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Persephone

2024-03-17T08:41:35Z

93.38.67.134: /* In Rome */

{{short description|Greek goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld}}
{{About|the Greek goddess}}
{{Use dmy dates|date= March 2022}}
{{Infobox deity
| type = Greek
| name = Persephone
| image = AMI - Isis-Persephone.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Statue of [[Syncretism|syncretic]] Persephone-[[Isis]] with a [[sistrum]]. [[Heraklion]] Archaeological Museum, [[Crete]]
| god_of = {{unbulleted list|Queen of the underworld|Goddess of spring, the dead, the underworld, grain, and nature}}
| abode = The [[Greek underworld|underworld]]
| symbol = Pomegranate, seeds of grain, torch, flowers, and deer
| spouse = [[Hades]]
| parents = [[Zeus]] and [[Demeter]] [[Zeus]] and [[Rhea (Greek mythology)|Rhea]] {{small|([[Orphic]])}}
| siblings = Several [[Zeus#Offspring|paternal half-siblings]] and [[Demeter#Lineage, consorts, and offspring|maternal half-siblings]]
| children = {{unbulleted list|[[Melinoë]]|[[Zagreus]] / [[Dionysus#Orphism|Dionysus]] {{small|(Orphic)}}<ref>Gantz (1996) p. 118</ref><ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA35 p. 35] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100756/https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA35 |date=10 February 2023 }}</ref><ref>Grimal, s.v. Zagreus, p. 456.</ref>|[[Erinyes]] {{small|(Orphic)}}<ref>''[[Orphic Hymns]] 29 to Persephone'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=rvSuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 11] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100756/https://books.google.com/books?id=rvSuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 |date=10 February 2023 }} (Athanassakis and Wolkow, pp. 26–27).</ref><ref>''[[Orphic Hymns]] 70 to the [[Erinyes]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=rvSuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 4-5] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100756/https://books.google.com/books?id=rvSuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 |date=10 February 2023 }} (Athanassakis and Wolkow, pp. 56–57).</ref>}}
| mount =
| Roman_equivalent = [[Proserpina]]
| equivalent1_type = Babylonian
| equivalent1 = [[Ereshkigal]]
}}
{{Special characters}}
{{Ancient Greek religion}}
[[File:Dionysos and Cora-Hermitage.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Persephone and Dionysos. Roman copy after a Greek original of the 4th-3rd century B.C. Marble. [[Hermitage Museum|Hermitage]]]]
In ancient [[Greek mythology]] and [[Ancient Greek religion|religion]], '''Persephone''' ({{IPAc-en|p|ər|ˈ|s|ɛ|f|ə|n|iː}} {{respell|pər|SEF|ə|nee}}; {{lang-gr|Περσεφόνη|Persephónē}}), also called '''Kore''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|ɔər|iː}} {{respell|KOR|ee}}; {{lang-gr|Κόρη|Kórē|the maiden}}) or '''Cora''', is the daughter of [[Zeus]] and [[Demeter]]. She became the queen of the [[Greek underworld|underworld]] after her [[Rape of Persephone|abduction]] by her uncle [[Hades]], the king of the underworld, who would later also take her into marriage.<ref name=Nilsson462>{{cite book |first=Martin |last=Nilsson |year=1967 |title=Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion |lang=de |trans-title=The Stories of the Greek Religion |volume=I |pages=462–463, 479–480}}</ref>

The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her temporary return to the surface represent her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown. In [[Art in ancient Greece|Classical Greek art]], Persephone is invariably portrayed robed, often carrying a [[wikt:sheaf|sheaf]] of grain. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades.

Persephone, as a [[vegetation deity|vegetation goddess]], and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]], which promised the initiated a happy [[afterlife]]. The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on ancient agrarian cults of agricultural communities. In Athens, the mysteries celebrated in the month of [[Anthesterion]] were dedicated to her. The city of [[Locri|Epizephyrian Locris]], in modern [[Calabria]] (southern [[Italy]]), was famous for its cult of Persephone, where she is a goddess of marriage and childbirth in this region.

Her name has numerous historical variants. These include '''Persephassa''' ({{lang|grc|Περσεφάσσα}}) and '''Persephatta''' ({{lang|grc|Περσεφάττα}}). In Latin, her name is rendered [[Proserpina]]. She was identified by the Romans as the [[Roman mythology|Italic goddess]] [[Libera (mythology)|Libera]], who was conflated with Proserpina. Myths similar to Persephone's descent and return to earth also appear in the cults of male gods, including [[Attis]], [[Adonis]], and [[Osiris]],<ref>Martin Nilsson (1967). Vol I, pp. 215</ref> and in [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] [[Crete]].

==Name==
In a [[Linear B]] [[Mycenaean Greek]] inscription on a tablet found at [[Pylos]] dated 1400–1200 BC, [[John Chadwick]] reconstructed{{efn|The actual word in [[Linear B]] is {{lang|gmy|{{script|Linb|𐀟𐀩𐁚}}}}, ''pe-re-*82'' or ''pe-re-swa''; it is found on the [[Pylos|PY]] Tn 316 tablet.<ref>{{cite web |title=pe-re-*82 |work=Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B |last=Raymoure |first=K.A. |publisher=Deaditerranean |url=http://minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/pe/pe-re-82/ |access-date=19 March 2014 |archive-date=5 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210705083930/http://minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/pe/pe-re-82/ }} {{cite web |title=PY 316 Tn (44) |website=DĀMOS: Database of Mycenaean at Oslo |publisher=[[University of Oslo]] |url=https://www2.hf.uio.no/damos/Index/item/chosen_item_id/4985 |access-date=19 March 2014 |archive-date=14 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140314010920/https://www2.hf.uio.no/damos/Index/item/chosen_item_id/4985 |url-status=live }}</ref>}} the name of a goddess, ''*Preswa'', who could be identified with [[Perse (mythology)|Perse]], daughter of [[Oceanus]], and found speculative the further identification with the first element of Persephone.<ref>{{cite book |last=Chadwick |first=John |author-link=John Chadwick |year=1976 |title=The Mycenaean World |location=Cambridge, UK |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-29037-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RMj7M_tGaNMC&pg=PA95 |page=95 |access-date=3 October 2020 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100756/https://books.google.com/books?id=RMj7M_tGaNMC&pg=PA95 |url-status=live }} At Google Books.</ref>{{efn|Comments about the goddess ''pe-re-*82'' of [[Pylos]] tablet Tn 316, tentatively reconstructed as ''*Preswa''
:"It is tempting to see ... the classical Perse ... daughter of [[Oceanus]] ... ; whether it may be further identified with the first element of Persephone is only speculative."<ref>[[John Chadwick]]. ''Documents in Mycenean Greek''. Second Edition</ref>}} ''Persephonē'' ([[Greek language|Greek]]: {{lang|grc|Περσεφόνη}}) is her name in the [[Ionic Greek]] of [[Epic poetry|epic]] literature. The Homeric form of her name is ''Persephoneia'' ({{lang|grc|Περσεφονεία}},<ref name="Homer1899">{{cite book |author=[[Homer]] |title=Odyssey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_-ZDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP230 |access-date=31 March 2014 |year=1899 |publisher=Clarendon Press |page=230}}</ref> ''Persephoneia''). In other dialects, she was known under variant names: ''Persephassa'' ({{lang|grc|Περσεφάσσα}}), ''Persephatta'' ({{lang|grc|Περσεφάττα}}), or simply ''Korē'' ({{lang|grc|Κόρη}}, "girl, maiden").<ref>H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon''</ref> On 5th century Attic vases one often encounters the form ({{lang|grc|Φερρϖφάττα}}) [[Plato]] calls her ''Pherepapha'' ({{math|{{lang|grc|Φερέπαφα}}}}) in his [[Cratylus (dialogue)|''Cratylus'']], "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion". There are also the forms ''Periphona'' ({{math|Πηριφόνα}}) and ''Phersephassa'' ({{lang|grc|Φερσέφασσα}}). The existence of so many different forms shows how difficult it was for the Greeks to pronounce the word in their own language and suggests that the name may have a [[Pre-Greek substrate|Pre-Greek origin]].<ref>Martin P. Nilsson (1967), ''Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion'', Volume I, C.F. Beck Verlag, p. 474.</ref>

The etymology of the word 'Persephone' is obscure. According to a recent hypothesis advanced by Rudolf Wachter, the first element in the name (''Perso''- ({{lang|grc|Περσο-}}) may well reflect a very rare term, attested in the [[Rig Veda]] (Sanskrit ''parṣa-''), and the [[Avesta]], meaning 'sheaf of corn' / 'ear [of grain]'. The second constituent, ''phatta'', preserved in the form ''Persephatta'' ({{lang|grc|Περσεφάττα}}), would in this view reflect [[Proto-Indo-European]] ''{{PIE|*-gʷn-t-ih}}'', from the root ''{{PIE|*gʷʰen-}}'' "to strike / beat / kill". The combined sense would therefore be "she who beats the ears of corn", i.e., a "thresher of grain".<ref>[[Jan Bremmer|Jan N. Bremmer]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=5I_HDwAAQBAJ&dq=Etymological+Dictionary+of+Greek%2B+Beekes%2BPersephone&pg=PA74 ''The World of Greek Religion and Mythology:Collected Essays II,''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100804/https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_World_of_Greek_Religion_and_Mytholog/5I_HDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Etymological+Dictionary+of+Greek%2B+Beekes%2BPersephone&pg=PA74&printsec=frontcover |date=10 February 2023 }} [[Mohr Siebeck]] 2019 {{isbn|978-3-161-54451-4}} p.75.</ref><ref>[[Robert S. P. Beekes|Beekes, R.S.P.]], (2009), ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', [[Brill Publishers|Brill]], vol.2, pp.1179–80.</ref>

The name of the [[Albanian folk beliefs|Albanian]] dawn-goddess, goddess of love and protector of women, [[Prende|''Premtë'' or ''P(ë)rende'']], is thought to correspond regularly to the [[Ancient Greek]] counterpart {{lang|grc|Περσεφάττα}} (''Persephatta''), a variant of {{lang|grc|Περσεφόνη}} (''Persephone'').<ref name=Hyllested&Joseph>{{cite book |last1=Hyllested |first1=Adam |last2=Joseph |first2=Brian D. |year=2022 |chapter=Albanian |editor1-last=Olander |editor1-first=Thomas |title=The Indo-European Language Family: A phylogenetic perspective |doi=10.1017/9781108758666 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-75866-6 |s2cid=161016819 |page=235 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xzKAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA223}}</ref><ref name=Dedvukaj>{{cite journal |last=Dedvukaj |first=Lindon |year=2023 |title=Linguistic evidence for the Indo-European and Albanian origin of ''Aphrodite'' |journal=Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America |publisher=[[Linguistic Society of America]] |volume=8 |number=1 |page=5500 |s2cid=258381736 |doi=10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5500 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The theonyms have been traced back to the [[Indo-European]] ''*pers-é-bʰ(h₂)n̥t-ih₂'' ("she who brings the light through").<ref name=Hyllested&Joseph/>

A popular folk etymology is from {{lang|grc|φέρειν φόνον}}, ''pherein phonon'', "to bring (or cause) death".<ref name=SmithPersephone>Smith, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=persephone-bio-1 "Perse'phone"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308030328/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=persephone-bio-1 |date=8 March 2021 }}</ref>

==Titles and functions==
The epithets of Persephone reveal her double function as [[chthonic]] and vegetation goddess. The surnames given to her by the poets refer to her role as queen of the lower world and the dead and to the power that shoots forth and withdraws into the earth. Her common name as a vegetation goddess is Kore, and in [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]] she was worshipped under the title [[Despoina]], "the mistress", a very old chthonic divinity.<ref name=SmithPersephone/> [[Günther Zuntz]] considers "Persephone" and "Kore" as distinct deities and writes that "no farmer prayed for corn to Persephone; no mourner thought of the dead as being with Kore." Ancient Greek writers were however not as consistent as Zuntz claims.{{sfn|Bennett|Paul|Iozzo|White|2002|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=R7PP3wNr4zMC&pg=PA83 83]}}

===Goddess of spring and nature===
[[Plutarch]] writes that Persephone was identified with the spring season,<ref>Plutarch, ''[[Moralia]]'' ([https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/E.html ''On Isis and Osiris'', Ch. 69] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100801/http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/E.html |date=10 February 2023 }})</ref> and [[Cicero]] calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. In the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]], her return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of immortality, and she was frequently represented on [[sarcophagi]].

In the religions of the [[Orphism (religion)|Orphics]] and the [[Platonism|Platonists]], Kore is described as the all-pervading goddess of nature<ref>Orphic Hymn 29.16</ref> who both produces and destroys everything, and she is therefore mentioned along with or identified as other such divinities including [[Isis]], [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]], [[Gaia (mythology)|Ge]], [[Hestia]], [[Pandora]], [[Artemis]], and [[Hecate]].<ref>Schol. ad. Theocritus 2.12</ref> In Orphic tradition, Persephone is said to be the daughter of Zeus and his mother Rhea, rather than of Demeter.<ref>Orphic [https://archive.org/details/orphicorumfragme00orphuoft/page/16/mode/2up?view=theater fr. 58 Kern] [= [[Athenagoras of Athens|Athenagoras]], ''[[Athenagoras of Athens#Legatio Pro Christianis|Legatio Pro Christianis]]'' 20.2]; West 1983, p. 73; Meisner, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 p. 134] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100757/https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 |date=10 February 2023 }}.</ref> The Orphic Persephone is said to have become by [[Zeus]] the mother of [[Dionysus]] / [[Iacchus]] / [[Zagreus]],<ref name=SmithPersephone/> and the little-attested [[Melinoe|Melinoë]].{{efn|In the ''Hymn to Melinoe'', where the father is ''Zeus Chthonios'', either Zeus in his chthonic aspect, or [[Pluto (mythology)|Pluto]].<ref name=Edmonds-2011>Edmonds, Radcliffe G., III (2011) "Orphic Mythology," [in] ''A Companion to Greek Mythology'', First Edition. Edited by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.</ref>{{rp|style=ama|p= 100}} }}

===Queen of the underworld===
In mythology and literature she is often called dread(ed) Persephone, and queen of the underworld, within which tradition it was forbidden to speak her name. This tradition comes from her conflation with the very old chthonic divinity Despoina ("[the] mistress"), whose real name could not be revealed to anyone except those initiated into her mysteries.<ref>Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' ([https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8C.html#5 Book 8, Ch. 37, sect. 9] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422135029/https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8C.html#5 |date=22 April 2019 }})"</ref> As goddess of death, she was also called a daughter of Zeus and [[Styx]],<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.3.1 1.3.1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100802/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.3.1 |date=10 February 2023 }}.</ref> the river that formed the boundary between Earth and the underworld. In [[Homer]]'s epics, she appears always together with [[Hades]] in the underworld, apparently sharing with Hades control over the dead.<ref>Gantz (1996) p. 64</ref><ref>Homer, ''[[Odyssey]]'' ([https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+10.491&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136 ''Book 10'', ln. 494] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307195536/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+10.491&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136 |date=7 March 2021 }}).</ref> In Homer's ''[[Odyssey]]'', Odysseus encounters the "dread Persephone" in [[Tartarus]] when he visits his dead mother. Odysseus sacrifices a ram to the chthonic goddess Persephone and the ghosts of the dead who drink the blood of the sacrificed animal. In the reformulation of Greek mythology expressed in the ''[[Orphic Hymns]]'', Dionysus and Melinoë are separately called children of Zeus and Persephone.<ref>''Orphic Hymn 26'', ''71''</ref> Groves sacred to her stood at the western extremity of the earth on the frontiers of the lower world, which itself was called "house of Persephone".<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' ([https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+10.491&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136 ''Book 10'', ln. 491] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307195536/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+10.491&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136 |date=7 March 2021 }}; ''Book 10'', ln. 509).</ref>

Her central myth served as the context for the secret rites of regeneration at Eleusis,<ref>[[Károly Kerényi]] (1967) ''Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter'', ''passim''</ref> which promised immortality to initiates.

===Nestis===

In a [[classical Greek|Classical period text]] ascribed to [[Empedocles]], {{circa|490–430 BC,}}{{efn|Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher who was a citizen of [[Agrigentum]], a Greek colony in [[Sicily]].}} describing a correspondence among four deities and the [[classical element]]s, the name ''Nestis'' for water apparently refers to Persephone:
: "Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: Enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus, and Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears."<ref>[[Peter Kingsley]] (1995) ''Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition'' Oxford University Press.</ref>

Of the four deities of Empedocles' elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that is [[taboo]] – ''Nestis'' is a euphemistic cult title{{efn|Kingsley 1995 identifies ''Nestis'' as a cult title of Persephone.}} – for she was also the terrible Queen of the Dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was [[euphemism|euphemistically]] named simply as ''Kore'' or "the Maiden", a vestige of her archaic role as the deity ruling the underworld. ''Nestis'' means "the Fasting One" in ancient Greek.<ref>{{cite web |title=Nestis Meaning in Bible - New Testament Greek Lexicon (KJV) |url=https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/kjv/nestis.html |website=Bible Study Tools |publisher=Biblestudytools.com |access-date=19 March 2023}}</ref>

===Epithets===
[[File:Throning goddess (Persephone) 480-460 BC (Sk 1761) 1.JPG|thumb|right|240px|Seated goddess, probably Persephone on her throne in the underworld, {{circa|480–460 BC,}}. ([[Pergamon Museum]], Berlin)]]

As a goddess of the underworld, Persephone was given euphemistically friendly names.<ref name=Rhode206>Rhode (1961), ''Psyche'' I, pp. 206–210</ref> However, it is possible that some of them were the names of original goddesses:
* '''[[Despoina]]''' (''dems-potnia'') "the mistress" (literally "the mistress of the house") in [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]].
* '''Hagne''', "pure", originally a goddess of the springs in [[Messenia]].<ref name="auto">Nilsson (1967) Vol I, pp. 478–480</ref>
* '''Melindia''' or '''Melinoia''' (meli, "honey"), as the consort of [[Hades]], in Hermione. (Compare [[Hecate]], [[Melinoe|Melinoë]])<ref name=Rhode206/>
* '''Malivina'''<ref name=Rhode206/>
* '''Melitodes'''<ref name=Rhode206/>
* '''Aristi cthonia''', "the best [[chthonic]]".<ref name=Rhode206/>
* '''[[Praxidike]]''', the [[Orphic]] Hymn to Persephone identifies Praxidike as an [[epithet]] of Persephone: "Praxidike, subterranean queen. The [[Erinyes|Eumenides]]' source [mother], fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' ineffable and secret seeds."<ref>[[Orphic]] Hymn 29 to Persephone</ref>
As a vegetation goddess, she was called:<ref name="auto"/><ref name=Nilsson463>Nilsson (1967) Vol I, pp. 463–466</ref>
* '''Kore''', "the maiden".
* '''Kore Soteira''', "the savior maiden", in [[Megalopolis, Greece|Megalopolis]].
* '''Neotera''', "the younger", in [[Eleusis]].
* '''Kore of Demeter Hagne''' in the [[Homeric hymn]].
* '''Kore memagmeni''', "the mixed daughter" (bread).

[[Demeter]] and her daughter '''Persephone''' were usually called:<ref name=Nilsson463/><ref name=Nilsson478/>
* '''The goddesses''', often distinguished as "the older" and "the younger" in [[Eleusis]].
* '''Demeters''', in [[Rhodes]] and [[Sparta]]
* '''The thesmophoroi''', "the legislators" in the [[Thesmophoria]].
* '''The Great Goddesses''', in [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]].
* '''The mistresses''' in [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]].<ref name=Pausanias515>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]].''Description of Greece'' 5.15.4, 5, 6</ref>
* '''Karpophoroi''', "the bringers of fruit", in [[Tegea]] of Arcadia.

==Mythology==
===Abduction myth===
[[File:Sarcophagus with the Abduction of Persephone by Hades (detail).JPG| thumb|left|360px|[[Sarcophagus]] with the abduction of Persephone. Walters Art Museum. [[Baltimore]], Maryland]]

Persephone's abduction by Hades{{efn|In art the abduction of Persephone is often referred to as the "[[Rape of Persephone]]".}} is mentioned briefly in [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[Theogony]]'',<ref name=HesTh914>Hesiod, ''Theogony'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.%20Th.%20914&lang=original&highlight=Persephone 914] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307215310/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.%20Th.%20914&lang=original&highlight=Persephone |date=7 March 2021 }}.</ref> and is told in considerable detail in the ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn to Demeter]]''. Zeus, it is said, permitted Hades, who was in love with the beautiful Persephone, to abduct her as her mother Demeter was not likely to allow her daughter to go down to Hades. Persephone was gathering flowers, along with the [[Oceanid]]s, Artemis, and [[Triton (mythology)|Triton]]'s daughter [[Pallas (daughter of Triton)|Pallas]], as the ''Homeric Hymn'' says, in a field when Hades came to abduct her, bursting through a cleft in the earth.<ref>''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+2+4 4–20] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308084108/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+2+4 |date=8 March 2021 }}, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+2+414 414–434] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309035106/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+2+414 |date=9 March 2021 }}.</ref> In another version of the myth, Persephone had her own personal companions whom Demeter [[Shapeshifting|turned]] into the half bird [[Siren (mythology)|sirens]] as punishment for failing to prevent her daughter's abduction.<ref>{{Cite web|title = ''Siren''|url = https://www.worldhistory.org/Siren/|author=Cartwright, Mark|date=16 April 2015|publisher =World History Encyclopedia|access-date = 27 December 2023}}</ref>

Various local traditions place Persephone's abduction in different locations. The [[Sicily#Antiquity|Sicilians]], among whom her worship was probably introduced by the Corinthian and Megarian colonists, believed that Hades found her in the meadows near [[Enna]], and that a well arose on the spot where he descended with her into the lower world. The [[Crete#Archaic and Classical period|Cretans]] thought that their own island had been the scene of the abduction, and the [[Eleusis#Eleusinian Mysteries|Eleusinians]] mentioned the Nysian plain in Boeotia, and said that Persephone had descended with Hades into the lower world at the entrance of the western Oceanus. Later accounts place the abduction in [[Attica]], near [[Athens]], or near Eleusis.<ref name="Theoi Project - Persephone"/> The [[Homeric]] hymn mentions the ''Nysion'' (or Mysion) which was probably a mythical place. The location of this mythical place may simply be a convention to show that a magically distant chthonic land of myth was intended in the remote past.<ref name="Nilsson463" />

After Persephone had disappeared, Demeter searched for her all over the earth with [[Hecate]]'s torches. In most versions, she forbids the earth to produce, or she neglects the earth and, in the depth of her despair, she causes nothing to grow. [[Helios]], the Sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered where her daughter had been taken. Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone.<ref name="Theoi Project - Persephone">{{cite web |url=http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Persephone.html |title=Theoi Project – Persephone |publisher=Theoi.com |access-date=6 July 2012 |archive-date=27 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191027020623/https://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Persephone.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Rape of Prosepina September 2015-3a.jpg|thumb|right|260px|''[[The Rape of Proserpina]]'' by [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini]] (1621–22) at the [[Galleria Borghese]] in Rome.]]

Another version of the myth said that when Persephone was first brought to the underworld, she was not happy with Hades abducting and marrying her, but eventually came to love him when he treated her as his equal.<ref>{{Cite video |last=Zarka |first=Emily |date=April 26, 2022 |title=Persephone: Bringer of Life or Destruction? |publisher=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/video/persephone-bringer-of-life-or-destruction-vy3iox/|access-date=December 27, 2023}}</ref> When Hades was informed of Zeus' command to return Persephone, he complied with the request, but he first tricked her into eating [[pomegranate]] seeds.{{efn|The ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn to Demeter]]'', has Persephone tell Demeter: "he secretly put in my mouth sweet food, a pomegranate seed ({{math|ῥοιῆς κόκκον}}), and forced me to taste against my will."<ref>N.J. Richardson, [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0013.tlg002.perseus-eng ''The Homeric Hymn to Demeter'']{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, [[Clarendon Press]] 1974 lines 370-372, 411–412 pp.125, 129, 275,286-287.</ref> Gantz describes this as a "trick".<ref>Gantz (1996) p. 65</ref>}} [[Hermes]] was sent to retrieve Persephone but, because she had tasted the food of the underworld, she was obliged to spend a third of each year (the winter months) there, and the remaining part of the year with the gods above.<ref>Gantz (1996) p. 65.</ref> With the later writers Ovid and Hyginus, Persephone's time in the underworld becomes half the year.<ref>Gantz (1996) p. 67.</ref> It was explained to Demeter, her mother, that she would be released, so long as she did not taste the food of the underworld, as that was an Ancient Greek example of a [[Taboo#In religion and mythology|taboo]].

In some versions, [[Ascalaphus (son of Acheron)|Ascalaphus]] informed the other deities that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. As punishment for informing Hades, he was pinned under a heavy rock in the underworld by either Persephone or Demeter until [[Heracles]] later freed him causing Demeter to turn him into a [[Horned owl|eagle owl]].<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D3 1.5.3] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220616052109/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D3 |date=16 June 2022 }}; [[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 5.533-371</ref>

In an earlier version, Hecate rescued Persephone. On an Attic [[Red-figure pottery|red-figured]] [[Krater|bell krater]] of {{Nowrap|c. 440 BC}} in the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], Persephone is rising as if up stairs from a cleft in the earth, while Hermes stands aside; Hecate, holding two torches, looks back as she leads her to the enthroned Demeter.<ref>The figures are unmistakable, as they are inscribed "Persophata, Hermes, Hekate, Demeter"; Gisela M. A. Richter, "An Athenian Vase with the Return of Persephone" ''The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin'' '''26'''.10 (October 1931:245–248)</ref>

Before Persephone was abducted by Hades, the shepherd Eumolpus and the swineherd [[Eubuleus]] saw a girl in a black chariot driven by an invisible driver being carried off into the earth which had violently opened up. Eubuleus was feeding his pigs at the opening to the underworld, and his swine were swallowed by the earth along with her. This aspect of the myth is an [[etiology]] for the relation of pigs with the ancient rites in [[Thesmophoria]],<ref name="ReferenceA">Reference to the Thesmophoria in [[Lucian]]'s ''Dialogues of the Courtesans'' 2.1.</ref> and in Eleusis.
[[File:Amphora Hades Louvre G209 n2.jpg|thumb|left|320px|Hades (right) and Persephone (left). Detail from an Attic red-figure amphora, ca. 470 BC. From Italy. [[Louvre]]]]

In the hymn, Persephone eventually returns from the underworld and is reunited with her mother near Eleusis. The Eleusinians built a temple near the spring of Callichorus, and Demeter establishes her mysteries there.<ref>''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138%3Ahymn%3D2%3Acard%3D449 478–79] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211129102417/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0138:hymn%3D2:card%3D449 |date=29 November 2021 }}: "Awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress, or pry into, or utter, for deep awe of the gods checks the voice. Happy is he among men upon earth who has seen these mysteries; but he who is uninitiate and who has no part in them, never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the darkness and gloom".</ref>

Regardless of how she had eaten pomegranate seeds and how many, the ancient Greeks told the myth of Persephone [[origin myth|to explain the origin]] of the [[Season|four seasons]]. The ancient Greeks believed that [[Spring (season)|spring]] and [[summer]] occurred during the months Persephone stayed with Demeter, who would make flowers bloom and crops grow bountiful. During the other months when Persephone must live in the underworld with Hades, Demeter expressed her sadness by letting the earth go barren and covering it with snow, resulting in [[autumn]] and [[winter]].<ref>{{Cite web|title = ''Persephone and the Seasons''|url = https://www.hellenic.org.au/post/persephone-and-the-seasons|author=Craig, Sarah|date=September 1, 2017|publisher =Hellenic Museum|access-date = December 28, 2023}}</ref>

The 10th-century [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] encyclopedia ''[[Suda]]'' introduces a female figure, possibly a goddess, whose name is connected to the blessed [[afterlife]] assured to Orphic mystery initiates. This [[Macaria]] is asserted to be the daughter of Hades, but no mother is mentioned.<ref>Suidas s.v. Makariai, with English translation at [http://www.stoa.org/sol Suda On Line] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924120803/http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin/search.pl?db=REAL&field=adlerhw_gr&searchstr=mu,51 |date=24 September 2015 }}, [http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin/search.pl?db=REAL&field=adlerhw_gr&searchstr=mu,51 Adler number mu 51] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924120803/http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin/search.pl?db=REAL&field=adlerhw_gr&searchstr=mu,51 |date=24 September 2015 }}</ref>

=== Variations ===
[[File:Head of Persephone. Earthenware. From Sicily, Centuripae, c. 420 BCE. The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, UK.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Head of Persephone. Earthenware. From Sicily, Centuripae, {{circa|420 BC.}} The [[Burrell Collection]], Glasgow, UK]]

According to the Greek tradition a hunt-goddess preceded the harvest goddess.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D30%3Asection%3D2 2.30.2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123232637/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book%3D2:chapter%3D30:section%3D2 |date=23 November 2021 }}</ref> In [[Arcadia (region)|Arcadia]], Demeter and Persephone were often called ''Despoinai'' ({{lang|grc|Δέσποιναι}}, "the mistresses"). They are the two Great Goddesses of the Arcadian cults, and evidently they come from a more primitive religion.<ref name=Nilsson463/> The Greek god [[Poseidon]] probably substituted for the companion (''Paredros'', {{lang|grc|Πάρεδρος}}) of the [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]] [[Mother goddess|Great goddess]]<ref>Nilsson, VoI, p. 444</ref>
in the Arcadian mysteries. In the Arcadian mythos, while Demeter was looking for the kidnapped Persephone, she caught the eye of her younger brother Poseidon. Demeter turned into a mare to escape him, but then Poseidon turned into a stallion to pursue her. He caught her and raped her. Afterwards, Demeter gave birth to the talking horse [[Arion (mythology)|Arion]] and the goddess [[Despoina]] ("the mistress"), a goddess of the Arcadian mysteries.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Paus.+8.25.5&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 8.25.5] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024011011/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp%3Fdoc%3DPaus.%2B8.25.5%26fromdoc%3DPerseus:text:1999.01.0160 |date=24 October 2021 }}–[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D25%3Asection%3D7 8.25.7] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211023233629/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp%3Fdoc%3DPerseus:text:1999.01.0160:book%253D8:chapter%253D25:section%253D7 |date=23 October 2021 }}</ref>

In the [[Orphism (religion)|Orphic]] "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD),<ref>Meisner, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100800/https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |date=10 February 2023 }}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 5] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100808/https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 |date=10 February 2023 }}</ref> Persephone is described as the daughter of [[Zeus]] and [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]]. Zeus was filled with desire for his mother, Rhea, intending to marry her. He pursued the unwilling Rhea, only for her to change into a serpent.
[[File:Lycosoura-group.jpg|thumb|right|340px|From L-R, Artemis, Demeter, Veil of Despoina, Anytus, Tritoness from the throne of [[Despoina]] at [[Lycosura]]. [[National Archaeological Museum of Athens]]]]

Zeus also turned himself into a serpent and raped Rhea, which resulted in the birth of Persephone.<ref name=":meis">Meisner, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 134] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100757/https://books.google.com/books?id=ethjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 |date=10 February 2023 }}</ref> Afterwards, Rhea became [[Demeter]].<ref>[[Proclus]], ''Commentary on Plato's Cratylus'' 403 e (90, 28 Pasqu.) [= Orphic [https://archive.org/details/orphicorumfragme00orphuoft/page/188/mode/2up?view=theater fr. 145 Kern]; West 1983, p. 217; Kerényi 1976, p. 112. Demeter was usually said to be the daughter of [[Cronus]] and [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]].</ref> Persephone was born so deformed that Rhea ran away from her frightened, and did not breastfeed Persephone.<ref name=":meis"/> Zeus then mates with Persephone, who gives birth to [[Dionysus]]. She later stays in her mother's house, guarded by the [[Korybantes|Curetes]]. Rhea-Demeter prophecies that Persephone will marry [[Apollo]].

This prophecy does not come true, however, as while weaving a dress, Persephone is abducted by [[Hades]] to be his bride. She becomes the mother of the [[Erinyes]] by Hades.<ref>West 1983, pp. 73–74.</ref> In [[Nonnus]]'s ''[[Dionysiaca]]'', the gods of Olympus were bewitched by Persephone's beauty and desired her.
[[File:Nekyia Staatliche Antikensammlungen 1494.jpg|thumb|left|280px|''Nekyia''. Persephone supervising Sisyphus pushing his rock in the Underworld. Attic black-figure amphora, ca. 530 BC. From Vulci. [[Staatliche Antikensammlungen]]]]

[[Hermes]], [[Apollo]], [[Ares]], and [[Hephaestus]] each presented Persephone with a gift to woo her. Demeter, worried that Persephone might end up marrying Hephaestus, consults the [[Astrology|astrological]] god [[Astraeus]]. Astraeus warns her that Persephone will be ravished and impregnated by a serpent. Demeter then hides Persephone in a cave; but Zeus, in the form of a serpent, enters the cave and rapes Persephone. Persephone becomes pregnant and gives birth to [[Zagreus]].<ref>[[Nonnus]], ''[[Dionysiaca]]'' [https://archive.org/details/dionysiaca01nonnuoft/page/208/mode/2up?view=theater 5.563]–[https://archive.org/details/dionysiaca01nonnuoft/page/225/mode/2up?view=theater 6.165]</ref>

It was said that while Persephone was playing with the nymph Hercyna, Hercyna held a goose against her that she let loose. The goose flew to a hollow cave and hid under a stone; when Persephone took up the stone in order to retrieve the bird, water flowed from that spot, and hence the river received the name Hercyna.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D9%3Achapter%3D39%3Asection%3D2 9.39.2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031085400/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book%3D9:chapter%3D39:section%3D2 |date=31 October 2021 }}</ref> This was when she was abducted by Hades according to Boeotian legend; a vase shows water birds accompany the goddesses Demeter and Hecate who are in search of the missing Persephone.<ref>{{cite book |title = The Mysteries | page = [https://books.google.com/books?id=qMP1-m1cTMMC&pg=PA54 54] |last1 = Campbell | first1 = Joseph | publisher= [[Princeton University Press]]| date= 1955| isbn =0-691-01823-5}}</ref>

===Interpretation of the myth===
[[File:Fragment of a marble relief depicting a Kore, 3rd century BC, from Panticapaeum, Taurica (Crimea) (12853680765).jpg|thumb|right|280px|Fragment of a marble relief depicting a [[Kore (sculpture)|Kore]], 3rd century BC, from [[Panticapaeum]], [[Taurica]] ([[Crimea]]), [[Bosporan Kingdom]]]]

The abduction of Persephone is an [[Etiology|etiological myth]] providing an explanation for the changing of the seasons. Since Persephone had consumed pomegranate seeds in the underworld, she was forced to spend four months, or in other versions six months for six seeds, with Hades.<ref>Burkert (1985) p. 160</ref><ref>Gantz (1996) pp. 65, 67.</ref> When Persephone would [[Katabasis#trip into the underworld|return to the underworld]], Demeter's despair at losing her daughter would cause the vegetation and flora of the world to wither, signifying the Autumn and Winter seasons. When Persephone's time is over and she would be reunited with her mother, Demeter's joyousness would cause the vegetation of the earth to bloom and blossom which signifies the Spring and Summer seasons. This also explains why Persephone is associated with Spring: her re-emergence from the underworld signifies the onset of Spring. Therefore, not only does Persephone and Demeter's annual reunion symbolize the changing seasons and the beginning of a new cycle of growth for the crops, it also symbolizes death and the regeneration of life.<ref name="Nilssonpopular51">{{cite web |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gpr/ |title=Martin Nilsson, ''The Greek popular religion'', The religion of Eleusis, pp 51–54 |publisher=Sacred-texts.com |date=8 November 2005 |access-date=6 July 2012 |archive-date=11 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170611191255/http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gpr/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Martin Nilsson 1967 pp. 473">Martin Nilsson (1967) Vol I, pp. 473–474.</ref>

In another interpretation of the myth, the abduction of Persephone by Hades, in the form of Ploutus ({{lang|el|πλούτος}}, wealth), represents the wealth of the grain contained and stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (''pithoi'') during the Summer seasons (as that was drought season in Greece).<ref>As in Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' (Harvard, 1985) p. 160.</ref> In this telling, Persephone as grain-maiden symbolizes the grain within the ''pithoi'' that is trapped underground within the realm of Hades. In the beginning of the autumn, when the grain of the old crop is laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter.<ref>[https://sacred-texts.com/cla/gpr/gpr07.htm#page_48 Martin Nilsson, ''Greek Popular Religion''.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210821205029/https://sacred-texts.com/cla/gpr/gpr07.htm#page_48 |date=21 August 2021 }} pp 48–50</ref><ref name="Nilssonpopular51"/><ref name="Martin Nilsson 1967 pp. 473"/> This interpretation of Persephone's abduction myth symbolizes the cycle of life and death as Persephone both dies as she (the grain) is buried in the ''pithoi'' (as similar ''pithoi'' were used in ancient times for funerary practices) and is [[Dying-and-rising deity|reborn]] with the exhumation and spreading of the grain.

[[Bruce Lincoln|Lincoln]] argues that the myth is a description of the loss of Persephone's virginity, where her epithet ''koure'' signifies "a girl of initiatory age", and where Hades is the male oppressor forcing himself onto a young girl for the first time.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Lincoln |first=Bruce |title=The Rape of Persephone: A Greek Scenario of Women's Initiation |journal=The Harvard Theological Review |date=1979 |volume=72 |issue=3/4 |pages=223–235 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000020034 |jstor=1509722 |s2cid=161724658 |issn=0017-8160 }}</ref>
=== Adonis ===
[[File:Locri Pinax Persephone Opens Liknon Mystikon.jpg|thumb|right|Persephone opening a ''[[cista]]'' containing the infant [[Adonis]], on a [[pinax]] from [[Locri]]]]

[[Adonis]] was an exceedingly beautiful mortal man with whom Persephone fell in love.<ref>[[Greek anthology]] ''Agathias Scholasticus'' [https://topostext.org/work/532#5.289 5.289] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210615121601/https://topostext.org/work/532#5.289 |date=15 June 2021 }}</ref><ref>[[Alciphron]], ''Letters to Courtesans'' [https://topostext.org/work/495#4.14.1 4.14.1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018194527/https://topostext.org/work/495#4.14.1 |date=18 October 2021 }}</ref><ref>[[Clement of Alexandria]], ''[[Protrepticus (Clement)|Exhortations]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/215#2.29 2.29] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210501031401/https://topostext.org/work/215#2.29 |date=1 May 2021 }}</ref> After he was born, [[Aphrodite]] entrusted him to Persephone to raise. But when Persephone got a glimpse of the beautiful Adonis—finding him as attractive as Aphrodite did—she refused to give him back to her. The matter was brought before [[Zeus]], and he decreed that Adonis would spend one third of the year with each goddess, and have the last third for himself. Adonis chose to spend his own portion of the year with Aphrodite.<ref>[[Pseudo-Apollodorus]], ''Bibliotheca'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+3.14.4&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022 3.14.4] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018194519/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+3.14.4&fromdoc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022 |date=18 October 2021 }}; Grimal, s.v. [https://archive.org/details/concisedictionar00grim/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater Adonis]; Bell, s.v. [https://archive.org/details/womenofclassical00bell/page/54/mode/2up?view=theater Aphrodite]; Tripp s.v [https://archive.org/details/meridianhandbook00trip/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater Adonis]</ref> Alternatively, Adonis had to spend one half of the year with each goddess at the suggestion of the Muse [[Calliope]].<ref>[[Hyginus]], ''Astronomica'' [https://topostext.org/work/207#2.7.4 2.7.4] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815135348/https://topostext.org/work/207#2.7.4 |date=15 August 2021 }}</ref> Of them, [[Claudius Aelianus|Aelian]] wrote that Adonis' life was divided between two goddesses: one who loved him beneath the earth,and one above,<ref>[[Claudius Aelianus|Aelian]], ''On Animals'' [http://www.attalus.org/translate/animals9.html#36 9.36] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210901140527/http://www.attalus.org/translate/animals9.html#36 |date=1 September 2021 }}</ref> while the satirical author [[Lucian]] of [[Samosata]] has Aphrodite complain to the [[moon goddess]] [[Selene]] that [[Eros]] made Persephone fall in love with her own beloved, and now she has to share Adonis with her.<ref>[[Lucian]], ''[[Dialogues of the Gods]]'' [http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:dialogues:dialogues-of-the-gods#section11 Aphrodite and the Moon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018194526/http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:dialogues:dialogues-of-the-gods#section11 |date=18 October 2021 }}</ref> In another variation, Persephone met Adonis only after he had been slain by a boar; Aphrodite descended into the Underworld to take him back. But Persephone, smitten with him, would not let him go until they came to an agreement that Adonis would alternate between the land of the living and the land of the dead each year.<ref>[[Pseudo-Nonnus]], ''Commentary on [[Gregory of Nazianzus]]'' [https://www.persee.fr/doc/antiq_0770-2817_1976_num_45_1_1818 38] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230121112826/https://www.persee.fr/doc/antiq_0770-2817_1976_num_45_1_1818 |date=21 January 2023 }}</ref>

=== Wrath myths ===
[[File:The Abduction of Persephone by Pluto, Amphipolis.jpg|thumb|left|A [[mosaic]] of the [[Kasta Tomb]] in [[Amphipolis]] depicting the abduction of Persephone by [[Pluto (mythology)|Pluto]], 4th century BC]]

After a plague hit [[Aonia]], its people asked the [[Pythia|Oracle of Delphi]], and they were told they needed to appease the anger of the king and queen of the underworld by means of sacrifice. Two maidens, [[Menippe and Metioche]] (who were the daughters of [[Orion (mythology)|Orion]]), were chosen and they agreed to be offered to the two gods in order to save their country. As the two of them were led to the altar to be sacrificed, Persephone and Hades took pity on them and turned them into [[comets]] instead.<ref>[[Antoninus Liberalis]], ''Metamorphoses'' [https://topostext.org/work/216#25 25] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181002180842/https://topostext.org/work/216#25 |date=2 October 2018 }}</ref>

[[Minthe]] was a [[Naiad]] [[nymph]] of the [[Potamoi|river]] [[Cocytus]] who became mistress to Persephone's husband [[Hades]]. Persephone was not slow to notice and, in jealousy, she trampled the nymph, killing her and turning her into a [[Mentha|mint plant]].<ref>[[Strabo]], ''[[Geographica]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+8.3.14&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198 8.3.14] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220616050910/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+8.3.14&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198 |date=16 June 2022 }}</ref><ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' [https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph10.htm#484521431 10.728] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812221358/https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph10.htm#484521431 |date=12 August 2021 }}</ref> Alternatively, Persephone tore Minthe to pieces for sleeping with Hades, and it was he who turned his former lover into the sweet-smelling plant.<ref>[[Scholia]] ad [[Nicander|Nicandri]] ''Alexipharmaca'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=Zy2LWzF4v3oC&pg=PA212 375] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100802/https://books.google.com/books?id=Zy2LWzF4v3oC&pg=PA212 |date=10 February 2023 }}</ref> In another version, Minthe had been Hades's lover before he met Persephone. When Minthe claims Hades will return to her due to her beauty, Persephone's mother [[Demeter]] kills Minthe over the insult done to her daughter.<ref>[[Oppian]], ''Halieutica'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Oppian/Halieutica/3*.html#482 3.485] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100756/https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Oppian/Halieutica/3%2A.html#482 |date=10 February 2023 }}</ref>

Theophile was a girl who claimed that Hades loved her and that she was better than Persephone.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/182847|title=CIRB 130 - PHI Greek Inscriptions|access-date=19 October 2021|archive-date=19 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019201819/https://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/182847|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url = https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2020/03/17/hades-newest-bride-a-remarkable-epitaph-2/|title = Hades' Newest Bride: A Remarkable Epitaph|date = 17 March 2020|access-date = 19 October 2021|archive-date = 19 October 2021|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211019201821/https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2020/03/17/hades-newest-bride-a-remarkable-epitaph-2/|url-status = live}}</ref>

Once, [[Hermes]] chased Persephone (or [[Hecate]]) with the aim to rape her; but the goddess snored or roared in anger, frightening him off so that he desisted, hence her earning the name "[[Brimo]]" ("angry").<ref>[[John Tzetzes|Tzetzes]] ad [[Lycophron]] [https://books.google.com/books?id=DDxEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA29 1176, 1211] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100802/https://books.google.com/books?id=DDxEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA29 |date=10 February 2023 }}; Heslin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=WhJbDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 p. 39] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100802/https://books.google.com/books?id=WhJbDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 |date=10 February 2023 }}.</ref>

=== Favour myths ===
[[File:Relief_depicting_Persephone_as_an_Hydranos.jpg|thumb|right|Votive relief of Persephone as a hydranos, 5th century BC [[Eleusis]], [[Archaeological Museum of Eleusis]].]]

The hero [[Orpheus]] once descended into the underworld seeking to take back to the land of the living his late wife [[Eurydice]], who died when a snake bit her. So lovely was the music he played that it charmed Persephone and even stern Hades.<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' [https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph10.htm#484521418 10.1-85] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812221358/https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph10.htm#484521418 |date=12 August 2021 }}</ref> So entranced was Persephone by Orpheus' sweet melody that she persuaded her husband to let the unfortunate hero take his wife back.<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]], ''[[Bibliotheca historica|Library of History]]'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html#p425 4.25.4] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100810/http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html#p425 |date=10 February 2023 }}</ref>

[[Sisyphus]], the wily king of [[Corinth]] managed to avoid staying dead, after [[Thanatos|Death]] had gone to collect him, by appealing to and tricking Persephone into letting him go; thus Sisyphus returned to the light of the sun in the surface above.<ref>[[Theognis]], fragments [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=1.11.2+699-718&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0479 699-718] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926142034/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=1.11.2+699-718&fromdoc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0479 |date=26 September 2021 }}</ref>

When [[Echemeia]], a queen of [[Kos]], ceased to offer worship to [[Artemis]], the goddess shot her with an arrow. Persephone, witnessing that, snatched the still living Euthemia and brought her to the Underworld.<ref>[[Hyginus]], ''Astronomica'' [https://topostext.org/work/207#2.16.2 2.16.2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815135348/https://topostext.org/work/207#2.16.2 |date=15 August 2021 }}</ref>

When Dionysus, the god of wine, descended into the Underworld accompanied by Demeter to retrieve his dead mother [[Semele]] and bring her back to the land of the living, he is said to have offered a myrtle plant to Persephone in exchange for Semele.{{sfn|J. Paul Getty Museum|1983|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=exArAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 31, note 51]}} On a neck amphora from Athens Dionysus is depicted riding on a chariot with his mother, next to a myrtle-holding Persephone who stands with her own mother Demeter; many vases from Athens depict Dionysus in the company of Persephone and Demeter.{{sfn|J. Paul Getty Museum|1983|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=exArAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA30 30, note 45]}}

Persephone also convinced Hades to allow the hero [[Protesilaus]] to return to the world of the living for a limited period of time to see his wife.<ref>[[Lucian]], ''Dialogues of the Dead'' [https://pt.calameo.com/read/000107044fc0f01286992 Protesilaus, Pluto and Persephone]</ref>

Socrates in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' previously mentions that Hades consorts with Persephone due to her wisdom.<ref>[[Plato]], ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DCrat.%3Apage%3D404 404d] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220430165516/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0172:text%3DCrat.:page%3D404 |date=30 April 2022 }}</ref>

== Worship ==
[[File:Hades and Persephone, Vergina.jpg|thumb|300px|A fresco showing Hades and Persephone riding in a [[chariot]], from the tomb of Queen [[Eurydice I of Macedon]] at [[Vergina]], Greece, 4th century BC]]
Persephone was worshipped along with her mother Demeter and in the same mysteries. Her cults included agrarian magic, dancing, and rituals. The priests used special vessels and holy symbols, and the people participated with rhymes. In Eleusis there is evidence of sacred laws and other inscriptions.<ref>Burkert (1985), pp. 285–289</ref>

The Cult of Demeter and the Maiden is found at Attica, in the main festivals Thesmophoria and [[Eleusinian mysteries]] and in a number of local cults. These festivals were almost always celebrated at the autumn sowing, and at full-moon according to the Greek tradition. In some local cults the feasts were dedicated to Demeter.

===Origins===
[[File:P1010629 crop.png|thumb|left|Gold ring from Isopata tomb, near [[Knossos]], [[Crete]], 1400–1500 BC. Depicted are female figures dancing among blossoming vegetation; [[Heraklion Archaeological Museum]]]]

The myth of [[Rape of Persephone|a goddess being abducted and taken to the underworld]] is probably Pre-Greek in origin. [[Samuel Noah Kramer]], the renowned scholar of ancient [[Sumer]], has posited that the Greek story of the abduction of Persephone may be derived from an ancient Sumerian story in which [[Ereshkigal]], the ancient Sumerian goddess of the underworld, is abducted by [[Kur]], the primeval [[dragon]] of [[Sumerian religion|Sumerian mythology]], and forced to become ruler of the underworld against her own will.<ref>Kramer, Samuel Noah. ''Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C.: Revised Edition''. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961, Philadelphia. {{ISBN|0-8122-1047-6}} (Pages 76–79) available at [http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/sum08.htm sacred-texts.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012151558/http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/sum/sum08.htm |date=12 October 2014 }}. "Moreover, the crime involved is probably that of abducting a goddess; it therefore brings to mind the Greek story of the abduction of Persephone."</ref>

The location of Persephone's abduction is different in each local cult. The ''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'' mentions the "plain of Nysa".<ref>''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+2+17 17] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308132725/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+2+17 |date=8 March 2021 }}.</ref> The locations of this probably mythical place may simply be conventions to show that a magically distant chthonic land of myth was intended in the remote past.<ref>Nilsson (1967), Vol I, p. 463</ref>{{efn|name=Sherwood217|"In Greek mythology [[Nysa (mythology)|Nysa]] is a mythical mountain with unknown location, the birthplace of the god [[Dionysos]]."<ref>Fox, William Sherwood (1916), ''[[The Mythology of All Races]]'', v.1, ''Greek and Roman'', General editor, Louis Herbert Gray, p.217</ref>}} Demeter found and met her daughter in Eleusis, and this is the mythical disguise of what happened in the mysteries.<ref name=Burkert285>Burkert (1985), pp. 285–290.</ref>

In his 1985 book on Greek Religion, Walter Burkert claimed that Persephone is an old chthonic deity of the agricultural communities, who received the souls of the dead into the earth, and acquired powers over the fertility of the soil, over which she reigned. The earliest depiction of a goddess Burkert claims may be identified with Persephone growing out of the ground, is on a plate from the Old-Palace period in [[Phaistos]]. According to Burkert, the figure looks like a vegetable because she has snake lines on other side of her. On either side of the vegetable person there is a dancing girl.<ref name=Burkert42>Burkert (1985) p. 42</ref> A similar representation, where the goddess appears to come down from the sky, is depicted on the Minoan ring of Isopata.

[[File:Persephone krater Antikensammlung Berlin 1984.40.jpg|thumb|[[Rape of Persephone]]. [[Hades]] with his horses and Persephone (down). An Apulian red-figure volute krater, {{circa|340 BC}}. [[Antikensammlung Berlin]]]]

The cults of Persephone and Demeter in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the Thesmophoria were based on old agrarian cults.<ref>Nilsson, Vol I, p.470</ref> The beliefs of these cults were closely-guarded secrets, kept hidden because they were believed to offer believers a better place in the afterlife than in miserable Hades. There is evidence that some practices were derived from the religious practices of the [[Mycenean Greece|Mycenaean age]].<ref name=Dietrich-origins-220>Dietrich (n/d?) ''The origins of the Greek Religion'', pp 220, 221</ref><ref name="Burkert42"/> [[Karl Kerenyi|Kerenyi]] asserts that these religious practices were introduced from Minoan Crete.<ref name="Kerenyi24">"Kerenyi (1976), ''Dionysos, archetypal image of indestructible life''. Princeton University Press. p. 24</ref><ref name="Kerenyi31">[[Karl Kerenyi]] (1967). ''Eleusis. Archetypal image of mother and daughter''. Princeton University Press. p. 31f</ref> The idea of immortality which appears in the syncretistic religions of the [[Near East]] did not exist in the Eleusinian mysteries at the very beginning.<ref>Burkert (1985) p. 289</ref>{{efn|"According to the Greek popular belief, {{math|{{lang|grc|ἕν ἀνδρῶν, ἕν θεῶν γένος}}}}".(One is the nature of men, another one the nature of gods)<ref>Erwin Rhode (1961), ''Psyche'' Band I, p. 293</ref>}}

===In the Near East and Minoan Crete===
[[Walter Burkert]] believed that elements of the Persephone myth had origins in the Minoan religion. This belief system had unique characteristics, particularly the appearance of the goddess from above in the dance. Dance floors have been discovered in addition to "vaulted tombs", and it seems that the dance was ecstatic. Homer memorializes the dance floor which [[Daedalus]] built for [[Ariadne]] in the remote past.<ref name="Burkert34">Burkert (1985) pp. 34–40</ref> A gold ring from a tomb in Isopata depicts four women dancing among flowers, the goddess floating above them.<ref name="Burkert40">Burkert (1985) p. 40</ref> An image plate from the first palace of Phaistos seems to depict the ascent of Persephone: a figure grows from the ground, with a dancing girl on each side and stylized flowers all around.<ref name="Burkert42" /> The depiction of the goddess is similar to later images of "Anodos of Pherephata". On the Dresden vase, Persephone is growing out of the ground, and she is surrounded by the animal-tailed agricultural gods [[Seilenos|Silenoi]].<ref name="Hermesthe">"Hermes and the Anodos of Pherephata": Nilsson (1967) p. 509 taf. 39,1</ref>

Despoina and "Hagne" were probably euphemistic surnames of Persephone, therefore Karl Kerenyi theorizes that the cult of Persephone was the continuation of the worship of a Minoan Great goddess.<ref>[[Karl Kerenyi]] (1976), Dionysos: archetypal image of indestructible life, pp. 89, 90 {{ISBN|0-691-02915-6}}</ref><ref>[[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]], listing of {{lang|grc|ἀδνόν}}, a Cretan-Greek form for {{lang|grc|ἁγνόν}}, "pure"</ref> It is possible that some religious practices, especially the [[Mystery religions|mysteries]], were transferred from a Cretan priesthood to Eleusis, where Demeter brought the [[poppy]] from Crete.<ref>Kerenyi(1976), p.24</ref> Besides these similarities, Burkert explains that up to now it is not known to what extent one can and must differentiate between Minoan and [[Mycenea]]n religion.{{efn|"To what extent one can and must differentiate between Minoan and Mycenaean religion is a question which has not yet found a conclusive answer" .<ref>Burkert (1985). p. 21.</ref>}} In the [[Anthesteria]] Dionysos is the "divine child".

===In Mycenaean Greece===
[[File:Triptolemos Kore Louvre G452 full.jpg|240px|thumb|[[Triptolemus]] and Kore, [[tondo (art)|tondo]] of an Attic red-figure bowl by the Aberdeen Painter, c.470~460 BCE. ([[Louvre]], [[Paris]])]]

There is evidence of a cult in Eleusis from the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenean period]];<ref>G. Mylonas (1932). Eleusiniaka. I,1 ff</ref> however, there are not sacral finds from this period. The cult was private and there is no information about it. As well as the names of some Greek gods in the Mycenean Greek inscriptions, names of goddesses who do not have Mycenean origin appear, such as "the divine Mother" (the mother of the gods) or "the Goddess (or priestess) of the winds".<ref name=Burkert285/> In historical times, Demeter and Kore were usually referred to as "the goddesses" or "the mistresses" (Arcadia) in the mysteries .<ref>Nilsson (1967), pp. 463–465</ref> In the Mycenean Greek tablets dated 1400–1200 BC, the "two queens and the king" are mentioned. John Chadwick believes that these were the precursor divinities of Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.<ref>John Chadwick (1976).''The Mycenean World''. Cambridge University Press</ref>{{efn|"Wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te, (to the two queens and the king). Wanax is best suited to Poseidon, the special divinity of Pylos. The identity of the two divinities addressed as wanassoi, is uncertain".<ref>George Mylonas (1966) Mycenae and the Mycenean age" p. 159 : Princeton University Press</ref>}}

Some information can be obtained from the study of the cult of [[Eileithyia]] at Crete, and the cult of [[Despoina]]. In the cave of Amnisos at Crete, Eileithyia is related with the annual birth of the divine child and she is connected with ''Enesidaon'' (The earth shaker), who is the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon.<ref name=Dietrich-origins-220/>
Persephone was conflated with Despoina, "the mistress", a chthonic divinity in West-Arcadia.<ref name="Kerenyi31"/> The [[megaron]] of Eleusis is quite similar to the "megaron" of Despoina at Lycosura.<ref name=Burkert285/> Demeter is united with her, the god [[Poseidon]], and she bears him a daughter, the unnameable Despoina.<ref name="Pausanias 8.37.9">{{cite web |title=Pausanias 8.37.9 |publisher=Perseus.tufts.edu |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+8.37.9&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 |access-date=6 July 2012 |archive-date=21 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421202125/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+8.37.9&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 |url-status=live }}</ref> Poseidon appears as a horse, as usually happens in Northern European folklore. The goddess of nature and her companion survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the words "Mighty Potnia bore a great sun" were uttered.<ref name=Dietrich-origins-220/> In Eleusis, in a ritual, one child ("pais") was initiated from the hearth. The name ''pais'' (the divine child) appears in the Mycenean inscriptions.<ref name=Burkert285/>

In Greek mythology Nysa is a mythical mountain with an unknown location.{{efn|name=Sherwood217}} ''Nysion'' (or Mysion), the place of the abduction of Persephone was also probably a mythical place which did not exist on the map, a magically distant chthonic land of myth which was intended in the remote past.<ref>Nilsson, Vol I p. 463</ref>

===Secret rituals and festivals===
[[File:Roman copy of the Great Eleusinian relief hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Eleusinian mysteries|Eleusinian trio]]: Persephone, [[Triptolemus]] and [[Demeter]] (Roman copy of the [[Great Eleusinian Relief]] hosted by the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]])]]
{{Main|Thesmophoria|Eleusinian mysteries}}
[[File:Kore55.jpg|thumb|left|Kore, daughter of Demeter, celebrated with her mother by the [[Thesmophoriazusae]] (women of the festival). [[Acropolis Museum]], Athens]]
Persephone and Demeter were intimately connected with the Thesmophoria, a widely-spread Greek festival of secret women-only rituals. These rituals, which were held in the month [[Attic calendar|Pyanepsion]], commemorated marriage and fertility, as well as the abduction and return of Persephone.

They were also involved in the Eleusinian mysteries, a festival celebrated at the autumn sowing in the city of Eleusis. Inscriptions refer to "the Goddesses" accompanied by the agricultural god [[Triptolemos]] (probably son of Gaia and Oceanus),<ref>Pseudo Apollodorus Biblioteca IV.2</ref> and "the God and the Goddess" (Persephone and Plouton) accompanied by Eubuleus who probably led the way back from the underworld.<ref>Kevin Klinton (1993), ''Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches'', Routledge, p. 11</ref>

===In Rome===
{{main|Proserpina}}

The [[ancient Rome|Romans]] first heard of her from the [[Aeolians|Aeolian]] and [[Dorians|Dorian]] cities of [[Magna Graecia]], who used the dialectal variant ''Proserpinē'' ({{math|{{lang|grc|Προσερπίνη}}}}). Hence, in [[Roman mythology]] she was called [[Proserpina]], a name erroneously derived by the Romans from ''proserpere'', "to shoot forth"<ref>[[Cicero]]. ''[[De Natura Deorum]]'' 2.26</ref> and as such became an emblematic figure of the [[Renaissance]].<ref>Welch (2013), p. 164</ref> In 205 BC, Rome officially identified Proserpina with the local Italic goddess [[Libera (mythology)|Libera]], who, along with [[Liber]], were closely associated with the Roman grain goddess [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]] (considered equivalent to the Greek Demeter). The Roman author [[Gaius Julius Hyginus]] writes that Ariadne was made immortal by Liber, that he wedded and called her Libera.<ref>[[T. P. Wiseman]] (1988) "Satyrs in Rome? The Background to Horace's Ars Poetica", ''The Journal of Roman Studies'', Vol. 78, p 7, note 52.</ref><ref>Barbette Stanley Spaeth (1996) ''The Roman goddess Ceres'', University of Texas Press</ref>

===In Magna Graecia===
[[File:Locri Pinax Of Persephone And Hades.jpg|thumb|left|Pinax of Persephone and Hades from Locri. [[Reggio Calabria]], National Museum of Magna Graecia. ]]

At [[Locri]], a city of [[Magna Graecia]] situated on the coast of the [[Ionian Sea]] in [[Calabria]] (a region of southern Italy), perhaps uniquely, Persephone was worshiped as protector of marriage and childbirth, a role usually assumed by [[Hera]] (in fact, Hera seems to have played no role in the public worship of the city{{sfn|Parker|2011|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=e_ytDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA231 231]}}); in the iconography of [[Pinax|votive plaques]] at Locri, her abduction and marriage to Hades served as an emblem of the marital state, children at Locri were dedicated to Proserpina, and maidens about to be wed brought their ''[[peplos]]'' to be blessed.<ref>Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Persephone" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''98''' (1978:101–121).</ref> [[Diodorus Siculus]] knew the temple there as the most illustrious in Italy.<ref name="auto1">{{cite journal |title=Life, Death, and a Lokrian Goddess. Revisiting the Nature of Persephone in the Gold Leaves of Magna Graecia |first=Hanne |last=Eisenfel d |date=1 October 2016 |journal=Kernos. Revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire de religion grecque antique |issue=29 |pages=41–72 |url=http://journals.openedition.org/kernos/2388 |via=journals.openedition.org |doi=10.4000/kernos.2388 |doi-access=free |access-date=14 May 2019 |archive-date=18 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418084740/https://journals.openedition.org/kernos/2388 |url-status=live }}</ref> During the 5th century BC, votive pinakes in [[terracotta]] were often dedicated as offerings to the goddess, made in series and painted with bright colors, animated by scenes connected to the myth of Persephone. Many of these pinakes are now on display in the [[Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia|National Museum of Magna Græcia]] in [[Reggio Calabria]]. Locrian pinakes represent one of the most significant categories of objects from Magna Graecia, both as documents of religious practice and as works of art.<ref name="auto2">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R7PP3wNr4zMC&q=cult+of+persephone+reggio+calabria&pg=PA201 |title=Magna Graecia: Greek Art from South Italy and Sicily |first1=Michael |last1=Bennett |first2=Michael J. |last2=Bennett |first3=Professor of Palliative Medicine Michael |last3=Bennett |last4=etc |first5=Aaron J. |last5=Paul |first6=Mario |last6=Iozzo |first7=et |last7=al |first8=Bruce M. |last8=White |first9=Cleveland Museum of |last9=Art |first10=Tampa Museum of |last10=Art |date=14 May 2019 |publisher=Hudson Hills |isbn=978-0-940717-71-8 |via=Google Books |access-date=3 October 2020 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100803/https://books.google.com/books?id=R7PP3wNr4zMC&q=cult+of+persephone+reggio+calabria&pg=PA201 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Proserpina kidnapped Kircheriano Terme.jpg|thumb|right|Cinerary altar with tabula representing the abduction of [[Proserpina]]. White marble, Antonine Era, 2nd century [[Rome]], Baths of Diocletian ]]

For most Greeks, the marriage of Persephone was a marriage with death, and could not serve as a role for human marriage; the Locrians, not fearing death, painted her destiny in a uniquely positive light.{{sfn|Parker|2011|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=e_ytDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA232 232]}} While the return of Persephone to the world above was crucial in Panhellenic tradition, in southern Italy Persephone apparently accepted her new role as queen of the underworld, of which she held extreme power, and perhaps did not return above;{{sfn|Edmonds|2004|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=I_YkMvUVoyYC&pg=PA58 58]}} [[Virgil]] for example in ''[[Georgics]]'' writes that "Proserpina cares not to follow her mother",<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Georgics]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0058%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1 1.38] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220616050920/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0058%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1 |date=16 June 2022 }}</ref> – though note that references to Proserpina serve as a warning, since the soil is only fertile when she is above it.<ref>Miles, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=BG3tDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 68] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100804/https://books.google.com/books?id=BG3tDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 |date=10 February 2023 }}</ref> Although her importance stems from her marriage to Hades, in Locri she seems to have the supreme power over the land of the dead, and Hades is not mentioned in the [[Pelinna]] tablets found in the area.{{sfn|Edmonds|2004|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=I_YkMvUVoyYC&pg=PA59 59]}} Many ''pinakes'' found in the cult are near Epizephyrian Locri depict the abduction of Persephone by Hades, and others show her enthroned next to her beardless, youthful husband, indicating that in Locri Persephone's abduction was taken as a model of transition from girlhood to marriage for young women; a terrifying change, but one that provides the bride with status and position in society. Those representations thus show both the terror of marriage and the triumph of the girl who transitions from bride to matron.{{sfn|Edmonds|2013|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=CR9aAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA311 311]}}

It was suggested that Persephone's cult at Locri was entirely independent from that of Demeter, who supposedly was not venerated there,{{sfn|Bennett|Paul|Iozzo|White|2002|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=R7PP3wNr4zMC&pg=PA83 83]}} but a sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros has been found in a different region of Locri, ruling against the notion that she was completely excluded.{{sfn|Parker|2011|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=e_ytDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA231 231]}}

The temple at Locri was looted by [[Pyrrhus of Epirus|Pyrrhus]].<ref>Livy: 29.8, 29.18</ref> The importance of the regionally powerful Locrian Persephone influenced the representation of the goddess in Magna Graecia. Pinakes, terracotta tablets with brightly painted sculptural scenes in relief were founded in Locri. The scenes are related to the myth and cult of Persephone and other deities. They were produced in Locri during the first half of the 5th century BC and offered as votive dedications at the Locrian sanctuary of Persephone. More than 5,000, mostly fragmentary, pinakes are stored in the National Museum of Magna Græcia in Reggio Calabria and in the museum of Locri.<ref name=auto2/> Representations of myth and cult on the clay tablets (pinakes) dedicated to this goddess reveal not only a 'Chthonian Queen,' but also a deity concerned with the spheres of marriage and childbirth.<ref name=auto1/>

The Italian archaeologist [[Paolo Orsi]], between 1908 and 1911, carried out a meticulous series of excavations and explorations in the area which allowed him to identify the site of the renowned Persephoneion, an ancient temple dedicated to Persephone in Calabria which Diodorus in his own time knew as the most illustrious in Italy.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.locriantica.it/english/site/persephoneion_eng.htm |title=Locri Epizephyrii, The Archaeological Site – Persephoneion, the Sanctuary of Persephone |website=www.locriantica.it |access-date=18 April 2019 |archive-date=18 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418160206/https://www.locriantica.it/english/site/persephoneion_eng.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

The place where the ruins of the Sanctuary of Persephone were brought to light is located at the foot of the Mannella hill, near the walls (upstream side) of the [[polis]] of Epizephyrian Locri.
Thanks to the finds that have been retrieved and to the studies carried on, it has been possible to date its use to a period between the 7th century BC and the 3rd century BC.

Archaeological finds suggest that worship of Demeter and Persephone was widespread in Sicily and Greek Italy.

===In Orphism===
[[File:Hades abducting Persephone.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|[[Hades]] abducting Persephone, wall painting in the small royal tomb at [[Vergina]]. [[Macedonia (Greece)|Macedonia]], Greece]]

Evidence from both the Orphic Hymns and the [[Totenpass|Orphic Gold Leaves]] demonstrate that Persephone was one of the most important deities worshiped in Orphism.<ref name=bremmer>Bremmer, J.N. (2013). Divinities in the Orphic Gold Leaves: Euklês, Eubouleus, Brimo, Kybele, Kore and Persephone. ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'', 35–48.</ref> In the Orphic religion, gold leaves with verses intended to help the deceased enter into an optimal afterlife were often buried with the dead. Persephone is mentioned frequently in these tablets, along with Demeter and Euklês, which may be another name for [[Plouton]].<ref name=bremmer/> The ideal afterlife destination believers strive for is described on some leaves as the "sacred meadows and groves of Persephone". Other gold leaves describe Persephone's role in receiving and sheltering the dead, in such lines as "I dived under the ''kolpos'' [portion of a Peplos folded over the belt] of the Lady, the Chthonian Queen", an image evocative of a child hiding under its mother's apron.<ref name=bremmer/>

In Orphism, Persephone is believed to be the mother of the first Dionysus. In Orphic myth, Zeus came to Persephone in her bedchamber in the underworld and impregnated her with the child who would become his successor. The infant Dionysus was later dismembered by the [[Titan (mythology)|Titans]], before being reborn as the second Dionysus, who wandered the earth spreading his mystery cult before ascending to the heavens with his second mother, [[Semele]].<ref name=Edmonds-2011/> The first, "Orphic" Dionysus is sometimes referred to with the alternate name Zagreus ({{lang-grc-gre|Ζαγρεύς}}). The earliest mentions of this name in literature describe him as a partner of Gaia and call him the highest god. The Greek poet [[Aeschylus]] considered Zagreus either an alternate name for Hades, or his son (presumably born to Persephone).<ref>Sommerstein, [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-attributed_fragments/2009/pb_LCL505.237.xml?result=1&rskey=f0foz8 p. 237 n. 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220111094854/https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-attributed_fragments/2009/pb_LCL505.237.xml?result=1&rskey=f0foz8 |date=11 January 2022 }}; Gantz (1996) p. 118; Smyth, [https://archive.org/stream/aeschyluswitheng02aescuoft#page/458/mode/2up p. 459].</ref> Scholar [[Timothy Gantz]] noted that Hades was often considered an alternate, cthonic form of Zeus, and suggested that it is likely Zagreus was originally the son of Hades and Persephone, who was later merged with the Orphic Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone, owing to the identification of the two fathers as the same being.<ref>[[Timothy Gantz|Gantz]] (1996) p. 118.</ref> However, no known Orphic sources use the name "Zagreus" to refer to Dionysus. It is possible that the association between the two was known by the 3rd century BC, when the poet [[Callimachus]] may have written about it in a now-lost source.<ref>[[Timothy Gantz|Gantz]] (1996) pp. 118–119; West (1983) pp. 152–154; Linforth, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015008294699;view=1up;seq=335 pp. 309–311] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125231114/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015008294699;view=1up;seq=335 |date=25 January 2021 }}.</ref> In Orphic myth, the Eumenides are attributed as daughters of Persephone and Zeus.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mastros |first=Sara |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rvSuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 |title=Orphic Hymns Grimoire |date=2019 |publisher=Lulu.com |isbn=978-1-7330961-7-1 |language=en |access-date=9 December 2022 |archive-date=10 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100756/https://books.google.com/books?id=rvSuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 |url-status=live }}</ref> Whereas Melinoë was conceived as the result of rape when Zeus disguised himself as Hades in order to mate with Persephone, the Eumenides' origin is unclear.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Edmonds |first=Radcliffe G. III |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CR9aAQAAQBAJ |title=Redefining Ancient Orphism: A study in Greek religion |date=2013-11-07 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-03821-9 |page=178 |language=en |access-date=9 December 2022 |archive-date=9 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209161428/https://books.google.com/books/about/Redefining_Ancient_Orphism.html?id=CR9aAQAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Other local cults===
[[File:S03 06 01 020 image 2524.jpg|thumb|Italy. Renaissance relief, ''Rape of Persephone''. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection]]

There were local cults of Demeter and Kore in Greece, [[Asia Minor]], Sicily, Magna Graecia, and Libya.
; Attica<ref>Nilsson (1967) Vol I, pp. 463–465</ref>
* [[Athens]], in the mysteries of Agrae. This was a local cult near the river [[Ilissos]]. They were celebrated during spring in the month [[Attic calendar|Anthesterion]]. Later they became an obligation for the participants of the "greater" [[Eleusinian mysteries]]. There was a temple of Demeter and Kore and an image of [[Triptolemos]].<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] 1.14,1: Nilsson (1967), Vol I, pp. 668–670</ref>[[File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPG|thumb|Demeter drives her horse-drawn chariot containing her daughter Persephone at [[Selinunte]], Sicily 6th century BC]]
* [[Piraeus]]: The ''Skirophoria'', a festival related to the [[Thesmophoria]].
* [[Megara]]: Cult of Demeter ''thesmophoros'' and Kore. The city was named after its ''megara'' .<ref>Pausanias I 42,6, Nilsson (1967), ''Vol I'', p. 463</ref>
* [[Aegina]]: Cult of Demeter ''thesmophoros'' and Kore.
* [[Phlya]]: near Koropi. The local mystery religion may have been originally dedicated to Demeter, Kore, and Zeus Ktesios; Pausanias mentions a temple to all three there. It seems that the mysteries were related to the mysteries of [[Andania]] in [[Messene]].<ref name=Nilsson668>Nilsson (1967), ''Vol I'', pp. 668–670</ref>
; Boeotia
* [[Ancient Thebes (Boeotia)|Thebes]]: purportedly granted to her by Zeus in return for a favor.<ref>Scholia ad. Euripides Phoen. 487</ref> As well, the cults of Demeter and Kore in a feast named [[Thesmophoria]] but probably different. It was celebrated in the summer month ''Bukatios''.<ref name="Nilsson463" /><ref name="Diodor">[[Diodorus Siculus]] (v.4.7) :"At [[Thebes (Greece)|Thebes]] or [[Delos]] the festival occurred two months earlier, so any seed-sowing connection was not intrinsic."</ref>
* A feast in Boeotia, in the month ''Demetrios'' ([[Attic calendar|Pyanepsion]]), probably similar with the [[Thesmophoria]].
; Peloponnese (except Arcadia)<ref name=Nilsson463/>
* [[Hermione (Argolis)|Hermione]]: An old cult of Demeter [[chthonic|Chthonia]], Kore, and ''Klymenos'' ([[Hades]]). Cows were pushed into the temple, and then they were killed by four women. It is possible that Hermione was a mythical name, the place of the souls.<ref name=Rhode206/>
* [[Asine]]: Cult of Demeter Chthonia. The cult seems to be related to the original cult of Demeter in Hermione.<ref name=Rhode206/>
* [[Lakonia]]: Temple of Demeter ''Eleusinia'' near [[Taygetos]]. The feast was named ''Eleuhinia'', and the name was given before the relation of Demeter with the cult of [[Eleusis]].
* [[Lakonia]] at Aigila: Dedicated to Demeter. Men were excluded.
* near [[Sparta]]: Cult of Demeter and Kore, the Demeters ({{lang|grc|Δαμάτερες}}, "Damaters"). According to Hesychius, the feast lasted three days (Thesmophoria).
* [[Corinth]]: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Pluton.<ref name=Rhode206/>
* [[Triphylia]] in [[Ancient Elis|Elis]]: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Hades.<ref name=Rhode206/>
; Arcadia<ref name=Nilsson478>Nilsson, pp. 477–480 :"The Arcadian Great goddesses"</ref>
*[[Pheneos]] : Mysteries of Demeter ''Thesmia'' and Demeter ''Eleusinia''. The Eleusinian cult was introduced later.
* Pallantion near [[Tripoli, Greece|Tripoli]]: Cult of Demeter and Kore.
* [[Karyai (ancient city)|Karyai]]: Cult of Kore and Pluton.<ref name=Rhode206/>
* [[Tegea]]: Cult of Demeter and Kore, the ''Karpophoroi'', "Fruit givers".
* [[Megalopolis, Greece|Megalopolis]]: Cult of the Great goddesses, Demeter and ''Kore Sotira'', "the savior".
* [[Mantineia]]: Cult of Demeter and Kore in the fest ''Koragia''.<ref>For Mantinea, see ''Brill's New Pauly'' "Persephone", II D.</ref>
* [[Trapezus, Arcadia|Trapezus]]: Mysteries of the Great goddesses, Demeter and Kore. The temple was built near a spring, and a fire was burning out of the earth.
; Islands
* [[Paros]]: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Zeus-Eubuleus.<ref name=Rhode206/>
* [[Amorgos]]: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Zeus-Eubuleus.<ref name=Rhode206/>
* [[Delos]]: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Zeus-Eubuleus. Probably a different feast with the name [[Thesmophoria]], celebrated in a summer month (the same month in Thebes). Two big loaves of bread were offered to the two goddesses. Another feast was named ''Megalartia''.<ref name=Nilsson463/><ref name=Diodor/>
* [[Mykonos]]: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and [[Zeus]]-Buleus.
* [[Crete]] : Cult of Demeter and Kore, in the month Thesmophorios.
* [[Rhodes]]: Cult of Demeter and Kore, in the month Thesmophorios. The two goddesses are the Damaters in an inscription from [[Lindos]]
; Egypt
* [[Alexandria]]: According to [[Epiphanius of Salamis|Epiphanius]], a temple of Kore existed in Alexandria. He describes a celebration of the birth of [[Aion (deity)|Aion]] from Kore the Virgin which took place there on [[6 January#Holidays and observances|6 January]].<ref>Fossum, "The Myth of the Eternal Rebirth," pp. 306–307.</ref> Aion may be a form of Dionysus, reborn annually;<ref>Fossum, "The Myth of the Eternal Rebirth," p. 309.</ref> an inscription from Eleusis also identifies Aion as a son of Kore.<ref>Dittenberger: ''Sylloge Inscriptionum'', 3rd ed., 1125</ref>
; [[Asia Minor]]
* [[Knidos]]: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Pluton.<ref name=Rhode206/> Agrarian magic similar to the one used in [[Thesmophoria]] and in the cult of the [[potnia]]i ([[Cabeiri]]an).<ref name=Nilsson463/>
* [[Ephesos]] : Cult of Demeter and Kore, celebrated at night-time.<ref>Herodotus VI, 16: Nilsson (1967), ''Vol I'', p. 464</ref>
* [[Priene]]: Cult of Demeter and Kore, similar to the Thesmophoria.<ref name=Nilsson463/>
; [[Sicily]]
* [[Syracuse, Sicily|Syracuse]]: There was a harvest festival of Demeter and Persephone at Syracuse when the grain was ripe (about May).<ref>Brill's New Pauly, "Persephone", citing [[Diodorus]] 5.4</ref>
* A fest ''Koris katagogi'', the descent of Persephone into the underworld.<ref name=Nilsson463/>
; Libya
* [[Cyrene, Libya|Cyrene]]: Temple of Demeter and Kore<ref name=Nilsson463/>

==Modern reception==
{{Main|Persephone in popular culture}}

Persephone also appears many times in popular culture. Featured in a variety of novels such as ''Persephone '' <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15724908-persephone|title=Persephone (Daughters of Zeus, #1)|access-date=4 July 2012|archive-date=15 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120715011639/http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15724908-persephone|url-status=live}}</ref> by Kaitlin Bevis, '' A Touch of Darkness '' by Scarlett St. Clair, ''Persephone's Orchard''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17790646-persephone-s-orchard |title=Persephone's Orchard |access-date=25 November 2016 |archive-date=20 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160820073206/http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17790646-persephone-s-orchard |url-status=live }}</ref> by Molly Ringle, ''The Goddess Test'' by Aimee Carter, ''The Goddess Letters'' by Carol Orlock, ''Abandon'' by Meg Cabot, ''Neon Gods'' by Katee Robert and ''[[Lore Olympus]]'' by Rachel Smythe, her story has also been treated by Suzanne Banay Santo in ''Persephone Under the Earth'' in the light of women's spirituality; portraying Persephone not as a victim but as a woman in quest of sexual depth and power, transcending the role of daughter, though ultimately returning to it as an awakened Queen.<ref>{{cite book|title=Persephone Under the Earth|publisher=Red Butterfly Publications|author=Santo, Suzanne Banay|year=2012|isbn=978-0-9880914-0-5}}</ref>

== Jungian Interpretation ==
Elizabeth Eowyn Nelson, in "Embodying Persephone’s Desire: Authentic Movement and Underworld",<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nelson |first=Elizabeth Eowyn |date=2016-06-01 |title=Embodying Persephone's Desire: Authentic Movement and Underworld Transformation |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.29173/jjs37s |journal=Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies |volume=11 |pages=5–17 |doi=10.29173/jjs37s |issn=1920-986X}}</ref> interprets the Persephone myth through Jungian psychology. She focuses on the dual nature of Persephone as both maiden and queen of the underworld, symbolizing the Jungian themes of life, death, and rebirth, and the complexity of the human psyche. Nelson also examines the mother-daughter relationship between Persephone and Demeter, emphasizing its significance in the myth as an embodiment of the cyclical nature of life and the process of transformation. This interpretation views Persephone's descent into the underworld as a metaphor for the journey into the unconscious, highlighting self-discovery and confrontation with deeper aspects of the self.

==See also==
{{Portal|Ancient Greece|Myths|Religion}}
* [[Anthesphoria]], festival honoring Proserpina, and Persephone
* [[Eleusinian Mysteries]]
* [[Demeter]]
* [[Despoina]]
* [[Rape of Persephone]]
* [[Sporus]]

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{reflist|25em}}

== Bibliography ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
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* [[Theognis]]; Edmonds, J.M. (1931) [in] ''Elegy and Iambu with an English Translation by J.M. Edmonds''. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0479%3Avolume%3D1 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926085036/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0479:volume%3D1 |date=26 September 2021 }}.
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* Bell, Robert E., ''Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary'', [[ABC-CLIO]] 1991, {{ISBN|0-87436-581-3}}. [https://archive.org/details/womenofclassical00bell/mode/2up?view=theater Internet Archive.]
* [[Oppian]], [[Colluthus]], [[Tryphiodorus]] (1928) "Halieutica" [in] ''Oppian, Colluthus, and Tryphiodorus'', translated by A.W. Mair. Loeb Classical Library 219. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [https://topostext.org/work/524 Online version at Topos text.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210924163646/https://topostext.org/work/524 |date=24 September 2021 }}
* [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]]; Frazer, J. (1921) ''Apollodorus, ''The Library'', with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes.'' Cambridge, MA: [[Harvard University Press]]; London, UK: William Heinemann Ltd. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225100246/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1 |date=25 February 2021 }}.
* [[Maurice Bowra|Bowra, M.]] (1957) ''The Greek Experience''. The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York.
* [[Walter Burkert|Burkert Walter]] (1985). ''Greek Religion''. Harvard University Press . {{ISBN|0-674-36281-0}}
* [[Lewis Richard Farnell|Farnell, Lewis Richard]] (1906) ''The Cults of the Greek States'', volume 3 (chapters on: Demeter and Kore-Persephone; Cult-monuments of Demeter-Kore; Ideal types of Demeter-Kore).
* [[Timothy Gantz|Gantz, T.]] (1996) ''Early Greek Myth: A guide to literary and artistic sources''. Johns Hopkins University Press, in two volumes: {{ISBN|978-0-8018-5360-9}} (Vol. 1), {{ISBN|978-0-8018-5362-3}} (Vol. 2).
* Grimal, Pierre, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, {{ISBN|978-0-631-20102-1}}.
* Hard, Robin (2004) ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, {{ISBN|978-0-415-18636-0}}.
* Heslin, Peter (2018) ''Propertius, Greek Myth, and Virgil: Rivalry, allegory, and polemic'', Oxford, Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-199-54157-7}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=WhJbDwAAQBAJ Google Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100804/https://books.google.com/books?id=WhJbDwAAQBAJ |date=10 February 2023 }}.
* [[Homer]]; Murray, A.T. (1924) ''The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PhD in two volumes'', Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd.
* [[Homer]]; Murray, A.T. (1919) ''The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes''. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd.
* Evelyn-White, H.G. (1914) [[Homeric Hymns|''Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2)'']], in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, MA: [[Harvard University Press]]; London, UK: William Heinemann Ltd. [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0013.tlg002.perseus-eng1:1-39 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809144355/http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0013.tlg002.perseus-eng1:1-39 |date=9 August 2020 }}.
* Janda, Michael (2010) ''Die Musik nach dem Chaos''. Innsbruck
* {{cite book | title = Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum | volume = 1 | author = J. Paul Getty Museum | author-link = J. Paul Getty Museum | location = Malibu, California | date = 1983 | isbn = 0-89236-058-5 | publisher = [[Getty Publications]] | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=exArAgAAQBAJ | access-date = 8 February 2023 | archive-date = 8 February 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230208160349/https://books.google.com/books?id=exArAgAAQBAJ | url-status = live }}
* [[Karl Kerenyi|Kerenyi, K.]] (1967) ''Eleusis: Archetypal image of mother and daughter'' . Princeton University Press.
* [[Karl Kerenyi|Kerenyi, K.]] (1976) ''Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life'', Princeton: Bollingen. [https://books.google.com/books?id=cXL-QIIhn5gC Google Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100805/https://books.google.com/books?id=cXL-QIIhn5gC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en |date=10 February 2023 }}.
* [[Otto Kern|Kern, O.]] (1922) ''Orphicorum Fragmenta'', Berlin. [https://archive.org/stream/orphicorumfragme00orphuoft#page/n5/mode/2up Internet Archive].
* [[Martin P. Nilsson|Nilsson Martin]] (1967) ''Die Geschichte der Griechischen Religion'', vol I. Revised ed. Muenchen, DE: C.F Beck Verlag.
* [[Martin P. Nilsson|Nilsson, M.]] (1950) ''Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, and its Survival in Greek Religion'', Revised 2nd ed. Lund: Gleerup.
* Meisner, Dwayne A. (2018) ''Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods'', [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-19-066352-0}}.
* [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]]; Jones, W.H.S.; Ormerod, H.A. (1918) ''Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 volumes'', Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.
* {{cite book | title = On Greek Religion| last1 = Parker |first1 = Robert|publisher = Cornell University Press|date = 2011 |isbn =978-0-8014-4948-2}}
* [[Lucian]]; Fowler, H.W.; Fowler, F.G. (1905) ''[[Dialogues of the Gods]]''; translated by Fowler, H.W. and F.G. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus]]; Grant, Mary (n/d?) ''Astronomica from the Myths of Hyginus'' translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. [https://topostext.org/work/207 Online version at the Topos Text Project] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815135348/https://topostext.org/work/207 |date=15 August 2021 }}.
* Miles, Gary B. (1980), ''Virgil's Georgics: A New Interpretation'', [[University of California Press]], {{ISBN|0-520-03789-8}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=BG3tDwAAQBAJ Google books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210100758/https://books.google.gr/books?id=BG3tDwAAQBAJ&dq= |date=10 February 2023 }}.
* [[Claudius Aelianus|Aelian]]; Scholfield, A.F. (1959) ''On Animals'', volume III: books 12–17, translated by A.F. Scholfield, [[Loeb Classical Library]] No. 449, Cambridge, MA: [[Harvard University Press]]. [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL449/1959/volume.xml Online version] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018194519/https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL449/1959/volume.xml |date=18 October 2021 }} at Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-674-99494-2}}.
* Paton, W.R. (1916) ''The [[Greek Anthology]] with an English Translation''. London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1. [https://topostext.org/work/532 Online version at the Topos Text Project] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210615121601/https://topostext.org/work/532 |date=15 June 2021 }}.
* {{cite book | last1= Edmonds III |first1 = Radcliffe G.| title = Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the 'Orphic' Gold Tablets | publisher = [[Cambridge University Press]]|date = 2004|isbn=0-52183434-1|ref=CITEREFEdmonds2004}}
* {{cite book | last1= Edmonds III |first1 = Radcliffe G.|title = Redefining Ancient Orphism: A Study in Greek Religion| publisher= [[Cambridge University Press]] |date = 2013|isbn= 978-1-107-03821-9}}
* [[Erwin Rohde|Rohde, E.]] (1961) ''Psyche. Seelenkult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellshaft''. Darmstad. (First edition 1893): full text in German downloadable as [https://books.google.com/books?id=uiZF4fYQTQcC&q=intitle:Psyche+inauthor:Erwin+inauthor:Rohde pdf].
* [[Erwin Rohde|Rohde, E.]] (2000), ''Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality among the Greeks'', trans. from the 8th edn. by W. B. Hillis (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1925; reprinted by Routledge, 2000), [https://books.google.com/books?id=EsVTr_6c7E0C online]
* [[Fritz Schachermeyr|Schachermeyr, F.]] (1964), ''Die Minoische Kultur des alten Kreta'', W.Kohlhammer Verlag Stuttgart.
* King, Stephen (2008) ''Duma Key''
* [[William Smith (lexicographer)|Smith, W.]] (1873) ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]'', London. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=persephone-bio-1 "Persephone"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308030328/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=persephone-bio-1 |date=8 March 2021 }}.
* [[Herbert Weir Smyth|Smyth, H.W.]] (1926) ''Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth'', Volume II, London Heinemann. [https://archive.org/stream/aeschyluswitheng02aescuoft#page/n7/mode/2up Internet Archive].
* Tripp, Edward, ''Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology'', Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). {{ISBN|069022608X}}.
* Welch, Anthony (2013) ''The Renaissance Epic and the Oral Past'', Yale University Press. {{ISBN|0300178867}}.
* [[Martin Litchfield West|West, M.L.]] (1983) ''The Orphic Poems'', [[Clarendon Press]] Oxford. {{ISBN|978-0-19-814854-8}}.
* [[Günther Zuntz|Zuntz, G.]] (1973) ''Persephone: Three essays on religion and thought in Magna Graecia''.
{{refend}}

==External links==
* [https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/category/vpc-taxonomy-000143 The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Persephone)]
{{Commons category|Persephone}}
{{Wiktionary}}
* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gpr Martin Nilsson. The Greek popular religion]
* [http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/mycen.html Adams John Paul. Mycenean divinities]
* [http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/PersephoneGoddess.html PERSEPHONE from The Theoi Project]
* [http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/HaidesPersephone1.html THE RAPE OF PERSEPHONE from The Theoi Project]
* [http://www.maicar.com/GML/Persephone.html PERSEPHONE from Greek Mythology Link]
* [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?q=despoina The Princeton Encyclopedia of classical sites:Despoina]
* [http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Despoine.html DESPOINA from The Theoi Project]
* [https://www.flickr.com/photos/schumata/tags/kore/ Kore Photographs]
* [https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/persephone/clusters/britishmuseum-museum/ Flickr users' photos tagged with Persephone]
* [https://exchange.umma.umich.edu/resources/16964 Proserpine (Persephone) sculpture] by [[Hiram Powers]]

{{Greek mythology (deities)}}
{{Greek religion}}
{{Greek myth (aquatic olympian)}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Persephone| ]]
[[Category:Queens in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Life-death-rebirth goddesses]]
[[Category:Eleusinian Mysteries]]
[[Category:Underworld goddesses]]
[[Category:Greek death goddesses]]
[[Category:Greek underworld]]
[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Divine women of Zeus]]
[[Category:Chthonic beings]]
[[Category:Children of Demeter]]
[[Category:Nature goddesses]]
[[Category:Harvest goddesses]]
[[Category:Food goddesses]]
[[Category:Death goddesses]]
[[Category:Destroyer goddesses]]
[[Category:Children of Zeus]]
[[Category:Marriage goddesses]]
[[Category:Deeds of Demeter]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses characters]]
[[Category:Women of Hades]]
[[Category:Fertility goddesses]]
[[Category:Kidnapped people]]
[[Category:Characters in the Odyssey]]
[[Category:Rape of Persephone]]
[[Category:Childhood goddesses]]
[[Category:Women and death]]
[[Category:Seasons]]
[[Category:Spring deities]]

Moneta

2024-03-14T20:48:04Z

93.38.67.134: /* Juno Moneta and Mnemosyne Moneta */

{{Short description|Epithet of Juno and Mnemosyne}}
{{other uses}}
{{see also|Mnemosyne|Juno (mythology)}}

In [[Roman mythology]], '''Moneta''' ([[Latin]] '''Monēta''') was a title given to two separate goddesses: It was the name of the goddess of memory (identified with the [[Greek mythology|Greek]] goddess [[Mnemosyne]]), and it was an epithet of [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], called '''Juno Moneta''' (Latin '''Iūno Monēta'''). The latter's name is the source of numerous words in [[English language|English]] and the [[Romance language]]s, including “[[wiktionary:money|money]]" and "[[wikt:mint|mint]]".

[[File:CSA-T14-$50-1861–62.jpg|thumb|Moneta depicted with treasure chests on the front of an 1861 Confederate States of America [[Confederate States dollar|$50 banknote]].]]

The cult of the goddess Moneta was established largely under the influence of [[Ancient Greek religion|Greek religion]], which featured the cult of [[Mnemosyne]] ("Μνημοσύνη"), the goddess of memory and the mother of the [[Muse]]s. The goddess's name is derived from Latin ''monēre'' (which means to remind, warn, or instruct). She is mentioned in a fragment of [[Livius Andronicus]]' Latin Odyssey: ''Nam diva Monetas filia docuit'' ("since the divine daughter of Moneta has taught...", frg. 21 Büchner), which may be the equivalent of either Od. 8,480-1 or 488.

The epithet Moneta that was given to [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], in contrast, is more likely to have derived from the Greek word "moneres" ("μονήρης"), meaning "alone”, or “unique". By the time Andronicus was writing, the folk etymology of ''monēre'' was widely accepted, and so he could plausibly transmute this epithet into a reference to separate goddess - the literary (though not the religious) counterpart of the Greek Mnemosyne.

== Juno Moneta and Hyginus' Moneta==
{{see also|Temple of Juno Moneta}}
[[File:Juno Moneta denarius 46BC better colours.JPG|thumb|right|A bust of Juno Moneta on a denarius]]
Juno Moneta, an epithet of [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], was the protectress of funds, and, accordingly, money in ancient [[Rome]] was coined in her temple. The word "moneta" (from which the words "money" and "monetize" are derived) was used by writers such as [[Ovid]], [[Martial]], [[Juvenal]], and [[Cicero]]. In several modern languages, including Russian and Italian, ''moneta'' (Spanish ''moneda'') is the word for "coin".

Juno Moneta's name (like the name of the goddess Moneta) is derived either from the Latin ''monēre'' (since, as the protectress of funds, she "warned" of economic instability) or, more likely, from the Greek "moneres", meaning "alone” or “unique".

According to the [[Suda]], a [[Byzantine]] encyclopedia (which uses the Greek names of the goddess), she was called Moneta (Μονήτα) because when the Romans needed money during the wars against [[Pyrrhus of Epirus|Pyrrhus]] and [[Taranto]], they prayed to Hera, and she replied to them that, if they would hold out against the enemies with justice, they would not go short of money. After the wars, the Romans honoured Hera Moneta (that is, advisor - invoking the Latin verb moneo, meaning to 'warn' or 'advise'), and, accordingly, decided to stamp the coinage in her temple.<ref>[https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-entries/mu/1220 Suda On Line, mu,1220]</ref><ref>[https://topostext.org/work/240#mu.1220 Suda topostext, mu,1220]</ref>
[[Hyginus]] in his [[Fabulae]], writes of Moneta as a Titaness daughter of [[Aether]] and [[Tellus]], and as the mother by [[Jove]] of the nine Muses. Hyginus doesn't seem to identify Moneta with neither Juno or Mnemosyne, as the latter is later called a daughter of Jove and [[Clymene]].

== Coinage==
"Moneta" retained the meanings of "money" and "die" well into the Middle Ages and appeared often on minted coins. For example, the phrase ''moneta nova'' is regular on coins of the [[low countries]] and the [[rhineland]] in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, with the "nova", Latin for "new", not necessarily signifying a new type or variety of coin.<ref>{{cite journal | author =B.H.I.H Stewart | year =1962 | title =Moneta and Mot on Anglo-Saxon Coins | journal =British Numismatic Journal | volume =31 | pages =27–30 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=RkQaAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27 | access-date =27 December 2017 }}</ref>

== In culture ==
Moneta is a central figure in [[John Keats]]' poem "[[The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream]]".

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
* {{cite book | last = Simpson | first = D. P. | title = Cassell's Latin Dictionary: 5th Edition | publisher = Macmillan Publishing Co | location = New York | year = 1968 | isbn = 0-02-522570-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/cassellslatindic00simp }}
* {{cite book | title = The American Heritage dictionary of the English language: 4th Edition | publisher = Houghton Mifflin Co | location = New York | year = 2000 | isbn = 0-02-522570-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/cassellslatindic00simp }}
* [http://en.museicapitolini.org/sede/campidoglio_antico/tempio_di_giunone_moneta en.museicapitolini.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114152402/http://en.museicapitolini.org/sede/campidoglio_antico/tempio_di_giunone_moneta |date=2012-01-14 }}

[[Category:Roman goddesses]]
[[Category:Juno (mythology)]]

Moneta

2024-03-14T20:47:06Z

93.38.67.134: /* Juno Moneta */ added informations, fabulae geneaology

{{Short description|Epithet of Juno and Mnemosyne}}
{{other uses}}
{{see also|Mnemosyne|Juno (mythology)}}

In [[Roman mythology]], '''Moneta''' ([[Latin]] '''Monēta''') was a title given to two separate goddesses: It was the name of the goddess of memory (identified with the [[Greek mythology|Greek]] goddess [[Mnemosyne]]), and it was an epithet of [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], called '''Juno Moneta''' (Latin '''Iūno Monēta'''). The latter's name is the source of numerous words in [[English language|English]] and the [[Romance language]]s, including “[[wiktionary:money|money]]" and "[[wikt:mint|mint]]".

[[File:CSA-T14-$50-1861–62.jpg|thumb|Moneta depicted with treasure chests on the front of an 1861 Confederate States of America [[Confederate States dollar|$50 banknote]].]]

The cult of the goddess Moneta was established largely under the influence of [[Ancient Greek religion|Greek religion]], which featured the cult of [[Mnemosyne]] ("Μνημοσύνη"), the goddess of memory and the mother of the [[Muse]]s. The goddess's name is derived from Latin ''monēre'' (which means to remind, warn, or instruct). She is mentioned in a fragment of [[Livius Andronicus]]' Latin Odyssey: ''Nam diva Monetas filia docuit'' ("since the divine daughter of Moneta has taught...", frg. 21 Büchner), which may be the equivalent of either Od. 8,480-1 or 488.

The epithet Moneta that was given to [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], in contrast, is more likely to have derived from the Greek word "moneres" ("μονήρης"), meaning "alone”, or “unique". By the time Andronicus was writing, the folk etymology of ''monēre'' was widely accepted, and so he could plausibly transmute this epithet into a reference to separate goddess - the literary (though not the religious) counterpart of the Greek Mnemosyne.

== Juno Moneta and Mnemosyne Moneta==
{{see also|Temple of Juno Moneta}}
[[File:Juno Moneta denarius 46BC better colours.JPG|thumb|right|A bust of Juno Moneta on a denarius]]
Juno Moneta, an epithet of [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], was the protectress of funds, and, accordingly, money in ancient [[Rome]] was coined in her temple. The word "moneta" (from which the words "money" and "monetize" are derived) was used by writers such as [[Ovid]], [[Martial]], [[Juvenal]], and [[Cicero]]. In several modern languages, including Russian and Italian, ''moneta'' (Spanish ''moneda'') is the word for "coin".

Juno Moneta's name (like the name of the goddess Moneta) is derived either from the Latin ''monēre'' (since, as the protectress of funds, she "warned" of economic instability) or, more likely, from the Greek "moneres", meaning "alone” or “unique".

According to the [[Suda]], a [[Byzantine]] encyclopedia (which uses the Greek names of the goddess), she was called Moneta (Μονήτα) because when the Romans needed money during the wars against [[Pyrrhus of Epirus|Pyrrhus]] and [[Taranto]], they prayed to Hera, and she replied to them that, if they would hold out against the enemies with justice, they would not go short of money. After the wars, the Romans honoured Hera Moneta (that is, advisor - invoking the Latin verb moneo, meaning to 'warn' or 'advise'), and, accordingly, decided to stamp the coinage in her temple.<ref>[https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-entries/mu/1220 Suda On Line, mu,1220]</ref><ref>[https://topostext.org/work/240#mu.1220 Suda topostext, mu,1220]</ref>
[[Hyginus]] in his [[Fabulae]], writes of Moneta as a Titaness daughter of [[Aether]] and [[Tellus]], and as the mother by [[Jove]] of the nine Muses. Hyginus doesn't seem to identify Moneta with neither Juno or Mnemosyne, as the latter is later called a daughter of Jove and [[Clymene]].

== Coinage==
"Moneta" retained the meanings of "money" and "die" well into the Middle Ages and appeared often on minted coins. For example, the phrase ''moneta nova'' is regular on coins of the [[low countries]] and the [[rhineland]] in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, with the "nova", Latin for "new", not necessarily signifying a new type or variety of coin.<ref>{{cite journal | author =B.H.I.H Stewart | year =1962 | title =Moneta and Mot on Anglo-Saxon Coins | journal =British Numismatic Journal | volume =31 | pages =27–30 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=RkQaAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27 | access-date =27 December 2017 }}</ref>

== In culture ==
Moneta is a central figure in [[John Keats]]' poem "[[The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream]]".

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
* {{cite book | last = Simpson | first = D. P. | title = Cassell's Latin Dictionary: 5th Edition | publisher = Macmillan Publishing Co | location = New York | year = 1968 | isbn = 0-02-522570-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/cassellslatindic00simp }}
* {{cite book | title = The American Heritage dictionary of the English language: 4th Edition | publisher = Houghton Mifflin Co | location = New York | year = 2000 | isbn = 0-02-522570-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/cassellslatindic00simp }}
* [http://en.museicapitolini.org/sede/campidoglio_antico/tempio_di_giunone_moneta en.museicapitolini.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114152402/http://en.museicapitolini.org/sede/campidoglio_antico/tempio_di_giunone_moneta |date=2012-01-14 }}

[[Category:Roman goddesses]]
[[Category:Juno (mythology)]]

Helen of Troy

2024-03-04T04:12:13Z

93.38.67.134: /* Youthful abduction by Theseus */

{{Short description|Daughter of Zeus in Greek mythology}}
{{other uses}}
{{redirect|Helen of Sparta|the play|Helen of Sparta (play){{!}}''Helen of Sparta'' (play)}}
{{Infobox deity
| type = Greek
| member_of = the [[Troy|Trojans]]
| image = Helen and Menelaos Staatliche Antikensammlungen 1383 cropped glare reduced and solid white background.png
| caption = Recovery of Helen by Menelaus. Attic black-figure amphora, {{circa|550 BC}}
| siblings = [[Dioscuri|Pollux]] {{small|(full-brother)}} [[Clytemnestra]], [[Dioscuri|Castor]], [[Timandra (mythology)|Timandra]], Phoebe, [[Philonoe]] and [[Zeus#Offspring|other children of Zeus]] {{small|(half-siblings)}}
| name = Helen
| offspring = {{collapsible list|title={{nobold|At least 5, including [[Hermione (mythology)|Hermione]]}}|'''by Menelaos'''|{{blist|[[Hermione (mythology)|Hermione]]|[[Aethiolas]] (disputed)|[[Nicostratus (mythology)|Nicostratus]] (disputed)|[[Megapenthes (son of Menelaus)|Megapenthes]] (disputed)|[[Pleisthenes]] (disputed)}}|'''by Paris'''|{{blist|Bunomus|Aganus|Idaeus|Helen}}}}
| birth_date =
| birth_place = [[Greece]]
| death_date =
| death_place = [[Sparta]], [[Greece]]
| consort = [[Menelaus]], [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]], [[Deiphobus]]
| abode = {{nowrap|[[Sparta]] (modern-day [[Sparta, Laconia|Sparta]], [[Greece]])}} [[Troy]] (modern-day [[Hisarlik]], [[Turkey]])
| parents = {{ubl|[[Zeus]]|[[Leda (mythology)|Leda]] or [[Nemesis]]<ref name="Cypria"/>}}
| deity_of = Queen of Sparta
}}
'''Helen of Troy''',<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=6YPslBr74P4C&hl=en_GB&pg=GBS.PP11|title=The Complete Works of Lord Byron|publisher=Baudry's European Library|year=1837|editor-last=Galt|editor-first=John|location=Paris|page=553}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Lang|first=Andrew|title=Helen of Troy|publisher=Library of Alexandria|year=1892|isbn=978-1465600868|page=Title page}}</ref><ref>Name made popular by the 1956 film "[[Helen of Troy (film)|Helen of Troy]]" by Warner Bros. directed by Robert Wise.</ref> '''Helen''',<ref>{{Cite book|last=Coleridge|first=Edward P.|title=The Plays of Euripides|publisher=G. Bell and Sons, Limited.|year=1910|volume=1|location=London|page=319|id=ark:/13960/t6tx37b16}}</ref> '''Helena''',<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology|publisher=Little, Brown, and Company|year=1870|editor-last=Smith|editor-first=William|volume=2|location=Boston|page=370|id=ark:/13960/t9f47mp93}}</ref> ({{lang-grc|Ἑλένη|Helénē}}, {{IPA-el|helénɛː|pron}}) also known as '''beautiful Helen''', '''Helen of Argos''', or '''Helen of Sparta''',<ref>{{Cite book|last=Benjamin|first=S.G.W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZSw8AAAAMAAJ|title=Troy: Its Legend, History and Literature|publisher=C. Scribner's sons|year=1880|page=v}}</ref> was a figure in [[Greek mythology]] said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of [[Zeus]] and [[Leda (mythology)|Leda]], and was the sister of [[Clytemnestra]], [[Castor and Pollux]], [[Philonoe]], [[Phoebe (Greek myth)|Phoebe]] and [[Timandra (mythology)|Timandra]]. She was married to King [[Menelaus]] of [[Sparta]] "who became by her the father of [[Hermione (mythology)|Hermione]], and, according to others, of [[Nicostratus (mythology)|Nicostratus]] also."<ref name=":1" /> Her abduction by [[Paris of Troy]] was the most immediate cause of the [[Trojan War]].

Elements of her putative biography come from classical authors such as [[Aristophanes]], [[Cicero]], [[Euripides]], and [[Homer]] (in both the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]''). Her story reappears in Book II of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]''. In her youth, she was abducted by [[Theseus]]. A competition between her suitors for her hand in marriage saw Menelaus emerge victorious. All of her suitors were required to swear an oath (known as the ''Oath of [[Tyndareus]]'') promising to provide military assistance to the winning suitor, if Helen were ever stolen from him. The obligations of the oath precipitated the Trojan War. When she married Menelaus she was still very young; whether her subsequent departure with Paris was an abduction or an [[elopement]] is ambiguous (probably deliberately so).

The legends of Helen during her time in Troy are contradictory: Homer depicts her ambivalently, both regretful of her choice and sly in her attempts to redeem her public image. Other accounts have a treacherous Helen who simulated [[Bacchic]] rites and rejoiced in the carnage she caused. In some versions, Helen doesn't arrive in Troy, but instead waits out the war in [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Way|first=Authur|title=Euripides|publisher=William Heinemann, G. P. Putnam's Sons|year=1930|volume=1|location=Londo & New York|page=463|id=ark:/13960/t2v41093b}}</ref> Ultimately, Paris was killed in action, and in Homer's account Helen was reunited with Menelaus, though other versions of the legend recount her ascending to Olympus instead. A cult associated with her developed in Hellenistic [[Laconia]], both at Sparta and elsewhere; at [[Therapne]] she shared a shrine with Menelaus. She was also worshiped in [[Attica]] and on [[Rhodes]].
[[File:Helen of Sparta boards a ship for Troy fresco from the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii.jpg|thumb|upright|Helen boards a ship for Troy, fresco from the [[House of the Tragic Poet]] in [[Pompeii]]]]

Her beauty inspired artists of all times to represent her, frequently as the personification of ideal human beauty. Images of Helen start appearing in the 7th century BC. In classical Greece, her abduction by Paris—or escape with him—was a popular motif. In medieval illustrations, this event was frequently portrayed as a seduction, whereas in Renaissance paintings it was usually depicted as a "rape" (i. e., ''abduction'') by Paris.<ref group=lower-alpha>Interchangeable usage of the terms ''rape'' and ''elope'' often lends ambiguity to the legend.{{examples needed|date=December 2018}}</ref> [[Christopher Marlowe]]'s lines from his tragedy ''[[Doctor Faustus (play)|Doctor Faustus]]'' (1604) are frequently cited: "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?"<ref group=lower-alpha>However, the meeting with Helen in [[Christopher Marlowe|Marlowe's]] play and the ensuing [[temptation]] are not unambiguously positive, since they are closely followed by [[Doctor Faustus (play)|Faust's]] death and descent to Hell.</ref>

== Etymology ==
[[File:Helene Paris David.jpg|thumb|upright|''The Love of Helen and Paris'' by [[Jacques-Louis David]] (oil on canvas, 1788, Louvre, Paris)]]
The [[etymology]] of Helen's name continues to be a problem for scholars. In the 19th century, [[Georg Curtius]] related ''Helen'' ({{lang|grc|Ἑλένη}}) to the moon ([[Selene]]; {{lang|grc|Σελήνη}}). But two early dedications to Helen in the Laconian dialect of ancient Greek spell her name with an initial [[digamma]] (Ϝ, probably pronounced like a w), which rules out any etymology originally starting with simple ''*s-''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC|title=Indo-European Poetry and Myth|last=West|first=M. L.|year=2007|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-928075-9|page=231|language=en}}</ref>

In the early 20th century, Émile Boisacq considered Ἑλένη to derive from the well-known noun {{lang|grc|ἑλένη}} meaning "torch".<ref>{{LSJ|e(le/nh|ἑλένη|ref}}.</ref> It has also been suggested that the λ of {{lang|grc|Ἑλένη}} arose from an original ν, and thus the etymology of the name would be connected with the root of ''[[Venus (mythology)|Venus]]''. Linda Lee Clader, however, says that none of the above suggestions offers much satisfaction.<ref>Clader, ''Helen'', 63 f.; Skutsch, ''Helen'', 191.</ref>{{efn|If the name has an [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] etymology, it is possibly a suffixed form of a [[Proto-Indo-European roots|Proto-Indo-European root]] ''*wel-'' "to turn, roll"<ref>''The American Heritage Dictionary'', "Indo-European roots: wel₂".</ref> (or from that root's sense "to cover, enclose" – compare the theonyms ''[[Varuna]]'', ''[[Veles (god)|Veles]]''),{{Citation needed|date=April 2013|reason=The source which proposes that "Helen" derives from that sense should be indicated; the AHD is not it.}} or of ''*sel-'' "to flow, run".{{Citation needed|date=April 2013|reason=There should be a source here showing not merely whether the root ''*sel-'' exists, but naming who derives "Helen" from ''*sel-''.}} The latter possibility would allow comparison to the [[Vedic Sanskrit]] ''[[Saranyu|Saraṇyū]]'', a character who is abducted in ''[[Rigveda]]'' 10.17.2. This parallel is suggestive of a [[Proto-Indo-European religion|Proto-Indo-European abduction myth]]. ''Saraṇyū'' means "swift" and is derived from the adjective ''saraṇa'' ("running, swift"), the feminine of which is ''saraṇā''; this is in every sound cognate with {{lang|grc|Ἑλένα}}, the form of her name that has no initial [[digamma]].<ref group=lower-alpha>The name of Helen as worshipped at [[Sparta]] and [[Therapne]] began with a [[digamma]]. On the other hand, at [[Corinth]], there is evidence of Helen without a digamma. Skutsch (''Helen'', 189 f. and ''passim'') suggests that we have to make do "with two different names, two different mythological Helens".</ref> The possible connection of Helen's name to ἑλένη ("torch"), as noted above, may also support the relationship of her name to Vedic ''svaranā'' ("the shining one").<ref group=lower-alpha>Compare [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] ''*sa(e)wol'', whence Greek ''helios'', Latin ''sol'', Sanskrit ''suryah'', ultimately from ''*sawel'' "to shine". The relation with Selene is quite possible.</ref><ref>Scutsch, ''Helen'', 190 ff.</ref>}}

More recently, [[Otto Skutsch]] has advanced the theory that the name Helen might have two separate etymologies, which belong to different mythological figures respectively, namely ''*Sṷelenā'' (related to [[Sanskrit]] ''svaraṇā'' "the shining one") and ''*Selenā'', the first a Spartan goddess, connected to one or the other natural light phenomenon (especially [[St. Elmo's fire]]) and sister of the [[Dioscuri]], the other a vegetation goddess worshiped in [[Therapne]] as Ἑλένα Δενδρῖτις ("Helena of the Trees").<ref name=":skut">Skutsch, Otto. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-hellenic-studies/article/helen-her-name-and-nature/9A8D5272553FB463DCB59F93F0AB8E41 "Helen, her Name and Nature."] In: ''Journal of Hellenic Studies'' 107 (1987), pp. 188–193.</ref>

Others have connected the name's etymology to a hypothetical [[Proto-Indo-European religion|Proto-Indo-European]] [[solar deity|sun goddess]], noting the name's connection to the word for "sun" in various Indo-European cultures<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/meaningofhelenin0000meag|url-access=registration|title=The Meaning of Helen: In Search of an Ancient Icon|last=Meagher|first=Robert E.|date=2002|publisher=Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers|isbn=978-0-86516-510-6|pages=46ff|language=en}}</ref> including the Greek proper word and god for the sun, [[Helios]].<ref>Mallory, J. P.; Adams, D. Q., ''Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture'', [[Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers]], 1997, {{ISBN|1-884964-98-2}}, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC&pg=PA164 164]</ref><ref>Euripides, Robert E. Meagher, ''Helen'', Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1986</ref><ref>O'Brien, Steven. "Dioscuric Elements in Celtic and Germanic Mythology". ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' 10:1 & 2 (Spring–Summer, 1982), 117–136</ref><ref name=":skut"/> In particular, her marriage myth may be connected to a broader Indo-European "marriage drama" of the sun goddess, and she is related to the [[divine twins]], just as many of these goddesses are.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jackson|first=Peter|year=2002|title=Light from Distant Asterisks. Towards a Description of the Indo-European Religious Heritage|journal=Numen|volume=49|issue=1|pages=61–102|issn=0029-5973|jstor=3270472|doi=10.1163/15685270252772777}}</ref> [[Martin Litchfield West|Martin L. West]] has thus proposed that ''Helena'' ("mistress of sunlight") may be constructed on the [[Proto-Indo-European language|PIE]] suffix ''-nā'' ("mistress of"), connoting a deity controlling a natural element.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC|title=Indo-European Poetry and Myth|last=West|first=M. L.|year=2007|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-928075-9|page=137|language=en}}</ref>

== Prehistoric and mythological context ==
[[File:Homeric Greece-en.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|Map of [[Homer|Homeric Greece]]; Menelaus and Helen reign over Laconia]]

Helen first appears in the poems of [[Homer]], after which she became a popular figure in Greek literature. These works are set in the final years of the [[Greek Heroic Age|Age of Heroes]], a mythological era which features prominently in the canon of Greek myth. Because the Homeric poems are known to have been transmitted orally before being written down, some scholars speculate that such stories were passed down from earlier [[Mycenaean Greeks|Mycenaean Greek]] tradition, and that the Age of Heroes may itself reflect a mythologized memory of that era.<ref>Meagher, ''The Meaning of Helen'', 11–18; Thompson, ''The Trojan War'', 20</ref>

Recent archaeological excavations in [[Greece]] suggest that modern-day [[Laconia]] was a distinct territory in the [[Late Bronze Age]], while the poets narrate that it was a rich kingdom. Archaeologists have unsuccessfully looked for a Mycenaean palatial complex buried beneath present-day Sparta.<ref>Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 29</ref> Modern findings suggest the area around [[Menelaion]] in the southern part of the [[Eurotas (river)|Eurotas]] valley seems to have been the center of Mycenaean Laconia.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40960624 | publisher=British School at Athens |title=The Mycenaean Presence in the Southeastern Eurotas Valley: Vouno Panagias and Ayios Georgios | volume=16 | pages=77–84|accessdate=January 16, 2023 | author=Banou, Emilia| journal=British School at Athens Studies | year=2009 | jstor=40960624 }}</ref>

== Family ==
Helen and Menelaus had a daughter, [[Hermione (mythology)|Hermione]]. Different sources say she was also the mother of one or plus sons, named [[Aethiolas]], [[Nicostratus (mythology)|Nicostratus]], [[Megapenthes (son of Menelaus)|Megapenthes]] and [[Pleisthenes]], but according to others these were instead illegitimate children of Menelaus and various lovers.

Helen and Paris had three sons, Bunomus, Aganus, Idaeus and a daughter also called Helen.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Graves, Robert|title=The Greek Myths - The Complete and Definitive Edition|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|year=2017|isbn=9780241983386|page=637}}</ref> The three sons died during the Trojan War, when an earthquake caused the roof of the room where they slept to collapse. Helen was instead killed by her paternal grandmother [[Hecuba]] just after the fall of the city: the woman, mad with pain, killed the little girl to take revenge for the misfortune brought by her mother.

== Mythology ==
=== Birth ===
[[File:Leda and the Swan 1505-1510.jpg|thumb|upright|''Leda and the Swan'' by [[Cesare da Sesto]] (c. 1506–1510, [[Wilton, Wiltshire|Wilton]]). The artist has been intrigued by the idea of Helen's unconventional birth; she and Clytemnestra are shown emerging from one [[ab ovo|egg]]; Castor and Pollux from another.]]
[[File:Antonio Canova-Helen of Troy-Victoria and Albert Museum.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Helen of Troy wearing a [[pileus (hat)|pileus]]]]
In most sources, including the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', Helen is the daughter of [[Zeus]] and of [[Leda (mythology)|Leda]], the wife of the Spartan king [[Tyndareus]].<ref>Homer, ''Iliad'', III, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D191 199], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D381 418], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D421 426]; ''Odyssey'', IV, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D183 184], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D219 219]; XXIII, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D23%3Acard%3D181 218]. * Gantz, ''Early Greek Myth'', 318–9</ref> [[Euripides]]' play ''[[Helen (play)|Helen]]'', written in the late 5th century BC, is the earliest source to report the most familiar account of Helen's birth: that, although her putative father was Tyndareus, she was actually Zeus' daughter. In the form of a swan, the king of gods was chased by an eagle, and sought refuge with Leda. The swan gained her affection, and the two mated. Leda then produced an [[ab ovo|egg]], from which Helen emerged.<ref>Euripides, ''Helen'' [http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0100 16–21] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410015050/http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0100 |date=2016-04-10 }}, [http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0100&layout=&loc=257 257–59] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410015052/http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0100&layout=&loc=257 |date=2016-04-10 }}</ref> The First [[Vatican Mythographer]] introduces the notion that two eggs came from the union: one containing [[Castor and Pollux]]; one with Helen and [[Clytemnestra]]. Nevertheless, the same author earlier states that Helen, Castor and Pollux were produced from a single egg.<ref>First Vatican Mythographer, VM I 204. * Gantz, ''Early Greek Myth'', 320–321; Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 350; Moser, ''A Cosmos of Desire'', 443–444</ref> [[Fabius Planciades Fulgentius]] also states that Helen, Castor and Pollux are born from the same egg.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Whitbread|first=Leslie George|title=Fulgentius the Mythographer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73mJIuYfmzEC|year=1972|publisher=Ohio State University Press|page=78|isbn=9780814201626}}</ref> [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Pseudo-Apollodorus]] states that Leda had intercourse with both Zeus and Tyndareus the night she conceived Helen.<ref>Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheca'', III, 10.[http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022&layout=&loc=3.10.7 7] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410015055/http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022&layout=&loc=3.10.7 |date=2016-04-10 }}</ref>

On the other hand, in the ''[[Cypria]]'', part of the [[Epic Cycle]], Helen was the daughter of Zeus and the goddess [[Nemesis (mythology)|Nemesis]].<ref name="Cypria">''Cypria'', fr. 9 ''PEG''.</ref> The date of the ''Cypria'' is uncertain, but it is generally thought to preserve traditions that date back to at least the 7th century BC. In the ''Cypria'', Nemesis did not wish to mate with Zeus. She therefore changed shape into various animals as she attempted to flee Zeus, finally becoming a goose. Zeus also transformed himself into a goose and raped Nemesis, who produced an egg from which Helen was born.<ref>[[Athenaeus]] 8.334b-d, quoting the ''Cypria''; ''Cypria'', fr. 10 ''PEG''.</ref> Presumably, in the ''Cypria'', this egg was somehow transferred to Leda.<ref group=lower-alpha>In the 5th century comedy "Nemesis" by [[Cratinus]], Leda was told to sit on an egg so that it would hatch, and this is no doubt the egg that was produced by Nemesis (Cratinus fr. 115 ''PCG''; Gantz, ''Early Greek Myth'', ''ibid'').</ref> Later sources state either that it was brought to Leda by a shepherd who discovered it in a grove in [[Attica]], or that it was dropped into her lap by [[Hermes]].<ref>Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheca'', III, 10.[http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022&layout=&loc=3.10.7 7] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410015055/http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022&layout=&loc=3.10.7 |date=2016-04-10 }} * Hard & Rose, ''The Roudledge Handbook'', 438–439</ref>

Asclepiades of Tragilos and [[Pseudo-Eratosthenes]] related a similar story, except that Zeus and Nemesis became swans instead of geese.<ref>Asclepiades 12F11, Pseudo-Eratosthenes ''Catast.'' 25.</ref> [[Timothy Gantz]] has suggested that the tradition that Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan derives from the version in which Zeus and Nemesis transformed into birds.<ref>Gantz, ''Early Greek Myth'', ''ibid''</ref>

[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] states that in the middle of the 2nd century AD, the remains of an egg-shell, tied up in ribbons, were still suspended from the roof of a temple on the Spartan acropolis. People believed that this was "the famous egg that legend says Leda brought forth". Pausanias traveled to Sparta to visit the sanctuary, dedicated to [[Hilaeira]] and [[Phoebe (mythology)|Phoebe]], in order to see the relic for himself.<ref>Pausanias, 3.16.[http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.16.1 1] * Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 26–27</ref>

[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] also says that there was a local tradition that Helen's brothers, "the [[Dioscuri]]" (i.e. Castor and Pollux), were born on the island of [[Pefnos]], adding that the Spartan poet [[Alcman]] also said this,<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D26%3Asection%3D2 3.26.2]</ref> while the poet [[Lycophron]]'s use of the adjective "Pephnaian" (''Πεφναίας'') in association with Helen, suggests that Lycophron may have known a tradition which held that Helen was also born on the island.<ref>Hornblower, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NprxCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA142 p. 142]; [[Lycophron]], 87</ref>

=== Youthful abduction by Theseus ===
[[File:Theseus pursuit Louvre G423.jpg|left|thumb|[[Theseus]] pursuing a woman, probably Helen. Side A from an Attic red-figure bell-krater, c. 440–430 BC ([[Louvre]], Paris).]]
Two [[Ancient Athens|Athenians]], [[Theseus]] and [[Pirithous]], thought that since they were sons of gods, they should have divine wives; they thus pledged to help each other abduct two daughters of [[Zeus]]. Theseus chose Helen, and Pirithous vowed to marry [[Persephone]], the wife of [[Hades]]. Theseus took Helen and left her with his mother [[Aethra (mother of Theseus)|Aethra]] or his associate Aphidnus at [[Afidnes|Aphidnae]] or [[Athens]]. Theseus and Pirithous then traveled to the [[Greek underworld|underworld]], the domain of Hades, to kidnap Persephone. Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast, but, as soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. Helen's abduction caused an invasion of Athens by Castor and Pollux, who captured Aethra in revenge, and returned their sister to Sparta.<ref>The most complete accounts of this narrative are given by Apollodorus, Diodorus 4.63.1–3, and Plutarch, ''Theseus'' 31–34. For a collection of ancient sources narrating Helen's abduction by Theseus, see Hughes, ''Helen'', 357; Mills, ''Theseus'', 7–8</ref> In [[Goethe]]'s ''[[Goethe's Faust|Faust]]'', Centaur [[Chiron]] is said to have aided the Dioscuri brothers in returning Helen home.

In most accounts of this event, Helen was quite young; [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]] said she was seven years old and [[Diodorus]] makes her ten years old.<ref>Hellanicus, 4F134; Diodorus Siculus, 4.63.1–3</ref> On the other hand, [[Stesichorus]] said that [[Iphigenia]] was the daughter of Theseus and Helen, which implies that Helen was of childbearing age.<ref>Stesichorus, fr. 191 PMG.</ref> In most sources, Iphigenia is the daughter of [[Agamemnon]] and [[Clytemnestra]], but [[Duris of Samos]] and other writers , such as [[Antoninus Liberalis]] , followed Stesichorus' account.<ref>Gantz, pp. 289, 291.</ref>

[[Ovid]]'s ''[[Heroides]]'' give us an idea of how ancient and, in particular, [[Latin literature#The Golden Age|Roman authors]] imagined Helen in her youth: she is presented as a young princess wrestling naked in the [[palaestra]], alluding to a part of girls' physical education in classical (not Mycenaean) Sparta. [[Sextus Propertius]] imagines Helen as a girl who practices arms and hunts with her brothers:<ref>Ovid, ''Heroides'', 16.[http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ovid/ovid.her16.shtml 149–152]; Propertius, [http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/PropertiusBkThree.htm#_Toc201112469 3.14] * Cairns, ''Sextus Propertius'', 421–422; Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 60; Pomeroy, ''Spartan Women'', 28: "In the Roman period, because Sparta was a destination for tourists, the characteristics that made Sparta distinctive were emphasized. The athleticism of women was exaggerated."</ref>
{{blockquote|[...] or like Helen, on the sands of Eurotas, between Castor and Pollux, one to be victor in boxing, the other with horses: with naked breasts she carried weapons, they say, and did not blush with her divine brothers there.}}

=== Suitors ===
{{Main|Suitors of Helen}}
[[File:Maerten van Heemskerck - Panorama with the Abduction of Helen Amidst the Wonders of the Ancient World - Walters 37656.jpg|thumb|In this painting by [[Maarten van Heemskerck]] Helen, queen of the Greek city-state Sparta, is abducted by Paris, a prince of Troy in Asia Minor.<ref>{{cite web |publisher= [[The Walters Art Museum]]
|url=http://art.thewalters.org/detail/21286
|title= Panorama with the Abduction of Helen Amidst the Wonders of the Ancient World}}</ref> The Walters Art Museum.]]

When it was time for Helen to marry, many kings and princes from around the world came to seek her hand, bringing rich gifts with them or sent emissaries to do so on their behalf. During the contest, Castor and Pollux had a prominent role in dealing with the suitors, although the final decision was in the hands of Tyndareus.<ref>In the Hesiodic ''[[Catalogue of Women]]'' fr. 198.7–8, and 199.0–1, they are the recipients of the bridal presents. For further details, see ''A Catalog within a Catalog'', 133–135</ref> Menelaus, her future husband, did not attend but sent his brother, [[Agamemnon]], to represent him.

=== Oath of Tyndareus ===
Tyndareus was afraid to select a husband for his daughter, or send any of the suitors away, for fear of offending them and giving grounds for a quarrel. [[Odysseus]] was one of the suitors, but had brought no gifts because he believed he had little chance to win the contest. He thus promised to solve the problem, if Tyndareus in turn would support him in his courting of [[Penelope]], the daughter of [[Icarius]]. Tyndareus readily agreed, and Odysseus proposed that, before the decision was made, all the suitors should swear a most solemn oath to defend the chosen husband against whoever should quarrel with him. After the suitors had sworn not to retaliate, Menelaus was chosen to be Helen's husband. As a sign of the importance of the pact, Tyndareus [[Horse sacrifice|sacrificed a horse]].<ref>Hesiod, ''Catalogs of Women and Eoiae'', fr. 204; Hyginus, ''Fables'', [http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae2.html#78 78]; Pausanias, 3.20.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+3.20.9&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 9]; Apollodorus, 3.10.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D9 9] * Cingano, ''A Catalog within a Catalog'', 128; Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 76</ref> Helen and Menelaus became rulers of Sparta, after Tyndareus and Leda abdicated. Menelaus and Helen rule in Sparta for at least ten years; they have a daughter, [[Hermione (mythology)|Hermione]], and (according to some myths) three sons: [[Aethiolas]], Maraphius, and [[Pleisthenes]].

The marriage of Helen and Menelaus marks the beginning of the end of the age of heroes. Concluding the catalog of Helen's suitors, Hesiod reports Zeus' plan to obliterate the race of men and the heroes in particular. The Trojan War, caused by Helen's elopement with Paris, is going to be his means to this end.<ref>''Cypria'', fr. 1; Hesiod, ''Catalogs of Women and Eoiae'', fr. 204.96–101 * Edmunds, ''Helen's Divine Origins'', 7–8</ref>

=== Seduction or kidnapping by Paris ===
{{See also|Judgement of Paris}}
[[File:Casa degli Amorini Dorati (Pompei) WLM 020.JPG|thumb|Meeting between Paris and Helen. Antique fresco in [[Pompeii]], the House of the Golden Cupids]]
[[Paris (mythology)|Paris]], a Trojan prince, came to Sparta to claim Helen, in the guise of a supposed diplomatic mission. Before this journey, Paris had been appointed by Zeus to [[Judgement of Paris|judge the most beautiful goddess]]; [[Hera]], [[Athena]], or [[Aphrodite]]. In order to earn his favour, Aphrodite promised Paris the most beautiful woman in the world. Swayed by Aphrodite's offer, Paris chose her as the most beautiful of the goddesses, earning the wrath of [[Athena]] and [[Hera]].

Although Helen is sometimes depicted as being raped by Paris, Ancient Greek sources are often elliptical and contradictory. [[Herodotus]] states that Helen was abducted, but the ''Cypria'' simply mentions that after giving Helen gifts, "Aphrodite brings the Spartan queen together with the Prince of Troy."<ref>''Cypria'', fr. 1; Herodotus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+2.113&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 113–119]</ref> [[Sappho]] argues that Helen willingly left behind Menelaus and their nine-year-old daughter, [[Hermione (mythology)|Hermione]], to be with Paris:
{{blockquote|<poem>
Some say a host of horsemen, others of infantry and others
of ships, is the most beautiful thing on the dark earth
but I say, it is what you love
Full easy it is to make this understood of one and all: for
she that far surpassed all mortals in beauty, Helen her
most noble husband
Deserted, and went sailing to Troy, with never a thought for
her daughter and dear parents.</poem>|Sappho, [[Sappho's Fragment 16|fragment 16]] (Voigt)<ref>Sappho, fr. 16. See an analysis of the poem by Gumpert, ''Grafting Helen'', 92</ref> }}

[[Dio Chrysostom]] gives a completely different account of the story, questioning Homer's credibility: after Agamemnon had married Helen's sister, Clytemnestra, Tyndareus sought Helen's hand for Menelaus for political reasons. However, Helen was sought by many suitors, who came from far and near, among them Paris who surpassed all the others and won the favor of Tyndareus and his sons. Thus he won her fairly and took her away to Troia, with the full consent of her natural protectors.<ref>Dio Chrysostom, ''Discourses'', 1.[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/11*.html 37–53] * Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 128–129</ref> ''Cypria'' narrate that in just three days Paris and Helen reached Troy. Homer narrates that during a brief stop-over in the small island of [[Kranai]], according to ''Iliad'', the two lovers consummated their passion. On the other hand, ''Cypria'' note that this happened the night before they left Sparta.<ref>''Cypria'', fr. 1; Homer, ''Iliad'', III, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D421 443–445] * Cyrino, "Helen of Troy", 133–134</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
Girolamo Genga L'enlèvement d'Hélène.JPG|''[[The Abduction of Helen (Genga)|The Abduction of Helen]]'', painting by [[Girolamo Genga]], circa 1510 ([[Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg]]).
File:Francesco Primaticcio 003.jpg|In western painting, Helen's journey to Troy is usually depicted as a forced abduction. ''The Rape of Helen'' by [[Francesco Primaticcio]] (c. 1530–1539, [[Bowes Museum]]) is representative of this tradition.
File:Enlèvement d'Hélène, Reni (Louvre INV 539) 09.jpg|In [[Guido Reni]]'s painting (1631, Louvre, Paris), however, Paris holds Helen by her wrist (as he already did in Genga's painting shown here on the left), and leave together for Troia.
File:Tintoretto Rape of Helen.jpg|''The Rape of Helen'' by [[Tintoretto]] (1578–1579, [[Museo del Prado]], [[Madrid]]); Helen languishes in the corner of a land-sea battle scene.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Michael |last=Kimmelman | title=Lights! Darks! Action! Cut! Maestro of Mise-en-Scène |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/arts/design/01tint.html |journal=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 1, 2007 |access-date=July 11, 2009}} * {{cite magazine |last=Schjeldahl |first=Peter|date=February 12, 2007 |title=Venetial Brass |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |url=https://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/02/12/070212craw_artworld_schjeldahl |access-date=July 11, 2009}}</ref>
File:Enrique Simonet - El Juicio de Paris 1904.jpg|''[[El Juicio de Paris (Simonet)|El Juicio de Paris]]'' by [[Enrique Simonet]], c. 1904. This painting depicts Paris' judgement. He is inspecting Aphrodite, who is standing naked before him. Hera and Athena watch nearby.
</gallery>

=== In Egypt ===
At least three Ancient Greek authors denied that Helen ever went to Troy; instead, they suggested, Helen stayed in Egypt during the duration of the Trojan War. Those three authors are Euripides, Stesichorus, and Herodotus.<ref>Allan, ''Introduction'', 18–28</ref><ref>[https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/mythology/helen.html HELEN] wsu.edu</ref> In the version put forth by Euripides in his play ''[[Helen (play)|Helen]]'', [[Hera]] fashioned a likeness of Helen (''[[Eidolon (apparition)|eidolon]]'', εἴδωλον) out of clouds at Zeus' request, [[Hermes]] took her to Egypt, and Helen never went to Troy instead spending the entire war in [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]]. ''Eidolon'' is also present in [[Stesichorus]]' account, but not in Herodotus' rationalizing version of the myth. In addition to these accounts, [[Lycophron]] 822 states that [[Hesiod]] was the first to mention Helen's ''eidolon''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Smoot|first=Guy|year=2012|title=Did the Helen of the Homeric Odyssey ever go to Troy?|url=https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/4643|journal=Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies|via=The Center for Hellenic Studies|access-date=2018-11-04|archive-date=2018-11-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105012352/https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/4643|url-status=dead}}</ref> This statement may mean Hesiod stated this in a literary work or that the idea was widely known/circulated in early archaic Greece during the time of Hesiod and was consequently attributed to him.<ref name=":0" />

[[Herodotus]] adds weight to the "Egyptian" version of events by putting forward his own evidence—he traveled to Egypt and interviewed the priests of the temple (''Foreign Aphrodite'', ξείνη Ἀφροδίτη) at [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]]. According to these priests, Helen had arrived in Egypt shortly after leaving Sparta, because strong winds had blown Paris's ship off course. King [[Proteus of Egypt]], appalled that Paris had seduced his [[Xenia (Greek)|host's]] wife and plundered his host's home in Sparta, disallowed Paris from taking Helen to Troy. Paris returned to Troy without a new bride, but the Greeks refused to believe that Helen was in Egypt and not within Troy's walls. Thus, Helen waited in Memphis for ten years, while the Greeks and the Trojans fought. Following the conclusion of the Trojan War, Menelaus sailed to Memphis, where Proteus reunited him with Helen.<ref>Herodotus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+2.113&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 113–120]; Kim, ''Homer, poet and historian'', 30–35; Allan, ''Introduction'', 22–24; Lindsay, ''Helen in the Fifth Century'', 135–138</ref>

=== In Troy ===
When he discovered that his wife was missing, Menelaus called upon all the other suitors to fulfill their oaths, thus beginning the Trojan War.

The Greek fleet gathered in [[Avlida|Aulis]], but the ships could not sail for lack of wind. [[Artemis]] was enraged by a sacrilege, and only the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter, [[Iphigenia]], could appease her. In Euripides ''[[Iphigenia in Aulis]]'', Clytemnestra, Iphigenia's mother and Helen's sister, begs her husband to reconsider his decision, calling Helen a "wicked woman". Clytemnestra tries to warn Agamemnon that sacrificing Iphigenia for Helen's sake is, "''buying what we most detest with what we hold most dear''".<ref>{{cite book |author=Euripides |title=Iphigenia in Aulis |at= 1166–1170 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0108%3Acard%3D1146}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Hughes |title=Helen of Troy |pages=195–196}}</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="300px">
File:Leighton Helen of Troy.jpg|''Helen on the Ramparts of Troy'' was a popular theme in the late 19th-century art – seen here a depiction by [[Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton|Frederick Leighton]].
File:Helen Moreau.jpg|In a similar fashion to Leighton, [[Gustave Moreau]] depicts an expressionless Helen; a blank or anguished face.
File:Often she would stand upon the walls of Troy.jpg|[[Lithograph]]ic illustration by Walter Crane
File:Hélène.jpg|Paul Dujardin after Gustave Moreau, ''Hélène'', photogravure, 1880
</gallery>

Before the opening of hostilities, the Greeks dispatched a delegation to the Trojans under Odysseus and Menelaus; they endeavored without success to persuade [[Priam]] to hand Helen back. A popular theme, ''The Request of Helen'' (Helenes Apaitesis, Ἑλένης Ἀπαίτησις), was the subject of a drama by [[Sophocles]], now lost.<ref group=lower-alpha>Ancient writers do not agree on whether the embassy was dispatched before the gathering of the Greek army in Aulis or after it reached Tenedos or Troia. In Herodotus' account the Trojans swore to the Greek envoys that Helen was in Egypt, not in Troy; but the Greeks did not believe them, and laid siege to the city, until they took it. {{cite book |title=Cypria |at=fr. 1}} {{cite book |author=Herodotus |title=Histories |at=II, 118: 2–4 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D118%3Asection%3D2}} {{cite book |author=Homer |title=Iliad |at=III, 205 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D191}} {{cite book |author=Pseudo-Appolodorus |title=Epitome |at=28–29 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DEpitome%3Abook%3DE%3Achapter%3D3%3Asection%3D28}}</ref><ref>About Euripides' lost drama, see {{cite book |author=Hughes |title=Helen of Troy |page=191}}</ref>

Homer paints a poignant, lonely picture of Helen in Troy. She is filled with self-loathing and regret for what she has caused; by the end of the war, the Trojans have come to hate her. When [[Hector]] dies, she is the third mourner at his funeral, and she says that, of all the Trojans, Hector and [[Priam]] alone were always kind to her:<ref name="Hughes 219">{{cite book |author=Hughes |title=Helen of Troy |page=219}}</ref><ref name="Redfold 122">{{cite book |author=Redfold |title=The Tragedy of Hector |page=122}}</ref>
{{blockquote|<poem>
Wherefore I wail alike for thee and for my hapless self with grief at heart;
for no longer have I anyone beside in broad Troy that is gentle to me or kind;
but all men shudder at me.<ref>{{cite book |author=Homer |title=Iliad |at=XXIV, 773–775 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D24%3Acard%3D746}}</ref></poem>}}

These bitter words reveal that Helen gradually realized Paris' weaknesses, and decided to ally herself with Hector. There is an affectionate relationship between the two, and Helen has harsh words for Paris when she compares the two brothers:<ref name="Redfold 122" /><ref>{{cite book |author=Suzuki |title=Metamorphoses of Helen |page=36}}</ref>{{blockquote|<poem>
Howbeit, seeing the gods thus ordained these ills,
would that I had been wife to a better man,
that could feel the indignation of his fellows and their many revilings. [...]
But come now, enter in, and sit thee upon this chair, my brother,
since above all others has trouble encompassed thy heart
because of shameless me, and the folly of Alexander.<ref>{{cite book |author=Homer |title=Iliad |at=VI, 349–351, 354–356 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D24%3Acard%3D746}}</ref><ref name="Hughes 219"/></poem>|sign=|source=}}

After Paris was killed in combat, there was some dispute among the Trojans about which of Priam's surviving sons she should remarry: [[Helenus]] or [[Deiphobus]], but she was given to the latter.

=== During the Fall of Troy ===
[[File:Helen Menelaus Louvre G424.jpg|thumb|right|Helen and Menelaus: Menelaus intends to strike Helen; captivated by her beauty, he drops his sword. A flying [[Eros]] and [[Aphrodite]] (on the left) watch the scene. Detail of an Attic [[Red-figure pottery|red-figure]] [[krater]] c. 450–440 BC ([[Paris]], [[Louvre]])]]
[[File:Ajax drags Cassandra from Palladium.jpg|thumb|left|Menelaus captures Helen in Troy, [[Ajax the Lesser]] drags [[Cassandra]] from [[Palladium (classical antiquity)|Palladium]] before eyes of [[Priam]], fresco from the [[Casa del Menandro]], [[Pompeii]]]]

During the fall of Troy, Helen's role is ambiguous. In [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'', Deiphobus gives an account of Helen's treacherous stance: when the [[Trojan Horse]] was admitted into the city, she feigned [[Bacchic mysteries|Bacchic rites]], leading a chorus of Trojan women, and, holding a torch among them, she signaled to the Greeks from the city's central tower. In the ''[[Odyssey]]'', however, Homer narrates a different story: Helen circled the Horse three times, and she imitated the voices of the Greek women left behind at home—she thus tortured the men inside (including Odysseus and Menelaus) with the memory of their loved ones, and brought them to the brink of destruction.<ref>Homer, ''Odyssey'', IV, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D265 277–289]; Virgil, ''Aeneid'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0054%3Abook%3D6%3Acard%3D494 515–519]. * Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 220; Suzuki, ''Metamorphoses of Helen'', 99–100.</ref>

After the deaths of Hector and Paris, Helen became the paramour of their younger brother, Deiphobus; but when the sack of Troy began, she hid her new husband's sword, and left him to the mercy of Menelaus and Odysseus. In ''Aeneid'', [[Aeneas]] meets the mutilated Deiphobus in [[Greek underworld|Hades]]; his wounds serve as a testimony to his ignominious end, abetted by Helen's final act of treachery.<ref>Virgil, ''Aeneid'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0054%3Abook%3D6%3Acard%3D494 494–512] * Suzuki, ''Metamorphoses of Helen'', 101–102.</ref>

However, Helen's portraits in Troy seem to contradict each other. From one side, we read about the treacherous Helen who simulated Bacchic rites and rejoiced over the carnage of Trojans. On the other hand, there is another Helen, lonely and helpless; desperate to find sanctuary, while Troy is on fire. Stesichorus narrates that both Greeks and Trojans gathered to stone her to death.<ref>Stesichorus, fr. 201 PMG.</ref> When Menelaus finally found her, he raised his sword to kill her. He had demanded that only he should slay his unfaithful wife; but, when he was ready to do so, she dropped her robe from her shoulders, and the sight of her beauty caused him to let the sword drop from his hand.<ref group=lower-alpha>According to the ancient writers, it was the sight of Helen's face or breasts that made Menelaus drop his sword. See, ''inter alia'', Aristophanes, ''Lysistrata'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0242%3Acard%3D130 155]; ''Little Iliad'', fr. 13 EGF. * Maguire, ''Helen of Troy'', 52</ref> [[Electra]] wails:<ref>Euripides, ''Orestes'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0116%3Acard%3D1286 1286]</ref>
{{blockquote|Alas for my troubles! Can it be that her beauty has blunted their swords?}}

=== Fate ===
Helen returned to [[Sparta]] and lived with Menelaus, where she was encountered by Telemachus in Book 4 of ''[[The Odyssey]]''. As depicted in that account, she and Menelaus were completely reconciled and had a harmonious married life—he holding no grudge at her having run away with a lover and she feeling no restraint in telling anecdotes of her life inside besieged Troy.

According to another version, used by [[Euripides]] in his play ''[[Orestes (play)|Orestes]]'', Helen had been saved by [[Apollo]] from Orestes<ref>Euripides and the Gods, Mary R. Lefkowitz</ref> and was taken up to [[Mount Olympus]] almost immediately after Menelaus' return. A curious fate is recounted by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias the geographer]] (3.19.11–13), which has Helen share the afterlife with Achilles.<ref>Blondell, ''Helen of Troy'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=6uEC_Uh-MBIC&pg=PA46 46]</ref>

Pausanias also has another story (3.19.9–10): "The account of the Rhodians is different. They say that when Menelaus was dead, and [[Orestes (mythology)|Orestes]] still a wanderer, Helen was driven out by [[Nicostratus (mythology)|Nicostratus]] and [[Megapenthes]] and came to [[Rhodes]], where she had a friend in [[Polyxo]], the wife of [[Tlepolemus]]. For Polyxo, they say, was an Argive by descent, and when she was already married to Tlepolemus, shared his flight to Rhodes. At the time she was queen of the island, having been left with an orphan boy. They say that this Polyxo desired to avenge the death of Tlepolemus on Helen, now that she had her in her power. So she sent against her when she was bathing handmaidens dressed up as [[Furies]], who seized Helen and hanged her on a tree, and for this reason the Rhodians have a sanctuary of Helen of the Tree."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D19%3Asection%3D10 |title=Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' |publisher=Perseus.tufts.edu |access-date=2014-03-13}}</ref> There are other traditions concerning the punishment of Helen. For example, she is offered as a sacrifice to the gods in Tauris by [[Iphigeneia]], or [[Thetis]], enraged when Achilles dies because of Helen, kills her on her return journey.<ref>Pierre Grimal, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', ''s.v.'' "Helene p. 241"</ref>

Tlepolemus was a son of [[Heracles]] and Astyoche. Astyoche was a daughter of Phylas, King of Ephyra who was killed by Heracles. Tlepolemus was killed by [[Sarpedon (Trojan War hero)|Sarpedon]] on the first day of fighting in the ''[[Iliad]]''. Nicostratus was a son of Menelaus by his concubine Pieris, an Aetolian slave. [[Megapenthes]] was a son of Menelaus by his concubine Tereis, with no further origin.

In [[Euripides]]'s tragedy ''[[Trojan Women|The Trojan Women]]'', Helen is shunned by the women who survived the war and is to be taken back to Greece to face a death sentence. This version is contradicted by two of Euripides' other tragedies, ''[[Electra (Euripides play)|Electra]]'', which predates The Trojan Women, and ''[[Helen (play)|Helen]]'', as Helen is described as being in Egypt during the events of the Trojan War in each.

== Artistic representations ==
[[File:Zeuxis et les filles de Crotone.jpg|thumb|''Zeuxis et les Filles de Crotone'' ([[François-André Vincent]], 1789, Paris, Louvre). The scene tells the story of the painter Zeuxis who was commissioned to produce a picture of Helen for the temple of Hera at [[Agrigentum]], [[Sicily]]. To realize his task, Zeuxis chose the five most beautiful maidens in the region.<ref>Pliny, ''National History'', 35.[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/35*.html 64–66]. Cicero (''De Inventione'', 2.[http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/inventione2.shtml 1–3]) sets the story in [[Crotone|Croton]].</ref>]]

From Antiquity, depicting Helen would be a remarkable challenge. The story of [[Zeuxis (painter)|Zeuxis]] deals with this exact question: how would an artist immortalize ideal beauty?<ref>Mansfield, ''Too Beautiful to Picture'', 29</ref> He eventually selected the best features from five virgins. The ancient world starts to paint Helen's picture or inscribe her form on stone, clay and bronze by the 7th century BC.<ref>Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'' 1–2</ref> [[Dares Phrygius]] describes Helen in his ''History of the Fall of Troy'': "She was beautiful, ingenuous, and charming. Her legs were the best; her mouth the cutest. There was a beauty-mark between her eyebrows."<ref>Dares of Phrygia. ''History of the Fall of Troy 12.'' A short prose work which purports to be a first hand account of the Trojan War by Dares, a Trojan priest of Hephaestus in the ''Iliad''.</ref>

Helen is frequently depicted on Athenian vases as being threatened by Menelaus and fleeing from him. This is not the case, however, in Laconic art: on an [[Archaic Greece|Archaic]] [[stele]] depicting Helen's recovery after the fall of Troy, Menelaus is armed with a sword but Helen faces him boldly, looking directly into his eyes; and in other works of Peloponnesian art, Helen is shown carrying a wreath, while Menelaus holds his sword aloft vertically. In contrast, on Athenian vases of c. 550–470, Menelaus threateningly points his sword at her.<ref>Pomeroy, ''Spartan Women'', 169</ref>
[[File:Casa dell'Efebo 0058 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Antique fresco depicting Helen and Menelaus, from the Casa dell'Efebo, [[Pompeii]]]]

The abduction by Paris was another popular motif in [[Pottery of ancient Greece|ancient Greek vase-painting]]; definitely more popular than the kidnapping by Theseus. In a famous representation by the Athenian vase painter [[Makron (vase painter)|Makron]], Helen follows Paris like a bride following a bridegroom, her wrist grasped by Paris' hand.<ref>Anderson, ''The Fall of Troy'', 257; Matheson, ''Polygnotos and Vase Painting'', 225</ref> The [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscans]], who had a sophisticated knowledge of Greek mythology, demonstrated a particular interest in the theme of the delivery of Helen's egg, which is depicted in relief mirrors.<ref>Caprino, ''Etruscan Italy'', 66–71</ref>

In [[Renaissance]] painting, Helen's departure from Sparta is usually depicted as a scene of forcible removal (rape) by Paris. This is not, however, the case with certain secular medieval illustrations. Artists of the 1460s and 1470s were influenced by [[Guido delle Colonne]]'s ''[[Historia destructionis Troiae]]'', where Helen's abduction was portrayed as a scene of seduction. In the ''Florentine Picture Chronicle'' Paris and Helen are shown departing arm in arm, while their marriage was depicted into Franco-Flemish tapestry.<ref>David, ''Narrative in Context'', 136; Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 181–182</ref>

{{anchor|facethatlaunched}}
In [[Christopher Marlowe]]'s ''[[Doctor Faustus (play)|Doctor Faustus]]'' (1604), [[Faust]] [[Evocation|conjures]] the [[Shade (mythology)|shade]] of Helen. Upon seeing Helen, Faustus speaks the famous line: "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium." (Act V, Scene I.) Helen is also conjured by Faust in [[Goethe's Faust|Goethe's ''Faust'']].

In [[William Shakespeare]]'s play [[Troilus and Cressida]], Helen is a minor character who adores Troilus.

In [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood|Pre-Raphaelite]] art, Helen is often shown with shining curly hair and ringlets. Other painters of the same period depict Helen on the ramparts of Troy, and focus on her expression: her face is expressionless, blank, inscrutable.<ref>Maguire, ''Helen of Troy'', 39–43, 47</ref> In [[Gustave Moreau]]'s painting, Helen will finally become faceless; a blank ''eidolon'' in the middle of Troy's ruins.

== Cult ==

The major centers of Helen's cult were in Laconia. At Sparta, the urban sanctuary of Helen was located near the Platanistas, so called for the plane trees planted there. Ancient sources associate Helen with gymnastic exercises or/and choral dances of maidens near the [[Evrotas River]]. This practice is referenced in the closing lines of [[Lysistrata]], where Helen is said to be the "pure and proper" leader of the dancing Spartan women. [[Theocritus]] conjures the song [[epithalamium]] Spartan women sung at Platanistas commemorating the marriage of Helen and Menelaus:<ref>Theocritus, ''The Epithalamium of Helen'', [http://www.theoi.com/Text/TheocritusIdylls3.html#18 43–48] * Edmunds, ''Helen's Divine Origins'', 12</ref>

{{Blockquote|<poem>
We first a crown of low-growing lotus
having woven will place it on a shady plane-tree.
First from a silver oil-flask soft oil
drawing we will let it drip beneath the shady plane-tree.
Letters will be carved in the bark, so that someone passing by
may read in Doric: "Reverence me. I am Helen's tree."</poem>}}

Helen's worship was also present on the opposite bank of Eurotas at [[Therapne]], where she shared a shrine with Menelaus and the Dioscuri. The shrine has been known as the [[Menelaion]] (the shrine of Menelaus), and it was believed to be the spot where Helen was buried alongside Menelaus. Despite its name, both the shrine and the cult originally belonged to Helen; Menelaus was added later as her husband.<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'', VI, 61.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D6%3Achapter%3D61%3Asection%3D3 3] * Hughes, ''Helen of Troy'', 30–31; Lynn Budin, ''The Ancient Greeks'', 286</ref> In addition, there was a festival at the town, which was called Meneleaeia (Μενελάεια) in honour of Menelaus and Helen.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0063%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DM%3Aentry+group%3D2%3Aentry%3Dmenelaeia-cn A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin, Ed., Meneleaeia]</ref>
[[Isocrates]] writes that at Therapne Helen and Menelaus were worshiped as gods, and not as heroes. Clader argues that, if indeed Helen was worshiped as a goddess at Therapne, then her powers should be largely concerned with fertility,<ref>Isocrates, ''Helen'', 63; Clader, ''Helen'', 70; Jackson, ''The Transformations of Helen'', 52. For a criticism of the theory that Helen was worshiped as a goddess in Therapne, see Edmunds, ''Helen's Divine Origins'', 20–24.</ref> or as a [[solar deity]].<ref>Euripides, ''Helen'', translated by Robert E. Meagher, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 1986.</ref> There is also evidence for Helen's cult in Hellenistic Sparta: rules for those sacrificing and holding feasts in their honor are extant.<ref>Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'', III, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D15%3Asection%3D3 15.3], and [https://books.google.com/books?id=DhfmgSz1eR4C&dq=helen,+cult,+Platanistas&pg=PA193 19.9]; Allan, ''Introduction'', 14 ff.; Calame, ''Choruses of Young Women'', 192–197; Pomeroy, ''Spartan Women'', 114–118.</ref>

Helen was also worshiped in Attica along with her brothers, and on [[Rhodes]] as Helen ''Dendritis'' (Helen of the Trees, Έλένα Δενδρῖτις); she was a vegetation or a [[fertility goddess]].<ref group=lower-alpha>A shared cult of Helen and her brothers in Attica is alluded to in Euripides, ''Helen'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0100%3Acard%3D1642 1666–1669]. See also Edmunds, ''Helen's Divine Origins'', 26–29. Concerning Helen Dendritis, Gumpert (''Grafting Helen'', 96), and Skutsch (''Helen'', 109) support that she was a vegetation goddess. Meagher (''The Meaning of Helen'', 43 f.) argues that her cult in Rhodes reflects an ancient fertility ritual associated with Helen not only on Rhodes but also at Dendra, near Sparta. Edmunds (''Helen's Divine Origins'', 18) notes that it is unclear what an ancient tree cult might be.</ref> [[Martin P. Nilsson]] has argued that the cult in Rhodes has its roots to the [[Minoan]], pre-Greek era, when Helen was allegedly worshiped as a vegetation goddess.<ref>Cited by Gumpert, ''Grafting Helen'', 96, Edmunds, ''Helen's Divine Origins'', 15–18, and Skutsch, ''Helen'', 109. See critical remarks on this theory by Edmunds, ''Helen's Divine Origins'', 16.</ref> [[Claude Calame]] and other scholars try to analyze the affinity between the cults of Helen and [[Artemis]] Orthia, pointing out the resemblance of the [[Greek terracotta figurines|terracotta female figurines]] offered to both deities.<ref>Calame, ''Choruses of Young Women'', 201; Eaverly, ''Archaic Greek Equestrian Sculpture'', 9; Pomeroy, ''Spartan Women'', 162 f.</ref>

== In popular culture ==
=== Pre-modern ===
[[File:Christopher Marlowe.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Christopher Marlowe]]'s (this [[Marlowe portrait|1585 portrait]] is disputed) play ''[[The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus]]'' (1604) is the source of the famous quote "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?",<ref name="Maguire2009" /> although the line is ultimately derived from a quotation in [[Lucian]]'s ''Dialogues of the Dead''.<ref name="Maguire2009" /><ref name="Casson" />]]

Helen frequently appeared in [[ancient Greek comedy|Athenian comedies]] of the fifth century BC as a [[caricature]] of [[Pericles]]'s mistress [[Aspasia]].<ref name="Blondell2013">{{cite book|last1=Blondell|first1=Ruby|title=Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford, England|isbn=978-0-19-973160-2|pages=247–249|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S_l6oYzGt1AC&q=Helen+dialogues+of+the+Dead&pg=PR15}}</ref> In [[Hellenistic Period|Hellenistic times]], she was associated with the [[moon]]<ref name="Blondell2013" /> due to the similarity of her name to the Greek word Σελήνη (''[[Selene|Selēnē]]''), meaning "Moon, goddess of the moon".<ref name="Blondell2013" /> One [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean]] source claimed that Helen had originally come from a [[Colonies in antiquity|colony]] on the moon,<ref name="Blondell2013" /> where people were larger, stronger, and "fifteen times" more beautiful than ordinary mortals.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> She is one of the eponymous women the tragedy ''[[The Trojan Women]]'' produced in 415 BC by the Greek playwright [[Euripides]].

[[Dio Chrysostom]] absolved Helen of guilt for the Trojan War by making Paris her first, original husband and claiming that the Greeks started the war out of jealousy.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> [[Virgil]], in his ''[[Aeneid]]'', makes [[Aeneas]] the one to spare Helen's life, rather than Menelaus,<ref name="Blondell2013" /> and instead portrays the act as a lofty example of self-control.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> Meanwhile, Virgil also makes Helen more vicious by having her betray her own husband Deiphobos and give him over to Menelaus as a peace offering.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> The [[satire|satirist]] [[Lucian of Samosata]] features Helen in his famous ''Dialogues of the Dead'', in which he portrays her deceased spirit as aged and withered.<ref name="Blondell2013" />

In the [[early Middle Ages]], after the rise of [[Christianity]], Helen was seen as a pagan equivalent to [[Eve]] from the [[Book of Genesis]].<ref name="Blondell2013" /> Helen was so beloved by early medieval Christians that she even took on some of the roles of the [[Mary, mother of Jesus|Virgin Mary]].<ref name="Blondell2013" />

=== Modern ===

During the [[Renaissance]], the French poet [[Pierre de Ronsard]] wrote 142 sonnets addressed to a woman named Hélène de Surgères,<ref name="Blondell2013" /> in which he declared her to be the "true", French Helen, rather than the "lie" of the Greeks.<ref name="Blondell2013" />

Helen appears in various versions of the [[Faust]] myth, including [[Christopher Marlowe]]'s 1604 play ''[[The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus]]'', in which Faustus famously marvels, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" upon seeing a demon impersonating Helen.<ref name="Maguire2009">{{cite book|last1=Maguire|first1=Laurie|title=Helen of Troy: From Homer to Hollywood|date=2009|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.|location=Chichester, England|isbn=978-1-4051-2634-2|pages=160–163|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ccjIPayRmvMC&q=Was+this+the+face+that+launched+a+thousand+ships+and+burnt+the+topless+towers+of+Ilium&pg=PA160}}</ref> The line, which is frequently quoted out of context,<ref name="Maguire2009" /><ref name="Blondell2013" /> is a paraphrase of a statement from Lucian's ''Dialogues of the Dead''.<ref name="Casson">{{cite book|last=Casson|first=Lionel|title=Selected Satires of Lucian, Edited and Translated by Lionel Casson|date=1962|publisher=W. W. Norton and Company|location=New York City, New York|isbn=0-393-00443-0}}</ref><ref name="Maguire2009" /> It is debated whether the phrase conveys astonishment at Helen's beauty,<ref name="Maguire2009" /> or disappointment that she is not more beautiful.<ref name="Maguire2009" /> The German poet and polymath [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] re-envisioned the meeting of [[Faust]] and Helen. In ''[[Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy]]'', the union of Helen and Faust becomes a complex allegory of the meeting of the classical-ideal and modern worlds.

In 1803, when French zoologist [[François Marie Daudin]] was to name a new species of beautifully colored snake, the [[trinket snake]] (''Coelognathus helena''), he chose the [[Specific name (zoology)|specific name]] ''helena'' in reference to Helen of Troy.<ref>Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. ("Helena", p. 120).</ref>

[[File:Helen of Troy.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Helen of Troy (painting)|Helen of Troy]]'' by [[Evelyn De Morgan]] (1898, London); Helen admiringly displays a lock of her hair, as she gazes into a mirror decorated with the nude Aphrodite.]]

In 1864, Paris saw the premiere of the [[operetta]] ''[[La belle Hélène]]'' by [[Jacques Offenbach]].

Helen of Troy is a minor character in the [[opera]] ''[[Mefistofele]]'' by [[Arrigo Boito]], which received its premiere in Milan in 1868.

In 1881, [[Oscar Wilde]] published a poem entitled "The New Helen",<ref name="Blondell2013" /> in which he declared his friend [[Lillie Langtry]] to be the [[reincarnation]] of Helen of Troy.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> Wilde portrays this new Helen as the antithesis of the Virgin Mary,<ref name="Blondell2013" /> but endows her with the characteristics of [[Jesus Christ]] himself.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> The Irish poet [[William Butler Yeats]] compared Helen to his muse, [[Maude Gonne]], in his 1916 poem "No Second Troy".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/147/36.html |title=36. No Second Troy. Yeats, W. B. 1916. Responsibilities and Other Poems |publisher=Bartleby.com |access-date=2014-03-13}}</ref> The anthology ''[[The Dark Tower (Lewis novel)|The Dark Tower]]'' by [[C. S. Lewis]] includes a fragment entitled "After Ten Years". In Egypt after the Trojan War, Menelaus is allowed to choose between the real, disappointing Helen and an ideal Helen conjured by Egyptian magicians.

The English [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood|Pre-Raphaelite]] painter [[Evelyn De Morgan]] portrayed a sexually assertive Helen in her 1898 painting ''Helen of Troy''.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> [[Salvador Dalí]] was obsessed with Helen of Troy from childhood<ref name="Blondell2013" /> and saw his wife [[Gala Dalí]] and the surrealist character [[Gradiva]] as the embodiments of Helen.<ref name="Blondell2013" /> He dedicates his autobiography ''Diary of a Genius'' to "my genius Gala Gradiva, Helen of Troy, Saint Helen, Gala Galatea Placida."<ref name="Blondell2013" />

Minor planet [[101 Helena]] discovered by [[James Craig Watson]] in 1868, is named after Helen of Troy.

[[John Erskine (educator)|John Erskine]]'s 1925 bestselling novel ''The Private Life of Helen of Troy'' portrayed Helen as a "sensible, [[bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] heroine",<ref name="Blondell2013" /> but the 1927 [[silent film]] [[The Private Life of Helen of Troy|of the same name]], directed by [[Alexander Korda]], transformed Helen into "a shopaholic fashion maven".<ref name="Blondell2013" />

In 1928, [[Richard Strauss]] wrote the German opera ''[[Die ägyptische Helena]]'' (''The Egyptian Helena''), which is the story of Helen and Menelaus's troubles when they are marooned on a mythical island.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Baxter |first=Richard |title=Die ägyptische Helena. Richard Strauss (recording review) |journal=The Opera Quarterly |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=643–647 |year=2002 |doi=10.1093/oq/18.4.643}}</ref>

The 1938 short story, "[[Helen O'Loy]]", written by [[Lester del Rey]], details the creation of a synthetic woman by two mechanics. The title is wordplay that combines "Helen of Troy" with "alloy".

The 1951 Swedish film ''[[Sköna Helena]]'' is an adapted version of [[La belle Hélène|Offenbach's operetta]], starring [[Max Hansen (tenor)|Max Hansen]] and [[Eva Dahlbeck]] In 1956, a Franco-British epic titled ''[[Helen of Troy (film)|Helen of Troy]]'' was released, directed by Oscar-winning director [[Robert Wise]] and starring Italian actress [[Rossana Podestà]] in the title role. It was filmed in Italy, and featured well-known British character actors such as [[Harry Andrews]], [[Cedric Hardwicke]], and [[Torin Thatcher]] in supporting roles.

The 1971 film ''[[The Trojan Women (film)|The Trojan Women]]'' was an adaptation of the play by Euripides in which [[Irene Papas]] portrayed (a non-blonde) Helen of Troy.

In the 1998 TV series ''[[Hercules (1998 TV series)|Hercules]]'', Helen appears as a supporting character at Prometheus Academy as a student. Helen is caring and enthusiastic. She was the most popular girl in the academy and Adonis' girlfriend. Helen tries her best to keep Adonis from behaving stupidly, but mostly fails. She likes Hercules, but as a friend. She is a princess as in the myth but is not a half-sister of Hercules in the series. She was voiced by [[Jodi Benson]].

A 2003 television version of Helen's life up to the fall of Troy, ''[[Helen of Troy (TV miniseries)|Helen of Troy]]'', in which she was played by [[Sienna Guillory]]. In this version, Helen is depicted as unhappy in her marriage and willingly runs away with Paris, with whom she has fallen in love, but still returns to Menelaus after Paris dies and Troy falls.

Helen was portrayed by [[Diane Kruger]] in the 2004 film ''[[Troy (film)|Troy]]''. In this adaptation, as in the 2003 television version, she is unhappily married to Menelaus and willingly leaves with Paris, whom she loves. However, in this version she does not return to Sparta with Menelaus (who is killed by Hector), but escapes Troy with Paris and other survivors when the city falls.

Jacob M. Appel's 2008 play, ''Helen of Sparta'', retells [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'' from Helen's point of view.<ref>Horwitz, Jane. ''The Washington Post'', December 16, 2008. P. C08.</ref>

Inspired by the line, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships...?" from [[Christopher Marlowe|Marlowe]]'s ''[[The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus|Faustus]]'', [[Isaac Asimov]] jocularly coined the unit "[[millihelen]]" to mean the amount of beauty that can launch one ship.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20120614180101/http://asimovhumanists.org/AboutIsaacAssimov2.htm The Humanism of Isaac Asimov]}}</ref> Canadian novelist and poet [[Margaret Atwood]] re-envisioned the myth of Helen in modern, feminist guise in her poem "Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/helen-of-troy-does-countertop-dancing |title=Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing by Margaret Atwood |date=20 January 2003 |publisher=Poemhunter.com |access-date=2014-03-13}}</ref>

In the ''[[Legends of Tomorrow]]'' episode "Helen Hunt", Helen is portrayed by Israeli-American model and actress [[Bar Paly]]. In the episode, Helen is an anachronism appearing in 1930s Hollywood. She lands a job as an actress and unintentionally starts a war between two film studios. The Legends travel to the 1930s and try to get Helen back to the Bronze Age. She regretfully goes along, telling the team she wishes to stay away. After analyzing historical records of her impact on history, [[Zari Tomaz]] finds the best time to take her away from the fighting of her time and takes her to [[Themyscira (DC Comics)|Themyscira]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://dclegendstv.com/2017/10/26/legends-of-tomorrow-spoilers-helen-hunt/|title=Legends of Tomorrow Spoilers: "Helen Hunt"|date=October 26, 2017|publisher=DCLegendsTV|language=en-US|access-date=November 14, 2017}}</ref> Helen reappears in the season three finale, "The Good, the Bad and the Cuddly", as an Amazon warrior who assists the Legends in defeating the demon Mallus's army.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Burlingame|first1=Russ|title='Legends of Tomorrow' Season Finale Will Feature Helen of Troy As An Amazon|url=https://comicbook.com/dc/2018/04/03/legends-of-tomorrow-season-finale-will-feature-helen-of-troy-as-/|website=comicbook.com|access-date=12 April 2018}}</ref>

In the 2018 TV miniseries ''[[Troy: Fall of a City]]'', Helen was portrayed by [[Bella Dayne]].<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://deadline.com/2017/03/troy-fall-of-a-city-cast-bella-dayne-louis-hunter-joseph-mawle-frances-oconnor-david-threlfall-bbc-netflix-1202055633/|title='Troy: Fall Of A City': Bella Dayne, Louis Hunter & More Join BBC/Netflix Epic|date=March 30, 2017|magazine=Deadline|language=en-US|access-date=April 1, 2017}}</ref>

Pop singer-songwriter [[Al Stewart]] released a song called "Helen and [[Cassandra]]" on the reissue of his 1988 album ''[[Last Days of the Century]]''. In it he addresses many aspects of the Helen myth and contrasts her with the seer Cassandra.

Indie pop singer [[Lorde]] released a song called "Helen of Troy" for the deluxe version of her 2021 album ''[[Solar Power (album)|Solar Power]]''.

== See also ==
* [[Astyanassa]]
* [[Simon Magus#Myth of Simon and Helen|Simon Magus and Helen]]

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Additional references ==

=== Primary sources ===
{{refbegin|30em}}
* [[Aristophanes]], ''[[Lysistrata]]''. For an English translation see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0242%3Acard%3D1 Perseus Project].
* [[Cicero]], ''De inventione'' II.1.1–2
* ''[[Cypria]]'', fragments 1, 9, and 10. For an English translation see the [http://mcllibrary.org/Hesiod/cypria.html Medieval and Classical Literature Library].
* [[Dio Chrysostom]], ''Discourses''. For an English translation, see [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/11*.html Lacus Curtius].
* [[Euripides]], ''[[Helen (play)|Helen]]''. For an English translation, see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0100 Perseus Project].
* Euripides, ''[[Iphigenia in Aulis]]''. For an English translation, see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0108 Perseus project].
* Euripides, ''[[Orestes (play)|Orestes]]''. For an English translation, see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0116 Perseus Project].
* [[Herodotus]], ''[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]]'', Book II. For an English translation, see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D1 Perseus Project].
* [[Hesiod]], ''Catalogs of Women and Eoiae''. For an English translation see the [http://mcllibrary.org/Hesiod/catalogs.html Medieval and Classical Literature Library].
* [[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'', Book [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0134%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D191 III]; ''[[Odyssey]]'', Books [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D4%3Acard%3D183 IV], and [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D23%3Acard%3D181 XXIII].
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fables''. Translated in English by [http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html Mary Grant].
* [[Isocrates]], ''Helen''. For an English translation, see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D10%3Asection%3D1 Perseus Project].
* [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], ''In Aeneida'' I.526, XI.262
* [[Lactantius Placidus]], ''Commentarii in Statii Thebaida'' I.21.
* ''[[Little Iliad]]'', fragment 13. For an English translation, see the [http://mcllibrary.org/Hesiod/iliad.html Medieval and Classical Literature Library].
* [[Ovid]], ''[[Heroides]]'', [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ovid/ovid.her16.shtml XVI.Paris Helenae]. For an English translation, see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0085&query=poem%3D%2316 Perseus Project].
* [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'', Book III. For an English translation, see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D1 Perseus Project].
* [[Pseudo-Apollodorus]], ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'', Book [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D1 III]; ''[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0022%3atext%3dEpitome Epitome]''.
* [[Sappho]], fragment 16.
* [[Sextus Propertius]], ''Elegies'', [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/prop3.html#14 3.14]. Translated in English by [http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/PropertiusBkThree.htm#_Toc201112469 A.S. Kline].
* [[Theocritus]], ''Idylls'', XVIII (''The Epithalamium of Helen''). Translated in English by [http://www.theoi.com/Text/TheocritusIdylls3.html#18 J. M. Edmonds].
* [[Virgil]], ''Aeneid''. Book [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0054%3Abook%3D6%3Acard%3D1 VI]. For an English translation see the [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0054%3Abook%3D6%3Acard%3D1 Perseus Project].
{{refend}}

=== Secondary sources ===
{{refbegin|30em}}
*{{cite book |title=Euripides: Helen.|last=Allan|first=William|year=2008|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-83690-6|chapter=Introduction}}
*{{cite book |title=The Fall of Troy in early Greek Poetry and Art |last=Anderson|first=Michael John|year=1997|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=0-19-815064-4|chapter=Further Directions}}
*{{cite book|last=Blondell|first=Ruby|title=Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uEC_Uh-MBIC&pg=PA102|year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-973160-2}}
*{{cite book |last1=Blondell |first1=Ruby |title=Helen of Troy in Hollywood |date=2023 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |isbn=9780691229621}}
*{{cite book |title=Sextus Propertius|last=Cairns|first=Francis|year=2006|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-86457-7|chapter=A Lighter Shade of Praise}}
*{{cite book |title=Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece (translated by Derek Collins and Janice Orion)|last=Calame|first=Claude|year=2001|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=0-7425-1525-7|chapter=Chorus and Ritual}}
*{{cite book|title=Etruscan Italy|last=Caprino|first=Alexandra|year=1996|editor=Franklin Hall, John|publisher=[[Indiana University Press]]|isbn=0-8425-2334-0|chapter=Greek Mythology in Etruria|chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/etruscanitaly00john|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/etruscanitaly00john}}
*{{cite book |title=Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Gercque|last=Chantraine|first=Pierre|year=2000|publisher=Klincksieck|isbn=2-252-03277-4|chapter=Ἐλένη|language=fr}}
*{{cite book |title=The Hesiodic Catalog of Women|editor=Hunter, Richard L.|last=Cingano|first=Ettore|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-83684-0|chapter=A Catalog within a Catalog: Helen's Suitors in the Hesiodic Catalog of Women}}
*{{cite book |title=Helen |last=Clader |first=Linda Lee |year=1976 |publisher=Brill Archive|isbn=90-04-04721-2}}
*{{cite book|title=Troy: from Homer's Iliad to Hollywood|last=Cyrino|first=Monica S.|year=2006|editor=Winkler, Martin M.|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=1-4051-3182-9|chapter=Helen of Troy|chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/troyfromhomersil0000unse}}
*{{cite book |title=Renaissance Siena|editor=Jenkens, Lawrence A.|last=David|first=Benjamin|year=2005|publisher=[[Truman State University]]|isbn=1-931112-43-6|chapter=Narrative in Context}}
*{{cite book |title=Archaic Greek Equestrian Sculpture|last=Eaverly|first=Mary Ann|year=1995|publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]]|isbn=0-472-10351-2|chapter=Geographical and Chronological Distribution}}
*{{cite journal |last=Edmunds |first=Lowell |date=May 2007 |title=Helen's Divine Origins|journal=Electronic Antiquity: Communicating the Classics |volume=X |issue=2 |pages=1–44 |url=http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V10N2/ |access-date=2009-07-07}}
*{{cite book |title=Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch|last=Frisk|first=Hjalmar|year=1960|volume=I|publisher=French & European Pubns|chapter=Ἐλένη|language=de}}
*{{cite book |title=Early Greek Myth|last=Gantz|first=Timothy|year=2004|publisher=The [[Johns Hopkins University Press]]|location=Baltimore, MD and London|isbn=0-8018-5362-1}}
*{{cite book |title=Grafting Helen|last=Gumpert|first=Matthew|year=2001 |publisher=[[University of Wisconsin Press]]|isbn=0-299-17124-8|chapter=Helen in Greece}}
*{{cite book |title=The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology|last1=Hard|first1=Robin|last2=Rose|first2=Herbert Jennings|year=2004|publisher=Routledge|chapter=the Trojan War|isbn=0-415-18636-6}}
*{{cite book |title=Lycophron: Alexandra: Greek Text, Translation, Commentary, & Introduction |last=Hornblower |first=Simon |year=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199576708}}
*{{cite book |title=Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore|url=https://archive.org/details/helenoftroygodde00bett|url-access=registration|last=Hughes|first=Bettany|year=2005 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|isbn=0-224-07177-7}}
*{{cite book|title=The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language|year=2000|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=0-395-82517-2|chapter=Indo-European roots: wel₂|author=Executive ed.: Joseph P. Pickert...|chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americanheritage0000unse_a1o7}}
*{{cite book|title=The Transformations of Helen|last=Jackson|first=Peter|year=2006|publisher=J.H.Röll Verlag|chapter=Shapeshifting Rape and Xoros}}
*{{cite book |title=Homer Between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature|last=Kim|first=Lawrence|year=2010|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-19449-5|chapter=Homer, poet and historian}}
*{{cite book |title=Helen of Troy: Woman and Goddess|last=Lindsay|first=Jack|year=1974|publisher=Rowman and Littlefield|isbn=0-87471-581-4|chapter=Helen in the Fifth Century}}
*{{cite book|title=The Ancient Greeks|last=Lynn Badin|first=Stephanie|year=2006|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=1-57607-814-0|chapter=Religion and Ideology}}
*{{cite book |title=Helen of Troy|last=Maguire|first=Laurie|year=2009|publisher=John Wiley and Sons|isbn=978-1-4051-2635-9|chapter=Beauty}}
*{{cite book |title=Too Beautiful to Picture|last=Mansfield|first=Elizabeth|year=2007|publisher=[[University of Minnesota]] Press|isbn=978-0-8166-4749-1|chapter=Helen's Uncanny Beauty}}
*{{cite book |title=Polygnotos and Vase Painting in Classical Athens |last=Matheson|first=Susan B.|year=1996|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=0-299-13870-4|chapter=Heroes}}
*{{cite book|title=The Meaning of Helen|last=Meagher|first=Robert E.|year=2002|publisher=Bolchazy–Carducci Publishers|isbn=0-86516-510-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/meaningofhelenin0000meag}}
*{{cite book |title=Theseus, Tragedy, and the Athenian Empire |last=Mills |first=Sophie |year=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-815063-6|chapter=Theseus and Helen}}
*{{cite book |title=A Cosmos of Desire |last=Moser |first=Thomas C. |year=2004 |publisher=University of Michigan Press|isbn=0-472-11379-8}}
*{{cite book |title=The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology|last=Nilsson|first=Martin Persson|year=1932 |publisher=Forgotten Books|isbn=1-60506-393-2|chapter=Mycenaean Centers and Mythological Centers}}
*{{cite book |title=Spartan Women|last=Pomeroy|first=Sarah B.|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-513067-7|chapter=Education}}
*{{cite book |title=The Tragedy of Hector|last=Redfield|first=James|year=1994|publisher=[[Duke University Press]]|isbn=0-8223-1422-3|chapter=The Hero}}
* Rozokoki, Alexandra. "The Significance of the Ancestry and Eastern Origins of Helen of Sparta". ''Quaderni Urbinati Di Cultura Classica'', New Series, 98, no. 2 (2011): 35–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23048961.
*{{cite journal |last=Skutsch |first=Otto |year=1987|title=Helen, her Name and Nature |journal=The Journal of Hellenic Studies |volume=107 |pages=188–193 |jstor=630087|doi=10.2307/630087|s2cid=161933465 }}
*{{cite book|title=Metamorphoses of Helen|last=Suzuki|first=Mihoko|year=1992|publisher=[[Cornell University Press]]|isbn=0-8014-8080-9|chapter=The Iliad|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/metamorphosesofh0000suzu_j4d7}}
*{{cite book |title=The Trojan War|last=Thompson|first=Diane P.|year=2004|publisher=McFarland|isbn=0-7864-1737-4|chapter=The Fall of Troy – The Beginning of Greek History}}
*{{cite book |title=Sparta|last=Whitby|first=Michael|year=2002|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=0-415-93957-7|chapter=Introduction}}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Helen}}
{{EB1911 Poster|Helen}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070810194036/http://whitedragon.org.uk/articles/troy.htm An analysis of the legend including historical evidence of worship as a goddess.]
*{{Cite NIE|wstitle=Helen |short=x}}
*{{Cite AmCyc|wstitle=Helen |short=x}}

{{Characters in the Iliad}}
{{Characters in the Odyssey}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Helen of Troy| ]]
[[Category:Solar goddesses]]
[[Category:Princesses in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Queens in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Children of Zeus]]
[[Category:Women of the Trojan war]]
[[Category:People of the Trojan War]]
[[Category:Characters in the Odyssey]]
[[Category:Kidnapped people]]
[[Category:Mythological rape victims]]
[[Category:Laconian mythology]]
[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Deeds of Aphrodite]]
[[Category:Divine twins]]
[[Category:Deeds of Hermes]]
[[Category:Fertility goddesses]]

Atlas (mythology)

2023-05-11T03:18:47Z

93.38.67.134: /* Genealogy */

{{short description|Deity in Greek mythology}}
{{about|the Titan|a collection of maps|Atlas|other uses|Atlas (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox deity
| type = Greek
| name = Atlas
| image = MAN Atlante fronte 1040572.JPG
| caption = The ''[[Farnese Atlas]]'', the oldest surviving representation of the [[celestial spheres]].
| alt =
| god_of =
| abode = Western edge of [[Gaia]] (''the Earth'')
| symbol =
| consort = {{plainlist|
*[[Pleione (mythology)|Pleione]]
*[[Hesperis (mythology)|Hesperis]]
}}
| parents = {{plainlist|
*[[Iapetus]] (father)
*[[Asia (Oceanid)|Asia]] or [[Clymene (wife of Iapetus)|Clymene]] (mother)
}}
| siblings =
| children = {{plainlist|
*The [[Hesperides]]
*The [[Hyades (mythology)|Hyades]]
*The [[Pleiades (Greek mythology)|Pleiades]]
*[[Hyas]]
*[[Calypso (mythology)|Calypso]]
*[[Dione (mythology)|Dione]]
}}
| mount =
| Roman_equivalent = Atlas
| equivalent1_type = Egyptian
| equivalent1 = [[Shu (Egyptian god)|Shu]]<ref name="A-Z">{{cite book |last=Remler|first=Pat|title=''Egyptian Mythology, A to Z''|publisher=[[Infobase Publishing]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wLUjtPDyu-IC|page=24|year=2010|access-date=6 October 2014|isbn=9781438131801}}</ref>}}

In [[Greek mythology]], '''Atlas''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|æ|t|l|ə|s}}; {{lang-grc-gre|Ἄτλας}}, ''Átlas'') is a [[Titans|Titan]] condemned to hold up the heavens or sky for [[eternity]] after the [[Titanomachy]]. Atlas also plays a role in the myths of two of the greatest [[List of Greek mythological figures#Heroes|Greek heroes]]: [[Heracles]] ([[Hercules]] in [[Roman mythology]]) and [[Perseus]]. According to the ancient Greek poet [[Hesiod]], Atlas stood at the ends of the earth in extreme [[Hesperides|west]].<ref name="517–520"/> Later, he became commonly identified with the [[Atlas Mountains]] in northwest Africa and was said to be the first King of [[Mauretania]] (modern-day [[Morocco]] and west [[Algeria]], not to be confused with the modern-day country of [[Mauritania]]).<ref>Smith, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DA%3Aentry+group%3D53%3Aentry%3Datlas-bio-1 s.v. Atlas]</ref> Atlas was said to have been skilled in [[philosophy]], [[mathematics]], and [[astronomy]]. In antiquity, he was credited with inventing the first [[celestial spheres|celestial sphere]]. In some texts, he is even credited with the invention of astronomy itself.<ref name="Diodorus"/>

Atlas was the son of the Titan [[Iapetus]] and the [[Oceanid]] [[Asia (Oceanid)|Asia]]<ref name="Pseudo-Apollodorus"/> or [[Clymene (wife of Iapetus)|Clymene]].<ref name="Asia"/> He was a brother of [[Epimetheus]] and [[Prometheus]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Roman|first1=Luke|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tOgWfjNIxoMC|title=Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology|last2=Roman|first2=Monica|date=2010|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-2639-5|pages=92|language=en}}</ref> He had many children, mostly daughters, the [[Hesperides]], the [[Hyades (mythology)|Hyades]], the [[Pleiades (Greek mythology)|Pleiades]], and the nymph [[Calypso (mythology)|Calypso]] who lived on the island [[Ogygia]].<ref name="Daughter"/>

The term [[Atlas]] has been used to describe a collection of maps since the 16th century when [[Flemish]] geographer [[Gerardus Mercator]] published his work in honour of the mythological Titan.

The "[[Atlantic Ocean]]" is derived from "Sea of Atlas". The name of [[Atlantis]] mentioned in [[Plato|Plato's]] [[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]' dialogue derives from "Atlantis nesos" ({{lang-grc|Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος}}), literally meaning "Atlas's Island".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dictionary.com/e/atlantis/|title = What does "Atlantis" mean? And why is the Space Shuttle Atlantis named after something underwater?|date = 8 July 2011}}</ref>

==Etymology==
The [[etymology]] of the name ''Atlas'' is uncertain. [[Virgil]] took pleasure in translating etymologies of Greek names by combining them with adjectives that explained them: for Atlas his adjective is ''durus'', "hard, enduring",<ref>''[[Aeneid]]'' iv.247: "''Atlantis duri''" and other instances; see Robert W. Cruttwell, "Virgil, Aeneid, iv. 247: 'Atlantis Duri'" ''The Classical Review'' '''59'''.1 (May 1945), p. 11.</ref> which suggested to George Doig<ref>George Doig, "Vergil's Art and the Greek Language" ''The Classical Journal'' '''64'''.1 (October 1968, pp. 1-6) p. 2.</ref> that Virgil was aware of the Greek τλῆναι "to endure"; Doig offers the further possibility that Virgil was aware of [[Strabo]]'s remark that the native North African name for this mountain was ''Douris''. Since the Atlas mountains rise in the region inhabited by [[Berber people|Berbers]], it has been suggested that the name might be taken from one of the [[Berber languages]], specifically from the word ''ádrār'' "mountain".<ref>Strabo, 17.3;</ref>

Traditionally historical linguists etymologize the Ancient Greek word Ἄτλας ([[genitive case|genitive]]: Ἄτλαντος) as comprised from copulative α- and the [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] root {{PIE|*telh₂-}} 'to uphold, support' (whence also τλῆναι), and which was later reshaped to an nt-stem.<ref name="Beekes">{{Cite book|last1=Beekes|first1=Robert|author-link=Robert Beekes|last2=van Beek|first2=Lucien|year=2010|title=Etymological Dictionary of Greek|publisher=Brill|volume=1|page=163}}</ref> However, [[Robert S. P. Beekes]] argues that it cannot be expected that this ancient Titan carries an Indo-European name, and he suggests instead that the word is of [[Pre-Greek substrate|Pre-Greek]] origin, as such words often end in ''-ant''.<ref name="Beekes" />

== Mythology ==
===War and punishment===
{{main|Titanomachy}}
Atlas and his brother [[Menoetius (mythology)|Menoetius]] sided with the Titans in their war against the [[Twelve Olympians|Olympians]], the [[Titanomachy]]. When the Titans were defeated, many of them (including Menoetius) were confined to [[Tartarus]], but [[Zeus]] condemned Atlas to stand at the western edge of the earth and hold up the sky on his shoulders. Atlas did not want to do this resulting in him being sent to hell.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:507-544 517–520]; {{harvp|Gantz|1993|p=46}}</ref> Thus, he was ''Atlas Telamon'', "enduring Atlas," and became a doublet of [[Coeus]], the embodiment of the celestial axis around which the heavens revolve.<ref>The usage in [[Virgil]]'s ''maximum Atlas axem umero torquet stellis ardentibus aptum'' (''Aeneid'', iv.481f, cf vi.796f), combining poetic and parascientific images, is discussed in P. R. Hardie, "Atlas and Axis" ''The Classical Quarterly'' N.S. '''33'''.1 (1983:220-228).</ref>

A common misconception today is that Atlas was forced to hold the Earth on his shoulders, but Classical art shows Atlas holding the [[celestial spheres]], not the [[globe|terrestrial globe]]; the solidity of the marble globe borne by the renowned [[Farnese Atlas]] may have aided the conflation, reinforced in the 16th century by the developing usage of ''atlas'' to describe a corpus of [[Atlas|terrestrial maps]].

===Encounter with Perseus===
{{main|Perseus}}
The Greek poet [[Polyidus]] {{Circa|398 BC}}<ref>[[Polyeidos (poet)|Polyeidos]], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/polyidus-fragment/1993/pb_LCL144.203.xml fr. 837 Campbell]; [[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/141#4.621 4.627].</ref> tells a tale of Atlas, then a shepherd, encountering [[Perseus]] who [[Petrifaction in mythology and fiction|turned him to stone]]. Ovid later gives a more detailed account of the incident, combining it with the myth of Heracles. In this account Atlas is not a shepherd, but a king.<ref>Ovid, ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' 4.617 ff. ([http://www.theoi.com/Heros/Perseus.html#Atlas on-line English translation at Theoi Project]).</ref> According to Ovid, Perseus arrives in Atlas's Kingdom and asks for shelter, declaring he is a son of Zeus. Atlas, fearful of a prophecy that warned of a son of Zeus stealing his golden apples from his orchard, refuses Perseus hospitality.<ref name="LOTN"/> In this account, Atlas is turned not just into stone by Perseus, but an entire mountain range: Atlas's head the peak, his shoulders ridges and his hair woods. The prophecy did not relate to Perseus stealing the golden apples but to [[Heracles]], another son of Zeus, and Perseus's great-grandson.<ref>{{harvp|Ogden|2008|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uRDFljXN0LkC&pg=PA49 49], 108, 114}}</ref>

===Encounter with Heracles===
{{main|Heracles}}
[[File:Lucas Cranach d.Ä. - Herkules und Atlas (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum).jpg|thumb|Atlas and Hercules]]
One of the [[Labours of Hercules|Twelve Labours]] of the hero [[Heracles]] was to fetch some of the golden apples that grow in [[Hera]]'s garden, tended by Atlas's reputed daughters, the [[Hesperides]] (which were also called the Atlantides), and guarded by the dragon [[Ladon (mythology)|Ladon]]. Heracles went to Atlas and offered to hold up the heavens while Atlas got the apples from his daughters.<ref name=":0">[[Diodorus Siculus]], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html 4.27.2]; {{harvp|Gantz|1993|pp=410-413}}.</ref>

Upon his return with the apples, however, Atlas attempted to trick Heracles into carrying the sky permanently by offering to deliver the apples himself, as anyone who purposely took the burden must carry it forever, or until someone else took it away. Heracles, suspecting Atlas did not intend to return, pretended to agree to Atlas's offer, asking only that Atlas take the sky again for a few minutes so Heracles could rearrange his cloak as padding on his shoulders. When Atlas set down the apples and took the heavens upon his shoulders again, Heracles took the apples and ran away.

In some versions,<ref>a lost passage of [[Pindar]] quoted by Strabo (3.5.5) was the earliest reference in this context: "the pillars which Pindar calls the "gates of Gades" when he asserts that they are the farthermost limits reached by Heracles"; the passage in Pindar has not been traced.</ref> Heracles instead built the two great [[Pillars of Hercules]] to hold the sky away from the earth, liberating Atlas much as he liberated [[Prometheus]].

===Other Variations===
[[File:Singer Sargent, John - Atlas and the Hesperides - 1925.jpg|thumb|''Atlas and the Hesperides'' by John Singer Sargent (1925)]]

====King of Atlantis====
According to [[Plato]], the first king of [[Atlantis]] was also named '''Atlas''', but that Atlas was a son of [[Poseidon]] and the mortal woman Cleito.<ref>[[Plato]], ''[[Critias (dialogue)|Critias]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg032.perseus-eng1:113d 133d–114a]</ref> The works of [[Eusebius]]<ref name="Eusebius"/> and [[Diodorus]]<ref name="Diodorus"/> also give an Atlantean account of Atlas. In these accounts, Atlas' father was [[Uranus (mythology)|Uranus]] and his mother was [[Gaia]]. His grandfather was [[Elyon#Sanchuniathon|Elium]] "King of [[Phoenicia]]" who lived in [[Byblos]] with his wife [[Baal Berith|Beruth]]. Atlas was raised by his sister, [[Basilea (queen)|Basilia]].<ref>For further comment on Mercator's chosen Titanic genealogy see {{harvp|Keuning|1947}}, {{harvp|Akerman|1994}} and {{harvp|Ramachandran|2015|p=42}}</ref><ref name="Mercator"/><ref>See {{harvp|''Bibliotheca historica''|loc=Book III}}, Eusebius' ''[[Praeparatio evangelica]]'' references the same mythology as Diodorus stating "These then are the principal heads of the theology held among the Atlanteans".</ref>

====King of Mauretania====
Atlas was also a legendary king of [[Mauretania]], the land of the [[Mauri people|Mauri]] in antiquity roughly corresponding with modern [[Morocco]]. In the 16th century, [[Gerardus Mercator]] put together the first collection of maps to be called an "[[Atlas]]" and devoted his book to the "King of Mauretania".<ref name="Mercator"/><ref>{{harvp|Grafton|Most|Settis|2010|p=103}}</ref>

Atlas became associated with Northwest Africa over time. He had been connected with the [[Hesperides]], or "Nymphs", which guarded the [[golden apple]]s, and [[Gorgons]] both of which were said to live beyond Ocean in the extreme west of the world since [[Hesiod]]'s [[Theogony]].<ref>See {{harvp|Gantz|1993|p=401}} and {{harvp|Ogden|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uRDFljXN0LkC&pg=PA47 47-49]}}</ref> [[Diodorus]] and [[Palaephatus]] mention that the Gorgons lived in the Gorgades, islands in the [[Aethiopian Sea]]. The main island was called Cerna, and modern-day arguments have been advanced that these islands may correspond to [[Cape Verde]] due to [[Phoenicia]]n exploration.<ref>For instance, the Phoenician [[Hanno the Navigator]] is said to have sailed as far as [[Mount Cameroon]] in the 5th or 6th century BC. See {{harvp|Lemprière|1833|pp=249-250}} and Ovid, ''The Metamorphoses'', commented by Henry T. Riley {{ISBN|978-1-4209-3395-6}}</ref> The Northwest Africa region emerged as the canonical home of the King via separate sources. In particular, according to Ovid, after Perseus turns Atlas into a mountain range, he flies over [[Aethiopia]], the blood of Medusa's head giving rise to Libyan snakes. By the time of the [[Roman Empire]], the habit of associating Atlas's home to a chain of mountains, the [[Atlas Mountains]], which were near [[Mauretania]] and [[Numidia]], was firmly entrenched.<ref>{{harvp|Lemprière|1833|pp=249-250}}</ref>

====Other====

The identifying name ''Aril'' is inscribed on two 5th-century BC Etruscan bronze items: a mirror from [[Vulci]] and a ring from an unknown site.<ref>Paolo Martini, ''Il nome etrusco di Atlante'', (Rome:Università di Roma) 1987 investigates the etymology of ''aril'', rejecting a link to the verbal morpheme ''ar-'' ("support") in favor of a Phoenician etymon in an unattested possible form ''*'arrab(a)'', signifying "guarantor in a commercial transaction" with the connotation of "mediator", related to the Latin borrowing ''arillator'', "middleman". This section and note depend on Rex Wallace's review of Martini in ''Language'' '''65'''.1 (March 1989:187–188).</ref> Both objects depict the encounter with Atlas of [[Hercle]]—the Etruscan [[Heracles]]—identified by the inscription; they represent rare instances where a figure from [[Greek mythology]] was imported into [[Etruscan mythology]], but the name was not. The Etruscan name ''Aril'' is etymologically independent.

==Genealogy==
Sources describe Atlas as the father, by different goddesses, of numerous children, mostly daughters. Some of these are assigned conflicting or overlapping identities or parentage in different sources.
*By [[Hesperis (mythology)|Hesperis]]:
**the [[Hesperides]]<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html#27.2 4.27.2]; {{harvp|Gantz|1993|p=7}}.</ref>
*By [[Pleione (mythology)|Pleione]] (or [[Aethra (mythology)|Aethra]]<ref>[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''[[De Astronomica]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/207#2.21.4 2.21.4], [https://topostext.org/work/207#2.21.6 2.21.6]; [[Ovid]], ''Fasti'' 5.164</ref>):
**the [[Hyades (mythology)|Hyades]]<ref name="Hyginus, Fabulae 192">Hyginus, ''Fabulae'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#192 192]</ref>
**a son, [[Hyas]]<ref name="Hyginus, Fabulae 192" />
**the [[Pleiades (Greek mythology)|Pleiades]]<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Works and Days]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg002.perseus-eng1:370-404 383]; [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.10.1 3.10.1]; Ovid, ''Fasti'' 5.79</ref>
*By one or more unspecified goddesses:
**[[Calypso (mythology)|Calypso]]<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' 1.52; Apollodorus, Epitome [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg002.perseus-eng1:e.7.24 7.24]</ref>
**[[Dione (mythology)|Dione]]<ref>Hyginus, ''Fabulae'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#82 82] & [https://topostext.org/work/206#83 83]</ref>
**[[Maera (mythology)|Maera]]<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D12%3Asection%3D7 8.12.7] & [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D48%3Asection%3D6 8.48.6]</ref>

[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], in his ''[[Fabulae]]'',adds an older Atlas who is the son of [[Aether (mythology)|Aether]] and [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]].<ref>Hyginus, ''Fabulae'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#0.2 Preface]</ref>

==Cultural influence==
{{Main|Atlas (disambiguation)}}
Atlas' best-known cultural association is in [[cartography]]. The first publisher to associate the Titan Atlas with a group of maps was the print-seller [[Antonio Lafreri]], on the engraved title-page he applied to his ''ad hoc'' assemblages of maps, ''Tavole Moderne Di Geografia De La Maggior Parte Del Mondo Di Diversi Autori'' (1572);<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mapforum.com/03/lafrscho.htm|author=Ashley Baynton-Williams|title=The "Lafreri school" of Italian mapmakers|access-date=February 26, 2013}}</ref> however, he did not use the word "Atlas" in the title of his work, an innovation of [[Gerardus Mercator]], who dedicated his "atlas" specifically to honour the Titan, Atlas, King of [[Mauretania]], a learned philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer. In psychology, Atlas is used metaphorically to describe [[Atlas personality|the personality of someone whose childhood was characterized by excessive responsibilities]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Vogel|first1=L. Z.|last2=Savva|first2=Stavroula|date=1993-12-01|title=Atlas personality|journal=British Journal of Medical Psychology|language=en|volume=66|issue=4|pages=323–330|doi=10.1111/j.2044-8341.1993.tb01758.x|pmid=8123600|issn=2044-8341}}</ref> Ayn Rand's political dystopian novel ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' (1957) references the popular misconception of Atlas holding up the entire world on his back by comparing the capitalist and intellectual class as being "modern Atlases" which hold the modern world up at great expense to themselves.{{cn|date=October 2021}}

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="150" heights="200">
File:Atlas sculpture on collins street melbourne.jpg|Atlas supports the terrestrial globe on a building in [[Collins Street, Melbourne]], [[Australia]].
File:Dutch - Nautilus Cup - Walters 57989 - Profile.jpg|''Nautilus Cup''. This drinking vessel, for court feasts, depicts Atlas holding the shell on his back.<ref>{{cite web|publisher=[[The Walters Art Museum]]|url=http://art.thewalters.org/detail/16751|title=Nautilus Cup}}</ref> The Walters Art Museum
File:Atlas Santiago Toural GFDL.jpg|Sculpture of Atlas, Praza do Toural, [[Santiago de Compostela]]
File:Atlas New York.JPG|[[Lee Lawrie]]'s colossal bronze ''[[Atlas statue (New York City)|Atlas]]'', [[Rockefeller Center]], New York
File:GandharanAtlas.JPG|[[Greco-Buddhist]] (c. AD 100) Atlas, supporting a Buddhist monument, [[Hadda, Afghanistan|Hadda]], Afghanistan
File:Atlas inside the Royal Palace, Amsterdam, Netherlands.jpg|Atlas inside the [[Royal Palace of Amsterdam|Royal Palace]], [[Amsterdam|Amsterdam, Netherlands]]
File:FR Carskie Siolo, palac, 2013.08.10, fot. I. Nowicka (7) corr.jpg|Statues of Atlas on the exterior of Catherine Palace in [[Tsarskoye Selo]], [[Pushkin]]
</gallery>

== Genealogy ==

{{chart top|Atlas's family tree<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+132 132–138], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+337 337–411], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+453 453–520], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+901 901–906, 915–920]; Caldwell, pp. 8–11, tables 11–14.</ref>|collapsed=no}}
{{chart/start}}
{{chart|}}
{{chart| | | | | | | | | | | |URA |y|GAI |~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|y|PON|URA=[[Uranus (mythology)|Uranus]]|GAI=[[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]]|PON=[[Pontus (mythology)|Pontus]]}}
{{chart|,|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|^|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|.| | | |!}}
{{chart|!|OCE |y|TET | | | |HYP |y|THE | | | | |CRI |y|EUR|OCE=[[Oceanus]]|TET=[[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]]|HYP=[[Hyperion (Titan)|Hyperion]]|THE=[[Theia]]|CRI=[[Crius]]|EUR=[[Eurybia (mythology)|Eurybia]]}}
{{chart|!| |,|-|^|-|.| | | |,|-|-|-|+|-|-|-|.| | | |,|-|-|^|v|-|-|-|.}}
{{chart|!|RIV | |OCE | |HEL | |SEL | |EOS | |AST | |PAL | |PER |RIV=The [[Potamoi|Rivers]]|OCE=The [[Oceanids]]|HEL=[[Helios]]|SEL=[[Selene]]<ref>Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+371 371–374], in the ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]] to Hermes'' (4), [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+4+99&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138 99–100], Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.</ref>|EOS=[[Eos]]|AST=[[Astraeus]]|PAL=[[Pallas (Titan)|Pallas]]|PER=[[Perses (Titan)|Perses]]}}
{{chart|!| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{chart|)|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|.| | | |}}
{{chart|!| | | | |CRO |y|RHE | | | | | | | |COE |y|PHO | | |COE=[[Coeus]]|PHO=[[Phoebe (mythology)|Phoebe]]|CRO=[[Cronus]]|RHE=[[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]]}}
{{chart|!| |,|-|v|-|v|-|^|-|v|-|v|-|.| | | | | |,|-|^|-|.| | | }}
{{chart|!|HES |!|HER | |HAD |!|ZEU | | | |LET | |AST | |HES=[[Hestia]]|HER=[[Hera]]|HAD=[[Hades]]|ZEU=[[Zeus]]|LET=[[Leto]]|AST=[[Asteria (Titaness)|Asteria]]}}
{{chart|!| | | |!| | | | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{chart|!| | |DEM | | | | | |POS | | | | | | | | | | | | | |DEM=[[Demeter]]|POS=[[Poseidon]]}}
{{chart|!| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{chart|`|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|.}}
{{chart| | | | |IAP |y|CLY | | | | | |MNE |~|y|~|ZEU |~|y|~|THE |IAP=[[Iapetus (mythology)|Iapetus]]|CLY=[[Clymene (wife of Iapetus)|Clymene]] (or [[Asia (mythology)|Asia]])<ref>According to [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+507 507–511], Clymene, one of the [[Oceanid]]s, the daughters of [[Oceanus]] and [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]], at [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+351 351], was the mother by Iapetus of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, while according to [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D3 1.2.3], another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus.</ref>|MNE=[[Mnemosyne]]|ZEU=(Zeus)|THE=[[Themis]]}}
{{chart| |,|-|-|-|v|-|^|-|v|-|-|-|.| | | | | | |!| | | | | |!}}
{{chart|ATL | |MEN | |PRO | |EPI | | | | |MUS | | | |HOR |ATL='''ATLAS'''<ref>According to [[Plato]], ''[[Critias (dialogue)|Critias]]'', [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg032.perseus-eng1:113d 113d–114a], Atlas was the son of [[Poseidon]] and the mortal [[Cleito]].</ref>|MEN=[[Menoetius (Greek mythology)|Menoetius]]|PRO=[[Prometheus]]<ref>In [[Aeschylus]], ''[[Prometheus Bound]]'' 18, 211, 873 (Sommerstein, pp. [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-prometheus_bound/2009/pb_LCL145.445.xml 444–445 n. 2], [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-prometheus_bound/2009/pb_LCL145.467.xml 446–447 n. 24], [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-prometheus_bound/2009/pb_LCL145.539.xml 538–539 n. 113]) Prometheus is made to be the son of [[Themis]].</ref>|EPI=[[Epimetheus (mythology)|Epimetheus]]|MUS=The [[Muses]]|HOR=The [[Horae]]}}
{{chart/end}}
{{chart bottom}}

==See also==
{{Columns-list|colwidth=30em|
*[[Atlas (architecture)]]
*[[Bahamut]], a rough analogue from Arabian mythology, and other members of [[:Category:World-bearing animals]]
*[[Farnese Atlas]]
*[[Upelluri]]
}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|40em|refs=
<ref name="517–520">[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:507-544 517–520].
</ref>
<ref name="Pseudo-Apollodorus">[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.2.3 1.2.3].
</ref>
<ref name="Asia">[[Hesiod]],''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:507-544 507]. It is possible that the name ''Asia'' became preferred over Hesiod's ''Clymene'' to avoid confusion with what must be a different [[Oceanid]] named [[Clymene (mother of Phaethon)|Clymene]], who was mother of [[Phaethon]] by [[Helios]] in some accounts.
</ref>
<ref name="Mercator">{{harvp|Mercator|Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection (Library of Congress)|2000}}
</ref>
<ref name="LOTN">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/livesnecromance04godwgoog|title=Lives of the Necromancers|author=William Godwin|year=1876|page=[https://archive.org/details/livesnecromance04godwgoog/page/n62 39]|publisher=London, F. J. Mason}}
</ref>
<ref name="Daughter">Homer, ''Odyssey'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1 1.14], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D44 1.50]. Calypso is sometimes referred to as ''Atlantis'' (Ατλαντίς), which means the daughter of Atlas, see the entry [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2317105 Ατλαντίς] in [[Liddell & Scott]], and also [[Hesiod]], ''Theogony'', [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:938-962 938].
</ref>
<ref name="Diodorus">Referencing [[Diodorus]]:
*"[Atlas] perfected the science of astrology and was the first to publish to mankind the doctrine of the sphere. and it was for this reason that the idea was held that the entire heavens were supported upon the shoulders of Atlas, the myth darkly hinting in this way at his discovery and description of the sphere." {{harvp|''Bibliotheca historica''|loc=Book III 60.2}}
*"Atlas was so grateful to Heracles for his kindly deed that he not only gladly gave him such assistance as his Labour called for, but he also instructed him quite freely in the knowledge of astrology. For Atlas had worked out the science of astrology to a degree surpassing others and had ingeniously discovered the spherical nature of the stars, and for that reason was generally believed to be bearing the entire firmament upon his shoulders. Similarly in the case of Heracles, when he had brought to the Greeks the doctrine of the sphere, he gained great fame, as if he had taken over the burden of the firmament which Atlas had borne, since men intimated in this enigmatic way what had actually taken place." {{harvp|''Bibliotheca historica''|loc=Book IV 27.4-5}}
</ref>
<ref name="Eusebius">The "testimony of Eusebius" was "drawn from the most ancient historians" according to Mercator. Eusebius' ''[[Praeparatio evangelica]]'' gives accounts of Atlas that had been translated from the works of [[Phoenicia|ancient Phoenician]] [[Sanchuniathon]], the original sources for which predate the [[Trojan War]] (i.e. 13th century BCE).
</ref>
}}

==References==
{{refbegin|40em}}
* {{cite book |last1=Akerman |first1=J. R. |editor1-last=Watelet |editor1-first=M. |title=Gerardi Mercatoris, Atlas Europae |date=1994 |publisher=Bibliothèque des Amis du Fonds Mercator |location=Antwerp |pages=15–29 |chapter=Atlas, la genèse d'un titre}}
* [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], ''Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes.'' Cambridge, Massachusetts, [[Harvard University Press]]; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=C431BA809CA4DEA22A15DA9C666F3400?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0022%3atext%3dLibrary Online version at the Perseus Digital Library].
* {{cite book |author1=Diodorus Siculus |author-link1=Diodorus Siculus |editor1-last=Oldfather |editor1-first=C. H. |editor2-last=Sherman |editor2-first=C. L. |editor3-last=Welles |editor3-first=C. B. |editor4-last=Geer |editor4-first=R. M. |editor5-last=Walton |editor5-first=F. R. |title=Diodorus of Sicily : The Library of History. 12 Vols. |date=1933–67 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. |edition=2004|ref={{harvid|''Bibliotheca historica''}} |url = https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/home.html}}
* {{cite book |last1=Gantz |first1=T. |author-link1=Timothy Gantz|title=Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources |date=1993 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |isbn=978-0-8018-4410-2|oclc=917033766|lccn=92026010}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Grafton |editor1-first=A. |editor2-last=Most |editor2-first=G. W. |editor3-last=Settis |editor3-first=S. |title=The Classical Tradition |date=2010 |edition=2013|publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass. |isbn=978-0-674-07227-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LbqF8z2bq3sC|oclc=957010841|lccn=2010019667}}
* [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, Massachusetts., [[Harvard University Press]]; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D1 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library].
* [[Hesiod]]; ''[[Works and Days]]'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, Massachusetts., [[Harvard University Press]]; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0132%3Acard%3D1 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library].
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Hornblower |editor1-first=S. |editor2-last=Spawforth |editor2-first=A. |editor3-last=Eidinow |editor3-first=E. |title=The Oxford Classical Dictionary |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-954556-8 |edition=4th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bVWcAQAAQBAJ|oclc=799019502|lccn=2012009579}}
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus, Gaius Julius]], ''[[De Astronomica]]'', in ''The Myths of Hyginus'', edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. [https://topostext.org/work/207 Online version at ToposText].
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus, Gaius Julius]], ''[[Fabulae]]'', in ''The Myths of Hyginus'', edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. [https://topostext.org/work/206 Online version at ToposText].
* {{cite journal|last1=Keuning|first1=J.|title=The History of an Atlas: Mercator. Hondius|journal=Imago Mundi|volume=4|issue=1|year=1947|pages=37–62|issn=0308-5694|doi=10.1080/03085694708591880|jstor=1149747}}
* {{cite book |last1=Lemprière |first1=J. |editor1-last=Anthon |editor1-first=C. |title=A Classical Dictionary |date=1833 |publisher=G. & C. & H. Carvill [etc.] |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2JloAje72TcC|oclc=81170896|lccn=31001224}}
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Karrow |editor1-first=R. W. |title=Atlas sive Cosmographicæ Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura: Duisburg, 1595 |date=2000 |publisher=Octavo |location=Oakland, CA |url=http://mail.nysoclib.org/mercator_atlas/mcrats.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160310032427/http://mail.nysoclib.org/mercator_atlas/mcrats.pdf |archive-date=10 March 2016|translator-last1=Sullivan |translator-first1=D.|oclc=48878698|last1=Mercator|first1=G.|author-link1=Gerardus Mercator |author2=Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection (Library of Congress)|isbn=978-1-891788-26-0|lccn=map55000728}}
* {{cite book |last1=Ogden |first1=D. |title=Perseus |date=2008 |publisher=Routledge |location=London; New York |isbn=978-0-415-42724-1 |edition=1st |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uRDFljXN0LkC|oclc=163604137|lccn=2007031552}}
* {{cite book |last1=Ogden |first1=D. |title=Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds |date=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-955732-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FQ2pAK9luwkC|oclc=799069191|lccn=2012277527}}
* {{cite book |last1=Ramachandran |first1=A. |title=The Worldmakers: Global Imagining in Early Modern Europe |date=2015 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-226-28879-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rVX2rQEACAAJ&q=atlas|oclc=930260324}}
*[[William Smith (lexicographer)|Smith, William]]; ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]'', London (1873). [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DA%3Aentry+group%3D53%3Aentry%3Datlas-bio-1 "Atlas" ]
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons and category|Atlas (mythology)|Atlas (mythology)}}
* [https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/category/vpc-taxonomy-000181 Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (c. 120 images of Atlas)]

{{Greek religion}}
{{Greek mythology (deities)}}
{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atlas (Mythology)}}
[[Category:Atlas (mythology)| ]]
[[Category:Greek gods]]
[[Category:Mythology of Heracles]]
[[Category:Titans (mythology)]]
[[Category:Kings of Mauretania]]
[[Category:Kings in Berber mythology]]
[[Category:Deeds of Zeus]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses characters]]
[[Category:Atlanteans]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses into terrain in Greek mythology]]

Clymene (wife of Iapetus)

2023-04-29T05:10:50Z

93.38.67.134: /* Mythology */

{{short description|Oceanid nymph and wife of Iapetus in Greek mythology}}
{{other uses|Clymene (mythology)}}
{{Infobox deity
| type = Greek
| name = Clymene
| abode = [[Ocean]]
| member_of = the Oceanids
| other_names = [[Asia (Oceanid)|Asia]]
| parents = [[Oceanus]] and [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]]
| siblings = the [[Oceanids]], the [[Potamoi]]
| consort = [[Iapetus]]
| children = [[Prometheus]], [[Epimetheus]], [[Atlas (mythology)|Atlas]], [[Menoetius]]
}}
{{Greek myth (nymph)}}
In [[Greek mythology]], '''Clymene''' or '''Klymene''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|l|ɪ|m|ɪ|n|iː|,_|ˈ|k|l|aɪ|-}};<ref>{{cite book|last=Russell|first=William F.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bwbdTRXHAtoC&pg=PT105|title=Classic myths to read aloud|publisher=Three Rivers Press|year=1989|isbn=9780307774439|location=New York}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Barchers|first=Suzanne I.|url=https://archive.org/details/fromatalantatoze00barc|title=From Atalanta to Zeus : readers theatre from Greek mythology|publisher=Teacher Ideas Press|year=2001|isbn=9781563088155|location=Englewood, Colo.|page=[https://archive.org/details/fromatalantatoze00barc/page/192 192]|url-access=registration}}</ref> {{lang-grc|Κλυμένη}}, ''Kluménē'', feminine form of Κλύμενος, meaning "famous"<ref>Liddell & Scott (1940), ''[[A Greek–English Lexicon]]'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*k%3Aentry+group%3D130%3Aentry%3Dklu%2Fmenos Κλύμενος]</ref>) is the name of one of the three thousand [[Oceanid]] [[nymph]]s, usually the wife of [[Iapetus]] and mother by him of [[Prometheus]], [[Epimetheus]], [[Atlas (mythology)|Atlas]] and [[Menoetius]].

== Mythology ==
Clymene is the daughter of the [[Titans]] [[Oceanus]] and [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]].<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D337 351]</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=[[Kerényi]]|first=Carl|title=The Gods of the Greeks|publisher=[[Thames and Hudson]]|year=1951|location=London|pages=41}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Cite book|last=Bane|first=Theresa|title=Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology|publisher=McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers|year=2013|isbn=9780786471119|pages=36, 87}}</ref> She married her uncle Iapetus and became by him the mother of Prometheus, Epimetheus, Atlas and Menoetius.<ref>Hesiod, ''Theogony'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D507 508]; [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#0.2 Preface]; [[Scholia]]st on [[Pindar]], ''Olympian Odes'' 9.68</ref> Other authors relate the same of her sister [[Asia (Oceanid)|Asia]].<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D3 1.2.3]</ref> A less common genealogy makes Clymene the wife of Prometheus and the mother of [[Deucalion]] by him.<ref>[[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]], ''Antiquitates Romanae'' 1.17.3; [[Scholia]] on [[Pindar]], ''Olympian Ode'' 9.81; on [[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' 10.2</ref> She may also be the Clymene referred to as the mother of [[Mnemosyne]] by [[Zeus]].<ref>[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'' [https://topostext.org/work/206#0.2 Preface]</ref> In some myths, Clymene was one of the nymphs in the train of [[Cyrene (mythology)|Cyrene]].<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Georgics]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0690.phi002.perseus-eng1:4.333-4.386 4.345]</ref>

Although she shares name and parentage with [[Clymene (mother of Phaethon)|Clymene]], one of [[Helios]]'s lovers, who is also a daughter of [[Oceanus]] and [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]] (and thus one of her sisters and fellow Oceanid), she is distinguished from her.<ref>Hard Robin, pg. [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA44 44]</ref>

== Genealogy ==

{{chart top|Clymene's family tree<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+132 132–138], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+337 337–411], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+453 453–520], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+901 901–906, 915–920]; Caldwell, pp. 8–11, tables 11–14.</ref>|collapsed=no}}
{{chart/start}}
{{chart|}}
{{chart| | | | | | | | | | | |URA |y|GAI |~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|y|PON|URA=[[Uranus (mythology)|Uranus]]|GAI=[[Gaia]]|PON=[[Pontus (mythology)|Pontus]]}}
{{chart|,|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|^|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|.| | | |!}}
{{chart|!|OCE |y|TET | | | |HYP |y|THE | | | | |CRI |y|EUR|OCE=[[Oceanus]]|TET=[[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]]|HYP=[[Hyperion (Titan)|Hyperion]]|THE=[[Theia]]|CRI=[[Crius]]|EUR=[[Eurybia (mythology)|Eurybia]]}}
{{chart|!| |,|-|^|-|.| | | |,|-|-|-|+|-|-|-|.| | | |,|-|-|^|v|-|-|-|.}}
{{chart|!|RIV | |OCE | |HEL | |SEL | |EOS | |AST | |PAL | |PER |RIV=The [[Potamoi|Rivers]]|OCE=The [[Oceanids]]|HEL=[[Helios]]|SEL=[[Selene]]<ref>Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+371 371–374], in the ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn]] to Hermes'' (4), [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=HH+4+99&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0138 99–100], Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.</ref>|EOS=[[Eos]]|AST=[[Astraeus]]|PAL=[[Pallas (Titan)|Pallas]]|PER=[[Perses (Titan)|Perses]]}}
{{chart|!| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{chart|)|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|.| | | |}}
{{chart|!| | | | |CRO |y|RHE | | | | | | | |COE |y|PHO | | |COE=[[Coeus]]|PHO=[[Phoebe (Titaness)|Phoebe]]|CRO=[[Cronus]]|RHE=[[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]]}}
{{chart|!| |,|-|v|-|v|-|^|-|v|-|v|-|.| | | | | |,|-|^|-|.| | | }}
{{chart|!|HES |!|HER | |HAD |!|ZEU | | | |LET | |AST | |HES=[[Hestia]]|HER=[[Hera]]|HAD=[[Hades]]|ZEU=[[Zeus]]|LET=[[Leto]]|AST=[[Asteria (Titaness)|Asteria]]}}
{{chart|!| | | |!| | | | | | | |!| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{chart|!| | |DEM | | | | | |POS | | | | | | | | | | | | | |DEM=[[Demeter]]|POS=[[Poseidon]]}}
{{chart|!| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |}}
{{chart|`|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|v|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|.}}
{{chart| | | | |IAP |y|CLY | | | | | |MNE |~|y|~|ZEU |~|y|~|THE |IAP=[[Iapetus]]|CLY='''CLYMENE''' (or [[Asia (Oceanid)|Asia]])<ref>According to [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+507 507–511], Clymene, one of the [[Oceanid]]s, the daughters of [[Oceanus]] and [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]], at [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+351 351], was the mother by Iapetus of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, while according to [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D3 1.2.3], another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus.</ref>|MNE=[[Mnemosyne]]|ZEU=(Zeus)|THE=[[Themis]]}}
{{chart| |,|-|-|-|v|-|^|-|v|-|-|-|.| | | | | | |!| | | | | |!}}
{{chart|ATL | |MEN | |PRO | |EPI | | | | |MUS | | | |HOR |ATL=[[Atlas (mythology)|Atlas]]<ref>According to [[Plato]], ''[[Critias (dialogue)|Critias]]'', [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0059.tlg032.perseus-eng1:113d 113d–114a], Atlas was the son of [[Poseidon]] and the mortal [[Cleito]].</ref>|MEN=[[Menoetius (Greek mythology)|Menoetius]]|PRO=[[Prometheus]]<ref>In [[Aeschylus]], ''[[Prometheus Bound]]'' 18, 211, 873 (Sommerstein, pp. [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-prometheus_bound/2009/pb_LCL145.445.xml 444–445 n. 2], [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-prometheus_bound/2009/pb_LCL145.467.xml 446–447 n. 24], [http://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-prometheus_bound/2009/pb_LCL145.539.xml 538–539 n. 113]) Prometheus is made to be the son of [[Themis]].</ref>|EPI=[[Epimetheus]]|MUS=The [[Muses]]|HOR=The [[Horae]]}}
{{chart/end}}
{{chart bottom}}

== See also ==
{{Portal|Ancient Greece|Myths}}
* [[Electra (Oceanid)|Electra]]
* [[Perse (mythology)|Perse]]
* [[Pleione (mythology)|Pleione]]

== Notes ==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], ''Gods & Heroes of the Greeks: [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|The Library of Apollodorus]]'', Michael Simpson (translator), The University of Massachusetts Press, (1976). {{ISBN|0870232053}}.
*[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0022 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.] [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0021 Greek text available from the same website].
* [[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0130%3Acard%3D1 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library].
* [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus, Gaius Julius]], [http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html ''The Myths of Hyginus'']. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
* [[Timothy Gantz|Gantz, Timothy]], ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: {{ISBN|978-0-8018-5360-9}} (Vol. 1), {{ISBN|978-0-8018-5362-3}} (Vol. 2).
* Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004, {{ISBN|9780415186360}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC Google Books].

== External links ==
* [https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisKlymene.html CLYMENE from The Theoi Project]

{{Greek mythology (deities)}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Oceanids]]
[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Sea and river goddesses]]

Actaeon

2023-04-28T05:20:41Z

93.38.67.134: /* Names of dogs */

{{Short description|Greek mythical character}}
{{other uses}}
[[File:Titian - Diana and Actaeon - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[Diana and Actaeon (Titian)|Diana and Actaeon]]'' by [[Titian]] (1556–59)]]
'''Actaeon''' ({{IPAc-en|æ|k|ˈ|t|iː|ə|n}}; {{lang-grc|[[wikt:Ἀκταίων|Ἀκταίων]]}} ''Aktaion''),<ref>He was sometimes called Actaeus ({{lang|grc|Ἀκταῖος}}), as in the poetic fragment quoted at Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'' 3.4.4: "then [they] killed Actaeus at Zeus's instigation", {{lang|grc|τότ' Ἀκταῖον κτεῖναι Διὸς αἰνεσίῃσι}}</ref> in [[Greek mythology]], son of the priestly herdsman [[Aristaeus]] and [[Autonoe]] in [[Boeotia]], was a famous [[Thebes, Greece|Theban]] [[Greek hero cult|hero]].<ref>Through his mother he was a member of the ruling House of [[Cadmus]].</ref> Like [[Achilles]] in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur [[Chiron]].

He fell to the fatal wrath of [[Artemis]],<ref>Later his myth was attached to her Roman counterpart [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]].</ref> but the surviving details of his transgression vary: "the only certainty is in what Aktaion suffered, his [[pathos]], and what Artemis did: the hunter became the hunted; he was transformed into a [[stag]], and his raging hounds, struck with a 'wolf's frenzy' ([[Lyssa]]), tore him apart as they would a stag."<ref>[[Walter Burkert]], ''Homo Necans'' (1972), translated by Peter Bing (University of California Press) 1983, p 111.</ref> This is the iconic motif by which Actaeon is recognized, both in ancient art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance depictions.

==The plot==
[[Image:Actaeon Caserta.jpg|thumb|Actaeon, sculpture group in the cascade at [[Caserta Palace|Caserta]]|left]]
Among others, John Heath has observed, "The unalterable [[mytheme|kernel of the tale]] was a hunter's transformation into a deer and his death in the jaws of his hunting dogs. But authors were free to suggest different motives for his death."<ref>Heath, "The Failure of Orpheus", ''Transactions of the American Philological Association'' '''124''' (1994:163-196) p. 194.</ref> In the version that was offered by the [[Hellenistic]] poet [[Callimachus]],<ref>Callimachus, ''Hymn v''.</ref> which has become the standard setting, Artemis was bathing in the woods<ref>Callimachus gives no site: a glen in the foothills of [[Cithaeron|Mount Cithaeron]] near Boeotian [[Orchomenus (Boeotia)|Orchomenus]], is the site according to [[Euripides]], ''[[Bacchae]]'' 1290-92, a spring sanctuary near [[Plataea]] is specified elsewhere.</ref> when the hunter Actaeon stumbled across her, thus seeing her naked. He stopped and stared, amazed at her ravishing beauty. Once seen, Artemis got revenge on Actaeon: she [[Taboo#In religion and mythology|forbade him speech]] — if he tried to speak, he would be changed into a [[Deer (mythology)|stag]] — for the unlucky profanation of her virginity's mystery.<ref>{{cite book |title=Chasing Immortality in World Religions |chapter=Ancient Greece: Defining Immortality in an Age of Gods and Mortals |first=Deborah M. |last=Coulter-Harris |date=2016-07-29 |isbn=978-0786497928 |page=60 |publisher=McFarland Inc. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eNPIDAAAQBAJ}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Everything Classical Mythology Book: Greek and Roman Gods, Goddesses, Heroes, and Monsters from Ares to Zeus |chapter=Artemis: The Thrill of the Hunt |first=Nancy |last=Conner |date=2010-02-10 |isbn=978-1440502408 |page=140 |publisher=Adams Media |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gsSnDgAAQBAJ}}</ref>

Upon hearing the call of his hunting party, he cried out to them and immediately transformed. At this he fled deep into the woods, and doing so he came upon a pond and, seeing his reflection, groaned. His own hounds then turned upon him and pursued him, not recognizing him. In an endeavour to save himself, he raised his eyes (and would have raised his arms, had he had them) toward Mount Olympus. The gods did not heed his plea, and he was torn to pieces. An element of the earlier myth made Actaeon the familiar hunting companion of Artemis, no stranger. In an embroidered extension of the myth, the hounds were so upset with their master's death, that [[Chiron]] made a statue so lifelike that the hounds thought it was Actaeon.<ref>Fragmentary sources for the narrative of Actaeon's hounds are noted in Lamar Ronald Lacy, "Aktaion and a Lost 'Bath of Artemis'" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''110''' (1990:26–42) p. 30 note 32, p. 31 note 37.</ref>

There are various other versions of his transgression: The Hesiodic ''[[Catalogue of Women]]'' and pseudo-Apollodoran ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheke]]'' state that his offense was that he was a rival of [[Zeus]] for [[Semele]], his mother's sister,<ref>Thus potentially endangering the future birth of [[Dionysus]], had he been successful. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] referred (9.2.3) to a lost poem by [[Stesichoros]] also expressing this motif. The progressive destruction of the House of Cadmus to make way for the advent of Dionysus can be followed in the myths of its individual members: Actaeon, [[Semele]], [[Ino (Greek mythology)|Ino]] and [[Melicertes]], and [[Pentheus]].</ref> whereas in [[Euripides]]' ''Bacchae'' he has boasted that he is a better hunter than Artemis:<ref>This [[mytheme]] would link him with [[Agamemnon]] and [[Orion (mythology)|Orion]] (Lacy 1990).</ref>
{|
|-
|
:{{lang|grc|ὁρᾷς τὸν Ἀκτέωνος ἄθλιον μόρον,}}
:{{lang|grc|ὃν ὠμόσιτοι σκύλακες ἃς ἐθρέψατο}}
:{{lang|grc|διεσπάσαντο, κρείσσον' ἐν κυναγίαις}}
:{{lang|grc|Ἀρτέμιδος εἶναι κομπάσαντ', ἐν ὀργάσιν.}}
|
:Look at Actaeon's wretched fate
:who by the man-eating hounds he had raised,
:was torn apart, better at hunting
:than Artemis he had boasted to be, in the meadows.
|}[[Image:François Clouet - The Bath of Diana - WGA5069.jpg|thumb|right|In [[François Clouet]]'s ''Bath of Diana'' (1558-59) Actaeon's passing on horseback at left and mauling as a stag at right is incidental to the three female nudes.]]Further materials, including fragments that belong with the Hesiodic ''Catalogue of Women'' and at least four Attic tragedies, including a ''Toxotides'' of [[Aeschylus]], have been lost.<ref>Lacy 1990, emphasizing that the central core is lost, covers the literary fragments, pp 26-27 and copious notes.</ref> [[Diodorus Siculus]] (4.81.4), in a variant of Actaeon's ''[[hubris]]'' that has been largely ignored, has it that Actaeon wanted to marry Artemis. Other authors say the hounds were Artemis' own; some lost elaborations of the myth seem to have given them all names and narrated their wanderings after his loss.

According to the Latin version of the story told by the Roman [[Ovid]]<ref>Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' iii.131; see also pseudo-Apollodorus' ''Bibliotheke'' iii. 4</ref> having accidentally seen Diana (Artemis) on [[Mount Cithaeron]] while she was bathing, he was changed by her into a stag, and pursued and killed by his fifty hounds.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} This version also appears in Callimachus' Fifth Hymn, as a mythical parallel to the blinding of [[Tiresias]] after he sees Athena bathing.

The literary testimony of Actaeon's myth is largely lost, but Lamar Ronald Lacy,<ref>Lacy, "Aktaion and a Lost 'Bath of Artemis'" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''110''' (1990:26-42).</ref> deconstructing the [[Mytheme|myth elements]] in what survives and supplementing it by iconographic evidence in late vase-painting, made a plausible reconstruction of an ancient Actaeon myth that Greek poets may have inherited and subjected to expansion and dismemberment. His reconstruction opposes a too-pat consensus that has an archaic Actaeon aspiring to [[Semele]],<ref>Pausanias (ix.2.3) reports that "[[Stesichorus]] of [[Himera]] says that the goddess cast a deer-skin round Actaeon to make sure that his hounds would kill him, so as to prevent his taking Semele to wife"; the lines of Stesichorus have not survived.</ref> a classical Actaeon boasting of his hunting prowess and a Hellenistic Actaeon glimpsing Artemis' bath.<ref>Lacy 1990:27f.</ref> Lacy identifies the site of Actaeon's transgression as a spring sacred to Artemis at [[Plataea]] where Actaeon was a '' [[Greek hero cult|hero archegetes]]'' ("hero-founder")<ref>[[Plutarch]]. ''Aristeides, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0009%3Achapter%3D11%3Asection%3D3 11.3] & [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plut.+Arist.+11.4&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0009 4].''</ref> The righteous hunter, the companion of Artemis, seeing her bathing naked in the spring, was moved to try to make himself her consort, as [[Diodorus Siculus]] noted, and was punished, in part for transgressing the hunter's "ritually enforced deference to Artemis" (Lacy 1990:42).

==Names of dogs ==
{| class="wikitable"
|+List of Actaeon's dogs
! rowspan="3" |Dogs
! colspan="4" |Source
! rowspan="3" |Consorts
! colspan="4" |Source
|-
| rowspan="2" |''Apollodorus<ref>PSeudo-[[Apollodorus of Athens|Apollodorus]]. ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]], 3.4.4''</ref>''
| rowspan="2" |''Ovid<ref>Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' (Book III, 206–235)</ref>''
! colspan="2" |Hyginus<ref>[[Hyginus]] ''Fabulae'' 181</ref>
| rowspan="2" |''Apollodorus''
| rowspan="2" |''Ovid''
! colspan="2" |Hyginus
|-
|''Ovid''<ref>In this list, Hyginus fails to correctly differentiate between masculine and feminine names</ref><ref>See the ''Index nominum'' in R. J. Tarrant (2004) ''P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses'', Oxford, pp. 503-534</ref>
|''Other author''
|''Ovid''
|''Other author''
|-
|[[Acamas]]
|
|
|
|✓
|[[Aello]] (Storm)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Aethon]]
|
|
|
|✓
|Alce (Stout)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Agrius]]
|
|
|
|✓
|[[Agre]] (Chaser)
|
|✓
|✓
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|-
|[[Amarynthus]]
|✓
|
|
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|Arcena
|✓
|
|
|
|-
|[[Arcas]]
|
|
|?
|
|[[Arethusa (Greek myth)|Arethusa]]
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|
|
|✓
|-
|Argiodus (Towser)
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|✓
|✓
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|[[Argo (disambiguation)|Argo]]
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|✓
|-
|[[Asbolus (disambiguation)|Asbolos]] (Sooty)
|
|✓
|✓
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|Aura
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|?
|
|-
|[[Balius and Xanthus|Balius]] (Dappled)
|✓
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|[[Canace]] (Barker)
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|✓
|✓
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|-
|[[Borax (mythology)|Borax]]
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|✓
|Chediaetros*
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|✓
|-
|[[Bores (mythology)|Bores]]
|✓
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|Cyllo
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|✓
|-
|[[Boreas (mythology)|Boreas]]
|
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|✓
|Dinomache
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|✓
|-
|[[Charops (mythology)|Charops]]
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|✓
|[[Dioxippe]]
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|✓
|-
|[[Corus (mythology)|Corus]]
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|✓
|Echione
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|✓
|-
|[[Cyllopodes]]
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|✓
|Gorgo
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|✓
|-
|[[Cyprius]]
|
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|?
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|Harpyia (Harpy)
|
|✓
|✓
|✓
|-
|[[Dorceus (mythology)|Dorceus]] (Quicksight)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Lachne (Bristle)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Draco (mythology)|Draco]]
|
|
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|✓
|Lacaena
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Dromas (mythology)|Dromas]] (Racer)
|
|✓
|✓
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|Leaena
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Dromius (mythology)|Dromius]]
|
|
|
|✓
|Lycisca (Wolfet)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Echnobas]]
|
|
|?
|
|Lynceste
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Elion (mythology)|Elion]]
|
|
|?
|
|Melanchaetes (Blackmane)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Gnosius]]
|
|
|?
|
|Nape (Wildwood)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Eudromus (mythology)|Eudromus]]
|
|
|
|✓
|Ocydrome
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Haemon (mythology)|Haemon]]
|
|
|
|✓
|Ocypete
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Harpalykos|Harpalicus]]
|
|
|
|✓
|Oresitrophos (Rover)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Harpalos]] (Snap)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Orias
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Hylactor]] (Babbler)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Oxyrhoe
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Hylaeus (mythology)|Hylaeus]] (Woodranger)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Poemenis (Shepherdess)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Ichneus]]
|
|
|
|✓
|Sagnos*
|
|
|
|
|-
|[[Ichnobates]] (Tracer)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Sticte (Spot)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Labros]] (Wildtooth)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Theriope
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Lacon (mythology)|Lacon]]
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Theriphone
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Ladon (Greek myth)|Ladon]]
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Therodamas (Savage)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|-
|[[Laelaps (Greek myth)|Laelaps]] (Hunter)
|
|✓
|✓
|
|Therodanapis
|
|
|?
|
|-
|[[Lampus]]
|
|
|
|✓
|Urania
|
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|
|✓
|-
|[[Leon (mythology)|Leon]]
|
|
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|✓
|Volatos*
|
|
|
|✓
|-
|[[Leucon]] (Blanche)
|
|✓
|✓
|
!Number
!1
!13
!15
!20
|-
|[[Lynceus (mythology)|Lynceus]]
|✓
|
|
|✓
| colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Machimus (mythology)|Machimus]]
|
|
|
|✓
! colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Melampus]] (Blackfoot)
|
|✓
|✓
|✓
| colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Melaneus (mythology)|Melaneus]] (Blackcoat)
|
|✓
|✓
|
! colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Bromius (son of Aegyptus)|Obrimus]]
|
|
|
|✓
| colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Ocydromus (mythology)|Ocydromus]]
|
|
|
|✓
! colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Ocythous]]
|
|
|
|✓
| colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Omargus]]
|✓
|
|
|
! colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Nebrophonus|Nebrophonos]] (Killbuck)
|
|✓
|✓
|
| colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Oribasos]] (Surefoot)
|
|✓
|✓
|
! colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Pachylus]]
|
|
|
|✓
| colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Pamphagos]] (Glutton)
|
|✓
|✓
|
! colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Pterelas]] (Wingfoot)
|
|✓
|✓
|
| colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Spartus]]
|✓
|
|
|
! colspan="5" |
|-
|[[Stilbon (mythology)|Stilbon]]
|
|
|
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|Theron (Tempest)
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|Thoos (Quickfoot)
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|Tigris (Tiger)
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!Number
!6
!22
!27
!26
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|}
[[File:S03 06 01 021 image 2606.jpg|thumbnail|Volterra, Italy. Etruscan cinerary urn; Actaeon torn by the dogs of Diana, Volterra. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection]]

Notes:

* Names of dogs were verified to correspond to the list given in Ovid's text where the names were already transliterated.<ref>[[Ovid]]. ''[[Metamorphoses]], [https://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/ovid/ovid3html.html 3]'' for the exact names of the dogs</ref>
* ? = Seven listed names of dogs in Hyginus' ''Fabulae'', was probably misread or misinterpreted by later authors because it does not correspond to the exact numbers and names given by Ovid:
** ''Arcas'' signifies Arcadia, place of origin of three dogs namely Pamphagos, Dorceus and Oribasus
** ''Cyprius'' means Cyprus, where the dogs Lysisca and Harpalos originated
** ''Gnosius'' can be read as Knossus in Crete, which signify that Ichnobates was a Knossian breed of dog
** ''Echnobas'', ''Elion'', ''Aura'' and ''Therodanapis'' were probably place names or adjectives defining the characteristics of dogs

==The "bed of Actaeon"==
In the second century AD, the traveller [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] was shown a spring on the road in [[Attica]] leading to [[Plataea]] from [[Eleutherae]], just beyond [[Megara]] "and a little farther on a rock. It is called the bed of Actaeon, for it is said that he slept thereon when weary with hunting and that into this spring he looked while Artemis was bathing in it."<ref>Pausanias ix.2.3.</ref>

==Parallels in Akkadian and Ugarit poems==
In the standard version of the ''[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' (tablet vi) there is a parallel, in the series of examples [[Gilgamesh]] gives [[Ishtar]] of her mistreatment of her serial lovers:
<blockquote>You loved the herdsman, shepherd and chief shepherd Who was always heaping up the glowing ashes for you, And cooked ewe-lambs for you every day. But you hit him and turned him into a wolf, His own herd-boys hunt him down 
And his dogs tear at his haunches.<ref>"Gilgamesh VI" in ''Myths from Mesopotamia... a new translation by [[Stephanie Dalley]]'', rev. ed.2000:79; note 60, p. 129: "This metamorphosis has been compared to the Greek myth of Actaeon."</ref></blockquote> Actaeon, torn apart by dogs incited by Artemis, finds another Near Eastern parallel in the [[Ugarit]]ic hero [[Aqht]], torn apart by eagles incited by [[Anath]] who wanted his hunting bow.<ref>The comparison is made in Michael C. Astour, ''Hellenosemitica: an ethnic and cultural study of West Semitic impact on Mycenaean Greece'' (Leiden:Brill, 1965).</ref>

The virginal Artemis of classical times is not directly comparable to Ishtar of the many lovers, but the [[mytheme]] of Artemis shooting [[Orion (mythology)|Orion]], was linked to her punishment of Actaeon by T.C.W. Stinton;<ref>Stinton "Euripides and the Judgement of Paris" (London, 1965:45 note 14) reprinted in Stinton, ''Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (London, 1990:51 note 14).</ref> the Greek context of the mortal's reproach to the amorous goddess is translated to the episode of [[Anchises]] and [[Aphrodite]].<ref>[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite]].</ref> [[Daphnis]] too was a herdsman loved by a goddess and punished by her: see [[Theocritus]]' First Idyll.<ref>Jasper Griffin, "Theocritus, the Iliad, and the East", ''The American Journal of Philology'' '''113'''.2 (Summer 1992:189-211) esp. pp 205f.</ref>

==Symbolism regarding Actaeon==

In Greek Mythology, Actaeon is widely thought to symbolize ritual [[human sacrifice]] in attempt to please a God or Goddess:<ref>{{cite book|last=Biedermann|first=Hans|title=The Dictionary of Smbolism|year=1989|publisher=Facts on File|isbn=0-8160-2593-2|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofsymb00bied_0}}</ref> the dogs symbolize the sacrificers and Actaeon symbolizes the sacrifice.

Actaeon may symbolize human curiosity or irreverence.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}

The myth is seen by [[Jungian]] psychologist [[Wolfgang Giegerich]] as a symbol of spiritual transformation and/or enlightenment.<ref>Wolfgang Giegerich, The Soul’s Logical Life, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2001)</ref>

Actaeon often symbolizes a cuckold, as when he is turned into a stag, he becomes "horned".<ref>''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', 3rd ed, 2010, [https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/273809 ''s.v.'']</ref> This is alluded to in Shakespeare's ''[[The Merry Wives of Windsor|Merry Wives]]'', [[Robert Burton (scholar)|Robert Burton]]'s ''[[Anatomy of Melancholy]]'', and others.<ref>John Stephen Farmer, ''Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present'', 1903, [https://books.google.com/books?id=XrJZAAAAMAAJ&dq=acteon&pg=PA15 ''s.v.'', p. 15]</ref><ref>Gordon Williams, ''A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature'', 2001, {{isbn|0485113937}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=2XtWDhgljvkC&dq=Actaeon&pg=PA8 p. 8-9]</ref>

==Cultural depictions==
[[Image:Actaeon.jpg|thumb|''[[Death of Actaeon]]'' by [[Titian]]]]
[[File:Diana and Actaeon Statutes (1925) by Paul Manship 03.JPG|thumb|''Actaeon'' by [[Paul Manship]]]]
[[File:Vasiliy Ryabchenko. "The Death of Actaeon", 200 х 300 cm, oil on canvas, 1988.jpg|thumb|[[Vasiliy Ryabchenko]], ''The Death of Actaeon'', oil on canvas, 1988]]
The two main scenes are Actaeon surprising Artemis/Diana, and his death. In classical art Actaeon is normally shown as fully human, even as his hounds are killing him (sometimes he has small horns), but in Renaissance art he is often given a deer's head with antlers even in the scene with Diana, and by the time he is killed he has at the least this head, and has often completely transformed into the shape of a deer.

* [[Aeschylus]] and other tragic poets made use of the story, which was a favourite subject in ancient works of art.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}
* There is a well-known small marble group in the [[British Museum]] illustrative of the story,{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} in gallery 83/84.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/explore/galleries/ancient_greece_and_rome/rooms_83-84_roman_sculpture.aspx |title=Rooms 83-84: Roman sculpture |publisher=British Museum |access-date=2014-04-08}}</ref>
*Two paintings by the 16th century painter [[Titian]] (''[[Death of Actaeon]]'' and ''[[Diana and Actaeon (Titian)|Diana and Actaeon]]'').
*''[[Actéon (opera)|Actéon]]'', an operatic pastorale by [[Marc-Antoine Charpentier]].
* [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]] suggests a parallel between his alter-ego and Actaeon in his elegy for [[John Keats]], ''[[Adonais]]'', stanza 31 ('[he] had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness/ Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray/ .../ And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,/ Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.')
* The aria "Oft she visits this lone mountain" from [[Henry Purcell|Purcell's]] ''[[Dido and Aeneas]]'', first performed in 1689 or earlier.
* [[Giordano Bruno]], "Gli Eroici Furori".
* In canto V of [[Giambattista Marino]]'s poem "[[Adone]]" the protagonist goes to theater to see a tragedy representing the myth of Actaeon. This episode foreshadows the protagonist's violent death at the end of the book.
* In Act I Scene 2 of [[Jacques Offenbach]]'s ''[[Orpheus in the Underworld]]'', Actaeon is Diana (Artemis)'s lover, and it is Jupiter who turns him into a stag, which puts Diana off hunting. His story is relinquished at this point, in favour of the other plots.
* [[Ted Hughes]] wrote a version of the story in his ''[[Tales from Ovid]]''.
* In [[Alexandre Dumas]]' novel ''[[La Reine Margot (novel)|La Reine Margot]]'', [[Charles IX of France]], fond of the hunt, has a much-loved and ill-fated hunting dog named Actaeon.
* [[Diane and Actéon Pas de Deux]] from [[Marius Petipa]]'s ballet, ''[[Le Roi Candaule]]'', to the music by [[Riccardo Drigo]] and [[Cesare Pugni]], later incorporated into the second act of ''[[La Esmeralda (ballet)]]''.
* In ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' by [[William Shakespeare]], Orsino compares his unrequited love for Olivia to the fate of Actaeon. "O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence, That instant was I turned into a hart, and my desires like fell and cruel hounds e'er since pursue me." Act 1 Scene 1.
* In [[Christopher Marlowe]]'s play ''[[Edward II (play)|Edward II]]'', courtier [[Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall|Piers Gaveston]] seeks to entertain his lover, King [[Edward II of England]], by presenting a play based on the Actaeon myth. In Gaveston's version, Diane is played by [[Edward II (play)#Synopsis|a naked boy holding an olive branch to hide his loins]], and it is the boy-Diane who transforms Actaeon into a hart and lets him be devoured by the hounds. Thus, Gaveston's (and Marlowe's) interpretation adds a strong element of [[homoeroticism]], absent from the original myth.
*[[Paul Manship]] in 1925 created a set of copper statute of [[Artemis|Diane]] and Actaeon, which in the Luce Lunder [[Smithsonian Institution]].
* ''Diana at Her Bath'' by Pierre Klossovski (1956)
*{{Citation needed-span|text=Actaeon/Aktaion & The Hounds of Diana is used in the television series [[Under the Dome (TV series)|Under the Dome]].|date=September 2014}} Aktaion Energy is the name of a local conglomerate with ties to the Dome event and The Hounds of Diana is a Dome conspiracy/Aktaion Energy watchdog website run by a member of Aktaion's IT department who goes by the alias Dromas.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.houndsofdiana.com/main/|title=Hounds Of Diana|work=houndsofdiana|access-date=30 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180217043054/http://www.houndsofdiana.com/main/|archive-date=17 February 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{primary source inline|date=September 2014}}
* French based collective LFKs and his film/theatre director, writer and visual artist Jean Michel Bruyere produced a series of 600 shorts and "medium" films, an interactive 360° installation, ''Si poteris narrare licet'' ("if you are able to speak of it, then you may do so")<ref>''What Is Contemporary Art?'' Terry Smith. 10 August 2012. University of Chicago Press. p. 173-81, 186</ref> in 2002, a 3D 360° installation ''La Dispersion du Fils''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newmediaart.eu/str10.html|title=''The Scattering of the Son''|work=The STRP Festival of eindhoven|date=January 2011}}</ref> (from 2008 to 2016) and an outdoor performance, "Une Brutalité pastorale" (2000) all about the myth of Diana and Actaeon.
*Actaeon and his dogs make an appearance in [[Diana Wynne Jones]]'s novel ''[[The Game (Jones novel)|The Game]]'', in which the main character encounters various mythological figures while wandering the mythosphere.
*The Actaeon myth is incorporated into [[Rachael Craw]]'s 2018 novel ''The Rift''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Rift|last=Craw, Rachael|isbn=9781760650025|location=Newtown NSW|oclc=1056199885|date = November 2018}}</ref>
*In [[Matthew Barney]]'s 2019 movie ''Redoubt'' set in the [[Sawtooth Range (Idaho)|Sawtooth Mountains]] of the U.S. state of [[Idaho]] and an accompanying traveling art exhibition originating at the [[Yale University Art Gallery]] the myth is retold by the visual artist and filmmaker via avenues of his own design.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/arts/design/matthew-barney-review-yale-university.amp.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220101/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/arts/design/matthew-barney-review-yale-university.amp.html |archive-date=2022-01-01 |url-access=limited|title=A Lighter Matthew Barney Goes Back to School, and Back Home|newspaper=The New York Times|date=21 March 2019|last1=Farago|first1=Jason}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
*Symphonic poem (1915) by the Romanian composer & conductor Alfred Alessandrescu (1893-1959).

==Royal House of Thebes family tree==
{{Family_tree_of_the_Theban_royal_house}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
*{{EB1911|wstitle=Actaeon|volume=1|page=157}}
*''The [[Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'', ''s.v.'' "Actaeon".
*[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'', 3.138ff.
*[[Euripides]], ''[[The Bacchae|Bacchae]]'', 337–340.
*[[Diodorus Siculus]], 4.81.4.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Actaeon}}
* [http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/vpc/VPC_search/subcats.php?cat_1=5&cat_2=767 The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database: ca 230 images of Actaeon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160224033326/http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/vpc/VPC_search/subcats.php?cat_1=5&cat_2=767 |date=2016-02-24 }}
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=Jj0jCQAAQBAJ&q=centamore+fabio+f. Actaeon by Fabio F. Centamore]

{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Deaths due to dog attacks]]
[[Category:Mythological Greek archers]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses characters]]
[[Category:Metamorphoses into animals in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Deeds of Artemis]]
[[Category:Deeds of Zeus]]
[[Category:Dogs in art]]
[[Category:Inanna]]
[[Category:Anat]]