164-534: In Greek mythology , Ixion ( / ɪ k ˈ s aɪ ə n / ik- SY -ən ; Greek : Ἰξίων ) was king of the Lapiths , the most ancient tribe of Thessaly . Ixion was the son of Ares , or Leonteus , or Antion and Perimele , or the notorious evildoer Phlegyas , whose name connotes "fiery". Pirithous was his son (or stepson, if Zeus were his father, as Zeus claims to Hera in Iliad 14). Ixion married Dia ,
328-579: A pederastic light . Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often re-adapted stories of Greek mythological characters in this fashion. The achievement of epic poetry was to create story-cycles and, as a result, to develop a new sense of mythological chronology. Thus, Greek mythology unfolds as a phase in the development of the world and of humans. While self-contradictions in these stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. The resulting mythological "history of
492-452: A thunderbolt . Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion was bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens, but in later myth transferred to Tartarus . Some versions of the myth portray Ixion as being trapped in Hades after his death. Only when Orpheus played his lyre during his trip to
656-677: A Christian moralizing perspective. The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by the German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the nineteenth century, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in the twentieth century, helped to explain many existing questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeological evidence for many of
820-571: A Mediterranean language", a hypothesis that goes back to an article by Paul Kretschmer in Glotta from 1934. Literary and historical texts in the Etruscan language have not survived, and the language itself is only partially understood by modern scholars. This makes modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. These ancient writers differed in their theories about
984-523: A cloud in the shape of Hera, which became known as Nephele (from nephos "cloud") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it. From the union of Ixion and the false-Hera cloud came Imbros or Centauros , who mated with the Magnesian mares on Mount Pelion , Pindar told, engendering the race of Centaurs , who are called the Ixionidae from their descent. Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with
1148-585: A collection of epic poems , starts with the events leading up to the war: Eris and the golden apple of Kallisti , the Judgement of Paris , the abduction of Helen , the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis . To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus 's brother, Agamemnon, king of Argos, or Mycenae , but the Trojans refused to return Helen. The Iliad , which
1312-492: A combination of their name and epithets , that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves (e.g., Apollo Musagetes is " Apollo , [as] leader of the Muses "). Alternatively, the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece. Most gods were associated with specific aspects of life. For example, Aphrodite
1476-497: A common religion. Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of methlum , "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates , without much of a hint as to their function: The camthi , the parnich , the purth , the tamera , the macstrev , and so on. The people were the mech . The princely tombs were not of individuals. The inscription evidence shows that families were interred there over long periods, marking
1640-542: A continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years. Based on this cultural continuity, there is now a consensus among archeologists that Proto-Etruscan culture developed, during
1804-525: A convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric ideals. Twelfth-century authors, such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure ( Roman de Troie [Romance of Troy, 1154–60]) and Joseph of Exeter ( De Bello Troiano [On the Trojan War, 1183]) describe the war while rewriting the standard version they found in Dictys and Dares . They thus follow Horace 's advice and Virgil's example: they rewrite
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#17327653809661968-486: A daughter of Deioneus (or Eioneus ), and promised his father-in-law a valuable present. However, he did not pay the bride price , so Deioneus stole some of Ixion's horses in retaliation. Ixion concealed his resentment and invited his father-in-law to a feast at Larissa . When Deioneus arrived, Ixion pushed him into a bed of burning coals and wood. These circumstances are secondary to the fact of Ixion's primordial act of murder; it could be accounted for quite differently: in
2132-489: A flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon, and stars. The Sun ( Helios ) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades and his predecessors, home of
2296-558: A god "greater than he", Zeus swallowed her. She was already pregnant with Athena , however, and she burst forth from his head—fully-grown and dressed for war. The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogonies to be the prototypical poetic genre—the prototypical mythos —and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus , the archetypal poet, also was the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius' Argonautica , and to move
2460-652: A language with strong structural resemblances to the language of the Etruscans. The discovery of these inscriptions in modern times has led to the suggestion of a " Tyrrhenian language group " comprising Etruscan, Lemnian, and the Raetic spoken in the Alps . However, the 1st-century BC historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus , a Greek living in Rome, dismissed many of the ancient theories of other Greek historians and postulated that
2624-567: A leader was chosen to represent the league. There were two other Etruscan leagues (" Lega dei popoli "): that of Campania , the main city of which was Capua , and the Po Valley city-states in northern Italy, which included Bologna , Spina and Adria . Those who subscribe to a Latin foundation of Rome followed by an Etruscan invasion typically speak of an Etruscan "influence" on Roman culture – that is, cultural objects which were adopted by Rome from neighboring Etruria. The prevailing view
2788-513: A limited number of gods, who were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and villages to devote their own cults to minor gods. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere. During the heroic age, the cult of heroes (or demigods) supplemented that of the gods. "The origins of humanity [were] ascribed to various figures, including Zeus and Prometheus ." Bridging
2952-504: A means of acquiring valuable resources, such as land, prestige, goods, and slaves. It is likely that individuals taken in battle would be ransomed back to their families and clans at high cost. Prisoners could also potentially be sacrificed on tombs to honor fallen leaders of Etruscan society, not unlike the sacrifices made by Achilles for Patrocles . The range of Etruscan civilization is marked by its cities . They were entirely assimilated by Italic, Celtic , or Roman ethnic groups, but
3116-425: A monogamous society that emphasized pairing. Similarly, the behavior of some wealthy women is not uniquely Etruscan. The apparent promiscuous revelry has a spiritual explanation. Swaddling and Bonfante (among others) explain that depictions of the nude embrace, or symplegma, "had the power to ward off evil", as did baring the breast, which was adopted by western culture as an apotropaic device , appearing finally on
3280-405: A musical contest with Apollo . Ian Morris considers Prometheus' adventures as "a place between the history of the gods and that of man." An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated to the third century, vividly portrays Dionysus ' punishment of the king of Thrace , Lycurgus , whose recognition of the new god came too late, resulting in horrific penalties that extended into the afterlife. The story of
3444-458: A number of local legends became attached. The story of Medea , in particular, caught the imagination of the tragic poets. In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of Atreus and Thyestes at Argos. Behind the myth of the house of Atreus (one of the two principal heroic dynasties with the house of Labdacus ) lies
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#17327653809663608-441: A poem of Troy instead of telling something completely new. Etruscans The Etruscan civilization ( / ɪ ˈ t r ʌ s k ən / ih- TRUS -kən ) was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy , with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughly what
3772-507: A spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human forms and entered the local mythology as gods. When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older gods of the agricultural world fused with those of the more powerful invaders or else faded into insignificance. After
3936-653: A system of writing derived from the Euboean alphabet , which was used in the Magna Graecia (coastal areas located in Southern Italy ). The Etruscan language remains only partly understood, making modern understanding of their society and culture heavily dependent on much later and generally disapproving Roman and Greek sources. In the Etruscan political system, authority resided in its individual small cities, and probably in its prominent individual families. At
4100-457: A very limited value for a realistic representation of the Etruscan population. It was only from the end of the 4th century BC that evidence of physiognomic portraits began to be found in Etruscan art and Etruscan portraiture became more realistic. There have been numerous biological studies on the Etruscan origins, the oldest of which dates back to the 1950s when research was still based on blood tests of modern samples, and DNA analysis (including
4264-481: Is arguably bolstered by the fact that he was the first ancient writer to report the endonym of the Etruscans: Rasenna. The Romans, however, give them other names: from the country they once inhabited, named Etruria, they call them Etruscans, and from their knowledge of the ceremonies relating to divine worship, in which they excel others, they now call them, rather inaccurately, Tusci, but formerly, with
4428-519: Is believed that the Etruscan government style changed from total monarchy to oligarchic republic (as the Roman Republic) in the 6th century BC. The government was viewed as being a central authority, ruling over all tribal and clan organizations. It retained the power of life and death; in fact, the gorgon , an ancient symbol of that power, appears as a motif in Etruscan decoration. The adherents to this state power were united by
4592-501: Is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900 BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture , considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization, which itself developed from the previous late Bronze Age Proto-Villanovan culture in the same region, part of the central European Urnfield culture system. Etruscan civilization dominated Italy until it fell to the expanding Rome beginning in
4756-538: Is more plausibly traceable to cultural exchange than to migration. Several archaeologists specializing in Prehistory and Protohistory , who have analyzed Bronze Age and Iron Age remains that were excavated in the territory of historical Etruria have pointed out that no evidence has been found, related either to material culture or to social practices , that can support a migration theory. The most marked and radical change that has been archaeologically attested in
4920-411: Is now Tuscany , western Umbria , and northern Lazio , as well as what are now the Po Valley , Emilia-Romagna , south-eastern Lombardy , southern Veneto , and western Campania . A large body of literature has flourished on the origins of the Etruscans; however, the consensus among modern scholars is that the Etruscans were an indigenous population. The earliest evidence of a culture that
5084-461: Is portrayed as a sacrificer, mentioned as a founder of altars, and imagined as a voracious eater himself; it is in this role that he appears in comedy. While his tragic end provided much material for tragedy— Heracles is regarded by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great significance in examination of other Euripidean dramas." In art and literature, Heracles was represented as an enormously strong man of moderate height; his characteristic weapon
Ixion - Misplaced Pages Continue
5248-619: Is set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles' beloved comrade Patroclus and Priam 's eldest son, Hector . After Hector's death, the Trojans were joined by two exotic allies, Penthesilea , queen of the Amazons , and Memnon , king of the Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess, Eos . Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow in
5412-528: Is that "the Greek gods are persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts." Regardless of their underlying forms, the Ancient Greek gods have many fantastic abilities; most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease and can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances. The Greeks considered immortality as the distinctive characteristic of their gods; this immortality, as well as unfading youth,
5576-443: Is that Rome was founded by Latins who later merged with Etruscans. In this interpretation, Etruscan cultural objects are considered influences rather than part of a heritage. Rome was probably a small settlement until the arrival of the Etruscans, who constructed the first elements of its urban infrastructure such as the drainage system. The main criterion for deciding whether an object originated at Rome and traveled by influence to
5740-420: Is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks , and a genre of ancient Greek folklore , today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology . These stories concern the ancient Greek religion 's view of the origin and nature of the world ; the lives and activities of deities , heroes , and mythological creatures ; and the origins and significance of
5904-604: The Greek Anthology , among a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus , is an epigrammatic description of Ixion slaying Phorbas and Polymelos , who had slain his mother, Megara , the "great one". Ixion went mad, defiled by his act; the neighboring princes were so offended by this act of treachery and violation of xenia that they refused to perform the rituals that would cleanse Ixion of his guilt (see catharsis ). Thereafter, Ixion lived as an outlaw and
6068-749: The Homeric Hymns , in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle , in lyric poems , in the works of the tragedians and comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age , and in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias . Aside from this narrative deposit in ancient Greek literature , pictorial representations of gods, heroes, and mythic episodes featured prominently in ancient vase paintings and
6232-589: The Chimera and Medusa . Bellerophon's adventures are commonplace types, similar to the adventures of Heracles and Theseus. Sending a hero to his presumed death is also a recurrent theme of this early heroic tradition, used in the cases of Perseus and Bellerophon. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, scholar, and director of the Library of Alexandria ) tells
6396-476: The Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the fifth-century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence. The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as
6560-608: The Gauls , and as a result may have lost many – though not all – of its earlier records. Later history relates that some Etruscans lived in the Vicus Tuscus , the "Etruscan quarter", and that there was an Etruscan line of kings (albeit ones descended from a Greek, Demaratus of Corinth ) that succeeded kings of Latin and Sabine origin. Etruscophile historians would argue that this, together with evidence for institutions, religious elements and other cultural elements, proves that Rome
6724-520: The Geometric period from c. 900 BC to c. 800 BC onward. In fact, literary and archaeological sources integrate, sometimes mutually supportive and sometimes in conflict; however, in many cases, the existence of this corpus of data is an indication that many elements of Greek mythology have strong factual and historical roots. Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless,
Ixion - Misplaced Pages Continue
6888-539: The Hellenistic and Roman ages was primarily composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise. Nevertheless, it contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of: Prose writers from the same periods who make reference to myths include Apuleius , Petronius , Lollianus , and Heliodorus . Two other important non-poetical sources are the Fabulae and Astronomica of
7052-708: The Italian Peninsula . According to the logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos , there was a Pelasgian migration from Thessaly in Greece to the Italian peninsula, as part of which the Pelasgians colonized the area he called Tyrrhenia, and they then came to be called Tyrrhenians. There is some evidence suggesting a link between the island of Lemnos and the Tyrrhenians. The Lemnos Stele bears inscriptions in
7216-651: The Neolithic and the "most likely separation time between Tuscany and Western Anatolia falls around 7,600 years ago", at the time of the migrations of Early European Farmers (EEF) from Anatolia to Europe in the early Neolithic. The ancient Etruscan samples had mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) JT (subclades of J and T ) and U5 , with a minority of mtDNA H1b . An earlier mtDNA study published in 2004, based on about 28 samples of individuals, who lived from 600 to 100 BC, in Veneto , Etruria, and Campania, stated that
7380-482: The Palatine Hill according to Etruscan ritual; that is, they began with a pomerium or sacred ditch. Then, they proceeded to the walls. Romulus was required to kill Remus when the latter jumped over the wall, breaking its magic spell (see also under Pons Sublicius ). The name of Rome is attested in Etruscan in the form Ruma-χ meaning 'Roman', a form that mirrors other attested ethnonyms in that language with
7544-598: The Parthenon depicting the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance to the Ancient Greek civilization. The same mythological cycle also inspired a series of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan Medieval European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and
7708-692: The Peloponnesian kingdoms of Mycenae , Sparta and Argos , claiming, according to legend, a right to rule them through their ancestor. Their rise to dominance is frequently called the " Dorian invasion ". The Lydian and later the Macedonian kings, as rulers of the same rank, also became Heracleidae. Other members of this earliest generation of heroes such as Perseus, Deucalion , Theseus and Bellerophon , have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border on fairy tale , as they slay monsters such as
7872-528: The Po Valley with the eastern Alps , and that of Campania . The league in northern Italy is mentioned in Livy . The reduction in Etruscan territory was gradual, but after 500 BC, the political balance of power on the Italian peninsula shifted away from the Etruscans in favor of the rising Roman Republic . The earliest known examples of Etruscan writing are inscriptions found in southern Etruria that date to around 700 BC. The Etruscans developed
8036-603: The Prehistory , Etruscan age, Roman age , Renaissance , and Present-day, and concluded that the Etruscans appear as a local population, intermediate between the prehistoric and the other samples, placing in the temporal network between the Eneolithic Age and the Roman Age. A couple of mitochondrial DNA studies, published in 2013 in the journals PLOS One and American Journal of Physical Anthropology , based on Etruscan samples from Tuscany and Latium, concluded that
8200-589: The Roman culture because of the story of Aeneas , a Trojan hero whose journey from Troy led to the founding of the city that would one day become Rome, as recounted in Virgil's Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy). Finally there are two pseudo-chronicles written in Latin that passed under the names of Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius . The Trojan War cycle ,
8364-847: The Turks (four haplotypes in common), and the Tuscans (two haplotypes in common). While, the modern populations with the shortest genetic distance from the ancient Etruscans, based solely on mtDNA and FST, were Tuscans followed by the Turks, other populations from the Mediterranean and the Cornish after. This study was much criticized by other geneticists, because "data represent severely damaged or partly contaminated mtDNA sequences" and "any comparison with modern population data must be considered quite hazardous", and archaeologists, who argued that
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#17327653809668528-407: The "Pelasgians", and even then, some did so in a way that suggests they were meant only as generic, descriptive labels for "non-Greek" and "indigenous ancestors of Greeks", respectively. The 5th-century BC historians Herodotus , and Thucydides and the 1st-century BC historian Strabo , did seem to suggest that the Tyrrhenians were originally Pelasgians who migrated to Italy from Lydia by way of
8692-539: The (Alpine) Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici . All are divided into a number of states. The Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls , their leader was named Raetus. The question of the origins of the Etruscans has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. In modern times, all the evidence gathered so far by prehistoric and protohistoric archaeologists, anthropologists, and etruscologists points to an autochthonous origin of
8856-561: The 3rd century BC. According to legend, there was a period between 600 BC and 500 BC in which an alliance was formed among twelve Etruscan settlements, known today as the Etruscan League , Etruscan Federation , or Dodecapolis ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Δωδεκάπολις ). According to a legend, the Etruscan League of twelve cities was founded by Tarchon and his brother Tyrrhenus . Tarchon lent his name to
9020-473: The Ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs). Gregory Nagy (1992) regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as simple preludes (compared with Theogony ), each of which invokes one god." The gods of Greek mythology are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies. According to Walter Burkert , the defining characteristic of Greek anthropomorphism
9184-719: The Eastern Mediterranean or Anatolia" and "there are indications that the evidence of DNA can support the theory that Etruscan people are autochthonous in central Italy". In his 2021 book, A Short History of Humanity , German geneticist Johannes Krause , co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jena , concludes that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque , Paleo-Sardinian , and Minoan ) "developed on
9348-537: The Etruscan individuals the ancestral component Steppe was present in the same percentages found in the previously analyzed Iron Age Latins, and in the Etruscan DNA was completely absent a signal of recent admixture with Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Both Etruscans and Latins joined firmly the European cluster, west of modern Italians. The Etruscans were a mixture of WHG, EEF, and Steppe ancestry; 75% of
9512-439: The Etruscan male individuals were found to belong to haplogroup R1b (R1b M269) , especially its clade R1b-P312 and its derivative R1b-L2 , whose direct ancestor is R1b-U152 , while the most common mitochondrial DNA haplogroup among the Etruscans was H . The conclusions of the 2021 study are in line with a 2019 study previously published in the journal Science that analyzed the remains of eleven Iron Age individuals from
9676-505: The Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī (singular Tuscus ). Their Roman name is the origin of the terms " Toscana ", which refers to their heartland, and " Etruria ", which can refer to their wider region. The term Tusci is thought by linguists to have been the Umbrian word for "Etruscan", based on an inscription on an ancient bronze tablet from a nearby region. The inscription contains
9840-531: The Etruscans had no significant heterogeneity, and that all mitochondrial lineages observed among the Etruscan samples appear typically European or West Asian , but only a few haplotypes were shared with modern populations. Allele sharing between the Etruscans and modern populations is highest among Germans (seven haplotypes in common), the Cornish from the South West of Britain (five haplotypes in common),
10004-487: The Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage , whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean. Though the battle had no clear winner, Carthage managed to expand its sphere of influence at the expense of the Greeks, and Etruria saw itself relegated to the northern Tyrrhenian Sea with full ownership of Corsica . From
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#173276538096610168-559: The Etruscans were an indigenous population, showing that Etruscan mtDNA appears to fall very close to a Neolithic population from Central Europe ( Germany , Austria , Hungary ) and to other Tuscan populations, strongly suggesting that the Etruscan civilization developed locally from the Villanovan culture , as already supported by archaeological evidence and anthropological research, and that genetic links between Tuscany and western Anatolia date back to at least 5,000 years ago during
10332-509: The Etruscans were indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria and were different from both the Pelasgians and the Lydians. Dionysius noted that the 5th-century historian Xanthus of Lydia , who was originally from Sardis and was regarded as an important source and authority for the history of Lydia, never suggested a Lydian origin of the Etruscans and never named Tyrrhenus as a ruler of
10496-460: The Etruscans, or descended to the Romans from the Etruscans, is date. Many, if not most, of the Etruscan cities were older than Rome. If one finds that a given feature was there first, it cannot have originated at Rome. A second criterion is the opinion of the ancient sources. These would indicate that certain institutions and customs came directly from the Etruscans. Rome is located on the edge of what
10660-502: The Etruscans. There is no archaeological or linguistic evidence of a migration of the Lydians or Pelasgians into Etruria. Modern etruscologists and archeologists, such as Massimo Pallottino (1947), have shown that early historians' assumptions and assertions on the subject were groundless. In 2000, the etruscologist Dominique Briquel explained in detail why he believes that ancient Greek narratives on Etruscan origins should not even count as historical documents. He argues that
10824-447: The Greek island of Lemnos . They all described Lemnos as having been settled by Pelasgians, whom Thucydides identified as "belonging to the Tyrrhenians" ( τὸ δὲ πλεῖστον Πελασγικόν, τῶν καὶ Λῆμνόν ποτε καὶ Ἀθήνας Τυρσηνῶν ). As Strabo and Herodotus told it, the migration to Lemnos was led by Tyrrhenus / Tyrsenos, the son of Atys (who was king of Lydia). Strabo added that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and Imbros then followed Tyrrhenus to
10988-610: The Greek leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the Aeneid ), and the murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns (the lost Nostoi ) and Homer's Odyssey . The Trojan cycle also includes the adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g., Orestes and Telemachus ). The Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of inspiration for Ancient Greek artists (e.g. metopes on
11152-421: The Greek world and noted the stories they heard, supplied numerous local myths and legends, often giving little-known alternative versions. Herodotus in particular, searched the various traditions he encountered and found the historical or mythological roots in the confrontation between Greece and the East. Herodotus attempted to reconcile origins and the blending of differing cultural concepts. The poetry of
11316-441: The Greeks and the Eastern Mediterranean and not to mass migrations. The facial features (the profile, almond-shaped eyes, large nose) in the frescoes and sculptures, and the depiction of reddish-brown men and light-skinned women, influenced by archaic Greek art, followed the artistic traditions from the Eastern Mediterranean, that had spread even among the Greeks themselves, and to a lesser extent also to other several civilizations in
11480-426: The Latins. The 7th-century BC Homeric Hymn to Dionysus referred to them as pirates. Unlike later Greek authors, these authors did not suggest that Etruscans had migrated to Italy from the east, and did not associate them with the Pelasgians. It was only in the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been established for several centuries, that Greek writers started associating the name "Tyrrhenians" with
11644-422: The Lydians. For this reason, therefore, I am persuaded that the Pelasgians are a different people from the Tyrrhenians. And I do not believe, either, that the Tyrrhenians were a colony of the Lydians; for they do not use the same language as the latter, nor can it be alleged that, though they no longer speak a similar tongue, they still retain some other indications of their mother country. For they neither worship
11808-462: The M314 derived allele also found in a Middle Bronze Age individual from Croatia (1631–1531 BC). While the four samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups U5a1 , H , T2b32 , K1a4 . Among the older studies, only based on mitochondrial DNA, a mtDNA study, published in 2018 in the journal American Journal of Physical Anthropology , compared both ancient and modern samples from Tuscany, from
11972-632: The Near East are attested only centuries later, when Etruscan civilization was already flourishing and Etruscan ethnogenesis was well established. The first of these attested contacts relate to the Greek colonies in Southern Italy and Phoenician-Punic colonies in Sardinia , and the consequent orientalizing period . One of the most common mistakes for a long time, even among some scholars of
12136-553: The Olympians, the Greeks worshipped various gods of the countryside, the satyr-god Pan , Nymphs (spirits of rivers), Naiads (who dwelled in springs), Dryads (who were spirits of the trees), Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods, Satyrs , and others. In addition, there were the dark powers of the underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those guilty of crimes against blood-relatives. In order to honor
12300-764: The Roman writer styled as Pseudo- Hyginus , the Imagines of Philostratus the Elder and Philostratus the Younger , and the Descriptions of Callistratus . Finally, several Byzantine Greek writers provide important details of myth, much derived from earlier now lost Greek works. These preservers of myth include Arnobius , Hesychius , the author of the Suda , John Tzetzes , and Eustathius . They often treat mythology from
12464-519: The Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. These visual representations of myths are important for two reasons. Firstly, many Greek myths are attested on vases earlier than in literary sources: of the twelve labors of Heracles, for example, only the Cerberus adventure occurs in a contemporary literary text. Secondly, visual sources sometimes represent myths or mythical scenes that are not attested in any extant literary source. In some cases,
12628-547: The Underworld to rescue Eurydice did it stop for a while. Robert L. Fowler observes that "The details are very odd, the narrative motivation creaks at every juncture ... the myth smacks of aetiology ." He notes that Martin Nilsson suggested an origin in rain-making magic, with which he concurs: "In Ixion's case the necessary warning about the conduct of magic has taken the form of blasphemous and dangerous conduct on
12792-456: The age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and mortals moved together. These were the early days of the world when the groups mingled more freely than they did later. Most of these tales were later told by Ovid's Metamorphoses and they are often divided into two thematic groups: tales of love, and tales of punishment. Tales of love often involve incest, or
12956-582: The analysis of ancient samples) was not yet possible. It is only in very recent years, with the development of archaeogenetics , that comprehensive studies containing the whole genome sequencing of Etruscan samples have been published, including autosomal DNA and Y-DNA , autosomal DNA being the "most valuable to understand what really happened in an individual's history", as stated by geneticist David Reich , whereas previously studies were based only on mitochondrial DNA analysis, which contains less and limited information. An archeogenetic study focusing on
13120-476: The ancient Greek civilization. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania. Some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly subsumed by greater, more powerful neighbors. However, it is certain that the political structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than, Magna Graecia in
13284-484: The ancient Greek word for tower: τύρσις , likely a loan into Greek. On this hypothesis, the Tusci were called the "people who build towers" or "the tower builders". This proposed etymology is made the more plausible because the Etruscans preferred to build their towns on high precipices reinforced by walls. Alternatively, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante have speculated that Etruscan houses may have seemed like towers to
13448-405: The ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of mythmaking itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of
13612-430: The ancient story of the Etruscans' 'Lydian origins' was a deliberate, politically motivated fabrication, and that ancient Greeks inferred a connection between the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians solely on the basis of certain Greek and local traditions and on the mere fact that there had been trade between the Etruscans and Greeks. He noted that, even if these stories include historical facts suggesting contact, such contact
13776-481: The appropriation or invention of some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his subjects—revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when Prometheus or Lycaon invents sacrifice, when Demeter teaches agriculture and the Mysteries to Triptolemus , or when Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into
13940-537: The area is the adoption, starting in about the 12th century BC, of the funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns, which is a Continental European practice, derived from the Urnfield culture ; there is nothing about it that suggests an ethnic contribution from Asia Minor or the Near East . A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years' archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed
14104-727: The areas around Rome, of which four were Etruscan individuals, one buried in Veio Grotta Gramiccia from the Villanovan era (900-800 BC) and three buried in La Mattonara Necropolis near Civitavecchia from the Orientalizing period (700-600 BC). The study concluded that Etruscans (900–600 BC) and the Latins (900–500 BC) from Latium vetus were genetically similar, with genetic differences between
14268-681: The army of the dead." Another important difference between the hero cult and the cult of gods is that the hero becomes the centre of local group identity. The monumental events of Heracles are regarded as the dawn of the age of heroes. To the Heroic Age are also ascribed three great events: the Argonautic expedition, the Theban Cycle , and the Trojan War . Some scholars believe that behind Heracles' complicated mythology there
14432-454: The arrival of Dionysus to establish his cult in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean trilogy. In another tragedy, Euripides' The Bacchae , the king of Thebes , Pentheus , is punished by Dionysus, because he disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads , the female worshippers of the god. In another story, based on an old folktale-motif, and echoing a similar theme, Demeter
14596-574: The basis for the collection; however, the "Library" discusses events that occurred long after his death, hence the name Pseudo-Apollodorus. Among the earliest literary sources are Homer 's two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey . Other poets completed the Epic Cycle , but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no direct connection with Homer. The oldest are choral hymns from
14760-409: The beginnings of the universe in human language. The most widely accepted version at the time, although a philosophical account of the beginning of things, is reported by Hesiod , in his Theogony . He begins with Chaos , a yawning nothingness. Next comes Gaia (Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all", and then Tartarus , "in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth", and Eros (Love), "fairest among
14924-896: The central and western Mediterranean up to the Iberian Peninsula . Actually, many of the tombs of the Late Orientalizing and Archaic periods, such as the Tomb of the Augurs , the Tomb of the Triclinium or the Tomb of the Leopards , as well as other tombs from the archaic period in the Monterozzi necropolis in Tarquinia , were painted by Greek painters or, in any case, foreigner artists. These images have, therefore,
15088-522: The cities of Latium and Campania weakened, and the area was taken over by Romans and Samnites . In the 4th century BC, Etruria saw a Gallic invasion end its influence over the Po Valley and the Adriatic coast . Meanwhile, Rome had started annexing Etruscan cities. This led to the loss of the northern Etruscan provinces. During the Roman–Etruscan Wars , Etruria was conquered by Rome in
15252-507: The city of Tarchna , or Tarquinnii, as it was known by the Romans. Tyrrhenus gave his name to the Tyrrhenians , the alternative name for the Etruscans. Although there is no consensus on which cities were in the league, the following list may be close to the mark: Arretium , Caisra , Clevsin , Curtun , Perusna , Pupluna , Veii , Tarchna , Vetluna , Volterra , Velzna , and Velch . Some modern authors include Rusellae . The league
15416-512: The composition of the story of the Argonauts is earlier than Odyssey , which shows familiarity with the exploits of Jason (the wandering of Odysseus may have been partly founded on it). In ancient times, the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization. It was also extremely popular, forming a cycle to which
15580-451: The concept and ritual. The age in which the heroes lived is known as the Heroic age . The epic and genealogical poetry created cycles of stories clustered around particular heroes or events and established the family relationships between the heroes of different stories; they thus arranged the stories in sequence. According to Ken Dowden (1992), "there is even a saga effect: We can follow
15744-484: The continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution ". The Etruscan civilization begins with the early Iron Age Villanovan culture , regarded as the oldest phase, that occupied a large area of northern and central Italy during the Iron Age. The Etruscans themselves dated the origin of the Etruscan nation to a date corresponding to the 11th or 10th century BC. The Villanovan culture emerges with
15908-400: The culture, arts, and literature of Western civilization and remains part of Western heritage and language. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes. Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from
16072-461: The dead. Influences from other cultures always afforded new themes. According to Classical-era mythology, after the overthrow of the Titans, the new pantheon of gods and goddesses was confirmed. Among the principal Greek gods were the Olympians, residing on Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus. (The limitation of their number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively modern idea.) Besides
16236-514: The deathless gods". Without male assistance, Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilized her. From that union were born first the Titans —six males: Coeus , Crius , Cronus , Hyperion , Iapetus , and Oceanus ; and six females: Mnemosyne , Phoebe , Rhea , Theia , Themis , and Tethys . After Cronus was born, Gaia and Uranus decreed no more Titans were to be born. They were followed by
16400-473: The decoration of votive gifts and many other artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Epic Cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles . In the succeeding Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on
16564-414: The depiction of a fasces on the grave stele of Avele Feluske, who is shown as a warrior wielding the fasces. The most telling Etruscan feature is the word populus , which appears as an Etruscan deity, Fufluns . The historical Etruscans had achieved a state system of society, with remnants of the chiefdom and tribal forms. Rome was in a sense the first Italic state, but it began as an Etruscan one. It
16728-624: The divine-focused Theogony and Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity. Under the influence of Homer the "hero cult" leads to a restructuring in spiritual life, expressed in the separation of the realm of the gods from the realm of the dead (heroes), of the Chthonic from the Olympian. In the Works and Days , Hesiod makes use of a scheme of Four Ages of Man (or Races): Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are separate creations of
16892-480: The earlier part of the so-called Lyric age . Hesiod , a possible contemporary with Homer, offers in his Theogony ( Origin of the Gods ) the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing with the creation of the world, the origin of the gods, Titans , and Giants , as well as elaborate genealogies, folktales, and aetiological myths. Hesiod's Works and Days , a didactic poem about farming life, also includes
17056-476: The evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson (1975) has argued. The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who, using animism , assigned
17220-554: The examined Etruscans and Latins found to be insignificant. The Etruscan individuals and contemporary Latins were distinguished from preceding populations of Italy by the presence of c. 30% steppe ancestry . Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry ( EEF + WHG ; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%), and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%). The only sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup J-M12 (J2b-L283) , found in an individual dated 700-600 BC, and carried exactly
17384-405: The fates of some families in successive generations." After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes constitute the sacral sphere and are invoked together in oaths and prayers which are addressed to them. Burkert (2002) notes that "the roster of heroes, again in contrast to the gods, is never given fixed and final form. Great gods are no longer born, but new heroes can always be raised up from
17548-523: The figureheads of sailing ships as a nude female upper torso. It is also possible that Greek and Roman attitudes to the Etruscans were based on a misunderstanding of the place of women within their society. In both Greece and the earliest Republican Rome, respectable women were confined to the house and mixed-sex socialising did not occur. Thus, the freedom of women within Etruscan society could have been misunderstood as implying their sexual availability. A number of Etruscan tombs carry funerary inscriptions in
17712-412: The first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces. In 480 BC, Etruria's ally Carthage was defeated by a coalition of Magna Graecia cities led by Syracuse, Sicily . A few years later, in 474 BC, Syracuse's tyrant Hiero defeated the Etruscans at the Battle of Cumae . Etruria's influence over
17876-509: The first known representation of a myth in geometric art predates its first known representation in late archaic poetry, by several centuries. In the Archaic ( c. 750 – c. 500 BC ), Classical ( c. 480 –323 BC), and Hellenistic (323–146 BC) periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate
18040-536: The form "X son of (father) and (mother)", indicating the importance of the mother's side of the family. The Etruscans, like the contemporary cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome , had a significant military tradition. In addition to marking the rank and power of certain individuals, warfare was a considerable economic advantage to Etruscan civilization. Like many ancient societies, the Etruscans conducted campaigns during summer months, raiding neighboring areas, attempting to gain territory and combating piracy as
18204-472: The gods, the Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronos, the subsequent races to the creation of Zeus . The presence of evil was explained by the myth of Pandora , when all of the best of human capabilities, save hope, had been spilled out of her overturned jar. In Metamorphoses , Ovid follows Hesiod's concept of the four ages. "Myths of origin" or " creation myths " represent an attempt to explain
18368-493: The golden crown, the sceptre, the toga palmata (a special robe), the sella curulis ( curule chair ), and above all the primary symbol of state power: the fasces . The latter was a bundle of whipping rods surrounding a double-bladed axe , carried by the king's lictors . An example of the fasces are the remains of bronze rods and the axe from a tomb in Etruscan Vetulonia . This allowed archaeologists to identify
18532-433: The growth of the aristocratic family as a fixed institution, parallel to the gens at Rome and perhaps even its model. The Etruscans could have used any model of the eastern Mediterranean. That the growth of this class is related to the new acquisition of wealth through trade is unquestioned. The wealthiest cities were located near the coast. At the center of the society was the married couple, tusurthir . The Etruscans were
18696-541: The heel. Achilles' heel was the only part of his body which was not invulnerable to damage by human weaponry. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium ). Finally, with Athena's help, they built the Trojan Horse . Despite the warnings of Priam's daughter Cassandra , the Trojans were persuaded by Sinon , a Greek who feigned desertion, to take
18860-547: The height of Etruscan power, elite Etruscan families grew very rich through trade with the Celts to the north and the Greeks to the south, and they filled their large family tombs with imported luxuries. According to Dionysius the Etruscans called themselves Rasenna (Greek Ῥασέννα), a stem from the Etruscan Rasna (𐌛𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀), the people. Evidence of inscriptions as Tular Rasnal (𐌕𐌖𐌋𐌀𐌛 𐌛𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀𐌋), "boundary of
19024-548: The heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer 's epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey . Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod , the Theogony and the Works and Days , contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in
19188-729: The highest social prestige through his appointment as official ancestor of the Dorian kings. This probably served as a legitimation for the Dorian migrations into the Peloponnese . Hyllus , the eponymous hero of one Dorian phyle , became the son of Heracles and one of the Heracleidae or Heraclids (the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially the descendants of Hyllus —other Heracleidae included Macaria , Lamos, Manto , Bianor , Tlepolemus , and Telephus ). These Heraclids conquered
19352-420: The horse inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of
19516-550: The introduction, for example, of writing, of a new way of banqueting, of a heroic funerary ideology, that is, a new aristocratic way of life, such as to profoundly change the physiognomy of Etruscan society. Thus, thanks to the growing number of contacts with the Greeks, the Etruscans entered what is called the Orientalizing phase . In this phase, there was a heavy influence in Greece, most of Italy and some areas of Spain, from
19680-459: The last phase of the Bronze Age, from the indigenous Proto-Villanovan culture , and that the subsequent Iron Age Villanovan culture is most accurately described as an early phase of the Etruscan civilization. It is possible that there were contacts between northern-central Italy and the Mycenaean world at the end of the Bronze Age. However contacts between the inhabitants of Etruria and inhabitants of Greece , Aegean Sea Islands, Asia Minor, and
19844-638: The late 4th century BC as a result of the Roman–Etruscan Wars ; Etruscans were granted Roman citizenship in 90 BC, and only in 27 BC the whole Etruscan territory was incorporated into the newly established Roman Empire . The territorial extent of Etruscan civilization reached its maximum around 500 BC, shortly after the Roman Kingdom became the Roman Republic . Its culture flourished in three confederacies of cities: that of Etruria (Tuscany, Latium and Umbria), that of
20008-576: The middle of the Archaic period, myths about relationships between male gods and male heroes became more and more frequent, indicating the parallel development of pedagogic pederasty ( παιδικὸς ἔρως , eros paidikos ), thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the fifth-century BC, poets had assigned at least one eromenos , an adolescent boy who was their sexual companion, to every important god except Ares and many legendary figures. Previously existing myths, such as those of Achilles and Patroclus , also then were cast in
20172-423: The most advanced areas of the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East . Also directly Phoenician, or otherwise Near Eastern, craftsmen, merchants and artists contributed to the spread in southern Europe of Near Eastern cultural and artistic motifs. The last three phases of Etruscan civilization are called, respectively, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic, which roughly correspond to the homonymous phases of
20336-577: The myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece from the mythical land of Colchis . In the Argonautica , Jason is impelled on his quest by king Pelias , who receives a prophecy that a man with one sandal would be his nemesis . Jason loses a sandal in a river, arrives at the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in motion. Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with Jason in
20500-479: The mythological details about gods and heroes. The evidence about myths and rituals at Mycenaean and Minoan sites is entirely monumental, as the Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek found in both Crete and mainland Greece) was used mainly to record inventories, although certain names of gods and heroes have been tentatively identified. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth-century BC depict scenes from
20664-530: The myths of Prometheus , Pandora , and the Five Ages . The poet advises on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, rendered yet more dangerous by its gods. Lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar , Bacchylides and Simonides , and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion , relate individual mythological incidents. Additionally, myth
20828-492: The one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires or Hundred-Handed Ones, who were both thrown into Tartarus by Uranus. This made Gaia furious. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of Gaia 's children") was convinced by Gaia to castrate his father. He did this and became the ruler of the Titans with his sister-wife, Rhea, as his consort, and the other Titans became his court. A motif of father-against-son conflict
20992-473: The only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus. This work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c. 180 BC to c. 125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed
21156-535: The origin of the Etruscan people. Some suggested they were Pelasgians who had migrated there from Greece. Others maintained that they were indigenous to central Italy and were not from Greece. The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians , was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod , in his work, the Theogony . He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside
21320-474: The part of the first officiant." In the fifth century, Pindar 's Second Pythian Ode ( c. 476–468 BC ) expands on the example of Ixion, applicable to Hiero I of Syracuse , the tyrant of whom the poet sings. Aeschylus , Euripides and Timasitheos each wrote a tragedy of Ixion though none of these accounts have survived. Ixion was a figure also known to the Etruscans , for he is depicted bound to
21484-417: The past, has been to associate the later Orientalizing period of Etruscan civilization with the question of its origins. Orientalization was an artistic and cultural phenomenon that spread among the Greeks themselves, and throughout much of the central and western Mediterranean, not only in Etruria. Orientalizing period in the Etruscans was due, as has been amply demonstrated by archeologists, to contacts with
21648-439: The people", or Mechlum Rasnal (𐌌𐌄𐌙𐌋 𐌛𐌀𐌔𐌍𐌀𐌋). "community of the people", attest to its autonym usage. The Tyrsenian etymology however remains unknown. In Attic Greek , the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians ( Τυρρηνοί , Tyrrhēnoi , earlier Τυρσηνοί Tyrsēnoi ), from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī , Tyrrhēnia (Etruria), and Mare Tyrrhēnum ( Tyrrhenian Sea ). The ancient Romans referred to
21812-593: The phenomenon of regionalization from the late Bronze Age culture called " Proto-Villanovan ", part of the central European Urnfield culture system . In the last Villanovan phase, called the recent phase (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy (in Pithecusa and then in Cuma ), so much so as to initially absorb techniques and figurative models and soon more properly cultural models, with
21976-487: The phrase turskum ... nomen , literally "the Tuscan name". Based on a knowledge of Umbrian grammar, linguists can infer that the base form of the word turskum is *Tursci, which would, through metathesis and a word-initial epenthesis , be likely to lead to the form, E-trus-ci . As for the original meaning of the root, *Turs-, a widely cited hypothesis is that it, like the word Latin turris , means "tower", and comes from
22140-459: The problem of the devolution of power and of the mode of accession to sovereignty. The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their descendants played the leading role in the tragedy of the devolution of power in Mycenae. The Theban Cycle deals with events associated especially with Cadmus , the city's founder, and later with the doings of Laius and Oedipus at Thebes; a series of stories that lead to
22304-461: The question of Etruscan origins was published in September 2021 in the journal Science Advances and analyzed the autosomal DNA and the uniparental markers (Y-DNA and mtDNA) of 48 Iron Age individuals from Tuscany and Lazio , spanning from 800 to 1 BC, and concluding that the Etruscans were autochthonous (locally indigenous), and they had a genetic profile similar to their Latin neighbors. In
22468-535: The same accuracy as the Greeks, they called them Thyrscoï [an earlier form of Tusci]. Their own name for themselves, however, is the same as that of one of their leaders, Rasenna. Similarly, the 1st-century BC historian Livy , in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri , said that the Rhaetians were Etruscans who had been driven into the mountains by the invading Gauls; and he asserted that the inhabitants of Raetia were of Etruscan origin. The Alpine tribes have also, no doubt,
22632-468: The same gods as the Lydians nor make use of similar laws or institutions, but in these very respects they differ more from the Lydians than from the Pelasgians. Indeed, those probably come nearest to the truth who declare that the nation migrated from nowhere else, but was native to the country, since it is found to be a very ancient nation and to agree with no other either in its language or in its manner of living. The credibility of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
22796-597: The same origin (of the Etruscans), especially the Raetians; who have been rendered so savage by the very nature of the country as to retain nothing of their ancient character save the sound of their speech, and even that is corrupted. The first-century historian Pliny the Elder also put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north, and wrote in his Natural History (AD 79): Adjoining these
22960-463: The same suffix -χ : Velzna-χ '(someone) from Volsinii' and Sveama-χ '(someone) from Sovana '. This in itself, however, is not enough to prove Etruscan origin conclusively. If Tiberius is from θefarie , then Ruma would have been placed on the Thefar ( Tiber ) river. A heavily discussed topic among scholars is who was the founding population of Rome. In 390 BC, the city of Rome was attacked by
23124-510: The seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories generally suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are something to avoid; even consenting relationships rarely have happy endings. In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite , where the goddess lies with Anchises to produce Aeneas . The second type (tales of punishment) involves
23288-593: The ship Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece. This generation also included Theseus , who went to Crete to slay the Minotaur ; Atalanta , the female heroine, and Meleager , who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the Iliad and Odyssey . Pindar , Apollonius and the Bibliotheca endeavor to give full lists of the Argonauts. Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the 3rd century BC,
23452-466: The simple Latins. The proposed etymology has a long history, Dionysius of Halicarnassus having observed in the first century B. C., "[T]here is no reason that the Greeks should not have called [the Etruscans] by this name, both from their living in towers and from the name of one of their rulers." In his recent Etymological Dictionary of Greek , Robert Beekes claims the Greek word is a "loanword from
23616-483: The society while the beliefs were held. After they ceased to become religious beliefs, few would have known the rites and rituals. Allusions often existed, however, to aspects that were quite public. Images existed on pottery and religious artwork that were interpreted and more likely, misinterpreted in many diverse myths and tales. A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of these scraps,
23780-420: The south. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron , led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea . Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC, when Phocaeans of Italy founded colonies along the coast of Sardinia , Spain and Corsica . This led
23944-622: The spoked wheel, engraved on the back of a bronze mirror, c. 460–450 BC , in the British Museum . Whether the Etruscans shared the Ixion figure with Hellenes from early times or whether Ixion figured among those Greek myths that were adapted at later dates to fit the Etruscan world-view is unknown. The figure on the mirror-back is shown as winged, a characteristic shared with Etruscan daimones and Underworld figures rather than human heroes. Greek mythology Greek mythology
24108-451: The stone, which had been sitting in Cronus's stomach all this time. Zeus then challenged Cronus to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes (whom Zeus freed from Tartarus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus . Zeus was plagued by the same concern, and after a prophecy that the offspring of his first wife, Metis , would give birth to
24272-406: The stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades . When Hermes invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes , the first thing he does is sing about the birth of the gods. Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses . Theogony also
24436-467: The study was not clear-cut and had not provided evidence that the Etruscans were an intrusive population to the European context. In the collective volume Etruscology published in 2017, British archeologist Phil Perkins, echoing an earlier article of his from 2009, provides an analysis of the state of DNA studies and writes that "none of the DNA studies to date conclusively prove that [the] Etruscans were an intrusive population in Italy that originated in
24600-422: The tale known to us through tragedy (e.g. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex ) and later mythological accounts. Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan War, fought between Greece and Troy , and its aftermath. In Homer's works, such as the Iliad , the chief stories have already taken shape and substance, and individual themes were elaborated later, especially in Greek drama. The Trojan War also elicited great interest in
24764-420: The war of the Seven against Thebes and the eventual pillage of that city at the hands of the Epigoni . (It is not known whether the Seven figured in early epic.) As far as Oedipus is concerned, early epic accounts seem to have him continuing to rule at Thebes after the revelation that Iokaste was his mother, and subsequently marrying a second wife who becomes the mother of his children—markedly different from
24928-434: The world" may be divided into three or four broader periods: While the age of gods often has been of more interest to contemporary students of myth, the Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for the age of heroes, establishing a chronology and record of human accomplishments after the questions of how the world came into being were explained. For example, the heroic Iliad and Odyssey dwarfed
25092-413: Was Etruscan territory. When Etruscan settlements turned up south of the border, it was presumed that the Etruscans spread there after the foundation of Rome, but the settlements are now known to have preceded Rome. Etruscan settlements were frequently built on hills – the steeper the better – and surrounded by thick walls. According to Roman mythology , when Romulus and Remus founded Rome, they did so on
25256-543: Was central to classical Athenian drama . The tragic playwrights Aeschylus , Sophocles , and Euripides took most of their plots from myths of the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories (e.g. Agamemnon and his children, Oedipus , Jason , Medea , etc.) took on their classic form in these tragedies. The comic playwright Aristophanes also used myths, in The Birds and The Frogs . Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus , and geographers Pausanias and Strabo , who traveled throughout
25420-404: Was founded by Etruscans. Under Romulus and Numa Pompilius , the people were said to have been divided into thirty curiae and three tribes . Few Etruscan words entered Latin , but the names of at least two of the tribes – Ramnes and Luceres – seem to be Etruscan. The last kings may have borne the Etruscan title lucumo , while the regalia were traditionally considered of Etruscan origin –
25584-478: Was insured by the constant use of nectar and ambrosia , by which the divine blood was renewed in their veins. Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods are called upon in poetry, prayer, or cult, they are referred to by
25748-438: Was mostly an economic and religious league, or a loose confederation, similar to the Greek states. During the later imperial times, when Etruria was just one of many regions controlled by Rome, the number of cities in the league increased by three. This is noted on many later grave stones from the 2nd century BC onwards. According to Livy , the twelve city-states met once a year at the Fanum Voltumnae at Volsinii , where
25912-592: Was probably a real man, perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of Argos . Some scholars suggest the story of Heracles is an allegory for the sun's yearly passage through the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Others point to earlier myths from other cultures, showing the story of Heracles as a local adaptation of hero myths already well established. Traditionally, Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene , granddaughter of Perseus . His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk-tale themes, provided much material for popular legend. According to Burkert (2002), "He
26076-511: Was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus . Because Cronus had betrayed his father, he feared that his offspring would do the same, and so each time Rhea gave birth, he snatched up the child and ate it. Rhea hated this and tricked him by hiding Zeus and wrapping a stone in a baby's blanket, which Cronus ate. When Zeus was full-grown, he fed Cronus a drugged drink which caused him to vomit, throwing up Rhea's other children, including Poseidon , Hades , Hestia , Demeter , and Hera , and
26240-488: Was searching for her daughter, Persephone , having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, and received a hospitable welcome from Celeus , the King of Eleusis in Attica . As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make his son Demophon a god, but she was unable to complete the ritual because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do not understand
26404-444: Was shunned. By killing his father-in-law, Ixion was reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology. This act alone would warrant Ixion a terrible punishment, but Zeus took pity on Ixion and brought him to Olympus and introduced him at the table of the gods. Instead of being grateful, Ixion grew lustful for Hera , Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest–host relations . Zeus found out about his intentions and made
26568-522: Was the bow but frequently also the club. Vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled popularity of Heracles, his fight with the lion being depicted many hundreds of times. Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology and cult, and the exclamation "mehercule" became as familiar to the Romans as "Herakleis" was to the Greeks. In Italy he was worshipped as a god of merchants and traders, although others also prayed to him for his characteristic gifts of good luck or rescue from danger. Heracles attained
26732-431: Was the goddess of love and beauty, Ares was the god of war, Hades the ruler of the underworld, and Athena the goddess of wisdom and courage. Some gods, such as Apollo and Dionysus , revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more than personifications. The most impressive temples tended to be dedicated to
26896-450: Was the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus , Epimenides , Abaris , and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites . There are indications that Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony. A silence would have been expected about religious rites and beliefs, however, and that nature of the culture would not have been reported by members of
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