Does the Greek mythology have a chronology?

by PrincessKian

It's it possible to establish a timeline of Greek mythology? Because there are a lot of myths that are established one after another, but some other not (as far as I know). Also, there are conflicting ones, like the myth of Demeter in which there are whole cities and kingdoms before agriculture, which is contradictory.

So, even if the histories didn't happened, maybe the authors were thinking in a timeline compatible with our own time. Also, are some of the figures (specially kings and other mortals) actually based on real people or are they totally invented?

bloxerator

The fact of the matter is the greeks were frequently self contradicting. They had some consistancy, for example, the war with the titans and Olympians, the Titanomachy, definitely predates the trojan war, since by then Zeus ruled supreme, but this was not always the case. For example historically the oldest 'greek god' was either Hermes or Dionysus, based on existing archaeological evidence (Isler-Kerényi, C. & Watson, W. (2007)) but they always viewed Dionysus as a newcomer to the pantheon. In fact, based on the stories of the House of Atreus as told by the common Homeric traditions it is implied Dionysus was alive before Demeter finishes her original mourning of Persephone (which is why in The story of tantalus she eats Pelops' shoulder, not noticing that he is a person because she's so grief-stricken.) But that level of grief was only expressed when her daughter was first taken to the underworld, and her grief is much less significant during further iterations (despite urban legends which ascribe the seasons to her, I've yet to find a myth stating that from the Greeks themselves). Unfortunately, this is supposed to have happened during the golden age, but Bacchus was canonically born around the heroic age, which would contradict his presence there, see Dionysus origins as described in Euripides 'The Bacchae'. It is also mixed up again when Dionysus is ascribed as a neutral party to the trojan war, despite the fact that again he was not supposed to have been born until around its end according to the order of events in the House of Atreus, it is possible that he was born and canonically in the age range of 10ish not impossible being that the gods age to adults instantly from birth, but I doubt this as that would imply the king of a country that fought in the trojan war died and was replaced by his son, only for his son to go to fight the trojan war but that same time, due to the events in the Bacchae his son would have died and been replaced by a child of a very young age if the Bacchae holds true to the timeline. All this is to point out the greeks had no established timelines and even some facts of the history of the gods could change, as the playwright, Aeschylus (or someone claiming to be him) did by altering the titan Prometheus' parentage from being a son of Iapetus and Metis (as it was in Hesiod's Theogony) to being the son of Themis and an unmentioned father for Prometheus bound where numerous times he states things such as 'by my mother Themis' "by grace bearing Themis" etc. And I'm sure you can understand the need for that repetition, being that he was, after all, trying to change the mythology itself with this work, and to his credit, he largely succeeded.

I leave the real-world consequences of this lack of a clear timeline and blurred canon to you, but to be clear there is no set timeline and many things criss-cross in the greek stories, many may have had their preferred working order, but I will not speculate beyond the acknowledgment. As evidenced by things like Hesiod's trickster being converted more into a cunningly intelligent figure with a plan, the version we see in Prometheus bound. From these changes see clearly the greeks had a flexible view of their collective mythology as well as the timeline they existed in and for most greeks that was just fine since, after all, it mattered little that you understand the gods as long as you provide them worship and sacrifice.

Edit: Edited for consistency in spelling and punctuation, fixed sources. Sourcing remains minimal due to specific reference to primary sources that are widely available.

Hesiod's Theogony: https://msu.edu/~tyrrell/theogon.pdf

The Iliad (for references to the trojan war) via google books: https://books.google.ca/books?id=AlNfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Euripides the Bacchae via google books: https://books.google.ca/books?id=RW5XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q&f=false

Prometheus Bound: http://classics.mit.edu/Aeschylus/prometheus.html

For Evidence related to the age of Dionysus and Hermes I reccommend getting your hands on this handy breakdown of pictoral evidence. (Isler-Kerényi, C. & Watson, W. (2007) Dionysos in Archaic Greece: An Understanding through Images.)

The greeks believed in four eras of godly relationships to people, the first was the golden age, when people and gods spoke and dined together like no big deal, just to give an example. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Four-Ages