Month: February 2017

Mythology Monday: Lethe

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Don't forget, blue elephant, river lethe, greek mythology, the underworld

“So that—” Cassandra pointed at one of the beautiful rivers winding its way through the landscape “—is the River Lethe. Don’t drink the water, bathe in it, or even touch it.”

“Why?” I gazed longingly at the translucent water and pressed my hand against the cool glass. I’ve always hated swimming, and all the water I’d ever drank came from a faucet, but something about the sparkling water called to every fiber of my being.

“You’ll forget things. Sometimes when a soul comes here, their death was traumatizing, or maybe their whole life sucked. This river gives them a chance to forget the things that would otherwise haunt them.”

“Like Oreithyia?”

Cassandra hesitated. “She’s an extreme case. There are different levels of memory loss. The Lethe can take away all memories associated with a singular event or person, or wipe away their entire lives, and everything in between. Some memories go deeper than others. Boreas knew she would be coming here so he . . . made it difficult. He doesn’t like to be forgotten.”

I didn’t ask how. I was having a hard enough time dwelling on what could have happened to me. I didn’t need further details.

“We also use it on people who’ve done bad things in life,” Cassandra continued. “We take away all their memories, and they serve in the palace or around the Underworld until their sentence is up.”

That didn’t seem like much of a punishment. “Why?”

“For most people, their circumstances contributed to whatever crime they committed. This gives them a blank slate. When they finish their sentence they can live the rest of their afterlife in peace. Of course it doesn’t work like that for everyone, but between me and Moirae we can usually tell who should go straight to Tartarus.”

~@~

Lethe (the River of Unmindfulness) is both a river in the Underworld and a goddess of oblivion (daughter of Eris and Oceanus). Geographically, if flowed around the caves of Hypnos on the border of Elysium. Souls who drank from her water soon forgot all they knew, so the dead frequently used it to forget their mortal lives. In some versions of the myths, every resident of the Underworld had to drink from the water and were forced to forget their entire lives. In others, drinking from the Lethe was a requirement for reincarnation. Some cults taught souls were given a choice between the Lethe or a twin river called the Mnemosyne that would give memories and even omnipotence.

In my universe, the Lethe doesn’t equal complete forgetfulness unless a soul drinks a lot of it. There are levels and it can be used to forget specific traumas or for souls who committed crimes in their mortal lives to forget both the crimes and the circumstances. The reason for that is two fold (and very inspired by Kelley Armstrong’s Haunted).

 

FAQ: Can Persephone be read as a standalone novel?

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Question mark in a blue bubble. Repeating icon for the frequently asked questions in the Daughters of Zeus series a young adult greek mythology retelling by Kaitlin Bevis

 

Can Persephone be read as a standalone novel?

I get it. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is get tangled in a long series. Persephone is the first of a series of trilogies set in the Daughters of Zeus universe. There are multiple stopping and starting points within the series provided you don’t mind skipping the last page. There will be unanswered questions, but for the most part, of all the books, Persephone contains the most self-contained plot.

Literary VS Commercial Novels

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Book cover for The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne, #amwriting, #amediting, book review, how to write, how to edit

In chapter five of The Story Grid, Shawn Coyne talks about the differences between literary and commercial works, and it’s pretty common sense, but he did have some insights I wanted so share.

So first, a quick primer.Writing Excuses had the best explanation for literary fiction versus commercial, or genre fiction. In literary fiction the focus is on the craft, the word play, the things being accomplished by the text. Genre fiction is all about the story.

There’s a prevailing attitude that literary fiction is better than genre fiction. And in form that’s likely true. But that’s really not a fair comparison because the two have entirely different goals. If a literary fiction novel doesn’t pull your attention to the clever tricks of the words on the page, it’s failed. If a genre fiction novel pulls your attention off the story long enough to dissect the wordplay, then that’s a problem.

Think of it this way. Two people are making their way down a path. One is racing, determined to get their very best time. They are ultra focused on their form, the way their feet touch the ground when they run, everything matters.

The other person is  out for a walk to enjoy the pretty scenery. They are taking the time to look at every plant and flower, smelling the fresh air, basking in the sunshine.

There are similarities between the two. They are both using feet to propel them down the same path. They can learn from each other, use tips and tricks from each other to better meet their goals because the ground rises and falls beneath them identically. But it would be foolish to criticize the racer for not stopping to smell the flowers or the walker for making such terrible time.

The similarities in base form aren’t the only thing that make it tempting to compare the two unfavorably with each other. Literary fiction is what is often taught in the classroom. While literary fiction is still being written, because of the way writing adapts and changes, some genre fiction will become literary fiction as time goes by. Historical context, out of fashion writing styles, and impact of the novel itself has a lot to do with what is viewed as literary. Conversely, a lot of high brow literary stuff was once upon a time looked down upon as over rated genre fiction.

Coyne goes on to explain that within genre fiction, the largest consumers are women. Women’s fiction is historically the best selling fiction genre, followed closely by (and sometimes including) romance. That fact is why pretty much every novel ever written contains a romance regardless of genre.  Authors and publishers want to attract the most possible readers. Recently YA has made some massive waves and is changing the market place, so I’m curious to see what conventions change down the road.

Most helpful to me in this chapter was Coyne’s explanation on how he selected which books to acquire for his publisher by focusing on the recent sales of each sub genre within his genre of genre fiction. You should absolutely check it out in The Story Grid.

Mythology Monday: Ascalaphus

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Ascalaphus, bad omen, screech owl, mythology, greek mythology, from the young adult greek mythology retelling The Daughters of Zeus series by Kaitlin Bevis. Persephone, a modern day persephone retelling

Time passed in a blur of color and light. People laughed and danced around us, the spinning arcs of the skirts making me dizzy.

“I can’t dance another step.” I giggled, clinging to Hades so I wouldn’t trip and fall.

“Let’s get some air.” Hades led me out of the ballroom. The party was scattered all across the Underworld, but we found privacy in the grove of trees. The trees stretched into the sky, their branches arching and spilling over, sheltering us from view of any of the other souls wandering the Underworld.

“You’re trying to stop me from making a scene.” I stepped away from him into the center of the clearing. I spun around, holding my arms out. “Whoa.” I stopped mid-spin, waiting for the clearing to do the same.

“You should probably eat something.” Hades caught my hand. “Think of something, anything at all.”

I imagined pomegranate seeds and a plastic baggy full of them appeared in my free hand. I put six seeds in my mouth. An owl hooted in the distance.

Hades laughed. “You’re going to need more than that. What’s your favorite type of bread?”

“I’m a goddess. Do I have to worry about hangovers?”

“Your metabolism will change when you come into your powers. As far as alcohol is concerned, right now you’re a human.” He suppressed a grin. “Ambrosia gets even gods drunk, so you’re in trouble.”

~@~

I had a lot of fun peppering my books with Easter eggs for people as obsessed with Greek mythology as I am. The owl hooting in the distance in the scene above was a reference to the god Ascalaphus.

Ascalaphus (not to be confused with the Argonaut by the same name)  was a minor deity/spirit that kept the orchard in the Underworld. He saw Persephone eat the fateful pomegranate seeds and informed Hades and Zeus. Because of those seeds, she was forced to return to the Underworld every year.

Demeter did not take that news well. But she couldn’t lash out at Zeus or Hades to the degree that she’d like to, so she shot the messenger. She buried Ascalaphus under a rock, but that pesky demigod Hercules freed him. Since keeping him trapped didn’t seem to be working, she turned him into a screech owl. Ever since, screech owls have been associated with the Underworld. Spotting one is a bad omen.

There is a version of the myth that credits Persephone with his transformation, which while out of character at the time, wouldn’t be for long as she became known as The Iron Queen.

FAQ Friday: How old is Hades, physically?

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How old is Hades? Daughters of zeus, Persephone, Hades, young adult mythology retelling

How old is Hades, physically?

Simple answer? Let’s call him twenty-five.

Less simple answer? While Persephone said she thinks he’s in his mid-twenties, the answer to that question is going to depend on which part of Hades you’re talking about. The gods are basically frozen in their prime. That moment before cells start degrading and everything is just getting better and better and better. For different parts of your body or brain, that turning point happens at different parts of your life. For instance, your prime years of math learning or foreign language learning are over way before your prime height. But for simplicities sake, human men stop maturing in their mid-twenties, exactly which year/month/day of their mid twenties is going to vary person by person, but mid-twenties is a pretty safe estimate.

Romances

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In honor of Valentines, I’m reposting this blog for my writing on Wednesday feature.

Disney handles romance well.

That may be the most controversial sentence I’ve ever written. But when it comes to crafting romances from a plot perspective, they know what they’re doing.

The romantic plot arc is a simple one. That’s why it tends to run as a subplot. That doesn’t make it less important, it just means that the plot points of a romance line up with the plot points of the external conflict.

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Like it or not, this is the basic plot structure for every romance ever. “But what about–” you may protest. No, seriously. This is like the monomyth for romance. If a story has a romantic element in it at all, ever, it follows these points, maybe not in this order, but they’re there. Even if the author didn’t do it consciously.

Disney used to get to simplify the attraction stage. Boy sees girl, girl sees boy, boom. Expectations set. Because the early days of Ariel just happening to spot Prince Eric on the boat were done so well, they’ve become cliche. So lately they’ve been poking fun at that expectation with movies like Enchanted or Frozen. Oddly enough in doing so, they created the best example of the initial attraction yet in “Love is an Open Door” simply because they didn’t have the rest of the movie to develop it.

Love is an open door meets all the best requirements for the initial attraction. The characters don’t just connect on a physical level, they see each other. The name of the song has meaning to Anna in that this relationship embodies everything she’s been denied growing up. It’s simultaneously an escape and the thing she’s been missing from her life. Ignoring the whole marriage thing, by the end of the song the audience is rooting for this couple.

The next stage, conflict keeps them apart tends to be where the main plot line rears its ugly head. Ariel is a mermaid not a human, Aladdin is a street rat, not a prince, Anna is already engaged, the spell wears off at midnight, or my favorite, they disagree on fundamentally different levels. Best example of this, the absolute best version of Peter Pan ever made (not disney but included due to awesomeness).

Wendy loves him, she’s pretty sure he loves her, but fear and a fundamentally different outlook on life keep them apart. You’ll notice all my favorite examples come out of movies that did something different with the scenes. Like I said, they can be in different order or be used for a different purpose. Understanding the plot points that are being changed makes those choices stronger.

First kiss is often tied into the resolution of children’s movies and many YA books because  true love’s kiss has become a symbol of finding your one true love. Once you’ve established the characters are together, the tension for that subplot is gone. It’s no longer a building romance. But there are some examples of this. However there are no examples of first kiss coming before the discovery/growing closer stage and few in YA for obvious reasons so I’m gonna tie those together. My favorite example is Aladdin. Their initial attraction was when they were both in Aladdin’s hovel. Their initial conflict keeping them apart was a difference in station, resolving that conflict led to another when Aladdin just kept screwing up, and he finally fixed it by finding common ground in their growing closer scene which was the magic carper ride, which ended with their first kiss.

aladdin-disneyscreencaps-com-7299

Worsening conflict is Wendy being taken by Pirates, Aladdin almost drowning, Ursula impersonating Ariel, Kokoum getting shot, Anna discovering Hans betrayed her. In the children and YA romance structure, there’s almost no breathing room between worsening conflict and black moment, because one leads to another. Aladdin finds himself helpless, powerless and flung far from Jasmine, Ariel finds herself alone on a dock while she watches her love go off to marry another. Anna is freezing to death behind a locked door, Pocahontas hears her love sentenced to death. Pan falling out of the sky. It’s in these moments the characters find their inner strength or break completely. The dark moment leads straight to the climax because finally the characters have what they need to fight and in romance that strength comes from each other. The movie that handled this the best romance wise is Tangled. You think her darkest moment is when she thinks Flynn betrayed her, but that was just worsening conflict. She finds her inner core of strength “Did I mumble, Mother? Or should I even call you that?” But none of that matters when Flynn is stabbed. She breaks. She sacrifices her newfound backbone, her ability to fight to save him and she does it in a strong way. But what makes this scene great is that it’s not just her moment of strength. It’s his. He arcs. The selfish thief is every bit as willing to sacrifice his life to save hers as she is to save his. And for a romance, that’s pretty awesome.

The happily ever after in most romances is true loves kiss, wedding bells in the future, and a happy resolution on all plot points. But sometimes that’s not the case. Peter Pan has Wendy growing up while Peter stays behind and her knowing a part of her will always be with him. UP’s romance ends with the knowledge that Ellie (symbolically the house) is waiting for Carl in paradise and he’ll always miss her but he still has things to live for. Pocahontas ends with John Smith sailing away. Sometimes the best romances are bittersweet.

The ending is never, should never feel like a given. That’s what makes a great romance.

Mythology Monday: Aphrodite

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In honor of Valentine’s Day tomorrow, I’m reposting my Mythology Monday on The Goddess of Love.

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In the distance, a girl stood thigh-high in the ocean, clad in a gown of strategically placed sea foam. Although her back was to me, I could tell she was perfect. The curly ringlets of hair cascading down her flawless cream skin matched the intense orange of the sky as the sun sank in the sea.

I glanced down at my sun-kissed skin. I’d never felt self-conscious because of a tan before but gods. She made pale look really good. A movement caught my attention and I glanced up as she looked over her shoulder, aquamarine eyes meeting mine. 

“Who is that?” I motioned at the water. “And why did you send for me? What do you know about Zeus?”

“Look at her. You can’t tell what she is?” Poseidon replied.

I stared at the girl, her red hair swirling in the wind. I could tell she was a goddess, but knew he meant something more than that.

Hades narrowed his eyes and swore. “What has Zeus done?”

I gave the girl a closer look, but couldn’t see anything different.

“You are new,” Poseidon mused, looking me over curiously. “How old are you?”

“She’s Zeus’,” Hades explained, motioning toward the girl on the water.

“Yeah, I gathered that. So have you guys ever seen her before, or . . . ” I trailed off at Hades’ expression.

“No she’s really new.” Hades squinted his eyes against the setting sun.

“She appeared on the waves the day I sent for you,” Poseidon added.

“And you kept her out there? What’s wrong with you?” I demanded. I imagined spending two days in the ocean and shuddered.

“I’m not setting that thing loose in the world. If you can’t see the level of charisma she’s projecting, then I’ve severely overestimated your abilities.”

“She’s never seen another god with charisma,” Hades interjected. “There wasn’t an opportunity to teach her.”

“So she has charm.” I shrugged. “So do I, so does Zeus. What’s the problem?”

“She doesn’t just have charm.” Poseidon laughed. “That’s all she is. She’s a full deity, but from what I can tell, she came solely from Zeus, and charm is all he gave her. He gave her an obscene amount.” He went silent for a moment. “She wasn’t created here. She rose from the sea near Petra tou Romiou.”

Hades swore. I looked at him in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“It’s where Uranus fell,” Hades explained.

Poseidon nodded, looking grim. “The resting place of a fallen god is always rife with chaotic power. I think he used Uranus’ remains to help create her.”

“What would that do?” I asked.

“She has the potential to become more powerful than us,” Hades replied.

I realized what Hades meant, and my eyes widened. Uranus was Cronus’ father. Cronus and Rhea had created my mother, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Hestia, and Zeus. With gods, every generation is less powerful than the last. If Zeus had imbued her with charm and created her from Uranus’ remains, there was no telling how much chaos she could wreak.

~@~

Aphrodite (Venus to the Romans) makes her first appearance in the sequel to Persephone, “Daughter of the Earth and Sky.” Unlike Persephone who really only plays a part in three major myths, Aphrodite has her hand in everything, which meant a ton of research on my part. That research led to a surprising discovery.

There are two Aphrodites! The first Aphrodite predates the Olympians. She was born after Cronus killed Uranus by severing his…. nether bits. The… foam, that rose from said nether bits became flesh and Aphrodite rose from the foam a full grown, beautiful goddess, and the furies rose from the blood in the water.

Isn’t Greek mythology just full of the loveliest imagery?

Anyway, that’s where the famous picture, “The Birth of Venus” comes from. That Aphrodite is the goddess of love of the body and soul.

The other Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She was also pretty, but she was only the goddess of, well… sex.

Not surprisingly, it became very difficult to tell which goddess was being referred to in the myths, and eventually they became the same goddess to the uniformed listener. I had to figure out a way to be true to both versions of the goddess. She had to be Zeus’ daughter for my story to work, but I had him create her from the “remains” of Uranus. To explain why she’s pretty much only the goddess of love when most of the other gods are in charge of something a bit more tangible, I had Zeus give her charm, and charm alone.

In my series, charm is kind of like compulsion from the Vampire Diaries. That resemblance was not intentional. My series was written well before the show aired. BUT as a kid, I devoured that book series, so it probably was at the very least subconsciously inspired by it.

And here I thought I was so original. Meh, it’s not like supernatural beings being able to control the minds of humans is all that new of a concept.

Anyway, children of Zeus possess charm, or charisma. Controlled, it acts as a sort of mind control. Uncontrolled it could start things like the Trojan War. It triggers and amplifies whatever emotion the victim has toward the deity with the charm. Most deities come from two parents, so they have some other power or responsibility to balance out the charm. Aphrodite just has charm, so it’s very powerful, and everyone she sees has a reaction to her until she learns to get it under control.

Goddess of charm, goddess of love and beauty? It works.

Aphrodite has a part in many, many more myths, and I’ll do my best to cover them in future Mythology Mondays, because her role in the series is just starting.

FAQ Friday: Instalove

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daisy-712898_1920

One thing I’ve noticed getting debated in reviews is the question of whether or not Persephone and Hades count as instalove.

Instalove is a trend in YA lit that reaches back to the 80’s (and beyond). Girl sees guy, girl falls helplessly in love with guy despite guy kind of being a dick, girl spends entire book pining for guy and then, *gasp* discovers he’s completely obsessed with her too, and has been since the moment they met. That’s why he’s such a dick, because what girl doesn’t know is that guy is a vampire/in witness protection/a werewolf/some other thing that would be dangerous for the human girl.

Sometimes you see the trope reversed, and sometimes you see the trope work on both sides. They both see each other and fall for each other and the book just throws obstacles at them to stop them from being together. Or they hook up and go on their merry way together.

My book doesn’t have instalove. But at the same time, it kind of does.

Persephone hates Hades when she first meets him. She wants nothing to do with him or the Underworld. She just wants to go home. She has all these assumptions about who Hades is and over the course of the next four months, slowly begins to realize that he’s not a disney caricature. She over-corrects. Assumes that he’s nothing but this great, caring guy, and is quickly corrected. There’s darkness to Hades, there’s light, there’s everything inbetween. She doesn’t really consider whether or not she has feelings for Hades until she learns he has feelings for her. Sure, she likes looking at him. But he never registered as a possibility until she found out he was and then she got interested.

That’s, in my experience, how people work. Finding out someone likes you makes you consider whether or not you like them. I’ve seen it over and over again with myself and my friends. They know this guy, don’t really think anything of him, then find out he has a crush on them and suddenly start evaluating whether or not he’s datable.

Persephone has maybe a minute of blind devotion at the start of book two before she’s jolted back to reality when she has to come up with something true to tell Hades to convince him to go back to the Underworld. That truth is all these doubt bubbling up inside of her about how their relationship could possibly work. Even at the end of book two, she tells her mother that she loves Hades for now, but she knows they might not last forever. It’s not until book three, nearly two years after they meet, that Hades and Persephone become an unquestionable fact. And even at the end of book three, there’s some indication the ground ahead is rocky at best.

Persephone’s perspective tends to make my readers go “yay! It wasn’t instalove!” So where does the debate come in?

Hades.

Hades states outright that the second he saw her he knew he’d fall in love with her. He doesn’t act on it. He doesn’t not act on it. He accepts it as a part of life and does his best to make sure she survives. It doesn’t exactly fit the trope, because we never see it from his perspective, so an irrational, sudden interest isn’t the driving force of the plot. But technically, yeah, it’s instalove.

So why did I include it?

I thought long and hard about it, trust me. It would have been super easy to leave out that one line and just let my readers think it was a build up months in the making on both side. But I couldn’t. Hades is a good guy, but he’s not entirely unselfish. He wouldn’t bind himself to Persephone for all time just to save her if she wasn’t someone he had feelings toward. He would have tried to find another way. What he did was somewhat selfishly motivated. He didn’t stop to think, he acted to save her, but he could have stopped to think. He could have just faced Boreas on his own (granted she could have been caught in the cross-fire). My point is, there were options. He had to be far enough gone to not even pause to consider them.

So I included the line, and almost included a prologue that shows Hades seeing her for the first time and the absolute conviction he feels.

Hades, as stated by the narrative, has a way of looking at people and seeing everything they are, everything they could be, weighing their every thought and motivation, and leaving them with the unmistakable feeling that they’ve been judged and found wanting. Persephone feels this happen when she wakes up in the Underworld, and it’s not just her using flowery language.

Hades is a god.

While he employs help, he absolutely has the ability to determine whether or not a soul should go to Tartarus, Elysium, or Asphodel.  I don’t think Hades could ever experience anything other than instalove because when he looks at someone, he can weigh their soul. And he’s been around long enough to cut through all the self-doubt and questioning. He knows what he likes, he knows what he loves. And when he saw everything Persephone was, and the potential for everything she could be stripped bare, he fell in love with her.

It is instalove in the sense that it’s instant. But it’s not the typical use of the trope. His love isn’t irrational, built with nothing to go on but a glance and a snap judgment because the plot demanded it. He had more information than a normal person would get, even after decades of marriage. Hades knew what he was falling for.

Of course, it would have been way better if I’d done more than hint at that in the narrative.

 

 

 

The Story Grid

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I’ve talked extensively about outlining using  the Snowflake Method, but I wanted to share a great self-editing tool for after you finish the novel. And that’s called The Story Grid. The Story Grid is a book (get the physical version, the charts aren’t great in eBook), a podcast, a video series, and a super helpful website. Over the next few weeks, I’ll show you how I apply concepts from The Story Grid to my work using the most recent novel I took through the grid, Venus Rising. Spoilers will be hidden with links.

But first, an introduction from Shawn Coyne.

Mythology Monday: Cronus

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Cronus, Kronos, Chronos, Khronos, Father Time, Saturn, Greek mythology, TitanomachyGaia and Uranus had three sets of children: the giants, the Cyclopes, and the Titans. The titans were the more humanoid of the three, and among their number was the Titan of Time, Cronus (also known as Kronos, or Saturn, sort of also Chronos/Khronos, but that gets complicated).

Uranus was a terrible father. He tried to take the children from Gaia and imprison them. So she plotted with the Titans against Uranus. Gaia gave Cronus, the youngest of the Titans, a flint and a sickle to use against his father. Cronus fought Uranus and castrated him. His nether bits fell into the ocean and from their blood sprang the furies, from the foam came Aphrodite.

This act might have been where the name Titan came from. Kind of like how Trump brands everyone he doesn’t like with a  pejorative, Titans may have come from a source word that meant strained ones, but Hesiod is alone in that interpretation.

In some versions of the myth, it’s not Uranus that Cronus overthrew at all, but a serpent who was trying to devour the world called Ophion.

Whatever Cronus hit with that sickle, the imagery stuck. That sickle became Cronus’s calling card and made it into almost every image of Cronus ever produced. Because of that, he was frequently associated with the harvest and had an entire day dedicated to him around harvest time.

all the myths agree that the period of time when he ruled was called the Golden Age, because for a short time, there were no rules. Everyone just did the right thing because it was the right thing to do. Who “everyone” was is kind of unclear. Man shouldn’t have been around at this time, except in some versions of the myth they were. There were a lot of Titans, but a lot in the sense that it would be a crowded classroom, not a crowded school. It would have been a fairly manageable crowd given that he’d sent anyone who might even consider disagreeing with him, like the Giants and the Cyclopes, into Tartarus and ate any children who may decide to shake things up in the future.

Rhea and Cronus had five children before Rhea got tired of her babies getting devoured. When child number six was born, Rhea tricked Cronus and gave him a stone instead.

That child was Zeus.

Because Cronus ruled the earth and the sky, Zeus had to be suspended from the ground by a rope so he was never fully in either realm. He grew up this way and when the time was right, went against his father to avenge his siblings.

He managed to trick Cronus into drinking a potion that made him vomit up Zeus’s siblings. These children were Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, and Demeter. Zeus also freed the giants and the Cyclopes. Together, they fought Cronus and most of the remaining Titans and won and Zeus became god of Olympus.

Cronus and the Titans were cast into Tartarus, or possible a cave of Nyx, as punishment for their treatment of the Olympians.

Lifetimes later, Zeus released the Titans and made Cronus the king of Elysium. That’s still in the Underworld, so it’s not like he truly released them. Just relocated their prison to a nicer one.  Or if you’re Roman, he became a kind of supreme court judge, settling disputes amongst the gods.