1.
Telamon
–
In the Iliad he was the father of Greek heroes Ajax the Great and Teucer the Archer by different mothers. Some accounts mention a son of his, Trambelus. He and Peleus were also friends of Heracles, assisting him on his expeditions against the Amazons. In an earlier account recorded by Pherecydes of Leros, Telamon and Peleus were not brothers and this would accord with Peleus being the father of the other hero Achilles. After killing their half-brother, Phocus, Telamon and Peleus had to leave Aegina, King Cychreus of Salamis welcomed Telamon and befriended him. Telamon married Cychreus daughter Periboea, who gave birth to Ajax, later, Cychreus gave Telamon his kingdom. In other versions of the myth Cychreus daughter is named Glauce, and Periboea is Telamons second wife, Telamon also figures in both versions of Heracles sacking of Troy, which was ruled by King Laomedon. Before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy, in the King Tros version, Heracles agreed to kill the monster if Tros would give him the horses he received from Zeus as compensation for Zeus kidnapping Ganymede, Tros son. Tros agreed, Heracles succeeded and Telamon married Hesione, Tros daughter, in the King Laomedon version, Laomedon planned on sacrificing his daughter Hesione to Poseidon in the hope of appeasing him. Telamon took Hesione as a war prize and married her, due to Ajax committing suicide at Troy, Telamon banished Teucer from Salamis for not bringing his brother home. In Apollodorus Library, Telamon was almost killed during the siege of Troy, Telamon was the first one to break through the Trojan wall, which enraged Hercules as he was coveting that glory for himself. Hercules was about to cut him down with his sword when Telamon began to 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. Podarces name was changed to Priam – which, according to Greek author Apollodorus, was derived from the Greek phrase “to buy”. The Telamon is an ancient Greek song only found referred to by name in some ancient Greek plays and it is usually thought to be a warlike song about Telamons son Ajax, though some other commentaries thought it to be a mournful song about Telamon himself. It began with, Son of Telamon, warlike Ajax and they say you are the bravest of the Grecians who came to Troy, next to Achilles. In architecture telamons are colossal male figures used as columns and these are also called atlas, atlantes or atlantids, they are the male versions of caryatids
Telamon
–
Architectural
Telamon on the
Wayne County, Ohio courthouse.
Telamon
–
Telemon on left of entrance to
Palazzo Davia Bargellini,
Bologna
2.
Salamis Island
–
Salamis, is the largest Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, about 1 nautical mile off-coast from Piraeus and about 16 kilometres west of Athens. The chief city, Salamina, lies in the core of the crescent on Salamis Bay. On the Eastern side of the island is its port, Paloukia, in size second in Greece only to Piraeus. The traditional etymology of Salamis derives it from the eponymous nymph Salamis, the mother of Cychreus, a more modern theory considers Salamis to come from the root sal salt and -amis middle, thus Salamis would be the place amid salt water. Some scholars connect it to the Semitic root Š-L-M health, safety, peace, from at least the 13th century until the 19th century, the town, the island, and the bay of Salamis were called Koulouri, presumably because it was round like the bread called koulouri. The ancient name was revived in the 19th century, the name Koulouri is still used informally for the town. Salamis is mentioned in Homers writings, according to Homers Iliad, Salamis took part in the Trojan War with twelve ships under the leadership of Ajax. Salamis island is known for the Battle of Salamis, the naval victory of the allied Greek fleet, led by Themistocles. It is said to be the birthplace of Ajax and Euripides, in modern times, it is home to Salamis Naval Base, headquarters for the Hellenic Navy. The oldest known counting board was discovered on Salamis Island in 1899 and it is thought to have been used by the Babylonians in about 300 BC and is more of a gaming board rather than a calculating device. It is marble, about 150 x 75 x 4.5 cm, during the German invasion of Greece in World War II, the harbor was bombed by the Luftwaffe on April 23,1941, sinking the Greek battleships Kilkis and Lemnos. In the 1960s and 1970s, during the military junta period and this opened the island to massive unplanned and unregulated urban and suburban development, including many weekend homes, especially along the northern and eastern coasts. The lack of corresponding investment in infrastructure, combined with industry, has led to sea. There are, however, ongoing initiatives such as help from the European Union’s Cohesion Fund toward improving sewerage by 2008, Salamis has an area of 36 square miles, its highest point is Mavrovouni at 1,325 feet. A significant part of Salamis Island is rocky and mountainous, on the southern part of the island a pine forest is located, which is unusual for western Attica. Unfortunately, this forest is often a target for fires, while the inland inhabitants are mainly employed within the agricultural sector, the majority of Salamis inhabitants work in maritime occupations or commute to work in Athens. Salamis Island is very popular for holiday and weekend visits from the Athens and Piraeus area and this supports a strong service industry sector, with many cafes, bars, ouzeries, tavernas and consumer goods shops throughout the island. Salamis Island belongs to the Islands regional unit of the Attica region, since the 2011 local government reform the island is administered as one municipality
Salamis Island
–
View of Salamina
Salamis Island
–
Coin of Salamis, 339–318 BC. Obverse: Female head. Reverse:
Boeotian shield (shield of
Ajax) and sword in sheath
Salamis Island
–
Salamis Naval Base
Salamis Island
–
Batsi beach
3.
Greek mythology
–
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
Greek mythology
–
Bust of
Zeus,
Otricoli (Sala Rotonda,
Museo Pio-Clementino,
Vatican).
Greek mythology
–
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology
–
Prometheus (1868 by
Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus first was attested by
Hesiod and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of
Prometheus Bound,
Prometheus Unbound, and
Prometheus Pyrphoros.
Greek mythology
–
The Roman poet
Virgil, here depicted in the fifth-century manuscript, the
Vergilius Romanus, preserved details of Greek mythology in many of his writings.
4.
Scamander
–
Scamander /skəˈmændər/ is the name of a river god in Greek mythology. According to Hesiod, he is the son of Oceanus and Tethys and he is alternately described as a son of Zeus. He was the father of King Teucer, whose mother was the water nymph Idaea and he was also mentioned as the father of Glaucia. Scamander fought on the side of the Trojans during the Trojan War, Scamander was also said to have attempted to kill Achilles three times, and the hero was only saved due to the intervention of Hera, Athena and Hephaestus. In this context, he is the personification of the Scamander River that flowed from Mount Ida across the plain beneath the city of Troy, joining the Hellespont north of the city. The Achaeans, according to Homer, had set up their camp near its mouth, in Iliad XXII, Homer states that the river had two springs, one produced warm water, the other yielded cold water, regardless of the season. According to Homer, he was called Xanthos by gods and Scamander by men, which indicate that the former name refers to the god
Scamander
–
Water, or the Fight of Achilles against Scamander and Simoeis by
Auguste Couder, 1819.
5.
William Hamo Thornycroft
–
Sir William Hamo Thornycroft RA was an English sculptor, responsible for some of London’s best known statues. He was a student of classical sculpture and became one of the youngest members of the Royal Academy. Hamo Thornycroft belonged to the Thornycroft family of sculptors and his father, Thomas, mother Mary, and grandfather John Francis were all distinguished sculptors. Hamos early training was with his parents and he developed a passionate and he subsequently studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, where his primary influence was the painter-sculptor Frederic Leighton. Hamo won the Gold Medal of the Royal Academy in 1876 and he was the leading figure in the movement known as the New Sculpture. His close personal friend, the critic Edmund Gosse, coined the term The New Sculpture in 1894, Thornycroft created a series of statues in the ideal genre in the late 1870s and early 1880s that sought to reanimate the format of the classical statue. These included Lots Wife, Artemis and her Hound, the Homeric bowman Teucer, after 1884, Thornycrofts reputation was secure and he received commissions for a number of major monuments, most notably the innovative General Gordon. Thornycroft continued to be a member of the sculptural establishment. He became increasingly resistant to new developments in sculpture, although his work of the early 1880s helped to catalyze sculpture in the United Kingdom towards those new directions. In sum, he provided an important transition between the neoclassical and academic styles of the 19th century and its fin-de-siècle and modernist departures, a blue plaque commemorates Thornycroft at 2b Melbury Road, Kensington, his studio designed by lifelong friend John Belcher, c.1892. New Haven, Yale University Press,1983, the Alliance of Sculpture and Architecture. Body Doubles, Sculpture in Britain, 1877–1905, New Haven and London, Yale University Press,2004. Our Living Artists, Hamo Thornycroft, A. R. A, magazine of Art,1881, pp. 328–32. Marble and Bronze, The Art and Life of Hamo Thornycroft, New Haven, Yale University Press,1982. Hamo Thornycroft and the Martyr General, lecture to the Sculpture Students of the Royal Academy of Art,1885 reprinted in the Journal of the Walpole Society, vol. Portraits of Hamo Thornycroft at the National Portrait Gallery, London
William Hamo Thornycroft
–
Sir Hamo Thornycroft, c. 1880
William Hamo Thornycroft
–
Lot's Wife by Sir Hamo Thornycroft, 1877, Victoria & Albert Museum
William Hamo Thornycroft
–
Alfred Lord Tennyson by Thornycroft (
Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge)
William Hamo Thornycroft
–
Blue plaque, 2a Melbury Road, London
6.
Greek language
–
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
Greek language
–
Idealized portrayal of
Homer
Greek language
–
regions where Greek is the official language
Greek language
–
Greek language road sign, A27 Motorway, Greece
7.
Hesione
–
In Greek mythology and later art, the name Hesione /hᵻˈsaɪ. əniː/ refers to various mythological figures, of whom the Trojan princess Hesione is most known. According to the Bibliotheca, the most prominent Hesione was a Trojan princess, daughter of King Laomedon of Troy, sister of Priam, the first notable myth Hesione is cited in is that of Hercules, who saves her from a sea monster. However, her role becomes significant many years later when she is described as a trigger of the Trojan War. Apollo and Poseidon were angry at King Laomedon because he refused to pay the wage he promised them for building Troys walls, apollo sent a plague and Poseidon a sea monster to destroy Troy. Oracles promised deliverance if Laomedon would expose his daughter Hesione to be devoured by the sea monster, Heracles, Telamon and Oicles happened to arrive on their return from the expedition against the Amazons. Seeing her exposed, Heracles promised to save her on condition that Laomedon would give him the horses he had received from Zeus as compensation for Zeus kidnapping of Ganymede. Laomedon agreed, and Heracles slew the monster, in some accounts, after being swallowed by it, he hacked at its innards for three days before it died. He emerged, having lost all his hair, however, Laomedon refused to give him the promised award. In a later expedition, Heracles attacked Troy, slew Laomedon and all of Laomedons sons except the youngest, Heracles gave Laomedons daughter Hesione as a prize to Telamon instead of keeping her for himself. He allowed her to take with her any captives that she wished, Heracles allowed her to ransom him in exchange for her veil. Therefore, Podarces henceforth became known as Priam, from ancient Greek πρίασθαι priasthai, Heracles then bestowed the government of Troy on Priam. However, it is claimed that Priam simply happened to be absent campaigning in Phrygia during Heracles attack on Troy. Hesione was taken home by Telamon, married him and bore him a son, Teucros, half-brother to Telamons son from his first marriage, Ajax. Alternatively, she became pregnant with Trambelus while still on board the ship and then escaped, it is possible, though, that the mother of Trambelus was not Hesione. Many years later, when Hesione was an old woman, Priam sent Antenor and Anchises to Greece to demand Hesiones return, Priam then sent Paris and Aeneas to retrieve her, but Paris got sidetracked and instead brought back Helen, queen of Sparta and wife of Menelaus. Priam was ultimately willing to accept the abduction of Helen, due to the Greeks refusal to return Hesione, according to the 6th century BC mythographer Acusilaus, Hesione was the daughter of Oceanus, the wife of Prometheus and the mother of Deucalion. That she was a daughter of Oceanus and wife of Prometheus, is repeated in Aeschylus Prometheus Bound. Various sources give other names for Deucalions mother
Hesione
–
Heracles saves Hesione; 15th-century miniature
Hesione
–
For the opera on the subject by André Campra, see
Hésione. For ships named Hesione, see
SS Hesione.
8.
Laomedon
–
Tithonus is also described by most sources as Laomedons eldest legitimate son, and most sources omit Ganymedes from the list of Laomedons children, but indicate him as his uncle instead. Laomedons possible wives are Placia, Strymo and Leucippe, by the former he begot Tithonus and he also had a son named Bucolion by the nymph Calybe, as recounted by Homer in the Iliad. Dictys Cretensis added Thymoetes to the list of Laomedons children, Laomedon owned several horses with divine parentage that Zeus had given Tros as compensation for the kidnapping of Ganymedes. Anchises secretly bred his own mares from these horses, according to one story, Laomedons son, Ganymedes, was kidnapped by Zeus, who had fallen in love with the beautiful boy. Sympathetic, Zeus sent Hermes with two horses so swift they could run over water, Hermes also assured Laomedon that Ganymedes was immortal and would be the cupbearer for the gods, a position of much distinction. However, Ganymedes is more usually described as a son of Tros, Laomedon himself was son of Ilus, son of Tros. Poseidon and Apollo, having offended Zeus, were sent to serve King Laomedon and he had them build huge walls around the city and promised to reward them well, a promise he then refused to fulfill. In vengeance, before the Trojan War, Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack Troy, Laomedon planned on sacrificing his daughter Hesione to Poseidon in the hope of appeasing him. Heracles rescued her at the last minute and killed the monster, telamon took Hesione as a war prize and married her, they had a son called Teucer. Apollodorus and Hyginus Apollodorus Library and Hyginus Fabulae, Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, R. Scott Smith and Stephen Trzaskoma
Laomedon
–
Heracles about to kill Laomedon, terra sigillata flask from Southern Gaul, late 1st century–early 2nd century AD
9.
Troy
–
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
Troy
–
The walls of the
acropolis belong to Troy VII, which is identified as the site of the
Trojan War (c. 1200 BC).
Troy
–
Silver
tetradrachm from Troy with head of
Athena, c. 165–150 BC
Troy
–
The
odeon dates to the
Roman Troy IX and was renovated by
Hadrian in 124 AD.
Troy
–
The view from
Hisarlık across the plain of Ilium to the
Aegean Sea.
10.
Ajax (mythology)
–
Ajax or Aias is a mythological Greek hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer. He plays an important role, and is portrayed as a figure and a warrior of great courage in Homers Iliad and in the Epic Cycle. He is also referred to as Telamonian Ajax, Greater Ajax, or Ajax the Great, in Etruscan mythology, he is known as Aivas Tlamunus. Ajax is the son of Telamon, who was the son of Aeacus and grandson of Zeus and he is the cousin of Achilles, and is the elder half-brother of Teucer. Many illustrious Athenians, including Cimon, Miltiades, Alcibiades and the historian Thucydides, the Italian scholar Maggiani recently showed that on an Etruscan tomb dedicated to Racvi Satlnei in Bologna there is a writing that says, aivastelmunsl = family of Telamonian Ajax. In Homers Iliad he is described as of great stature, colossal frame, known as the bulwark of the Achaeans, he was trained by the centaur Chiron, at the same time as Achilles. He was described as fearless, strong and powerful but also with a high level of combat intelligence. Ajax commands his army wielding a shield made of seven cow-hides with a layer of bronze. Unlike Diomedes and Achilles, Ajax appears as a mainly defensive warrior, instrumental in the defence of the Greek camp and ships, when the Trojans are on the offensive, he is often seen covering the retreat of the Achaeans. Significantly, while one of the deadliest heroes in the whole poem, in the Iliad, Ajax is notable for his abundant strength and courage, seen particularly in two fights with Hector. In Book 7, Ajax is chosen by lot to meet Hector in a duel which lasts most of a whole day, the second fight between Ajax and Hector occurs when the latter breaks into the Mycenaean camp, and fights with the Greeks among the ships. In Book 14, Ajax throws a giant rock at Hector which almost kills him, in Book 15, Hector is restored to his strength by Apollo and returns to attack the ships. Ajax, wielding a spear as a weapon and leaping from ship to ship. In Book 16, Hector and Ajax duel once again, Hector then disarms Ajax and Ajax is forced to retreat, seeing that Zeus is clearly favoring Hector. Hector and the Trojans succeed in burning one Greek ship, the culmination of an assault that almost finishes the war, Ajax is responsible for the death of many Trojans lords, including Phorcys. Ajax often fought in tandem with his brother Teucer, known for his skill with the bow, Ajax would wield his magnificent shield, as Teucer stood behind picking off enemy Trojans. Achilles was absent during these encounters because of his feud with Agamemnon, in Book 9, Agamemnon and the other Mycenaean chiefs send Ajax, Odysseus and Phoenix to the tent of Achilles in an attempt to reconcile with the great warrior and induce him to return to the fight. Although Ajax speaks earnestly and is received, he does not succeed in convincing Achilles
Ajax (mythology)
–
Achilles and Ajax play a board game with
knucklebones on this late 6th-century
lekythos, a type of oil-storing vessel associated with funeral rites
Ajax (mythology)
–
Sorrowful Ajax (Asmus Jacob Carstens, ca. 1791)
Ajax (mythology)
–
A Black-figure Amphora with Ajax Carrying the Dead
Achilles.
Walters Art Museum,
Baltimore.
Ajax (mythology)
–
The suicide of Ajax
11.
Trojan War
–
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
Trojan War
–
Achilles tending the wounded
Patroclus (
Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
Trojan War
–
The Burning of Troy (1759/62),
oil painting by Johann Georg Trautmann
Trojan War
–
The Judgment of Paris (1904) by
Enrique Simonet
Trojan War
–
Thetis gives her son Achilles weapons forged by Hephaestus (detail of Attic
black-figure hydria, 575–550 BC)
12.
Salamis, Cyprus
–
Salamis is an ancient Greek city-state on the east coast of Cyprus, at the mouth of the river Pedieos,6 km north of modern Famagusta. According to tradition, the founder of Salamis was Teucer, son of Telamon, the earliest archaeological finds go back to the eleventh century BC. Childrens burials in Canaanite jars indicate a Phoenician presence, a harbour and a cemetery from this period have been excavated. The town is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions as one of the kingdoms of Iadnana, in 877 an Assyrian army reached the Mediterranean shores for the first time. In 708 the city-kings of Cyprus paid homage to Sargon II of Assyria, the first coins were minted in the 6th century BC, following Persian prototypes. Cyprus was under the control of the Assyrians at this time and this allowed the kings of the various cities to accumulate wealth and power. Certain burial customs observed in the tombs of Salamis relate directly to Homeric rites, such as the sacrifice of horses in honor of the dead. Some scholars have interpreted this phenomenon as the result of influence of the Homeric Epics in Cyprus, most of the grave goods come from the Levant or Egypt. According to the myth, the founder of Salamis is said to be Teucer, son of Telamon. There is otherwise little direct evidence to support the foundation myth, in the 11th century BC, the town was confined to a rather small area around the harbour but soon expanded westwards to occupy the area, which today is covered by forest. It contains tombs dating from the 9th century BC down to the Early Christian period, the earlier tombs are within the forest area, near the boundary of the early town. Though Salamis maintained direct links with the Near East during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, one royal tomb contained a large amount of Greek Geometric pottery and this has been explained as the dowry of a Greek princess who married into the royal family of Salamis. Greek pottery was found in tombs of ordinary citizens. In 450 BC, Salamis was the site of a simultaneous land, the history of Salamis during the early Archaic and Classical periods is reflected in the narrations of the Greek historian Herodotus and the much later speeches of the Greek orator Isocrates. Salamis was afterwards besieged and conquered by Artaxerxes III, under King Evagoras Greek culture and art flourished in the city and it would be interesting one day when the spade of the archaeologist uncovers public buildings of this period. A monument, which illustrates the end of the Classical period in Salamis, is the tumulus, which covered the cenotaph of Nicocreon, one of the last kings of Salamis, who perished in 311 BC. On its monumental platform were found several clay heads, some of which are portraits, marguerite Yon claims that Literary texts and inscriptions suggest that by the Classical period, Kition was one of the principal local powers, along with its neighbor Salamis. After Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Ptolemy I of Egypt ruled the island of Cyprus and he forced Nicocreon, who had been the Ptolemaic governor of the island, to commit suicide in 311 BC, because he did not trust him any more
Salamis, Cyprus
–
The gymnasium at Salamis
Salamis, Cyprus
Salamis, Cyprus
–
The Theatre, Salamis
13.
Cyprus
–
Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean and the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and Palestine, north of Egypt, the earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC, Cyprus was placed under British administration based on Cyprus Convention in 1878 and formally annexed by Britain in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders, following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. On 15 July 1974, a coup détat was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis and these events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute. The Cyprus Republic has de jure sovereignty over the island of Cyprus, as well as its territorial sea and exclusive economic area, another nearly 4% of the islands area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the part of the island as territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. The occupation is viewed as illegal under law, amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, on 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone. The earliest attested reference to Cyprus is the 15th century BC Mycenaean Greek
Cyprus
–
A copper mine on Cyprus. In antiquity, Cyprus was a major source of copper.
Cyprus
–
Flag
Cyprus
–
Archeologic site of Choirokoitia with early remains of human habitation during Aceramic Neolithic period (reconstruction)
Cyprus
–
Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates,
Kourion
14.
Priam
–
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
Priam
–
Priam killed by
Neoptolemus, detail of an Attic black-figure amphora, ca. 520–510 BC
15.
Hector
–
In Greek mythology and Roman Mythology, Hector was a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, who was a descendant of Dardanus and Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and he was married to Andromache, with whom he had an infant son, Scamandrius. He acted as leader of the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, during the European Middle Ages, Hector figures as one of the Nine Worthies noted by Jacques de Longuyon, known not only for his courage but also for his noble and courtly nature. Indeed, Homer places Hector as peace-loving, thoughtful as well as bold, a son, husband and father. James Redfield writes of Hector as a martyr to loyalties, a witness to the things of this world, in Greek, Héktōr is a derivative of the verb ἔχειν ékhein, archaic form *ἕχειν hékhein, to have or to hold from Proto-Indo-European *seǵh- to hold. Héktōr, or Éktōr as found in Aeolic poetry, is also an epithet of Zeus in his capacity as he who holds, Hectors name could thus be taken to mean holding fast. According to the Iliad, Hector does not approve of war between the Greeks and the Trojans, for ten years, the Achaeans besieged Troy and their allies in the east. Hector commanded the Trojan army, with a number of subordinates including Polydamas, and his brothers Deiphobus, Helenus, and Paris. By all accounts, Hector was the best warrior the Trojans and all their allies could field, diomedes and Odysseus, when faced with his attack, described him as what Robert Fagles translated as an incredible dynamite, and a maniac. In the Iliad, Hectors exploits in the war prior to the events of the book are recapitulated and he had fought the Greek champion Protesilaus in single combat at the start of the war and killed him. A prophecy had stated that the first Greek to land on Trojan soil would die, thus, Protesilaus, Ajax, and Odysseus would not land. Finally, Odysseus threw his shield out and landed on that, in the ensuing fight, Hector killed him, fulfilling the prophecy. The Argives were initially reluctant to accept the challenge, however, after Nestors chiding, nine Greek heroes stepped up to the challenge and drew by lot to see who was to face Hector. Ajax wins and fights Hector to a stalemate for the entire day, with neither able to achieve victory, they express admiration for each others courage, skill, and strength. Hector gave Ajax his sword, which Ajax later uses to kill himself, Ajax gives Hector his girdle, which later was used to attach Hectors corpse to Achilles chariot by which he is dragged around the walls of Troy. The Greek and the Trojans make a truce to bury the dead, in the early dawn the next day the Greeks take advantage of it to build a wall and ditch around the ships. Zeus is watching in a distance, another mention of Hectors exploits in the early years of war was given in the Iliad book 9. During the embassy to Achilles, Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax all try to persuade Achilles to rejoin the fight and he then claims, There he stood up to me alone one day, and he barely escaped my onslaught
Hector
–
Hector brought back to
Troy. From a
Roman sarcophagus of ca. 180–200 AD.
Hector
–
Coin from
Troy, 177-192 AD. Obverse: Bust of
Commodus. Reverse: Hector, brandishing shield and spear, on a two-horse chariot. Inscription EKTΩP (Hektor) above, IΛIEΩN (Ilion meaning Troy) in exergue.
Hector
–
Hector Admonishes Paris for His Softness and Exhorts Him to Go to War by
J.H.W. Tischbein (1751–1828)
Hector
–
Ajax and Hector exchange gifts (
woodcut in
Andreas Alciatus, Emblematum libellus, 1591)
16.
Paris (mythology)
–
Paris, also known as Alexander, the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, later in the war, he fatally wounds Achilles in the heel with an arrow as foretold by Achilles’s mother Thetis. The name Paris is probably Luwian and comparable to Pari-zitis attested as a Hittite scribes name, Paris was a child of Priam and Hecuba. Just before his birth, his mother dreamed that she gave birth to a flaming torch and this dream was interpreted by the seer Aesacus as a foretelling of the downfall of Troy, and he declared that the child would be the ruin of his homeland. Though Paris was indeed born before nightfall, he was spared by Priam, Hecuba, too, was unable to kill the child, despite the urging of the priestess of Apollo, one Herophile. Instead, Pariss father prevailed upon his chief herdsman, Agelaus, to remove the child, the herdsman, unable to use a weapon against the infant, left him exposed on Mount Ida, hoping he would perish there, he was, however, suckled by a she-bear. Returning after nine days, Agelaus was astonished to find the still alive. He returned to Priam bearing a dogs tongue as evidence of the deeds completion and it was at this time that Oenone became Pariss first lover. She was a nymph from Mount Ida in Phrygia and her father was Cebren, a river-god. She was skilled in the arts of prophecy and medicine, which she had been taught by Rhea and Apollo respectively. When Paris later left her for Helen she told him if he ever was wounded, he should come to her for she could heal any injury. Pariss chief distraction at this time was to pit Agelauss bulls against one another, one bull began to win these bouts consistently, and Paris began to set it against rival herdsmens own prize bulls, it defeated them all. Finally Paris offered a crown to any bull that could defeat his champion. Ares responded to this challenge by transforming himself into a bull, in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, Lord Zeus, father of the Greek pantheon, hosted a banquet on Mount Olympus. Every deity and demi-god had been invited, except Eris, the goddess of strife, the goddesses thought to be the most beautiful were Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, and each one claimed the apple. They started a quarrel so they asked Zeus to choose one of them, knowing that choosing any of them would bring him the hatred of the other two, Zeus did not want to take part in the decision. He thus appointed Paris to select the most beautiful, escorted by Hermes, the three goddesses bathed in the spring of Mount Ida and approached Paris as he herded his cattle. Having been given permission by Zeus to set any conditions he saw fit, Paris chose Aphrodite— and, therefore, Helen
Paris (mythology)
–
Prince Paris with apple by
H.W. Bissen,
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
Paris (mythology)
–
Judgement of Paris,
Capodimonte porcelain (
Capitoline Museums,
Rome)
Paris (mythology)
–
El Juicio de Paris by
Enrique Simonet, ca. 1904. Paris is studying Aphrodite, who is standing before him naked. The other two goddesses watch nearby.
Paris (mythology)
–
Abduction of Helen, ceiling fresco, Venetian, mid-18th century
17.
Archery
–
Archery is the sport, practice or skill of using a bow to propel arrows. The word comes from the Latin arcus, historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity, a person who participates in archery is typically called an archer or a bowman, and a person who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite. The bow and arrow seems to have invented in the later Paleolithic or early Mesolithic periods. The oldest signs of its use in Europe come from the Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg, Germany and dates from the late Paleolithic, about 10, 000–9000 BC. The arrows were made of pine and consisted of a mainshaft, there are no definite earlier bows, previous pointed shafts are known, but may have been launched by spear-throwers rather than bows. The oldest bows known so far come from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark, bows and arrows have been present in Egyptian culture since its predynastic origins. In the Levant, artifacts that could be arrow-shaft straighteners are known from the Natufian culture, the Khiamian and PPN A shouldered Khiam-points may well be arrowheads. Classical civilizations, notably the Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Parthians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, akkadians were the first to use composite bows in war according to the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad. The Welsh longbow proved its worth for the first time in Continental warfare at the Battle of Crécy, in the Americas archery was widespread at European contact. Archery was highly developed in Asia, the Sanskrit term for archery, dhanurveda, came to refer to martial arts in general. In East Asia, Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea was well known for its regiments of skilled archers. Central Asian tribesmen and American Plains Indians became extremely adept at archery on horseback, lightly armoured, but highly mobile archers were excellently suited to warfare in the Central Asian steppes, and they formed a large part of armies that repeatedly conquered large areas of Eurasia. Shorter bows are more suited to use on horseback, and the bow enabled mounted archers to use powerful weapons. It is possible that barbarian peoples were responsible for introducing archery or certain types of bows to their civilized counterparts—the Xiong-nu, similarly, short bows seem to have been introduced to Japan by northeast Asian groups. The development of firearms rendered bows obsolete in warfare, albeit efforts were made to preserve archery practice. In Wales and England, for example, the government tried to practice with the Longbow until the end of the 16th century. This was because it was recognised that the bow had been instrumental to military success during the Hundred Years War, early firearms were inferior in rate-of-fire, and were very susceptible to wet weather
Archery
–
Archery competition in
Mönchengladbach, Germany, in 1983
Archery
–
A
Rikbaktsa archer competes at Brazil's Indigenous Games
Archery
–
Tibetan archer, 1938
Archery
–
Master Heon Kim demonstrating
Gungdo, traditional Korean archery (Kuk Kung), 2009
18.
Achaeans (Homer)
–
The Achaeans constitute one of the collective names for the Greeks in Homers Iliad and Odyssey. In the historical period, the Achaeans were the inhabitants of the region of Achaea, the city-states of this region later formed a confederation known as the Achaean League, which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The Homeric long-haired Achaeans would have been a part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from circa 1600 BC until 1100 BC, later, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term Achaeans referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, according to Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, the term Achaean was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia. Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese and they then moved into the region later called Achaea. A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is hotly debated. Karl Beloch suggested there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans, eduard Meyer, disagreeing with Beloch, instead put forth the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. His conclusion is based on his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians and his conclusions at the time were challenged by other Hittitologists, as well as by Ferdinand Sommer, who published his Die Ahhijava-Urkunden in 1932. Some Hittite texts mention a nation lying to the west called Ahhiyawa, in the earliest reference to this land, a letter outlining the treaty violations of the Hittite vassal Madduwatta, it is called Ahhiya. It also refers to an earlier Wilusa episode involving hostility on the part of Ahhiyawa, Ahhiya has been identified with the Achaeans of the Trojan War and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of Troy. It has been proposed that Ekwesh of the Egyptian records may relate to Achaea, whereas Denyen, Tanaju is also listed in an inscription at the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III. The latter ruled Egypt in circa 1382–1344 BC, moreover, a list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription, among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion, Kythera, Messenia and the Thebaid. During the 5th year of Pharaoh Merneptah, a confederation of Libyan, included amongst the ethnic names of the repulsed invaders is the Ekwesh or Eqwesh, whom some have seen as Achaeans, although Egyptian texts specifically mention these Ekwesh to be circumcised. Homer mentions an Achaean attack upon the delta, and Menelaus speaks of the same in Book IV of the Odyssey to Telemachus when he recounts his own home from the Trojan War. Later Greek myths also say Helen had spent the time of the Trojan War in Egypt, and not at Troy, cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus. According to Hyginus,22 Achaeans killed 362 Trojans during their ten years at Troy, according to Margalit Finkelberg, the name Ἀχαιοί/Ἀχαιϝοί is derived from Hittite Aḫḫiyawā. However, Robert S. P. Beekes doubted the validity of this derivation, the etymology of Danaoi is uncertain, according to Beekes the name is certainly Pre-Greek
Achaeans (Homer)
–
Achilles tending the wounded
Patroclus (
Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
19.
Argives
–
Argos is a city in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is also a bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. It is the biggest town in Argolis and a center for the area. Since the 2011 local government reform it has been part of the municipality of Argos-Mykines, the municipal unit has an area of 138.138 km2. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, a settlement of great antiquity, Argos has been continuously inhabited as at least a substantial village for the past 7,000 years. The city is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network, a resident of the city of Argos is known as an Argive. However, this term is used to refer to those ancient Greeks generally who assaulted the city of Troy during the Trojan War. Numerous ancient monuments can be found in the city today, the most famous of which is the Heraion of Argos, agriculture is the mainstay of the local economy. The name of the city is ancient and several etymological theories have been proposed as an explanation to its meaning. The most popular one maintains that the name of the city is a remainder from the Pelasgian language, i. e. the one used by the people who first settled in the area, in which Argos meant plain. Alternatively, the name is associated with Argos, the king of the city in ancient times. It is also believed that Argos is linked to the word αργός, which meant white, possibly, according to Strabo, the name could have even originated from the word αγρός by antimetathesis of the consonants. As a strategic location on the plain of Argolis, Argos was a major stronghold during the Mycenaean era. There is evidence of settlement in the area starting with a village about 7000 years ago in the late Neolithic. It was colonized in prehistoric times by the Pelasgian Greeks, since that time, Argos has been continually inhabited at the same geographical location. Its creation is attributed to Phoroneus, with its first name having been Phoronicon Asty, the city is located at a rather propitious area, among Nemea, Corinth and Arcadia. It also benefitted from its proximity to lake Lerna, which, during the Dorian invasion, c.1100 BC, Argos was divided into four neighbourhoods, each of them inhabited by a different phyle. Argos experienced its greatest period of expansion and power under the energetic 7th century BC ruler King Pheidon, under Pheidon, Argos regained sway over the cities of the Argolid and challenged Sparta’s dominance of the Peloponnese
Argives
–
View of Argos, seen from the ancient theatre
Argives
–
The Heraion of Argos
Argives
–
View of the ancient theatre
Argives
–
The
castle on Larissa Hill.
20.
Apollo
–
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
Apollo
–
Apollo Belvedere, ca. 120–140 CE
Apollo
–
Partial view of the temple of Apollo Epikurios (healer) at
Bassae in southern Greece
Apollo
–
Temple of the Delians at
Delos, dedicated to Apollo (478 BC). 19th-century pen-and-wash restoration.
Apollo
–
Temple of Apollo Smintheus at
Çanakkale, Turkey
21.
Danaans
–
The Achaeans constitute one of the collective names for the Greeks in Homers Iliad and Odyssey. In the historical period, the Achaeans were the inhabitants of the region of Achaea, the city-states of this region later formed a confederation known as the Achaean League, which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The Homeric long-haired Achaeans would have been a part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from circa 1600 BC until 1100 BC, later, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term Achaeans referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, according to Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, the term Achaean was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia. Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese and they then moved into the region later called Achaea. A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is hotly debated. Karl Beloch suggested there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans, eduard Meyer, disagreeing with Beloch, instead put forth the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. His conclusion is based on his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians and his conclusions at the time were challenged by other Hittitologists, as well as by Ferdinand Sommer, who published his Die Ahhijava-Urkunden in 1932. Some Hittite texts mention a nation lying to the west called Ahhiyawa, in the earliest reference to this land, a letter outlining the treaty violations of the Hittite vassal Madduwatta, it is called Ahhiya. It also refers to an earlier Wilusa episode involving hostility on the part of Ahhiyawa, Ahhiya has been identified with the Achaeans of the Trojan War and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of Troy. It has been proposed that Ekwesh of the Egyptian records may relate to Achaea, whereas Denyen, Tanaju is also listed in an inscription at the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III. The latter ruled Egypt in circa 1382–1344 BC, moreover, a list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription, among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion, Kythera, Messenia and the Thebaid. During the 5th year of Pharaoh Merneptah, a confederation of Libyan, included amongst the ethnic names of the repulsed invaders is the Ekwesh or Eqwesh, whom some have seen as Achaeans, although Egyptian texts specifically mention these Ekwesh to be circumcised. Homer mentions an Achaean attack upon the delta, and Menelaus speaks of the same in Book IV of the Odyssey to Telemachus when he recounts his own home from the Trojan War. Later Greek myths also say Helen had spent the time of the Trojan War in Egypt, and not at Troy, cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus. According to Hyginus,22 Achaeans killed 362 Trojans during their ten years at Troy, according to Margalit Finkelberg, the name Ἀχαιοί/Ἀχαιϝοί is derived from Hittite Aḫḫiyawā. However, Robert S. P. Beekes doubted the validity of this derivation, the etymology of Danaoi is uncertain, according to Beekes the name is certainly Pre-Greek
Danaans
–
Achilles tending the wounded
Patroclus (
Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
22.
Trojan Horse
–
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
Trojan Horse
–
Trojan horse after the
Vergilius Vaticanus.
Trojan Horse
–
Detail from The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by
Domenico Tiepolo (1773), inspired by Virgil's
Aeneid
Trojan Horse
–
Sinon is brought to Priam, from folio 101r of the
Roman Vergil
Trojan Horse
–
Achilles tending the wounded
Patroclus (
Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
23.
Glaucus (soldier)
–
Glaucus was a son of Hippolochus and a grandson of Bellerophon. He was a captain in the Lycian army under the command of his close friend, the Lycians in the Trojan War were allies of Troy. During the war Glaucus fought valiantly, in the Iliad, he met Diomedes in the field of battle in face to face combat. In response to Diomedes challenge to him, Glaucus said that as a grandson of Bellerophon he would fight anybody, as a sign of friendship Diomedes took off his bronze armor worth nine oxen and gave it to Glaucus. Glaucus then had his wits taken by Zeus and gave Diomedes his gold armor said to be worth 100 oxen, Glaucus was in the division of Sarpedon and Asteropaios when the Trojans assaulted the Greek wall. Their division fought valiantly, allowing Hector to break through the wall, during this assault Teucer shot Glaucus with an arrow, wounding him and forcing him to withdraw from combat. Later, upon seeing Sarpedon mortally wounded, Glaucus prayed to Apollo, Apollo cured his wound, allowing Glaucus to rally the Trojans around the body of Sarpedon until the gods carried the body away. Later in the war, when the fighting over Achilles corpse took place and his body, however, was rescued by Aeneas and was then taken by Apollo to Lycia for funeral rites
Glaucus (soldier)
–
Glaucos and Diomedes Exchange Armour pélikè
attique du Peintre de Hasselmann, v. 420 av. J.-C.
24.
Menelaus
–
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
Menelaus
–
Marble bust of Menelaus
Menelaus
–
Menelaus regains Helen, detail of an Attic red-figure crater, c. 450–440 BC, found in
Gnathia (now Egnazia,
Italy).
Menelaus
–
Lelegids
25.
Agamemnon
–
Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was taken to Troy by Paris, upon Agamemnons return from Troy, he was murdered by Aegisthus, the lover of his wife, Clytemnestra. In some later versions Clytemnestra herself does the killing, or they act together as accomplices, Atreus, Agamemnons father, murdered the children of his twin brother Thyestes and fed them to Thyestes after discovering Thyestes adultery with his wife Aerope. Thyestes fathered Aegisthus with his own daughter, Pelopia, and this son vowed gruesome revenge on Atreus children, Aegisthus successfully murdered Atreus and restored his father to the throne. Aegisthus took possession of the throne of Mycenae and jointly ruled with Thyestes, during this period Agamemnon and his brother, Menelaus, took refuge with Tyndareus, King of Sparta. There they respectively married Tyndareus daughters Clytemnestra and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had four children, one son, Orestes, and three daughters, Iphigenia, Electra and Chrysothemis. Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus in Sparta, while Agamemnon, with his brothers assistance, drove out Aegisthus and he extended his dominion by conquest and became the most powerful prince in Greece. Thus misfortune hounded successive generations of the House of Atreus, until atoned by Orestes in a court of justice held jointly by humans, Agamemnon gathered the reluctant Greek forces to sail for Troy. Preparing to depart from Aulis, which was a port in Boeotia, misfortunes, including a plague and a lack of wind, prevented the army from sailing. Finally, the prophet Calchas announced that the wrath of the goddess could only be propitiated by the sacrifice of Agamemnons daughter Iphigenia and her death appeased Artemis, and the Greek army set out for Troy. Several alternatives to the human sacrifice have been presented in Greek mythology, hesiod said she became the goddess Hecate. Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of the Greeks during the Trojan War, during the fighting, Agamemnon killed Antiphus and fifteen other Trojan soldiers. The Iliad tells the story about the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in the year of the war. Following one of the Achaean Armys raids, Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, Chryses pleaded with Agamemnon to free his daughter but was met with little success. Chryses then prayed to Apollo for the return of his daughter. After learning from the Prophet Calchas that the plague could be dispelled by returning Chryseis to her father, Agamemnon reluctantly agreed, however, as compensation for his lost prize, Agamemnon demanded a new prize. As a result, Agamemnon stole an attractive slave called Briseis, one of the spoils of war, Achilles, the greatest warrior of the age, withdrew from battle in response to Agamemnons supposedly evil deed and allegedly put the Greek armies at risk of losing the war. Although not the equal of Achilles in bravery, Agamemnon was a representative of kingly authority, as commander-in-chief, he summoned the princes to the council and led the army in battle
Agamemnon
–
The
Mask of Agamemnon which was discovered by
Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 at
Mycenae, now believed to pre-date the legendary Trojan War.
Agamemnon
–
Orestes slaying
Clytemnestra
26.
Odysseus
–
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
Odysseus
–
Head of Odysseus from a
Roman period Hellenistic marble group representing Odysseus blinding
Polyphemus, found at the villa of
Tiberius at
Sperlonga
Odysseus
–
Head of Odysseus wearing
pileus depicted on a 3rd-century BC coin from
Ithaca
Odysseus
–
Greek Mythology
Odysseus
–
This is a painting of Odysseus's boat passing between the six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis. Scylla has plucked six of Odysseus's men from the boat. The painting is an Italian fresco dating to 1560 C.E.
27.
Horace
–
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses and caustic iambic poetry and his career coincided with Romes momentous change from a republic to an empire. An officer in the army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavians right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas. Some of the writings contained in his writings can be supplemented from the short. He was born on 8 December 65 BC in the Samnite south of Italy and his home town, Venusia, lay on a trade route in the border region between Apulia and Lucania. Various Italic dialects were spoken in the area and this perhaps enriched his feeling for language and he could have been familiar with Greek words even as a young boy and later he poked fun at the jargon of mixed Greek and Oscan spoken in neighbouring Canusium. Literary Latin must have sounded to him like a semi-foreign language, one of the works he probably studied in school was the Odyssia of Livius Andronicus, crammed into Italian boys with threats and floggings by teachers like the Orbilius mentioned in one of his poems. School was made particularly irksome by a number of his fellow pupils, the army veterans could have been settled there at the expense of local families uprooted by Rome as punishment for their part in the Social War. Such state-sponsored migration must have added still more variety to the area. According to a tradition reported by Horace, a colony of Romans or Latins had been installed in Venusia after the Samnites had been driven out early in the third century. In that case, young Horace could have felt himself to be a Roman though there are indications that he regarded himself as a Samnite or Sabellus by birth. Italians in modern and ancient times have always been devoted to their towns, even after success in the wider world. Images of his setting and references to it are found throughout his poems. Horaces father was probably a Venutian taken captive by Romans in the Social War, either way, he was a slave for at least part of his life. He was evidently a man of strong abilities however and managed to gain his freedom, thus Horace claimed to be the free-born son of a prosperous coactor. The father spent a fortune on his sons education, eventually accompanying him to Rome to oversee his schooling. The poet later paid tribute to him in a poem that one scholar considers the best memorial by any son to his father. As it is now, he deserves from me unstinting gratitude, I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedmans son
Horace
–
Horace, as imagined by
Anton von Werner
Horace
–
Horace reads before Maecenas, by
Fyodor Bronnikov
Horace
–
"Justum et tenacem propositi virum" – "a man just and steadfast in purpose", from Horace's
Odes, III.3, on the gravestone of Elliot Charles Bovill, Chief Justice of the
Straits Settlements, in
Fort Canning Green, Singapore
Horace
–
Ode XIV -
Wall poem in Leiden
28.
Ulysses (poem)
–
Ulysses is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is used to illustrate the dramatic monologue form. Facing old age, mythical hero Ulysses describes his discontent and restlessness upon returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, despite his reunion with his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, Ulysses yearns to explore again. The character of Ulysses has been explored widely in literature, the adventures of Odysseus were first recorded in Homers Iliad and Odyssey, and Tennyson draws on Homers narrative in the poem. Most critics, however, find that Tennysons Ulysses recalls Dantes Ulisse in his Inferno, in Dantes re-telling, Ulisse is condemned to hell among the false counsellors, both for his pursuit of knowledge beyond human bounds and for his adventures in disregard of his family. For much of this history, readers viewed Ulysses as resolute and heroic, admiring him for his determination To strive, to seek, to find. The view that Tennyson intended a heroic character is supported by his statements about the poem, in the twentieth century, some new interpretations of Ulysses highlighted potential ironies in the poem. As the poem begins, Ulysses has returned to his kingdom, Ithaca, confronted again by domestic life, Ulysses expresses his lack of contentment, including his indifference toward the savage race whom he governs. His son Telemachus will inherit the throne that Ulysses finds burdensome, There is often a marked contrast between the sentiment of Ulysses words and the sounds that express them. Many of the poems clauses carry over into the following line, the poems seventy lines of blank verse are presented as a dramatic monologue. Scholars disagree on how Ulysses speech functions in this format, it is not necessarily clear to whom Ulysses is speaking, if anyone, and from what location. In this interpretation, the direct and honest language of the first movement is set against the more politically minded tone of the last two movements. For example, the paragraph about Telemachus, in which Ulysses muses again about domestic life, is a revised version for public consumption. The ironic interpretations of Ulysses may be the result of the tendency to consider the narrator of a dramatic monologue as necessarily unreliable. According to critic Dwight Culler, the poem has been a victim of revisionist readings in which the reader expects to reconstruct the truth from a misleading narrators accidental revelations. Tennyson completed the poem on 20 October 1833, but it was not published until 1842, unlike many of Tennysons other important poems, Ulysses was not revised after its publication. Tennyson originally blocked out the poem in four paragraphs, broken before lines 6,33 and 44, in this structure, the first and third paragraphs are thematically parallel, but may be read as interior and exterior monologues, respectively. However, the poem is printed with the first paragraph break omitted
Ulysses (poem)
–
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, author of "Ulysses", portrayed by
George Frederic Watts
Ulysses (poem)
–
In one of
William Blake 's
watercolors (1824–1827) illustrating
Dante 's
Inferno,
Ulysses and
Diomedes are condemned to the
Eighth Circle.
Ulysses (poem)
–
"Satan rises from the burning lake" (1866) by
Gustave Doré; a critical interpretation of the poem compares Ulysses' final sentiments with Satan's "courage never to submit or yield" in
John Milton 's
Paradise Lost.
Ulysses (poem)
–
Tennyson, as
Poet Laureate, used verse to promote
Empire: "Ulysses" has been interpreted as anticipating the concept of
imperialism.
29.
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
–
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victorias reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as Break, Break, Break, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tears, Idle Tears, Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, Ulysses, and Tithonus. During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success and he is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England and he was born into a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had a noble and royal ancestry. His father, George Clayton Tennyson, was rector of Somersby, also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a family and was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music. He was comfortably well off for a clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe. Alfred Tennysons mother, Elizabeth Fytche, was the daughter of Stephen Fytche, vicar of St. James Church, Louth and rector of Withcall, Tennysons father carefully attended to the education and training of his children. Tennyson and two of his brothers were writing poetry in their teens and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the sister of Alfreds future wife. Another of Tennysons brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private asylum, Tennyson was a student of Louth Grammar School for four years and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, where he joined a society called the Cambridge Apostles. A portrait of Tennyson by George Frederic Watts is in Trinitys collection, at Cambridge, Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his closest friends. His first publication was a collection of his rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles entitled Poems by Two Brothers. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellors Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, reportedly, it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellors gold medal. He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830, claribel and Mariana, which later took their place among Tennysons most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day. In the spring of 1831, Tennysons father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree and he returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
–
1869
Carbon print by
Julia Margaret Cameron
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
–
An illustration by
W. E. F. Britten showing Somersby Rectory, where Tennyson was raised and began writing.
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
–
Tennyson with his wife Emily (1813–1896) and his sons Hallam (1852–1928) and Lionel (1854–1886).
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
–
Lord Tennyson.
30.
Cinyras
–
In Greek mythology, Cinyras was a king of Cyprus. Some scholars have proposed a connection with the minor Ugaritic deity Kinaru, the name Cinyras does not appear again until he is mentioned by Pindar as beloved of Apollo, and the priest of Aphrodite. Pindar mentions Cinyras as being rich in Nemean Ode 8. Later, in Greek and Roman literature and in the Christian fathers such as Clement of Alexandria and they say that on Cyprus, Cinyras was revered as the creator of art and of musical instruments, such as the flute. In one source, he is noted for his physical beauty. Hesychius says he was a son of Apollo, while Hyginus consistently calls him a son of Paphos, and a scholiast on Pindar makes him a son of Eurymedon, in other sources he is the husband of Galatea. Cinyras was reported to have fathered a number of children, including Mygdalion, Adonis, from this incestuous union sprang the child Adonis. Cinyras was said to have committed suicide over the matter, other authors equate Cinyras and Myrrha with king Theias of Assyria and his daughter Smyrna, and relate the same story of them. Hyginus uses the name Cinyras for the father, but Smyrna for the daughter, according to the Bibliotheca, Cinyras was a descendant of Eos and Cephalus. His parents were Sandocus, son of Astynous, and Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, he married Metharme the daughter of Pygmalion and built Paphos. His children according to Pseudo-Apollodorus are Adonis, Oxyporos, Braesia, Laogora, Orsedice, and Laodice, who married Elatus, son of Arcas, and had by him two sons Stymphalus and Pereus. Stephanus of Byzantium informs that Cinyras mother was named Amathousa, and it was either from her or Amathous, a son of Heracles, that Amathous, the oldest city of Cyprus, received its name. Pausanias mentions a daughter of Cinyras as the consort of Teucer and her name is not given in Pausanias account, but Tzetzes writes that Teucer married Eune daughter of Cyprus. The divination practices at the temple are said to have introduced by Tamiras of Cilicia. The footnotes to this story state that Cinyras is Another mythical king of Cyprus. Hesychius calls him a son of Apollo, and Ovid makes him the father of Adonis, the city Cinyreia on Cyprus was believed to have taken its name from Cinyras
Cinyras
–
Myrrha and Cinyras.
Engraving by
Virgil Solis for
Ovid 's
Metamorphoses
