Further Notes on the City Myth

[sdi]

Recall how I have been tracing two categories of myths: the city myth, and the hero myths that are embedded within the city myth? I think they describe two different categories of time: the city myth is cyclical, while the hero myth is linear. The city myth therefore describes the world, but the hero myth describes one's experience within the world; and it must be noted that there are many heroes for a given city, each with different goals: some, like Ganumedes, are spirited away during the city's lifetime; some, like Aineias and Teiresias, leave the city before it is destroyed to found a new one; some, like Horos and Orestes and Alkmaion, avenge their father who was betrayed while away at the city; some, like Perseus and Odusseus, merely find their way home.

But let me take a moment to describe why I think the city-myth is cyclic. If we look at the royal line of Thebai from it's founding to it's destruction, we see these seven generations:

↓ Kadmos Founds Thebai. Given necklace of Harmonia. ↓	→	Oudaios Born from the earth. ↓
Poludoros ↓		Euerous ↓
Labdakos ↓		Teiresias Lives for seven generations. ↓
Laios ↓		↓
Oidipous ↓		↓
Seven Against Thebai ↓		↓
Epigone Laodamas killed. Thersandros's line continues on but leaves Thebai. The necklace is taken to Argos. ×		Leaves Thebai to found Haliartos. ↓

We see a hero found the city, and then seven generations later, his line peters out, but a new hero arises and leads a remnant of the city to found a new city as the old one is destroyed.

Now, compare this to the Troian royal line:

↓ Dardanos Founds Dardanos. ↓
Erikhthonios ↓
Tros
↙ Ilos Founds Troia, which mostly subsumes Darnados. ↓	↘   Assarakos ↓
Laomedon ↓	Kapus ↓
Priam ↓	Ankhises ↓
Hektor Zeus withdraws favor. Line ends. ×	Aineias Leaves Troia and rebuilds it after the Akhaians sack it. ↓

This is very similar: a city is founded, the primary line dies, but a secondary line spawns a hero who founds a new city after the destruction of the first, seven generations later.

We see that many of these cities come from previously founded cities: Thebai is founded because Kadmos is barred from returning home; Haliartos is founded because Thebai is destroyed; Dardanos is founded because of a catastrophic flood that destroyed Arkadia; Troia is refounded after it is burned to the ground.

I think these indicate world ages, after which the old world is destroyed in fire and flood and a new one begins, just like Plato's priest of Sais describes. I have mentioned that I wonder if the Horos-myth is a reaction to Atlantis; this would be a very natural result if Atlantis was the city of a prior age, just as Troia is the city of our age.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

Like embers issuing from a fire...

Axé

[neptunesdolphins]

That is interesting about the City myth. Have you looked into Ur, Uruk, Nippur and other cities of Mesopotamia? They all seem to have a God connected to their founding.

Also, Rome never has a creation myth. Their 'creation' myth always starts with the Founding of the City. I always pondered why that is.

[sdi]

The only Mesopotamian myth I've really spent any time on is Inana's Descent; that one at least suggests connections, since it has a lot of overlap with the Egyptian and Greek myths I have studied: for example, Inana going to the underworld after Dumuzid is like Isis going to Bublos after Osiris or the Akhaians going to Troia after Helene; Inana losing her seven items of jewelry at each of the underworld's seven gates is like the Argives losing their seven champions at each of Thebai's seven gates; Inana knowing her doom and charging Enki to come and rescue her is like Amphiaraus knowing his doom and charging his sons to come and avenge him; etc. But other than identifying some relationships, I haven't investigated too deeply yet.

As for Rome, that's very interesting! I haven't studied Rome much, but I get the sense that while the Egyptians had a cyclical conception of time and the Greeks had a conception of time in which things began well but just keep getting worse forever, the Romans seemed to think things stayed the same forever? I wonder if their major myths tie into that, since the Egyptian myths were rooted in astrological cycles, and the Greeks followed Hesiod's Ages of Man...

[neptunesdolphins]

About Inanna's Descent - one thing that gets lost in modern translations is that Her Sister wanted justice for Inanna causing Her Husband's Death (the Father of the Child She was having). That was in Gilgamesh. So, it is more than Inanna bravely going into the Underworld.

Romans sense of time was that Rome was eternal. That yes, change happened but there was always Rome. Even when the Republic fell, the Civil Wars, and the Empire - all remained static to the continuing of the City. Time really is absent from Roman myths except for Saturnus, who ruled in a Golden Age of Latium. Fornax brought the Romans civilization, but Ovid tells it as "before we were Romans."

[sdi]

Thank you for the hints, I'll need to reread the Epic of Gilgamesh as I go over it...