AHSS 2210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Nekyia, Oenochoe, Aeneid
18 Jun 2018
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Department
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CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
WEEK 7
March 1, 2018
CH15 VIEWS OF THE AFTERLIFE: THE REALM OF HADES
- Death makes someone human
- “fellow-travelers to the grave” - Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Eros and Tithonus
- Attic oenochoe of the Achilles Painters, ca 470 BC – 460
Ancient Sources (3)
- Homer, Odyssey [Book 11, the Nekuia (“the Book of the Dead)
- Plato, Republic (the myth of Er, which concludes Book 10)
- Vergil, Aeneid (Book 6)
Odyssey
- He takes an animal and slits it, and lets the blood drip into the pit
- There is a physical place where the dead live
- The spirits of the dead are drawn by blood
- The ancient greeks were afraid that the dead could come back
- So he travels to the world of the dead,
- Elpenor (his friend) – he died along the way, and was not barried properly so he was trapped
between the world of the living and the dead, so he has to go back and bury him properly so
that his spirit could transition to the underworld
- Tiresias and Anticlea (mother)
- The Homeric underworld is bleak, grey, fatuous, dreary, semi-unconscious, the dead wandering
around
- Heroes – Asphodel I (the realm of the famous heros – could be either good or bad)
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Achilles “prefer to be the slave of a poor man than to rule over all of the dead”
Republic
- Plato is in the center of this Raphael’s painting
- Relates the story of the Myth of Er
- He was killed in battle, and was dead for 12 days and his body did not decompose
- So he thought that he travelled to the dead for 12 days and then comes back
- He went to this other dimension with 2 paths: (1) a dark path, down with screams of agony and
fear and (2) bright path upwards
Virtue and sin, which merit reward and punishment
Those who go up or down spend a 1000 years in either realm, they would then come back
and choose a more virtuous life
Choosing the next life.. between virtuous and
Drinks from the River Lethe, forgetting the entire process and then is bam born again
- The soul chooses the life that they want
- Reincarnation
- The final life someone would choose would be a philosopher and then poof that’s it.
Virgil
- Roman
- Poem about a great hero Aeneas
- He travels physically to the world of the dead
- In the image: Aeneas and Cumaean Sibyl
- The Sibyl resided in Cumae, they believed that there were physical places (Caves) that could
allow them to enter the underworld
- So Aeneas travels to Cumae
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Ch15 views of the afterlife: the realm of hades. Fellow-travelers to the grave - dickens, a christmas carol. Attic oenochoe of the achilles painters, ca 470 bc 460. Homer, odyssey [book 11, the nekuia ( the book of the dead) Plato, republic (the myth of er, which concludes book 10) He takes an animal and slits it, and lets the blood drip into the pit. There is a physical place where the dead live. The spirits of the dead are drawn by blood. The ancient greeks were afraid that the dead could come back. So he travels to the world of the dead, The homeric underworld is bleak, grey, fatuous, dreary, semi-unconscious, the dead wandering around. Heroes asphodel i (the realm of the famous heros could be either good or bad) Achilles prefer to be the slave of a poor man than to rule over all of the dead . Plato is in the center of this raphael"s painting.
