In ancient Greek religion and mythology , Achelous (also Acheloos or Acheloios ) ( / ˌ æ k ɪ ˈ l oʊ . ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Ἀχελώϊος, and later Ἀχελῷος , Akhelôios ) was the god associated with the Achelous River , the largest river in Greece. According to Hesiod , he was the son of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys . He was also said to be the father of the Sirens , several nymphs, and other offspring.
154-507: Achelous was able to change his shape, and in the form of a bull, he wrestled Heracles for the right to marry Deianeira , but lost. He was also involved in the legend of the Argive hero Alcmaeon . The name Ἀχελώϊος is possibly pre-Greek, its meaning is not entirely certain. Recent arguments suggest it is Semitic in origin, with the initial Αχ- stemming from the Akkadian aḫu ("bank of
308-466: A funeral pyre on Mount Oeta , which Poeas , father of Philoctetes , lights. As his body burns, only his immortal side is left. Through Zeus's apotheosis , Heracles rises to Olympus as he dies. No one but Heracles's friend Philoctetes ( Poeas in some versions) would light his funeral pyre (in an alternative version, it is Iolaus who lights the pyre). For this action, Philoctetes or Poeas received Heracles's bow and arrows, which were later needed by
462-656: A branch in Thebes, and his reference to 'my ancestors' in Pythian 5 could have been spoken on behalf of both Arcesilas and himself – he may have used this ambivalence to establish a personal link with his patrons. He was possibly the Theban proxenos or consul for Aegina and/or Molossia , as indicated in another of his odes, Nemean 7, in which he glorifies Neoptolemus , a national hero of Aegina and Molossia. According to tradition, Neoptolemus died disgracefully in
616-575: A bull, battling with Heracles for Deianeira, was apparently told as early as the 7th century BC, in a lost poem by the Greek poet Archilochus , while according to a summary of a lost poem by the early 5th-century BC Greek poet Pindar , during the battle, Heracles broke off one of Achelous's bull-horns, and the river-god was able to get his horn back by trading it for a horn from Amalthea . Sophocles , in his play Women of Trachis (c. 450–425 BC), has Deianeira tell her story, how Achelous wooed her in
770-455: A campaign of smears against him – possibly the poets Simonides and his nephew Bacchylides . Pindar's original treatment of narrative myth, often relating events in reverse chronological order, is said to have been a favourite target for criticism. Simonides was known to charge high fees for his work and Pindar is said to have alluded to this in Isthmian 2 , where he refers to
924-464: A cave. When he asked whether she knew anything about his horses, she answered, that they were in her own possession, but that she would not give them up, unless he would consent to stay with her for a time. Heracles accepted the request, and became by her the father of Agathyrsus , Gelonus , and Scythes . The last of them became king of the Scythians, according to his father's arrangement, because he
1078-433: A consequence of Heracles's refusal to live a simple life, as offered by Amphitryon . It was indicated that he preferred the extravagant violence of the heroic life and that its ghosts eventually manifested in his madness and that the hallucinatory visions defined Heracles's character. A major factor in the well-known tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera , wife of Zeus , had for him. Heracles
1232-483: A dedication representing the fight of Heracles with Achelous. Achelous' wrestling bout with Heracles was the subject of several vase-paintings, from as early as the second quarter of the sixth century BC, and in most of these vases, Heracles can be seen grabbing Achelous by his single horn. Possibly the earliest version of the scene (c. 600–560 BC) appears on the figure frieze of a Middle Corinthian kylix cup (Brussels A1374), which depicts Heracles wrestling with
1386-402: A demeaning role. He seems indifferent to the intellectual reforms that were shaping the theology of the times. Thus an eclipse is not a mere physical effect, as contemplated by early thinkers such as Thales , Anaximander and Heraclitus , nor was it even a subject for bold wonder, as it was for an earlier poet, Archilochus ; instead Pindar treated an eclipse as a portent of evil. Gods are
1540-451: A festival at Argos . His ashes were taken back home to Thebes by his musically gifted daughters, Eumetis and Protomache. One of Pindar's female relatives claimed that he dictated some verses to her in honour of Persephone after he had been dead for several days. Some of Pindar's verses were inscribed in letters of gold on a temple wall in Lindos , Rhodes. At Delphi, where he had been elected
1694-529: A fight with priests at the temple in Delphi over their share of some sacrificial meat. Pindar diplomatically glosses over this and concludes mysteriously with an earnest protestation of innocence – "But shall my heart never admit that I with words none can redeem dishonoured Neoptolemus". Possibly he was responding to anger among Aeginetans and/or Molossians over his portrayal of Neoptolemus in an earlier poem, Paean 6 , which had been commissioned by
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#17327655882301848-580: A fit of madness, induced by Hera, Heracles killed his children and Megara. After his madness had been cured with hellebore by Antikyreus, the founder of Antikyra , he realized what he had done and fled to the Oracle of Delphi . Unbeknownst to him, the Oracle was guided by Hera. He was directed to serve King Eurystheus for ten years and perform any task Eurystheus required of him. Eurystheus decided to give Heracles ten labours, but after completing them, Heracles
2002-618: A fragment of a poem, possibly from the Epic tradition , which mentions "the waters of silver-eddying Achelous" being the source of "the whole sea". A late-5th-century BC commentary on Orphic theogony, preserved by the Derveni Papyrus , quotes a poetic fragment calling the rivers the "sinews of Achelous". The same Oxyrhynchus Papyrus also quotes ancient verses which apparently equated Achelous and Oceanus, and that "many people sacrifice to Achelois before sacrificing to Demeter, since Acheloios
2156-784: A god of water primarily depicted as a man-faced bull, have roots in Old Europe in the Bronze Age . After the disappearance of many Old European cultures, the traditions traveled to the Near East at the beginning of 4th millennium BC ( Ubaid period ), and finally migrated to Greece, Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia with itinerant sea-folk during the Late Bronze Age through the Orientalizing period . Although no single cult of Achelous persisted throughout all of these generations,
2310-546: A god, and having finally reconciled with Hera, he got her daughter Hebe as his fourth and final wife. They had two sons together, Alexiares and Anicetus . When Typhon attacked Olympus, all gods transformed into animals and ran terrified to Egypt; Heracles became a fawn. In the Dialogues of the Gods , a satirical work by Lucian of Samosata , Heracles and another recently deified mortal, Asclepius , fight over which gets
2464-411: A golden veil Hesione had made. Telamon took Hesione as a war prize and they had a son, Teucer . After Heracles had performed his Labours, gods told him that before he passed into the company of the gods, he should create a colony at Sardinia and make his sons, whom he had with the daughters of Thespius , the leaders of the settlement. When his sons became adults, he sent them together with Iolaus to
2618-435: A high cliff into the sea. But Achelous prayed to Poseidon to save her, and in answer Poseidon transformed the girl into an island. From at least as early as Homer , Achelous was apparently considered to be an important divinity throughout Greece. Calling Achelous "king", Homer mentions Achelous (along with Oceanus) as a mighty river, using him as a measure of the strength of (the even mightier) Zeus: The clear implication
2772-419: A horned centaur -like Achelous, with a human torso and a bull's or horse's body, watched by the figure of an old man (Oineus?) and a woman (Deiaeira?). The earliest Attic versions (c. 570 BC) depict Achelous as a bull with a man's face and beard. On one later example (c. 525–475 BC), an Attic red-figure stamnos from Cerveteri attributed to Oltos (London E437), Achelous (identified by inscription)
2926-507: A huge risk, hazarded not in right"), telling the audience that he will not talk of it ("silence is a man's wisest counsel"). The Theban hero Heracles was a favourite subject but in one poem he is depicted as small in order to be compared with a small Theban patron who had won the pankration at the Isthmian Games: a unique example of Pindar's readiness to shape traditional myths to fit the occasion, even if not always flattering to
3080-497: A land newly made by deposits of river silt, where he could make his home free of his curse. Later, according to Apollodorus, Achelous commanded Alcmaeon to dedicate the necklace and robe—the cause of his mother's treachery—at Delphi , which he did. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses , has the river-god involved in two transformation stories concerning the creation of islands near the mouth of the Achelous River. According to Ovid,
3234-407: A life well-lived. He presents no theory of history apart from the view that Fortune is variable even for the best men, an outlook suited to moderation in success, courage in adversity. Notions of 'good' and 'bad' in human nature were not analysed by him in any depth nor did he arrive at anything like the compassionate ethics of his near contemporary, Simonides of Ceos. His poems are indifferent to
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#17327655882303388-468: A long time but Hylas had fallen in love with the nymphs and never showed up again. In other versions, he simply drowned. Either way, the Argo set sail without them. Hesiod 's Theogony and Aeschylus ' Prometheus Unbound both tell that Heracles shot and killed the eagle that tortured Prometheus (which was his punishment by Zeus for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mortals). Heracles freed
3542-512: A maiden song does seem to be different in tone, due however to the fact that it is spoken in the character of a girl: ἐμὲ δὲ πρέπει παρθενήια μὲν φρονεῖν γλώσσᾳ τε λέγεσθαι. emè dè prépei parthenḗia mèn phroneîn glṓssāi te légesthai. I must think maidenly thoughts And utter them with my tongue. Enough of his dithyrambic poetry survives for comparison with that of Bacchylides, who used it for narrative. Pindar's dithyrambs are an exuberant display of religious feeling, capturing
3696-446: A patron deity, contributing to the spread of his cult. There was the case of the royal house of Macedonia, which claimed lineal descent from the hero, primarily for purposes of divine protection and legitimator of actions. The earliest evidence that shows the worship of Heracles in popular cult was in 6th century BCE (121–122 and 160–165) via an ancient inscription from Phaleron. After the 4th century BCE, Heracles became identified with
3850-552: A personal dilemma. Nemean 7 in fact is the most controversial and obscure of Pindar's victory odes, and scholars ancient and modern have been ingenious and imaginative in their attempts to explain it, so far with no agreed success. In his first Pythian ode, composed in 470 BC in honour of the Sicilian tyrant Hieron , Pindar celebrated a series of victories by Greeks against foreign invaders: Athenian and Spartan-led victories against Persia at Salamis and Plataea , and victories by
4004-592: A priest of Apollo, the priests exhibited an iron chair on which he used to sit during the festival of the Theoxenia . Every night, while closing the temple doors, they intoned: "Let Pindar the poet go unto the supper of the gods!" Pindar's house in Thebes became one of the city's landmarks. When Alexander the Great demolished Thebes in 335 BC, as punishment for its resistance to Macedonian expansionism, he ordered
4158-404: A prophet, and lesser poets are to him as ravens are to an eagle; the art of such men is as hackneyed as garland-making; his is magical: εἴρειν στεφάνους ἐλαφρόν: ἀναβάλεο: Μοῖσά τοι κολλᾷ χρυσὸν ἔν τε λευκὸν ἐλέφανθ᾽ ἁμᾷ καὶ λείριον ἄνθεμον ποντίας ὑφελοῖσ᾽ ἐέρσας. To plait garlands is easy. Strike up! The Muse Welds together gold and white ivory And the lily-flower snatched from
4312-517: A recent defeat of Athens by Thebes at the Battle of Coronea (447 BC). The poem ends with a prayer for Aegina's freedom, long threatened by Athenian ambitions. Covert criticism of Athens (traditionally located in odes such as Pythian 8, Nemean 8 and Isthmian 7) is now dismissed as highly unlikely, even by scholars who allow some biographical and historical interpretations of the poems. One of his last odes ( Pythian 8 ) indicates that he lived near
4466-550: A request by Pindar for payment of fees owed to himself. His defeats by Corinna were probably invented by ancient commentators to account for the Boeotian sow remark, a phrase moreover that was completely misunderstood by scholiasts, since Pindar was scoffing at a reputation that all Boeotians had for stupidity. His fame as a poet drew Pindar into Greek politics. Athens, the most important city in Greece throughout his poetic career,
4620-638: A sea monster (Greek: kētŏs, Latin: cetus ) to attack Troy . The story is related in several digressions in the Iliad (7.451–53; 20.145–48; 21.442–57) and is found in pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheke (2.5.9). This expedition became the theme of the Eastern pediment of the Temple of Aphaea . Laomedon planned on sacrificing his daughter Hesione to Poseidon in the hope of appeasing him. Heracles happened to arrive (along with Telamon and Oicles ) and agreed to kill
4774-485: A shrine to the oracle Alcmaeon and that he stored some of his wealth there. In the same ode he says that he had recently received a prophecy from Alcmaeon during a journey to Delphi ("...he met me and proved the skills of prophecy that all his race inherit") but he does not reveal what the long-dead prophet said to him nor in what form he appeared. The ode was written to commemorate a victory by an athlete from Aegina . Pindar doesn't necessarily mean himself when he uses
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4928-465: A similar fashion the river acquired the name Achelous, after a son of Oceanus and the nymph Naïs , who jumped into the river after he discovered he had slept with his daughter Cletoria by mistake. Strabo reports that in "earlier times" the river was called the Thoas. According to Strabo, some writers "conjecturing the truth from the myths" attributed various legends concerning the river-god, to features of
5082-474: A snake in each hand and strangled them. He was found by his nurse playing with them on his cot as if they were toys. Astonished, Amphitryon sent for the seer Tiresias , who prophesied an unusual future for the boy, saying he would vanquish numerous monsters. After killing his music tutor Linus with a lyre , he was sent to tend cattle on a mountain by his foster father Amphitryon. Here, according to an allegorical parable , " The Choice of Heracles ", invented by
5236-520: A wedding gift. While several sources make Achelous the father, by various mothers, of the Sirens (see above), according to the 4th-century AD Greek teacher of rhetoric Libanius , they were born from the blood Achelous shed when Heracles broke off his horn. Both Diodorus Siculus and Strabo provide rationalized accounts of the story. According to Diodorus, Heracles diverted the Achelous River's course, while according to Strabo, some writers "conjecturing
5390-411: Is a short biography discovered in 1961 on an Egyptian papyrus dating from at least 200 AD ( P.Oxy .2438). The other four are collections that were not finalized until some 1600 years after his death: Although these sources are based on a much older literary tradition, going as far back as Chamaeleon of Heraclea in the 4th century BC, they are generally viewed with scepticism today: much of the material
5544-484: Is by no means certain that they were all sung by choirs – the use of choirs is testified only by the generally unreliable scholiasts. Scholars at the Library of Alexandria collected his compositions in seventeen books organized according to genre: Of this vast and varied corpus, only the epinikia – odes written to commemorate athletic victories – survive in complete form;
5698-570: Is clearly fanciful. Scholars both ancient and modern have turned to Pindar's own work – his victory odes in particular – as a source of biographical information: some of the poems touch on historic events and can be accurately dated. The 1962 publication of Elroy Bundy's ground-breaking work Studia Pindarica led to a change in scholarly opinion: the Odes were no longer seen as expressions of Pindar's personal thoughts and feelings, but rather as public statements "dedicated to
5852-456: Is depicted on several Acarnanian coins as a bull with the head of an old man. The most common depiction of Achelous in Archaic and Classical times was this man-faced bull. Often a city would feature a man-faced bull on its coinage to represent a local variant of Achelous, such as Achelous Gelas of Gela , Sicily, or Achelous Sebethos of Neapolis , Campania. That Achelous, rather than Oceanus,
6006-520: Is largely unread among the general public. Pindar was the first Greek poet to reflect on the nature of poetry and on the poet's role. His poetry illustrates the beliefs and values of Archaic Greece at the dawn of the Classical period . Like other poets of the Archaic Age, he has a profound sense of the vicissitudes of life, but he also articulates a passionate faith in what men can achieve by
6160-413: Is not known how commissions were arranged, nor if the poet travelled widely: even when poems include statements like "I have come" it is not certain that this was meant literally. Uncomplimentary references to Bacchylides and Simonides were found by scholiasts but there is no reason to accept their interpretation of the odes. In fact, some scholars have interpreted the allusions to fees in Isthmian 2 as
6314-421: Is shown with a bearded human upper torso, attached to a long serpentine body, with a fish's tail. This is similar to the depictions of the sea-god Triton which appear on many other Attic vases. Heracles (also identified by inscription) appears about to break off the river-god's single horn. On a somewhat later (c. 475–425 BC) red-figure Attic column krater ( Louvre G365), Achelous's broken-off horn lies on
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6468-468: Is still in the water. Angry, Heracles shoots him with his arrows dipped in the poisonous blood of the Lernaean Hydra . Thinking of revenge, Nessus gives Deianira his blood-soaked tunic before he dies, telling her it will "excite the love of her husband". Several years later, rumor tells Deianira that she has a rival for the love of Heracles. Deianira, remembering Nessus's words, gives Heracles
6622-489: Is that Achelous is the mightiest of the rivers (save perhaps for Oceanus himself), which would be in accord with Acusilaus' making Achelous the "oldest and most honoured" of the river-god offspring of Oceanus. However some ancient scholars thought that the line: "nor the great might of deep-flowing Ocean", was spurious, which would in fact make Achelous—rather than Oceanus—the source of all other waters. A commentary on Iliad 21.195, preserved on Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 221 , contains
6776-481: Is the name of all rivers and the crop comes from water". According to the early 4th-century BC Greek historian Ephorus , the oracle at Dodona usually added to his pronouncements the command to offer sacrifices to Achelous, and that, while people would offer sacrifices to their local river, only the Achelous river was honoured everywhere, with Achelous's name often being invoked in oaths, prayers and sacrifices, "all
6930-483: Is too sketchy to allow us to understand the full nature of this innovation). Although he probably spoke Boeotian Greek , he composed in a literary language that tended to rely more on the Doric dialect than his rival Bacchylides , but less insistently than Alcman . There is an admixture of other dialects, especially Aeolic and epic forms, and an occasional use of some Boeotian words. He composed 'choral' songs yet it
7084-541: Is variously given as Daiphantus, Pagondas or Scopelinus, and his mother's name was Cleodice. It is told that in his youth, or possibly infancy, bees built a honeycomb in his mouth and this was the reason he became a poet of honey-like verses. (An identical fate has been ascribed to other poets of the archaic period.) Pindar was about twenty years old in 498 BC when he was commissioned by the ruling family in Thessaly to compose his first victory ode ( Pythian 10 ). He studied
7238-495: The Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemy 's descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raħeb with a temple to Heracles, but the arguments are not conclusive. Several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor. A very small island close to the island of Lemnos was called Neai (Νέαι), from νέω, which means "I dive/swim", because Heracles swam there. According to
7392-488: The Echinades Islands were once five local nymphs. One day, the nymphs were offering sacrifices to the gods on the banks of the Achelous, but they forgot to include Achelous himself. The river-god became so angry, he overflowed his banks with a raging flood, sweeping the nymphs away into the sea. As Achelous tells the story: I tore forests from forests, fields from fields; and with the place they stood on, I swept
7546-455: The Muses inspired Homer with relevant information and with the language to express it, Pindar seems to receive only their inspiration: his role is to shape that inspiration with his own wisdom and skill. Like his patrons, whom he immortalizes in verse, he owes his success to hard work as well as to innate gifts; though he hires himself out, he has a vocation. The Muses are to him as an oracle is to
7700-683: The Naiads filled the horn with fruit and flowers, transforming it into the "Horn of Plenty" ( cornucopia ). According to the Fabulae (before 207 AD), by the Latin mythographer Hyginus , Heracles gave the broken-off horn to "the Hesperides (or Nymphs)", and it was "these goddesses" who "filled the horn with fruit and called it "Cornucopia". According to Strabo , in some versions of the story Heracles gave Achelous's horn to Deianeira's father Oeneus as
7854-586: The Titan from his chains and his torments. Prometheus then made predictions regarding further deeds of Heracles. On his way back to Mycenae from Iberia , having obtained the Cattle of Geryon as his tenth labour , Heracles came to Liguria in North-Western Italy where he engaged in battle with two giants, Albion and Bergion or Dercynus, sons of Poseidon . The opponents were strong; Heracles
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#17327655882308008-551: The club . These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a playful figure who used games to relax from his labors and played a great deal with children. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have "made the world safe for mankind" and to be its benefactor. Heracles was an extremely passionate and emotional individual, capable of doing both great deeds for his friends (such as wrestling with Thanatos on behalf of Prince Admetus , who had regaled Heracles with his hospitality, or restoring his friend Tyndareus to
8162-479: The deification of Heracles himself and of Asclepius there are comprised thirty-eight years, according to Apollodorus the chronicler: and from that point to the deification of Castor and Pollux fifty-three years: and somewhere about this time was the capture of Troy ." Readers with a literalist bent, following Clement's reasoning, have asserted from this remark that, since Heracles ruled over Tiryns in Argos at
8316-539: The modern West , he is known as Hercules , with whom the later Roman emperors , in particular Commodus and Maximian , often identified themselves. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well. Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being The Twelve Labours of Heracles ; Alexandrian poets of the Hellenistic age drew his mythology into a high poetic and tragic atmosphere. His figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as
8470-520: The "princely bison" of Near Eastern traditions that "rises to the surface of the earth in springs and marshes, ultimately flowing as rivers". The Achelous River rises in the Pindus mountains , flows into the Ionian Sea near the Echinades Islands in western Greece , and divided ancient Acarnania and Aetolia . Servius gives a story of the origin of the river. He says that one day Achelous, who
8624-477: The Achelous River itself. These writers said that, like other rivers, the Achelous was called "like a bull", because of the river's roaring waters and its meanders (which he says were called horns). Likewise the Achelous was called "like a serpent" because of the river's great length and many serpentine turnings. Homer locates another Achelous river in Lydia, near Mount Sipylos, and there were several other rivers with
8778-512: The Dryopes "because they gave no heed to justice in their lives". After the death of their king, the Dryopes gave in and offered him Prince Hylas . He took the youth on as his weapons bearer. Years later, Heracles and Hylas joined the crew of the Argo . As Argonauts, they only participated in part of the journey. In Mysia , Hylas was kidnapped by the nymphs of a local spring. Heracles, searched for
8932-583: The Greek legends, the Herculaneum in Italy was founded by him. Several poleis provided two separate sanctuaries for Heracles, one recognizing him as a god, the other only as a hero. Sacrifice was made to him as a hero and as a god within the same festival. This ambiguity helped create the Heracles cult especially when historians (e.g. Herodotus) and artists encouraged worship such as the painters during
9086-589: The Greeks to defeat Troy in the Trojan War. Philoctetes confronted Paris and shot a poisoned arrow at him. The Hydra poison subsequently led to the death of Paris. The Trojan War, however, continued until the Trojan Horse was used to defeat Troy . According to Herodotus , Heracles lived 900 years before Herodotus's own time (c. 1300 BCE). After his death in the pyre, Heracles ascended to Olympus as
9240-478: The Muse as "a hireling journeyman". He appeared in many poetry competitions and was defeated five times by his compatriot, the poet Corinna , in revenge of which he called her Boeotian sow in one of his odes ( Olympian 6. 89f.). It was assumed by ancient sources that Pindar's odes were performed by a chorus, but this has been challenged by some modern scholars, who argue that the odes were in fact performed solo. It
9394-511: The Olympian Games. The establishment of these athletic and musical festivals was among the greatest achievements of the Greek aristocracies. Even in the 5th century BC, when there was an increased tendency towards professionalism, they were predominantly aristocratic assemblies, reflecting the expense and leisure needed to attend such events either as a competitor or spectator. Attendance was an opportunity for display and self-promotion, and
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#17327655882309548-560: The Phoenician God Melqart Oitaeans worshiped Heracles and called him Cornopion (Κορνοπίων) because he helped them get rid of locusts (which they called cornopes ), while the citizens of Erythrae at Mima called him Ipoctonus (ἰποκτόνος) because he destroyed the vine-eating ips (ἀμπελοφάγων ἰπῶν), a kind of cynips wasp, there. Near the town of Bura in Achaea , there was a statue of Heracles on
9702-546: The River Buraicus and an oracle in a cave. People who consulted this oracle first prayed before the statue, then threw four dice from a mound that was always kept ready onto a table. These dice were marked with certain characters, the significance of which was elucidated by an artwork shown in the cave. Because of this town Heracles had the epithet Buraicus (Βουραϊκός). Extraordinary strength, courage , ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among
9856-412: The Sicilian prince, Thrasybulus, nephew of Theron of Acragas . Thrasybulus had driven the winning chariot; and he and Pindar were to form a lasting friendship, paving the way for his subsequent visit to Sicily. Pindar seems to have used his odes to advance his, and his friends', personal interests. In 462 BC he composed two odes in honour of Arcesilas, king of Cyrene , ( Pythians 4 and 5 ), pleading for
10010-582: The art of lyric poetry in Athens, where his tutor was Lasos of Hermione , and he is also said to have received some helpful criticism from Corinna . The early to middle years of Pindar's career coincided with the Greco-Persian Wars during the reigns of Darius and Xerxes . This period included the first Persian invasion of Greece , which ended at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, and the second Persian invasion of Greece (480-479 BC). During
10164-462: The authorities in Thebes to fine him 5,000 drachmae, to which the Athenians are said to have responded with a gift of 10,000 drachmae. According to another account, the Athenians even made him their proxenus or consul in Thebes. His association with the fabulously rich Hieron was another source of annoyance at home. It was probably in response to Theban sensitivities over this issue that he denounced
10318-515: The bloodstained shirt. Lichas, the herald, delivers the shirt to Heracles. However, it is still covered in the Hydra's blood from Heracles's arrows, and this poisons him, tearing his skin and exposing his bones. Before he dies, Heracles throws Lichas into the sea, thinking he was the one who poisoned him (according to several versions, Lichas turns to stone, becoming a rock standing in the sea, named for him). Heracles then uproots several trees and builds
10472-513: The chamber of the scarlet-clothed Hours is opened And the nectareous flowers usher in the fragrant spring, Then are scattered, then, on the immortal ground The lovely petals of violets; roses are wound in our hair; Loudly echo the voices of songs to the flutes, And choirs step in procession to dark-ribboned Semele . Almost all Pindar's victory odes are celebrations of triumphs gained by competitors in Panhellenic festivals such as
10626-417: The characteristics commonly attributed to him. Heracles used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice, such as when laboring for the king Augeas of Elis , wrestling the giant Antaeus , or tricking Atlas into taking the sky back onto his shoulders. Together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae . His iconographic attributes are the lion skin and
10780-418: The clan important enough to deserve mention ( Histories IV.147). Membership of this clan possibly contributed to Pindar's success as a poet, and it informed his political views, which are marked by a conservative preference for oligarchic governments of the Doric kind. Pindar might not actually claim to be an Aegeid since his 'I' statements do not necessarily refer to himself. The Aegeid clan did however have
10934-525: The countryside, come across a "sacred place of some nymphs and of Achelous, judging by the figurines and statues". The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias , mentions a part of the altar at the Amphiareion of Oropos dedicated to "the nymphs and to Pan, and to the rivers Achelous and Cephisus", as well as an altar to Achelous near Megara , and the Megarian Treasury at Olympia , which contained
11088-417: The cursed Alcmaeon's presence. As Thucydides tells the story, the oracle of Apollo told Alcmaeon that he needed to find a land to live in that did not yet exist at the time of his mother's death. After long travels, Alcmaeon finally came to the springs of the Achelous River, where he was purified by the river-god, and received Achelous's daughter Callirrhoe as his wife, and at the mouth of the river he discovered
11242-408: The dark building, made of spongy pumice, and rough tuff. The floor was moist with soft moss, and the ceiling banded with freshwater mussel and oyster shells." Heracles Heracles ( / ˈ h ɛr ə k l iː z / HERR -ə-kleez ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Ἡρακλῆς , lit. "glory/fame of Hera "), born Alcaeus ( Ἀλκαῖος , Alkaios ) or Alcides ( Ἀλκείδης , Alkeidēs ),
11396-566: The dead rang out like cries of birds scattering left and right in horror as on he came like night ... Ancient critics were aware of the problem of the aside that interrupts the vivid and complete description, in which Heracles recognizes Odysseus and hails him, and some modern critics deny that the verse's beginning, in Fagles's translation His ghost I mean ... , was part of the original composition: "once people knew of Heracles' admission to Olympus, they would not tolerate his presence in
11550-425: The disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides ; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himself. His poetry, while admired by critics, still challenges the casual reader and his work
11704-401: The embodiment of power, uncompromisingly proud of their nature and violent in defense of their privileges. There is some rationalization of religious belief, but it is within a tradition at least as old as Hesiod , where abstractions are personified, such as "Truth the daughter of Zeus". Sometimes the wording suggests a belief in 'God' rather than 'a god' (e.g. "What is God? Everything"), but
11858-412: The finest breeds of men resulted from divine passions: "For Pindar a mortal woman who is loved by a god is an outstanding lesson in divine favours handsomely bestowed". Being descendants of divine unions with privileged mortals, mythical heroes are an intermediate group between gods and men, and they are sympathetic to human ambitions. Thus, for example, Pindar not only invokes Zeus for help on behalf of
12012-453: The first person singular. Many of his 'I' statements are generic, indicating somebody engaged in the role of a singer i.e. a 'bardic' I. Other 'I' statements articulate values typical of the audience, and some are spoken on behalf of the subjects celebrated in the poems. The 'I' that received the prophecy in Pythian 8 therefore might have been the athlete from Aegina, not Pindar. In that case
12166-496: The glorious son of Zeus and Alcmena came and closed with him in combat and delivered me. In later accounts, Achelous does not get his horn back, as he did in Pindar's poem. Ovid , in his poem Metamorphoses (8 AD), has Achelous tell the story. In this version, Achelous fights Heracles, and loses three times: first in his normal (human?) shape, then as a snake, and finally as a bull. Heracles tore off one of Achelous's bull-horns, and
12320-436: The grace of the gods, most famously expressed in the conclusion to one of his Victory Odes : Creatures of a day! What is anyone? What is anyone not? A dream of a shadow Is our mortal being. But when there comes to men A gleam of splendour given of heaven, Then rests on them a light of glory And blessed are their days. ( Pythian 8 ) Five ancient sources contain all the recorded details of Pindar's life. One of them
12474-619: The ground, while Heracles holds Achelous by his other horn, and threatens him with a club held overhead. Figures depicting Oineus and Deiaeira (as presumably on the Corinthian cup) and also Athena and Hermes are sometimes included in the scene. Pausanias reports seeing the scene represented on the throne of Amyclae , and also in the Megarian Treasury at Olympia , where he describes seeing "small cedar-wood figures inlaid with gold" which, besides Achelous, included Zeus , Deianeira , Heracles , and Ares aiding Achelous. The river-god
12628-408: The house be left intact out of gratitude for verses praising his ancestor, Alexander I of Macedon . Pindar's values and beliefs have been inferred from his poetry. No other ancient Greek poet has left so many comments about the nature of his art. He justified and exalted choral poetry at a time when society was turning away from it. It "... had for two centuries reflected and shaped the sentiments,
12782-530: The iconography and general mythos easily spread from one culture to another, and all examples of man-faced bulls are found around the area of the Mediterraneanan, suggesting some intercultural continuity. Achelous was also an important deity in the Etruscan religion , intimately related to water as in the Greek tradition but also carrying significant chthonic associations. Man-faced bull iconography
12936-473: The implications are not given full expression and the poems are not examples of monotheism . Nor do they vocalize a belief in Fate as the background to the gods, unlike the plays of Aeschylus for example. Pindar subjects both fortune and fate to divine will (e.g. "child of Zeus ... Fortune"). He selects and revises traditional myths so as not to diminish the dignity and majesty of the gods. Such revisionism
13090-465: The infant Heracles, but he was taken up and brought to Hera by his half-sister Athena , who played an important role as protectress of heroes. Hera did not recognize Heracles and nursed him out of pity . Heracles suckled so strongly that he caused Hera pain, and she pushed him away. Her milk sprayed across the heavens and there formed the Milky Way. Athena brought the infant back to his mother, and he
13244-404: The island of Aegina but also its national heroes Aeacus , Peleus and Telamon . Unlike the gods, however, heroes can be judged according to ordinary human standards and they are sometimes shown in the poems to demean themselves. Even in that case, they receive special consideration. Thus Pindar refers obliquely to the murder of Phocus by his brothers Peleus and Telamon ("I am shy of speaking of
13398-617: The island. This is described in Sophocles 's Trachiniae and in Ovid 's Metamorphoses Book IX. Having wrestled and defeated Achelous , god of the Acheloos river, Heracles takes Deianira as his wife. Travelling to Tiryns , a centaur , Nessus , offers to help Deianira across a fast flowing river while Heracles swims it. However, Nessus is true to the archetype of the mischievous centaur and tries to steal Deianira away while Heracles
13552-513: The joy in the mysteries in the sequence of cult rituals. Also, like the case of Apollo, the cult of Heracles had been sustained through the years by absorbing local cult figures such as those who share the same nature. He was also constantly invoked as a patron for men, especially the young ones. For example, he was considered the ideal in warfare so he presided over gymnasiums and the ephebes or those men undergoing military training. There were ancient towns and cities that also adopted Heracles as
13706-400: The king and his sons, except for one: Iole's brother Iphitus . Heracles killed the king and his sons—excluding Iphitus—and abducted Iole. Iphitus became Heracles's best friend. However, once again, Hera drove Heracles mad and he threw Iphitus over the city wall to his death. Once again, Heracles purified himself through three years of servitude—this time to Queen Omphale of Lydia . Omphale
13860-476: The kings of Sparta and Macedon . Yet another episode of his female affairs that stands out was when he carried away the oxen of Geryon , he also visited the country of the Scythians . Once there, while asleep, his horses suddenly disappeared. When he woke and wandered about in search of them, he came into the country of Hylaea . He then found the dracaena of Scythia (sometimes identified as Echidna ) in
14014-595: The labours: the cleansing of the Augean stables, because Heracles was going to accept pay for the labour; and the killing of the Lernaean Hydra, as Heracles's nephew, Iolaus , had helped him burn the stumps of the multiplying heads. Eurystheus set two more tasks, fetching the Golden Apples of Hesperides and capturing Cerberus . In the end, with ease, the hero successfully performed each added task, bringing
14168-423: The lion-fight, was widely known. Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, no tomb was identified as his. Heracles was both hero and god, as Pindar says heros theos ; at the same festival sacrifice was made to him, first as a hero, with a chthonic libation , and then as a god, upon an altar: thus he embodies the closest Greek approach to a " demi-god ". The core of
14322-423: The monster if Laomedon would give him the horses received from Zeus as compensation for Zeus's kidnapping Ganymede . Laomedon agreed. Heracles killed the monster, but Laomedon went back on his word. Accordingly, in a later expedition, Heracles and his followers attacked Troy and sacked it. Then they slew all Laomedon's sons present there save Podarces , who was renamed Priam, who saved his own life by giving Heracles
14476-416: The most prestigious seat on the table of the gods, each arguing that they are the one who deserve it. Zeus intervenes, and rules in favour of Asclepius, reasoning that the best seat should go to the one who became a god first. Heracles also appears to Philoctetes , stranded and abandoned by the other Greeks on Lemnos island, and through his deus ex machina intervention, Philoctetes is convinced to join
14630-431: The mythical hero. A hero's status is not diminished by an occasional blemish but rests on a summary view of his heroic exploits. Some of his patrons claimed divine descent, such as Diagoras of Rhodes , but Pindar makes all men akin to gods if they realize their full potential: their innate gifts are divinely bestowed, and even then success still depends on the gods' active favour. In honouring such men, therefore, Pindar
14784-415: The name Achelous in ancient times. The multiplicity of rivers with the same name, perhaps due to the river-god's equation with water, has also been seen as suggesting the possibility that Achelous was originally "the primal source of all water". Ovid , in his Metamorphoses , provided a descriptive interlude when Theseus is the guest of Achelous, waiting for the river's raging flood to subside: "He entered
14938-599: The night Heracles and Iphicles were to be born, Hera, knowing of her husband Zeus's adultery, persuaded Zeus to swear an oath that the child born that night to a member of the House of Perseus would become High King. Hera did this knowing that while Heracles was to be born a descendant of Perseus, so too was Eurystheus . Once the oath was sworn, Hera hurried to Alcmene's dwelling and slowed the birth of Heracles and Iphicles by forcing Ilithyia , goddess of childbirth, to sit cross-legged with her clothing tied in knots, thereby causing
15092-437: The nymph from a third party, in this case the centaur Chiron . Chiron however affirms the god's omniscience with an elegant compliment, as if Apollo had only pretended to be ignorant: "You, Sire, who know the appointed end of all, and all paths..." Apollo's abduction of the nymph is not presented as a shameful act. Pindar's gods are above such ethical issues and it is not for men to judge them by ordinary human standards. Indeed,
15246-581: The nymph of a spring at Corinth , Castalia , the nymph of a spring at Delphi , and Dirce, the nymph of a spring (and the stream that flowed from it) at Thebes , which became associated with the Dirce who was Antiope 's aunt. Plato has "the nymphs" as daughters of Achelous, and the 5th-century BC poet Panyassis seems also to have referred to "Achelesian nymphs". He was also the father (again with no mother mentioned) of Alcmeon 's second wife Callirrhoe , whose name means "the lovely spring". Such examples suggest
15400-514: The nymphs away, who at last remembered me then, into the sea. There my flood and the sea, united, cleft the undivided ground into as many parts as now you see the Echinades yonder amid the waves. Achelous goes on to describe the creation of another island: "far away beyond the others is one island that I love: the sailors call it Perimele ." She was the daughter of Hippodamas , whose virginity Achelous took from her. Her enraged father threw her off
15554-483: The ordinary mass of people. They are dismissed with phrases such as "the brute multitude" ( Pythian Ode 2.87). Nor are the poems concerned with the fate of rich and powerful men once they lose their wealth and social status (compared for example with the bitter and disillusioned poems of Theognis of Megara ). They are more interested in what successful men do with their good fortune: success brings obligations, and religious and artistic activities need patrons. Whereas
15708-496: The other river gods , was the son of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys . According to the sixth-century mythographer Acusilaus , Achelous was the "oldest and most honoured" of the river-god offspring of Oceanus. Servius relating a tradition of unknown origin, reports that Achelous was said to have been the son of Earth (i.e. Gaia). The Renaissance mythographer Natalis Comes wrote that Alcaeus understood Achelous to be
15862-582: The other Greeks at Troy , where he kills Paris with Heracles's arrows. In Christian circles, a Euhemerist reading of the widespread Heracles cult was attributed to a historical figure who had been offered cult status after his death. Thus Eusebius , Preparation of the Gospel (10.12), reported that Clement could offer historical dates for Heracles as a king in Argos: "from the reign of Heracles in Argos to
16016-401: The outlook, and the convictions of the Greek aristocracies ... and Pindar spoke up for it with passionate assurance". His poetry is a meeting ground for gods, heroes and men – even the dead are spoken of as participants: "Deep in the earth their heart listens". His view of the gods is traditional but more self-consistent than Homer 's and more reverent. He never depicts gods in
16170-529: The poems for some biographical purposes is considered acceptable once more. πολλὰ γὰρ πολλᾷ λέλεκται: νεαρὰ δ᾽ ἐξευ- ρόντα δόμεν βασάνῳ ἐς ἔλεγχον, ἅπας κίνδυνος. Story is vast in range: new ways to find and test upon the touchstone, Here danger lies. Pindar was born circa 518 BC (the 65th Olympiad ) in Cynoscephalae , a village in Boeotia , not far from Thebes . His father's name
16324-405: The possibility of a tradition in which Achelous was considered to be the father of all springs or, at least, the nymphs associated with them. Achelous was a suitor for Deianeira , daughter of Oeneus , the king of Calydon ; he transformed himself into a bull and fought Heracles for the right to marry Deianeira, but was defeated, and Heracles married Deianeira. The story of Achelous, in the form of
16478-443: The possible reflection of an ancient tradition of conflict between Zeus and Achelous. Achelous played a role in the story of the Argive hero Alcmaeon , who had killed his mother Eriphyle because of her treachery against his father Amphiaraus , and needed to be religiously purified. According to Apollodorus, Alcmaeon was first purified by Phegeus the king of Psophis , but nevertheless the land of Psophis became barren because of
16632-427: The priests at Delphi and which depicted the hero's death in traditional terms, as divine retribution for his crimes. Some doubt this biographical interpretation of Nemean 7 since it is largely based on marginal comments by scholiasts and Pindaric scholiasts are often unreliable. The fact that Pindar gave different versions of the myth may simply reflect the needs of different genres, and does not necessarily indicate
16786-596: The prophecy must have been about his performance at the Pythian Games, and the property stored at the shrine was just a votive offering. Nothing is recorded about Pindar's wife and son except their names, Megacleia and Daiphantus. About ten days before he died, the goddess Persephone appeared to him and complained that she was the only divinity to whom he had never composed a hymn. She said he would come to her soon and compose one then. Pindar lived to about eighty years of age. He died around 438 BC while attending
16940-493: The rest survive only by quotations in other ancient authors or from papyrus scraps unearthed in Egypt . Even in fragmentary form however, they reveal the same complexity of thought and language that are found in the victory odes. Dionysius of Halicarnassus singled out Pindar's work as an outstanding example of austere style ( αὐστηρὰ ἁρμονία ) but he noted its absence in the maiden songs or parthenia . One surviving fragment of
17094-512: The return from exile of a friend, Demophilus. In the latter ode Pindar proudly mentions his own ancestry, which he shared with the king, as an Aegeid or descendant of Aegeus , the legendary king of Athens. The clan was influential in many parts of the Greek world, having intermarried with ruling families in Thebes, in Lacedaemonia , and in cities that claimed Lacedaemonian descent, such as Cyrene and Thera . The historian Herodotus considered
17248-644: The river"), or aḫû ("seashore") and the suffix -ελώἴος, from the Akkadian illu ("watercourse" or "water of the river invading land"). According to linguist Ivan Duridanov [ bg ] , the Thracian river name Achelōos (alternatively, Achēlon and Achelon ), located near Anchialo, in the Black Sea, is cognate to the Greek word, both deriving from a Proto-Indo-European stem *ɘku̯el , meaning 'water'. According to Hesiod , Achelous, along with all
17402-408: The rule of tyrants (i.e. rulers like Hieron) in an ode composed shortly after a visit to Hieron's sumptuous court in 476–75 BC ( Pythian 11 ). Pindar's actual phrasing in Pythian 11 was "I deplore the lot of tyrants" and though this was traditionally interpreted as an apology for his dealings with Sicilian tyrants like Hieron, an alternative date for the ode has led some scholars to conclude that it
17556-494: The same roof; one of them was his wife Deianeira . In the works of Euripides involving Heracles, his actions were partly driven by forces outside rational human control. By highlighting the divine causation of his madness, Euripides problematized Heracles's character and status within the civilized context. This aspect is also highlighted in Hercules Furens where Seneca linked the hero's madness to an illusion and
17710-465: The same time that Eurystheus ruled over Mycenae , and since at about this time Linus was Heracles's teacher, one can conclude, based on Jerome 's date—in his universal history , his Chronicon —given to Linus's notoriety in teaching Heracles in 1264 BCE, that Heracles's death and deification occurred 38 years later, in approximately 1226 BCE. During the course of his life, Heracles married four times. An episode of his female affairs that stands out
17864-408: The same time, a case of heteropaternal superfecundation , where a woman carries twins sired by different fathers). Thus, Heracles's very existence proved at least one of Zeus's many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus's mortal offspring as revenge for her husband's infidelities. His twin mortal brother, son of Amphitryon, was Iphicles , father of Heracles's charioteer Iolaus . On
18018-466: The sea's dew. Pindar's strongly individual genius is apparent in all his extant compositions but, unlike Simonides and Stesichorus for example, he created no new lyrical genres. He was however innovative in his use of the genres he inherited – for example, in one of his victory odes ( Olympian 3), he announces his invention of a new type of musical accompaniment, combining lyre, flute and human voice (though our knowledge of Greek music
18172-535: The seaboard of Asia Minor, north to Macedonia and Abdera ( Paean 2 ) and south to Cyrene on the African coast. Other poets at the same venues vied with him for the favours of patrons. His poetry sometimes reflects this rivalry. For example, Olympian 2 and Pythian 2 , composed in honour of the Sicilian tyrants Theron and Hieron following his visit to their courts in 476–75 BC, refer respectively to ravens and an ape , apparently signifying rivals who were engaged in
18326-479: The second invasion, when Pindar was almost forty years old, Thebes was occupied by Xerxes' general, Mardonius , who with many Theban aristocrats subsequently perished at the Battle of Plataea . It is possible that Pindar spent much of this time at Aegina . His choice of residence during the earlier invasion in 490 BC is not known, but he was able to attend the Pythian Games of that year, where he first met
18480-508: The shape of a bull, a snake, and a half-man/half-bull: For my suitor was a river-god, Achelous, who in three shapes was always asking me from my father—coming now as a bull in visible form, now as a serpent, sheeny and coiled, now ox-faced with human trunk, while from his thick-shaded beard wellheads of fountain-water sprayed. In the expectation that such a suitor would get me, I was always praying in my misery that I might die, before I should ever approach that marriage-bed. But at last, to my joy,
18634-404: The single purpose of eulogizing men and communities." It has been claimed that biographical interpretations of the poems are due to a "fatal conjunction" of historicism and Romanticism. In other words, we know almost nothing about Pindar's life based on either traditional sources or his own poems. However, the pendulum of intellectual fashion has begun to change direction again, and cautious use of
18788-529: The son of Ocean and Earth. Achelous had various offspring. He was said to be the father of the Sirens . According to the 3rd-century BC poet Lycophron , the Sirens were the daughters of Achelous, by an unnamed "melodious mother" (perhaps meaning the mother was a Muse ). Another 3rd-century BC, poet Apollonius of Rhodes , makes the mother the Muse Terpsichore , while according to other accounts, she
18942-472: The sophist Prodicus (c. 400 BCE) and reported in Xenophon 's Memorabilia 2.1.21–34, he was visited by two allegorical figures—Vice and Virtue—who offered him a choice between a pleasant and easy life or a severe but glorious life: he chose the latter. This was part of a pattern of "ethicizing" Heracles over the 5th century BCE. Later, in Thebes , Heracles married King Creon 's daughter, Megara . In
19096-487: The story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. It is possible that the myths surrounding Heracles were based on the life of a real person or several people whose accomplishments became exaggerated with time. Heracles's role as a culture hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling (see below),
19250-447: The things that concern the gods". His name was often used to mean "water". Thus Euripides can have a house, far from the Achelous river, being sprinkled with "Achelous' water". Ephorus explained this "puzzle" by saying that, because of the frequent oracular command at Dodona to offer sacrifices to Achelous, it came to be thought that by "Achelous" the oracle meant, not the river but "water" in general. Plato has Socrates , walking in
19404-463: The throne of Sparta after he was overthrown) and being a terrible enemy who would wreak horrible vengeance on those who crossed him, as Augeas, Neleus , and Laomedon all found out to their cost. There was also a coldness to his character, which was demonstrated by Sophocles's depiction of the hero in The Trachiniae . Heracles threatened his marriage with his desire to bring two women under
19558-494: The time of the Peisistratos , who often presented Heracles entering Olympus in their works. Some sources explained that the cult of Heracles persisted because of the hero's ascent to heaven and his suffering, which became the basis for festivals, ritual, rites, and the organization of mysteries. There is the observation, for example, that sufferings ( pathea ) gave rise to the rituals of grief and mourning, which came before
19712-456: The total number of labours up to twelve. Not all versions and writers give the labours in the same order. The Bibliotheca (2.5.1–2.5.12) gives the following order: After completing these tasks, Heracles fell in love with Princess Iole of Oechalia . King Eurytus of Oechalia promised his daughter, Iole , to whoever could beat his sons in an archery contest. Heracles won but Eurytus abandoned his promise. Heracles's advances were spurned by
19866-488: The truth from the myths" said that, to please his father-in-law Oeneus, Heracles confined the river by means of "embankments and channels". In this way, Heracles defeated the raging river, and in so doing created a large amount of new fertile land and "certain poets, as we are told, have made this deed into a myth" (Diodorus). By both accounts, this new bountiful land of the Achelous River delta came to be known as Amaltheia's horn of plenty. Joseph Fontenrose saw in this story
20020-508: The twins to be trapped in the womb. Meanwhile, Hera caused Eurystheus to be born prematurely, making him High King in place of Heracles. She would have permanently delayed Heracles's birth had she not been fooled by Galanthis , Alcmene's servant, who lied to Ilithyia, saying that Alcmene had already delivered the baby. Upon hearing this, she jumped in surprise, loosing the knots and inadvertently allowing Alcmene to give birth to Heracles and Iphicles. Fear of Hera's revenge led Alcmene to expose
20174-475: The underworld", remarks Friedrich Solmsen , noting that the interpolated verses represent a compromise between conflicting representations of Heracles. The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the Heracleia , which commemorated the death of Heracles, on the second day of the month of Metageitnion (which would fall in late July or early August). What is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in
20328-418: The victim of Hera's jealousy, made her promise that, if Heracles executed twelve great works in the service of Eurystheus, he should become immortal. In the play Herakles by Euripides , Heracles is driven to madness by Hera and kills his children after his twelve labours. Despite the difficulty, Heracles accomplished these tasks, but Eurystheus in the end did not accept the success the hero had with two of
20482-569: The western Greeks led by Theron of Acragas and Hieron against the Carthaginians and Etruscans at the battles of Himera and Cumae . Such celebrations were not appreciated by his fellow Thebans: they had sided with the Persians and had incurred many losses and privations as a result of their defeat. His praise of Athens with such epithets as bulwark of Hellas ( fragment 76 ) and city of noble name and sunlit splendour (Nemean 5) induced
20636-806: The wild spirit of Dionysus and pointing forward to the ecstatic songs of Euripides ' Bacchae . In one of these, dedicated to the Athenians and written to be sung in Spring, he depicts the divine energy of the revitalized world. φοινικοεάνων ὁπότ' οἰχθέντος Ὡρᾶν θαλάμου εὔοδμον ἐπάγοισιν ἔαρ φυτὰ νεκτάρεα. τότε βάλλεται, τότ' ἐπ' ἀμβρόταν χθόν' ἐραταί ἴων φόβαι, ῥόδα τε κόμαισι μείγνυται, ἀχεῖ τ' ὀμφαὶ μελέων σὺν αὐλοῖς οἰχνεῖ τε Σεμέλαν ἑλικάμπυκα χοροί. phoinikoeánōn hopót' oikhthéntos Hōrân thalámou eúodmon epágoisin eár phutà nektárea. tóte bálletai, tót' ep' ambrótan khthón' erataí íōn phóbai, rhóda te kómaisi meígnutai, akheî t' omphaì meléōn sùn auloîs oikhneî te Semélan helikámpuka khoroí. When
20790-514: Was a divine hero in Greek mythology , the son of Zeus and Alcmene , and the foster son of Amphitryon . He was a descendant and half-brother (as they are both sired by the god Zeus ) of Perseus . He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae ( Ἡρακλεῖδαι ), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and
20944-540: Was a queen or princess of Lydia . As penalty for a murder, imposed by Xenoclea , the Delphic Oracle , Heracles was to serve as her slave for a year. He was forced to do women's work and to wear women's clothes, while she wore the skin of the Nemean Lion and carried his olive-wood club. After some time, Omphale freed Heracles and married him. Some sources mention a son born to them who is variously named. It
21098-421: Was a rival of his home city, Thebes , and also of the island state Aegina , whose leading citizens commissioned about a quarter of his Victory Odes. There is no open condemnation of the Athenians in any of his poems but criticism is implied. For example, the victory ode mentioned above ( Pythian 8 ) describes the downfall of the giants Porphyrion and Typhon and this might be Pindar's way of covertly celebrating
21252-578: Was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. This created an awkwardness in the encounter with Odysseus in the episode of Odyssey XI, called the Nekuia , where Odysseus encounters Heracles in Hades : And next I caught a glimpse of powerful Heracles— His ghost I mean: the man himself delights in the grand feasts of the deathless gods on high ... Around him cries of
21406-612: Was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes . Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by
21560-473: Was at that time that the cercopes , mischievous wood spirits, stole Heracles's weapons. He punished them by tying them to a stick with their faces pointing downward. While walking through the wilderness, Heracles was set upon by the Dryopes . In Apollonius of Rhodes 's Argonautica , it is recalled that Heracles had mercilessly slain their king, Theiodamas , over one of the latter's bulls, and made war upon
21714-502: Was cheated by Eurystheus when he added two more, resulting in the Twelve Labors of Heracles. If he succeeded, he would be purified of his sin and, as myth says, he would become a god, and be granted immortality. Other traditions place Heracles's madness at a later time and relate the circumstances differently. In some traditions, there was only a divine reason for Heracles's twelve labours: Zeus, in his desire not to leave Heracles
21868-510: Was conventionally accompanied by music and dance, and Pindar himself wrote the music and choreographed the dances for his victory odes. Sometimes he trained the performers at his home in Thebes, and sometimes he trained them at the venue where they performed. Commissions took him to all parts of the Greek world – to the Panhellenic festivals in mainland Greece (Olympia, Delphi, Corinth and Nemea), westwards to Sicily, eastwards to
22022-594: Was first adapted to represent Achelous by the Etruscans in the 8th century BC, and the Greeks later adopted this same tradition. The leading exponents into the Greek and Etruscan worlds were seer-healers and mercenaries during the Iron Age , and Achelous as a man-faced bull becomes an emblem employed by mercenaries in the Greek world for centuries. These earlier figures probably adapted the mythological and iconographic traditions of Asallúhi (also Asarlúhi or Asaruludu ),
22176-496: Was his stay at the palace of Thespius , king of Thespiae , who wished him to kill the Lion of Cithaeron . As a reward, the king offered him the chance to perform sexual intercourse with all fifty of his daughters in one night. Heracles complied and they all became pregnant and all bore sons. This is sometimes referred to as his Thirteenth Labour. Many of the kings of ancient Greece traced their lines to one or another of these, notably
22330-498: Was honouring the gods too. His statements about life after death were not self-consistent but that was typical for the times. Traditional ambivalence, as expressed by Homer, had been complicated by a growth of religious sects, such as the Eleusinian mysteries and Pythagoreanism , representing various schemes of rewards and punishments in the next life. However, for the poet, glory and lasting fame were men's greatest assurance of
22484-614: Was in a difficult position so he prayed to his father Zeus for help. Under the aegis of Zeus, Heracles won the battle. It was this kneeling position of Heracles when he prayed to his father Zeus that gave the name Engonasin ( "Εγγόνασιν" , derived from "εν γόνασιν"), meaning "on his knees" or "the Kneeler", to the constellation known as Heracles's constellation . The story, among others, is described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus . Before Homer 's Trojan War, Heracles had made an expedition to Troy and sacked it. Previously, Poseidon had sent
22638-419: Was in fact a covert reference to the tyrannical behaviour of the Athenians, although this interpretation is ruled out if we accept the earlier note about covert references. According to yet another interpretation Pindar is simply delivering a formulaic warning to the successful athlete to avoid hubris . It is highly unlikely that Pindar ever acted for Athenians as their proxenus or consul in Thebes. Lyric verse
22792-590: Was not unique. Xenophanes had castigated Homer and Hesiod for the misdeeds they ascribed to gods, such as theft, adultery and deception, and Pythagoras had envisioned those two poets being punished in Hades for blasphemy. A subtle example of Pindar's approach can be found in his treatment of the myth of Apollo's rape of the nymph Cyrene . As the god of the Delphic oracle , Apollo is all-knowing, yet in keeping with his anthropomorphic nature he seeks information about
22946-406: Was perhaps, in some earlier version of the Iliad , the source of "all rivers ... and every sea", and that his name was often used to mean "water", have (along with other evidence from ancient sources), suggested the possibility to modern scholars that Achelous may have predated Oceanus as the original Greek water-god. A recent study has tried to show that both the form and substance of Achelous, as
23100-462: Was said to be the son of Earth, lost his daughters the Sirens, and in his grief he called upon his mother, who received him into her bosom, and on that spot, Earth caused a river, bearing his name, to gush forth. Pseudo-Plutarch gives a different story for how the river acquired its name. He says it was formerly called Thestius, after a son of Mars and Pisidice , who jumped into the river after discovering he had killed his son Calydon by mistake. In
23254-430: Was subsequently raised by his parents. The child was originally given the name Alcides by his parents; it was only later that he became known as Heracles. He was renamed Heracles in an unsuccessful attempt to mollify Hera, with Heracles meaning Hera's "pride" or "glory". He and his twin were just eight months old when Hera sent two giant snakes into the children's chamber. Iphicles cried from fear, but his brother grabbed
23408-526: Was the Muse Melpomene , or the Calydonian princess Sterope . Ovid calls the Sirens simply daughters of Achelous, with no mention of their mother. By Perimede , the daughter of Aeolus , Achelous was said to have fathered Hippodamas and Orestes . Achelous was also said to be the father (with no mothers mentioned) of several nymphs associated with various springs. These included Pirene ,
23562-454: Was the only one among the three brothers that was able to manage the bow which Heracles had left behind and to use his father's girdle. Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes that Heracles and Lavinia, daughter of Evander , had a son named Pallas. Pindar Pindar ( / ˈ p ɪ n d ər / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Πίνδαρος Pindaros [píndaros] ; Latin : Pindarus ; c. 518 BC – c. 438 BC )
23716-432: Was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene . When Zeus desired Alcmene, he decided to make one night last three by ordering Helios , the god of the sun, not to rise for three days, so he would have more time with Alcmene. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon , home early from war (Amphitryon did return later the same night, and Alcmene became pregnant with his son at
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