Gender and the divine in early Archaic Greek poetry
Theo Mulaki
In the few extant early works of the poetry from Archaic Greece (c. 800 – 480BC), a prominent theme is the divine: indeed, the fifth-century historian Herodotus says of the archaic poets Homer and Hesiod: ‘[they] made a theogony for the Greeks and gave the Gods their eponyms and divided up their honours and crafts ’ (Hdt. 2.53). 1 Hesiod ’s Theogony synthesizes various Greek traditions to create one theogony, a line of descent, spanning from the first gods, protogenoi , up to the Olympians. Similarly, the Homeric Hymns , ascribed to but not written by Homer, are a codification of many poets’ poems, written across the archaic period, each providing an aetiology, a narrative giving causation, for some episode in an Olympian deity’s life , usually the acquisition of their worshipped element. There are 33 in total, 29 short poems of less than 50 lines and 4 long poems. In three of these long Homeric Hymns – to Hermes, Demeter and Aphrodite – and the Theogony, divine conflict is arguably the central focus. The Theogony , outlining the progression of different generations of immortals, is set against the backdrop of male gods assuming the position of ruler of the cosmos. Hermes’ Hymn explains his introduction to the Olympians by creating discord between him and Apollo; Demeter’s explains her near destruction of mankind following her anger at her daughter Persephone’s kidnap, and Aphrodite’s Hymn concerns Zeus’ method of restricting the goddess’ powers following her misuse of them. What unites all these poems, I believe, is the extent to which gender incites conflict, a conflict which results in a reshaping of the cosmic order. In the Theogony , the struggle for cosmic control progresses down the youngest males in Ouranos’ familial line but can also be seen in the discrete roles female goddesses have in defying the controlling male god. Hermes’ Hymn pits him against his half-brother as a result of his attempts to establish his status as an Olympian and gain honours. Demeter’s quarrel with Zeus in her hymn gives the titular goddess and Persephone new τιμαι as a result of Zeus’ correction of the abduction. Aphrodite’s Hymn sees Zeus suppress the ability of a dangerous female goddess to misuse her divine power. Lastly, in all the hymns the reshaping of the cosmic order tends to a strengthening of Zeus’ position. Hesiod’s Theogony is not only a theogony but a cosmogonic poem in which he outlines the progression of the universe starting from the inception of the first divine beings all the way to the children of the heroes of the heroic age. While he sets forth an exhaustive genealogy of the immortals, Hesiod uses the poem to profess the strength of Zeus’ rule and so reflects back on the rulers who preceded him. It is in the divine conflict that Hesiod details where I believe that conflict between divine genders is at play and also that there are two different ways in which it can be read: the male cosmic succession myth 2 which pits father against son and female or maternal sources of deception.
1 See Kearns 2004: 69-70. 2 Prevalent in all works of later Greek literature stemming from the Theogony – the inevitability of a son supplanting his father’s position.
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