Classical Mythology: A Very Short Introduction AFRICAN HISTORY John Parker and Richard Rathbone THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY Charles O. Jones ANARCHISM Colin Ward ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas ANCIENT WARFARE Harry Sidebottom ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes ART HISTORY Dana Arnold ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin ATHEISM Julian Baggini AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick BARTHES Jonathan Culler THE BIBLE John Riches THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright BUDDHA Michael Carrithers BUDDHISM Damien Keown BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown CAPITALISM James Fulcher THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe CHAOS Leonard Smith CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead CLASSICS Mary Beard and John Henderson CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY Helen Morales CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore CONTEMPORARY ART Julian Stallabrass CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Simon Critchley Very Short Introduction available now: VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. COSMOLOGY Peter Coles THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman CRYPTOGRAPHY Fred Piper and Sean Murphy DADA AND SURREALISM David Hopkins DARWIN Jonathan Howard THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Timothy Lim DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick DESCARTES Tom Sorell DESIGN John Heskett DINOSAURS David Norman DREAMING J. Allan Hobson DRUGS Leslie Iversen THE EARTH Martin Redfern ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Paul Langford THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball EMOTION Dylan Evans EMPIRE Stephen Howe ENGELS Terrell Carver ETHICS Simon Blackburn THE EUROPEAN UNION John Pinder EVOLUTION Brian and Deborah Charlesworth EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn FASCISM Kevin Passmore FEMINISM Margaret Walters THE FIRST WORLD WAR Michael Howard FOSSILS Keith Thomson FOUCAULT Gary Gutting THE FRENCH REVOLUTION William Doyle FREE WILL Thomas Pink FREUD Anthony Storr FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven GALILEO Stillman Drake GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh GLOBAL CATASTROPHES Bill McGuire GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin HABERMAS James Gordon Finlayson HEGEL Peter Singer HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson HINDUISM Kim Knott HISTORY John H. Arnold HOBBES Richard Tuck HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Clapham HUME A. J. Ayer IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION Khalid Koser INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Paul Wilkinson ISLAM Malise Ruthven JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves JUDAISM Norman Solomon JUNG Anthony Stevens KABBALAH Joseph Dan KAFKA Ritchie Robertson KANT Roger Scruton KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner THE KORAN Michael Cook LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler LOCKE John Dunn LOGIC Graham Priest MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner THE MARQUIS DE SADE John Phillips MARX Peter Singer MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope MEDIEVAL BRITAIN John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths MODERN ART David Cottington MODERN IRELAND Senia Pašeta MOLECULES Philip Ball MUSIC Nicholas Cook MYTH Robert A. Segal NATIONALISM Steven Grosby THE NEW TESTAMENT AS LITERATURE Kyle Keefer NEWTON Robert Iliffe NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and H. C. G. Matthew NORTHERN IRELAND Marc Mulholland PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close PAUL E. P. Sanders PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig PHILOSOPHY OF LAW Raymond Wacks PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Samir Okasha PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards PLATO Julia Annas POLITICS Kenneth Minogue POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY David Miller POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young POSTMODERNISM Christopher Butler POSTSTRUCTURALISM Catherine Belsey PREHISTORY Chris Gosden PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY Catherine Osborne PSYCHOLOGY Gillian Butler and Freda McManus PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns QUANTUM THEORY John Polkinghorne RACISM Ali Rattansi THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton RENAISSANCE ART Geraldine A. Johnson ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway THE ROMAN EMPIRE Christopher Kelly ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler RUSSELL A. C. Grayling RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION S. A. Smith SCHIZOPHRENIA Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone SCHOPENHAUER Christopher Janaway SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY John Monaghan and Peter Just SOCIALISM Michael Newman SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Helen Graham SPINOZA Roger Scruton STUART BRITAIN John Morrill TERRORISM Charles Townshend THEOLOGY David F. Ford THE HISTORY OF TIME Leofranc Holford-Strevens TRAGEDY Adrian Poole THE TUDORS John Guy TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan THE VIKINGS Julian Richards WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION Amrita Narlikar For more information visit our website www.oup.co.uk/general/vsi/ AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS L. Sandy Maisel ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller BESTSELLERS John Sutherland DOCUMENTARY FILM Patricia Aufderheide THE EUROPEAN UNION (NEW EDITION) John Pinder and Simon Usherwood EXPRESSIONISM Katerina Reed-Tsocha GAME THEORY Ken Binmore GEOGRAPHY John Matthews and David Herbert GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds GERMAN LITERATURE Nicholas Boyle THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL Eric Rauchway MEMORY Jonathan Foster MODERN CHINA Rana Mitter QUAKERISM Pink Dandelion SCIENCE AND RELIGION Thomas Dixon SEXUALITY Véronique Mottier Available Soon: This page intentionally left blank Helen Morales classical mythology A Very Short Introduction 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York  Helen Morales 2007 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978–0–19–280476–1 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press Ltd, Gosport, Hampshire Contents Acknowledgements xi List of illustrations xii Introduction 1 1 Without bulls there would be no Europe 5 2 Contexts, then and now 19 3 Gods and heroes 39 4 Metamorphoses of mythology 56 5 On the analyst’s couch 68 6 The sexual politics of myth 82 7 Mythology, spirituality, and the New Age 100 Conclusion 115 Timeline 118 References 124 Further reading 130 Index 139 Map of ancient Greece, Italy, and other places discussed in this VSI Acknowledgements Thanks to the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge, and to Newnham College for intellectual and fi nancial support; to Richard Fletcher for research assistance; to Elizabeth Watson, Miriam Leonard, Emily Kneebone, and Benedict Wilkinson for reading and improving parts of the manuscript; to Emmanuelle Peri, Deborah Protheroe, James Thompson, and Luciana O’Flaherty at OUP; to Alyson Silverwood for copy-editing; to Augusta McMahon for assistance with the ancient Arabic material; to Margaret Malamud for help with the modern Arabic material; to Kristina Milnor for discussion of the Rockefeller Center; to Joseph Schwartz for guidance on psychoanalysis; to Simon Goldhill and Christopher Kelly and, for criticism and support from the beginning to the end, to Mary Beard and to Tony Boyle. List of illustrations 1 ‘Live Your Myth’ poster xiv © Greek National Tourism Organization 2 Greek 2 Euro coin 5 3 Roman coin from Sidon, 3rd century AD 5 Das Münzkabinett mit der Antikensammlung, Winterthur, Switzerland 4 Go and Vote poster, European elections 1994 7 © Horst Haitzinger 5 Roman wall painting of Europa from Pompeii 20 Alinari Archives, Florence 6 Brad Pitt as Achilles in the fi lm Troy (2004) 25 Warner Brothers/The Kobal Collection/Alex Bailey 7 The Palatine Hill in Rome 29 8 Paul Manship’s statue Prometheus (1934) 34 Dave King/© Dorling Kindersley 9 Statue of Prometheus in Tony Harrison’s fi lm Prometheus (1998) 37 Holmes Associates Ltd/ Phil Hunt 10 Statue of Marsyas 46 © Scala, Florence/Ministero per i Beni e le Attivit Culturali 11 Clio (Mrs Anthony Eden) by Madame Yevonde 48 © Yevonde Portrait Archive 12 Heracles fi ghts the Egyptians 51 Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, Athens 13 Emperor Commodus as Hercules 52 Alinari Archives, Florence 14 Illustration from Pierre Bersuire’s Ovidius Moralizatus 61 Forschungsbibliotek, Gotha 15 Freud’s bookplate showing Oedipus and the Sphinx 72 Freud Museum, London 16 Detail from Jacopo Zucchi’s painting Psyche Surprises Amore (1585) 77 © Galleria Borghese, Rome/Alinari Archives/The Bridgeman Art Library 17 Floor mosaic from Italica 83 Museo-Palacio de la Condesa de Lebrija, Seville 18 Detail from Tiepolo’s Death of Hyacinthus (1752–3) 92 Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid/akg-images 19 Xena, Warrior Princess, kisses Gabrielle 94 © MCA/Universal 20 Alice Walker as Phalia, Muse of Comedy, from Maud Sulter’s series Zabat (1989) 97 © Maud Sulter 21 Illustration of al-Jathi in Arab manuscript from the Middle Ages 102 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris 22 Betsy Damon as The Seven Thousand Year Old Woman (1977) 106 © Betsy Damon 23 Artemis at Ephesus 107 akg-images/Erich Lessing 24 In the deep, deep mists of time 113 © Angela Martin, fi rst published in Trouble and Strife 31, Summer 1995 The publisher and the author apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list. If contacted they will be pleased to rectify these at the earliest opportunity. 1. Advertisement by the Greek National Tourism Organization. This advert, and others like it with the same caption, Live Your Myth in Greece, was widely seen in magazines and on buses in 2005