Learning Classics is a bit like putting on a magic pair of 3-D glasses. Once you start delving into the language and the culture, you'll start to see it all around you. This blog is a record of the club's journey through the worlds and language of ancient Rome and Greece... and through modern times, too, searching for the influence of classics all around us. You'll also be able to find vocab, home tasks, links and generally enlightening info here, too.

16 June 2017

Lessons 18 & 19 - Good gods!

A slightly dysfunctional bunch
You can't study Classics without at some point coming up against the Greek and Roman gods. They seem to get involved everywhere in human stories, both ancient and modern. So, after a quick game of Name That Deity (bonus points for getting both Greek and Roman names), we had a go at filling in their family tree.

Devon's epic Gods research
Actually, we concentrated mainly on the Olympians (highlighted in green on the family tree, and named after their home on Mount Olympus), but we also explored the Titans (the generation before the Olympians). Devon astounded us with his knowledge of the Titanomachy ('Titan battle'), where Zeus and his brothers overthrew the previous generation. But hold up a minute, don't we know that sometimes myths tell us something about the world around us, including human nature? So a myth that talks about a younger generation getting angry with the older members of their family... perhaps this is one way the Ancient Greeks recorded and explained the natural phenomenon of teenagers rebelling against their parents. I mean, if Zeus got mad at his tyrannical father, isn't it normal that adolescent humans do, too? Mind you, from the evidence of this video, I wouldn't want to take on Kronos (I think I'd just get on with my homework/chores):