When we first started the lecture on chthonian deities I was very
intrigued, because I had not encountered the term before (I had at least not
noticed it enough to investigate further). However I quickly became confused,
because what does chthonian actually mean? The Perseus
Greek word study tool translates Chthon
as earth whilst RobertParker briefly states that one view is that chthonians are ‘gods of the earth’. But even I can quickly
see that that term is far too simplified and that many deities considered
Olympian also fall under that category. Amongst others Hestia and Artemis can
easily be connected to the earth, the hearth, which represents Hestia, ties her
to the most important place in the house and indeed in the heart of the polis through the civic hearth. The forest and the city ties Artemis
to the earth in much similar ways, it is of importance to mortals and one does
not get much closer to the earth than the forest, as the modern depictions, on
the left, of Artemis show she is ‘in touch with’ nature.
Even if one argues that ‘gods of the earth’ means that the deity is an
anthropomorphic form of something on earth or something that touches the earth,
this would still include Hestia and Artemis, and as we discussed in the lecture
Zeus’s lightning bolt touches the ground as this
image by National Geographic from Kavala, Greece shows!
And if any deity is ‘Olympian’ it must be Zeus! In modern colloquial terms he
is known as the ‘god of the sky’. However, Zeus can also be found with the epithet Chthonios. Therefore I
would like to propose that all Olympian gods also are chthonian, but it is a ‘one-way
street’ and there are deities that are purely chthonian.
The use of epithets
seems to confirm that Olympian deities are also chthonian. However I would
suggest that the epithet does not necessarily need to be Chthonios for the deity to be chthonian, other epithets that hint
at any connection with the earth could be justification enough. Artemis is a
great example of this, she had multiple epithets that
tied her to the earth, and amongst them were Artemis Dictynnaea, Daphnaea, Cedreatis and Caryae/Caryatis which all ties her to specific
trees. Others include Artemis
Limnaea/Limnatis (Of the Lake), Artemis
Eurynome (Of the Broad Pastures) and Artemis
Helea (Of the Marshes/Of the Wetlands). However with so many epithets that
tie her to the earth, how exactly can Artemis be an Olympian?
First and foremost I must again turn
to Parker to offer a translation for a term, he states that one view briefly says
that Olympians are ‘gods of the bright
sky’, which I think this screen
cap from Disney’s Hercules encapsulates nicely. The Online Etymology Dictionary
translates Olympian as ‘ofor belonging to Olympus’ and classifies Olympus as ‘highmountain in Thessaly [or] name […] given to several mountains, each seeminglythe highest in the district’. Both translation therefore ties Olympians to
the sky, but that does not explain how the deities are tied to it. One explanation
can be that those belonging to the ‘house of Zeus’ are Olympian, for they are
tied to the sky-god. However depending on whether you view ‘the house of Zeus’
as those in his family or those in his chosen household, you might end up
including some deities that are purely
chthonian.
This raises
an interesting question about Hades, if it is familial ties that connected certain
deities to Olympus is it then possible that Hades could have ended up an
Olympian if his ties to his brother had been stronger? And if it is Zeus that
chooses who belongs on Olympus by whom he considers to have a place in his
household, does this mean his ties to Hades were not favourable?
I would
suggest a third option, that it is the development of tradition and mythology
that dictated who belonged at Olympus, some deities had sky-ties on their own, such
as Hermes who had ties
to astronomy and astrology, whilst others were tied through Zeus. My opinion is
that it was a combination of tradition, familial ties and myth that tied
certain deities to Olympus and made them Olympian as well as chthonian. As to
my previously asked question as to where this leaves Artemis, I would say that
she is an Olympian because of her heritage from her father.
Bibliography:
- Online Etymology Dictionary.
Available at: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php
Accessed on: 25/03-13
- Parker, R. (1991) “GreekReligion,” In The Oxford History of
Greece and the Hellenistic World, ed. Boardman, J. Oxford University Press:
Oxford
- Parker,
R. (2011) OnGreekReligion (Cornell
Studies in Classical Philology). Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press p. 80
- Perseus. (2013) Greek Word Study Tool. Available at:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=xqon&la=greek
Accessed on: 25/03-13
- Scullion, S. (1994) ‘Olympianand Chthonian’. Classical Antiquity. Vol.
13, No. 1 pp. 75-119.
- Theoi. Artemis Titles. Available at: http://www.theoi.com/Cult/ArtemisTitles.html
Accessed on: 25/03-13
- Theoi. Hermes. Available at: http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Hermes.html
Accessed on: 25/03-13
- Theoi. Summary Hestia. Available at: http://www.theoi.com/Summary/Hestia.html
Accessed
on: 25/03-13
- Zeus. Available at: http://www.greekmythology.com/Olympians/Zeus/zeus.html
Accessed on: 25/03-13
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