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Peitho
In Greek mythology, Peitho ( or 'winning eloquence') is the personification of persuasion. She is typically presented as an important companion of Aphrodite. Her opposite is Bia (mythology), Bia, the personification of force. As a personification, she was sometimes imagined as a goddess and sometimes an abstract power with her name used both as a common and proper noun. There is evidence that Peitho was referred to as a goddess before she was referred to as an abstract concept, which is rare for a personification. Peitho represents both sexual and political persuasion. She is associated with the art of rhetoric. Family Peitho's ancestry is unclear, as various authors provide different identities for her parents. Hesiod in ''Theogony'' identifies Peitho as the daughter of the Titans Tethys (mythology), Tethys and Oceanus, which would make her an Oceanid and the sister of notable goddesses such as Dione (Titaness), Dione, Doris (Oceanid), Doris, and Metis (mythology), Metis. Acc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aphrodite
Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, Myrtle (common), myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Ancient Canaanite religion, Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian religion, Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Kythira, Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of Prostitution in ancient Greece, prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of sacred prostitution in Greco-Rom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charites
In Greek mythology, the Charites (; ), singular Charis (), also called the Graces, are goddesses who personify beauty and grace. According to Hesiod, the Charites were Aglaia (Grace), Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia (Grace), Thalia, who were the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome (Oceanid), Eurynome, the daughter of Oceanus. However in other accounts, their names, number and parentage varied. In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae. Hesiod has Aglaea as the wife of Hephaestus, and in the ''Iliad'' Hera promises to give a Charis named Pasithea to Hypnos as bride. Otherwise they have little independent mythology, usually described as attending various gods and goddesses, especially Aphrodite. In Roman and later art, the three Charites are generally depicted nude in an interlaced group, but during the Archaic Greece, Archaic and Classical Greece, Classical periods of Greece, they were typically depicted as fully clothed, and in a line, with dance poses. Parentage, number, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ate (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Ate () is the personification of moral blindness and error. She could blind the mind of both gods and men leading them astray. Ate was banished from Olympus by Zeus for blinding him to Hera's trickery denying Heracles his birthright. Homer calls Ate the daughter of Zeus, while Hesiod has Ate as the daughter of Eris (Strife). Personification Like all the children of Eris (Strife), Ate is a personified abstraction, allegorizing the meaning of her name, and represents one of the many harms which might be thought to result from discord and strife. The meaning of her name, the Greek word ''atē'' (''ἄτη''), is difficult to define. ''Atē'' is a verbal noun of the verb ''aáō'' (''ἀάω''). According to '' The Cambridge Greek Lexicon'', ''aáō '' means to "lead astray", "befuddle", "blind", or "delude", while ''ἄτη'' can mean: (1) the state of "delusion, infatuation (inflicted on a person's mind by a god, esp Zeus)", (2) "reckless behavior ... reckless ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellenistic Period
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the Roman conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year, which eliminated the last major Hellenistic kingdom. Its name stems from the Ancient Greek word ''Hellas'' (, ''Hellás''), which was gradually recognized as the name for Greece, from which the modern historiographical term ''Hellenistic'' was derived. The term "Hellenistic" is to be distinguished from "Hellenic" in that the latter refers to Greece itself, while the former encompasses all the ancient territories of the period that had come under significant Greek influence, particularly the Hellenized Middle East, after the conquests of Alexander the Great. After the Macedonian conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pasithea
In Greek mythology, Pasithea (), Pasithee or Pasitheia, was one of the Graces and the wife of Hypnos. In the '' Dionysiaca'', the epic poem of Nonnus (fifth century CE), she is one of the three attendant Graces of Aphrodite. Name The meaning of the name is obscure and no recent proposals have been made. Benjamin Hederich (1770) states that 'Ihr Namen soll so viel heißen, als die zu allen laufende' ('her name supposedly means "the one who runs to all"'), which he takes to refer to the universal nature and general pleasantness of sleep. Josef Korn, writing under the pseudonym Friedrich Nork, (1843) took it to mean 'die von Allen veherte Göttin' ('the Goddess revered by all'), assuming that it originally referred to Aphrodite. Parentage Although Pasithea is named in the ''Iliad'' of Homer, and offered in marriage to Hypnos by Hera, no explicit parentage for her is given. In his '' Posthomerica,'' the fourth Century CE Greek poet Quintus Smyrnaeus refers to Hypnos and Hera a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theogony
The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one of the most important sources for the understanding of early Greek cosmology. Descriptions Hesiod's ''Theogony'' is a large-scale synthesis of a vast variety of local Greece, Greek traditions concerning the gods, organized as a narrative that tells how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos. It is the first known Greece, Greek mythical cosmogony. The initial state of the universe is Chaos (mythology), chaos, a dark indefinite void considered a divine primordial condition from which everything else appeared. Theogonies are a part of Greek mythology which embodies the desire to articulate reality as a whole; this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first later projects of speculative theorizing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oceanus
In Greek mythology, Oceanus ( ; , also , , or ) was a Titans, Titan son of Uranus (mythology), Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys (mythology), Tethys, and the father of the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods and the Oceanids, as well as being the great river which encircled the entire world. Etymology According to M. L. West, the etymology of Oceanus is "obscure" and "cannot be explained from Greek". The use by Pherecydes of Syros of the form () for the name lends support for the name being a loanword. However, according to West, no "very convincing" foreign models have been found. A Semitic derivation has been suggested by several scholars, while R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a loanword from the Aegean Pre-Greek non-Indo-European Stratum (linguistics), substrate. Nevertheless, Michael Janda sees possible Indo-European connections. Genealogy Oceanus was the eldest of the Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod lists his T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aglaia (Grace)
In Greek mythology, Aglaia, Aglaïa (), or Aglaea () (''Brill's New Pauly''s.v. Aglaea (1)) is a goddess, one of the Charites (known as the Graces in Roman mythology). Family According to Hesiod and other sources (including Apollodorus), Aglaia was one of the three Charites, along with Euphrosyne (mirth) and Thalia (abundance), who were the daughters of Zeus and the Oceanid Eurynome.Bells.v. Aglaia (1), p. 15 Other sources name the same three Charites (Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia) but give them different parents. The '' Orphic Hymn to the Graces'' says they are the daughters of Zeus and Eunomia (goddess of good order and lawful conduct), and Pindar says that they are daughters of the strongest god (i.e. Zeus) without naming their mother.Pindar, ''Olympian Ode'14.1–20 Hesiod says also that Aglaia is the youngest of the Charites.Hesiod, ''Theogony'945 According to the ''Dionysiaca'', Aglaia is one of the "dancers of Orchomenus" (i.e. the Charites, per Pindar), along w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tethys (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Tethys (; ) was a Titans, Titan daughter of Uranus (mythology), Uranus and Gaia (mythology), Gaia, a sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus, and the mother of the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods and the Oceanids. Although Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults, she was depicted in mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinium, triclinia in the Greek East, particularly in Antioch and its suburbs, either alone or with Oceanus. Genealogy Tethys was one of the Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod lists her Titan siblings as Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion (mythology), Hyperion, Iapetus (mythology), Iapetus, Theia, Rhea (mythology), Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe (Titaness), Phoebe, and Cronus. Tethys married her brother Oceanus, an enormous river encircling the world, and was by him the mother of numerous sons (the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods) and numerous daughters (the Oceanids). Accordi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeschylus
Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the Greek chorus, chorus.The remnant of a commemorative inscription, dated to the 3rd century BC, lists four, possibly eight, dramatic poets (probably including Choerilus, Phrynichus, and Pratinas) who had won Dionysia#Known winners of the City Dionysia, tragic victories at the Dionysia before Aeschylus had. Thespis was traditionally regarded the inventor of tragedy. According to another tradition, tragedy was established in Athens in the late 530s BC, but that may simply reflect an absence of records. Major innovations in dramatic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Ancient Rome, Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''baccheia''. His wine, music, and ecstatic dance were considered to free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his Cult of Dionysus, cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thrace, Thracian, others as Greek. In O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysiaca
The ''Dionysiaca'' (, ''Dionysiaká'') is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from Greco-Roman antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west. Composition The poem is thought to have been written in the 5th century AD. The suggestion that it is incomplete misses the significance of the birth of Dionysus' one son (Iacchus) in the final Book 48, quite apart from the fact that 48 is a key number as the number of books in the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' combined. The older view that Nonnus wrote this poem before conversion to Christianity and the writing of his other long poem, a verse paraphrase of Gospel of John, St John's Gospel, is now discredited, since a host of indications point to the latter being the earlier work and because it misses the eclecticism of l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
