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Charybdis is a sea monster in Greek mythology. Charybdis, along with the sea monster Scylla, appears as a challenge to epic characters such as Odysseus, Jason, and Aeneas. Scholarship locates her in the Strait of Messina.
Homer was an Ancient 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 works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. Like the Iliad, the Odyssey 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.
Polyphemus is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's Odyssey. His name means "abounding in songs and legends", "many-voiced" or "very famous". Polyphemus first appeared as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the Odyssey. The satyr play of Euripides is dependent on this episode apart from one detail; Polyphemus is made a pederast in the play. Later Classical writers presented him in their poems as heterosexual and linked his name with the nymph Galatea. Often he was portrayed as unsuccessful in these, and as unaware of his disproportionate size and musical failings. In the work of even later authors, however, he is presented as both a successful lover and skilled musician. From the Renaissance on, art and literature reflect all of these interpretations of the giant.
In Greek mythology, Scylla is a legendary, man-eating monster who lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart, the sea-swallowing monster Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid the whirlpools of Charybdis would pass dangerously close to Scylla and vice versa.
In Greek mythology, Oceanus was a Titan son of Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys, and the father of the river gods and the Oceanids, as well as being the great river which encircled the entire world.
In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's Theogony, the Cyclopes are the three brothers, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who made Zeus's weapon, the thunderbolt. In Homer's Odyssey, they are an uncivilized group of shepherds, the brethren of Polyphemus encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also famous for being the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.
In Greek mythology, the Graeae, also called the Grey Sisters and the Phorcides, were three sisters who had gray hair from their birth and shared one eye and one tooth among them. They were the daughters of the primordial sea gods Phorcys and Ceto and, among others, sisters of the Gorgons and the Hesperides. Their names were Deino (Δεινώ), Enyo (Ἐνυώ), and Pemphredo (Πεμφρηδώ). The Graeae are best known from their encounter with Perseus, who, after capturing their eye, forced them to reveal information about the Gorgons.
In Greek mythology, Phorcys or Phorcus is a primordial sea god, generally cited as the son of Pontus and Gaia (Earth). Classical scholar Karl Kerenyi conflated Phorcys with the similar sea gods Nereus and Proteus. His wife was Ceto, and he is most notable in myth for fathering by Ceto a host of monstrous children. In extant Hellenistic-Roman mosaics, Phorcys was depicted as a fish-tailed merman with crab-claw legs and red, spiky skin.
In Greek mythology, Rhodos/Rhodus or Rhode, was the goddess and personification of the island of Rhodes and a wife of the sun god Helios.
In Greek mythology, the Heliadae or Heliadai were the seven sons of Helios and Rhodos and grandsons of Poseidon. They were brothers to Electryone.
In Greek mythology, Electryone or Alectrona was a daughter of Helios and Rhodos, and sister to the Heliadae. She died a virgin and was worshipped as a heroine on the island of Rhodes.
In Greek mythology, Calypso was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia, where, according to Homer's Odyssey, she detained Odysseus for seven years against his will. She promised Odysseus immortality if he would stay with her, but Odysseus preferred to return home. Eventually, after the intervention of the other gods, Calypso was forced to let Odysseus go.
Homeric scholarship is the study of any Homeric topic, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies. The subject is one of the oldest in education.
Eustathius of Thessalonica was a Byzantine Greek scholar and Archbishop of Thessalonica and is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is most noted for his stand against the sack of Thessalonica by the Normans in 1185, contemporary account of the event, for his orations and for his commentaries on Homer, which incorporate many remarks by much earlier researchers.
Geoffrey Stephen Kirk, was a British classicist who served as the 35th Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. He published widely on pre-Socratic philosophy and the work of the Greek poet Homer, culminating in a six-volume philological commentary on the Iliad published between 1985 and 1993.
Some 20th-century studies of oral poetry and traditional literature postulate Heroic Ages as stages in the development of human societies likely to give rise to legends about heroic deeds. According to some theorists, oral epic poetry would originate during an Heroic Age, and would be transmitted, by singers who displayed less creativity, through later periods. Scholars who adopted Heroic Age theories include:
The locations mentioned in the narratives of Odysseus's adventures have long been debated. Events in the main sequence of the Odyssey take place in the Peloponnese and in what are now called the Ionian Islands. There are also incidental mentions of Troy and its house, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Crete, which hint at a geographical knowledge equal to, or perhaps slightly more extensive than that of the Iliad. The places visited by Odysseus in his journey have been variously identified with locations in Greece, Italy, Tunisia, the Maltese archipelago, and the Iberian peninsula. However, scholars both ancient and modern are divided whether any of the places visited by Odysseus were real. Many ancient writers came down squarely on the skeptical side; Strabo reported what the great geographer Eratosthenes had said in the late 3rd century BC: "You will find the scene of Odysseus' wanderings when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of winds."
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.
Ceto is a primordial sea goddess in Greek mythology, the daughter of Pontus and his mother, Gaia. As a mythological figure, she is considered to be one of the most ancient deities, and bore a host of monstrous children fathered by Phorcys, another child of Gaia and Pontus. The small Solar System body 65489 Ceto was named after her, and its satellite after Phorcys.
References
- Heubeck, Alfred, J. B. Hainsworth, Stephanie West, A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey: Volume I: Introduction and Books I–VIII, Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-19-814747-3.
- Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
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