‘A Suburban Pantheon’ – A Treatise on the Mythology of the Neóploutoi

The classic Hellenic pantheon of Gods, headed by the thunder-wielding Zeus and his many siblings and progeny, is well known. With the development of the city states in Greece and the subsequent rise in the proto-middle classes there was suddenly a theological need for a group of deities whose remits fitted the concerns of the bourgeoisie. And thus the Neóploutoi were created.

Relatively little is known of these deities due to them being seen as heretical by the religious mainstream of the day, though in recent decades more scraps of information have come to light, particularly with excavations of suburban settlements near Corinth and Chipping Sparta.

Hermesthenes, the ancient Greek poet wrote about these Neóploutoi gods and some of their myths. The origin myth disappointingly doesn’t involve dismembered members being lobbed into the Mediterranean or baby-swallowing paranoid pantheon patriarchs, but instead describes the Chair of the Gods, Gorseus, purchasing a second holiday Mountain close to the sea where they could ‘winter’, with funds he’d gained investing in prime retail land on the Asphodel Plains. His wife, Barbara, the Goddess of Ostentatious Gestures of Benevolence, deeming the displaced inhabitants on said mountain bothersome and in danger of having a detrimental impact on the resale value of the property, created a set of pre-fab structures for them fifty miles away and barely told any poets or playwrights because, as she repeatedly mentioned to everyone she met, this was a truly altruistic act.

With the tiresome natives satisfyingly relocated, soon hipster-frequented nectar cafes began sprouting up in the foothills of this secondary sacred mountain and so it came to be seen by other gods as a desirable residence. Consequently, the alternative pantheon of the Neóploutoi formed, headed by Gorseus and Barbara, accompanied by: Kenetheus the God of Executive Lunches, Jennifer the Goddess of Quinoa, Laertes the God of Vapid Aphorisms (he’s the deity who gives it 110%), Brutus the God of Artisan Bread Making, Helena the Goddess of Gymkhanas, and Clement the God of Bespoke Conservatories.

Riddle of the Sphonk

Beyond the central concepts, such as them all being part of the same smoked meat tasting society, myths grew up connected to the Neóploutoi that owed more than a little to already existing myths. One of these was the ‘Riddle of the Sphonk’. The story tells of the hero Odious who, whilst journeying to the land of his birth, came across the terrifying Sphonk, a portmanteau creature, with the body of a lion, the tail of a serpent, and the head of a chartered surveyor. This creature would ask its riddle to all who tried to pass by on its narrow path, and if the traveller failed to find the correct answer, it would kill them and eat them with a raspberry jus and seasonal heritage greens. As Odious approached the creature’s lurking place, the Sphonk emerged and greeted the hero.

            “Traveller, those that wish to pass this way must answer my riddle. Failure to provide me with the true answer will result in the forfeiting of your life.”

            “Bit harsh,” commented Odious.

            “You try looking like this mate, then you’ll know what ‘harsh’ is,” said the Sphonk highlighting its grotesque make-up.

            “True,” said Odious, “fire away then o’ Sphonk, let me hear and solve your riddle!”

            “Very well, o’ traveller!” The Sphonk cleared its throat. “What stands on six legs in the morning, ten legs in the afternoon, and fourteen legs in the evening?”

Truly it was a fearsome conundrum! Odious thought deep and hard. Fortunately, being a longstanding member of a lot of the groups involved in the community action work that took place in the suburb of where he had spent much of his youth, the answer leapt forth into his brain like a salmon unto its spawning pool.

            “Why,” said Odious, “tis the Executive Committee of the Local Neighbourhood Watch voting in new members during the course of an extended AGM.”

The Sphonk did rail at this, furious that its riddle had been solved. Odious set about it briefly with his squash racket, before journeying on to the land of his birth to claim his birth-right and become king. Though that did all end rather messily thanks to a lack of even a rudimentary system for certificating births and marriages.

The Rising of the Sun

Whereas in the traditional mythos of Ancient Greece, it was Helios’ duty to transport the Sun across the sky with his chariot, in the Neóploutoi that role was appointed to Daphné. Daphné, the Goddess of Oversized Chariots, decided to instead use her chariot to transport her offspring (Bhutan, the Goddess of Pretentious Nomenclature, and Adrian, God of Having a Misguided Sense of Entitlement), nigh on fifty yards to their place of education, bringing the deific byways to a grinding halt. She hired a little man from the village to pop along each morning to deal with the Sun-transporting business, and also to trim the hedges on a weekend.

Interesting to note that Daphné had previously relocated her domicile in order to be in the right fishing net zone to attend the leading philosopher’s academy, that of Phosphaetus who was believed to have invented ‘Gardener’s Question Time’.

Treseus and the Minor Tory

The hero Treseus is sent by his father, King Creosote of Little Athens on the Wold, as part of a deal with a corrupt hedge fund Manager to second seven young men and seven young women to roles within the Cretan Stock Exchange every five years. Upon arrival they would be fed into the Moral Maze, there to face the terrifying Minor Tory, a fearsome hybrid creature with the torso and head of a bull and the legs of an Old Etonian, who would extol the virtues of lower tax rates and a privatised healthcare system until they withered. Treseus, with the aid of the wide old inventor, Sir Didymus, was able to slay the Minor Tory and escape the Moral Maze by exploiting a loophole in the secondment agreement and diverting most of the Cretan wealth into an offshore account in the Seychelles.

Jason and the Huguenots

A very awkward boat trip of a young Greek hero with a group of straight-laced, persecuted religious reformists on their way to set up tailoring businesses specialising in golden wool.

The Seven Awkward Chores of Herbacles

The Demi-God Herbacles – son of the Father of the Neóploutoi, Gorseus, and Hamartia, a gullible shepherdess with loose morals and an even looser tunic – was regarded as the fourteenth strongest man in Attica, and admired for his flawless lyre playing. Barbara, Gorseus’ wife, was quite understandably miffed at her husband’s infidelity and the loin-fruit that he had produced and frequently sought to undermine Herbacles. She got him blackballed from the Rotarians, and barred from the most stylish of restaurants by spreading the rumour that he didn’t know how to properly eat an oyster.

Things came to a head when she sent a sparrow to nudge his arm at a royal banquet, and he got harissa all over their tablecloth, which is a stain of course that is impossible to shift. The monarch, Laertes of Corinth, was outraged and demanded penance. Herbacles was mortified and immediately vowed to do anything to make-up for the incident. At this point, Barbara, in the guise of a basset hound, whispered in the ear of Laertes suggesting humiliating him by binding him to seven really quite awkward chores.

Laertes agreed to this and set Herbacles the following now infamous tasks:

1. Remember whether it is the amphora containing that which can be reshaped to something new or the amphora that is full of detritus which is beyond the realms of possibility for salvaging into a new functional form’s turn to be put out, taking into consideration a day’s worth of holiday had been taken that week in celebration of those that handle the money.
2. To find a reputable craftsman who will build an extension to your villa at the same cost that was originally quoted.
3. Prepare a meal for six when you discover at the last minute that one has a severe nut allergy, one has been converted to a lotus-eater, and one won’t eat mashed beans since going to see ‘The Frogs’.
4. Stay conscious as your neighbour talks you through the frescoes he’s had done of their trip to Anatolia
5. Persuade a three year old to eat broccoli
6. To hire someone to clean the Augean Stables without feeling immensely guilty and doing most of it yourself before they arrive
7. To make several bottles of your own elderflower gin without becoming intolerably smug about it.

Of course Herbacles failed on all seven fronts and, much to Barbara’s delight, was banished to live in a small lepers’ colony just outside of Carthage.

Wagnarok – The End of the Neóploutoi

Finally, a vision from the Delphic Ceefax described ‘The Death of the Gods’. It was foretold that a dispute would arise over whose responsibility it was to maintain the temporal fence between realms – technically the end post was on the driveway of the Neóploutoi Pantheon, but it had traditionally been seen as the remit of the Titans to deal with the day-to-day maintenance. Part of the temporal fence had blown over in a zephyr-related incident when Aeolus accidentally let one out whilst doing Pilates. The Titans refused to fix it, claiming that it was caused by gods, not them, and the Neóploutoi refused to pay for someone to come and re-fence that area as they claimed it had already been weakened by the Titans ill-advisedly attaching hanging-baskets of Babylon to it – it was never designed to take that sort of weight. As a result, some pretty intense blanking occurred. Barbara completely ignored the Titan Phaesus at an informal cheese and wine morning held by Tyresia, Goddess of the Lawn Tennis Association. In retaliation, the Titans only bought half a tray of tiffin and a lemon drizzle cake at the Academy’s charity bake sale designed to raise funds to buy athlete grease for the gymnasium. Such mealy-measured contributions, led to the gods then raising a protest against the Titans’ application for planning permission to build a gazebo and cob oven in the entrance to Tartarus. Eventually it all became too much and there was a massive fight rather akin to the ending of ‘Bugsy Malone’ but with hummus.