Homer and the Transmission of Greek Myths

Ancient Greek Mythology, Religion, Art

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Key to the existence of Greek religion were the stories and fables transmitted from one generation to the next. Some tales were told in the home, from parents to children. Some tales were told by professional poets who were charged with keeping alive the traditions of the community. Not all of these poets were influential on a personal level, but they were obviously successful in that the beliefs survived.

The two most important transmitters of Greek traditions were Hesiod and Homer. They systematized a large number of stories and beliefs; as a consequence, their writings achieved something of a canonical status among the Greeks. It is, in fact, because of them that we can even speak of a Greek religion as opposed to multiple, related cults.

Greek religion may have been structured by the mythology transmitted through legendary tales, but that doesn't mean everyone accepted all of the stories uncritically. Skeptical reflection, though, didn't really take off until a relatively late point. The first stage was in the extensive compilation of multiple stories into encyclopedic collections - so long as myths retained the variation that accompanied a purely oral environment, any exacting study and critique was unrealistic and unlikely.

The second stage, during the Hellenic Age, was the development of history and philosophy as separate fields of study. Historians learned to criticize the historicity of the stories while philosophers learned to apply skeptical standards to the claims made. Indeed, there very act of raising the question of whether the stories were true or false was a radical idea. Both philosophers and historians that myths tended to be unreliable teachers about the divine, but not necessarily unreliable when it came to teaching about human nature. Thus, while Greeks were in the process of compiling the stories which formed the backbone of the culture they were also learning to question and criticize those stories - as well as their culture.

Looking at Greek mythology today, one might be tempted to interpret and read it like other forms of literature - but that would be a mistake. In addition to the standard interpretive methods, it is also necessary to try to understand the myth's role in Greek society - what "ideology," so to speak, was it supposed to communicate? What sort of relationship between the profane and the divine did it describe? What sort of community or political values was it teaching? Greek myths may be literature, but they are also a form of scripture at the same time and should be approached with that in mind.

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