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Lykaia
In Ancient Greece, the Lykaia () was an archaic festival with a secret ritual on the slopes of Mount Lykaion ("Wolf Mountain"), the tallest peak in Arcadia. The rituals and myths of this primitive rite of passage centered upon an ancient threat of cannibalism and the possibility of a werewolf transformation for the '' epheboi'' (adolescent males) who were the participants. The festival occurred yearly, probably at the beginning of May. The epithet ''Lykaios'' ("wolf-Zeus") is assumed by Zeus only in connection with the Lykaia, which was the main Arcadian festival. Zeus had only a formal connection as patron of the ritual. In the founding myth, of Lycaon's banquet for the gods that included the flesh of a human sacrifice, perhaps one of his sons, Nyctimus or his grandson, Arcas, Zeus overturned the table and struck the house of Lycaon with a thunderbolt; his patronage at the Lykaia can have been little more than a formula. Long afterward, in the late 3rd century CE, the philos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Lykaion
Mount Lykaion (, ''Lýkaion Óros''; ) is a mountain in Arcadia, Greece. Lykaion has two peaks: ''Stefani'' to the north and St. Ilias (, ''Agios Īlías'') to the south where the altar of Zeus is located.Cook, A.B. ''Zeus'', 81. 1914. The northern peak is higher, 1,421 m, than the southern, 1,382 m (). Mount Lykaion was sacred to Zeus Lykaios, who was said to have been born and brought up on it, and was the home of Pelasgus and his son Lycaon, who were said to have founded the ritual of Zeus practiced on its summit. This seems to have involved a human sacrifice and a feast in which the man who received the portion of a human victim was changed to a wolf, as Lycaon had been after sacrificing a child. The altar of Zeus consists of a great mound of ashes with a retaining wall. It was said that no shadows fell within the precincts and that any who entered it died within the year. The sanctuary of Zeus played host to athletic games held every four years, the Lykaia. Archaeol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea (mythology), Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe (mythology), Hebe, and Hephaestus.Hard 2004p. 79 At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione (Titaness/Oceanid), Dione, by whom the ''Iliad'' states that he fathered Aphrodite. According to the ''Theogony'', Zeus's first wife was Metis (mythology), Metis, by whom he had Athena.Hesiod, ''Theogony'886900 Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycaon (king Of Arcadia)
In Greek mythology, Lycaon (/laɪˈkeɪɒn/; , ) was a king of Arcadia who, in the most popular version of the myth, killed and cooked his son Nyctimus and served him to Zeus, to see whether the god was sufficiently all-knowing to recognize human flesh. Disgusted, Zeus transformed Lycaon into a wolf, while Nyctimus was restored to life. Despite being notorious for his horrific deeds, Lycaon was also remembered as a culture hero: he was believed to have founded the city Lycosura, to have established a cult of Zeus Lycaeus and to have started the tradition of the Lycaean Games, which Pausanias thinks were older than the Panathenaic Games. According to Gaius Julius Hyginus (d. AD 17), Lycaon dedicated the first temple to Hermes of Cyllene.Hyginus, ''Fabulae'225/ref> Family Lycaon was the son of Pelasgus and either the Oceanid Meliboea or Deianira, daughter of an elder Lycaon. His wife was called Cyllene, an Oread nymph who gave her name to Mount Cyllenê though sometime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damarchus
Damarchus () or Demaenetus was a victorious Olympic Games, Olympic boxer from Parrhasia (Arcadia) who is said to have changed his shape into that of a wolf at the festival of Lykaia, Lycaea, only to become a man again after ten years.Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine, ''The City of God'', Book XVIII, Chapter 17 Pausanias (geographer), Pausanias investigated the story for his famous work ''Description of Greece'' and, while he seems to believe that Damarchus the boxer did indeed exist, he notes that Damarchus' inscription at Olympia mentions nothing about his supposed metamorphosis to a wolf.Pausanias (geographer), Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'', 8.2.6 The festival of Lycaea involved human sacrifice to Zeus. A young boy was killed and then consumed by one of the participants, in this case by Damarchus, and as a result Zeus would transform the cannibal into a wolf.Pliny the Elder, Pliny, ''Natural History (Pliny), The Natural History'', Chapter 34.(22.) According to Pausanias ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of students of religion since the 1960s, combining in the modern way the findings of archaeology and epigraphy with the work of poets, historians, and philosophers. He was a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He published books on the balance between lore and science among the followers of Pythagoras, and more extensively on ritual and archaic cult survival, on the ritual killing at the heart of religion, on mystery religions, and on the reception in the Hellenic world of Near Eastern and Persian culture, which sets Greek religion in its wider Aegean and Near Eastern context. Personal life Burkert was born in Neuendettelsau. He married Maria Bosch in 1957 and they had three childr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Description Of Greece
''Description of Greece'' () is the only surviving work by the ancient "geographer" or tourist Pausanias (geographer), Pausanias (c. 110 – c. 180). Pausanias' ''Description of Greece'' comprises ten books, each of them dedicated to some part of mainland Greece. He is essentially describing his own travels, and large parts of Greece are not covered, including the islands. His tour begins in Attica () and continues with Athens, including its suburbs or demes. Then the work goes with Ancient Corinth, Corinthia (), Laconia (), Messenia (ancient region), Messenia (), Ancient Elis, Elis (), Achaea (ancient region), Achaea (), Arcadia (region), Arcadia (), Boeotia (), Phocis (ancient region), Phocis (), and Ozolian Locris (). The work is rather erratic on described topography; its main interest is the cultural geography of ancient Greece, especially its religious sites, in which Pausanias not only mentioned, and occasionally described, architectural and artistic objects, but a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias ( ; ; ) was a Greek traveler and geographer of the second century AD. He is famous for his '' Description of Greece'' (, ), a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from his firsthand observations. ''Description of Greece'' provides crucial information for making links between classical literature and modern archaeology, which is providing evidence of the sites and cultural details he mentions although knowledge of their existence may have become lost or relegated to myth or legend. Biography Nothing is known about Pausanias apart from what historians can piece together from his own writing. However, it is probable that he was born into a Greek family and was probably a native of Lydia in Asia Minor. From until his death around 180, Pausanias travelled throughout the mainland of Greece, writing about various monuments, sacred spaces, and significant geographical sites along the way. In writing his '' Description of Greece'', Pausanias sought to put together ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in History of Athens, Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms, theory of forms (or ideas), which aims to solve what is now known as the problem of universals. He was influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself. Along with his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato's complete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moloch
Moloch, Molech, or Molek is a word which appears in the Hebrew Bible several times, primarily in the Book of Leviticus. The Greek Septuagint translates many of these instances as "their king", but maintains the word or name ''Moloch'' in others, including one additional time in the Book of Amos where the Hebrew text does not attest the name. The Bible strongly condemns practices that are associated with Moloch, which are heavily implied to include child sacrifice. Traditionally, the name ''Moloch'' has been understood as referring to a Canaanite god. However, since 1935, scholars have speculated that Moloch refers to the sacrifice ''itself'', since the Hebrew word ''mlk'' is identical in spelling to a term that means "sacrifice" in the closely related Punic language. This second position has grown increasingly popular, but it remains contested. Among proponents of this second position, controversy continues as to whether the sacrifices were offered to Yahweh or another deity, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deluge (mythology)
A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primeval cosmic ocean which appear in certain creation myths, as the flood waters are described as a measure for the cleansing of humanity, for example in preparation for rebirth. Most flood myths also contain a culture hero, who "represents the human craving for life". The oldest known narrative of a divinely inititated flood originates from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, among others expressed in the Akkadian Athra-Hasis epic, which dates to the 18th century BCE. Comparable flood narratives appear in many other cultures, including the biblical Genesis flood narrative, ''manvantara-sandhya'' in Hinduism, Deucalion and Pyrrha in Greek mythology, also the Cheyenne, Blackfeet and Puebloan traditions. Mythologies The ''Epic of Gilgam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carthage
Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. It became the capital city of the civilization of Ancient Carthage and later Roman Carthage. The city developed from a Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic people, Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. The legendary Queen Elissa, Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. In the myth, Dido asked for land from a local tribe, which told her that she could get as much land as an oxhide could cover. She cut the oxhide into strips and laid out the perimeter of the new city. As Carthage prospered at home, the polity sent colonists abroad as well as magistrates to rule t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theophrastus
Theophrastus (; ; c. 371 – c. 287 BC) was an ancient Greek Philosophy, philosopher and Natural history, naturalist. A native of Eresos in Lesbos, he was Aristotle's close colleague and successor as head of the Lyceum (classical), Lyceum, the Peripatetic school, Peripatetic school of philosophy in Athens. Theophrastus wrote numerous treatises across all areas of philosophy, working to support, improve, expand, and develop Aristotelian system, the Aristotelian system. He made significant contributions to various fields, including ethics, metaphysics, botany, and natural history. Often considered the "father of botany" for his groundbreaking works "Historia Plantarum (Theophrastus), Enquiry into Plants" () and "On the Causes of Plants", () Theophrastus established the foundations of Botany, botanical science. His given name was (Ancient Greek: ); the nickname Theophrastus ("divine speaker") was reputedly given to him by Aristotle in recognition of his eloquent style. He came to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
