Myths
Myths were created to link these various deities into groups, and some of these myths reveal fundamental philosophical views. These myths grouped and organized various disparate ideas about the origins and nature of the world, dealing with creation, and the ruses and combats by which the gods overcame the primeval enemies (the Titans and the Giants) and established their domain as the blessed immortals who lived a carefree existence, accepting the offerings of the humans and pursuing their own games.
One example is Hades, whose case is of interest as he was not worshipped in temples, nor prominent in art or myth. After their victory over the Titans and the Giants, Zeus and his family divided the domains among themselves. As that brother of Zeus whose lot was the Netherworld, Hades allegedly looked for a consort and kidnapped Kore, the daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter, and thus elevated her as Persephone to Queen of the Netherworld. Demeter eventually found out what happened and negotiated that Kore could return to the earth, but Kore/Persephone is obliged to return periodically to the Netherworld every year. In this fashion, cosmological relations (heaven, earth, the Netherworld, fertility, the seasons, etc.) are created simply by assigning domains and adding minor details to stories.
In this case, the building blocks came from the plains of Mesopotamia, where urban life had started. One point of origin was the early-second-millennium BCE Babylonian epic of the Creation, Enuma Elish. There, it was related how the god Marduk played a role in separating the heavens from the earth and the gods took power for themselves from the monsters that preceded their rule. Another point of origin was a tangled group of Sumerian tales, the origins of which must date to the mid-third millennium BCE. There, we find Ereshkigal, the merciless Sumerian queen of the Netherworld, and her sister Inanna (the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war) along with her consort Dumuzi (the simple herdsman).
Inanna foolishly and arrogantly insisted on going into the Netherworld. The result was not only that pleasure disappeared on earth among mankind, but also that Inanna was humiliated. To get out, Inanna was good enough to sacrifice her own divine consort Dumuzi, who was obliged to descend to the Netherworld in her place as the ransom for freeing herself. Obviously, aside from Persephone, the GraecoRoman legend of Orpheus who descended into the Netherworld to seek his wife Eurydice is also based on the same material, but used in a very different fashion (and this version is incidentally later incorporated into Christian theology).Eventually, in the Greek versions, each element could be related to the others
One also finds, for example, that the Egyptian goddess Neith has a bow and arrows, as does the huntress Artemis, but Herodotus (Histories 2.22) identified Neith with the warlike Athena probably because Neith also had a shield, like Athena (who had a spear rather than bow and arrows). And indeed, modern researchers suggest that Athena should also be related to Ugaritic Anat, who is typical of the armed goddesses of the Levant, who likewise bear spear and shield. Significantly, Ishtar’s star seems to have been transferred to Aphrodite and Venus without complications, indicating that this clearly represented a different line. Incidentally, one can note that all of this is a long way from the snakes of the Bronze Age Aegean. Thus the attributes are acquired and shift with identifications that are fluid but occasionally constant, with the basic ideas remaining stable from the Iron Age onwards (with cases such as Isis, who usurp the roles of others, remaining exceptions: see Chapter 18 by Birgitte Bogh in the present volume).
The concept of attributes (and epithets) being associated with particular gods can be traced back to third-millennium BCE Mesopotamia, and became particularly common in the eastern Mediterranean by the end of the Bronze Age (ca.
1200 BCE). Among the illustrative cases is the goddess of fate and chance Tyche. Like all the Greek gods, she was fully anthropomorphic in form but had her own attributes, a city wall on her head and a cornucopia in her hand. The cornucopia represented abundance, which was what one wished of fate. The wall was understood as representing the city, stressing that “chance” bore the city - but it was probably also a play on words related to the Greek words for “chance” (τύχη/iukhe) and “wall” (τείχος, τοίχος/ teikhos, toikhos). In the Roman world Tyche was transformed into Fortuna, with the same attributes. Interestingly, the Christian St Barbara had a tower as her attribute, allegedly because she was imprisoned in one, but her legends have no historical basis. St Barbara was the patron saint of the builders (among others), and thus one can trace her back to Tyche with her walls. Because of her attributes and persona, the goddess is easily recognizable, and the development continued over time, across boundaries and religions. It is significant that one can follow her evolution from the beginning as well. Although her origins may he earlier, the Greek goddess Tyche was particularly popular in Hellenistic times, and it is from this age that what we would call “religion” (where the gods have clearly defined spheres and attributes) gradually becomes more important, not only in Greek and Roman thought, but elsewhere as well (particularly in those areas under or in contact with Roman influence).