Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
THERSITES
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: TAV-THE
del.icio.us it!
|
THERSITES , the ugliest See also:man in the See also:Greek See also:camp before See also:Troy, celebrated for his biting See also:tongue. The See also:special See also:objects of his attack were the leaders of the See also:army, and See also:Homer (Iliad, ii. 212) tells how he was chastised by See also:Odysseus for daring to abuse the See also:commander-in-See also:chief. According to a later See also:story, See also:Achilles, after
wishing to see whether See also:Theseus was really the son of See also:Poseidon, flung his See also:ring into the See also:sea. Theseus dived and brought it up, together with a See also:golden See also:crown, the See also:gift of See also:Amphitrite. On the return voyage the See also:ship touched at See also:Naxos, and there Theseus abandoned See also:Ariadne. He landed also at See also:Delos, and there he and his comrades danced the See also:crane See also:dance, the complicated movements of which were meant to imitate the windings of the See also:Labyrinth .l In See also:historical times this dance was still danced by the Delians See also:round a horned See also:altar. Theseus had promised See also:Aegeus that, if he returned successful, the See also:black See also:sail with which the fatal ship always put to sea should be exchanged for a See also: He extended the territory of Attica as far as the
See also:isthmus of See also:Corinth.
He was the first to celebrate in their full pomp the Isthmian
See also:games in See also:honour of Poseidon; for the games previously instituted by See also:Hercules in honour of See also:Melicertes had been celebrated by See also:night, and had partaken of the nature of mysteries rather than of a festival. Of Theseus's adventures with the See also:Amazons there were different accounts. According to some, he !sailed with Hercules to. the Euxine, and there won the See also:Amazon See also:Antiope as the meed of valour; others said that he sailed on his own See also:account, and captured Antiope by stratagem. There-after the Amazons attacked Athens. Antiope See also:fell fighting on the See also:side of Theseus, and her See also:tomb was pointed out on the See also:south side of the acropolis. By Antiope Theseus had a son, See also:Hippolytus. On the See also:death of Antiope, Theseus married See also:Phaedra. She fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus, who, resisting her advances, was accused by her to Theseus of having attempted her virtue. Theseus in a rage imprecated on his son the wrath of Poseidon. His See also:prayer was answered: as Hippolytus was See also:driving beside the sea, a See also:bull issuing from the waves terrified his horses, and he was thrown and killed. This tragic story is the subject of one of the extant plays of
See also:Euripides'
The famous friendship between Theseus and Pirithous, See also: See also:Hearing of the strength and courage of Theseus, Pirithous desired to put them to the test. Accordingly he drove away from See also:Marathon some cows which belonged to Theseus. The latter pursued, but when he came up with the robber the two heroes were so filled with admiration of each other that they swore brotherhood. At the See also:marriage of Pirithous to Hippodamia (or Deidamia) a fight See also:broke out between the Lapiths and See also:Centaurs, in which the Lapiths, assisted by Theseus, were victorious, and drove the i The See also:Ostiaks of See also:Siberia have an elaborate crane dance, in which the dancers are dressed up with skins and the heads of See also:cranes (P. S. See also:Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen See also:des russischen Reichs, 1778). 2 So, too, the ship that sailed annually from See also:Thessaly to Troy with offerings to the shade of Achilles put to sea with See also:sable sails (See also:Philostratus, Heroica, xx. 2). The ship that was to bring Iseult to the mortally wounded Tristram was to hoist a white sail if she was on See also:board, a black sail if she was not. The black sails recur in the See also:modern Greek version of the See also:tale of Theseus. Cf. Asiatick Researches, ix. 97. 3 Besides the Panathenaea Theseus is said to have instituted the festival of the Synoikia or Metoikia. See also:Wachsmuth ingeniously supposes that the latter festival commemorated the See also:local See also:union in a single See also:city of the separate settlements on the Acropolis and its immediate neighbourhood, while the Panathenaea commemorated the political union of the whole of Attica (C. Wachsmuth, See also:Die Stadt See also:Athos See also:im Alterthum, 1874, P. 453 sq). ' Theseus is also said to have taken See also:part in the Argonautic expedition and the Calydonian See also:boar-See also:hunt. Centaurs out of the See also:country. Theseus and Pirithous now carried off See also:Helen from See also:Sparta, and when they See also:drew lots for her she fell to the See also:lot of Theseus, who took her to Aphidnae, and See also:left her in See also:charge of his See also:mother Aethra and his friend Aphidnus. He now descended to the See also:lower See also:world with Pirithous, to help his friend to carry off See also:Proserpine. But the two were caught and confined in Hades till Heracles came and released Theseus. When Theseus returned to Athens he found that a See also:sedition had been stirred up by Menestheus, a descendant of See also:Erechtheus, one of the old See also:kings of Athens. Failing to quell the outbreak, Theseus in despair sent his See also:children to See also:Euboea, and after solemnly cursing the Athenians sailed away to the See also:island of Scyrus, where he had ancestral estates. But Lycomedes, king of Scyrus, took him up to a high See also:place, and killed him by casting him into the sea. See also:Long afterwards, at the See also:battle of Marathon (490 B.C.), many of the Athenians fancied they saw the phantom of Theseus, in full See also:armour, charging at their See also:head against the Persians. When the See also:Persian See also:war was over the Delphic See also:oracle bade the Athenians fetch the bones of Theseus from Scyrus, and' See also:lay them in Attic See also:earth. It fell to See also:Cimon's lot in 469 B.C. to discover the See also:hero's See also:grave at Scyrus and bring back his bones to Athens. They were deposited in the See also:heart of Athens, and henceforth escaped slaves and all persons in peril sought and found See also:sanctuary at the grave of him who in his See also:life had been a See also:champion of the oppressed. His chief festival, called Theseia, was on the 8th of the See also:month Pyanepsion (See also:October 21st),- but the 8th See also:day of every other month was also sacred to him.6 Whatever we may think of the historical reality of Theseus, his See also:legend almost certainly contains recollections of historical events, e.g. the ouvoiKieuds, whether by this we understand the political centralization of Attica at Athens or a local union of previously separate settlements on the site of Athens. The See also:birth of Theseus at Troezen points to the See also:immigration of an Ionian See also:family or tribe. With this agrees the legend of the contest between See also:Athena and Poseidon for supremacy on the acropolis of Athens, for Theseus is intimately connected with Poseidon, the See also:great Ionian See also:god. Aegeus, the See also:father of Theseus, has been identified by some modern scholars with Poseidon. The well-preserved Doric See also:temple to the See also:north of the acropolis at Athens, commonly known as the Theseum, was long supposed to be the sanctuary in which the bones of Theseus reposed. But archaeologists have generally abandoned this conjecture. There were several (according to See also:Philochorus, four) temples or shrines of Theseus at Athens: Milchhofer considers he has found one of them in the neighbourhood of See also:Peiraeus s - Our chief authority for the legend of Theseus is the life by See also:Plutarch, which is a compilation from earlier writers; see also See also:Bacchylides. G. See also: 581-6o8; J. E. See also:Harrison, See also:Mythology and Monuments of See also:Ancient Athens (189o); " Der Theseische Synoikismos " in C. F. See also:Hermann's Lehrbuch der giechischen Staatsaltertumer, i. (1892), pp. 30 -306; A. Baumeister, enkmaler des klassischen Altertums, iii. (1888). THESMOPHORIA, an ancient Greek festival, celebrated by See also:women only in honour of See also:Demeter eeoµocpopos. At Athens, See also:Abdera, and perhaps Sparta, it lasted three days. At Athens the festival took place on the 11th, 12th and 13th of the month 3 The Athenian festival in October, popularly supposed to cotnmemorate the return of Theseus from See also:Crete, is interesting, as some of its features are identical with those of See also:harvest-festivals still observed in the north of See also:Europe. Thus the eiresione, a See also:branch of See also:olive wreathed with See also:wool and decked with fruits, See also:bread, &c., which was carried in procession and hung over the See also:door,bf the See also:house, where it was 'kept for a See also:year, is the Erntemai (Harvest-may) of See also:Germany. See W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- and Feld-Kulte (1877), p. 212 sq. 3 See Erlauternder See also:Text to the Kasten von Atli/See also:ea (Betiin, 1881), i. P. 37 sq. Pyanepsion (24th, 25th and 26th October), the first day being called Anodos (ascent), or, according to others, Kathodos (descent), the second Nesteia (fast), and the third Kalligeneia (See also:fair-See also:born).' If to these days we add the Thesmophoria, which were celebrated on the loth at Halimus, a township on the See also:coast near Athens, the festival lasted four days.' If further we add the festival of the Stenia, which took place on the 9th, the whole festival lasted five days.' The Stenia are said by See also:Photius to have celebrated the return of Demeter from the lower world (Anodos), and the women railed at each other by night.' The Thesmophoria at Halimus seem to have included dances on the See also:beach.' The great feature of the next day (the Anodos) is generally assumed to have been a procession from Halimus to Athens, but this See also:assumption seems to See also:rest entirely on an See also:interpretation of the name Anodos, and it loses all See also:probability when we observe that the day was by others called Kathodos.' Probably both names referred to the descent of Demeter or Persephone to the nether world, and her ascent from it? The next day Nesteia, was a day of sorrow, the women sitting on the ground and See also:fasting.' As to what took place on the Kalligeneia we have no See also:information' Nor can we define the See also:time or nature of the See also:secret ceremony called the " pursuit," or the " Chalcidian pursuit," and the See also:sacrifice called the " See also:penalty."10 During the Thesmophoria (and for nine days previously, if See also:Ovid, Met., x. 434, is right, and refers to the Thesmophoria) the women abstained from intercourse with their husbands, and to fortify themselves strewed their beds with Agnus castus and other See also:plants. The women of See also:Miletus strewed their beds with See also:pine branches, and put See also:fir-cones in the sanctuaries of Demeter." Whether unmarried women were admitted to the festival seems doubtful; in See also:Lucian's time it would appear that 1 [Or, mother of a fair daughter, i.e. Persephone.] Schol. on Aristoph., Thesmophoriazusae, 8o and 585; Diog. Laert., ix. 43; See also:Hesychius, s.v. rpi$pepos (the See also:reading here is uncertain) and &sober; See also:Alciphron, in. 39; See also:Athenaeus, vii. 307 f. Plutarch (Vii. Demosth., 30) states that the Nesteia took place on the 16th of Pyanepsion, but in this he stands alone. s Schol. on Aristoph., Thesm., 8o; Photius, Lex., s.v. AeapoOophev iaipai. S' (where Naber should not have altered the MS. reading b' into .b') ; Hesychius, s.v. ratan A€Qµo~opiwv. Schol. on Aristoph., Thesm., 834. Photius, Lex., s.v. anima; cf. See also:Apollodorus, i. 5, 1. Plut., See also:Solon, 8; for this passage probably refers to the Thesmophoria, the Cape Colias mentioned being near Halimus (see Erlduternder Text to the Karten von Attika, ii. i sq.). The Thesmophorion at Halimus is mentioned by See also:Pausanias (i. 31, 1). ' Hesychius (s.v. &vobos) and the Schol. on Arist., Thesm., 585, suppose that the day was so called because the women ascended to the Thesmophorion, which (according to the scholiast) stood on a height. But no ancient writer mentions a procession from Halimus. For the name Kathodos, see Schol., loc. cit. ; Photius, Lex., s.v. Aeapo¢oplwv itpipai Si. For the statement that at one part of the festival (commonly assumed, by the writers who accept the statement, to be the Anodos) the women carried on their heads the " books of the See also:law," we have only the authority of the scholiast on See also:Theocritus, iv. 25, who displays his See also:ignorance by describing the women as virgins (see below), and saying that they went in procession to See also:Eleusis. The statement may therefore be dismissed as an etymological fiction. See also:Aristophanes, See also:Eccles., 222, is no See also:evidence for the See also:book-carrying. ' The Boeotian festival of Demeter, which was held at about the same time as the Athenian Thesmophoria, and at which the See also:megara (see below) were opened, is distinctly stated by Plutarch (De Is. et Osir., 69) to have been a See also:mourning for the descent (Kathodos) of Persephone. I'lut., Dem., 30; Id., De Is. et Osir., 69. 9 [It was a day of See also:holiday and rejoicing.] is Hesychius, s.v. biwypa [perhaps the pursuit of Persephone] ; Suidas, s.v. XaXKibucbv bf ypa [according to whom, the prayers of the women at the Thesmophoria caused the See also:flight of the enemy to See also:Chalcis]; Hesychius, s.v. igafa. For flight and pursuit as parts of religious ceremonies, cf. Plutarch, Quaest. Graec., 38, Quaest. Rom., 63, De Def. Orac., 15; See also:Aelian, Nat. An., xii. 34; Pausanias, i. 24, 4, viii. 53, 3; Diodorus, i. 91; See also:Lobeck, Aglaophamus (1829), p. 676; See also:Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, 2nd ed. (1885), iii. 323. 11 Aelian, Nat. An., ix. 26; Schol. on Theocr., iv. 25; Hesychius S.V. v.v& pov; See also:Pliny, N. H., 24, 59 ; Dioscorides, i. 135 (134, ed. See also:Sprengel); Schol. on See also:Nicander, There 70 sq. ; See also:Galen, xi. 808, ed. See also:Kuhn; Steph. Bye., s.v. Mianros.they were.12 The women of each deme (township) elected two married women of their number to preside over them at the festival; and every married man in the township who possessed See also:property to the value of three talents had to provide a feast for the women on behalf of his wife." During the festival the women seem to have been lodged by twos in tents or huts, probably erected within the sacred precincts of the Thesmophorion." They were not allowed to eat the seeds of the See also:pomegranate or to See also:wear garlands of See also:flowers." Prisoners were released at the festival," and during the Nesteia the law-courts were closed and the See also:senate did not meet." Aristophanes's See also:play on the festival sheds little See also:light on the mode of its celebration. At See also:Thebes Thesmophoria were celebrated in summer on the acropolis (Cadmeia); at See also:Eretria during the Thesmophoria the women cooked their See also:meat, not at fires, but by the See also:heat of the See also:sun, and they did not invoke Kalligeneia (which seems to mean that they did not celebrate the last day of the festival); at See also:Syracuse, during the festival, cakes called mylloi, made of See also:sesame and See also:honey in the shape of pudenda muliebria, were handed round.'" See also:Agrigentum, See also:Ephesus and Dryme, in See also:Phocis, had also their Thesmophoria.19 The above was nearly all that was known about the Thesmophoria down to 1870. In that year E. Rohde published in the Rheinisches Museum, n.s., See also:xxv., p. 548 sq., a scholion on Lucian (See also:Dial. Meretr., ii. 1), which he discovered in the Vatican MS. Palatinus 73, and which furnishes some curious details about the Thesmophoria. It also explains two obscure and corrupt passages of Clemens Alexandrinus and Pausanias, the true meaning of which had been divined by Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 828). The sub-stance of the scholion is this. When Persephone was carried off by See also:Pluto, a swineherd called Eubuleus was herding his See also:swine at the spot, and his See also:herd was engulfed in the chasm down which Pluto had vanished with Persephone. Accordingly at the Thesmophoria it was customary, in memory of Eubuleus, to fling pigs into the " chasms of Demeter and Persephone." (These chasms " may have been natural caverns or perhaps vaults. The scholiast speaks of them also as adyta and megara.40) In these chasms or adyta there were supposed to be serpents, which guarded the adyta and consumed most of the flesh of the pigs that were thrown in. The decayed remains of the flesh were afterwards fetched by women called " drawers " (antletriai), who, after observing rules of ceremonial purity for three days, descended into the caverns, and, frightening away the serpents by clapping their hands, brought up the remains and placed them on the altars." Whoever got a portion of this decayed flesh and sowed it with the See also:seed in the 12 Lucian, Dial. Meretr., ii. t. On the other See also:hand, we read in See also:Strabo (i. 3, 20) of virgins at Alponus ascending a See also:tower as spectators (Karp See also:Bice') of the Thesmophoria. which would seem to imply that they did not participate in it. 13 See also:Isaeus, De Cironis Hered., 19; Id., De Pyrrhi Hered., 80. is Aristoph., Thesm., 624, 658, with the Schol. ad ll. As to the See also:custom of camping out at festivals, Plutarch (Quaest. Conviv., iv, 6, 2) compares the Jewish Feast of See also:Tabernacles with the Greek See also:Dionysia; from which we may perhaps infer that the worshippers camped out at the Dionysia. Ct. J. Gumilla, Histoire de l'Orenoque, i. p. 256 sq. [1758]. is Clem. Alex., Protrep., ch. ii. [p. 16, ed. See also:Potter]; Schol. on See also:Sophocles, Oed. See also:Col., 681. is See also:Marcellinus on See also:Hermogenes, in Rhetores Graeci, ed. See also:Wale, iv. 462; Sopater, ibid., viii. 67. 17 Aristoph., Thesm., 80. The word ratan seems to mean the Nesteia, as the Schol. ad 1. takes it. That the " See also:middle day " was the Nesteia we know from Athenaeus, vii. 307 f. " See also:Xenophon, Hellen., v. 2, 29; Plutarch, Quaest. Gr., 31; Athenaeus, xiv. 647a. is See also:Polyaenus, v. 1, 1; See also:Herodotus, vi. i6; Pausanias, x. 33, i i. 70 C. T. See also:Newton discovered in the sanctuary of Demeter and the Infernal Deities at See also:Cnidus a chamber which may have been one of the megara referred to by the scholiast. It contained bones of pigs and See also:marble figures of pigs. The chamber was not, however, originally subterranean. See Newton's Discoveries at See also:Halicarnassus (1863), ii. p. 383, Travels and Discoveries in the See also:Levant (1865), ii. p. 18o sq. According to See also:Porphyry (De Antro Nympharum, 6) the Infernal Deities had megara, as the Olympian had temples, and the sacrificial pits of the former corresponded to the altars of the latter. 21 Compare the functions of the two Arrephoroi at Athens (Pans., i. 27, 3). For serpents in connexion with Demeter, compare Strabo, ix. 1, 9. ground was supposed thereby to secure a See also:good See also:crop). The rest of the scholion is obscure, and perhaps corrupt, but the following seems to be the sense. The ceremony above described was called the arretophoria [the carrying of things which must not be spoken of], and was supposed to exercise the same quickening and fertilizing See also:influence on men as on See also:fields. Further, along with the pigs, sacred cakes made of dough, in the sha.pe of serpents and of phalli, were See also:cast into the caverns, to symbolize the productivity of the earth and of man. Branches of pines were thrown in z for a similar See also:reason. The custom described in this important scholion is clearly the same as that referred to by Clemens Alexandrinus (Protrep., ch. ii.) [p. 14, ed. Potter] and Pausanias (ix. 8, I). From the latter we learn that the pigs were sucking pigs, and from the former (if we adopt Lobeck's emendation iteyhpots 'wvras for µeyap4-ovres) that they were thrown in alive. From Pausanias we may further perhaps infer (though the passage is corrupt) that the remains of the pigs thrown down in one year were not fetched up till the same time next year (cf. Pans., x. 32, 14). The question remains, At what point of the Thesmophoria did the ceremony described by the scholiast on Lucian take place? Rohde thinks that it formed part of the ceremonies at Halimus, his chief ground being that Clemens (Protrep., 34) and See also:Arnobius (Adv. Genies, v. 28) mention phalli in connexion with the " mysteries at Halimus "; but it is not certain that these mysteries were the Thesmophoria. The legend of Eubuleus seems to show that the ceremony commemorated the descent of Persephone to the nether world; and, if we are right in our interpretation of the name Kathodos as applied to the first day of the Thesmophoria proper, the ceremony described would naturally fall on that day. Further, if our interpretation of Pausanias is correct, the same day must have witnessed the descent of the living pigs and the ascent of the rotten pork of the previous year. Hence the day might he indifferently styled Kathodos or Anodos (" descent " or " ascent ") ; and so in fact it was. It is usual to interpret Thesmophorus " lawgiver " and Thesmophoria " the feast of the lawgiver." But the Greek for " lawgiver " is not Thesmophorus but Thesmothetes (or Nomothetes, when limos displaced thesmos in the sense of " law "). If we compare such names of festivals as Oschophoria, Lampadephoria, Hydrophoria, Scirophoria (" the carryings of grapes, of torches, of See also:water, of umbrellas ") with the corresponding Oschophorus, Lampadephorus, Hydrophorus, also Thallophorus and Kanephorus, we can scarcely help concluding that Thesmophoria must originally have meant in the literal and See also:physical sense the carrying of the thesmoi, and Thesmophorus the See also:person who so carried them; and, in view of the ceremony disclosed by the scholiast on Lucian (compared with the analogous ceremony observed by the Artephoroi at Athens), we are strongly tempted to suppose that the women whom he calls Antletriai may have been also known, at one time or other, as Thesmophoroi, and that the thesmoi were the sacra which they carried and deposited on the altar. The word would then be used in its literal sense, " that which is set down." How the name Thesmophorus should have been transferred to the goddess from her ministers is of course a difficulty, which is hardly disposed of by pointing to the epithets Amallophorus (" sheaf-bearing ") and Melophorus (" See also:apple-bearing "), which were applied to men as well as to the goddess. As to the origin of the Thesmophoria, Herodotus (ii. 171) asserts that they were introduced into See also:Greece from See also:Egypt by the daughters of See also:Danaus; while, according to Plutarch (Fragments, p. 55, ed. See also:Dubner [Frag. Incerta, 84]), the feast was introduced into Athens by See also:Orpheus the Odrysian. From these statements we can only infer the similarity of the Thesmophoria to the Orphic See also:rites and to the See also:Egyptian See also:representation of the sufferings of See also:Osiris, in connexion with which Plutarch mentions them. The Thesmophoria would thus See also:form one of that class of rites, widely spread in Western See also:Asia and in Europe, in which the See also:main feature appears to be a lamentation for the See also:annual decay of vegetation or a rejoicing at its revival. This seems to have been the See also:root, e.g., of the See also:lamentations for See also:Adonis and See also:Attis. See W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- and Feld-Kulte, p. 264 sq. On the Thesmophoria, see See also:Meursius, Graecia Feriata, p. 151 sq.; L. See also:Preller, Demeter and Persephone (1837), p. 335 sq., Griech. Myth., [3], i• p. 639 sq.; Fritzsche's ed. of the Thesmophoriazusae (1838), p. 577 sq.; Aug. See also:Mommsen, Heortologie (1864), p. 287 sq.; Rheinisches Museum, xxv. (1870), p. 548; See also:Gazette Archeologique (188o), p. 17; See also:Andrew See also:Lang, Demeter and the See also:Pig," in Nineteenth See also:Century, See also:April 1887; J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 44; J. E. (1885), iii. aid. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek See also:Religion (1903); and i This, as Andrew Lang has pointed out, resembles the Khond custom of burying the flesh of the human victim in the fields to fertilize them. The human victim was with the See also:Khonds, like the pig with the Greeks, a sacrifice to the Earth goddess. See Memorials of Service in See also:India ... of See also:Major S. C. See also:Macpherson, ed. See also: 3, 1891) and by F. See also:Lenormant (on See also:CERES) in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquiles. (j. G. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT, ANNE JOSEPHE (1762-1817) |
[next] THESAURUS (Gr. B17o-avp6s) |