Greek myths and legends form the richest, most fertile collection of stories in Western culture, if we exclude the Bible. Yet despite their diversity they tend to share a common outlook on life. The Greeks cherished life and believed in living it to the fullest degree, since death was an inevitable fact. While the mystery cults accepted the idea of a resurrection after death, they were a minority. To Homer death was a dismal state, whereas life itself was dangerous, thrilling, glorious. If the ordinary person was bound to perish, so were the great royal dynasties and the mightiest heroes. But this idea did not sadden the Greeks as it had the Babylonian scribes who wrote of Gilgamesh. The Greeks responded with enthusiasm. They felt the only answer to death that was worthy of a man was to carve an imperishable legend by magnificent deeds. The Greeks pursued fame with astonishing energy in the five centuries from Homer to Alexander the Great. They were a tough, restless, ambitious, hard-living, imaginative race. But their lust for reputation made them touchy about their honor, for they were also feisty and vengeful. Their stories show all of these traits in abundance.
The Olympian gods mirrored these Greek qualities faithfully, being quarrelsome, unforgiving deities who enjoyed warring, banqueting, and fornicating. They were always depicted in human form with beautiful, powerful bodies. Thus they were not only humanly intelligible but extremely pleasing to the eye as well. The Greeks greatly admired strength, beauty, and intelligence. And to them man was the measure of all things.
Few mythologies have produced such a wealth of heroes. This was the natural result of the Greek urge for fame. The heroes tend to be adventurers and fighters—bold, experienced, fierce, strong, and often clever. Their feats were far above those of ordinary humanity. However, they also had serious failings that sometimes ruined them: flaws such as overweening pride, rashness, cruelty, which arose from the very source of their successes—ambition. With Greek heroes ambition was intense, occasionally aspiring to godlike powers. As models of human excellence they provided standards for Greek youths to emulate.
The legends of tragic dynasties show this same ambivalence. Despite their worldly power the royal families of Crete, Mycenae, Thebes, and Athens were afflicted with their own particular faults that rendered them vulnerable to disaster: pride of power, ruthlessness in getting revenge, stubbornness in pursuing some goal, and sexual conflict. No race has understood quite as clearly as the Greeks how character is destiny, or how our very achievements can stem from the same source as crime.
In the tale of the Trojan War, the heroic and tragic elements are blended. This is perhaps the finest legend of Greek culture. The chief heroes of this story, Achilles and Hector, were doomed to a premature and violent death, but there was a measure of grandeur in their code of honor and in their defiance of fate. Most of the survivors, too, were doomed or suffered a long ordeal. It was a war which no one would win.
In the end the ancient Greeks achieved the permanent fame they sought so avidly. And their mythology has been a mainstay of Western art and literature for well over two thousand years.
