1.
Cetus (mythology)
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In Ancient Greek, the word kētos —Latinized as cetus —denotes a large fish, a whale, a shark, or a sea monster. The sea monsters slain by Perseus and Heracles were each referred to as a cetus by ancient sources, the term cetacean originates from cetus. In Greek art, cetea were depicted as serpentine fish, the name of the mythological figure Ceto is derived from ketos. The name of the constellation Cetus also derives from this word, when Queen Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids, this invoked the wrath of Poseidon who sent the sea monster Cetus to attack Æthiopia. Upon consulting an oracle, King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia were told to sacrifice Andromeda to Cetus. They had Andromeda chained to a rock near the ocean so that Cetus could devour her, Perseus found Andromeda chained to the rock and learned of her plight. When Cetus emerged from the ocean to devour Andromeda, Perseus managed to slay it, in one version, Perseus drove his sword into Cetus back. In another version, Perseus used Medusas head to turn Cetus to stone, the Cetus is commonly depicted as fishlike, serpentine, with a long muzzle. Alternate depictions may include long ears, horns and legs instead of flippers and it is often depicted fighting Perseus or as the mount of a Nereid. In Jonah 2,1, the Hebrew text reads dag gadol, the Septuagint translates this phrase into Greek as mega ketos. The term ketos alone means huge fish, and in Greek mythology the term was associated with sea monsters. Jerome later translated this phrase as piscis grandis in his Latin Vulgate, Cetus is commonly used as a ships name or figurehead denoting either a ship unafraid of the sea or a ruthless pirate ship to be feared. Cetus are also viewed as misfortune or bad omen by sailors, superstitious sailors believed in a cetus as the bringer of a great storm or misfortune on the ship. They associated it with lost cargo, the presence of pirates, or being swept off course, some scholars theorize that images of the Ketos in Central Asia influenced depictions of the Chinese Dragon and Indian makara. They suggest that after contact with silk-road images of the Ketos, the Chinese dragon appeared more reptilian and shifted head-shape
2.
Dragons in Greek mythology
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Dragons play a great role in Greek mythology. D. Typhon was the most fearsome monster of Greek mythology, the last son of Gaia, Typhon was, with his mate Echidna, the father of many other monsters. He is usually envisioned as humanoid from the waist up, serpentine below, ladon was the serpent-like drakon that twined round the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides and guarded the golden apples. Ladon was also said to have as many as one hundred heads and he was overcome and possibly slain by Heracles. The creature is associated with the constellation Draco, the Lernaean Hydra was a dragon-like water serpent with fatally venomous breath, blood and fangs, a daughter of Typhon and Echidna. The creature was said to have anywhere between five and 100 heads, although most sources put the number somewhere between seven and nine, for each head cut off, one or two more grew back in its place. It had a head which would remain alive after it was cut off. Some accounts claim that the head was made of gold. Hera sent a giant crab to distract Heracles, but he crushed it under his foot. Hera then placed it in the heavens as the constellation Cancer, after slaying the serpent, Heracles buried the immortal head under a rock and dipped his arrows in the creatures blood to make them fatal to his enemies. In one version, the arrows would eventually prove to be the undoing of his centaur tutor Chiron. In Greek mythology Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in the vase-paintings, various myths represented Python as being either male or female. Python was the enemy of Apollo, who slew it and remade its former home his own oracle. There are various versions of Pythons birth and death at the hands of Apollo, in the earliest, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, little detail is given about Apollos combat with the serpent or its parentage. The priestess of the oracle at Delphi became known as the Pythia, after the place-name Pytho and this immense serpent, a child of Typhon and Echidna, guarded the Golden Fleece at Colchis. It was said to never sleep, rest, or lower its vigilance, according to Ovids Metamorphoses, the monster had a crest and three tongues. When Jason went to retrieve the Fleece, the witch Medea put the dragon to sleep with her magic and drugs, afterwards, Medea herself had dragons pull her chariot. The Ismenian Serpent, of the spring of Ismene at Thebes and it was the offspring of Ares, who later turned the hero into a serpent
3.
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
4.
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
5.
Charybdis
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Charybdis was a sea monster, later rationalized as a whirlpool and considered a shipping hazard in the Strait of Messina. The sea monster Charybdis was believed to live under a rock on one side of a narrow channel. Opposite her was Scylla, another sea monster, that lived inside a larger rock. The sides of the strait were within an arrow-shot of each other, to be between Scylla and Charybdis therefore means to be presented with two opposite dangers, the task being to find a route that avoids both. Thrice a day, Charybdis swallowed a huge amount of water, before belching it back out again, in some variations of the story, Charybdis was simply a large whirlpool instead of a sea monster. A later myth makes Charybdis the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia and she aided him in his feud with her paternal uncle Zeus and, as such, helped him engulf lands and islands in water. Zeus, angry for the land she stole from him, cursed her into a bladder of a monster, with flippers for arms and legs. As such, she drank the water from the sea thrice a day to quench it and she lingered on a rock with Scylla facing her directly on another rock, making a strait. The theoretical size of Charybdis remains unknown, yet in order to consume Greek ships the whirlpool can be estimated to about 23 metres across, Charybdis has been associated with the Strait of Messina, off the coast of Sicily and opposite a rock on the mainland identified with Scylla. Were Charybdis to be located in the Strait of Messina it would in fact have the size to accommodate the whirlpool, a whirlpool does exist there, caused by currents meeting, but it is dangerous only to small craft in extreme conditions. Odysseus faced both Charybdis and Scylla while rowing through a narrow channel and he ordered his men to avoid Charybdis, thus forcing them to pass near Scylla, which resulted in the deaths of six of his men. Later, stranded on a raft, Odysseus was swept back through the strait and his raft was sucked into her maw, but he survived by clinging to a fig tree growing on a rock over her lair. On the next outflow of water, when his raft was expelled, Odysseus recovered it, the Argonauts were able to avoid both dangers because Hera ordered the Nereid nymph Thetis, Achilles mother, to guide them through the perilous passage. Aristotle mentions in his Meteorologica that Aesop once teased a ferryman by telling him a myth concerning Charybdis, with one gulp of the sea she brought the mountains to view, islands appeared after the next. The third is yet to come and will dry the sea altogether, HMS Charybdis Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Scylla and Charybdis
6.
Homer
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Homer is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which are the central works of Greek literature. The Odyssey focuses on the home of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. Many accounts of Homers life circulated in classical antiquity, the most widespread being that he was a bard from Ionia. The modern scholarly consensus is that these traditions do not have any historical value, the Homeric question - by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed - continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion on the authorship question falls into two camps, one group holds that most of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the work of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the crystallization of a process of working and re-working by many contributors and it is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century B. C. Most researchers believe that the poems were transmitted orally. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education, to Plato, the chronological period of Homer depends on the meaning to be assigned to the word Homer. Was Homer a single person, an imaginary person representing a group of poets and this information is often called the world of Homer. The Homeric period would in that cover a number of historical periods, especially the Mycenaean Age. Considered word-for-word, the texts as we know them are the product of the scholars of the last three centuries. Each edition of the Iliad or Odyssey is a different, as the editors rely on different manuscripts and fragments. The term accuracy reveals a belief in an original uniform text. The manuscripts of the work currently available date to no earlier than the 10th century. These are at the end of a missing thousand-year chain of copies made as each generation of manuscripts disintegrated or were lost or destroyed and these numerous manuscripts are so similar that a single original can be postulated. The time gap in the chain is bridged by the scholia, or notes, on the existing manuscripts, librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he had noticed a wide divergence in the works attributed to Homer, and was trying to restore a more authentic copy. He had collected several manuscripts, which he named, the Sinopic, the one he selected for correction was the koine, which Murray translates as the Vulgate. Aristarchus was known for his selection of material
7.
Odyssey
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The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the Odyssey is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature, the Iliad is the oldest. Scholars believe the Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the poem mainly focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed Odysseus has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of suitors, the Mnesteres or Proci. The Odyssey continues to be read in the Homeric Greek and translated into languages around the world. Many scholars believe the poem was composed in an oral tradition by an aoidos, perhaps a rhapsode. The details of the ancient oral performance and the conversion to a written work inspire continual debate among scholars. The Odyssey was written in a dialect of Greek—a literary amalgam of Aeolic Greek, Ionic Greek. Among the most noteworthy elements of the text are its non-linear plot, in the English language as well as many others, the word odyssey has come to refer to an epic voyage. The Odyssey has a lost sequel, the Telegony, which was not written by Homer and it was usually attributed in antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta. In one source, the Telegony was said to have stolen from Musaeus by either Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene. The Odyssey begins ten years after the end of the ten-year Trojan War, and Odysseus has still not returned home from the war. Odysseus protectress, the goddess Athena, requests to Zeus, king of the gods, to finally allow Odysseus to return home when Odysseus enemy, then, disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes, she visits Telemachus to urge him to search for news of his father. He offers her hospitality, they observe the suitors dining rowdily while the bard Phemius performs a poem for them. Penelope objects to Phemius theme, the Return from Troy, because it reminds her of her missing husband and that night Athena, disguised as Telemachus, finds a ship and crew for the true prince. The next morning, Telemachus calls an assembly of citizens of Ithaca to discuss what should be done with the suitors. Accompanied by Athena, he departs for the Greek mainland and the household of Nestor, most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy, now at home in Pylos
8.
Odysseus
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Odysseus, also known by the Latin name Ulysses, was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homers epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homers Iliad and other works in that same epic cycle. Husband of Penelope, father of Telemachus, and son of Laërtes and Anticlea, Odysseus is renowned for his brilliance, guile, and versatility and he is most famous for the Odyssey, ten eventful years he took to return home after the decade-long Trojan War. The name has several variants, in Greek the character was called Olysseus, Oulixeus, Oulixes, hence, there may originally have been two separate figures, one called something like Odysseus, the other something like Ulixes, who were combined into one complex personality. The etymology of the name is unknown, ancient authors linked the name to the Greek verbs odussomai to be wroth against, to hate, or to oduromai to lament, bewail. Homer in references and puns, relates it to various forms of this verb and it has also been suggested that the name is of non-Greek origin, probably not even Indo-European, with an unknown etymology, R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. In Book 19 of the Odyssey, where Odysseuss early childhood is recounted, Euryclea tries to guide him to naming the boy Polyaretos, for he has much been prayed for. Autolycus apparently in a sardonic mood, decided to give the child a name that would commemorate his own experience in life. Because I got odium upon myself before coming here, let the childs name be Odysseus to signify this. The pun was prophetic as well as commemorative, Odysseus often receives the patronymic epithet Laertiades, son of Laërtes. In the Iliad and Odyssey there are several epithets used to describe Odysseus and his name and stories were adopted into Etruscan religion under the name Uthuze. Hence, Odysseus was the great-grandson of the Olympian god Hermes, according to the Iliad and Odyssey, his father is Laertes and his mother Anticlea, although there was a non-Homeric tradition that Sisyphus was his true father. The rumor went that Laertes bought Odysseus from the conniving king, Odysseus is said to have a younger sister, Ctimene, who went to Same to be married and is mentioned by the swineherd Eumaeus, whom she grew up alongside, in Book 15 of the Odyssey. Homers Iliad and Odyssey portray Odysseus as a hero, but the Romans. In Virgils Aeneid, written between 29 and 19 BC, he is referred to as cruel Odysseus or deceitful Odysseus. Turnus, in Aeneid ix, reproaches the Trojan Ascanius with images of rugged, forthright Latin virtues, declaring, You shall not find the sons of Atreus here, nor need the frauds of sly Ulysses fear. While the Greeks admired his cunning and deceit, these qualities did not recommend themselves to the Romans, who possessed a rigid sense of honour. His attempts to avoid his sacred oath to defend Menelaus and Helen offended Roman notions of duty, the majority of sources for Odysseus pre-war exploits—principally the mythographers Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus—postdate Homer by many centuries
9.
Strait of Messina
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The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the western tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north with the Ionian Sea to the south, within the central Mediterranean. At its narrowest point, between Torre Faro and Villa San Giovanni, it measures 3.1 km in width, though near the town of Messina the width is some 5.1 km, the strait has strong tidal currents that create a unique marine ecosystem. A natural whirlpool in the portion of the strait has been linked to the Greek legend of Scylla. In some circumstances, the mirage of Fata Morgana can be observed when looking at Sicily from Calabria, with its bottleneck shape, it is also a compulsory point of transit of the migration of many bird species. In 1957, a 220 kV overhead power line was built across the Strait of Messina and its pylons are among the highest in the world. This power line has since replaced by a submarine power cable. Due to this form of more than 300 species are recorded in the area that is a major European hot spot for raptors with a record of 35.000 in a spring. Between them the Honey Buzzard and the Marsh Harrier are the most frequent, species like Bonellis Eagle and Egyptian Vulture are less frequent, in the coastal salt lakes of the Strait of Messina species like Glossy Ibis, Flamingos and Black-winged Stilt use to stop to rest. The site is also favorable to observe the storks, the monte Dinnammare and the other Peloritani mountains overlooking the Strait are a natural theater for the birdwatching of these spectacular flights. Due to the peculiar hydrogeological conditions the Strait of Messina has high levels of biodiversity, the strait is also an important point of migration of many species of fish in the Mediterranean Sea. There is also a service between Messina and Reggio Calabria. For decades, the possibility of building a bridge across the Messina Strait has been under discussion, in 2006, under Prime Minister Romano Prodi the project was cancelled. Supporters perceive the bridge as a huge job-creation scheme and a boost for tourism to the island, opponents see it as an ecological disaster, a structure at risk due to especially strong winds and earthquakes, and a boon for Sicilian and Calabrian organized crime. Berlusconi claimed in 2009 that work would be completed by 2016 although in February 2013, between Scylla and Charybdis Fabio Spadi The Bridge on the Strait of Messina, Lowering the Right of Innocent Passage. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 50,411 ff, from Rome to Sicily, Plane or Train. Expert Travel Advice, The New York Times, Feb.7,2008 The New York Times
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scylla and Charybdis". Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 519.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
