Before the advent of the printing press when the written word was accessible to a small minority of literate individuals - most of whom were cosseted away from the world as devoted members of various religious orders - stories were passed down by oral traditions such as ballads or poetry. Ballads and epic poems

such as "Beowulf", Vergil's "Aeneid" and Homer’s "Odyssey" were long and people were dedicated to

the craft of storytelling. Charged with the responsibility of not just telling the stories but of passing the

story on to an apprentice and ensuring that the tale remained true to the original form, those people would

earn their livelihood from going around telling stories to paying audiences. 

On the right, we show a depiction of one portion of Homer's "Odyssey"

as interpreted by William Russell Flint.

Anyone who has played the 'Telephone Game' knows how distorted the spoken word can become when relayed from one to another to another. 

This may account for why so many variations of the one tale came to be.  It may also account for why heroes of a pedestrian nature progressively

mutated through an act of apotheosis, into a godlike or divine nature.

Such acts of deification through reputation or storytelling that fostered a cult of personality, were particularly

popular goals of ancient rulers from many different cultures. Examples of apotheosis from Antiquity include

Homer (who was deified posthumously by Ptolemy IV Philopator - a Pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt), Alexander

the Great (who was deified during his life) and a number of Roman Emperors who were attributed with divine

status by their successors for political purposes. In the case of Roman Emperors, the honour of deification

was often extended to loved ones such as Empresses or lovers and undoubtedly, in the hope of being the

next in line for a similar privilege. Those who had been deified had the prefix Divus (or Diva if a female) added

to their name posthumously. In ancient China - and across the region from Indonesia to Thailand - rulers were attributed a heavenly status, as had also been the case for Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt. However, the

exploitation of the Hero archetype as a means of exerting power and control over others is surely a 'shadow'

expression of this energy.

To the left, we show an illustration by Frank C Papι from

"Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars" depicting the

following text: "He personated Apollo himself".

In our next Blog, we will discuss the evolving nature of the Hero and the social utility that such an evolution may represent.