Rape in Greek Mythology

[monsnoleedra]

I could see how Athene would be angry that two people were having sex in her temple.  I've read that their sexual encounter was consensual though.  If it wasn't consensual, as a modern day woman, I don't see Medusa as being at fault here. If it was consented on Medusa's part, then if she was breaking any priestess vows of chastity, I could see why she would get punished for it.  

I do wonder why Athene didn't go after Poseidon too though.  I could see them having a rivalry due to Athene winning Athens from Him and that's why He did that in Her temple.

In some ways the story of Medusa is similiar to that of Lomaitho and Melanippos.  In the story Lomaitho is a High Priestess to Artemis in her temple at Patrai.  The High Priestess desecrates the temple by having sex with Melanippos within it.  In revenge Artemis causes plague and diseases to afflict the population.  Eventually the Delphic Oracle orders their sacrifice to Artemis to appease the goddess.  Additionally the fairest male and female youths were to be sacrificed each year to her by being tossed into the river Ameilikhos.

[SkySamuelle]

I read an account where Persephone takes being "raped" by Hades as a chance to escape from both the rigid nature of the Greek social order but also symbolic of the rupture that occurs within the family when a child comes of age and is taken from the mother.  In part the refusal of the mother to release a daughter that has come of age and how the social order and system will be upheld.

 
I read of that account as well. I think one detail that made me to put stock  in it the most is that, in her maiden aspect, Persephone was known only as Kore - She seems to aquire a name (possibly symbolic of an identity of Hers?) only after Her marriage to Hades.

Now, for how the Greeks used to look at the female gender, I can doubt that they were too worried about the maiden's aquiring identity when becoming a woman yet... there's the fact that, whether we consider Persephone's  descent as a meeting with death, loss, pain or sex/adulthood it remains the fact that the journey still transforms Her from Kore, maiden of spring existing only in Demeter's shadow , to Queen Of The Underworld.
 
 So many inuendos in the story that it is difficult to define just how "rape" is used and what it means.   Ironically in her becomin.
 the Queen of the Underworld it also answers the question of the rotation of the seasons and why.  Even to the concept of life and life coming from the underworld after a mini-death.

As an aside note it also answers how Persephone and to a degree Demeter are brough into the Olympian pantheon as thier cult (Eleusinian mysteries) if I recall correctly pre-dates the Olympian Pantheon.  It also deminishes her from her older chthonic role as an elder goddess who received the souls of the dead into the earth and holsd control over fertility of the soil.  

 
This is part of what made me always so very interested in Eleusis Mysteries.

[Nyktipolos]

True. In fact,  Greek women benefitted by few rights and public consideration back to then, even less than Roman matrons. Celts definitely had broader views on this point and it shows from how they viewed their goddesses as well- rape in Celtic myth is rarer and it has very different 'handling'.

 
I can't put together the proper sources right now, but this idea is actually being challenged within academia, that women had no role (besides running the household) and were entirely within the private side of Greek life, is not true one, or at least not entirely correct.

Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece by Joan Breton Connelly discusses this quite a bit in her book, as one needs to learn the role of women in ancient Greece to be able to discuss their role as priestesses better. A number of references are in the book of women having quite a bit of power. It also discusses academia as having stuck to the rigid idea of women having no power/no role in the public arena for far too long.

Just thought I'd throw that out there. I took the book out of a university library a while back so I don't have it on hand to quote atm.

[SkySamuelle]

I can't put together the proper sources right now, but this idea is actually being challenged within academia, that women had no role (besides running the household) and were entirely within the private side of Greek life, is not true one, or at least not entirely correct.

Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece by Joan Breton Connelly discusses this quite a bit in her book, as one needs to learn the role of women in ancient Greece to be able to discuss their role as priestesses better. A number of references are in the book of women having quite a bit of power. It also discusses academia as having stuck to the rigid idea of women having no power/no role in the public arena for far too long.

Just thought I'd throw that out there. I took the book out of a university library a while back so I don't have it on hand to quote atm.

 
Thank you for mentioning it - I am adding this book to my wish list. I looked it over on amazon and it sounds very ripe with juicy info.