Ancient Greek flood myths

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

flood myths, these stories often involve themes of divine retribution, the savior of a culture hero, and the birth of a nation or nations. In addition to these floods, Greek mythology also says the world was periodically destroyed by fire, such as in the myth of Phaëton
.

Sources

"Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking; and during all of this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left."
Plato's Critias (111b)[1]

10th millennium BCE. In Laws, Book III,[2]
argues that a great flood had occurred ten thousand years[3] before his time, as opposed to only "one or two thousand years that have elapsed" since the discovery of music, and other inventions. Plato also alludes to a well-known event of great destruction, in Statesman (270), where "only a small part of the human race survives",[4] presumably also referring to the flood of Deucalion.[2] In addition, the texts report that "many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years" since Athens and Atlantis were preeminent.[5]

Ogyges

The Ogygian flood is so called because it occurred in the time of

Thebes. In many traditions the Ogygian flood is said to have covered the whole world and was so devastating that Attica remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops.[7]

Deucalion

The

Megarians told that Megarus, son of Zeus and a Sithnid nymph, escaped Deucalion's flood by swimming to the top of Mount Gerania, guided by the cries of cranes.[10]

From the Theogony of the Bibliotheca

According to the theogony of the Bibliotheca, Prometheus moulded men out of water and earth and gave them fire which, unknown to Zeus, he had hidden in a stalk of fennel. When Zeus learned of it, he ordered Hephaestus to nail Prometheus to Mount Caucasus, a Scythian mountain. Prometheus was nailed to the mountain and kept bound for many years. Every day an eagle swooped on him and devoured the lobes of his liver, which grew by night. That was the penalty that Prometheus paid for the theft of fire until Heracles afterwards released him.

Prometheus had a son Deucalion. He, reigning in the regions about Phthia, married

Pandora
(the first woman fashioned by the gods). And when Zeus would destroy the men of the Bronze Age, Deucalion, by the advice of Prometheus, constructed a chest. Having stocked it with provisions, he embarked in it with Pyrrha. Zeus, by pouring heavy rain from heaven, flooded the greater part of Greece, so that all men were destroyed, except a few who fled to the high mountains in the neighbourhood as Peloponnesus was overwhelmed. But Deucalion, floating in the chest over the sea for nine days and as many nights, drifted to Parnassus, and there, when the rain ceased, he landed and made a sacrifice to Zeus, the god of Escape. And Zeus sent Hermes to him and allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to get men.

At the bidding of Zeus he took up stones and threw them over his head, and the stones Deucalion threw became men, and the stones Pyrrha threw became women. Hence people were called metaphorically people (Laos) from laas, "a stone." And Deucalion had children by Pyrrha, first

Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus
, and from Achaeus and Ion the Achaeans and Ionians derive their names. Dorus received the country over against Peloponnese and called the settlers Dorians after himself.

Aeolus reigned over the regions about Thessaly and named the inhabitants Aeolians. He married

Ceyx (son of Eosphorus), and both are described by several sources as having been transformed into halcyon birds, giving rise to the term halcyon days
.

The motif of a

Sumerian Mythology, as Enlil, instead of Zeus, causes the flood, and Enki, rather than Prometheus, saves man. Stephanie West has written that this is perhaps due to the Greeks borrowing stories from the Near East.[8]

Nannacus

Main article: Nannacus

Nannacus was a legendary king of Phrygia before the Flood of Deucalion. Nannacus predicted the Flood and had organized public prayers to avert this disaster. After Nannacus died, whom his subjects greatly mourned, came the Deluge of Deucalion.[11]

Dardanus

This one has the same basic story line. According to

Hellespont), a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey that connects the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The name is derived from Dardanus, an ancient city on the Asian shore of the strait, whose name was mythologized as deriving from Dardanus, the son of Zeus and Electra
.

References

  1. ^ Plato’s Critias 111b
  2. ^ a b Plato, Laws, Book III, 677a
  3. ^ The Greek original text is "μυριάκις μύρια ἔτη διελάνθανεν", where μυριάς is the myriad or 10,000 (years)
  4. ^ "Plato, Statesman, section 270c".
  5. ^ Luce, J.V. (1971), "The End of Atlantis: New Light on an Old Legend" (Harper Collins)
  6. Liddell & Scott
  7. ^ Gaster, Theodor H. Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament Archived 2002-02-04 at the Wayback Machine, Harper & Row, New York, 1969.
  8. ^ a b West, S. (1994). Prometheus Orientalized. Museum Helveticum, 51(3), 129-149.
  9. ^ Entry λᾶας at
    Liddell & Scott
  10. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1. 40. 1
  11. JSTOR 2843393
    .
  12. ^ Plato, Laws, Book III, 682a
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