Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers

From the author who gave us scholarly works on ancient Greek divination practices and Orphic tablets now comes a book aimed at the general public that retells many Greek myths. Sarah Iles Johnston teaches at The Ohio State University, where the main myth course enrolls 700-plus students per semester. To keep students’ attention, Johnston tried performative readings of myths at the beginning of each class, dressed as a bard under dimmed lights. She followed the performance with a more traditional lecture on the myth's significance, literary and visual versions, and so on. She found that students engaged more deeply with the myths that she taught after using this method. The stories in this book are versions of what she read to her students.The majority of Gods and Mortals consists of 140 short myths under section headings “The Gods,” “Gods and Mortals,” “Heroes,” “The Trojan War,” and “The Returns.” The organization is roughly chronological, from the birth of the gods to Odysseus. Johnston's introduction, “Gods, Mortals and the Myths They Inhabit,” lays out how the project developed, and this development is essential for understanding the book's purpose and scope.Johnston's approach seems valuable (and is one I will consider adopting in my own myth classes); however, it makes the book more difficult to read and use in isolation. The book does not include the lecture material that Johnston used after her readings, so the retellings must stand on their own, with little contextualization of the sources used or discussion of discrepancies between different versions of the myths. Ameliorating this problem is a helpful discussion of ancient sources and Johnston's own favorite translations and notes on the sources used for each myth, located at the end of the work. For example, for myth 91, “Medea in Corinth,” she states, “Eur. Med. is my main source here. See also Hyg. Fab. 25, Sen. Med., Apollod. 1.9.28” (p. 448). Those unfamiliar with these abbreviations may turn back a few pages to a helpful table explaining them. But average popular readers who do not pursue these citations may miss Medea's monologue in Euripides’ version (lines 1021–1080), where she questions whether she should kill her sons or not, and come away assuming this was her calculated plan all along. To her credit, Johnston provides familiarizing language to help readers who may be intimidated to pick up original sources in translation. For example, Demeter is a “nanny” to Demophon, rather than a nurse (p. 28). Familiarizing techniques make the book a wonderful starting point for discussion and additional contextualization in a class setting. However, non-student readers may inevitably lose something by reading Johnston's engaging version without reading the ancient works themselves.Several special features stand out if we compare Gods and Mortals to other recent books that summarize myths for popular audiences, such as Stephen Fry's Mythos, Heroes, Troy, Odyssey tetralogy (Chronicle Books, 2017–2024). First, Johnston's expert knowledge on topics such as ancient magic often adds engaging details to the stories. For example, Medea's encounter with Jason includes an extended description of the iynx device, which is not mentioned in the most familiar version of the Argonauts’ adventure (Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica). Second, in keeping with its title, the book does not include Roman material beyond a few brief mentions of Rome in Aeneas’ story and the use of Latin sources detailed in the notes, nor does it include the traditional list of Roman equivalents to Greek gods. On the other hand, it does include some myths not found in frequently used online sources, such as Theoi.com.Although this work is aimed at popular audiences, scholars of myth may wish to consider whether Johnston's book adheres to her own theories about myth, as laid out in her book The Story of Myth (Harvard University Press, 2018) and as partially reiterated in one of her end sections in Gods and Mortals, titled “The Characters of Greek Myths.” In that brief section (pp. 453–7), Johnston argues first that the characters of Greek myth are plurimedial, meaning that individual audience members gradually build personal versions of characters from a variety of mediums, including visual art as well as literary versions in different genres. Because Johnston gives one streamlined version of each myth without the contradictions and inconsistencies found in ancient sources, some readers may have trouble appreciating the characters’ multiformity unless they dig deeper into the visual and literary sources listed under another end section “Notes on Sources for the Myths.” Gods and Mortals also includes illustrations by Tristan Johnston, the author's son, to accompany some myths.Johnston argues that because many myth versions contain only part of a larger story, the audience's impulse to consider and discuss what happens between episodes may make the characters seem more real. This aspect may be more evident in Johnston's class, but in book format, readers who do not pause between sections may lose much of the episodic effect she describes. Classroom settings could augment this effect by pausing between these sections and asking students to discuss what they think happens to the characters before and after. Because many modern myth retellings rely on precisely this aspect of myth (Madeline Miller's Circe [Little, Brown, 2018], for example, fills in Circe's story before and after Odysseus’ arrival), many students may find this an attractive and engaging project.Finally, Johnston notes the way that characters in myth are connected not only by family ties (she has intentionally omitted any family trees), but also by appearing in each other's myths in a way that mutually reinforces the credibility of all myths: the Heracles of the Nemean Lion (story 66) also appears in the story of the Argonauts (story 84), for example. I found that reading Gods and Mortals straight through encouraged me to make these connections. Johnston's diagram of these types of connections could serve as the basis for similar activities in classroom settings.In sum, this book is not only a helpful and entertaining tool for introducing Greek myth, but also provides the basis for deeper study regarding how myths function to support belief. It will give instructors of Greek myths new ideas for the classroom and scholars of Greek myths food for thought.