Session 4 Study Questions

  1. Answer the questions below. Try to write down your answers first, and then click on the arrows to check your answers.

Story not fixed in a definitive version

The Heroic Age/Bronze Age/before the Trojan War/Mycenean age

Sophocles’ Oedipus the King

Orally transmitted through song by bards

Pandora was given to mortals as a trap, to teach them a lesson through the jar that she opens.

Golden age is the start, then the silver age, then bronze, then the heroic age, then the age of iron (this is a timeline of decline).

Herodotus said that it was Homer and Hesiod who made the Greeks conceive of the gods in an anthropomorphic way.

They come from the myth of Demeter and Persephone. The mysteries were celebrated near Athens (at Eleusis). Mysteries were secret, and initiation involved a symbolic passage from darkness to light.

2. Having watched the PowerPoint about Hades and Demeter and read the selections from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, answer the question below.

It explains the transitions of the seasons.

3. Having read the web article on the Eleusinian mysteries and made notes,  answer the question below.

When religion is so all pervasive and is a central part of civic life in every sphere, perhaps people were looking for a more dynamic and individual experience that went beyond the state experience.

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