1.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
2.
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
3.
Deidamia (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, Deidamia is the daughter of King Lycomedes of Scyros. Deidamia was one of King Lycomedess seven daughters with whom Achilles was concealed, some versions of this story state that Achilles was hidden in Lycomedess court as one of the kings daughters, some say as a lady-in-waiting under the name Pyrrha. Despite the fact that Achilles and Deidamea could have been as young as eight years old, after Odysseus arrived at Lycomedess palace and exposed Achilles as a young man, Achilles decided to join the Trojan War, leaving behind a pregnant, heart-broken Deidamia. Their son, Neoptolemus, later joined his father in the Trojan War but was killed by Orestes. It is also mentioned that Neoptolemus gave Deidamia in marriage to his ally Helenus, ptolemy Hephaestion mentions that Achilles and Deidamia had another son, Oneiros, who was unwittingly killed by Orestes. Media related to Deidamia at Wikimedia Commons
4.
Greek mythology
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It was a part of the religion in ancient Greece. Greek mythology is explicitly embodied in a collection of narratives. Greek myth attempts to explain the origins of the world, and details the lives and adventures of a variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines. These accounts initially were disseminated in a tradition, today the Greek myths are known primarily from ancient Greek literature. The oldest known Greek literary sources, Homers epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, focus on the Trojan War, archaeological findings provide a principal source of detail about Greek mythology, with gods and heroes featured prominently in the decoration of many artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Trojan cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles, in the succeeding Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an influence on the culture, arts. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes, Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from the Geometric period from c. Mythical narration plays an important role in every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless, the only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus and this work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c, 180–125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection, however the Library discusses events that occurred long after his death, among the earliest literary sources are Homers two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Other poets completed the cycle, but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no connection with Homer. They are choral hymns from the part of the so-called Lyric age. Hesiods Works and Days, a poem about farming life, also includes the myths of Prometheus, Pandora. The poet gives advice on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar, Bacchylides and Simonides, and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion, additionally, myth was central to classical Athenian drama
5.
Molossians
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The Molossians were an ancient Greek tribal state and kingdom that inhabited the region of Epirus since the Mycenaean era. On their north frontier, they had the Chaonians and on their southern frontier the kingdom of the Thesprotians, the Molossians were part of the League of Epirus until they sided against Rome in the Third Macedonian War. The result was disastrous, and the vengeful Romans enslaved 150,000 of its inhabitants, according to Greek mythology, the Molossians were the descendants of Molossus, one of the three sons of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and Deidamia. Following the sack of Troy, Neoptolemus and his armies settled in Epirus where they joined with the local population, Molossus inherited the kingdom of Epirus after the death of Helenus, son of Priam and Hecuba of Troy, who had married his erstwhile sister-in-law Andromache after Neoptolemuss death. According to some historians, their first king was Phaethon, one of those who came into Epirus with Pelasgus, according to Plutarch, Deucalion and Pyrrha, having set up the worship of Zeus at Dodona, settled there among the Molossians. According to Strabo, the Molossians, along with the Chaonians and Thesprotians, were the most famous among the fourteen tribes of Epirus, the Chaonians ruled Epirus at an earlier time, and afterwards the Thesprotians and Molossians controlled the region. The Thesprotians, the Chaonians, and the Molossians were the three clusters of Greek tribes that had emerged from Epirus and were the most powerful among all other tribes. The Molossians were also renowned for their vicious hounds, which were used by shepherds to guard their flocks and this is where the canine breed Molossoid, native to Greece, got its name. Virgil tells us that in ancient Greece the heavier Molossian dogs were used by the Greeks and Romans for hunting and to watch over the house. Never, with them on guard, says Virgil, need you fear for your stalls a midnight thief, or onslaught of wolves, Strabo records that the Thesprotians, Molossians, and Macedonians referred to old men as πελιοί pelioi and old women as πελιαί peliai. Cf. Ancient Greek πέλεια peleia, pigeon, so-called because of its dusky grey color, Ancient Greek πελός pelos meant grey. Their senators were called Peligones, similar to Macedonian Peliganes, the most famed member of the Molossian dynasty was Pyrrhus, who became famous for his Pyrrhic victory over the Romans. According to Plutarch, Pyrrhus was the son of Aeacides of Epirus and a Greek woman from Thessaly named Phthia, Pyrrhus was a second cousin of Alexander the Great. In the 4th century BC, they had adopted the term for office of prostatai literally meaning protectors like most Greek tribal states at the time. Despite having a monarchy, the Molossians sent princes to Athens to learn of democracy, Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, was a member of this celebrated sovereign house. In 385 BC, the Illyrians, aided by Dionysius of Syracuse, attacked the Molossians, Dionysius planned to control all the Ionian Sea. Sparta intervened and expelled the Illyrians who were led by Bardyllis, even with the aid of 2,000 Greek hoplites and 500 suits of Greek armour, the Illyrians were defeated by the Spartans but not before ravaging the region and killing 15,000 Molossians. In another Illyrian attack in 360 BC, the Molossian king Arymbas evacuated his non-combatant population to Aetolia, the stratagem worked, and the Molossians fell upon the Illyrians, who were encumbered with booty, and defeated them
6.
Epirus
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Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, now shared between Greece and Albania. It is currently divided between the region of Epirus in northwestern Greece and the counties of Gjirokastër, Vlorë, the largest city in Epirus is Ioannina, seat of the region of Epirus, with Gjirokastër the largest city in the Albanian part of Epirus. A rugged and mountainous region, Epirus was the north-west area of ancient Greece. It was inhabited by the Greek tribes of the Chaonians, Molossians, and Thesprotians, and home to the sanctuary of Dodona, the oldest ancient Greek oracle, and the most prestigious one after Delphi. Unified into a state in 370 BC by the Aeacidae dynasty, Epirus achieved fame during the reign of Pyrrhus of Epirus. Epirus subsequently became part of the Roman Empire along with the rest of Greece in 146 BC, following the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade, Epirus became the center of the Despotate of Epirus, one of the successor states to the Byzantine Empire. Conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, Epirus became semi-independent during the rule of Ali Pasha in the early 19th century, but the Ottomans re-asserted their control in 1821. Following the Balkan Wars and World War I, southern Epirus became part of Greece, the name Epirus is derived from the Greek, Ἤπειρος, Ḗpeiros, meaning mainland or terra firma. It is thought to come from an Indo-European root *apero- coast, and was applied to the mainland opposite Corfu. The local name was stamped on the coinage of the unified Epirote commonwealth, the Albanian name for the region, which derives from the Greek, is Epiri. The historical region of Epirus is generally regarded as extending from the end of the Ceraunian mountains, located just south of the Bay of Aulon. The northern boundary of ancient Epirus is alternatively given as the mouth of the Aoös river, epiruss eastern boundary is defined by the Pindus Mountains, that form the spine of mainland Greece and separate Epirus from Macedonia and Thessaly. To the west, Epirus faces the Ionian Sea, the island of Corfu is situated off the Epirote coast but is not regarded as part of Epirus. The definition of Epirus has changed over time, such that modern administrative boundaries do not correspond to the boundaries of ancient Epirus, the region of Epirus in Greece only comprises a fraction of classical Epirus and does not include its easternmost portions, which lie in Thessaly. Epirus is a rugged and mountainous region. It is largely made up of the Pindus Mountains, a series of limestone ridges that are a continuation of the Dinaric Alps. The Pindus mountains form the spine of mainland Greece and separate Epirus from Macedonia, the ridges of the Pindus are parallel to the sea and generally so steep that the valleys between them are mostly suitable for pasture rather than large-scale agriculture. Altitude increases as one moves east, away from the coast, reaching a maximum of 2, 637m at Mount Smolikas, most of Epirus lies on the windward side of the Pindus, and the prevailing winds from the Ionian Sea make the region the rainiest in mainland Greece
7.
Skyros
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Skyros is an island in Greece, the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC and slightly later, the island was known as The Island of the Magnetes where the Magnetes used to live and later Pelasgia and Dolopia and later Skyros. At 209 square kilometres it is the largest island of the Sporades and it is part of the regional unit of Euboea. The Hellenic Air Force has a base in Skyros, because of the islands strategic location in the middle of the Aegean. The municipality Skyros is part of the unit of Euboea. Apart from the island Skyros it consists of the inhabited island of Skyropoula. The total area of the municipality is 223.10 square kilometres, the north of the island is covered by a forest, while the south, dominated by the highest mountain, called Kochila, is bare and rocky. The islands capital is also called Skyros, the main port, on the west coast, is Linaria. The island has a castle that dates from the Venetian occupation, a Byzantine monastery, there are many beaches on the coast. The island has its own breed of Skyrian ponies, according to Greek mythology, Theseus died on Skyros when he was thrown from a cliff. Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, was from Skyros, as told in the play by Sophocles, Philoctetes, in c.475 BC, according to Thucydides, Cimon defeated the Dolopians and conquered the entire island. From that date, it was colonized by Athenian settlers and became a part of the Athenian Empire and it was on the strategic trade route from Athens to the Black Sea. Cimon claimed to have found the remains of Theseus, and returned them to Athens, in 340 BC the Macedonians took over the island and dominated it until 192 BC, when the king Philip and the Roman Republican forces restored it to Athens. After the Fourth Crusade, the became part of the domain of Geremia Ghisi. Skyros Shipping Company operates the service to Skyros. During holiday season the ferry runs daily from Kymi to Linaria on Skyros. During the winter months the service operates daily, the Official website of the Greek National Tourism Organisation
8.
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
9.
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
10.
Achilles on Skyros
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Achilles on Skyros is an episode in the myth of Achilles, a Greek hero of the Trojan War. Not included in Homers epic poem Iliad, the episode is written down in detail in later versions of the story. The carnavalesque disguises and gender transpositions at the heart of the story were popular in opera. The core myth of Achilles on Skyros as presented in ancient sources was thus, there Achilles had an affair with Deidamia, one of the daughters of Lycomedes, and they had one or two sons, Neoptolemus and Oneiros. Since another prophecy suggested that the Trojan War would not be won without Achilles, Odysseus, in some versions, Deidamia dressed as a man followed him. The most detailed and elaborate version is found in the Roman poem Achilleid. In the poem, Thetis resolves to hide Achilles away at the court of Lycomedes, Achilles is quite reluctant, but eventually consents, attracted by the beauty of the kings most fair daughter, Deidamia. After some time he develops a close friendship with Deidamia and it becomes increasingly difficult for him to hide his romantic. Eventually, at a festival in honor of Dionysus where men are normally not allowed. When Odysseus and his comrades arrive at Scyros, Achilles, long annoyed by his disguise, is about to reveal himself. Odysseus then performs the trick with the gifts and the trumpet, Achilles hears Deidamia cry and confesses to Lycomedes that they have become lovers and have had a child together. Achilles swears to one day return to Deidamia, but the readers are apparently supposed to be aware that he is going to die at Troy and this part of the Trojan War myths has been the subject of many works of art throughout the centuries. While most later versions go back to the 1st century CE version of Statius. There are references to artworks by Polygnotus and Athenion of Maroneia, one of the earliest and best studied Renaissance versions of the story was Tirso de Molinas 1612 play El Aquiles. It was followed by a number of other Spanish plays on the same topic, one of its foci was the change in Achilles from fleeing war to being a war hero. This was emphasized by the changes and transformations used in the play. But the more typical themes of confusion and homosexual love are also apparent. It has often used as the theme for an opera or ballet
11.
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
12.
Lycomedes
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The name Lycomedes /ˌlaɪkəˈmiːdiːz/ may refer to several characters in Greek mythology, of whom the most prominent was the king of Scyros during the Trojan War. Lycomedes was a king of the Dolopians in the island of Scyros near Euboea, father of a number of daughters including Deidameia, at the request of Thetis, Lycomedes concealed Achilles in female disguise among his own daughters. At Lycomedes court Achilles had an affair with Deidamia, which resulted in the birth of Neoptolemus, as Odysseus drew Achilles out of his disguise and took him to Troy, Neoptolemus stayed with his grandfather until he too was summoned during the later stages of the war. Some related that the cause of violence was that Lycomedes would not give up the estates which Theseus had in Scyros. The asteroid 9694 Lycomedes is named for him - being a Jupiter Trojan, a group of asteroids which are by convention named for characters associated with the Trojan War. Lycomedes, a son of Creon, one of the Greek warriors at Troy, he was represented by Polygnotus in the Lesche at Delphi as wounded in the wrist, in the arm, Lycomedes, son of Apollo and Parthenope. Lycomedes, a Cretan suitor of Helen
13.
Heracles
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Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson and half-brother of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of clans who claimed to be Heracleidae. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well. Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among the characteristics commonly attributed to him, together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a figure who used games to relax from his labors. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have made the safe for mankind. Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being The Twelve Labours of Heracles and his figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known. Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, the core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. Heracles role as a hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling, was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. Around him cries of the dead rang out like cries of birds scattering left, in Christian circles a Euhemerist reading of the widespread Heracles cult was attributed to a historical figure who had been offered cult status after his death. The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the Heracleia, which commemorated the death of Heracles, what is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in the Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemys descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raħeb with a temple to Heracles, several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor. A major factor in the tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera. A full account of Heracles must render it clear why Heracles was so tormented by Hera, Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, thus, Heracles very existence proved at least one of Zeus many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus mortal offspring as revenge for her husbands infidelities. His twin mortal brother, son of Amphitryon, was Iphicles, Hera did this knowing that while Heracles was to be born a descendant of Perseus, so too was Eurystheus
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Philoctetes
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Philoctetes, or Philocthetes, according to Greek mythology, was the son of King Poeas of Meliboea in Thessaly. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer, Philoctetes was the subject of four different plays of ancient Greece, each written by one of the three major Greek tragedians. Of the four plays, Sophocles Philoctetes is the one that has survived. Sophocles Philoctetes at Troy, Aeschylus Philoctetes and Euripides Philoctetes have all been lost, Philoctetes is also mentioned in Homers Iliad, Book 2, which describes his exile on the island of Lemnos, his being wounded by snake-bite, and his eventual recall by the Greeks. The recall of Philoctetes is told in the lost epic Little Iliad, Philoctetes killed three men at Troy. Philoctetes was the son of King Poeas of the city of Meliboea in Thessaly, Heracles wore the shirt of Nessus and built his own funeral pyre. No one would light it for him except for Philoctetes, or in other versions his father Poeas and this gained him the favor of the newly deified Heracles. Because of this, Philoctetes or Poeas was given Heracles bow, Philoctetes was one of the many eligible Greeks who competed for the hand of Helen, the Spartan princess, according to legend, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. As such, he was required to participate in the conflict to reclaim her for Menelaus in the Trojan War, Philoctetes was stranded on the island of Lemnos by the Greeks on the way to Troy. There are at least four separate tales about what happened to strand Philoctetes on his journey to Troy, One version holds that Philoctetes was bitten by a snake that Hera sent to molest him as punishment for his or his fathers service to Heracles. Another tradition says that the Greeks forced Philoctetes to show them where Heracless ashes were deposited, Philoctetes would not break his oath by speech, so he went to the spot and placed his foot upon the site. Immediately, he was injured in the foot that touched the soil over the ashes, when, in expiation, the Achaeans offered a sacrifice to Apollo, a snake came out from the altar and bit Philoctetes. Finally, it is said that Philoctetes received his wound on the island of Chryse. A modern interpretation of the cause of his wound is that he was scratched by a poisoned arrow, commonly tips of arrows were poisoned with a combination of fermented viper venom, blood or plasma, and feces. Even a scratch would result in death, sometimes drawn out, a person who survives would do so with a festering wound. Regardless of the cause of the wound, Philoctetes was exiled by the Greeks and was angry at the treatment he received from Odysseus, King of Ithaca, medôn took control of Philoctetes men, and Philoctetes himself remained on Lemnos, alone, for ten years. Helenus, the son of King Priam of Troy, was forced to reveal, under torture. Upon hearing this, Odysseus and a group of men rushed back to Lemnos to recover Heracles weapons, surprised to find the archer alive, the Greeks balked on what to do next
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Palladium (classical antiquity)
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See also Palladium for post-classical usages. The Roman story is related in Virgils Aeneid and other works, such beliefs first become prominent in the Eastern church in the period after the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, and later spread to the Western church. Palladia were carried in procession around the walls of besieged cities and sometimes carried into battle, the Trojan Palladium was said to be a wooden image of Pallas and to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus, the founder of Troy. In Ilion, King Ilus was blinded for touching the image to preserve it from a burning temple, during the Trojan War, the importance of the Palladium to Troy was said to have been revealed to the Greeks by Helenus, the prophetic son of Priam. After Paris death, Helenus left the city but was captured by Odysseus, the Greeks somehow managed to persuade the warrior seer to reveal the weakness of Troy. The Greeks learned from Helenus, that Troy would not fall while the Palladium, image or statue of Athena, the difficult task of stealing this sacred statue again fell upon the shoulders of Odysseus and Diomedes. Since Troy could not be captured while it safeguarded this image, in this way the Greeks were then able to enter Troy and lay it waste using the deceit of the Trojan Horse. Odysseus, according to The Epic Cycle, in the chrestomathy summarizing the Little Iliad, went by night to Troy in disguise, there he was recognized by Helen, who told him where the Palladium was. After killing some of the Trojans, he returned to the ships and he and Diomedes then re-entered the city and stole the Palladium. Diomedes is sometimes regarded as the person who removed the Palladium. There are several statues and many ancient drawings of him with the Palladium, in the Narratives of the Augustan period mythographer Conon, summarised by Photius, on the way to the ships, Odysseus plotted to kill Diomedes and claim the Palladium for himself. He raised his sword to stab Diomedes in the back, Diomedes was alerted to the danger by glimpsing the gleam of the sword in the moonlight. He disarmed Odysseus, tied his hands, and drove him along in front, from this action was said to have arisen the Greek proverbial expression Diomedes necessity, applied to those who act under compulsion. Because Odysseus was essential for the destruction of Troy, Diomedes refrained from punishing him, Diomedes took the Palladium with him when he left Troy. According to some stories, he brought it to Italy, some say that it was stolen from him on the way. According to various versions of this legend the Trojan Palladium found its way to Athens, or Argos, or Sparta, to this last city it was either brought by Aeneas the exiled Trojan or surrendered by Diomedes himself. It was kept there in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum for centuries and it was regarded as one of the pignora imperii, sacred tokens or pledges of Roman rule. Pliny the Elder said that Lucius Caecilius Metellus had been blinded by fire when he rescued the Palladium from the Temple of Vesta in 241 BC, an episode alluded to in Ovid and Valerius Maximus
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Trojan Horse
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The Trojan Horse is a tale from the Trojan War about the subterfuge that the Greeks used to enter the city of Troy and win the war. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy and that night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night. The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war, metaphorically a Trojan Horse has come to mean any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected bastion or place. A malicious computer program which tricks users into willingly running it is called a Trojan horse or simply a Trojan. The main ancient source for the story is the Aeneid of Virgil, the event is also referred to in Homers Odyssey. In the Greek tradition, the horse is called the Wooden Horse, according to Quintus Smyrnaeus, Odysseus thought of building a great wooden horse, hiding an elite force inside, and fooling the Trojans into wheeling the horse into the city as a trophy. Under the leadership of Epeius, the Greeks built the wooden horse in three days, odysseuss plan called for one man to remain outside the horse, he would act as though the Greeks had abandoned him, leaving the horse as a gift for the Trojans. An inscription was engraved on the reading, For their return home. Then they burned their tents and left to Tenedos by night, Greek soldier Sinon was abandoned, and was to signal to the Greeks by lighting a beacon. In Virgils poem, Sinon, the only volunteer for the role, successfully convinces the Trojans that he has left behind. Sinon tells the Trojans that the Horse was built to be too large for them to take it into their city, however, the god Poseidon sends two sea serpents to strangle him and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus before any Trojan heeds his warning. According to Apollodorus the two serpents were sent by Apollo, whom Laocoon had insulted by sleeping with his wife in front of the divine image. King Priams daughter Cassandra, the soothsayer of Troy, insists that the horse will be the downfall of the city and she too is ignored, hence their doom and loss of the war. 8.487 ff The most detailed and most familiar version is in Virgils Aeneid and they secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot, there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge cavernous insides with armed warriors. Then Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights of the citadel, to confront them all, a crowd with him. Do you think the enemys sailed away, or do you think any Greek gifts free of treachery. Whatever it is, Im afraid of Greeks even those bearing gifts, Book II includes Laocoön saying, Equo ne credite, Teucri
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Lemnos
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Lemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a municipality within the Lemnos regional unit. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina, at 477.583 square kilometres, it is the 8th-largest island of Greece. Lemnos is mostly flat, but the west, and especially the northwest part, is rough, the highest point is Mount Skopia at the altitude of 430 m. The chief towns are Myrina, on the western coast, Myrina possesses a good harbour, which is in the process of being upgraded through construction of a west-facing sea wall. It is the seat of all carried on with the mainland. Fruit and vegetables that grow on the island include almonds, figs, melons, watermelons, tomatoes, pumpkins, the main crops are wheat, barley, sesame, in fact Lemnos was Constantinoples granary during Byzantine times. Lemnos also produces honey, but, as is the case with most products of a nature in Greece. Muscat grapes are widely, and are used to produce an unusual table wine that is dry yet has a strong Muscat flavor. Since 1985 the variety and quality of Lemnos wines have increased greatly, the climate in Lemnos is mainly Mediterranean. Winters are generally mild, but there will be a snowfall occasionally, strong winds are a feature of the island, especially in August and in winter time, hence its nickname the wind-ridden one. The temperature is typically 2 to 5 degrees Celsius less than in Athens, for ancient Greeks, the island was sacred to Hephaestus, god of metallurgy, who—as he tells himself in Iliad I. 590ff—fell on Lemnos when Zeus hurled him headlong out of Olympus. There, he was cared for by the Sinties, according to Iliad or by Thetis, sacred initiatory rites dedicated to them were performed in the island. Hephaestus forge, which was located on Lemnos, as well as the name Aethaleia, sometimes applied to it and it is said that fire occasionally blazed forth from Mosychlos, one of its mountains. The ancient geographer Pausanias relates that an island called Chryse. All volcanic action is now extinct, the earliest inhabitants are said to have been a Thracian tribe, whom the Greeks called Sintians, robbers. The name Lemnos is said by Hecataeus to have applied in the form of a title to Cybele among the Thracians. The worship of Cybele was characteristic of Thrace, where it had spread from Asia Minor at an early period
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Chryse (island)
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Chryse was a small island in the Aegean Sea mentioned by Homer, Sophocles and Pausanias. The islands main feature was said to be its temple to Apollo, the Greek archer Philoctetes stopped there on his way to Troy and was fatally bitten by a viper. Lucullus captured three men there in an ambush during the Third Mithridatic War, the island seems to have disappeared by the 2nd century AD, it is mentioned by Pausanias and Appian. An ancient oracle may have predicted this end, the Description of Greece says, The following incident proves the might of Fortune to be greater and more marvellous than is shown by the disasters and prosperity of cities. No long sail from Lemnos was once an island Chryse, where, it is said, but the waves utterly overwhelmed it, and Chryse sank and disappeared in the depths. So temporary and utterly weak are the fortunes of men, an amateur underwater archaeologist claimed to have rediscovered the island in 1960, identifying it with a sunken land mass known as Kharos Bank, a 10-sq. -mi. Area near the island of Lemnos, listed on British naval charts, white building blocks were said to be visible on the sea floor. The Kharos Bank is mentioned by others as a possible site, but there does not appear to have been further work on it
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Philoctetes (Sophocles play)
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Philoctetes is a play by Sophocles. The play was written during the Peloponnesian War and it is one of the seven extant tragedies by Sophocles. It was first performed at the City Dionysia in 409 BC, the story takes place during the Trojan War. It describes the attempt by Neoptolemus and Odysseus to bring the disabled Philoctetes, when Heracles was near his death, he wished to be burned on a funeral pyre while still alive. Sophocles references the myth in which no one but Philoctetes would light the fire, Philoctetes left with the Greeks to participate in the Trojan War, but was bitten on the foot by a snake while walking on Chryse, a sacred ground. The bite caused him constant agony, and emitted a horrible smell, for this reason he was left by Odysseus and the Atreidai on the desert island Lemnos. Ten years pass, and the Greeks capture the Trojan seer Helenus and he foretells that they will need the master archer Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles to win the war. Odysseus sails back to Lemnos with Neoptolemus to get Philoctetes, the task is not easy, as Philoctetes bitterly hates Odysseus and the Greeks for leaving him there. Sophocles Philoctetes begins with their arrival on the island, Odysseus explains to Neoptolemus that he must perform a shameful action in order to garner future glory - to take Philoctetes by tricking him with a false story while Odysseus hides. Neoptolemus is portrayed as a boy, and so it takes some persuading to get him to play this part. To gain Philoctetes trust, Neoptolemus tricks Philoctetes into thinking he hates Odysseus as well, Neoptolemus does this by telling Philoctetes that Odysseus has his fathers armor. He tells Philoctetes that this armor was his right by birth, after gaining Philoctetes trust and offering him a ride home, Neoptolemus is allowed to look at the bow of Heracles. Neoptolemus holds the bow while Philoctetes is going into a fit of pain in his foot. Feeling ashamed, Neoptolemus debates giving it back to him, Odysseus appears, and a series of arguments ensue. Eventually Neoptolemus conscience gains the hand, and he returns the bow. After many threats made on both sides, Odysseus flees, Neoptolemus then tries to talk Philoctetes into coming to Troy by his own free will, but Philoctetes does not agree. In the end, Neoptolemus consents to take Philoctetes back to Greece and this appears to be the conclusion of the play—however, as they are leaving, Heracles appears above them and tells Philoctetes that if he goes to Troy, he will be cured and the Greeks will win. When Philoctetes later fights in Troy, his foot is healed, the concept of having a moral high ground is a key aspect in this play
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Sophocles
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Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were later than those of Aeschylus. He competed in 30 competitions, won 18, and was never judged lower than second place, Aeschylus won 14 competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won 5 competitions. Sophocles influenced the development of drama, most importantly by adding a third actor and he also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus. Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, was a member of the rural deme of Hippeios Colonus in Attica, which was to become a setting for one of his plays. Sophocles was born a few years before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, Sophocles was born into a wealthy family and was highly educated. Sophocles first artistic triumph was in 468 BC, when he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the master of Athenian drama. According to Plutarch, the victory came under unusual circumstances, instead of following the usual custom of choosing judges by lot, the archon asked Cimon and the other strategoi present to decide the victor of the contest. Plutarch further contends that following this loss Aeschylus soon left for Sicily, although Plutarch says that this was Sophocles first production, it is now thought that his first production was probably in 470 BC. Triptolemus was probably one of the plays that Sophocles presented at this festival, in 480 BC Sophocles was chosen to lead the paean, celebrating the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. Early in his career, the politician Cimon might have one of his patrons, although if he was, there was no ill will borne by Pericles, Cimons rival. In 443/2 he served as one of the Hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena, in 420 BC, he welcomed and set up an altar for the image of Asclepius at his house, when the deity was introduced to Athens. For this, he was given the posthumous epithet Dexion by the Athenians and he was also elected, in 413 BC, one of the commissioners who responded to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. Sophocles died at the age of ninety or ninety-one in the winter of 406/5 BC, as with many famous men in classical antiquity, his death inspired a number of apocryphal stories. The most famous is the suggestion that he died from the strain of trying to recite a long sentence from his Antigone without pausing to take a breath, another account suggests he choked while eating grapes at the Anthesteria festival in Athens. A third holds that he died of happiness after winning his final victory at the City Dionysia, one of his sons, Iophon, and a grandson, also called Sophocles, also became playwrights. Several ancient sources mention Sophocles homosexuality or bisexuality, Athenaios reported that Sophocles loved boys like Euripides loved women. The poet Ion of Chios relates an anecdote involving Sophocles seducing a serving boy at a symposium, Aeschylus, who dominated Athenian playwriting during Sophocles early career, followed suit and adopted the third character into his own work towards the end of his life
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Euripides
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Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He is one of the few plays have survived, with the others being Aeschylus, Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most, of these,18 or 19 have survived more or less complete and there are also fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, yet he also became the most tragic of poets, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was also unique among the writers of ancient Athens for the sympathy he demonstrated towards all victims of society and his contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Whereas Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as an influence, Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age. Recent scholarship casts doubt on ancient biographies of Euripides, for example, it is possible that he never visited Macedonia at all, or, if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists. Upon the receipt of a saying that his son was fated to win crowns of victory. In fact the boy was destined for a career on the stage and he served for a short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, he studied painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus. He had two marriages and both his wives—Melite and Choerine —were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis, there he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky. Eventually he retired to the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. However, as mentioned in the introduction, biographical details such as these should be regarded with scepticism and this biography is divided into three sections corresponding to the three kinds of sources. The apocryphal account that he composed his works in a cave on Salamis island was a late tradition, much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didnt live to see the final defeat of his city. In an account by Plutarch, the failure of the Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides lyrics to their enemies in return for food. Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia, Aristophanes scripted him as a character in at least three plays, The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs. Yet Aristophanes borrowed rather than just satirized some of the methods, he was once ridiculed by a colleague, Cratinus, as a hair-splitting master of niceties
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Hecuba (play)
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Hecuba is a tragedy by Euripides written c.424 BC. It takes place after the Trojan War, but before the Greeks have departed Troy, the central figure is Hecuba, wife of King Priam, formerly Queen of the now-fallen city. It depicts Hecubas grief over the death of her daughter Polyxena, in the plays opening, the ghost of Polydorus tells how when the war threatened Troy, he was sent to King Polymestor of Thrace for safekeeping, with gifts of gold and jewelry. But when Troy lost the war, Polymestor treacherously murdered Polydorus, Polydorus has foreknowledge of many of the plays events and haunted his mothers dreams the night before. The events take place on the coast of Thrace, as the Greek navy returns home from Troy, the Trojan queen Hecuba, now enslaved by the Greeks, mourns her great losses and worries about the portents of her nightmare. The Chorus of young slave women enters, bearing fateful news, one of Hecubas last remaining daughters, Polyxena, is to be killed on the tomb of Achilles as a blood sacrifice to his honor. Greek commander Odysseus enters, to escort Polyxena to an altar where Neoptolemus will shed her blood, Odysseus ignores Hecubas impassioned pleas to spare Polyxena, and Polyxena herself says she would rather die than live as a slave. In the first Choral interlude, the Chorus lament their own doomed fate, the Greek messenger Talthybius arrives, tells a stirring account of Polyxenas strikingly heroic death, and delivers a message from Agamemnon, chief of the Greek army, to bury Polyxena. Hecuba sends a girl to fetch water from the sea to bathe her daughters corpse. After a second Choral interlude, the body of Polydorus is brought on stage, upon recognizing her son whom she thought safe, Hecuba reaches new heights of despair. Hecuba rages inconsolably against the brutality of such an action, Agamemnon enters, and Hecuba, tentatively at first and then boldly requests that Agamemnon help her avenge her sons murder. Hecubas daughter Cassandra is a concubine of Agamemnon so the two have some relationship to protect and Agamemnon listens, Agamemnon reluctantly agrees, as the Greeks await a favorable wind to sail home. The Greek army considers Polymestor an ally and Agamemnon does not wish to be observed helping Hecuba against him and he inquires about Hecubas welfare, with a pretense of friendliness. Hecuba reciprocates, concealing her knowledge of the murder of Polydorus, Hecuba tells Polymestor she knows where the remaining treasures of Troy are hidden, and offers to tell him the secrets, to be passed on to Polydorus. Hecuba convinces him and his sons to enter an offstage tent where she claims to have more personal treasures, enlisting help from other slaves, Hecuba kills Polymestors sons and stabs Polymestors eyes. He re-enters blinded and savage, hunting as if a beast for the women who ruined him, Agamemnon re-enters angry with the uproar and witnesses Hecubas revenge. Polymestor argues that Hecubas revenge was an act, whereas his murder of Polydorus was intended to preserve the Greek victory and dispatch a young Trojan. The arguments take the form of a trial, and Hecuba delivers a rebuttal exposing Polymestors speech as sophistry, Agamemnon decides justice has been served by Hecubas revenge
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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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Priam
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In Greek mythology, Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian name Pariya-muwas, which meant “exceptionally courageous” and was attested as the name of a man from Zazlippa, a similar form is attested transcribed in Greek as Paramoas near Kaisareia in Cappadocia. Notable is also Piyama-Radu, a man whose name figures prominently in the Hittite archives. Priam was originally called Podarces and he kept himself from being killed by Heracles by giving him a golden veil embroidered by his sister, after this, Podarces changed his name to Priam. This is a folk etymology based on πριατός priatos, ransomed from πρίασθαι priasthai, in Iliad Book 3, Priam tells Helen of Troy that he once helped King Mygdon of Phrygia defend against the Amazons. When Hector is killed by Achilles, the Greek warrior treats the body with disrespect, Zeus sends the god Hermes to escort King Priam, Hector’s father and the ruler of Troy, into the Greek camp. Priam tearfully pleads with Achilles to take pity on a father bereft of his son and he invokes the memory of Achilles’ own father, Peleus. Priam begs Achilles to pity him, saying I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before — I put my lips to the hands of the man who killed my son, deeply moved, Achilles relents and returns Hector’s corpse to the Trojans. Both sides agree to a truce, and Achilles gives Priam leave to hold a proper funeral for Hector. He promises that no Greek will engage in combat for nine days, but on the day of peace. Priam is killed during the Sack of Troy by Achilles son Neoptolemus and his death is graphically related in Book II of Virgils Aeneid. In Virgils description, Neoptolemus first kills Priams son Polites in front of his father as he seeks sanctuary on the altar of Zeus, Priam rebukes Neoptolemus, throwing a spear at him, harmlessly hitting his shield. Neoptolemus then drags Priam to the altar and there kills him too and it has been suggested by Hittite sources, specifically the Manapa-Tarhunta letter, that there is historical basis for the archetype of King Priam. The letter describes one Piyama-Radu as a rebel who overthrew a Hittite client king. There is also mention of an Alaksandu, suggested to be Paris Alexander, in Apollodorus Library, Telamon was almost killed during the siege of Troy. Telamon was the first one to break through the Trojan wall, Hercules was about to cut him down with his sword when Telamon began to quickly assemble an altar out of nearby stones in honor of Hercules. Hercules was so pleased, after the sack of Troy he gave Telamon Hesione as a wife, Hesione requested that she be able to bring her brother Podarces with her. Hercules would not allow it unless Hesione bought Podarces as a slave, Hesione paid for her brother with a veil
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Polites (Prince of Troy)
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Polites was the legitimate son of Priam and Hecuba. He was a prince of Troy, and brother of 49 other children and he was killed by Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, who then killed his father. Polites was born to Priam, King of Troy, and Hecuba and he lived in Troy during his youth, was crowned prince of Troy, and was styled his royal Majesty. During his youth, Polites witnessed the Trojan War and was a character in the Iliad. During the passage of the Trojan Horse in the Trojan War, during the fall of Troy and the attempted escape to Latium, Neoptolemus shot an arrow in Polites leg. Polites fell, escaping Neoptolemus, who pursued Polites to his fathers palace, Priam called on the gods to punish Neoptolemus, but in that scene, Priam was also killed by Neoptolemus
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Astyanax
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In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector, the crown prince of Troy and husband of Princess Andromache of Cilician Thebe. His birth name was Scamandrius, but the people of Troy nicknamed him Astyanax, because he was the son of the great defender. During the Trojan War, Andromache hid the child in Hectors tomb and his fate was debated by the Greeks, for if he were allowed to live, it was feared he would avenge his father and rebuild Troy. In the version given by the Little Iliad and repeated by Pausanias, he was killed by Neoptolemus, another version is given in Iliou persis, in which Odysseus kills Astyanax. In Ovids Metamorphoses, the child is thrown from the walls by the Greek victors, in Euripidess The Trojan Women, the herald Talthybius reveals to Andromache that Odysseus has convinced the council to have the child thrown from the walls, and the child is in this way killed. Other sources for the story of the Sack of Troy and Astyanaxs death can be found in the Bibliotheca, Astyanax survives to found settlements in Corsica and Sardinia. The Chronicle of Fredegar contains the oldest mention of a medieval legend linking the Franks to the Trojans, one legend, as further elaborated through the Middle Ages, established Astyanax, renamed Francus, as the founder of Merovingian dynasty and forefather of Charlemagne. In Matteo Maria Boiardos Orlando innamorato, Andromache saves Astyanax by hiding him in a tomb, taken to Sicily, Astyanax became the ruler of Messina, killed the giant king of Agrigento and married the queen of Syracuse. He was killed treacherously by Aegisthus, but his wife escaped to Reggio and bore a son, in this tradition, the epic hero Rolands sword Durendal was the very sword used by Hector, and Roland wins the sword by defeating a Saracen knight who had defeated Ruggiero II. In Ludovico Ariostos Orlando Furioso, a continuation of Boiardos poem, Astyanax arrives in Sicily and eventually becomes king of Messina, and his heirs later rule over Calabria. From these rulers is descended Ruggiero II, father of the hero Ruggiero, based on the medieval legend, Jean Lemaire de Belgess Illustrations de Gaule et Singularités de Troie has Astyanax survive the fall of Troy and arrive in Western Europe. He changes his name to Francus and becomes king of Celtic Gaul and founds the dynasty leading to Pepin, Lemaire de Belges work inspired Pierre de Ronsards epic poem La Franciade. In this poem, Jupiter saves Astyanax, the young hero arrives in Crete and falls in love with the princess Hyanthe with whom he is destined to found the royal dynasty of France. In Jean Racines play Andromaque, Astyanax has narrowly escaped death at the hands of Odysseus, Andromache has been taken prisoner in Epirus by Neoptolemus who is due to be married to Hermione, the only daughter of the Spartan king Menelaus and Helen of Troy. Astyanax is also the subject of modern works, In David Gemmells Troy series, Astyanax is the son of Andromache. After the Trojan War, Aeneas escapes from Troy with Andromache and Astyanax to Seven hills, a colony in Italy Aeneas and Odysseus found
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Andromache
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In Greek mythology, Andromache was the wife of Hector, daughter of Eetion, and sister to Podes. She was born and raised in the city of Cilician Thebe, the name means man battler or fighter of men or mans battle, from the Greek stem ἀνδρ- man and μάχη battle. This act was carried out by Neoptolemus who then took Andromache as a concubine and Hectors brother, Helenus, by Neoptolemus, she was the mother of Molossus, and according to Pausanias, of Pielus and Pergamus. When Neoptolemus died, Andromache married Helenus and became Queen of Epirus, Pausanias also implies that Helenus son, Cestrinus, was by Andromache. Andromache eventually went to live with Pergamus in Pergamum, where she died of old age, Iliad VI, 390–470, XXII 437–515 Bibliotheca III, xii,6, Epitome V,23, VI,12. Sapphos Fragment 44 Andromache was born in Thebes, a city that Achilles later sacked, killing her father Eetion, after this, her mother died of illness. She was taken from her father’s household by Hector, who had brought countless wedding-gifts, thus Priam’s household alone provides Andromache with her only familial support. In contrast to the relationship of Paris and Helen, Hector and Andromache fit the Greek ideal of a happy and productive marriage. Once Achilles kills Hector, Andromache is utterly alone, Andromache is therefore completely alone when Troy falls and her son is killed. Notably, Andromache remains unnamed in Iliad 22, referred to only as the wife of Hector, indicating the centrality of her status as Hectors wife, the Greeks divide the Trojan women as spoils of war and permanently separate them from the ruins of Troy and from one another. Hector’s fears of her life as a woman are realized as her family is entirely stripped from her by the violence of war. Without her familial structure, Andromache is a woman who must live outside familiar. Andromache’s gradual discovery of her husband’s death and her immediate lamentation culminate the shorter lamentations of Priam, in accordance with traditional customs of mourning, Andromache responds with an immediate and impulsive outburst of grief that begins the ritual lamentation. She casts away her various pieces of headdress and leads the Trojan women in ritual mourning, the final stage of the mourning process occurs in Iliad 24 in the formal, communal grieving upon the return of Hector’s body. In Iliad 22, Andromache is portrayed as the wife, weaving a cloak for her husband in the innermost chambers of the house. Here she is carrying out an action Hector had ordered her to perform during their conversation in Iliad 6, however, Andromache is seen in Iliad 6 in an unusual place for the traditional housewife, standing before the ramparts of Troy. Traditional gender roles are breached as well, as Andromache gives Hector military advice, although her behavior may seem nontraditional, hard times disrupts the separate spheres of men and women, requiring a shared civic response to the defense of the city as a whole. Andromache’s sudden tactical lecture is a way to keep Hector close, Andromache’s role as a mother, a fundamental element of her position in marriage, is emphasized within this same conversation
28.
Concubinage
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The woman in such a relationship is referred to as a concubine. The prevalence of concubinage and the status of rights and expectations of a concubine have varied between cultures as well as the rights of children of a concubine. Whatever the status and rights of the concubine, they were inferior to those of the wife. Historically, concubinage was frequently entered into voluntarily as it provided a measure of security for the woman involved. Involuntary or servile concubinage sometimes involved sexual slavery of one member of the relationship, nevertheless, sexual relations outside marriage were not uncommon, especially among royalty and nobility, and the woman in such relationships was commonly described as a mistress. However, the children of such relationships were counted as illegitimate and were barred from inheriting the title or estates. While various forms of sexual relationships and co-habitation short of marriage have become increasingly common in the Western world. The terms concubinage and concubine are used primarily when referring to non-marital partnerships of earlier eras. In modern usage, a domestic relationship is commonly referred to as co-habitation. Concubinage was highly popular before early 20th century all over Asia, the main function of concubinage was producing additional heirs, as well as bring males pleasure. Children of concubines had lower rights in account to inheritance, which was regulated by Dishu system, after that, even concubinage has been legally banned, the relationship between mistresses and their men are highly affected by it. In China, successful men often had concubines until the practice was outlawed after the Communist Party of China came to power in 1949, the standard Chinese term translated as concubine was qiè 妾, a term used since ancient times, which means female slave. Concubines resembled wives in that they were recognized sexual partners of a family member and were expected to bear children from him. Unofficial concubines, are of lower status, and children of her are considered illegitimate, in English the term concubine is also used for what the Chinese refer to as pínfēi consorts of emperors, some of very high rank. In premodern China, it was illegal and socially disreputable for a man to have more than one wife at a time, but he could have concubines. At first a man could have as many concubines as he could afford, however, from the Eastern Han onward, the higher ranking and the more noble an identity a man possessed, the more concubines he was permitted to have. A concubines treatment and situation were highly variable and were influenced by the status of the male to whom she was engaged. In the Book of Rites chapter on “The Pattern of the Family” it says, “If there were betrothal rites, she became a wife, and if she went without these, Concubines could be taken without any of the ceremonies used in marriages
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Phoenix (son of Amyntor)
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In Greek mythology, Phoenix, son of Amyntor and Cleobule, is one of the Myrmidons led by Achilles in the Trojan War. Phoenixs warfaring identity is a charioteer, of Phoenixs life before the Trojan War, it is related that he seduced his fathers concubine at the instigation of his mother. Having heard about this, Amyntor punished his son by cursing him with infertility, Phoenix then fled to Peleus, who in turn took him to Chiron, the latter restored Phoenixs sight, whereupon Peleus made Phoenix king of the Dolopes. He participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, in Homers Iliad, Phoenix, along with Odysseus and Ajax, urges Achilles to re-enter battle. He gives the most passionate and emotional speech of the three, as evidenced by his crying, however, it has been suggested that Achilles speaks only to Phoenix and Ajax, ignoring Odysseus, to whose guile he bears a considerable dislike. Phoenix also makes a cameo in Virgils Aeneid, as Aeneas is searching his fallen Troy for his wife Creusa, he glimpses Phoenix and Odysseus guarding their loot in Priams palace. Phoenix was said to have died on his way back from Troy and to have been buried by Neoptolemus either in Eion, Macedonia, or in Trachis, media related to Phoenix at Wikimedia Commons
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Epirot Islands
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Epirote Islands are considered those northern Ionian islands that are in proximity to the Epirus mainland. The island of Ithaki was also the home of Odysseus. At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE most of the islands, notably Kerkyra, took the side of Athens but Lefkada took the side of Sparta. Still herding the western highlands of the Pindos in Zagoria, Molossoi were in constant friction over grazing, with Macedonians on the other side of the range. When, by the Treaty of Paris of November 5,1815, in 1864 it was, with the other Ionian Islands, ceded to the kingdom of Greece, in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants. Today all the islands are part of the Greek region of Ionian Islands, Kerkyra has a population of 97,000, Lefkada 21,000, Ithaki 3,000 and Paxi 2,000. In recent decades the islands have lost population through emigration and the decline of their industries, fishing. Today their major industry is tourism, Kerkyra in particular, with its magnificent harbour, splendid scenery and wealth of picturesque ruins and castles, is a favourite stopping place for cruise liners. British tourists in particular are attracted through having read Gerald Durrells evocative book My Family and Other Animals, Greek government tourist website on the Ionian Islands Lonely Planets Guide to the Ionian Islands Ionian islands guide
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Olympias
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Olympias was a daughter of king Neoptolemus I of Epirus, the fourth wife of the king of Macedonia, Philip II, and mother of Alexander the Great. She was a member of the orgiastic snake-worshiping cult of Dionysus, and it is suggested by the 1st century AD biographer, Plutarch. Olympias was the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of the Molossians, an ancient Greek tribe in Epirus and her family belonged to the Aeacidae, a well-respected family of Epirus, which claimed descent from Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. The name Olympias was the third of four names by which she was known and she probably took it as a recognition of Philips victory in the Olympic Games of 356 BC, the news of which coincided with Alexanders birth. She was finally named Stratonice, which was probably an epithet attached to Olympias following her victory over Eurydice in 317 BC, when Neoptolemus I died in 360 BC, his brother Arymbas succeeded him on the Molossian throne. In 358 BC, Arymbas made a treaty with the new king of Macedonia, Philip II, the alliance was cemented with a diplomatic marriage, when Arymbas niece Olympias became Philips wife in 357 BC and, consequently, queen consort of Macedonia. Philip had first fallen in love with Olympias when both were initiated into the mysteries of Cabeiri at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, on the island of Samothrace. One year later, in 356 BC, Philips race horse won in the Olympic Games, for this victory his wife, in the summer of the same year, Olympias gave birth to her first child, Alexander. In ancient Greece people believed that the birth of a man was accompanied by portents. After the marriage Philip dreamed that he put a seal upon his wifes womb, aristanders interpretation was that Olympias was pregnant of a son whose nature would be bold and lion-like. Philip and Olympias also had a daughter, Cleopatra and their marriage was very stormy, Philips volatility and Olympias jealous temper had led to a growing estrangement. Things got even worse in 337 BC when Philip married a noble Macedonian woman, Cleopatra, who was given the name Eurydice by Philip, the marriage caused great tensions between Philip, Olympias and Alexander. Olympias went into exile in Epirus along with her son Alexander, who sided with her, staying at the Molossian court of her brother Alexander I. After the death of Philip II, Olympias ordered the execution of Eurydice and her child, during Alexanders campaigns, she regularly corresponded with him and may have confirmed her sons claim in Egypt that his father was not Philip but Zeus. The relationship between Olympias and Alexander was cordial, but her son tried to keep her away from politics, however, she wielded great influence in Macedonia and caused troubles to Antipater, the regent of the kingdom. In 330 BC, she returned to Epirus and served as a regent to her cousin Aeacides in the Epirote state, after Alexander the Greats death in Babylon in 323 BC, his wife Roxana bore him a posthumous son who was called Alexander IV. At the same time, Olympias offered Perdiccas the hand of her daughter Cleopatra, Perdiccas chose Cleopatra, which angered Antipater, who invaded Macedon, deposed Perdiccas, and declared himself regent, only to die within the year. Polyperchon succeeded Antipater in 319 BC as regent, but Antipaters son Cassander established Philip II’s simpleminded son Philip III as king and he fled to Epirus, taking Roxana and her son Alexander IV with him
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Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
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Ambracia
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Ambracia, was a city of ancient Greece on the site of modern Arta. It was founded as a Corinthian colony in the 7th century BC and was situated about 7 miles from the Ambracian Gulf, on a bend of the navigable river Arachthos, after the expulsion of Gorguss son Periander its government developed into a strong democracy. The early policy of Ambracia was determined by its loyalty to Corinth, ambraciot politics featured many frontier disputes with the Amphilochians and Acarnanians. Hence it took a prominent part in the Peloponnesian War until the defeat at Idomene. In the 4th century BC it continued its policy. With the assistance of Corinth and Athens, it escaped complete domination at Philips hands, in the wars of Philip V of Macedon and the Epirotes against the Aetolian League Ambracia passed from one alliance to the other, but ultimately joined the latter confederacy. During the struggle of the Aetolians against Rome, it stood a stubborn siege, Ambracia was captured and plundered by Marcus Fulvius Nobilior in 189 BC, after which it was declared by Rome a free city, and gradually fell into insignificance. The foundation by Augustus of Nicopolis, into which the inhabitants were drafted. In Byzantine times a new settlement took its place under the name of Arta, some fragmentary walls of large, well-dressed blocks near this latter town indicate the early prosperity of Ambracia. Epigonus of Ambracia, 6th BC musician Nicocles, auletes Hippasus, tragic actor Epicrates of Ambracia, c
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Hermione (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, Hermione was the only child of King Menelaus of Sparta and his wife, Helen of Troy. Prior to the Trojan War, Hermione was betrothed by Tyndareus, her grandfather, however, during the Trojan War, Menelaus promised her to Neoptolemus, also known as Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. Ancient poets disagree over whether Menelaus was involved in both betrothals, euripides has Orestes say, ″Because, in fact, you were rightfully mine, from a long time ago. But Menelaus, my father, made a promise of me, shortly after settling into the domestic life, conflict arose between Hermione and Andromache, the concubine Neoptolemus had obtained as a prize after the sack of Troy. Hermione blamed Andromache for her inability to become pregnant, claiming that she was casting spells on her to keep her barren. She asked her father to kill Andromache while Neoptolemus was away at war, Hermione and Orestes were married, and she gave birth to his heir Tisamenus. The myths do not mention Hermione after that, though it is said that Orestes later married his half-sister Erigone, daughter of Clytemnestra and Aigisthus and she, in turn, was the inspiration for Hermione Grangers name in the Harry Potter franchise. British actress Emma Watson portrayed Hermione in all eight of the movies
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Orestes
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In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, in the Homeric telling of the story, Orestes is a member of the doomed house of Atreus which is descended from Tantalus and Niobe. Seven years later, Orestes returns from Athens and avenges his fathers death by slaying both Aegisthus and his own mother Clytemnestra, in the Odyssey, Orestes is held up as a favorable example to Telemachus, whose mother Penelope is plagued by suitors. According to Pindar, the young Orestes was saved by his nurse Arsinoe or his sister Electra, in the familiar theme of the heros early eclipse and exile, he escaped to Phanote on Mount Parnassus, where King Strophius took charge of him. In his twentieth year, he was urged by Electra to return home and he returned home along with his friend Pylades, Strophiuss son. The same myth is told differently by Sophocles and Euripides in their Electra plays, graves asserts that the sacrilege for which the Erinyes pursued Orestes was actually the killing of his mother, who represented matriarchy. The story of Orestes was the subject of the Oresteia of Aeschylus, of the Electra of Sophocles, in Aeschyluss Eumenides, Orestes goes mad after the deed and is pursued by the Erinyes, whose duty it is to punish any violation of the ties of family piety. He takes refuge in the temple at Delphi, but, even though Apollo had ordered him to do the deed, at last Athena receives him on the acropolis of Athens and arranges a formal trial of the case before twelve judges, including herself. The Erinyes demand their victim, he pleads the orders of Apollo, Athena votes last announcing that she is for acquittal, then the votes are counted and the result is a tie, resulting in an acquittal according to the rules previously stipulated by Athena. The Erinyes are propitiated by a new ritual, in which they are worshipped as Semnai Theai, Venerable Ones and he went to Tauris with Pylades, and the pair were at once imprisoned by the people, among whom the custom was to sacrifice all Greek strangers to Artemis. The priestess of Artemis, whose duty it was to perform the sacrifice, was Orestes sister Iphigenia. She offered to him if he would carry home a letter from her to Greece, he refused to go. After his return to Greece, Orestes took possession of his fathers kingdom of Mycenae to which were added Argos and he was said to have died of a snakebite in Arcadia. His body was conveyed to Sparta for burial or, according to a Roman legend, to Aricia, before the Trojan War, Orestes was to marry his cousin Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen. Things soon changed after Orestes committed matricide, Menelaus then gave his daughter to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, according to Euripides play Andromache, Orestes slew Neoptolemus just outside a temple and took off with Hermione. He seized Argos and Arcadia after their thrones had become vacant and his son by Hermione, Tisamenus, became ruler after him but was eventually killed by the Heracleidae. There is extant a Latin epic poem, consisting of about 1000 hexameters, called Orestes Tragoedia, Orestes appears also to be a dramatic prototype for all persons whose crime is mitigated by extenuating circumstances. In one version of the story of Telephus, the infant Orestes was kidnapped by King Telephus, according to some sources, Orestes fathered Penthilus by his half-sister, Erigone
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Menelaus
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In Greek mythology, Menelaus was a king of Mycenaean Sparta, the husband of Helen of Troy, and a central figure in the Trojan War. He was the son of Atreus and Aerope, brother of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and, according to the Iliad, although early authors such as Aeschylus refer in passing to Menelaus’ early life, detailed sources are quite late, post-dating 5th-century BC Greek tragedy. According to these sources, Menelaus father, Atreus, had been feuding with his brother Thyestes over the throne of Mycenae, after a back-and-forth struggle that featured adultery, incest and cannibalism, Thyestes gained the throne after his son Aegisthus murdered Atreus. As a result, Atreus’ sons, Menelaus and Agamemnon, went into exile and they first stayed with King Polyphides of Sicyon, and later with King Oeneus of Calydon. But when they thought the time was ripe to dethrone Mycenae’s hostile ruler, assisted by King Tyndareus of Sparta, they drove Thyestes away, and Agamemnon took the throne for himself. When it was time for Tyndareus’ step-daughter Helen to marry, many kings, among the contenders were Odysseus, Menestheus, Ajax the Great, Patroclus, and Idomeneus. Tyndareus would accept none of the gifts, nor would he send any of the suitors away for fear of offending them, Odysseus promised to solve the problem in a satisfactory manner if Tyndareus would support him in his courting of Tyndareus’s niece Penelope, the daughter of Icarius. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, then it was decreed that straws were to be drawn for Helen’s hand. The suitor who won was Menelaus, the rest of the suitors swore their oaths, and Helen and Menelaus were married, Menelaus becoming a ruler of Sparta with Helen after Tyndareus and Leda abdicated the thrones. Menelaus and Helen had a daughter Hermione as supported, for example, by Sappho and their palace has been discovered in Pellana, Laconia, to the north-west of modern Sparta. Other archaeologists consider that Pellana is too far away from other Mycenaean centres to have been the capital of Menelaus, in a return for awarding her a golden apple inscribed to the fairest, Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in all the world. Homers Iliad is the most expansive source for Menelaus’s exploits during the Trojan War, in Book 3, Menelaus challenges Paris to a duel for Helen’s return. Menelaus soundly beats Paris, but before he can kill him and claim victory, in Book 4, while the Greeks and Trojans squabble over the duel’s winner, Athena inspires the Trojan Pandarus to shoot Menelaus with his bow and arrow. However, Athena never intended for Menelaus to die and she protects him from the arrow of Pandarus, Menelaus is wounded in the abdomen, and the fighting resumes. Later, in Book 17, Homer gives Menelaus an extended aristeia as the hero retrieves the corpse of Patroclus from the battlefield, according to Hyginus, Menelaus killed eight men in the war, and was one of the Greeks hidden inside the Trojan Horse. During the sack of Troy, Menelaus killed Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris, there are four versions of Menelaus’ and Helen’s reunion on the night of the sack of Troy, Angry at Helen, Menelaus looked for and found her. In a fit of rage, he decided to kill her for leaving him for Paris, in a split second, Menelaus wrath went away instantly. He took pity on her, and decided to take her back as wife, Menelaus resolved to kill Helen but her striking beauty prompted him to drop his sword and take her back to his ship “to punish her at Sparta”, as he claimed
37.
Apollo
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Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros, Apollo has been recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. As the patron of Delphi, Apollo was an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Amongst the gods custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, as the leader of the Muses and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became an attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans, Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 3rd century CE. The name Apollo—unlike the related older name Paean—is generally not found in the Linear B texts, the etymology of the name is uncertain. The spelling Ἀπόλλων had almost superseded all other forms by the beginning of the common era and it probably is a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios, and the offerings apellaia at the initiation of the young men during the family-festival apellai. According to some scholars the words are derived from the Doric word apella, apella is the name of the popular assembly in Sparta, corresponding to the ecclesia. R. S. P. Beekes rejected the connection of the theonym with the noun apellai, several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks most often associated Apollos name with the Greek verb ἀπόλλυμι, in the ancient Macedonian language πέλλα means stone, and some toponyms may be derived from this word, Πέλλα and Πελλήνη. The role of Apollo as god of plague is evident in the invocation of Apollo Smintheus by Chryses, the Hittite testimony reflects an early form *Apeljōn, which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot Ἀπείλων with Doric Ἀπέλλων. A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo The One of Entrapment, Apollos chief epithet was Phoebus, literally bright. It was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans for Apollos role as the god of light, like other Greek deities, he had a number of others applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god. However, while Apollo has a number of appellations in Greek myth. Aegletes, from αἴγλη, light of the sun Helius, literally sun Lyceus light, the meaning of the epithet Lyceus later became associated with Apollos mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia and who was identified with the wolf
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Delphi
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Delphi is famous as the ancient sanctuary that grew rich as the seat of the oracle that was consulted on important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. Moreover, it was considered as the navel of the world by the Greeks as represented by the Omphalos and it occupies an impressive site on the south-western slope of Mount Parnassus overlooking the coastal plain to the south and the valley of Phocis. It is now an archaeological site and the modern town is nearby. The site of Delphi is located in upper central Greece, on multiple plateaux/terraces along the slope of Mount Parnassus, and includes the Sanctuary of Apollo and this semicircular spur is known as Phaedriades, and overlooks the Pleistos Valley. In myths dating to the period of Ancient Greece, the site of Delphi was believed to be determined by Zeus when he sought to find the centre of his Grandmother Earth. He sent two eagles flying from the eastern and western extremities, and the path of the eagles crossed over Delphi where the omphalos, Apollo was said to have slain Python, a drako a serpent or a dragon who lived there and protected the navel of the Earth. Python is claimed by some to be the name of the site in recognition of Python which Apollo defeated. The Homeric Hymn to Delphic Apollo recalled that the ancient name of this site had been Krisa, others relate that it was named Pytho and that Pythia, the priestess serving as the oracle, was chosen from their ranks by a group of priestesses who officiated at the temple. At the settlement site in Delphi, which was a settlement of the late 9th century. Pottery and bronze work as well as tripod dedications continue in a steady stream, the victors at Delphi were presented with a laurel crown which was ceremonially cut from a tree by a boy who re-enacted the slaying of the Python. Delphi was set apart from the other sites because it hosted the mousikos agon. These Pythian Games rank second among the four stephanitic games chronologically and these games, though, were different from the games at Olympia in that they were not of such vast importance to the city of Delphi as the games at Olympia were to the area surrounding Olympia. Delphi would have been a renowned city whether or not it hosted these games, it had other attractions that led to it being labeled the omphalos of the earth, in other words, in the inner hestia of the Temple of Apollo, an eternal flame burned. The name Delphoi comes from the root as δελφύς delphys, womb. Apollo is connected with the site by his epithet Δελφίνιος Delphinios, the epithet is connected with dolphins in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, recounting the legend of how Apollo first came to Delphi in the shape of a dolphin, carrying Cretan priests on his back. The Homeric name of the oracle is Pytho, another legend held that Apollo walked to Delphi from the north and stopped at Tempe, a city in Thessaly, to pick laurel which he considered to be a sacred plant. In commemoration of this legend, the winners at the Pythian Games received a wreath of laurel picked in the Temple, Delphi became the site of a major temple to Phoebus Apollo, as well as the Pythian Games and the famous prehistoric oracle. Even in Roman times, hundreds of votive statues remained, described by Pliny the Younger, additionally, according to Plutarchs essay on the meaning of the E at Delphi—the only literary source for the inscription—there was also inscribed at the temple a large letter E
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Andromache (play)
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Andromache is an Athenian tragedy by Euripides. It dramatises Andromaches life as a slave, years after the events of the Trojan War, the date of its first performance is unknown, although scholars place it sometime between 428 and 425 BC. A Byzantine scholion to the play suggests that its first production was staged outside of Athens, during the Trojan War, Achilles killed Andromaches husband Hector. The Greeks threw Andromache and Hectors child Astyanax from the Trojan walls for fear that he would grow up and avenge his father, Andromache was made a slave of Achilles son Neoptolemus. Euripides dramatised these events ten years after Andromache in his tragedy The Trojan Women, years pass and Andromache has a child with Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus weds Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, even though Andromache is still devoted to her dead husband Hector, Hermione is deeply jealous and plots her revenge. Fearing for her life and the life of her child, Andromache hides the child and she reveals that Neoptolemos has left for the oracle at Delphi and that she has hidden the son she bore him for fear that Menelaus will try to kill him as well as her. A Maid arrives to warn her that Menelaus knows the location of her son and is on his way to capture him, Andromache persuades her to risk seeking the help of the king, Peleus. Andromache laments her misfortunes again and weeps at the feet of the statue of Thetis, the párodos of the chorus follows, in which they express their desire to help Andromache and try to persuade her to leave the sanctuary. Just at the moment that they express their fearfulness of discovery by Hermione, she arrives, boasting of her wealth, status, Hermione engages in an extended agôn with Andromache, in which they exchange a long rhetorical speech initially, each accusing the other. Hermione accuses Andromache of practising oriental witchcraft to make her barren and attempting to turn her husband against her, learn your new-found place, she demands. She condemns the Trojans as barbarians who practise incest and polygamy and their agon continues in a series of rapid stichomythic exchanges. When Menelaus arrives and reveals that he has found her son, the intervention of the aged Peleus saves them. Orestes, who has contrived the murder of Neoptolemus at Delphi, the death of Neoptolemus is announced. The goddess Thetis appears as a deus ex machina and arranges matters, the odious character which Euripides attributes to Menelaus has been seen as according with the feeling against Sparta that prevailed at the time at Athens. Peleus curses Sparta several times during the play, edward P. Coleridge,1891 - prose, full text at Andromache. Robert Cannon,1997 - verse George Theodoridis - prose, full text at Andromache, bacchicstage - The Ancient Greek Stage. The Theatricality of Greek Tragedy, Playing Space and Chorus, Chicago and London, U of Chicago P. ISBN 0-226-47757-6
40.
Aeneid
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The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter, the hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgils masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature, the Aeneid can be divided into two halves based on the disparate subject matter of Books 1–6 and Books 7–12. These two halves are commonly regarded as reflecting Virgils ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odysseys wandering theme and the Iliads warfare themes and this is, however, a rough correspondence, the limitations of which should be borne in mind. Virgil begins his poem with a statement of his theme and an invocation to the Muse and he then explains the reason for the principal conflict in the story, the resentment held by the goddess Juno against the Trojan people. This is consistent with her throughout the Homeric epics. Also in the manner of Homer, the story begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. The fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home and it has been foretold that in Italy, he will give rise to a race both noble and courageous, a race which will become known to all nations. Juno is wrathful, because she had not been chosen in the judgment of Paris, also, Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be the cup bearer to her husband, Jupiter—replacing Junos daughter, Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, and asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe, Aeolus does not accept the bribe, but agrees to carry out Junos orders, the storm then devastates the fleet. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas rouses the spirits of his men, There, Aeneass mother, Venus, in the form of a hunting woman very similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and recounts to him the history of Carthage. At a banquet given in honour of the Trojans, Aeneas sadly recounts the events that occasioned the Trojans arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the war described in the Iliad, Cunning Ulysses devised a way for Greek warriors to gain entry into the walled city of Troy by hiding in a large wooden horse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a warrior, Sinon, to inform the Trojans that the horse was an offering and that if it were taken into the city, the Trojans would be able to conquer Greece. The Trojan priest Laocoön saw through the Greek plot and urged the horses destruction, then, in what would be seen by the Trojans as punishment from the gods, two serpents emerged from the sea and devoured Laocoön, along with his two sons. The Trojans then took the horse inside the walls, and after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged from it. In a dream, Hector, the fallen Trojan prince, advised Aeneas to flee with his family, Aeneas awoke and saw with horror what was happening to his beloved city. At first he tried to fight the enemy, but soon he lost his comrades and was alone to fend off the Greeks
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Virgil
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Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature, the Eclogues, the Georgics, a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Romes greatest poets and his Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Virgils work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dantes Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through Hell, the tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists, modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his later biographers. Macrobius says that Virgils father was of a background, however. He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples, after considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. From Virgils admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, according to Servius, schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed Parthenias or maiden because of his social aloofness. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life, according to the Catalepton, he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples. A group of works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen poems, some of which may be Virgils, and another. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, the Eclogues are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. The loss of his farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgils motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues, the ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside,2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love and attraction toward people of any gender. Eclogue 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called Messianic Eclogue uses the imagery of the age in connection with the birth of a child. Virgil came to many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus. At Maecenas insistence Virgil spent the years on the long didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics which he dedicated to Maecenas
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Neoptolemus". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
