:54.219,1:22:58.309
citizens from atop the Areopagus,[br]a hill that was a meeting place for a

1:22:58.309,1:23:00.689
council of noblemen.

1:23:04.499,1:23:07.460
[woman narrator] "But Paul, standing[br]in the midst of the Areopagus, said:

1:23:07.460,1:23:15.260
'Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in[br]all things you are too superstitious.

1:23:15.260,1:23:18.530
For passing by and seeing[br]your idols, I've found an altar

1:23:18.530,1:23:23.220
also on which was written:[br]"To the unknown god."

1:23:23.220,1:23:29.559
What therefore you worship without[br]knowing it—that I preach to you.

1:23:29.559,1:23:30.659
God who made the world and

1:23:30.659,1:23:36.050
all things therein and hath made of one all[br]mankind to dwell upon the whole

1:23:36.050,1:23:41.669
face of the Earth."[br]Acts 17:22.

1:23:42.939,1:23:46.590
[narrator] One of the most potent[br]forces that shape Greek thinking

1:23:46.590,1:23:49.559
was an awareness of sin.

1:23:49.559,1:23:53.400
But 2,000 years ago, the concept[br]of sin meant something

1:23:53.400,1:23:57.079
very different than the beliefs[br]held by the early Christians.

1:23:59.269,1:24:03.030
The Greek word[br]for "sin," the closest one, is a word

1:24:03.030,1:24:07.610
that means "to miss the mark,"[br]"to err," "to go wrong."

1:24:07.610,1:24:09.690
Now, what does that

1:24:09.690,1:24:17.819
mean to sin, if you go too high, it means that[br]you're stepping beyond human limitations.

1:24:17.819,1:24:22.129
If you go too low, it means that you're not[br]living up to your fulfillment.

1:24:22.129,1:24:28.779
And so, for the Greeks, a sin was[br]really not fulfilling who you are.

1:24:30.959,1:24:35.429
[narrator] Though separated from us[br]by untold millennia, the great

1:24:35.429,1:24:40.740
pageantry of gods, goddesses, and heroes,[br]of Muses, Fates, and Graces,

1:24:40.740,1:24:45.910
of soaring accomplishments and bitter[br]defeats, is as significant today as it was

1:24:45.910,1:24:49.020
to the ancient Greeks.

1:24:51.790,1:24:54.710
[Constantine] The interesting[br]thing about the Greeks at that

1:24:54.710,1:25:00.229
period who venerated these gods, that they[br]gave to the gods the attitude also

1:25:00.229,1:25:01.590
of human beings.

1:25:01.590,1:25:04.470
There was the fighting, there was[br]the jealousy, there was the adultery,

1:25:04.470,1:25:07.010
there was the happiness, there was[br]the truth, there was the peace,

1:25:07.010,1:25:11.580
there were all the different things that were[br]going on in everyday life of the human beings.

1:25:11.580,1:25:13.779
It was all associated with the gods.

1:25:13.779,1:25:16.130
And I think that that is

1:25:16.130,1:25:21.769
part of the reason why these things[br]have survived all these centuries in

1:25:21.769,1:25:28.229
the minds of people, and identified in the[br]way the Greeks think even today.

1:25:28.229,1:25:30.630
[Greg Thalmann] Greek myth is a whole[br]body of narratives.

1:25:30.630,1:25:39.979
Say something very complicated about[br]the world, um, they—they speak to a kind of

1:25:39.979,1:25:43.379
optimism and a kind of[br]pessimism at the same time.

1:25:43.379,1:25:47.059
[Richard Martin] Greek myth as a whole[br]really does tell us, through a lot

1:25:47.059,1:25:52.209
of exemplary stories, a lot of different[br]things about the nature of reality and

1:25:52.209,1:25:53.699
the nature of life:

1:25:53.699,1:25:55.689
What's important.

1:25:55.689,1:25:58.549
What we ought to care about.

1:25:58.549,1:26:01.380
[Thomas F. Scanton] One of the major[br]lessons is that, to read any of

1:26:01.380,1:26:07.389
these stories, which are timeless treatments[br]of big human questions of

1:26:07.389,1:26:13.179
personal morality versus the morality of the[br]state and laws that are imposed,

1:26:13.179,1:26:19.239
and how do you negotiate these very[br]difficult questions of the best behavior as

1:26:19.239,1:26:21.500
a citizen in this state?

1:26:21.500,1:26:25.219
Those are addressed by Greek[br]myths and by Greek legends.

1:26:25.219,1:26:31.539
And you are left with this feeling that we[br]don't know, really, what these

1:26:31.539,1:26:38.159
gods are or who they are, but, you know,[br]we know there's some force out there.

1:26:38.159,1:26:44.689
There's some huge force that's controlling[br]our lives, and that we have to keep

1:26:44.689,1:26:49.289
an open mind to what that force is doing.

1:26:49.289,1:26:51.090
That's why the Greeks can speak

1:26:51.090,1:26:58.479
across 3,000 years of history and tell us[br]some questions, if not the answers,

1:26:58.479,1:27:02.849
to some of the most perturbing[br]eternal questions in the world.

1:27:03.699,1:27:06.780
[narrator] There was[br]another world here once.

1:27:06.780,1:27:11.309
And the gods and goddesses and people[br]who lived here still haunt the landscape.

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[birds chirping]

1:27:13.379,1:27:16.450
Their stories still travel[br]across time.

1:27:18.160,1:27:19.709
As long as people

1:27:19.709,1:27:27.610
seek a deeper understanding of themselves[br]and their world, ancient Greece lives on.

1:27:29.020,1:27:33.110
[woman narrator] "All ye are[br]the gods of this great place.

1:27:33.110,1:27:39.050
Grant to me that I be made beautiful in my[br]soul within, and grant that all my external

1:27:39.050,1:27:44.510
possessions be in peaceful harmony[br]with my inner man, with myself."

1:27:46.110,1:27:48.100
Plato.