In quest for the seed idea

By Claudio Mollo

The Phlegrean fields, Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Sorrento, Amalfi and Paestum.
Greek-Roman and Judeo-Christian is our culture.
A special light shines over southern Italy: thoughts, remarks and the considerations of a free thinker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claudio Mollo
• Release date: Apr 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835800026

Book preview

Phillips).

Greek Olympus

According to Greek mythology in the beginning there was Chaos, that is, the mixture of all things in a vacuum. (Esiodo, DCC Rizzoli)

C H A O S generated ---> GAEA       (the earth)

who self-generated ---> URANUS (the sky)

which generated ---> REA  (genitrix)

                  ---> CRONOS (the time)

--->CYCLOPS-TITANS(earth powers)

then conception of ---> PROMETHEUS (foresight)

and his brother ---> EPIMETHEUS(superficiality)

later          ---> VENUS(unavoidable attraction)

finally ---> ZEUS (the events)

GAEA ----|-------- URANUS (generated by Gaea)

CYCLOPES

        |

      TITANS                              (Oceania)

        | ASIA-----GIAPETO------------------CLIMENE

        |      |  (Titan)    |          |

        |  ATLAS    |  PROMETHEUS and EPIMETHEUS

        | (Atlantes) |

        |          GIANTS

    APHRODITE(Venus) |

        |            |

(Mother)REA--------CHRONOS-or-(Saturn)------FILLIA

|      (Titan)              |

            ZEUS                      CHIROS (Centaur)

            |

  (Cérès) DEMETER--------------------------ZEUS(as lover)

|        |        (Kore)

(Pluto)HADES-----PERSEPHONE (Proserpine)

            |

?-----(Juno)HERA---------------ZEUS(in secret wedding)

|        |            |

(Vulcan)    |          (Mars)          (Venus)

HEPHAISTOS  |  OTRERA--ARES-----------APHRODITE

            |            |        or

            |            |  Zephyr--------Iris

            |            |        or

            |            |  Vulcan------Venus

            |            |          |

            |    PENTESILEA      EROS (Cupid)(Amore)

            |

(Neptune POSEIDON------------ANFITRITE(Legitimate wife)

            |        |

(Nymph)    |      Triton

  MAIA-----ZEUS----------------------------ALCMENA

      |    |              |

    HERMES  |    HERACLES-------AUGE(raped)

  (Mercury) |    (Hercules) |

            |            TELEFOS

|

  ZEUS-------------------SEMELE

            |          |

            |      DIONYSUS-------------APHRODITE

            |                    or

            |    HEPHAISTOS-----------APHRODITE

|                    |

|                PRIAPUS

LATONA----ZEUS------------------------METIS(First wife)

(Leto)      |                |

        ARTEMIS(Diana)      ATHENA (Virgin) (Minerva)

|

          APOLLO (twin brother of Artemis

Deities were considered to be eternal, and of course having so much time at their disposal human beings invented Myths based on incredible never ending stories.

Chronos the time was warned by a deities’ oracle that one day one of his sons would kill him. He impetuously found the solution, by swallowing his children alive. But Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon were eternal, so growing in the body of their father as soon as they were strong adults they were released from their fathers’ body. After creating the Olympus, they drew lots for the leadership of the world kingdoms.

To Zeus went the skies, to Poseidon the seas and to Hades the underworlds. Poor Hades not one of his brothers and deities ever went to visit him, of course they were immortal!

Classic poems like the Odyssey, the Iliad and the Æneid often deal with interesting stories on Southern Italy and to the Campania region in particular, concerning events, characters and considerations of the civilizations of Greater Greece, and related to the history of the Mediterranean world, starting from the Trojan War.

HESIOD was a Greek poet who lived probably during the VII century BC.

His poem, Theogony, describes deities and myths in a very detailed way. The poet is one of the major sources of mythology.

HOMER is considered to be the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. He probably lived in the VIII BC and he is the first author in Greek literature. His reports were important references for scholars in ancient history, in archaeology and in Greek mythology. His descriptions of historical events reported dates, names, sites and causes. Before him in Greece, oral culture was the main way to transmit historical events, myths, political information, and so on.

(A sculpture representing Pseudo-Homer can be seen at the Archaeomuseum of Naples).

There are no certainties on Homer’s biographical information. Plato describes Homer as the most divine among all poets. Herodotus (whose marble bust is in the Archaeomuseum Naples), who lived between 484 and 425 BC, said that Hesiod and Homer preceded him by 400 years.

Several legends report anecdotes of his interesting life and one about is death. In this tell Homer's Death is caused by the pain he suffered after failing to guess the meaning of a sentence heard during a conversation between some children which were killing lice.

The sentence was What we saw and we took we leave it, what we have not seen and not taken we bring it with us.

The image of Homer that the tradition handed down to us is that of an old blind bard (storyteller) travelling around all the cities of Greece singing the deeds of warriors who had fought under the walls of Troy.

Many historians makes the meaning of Homer deriving from the Greek or me oron he who does not see.

(from a very interesting article on National Geographic Magazine Storica # 35 January 2012).

The first stories of wars and heroes’ journeys back home were the nostoi that probably inspired Homer’s tales about heroes’ adventures after the Trojan War. These myths are the first ones ever written down. The copies we have today are the result of translations of Roman and Byzantine copyists.

Of the 5 Nostoi books only 5 lines survived, the rest was transmitted by word of mouth.

From Nostoi we have the Italian term nostalgia.

There are some obvious parallels, as well between the Iliad VIII cent BC and the epic of Gilgamesh 2000 years