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Aristaeus
A minor god in Greek mythology, attested mainly by Athenian writers, Aristaeus (; ''Aristaios'' (Aristaîos); lit. “Most Excellent, Most Useful”), was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; he was the son of the huntress Cyrene and Apollo. ''Aristeus'' ("the best") was a cult title in many places: Boeotia, Arcadia, Ceos, Sicily, Sardinia, Thessaly, and Macedonia; consequently a set of "travels" was imposed, connecting his epiphanies in order to account for these widespread manifestations. If Aristaeus was a minor figure at Athens, he was more prominent in Boeotia, where he was "the pastoral Apollo", and was linked to the founding myth of Thebes by marriage with Autonoë, daughter of Cadmus, the founder. Aristaeus may appear as a winged youth in painted Boeotian pottery, similar to representations of the Boreads, spirits of the North Wind. Besides Actaeon and Macris, he also was said to have fathered Charmus and Calli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label=genitive, , ; , is one of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the ''kouros'' (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all the gods. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as ''Apulu''. As the patron deity of Delphi (''Apollo Pythios''), Apollo is an oracul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyrene (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Cyrene ( ) or Kyrene ( ; grc, Κῡρήνη, Kyrēnē, sovereign queen), was a Thessalian princess, and later, the queen and ruler of the North African city of Cyrene. According to the myth, the city was founded and named after her by Apollo. Family As recorded in Pindar's ninth Pythian ode, Cyrene was the daughter of Hypseus, king of the Lapiths, and the naiad Chlidanope;Scholia on Pindar, ''Pythian Ode'' 9.31 although some myths state that her father was actually the river-god Peneus and she was a nymph rather than a mortal. According to Apollonius Rhodius, she also had a sister called Larissa. Cyrene's other sisters were Themisto, Alcaea and Astyagyia. By the god Apollo, she bore Aristaeus and Idmon. Aristaeus became the god of animal husbandry, bee-keeping and cheese making. Idmon became a famed seer, who was later killed by a boar. Apollonius Rhodius states that the couple also had another son called Autuchus. By the god Ares, she bore Diomedes. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgics
The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word , ''geōrgika'', i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The ''Georgics'' is considered Virgil's second major work, following his ''Eclogues'' and preceding the ''Aeneid''. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. Description and summary The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now. Book One Virgil begins his poem with a summary of the four books, followed by a prayer to various agricultural deities as well as Augustus himself. It takes as its model the work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysiaca
The ''Dionysiaca'' {{IPAc-en, ˌ, d, aɪ, ., ə, ., n, ᵻ, ˈ, z, aɪ, ., ə, ., k, ə ( grc-gre, Διονυσιακά, ''Dionysiaká'') is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from Greco-Roman antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west. Composition The poem is thought to have been written in the 5th century AD. The suggestion that it is incomplete misses the significance of the birth of Dionysus' one son (Iacchus) in the final Book 48, quite apart from the fact that 48 is a key number as the number of books in the ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'' combined. The older view that Nonnus wrote this poem before conversion to Christianity and the writing of his other long poem, a verse paraphrase of St John's Gospel, is now discredited, since a host of indications p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actaeon
Actaeon (; grc, Ἀκταίων ''Aktaion''), in Greek mythology, son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero. Like Achilles in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron. He fell to the fatal wrath of Artemis, but the surviving details of his transgression vary: "the only certainty is in what Aktaion suffered, his pathos, and what Artemis did: the hunter became the hunted; he was transformed into a stag, and his raging hounds, struck with a 'wolf's frenzy' (Lyssa), tore him apart as they would a stag." This is the iconic motif by which Actaeon is recognized, both in ancient art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance depictions. The plot Among others, John Heath has observed, "The unalterable kernel of the tale was a hunter's transformation into a deer and his death in the jaws of his hunting dogs. But authors were free to suggest different motives for his death." In the version that was offered by the Hellenisti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macris
In Greek mythology, Macris (Ancient Greek: Μακρις means "far away, blessed") was a daughter of Aristaeus and Autonoe. Mythology Macris gave newborn Dionysus honey to eat on Euboea after Hermes saved him. Macris was expelled from Euboea by Hera as punishment. Macris fled to a cave on a small island where she was helped by the goddess Demeter. Demeter taught the residents of the island how to grow cereal grain. According to a scholiast commenting on verses in Argonautica, the island she fled to was subsequently named after her. Apollonius Rhodius, who composed ''Argonautica'', only refers to the island as ''Drepane'' but he does mention its connection with Macris and Demeter. Modern Scholars have identified the island with modern Corfu, the historical ''Corcyra''. According to Apollonius of Rhodes, the cave where Macris once lived was later the marriage chamber for Jason and Medea, and the marriage was consummated there on the Golden Fleece. Thereafter Macris's cave was c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Joseph Bosio
Baron François Joseph Bosio (19 March 1768 – 29 July 1845) was a Monegasque sculptor who achieved distinction in the first quarter of the nineteenth century with his work for Napoleon and for the restored French monarchy. Biography Born in Monaco, Bosio was given a scholarship by prince Honoré I to study in Paris with the eminent sculptor Augustin Pajou. After brief service in the Revolutionary army he lived in Florence, Rome and Naples, providing sculpture for churches under the French hegemony in Italy in the 1790s. He was recruited by Dominique Vivant Denon in 1808 to make bas-reliefs for the monumental column in the Place Vendôme in Paris and also to serve as portrait sculptor to Emperor Napoleon I and his family. It was in this capacity that he produced some of his finest work, notably marble portrait busts of the Empress Josephine, which was also modelled in biscuit Sèvres porcelain, and of Queen Hortense (about 1810), which was also cast in bronze by Ravrio. Loui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theogony
The ''Theogony'' (, , , i.e. "the genealogy or birth of the gods") is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1022 lines. Descriptions Hesiod's ''Theogony'' is a large-scale synthesis of a vast variety of local Greek traditions concerning the gods, organized as a narrative that tells how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos. It is the first known Greek mythical cosmogony. The initial state of the universe is chaos, a dark indefinite void considered a divine primordial condition from which everything else appeared. Theogonies are a part of Greek mythology which embodies the desire to articulate reality as a whole; this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first later projects of speculative theorizing. Further, in the "Kings and Singers" passage (80–103) Hesiod appropriates to himself the authority u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mellona
Mellona or Mellonia was an ancient Roman goddess said by St. Augustine to promote the supply of honey (Latin ''mel, mellis'') as Pomona did for apples and Bubona for cattle. Arnobius describes her as "a goddess important and powerful regarding bees, taking care of and protecting the sweetness of honey." W.H. Roscher includes Mellona among the ''indigitamenta'', the list of deities maintained by Roman priests to assure that the correct divinity was invoked for rituals. W.H. Roscher, ''Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie'' (Leipzig: Teubner, 1890–94), vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 203. See also * Ah-Muzen-Cab, Mayan god of bees * Aristaeus, ancient Greek god of bees * Austėja, Lithuanian goddess of bees * Bee (mythology) * Bhramari, Hindu goddess of bees * Bubilas, Lithuanian god of bees * Colel Cab, Mayan goddess of bees * Melissa, ancient Greek/Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, nature of the world, the lives and activities of List of Greek mythological figures, deities, Greek hero cult, heroes, and List of Greek mythological creatures, mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult (religious practice), 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 myth-making itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral tradition, oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan civilization, Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epiphany (Ancient Greece)
Epiphanies – or visions of gods – were reported and believed in many cities of ancient Greece. They were most commonly reported on the battlefields and, during moments of crisis, when citizens were most eager to believe that the gods of their ''polis'' were coming to assist them. An alleged visitation or manifestation of a god was known as an ''epiphaneia'' (ἡ ἐπιφάνεια). Sometimes the gods who appeared were prominent deities, but more often, they were minor figures, whose shrines were linked to the location of a particular event or battle. The gods did not always reveal themselves to mortals, but could indicate their presence through physical signs or unusual phenomena. They could also appear to individuals, particularly in dreams, such as the reported visit by the ‘Mother of the Gods’ to Themistokles who warned of an attempt on his life and, in return for this information, demanded that his daughter be sworn into her service. Epiphanies tend to have been r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cadmus
In Greek mythology, Cadmus (; grc-gre, Κάδμος, Kádmos) was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes. He was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. Commonly stated to be a prince of Phoenicia, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre, the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa, Cadmus could trace his origins back to Zeus. Originally, he was sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus. In early accounts, Cadmus and Europa were instead the children of Phoenix.Scholia on Homer, ''Iliad'' B, 494, p. 80, 43 ed. Bekk. as cited in Hellanicus' ''Boeotica'' Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named ''Cadmeia'' in his honour. Cadmus' homeland was the subject of significant disagreement among ancient authors. Apollodorus identi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
