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Latona And The Lycian Peasants, By Jan Brueghel The Elder (c. 1568-1625)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, from the Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder (c. 1568-1625), was inspired by a story written by the Roman poet, Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE), about the divine family of Latona (known as Leto to the Greeks). She was the mother of the twin deities, Apollo and Diana (aka Artemis), who are depicted as newborns in the painting. The father of the children was the mighty arch-god, Jupiter (or Zeus), but as he was already married to a wrathful queen goddess, Leto decided to go into hiding with her newborns to keep them away from Jupiter’s jealous wife. This brings us to Latona’s encounter with the Lycian peasants. As the story goes, wearied Latona reached a certain small marshy lake in Lycia not long after she gave birth to her twins. She was understandably tired and irritable at this point, and she desperately wanted to drink a handful or two of water from the pond. Nevertheless, local farmers—the so-called Lycian peasants—did not react kindly to the appearance of the mysterious woman with her twin babies. When Latona began trying to drink some of the water, the locals started to heckle her and some went so far as to stomp and splash in the water, making it too muddy to drink. Prior to this rude display from the locals, Latona had evidently been concealing her divine nature (she and her children were in hiding, after all), but the behavior of the Lycian peasants ultimately caused the goddess to lash out with her godly powers. As narrated by the Roman poet, Ovid:

“[The Lycian peasants] even disturbed the water itself
with their hands and feet, and spitefully stirred the soft and swirling
mud right up from the bottom by jumping wildly about.
Latona’s anger made her forget her thirst for the moment.
She refused to humble herself any longer before these louts
or to plead any more for kindness in such an ungoddesslike manner.
She raised her hands to the heavens and cried, ‘May you live in your filthy
pool for ever!’ Her prayer was answered.
…
[E]ven today they continue to wag
their tongues in loud and unseemly arguments; shameless as ever,
although they are under the water, they’ll try to indulge in abuse.
Their voices too have gone hoarse; their throats are inflated and swollen;
their noisy quarrels have stretched their jaws to a hideous width.
Their shoulders rise to their heads as their necks appear to have vanished;
their backs are green, while their huge protruding bellies are white.
They leap about in the muddy pool transmuted to frogs.’”
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 6, approximately lines 363-381)

It is this tale of the rude Lycians and Latona’s revenge that inspired Jan Brueghel the Elder’s painting. Latona and her children can be seen by the water’s edge at the bottom left corner of the artwork, talking to two peasants whose heads have already taken on frog-like features. Ironically for the Lycian peasants, although being turned into frogs is not a pleasant fate, they might also be counted as lucky that they got off with such a light punishment after slighting Latona. Especially after Apollo and Diana grew up, Latona and her children proved to be an incredibly wrathful and brutal trio.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

 

Sources:

Machiavelli

By
thehistorianshut
-

Machiavelli (c. 1469-1527)

“There are three different kinds of brains, the one understands things unassisted, the other understands things when shown by others, the third understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others. The first kind is most excellent, the second also excellent, but the third useless.”

  • From The Prince (chapter 22) by Machiavelli, translated and printed by the Henry Regnery Company, 1948.

The Zhou Dynasty’s Forced Relocation Of The Shang Clan

By
thehistorianshut
-

In the mid-11th century BCE, the realm of the ancient Shang Dynasty in China (flourished approximately 1600–1046 BCE) was challenged by a certain King Wen, who placed his own Zhou family atop a powerful coalition of peoples from the west and used this force to wage war against the Shang Dynasty’s territory. King Wen’s wave of conquest was completed by his heir, King Wu of Zhou (r. 1046-1042 BCE), who was considered the first ruler of the Zhou Dynasty after it replaced the Shang clan as the hegemons of ancient China.

Although the Shang clan was dethroned, they were not annihilated. Instead, after the war, a great many members of the Shang family were spared and given the opportunity to rejoin society and be of use to the Zhou family. Most famously, legend held that King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty admired a certain virtuous nobleman of the Shang family who had criticized his own family’s rule before the downfall of the Shang Dynasty. King Wu, for his part, reportedly respected the man’s character and was willing to give the former dissident Shang nobleman a place in the Zhou Dynasty’s administration. The man in question (unfortunately left unnamed) was allowed to hold the rank of a viscount and his father reportedly became the vassal king of Yin. Like this vassal king, there were other existing Shang Dynasty holdovers who, too, were allowed to remain in positions of power. The viscount, in particular, became something of an agent and an advisor to King Wu, helping the ruler to implement his administration. He also reportedly was an educator of sorts, imparting knowledge to the king about anything the royal wanted to learn. King Wu’s reign, however, was relatively short, and when he died around 1042 BCE, surviving members of the Shang clan were tempted to act out against the new ruling family.

King Wu was succeeded by his young son, King Cheng of Zhou (r. 1042-1020/1005 BCE), whose rule was complicated by his many overbearing uncles—numbering around nine—as well as the disgruntled remnants of the dethroned Shang Dynasty family. Some disloyal uncles of the king and rebellious Shang family vassals launched dangerous revolts, but King Cheng’s trusted regents and loyalists, headed by the king’s revered uncle, the Duke of Zhou, quashed the outbreaks of rebellion. The aforementioned viscount 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 viscount, for his loyalty, was granted the lofty title of High Noble of the East and was tasked with overseeing the ritual ceremonies that honored the ancestors of his family. Other surviving Shang family members, however—after the latest bouts of rebellion and resistance—were not given the same respect and freedoms as the High Noble of the East. Instead, the Shang family members were rounded up and herded to a brand-new capital city that was being built by two of King Cheng’s uncles, the Duke of Zhou and the Duke of Shao, along the banks of the Luo River (also called Luoyi, approximately in modern Luoyang, Henan). The Shang clan would be moving to this new capital, named Luo or Luoyang, and King Cheng of Zhou would not take no as an answer. A text called the Shang Shu (variously translated as The Book of Documents or The Most Venerable Book), which originated in the days before Confucius (c. 551-479 BCE), purported to quote a proclamation from King Cheng that was narrated by the Duke of Zhou. It stated:

“I have built this great city of Luo to be a place where the whole country can find a focal point and where every prince can come to offer tribute and as the place where my ministers can serve. I invite you [Shang clan members] to settle here, as esteemed guests. You will retain all your lands, so you can afford to dwell here in honourable peace. Heaven will be kind to you if you show obedience and respect. But if you do not, then not only will you lose all your lands, but Heaven will exact revenge against you personally.” (Shang Shu, chapter 42)

Such was the ultimatum that was given—move to the new capital and live under close supervision, or face punishment and the seizure of everything you hold dear. With the previous rebellions already crushed, it was not too difficult to get the Shang clan to comply, albeit with some grumbling. There, besides appearances from the king, the Shang family members also had to watch out for the lofty figure of the Duke of Zhou, who was tasked by King Cheng with staying at Luo for the foreseeable future to oversee the region and attend to the needs of government, including keeping an eye on the Shang clan.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (cropped Barbarian Royalty Worshiping the Buddha, attributed to Zhao Guangfu (c. 923-976), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Cleveland Museum of Art).

 

Sources:

Åke And Grimma Find Aslög, Painted By August Malmström (c. 1829-1901)

By
thehistorianshut
-

This painting, by the Swedish artist August Malmström (c. 1829-1901), was inspired by famous Germanic and Norse legends involving a woman named Aslög (or Aslaug). Her tale is intertwined with the stories of several famous figures. Most notably, Aslög would become a companion of the storied Viking-era adventurer, Ragnar Lodbrok. Yet, long before that future encounter, Aslög was already tied to other celebrated characters—her legendary parents. Aslög’s father was said to have been the Norse dragon-slaying hero, Sigurd (equivalent to the Germanic hero, Siegfried), and her mother was Brynhild, a shield-maiden and alleged Valkyrie. The tragic romance of Sigurd and Brynhild, however, did not last. Both Sigurd and Brynhild married different people and neither parent wanted to bring Aslög along into their new households. Instead, Brynhild tasked her foster father and brother-in-law, Heimir (or Heimer), with the responsibility of looking after Aslög. Heimir agreed to the proposal, and he cared for young Aslög as Brynhild and Sigurd self-destructed.

As the story goes, when Heimir eventually received the sad news that Sigurd and Brynhild were both dead, he assumed that Aslög might be in danger from enemies and opportunists. Therefore, Heimir decided to hide the girl. He was said to have assumed the guise of a traveling musician, and in the wooden body of his musical instrument—a harp—there was a compartment in which little Aslög could fit herself, along with some extra supplies. This was mentioned in the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, which stated, “He had a harp made that was so large that he put the girl Aslaug inside it, along with many precious objects of gold and silver. Then he went away and traveled widely throughout the land…” (Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, chapter 1). Journeying in that peculiar way, Heimir and hidden Aslög fatefully arrived one day on the farm of an old couple named Åke and Grimma (also spelled Aki and Grima). Unfortunately for the travelers, all their time on the road had not been kind to Heimir’s disguise and the harp’s integrity. Åke and Grimma witnessed coins falling out of the harp, and also saw bits of fine clothing bursting through the joints of the wooden instrument. Consumed by greed, the couple decided to murder Heimir and take his treasure for themselves. They attacked the weary traveler with an axe while he slept and ran off to inspect the harp as he lay dying. The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok described what happened next: “Now they kindled a fire, and the old woman took the harp and tried to open it. She couldn’t get it open in any other way than breaking it, because she didn’t have the skill. But once she got the harp opened up, there she saw a girl-child, and she thought that she had never seen anyone like her” (Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, chapter 1).

Such is the scene that August Malmström re-created in his painting. It is set just after the murder of Heimir, and shows Åke and Grimma breaking into the compartment of the harp, discovering Aslög inside. With nowhere else for the child to go, Aslög ended up living with the murderers, who gave the girl a new name—Kraka. She would remain with the family of criminals for years, until fate finally brought her into contact with the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Sources:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

By
thehistorianshut
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau (c. 1712-1778)

“Beware particularly, as the last piece of advice I shall give you, of sinister constructions and venomous rumours, the secret motives of which are often more dangerous than the actions at which they are levelled.”

  • From the Dedication to the Republic of Geneva in On the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (c. 1712-1778). The quoted edition was translated and published by the Great Books Foundation (Chicago, Illinois, 1949).

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
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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
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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:

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