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 ...

, Phalanthos (

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 ...

: Φάλανθος) is a divine hero, the leader of the Spartan

Partheniae In ancient Greece, the Partheniae or Parthenians (in Greek /'' hoi Partheníai,'' literally “sons of virgins”, i.e. unmarried young girls) were a lower ranking Spartiate population which, according to tradition, left Laconia to go to Magna Gra ...

and the founder of

Taranto Taranto (; ; previously called Tarent in English) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Taranto, serving as an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base. Founded by Spartans ...

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

. He is said to have been condemned to death by the

ephor The ephors were a board of five magistrates in ancient Sparta. They had an extensive range of judicial, religious, legislative, and military powers, and could shape Sparta's home and foreign affairs. The word "''ephors''" (Ancient Greek ''éph ...

s. He was married to Aethra, who, while picking his lice, wept on her husband's head, because her husband's efforts have come to nothing after her husband fears an oracle tells the impossibility of his project to take control of the city. From this her husband realized the oracle (which was to hit the city when it rains, but as his wife's name was Aethra which means bright sky, her tears would be equivalent of raining bright skies), which was fulfilled, helped him conquer Tarantum. It is said that before Phalanthus reached Italy, he suffered a shipwreck in the Crisaean sea, and was brought ashore by a dolphin. Pausanias, 10.13.10

Sources

* Strabo, Geography (VI, 3, 2-3) = **

Antiochus of Syracuse Antiochus of Syracuse () was a Greek historian of Magna Graecia, who flourished around 420 BC. Little is known of Antiochus' life, but his works, of which only fragments remain, enjoyed a high reputation because of their accuracy. He wrote a ''Hist ...

(''

FGrH ''Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker'', commonly abbreviated ''FGrHist'' or ''FGrH'' (''Fragments of the Greek Historians''), is a collection by Felix Jacoby of the works of those ancient Greek historians whose works have been lost, but of ...

'' 555F13) ; ** Ephorus of Cumae (''

'' 70F216).

Bibliography

* Jean Bérard, ''La colonisation grecque de l'Italie méridionale et de la Sicile dans l'Antiquité. L'histoire et la légende'', Paris, 1957, pp.162-175. * Marinella Corsano, « Sparte et Tarente : le mythe de fondation d'une colonie », in ''Revue de l'histoire des religions'' 196, 2, 1979, pp.113-140. * G. Maddoli, "Falanto spartiata", in ''Mélange de l'École française de Rome'' 95, 1983, pp.555-564. * Domenico Musti, ''Strabone e la Magna Grecia'', Padoue, 1988, pp.151-172. * Irad Malkin, ''Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean'', Cambridge, 1994 * Claudia Antonetti, "Phalanthos “entre Corinthe et Sycione”", in ''Dialogues d'histoire ancienne'' 22/1, 1996, pp.65-78 * Giovanna Bonivento Pupino, Noi Tarantini Figli di Parteni, in Ribalta di Puglia nn.8-9 marzo 2003 https://www.academia.edu/11088541/Noi_Tarantini_figli_di_Parteni * Jonathan M. Hall, ''A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200-479 BCE'', Blackwell, 2007, , p111-114 Laconian mythology Ancient Tarantines Greek mythological heroes {{Greek-myth-stub Characters in Greek mythology

See also

Sources

Bibliography