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Pelops And Hippodamia; Base Relief, Metropolitan Museum, New York City
In Greek mythology, Pelops (; ) was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus region (, lit. "Pelops' Island"). He was the son of Tantalus and the father of Atreus. He was venerated at Olympia, where his cult developed into the founding myth of the Olympic Games, the most important expression of unity, not only for the people of Peloponnesus, but for all Hellenes. At the sanctuary at Olympia, chthonic night-time libations were offered each time to "dark-faced" Pelops in his sacrificial pit (''bothros'') before they were offered in the following daylight to the sky-god Zeus (Burkert 1983:96). Family Pelops was a son of Tantalus and either Dione, Euryanassa, Eurythemista,Scholia ad Euripides, ''Orestes'11/ref> or Clytia. In some accounts, he was called a bastard son of Tantalus while others named his parents as Atlas and the nymph Linos. Others would make Pelops the son of Hermes and Calyce while another says that he was an Achaean from Olenus. Of Phrygian or Lydian birth, he de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niobe
Niobe (; : Nióbē) was in Greek mythology a daughter of Tantalus and of either Dione or of Eurythemista or Euryanassa. She was the wife of Amphion and the sister of Pelops and Broteas. Niobe is mentioned by Achilles in Homer's ''Iliad'', which relates her ''hubris'', for which she was punished by Leto, who sent Apollo and Artemis to slay all of her children, after which her children lay unburied for nine days while she abstained from food. Once the gods had interred the slain, Niobe retreated to her native Sipylus, "where Nymphs dance around the River Acheloos, and though turned to stone, she broods over the sorrows sent by the Gods". Later writers asserted that Niobe was wedded to Amphion, one of the twin founders of Thebes, where there was a single sanctuary where the twin founders were venerated, but no shrine to Niobe. Mythology Family Her father was the ruler of a city located near Manisa in today's Aegean Turkey that was called "Tantalis" or "the city ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Founding Myth
An origin myth is a type of myth that explains the beginnings of a natural or social aspect of the world. Creation myths are a type of origin myth narrating the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place after the initial origin. These stories aim to explain the origins of natural phenomena or human institutions within an already existing world. In Greco-Roman scholarship, the terms founding myth or etiological myth (from 'cause') are occasionally used to describe a myth that clarifies an origin, particularly how an object or custom came into existence. In modern political discourse the terms "founding myth", "foundational myth", etc. are often used as critical references to official or widely accepted narratives about the origins or early history of a nation, a society, a culture, etc. Nature of origin myths Origin myths are narratives that explain how a particular reality came into existence.Eliade 1963, p. 21 They often serve to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euripides
Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the ''Suda'' says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (''Rhesus (play), Rhesus'' is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declinedMoses Hadas, ''Ten Plays by Euripides'', Bantam Classic (2006), Introduction, p. ixhe became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.L.P.E.Parker, ''Euripides: Alcestis'', Oxford University Press (2007), Introduction p. lx Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scholia
Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient authors, as glosses. One who writes scholia is a scholiast. The earliest attested use of the word dates to the 1st century BC. History Ancient scholia are important sources of information about many aspects of the ancient world, especially ancient literary history. The earliest scholia, usually anonymous, date to the 5th or 4th century BC (such as the ''scholia minora'' to the ''Iliad''). The practice of compiling scholia continued to late Byzantine times, outstanding examples being Archbishop Eustathius' massive commentaries to Homer in the 12th century and the ''scholia recentiora'' of Thomas Magister, Demetrius Triclinius and Manuel Moschopoulos in the 14th. Scholia were altered by successive copyists and owners of the manusc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euryanassa
In Greek mythology, Euryanassa (Ancient Greek: Εὐρυάνασσα) is a name that may refer to: *Euryanassa, daughter of the river-god Pactolus. She was the wife of Tantalus, and one of the possible mothers of Pelops, Broteas and Niobe. *Euryanassa, daughter of Hyperphas, leader of the Phlegyans and thus, sister to Euryganeia, wife of Oedipus. She was the mother of Minyas by Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit .... *Euryanassa, a surname of Hebe Hesychius of Alexandria, s.v. ''Euryanassa'' Notes References * Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, ''Moralia'' with an English Translation by Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaius Julius Hyginus
Gaius Julius Hyginus (; 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Augustus, and reputed author of the '' Fabulae'' and the '' De astronomia'', although this is disputed. Life and works Hyginus may have originated either from Spain, or from the Egyptian city of Alexandria. He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus according to Suetonius' ''De Grammaticis'', 20. Suetonius remarks that Hyginus fell into great poverty in his old age and was supported by the historian Clodius Licinus. Hyginus was a voluminous author: his works included topographical and biographical treatises, commentaries on Helvius Cinna and the poems of Virgil, and disquisitions on agriculture and bee-keeping. All these are lost. Attributed works Two Latin works which have survived under the name of Hyginus are a mythological handbook, known as the ''Genealogiae'' or the '' Fabulae'', and an astronomical work, entitled '' D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pindar's First Olympian Ode
The Greek lyric poet Pindar composed odes to celebrate victories at all four Panhellenic Games. Of his fourteen ''Olympian Odes'', glorifying victors at the Ancient Olympic Games, the First was positioned at the beginning of the collection by Aristophanes of Byzantium since it included praise for the games as well as of Pelops, who first competed at Elis (the polis or city-state in which the festival was later staged). It was the most quoted in antiquity and was hailed as the "best of all the odes" by Lucian. Pindar composed the epinikion in honour of his then patron Hieron I, tyrant of Syracuse, whose horse Pherenikos and its jockey were victorious in the single horse race in 476 BC. Poetry The ode begins with a priamel, where the rival distinctions of water and gold are introduced as a foil to the true prize, the celebration of victory in song. Ring-composed, Pindar returns in the final lines to the mutual dependency of victory and poetry, where "song needs deeds to cele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pindar
Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himsel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simonides Of Ceos
Simonides of Ceos (; ; c. 556 – 468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, born in Ioulis on Ceos. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of the nine lyric poets esteemed by them as worthy of critical study. Included on this list were Bacchylides, his nephew, and Pindar, reputedly a bitter rival, both of whom benefited from his innovative approach to lyric poetry. Simonides, however, was more involved than either in the major events and with the personalities of their times. Lessing, writing in the Enlightenment era, referred to him as "the Greek Voltaire." His general renown owes much to traditional accounts of his colourful life, as one of the wisest of men; as a greedy miser; as an inventor of a system of mnemonics; and the inventor of some letters of the Greek alphabet (). Such accounts include fanciful elements, yet he had a real influence on the sophistic enlightenment of the Classical era. His fame as a poet rests largely on his abi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cypria
The ''Cypria'' (; ; ) is a lost epic poem of ancient Greek literature, which has been attributed to Stasinus and was quite well known in classical antiquity and fixed in a received text, but which subsequently was lost to view. It was part of the Epic Cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic hexameter verse. The story of the ''Cypria'' comes chronologically at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and is followed by that of the ''Iliad''; the composition of the two was apparently in the reverse order. The poem comprised eleven books of verse in epic dactylic hexameters. Date and authorship The ''Cypria'', in the written form in which it was known in classical Greece, was probably composed in the late seventh century BCE, but there is much uncertainty. The Cyclic Poets, as the translator of Homerica Hugh G. Evelyn-White noted, "were careful not to trespass upon ground already occupied by Homer," one of the reasons for dating the final, literary form of ''Cypr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrtaeus
Tyrtaeus (; ''Tyrtaios''; fl. mid-7th century BC) was a Greek elegiac poet from Sparta whose works were speculated to fill five books. His works survive from quotations and papyri, and include 250 lines or parts of lines. He wrote at a time of two crises affecting the city: a civic unrest threatening the authority of kings and elders, later recalled in a poem named ''Eunomia'' ("Law and Order"), where he reminded citizens to respect the divine and constitutional roles of kings, council, and ''demos''; and the Second Messenian War, during which he served as a sort of "state poet", exhorting Spartans to fight to the death for their city. In the 4th century BC, when Tyrtaeus was an established classic, Spartan armies on campaign were made to listen to his poetry. The ''Suda'' states that he wrote martial songs; these were important in Spartan festivals and were done through anapaestic and iambic chants that accompanied armed dances and processions. Life Birth and place of orig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bothros
Bothros (Greek βόθρος, plural ''bothroi'') is the Ancient Greek word for "hole", "pit" or "trench". In contemporary use it can refer to a variety of holes or depressions found at ancient sites and referred to in literature, and has also been utilized in biological taxonomy to describe species or structures that have similar characteristics. Historic / Archaeological uses In Greek antiquity, a ''bothros'' was an artificially-created or formed depression in the ground, which could serve various purposes. In archaeology, similar items are also referred to by this name and interpreted depending on their context as altars, locations for sacrifice or storage pits. In the works of Homer, ''bothros'' generally refers to a depression or pit in the ground. In the Odyssey, the handmaidens of Nausicaa wash their clothes in one, and at the advice of Circe Odysseus digs one for the offering of libations to the dead in the underworld - first honey and milk, then wine, then water. They we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
