Jean-François Godefroy Alexandre et le noeud gordien

The Gordian Knot is an Ancient Greek legend of

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; grc, Φρυγία, ''Phrygía'' ) was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires ...

n Gordium associated with Alexander the Great who is said to have cut the knot in 333 BC. It is often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem (untying an impossibly tangled knot) solved easily by finding an approach to the problem that renders the perceived constraints of the problem moot ("cutting the Gordian knot"):

Legend

The

Phrygians The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people, who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. They were related to the Greeks. Ancient Greek authors used ...

were without a king, but an

oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

Telmissus Telmessos or Telmessus ( Hittite: 𒆪𒉿𒆷𒉺𒀸𒊭 ''Kuwalapašša'', Lycian: 𐊗𐊁𐊍𐊁𐊂𐊁𐊛𐊆 ''Telebehi'', grc, Τελμησσός), also Telmissus ( grc, Τελμισσός), later Anastasiopolis ( grc, Αναστ� ...

(the ancient capital of Lycia) decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become their king. A peasant farmer named Gordias drove into town on an ox-cart and was immediately declared king. Out of gratitude, his son Midas dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios (whom the Greeks identified with Zeus) and tied it to a post with an intricate knot of cornel bark (''Cornus mas''). The knot was later described by Roman historian

Quintus Curtius Rufus Quintus Curtius Rufus () was a Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, ''Historiae Alexandri Magni'', "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully ''Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedon ...

as comprising "several knots all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened". The ox-cart still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at Gordium in the fourth century BC when Alexander the Great arrived, at which point Phrygia had been reduced to a

satrap A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with consid ...

y, or province, of the

Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...

. An oracle had declared that any man who could unravel its elaborate knots was destined to become ruler of all of Asia. Alexander the Great wanted to untie the knot but struggled to do so. He then reasoned that it would make no difference ''how'' the knot was loosed, so he drew his sword and sliced it in half with a single stroke. In an alternative version of the story, Alexander the Great loosed the knot by pulling the linchpin from the yoke. Sources from antiquity agree that Alexander the Great was confronted with the challenge of the knot, but his solution is disputed. Both Plutarch and

Arrian Arrian of Nicomedia (; Greek: ''Arrianos''; la, Lucius Flavius Arrianus; ) was a Greek historian, public servant, military commander and philosopher of the Roman period. ''The Anabasis of Alexander'' by Arrian is considered the best ...

relate that, according to Aristobulus, Alexander the Great pulled the linchpin from the pole to which the yoke was fastened, exposing the two ends of the cord and allowing him to untie the knot without having to cut through it. Some classical scholars regard this as more plausible than the popular account. Literary sources of the story include

(''

Anabasis Alexandri ''The Anabasis of Alexander'' ( grc-gre, Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἀνάβασις, ''Alexándrou Anábasis''; la, Anabasis Alexandri) was composed by Arrian of Nicomedia in the second century AD, most probably during the reign of Hadrian. The ...

''2.3), Quintus Curtius (3.1.14), Justin's epitome of Pompeius Trogus (11.7.3), and

Aelian Aelian or Aelianus may refer to: * Aelianus Tacticus, Greek military writer of the 2nd century, who lived in Rome * Casperius Aelianus, Praetorian Prefect, executed by Trajan * Claudius Aelianus, Roman writer, teacher and historian of the 3rd centu ...

's ''De Natura Animalium'' 13.1. Alexander the Great later went on to conquer Asia as far as the

Indus The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...

and the Oxus, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

Interpretations

The knot may have been a religious knot-cipher guarded by priests and priestesses.

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...

suggested that it may have symbolised the ineffable name of

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...

that, knotted like a cipher, would have been passed on through generations of priests and revealed only to the kings of Phrygia. The ox-cart suggests a longer voyage, rather than a local journey, perhaps linking Alexander the Great with an attested origin-myth in Macedon, of which Alexander is most likely to have been aware. Based on this origin myth, the new dynasty was not immemorially ancient, but had widely remembered origins in a local, but non-priestly "outsider" class, represented by Greek reports equally as an eponymous peasant or the locally attested, authentically Phrygian in his ox-cart. Roller (1984) separates out authentic Phrygian elements in the Greek reports and finds a folk-tale element and a religious one, linking the dynastic founder (with the cults of "Zeus" and Cybele). Both Roller and Fredricksmeyer (1961) offer persuasive arguments that the original name associated with the wagon is "Midas", "Gordias" being a Greek back-formation from the site name ''Gordion'', according to Roller. Other

Greek myths A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of de ...

legitimize dynasties by right of conquest (compare

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 da ...

), but in this myth the stressed legitimising

suggests that the previous dynasty was a race of priest-kings allied to the unidentified oracular deity.

Explanatory notes

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Alexander the Great in legend Culture of Phrygia Greek mythology Metaphors Mythological knots Philosophical analogies Puzzles

Legend

Interpretations

See also

Explanatory notes

References

External links