"We all want a place to live, a place to die, and a way to love"

Greek mythology was the last of my Rome seminar Saturday adventures. Thinking about Greek mythology takes me time traveling back to the 6th grade once again. That was the year I realized my love for history. I had become captivated by Greek mythology, remembering every story and reciting them to anyone who would listen. The four sixth grade classes all participated in a “Greek Olympics” at the end of the school year. I had never been so willing to study in my life. I was quite the Renaissance gal, I ran in all of the girls races, participated in every academic game, and even drew posters for our events (though I am no Michelangelo). So upon hearing that Greek mythology was one of our seminars I became instantly excited. It has been some time since the 6th grade and I was glad I would be able to refresh forgotten tales hidden somewhere in the back of my mind.

I woke up Saturday morning with Walter, a rambunctious poodle lying on top of me, and Ella, a four year old I babysit every now and then saying in shock, “Walter! What are you doing? She’s sleeping!” in her adorable trying to whisper voice. I had woken up laughing; I knew it was going to be a good day.

I came running into Sacramento High School trying to avoid the rain. Since I had never had Mrs. White as a teacher before I made my way to her room unsure of what to expect. We all sat down and Mrs. White just dove right in. One thing I had always liked about Greek mythology is the atmosphere it is always taught in: nothing is so serious; it is as if you are sitting down to coffee with a friend and just chatting. It is all so important but it is relaxing. We discussed why it is important to study Greek mythology if we are going to Rome. Rome, just like many other religions and countries, realized a good way to get others on Rome’s side is to intertwine others beliefs to fit Rome’s. Throughout Rome’s history, religion, mythology, and art we find many old Greek myths. Romans took the Greek God’s and just changed the name and made them a little less extreme. Sound familiar? How about, Christmas being so close to Yule, in an effort to convert Pagans to Christianity? Practically the same thing.

The Greeks had their own ideas of how man was created. A story everyone in this world is still looking for today. Creation began with Chaos, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros: Chaos, Earth, the underworld, and love. As Mrs. White put it, “We all want a place to live, a place to die, and a way to love,” it is true. The Greeks constructed this family line of Gods that fit with what everyone wanted to hear. From these four Gods come the details: death, fate, sleep, doom, night, light, sky, sea, and so on and so forth.

Eventually the Olympians come into Godly power. We all have heard something about the Olympians, it is so prevalent in our pop culture today it’s hard not to realize it. The picture at the beginning of this blog is me dressed up as Athena (my favorite Greek God) for Halloween a few years back. Some may think that these old stories mean nothing to us nowadays, but really they mean everything. Kids dress up as these characters for Halloween, people produce movies about these Gods, car companies are named after the God of travel, and many have rewritten books and plays about them. Pyramus and Thisbe, the story of two lovers running away to secretly meet, because their families forbid them to be together, does that not sound like: Romeo and Juliet, the story of two lovers running away to secretly meet, because their families forbid them to be together? Every fable in Greek mythology is used today. We may not be sacrificing horses into the sea so Poseidon will grant us a safe journey, but we still look up to some of these characters as heroes or entertainers. Some of these God’s were scum, some were inspiring, and some just let people enjoy a good story. Greek mythology was a way to find meaning in everyday life. To understand why the seasons change, to have an excuse to why people get punished for no good reason. We still use these excuses. It is such a good form of entertainment; why not use something that has worked for so long? Sure, we have changed certain aspects of these stories: in today’s world it is no longer appropriate to create Gods that rape innocent people.

That is the major thing I walked away with after my last seminar, that we are all just looking for answers to life’s questions, and that we will keep revising stories to help put our minds at ease. We have been doing it since the beginning of time. We may have differences in belief but one thing is the same, we all want to know there is a reason for us and everything else in this world.

I have learned a lot from these past few Saturdays. The joy of traveling through others eyes, dusting off thousands of years of history and art work, laughing and eating donuts with peers that all have the same hope in mind, and to really think deeper about everything I had been hearing. I greatly appreciate Mr. Sullivan, Mrs. Everett, and Mrs. White for giving us their Saturdays to share their knowledge. Thank you all.


Kathleen Snook

Greek Mythology: The greatist game of telephone ever played.

"Trying to teach Greek Mythology in 3 hours is like trying to teach all of U.S History in 20 minutes." The words of Mrs. White ring even more true when trying to condense century's of Mythology in a single blog post. So with all that in mind, please enjoy my attempt.

This past Saturday was the last of our weekend seminar classes. Getting up that morning was disheartening not because i had to wake up before noon on a Saturday but because i knew the end of this amazing experience was drawing near. Pushing aside my woebegone emotions I decided to embrace the inevitable by arriving to school 20 minutes early. However, even showing up early did not seem to make the day last any longer. So when the clock struck 10 I walked into Mrs. Whites office and prepared myself for a day of Greek Mythology.
The first thing that we talked about was the rich oral tradition of story telling that the Greeks had cultivated many years ago. This to me was an important way to start off because it answered my burning question as to why there were so many inconsistencies in these myths. Laying out to me that man kind had basically been playing a giant game of telephone with most of Greek Mythology allowed me to settle in and take Mrs. Whites interpretation for what it was. As we moved on we talked about how mythology was interwoven in all aspects of our culture. From Homer and the lliad, Ovaid and The Metamorphis and how colonialism fueled the spread of all this. As we went deeper and deeper Mrs. White explained to use that the fundamental reasons behind most of these myths was to explain the unknown. I found that very interesting that even with all of our modern day technology and science we still cherish these myths.

As the morning flew past and the afternoon drew closer we began to talk about my favorite aspect of Greek Mythology , the Heroes. From Heracles to Odysseus, the archetype that we judge a hero by today comes from these stories. My favorite of these being the story of Theseus because it has everything. From a father son relationship doomed for tragedy, romance doomed for tragedy and of course a terrifying monster doomed for tragedy. Even though i had seen these stories repeated countless times it was really amazing to hear the original in all of its greatness

At the end of our lesson i thought to myself just how different each of our seminars were compared to one another. Roman History with Mr. Sullivan was like auditing a college lecture., the booming voice of the professor going so fast that my pencil and my brain could hardly keep up. Art History with Mrs. Everrett was like going back to the simpler days of elementary school, were you learned, laughed and made a poster with pretty markers. Finally, Greek Mythology with Mrs. White could only be described as your cooler older sibling trying to describe how awesome college is and enjoying every second of it. Thank you all for giving up your weekends and giving all of us this amazing opportunity.

Dennis Johnson

The Same Old Archetype

Saturday’s seminar on Greek mythology was my favorite one yet. It was a little easier because we started later than usual around 10 o’clock. Since I have been reading books on Greek mythology the past couple of months this again was a recap of what I have already learned. We basically reviewed from the beginning of the world according to the Greeks to the heroes of Greek mythology.

A significant point to me was the different kinds of literature written on Greek myth like the Odyssey and Iliad. It seemed like those stories went more in depth on the myth than any of the books I have read. It was also interesting to learn the Greek notation of the beginning of the world. We talked about how it all started with Gaia and Chaos and then stemmed on to the Titans and the Olympians. It’s interesting seeing the contrasts from what they believed in and what we believe now. I also noticed how the patterns of the Gods and heroes are just about the same, like how Uranus knew that one of his children would take power from him and the same thing happened with Cronus and Zeus.

My favorite part of the seminar was when we talked about the old archetypes in Greek myth and how they repeat themselves in stories we still hear today. Also how the Shakespearean classic Romeo and Juliet was really similar to Pyramus and Thisbe. I also realized the stories repeated themselves in the bible when I saw that the story of Cain and Abel are strangely similar to the story of Remus and Romulus, Rome’s very own founders. Until this seminar I had never realized how active Greek mythology is in our stories and literature today. The Greeks seemed to be the original writers of these old archetypes.

-Tre’von Walker

CLASH OF THE TITANS

As we woke to explore the city for another day, we were talking about how roman art and other things are based off Greek mythology, and it's a trip to say the least. There are so many hook ups and break ups, they are like, as one news reporter said, "serial adultists". There are six major gods that every knows about. Zeus, ruler of the sky, Hades, ruler of the underworld, Posieden, ruler of the sea, Aphrodite, goddess of love, Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Hera, goddess of marriage.

Our docent was super cool and super easy to talk to. As we walked walked through the city in all its grandeur while chompin' down on some delicious strawberry and banana gelato he told us the story of how Persephone become the wife of Hades, and it goes something like this.
Hades is the God of wealth and ruler of the dead. Hades was happy with with earth because all the riches belonged to him and sooner or later every mortal would eventually come to him. The problem was that his domain, the caves, were dark and depressing so his fellow gods did not like his company. Over the years Hades became jealous of the progress of his brothers and there women. Persephone was unlike Hades in every way possible, but of course dignity would not let Hades chase or talk to her. Hades thought that he deserved a queen. One day Persephone was out with her maidens just happy and being joyful for being alive, all of a sudden the ground cracked and four black horses raced out with Hades at reins. Hades captured Persephone and took her back to his domain and the cracked closed behind them. Hades gave her tour where disembodied souls flickered like candle flames, then he crowned her on an ebony thrown rusted with the souls of the dead. When Demeter heard the news she wept as she walked across the earth and everything died. So Hades turned to his only friend Hermes (the bringer of souls to Hades, so he would take her back to Demeter). As Hades packed farewell gifts for Persephone, Hermes walked with Persephone in her underground garden. He gave her a pomegranate (fruit of the dead) and excited ate SIX, and forever belonged to the land of the dead. Zeus tries fix things now and he rules that Persephone is to live with Demeter six months of the year and Hades six months of the year. Thus spring, summer, winter, and fall.
These guys are off the hook, man what interesting tale and there is plenty more where that came from. This is Nicholas Banford a.k.a. Van wilder signing off with your Roman Report /=~)))))))))))