Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

294 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
discovers what he has done, he is so appalled by his crimes that
he blinds himself. This act of self-mutilation, which is undertaken
in response to his previous ignorance about his own identity, has
a deeply symbolic meaning. Oedipus might have hanged himself,
as he does in another version of the story. But it was central
to Sophokles’ interpretation that the king should go on living after
learning the tragic facts about his identity. In other words, he lives
on with his understanding enlarged but darkened, and in the
full consciousness of his own unintended crimes. Sophokles thus
infuses the myth with his own personal vision of the human condition,
for which Oedipus is the quintessential symbol.
Myths were not, therefore, immutable artifacts written in stone.
There was never any official version of a myth, though some versions
inevitably became more popular than others. This did not
prevent different versions from coexisting in different places and
at different times—or even at the same time. Such a state of affairs
was probably the rule rather than the exception. Although myths
were the common property of all Greeks, they often bore a distinctly
localized character. Each city-state disseminated its own
versions and gave prominence to those myths that celebrated its
own local heroes and local deities. That is why there can never be
a “right” interpretation of what a myth “really means” in the way
that some modern interpreters, such as Joseph Campbell, have fancifully
suggested.
Our primary source for the study of Greek mythology is Greek
literature. The oldest surviving myths are to be found in the poems
of Hesiod and Homer. There is no evidence to suggest that Hesiod
or Homer invented the myths they incorporate, however. Another
important early source is an anonymous compilation of works called
The Homeric Hymns, which contain charter myths that explain the
establishment of cults in honor of the various Olympian deities. In
addition, many of the best-known myths were dramatized by Athens’s
tragedians, who, as discussed earlier, for the most part set their
plays in Greece’s heroic past. The most comprehensive anthology is
Apollodoros’s Library, which was probably written in the late first or
early second century c.e. It is the product of a period when myth had
become foremost a subject of antiquarian interest. The visual arts,
particularly vase painting and sculpture, also provide a useful source
of information. In fact, mythology, along with scenes of daily life,
are the two chief sources of inspiration for vase painting, though we
should not think of them as necessarily separate from one another;
scenes that depict myths may also shed light on daily life.