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STYX

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 1060 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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STYX , in See also:

Greek See also:mythology, a See also:river which flowed seven times See also:round the See also:world of the dead. In the Iliad it is the only river of the underworld; in the Odyssey it is coupled with See also:Cocytus and Pyriphlegethon, which flow into the See also:chief river See also:Acheron. See also:Hesiod says that Styx was a daughter of Ocean, and that, when See also:Zeus summoned the gods to See also:Olympus to help him to fight the See also:Titans, Styx was the first to come and her See also:children with her; hence as a See also:reward Zeus ordained that the most See also:solemn See also:oath of the gods should be by her and that her children (Emulation, Victory, See also:Power and Force) should always live with him. Again, Hesiod tells us that if any See also:god, after pouring a See also:libation of the See also:water of Styx, forswore himself, he had to See also:lie in a See also:trance for a See also:year without speaking or breathing, and that for nine years after-wards he was excluded from the society of the gods. In See also:historical times the Styx was identified with a lofty See also:waterfall near Nonacris in See also:Arcadia. See also:Pausanias (viii. 17, 6) describes the cliff over which the water falls as the highest he had ever seen, and indeed the fall is the highest in See also:Greece. The ancients regarded the water as poisonous, and thought that it possessed the power of breaking or dissolving vessels of every material, with the exception of the hoof of a See also:horse or a See also:mule. Considering the undoubted importance attached by the ancients to an oath b}i the water of the Styx (cf. See also:Herodotus vi. 74), and the supposed fatal result of breaking it, it is probable that drinking the water originally formed a necessary See also:part of the oath, and that we have to do with the tradition of an See also:ancient See also:poison See also:ordeal, See also:common amongst barbarous peoples (for the See also:geography and similar ceremonies see Frazer's Pausanias, iv., pp. 250-255).

The See also:

people in the neighbourhood, who See also:call it Mavro See also:Nero (the See also:Black Water), still think that it is unwholesome, and that no See also:vessel will hold it.

End of Article: STYX

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