gods and heroes

 
Gods and heroes : mythology around the world
by Korwin Briggs

2018

pp.24─26
Athena
tradition:  greek / roman
home:  mount olympus
also known as:  Pallas athene, Minerva (Roman)

If you ever find yourself facing a perilous journey, impossible task, or deadly monster, you will want to talk to Athena.  She is a wise judge, an expert crafts woman, and the best tactician on Mount olympus.
  Athena's wisdom isn't the wisdom of age, experience, folksy lessons, or family remedies.  Athena's wisdom is about good judgement, sharp wits, and an impeccable sense of timing.  She has a habit of showing up right when she's needed, with solutions that no one even considered.  The sea god Poseidon made horses, but Athena invented the bridle.  The goddess Demeter might make fields fertile, but Athena provides the plow, the rake, and the plot.  Ares, god of war, may be a daring warrior, but Athena is the better strategist.  Let the other gods swing their power around ─ Athena wins battles before they even start. 

pp.25─26
   
─
p.116
Inanna and her consort, Tammuz, are the subject of one of the oldest love poems in human history, but it's a little too risqué to repeat here. 

pp.152─154
Mithra
tradition : persian / indian / roman
home : various (usually the sky)
also known as : mitra (indian), mithras (roman)

There is evidence of Mithra worship from prehistory to 300 ce, in areas stretching from India to England.  Even more interesting, it wasn't all continuous.  He would lose importance in one civilization and seem to disappear, only to find new worshippers, hundreds of years later and thousands of miles away.  
   Despite the wide range in time and place, all versions of Mithra have a few things in common.  He's a god of light and sunshine, a guardian of friendships, contracts, and oaths.  He defends the order of the universe ── sky above, Earth below, people in the middle, and everything working as it should. 

Mitra in india
THe first version of Mithra on record come from India and Persia.  In India, he was called Mitra and had a twin brother named Varuna ── together, they were gods of light, order, and agreements.  Mitra was the friendlier of the two and handled alliances between humans, while Varuna dealt with the relationships between humans and gods.  

Mithra in persia
At the same time as Mitra was fading in India, Mitra was gaining worshippers in Persia as Mithra, 
a new religion, Zoroastrianism, 
But then, around 330 bce, a Greek guy named Alexander the Great conquered Persia, and Mithra (along with a lot of ancient Persian culture) largely disappeared.

Mithras in rome
There's evidence of Mithras worship across the Roman world, as far away as modern-day France and England. 
The strange part is, no one is really sure why.  Was it a political thing?  Was there some super influential Mithras prophet that we have lost all record of?  No one knows. 

  Roman Mithraism was a very different religion from its Persian ancestor.  It was what scholars call a mystery religion ─ a secret religion, separate from the imperial cult, known only to its initiates.  It also had a strict no-girls allowed policy.  Mithras himself was still a god of the sun and promises, but now with a heavy emphasis on the relationship between kings and their soldiers.  
  Mithras worship ended at the same time as most other parts of Roman paganism and for the same reason:  Christianity.  A bunch of Romans converted to Christianity, and then an Emperor did, and then most of the rest of them did, and that was that.  Goodbye, Mithras. 

·‘’•─“”
index
entries by tradition
mythologies around the world
  inuit
  northwestern north american
  american great plains
  southwestern north american
  hawaiian
  mesoamerican [central america]
  maori
  incan (western coast of south america)
  norse (iceland, norway, sweden, netherland) 
  celtic 
  greek/roman
  slavic
  west african
  east african
  egyptian
  sumerian / mesopotamian / persian
  indian / hindu
  chinese
  central asian 
  japanese / shinto
  australian

Korwin Briggs is the creator of Veritable Hokum, a webcomic about weird, funny, fascinating stories from history and mythology.  He lives in New York under a pile of sketchbooks. 

·‘’•─“”
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πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα
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