## Intro [00:00] hi everyone welcome back to the history in 20 podcast um today I'm joined by the wonderful Brooke who is joining me all the way from Australia so we've gone Global um Brooke is an expert in ancient Greek history and I am not at all so I thought who better to come on the podcast and talk about five ancient Greek mythical women than Brooke hi Brooke how are you I am really good thank you thank you so much for for having me I'm really excited first time being on a podcast yeah well I'm really glad you've agreed to come on it's like excellent to have you on so without any further Ado we'll make a start on the list and the first one is probably one of the more famous Greek mythical women and that is Medusa so what can you tell us about Medusa ## Medusa [00:47] yeah definitely I think she's famous to be honest for the wrong reasons um for the the misconceptions that people have around her um so Medusa is known to be you know the scary monster she has the snakes for her she turns men into stone she's evil she's wicked um but that was not the case at all um so Medusa was actually a priestess of Athena she was a or according to some mythology obviously you've got the variations they change across time um but the story I like of her is that she was the Priestess of Athena she was just a normal girl um one day she went into the temple to do her usual duties and then Poseidon saw her and you might want to put a trigger warning I don't know it's you can't really talk about Greek mythology without uh talking about sexual assault yeah fair enough well that's like the sort of warning for anyone who's like may not want to hear about that there is a sort of sexual assault trigger so if you don't want to listen just like skip this bit and yeah definitely um I'll keep it mild um so essentially she went into the the temple and Poseidon saw her thought she was the most beautiful woman he's ever saw um and sadly he did assault her in the temple and because back in these times the women were punished and of course the men got away with everything um nothing happened to Poseidon and Medusa was punished by Athena for sort of uh sacrilege against her Temple and she was supposed to be a priestess of Athena so you know how dare she do something against the goddess um so her punishment was to be turned into this monstrous being that we know her as and banished to the far ends of the world where she would never interact with anyone whatsoever um that's the the later myth that came on um sort of towards when we're heading into sort of um uh CE territory um if we're looking at BC uh she was a gorgon originally there were three sisters she was the more prettier of the ones and then that was why she was again sexually assaulted by Poseidon so it's very similar um she was still punished either way and and sent to as far away as possible so that no one would ever encounter her right that's a great like description of her and like I've I mean I've learned plenty there um just in that little little bit so I was just wondering there's one thing I've heard and I'm not sure whether it's like uh that well known or what but was there someone who was meant to find or any they couldn't see her in a mirror or something is that right you can't look in a mirror or something could you just explain that a little bit yeah so um that it was Perseus um if anyone's watched Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief they'd sort of do like a reimagining of that in there um but you're right so Perseus was sent to collect the head of Medusa um on one of his leaders and he was aided by Athena so she gave him a sword and he was able to use the sword as um like use the reflection sorry to see Medusa because he couldn't look directly at her but it was fine to look at her within the sword and then sadly he succeeded in in chopping off her head yeah I mean that's just like history summed up in it like Bradley and women get punished for it um unfortunately yes yeah well thank you for telling us about that that's a great one to get us started on so the next one we're looking at is Helen so yeah fire ## Helen [04:39] away another thing I think that's a bit of a misconception around Helen is people kind of forget her earlier years and I think her earlier years are actually probably more interesting than her later years to be honest um we all know her as you know Helen of Troy she's taken away by Paris she's taken to Troy and then you know she's the face that launched launched a thousand ships that that's what we know her as um but she has a really interesting childhood um so she was born to um sorry later um so later again apologies were sexually assaulted by Zeus um but on the same day later lay with her husband um and then she bore two eggs so out of these two eggs depending on the story they do differ um you had Clayton nestra Helen caster and Pollux this story differs on who came out of which eggs at which time but essentially Pollux and Helen were Children of Zeus and Clyde and Astra and Casta were their children of letters mortal husband um so Castor and Pollocks they're quite famous as well um they go off and join the Argonauts um they're quite heroic in their own Feats that's where the Gemini constellation actually comes from is from those Brothers um so Helen was regarded as extremely beautiful even as a young girl and at age nine she was actually kidnapped by Theseus so he took her away um and she was later rescued by her brother's cluster and Pollocks which I think is very impressive because if you think about it they were nine years old as well yeah I don't Greek mythology doesn't always make sense yeah yeah definitely so they they saved her they brought her back home um and then later on of course she marries Menelaus he becomes king of Sparta through her which is quite rare as well for the a man to inherit his wife's uh sort of Throne rather than the other way around um and then again later she is kidnapped by Paris and depending on who who you read and who you believe um she's either in love with Paris or not at all um I like to believe she was not in love with Paris she had a husband she had a daughter she was a queen why would she want to leave her home you know it doesn't make sense sorry but I think Helen's one of my favorite Greek mythological women because if you look at the entire events of her life everything that she survived is insanely impressive for a woman of Greek mythology you know they very rarely survived any encounters with a Greek hero or a Greek god and she lived until her old age and we're supposed to believe that she just died happily in the India right a rare happy ending maybe yeah definitely um maybe or maybe not depend which way you believe but yeah introduction to another famous Greek mythological character so the next one on the list is another begins with H again this is Hestia is that right ## Hestia [08:18] Hestia yes um so what what can we what can you tell us about Hestia who was she what did she do what's she known for I love histia um she's incredibly underrated um if you look at Greek mythology and the ancient Greeks themselves she was actually the the most regarded Greek goddess she was the most important God out of all of the Gods which is surprising because hardly anybody knows about her she was more important to the Greeks and suits that's crazy I've never even heard of her until before exactly so so yeah that's unbelievable brilliant yeah which is why I chose to talk about it because I was like why have you got more people talking about history exactly but the thing is the reason she's not talked about is because she just stuck to her place she stuck to her role which was she's the goddess of home and the Hearth so she never ever left Mount Olympus because that was her home she her Duty was to look after the half um within Mount Olympus so the most important half there was yeah and then within every single Greek home they had their own half and that was seen as a shrine to Hestia and it was the most important part of the home because that's what provided them with security and um you know that's where they got their food from the warmth to their house they could use the fire to build tools so Whenever there was feasts or sacrifices his deal was always the first and last god or goddess to be celebrated too because she was just the most important essentially um but she's just not talked about because she didn't get herself involved with all this other chaotic stories that the other Greek gods did you know she just she stayed in her home she looked after her Hearth and looked after the people and and she was content to do so yeah I mean that's it's really interesting that because like she's obviously like so important given that you mentioned the importance of the Hearth do you think maybe as well it's kind of almost an example of like sort of subservients like women being like well this is the best goddess and she's she's like so subservient she stays at home she looks after the half the cooking is it almost like a comparison house sort of even until recently women were worse kind of seen like that do you think 100 percent um I think do you have been seen as one of the ideal sort of women um aside from the fact that she was actually a virgin goddess so she she never married um but you know she she just stayed in her realm she did her her Judy and that's what the Greek women were expected to do uh well majority of course and yeah except for spider yeah I mean that's that's really interesting that's she's honestly like yeah when you said you choose your favorite she's probably mine now like talk about being like criminally underrated or what like that's interesting converting people yeah yeah so our next one is and I don't know if I'll pronounce this right is it Persephone ## Persephone [11:33] yes yeah um yeah just tell us about Persephone another one of my favorites um again unfortunately trigger warning um for Persephone um Persephone is most well known for her abduction um so she is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter um so brother and sister so that's a bit interesting um her mother was the goddess of agriculture and Persephone is the goddess of spring so they had a very strong relationship as mother and daughter and also for the fact that their abilities were so similar um later on the Elysian Mysteries that is based on mother and daughter um so Persephone was one day dancing in a field of flowers very similar to sort of Medusa Hades came by on his Chariot and you know wow most beautiful woman I've ever seen he got permission from Zeus to kidnap her right interesting right but yeah he had to get permission because she's a goddess if it was a mortal woman do whatever you want but that that's Zeus's daughter yeah oh he's got some morals then yeah at least you have to ask exactly yeah to be honest Hades isn't a bad guy apart from this story yeah um there's a lot of misconceptions around him as well um but yes so he kidnapped her um and she was not happy about it at all um which is one thing that bothers me a little bit with myth retellings is for some reason there's now this huge spin on she was happy about it and there's all these like Hades and Persephone love stories like if you just type that in there's a whole lot of retellings of love stories in it I don't think people realize it it wasn't a love story at all no um so what ended up happening was he offered her a pomegranate and she ate a small handful of these pomegranate seeds um back up on Earth Demeter's going you know where's my daughter she's trying to find her she's destroyed she's walking around lost and because of that she's not doing her duties as a goddess so the agriculture starts to die and the ancient Greeks they start to starve because they're not nothing's growing at all so this is when Zeus goes oh I might have made a mistake here and you know I need to fix this so he goes and meets with Demeter and says that he will get her daughter back problem is for Stephanie ate from the underworld so a compromise compromise sorry has to be made there and she then has to live half of her life in Underworld and half of her life above which is where the Greeks got sort of the seasons from so when she's in the Underworld that's the winter dry seasons when she comes back up that's summer and spring when everything grows and it's all beautiful um and that's where the Ellison Elysian Mysteries came from is when she reunites with her mother right I mean that's so interesting like the it's really interesting like how ancient like civilizations they're sort of explanations things like the seasons because when when you listen to that story there it's so like you can see how relatable it is like they didn't have like the scientific explanations that we have today for the seasons like the geographical explanations and everything but you can see how they could justify it by that because it makes total sense um and another thing I was just going to ask is about when you mentioned like a pomegranate do you think that's kind of sort of an inspiration from like the story of Adam and Eve she eats like a forbidden fruit doesn't she and that's like then that's sort of like their cursed from then on or whatever um do you think that's some sort of like similarities there or would the Greeks have heard of the Bible by then or well they definitely wouldn't have heard of the Bible at that time but um Christianity uh did get a lot of inspiration from um ancient Greek and Roman mythology um yeah if you look at the stories there's quite a lot of similarity um Pandora I'm not sure if you've heard of Pandora um but she's she was the first Eve um and that's where he came from right oh that's really interesting well that's a good one for any listeners who like like me don't know that that's a real good trivia um to know um I don't know about like yeah Pandora's Box that's obviously a another one um but yeah our fifth character to talk about today is Eris ## Eris [16:08] um someone again surprise surprise I've not heard of but um I'm sure you can uh talk us through and tell us all about Eris well you might have heard of her when I started talking about her but not have realized um because her name tends to forget get forgotten in the story um but I love her because she's very cheeky um so essentially Eric started the Trojan War all right okay yeah unintentionally um or intentionally depending on how you look at it yeah so um fetus who is a goddess and the hero pelius were to be wed um so they're the parents of Achilles and their wedding was supposed to be you know this huge Grand Event all the gods and you know nymphs and everyone was to to be there it was um held in Mount Olympus and Zeus was throwing this huge party for them um but obviously they were worried you know things might go wrong having all the gods around so how can we avoid things going wrong well let's not invite Eris because heiress was the goddess of stress right um so she liked to cause a bit of mischief and she reveled in it she enjoyed it um but what happens if you don't avoid invite the goddess of stress she's gonna cause a bit of trouble yeah yes not good planning there um so anyways she storms in she waltzes up she holds this Golden Apple in her hand drops it on the face table turns around and walks out and that's all she had to do and she set off the Trojan wall unbelievable so not sure if you recall but the golden apple written on it an inscription was to the fairest right um which is when Athena Aphrodite and Hera all ran to this apple and started to bicker over who was the fairest who deserved the Apple um and they go running over to Zeus you know who's the fairest you have to pick one of us and he goes I can't pick you know one's my wife one's my aunt one's my daughter by the way I'm in trouble yeah um so who did they get to pick some some Shepherd living on Mount Ida who was also secretly a Trojan Prince um that he didn't even know he was a Trojan Prince um so yeah they they got to Paris and they made Paris pick he ended up picking Aphrodite and then he ended up stealing Helen we know the rest of the story from there um but that's just what I love about Aries that's the the only myth she's featured in and that's all she had to do amazing she just waltzed in and created this like catastrophe yeah all these like Domino effects of events that led to the biggest mythological War ever that's fascinating and this whole list of like characters you've picked them so well because I know like obviously how how much you know about like Greek mythology and stuff and Greek history but like we've got people from like Medusa sort of outcast kind of character to like Hestia this just like totally unknown goddess even though she's the most important and then Eris who's just got in one myth and causes the biggest mythological War ever it's an insane character uh insane amount of characters like what a cast of characters that is great picks they were absolutely fantastic um yeah I'd just like say a huge thanks for coming on and talking about that because I've learned so much and I'm sure all the listeners will appreciate it as well um thanks so much again for coming on it's been absolutely fantastic hope you've enjoyed it of course yeah thank you so much for having me uh yeah really loved it oh good good I'm glad right I'll catch you all at the next episode thank you