Dictionary
HOMER	100.00%
The poet, whose name is borne by the two oldest and at the same time grandest monuments of the Greek genius, the epic poems called the Iliad and the Odyssey. Concerning the personality of the poet, his country, and his time, we have no trustworthy information. Even the personal existence of the poet has been disputed, and it has often been attempted to prove, from the meaning of the name, that he was not an individual, but an ideal type. It has been held that Homer means either orderer or comrade, and it has been supposed that in the former case the name indicates the ideal representative of the epic poem in its unified and artistically completed form, whilst the other explanation is suggestive of an ideal ancestor and patron of an exclusive order of minstrels. But as Homer is a proper name, simply meaning hostage, without any connexion with poetry, there is nothing in the name itself to give occasion to any doubt as to the existence of Homer as an historical personage. In antiquity seven places contended for the honour of being his birthplace: Smyrna, Rhodes, Colophon, Salamis (in Cyprus), Chios, Argos, and Athens; yet there is no doubt that the Homeric poems originated on the west coast of Asia Minor, and the older tradition is fairly correct in fixing on the Aeolian Smyrna as his home, and on the Ionian island of Chios as the place where his poetry was composed. The Aeolc colouring of the Ionic dialect, which forms the foundation of Homeric diction, agrees with this; as also the fact that at Chios for centuries afterwards there was a family called the Homeridoe, who, called after his name, claimed descent from him and occupied themselves with the recitation of his poetry. As to the time when the poet lived, all the views of early investigators, founded on chronological considerations, differ widely from one another. However, this much seems certain, that the period in which epic poetry attained the degree of perfection to which Homer brought it does not fall either before B.C. 950 or after 900. Of the various traditions respecting Homer, we need only state, that his father's name was Meles, that in his old age he was blind, and that he died on the small island of Ios, where his grave was shown, and on it yearly, in the month called after him Homereon, a goat was sacrificed to the poet, who was worshipped as a hero. Perhaps the story of his blindness arose from fancying that Demodocus, the blind singer in the Odyssey, was a prototype of Homer. A trustworthy corroboration of this was supposed to be found in the fact that the author of the hymn to the Delian Apollo, which the voice of antiquity unhesitatingly described to Homer, represented him as blind and living on the island of Chios. The importance of Homer rests in the fact that, while using the fixed forms of poetic diction and metre which had been fashioned by his predecessors, he was able to raise epic song to the definite level of epic poetry with its systematic arrangement and its artistic elaboration. The two epics which bear his name, the Iliad and the Odyssey, both of which at a late period were divided into twenty-four books, deal with the legends of Troy. The Iliad traverses an interval of fifty-one days out of the tenth year of the Trojan War, according to a simple plan with a consecutive account of the events of the time. Beginning with the wrath of Achilles at being deprived of his captive, the maiden Briseis, at the command of Agamemnon, it narrates the ever-increasing distress which the indignant hero's withdrawal from the battle brings upon the Greeks in their fights on the Trojan plain, around the walls, and near the naval camp. This gives a suitable opportunity for describing the other heroes down to the fall of Patroclus, which is the turning-point of the poem. Then follows the reconciliation of Achilles, his avenging his slain friend by killing Hector, and the funeral games in honour of Patroclus. The poem comes to a tragical conclusion with the surrender and burial of the body of Hector. The Odyssey similarly deals with a multitude of incidents connected with the return of Odysseus to his home, all of which take place in the narrow interval of forty days, but according to a highly artistic and complex plan. In contrast to the two main portions of the Iliad, the Odyssey consists of four parts. The first describes the adventures of Telemachus, who is oppressed by the suitors of his mother Penelope, and sets off on a journey to Nestor at Pylos and Menelaus at Sparta, in quest of his father. Thus the poet finds occasion to give an account of the different fates of the Greek heroes on their return home. The second part describes the adventures of Odysseus in his voyage from Ogygia, the island of Calypso, his stay among the Phaeacians (connected with which is the hero's own account of his wanderings on his voyage from Troy down to his landing at Ogygia), and, lastly, his arrival at Ithaca. The third part contains his visit to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, his recognition by Telemachus (who has returned home) and by his faithful servant, and the planning of vengeance on the suitors. The fourth part contains the carrying out of the vengeance, and the whole is brought to a peaceful conclusion by the re-union of the hero with his wife Penelope and his aged father Laertes. By means of professional reciters, who went from city to city and were called rhapsodoi (q.v.), the Homeric poems found a rapid circulation, not only in their Asiatic home, but also in Greece and its western colonies. They were introduced into Sparta by Lycurgus [Plut., Lyc. 4], who learned their existence in his travels, at Samos, from the descendants of Creophylus, a poet reputed to have been a friend and relation of Homer. In 753 B.C., twenty-three years after the commencement of the Olympiads, they were, in fact, the common property of all Greeks. At the recitations given by the rhapsodoi at many places during festivals, the great bulk of the poems from the very first necessitated a regular division of the subject into suitable, portions, in order to give intervals of rest not only to the reciters, but also to the audience. Hence arose the division into separate lays called rhapsodies, with distinctive titles, which were still in use at a later date, when both poems were divided into twenty-four books. It soon became customary to recite single rhapsodies, some being especial favourites and considered more suitable than others for showing the special talents of individual rhapsodists to advantage. Thus it happened that some portions easily fell into oblivion and gaps arose in the oral tradition of the poems. On the other hand, the rhapsodists could not avoid giving a certain finish and completeness to their favourite pieces, and even permitted themselves to make alterations and additions where they saw fit. To Athens belongs the honour of having arrested the everincreasing confusion caused by these practices. Solon was the first to order that the rhapsodists at their public recitals should keep closely to the traditional text of the poems. Pisistratus (about B.C. 535) made, by means of a committee of several poets, headed by Onomacritus (q.v.), a collection of the scattered lays and a revision of the text, founded on extant copies and on the oral traditions of the rhapsodists. [Cic., De Orat. iii 137 and Pausanias, vii 26, are the earliest authorities for this vague and doubtful story.] Either Pisistratus or his son Hipparchus made the regulation that the rhapsodists, in their competitions at the Panathenaic festival, should recite in consecutive order and completeness the Homeric poems, which had been thus restored to their proper form. To this revision, which could only partially counteract the gradually increasing corruption of the text, we may probably trace the copies of the Homeric poems which were afterwards in existence in various parts of Greece. In course of time these also in their turn underwent many arbitrary alterations, chiefly at the hands of the learned who sought to improve the text. The first to do this were the Alexandrine scholars, who found in Homer a central point for their philological studies, and practised a methodical criticism of the text, for which they enjoyed both the means and the opportunity in the collection of ancient manuscripts of the poet in the Library of Alexandria. The beginning was made by ZENODOTUS of Ephesus, who was succeeded by ARISTOPHANES of Byzantium, whose pupil ARISTARCHUS (q.v.,) by his dition of Homer, reached the highest point that the ancients ever attained in philological criticism. The editions of these Alexandrine critics were founded on the redaction by Pisistratus, and are themselves the origin of our present text of the Homeric poems. From that time forward down to the latest times of Greek antiquity, Homer never ceased to be a theme for learned disquisition, which is attested for us by numerous remains still in existence. Even in ancient times scholars occupied themselves with the question whether the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed by the same poet. This question was fully justified by the fact that the name of Homer had long been recognised as a collective term, and had included a long series of epics formed on his model, the true authorship of which was only gradually discovered; and it did not escape observation that the Odyssey, in its more artistic design, as well as in relation to social, moral, and religious life, belonged to a more advanced stage of development than the Iliad. Thus, in ancient times, those who are known as Chorizontes (or "Separaters"), headed by the grammarians Xenon and Hellanious, probably belonging to the beginning of the Alexandrine period, held that the Odyssey was composed by a later poet. Even modem scholars have shared this view, while others, relying on the essential correspondence of tone, language, and metre, attribute less importance to the points of divergence, and explain them as due to the difference in the aim of the two poems as well as in the poet's time of life. With all our admiration of the art and beauty of the Homeric poems, it is not to be denied that they do not stand throughout on the same level of perfection, but that, by the side of the most magnificent passages, there are others which are dull and less attractive, and interruptions of the narrative and even contradictions are not wanting. Such blemishes did not escape the observation of the Alexandrine scholars, who met objections of this kind by assuming frequent interpolations, not only of single lines, but of whole passages; e.g. they held that the second half of the last book but one, and the whole of the last book of the Odyssey, were spurious. In modern times many explanations of these defects have been put forward. In the first place F. A. Wolf [1795] observed that in the time of Homer the art of writing was not yet practised to such an extent as to be employed for literary purposes; and held that it was impossible even for the highest genius, with the aid of memory alone, either to produce such comprehensive works, and to transmit them to others. On these grounds he held that the Iliad and Odyssey received their existing form, for the first time, in the time of Pisistratus, when the old lays on the Trojan War, which had hitherto been preserved by oral tradition alone, were fixed by means of writing, and collected and united into two great wholes. He has been followed by others who have endeavonred to dissect the Iliad in particular into its separate and originally independent lays. Others hold that Homer's two poems consisted of compositions of moderate length; the Wrath of Achilles and the Return of Odysseus, which, by amplifications, improvements, and alterations, have resulted in the existing Odyssey and Iliad. Others again, instead of assuming a larger number of single lays, assume a combination of small epic poems, an Achilleis and an Iliad, thus resulting in the present Iliad, and a Telemachia and a Return of Odysseus in the present Odyssey. On the other hand, many important authorities maintain that, granting the possibility of a utilization of previously existing lays, the Odyssey and Iliad, from the very beginning, respectively constituted a united whole; but that, soon after their first composition, they underwent manifold revision and amplification, until they received, before the beginning of the Olympiads, the essential form which they still retain. Certain it is that, after the first Olympiad, longer epic poems were composed on the model of the Iliad and Odyssey, and in continuation of them; and it cannot be denied that, long before this period, the art of writing had been extensively employed in Greece. It is also beyond contradiction that, apart from corruptions which arose from later alterations, dissimilarities in the treatment of the several parts, as well as many inconsistencies, may have existed in the poems even in their primitive form. In spite of such blemishes of detail, the Homeric poems remain unsurpassed as works of art, which have had an incalculable influence not only upon the development of literature and art, but also upon the whole life of the Greeks, who from the earliest times regarded them as the common property of the nation, and employed them as the foundation of all teaching and culture. Even now, after nearly 3,000 years, their influence remains unimpaired. Besides the Iliad and Odyssey, we still possess under the name of Homer: (a) A collection of Hymns: five of greater length on the Pytbian and Delian Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite, and Demeter; and twenty-nine shorter poems on various gods. These are really prooemia, or introductions, with which the rhapsodists prefaced their recitations. Their object is to praise the god at whose festival the recitation took place, or who was specially honoured in the town where the rhapsodist presented himself. Perhaps even the choice of the introduction may have been influenced by the contents of the subsequent poem. If these poems did not originate with Homer, at any rate they are the compositions of rhapsodists of the Homeric school, called Homeridoe. Thus the rhapsodist Cynaethus of Chios (about B.C. 504) is named as the author of the hymn to the Delian Apollo. The collection appears to have been prepared for the use of the rhapsodists in Attica, with a view to selections being made from it at pleasure. (b) Sixteen small poems called Epigrammata, remains of an older poetry, two of which are lays in a popular style: the Kaminos, or "potter's oven" (in which the blessing of Athene is invoked on a batch of earthenware, when placed in the furnace), and a kind of begging song, called the Eiresione (lit. a harvest-wreath wound round with wool). (c) The Batrachoyomachia, the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, a parody of the Iliad, is generally attributed to Pigres, the brother of the Carian queen Artemisia, so well known in connexion with the Persian Wars. The ancient satirical epic poem called the Margites ("the dolt") has been lost. Its great antiquity may be inferred from its having been assigned to Homer as early as the time of Archi1ochus ob. 676 B.C.) [On Homer, see Prof. Jebb's Introduction]
BATRACHOMYOMACHIA	48.19%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice. This was the title of an epic poem falsely bearing the name of Homer. It was a parody of the Iliad, and was probably written by Pigres. (See HOMER 1, end.)
TZETZES	45.42%
A Greek grammarian and poet of the second half of the 12th century A.D. He lived in Constantinople, and though for his time he may be called learned, he was a most conceited and superficial personage, as is amply proved by his numerous writings. Besides commentaries on Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Lycophron, and other writers, which are valuable for the authorities quoted in them, he composed, in 1,665 wretched hexameters, an epic poem entitled Iliaca, containing the legend of Troy from the birth of Paris till the opening of the Iliad, the incidents of the Iliad in detail, and the further course of the war up to the return of the Greeks. Besides this he wrote a book of histories of 12,661 "political verses." These are commonly but wrongly called chiliads, from an arbitrary division of the work into books of 1,000 lines each. He is also the author of a collection of stories partly mythical, partly historical, worthless in themselves, but valuable as including numerous items of information which would otherwise have been unknown to us.
QUINTUS SMYRNAEUS	38.81%
A Greek epic poet of Smyrna. Towards the end of the 4th century A.D., he composed a bald imitation of Homer, entitled the Posthomerica, in fourteen books, a continuation of the Iliad after the manner of the cyclic epic writers from the death of Hector to the shipwreck of the Achaeans on their journey home.
DOSITHEUS	30.36%
A grammarian who flourished towards the end of the 4th century A.D. He wrote a Latin grammar for Greek boys, with a literal Greek translation, which was not fully completed. With this was bound up (whether by Dositheus himself is uncertain) a miscellany of very various contents by another author. This comprises (1) anecdotes of the Emperor Hadrian, (2) fables of Aesop, (3) an important chapter on jurisprudence, (4) mythological stories from Hyginus, (5) an abridgment of the Iliad, (6) an interesting collection of words and phrases from ordinary conversation.
DARES OF PHRYGIA	27.22%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 In Homer the priest of Hephaestus in Troy, supposed to have been the author of a pre-Homeric Iliad. It is doubtful whether there ever was any Greek work bearing this title, but a Latin piece of the 5th century A.D. (Daretis Phrygii De Excedio Troiae Historia), bearing a supposed dedication by Cornelius Nepos to Sallust, professes to be a translation of one. This absurd production, and the work of Dietys, was the chief source followed by the medipeval poets in their stories of the Trotian war (see DICTYS).
SOTADES	26.20%
A Greek poet from Maroneia in Thrace, who lived at Alexandria under Ptolemy Philadelphus about 276 B.C. He is said to have been drowned in the sea in a leaden chest for some sarcastic remark about the marriage of the king with his own sister Arsinoe. He composed in Ionic dialect and in a peculiar metre named after him (Sotadeus or Sotadicus versus), poems called cinoedi, malicious satires partly on indelicate subjects, which were intended for recitation accompanied by a mimic dance, and also travesties of mythological subjects, such as the Iliad of Homer. He found numerous imitators.
CENTAURI	26.10%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Homer and the older mythology represent the Centaurs are a rude, wild race, fond of wine and women , dwelling in the mountains of Thessaly, especially on Pelion and CEta. In Homer they are spoken of as shaggy animals, living in the mountains. It was, perhaps, not until the 5th century B.C. that they were represented in the double shape now familiar to us. Originally the Centaur was conceived as a being with the body of a man standing on a horse's legs; but in later times the human body was represented as rising up in the front of a horse's body and four legs (see cut). According to one version of the current legend they were the offspring of Nephele and Ixion; according to another, the son of this pair, Kentauros, begat them upon mares (see IXION). The story of their contest with the Lapithae at the wedding of Pirithous, born of their drunkenness and lust, is as early as Homer [Iliad i 268, Odyssey xxi 295 foll.] (See PIRITHOUS.) In Homer Nestor, and in the later story Theseus, are represented as taking part in it. It was a favourite subject with poets and artists. The Centaurs were driven from Pelion by Pirithous and the Lapithae, and even the wise Chiron was forced to go with them (see CHIRON). Artists were always fond of treating the fabulous combats of the Centaurs and the heroes of old; but in later times the Centaurs appear in a different light. They form part of the following of Dionysus, moving peaceably in his festal train among satyrs, nymphs, and Bacchants, drawing the victorious car of the god and his queen Ariadne, playing on the lyre, and guided by gods of love. The forms of women and children were sometimes represented in the shape of Centaurs, and used in various ways by artists for their smaller pictures. For the Centauro-Tritones or Ichthyocentauri ("Fish-Centaurs") see TRITON.
LIVIUS	21.42%
Livius Andronicus, the founder of Roman epic and dramatic poetry. He was by birth a Greek of Southern Italy, and was brought as a slave to Rome, after the conquest of Tarentuin in 272 B.C., while still of tender age. His master, a Livius, whose name he bears, gave him his liberty, and he imparted instruction in the Greek and Latin languages. This employment probably gave occasion for histranslation of the Homeric Odyssey into Saturnian metre; in spite of its imperfections, this remained a school-book in Rome for centuries. In 240 B.C. he brought on the Roman stage the first drama composed after a Greek model, and with such success that thenceforward dramatic poetry was well established in Rome. According to ancient custom he appeared as an actor in his own pieces. His dramatic compositions, tragedies, and comedies were faithful but undoubtedly imperfect translations of Greek originals. He attempted lyric poetry also, for he was commissioned by the State to write a march in honour of Iuno Regina Scanty remains of his works are all that have come down to us.
ARISTARCHUS	17.28%
A scholar, born in Samothrace, and a pupil of Aristophanes of Byzantium. He lived at Alexandria in the first half of the 2nd century B.C. as tutor to the royal princes, and keeper of the library. In the tyrannical reign of his pupil Ptolemy VII (Physcon) he fled to Cyprus, and there died of dropsy about B.C. 153, aged 72. He is the most famous of the Alexandrian Critic, and devoted his attention mainly to the Greek poets, especially Homer, to whom he rendered essential service by his critical edition of the text, which remains in substance the groundwork of our present recension. This edition had notes on the margin, indicating the verses which Aristarchus thought spurious or doubtful, and anything else worthy of remark. The meaning of the notes, and the reasons for appending them, were explained in separate commentaries and excursuses, founded on a marvellously minute acquaintance with the language and contents of the Homeric poems, and the whole of Greek literature. He was the head of the school of Aristarcheans, who continued working on classical texts in his spirit till after the beginning of the Empire. Of his numerous grammatical and exegetical works only fragments remain. An idea of his Homeric studies, and of their character, can best be gathered from the Venetian scholia to the Iliad, which are largely founded on extracts from the Aristarcheans Didymus and Aristonicus.
TROJAN WAR	17.25%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The story of the Trojan War, like the story of the Argonauts, underwent, in the course of time, many changes and amplifications. The kernel of the story is contained in the two epic poems of Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey. The incidents, either narrated or briefly touched upon in these, were elaborated or developed by the post-Homeric poets, partly by connecting them with other popular traditions, and partly by the addition of further details of their own in ation. While in Homer it is simply the rape of Helen which is the occasion of the war, a later legend traced its origin to the marriage of Pelous and Thetis, when Eris threw down among the assembled gods the golden apple inscribed For the fairest. The quarrel that ensued between Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite for the prize of beauty was decided by Paris in favour of Aphrodite, who in return secured him the possession of Helen, while Hera and Athene became, from that time onward, the implacable enemies of the whole Trojan race. According to Homer, after Helen had been carried off by Paris, Menelaus and Agamemnon visited all the Greek chieftains in turn, and prevailed on them to take part in the expedition which they were preparing to avenge the wrong. According to the later account, the majority of the chieftains were already bound to follow the expedition by an oath, which they had sworn to Tyndareos. Agamemnon was chosen commander-in-chief; next to him the most prominent Greek heroes are his brother Menelaus, Achilles and Patroclus, the two Ajaxes, Teucer, Nestor and his son Antilochus, Odysseus, Diomedes,Idomeneus, and Philoctetes, who, however, at the very outset of the expedition had to be left behind, and does not appear on the scene of action until just before the fall of Troy. Later epics add the name of Palamedes. The entire host of 100,000 men and 1,186 ships assembled in the harbour of Aulis. Here, while they were sacrificing under a plane tree, a snake darted out from under the altar and ascended the tree, and there, after devouring a brood of eight young sparrows and the mother-bird himself, was turned into stone. This omen Calchas, the seer of the host, interpreted to mean that the war would last nine years, and terminate in the tenth with the destruction of Troy [Iliad ii 299-332]. Agamemnon had already received an oracle from the Delphian god that Troy would fall when the best of the Greeks quarrelled. In Homer the crossing to Troy follows immediately; but in the later story the Greeks at first land by mistake in Mysia, in the country of Telephus (q.v.), and being dispersed by a storm and driven back to Greece, assemble afresh at Aulis, whence they are only permitted to set out after the sacrifice of Iphigenia (an incident entirely unknown to Homer). On the Greek side the first to fall is Protesilaiis, who is the first to land. The disembarkation cannot take place until Achilles has slain the mighty Cycnus (q.v., 2). After pitching their camp, Odysseus and Menelaus proceed as ambassadors to Troy, to demand the surrender of Helen. But this proposal, in spite of the inclination of Helen herself and the admonition of the Trojan Antenor, falls to the ground, owing to the opposition of Paris, and war is declared. The number of the Trojans, whose chief hero is Hector, scarcely amounts to the tenth part of that of the besiegers; and although they possess the aid of countless brave allies, such as Aeneas, Sarpedon, and Glaucus, in their fear of Achilles they dare not risk a general engagement. On the other hand, the Achaeans can do nothing against the well-fortified and defended town, and see themselves confined to laying ambuscades and devastating the surrounding country, and compelled by lack of provisions to have resource to foraging expeditions in the neighbourhood, undertaken by sea and by land under the generalship, of Achilles. At length the decisive tenth year arrives. The Homeric Iliad narrates the events of this year, confining itself to the space of fifty-one days. Chryses, of Apollo, comes in priestly garb into camp of the Greeks to ransom his daughter Chryseis from Agamemnon. He is rudely repulsed, and Apollo consequently visits the Greeks with a plague. In an assembly of the Greeks summoned by Achilles, Calchas declares the only means of appeasing the god to be the surrender of girl without ransom. Agamemnon assents to the general wish; but, by way of compensation, takes from Achilles, whom he considers to be the instigator of the whole plot, his favourite, slave Briseis. Achilles withdraws in a rage to his tent, and implores his mother Thetis to obtain from Zeus a promise that the Greeks should meet with disaster in fighting the Trojans until Agamemnon should give her son complete satisfaction [Il. i]. The Trojans immediately take the open field, and Agamemnon is induced by a promise of victory, conveyed in a dream from Zeus, to appoint the following day for a battle [ii]. The hosts are already standing opposed to one another, prepared for fight, when they agree to a treaty that the conflict for Helen and the plundered treasures be decided by a duel between Paris and Menelaus. Paris is overcome in the duel, and is only rescued from death by the intervention of Aphrodite [iii]. When Agamemnon presses for the fulfilment of the treaty, the Trojan Pandarus breaks the peace by shooting an arrow at Menelaus, and the first open engagement in the war begins [iv], in which, under the protection of Athene, Diomede performs miracles of bravery and wounds even Aphrodite and Ares [v]. Diomede and the Lycian Glaucus are on the point of fighting, when they recognise one another as hereditary guest-friends. Hector goes from the battle to Troy, and the day ends with an indecisive duel between Hector and Ajax son of Telamon. In the armistice ensuing both sides bury their dead, and the Greeks, acting on the advice of Nestor, surround the camp with a wall and trench [vii]. When the fighting begins afresh, Zeus forbids the gods to take part in it, and ordains that the battle shall terminate with the discomfiture of the Greeks [viii]. On the following night Agamemnon already begins to meditate flight, but Nestor advises reconciliation with Achilles. The efforts of the ambassadors are, however, fruitless [ix]. Here-upon Odysseus and Diomede go out to reconnoitre, capture Dolon, a Trojan spy, and surprise Rhesus (q.v.), king of the Thracians, the newly arrived ally of the enemy [x]. On the succeeding day Agamemnon's bravery drives the Trojans back to the walls of the town; but he himself, Diomede, Odysseus, and other heroes leave the battle wounded, the Greeks retire behind the camp walls [xi], to attack which the Trojans set out in five detachments. The opposition of the Greeks is brave; but Hector breaks the rough gate with a rock, and the stream of enemies pours itself unimpeded into the camp [xii]. Once more the Greek heroes who are still capable of taking part in the fight, especially the two Ajaxes and Idomeneus, succeed with the help of Poseidon in repelling the Trojans, while Telamonian Ajax dashes Hector to the ground with a stone; but the latter soon reappears on the battlefield with fresh strength granted him by Apollo at the command of Zeus [xiii]. Poseidon is obliged to leave the Greeks to their fate; they retire again to the ships, which Ajax in vain defends [xv]. The foremost ship is already burning, when Achilles gives way to the entreaties of his friend Patroclus, and sends him, clad in his own armour, with the Myrmidons to the help of the distressed Greeks. Supposing it to be Achilles himself, the Trojans in terror flee from the camp before Patroclus, who pursues them to the town, and lays low vast numbers of the enemy, including the brave Sarpedon, whose corpse is only rescued from the Greeks after a severe fight. At last Patroclus himself is slain by Hector with the help of Apollo [xvi]; Achilles' arms are lost, and even the corpse is with difficulty saved [xvii]. And now Achilles repents of his anger, reconciles himself to Agamemnon, and on the following day, furnished with new and splendid armour by Hephaestus at the request of Thetis [xviii], avenges the death of his friend on countless Trojans and finally on Hector himself [xxii]. With the burial of Patroclus and the funeral games established in his honour [xxiii], the restoration of Hector's corpse to Priam, and the burial of Hector, for which Archilles allows an armistice of eleven days [xxiv], the Iliad concludes. Immediately after the death of Hector the later legends bring the Amazons to the help of the Trojans, and their queen Penthesilea is slain by Achilles. Then appears Memnon, who is also mentioned by Homer; at the head of his Aethiopians he slays Antilochus son of Nestor, and is himself slain by Achilles. And now comes the fulfilment of the oracle given to Agamemnon at Delphi; for at a sacrificial banquet a violent quarrel arises between Achilles and Odysseus, the latter declaring craft and not valour to be the only means of capturing Troy. Soon after, in an attempt to force a way into the hostile town through the Scaean gate, or, according to later legend, at the marriage of Priam's daughter Polyxena in the temple of Thymbraean Apollo, Achilles falls slain by the arrow of Paris, directed by the god. After his burial, Thetis offers the arms of her son as a prize for the bravest of the Greek heroes, and they are adjudged to Odysseus. Thereupon his competitor, the Telamonian Ajax, slays himself. For these losses, however, the Greeks find some compensation. Acting on the admonition of Helenus, son of Priam, who had been captured by Odysseus, that Troy could not be conquered without the arrows of Heracles and the presence of a descendant of Aeacus, they fetch to the camp Philoctetes, the heir of Heracles, who had been abandoned on Lemnos, and Neoptolemus, the young son of Achilles, who had been brought up on Seyros. The latter, a worthy son of his father, slays the last ally of the Trojans, Eurypylus, the brave son of Telephus; and Philoctetes, with one of the arrows of Heracles, kills Paris. Even when the last condition of the capture of Troy, viz. the removal of the Palladium from the temple of Athene on the citadel, lias been successfully fulfilled by Diomede and Odysseus, the town can only be taken by treachery. On the advice of Athene, Epeius, son of Panopeus, builds a gigantic wooden horse, in the belly of which the bravest Greek warriorsconceal themselves under the direction of Odysseus, while the rest of the Greeks burn the camp and embark on board ship, only, however, to anchor behind Tenedos. The Trojans, streaming out of the town, find the horse, and are in doubt what to do with it. According to the later legend, they are deceived by the treacherous Sinon, a kinsman of Odysseus, who has of his own free will remained behind. He pretends that he has escaped from the death by sacrifice to which he had been doomed by the malice of Odysseus, and that the horse has been erected to expiate the robbery of the Palladium; to destroy it would be fatal to Troy, but should it be set on the citadel, Asia would conquer Europe. The fate of Laocoon (q.v.) removes the last doubt from the minds of the Trojans; the city gate being too small, they break down a portion of the wall, and draw the horse up to the citadel as a dedicatory offering for Athene. While they are giving themselves up to transports of joy, Sinon in the night opens the door of the horse. The heroes descend, and light the flames that give to the Greek fleet the preconcerted signal for its return. Thus Troy is captured; all the inhabitants are either slain or carried into slavery, and the city is destroyed. The only survivors of the royal house are Helenus, Cassandra, and Hector's wife Andromache, besides Aeneas (q.v.; for the fate of the rest see DEIPHOBUS, HECUBA, POLYDORUS, 2, POLYXENA, PRIAM, TROILUS). After Troy has been destroyed and plundered, Agamemnon and Menelaus, contrary to custom, call the drunken Greeks to an assembly in the evening. A division ensues, half siding with Menelaus in a desire to return home at once; while Agamemnon and the other half wish first to appease by sacrifice the deity of Athene, who has been offended by the outrage of the Locrian Ajax (see AIAS, 1). The army consequently sets out on its journey in two parts. Only Nestor, Diomede, Neoptolemus, Philoctetes, and Idomeneus reach home in safety; while Menelaus and Odysseus have first to undergo wanderings for many a long year. Death overtakes the Locrian Ajax on the sea, and Agamemnon immediately after his arrival home.
DREAMS	16.10%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 According to Hesiod, Dreams are the children of Night, and brothers and sisters of Death and Sleep. Like these they are represented in the Odyssey as dwelling in the far West, near Oceanus, in the neighbourhood of the sunset and the kingdom of the dead. Deceptive dreams issue from a gate of ivory, true dreams through a gate of horn. The gods above, especially Hermes, have authority over these dream-gods, and send sometimes one, sometimes another, to mankind. On some occasions they create dream-figures themselves, or appear in person under different shapes, in the chamber of the sleeper. The spirits of the departed, too, so long as they are not in the kingdom of Hades, have the power of appearing to the sleeper in dreams. These, the ideas of the Homeric age, survived in the later popular belief. Later poets call dreams the sons of Sleep, and give them separate names. Morpheus, for instance, only appears in various human forms. Ikelos, called also Phobetor, or Terrifyer, assumes the shapes of all kinds of animals as well as that of man: Phantasos only those of inanimate objects. A god of dreams was subsequently worshipped, and represented in works of art, sometimes with Sleep, sometimes alone. He was honoured especially at the seats of dream-oracles and the health-resorts of Asclepius. (See ARTEMIDORUS, 2; INCURATIO; and MANTIC ART.)
HADES, REALM OF	13.30%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 According to the belief current among the Greeks, the world of the dead, or the spacious abode of Hades, with its wide doors, was in the dark depths of the earth. In the Odyssey, its entrance and outer court are on the western side of the river Oceanus, in the ground sacred to Persephone, with its grove of barren willows and poplars. Here is the abode of the Cimmerians, veiled in darkness and cloud where the sun never shines. The soil of this court, and indeed of the lower world in general, is a meadow of asphodel, an unattractive weed of dreary aspect usually planted on graves. The actual abode of the subterranean powers is Erebos, or the impenetrable darkness. In later times entrances to the lower world were imagined in other places where there were cavernous hollows which looked as if they led into the bowels of the earth. Such places were Hermione and the promontory of Taenarum in the Peloponnese, Heraclea on the Euxine, and Cumae in Italy, where the mythical Cimmerli were also localized. The lower world of Homer is intersected by great rivers, the Styx, the Acheron (river of woe), Cocytus (river of cries), a branch of the Styx, Phlegethon and Pyriphlegethon (rivers of fire). The last two unite and join the waters; of the Acheron. In the post-Homeric legend, these rivers are represented as surrounding the infernal regions, and another river appears with them, that of Lethe, or oblivion. In the waters of Lethe the souls of the dead drink forgetfulness of their earthly existence. The lower world once conceived as separated from the upper by these rivers, the idea of a ferryman arose. This was Charon, the son of Erebos and of Nyx, a gloomy, sullen old man, who takes the souls in his boat across Acheron into the realm of shadows. The souls are brought down from the upper world by Hermes, and pay the ferryman an obolos, which was put for this purpose into the mouths of the dead. Charon has the right to refuse a passage to souls whose bodies have not been duly buried. In Homer it is the spirits themselves who refuse to receive any one to whom funeral honours have not been paid. At the gate lies the dog Cerberus, son of Typhaon and Echidna. He is a terrible monster with three heads, and mane and tail of snakes. He is friendly to the spirits who enter, but if anyone tries to got out he seizes him and holds him fast. The ghosts of the dead were in ancient times conceived as incorporeal images of their former selves, without mind or consciousness. In the Odyssey the seer Tiresias is the only one who has retained his consciousness and judgment, and this as an exceptional gift of Persephone. But they have the power of drinking the blood of animals, and having done so they recover their consciousness and power of speech. The soul therefore is not conceived as entirely annihilated. The ghosts retain the outer form of their body, and follow, but instinctively only, what was their favourite pursuit in life. Orion in Homer is still a hunter, Minos sits in judgment as when alive. Perhaps the punishments inflicted in Homer on Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus (for Ixion, the Danaides, Peirithous, and others belong to a later story) should be regarded in this light. The penalties inflicted on them in the upper world may be merely transferred by Homer to their ghostly existence. For the idea of a sensible punishment is not consistent with that of an unconscious continuance in being. It must be remembered, at the same time, that Homer several times mentions that the Erinyes punish perjurers after death. We are forced then to conclude that the ancient belief is, in this instance, found side by side with the later and generally received idea, that the dead, even without drinking blood, preserved their consciousness and power of speech. Connected with it is the notion that the have the power of influencing men's life on earth in various ways. The most ancient belief knows nothing of future rewards of the righteous, or indeed of any complete separation between the just and the unjust, or of a judgment to make the necessary awards. The judges of the dead are in the later legend Minos, Rhadamanthys, Aecus, and Triptlemus. It was a later age, too, which transferred Elysium and Tartarus to the lower world, Elysium as the abode of the blessed, and Tartarus as that of the damned. In the earlier belief these regions had nothing to do with the realm of Hades (See HADES). The name Tartarus was in later times often applied to the whole of the lower world. The ghosts of those who had lived a life of average merit were imagined as wandering on the asphodel meadow. In general it must be said that the ancient ideas of a future life were always subject to considerable changes, owing to the influence of the doctrines taught in the mysteries, and the representations of poets, philosophers, sculptors, and painters (see POLYGNOTUS). The general tendency was to multiply the terrors of Hades, especially at the gates, and in Tartarus. (For the deities cf the lower world see HADES, PERSEPHONE, and ERINYES.) The Greek beliefs on the subject found their way to Rome through the instrumentality of the poets, especially Vergil. But they did not entirely supplant the national traditions. (See ORCUS, MANIA, MANES, LARES, and LARVAe. )
HECTOR	11.42%
The eldest son of Priamus and Hecable, husband of Andromache and father of Astyanax. In Homer he is the most prominent figure among the Trojans, as Achilles is among the Greeks, and is evidently a favourite character with the poet. He has all the highest qualities of a hero, unshaken spirit, personal courage, and wise judgment; but he is also a most affectionate son, and the tenderest of fathers and husbands. This trait is most touchingly exhibited in the celebrated scene in the sixth Iliad, where he takes leave of Amdromache. Moreover, he is a favourite of the gods, especially of Apollo. He clearly foresees his own death, and the destruction of his native city; but he does not allow the thought to unnerve his courage and force for a moment. The Trojans love and revere him as the shepherd of his people; his enemies fear and respect him, and even Achilles cannot meet him without some apprehension. He is always to be found where the battle rages most furiously, and he does not hesitate to meet the chiefest heroes of the Greeks in single combat. Ajax the son of Telamon is his especial foe. In the absence of Achilles he reduces the Greeks to the direst straits, storms their defences, and sets their ships on fire. Patroclus, who opposes him, he slays with the aid of Apollo. But his destiny at length overtakes him. In spite of the entreaties of his parents and his wife, he goes out to meet Achilles in his wrath. He is suddenly seized with the agony of terror; his terrible foe chases him three times round the walls of the city; Zeus mourns for him; but when his life and that of his enemy are weighed in the balance, Hector's scale sinks, Apollo leaves him, and he falls by the spear of Achilles before the eyes of his people. Achilles flings his corpse into the dust in front of Patroclus' bier, to be devoured by dogs and birds. But Aphrodite anoints the body with ambrosia, and thus saves it from corruption. Achilles drags it three times behind his chariot round the grave of Patroclus, but Apollo preserves it from mutilation. At length, at the command of Zeus, Achilles delivers up the body to Hector's aged father, to be laid out in the court of the palace, and afterwards burnt on a funeral pyre. In later times Hector was worshipped as a hero by the inhabitants of Ilium, who offered sacrifice's at his grave.
PORPHYRY	11.41%
A Greek scholar and philosopher; in the latter capacity a votary of Neoplatonism. He was born 233 A.D. at Batamea in Syria, and received his education at Tyre, and afterwards studied grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy at Athens with Longinus, who instead of his Syrian name Malehus ("king"), gave him the Greek name Porphyrios ("clad in royal purple"). The fame of the Neoplatonist Plotinus drew him in 263 to Rome, where, after some initial opposition, he for six years enthusiastically devoted himself to the study of the Neoplatonic philosophy. Being attacked by a dangerous Mucholy, the result of overwork, he went, on the advice of Plotinus, to Sicily, whence after five years he returned to Rome, strengthened in mind and body. Here, until his death (304), he taught philosophy in the spirit of Plotinus, especially by bringing the teaching of his master within the reach of general knowledge by his clear and attractive exposition. His most important scholar was Iamblichus. A man of varied culture, Porphyry was particularly prolific as an author in the domain of philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, and music; however, most of his works, including the most important, are lost, among them a treatise against the Christians in fifteen books, which was publicly burned under Theodosius II (435). We have to lament the loss of his history of Greek philosophy before Plato in four books, of which we now possess only the (certainly uncritical) Life of Pythagords, and that not complete. Besides this there are preserved a Life of Plotinus ; a Compendium of the System of Plotinus, in the form of aphorisms; a work on abstaining from animal food (De Abstinentia) in four books, from the Pythagorean point of view, valuable for its fulness of information on philosophy, and on the religions, forms of ritual, and customs of various peoples; an Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle, and a commentary on the same, in the form of questions and answers; a compendium of his own practical philosophy in the form of a Letter to Marcella, a widow without property, and with seven children, whom Plotinus married in his old age on account of her enthusiasm for philosophy; Scholia on Homer, discussions on a number of Homeric questions, an allegorical interpretation of the Homeric story of the grotto of the Nymphs in the Odyssey; and a Commentary on the Harmonics of Ptolemy.
VERGIL	11.10%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The famous Roman poet, born 15th October, 70 B.C. at Andes, a village near Mantua, on the Mincius, where his father possessed a small estate. After receiving his early education at Cremona and (after assuming in 55 B.C. the toga of manhood) at Milan, he proceeded in 53 to Rome, where he devoted himself to rhetorical, philosophical, and physical studies. Prevented by weakness of health and bashfulness of manner from looking forward to any success as a pleader or in the service of the State, he returned home, and in the quiet of the country devoted himself to the study of the Greek poets. His meeting with the refined and poetically gifted Asinius Pollio, who in 43 took command of Transpadane Gaul as lieutenant of Antony, appears to have given him his first impetus to poetic composition. His earliest publication, his ten Eclogues, which were written in the years 43-37, were afterwards collected under the title of Bucolica ("Pastoral Poems"). These are imitations of the idyls of Theocritus ; they are, however, less natural, the pictures of country and shepherd life being interspersed throughout with references to contemporary events, to his own fortunes, and to important persons such as Octavianus, Pollio, and Cornelius Gallus, to whom the poet wished either to commend himself or to show his gratitude by his complimentary allusions. He had on several occasions been compelled by the force of circumstances to appeal to the protection and help of influential men. For instance, at the distribution of land to the veterans in 41 B.C. his own estate was appropriated, and it was only the advocacy of Pollio and of Cornelius Gallus which enabled him to recover it. In the following year, when Pollio was obliged to give place to Alfenus Varus, his property was again threatened; but by the influence of Maecenas, to whom Pollio had recommended him, amends were made him by the presentation of another estate. His fame as a poet was established by the Eclogues. Henceforward, by the liberality of noble friends, especially Octavianus and Maecenas, whom he won not merely by his art, but, like all with whom he came into contact, by his modesty and good nature, he was enabled to devote himself to his studies without fear of interruption. He lived in turns in Rome (where he possessed a house), or on his estate at Nola, or in Naples, where he mainly resided, owing to his weak health. Here, in 30 B.C. he completed the didactic poem in four books begun seven years previously, entitled the Georgics (Georgica, on agriculture), which he dedicated to Maecenas. In this, the first Latin poem of this kind, we have a masterpiece of Latin poetry. The author treats of Roman husbandry under its four chief branches, tillage (book i), horticulture (ii), the breeding of cattle (iii), the keeping of bees (iv); and handles a prosaic theme with thorough knowledge and consummate art, together with a loving enthusiasm and a fine sympathy for nature. [The work was founded mainly on the poems of Hesiod and Aratus, but also gives evidence of familiarity with writers on agriculture, as well as of independent agricultural knowledge.] Immediately after finishing the Georgics he began the epic poem of the Aeneid, which he had already promised to Octavianus. Its appearance was looked forward to by all educated Rome with extraordinary anticipation. After eleven years of unremitting labour (for to him composition in general was a laborious task) he was ready with a rough draft of the whole, and determined on a journey to Greece and Asia, intending to spend three years there in polishing his work and afterwards to devote himself entirely to philosophy. At Athens he met Octavianus (who had received in B.C. 27 the title of Augustus). The latter induced him to return home with him. Vergil consented, but fell ill, apparently from a sunstroke, at Megara. On the sea voyage his condition grew worse, and soon after landing he died at Brundisium, 21st September, 19 B.C. His remains were buried at Naples. It was the poet's original intention that, in the event of his dying before his work was completed, the twelve books of the Aeneid should be consigned to the flames. In the end, however, he bequeathed it to his friends and companions in art Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca, on condition that they should not publish any part of it. But, by the command of Augustus, they gave it to the world, after submitting the work to a careful revision, and only removing what was superfluous, while refraining from all additions of their own. In spite of its incomplete form, the work was enthusiastically welcomed on its first appearance, which had excited the highest anticipations, as a national epic of equal worth with the poems of Homer. This approval was due to its national purpose, the poetic glorification of the origin of the Roman people in the adventures of Aeneas, the founder of the Romans through his descendant Romulus, and in particular the ancestor of the imperial house of the Julii through his son Ascanius, or Iulus. In view of its purpose, little notice was taken of the weak points in the poem, which can only in part be excused by the fact that it lacks the author's finishing touches. We may, indeed, admire the art which the poet has shown in moulding together the vast mass of material collected with so much effort from the poetic and prose writings of Greeks and Romans, the excellences of the language and of the metrical form, and the beauty of many individual portions; but it cannot be denied that in artistic completeness and originality the Aeneid falls far below the Georgics. In particular, the endeavour to pourtray a real hero was beyond the capacity of the gentle, almost womanly, character of the poet; Aeneas is a true hero neither in endurance nor in action. Further, the endeavour to rival Homer is mainly limited to imitation. This is apparent not only in countless single instances, but also in the plot of the whole poem. Vergil obviously wished to unite the excellences of the Odyssey and Iliad in one work by describing in the first six books the wanderings of Aeneas, and in the last six his conflicts for the throne of Latium. In spite of many faults, which were noticed even in ancient times, Vergil has remained the most widely read, the most admired, and the most popular poet of his nation, and no other writer has exercised such an influence on the subsequent development of the Roman literature and language. This remark applies to prose as well as poetry. As was the case with the poems of Homer among the Greeks, Vergil's works, and especially the Aeneid as a national epic, were used down to the latest times for school teaching and as a basis of school grammar. They were imitated by authors, particularly by epic and didactic poets. In later times single verses and parts of verses (see CENTO) were used to compose new poems of the most varying contents; and finally the most famous scholars made them the object of their studies both in verbal and in general interpretation. Some relics of their labours are preserved in the different collections of scholia, especially in that comprehensive commentary on his collected poems which bears the name of Servius Honoratus. Of smaller value are the commentaries of the pseudo-Probus on the Bucolics and Georgics, and of Tiberius Donatus on the Aeneid. The name of Vergil was also borne in ancient times by a number of poems, which passed as the works of his youth, but can hardly any of them have been his compositions: (1) the Catalecta [or more correctly Catalepton], fourteen small poems in ambic and elegiac metre. (2) Culex ("the midge"), supposed to have been written by Vergil in his sixteenth year, a most insipid poem. (3) The Ciris, the story of the transformation of Scylla, the daughter of the Megarian king, into the bird Ciris (see NISUS), obviously composed by an imitator of Vergil and Catullus. (4) The Diroe, two bucolic poems; (a) the Diroe properly so called, imprecations on account of the loss of an estate consequent on the proscription of A.D. 41; and (b) the Lydia, lament for a lost love, both of which have as little claim to be the writings of Vergil as of the grammarian Valerius Cato, to whom also they have been ascribed. (5) The Moretum, so called from the salad which the peasant Simylus prepares in the early morning for the day's repast, a character sketch as diverting and lifelike as (6) a poem deriving its title from the Copa, or hostess, who dances and sings before her inn, inviting the passers by to enter. This last poem is in elegiac metre. [Vergil's life was written by Suetonius from earlier memoirs and memoranda. See Prof. Nettleship's Ancient Lives of Vergil, Clarendon Press, 1879.]
PINDAR	10.59%
The greatest of the Greek lyric poets, born about 622 B.C. at Cynoscephalae, near Thebes; son of the fluteplayer Dalphantus of the ancient and noble family of the Aegidae. His instruction in music, begun by his father, was continued by the musician and dithyrambic poet Lasus of Hermione and the two Boetian poetesses Myrtis and Corinna. He subsequently enjoyed the instructions of the eminent musicians Agathocles and Apollodorus at Athens. He lived chiefly at Thebes, but was renowned and honoured far and wide, among free communities as well as by tyrants and monarchs, not only for his skill in his art, but also for his profound piety. As a special favourite. of Apollo, he was given a seat in the temple at Delphi, and was regularly invited to the divine banquet called the Theoxenia. When he was condemned to a fine by his fellow citizens for glorifying the hostile city of Athens, the Athenians recouped him and accorded him the honour of proxenia, and afterwards erected a bronze statue in his honour. He was on the most intimate terms with Amyntas of Macedon, the Aleuadae in Thessaly and Arcesilaus of Cyrene, but more especially with Theron of Agrigentum and with Hieron of Syracuse at whose court he lived 476-472. He died a peaceful death 422, aged eighty, in the theatre at Argos. It is well known that, in the destruction of Thebes, Alexander the Great spared Pindar's house and descendants alone (Dion Chrysostom, Or. ii, p. 25 M; cp. Milton's third English sonnet]. As a poet, Pindar was remarkably prolific. His works, divided by the Alexandrian scholars into seventeen books, included hymns, paens, prosodia, parthenia, encomia, solia, threni, and epinicia [cp. Horace, Odes iv 2]. Of most of his poetry we have only fragments, but the four books of epinicia are nearly complete. These were songs celebrating the victors in the great national games, and sung by a chorus, sometimes at the scene of the victory, sometimes at the feast on the victor's return home. They contain fourteen Olympian, twelve Pythian, eleven Nemean, and eight Isthmian odes. Pindar's poetry is characterized by magnificence and sublimity of thought, expression, and metrical form. It is permeated by deep and warm religious sentiments resting on the popular creed, still unimpugned by sophistic teaching, and only ennobled by the impress of the poet's personality. He does not celebrate the victors by particular description; he takes his main ideas from the circumstances of the victor's home or personal position, or from the nature of the contest, and works them into a plot always artistic, though often obscured by the interlacing of the strands of thought and by the myths which are interwoven in appropriate detail. Harmony in thought, expression, and metre make the shortest and longest of his poems equally complete in themselves as works of art. Pindar's poetic language is the Ionic Homeric dialect, intermingled with Aeolic and especially with Doric forms. By some mistake his name (Pindarus Thebanus) became attached to an abstract of Homer's Iliad written in Latin hexameters for the use of schools in the 1st century A.D., and much used in the Middle Ages.
SIRENS	10.36%
The virgin daughters of Phorcys, according to later legend of Achelous and one of the Muses. In Homer there are two, in later writers three, called Ligeia, Leukosia, and Parthenope, or Aglaopheme, Molpe, and Theloeiepeia. Homer describes them as dwelling between Circe'sisle and Scylla, on an island, where they sit in a flowery meadow, surrounded by the mouldering bones of men, and with their sweet song allure and infatuate those that sail by. Whoever listens to their song and draws near them never again beholds wife and child. They know everything that happens on earth. When Odysseus sailed past, lie had stopped up the ears of his companions with wax, while he had made them bind him to the mast, that he might hear their song without danger [Od xii 41-54,153-200]. Orpheus protected the Argonauts from their spell by his own singing [Apollonius Rhodius, iv 903]. As they were only to live till some one had sailed past unmoved by their song, they cast themselves into the sea, on account either of Odysseus or of Orpheus, and were changed to sunken rocks. When the adventures of Odysseus came to be localised on the Italian and Sicilian shore, the seat of the Sirens was transferred to the neighbourhood of Naples and Sorrento, to the three rocky and uninhabited islets called the Sirenusae [the Sirenum scopuli of Vergil, Aen. v 864; cp. Statius, Silvae ii 2, 1], or to Capri, or to the Sicilian promontory of Pelorum. There they were said to have settled, after vainly searching the whole earth for the lost Persephone, their former playmate in the meadows by the Achelous; and later legend also assigned this as the time when they in part assumed a winged shape. They were represented as great birds with the heads of women, or with the upper part of the body like that of a woman, with the legs of birds, and with or without wings (see cut). At a later period they were sometimes regarded as retaining their original character of fair and cruel tempters and deceivers. But they are more generally represented as singers of the dirge for the dead, and they were hence frequently placed as an ornament on tombs; or as symbols of the magic of beauty, eloquence, and song, on which account their sculptured forms were seen on the funeral monuments of fair women and girls, and, of orators and poets: for instance, on those of Isocrates and Sophocles. [Such a Siren may be seen, beating her breast and tearing her hair, above the stele of Aristion in the Street of Tombs at Athens. The National Museum at Athens contains several examples of stone Sirens, not as reliefs, but as separate figures "in the round"; and a funeral monument of this type maybe noticed on a vase in the British Museum (Cat. C. 29), where the Siren is standing on a pillar and playing the lyre. Cp. Euripides, Hel. 169; Anthologia Palatina vii 710 and 481; with Miss Harrison's Myths of the Odyssey, pp. 146-182, and Mythology and Monuments of Athens, pp. 582-5.1
EDUCATION	6.91%
ODYSSEUS	3.97%
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His wife Penelope (or Penelopeia), daughter of Icarius (see OEBALUS), is said by later legends to have been obtained for him by her uncle Tyndareos in gratitude for counsel given by him. (See TYNDAREOS.) When his son Telemachus was still an infant, Agamemnon and Menelaus, as Homer tells us, prevailed on him to take part in the expedition against Troy. Their task was hard, as it had been predicted to him that it would be twenty years before he saw his wife and child again. Later writers relate that he was bound as one of Helen's suitors to take, part in the scheme, but tried to escape his obligation by feigning madness, and among other acts yoked a horse and an ox to his plough and so ploughed a field. When however Palamedes, who with Nestor and Menelaus was desirous of taking him to Troy, proceeded to place Telemachus in the furrow, he betrayed himself and had to accompany them to war. He led the men of Ithaca and the surrounding isles to Troy in twelve vessels. In contrast to the later legend, which represents him as a cowardly, deceitful and intriguing personage, he always appears in Homer among the noblest and most respected of the heroes, and, on account of his good qualities, he is the declared favourite of Athene. He combines in his person courage and determined perseverance with prudence, ingenuity, cunning and eloquence. Accordingly he is employed by preference as a negotiator and a spy. Thus, after the disembarkation, he goes with Menelaus into the enemy's city to demand the surrender of Helen. Again, he is among those who are despatched by the Greeks to reconcile with Agamemnon the enraged Achilles. With Diomedes, who delights in his company, he captures the spy Dolon and surprises Rhesus; with the same hero he is said by later legend to have stolen the Palladium from Troy. When Agamemnon faint-heartedly thinks of flight, he opposes this idea with the utmost decision. Everywhere he avails himself of the right time and the right place, and, where courage and cunning are needed, is ever the foremost. After Achilles' death, in the contest with Ajax, the son of Telamon, he receives the hero's arms as a recognition of his services, and by his ingenuity brings about the fall of Troy. Shortly before it, he steals into the city in the garb of a beggar, in order to reconnoitre everything there; he then climbs with the others into the wooden horse, and contrives to control the impatient and the timid alike until the decisive moment. His adventures during the return from Troy and on his arrival in his native country form the contents of the Odyssey of Homer. Immediately after the departure Odysseus is driven to the Thracian Ismarus, the city of the Cicones, and, though he plunders them, loses in a surprise seventy-two of his companions. When he is now desirous of rounding the south-east point of the Peloponnesus, the promontory of Malea, he is caught by the storm and carried in nine days to the coast of North Africa, on to the land of the Lotophagi (Lotus-eaters) whence he has to drag his companions by force to prevent their forgetting their homes for love of the sweet lotus food. Thence the voyage passes into the legendary world of the Western sea, then little known to the Greeks. Odysseus comes first to the country of the Cyclopes (q.v.), where, with twelve of his comrades, he is shut up in a cavern by Polyphemus. The monster has already devoured half of Odysseus' companions before the latter intoxicates him (fig. 1), deprives him of his one eye, and by his cunning escapes with his comrades. From this time the anger of Poseidon, on whom Polyphemus calls for revenge, pursues him and keeps him far from his country. On the island of Aeolus, the Keeper of the Winds (q.v.), he finds hospitable entertainment, and receives on his departure a leathern bag in which are inclosed all the winds except the western. The latter would carry him in nine days to the coast of Ithaca, but, whilst Odysseus is taking rest, his comrades open the bag, which they imagine to contain treasure, and the winds thus released carry them back to Aeolus. He orders them off from his island, regarding them as enemies of the gods. On coming to Telephylus, the city of Lamus, king Antiphates and his Loestrygones, cannibals of immense stature, shatter eleven of their vessels, and the twelfth is saved only by Odysseus' wariness. (See PAINTING, fig. 5.) On the island of Aeaea the sorceress Circe turns part of his crew into swine, but, with the help of Hermes, he compels her to restore them to their human shape and spends a whole year with her in pleasure and enjoyment. When his companions urge him to return home, Circe bids him first sail toward the farthest west, to the entrance into the lower world on the farther bank of Oceanus, and there question the shade of the seer Tiresias concerning his return. (See HADES, REALM OF.) From the latter he learns that it is the malice of Poseidon that prevents his return, but that nevertheless he will now attain his object if his comrades spare the cattle of Helios on the island of Thrinacia; otherwise it will only be after a long time, deprived of all his comrades and on a foreign shit, that he will reach his home. Odysseus then returns to the isle of Circe and sets out on his homeward voyage, supplied by her with valuable directions and a favouring wind. Passing the isles of the Sirens (q.v.) and sailing through Scylla and Charybdis (q.v.), he reaches the island of Thrinacia, where he is compelled to land by his comrades. They are there detained for a month by contrary winds; at length his comrades, overcome by hunger, in spite of the oath they have sworn to him, slaughter, during his absence, the finest of the cattle of Helios. Scarcely are they once more at sea, when a terrible storm breaks forth, and Zeus splits the ship in twain with a flash of lightning, as a penalty for the offence. All perish except Odysseus, who clings to the mast and keel, and is carried back by the waves to Scylla and Charybdis, and after nine days reaches the island of Ogygia, the abode of the nymph Calypso, daughter of Atlas. For seven years he dwells here with the nymph, who promises him immortality and eternal youth, if he will consent to remain with her and be her husband. But the yearning for his wife and home make him proof against her snares. All the day long he sits on the shore gazing through his tears across the broad sea; fain would he catch a glimpse, were it only of the rising smoke of his home, and thereafter die. So his protectress, Athene, during Poseidon's absence, prevails on Zeus in an assembly of the gods to decree his return, and to send Hermes to order Calypso to release him. Borne on a raft of his own building, he comes in eighteen days near to Scheria, the island of the Phaeacians, when Poseidon catches sight of him and shatters his raft in pieces. However, with the aid of the veil of Ino Leucothea (q.v.), he reaches land in safety and meets with Nausicaa, the king's daughter, who conducts him into the Phaeacian city before her parents Alcinous (q.v.) and Arete. He receives the most hospitable treatment, and is then brought loaded with presents by the Phaeacians on board one of their marvellous vessels to his country, which he reaches after twenty years' absence, while asleep. He arrives just in time to ward off the disaster that is threatening his house. After his mother Anticlea had died of grief for her son, and the old Laertes had retired to his country estate in mourning, more than a hundred noble youths of Ithaca and the surrounding isles had appeared as suitors for the hand of the fair and chaste Penelope, had persecuted Telemachus, who was now growing up to manhood, and were wasting the substance of the absent Odysseus. Penelope had demanded a respite from making her decision until she had finished weaving a shroud intended for her father-in-law, and every night unravelled the work of the day. In the fourth year one of her attendants betrayed the secret; she had to complete the garment, and when urged to make her decision promised to choose the man who should win in a shooting match with Odysseus bow, hoping that none of the wooers would be able even so much as to bend it. Just before the day of trial, Odysseus lands on the island disguised by Athena as a beggar. He betakes himself to the honest swineherd Eumoeus, one of the few retainers who have remained true to him, who receives his master, whom he fails to recognise, in a hospitable manner. To the same spot Athene brings Telemachus, who has returned in safety, in spite of the plots of the suitors from a journey to Nestor at Pylus and Menelaus and Helen in Sparta. Hereupon Odysseus makes himself known and, together with his son and retainer, concerts his plan of revenge. In the shape of a beggar he betakes himself to the house, where he manfully controls his anger at the arrogance of the suitors which is displayed towards himself, and his emotion on meeting Penelope. Next day the shooting match takes place. This involves shooting through the handles of twelve axes with the bow of Eurytus (q.v.), which the latter's son Iphitus had once presented to the young Odysseus. None of the suitors can bend the bow, and so Odysseus takes hold of it, and bends it in an instant, thus achieving the master-shot. Supported by Telemachus, Eumaeus, and the herdsman Philcetius, and with the aiding presence of Athens, he shoots first the insolent Antinous, and then the other suitors. He next makes himself known to Penelope, who has meanwhile fallen into a deep sleep, and visits his old father. In the meantime the relatives of the murdered suitors have taken up arms, but Athene, in the form of Mentor (q.v.) brings about a reconciliation. The only hint of Odysseus' end in Homer is in the prophecy of Tiresias, that in a calm old age a peaceful death will come upon him from the sea. In later poetry Telegonus, the son of Odysseus by Circe, is sent forth by his mother to seek out his father. He lands at Ithaca, and plunders the island: Odysseus proceeds to meet him, is wounded by him with a poisonous sting-ray, given by Circe to her son as a spear-point, and dies a painfal death, which thus comes "from the sea." On Telegonus discovering that he has killed his father, he carries the dead body home with him, together with Penelope and Telemachus, and there the latter live a life of immortality, Telemachus becoming husband of Circe, and Telegonus of Penelope. Besides Telegonus, the legend told of two sons of Odysseus by Circe, named Agrius and Latinus, who were said to have reigned over the Etruscans. Telegonus in particular was regarded by the Romans as the founder of Tusculum [Ovid, Fasti, iii 92], and Praeneste [Horace, Odes iii 29, 8]. In later times the adventures of Odysseus were transferred as a whole to the coast of Italy: the promontory of Circeii was regarded as the abode of Circe, Formiae as the city of the Laestrygones. Near Surrentum was found the island of the Sirens; near Cape Lacinium that of Calypso, while near to Sicily were the isle of Aeolus, Scylla, and Charybdis, and, on the Sicilian shore, the Cyclopes. Odysseus is generally represented as a bearded man, wearing a semi-oval cap like that of a Greek sailor. (See fig. 1.)
MOSAICS	3.69%
PAINTING	1.79%