#tw: rape myths

[theoihalioistuff]

ARES IS NOT THE PROTECTOR OF WOMEN IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

He is never presented as such in any source, there is no evidence such a role was ever assigned to him in any account, and as far as I'm aware this popular yet unattested assertion is born from the echo-chambers of tumblr. In fact quite the opposite could be argued. TW for sexual assault.

This baffling claim seems to originate from a sort of shallow examination of the way Ares "behaves in myth", and the following arguments are the most frequently presented:

1. Ares protects his daughter Alkippe from assault, and is therefore morally opposed to rape. (Apollodorus 3.180, Pausanias 1.21.4, Suidas "Areios pagos", attributed to Hellanikos)

Curiously this argument is never applied to, among other examples: Apollo for defending his mother Leto from Tytios, Herakles for defending Hera from Porphyrion (or his wife Deianeira from Nessos), or Zeus for defending his sister Demeter from Iasion (in the versions where he attacks her), etc. The multiple accounts of rape of the previously mentioned figures did not conflict with these stories in greek thought: they're defending family members or women otherwise close to them. This sort of mentality is not uncommon even in contemporary times, e.g. a warrior may have no ethical problem killing men, but would not want his own family or loved ones to be killed. The same goes here for sexual assault.

2. There are no surviving accounts of Ares sexually assaulting anybody.

The idea that the ancient greeks pictured that, among all the gods, Ares was the only one who shied away from committing rape is baseless and borders on ridiculous. In this case absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The majority of surviving records regarding Ares' unions are presented in a genealogical manner, and do not go into details on their nature. This is the case for most works of mythography, where specifics of sexual encounters are to be found elsewhere. However, common motifs present in other accounts of rape also appear in stories concerning Ares' relationships, e.g. tropes like shape-shifting/the use of disguises, the victim being a huntress, secrecy, and the disposal of the concieved child, are to be found in the stories of Phylonome and Astyoche respectively:

Φυλονόμη Νυκτίμου καὶ Ἀρκαδίας θυγάτηρ ἐκυνήγει σὺν τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι: Ἄρης δ᾽ ἐν σχήματι ποιμένος ἔγκυον ἐποίησεν. ἡ δὲ τεκοῦσα διδύμους παῖδας καὶ φοβουμένη τὸν πατέρα ἔρριψεν εἰς τὸν Ἐρύμανθο

"Phylonome, the daughter of Nyktimos and Arkadia, was wont to hunt with Artemis; but Ares, in the guise of a shepherd, got her with child. She gave birth to twin children and, fearing her father, cast them into the [River] Erymanthos." (Pseudo-Plutarch, Greek and Roman Parallel Stories, 36)

οἳ δ᾽ Ἀσπληδόνα ναῖον ἰδ᾽ Ὀρχομενὸν Μινύειον, τῶν ἦρχ᾽ Ἀσκάλαφος καὶ Ἰάλμενος υἷες Ἄρηος οὓς τέκεν Ἀστυόχη δόμῳ Ἄκτορος Ἀζεΐδαο, παρθένος αἰδοίη ὑπερώϊον εἰσαναβᾶσα Ἄρηϊ κρατερῷ: ὃ δέ οἱ παρελέξατο λάθρῃ: τοῖς δὲ τριήκοντα γλαφυραὶ νέες ἐστιχόωντο.

"And they that dwelt in Aspledon and Orchomenus of the Minyae were led by Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Ares, whom, in the palace of Actor, son of Azeus, Astyoche, the honoured maiden, conceived of mighty Ares, when she had entered into her upper chamber; for he lay with her in secret" (Homer, Iliad 2. 512 ff)

In neither of these cases is a verb explicitly denoting rape used, though it is heavily implied by the context. The focus of the action is on the conception of sons, the nature of the interaction is secondary.

Other examples are found among the daughters of the river Asopos, who where (and here there's no confusion) ravished and kidnapped by different gods to different parts of the greek world, where they found local lines through children borne to their abductors and serve as eponyms. Surviving fragments from Corinna of Tanagra tell us:

"Asopos went to his haunts . . from you halls . . into woe . . Of these [nine] daughters Zeus, giver of good things, took his [Asopos'] child Aigina . . from her father's [house] . . while Korkyra and Salamis and lovely Euboia were stolen by father Poseidon, and Leto's son is in possession of Sinope and Thespia . . [and Tanagra was seized by Hermes] . . But to Asopos no one was able to make the matter clear, until . . [the seer Akraiphen reveals to him] 'And of your daughters father Zeus, king of all, has three; and Poseidon, ruler of the sea, married three; and Phoibos [Apollon] is master of the beds of two of them, and of one Hermes, good son of Maia. For so did the pair Eros and the Kypris persuade them, that they should go in secret to your house and take your nine daughters." (heavily fragmented papyrus. Corinna fr. 654)

"For your [Tanagra's] sake Hermes boxed against Ares." (Corinna fr. 666)

It seems that, similar to the myths of Beroe or Marpessa, the abducted maiden is fought over by two competing "suitors", and though we can infer that the outcome of the story is that Hermes gets to keep Tanagra, apparently by beating Ares in a boxing match, we don't actually know what happened or how it happened. In any case, Ares does mate with another daughter of Asopos, Harpina, who bears him Oinomaos according to some versions (Paus. 5.22.6; Stephanus Byzantium. Ethnica. A125.3; Diodorus Siculus 4. 73. 1). There is little reason to suppose that this encounter wasn't pictured as an abduction like the rest of her sisters.

The blatant statement that each of his affairs was envisioned as consensual is simply not true.

3. He was worshipped under the epithet Gynaikothoinas "feasted by women"

This was a local cult that existed in Tegea, the following reason is given:

"There is also an image of Ares in the marketplace of Tegea. Carved in relief on a slab it is called Gynaecothoenas. At the time of the Laconian war, when Charillus king of Lacedaemon made the first invasion, the women armed themselves and lay in ambush under the hill they call today Phylactris. When the armies met and the men on either side were performing many remarkable exploits, the women, they say, came on the scene and put the Lacedaemonians to flight. Marpessa, surnamed Choera, surpassed, they say, the other women in daring, while Charillus himself was one of the Spartan prisoners. The story goes on to say that he was set free without ransom, swore to the Tegeans that the Lacedaemonians would never again attack Tegea, and then broke his oath; that the women offered to Ares a sacrifice of victory on their own account without the men, and gave to the men no share in the meat of the victim. For this reason Ares got his surname." (Paus. 8.48.4-5)

As emphasised by Georgoudi in To Act, Not Submit: Women’s Attitudes in Situations of War in Ancient Greece (part of the highly recommendable collection of essays Women and War in Antiquity), "it is not necessary to see the operation of an invitation in the bestowal of the epithet Γυναικοθοίνας on Ares". The epithet is ambiguous, and can be translated both as "Host of the banquet of women" or "[He who is] invited to the banquet of women". In any case no act of divine intervention occurs, and the main reason for the women's act of devotion lies principally in recognising their decisive role in the routing of the Lakedaimonians. It's they who preside/participate in the feast of war, the men are excluded.

Also this a local epithet that isn't found anywhere else in Greece. As such it would be worth reminding that not every Ares is Gynaikothoinas, in the same way not every Zeus is Aithiopian, not every Demeter Erinys, and not every Artemis of Ephesos.

4. He was the patron god of the Amazons

He was considered progenitor of the Amazons because of their proverbial warlike nature and love of battle, the same reason he was associated with other "barbaric" tribes, like the Thracians or the Scythians. In this capacity he was also appointed as a suitable father/ancestor for other violent and savage characters who generally function as antagonists (e.g. Kyknos, Diomedes of Thrace, Tereos of Thrace, Oinomaos, Agrios and Oreios, Phlegyas, Lykos etc.). Also he was by no means the only god connected with the Amazons (they were in fact especially linked to Artemis, see Religious Cults Associated With the Amazons by Florence Mary Bennett, if only for the bibliography).

Similarly, Poseidon was considered patron and ancestor of the Phaiakians mainly because of their mastery over the art of seafaring (and was curiously also credited in genealogies as father to monsters and other disreputable figures).

On another note I have found no sources that claim he taught his amazon daughters how to fight, as I've seen often mentioned (though I admit I'd love to be proven wrong on that point).

5. Finally, the last reason Ares could never be portrayed as a protector of women is because of his divine assignation itself

The uncountable references to his love of bloodshed and man-slaying don't just stop short of the battlefield, but continue on to the conclusion and intended purpose of most waged wars in antiquity: the sacking of the city. The title Sacker of Cities as an epithet of Ares (though it is by no means exclusive to him) is encountered numerous times and in different variations (eg. τειχεσιπλήτης or πτολίπορθος), and the meaning behind the epithet is plain. Though it is hard to summarise without being reductionist, the sacking of a city entails the plundering of all its goods, the slaughtering of its men, and the sistematic raping and enslavement of the surviving women (to name only a small few of the literary references see The Iliad, The Trojan Women or The Women of Trachis). There is little need to emphasise that war as concieved of in ancient greece, especifically the brutal aspects of war Ares is most often associated with, directly entailed sexual violence against women as one of it's main concerns. The multiple references to Ares being an unloved or disliked deity are because of this, because war is horrifying (not because his daddy is a big old meany who hates him for no reason, Zeus makes very clear the motive for his contempt in the Iliad (5. 889-891): "Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar. To me you are most hateful of all gods who hold Olympos. Forever quarreling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.")

Ares was only the protector of women inasmuch as he could be averted or repelled (e.g. surviving apotropaic chants):

"There is no clash of brazen shields but our fight is with the war god, a war god ringed with the cries of men, a savage god who burns us; grant that he turn in racing course backward out of our country’s bounds, to the great palace of Amphitrite or where the waves of the thracian sea deny the stranger safe anchorage. Whatsoever escapes the night at last the light of day revisits; so smite him, Father Zeus, beneath your thunderbolt, for you are the lord of the lightning, the lightning that carries fire." (Shophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos, 190-202)

"And let no murderous havoc come upon the realm to ravage it, by arming Ares—foe to the dance and lute, parent of tears—and the shout of civil strife." (Aeschylus, Suppliant Women 678)

~~~~~

All that being said, this is a post about Ares as conceptualized and attested in ancient sources, made specifically in response to condescending statements about how "uhmmm, actually, in greek mythology Ares was a super-feminist himbo who was worshipped as the protector of women and was hated by his family for no reason, you idiot". It is factually incorrect. HOWEVER, far be it from me to tell anyone how they have to interact with this deity. Be it your retellings, your headcannons or your own personal religious attachments and beliefs towards Ares, those are your own provinces and prerogatives, and not what was being discussed here at all (I personally love art where Ares and Aphrodite goof around, or retellings where he plays with his daughters, or headcannons that showcase his more noble sides, etc.)

~~~~~

I've seen that other people on tumblr have made similar posts, the ones I've seen were by @deathlessathanasia and @en-theos . I have no idea how to link their posts, but they're really good so go check them out on their pages!

[bugwolfsstuff]

chat help I am plagued by the unfathomable rage I feel when I am reminded that some people think Odysseus wasnt faithful to Penelope

[dootznbootz]

I don't think Greek Mythology retellings/adaptions/inspired/etc. are necessarily "evil"...but I DO think people REALLY need to understand that there's a huge difference between the actual mythology and certain media.

I feel like people have to basically do a "Fandom ___" to say the different versions. Like "PJO ___", "Hades game ___", "TSOA ___". For it to be understood that these depictions are DIFFERENT. I'm saying this as someone who grew up reading PJO and still has a soft spot for it. But as someone who really loves Greek Mythology as well, I sometimes get really SAD.

I'm going to use the comparison of Howl's Moving Castle with it's Book Vs. Movie. I enjoy both!!! But they are honestly very different. In the movie there is no "sister swap", Markle isn't a young teenager, Sophie doesn't throw weed killer at Howl, and many more moments. But I enjoy both because even though there are changes they still keep components that are ingrained into the characters!

In some Greek Myth retellings/adaptations/stories/etc., characters are...SO different from the source material. That's fine...Choose what you want with your story... But folks should know that the modern adaptations are NOT the source material!!!

It bothers me that a lot of these wonderful myths and stories are twisted up and seen so differently because of a modern version of them. You can have that character be "awful" or a certain way in your story. But I almost feel that as fans, it's not good to generalize them or see it as "This is the truth". People are hating the mythological figure when it's only in that interpretation they are like that.

In PJO, Ares is "Zeus' favorite", isn't a good dad, a misogynist, etc. The actual myths? One of his Epithets is LITERALLY "Feasted by Women", in the Iliad everybody basically bullies him with Zeus literally saying he hates him. He cries when he learns one of his sons is killed in the war. He literally kills someone about to rape his daughter. Ares isn't perfect but it makes me sad with how he's viewed and talked about when it's only in PJO he's like that. Same with Dionysus. Read the Bacchae, you'll love it.

In Lore Olympus, Apollo rapes Persephone (noticing the fact that modern takes on the myths add rapes where there never were hmmmmm) when he never did in any of the myths.

In TSOA, Thetis is cruel when in the Iliad, she is such a loving mother to Achilles. She grieved alongside her son over Patroclus. Also with Agamemnon. In Ipheginia at Aulis, Agamemnon is a MESS. He adored his children.

In Circe, Odysseus is viewed as a selfish man who ONLY hurts others and doesn't care about his family when that is LITERALLY his one consistent character trait. HE is actually the one who is the victim of rape. Circe was never raped.

Medusa is only a victim in Ovid's, a Roman man, works. Not in GREEK mythology. She was just a cool monster. Leave Perseus alone. Poseidon and Medusa actually had a consensual relationship in Greek Mythology!

These adaptations/retellings/inspired by/etc. whatever anybody wants to call them, are not the real myths! They may be similar in some ways but to just generalize them or hate the deity/mythological figure because of something they did in the new media feels fucked up!

You can enjoy these new stories. There's nothing wrong with that!!! But know they're not the real myths. Maybe even label it as "I hate ____'s version of ____". As that makes it clear what version you're talking about.

[touchoffleece]

It has just been over a day since the Pokemon leaks happened and...

most of the internet over using furry comments and judgemental comments aimed at the Pokemon writers over some of the scrapped lore* that reflects irl mythos from multiple cultures that detail interspecies sex and messed up stories about rape only further reinforces my thoughts that critical thinking in relationship to art (in this case writing) is dead. Straight up, most comments are I see are along the lines of "How could they think this was okay to even speak and suggest as lore for a video game?!", when part of writing detailed stories involves world building. world-building (noun): the creation of a fictional world (especially within the science fiction and fantasy genres) that is believable and consistent within the context of the story. In this case, the context of the story is making up a bunch of stories about how Pokemon and humans have co existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but have the stories be similar enough to the players/watchers/readers that they can be familiar with this made up lore.

I am not saying it isn't shocking, but so many people are being scandalized over miscellaneous writers notes meant for other writers they worked with-depending on the generation as this had pokemon from multiple generations/games (most likely, if the scrapped lore was not injected to the hacked text documents by the hacker. This is the internet after all so who knows what is a complete truth, and the source is coming from someone that was ok with doxxing thousands of employees information to the internet).

We can still talk about the scrapped lore without treating it like it is an insane crime against humanity, when it reflects irl human myths that are thousands of years old. The most recognizable irl comparisons of fucked up mythos are the Greek mythos.

What do you think is the single most fucked-up Greek myth?:

Most messed up birth story in Greek mythology:

Art shouldn't be held to be pure of all dark subject matter, because then we have the whole moral purity panic dilemma in media and arts. "Pokemon is for kids." Yes, it is, but these pieces of info that the internet is now treating as canon, was withheld from the public. It was never suppose to be seen, and it was not GameFreaks decision to release it. It is only public now, because someone in Nintendo fucked up and lead to GameFreak Pokemon files being stolen by a Hacker, that proceeded to release all sorts of information, which we currently are not aware of how authentic each leaked pieces of info are.

[hermesmoly]

...you're not Anti-Zeus?

no? what gave you the impression i was 😭

[pelideswhore]

🎤 pls spread more hate for calypso i am so invested in the saga

OMG THANK YOU i just finished rewriting the part where he lands on her island so i hate her extra much rn

so obviously she’s a rapist which already makes her terrible, but despite the fact that Circe in effect did the same thing, i hate Calypso more than Circe because a) she kept him for 7 years instead of 1 and b) she didn’t let him go even when he asked to. The moment Odysseus asks Circe to go and she immediately lets him leave while Calypso has to be told by a God and STILL MANAGES TO COMPLAIN. even within the story, Odysseus speaks way more positively of Circe than he does of Calypso.

also apart from that, calypso is just annoying. she gives very pick-me girl vibes with added sexual assault

[ichverdurstehier]

So much for "believe all women"

Hey, that twelve year old girl from France or somewhere who got called a "dirty Jew" as three boys raped her? Is that a fake accusation? The boys that had pro Hamas shit on their phone?

TWELVE YEARS OLD.

And before you say something like "oh but look at this bad thing Israel did" how does that justify raping a twelve year old girl???

Yes, Israel does bad stuff. Attacking a twelve year old girl doesn't fix that!! What the fuck

To the little girl, wherever you are, you did not deserve it. It was not your fault. You did not deserve rape for being Jewish. No one deserves rape

[trans-axolotl]

If you looked into it, the term Salmacian comes from the sex-transforming Salmacis Spring of mythology. This predates the interpretation of the myth wrote by Ovid, that has the rape. Others myths describe Salmacis as a nurse who take care of the infant Hermaphroditus. You can find the reference to the spring on the salmacian website. From salmacian.org: The flag’s central emblem, the “Sign of Salmacis”, consists of a lowercase sigma for “salmacian”, with waves to represent the sex-transforming Salmacis Spring of mythology.

okay so. unfortunately i read ancient greek and latin and spent quite a bit of time a couple years ago reading everything i could about hermaphroditus. normally i wouldn't bother to continue this conversation but i just got way too into relooking over old translations lmfao. putting this under the cut because it's too long. but long story short for followers who don't want to read the whole thing is that i think this is a really bad faith response that misrepresents the myths and fails to understand the reason why this term feels particularly insensitive to intersex people.

yes, there were other myths before Ovid, and the Salmacis spring was thought to have powers before he wrote the Metamorphoses. the Greek transcription at the spring from 2 B.C.E is a part of a larger poem that's answering the question "What is so honored about Halicarnussus?", and this version of the myth has Salmacis raising Hermaphroditus as a child and then marrying him. there's some really interesting analysis done there, actually, looking at how the the Hermaphroditus & Salmacis story is inserted into this larger epigraph that is largely about colonization, and connecting the promotion of marriage in that version of the myth as a function of propaganda around "civilized" values.

I also would almost hesitate to label the spring as "sex transforming," in the earliest conceptions of this myth--most of the earliest literature says that the water will turn people mollis, impudicus, obscenus, and μαλακός, all of which are words that are being used in a mostly derogatory fashion and could be translated similar to "effeminate" and have sexual, specifically gay undertones. the powers of the spring are more interpreted as making people gay (and specifically in some contexts, making people a bottom), rather than necessarily transforming sex as we think about it today.

Ovid's version of the myth, written in Metamorphoses 4, is the more popular and widespread version of the myth. The sex transforming powers of the spring cannot be separated from the violent rape in this myth: the reason the spring is thought to have sex transforming powers is because Hermaphroditus asked his parents to make everyone who bathed in the spring "half a man (semivir)" like him:

Ergo ubi se liquidas, quo vir descenderat, undas               380 semimarem fecisse videt mollitaque in illis membra, manus tendens, sed iam non voce virili Hermaphroditus ait: "nato date munera vestro, et pater et genetrix, amborum nomen habenti: quisquis in hos fontes vir venerit, exeat inde               385 semivir et tactis subito mollescat in undis!" motus uterque parens nati rata verba biformis fecit et incesto fontem medicamine tinxit.'

i think it is a more fair reading here to say that the spring has sex transforming powers-- I've made the argument before in regards to some other translations that there are some instances where "intersex" might be an appropriate translation of "semivir" (mostly alongside the context of castrati and analyzing how castration narratives are sometimes intersex narratives in Latin, but that's not really the point.) The spring gets powers by the request of Hermaphroditus, and this passage is often translated as a curse from Hermaphroditus to demonstrate his anger at the rape and subsequent merge of bodies. It is much more explicit in this version that this is about transformation of biological sex, although it can still also carry connotations about homosexuality, effeminacy, etc.

anyway. when were are analyzing greek and roman myths, i really don't think it is useful to pretend like there is just one version of the myth, or act like the first version of the myth to get written down is the "correct" version of the myth. engaging with greek and roman myths requires us to engage with multiple and conflicting myths, and isn't just about analyzing the content--it is also about analyzing the author, the audience, the purpose, and the cultural context it is written in. I think that it can be helpful to compare and contrast different versions, understand why priorities differ between generations, what that says about what values people wanted to represent, the sociopolitical context it's written in, etc. and i think that in the context of creating terminology to be used and understood by a modern audience, we also need to consider the context by which myths are read and interpreted currently--what myths people would be familiar with, what myths people would find if they googled, what greek and latin language signifies to people, and what values about sex and gender are present in our current cultural context.

what message does it tell intersex people when the language you use is intimately intertwined with a myth that includes violent rape of an intersex person? what message does it send to intersex people when this myth is directly connected to how we are still understood by society, and the slurs that people use to describe us?

the term "salmacian" is directly engaging with the Salmacis myths, which means that it is engaging with Ovid's Salmacis myth--you google Salmacis and you are going to see Ovid's version alongside others. and i think that anchoring this term in this Greek mythology in the first place has placed salmacian in dialogue with the word hermaphrodite. Which is also one of my complaints with the term, honestly, because the nuances of hermaphrodite as a slur that we sometimes reclaim is not comparable to the dyadic experience with salmacian.

when you use the term salmacian and use it as a reference to greek myth, you are symbolizing a collection of myths that includes a story about a violent rape of an intersex person, and then taking the name of their rapist. as a dyadic person you might feel able to ignore that and pick the versions of the myth you like best. as an intersex person i do not feel able to do that, especially when so much of our community activism is tied to our sexual trauma. especially when the term hermaphrodite carries such a painful history with it, and those myths are where that came from.

anyway. again. like i said in the beginning this is not a term used widely enough for me to feel like it is that important and i don't generally go through life doing in depth analysis of every word that i see lmfao. but if you're going to bring mythology into this dialogue then i will delve into it, because i think it's worth understanding the societal space that hermaphrodite takes up and the reasons why intersex people might feel incredibly uncomfortable with the word salmacian, regardless of which myths you personally like better.

[sunlitmcgee]

Obligatory nothing against the people behind Epic and I don;t think it was done out of malice or anything but just. in a musical with numbers such as Thunder Bringer and Hold them down, two songs that explore violence and sexual violence and how it's used as a tool for control and abuse and dominance against a victim....having the canonical rapist that is Calypso get the uwu-ray treatment to make her more tragic and Not that Bad is just.....a choice

[theoihalioistuff]

In the post you made debunking the claim of Ares being the protector of women, you have written that secrecy and disposal of the child born point to rape. Can you please elaborate a bit as I'm having a hard time understanding how exactly? Especially with the latter, is it because the conception of the child happened without the permission of the father of the woman (I've heard even if woman slept willingly, without her father's assent then it would have been considered rape)?

TW for Rape and Infanticide. (My eyes actually started watering and I had to stop several times while researching this ask)

There's a lot to discuss in here, and I'm afraid a Tumblr post from someone who's not a classicist won't cover all that needs to be addressed, so for further reading I recommend Rape in Antiquity (1997) edited by Susan Deacy and Karen F. Pierce, and their follow-up Revisiting Rape in Antiquity (2023), Edited by Susan Deacy, José Malheiro Magalhães and Jean Zacharski Menzies, a series of collected essays regarding Sexual Violence in Greek and Roman Worlds.

Broadly speaking, our modern concept of Rape (criminal act defined by the lack of consent during sexual intercourse) does not have a strict ancient greek equivalent (bearing in mind that "ancient greece" covers large periods of history where attitudes almost certainly differed from time to time and from place to place). Nor is there a greek match found for the english word 'rape' – derived from the latin rapere "seize, carry off by force", which was used for both people (in the sense of abduct or kidnap, only rarely denoting sexual violence) and objects (in the sense of plunder). The latin words most commonly used to denote rape were stuprare "defile, disgrace, rape," which is related to stuprum "illicit sex" (also to stupere "to be stunned, stupefied", origin of the word stupid) and violare "maltreat, profane, infringe, violate".

In ancient greek several words could be used to denote what we today would call rape: Biazomai (βιάζομαι - inflict violence, force, constrain), Harpazo (ἁρπάζω - snatch away, seize, carry off; from where the Harpies get their name, later used to refer to the christian rapture), Hybrizo (ὑβρίζω - outrage, dishonor, affront, treat as an inferior; related to hybris, a complicated word), Moicheia (μοιχεία ‐ adultery, illicit sex) or Phthora (φθορά - ruin, damage, destroy) were all words that, to a greater or lesser extent, were used to refer to violent or illicit sex. These last two concepts, though intimately related to our definition of rape, can be considered distinctly, especially when approximating a definition of "rape" in the classical world: e.g. the forcing of a slave was not morally wrong or illegal, while consorting with a free married woman was. Willingness did not define the crime, rather status and ownership did.

Regarding this last point, women's sexual and reproductive rights belonged to their kyrios (κύριος - guardian, master, head of the household), generally fathers and husbands, but failing that brothers (e.g. Apemosyne and Althaimenes) or sons (e.g. Penelope and Telemachos). Moreover a woman's virtue and reputation were primarily linked to her sexual activity: chastity, modesty, shame and obedience being her main ethical concerns. Therefore, when it came to sexual relationships outside of marriage, it was narratively "preferable that a woman should be raped [be unwilling] rather than seduced" (The Portrayal of Rape in New Comedy, Karen F. Pierce), thus preserving the moral virtue of "respectable" characters like goddesses or heroines. This is not to say every sexual interaction in greek mythology is presented as a rape, that obviously varies from telling to telling and depends on the myth, but it explains the narrative predilection for it. It should also be remembered that plenty of these unions are ambiguous as to whether rape or seduction take place, primarily because it's not usually of interest to the narrator unless the virtue of the women is being discussed (e.g. the centuries long discussions on Helen that survive to this day, and even then the distinction can be dismissed as irrelevant or nonexistent; "We think that it is unjust to carry women off. But to be anxious to avenge rape is foolish: wise men take no notice of such things. For plainly the women would never have been carried away, had they not wanted it themselves." – Hdt. Histories 1.4.2).

When it comes to panhellenic myth, sexual unions between gods and women are primarily framed as extramarital (beffiting a monogamous culture where gods' official consorts where to be found elsewhere), without the κύριος knowledge or consent (for a reversal see Hyg. Fabulae 129), and therefore under the umbrella of illicit sex (i.e. Rape). Recurring motifs are attached to these kinds of stories, which give us narrative context to identify (or at the very least be suspicious of) similar accounts in other myths where no explicit word denoting rape is used (as is most common in surviving works of mythography, that prioritise genealogy and gloss over instances of sexual assault). One of the most common tropes is that of exposure.

Myths of exposure in greek mythology usually come in three flavours. Either the child is exposed because of some prophecy (e.g. Paris or Oidipous), because it is born female (e.g. Atalanta or Iphis) or, in the majority of cases, because it is the product of rape (see below). As you noted the most frequent reason given for the exposure is fear of the κύριος discovery, who, in instances where he does find out about the rape, either does not believe the victim or is indifferent to her plight, and in either case kills her or attempts to do so (some examples below):

[Apemosyne: killed by her brother Althaimenes after she is raped by Hermes] "Not much later he became the murderer of his sister. Hermes loved her, but she ran away, and he could not catch her (for she was faster than him at running). So he spread freshly stripped hides along her path, and when she was coming back from the spring, she slipped on them and was raped. She told her brother what happened, but he thought the god was just an excuse, so he kicked her to death." (Apollod. 3.2.1)

[Auge: sentenced to death by her father Aleos after she is raped by Herakles] "After Auge was raped by Herakles, she concealed her baby in the sanctuary of Athena, whose priestess she was. But the land remained barren, and the oracles revealed that there was some ungodly thing in the sanctuary of Athena, so Auge was found out by her father, and he handed her over to Nauplios to be put to death. Teuthras, the ruler of the Mysians, received her from Nauplios and married her." (Apollod. 3.9.1)

[Psamathe: killed by her father Krotopos after she is raped by Apollo] "Psamathe the daughter of Krotopos got pregnant by Apollo [in Statius' Thebaid 1. 562-669 she is explicitly raped beside a river] and because she feared her father she exposed the child, whom she named Linos. The shepherd who received him raised him as his own, and one day the kings sheepdogs tore him apart. Maddened with grief, she was detected by her father, who [after she had bared her breasts and told him all] sentenced her to death, assuming she had been a harlot and lied about Apollo." (Conon. Narrations 19)

[Alope: killed by her father Kerkyron after she was raped by Poseidon] "Since Alope, daughter of Kerkyon, was very beautiful, Poseidon lay with her, and from this embrace she bore a child which she gave to her nurse to expose, since she did not know its father. When the child was exposed, a mare came and furnished it milk. A certain shepherd, following the mare, saw the child and took it up. When he had taken it home, clothed in its royal garments, a fellow shepherd asked that it be given to him. The first gave it without the garments, and when strife rose between them, the one who had taken the child demanding signs it was free-born, but the other refusing to give them, they came to king Kerkyon and presented their arguments. The one who had taken the child again demanded the garments, and when they were brought, Kerkyon knew that they were taken from the garments of his daughter. Alope's nurse, in fear, revealed to the king that the child was Alope's, and he ordered that his daughter be imprisoned and slain, and the child exposed. Again the mare fed it; shepherds again found the child, and took him up, and reared him, feeling that he was being guarded by the will of the gods." (Hyg. Fabulae. 187)

Not every account of exposure explicitly denotes rape (as mentioned before the nature of the union generally goes uncommented), and sometimes depending on the version seduction is to be better understood. Though both are interchangeable narrative-wise, frequently other details lead may us to suppose the stock character of the unwilling (raped) maiden is being portrayed, I'll use the example of Phylonome again:

"Phylonome, the daughter of Nyktimos and Arkadia, was wont to hunt with Artemis; but Ares, in the guise of a shepherd, got her with child. She gave birth to twin children and, fearing her father, cast them into the [River] Erymanthos. By some divine providence they were borne round and round without peril, and found haven in the trunk of a hollow oaktree. A wolf, whose den was in the tree, cast her own cubs into the stream and suckled the children." (Ps. Plutarch. Greek and Roman Parallel Stories. 36)

1. Phylonome is explicitly mentioned as a huntress companion of Artemis (presumably sworn to chastity). The sexual vulnerablility of Artemis' companions is a common trope; see Kallisto, Daphne, Arethousa, Britomartis, Kyrene, Syrinx, Nikaia, Pholoe, etc.)

2. Ares transforms/disguises himself to approach her (perhaps the most common trope of all), and conceals his identity in the guise of a shepherd (a disguise otherwise used by Zeus to approach Mnemosyne; Ovid. Met. 6.103-128, Clement. Recog. 22)

3. After giving birth she casts her children into the river Erymanthos. The reasoning is the typical stock example, fear of her father, though in this case the form of infanticide is much more direct than exposure: she casts them into the river to drown. As usual with these stories the children are saved by divine intervention, and are nursed by an animal and later raised by shepherds.

Again, no verb denoting rape is ever explicitly used, yet the context of the story is enough to reasonably suppose it was considered as such. Other examples of myths where babies are exposed are listed below, many of them are explicitly rapes, almost all the rest can be inferred as such (I can't for my own sake provide references for all of them, so those interested must do their own research):

Koronis exposes Apollo's son Asklepios on a mountain near Epidauros according to a local legend, Psamathe exposes Apollo's son Linos, Antiope exposes Zeus' sons Zethos and Amphion, Alope exposes Poseidon's son Hippothoon, Akakallis exposes Apollo's son Miletos, Tyro exposes Poseidon's sons Pelias and Neleus, Kreousa exposes Apollo's son Ion, Pelopia exposes Thyestes' son Aigisthos, Auge exposes Herakles' son Telephos, Evadne exposes Apollo's son Iamos, and Phylonome "exposes" Ares' sons Lykastos and Parrhasios (this list is by no means meant to be exhaustive).

My post confronting fake claims that Ares was the protector of women can be found here.

[bugwolfsstuff]

I saw another post on tiktok demonizing Perseus (also Lady Athena) and talking about Medusa being a 'victim' and oh my gods someone might get murdered if someone doesnt hold me back

1. The Medusa was raped by Posiedon and cursed (or gifted, i see that one too) by Athena was a Roman myth written by Ovid (i think?). So itd be Neptune NOT Poseidon and Minerva NOT Athena, if you talk about this myth to me and refer to them by their Greek counterparts or call it Greek mythology I will bite you.

Medusa in Greek myth was a gorgon, she was a monster by birth and had two sisters whose names i cant remember right now. She had two children from Poseidon that sprung from her neck after Perseus beheaded her, the winged horse Pegasus and Chrysaor who is often depicted as a young man.

2. Speaking of the hero, PERSEUS ISNT THIS WOMAN HATING MONSTER GOOD LORDS AND LADIES AND HERMAPHRODITUS, I HATE THIS TAKE SO MUCH

Infact my mans drank his respect women juice. The reason why he went after medusa was because a king that wanted him dead and to (forcibly) marry his mommy, Danae. The king trying to get Percy killed told him to go get the gorgons head. Afterwhich when Percy succeeded he turned the king into stone with the Medusa head and became king

Sometime during the bringing of the head to the king, Percy came across this princess, Andromeda, chained to a rock to be a sacrifice and he saved her.

So again not a monster.

So summary:

SA victim Medusa = Roman myth

Monster/gorgon Medusa = Greek myth

Perseus = mama's boy.

[le-chevalier-au-lion]

yes the house of atreus is fucked (like, cesspit of curses with multiple instances of rape against family members, incest, kin-slaying, cannibalism and knowing your siblings' and/or cousins' spouses carnally and multiple cousin marriages) and agamenon and menelaus carry like, bucketloads of bagage. but

what the fuck is going on with diomedes' family

[swallowtail-ageha]

Anglophone writers who make "feminist" retellings of greek myths try to not add rape scenes of female characters that were never raped in the original text challenge (impossible)

[neechees]

Charlene Spretnak is the originator of the "Persephone went to the Underworld willingly" thing--https://what-even-is-thiss.tumblr.com/post/710388557588594688/hiding-the-answers-under-a-cut-in-case-you-wanna

YES THAT WHAT I WAS THINKING

[specialagentartemis]

love to log onto tumblr and immediately see neopagan revivalist polytheists defend their religion by spouting a whole load of nonsense about the ancient world when a simpler defense is Right There if they actually knew anything about Ancient Greece

[feminaferitas]

an excerpt from the wilderness journals of shauna shipman, circa 199x???

I've been thinking a lot about the old Greek stories we have are all famous for being tragedies. Way before the Catholic church began canonizing saints, whose baseline qualification was being traumatized. No one remembers a Greek myth with a happy ending.

I know they say the myths weren't real, just ways to teach people about the world and explain why certain trees were like that, or why stars were in the sky. But I think the tragedy is just a foundational part of living. I mean, those are the beautiful stories that we preserve for generations, right? It has to mean something, all that suffering.

Like Icarus, the classic example. Flying high on wax wings, too close to the sun. All he wanted was a way out of that maze... maybe to find someone who could help. Sometimes the myths say his dad didn't see his son fall -- all that was left was feathers in the water. That was a boy with hopes and dreams, learning to fly from the ones that came before. Did he have a teddy bear too?

Cassandra was blessed with sight and cursed so that no one would ever believe her. But I think the curse was the sight, having visions of awful, horrible things. No wonder no one listened. I don't know I would have believed her either. I don't think you can predict those things. Besides, Cassandra was killed all the same. A lot of people died and she knew about it, but they were still going to die whether her words were the truth or not. She did nothing to help anyone, even if it wasn't entirely her fault. Fuck Cassandra.

Then there was Prometheus, who stole fire for humanity and was punished by being chained to a rock. His liver was torn out by an eagle every day. It kept growing back. Here he was thinking he did such a benevolent thing for humanity, like he was some big hero. If you ask me, the punishment was wasteful. Or the eagle had too much restraint. Just the liver? There was so much more to him. But I get it, I would kill for an unending source of food out here... but I wouldn't steal fire to make it happen.

The classical romances sucked too. Do you know how many of them were just rapes? All because men like Apollo and Zeus couldn't say no. Just ask Daphne. The origin of trees being women who scorned the gods. Blonde Apollo, relentless, lyrical. Did he sing a song, maybe showtunes, chasing down the object of his affection? Daphne said no. She said no and she ran and she pleaded for help but the gods changed her to spurn Apollo. She became a tree, I don't know which kind. Can you imagine your only sense of safety, your only defense from a stalker being hiding in a tree? Maybe Daphne didn't even like men.

I like the myth about Artemis and Acteon, though. I don't think it's so tragic. He caught her bathing naked and she turned him into a stag to punish him. He was chased through the woods by his hunting hounds. Howling. Ferocious. They couldn't recognize their master -- he was part of the wilds, a beast of burden. Prey. I especially like the myths where he challenged her, and said he was a better hunter. He wasn't. Sometimes women are the ones in control.

Rhea...

She was wife of Kronos. Kronos, the sick fuck who ate his children. He ate them all, afraid they would grow up and overthrow him. Hestia. Demeter. Hera. Hades. Poseidon. He ate them all. He fucking ate them. Rhea tried to hide her last baby boy, Zeus, and she ran.

She put him in a cave and tried to mask the sound of his cries so her husband couldn't find the baby. And that baby grew up and saved them all. And yeah he's a dick in some of the stories but the myths weren't even real, right?

Who fucking eats babies?

Who would do that? Who would eat a fucking baby

Why? Rhea couldn't even let her baby cry because he'd be discovered and can you imagine her in pain, in that cave

all because a jealous titan

wanted to

eat

her

baby

[the rest of the page is unreadable, stained with water and scribbled in harshly with incoherent lettering]