1.
Jacques-Louis David
–
Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. David later became a supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre. Imprisoned after Robespierres fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release, at this time he developed his Empire style, notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. After Napoleons fall from Imperial power and the Bourbon revival, David exiled himself to Brussels, then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, where he remained until his death. David had a number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century. Jacques-Louis David was born into a family in Paris on 30 August 1748. When he was nine his father was killed in a duel. He covered his notebooks with drawings, and he said, I was always hiding behind the instructors chair. Soon, he desired to be a painter, but his uncles and he overcame the opposition, and went to learn from François Boucher, the leading painter of the time, who was also a distant relative. Boucher was a Rococo painter, but tastes were changing, Boucher decided that instead of taking over Davids tutelage, he would send David to his friend, Joseph-Marie Vien, a painter who embraced the classical reaction to Rococo. There David attended the Royal Academy, based in what is now the Louvre, each year the Academy awarded an outstanding student the prestigious Prix de Rome, which funded a three- to five-year stay in the Eternal City. Each pensionnaire was lodged in the French Academys Roman outpost, which from the years 1737 to 1793 was the Palazzo Mancini in the Via del Corso. David competed for, and failed to win, the prize for three years, each failure contributing to his lifelong grudge against the institution. After his second loss in 1772, David went on a hunger strike, confident he now had the support and backing needed to win the prize, he resumed his studies with great zeal—only to fail to win the Prix de Rome again the following year. Finally, in 1774, David was awarded the Prix de Rome on the strength of his painting of Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus Disease, a subject set by the judges. In October 1775 he made the journey to Italy with his mentor, Joseph-Marie Vien, while in Italy, David especially studied the works of 17th-century masters such as Poussin, Caravaggio, and the Carracci. Mengs principled, historicizing approach to the representation of classical subjects profoundly influenced Davids pre-revolutionary painting, such as The Vestal Virgin, mengs also introduced David to the theoretical writings on ancient sculpture by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the German scholar held to be the founder of modern art history. In 1779, David toured the newly excavated ruins of Pompeii, while in Rome, David also assiduously studied the High Renaissance painters, Raphael making a profound and lasting impression on the young French artist
Jacques-Louis David
–
Self portrait of Jacques-Louis David, 1794,
Musée du Louvre
Jacques-Louis David
–
Mademoiselle Guimard as Terpsichore, 1774–5, an early work
Jacques-Louis David
–
Equestrian portrait of Stanisław Kostka Potocki (1781)
Jacques-Louis David
–
Oath of the Horatii (from 1786)
2.
Greek mythology
–
It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
Greek mythology
–
Bust of
Zeus,
Otricoli (Sala Rotonda,
Museo Pio-Clementino,
Vatican).
Greek mythology
–
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology
–
Prometheus (1868 by
Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus first was attested by
Hesiod and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of
Prometheus Bound,
Prometheus Unbound, and
Prometheus Pyrphoros.
Greek mythology
–
The Roman poet
Virgil, here depicted in the fifth-century manuscript, the
Vergilius Romanus, preserved details of Greek mythology in many of his writings.
3.
Ancient Greek
–
Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Ancient Greek
–
Inscription about the construction of the statue of
Athena Parthenos in the
Parthenon, 440/439 BC
Ancient Greek
–
Ostracon bearing the name of
Cimon,
Stoa of Attalos
Ancient Greek
–
The words ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ as they are inscribed on the marble of the 1955
Leonidas Monument at
Thermopylae
4.
Hector
–
In Greek mythology and Roman Mythology, Hector was a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, who was a descendant of Dardanus and Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and he was married to Andromache, with whom he had an infant son, Scamandrius. He acted as leader of the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, during the European Middle Ages, Hector figures as one of the Nine Worthies noted by Jacques de Longuyon, known not only for his courage but also for his noble and courtly nature. Indeed, Homer places Hector as peace-loving, thoughtful as well as bold, a son, husband and father. James Redfield writes of Hector as a martyr to loyalties, a witness to the things of this world, in Greek, Héktōr is a derivative of the verb ἔχειν ékhein, archaic form *ἕχειν hékhein, to have or to hold from Proto-Indo-European *seǵh- to hold. Héktōr, or Éktōr as found in Aeolic poetry, is also an epithet of Zeus in his capacity as he who holds, Hectors name could thus be taken to mean holding fast. According to the Iliad, Hector does not approve of war between the Greeks and the Trojans, for ten years, the Achaeans besieged Troy and their allies in the east. Hector commanded the Trojan army, with a number of subordinates including Polydamas, and his brothers Deiphobus, Helenus, and Paris. By all accounts, Hector was the best warrior the Trojans and all their allies could field, diomedes and Odysseus, when faced with his attack, described him as what Robert Fagles translated as an incredible dynamite, and a maniac. In the Iliad, Hectors exploits in the war prior to the events of the book are recapitulated and he had fought the Greek champion Protesilaus in single combat at the start of the war and killed him. A prophecy had stated that the first Greek to land on Trojan soil would die, thus, Protesilaus, Ajax, and Odysseus would not land. Finally, Odysseus threw his shield out and landed on that, in the ensuing fight, Hector killed him, fulfilling the prophecy. The Argives were initially reluctant to accept the challenge, however, after Nestors chiding, nine Greek heroes stepped up to the challenge and drew by lot to see who was to face Hector. Ajax wins and fights Hector to a stalemate for the entire day, with neither able to achieve victory, they express admiration for each others courage, skill, and strength. Hector gave Ajax his sword, which Ajax later uses to kill himself, Ajax gives Hector his girdle, which later was used to attach Hectors corpse to Achilles chariot by which he is dragged around the walls of Troy. The Greek and the Trojans make a truce to bury the dead, in the early dawn the next day the Greeks take advantage of it to build a wall and ditch around the ships. Zeus is watching in a distance, another mention of Hectors exploits in the early years of war was given in the Iliad book 9. During the embassy to Achilles, Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax all try to persuade Achilles to rejoin the fight and he then claims, There he stood up to me alone one day, and he barely escaped my onslaught
Hector
–
Hector brought back to
Troy. From a
Roman sarcophagus of ca. 180–200 AD.
Hector
–
Coin from
Troy, 177-192 AD. Obverse: Bust of
Commodus. Reverse: Hector, brandishing shield and spear, on a two-horse chariot. Inscription EKTΩP (Hektor) above, IΛIEΩN (Ilion meaning Troy) in exergue.
Hector
–
Hector Admonishes Paris for His Softness and Exhorts Him to Go to War by
J.H.W. Tischbein (1751–1828)
Hector
–
Ajax and Hector exchange gifts (
woodcut in
Andreas Alciatus, Emblematum libellus, 1591)
5.
Trojan War
–
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably through Homers Iliad. The Iliad relates four days in the year of the decade-long siege of Troy. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid. Zeus sent the goddesses to Paris, who judged that Aphrodite, as the fairest, in exchange, Aphrodite made Helen, the most beautiful of all women and wife of Menelaus, fall in love with Paris, who took her to Troy. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and the brother of Helens husband Menelaus, led an expedition of Achaean troops to Troy and besieged the city for ten years because of Paris insult. After the deaths of heroes, including the Achaeans Achilles and Ajax, and the Trojans Hector and Paris. The Achaeans slaughtered the Trojans and desecrated the temples, thus earning the gods wrath, few of the Achaeans returned safely to their homes and many founded colonies in distant shores. The Romans later traced their origin to Aeneas, one of the Trojans, in 1868, however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann met Frank Calvert, who convinced Schliemann that Troy was a real city at what is now Hissarlik in Turkey. On the basis of excavations conducted by Schliemann and others, this claim is now accepted by most scholars, whether there is any historical reality behind the Trojan War remains an open question. The events of the Trojan War are found in works of Greek literature. There is no single, authoritative text which tells the events of the war. Instead, the story is assembled from a variety of sources, the most important literary sources are the two epic poems traditionally credited to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, composed sometime between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Each poem narrates only a part of the war, the Iliad covers a short period in the last year of the siege of Troy, while the Odyssey concerns Odysseuss return to his home island of Ithaca, following the sack of Troy. Other parts of the Trojan War were told in the poems of the Epic Cycle, also known as the Cyclic Epics, the Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Iliou Persis, Nostoi, and Telegony. Though these poems survive only in fragments, their content is known from an included in Proclus Chrestomathy. The authorship of the Cyclic Epics is uncertain, both the Homeric epics and the Epic Cycle take origin from oral tradition. Even after the composition of the Iliad, Odyssey, and the Cyclic Epics, events and details of the story that are only found in later authors may have been passed on through oral tradition and could be as old as the Homeric poems
Trojan War
–
Achilles tending the wounded
Patroclus (
Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
Trojan War
–
The Burning of Troy (1759/62),
oil painting by Johann Georg Trautmann
Trojan War
–
The Judgment of Paris (1904) by
Enrique Simonet
Trojan War
–
Thetis gives her son Achilles weapons forged by Hephaestus (detail of Attic
black-figure hydria, 575–550 BC)
6.
Achilles
–
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homers Iliad. His mother was the immortal nymph Thetis, and his father, Achilles’ most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, later legends state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel. Alluding to these legends, the term Achilles heel has come to mean a point of weakness, Achilles name can be analyzed as a combination of ἄχος grief and λαός a people, tribe, nation. In other words, Achilles is an embodiment of the grief of the people, Achilles role as the hero of grief forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of Achilles as the hero of κλέος kleos. Laos has been construed by Gregory Nagy, following Leonard Palmer, to mean a corps of soldiers, a muster. With this derivation, the name would have a meaning in the poem, when the hero is functioning rightly, his men bring grief to the enemy. The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership, R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name. The name Achilleus was a common and attested name among the Greeks soon after the 7th century BC. It was also turned into the female form Ἀχιλλεία attested in Attica in the 4th century BC and, in the form Achillia, Achilles was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons. Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for the hand of Thetis until Prometheus, for this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed Peleus. Thetis, although a daughter of the sea-god Nereus, was brought up by Hera. According to the Achilleid, written by Statius in the 1st century AD, and to no surviving previous sources, however, he was left vulnerable at the part of the body by which she held him, his heel. It is not clear if this version of events was known earlier, in another version of this story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire, to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage, however, none of the sources before Statius makes any reference to this general invulnerability. To the contrary, in the Iliad Homer mentions Achilles being wounded, in Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaeus, son of Pelagon and he cast two spears at once, one grazed Achilles elbow, drawing a spurt of blood. Peleus entrusted Achilles to Chiron the Centaur, on Mt. Pelion, Achilles consuming rage is at times wavering, but at other times he cannot be cooled. Thetis foretold that her sons fate was either to gain glory and die young, or to live a long, Achilles chose the former, and decided to take part in the Trojan war
Achilles
–
Achilles and the
Nereid Cymothoe: Attic red-figure
kantharos from
Volci (
Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris)
Achilles
–
Head of Achilles depicted on a 4th-century BC coin from
Kremaste,
Phthia. Reverse:
Thetis, wearing
chiton and holding shield of Achilles with his AX monogram.
Achilles
–
Greek Mythology
Achilles
–
Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx (ca. 1625),
Peter Paul Rubens
7.
Talthybius
–
Talthybius was herald and friend to Agamemnon in the Trojan War. He was the one who took Briseis from the tent of Achilles, preceding the duel of Menelaus and Paris, Agamemnon charges him to fetch a sheep for sacrifice. He died at Aegium in Achaia, Talthybius appears in Euripides’ Hecuba and The Trojan Women. In addition, he has a role in The Iliad. In The Iliad, Agamemnon orders Talthybius to fetch the medic Machaon after Menelaus was wounded with a shot by Pandarus. In Hecuba and The Trojan Women, Talthybius seems to always be the bearer of bad news, in The Trojan Women, he tells Hecuba that all of the women are being divided up and given to different Greek Heroes as slaves. He says that Cassandra will be given to Agamemnon and that Hecuba herself will be given to Odysseus, furthermore, Talthybius is the one who tells Andromache of the Greeks’ plan to kill Astyanax, her son by Hector. The plan is to throw Astyanax from the towers of Troy because it would not be wise to let the son of a Trojan hero reach adulthood. In Hecuba, Talthybius brings an order from Agamemnon to Hecuba, telling her to bury her daughter, Polyxena and he exercises significant independence in the way he carries out his orders given to him from the commanders. He was worshipped as a hero at Sparta where sacrifices took place and were offered to him and he served in Trojan war alongside his followers and others who supported him. Talthybius commitment to interests of the Greek commanders and the care he takes to avoid their disapproval, in his dealings with the captive women he felt in the main to be a sympathetic figure
Talthybius
–
Agamemnon, Talthybius and
Epeius, relief from
Samothrace, ca. 560 BC,
Louvre.
8.
Astyanax
–
In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector, the crown prince of Troy and husband of Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe. His birth name was Scamandrius, but the people of Troy nicknamed him Astyanax, because he was the son of the great defender. During the Trojan War, Andromache hid the child in Hectors tomb and his fate was debated by the Greeks, for if he were allowed to live, it was feared he would avenge his father and rebuild Troy. In the version given by the Little Iliad and repeated by Pausanias, he was killed by Neoptolemus, another version is given in Iliou persis, in which Odysseus kills Astyanax. In Ovids Metamorphoses, the child is thrown from the walls by the Greek victors, in Euripidess The Trojan Women, the herald Talthybius reveals to Andromache that Odysseus has convinced the council to have the child thrown from the walls, and the child is in this way killed. Other sources for the story of the Sack of Troy and Astyanaxs death can be found in the Bibliotheca, Astyanax survives to found settlements in Corsica and Sardinia. The Chronicle of Fredegar contains the oldest mention of a medieval legend linking the Franks to the Trojans, one legend, as further elaborated through the Middle Ages, established Astyanax, renamed Francus, as the founder of Merovingian dynasty and forefather of Charlemagne. In Matteo Maria Boiardos Orlando innamorato, Andromache saves Astyanax by hiding him in a tomb, taken to Sicily, Astyanax became the ruler of Messina, killed the giant king of Agrigento and married the queen of Syracuse. He was killed treacherously by Aegisthus, but his wife escaped to Reggio and bore a son, in this tradition, the epic hero Rolands sword Durendal was the very sword used by Hector, and Roland wins the sword by defeating a Saracen knight who had defeated Ruggiero II. In Ludovico Ariostos Orlando Furioso, a continuation of Boiardos poem, Astyanax arrives in Sicily and eventually becomes king of Messina, and his heirs later rule over Calabria. From these rulers is descended Ruggiero II, father of the hero Ruggiero, based on the medieval legend, Jean Lemaire de Belgess Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie has Astyanax survive the fall of Troy and arrive in Western Europe. He changes his name to Francus and becomes king of Celtic Gaul and founds the dynasty leading to Pepin, Lemaire de Belges work inspired Pierre de Ronsards epic poem La Franciade. In this poem, Jupiter saves Astyanax, the young hero arrives in Crete and falls in love with the princess Hyanthe with whom he is destined to found the royal dynasty of France. In Jean Racines play Andromaque, Astyanax has narrowly escaped death at the hands of Odysseus, Andromache has been taken prisoner in Epirus by Neoptolemus who is due to be married to Hermione, the only daughter of the Spartan king Menelaus and Helen of Troy. Astyanax is also the subject of modern works, In David Gemmells Troy series, Astyanax is the son of Andromache. After the Trojan War, Aeneas escapes from Troy with Andromache and Astyanax to Seven hills, a colony in Italy Aeneas and Odysseus found
Astyanax
–
An engraving showing the child Astyanax thrown from the walls of Troy as his mother Andromache looks on.
Astyanax
–
Astyanax, in Andromache's lap, reaches to touch his father's helmet before his duel with Achilles (
Apulian red-figure column-crater, ca. 370–360 BC)
9.
Neoptolemus
–
Achilles mother Thetis foretold many years before Achilles birth that there would be a great war. She saw that her son was to die if he fought in the war. She sought a place for him to avoid fighting in the Trojan War, disguising him as a woman in the court of Lycomedes, during that time, he had an affair with the princess, Deidamea, who then gave birth to Neoptolemos. Neoptolemos was originally called Pyrrhos, because his father had taken Pyrrha, the Greeks captured the Trojan seer, Helenos, and forced him to tell them under what conditions could they take Troy. Helenos revealed to them that they could defeat Troy if they could acquire the poisonous arrows of Heracles, steal the Palladium, in response to the prophecy, the Greeks took steps to retrieve the arrows of Heracles and bring Neoptolemos to Troy. Odysseus was sent to retrieve Neoptolemos, then a mere teenager, the two then went to Lemnos to retrieve Philoctetes. Years earlier, on the way to Troy, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake on Chryse Island, agamemnon had advised that he be left behind because the wound was festering and smelled bad. This retrieval is the plot of Philoctetes, a play by Sophocles, euripides, in his play Hekabe, has a moving scene which shows Neoptolemos as a compassionate young man who kills Polyxena, Hekabes daughter with ambivalent feelings and in the least painful way. Neoptolemos was held by some to be brutal and he killed six men on the field of battle. During and after the war, he killed Priam, Eurypylos, Polyxena, Polites and Astyanax among others, captured Helenos, the ghost of Achilles appeared to the survivors of the war, demanding Polyxena, the Trojan princess, be sacrificed before anybody could leave. With Andromache, Helenos and Phoenix, Neoptolemos sailed to the Epirot Islands, with the enslaved Andromache, Neoptolemos was the father of Molossos and through him, according to the myth, an ancestor of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. According to Hyginus, his son with Andromache was Amphialos, CXXIII, NEOPTOLEMUS Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and Deidamia, begat Amphialus by captive Andromache, daughter of Ēëtion. But after he heard that Hermione his betrothed had been given to Orestes in marriage, he went to Lacedaemon, Menelaus did not wish to go back on his word, and took Hermione from Orestes and gave her to Neoptolemus. Orestes, thus insulted, slew Neoptolemus as he was sacrificing to Delphi, the bones of Neoptolemus were scattered through the land of Ambracia, which is in the district of Epirus. Although Neoptolemus is often depicted thus, the play Philoctetes by Sophocles shows him being a kinder man. Two accounts deal with Neoptolemos death and he was either killed after he attempted to take Hermione from Orestes as her father Menelaus promised, or after he denounced Apollo, the murderer of his father. In the first case, he was killed by Orestes, in the second, revenge was taken by the Delphic priests of Apollo. After his death his kingdom was portioned out and Helenos took part of it, helenus, a son of Priam, was king over these Greek cities of Epirus, having succeeded to the throne and bed of Pyrrhus
Neoptolemus
–
Neoptolemus killing Priam.
Neoptolemus
–
Neoptolemus and Andromache, by
Pierre-Narcisse Guérin.
10.
Pausanias (geographer)
–
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the time of Roman emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece, a work that describes ancient Greece from his first-hand observations. This work provides crucial information for making links between classical literature and modern archaeology, andrew Stewart assesses him as, A careful, pedestrian writer. interested not only in the grandiose or the exquisite but in unusual sights and obscure ritual. He is occasionally careless, or makes unwarranted inferences, and his guides or even his own notes sometimes mislead him, yet his honesty is unquestionable, before visiting Greece, he had been to Antioch, Joppa and Jerusalem, and to the banks of the River Jordan. In Egypt, he had seen the pyramids, while at the temple of Ammon, in Macedonia, he appears to have seen the alleged tomb of Orpheus in Libethra. Crossing over to Italy, he had something of the cities of Campania. He was one of the first to write of seeing the ruins of Troy, Alexandria Troas, Pausanias Description of Greece is in ten books, each dedicated to some portion of Greece. He begins his tour in Attica, where the city of Athens, subsequent books describe Corinthia, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaea, Arcadia, Boetia, Phocis and Ozolian Locris. He famously leaves out key portions of Greece such as Crete, the project is more than topographical, it is a cultural geography. Pausanias digresses from description of architectural and artistic objects to review the mythological and historical underpinnings of the society that produced them and his work bears the marks of his attempt to navigate that space and establish an identity for Roman Greece. He is not a naturalist by any means, though he does from time to comment on the physical realities of the Greek landscape. He notices the pine trees on the sandy coast of Elis, the deer and the boars in the oak woods of Phelloe. Pausanias is most at home in describing the art and architecture of Olympia. Yet, even in the most secluded regions of Greece, he is fascinated by all kinds of depictions of gods, holy relics, Pausanias has the instincts of an antiquary. Some magnificent and dominating structures, such as the Stoa of King Attalus in the Athenian Agora or the Exedra of Herodes Atticus at Olympia are not even mentioned. While he never doubts the existence of the gods and heroes, he criticizes the myths. His descriptions of monuments of art are plain and unadorned and they bear the impression of reality, and their accuracy is confirmed by the extant remains. He is perfectly frank in his confessions of ignorance, when he quotes a book at second hand he takes pains to say so
Pausanias (geographer)
–
Manuscript (1485), of Pausanias' Description of Greece at the
Laurentian Library
11.
Epirus
–
Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, now shared between Greece and Albania. It is currently divided between the region of Epirus in northwestern Greece and the counties of Gjirokastër, Vlorë, the largest city in Epirus is Ioannina, seat of the region of Epirus, with Gjirokastër the largest city in the Albanian part of Epirus. A rugged and mountainous region, Epirus was the north-west area of ancient Greece. It was inhabited by the Greek tribes of the Chaonians, Molossians, and Thesprotians, and home to the sanctuary of Dodona, the oldest ancient Greek oracle, and the most prestigious one after Delphi. Unified into a state in 370 BC by the Aeacidae dynasty, Epirus achieved fame during the reign of Pyrrhus of Epirus. Epirus subsequently became part of the Roman Empire along with the rest of Greece in 146 BC, following the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade, Epirus became the center of the Despotate of Epirus, one of the successor states to the Byzantine Empire. Conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, Epirus became semi-independent during the rule of Ali Pasha in the early 19th century, but the Ottomans re-asserted their control in 1821. Following the Balkan Wars and World War I, southern Epirus became part of Greece, the name Epirus is derived from the Greek, Ἤπειρος, Ḗpeiros, meaning mainland or terra firma. It is thought to come from an Indo-European root *apero- coast, and was applied to the mainland opposite Corfu. The local name was stamped on the coinage of the unified Epirote commonwealth, the Albanian name for the region, which derives from the Greek, is Epiri. The historical region of Epirus is generally regarded as extending from the end of the Ceraunian mountains, located just south of the Bay of Aulon. The northern boundary of ancient Epirus is alternatively given as the mouth of the Aoös river, epiruss eastern boundary is defined by the Pindus Mountains, that form the spine of mainland Greece and separate Epirus from Macedonia and Thessaly. To the west, Epirus faces the Ionian Sea, the island of Corfu is situated off the Epirote coast but is not regarded as part of Epirus. The definition of Epirus has changed over time, such that modern administrative boundaries do not correspond to the boundaries of ancient Epirus, the region of Epirus in Greece only comprises a fraction of classical Epirus and does not include its easternmost portions, which lie in Thessaly. Epirus is a rugged and mountainous region. It is largely made up of the Pindus Mountains, a series of limestone ridges that are a continuation of the Dinaric Alps. The Pindus mountains form the spine of mainland Greece and separate Epirus from Macedonia, the ridges of the Pindus are parallel to the sea and generally so steep that the valleys between them are mostly suitable for pasture rather than large-scale agriculture. Altitude increases as one moves east, away from the coast, reaching a maximum of 2, 637m at Mount Smolikas, most of Epirus lies on the windward side of the Pindus, and the prevailing winds from the Ionian Sea make the region the rainiest in mainland Greece
Epirus
–
Map of ancient Epirus by
Heinrich Kiepert, 1902
Epirus
–
Coin of the Epirote League, depicting Zeus (left) and a lightning bolt with the word "ΑΠΕΙΡΩΤΑΝ" - Epirotes (right).
Epirus
–
NASA satellite image of Epirus.
Epirus
–
Mount Smolikas (2637m), the highest point in Epirus.
12.
Pergamum
–
Pergamon /ˈpɜːrɡəmən/ or /ˈpɜːrɡəmɒn/ or Pergamum /ˈpɜːrɡəməm/ was a rich and powerful ancient Greek city in Aeolis. It is located 26 kilometres from the coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus. Many remains of its monuments can still be seen and especially the outstanding masterpiece of the Pergamon Altar. It became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period under the Attalid dynasty in 281–133 BC, Pergamon is cited in the Book of Revelation as one of the seven churches of Asia. Xenophon provides the earliest surviving mention of Pergamon. Captured by Xenophon in 399 BC and immediately recaptured by the Persians, in 261 BC he bequeathed his possessions to his nephew Eumenes I, who increased them greatly, leaving as heir his cousin Attalus I. The Attalids became some of the most loyal supporters of Rome in the Hellenistic world, for their support against the Seleucids, the Attalids were rewarded with all the former Seleucid domains in Asia Minor. As a consequence of its rise to power, the city expanded greatly, until 188 BC, it had not grown significantly since its founding by Philetaerus, and covered c.21 hectares. After this year, a new city wall was constructed,4 kilometres long and enclosing an area of approximately 90 hectares. The Attalids ruled with intelligence and generosity, many documents survive showing how the Attalids supported the growth of towns by sending in skilled artisans and by remitting taxes. They allowed the Greek cities in their domains to maintain nominal independence and they sent gifts to Greek cultural sites like Delphi, Delos, and Athens. They remodeled the Acropolis of Pergamon after the Acropolis in Athens, when Attalus III died without an heir in 133 BC, he bequeathed the whole of Pergamon to Rome in order to prevent a civil war. Not everyone in Pergamon accepted Romes rule, aristonicus, who claimed to be Attalus brother as well as the son of Eumenes II, an earlier king, led a revolt among the lower classes with the help of Blossius. The revolt was put down in 129 BC, and Pergamon was divided among Rome, Pontus, Pergamon was briefly the capital of the Roman province of Asia, before the capital was transferred to Ephesus. After a slow decline, the city was favoured by several imperial initiatives under Hadrian, in addition, at the city limits the shrine to Asclepius was expanded into a lavish spa. This sanctuary grew in fame and was considered one of the most famous therapeutic, galen, after Hippocrates the most famous physician of antiquity, was born at Pergamon and received his early training at the Asclepeion. Pergamon reached the height of its greatness under Roman Imperial rule and was home to about 200,000 inhabitants, the city was an early seat of Christianity and was granted a bishopric by the 2nd century. The city suffered badly during the century and was badly damaged by an earthquake in 262 and was sacked by the Goths shortly after
Pergamum
–
The reconstructed
Temple of
Trajan at Pergamon
Pergamum
–
The
Kingdom of Pergamon (colored olive), shown at its greatest extent in 188 BC
Pergamum
–
Theatre of Pergamon
Pergamum
–
The Great Altar of Pergamon, on display in the
Pergamonmuseum in
Berlin, Germany
13.
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
–
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton PRA, known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter, Leighton was bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history, after only one day his hereditary peerage ended with his death. Leighton was born in Scarborough to a family in the import and export business and he was educated at University College School, London. He then received his training on the European continent, first from Eduard von Steinle. When he was 24 he was in Florence, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti, from 1855 to 1859 he lived in Paris, where he met Ingres, Delacroix, Corot and Millet. In 1860, he moved to London, where he associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and he designed Elizabeth Barrett Brownings tomb for Robert Browning in the English Cemetery, Florence in 1861. In 1864 he became an associate of the Royal Academy and in 1878 he became its President and his 1877 sculpture, Athlete Wrestling with a Python, was considered at its time to inaugurate a renaissance in contemporary British sculpture, referred to as the New Sculpture. American art critic Earl Shinn claimed at the time that Except Leighton and his paintings represented Britain at the great 1900 Paris Exhibition. Leighton was knighted at Windsor in 1878, and was created a baronet, of Holland Park Road in the Parish of St Mary Abbots, Kensington, in the County of Middlesex, eight years later. He was the first painter to be given a peerage, in the New Year Honours List of 1896, the patent creating him Baron Leighton, of Stretton in the County of Shropshire, was issued on 24 January 1896, Leighton died the next day of angina pectoris. Leighton remained a bachelor and rumours of his having a child with one of his models in addition to the supposition that Leighton may have been homosexual continue to be debated today. He certainly enjoyed an intense and romantically tinged relationship with the poet Henry William Greville whom he met in Florence in 1856, the older man showered Leighton in letters, but the romantic affection seems not to have been reciprocated. Enquiry is furthermore hindered by the fact that Leighton left no diaries, after his death his Barony was extinguished after existing for only a day, this is a record in the Peerage. His house in Holland Park, London has been turned into a museum, the house also features many of Leightons inspirations, including his collection of Iznik tiles. Its centrepiece is the magnificent Arab Hall, the Hall is featured in issue ten of Cornucopia. A blue plaque commemorates Leighton at Leighton House Museum, Leighton was an enthusiastic volunteer soldier, enrolling with the first group to join the 38th Middlesex Rifle volunteers on 5 October 1860. His qualities of leadership were identified, and he was promoted to command A Company within a few months. On 6 January 1869 Captain Leighton was elected to command The Artists Rifles by a meeting of the corps
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
–
Self portrait of Leighton (1880)
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
–
Flaming June (1895;
Museo de Arte de Ponce).
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
–
Sir Frederick Leighton by
George Frederic Watts
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
–
Sir Frederick Leighton, later in his career.
14.
Homer
–
Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
Homer
–
Idealized portrayal of Homer dating to the
Hellenistic period.
British Museum.
Homer
–
Part of an 11th-century manuscript, "the Townley Homer". The writing on the top and right side are
scholia.
Homer
–
Homer and His Guide, by
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), portraying Homer on
Mount Ida, beset by dogs and guided by the goatherder Glaucus (as told in
Pseudo-Herodotus)
Homer
–
Raphael 's inspired Homer on
Mount Parnassus.
15.
Iliad
–
The iLiad was an electronic handheld device, or e-Reader, which could be used for document reading and editing. Like the Barnes and Noble nook, Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, in 2010, sales of the iLiad ended when its parent company, iRex, filed for bankruptcy. The display used is an active matrix display, which uses E Ink Vizplex Imaging Film manufactured by E Ink Corporation. Underneath the E Ink screen is a tablet by WACOM which requires a stylus for input. When it was introduced, the Iliad had largest screen size of existing e-paper products, the iLiad can display document files in several formats, including PDF, Mobipocket, XHTML and plain text. It can also display JPEG, BMP and PNG images, as of May 3,2007 Mobipocket is supported, making the mobipocket digital rights management content available on this platform. IRexs product page for the states that Support for additional E-book formats will become available over the coming months. Through its wireless service, iDS, the iLiad can also download content. Les Echos, a French financial newspaper, is distributed this way, users can connect to their computer over a wireless network to sync new data onto the iLiads internal memory or an inserted MMC, SD, or CF card. The distributor of the iLiad is iRex Technologies, a Philips spin-off company and it was initially advertised in December 2005, to be launched in April 2006, but was delayed until July, when it started to be sold as a beta product. It was released to the public near the end of July. Its list price in Europe is €649, and in US $699, one of the advanced features of the iLiad is the ability to add notes to existing documents. With the integrated Wacom tablet and stylus, it is possible to directly on almost any document. Using the desktop software, those notes can be merged into the original document and this provides malleability, an important feature of physical books that is missing from most ebook products, allowing users to annotate, highlight, and personalize the text. Because of its open Linux operating system, the iLiad is able to run third party applications created for it, developers and users wishing to create or run third party applications can request shell access from the manufacturer. Developers have been able to improve on the devices functionality by porting viewers such as FBReader, full screen PDF reading is made available by community-supported iPDF releases. Programs for recreation, including audio playback, sudoku, and calendars, are rapidly growing community content available for use on the iLiad, independent users have also reported successful porting of mobile web browsers to iLiads Linux platform, although with limited functionality and many bugs. IRex as a company has had a relationship with its Open Source developers
Iliad
–
iRex iLiad
Iliad
Iliad
–
iLiad in sunlight
Iliad
–
iLiad e-book reader equipped with e-paper display
16.
Euripides
–
Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He is one of the few plays have survived, with the others being Aeschylus, Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most, of these,18 or 19 have survived more or less complete and there are also fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, yet he also became the most tragic of poets, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was also unique among the writers of ancient Athens for the sympathy he demonstrated towards all victims of society and his contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Whereas Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as an influence, Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age. Recent scholarship casts doubt on ancient biographies of Euripides, for example, it is possible that he never visited Macedonia at all, or, if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists. Upon the receipt of a saying that his son was fated to win crowns of victory. In fact the boy was destined for a career on the stage and he served for a short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, he studied painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus. He had two marriages and both his wives—Melite and Choerine —were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis, there he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky. Eventually he retired to the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. However, as mentioned in the introduction, biographical details such as these should be regarded with scepticism and this biography is divided into three sections corresponding to the three kinds of sources. The apocryphal account that he composed his works in a cave on Salamis island was a late tradition, much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didnt live to see the final defeat of his city. In an account by Plutarch, the failure of the Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides lyrics to their enemies in return for food. Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia, Aristophanes scripted him as a character in at least three plays, The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs. Yet Aristophanes borrowed rather than just satirized some of the methods, he was once ridiculed by a colleague, Cratinus, as a hair-splitting master of niceties
Euripides
–
Bust of Euripides: Roman marble copy of a 4th-century BC Greek original (
Museo Pio-Clementino, Rome)
Euripides
–
A statue of Euripides,
Louvre,
Paris.
17.
Andromache (play)
–
Andromache is an Athenian tragedy by Euripides. It dramatises Andromaches life as a slave, years after the events of the Trojan War, the date of its first performance is unknown, although scholars place it sometime between 428 and 425 BC. A Byzantine scholion to the play suggests that its first production was staged outside of Athens, during the Trojan War, Achilles killed Andromaches husband Hector. The Greeks threw Andromache and Hectors child Astyanax from the Trojan walls for fear that he would grow up and avenge his father, Andromache was made a slave of Achilles son Neoptolemus. Euripides dramatised these events ten years after Andromache in his tragedy The Trojan Women, years pass and Andromache has a child with Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, even though Andromache is still devoted to her dead husband Hector, Hermione is deeply jealous and plots her revenge. Fearing for her life and the life of her child, Andromache hides the child and she reveals that Neoptolemos has left for the oracle at Delphi and that she has hidden the son she bore him for fear that Menelaus will try to kill him as well as her. A Maid arrives to warn her that Menelaus knows the location of her son and is on his way to capture him, Andromache persuades her to risk seeking the help of the king, Peleus. Andromache laments her misfortunes again and weeps at the feet of the statue of Thetis, the párodos of the chorus follows, in which they express their desire to help Andromache and try to persuade her to leave the sanctuary. Just at the moment that they express their fearfulness of discovery by Hermione, she arrives, boasting of her wealth, status, Hermione engages in an extended agôn with Andromache, in which they exchange a long rhetorical speech initially, each accusing the other. Hermione accuses Andromache of practising oriental witchcraft to make her barren and attempting to turn her husband against her, learn your new-found place, she demands. She condemns the Trojans as barbarians who practise incest and polygamy and their agon continues in a series of rapid stichomythic exchanges. When Menelaus arrives and reveals that he has found her son, the intervention of the aged Peleus saves them. Orestes, who has contrived the murder of Neoptolemus at Delphi, the death of Neoptolemus is announced. The goddess Thetis appears as a deus ex machina and arranges matters, the odious character which Euripides attributes to Menelaus has been seen as according with the feeling against Sparta that prevailed at the time at Athens. Peleus curses Sparta several times during the play, edward P. Coleridge,1891 - prose, full text at Andromache. Robert Cannon,1997 - verse George Theodoridis - prose, full text at Andromache, bacchicstage - The Ancient Greek Stage. The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy, Playing Space and Chorus, Chicago and London, U of Chicago P. ISBN 0-226-47757-6
Andromache (play)
–
Captive Andromache (detail) by
Frederic Leighton
18.
The Trojan Women
–
The Trojan Women, also known as Troades, is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. 415 BC was also the year of the desecration of the hermai. The Trojan Women was the tragedy of a trilogy dealing with the Trojan War. The first tragedy, Alexandros, was about the recognition of the Trojan prince Paris who had abandoned in infancy by his parents. The second tragedy, Palamedes, dealt with Greek mistreatment of their fellow Greek Palamedes and this trilogy was presented at the Dionysia along with the comedic satyr play Sisyphos. The plots of this trilogy were not connected in the way that Aeschylus Oresteia was connected, Euripides did not favor such connected trilogies. Euripides won second prize at the City Dionysia for his effort, the four Trojan women of the play are the same that appear in the final book of the Iliad lamenting over the corpse of Hector. Taking place near the time is Hecuba, another play by Euripides. Euripidess play follows the fates of the women of Troy after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, what follows shows how much the Trojan women have suffered as their grief is compounded when the Greeks dole out additional deaths and divide their shares of women. The Greek herald Talthybius arrives to tell the dethroned queen Hecuba what will befall her and her children, Hecuba will be taken away with the Greek general Odysseus, and Cassandra is destined to become the conquering general Agamemnons concubine. Cassandra, who can see the future, is delighted by this news, she sees that when they arrive in Argos. However, Cassandra is also cursed so that her visions of the future are never believed, the widowed princess Andromache arrives and Hecuba learns from her that her youngest daughter, Polyxena, has been killed as a sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek warrior Achilles. The Greek leaders are afraid that the boy grow up to avenge his father Hector. Helen, though not one of the Trojan women, is supposed to suffer greatly as well, Helen begs and tries to seduce her husband into sparing her life. Menelaus remains resolved to kill her, but the audience watching the play knows that he let her live. In the end, Talthybius returns, carrying with him the body of little Astyanax on Hectors shield, andromaches wish had been to bury her child herself, performing the proper rituals according to Trojan ways, but her ship had already departed. Talthybius gives the corpse to Hecuba, who prepares the body of her grandson for burial before they are taken off with Odysseus. Throughout the play, many of the Trojan women lament the loss of the land that reared them, the Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin also wrote his own version of the play, adding more disturbing scenes and scatological details
The Trojan Women
–
An engraving of the death of
Astyanax
The Trojan Women
–
Karen Tiegren (Cassandra) in The Trojan Women, directed by
Brad Mays at the
ARK Theatre Company in
Los Angeles, 2003
The Trojan Women
–
Aomawa Baker (Andromache) in The Trojan Women, directed by Brad Mays at the ARK Theatre Company in Los Angeles, 2003
The Trojan Women
–
Shelley DeLane (Helen) and Pab Schwendimann (Menelaus) in The Trojan Women, directed by Brad Mays at the ARK Theatre Company in Los Angeles, 2003
19.
Virgil
–
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature, the Eclogues, the Georgics, a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Romes greatest poets and his Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Virgils work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dantes Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through Hell, the tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists, modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his later biographers. Macrobius says that Virgils father was of a background, however. He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples, after considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. From Virgils admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, according to Servius, schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed Parthenias or maiden because of his social aloofness. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life, according to the Catalepton, he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples. A group of works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen poems, some of which may be Virgils, and another. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, the Eclogues are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. The loss of his farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgils motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues, the ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside,2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love and attraction toward people of any gender. Eclogue 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called Messianic Eclogue uses the imagery of the age in connection with the birth of a child. Virgil came to many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus. At Maecenas insistence Virgil spent the years on the long didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics which he dedicated to Maecenas
Virgil
–
Depiction of Virgil, 3rd century AD ("Monnus-Mosaic",
Rheinisches Landesmuseum,
Trier)
Virgil
–
A
bust of Virgil in
Naples
Virgil
–
Page from the Eclogues in the 5th-century Vergilius Romanus
Virgil
–
Late 17th-century illustration of a passage from the Georgics by
Jerzy Siemiginowski-Eleuter
20.
Aeneid
–
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter, the hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgils masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature, the Aeneid can be divided into two halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 and Books 7–12. These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgils ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odysseys wandering theme and the Iliads warfare themes and this is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind. Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme and an invocation to the Muse and he then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story, the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan people. This is consistent with her throughout the Homeric epics. Also in the manner of Homer, the story begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home and it has been foretold that in Italy, he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be the cup bearer to her husband, Jupiter—replacing Junos daughter, Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe, Aeolus does not accept the bribe, but agrees to carry out Junos orders, the storm then devastates the fleet. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas rouses the spirits of his men, There, Aeneass mother, Venus, in the form of a hunting woman very similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and recounts to him the history of Carthage. At a banquet given in honour of the Trojans, Aeneas sadly recounts the events that occasioned the Trojans arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the war described in the Iliad, Cunning Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into the walled city of Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a warrior, Sinon, to inform the Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laocoön saw through the Greek plot and urged the horses destruction, then, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, two serpents emerged from the sea and devoured Laocoön, along with his two sons. The Trojans then took the horse inside the walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged from it. In a dream, Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, advised Aeneas to flee with his family, Aeneas awoke and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was alone to fend off the Greeks
Aeneid
–
Aeneas Flees Burning Troy,
Federico Barocci, 1598
Galleria Borghese, Rome
Aeneid
–
Paul Cézanne, Aneas Meeting Dido at Carthage, ca. 1875,
Princeton University Art Museum
Aeneid
–
The suicide of
Queen Dido (book 4), sculpture by Claude-Augustin Cayot (fr) (1667–1722)
Aeneid
–
Boxing scene from the Aeneid (book 5), mosaic floor from a Gallo-Roman villa in
Villelaure (France), ca. 175 AD,
Getty Villa (71.AH.106)
21.
Ovid
–
Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists and he enjoyed enormous popularity, but, in one of the mysteries of literary history, was sent by Augustus into exile in a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. Ovid himself attributes his exile to carmen et error, a poem and a mistake and his poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology, Ovid talks more about his own life than most other Roman poets. Information about his biography is drawn primarily from his poetry, especially Tristia 4.10, other sources include Seneca the Elder and Quintilian. Ovid was born in Sulmo, in an Apennine valley east of Rome, to an important equestrian family and that was a significant year in Roman politics. He was educated in rhetoric in Rome under the teachers Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro with his brother who excelled at oratory and his father wanted him to study rhetoric toward the practice of law. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid tended to the emotional, after the death of his brother at 20 years of age, Ovid renounced law and began travelling to Athens, Asia Minor, and Sicily. Ovids first recitation has been dated to around 25 BC, when he was eighteen and he was part of the circle centered on the patron Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, and seems to have been a friend of poets in the circle of Maecenas. 4.10. 41–54, Ovid mentions friendships with Macer, Propertius, Horace, Ovid was very popular at the time of his early works, but was later exiled by Augustus in AD8. He married three times and divorced twice by the time he was thirty years old and he had one daughter, who eventually bore him grandchildren. His last wife was connected in some way to the influential gens Fabia, the first 25 years of Ovids literary career were spent primarily writing poetry in elegiac meter with erotic themes. The chronology of early works is not secure, tentative dates. 2.18. 19–26 that seems to describe the collection as a published work. The authenticity of some of these poems has been challenged, between the publications of the two editions of the Amores can be dated the premiere of his tragedy Medea, which was admired in antiquity but is no longer extant. Ovid may identify this work in his poetry as the carmen, or song. The Ars Amatoria was followed by the Remedia Amoris in the same year and this corpus of elegiac, erotic poetry earned Ovid a place among the chief Roman elegists Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, of whom he saw himself as the fourth member
Ovid
–
Statue (1887) by
Ettore Ferrari commemorating Ovid's exile in Tomis (present-day
Constanța, Romania)
Ovid
–
A second statue of Ovid by
Ettore Ferrari in the Piazza XX Settembre,
Sulmona, Italy.
Ovid
–
Ovid Banished from Rome (1838) by
J.M.W. Turner.
Ovid
–
Medea in a fresco from
Herculaneum.
22.
Ars Amatoria
–
The Ars Amatoria is an instructional elegy series in three books by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. It teaches basic gentlemanly male and female relationship skills and techniques, book one of Ars Amatoria was written to show a man how to find a woman. In book two, Ovid shows how to keep her, the third book, written two years after the first books were published, gives women advice on how to win and keep the love of a man. The first two books, aimed at men, contain sections which cover topics as not forgetting her birthday, letting her miss you - but not for long. The third gives similar advice to women, sample themes include, making up, although the book was finished around 2 AD, much of the advice he gives is applicable to any day and age. His intent is more profound than the brilliance of the surface suggests. In connection with the revelation that the theatre is a place to meet girls, for instance, Ovid. The superficial brilliance, however, befuddles even scholars, the standard situations and cliches of the subject are treated in an entertainment-intended way, with details from Greek mythology, everyday Roman life and general human experience. Ovid likens love to military service, supposedly requiring the strictest obedience to the woman and he advises women to make their lovers artificially jealous so that they do not become neglectful through complacency. Perhaps accordingly, a slave should be instructed to interrupt the lovers tryst with the cry Perimus, the tension implicit in this uncommitted tone is reminiscent of a flirt, and in fact, the semi-serious, semi-ironic form is ideally suited to Ovids subject matter. It is striking that all his ironic discourse, Ovid never becomes ribald or obscene. Of course embarrassing matters can never be excluded, for praecipue nostrum est, quod pudet, inquit. Sexual matters in the narrower sense are only dealt with at the end of book, so here again, form. Things, so to speak, always end up in bed, but here, too, Ovid retains his style and his discretion, avoiding any pornographic tinge. The end of the book deals with the pleasures of simultaneous orgasm. Somewhat atypically for a Roman, the poet confesses, Odi concubitus, hoc est, cur pueri tangar amore minus. However, the word ars in the title is not to be translated coldly as technique, or as art in the sense of civilized refinement, but as textbook, the literal and antique definition of the word. Appropriately for its subject, the Ars Amatoria is composed in couplets, rather than the dactylic hexameters
Ars Amatoria
–
Title page of a 1644 edition of Ars Amatoria, published in Frankfurt.
23.
Seneca the Younger
–
Seneca the Younger, fully Lucius Annaeus Seneca and also known simply as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and—in one work—humorist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. As a tragedian, he is best-known for his Medea and Thyestes and he was a tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. He was forced to take his own life for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, however, some sources state that he may have been innocent. His father was Seneca the Elder, his brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus. Seneca was born in Cordoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, griffin also infers from the ancient sources that Seneca was born in either 8,4, or 1 BC. She thinks he was born between 4 and 1 BC and was a resident in Rome by AD5, Seneca says that he was carried to Rome in the arms of his mothers stepsister. Griffin says that, allowing for rhetorical exaggeration, means it is fair to conclude that Seneca was in Rome as a small boy. Be that as it may, it is clear that he was in Rome at an early stage in his life. Caligula and Fabius were critics of his works, and Columella, Pliny, Tacitus, from AD54 to 62, Seneca acted as Neros advisor, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus. One byproduct of his influence was that Seneca was appointed consul in 56. Senecas influence was said to have especially strong in the first year. Tacitus and Dio suggest that Neros early rule, during which time he listened to Seneca, however, the ancient sources suggest, over time, Seneca and Burrus lost their influence over the emperor. In 59 they had agreed to Agrippinas murder, and afterward. This may have contributed as well to his own downfall, following Burrus death in 62, Seneca became the subject of criticism by what Tacitus describes as Neros more disreputable advisers. Charges included allegations of excessive wealth, the grandeur of his property, Seneca requested an audience with Nero in which he sought permission to retire from public duties, pleading age and infirmity. The two then parted on apparently warm terms, Seneca subsequently adopted a quiet lifestyle on his country estates, concentrating on his studies and seldom visiting Rome. In AD65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of the Pisonian conspiracy, although it is unlikely that Seneca conspired, Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed tradition by severing several veins in order to bleed to death, a generation after the Julio-Claudian emperors, Tacitus wrote an account of the suicide, which in view of his Republican sympathies is perhaps somewhat romanticized
Seneca the Younger
–
Ancient bust of Seneca, part of the
Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca (
Antikensammlung Berlin)
Seneca the Younger
–
This Baroque marble imaginary portrait bust of Seneca, by an anonymous sculptor of the 17th century (
Museo del Prado).
Seneca the Younger
–
Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, The suicide of Seneca (1871),
Museo del Prado
Seneca the Younger
–
Plato, Seneca, and
Aristotle in a medieval manuscript illustration (c. 1325–35)
24.
Priam
–
In Greek mythology, Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian name Pariya-muwas, which meant “exceptionally courageous” and was attested as the name of a man from Zazlippa, a similar form is attested transcribed in Greek as Paramoas near Kaisareia in Cappadocia. Notable is also Piyama-Radu, a man whose name figures prominently in the Hittite archives. Priam was originally called Podarces and he kept himself from being killed by Heracles by giving him a golden veil embroidered by his sister, after this, Podarces changed his name to Priam. This is a folk etymology based on πριατός priatos, ransomed from πρίασθαι priasthai, in Iliad Book 3, Priam tells Helen of Troy that he once helped King Mygdon of Phrygia defend against the Amazons. When Hector is killed by Achilles, the Greek warrior treats the body with disrespect, Zeus sends the god Hermes to escort King Priam, Hector’s father and the ruler of Troy, into the Greek camp. Priam tearfully pleads with Achilles to take pity on a father bereft of his son and he invokes the memory of Achilles’ own father, Peleus. Priam begs Achilles to pity him, saying I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before — I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son, deeply moved, Achilles relents and returns Hector’s corpse to the Trojans. Both sides agree to a truce, and Achilles gives Priam leave to hold a proper funeral for Hector. He promises that no Greek will engage in combat for nine days, but on the day of peace. Priam is killed during the Sack of Troy by Achilles son Neoptolemus and his death is graphically related in Book II of Virgils Aeneid. In Virgils description, Neoptolemus first kills Priams son Polites in front of his father as he seeks sanctuary on the altar of Zeus, Priam rebukes Neoptolemus, throwing a spear at him, harmlessly hitting his shield. Neoptolemus then drags Priam to the altar and there kills him too and it has been suggested by Hittite sources, specifically the Manapa-Tarhunta letter, that there is historical basis for the archetype of King Priam. The letter describes one Piyama-Radu as a rebel who overthrew a Hittite client king. There is also mention of an Alaksandu, suggested to be Paris Alexander, in Apollodorus Library, Telamon was almost killed during the siege of Troy. Telamon was the first one to break through the Trojan wall, Hercules was about to cut him down with his sword when Telamon began to quickly assemble an altar out of nearby stones in honor of Hercules. Hercules was so pleased, after the sack of Troy he gave Telamon Hesione as a wife, Hesione requested that she be able to bring her brother Podarces with her. Hercules would not allow it unless Hesione bought Podarces as a slave, Hesione paid for her brother with a veil
Priam
–
Priam killed by
Neoptolemus, detail of an Attic black-figure amphora, ca. 520–510 BC
25.
Paris (mythology)
–
Paris, also known as Alexander, the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, later in the war, he fatally wounds Achilles in the heel with an arrow as foretold by Achilles’s mother Thetis. The name Paris is probably Luwian and comparable to Pari-zitis attested as a Hittite scribes name, Paris was a child of Priam and Hecuba. Just before his birth, his mother dreamed that she gave birth to a flaming torch and this dream was interpreted by the seer Aesacus as a foretelling of the downfall of Troy, and he declared that the child would be the ruin of his homeland. Though Paris was indeed born before nightfall, he was spared by Priam, Hecuba, too, was unable to kill the child, despite the urging of the priestess of Apollo, one Herophile. Instead, Pariss father prevailed upon his chief herdsman, Agelaus, to remove the child, the herdsman, unable to use a weapon against the infant, left him exposed on Mount Ida, hoping he would perish there, he was, however, suckled by a she-bear. Returning after nine days, Agelaus was astonished to find the still alive. He returned to Priam bearing a dogs tongue as evidence of the deeds completion and it was at this time that Oenone became Pariss first lover. She was a nymph from Mount Ida in Phrygia and her father was Cebren, a river-god. She was skilled in the arts of prophecy and medicine, which she had been taught by Rhea and Apollo respectively. When Paris later left her for Helen she told him if he ever was wounded, he should come to her for she could heal any injury. Pariss chief distraction at this time was to pit Agelauss bulls against one another, one bull began to win these bouts consistently, and Paris began to set it against rival herdsmens own prize bulls, it defeated them all. Finally Paris offered a crown to any bull that could defeat his champion. Ares responded to this challenge by transforming himself into a bull, in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, Lord Zeus, father of the Greek pantheon, hosted a banquet on Mount Olympus. Every deity and demi-god had been invited, except Eris, the goddess of strife, the goddesses thought to be the most beautiful were Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, and each one claimed the apple. They started a quarrel so they asked Zeus to choose one of them, knowing that choosing any of them would bring him the hatred of the other two, Zeus did not want to take part in the decision. He thus appointed Paris to select the most beautiful, escorted by Hermes, the three goddesses bathed in the spring of Mount Ida and approached Paris as he herded his cattle. Having been given permission by Zeus to set any conditions he saw fit, Paris chose Aphrodite— and, therefore, Helen
Paris (mythology)
–
Prince Paris with apple by
H.W. Bissen,
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
Paris (mythology)
–
Judgement of Paris,
Capodimonte porcelain (
Capitoline Museums,
Rome)
Paris (mythology)
–
El Juicio de Paris by
Enrique Simonet, ca. 1904. Paris is studying Aphrodite, who is standing before him naked. The other two goddesses watch nearby.
Paris (mythology)
–
Abduction of Helen, ceiling fresco, Venetian, mid-18th century
26.
Helen of Troy
–
In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy, also known as Helen of Sparta, or simply Helen, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world, by marriage she was Queen of Laconia, a province within Homeric Greece, the wife of King Menelaus. Her abduction by Prince Paris of Troy brought about the Trojan War, elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as Aristophanes, Cicero, Euripides and Homer. In her youth, she was abducted by Theseus, a competition between her suitors for her hand in marriage sees Menelaus emerge victorious. An oath sworn beforehand by all the suitors requires them to military assistance in the case of her abduction. When she marries Menelaus she is very young, whether her subsequent involvement with Paris is an abduction or a seduction is ambiguous. The legends recounting Helens fate in Troy are contradictory, Homer depicts her as a wistful figure, even a sorrowful one, who comes to regret her choice and wishes to be reunited with Menelaus. Other accounts have a treacherous Helen who simulates Bacchic rites and rejoices in the carnage, ultimately, Paris was killed in action, and in Homers account Helen was reunited with Menelaus, though other versions of the legend recount her ascending to Olympus instead. A cult associated with her developed in Hellenistic Laconia, both at Sparta and elsewhere, at Therapne she shared a shrine with Menelaus and she was also worshiped in Attica and on Rhodes. Her beauty inspired artists of all time to represent her, frequently as the personification of ideal beauty, Christopher Marlowes lines from his tragedy Doctor Faustus are frequently cited, Was this the face that launchd a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium. However, in the play this meeting and the ensuing temptation are not unambiguously positive, closely preceding death, images of her start appearing in the 7th century BC. In classical Greece, her abduction by—or elopement with—Paris was a popular motif, in medieval illustrations, this event was frequently portrayed as a seduction, whereas in Renaissance painting it is usually depicted as a rape by Paris. The fact that rape and kidnapping were interchangeable terms lends additional ambiguity to the story, the etymology of Helens name continues to be a problem for scholars. Georg Curtius related Helen to the moon, Émile Boisacq considered Ἑλένη to derive from the noun ἑλένη meaning torch. It has also suggested that the λ of Ἑλένη arose from an original ν. Linda Lee Clader, however, says none of the above suggestions offers much satisfaction. Inversely, others have connected this etymology to a hypothetical proto-indo-european sun goddess, in particular, her marriage myth may be connected to a broader indo-european marriage drama of the sun goddess, and she is related to the divine twins, just as many of these goddesses are. The origins of Helens myth date back to the Mycenaean age, the first record of her name appears in the poems of Homer, but scholars assume that such myths invented or received by the Mycenaean Greeks made their way to Homer
Helen of Troy
–
Helen and Menelaus: Menelaus intends to strike Helen; captivated by her beauty, he drops his sword. A flying
Eros and
Aphrodite (on the left) watch the scene. Detail of an Attic
red-figure krater, c. 450–440 BC (
Paris,
Louvre)
Helen of Troy
–
Leda and the Swan by
Cesare da Sesto (c. 1506–1510,
Wilton). The artist has been intrigued by the idea of Helen's unconventional birth; she and Clytemnestra are shown emerging from one egg; Castor and Pollux from another.
Helen of Troy
–
Theseus pursuing a woman, probably Helen. Side A from an Attic red-figure bell-krater, c. 440–430 BC (
Louvre, Paris).
Helen of Troy
–
In this painting by
Maarten van Heemskerck Helen, queen of the Greek city-state Sparta, is abducted by Paris, a prince of Troy in Asian Minor. The Walters Art Museum.
27.
Troy
–
The present-day location is known as Hisarlik. It was the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle, in particular in the Iliad, a new capital called Ilium was founded on the site in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually in the Byzantine era and these excavations revealed several cities built in succession. Troy VII has been identified with the city that the Hittites called Wilusa, the origin of the Greek Ἴλιον. Today, the hill at Hisarlık has given its name to a village near the ruins. It lies within the province of Çanakkale, some 30 km south-west of the provincial capital, the map here shows the adapted Scamander estuary with Ilium a little way inland across the Homeric plain. Troy was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998, Ancient Greek historians variously placed the Trojan War in the 12th, 13th, or 14th centuries BC, Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Duris of Samos to 1334 BC. Modern archaeologists associate Homeric Troy with archaeological Troy VII, in the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the River Scamander, where they had beached their ships. The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, recent geological findings have permitted the identification of the ancient Trojan coastline, and the results largely confirm the accuracy of the Homeric geography of Troy. In November 2001, the geologist John C, kraft from the University of Delaware and the classicist John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin, presented the results of investigations, begun in 1977, into the geology of the region. Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the major work attributed to Homer. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid, the Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War and the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and there made sacrifices at tombs associated with the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus. After the 1995 find of a Luwian biconvex seal at Troy VII, with the rise of critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were, for a long time, consigned to the realms of legend. However, the location of ancient Troy had from classical times remained the subject of interest. The Troad peninsula was anticipated to be the location, leChavaliers location, published in his Voyage de la Troade, was the most commonly accepted theory for almost a century. In 1822, the Scottish journalist Charles Maclaren was the first to identify with confidence the position of the city as it is now known, the hill, near the city of Çanakkale, was known as Hisarlık. In 1868, Heinrich Schliemann visited Calvert and secured permission to excavate Hisarlık, in 1871–73 and 1878–79, he excavated the hill and discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period
Troy
–
The walls of the
acropolis belong to Troy VII, which is identified as the site of the
Trojan War (c. 1200 BC).
Troy
–
Silver
tetradrachm from Troy with head of
Athena, c. 165–150 BC
Troy
–
The
odeon dates to the
Roman Troy IX and was renovated by
Hadrian in 124 AD.
Troy
–
The view from
Hisarlık across the plain of Ilium to the
Aegean Sea.
28.
Hecuba
–
Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several characters of Homers Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris. Ancient sources vary as to the parentage of Hecuba, according to Homer, Hecuba was the daughter of King Dymas of Phrygia, but Euripides and Virgil write of her as the daughter of the Thracian king Cisseus. According to Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars, the emperor Tiberius pestered scholars with obscure questions about ancient mythology, Hecuba appears six times in the Iliad. In Book 6. 326–96, she meets Hector upon his return to the polis and offers him the cup, instructing him to offer it to Zeus. Taking Hectors advice, she chooses a gown taken from Alexanders treasure to give as an offering to the goddess, in Book 22, she pleads with Hector not to fight Achilles, for fear of never get to mourn you laid out on a bier. In Book 24. 201–16, she is stricken with anxiety upon hearing of Priams plan to retrieve Hectors body from Achilles hut. Further along in the episode, at 24. 287–98, she offers Priam the libation cup. Unlike in the first episode in which Hector refuses her offer of the cup, finally, she laments Hectors death in a well-known speech at 24. 748–59. The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus states that Hecuba had a son named Troilus with the god Apollo, an oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated if Troilus reached the age of twenty alive. Hecuba is a character in two plays by Euripides, The Trojan Women and Hecuba. The Trojan Women describes the aftermath of the fall of Troy, Hecuba also takes place just after the fall of Troy. Polydorus, the youngest son of Priam and Hecuba, is sent to King Polymestor for safekeeping, Hecuba learns of this, and when Polymestor comes to the fallen city, Hecuba, by trickery, blinds him and kills his two sons. A third story says that when she was given to Odysseus as a slave, she snarled and cursed at him, so the gods turned her into a dog, in another tradition, Hecuba went mad upon seeing the corpses of her children Polydorus and Polyxena
Hecuba
–
Hecuba from the "
Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum "
Hecuba
–
The death of Hector on a Roman sarcophagus, c. 200 AD
29.
Hermione (mythology)
–
In Greek mythology, Hermione was the only child of King Menelaus of Sparta and his wife, Helen of Troy. Prior to the Trojan War, Hermione was betrothed by Tyndareus, her grandfather, however, during the Trojan War, Menelaus promised her to Neoptolemus, also known as Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. Ancient poets disagree over whether Menelaus was involved in both betrothals, euripides has Orestes say, ″Because, in fact, you were rightfully mine, from a long time ago. But Menelaus, my father, made a promise of me, shortly after settling into the domestic life, conflict arose between Hermione and Andromache, the concubine Neoptolemus had obtained as a prize after the sack of Troy. Hermione blamed Andromache for her inability to become pregnant, claiming that she was casting spells on her to keep her barren. She asked her father to kill Andromache while Neoptolemus was away at war, Hermione and Orestes were married, and she gave birth to his heir Tisamenus. The myths do not mention Hermione after that, though it is said that Orestes later married his half-sister Erigone, daughter of Clytemnestra and Aigisthus and she, in turn, was the inspiration for Hermione Grangers name in the Harry Potter franchise. British actress Emma Watson portrayed Hermione in all eight of the movies
Hermione (mythology)
–
The Meeting of Orestes and Hermione
Hermione (mythology)
–
Hermione was the daughter of
Menelaus and
Helen in Greek mythology
30.
Menelaus
–
In Greek mythology, Menelaus was a king of Mycenaean Sparta, the husband of Helen of Troy, and a central figure in the Trojan War. He was the son of Atreus and Aerope, brother of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and, according to the Iliad, although early authors such as Aeschylus refer in passing to Menelaus’ early life, detailed sources are quite late, post-dating 5th-century BC Greek tragedy. According to these sources, Menelaus father, Atreus, had been feuding with his brother Thyestes over the throne of Mycenae, after a back-and-forth struggle that featured adultery, incest and cannibalism, Thyestes gained the throne after his son Aegisthus murdered Atreus. As a result, Atreus’ sons, Menelaus and Agamemnon, went into exile and they first stayed with King Polyphides of Sicyon, and later with King Oeneus of Calydon. But when they thought the time was ripe to dethrone Mycenae’s hostile ruler, assisted by King Tyndareus of Sparta, they drove Thyestes away, and Agamemnon took the throne for himself. When it was time for Tyndareus’ step-daughter Helen to marry, many kings, among the contenders were Odysseus, Menestheus, Ajax the Great, Patroclus, and Idomeneus. Tyndareus would accept none of the gifts, nor would he send any of the suitors away for fear of offending them, Odysseus promised to solve the problem in a satisfactory manner if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Tyndareus’s niece Penelope, the daughter of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, then it was decreed that straws were to be drawn for Helen’s hand. The suitor who won was Menelaus, the rest of the suitors swore their oaths, and Helen and Menelaus were married, Menelaus becoming a ruler of Sparta with Helen after Tyndareus and Leda abdicated the thrones. Menelaus and Helen had a daughter Hermione as supported, for example, by Sappho and their palace has been discovered in Pellana, Laconia, to the north-west of modern Sparta. Other archaeologists consider that Pellana is too far away from other Mycenaean centres to have been the capital of Menelaus, in a return for awarding her a golden apple inscribed to the fairest, Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in all the world. Homers Iliad is the most expansive source for Menelaus’s exploits during the Trojan War, in Book 3, Menelaus challenges Paris to a duel for Helen’s return. Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory, in Book 4, while the Greeks and Trojans squabble over the duel’s winner, Athena inspires the Trojan Pandarus to shoot Menelaus with his bow and arrow. However, Athena never intended for Menelaus to die and she protects him from the arrow of Pandarus, Menelaus is wounded in the abdomen, and the fighting resumes. Later, in Book 17, Homer gives Menelaus an extended aristeia as the hero retrieves the corpse of Patroclus from the battlefield, according to Hyginus, Menelaus killed eight men in the war, and was one of the Greeks hidden inside the Trojan Horse. During the sack of Troy, Menelaus killed Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris, there are four versions of Menelaus’ and Helen’s reunion on the night of the sack of Troy, Angry at Helen, Menelaus looked for and found her. In a fit of rage, he decided to kill her for leaving him for Paris, in a split second, Menelaus wrath went away instantly. He took pity on her, and decided to take her back as wife, Menelaus resolved to kill Helen but her striking beauty prompted him to drop his sword and take her back to his ship “to punish her at Sparta”, as he claimed
Menelaus
–
Marble bust of Menelaus
Menelaus
–
Menelaus regains Helen, detail of an Attic red-figure crater, c. 450–440 BC, found in
Gnathia (now Egnazia,
Italy).
Menelaus
–
Lelegids
31.
Brad Mays
–
Brad Mays is an independent filmmaker and stage director, living and working in Los Angeles, California. During the early 1970s, Brad Mays became involved in the arts during a professional internship at the McCarter Theater in Princeton. Upon completion of theatre studies at Towson University, Mays was formally hired by the Baltimore Theatre Project. In 1982, Mays moved to New York City, where he began working off-Broadway and, ultimately, produced and directed his first independent feature film, Stage Fright. In 2006, Mays filmed the documentary feature SING*ularity, which explores the cutting-edge training of singers at the world-renowned OperaWorks program in Southern California. Mays 2008 motion picture romantic comedy The Watermelon premiered at the San Diego Film Festival, written by Michael Hemmingson, The Watermelon was produced by Lorenda Starfelt at LightSong Films in North Hollywood, and was conceived as a Fairy Tale for grown-ups. The film stars Will Beinbrink, Kiersten Morgan, Elyse Ashton, Julia Aks, Mike Ivy, the Watermelon was released by Celebrity Video Distribution, a Los Angeles distribution company dedicated to serving the independent film community. It was subsequently awarded a 2010 California Film Awards Diamond Award, in multiple Blog-Radio interviews, the director expressed dissatisfaction with the project, revealing that he had not been allowed to complete shooting in the manner originally agreed to. In June 2012, Mays comedy short The Donut Shop received the Peoples Choice Award at the San Francisco Black Film Festival, the following year, Mays feature documentary I Grew Up in Princeton had its premiere showing in Princeton, New Jersey. On March 17,2016, Mays premiered the self-described bleak little comedy about falling in hate, Road Rage, at The Garden theater in Princeton, the two embark on a road trip into the deep South, with disastrous consequences. The film can be seen as an expression of Mays continuing yearning for his hometown, as well as for the loss of his wife, Lorenda. “I was able to out the deceased wife’s character to a degree that would have been otherwise impossible. “For instance, Lori had always wanted to be an opera singer. I was able to fulfill that dream for her in the movie, and tie it in with the narrative in a way that I find very satisfying. ”Ironically, the films star Adam Roth also succumbed to cancer in the final stages of production, necessitating extensive rewrites and additional shooting. Roth, an extremely popular guitarist/composer in New Yorks hard rock scene, grew up in Princeton, “Even back then the word ‘genius’ was tossed around. Brad Mays has directed for the stage, primarily in Baltimore, New York and his first New York production was an evening of one-act plays, written by Linda Chambers and performed at the Cubiculo Theatre, Joan, Stones, and Requiem. All three pieces dealt with themes of personal spirituality, Requiem, the longest play of the evening, was a fictionalized drama about the death of Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands, and performed during the Saint Patricks Day holiday in 1982. Mays Off-Broadway presentation of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewiczs The Water Hen, was videotaped by the Lincoln Centers Billy Rose Theatre Collection for inclusion in their permanent archive
Brad Mays
–
Brad Mays editing "Stage Fright," 1988
Brad Mays
–
Achilles (Will Beinbrink) invites a starving trespasser named Persephone (Kiersten Morgan) into his house for breakfast in Brad Mays' feature comedy
The Watermelon, 2009.
Brad Mays
–
Richard Werner as
Dionysus in Brad Mays' independent feature film production of
Euripides '
The Bacchae, 2000
Brad Mays
–
Sara (Nina Rutledge) and Zip (Willie Brookes) in Brad Mays' independent feature film production of
Stage Fright, 1989
32.
Jean Racine
–
Jean Racine, baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine, was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, and an important literary figure in the Western tradition. The latest attempt to translate Racines plays into English earned a 2011 American Book Award for the poet Geoffrey Argent, Racines dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both the plot and stage. Racine was born on 22 December 1639 in La Ferté-Milon, in the province of Picardy in northern France, orphaned by the age of four, he came into the care of his grandparents. At the death of his grandfather in 1649, his grandmother, Marie des Moulins, went to live in the convent of Port-Royal and he received a classical education at the Petites écoles de Port-Royal, a religious institution which would greatly influence other contemporary figures including Blaise Pascal. Port-Royal was run by followers of Jansenism, a theology condemned as heretical by the French bishops, Racines interactions with the Jansenists in his years at this academy would have great influence over him for the rest of his life. At Port-Royal, he excelled in his studies of the Classics and he was expected to study law at the Collège dHarcourt in Paris, but instead found himself drawn to a more artistic lifestyle. Racine eventually took up residence in Paris where he involved in theatrical circles. His first play, Amasie, never reached the stage, on 20 June 1664, Racines tragedy La Thébaïde ou les frères ennemis was produced by Molières troupe at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, in Paris. The following year, Molière also put on Racines second play, thus, Alexandre premiered for the second time, by a different acting troupe, eleven days after its first showing. From this point on the Hôtel de Bourgogne troupe performed all of Racines secular plays and he broke all ties with Port-Royal, and proceeded with Andromaque, which told the story of Andromache, widow of Hector, and her fate following the Trojan War. Amongst his rivals were Pierre Corneille and his brother, Thomas Corneille, tragedians often competed with alternative versions of the same plot, for example, Michel le Clerc produced an Iphigénie in the same year as Racine, and Jacques Pradon also wrote a play about Phèdre. Others, including the historian Warren Lewis, attribute his retirement from the theater to qualms of conscience, however, one major incident which seems to have contributed to Racines departure from public life was his implication in a court scandal of 1679. He got married at about time to the pious Catherine de Romanet. He and his wife eventually had two sons and five daughters, around the time of his marriage and departure from the theater, Racine accepted a position as a royal historiographer in the court of King Louis XIV, alongside his friend Boileau. He kept this position in spite of the scandals he was involved in. In 1672, he was elected to the Académie française, eventually gaining much power over this organization. Two years later, he was bestowed the title of treasurer of France, and he was distinguished as an ordinary gentleman of the king. Because of Racines flourishing career in the court, Louis XIV provided for his widow, Jean Racine died in 1699 from cancer of the liver
Jean Racine
–
For other uses, see
Jean Racine (disambiguation).
Jean Racine
–
Jean Racine
Jean Racine
–
Jean Racine on the 1989
USSR commemorative stamp
33.
Andromaque
–
Andromaque is a tragedy in five acts by the French playwright Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse. The company gave the first public performance two days later in the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris, Andromaque, the third of Racines plays, written at the age of 27, established its authors reputation as one of the great playwrights in France. Euripides play Andromache and the book of Virgils Aeneid were the points of departure for Racines play. Andromache has been taken prisoner in Epirus by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, who is due to be married to Hermione, Orestes presence at the court of Pyrrhus unleashes a violent undoing of the chain. At the climax, provoked by Hermiones desperation, Pyrrhus is murdered by Orestes men in a mad rage and she takes her own life by the side of Pyrrhus and Orestes goes mad. The importance of the theme of gallantry is a feature with Racines previous work. His subsequent plays gradually purified the tragic element until it reached its zenith with Phèdre, names of characters in French, with their equivalents in English, Andromaque, or Andromache, widow of Hector, held captive by Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, king of Epirus, Oreste, or Orestes, son of Agamemnon. Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, betrothed to Pyrrhus, pylade, or Pylades, a friend of Oreste. Cléone, or Cleone, confidante of Hermione, phoenix, mentor to Achilles, and then to Pyrrhus. Actually Oreste hopes Pyrrhus will refuse, so Hermione will return to Greece with him, Pyrrhus refuses at first, then, upon being rejected by Andromaque, he threatens to turn Astyanax over to the Greeks. Act 2, Orestes speaks to Hermione, who agrees to leave him if Pyrrhus allows it. However, Pyrrhus, heretofore uninterested in Hermione, announces to Orestes that he has decided to marry her, act 3, Orestes is furious over having lost Hermione for good. Andromaque begs Hermione to influence Pyrrhus to spare her son, but Hermione, insanely proud, Pyrrhus agrees to reverse his decision if Andromaque will marry him. She hesitates, unsure of what to do, act 4, Andromaque resolves to marry Pyrrhus in order to save her son, but intends suicide as soon as the ceremony is over, so that she remains faithful to her late husband Hector. Hermione asks Orestes to avenge her scorn from Pyrrhus by killing him, act 5, Hermione regrets asking for Pyrrhus death. Before she can cancel her request, Orestes appears and announces that Pyrrhus is dead and she thanks him with wild insults and runs off to kill herself on Pyrrhus body. Orestes becomes crazed and has a vision of the Furies, unlike the majority of Racines plays, Andromaque has never gone out of vogue, and the tragedy is among the most venerable works of the Comédie-Françaises repertoire
Andromaque
–
Title page from 1668 edition of Andromaque
Andromaque
–
Frontispiece depicting Act III, scene 6, published in Paris in 1676
Andromaque
–
Captive Andromache by
Frederic Lord Leighton
34.
William Shakespeare
–
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
William Shakespeare
–
The
Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed.
National Portrait Gallery, London.
William Shakespeare
–
John Shakespeare's house, believed to be
Shakespeare's birthplace, in
Stratford-upon-Avon.
William Shakespeare
–
Shakespeare's coat of arms, as it appears on the rough draft of the application to grant a coat-of-arms to John Shakespeare. It features a spear as a
pun on the family name.
William Shakespeare
–
Shakespeare's funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon.
35.
Troilus and Cressida
–
Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeares problem plays, the play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. The work has in recent years stimulated exceptionally lively critical debate and this is tragedy of a special sort—the tragedy the basis of which is the impossibility of conventional tragedy. Troilus and Cressida is set during the years of the Trojan War. Essentially, two plots are followed in the play, in one, Troilus, a Trojan prince, woos Cressida, another Trojan. They have sex, professing their love, before Cressida is exchanged for a Trojan prisoner of war. As he attempts to visit her in the Greek camp, Troilus glimpses Diomedes flirting with his beloved Cressida, while this plot gives the play its name, it accounts for only a small part of the plays run time. The majority of the play revolves around the leaders of the Greek and Trojan forces, Agamemnon, Ajax is originally chosen as this combatant, but makes peace with Hector before they are able to fight. Achilles is prompted to return to only after his dear friend and possible lover. A series of skirmishes conclude the play, during which Achilles catches Hector and has the Myrmidons kill him, the conquest of Troy is left unfinished, as the Trojans learn of the death of their hero. The story was a one for dramatists in the early 17th century. Thomas Heywoods two-part play The Iron Age also depicts the Trojan war and the story of Troilus and Cressida, but it is not certain whether his or Shakespeares play was written first. In addition, Thomas Dekker and Henry Chettle wrote a play called Troilus and Cressida at around the time as Shakespeare. The play is believed to have written around 1602, shortly after the completion of Hamlet. It was published in quarto in two editions, both in 1609. No publication followed, however, until 1609, the stationers Richard Bonian,1609, and later that year issued the first quarto, but in two states. Some commentators have attempted to reconcile these contradictory claims by arguing that the play was composed originally around 1600–02, but heavily revised shortly before its 1609 printing. The play is noteworthy for its bitter and caustic nature, similar to the works that Shakespeare was writing in the 1605–08 period, King Lear, Coriolanus, in this view, the original version of the play was a more positive romantic comedy of the type Shakespeare wrote ca
Troilus and Cressida
–
Troilus and Cressida, Act V, Scene II. 1795 engraving by
Luigi Schiavonetti after a painting of 1789 by
Angelica Kauffman.
Troilus and Cressida
–
Cressida by
Edward Poynter
Troilus and Cressida
–
The first page of Troilus and Cressida, printed in the
First Folio of 1623
Troilus and Cressida
–
Title page, 1609
quarto edition
36.
Charles Baudelaire
–
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal, expresses the nature of beauty in modern. Baudelaires highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud. He is credited with coining the term modernity to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in a metropolis. This obsessive idea is all a child of giant cities. Baudelaire is one of the innovators in French literature. He made Paris the subject of modern poetry and he would bring the citys details to life in the eyes and hearts of his readers. Baudelaire was born in Paris, France, on April 9,1821 and his father, François Baudelaire, a senior civil servant and amateur artist, was 34 years older than Baudelaires mother, Caroline. François died during Baudelaires childhood, in 1827, the following year, Caroline married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, who later became a French ambassador to various noble courts. He stated in a letter to her that, There was in my childhood a period of passionate love for you, Baudelaire regularly begged his mother for money throughout his career, often promising that a lucrative publishing contract or journalistic commission was just around the corner. Baudelaire was educated in Lyon, where he boarded, Baudelaire was erratic in his studies, at times diligent, at other times prone to idleness. Later, he attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, studying law and he began to frequent prostitutes and may have contracted gonorrhea and syphilis during this period. He also began to run up debts, mostly for clothes, upon gaining his degree in 1839, he told his brother I dont feel I have a vocation for anything. His stepfather had in mind a career in law or diplomacy and his mother later recalled, Oh, what grief. If Charles had let himself be guided by his stepfather, his career would have very different. He would not have left a name in literature, it is true and his stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta, India, in 1841 in the hope of ending his dissolute habits. The trip provided strong impressions of the sea, sailing, and exotic ports, on returning to the taverns of Paris, he began to compose some of the poems of Les Fleurs du Mal. At 21, he received an inheritance but squandered much of it within a few years
Charles Baudelaire
–
Charles Baudelaire by
Étienne Carjat, 1863
Charles Baudelaire
–
Portrait of Baudelaire, painted in 1844 by Emile Deroy (1820–1846)
Charles Baudelaire
–
The first edition of
Les Fleurs du mal with author's notes
Charles Baudelaire
–
Illustration cover for Les Épaves, by Baudelaire's friend
Félicien Rops
37.
Les Fleurs du Mal
–
Les Fleurs du mal is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements, the poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism. This section contains 18 poems, most of which were written during Haussmanns renovation of Paris, together, the poems in Tableaux Parisiens act as 24-hour cycle of Paris, starting with the second poem Le Soleil and ending with the second to last poem Le Crépuscule du Matin. The poems featured in cycle of Paris all deal with the feelings of anonymity. These characters whom Baudelaire once praised as the backbone of Paris are now eulogized in his nostalgic poems. For Baudelaire, the city has transformed into an anthill of identical bourgeois that reflect the new identical structures that litter a Paris he once called home. The author and the publisher were prosecuted under the regime of the Second Empire as an outrage aux bonnes mœurs, as a consequence of this prosecution, Baudelaire was fined 300 francs. Six poems from the work were suppressed and the ban on their publication was not lifted in France until 1949 and these poems were Lesbos, Femmes damnées, Le Léthé, À celle qui est trop gaie, Les Bijoux, and Les Métamorphoses du Vampire. These were later published in Brussels in a volume entitled Les Épaves. On the other hand, upon reading The Swan from Les Fleurs du mal, in the wake of the prosecution, a second edition was issued in 1861 which added 35 new poems, removed the six suppressed poems, and added a new section entitled Tableaux Parisiens. A posthumous third edition, with a preface by Théophile Gautier, alban Bergs Der Wein is a concert aria setting Stefan Georges translation of three poems from Le Vin. In 1969, American composer Ruth White released the album Flowers of Evil and it features electroacoustic composition with Baudelaires poetry recited over it. The album was published by Limelight Records, henri Dutilleuxs Tout un monde lointain. for cello and orchestra is strongly influenced by Les Fleurs du Mal. Each of its five movements is prefaced by a quotation from the volume and it befriends another computer which has disguised itself as Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Flor De Mal is a song in the 1985 eponymous album by the Cruzados, rock band Buck-Tick named their 1990 album Aku no Hana, as well as its title track, after Les Fleurs du mal. The movie Immortal, In the scene on the Eiffel Tower and she recites the third stanza from the poem XLIX. An episode of the television show The Batman was named Fleurs du Mal in homage to the poem, in addition to this, a florists shop in the episode is named Baudelaires, in honor of the author. The 2009 manga Aku no Hana was based on Les Fleurs du mal set in modern Japanese society, the main character, Takao Kasuga, steals the gym clothes of his crush, Nanako Saeki, after being inspired by an excerpt from the aforementioned work
Les Fleurs du Mal
–
The first edition of Les Fleurs du mal with author's notes.
Les Fleurs du Mal
–
Illustration of Les Fleurs du Mal by
Carlos Schwabe, 1900
38.
Opera
–
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing, recitative, a style and arias, a more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the elements of theatre, such as acting, scenery. The performance is given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his operas in the 1760s. The first third of the 19th century saw the point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer, the mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Richard Wagner in Germany and Giuseppe Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, the 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism, Neoclassicism, and Minimalism. With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso, since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on these mediums. Beginning in 2006, a number of opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. In 2009, an opera company offered a download of a complete performance. The words of an opera are known as the libretto, some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti, others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e. g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action, in some forms of opera, such as singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, the terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below. Over the 18th century, arias were accompanied by the orchestra. Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagners example, though some, the changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below
Opera
–
The performers from the Atlanta Opera sing the finale of
Lucia di Lammermoor. The
opera orchestra is visible in the lowered area in front of the stage.
Opera
–
The
Palais Garnier of the
Paris Opéra, one of the world's most famous
opera houses.
Opera
–
Claudio Monteverdi
Opera
–
George Frideric Handel, 1733
39.
Samuel Barber
–
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings has earned a permanent place in the repertory of orchestras. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice, for his opera Vanessa and for the Concerto for Piano, also widely performed is his Knoxville, Summer of 1915, a setting for soprano and orchestra of a prose text by James Agee. At the time of his death, nearly all of his compositions had been recorded, Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Marguerite McLeod and Samuel Le Roy Barber. He was born into a comfortable, educated, social, and his father was a physician, his mother, called Daisy, was a pianist of English-Scottish-Irish descent whose family had lived in the United States since the time of the Revolutionary War. His aunt, Louise Homer, was a contralto at the Metropolitan Opera, his uncle. Louise Homer is known to have influenced Barbers interest in voice, through his aunt, Barber had access to many great singers and songs. At a very early age, Barber became profoundly interested in music and he began studying the piano at the age of 6 and at age 7 composed his first work, Sadness, a 23-measure solo piano piece in C minor. At the age of nine he wrote to his mother, Dear Mother, now dont cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now without any nonsense, to begin with I was not meant to be an athlet. I was meant to be a composer, and will be Im sure, ill ask you one more thing. —Dont ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football. —Please—Sometimes Ive been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad. Barber attempted to write his first opera, entitled The Rose Tree, at the age of 12, he became an organist at a local church. He began composing seriously in his teenage years. Around the same time, he met fellow Curtis schoolmate Gian Carlo Menotti, at the Curtis Institute, Barber was a triple prodigy in composition, voice, and piano. He soon became a favorite of the founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok. It was through Mrs. Bok that Barber was introduced to his lifelong publisher, at the age of 18, Barber won the Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University for his violin sonata. From his early to late twenties, Barber wrote a flurry of successful compositions and his first orchestral work, an overture to The School for Scandal, was composed in 1931 when he was 21 years old. It premiered successfully two years later in a given by the Philadelphia Orchestra under conductor Alexander Smallens
Samuel Barber
–
Samuel Barber, photographed by
Carl Van Vechten, 1944
Samuel Barber
–
Childhood home of Samuel Barber in West Chester, Pennsylvania
40.
Vanessa Redgrave
–
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist. She is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, and she also received Tony nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy. On screen, she has starred in scores of films and is a six-time Oscar nominee and her other nominations were for Morgan, A Suitable Case for Treatment, Isadora, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Bostonians and Howards End. Among her other films are A Man for All Seasons, Blowup, Camelot, The Devils, Murder on the Orient Express, Prick Up Your Ears, Mission, Impossible, Atonement, Coriolanus and The Butler. Redgrave was born in Greenwich, London, the daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave, laurence Olivier announced her birth to the audience at a performance of Hamlet at the Old Vic, when he said that Laertes had a daughter. She was educated at the Alice Ottley School, Worcester, and Queens Gate School, London and her siblings, Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, were also acclaimed actors. Vanessa Redgrave entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and she first appeared in the West End, playing opposite her brother, in 1958. In 1960, Redgrave had her first starring role in Robert Bolts The Tiger, in 1961, she played Rosalind in As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1962, she played Imogen in William Gaskills production of Cymbeline for the RSC. In 1966, Redgrave created the role of Jean Brodie in the Donald Albery production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and she won four Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress in four decades. In 2003 she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey Into Night. In January 2006, Redgrave was presented the Ibsen Centennial Award for her work in interpreting many of Henrik Ibsens works over the last decades. Previous recipients of the award include Liv Ullmann, Glenda Jackson, for this, she won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. She reprised the role at the Lyttelton Theatre at the Royal National Theatre in London to mixed reviews and she also spent a week performing the work at the Theatre Royal in Bath in September 2008. She once again performed the role of Joan Didion for a benefit at New Yorks Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on 26 October 2009. The performance was originally slated to debut on 27 April, but was pushed due to the death of Redgraves daughter Natasha, the proceeds for the benefit were donated to the United Nations Childrens Fund and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Both charities work to help for the children of Gaza. In October 2010, she starred in the Broadway premiere of Driving Miss Daisy starring in the role opposite James Earl Jones
Vanessa Redgrave
–
Redgrave at the
Berlin International Film Festival, 2011
41.
Saffron Burrows
–
Saffron Domini Burrows is an English-American actress and former model who has appeared in such films as Circle of Friends, Wing Commander, Deep Blue Sea, Gangster No. An only child, Burrows was born in London, England and her father is an architect and teacher, her mother is a teacher and a feminist. She was discovered in Covent Garden by the fashion photographer Beth Boldt, Burrows stands 511 and had a successful modelling career. Burrows made her debut in 1993 with a small role in Jim Sheridans In the Name of the Father. Her first significant acting roles came in 1995, as an ambitious young Irishwoman in Circle of Friends and she appeared in Ngozi Onwurahs Welcome II The Terrordome. Following this, she starred in the BBC production of Dennis Potters Karaoke, subsequently, she appeared in Hotel de Love, Lovelife, Nevada, One Night Stand, and The Matchmaker. In 1999 she appeared in Mike Figgis’ experimental film The Loss of Sexual Innocence, in which she played twins, one raised in England, the other in Italy. Burrows appeared in the thriller film Deep Blue Sea and later played the role in a film of Miss Julie. In 1999 she appeared with Stellan Skarsgard in Timecode, a split-screen digital experimental film shot in a take with no edit. Burrows followed this film with Gangster No,1, starring opposite Malcolm McDowell, Paul Bettany and David Thewlis. She co-starred alongside Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott in Michael Apteds 1940s drama Enigma, tom Stoppard adapted the Robert Harris novel of the same name for the screen. Burrows would star in Tempted, a thriller set in New Orleans, opposite Burt Reynolds. Mike Figgis ensemble feature Hotel followed, re-uniting Burrows with some colleagues from Timecode, including Salma Hayek and Danny Huston in Venice, in 2002, she had a cameo role in Hayeks produced biopic Frida. After that, she dedicated herself to stage work and she was directed by Deborah Warner at the Royal National Theatre in Jeanette Wintersons The Powerbook. The play then toured, visiting the Theatre National Du Chaillot, Paris, in 2004, she played the part of Andromache in Troy. In January 2005, she created the role of Janey in the premiere of Earthly Paradise at the Almeida Theatre. The play of a triangle between Janey Morris, her husband William Morris, the writer and proponent of the Arts and Crafts movement, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Theatre critic Nicholas De Jongh said of her performance in The Earthly Paradise that Burrows takes to the stage like a swan to water and she deserves no end of watching
Saffron Burrows
–
Saffron Burrows in
Karlovy Vary (2008)
42.
Troy (film)
–
Troy is a 2004 American action-war film written by David Benioff and directed by Wolfgang Petersen. The film features an ensemble cast led by Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Achilles leads his Myrmidons along with the rest of the Greek army invading the historical city of Troy, defended by Hectors Trojan army. The end of the film is not taken from the Iliad, Troy made more than 73% of its revenues outside the U. S. Eventually, Troy made over $497 million worldwide, temporarily placing it in the #60 spot of top box office hits of all time. It was the 8th highest-grossing film of 2004, meanwhile, Prince Hector of Troy and his younger brother Paris negotiate a peace treaty with Menelaus, King of Sparta. Paris, however, is having a love affair with Menelaus wife, Queen Helen. Upon learning of this, Menelaus meets with Agamemnon, his elder brother, Agamemnon, who has wanted to conquer Troy for a long time, agrees, since it will give him control of the Aegean Sea. On Nestor, King of Pylos advice, Agamemnon has Odysseus, King of Ithaca, Achilles, who strongly dislikes Agamemnon, initially refuses, but eventually decides to go after his mother, Thetis, tells him that though he will die, he will be forever remembered. The Trojan and Greek armies meet outside the walls of Troy, during a parley, Paris offers to duel Menelaus personally for Helens hand in exchange for the city being spared. Agamemnon, intending to take the city regardless of the outcome, Menelaus wounds Paris and almost kills him, but is himself killed by Hector. In the ensuing battle, most of Agamemnons forces fall to Troys archers, on Odysseus insistence, Agamemnon gives the order to fall back. In order to keep their spirits up, he gives Briseis to the Greek soldiers for their amusement, Briseis sneaks into Achilless quarters later that night intent on killing him. However, Briseis quickly falls for him, giving up her virginity as Achilles seduces, Achilles, realizing the war is a lost cause, resolves to leave Troy in the morning. Despite Hectors advice otherwise, Priam instructs him to retake the Trojan beach in the night, the attack brings the Greeks together and the Myrmidons enter the battle. Hector personally duels a man he believes to be Achilles and cuts his throat, devastated, the armies agree to stop fighting for the day. Achilles is informed of his cousins death and vows revenge, the next day, Achilles arrives outside Troy and demands Hector come out. The two fight evenly for a while until Achilles wears Hector down and kills him, dragging his corpse back to the Trojan beach, straining his relationship with Briseis. Priam, in disguise, sneaks into the camp and meets with Achilles, ashamed of his actions, Achilles agrees and allows Briseis to return to Troy with Priam, promising a truce of twelve days so that Hectors funeral rites may be held in peace. He also tells his men to return home without him, Agamemnon declares that he will take Troy no matter what
Troy (film)
–
Theatrical release poster
43.
Agamemnon
–
Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was taken to Troy by Paris, upon Agamemnons return from Troy, he was murdered by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife, Clytemnestra. In some later versions Clytemnestra herself does the killing, or they act together as accomplices, Atreus, Agamemnons father, murdered the children of his twin brother Thyestes and fed them to Thyestes after discovering Thyestes adultery with his wife Aerope. Thyestes fathered Aegisthus with his own daughter, Pelopia, and this son vowed gruesome revenge on Atreus children, Aegisthus successfully murdered Atreus and restored his father to the throne. Aegisthus took possession of the throne of Mycenae and jointly ruled with Thyestes, during this period Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, took refuge with Tyndareus, King of Sparta. There they respectively married Tyndareus daughters Clytemnestra and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had four children, one son, Orestes, and three daughters, Iphigenia, Electra and Chrysothemis. Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus in Sparta, while Agamemnon, with his brothers assistance, drove out Aegisthus and he extended his dominion by conquest and became the most powerful prince in Greece. Thus misfortune hounded successive generations of the House of Atreus, until atoned by Orestes in a court of justice held jointly by humans, Agamemnon gathered the reluctant Greek forces to sail for Troy. Preparing to depart from Aulis, which was a port in Boeotia, misfortunes, including a plague and a lack of wind, prevented the army from sailing. Finally, the prophet Calchas announced that the wrath of the goddess could only be propitiated by the sacrifice of Agamemnons daughter Iphigenia and her death appeased Artemis, and the Greek army set out for Troy. Several alternatives to the human sacrifice have been presented in Greek mythology, hesiod said she became the goddess Hecate. Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of the Greeks during the Trojan War, during the fighting, Agamemnon killed Antiphus and fifteen other Trojan soldiers. The Iliad tells the story about the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in the year of the war. Following one of the Achaean Armys raids, Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, Chryses pleaded with Agamemnon to free his daughter but was met with little success. Chryses then prayed to Apollo for the return of his daughter. After learning from the Prophet Calchas that the plague could be dispelled by returning Chryseis to her father, Agamemnon reluctantly agreed, however, as compensation for his lost prize, Agamemnon demanded a new prize. As a result, Agamemnon stole an attractive slave called Briseis, one of the spoils of war, Achilles, the greatest warrior of the age, withdrew from battle in response to Agamemnons supposedly evil deed and allegedly put the Greek armies at risk of losing the war. Although not the equal of Achilles in bravery, Agamemnon was a representative of kingly authority, as commander-in-chief, he summoned the princes to the council and led the army in battle
Agamemnon
–
The
Mask of Agamemnon which was discovered by
Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 at
Mycenae, now believed to pre-date the legendary Trojan War.
Agamemnon
–
Orestes slaying
Clytemnestra
44.
Ajax (mythology)
–
Ajax or Aias is a mythological Greek hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer. He plays an important role, and is portrayed as a figure and a warrior of great courage in Homers Iliad and in the Epic Cycle. He is also referred to as Telamonian Ajax, Greater Ajax, or Ajax the Great, in Etruscan mythology, he is known as Aivas Tlamunus. Ajax is the son of Telamon, who was the son of Aeacus and grandson of Zeus and he is the cousin of Achilles, and is the elder half-brother of Teucer. Many illustrious Athenians, including Cimon, Miltiades, Alcibiades and the historian Thucydides, the Italian scholar Maggiani recently showed that on an Etruscan tomb dedicated to Racvi Satlnei in Bologna there is a writing that says, aivastelmunsl = family of Telamonian Ajax. In Homers Iliad he is described as of great stature, colossal frame, known as the bulwark of the Achaeans, he was trained by the centaur Chiron, at the same time as Achilles. He was described as fearless, strong and powerful but also with a high level of combat intelligence. Ajax commands his army wielding a shield made of seven cow-hides with a layer of bronze. Unlike Diomedes and Achilles, Ajax appears as a mainly defensive warrior, instrumental in the defence of the Greek camp and ships, when the Trojans are on the offensive, he is often seen covering the retreat of the Achaeans. Significantly, while one of the deadliest heroes in the whole poem, in the Iliad, Ajax is notable for his abundant strength and courage, seen particularly in two fights with Hector. In Book 7, Ajax is chosen by lot to meet Hector in a duel which lasts most of a whole day, the second fight between Ajax and Hector occurs when the latter breaks into the Mycenaean camp, and fights with the Greeks among the ships. In Book 14, Ajax throws a giant rock at Hector which almost kills him, in Book 15, Hector is restored to his strength by Apollo and returns to attack the ships. Ajax, wielding a spear as a weapon and leaping from ship to ship. In Book 16, Hector and Ajax duel once again, Hector then disarms Ajax and Ajax is forced to retreat, seeing that Zeus is clearly favoring Hector. Hector and the Trojans succeed in burning one Greek ship, the culmination of an assault that almost finishes the war, Ajax is responsible for the death of many Trojans lords, including Phorcys. Ajax often fought in tandem with his brother Teucer, known for his skill with the bow, Ajax would wield his magnificent shield, as Teucer stood behind picking off enemy Trojans. Achilles was absent during these encounters because of his feud with Agamemnon, in Book 9, Agamemnon and the other Mycenaean chiefs send Ajax, Odysseus and Phoenix to the tent of Achilles in an attempt to reconcile with the great warrior and induce him to return to the fight. Although Ajax speaks earnestly and is received, he does not succeed in convincing Achilles
Ajax (mythology)
–
Achilles and Ajax play a board game with
knucklebones on this late 6th-century
lekythos, a type of oil-storing vessel associated with funeral rites
Ajax (mythology)
–
Sorrowful Ajax (Asmus Jacob Carstens, ca. 1791)
Ajax (mythology)
–
A Black-figure Amphora with Ajax Carrying the Dead
Achilles.
Walters Art Museum,
Baltimore.
Ajax (mythology)
–
The suicide of Ajax
45.
Ajax the Lesser
–
Ajax was a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris. He was called the lesser or Locrian Ajax, to him from Ajax the Great. He was the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War and he is a significant figure in Homers Iliad and is also mentioned in the Odyssey, in Virgils Aeneid and in Euripides The Trojan Women. In Etruscan legend, he was known as Aivas Vilates, according to Strabo, he was born in Naryx in Locris, where Ovid calls him Narycius Heroes. According to the Iliad, he led his Locrians in forty ships against Troy and he is described as one of the great heroes among the Greeks. In battle, he wore a cuirass, was brave and intrepid, especially skilled in throwing the spear and, next to Achilles. On his return from Troy, his vessel was wrecked on the Whirling Rocks and he would have been saved in spite of Athena, but he said that he would escape the dangers of the sea in defiance of the immortals. In punishment for this presumption, Poseidon split the rock with his trident, in later traditions, this Ajax is called a son of Oileus and the nymph Rhene and is also mentioned among the suitors of Helen. After the taking of Troy, he rushed into the temple of Athena, where Cassandra had taken refuge, Ajax violently dragged her away to the other captives. According to some writers, he raped Cassandra inside the temple, odysseus, accused him of this crime and Ajax was to be stoned to death, but saved himself by establishing his innocence with an oath to Athena, clutching her statue in supplication. Since Ajax dragged a supplicant from her temple, Athena had cause to be indignant, despite this, Ajax managed to hide in the altar of a deity where the Greeks, fearing divine retribution should they kill him and destroy the altar, allowed him to live. When the Greeks left without killing Ajax, despite their sacrifices, when Ajax finally left Troy during the Returns from Troy, Athena hit his ship with a thunderbolt, but Ajax still survived with some of his men, managing to cling onto a rock. He boasted that even the gods could not kill him and Poseidon, upon hearing this, split the rock with his trident, thetis buried him when the corpse washed up on Myconos. Other versions depict a different death for Ajax, showing him dying when on his voyage home, after his death, his spirit dwelt in the island of Leuce. The story of Ajax was frequently made use of by ancient poets and artists, and the hero who appears on some Locrian coins with the helmet, shield, other accounts of his death are offered by Philostratus and the scholiast on Lycophron. The abduction of Cassandra by Ajax was frequently represented in Greek works of art, such as the chest of Cypselus described by Pausanias and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Smith, William, ed. article name needed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Ajax
Ajax the Lesser
–
Ajax the Lesser raping Cassandra
Ajax the Lesser
–
Ajax and
Cassandra by Solomon J. Solomon (1886). In the collection of the
Art Gallery of Ballarat in
Victoria, Australia
46.
Antilochus
–
In Greek mythology, Antilochus /ænˈtɪləkəs/ was the son of Nestor, king of Pylos, and was one of the Acheans in the Trojan War. One of the suitors of Helen of Troy, he accompanied his father and he was distinguished for his beauty, swiftness of foot, and skill as a charioteer. Though the youngest among the Greek princes, he commanded the Pylians in the war and he was a favorite of the gods and a friend of Achilles, to whom he was commissioned to announce the death of Patroclus. When his father Nestor was attacked by Memnon, Antilochus sacrificed himself to save him, thus fulfilling an oracle which had warned to beware of an Ethiopian. Antilochus death was avenged by Achilles, in the Odyssey, the three friends are represented as united in the underworld and walking together in the Asphodel Meadows. According to Pausanias, they together on the island of Leuke. Among the Trojans he killed were Melanippus, Ablerus, Atymnius, Phalces, at the funeral games of Patroclus, Antilochus finished second in the chariot race and third in the foot race. Antilochus left behind in Messenia a son Paeon, whose descendants were among the Neleidae expelled from Messenia, cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, London, William Heinemann Ltd. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
Antilochus
–
Antilochus on an
Attic red-figure amphora ca. 470 BC from the
Louvre
47.
Ascalaphus
–
The name Ascalaphus /əˈskæləfəs/ is shared by two people in Greek mythology. Ascalaphus was the custodian of the orchard of Hades and he told the other gods that Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds in the Underworld. Because she had tasted food in the underworld, Persephone was obliged to return to the Underworld, Demeter was so angry because of this that she buried Ascalaphus beneath a heavy rock in the Underworld. When Heracles went to the underworld, he rolled the stone away and released him from his prison, according to another myth Persephone herself changed him into an owl by sprinkling him with water of the river Phlegethon. Ovid mention, So he became the vilest bird, a messenger of grief, as an owl, he became the familiar bird of Hades, god of the underworld. Ascalaphus was King of Orchomenus, and twin brother of Ialmenos and he and his twin were counted among the Argonauts and the suitors of Helen, and led the Orchomenian contingent in the Trojan War, where Deiphobos threw a spear and killed him
Ascalaphus
–
Greek Mythology
48.
Balius and Xanthus
–
Balius and Xanthus were, according to Greek mythology, two immortal horses, the offspring of the harpy Podarge and the West wind, Zephyrus, following another tradition, their father was Zeus. Note, Balius and Xanthus are the Latin forms of the Greek names Balios and Xanthos, poseidon gave the two horses to King Peleus of Phtia, as a wedding gift, when Peleus married the Ocean goddess Thetis. Peleus later gave the horses to his son Achilles who took them to draw his chariot during the Trojan War, book 16 of the Iliad tells us that Achilles had a third horse, Pedasos, which was yoked as a trace horse, along with Xanthus and Balios. Achilles had captured Pedasos when he took the city of Eetion, Pedasos was mortal, but he could keep up with the divine horses. Sarpedon, prince of Lycia and ally of Troy, killed Pedasos when his spear missed Patroclus, Achilles comrade-in-arms Patroclus used to feed and groom these horses. In the Iliad, it is told how, when Patroclus was killed in battle, Xanthus and Balius stood motionless on the field of battle, at Iliad 17. 474-8, Automedon, Achilles charioteer, states that only Patroclus was able to fully control these horses. After this, the Erinyes struck the horse dumb, another Xanthus, not to be confused with the horse mentioned above, was one of the horses of Diomedes of Thrace, who fed these animals on human flesh. The capture of these horses was the eighth of the Twelve Labors of the Great Heracles, theoi Project - Hippoi Balios Xanthos
Balius and Xanthus
–
Greek Mythology
49.
Calchas
–
In Greek mythology, Calchas, son of Thestor, was an Argive seer, with a gift for interpreting the flight of birds that he received of Apollo, as an augur, Calchas had no rival in the camp. He also interpreted the entrails of the enemy during the tide of battle, the episode was related at length in the lost Cypria, of the Epic Cycle. He also states that Troy will be sacked on the year of the war. In Sophocles Ajax, Calchas delivers a prophecy to Teucer suggesting that the protagonist will die if he leaves his tent before the day is out, Calchas also plays a role in Quintus of Smyrnas Posthomerica. Calchas said that if they were brief, they could convince Achilles to fight and it is he rather than Helenus that predicts that Troy will only fall once the Argives are able to recruit Philoctetes. It is by his advice that they halt the battle, even though Neoptolemus is slaughtering the Trojans and he also tells the Argives that the city is more easily taken by strategy than by force. He endorses Odysseus suggestion that the Trojan Horse will effectively infiltrate the Trojans and he also foresees that Aeneas will survive the battle and found the city, and tells the Argives that they will not kill him. He did not join the Argives when they boarded the ships and it is also said that Calchas died of laughter when the day that was to be his death day arrived and the prediction didnt seem to materialize. In medieval and later versions of the myth, Calchas is portrayed as a Trojan defector and the father of Chryseis, now called Cressida
Calchas
–
Calchas presides at the sacrifice of
Iphigeneia in a
peristyle fresco from
Pompeii.
"Andromache". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (9th ed.). 1878. p. 22.
"
