Juno (mythology)
Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. A daughter of Saturn, she is the wife of Jupiter and the mother of Mars, Vulcan and Juventas, she is the Roman equivalent of queen of the gods in Greek mythology. Her Etruscan counterpart was Uni, she was said to watch over the women of Rome; as the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman Empire, Juno was called Regina and was a member of the Capitoline Triad, centered on the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Juno's own warlike aspect among the Romans is apparent in her attire, she is shown armed and wearing a goatskin cloak. The traditional depiction of this warlike aspect was assimilated from the Greek goddess Athena, who bore a goatskin, or a goatskin shield, called the'aegis'; the name Juno was once thought to be connected to Iove as Diuno and Diove from *Diovona. At the beginning of the 20th century, a derivation was proposed from iuven-, through a syncopated form iūn-; this etymology became accepted after it was endorsed by Georg Wissowa.
Iuuen- is related to Latin aevum and Greek aion through a common Indo-European root referring to a concept of vital energy or "fertile time". The iuvenis is he. In some inscriptions Jupiter himself is called Iuuntus, one of the epithets of Jupiter is Ioviste, a superlative form of iuuen- meaning "the youngest". Iuventas, "Youth", was one of two deities who "refused" to leave the Capitol when the building of the new Temple of Capitoline Jove required the exauguration of deities who occupied the site. Juno is the equivalent to the Greek goddess for love and marriage. Juno is the Roman goddess of marriage. Ancient etymologies associated Juno's name with iuvare, "to aid, benefit", iuvenescere, "rejuvenate", sometimes connecting it to the renewal of the new and waxing moon implying the idea of a moon goddess. Juno's theology is one of the most complex and disputed issues in Roman religion. More than other major Roman deities, Juno held a large number of significant and diverse epithets and titles representing various aspects and roles of the goddess.
In accordance with her central role as a goddess of marriage, these included Cinxia. However, other epithets of Juno are less thematically linked. While her connection with the idea of vital force, fullness of vital energy, eternal youthfulness is now acknowledged, the multiplicity and complexity of her personality have given rise to various and sometimes irreconcilable interpretations among modern scholars. Juno is the divine protectress of the community, who shows both a sovereign and a fertility character associated with a military one, she was present in many towns of ancient Italy: at Lanuvium as Sespeis Mater Regina, Tibur, Veii as Regina, at Tibur and Falerii as Regina and Curitis and Norba as Lucina. She is attested at Praeneste, Ardea, Gabii. In five Latin towns a month was named after Juno. Outside Latium in Campania at Teanum she was Populona, in Umbria at Pisaurum Lucina, at Terventum in Samnium Regina, at Pisarum Regina Matrona, at Aesernia in Samnium Regina Populona. In Rome she was since the most ancient times named Lucina and Regina.
It is debated whether she was known as Curitis before the evocatio of the Juno of Falerii: this though seems probable. Other epithets of hers that were in use at Rome include Moneta and Caprotina, Fluonia or Fluviona, the last ones associated with the rites of purification and fertility of February, her various epithets thus show a complex of mutually interrelated functions that in the view of Georges Dumézil and Vsevolod Basanoff can be traced back to the Indoeuropean trifunctional ideology: as Regina and Moneta she is a sovereign deity, as Sespeis and Moneta she is an armed protectress, as Mater and Curitis she is a goddess of the fertility and wealth of the community in her association with the curiae. The epithet Lucina is revealing since it reflects two interrelated aspects of the function of Juno: cyclical renewal of time in the waning and waxing of the moon and protection of delivery and birth; the ancient called her Covella in her function of helper in the labours of the new moon. The view that she was a Moon goddess though is no longer accepted by scholars, as such a role belongs to Diana Lucifera: through her association with the moon she governed the feminine physiological functions, menstrual cycle and pregnancy: as a rule all lunar deities are deities of childbirth.
These aspects of Juno mark the worldly sides of her function. She is thus associated to all beginnings and hers are the kalendae of every month: at Laurentum she was known as Kalendaris Iuno. At Rome on the Kalends of every month the pontifex minor invoked her, under the epithet Covella, when from the curia Calabra announced the date of the nonae. On the same day the regina sacrorum sacrificed to Juno a white lamb in the Regia, she is associated with Janus, the god of passages and beginnings who after her is named Iunonius. Some scholars view this concentration of multiple functions
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter; the first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas's wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders and gods of Rome and Troy.
The Aeneid is regarded as Virgil's 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 regarded as reflecting Virgil's ambition to rival Homer by treating both the Odyssey's wandering theme and the Iliad's warfare themes. 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, falling some seven lines after the poem's inception, he 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 role throughout the Homeric epics. In the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res, with the Trojan fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy; the fleet, led by Aeneas, is on a voyage to find a second home. 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, because her favorite city, will be destroyed by Aeneas's descendants. Ganymede, a Trojan prince, was chosen to be the cupbearer to her husband, Jupiter—replacing Juno's daughter, Hebe. Juno proceeds to Aeolus, King of the Winds, asks that he release the winds to stir up a storm in exchange for a bribe. Aeolus agrees to carry out Juno's orders. Neptune takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, stills the winds and calms the waters, after making sure that the winds would not bother the Trojans again, lest they be punished more harshly than they were this time; the fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas rouses the spirits of his men, reassuring them that they have been through worse situations before. There, Aeneas's mother, Venus, in the form of a huntress similar to the goddess Diana, encourages him and recounts to him the history of Carthage.
Aeneas ventures into the city, in the temple of Juno he seeks and gains the favor of Dido, queen of the city. The city has only been founded by refugees from Tyre and will become a great imperial rival and enemy to Rome. Meanwhile, Venus has her own plans, she goes to her son, Aeneas's half-brother Cupid, tells him to imitate Ascanius. Disguised as such, Cupid offers the gifts expected from a guest. With Dido's motherly love revived as she cradles the boy during a banquet given in honour of the Trojans, Cupid secretly weakens her sworn fidelity to the soul of her late husband, murdered by her brother, Pygmalion. In books 2 and 3, Aeneas recounts the events, 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 mislead the Trojans into believing 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 horse's destruction, but his protests fell on deaf ears, so he hurled his spear at the horse. 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 took the horse inside the fortified walls, after nightfall the armed Greeks emerged from it, opening the city's gates to allow the returned Greek army to slaughter the Trojans. In a dream, the fallen Trojan prince, advised Aeneas to flee with his family. Aeneas 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 left alone to fend off the Greeks, he witnessed the murder of Priam by Achilles' son Pyrrhus. His mother, appeared to him and led him back to his house. Aeneas tells of his escape with his son, his wife Creusa, his father, after the occurrence
Alcyone of Thessaly
In Greek mythology, Alcyone or Alkyone was a Thessalian princess and on queen of Trachis. Alcyone was the daughter of King Aeolus of Aeolia, either by Aegiale, she married son of Eosphorus. Alcyone and Ceyx were happy together in Trachis, according to Pseudo-Apollodorus's account sacrilegiously called each other "Zeus" and "Hera"; this angered Zeus, so while Ceyx was at sea, the god threw a thunderbolt at his ship. Soon after, Morpheus disguised as Ceyx appeared to Alcyone as an apparition to tell her of his fate, she threw herself into the sea in her grief. Out of compassion, the gods changed them both into common kingfishers, or "halcyon birds", named after her. Ovid and Hyginus both recount the metamorphosis of the pair in and after Ceyx's loss in a terrible storm, though they both omit Ceyx and Alcyone calling each other Zeus and Hera as a reason for it. Ovid adds the detail of her seeing his body washed up onshore before her attempted suicide; the myth is briefly referred to by Virgil, again without reference to Zeus's anger.
Ovid and Hyginus both make the metamorphosis the origin of the etymology for "halcyon days", the seven days in winter when storms never occur. They state that these were the 14 days each year during which Alcyone laid her eggs and made her nest on the beach and during which her father Aeolus, god of the winds, restrained the winds and calmed the waves so she could do so in safety; the phrase has since come to refer to any peaceful time. Its proper meaning, however, is that of a lucky break, or a bright interval set in the midst of adversity; the English poet Robert Graves, in his The Greek Myths, explained the origin of Alcyone's myth as follows: Various kinds of kingfishers are named after the couple, in reference to the metamorphosis myth: The genus Ceyx is named after him The kingfisher family Halcyonidae is named after Alcyone, as is the genus Halcyon. The belted kingfisher's Latin species name references her name, their story features in The Book of the Duchess. Their story is the basis for the opera Alcyone by the French composer Marin Marais A collection of Canada's celebrated nature poet, Archibald Lampman, his final set of poetry published posthumously in 1899, highlights both Lampman's apocalyptic and utopian visions of the future.
TS Eliot draws from this myth in The Dry Salvages: "And the ragged rock in the restless waters,/Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it. Rick Riordan's The Demigod Files had a part called "The Diary of Luke Castellan" which mentions a similar character named Halcyon Green, the son of Apollo and is under "house arrest" for revealing to a woman her fate. Alcyone, one of the seven sisters Pleiades and the named after her brightest star in the Pleiades star cluster. Halcyon Hesiod, Catalogue of Women from Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica translated by Evelyn-White, H G. Loeb Classical Library Volume 57. London: William Heinemann, 1914. Online version at theio.com Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F. B. A. F. R. S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Greek text available from the same website. Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More. Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses. Hugo Magnus. Gotha. Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Publius Vergilius Maro, Bucolics and Georgics of Vergil. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed.. "Alcyone". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Images of Ceyx and Alcyone in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
Nyx
Nyx is the Greek goddess of the night. A shadowy figure, Nyx stood at or near the beginning of creation and mothered other personified deities such as Hypnos and Thanatos, with Erebus, her appearances are sparse in surviving mythology, but reveal her as a figure of such exceptional power and beauty that she is feared by Zeus himself. In Hesiod's Theogony, Nyx is born of Chaos. With Erebus, Nyx gives birth to Hemera. On her own, Nyx gives birth to Moros, the Keres, Hypnos, the Oneiroi, Oizys, the Hesperides, the Moirai, Apate, Philotes and Eris. In his description of Tartarus, Hesiod locates there the home of Nyx, the homes of her children Hypnos and Thanatos. Hesiod says further; this mirrors the portrayal of Ratri in the Rigveda, where she works in close cooperation but tension with her sister Ushas. At Iliad 14.249–61, the minor deity of sleep, reminds Hera of an old favor after she asks him to put Zeus to sleep. He had once before put Zeus to sleep at the bidding of Hera, allowing her to cause Heracles great misfortune.
Zeus was furious and would have smitten Hypnos into the sea if he had not fled to Nyx, his mother, in fear. Homer goes on to say that Zeus, fearing to anger Nyx, held his fury at bay and in this way Hypnos escaped the wrath of Zeus by appealing to his powerful mother, he disturbed Zeus only a few times after that always fearing Zeus and running back to his mother, who would have confronted Zeus with a maternal fury. Nyx took on an more important role in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus. In them, rather than Chaos, is the first principle from which all creation emerges. Nyx occupies a adyton, in which she gives oracles. Cronus –, chained within and drunk on honey – dreams and prophecizes. Outside the cave, Adrasteia clashes cymbals and beats upon her tympanon, moving the entire universe in an ecstatic dance to the rhythm of Nyx's chanting. Phanes – the strange, hermaphrodite Orphic demiurge – was the child or father of Nyx. Nyx is the first principle in the opening chorus of Aristophanes' The Birds, which may be Orphic in inspiration.
Here she is the mother of Eros. The theme of Nyx's cave or mansion, beyond the ocean or somewhere at the edge of the cosmos may be echoed in the philosophical poem of Parmenides; the classical scholar Walter Burkert has speculated that the house of the goddess to which the philosopher is transported is the palace of Nyx. In some accounts, the goddess of witchcraft, Hecate was called the daughter of Night. There was no known temple dedicated to Nyx, but statues are known to have been made of her and a few cult practices of her are mentioned. According to Pausanias, she had an oracle on the acropolis at Megara. Pausanias wrote: When you have ascended the citadel, which at the present day is called Karia from Kar, son of Phoroneus, you see a temple of Dionysos Nyktelios, a sanctuary built to Aphrodite Epistrophia, an oracle called that of Nyx and a temple of Zeus Konios without a roof. More Nyx was worshipped in the background of other cults, thus there was a statue called "Night" in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
The Spartans had a cult of Death, conceived of as twins. Cult titles composed of compounds of nyx- are attested for several deities, most notably Dionysus Nyktelios "nocturnal" and Aphrodite Philopannyx "who loves the whole night". Roman authors wrote hymns in her honor. Ovid wrote: "May 9 Lemuria Nefastus. You ancient rite will be performed, Nox Lemuria. Shall this house throughout the circling periods of the year hold thee high in honour and in worship, and Vulcanus' fire shall eat the lustral entrails, where-o'er the new milk streams. In 1997, the International Astronomical Union approved the name Nyx for a mons feature on the planet Venus. Nyx Mons is located at longitude 48.5 ° East on the Venusian surface. Its diameter is 875 km. On June 21, 2006, the International Astronomical Union renamed one of Pluto's discovered moons Nix, in honor of Nyx; the name was spelled with an "i" instead of a "y". Aristophanes, Birds; the Complete Greek Drama. Vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House. 1938. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Aristophanes, Aristophanes Comoediae edited by F. W. Hall and W. M. Geldart, vol. 2. F. W. Hall and W. M. Geldart. Oxford. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1907. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9, ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3. Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. "Nyx" p. 314 Hesiod, Theogony from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Camb
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the other Homeric epic; the Odyssey is fundamental to the modern Western canon. Scholars believe the Odyssey was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia; the poem focuses on the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, 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, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres or Proci, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage; the Odyssey continues to be read in the Homeric Greek and translated into modern languages around the world. Many scholars believe the original poem was composed in an oral tradition by an aoidos a rhapsode, was more intended to be heard than read; the details of the ancient oral performance and the story's conversion to a written work inspire continual debate among scholars.
The Odyssey was written in a poetic dialect of Greek—a literary amalgam of Aeolic Greek, Ionic Greek, other Ancient Greek dialects—and comprises 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter. Among the most noteworthy elements of the text are its non-linear plot, the influence on events of choices made by women and slaves, besides the actions of fighting men. 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, not written by Homer. It was attributed in antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta. In one source, the Telegony was said to have been stolen from Musaeus of Athens by either Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene; the Odyssey begins after the end of the ten-year Trojan War, Odysseus has still not returned home from the war because he angered the god Poseidon. Odysseus' son Telemachus is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father's house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and a crowd of 108 boisterous young men, "the Suitors", whose aim is to persuade Penelope to marry one of them, all the while reveling in Odysseus' palace and eating up his wealth.
Odysseus' protectress, the goddess Athena, requests to Zeus, king of the gods, to allow Odysseus to return home when Odysseus' enemy, the god of the sea Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus to accept a sacrifice in Ethiopia. Disguised as a Taphian chieftain named Mentes, she visits Telemachus to urge him to search for news of his father, he offers her hospitality. Penelope objects to Phemius' theme, the "Return from Troy", because it reminds her of her missing husband, but Telemachus rebuts her objections, asserting his role as head of the household; that night Athena, disguised as Telemachus, finds a 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. Telemachus is scoffed by the insolent suitors by their leaders Antinous and Leiocritus. Accompanied by Athena, he departs for the Greek mainland and the household of Nestor, most venerable of the Greek warriors at Troy, who resided in Pylos after the war.
From there, Telemachus rides overland, accompanied by Nestor's son Peisistratus, to Sparta, where he finds Menelaus and Helen, who are now reconciled. While Helen laments the fit of lust brought on by Aphrodite that sent her to Troy with Paris, Menelaus recounts how she betrayed the Greeks by attempting to imitate the voices of the soldiers' wives while they were inside the Trojan Horse. Telemachus hears from Helen, the first to recognize him, that she pities him because Odysseus was not there for him in his childhood because he went to Troy to fight for her and about his exploit of stealing the Palladium, or the Luck of Troy, where she was the only one to recognize him. Menelaus, meanwhile praises Odysseus as an irreproachable comrade and friend, lamenting the fact that they were not only unable to return together from Troy but that Odysseus is yet to return. Both Helen and Menelaus say that they returned to Sparta after a long voyage by way of Egypt. There, on the island of Pharos, Menelaus encountered the old sea-god Proteus, who told him that Odysseus was a captive of the nymph Calypso.
Incidentally, Telemachus learns the fate of Menelaus' brother Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks at Troy: he was murdered on his return home by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. The story shifts to the suitors, who have only just now realized that Telemachus is gone. Angry, they kill him as he sails back home. Penelope overhears their plot and worries for her son's safety; the second part recounts the story of Odysseus. In the course of his seven years in captivity of Calypso on the island of Ogygia, she has fallen in love with him though he has spurned her offer of immortality as her husband and still mourns for home, she is ordered to release him by the messenger god Hermes, sent by Zeus in response to Athena's plea. Odysseus builds a raft and is given clothing and drink by Calypso; when Poseidon learns that Odysseus has escaped, he wrecks the raft but, helped by a veil given by the sea nymph Ino, Odysseus swims asho
Oceanus
Oceanus known as Ogenus or Ogen, was a divine figure in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the divine personification of the sea, an enormous river encircling the world. R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek proto-form *-kay-an-. In contrast, Michael Janda has reminded the scientific community of an earlier comparison of the Vedic dragon Vṛtra's attribute āśáyāna- "lying on " and Greek Ὠκεανός, which he sees as phonetical equivalents of each other, both stemming from a Proto-Indo-European root *ō-kei-ṃno- "lying on", related to Greek κεῖσθαι. Janda furthermore points to early depictions of Okeanos with a snake's body, which seem to confirm the mythological parallel with the Vedic dragon Vṛtra. Another parallel naming can be found in Greek ποταμός and Old English fæðm "embrace, fathom", notably attested in the Old English poem Helena as dracan fæðme "embrace of the dragon" and is furthermore related to Old Norse Faðmir or Fáfnir the well-known name of a dragon in the 13th century Völsunga saga.
According to Homer, Oceanus was the ocean-stream at the margin of the habitable world, the father of everything, limiting it from the underworld and flowing around the Elysium. Hence Odysseus has to traverse it. In the Iliad, Hera mentions her intended journey to her foster parents, namely "Oceanus, from whom they all are sprung": Helios rises from the deep-flowing Oceanus in the east and at the end of the day sinks back into the Oceanus in the west; the other stars "bathe in the stream of Ocean". Oceanus is called βαθύρροος and ἀψόρροος, the latter quality being reflected in its depiction on the shield of Achilles: In Greek mythology, this ocean-stream was personified as a Titan, the eldest son of Uranus and Gaia. Oceanus' consort is his sister Tethys, from their union came the ocean nymphs referred to as the three-thousand Oceanids, all the rivers of the world and lakes. In most variations of the war between the Titans and the Olympians, or Titanomachy, along with Prometheus and Themis, did not take the side of his fellow Titans against the Olympians, but instead withdrew from the conflict.
In most variations of this myth, Oceanus refused to side with Cronus in the latter's revolt against their father, Uranus. He is, it appears, some sort of an outlaw to the society of Gods, as he does not—and unlike all the other river gods, his sons—take part in the convention of gods on Mount Olympus. Besides, Oceanus appears as a representative of the archaic world that Heracles threatened and bested; as such, the Suda identifies Oceanus and Tethys as the parents of the two Kerkopes, whom Heracles bested. Heracles forced Helios to lend him his golden bowl, in order to cross the wide expanse of the Ocean on his trip to the Hesperides; when Oceanus tossed the bowl about, Heracles stilled his waves. The journey of Heracles in the sun-bowl upon Oceanus became a favored theme among painters of Attic pottery. In Hellenistic and Roman mosaics, this Titan was depicted as having the upper body of a muscular man with a long beard and horns and the lower body of a serpent. On a fragmentary archaic vessel of circa 580 BC, among the gods arriving at the wedding of Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, is a fish-tailed Oceanus, with a fish in one hand and a serpent in the other, gifts of bounty and prophecy.
In Roman mosaics, such as that from Bardo, he might cradle a ship. Oceanus appears in Hellenic cosmography as well as myth. Both Homer and Hesiod refer to Okeanós Potamós, the "Ocean Stream"; when Odysseus and Nestor walk together along the shore of the sounding sea they address their prayers "to the great Sea-god who girdles the world". Cartographers continued to represent the encircling equatorial stream much as it had appeared on Achilles' shield. Herodotus was skeptical about the physical existence of Oceanus and rejected the reasoning—proposed by some of his coevals—according to which the uncommon phenomenon of the summerly Nile flood was caused by the river's connection to the mighty Oceanus. Speaking about the Oceanus myth itself he declared: As for the writer who attributes the phenomenon to the ocean, his account is involved in such obscurity that it is impossible to disprove it by argument. For my part I know of no river called Ocean, I think that Homer, or one of the earlier poets, invented the name, introduced it into his poetry.
Some scholars believe that Oceanus represented all bodies of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks. However, as geography became more accurate, Oceanus came to represent the stranger, more unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean, while the newcomer of a generation, ruled over the Mediterranean Sea. Late attestations for an equation with the Black Sea abound, the cause being – as it appears – Odysseus' travel to the Cimmerians whose fatherland, lying beyond the Oceanus, is described as a country divested from sunlight. In the fourth century BC, Hecataeus of Abdera writes that the Oceanus of the Hyperboreans is neither the Arctic nor Western Ocea
Thanatos
In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology referred to but appearing in person, his name is transliterated in Latin as Thanatus, but his equivalent in Roman mythology is Mors or Letum. Mors is sometimes erroneously identified with Orcus, whose Greek equivalent was Horkos, God of the Oath; the Greek poet Hesiod established in his Theogony that Thánatos is a son of Nyx and Erebos and twin of Hypnos. Homer confirmed Hypnos and Thanatos as twin brothers in his epic poem, the Iliad, where they were charged by Zeus via Apollo with the swift delivery of the slain hero Sarpedon to his homeland of Lycia. "Then gave him into the charge of swift messengers to carry him, of Hypnos and Thanatos, who are twin brothers, these two presently laid him down within the rich countryside of broad Lycia." Counted among Thanatos' siblings were other negative personifications such as Geras, Moros, Momus, Eris and the Acherousian/Stygian boatman Charon. Thanatos was loosely associated with the three Moirai Atropos, a goddess of death in her own right.
He is occasionally specified as being exclusive to peaceful death, while the bloodthirsty Keres embodied violent death. His duties as a Guide of the Dead were sometimes superseded by Hermes Psychopompos. Conversely, Thanatos may have originated as a mere aspect of Hermes before becoming distinct from him; the god's character is established by Hesiod in the following passage of the Theogony: And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven, and the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea's broad back and is kindly to men. Thanatos was thus regarded as merciless and indiscriminate, hated by – and hateful towards — mortals and gods alike, but in myths which feature him, Thanatos could be outwitted, a feat that the sly King Sisyphus of Korinth twice accomplished. When it came time for Sisyphus to die, Zeus ordered Thanatos to chain Sisyphus up in Tartarus.
Sisyphus cheated death by tricking Thanatos into his own shackles, thereby prohibiting the demise of any mortal while Thanatos was so enchained. Ares, the bloodthirsty god of war, grew frustrated with the battles he incited since neither side suffered any casualties, he handed his captor over to the god. Sisyphus would evade Death a second time by convincing Persephone to allow him to return to his wife stating that she never gave him a proper funeral; this time, Sisyphus was forcefully dragged back to the Underworld by Hermes when Sisyphus refused to accept his death. Sisyphus was sentenced to an eternity of frustration in Tartarus where he rolled a boulder up a hill and it would roll back down when he got close to the top. A fragment of Alcaeus, a Greek lyric poet of the 6th century BC, refers to this episode: "King Sisyphos, son of Aiolos, wisest of men, supposed that he was master of Thanatos. Sisyphus, son of Aiolos was a more than mortal figure: for mortals Thanatos presents an inexorable fate, but he was only once overpowered, by the mythical hero Heracles.
Thanatos was consigned to take the soul of Alkestis, who had offered her life in exchange for the continued life of her husband, King Admetos of Pherai. Heracles was an honored guest in the House of Admetos at the time, he offered to repay the king's hospitality by contending with Death itself for Alkestis' life; when Thanatos ascended from Hades to claim Alkestis, Heracles sprung upon the god and overpowered him, winning the right to have Alkestis revived. Thanatos cheated of his quarry. Euripides, in Alcestis: "Thanatos: Much talk. Talking will win you nothing. All the same, the woman goes with me to Hades' house. I go to take her now, dedicate her with my sword, for all whose hair is cut in consecration by this blade's edge are devoted to the gods below." An Orphic Hymn that invoked Thanatos, here given in late 18th century translation: "To Death, Fumigation from Manna. Hear me, O Death, whose empire unconfin'd extends to mortal tribes of ev'ry kind. On thee, the portion of our time depends. Thy sleep perpetual bursts the vivid folds by which the soul, attracting body holds: common to all, of ev'ry sex and age, for nought escapes thy all-destructive rage.
Not youth itself thy clemency can gain and strong, by thee untimely slain. In thee the end of nature's works is known, in thee. No suppliant arts thy dreadful rage controul. O blessed power, regard my ardent prayer, human life to age abundant spare." In eras, as the transition from life to death in Elysium became a more attractive option, Thanatos came to be seen as a beautiful Ephebe. He became associated more with a gentle passing than a woeful demise. Many Roman sarcophagi depict him as a winged boy much akin to Cupid: "Eros with crossed legs and torch reversed became the commonest of all symbols for Death", observes Arthur Bernard Cook. Thanatos has been portrayed as a slumbering infant in the arms of his mother Nyx, or as a youth c
