An entire prehistoric civilisation dating back over 3,600 years. The terrible thing is the people here did have foreknowledge of the disaster. ibid.
My voyage takes me to the largest island in Greece … In ancient history Crete was a superpower. In myth it was the famous birthplace of gods and myths. A Greek Odyssey with Bettany Hughes IV
Knossos: this is a huge palace that covers over six acres … There are images of bulls everywhere here … Crete is home to of the most famous legends of all time: the Minotaur, half-man, half-bull. ibid.
Peloponnese: a peninsula connected to the Greek mainland by bridges over a 6km canal … Home to one of the greatest Bronze-Age civilisations – the Mycenaeans. A Greek Odyssey with Bettany Hughes V
Known for producing some of history’s toughest fighters from the warrior heroes of the Bronze-Age Greeks about three and half thousand years ago to the ancient Spartans who dominated this wild landscape a thousand years later. ibid.
Corfu: Odysseus’s arrival here is super-dramatic … [Poseidon] has made Odysseus’ life completely miserable. A Greek Odyssey with Bettany Hughes VI
Corfu became a British protectorate leaving monuments all over the island … Odysseus described this island as Heaven on Earth. ibid.
Ithaca: Odysseus goes under cover. Only the dog Argos, his faithful pet, recognises him. Odysseus was right to be wary: at home all is not well. ibid.
Zeus overthrows his elders and becomes supreme. He is now top god. Professor Bettany Hughes, Divine Women I: When God Was a Girl, BBC 2012
Zeus was wiser than any other god ... or any woman. ibid.
Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, enchantress. Professor Bettany Hughes, Divine Women II: Handmaids of the Gods
It’s Athens that gave us our ideal of a city ... of a citizen ... The Athens of antiquity is an extraordinary achievement. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Building the Ancient City: Athens and Rome I: Athens, BBC 2015
In the narrow Thermopylae pass in northern Greece 7,000 ancient Greek soldiers await an onslaught of epic proportions. They will soon face the largest fighting force ever assembled at the time. Nearly 300,000 soldiers of the mighty Persian empire. Leading the Greeks are 300 of the most ferocious warriors of the ancient world: the Spartans ... Modern estimates suggest about 300,000 strong. But others believe it may have been as high as 2,000,000. 300 Spartans: The Last Stand, History 2007
Leonidas chose his finest warriors, but only those who had fathered sons to ensure their bloodline would survive. ibid.
By the time the Persians arrived at Thermopylae and Artemisium a year later the Greeks had added over a hundred additional ships to the fleet. But still the Persian fleet outnumbered the Greek fleet nearly six to one. Themistocles was about to discover whether his efforts to build the Athenian Navy had been in vain. ibid.
Both prepare for the second Persian attack. Xerxes sent in the hammer and fist of the Persian army, the silent and masked heavy infantry called the Immortals. ibid.
Ancient superweapons as mighty as today’s … Archimedes’ Claw … A group of men could grab and tip enemy ships … Just the first of Archimedes’ many game-changing inventions … A death ray … long debated … by harnessing the power of the sun. Ancient Impossible s1e3: Ultimate Weapons, History 2014
Could Archimedes’ cannon have had the power needed for such destruction simply using steam? ibid.
The fabled heights of Mount Olympus, home of larger-than-life beings who were lover, warriors and sacred healings; immortal deities with failures that were all too human. They were the lords of Heaven and Earth. In Search of History s2e15: The Greek Gods, History 1997
Zeus was crowned the supreme ruler of gods and mortals. ibid.
Hercules symbolised the ultimate super-human. ibid.
Greece 5th century BC: over the course of three decades a city and its people led by one man’s rise to greatness. This is Athens, the birthplace of democracy. But it is Pericles’ city. Pericles built impregnable fortifications. The first senate house. A complex network of pipes to supply his people with fresh water. The most powerful navy in the ancient world. And temples. Lost Worlds: Athens – Ancient Supercity, History 2005
High above the Necropolis, the Parthenon stood as a testament to Athens’ status: it was a superpower. ibid.
On his descent into the underworld the Greek hero Theseus lost his memory. For four years he was trapped there constantly goaded and attacked by serpents. Gates of Hell, 2010
In Greek mythology Orpheus ventured into Hades to save his wife Euripides. ibid.
Hades was the Hell of the ancient Greeks. ibid.
On the southernmost tip of the Greek mainland on the Peloponnese coast portals to Hades have been identified. ibid.
In this film I will reveal how Greek’s myths of their battling gods was shaped by the minds of people from a particular place, living at a time that has been described as a dark age. Professor Robin Lane Fox, Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes, BBC 2010
The Ashmolean Museum ... Here I always reflect how Greek art, philosophy, politics, are at the roots of our Western world. And at the heart of their legacy lie the Greek myths. ibid.
Ruling over them – Zeus himself, the father of gods and men. The most exiting of these myths are the stories of wars of the gods in Heaven. I believe we can understand their roots. ibid.
And in their travels I believe the Euboeans encountered landscapes and stories that inspired new myths. ibid.
Myths were never fixed. They evolved and mutated. ibid.
The pagan Greeks had no scriptures; they had many gods who never died. They never expected mercy from them. They prayed to them as if they were great aristocrats in heaven. Unpredictable in their favours to mortals. And unpredictable in their quarrels. ibid.
Of course the story of Aphrodite is connected to much grander stories in Heaven – When Father Heaven is castrated of course, blood and white sperm flies everywhere. And according to the Greeks when the sperm falls down into the sea somebody very significant is born from it ... Aphrodite. ibid.
Long before Christ, Mount Ida was a sort of pagan Bethlehem. Because of its role in the myth of the Greek’s supreme God – Zeus. That myth begins with Zeus’s father Kronos, who had castrated his own father Heaven. But it was prophesied that Kronos himself would be overthrown by his son. So he swallowed his babies at birth. ibid.
At Delphi a prophetess would predict the future as an oracle. Her prophecies were made here at the Temple of Apollo itself. In response to petitioners’ questions she would enter a trance, and her garbled words were later translated into elegant hexameter verse. ibid.
Mount Cassius was a holy mountain for the Hittites. The Hittites’ old empire had fallen around 1,200 B.C. four centuries before Nubians settled here. At its peak it had ruled over a vast swathe of land. ibid.
The stories we know from other Hittite texts about the many battles and fights of the Hittite gods for control in Heaven. Most remarkably, these Hittite myths share many details with the Greek myths of how their ruling gods came to power. The myths are so similar. Did the Hittite one influence the Greeks? ibid.
One of the stories we have of the Hittite snake monster is that at first it defeated the storm god Tarhunda then stole his eyes and heart, which he hid in a cave. In later Greek myth, Zeus too is defeated at first by the snaky monster – in Greek Typhon. On Mount Cassius itself we’re told. ibid.
Away at the furthest edge of the Greek world – In the mid-8th century B.C. the Euboeans founded settlements on the island of Sicily’s eastern shore. And every day dominating the view was the great volcano Mount Etna. ibid.
Homer was composing I believe around 750 B.C. ibid.
Across a vast expanse of sea, Euboeans linked the evidence they saw and made sense of it through myth. ibid.
They live still vivid in our world. ibid.
In a way, it’s nice to know that there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you’re walking away from a bus that’s just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it’s raining on top of everything else, most people might think that’s just really bad luck; when you’re a half-blood, you understand that some divine force is really trying to mess up your day. Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse
Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing! Alexander Pope, translation of The Iliad