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The Myth Of Dionysus’ Revenge Against The Women Of Argos

By
thehistorianshut
-

Dionysus, the far-traveling ancient god of vegetation and wine, was one of the more amiable and benevolent figures from among the pantheon of ancient Greek deities. Nevertheless, if encountered on a bad day, he could also be vindictive and wrathful, especially if he was tested or challenged by communities that he encountered on his adventures. Such wrathfulness was a usual feature of ancient gods, but, to Dionysus’ credit, he seemed to resort to violence far less frequently than his other fellow major Greek gods and goddesses. Yet, even though he was often more peaceful than other deities, that did not mean that Dionysus held back if he did fall into one of his wrathful mood swings. In fact, he could be quite brutal and cruel when his personality made its relatively rare transformation from his usual joyful buzz to his darker side of drunken rage and madness.

One of the worst instances of Dionysus’ unleashed wrath occurred in the ancient Greek city of Argos, where Dionysus fell into a rage after he felt he had been treated dishonorably by the local population. Dionysus usually unleashed his wrath against men (such as King Lycurgus of the Edonians and King Pentheus of Thebes), but in the case of Argos it was the women who suffered the brunt of Dionysus’ power and its consequences. On what happened to the Argive women, a mythographer known as Pseudo-Apollodorus (c. 1st-2nd century) wrote, “Having shown the Thebans that he [Dionysus] was a god, he went to Argos, and there again, when they failed to honour him, he drove the women mad, and they carried their unweaned children into the mountains and feasted on their flesh” (Apollodorus, Library, 3.5.2). After delivering this horrific punishment on the people of Argos, Dionysus promptly departed the region for his next adventure, leaving the Argive women in their supernaturally-wrought state of madness.

Argos’ women were not left in their maddened state for long. They were, instead, released from their delirium by a most curious guardian from Greek myth and legend. As was told by the Greek-Sicilian historian, Diodorus Siculus (c. 1st century BCE), “Melampous, who was a seer, healed the women of Argos of the madness which the wrath of Dionysus had brought upon them…” (Diodorus Siculus, Library, 4.68). This Melampous figure (also spelled Melampus) was a miracle-performing hero with a knack for divination, magical healing, and the ability to talk to wildlife—snakes being his favorite animal comrades. Although Melampous could dispel the madness of the Argive women with his miraculous healing abilities, he was not able to, in this case, bring the dead back to life or cure their parents’ sorrow over the loss of the children. Even so, the Argive people were thankful enough for Melampous’ services to give him land and power in Argos.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Cropped and modified triumph of Bacchus, painted by Joseph Alexis Mazerolle (c. 1826-1889), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Paris Musees Collections).

 

Sources:

  • The Library of History, by Diodorus Siculus, edited by Giles Laurén (Sophron Editor, 2014).
  • Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, translated by Robin Hard. New York, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Cadmus Sowing The Dragon’s Teeth, by Maxfield Parrish (c. 1870 – 1966)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This illustration, by the American artist Maxfield Parrish (c. 1870 – 1966), was inspired by a figure from ancient Greek mythology and an origin story for one of the major city-states of ancient Greece. As the title of the artwork gives away, the picture features the mythological hero Cadmus. Said to have been the son of King Agenor of Phoenicia, Cadmus’s days of adventuring originally began when he was sent out to rescue his kidnapped sister, Europa, who had been abducted by the god, Zeus. Humble Cadmus knew he was no match for Zeus, so he chose not to pick a fight with the ruler of Olympus. Yet, he also could not return home empty-handed, as the quest to fetch Europa had been a command directly from Cadmus’ father, King Agenor. In need of guidance on what to do next, Cadmus paid a visit to the Oracle at Delphi. There, Cadmus was instructed to follow a restless cow until the long-wandering beast finally slumped to the ground, and it was there that Cadmus was meant to build the city of Thebes.

Cadmus completed his journey to the site of Thebes, but he soon discovered there was a problem that needed to be dealt with before the construction of the city could be underway. As the story goes, a giant serpent or dragon had its lair in the region—it was an immediate threat to Cadmus’ companions and his future settlement, meaning that Cadmus now had to play the part of the dragon-slayer. Indeed, the hero slew the monstrous creature, and when he had completed this impressive feat, the goddess Pallas Athena made an appearance. She came not with congratulations, but with odd instructions that she wanted Cadmus to carry out. The Roman poet Ovid (c. 43 BCE-17 CE) described the scene:

“Look now! Gliding down through the ether, his patron goddess
Pallas appeared, with orders for him to turn the soil
and sow the teeth of the dragon as seeds of a race to come.
He did as she bade and after pressing a rut in the earth
with a plough, he scattered the teeth that were destined to grow into men.
At once—amazing to tell—the clods started to crumble;
out of the furrow a line of bristling spear-tips sprouted,
next an array of helmets nodding with colourful plumes,
then manly shoulders and breasts and arms accoutred with weapons
rose from the earth, a burgeoning crop of shielded warriors.
…
Madness got hold of them all. Their death was as quick as their birth,
from the wounds they dealt and received in their own unnatural warfare.
Those youths, allotted so brief a span of life, were already
beating the breast of their mother earth, till it bled with their fresh warm
blood. Five soldiers only remained, and one was Echíon.
He, at Minerva’s prompting, threw his arms to the ground
and sued for peace with his brothers, promising peace in return.”
(Ovid, Metamorphosis, 3.101-128)

As the story goes, the five survivors of the deathmatch (called the Spartoi, or the “Sown”) became the originators of the ancient noble families in the city of Thebes, and the sower of the seeds, Cadmus, went on to be Thebes’ first king and the ancestor of the city’s first royal line. It is this tale of Cadmus and the founding of Thebes that inspired Maxfield Parrish’s artwork, titled Cadmus Sowing The Dragon’s Teeth. Unlike most other artists who covered this particular myth, Maxfield Parrish left out the dragon and the Spartoi from his artwork, and instead chose to focus on Cadmus and the landscape.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Sources:

Sima Qian

By
thehistorianshut
-

Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE)

“Worthy men, worthy men, people say, but if one does not have worth within himself, how can he make use of the worth of others? It is well said that safety and peril hinge upon the issuing of orders, and survival and defeat upon the men one puts in office. How true that is!”

  • Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji 50) by Sima Qian. Translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993).

The Greco-Roman Myth About The Origin Of Spiders And Their Weaving

By
thehistorianshut
-

Spiders are known for the complex and intricate webs that they weave. It is not surprising, then, that the ancient Greeks cultivated a myth claiming that the originator of spiders was a master weaver of legendary skill. This talented figure, named Arachne, was said to have been the greatest weaver of her time, and the masterpieces of cloth that she produced convinced many that her abilities in weaving surpassed the cloth-working abilities of the gods, themselves. As was told by the ancient poet, Ovid (c. 43 BCE-17 CE), the wise Greek goddess, Athena (or the Roman equivalent Minerva), decided to put Arachne to the test in order to finally see if the weaver’s talents truly lived up to her reputation. Athena, taking on the appearance of an old woman, tracked down Arachne and challenged her to a weaving competition. Unfortunately for Arachne, life rarely turned out well for anyone who competed against the gods, and even if the gods were met with an unlikely defeat in a contest, the bested deities usually turned out to be sore losers.

During the weaving competition, both Athena and Arachne chose the gods as the subject of the woven art. Athena’s art displayed the gods and goddesses in all their splendor, overseeing a slew of cautionary scenes that depicted mortals who were punished by the gods. The foreshadowing of divine retribution did not perturb Arachne, and she instead doubled down on challenging the gods. Whereas Athena had depicted the gods as posing triumphantly above punished humans, Arachne took a different route that chastised the gods for their many abuses of power. She particularly focused on the countless rapes that were committed by the main male deities of the Greek pantheon; their tyrannical misdeeds were powerfully depicted through the medium of Arachne’s masterful weaving. In the end, despite the odds against her, everyone—even the gods—agreed that Arachne’s woven artwork was likely the better of the two. Nevertheless, Arachne’s victory and especially its subject matter caused Athena (or Minerva) to spiral into a rage, and nothing good comes to humans when gods lose their tempers. As was narrated by Ovid:

“Not Pallas [Athena], not even the goddess of Envy could criticize weaving
like that. The fair-haired warrior goddess resented Arachne’s
success and ripped up the picture betraying the gods’ misdemeanours.
She was still holding her shuttle of hard Cytórian boxwood
and used it to strike Arachne a number of times on the forehead.
…
‘You may live, you presumptuous creature,’ she [Athena] said,
‘but you’ll hang suspended forever. Don’t count on a happier future:
my sentence applies to the whole of your kind, and to all your descendants!’
With that she departed, sprinkling the girl with the magical juice
of a baleful herb. As soon as the poison had touched Arachne.
her hair fell away, and so did the ears and the nose. The head
now changed to a tiny ball and her whole frame shrunk in proportion.
Instead of her legs there are spindly fingers attached to her sides.
The rest is merely abdomen, from which she continues to spin
her thread and practice her former art in the web of a spider.”
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 6, approximately lines 129-145)

So ends the tale of Arachne and Athena, as told by Ovid. Despite her weaving being equal or greater than the work of the goddess, Athena, victorious Arachne’s only prize was a beating and a punitive transformation into the shape of a spider. Thus, Arachne became an arachnid, the first of her kind.

 

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Minerva Visits Women Spinning and Weaving, by Bernard Picart (c. 18th century), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Rijksmuseum).

Sources:

  • Metamorphoses by Ovid. Translated by David Raeburn. Penguin Classics; Revised Edition, 2004.

Death Of Porcia, Attributed To Gilles Marie Oppenord (c. 1672-1742)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This drawing, attributed to the French artist Gilles Marie Oppenord (c. 1672-1742), was inspired by the ancient story of the death of the Roman noblewoman, Porcia Catonis. She was the daughter of the brilliant Roman statesman, Cato the Younger (95-46 BCE), who spent his life fighting against corruption and defending the status quo of the Roman Republic against prospective dictators, such as Julius Caesar. The Republic and its defenders, however, lost the war against Caesar, and this turn of events caused Cato to eventually take his own life in 46 BCE. Cato’s daughter, Porcia, was just as wrapped up in the war as her father. She was married to the influential figure, Brutus, who famously was involved in stabbing Julius Caesar to death on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. Brutus, however, was hunted down by Caesar’s successors in the next generation of the Roman Civil War by 42 BCE, and he, too, committed suicide as the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony closed in. Porcia, unfortunately, soon followed in the footsteps of her father and husband, as she also allegedly committed suicide not long after Brutus. The most popular accounts of her death either involve suicide by sealing herself in a room with noxious smoke, or by gruesomely swallowing live coals. It is the last of the accounts that Gilles Marie Oppenord apparently chose for the artwork, as Porcia can be seen holding a burning coal close to her head.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Sources:

Mark Twain

By
thehistorianshut
-

Mark Twain (c. 1835-1910)

“You see my kind of loyalty was to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal…”

  • From chapter 13 of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court (Published in 1889). The edition used here is by Bantam/Random House (1981, 2005).

The Tale Of A Mysterious Royal Viscount Who Served In The Shang And Zhou Dynasties

By
thehistorianshut
-

An interesting figure known only by his title of viscount lived in China during the transformational mid-11th century BCE. Although the name of this viscount was not recorded, a decent amount of information was nevertheless preserved about the individual. In terms of personality, the viscount was known as a man of integrity, honesty, wisdom and bravery. Regarding social and familial status, he was a member of a branch family of the collapsing Shang Dynasty in China (flourished approximately 1600–1046 BCE). Although the viscount was not in the top imperial succession of the overall dynastic empire, he was reportedly the eldest son of a Shang family vassal king. Despite the viscount’s own familial links to the Shang Dynasty, he reportedly became an outspoken critic of the last dynastic ruler, King Zhou (r. 1075-1046 BCE). Unfortunately, because ancient history is so laden with legend and folklore, it is not clear just how bad the reign of King Zhou of Shang might have truly been. Nevertheless, like Caligula and Nero in ancient Rome, King Zhou was remembered in history as the ultimate evil tyrant. The downfall of the Shang Dynasty (also called the Yin Dynasty due to the family’s last capital city), as well as the existence of the viscount, was commented on in an ancient text called the Shang Shu. The text, often known as The Book of Documents or The Most Venerable Book, was a record written before the days of Confucius (c. 551-479 BCE). In it, a poem attributed to the viscount (known then as the Viscount of Wei) lamented the ethical decline of the Shang/Yin Dynasty that he served:

“The Viscount was outspoken, and said:
‘Scholars, great and small, this Yin dynasty
has now lost its right to rule over our land.
…
The people of Yin think it’s fine
to perform crimes of daylight robbery and viciousness
no matter how great or small.
The nobles even encourage each other in this
and no one is ever challenged! But now
the common people are in revolt, and at last
the whole edifice is collapsing…”
(Shang Shu, chapter 26)

Although the viscount mentioned internal revolt, this was ultimately not the greatest danger faced by King Zhou of the Shang Dynasty. West of King Zhou’s domain, the weakness of the Shang Dynasty was sensed by a powerful ruler known as King Wen (leader of a state ironically named Zhou). King Wen and his large household of sons (allegedly ten of them) successfully led the Zhou people in war to displace the Shang Dynasty as the top power of ancient China. Although King Wen was the spark and vehicle of his Zhou Dynasty’s rise to power, it was Wen’s leading son, King Wu, who completed his father’s war, crushed the Shang Dynasty, and was considered the first ruler of the new order. King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty (r. 1046-1042 BCE), after establishing his dominance, quickly shifted to restoring order and administration to the realm in a feudal fashion.

In his post-war rule, King Wu evidently became aware of the outspoken Shang family viscount that had criticized his own family’s rule before the downfall of the Shang Dynasty. The viscount had survived the war and was willing to work with the new regime. King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty, for his part, reportedly admired the man’s character and was willing to give the former dissident Shang nobleman a place in the Zhou Dynasty’s administration. Whereas the viscount was known earlier as the Viscount of Wei during the fall of the Shang Dynasty, he became temporarily repositioned during the reign of King Wu of Zhou as the Viscount of Qi. Additionally, the viscount’s father became the vassal king of Yin. In the new status quo, the viscount became something of an agent and an advisor to King Wu, helping the ruler to implement his Great Plan and also helping educate the king on anything he wanted to learn. The Shang Shu preserved many wise sayings and philosophical axioms, in poetic form, that were attributed to the viscount, including:

“The essence of demeanour is respect
of speech—reason
of perception—clarity
of hearing—comprehension
and of thinking—perception.
And so respect creates reverence
reason creates order
clarity creates wisdom
understanding creates possibilities
—and perception creates the sage.”

and

“Without diversion, without ambivalence
follow the Royal Model.
Without pursuing your own desire
walk the way of the Royal path.
Without resentment,
be guided by the Royal Path.
Without factions, without prejudice
the Royal Path is smooth, is easy.
Without prejudice, without breaking away
the Royal Path is level, is straight.
Without stupidity, without bias
the Royal Way is true and appropriate.
Seeing such excellence,
follow it!”
(Poems attributed to the Viscount of Wei/Qi in the Shang Shu, chapter 32)

According to the tradition recorded in the Shang Shu, the viscount outlived King Wu of Zhou, who died around 1042 BCE. Power passed to King Wu’s son, King Cheng of Zhou (r. 1042-1020/1005), whose rule was complicated by his many overbearing uncles, as well as disgruntled remnants of the dethroned Shang Dynasty family. The viscount, who evidently was reverted back to being the Viscount of Wei, reportedly remained firmly on the side of King Cheng. Yet, in an uncomfortable twist of events, the viscount’s father—the vassal king of Yin—was involved in a rebellion against King Cheng. The rebellions, however, were crushed by the king’s loyalists, and in the struggle many of the remaining members of the Shang Dynasty were killed or removed from positions of influence. The viscount, as he had remained loyal to King Cheng, eventually found that he was the senior-most surviving member of the toppled Shang family that was still alive and who was still in good standing with the authorities. In that capacity, the viscount found himself given the task of overseeing the ritual ceremonies that honored the ancestors of the Shang Dynasty—it was an important task, for although the last king of the dynasty was seen as a tyrant, many of the preceding Shang Dynasty kings were celebrated heroes. On this, the Shang Shu, in a chapter titled “The Commission to the Viscount of Wei,” wrote that, “The king spoke to the eldest son of the King of Yin and appointed him to oversee the rites and rituals due to his ancestors” (Shang Shu, chapter 36). After being instructed in this way, the viscount was also graced by the king with a new title of High Noble of the East.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Zhao Mengfu Writing the Heart (Hridaya) Sutra in Exchange for Tea, by Qiu Ying 仇英 (c. 1494-1552), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Cleveland Museum of Art).

 

Sources:

Coriolanus At The Gates Of Rome, Painted By Ciro Ferri (c. 1634-1689)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, by the Italian artist Ciro Ferri (c. 1634-1689), was inspired by a legend from the times of the ancient Roman Republic. Shown seated on the right side of the canvas is the artist’s representation of Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, a powerful figure from ancient Rome who was said to have lived at the turn of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. A distinguished warrior, politician, and a mastermind behind tactics of oppression used by the early Roman Republic’s oligarchical ruling class, Coriolanus was an extreme figure who was loathed by Rome’s commoners. In the end, however, the masses put Coriolanus on trial, and as the oligarchs deemed him to be a controversial liability, they allowed the trial to go forward, resulting in Coriolanus’ banishment.

Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus did not take his exile lightly. Bent upon revenge, the banished warrior soon found asylum with one of the greatest enemies of the Roman people at that time—the Volscians—and offered his military experience to them as a general or advisor for their army. According to the Roman historian, Livy, Coriolanus oversaw a highly-effective Volscian invasion of the Roman Republic’s territory between 490-488 BCE, besieging Rome itself in the last year of the conflict. The Romans, however, had a secret weapon behind their walls—Coriolanus’ family, who were still residents of the besieged city. Therefore, as the legend goes, all of Coriolanus’ family members and relations were sent out to negotiate for Rome. His mother was among the negotiators, as were his wife and children, all begging for him to end his siege of their beloved Rome. Livy described the scene:

“Coriolanus was profoundly moved; almost beside himself, he started from his seat and, running to his mother, would have embraced her had he not been checked by her sudden turn to anger…His wife and children flung their arms round him; the other women all burst into tears of anguish for themselves and their country, until at last Coriolanus could bear no more. He kissed his wife and the two boys, sent them home, and withdrew his army” (History of Rome, 2.40).

It is this scene of Coriolanus facing the pleas of his own family that Ciro Ferri re-creates in paint. Unable to go against his family, Coriolanus withdrew his army from the city, never again to return to Rome. For a more complete account of the story of Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, read our article, HERE.

 

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

Ovid

By
thehistorianshut
-

Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE)

“Think how a tract of the sky, when the sun breaks suddenly through
at the end of a rain shower, is steeped in the long, great curve of a rainbow;
the bow is agleam with a range of a thousand various hues,
but the eye cannot tell where one fades into another; adjacent
tones are so much the same, though the difference is clear at the edges.”

  • From the poem, Metamorphoses, by Ovid (Book 6, approximately lines 63-67). Translated by David Raeburn. Penguin Classics; Revised Edition, 2004.

Political Real-Estate In Ancient Rome

By
thehistorianshut
-

During the life of the ancient Roman lawyer, bureaucrat and statesman, Pliny the Younger (c. 61/62-113), the Roman senate—with the emperor’s blessing—acted to reform the requirements and election practices involving candidates who wished to run for public office in Rome. The reforms restricted many unscrupulous methods that had been used in the past by figures such as Julius Caesar to buy political and public support before an election. Pliny the Younger, in a letter he wrote to his friend Maecilius Nepos, wrote of how the senate addressed the issue. An edict was passed, claimed Pliny, that read, “Candidates should be prohibited from providing entertainments, distributing presents, and depositing money with agents” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.19). When it came time for the emperor (presumably Emperor Trajan, r. 98-117) to chime in to add suggestions and amendments to the senate’s work, the emperor agreed with the spending limitations and anti-bribery legislation, but he also wanted to add a curious new section of his own about residences in Rome.

To would-be candidates for office in Rome, the emperor suggested that rather than spend their money on bribes, they should instead use their money to buy properties in Rome, because any official running for public office should have a proper residence in the capital city or, at least, in Italy. Regarding the political candidacy reform and the real-estate amendment, Pliny the Younger stated that the emperor took action by “applying the law against bribery to force candidates to limit their scandalously gross expenditure; and he has also compelled them to invest a third of their capital in real estate, thinking it unseemly (as indeed it was) that candidates for office should treat Rome and Italy not as their native country, but as a mere inn or lodging house for them on their visits” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.19). Of course, the new requirement that a candidate for office should have property in the vicinity of Rome eventually caused waves in the Roman economy. Demand for Italian real estate went up, causing the price of the coveted properties to rise. Similarly, prospective politicians from the frontier regions of the empire were selling their provincial lands if they needed extra capital to purchase a residence in the neighborhood of Rome. For wealthy statesmen with multiple Roman properties, such as Pliny the Younger, it was a great time to buy low and sell high in the land market. Yet, the price increases on Roman land also added to the inflationary troubles that Rome began to experience during the reign of Emperor Trajan.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Cropped Emperor Trajan Giving An Audience, produced in the studio of Noël Coypel (c. 1628-1707), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and Artvee).

 

Sources:

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