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Listed 7 sub titles with search on: Mythology for destination: "ISTHMIA Ancient sanctuary LOUTRAKI-PERACHORA".


Mythology (7)

Ancient myths

Ino and Melicertes

Ino; Daughter of Cadmus, second wife of Athamas, leaps with her son Melicertes into sea, becomes a sea-goddess called Leucothea.
Melicertes; Son of Athamas and Ino, leaps into sea, landed by a dolphin, his name changed to Palaemon as a seagod.

Ino. The daughter of Cadmus, and wife of Athamas. Being followed by the latter after he had been seized with madness, she fled to the cliff Moluris, between Megara and Corinth, and there threw herself into the sea with her infant son Melicertes. At the isthmus, however, mother and child were carried ashore by a dolphin, and, from that time forward, were honoured as marine divinities along the shores of the Mediterranean, especially on the coast of Megara and at the Isthmus of Corinth. Ino was worshipped at Leucothea, and Melicertes as Palaemon. They were regarded as divinities who aided men in peril on the sea. As early as Homer, we have Ino mentioned as rescuing Odysseus from danger by throwing him her veil ( Od.v. 333-353). Among the Romans Ino was identified with Matuta

This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks


   Melicertes, (Melikertes). In Greek mythology the son of Athamas and Ino, and changed after his death by drowning into the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. His name (=Melkart), however, shows him to have been originally a Phoenician god. Like Ino-Leucothea, he was worshipped on all the coast of the Mediterranean, especially on that of Megara and at the Isthmus of Corinth, where he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon that the Isthmian Games, originally instituted in honour of this god, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes. The Romans regarded him as a beneficent god of the sea, and identified him with Portunus, the god of harbours.

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


Perseus Project Index. Total results on 18/7/2001: 148 for Ino, 31 for leucothea, 5 for Leukothea, 27 for Melicertes, 4 for Melikertes, 48 for Palaemon,

Ibycus

  Ibycus. A Greek lyric and erotic poet of Rhegium in Lower Italy, who flourished about B.C. 530. Like Anacreon, he led a roving life, and spent much of his time at the court of Polycrates of Samos. According to his epitaph, he died in his native town; but according to the legend made familiar by Schiller's poem, he was slain on a journey to Corinth, and his murderers were discovered by means of a flock of cranes, which, as he died, he had invoked as his avengers. The story goes that, after his murder, when the Corinthians were gathered in the theatre, the cranes appeared; whereupon one of the assassins who was present cried out, "See the avengers of Ibycus!" thus giving a clue to their detection. Hence arose the expression used of the cranes, Ibukou geranoi. His poems, which were collected into seven books, survive in scanty fragments only. They dealt partly with mythological themes in the metres of Stesichorus and partly with love-songs in the spirit of Aeolic lyric poetry, full of glowing passion and sensibility. It was mainly to the latter that he owed his fame.

This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks


The Isthmian games and the curse of Moline

...Heracles accomplished no brilliant feat in the war with Augeas. For the sons of Actor were in the prime of courageous manhood, and always put to flight the allies under Heracles, until the Corinthians proclaimed the Isthmian truce, and the sons of Actor came as envoys to the meeting. Heracles set an ambush for then, at Cleonae and murdered them. As the murderer was unknown, Moline, more than any of the other children, devoted herself to detecting him. When she discovered him, the Eleans demanded satisfaction for the crime from the Argives, for at the time Heracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refused them satisfaction, the Eleans as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to exclude the Argive people from the Isthmian games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the Isthmian festival. The curses of Moline are respected right down to the present day, and no athlete of Elis is wont to compete in the Isthmian games. There are two other accounts, differing from the one that I have given. According to one of them Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, dedicated to Zeus a golden image at Olympia. As Cypselus died before inscribing his own name on the offering, the Corinthians asked of the Eleans leave to inscribe the name of Corinth on it, but were refused. Wroth with the Eleans, they proclaimed that they must keep away from the Isthmian games. But how could the Corinthians themselves take part in the Olympic games if the Eleans against their will were shut out by the Corinthians from the Isthmian games? The other account is this. Prolaus, a distinguished Elean, had two sons, Philanthus and Lampus, by his wife Lysippe. These two came to the Isthmian games to compete in the boys' pancratium, and one of them intended to wrestle. Before they entered the ring they were strangled or done to death in some other way by their fellow competitors. Hence the curses of Lysippe on the Eleans, should they not voluntarily keep away from the Isthmian games. But this story too proves on examination to be silly. For Timon, a man of Elis, won victories in the pentathlum at the Greek games, and at Olympia there is even a statue of him, with an elegiac inscription giving the crowns he won and also the reason why he secured no Isthmian victory. The inscription sets forth the reason thus:--
  But from going to the land of Sisyphus he was hindered by a quarrel About the baleful death of the Molionids.

This extract is from: Pausanias. Description of Greece (ed. W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., & H.A. Ormerod, 1918). Cited Oct 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.


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