A mythologist looks at the history of 'hero-ship'

When the activities of gods and monsters dominated the cosmos, there was an awed audience and awesome performers

Real heroes are difficult to recognize today, so difficult, in fact, that plenty of people will tell you they no longer exist.

But, according to William Hansen, professor of classical studies and folklore at Indiana University Bloomington, the problem of finding a hero today is more likely to be a matter of definition.

"The classical meaning of 'hero' is more narrowly focused than our usage," he said. "For ancient Greeks, there was an age of heroes, a period in human history, and, in particular, Greek history, that fell between the first great period of the cosmos, when the activities of gods and monsters dominated the scene, and the present period, when ordinary humans are the dominant form of life.

If your town or city was founded by a particular hero, say, someone triumphantly trekking home after the Trojan War, for instance, you would be accorded heroic badge identity and high personal status. William Hansen    Photo by Heather Hill

"In taking the Greek word into English and applying it to persons whom we greatly admire or before whom we feel in awe for their courage, skill, contributions and the like," Hansen continued, "we have disconnected heroes from the historical era with which Greeks associated them. But we have retained the relationship of awed audience and awesome performer."

Scholars can only speculate why Greeks created heroes for themselves. But a hero might bestow identity to a town and its people, according to Hansen, who chairs classical studies at IU and is co-director of the Program in Mythology Studies.

"Heroes usually form part of the early history of individual Greek communities, and so provide an individual community with a pedigree, and tie it in with a larger network of communities and events," he said. "For example, if your city was founded by a particular hero on his way home from the Trojan War, your city could boast a certain place in history, a certain importance, a certain identity. As idealized ancestors, heroes might also represent what a community of persons thought of themselves as being like or what they aspired to be."

Greek heroes, like the tragic figures portrayed by William Shakespeare in the 16th century or Eugene O'Neil in the 20th, exemplified different human values and behaviors, and provided society with what Hansen called "crystallizations of human types that are useful for thinking about."

And, like fiction today, the stories provided entertainment--just not in paperback.

"Authors re-told traditional stories that more or less everyone already knew," said Hansen. "People accepted the hero legends as being accounts of their early history, though they did not necessarily believe every detail of the received stories, which differed among themselves. We do not, for example, doubt the general history of the American Civil War, but prefer some accounts over others."

Another difference in defining classical heroes from those we admire today is lineage. Despite hang time that suggests an inheritance of Mercury's wings, Michael Jordan is not considered godly for his basketball prowess. In Greek mythology, however, gods and heroes are often related.

"A hero may have one human parent and one divine parent, making the hero a being who is something less than a god but something more than an ordinary human being," said Hansen. "Being something more, the hero achieves greatness in some extraordinary task such as slaying a monster or visiting the realm of the dead or participating in a great effort such as the Trojan War.

"Being something less, the hero is ultimately subject to death just as any other mortal is, which seems all the more tragic because he has lived so astonishing a life or has contributed so much to the world."

With definition evolving from narrow to broad, today's heroes may lack a certain nobility that can make them nearly impossible to recognize. But a broader, looser definition isn't necessarily bad, and certainly doesn't mean heroes no longer exist.

Maybe today's heroes are harder to recognize because they are more human, more equally opportune--they look just like, and, in fact, could be, any one of us.

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