Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Anaxarete (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

: Ἀναξαρέτη means 'excellent princess') was a princess from

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

, who is said to have been descended from

Teucer In Greek mythology, Teucer (; , also Teucrus, Teucros or Teucris), was the son of King Telamon of Salamis Island and his second wife Hesione, daughter of King Laomedon of Troy. He fought alongside his half-brother, Ajax the Great, Ajax, in the ...

. She attracts the love of a young man named Iphis, who she scornfully rebuffs, pushing him to the point of killing himself upon her doorstep. After his death, she remains unmoved, and

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 ...

transforms her into a stone statue.

Family

Anaxarete is said to have been from

, and her family to have been descended from

, the legendary founder of the Cypriot city of Salamis. She is said to have been a princess in this genealogical line.

Mythology

In the ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'', a Latin poem by the Roman poet

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

from 8 AD, Anaxarete catches the eye of a young man named

Iphis In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, Iphis ( or ; , Genitive case, gen. Ἴφιδος ''Íphidos'') was a child of Telethusa and Ligdus in Crete, born female and raised as male, who was later transformed by the goddess Isis into a m ...

. He immediately falls in love with her, and while he attempts to suppress his feelings for some time, he finds himself unable to control his adoration. He arrives at her dwelling, and reveals his feelings to her nurse; he also tries to tempt her servants into aiding him in amorous endeavour, and places flowers, drenched in his own tears, outside the entrance to her house. However, Anaxarete, who is described as "more savage than the waves that rise at the setting of the Kids, harder than steel tempered in Noric fire", is resolutely unfeeling towards him, and rebuffs him with scorn; in doing so, she drains the hope of her would-be lover. Pushed to a place of mental torment, Iphis delivers distraught and suicidal final words while standing upon her doorstep. He then hangs himself there, but Anaxarete is still unmoved. When she mocks his funeral, calling it pitiful,

turned her into a stone statue. According to Ovid, the statue was preserved at Salamis in Cyprus, in the temple of Venus Prospiciens. A similar tale is told by

Antoninus Liberalis Antoninus Liberalis () was an Ancient Greek grammarian who probably flourished between the second and third centuries AD. He is known as the author of ''The Metamorphoses'', a collection of tales that offers new variants of already familiar myths ...

, although he names the maiden Arsinoë, and her admirer

Arceophon In Greek mythology, Arceophon () was a wealthy man of Salamis in Cyprus, son of Minnyrides (), a Phoenician. Mythology Arceophon fell in love with Arsinoë, daughter of King Nicocreon (, Nikokréon) of Salamis (a descendant of Teucer), and wo ...

39
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Notes

References

* *

External links

* {{Authority control Mythological Cypriots Metamorphoses characters Metamorphoses into inanimate objects in Greek mythology Princesses in Greek mythology Deeds of Aphrodite