Greek Mythology, page 17
Late Neolithic Dimini thrived. Open public spaces suggest communal activity, while up to fifty mudbrick houses were built on stone foundations next to alleyways and encircling walls. A ceramic kiln produced temperatures as high as 850°C (1562°F). In time the settlement shrank, until by around 3000 BC it was inhabited by one extended family and abandoned shortly afterwards. In the second millennium BC, the site was used as a cemetery.
It was fully reoccupied only in the fourteenth century BC, when the Mycenaean palace and city were constructed lower down the hill to the southeast. Within the Neolithic site was built one of two tholos tombs discovered so far, the other being slightly further off to the west. Meanwhile the walls and floor of the palace’s megaron were covered in white plaster, with two wings (the north residential, the south containing workshops and store rooms) joined by a corridor. It was destroyed (perhaps accidentally) in the late thirteenth century BC and replaced by a bipartite palace, its walls lined with clay, with a raised clay altar near its entranceway. This palace was destroyed by fire around 1200 BC. Neither phase seems to have had protective walls, making the site vulnerable, particularly from the sea.
This time Dimini was not reoccupied. With the coastline now some miles to the south, later settlements (including Demetrias, founded by Demetrius the Besieger at the end of the fourth century BC) were closer to – or on – the site of modern Volos, of which Dimini is now a suburb.
Excavations began in 1886 when archaeologists dug the tholos tomb called ‘Lamiospito’ (‘Haunted House’). Enthusiastic reports appeared in American newspapers extolling finds of gold jewelry, which were ‘scarcely larger than a pin’s head, and yet leave nothing to be desired in beauty and finish’. They added that the discoveries ‘tend to the supposition that the population was seafaring’. Only six years later, historians wrote: ‘Here, by the tranquil waters of the Pagasetan Gulf, were learned [the Mycenaeans’] first lessons in navigation, ere they ventured on those distant and adventurous expeditions, whose remembrance is preserved in the Argonaut myth.’
Today Volos is a thriving port, whose quayside boasts a proud souvenir of its heroic past: a reconstruction of Jason’s Argo, and plans are afoot for a new ‘Argo Museum’.
Iolcus
SOME IMPORTANT DATES & REMAINS
c. 6850 BC
Sesklo established.
c. 4800 BC
Dimini established.
c. 4400 BC
Sesklo abandoned.
C15th BC
First Mycenaean settlement.
C14th BC
First Mycenaean palace at Dimini and ‘Lamiospito’ tholos tomb.
C13th BC
Second Mycenaean palace.
c. 1200 BC
Dimini abandoned.
AD 1886
‘Lamiospito’ tholos discovered.
AD 1997
Mycenaean city and palace at Dimini first excavated.
Dimini lies on the outskirts of Volos, well signposted off the busy E92 leading into the city. The Mycenaean site (still being excavated and closed to the public) can be seen from the perimeter fence. Neolithic Dimini, however, with its six rings of low walls, narrow alleyways and houses, repays a visit. To the northwest is the (collapsed) Mycenaean ‘Lamiospito’ tholos. From here a path leads west to a second tholos (no access).
Sesklo is reached by a country road west from Dimini, beautifully sited in rolling hills. Covering a large area, the remains of houses built of stone, clay and mudbrick are made more comprehensible thanks to an audio guide.
Further inland is Pherae, with foundations of the Temple of Zeus Thaulios and the Hypereia Fountain, currently being excavated in modern Velestino, as well as remains of a stoa, walls, towers and a Temple of Heracles.
The Archaeological Museum of Volos contains material from the Neolithic period and Bronze Age grave goods (including gold jewelry and a charming clay model of a chariot with two horses). Reconstructions of burials set objects in context. Pottery sherds bear the image of a Mycenaean ship. Perhaps most stunning are the third- to second-century BC painted grave stelai, with miraculously well-preserved colours, showing scenes of the dead taking leave of the living. One includes a poignant inscription addressing Minos and Rhadamanthus, the judges in Hades, which may remind visitors of Admetus mourning his wife Alcestis:
Minos and Rhadamanthus! If ever you judged another woman to be virtuous, judge Aristomachus’ daughter to be virtuous, too. Convey her to the Islands of the Blessed, for she was beautiful and pious. Tylisus in Crete brought her to womanhood, but now this land embraces her. Your fate, Archidice, has made you immortal.
13
Corinth & False Promises of Love
About Corinth I shall tell no lies. Rather, I shall tell of Sisyphus, deceptive as a god, and of Medea who married much against her father’s wish.… [And of Bellerophon] who here in Corinth held the sceptre and the palace and the royal estates. He once endured great hardships, trying to harness [the winged horse] Pegasus, the offspring of the snake-haired Gorgon, until Athene, maiden-goddess, brought him the bridle with the golden brow-band. And dream became reality.
As he lay asleep in darkness, Bellerophon believed the maiden goddess of the dusky aegis spoke to him. Seizing the magic bridle, he scrambled to his feet, and in delight ran to find Corinth’s royal prophet and he told him everything.… The prophet ordered him at once to heed the dream’s advice: to sacrifice a strong-shanked bull to Poseidon, Shaker of the Earth; without delay to raise an altar to Athene of the Horses. Gods’ power can lightly overturn man’s expectations and his oaths. So great Bellerophon seized the winged horse excitedly and slipped the taming bit between his jaws. Then, armoured all in bronze, he mounted…
Pindar, Olympian Ode, 13.72ff.
In the lull before the town awakes and tourist buses grind and lumber through the narrow streets, the sun rises over ancient Corinth. Shadows stretch languidly. The Temple of Apollo luxuriates in golden light. The paved road leading from the sea seems pristine, while beside the Fountain of Peirene broad steps lead invitingly into the honeyed Market Place. Behind the ruins, Acrocorinth, a wall of glistening grey cliffs, rises sheer from the lush plain, its summit ringed with jagged walls, a medieval bastion encircling a plateau once sacred to the sun-god Helios. But even in antiquity his supremacy was eclipsed, and now – high on this tall acropolis, the tumbled masonry already warming to the touch – the foundations of his rival’s temple sprawl in the stirring undergrowth. It is the Temple of Aphrodite, goddess of love, sex and temptation.
Prometheus, Pandora & the Pithos
Temptation lies at the heart of many of the myths of Corinth (called Ephyra in early literature), not least the temptation of Pandora and its disastrous consequences. Its origins lay almost 20 km (12 miles) west, in Sicyon: to settle a dispute between the gods and men, the trickster-Titan Prometheus made sacrifice. Butchering an ox, he wrapped the meat in its hide and the bones in glistening fat, and bade Zeus choose which portion he preferred. Zeus chose the larger – the package containing the bones. When he discovered his mistake, Zeus was incandescent. Not only had he been exposed as injudicious, he had set a precedent: ever afterwards mankind burned only an animal’s bones and fat in sacrifice, reserving the flesh for feasts. When Prometheus compounded the insult by stealing fire from heaven and giving it to men, Zeus exacted punishment. He had the Titan chained to a rock, where a vulture devoured his ever-regenerating liver, and created a misleading package of his own, a ‘savage beauty’, beguiling to look at, destructive within: Pandora, the first woman.
Hesiod describes how Hephaestus shaped
earth into the body of a modest girl; grey-eyed Athene gave her a robe and belt; god-like Seduction and the Graces gave golden necklaces; and the Seasons wove spring flowers into a garland for her hair. Hermes implanted lies, persuasive and cunning in her breast and named the girl Pandora [‘All-Gifted’], because the gods had given her so many gifts to be the ruin of mankind.
Zeus gave her as wife to Epimetheus, Prometheus’ dullard brother, together with a wedding present: a large pithos (storage jar), which he told Pandora not to open. Naturally, she disobeyed, discovering too late what it contained: tiny winged spirits, the embodiment of distress and sorrow. Immediately they swarmed out of the jar. ‘Only Hope remained beneath the rim, and did not fly out. The lid prevented her, thanks to the will of Aegis-Wearing Zeus, Cloud-Gatherer. But ten thousand plagues now jostle men. The earth is full of sorrows; and full, too, the sea.’
With which Sisyphus, the mythical founder and king of Corinth, would wholeheartedly agree.
The Myth of Sisyphus
Originally from Thrace, Sisyphus travelled to the Peloponnese with his brother Salmoneus. Both were overbearing; each hated the other; and, when Sisyphus seduced his brother’s daughter Tyro, it was purely because he had learned from an oracle that a son born from the union would kill Salmoneus. Frustratingly for Sisyphus, Tyro discovered the prophecy and killed every child she bore him. In the end he simply gave up. (In another myth, as we have seen, Tyro married Cretheus, ruler of Iolcus, by whom she bore Aeson, the father of Jason – whose consort Medea would play a vital part in the mythology of Corinth.)
Sisyphus’ wiles were not restricted to attempts at fratricide. He even tried to cheat death. When Zeus changed into an eagle to abduct the local nymph, Aegina, taking her to the island which now bears her name, Sisyphus (who saw everything from Acrocorinth, Corinth’s acropolis) offered to reveal her whereabouts to her father, the river god Asopus, if Asopus created a well on Acrocorinth. Soon the Spring of Peirene (namesake of the fountain in the city below) was bubbling merrily and Zeus was exposed.
On Zeus’ orders, Death came to Corinth to shackle Sisyphus. But Sisyphus outwitted him. Asking the god to demonstrate how best to wear them, he clamped Death in his own chains and imprisoned him. Death’s power was broken; no one could die – but this was not a blessing. Warriors maimed in battle, the very old, the very ill, all begged to die and at last the gods sent Ares to set Death free and end Sisyphus’ life instead. Even now, Sisyphus refused to go quietly. Before he died, he ordered his wife to leave his corpse to lie in Corinth’s agora. Only the buried could enter Hades, so when Ares arrived there with Sisyphus’ soul, Sisyphus argued (quite correctly) that he should not be admitted. Instead, he should return to the upper world to scold his wife for her impious behaviour and organize his funeral. His ruse worked and, once home in Corinth, he stayed put. Zeus was not amused. He sent Hermes to escort Sisyphus back to Hades, where he punished the trickster for eternity, condemning him to roll a heavy boulder up a steep hill, only for it to crash back down again before it reached the top.
However, Sisyphus was not completely impious. Once, by the sea, he discovered the body of his nephew Melicertes, whose mother, Ino, driven mad by Hera, had leapt with him into the waves, and whose corpse a dolphin had brought ashore. Sisyphus buried Melicertes at Isthmia near Corinth, establishing funeral games in his honour – the two-yearly Isthmian Games, which in antiquity were sacred to Poseidon.
Bellerophon & Pegasus
Sisyphus left several sons, both legitimate and bastard. Among the latter, some said, was Odysseus; among the former, Glaucus, father of Bellerophon. The many contradictory versions of Bellerophon’s story are impossible to reconcile. In most (though not in Homer) he is master of the winged horse Pegasus, which was born from the blood of Medusa. Challenged to bridle this fabulous creature as it grazed on Acrocorinth by Peirene’s spring, Bellerophon succeeded only with the help of Athene and Poseidon. (Pindar’s account begins this chapter.) It was as well that he did, for he would soon owe Pegasus his life.
Having accidentally killed a man, Bellerophon was exiled to Tiryns, where the young queen Anteia (sometimes called Sthenoboea) fell in love with him. When Bellerophon rejected her advances, Anteia took revenge. In Homer’s account:
She spoke lying words to the king: ‘Kill Bellerophon or die. He tried to sleep with me against my will.’ When he heard these words, the king was seized with anger. But, a pious man, he shrank from killing him. Rather he sent Bellerophon to Lycia with destructive symbols written in a folding tablet, sufficient to unknit his life, and bade him show them to Anteia’s father, that he might be destroyed.
Blissfully ignorant of the letter’s contents, Bellerophon and Pegasus went east. In Lycia King Iobates tried to fulfil Anteia’s request by sending him on a deadly mission to kill Chimaera, a fire-breathing beast with three heads. One was a lion’s; the second, sprouting from its back, a goat’s; and the third, at its tail, a serpent’s. Soaring into the air astride Pegasus, too high for Chimaera’s fire to harm him, Bellerophon rained down arrows. In one account, he even thrust into its lion jaws a long spear tipped with lead, which, melting in the heat, ran down Chimaera’s throat and suffocated him. Then Bellerophon returned to Iobates.
The king was baffled. Why had the gods protected such a wrongdoer? His perplexity increased when, sent against fierce tribes (including the Amazons), Bellerophon constantly came back victorious. At last Iobates confronted him with Anteia’s letter. Bellerophon refuted the charge and Iobates gave him his younger daughter’s hand in marriage.
Mounted on (the here wingless) Pegasus, Bellerophon attacks Chimaera on a terracotta relief from Melos (c. 460 BC).
All did not end so rosily. Bellerophon’s success went to his head and he determined to fly Pegasus to Mount Olympus, a transgression the gods could not permit. At once Zeus sent a gadfly to bite Pegasus’ flanks. The horse reared up. Bellerophon fell hard to earth where, in the words of Homer: ‘Hated by the gods, he wandered the plain of Aleios alone, gnawing at his spirit, shunning the paths of men.’ As for Pegasus, after many journeys, when he invariably created springs by striking the ground with his hooves (pegai means ‘springs’), he did reach Olympus, where he carried Zeus’ thunderbolts and became a constellation.
Medea, Queen of Corinth
The story of Jason, sent from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece, and his wife Medea, also unfolds in Corinth. In the most well-known version, shortly after their return to Greece the couple were exiled to this city with their two sons, when Medea engineered the death of Jason’s uncle, the gullible Pelias, at the hands of his own daughters.
But in Corinth, King Creon offered Jason his daughter Glauce’s hand in marriage. To the now-destitute hero, it seemed a golden opportunity. Soon it was the talk of Corinth – in his tragedy Medea, Euripides describes old men gossiping about it as they play backgammon at the Fountain of Peirene. Incensed, Medea took revenge, killing Glauce by giving her a dress smeared with poison, which tore like acid through her flesh – and Creon’s, too, when he went to Glauce’s aid. Then Medea butchered her own sons. As Jason came running out too late to save them, Medea soared into the sky on a chariot drawn by serpents, lent by her grandfather Helios. Denying Jason even the chance to bury his dead children – she would bury them herself in the sanctuary of Hera on the headland at Perachora on the far side of the Corinthian Gulf – she made for Athens and the protection of its king, Aegeus.
But the Corinthians knew other, older myths, linking Medea even more closely with their past. In one she is (like Tyro) a serial child-killer. According to Pausanias, once when they had no king:
the Corinthians invited Medea from Iolcus and granted her the throne. Thanks to her, Jason ruled in Corinth. As soon as her children were born, Medea took them to the sanctuary of Hera where she buried them, believing that if they were buried there they would become immortal. In the end, she discovered that her hopes were unfounded, and at the same time she was found out by Jason. She begged him to forgive her, but he refused and sailed back to Iolcus. Because of this, Medea, too, sailed away and bequeathed the kingdom to Sisyphus.
Medea’s motives here are strikingly different, welcome reminders of the fluidity of Greek mythology. In fact, two mutually contradictory versions existed side by side. Pausanias also saw in Corinth the Spring of Glauce, into which the princess jumped in the belief that its waters would reverse the effects of Medea’s poisons. Close by was a memorial to Medea’s sons, killed not by their mother (a version probably invented by Euripides), but ‘stoned to death by the Corinthians, they say, because of the gifts they brought to Glauce. Because of their violent and illegal killing, the boys caused Corinthian new-borns to die until, following an oracular command, yearly sacrifices were instituted in their honour and a female statue set up, representing Terror. It is most chilling and still exists today.’
Corinth in History & Today
Thanks to its position, Corinth was one of the richest cities in mainland Greece. Sited just south of the Isthmus, it possessed two ports – one providing access to the Gulf of Corinth and the west; the other giving access to the east. By the eighth century BC Corinth began confidently founding overseas colonies, which included Corcyra on Corfu and Syracuse in Sicily. In the mid-seventh century BC the far-sighted tyrannos Cypselus further expanded Corinth’s trading base. During his reign and that of his son, Periander, work began on the Temple of Apollo and Fountain of Peirene, as well as the Diolcus, a paved trackway used to haul ships across the Isthmus. At the same time, Corinth perfected the design of a new warship: the trireme.
The arts flourished in Corinth – ‘proto-Corinthian’ pottery was among the most sophisticated of its time, and artistic schools at Corinth and nearby Sicyon were arguably the most pioneering in Greece. During Periander’s reign the court poet Arion is said to have enjoyed a miraculous escape when returning to Corinth from South Italy. Intending to steal his belongings, the crew threw him overboard, but a dolphin rescued him and brought him safe to shore. In Corinth the would-be killers, identified by Arion, were executed.
