1.
Athens
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Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
2.
Krater
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A krater or crater was a large vase in Ancient Greece, particularly used for watering down wine. At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in the center of the room and they were quite large, so they were not easily portable when filled. Thus, the mixture would be withdrawn from the krater with other vessels. In fact, Homers Odyssey describes a steward drawing wine from a krater at a banquet and then running to, the modern Greek word now used for undiluted wine, krasi, originates from the krasis of wine and water in kraters. Kraters were glazed on the interior to make the surface of the clay more impervious for holding water, at the beginning of each symposium a symposiarch, or lord of the common drink, was elected by the participants. He would then control of the wine servants, and thus of the degree of wine dilution and how it changed during the party. The krater and how it was filled and emptied was thus the centerpiece of the symposiarchs authority, an astute symposiarch should be able to diagnose the degree of inebriation of his fellow symposiasts and make sure that the symposium progressed smoothly and without drunken excess. Drinking ákratos wine was considered a faux pas in ancient Greece, enough to characterize the drinker as a drunkard and someone who lacked restraint. By using dehydrated grapes, and could withstand dilution with water better, such wines would have also withstood time and the vagaries of transportation much better. Nevertheless, the ancient writers offer scant details of ancient vinification methods and this form originated in Corinth in the seventh century BCE but was taken over by the Athenians where it is typically black-figure. They ranged in size from 35 centimetres to 56 centimetres in height and were thrown in three pieces, the body/ shoulder area was one, the base another, and the neck/ lip/ rim a third. These are among the largest of the kraters, supposedly developed by the potter Exekias in black figure though in fact almost always seen in red, the lower body is shaped like the calyx of a flower, and the foot is stepped. The psykter-shaped vase fits inside it so well stylistically that it has suggested that the two might have often been made as a set. It is always made with two robust upturned handles positioned on opposite sides of the body or cul. This type of krater, defined by volute-shaped handles, was invented in Laconia in the early 6th century BC and its production was carried on by Greeks in Apulia until the end of the 4th century BC. This strip would then have been continued downward until the bottom of the handle where the potter would have cut a U-shaped arch in the clay before attaching the handle to the body of the vase and this form looks like an inverted bell. According to most scholars ceramic kraters imitated shapes designed initially for metal vessels, these were common in antiquity, among the largest and most famous metal kraters in antiquity were one in the possession of the Samian tyrant Polycrates, and another one dedicated by Croesus to the Delphic oracle. There are a few extant Archaic bronze kraters, almost exclusively of the volute-type and their main production centres were Sparta, Argos and Corinth, in Peloponnesus
3.
Black-figure pottery
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Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BC, stylistically it can be distinguished from the preceding orientalizing period and the subsequent red-figure pottery style. Figures and ornaments were painted on the body of the vessel using shapes, delicate contours were incised into the paint before firing, and details could be reinforced and highlighted with opaque colors, usually white and red. The principal centers for this style were initially the commercial hub Corinth, other important production sites are known to have been in Laconia, Boeotia, eastern Greece, and Italy. Particularly in Italy individual styles developed which were at least in part intended for the Etruscan market, Greek black-figure vases were very popular with the Etruscans, as is evident from frequent imports. Greek artists created customized goods for the Etruscan market which differed in form, the Etruscans also developed their own black-figure ceramic industry oriented on Greek models. Black-figure painting on vases was the first art style to give rise to a significant number of identifiable artists, some are known by their true names, others only by the pragmatic names they were given in the scientific literature. Especially Attica was the home of well-known artists, some potters introduced a variety of innovations which frequently influenced the work of the painters, sometimes it was the painters who inspired the potters’ originality. Red- as well as black-figure vases are one of the most important sources of mythology and iconography, since the 19th century at the latest, these vases have been the subject of intensive investigation. The foundation for pottery painting is the carrier, in other words the vase onto which an image is painted. Popular shapes alternated with passing fashions, whereas many recurred after intervals, others were replaced over time. But they all had a method of manufacture, after the vase was made. The workshops were under the control of the potters, who as owners of businesses had a social position. The extent to which potters and painters were identical is uncertain and it is likely that many master potters themselves made their main contribution in the production process as vase painters, while employing additional painters. It is, however, not easy to reconstruct links between potters and painters, but such attributions can only be made with confidence if the signatures of potter and painter are at hand. The painters, who were slaves or craftsmen paid as pottery painters, worked on unfired. In the case of production the subject was painted on the vase with a clay slurry which turned black after firing. This was not a color in the sense, since this surface slip was of the same material as the vase itself
4.
Pottery of ancient Greece
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The shards of pots discarded or buried in the 1st millennium BC are still the best guide available to understand the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks. There were various specific regional varieties, such as the South Italian ancient Greek pottery, throughout these places, various types and shapes of vases were used. Some were highly decorative and meant for consumption and domestic beautification as much as serving a storage or other function. As the culture recovered Sub-Mycenaean pottery finally blended into the Protogeometric style, the rise of vase painting saw increasing decoration. Geometric art in Greek pottery was contiguous with the late Dark Age and early Archaic Greece, the pottery produced in Archaic and Classical Greece included at first black-figure pottery, yet other styles emerged such as red-figure pottery and the white ground technique. Styles such as West Slope Ware were characteristic of the subsequent Hellenistic period, interest in Greek art lagged behind the revival of classical scholarship during the Renaissance and revived in the academic circle round Nicholas Poussin in Rome in the 1630s. Though modest collections of vases recovered from ancient tombs in Italy were made in the 15th and 16th centuries these were regarded as Etruscan. It is possible that Lorenzo de Medici bought several Attic vases directly from Greece and it was Gerhard who first outlined the chronology we now use, namely, Orientalizing, Black Figure, Red Figure, Polychromatic. Where the 19th century was a period of discovery and the out of first principles the 20th century has been one of consolidation. Efforts to record and publish the totality of public collections of vases began with the creation of the Corpus vasorum antiquorum under Edmond Pottier, Beazley and others following him have also studied fragments of Greek pottery in institutional collections, and have attributed many painted pieces to individual artists. Scholars have called these fragments disjecta membra and in a number of instances have been able to identify fragments now in different collections that belong to the same vase, some vase shapes were especially associated with rituals, others with athletics and the gymnasium. Within each category the forms are roughly the same in scale and whether open or closed, some have a purely ritual function, for example white ground lekythoi contained the oil used as funerary offerings and appear to have been made solely with that object in mind. Many examples have a second cup inside them to give the impression of being full of oil. There was a market for Greek pottery since the 8th century BC. An idea of the extent of trade can be gleaned from plotting the find maps of these vases outside of Greece. Only the existence of a second hand market could account for the number of found in Etruscan tombs. South Italian wares came to dominate the trade in the Western Mediterranean as Athens declined in political importance during the Hellenistic period. The process of making a pot and firing it is fairly simple, the first thing a potter needs is clay
5.
Etruscan civilization
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The Etruscan civilization is the modern name given to a powerful and wealthy civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio. Culture that is identifiably Etruscan developed in Italy after about 800 BC, the latter gave way in the 7th century BC to a culture that was influenced by ancient Greece, Magna Graecia, and Phoenicia. The decline was gradual, but by 500 BC the political destiny of Italy had passed out of Etruscan hands, the last Etruscan cities were formally absorbed by Rome around 100 BC. Politics were based on the city, and probably the family unit. In their heyday, the Etruscan elite grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, archaic Greece had a huge influence on their art and architecture, and Greek mythology was evidently very familiar to them. The study also excluded recent Anatolian connection, the ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms Tuscany, which refers to their heartland, and Etruria, which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians, from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia, the word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna, the origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC, repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians with Pelasgians. Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates, pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History, Adjoining these the Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states, the Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Historians have no literature and no original Etruscan texts of religion or philosophy, therefore, much of what is known about this civilization is derived from grave goods, another source of genetic data on Etruscan origins is from four ancient breeds of cattle. Analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of these and seven other breeds of Italian cattle, the other Italian breeds were linked to northern Europe. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania, some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC and this led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean, from the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces
6.
National Archaeological Museum (Florence)
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The National Archaeological Museum of Florence is an archaeological museum in Florence, Italy. It is located at 1 piazza Santissima Annunziata, in the Palazzo della Crocetta, the museum was inaugurated in the presence of king Victor Emmanuel II in 1870 in the buildings of the Cenacolo di Fuligno on via Faenza. At that time it only comprised Etruscan and Roman remains, as the collections grew, a new site soon became necessary and in 1880 the museum was transferred to its present building. The collections first foundations were the collections of the Medici and Lorraine. In 1887 a new museum on the Etruscans was added. The organisation of the Etruscan rooms was reconsidered and reordered in 2006, also in 2006, the 40-year-overdue restoration was carried out on over 2000 objects damaged in the 1966 floods. The torso di Livorno, copy of a 5th-century BC Greek original, statue of a cockerel, the so-called Gallo Treboniano, late 3rd-century work. The Minerva of Arezzo, a bronze Roman copy of a 4th-century BC Greek model attributed to Praxiteles. The Orator, life-size bronze sculpture of an Etruscan man wearing a toga, the most important of the vases is a large black figure krater of c.570 BC signed by the potter Ergotimos and the painter Kleitias. It is named the François vase after the archaeologist who found it in 1844 in an Etruscan tomb at fonte Rotella, on the Chiusi road, florences first collection of Egyptian antiquities was in the Medici collection, dating from the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, together with Charles X of France, he financed a scientific expedition to Egypt in 1828 to 1829. The expedition was directed by Jean-François Champollion, who deciphered the hieroglyphic script, ippolito Rosellini, friend and student of Champollion, represented the Italian interests during the expedition. He went on to become the father of Italian Egyptology, many artifacts were collected during the expedition, both from archeological diggings, and via purchases from local merchants. On their return, these were distributed evenly between the Louvre in Paris, and the new Egyptian Museum in Florence, the museum was officially opened in 1855. The first director was Ernesto Schiaparelli, from Piedmont and he later went on to become director of the larger Egyptian museum in Turin. By 1880 he had catalogued the collection and organized transportation of the antiquities to the Florentine Archaeological Museum, under Schiaparelli, the collection expanded with further excavations and purchases carried out in Egypt. Many of the artifacts were, however, later transferred to Turin, the Florentine collection continued to grow after this time, with donations from private individuals and scientific institutions. In particular, the Papyrological Institute of Florence provided artifacts from its expeditions to Egypt between 1934 and 1939 and these now provide one of the most substantial collections of Coptic art and documents in the world
7.
Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
8.
Etruria
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Etruria was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria. Such trade occurred either directly with Egypt, or through intermediaries such as Greek or Phoenician sailors, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany styled itself in Latin as Magnus Ducatus Etruriae. The name Etruria was also applied to the Kingdom of Etruria, a particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H. Lawrences Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays. Etruscan was the language for meetings. When Etruria was conquered by the Roman Republic, Latin became the official language, cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, by George Dennis, an overview of Etruscan civilisation
9.
Symposium
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In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Symposia are depicted in Greek and Etruscan art that shows similar scenes, the equivalent in Roman society is the Latin convivium. In modern usage it has come to mean an academic conference or meeting such as a scientific conference, the Greek symposium was a key Hellenic social institution. It was a forum for men of respected families to debate, plot, boast and they were frequently held to celebrate the introduction of young men into aristocratic society. Symposia were also held by aristocrats to celebrate special occasions. They were a source of pride for them, symposia were usually held in the andrōn, the mens quarters of the household. The participants, or symposiasts, would recline on pillowed couches arrayed against the three walls of the room away from the door, due to space limitations the couches would number between seven and nine, limiting the total number of participants to somewhere between fourteen and twenty seven. If any young men took part they did not recline but sat up, however, in Macedonian symposia the focus was not only on drinking but hunting, and young men were allowed to recline only after they had killed their first wild boar. Entertainment was provided, and depending on the occasion could include games, songs, flute-girls or boys, slaves performing various acts, symposia often were held for specific occasions. The most famous symposium of all, described in Platos dialogue of that name was hosted by the poet Agathon on the occasion of his first victory at the theater contest of the 416 BC Dionysia. The men at the symposium would discuss a multitude of philosophical, such as love. A symposium would be overseen by a symposiarch who would decide how strong the wine for the evening would be, the Greeks and Romans customarily served their wine mixed with water, as the drinking of pure wine was considered a habit of uncivilized peoples. However, there were differences between the Roman and Greek symposiums. A Roman symposium served wine before, with and after food, in a Greek symposium, wine was only drunk after dinner, and women were not allowed to attend. The wine was drawn from a krater, a large jar designed to be carried by two men, and served from pitchers. Certain formalities were observed, most important among which were libations, in a fragment from his c. After the third one is drained, wise men go home, symposiums are often featured on Attic pottery and Richard Neer has argued that the chief function of Attic pottery was for use in the symposium. Poetry and music were central to the pleasures of the symposium, although free women of status did not attend symposia, high-class female prostitutes and entertainers were hired to perform, consort, and converse with the guests
10.
Ergotimos
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Ergotimos was a Greek potter, active in Athens, circa 570–560 BC. His son Eucharios was also a potter, as was a grandson whose name is not known, john Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford 1956, p. 76-80. Der neue Pauly IV,1998, Col.65 s. v, Ergotimos Künstlerlexikon der Antike I, München, Leipzig 2001, p.214 s. v. Ergotimos Black-figure pottery Pottery of ancient Greece Ergotimos in Perseus
11.
Kleitias
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Kleitias was an ancient Athenian vase painter of the black figure style who flourished c. Kleitias most celebrated today is the François Vase, which bears over two hundred figures in its six friezes. Painted inscriptions on four pots and one ceramic stand name Kleitias as their painter and Ergotimos as their potter, a variety of other fragments have been attributed to him on a stylistic basis. Bettina Kreuzer, Klitias, in, Künstlerlexikon der Antike Vol 1,2001, painter of Acropolis 606 Black-figure vase painting Klitias in the Beazley-Archive
12.
Potnia Theron
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Potnia Theron is a term first used by Homer and often used to describe female divinities associated with animals. The word Potnia, meaning mistress or lady, was a Mycenaean Greek word inherited by Classical Greek, with the same meaning, homers mention of potnia theron is thought to refer to Artemis and Walter Burkert describes this mention as a well established formula. Many depictions use a version of the widespread ancient motif of the male Master of Animals. The oldest depiction has been discovered in Çatalhöyük, another example of Potnia theròn is situated in Museo civico archeologico di Monte Rinaldo in Italy, plate illustrates goddess that wears with a long dress and holds hands two panthers
13.
Ajax the Great
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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
14.
Achilles
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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
15.
Calydonian Boar
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The Calydonian or Aetolian Boar is one of the monsters of Greek mythology that had to be overcome by heroes of the Olympian age. This outraged some of the men, with tragic results, strabo was under the impression that the Calydonian Boar was an offspring of the Crommyonian Sow vanquished by Theseus. The Calydonian Boar is one of the monsters in Greek mythology. Like the quest for the Golden Fleece or the Trojan War that took place the following generation, King Oeneus of Calydon, an ancient city of west-central Greece north of the Gulf of Patras, held annual harvest sacrifices to the gods on the sacred hill. It rampaged throughout the countryside, destroying vineyards and crops, forcing people to refuge inside the city walls. Oeneus sent messengers out to look for the best hunters in Greece, offering them the boars pelt and it was the smitten Meleager who convinced them. Nonetheless it was Atalanta who first succeeded in wounding the boar with an arrow, although Meleager finished it off, and offered the prize to Atalanta, outraged by this, Meleager slew the sons of Thestios and again gave the skin to Atalanta. Thus Artemis achieved her revenge against King Oeneus, during the hunt, Peleus accidentally killed his host Eurytion. The Calydonian Hunt was the theme of the main pediment. The heroes who participated assembled from all over Hellas, according to Homer, the table lists, Those seen by Pausanias on the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Those listed by Latin mythographer Hyginus, they include Deucalion, whose connection is unlikely and those noted in Ovids list from the 8th Book of his Metamorphoses. Those who appear in Book I of the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, ternerdos, Iolcos, Sparta, Pleurone, Messene, Perrhaebia, Phthia, Magnesia, Salamin, Calydon, Thessalia, Oechialia, Ithaca, Tegea, Crete, Dolopia, Athens, and Arcadia. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca I, VIII, 2–3, Homer, Iliad, ix Kerenyi, the Heroes of the Greeks pp114ff, et passim Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII, 267–525. Ruck, Carl A. P. and Danny Staples,1994, the World of Classical Myth p 196 Swinburne, Algernon Charles. Atalanta in Calydon Theioi. com, Hus Kaydonios, Literary quotes
16.
Meleager
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In Greek mythology, Meleager was a hero venerated in his temenos at Calydon in Aetolia. He was already famed as the host of the Calydonian boar hunt in the tradition that was reworked by Homer. Meleager was the son of Althaea and the vintner Oeneus and, according to some accounts father of Parthenopeus, when Meleager was born, the Moirai predicted he would only live until a piece of wood, burning in the family hearth, was consumed by fire. Overhearing them, Althaea immediately doused and hid it, in addition to the heroes he required, he chose Atalanta, a fierce huntress, whom he loved. According to one account of the hunt, when Hylaeus and Rhaecus, then Atalanta wounded the boar and Meleager killed it. He awarded her the hide since she had drawn the first drop of blood, Meleagers brother Toxeus, the archer, and Plexippus grew enraged that the prize was given to a woman. Meleager killed them in the following argument and he also killed Iphicles and Eurypylus for insulting Atalanta. The women who mourned his death were turned into guineafowl, Meleager is also mentioned as one of the Argonauts. In Hades, his is the shade that does not flee Heracles. In Bacchylides Ode V, Meleager is still in his armor, so formidable, in Bacchylides account. Meleager married Cleopatra, daughter of Idas and Marpessa and they had a daughter, Polydora, who became the bride of Protesilaus, who left her bed on their wedding-night to join the expedition to Troy. Among the Romans, the heroes assembled by Meleager for the Calydonian hunt provided a theme of multiple nudes in striking action, Meleagers story has similarities with the Scandinavian Norna-Gests þáttr. In Rick Riordans book series, The Heroes of Olympus, Frank Zhang and this is most likely inspired by Meleagers curse. Meleager in art Bacchylides Fr 5.93 Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica I, media related to Meleager at Wikimedia Commons
17.
Peleus
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In Greek mythology, Peleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BC. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs and he married the sea-nymph Thetis with whom he fathered Achilles. Peleus and his brother Telamon were friends of Heracles, and served in Heracles expedition against the Amazons, his war against King Laomedon, though there were no further kings in Aegina, the kings of Epirus claimed descent from Peleus in the historic period. Peleus and his brother Telamon killed their half-brother Phocus, perhaps in an accident and certainly in an unthinking moment. In Phthia, Peleus was purified by Eurytion and married Antigone, Eurytions daughter, by whom he had a daughter, Peleus was purified of the murder of Eurytion in Iolcus by Acastus. Astydameia, Acastus wife, fell in love with Peleus but he scorned her, bitter, she sent a messenger to Antigone to tell her that Peleus was to marry Acastus daughter. As a result, Antigone hanged herself, Astydameia then told Acastus that Peleus had tried to rape her. Acastus took Peleus on a trip and hid his sword then abandoned him right before a group of centaurs attacked. Chiron, the centaur, or, according to another source, Hermes, returned Peleus sword with magical powers. He pillaged Iolcus and dismembered Astydameia, then marched his army between the rended limbs, Acastus and Astydamia were dead and the kingdom fell to Jasons son, Thessalus. After Antigones death, Peleus married the sea-nymph Thetis and he was able to win her with the aid of Proteus, who told Peleus how to overcome Thetis ability to change her form. Their wedding feast was attended by many of the Olympian gods, as a wedding present, Poseidon gave Peleus two immortal horses, Balius and Xanthus. During the feast, Eris, in revenge for not being invited, produced the Apple of Discord, the marriage of Peleus and Thetis produced seven sons, six of whom died in infancy. The only surviving son was Achilles, Thetis attempted to render her son Achilles invulnerable. In the well-known version, she dipped him in the River Styx, holding him by one heel, which remained vulnerable. In an early and less popular version of the story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and she was interrupted by Peleus and she abandoned both father and son in a rage, leaving his heel vulnerable. Later on in life, Achilles is killed by Paris when he is shot in his vulnerable spot and this is where the term Achilles heel is derived from. Peleus gave Achilles to the centaur Chiron, to raise on Mt. Pelion, in the Iliad, Achilles uses Peleus immortal horses and also wields his fathers spear
18.
Atalanta
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Atalanta is a character in Greek mythology, a virgin huntress, unwilling to marry, and loved by the hero Meleager. Atalanta was the daughter of Iasus, a Boeotian, or an Arcadian princess, the Bibliotheca is the only one who gives an account of Atalanta’s birth and upbringing. King Iasus wanted a son, when Atalanta was born, he left her on a mountaintop to die, some stories say that a she-bear suckled and cared for Atalanta until hunters found and raised her, and she learned to fight and hunt as a bear would. She was later reunited with her father, having grown up in the wilderness, Atalanta became a fierce hunter and was always happy. She took an oath of virginity to the goddess Artemis, when Artemis was forgotten at a sacrifice by King Oineus, she was angered and sent the Calydonian Boar, a wild boar that ravaged the land, men, and cattle and prevented crops from being sown. Atalanta joined Meleager and many other heroes on a hunt for the boar. Many of the men were angry that a woman was joining them, but Meleager, though married, lusted for Atalanta, several of the men were killed before Atalanta became the first to hit the boar and draw blood. After Meleager finally killed the boar with his spear, he awarded the hide to Atalanta, meleager’s uncles, Plexippus and Toxeus, were angry and tried to take the skin from her. In revenge, Meleager killed his uncles, wild with grief, Meleagers mother Althaea threw a charmed log on the fire, which consumed Meleagers life as it burned. Then she died when a new boar came out of the woods, after the Calydonian boar hunt, Atalanta was rediscovered by her father. He wanted her to be married, but Atalanta, uninterested in marriage and those who lost would be killed. King Schoeneus agreed, and many men died in the attempt until Hippomenes came along. Hippomenes asked the goddess Aphrodite for help, and she gave him three golden apples in order to slow Atalanta down, the apples were irresistible, so every time Atalanta got ahead of Hippomenes, he rolled an apple ahead of her, and she would run after it. In this way, Hippomenes won the footrace and came to marry Atalanta, eventually they had a son Parthenopaios, who was one of the Seven against Thebes. Zeus or his mother Rhea turned Atalanta and Hippomenes into lions after they made together in one of his temples. Other accounts say that Aphrodite changed them into lions because they did not give her proper honor, the belief at the time was that lions could not mate with their own species, only with leopards, thus Atalanta and Hippomenes would never be able to remain with one another. In many versions of the quest for the Golden Fleece, for instance that published by Robert Graves in 1944 and she jumped aboard the ship soon after the expedition set out, invoking the protection of Artemis, whose virgin priestess she was. She was following Meleager, who had put away his wife for Atalantas sake
19.
Theseus
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Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order. As Heracles was the Dorian hero, Theseus was a hero, considered by Athenians as their own great reformer, his name comes from the same root as θεσμός. The myths surrounding Theseus—his journeys, exploits, and family—have provided material for fiction throughout the ages, Theseus was responsible for the synoikismos —the political unification of Attica under Athens, represented emblematically in his journey of labours, subduing ogres and monstrous beasts. Because he was the king, Theseus built and occupied a palace on the fortress of the Acropolis that may have been similar to the palace that was excavated in Mycenae. Pausanias reports that after the synoikismos, Theseus established a cult of Aphrodite Pandemos, Plutarchs vita of Theseus makes use of varying accounts of the death of the Minotaur, Theseus escape, and the love of Ariadne for Theseus. Plutarchs sources, not all of whose texts have survived independently, included Pherecydes, Demon, Philochorus, Aegeus, one of the primordial kings of Athens, was childless. Desiring an heir, he asked the oracle at Delphi for advice and her cryptic words were Do not loosen the bulging mouth of the wineskin until you have reached the height of Athens, lest you die of grief. Aegeus did not understand the prophecy and was disappointed and he asked the advice of his host Pittheus, king of Troezen. Pittheus understood the prophecy, got Aegeus drunk, and gave Aegeus his daughter Aethra, but following the instructions of Athena in a dream, Aethra left the sleeping Aegeus and waded across to the island of Sphairia that lay close to Troezens shore. There she poured a libation to Sphairos and Poseidon, and was possessed by the sea god in the night. The mix gave Theseus a combination of divine as well as mortal characteristics in his nature, such double paternity, with one immortal, after Aethra became pregnant, Aegeus decided to return to Athens. In Athens, Aegeus was joined by Medea, who had left Corinth after slaughtering the children she had borne, priestess and consort together represented the old order in Athens. Thus Theseus was raised in his mothers land, when Theseus grew up and became a brave young man, he moved the rock and recovered his fathers tokens. His mother then told him the truth about his fathers identity, young, brave, and ambitious, Theseus decided to go alone by the land route and defeated a great many bandits along the way. At the Isthmian entrance to the Underworld was a robber named Sinis and he would capture travelers, tie them between two pine trees that were bent down to the ground, and then let the trees go, tearing his victims apart. Theseus killed him by his own method and he then became intimate with Siniss daughter, Perigune, fathering the child Melanippus. In another deed north of the Isthmus, at a place called Crommyon, he killed an enormous pig, some versions name the sow herself as Phaea. The Bibliotheca described the Crommyonian Sow as an offspring of Typhon, near Megara, an elderly robber named Sciron forced travellers along the narrow cliff-face pathway to wash his feet
20.
Ariadne
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Ariadne, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete, Son of Zeus and his queen Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios. She is mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and her father put her in charge of the labyrinth where sacrifices were made as part of reparations, later, she helped Theseus overcome the Minotaur and save the potential sacrificial victims. In other stories, she became the bride of the god Dionysus, since ancient Greek myths are passed down through oral tradition, many variations of this and other myths exist. According to an Athenian version of the legend, Minos attacked Athens after his son was killed there, the Athenians asked for terms, and were required to sacrifice seven young men and seven maidens to the Minotaur every seven or nine years. One year, the party included Theseus, the son of King Aegeus. Ariadne fell in love at first sight, and helped him by giving him a sword and a ball of thread, so that he could find his way out of the Minotaurs labyrinth. She eloped with Theseus after he achieved his goal, but according to Homer he had no joy of her, for ere that, Artemis slew her in seagirt Dia because of the witness of Dionysus. Homer does not expand on the nature of Dionysuss accusation, in Hesiod and most other accounts, Theseus abandoned Ariadne sleeping on Naxos, and Dionysus rediscovered and wedded her. The vase-painters of Athens often showed Athena leading Theseus from the sleeping Ariadne to his ship. With Dionysus, she was the mother of Oenopion, the personification of wine, Staphylus, Thoas, Peparethus, Phanus, Eurymedon, Enyeus, Ceramus, Maron, Euanthes, Latramys and her wedding diadem was set in the heavens as the constellation Corona Borealis. Ariadne remained faithful to Dionysus but was killed by Perseus at Argos. In other myths she hanged herself from a tree, like Erigone and the hanging Artemis, some scholars have posited, due to her thread-spinning and winding associations, that she was a weaving goddess, like Arachne, supporting this theory with the mytheme of the Hanged Nymph. Dionysus descended into Hades and brought her and his mother Semele back and they then joined the gods in Olympus. Karl Kerenyi and Robert Graves theorize that Ariadne was a Great Goddess of Crete, Kerenyi notes a Linear B inscription from Knossos, to all the gods, honey. To the mistress of the honey in equal amounts, suggesting to him that the Mistress of the Labyrinth was a Great Goddess in her own right. Professor Barry Powell has suggested she was Minoan Cretes Snake Goddess, in a kylix by the painter Aison Theseus drags the Minotaur from a temple-like labyrinth, but the goddess who attends him, in this Attic representation, is Athena. Theseus, attempting to secure the ship, was swept out to sea. The Cypriote women cared for Ariadne, who died in childbirth and was memorialized in a shrine, Theseus, overcome with grief upon his return, left money for sacrifices to Ariadne and ordered two cult images, one of silver and one of bronze, set up
21.
Patroclus
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In Greek mythology, as recorded in Homers Iliad, Patroclus was the son of Menoetius, grandson of Actor, King of Opus, and Achilles beloved and brother-in-arms. According to Hyginus, Patroclus is the child of Menoetius and Philomela, Homer also references Menoetius as the individual who gave Patroclus to Peleus. Menoetius is the son of Actor, King of Opus in Locris by Aegina, Aegina was a daughter of Asopus and mother of Aeacus by Zeus. Aeacus was father of Peleus, Telamon and Phocus, Actor was a son of Deioneus, King of Phocis and Diomede. His paternal grandparents were Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete and his maternal grandparents were Xuthus and Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus and Praxithea. During his childhood, Patroclus had killed another child in anger over a game, Menoetius gave Patroclus to Peleus, Achilles father, who named Patroclus one of Achilles henchmen as Patroclus and Achilles grew up together. Patroclus acted as a role model for Achilles, as he was both older than Achilles and wise regarding counsel. According to the Iliad, when the tide of war had turned against the Greeks, Achilles consented, giving Patroclus the armor Achilles had received from his father, in order for Patroclus to impersonate Achilles. Achilles then told Patroclus to return after beating the Trojans back from their ships, Patroclus defied Achilles order and pursued the Trojans back to the gates of Troy. Patroclus killed many Trojans, including a son of Zeus, Sarpedon, while battling, Patroclus wits were removed by Apollo, after which Patroclus was hit with the spear of Euphorbos. Hector then killed Patroclus by stabbing him in the stomach with a spear, Achilles retrieved the body, which had been stripped of armor by Hector and protected on the battlefield by Menelaus and Ajax. Achilles did not allow for the burial of Patroclus body until the ghost of Patroclus appeared and demanded burial in order to pass into Hades, Patroclus was then cremated on a funeral pyre, which was covered in the hair of his sorrowful companions. As the cutting of hair was a sign of grief while also acting as a sign of the separation of the living and the dead, the ashes of Achilles were said to have been buried in a golden urn along with those of Patroclus by the Hellespont. Although Homer does not mention it, there is whether or not Achilles. Morales and Mariscal continue stating, there is a tradition concerning the nature of the relationship between the two heroes. According to Grace Ledbetter, there is a train of thought that Patroclus could have been a representation of the side of Achilles. In fact, the first line of Homers Iliad mentions Achilles anger, Ledbetter does so by comparing how Thetis comforts the weeping Achilles in Book 1 of the Iliad to how Achilles comforts Patroclus as he weeps in Book 16. Achilles uses a simile containing a young girl looking at her mother to complete the comparison
22.
Trojan War
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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
23.
Diomedes
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Diomedes or Diomede is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War. He was born to Tydeus and Deipyle and later became King of Argos, succeeding his maternal grandfather, in Homers Iliad Diomedes is regarded alongside Ajax as one of the best warriors of all the Achaeans. Later, he founded ten or more Italian cities, after his death, Diomedes was worshipped as a divine being under various names in Italy and also in Greece. Diomedes was, on his father’s side, an Aetolian, and this is because his father Tydeus left Calydon and fled to Argos in order to avoid being persecuted by his uncle Agrius. He married King Adrastuss daughter Deipyle, Tydeus was one of the Seven Against Thebes. This expedition failed and all leaders, including Tydeus were killed, Tydeus was Athena’s favourite warrior at the time, and when he was dying she wanted to offer him a magic elixir that would make him immortal. However, she withdrew the privilege in apparent disgust when Tydeus gobbled down the brains of the hated enemy who had wounded him. According to some, Diomedes was four years old when his father was killed, at the funeral of their fathers, the sons of Seven Against Thebes met and vowed to vanquish Thebes one day. They called themselves Epigoni because they were born after everything has happened, ten years later, the Epigoni appointed Alcmaeon as their commander in chief and gathered an army. They added to their forces from Argos contingents from Messenia, Arcadia, Corinth and this army, however, was a small one compared to the forces of Thebes. The Epigoni war is remembered as the most important expedition in Greek Mythology before the Trojan War and it was a favorite topic for epics, but, unfortunately, all of these epics are now lost. The main battle took place at Glisas where the warrior Aegialeus was slain by King Laodamas, Diomedes was fifteen years old by then and was considered the mightiest of all. Vanquished by the Epigoni, the Thebans followed the counsel of Tiresias, Epigoni took the city, and most Argive commanders returned rich to their countries after having sacked Thebes, but the city they handed over to Thersander. Adrastus died of grief when he learned that his son Aegialeus had perished in the battle at Glisas, Aegialeus was married to Comaetho, daughter of Tydeus. Diomedes, in turn, married Aegialeuss daughter Aegialia when he returned from battle and he was then appointed as the King of Argos and thus became one of the most powerful rulers of Hellas at such a young age. According to some, Diomedes ruled Argos for more than five years and brought much wealth and he was a skilled politician and was greatly respected by other rulers. He still kept an eye on Calydonian politics, and when the sons of Agrius put Oeneus in jail and their own father on the throne, Diomedes attacked and ceded the kingdom, slaying all the traitors except Thersites, Onchestus and Agrius restoring his grandfather to the throne. Later, Oeneus passed the Kingdom to his son-in-law Andraemon and headed for Argos to meet Diomedes and he was assassinated on the way by Thersites and Onchestus
24.
Odysseus
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Odysseus, also known by the Latin name Ulysses, was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homers epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homers Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle. Husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for his brilliance, guile, and versatility and he is most famous for the Odyssey, ten eventful years he took to return home after the decade-long Trojan War. The name has several variants, in Greek the character was called Olysseus, Oulixeus, Oulixes, hence, there may originally have been two separate figures, one called something like Odysseus, the other something like Ulixes, who were combined into one complex personality. The etymology of the name is unknown, ancient authors linked the name to the Greek verbs odussomai to be wroth against, to hate, or to oduromai to lament, bewail. Homer in references and puns, relates it to various forms of this verb and it has also been suggested that the name is of non-Greek origin, probably not even Indo-European, with an unknown etymology, R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. In Book 19 of the Odyssey, where Odysseuss early childhood is recounted, Euryclea tries to guide him to naming the boy Polyaretos, for he has much been prayed for. Autolycus apparently in a sardonic mood, decided to give the child a name that would commemorate his own experience in life. Because I got odium upon myself before coming here, let the childs name be Odysseus to signify this. The pun was prophetic as well as commemorative, Odysseus often receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades, son of Laërtes. In the Iliad and Odyssey there are several epithets used to describe Odysseus and his name and stories were adopted into Etruscan religion under the name Uthuze. Hence, Odysseus was the great-grandson of the Olympian god Hermes, according to the Iliad and Odyssey, his father is Laertes and his mother Anticlea, although there was a non-Homeric tradition that Sisyphus was his true father. The rumor went that Laertes bought Odysseus from the conniving king, Odysseus is said to have a younger sister, Ctimene, who went to Same to be married and is mentioned by the swineherd Eumaeus, whom she grew up alongside, in Book 15 of the Odyssey. Homers Iliad and Odyssey portray Odysseus as a hero, but the Romans. In Virgils Aeneid, written between 29 and 19 BC, he is referred to as cruel Odysseus or deceitful Odysseus. Turnus, in Aeneid ix, reproaches the Trojan Ascanius with images of rugged, forthright Latin virtues, declaring, You shall not find the sons of Atreus here, nor need the frauds of sly Ulysses fear. While the Greeks admired his cunning and deceit, these qualities did not recommend themselves to the Romans, who possessed a rigid sense of honour. His attempts to avoid his sacred oath to defend Menelaus and Helen offended Roman notions of duty, the majority of sources for Odysseus pre-war exploits—principally the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus—postdate Homer by many centuries
25.
Lapiths
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The Lapiths are a legendary people of Greek mythology, whose home was in Thessaly, in the valley of the Peneus and on the mountain Pelion. Like the Myrmidons and other Thessalian tribes, the Lapiths were natives of Thessaly, lapithes was a valiant warrior, but Centaurus was a deformed being who later mated with mares from whom the race of half-man, half-horse Centaurs then came. Lapithes was the ancestor of the Lapith people, and his descendants include Lapith warriors and kings, such as Ixion, Pirithous, Caeneus, and Coronus. In the Iliad the Lapiths send forty manned ships to join the Greek fleet in the Trojan War, commanded by Polypoetes, the Lapiths were credited with inventing the bridles bit. In fiction, the Lapith king Pirithous was marrying the horsewoman Hippodameia, tamer of horses, at the wedding feast that made a battle, the best-known legend with which the Lapiths are connected is their battle with the Centaurs at the wedding feast of Pirithous, the Centauromachy. The Centaurs had been invited, but, unused to wine, when the bride was presented to greet the guests, the centaur Eurytion leapt up and attempted to rape her. All the other centaurs were up in a moment, straddling women, in the battle that ensued, Theseus came to the Lapiths aid. They cut off Eurytions ears and nose and threw him out, in the battle the Lapith Caeneus was killed, and the defeated Centaurs were expelled from Thessaly to the northwest. Caeneus was a well-known Lapith, originally a girl named Caenis and the favorite of Poseidon, such warrior women, indistinguishable from men, were familiar among the Scythian horsemen too. In the Centaur battle, Caeneus proved invulnerable, until the Centaurs simply crushed him with rocks and trunks of trees and he disappeared into the depths of the earth unharmed and was released as a sandy-headed bird. In later contests, the Centaurs were not so easily beaten, mythic references explained the presence into historic times of primitive Lapiths in Malea and in the brigand stronghold of Pholoe in Elis as remnants of groups driven there by the Centaurs. Some historic Greek cities bore names connected with Lapiths, and the Kypselides of Corinth claimed descent from Cæneus, the Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs was a familiar symposium theme for the vase-painters. A sonnet vividly evoking the battle by the French poet José María de Heredia was included in his volume Les Trophées, in the Renaissance, the battle became a favorite theme for artists, an excuse to display close-packed bodies in violent confrontation. The young Michelangelo executed a marble bas-relief of the subject in Florence about 1492, piero di Cosimos panel Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths, now at the National Gallery, London, was painted during the following decade. If it was part of a marriage chest, or cassone. A frieze with a Centauromachy was also painted by Luca Signorelli in his Virgin Enthroned with Saints, inspired by a Roman sarcophagus found at Cortona, in Tuscany, during the early 15th century. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology vol.11 p.721 Ovid Metamorphoses XII passim, Odyssey XXI,330 –340, Iliad xii. 128,181, Pausanias 1.17.2,5.10.8, Strabo ix.39, Greek Mythology Link - Lapiths, an annotated list of Lapith names, mainly in Metamorphoses, and some Lapith descendants Theoi Project
26.
Centaur
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A centaur, or occasionally hippocentaur, is a mythological creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse. The centaurs were usually said to have born of Ixion. Another version, however, makes them children of a certain Centaurus and this Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele or of Apollo and Stilbe, daughter of the river god Peneus. In the later version of the story his twin brother was Lapithes, ancestor of the Lapiths, Centaurs were said to have inhabited the region of Magnesia and Mount Pelion in Thessaly, the Foloi oak forest in Elis, and the Malean peninsula in southern Laconia. Another tribe of centaurs was said to have lived on Cyprus, according to Nonnus, they were fathered by Zeus, who, in frustration after Aphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. Unlike those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were horned, there were also the Lamian Pheres, twelve rustic daimones of the Lamos river. They were set by Zeus to guard the infant Dionysos, protecting him from the machinations of Hera, the Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his campaign against the Indians. Centaurs subsequently featured in Roman mythology, and were familiar figures in the medieval bestiary and they remain a staple of modern fantastic literature. The strife among these cousins is a metaphor for the conflict between the lower appetites and civilized behavior in humankind, theseus, a hero and founder of cities, who happened to be present, threw the balance in favour of the right order of things, and assisted Pirithous. The Centaurs were driven off or destroyed, another Lapith hero, Caeneus, who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into the earth by Centaurs wielding rocks and the branches of trees. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as wild as untamed horses, like the Titanomachy, the defeat of the Titans by the Olympian gods, the contests with the Centaurs typify the struggle between civilization and barbarism. The Centauromachy is most famously portrayed in the Parthenon metopes by Phidias, a painted terracotta centaur was found in the Heros tomb at Lefkandi, and by the Geometric period, centaurs figure among the first representational figures painted on Greek pottery. An often-published Geometric period bronze of a warrior face-to-face with a centaur is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Greek art of the Archaic period, centaurs are depicted in three different forms. Some centaurs are depicted with a human torso attached to the body of a horse at the withers, where the neck would be. Class B centaurs are depicted with a body and legs, joined at the waist with the hindquarters of a horse. A third type, designated Class C, depicts centaurs with human forelegs terminating in hooves, Baur describes this as an apparent development of Aeolic art, which never became particularly widespread. At a later period, paintings on some amphoras depict winged centaurs, Centaurs were also frequently depicted in Roman art. The most common theory holds that the idea of centaurs came from the first reaction of a culture, as in the Minoan Aegean world
27.
Pirithous
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Pirithous was a son of heavenly Dia, fathered either by Ixion or by Zeus. No trace of such a tradition, which Homers listeners would have recognized in Nestors allusion. In disjointed episodes that have survived, Pirithous had heard rumors about Theseus courage and strength in battle and he rustled Theseus herd of cattle from Marathon, and Theseus set out to pursue him. Pirithous took up arms and the pair met, then became so impressed by each other took a oath of friendship. They were among the company of heroes that hunted the Calydonian Boar, later, Pirithous was set to marry Hippodamia. The centaurs were guests at the party, but they got drunk and tried to abduct the women, the Lapiths won the ensuing battle, the Centauromachy, a favorite motif of Greek art. Theseus and Pirithous pledged to carry off daughters of Zeus, Theseus chose Helen of Sparta and together they kidnapped her when she was 13 years of age and decided to hold on to her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose a more dangerous prize, Persephone herself and they left Helen with Theseus mother, Aethra, and traveled to the underworld domain of Persephone and her husband Hades. When they stopped to rest, they found themselves unable to stand up from the rock as they saw the Furies appear before them, Heracles freed Theseus from the stone, but the earth shook when he attempted to liberate Pirithous. He had committed too great a crime for wanting the wife of one of the gods as his own bride. Homer, Odyssey XXI, 295-305, XI,631, Bibliotheca 2.5.12, virgil, Aeneid VI.393, Ovid, Metamorphoses, XII.218. Hyginus, Fabulae,79 Horace, Odes, IV,7 Pirithous appears in the Class of the Titans episode Recipe for Disaster voiced by Michael Donovan. His mythology of being trapped in the Underworld and being unable to be freed by Heracles remains unchanged in the series, Pirithous appears in the video game God of War III voiced by Simon Templeman. His name is spelled Peirithous here, Peirithous is shown as a prisoner of Hades for trying to make off with Persephone. Peirithous offers Kratos to free him in exchange for giving him the Bow of Apollo, Kratos ends up burning him to a skeleton with a Cerberus Mongrel and claims the Bow of Apollo
28.
Hippodamia (wife of Pirithous)
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In Greek mythology, Hippodamia, daughter of Atrax or Butes, was the bride of King Pirithous of the Lapiths. At their wedding, Hippodamia, the female guests. Pirithous and his friend, Theseus, led the Lapiths to victory over the Centaurs in a known as the Centauromachy. With Pirithous, she mothered Polypoetes, but died shortly after her sons birth, bulfinchs Mythology the Age of Chivalry
29.
Caeneus
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In Greek mythology, Caeneus was a Lapith hero of Thessaly. According to Ovids Metamorphoses, he was originally a woman, Caenis, in Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica, he is briefly noted as the great father of a lesser son, Coronus, who sailed forth among the Argonauts. The striking mythic image of this hero is that, indomitable through his more-than-human power and they could neither force him to yield, nor yet dispatch him, but unbowed, unbroken, he went into earth down under, crushed by a shattering hail of heavy pine trunks. Originally a woman named Caenis, he was abducted by Poseidon who fell in love with him, afterwards, Poseidon promised to grant any wish to her and Caenis wished to have a mans body. Not only did Poseidon grant this, he also granted Caenis impenetrable skin, soon, Caenis changed his name into Caeneus. Caeneus met his fate in the battle between the Lapiths and the centaurs, in Ovids description of the tale, a particular centaur, Latreus, mocks Caeneus and denies his skill as a fighter when he realizes Caeneus female origin. Caeneus strikes Latreus a blow in the side, and is unharmed by the centaurs last attempts at wounding him, in revenge for this, the centaurs piled pine-tree trunks and stones upon him, since he was immune to weapons. There are several descriptions of Caeneus fate after he had been crushed down by the trunks, Ovid states that Caeneus flew away from the pile of tree trunks as a golden-winged bird. This version of the ending is given two witnesses, Mopsus and the son of Ampycus, as well as Nestor, who tells the story, Caeneus legend is found in Metamorphoses, where he is mentioned briefly as a participant in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Awhile after this appearance, Nestor tells the story of Caeneus to Achilles in fuller detail, Caenis then changed his name to Caeneus and became a warrior, traveling all over Thessaly, and later taking part in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Virgil also says that Aeneas sees him, having returned to his original female form by the Fates. He was also mentioned in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Caeneus and the Centaurs, A Vase at Harrow. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, « Caeneus auis unica est-il le phénix. L. Gosserez, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, collection Interférences, homer, Iliad, I, 262–8 Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII,305, XII, 171–209 and 459–525 Pseudo-Apollodorus, Epitome I,22 Virgil, Aeneid VI, 448–9. Caeneus Images of Caenis/Caeneus in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
30.
Thetis
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Thetis, is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the 50 Nereids, daughters of the ancient sea god Nereus. When described as a Nereid in Classical myths, Thetis was the daughter of Nereus and Doris, often she seems to lead the Nereids as they attend to her tasks. Sometimes she also is identified with Metis, some sources argue that she was one of the earliest of deities worshipped in Archaic Greece, the oral traditions and records of which are lost. Only one written record, a fragment, exists attesting to her worship, worship of Thetis as the goddess is documented to have persisted in some regions by historical writers such as Pausanias. In the Trojan War cycle of myth, the wedding of Thetis, the pre-modern etymology of her name, from tithemi, to set up, establish, suggests a perception among Classical Greeks of an early political role. Walter Burkert considers her name a transformed doublet of Tethys and you, goddess, went and saved him from that indignity. You quickly summoned to high Olympus the monster of the hundred arms whom the gods call Briareus, but mankind Aegaeon and he squatted by the Son of Cronos with such a show of force that the blessed gods slunk off in terror, leaving Zeus free —E. V. M. Willcock, have understood the episode as an ad hoc invention of Homers to support Achilles request that his mother intervene with Zeus, thus, she is revealed as a figure of cosmic capacity, quite capable of unsettling the divine order. These accounts associate Thetis with a divine past—uninvolved with human events—with a level of divine invulnerability extraordinary by Olympian standards. In order to ensure a mortal father for her offspring, Zeus and his brother Poseidon made arrangements for her to marry a human, Peleus, son of Aeacus. Proteus, an early sea-god, advised Peleus to find the sea nymph when she was asleep and she did shift shapes, becoming flame, water, a raging lioness, and a serpent. Subdued, she consented to marry him. Thetis is the mother of Achilles by Peleus, who became king of the Myrmidons, apollo played the lyre and the Muses sang, Pindar claimed. At the wedding Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear that had been polished by Athene and had a blade forged by Hephaestus, Poseidon gave him the immortal horses, Balius and Xanthus. Eris, the goddess of discord, had not been invited and she threw, in spite, a golden apple into the midst of the goddesses that was to be awarded only to the fairest. In most interpretations, the award was made during the Judgement of Paris, in the later classical myths Thetis worked her magic on the baby Achilles by night, burning away his mortality in the hall fire and anointing the child with ambrosia during the day, Apollonius tells. When Peleus caught her searing the baby, he let out a cry, in a variant of the myth, Thetis tried to make Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the waters of the Styx. However, the heel by which she held him was not touched by the Styxs waters, in the story of Achilles in the Trojan War in the Iliad, Homer does not mention this weakness of Achilles heel
31.
Chiron
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In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur amongst his brethren. Chiron was notable throughout Greek mythology for his youth-nurturing nature and his personal skills tend to match those of Apollo, his foster father, medicine, music, archery, hunting, prophecy. His parents were Cronus and Philyra, although a centaur, Chirons physical appearance often differs somewhat from other centaurs, demonstrating his status and heritage. This clearly sets Chiron apart from the centaurs, making him easily identifiable. This difference may also have highlighted Chirons unique lineage, being the son of Cronus, Chiron is often depicted carrying a branch with dead hares he has caught hanging from it. Chiron is also depicted wearing clothes, demonstrating he is more civilised. The Education of Achilles wall painting, from the basilica in Herculaneum, is one of the most common Roman depictions of Chiron, as he teaches Achilles the lyre. In this version we see Chiron with a fully equine lower body, in addition to this reconfiguration, Chiron’s appearance is further altered with his ears. Whereas previously human, Chiron’s ears now match those of a satyr and this rendering creates a more bestial version of Chiron, much more akin to a standard centaur. This may then, not be a reworking of the Chiron myth on the part of the Romans. It has also suggested that this fresco is a reproduction of an actual statue in the Roman forum. Like satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild, lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, violent when intoxicated, Chiron, by contrast, was intelligent, civilized and kind, but he was not related directly to the other centaurs. He was known for his knowledge and skill with medicine, according to an archaic myth, he was sired by the Titan Cronus when he had taken the form of a horse and impregnated the nymph Philyra. Myths in the Olympian tradition attributed Chirons uniquely peaceful character and intelligence to Apollo, some sources speculate that Chiron was originally a Thessalian god, later subsumed into the Greek pantheon as a centaur. Chiron lived predominantly on Mount Pelion, there he married the nymph Chariclo who bore him three daughters, Hippe, Endeïs, and Ocyrhoe, and one son Carystus. A great healer, astrologer, and respected oracle, Chiron was said to be the first among centaurs and highly revered as a teacher, Dionysus was loved by Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances, the bacchic rites and initiations. There is also a persistent link with Peleus throughout Chirons myth, Chiron saved the life of Peleus when Acastus tried to kill him by taking his sword and leaving him out in the woods to be slaughtered by the centaurs. Chiron retrieved the sword for Peleus, Chiron then explained to Peleus how to capture the nymph Thetis, leading to their marriage
32.
Iris (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. She is also known as one of the goddesses of the sea, Iris links the gods to humanity. She travels with the speed of wind from one end of the world to the other, and into the depths of the sea, according to Hesiods Theogony, Iris is the daughter of Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra, and 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. Iris is frequently mentioned as a messenger in the Iliad which is attributed to Homer, but does not appear in his Odyssey. Like Hermes, Iris carries a caduceus or 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. According to Apollonius Rhodius, Iris turned back the Argonauts Zetes, Iris is married to Zephyrus, who is the god of the west wind. According to the Dionysiaca of Nonnos, Iris brother is Hydaspes, 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. Iris was said to have wings, whereas Arke had iridescent ones. She is also said to travel on the rainbow while carrying messages from the gods to mortals. During the Titan War, Zeus tore Arkes iridescent wings from her and gave them as a gift to the Nereid Thetis at her wedding, who in turn them to her son, Achilles. Achilles was sometimes known as podarkes Podarces was also the name of Priam. Iris also appears several times in Virgils Aeneid, usually 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, Iris, having taken on the form of a Trojan woman, Iris had numerous poetic titles and epithets, including Chrysopteron, Podas ôkea or Podênemos ôkea, Roscida, and Thaumantias or Thaumantos. Under the epithet Aellopus she was described as swift-footed like a storm-wind and she also watered the clouds with her pitcher, obtaining the water from the sea. Iris is represented either as a rainbow, or as a young maiden with wings on her shoulders. As a goddess, Iris is associated with communication, messages, the word iridescence is derived in part from the name of this goddess. The adjective for a rainbow is iridal, the iris of the eye is named after her, to reflect the many colours of the eye
33.
Troilus
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Troilus is a legendary character associated with the story of the Trojan War. The first surviving reference to him is in Homers Iliad, which scholars believe was composed by bards, in Greek mythology, Troilus is a young Trojan prince, one of the sons of King Priam and Hecuba. Prophecies link Troilus fate to that of Troy and so he is ambushed and murdered by Achilles, Sophocles was one of the writers to tell this tale. It was also a theme among artists of the time. Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents and he was also regarded as a paragon of youthful male beauty. In Western European medieval and Renaissance versions of the legend, Troilus is the youngest of Priams five legitimate sons by Hecuba, despite his youth he is one of the main Trojan war leaders. He dies in battle at Achilles hands, in a popular addition to the story, originating in the 12th century, Troilus falls in love with Cressida, whose father has defected to the Greeks. Cressida pledges her love to Troilus but she switches her affections to the Greek hero Diomedes when sent to her father in a hostage exchange. Chaucer and Shakespeare are among the authors who wrote works telling the story of Troilus, within the medieval tradition, Troilus was regarded as a paragon of the faithful courtly lover and also of the virtuous pagan knight. Once the custom of courtly love had faded, his fate was regarded less sympathetically, little attention was paid to the character during the 18th and 19th centuries. However, Troilus has reappeared in 20th and 21st century retellings of the Trojan War by authors who have elements from both the classical and medieval versions of his story. For the ancient Greeks, the tale of the Trojan War, the characters death early in the war and the prophecies surrounding him demonstrated that all Trojan efforts to defend their home would be in vain. His symbolic significance is evidenced by linguistic analysis of his Greek name Troilos and it can be interpreted as an elision of the names of Tros and Ilos, the legendary founders of Troy, as a diminutive or pet name little Tros or as an elision of Troië and lyo. These multiple possibilities emphasise the link between the fates of Troilus and of the city where he lived, given this, it is unfortunate that the Cypria—the part of the Epic Cycle that covers the period of the Trojan War of Troilus death—does not survive. Indeed, no complete narrative of his remains from archaic times or the subsequent classical period. Most of the sources from before the Hellenistic age that even referred to the character are lost or survive only in fragments or summary. Partially compensating for the texts are the physical artifacts that remain from the archaic. The story of the circumstances around Troilus death was a theme among pottery painters
34.
Hephaestus
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Hephaestus is the Greek god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was the son of Zeus and Hera, in another version, he was Heras parthenogenous child, rejected by his mother because of his deformity and thrown off Mount Olympus and down to earth. As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus and he served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos, Hephaestus symbols are a smiths hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs. The name of the god in Greek has a root which can be observed in names of places of Pre-Greek origin, Hephaestus had his own palace on Olympus, containing his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding. Hephaestus crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, in later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the help of the chthonic Cyclopes—among them his assistants in the forge, Brontes, Steropes and Pyracmon. Hephaestus built automatons of metal to work for him and this included tripods that walked to and from Mount Olympus. He gave to the blinded Orion his apprentice Cedalion as a guide, in some versions of the myth, Prometheus stole the fire that he gave to man from Hephaestuss forge. Hephaestus also created the gift that the gods gave to man, being a skilled blacksmith, Hephaestus created all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus. The Greek myths and the Homeric poems sanctified in stories that Hephaestus had a power to produce motion. He made the golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos in such a way that they could bite the invaders, the Greeks maintained in their civilization an animistic idea that statues are in some sense alive. This kind of art and the animistic belief goes back to the Minoan period, when Daedalus, a statue of the god was somehow the god himself, and the image on a mans tomb indicated somehow his presence. Homers Odyssey and Iliad have Hephaestus being born of the union of Zeus, in another tradition, attested by Hesiod, Hera bore Hephaestus alone. In Hesiods Zeus-centered cosmology, Hera gave birth to Hephaestus as revenge for Zeus giving birth to Athena without her, several later texts follow Hesiods account, including Bibliotheke, Hyginus, and the preface to Fabulae. In the account of Attic vase painters, Hephaestus was present at the birth of Athena, in the latter account, Hephaestus is there represented as older than Athena, so the mythology of Hephaestus is inconsistent in this respect. In one branch of Greek mythology, Hera ejected Hephaestus from the heavens because he was shrivelled of foot and he fell into the ocean and was raised by Thetis and the Oceanid Eurynome. In another account, Hephaestus, attempting to rescue his mother from Zeus advances, was flung down from the heavens by Zeus. He fell for a day and landed on the island of Lemnos
35.
Dionysus
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Dionysus is the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in ancient Greek religion and myth. Wine played an important role in Greek culture, and the cult of Dionysus was the religious focus for its unrestrained consumption. He may have been worshipped as early as c, 1500–1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks, traces of Dionysian-type cult have also been found in ancient Minoan Crete. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms, some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, in some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner, in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, the god that comes and his festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre. The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a male, bearded and robed. He holds a staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth, in its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession is made up of female followers and bearded satyrs with erect penises, some are armed with the thyrsus. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers and this procession is presumed to be the cult model for the followers of his Dionysian Mysteries. He is also known as Bacchus, the adopted by the Romans. His thyrsus, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. As Eleutherios, his wine, music and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care and those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. The cult of Dionysus is also a cult of the souls, his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings and he is sometimes categorised as a dying-and-rising god. Some scholars believe that Dionysus is a syncretism of a local Greek nature deity, Dionysus had a strange birth that evokes the difficulty in fitting him into the Olympian pantheon. His mother was a woman, Semele, the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes, and his father was Zeus. Zeus wife, Hera, discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant, appearing as an old crone, Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that Zeus was the actual father of the baby in her womb. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semeles mind, curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood
36.
Satyr
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In Greek mythology, a satyr is one of a troop of ithyphallic male companions of Dionysus with goat-like features and often permanent erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but in 6th-century BC black-figure pottery human legs are the most common, in Roman Mythology there is a concept similar to satyrs, with goat-like features, the faun, being half-man, half-goat, who roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are associated with pipe-playing. Greek-speaking Romans often used the Greek term saturos when referring to the Latin faunus, the satyrs chief was Silenus, a minor deity associated with fertility. These characters can be found in the complete remaining satyr play, Cyclops, by Euripides. The satyr play was a short, lighthearted tailpiece performed after each trilogy of tragedies in Athenian festivals honoring Dionysus, there is not enough evidence to determine whether the satyr play regularly drew on the same myths as those dramatized in the tragedies that preceded. The groundbreaking tragic playwright Aeschylus is said to have especially loved for his satyr plays. Mature satyrs are depicted in Roman art with goats horns. As Dionysiac creatures they are lovers of wine and women, because of their love of wine, they are often represented holding wine cups, and they appear often in the decorations on wine cups. Attic painted vases depict mature satyrs as being built with flat noses, large pointed ears, long curly hair. Satyrs often carry the thyrsus, the rod of Dionysus tipped with a pine cone, in earlier Greek art, Silenos appear as old and ugly, but in later art, especially in Hellenistic art, he is softened into a more youthful and graceful aspect. This transformation or humanization of the Satyr appears throughout late Greek art, another example of this shift occurs in the portrayal of Medusa and in that of the Amazon, characters who are traditionally depicted as barbaric and uncivilized. A humanized Satyr is depicted in a work of Praxiteles known as the Resting Satyr, Praxiteles gives a new direction to the satyr in art. Although not mentioned by Homer, in a fragment of Hesiods works satyrs are called brothers of the nymphs and Kuretes. In the Dionysus cult, male followers are known as satyrs, in Attica there was a species of drama dealing with the legends of gods and heroes, and the chorus was composed of satyrs and sileni. In the Athenian satyr plays of the 5th century BC, the chorus commented on the action and this satyric drama burlesqued the serious events of the mythic past with lewd pantomime and subversive mockery. One complete satyr play from the 5th century survives, the Cyclops of Euripides, the Satyr and the Traveller, one of Aesops Fables, features the satyr as the benevolent host for a traveler in the forest in winter. The satyr is bewildered by the claim to be able to blow hot and cold with the same breath, first to warm his hands, then to cool his porridge
37.
Nymph
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A nymph in Greek mythology and in Latin mythology is a minor female nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. They are beloved by many and dwell in mountainous regions and forests by lakes, charybdis and Scylla were once nymphs. Other nymphs, always in the shape of young maidens, were part of the retinue of a god, such as Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan, or a goddess, nymphs were the frequent target of satyrs. The Greek word νύμφη has bride and veiled among its meanings, other readers refer the word to a root expressing the idea of swelling. The mythologies of classicizing Roman poets were unlikely to have affected the rites and cult of individual nymphs venerated by people in the springs. Among the Roman literate class, their sphere of influence was restricted, the ancient Greek belief in nymphs survived in many parts of the country into the early years of the twentieth century, when they were usually known as nereids. At that time, John Cuthbert Lawson wrote and they might appear in a whirlwind. Such encounters could be dangerous, bringing dumbness, besotted infatuation, when parents believed their child to be nereid-struck, they would pray to Saint Artemidos. Due to widespread use of the term among lay persons and stereotypes attached, professionals nowadays prefer the term hypersexuality, the word nymphet is used to identify a sexually precocious girl. The term was made famous in the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, the main character, Humbert Humbert, uses the term many times, usually in reference to the title character. Thus the classes of nymphs tend to overlap, which complicates the task of precise classification, rose mentions dryads and hamadryads as nymphs of trees generally, meliai as nymphs of ash trees, and naiads as nymphs of water, but no others specifically. She is the consort of Acheron, and the mother of Ascalaphus, leuce, lover of Hades Minthe, lover of Hades, rival of Persephone Melinoe Orphic nymph, daughter of Persephone and Zeus disguised as Pluto. Her name is an epithet of Hecate. Nymphs in such groupings could belong to any of the mentioned above. For lists of Naiads, Oceanids, Dryades etc and this motif supposedly came from an Italian report of a Roman sculpture of a nymph at a fountain above the River Danube
38.
Pygmy (Greek mythology)
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The Pygmies were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. According to the Iliad, they were involved in a constant war with the cranes, one story describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Hera with her boasts of superior beauty, and was transformed into a crane. In art the scene was popular with little Pygmies armed with spears and slings, riding on the backs of goats, the 2nd-century BC tomb near Panticapaeum, Crimea shows the battle of human pygmies with a flock of herons. The Pygmies were often portrayed as pudgy, comical dwarfs, in another legend, the Pygmies once encountered Heracles, and climbing all over the sleeping hero attempted to bind him down, but when he stood up they fell off. The story was adapted by Jonathan Swift as a template for Lilliputians, later Greek geographers and writers attempted to place the Pygmies in a geographical context. Sometimes they were located in far India, at times near the Ethiopians of Africa. The Pygmy bush tribes of central Africa were so named after the Greek mythological creatures by European explorers in the 19th century, on Fairies, London,1831, ISBN 1-4021-4753-8 Theoi Project - Pygmaioi
39.
Gorgon
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In Greek mythology, a Gorgon is a female creature. Traditionally, while two of the Gorgons were immortal, Stheno and Euryale, their sister Medusa was not, and she was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus. Gorgons were an image in Greek mythology, appearing in the earliest of written records of Ancient Greek religious beliefs such as those of Homer. Because of their legendary and powerful gaze that could turn one to stone, images of the Gorgons were put upon objects and buildings for protection. An image of a Gorgon holds the location at the pediment of the temple at Corfu, which is the oldest stone pediment in Greece. The concept of the Gorgon is at least as old in classical Greek mythology as Perseus and Zeus, the name is Greek, being derived from gorgos and translating as terrible or dreadful. Gorgoneia first appear in Greek art at the turn of the eighth century BC, one of the earliest representations is on an electrum stater discovered during excavations at Parium. Other early eighth-century examples were found at Tiryns, going even further back into history, there is a similar image from the Knossos palace, datable to the fifteenth century BC. Marija Gimbutas even argues that the Gorgon extends back to at least 6000 BC, in her book, Language of the Goddess, she also identifies the prototype of the Gorgoneion in Neolithic art motifs, especially in anthropomorphic vases and terracotta masks inlaid with gold. The large Gorgon eyes, as well as Athenas flashing eyes, are termed the divine eyes by Gimbutas, they appear also in Athenas sacred bird. They may be represented by spirals, wheels, concentric circles, swastikas, firewheels, the awkward stance of the gorgon, with arms and legs at angles is closely associated with these symbols as well. Possibly related, a figure, probably a sea-goddess is depicted on a Minoan gold ring from the island Mochlos in Crete. The goddess has a head and she is sitting in a boat. A holy tree is depicted, probably related to the Minoan cult of the tree, some Gorgons are shown with fangs, consisting of wild boar tusks, while other representations lack fangs and show a forced smile displaying large teeth and sometimes a protruding tongue. In some cruder representations, stylized hair or blood flowing under the head of the Gorgon has been mistaken for a beard or wings. The skin of the dragon was said to be made of impenetrable scales, while seeking origins others have suggested examination of some similarities to the Babylonian creature, Humbaba, in the Gilgamesh epic. A number of early scholars interpreted the myth of the Medusa as a quasi-historical, or sublimated. Transitions in religious traditions over such periods of time may make some strange turns
40.
Antaeus
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Antaeus was a figure in Greek and Berber mythology. In Greek sources, he was the half-giant son of Poseidon and his wife was the goddess Tinge, and he had a daughter named Alceis or Barce. He was famed for his loss to Heracles as part of his 12 Labors, Antaeus would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches and remained invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother, the earth. As Greek wrestling, like its modern equivalent, typically attempted to force opponents to the ground, he always won and he built a temple to his father using their skulls. Antaeus fought Heracles as he was on his way to the Garden of Hesperides as his 11th Labor, Heracles realized that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing or pinning him. Instead, he held him aloft and then crushed him to death in a bear hug, the contest between Heracles and Antaeus was a favored subject in ancient and Renaissance sculpture. Antaeus was known to the Berbers as Änti, a figure from the Egyptian god of that name. Greeks of the 6th century BC, who had established colonies along the coast of North Africa, in Book IV of Marcus Annaeus Lucanus epic poem Pharsalia, the story of Heracles victory over Antaeus is told to the Roman Curio by an unnamed Libyan citizen. The learned client king Juba II of Numidia, husband of the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, claimed his descent from a liaison of Heracles with Tinga, the consort of Antaeus. Sophax in his turn was father of Diodorus who conquered many Libyan peoples with his army of Olbians and Mycenaeans brought to Libya by Heracles, moreover, some related that Heracles had a son Palaemon by Iphinoe, the daughter of Antaeus and Tinge. Scholiasts on Pindars Pythian Ode 9 also recorded a story which made Antaeus king of the city Irassa in Libya, Antaeus promised her hand to the winner of a race, just like Danaus did to find new husbands for his daughters. Alexidamus beat all the suitors in the race and married the daughter of Antaeus. He is alluded to in Olsons poem Purgatory Blind and in Call Me Ishmael also by Olson, in Dante Alighieris Inferno, Antaeus is shown among the giants at the edge of Hells Circle of Treachery. He lowers Dante and Virgil into the Circle of Treachery as he was the only giant not chained up outside the Circle of Treachery, in the made-for-TV movie Hercules and the Circle of Fire, Hercules fights Antaeus. In the TV miniseries Hercules, Antaeus is one of the main antagonists. Antaeus appears in the Hercules episode Hercules and the Hostage Crisis voiced by Miguel Ferrer and he is depicted as a Half-Titan/Half-Giant who led the terrorist organization P. O. O. T. L. s and led them into holding the Prometheus Academy hostage. Antaeus planned to capture Hercules so that he can use him as bait for Zeus, the story is used in Seamus Heaneys poems Antaeus and Hercules and Antaeus, published in Death of a Naturalist and North. See Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground, Poems 1966–1996, Antaeus appears in the film Hercules Unchained
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Hippomenes
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The name Hippomenes may also refer to the father of Leimone. In Greek mythology, Hippomenes /hɪˈpɒmᵻniːz/, also known as Melanion /məˈlæniən/, was a son of the Arcadian Amphidamas or of Megareus of Onchestus and the husband of Atalanta. He was known to have one of the disciples of Chiron. Inscriptions mention him as one of the Calydonian hunters, the main myth of Hippomenes courtship of Atalanta, narrated by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Ovid, Servius, and Hyginus was as follows. Hippomenes fell in love with Atalanta, the virgin huntress who strongly disliked the idea of getting married, another version was that her father wanted her to be married, but she did not. She agreed to running races against her suitors because she thought she would never lose, Atalanta raced all her suitors and outran all but Hippomenes, who defeated her by cunning, not speed. Hippomenes knew that he could not win a race with Atalanta. After each of the first two apples, Atalanta was able to recover the lead, but when she stopped for the third and it took all three apples and all of his speed, but Hippomenes was finally successful, winning the race and Atalantas hand. Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions by Cybele as punishment after having sex in one of her temples they entered to take a rest during their journey to Hippomenes home, thereafter they drew Cybeles chariot, which Servius equates with the Earth itself. According to some accounts, Hippomenes was the father of Parthenopaeus, yet others stated Atalanta had her son by either Ares or Meleager prior to her marriage to Hippomenes
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Polyxena
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In Greek mythology, Polyxena was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. Polyxena is considered the Trojan version of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and she is not in Homers Iliad, appearing in works by later poets, perhaps to add romance to Homers austere tale. An oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated if Polyxenas brother, Prince Troilus, Achilles, still recovering from Patroclus death, found Polyxenas words a comfort and was later told to go to the temple of Apollo to meet her after her devotions. Achilles seemed to trust Polyxena—he told her of his only vulnerability, some claimed Polyxena committed suicide after Achilles death out of guilt. According to Euripides, however, in his plays The Trojan Women and Hecuba, Achilles ghost had come back to the Greeks to demand the human sacrifice of Polyxena so as to appease the wind needed to set sail back to Hellas. She was to be killed at the foot of Achilles grave, Hecuba, Polyxenas mother, expressed despair at the death of another of her daughters. However, Polyxena was eager to die as a sacrifice to Achilles rather than die as a slave and she reassured her mother, and refused to beg before Odysseus or be treated in any way other than a princess. She asked that Odysseus reassure her mother as she is led away, a few examples in Greek imagery can be securely identified as depicting the sacrifice of Polyxena. Most show Polyxena sacrificed over the tomb of Achilles, however, some details in the pictorial evidence of the sacrifice hint at varying and perhaps earlier versions of the myth. For instance, some appear to show Polyxena sacrificed over an altar, rather than a tomb. These details have been interpreted as indicating an association between the mound of Achilles and sacred ground dedicated to Apollo. List of King Priams children Servius, article on Polyxena from Stanford University The Sacrifice of Polyxena — A painting by Giovanni Battista Pittoni Human Sacrifice, Cross-cultural perspectives and representations, eds. P Bonnechere & R. Gagne, Presses Universitaires de Lieges,2013 - see pp. 61-86 J. Mylonopoulos Gory Details, the Iconography of Human Sacrifice in Greek Art
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Troy
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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
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Crete
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Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, 88th-largest island in the world and the fifth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete and a number of surrounding islands and islets constitute the region of Crete, the capital and the largest city is Heraklion. As of 2011, the region had a population of 623,065, Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits. It was once the centre of the Minoan civilization, which is regarded as the earliest recorded civilization in Europe. The island is first referred to as Kaptara in texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and it was also known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu, strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island. The current name of Crete is thought to be first attested in Mycenaean Greek texts written in Linear B, through the words
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Achilles and Patroclus
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The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is a key element of the myths associated with the Trojan War. Its exact nature has been a subject of dispute in both the Classical period and modern times, in the Iliad, Homer describes a deep and meaningful relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, where Achilles is tender toward Patroclus but callous and arrogant toward others. Homer never explicitly casts the two as lovers, Achilles and Patroclus are close comrades in the fight against the Trojans. Due to his anger at being dishonored by Agamemnon, Achilles chooses not to participate in the battle, as the tide of the war turns against the Achaeans, Patroclus convinces Achilles to let him lead the Myrmidon army into battle wearing Achilles’ armor. Patroclus succeeds in beating back the Trojan forces, but is killed in battle by Hector, news of Patroclus’ death reaches Achilles through Antilochus, which throws him into deep grief. The earlier steadfast and unbreakable Achilles agonizes, touching Patroclus’ dead body, smearing himself with ash and he laments Patroclus’ death using language very similar to that later used by Andromache of Hector. The rage that follows from Patroclus’ death becomes the motivation for Achilles to return to the battlefield. He returns to battle with the aim of avenging Patroclus’ death by killing Hector. After defeating Hector, Achilles drags his corpse by the heels behind his chariot, Achilles strongest interpersonal bond is with Patroclus, whom he loves dearly. As Gregory Nagy points out, For Achilles. in his own ascending scale of affection as dramatized by the composition of the Iliad. In fact Patroklos is for Achilles the πολὺ φίλτατος, ἑταῖρος — the ‘hetaîros who is the most phílos by far’. Hetaîros meant companion or comrade, in Homer it is used of soldiers under the same commander. While its feminine form would be used for courtesans, an hetaîros was still a form of soldier in Hellenistic and Byzantine times. In ancient texts, philos denoted a type of love. Achilles is the most dominant, and among the warriors in the Trojan War he has the most fame, Patroclus performs duties such as cooking, feeding and grooming the horses, yet is older than Achilles. Both characters also sleep with women, see Iliad, IX. 663–669, in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, David M. Halperin writes, In the 5th and 4th centuries, the relationship was portrayed as same-sex love in the works of Aeschylus, Plato and Aeschines. In Athens, the relationship was viewed as being loving and pederastic. The Greek custom of paiderasteia between members of the same-sex, typically men, was a political, intellectual, and sometimes sexual relationship and its ideal structure consisted of an older erastes, and a younger eromenos
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
47.
Amphiaraos Krater
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The Amphiaraos krater is a Late Corinthian red-ground column krater. It is considered the masterpiece of the Amphiaraos Painter and one of the specimens of the red-ground vase painting of Corinth. Dated to circa 560 BC, the Amphiaraos Krater depicts on the front a frieze of horsemen, the back was decorated with a battle frieze, above it again Amphiaraos, this time as a participant in the funeral games of Pelias. Below one of the handles, a match is depicted. The paintings on the vessel are considered especially colourful and detailed, thus, the anger in Amphiaraos eye, looking at Eriphyle, his only family member not to wish for his safe return, is visible. A sorrowful seer indicates the imminent death of the hero, the same scene was depicted on the Kypselos chest in Olympia, as described by Pausanias. The krater used to be on display in the Antikensammlung Berlin, matthias Steinhart, Amphiaraos-Krater, in Der Neue Pauly Bd
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Eurytios Krater
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Eurytios Krater is the name given to a famous Early Corinthian column krater. The Eurytios krater is dated to about 600 BC, found at Cerveteri and now on display in the Louvre, the front of the krater depicts Eurytios feasting Herakles. This scene, after which the vase was named, is unique in Corinthian vase painting, in addition to the painting itself, several of the figures are named by accompanying inscriptions. The back is decorated with a scene, possibly from the Trojan War. Below the handles are a kitchen scene and the probably earliest depiction of the suicide of Ajax, the lower frieze depicts herons, animals and a deer hunt. Matthias Steinhart, Astarita-Krater, in Der Neue Pauly Vol.4, Col.305 Image of the krater
49.
Warrior Vase
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The Mycenaean Warrior Vase, found by Heinrich Schliemann on the acropolis of Mycenae, is one of the prominent treasures of the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. The Warrior Vase, dated to the 13th century BCE, is probably the piece of Late Helladic pottery. It is a krater, a bowl used for the dilution of wine with water. The broad frieze of armed soldiers on the vase, which is incomplete, the warriors are clad in short chitons, breastplates, helmets and greaves, they are armed with spears and carry shields. The bulls head handles for long encouraged scholars to date the piece later, many Scholars observe that the style of the figures and the bull head handles of this thirteenth century BCE vase are very similar to eighth century BCE pottery. Similar spearmen are also depicted in eighth century BCE pottery which introduces a curious 500 year gap in styles and this vase also leads to clues about post-palatial Mycenaean warriors. The knapsacks the warriors carry suggest that they may have to long distances to battle. Figures on one side of the vase wear helmets with horns, the other side depicts warriors in hedgehog style helmets. The latter is equipped with spears that are shorter than general spears depicted of the time, the warriors on both sides have shields, tunics, and leg protection. The warriors on either side appear to be uniform suggesting the army as a whole and not representing individual warriors
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Euphronios Krater
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The Euphronios Krater is an ancient Greek terra cotta calyx-krater, a bowl used for mixing wine with water. Created around the year 515 BC, it is the only example of the surviving 27 vases painted by the renowned Euphronios and is considered one of the finest Greek vase artifacts in existence. The Euphronios krater stands 45.7 cm in height and has a diameter of 55.1 cm, the krater is decorated with two scenes. An episode from the Trojan War is shown on the obverse, the reverse of the krater shows a contemporary scene of Athenian youths from the 6th century BC arming themselves before battle. In the scene of Sarpedons death, the god Hermes directs the personifications of Sleep, while the subject of Sarpedons death might normally be depicted as a stylized tableau, the figures in this scene are painted in naturalistic poses and with schematic but accurate anatomy. This style is emblematic of the Pioneer Group of late Archaic painters, also characteristic of the Pioneer Group is the narrative tension created both by pairing these two scenes on the same piece, and by painting them in a common style. The death of Sarpedon, a story which would be familiar to anyone viewing the krater, is an episode involving specific historical and mythological figures. The other scene, of the anonymous youths preparing for war, is more general and explicitly contemporary. The young men are not heroes of legend, with their finely detailed features, they are given personality and character, but they could be any of the youthful soldiers in the Greek army. Both scenes are painted with similar styles, making the scene appear more contemporary, likewise. The vase is signed both by Euxitheos as potter and Euphronios as painter, while it was customary for the painter to sign the finished work, it was less common for the potter to add his own name. The presence of both signatures indicates that Euxitheos felt the vase to be one of his finest works, besides the artists signatures on the obverse side, it also carries the inscription Leagros is handsome. This inscription has allowed art historians to date the krater to approximately 520-510 BC, all names are written in Attic letters. Records in Italian courts of an investigation indicate that the krater was looted from an Etruscan tomb in the Greppe SantAngelo near Cerveteri in December 1971. The krater was sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Robert E. Hecht, evidence suggests that Hecht may have purchased the krater in 1972 from Giacomo Medici, an Italian dealer who was convicted of selling stolen art in 2005. To allay concerns, some six months after the krater was bought he prompted the Metropolitan Museum to send a detective to Zurich in an endeavor to reinforce the cited Sarrafian provenance. The krater remained on display at the Metropolitan Museum until January 2008, when it returned to Italy
