“Without history and art, men are bellies.” This is what the muses, beautiful goddesses who presided over the arts, history, and science in Ancient Greece and Rome told some shepherds in the Theogony, written by Hesiod, a Ancient Greek poet, and what they said is certainly partially true. Without history and the arts, there would hardly be any culture. Imagine how boring life would be without it. There would practically be nothing to do but eat. Greek and Roman mythology has had a great impact on the world and the muses are one of the best examples of that influence.

The muses came about as the result of an affair between Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. There were originally three, which are now referred to as the Elder Muses. Their names were Melete, Mneme, and Aoede, and they were goddesses of springs. Later, in the myths, the Greeks changed the number of muses to nine. Calliope was the eldest, followed by Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania. The muses had many powers given to them by Zeus.

The muses’ main power was to inspire. They were all goddesses of music, but the Romans divided them into separate fields of arts, history, and science. Calliope, which means “beautiful voice”, inspired epic poetry. Clio was the muse of history. She inspired those “who wanted to make sense of the facts”. Erato was the muse of the emotions, and she inspired lyric and love poetry. Euterpe inspired flute playing. Melpomene carried the mask of tragedy, and she inspired tragic theater. Polyhymnia means “hymns abundant”. She was almost a muse of religion, inspiring those who wrote hymns. Terpsichore was the muse of dance, and she was the most graceful of all the muses. Thalia inspired comedy, and carried the smiling mask. The name Urania came from the Greek word for heavens, and she was the muse of astronomy.  They were involved in many stories.

The muses did not have many stories of their own like the major gods.  In The Lives of the Muses, Francine Prose states that the Ancient Greeks kept the muses more abstract, private, and distant than the other gods because they believed the muses’ work was beyond anecdote and gossip, which may be the reason they have very few stories of  their own. However, they did sing and dance at celebrations given by the gods and heroes, such as the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia, and they sang at the funeral of Patroclus. They taught Echo how to sing and play, and taught the Sphinx her riddle. Calliope also was a judge in some cases.

Calliope was the intellectual muse, so she judged the case of Adonis’s fate.  Persephone, goddess of the underworld, and Aphrodite, goddess of love, argued over the affections of the handsome Adonis, so Zeus asked Calliope to judge them and determine Adonis’s fate. She decided that Adonis would spend half the year with Persephone in the Underworld and the other half with Aphrodite in Olympus. This story is different and similar to that of the Judgement of Solomon in the Bible (1 Kings 3:16-28). There were two women, similar to the two goddesses in the pagan story, who had lived together and had baby boys at about the same time. One had smothered her boy in her sleep and switched him with the other mother’s live baby boy. The other mother discovered this the next morning and they went to King Solomon to receive judgement. Differently than Calliope, rather than  the baby spending half the time with one woman and half with the other, Solomon figured out who the true mother was by first suggesting they cut the baby in half and split him, which showed who the true mother was, the one who would rather give him to the other than split him. Although the muses didn’t influence the Bible, they have influenced many other things in our modern world.

The muses of the Ancients still have a great influence on the world today.  Our language is a prime example. There is not an agreement on the origin of the word “muse”, but it is known that “music”, “amuse”, and “mosaic” are derived from “muse”.  The word “museum” originally meant “shrine of the Muses” but today it means “a public place for the display of knowledge”.  Today, when talking about a muse, one usually refers to someone who inspires another to create. The word “muse” has also become a verb, meaning to think about and/or dwell on something. When words are stringed together, they become literature, which the muses also had an influence on.

The muses had an influence on many well-known works through history. The muses are mentioned several times in The Odyssey and The Iliad. Shakespeare mentions them in his poetry. In 2002, Francine Prose wrote a book about modern muses and the people they inspired in The Lives of the Muses. She has also written numerous works of fiction, including Blue Angel, a National Book Award finalist. Quite a bit of literature has been collected together for a social science project named after the Muses.

Entitled “Project MUSE,” the project’s purpose is “providing 100% full-text, affordable and user-friendly on-line access to a comprehensive selection of prestigious humanities and social sciences journals”. It was created in 1993 as a joint project between Johns Hopkins University and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library there, named after the younger brother of 1950s President and World War II General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The project’s motto is “Today’s research. Tommorow’s inspiration,” which also refers to the muses of Ancient Greek and Roman myth. Furthermore, the muses have also obviously had an influence on music.

The muses were all goddesses of Music. Apollo, the god of Music, was their leader. Calliope and Apollo had three children. Their most famous child was Orpheus, who used his lyre-playing abilities to go into the Underworld to save his mortal wife and return. When one comes across a theater called the Orpheum, Orpheus is who it would be named for, which makes sense since it is a place to go to the opera or a concert, or see a musical. There are several bands named after the muses. MUSE is a British alternative rock band, and The Muses is a Celtic music group from Colorado, to name a few.

Greek and Roman mythology has had a great impact on the world and the muses are one of the best examples of that influence, because they have affected our culture in so many ways. They will continue to do so for as long as people have science, literature, and especially music, and as long as they speak a language.