CLA204H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Katabasis, Nekyia, Iacchus
Document Summary
Descent, more specifically, descent into the underworld. Myths can help explain what is beyond these limits. 187-193 three brothers drew lots of hades received erebus (not random fate). Hesiod theogony 881-885 zeus allotted the honors or offices to each of the gods when he became king. Journeys in a cave, darkness, inward journeys take on parallels to katabasis. He doesn"t make epiphanies he doesn"t make himself manifest. Hades the unseen one pluto the enricher . Epithets: polydegmon, polyxenos (putting valuable things in the earth and gathering souls) Referred to as zeus of the underworld. Apollodorus says that the cyclopes gave hades a helmet at the same time as they gave a trident to poseidon and the thunderbolt to zeus. True journeys into the other world, with the intention of bringing an inhabitant of the underworld into the upper world, are recounted concerning heracles, theseus and. Orpheus, especially the katabasis of orpheus becomes a vehicle of eschatological information.