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Classical mythology, also known as Greco-Roman mythology or Greek and Roman mythology, is the collective body and study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans. Mythology, along with philosophy and political thought , is one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later, including modern, Western culture . [ 1 ]
Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on the culture, arts, and literature of Western civilization and remains part of Western heritage and language. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes. [4]: 43
The Proto-Greek language was the most recent common ancestor of all Greek dialects. Proto-Greek split off from its nearest Indo-European relatives sometime during the European Bronze Age (c. 3rd millennium BC) and possibly even earlier, though it is unknown whether the characteristic Greek sound-changes occurred within the Greek peninsula or if Proto-Greek speakers themselves migrated into Greece.
The Greek god Zeus and the Roman god Jupiter both appear as the head gods of their respective pantheons. [121] [113] *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr is also attested in the Rigveda as Dyáus Pitā, a minor ancestor figure mentioned in only a few hymns, and in the Illyrian god Dei-Pátrous, attested once by Hesychius of Alexandria. [122]
The transmission of the Greek Classics to Latin Western Europe during the Middle Ages was a key factor in the development of intellectual life in Western Europe. [1] Interest in Greek texts and their availability was scarce in the Latin West during the Early Middle Ages , but as traffic to the East increased, so did Western scholarship.
The Wasania, a Bantu people of East African origin have a tale that in the beginning, the peoples of the earth knew only one language, but during a severe famine, a madness struck the people, causing them to wander in all directions, jabbering strange words, and this is how different languages came about. A god who speaks all languages is a ...
Ancient Greek theology was polytheistic, based on the assumption that there were many gods and goddesses, as well as a range of lesser supernatural beings of various types. There was a hierarchy of deities, with Zeus , the king of the gods, having a level of control over all the others, although he was not almighty.
Hesiod's Theogony, (c. 700 BC) which could be considered the "standard" creation myth of Greek mythology, [1] tells the story of the genesis of the gods. After invoking the Muses (II.1–116), Hesiod says the world began with the spontaneous generation of four beings: first arose Chaos (Chasm); then came Gaia (the Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all"; "dim" Tartarus (the Underworld), in ...