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Hyperborea
In Greek mythology, the Hyperboreans (, ; ) were a mythical people who lived in the far northern part of the Ecumene, known world. Their name appears to derive from the Greek , "beyond Boreas (god), Boreas" (the God of the north wind). Some scholars prefer a derivation from (''hyperpherō'', "to carry over"). Despite their location in an otherwise frigid part of the world, the Hyperboreans were believed to inhabit a sunny, temperate, and divinely blessed land. In many versions of the story, they lived north of the Riphean Mountains, which shielded them from the effects of the cold north wind. The oldest myths portray them as the favorites of Apollo, and some ancient Greek writers regarded the Hyperboreans as the mythical founders of Apollo's shrines at Delos and Delphi. Later writers disagreed on the existence and location of the Hyperboreans, with some regarding them as purely mythological, and others connecting them to real-world peoples and places in northern Eurasia (e.g. Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo
Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. 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. He is considered to be the most beautiful god and is represented as the ideal of the ''kouros'' (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth). Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as ''Apulu''. As the patron deity of Delphi (''Apollo Pythios''), Apollo is an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Pythia, Delphic Oracle and also the deity of ritual purification. His oracles were often consulted for guidance in various matters. He was in general seen as the god who affords help and wards off e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Griffin
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (; Classical Latin: ''gryps'' or ''grypus''; Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...: ''griffon'') is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and Hindlimb">back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle">lion.html" ;"title="Hindlimb">back legs of a lion">Hindlimb">back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle with its talons on the front legs. Overview Because the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle the king of the birds, by the Middle Ages, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. Since classical antiquity, griffins were known for guarding treasures and priceless possessions. In Greek and Roman texts, griffins and Arimaspians were associated with gold deposits of Central Asia. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arimaspi
The Arimaspi (also Arimaspians, Arimaspos, and Arimaspoi; , ) were a legendary tribe of one-eyed people of northern Scythia who lived in the foothills of the Riphean Mountains, variously identified with the Ural Mountains or the Carpathians. All tales of their struggles with the gold-guarding griffins in the Hyperborean lands near the cave of Boreas, the North Wind (''Geskleithron''), had their origin in a lost work by Aristeas, reported in Herodotus. Legendary Arimaspi The Arimaspi were described by Aristeas of Proconnesus in his lost archaic poem ''Arimaspea''. Proconnesus is a small island in the Sea of Marmora near the mouth of the Black Sea, well situated for hearing travellers' tales of regions far north of the Black Sea. Aristeas narrates in the course of his poem that he was "wrapt in Bacchic fury" when he travelled to the north and saw the Arimaspians, as reported by Herodotus: This Aristeas, possessed by Phoibos, visited the Issedones; beyond these (he said) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delphi
Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), was an ancient sacred precinct and the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient Classical antiquity, classical world. The Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks considered the centre of the world to be in Delphi, marked by the stone monument known as the Omphalos of Delphi (navel). According to the Suda, Delphi took its name from the Delphyne, the she-serpent (''Drakaina (mythology), drakaina'') who lived there and was killed by the god Apollo (in other accounts the serpent was the male serpent (''drakon'') Python (mythology), Python). The sacred precinct occupies a delineated region on the south-western slope of Mount Parnassus. It is now an extensive archaeological site, and since 1938 a part of Mount Parnassus, Parnassos National Park. The precinct is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in having had a great influence in the ancient world, as evidenced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Issedones
The Issedones () were an ancient people of Central Asia at the end of the trade route leading north-east from Scythia, described in the lost ''Arimaspeia'' of Aristeas, by Herodotus in his ''History'' (IV.16-25) and by Ptolemy in his ''Geography''. Like the Massagetae to the south, the Issedones are described by Herodotus as similar to, yet distinct from, the Scythians. __TOC__ Location The exact location of their territorial span in Central Asia is unknown. The Issedones are "placed by some in Western Siberia and by others in Chinese Turkestan," according to E. D. Phillips. Herodotus, who allegedly got his information through both Greek and Scythian sources, describes them as living east of Scythia and north of the Massagetae, while the geographer Ptolemy (VI.16.7) appears to place the trading stations of ''Issedon Scythica'' and ''Issedon Serica'' in the Tarim Basin. Some speculate that they are the people described in Chinese sources as the ''Wusun''. J.D.P. Bolton places th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pindar
Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himsel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boreas (god)
Boreas (, , , , ; also , ) is the Greek god of the cold north wind, storms, and winter. Although he was normally taken as the north wind, the Roman writers Aulus Gellius and Pliny the Elder both took Boreas as a northeast wind, equivalent to the Roman god Aquilo or Septentrio. Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man or sometimes as a young man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak. Boreas's most known myth is his abduction of the Athenian princess Orithyia of Athens, Oreithyia. Description Boreas, like the rest of the wind gods, was said to be the son of Eos, the goddess of the dawn, by her husband Astraeus, a minor star-god. He is thus brother to the rest of the Anemoi (the wind gods), the five star-gods and the justice goddess Astraea. Boreas was closely associated with horses, storms, and winter. He was said to have fathered twelve colts, after taking th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riphean Mountains
In Greco-Roman geography, the Riphean Mountains (also Riphaean; ; '; Latin: ''Rhipaei'' or ''Riphaei montes'') were a supposed mountain range located in the far north of Eurasia. The name of the mountains is probably derived from ("wind gust"). The Ripheans were often considered the northern boundary of the known world. As such, classical and medieval writers described them as extremely cold and covered in perennial snow. Ancient geographers considered the Ripheans the source of Boreas (the north wind) and several large rivers (the Dnieper, the Don, and the Volga). The location of the Ripheans, as described by most classical geographers, would correspond roughly with the Volga region of modern-day Russia. History Early references to the Ripheans appear in the writings of the Greek choral poet Alcman (7th century BC) and the Athenian playwright Sophocles (5th century BC). Many other ancient Hellenic writers mentioned the Ripheans, including Aristotle, Hippocrates, Callimac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, 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 Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, nature of the world; the lives and activities of List of Greek deities, deities, Greek hero cult, heroes, and List of Greek mythological creatures, mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' 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 mythmaking 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&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Histories (Herodotus)
The ''Histories'' (, ''Historíai''; also known as ''The History'') of Herodotus is considered the founding work of history in Western literature. Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the genre and study of history in the Western world (despite the existence of historical records and chronicles beforehand). ''The'' ''Histories'' also stands as one of the earliest accounts of the rise of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire, as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Persian Empire and the Polis, Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Herodotus portrays the conflict as one between the forces of slavery (the Persians) on the one hand, and freedom (the Athenians and the confederacy of Greek city-states which united against the invaders) on the other. ''The Histories'' was at some point divided into the nine scroll, books that appear in modern editions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristeas
Aristeas () was a semi-legendary Greek poet and Iatromantis, miracle-worker, a native of Proconnesus in Asia Minor, active ca. 7th century BC. The Suda claims that, whenever he wished, Astral Projection, his soul could leave his body and return again. In book IV.13-16 of ''Histories (Herodotus), The Histories'', Herodotus reports: :The birthplace of Aristeas, the poet who sung of these things, I have already mentioned. I will now relate a tale which I heard concerning him both at Proconnesus (city), Proconnesus and at Cyzicus. Aristeas, they said, who belonged to one of the noblest families in the island, had entered one day into a fulling, fuller's shop, when he suddenly dropt down dead. Hereupon the fuller shut up his shop, and went to tell Aristeas' kindred what had happened. The report of the death had just spread through the town, when a certain Cyzicenian, lately arrived from Artace (Mysia), Artaca, contradicted the rumour, affirming that he had met Aristeas on his road to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigoni (epic)
''Epigoni'' (, ''Epigonoi'', "Progeny") was an Cyclic poets, early Greek epic, a sequel to the ''Thebaid (Greek poem), Thebaid'' and therefore grouped in the Theban cycle. Some ancient authors seem to have considered it a part of the ''Thebaid'' and not a separate poem. Contents According to one source, the epic extended to 7,000 lines of verse. It told the story of the last battle for Thebes, Greece, Thebes by the Epigoni, the children of the heroes who had previously fought for the city. Only the first line is now known: :Now, Muses, let us begin to sing of younger men ... Additional references, without verbal quotations, suggest that the myth of the death of Procris and the story of Teiresias's daughter Manto (mythology), Manto formed part of the ''Epigoni''. The epic was sometimes ascribed to Homer, but Herodotus doubted this attribution. According to the Scholia on Aristophanes there was an alternative attribution to "Antimachus." This presumably means Antimachus of T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
