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Daedala
In Ancient Greece, the Daedala (Greek: ''δαίδαλα'') was a festival of reconciliation that was held every few years in honor of Hera, consort of the supreme god Zeus at Plataea, in Boeotia, being one of the major cults of the city. According to Pausanias (geographer), Pausanias, there was a "lesser Daedala" (''Δαίδαλα μικρά''), celebrated every four years or so exclusively by the Plataeans, and a "greater Daedala" (''Δαίδαλα μεγάλα''), celebrated by all of Boeotians every fourteen cycles (approx. 60 years). In the lesser Daedala, the people of Plataea went to an ancient oak grove and exposed pieces of cooked meat to ravens, attentively watching upon which tree any of the birds, after taking a piece of meat, would settle. Out of this tree they carved an image, and having it dressed as a bride, they set it on a bullock cart with a bridesmaid beside it. The image seems then to have been drawn to the bank of the river Asopus#Boeotian_Asopus, Asopus and b ...
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Hera
In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; grc-gre, Ἥρα, Hḗrā; grc, Ἥρη, Hḗrē, label=none in Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Olympus, sister and wife of Zeus, and daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. One of her defining characteristics in myth is her jealous and vengeful nature in dealing with any who offend her, especially Zeus' numerous adulterous lovers and illegitimate offspring. Her iconography usually presents her as a dignified, matronly figure, upright or enthroned, crowned with a '' polos'' or diadem, sometimes veiled as a married woman. She is the patron goddess of lawful marriage. She presides over weddings, blesses and legalises marital unions, and protects women from harm during childbirth. Her sacred animals include the cow, cuckoo and the peacock. She is sometimes shown holding a pomegranate, ...
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Daidala
The ''daidala'' is a type of sculpture attributed to the legendary Greek artist Daedalus, who is connected in legend both to Bronze Age Crete and to the earliest period of Archaic sculpture in Bronze Age Greece. The legends about Daedalus recognize him both as a man and as a mythical embodiment. He was the reputed inventor of '' agalmata'', statues of the gods which had open eyes and moveable limbs. These statues were so lifelike that Plato remarked upon their amazing and disconcerting mobility, which was accomplished with techniques that are clearly those of the "daidala". The writer Pausanias thought that wooden images were referred to as "daidala" even before Daedalus’s time. The name "Daedalus", more specifically, has been suggested by Alberto Pérez-Gómez to be a play on the Greek word "daidala" which appears in archaic literature as a complement of the verb "to make", "to manufacture", "to forge", "to weave", "to place on", or "to see". Daidala were the implements of ea ...
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Daedalus
In Greek mythology, Daedalus (, ; Greek: Δαίδαλος; Latin: ''Daedalus''; Etruscan: ''Taitale'') was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus, the uncle of Perdix, and possibly also the father of Iapyx. Among his most famous creations are the wooden cow for Pasiphaë, the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete which imprisoned the Minotaur, and wings that he and his son Icarus used to escape Crete. It was during this escape that Icarus did not heed his father's warnings and flew too close to the sun; the wax holding his wings together melted and Icarus fell to his death. Epigraphic evidence The name ''Daidalos'' appears to be attested in Linear B, a writing system used to record Mycenaean Greek. The name appears in the form ''da-da-re-jo-de'', possibly referring to a sanctuary. Family Daedalus's parentage was supplied as a later addition, with various authors attributing different parents to him. His ...
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Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ;  – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into English as ''On the Nature of Things''—and somewhat less often as ''On the Nature of the Universe''. Lucretius has been credited with originating the concept of the three-age system that was formalised in 1836 by C. J. Thomsen. Very little is known about Lucretius's life; the only certainty is that he was either a friend or client of Gaius Memmius, to whom the poem was addressed and dedicated. ''De rerum natura'' was a considerable influence on the Augustan poets, particularly Virgil (in his ''Aeneid'' and ''Georgics'', and to a lesser extent on the ''Eclogues'') and Horace. The work was almost lost during the Middle Ages, but was rediscovered in 1417 in a monastery in Germany by Poggio Bracciolini and it played an important role both ...
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Alalcomenes
Alalcomenes (Ancient Greek: means 'guardian') or Alalcomeneus was in Greek mythology, a Boeotian autochthon who was believed to have given the name to the Boeotian town of Alalcomenae. Mythology Alalcomeneus was also said to have brought-up/ tutored Athena (under the epithet Athena Alalcomeneis), who was in some traditions said to have been born in that town, and to have been the first who introduced her worship. According to Plutarch, he advised Zeus to have a figure of oak-wood dressed in bridal attire, and carried about amidst hymnal songs, in order to change the anger of Hera into jealousy. The name of the wife of Alalcomenes was Athenaïs, and that of his son, Glaucopus, both of which refer to the goddess Athena.Pausanias, 9.3.3; Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. '; Dictionary of Antiquities s.v. '; Karl Otfried Müller, ''Orchomenos und die Minyer'' p. 213 In some accounts, Alalcomenes was said to be the first man who appear by Lake Copais before even the Moon was. He s ...
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Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his '' Parallel Lives'', a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and '' Moralia'', a collection of essays and speeches. Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was possibly named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (). Life Early life Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the small town of Chaeronea, about east of Delphi, in the Greek region of Boeotia. His family was long established in the town; his father was named Autobulus and his grandfather was named Lamprias. His name is derived from Pluto (πλοῦτον), an epithet of Hades, and Archos (ἀρχός) meaning "Master", the whole name meaning something like "Whose master is Pluto". His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogue ...
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Pegaeae
In Greek mythology, the Pegaeae (; ) were a type of naiad that lived in springs. They were often considered great aunts of the river gods (Potamoi The Potamoi ( grc-gre, Ποταμοί, "Rivers") are the gods of rivers and streams of the earth in Greek mythology. Mythology The river gods were the 3000 sons of the great earth-encircling river Oceanus and his wife Tethys and the brothers of ...), thus establishing a mythological relationship between a river itself and its springs. List of Pegaeae The number of Pegaeae included but was not limited to: References {{reflist SourcesTheoi Project - Naiades Naiads ...
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Euboia
Evia (, ; el, Εύβοια ; grc, Εὔβοια ) or Euboia (, ) is the second-largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. It is separated from Boeotia in mainland Greece by the narrow Euripus Strait (only at its narrowest point). In general outline it is a long and narrow island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to . Its geographic orientation is from northwest to southeast, and it is traversed throughout its length by a mountain range, which forms part of the chain that bounds Thessaly on the east, and is continued south of Euboia in the lofty islands of Andros, Tinos and Mykonos. It forms most of the regional unit of Euboea, which also includes Skyros and a small area of the Greek mainland. Name Like most of the Greek islands, Euboea was known by other names in antiquity, such as ''Macris'' (Μάκρις) and ''Doliche'' (Δολίχη) from its elongated shape, or ''Ellopia'', ''Aonia'' and ''Abantis'' from the tribes inhabiting it. Its an ...
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Aition
An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have stories set in a time after a first origin - such stories aim to account for the beginnings of natural phenomena or of human institutions within a preexisting universe. In Graeco-Roman scholarship, the terms etiological myth and ''aition'' (from the Ancient Greek αἴτιον, "cause") are sometimes used for a myth that explains an origin, particularly how an object or custom came into existence. Nature of origin myths Every origin myth is a tale of creation: origin myths describe how some reality came into existence.Eliade, p. 21 In many cases, origin myths also justify the established order by explaining that it was established by sacred forces (see section on "Social function" below). The distinction between cosmogonic myths and origin ...
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Hecatomb
In ancient Greece, a hecatomb (; ; grc, ἑκατόμβη ''hekatómbē'') was a sacrifice of 100 cattle (''hekaton'' = one hundred, ''bous'' = bull) to the Greek gods. In practice, as few as 12 could make up a hecatomb. Although originally the sacrifice of a hundred oxen in the religious ceremonies of the Greeks and Romans; later "hecatomb" came to describe a large number of any kind of animals devoted for sacrifice. Figuratively, "hecatomb" is used to describe the sacrifice or destruction by fire, tempest, disease or the sword of any large number of persons or animals; and also of the wholesale destruction of inanimate objects, and even of mental and moral attributes. Ancient Greece Hecatombs were offered to Greek gods Hera, Athena, and Apollo during special religious ceremonies.
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Cithaeron
Cithaeron or Kithairon (Κιθαιρών, -ῶνος) is a mountain and mountain range about sixteen kilometres (ten miles) long in Central Greece. The range is the physical boundary between Boeotia in the north and Attica in the south. It is mainly composed of limestone and rises to . The north-east side of the range is formed by the mountain Pastra. The range was the scene of many events in Greek mythology and was especially sacred to Dionysus. In Euripides' '' Bacchae'', Dionysus carries out his dances and rites with his bacchants, his priestesses, on Cithaeron. Oedipus was exposed on the mountain, while Actaeon and Pentheus were both dismembered on its slopes. It was also the place where Heracles or Alcathous hunted and killed the Lion of Cithaeron. In historic times, the mountain acted as a backdrop to the Battle of Plataea of 479 BC and was the scene of much skirmishing before the battle itself. In later times, fortifications were built both at Plataea and Erythrai as t ...
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Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of Classical Antiquity, classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related polis, city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's Macedonian empire, empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Greek city-states free from Alexander's jurisdiction in the western Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica). In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic Greece, Archaic period and Greek colonis ...
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