Dictionary
POLYGNOTUS	100.00%
PAUSON	100.00%
A Greek painter whom Aristotle contrasts with Polygnotus in terms implying that the former was a caricaturist (Poetics 2 Section 2). Elsewhere Aristotle says that young people should not look at the pictures of Pauson, but rather at those of Polygnotus or of any other "ethical" artist (Politics viii 5 Section 7). He is sometimes identified with the Pauson who is mentioned with contempt by Aristophanes (Ach. 854, Thesm. 948, and Plutus, 602).] [J. E. S.]
ZEUXIS	40.69%
A celebrated Greek painter of the Ionic school, a contemporary of Parrhasius; he was a native of Heraclea in South Italy, and lived till about 400 B.C. at different places in Greece, at last, as it appears, settling in Ephesus. According to the accounts of his works which have been preserved, in contrast to the great mural painter, Polygnotus, he specially devoted himself to painting on panels. He endeavoured above all things to make his subjects attractive by investing them with the charm of novelty and grace. He also has the merit of having further improved the distribution of light and shade, introduced by his elder comtemporaries. Specially celebrated was his picture of Helen, painted for the temple of Hera on the Lacinian promontory [Cicero, De Invent. ii 1 Section 1]. He aimed at the highest degree of illusion. As is well known, he is said to have painted grapes so naturally that the birds flew to peck at them [Pliny, N. H. xxxv 61-66]. (Cp. PARRHASIUS.)
STOA	25.06%
The Greek term for a colonnade, such as those built outside or inside temples, around dwelling-houses, gymnasia, and market-places. They were also set up separately as ornaments of the streets and open places. The simplest form is that of a roofed colonnade, with a wall on one side, which was often decorated with paintings. Thus in the market-place at Athens the stoa poecile (the Painted Colonnade) was decorated with Polygnotus' representations of the destruction of Troy, the fight of the Athenians with the Amazons, and the battles of Marathon and (Enoe. The stoa basileios, also in the market-place, in which the archon basileus sat as judge, was probably divided longitudinally into three parts by two rows of column, and was the pattern for the Roman basilica (q.v.).-Zeno of Citium taught in the stoa poecile, and his adherents accordingly obtained the name of Stoics. Among the Romans similar colonnades attached to other buildings, or built out in the open, were called porticus. They were named from the neighbouring edifices (e.g. porticus Concordioe, close to the temple of Concord); from their builders (e.g. porticus Pompeia); also from the pictures set up in them (e.g. porticus Argonautarum); and from the business chiefly carried on in them, as porticus Argentaria, the hall of the money-changers. These halls were the chief places for public intercourse among the Greeks and Romans.
PAINTING	19.70%
HADES, REALM OF	12.20%
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. )