TFBT: Centaurs

This is a continuation of the series of papers generated by the continuing conversations of WilliamMoulton2 and Maya M.  This paper discusses the apotheosis of Heracles. 

After Heracles was poisoned with a vest dipped in hydra venom, what saved him from the fate of Chiron?  

 Let’s start with your theory about a plot against the centaurs. You know if you consider the centaurs just another tribe among the many early tribal people (Graves said a mountain tribe) they suffered a surprising number of death via Heracles arrows. Another big slayer of our four-footed cousins was Theseus the wanna-be and famous imitator of Heracles.   [i]You know H&T were monster slayers. Their job was to slay monsters, tame the wilderness, chase away chaos and creepy things in the woods in order that you and I might create the “polis” . Maybe the centaurs are monsters.   

As to why Heracles didn’t suffer the same fate as Chiron when the Hydra’s venom poisoned his flesh… well this is tacky, but Chiron was a wimp! Admittedly both ditched their mortal bodies in favor of a more “heavenly” one. Heracles didn’t have much choice since he’d ripped off large portions of his skin in attempting to remove the vest. Chiron on the other hand got shot, but come on so did Hades and Hera.[ii] Hera whined about it when playing the pity card (unsuccessfully) and stoic Hades never would have mentioned it.[iii]    Those sources that mention Chiron's death attribute it to a poisoned Heracles' arrow which either directly killed him or made him suffer so much that he chose death himself. (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca) Maybe we were too harsh on poor Chiron.   

Apparently, centaurs, all centaurs, were considered monsters in Greek mythology, and monsters were scheduled to be exterminated by heroes. The two Centaurs for which it was impossible to invent any credible justification to be killed - Pholus and Chiron, were finished off by Heracles, a hero known for "accidentally" causing someone's death about once per month. Poor luck? [iv]Aeschylus seems to share the opinion that Chiron's death is a result of Olympian plan, and adds an additional layer of scheming. At the end of the Prometheus Bound, angry Zeus pledges that he will release Prometheus "only when another immortal offers himself to die". Some scholars see here a metaphor for "never", similar to our expressions "when pattens produce blossoms", "in the cuckoo's summer" (i.e. when the cuckoo sings at summertime) and "at willow's Friday" (i.e. when Palm Sunday happens to be on Friday). There seemed no hope of finding  an ancient source supporting the  hypothesis that the "accidental" killing of Pholus and wounding of Chiron was a result of divine plot, but here it is, in Diodorus Siculus: "Pholus the Centaur, from whom the neighboring mountain came to be called Pholoê, and receiving Heracles with the courtesies due to a guest he opened for him a jar of wine which had been buried in the earth. This jar, the writers of myths relate, had of old been left with a certain Centaur by Dionysus, who had given him orders only to open it when Heracles should come to that place. And so, four generation after that time, when Heracles was being entertained as a guest, Pholus recalled the orders of Dionysus..."  He fulfilled the orders, and the gates of Hell opened. 

 Let's see when centaurs appear in other myths:
- The wedding of Hippodamia and the battle of Lapiths with the Centaurs.  The Centaur-leader  Eurytion, in a drunken state, outrage the bride her groom Peirithos and best man Theseus respond.  Homer (Iliad 1:268) says that the Centaurs were "destroyed" in the battle. Theoi.com says that these Centaurs and the Lapiths' adversaries were different tribes, residing resp. in Peloponnese and on Mount Pelion. Chiron saves Peleus from other Centaurs preparing to kill him and gives him back his sword. Homer already states that Peirithos, the king of the Lapiths, chased his enemies away from Mount Pelion.  This, however, could be earlier than the battle of Heracles.

- Nessus carries Deianira and is killed by Heracles.
- Chiron, after bringing up many heroes and hosting Peleus' wedding, dies as a result of Heracles' poisoned arrow. However, his death comes many years after the injury (his last student Achilles is not even born by the time of the injury). The death of the only immortal Centaur makes us speculate that all his mortal fellow tribesmen may have already gone. And this is close to the "end of time" of mythology. As far as I know, no one hero returning from the Trojan War has encountered a Centaur. Not even Odysseus, who claims to have had business with all other fabulous creatures.   

It is clear from these notices that already from the early Archaic Age onwards the Centaurs were continually marginalized.  (J.N. Bremmer in Laura Feldt (Ed.), Wilderness in Mythology and Religion). "...Centaurs were no longer perceived as more or less human opponents but more and more as monsters that had to be eradicated, even the more civilized ones. The annihilation of the Centaurs shows that, in the rationalizing fifth century BC, the ideas of the Greeks about their mountains had considerably changed. They may have remained dangerous territory, but the mountains were no longer inhabited by creatures symbolizing their 'wild' nature."

 

There is a theory that as time progressed depictions of the Gigantomachy and Centauromachy began to represent more and more in the minds of the Greeks the war against "Barbarians". Initially those battles represent the gods and heroes respectively defeating chaos and ordering the world. Once that's done you've got to defeat those rowdy Persians.

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[i] Oddly, Heracles and Theseus were a few of the heroes not raised by Chiron.

[ii] Slater (1968) 347-50

[iii] Iliad 5.392-94

[iv] (Maya M.  “You mentioned once that you don't believe Dionysus passed by Ariadne just by chance. I'd propose "Bill's Law": In myth, there is no such thing as coincidence. “  WilliamMoulton2 “Thank you, but Bill’s Law of Coincidence is Myth is nothing more than Maya’s Law of Scholium as Saviors”.)

TFBT: The Dragon Slayer, the Traitoress and Dragon

There is a darker side to the Aarne-Thompson folktale type 300 – Dragon Slayer.  This is when the Princess actively betrays her doomed family.  For example; the Hero Theseus and other youths were sent to Crete  as human sacrifice for the Minotaur.  The Minoan Princess Ariadne fell in love with him, betrayed her country, helped him defeat the national monster (which happened to be her half-brother) and they eloped.  In route home to Athens he abandoned her on the island of Naxos.  The god Dionysus (her second cousin) just happen to be passing by heard her lament, fell in love, made her his wife, and raised her among the immortals Olympus.  (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 20. 3)      

As I pondered this variation on AT-300, Medea came to mind.  She was the Colchian princess who betrayed her country, helped Jason (and the Argonauts) defeat the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece.  He was born from the blood of Typhon split upon the Earth.  Medea and Jason steal the fleece and elope, he abandons her and she ascends to heaven in a winged chariot sent by the sun-god Helios.   

Princess Scylla fell in love with King Minos while he assaulted her father’s kingdom.  For love of Minos she plucks from her father’s head the sacred lock of purple hair that protects them.   Minos abandons her and the gods turn Scylla into a sea-bird.  (Metamorphoses, Book 8)    

So the darker side of AT-300 would be: A princess betrays her country and helps the hero defeat the male magical element protecting the country.   The hero abandons her and the gods intervene on her behalf.   Betraying your father doesn’t seem like a really good idea if you are a princess in Ancient Greek mythology. 

 

 

 

TFBT; Oedipus at Colonus; A Tale of Old men

With great joy, I continue my on-line class from Harvard; The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty-Four Hours”.  Even on the second reading I still enjoy the textbook by the same name. This session we studied Oedipus.  Professor Nagy describes the hero in “Oedipus at Colonus” by Sophocles as;

“seeking to be purified of the unholy pollution he has already experienced in his most wretched life.” ( HSH 18.9)

You know Oedipus.  He killed the Sphinx with the answer to a riddle.  He killed his dad and married his mother.  Things went downhill from there.  Considering the unthinkable crimes and tragedy that hounded Oedipus,  Professor Nagy’s description above kindly sidesteps the issue of how much Oedipus knew or not of what he did.  For at this point in the cycle of myths surrounding Oedipus, he is “blind old man”, “care worn”, exiled by his sons, cast out by his city of Thebes, doomed  to “wander, an outcast and a beggar evermore” in “filthy clothing.”  He arrives at Colonus a suburb of Athens hoping to make peace with the goddesses of vengeance who have hounded him these many years and to find a resting place.  The place he came to is described   as;

this land of fine horses you have come to earth’s fairest home, the shining Colonus. Here the nightingale, a constant guest, trills her clear note under the trees of green glades, dwelling amid the wine-dark ivy and the god’s inviolate foliage, rich in berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by the wind of any storm. Here the reveler Dionysus ever walks the ground,  companion of  the nymphs that nursed him. And, fed on heavenly dew, the narcissus blooms day by day with its fair clusters; it is the ancient garland of the Great Goddesses.  And the crocus blooms with a golden gleam. Nor do the ever- flowing springs diminish, from which the waters of Cephisus wander, and each day with pure  current it moves over the plains of the land’s swelling bosom, making things fertile. Nor have the choruses of the Muses shunned this place, nor Aphrodite of the golden rein. 

In addition to the shrine to the Hero Colonus, this is the home of the same goddess of vengeance Oedipus is trying to escape; the Eumenides. 

The lame old man explains to the local ruler,  King Theseus; “ I come to donate this wretched body of mine   as a gift to you   - a gift that seems not to be important when you look at it. But it has   benefits coming out from it that have more power than any form of beauty.”  Professor Nagy continual leads us in discussions about how a peaceful fallen Hero is connected to the fertility of the land in which he lays.

All the ancient tragedies were performed at a festival in Athens.  Now Sophocles is no fool.  He and his fellow playwrights wrote for the mob.  In their plays, Athens is the ideal city state, often set during the reign of the most ideal of King, Theseus.  Theseus in the plays is portrayed as heroic, righteous and almost saintly. 

The King quickly assures Oedipus of proper burial ceremonies.  So the purification ceremonies begin.  Then Oedipus’ maternal uncle (and brother-in-law) arrives;

Gentlemen, noble dwellers in this land, I see from your eyes that a sudden fear has troubled you at my coming;   but do not shrink back from me, and let no bad utterance   escape you. I am here with no thought of force; I am old, and I know that the  to which I have come is mighty, if any in Hellas has might.   No, I have been sent, aged as I am, to plead with this man to return with me to the land of Kadmos ( He means Thebes.  Cadmus is the founder of Thebes). 

To which Oedipus knowingly replies “You have come to get me, not to bring me to my home but to plant me near your borders, so that your city might escape uninjured by evils from this land”. 

At which point, the “old”, “aged” perpetual regent of Thebes makes it clear, that he is taking Oedipus home dead or alive.   How old is Creon at this point?  He is clearly a generation older than “blind old”, “care worn” Oedipus.  Creon  saw all his sister’s grandchildren grow to maturity and will shortly be the regent for his sister’s great-grandson!

Theseus saves the day, the ceremony continues, most of the celebrants (and the audience)  are sent away, “ He of the Earth Below made a thunderclap.” and theoretically Mother Earth opens and  with loving arms welcomes the weary hero home.  A messenger appears on stage shortly thereafter to tell the citizens of Athens what happen.  In describing the death scene the messenger says of Oedipus,

 “he stopped still at one place where paths were leading in many directions, ₁₅₉₃ near the Hollow Crater, which was where Theseus and Peirithoos had made their faithful covenant lasting forever.”   

The line strikes me strange because in the storyline, King Theseus and his best friend Peirithoos haven’t made this pact yet.  This is something King Theseus will do later, when he is an old man.  Many sources say around age fifty, both men found themselves bachelors again and determined that the only suitable wives would be Helen for Theseus and Persephone for Peirithoos.  Helen, not even a teenager was easily snatched up and left with Theseus’ mother for safe keeping.  Then off to Hades for Persephone.  Peirithoos never returned. By the time Theseus got home (thanks to Heracles)  the Spartans had rescued princess Helen, overthrown Theseus and sent the old man into exile.   (Fabulae 79 by Hyginus)

This is a lot of aged male characters in exile.  Oedipus at Colonus hit the stage, the year father Sophocles died.  Here is what Leonard Meullner and Gregory Nagy had to say about the playwright in lecture for 19.CD22.1x 

“ Sophocles dies in his nineties, he lives to a ripe old age -- he is so respected by his city, he did just about everything that you would ever want to be able to do in Athens. He realized all his ambitions. He was a general. He was a statesman, besides being a performer in tragedies, -the greatest master of tragedy and a performer in tragedy. He did everything. And then after he died, his people did transform him, so to speak, into a cult hero.  And he was worshipped as a cult hero.

Just as Oedipus was at Colonus.

 

 

 

 

 

TFBT: Helen's Handmaiden

Aethra was there when Paris met Helen.  She was there when the sword fell from Menelaus' hand and Helen welcomed back into her bossom.  Aethra raised Helen, raised Theseus and raised her own great-grandson.  She was a princess in Greece and a slave in Asia Minor.  Like Nestor she witnessed three generations of men come and go upon the face of the other.

The story of Aethra starts as such stories often do with a woman being carried away in a chariot pulled by winged horses.  On the far left out of view are her grandfather Oenomaus and his charioteer Myrtilus in pursuit of her grandparents Pelops and Hippomada.  These sorts of contests usually don’t end well for someone.  If you wonder where Pelops charioteer is; Sphairos falls into the sea at Lesbos and drowns in route to the contest.[i]  Poseidon’s favorite; Pelops finally won with a little help advice.  Oddly the winning scheme didn't come from Aphrodite, the goddess of Love.  The ,  as it ends up, bad advice came  from Sphairos’ ghost.  Aethra’s grandparents go on to raise myriad sons.  Of particular note in Aethra’s life were her uncles Hippachlas and Trozeon along with her father Pittheous.  For a family with such a remarkable large number of boys, those sons were remarkable in their inability to raise legitimate, un-cursed male heirs.  Pittheus married his niece Alcmene (a common practice in Greek mythology). On her father’s side Alcmene was a niece of the legendary Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus, tamer of the winged horse Pegasus.  

An image on a vase showing Aethra’s rescue by her grandsons show a small woman, but maybe the weight of 90 years and decades of slavery weighed upon her shoulder.  Her father was the king of Hyperea and Anthea, which he merged into a new city, called Trozeon in honor of his brother.  In later years there would be a temple to Artemis the Savior.  In this temple are altars to the gods said to rule under the earth. It is here that they say Semele was brought out of Hell by Dionysus, and that Heracles dragged up the Hound of Hell.  (Pausanias) So surely she was once a beautiful princess made more beautiful by the fact that she was her father’s sole heir.  (Her sister Henioche doesn’t seem to get mentioned much.)  As a matter of fact, Bellerphon, the hero made famous by also riding about on the winged horse Pegasus, courted and became engaged to Aethra.  But prior to the marriage he “accidently” killed a kinsman and went into exile. 

At which point along comes King Aegeus of Athens. On his way home from Delphi, he stopped at Troezen, a city southwest of Athens.  Pittheus got Aegeus drunk on unmixed wine and put him to bed with Aethra. The goddess Athena; the patroness of Athens sent Aethra a dream.  Following the instructions of Athena, Aethra left the sleeping Aegeus and waded across to the island of Sphairia that lay close to Troezen’ s shore. There she poured a libation to Cillus the charioteer of Pelops, whose real name, according to a Troezenian tradition, was Sphaerus. His tomb was shown near the town of Cilla in the neighborhood of the temple of Apollo. (Paus. v. 10. § 2; Strab. xiii. p. 613.) As though she was the eponymous nymph of the place.  Aethra bedded the sea-god Poseidon.  Still in the eponymous mode Aethra named the island Sphaera Hiera (sacred) and had a temple built there to the goddess Athena Apaturia.  She established the custom in Troezen that girls dedicated their girdles to Athena when they got married.   Now Aethra’s son was heir to the thrones of Troezen, Athens and the islands of Sphairia and Kalavria.[ii]

When the product of those unions, Theseus, reached maturity, Aethra showed him a huge rock.  It served as a primitive altar to Strong Zeus.  There the tokens his mortal father left behind were hidden; the proof of Theseus’s birthright.   At some point Aethra marries her Uncle Hippalcus.  He was one of the Argonauts.    The product of that marriage was "ox-eyed" Clymene, thus half-sister to Theseus and a distant relative to Menelaus. ^[iii] In Euripides’ Suppliants it is Aethra that intercedes on behalf of the unburied and convinces Theseus to enter the wars at Thebes on the side of righteousness. 

Aethra reappears in the mythic storyline thirty years later Theseus and his best friend Peirithous decided they needed new wives.  They decided they deserved daughters of Zeus.  On the left sans winged chariot, are the two heroes carrying off Helen daughter of Tyndareus, the most beautiful woman every born on earth.  Also in the picture is Corone, the eponymous nymph of Messenia.  For Perithous’ bride they chose Persephone, Queen of the Dead.  Clearly there was some unmixed wine involved in this decision making.  While they were gone on this expedition, Theseus handed the under-age Helen off to his mother Aethra’s care. And set them up in Ancient Aphidna, which was one of the twelve ancient towns of Attica, then ruled by earth-born Aphidnus.  Then off to Hades they went.  The involvement of Persephone once again invokes the image of a woman being carried off in a chariot drown by winged horses, these particular horses being black ones flying up out of the chasm that formed beneath the girl’s feet.  As, I said, such races don’t end up well of someone.  Theseus and Peirithous spent a lot longer time in Hades that expected.  

As Persephone spent some time in the realm of Hades, called Hades, so Helen spent time in the realm of King Aphidnus named Aphidna.  Here Aethra began her Hecate-like existence as foster-mother, companion and slave to Helen.  Just as Dionysus had Polymnus to point out the entrance to Hades in Troezen, so Helen’s brothers had Decelme to show where their sister was hidden.  When Aphidna fell her brothers brought Helen back to Sparta, with Theseus’s mother Aethra and a sister of Peirithous as slaves. Along with Aethra’s daughter Clymene.[iv]  According to Pausanias’ description of the chest of Cypselus [Pausanias 5.19.3] “Aethra, the daughter of Pittheus, lies thrown to the ground under the feet at Helen. She is clothed in black, and the inscription upon the group is an hexameter line with the addition of a single word: The sons of Tyndareus are carrying of Helen, and are dragging Aethra from Athens”

She reappears to our view when Alexander arrives at Sparta. Ovid quotes Helen says” Æthra and Clymene, my faithful companions and counselors. “ and suggests they aided in her elopement.  (P. Ovidius Naso, The Epistles of Ovid).  Aethra’s grandson Acamas and his brother  Demophoon were sent,  prior to the launch of  the “thousand ships”  to demand the surrender of Helen.  During his stay at Troy Acamas won the affection of Laodice, daughter of Priam and begot by her a son, Munitus.  Munitus was raised by his great-grandmother Aethra .[v]  Homer mentioned Aethra and Clymene accompanying Helen to the Scaean Gate [Iliad 3.139) Visit here for more on Helen. 

Pausanias’ mentioned that when Troy fell, Aethra with a shaven head, snuck to the Greek camp, and was recognized by her grandsons Demophoon and Acamas.  With his sister-in-law’s approval Agamemnon released Aethra and her daughter from bondage (Paus. x. 25.7-8)   Munitus, was killed by the bite of a snake while hunting at Olynthus in Thrace.( Parthenius of  Nicaea) while his family visited the Bisaltae on the lower reaches of the Strymon River.  Surely he too was buried with heroic honors. [vi]

Aethra and her daughter Clymene returned to Athens in triumph accompanied by Menestheus leader of the Athenians at Troy . Her grandson Acamas accepted the crown of Athens shortly thereafter.

( Corone tries to free Helen carried by Theseus. On the left side Pirithous, pot by Euthymides, 2308 Munich,  Pelops and Hippodamia from Charles Mills Gayley, The Classic Myths in English Literature and in Art (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1893) 171)

An updated version of this article can be found at Hour 25.  http://hour25.heroesx.chs.harvard.edu/?p=12882

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i] Cillas, the charioteer of Pelops, though Troezenius gives his name as Sphaerus, died on the way to Pisa, and appeared to Pelops by night, begging that he might be duly buried. Pelops took pity on him and burnt* his body with all ceremony, raised a huge mound in his honor, and built a chapel to the Cillean Apollo near it. He also named a town after him. This dutiful attention did not go unrewarded. Cillas appeared to Pelops again, and thanked him for all he had done, and to Cillas also he is said to have owed the information by which he was able to overthrow Oenomaus in the famous chariot race which won him the hand of Hippodamia. 

 Greek and Roman Ghost Stories by Lacy Collison-Morley, St. John’s College, Oxford. 

[ii] Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 33. 1 :
"The Troezenians possess islands, one of which is near the mainland, and it is possible to wade across the channel. This was formerly called Sphairia . . . In it is the tomb of Sphairos, who, they say, was charioteer to Pelops." Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 33. 1

[iii] Homer, Iliad, 3. 144

[iv] http://anuandong.blogspot.com/2011/09/acropolis-at-athens-complete-edition-11.html

[v] Dictionary of Greek and roman biography.

[vi] Surely he was buried with heroic honors like the Argonaut Mopsus bitten by a serpent born of Medusa blood in Libya (Argonautica I, 65-68 and 1502-1536);   the Arcadian King Aepytis. He is said to have been killed during the chase on Mount Sepia by the bite of a venomous snake and mentioned by Homer ( Pausanias, viii. 4. § 4, 16. § 2), or Canopus, the helmsman of Menelaus, who on his return from Troy died in Egypt, in consequence of the bite of a snake, and was buried by Menelaus on the site of the town of Canobus, which derived its name from him. (Strab. xvii. p. 801;.)  or the child Opheltes  crushed by a serpent when his nurse looked for water and afterwards honored as Archemoros with the Nemean games.