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This post is based on the publications of Professor Sarah Iles Johnston: Narrating Myths: Story & Belief in Ancient Greece and The Greek Mythic Story World. Today, these articles are chapters of her book called The Story of Myth (2018).
Her theory has inspired me to summarise her research, and support it further with myth examples from Ancient Arkadia.
A phenomenon we observe when reading the ancient Greek myths is the existence of many variations regarding their plot and their protagonists. Sometimes the difference is located on a small portion of their total plot, which automatically triggers our mind to start the process of comparison. Other times we observe one character in many and contradicted narrations, and so our common logic forces us to determine the correct myth version.
Who, indeed, is not left with the impression that Medea was a mother who took revenge from her husband by killing her children? Never mind that this version seems to have been an artistic recreation of the myth of Medea by Euripides.
At this very moment, in which our brain starts categorising the variations of the myths as valid and non-valid, Dr. Sarah Iles Johnston interferes in order to introduce a different approach for the aforementioned phenomenon. The researcher is prompted by the obsession of some people to perceive the myths as real events encapsulated inside narrative motifs of minus importance, and which patiently wait for the salvation of decoding.
Her approach brings her to the conclusion that the many versions of the survived myths are products of the popular entertaining habit of ἀείδειν, mainly in public ceremonies. The purpose of each ἀοιδὸς was to create a mind game between the listener and the narrative characters. This game, combined with the mental and emotional energy invested by the audience, was forming an intellectual connection with the protagonists.
The technique of choosing familiar protagonists and narrative motifs from the local or Panhellenic tradition, helped the narrator to attract audience. The technique of introducing new characters validated the story, and fed the confidence of those from the crowd who frequently attended such public events. The technique of departmentalising the narrative in episodes, increased the interest and human curiosity, aiding the narrator to re-attract the same consuming audience. Johnston's point of view helps us to relate to the experience of the ancient audience, simply because the above procedure resembles our own experience as a current consuming audience of today's mass media myth production.
Narrative characters
Johnston perceives the protagonists of the ancient Greek myths as plurimedial, and their hypostasis is equally confined by the total of their existing myths.
Arkas amongst others he is:
- the only son of Kallisto and Zeus
- and the twin brother of Pan, sons of Kallisto and Zeus [source]
- and the baby born by Kallisto in her human form
- and the baby born by Kallisto in bear form
- and the baby saved by Hermes
- and the baby saved by Zeus, who then gave it to Maia to raise
- and the adolescent, who together with the Arkadians they hunt Kallisto
- and the adolescent, who together with Kallisto they try to escape the Arkadians, who hunt them down
- and the hero that Zeus transforms into the Little Bear constellation
- and the sacrificial victum of Lykaon that Zeus brings back to his original (human) form
- and the founder of city Trapezous in the geographical place that once Zeus overturned a table (τράπεζα)
- and the king, whose son Trapezeus founded Trapezous
- and the king who taught the Arkadians to make bread, and to weave fabric
The fact that the mythic characters are plurimedial gives them the freedom to take part in new myths unconditionally, and the chance to remain at the forefront of Mythology.
Narrative techniques
For Johnston, no mythic character stands on his own. To the contrary, there is a Mythic Network, which grows with time, and which builds connections amongst the protagonists and their myths. This is possible due to the following procedure: an already existing narrative, lets call it narrative A, inspires someone to create a second story, lets call it here narrative B. Next, the story creator connects the two narratives with one of the methods below. The narrative B could be:
- prequel of the first myth (=the narrative B refers to events that happened before those presented in narrative A)
As narratives B we may regard the different versions existing for the events of the early lives of Telephos and his mother Auge in Tegea. These versions even include the exact location where Auge conceived her son [view source] and the location where she gave birth to him [view source]. - sequel of the myth [=the new story (narrative B) continues somehow the plot of the existing narrative A]
Here we have the myth of the tomb of Penelope in Mantineia. The myth is preserved by Pausanias. In narrative B the epic protagonist Penelope, who had fled to Sparta after she was accused and expelled by Odysseus, she then moved to the Arkadian town, where she spent the rest of her life. This story may derive directly from the epic poem or from a lost myth. [view source] - midquel of the myth (= the new narrative B fills a gap of the existing narrative A)
In this category belongs the myth from Thelpousa regarding Demeter and Poseidon. The myth is preserved by Pausanias. The narrative B refers to an incident which took place during the time when Demeter wandered in search of her daughter Persephone. Here, the narrative A is the Panhellenic myth of Demeter and Persephone. In the narrative B, Demeter was wandering next to the Arkadian river Ladon, when Poseidon approached her with erotic purpose. She transforms into a cow to avoid his attention, but he transforms into a horse and achieves the purpose. At first, Demeter was upset, but later she leaves her anger aside and has a bath in the river. Hence, Thelpousians celebrated the goddess Demeter with two epithets, Erynis and Lousia. [view source] - paraquel of the myth (=the storytime of narrative B is parallel to that of narrative A. The plot of narrative A cannot stop narrative B from choosing the same characters and subject matter, giving a new perspective).
An example, here, is the myth by Agnothemis regarding the death of Alexander the Great, The myth is preserved by Plutarch. Narrative B gives another version for the incident of poisoning (narrative A). In this myth, king Antigonos said that he heard that the poison was in fact water from the Arkadian Styx, which was transferred in a donkey's hoof, the only material to remain intact by the water's erosive power. [view source]
Johnston sees two types of episode divisions, In seriality we have stories with normal flow, divided in episodes, like rhapsodies. Such case is Ovid's version of the myth of Kallisto [view source]. The development of the plot is strongly connected with the action of the protagonists. Each scene/episode, narrates the consequences emerged by the events of the previous one: - Scene 1: Kallisto is a companion of Artemis
- Scene 2: Zeus wants to seduce Kallisto. To approach her, he transforms into Artemis and tricks her.
- Scene 3: When Kallisto no longer can hide her pregnancy, Artemis gets furious with the fact that she broke her oath to the goddess.
- Scene 4: Kallisto gives birth to Arkas, which upsets the wife of Zeus. Thus, Hera transforms Kallisto into a bear.
 |
Sketch of an Apulian vase depicting one of the
variations of the myth of Arkas and Kallisto. |
Scene 5: Arkas is an adolescent hunting in the woods when he sees the bear. The bear (Kallisto) approaches him with love, but all he sees is threat, and because he is unaware of the truth, he is ready to kill his mother.- Scene 6: Zeus, who knows the truth, transforms both of them into constellations to prevent the tragic event.
In hyperseriality the points of connection of the episodes have not yet dissolved properly. The previously autonomous myths have been put together in a whole, which does not show the coherence of seriality. In such cases, we see that it is hard to understand who is the main character of the story. The best Arkadian example of such myth, I believe, is the myth of Lykaon as it appears in Pseudo-Hyginus' Fabulea.
- Scene 1: Zeus visits Lykaon in the form of human.
- Scene 2: Zeus connects erotically with Kallisto, who gives birth to Arkas.
- Scene 3: The sons of Lykaon want to test the guests to see if he is a god.
- Scene 4: The sons mix human flesh with other meats and offer this impious meal to the guest.
- Scene 5: Zeus gets furious and overturns the table at the geographical point where later Arkas will build Trapezous.
- Scene 6: Zeus punishes the sons by throwing a thunderbolt to them.
- Scene 7: Zeus punishes Lykaon by transforming him into a wolf.
This myth is the only one to include the daughter and the grandson of the king, as well as the sons of the king. But there is no effort to show any interaction amongst the characters whatsoever. Moreover, it is the only version to present Arkas as the founder of the city Trapezous, in contrast to those that only mention the fact that the later city was built in that very location where the overturning of the table (τράπεζα) took place. We have already speculated that the myth of the king with the daughter and the grandson, and the myth with the king and the sons, were initially two different myths. [view my post] Besides, the narrative motif of the daughter of a known human character who falls in love with a god or a hero and bares his kid(s) is quite popular in Arkadia. Let's remember:
- Auge, daughter of Aleos, mates with Herakles and gives birth to Telephos.
- Kallisto, daughter of Lykaon, mates with Zeus and gives birth to Arkas
- Kallisto, daughter of Nycteus, mates with Zeus, and gives birth to Arkas
- Megisto, daughter of Keteus, mates with Zeus around the area of Nonacris, and gives birth to Arkas.
- Phylonome, daughter of Nyktimos and Arkadia, mates with Ares somewhere close to Erymathos, and gives birth to the twins Lykastos and Parrhasios. [view source]
- Phialo, daughter of Alkimedon, mates with Herakles at Ostrakina, and gives birth to Aichmagoras. [view source]
- Psophis, daughter of Eryx, mates with Herakles and leaves her at the Arkadian city Phegia, at the house of his friend Lykortas. There Psophis gives birth to Echephron and Promachos, who rename Phegia to Psophis. [view source]
Finally, we may come across to crossovering. We have seen that the chosen protagonists have some sort of connection between them. In Lykaon's myth, everyone is a relative to the king. In a Crossover case, though, the appearance of a character is unexpected and surprises the audience. Here, we get mostly known characters who serve as verification for the story, and/or as foreshadowing for the future of the story. Such character choice rewards the experienced audience.
In Arkadian Mythology, king Arkas introduces technical knowledge to facilitate his people everyday life, having first learnt by the experts of their kind. He learns how to make bread by Triptolemos, Panhellenic character with strong connection to grains and to Demeter. He learns how to weave fabric by Aristaios (original text give other name but many scholars correct it). Aristaios was connected to livestocking. [view source]
Festivals and narrator
Narrative ceremonies probably took place in social and religious celebrations. It is plausible to think that the plot chosen for each myth, was determined by the current event, the geographical location and/or the religious figure that was honoured.
Apart from causing entertainment, the narrations unconsciously promoted the worshipping of a god or hero. The main message reminded the audience that gods and heroes exist, and that they could actively participate and define their lives as they do to the lives of the characters of the narrative. After all, the events were happening in known to the audience locations from their own world (primary world), and not to another dimension (secondary world).
Audience
The fact that mythic events occurred in the very world of the audience seems to be a deliberate choice for narrators. The ancient Greek audience felt the need to identify the mythic landscape with its known Geography.
Titanomachy for the Arkadians occurred in the Arkadian site Bathos and not to the Thracian Pallene [view source]. Zeus was born in the Lykaion Mountain. [view source]
Due to the number of public celebrations, the average myth listener should have been familiar to a variety of myths and protagonists. His sources were not just the narrations, but also the theatre, the sculptures, the depictions in sanctuaries and in public places, in vases, and other personal items.
We have seen that the two depiction of the myth of Kallisto on an oinochoe and on a krater, do not correspond to any of the survived written texts. They could be lost versions or artistic perceptions. [view video 00:02:53]
The popularity of such mental gymnastics is also visible from the fact that mythopoiia reached a very complicated level in the Hellenistic poetry. Johnston recalls verse 143 from the difficult-to-read poem Alexandra of Lycophron: τῆς πενταλέκτρου θυιάδος Πλευρωνίας. Only experienced daunting-task solvers must have easily identified this with Helen, who in different myths she married 1) Theseus, 2) Menelaos, 3) Paris, 4) Deiphovos and 5) Achilleus.
Let us recall the verse 481 from the same poem: λυκαινομόρφων Νυκτίμου κρεανόμων (=of those wolfshaped who cut in pieces Nyktimos). We understand that the mythic event described is the human sacrifice and the impious meal. What we are unable to do though, is to trace the myth that the passage is based on, since the only version which points Nyktimos as the sacrificial victim, also says that the sacrifice was made by a single person, Lykaon. [view source], [view the victims on video 00:01:47] Mythographers of the following centuries wrote down as many myths as they could, creating thematic collections. In these collections we see an emphasis to rare details. In the following years, the complex poems of the Hellenistic period, including Alexandra, were very popular amongst the scholiasts of the Byzantine period, who saved ancient scripts through copying and commenting.