Map of the Greek World

For the Greek people around VII or VI BC, the world was "Mediterranean": the geography of planet Earth consisted of the Mediterranean Sea, minor extensions of water related to the former and the land surrounding them.

The World according to Hecataeus of Miletus - 550 BC

This Homeric Conception of the world was best put in paper in a map designed by Hecataeus of Miletus around 550 BC, were we can distinguish:

- The world was a huge mass of land floating in the middle of the Ocean.
- The land was divided by the Mediterranean into two big pieces: Europa in the North and Asia in the South.
- If you sailed west, you would get to the "Pillars of Heracles" (today known as "The Strait of Gibraltar").
- The Caspian Sea, the place where Jason and the Argonauts had to go in order to recover the Golden Fleece, was the furthest Eastern-point of the planet.

Below this paragraph, the best ancient-modern map of Hellas (the Ancient Greek name for ancient and modern Greece) I've found in the Internet, which will let you easily locate the places mentioned by all the post-Homeric poets such as Euripides, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Aeschylus and "the rest".

Classical Greek World Map

Laconian Sparta, Boeotian Thebes, Attican Athens, Argolid Troezen, Mycenae, Aulis, Ithaca, Troy, Marathon, Delphi ... every region and city found in classical literature.

Greek History Timeline

From the first mythological poems of Homer and Hesiod (800 BC) to the Roman conquer of the Hellenistic world in 146 BC.

All the classical poets, battles, philosophers and the like ... in a single timeline

A unified timeline were to observe the coexistance and correlativity of poets, batlles, philosophers and politicians:

- Hesiod, Homer, Aesop, Sappho, Aeschylus, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Ovid.

- Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Socrates, Democritus, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle.

- Illiad and Odyssey (Homer), Theogony (Hesiod), The Frogs (Aristophanes), Socratic Dialogues (Plato), Odes (Pindar), The Oresteia and Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus), Antigone and Ajax (Sophocles), Medea and Electra (Euripides), The Aeneid (Virgil), Metamorphoses (Ovid).

- Persian Wars, Peloponnesian War, Battle of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis, Battle of Corinth and Leuctra.

- First Olympic Game, Solon, Pericles, Birth of Democracy, Alexander The Great, Macedonian Greece, Conquer of Greece by the Romans.

- Classical, Hellenistic and Roman eras.

Further reading > Simplified Greek History

Caught between Scylla and Charybdis

When you are surrounded and have no place where to go, or even when you have to choose between two equally dreadful alternatives ... you are said to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

Illustrated by Verónica Letto

In Book 12 of Homer's Odyssey, in the middle of the journey to his homeland Ithaca, the adventurous hero faces a new fascinating challenge: to sail across the Strait of Messina, a narrow pathway between Calabria (Italy) and Sicily. Odysseus had already been warned of Charybdis and Scylla, the two sea monsters that lived on opposite sides of the strait. They were so close together, that trying to avoid one of them, drove you immediately to the jaws of the other one; it was an inescapable threat to passing sailors.

Scylla lived in a rocky cave; a strange creature with 6 pairs of legs and 6 heads tied to the body by snaky long necks. Whenever a ship passed, each of the heads would grab one of the crew and get him or her swallowed. Scylla was once a sea-nymph loved by Poseidon, the Sea God. His jealous and vengeful wife Amphitrite poisoned the waters in which Scylla bathed, turning her into this carnivorous man-eating monster.

Nobody had ever caught a glimpse of Charybdis. She lived under the sea and was supposed to have an enormous mouth with which she could swallow enormous quantities of water, and belch them out with analogous strength. With every water-devouring coming from her mouth, a sucking whirlpool appeared; with every water-spew an eruption outcame in a geyser-like formation. Charybdis was also originally a sea nymph flooder of lands; a powerful ally of her father Poseidon in the quest of gaining space to his water kingdom. With the help of his thunderbolt, Zeus limited her power and cast her into the sea.

How does the story end ? Odysseus achieves to bypass the challenge, but at a very high cost: he lost six of his crew-members devoured by Scylla's correspondent six heads, and his ship was swallowed by Charybdis making it disappear to the bottom of the sea. Odysseus managed to save his life by clinging to a tree that overhanged the water. With the following Charybdis' water-eruption, the hero swings into the air and lands unconscious in "safe" territory, ready to continue his journey back to Penelope.

Now, whenever you hear once more the British rock group "The Police" sing "Wrapped around your finger" ... you'll clearly understand the second phrase of the song. Try it here (♪).

The power of allegories

If you need to catch the attention of your audience, tell them a story. If your purpose is to really move them, don't be literal, just concentrate on the setting and paint it with pictures.
JMD

An allegory is actually a story with a meaning partially hidden that lie outside the narrative itself. It's a narration with subtext; a tale that embraces a symbolic significance underneath the literal one. A myth is actually an allegory, usually made up in part of historical events, that helps define the beliefs of people and that tend to evolve as an explanation for rituals and natural phenomena.

Supposing we say "Lisa very much wanted to open the box, but hesitated for fear of the consequences"; this is a plain statement. If we say "In Lisa's mind desire and fear contended for the mastery" we are already beginning to speak allegorically: Lisa's mind has become a battlefield in which two personified emotions are carrying a conflict. From this we can proceed to build a full-blown allegory. We can present Lisa's ambition as a princess imprisoned in a castle, which is attacked by a giant monster called Fear and defended by a knight called Desire. And we can put in as much description of the place and people as will serve to make the story exciting.

The classical world of Hesiod, Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes (among others) is filled with sub-meaning: Herakles' seven labours, Proserpine's abduction from Earth, Arachne's transformation into a spider, Icarus' failed flying plan ... all of them try to tell us something distant from their literal meaning. In their simplest form, they are just extended metaphors.

When Pandora, the first women on Earth, was told not the open the jar which the Gods had given her as a gift, we immediately find a parallel to the Christian allegory of Man's Fall (Eve eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge). Filled with intrigue Pandora disobeys the order and crime, sickness, pain and all illnesses are unleashed out of the pot.

This story can be read literally, or we can enrich these words by going deeper into the tale in order to find its true meaning: men have the power to chose, a freedom that can lead to eternal misfortune.

Whichever the myth you come across in a classical book, you'll find that this way of telling things is much more captivating, easy-reading and finally ... moving for every single reader.

Greek and Roman Mythology - Where to start from?

Time ago, I happened to overhear the names Zeus, Aphrodite, Homer, Achilles and Aeneas ... stories such as the rise of the Titans, the Wanderings of Odysseus, the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur and the 12 labours of Hercules or Herakles ... wonderful places such as Troy, Mount Olympus, the city of Mycenae and Marathon ... horrible monsters like Hydra, Medusa, Cerberus and Cyclops ...

The list goes on forever, having heard of every story, of every god, of every living creature in different contexts and situations. Nevertheless, I found out all of them had something in common, a unique leitmotif that spanned across all these contents: they all belonged to the world commonly known as Greek and Roman Mythology.

Now that I had found the "category" that gathered all these tales and allegories ... it became time to start delving into it. As to my surprise, I found no articles, recipes or even paths or clues from where to start my journey, just a lot of content shuffled in different places prepared to become pieces of my puzzle.

After having read many books and articles, having listened to audio tacks, and watched a bunch of videos and documentaries for some years now, I thought I could give a help to Classical Myth beginners. In proper words: "be the Virgil that guides Dante through the Inferno and Purgatory".

At least ... I'll just give it a try.

The first five books you MUST read to start your journey into Greek mythology

1- Theogony - by Hesiod
The genesis of the world, origin and genealogy of every god: Uranus, Gaia, The Titans (Cronos ...), The Olympians (Zeus ...) and all the creatures that appear in Greek myth

2- The Iliad - by Homer
The epic and tragic story of Achilles and the siege of Troy.
Agamemnon, Menelaus, Paris, Helen and Priam are some of its characters.
Every tale that was written under the Classical Myth umbrella is somehow related to the gods, humans and places invented by Homer in his 2 most celebrated creations: Iliad and Odyssey

3- The Odyssey - by Homer
The wandering of Odysseus (Ulysses) in his journey back home (Ithaca) after Troy was finally taken.
Her faithful wife, Penelope, and her rejected suitors.

4- The Aeneid - by Virgil
The wandering of Aeneas, prince of Troy, and his god-guided journey to Italy, and the foundation of Rome.
Dido's suicide. the Amazons ... all took place in this epic poem.

5- Metamorphoses - by Ovid
A big number of small tales that involve Gods, humans and transformations (morphs) into animals.

Prose or Verse ?

All five-book-recommendations were originally written in old-language-verse.
Nevertheless, you'll be able to easily find different adaptations and translations of these texts into modern prose English.
What version to read ? It depends on your likings, but never forget that prose is easier reading.