Hellenismos
The Return of Persephone
I am not going to pretend to be a historian and give you some kind of history lesson here. The lands of Greece and Rome have been studied and written about, for better or for ill, for centuries now. I could never even approach the level of knowledge, academic perspective, and detachment that the likes of Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert have achieved. What I do want to talk to you about is my own experiences with the histories of Greece and Rome and how they have helped me to develop the deep sense of religious piety I feel today. Greek History as we know it today does not start with the Greeks themselves, rather it starts with several distinct cultures and civilizations which give birth to the people we know as the Greeks.
The first of these cultures is the Minoan, so called after the name a mythological king named Minos, whose son was the mythical Minotaur and under whose great palace lay the great labyrinth. The Minoans are a mysterious people. What we do know about them is limited to what is left of their art, and the archaeology done in their great palaces. Their language remains un-deciphered. We see in Minoan art and architecture a possible look into a world where the patriarchal reality we know today was not so stringent. Where the later warrior culture of the Greeks was not the norm, and the religions of the Goddesses of Greece may have gotten their start.
The second of these cultures, or group of cultures, are the Indo-European peoples of the steppes, who not only colonized the lands of Greece and most of Europe, Persia and India as well. The tribes of peoples who moved from the central Asian steppes into the Middle East and Europe brought with them strong Gods whose paradigm was vastly different from that of the peoples who inhabited the island of Crete and the surrounding areas. We see here, in the migrations of these people, the future of the patriarchal hierarchy that would become the great Olympian Pantheon, but it is a Pantheon that would not grow into being simply one a conquering people, but one of a people both conquering and being conquered by the cultures they encountered.
As the migrations of Indo-European peoples proceeded over thousands of years, the lands of Europe would become the homelands of the Indo-European peoples who would become the great Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic Tribes and would give rise to the Germans, the Galls, the Romans, Spaniards, French, Russians, Poles, and in the lands surrounding the Aegean, the Greeks. But along the way the Indo-Europeans did as all migrating tribes do, they merged with the local peoples. Sometimes peacefully, sometimes not, and in Greece, this slow process gave rise to the second great civilization of Greece, the civilization we call the Mycenaeans, so named after the great city of Mycenae, home of the legendary Agamemnon, the great king who lead the war against the Trojans, part of another Indo-European civilization known to us today as the Hittites.
The Mycenaeans and their warrior culture come to us almost fully relized in the myths and legends of the Greek people. The Trojan War, the Odyssey, the great subjects of the works of Aeschylos and Ovid, that great Roman poet, all stem back into the legendary past that forged the next stage in Aegean civilization, The Classical Greeks.
The civilization of the Mycenaeans, the first Greeks, fell to the wayside. Natural disasters, economic collapse due to war, and the migrations of new Indo-European tribes into the area all combined to create what we call a Dark Age. During this time, there is little if any information available, though unlike the later Hellenes, the Mycenaeans did not have a literary language. They did not record their stories, poems, epics for us to read. But the oral traditions survived the centuries into the rebirth of the Greek culture, left to cook under the Aegean sun as the various tribes merged and split, migrated back and forth across the lands of Greece and across the Aegean.
The stories of the Mycenaeans survived, if altered, through centuries of retelling, and eventually, as the Hellenic civilization rose from its illiterate darkness, they were written down.
The first poets to tell the stories were Homer and Hesiod. Hesiod is most often accepted as a real man, while Homer is a name given to the writer of the Iliad and Odyssey, but there is no certainty about whether he was a real person or an amalgam of many poets.
Whatever the case may be, the poems of Hesiod, which were rather religious in nature, and those of Homer, which were exciting tales of Kings past, would set the tone for the literary explosion and grandeur of the Hellenes, the civilization this religion is based in.
The Hellenic civilization would go through many forms. Its political system divided and often warring, would eventually lead to the rise of a major power, one which would conquer the world they knew and in that sudden flash of power exhaust itself too much to avoid being conquered byb the civilization that had risen to the West, the Romans.
But the Hellenistic Age, as we call it, that followed the death of Alexander would also give rise to an immense level of religious change for the Hellenic people who were now spread out all over the known world. From far in the East where Hellenic philosophy and religion influenced the Persian and Indian religious systems to the West where the Romans would fall victims to the conquering power of Hellenic thought. For while the Romans conquered the Greeks militarily, the Hellenes conquered the Romans culturally, and everything from their architecture to their religion became Hellenized little by little.
Through the conquering Romans, the Hellenes would spread their wisdom, their art, their science throughout Europe, and in the end, we must acknowledge that all of European civilization owes much of its very nature to the Greeks. And ass Classical civilization fell victim to Christianity and its zealous destruction of anything "pagan", Europe would safeguard their history and their legacy for love of the very beauty that lies within the Greek heart.
The first of these cultures is the Minoan, so called after the name a mythological king named Minos, whose son was the mythical Minotaur and under whose great palace lay the great labyrinth. The Minoans are a mysterious people. What we do know about them is limited to what is left of their art, and the archaeology done in their great palaces. Their language remains un-deciphered. We see in Minoan art and architecture a possible look into a world where the patriarchal reality we know today was not so stringent. Where the later warrior culture of the Greeks was not the norm, and the religions of the Goddesses of Greece may have gotten their start.
The second of these cultures, or group of cultures, are the Indo-European peoples of the steppes, who not only colonized the lands of Greece and most of Europe, Persia and India as well. The tribes of peoples who moved from the central Asian steppes into the Middle East and Europe brought with them strong Gods whose paradigm was vastly different from that of the peoples who inhabited the island of Crete and the surrounding areas. We see here, in the migrations of these people, the future of the patriarchal hierarchy that would become the great Olympian Pantheon, but it is a Pantheon that would not grow into being simply one a conquering people, but one of a people both conquering and being conquered by the cultures they encountered.
As the migrations of Indo-European peoples proceeded over thousands of years, the lands of Europe would become the homelands of the Indo-European peoples who would become the great Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic Tribes and would give rise to the Germans, the Galls, the Romans, Spaniards, French, Russians, Poles, and in the lands surrounding the Aegean, the Greeks. But along the way the Indo-Europeans did as all migrating tribes do, they merged with the local peoples. Sometimes peacefully, sometimes not, and in Greece, this slow process gave rise to the second great civilization of Greece, the civilization we call the Mycenaeans, so named after the great city of Mycenae, home of the legendary Agamemnon, the great king who lead the war against the Trojans, part of another Indo-European civilization known to us today as the Hittites.
The Mycenaeans and their warrior culture come to us almost fully relized in the myths and legends of the Greek people. The Trojan War, the Odyssey, the great subjects of the works of Aeschylos and Ovid, that great Roman poet, all stem back into the legendary past that forged the next stage in Aegean civilization, The Classical Greeks.
The civilization of the Mycenaeans, the first Greeks, fell to the wayside. Natural disasters, economic collapse due to war, and the migrations of new Indo-European tribes into the area all combined to create what we call a Dark Age. During this time, there is little if any information available, though unlike the later Hellenes, the Mycenaeans did not have a literary language. They did not record their stories, poems, epics for us to read. But the oral traditions survived the centuries into the rebirth of the Greek culture, left to cook under the Aegean sun as the various tribes merged and split, migrated back and forth across the lands of Greece and across the Aegean.
The stories of the Mycenaeans survived, if altered, through centuries of retelling, and eventually, as the Hellenic civilization rose from its illiterate darkness, they were written down.
The first poets to tell the stories were Homer and Hesiod. Hesiod is most often accepted as a real man, while Homer is a name given to the writer of the Iliad and Odyssey, but there is no certainty about whether he was a real person or an amalgam of many poets.
Whatever the case may be, the poems of Hesiod, which were rather religious in nature, and those of Homer, which were exciting tales of Kings past, would set the tone for the literary explosion and grandeur of the Hellenes, the civilization this religion is based in.
The Hellenic civilization would go through many forms. Its political system divided and often warring, would eventually lead to the rise of a major power, one which would conquer the world they knew and in that sudden flash of power exhaust itself too much to avoid being conquered byb the civilization that had risen to the West, the Romans.
But the Hellenistic Age, as we call it, that followed the death of Alexander would also give rise to an immense level of religious change for the Hellenic people who were now spread out all over the known world. From far in the East where Hellenic philosophy and religion influenced the Persian and Indian religious systems to the West where the Romans would fall victims to the conquering power of Hellenic thought. For while the Romans conquered the Greeks militarily, the Hellenes conquered the Romans culturally, and everything from their architecture to their religion became Hellenized little by little.
Through the conquering Romans, the Hellenes would spread their wisdom, their art, their science throughout Europe, and in the end, we must acknowledge that all of European civilization owes much of its very nature to the Greeks. And ass Classical civilization fell victim to Christianity and its zealous destruction of anything "pagan", Europe would safeguard their history and their legacy for love of the very beauty that lies within the Greek heart.