Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! Greek & Roman Mythology RetoldYou Can Learn All Greek Myth Has to Offer... & the Father Still Devours His Son
Liv re-listens to the very first episode of the show, plays it back to you and breaks it down to add more detail, context, corrections, and to just... bask in the wonder of seven years ago Liv and her view on the mythology. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!
CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.
Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.
Hi. Well, it's awfully late in the day, isn't it. This is let's talk about MIT's baby. And I am that host of yours, she who got stuck at the opposite end of the second biggest country in the world the other day because snow. I am your host Live here with Today is very late, but hey, it's here episode, So I'm just going to explain a little bit because frankly, it was really cool and annoying. So I traveled to Halifax last weekend too. I traveled to Halifax for the first time in my life in the end of January into February, which was a choice that I made, and I did it explicitly because the two actors who play Mary and Pippen in The Lord of the Rings were doing the play Rosen Krantz and Guildenstern, are dead together in Halifax, and I was not going to miss that happening in my country. But then a storm hit and.
They got like six feet of snow, and I got stuck like an extra day and a half, which totally threw off everything, but honestly, anything for Mary and Pippen, it was totally worth it.
But here I am throwing this episode together on Tuesday morning. But you know what, it's kind of refreshed me, Like I feel in a much better place than I have been.
So we are absolutely going with it. So I had this plan for today's episode. See, you know, I have been doing this for going on seven years, and I couldn't POPI love Greek mythology more than I do now, And that's, you know, probably a lie because when I started this podcast, I would have said the same thing, but I just feel like it's true where now, you know, when you spend seven years learning every possible thing and yet God's know, there's still more.
Like the love.
It just keeps growing. And that's how I'm introducing today's utterly different episode because I just decided to play around with an idea. So we're going to go with it, and I want to hear from you all what you think. So as you have all heard in recent episodes, you know I've been going through a time and for all this job is the coolest and absolutely greatest thing to ever happen to me. The thing that can make it difficult is needing to put out content every week and having that content rely entirely on my own ability to be like not horrifically sad, you know, like I have to research and then write five thousand words of me being funny or smart or just you know, not what I feel now, which is kind of dead inside, you know, anyway, And because I feel dead inside, I wanted to find a way of sort of renewing and refreshing my love for this stuff.
And when I think about the.
History of the podcast, you know, and how I might say, revisit something that I've already talked about, something that I just love so purely and completely, I think back to the earliest days of the show and how I just dove right into this thing headfirst, just deciding I would have figured it out as I go. You know, I talk a lot about the first episode and how I wish it was better or at least, you know, gave a better idea as to what the show would go on to become now and what I am so proud of now, which is very different from the first episode. But it doesn't, you know, devalue the first episode. You all love it, and I love you for that, and so I thought, you know, instead of thinking how it's not the greatest representation of my knowledge or the show currently like maybe I look back on it in a cherishing kind of way. So today's episode is a love letter to the earliest days of the podcast, to the live who just wanted to talk about Greek myth because her life felt out of control, familiar, and starting a podcast out of the sheer love of it was just something that I could control. If I could go back in time and tell her that nearly seven years later, this would be her entire job, and that I would have made a name for myself as an experted myth I've written books, have more on the way, and got to just spend all of my days loving Greek mythology with hundreds of thousands of people like I don't even know if I could have begin to convince seven years ago me that that was even possible, because when I started the show, I felt like i'd kind of like watch my dreams go up in flames career wise, and instead I got new dreams and much better dreams, And then I guess I just made them happen. This episode is as much for me as it is for you. I need to feel something good, to remember the parts of my life that are amazing. In large part thanks to you all and your abiding love of this first episode of the podcast. And no we're not replaying it.
We're gonna We're gonna revisit it together in detail and see how it goes. This is episode two forty seven. You can learn all Greek myth has to offer, and the father still devours his son. Hello, and welcome to the first time I sit in a room with my cat and a microphone. My name is liv I'm completely obsessed with mythology. I have a totally useless Bachelors of Arts in Classical Civilizations that basically has prepared me for this and only this, and so here I go. All right, I don't know about you, guys, but this is fun already. Did I have trouble with the first things I said? Absolutely went back and forth. I'm keeping it in but I.
I'm not going to make this episode all about me. But it is quite special to explain. I have not listened to this episode in seven years. I just haven't and so it's very brand new for me in a way that's incredibly fun. And it's fun to hear myself describe my BA in Classical studies as useless because it's a little bit ironic now, but to hear back on me starting this just because I felt.
Like it is a really big thrill. This is the first episode of my podcast where I talk to you bluntly about Greek myths. I'm talking, let's address how completely crazy some of these things are. Let's address how awful the men treated the women. Let's address how completely bananas some of these ideas were that really an entire ancient culture believed was the honest to god truth. So this is let's talk about myths, baby. So one thing that I hear from reviews fairly often, granted, like you know, only in the handful of bad ones that I do get, but those are the ones that of course stick in my brain because anxiety. But is this idea that I didn't start out feminist and that it like became feminist over time. So hearing myself like literally introduced the entire podcast project goal with how badly the men treated the women, like, let's get a grip angry dudes who review this podcast, because I have been very upfront from the start. And then that last bit I said, as well, that's a great example of why I wanted to do this episode because I would love to look a little deeper at some of the things I said seven years ago when I while I had the knowledge of Greek myth broadly, I lacked a lot of the context that I have now. In that context, I think makes an enormous difference. And that's what I want to talk about today. So this idea that the ancient Greek people believe this to be true, you know that the story of the gods, that's probably not an accurate statement. There was maybe a time when they believed it to be something like the truth, but I don't think that they were out there really understanding the world, you know, in line with the mythology in the way that we think about it. It's much more of that sort of conceptual idea. And you know, we are talking a thousand years worth of mythology. So in the earliest times, they were probably more likely to believe that, you know what, this, this theogony is about to tell us that it was in some way divinely true. And as time goes on and they develop all of this knowledge about the planet and the world itself, obviously you know they are are believing less about the inherent truth of the divine creation story. That they have, and it becomes more of a cultural idea than an inherent truth. It doesn't change its importance mythologically or culturally. It just sort of gives us a better understanding on how these people are changing, as the stories are changing, and to sort of what these things are becoming. Because as I like.
To remind you, but I really didn't conceptualize it myself even fully in the same way seven years ago. But there is a thousand years worth of cultural evolution packed into the mythology and the sources that we have it now. Just imagine everything that has changed in our world in the last thousand years thousand, right, Like, the changes that humanity goes through in that amount of time are so enormous that we can't imagine this to all be one thing, or one belief system or one anything.
Really, we have to.
Look at it as these people evolving and changing over time and understanding their stories in different ways and how that affects them, you know, as real people.
Where better to start this first episode than with a rundown of how it all began ancient Greek creationism, if you will. The ancient Greek world began with chaos. It was the first thing to exist, sort of a semi sentient nothingness. And from chaos came Guya, who was the personification of Earth. Guya created herself a companion who's named Uranus, and he is the Sky and the universe itself. So Guya and Uranus, the Earth and the Sky, they got together and they had a slew of kids. These children are collectively called the Titans. I won't name them all individually because there are twelve and it would really just be a lot of nonsensical Greek names that you'll rarely, if ever hear again. Oh past live. How naive and silly you were to think that you would not devote the next seven years of your life talking about these very individual Titans. Maybe not all of them, but gods most of them. So since I didn't do that last time, or you know, seven years ago, let's look at who those were that I didn't want to name. So we have Kronos, obviously he's the big guy. We'll get to him. Then there's Keios, who fine we rarely hear of again. I Apatos, he's a father of Prometheus and Epimetheus. So big name right there. Hyperion, father of Helios, the son he doesn't do much himself, but Helios does. Oceanis big name in fresh water. There's of course Raya, we're getting to her, thea mother of the Sun, Phoebe, mother of Leto and therefore grandmother to Apollo an Artemis. There is Nimosity, mother of the muses, famous mother of the Fates. And Tethys, mother of you know, God's so many water deities. Tethys is so cool. For now, we'll go with our main two Titans, those whose story this really is. They're Raya, who's another mother Earth type figure, though she's less the Earth itself than her mother Gaya is, and Chronos, who is just a badass motherfucker and all around lunatic. All right, now, for all, I no longer use the word lunatic because I have learned to be better. Like it's not untrue when it comes to Chronos, you know, you know, and I do respect that. Even in those earliest days, I was able to, uh, you know, respect the man for what he's worth.
Call him a badass motherfucker. I mean, I mean, unlike you to pass. He is not a motherfucker. But you know, what's a bad name we could call him based on what he does. He's a badass father slayer.
That makes him sound too cool, but it's true. Guya and Uranos also conceived a number of monster breed children in their time together, which they apparently had quite a lot of. The monster children are called the hekaton Kyries and the Cyclops, and there were three of each of them. The hekaton Kyries are three giants who each have fifty heads and one hundred hands. Just picture this, I mean, how does that even work? Not to mention, though, what an amazing word hecaton kyries. I could say it.
Forever, honestly, the amount that I have evolved as a person, as a scholar, as a mythologists, as the you know, intelligent, respected person that I am now, as much as I have grown, I will never not love just saying.
The word hecaton kyries out loud. Heca hundred kyries hands just they are the called the hundred handers like the badassory like it has never dimmed in my mind. And the Cyclops, who are as you might imagine Cyclops. They're one eyed badasses known primarily for causing trouble for Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey and more on them later.
This is a great time to add a little bit more depth to what I said in that early episode. Yes, the cyclops are arguably most famous for that specific cyclops, Polypemous, who fucks with Odysseus, or rather Odysseus fucks with him. It's mutual fucking with They might be most famous for Polypemous, but in fact there are kind of there are a number of sort of conceptual ideas of Cyclops. These earliest three who are born of Gaya do not necessarily include someone like Polyphemus. This isn't really because we have like other ones who are specifically born in other ways, it's more just about how sources interact with each other. Homer and he see it are you know, we might be able to call them contemporaries. That's probably not super factual, but they are both from a very early time when it comes to surviving sources. Homer's conceptual poetry, you know, as the concept that is Homer as in he wasn't a real person. They are probably those pieces are probably older than he see it, but they also probably didn't interact like a ton. They have a lot of discrepancies between the two, not to mention that just the Iliad in the Odyssey have a shit ton of discrepancies in a way that I find that incredibly satisfying in anyone who says that Homer is one author is utterly absurd.
But I digress. The point is that the cyclops that are created in this kind of way are more or considered to be the cyclops who tend to I suppose, mostly work with Hephaistus, helping him in his forge, but also very specifically they are known as the cyclopes who create Zeus's thunderbolts once Zeus is in existence, but they are a little less connected to this idea of Polyphemus as like a you know, a named character based cyclops. Cyclopes, of course, just means one eye, so they don't always have to be the same you know, type of creature they or even just you know, a group or anything. They're just people with one eye. Back to our friend Cronos, who were told destined to overthrow his father Uranus, and boy does he. Chronos envies his father from the start. Uranus is the ruler of the universe. He essentially is the sky and the universe itself, in the same way that Gaya is the Earth and Uranus is kind of a dick. Love the understatement past live, absolutely love it. See he hides his in Gaya's Monster Children away. He hides them in Tartarus, which is this weird concept that is, it wants the darkest, most awful depths of the underworld and well a god slash monster of some kind. It's basically all the definitions of a noun. It's a person, plays and a thing Tartarus. Frankly, I think he'd be pretty fun at parties.
I'm not trying to spend this time laughing at my own jokes, but I do still love describing Tartarus as all the definitions of a noun. Now how accurate that is, Like, it really is a place, but it is a place in the way that you know, the river Sticks is a place, I believe, you know, it is kind of also conceptually a divinity.
But Tartarus is just h God, it's so interesting. There's just so much to it. There is, you know, it is the darker part of the underworld itself. Of course, you know, the conceptualizing of the underworld is not one succinct thing. Just like even where the monster children are hidden is not necessarily always certain, and then of course there are wars and things change. You know, are are they under mountains and that's why the mountains are volcanoes, not quite mountains, you know, or any such thing. Like. There's always so many different places where where these creatures and gods later where they are, you know, either born or grow up or are imprisoned, And that's because there are so many different stories coming from so many different regions that every region kind of wanted to have their hand, you know. In the honeypot of Greek mythology. It's like how there are like three or four different mountains where some version of a story will say that Zeus grew up. There's one on Crete, there's one on Naxos. I am certain there are more. It goes the same for mountains associated with Dionysus's childhood, Like there are just always so many different places that want to be associated with certain divinities and concepts, and it doesn't make any version more correct than another. It's just all about the fact that, you know, ancient Greece was not a unified place. They didn't even have a unified language. They shared a lot of cultural things and a lot of cultural stories, and that is why they're connected. And of course they are connected now and thus we put them all into one basket now. But they were just this broad collection of regions and city states, and you know, some more concerned with writing things down, some more concerned with being involved in the mythology. Everyone was really different, and so we get these like vastly different versions of stories and concepts and kind of where anyone is. So this imprisonment makes Gaya angry for obvious reasons, and ultimately she colludes with Chronos on how to punish Uranus. If I recall, there used to be a Trump joke in here, because this was recorded during the first year of his presidency, and then like a couple people complained about it being political, and I was so worried back in the day about you know, people enjoying the show that I cut it out, but you know, happy to say that I probably made a shitty joke about Trump colluding on some such thing. In the original version of this, apparently she tried to rope a number of her other Titan children into helping overthrow Ernus, but Cronus is the only one crazy enough to actually go along with his mother. Guya gives him a sickle, which is that super scary knife thing that old timey farmers used to cut hay, I guess I'm not a farmer. Or more famously, it's what the hooded figure of Death carries around. Very ominous. Oh my God, so much to say about the sickle. So one love hearing the origin of my not a farmer joke. Sometimes I say things and I don't even remember where they came from. It's not even a good joke.
But two chronos having this sickle and my connecting it with this figure of death are are not unrelated concept I've talked about it a little bit before, but you know, there are two different deities called chronos in the broad concept of Greek mythology. There is Chronos with a K, this Chronos, you know, who is the father of those original Olympians, And then there.
Is Kronos with a H.
Of course, this is a key letter in Greek mythology, or in Greek it looks like an X. In English we put it as ch, which makes more of like a chronos kind of vibe. It is where we get ch as a kind of k sound instead of a sound. And now I'm going into etymology, my point is simply that at some point in the world, so Chronos, you know, with a ch is a deity from Orphic tradition, not traditional Greek mythology, but Orphic became kind of popular, and so at some point the two Chronoses got kind of squished together. And then I think they also got conflated with the Roman Saturn, who, though he had similar origins because of the origins you know of some Greek or the Roman mythology having some Greek origins, but the Roman Saturn was quite different, and he was very associated with the harvest in a way that Greek Chronos wasn't really And so then we get the sickle in, and then we get this conflation with Chronos of ach who was a god of time, and then we get Father Time having a sickle, and I can only assume that that then leads to the concept of death having a sickle, because what if is time if not also death?
And I guess Guy just tells Cronus to go for it. Cronos then sneaks up on his father and he uses the sickle to castrate him. We don't even know if he actually kills Uranas literally the number one. Part of the story is that Kronos castrates Uranas. Chronos then tosses his father's important bits into the sea and they fly. As they fly across Uranas's precious parts, spatter blood on the land, and finally they land in the sea, which causes a foam to bubble up. It's really pleasant. We're told that from the blood spatter on the land are born the Jigants, who are a race of giants, and the Urnaways, who are better known as the Furies. The Furies are women. It's never totally clear how many there are. We go with three I think most often, and their deities of vengeance. Basically, if you do anything requiring major punishment, they're there to serve it up and they're pretty hardcore. The appui most often in Greek plays featuring kids killing their parents a common theme, or the reverse equally common, depending where you get your information. The runaways are described as crones with snakes for hair, or with dogs heads or bat wings and bloodshot eyes. Basically, they're not ladies you want hounding you, and that's completely aside from the fact that they're straight up born from blood spatter.
I am so enjoying this actually really like I just never listened to my own voice back like obviously because it makes me cringe most of the time. But listening back to this is so much fun and listening to how I told this story. You know, the furies are they hold such a special place in my heart because they're fucking fascinating. But I also love you know that I mentioned this idea of them being crones, and I'm so curious where I got that from. I'm certain it's a modern source, because you know, it.
Is part of this tradition of like taking uh, monstrous female deities like the furies and making them grosser. And two men to the patriarchy, what is the grossest thing that a woman can be, it's old. The grossest thing a woman can be is old, And so they make them crones, Whereas if you look at depictions in artwork, they are not old. They're not They're they're young and vibrant, like with their snakes either in their hair or like usually wrapped around them. They'll have like a viper belts, and they'll have them like twining their arms. Like. The Furies are fucking bad ass, and there's nothing not badass about an older woman either. But this idea of making them crones, of course, like it's such a specific usage, and there is no way in hell that it was not invented by a man, just for like the fucking sake of it. Like even the gray eye.
Those three women who I might or may not mention this episode, I don't remember, but you know, honestly, they serve almost no purpose except for giving directions as to where Medusa lives. But they, you know, notoriously share an eye and a tooth. It's where the you know, Disney's Hercules fates come from. They've conflated the fates with the.
Gray eye and that. But the gray I are not described I don't believe in any ancient sources as being old as being you know, chrons, but.
They are gray. They are described as being gray, gray haired. Sometimes they are also likened to swans, which is really interesting. But then, of course, you know, the men interpreting these stories. The patriarchal nature of where and how the stories are being interpreted means that if a woman is described as gray, she must be a crone. And then we get again this like this negative connotation that isn't really there in the traditional sources. It doesn't matter whether they're young or old. They are just gray. They don't have to be one or the other. And certainly, even if they are old, they are not being described as old in any kind of gross way.
But culture has made them that way. And it's just so utterly dark and fascinating. And that's not all the act of castration can create. In the world of ancient myth. Like I mentioned, a sea foam erupted from where Uranus's bits actually landed, and from that foam, our girl, Aphrodite was born. That's right, The goddess of love, beauty, desire, pleasure, and procreation was born from the seafoam of castrated man parts. It's romantic, isn't it. Just picture that classic painting bought Aicelli's The Birth of Venus. Aphrodite or Venus in the Roman, looking all angelic in her clamshell, She's surrounded by beautiful figures. The sea is the backdrop. That clamshell is floating on top of castration foam. If you look up Cronus's descendants on Wikipedia, Aphrodite's literally listed under Uranus's genitals and it's origin stories like this and make me want to talk about Greek myths just all the time. Who came up with that? And again and again. Some things never change. That is still one of my favorite origin stories. It is still one of the things I like to talk about most. Castoration Foam has become iconic in my own mind, if not in some of yours also, and I just it remains perfect. This like sort of alternate version where Aphroditi is the daughter of Zeus and a Titan. Dione is like such a fucking bummer, Like it's so unnecessary, like nah nah, she is born of Ranos's castration foam or the family trio Wikipedia as it says, his genitals, not born of him or you know, a mother of any kind castrated genitals. Only after Chronos overthrows Uranus, he reimprisons the Heka, ton Kyries and the Cyclops in Tartarus. This time he has a dragon guard them, essentially making himself even more restricted than Uranus was. So obviously, Gaya's feeling pretty psyched with her decision to help Chronos castrate and overthrow her partner. At this point, Kronos is ruling the world and now he and Raya get together because in the beginning of time. What can you really do but hook up with your siblings? I say, this is if this is the only time it happens, it isn't. Greek myth is full of it. This is so true.
And I do want to clarify because somebody recently asked me this in one of the recent Q and A episodes. You know, there is so much incest in Greek mythology. It is always, well not always, it is primarily brothers sister, not exclusively. And they ask whether that kind of translated to any belief systems amongst actual ancient Greek people. And while I, you know, have not read studies on this specifically, I think I can pretty confidently say no, they did recognize that incest was bad, you know, both morally and scientifically biologically rather, but really what it is is this kind of idea that the gods are so they are human, and then they are not human. So while there's a hell of a lot of incest, it just doesn't count as incest because their divinities it's just not the same. They are not biologically, you know, having any of the same issues that humans would. And also, you know, and this is where it all kind of Begins is simply this what I've just said on the original episode. You know this, They are the only ones if you are one of the first deities on this planet, like who else can you fuck but your sibling? And so it just has to be okay, it has to be different from humanity, thankfully.
Yet and Kronos, like their parents before them, also have a slew of kids. But Kronos has learned that one of his children is destined to overthrow him, just as he had his own father. So many destinies, so many this generation of fathers and sons who are all destined to overthrow one another, and one that what's really interesting is that, you know what I'm about to get to in this is that Zeus is going to be sort of the one who breaks this ongoing curse. Kind of right, that this idea that the fathers are always going to overthrow the sons in this line. But in a recent conversation, and by reason I do mean like a few months ago, but time is a flat circle. I had with Matchie Preprovski. We talked about this, and one thing I had never really clocked is this idea that like Apollo would have been the one to carry that on. And so you know, what are those things about Apollo that are kind of we can see as Zeus preventing that from happening. I'm going to forget the details, but go back and listen to that conversation because I mean, one, it was two parts, because it was just so fucking good. But we really talked about the gods in terms of these like really technical and really fascinating, you know, like almost scientifically looking at the gods. And it was so incredible and one of the few conversations I get to have that was like so heavily based in the really broad nature of Greek mythology and what it means and doesn't mean, and anyway, it's all I can think about, and yet I don't have details to provide you with, So go listen. This does not jibe with Chronos. But his solution is not to stop having children because spoiler's ancient Greek gods are horny like all the time. But instead his solution is just to eat all his children, therefore solving the problem entirely just easy peasy. So Raya's popping out kids, just God after God after God, Poseidon and Hades and Hara and Demeter and Hestia, and they're all being swallowed up by Cronos. Finally, Raya gets sick of her husband eating their children. I mean, who wouldn't, and she devises a plan when Raya gives birth to their next child instead of giving him to Cronos because I guess before she'd just been handing him all their kids to eat. And this time she gives him a rock that's all wrapped up as if it's a baby, which he promptly consumes. This child she manages to save is none other than Zeus, future king of the Gods. Raya hides him on the island of Crete, where he's raised in a cave on Mount Ida by any number of random people or things, depending which version of the myth you read, or it's Mount Zas I think on Naxos, there's like a whole cave you can visit there that is, you know, apparently the mythological birthplace of Zeus. There.
Mount Eyedep is a little bit more famous, I think, but Naxos is my favorite, so it deserves the mention.
The point is, Zeus grows up to be old enough and strong enough to finally overthrow his father Kronos bringing truth to the prophecy. This is something that happens time and time again in mythology. If there's a prophecy, there is no point in trying to fight it because it will inevitably come true one way or the other. When Zeus is old enough, he sets out to take revenge on his father. It's pretty valid if you ask me, avenging your siblings, which your father has been eating uncontrollably for your entire life. Zeus forces Kronos to expel his siblings the gods. Whether this means that Zeus simply hits Kronos really hard on the back out pop a bunch of full grown gods, or whether Zeus slices him up gory like is not clear. The former is unlikely. Sure, but wouldn't it be a great visual.
I'd fully forgotten that I say that, and yes, past live, that would be a great visual. I just love the idea that, like, this really epic thing that Zeus is gonna be known for for the rest of all time. That is not really said in any detail, is that he just like hit Kronos on the back rely herd and he just kind of like threw up five children The.
Point is now Zeus has his siblings back, and they are the gods Poseidon, Hades, Hara, Demeter, and Hestia, and they are all pretty pissed. Now.
One thing I didn't mention in this, I hope I'm not about to say it, in which case, disregard everything I'm about to say. But one thing I didn't mention in this you know, seven years ago version, is that what this actually means from a mythological standpoint is that both Zeus and Hestia serve as being the oldest and the youngest of the children. Like so Hestia was born first and therefore swallowed first, and Zeus was born last but never swallowed at all.
And when the.
Children are being thrown up by Kronos in whatever way, they are thrown up in the order reverse order rather of their birth, which means Hestia is the one who comes out last, and because of that she is oldest and youngest and Zeus's oldest and youngest. And they both play this role in really interesting ways, like Zeus obviously holds onto the idea that he is the oldest. Like if you're to go up to Zeus and you're like, you know, technically you're the youngest. He'd be like, ah, so fucking Lily, not like we don't talk about that. You have no idea what you're talking about. Fuck you, but Hestia, I think. But also like, I mean it's true, dude, like he behaves like the youngest child like all the fucking time. But Hestia, I meanwhile, you know, is this perfect goddess who who just serves mortals in a warm and fuzzy way and no other way. She has no drama, she has no she is just vitally important to the day to day lives because she is everyone's mother. You know, she is just this big, warm, hug in a goddess. And if that isn't this kind of concept of oldest and youngest sort of melded together to make this sort of honestly closest thing to perfect deity, Like I don't know what it is.
Zeus is on a spree now next to Freeze. Kronos's monster siblings from Tartarus, the hecaton Kyries and the Cyclops. The Cyclops are pretty killer when it comes to forging weapons. They're kind of the Gordon Ramsay of the forge and they go to work. That was not a good joke. Was he relevant in twenty seventeen? Is he relevant now? I've never watched a cooking show in my life. I don't know why I would have said that. For Zeus they create his signature lightning bolts, for Poseidon his trident, and for Hades his helmet of darkness. And for the ladies, well, shit, all because women had to work their power, just like all bad ass females. Okay, yeah, yeah, that was good. I made up for it. At this point, Zeus has basically assembled an Avengers style superhero team. We've got Zeus with his gigantic white beard, wielder of lightning bolts, Poseidon who's getting off stabby with his trident, and Hades who's sporting his helmet of Darkness, which actually just makes them invisible. And then there's Hara, Hestia and Demeter, who are just being powerful, badass goddesses. You can just picture them in Wonder Woman's dance.
Oh that aged well. I was waiting for that thought to finish so that I could just say, very vaguely to those who know the thing about you know, the newest or I guess one of the newest marvel ish I don't even know if it's technically Marvel but superheroes quote unquote superheroes, that's.
Gonna be.
Somehow in a movie, Like they really haven't taken her out anyway, industrial military complexes right late stage capitalism is doing great. The Wonder Woman joke was not irrelevant to this.
The gods and monsters wage of war against the Titans Kronos and his non monster siblings. The war is called the titanomiche and it is not to be confused with a Clash of the Titans, because that movie didn't actually include any Titans. And don't even get me started on the Kraken. We'll leave that for when I cover Perseus. A kraken is from Norse mythology, for God's sake, still a relevant comment to make. Never not relevant fucking krakens. So where did that? Like, how why did we get there?
Also one thing that I absolutely love, and I'm not even sure if I realized it back then, because now I have this like obsessive need to look into all etymological connections with Greek words. But titanomichi just means war of the Titans, like macki is basically like a not a prefix. The opposite I'm doing well, and then to Titans, so it just like means War of the Titans.
It's great.
That was a really, really relevant and well said point, and I'm keeping it in as well as this.
The war went on for ten years and it was fought in the Greek region of Thessaly. So the gods fought with the help of the hecaton Kyries, who flung stones at the Titans. And you can just imagine how many stones three hundred handed dudes can throw. It's a lot of stones.
It's nine hundred stones, you know, with each throw live Like I know, math isn't tar thing. Past live, I should say, I mean present live. Math still isn't my thing. But anyway, that one was easy. Nine hundred stones per Hans each throw.
There are two Titans who didn't fight alongside Kronos and who instead sided with Zeus. At the risk of introducing too many names, as if I haven't done that already, they were famous and Prometheus. I point this out because Prometheus has his own exciting adventures still to come. Let's just say when it comes to Prometheus, there's a jar and fire and no epically disappointing alien movie in sight. The titanomic Key is one of the most ancient stories in mythology. By that, I mean it takes place so far back even in the mythology itself. This kind of history is history. It's myth wrapped in myth. It's the origin story of the gods who would go on to form the pantheon gods of Greek mythology, the Olympians. Almost all Greek myths revolve around the Olympians, so the Titanomice serves as a backdrop to their rule.
What this also means is that there is like little to no detail on the technomic Key, like we know they had a war, even that Thessaly thing probably comes from a later source I imagine, like we just know they thought it was bad. One of the things that's so interesting about this whole story, you know, that I covered in that first episode, is just that it really does serve as like I said, history's history, like this this mythologizing of history, because they really did see it as this thing that was like in the distant past, both for them and the gods, like it had all happened already, right, Like basically all mythology had happened already, but especially when it comes to the line of divinities. Like it wasn't like this, I think somebody asked me this, which is why I'm explaining it this way, But like it wasn't like, you know, they thought that the Bronze Age Greeks lived under the Titans, and that you know, the Archaic and Classical lived under the Olympians.
Like it was always just that that was the past.
That was how Zeus got to be in power, and he was always the one that humans knew. And this is of course explained in the Introduction to humanity that comes much later, but even that is like very wishy washy as to whether that's actually, you know, how humans were quote unquote created. But mostly it's just this idea that like it was just always in the past. They were always dealing with Zeus, but they just came up with this like really amazingly epic origin.
Once it's all over, Zeus and his pals have defeated the Titans, and not one to break with tradition, Zeus imprisons them in Tartarus. This time the hecatone Kyries act as guards. They get payback for being imprisoned themselves, and Zeus keeps their three hundred hands hidden far away. Only one Titan escapes Tartarus, and that's Atlas, and he doesn't escape punishment entirely. He now has the privilege of holding the earth on his back, keeping us all steady. We just want to make sure he doesn't shrug or will get caught up in some sort of anarchic objectivist disaster world. That was a bad joke, but I'm going with.
It even I don't really get that. I mean, it's to day and Ran joke, but that's it.
The only other children of Gaya and Uranas that escape this purge are a Kidnap and Typhon. And don't ask me why they escape it, because they're terrifying. Like Zeus, You're gonna have this whole war to overthrow these pretty benign Titans, but you're not gonna get rid of Ekidnap and Typhon. Really, let me explain. Typhon is a monster described as having a hundred snakeheads writhing atop his shoulders. These heads breathe fire and make every imaginable noise I'm saying. They're described as sounding like a lion and a bear and literally every other scary noise on the planet, only the sounds are coming out of a hundred snake heads atop a man's body. It's terrifying. Sometimes they even say he has wings, so that's an added bonus.
For real, though, Typhon is so fucking awesome, Like there are so many different ways that he has described there's always a shit ton of snakes. I'm pretty sure I did an episode on him and it was just called like so many snakes, like it's just all snakes, but also yeah, like wings, like he was just like honestly Chef's kiss, perfect monster, mythological creature of death like no notes and Echidna, well, Akidna is a half snake half woman, which frankly is more than enough to turn me off.
To clarify, like, I just really don't like snakes, but I do like them in mythology. But also I would like to say about a kidna that a kidnap is kind of described in a way that Medusa has been become like visually depicted in the last one hundred or so years, Like I don't know if she was depicted that way before the original Clash of the Titans, so it might be that movie's fault, but you know that like top half woman, bottom half snake that she has become. Like there is absolutely no ancient source that suggests that Medusa had a bottom half snake whatsoever. That is absolutely invented. However, conceptually it's coming from Echidna and like it's just being turned into Medusa. I'm saying the word conceptually too much. I don't know why it's in my brain. I can't stop together though, they spawn some of the most epic monsters of myth, including but not limited to Cerberus, who's the three headed dog who guards the standard non tartarous underworld. Cerberus also stars as Fluffy and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Oh gee, this is it, This is my chance, This is it.
I don't ever want to go back into my past episodes and cut out the references to Harry Potter and that fucking bitch ass Turf, because you know they existed at the time, Like this was all before.
This was when she was an.
Icon to so many of us, and when those books were like my entire like I want to say childhood, but like I was like twenty seven or twenty eight when this show started, so you know, but like they meant so much to my millennial generation that I don't want to go cut that stuff out. But I do want to say, and I have said so many times since to make this fucking clear, but like, fuck her, turfy bit, fuck turfs.
I'll still say it.
Trans people are wonderful, magnificent people, just like everyone else you know. Or rather, they're just fucking normal people living their fucking normal lives, and we all need.
To stop trying to tell them what they can and cannot do. Jesus fucking Christ. Anyway, there's my chance.
I don't even want to say her name, but like, you know, just fucking gross, Like thanks for ruining your entire legacy by just being like a fucking awful human.
Right anyway, there's that. I've been waiting a really long time to say that in relation specifically to like so closely with those early episodes when I just she just shut She hadn't shown herself. Jesus Hydra, who's a many headed serpent thing with the awesome skill of growing back two heads whenever you cut off one. You'll know her from Disney's animated Hercules. Old her had a tricky time with that one and the camera uh sometimes fire breathing lion goats snake monstrosity, which lent its name to the now nearly forgotten but oh so wonderful show Dark Angel. Rip.
This remains relevant. I stand by it. Dark Angel is nearly as good today as it was back then.
Are there a couple jokes that shouldn't be jokes? Yep?
Otherwise honestly fucking aged so like a fine wine, like a fine wine.
So now we're at a point where the remaining gods are Zeus in his siblings, and they have to decide what the new world order is going to be, the three brothers, because ancient Greece, like every goddamn thing, was a patriarchy. Like I am sorry, angryman of the Internet. You really listened to this first episode and you thought you thought, I think I don't think she's a feminist, you know, like I don't think I'm gonna hear any anti man sentiments. I'll just keep listening. In the number review as if that I've been surprised by it, they split up the world by drawing straws or something in that general vein. They probably didn't have straws. Zeus rules over the air and the sky beside in the sea, and Hades stuck with the underworld, which is why he's always pissed off. I actually think this this is really interesting because as far as I know, in terms of you know, very ancient sources, I would say, you know, pre Roman sources, there's no detail on how the three gods determined, you know, who would get what. And it's used a lot this idea of like drawing lots and this like idea that Haites like lost, and I really think, I really think that that is a more modern invention, Like it seems to me that it was really this sort of inherent divine nature. There's no like Zeus wants it all and Poseidon wants the water, and you know, like I really think that this was a it was just divinely ordained and that's how it would have been understood in you know, in the ancient world, because they really there was not a lot of fear of death. There was a fear of leaving your loved ones, there was a sadness associated with death. There was you know, certainly grief, human grief. But it's the Christian concept.
Of hell that forces this narrative into us now right, this idea that death is scary and bad and you're either going to go to the bad place or the good place, you know, but that really wasn't a thing. And so I really dislike this idea that Hades, that Hades lost anything, or that Hades was somehow mad or upset at all, that he was stuck, you know, this idea that he was stuck with the underworld, Like, I really don't think that that is mythologically accurate, at least in terms of, you know, the ancient Greek concept. I really think that that it was just this sort of divine nature. He was always meant to be the king of the underworld, to be the god of the dead, you know. He that was just sort of always going to be his role. And I think it's really important to say that because I think it really does push back against this idea that death is bad and scary, because that is so fucking Christian, Like, it's such a Christian Western idea. It's it's it really does not tie back to the ancient world, and I want to nip it in the bud. So, you know, a lot of what I wanted to do this episode is kind of correct things or expand upon them, just because I have grown so much and I have learned so much of the context, and I think it really adds so much to our understanding of Greek myth and it makes it it makes it less this like modern story and more what it really was, which was this like ancient culture, this this entire way of understanding the world and divinity broadly. I just think it's so much more interesting than, you know, than what we have made it into when it comes to, you know, picking up a book that just says, like the Greek myths like they're and all. But if you don't have that contextual background of like this was like a thousand years of tradition, there are so many different versions. We have to really ignore all of these these things that are coming to us through the lens of Christianity. That really takes away from the ancient culture of it all. Anyway, I just love pointing that shit out, so thanks very quick amendment, because I checked my work after recording this.
In the Iliad, they do say that they pulled lots, but that still doesn't suggest that Hades lost, that Hades was like upset. As for the women folk, well, they get some decent roles, unlike the mortal women of ancient Greece who had it pretty fucking shitty. Harah becomes Zeus's sister wife because, like I said, Raya and Cronos were not the only married siblings, and she's the goddess of women and marriage. A bit ironically, as we'll come to see, Hesjaz, the goddess of the hearth and fire. She keeps to herself. She's pretty awesome, demeanors the goddess of the harvest and agriculture, and she's famous mostly for being a super pissed mom at one point. Again, we'll get there. From there, the pantheon of the Olympians is rounded out by Aphrodite, who I mentioned earlier, she of the castoration foam, and a select few of Zeus's many many children. His children deserve stories of their own. We'll just say I plan to devote an entire episode onto the slut that is Zeus. Irony of irony is given. His wife is the goddess of marriage. Like I said, Harrah gets the short end of the stick. To be sure. For now to say that of Zeus's children, those who become Olympians are Apollo and Artemis, who are twins. Apollo is the god of music, truth, prophecy, light, and the sun. Artemis is the badass virgin, goddess of the hunt. And then there's Athena, also a badass virgin. She's the goddess of wisdom, war craft, and diplomacy. It's war and craft, but also warcraft, I guess.
And here is where I remind you all the the concept of quote unquote virgin.
Is again what what's that? It's Christian So the idea of looking at Athena and Artemis through this lens of virginity is through a lens of Christianity, whereas in truth, in in this ancient Greek world, the word is parthenos, it means unmarried women. They did not conceptualize this idea of virginity as like a physical thing in your body, like good.
It literally doesn't matter, it's not a thing, it doesn't matter anyway. They did not conceptualize it like that. And so what virginity was was just unmarried. So but also there is you know, a lot to be said about how women couldn't marry other women, and so like absolutely they were fucking and but they could still be called virgins, you know, you know, I think that that's probably true of Artemis in terms of like if we want to dive into you know what, how we could view her sexuality in the modern world. Same with the but I like to think that she's more asexual. There's a lot more evidence that Artemis is like into the nymphs, the nymph ladies. But I just really do want to emphasize that because this is something that I said a lot in the early days of the podcast, again because I did not have the background, the context. It is so important in understanding this stuff, and which is completely lacking when you are just trying to learn this on your own, like unless you are coming to sources that explain it. But so often the commercial sources that you're gonna find like don't because it's not easy to get into that detail, which is where I come in. So does this reminder this idea of virginity, you know, in the Western context is so inherently.
Tied to Christianity and is so gross. It's so gross, right because it is like never really applicable to men, like it doesn't matter whereas women have this like bodily thing that they like ill, ye, you know you know, so unmarried means unmarried women. Parthenos Aries is the god of war who is not super popular among his breath and the's a bit of a loose cannon. Really. Hermes is a messenger god and all around trickster. He's basically the same Cutie Petuty from the animated Hercules. He's a little crazy. He wears a helmet and sandals, both with little wings we can fly around. He carries around the Caducia staff that ultimately comes to represent medicine and is another connection to Dark Angel. Again rip ough, so much to say here.
One absolutely still think that he is the Cutie Patuty little weirdo from Disney's Hercules. Definitely still relevant. Two, he does carry around the Cadushias no live, no past live. It does not well, I guess it does come to symbolize medicine, but it shouldn't, and let me tell you why. So there are two ancient Greek staff like things that involve snakes, and both have come to represent medicine and the modern Western world in different ways. But one is wrong and one is right, and nobody really seems to be keeping track. So the Caducious that Hermes carried around has absolutely nothing to do with medicine in the ancient world. It is the one that has the like kind of thing at the top and two snakes wrapped around it. Okay, Hermes is a god of huh commercialism, mm hmmm mmmm, so it is particularly relevant when countries like the United States use it to describe medicine.
Uh huh. The one that's actually supposed to be a symbol for medicine is just a staff, like a very simple walking stick kind of staff with one snake. That is the symbol for a Sclepius. It's what he carried around. He is the god of health of medicine, and thus that is the correct Ancient Greek symbol for it, not the caducious important dark angel. Still relevant again. Hephaestus, who's the god of the forge and husband of Aphrodite. Though she isn't a big fan of his, she is one of the few who takes a real shine to her brother Aris and Dionysus, who's the god of the vine, wine and general debauchery, and he eventually takes hestias spot in the Olympian order when she becomes sick of the other Olympians bullshit. Like I said, she's kind of a secret badass. She's not willing to take the petty squabbles of the Olympians and she just gets sick of it at one point and leaves. It's awesome, okay again, kind of like the drawing lots thing like this is not actually something that is ever described in the surviving sources, which I just find really interesting. Like it's more just that like over the breadth of time that is Greek mythology, Like sometimes Hestia is an Olympian and sometimes she's not really explicitly one. It never lessens her overall importance. She was so fucking important with her hearts, like it's how people kept themselves warm and they ate. It was like the family like emblem kind of thing. But she just sometimes isn't isn't an Olympian and so like I really do think though, like if we were to give it a story, it's that she was.
Like, fuck you guys, I don't want any of this and she just left. But it is not explicit in any sources.
The Olympians, now having established themselves as the ruling order of gods, they settle atop Mount Olympus, and hence their name from there, as we'll find out, they watch over the humans from afar, sometimes jumping in to start or stop wars, or too frankly, just spread their godly seed. Kay, but for real though, Like such an accurate statement and also like weirdly relevant for a novel that I'm working on. Yeah, it's early days, but relevant a general rule, though, the Olympians are not able to show themselves to humans in their true god form. A human can't survive it, so typically they find creative ways of interacting. Therein lies the fun of Greek myths. To what lengths will the gods go to have sex with mortals? We will find out the simpler days when I thought that there were any kind of general rules in Greek mythology, there are no rules. There is no canon, There is no right or wrong myth except for when it doesn't exist in the sources at all, and then it is wrong, like Medusa being actually dangerous to humans. But no, like there is no rules, there are no rules.
Rather, so it's really a matter of like, sometimes there are stories where a god can't show himself to a woman, and you know it makes for disastrous results. Like Zeus and Semele for the birth of Dionysus, or you know, Cupid and Psyche. But that's very Roman and also not irrelevant to the thing that.
I just said. Still, this idea that that there are any kind of rules, no, like, what it does is just kind of explain all those times when Zeus was like, I'm good to fuck a woman as a shower of gold, or well, I think in order to let's be honest, assault this woman, I'm going to appear as a swan. You know.
Really, all it does is like a kind of account for that, or like you know, he did abduct an assault of poor the boy Ganymede as an eagle. Like there are no rules, there are just these stories. And then I think sometimes people who who retell them kind of invent these rules because it is interesting, you know, to have a kind of rule, to have a canon, to have like a kind of structure, and you know, as I talked about, you know, in that same episode I was talking about earlier with MATCHI like, there there is structure, but it is not so cut and dry and clean, you know, as the the retelling books often want you to believe. It's really just you know it's a lot more kind of deep and existential, but again, listen to those episodes. Still there are no rules, and honestly, like, isn't that why we all still love it? It's certainly why I love it after seven years, because there are no rules, and there it is the beginning of everything. They will only get crazier from here. Thanks so much for listening to this inaugural episode of Let's Talk About Myths.
Baby. My name is liv and I love this shit. Okay, honestly, that was actually that was really that was really fun. I hope you guys liked this episode. You know.
It's something where like I mean, I'm not running out of content. I don't want to scare anyone, but like I'm definitely running out of you know. They're really the myths that we think of, the sort of standard concepts. Oh my god, of myth because I've just told them all. But I really like this idea of revisiting things, not by replaying it, you know, directly, but by kind of analyzing it and breaking down, you know, what what I might have been wrong about because I didn't have the context, what I might be able to expand upon now and add more information obviously, you know in cases where like THESEUS or PERSEUS, where I have already redone those stories in greater detail, Like I'm not going to do that with those episodes, but if there are other ones, you know that maybe don't need to be fully redone, or maybe I just they're very popular early episodes like this one. This episode gets like one hundred and fifty thousand downloads like a month, like, which compared to my other episodes is like fucking in just ridiculous. But yeah, you know, I just want to like kind of look at it a little closer. So if you liked this, please let me know in whatever way that you can. If you're listening on Spotify, there will be an option for you to let me know whether this is something you'd like me to keep doing, because it was really fun for me. Also just generally, you know, this was so much fun. Thank you all for listening. I really hoped you like it. I needed this honestly, and it actually did, even though I was kind of like wild, just kind of my brain is sort of a mess today because of ADHD. You really need like structure and so having like a day and a half completely like taken away in this very stressful way of like I had no idea when I was going to get home because flights just kept getting canceled.
And what's you know the most is that, like I was.
I flew to this place with fucking winter, and I come from a place without winter, so it's just incredibly annoying. So I came back to like zero snow and really warm sunny weather when there was like six feet across the country. In any case, I really needed this. And I, you know, even on top of after this this ridiculous weekend, you know, obviously in as you've heard, you know, in past things I've recorded, I've been having a lot of trouble just being happy, let alone just like finding thrill in this again just because I've been so bogged down by my life and this was really this was really everything I needed it, like just really, so thank you all so much for listening. Let's talk about MAT's Baby is written and produced by me Live Alberton, godse it has been for seven fucking years. Like even just oh my gosh, listening to how I spoke back then, and I just it's really it's really fun. And for all I complain about how that episode gets all those downloads, and then so often people judge me based on it, and I'm just just listen to some more recent like I'm really I really come a long way, and I'm so proud of what I am now and anyway, but I am so proud of that first episode because it is what led me to be the person and the creator that I am now, and like, fuck it's it's really cool. Yeah, I really needed that just for my own mental health, So thank you.
MICHAELA.
Smith is the hermes to my Olympian Scots. Could you imagine, Like I just want to tell past live that I'd be reading credits seven years later. Uh where I employ two people and like angry leftists and me too, Like just like I get to employ people and make their jobs fun and well paid and low stress. And as a millennial who has worked some shit jobs and like shit jobs that led me to be creating this, it means a whole lot that I get to do that. So like, I mean, thank you to Mikaela for letting me pay you. I guess like you're the best. MaKayla's my assistant producer. Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio engineer Laura is amazing both of them. It's just so fucking fun. Select music in this episode was by the wonderful Luke Chaos.
I also got to pay somebody to make me custom music. What is my Life Now?
The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast network and still retains complete independence. I make what I want to make, as you can tell by this slightly unhinged episode.
But you know what, guys, they pay me to give you all this free content, and how fuck cool is that?
Help me continue bring you the world of Greek mythology and the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron where you'll get bonus episodes and more, and they will be returning to my Patreon now that I've kind of got my shit back together, if you want to, if you want to subscribe, you know, for all that I Heeart does pay me, I also am afraid of capitalism, So if you want to help me out and make sure that if something ever blows up or I make them angry, you know I'll still keep going visit me over on Patreon. I do consider it to be more of a donation based system than for bonus content, because I give two free episodes of the show every week. I simply can't create more.
So, but if you want to help me create the free ones, head on over there visit patreon dot com slash myths Baby for that. The link is also in the description. And Oh, I meant to say this.
I had to say this at the very end of the recording or the earlier episode. Rather, I think I said I love this shit like on a whim.
I think I just was like, oh, this is the thing because it's true, because I actually find myself just like saying it in conversation, like when I was in Rome with my friend Jenny from agin histree Fangirl, I we were both kept saying it and I was like, oh my god, we're both just like using what has become my catchphrase, which is like so wild and weird. But it's just like what I say about the ancient world, because like, I have no better way of phrasing how much I fucking love it and really truly.
This, Oh my gosh, this episode has just helped me get back to that. So thank you all so much for coming along on the ride. And I hope you liked it. And even if you liked it and you don't want more like that's fine too either way, it really helped me, so thank you all. I'm live and i love this shit.
