Monsters:

Monsters: Sphinx: Egypt:  Lion/ human composite  Dynasty IV (mid 3rd millennium BCE)  Giza (Cairo)  Sphinx is a representation of pharaoh (Cheops at Gaza)  Not just Cheops: other pharaohs shown as sphinxes  Composite creature = indication of power, of higher than human status Greece:  Lion/ human composite with wings  Often shown as giving riddle to Oedipus  Monster, enemy of humanity  Has been devouring the inhabitants of Thebes and won't stop until someone solves her riddle, which Oedipus does and she throws herself off her crag What is a 'monster'?  Latin monstrum literally mean 'warning'  Portent/ prodigy  Violation of expected order  Consequences feared  Romans particularly alert to such signs  Reflected in Roman myth  Laocoon in Vergil's Aeneid 2  Monsters in myth act as threats - to gods, or humans  Defeat -> triumph of a more civilised force Heroes and Monsters: examples & themes  monsters not all that common in Greek & Roman myth  Humans & gods more the focus  Monsters often located in distant realms  Minotaur in Crete  Chimera in Lycia Ancient narrators sometimes distanced from monster stories  The Minotaur ('bull of Minos')  Cretan king, Minos, neglects worship of Poseidon  Poseidon sends a bull to rampage around Crete  This Cretan bull becomes one of Heracles' 12 labours  Minos' wide, Pasiphae, falls in love with it  Daedalus builds heifer for Pasiphae  A mythical craftsman, with own set of myths  First sculptor to make images of Gods  Builds artificial wings to himself & son Icarus (who dies)  Pasiphae conceives & bears the Minotaur  Bull head, human body  Daedalus constructs a labyrinth to contain Minotaur  Fed on human offerings  Minos's son Androgeus killed at Athens  Therefore they must send 7 youths and 7 maidens to feed the minotaur, including:

Theseus:  Illegitimate son of king Aegeus  And of Poseidon in some versions  Minos' daughter, Ariadne, falls in love with him  Provides ball of thread to help Theseus through the labyrinth  Theseus kills the minotaur and abducts Ariadne  Theseus leaves Ariadne on Naxos on his way home  Explanations differ  She becomes the consort of Dionysus  Theseus returns to Athens and;  Father Aegeus commits suicide because Theseus forgets to change the sails from black to white therefore suggesting Theseus was dead History in this myth?  Crete home to one of the earliest great cultures, the Minoans (3000-1000BCE)  Named from the mythical king  Literate (Linear A); non-Greek people  Mycenaeans learned to write from them; Linear B adopted& adapted for writing Greek  Palace complexes on Crete excavated by Sir Arthur Evans (1900)  Bulls very common in Minoan art  Other references; Zeus (in the form of a bull) abducts Europa and brings her to Crete The Cretan Labyrinth:  Story inspired by palace?  Not Indo-European word  Presumably come in from Minoans Crete & Athens: a real relationship?  Sending offerings to Crete: was Athens really once subordinate to Cretan power in some way?  Crete believed by classical Greeks to have once been a great naval power  Building of unfortified palaces perhaps hints at naval strength Theseus - History Shaping Myth:  Athens becomes increasingly important in 6th & 5th centuries BCE  Theseus' legend expanded for Athenian prestige  Athens not VIP in Homer, Hesiod  Tyrant Peisistratus perhaps influential? Theseus & Heracles:  Cycle of feats modelled closely on Heracles  Defeat bulls/ other wild animals  Descent into the underworld  Defeats of robbers, bandits  Benefactor  Both aided by Athena