Sophocles (c. 496-406/405 BCE)
“Time is watching, watching over us always,
bringing down the lives of some,
raising others the next day
into the light again.”
A man named Caecilius Classicus held a chaotic term as Rome’s governor of Baetica (southern Spain) in the late 1st century. His governorship was characterized by corruption and exploitation, causing Classicus to eventually be put on trial by representatives of his angry province. Unfortunately, Caecilius Classicus died before the trial was begun. The prominent government official and lawyer, Pliny the Younger (c. 61/62-113)—who became a prosecutor in the case against Classicus—wrote of the disgraced governor’s odd death, stating, “He forestalled the trial by his death, which might have been accidental or self-inflicted (there was much general suspicion but no definite proof) for, though it seemed likely that he intended to die since he could not defend himself, it is surprising that he should have died to escape the shame of condemnation for deeds which he was not ashamed to do” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.9). Whatever the case, by the time a trial was formally convened against Caecilius Classicus around the year 100, the ex-governor was already dead. This did not put an end to the matter, however, for Classicus could be tried posthumously in the ancient Roman court, and his living accomplices could also still be brought before the court.
As told by Pliny the Younger, proving that Caecilius Classicus was guilty turned out to be an extraordinarily easy task. Classicus, as it happened, had been a prolific notetaker and an indiscrete letter-writer. During their investigation, Pliny and his colleagues discovered a treasure trove of ledgers about criminal deals, as well as messages to friends and family in which Classicus gloated about his ill-gotten proceeds. On the ex-governor’s self-incriminating lifestyle, Pliny wrote, “It was easy to make short work of Classicus. He had left accounts in his own hand of his receipts for every business deal and court case, and he had even sent a bragging letter to his mistress in Rome (these are his actual words): ‘Hurrah, hurrah, I’m coming to you a free man—I’ve sold up half of the Baetici and raised four million!’” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.9). Due to such evidence being found, Classicus was posthumously convicted for his crimes in the year 101, and any wealth that he had gained from his time in Baetica had to be forfeited by his family and sent back to the Baetici people. In connection to the trial, Pliny the Younger and his team also successfully argued charges against several of Classicus’ henchmen, including Baebius Probus, Fabius Hispanus and Stilonius Priscus.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Illustration labeled Saalburg: Ernste Nachricht [Serious news], dated to 1907, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the NYPL Collection).
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This psychedelic and colorful artwork, by the Polish artist Josef Mehoffer (c. 1869 – 1946), depicts the legendary flying horse, Pegasus, and two godly Muses from Greek mythology. Although Mehoffer was not explicit in labeling which, if any, particular myth he wanted to represent in his work, the scene does resemble one incident from the mythological tales where Pegasus stamped his hoof against the ground, creating a magnificent water spring or fountain that the delighted Muses quickly claimed as their own. The Roman poet, Ovid (c. 43 BCE-17 CE), wrote of this myth in his epic poem, Metamorphoses, framing the scene so that the Muses gave the goddess, Minerva (aka Athena), a tour of the spring. Ovid wrote:
“[Minerva] made for Thebes and the mountain of Helicon, home of the Muses.
Here she landed and spoke to the sisters who govern the arts:
‘A rumor has come to my ears of a fountain that started to gush
when the earth was struck by the hoof of the winged horse sprung from Medusa.
Hence my arrival. I wanted to see this amazing spring…
[The Muse] Uránia answered: ‘Whatever your reason for coming to visit us
here in our home, kind goddess, we feel great pleasure.
The story you heard is correct: the winged horse Pégasus started
our spring;’ and she took Minerva down to the sacred fountain.
Slowly admiring the waters which Pegasus’ hoof had created,
the goddess surveyed the clusters of grand, primeval trees,
mysterious caves and grass bejeweled with myriads of flowers.
She declared that Memory’s daughters [the Muses] were truly blessed in their dwelling”
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, 5.254-267)
It is this myth, or something similar to it, that Josef Mehoffer seems to be re-creating in his artwork. Pegasus can be seen, perhaps in the act of landing or taking off, and the Muse on the right side of the scene looks as if she is gesturing to the ground and Pegasus’ hooves. It may be the moments leading up to the creation of the sacred fountain of the Muses that is being displayed in the artwork.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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In ancient Greek mythology, a man named Aleos was said to have ruled the Kingdom of Tegea in the Arcadian region of the Peloponnesian Peninsula. Besides being attributed with the founding of a temple to Athena in the region, King Aleos was also well-known for his family’s run-in with the mighty hero, Heracles (or Hercules). For that story, however, King Aleos is a less important character than his daughter, Auge.
Princess Auge, so the story goes, was a free-spirited young woman who evidently had a habit of slipping away from her attendants and guards to take disguised strolls through her father’s lands. It was during one of these lone adventures that Auge crossed paths with Heracles, who just happened to be traveling through the Tegean kingdom at that time. What happened next varied from storyteller to storyteller. In a tradition recorded by Hecataeus (c. 6th century BCE), Auge and Heracles fell in love and had an affair. Yet, unfortunately for Auge, later writers such as Diodorus Siculus (c. 1st century BCE), Pseudo-Apollodorus (c. 1st and 2nd century CE) and Pausanias (c. 2nd century CE) usually followed a different tradition that claimed Auge’s encounter with Heracles was anything but consensual. Diodorus Siculus wrote that Heracles “had done violence to her” (Library, 4.33), whereas Pausanius claimed Auge was “outraged by Heracles” (Description of Greece, 8.47.4), and Apollodorus more bluntly stated that Heracles “debauched” or “raped” the princess (Library, 2.7.4). Whatever the case, once Heracles was done with his unheroic deed, he promptly hit the road to continue on with his adventures.
Princess Ague, shocked and scared after her experience, made her way home back to her father’s palace, where she decided to stay silent about what happened. Yet, as often happened when ancient Greek women had encounters with gods and demigods, Auge soon discovered that she was pregnant. Despite her condition, she continued trying to keep her situation a secret, but the natural course of pregnancy ultimately caused eyes in the palace to shift to Auge’s belly. Word soon reached King Aleos, and when he heard that his unwed daughter was mysteriously pregnant, his reaction was one of outrage and anger—all, sadly, directed at Princess Auge.
Stories of how exactly King Aleos learned of his daughter’s secret varied from storyteller to storyteller, once again. Some claimed that Auge successfully kept her pregnancy a secret and gave birth to a baby boy in her father’s temple to Athena—this unsanctioned use of the temple, however, supposedly caused a plague. According to this tradition, King Aleos entered the temple in hopes of putting an end to the plague, and as a result, he found Auge’s baby and pieced together what had happened. Rejecting the grandson, King Aleos sentenced the newborn to be exposed in the wilderness, and the king also sentenced his daughter to be executed. Alternatively, the rival narrative of the story claimed that Auge’s secret was outed while she was still pregnant, and that she gave birth to her child in a thicket while she was being brought to her place of execution. Whatever the story, Auge was eventually handed over to an executioner, and her baby was left in the wild.
The Fates, however, had plans for the troubled mother and child. In the case of Auge, her executioner—a man named Nauplios—showed mercy on the condemned princess. Instead of killing her, Nauplios managed to hand Auge over to a group of Carian sailors. These sailors brought Auge across the sea to Anatolia, eventually arriving at the shores of Mysia. In a twist of fate, while Auge was in that region, she caught the eye of the Mysian king, Teuthras. The two began having a relationship and Auge ultimately became the queen of Mysia.
As for Auge’s abandoned son, the unnamed baby was said to have been found and cared for by a deer until shepherds found the child. The shepherds named the boy Telephos and eventually delivered the child to a certain King Corythus, who raised the abandoned boy. Although he had a welcoming and loving adopted family, Telephos eventually set out to search for his birth mother. As the story goes, Telephos went to the Oracle at Delphi and sought advice and answers from the site’s famous priestess. During his consultation at Delphi, Telephos was advised to go to Mysia. After following this advice, Telephos journeyed to the Mysian lands and had a long-delayed reunion with his mother, Auge, who quickly recognized her son. King Teuthras, after learning that Telephos was a son of mighty Heracles, was awestruck and decided to welcome the long-lost son with open arms, ultimately making him the heir to the kingdom.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Scene of Ariadne, from a Terracotta skyphos (deep drinking cup), ca 470 BC, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the MET).
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This painting, by the American artist Samuel Finley Breese Morse (c. 1791–1872), was inspired by stories of the death of the mythical hero, Hercules (the Roman name for the mighty Greek figure, Heracles). Naturally, as it is a death scene, the painting is set long after Hercules’ Famous Twelve Labors for King Eurystheus of Tiryns, which included many of the hero’s most famous deeds, such as slaying the Nemean Lion and the Lyrnaean Hydra, as well as fetching the golden apples of the Hesperides and taking Cerberus out of the Underworld. In the past, too, were Hercules’ expeditions to the land of the Trojans, as well as his destructive rampage of warfare against several Peloponnesian city-states. Yes, by this point in Hercules’ career, he seemed to be unstoppable by any powers, mortal or divine, except for maybe his father, Zeus, who always took Hercules’ sides in conflicts. Yet, while men and gods had been unable to take down formidable Hercules, the hero was still vulnerable in one particular area of his life. It would be women who brought about the death of Hercules.
By the time of his final years, Hercules may have been married two or three times, and Princess Deianeira (or Deianira) of Calydon was the last of his mortal wives. Being the significant other of Hercules was a rough occupation, for the mighty warrior was a flighty individual who, like his father Zeus, had the tendencies of a lecherous rapist. Deianeira’s justified paranoia about her unscrupulous husband’s lustful affairs was especially piqued when Hercules sacked the city of Oichalia in order to capture a beautiful woman named Iole (whose family was unfortunately massacred by Hercules during her abduction). When Deianeira discovered that Hercules was infatuated with Iole, the revelation caused Deianeira to fear that she would soon be replaced and abandoned. This fear and jealously would be pivotal to the downfall of Hercules.
Although Deianeira would eventually cause the death of Hercules, the real key to what was about to unfold was a chance encounter that Hercules and Deianeira had with a centaur named Nessus (or Nessos). This lusty centaur tried to assault Deianeira and, as the story goes, he was excitedly close to accomplishing his goal when Heracles rescued his wife by shooting the centaur with a poisoned arrow (which was coated in deadly hydra venom). Deianeira, who was beside Nessus as the centaur lay dying, unfortunately heard the creature’s mischievous last words. Nessus told her that if his blood and, ahem, other bodily fluids that he had spilled on the ground were combined, it would make a powerful love potion that would turn Heracles into a faithful and devoted husband if it was exposed to the hero’s skin. Believing Nessus’ words, Deinaeira secretly scooped up and bottled the suspicious substances that had leaked out of the centaur. Unfortunately for Hercules, it was not a love potion that Deinaeira had obtained, but a terrible and deadly poison. After all, the centaur’s spilled blood was poisoned with the very same Hydra venom that had coated Hercules’ arrows.
Refocusing on the aforementioned Iole, when Deinaeira realized that she had competition for Hercules’ affection, she decided to employ the ‘love potion’ that she had obtained from Nessus. As the story goes, Hercules one day requested that Deinaeira send him a garment of clothing that he could use during a sacrifice to Zeus. To Deinaeira, it was an ideal moment to use her potion—she applied the centaur’s liquid to Hercules’ garments and had a messenger named Lichas carefully bring the clothing to the unsuspecting hero. A scholar named Pseudo-Apollodorus (c. 1st-2nd century) described what happened next:
“Deianeira, learning from Lichas how matters stood with regard to Iole, was afraid that Heracles might be more in love with Iole than with herself, and thinking that the blood that had flowed from Nessos really was a love-potion, she rubbed it into the tunic. So Heracles put it on, and proceeded with the sacrifice. But as soon as the tunic grew warm, the poison from the hydra began to bite into his skin” (Apollodorus, Library, 2.7.7).
Such is the scene that is playing out in the painting created by Samuel Finley Breese Morse. It shows Hercules writhing in pain after being exposed to the poisonous garment sent by Deianeira. After being covered in the hydra venom, Heracles ultimately decided to burn himself to death in order to stop the pain.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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In the 9th or 10th century, there lived a woman named Thorgerd, who was married to a wealthy individual named Asbjorn. This Asbjorn reportedly was a child of Chieftain Heyjangur-Bjorn of Sogn, but Asbjorn likely was not the eldest or favored heir of the chieftain, for he began to contemplate leaving Sogn in order to settle his family abroad. Perhaps, the decision to move could have also been spurred on by the rise of the monarch, Harald Finehair (ruled approximately 860-940), who imposed himself as the king of all Norway after his decisive victory over opposing powers at the Battle of Hafrsfjord in the late 9th century. Whatever the circumstances and causes, Asbjorn and Thorgerd (along with their sons, Gudlaug, Thorgils, and Ozur) decided to sail away from Norway and build a new home in Iceland.
Tragedy, however, struck the voyage. Due to obscure and unexplained circumstances, Asbjorn mysteriously died while the family was sailing across the seas. Perhaps he was sick or injured beforehand, or maybe he had some sort of medical emergency on the ship—again, no clear answer was given. Either way, Asbjorn suddenly died, leaving Thorgerd and her sons to complete the oversea journey by themselves. Fortunately for the family, Thorgerd was a woman who was up to the task of overseeing her clan’s resettlement.
Putting grief and mourning aside for the time being, Thorgerd whipped her family and followers back into action, and they resumed their journey to Iceland. On this expedition, the medieval Icelandic Book of Settlements, or Landnámabók, stated, “[after Asbjorn’s death] his widow Thorgerd and their sons completed the voyage and took possession of the whole of the Ingolfshofdi district between Kvia and Jokuls Rivers. She made her home at Sandfell…” (Landnámabók, Sturlubók manuscript, chapter 316). Thorgerd’s homestead of Sandfell was eventually inherited by her son Gudlaug, while his brother Thorgils settled Hnappafell, and Ozur became the father of powerful Thord Frey’s-Priest, who was highly influential in the East Quarter.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Image labeled “Da sa Sigrid: ‘Dette kunne vel bli din bane,’” by Erik Werenskiold c. 1899, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the National Museum of Norway).
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This illustration, by an unidentified 19th-century artist, re-creates the end of the tragic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Of the unfortunate pair, Orpheus is the man dressed in green and red, seen holding an instrument in his hands. He was a demigod musician of ancient Greek mythology who had the power to entrance everything in creation (animate and inanimate, mortal and divine) with the power of his music. To his side is the nymph, Eurydice, who fell in love with the legendary musician. As Orpheus reciprocated her love, the two decided to become married. Yet, before they could live happily ever after, tragedy unfairly struck their love story. On or around their wedding day, Eurydice was heartbreakingly bitten by a venomous snake and she died from the wound. Ovid (c. 43 BCE-17 CE), a Roman poet, described this mythical death scene:
“The outcome was even worse than foreshadowed: the newly-wed bride,
while taking a stroll through the grass with her band of attendant naiads,
suddenly fell down dead with the fangs of a snake in her ankle.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, 10.8-10)
This sad event, no matter how tragic it was on its own, only served as a prelude to a much more elaborate myth—which happens to be the myth depicted in the illustration. It is the story of Orpheus journeying into the underworld in an attempt to bring Eurydice back from the dead. A concise summery of the myth was recorded by a scholar known as Pseudo-Apollodorus (c. 1st-2nd century), who wrote:
“[Calliope, the muse of poetry, bore] Orpheus, who practised the art of singing to the lyre, and set rocks and trees in motion by his singing. When his wife, Eurydice, died from a snake-bite, he went down to Hades in the hope of bringing her up, and persuaded Pluto to send her back to earth. Pluto promised to do so, provided that on the way up Orpheus never looked round until he had arrived back at his house. But Orpheus failed to obey him, and turning round, he caught sight of his wife, and she had to return below” (Apollodorus, Library, I.3.2).
It is this scene of Orpheus looking back at his ghostly wife that the illustration re-creates. By taking the glimpse, as the quote above conveyed, Orpheus tragically broke his deal with the god of the dead. As a result, Orpheus had to traumatically watch Eurydice be dragged back to the realm of the dead. After losing his wife for this second time, Orpheus withdrew into depressed seclusion, seemingly shunning all contact with anything besides the flora and fauna of nature.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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Pliny the Elder was a Roman military man, government official and scholar who lived in the 1st century. His academic calling drove Pliny to be an insatiable consumer of written works. Although he was a busy man (as he was sometimes still seeing to his military and government duties while he studied), Pliny managed to find ways to work a great deal of reading into his daily schedules. Much of this reading was done through Pliny’s special skill of multitasking. As if he was playing an ancient version of an audiobook, Pliny the Elder had his assistants read aloud books for him while he carried out his other daily tasks. This, along with an early-to-rise morning routine, allowed Pliny the Elder to become an incredibly well-read man.
According to Pliny the Elder’s family and friends, the man regularly operated little sleep. Pliny the Elder’s nephew—who was also named Pliny (Pliny the Younger)—described his uncle’s early routine. The younger Pliny wrote, “he combined a penetrating intellect with amazing powers of concentration and the capacity to manage with the minimum of sleep…he began to work by lamplight, not with any idea of making a propitious start but to give himself more time for study, and would rise half-way through the night; in winter it would often be at midnight or an hour later, and two at the latest” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.5). Mind you, this early schedule turned Pliny the Elder into something close to a narcoleptic by the end of the day, nodding off here and there while he was working or studying. Nevertheless, Pliny the Elder enjoyed having that block of time to read and study as he pleased by the lamplight in the early morning.
If Pliny the Elder was posted to a military or government position, he preferred to take care of those duties around sunrise. This early schedule was apparently approved of and accommodated by Emperor Vespasian (r. 69-79). Pliny the Younger recalled, “Before daybreak, he would visit the Emperor Vespasian (who also made use of his nights) and then go to attend his official duties” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.5). Pliny the Elder’s official duties were often over by lunch time, by which point he would quickly shift back to reading and notetaking. Even before he made it back to his home, the scholar was likely already reading and notetaking, for, as Pliny the Younger commented in a letter, “When travelling he felt free from other responsibilities to give every minute to work; he kept a secretary at his side with book and notebook…” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.5). No time was wasted.
Once Pliny the Elder returned to his house, his multitasking continued. When the mid-day meal was served, the food and drink was paired with a side of literature. The younger Pliny commented on this, writing, “A book was read aloud during the meal and he took rapid notes” (Letters, 3.5). If Pliny the Elder chose to take a bath, he continued to multitask. Pliny’s letter-writing nephew mentioned this, stating, “while he was being rubbed down and dried he had a book read to him or dictated notes” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.5). After leaving the bath, the older Pliny threw himself back into his writing, reading, or notetaking. He would, however, take some breaks to step out into the sunshine. Yet, during those breaks, too, Pliny the Elder’s book-wielding assistants would be in attendance, reading aloud the texts for the relaxing scholar. After resuming his work and then enjoying another book-accompanied meal break for dinner, perhaps Pliny the Elder would take a quick power nap, before waking up once again in the middle of the night to renew his packed daily schedule.
Sadly, Pliny the Elder tragically died in the Vesuvius volcanic eruption of 79 that destroyed Pompeii. Afterward, his nephew—the aforementioned and often quoted Pliny the Younger—came into possession of his uncle’s considerable library and notes. The younger Pliny claimed to have found “160 notebooks of selected passages, written in a minute hand on both sides of the page, so that their number is really doubled” (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.5). Along with these summaries, extracts and annotations, Pliny the Younger also came into possession of his uncle’s seven published works—Throwing the Javelin from Horseback, The Life of Pomponius Secundus, The German Wars, The Scholar, Problems in Grammar, A Continuation of the History of Aufidius Bassus, and his Natural History. Unfortunately, only the Natural History has survived from Pliny the Elder’s catalog of published texts.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Wall painting fragment from the north wall of Room H of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale ca. 50–40 B.C., [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the MET).
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This artwork, by the Austrian artist Franz von Matsch (c. 1861 – 1942), depicts an ancient scene of a young musician lounging with one of the Muses of Greek mythology. Franz von Matsch did not specify if the youth was anyone in particular, but the scene is similar to the backstory of the famous ancient Greek poet, Hesiod (c. 8th century BCE). He claimed to have met the Muses on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, Greece, where the generous goddesses gave him wisdom about the gods and infused him with a great talent for poetry. Speaking of himself, Hesiod poetically wrote:
“And once they taught Hesiod fine singing, as he tended his lambs below holy Helicon…and they gave me a branch of springing bay to pluck for a staff, a handsome one, and they breathed into me wondrous voice, so that I should celebrate things of the future and things that were aforetime. And they told me to sing of the family of blessed ones who are for ever, and first and last always to sing of themselves” (Theogony, approximately line 29).
Franz von Matsch depicts something close to Hesiod’s experience in the artwork above. Nevertheless, instead of following Hesiod on the path of poetry, the figure in Franz von Matsch’s scene excels at playing musical instruments. The youthful musician seems to be playing an ancient woodwind instrument called an aulos, which, per Hesiod’s example, may have been given to the musician by his patron Muse.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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