For most of my students,[1] the divine beings of antiquity are literary characters. Students know the deities, demons, and demi-gods who populate our syllabus as characters from novels like Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Harry Potter, and movies like Troy and Clash of the Titans (usually the 2010 version, not the 1981 peplum film). A fair few also know them from videogames, like Age of Mythology and Hades, which are more interactive than a novel, but are still highly narrative-driven. It’s difficult for them to imagine these ancient deities as more than fictional beings. In their minds, the gods are more like Percy, Harry, or Superman than like any divine figure from a still-practiced religion.
Over the course of the term, students are introduced to art, archaeological sites, maps of ancient cultic sites, magic practices, and religious rituals, in addition to the literary sources for Greek and Roman myth. Slowly, the students build knowledge of the various ways, day-to-day and holy-day, that the ancients engaged with and encountered the divine. In writing their own prayers and playing with the literary and religious elements of myth and history, the students actively imagine the relevance these divine beings could have had for their worshippers in order to better integrate course content.
Towards the end of the term, I ask the students to write out an invocation and prayer to a divine being of their choice. They are to call on the deity to assist them in some way. This short, in-class assignment has three aims. The first is for students to imagine what it might be like to build an emotional, personal relationship with one of these gods. The second is for the students to demonstrate their understanding of the various aspects and roles of the gods, and their discernment in choosing the appropriate god for their request. Finally, this assignment is fun and creative, and students get to experience some of the flexibility that ancient worshipers and authors had when telling tales of their gods and heroes.
Before we begin, I tell students they can draw on scenarios and problems in their own lives. However, I make it clear that they can invent a problem if they prefer. Some students trust me with deep vulnerabilities through their prayers; others provide fanciful inventions. Both scenarios achieve the teaching aims, and student privacy is preserved.
I give the students a basic formula:
- O [god(dess)’s name]
- Compliments and flattery
- Description of their pertinent attributes or deeds
- Request for assistance
- Offering: I [name] vow to honour you with [offering]
As a group, we then discuss two aspects of the formula: descriptions and offerings.
First, we talk about why descriptions of great deeds or flattery are included in a prayer. Students are quick to point out that “flattery will get you everywhere,” so why wouldn’t you butter up the deity? By the time we do this activity, students have read primary sources from several genres: excerpts of epics, hymns, and tragedies. Using the hymns as models, the students draw on various literary sources to briefly describe a great feat of the god(dess) to whom they pray, but I tell them that this description must be of a scene which is appropriate to their own dilemma. Asking Aphrodite for assistance in an amorous suit is fitting, but describing her infamous ensnaring with her lover Ares by Hephaestus is not the best choice of scenes for this request. It is better to remind the goddess of her infatuation with Anchises, or to enumerate examples of happy couples brought together under her auspices. This part of the assignment allows students to demonstrate their knowledge of the sources, and to interpret them based on the needs of their invocation.
After the descriptions, we move on to the offerings each student will present. Over the term, the students are introduced to various aetiologies, descriptions, explanations, and examples of sacrifice. They understand its role in ancient Greek and Roman religious settings. Additionally, they understand that different rites and gods require different kinds of sacrifice. For their offering, I invite them to get creative, to offer up something that is unique, particular to our era. They don’t need to offer libations and cattle—the gods have received plenty of those. It’s time for a new kind of votive offering.
By this point, most students are eager to pick up their pens and invoke the gods. The students are inventive in their prayers:
- Popular invocations and prayers are to Athena and Nike. Students ask for victory in their end of term struggles against assignments, lab reports, and exams. Athena’s role as goddess of heroes is often evoked with brief narrations of what she did for Odysseus, Herakles or Perseus. Nike’s importance for victory is stressed. In exchange, students offer everything from burnt offerings of finished papers to dedicating the first week of sleep after exams to the goddesses.
- One drama major asked Dionysus for assistance in his final performance. He did offer a libation, but swore it would be a bottle of the good stuff, not the boxed wine he usually purchases on his student budget.
- A particularly memorable prayer asked Aphrodite to help the supplicant catch her crush’s eye; in exchange, she would offer a perfect hecatomb of lipsticks in every shade.
When they hand in their prayers, students have a goofy grin on their face. Though a little self-conscious, many are eager to read their prayers out loud to me and their peers. They laugh with each other, and point out the clever interpretations of ancient myths. They really enjoy the opportunity to reimagine the gods and their powers as beings to whom a person can turn for aid.
Prayer is something my students can wrap their heads around. Those who grew up in a religious family or community have experienced personal or communal prayer; those who come from atheist or secular families, though they may lack personal experience of prayer, understand the category and its purposes. Using prayer, rather than another genre, borrows on the students’ understanding of how one relates to god(s) to help them imagine ancient religious experiences and the flexibility of myth. The same god(dess), when addressed in this context, appears differently than they do in epic or theatre. The students have a more concrete understanding of the fluidity and freedom of myth-making in the ancient world—what is today considered to be canon was in fact malleable. This deepened understanding of the plasticity of myth heightens the students’ understanding that ancient persons did have personal, emotional connections to their gods, that these were not just characters on a page, but powerful beings able to influence the daily lives of humanity. When I have had students write these prayers, this activity was short, done in class, and graded pass/fail (either they did it and get the points or they didn’t hand it in and don’t get the points). The low stakes of this project make it easier for students to have fun and get creative with their invocations.
Gillian Glass is a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia.
[1] This activity was done in CLST 105: Greek and Roman Mythology. I was the teaching assistant, not the instructor of record, and the activity was done in discussion groups. The activity was my design. I am grateful to Robert Cousland, the instructor, for letting me create such activities.