1.5

Question 1

Boradly, what is a hero considered to be in Greek culture?
What did they attract?
What was the hero’s tomb often the focus of?
What are the two exceptions?
Why?

Answer 1

An exceptional being who continued to have power over events even after death
Cultic worship
cultic activity
Herakles and Asclepuis
they were believed to have become gods after death

Question 2

What did Hesiod define heroism as?
Which source evidences this?
What are the five ages of man?
When were heroes alive?
Which period does this equate with?

Answer 2

something essentually connected with WHEN someone lived
Works and Days - The Five Ages of Man
Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, Iron - men were like gods in gold and less godlike in Iron
Heroic Age
Trojan War

Question 3

Which scholars and ideas are involved in the scholarly debate of the Origin of Hero Cults?
In which century did hero cults suddenly arise?

Answer 3

Rohde (1898) - socio-political origins
Farnel (1921) - cultural origins
8th century BC

Question 4

What is Rohde’s view on the origin of hero cults?
What were these focused on?
When were Mycenaean times?

Answer 4

evolved out of ancestor cults
The tombs of respected community forebearers
c.1600-1100BC

Question 5

According to Rohde, what were hero cults a result of?
Why?
Which caused?
How?
Alternatively…?
Thus?

Answer 5

ancestor cults + the rise of the polis
city states were politically competitive
Nobles who were jostling for authority to adopt ancestor cults
Inserting their names into their own genealogies to gain influence
communities would want to transform ancestors into symbols and guardians of the polis
Heroising them

Question 6

What is Farnell’s view on the origin of hero cults?
why did Farnell believe hero and ancestral cults were unrelated?
What further suggests this?

Answer 6

They were a late invention encouraged by the spread of Homer’s poetry
They involved different forms of cult: ancestor cults were about TENDANCE (honouring forebearers) and hero cults were about worship
Hero cults were found outside of the hero’s (supposed) home territory

Question 7

What type of function did hero cults serve in some cases?
Give one example
What was attributed ot him?
Where did Theseus die?
So what did Athenians do?
With help from what?
In which year?
According to whom?
How often were offerings made?
What occured every year?
What role did Theseus therefore serve?

Answer 7

Political functions
Theseus
The unification of Attica
Scyros, an island outside of Athenian control
recover the bones from Scyros and deposit them in Athens in the THeseion
A miracle?
476BC
Plutarch (Life of Theseus 36)
monthly
Theseia festival
community-forging role

Question 8

Give another example of hero cults serving a political function
What century?
who gave an account of this?
Who tried to banish who during a war with who?
Why didn’t he?
What did he do instead?
How did he destroy the other hero’s cult?
What does this show?

Answer 8

Adrastus and Melanippus
6th BC
Herodotus - Histories 5.67
Cleisthenes of Sicyon tried to banish Adrastus during war with Argos
An oracle advised against it
Ask Thebes to give Sicyon their hero Melanippus (supposed to have hated Adrastus)
by transferring his sacrifices and festivals to Melanippus
A clear fusion between religious belief and political expediency

Question 9

What was another role of Hero cults?
What are good examples of heroes meeting personal needs?
Give an example
Where?
Where was the sanctuary?
What did visitors come looking for?

Answer 9

Assistance
Healing cults
the healing cult of Amphiaraus
Northeast Attica
Oropos
miraculous cures

Question 10

How did heroes help communities in more direct ways?
in which year?
Why?

Answer 10

Athenian believed local heroes Marathon and Theseus attended the Battle of Marathon personally
490BC
to contribute to the famous victory against the Persians