Ancient Greek Mythology: Heroes

Ancient Greek Mythology, Religion, Art

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A very important stage in the development of not only Greek religion, but human religion in general, was the creation of hero cults and hero veneration. Some time during the 8th century BCE we observe Mycenaean sites where older tombs were cleaned up and transformed into the locus of veneration of heroic ancestors who, more likely than not, didn't actually have anything to do with that place. Although heroes may have played roles in tribal religions before this, organized cults surrounding human heroes have played important roles in religion ever since this time — including in "modern" religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. One point of criticism which outsiders can use is to demonstrate the degree to which contemporary beliefs are culturally contingent and derived from older religions, not divine in origin.

In most mythical systems, events occur outside of normal human time scales and during a sacred time not calculated in terms of years or days. This was also true in ancient Greek religion where the origins of gods and the earth occurred long ago in a "time" before human history or memory. The Greek innovation, though was the creation of heroes who played an integral role in stories of gods but who also lived just a few generations ago - as was, for example, the case with the Trojan War. If the actions of the heroes weren't quite in recorded history, they were close enough.

One of the most important functions for "heroes," whatever name they might go under, is to create or solidify a connection between the distant gods and the human world. Even in Greek religion, where the gods were not "supernatural" in the sense that the gods of monotheistic religions today are and where the gods could appear at any time, there was a need being filled by introducing human beings and human time into the cycles of religion and ritual.

Although the idea of "heroes" might seem by most to be limited entirely to ancient religions, they actually play a larger role in the major monotheistic religions that dominate today. A primary reason for this is the fact that the direct actions of gods have continually receded into the background. First, this leaves open much more room for human action of any sort; second, the more remote a god is from human society, the greater the social need will be for establishing a human connection with the divine.

In the Old Testament, for example, most of the stories involve what human figures who can best be categorized as "heroes" - Moses may not be quite the same as Hercules, but he is still a human figure who experiences adventures while fulfilling the will of a god and in the service of community values. In the New Testament heroes play an even larger role because direct actions by gods are almost entirely absent. It is true that Jesus is portrayed as having divine origins, but that was almost always true of the ancient Greek heroes as well.

Heroes continued to play an important role in Christianity long after the New Testament era as well, though Christianity has used the label "saint" and focuses more on internal spiritual struggles rather than external, worldly adventures. This is consistent with Christianity internalizing and symbolizing so many traditional aspects of ancient religions, including for example traditional ritual sacrifices being transformed into an internalized, symbolic sacrifice of Jesus during communion.

Heroes were all a source of great pride in Greek homes - whether in the sense that they were born or buried there. Lists of those who sailed with Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece, for example, vary because every city wanted to be able to claim someone who helped. This reveals how changes in the heroic myths had important implications for local politics and diplomatic relations. The same was true with Christianity: the presence of the bones of saints could have tremendous implications for how much revenue a church could receive in donations, the wealth of patrons, how far the church's fame spread, and thus ultimately the political power of the clergy in charge.

Heroes and saints interact with political power because they provide mediation between humans and gods — a function otherwise restricted to the clergy. When the clergy control access to heroes and saints, then they can retain most or all of their power, but when veneration of heroes arises spontaneously outsider clerical control, then the power of the clergy is reduced. In Islam, the Wahhabist attack on the veneration of saints as an unacceptable "innovation" contrary to the principles of Islam may have been driven, in part, by how this veneration often occurred spontaneously and outside the direct control of local imams.

The stories of ancient Greek heroes thus aren't just fantastic and entertaining tales. If we look more closely, they are also politically-charged religious myths with important messages about social, familial, and ethical obligations which all Greeks were expected to uphold. If we can learn to better decipher the political and ethical messages contained in myths about Greek heroes, we can develop habits that will help us recognize how similar messages are contained in the stories of saints and other "heroes" in modern religions as well.

Ancient Greek Heroes
Achilles and Hector	Ajax and Achilles
Menelaus and Hector	Odysseus \ Ulysses
Perseus	Theseus
Asklepios

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