Iphigenia is alive !

Do you remember the youngest daughter of king Agamemnon, Iphigenia, who was sacrificed at Aulis in order to appease the anger of Artemis and let the Greek fleet sail to Troy? We were framed! She is not resting in the kingdom of Hades; all this time she´s been living in Tauris as a priestess to the Goddess.

Iphigenia is saved from her own sacrifice by the Goddess Artemis

According to Euripides´ award winning "Iphigenia in Tauris", Artemis abducted the princess before being burnt at the pyre and dropped her in that faraway citadel to become her servant. No one ever noticed the body-replacement of Iphigenia for that of a deer: the blood that gushed out of the flames was no human.

Long ago a sacred statue with the image of Artemis fell from heaven and appeared in the coast of Tauris, a city ruled by notorious King Thoas. Since that episode, the Taurian society devoted their life to the worshipping of the Goddess, sacrificing every foreigner that appeared in their land. Iphigenia, once rescued from the pyre, was commanded to lead this killing of outlanders.

The many, many stories of Agamemnon´s offsprings now finally get connected:

- Iphigenia is sacrificed in Aulis ("Iphigenia in Aulis" by Euripides)

- Agamemnon, after having conquered Troy, sails back home ("The Iliad" by Homer)

- Agamemnon arrives at Mycenae and is killed by his wife Clytemnestra, who avenges the prior killing of her daughter Iphigenia ("Agamemnon" by Aeschylus)

- Son and daughter, Orestes and Iphigenia, avenge their dad Agamemnon by killing their mother Clytemnestra ("The Libation Bearers" by Aeschylus)

- Orestes escapes the Erinyes after having comited matricide ("The Eumenides" by Aeschylus)

- Orestes is commanded by the God Apollo to sail to Tauris and rescue the sacred statue of Artemis (Euripides´ Iphigenia in Tauris)

Orestes now lands in Tauris together with his companion Pylades. Unaware of the true identity of the foreigners, Thoas´ people capture them both and readies their bodies for the sacrifice. In the exact moment when they are to be killed, brother and sister recognize each other.

Orestes and Iphigenia steal the sacred figure of Artemis and escape back home.

Afterlife, the sedation of the rebel

Primitive societies were truly anarchic; chaos prevailed everywhere. There was no distinction between right and wrong, good or evil: "take what you want, do whatever you like .. but get prepared to expose your physical health in exchange".

Since early men started to evolve and grow in number, mankind had to find new suitable ways to organize themselves: the "pater familas" once guiding small families had now turned into rulers that had to deal with vast extents of territory and great quantities of people. Primordial methods of controlling crowds had become anachronic with the existence of this new reality: punishment by the only means of force & strength was doomed long since.

The famous Greek city-states  (known as "polis") were the first true intents to organize crowds as proper societies: each men had an assigned role in the state, and the act of the inhabitants were supposed to seek the "common wealth". Laws were soon formulated as an instrument to structure and frame the behaviour of citizens: everybody now knew what was commonly believed to be "right" and "wrong", and what punishment you had to face if you chose to commit an act against this established code of conduct and responsibilities.

Anyhow ... how is it possible to enforce these well-installed-laws if the people that are somehow chosen to guide the city are far outnumbered by common citizens ? How is it possible to restrain people from murdering, stealing, raping or cheating if the controlling force will never be able to match in number the size of the populace ? How is it possible to limit people's freedom if their proper nature moves them to do more or less what they desire, no matter outside restriction that can exist ?

The answer is straightforward: it's not possible; no form of temporal organization can achieve this quest. It was not until the common belief of the existence of an eternal afterlife that people started to "cool down"; it was not until they feared of an endless punishment in the afterlife that they really started to behave.

The evolution of moral and ethical behaviour goes side by side with the evolution of religion. When caciques, lords, commanders, kings and emperors realized the power that eternal punishment and reward had on people, they started to organize the primitive and private magic mysteries into well systematized cults. 

If you behave in your mortal stay, you'll be rewarded with eternal happiness, otherwise you'll suffer endless punishment from the moment your immortal soul leaves your body. Simple as it sounds, this was the best-found equation to supervise the mass. There's no better way to control a society rather than by self-member-control.

In the following lines we will go through the main written-ambassadors that relate the evolution of afterlife beliefs in society; we'll do our best in trying to stress how the conception of soul-immortality developed in a continuous way to make people behave.

Homer's Odyssey (750 BC)

Homer pictures the first setting known to us of the Underworld, a place in the map that could be reached by boat if you just knew the correct path to it. In his journey back home, Odysseus travels to the Underworld to seek advice from the seer Tiresias on how to reach his beloved Ithaca. Once there, he finds a dull and dark place where souls moan in an eternal pain; everyone is walking heavy footed, with their heads aimlessly facing the floor. There's no distinction between kings, commanders and ordinary people among the spirits, no contrast between sinners and good people: everything is equaled for the worse.

In his search for Tiresias he meets Achilles:

(...)

Odysseus: "How do you like being in the Afterworld after having been so great in your living days ?"

Achilles: “O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying. I would rather follow the plough as thrall to another man, one with no land allotted him and not much to live on, than be a king over all the perished dead."
(...)

Homer's afterlife is truly pessimistic, there's a single living death for all of us no matter what we've done in mortal times; we find no incentive in life to live in grace, no compulsion to live a moral life, for we all end up in hell. Life is nasty, but when we die it gets even worse !

Plato's Myth of Er (350 BC)

Taking Homer's Underworld as a starting point, the last book of his "Republic" concludes with the tale of a soldier named "Er" who died in war, and after ten days his body came back to life in order to tell the story of his stay in the Land of the Dead.

Let's sum up Plato's myth: when the body dies, the soul accomplishes a hundred years grace (in the Heavens) or punishment (in Hell). The soul then reincarnates in a new body, after having drunk from the river of forgetfulness (Lethe).

Once again, just as in Homer's book, we find a finite body that perishes and frees an infinite soul. What is perfectly observed in the tale is the introduction of a reward for moral people and a punishment for immoral ones: there's a sky for the good and a hell for those who misbehaved in earthly times. 

[ Any similarity with judeo-christian belief is mere coincidence ].

Plato's Republic tried to bring up a formula for constructing the "Ideal State", and as we mentioned in the beginning of this article, society can only be controlled by self-citizen-control. Hence, the need of the afterlife dicotomy "reward / punishment" was needed to be present.

Virgil's Aeneid (20 BC)

If Virgil lived nowadays, we would accuse him of copycat authoring; his Aeneid bears more than a resemblance to Homer's Odyssey: the same Greek story now verbally rendered for Romans and by a Roman.

Aeneas' descent to the Underworld is much like Odysseus', nevertheless we can pinpoint special differences in the setting of his Underworld: Virgil is more than seven hundreds years younger than Virgil, and he breaths in a time and place where living is more optimistic. Life has a real purpose, and if you do good in your temporal stay, you'll find endless happiness in your afterlife. Unlike Plato, we find no Sky in the Underworld, but instead a special place for kings, queens, heroes and virtuous people called "Elysium" (also known as Elysian Fields) where they have a joyful visit. For sinners, there's a special place of torment waiting for them following the judgement day: Tartarus.

"This is the place where the road divides and leads in two directions: our way is to the right, and extends under the ramparts of Dis to Elysium, but the left path leads to the evil realms of Tartarus, where penalties for sin are exacted"

It is important to notice the ethical standards he applies, not found in Homer.

Dante's Divine Comedy (1300 AD)

As regards for the evolution of afterlife-salvation and its connection with moral behaviour, The Divine Comedy makes a perfect match between the Christian and Pagan beliefs; Dante smoothly combines the classical myths with medieval doctrines in a story that starts with the descent to the Underworld (Hell), and the subsequent ascent to the celestial Paradise after having climbed the Mountain of Purgatory. [keep on reading]

Dante takes the myths of Homer, Plato and Virgil together and updates them into a new allegory made for Christians, were salvation is found in the belief of a single God who rules the Afterworld of the right and the good.

Once again the moral search of a moral life is found: if you've done good and believed in God while on Earth, you'll be able to reach your reward when your eternal soul leaves your body.

Oedipus and Narcissus: mythology meets psychology

Wherever you look inside modern formulations of the inner world of humankind, strong roots and patterns of mythology can be noticed. The tales of Oedipus and Narcissus are among the best known classical allegories related to psychology, but they are not the only ones. Freud's and Jung's theories have almost monopolized the study of myths, especially of the ones shaped in ancient greco-roman times.

Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, is best known for having contributed to psychology with his interpretation of dreams, the theory of the unconscious and with the discovery of the preponderance role of sexuality in humankind (infantile in particular).

Dreams: according to his words "dreams are the fulfillment of wishes that have been repressed and disguised". Having discovered the significance of symbols in the sleeping state, Freud believed that through the creation and retelling of myths, men could achieve the purification of emotional tensions, gaining relief of experiences not able to put in practise in the real world ("catharsis").

(...) every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state (...) 

Unconscious & sexuality: in Freudian theory, between the age of 4 and 5, the so called "Phallic / Oedipal phase", the infant experiences sexual attraction for the opposite sex parent, particularly the son’s love for the mother and hostility towards the father.  Pleasure is focused on the genitals and both males and females experience the “Oedipus / Electra complex". He also held that the unsuccessful resolution of this sexual complex could result in personality disorders, such as neurosis, paedophilia, homosexuality ... or Narcissism.

Jung, a contemporary of Freud, is credited with the theory of the "collective unconscious": human beings by nature and by instinct are born with predictable and identifiable characteristics. He studied myths and the profound symbolic significance they have, upon which the society as a whole has come to depend. Myths contain "archetypes" which we inherited from our parents, and reside somewhere deep in our minds. 

Just as a dog is instinctively driven to dig a hole in the ground to hide his favourite bone, human kind find satisfaction in trying to copy heroic deeds, such as those performed by Herakles or Theseus.

The true stories behind Narcissism (1) and the Oedipus Complex (2)

(1) Narcissus and Echo

Found in Ovid's Metamorphoses, it is a tragic story of self-love and self-destruction.

Narcissus was one of the most handsome mortals, object of passion of girls, boys and perpetual beings, to whom he was totally indifferent. Echo, one of the beautiful Nymphs that lived in the forests, felt desperately in love with him, but got no more from him than the others. This rejection brought her a profound sadness and anguish, which later resulted in her death: her body could never be found, but her voice can still be heard.

Echo once shielded Zeus in one of his infidelities with a sister of hers, stopping Hera from discovering them: Echo saw Zeus' wife  about to uncover the sinners when she approached Hera and engaged her in a long conversation, a crafty delay which let Zeus and the nymph scurry to safety. Hera punished Echo: "From now on, your words will be short and sweet; you will answer a call, but never be able to speak first".

Echo's death enraged the gods, and a reprisal soon came over Narcissus: "you will fall in love, but never obtain your desire". And so it was done, Narcissus fell in love with his reflection on a spring of shimmering water:

(...) When I stretch forth my arms to you, you do the same in return; when I laugh, you laugh back, and I have often noted your tears in response to my weeping. (... ) I burn with love for myself, I am the one who fans the flame and bears the torture (...) What I desire is with me; all that I have makes me poor. (...)

Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus faded away and melted, slowly consumed by the fire inside him. His body was never found, however, in his place grew a flower with a trumpet of gold and pale white petals, the narcissus.

(2) Oedipus The King / Rex

The tale of Oedipus is a story of oral tradition. Before being written down, the story of this character was heard from several sources and places, and it seems that the final publications gathered pieces of different birthplaces. Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides ... all wrote down stories of Oedipus. Nevertheless, the best known to us is Oedipus King (Rex) by Sophocles.

Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes respectively, bore prince Oedipus. After having learnt from the Oracle that his own son would kill them, Oedipus is handed to a shepherd who receives orders to finish the newborn's life. Instead of doing so, the shepherd leaves the infant alone in the fields to the fate of gods, before reporting him dead. Oedipus is found by another shepherd who carries the baby to Corinth and hands him to Polybus and Merope, king and queen of the city, who raise him as his own biological son.

Having become a young man, Oedipus learns from the Oracle that he is to kill his father and marry his mother. To escape fate, Oedipus leaves Corinth and reaches Thebes, where he meets his true father on the road (unaware of it) and kills him in an insignificant quarrel, fulfilling part of the prophecy.

After solving the Sphinx's riddle ...

"What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"

Answer: MAN (who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright later, and needs a walking stick in old age)

.. Oedipus is awarded the hand of queen Jocasta, his biological mother.

At the end of the tragedy, after having put up together unwinding tales of different characters, Oedipus and Jocasta discover the real truth. The prophecy was finally fulfilled.

Jocasta ends her life.

You can look at Oedipus' story from two different ways or perspectives: 

- Oedipus as a VICTIM: his failure to elude destiny; subject to fate.

- Oedipus as VICTIMIZER: his success in fulfilling his fondest desires of killing his father and thus gaining sexual access to his mother.

It is more than clear that Freud and Jung where deeply concerned with the victimizer Oedipus (incest). Nonetheless, I suggest you keep on reading "Are we puppets of the gods, or real puppeteers of our own lives ?" and let you draw your conclusions of which of the two perspectives is dominant behind the Oedipus allegory.

The beginning of all times

Very first of all, even before the notion of time and space were created, Chaos came into being, a crude and shapeless mass of elements revolving in continuous strife. Nyx (Night) filled the universe, who appeared together with his siblings Gaia (The Earth), gloomy Tartarus (The Depths) and Eros (Fertlity).

In the middle of such darkness, a feeling of profound loneliness took control of Gaia: nothing could stop her from a shivering pain. Her firstborn offspring was Uranus, the Sky, who immediately embraced his mother and covered her completely with his surrounding dimension. With this full mass spreading, incestuous feelings appeared; they soon became Mother Earth and Father Sky, parents of the immortal race of all blessed gods who were to rule the cosmos.

Out of this love came the strong and one-eyed Cyclopes, three invincible hundred-armed and fifty-headed monsters (know as the Hecatonchires) and the 12 Titans, with Cronus as the youngest and most terrible of the latter race.

Uranus despised his children: as each of them was born, he hid them in the depths of the earth and did not allow them to see the light. Mother Earth could no longer stand this behaviour; she found in young Cronus the perfect ally to ambush his abominable husband and recover her sons and daughters. With the help of a huge sickle her mother had given him, Cronus swiftly cut off his own father´s genitals and threw them to the swelling sea. Earth received all the bloody drops that fell, and when making contact with the land, strong Erinyes (the roman "Furies") and mighty Giants sprang. After being cast adrift for several days, Cronus´ genitals reached the shore of Cythera. White foam arose about from the immortal flesh and in it a beautiful goddess grew: Aphrodite (deity of the foam).

Cronus (roman Saturn) was now the ruler of the world.

Rhea, one of the Titanesses, was chosen by Cronus to become his beloved wife. They united and gave birth to a new race of gods: the Olympians. As Cronus had been told by the Oracle that he was to be out-powered by one of his sons, every time one of them came out of his mother´s womb, he swallowed his child.

Now Rhea felt lonely. While all the other 5 Titanesses played with their children, she had no son or daughter with whom to share her motherhood: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon were in Cronus´ stomach.

Together with Gaia and Uranus, Rhea plotted to take revenge on his child-eater husband: in the exact moment she bore the youngest of the Olympians, little Zeus (roman Jupiter / Jove), she hid him in the island of Crete. Deceiving mighty Cronus, she gave his husband a stone wrapped in infant´s coverings for Zeus, who immediately ended up in the deity´s belly. Soon baby Zeus became mature and was ready to take his father´s place. With the help of his mother, he made the ruler of Titans´s vomit his brothers and sisters, who joined him in his quest. Now it became the time to release the powerful and strong Cyclopes and Hecatonchires, whom Cronus had confined to the depths of the Earth time ago. It was a devastating 10-year battle; Titans vs Olympians in a fierce fight for supremacy (episode known as Titanomachy / Gigantomachy).

The Olympians prevailed.

With the war over, Zeus, ruler of all living gods, divided the kingdoms and designated among his brothers the sovereign to each part of the world: Hades (Pluto) would rule the Underworld and Poseidon (Neptune) the Water, while he himself would take the Land and Sky.

Now the world was in harmony, and ready to receive the first born mortal.

This "creation myth" we´ve just shared is a personal and subjective composite I´ve made grabbing different tales from Hesiod, Homer, Ovid and Aeschylus, authors who have made the best of contributions in trying to explain the genesis of the universe, the gods and humans.

The origin of deserts and black men

Phaeton, praising and claiming to be direct descendant of Phoebus (Helios / the Sun God) became an arrogant young boy used to boastful talking about his and his father's achievements. Once, a man sick and tired of hearing young Phaeton, defied him to give true proof of his transcendent lineage. Phaeton was out of words; a mix of anger and shame filled his body. He suddenly realized that the only proof he really had was the story her mother Clymene once told him: "my dear son, you are are the result of a beautiful affair I had with mighty Sun".

This time, Clymene's words wouldn't be able to fulfill Phaeton's desire: he needed to know for himself he was the true son of Phoebus.

Guided by his mother, Phaeton reaches Phoebus' radiant palace. Picture the Sun's royal seat, an imposing building with towering columns resplendent in glittering gold and blazing bronze: "O Phoebus my father, if you will allow me to call you my father, grant me a sign whereby all men must believe that I'm truly your son, and banish this doubt from my own mind".
Phoebus answered: 'Your mother hasn't fooled you, you are truly mine, and in order to back my words I promise to give you anything you ask for".

Phaeton didn't hesitate: "I want to ride the chariot that gives light and heat to Earth, just for one day".

Phoebus wished he had never pronounced those words. The horses that move the chariot are ungovernable, not even great Jove (Zeus) himself can perform the task. Phoebus begged the mortal youngster to withdraw his demand and chose wisely, but he wouldn't do. Phoebus had sworn by the Stygian marsh (*), so he had no choice but to give Phaeton the reins to the chariot. The destiny of mother Earth was, for a day, in the hands of young Phaeton.

The chariot took off. Not long after, the four horse team that pulled the vehicle sensed the strong hands of Phoebus were not in the reins. They ran wild, scorching one and again at random. Phaeton lacked not only the skill to drive the chariot, but also the line of the route the Sun had to draw. Every time the horses went high into the sky, the day became night and people on Earth started to freeze. When the chariot described a path near the Earth's surface, rivers ran dry, trees turned into fire, and ice melted into water.

Mighty Zeus saw the conflagration that was devastating mother Earth, and with no hesitation took one of his thunderbolts and threw it to the chariot's driver. Phaeton immediately died, and harmony was reestablished on Earth.

It is said that once, in Paheton's uncontrollable journey through the sky, the chariot came so close to the Earth, that lands beneath lost all its moisture, turning vast areas into pure sand. This place later became known as 'Northern Africa'. Humans living nearby got their blood about to boil, and their skin turned dark forever.

...

(*) When a god gave their word "by the River Styx", they were making an oath unable to be broken.
This spot - located in the depth of Hell - was also known as the Stygian Marsh.

Story found in Ovid's Metamorphoses