Ancient Greek
The Ancient Greek language includes the forms of Greek used in Ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BCE to the 6th century CE. It is roughly divided into the Archaic period, Classical period, Hellenistic period, it is succeeded by medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it resembled Attic Greek and in its latest form it approaches Medieval 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 and philosophers, it has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects; the main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic and Doric, many of them with several subdivisions.
Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are several historical forms. Homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the "Iliad" and "Odyssey", in poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects; 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, they differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek, but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not than 1120 BCE, at the time of the Dorian invasion—and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BCE.
The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians; the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-west Greek is the strongest marked and earliest division, with non-west in subsets of Ionic-Attic and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Non-west is called East Greek. Arcadocypriot descended more from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age.
Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek, spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, Northern Peloponnesus Doric; the Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek. All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, these colonies developed local characteristics under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects; the dialects outside the Ionic group are known from inscriptions, notable exceptions being: fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos, in Aeolian, the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar and other lyric poets in Doric.
After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BCE, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed based on Attic Greek, but with influence from other dialects. This dialect replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek. By about the 6th century CE, the Koine had metamorphosized into Medieval Greek. Ancient Macedonian was an Indo-European language at least related to Greek, but its exact relationship is unclear because of insufficient data: a dialect of Greek; the Macedonian dialect (or l
Metrosexual
Metrosexual is a portmanteau of metropolitan and heterosexual, coined in 1994 describing a man, meticulous about his grooming and appearance spending a significant amount of time and money on shopping as part of this. While the term suggests that a metrosexual is heterosexual, it can refer to gay or bisexual men; the term metrosexual originated in an article by Mark Simpson published on November 15, 1994, in The Independent. Simpson wrote: Metrosexual man, the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city, is the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ. In the Nineties, he's everywhere and he's going shopping. However, it was not until the early 2000s when Simpson returned to the subject that the term became globally popular. In 2002, Salon.com published an article by Simpson, which described David Beckham as "the biggest metrosexual in Britain" and offered this updated definition: The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis – because that's where all the best shops, clubs and hairdressers are.
He might be gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference. The advertising agency Euro RSCG Worldwide adopted the term shortly thereafter for a marketing study. Sydney's daily newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, ran a major feature in March 2003 titled "The Rise of the Metrosexual". A couple of months The New York Times' Sunday Styles section ran a story, "Metrosexuals Come Out"; the term and its connotations continued to roll into more news outlets around the world. Though it did represent a complex and gradual change in the shopping and self-presentation habits of both men and women, the idea of metrosexuality was distilled in the media down to a few men and a short checklist of vanities, like skin care products, scented candles and costly, colorful dress shirts and pricey designer jeans, it was this image of the metrosexual—that of a straight young man who got pedicures and facials, practiced aromatherapy and spent on clothes—that contributed to a backlash against the term from men who wanted to feel free to take more care with their appearance than had been the norm in the 1990s, when companies abandoned dress codes, Dockers khakis became a popular brand, XL, or extra-large, became the one size that fit all.
A 60 Minutes story on 1960s–70s pro footballer Joe Namath suggested he was "perhaps, America's first metrosexual" after filming his most famous ad sporting Beautymist pantyhose. When the word first became popular, various sources attributed its origin to trendspotter Marian Salzman, but Salzman has credited Simpson as the original source for her usage of the word. Over the course of the following years, other terms countering or substituting for "metrosexual" appeared; the most used was "retrosexual", which in its anti- or pre-metrosexual sense was first used by Simpson. However, in years the term was used by some to describe men who subscribed to what they affected to be the grooming and dress standards of a previous era, such as the handsome, impeccably turned-out fictional character of Donald Draper in the television series Mad Men, itself set in an idealised version of the early 1960s New York advertising world. Another example was the short-lived "übersexual", coined by marketing executives and authors of The Future of Men, was inspired by Simpson's use of the term "uber-metrosexual" to describe David Beckham.
Simpson's original definition of the metrosexual was sexually ambiguous, or at least went beyond the straight/gay dichotomy. Marketers, in contrast, insisted that the metrosexual was always "straight" – they tried to pretend that he was not vain. However, they failed to convince the public, says Simpson, their attempt to create the uber-straight ubersexual. Narcissism, according to Simpson, plays a crucial role in the metrosexual concept. In the book Male Impersonators, he explains why understanding narcissism is vital to understanding modern masculinity, he cites Freud's On Narcissism, which analyzes the psychological aspect of narcissism and explains narcissistic love as follows: A person may love: According to the narcissistic type: What he is himself, What he once was, What he would like to be, Someone who once was part of himself. In 2002, this idea was further explored in the book Media Sport Stars: Masculinities and Moralities, when Gary Whannel described Beckham's: "narcissistic self-absorption", seeing it as a break from the prevailing masculine codes.
Female metrosexuality is a concept. They employed the female characters from the HBO series Sex and the City in order to illustrate examples of wo-metrosexuality, a term Hagood coined to refer to the feminine form of metrosexuality; the piece implied that, although this phenomenon would not empower women, the fact that the metrosexual lifestyle de-emphasizes traditional male and female gender roles could help women out in the long run. However, it is debatable whether the characters made famous by "Sex and the City" de-emphasized female gender roles, given that the series focused a high amount of attention on stereotypically feminine interests like clothing and romantic entanglements. Traditional masculine norms, as described in psychologist Ronald F. Levant's Masculinity Reconstructed are: "avoidanc
Ice hockey
Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponent's net to score points. The sport is known to be fast-paced and physical, with teams consisting of six players each: one goaltender, five players who skate up and down the ice trying to take the puck and score a goal against the opposing team. Ice hockey is most popular in Canada and eastern Europe, the Nordic countries and the United States. Ice hockey is the official national winter sport of Canada. In addition, ice hockey is the most popular winter sport in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia and Switzerland. North America's National Hockey League is the highest level for men's ice hockey and the strongest professional ice hockey league in the world; the Kontinental Hockey League is much of Eastern Europe. The International Ice Hockey Federation is the formal governing body for international ice hockey, with the IIHF managing international tournaments and maintaining the IIHF World Ranking.
Worldwide, there are ice hockey federations in 76 countries. In Canada, the United States, Nordic countries, some other European countries the sport is known as hockey. Ice hockey is believed to have evolved from simple stick and ball games played in the 18th and 19th century United Kingdom and elsewhere; these games were brought to North America and several similar winter games using informal rules as they were developed, such as "shinny" and "ice polo". The contemporary sport of ice hockey was developed in Canada, most notably in Montreal, where the first indoor hockey game was played on March 3, 1875; some characteristics of that game, such as the length of the ice rink and the use of a puck, have been retained to this day. Amateur ice hockey leagues began in the 1880s, professional ice hockey originated around 1900; the Stanley Cup, emblematic of ice hockey club supremacy, was first awarded in 1893 to recognize the Canadian amateur champion and became the championship trophy of the NHL. In the early 1900s, the Canadian rules were adopted by the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace, the precursor of the IIHF and the sport was played for the first time at the Olympics during the 1920 Summer Olympics.
In international competitions, the national teams of six countries predominate: Canada, Czech Republic, Russia and the United States. Of the 69 medals awarded all-time in men's competition at the Olympics, only seven medals were not awarded to one of those countries. In the annual Ice Hockey World Championships, 177 of 201 medals have been awarded to the six nations. Teams outside the "Big Six" have won only five medals in either competition since 1953; the World Cup of Hockey is organized by the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players' Association, unlike the annual World Championships and quadrennial Olympic tournament, both run by the International Ice Hockey Federation. World Cup games are played under NHL rules and not those of the IIHF, the tournament occurs prior to the NHL pre-season, allowing for all NHL players to be available, unlike the World Championships, which overlaps with the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs. Furthermore, all 12 Women's Olympic and 36 IIHF World Women's Championships medals were awarded to one of these six countries.
The Canadian national team or the United States national team have between them won every gold medal of either series. In England, field hockey has been called "hockey" and what was referenced by first appearances in print; the first known mention spelled as "hockey" occurred in the 1773 book Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, to Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of the Author: Including a New Mode of Infant Education, by Richard Johnson, whose chapter XI was titled "New Improvements on the Game of Hockey". The 1573 Statute of Galway banned a sport called "'hokie'—the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves". A form of this word was thus being used in the 16th century, though much removed from its current usage; the belief that hockey was mentioned in a 1363 proclamation by King Edward III of England is based on modern translations of the proclamation, in Latin and explicitly forbade the games "Pilam Manualem, Pedivam, & Bacularem: & ad Canibucam & Gallorum Pugnam". The English historian and biographer John Strype did not use the word "hockey" when he translated the proclamation in 1720, instead translating "Canibucam" as "Cambuck".
According to the Austin Hockey Association, the word "puck" derives from the Scottish Gaelic puc or the Irish poc. "... The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his camán or hurley is always called a puck." Stick-and-ball games date back to pre-Christian times. In Europe, these games included the Irish game of hurling, the related Scottish game of shinty and versions of field hockey. IJscolf, a game resembling colf on an ice-covered surface, was popular in the Low Countries between the Middle Ages and the Dutch Golden Age, it was played with a wooden curved bat, a wooden or leather ball and two poles, with t
Phineus
In Greek mythology, Phineus was a king of Salmydessus in Thrace and seer who appears in accounts of the Argonauts' voyage. Some accounts, make him a king in Arcadia. Several different versions of Phineus's parentage were presented in ancient texts. According to Apollonius of Rhodes, he was a son of Agenor, but the Bibliotheca says that other authors named his father as Poseidon; the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, on the other hand, reported that Phineus was the son of Phoenix and Cassiopeia. His first wife was Cleopatra, daughter of Boreas and Oreithyia, by whom he had a pair of sons, named either Plexippus and Pandion, or Gerymbas and Aspondus, or Polydector and Polydorus, or Parthenius and Crambis, or Oryithus and Crambis, his second wife, daughter of the Scythian king Dardanus, deceived him into blinding these sons, a fate Phineus himself would suffer. By his second wife, or by a Scythian concubine, Phineus had two more sons and Thynus. According to some sources, he had two daughters and Harpyreia while another daughter Olizone was called the wife of Dardanus, the son of Zeus and Electra, became the mother of Erichthonius.
Phineus's own blinding was variously attributed to the outrage against his sons, his giving Phrixus directions on his journey, or because he preferred long life to sight, or, as reported in the Argonautica, for revealing the future to mankind. For this reason he was tormented by the Harpies, who stole or defiled whatever food he had at hand or, according to the Catalogue of Women, drove Phineus himself to the corners of the world. According to scholia on the Odyssey, when asked by Zeus if he preferred to die or lose sight as punishment for having his sons killed by their stepmother, Phineus chose the latter saying he would rather never see the sun, it was the scorned Helios who sent the Harpies against him; however the Harpies plagued him, deliverance from this curse motivated Phineus's involvement in the voyage of the Argo. Those accounts in which Phineus is stated to have blinded his sons, add that they had their sight restored to them by the sons of Boreas, or by Asclepius; when the ship landed by his Thracian home, Phineus described his torment to the crew and told them that his brothers-in-law, the wing-footed Boreads, both Argonauts, were fated to deliver him from the Harpies.
Zetes demurred, fearing the wrath of the gods should they deliver Phineus from divine punishment, but the old seer assured him that he and his brother Calais would face no retribution. A trap was set: Phineus sat down to a meal with the Boreads standing guard, as soon as he touched his food the Harpies swept down, devoured the food and flew off; the Boreads gave chase, pursuing the Harpies as far as the "Floating Islands" before Iris stopped them lest they kill the Harpies against the will of the gods. She swore an oath by the Styx that the Harpies would no longer harass Phineus, the Boreads turned back to return to the Argonauts, it is for this reason, according to Apollonius, that the "Floating Islands" are now called the Strophades, the "Turning Islands". Phineus revealed to the Argonauts the path their journey would take and informed them how to pass the Symplegades safely, thus filling the same role for Jason that Circe did for Odysseus in the Odyssey. A now lost play about Phineus, was written by Aeschylus and was the first play in the trilogy that included The Persians, produced in 472 B.
C. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica translated by Robert Cooper Seaton, R. C. Loeb Classical Library Volume 001. London, William Heinemann Ltd, 1912. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. George W. Mooney. London. Longmans, Green. 1912. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Hesiod, Catalogue of Women from Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica translated by Evelyn-White, H G. Loeb Classical Library Volume 57. London: William Heinemann, 1914. Online version at theio.com Dictys Cretensis, from The Trojan War. The Chronicles of Dictys of Crete and Dares the Phrygian translated by Richard McIlwaine Frazer, Jr.. Indiana University Press. 1966. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Vol. 3. Books 4.59–8. Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2. Immanel Bekker.
Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888-1890. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Maurus Servius Honoratus, In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F. B. A. F. R. S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website. Sophocles, The Antigone of Sophocles edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Sophocles, Sophocles. Vol 1: Oedipus the king. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone. With an English translation by F. Storr; the Loeb classical library, 20. Francis Storr. London. William Heinemann Ltd.. 1912. Greek text available at the
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon intended for slashing or thrusting, longer than a knife or dagger, consisting of a long blade attached to a hilt. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographic region under consideration; the blade can be curved. Thrusting swords have a pointed tip on the blade, tend to be straighter. Many swords are designed for both slashing; the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger. The Iron Age sword remained short and without a crossguard; the spatha, as it developed in the Late Roman army, became the predecessor of the European sword of the Middle Ages, at first adopted as the Migration Period sword, only in the High Middle Ages, developed into the classical arming sword with crossguard. The word sword continues the Old English, sweord; the use of a sword is known as swordsmanship or, in a modern context, as fencing. In the Early Modern period, western sword design diverged into two forms, the thrusting swords and the sabers.
The thrusting swords such as the rapier and the smallsword were designed to impale their targets and inflict deep stab wounds. Their long and straight yet light and well balanced design made them maneuverable and deadly in a duel but ineffective when used in a slashing or chopping motion. A well aimed lunge and thrust could end a fight in seconds with just the sword's point, leading to the development of a fighting style which resembles modern fencing; the saber and similar blades such as the cutlass were built more and were more used in warfare. Built for slashing and chopping at multiple enemies from horseback, the saber's long curved blade and forward weight balance gave it a deadly character all its own on the battlefield. Most sabers had sharp points and double-edged blades, making them capable of piercing soldier after soldier in a cavalry charge. Sabers continued to see battlefield use until the early 20th century; the US Navy kept tens of thousands of sturdy cutlasses in their armory well into World War II and many were issued to marines in the Pacific as jungle machetes.
Non-European weapons called "sword" include single-edged weapons such as the Middle Eastern scimitar, the Chinese dao and the related Japanese katana. The Chinese jìan is an example of a non-European double-edged sword, like the European models derived from the double-edged Iron Age sword; the first weapons that can be described as "swords" date to around 3300 BC. They have been found in Arslantepe, are made from arsenical bronze, are about 60 cm long; some of them are inlaid with silver. The sword developed from the dagger. A knife is unlike a dagger in that a knife has only one cutting surface, while a dagger has two cutting surfaces; when the construction of longer blades became possible, from the late 3rd millennium BC in the Middle East, first in arsenic copper in tin-bronze. Blades longer than 60 cm were rare and not practical until the late Bronze Age because the Young's modulus of bronze is low, longer blades would bend easily; the development of the sword out of the dagger was gradual.
These are the "type A" swords of the Aegean Bronze Age. One of the most important, longest-lasting, types swords of the European Bronze Age was the Naue II type known as Griffzungenschwert; this type first appears in c. the 13th century BC in Northern Italy, survives well into the Iron Age, with a life-span of about seven centuries. During its lifetime, metallurgy changed from bronze to iron, but not its basic design. Naue II swords were exported from Europe to the Aegean, as far afield as Ugarit, beginning about 1200 BC, i.e. just a few decades before the final collapse of the palace cultures in the Bronze Age collapse. Naue II swords could be as long as 85 cm. Robert Drews linked the Naue Type II Swords, which spread from Southern Europe into the Mediterranean, with the Bronze Age collapse. Naue II swords, along with Nordic full-hilted swords, were made with functionality and aesthetics in mind; the hilts of these swords were beautifully crafted and contained false rivets in order to make the sword more visually appealing.
Swords coming from northern Denmark and northern Germany contained three or more fake rivets in the hilt. Sword production in China is attested from the Bronze Age Shang Dynasty; the technology for bronze swords reached its high point during the Warring States period and Qin Dynasty. Amongst the Warring States period swords, some unique technologies were used, such as casting high tin edges over softer, lower tin cores, or the application of diamond shaped patterns on the blade. Unique for Chinese bronzes is the consistent use of high tin bronze, hard and breaks if stressed too far, whereas other cultures preferred lower tin bronze, which bends if stressed too far. Although iron swords were made alongside bronze, it was not until the early Han period that iron replaced bronze. In the Indian subcontinent, earliest available Bronze age swords of copper were discovered in the Indus Valley Civilization sites in the northwestern regions of South Asia. Swords have been recovered in
Rick Riordan
Richard Russell Riordan Jr. is an American author. He is known for writing the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, about a twelve-year-old Percy Jackson who discovers he is a son of Greek God Poseidon, his books have been translated into 42 languages and sold more than 30 million copies in the US. 20th Century Fox has adapted the first two books of his Percy Jackson series as part of a series of films. His books have spawned related media, such as graphic short story collections. Riordan's first full-length novel was Big Red Tequila, which became the first book in the Tres Navarre series, his big breakthrough was The Lightning Thief, the first novel in the five-volume Percy Jackson series, which placed a group of adolescents in a Greco-Roman mythological setting. Since Riordan has written The Kane Chronicles trilogy and The Heroes of Olympus series; the Kane Chronicles focused on Egyptian mythology. Riordan helped Scholastic Press develop The 39 Clues series and its spinoffs, penned its first book, The Maze of Bones.
His most recent publications are three books in the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, based on Norse mythology. The first book of his The Trials of Apollo series based on Greek mythology, The Hidden Oracle, was released in May 2016. Riordan was raised in San Antonio, Texas, he graduated from Alamo Heights High School, first attended the music program at North Texas State, wanting to be a guitarist. He studied English and History, he taught Social Studies for eight years at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco. Rick married Becky Riordan from the East Coast, in 1985 on the couple's shared birthday, they have two sons and Patrick. It was Haley Riordan, they moved from San Antonio to Boston in June 2013, in conjunction with older son Haley starting college in Boston. Riordan has created several successful book series. Tres Navarre, an adult mystery series about a Texan private eye, won the Shamus and Edgar Awards, he conceived the idea for the Percy Jackson series as bedtime stories about ancient Greek heroes for his son Haley.
Haley had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, inspiring Riordan to make the titular protagonist ADHD and dyslexic. Riordan published the first novel in the series, The Lightning Thief, in 2005. Four sequels followed, with the last, The Last Olympian in 2009. Prior to Percy Jackson, Riordan had written the Tres Navarres series, a series of mystery novels for adult readers, his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series features the titular twelve-year-old who discovers he is the modern-day son of the ancient Greek god Poseidon. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the film rights and released a feature film in 2010. Following the success of Percy Jackson, Riordan created The Kane Chronicles, which features a modern-day Egyptian pantheon and two new sibling protagonists and Carter Kane. Riordan created a sequel series to Percy Jackson, The Heroes of Olympus. Riordan helped create the children's book series The 39 Clues, he wrote the introduction to the Puffin Classics edition of Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes, in which he states that the book influenced him to write his Greek mythology series.
1998 Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel and Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original for Big Red Tequila 1999 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original for The Widower's Two-Step 2008 Mark Twain Award for The Lightning Thief 2009 Mark Twain Award for The Sea of Monsters 2009 Rebecca Caudill Award for The Lightning Thief 2010 School Library Journal's Best Book for The Red Pyramid 2011 Children's Choice Book Awards: Author of the Year 2011 Children's Choice Book Awards: Fifth Grade to Sixth Grade Book of the Year for The Red Pyramid 2011 Wyoming Soaring Eagle Book Award for The Last Olympian 2011 Milner Award for Percy Jackson and the Olympians series 2012 Indian Paintbrush Award for The Red Pyramid 2013 Best Fiction Book for Children in Bulgaria for The Mark of Athena 2017 Stonewall Book Award for Children's literature for The Hammer of Thor Big Red Tequila The Widower's Two-Step The Last King of Texas The Devil Went Down to Austin Southtown Mission Road Rebel Island The Lightning Thief The Sea of Monsters The Titan's Curse The Battle of the Labyrinth The Last Olympian The Demigod Files The Ultimate Guide The Demigod Diaries Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo Percy Jackson's Greek Gods Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes Camp Half-Blood Confidential The Percy Jackson Coloring Book The Lightning Thief: Illustrated Edition The Lost Hero The Son of Neptune The Mark of Athena The House of Hades The Blood of Olympus Demigods of Olympus The Lightning Thief Graphic Novel The Red Pyramid Graphic Novel The Sea of Monsters Graphic Novel The Titan's Curse Graphic Novel (2013, in collabora
Iris (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification and goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Iris is the daughter of Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra, the sister of the Harpies: Aello and Ocypete. During the Titanomachy, Iris was the messenger of the Olympian Gods, while her twin sister Arke betrayed the Olympians and became the messenger of the Titans, she is the goddess of the rainbow. She serves nectar to the gods and goddesses to drink. Iris is married to Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, their son is Pothos. According to the Dionysiaca of Nonnos, Iris' brother is Hydaspes, she is known as one of the goddesses of the sea and the sky. Iris links the gods to humanity, she travels with the speed of wind from one end of the world to the other, into the depths of the sea and the underworld. Iris had numerous poetic titles and epithets, including chrysopteros, podas ōkea or podēnemos ōkea and Thaumantias, aellopus, she watered the clouds with her pitcher, obtaining the water from the sea.
In some records Iris is a fraternal twin to the Titaness Arke, who flew out of the company of Olympian gods to join the Titans as their messenger goddess during the Titanomachy, making the two sisters enemy messenger goddesses. Iris was said to have golden wings, she is said to travel on the rainbow while carrying messages from the gods to mortals. During the Titan War, Zeus tore Arke's iridescent wings from her and gave them as a gift to the Nereid Thetis at her wedding, who in turn gave them to her son, who wore them on his feet. Achilles was sometimes known as podarkes. Podarces was the original name of Priam, king of Troy. Iris is mentioned as a divine messenger in The Iliad, attributed to Homer, she does not, appear in The Odyssey, where her role is instead filled by Hermes. Like Hermes, Iris carries a winged staff. By command of Zeus, the king of the gods, she carries an ewer of water from the River Styx, with which she puts to sleep all who perjure themselves. In Book XXIII, she delivers Achilles's prayer to Boreas and Zephyrus to light the funeral pyre of Patroclus.
Iris appears several times in Virgil's Aeneid as an agent of Juno. In Book 4, Juno dispatches her to pluck a lock of hair from the head of Queen Dido, that she may die and enter Hades. In book 5, having taken on the form of a Trojan woman, stirs up the other Trojan mothers to set fire to four of Aeneas' ships in order to prevent them from leaving Sicily. According to the Roman poet Ovid, after Romulus was deified as the god Quirinus, his wife Hersilia pleaded the gods to let her become immortal as well so that she could be with her husband once again. Juno sent Iris down to her. With a single finger, Iris transformed her into an immortal goddess. Hersilia flew to Olympus, where she became one of the Horae and was permitted to live with her husband forevermore. According to the "Homeric Hymn to Apollo", when Leto was in labor prior to giving birth to Apollo and his twin sister Artemis, all the goddesses were in attendance except for two and Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth. On the ninth day of her labor, Leto told Iris to bribe Ilithyia and ask for her help in giving birth to her children, without allowing Hera to find out.
According to Apollonius Rhodius, Iris turned back the Argonauts Zetes and Calais, who had pursued the Harpies to the Strophades. The brothers had driven off the monsters from their torment of the prophet Phineus, but did not kill them upon the request of Iris, who promised that Phineus would not be bothered by the Harpies again. In Euripides' play Herakles, Iris appears alongside Lyssa, cursing Heracles with the fit of madness in which he kills his three sons and his wife Megara. There are no known temples or sanctuaries to Iris, while she is depicted on vases and in bas-reliefs, no statues are known to have been made of Iris during the antiquity. Iris does appear to have been the object of at least some minor worship, but the only trace preserved of her cult is the note that the Delians offered cakes, made of wheat and dried figs, as offerings to Iris. Iris is represented either as a beautiful young maiden with wings on her shoulders; as a goddess, Iris is associated with communication, the rainbow and new endeavors.
This personification of a rainbow was once described as being a link to earth. In some texts she is depicted wearing a coat of many colors. With this coat she creates the rainbows she rides to get from place to place. Iris's wings were said to be so beautiful that she could light up a dark cavern, a trait observable from in the story of her visit to Somnus in order to relay a message to Alcyone. Though Iris was principally associated with communication and messages, she was believed to aid in the fulfillment of humans' prayers, either by fulfilling them herself or by bringing them to the attention of other deities. Grimal, Pierre. "Iris". The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. Pp. 237–238. Peyré, Yves. "Iris". A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Classical Mythology, ed. Yves Peyré. Smith, William. "Iris". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London. "Iris" from Theoi.com Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, Homerica by Hesiod The Iliad by Ho
