EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E 
Greek and Roman Mythology
Dr. Peter Struck, University of Pennsylvania
https://www.coursera.org/#course/mythology
C O U R S E   L E C T U R E 
Myth, History, and Virgil
Notes taken on December 20, 2013 by Edward Tanguay
jumping from Greek to Rome, a very different culture
we learn that the Romans borrow all of the Green myths and change the names and adopt the stories for themselves
there is some truth to that
it is more accurate to say that both Greeks and Romans were working from a common pool of Mediterranean materials which they each put their own spin on
it's not quite right to look at the Romans as being derivative of the Greeks
in Homer there was a limited amount of historical material you could reference
Virgil (70BC-19BC)
ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period
known for three works: Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid.
Virgil is writing myth within history
doing something different than what we have seen up till now
we have lots of evidence around for the historical context in which Virgil is writing
a different kind of context: myth is now being made within historical time
a higher degree of difficulty to ascertain what is historical fact and what is myth he created to build a narrative of Romans
he can't just tell a story in ahistorical cloudiness, he has to anchor it to well-known facts and stories of the time
myth has been a way to understand identity
especially in the case of Odysseus with individual identity
identities getting dissolved before our very eyes as in the case of Oedipus and Pentheus
Pentheus
banned worship of Dionysus, did not allow women of to join rites, so Dyionysus caused women to tush to Mount Cithaeron in a Bacchic frenzy, so Pentheus imprisoned Dionysus thinking him a follower but chains fell off, Dionysus lured Pentheus to spy on Bacchis rites disguised as a woman, daughters of Camus see him in a tree, thought him a wild animal, tear him apart, mother puts his head on a stick and carries it back to town, then recognized him.
with Virgil we look at identity through a new lens: the identity of a nation as a whole
not what it means to be an individual, but what it means to be a Roman
no poet up to know was try to craft a kind of Greekness for his, but this is Virgil's aim
we may be able to see it in their stories but they weren't crafting this consciously
indentity for an individual is above all a biological continuity
connections to past
but what about for a nation?
not biological, although Virgil spins it in that way
mostly myth, narrative, myths are the very stuff that national identities are made up of, takes the place of biology for individuals
Scylla and Charybdis
twin dangers
one on each side of a straight
Between Scylla and Charybdis
Charybdis is sometimes the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia, very gluttonous
Odysseus faced both Charybdis and Scylla
twin dangers of history
1. it is just a fact that happened
the past is a very place, what counts as just the facts, it depends on which facts they pick
it has to be relevant to some we, it guides the process of history
we have to weed out practically all of it
how we edit depends on a number of normative questions
2. history is made up by the winners
certainly people who have political power have an ability to make their version of events the authoritative one
history is not just fabricated and its not just there
if you want to understand a history you have to consider the process of editing
1. accuracy: are the events happening
2. fairness: is their representation fair
e.g. you could make the point that in WWII there were atrocities on both sides, but this doesn't turn out to be a fair representation of what happened
it doesn't represent the largeness and complexity of the events
when studying Virgil, you have to ask:
1. is he accurate?
2. is he fair, is he representing Romans in a fair way?