Why is a coin placed under a dead person’s tongue?
To pay Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld.
What is Hermes’s role at death?
He leads the newly released psyche to the River Styx.
Who ferries the soul across the Styx?
Charon.
What is Cerberus’s role in the Underworld?
Welcomes souls in, prevents them from leaving.
What completes the transition from life to death?
Eating the food of the Underworld at Hades’s banquet table. This seals their death.
What is a Shade?
The final form of the dead: a perfect image of the body but mindless, senseless, only able to squeak.
What is necromancy?
Ritual communication with the dead, often for advice.
How does necromancy temporarily revive Shades?
By offering fresh blood through sacrifice, which restores temporary life essence.
What famous text includes a necromancy scene?
The Odyssey — Odysseus pours blood for the dead.
What major shift appears in the Archaic age?
Philosophical reincarnation (Pythagoras, Empedocles).
What is the Myth of Er (Plato)?
Souls are judged, rewarded or punished for 1,000 years, then choose a new life.
What is a Daimon in Plato’s myth?
A guiding spirit assigned to a soul after choosing their next life.
What is the River Lethe?
The river of forgetting; souls drink from it before rebirth.
What is a mystery religion?
An initiatory cult promising personal salvation or a better afterlife. Secrets were mandatory.
What common theme do many mystery religions share?
The dying-and-rising vegetation god.
What did the Eleusinian Mysteries promise?
Admission into Elysium if initiates performed the rites correctly.
What distinguished Orphism?
Belief in a Cosmic Egg creation, reincarnation, and Orphic tablets with instructions for the afterlife.
Why were Isis and Horus popular in Greece?
Isis’s image as a protective mother mirrored later depictions of the Virgin Mary.
Who was Mithras?
A Persian dying-god born from a rock, heavily worshipped by Roman soldiers; cult excluded women.
What proto-Christian parallels exist in mystery religions?
Isis → Mary; Mithras’s birth → Christmas timing; resurrection themes; divine savior motifs.
What key difference sets Christianity apart?
Christianity emphasizes divine love — that God cares and Christ dies for humanity, unlike Greek gods.
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Intro, ages and archaelogy30
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Greek Creation & Cosmology38
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Titans and Succession myth30
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Zeus: the slut and mortals16
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Creation of women15
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The Great flood20
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Pandora, Golden Age, and Human/Nature Relations25
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Totemism and fetishism29
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Hephaestues21
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Ares and Hera in depth21
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Aphrodite24
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Aphrodite : lovers and kids33
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Artemis22
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Apollo24
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Dionysus23
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Dionysus 217
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Hermes22
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Hermes 221
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Heroes (1)39
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Roman Material (Unique to Rome)60
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Athena26
