The "Contest of Cithaeron and Helicon" (PMG 654) is a fragment of a poem by Corinna. Preserved on a second-century AD papyrus discovered at Hermopolis in Egypt, the poem tells the story of a singing competition between two mountains, Cithaeron and Helicon, which was apparently won by Mount Cithaeron. Twenty-three lines of the poem are relatively well-preserved; traces of a further eleven before this section and thirty after are visible.
The poem is preserved on a second-century AD piece of papyrus, P.Berol. 13284. [1] The papyrus was discovered by Otto Rubensohn at Hermopolis in 1906. The papyrus also preserves part of Corinna's poem on the daughters of Asopus. [2] The editio princeps of the papyrus was published by Wilamowitz in 1907. [3]
Twenty-three lines of the poem (lines 12–34 of the first surviving column of the papyrus) are according to Denys Page "more or less continuously legible". [4] Traces of eleven lines survive before the well-preserved portion of the poem. Based on the length the line-ends extend beyond the later part of the poem, Edgar Lobel suggested that they were in a different meter to the better-preserved portion of the poem. [5] As the well-preserved portion clearly begins some way into the poem, Denys Page suggests that this can be explained either by the poem changing meter mid-way through, or by the Berlin Papyrus preserving only part of Corinna's original poem. [6] Alternatively, A. E. Harvey argues that the anomaly is more likely explained as a copyist's error, with the scribe inserting line breaks in the wrong places. [7] The poem continues for thirty lines after the well-preserved portion, but these are impossible to interpret. [8]
The contest poem is about a singing contest between Cithaeron and Helicon. Conflict between these two mountains is known from other sources, but Corinna's poem is the only known mention of a singing contest between the two. [9] In Corinna's poem, Cithaeron apparently wins the contest; in other versions of the story, Helicon is the victor. [10]
The poem is composed in six-line stanzas, of which the first five are in ionic dimeter, and the sixth is a ten-syllable clasula, of the form uu--uu-u--. [11] The surviving part of the poem begins with one of the singers – generally thought to be Cithaeron [12] – concluding his song, which tells the myth of how the titan Rhea hid her youngest child, Zeus, from Cronus. [13] The poem continues with the gods voting on the winner of the contest, and awarding the victory to Cithaeron. [14] The vote is conducted in a form of secret ballot, using pebbles placed in jars. It is unknown if actual musical contests were judged in this way, or if Corinna's use of this voting system is intended to recall judicial procedure. [15] After the result is announced, Helicon throws a down boulder in his anger, which breaks into ten thousand pieces. [13] John Heath reads this episode as an example of a characteristic sense of humour in Corinna's poetry. [16]
Corinna's use of the story of Rhea and the birth of Zeus in the poem is apparently influenced by Hesiod's account of the same myth in Theogony . [17] There are several verbal echoes of Hesiod in Corinna's version of the story, though she also adds her own innovations – such as the inclusion of the Curetes, which are not mentioned in the Theogony. [18] Corinna's version of the poem emphasises the role of Rhea, and Diane Rayor argues that this is an example of Corinna writing for a specifically female audience. [19] Marilyn B. Skinner, however, argues that Corinna depicts Rhea's actions from a patriarchal perspective. [20] Dee Clayman has suggested that the two mountains in the poem represent Corinna and Pindar, with Corinna triumphing. [20] Athanassios Vergados instead suggests that Helicon represented Hesiod, and its song would have closely followed the narrative of the Theogony; in this reading Corinna presents herself as Cithaeron in dialogue with Hesiod. [21]
Corinna's poems were probably mostly written for choral performance in connection with local festivals. [22] The contest poem may have been written for performance at the Daedala, a festival in honour of Hera at Plataea, which was held in part at the summit of Mount Cithaeron. [23]
Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.
Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first syllable of his Roman equivalent Jupiter.
In Greek mythology, the Titans were the pre-Olympian gods. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans—Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus—and six female Titans, called the Titanides or Titanesses—Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys.
In Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion, Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses by her nephew Zeus. In the Greek tradition, Mnemosyne is one of the Titans, the twelve divine children of the earth-goddess Gaia and the sky-god Uranus. The term Mnemosyne is derived from the same source as the word mnemonic, that being the Greek word mnēmē, which means "remembrance, memory".
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in ancient Greek culture.
In Greek mythology, Nyx is the goddess and personification of the night. In Hesiod's Theogony, she is the offspring of Chaos, and the mother of Aether and Hemera (Day) by Erebus (Darkness). By herself, she produces a brood of children which are personifications of primarily negative forces. She features in a number of early cosmogonies, which place her as one of the first deities to exist. In the works of poets and playwrights, she lives at the ends of the Earth, and is often described as a black-robed goddess who drives through the sky in a chariot pulled by horses. In the Iliad, Homer relates that "she is greater than all the gods together" and even Zeus fears to displease her.
In Greek mythology, Tethys was a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia, a sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus, and the mother of the river gods and the Oceanids. Although Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults, she was depicted in mosaics decorating baths, pools, and triclinia in the Greek East, particularly in Antioch and its suburbs, either alone or with Oceanus.
The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three ancient Greek hymns and one epigram. The hymns praise deities of the Greek pantheon and retell mythological stories, often involving a deity's birth, their acceptance among the gods on Mount Olympus, or the establishment of their cult. In antiquity, the hymns were generally, though not universally, attributed to the poet Homer: modern scholarship has established that most date to the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, though some are more recent and the latest, the Hymn to Ares, may have been composed as late as the fifth century CE.
Corinna or Korinna was an ancient Greek lyric poet from Tanagra in Boeotia. Although ancient sources portray her as a contemporary of Pindar, not all modern scholars accept the accuracy of this tradition. When she lived has been the subject of much debate since the early twentieth century, proposed dates ranging from the beginning of the fifth century to the late third century BC.
Mount Helicon is a mountain in the region of Thespiai in Boeotia, Greece, celebrated in Greek mythology. With an altitude of 1,749 metres (5,738 ft), it is located approximately 10 kilometres (6 mi) from the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth. Some researchers maintain that Helicon was also the Greek name of mount Rocca Salvatesta in Sicily as a river started from it was called also Helikon.
The Catalogue of Women —also known as the Ehoiai —is a fragmentary Greek epic poem that was attributed to Hesiod during antiquity. The "women" of the title were in fact heroines, many of whom lay with gods, bearing the heroes of Greek mythology to both divine and mortal paramours. In contrast with the focus upon narrative in the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, the Catalogue was structured around a vast system of genealogies stemming from these unions and, in M. L. West's appraisal, covered "the whole of the heroic age." Through the course of the poem's five books, these family trees were embellished with stories involving many of their members, and so the poem amounted to a compendium of heroic mythology in much the same way that the Hesiodic Theogony presents a systematic account of the Greek pantheon built upon divine genealogies.
Stesichorus was a Greek lyric poet native of Metauros. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres, and for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing verses first insulting and then flattering to Helen of Troy.
In Greek and Roman mythology, the primordial deities are the first generation of gods and goddesses. These deities represented the fundamental forces and physical foundations of the world and were generally not actively worshipped, as they, for the most part, were not given human characteristics; they were instead personifications of places or abstract concepts.
The Contest of Homer and Hesiod is a Greek narrative that expands a remark made in Hesiod's Works and Days to construct an imagined poetical agon between Homer and Hesiod. In Works and Days, Hesiod claims he won a poetry contest, receiving as the prize a tripod, which he dedicated to the Muses of Mount Helicon. A tripod, believed to be Hesiod's dedication-offering, was still being shown to tourists visiting Mount Helicon and its sacred grove of the Muses in Pausanias' day, but has since vanished.
In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of the primordial Gaia and Uranus. He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age until he was overthrown by his son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus. According to Plato, however, the deities Phorcys, Cronus, and Rhea were the eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys.
In Greek mythology, Uranus, sometimes written Ouranos, is the personification of the sky and one of the Greek primordial deities. According to Hesiod, Uranus was the son and husband of Gaia (Earth), with whom he fathered the first generation of Titans. However, no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky, and Styx might be joined, however, in solemn invocation in Homeric epic. Uranus is associated with the Roman god Caelus.
Moero or Myro was a woman poet of the Hellenistic period from the city of Byzantium. She was the wife of Andromachus Philologus and the mother – the Suda says daughter, but this is less likely – of the tragedian Homerus of Byzantium. Moero was probably active during the late fourth and early third centuries BC.
In Greek mythology, the Hecatoncheires, also called Hundred-Handers or Centimanes, were three monstrous giants, of enormous size and strength, each with fifty heads and one hundred arms. They were individually named Cottus, Briareus and Gyges. In the standard tradition, they were the offspring of Uranus (Sky) and of Gaia (Earth), and helped Zeus and the Olympians to overthrow the Titans in the Titanomachy.
Sappho was an ancient Greek lyric poet from the island of Lesbos. She wrote around 10,000 lines of poetry, only a small fraction of which survives. Only one poem is known to be complete; in some cases as little as a single word survives. Modern editions of Sappho's poetry are the product of centuries of scholarship, first compiling quotations from surviving ancient works, and from the late 19th century rediscovering her works preserved on fragments of ancient papyri and parchment. Along with the poems which can be attributed with confidence to Sappho, a small number of surviving fragments in her Aeolic dialect may be by either her or her contemporary Alcaeus. Modern editions of Sappho also collect ancient "testimonia" which discuss Sappho's life and works.
Sappho 96 is a poem by the archaic Greek lyric poet Sappho. 37 lines of the fragment are preserved on a 6th-century parchment. The first twenty lines describe an imaginary scene in which an unnamed woman is struck by grief remembering an absent companion, Atthis; the remaining 17 lines, possibly originally a separate poem, reflects more generally on the foolishness of trying to compare human and divine beauty. As with other poems by Sappho such as poem 16 and 94, memory is a major theme.