Knowledge skills for Mythology

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Actually I was talking about the Brontes.

Sure. But in comparing them to the Addamses I was crediting them with a charm that in the real history they might not have had. (Personally, I would be much more interested in a conversation with Miss Austen than in one with any of the Misses Bronte.)

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

And in fact a most of what we "know" about Greco-Roman mythology comes from poets and playwrights not the priests and would often have been at odds with what priests would have taught. It's like learning about Christianity from Hollywood movies.

Wouldn't the priests have kept a lot of stuff to themselves? For instance Delphi aside from practice at hedging their predictions either had direct contact with the Other World, or a very good intelligence service. Or both. It does not really matter much except as far as the setting for your game. And a lot of stuff is just routine: no one cares just how Antiochous Epiphanes went about slaughtering a pig in the wrong temple.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Wouldn't the priests have kept a lot of stuff to themselves? For instance Delphi aside from practice at hedging their predictions either had direct contact with the Other World, or a very good intelligence service. Or both. It does not really matter much except as far as the setting for your game. And a lot of stuff is just routine: no one cares just how Antiochous Epiphanes went about slaughtering a pig in the wrong temple.

I seem to recall there was a big variation between cults - some were pretty much public (remember that most Greco-Roman temples had very little indoor space and did pretty much all their business in their colonnades) others were full on mystery cults with sealed sanctuaries and secret initiation rites. As I understand it, many were quite local and their "mysteries" not so much secret as not much transmitted. Also, from what I recall, full time clergy were few and far between - certainly most mainstream Roman priests also had a "day job" (famously, the position of pontifex maximus (high priest) - head of the Roman college of priests - was held by one G. Julius Caesar, who, it is fair to say, had a few other interests on the go at the same time) ... there were, of course, exceptions: the flameni were Roman priests, but were effectively full time due to the taboos heaped on them (there were, IIRC, about four flameni at any one time), the Galli who served the Magna Mater were full time, but they were ... different in other ways as well, and the cult of the Bona Dea was a mystery open to all Roman women but utterly obscure to men...