Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

302 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
that humans originally possessed four arms, four legs, and two
heads. Being globular, they were able to propel themselves at high
speed by using all eight limbs so that they moved “like tumblers
performing cartwheels.” They were so arrogant, however, that they
attempted to scale Mount Olympos and attack the gods. By way of
punishment, Zeus bisected them from head to toe, thereby creating
the human body in its present form. Aristophanes ends with a stern
warning that if human beings misbehave in the future, they run the
risk of being bisected yet again and having to hop about on one leg!
Fanciful though this myth is, it nonetheless makes some important
points about human identity. Because these globular beings came in
three forms before they were bisected—male-male, female-female,
and male-female—the myth provides us with an explanation as to
why some people are attracted to members of the opposite sex and
others to members of the same sex: in Aristophanes’ view, we are
all seeking our missing half.
The primary importance that Plato attached to myth, coupled with the
degree to which he regarded it as an indispensable tool for attempting to
make sense of the world, is reflected in the following comment that he puts
into the mouth of Sokrates at the end of Republic (621bc). He tells the myth
of Er, a man of Pamphylia who died and came back to life when he was
about to be cremated and described what he had witnessed in the other
world and concludes: “And so, Glaukos, the mythos was saved and did not
perish, and, if we pay attention to it, it may save us.”
Did the Greeks Believe Their Myths?
Giants with a single eye in the center of their foreheads, hideous
hags with the capacity to petrify those who gazed upon them, monstrous
snakes with numerous heads that doubled in number if they
were lopped off—did the Greeks actually believe this crazy stuff?
The question does not permit a simple answer. Even the ultrarationalistic
historian Thukydides did not dismiss outright the monstrous
Cyclopeans as purely imaginary. In his discussion of Sicily,
where this fabulous race was thought to have once resided, he gives
the following cautious pronouncement:
The most ancient inhabitants are said to be the Cyclopes. . . . I cannot say
who their relatives were nor where they came from or where they went.
We have to content ourselves with what the poets said and with what
anyone else knows. (6.2.1)