In Greek mythology Nestor's Cup is a legendary golden mixing cup which was owned by the hero Nestor. The cup is described in the Iliad , and possibly appeared elsewhere in the Epic Cycle. Despite its brief appearance in the Iliad, the cup was the subject of significant attention from ancient commentators on Homer.
It is not to be confused with the real gold cup excavated at Mycenae in 1876, which is commonly known as "Nestor's Cup". This has both similarities and differences.
Nestor's Cup is described in Book 11 of the Iliad . Machaon, son of Asclepius, is injured by Paris, and taken back to the Greek camp by Nestor; a healing drink is prepared for him in the cup. [1] The cup is described over six lines.
πὰρ δὲ δέπας περικαλλές, ὃ οἴκοθεν ἦγ᾽ ὁ γεραιός, | There was also a cup of rare workmanship which the old man had brought with him from home, studded with bosses of gold; it had four handles, on each of which there were two golden doves feeding, and it had two feet to stand on. Any one else would hardly have been able to lift it from the table when it was full, but Nestor could do so quite easily. —Translated by Samuel Butler, 1898 |
Along with its description in the Iliad, the cup of Nestor may have appeared elsewhere in the Epic Cycle. [2] Stephanie West argues that there was a pre-existing body of poetry which dealt with Nestor's heroic exploits in his youth, and which told of Nestor's cup. [3] Peter Allan Hansen suggests that the cup may have appeared in the Cypria, perhaps in the episode known from a citation in Athenaeus where Nestor gives Menelaus counsel after the abduction of Helen. [4] An eighth century BC inscription on a cup from Pithekoussai references the mythological cup of Nestor, but there is nothing in the inscription specific to its appearance in the Iliad; Steven Lowenstam suggests that the author of the inscription knew of Nestor's Cup from a different source. [5]
Despite its relatively brief description in the Iliad– a mere six lines, compared to some 130 describing the Shield of Achilles in Book 18 [6] – the cup was the subject of a great deal of attention in antiquity. [7]
Ancient critics writing on the Iliad were particularly interested in three aspects of Nestor's Cup: its size, why it was that only Nestor could lift it, and the doves on its handles. [2] At least as early as the fifth century BC, scholars including Glaucon, Antisthenes, and Stesimbrotos addressed the question of why Nestor was the only one who could lift his cup; the problem continued to be addressed throughout antiquity at least up until the time of Porphyry, who included it in his Homeric Questions. [2] The doves were discussed by Asclepiades of Myrlea, and caught the imagination of Martial, who mentions them in his description of Nestor's cup in poem 8.6. [8]
According to Athenaeus, the grammarian Dionysius Thrax commissioned a silver replica of Nestor's cup. [9]
In Greek mythology, Achilles or Achilleus was a hero of the Trojan War who was known as being the greatest of all the Greek warriors. A central character in Homer's Iliad, he was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia and famous Argonaut. Achilles was raised in Phthia along his childhood companion Patroclus and received his education by the centaur Chiron. In the Iliad, he is presented as the commander of the mythical tribe of the Myrmidons.
Homer was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey from Troy to Ithaca, via Africa and southern Europe, lasted for ten additional years during which time he encountered many perils and all of his crewmates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.
Philochorus of Athens, was a Greek historian and Atthidographer of the third century BC, and a member of a priestly family. He was a seer and interpreter of signs, and a man of considerable influence.
Apollonius of Rhodes was an ancient Greek author, best known for the Argonautica, an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. The poem is one of the few extant examples of the epic genre and it was both innovative and influential, providing Ptolemaic Egypt with a "cultural mnemonic" or national "archive of images", and offering the Latin poets Virgil and Gaius Valerius Flaccus a model for their own epics. His other poems, which survive only in small fragments, concerned the beginnings or foundations of cities, such as Alexandria and Cnidus places of interest to the Ptolemies, whom he served as a scholar and librarian at the Library of Alexandria. A literary dispute with Callimachus, another Alexandrian librarian/poet, is a topic much discussed by modern scholars since it is thought to give some insight into their poetry, although there is very little evidence that there ever was such a dispute between the two men. In fact almost nothing at all is known about Apollonius and even his connection with Rhodes is a matter for speculation. Once considered a mere imitator of Homer, and therefore a failure as a poet, his reputation has been enhanced by recent studies, with an emphasis on the special characteristics of Hellenistic poets as scholarly heirs of a long literary tradition writing at a unique time in history.
The Catalogue of Ships is an epic catalogue in Book 2 of Homer's Iliad (2.494–759), which lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy. The catalogue gives the names of the leaders of each contingent, lists the settlements in the kingdom represented by the contingent, sometimes with a descriptive epithet that fills out a half-verse or articulates the flow of names and parentage and place, and gives the number of ships required to transport the men to Troy, offering further differentiations of weightiness. A similar, though shorter, Catalogue of the Trojans and their allies follows (2.816–877). A similar catalogue appears in the Pseudo-Apollodoran Bibliotheca.
The Epic Cycle was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems, composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War, including the Cypria, the Aethiopis, the so-called Little Iliad, the Iliupersis, the Nostoi, and the Telegony. Scholars sometimes include the two Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the poems of the Epic Cycle, but the term is more often used to specify the non-Homeric poems as distinct from the Homeric ones.
A rhapsode or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Rhapsodes notably performed the epics of Homer but also the wisdom and catalogue poetry of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus and others. Plato's dialogue Ion, in which Socrates confronts a star player rhapsode, remains the most coherent source of information on these artists. Often, rhapsodes are depicted in Greek art, wearing their signature cloak and carrying a staff. This equipment is also characteristic of travellers in general, implying that rhapsodes were itinerant performers, moving from town to town. Rhapsodes originated in Ionia, which has been sometimes regarded as Homer's birthplace, and were also known as Homeridai, disciples of Homer, or "singers of stitched lays."
The Aethiopis, also spelled Aithiopis, is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. It was one of the Epic Cycle, that is, the Trojan cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic verse. The story of the Aethiopis comes chronologically immediately after that of the Homeric Iliad, and is followed by that of the Little Iliad. The Aethiopis was sometimes attributed by ancient writers to Arctinus of Miletus. The poem comprised five books of verse in dactylic hexameter.
The Cypria is a lost epic poem of ancient Greek literature, which has been attributed to Stasinus and was quite well known in classical antiquity and fixed in a received text, but which subsequently was lost to view. It was part of the Epic Cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic hexameter verse. The story of the Cypria comes chronologically at the beginning of the Epic Cycle, and is followed by that of the Iliad; the composition of the two was apparently in the reverse order. The poem comprised eleven books of verse in epic dactylic hexameters.
Stesichorus was a Greek lyric poet native of today's Calabria. 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.
The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity. The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
The historicity of the Iliad has been a topic of scholarly debate for centuries. While researchers of the 18th century had largely rejected the story of the Trojan War as fable, the discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik reopened the question. The subsequent excavation of Troy VIIa and the discovery of the toponym "Wilusa" in cuneiform Hittite correspondence has made it plausible that the Trojan War cycle was at least remotely based on a historical conflict of the 12th century BC, even if the poems of Homer remembered the event only through the distortion of four centuries of oral tradition.
Ancient Greek cuisine was characterized by its frugality for most, reflecting agricultural hardship, but a great diversity of ingredients was known, and wealthy Greeks were known to celebrate with elaborate meals and feasts.
The Iliad is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature.
Ophryneion or Ophrynium was an ancient Greek city in the northern Troad region of Anatolia. Its territory was bounded to the west by Rhoiteion and to the east by Dardanus. It was located about 1.5 km north-east of the village of İntepe in Çanakkale Province, Turkey. The city was situated on the steep brow of a hill overlooking the Dardanelles, hence the origin of its Ancient Greek name ὀφρῦς (ophrus), meaning 'brow of a hill', 'crag'.
Lucius Septimius Nestor also known as Nestor of Laranda, was a Greek poet who lived during the late-second and early-third centuries AD. According to Strabo and Stephanus Byzantinus he was from the Laranda in Lycaonia, while according to Suda from the Laranda in Lycia.
The Stele of Arniadas is an Archaic-period funerary stele in Corfu, Greece, found on the tomb of Arniadas, a warrior. It was intended to mark his grave and honour his memory by enumerating his bravery in a battle near the river Arachthos in the location of ancient Amvrakia, modern-day Arta. The stele was found in 1846 at the necropolis of the Corfu Palaiopolis in the suburb of Garitsa, near the Tomb of Menecrates, after a demolition of Venetian fortifications in the area by the British, who at the time ruled Corfu. The date of the stele is early 6th century BC.
Nestor's Cup is an eighth century BC wine cup discovered in 1954 in the San Montano cemetery associated with the ancient trading site of Pithekoussai in Magna Graecia, on Ischia, an island in the Gulf of Naples (Italy). The cup has a three-line inscription, one of the earliest surviving examples of writing in the Greek alphabet. It is currently held by the Museo Archeologico di Pithecusae on Ischia.
The Cup of Nestor or dove cup is a gold goblet discovered in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann in Shaft IV of Grave Circle A, Mycenae, which is usually dated to the 16th century BC. It is now in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
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