The beauty and moving of ancient Greek mythology are world-famous.
Ancient Greece is one of the ancient civilizations in the world. The activities of the ancient Greeks mainly included the southern Balkans, the western coastal areas of Asia Minor and the islands in the eastern Mediterranean. In addition, they have been in contact with the residents along the Black Sea for a long time, and emigrated to the southern coast of the Italian Peninsula and Sicily, with footprints as far away as the western Mediterranean and North Africa. The ancient Greeks created splendid and colorful cultures, and left a rich legacy in the process of their survival and development, among which myths and legends are one.
Ancient mythology has a long history, which is the product of ancient humans conquering natural forces with the help of imagination during the period of low productivity development. Thus, the ancient myth must include the story of God and the story of the relationship and conflict between man and God, that is, the legend of heroes. The story of God more clearly reflects the rich imagination of ancient people in visualizing powerful natural phenomena, while the legend of heroes mainly focuses on legends that may have some kind of history.
The worship and idealization of things and related events reflects the survival activities of ancient human beings and their tenacious struggle with nature. Ancient Greek mythology also includes these two aspects.
Ancient Greek myths and stories were formed very early. They are the crystallization of collective creation from ancient generations. Myth was first passed down by word of mouth, and then by words. Its earliest written document handed down from generation to generation is Homer's epic. In addition to the main story, the epic also mentioned many other fairy tales, which were obviously widely circulated and known at that time. Shortly after Homer, there was the ancient Greek poet hesiod's long poem "Divine Spectrum", which briefly described many fairy tales and immediately tried to pedigree those stories. The theme of ancient Greek tragedy is basically based on myth, which is a dramatic embodiment of the writer's realistic understanding of those fairy tales. In the Hellenistic period after the 3rd century BC, Alexander scholars made great contributions to the collection and preservation of ancient Greek myths in the collection and annotation of classic works, while some poets excavated many little-known mythological allusions under the guidance of the principle of knowledge.
Influenced by animism, ancient Roman mythology lacked vivid thinking about gods and fairy tales. Heroic legends are also mainly reflected in historical stories, and the characters in the stories are more realistic than Superman. After being exposed to the ancient Greek mythology, the ancient Romans were quickly attracted by the Greek mythology of the passive people, thus widely absorbing the images and stories of the ancient Greek gods, and a unique fusion of ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends appeared.
The ancient Greek nation has undergone several changes in its development process, and their myths and concepts have also changed constantly in this change. The basic feature of this change is the change from nature worship to human nature worship. The basic feature of Greek mythology in this period that people are familiar with is that people created gods in their own images and endowed them with human form, humanity and even social relations. The basic difference between God and man is that God is powerful, immortal and carefree. Human beings are weak, will die and have a hard life. They often have to turn to the gods, but they often curse them for doing evil. The ancient Greeks worshipped God, but at the same time they also praised people, their courage and enterprising spirit. The ancient Greeks criticized the personality weaknesses such as pride, cruelty, vanity, greed, violence and stubbornness, and thought that it was these personality weaknesses that often caused the tragedy of life. The ancient Greeks worshipped gods, but they did not give them excessive sublimity, nor did they regard them as the standard of moral measurement, but regarded them as the reflection of life. It is with this humanistic spirit, touching stories and profound ideological connotation that ancient Greek mythology has always attracted readers, exuded fascinating power, and made people never tire of reading it, becoming rich materials for later literary and artistic creation.