Listed 100 (total found 215) sub titles with search on: Homeric world for wider area of: "ARGOLIS Prefecture PELOPONNISOS" .
TIRYNS (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
Cyclopes (Kuklopes), that is, creatures with round or circular eyes. The tradition
about these beings has undergone several changes and modifications in its development
in Greek mythology, though some traces of their identity remain visible throughout.
According to the ancient cosmogonies, the Cyclopes were the sons of Uranus and
Ge; they belonged to the Titans, and were three in number, whose names were Arges,
Steropes, and Brontes, and each of them had only one eye on his forehead. Together
with the other Titans, they were cast by their father into Tartarus, but, instigated
by their mother, they assisted Cronus in usurping the government. But Cronus again
threw them into Tartarus, and as Zeus released them in his war against Cronus
and the Titans, the Cyclopes provided Zeus with thunderbolts and lightning, Pluto
with a helmet, and Poseidon with a trident (Apollod. i. 1; Hes. Theog. 503). Henceforth
they remained the ministers of Zeus, but were afterwards killed by Apollo for
having furnished Zeus with the thunderbolts to kill Asclepius (Apollod. iii. 10.4).
According to others, however, it was not the Cyclopes themselves that were killed,
but their sons. (Schol. ad Eurip. Alcest. 1.)
In the Homeric poems the Cyclopes are a gigantic, insolent, and lawless
race of shepherds, who lived in the south-western part of Sicily, and devoured
human beings. They neglected agriculture, and the fruits of the field were reaped
by them without labour. They had no laws or political institutions, and each lived
with his wives and children in a cave of a mountain, and ruled over them with
arbitrary power (Hom. Od. vi. 5, ix. 106, 190, 240, x. 200). Homer does not distinctly
state that all of the Cyclopes were one-eyed, but Polyphemus, the principal among
them, is described as having only one eye on his forehead (Od. i. 69, ix. 383)
The Homeric Cyclopes are no longer the servants of Zeus, but they disregard him.
(Od. ix. 275; comp. Virg. Aen. vi. 636 ; Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 53.)
A still later tradition regarded the Cyclopes as the assistants of
Hephaestus. Volcanoes were the workshops of that god, and mount Aetna in Sicily
and the neighbouring isles were accordingly considered as their abodes. As the
assistants of Hephaestus they are no longer shepherds, but make the metal armour
and ornaments for gods and heroes; they work with such might that Sicily and all
the neighbouring islands resound with their hammering. Their number is, like that
in the Homeric poems, no longer confined to three, but their residence is removed
from the south-western to the eastern part of Sicily (Virg. Georg. iv. 170, Aen.
viii. 433; Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 56; Eurip. Cycl. 599; Val. Flacc. ii. 420).
Two of their names are the same as in the cosmogonic tradition, but new names
also were invented, for we find one Cyclops bearing the name of Pyracmon, and
another that of Acamas (Calim. Hymn. in Dian. 68; Virg. Aen. viii. 425; Val. Place.
i. 583).
The Cyclopes, who were regarded as skilful architects in later accounts,
were a race of men who appear to be different from the Cyclopes whom we have considered
hitherto, for they are described as a Thracian tribe, which derived its name from
a king Cyclops. They were expelled from their homes in Thrace, and went to the
Curetes (Crete) and to Lycia, Thence they followed Proetus to protect him, by
the gigantic walls which they constructed, against Acrisius. The grand fortifications
of Argos, Tiryns, and Mycenae, were in later times regarded as their works (Apollod.
ii. 1.2; Strab. viii; Paus. ii. 16.4; Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 953). Such walls,
commonly known by the name of Cyclopean walls, still exist in various parts of
ancient Greece and Italy, and consist of unhewn polygones, which are sometimes
20 or 30 feet in breadth. The story of the Cyclopes having built them seems to
be a mere invention, and admits neither of an historical nor geographical explanation.
Homer, for instance, knows nothing of Cyclopean walls, and he calls Tiryns merely
a polis teichioessa (Il. ii. 559). The Cyclopean walls were probably constructed
by an ancient race of men -perhaps the Pelasgians- who occupied the countries
in which they occur before the nations of which we have historical records; and
later generations, being struck by their grandeur as much as ourselves, ascribed
their building to a fabulous race of Cyclopes. Analogies to such a process of
tradition are not wanting in modern countries; thus several walls in Germany,
which were probably constructed by the Romans, are to this day called by the people
Riesenmauer or Teufelsmauer.
In works of art the Cyclopes are represented as sturdy men with one
eye on their forehead, and the place which in other human beings is occupied by
the eyes, is marked in figures of the Cyclopes by a line. According to the explanation
of Plato (ap. Strab. xiii.), the Cyclopes were beings typical of the original
condition of uncivilized men ; but this explanation is not satisfactory, and the
cosmogonic Cyclopes at least must be regarded as personifications of certain powers
manifested in nature, which is sufficiently indicated by their names.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Cyclopes (Kuklopes). A fabulous race, of gigantic size, having but one eye, large
and round, placed in the centre of their forehead, whence, according to the common
account, their name was derived--from kuklos, "a circular opening",
and ops, "an eye". Homer makes Odysseus, after having left the country
of the Lotus-eaters (Lotophagi), to have sailed on westward, and to have come
to that of the Cyclopes, who are described by him as a rude and lawless race,
who neither planted nor sowed, but whose land was so fertile as to produce of
itself wheat, barley, and vines. They had no social institutions, neither assemblies
nor laws, but dwelt separately, each in his cave, on the tops of lofty mountains,
and each, without regard to others, governed his own wife and children. The adventure
of Odysseus with Polyphemus, one of this race, will be found under the latter
title. Nothing is said by Homer respecting the size of the Cyclopes in general,
but every effort is made to give an exaggerated idea of that of Polyphemus. Hence
some have imagined that, according to the Homeric idea, the Cyclopes were not
in general of such huge dimensions or cannibal habits as the poet assigns to Polyphemus
himself; for the latter does not appear to have been of the ordinary Cyclops-race,
but the son of Poseidon and a seanymph; and he is also said to have been the strongest
of the Cyclopes ( Od.i. 70). Later poets, however, lost no time in supplying whatever
the fable wanted in this respect, and hence Vergil describes the whole race as
of gigantic stature and compares them to so many tall forest-trees ( Aen.iii.
680). It is not a little remarkable that neither in the description of the Cyclopes
in general, nor of Polyphemus in particular, is there any notice taken of their
being one-eyed; yet in the account of the blinding of the latter, it seems to
be assumed as a thing well known. We may hence, perhaps, infer that Homer followed
the usual derivation.
Such is the Homeric account of the Cyclopes. In Hesiod, on the other
hand (Theog. 139 foll.), we have what appears to be the earlier legend respecting
these fabled beings, a circumstance which may tend to show that the Odyssey was
composed by a poet later than Hesiod, and not by the author of the Iliad. In the
Theogony of Hesiod the Cyclopes are only three in number--Brontes, Steropes, and
Arges. They are the sons of Uranus and Gaea (Caelus and Terra), and their employment
is to forge the thunderbolts for Zeus. They are said to be in every other respect
like gods, excepting the one single eye in the middle of their foreheads, a circumstance
from which Hesiod also, like Homer, deduces their general name (Theog. 144 foll.).
In the individual names given by Hesiod we have evidently the germ of the whole
fable. The Cyclopes are the energies of the sky--the thunder, the lightning, and
the rapid march of the latter (Brontes, from bronte, "thunder"; Steropes,
from sterope, "the lightning"; Arges, from arges, "rapid").
In accordance with this idea the term Kuklops (Cyclops) itself may be regarded
as a simple, not a compound term, of the same class with molops, Kerkops, Kekrops,
Pelops; and the word kuklos being the root, we may make the Cyclopes to be "the
Whirlers", or, to designate them by a Latin name, Volvuli.
When the thunder, the lightning, and the flame had been converted
by poetry into oneeyed giants, and localized in the neighbourhood of volcanoes,
it was an easy process to convert them into smiths, the assistants of Hephaestus
(Callim. H. in Artem. 46 foll.; Georg.iv. 173; Aen.viii. 416 foll.). As they were
now artists in one line, it gave no surprise to find them engaged in a task adapted
to their huge strength--namely, that of rearing the massive walls of Tiryns, for
which purpose they were brought by Proetus from Lycia (Schol. ad Eurip. Orest.955).
Hence, too, the name "Cyclopean" is applied to this species of architecture,
just as in Germany the remains of ancient Roman walls are popularly called "Riesenmauer"
and "Tenfelsmauer". One theory refers the name Cyclops to the circular
buildings constructed by the Pelasgi, of which we have so remarkable a specimen
in what is called the Treasury of Atreus, at Mycenae. From the form of these buildings,
resembling within a hollow cone or beehive, and the round opening at the top,
the individuals who constructed them are thought to have derived their appellation.
(Cf. Gell's Argolis, p. 34.) Those who make them to have dwelt in Sicily blend
an old tradition with one of more recent date. This last probably took its rise
when Aetna and the Lipari Islands were assigned to Hephaestus, by the popular
belief of the day, as his workshops; which could only have happened when Aetna
had become better known, and Mount Moschylus, in the isle of Lemnos, had ceased
to be volcanic.
A few remarks may fittingly be added here on the subject of the Cyclopean
architecture. This style of building is frequently alluded to by the ancient writers.
In fact, every architectural work of extraordinary magnitude, to the execution
of which human labour appeared inadequate, was ascribed to the Cyclopes (Eurip.
Iph. in Aul. 534; id. Herc. Fur. 15; id. Troad. 108; Strab.373; Herc. Fur. 996;
Theb.iv. 151; Pausan. ii. 25). The general character of the Cyclopean style is
immense blocks of stone, without cement, placed upon each other, sometimes irregularly
and with smaller stones filling up the interstices, sometimes in regular and horizontal
rows. The Cyclopean style is commonly divided into four eras. The first, or oldest,
is that employed at Tiryns and Mycenae, consisting of blocks of various sizes,
some of them very large, the interstices of which are, or were once, filled up
with small stones. The second era is marked by polygonal stones, which nevertheless
fit into each other with great nicety. Specimens exist at Delphi, Iulis, and at
Cosa in Etruria. In this style there are no courses. The third era appears in
the Phocian cities, and in some of Boeotia and Argolis. It is distinguished by
the work being made in courses, and by the stones, though of unequal size, being
of the same height. The fourth and youngest style presents horizontal courses
of masonry, not always of the same height, but formed of stones which are all
rectangular. This style is chiefly confined to Attica. The most reasonable opinion
relative to the Cyclopean walls of antiquity is that which ascribes their erection
to the ancient Pelasgi.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
"Phemios," she cried,(Penelope), "you know many another feat of gods and heroes,
such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these, and let them
drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful
heart, and reminds me of my lost husband for whom I have grief [penthos] ever
without ceasing, and whose name [kleos] was great over all Hellas and
middle Argos." (Hom. Od. 1.337-344)
Commentary:
This passage has been recently discussed by Mr. Bury B. in the Journal
of Hellenic Studies, vol. xv. pp. 217-238, with especial reference to the words
an' Hellada kai meson Argos. These words are generally understood as a poetical
or traditional periphrasis for the whole of Greece, -Hellas (a part of Thessaly)
representing the north and Argos the Peloponnesus. Mr. Bury points out that, if
this is so, the offer here made by Menelaus is a strange one. Telemachus has just
entreated to be allowed to return home at once. How could Menelaus, who has himself
been dwelling on the duty of speeding the parting guest, suddenly propose to be
his companion on so long a tour? In seeking for a solution of this difficulty,
Mr. Bury is led to examine afresh the old question (Thuc.1. 3) of the different
uses of the names Hellas and Hellenes. Among other results he arrives at the conclusion
that, just as in the Iliad the names Hellas and Achaioi are closely associated
in Thessaly, so the name Hellas at a somewhat later time was applied to the 'Achaia'
of history, the north coastland of the Poloponnesus. If then this is the sense
of the term in the passage before us, Menelaus does not invite Telemachus to go
with him all over Greece, but only to make a detour through Argolis and Achaia--countries
then under the dominion of the Atridae.
It is impossible here to discuss Mr. Bury's history of the name Hellas:
but a word may be said regarding its application to the Odyssey. In the first
place, the difficulty with which he begins is surely not insuperable. Granting
that Telemachus was not likely to accept the invitation, it may be that ancient
manners required some such speech from the host -the muthoi aganoi promised by
Pisistratus (l. 53). And the main purpose of Telemachus, the quest of news of
his father, though not again mentioned here, must be supposed present to the minds
of both. Moreover, the difficulty is not one that is very much diminished by Mr.
Bury's interpretation. For surely it lies (poetically at least) not so much in
the length of the proposed journey as in the fact of such an expedition being
proposed at that moment. Again, the phrase an' Hellada kai meson Argos is (or
became) a piece of Epic commonplace. In Od.1. 344(=4. 726, 816) tou kleos euru
kath' Hellada kai meson Argos it seems to mean Greece generally. Moreover, it
is plainly a variation of the line Argos es hippoboton kai Achaiida kalligunaika,
which is also of a traditional type. The meaning of these phrases no doubt changed
with time and circumstances; but it must always have been wide and conventional.
It is hard to believe that Menelaus would use them to describe a route which he
particularly wished to represent as a definite and limited one.
The phrase meson Argos is not to be pressed: cp. Il.6. 224 Argei messoi.
There is nothing to connect it with a distinction between Argos in the narrower
sense of the Argive plain and in the wider sense in which it includes a large
part (if not the whole) of Peloponnesus.
Hera of Argos, and Athena of Alalkomene (Il. 4.8) .. "My own three favorite cities," answered Hera, "are Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae. (Il. 4.51)
Information about Hera is found at Heraeum , where the Sanctuary of the Godess
He was a son of Zeus by Alcmene (Il. 14.323, 18.118).
Hera delayed the birth of Heracles by guile, so that he did not rule over the people that dwelt round about, as Zeus had promised by oath the power to the son of Alcmene. On the other hand, Hera accelerated the birth of Eurystheus, so that he took the power and not Heracles (Il. 19.98-125).
Heracles undertook an expedition against Troy in order to take vengeance on Laomedon, who refused to reward him for the saviour of his daughter Hesione. He slew Laomedon and all his sons except Priam (Il. 20.145 etc., 5.642).
Heracles (Herakles), and in Latin Hercules, the most celebrated of all the heroes
of antiquity. The traditions about him are not only the richest in substance,
but also the most widely spread; for we find them not only in all the countries
round the Mediterranean, but his wondrous deeds were known in the most distant
countries of the ancient world. The difficulty of presenting a complete view of
these traditions was felt even by the ancients (Diod. iv. 8); and in order to
give a general survey, we must divide the subject, mentioning first the Greek
legends and their gradual development, next the Roman
legends, and lastly those of the East (Egypt,
Phoenicia).
The traditions about Heracles appear in their national purity down
to the time of Herodotus; for although there may be some foreign ingredients,
yet the whole character of the hero, his armour, his exploits, and the scenes
of his action, are all essentially Greek. But the poets of the time of Herodotus
and of the subsequent periods introduced considerable alterations, which were
probably derived from the east or Egypt,
for every nation of antiquity as well as of modern times had or has some traditions
of heroes of superhuman strength and power. Now while in the earliest Greek legends
Heracles is a purely human hero, as the conqueror of men and cities, he afterwards
appears as the subduer of monstrous animals, and is connected in a variety of
ways with astronomical phaenomena. According to Homer (Il. xviii. 118), Heracles
was the son of Zeus by Alcmene of Thebes
in Boeotia, and the favourite
of his father (Il. xiv. 250, 323, xix. 98, Od. xi. 266, 620, xxi. 25, 36). His
stepfather was Amphitryon (Il. v. 392, Od. xi. 269; Hes. Scut. Herc. 165). Amphitryon
was the son of Alcaeus, the son of Perseus, and Alcmene was a grand-daughter of
Perseus. Hence Heracles belonged to the family of Perseus. The story of his birth
runs thus. Amphitryon, after having slain Electryon, was expelled from Argos,
and went with his wife Alcmene to Thebes,
where he was received and purified by his uncle Creon. Alcmene was yet a maiden,
in accordance with a vow which Amphitryon had been obliged to make to Electryon,
and Alcmene continued to refuse him the rights of a husband, until he should have
avenged the death of her brothers on the Taphians. While Amphitryon was absent
from Thebes, Zeus one night, to which he gave the duration of three other nights,
visited Alcmene, and assuming the appearance of Amphitryon, and relating to her
how her brothers had been avenged, he begot by her the hero Heracles, the great
bulwark of gods and men (Respecting the various modifications of this story see
Apollod. ii. 4.7; Hygin. Fab. 29; Hes. Scut. 3.5; Pind. Isth. vii. 5, Nem. x.
19; Schol. ad Hom. Od. xi. 266). The day on which Heracles was to be born, Zeus
boasted of his becoming the father of a man who was to rule over the heroic race
of Perseus. Hera prevailed upon him to confirm by an oath that the descendant
of Perseus born that day should be the ruler. When this was done she hastened
to Argos, and there caused
the wife of Sthenelus to give birth to Eurystheus, whereas, by keeping away the
Eileithyiae, she delayed the confinement of Alcmene, and thus robbed Heracles
of the empire which Zeus had intended for him. Zeus was enraged at the imposition
practised upon him, but could not violate his oath. Alcmene brought into the world
two boys, Heracles, the son of Zeus, and Iphicles, the son of Amphitryon, who
was one night younger than Heracles (Hom. Il. xix. 95; Hes. Scnt. 1--56, 80; Apollod.
ii. 4). Zeus, in his desire not to leave Heracles the victim of Hera's jealousy,
made her promise, that if Heracles executed twelve great works in the service
of Eurystheus, he should become immortal (Diod. iv. 9). Respecting the place of
his birth traditions did not agree; for although the majority of poets and mythographers
relate that he was born at Thebes,
Diodorus (iv. 10) says that Amphitryon was not expelled from Tiryns
till after the birth of Heracles, and Euripides (Herc. Fur. 18) describes Argos
as the native country of the hero.
Nearly all the stories about the childhood and youth of Heracles,
down to the time when he entered the service of Eurystheus, seem to be inventions
of a later age: at least in the Homeric poems and in Hesiod we only find the general
remarks that he grew strong in body and mind, that in the confidence in his own
power he defied even the immortal gods, and wounded Hera and Ares, and that under
the protection of Zeus and Athena he escaped the dangers which Hera prepared for
him. But according to Pindar (Nem. i. 49), and other subsequent writers, Heracles
was only a few months old when Hera sent two serpents into the apartment where
Heracles and his brother Iphicles were sleeping, but the former killed the serpents
with his own hands (Comp. Theocrit. xxiv.1; Apollod. ii. 4.8). Heracles was brought
up at Thebes, but the detail
of his infant life is again related with various modifications in the different
traditions. It is said that Alcmene, from fear of Hera, exposed her son in a field
near Thebes, hence called
the field of Heracles; here he was found by Hera and Athena, and the former was
prevailed upon by the latter to put him to her breast, and she then carried him
back to his mother (Diod. iv. 9; Paus. ix. 25.2). Others said that Hermes carried
the newly-born child to Olympus,
and put him to the breast of Hera while she was asleep, but as she awoke, she
pushed him away, and the milk thus spilled produced the Milky Way (Eratosth. Catast.
44; Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. in fin). As the hero grew up, he was instructed by
Amphitryon in riding in a chariot, by Autolycus in wrestling, by Eurytus in archery,
by Castor in fighting with heavy armour, and by Linus in singing and playing the
lyre (See the different statements in Theocrit. xxiv. 114, 103, 108; Schol. ad
Theocrit. xiii. 9, 56; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 49). Linus was killed by his pupil with
the lyre, because he had censured him (Apollod. ii. 4.9; Diod. iii. 66; Aelian,
V. H. iii. 32). Being charged with murder, IIeracles exculpated himself by saying
that the deed was done in self-defence; and Amphitryon, in order to prevent similar
occurrences, sent him to attend to his cattle. In this manner he spent his life
till his eighteenth year. His height was four cubits, fire beamed from his eyes,
and he never wearied in practising shooting and hurling his javelin. To this period
of his life belongs the beautiful fable about Heracles before two roads, invented
by the sophist Prodicus, which may be read in Xenoph. Mem. ii. 1, and Cic de Off.
i. 32. Pindar (Isth. iv. 53) calls him small of stature, but of indomitable courage.
His first great adventure, which happened while he was still watching the oxen
of his father, is his fight against and victory over the lion of Cythaeron.
This animal made great havoc among the flocks of Amphitryon and Thespius (or Thestius),
king of Thespiae, and Heracles
promised to deliver the country of the monster. Thespius, who had fifty daughters,
rewarded Heracles by making him his guest so long as the chase lasted, and gave
up his daughters to him, each for one night (Apollod. ii. 4.10; comp. Hygin. Fab.
162; Diod. iv. 29; Athen. xiii. p. 556). Heracles slew the lion, and henceforth
wore its skin as his ordinary garment, and its mouth and head as his helmet; others
related that the lion's skin of Heracles was taken from the Nemean
lion. On his return to Thebes,
he met the envoys of king Erginus of Orchomenos,
who were going to fetch the annual tribute of one hundred oxen, which they had
compelled the Thebans to
pay. Heracles, in his patriotic indignation, cut off the noses and ears of the
envoys, and thus sent them back to Erginus. The latter thereupon marched against
Thebes; but Heracles, who
received a suit of armour from Athena, defeated and killed the enemy, and compelled
the Orchomenians to pay double
the tribute which they had formerly received from the Thebans.
In this battle against Erginus Heracles lost his father Amphitryon, though the
tragedians make him survive the campaign (Apollod. ii. 4.11; Diod. iv. 10; Paus.
ix. 37. 2; Theocrit. xvi. 105; Eurip. Herc. Fur. 41). According to some accounts,
Erginus did not fall in the tattle, but coneluded peace with Heracles. But the
gorious manner in which Heracles had delivered his country procured him immortal
fame among the Thebans, and
Creon rewarded him with the hand of his eldest daughter, Megara, by whom he became
the father of several children, the number and names of whom are stated differently
by the different writers (Apollod. ii. 4.11, 7.8; Hygin. Fab. 32; Eurip. Herc.
Fur. 995; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 38; Schol. ad Pind. Isthm. iii. 104). The gods, on
the other hand, made him presents of arms: Hermes gave him a sword, Apollo a bow
and arrows, Hephaestus a golden coat of mail, and Athena a peplus, and he cut
for himself a club in the neighbourhood of Nemea,
while, according to others, the club was of brass, and the gift of Hephaestus
(Apollon. Rhod. i. 1196; Diod. iv. 14). After the battle with the Minyans,
Hera visited Heracles with madness, in which he killed his own children by Megara
and two of Iphicles. In his grief he sentenced himself to exile, and went to Thestius,
who purified him (Apollod. ii. 4.12). Other traditions place this madness at a
later time, and relate the circumstances differently (Eurip. Herc. Fur. 1000;
Paus. ix. 11.1; Hygin. Fab. 32; Schol. ad Pind. Isthm. iii. 104). He then consulted
the oracle of Delphi as to
where he should settle. The Pythia first called him by the name of Heracles--for
hitherto his name had been Alcides or Alcaeus,--and ordered him to live at Tiryns,
to serve Eurystheus for the space of twelve years, after which he should become
immortal. Heracles accordingly went to Tiryns,
and did as he was bid by Eurystheus.
The accounts of the twelve labours of Heracles are found only in the
later writers, for Homer and Hesiod do not mention them. Homer only knows that
Heracles during his life on earth was exposed to infinite dangers and sufferings
through the hatred of Hera, that he was subject to Eurystheus, who imposed upon
him many and difficult tasks, but Homer mentions only one, viz. that he was ordered
to bring Cerberus from the lower world (Il. viii. 363, xv. 639, Od. xi. 617).
The Iliad further alludes to his fight with a seamonster, and his expedition to
Troy, to fetch the horses
which Laomedon had refused him (v. 638, xx. 145). On his return from Troy,
he was cast, through the influence of Hera, on the coast of Cos,
but Zeus punished Hera, and carried Heracles safely to Argos
(xiv. 249, xv 18). Afterwards Heracles made war against the Pylians,
and destroyed the whole family of their king Neleus, with the exception of Nestor.
He destroyed many towns, and carried off Astyoche from Ephyra,
by whom he became the father of Tlepolemus (v. 395, ii. 657; comp. Od xxi. 14;
Soph. Trach. 239). Hesiod mentions several of the feats of Heracles distinctly,
but knows nothing of their number twelve. The selection of these twelve from the
great number of feats ascribed to Heracles is probably the work of the Alexandrines.
They are enumerated in Euripides (Here. Fur.), Apollodorus, Diodorus Siculus,
and the Greek Anthology (ii. 651), though none of them can be considered to have
arranged them in any thing like a chronological order.
...the twelve labours of Heracles... (see below). According to Apollodorus, Eurystheus
originally required only ten, and commanded him to perform two more, because he
was dissatisfied with two of them; but Diodorus represents twelve as the original
number required. Along with these labours (athloi), the ancients relate a considerable
number of other feats (parerga) which he performed without being commanded by
Eurystheus; some of them are interwoven with the twelve Athloi, and others belong
to a later period. Those of the former kind have already been noticed above; and
we now proceed to mention the principal parerga of the second class. After the
accomplishment of the twelve labours, and being released from the servitude of
Eurystheus, he returned to Thebes. He there gave Megara in marriage to Iolaus;
for, as he had lost the children whom he had by her, he looked upon his connection
with her as displeasing to the gods (Paus. x. 29), and went to Oechalia. According
to some traditions, Heracles, after his return from Hades, was seized with madness,
in which he killed both Megara and her children. This madness was a calamity sent
to him by Hera, because he had slain Lycus, king of Thebes, who, in the belief
that Heracles would not return from Hades, had attempted to murder Megara and
her children (Hygin. Fab. 32; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 38). Eurytus, king of Oechalia,
an excellent archer, and the teacher of Heracles in his art, had promised his
daughter Iole to the man who should excel him and his sons in using the bow. Heracles
engaged in the contest with them, and succeeded, but Eurytus refused abiding by
his promise, saying, that he would not give his daughter to a man who had murdered
Ills own children. Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, endeavoured to persuade his father,
but in vain. Soon after this the oxen of Eurytus were carried off, and it was
suspected that Heracles was the offender. Iphitus again defended Heracles, went
to him and requested his assistance in searching after the oxen. Heracles agreed;
but when the two had arrived at Tiryns, Heracles, in a fit of madness, threw his
friend down from the wall, and killed him. Deiphobus of Amyclae, indeed, purified
Heracles from this murder, but he was, nevertheless, attacked by a severe illness.
Heracles then repaired to Delphi to obtain a remedy, but the Pythia refused to
answer his questions. A struggle between Heracles and Apollo ensued, and the combatants
were not separated till Zeus sent a flash of lightning between them. Heracles
now obtained the oracle that he should be restored to health, if he would sell
himself, would serve three years for wages, and surrender his wages to Eurytus,
as an atonement for the murder of Iphitus (Apollod. ii. 6.1, 2; Diod. iv. 31,
&c.; Hom. Il. ii. 730, Od. xxi. 22, &c.; Soph. Trach. 273, &c.). Heracles was
sold to Omphale, queen of Lydia, and widow of Tmolus. Late writers, especially
the Roman poets, describe Heracles, during his stay with Omphale, as indulging
at times in an effeminate life: he span wool, it is said, and sometimes lie put
on the garments of a woman, while Omphale wore his lion's skin; but, according
to Apollodorus and Diodorus, he nevertheless performed several great feats (Ov.
Fast. ii. 305, Heroid. ix. 53; Senec. Hippol. 317, Herc. Fur. 464; Lucian, Dial.
Deor. xiii. 2; Apollod. ii. 6. Β§ 3; Diod. iv. 31, &c.) Among these, we mention
his chaining the Cercopes, his killing Syleus and his daughter in Aulis, his defeat
of the plundering Idones, his killing a serpent on the river Sygaris, and his
throwing the blood-thirsty Lytierses into the Maeander (Comp. Hygin. Poet. Astr.
ii. 14; Schol. ad Theocrit. x. 41; Athen. x.). He further gave to the island of
Doliche the name of Icaria, as he buried in it the body of Icarus, which had been
washed on shore by the waves. He also undertook an expedition to Colchis, which
brought him in connection with the Argonauts (Apollod. i. 9.16; Herod. vii. 193;
Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 1289; Anton. Lib. 26); he took part in the Calydonian
hunt, and met Theseus on his landing from Troezene on the Corinthian isthmus.
An expedition to India, which was mentioned in some traditions, may likewise be
inserted in this place (Philostr. Vit. Apoll. iii. 4, 6; Arrian, Ind. 8, 9).
When the period of his servitude and his illness had passed away,
he undertook an expedition against Troy, with 18 ships and a band of heroes. On
his landing, he entrusted the fleet to Oicles, and with his other companions made
an attack upon the city. Laomedon in the mean time made an attack upon the ships,
and slew Oicles, but was compelled to retreat into the city, where he was besieged.
Telamon was the first who forced his way into the city, which roused the jealousy
of Heracles to such a degree that lie determined to kill him; but Telamon quickly
collected a heap of stones, and pretended that he was building an altar to Heracles
kallinikos or alexikakos. This soothed the anger of the hero; and after the sons
of Laomedon had fallen, Heracles gave to Telamon Hesione, as a reward for his
bravery (Hom. Il. v. 641, &c., xiv. 251, xx. 145, &c.; Apollod. ii. 6.4; Diod.
iv. 32, 49; Eurip. Troad. 802, &c.).
On his return from Troy, Hera sent a storm to impede his voyage, which
compelled him to land in the island of Cos. The Meropes, the inhabitants of the
island, took him for a pirate, and received him with a shower of stones; but during
the night he took possession of the island, and killed the king, Eurypylus. Heracles
himself was wounded by Chalcodon, but was saved by Zeus. After he had ravaged
Cos, he went, by the command of Athena, to Phlegra, and fought against the Gigantes
(Apollod. ii. 7. Β§ 1; Hom. Il. xiv. 250, &c.; Pind. Nem. iv. 40). Respecting
his fight against the giants, who were, according to an oracle, to be conquered
by a mortal, see especially Eurip. Herc. Fur. 177, &c., 852, 1190, &c., 1272.
Among the giants defeated by him we find mention of Alcyoneus, a name borne by
two among them. (Pind. Nem. iv. 43, Isthm. vi. 47.)
Soon after his return to Argos, Heracles marched against Augeas to
chastise him for his breach of promise (see above), and then proceeded to Pylos,
which he took, and killed Periclymenus, a son of Neleus. He then advanced against
Lacedaemon, to punish the sons of Hippocoon, for having assisted Neleus and slain
Oeonus, the son of Licymnius (Paus. iii. 15.2, ii. 18.6; Apollod. ii. 7.3; Diod.
iv. 33). Heracles took Lacedaemon, and assigned the government of it to Tyndarens.
On his return to Tegea, he became, by Auge, the father of Telephus, and then proceeded
to Calydon, where he demanded Deianeira, the daughter of Oeneus, for his wife.
The adventures which now follow are of minor importance, such as the expedition
against the Dryopians, and the assistance he gave to Aegimius, king of the Dorians,
against the Lapithae; but as these events led to his catastrophe, it is necessary
to subjoin a sketch of them.
Heracles had been married to Deianeira for nearly three years, when,
at a repast in the house of Oeneus, he killed, by an accident, the boy Eunomus,
the son of Architeles. The father of the boy pardoned the murder, as it had not
been committed intentionally; but Heracles, in accordance with the law, went into
exile with his wife Deianeira. On their road they came to the river Euenus, across
which the centaur Nessus used to carry travellers for a small sum of money. Heracles
himself forded the river, and gave Deianeira to Nessus to carry her across. Nessus
attempted to outrage her: Heracles heard her screaming, and as the centaur brought
her to the other side, Heracles shot an arrow into his heart. The dying centaur
called out to Deianeira to take his blood with her, as it was a sure means for
preserving the love of her husband (Apollod. ii. 7.6; Diod. iv. 36; Soph. Trach.
555, &c.; Ov. Met. ix. 201, &c.; Senec. Herc. Oct. 496, &c.; Paus. x. 38.1). From
the river Euenus, Heracles now proceeded through the country of the Dryopes, where
he showed himself worthy of the epithet "the voracious", which is so often given
to him, especially bv late writers, for in his hunger he took one of the oxen
of Theiodamas, and consumed it all. At last he arrived in Trachis, where he was
kindly received by Ceyx, and conquered the Dryopes. He then assisted Aegimius,
king of the Dorians, against the Lapithae, and without accepting a portion of
the country which was offered to him as a reward. Laogoras, the king of the Dryopes,
and his children, were slain. As Heracles proceeded to Iton, in Thessaly, he was
challenged to single combat by Cycnus, a son of Ares and Pelopia (Hesiod. Scut.
Her. 58, &c.); but Cycnus was slain. King Amyntor of Ormenion refused to allow
Heracles to pass through his dominions, but had to pay for his presumption with
his life (Apollod. ii. 7.7; Diod. iv. 36, &c.).
Heracles now returned to Trachis, and there collected an army to take
vengeance on Eurytus of Oechalia. Apollodorus and Diodorus agree in making Heracles
spend the last years of his life at Trachis, but Sophocles represents the matter
in a very different light, for, according to him, Heracles was absent from Trachis
upwards of fifteen months without Deianeira knowing where he was. During that
period he was staying with Omphale in Lydia; and without returning home, he proceeded
from Lydia at once to Oechalia, to gain possession of Iole, whom he loved (Soph.
Track. 44, &c.; 248, &c., 351, &c.) With the assistance of his allies, Heracles
took the town of Oechalia, and slew Eurytus and his sons, but carried his daughter
Iole with him as a prisoner. On his return home he landed at Cenaeum, a promontory
of Euboea, and erected an altar to Zeus Cenaeus, and sent his companion, Lichas,
to Trachis to fetch him a white garment, which he intended to use during the sacrifice.
Deiancira, who heard from Lichas respecting Iole, began to fear lost she should
supplant her in the affection of her husband, to prevent which she steeped the
white garment he had demanded in the preparation she had made from the blood of
Nessus. Scarcely had the garment become warm on the body of Heracles, when the
poison which was contained in the ointment, and had come into it from the poisoned
arrow with which Heracles had killed Nessus, penetrated into all parts of his
body, and caused him the most fearful pains. Heracles seized Lichas by his feet,
and threw him into the sea. He wrenched off his garment, but it stuck to his flesh,
and with it he tore whole pieces from his body. In this state he was conveyed
to Trachis. Deianeira, on seeing what she had unwittingly done, hung herself;
and Heracles commanded Hyllus, his eldest son, by Deianeira, to marry Iole as
soon as he should arrive at the age of manhood. He then ascended Mount Oeta, raised
a pile of wood, ascended, and ordered it to be set on fire. No one ventured to
obey him, until at length Poeas the shepherd, who passed by, was prevailed upon
to comply with the desire of the suffering hero. When the pile was burning, a
cloud came down from heaven, and amid peals of thunder carried him into Olympus,
where he was honoured with immortality, became reconciled with Hera, and married
her daughter Hebe, by whom he became the father of Alexiares and Anicetus (Hom.
Od. xi. 600, &c.; Hes. Theog. 949, &c.; Soph. Trach. l. c., Philoct. 802; Apollod.
ii. 7.7; Diod. iv. 38; Ov. Met. ix. 155, &c.; Herod. vii. 198; Conon, Narrat.
17; Paus. iii. 18.7; Pind. Nem. i. in fin., x. 31, &c., Isthm. iv. 55, &c.; Vir.
Aen. viii. 300, and many other writers).
The wives and children of Heracles are enumerated by Apollodorus (ii.
7.8), but we must refer the reader to the separate articles. We may, however,
observe that among the very great number of his children, there are no daughters,
and that Euripides is the only writer who mentions Macaria as a daughter of Heracles
by Deianeira. We must also pass over the long series of his surnames, and proceed
to give an account of his worship in Greece. Immediately after the apotheosis
of Heracles, his friends who were present at the termination of his earthly career
offered sacrifices to him as a hero; and Menoetius established at Opus the worship
of Heracles as a hero. This example was followed by the Thebans, until at length
Heracles was worshipped throughout Greece as a divinity (Diod. iv. 39; Eurip.
Herc. Fur. 1331); but he, Dionysus and Pan, were regarded as the youngest gods,
and his worship was practised in two ways, for he was worshipped both as a god
and as a hero (Herod. ii. 44, 145). One of the most ancient temples of Heracles
in Greece was that at Bura, in Achaia, where he had a peculiar oracle (Paus. vii.
25.6; Plut. de Malign. Herod. 31). In the neighbourhood of Thermopylae, where
Athena, to please him, had called forth the hot spring, there was an altar of
Heracles, surnamed melampugos (Schol. ad Aristoph. Nub. 1047; Herod. vii. 176);
and it should be observed that hot springs in general were sacred to Heracles
(Diod. v. 3; Schol. ad Pind. Ol. xii. 25; Liv. xxii. 1; Strab. pp. 60, 172, 425,
428). In Phocis he had a temple under the name of misolunes; and as at Rome, women
were not allowed to take part in his worship, probably on account of his having
been poisoned by Deianeira (Plut. Quaest. Rom. 57, de Pyth. Orac. 20; Macrob.
Sat. i. 12). But temples and sanctuaries of Heracles existed in all parts of Greece,
especially in those inhabited by the Dorians. The sacrifices offered to him consisted
principally of bulls, boars, rams and lambs (Diod. iv. 39; Paus. ii. 10.1). Respecting
the festivals celebrated in his honour, see Heracleia.
The worship of Hercules at Rome and in Italy requires a separate consideration.
His worship there is connected by late, especially Roman writers, with the hero's
expedition to fetch the oxen of Geryones; and the principal points are, that Hercules
in the West abolished human sacrifices among the Sabines, established the worship
of fire, and slew Cacus, a robber, who had stolen eight of his oxen (Dionys. i.
14) The aborigines, and especially Evander, honoured the hero with divine worship.
(Serv. ad Aen. viii. 51, 269.) Hercules, in return, feasted the people, and presented
the king with lands, requesting that sacrifices should be offered to him every
year, according to Greek rites. Two distinguished families, the Potitii and Pinarii,
were instructed in these Greek rites, and appointed hereditary managers of the
festival. But Hercules made a distinction between these two families, which continued
to exist for a long time after; for, as Pinarius arrived too late at the repast,
the god punished him by declaring that lie and his descendants should be excluded
for ever from the sacrificial feast. Thus the custom arose for the Pinarii to
act the part of servants at the feast. (Diod. iv. 21; Dionys. i. 39, &c.; Liv.
i. 40, v. 34; Nepos, Hann. 3; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 18; Ov. Fast. i. 581). The Fabia
gens traced its origin to Hercules, and Fauna and Acca Laurentia are called mistresses
of Hercules. In this manner the Romans connected their earliest legends with Hercules
(Macrob. Sat. i. 10; August. de Civ. Dei, vi. 7). It should be observed that in
the Italian traditions the hero bore the name of Recaranus, and this Recaranus
was afterwards identified with the Greek Heracles. He had two temples at Rome,
one was a small round temple of Hercules Victor, or Hercules Triumphalis, between
the river and the Circus Maximus, in the forum boarium, and contained a statue,
which was dressed in the triumphal robes whenever a general celebrated a triumph.
In front of this statue was the ara maxima, on which, after a triumph, the tenth
of the booty was deposited for distribution among the citizens (Liv. x. 23; Plin.
H. N. xxxiv. 7, 16; Macrob. Sat. iii. 6; Tacit. Ann. xii. 24; Serv. ad Aen. xii.
24; Athen. v. 65; comp. Dionys. i. 40). The second temple stood near the porta
trigemina, and contained a bronze statue and the altar on which Hercules himself
was believed to have once offered a sacrifice (Dionys. i. 39, 40; Plut. Quaest.
Rom. 60; Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 12, 45). Here the city praetor offered every year
a young cow, which was consumed by the people within the sanctuary. The Roman
Hercules was regarded as the giver of health (Lydus, de Mens. p. 92), and his
priests were called by a Sabine name Cupenci (Serv. ad Aen. xii. 539). At Rome
he was further connected with the Muses, whence he is called Musagetes, and was
represented with a lyre, of which there is no trace in Greece. The identity of
the Italian with the Greek Heracles is attested not only by the resenmblalce in
the traditions and the mode of worship, but by the distinct belief of the Romans
themselves. The Greek colonies had introduced his worship into Italy, and it was
thence carried to Rome, into Gaul, Spain, arid even Germany (Tac. Germ. 2). But
it is, nevertheless, in the highest degree probable that the Greek mythus was
engrafted upon, or supplied the place of that about the Italian Recaranus or Garanus.
The works of art in which Heracles was represented were extremely
numerous, and of the greatest variety, for he was represented at all the various
stages of his life, from the cradle to his death; but whether he appears as a
child, a youth, a struggling hero, or as the immortal inhabitant of Olympus, his
character is always that of heroic strength and energy. Specimens of every kind
are still extant. In the works of the archaic style he appeared as a man with
heavy armour (Paus. iii. 15.7), but he is usually represented armed with a club,
a Scythian bow, and a lion's skin. His head and eyes are small in proportion to
the other parts of his body; his hair is short, bristly, and curly, his neck short,
fat, and resembling that of a bull; the lower part of his forehead projects, and
his expression is grave and serious; his shoulders, arms, breast, and legs display
the highest physical strength, and the strong muscles suggest the unceasing and
extraordinary exertions by which his life is characterised. The representations
of Heracles by Myron and Parrhasius approached nearest to the ideal which was
at length produced by Lysippus. The socalled Farnesian Heracles, of which the
torso still exists, is the work of Glycon, in imitation of one by Lysippus. It
is the finest representation of the hero that has come down to us: he is resting,
leaning on his right arm, while the left one is reclining on his head, and the
whole figure is a most exquisite combination of peculiar softness with the greatest
strength.
The mythus of Heracles, as it has come down to us, has unquestionably been developed
on Grecian soil; his name is Greek, and the substance of the fables also is of
genuine Greek growth: the foreign additions which at a later age may have been
incorporated with the Greek mythus can easily be recognised and separated from
it. It is further clear that real historical elements are interwoven with the
fables. The best treatises on the mythus of Heracles are those of Buttmann (Mythologus),
and C. O. Muller (Dorians), both of whom regard the hero as a purely Greek character,
though the former considers him as entirely a poetical creation, and the latter
believes that the whole mythus arose from the proud consciousness of power which
is innate in every man, by means of which he is able to raise himself to an equality
with the immortal gods, notwithstanding all the obstacles that may be placed in
his way.
Before we conclude, we must add a few remarks respecting the Heracles
of the East, and of the Celtic and Germanic nations. The ancients themselves expressly
mention several heroes of the name of Heracles, who occur among the principal
nations of the ancient world. Diodorus, e.g. (iii. 73, comp. i. 24, v. 64, 76)
speaks of three, the most ancient of whom was the Egyptian, a son f Zeus, the
second a Cretan, and one of the Idacan Dactyls, and the third or youngest was
Heracles the son of Zeus by Alcmena, who lived shortly before the Trojan war,
and to whom the feats of the earlier ones were ascribed. Cicero (de Nat. Deor.
iii. 16) counts six heroes of this name, and he likewise makes the last and youngest
the son of Zeus and Alcmena. Varro (ap. Serv. ad Aen. viii. 564) is said to have
reckoned up forty-four heroes of this name, while Servius assumes only four, viz.
the Tirynthian, the Argive, the Theban, and the Libyan Heracles. Herodotus (ii.
42, &c.) tells us that he made inquiries respecting Heracles: the Egyptian he
found to be decidedly older than the Greek one; but the Egyptians referred him
to Phoenicia as the original source of the traditions. The Egyptian Heracles,
who is mentioned by many other writers besides Herodotus and Diodorus, is said
to have been called by his Egyptian name Som or Dsom, or, according to others,
Chon (Etym. M. s. v. Chon), and, according to Pausanias (x. 17.2), Maceris. According
to Diodorus (i. 24), Som was a son of Amon (Zeus); but Cicero calls him a son
of Nilus, while, according to Ptolemaeus Hephaestion, Heracles himself was originally
called Nilus. This Egyptian Heracles was placed by the Egyptians in the second
of the series of the evolutions of their gods (Diod. l. c.; Herod. ii. 43, 145,
iii. 73; Tac. Ann. ii. 6). The Thebans placed him 17,000 years before king Amasis,
and, according to Diodorus, 10,000 years before the Trojan war; whereas Macrobius
(Sat. i. 20) states that he had no beginning at all. The Greek Heracles, according
to Diodorus, became the heir of all the feats and exploits of his elder Egyptian
namesake. The 'Egyptian Heracles, however, is also mentioned in the second classof
the kings; so that the original divinity, by a process of anthropomorphism, appears
as a man, and in this capacity he bears great resemblance to the Greek hero (Diod.
i. 17, 24, iii. 73). This may, indeed, be a mere reflex of the Greek traditions,
but the statement that Osiris, previous to his great expedition, entrusted Heracles
with the government of Egypt, seems to be a genuine Egyptian legend. The other
stories related about the Egyptian Heracles are of a mysterious nature, and unintelligible,
but the great veneration in which he was held is attested by several authorities
(Herod. ii. 113; Diod. v. 76; Tac. Ann. ii. 60; Macrob. Sat. i. 20).
Further traces of the worship of Heracles appear in Thasus, where
Herodotus (ii. 44) found a temple, said to have been built by the Phoenicians
sent out in search of Europa, five generations previous to the time of the Greek
Heracles. He was worshipped there principally in the character of a saviour (soter,
Paus. v. 25.7, vi. 11.2).
The Cretan Heracles, one of the Idaean Dactyls, was believed to have
founded the temple of Zeus at Olympia (Paus. v. 13.5), but to have originally
come from Egypt (Diod. iv. 18). The traditions about him resemble those of the
Greek Heracles (Diod. v. 76; Paus. ix. 27.5); but it is said that he lived at
a much earlier period than the Greek hero, and that the latter only imitated him.
Eusebius states that his name was Diodas, and Hieronymus makes it Desanaus. He
was worshipped with funeral sacrifices, and was regarded as a magician, like other
ancient daemones of Crete (Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 16; Diod. v. 64).
In India, also, we find a Heracles, who was called by the unintelligible
name Dirsaner (Plin. H. N. vi. 16, 22; Hesych. s.v. Dorsaner). The later Greeks
believed that he was their own hero, who had visited India, and related that in
India he became the father of many sons and daughters by Pandaea, and the ancestral
hero of the Indian kings (Arrian, Ind. 8, 9; Diod. ii. 39, xvii. 85, 96; Philostr.
Vit. Apoll. iii. 46)
The Phoenician Heracles, whom the Egyptians considered to be more
ancient than their own, was probably identical with the Egyptian or Libyan Heracles.
See the learned disquisition in Movers (Die Phoenicier, p. 415, &c.) He was worshipped
in all the Phoenician colonies, such as Carthage and Gades, down to the time of
Constantine, and it is said that children were sacrificed to him (Plin. H. N.
xxxvi. 5).
The Celtic and Germanic Heracles has already been noticed above, as
the founder of Alesia, Nemausus, and the author of the Celtic race. We become
acquainted with him in the accounts of the expedition of the Greek Heracles to
Geryones (Herod. i. 7, ii. 45, 91, 113, iv. 82; Pind. Ol. iii. 11, &c.; Tacit.
Germ. 3, 9). We must either suppose that the Greek Heracles was identified with
native heroes of those northern countries, or that the notions about Heracles
had been introduced there from the East.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Jan 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Heracles (Herakles: Latin, Hercules). Heracles
is not only one of the oldest heroes in the Greek mythology, but the most famous
of all. Indeed, the traditions of similar heroes in other Greek tribes, and in
other nations, especially in the East, were transferred to Heracles; so that the
scene of his achievements, which is, in the Homeric poems, confined on the whole
to Greece, became almost coextensive with the known world; and the story of Heracles
was the richest and most comprehensive of all the heroic myths.
Heracles was born in Thebes, and was the son of Zeus by Alcmene,
the wife of Amphitryon, whose form the god assumed while he was absent in the
war against the Teleboi. On the day which he should have been born, Zeus announced
to the gods that a descendant of Perseus was about to see the light, who would
hold sway over all the Perseidae. Here cunningly induced her consort to confirm
his words with an oath. She hated the unborn son as the son of her rival, and
hence in her capacity as the goddess of childbirth caused the queen of Sthenelus
of Mycenae, a descendant of Perseus, to give birth prematurely to Eurystheus,
while she postponed the birth of Heracles for seven days. Hence it was that Heracles,
with his gigantic strength, came into the service of the weaker Eurystheus. Here
pursued him with her hatred during the whole of his natural life. He and his twin
brother Iphicles, the son of Amphitryon, were hardly born, when the goddess sent
two serpents to their cradle to destroy them. Heracles seized them and strangled
them. The child grew up to be a strong youth, and was taught by Amphitryon to
drive a chariot, by Autolycus to wrestle, by Eurytus to shoot with the bow, and
by Castor to use the weapons of war. Chiron instructed him in the sciences, Rhadamanthus
in virtue and wisdom, Eumolpus (or according to another account, Linus) in music.
When Linus attempted to chastise him, Heracles struck him dead with his lute.
Amphitryon, accordingly, alarmed at his untamable temper, sent him to tend his
flocks on Mount Cithaeron.
It was at this time, according to the Sophist Prodicus, that
the event occurred which occasioned the fable of the "Choice of Heracles".
Heracles was meditating in solitude as to the path of life which he should choose,
when two tall women appeared before him--the one called Pleasure, the other called
Virtue. Pleasure promised him a life of enjoyment, Virtue a life of toil crowned
by glory. He decided for Virtue. After destroying the savage lion of Cithaeron,
he returned, in his eighteenth year, to Thebes, and freed the city from the tribute
which it had been forced to pay to Erginus of Orchomenus, whose heralds he deprived
of their ears and noses. Creon, king of Thebes, gave him, in gratitude, his daughter
Megara as wife. But it was not long before the Delphic oracle commanded him to
enter the service of Eurystheus, king of Mycenae and Tiryns, and perform twelve
tasks which he should impose upon him. This was the humiliation which Here had
in store for him. The oracle promised him, at the same time, that he should win
eternal glory, and in deed immortality, and change his present name Alcaeus (from
his paternal grandfather) or Alcides (from alke, "strength") for Heracles
("renowned through Here"). Nevertheless, he fell into a fit of madness,
in which he shot down the three children whom Megara had borne him. When healed
of his insanity, he entered into the service of Eurystheus.
The older story says nothing of the exact number (twelve) of
the labours (athloi) of Heracles. The number was apparently invented by the poet
Pisander of Rhodes, who may have had in his eye the contests of the Phoenician
god Melkart with the twelve hostile beasts of the Zodiac. It was also Pisander
who first armed the hero with the club, and the skin taken from the lion of Cithaeron
or Nemea. Heracles was previously represented as carrying bow and arrows, and
the weapons of a Homeric hero.
The twelve labours of Heracles were as follows: (1) The contest
with the invulnerable lion of Nemea, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. Heracles
drove it into its cavern and strangled it in his arms. With the impenetrable hide,
on which nothing could make any impression but the beast's own claws, he clothed
himself, the jaws covering his head. (2) The hydra or water-snake of Lerna, also
a child of Typhon and Echidna. This monster lived in the marsh of Lerna, near
Argos, and was so poisonous that its very breath was fatal. It had nine heads,
one of which was immortal. Heracles scared it out of its lair with burning arrows,
and cut off its head; but for every head cut off two new ones arose. At length
Iolaus, the charioteer of Heracles and son of his brother Iphicles, seared the
wounds with burning brands. Upon the immortal head he laid a heavy mass of rock.
He anointed his arrows with the monster's gall, so that henceforth the wounds
they inflicted were incurable. Eurystheus refused to accept this as a genuine
victory, alleging the assistance offered by Iolaus. (3) The boar of Erymanthus,
which infested Arcadia. Heracles had been commanded to bring it alive to Mycenae,
so he chased it into an expanse of snow, tired it out, and caught it in a noose.
The mere sight of the beast threw Eurystheus into such a panic that he slunk away
into a tub underground and bid the hero, in future, to show the proof of his achievements
outside the city gates. (4) The hind of Mount Cerynea, between Arcadia and Achaia.
Another account localizes the event on Mount Maenalus, and speaks of the Maenalian
hind. Its horns were of gold and its hoofs of brass, and it had been dedicated
to Artemis by the Pleiad Taygete. Heracles was to take the hind alive. He followed
her for a whole year up to the source of the Ister in the country of the Hyperboreans.
At length she returned to Arcadia, where he wounded her with an arrow on the banks
of the Ladon, and so caught her. (5) The birds that infested the lake of Stymphalus,
in Arcadia. These were man-eating monsters, with claws, wings, and beaks of brass,
and feathers that they shot out like arrows. Heracles scared them with a brazen
rattle, and succeeded in killing part, and driving away the rest, which settled
on the island of Aretias in the Black Sea, to be frightened away, after a hard
fight, by the Argonauts. (6) Heracles was commanded to bring home for Admete,
the daughter of Eurystheus, the girdle of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons. After
many adventures he landed at Themiscyra, and found the queen ready to give up
the girdle of her own accord. But Here spread a rumour among the Amazons that
their queen was in danger, and a fierce battle took place, in which Heracles slew
Hippolyte and many of her followers. On his return he slew, in the neighbourhood
of Troy, a sea-monster, to whose fury King Laomedon had offered up his daughter
Hesione. Laomedon refused to give Heracles the reward he had promised, whereupon
the latter, who was hastening to return to Mycenae, threatened him with future
vengeance. (7) The farm-yard of Augeas, king of Elis, in which lay the dung of
three thousand cattle, was to be cleared in a day. Heracles completed the task
by turning the rivers Alpheus and Peneus into the yard. Augeas now contended that
Heracles was only acting on the commission of Eurystheus, and on this pretext
refused him his promised reward. Heracles slew him afterwards with all his sons,
and thereupon founded the Olympian Games. (8) A mad bull had been sent up from
the sea by Poseidon to ravage the island of Crete, in revenge for the disobedience
of Minos. Heracles was to bring him to Mycenae alive. He caught the bull, crossed
the sea on his back, threw him over his neck and carried him to Mycenae, where
he let him go. The animal wandered all through the Peloponnesus and ended by infesting
the neighbourhood of Marathon, where he was at length slain by Theseus. (9) Diomedes,
a son of Ares, and king of the Bistones in Thrace, had some mares which he used
to feed on the flesh of the strangers landing in the country. After a severe struggle,
Heracles overcame the king, threw his body to the mares, and took them off to
Mycenae, where Eurystheus let them go. (10) The oxen of Geryones, the son of Chrysaor
and the ocean nymph Callirrhoe. Geryones was a giant with three bodies and mighty
wings, who dwelt on the island of Erythea, in the farthest West, on the borders
of the Ocean stream. He had a herd of red cattle, which were watched by the shepherd
Eurytion and his two-headed dog Orthrus, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.
In quest of these cattle, Heracles, with many adventures, passed through Europe
and Libya. On the boundary of both continents he set up, in memory of his arrival,
the two pillars which bear his name, and at length reached the Ocean stream. Oppressed
by the rays of the neighbouring sun, he aimed his bow at the Sungod, who marvelled
at his courage, and gave him his golden bowl to cross the Ocean in. Arrived at
Erythea, Heracles slew the shepherd and his dog, and drove off the cattle. Menoetius,
who tended the herds of Hades in the neigbourhood, brought news to Geryones of
what had happened. Geryones hurried in pursuit, but after a fierce contest fell
before the arrows of Heracles. The hero returned with the cattle through Iberia,
Gaul, Liguria, Italy, and Sicily, meeting everywhere with new adventures, and
leaving behind him tokens of his presence. At the mouth of the Rhone he had a
dreadful struggle with the Ligyes; his arrows were exhausted, and he had sunk
in weariness upon his knee, when Zeus rained a shower of innumerable stones from
heaven, with which he prevailed over his enemies. The place was ever after a stony
desert plain, and was identified with the Campus Lapidosus near Massilia (Marseilles).
Heracles had made the circuit of the Adriatic and was just nearing Greece, when
Here sent a gadfly and scattered the herd. With much toil he wandered through
the mountains of Thrace as far as the Hellespont, but then only succeeded in getting
together a part of the cattle. After a dangerous adventure with the giant Alcyoneus,
he succeeded at length in returning to Mycenae, where Eurystheus offered up the
cattle to Here. (11) The golden apples of the Hesperides. Heracles was ignorant
where the gardens of the Hesperides were to be found in which the apples grew.
He accordingly repaired to the nymphs who dwelt by the Eridanus, on whose counsel
he surprised Nereus, the omniscient god of the sea, and compelled him to give
an answer. On this he journeyed through Libya, Egypt, and Ethiopia, where he slew
Antaeus, Busiris, and Emathion. He then crossed to Asia, passed through the Caucasus,
where he set Prometheus free, and on through the land of the Hyperboreans till
he found Atlas. Following the counsel of Prometheus, he sent Atlas to bring the
apples, and in his absence bore the heavens for him on his shoulders. Atlas returned
with them, but declined to take his burden upon his shoulders again, promising
to carry the apples to Eurystheus himself. Heracles consented, and asked Atlas
to take the burden only a moment, while he adjusted a cushion for his head; he
then hurried off with his prize. Another account represents Heracles as slaying
the serpent Ladon, who guarded the tree, and plucking the apples himself. Eurystheus
presented him with the apples; he dedicated them to Athene, who restored them
to their place. (12) Last he brought the dog Cerberus up from the lower world.
This was the heaviest task of all. Conducted by Hermes and Athene, he descended
into Hades at the promontory of Taenarum. In Hades he set Theseus free, and induced
the prince of the infernal regions to let him take the dog to the realms of day,
if only he could do so without using his weapons. Heracles bound the beast by
the mere strength of arm, and carried him to Eurystheus, and took him back again
into Hades. While in the upper world the dog, in his disgust, spat upon the ground,
causing the poisonous herb aconite to spring up.
His tasks were now ended, and he returned to Thebes. His first
wife, Megara, he wedded to his faithful friend Iolaus, and then journeyed into
Oechalia to King Eurytus, whose daughter Iole he meant to woo. The king's son
Iphitus favoured his suit, but Eurytus rejected it with contempt. Soon after this
Autolycus stole some of Eurytus's cattle, and he accused Heracles of the robbery.
Meanwhile, Heracles had rescued Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, from death. Iphitus
met Heracles, begged him to help him in looking for the stolen cattle, and accompanied
him to Tiryns. Here, after hospitably entertaining him, Heracles threw him, in
a fit of madness, from the battlements of his stronghold. A heavy sickness was
sent on him for this murder, and Heracles prayed to the god of Delphi to heal
him. Apollo rejected him, whereupon Heracles attempted to carry away the tripod.
A conflict ensued, when Zeus parted the combatants with his lightning. The oracle
bade Heracles to hire himself out for three years for three talents, and pay the
money to Eurytus. Hermes put him into the service of Omphale, queen of Lydia,
daughter of Iardanus, and widow of Tmolus. Heracles was degraded to female drudgery,
was clothed in soft raiment and set to spin wool, while the queen assumed the
lion skin and the club. The time of service over, he undertook an expedition of
vengeance against Laomedon of Troy. He landed on the coast of the Troad with eighteen
ships, manned by the boldest of heroes, such as Telamon, Peleus, and Oicles. Laomedon
succeeded in surprising the guard by the ships and in slaying Oicles. But the
city was stormed, Telamon being the first to climb the wall, and Laomedon, with
all his sons except Podarces, was slain by the arrows of Heracles. On his return
Here sent a tempest upon him. On the island of Cos he had a hard conflict to undergo
with Eurytion, the son of Poseidon, and his sons. Heracles was at first wounded
and forced to fly, but prevailed at length with the help of Zeus.
After this Athene summoned the hero to the battle of the gods
with the giants, who were not to be vanquished without his aid. Then Heracles
returned to the Peloponnesus, and took vengeance on Augeas and on Neleus of Pylos,
who had refused to purify him for the murder of Iphitus. In the battle with the
Pylians he went so far as to wound Hades, who had come up to their assistance.
Hippocoon of Sparta and his numerous sons he slew in revenge for their murder
of Oeonus, a son of his maternal uncle Licymnius. In this contest his ally was
King Cepheus of Tegea, by whose sister Auge he was father of Telephus. Cepheus
with his twenty sons were left dead on the field.
Heracles now won as his wife Deianira, the daughter of Oeneus
of Calydon. He remained a long time with his father-in-law, and at length, with
his wife and his son Hyllus, he passed on into Trachis to the hospitality of his
friend Ceyx. At the ford of the river Evenus he encountered the Centaur Nessus,
who had the right of carrying travellers across. Nessus remained behind and attempted
to do violence to Deianira, upon which Heracles shot him through with his poisoned
arrows. The dying Centaur gave some of his infected blood to Deianira, telling
her that, should her husband be unfaithful, it would be a means of restoring him.
Heracles had a stubborn contest with Theodamas, the king of the Dryopes, killed
him, and took his son Hylas away. He then reached Trachis, and was received with
the friendliest welcome by King Ceyx. Next he started to fight with Cycnus, who
had challenged him to single combat; and afterwards, at the request of Aegimius,
prince of the Dorians, undertook a war against the Lapithae, and an expedition
of revenge against Eurytus of Oechalia. He stormed the fortress, slew Eurytus
with his sons, and carried off Iole, who had formerly been denied him, as his
prisoner. He was about to offer a sacrifice to his father Zeus on Mount Cenaeum,
when Deianira, jealous of Iole, sent him a robe stained with the blood of Nessus.
It had hardly grown warm upon his body when the dreadful poison began to devour
his flesh. Wild with anguish, he hurled Lichas, who brought him the robe, into
the sea, where he was changed into a tall cliff. In the attempt to tear off the
robe, he only tore off pieces of his flesh. Apollo bade him be carried to the
top of Oeta, where he had a great funeral pyre built up for him. This he ascended;
then he gave Iole to his son Hyllus to be his wife, and bade Poeas, the father
of Philoctetes, to kindle the pyre. According to another story, it was Philoctetes
himself, whom Heracles presented with his bow and poisoned arrows, who performed
this office. The flames had hardly started up, when a cloud descended from the
sky with thunder and lightning, and carried the son of Zeus up to heaven, where
he was welcomed as one of the immortals. Here was reconciled to him, and he was
wedded to her daughter Hebe, the goddess of eternal youth. Their children were
Alexiares ("Averter of the Curse") and Anicetus ("the Invincible"),
the names merely personifying two of the main qualities for which the hero was
worshipped.
About the end of Heracles nothing is said in the Iliad but
that he, the best-loved of Zeus's sons, did not escape death, but was overcome
by fate, and by the heavy wrath of Here. In the Odyssey his ghost, in form like
black night, walks in the lower world with his bow bent and his arrows ready,
while the hero himself dwells among the immortals, the husband of Hebe. For the
lives of his children, and the end of Eurystheus, see Hyllus.
Heracles was worshipped partly as a hero, to whom men brought
the ordinary libations and offerings, and partly as an Olympian deity, an immortal
among the immortals. Immediately after his apotheosis his friends offered sacrifice
to him at the place of burning, and his worship spread from thence through all
the tribes of Hellas. Diomus the son of Colyttus, an Athenian, is said to have
been the first who paid him the honours of an immortal. It was he who founded
the gymnasium called Cynosarges, near the city. This gymnasium, the sanctuary
at Marathon, and the temple at Athens were the three most venerable shrines of
Heracles in Attica. Diomus gave his name to the Diomeia, a merry festival held
in Athens in honour of Heracles. Feasts to Heracles (Herakleia), with athletic
contests, were celebrated in many places. He was the hero of labour and struggle,
and the patron deity of the gymnasium and the palaestra. From early times he was
regarded as having instituted the Olympic Games; as the founder of the Olympic
sanctuaries and the Olympic truce, the planter of the shady groves, and the first
competitor and victor in the contests. During his earthly life he had been a helper
of gods and men, and had set the earth free from monsters and rascals. Accordingly
he was invoked in all the perils of life as the saviour (soter) and the averter
of evil (alexikakos). Men prayed for his protection against locusts, flies, and
noxious serpents. He was a wanderer, and had travelled over the whole world; therefore
he was called on as the guide on marches and journeys (hegemonios). In another
character he was the glorious conqueror (kallinikos) who, after his toils are
over, enjoys his rest with wine, feasting, and music. Indeed, the fable represents
him as having, in his hours of repose, given as striking proofs of inexhaustible
bodily power as in his struggles and contests. Men liked to think of him as an
enormous eater, capable of devouring a whole ox; as a lusty boon companion, fond
of delighting himself and others by playing the lyre. In Rome, as Hercules, he
was coupled with the Muses, and, like Apollo elsewhere, was worshipped as Mousagetes
(Hercules Musarum), or master of the Muses. After his labours he was supposed
to have been fond of hot baths (thermai) which were accordingly deemed sacred
to him. Among trees, the wild olive and white poplar were consecrated to him;
the poplar he was believed to have brought from distant countries to Olympia.
Owing to the influence of the Greek colonies in Italy, the
worship of Heracles was widely diffused among the Italian tribes. It attached
itself to local legends and religion; the conqueror of Cacus, for instance, was
originally not Heracles, but a powerful shepherd called Garanos. Again, Heracles
came to be identified with the ancient Italian deity Sancus or Dius Fidius, and
was regarded as the god of happiness in home and field, industry and war, as well
as of truth and honour. His altar was the Ara Maxima in the cattle-market (Forum
Boarium), which he was believed to have erected himself. Here they dedicated to
him a tithe of their gains in war and peace, ratified solemn treaties, and invoked
his name to witness their oaths. He had many shrines and sacrifices in Rome, corresponding
to his various titles, Victor (Conqueror), Invictus (Unconquered), Custos (Guardian),
Defensor (Defender), and others. His rites were always performed in Greek fashion,
with the head covered. It was in his temple that soldiers and gladiators were
accustomed to hang up their arms when their service was over. In the stonequarries
the labourers had their Hercules Saxarius (Hercules of the Stone). He was called
the father of Latinus, the ancestor of the Latins, and to him the Roman gens of
the Fabii traced their origin. The ancient family of the Potitii were said to
have been commissioned by the god in person to provide, with the assistance of
the Pinarii, for his sacrifices at the Ara Maxima. In B.C. 310 the Potitii gave
the service into the hands of the servi publici. Before a year had passed [p.
794] the flourishing family had become completely extinct.
In works of art Heracles is represented as the ideal of manly
strength, with full, well knit, and muscular limbs, serious expression, a curling
beard, short neck, and a head small in proportion to the limbs. His equipment
is generally the club and the lion's skin. The type appears to have been mainly
fixed by Lysippus. The Farnese Hercules, by the Athenian Glycon, is probably a
copy of one by Lysippus. Heracles is portrayed in repose, leaning on his club,
which is covered with the lion's skin. The Heracles of the Athenian Apollonius,
now only a torso, is equally celebrated.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
The goddess Hera, determined to make trouble for Hercules, made him lose his mind. In a confused and angry state, he killed his own wife and children.
When he awakened from his "temporary insanity," Hercules was shocked and upset by what he'd done. He prayed to the god Apollo for guidance, and the god's oracle told him he would have to serve Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, for twelve years, in punishment for the murders.
As part of his sentence, Hercules had to perform twelve Labors, feats so difficult that they seemed impossible. Fortunately, Hercules had the help of Hermes and Athena, sympathetic deities who showed up when he really needed help. By the end of these Labors, Hercules was, without a doubt, Greece's greatest hero.
His struggles made Hercules the perfect embodiment of an idea the Greeks called pathos, the experience of virtuous struggle and suffering which would lead to fame and, in Hercules' case, immortality.
Labor 1: The Nemean
Lion (see http://www.gtp.gr/AncientNemea
)
Labor 2: The Lernean
Hydra (see http://www.gtp.gr/AncientLerna
)
Labor 3: The Hind of
Ceryneia (see http://www.gtp.gr/AncientCeryneia
)
Labor 4: The Erymanthean
Boar (see http://www.gtp.gr/ErymanthusMountain
)
Labor 5: The Augean
Stables (see http://www.gtp.gr/AncientEphyra-Elis
)
Labor 6: The Stymphalian
Birds (see http://www.gtp.gr/StymphaliaLake
)
Labor 7: The Cretan
Bull (see http://www.gtp.gr/Cnossus
)
Labor 8: The Horses
of Diomedes (see http://www.gtp.gr/AncientAbdera
)
Labor 9: The Belt
of Hippolyte (see http://www.gtp.gr/AncientThemiscyra
)
Labor 10: Geryon's
Cattle (see http://www.gtp.gr/AncientErytheia
)
Labor 11: The Apples
of the Hesperides (see http://www.gtp.gr/HesperidesLand
)
Labor 12: Cerberus
(see http://www.gtp.gr/CapeTainaron
)
This text is cited July 2004 from Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Alcmene (Alkmene), a daughter of Electryon, king of Messene, by Anaxo, the daughter
of Alcaeus (Apollod. ii. 4.5). According to other accounts her mother was called
Lysidice (Schol. ad Pind. Ol. vii. 49; Plut. Thes. 7), or Eurydice (Diod. iv.
9). The poet Asius represented Alcmene as a daughter of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle
(Paus. v. 17.4). Apollodorus mentions ten brothers of Alcmene, who, with the exception
of one, Licymnius, fell in a contest with the sons of Pterelaus, who had carried
off the cattle of Electryon. Electryon, on setting out to avenge the death of
his sons, left his kingdom and his daughter Alcmene to Amphitryon, who, unintentionally,
killed Electryon. Sthenelus thereupon expelled Amphitryon, who, together with
Alcmene and Licymnius, went to Thebes.
Alcmene declared that she would marry him who should avenge the death of her brothers.
Amphitryon undertook the task, and invited Creon of Thebes
to assist him.
During his absence, Zeus, in the disguise of Amphitryon, visited Alcmene,
and, pretending to be her husband, related to her in what way he had avenged the
death of her brothers (Apollod. ii. 4.6--8; Ov. Amor. i. 13. 45; Diod. iv. 9;
Hygin. Fab. 29; Lucian, Dialog. Deor. 10). When Amphitryon himself returned on
the next day and wanted to give an account of his achievements, she was surprised
at the repetition, but Teiresias solved the mystery. Alcmene became the mother
of Heracles by Zeus, and of Iphicles by Amphitryon. Hera, jealous of Alcmene,
delayed the birth of Heracles for seven days, that Eurystheus might be born first,
and thus be entitled to greater rights, according to a vow of Zeus himself (Hom.
Il. xix. 95; Ov. Met. ix. 273; Diod. l. c). After the death of Amphitryon,
Alcmene married Rhadamanthys, a son of Zeus, at Ocaleia
in Boeotia (Apollod. ii.
4.11). After Heracles was raised to the rank of a god, Alcmene and his sons, in
dread of Eurystheus fled to Trachis,
and thence to Athens, and
when Hyllus had cut off the head of Eurystheus, Alcmene satisfied her revenge
by picking the eyes out of the head (Apollod. ii. 8.1).
The accounts of her death are very discrepant. According to Pausanias
(i. 41.1), she died in Megaris,
on her way from Argos to Thebes,
and as the sons of Heracles disagreed as to whether she was to be carried to Argos
or to Thebes, she was buried
in the place where she had died at the command of an oracle. According to Plutarch
(De Gen. Socr. p. 578), her tomb and that of Rhadamanthys were at Haliartus
in Boeotia, and hers was
opened by Agesilaus, for the purpose of carrying her remains to Sparta.
According to Pherecydes (Cap. Anton. Lib. 33), she lived with her sons, after
the death of Eurystheus, at Thebes,
and died there at an advanced age. When the sons of Heracles wished to bury her,
Zeus sent Hermes to take her body away, and to carry it to the islands of the
blessed, and give her in marriage there to Rhadamanthys. Hermes accordingly took
her out of her coffin, and put into it a stone so heavy that the Heraclids could
not move it from the spot. When, on opening the coffin, they found the stone,
they erected it in a grove near Thebes,
which in later times contained the sanctuary of Alcmene (Paus. ix. 16.4). At Athens,
too, she was worshipped as a heroine, and an altar was erected to her in the temple
of Heracles (Cynosarges, Paus. i. 19.3). She was represented on the chest of Cypselus
(Paus. v. 1 8.1), and epic as swell as tragic poets made frequent use of her story,
though no poem of the kind is now extant (Hes. Scut. Herc. init.; Paus. v. 17.4,
18.1).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Megara was the daughter of the king of Thebes Creon and was the wife of Heracles (Od. 11.268).
(see ancient Thebes )
Hercules married a second wife, Deianira, the daughter of king Oeneus of Calydon and Althaea (see more at ancient Calydon )
Deianeira, A daughter of Althaea by Oeneus, Dionysus, or Dexamenus (Apollod. i. 8.1; Hygin. Fab. 31, 33), and a sister of Meleager. When Meleager died, his sisters lamented his death at his grave; Artemis in her anger touched them with her staff, and changed them into birds, with the exception of Deianeira and Gorge, who were allowed, by the solicitation of Dionysus, to retain their human forms. (Antonin. Lib. 2.) Subsequently Achelous and Heracles, who both loved Deianeira, fought for the possession of her. She became the wife of Heracles, and afterwards unwittingly caused his death, whereupon she hung herself. (Apollod. ii. 7.5, 6.7; Diod. iv. 34)
After Heracles died and ascended to the Mount Olympus, he married to Hebe, who was the daughter of Zeus by Here and was worshipped as the goddess of eternal youth (Od. 11.603). Hebe, before the abduction of Ganymedes, was also the cup-bearer and handmaiden of the gods (Il. 4.2, 5.722, 905).
Hebe. Daughter of Zeus and Here, and goddess of eternal youth. She was represented as the handmaiden of the gods, for whom she pours out their nectar, and the consort of Heracles after his apotheosis. She was worshipped with Heracles in Sicyon and Phlius, especially under the name Ganymede or Dia. She was represented as freeing men from chains and bonds, and her rites were celebrated with unrestrained merriment. The Romans identified Hebe with Iuventas, the personification of youthful manhood. As representing the eternal youth of the Roman State, Iuventas had a chapel on the Capitol in the front court of the Temple of Minerva, and in later times a temple of her own in the city. It was to Iupiter and Iuventas that boys offered prayer on the Capitol when they put on the toga virilis, putting a piece of money into their treasury.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited April 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Hebe, the personification of youth, is described as a daughter of Zeus and Hera
(Apollod. i. 3.1), and is, according to the Iliad (iv. 2), the minister of the
gods, who fills their cups with nectar; she assists Hera in putting the horses
to her chariot (v. 722); and she bathes and dresses her brother Ares (v. 905).
According to the Odyssey (xi. 603; comp. Hes. Theog. 950), she was married to
Heracles after his apotheosis. Later traditions, however, describe her as having
become by Heracles the mother of two sons, Alexiares and Anticetus (Apollod. ii.
7.7), and as a divinity who had it in her power to make persons of an advanced
age young again (Ov. Met. ix. 400, &c.). She was worshipped at Athens, where she
had an altar in the Cynosarges, near one of Heracles (Paus. i. 19.3). Under the
name of the female Ganymedes (Ganymeda) or Dia, she was worshipped in a sacred
grove at Sicyon and Phlius. (Paus. ii. 13.3; Strab. viii.)
At Rome the goddess was worshipped under the corresponding name of
Juventas, and that at a very early time, for her chapel on the Capitol existed
before the temple of Jupiter was built there; and she, as well as Terminus, is
said to have opposed the consecration of the temple of Jupiter (Liv. v. 54). Another
temple of Juventas, in the Circus Maximus, was vowed by the consul M. Livius,
after the defeat of Hasdrubal, in B. C. 207, and was consecrated 16 years afterwards
(Liv. xxxvi. 36 ; comp. xxi. 62; Dionys. iv. 15, where a temple of Juventas is
mentioned as early as the reign of Servius Tullius; August. de Civ. Dei, iv. 23;
Plin. H. N. xxix. 4, 14, xxxv. 36, 22).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Dec 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Editor’s Information:
About Heracles, Euripides wrote the homonymous tragedy, of which the e-text(s) is (are) found in Greece (ancient country) under the category Ancient Greek Writings.
Editor’s Information:
The story of Deianira and Hercules became the subject of one of Sophocles' tragic plays, Trachiniae (The Women of Trachis), of which the e-text(s) is (are) found in Greece (ancient country) under the category Ancient Greek Writings.
ASKLEPIEION OF EPIDAURUS (Ancient sanctuary) ARGOLIS
Asclepius is not a god in the Iliad but a great doctor and the father of Machaon and Podaleirius, who were the leaders of Tricca, Ithome and Oechalia in the Trojan War (Il. 2.731, 4.194, 11.518). He is mentioned by the posterity as the god of medicine and son of Apollo and Coronis, daughter of Phlegyas. According to ancient myths, Asclepius was born in Tricca and not in Epidaurus.
Aesculapius (Asklepios), the god of the medical art. In the Homeric poems Aesculapius
does not appear to be considered as a divinity, but merely as a human being, which
is indicated by the adjective amumon, which is never given to a god. No allusion
is made to his descent, and he is merely mentioned as the ieter amumon, and the
father of Machaon and Podaleirius (Il. ii. 731, iv. 194, xi. 518). From the fact
that Homer (Od. iv. 232) calls all those who practise the healimlg art descendants
of Paeeon, and that Podaleirius and Machaon are called the sons of Aesculapius,
it has been inferred, that Aesculapius and Paeeon are the same being, and consequently
a divinity. But wherever Homer mentions the healing god, it is always Paeeon,
and never Aesculapius; and as in the poet's opinion all physicians were descended
from Paeeon, he probably considered Aesculapius in the same light. This supposition
is corroborated by the fact, that in later times Paeeon was identified with Apollo,
and that Aesculapius is universally described as a descendant of Apollo. The two
sons of Aesculapius in the Iliad, were the physicians in the Greek army, and are
described as ruling over Tricca, Ithome, and Oechalia (Il. ii. 729).
According to Eustathius (ad Hom. p. 330), Lapithes was a son of Apollo
and Stilbe, and Aesculapius was a descendant of Lapithes. This tradition seems
to be based on the same groundwork as the more common one, that Aesculapius was
a son of Apollo and Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas, who is a descendant of
Lapithes (Apollod. iii. 10.3; Pind. Pyth. iii. 14, with the Schol.) .
The common story then goes on as follows. When Coronis was with child
by Apollo, she became enamoured with Ischys, an Arcadian, and Apollo informed
of this by a raven, which he had set to watch her, or, according to Pindar, by
his own prophetic powers, sent his sister Artemis to kill Coronis. Artemis accordingly
destroyed Coronis in her own house at Lacereia in Thessaly, on the shore of lake
Baebia (Comp. Horn. Hymn. 27. 3.) According to Ovid (Met. ii. 605) and Hyginus
(Poet. Astr. ii. 40), it was Apollo himself who killed Coronis and Ischys. When
the body of Coronis was to be burnt, Apollo, or, according to others (Paus. ii.
26.5), Hermes, saved the child (Aesculapius) from the flames, and carried it to
Cheiron, who instructed the boy in the art of healing and in hunting (Pind. Pyth.
iii. 1; Apollod. iii. 10.3; Paus. l. c).
According to other traditions Aesculapius was born at Tricca in Thessaly
(Strab. xiv. p. 647), and others again related that Coronis gave birth to him
during an expedition of her father Phlegyas into Peloponnesus, in the territory
of Epidaurus, and that she exposed him on mount Tittheion, which was before called
Myrtion. Here he was fed by a goat and watched by a dog, until at last he was
found by Aresthanas, a shepherd, who saw the boy surrounded by a lustre like that
of lightning (See a different account in Paus. viii. 25.6). From this dazzling
splendour, or from his having been rescued from the flames, he was called by the
Dorians aiglaer. The truth of the tradition that Aesculapius was born in the territory
of Epidaurus, and was not the son of Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus and born in
Messenia, was attested by an oracle which was consulted to decide the question
(Paus. ii. 26.6, iv. 3.2; Cic. De Nat. Deor. iii. 22, where three different Aesculapiuses
are made out of the different local traditions about him).
After Aesculapius had grown up, reports spread over all countries,
that he not only cured all the sick, but called the dead to life again. About
the manner in which he acquired this latter power, there were two traditions in
ancient times. According to the one (Apollod. l. c.), he had received from Athena
the blood which had flowed from the veins of Gorgo, and the blood which had flowed
from the veins of the right side of her body possessed the power of restoring
the dead to life. According to the other tradition, Aesculapius on one occasion
was shut up in the house of Glaucus, whom he was to cure, and while he was standing
absorbed in thought, there came a serpent which twined round the staff, and which
he killed. Another serpent then came carrying in its mouth a herb with which it
recalled to life the one that had been killed, and Aesculapius henceforth made
use of the same herb with the same effect upon men (Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 14).
Several persons, whom Aesculapius was believed to have restored to life, are mentioned
by the Scholiast on Pindar (Pyth. iii. 96) and by Apollodorus (l. c.). When he
was exercising this art upon Glaucus, Zeus killed Aesculapius with a flash of
lightning, as he feared lest men might gradually contrive to escape death altogether
(Apollod. iii. 10.4), or, according to others, because Pluto had complained of
Aesculapius diminishing the number of the dead too much (Diod. iv. 71; comp. Schol.
ad Pind. Pyth. iii. 102). But, on the request of Apollo, Zeus placed Aesculapius
among the stars (Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 14). Aesculapius is also said to have
taken part in the expedition of the Argonauts and in the Calydonian hunt. He was
married to Epione, and besides the two sons spoken of by Homer, we also find mention
of the following children of his : Janiscus, Alexenor, Aratus, Hygieia, Aegle,
laso, land Panaceia (Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. iii. 14; Paus. ii. 10.3, i. 34.2),
most of whom are only personifications of the powers ascribed to their father.
These are the legends about one of the most interesting and important
divinities of antiquity. Various hypotheses have been brought forward to explain
the origin of his worship in Greece; and, while some consider Aesculapius to have
been originally a real personage, whom tradition had connected with various marvellous
stories, others have explained all the legends about him as mere personifications
of certain ideas. The serpent, the perpetual symbol of Aesculapius, has given
rise to the opinion, that the worship was derived from Egypt, and that Aesculapius
was identical with the serpent Cnuph worshipped in Egypt, or with the Phoenician
Esmun (Euseb. Praep. Evang. i. 10; comp. Paus. vii. 23.6). But it does not seem
necessary to have recourse to foreign countries in order to explain the worship
of this god. His story is undoubtedly a combination of real events with the results
of thoughts or ideas, which, as in so many instances in Greek mythology, are,
like the former, considered as facts. The kernel, out of which the whole myth
has grown, is perhaps the account we read in Homer; but gradually the sphere in
which Aesculapius acted was so extended, that he became the representative or
the personification of the healing powers of nature, which are naturally enough
described as the son (the effects) of Helios, Apollo, or the Sun.
Aesculapius was worshipped all over Greece, and many towns, as we
have seen, claimed the honour of his birth. His temples were usually built in
healthy places, on hills outside the town, and near wells which were believed
to have healing powers. These temples were not only places of worship, but were
frequented by great numbers of sick persons, and may therefore be compared to
modern hospitals (Plut. Quaest. Rom.).
The principal seat of his worship in Greece was Epidaurus, where he
had a temple surrounded with an extensive grove, within which no one was allowed
to die, and no woman to give birth to a child. His sanctuary contained a magnificent
statue of ivory and gold, the work of Thrasymedes, in which he was represented
as a handsome and manly figure, resembling that of Zeus (Paus. ii. 26 & 27)
lie was seated on a throne, holding in one hand a staff, and with the other resting
upon the head of a dragon (serpent), and by his side lay a dog. Serpents were
everywhere connected with the worship of Aesculapius, probably because they were
a symbol of prudence and renovation, and were believed to have the power of discovering
herbs of wondrous powers, as is indicated in the story about Aesculapius and the
serpents in the house of Glaucus. Serpents were further believed to be guardians
of wells with salutary powers. For these reasons a peculiar kind of tame serpents,
in which Epidaurus abounded, were not only kept in his temple (Paus. ii. 28.1),
but the god himself frequently appeared in the form of a serpent (Paus. iii. 23.4;
Val. Max. i. 8.2; Liv. Epit. 11; compare the account of Alexander Pseudomantis
in Lucian).
Besides the temple of Epidaurus, whence the worship of the god was
transplanted to various other parts of the ancient world, we may mention those
of Tricca (Strab. ix. p. 437), Celaenae (xiii. p. 603), between Dyme and Patrae
(viii. p. 386), near Cyllene (viii. p. 337), in the island of Cos (xiii. p. 657;
Paus. iii. 23.4), at Gerenia (Strab. viii. p. 360), near Caus in Arcadia (Steph.
Byz. s. v.), at Sicyon (Paus. ii. 10.2), at Athens (i. 21.7), near Patrae (vii.
21.6), at Titane in the territory of Sicyon (vii. 23.6), at Thelpusa (viii. 25.3),
in Messene (iv. 31.8), at Phlius (ii. 13. 3), Argos (ii. 23.4), Aegium (ii. 23.5),
Pellene (vii. 27. 5), Asopus (iii. 22.7), Pergamum (iii. 26.7), Lebene in Crete,
Smyrna, Balagrae (ii. 26.7), Ambracia (Liv. xxxviii. 5), at Rome and other places.
At Rome the worship of Aesculapius was introduced from Epidaurus at the command
of the Delphic oracle or of the Sibylline books, in B. C. 293, for the purpose
of averting a pestilence. Respecting the miraculous manner in which this was effected
see Valerius Maximus (i. 8.2), and Ovid. Met. xv. 620; comp. Niebuhr, Hist. of
Rome, iii; Liv. x. 47, xxix. 11; Suet. Claud. 25).
The sick, who visited the temples of Aesculapius, had usually to spend
one or more nights in his sanctuary (katheudein, ineubare, Paus. ii. 27.2), during
which they observed certain rules prescribed by the priests. The god then usually
revealed the remedies for the disease in a dream (Aristoph. Plut. 662; Cic. De
Div. ii. 59 ; Philostr. Vita Apollon. i. 7). It was in allusion to this incubatio
that many temples of Aesculapius contained statues representing Sleep and Dream.
(Paus. ii. 10. § 2.) Those whom the god cured of their disease offered a sacrifice
to him, generally a cock (Plat Phacd.) or a goat (Paus. x. 32.8; Serv. ad Virg.
Georg. ii. 380), and hung up in his temple a tablet recording the name of the
sick, the disease, and the manner in which the cure had been effected. The temples
of Epidaurus, Tricca, and Cos, were full of such votive tablets, and several of
them are still extant (Paus. ii. 27.3; Strab. viii). Respecting the festivals
celebrated in honour of Aesculapius see Dict. of Ant. p. 103. &c. The various
surnames given to the god partly describe him as the healing or saving god, and
are partly derived from the places in which he was worshipped. Some of his statues
are described by Pausanias (ii. 10.3, x. 32.8). Besides the attributes mentioned
in the description of his statue at Epidaurus, he is sometimes represented holding
in one hand a phial, and in the other a stalf; sometimes also a boy is represented
standing by his side, who is the genius of recovery, and is called Telesphorus,
Euamerion, or Acesius (Paus. ii. 11.7). We still possess a considerable number
of marble statues and busts of Aesculapius, as well as many representations on
coins and gems.
There were in antiquity two works which went under the name of Aesculapius,
which, however, were no more genuine than the works ascribed to Orpheus (Fabricius,
Bibl. Graec. i. p. 55).
The descendants of Aesculapius were called by the patronymic name
Asclepiadae (Asklepiadai). Those writers, who consider Aesculapius as a real personage,
must regard the Asclepiadae as his real descendants, to whom he transmitted his
medical knowledge, and whose principal seats were Cos and Cnidus (Plat. de Re
Publ. iii). But the Asclepiadae were also regarded as an order or caste of priests,
and for a long period the practice of medicine was intimately connected with religion.
The knowledge of medicine was regarded as a sacred secret, which was transmitted
from father to son in the families of the Asclepiadae, and we still possess the
oath which every one was obliged to take when he was put in possession of the
medical secrets. (Galen, Anat. ii; Aristid. Orat. i. p. 80)
art. In Homer he is not a divinity, but simply the "blameless physician"
whose sons, Machaon and Podalirius, were the physicians in the Greek army. The
common story relates that Aesculapius was a son of Apollo and Coronis, and that
when Coronis was with child by Apollo she became enamoured of Ischys, an Arcadian.
Apollo, informed of this by a raven, killed Coronis and Ischys. When the body
of Coronis was to be burnt, the child Aesculapius was saved from the flames, and
was brought up by the centaur Chiron, who instructed him in the art of healing
and in hunting. There are other tales respecting his birth, according to some
of which he was a native of Epidaurus, and this was a common opinion in later
times. After he had grown up, he not only cured the sick, but recalled the dead
to life. Zeus, fearing lest men might contrive to escape death altogether, killed
Aesculapius with his thunderbolt; but, on the request of Apollo, Zeus placed him
among the stars. He was married to Epione, by whom he had the two sons spoken
of by Homer, and also other children. The chief seat of the worship of Aesculapius
was Epidaurus, where he had a temple surrounded with an extensive grove. Serpents
were sacred to him, because they were a symbol of renovation, and were believed
to have the power of discovering healing herbs. The cock was sacrificed to him.
At Rome the worship of Aesculapius was introduced from Epidaurus in B.C. 293,
for the purpose of averting a pestilence. The supposed descendants of Aesculapius
were called by the patronymic name of Asclepiadae, and their principal seats were
Cos and Cnidus. They were an order or caste of priests, among whom the knowledge
of medicine was regarded as a sacred secret, and was transmitted from father to
son in these families.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Medicus (iatros), the name given by the ancients to every professor of the healing
art, whether physician or surgeon, and accordingly both divisions of the medical
profession will here be included under that term. In Greece and Asia Minor physicians
seem to have been held in high esteem; far more so than at Rome. This was at least
to some extent due to the religious sense, iatrike and mantike being regarded
as akin (Eustath. ad II. i. 63), and to the apotheosis of Aesculapius, of whom
physicians speak as hohemeteros progonos (Plat. Symp. p. 186 A). When we meet
such expressions as that in Athen. xv. p. 666 b, ei me iatroi esan ouden an hen
ton grammatikon moroteron, the allusion is to the pedantry of physicians after
the type ridiculed by Moliere, and does not show a general depreciation of their
class. Aelian mentions one of the laws of Zaleucus among the Epizephyrian Locrians,
by which it was ordered that if any one during his illness should drink wine contrary
to the orders of his physician, even if he should recover, he should be put to
death for his disobedience (Var. Hist. ii. 37); and, according to Mead, there
are extant several medals struck by the people of Smyrna in honour of different
persons belonging to the medical profession. According to the Decree of the Athenians
and the Life of Hippocrates by Soranus, the same honours were conferred upon that
physician as had before been given to Hercules; he was voted a golden crown, publicly
initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, and maintained in the Prytaneum at the
state's expense. Both these pieces, however, are more legendary than historical
(Compare Plin. H. N. vii, 123).
The physician made up his medicines himself, and either sat in his
iatreion, which was both a consulting-room and a dispensary (called also ergasterion,
Aeschin. in Timarch. 124), or went a round of visits (Plat. Legg. iv. 720 C. For
these iatreia cf. Poll. x. 46; Plat. Legg. i. p. 646 C). Here he had also assistants
and apprentices or pupils (Plat. Legg. iv. l. c.; Aeschin. in Timarch. 40). In
the former passage the assistant doctors are slaves, on which point cf. Diog.
Laert. vi. 30. No doubt slaves only as a rule were attended by slave doctors,
and free men by free, but it is noticeable that Plato, when he says this, qualifies
by hos epi to pleiston. When Hyginus, Fab. 274, says that there was a law at Athens
against any slave practising, he must allude, if his assertion is true at all,
to the state physicians.
Though hospitals are mentioned in Roman writers (Cels. de Medic. i.
praef. sub fin.; Colum. de Re Rust. xi. 1, 18; Sen. Epist. 27,1) after the time
of Augustus, they are never, with one single exception in Crates, mentioned by
Greek writers before the Roman period. The function, so far as it was performed
at all, was discharged by the temples of Aesculapius, and accordingly the chief
places of study for medical pupils were the Asklepieia, or temples of Aesculapius,
where the votive tablets furnished them with a collection of cases. Hence we find
in ancient works of art Aesculapius represented as visiting the sick. The Asclepiadae
were very strict in examining into and overlooking the character and conduct of
their pupils, and the famous Hippocratic oath (which, if not
drawn up by Hippocrates himself, is certainly very ancient) requires to
be inserted here as being the most curious medical monument of antiquity.
I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Hygeia (Health), and Panaceia
(All-heal), and all the gods and goddesses, calling them to witness that I will
fulfil, according to the best of my power and judgment, this oath and written
bond:
to honour as my parents the master who has taught me this art, and to share my
substance with him, and to minister to all his necessities; to consider his children
as my own brothers, and to teach them this art should they desire to follow it,
without remuneration or written bond; to admit to my lessons, my discourses, and
all my other teaching, my own sons, and those of my tutor, and those who have
been inscribed as pupils and have taken the medical oath; but no one else. I will
prescribe such regimen as may be for the benefit of my patients, according to
the best of my power and judgment, and preserve them from anything hurtful and
mischievous. I will never, if asked, administer poison, nor be the author of such
advice; neither will I give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. I will maintain
the purity and integrity both of my conduct and of my art. I will not cut any
one for the stone, but will leave the operation to those who cultivate it. Into
whatever dwellings I may go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, abstaining
from all mischief and corruption, especially from any immodest action, towards
women or men, freemen or slaves. If during my attendance, or even unprofessionally
in common life, I happen to see or hear of anything which should not be revealed,
I will consider it a secret not to be divulged. May I, if I observe this oath,
and do not break it, enjoy good success in life, and in [the practice of] my art,
and be esteemed for ever; should I transgress and become a perjurer, may the reverse
be my lot.
Some idea of the income of a physician in those times may be formed
from the fact mentioned by Herodotus (iii. 131) that the Aeginetans (about the
year B.C. 532) paid Democedes from the public treasury one talent per annum for
his services, i. e. (if we reckon the Aeginetan drachma to be worth 1s.) not quite
304l.; he afterwards received from the Athenians one hundred minae, i. e. (reckoning
the Attic drachma to be worth 9 3/4 d.) rather more than 406l., and he was finally
attracted to Samos by being offered by Polycrates a salary of two talents, i.
e. (if the Attic standard be meant) about 422l. A physician, called by Pliny both
Erasistratus (H. N. xxix. 5) and Cleombrotus (H. N. vii.123), is said by him to
have received one hundred talents, i. e. considerably over 20,000l., for curing
king Antiochus.
State physicians were employed in Greece (from Democedes downwards).
They were selected on the ground of knowledge evidenced in their private practice
(Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 5; Plat. Gorg. 455 B, 514 D). In Plat. Polit. p. 259 A we see
them distinguished from those who practised privately: their practice and official
status are described by the word demosieuein specially applied to them, and in
their public capacity they received salary but took no fees (Aristoph. Av. 587;
Acharn. 994); their expenses, however, were paid besides their salary, and they
received public honours for distinguished service. It appears from Diod. xii.
13 that they attended gratis any one who applied to them, and it is at least probable
that they were bound to give their services on military expeditions. From Aristoph.
Plut. 407 it appears that in that period of depression at Athens the office was
discontinued from motives of economy.
As regards the rise and progress of the medical profession at Rome,
we must distinguish between the slaves skilled in medicine, who were kept in the
larger households, and the physician in general practice. The former, no doubt,
came earlier in date, and those who could afford skilled slaves for medical treatment
already employed them, when for the masses there was no practising physician:
but in the yet earlier times for all alike, and for the general public to a comparatively
late period, the treatment of sickness was by traditional family recipes, partly
founded on experience, partly on superstition, the Romans being for the most part,
as late as the 600th year of the city (according to Pliny, H. N. xix.11), sine
medicis nec tamen sine medicina.
A little earlier however than this (B.C. 219), says Pliny on the authority
of Cassius Hemina, the first professed physician, the Greek Archagathus, came
to Rome. He was made a citizen and started in a shop at the public expense (Plin.
xxix.12): but his treatment was unpopular from its heroic method, a saevitia secandi
urendique. There was much opposition, for the Romans regarded with suspicion the
skill of the foreigners, and shunned the calling themselves as a degradation.
Cato, who still held to the old custom, and used a family manual of medicine (commentarium),
quo mederetur filio, servis et familiaribus, strongly opposed the whole class
of medici, against whom he warns his son, as banded together to kill Roman citizens.
In Plautus (Menaechm. v. 1) we have perhaps evidence of the same mistrust and
contempt; but it is never possible to assume that the customs and sentiments described
in Plautus are Roman rather than Greek.
Gradually however, after the time of Archagathus, the number of foreign
physicians in Rome increased, alike those in private houses, who were either slaves
(cf. Suet. Ner. 2) or freedmen, and those who had general practice. As a household
physician of this kind we may instance Strato from the Cluentius of Cicero (63,
176). We have the price of a slave physician fixed at 60 solidi (Just. Cod. vii.
7, 1, 5). The practising physicians at Rome were nearly all of the freedman class.
They had booths (tabernae), where they practised with slaves or freedmen as their
assistants and pupils, whom they took about with them in their visits (Mart. v.
9). Few Romans took up the profession (though we hear of Vettius Valens, a man
of equestrian rank in the reign of Claudius); and Julius Caesar, avowedly to encourage
their residence, gave the citizenship to foreign physicians (Suet. Jul. 42), with
the result which he desired.
Among physicians who seem to have risen to greater repute we have
Asclepiades of Prusa (Cic. de Or. i. 1. 4, 62; cf. Plin. H. N. vii.124); Asclapo
of Patrae, whom Cicero treated as a friend (Cic. ad Fam. xiii. 2. 0); Alexio,
for whom he seems to have had even greater regard (ad Att. xv. 1); Antonius Musa,
the freedman and trusted physician of Augustus (Suet. Aug. 59; cf. Hor. Ep. i.
15, 3); M. Artorius (Vell. Pat. ii. 70, 1; Plut. Brut. 41); A. Cornelius Celsus,
who wrote a medical treatise under Tiberius; Eudemus (Tac. Ann. iv. 3), &c.
The professional gains of physicians under the Empire seem often to
have been large: we are told of Stertinius by private practice making more than
5,000l. a year, and the surgeon Alcon amassing a fortune of nearly 100,000l. by
a few years' practice in Gaul (Plin. H. N. xxix.7, 22; cf. Mart. xi. 84). Regular
medical posts were instituted with large appointments: as court physicians with
salaries varying from 250,000 to 500,000 H.S. (Plin. l. c.); as doctors for the
army, for gladiatorial schools, and for the poorer public. Apart from these state
appointments the practice was entirely free from control or training: as a rule
probably the training was gained by the sort of apprenticeship to some medicus
described above, but anyone was at liberty to practise, and, in the words of Pliny,
experimenta per mortes facere ; ignorance was not, as in our country, penal, and
hence medico hominem occidisse summa impunitas (Plin. xxix.18).
Besides the archiatri at Rome itself (one for each region), there
were by order of Antoninus Pius in each city of Asia Minor state physicians (paid
by the state, with immunity from taxes), in numbers varying from five to ten according
to the size of the town. We can trace specialist physicians also, such as the
oculist (ocularius or ab oculis), the aurist (aurarius).The profession of dentist
is implied at a very early date by the remarkable extract from the XII. Tables
in Cic. de Leg. ii. 2. 4, 60, relating to teeth stopped with gold. We may also
notice that female doctors (medicae) for attendance on women, apparently distinct
from midwives (obstetrices), are found in many inscriptions.
As regards army doctors among the Greeks, we find them in the heroic
age when the ietros aner is pollon antaxios allon. It would appear from Homer,
Il. xvi. 28, that there were several; perhaps, as some suggest, each contingent
had an ietros. In historical times we may learn something of their presence from
Xenophon, Anab. iii. 4, 30; Cyrop. i. 6, 16, iii. 2, 12, v. 4, 17. Perhaps the
demosioi iatroi had to accompany the army, as was the case in Egyptian armies
(Diod. i. 82).
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Archiater (archiatros, compounded of archos, a chief, and iatros, a physician),
a medical title under the Roman emperors, the exact signification of which has
been the subject of much discussion; for while some persons interpret it the chief
of the physicians (quasi archos ton iatron), others explain it to mean the physician
to the prince (quasi tou archou iatros). Upon the whole it seems tolerably certain
that the former is the true meaning of the word, and for these reasons:
1. From its etymology it can hardly have any other sense, and of all the words
similarly formed (architekton, architriklinos, archiepiskopos, &c.) there is not
one that has any reference to the prince.
2. We find the title applied to physicians who lived at Edessa, Alexandria, &c.,
where no king was at that time reigning.
3. Galen (de Ther. ad Pis. c. 1) speaks of Andromachus being appointed to rule
over the physicians (archein) ; i.e., in fact, to be archiater.
4. Augustine (de Civit. Dei, iii. 17) applies the word to Aesculapius, and St.
Jerome to our Saviour (xiii. Homil. in S. Luc.), in both which cases it evidently
means the chief physician.
5. It is apparently synonymous with protomedicus, supra medicos, dominus medicorum,
and superpositus medicorum, all which expressions occur in inscriptions, &c.,
and also with the title Rais'ala'l-atebba, among the Arabians.
6. We find the names of several persons who were physicians to the emperor, mentioned
without the addition of the title archiater.
7. The archiatri were divided into Archiatri sancti palatii, who attended on the
emperor, and Archiatri populares, who attended on the people; so that it is certain
that all those who bore this title were not physicians to the prince. The chief
argument in favour of the contrary opinion seems to arise from the fact, that
of all those who are known to have held the office of Archiatri the greater part
certainly were also physicians to the emperor; but this is only what might a priori
be expected, viz. that those who had attained the highest rank in their profession
would be chosen to attend upon the prince...
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Medicina (Iatrike), the name of that science which, as Celsus says (de Medic.
lib. i. Praef.), promises health to the sick, and whose object is defined in one
of the Hippocratic treatises (de Arte, vol. i) to be the delivering sick persons
from their sufferings, and the diminishing the violence of diseases, and the not
undertaking the treatment of those who are quite overcome by sickness, as we know
that medicine is here of no avail. This and other definitions of the art and science
of Medicine are critically examined in Pseudo-Galen. The invention of medicine
was almost universally attributed by the ancients to the gods (Cic. Tusc. Dis.
iii. 1; Plin. H. N. xxix.2). So also in Aeschylus (Pr. 478) we have the claim
advanced for Prometheus, that he first taught men the art of medicine both externally
applied and as potions, and there is a remarkable passage in Pindar (Nem. iii.
45) where Aesculapius is taught by Chiron the triple art of healing by drugs,
incantations, and surgical operations. Another source of information too was observing
the means resorted to by animals when labouring under disease. Pliny (H. N. viii.97)
gives many instances in which these instinctive efforts taught mankind the properties
of various plants, and the more simple surgical operations. The wild goats of
Crete pointed out the use of the dictamnus and vulnerary herbs; dogs when indisposed
sought the triticum repens, and the same animal taught the Egyptians the use of
purgatives, constituting the treatment called syrmaism. The hippopotamus introduced
the practice of bleeding, and it is affirmed that the employment of clysters was
shown by the ibis. Sheep with worms in their liver were seen seeking saline substances,
and cattle affected with dropsy anxiously looked for chalybeate waters. We are
told (Herod. i. 197; Strabo, xvi. p. 348) that the Babylonians and Chaldaeans
had no physicians, and that in cases of sickness the patient was carried out and
exposed on the highway, in order that any of the passers-by, who had been affected
in a similar manner, might give some information respecting the means that had
afforded them relief. Shortly afterwards, these observations of cures were suspended
in the temples of the gods, and we find that in Egypt the walls of their sanctuaries
were covered with records of this description. The priests of Greece adopted the
same practice, and some of the curious tablets suspended in their temples will
illustrate the custom. The following votive memorials are given by Hieron. Mercurialis
(de Arte Gymnast.): Some days back a certain Caius, who was blind, was ordered
by an oracle that he should repair to the sacred altar and kneel in prayer, then
cross from right to left, place his five fingers on the altar, then raise his
hand and cover his eyes. [He obeyed,] and his sight was restored in the presence
of the multitude, who congratulated each other that such signs [of the omnipotence
of the gods] were shown in the reign of our emperor Antoninus. A blind soldier
named Valerius Aper was ordered by the oracle to mix the blood of a white cock
with honey, to make up an ointment to be applied to his eyes, for three consecutive
days: he received his sight, and came and returned public thanks to the god. Julian
appeared lost beyond all hope from a spitting of blood. The god ordered him to
take from the altar some seeds of the pine, and to mix them with honey, of which
mixture he was to eat for three days. He was saved, and gave thanks in presence
of the people.
With regard to the medical literature of the ancients: When (says
Littre, Euvres completes d'Hippocrate, tome i. Introd.) we search into the history
of medicine and the commencement of science, the first body of doctrine that we
meet with is the collection of writings known under the name of the works of Hippocrates.
Science mounts up directly to that origin, and there stops. Not that it had not
been cultivated earlier, and had not given rise to even numerous productions;
but everything that had been made before the physician of Cos has perished. We
have only scattered and unconnected fragments remaining of them; the works of
Hippocrates have alone escaped destruction; and by a singular circumstance there
exists a great gap after them, as well as before them. The medical works from
Hippocrates to the establishment of the school of Alexandria, and those of that
school itself, are completely lost, except some quotations and passages preserved
in the later writers; so that the writings of Hippocrates remain isolated amongst
the ruins of ancient medical literature. The Asclepiadae, to which family Hippocrates
belonged, were the supposed descendants of Aesculapius (Asklepios), and were in
a manner the hereditary physicians of Greece. They professed to have among them
certain secrets of the medical art, which had been handed down to them from their
great progenitor, and founded several medical schools in different parts of the
world. Galen mentions (de Meth. Med. i. 1) three, viz. Rhodes, Cnidos, and Cos.
The first of these appears soon to have become extinct, and has left no traces
of its existence behind. From the second proceeded a collection of observations
called Knidiai Gnomai, Cnidian Sentences, a work of much reputation in early times,
which is mentioned by Hippocrates (de Rat. Vict. in Morb. Acut. vol. ii. p. 25),
and which appears to have existed in the time of Galen (Comment. in Hippocr. lib.
cit. vol. xv. p. 427). The school of Cos, however, is by far the most celebrated,
on account of the greater number of eminent physicians that sprang from it, among
whom was the great Hippocrates. We learn from Herodotus (iii. 131) that there
were also two celebrated medical schools at Crotona in Magna Graecia, and at Cyrene
in Africa, of which he says that the former was in his time more esteemed in Greece
than any other, and in the next place came that of Cyrene. In subsequent times
the medical profession was divided into different sects; but a detailed account
of their opinions would be out of place in the present work. The oldest and perhaps
the most influential of these sects was that of the Dogmatici, founded about B.C.
400 by Thessalus, the son, and Polybus, the son-in-law of Hippocrates, and thence
called also the Hippocratici. These retained their influence till the rise of
the Empirici, founded by Serapion of Alexandria and Philinus of Cos, in the third
century B.C., and so called because they professed to derive their knowledge from
experience only. After this time every member of the medical profession during
a long period ranged himself under one of these two sects. In the first century
B.C., Themison founded the sect of the Methodici, who held doctrines nearly intermediate
between those of the two sects already mentioned; and who, about two centuries
later, were subdivided into numerous sects, as the doctrines of particular physicians
became more generally received. The chief of these sects were the Pneumatici and
the Eclectici; the former founded by Athenaeus about the middle or end of the
first century A.D.; the latter about the same time, either by Agathinus of Sparta
or his pupil Archigenes.
It only remains to mention the principal medical authors after Hippocrates
whose works are still extant, referring for more particulars respecting their
writings to the articles in the Dictionary of Biography. Celsus is supposed to
have lived in the Augustan age, and deserves to be mentioned more for the elegance
of his style, and the neatness and judiciousness of his compilation, than for
any original contributions to the science of Medicine. Dioscorides of Anazarba,
who lived in the first century after Christ, was for many centuries the greatest
authority in Materia Medica, and was almost as much esteemed as Galen in Medicine
and Physiology, or Aristotle in Philosophy. Aretaeus, who probably lived in the
time of Nero, is an interesting and striking writer, both from the elegance of
his language and the originality of his opinions. Caelius Aurelianus, whose matter
is excellent, but the style quite barbarous. The next in chronological order,
and perhaps the most valuable, as he is certainly by far the most voluminous,
of all the medical writers of antiquity, is Galen, who reigned supreme in all
matters relating to medical science from the third century till the commencement
of modern times. After him the only writers deserving particular notice are Oribasius
of Pergamus, physician to the Emperor Julian in the fourth century; Aetius of
Amida, who lived probably in the sixth century; Alexander Trallianus, who lived
something later; and Paulus Aegineta, who belongs to the end of the seventh.
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Chirourgia (cheirourgia), surgery. The practice of surgery was at first considered
by the ancients to be merely a part of a physician's duty; but, as in later times
the two branches of the profession were to a great extent separated, it will perhaps
be more convenient to treat of it under a separate head. Without touching upon
the disputed questions, which is the more ancient, or which is the more honourable
branch of the profession ; or even trying to give such a definition of the word
chirurgia as would be likely to satisfy both the physicians and surgeons of the
present day; it will be sufficient to determine the sense in which the word was
used by the ancients: and then to give an account of this division of the science
and art of medicine, as practised among the Greeks and Romans, referring to the
article Medicina
for further particulars.
The word chirurgia is derived from cheir, the hand, and ergon, a work,
and is explained by Celsus (de Med. lib. vii. Praefat.) to mean that part of medicine
quae manu curat, which treats ailments by means of the hand; in Diogenes Laertius
(iii. 85) it is said to cure 51 dia tou temnein kai kaien, by cutting and burning;
nor (as far as the writer is aware) is it ever used by ancient authors in any
other sense. Omitting the fabulous and mythological personages, Apollo, Aesculapius,
Chiron, &c., the only certain traditions respecting the state of surgery before
the establishment of the republics of Greece, and even until the time of the Peloponnesian
war, are to be found in the Iliad and Odyssey. There it appears that surgery was
almost entirely confined to the treatment of wounds; and the imaginary power of
enchantment was joined with the use of topical applications. (Il. iii. 218 ; xi.
515, 828, 843, &c.)
The Greeks received surgery, together with the other branches of medicine,
from the Egyptians; and, from some observations made by the archaeologists who
accompanied the French expedition to Egypt in 1798, it appears that there are
documents fully proving that in very remote times this extraordinary people had
reached a degree of proficiency of which few of the moderns have any conception.
Upon the ceilings and walls of the-temples at Tentyra, Karnac, Luxor, &c., bassirilievi
are seen, representing limbs that have been cut off with instruments very similar
to those which are employed for amputations at the present day. The same instruments
are again observed in the hieroglyphics, and vestiges of other surgical operations
may be traced, which afford convincing proofs of the skill of the ancient Egyptians
in this branch of medical science.
The earliest remaining surgical writings are those in the Hippocratic
Collection, where there are ten treatises on this subject, of which however only
one is considered undoubtedly genuine. Hippocrates (B.C. 460-357?) far surpassed
all his predecessors (and indeed most of his successors) in the boldness and success
of his operations; and though the scanty knowledge of anatomy possessed in those
times prevented his attaining any very great perfection, still we should rather
admire his genius, which enabled him to do so much, than blame him because, with
his imperfect information, he could not accomplish more. The scientific skill
in reducing fractures and luxations displayed in his works De Fracturis, De Articulis,
excites the admiration of Haller (Biblioth. Chirurg.); and he was most probably
the inventor of the ambe, an old surgical machine for dislocations of the shoulder,
which, though now fallen into disuse, enjoyed for a long time a great reputation.
In his work De Capitis Vulneribus he gives minute directions about the time and
mode of using the trephine, and warns the operator against the probability of
his being deceived by the sutures of the cranium, as he confesses happened to
himself. Amputation, in the modern sense of the word, is not described in the
Hippocratic Collection; though mention is made of the removal of a limb at the
joint, after the flesh has been completely destroyed by gangrene. (De Artic. tom.
iii. p. 248.) The author of the Oath, commonly attributed to Hippocrates, binds
his pupils not to perform the operation of lithotomy, but to leave it to persons
specially accustomed to it (ergatesi andrasi prexios tesde); from which it would
appear as if certain persons confined themselves to particular operations.
The names of several persons are preserved who practised surgery as
well as medicine, in the times immediately succeeding those of Hippocrates; but,
with the exception of some fragments, inserted in the writings of Galen, Oribasius,
Aetius, &c., all their writings have perished.
Archagathus deserves to be mentioned, as he is said to have been the
first foreign surgeon that settled at Rome, B.C. 219. (Cassius Hemina, in Pliny,
Hist. Nat. xxix.12.) He was at first very well received, the jus Quiritium was
conferred upon him, a shop was bought for him at the public expense, and he received
the honourable title of Vulnerarius; which, however, on account of his frequent
use of the knife and cautery, was soon changed by the Romans (who were unused
to such a mode of practice) into that of Carnifex. Asclepiades, who
lived at the beginning of the first century B.C., is said to have been the first
person who proposed the operation of tracheotomy. (Cael. Aurel. de Morb. Acut.
i. 14,111; iii. 4,39.)
Ammonius of Alexandria, surnamed Lithotomos, who is supposed to have
lived rather later, is celebrated in the annals of surgery for having been the
first to propose and to perform the operation of lithotrity, or breaking a calculus
in the bladder, when found to be too large for safe extraction. Celsus has minutely
described his mode of operating (de Med. vii. 26, 3), which in some respects resembles
that of Civiale and Heurteloup, in the early part of the present century, and
proves that, however much credit they may deserve for perfecting the operation
and bringing it out of oblivion into public notice, the praise of having originally
thought of it belongs to the ancients. A hook or crotchet, says Celsus, is fixed
upon the stone in such a way as easily to hold it firm, even when shaken, so that
it may not revolve backward; then an iron instrument is used, of moderate thickness,
thin at the front end, but blunt, which, when applied to the stone and struck
at the other end, cleaves it: great care must be taken that the instrument do
not come into contact with the bladder itself, and that nothing fall upon it by
the breaking of the stone.
The next surgical writer after Hippocrates, whose works are still
extant, is Celsus, who lived at the beginning of the first century A.D., and who
has devoted the four last books of his work de Medicina, and especially the seventh
and eighth, entirely to surgical matter. It appears plainly from reading Celsus,
that since the time of Hippocrates surgery had made very great progress, and had,
indeed, reached a high degree of perfection. We find in him the earliest mention
of the use of the ligature for the arrest of haemorrhage from wounded blood-vessels
(v. 26,21); and the Celsian mode of amputation was continued down to comparatively
modern times (vii. 33). He is the first author who gives directions for the operation
of lithotomy (de Med. vii. 26,2), and the method described by him (called the
apparatus minor, or Celsus's method) continued to be practised till the commencement
of the sixteenth century. It was performed at Paris, Bordeaux, and other places
in France, upon patients of all ages, even as late as the latter part of the seventeenth
century; and a modern author (Allan On Lithotomy, p. 12) recommends it always
to be preferred for boys under fourteen. He describes (vii. 25,3) the operation
of infibulatio, which was so commonly performed by the ancients upon singers,
&c., and is often alluded to in classical authors (See Juv. Sat. vi. 73, 379;
Seneca, in Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. 16; Mart. Epigr. vii. 82, 1, ix. 28, 12,
xiv. 215, 1; Tertull. de Corona Mil. 11). He also describes (vii. 25,1) the operation
alluded to by St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 18), peritetmemenos tis eklethe; me epispastho.
Compare Paulus Aegineta (de Re Med. vi. 53), who transcribes from Antyllus a second
method of performing the operation.
The following description, given by Celsus, of the necessary qualifications
of a surgeon, deserves to be quoted (lib. vii. Praefat.):
"A surgeon ought to be young, or, at any rate, not very old; his hand should
be firm and steady, and never shake; he should be able to use his left hand as
readily as his right; his eyesight should be clear, and his mind not easily startled;
he should be so far subject to pity as to make him desirous of the recovery of
his patient, but not so far as to suffer himself to be moved by his cries; he
should neither hurry the operation more than the case requires, nor cut less than
is necessary, but do everything just as if the other's screams made no impression
upon him."
Perhaps the only surgical remark worth quoting from Aretaeus, who
lived in the first century A.D., is that he condemns the operation of tracheotomy,
and thinks that the heat of the inflammation becomes greater from the wound and
contributes to the suffocation, and the patient coughs; and even if he escapes
this danger, the lips of the wound do not unite, for both are cartilaginous and
unable to grow together. (De Morb. Acut. Cur. i. 7, p. 227, ed. Kuhn.)
Omitting Scribonius Largus, Moschion, and Soranus, the next author
of importance is Caelius Aurelianus, who is supposed to have lived about the beginning
of the second century A.D., and in whose works there is much surgical matter,
but nothing that can be called original. He rejected as absurd the operation of
tracheotomy (de Morb. Chron. iii. 4,39). He mentions a case of ascites that was
cured by tapping (ib. iii. 8,128), and also a person who recovered after being
shot through the lungs by an arrow (ib. ii. 12,144).
Galen, the most voluminous and at the same time the most valuable
medical writer of antiquity, is less celebrated as a surgeon than as an anatomist
and physician. He appears to have practised surgery at Pergamus, but, upon his
removal to Rome (A.D. 165), he entirely confined himself to medicine, following,
as he says himself (de Meth. Med. vi.), the custom of the place. His writings
prove, however, that he did not entirely abandon surgery. His Commentaries on
the treatise of Hippocrates, De Officina Medici, and his treatise De Fasciis,
show that he was well versed even in the minor details of the art. He appears
also to have been a skilful operator, though no great surgical inventions are
attributed to him.
Antyllus, who lived some time between Galen and Oribasius, is the
earliest writer whose directions for performing tracheotomy are still extant,
though the operation (as was stated above) was proposed by Asclepiades about three
hundred years before. Only a few fragments of the writings of Antyllus remain,
and among them the following passage is preserved by Paulus Aegineta (de Re Med.
vi. 33):
"When we proceed to perform this operation, we must cut through some part
of the windpipe, below the larynx, about the third or fourth ring; for to divide
the whole would be dangerous. This place is commodious, because it is not covered
with any flesh, and because it has no vessels situated near the divided part.
Therefore, bending the head of the patient backward, so that the windpipe may
come more forward to the view, we make a transverse section between two of the
rings, so that in this case not the cartilage, but the membrane which unites the
cartilages together, is divided. If the operator be a little timid, he may first
stretch the skin with a hook and divide it; then, proceeding to the windpipe,
and separating the vessels, if any are in the way, he may make the incision."
Oribasius, physician to the Emperor Julian (A.D. 361), professes to
be merely a compiler; and though there is in his great work, entitled Sunagogai
Iatrikai, Collecta Medicinalia, much surgical matter, there is nothing original.
The same may be said of Aetius and Alexander Trallianus, both of whom lived towards
the end of the sixth century A.D. Paulus Aegineta has given up the fifth and sixth
books of his work De Re Medica entirely to surgery, and has inserted much useful
matter, derived in a great measure from his own observation and experience. Albucasis
translated into Arabic great part of these two books as the basis of his work
on Surgery. Paulus was particularly celebrated for his skill in midwifery and
female diseases, and was called on that account, by the Arabians, Al-Kawabeli,
the Accoucheur. He lived probably towards the end of the seventh century A.D.,
and is the last of the ancient Greek and Latin medical writers whose surgical
works remain. The names of several others are recorded, but they are not of sufficient
eminence to require any notice here. For further information on the subject both
of medicine and surgery, see Medicina;
and for the legal qualifications, social rank, &c., both of physicians and surgeons,
among the ancient Greeks and Romans, see Medicus
...
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Valetudinarium (nosokomeion), an infirmary. A detached building or room was commonly
found in large houses for the reception of sick slaves, who, we are told, should
at once be removed there for better treatment, and, no doubt, for the prevention
of infection (Col. xi. 1, 18; xii. 3, 7;--Senec. de Ira, i. 16; Nat. Qu. 1). We
have no satisfactory evidence of anything that can be regarded as a public infirmary
or hospital in Italy until the end of the 4th century A.D. Though the passages
of Seneca cited above might bear this interpretation, there is no reason to consider
the valetudinaria which he mentions as anything but infirmaries for slaves in
private houses... The earliest mention of an infirmary or hospital for the poor
in Italy seems to be that found in Jerome (Ep. iii. 10, de mort. Fab.), where
we are told that Fabiola, A.D. 380, took care of the sick brought from the streets
into a building of this kind: Primo omnium nosocomium, id est languentium villam,
instituit, in quo aegrotantes colligeret de plateis et consumpta languoribus atque
inedia membra foveret. Shortly before this (A.D. 372) we hear (Sozom. Hist. Eccles.
vi. 34) of a hospital at Caesarea established by Basil (primarily, however, for
the reception of poor travellers or pilgrims).
Vercoutre maintains, probably with reason, that all idea of such an
institution was derived by the Romans from the Greeks, whose lead they followed
in everything connected with medicine. We doubt, however, whether this writer
is justified in making as much as he does of the Greek iatreia, or in regarding
them as in any sense hospitals. The state physicians, who treated the pool gratuitously
in return for their state salary, had in many Greek cities not only their medicines
and surgical appliances provided for them by the state, but also a room, or suite
of rooms, called iatreion, which otherwise means merely the consulting-room and
dispensary of any physician. The description in Galen is oikoi megaloi thuras
megalas photos plereis echousin, hoioi kai nun kata pollas ton poleon didontai
tois iatrois, hous paronumos auton iatreia prosagoreuousi (Gal. in Hippocr. de
Med. Officin. i. 8). In such rooms it is probable that patients might remain for
a time; if, for instance, they were unable to move after an operation: but we
lack information which would warrant our crediting Greece with hospitals properly
so called earlier than the 4th century. It is possible that the paionion at Piraeus,
mentioned by Crates, the comedian of the 5th century B.C., may have been something
of the kind, but this is doubtful; at any rate, it is not alluded to anywhere
else, and can hardly have been an institution lasting or imitated in many other
places.
The function of hospitals for the poor was, to some extent, performed
by the temples of Aesculapius, where the priests no doubt combined a certain amount
of medical knowledge (cf. Liv. xlv. 28) with a great deal of quackery and superstitious
observance (cf. Aristoph. Plut. 665 ff.), and it may, we think, fairly be surmised
that the disuse of these temples in Christian times made the necessity of hospitals
more apparent, and so led to their institution, in much the same way as in this
country the suppression of monasteries, which had largely relieved the indigent
poor, made the necessity of Poor-laws immediately evident.
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Donaria (anathemata or anakeimena) are names by which the ancients designated
presents made to the gods, either by individuals or communities. Sometimes they
are also called dona or dora. The belief that the gods were pleased
with costly presents was as natural to the ancients as the belief that they could
be influenced in their conduct towards men by the offering of sacrifices; and,
indeed, both sprang from the same feeling. Presents were mostly given as tokens
of gratitude for some favour which a god had bestowed on man; but in many cases
they were intended to induce the deity to grant some special favour. At Athens,
every one of the six thesmothetae, or, according to Plato (Phaedr.), all the nine
archons, on entering upon their office, had to take an oath, that if they violated
any of the laws, they would dedicate in the temple of Delphi a golden statue of
the size of the man who dedicated it (andrianta chrusoun isometreton, see Plut.
Sol. 25; Pollux, viii. 85; Suidas, s. v. Chruse Eikon: Heraclid. Pont. c. 1).
In this last case the anathema was a kind of punishment, in which the statue was
regarded as a substitute for the person forfeited to the gods. Almost all presents
of this kind were dedicated in temples, to which in some places an especial building
was added, in which these treasures were preserved. Such buildings were called
thesauroi (treasuries); and in the most frequented temples of Greece many states
had their separate treasuries. The act of dedication was called anatithenai, donare,
dedicate, or sacrare.
The custom of making donations to the gods is found among the ancients
from the earliest times of which we have any record down to the introduction of
Christianity; and even after that period it was, with some modifications, observed
by the Christians during the Middle Ages. In the heroic ages of Grecian history
the anathemata were of a simple description, and consisted of chaplets and garlands
of flowers. A very common donation to the gods seems to have been that of locks
of hair (komes aparchai), which youths and maidens, especially young brides, cut
off from their heads and consecrated to some deity (Hom. Il. xxiii. 141; Aeschyl.
Choeph. 6; Eurip. Orest. 96 and 1427, Bacch. 493, Helen. 1093;. Plut. Thes. 5;
Paus. i. 37,2). This custom in some places lasted till a very late period: the
maidens of Delos dedicated their hair before their wedding to Hecaerge (Paus.
i. 43,4), and those of Megara to Iphinoe. Pausanias (ii. 11,6) saw the statue
of Hygieia at Titane covered all over with locks of hair which had been dedicated
by women. Costly garments (peploi) are likewise mentioned among the earliest presents
made to the gods, especially to Athena and Hera (Hom. II. vi. 293, 303). At Athens
the sacred peplos of Athena, in which the great adventures of ancient heroes were
worked, was woven by maidens every fifth year, at the festival of the great Panathenaea
(Compare Aristoph. Av. 792; Pollux, vii. 50). A similar peplus was woven every
five years at Olympia, by sixteen women, and dedicated to Hera (Paus. v. 16,2).
At the time when the fine arts flourished in Greece the anathemata
were generally works of art of exquisite workmanship, such as high tripods bearing
vases, craters, cups, candelabras, pictures, statues, and various other things.
The materials of which they were made differed according to circumstances; some
were of bronze, others of silver or gold (Athen. vi. p. 231, &c.), and their number
is to us almost inconceivable (Demosth. Olynth. iii. p. 35). The treasures of
the temples of Delphi and Olympia, in particular, surpass all conception. Even
Pausanias, at a period when numberless works of art must have perished in the
various ravages and plunders to which Greece had been exposed, saw and described
an astonishing number of anathemata. Many works of art are still extant, bearing
evidence by their inscriptions that they were dedicated to the gods as tokens
of gratitude. Every one knows of the magnificent presents which Croesus made to
the god of Delphi (Herod. i. 50, &c.). It was an almost invariable custom, after
the happy issue of a war, to dedicate the tenth part of the spoil (akrothinion,
akroleion, or protoleion) to the gods, generally in the form of some work of art
(Herod. viii. 82, 121; Thucyd. i. 132; Pans. iii. 18,5; Athen. vi. p. 231, &c.).
Sometimes magnificent specimens of armour, such as a fine sword, helmet, or shield,
were set apart as anathemata for the gods (Aristoph. Equit. 792, and Schol). The
Athenians always dedicated to Athena the tenth part of the spoil and of confiscated
goods; and to all the other gods collectively, the fiftieth part (Demosth. c.
Timocr. p. 738, &c.). After a seafight, a ship, placed upon some eminence, was
sometimes dedicated to Neptune (Thucyd. ii. 84; Herod. viii. 121). It is not improbable
that trophies which were always erected on the field of battle, as well as the
statues of the victors in Olympia and other places, were originally intended as
tokens of gratitude to the god who was supposed to be the cause of the success
which the victorious party had gained. We also find that on some occasions the
tenth part of the profit of some commercial undertaking was dedicated to a god
in the shape of a work of art. Respecting the large and beautiful craters dedicated
to the temples, see the article Crater
Individuals who had escaped from some danger were no less
anxious to show their gratitude to the gods by anathemata than communities. The
instances which occur most frequently are those of persons who had recovered from
an illness, especially by spending one or more nights in a temple of Asclepius
(incubatio). The most celebrated temples of this divinity were those of Epidaurus,
Cos, Tricca, and, at a later period, that of Rome (Plin. H. N. xxix.4). Cures
were also effected in the grotto of Pluto and Proserpina, in the neighbourhood
of Nisa (Strab. ix., xiv.). In all cases in which a cure was effected presents
were made to the temple, and little tablets (tabulae votivae) were suspended on
its walls, containing an account of the danger from which the patient had escaped,
and of the manner in which he had been restored to health. Some tablets of this
kind, with their inscriptions, are still extant. From some relics of ancient art
we must infer that in some cases, when a particular part of the body was attacked
by disease, the person, after his recovery, dedicated an imitation of that part
in gold or silver to the god to whom he owed his recovery. Persons who had escaped
from shipwreck usually dedicated to Neptune the dress which they wore at the time
of their danger (Hor. Carm. i. 5, 13; Verg. Aen. xii. 768); but if they had escaped
naked, they dedicated some locks of their hair (Lucian, de Merc. Cond. c. 1).
Shipwrecked persons also suspended votive tablets in the temple of Neptune, on
which their accident was described or painted. Individuals who gave up the profession
or occupation, by which they had gained their livelihood, frequently dedicated
in a temple the instruments which they had used, as a grateful acknowledgment
of the favour of the gods. The soldier thus dedicated his arms, the fisherman
his net, the shepherd his flute, the poet his lyre, cithara, or harp, &c.
It would be impossible to attempt to enumerate all the occasions on
which individuals, as well as communities, showed their gratefulness towards the
gods by anathemata. Descriptions of the most remarkable presents in the various
temples of Greece may be read in the works of Herodotus, Strabo, Pausanias, Athenaeus,
and others.
The custom of making presents to the gods was common to Greeks and Romans, but
among the latter the donaria were neither as numerous nor as magnificent as in
Greece; and it was more frequent among the Romans to show their gratitude towards
a god, by building him a temple, by public prayers and thanksgivings (supplicatio),
or by celebrating festive games in honour of him, than to adorn his sanctuary
with beautiful and costly works of art. Hence the word donaria was used by the
Romans to designate a temple or an altar, as well as statues and other things
dedicated in a temple (Verg. Georg. iii. 533; Ovid, Fast. iii. 335). The occasions
on which the Romans made donaria to their gods are, on the whole, the same as
those we have described among the Greeks, as will be seen from a comparison of
the following passages : Liv. x. 36, xxix. 36, xxxii. 30, xl. 40, 37; Suet. Claud.
25; Tacit. Ann. iii. 71; Plaut. Amphitr. iii. 2, 65; Curcul. i. 1, 61, ii. 2,
10; Aurel. Vict. Caes. 35 ; Gellius, ii. 10; Lucan ix.515; Cic. de Nat. Deor.
iii. 3. 7 ; Tibull. ii. 5, 29; Hor. Epist. i. 1, 4; Stat. Silv. iv. 92.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Stele, is the name given to any block (usually of stone or marble) set up for
a monumental purpose; thus it is constantly applied in inscriptions to the block
on which a public document is to be incised. But the best known use of the term
is to denote a monument set up over a tomb, either plain or with merely ornamental
decorations, or containing a commemorative inscription, or a portrait of the deceased,
painted or in relief, alone or grouped with other figures; combinations of these
characteristics are common. The simplest form of stele consists of a plain marble
slab or pillar surmounted by an anthemion, and inscribed with the name of the
deceased; often two rosettes. side by side, are added--possibly a survival of
an anthropomorphic representation. The most common subjects represented on grave
reliefs may be thus classified:
(1). Stmple representations of the deceased, often in some common employment of
daily life. Thus the warrior appears fully armed, standing as if on parade (Aristion),
or on horseback slaying a prostrate foe (Dexileos). An athlete holds his strigil
or exercises, and is attended by his trainer or his slave; a lady sits playing
with her jewels, also accompanied by her attendants (fig. 1 in URL below). A man
or child is often represented playing with a pet animal.
(2) Parting scenes.--The deceased, standing or seated, takes leave of his or her
relatives or friends; family scenes are usually depicted. In later and more elaborate
designs a horse appears, as if the deceased were about to start on a journey,
and a serpent also is seen as a symbol of the dead. These two symbolic figures
are, however, only common in the next class; and in parting scenes of the best
period the subject is only indicated by the appearance of melancholy in the faces
and attitudes of the persons represented (fig. 2 in URL below).
(3) Banquet scenes.--These seem to have originated in a kind of ancestor-worship,
as is seen in the very early stelae from Sparta: in them the deceased, as a hero,
holds out a cup as if to require a drink-offering; his wife is seated on another
throne behind him, and small worshippers approach with offerings. In later times
we find some similar examples; on the painted stele of Lysias at Athens the deceased
stands, holding a cup in his hand. In the Spartan reliefs a great serpent coils
over the back of the throne, representing, probably, the deceased as the inhabitant
of his tomb. In the typical banquet scene of later times the deceased reclines
on a couch, and his wife sits on the foot of the couch or on a chair beside it;
before them is a feast, of which they partake, and servants with cups or viands
take the place of the worshippers; a snake and a dog are often present; and a
horse's head, as a symbol of a journey, often appears in a square at the upper
corner (fig. 3 in URL below). It has been suggested that we should see here the
funeral banquet idealised, or the enjoyments of the deceased in another life:
the typical succession seems to indicate that we see rather a development of the
representation in which the deceased, as a hero, receives offerings from worshippers,
and reminds his descendants to give him more; but the enjoyment of those presents
in another life is doubtless included. The type of these reliefs is often
reproduced in dedications to Asclepius and Hygieia or other minor divinities;
and thus we receive a confirmation of the view that the deceased is, originally
at least, to be regarded as a deified hero.
The numerous series of Greek stelae which still survive is of great
value, not only for their subjects but also for their execution; they were mostly
the work of inferior artists or mere artisans, but reflect the style of the greater
artists of the place or period to which they belong. The most important are those
found in Athens, and preserved either in situ in the Outer Ceramicus or in the
National Museum at Athens.
The inscription on a grave stele usually gives merely the name of
the deceased, with his father's name and his country or deme, and her husband's
also in the case of a woman: this simplicity was almost universal in Attica, but
simple metrical inscriptions containing the same information are found from the
earliest times. Elsewhere, and commonly later, chaire or chreste chaire is added;
but elaborate eulogies are extremely rare, at least before Roman times.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
IREON (Ancient sanctuary) ARGOS - MYKINES
Hera (Here), probably identical with kera, mistress, just as her husband, Zeus,
was called errhos in the Aeolian dialect (Hesych.). The derivation of the name
has been attempted in a variety of ways, from Greek as well as oriental roots,
though there is no reason for having recourse to the latter, as Hera is a purely
Greek divinity, and one of the few who, according to Herodotus (ii. 50), were
not introduced into Greece from Egypt.
Hera was, according to some accounts, the eldest daughter of Cronos and Rhea,
and a sister of Zeus (Hom. Il. xvi. 432; comp. iv. 58; Ov. Fast. vi. 29). Apollodorus
(i. 1,5), however, calls Hestia the eldest daughter of Cronos; and Lactantius
(i. 14) calls her a twin-sister of Zeus. According to the Homeric poems (Il. xiv.
201), she was brought up by Oceanus and Thetys, as Zeus had usurped the throne
of Cronos; and afterwards she became the wife of Zeus, without the knowledge of
her parents. This simple account is variously modified in other traditions. Being
a daughter of Cronos, she, like his other children, was swallowed by her father,
but afterwards released (Apollod.), and, according to an Arcadian
tradition, she was brought up by Temenus, the son of Pelasgus (Paus. viii. 22.2;
August. de Civ. Dei, vi. 10). The Argives,
on the other hand, related that she had been brought up by Euboea, Prosymna,
and Acraea, the three daughters of the river Asterion (Paus. ii. 7.1; Plut. Sympos.
iii. 9); and according to Olen, the Horae were her nurses (Paus. ii. 13.3). Several
parts of Greece also claimed the honour of being her birthplace; among them are
two, Argos and Samos,
which were the principal seats of her worship (Strab.; Paus. vii. 4.7; Apollon.
Rhod. i. 187). Her marriage with Zeus also offered ample scope for poetical invention
(Theocrit. xvii. 131), and several places in Greece claimed the honour of having
been the scene of the marriage, such as Euboea
(Steph. Byz. s. v. Karustos), Samos
(Lactant. de Fals. Relig. i. 17), Cnossus
in Crete (Diod. v. 72), and
Mount Thornax, in the south of Argolis
(Schol. ad Theocrit. xv. 64; Paus. ii. 17.4, 36.2). This marriage acts a prominent
part in the worship of Hera under the name of hieros gamos; on that occasion all
the gods honoured the bride with presents, and Ge presented to her a tree with
golden apples, which was watched by the Hesperides in the garden of Hera, at the
foot of the Hyperborean Atlas (Apollod. ii. 5.11; Serv. ad Aen. iv. 484). The
Homeric poems know nothing of all this, and we only hear, that after the marriage
with Zeus, she was treated by the Olympian gods with the same reverence as her
husband (Il. xv. 85; comp. i. 532, iv. 60). Zeus himself, according to Homer,
listened to her counsels, and communicated his secrets to her rather than to other
gods (xvi. 458, i. 547). Hera also thinks herself justified in censuring Zeus
when he consults others without her knowing it (i. 540); but she is, notwithstanding,
far inferior to him in power; she must obey him unconditionally, and, like the
other gods, she is chastised by him when she has offended him (iv. 56, viii. 427,
463). Hera therefore is not, like Zeus, the queen of gods and men, but simply
the wife of the supreme god. The idea of her being the queen of heaven, with regal
wealth and power, is of a much later date (Hygin. Fab. 92; Ov. Fast. vi. 27, Heroid.
xvi. 81; Eustath. ad Hom.). There is only one point in which the Homeric poems
represent Hera as possessed of similar power with Zeus, viz. she is able to confer
the power of prophecy (xix. 407). But this idea is not further developed in later
times (Comp. Strab.; Apollon. Rhod. iii. 931). Her character, as described by
Homer, is not of a very amiable kind, and its main features are jealousy, obstinacy,
and a quarrelling disposition, which sometimes makes her own husband tremble (i.
522, 536, 561, v. 892). Hence there arise frequent disputes between Hera and Zeus;
and on one occasion Hera, in conjunction with Poseidon and Athena, contemplated
putting Zeus into chains (viii. 408, i. 399). Zeus, in such cases, not only threatens,
but beats her; and once he even hung her up in the clouds, her hands chained,
and with two anvils suspended from her feet (viii. 400, 477, xv. 17; Eustath.
ad Hom.). Hence she is frightened by his threats, and gives way when he is angry;
and when she is unable to gain her ends in any other way, she has recourse to
cunning and intrigues (xix. 97). Thus she borrowed from Aphrodite the girdle,
the giver of charm and fascination, to excite the love of Zeus (xiv. 215). By
Zeus she was the mother of Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus (v. 896, Od. xi. 604, Il.
i. 585; Hes. Theog. 921; Apollod. i. 3.1). Respecting the different traditions
about the descent of these three divinities see the separate articles.
Properly speaking, Hera was the only really married goddess among
the Olympians, for the marriage of Aphrodite with Ares can scarcely be taken into
consideration; and hence she is the goddess of marriage and of the birth of children.
Several epithets and surnames, such as Eigeithuia, Gamelia, Zulia, Teleia, contain
allusions to this character of the goddess, and the Eileithyiae are described
as her daughters (Hom. Il. xi. 271, xix. 118). Her attire is described in the
Iliad (xiv. 170); she rode in a chariot drawn by two horses, in the harnessing
and unharnessing of which she was assisted by Hebe and the Horase (iv. 27, v.
720, viii. 382, 433). Her favourite places on earth were Argos,
Sparta, and Mycenae
(iv. 51). Owing to the judgment of Paris, she was hostile towards the Trojans,
and in the Trojan war she accordingly sided with the Greeks (ii. 15, iv. 21, xxiv.
519). Hence she prevailed on Helius to sink down into the waves of Oceanus on
the day on which Patroclus fell (xviii. 239). In the Iliad she appears as an enemy
of Heracles, but is wounded by his arrows (v. 392, xviii. 118), and in the Odyssey
she is described as the supporter of Jason. It is impossible here to enumerate
all the events of mythical story in which Hera acts a more or less prominent part;
and the reader must refer to the particular deities or heroes with whose story
she is connected.
Hera had sanctuaries, and was worshipped in many parts of Greece,
often in common with Zeus. Her worship there may be traced to the very earliest
times: thus we find Hera, surnamed Pelasgis, worshipped at Iolcos.
But the principal place of her worship was Argos,
hence called the doma Heras (Pind. Nem. x. imt.; comp. Aeschyl. Suppl. 297). According
to tradition, Hera had disputed the possession of Argos
with Poseidon, but the river-gods of the country adjudicated it to her (Paus.
ii. 15.5) Her most celebrated sanctuary was situated between Argos
and Mycenae, at the foot
of Mount Euboea. The vestibule of the temple contained ancient statues of the
Charites, the bed of Hera, and a shield which Menelaus had taken at Troy
from Euphorbus. The sitting colossal statue of Hera in this temple, made of gold
and ivory, was the work of Polycletus. She wore a crown on her head, adorned with
the Charites and Horae; in the one hand she held a pomegranate, and in the other
a sceptre headed with a cuckoo. (Paus. ii. 17, 22; Strab.; Stat. Theb. i. 383).
Respecting the great quinqnennial festival celebrated to her at Argos,
see Diet. of Ant. s. v. Eraia. Her worship was very ancient also at Corinth
(Paus. ii. 24, 1; Apollod. i. 9.28), Sparta
(iii. 13.6, 15.7), in Samos
(Herod. iii. 60; Paus. vii. 4.4; Strab.), at Sicyon
(Paus. ii. 11.2), Olympia
(v. 15.7), Epidaurus (Thucyd.
v. 75; Paus. ii. 29.1), Heraea
in Arcadia (Paus. viii. 26.2),
and many other places.
Respecting the real significance of Hera, the ancients themselves
offer several interpretations: some regarded her as the personification of the
atmosphere (Serv. ad Aen. i. 51), others as the queen of heaven or the goddess
of the stars (Eurip. Helen. 1097), or as the goddess of the moon (Plut. Quaest.
Rom. 74), and she is even confounded with Ceres, Diana, and Proserpina (Serv.
ad Virg. Georg. i. 5). According to modern views, Hera is the great goddess of
nature, who was every where worshipped from the earliest times. The Romans identified
their goddess Juno with the Greek Hera We still possess several representations
of Hera. The noblest image, and which was afterwards looked upon as the ideal
of the goddess, was the statue by Polycletus. She was usually represented as a
majestic woman at a mature age, with a beautiful forehead, large and widely opened
eyes, and with a grave expression commanding reverence. Her hair was adorned with
a crown or a diadem. A veil frequently hangs down the back of her head, to characterise
her as the bride of Zeus, and, in fact, the diadem, veil, sceptre, and peacock
are her ordinary attributes. A number of statues and heads of Hera still exist.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Hera (Ionic, Here, and in Attic, Hera: the name is often connected
with the Latin hera; but on this,). In Greek mythology, the queen of heaven, eldest
daughter of Cronus and Rhea, sister and lawful consort of Zeus. According to Homer,
she was brought up in her youth by Oceanus and Tethys. But every place in which
her worship was localized asserted that she was born there, and brought up by
the Nymphs of the district. She is said to have long lived in secret intimacy
with Zeus before he publicly acknowledged her as his lawful consort. Her worshippers
celebrated her marriage (hieros gamos) in the spring time. In the oldest version
of the story it took place in the Islands of the Blessed, on the shore of the
Ocean stream, where the golden apple-tree of the Hesperides sprang up to celebrate
it. But this honour, too, was claimed by every place where Here was worshipped.
According to one local story, Zeus obtained the love of Here by stealth, in the
form of a cuckoo.
Here seems originally to have symbolized the feminine aspects
of the natural forces of which Zeus is the masculine representative. Hence she
is at once his wife and his sister, shares his power and his honours, and, like
him, has authority over the phenomena of the atmosphere. It is she who sends clouds
and storms, and is mistress of the thunder and lightning. Her handmaids are the
Horae or goddesses of the season, and Iris, the goddess of the rainbow. Like Zeus,
men worship her on mountains, and pray to her for rain. The union of sun and rain,
which wakes the earth to renewed fertility, is symbolized as the loving union
of Zeus and Here. In the same way a conflict of the winds is represented as the
consequence of a matrimonial quarrel, usually attributed to the jealousy of Here,
who was regarded as the stern protectress of honourable marriage. Hence arose
stories of Zeus illtreating his wife. It was said that he scourged her, and hurled
Hephaestus from heaven to earth when hurrying to his mother's assistance; that
in anger for her persecution of his son Heracles, he hung her out in the air with
golden chains to her arms and an anvil on each foot. There were also old legends
which spoke of Here allying herself with Athene and Poseidon to bind Zeus in chains.
Zeus was only rescued by the giant Aegaeon, whom Thetis called to his assistance.
The birth of Athene was said to have enraged Here to such a pitch that she became
the mother of Typhon by the dark powers of the infernal regions. In fact, this
constant resistance to the will of Zeus, and her jealousy and hatred of her consort's
paramours and their children, especially Heracles, become in the poets a standing
trait in her character.
In spite of all this, Homer represents her as the most majestic
of all the goddesses. The other Olympians pay her royal honours, and Zeus treats
her with all respect and confides all his designs to her, though not always yielding
to her demands. She is the spotless and uncorruptible wife of the king of Heaven;
the mother of Hephaestus, Ares, Hebe, and Ilithyia, and indeed may be called the
only lawful wife in the Olympian court. She is, accordingly, before all other
deities the goddess of marriage and the protectress of purity in married life.
She is represented as of exalted but severe beauty, and appears before Paris as
competing with Aphrodite and Athene for the prize of loveliness. In Homer she
is described as of lofty stature, large eyes (boopis), white arms (leukolenos),
and beautiful hair. On women she confers bloom and strength; she helps them, too,
in the dangerous hour of childbirth. Her daughters Hebe and Ilithyia personify
both these attributes.
In earlier times Here was not everywhere recognized as the
consort of Zeus; at the primitive oracle of Dodona, for instance, Dione occupies
this position. The Peloponnesus may be regarded as the earliest seat of her worship,
and in the Peloponnesus, during the Homeric period, Argos, Mycenae, and Sparta
are her favourite seats. Of these, according to the poet, she is the passionate
champion in the Trojan War. In later times the worship of Here was strongly localized
in Argos and Mycenae. At Argos she took the same commanding position as Athene
at Athens, and the year was dated by the names of her priestesses. Between these
cities, at the foot of Mount Euboea, was situated the Heraeum (Heraion), a temple
held in great honour. At Corinth she was the goddess of the acropolis. At Elis
a garment was offered her every five years by sixteen ladies chosen for the purpose,
and maidens held a race in her honour on the race-course at Olympia. Boeotia had
its feast of the Daedala; Samos its large and splendid temple, built by Polycrates.
The cuckoo was sacred to her as the messenger of spring, the season in which she
was wedded to Zeus; so were the peacock and the crow, and among fruits the pomegranate,
the symbol of wedded love and fruitfulness. Hecatombs were offered to her in sacrifice,
as to Zeus.
In works of art she is represented as seated on a throne in
a full robe, covering the whole figure. On her head is a sort of diadem, often
with a veil; the expression of the face is severe and majestic, the eyes large
and wide open, as in the Homeric description. The ideal type of Here was found
in the statue by Polyclitus in the temple at Argos. This was a colossal image,
in gold and ivory, representing the goddess on her throne, her crown adorned with
figures of the Graces and the Seasons, a pomegranate in one hand, and in the other
a sceptre with the cuckoo on the top. The Farnese Here at Naples, and the Ludovisi
Iuno in Rome, are copies of this work. The Romans identified Here with their own
Iuno.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
To Hera, Homeric Hymns (ed. Hugh G. Evelyn-White)
ARGOS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
A comrade of Sthenelus (Il. 5.325).
MYCENAE (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
The son of Copreus from Mycenae, was slain by Hector (Il. 15.638).
He was a charioteer of Agamemnon and son of Ptolemaeus, son of Peiraeus (Il. 4.228).
Eurymedon. A son of Ptolemaeus, and charioteer of Agamemnon; his tomb was shewn at Mycenae. (Hom. Il. iv. 228; Paus. ii. 16. § 5.) There are two more mythical personages of this name. (Hom. Od. vii. 58; Apollod. iii. 1. § 2.) Eurymedon signifies a being ruling far and wide, and occurs as a surname of several divinities, such as Poseidon (Pind. Ol. viii. 31), Perseus (Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1514), and Hermes. (Hesvch. s. v.)
ARGOS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
The leader of Argives with 80 ships in the Trojan war, one of the Epigoni, son of Tydeus, husband of Aegialeia, the daughter of Adrastus (Il. 23.470, 5.412, 2.567).
Diomedes. A son of Tydeus and Deipyle, the husband of Aegialeia, and the successor
of Adrastus in the kingdom of Argos, though he was descended from an Aetolian
family (Apollod. i. 8.5). The Homeric tradition about him is as follows: His father
Tydeus fell in the expedition against Thebes,
while Diomedes was yet a boy (II. vi. 222); but he himself afterwards was one
of the Epigoni who took Thebes
(II. iv. 405; comp. Paus. ii. 20.4). Diomedes went to Troy
with Sthenelus and Euryalus, carrying with him in eighty ships warriors from Argos,
Tiryns, Hermione,
Asine, Troezene,
Eionae, Epidaurus, Aegina,
and Mases (ii. 559). In the
army of the Greeks before Troy,
Diomedes was, next to Achilles, the bravest among the heroes; and, like Achilles
and Odysseus, he enjoyed the special protection of Athena, who assisted him in
all dangerous moments (v. 826, vi. 98, x. 240, xi. 312; comp. Virg. Aen. i. 96).
He fought with the most distinguished among the Trojans, such as Hector and Aeneias
(viii. 110, v. 310), and even with the gods who espoused the cause of the Trojans.
He thus wounded Aphrodite, and drove her from the field of battle (v. 335, 440),
and Ares himself was likewise wounded by him (v. 837). Diomedes was wounded by
Pandareus, whom, however, he afterwards slew with many other Trojans (v. 97).
In the attack of the Trojans on the Greek camp. he and Odysseus offered a brave
resistance, but Diomedes was wounded and returned to tile ships (xi. 320). He
wore a cuirass made by Hephaestus, but sometimes also a lion's skin (viii. 195,
x. 177). At the funeral games of Patroclus he conquered in the chariot-race, and
received a woman and a tripod as his prize (xxiii. 373). He also conquered the
Telamonian Ajax in single combat, and won the sword which Achilles had offered
as the prize (xxiii. 811). He is described in the Iliad in general as brave in
war and wise in council (ix. 53), in battle furious like a mountain torrent, and
the terror of the Trojans, whom he chases before him, as a lion chases goats (v.
87, xi. 382). He is strong like a god (v. 884), and the Trojan women during their
sacrifice to Athena pray to her to break his spear and to make him fall (vi. 306).
He himself knows no fear, and refuses his consent when Agamemnon proposes to take
to flight, and he declares that, if all flee, he and his friend Sthenelus will
stay and fight till Troy
shall fill (ix. 32, comp. vii. 398, viii. 151: Philostr. Her. 4).
The story of Diomedes, like those of other heroes of the Trojan time,
has received various additions and embellishments from the hands of later writers,
of which we shall notice the principal ones. After the expedition of the Epigoni
he is mentioned among the suitors of Helen (Hygin. Fab. 81; Apollod. iii. 10.8),
and his love of Helen induced him to join the Greeks in their expedition against
Troy with 30 ships (Hygin.
Fab. 97). Being a relative of Thersites, who was slain by Achilles, he did not
permit the body of the Amazon Penthesileia to be honourably buried, but dragged
her by the feet into the river Scamander (Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 993 ; Dict. Cret.
iv. 3). Philoctetes was persuaded by Diomedes and Odysseus to join the Greeks
against Troy (Soph. Philoct.
570; Hygin. Fab. 102). Diomedes conspired with Odysseus against Palamedes, and
under the pretence of having discovered a hidden treasure, they let him down into
a well and there stoned him to death (Dict. Cret. ii. 15; comp. Paus. x. 31.1).
After the death of Paris, Diomedes and Odysseus were sent into the city of Troy
to negotiate for peace (Dict. Cret. v. 4), but he was afterwards one of the Greeks
concealed in the wooden horse (Hygin. Fab. 108). When he and Odysseus had arrived
in the arx of Troy by a subterraneous
passage, they slew the guards and carried away the palladium (Virg. Aen. ii. 163),
as it was believed that Ilium could not be taken so long as the palladium was
within its walls. When, during the night, the two heroes were returning to the
camp with their precious booty, and Odysseus was walking behind him, Diomedes
saw by the shadow of his companion that he was drawing his sword in order to kill
him, and thus to secure to himself alone the honour of having taken the palladium.
Diomedes, however, turned round, seized the sword of Odysseus, tied his hands,
and thus drove him along before him to the camp (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 822). Diomedes,
according to some, carried the palladium with him to Argos, where it remained
until Ergiaeus, one of his descendants, took it away with the assistance of the
Laconian Leagrus, who conveyed it to Sparta
(Plut. Quaest. Graec. 48). According to others, Diomedes was robbed of the palladium
by Demophon in Attica, where
he landed one night on his return from Troy,
without knowing where he was (Paus. ii. 28.9). A third tradition stated, that
Diomedes restored the palladium and the remains of Anchises to Aeneias, because
he was informed by an oracle, that he should be exposed to unceasing sufferings
unless lie restored the sacred image to the Trojans (Serv. ad Aen. ii. 166, iii.
407, iv, 427, v. 81).
On his return from Troy,
he had like other heroes to suffer much from the enmity of Aphrodite, but Athena
still continued to protect him. He was first thrown by a storm on the coast of
Lycia, where lie was to be
sacrificed to Ares by king Lycus; but Callirrhoe, the king's daughter, took pity
upon him, and assisted him in escaping (Plut. Parall. Gr. et Rom. 23). On his
arrival in Argos lie met with an evil reception which had been prepared for him
either by Aphrodite or Nauplius, for his wife Aegialeia was living in adultery
with Hippolytus, or according to others, with Cometes or Cyllabarus (Dict. Cret.
vi. 2; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 609; Serv. ad Aen. viii. 9). He therefore quitted Argos
either of his own accord, or he was expelled by the adulterers (Tzetz. ad Lyc.
602), and went to Aetolia.
His going to Aetolia and
the subsequent recovery of Argos are placed in some traditions immediately after
the war of the Epigoni, and Diomedes is said to have gone with Alcmaeon to assist
his grandfather Oeneus in Aetolia
against his enemies. During the absence of Diomedes, Agamemnon took possession
of Argos; but when the expedition against Troy
was resolved upon, Agamemnon from fear invited Diomedes and Alcmaeon back to Argos,
and asked them to take part in the projected expedition. Diomedes alone accepted
the proposal, and thus recovered Argos (Strab. vii, x; comp. Hygin. Fab. 175;
Apollod. i. 8.6; Paus. ii. 25.2). According to another set of traditions, Diomedes
did not go to Aetolia till
after his return from Troy,
when he was expelled from Argos, and it is said that he went first to Corinth;
but being informed there of the distress of Oeneus, he hastened to Aetolia
to assist him. Diomedes conquered and slew the enemies of his grandfather, and
then took up his residence in Aetolia
(Dict. Cret. vi. 2). Other writers make him attempt to return to Argos, but on
his way home a storm threw him on the coast of Daunia in Italy. Daunus, the king
of the country, received him kindly, and solicited his assistance in a war against
the Messapians. He promised in return to give him a tract of land and the hand
of his daughter Euippe. Diomedes defeated the Messapians, and distributed their
territory among the Dorians who had accompanied him In Italy. Diomedes gave up
his hostility against the Trojans, and even assisted them against Turnus (Paus.
i. 11; Serv. ad Aen. viii. 9). He died in Daunia at an advanced age, and was buried
in one of the islands off cape Garganus, which were called after him the Diomedean
islands. Subsequently, when Daunus too had died, the Dorians were conquered by
the Illyrians, but were metamorphosed by Zeus into birds (Anton. Lib. 37; comp.
Tzetz. ad Lyc. 602, 618). According to Tzetzes, Diomedes was murdered by Daunus,
whereas according to others he returned to Argos, or disappeared in one of the
Diomedean islands, or in the country of the Heneti (Strab. vi. p. 284). A number
of towns in the eastern part of Italy, such as Beneventum, Aequumtuticum, Argos
Hippion (afterwards Argyripa or Arpi), Venusia
or Aphrodisia, Canusium,
Venafrum, Salapia, Spina,
Sipus, Garganum, and Brundusium,
were believed to have been founded by Diomedes (Serv. ad Aen viii. 9, xi. 246;
Strab. vi. pp. 283, 284; Plin-H. N. iii. 20; Justin, xii. 2). The worship and
service of gods and heroes was spread by Diomedes far and wide: in and near Argos
he caused temples of Athena to be built (Plut. de Flum. 18; Paus. ii. 24.2); his
armour was preserved in a temple of Athena at Luceria
in Apulia, and a gold chain
of his was shown in a temple of Artemis in Peucetia. At Troezene
he had founded a temple of Apollo Epibaterius, and instituted the Pythian games
there. He himself was subsequently worshipped as a divine being, especially in
Italy, where statues of him existed at Argyripa,
Metapontum, Thurii,
and other places (Schol. ad Pind. Nem. x. 12 ; Scylax, Peripl. p. 6; comp. Strab.
v. p. 214).
There are traces in Greece also of the worship of Diomedes, for it
is said that he was placed among the gods together with the Dioscuri, and that
Athena conferred upon him the immortality which had been intended for his father
Tydeus. It has been conjectured that Diomedes is an ancient Pelasgian name of
some divinity, who was afterwards confounded with the hero Diomedes, so that the
worship of the god was transferred to the hero (Bockh, Explicat. ad Pind. Nem.
x.). Diomedes was represented in a painting on the acropolis
of Athens in the act of carrying
away the Palladium from Troy (Paus. i. 22.6), and Polygnotus had painted him in
the Lesche at Delphi (x.
25.2, 10.2).
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Aegiale or Aegialeia (Aigiale or Aigialeia), a daughter of Adrastus and Amphithea, or of Aegialeus the son of Adrastus, whence she bears the surname of Adrastine (Hom.Il. v. 412; Apollod. i. 8.6, 9.13). She was married to Diomedes, who, on his return from Troy, found her living in adultery with Cometes (Eustath, ad Il. v). The hero attributed this misfortune to the anger of Aphrodite, whom he had wounded in the war against Troy, but when Aegiale went so far as to threaten his life he fled to Italy (Schol. ad Lycophr. 610; Ov. Met. xiv. 476). According to Dictys Cretensis (vi. 2), Aegiale, like Clytemnestra, had been seduced to her criminal conduct by a treacherous report, that Diomedes was returning with a Trojan woman who lived with him as his wife, and on his arrival at Argos Aegiale expelled him. In Ovid (Ibis, 349) she is described as the type of a bad wife.
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He succeeded Iphius to the throne and became the 29th king of Argos (1193 B.C.).
He was the son of Capaneus by Evande and shared the kingdom of Argos with Adrastus and Oicles. (Il. 2.564, 4.367, 9.48, 23.511)
Sthenelus. A son of Capaneus and Evadue, belonged to the family of the Anaxagoridae in Argos. and was the father of Cylarabes (Hom Il. v. 109; Paus. ii. 18.4, 22. 8, 30); but, according to others, his son's name was Comeres (Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 603, 1093 ; Serv. ad Aen. xi. 269). He was one of the Epigoni, by whom Thebes was taken (Hom. Il. iv. 405; Apollod. iii. 7.2), and commanded the Argives under Diomedes, in the Trojan war, being the faithful friend and companion of Diomedes (Hom. Il. ii. 564, iv. 367, xxiii. 511; Philostr. Her. 4 ; Hygin. Fab. 175). He was one of the Greeks concealed in the wooden horse (Hygin. Fab. 108), and at the distribution of the booty, lie was said to have received an image of a three-eyed Zeus, which was in aftertimes shown at Argos (Paus. ii. 45.5, viii. 46.2). His own statue and tomb also were believed to exist at Argos (ii. 20.4, 22. in fin.; comp. Horat. Carm. i. 15. 23, iv. 9. 20; Stat. Achill. i. 469).
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He was the son of Mecisteus, son of Talaus (Hom. Il. 2.565, 6.20, 23.680).
Euryalus (Eurualos). A son of Mecisteus, is mentioned by Apollodorus (i. 9.16) among the Argonauts, and was one of the Epigoni who took and destroyed Thebes (Paus. ii. 20.4; Apollod. iii. 7.2). He was a brave warrior, and at the funeral games of Oedipus he conquered all his competitors (Hom. Il. xxiii. 608) with the exception of Epeius, who excelled him in wrestling. He accompanied Diomedes to Troy, where he was one of the bravest heroes, and slew several Trojans (Il. ii. 565, vi. 20; Pans. ii. 30.9). In the painting of Polygnotus at Delphi, he was represented as being wounded; and there was also a statue of him at Delphi, which stood between those of Diomedes and Aegialeus (Paus. x. 10.2, 25.2).
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MYCENAE (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae, son of Atreus, leader of the Myceneans in the Trojan War and brother of Menelaus.
His wife was Clytaemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus by Leda and sister of Helen (Il. 1.113, Od. 3.264). During his absence, she deceived him with Aegisthus, who became her husband and organized with her aid the murder of Agamemnon. Orestes took revenge of his death by killing his mother and Aegisthus (Od. 1.300, 11.409 etc., 24.198).
Agamemnon. A son of Pleisthenes and grandson of Atreus, king of Mycenae, in whose
house Agamemnon and Menelaus were educated after the death of their father. (Apollod.
iii. 2.2; Schol. ad Eurip. Or. 5; Schol. ad Iliad. ii. 249.) Homer and several
other writers call him a son of Atreus, grandson of Pelops, and great-grandson
of Tantalus. (Hom. Il. xi. 131; Eurip. Helen. 396; Tzetz. ad Lycophr. 147; Hygin.
Fab. 97.) His mother was, according to most accounts, Aerope; but some call Eriphyle
the wife of Pleisthenes and the mother of Agamemnon. Besides his brother Menelaus,
he had a sister, who is called Anaxibia, Cyndragora, or Astyocheia. (Schol. Eurip.
Or. 5; Hygin. Fab. 17.) Agamemnon and Memelaus were brought up together with Aegisthus,
the son of Thyestes, in the house of Atreus. When they had grown to manhood, Atreus
sent Agamemnon and Menelaus to seek Thyestes. They found him at Delphi, and carried
him to Atreus, who threw him into a dungeon. Aegisthus was afterwards commanded
to kill him but, recognising his father in him, he abstained from the cruel deed,
slew Atreus, and after having expelled Agamemnon and Menelaus, he and his father
occupied the kingdom of Mycenae. The two brothers wandered about for a time, and
at last came to Sparta, where Agamemnon married Clytemnestra, the daughter of
Tyndareus, by whom he became the father of Iphianassa (Iphigeneia), Chrysothemis,
Laodice (Electra), and Orestes. (Hom. Il. ix. 145, with th e note of Eustath.;
Lucret. i. 86.)
The manner in which Agamemnon came to the kingdom of Mycenae is differently
related. From Homer (Il. ii. 10; comp. Paus. ix. 40.6), it appears as if he had
peaceably succeeded Thyestes, while, according to others (Aeschyl. Agam. 1605),
he expelled Thyestes, and usurped his throne. After he had become king of Mycenae,
he rendered Sicyon and its king subject to himself (Paus. ii. 6.4), and became
the most powerful prince in Greece. A catalogue of his dominions is given in the
Iliad. (ii. 569; comp. Strab. viii; Thucyd. i. 9.) When Homer (Il. ii. 108) attributes
to Agamemnon the sovereignty over all Argos, the name Argos here signifies Peloponnessus,
or the greater part of it, for the city of Argos was governed by Diomedes. (Il.
ii. 559) Strabo (l. c.) has also shewn that the name Argos is sometimes used by
the tragic poets as synonymous with Mycenae.
When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was carried off by Paris, the son
of Priam, Agamemnon and Menelaus called upon all the Greek chiefs for assistance
against Troy. (Odyss. xxiv. 115.) The chiefs met at Argos in the palace of Diomedes,
where Agamemnon was chosen their chief commander, either in consequence of his
superior power (Eustath, ad Il. ii. 108; Thucyd. i. 9), or because he had gained
the favour of the assembled chiefs by giving them rich presents. (Dictys, Cret.
i. 15, 16.) After two years of preparation, the Greek army and fleet assembled
in the port of Aulis in Boeotia. Agamemnon had previously consulted the oracle
about the issue of the enterprise, and the answer given was, that Troy should
fall at the time when the most distinguished among the Greeks should quarrel.
(Od. viii. 80.) A similar prophecy was derived from a marvellous occurrence which
happened while the Greeks were assembled at Aulis. Once when a sacrifice was offered
under the boughs of a tree, a dragon crawled forth from under it, and devoured
a nest on the tree containing eight young birds and their mother. Calchas interpreted
the sign to indicate that the Greeks would have to fight against Troy for nine
years, but that in the tenth the city would fall. (Il. ii. 303) An account of
a different miracle portending the same thing is given by Aeschylus. (Ayam. 110)
Another interesting incident happened while the Greeks were assembled
at Aulis. Agamemnon, it is said, killed a stag which was sacred to Artemis, and
in addition provoked tle anger of the goddess by irreverent words. She in return
visited the Greek army with a pestilence, and produced a perfect calm, so that
the Greeks were unable to leave the port. When the seers declared that the anger
of the goddess could not be soothed unless Iphigeneia, the daughter of Agamemnon,
were offered to her as an atoning sacrifice, Diomedes and Odysseus were sent to
fetch her to the camp under the pretext that she was to be married to Achilles.
She came; but at the moment when she was to be sacrificed, she was carried off
by Artemis herself (according to others by Achilles) to Tauris, and another victim
was substituted in her place. (Hygin. Fab. 98; Eurip. Iphig. Aul. 90, Iphig. Taur.
15; Sophocl. Elect. 565; Pind. Pyth. xi. 35; Ov. Met. xii. 31; Dict. Cret. i.
19; Schol. ad Lycophr. 183; Antonin. Lib. 27.) After this the calm ceased, and
the army sailed to the coast of Troy. Agamemnon alone had one hundred ships, independent
of sixty which he had lent to the Arcadians. (Il. ii. 576, 612.)
In the tenth year of the siege of Troy -for it is in this year that
the Iliad opens- we find Agamemnon involved in a quarrel with Achilles respecting
the possession of Briseis, whom Achilles was obliged to give up to Agamemnon.
Achilles withdrew from the field of battle, and the Greeks were visited by successive
disasters. Zeus sent a dream to Agamemnon to persuade him to lead the Greeks to
battle against the Trojans. (Il. ii. 8) The king, in order to try the Greeks,
commanded them to return home, with which they readily complied, until their courage
was revived by Odysseus, who persuaded them to prepare for battle. (Il. ii. 55)
After a single combat between Paris and Menelaus, a battle followed, in which
Agamemnon killed several of the Trojans. When Hector challenged the bravest of
the Greeks, Agamemnon offered to fight with him, but in his stead Ajax was chosen
by lot. Soon after this another battle took place, in which the Greeks were worsted
(Il. viii.), and Agamemnon in despondence advised the Greeks to take to flight
and return home. (Il. ix. 10.) But he was opposed by the other heroes. An attempt
to conciliate Achilles failed, and Agamemnon assembled the chiefs in the night
to deliberate about the measures to be adopted. (Il. x. 1) Odysseus and Diomedes
were then sent out as spies, and on the day following the contest with the Trojans
was renewed. Agamemnon himself was again one of the bravest, and slew many enemies
with his own hand. At last, however, he was wounded by Coon and obliged to withdraw
to his tent. (Il. xi. 250) Hector now advanced victoriously, and Agamemnon again
advised the Greeks to save themselves by flight. (Il. xiv. 75) But Odysseus and
Diomedes again resisted him, and the latter prevailed upon him to return to the
battle which was going on near the ships. Poseidon also appeared to Agamemnon
in the figure of an aged man, and inspired him with new courage. (Il. xiv. 125)
The pressing danger of the Greeks at last induced Patroclus, the friend of Achilles,
to take an energetic part in the battle, and his fall roused Achilles to new activity,
and led to his reconciliation with Agamemnon. In the games at the funeral pyre
of Patroclus, Agamemnon gained the first prize in throwing the spear. (Il. xxiii.
890)
Agamemnon, although the chief commander of the Greeks, is not the
hero of the Iliad, and in chivalrous spirit, bravery, and character, altogether
inferior to Achilles. But he nevertheless rises above all the Greeks by his dignity,
power, and majesty (Il. iii. 166), and his eyes and head are likened to those
of Zeus, his girdle to that of Ares, and his breast to that of Poseidon. (Il.
ii. 477) Agamemnon is among the Greek heroes what Zeus is among the gods of Olympus.
This idea appears to have guided the Greek artists, for in several representations
of Agamemnon still extant there is a remarkable resemblance to the representations
of Zeus. The emblem of his power and majesty in Homer is a sceptre, the work of
iiephaestus, which Zeus had once given to Hermes, and Hermes to Pelops, from whom
it descended to Agamemnon. (Il. ii. 100; comp. Paus. ix. 40.6) His armour is described
in the Iliad. (xi. 19)
The remaining part of the story of Agamemnon is related in the Odyssey,
and by several later writers. At the taking of Troy he received Cassandra, the
daughter of Priam, as his prize (Od. xi. 421; Diet. Cret. v. 13), by whom, according
to a tradition in Pausanias (ii. 16.5), he had two sons, Teledamus and Pelops.
On his return home he was twice driven out of his course by storms, but at last
landed in Argolis, in the dominion of Aegisthus, who had seduced Clytemnestra
during the absence of her husband. He invited Agamemnon on his arrival to a repast,
and had him and his companions treacherously murdered during the feast (Od. iii.
263), and Clytemnestra on the same occasion murdered Cassandra. (Od. xi. 400-422,
xxiv. 96) Odysseus met the shade of Agamemnon in the lower world. (Od. xi. 387,
xxiv. 20.) Menelaus erected a monument in honour of his brother on tle river Aegyptus.
(Od. iv. 584.) Pausanias (ii. 16.5) states, that in his time a monument of Agamemnon
was still extant at Mycenae.
The tragic poets have variously modified the story of the murder of
Agamemnon. Aeschylus (Agam. 1492) makes Clytemnestra alone murder Agamemnon: she
threw a net over him while he was in the bath, and slew him with three strokes.
Her motive is partly her jealousy of Cassandra, and partly her adulterous life
with Aegisthus. According to Tzetzes (ad Lycophr. 1099), Aegisthus committed the
murder with the assistance of Clytemnestra. Euripides (Or. 26) mentions a garment
which Clytemnestra threw over him instead of a net, and both Sophocles (Elect.
530) and Euripides represent the sacrifice of Iphigeneia as the cause for which
she murdered him. After the death of Agamemnon and Cassandra, their two sons were
murdered upon their tomb by Aegisthus. (Paus. ii. 16.5) According to Pindar (Pyth.
xi. 48) the murder of Agamemnon took place at Amyclae, in Laconica, and Pausanias
(l. c.) states that the inhabitants of this place disputed with those of Mycenae
the possession of the tomb of Cassandra (Paus. iii. 19.5).
In later times statues of Agamemnon were erected in several parts
of Greece, and he was worshipped as a hero at Amyclae and Olympia. (Paus. iii.
19.5, v. 25 5) He was represented on the pedestal of the celebrated Rhamnusian
Nemesis (i. 33.7), and his fight with Coon on the chest of Cypselus. (v. 19.1)
He was painted in the Lesche of Delphi, by Polygnotus. (x. 25.2; compare Plin.
H. N. xxxv. 36.5; Quintil. ii. 13.13; Val. Max. viii. 11.6.) It should be remarked
that several Latin poets mention a bastard son of Agamemnon, of the name of Halesus,
to whom the foundation of the town of Falisci or Alesium is ascribed. (Ov. Fast.
iv. 73; Amor. iii. 13. 31; comp. Serv. ad Aen. vii. 695; Sil. Ital. viii. 476.)
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Agamemnon. The son of Atreus and brother of Menelaus. Driven from Mycenae after the murder of Atreus by Thyestes, the two young princes fled to Sparta, where King Tyndareos gave them his daughters in marriage-Clytaemnestra to Agamemnon, and Helen to Menelaus. While the latter inherited his father-in-law's kingdom, Agamemnon not only drove his uncle out of Mycenae, but so extended his dominions that in the war against Troy for the recovery of Helen the chief command was intrusted to him, as the mightiest prince in Greece. He contributed one hundred ships manned with warriors, besides lending sixty to the Arcadians.In Homer he is one of the bravest fighters before Troy; yet, by arrogantly refusing to let Chryses, priest of Apollo, ransom his daughter Chryseis, who had fallen to Agamemnon as the prize of war, be brought a plague on the Grecian host, which he afterwards almost ruined by ruthlessly carrying off Briseis, the prize of Achilles, who henceforth sulked in his tents and refused to fight. After the fall of Troy, Agamemnon came home with his captive, the princess Cassandra; but at supper he and his comrades were murdered by his wife's lover, Aegisthus, while the queen herself killed Cassandra. Such is Homer's account; the tragic poets make Clytaemnestra, in revenge for her daughter's immolation, throw a net over Agamemnon while bathing, and kill him with the help of Aegisthus. In Homer his children are Iphianassa, Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Orestes; the later legend puts Iphigenia and Electra in the place of Iphianassa and Laodice. Agamemnon was worshipped as a hero. His name is the title of a play by Aeschylus.
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Editor’s Information:
The e-text(s) of "Agamemnon", the tragedy written by Aeschylus, is (are) found in Greece (ancient country) under the category Ancient Greek Writings .
Clytaemnestra (Klutaimnestra). A daughter of Tyndarus, king of Sparta, by Leda. She was born,
together with her brother Castor, from one of the eggs which her mother brought
forth after her amour with Zeus under the form of a swan. She married Agamemnon,
king of Mycenae, and when this monarch went to the Trojan War, he left his wife
and family, and all his affairs, to the care of his relation Aegisthus. But the
latter proved unfaithful to his trust, corrupted Clytaemnestra, and usurped the
throne. Agamemnon, on his return home, was murdered by his guilty wife, who was
herself afterwards slain, along with Aegisthus, by Orestes, son of the deceased
monarch. For a more detailed account, see the articles Agamemnon and Orestes.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical
Antiquities
Cited Sept. 2002 from Perseus Project
URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
ARGOS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
Argos was the capital of Argolis and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships. It participated in the Trojan War under the leadership of Diomedes, son of Tydeus (Il. 4.52, 2.559).
ASSINI (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
Asine participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.560).
EPIDAVROS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
Epidaurus participated in the war of Troy and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships. The poet calls it "vine-clad" (Il. 2.561).
ERMIONI (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
Hermione participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.560).
IIONES (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
Eionae participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.561).
MASSIS (Ancient city) KRANIDI
Mases participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.562).
MYCENAE (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
Homer places the city, which was the seat of Agamemnon, "in a nook of horse-pasturing Argos" (Od. 3.263). Mycene participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.569). The poet calls it "broad-wayed" (Il. 4.52), "rich in gold" (Il. 7.180, 11.46), "well-built citadel" (Il. 2.569) and one of the three dearest cities of Hera - the other two were Argos and Sparta (Il. 4.51).
Exercitus (stratos), army. The earliest notices which we possess of the military
art among the Greeks are those contained in the Homeric poems. The unsettled state
of society in the first ages of Greece led to the early and general cultivation
of the art of arms, which were habitually worn for defence, even when aggressive
warfare was not intended (Thuc. i. 6). But the Homeric poems contain an exhibition
of combined military operations in their earliest stage. Warlike undertakings
before the time described in them can have been little else than predatory inroads
(boelasiai, Il. xi. 672). A collection of warriors exhibiting less of organisation
and discipline than we see depicted in the Grecian troops before Troy, would hardly
deserve the name of an army. The organisation which we see there, such as it was,
arose, not from any studied, formative system, but naturally out of the imperfect
constitution of society in that age. Every freeman in those times was of course
a soldier; but when all the members of a family were not needed to go upon an
expedition under the command of their chieftain or king, those who were to go
seem to have been selected by lot (Il. xxiv. 400). As the confederated states,
which are represented as taking part in the Trojan war, are united by scarcely
any other bond than their participation in a common object, the different bodies
of troops, led by their respective chieftains, are far from being united by a
common discipline under the command-in-chief of Agamemnon. A common epithet for
allies is called from afar (telekleitoi, Il. v. 491, vi. 111). Each body obeys
its own leader, and follows him to the conflict, or remains inactive, according
as he chooses to mingle in the fight or not. Authority and obedience are regulated
much more by the nature of the circumstances, or by the relative personal distinction
of the chieftains, than by any law of military discipline. Gifts (dora) were given
to them at the end of service; and such may be considered as the beginning of
pay being given to soldiers (Il. xvii. 225). Agamemnon sometimes urges the chieftains
to engage, not by commands, but by taunts (Il. iv. 338 ff., 368 ff.). Accordingly,
nothing like the tactics or strategy of a regularly disciplined army is to be
traced in the Homeric descriptions of battles. Each chieftain with his body of
troops acts for himself, without reference to the movements of the rest, except
as these furnish occasion for a vigorous attack, or, when hard pressed, call for
assistance from the common feeling of brotherhood in arms. The wide interval which
in the Homeric age separated the noble or chieftain from the common freeman, appears
in as marked a manner in military as in civil affairs. The former is distinguished
by that superior skill and prowess in the use of his arms, which would naturally
result from the constant practice of warlike exercises, for which his station
gave him the leisure and the means. A single hero is able to put to flight a whole
troop of common soldiers. The account of a battle consists almost entirely of
descriptions of the single combats of the chiefs on both sides; and the fortune
of the day, when not overruled by the intervention of the gods, is decided by
the individual valour of these heroes. While the mass of the common soldiers were
on foot, the chiefs rode in chariots, which usually contained two, one to drive
(heniochos) and one to fight (paraibates). In these they advanced against the
antagonists whom they singled out for encounter, sometimes hurling their spears
from their chariots, but more commonly alighting, as they drew near, and fighting
on foot, making use of the chariot for pursuit or flight. The Greeks did not,
like the ancient Britons and several nations of the East, use the chariot itself
as an instrument of warfare. Cavalry was unknown at that time to the Greeks, and
horsemanship but very rarely practised; the hippees of Homer are the chieftains
who ride in chariots. These chiefs are drawn up in the front of the battle array
(Il. iv. 297, 505, promachoi, promachesthai); and frequently the foot-soldiers
seem to have done nothing but watch the single combats of their leaders, forming
in two opposite, parallel lines, between which the more important single combats
are fought. How they got the chariots out of the way when the foot-soldiers came
to close quarters (as in Il. iv. 427 ff.) is not described.
Though so little account is usually made of the common soldiers (prulees,
Il. xi. 49, xii. 77), Homer occasionally lays considerable stress on their orderly
and compact array; the Atreidae are honourably distinguished by the epithet kosmetore
laon (Il. i. 15). Nestor and Menestheus were also skilled in marshalling an army
(Il. ii. 553, iv. 293 ff.). The troops were naturally drawn up in separate bodies
according to their different nations. It would appear to be rather a restoration
of the old arrangement than a new classification, when Nestor (Il. ii. 362) recommends
Agamemnon to draw the troops up by tribes and phratries. Arranged in these natural
divisions, the foot-soldiers were drawn up in densely compacted bodies (pukinai
phalanges)--shield close to shield, helmet to helmet, man to man (Il. xiii. 130,
xvi. 212 ff.). In these masses, though not usually commencing the attack, they
frequently offer a powerful resistance, even to distinguished heroes (as Hector,
Il. xiii. 145 ff., comp. xvii. 267, 354 ff., xiii. 339), the dense array of their
spears forming a barrier not easily broken through. The signal for advance or
retreat was not given by instruments of any kind, but by the voice of the leader.
A loud voice was consequently an important matter, and the epithet boen agathos
is common. The soldiers advanced and engaged in battle with loud shouting (alaletos,
Il. iv. 436, xiv. 393). The trumpet, however, was not absolutely unknown (Il.
xviii. 219). Respecting the armour, offensive and defensive, (see Arma)
no engines for besieging are found. There were in the army, besides the hoplites,
light-armed troops, archers and slingers (Il. xiii. 767).
Under the king or chieftain who commands his separate contingent we
commonly find subordinate chiefs, who command smaller divisions. It is difficult
to say whether it is altogether accidental or not, that these are frequently five
in number. Thus the Myrmidons of Achilles are divided into five stiches, each
of 500 men. Five chiefs command the Boeotians; and the whole Trojan army is formed
in five divisions, each under three leaders. (Il. iv. 295 ff., xvi. 171-197, ii.
494, 495, xii. 87-104.) The term phalanx is applied either to the whole army (as
Il. vi. 6), or to these smaller divisions and subdivisions, which are also called
stiches and purgoi (Il. xi. 90, iv. 333).
When an enemy was slain, it was the universal practice to stop and
strip off his arms, which were carefully preserved by the victor as trophies.
The division of the booty generally was arranged by the leader of the troop, for
whom a portion was set aside as an honorary present (geras, Il. i. 118, 368, 392).
The recovery of the dead bodies of the slain was in the Homeric age, as in all
later times, a point of the greatest importance, and frequently either led to
a fierce contest (Il. xvi. 756 ff.), or was effected by the payment of a heavy
ransom (Il. xxiv. 502)...
GTP.gr remark: Above is a very small extract of a long and interesting text, covering
army, from the URL below.
Arma, Armatura (hopla, Hom. entea, teuchea), , armour. Homer describes in
various passages the entire suit of armour of some of his greatest warriors, viz.
of Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Paris (11. iii. 328-339, iv.
132-138, xi. 15-45, xvi. 30-142, xix. 364-391); and we observe that it consisted
of the same portions which were used by the Greek soldiers ever after. Moreover,
the order of putting them on is always the same. The heavy-armed warrior, having
already a tunic around his body, and preparing for combat, puts on,--first, his
greaves (knemides, ocreae); secondly, his cuirass (thorax, lorica), to which belonged
the mitre underneath, and the zone (zone, zoster, (cingulum) above; thirdly, his
sword (xiphos, ensis, gladius) hung on the left side of his body by means of a
belt which passed over the right shoulder; fourthly, the large round shield (skkos,
aspis, clipeus, scutum), supported in the same manner; fifthly, his helmet (korus,
kunee, cassis, galea) ; sixthly and lastly, he took his spear (enchos, doru, hasta),
or, in many cases, two spears (doure duo). The form and use of these portions
are describ ed in separate articles under their Latin names. The foregoing woodcut
exhibits them all in the form of a Greek warrior attired for battle, as shown
in Hope's Costume of the Ancients (i. 70).
Those who were defended in the manner which has now been represented,
are called by Homer aspistai, from their great shield (aspis); also alchemachoi,
because they fought hand to hand with their adversaries; but much more commonly
promachoi, because they occupied the front of the army: and it is to be observed
that these terms, especially the last, were honourable titles, the expense of
a complete suit of armour (panoplie, Herod. i. 60) being of itself sufficient
to prove the wealth and rank of the wearer, while his place on the field was no
less indicative of strength and bravery.
In later times, the heavy-armed soldiers were called hoplitai, because
the term hopla more especially denoted the defensive armour, the shield and thorax.
By wearing these they were distinguished from the light-armed, whom Herodotus
(ix. 62, 63), for the reason just mentioned, calls anoploi, and who are also denominated
psiloi, and gumnoi, gumnetai, or gumnetes. Instead of being defended by the shield
and thorax, their bodies had a much slighter covering, sometimes consisting of
skins, and sometimes of leather or cloth; and instead of the sword and lance,
they commonly fought with darts, stones, bows and arrows, or slings.
Besides the heavy-and light-armed soldiers, the hoplitai and psiloi,
who in general bore towards one another the intimate relation now explained, another
description of men, the peltastai, sometimes formed a part of the Greek army after
the Persian wars, and regularly after the expedition of the Ten Thousand. Instead
of the large round shield, they carried a smaller one called the pelte, and in
other respects their armour was much lighter than that of the hoplites. The weapon
on which they principally depended was the spear.
The Roman soldiers had different kinds of arms and armour; but an account of the
arms of the different kinds of troops cannot be separated from a description of
the troops of a Roman army, and the reader is therefore referred to Exercitus
( =army). The following cut represents two heavy-armed Roman soldiers, and is
taken from the reliefs on Trajan's Column. On comparing it with that of the Greek
hoplite in the other cut, we perceive that the several parts of the armour correspond,
excepting only that the Roman soldier wears a dagger (machaira, pugio) on his
right side instead of a sword on his left, and, instead of greaves (which were
abandoned in imperial times) upon his legs, has femoralia and caligae. All the
essential parts of the Roman heavy armour (lorica, ensis, clipeus, galea, hasta)
are mentioned together in an epigram of Martial (ix. 57); and all except the spear
in a well-known passage (Eph. vi. 14-17) of St. Paul, whose enumeration exactly
coincides with the figures on the Arch of Severus, and who makes mention not only
of greaves, but of shoes or sandals for the feet.
The soft or flexible parts of the heavy armour were made of cloth
or leather. The metal principally used in their formation was that compound of
copper and tin which we call bronze, or more properly bell-metal (Aes
= cooper, chalkos). Hence the names for this metal (chalkos, aes) are often used
to mean armour, and the light reflected from the arms of a warrior is called auge
chalkeie by Homer, and lux aena by Virgil (Aen. ii. 470). Instead of copper, iron
afterwards came to be very extensively used in the manufacture of arms, although
articles made of it are much more rarely discovered, because iron is by exposure
to air and moisture exceedingly liable to corrosion and decay. Gold and silver,
and tin unmixed with copper, were also used, more especially to enrich and adorn
the armour.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Currus (harma), a chariot, a car. These terms are especially applied to the two-wheeled
cars used in battle and in racing. They differed from the carpentum in being open
overhead, and from the cisium in being closed in front. The plural harmata is
generally used to signify the chariot and all its appurtenances-pole, yoke, reins,
e.t.c. --excluding the horse. The words harma (Il. xxiv. 440), harmata (Od. iii.
492), and diphros (ib. 481) are also employed for the light cars used on journeys.
They frequently had, bound on to the body, a basket, peirins (Od. xv. 131), which
must have been capacious to hold the presents Telemachus got from Menelaus (Od.
xv. 102-105). Doubtless Telemachus and Pisistratus sat on this peirins, as it
was unlikely that they would stand for a whole two days' journey (Od. iii. 487,
497;). The most essential parts in the construction of the currus were:
1. The antyx (antux) or rim. Either on three sides of the chariot
or only in front there was a curved (hence ankulon, kampulon harma, Il. v. 231,
vi. 39) barrier (epidiphrias, Il. x. 475; periphragma, Poll. i. 142), sometimes
of light wood, sometimes of leather or metal (cf. for the latter Il. xxiii. 503).
It was generally a sort of trellis-work made by interlacing strips of the material
used; hence probably diphros euplekes or euplektos (Il. xxiii. 436, 335). In different
chariots this barrier was of different heights: sometimes it did not come up to
the knee, sometimes it rose to near the waist, but in the Greek war-chariot it
was seldom, if ever, higher. Warriors in a chariot are mentioned as being wounded
in the stomach (Il. xiii. 398). Round the top of this barrier was the curved rim
(antux), which was generally raised above the trellis-work barrier by bars. A
variety of technical names belonging to these bars are to be found in Poll. i.
143. The two antuges of Hera's chariot (doiai de peridromoi antuges eisi, Il.
v. 728) are to be explained either of a double rim, one rising above the other,
or of a rim at both sides of the chariot. The former perhaps suits the sense of
peri- ( all round, in opposition to amphi-, on both sides ) better than the latter.
The antux often served to fasten the reins to (Il. v. 262). As the antux was curved,
a pliant wood was required for it; and Homer (Il. xxi. 37) mentions the wild fig-tree
as so used. The term antux is sometimes applied to the whole chariot (Soph. El.
746).
2. The axle, usually made of oak (pheginos axon, Hom. Il. v.
838, imitated by Virgil, faginus axis, Georg. iii. 172), and sometimes also of
ilex, ash, or elm (Plin. H. N. xvi.229). It was of iron or brass in the chariots
of the gods (Il. v. 723; xiii. 30). The extremities were called akraxonia (Poll.
i. 145) or chnoai and sometimes ended in the head of an animal. The iron plates
on the axle round which the wheels revolved were called heurai (Poll. i. 145).
The axle was about seven feet long.
3. The wheels (kukla, trochoi, rotae) revolved upon the axle,
as in modern carriages. They consisted of
(a) spokes (knemai, radii), usually four in number, but in the chariot
of Hera there were eight (oktaknema, Il. v. 723). With tips of iron (aetoi, Poll.
i. 145) at each end on the outer side, they were fixed in
(b) a felloe (itus), consisting of four or more arcs, hapsides (Hesiod,
Op. 426; sotra, Poll. i. 144), which of course had to be of flexible wood (Il.
iv. 482-486; xxi. 37), heat being used to assist in producing the curvature (Theocr.
xxv. 247-251), bound on the outside by
(c) an iron tire (epissotron, Il. xxiii. 519; epissotra, Il. v. 725;
canthus, Pers. v. 71). In Hera's chariot the tire was of bronze and the felloe
gold (Il. v. 725). On the inner side they were fixed in
(d) the nave (plemne, II. v. 726; chnoe, Aesch. Theb. 153; modiolus,
Plin. H. N. ix. § 8).
There are several technical terms for the different parts of the nave
(Poll. i. 145). The external ring of iron into which the spokes fitted was called
thorax or plemnodeton. The internal ring round the hole through which the axle
passed was garnon or destron. What was probably a flat ring prevented the wheels
slipping off, and was called paraxonion, epibolos, embolos: it was itself kept
in its place by the linchpin (embolodetes). The wheels were not more than thirty
inches in diameter: this appears to rest on Hesiod, Op. 426, where Proclus and
Tzetzes take hamaxa as the wheel.
4. The body of the chariot, diphros, also called huperteria by
Poll. i. 144, though in Homer that word appears to mean the upper part shaped
like a cart. All efforts were made to lessen the weight of the chariot, and we
have evidence that they were very light. They drive over heaps of arms and corpses
(Il. xi. 534), and even across ditches (Il. viii. 179); and Diomede thinks of
carrying a chariot on his shoulders (Il. x. 505). It consisted of some kind of
interlaced straps of leather (himantosis, tonos, Poll. i. 142). In Hera's chariot
they were of gold and silver cords (Il. v. 727). Doubtless this was bound around
to a narrow frame of some rigid substance, wood or iron; and it is to this perhaps
that the epithets protopages, kolletos, which are applied to the diphros (Il.
v. 193; xix. 395), refer. Possibly this framework at the back of the chariot,
which was always cut straight, is what Pollux (i. 144) means by pterna (to de
pro pou tonou hou proton epibainousin hoi anabainontes, pterna); though Guhl and
Koner (p. 305) say it is the boards which were placed over the straps and on which
the charioteers stood. If we allow a foot on each side of the axle for the wheels,
the breadth of the diphros would be about five feet.
5. The pole (rhumos, temo), made of wood and polished (Il. xxiv.
271). From representations of chariots, we find the pole sometimes as it were
a continuation of the flooring of the diphros, sometimes fastened into the axle,
sometimes above it. It is found fastened by two forked stays (sterigma, hupostates,
furca, Plut. Cor. Plut. Cor. 24). These were either projecting from the axle,
or, as is more probable, at the inner end of the pole. The pole was sometimes
straight for some distance from its point of fastening, and curved rapidly upwards
at its extremity (prote peza, akrorrumion), or else was in its whole length quite
straight and inclined at an angle: in any case the top of the pole was on a level
with the necks of the horses. The extremity of the pole at times ended in the
head of a bird, a ram, or the like. Towards the extremity of the pole the yoke
was fastened about a pin (hestor) fixed in the pole. There was frequently a fastening
running from the top of the pole to the antux, in order to divide the traction-force
on two points. For details as to the yoke and its fastening, see Jugum
(=zygos); and for the reins, see Frenum
(+chalinos, bridle).
All the parts now enumerated are seen in an ancient chariot preserved
in the Vatican, a representation of which is given in the preceding woodcut. (see
image in the URL below).
Carriages with two or even three poles were used by the Lydians (Aesch.
Pers. 47). The Greeks and Romans, on the other hand, appear never to have used
more than one pole and one yoke, and the currus thus constructed was commonly
drawn by two horses, which were attached to it by their necks, and therefore called
dizuges hippoi (Hom. Il. v. 195, x. 473), sunoris (Xen. Hell. i. 2, § 1), gemini
jugales (Verg. Aen. vii. 280), equi bijuges (Georg. iii. 91). We occasionally
find in Homer that only one horse was used (Il. ii. 390; xxii. 22; xxiii. 517),
and it must have been fastened by traces; but a pair of horses is much the most
frequent. They drew the car by means of the yoke and its collars (lepadna); for
they were not fastened to the chariot by traces. Thus in the Iliad, when the pole
breaks (vi. 38 if., xvi. 360), the horses simply run on with the yoke and front
part of the broken pole, and the car is left behind; again, when the yoke breaks
and the horses run to different sides, they do not upset the chariot, as they
would do if they had been fastened by traces (Il. xxiii. 392 ff.). In this latter
passage, however, it seems most probable that the shock which could throw Eumelus
out with such violence must have upset the light chariot. Besides the yoke horses,
there was sometimes a pareoros (Il. xvi. 471), seiraios (Soph. El. 722), seiraphoros
(Aesch. Ag. 842), funalis equus (Stat. Theb. vi. 462), funarius (Isid. Orig. xviii.
33), which was fastened by a trace affixed to the antux, if we may judge from
vase-pictures and as the word seiraphoros would lead us to infer. But the main
work of traction was done by the yoke horses (cf. Aesch. Ag. 1679). Helbig (op.
cit. p. 91) thinks that they were fastened to the yoke or to one of the yoke-horses;
yet he holds (p. 106, note 6) that traces were used in the case of a team of four
horses. At any rate the fastenings of the pareoros were called pareoriai (Il.
xvi. 152). These outriggers had often riders like our postilions. A team of four
horses is mentioned three times in Homer (Il. viii. 185, xi. 699; Od. xiii. 81),
but the passages are not by any means sufficient to prove a general use of four
horses, and they seem to refer to the Olympic games. In the above cut we also
observe traces passing between the two antuges, and proceeding from the front
of the chariot on each side of the middle horse. These probably assisted in attaching
the third, or extra horse.
The Latin name for a chariot and pair was bigae (Verg. Aen. ii. 272,
v. 721; Plin. H. N. vii.202, et alibi); in later: Latin also biga (Tac. Hist.
i. 86; Plin. xxxix.89; Stat. Silv. i. 2, 45, et alibi). When a third horse was
added, it was called triga (Dig. 21, 1, 38,14) or trigae (Isidor. Orig. xviii.
36); and by the same analogy a chariot and four was called quadrigae (Verg. Georg.
i. 512, Aen. vi. 535; Cic. Div. ii. 7. 0, 144, et alibi), in later Latin quadriga
(Gell. xix. 8, 17 ; Suet. Vit. 17, et alibi); in Greek, tetraoria or gethrippos.
Four horses were the largest number usually employed, but we also read of a chariot
drawn by six horses, called sejugis (Orelli, Inscr. 2593, 6179), but more usually
in the plural sejuges (Liv. xxxviii. 35, 4; Plin. H. N. xxxiv.19; Apul. Flor.
p. 356, No. 16), also sejugae (Isid. Orig. xviii. 36), like bigae and quadrigae;
of a chariot drawn by eight horses; and of one drawn by ten horses, which was
the number driven by Nero in the Olympic games (Suet. Ner. 24). In all cases the
horses were driven abreast.
As the works of ancient art, especially fictile vases, abound in representations
of quadrigae, numerous instances may be observed, in which the two middle horses
(ho mesos dexios kai ho mesos aristeros, Schol. in Aristoph. Nub. 122) are yoked
together as in the bigae; and, as the, two lateral ones (ho dexioseiros, ho aristeros
seiraios, dexterior, sinisterior funalis equus, Suet. Tib. 6; and cf. Jebb on
Soph. El. 721) have collars (leradna) equally with the yoke-horses, we may presume
that from the top of these proceeded the ropes which were tied to the rim of the
car, and by which the trace-horses assisted to draw it. The first figure in the
following woodcut is the chariot of Aurora, as painted on a vase found at Canosa.The
reins of the two middle horses pass through rings at the extremities of the yoke.
All the particulars which have been mentioned are still more distinctly seen in
the second figure, taken from a terra-cotta at Vienna. It represents a chariot
over-thrown in passing the goal at the circus. The charioteer having fallen backwards,
the pole and yoke are thrown upwards into the air; the two trace-horses have fallen
on their knees, and the two yoke-horses are prancing on their hind legs.
If we may rely on the evidence of numerous works of art, the currus
was sometimes drawn by four horses without either yoke or pole; for we see two
of them diverging to the right hand and two to the left, as in the cameo in the
royal collection of Berlin, which exhibits Apollo surrounded by the signs of the
zodiac. If the ancients really drove the quadrigae thus harnessed, we can only
suppose the charioteer to have checked its speed by pulling up the horses, and
leaning with his whole body back-wards, so as to make the bottom of the car at
its hindermost border scrape the ground, an act and an attitude which seem not
unfrequently to be intended in antique representations.
The currus, like the cisium, was adapted to carry two persons, and
on this account was called in Greek diphros. One of the two was of course the
driver. He was called heniochos, because he held the reins, and his companion
paraibates, from going by his side or near him. Though in all respects superior,
the paraibates was often obliged to place himself behind the heniochos. He is
so represented in the bigae at p. 129, and in the Iliad (xix. 397) Achilles himself
stands behind his charioteer, Automedon. On the other hand, a personage of the
highest rank may drive his own carriage, and then an inferior may be his paraibates,
as when Nestor conveys Machaon (par de Machaon baine, Il. xi. 512, 517), and Hera,
holding the reins and whip, conveys Athena, who is in full armour (v. 720-775).
In such cases a kindness, or even a compliment, was conferred by the driver upon
him whom he conveyed, as when Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, himself holding the
reins, made Plato his paraibates. (Aelian, V. H. iv. 18.)
Chariots were frequently employed on the field of battle not only
by the Asiatic nations, but also by the Greeks in the heroic age. The aristees,
i. e. the nobility, or men of rank, who wore complete suits of armour, all took
their chariots with them, and in an engagement placed themselves in front. In
the Homeric battles we find that the horseman, who for the purpose of using his
weapons, and in consequence of the weight of his armour, is under the necessity
of taking the place of paraibates (see above the woodcut of the triga), often
assails or challenges a distant foe from the chariot; but that, when he encounters
his adversary in close combat, they both dismount, springing from their chariots
to the ground, and leaving them to the care of the heniochoi. (Il. iii. 29, xiii.
537, xvii. 480-483, 500-502; Hes. Scut. Herc. 370-372.) As soon as the hero had
finished the trial of his strength with his opponent, he returned to his chariot,
one of the chief uses of which was to rescue him from danger.
In later times the chariots were chiefly employed in the public games.
The usual form of those used in the Grecian public games appears on the coins
of victors, as in the annexed coin of Hieron II. of Syracuse. Those used in the
Roman games of the Circus are figured under Circus
(=greek hippodromos). Their form was the same, except that they were more elegantly
decorated. They had no antuges, but were raised in front. They had low wheels,
quite at the back, and there was no space to stand in behind the wheels. Chariots
were not much used by the Romans. The ancient Italians never fought from chariots.
When such appear, they are either in representations of Greek events or are triumphal
cars. In a Roman triumph the general ascended to the Capitol in a chariot adorned
with ivory (currus eburnos, Ov. Trist. iv. 2, 63) or gold (aureos, Hor. Epod.
ix. 22), which was cylindrical, with sides very much higher than the Greek chariots.
An example may be seen in the cuts under Triumphus
(=thriamnos, triumph) which in a measure exemplify what Zonaras says (vii. 21):
to de harma es purgon peripherous tropon exeirgasto. The utmost skill of the painter
and the sculptor was employed to enhance its beauty and splendour. More particularly
the extremities of the axle, of the pole, and of the yoke, were highly wrought
in the form of animals' heads. Wreaths of laurel were sometimes hung round it
(currum laurigerum, Claudian, de Laud. Stil. iii. 20, Tert. Cons. Honor. 130),
and were also fixed to the heads of the four snow-white horses. (Mart. vii. 8,
8.) The car was elevated so that he who triumphed might be the most conspicuous
person in the procession, and for the same reason he was obliged to stand erect
(in curru stantis eburno, Ovid, Pont. iii. 4, 35). The triumphal car had in general
no pole, the horses being led by men who were stationed at their heads.
Chariots executed in terra-cotta (quadrigae fictiles, Plin. H. N.
xxviii.16), in bronze, or in marble, an example of which last is shown in the
following woodcut from an ancient chariot in the Vatican, were among the most
beautiful ornaments of temples and other public edifices. No pains were spared
in their decoration; and Pliny informs us (e.g. H. N. xxxiv.86) that some of the
most eminent artists were employed upon them. In numerous instances they were
designed to perpetuate the fame of those who had conquered in the chariot-race
(Pans. vi. 10, 6). As the emblem of victory, the quadriga was sometimes adopted
by the Romans to grace the triumphal arch by being placed on its summit; and even
in the private houses of great families, chariots were displayed as the indications
of rank, or the memorials of conquest and of triumph. (Juv. viii. 3.)
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
TIRYNS (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
Tiryns participated in the Trojan War and is listed in the Homeric Cataogue of Ships. Homer calls it "famed for its walls" (Il. 2.559), as it was well fortified with the Cyclopean walls.
ARGOS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
Capaneus. He was the son of Hipponous & Laodice, father of Sthenelus (Il. 2.564), husband of Evande and one of the Seven against Thebes. He was killed by the thunderbolt of Zeus before the walls of Thebes because he boasted that he would set the city on fire even without the will of the gods.
Capaneus (Kapaneus), a son of Hipponous and Astynome or Laodice, tile daughter of Iphis (Hygin. Fab. 70; Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 181; ad Pind. Nern. ix. 30). He was married to Euadne or laneira, who is also called a daughter of Iphis, and by whom he became the father of Sthenelus (Schol. ad Pind. Ol. vi. 46; Apollod. iii. 10.8). He was one of the seven heroes who marched from Argos against Thebes, where he had his station at the Ogygian or Electrian gate (Apollod. iii. 6.6; Aeschyl. Sept. c. Theb. 423; Paus. ix. 8.3). During the siege of Thebes, he was presumptuous enough to say, that even the fire of Zeus should not prevent his scaling the walls of the city; but when he was ascending the ladder, Zeus struck him with a flash of lightning (Comp. Eurip. Phoen. 1172; comp. Soph. Antig. 133; Apollod. iii. 6.7; Ov. Met. ix. 404). While his body was burning, his wife Euadne leaped into the flames and destroyed herself (Apollod. iii. 7.1; Eurip. Suppl. 983; Philostr. Icon. ii. 31; Ov. Ars Am. iii. 21; Hygin. Fab. 243). Capaneus is one of those heroes whom Asclepius was believed to have called back into life (Apollod. iii. 10.3). At Delphi there was a statue of Capaneus dedicated by the Argives (Paus. x.10.2).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Evadne. A daughter of Iphis or Iphicles of Argos, who slighted the addresses of Apollo, and married Capaneus, one of the seven chiefs who went against Thebes. When her husband had been struck with thunder by Zeus for his blasphemies and impiety, and his ashes had been separated from those of the rest of the Argives, she threw herself on his burning pile and perished in the flames.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
He was a son of Mantius, brother of the seer Polypheides and grandson of Melampus (Od. 15.249).
A son of Mantius, carried off by Eos on account of his extraordinary beauty. (Hom. Od. xv. 250; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1780.)
Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus by Eriphyle, brother of Alcmaeon, participated in the expedition of the Epigoni against Thebes and, afterwards, in the Trojan War (Od. 15.248).
Amphilochus (Amphilochos), a son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle, and brother of Alcmaeon
(Apollod. iii. 7.2; Hom. Od. xv. 248). When his father went against Thebes,
Amphilochus was, according to Pausanias (v. 17.4), yet an infant, although ten
years afterwards lie is mentioned as one of the Epigoni, and according to some
traditions assisted his brother in the murder of his mother. He is also mentioned
among the suitors of Helen, and as having taken part in the Trojan war. On the
return from this expedition he together with Mopsus, who was like himself a seer,
founded the town of Mallos
in Cilicia. Hence he proceeded
to his native place, Argos. But as he was not satisfied with the state of affairs
there, he returned to Mallos.
When Mopsus refused to allow him any share in the government of their common colony,
the two seers fought a single combat in which both were killed. This combat was
described by some as having arisen out of a dispute about their prophetic powers.
Their tombs, which were placed in such a manner that the one could not be seen
from the other, existed as late as the time of Strabo, near mount mount Margasa,
not far from Pyramus (Strab. xiv; Lycophron, 439, with the Schol). According to
other traditions (Strab. xiv), Amphilochus and Calchas, on their return from Troy,
went on foot to the celebrated grove of the Clarian Apollo near Colophon.
In some accounts he was said to have been killed by Apollo (Hes. ap. Strab. xiv).
According to Thucydides (ii. 68) Amphilochus returned from Troy
to Argos, but being dissatisfied there, he emigrated and founded Argos
Amphilochium on the Ambracian
gulf. Other accounts, however, ascribe the foundation of this town to Alcmaeon
(Strab. vii. p. 326), or to Amphilochus the son of Alcmaeon (Apollod. iii. 7.7).
Being a son of the seer Amphiaraus, Amphilochus was likewise believed to be endowed
with prophetic powers ; and at Mallos
in Cilicia there was an oracle
of Amphilochus, which in the time of Pausanias (i. 34.2) was regarded as the most
truthful of all (Dict. of Ant. p. 673). He was worshipped together with his father
at Oropus; at Athens
he had an altar, and at Sparta
a heroum (Paus. i. 34.2, iii. 15.6).
There are two other mythical personages of this name, one a grandson of our Amphilochus
(Apollod. iii. 7.7), and the other a son of Dryas (Parthen. Erot. 27).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Amphilochus : Perseus Encyclopedia
Son of Heracles by Astyoche, settles in Rhodes ( see Rhodes)
MYCENAE (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
He was the son of Pelops from Elis, father of Periphetes and messenger of Eurystheus (Il. 15.639 etc.).
Copreus (Kopreus),a son of Pelops and father of Periphetes. After having murdered Iphitus, he fled from Elis to Mycenae, where he was purified by Eurystheus, who employed him to inform Heracles of the labours he had to perform. (Hom. Il. xv. 639; Apollod. i. 5.1.) Euripides in his " Heracleidae" makes him the herald of Eurvstheus.
Father of the soothsayer Calchas (Il. 1.69).
Thestor. A son of Idmon and Laothoe (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 139), though some ancients declare that Idmon (the knowing) was only a surname of Thestor. He was the father of Calchas, Theoclymenus, Leucippe, and Theonoe. (Hom. Il. i. 69; Hygin. Fab. 128.) His daughter Theonoe was carried off by pirates, and sold to king Icarus in Caria. Thestor, who went out in search of her, suffered shipwreck, and was taken as a prisoner to Caria. His other daughter Leucippe then consulted the Delphic oracle about her absent father and sister, and was directed to travel through all countries in the attire of a priest of Apollo. In this manner she came to Caria, where her own sister fell in love with her, and as the love was not returned, Theonoe ordered her to be killed. Thestor received the order to kill her, but when he was on the point of executing it, he recognised his children, and with presents from Icarus Thestor with his daughters returned home. (Hygin. Fab. 190.)
The son of Peiraeus and father of the charioteer of Agamemnon Eurymedon (Il. 4.228).
Talthybius (Talthubios), The herald of Agumenmon at Troy. (Hom. Il. i. 320; Ov. Her. iii. 9.) He was worshipped as a hero at Sparta and Argos, where sacrifices also were offered to him. (Paus. iii. 12.6, vii. 23, in fin.; Herod. vii. 134.)
ARGOS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
She was the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, and mother of Perseus by Zeus (Il. 14.319). (For the legend of Perseus and Danae see Serifos, Island)
Danae. We may add here the story which we meet with at a later time in Italy,
and according to which Danae went to Italy, built the town of Ardea,
and married Pilumnus, by whom she became the mother of Daunus, the ancestor of
Turnus (Virg. Aen. vii. 372, 409, with Servius's note).
The daughter of Neleus by Chloris and wife of Bias (Od. 11.287).
MYCENAE (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
Mycene was the daughter of Inachus and wife of Arestor (Od. 2.120) and, according to myth, the city was named after her.
Arestor, the father of Argus Panoptes, the guardian of lo, who is therefore called Arestorides. (Apollod. ii. 1.3; Apollon. Rhod. i. 112; Ov. Met. i. 624.) According to Pausanias (ii. 16.3), Arestor was the husband of Mycene, the daughter of Inachus, from whom the town of Mycenae derived its name.
Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra (Il. 9.145 & 287). She became priestess of Artemis in Tauris and afterwards in Brauron.
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