Greek Mythology, page 19
Perseus’ grandfather Acrisius was now living in Larissa in Thessaly, so they made a detour to meet him. According to Pausanias:
Perseus was in the prime of youth and excited because he had just invented the discus. He was giving displays to all and sundry when, as luck dictated, Acrisius wandered unseen into his discus’ path. The god’s prophecy was fulfilled, and the inevitable was not put off by his precautions involving his daughter and her son.
Devastated, Perseus returned to Argos, where local tradition told that he buried Medusa’s head in the agora beneath an earthen mound. Others suggest he gave it to Athene, who set it into her protective snake-fringed aegis. In Classical times, images of Medusa’s head appeared on warriors’ shields to terrify the enemy, and in mosaics and sculptures to ward off evil. A running gorgon formed the centrepiece of the west pediment of the early sixth-century BC Temple of Artemis in Corcyra on Corfu.
Reluctant to rule Argos, Perseus exchanged kingdoms with his cousin Megapenthes, receiving from him Tiryns and Mycenae.
Tydeus & Diomedes
Two later military campaigns set out from the Argolid – one against Thebes, the other against Troy. Both involved the family of the hero Tydeus. Banished from Calydon for shedding family blood, Tydeus, the brother of Meleager, sought sanctuary in Argos, and in his absence his father Oineus was deposed. Argos’ King Adrastus recognized Tydeus’ potential, made him his son-in-law and vowed to help return him to his kingdom. He did the same for Polyneices, who had been driven out of Thebes by his brother Eteocles.
Raising a great army, Polyneices marched on Thebes with Tydeus as one of his seven generals. Tydeus won great glory, overcoming fifty Thebans who ambushed him, but after killing the Theban Melanippus, he greedily devoured his fallen victim’s brains. When Tydeus died soon after, Athene, disgusted at this behaviour, renounced her intention to grant him immortality.
Ten years later, the sons of those Argives who had fallen in the Theban war mounted a successful campaign of their own. Among them was Tydeus’ son, Diomedes. After conquering Thebes, Diomedes marched on Calydon and reinstated his grandfather Oineus to the throne, before returning to become king of Argos. As one of Helen’s suitors, Diomedes fought at Troy, earning a high reputation among Greece’s finest warriors, a wise counsellor and trustworthy lieutenant. He even fought the gods when they intervened in battle (wounding Aphrodite on the wrist and facing off Apollo) and took part in the raid to steal Troy’s talismanic statue of Athene. One of those handpicked to conceal themselves inside the Trojan Horse, he was instrumental in the city’s sack.
But Diomedes’ homecoming was unhappy. In his absence, his wife had been prodigiously unfaithful, and she and her current lover prevented Diomedes from entering Argos. Instead, he sailed to Italy, founded many cities (including modern Brindisi) and married the daughter of the local king. Some say he did not die but vanished under miraculous circumstances, his comrades transformed into birds. He was subsequently worshipped as a god.
After a succession of disastrous kings, Argos was annexed by Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, after which it passes from mythology.
Argos in History & Today
Argos played a key role in Greek history. The most powerful city in the Argolid, its location between Corinth and Sparta meant that it was constantly embroiled in war. Its historians knew of a semi-mythical king, Pheidon, credited with introducing coinage, weights and measures into Greece, but when or whether he lived remains unclear. He may have fought at the Battle of Hysiae against the Spartans in the southwest Argolid around 668 BC, just one in a series of increasingly brutal encounters between the two states. Perhaps the most savage was the Battle of Sepeia in 494 BC, when the Spartans corralled the defeated Argives inside a sacred grove near Argos, set fire to it, and burned their prisoners alive. Argos escaped defeat only when its lyric poetess, Telesilla, distributed weapons to its women and slaves, who took up position on the city walls. Unwilling to entertain even the possibility of being defeated by women, the Spartans tactically withdrew. A commemoration to Telesilla stood near Argos’ theatre.
During the Persian Wars Argos remained controversially neutral, perhaps hoping that if its Greek enemies were beaten, it would prosper. In the Peloponnesian War, Argos vacillated, allying first with Athens, then (after a change of government) with Sparta. During this period, a colossal gold-and-ivory seated statue of Hera by Polycleitus was dedicated in the Argive Heraion. In the fourth century BC Argos switched sides again, helping Thebes to defeat Sparta at Leuctra (371 BC) and Mantinea (362 BC). In the following decades it sought help against Sparta from Macedon.
In the third and second centuries BC, Argos remained an occasional war zone. Pyrrhus of Epirus was killed here, struck on the head by a roof-tile hurled by an old woman (272 BC). (He had just interpreted the memorial to Danaus in the agora, showing a wolf savaging a bull, as an omen of his death.) After Rome annexed Greece in 146 BC, Argos was an important provincial centre. In 50 BC the Nemean Games (which in previous centuries migrated between Nemea and Argos) were permanently relocated here. Although it was sacked by Alaric (AD 396), the city flourished under the Byzantines, but suffered under the Turks, who enslaved much of its population in AD 1397 and massacred the rest in 1500, replacing them with Albanians. In the Greek War of Independence (1821–29) Argos was virtually reduced to ruins. Its current concrete sprawl dates mainly from the 1960s.
Argos
SOME IMPORTANT DATES & REMAINS
c. 4000 BC
Neolithic settlements at Argive Heraion.
c. 1600 BC
Defensive walls built around existing settlements.
1350–1200 BC
Further fortifications: the apogee of Mycenaean Argos.
? c. 1200 BC
Argos falls to attack?
? early C7th BC
Reign of Pheidon?
668 BC
Victory over Sparta at Battle of Hysiae.
494 BC
Defeat by Sparta at Battle of Sepeia.
490–479 BC
Argos neutral during Persian Invasions.
431–404 BC
Argos vacillates during Peloponnesian War.
272 BC
Argos attacked by Pyrrhus of Epirus; death of Pyrrhus.
post-146 BC
Argos prospers under Rome.
AD 396
Argos sacked by Alaric the Goth.
Much of ancient Argos lies beneath the modern town. The most important remains lie by the Tripolis road. These include (west of the main road) the late fourth-/early third-century BC theatre. The auditorium, whose rock-cut seats survive, originally extended further on either side, supported on stone revetments, and seated 20,000 people. A canopy once covered at least part of it. Nearby, a smaller fifth-century BC theatre (seating around 2,500 people) was turned into an odeon in the second century AD. Adjoining this are scanty remains of a sanctuary of Aphrodite. In front of the theatre is a Roman bath complex, whose two-storey west end survives to roof height. East of the main road is the agora. Only foundations survive, but the well-signed site contains an impressive range of buildings including nymphaia (fountain houses), a bouleuterion (council chamber), a temple and a tomb.
North, on Aspis Hill, the foundations of the temples of Pythian Apollo and Athene Oxyderkes (‘Keen-Eyed’) give good views to the Convent of the Virgin of the Rock and the medieval fortress (with traces of Mycenaean and Classical masonry) on nearby Larissa Hill. Traces of Mycenaean and pre-Mycenaean houses survive on Aspis’ wooded summit.
The Argive Heraion lies five miles northeast of Argos. Its setting is magnificent. The highest of a series of terraces housed the ‘old temple’, destroyed by fire in 423 BC thanks to the carelessness of its priestess. On the middle terrace stood the ‘new temple’ (c. 420–410 BC), containing Polycleitus’ gold-and-ivory cult statue, and a stoa. On the lowest terrace was a further (fifth-century BC) stoa. There is also a Mycenaean tholos tomb.
Argos’ Archaeological Museum (currently closed) houses collections ranging from the Early Neolithic (including a c. 3000 BC terracotta figure) to Roman times. Highlights include a late eighth-century BC bronze helmet and armour, a seventh-century BC pottery fragment showing Odysseus blinding the Cyclops (among the earliest representations of mythology in Greek art) and a fifth-century BC vase showing Theseus and the Minotaur. There are also fifth-century AD mosaics showing Dionysus and the Seasons.
Cleobis and Biton’s statues are housed in the Museum at Delphi.
15
Athens: Prize of Athene, Kingdom of Theseus
Glistening and violet-crowned, the subject of so many songs, protectress of all Greece – famous Athens with your divine acropolis…
Gods of Olympus, come here to dance! Grant us sublime grace as you come here to the city’s sacred heart, so heavy with the scent of incense, the path which leads here so well-trodden! Come to this sacred land of Athens with its famous market place so elegantly built! And listen warmly to our songs of garlands twined with violets plucked in the dew of spring.
Pindar, fr. 64 & 63 (Bowra)
Possibly once holding a winged Victory in its outstretched hand, this bronze statue found at Piraeus in 1959 shows Athene as warrior and protector of her city (c. 360–340 BC).
Come early to the Acropolis before the crowds and heat, and you will be richly rewarded. Enveloped in the golden glow of early morning, the great sanctuary stands empty, the long shadows of the Parthenon’s tall columns rippling across the polished, gleaming rock, while on the Erechtheum’s porch casts of Caryatids gaze with sightless eyes, their faces ready to receive the sun’s warm rays.
Walk the perimeter, look down and you can see (amid the concrete eczema of modern architecture, which chokes the once farm-studded plains of Attica) the Agora, the ancient market place, where the Temple of Hephaestus luxuriates on a low wooded knoll surrounded by pink-flowering oleander; and there the cone of Mount Lycabettus; the ridge of Mount Pentellicon, where marble for the Parthenon was hewn; and the Hymettus range, where bee-hives still produce fine honey. Look south beyond the Theatre of Dionysus and the Muses’ Hill, and out across the sea, where great ships ride at anchor, past the shadowed hump of Aegina to where the mountains of the Peloponnese appear like phantoms in the early haze. Here on the Acropolis it is easy to imagine you are standing at the hub of a great wheel, whose rim embraces the mountains and the farmland and the sea. It is a place of harmony, a place of power. No wonder that gods fought so fanatically to own it.
The Birth of Athene
Athens was named from its patron goddess, Zeus’ virgin daughter, Athene (though the Libyans, who said that she had sea-blue eyes, claimed her father was Poseidon). Her mother was Metis (‘Cleverness’), who at first evaded Zeus by shape-shifting. But not for long. When Metis fell pregnant, Gaia, goddess of the earth, prophesied that the child would be a girl but, if Metis bore Zeus a son, the boy would defeat his father. Keen to cling on to power, Zeus followed his father Cronus’ example and swallowed Metis whole.
Soon Zeus suffered debilitating headaches. At last the pressure on his skull became unbearable. By Lake Triton’s shores in Libya he bellowed in pain so loudly that he was heard on Mount Olympus. The gods came running, but only Hermes knew what to do. He advised Hephaestus to take his axe to Zeus’ head. The blade crashed down; the skull cracked open – and out leapt Athene, fully grown, armoured and armed, and wearing the aegis, a magic snake-fringed goatskin, which protected her and sowed terror in her enemies. (Others said the aegis was the flayed skin of one of Athene’s goatish enemies, either the Titan Aex or the Giant Pallas, from whom she derived one of her epithets.) Metis, whom Hesiod calls ‘cleverer than any god or mortal man’, remained in Zeus’ belly, where she regularly fed him good advice.
The Goddess Athene
The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite summarizes ‘clear-eyed’ Athene’s character and attributes:
She takes no pleasure in the deeds of golden Aphrodite, but rather she delights in war and in the deeds of Ares – combat and battle – and the intricacies of fine craftsmanship. She first taught the mortal craftsmen of the earth to make war chariots of bronze. And she taught soft-skinned maidens in their halls and set the understanding of fine arts in every mind.
At first this polarity of interests – war and domestic harmony – seems hard to reconcile. However (unlike Ares), Athene took no pleasure in conflict in itself. Rather, in her capacity as Protectress of the City (Athene Polias), a role she enjoyed throughout the Greek world, she was more than willing to resort to combat when the need arose. Then she would lead the charge with merciless ferocity, as another epithet, ‘Promachus’ (‘Front-Line Fighter’), attests, while her success in battle is reflected in her title Nike (‘Victory’).
Within the well-protected city, Athene presided over the complex craftsmanship of men and domestic skills, such as weaving, associated with women. But when the mortal Arachne was heard boasting that she was a better weaver than the goddess, Athene disguised herself and challenged her to a contest. Arachne’s work was delicately beautiful. The goddess was impressed – until the girl insisted that her skill owed nothing to divine inspiration. Athene destroyed the tapestry in fury, revealed her true identity, caused the terrified Arachne to hang herself and turned the suspended victim into a spider, whose weaving remains breathtaking to this day.
As the child of Metis, Athene was also the grey-eyed (‘glaukopis’) goddess of wisdom, whose avatar was the owl (‘glaux’ in Greek). The bird appeared on Athens’ coinage, often accompanied by a sprig of olive. For it was thanks to the olive tree that Athens belonged to Athene.
Athene & Poseidon Contest for Attica
The natural beauty and resources of Athens and its territory, Attica, attracted the attentions of both Athene and Poseidon. Each claimed them as their own. So they raced in their chariots to the Acropolis and leapt on to the rock. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident, and salt water bubbled from beneath the earth. In response, Athene planted a young sapling, a silver-leaved olive tree, which rustled in the breeze. As the two gods prepared to settle their quarrel by brute force, Zeus intervened, first hurling a thunderbolt, which exploded on the ground between them, then appearing in person to order that the issue be resolved in a law-court with the other gods as jurors. Called as witness, Cecrops, King of Athens, praised the usefulness of Athene’s gift. In a subsequent vote, the male gods supported Poseidon, while the goddesses championed Athene. The numbers favoured Athene, and the land was awarded to her. Poseidon stalked off enraged and flooded the local Thriasian Plain, but in time he was reconciled and Athens developed a strong navy.
Wearing her snake-fringed aegis, Athene confronts Poseidon on an Attic black figure vase, c. 540–530 BC.
The olive tree thrived throughout Attica and on the Acropolis, where it was revered in historical times. In 480 BC a sacred olive tree was burned by the invading Persians, but by the next morning a new shoot 45 cm (18 in.) long had sprouted. As Herodotus records, it was interpreted as an omen of Athens’ eventual victory, while Pindar describes this tree as: ‘unconquered, self-reviving, a cause of terror to spear-wielding enemies. It thrives in Attica, grey-leaved, our country’s caregiver: the olive tree. Neither young nor old can harm it with their hands, for Protecting Zeus keeps guard with his all-seeing gaze, and with him grey-eyed Athene.’
In the fifth century BC the stories of the birth of Athene and her contest with Poseidon over Attica were commemorated in the sculptures of the Parthenon’s two pediments.
Cecrops & Erichthonius
Cecrops was the first king to rule from Athens (his father-in-law, Actaeus, had his capital elsewhere in Attica). His torso, arms and head were human, but being earth-born his lower body was a serpent’s. Wise and virtuous, Cecrops taught his people the art of literature as well as the rites of burial and marriage, and piously worshipped Zeus. But he refused to make blood offerings, preferring to burn cakes on the altar, a tradition which Athenians preserved in one of their rituals.
Cecrops’ successor was Erichthonius. He, too, was a hybrid man and snake, and his conception was unusual. Seeing Athene walking modestly on the Acropolis, Hephaestus tried to rape her. The virgin goddess rebuffed him, but he ejaculated uncontrollably over her thigh. Athene wiped off the semen with a handful of wool, which she flung to the ground and soon forgot. But the semen soaked into the soil, where it impregnated Gaia. The resultant child was Erichthonius (‘Wool-Earth’).
Horrified at his appearance, Athene locked Erichthonius into a box, which she gave to Cecrops’ three daughters with instructions never to open it, but, tantalized, two could not resist. They prised off the lid and looked inside. Screaming in terror at the snaky child, they dropped the box, ran to the Acropolis’ edge and threw themselves to their death. Only Pandrosus (‘All-Dewy’), the third of Cecrops’ daughters, survived. In historical times she was honoured with a garden near Athene’s olive tree and Poseidon’s well on the Acropolis.
Outraged at the girls’ disobedience, Athene dropped the rock she was carrying to augment the Acropolis. It remained jutting up abruptly from the soil: Mount Lycabettus. Erichthonius grew up to rule Athens. Sloughing off his human element, he was worshipped as a sacred serpent well into the Classical age and fed with honey cakes.
Pandion, Procne, Philomela & Erechtheus
