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Chapter Eleven, Lecture One

Chapter Eleven, Lecture One. Myths of Death. Myths of Death. Greeks mostly believed in a life after death, but it was a bleak vision It evolved and changed over time. The Greek View of Death. The Greek View of Death. Not a “natural process” for the Greeks

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Chapter Eleven, Lecture One

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  1. Chapter Eleven, Lecture One Myths of Death

  2. Myths of Death • Greeks mostly believed in a life after death, but it was a bleak vision • It evolved and changed over time.

  3. The Greek View of Death

  4. The Greek View of Death • Not a “natural process” for the Greeks • Life ended from some violent intervention • Hades (“the unseen one”) • Pluto (Dis) • Euphemisms : Polydemôn; Polyxenos • Individuals continued as an eidolon • Breath (anemos > anima) psychê

  5. The Greek View of Death • The recently dead had to be satisfied with rituals • Morning, noise, even food • Invited to parties: the anthesteria • Some ghosts are beneficent, others malevolent • Hermes led them to their place of rest (psychopompus)

  6. Odysseus’s Journey to Death’s Realm

  7. Odysseus’s Journey • Must get advice from the deceased Tiresias • Was once a woman; knew which enjoyed sex more • Journey across the Ocean • Blood sacrifice (vampirism) • Elpenor • The fate of the unburied

  8. Odysseus’s Journey • Catalog of Noble Women • Achilles • “Better to be a peon . . .” • The arbitrators of the underworld • Minos, Rhadymanthus, Aeacus • The illustrious evil • Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus

  9. Odysseus’s Journey • Heracles’s eidolon • Elysium • Menelaüs

  10. Orpheus and Eurydicê

  11. Orpheus and Eurydicê • Orpheus the singer • Loses his intended Eurydicê at their wedding • Loses her again on the way out of Hades • Torn apart by Menaeds • Refused Dionysus’s cult or refused women followers or refused women in general ?

  12. Orphism

  13. Orphism • Collection of writings (the Orphic Hymns) • Religious cosmology • Brought followers a better afterlife

  14. Orphism

  15. Orphism • Cosmology to explain human nature • Sôma sêma • Metempsychosis • Cycle can be broken • Ascetic purity • Magic formulas • Influence from Shamanism • Influence on Pythagoras, Plato, and early Christians

  16. End

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