Iokaste

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Iokaste (also Jokaste from ancient Greek Ἰοκάστη ) or Epicaste is a figure in Greek mythology . She was the daughter of Menoikeus and sister of Creon . Iocaste married the Theban king Laios and, after his death, her second marriage to her son Oedipus (Oidipus), with whom she gave birth to two sons ( Eteocles and Polynices ) and two daughters ( Antigone and Ismene ) according to younger, Attic versions of the legend . According to other, older, versions, however, Euryganeia was the mother of these Oedipus children.

Iokaste in myth

Iokaste, named epicast in Homer and Pausanias , is the wife of Laios and is considered the birth mother of Oedipus in the vast majority of surviving versions of the sagas. Homer's Odyssey already reports that Epicaste hanged himself and that Oedipus continued to rule over Thebes in pain. According to Epimenides , however, Eurycleia was the birth mother of Oedipus and Iocaste was Laios' second wife. Even in modern research there is the assumption that in old versions of the saga Iokaste was the stepmother of Oedipus, while Laius fathered Oedipus with Eurycleia, a concubine. For example, Morris Silver takes the view that from statements by Homer in connection with information from Pausanias it can be inferred that Epicaste was a virgin priestess and formally principal wife of the Laios, but that offspring were conceived with a concubine.

Laios is prophesied that if he fathered a son, he would kill him and marry his wife. According to other versions, Laios receives the prophecy that he will save Thebes (and his life) if he remains without descendants. When Iokaste becomes pregnant anyway and Oedipus gives birth, he is abandoned shortly after his birth. Discovered or handed over by shepherds or found at the booth by Periboia , he grew up with foster parents, Polybos and his wife Periboia (or, later versions, Merope ), whom he long considered to be his birth parents. Later he kills the (to him unknown) Laios, his father, in a - according to most legends - accidental encounter. After Oedipus subsequently freed Thebes from the Sphinx, he was rewarded with kingship in Thebes and Iocaste as his wife. Oedipus does not know that Iokaste is his birth mother (but see above!). When the truth emerges, Iokaste hangs himself because of the shame. Homer already describes this end of the epicastre. According to different versions, Oedipus then stabs his eyes out with Iokastes golden bracelets or is blinded or apparently continues to rule as King of Thebes unblinded. In the tragedy The Phoenicians of Euripides , however, Iokaste only committed suicide years later when she learned that her sons Eteocles and Polynices had killed each other in a duel.

According to the older epic tradition, the marriage between Iocaste and Oedipus remained childless. The mother of Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone and Ismene was therefore Euryganeia , the second wife of Oedipus, whom he married after the death of Iokastes. According to Pausanias, this version of the legend was reproduced in the Oidipodeia . However, Pherecydes names two sons from this connection, Phrastor and Laonytos, who were killed in a war against Orchomenus . The fact that Oedipus had no children with Iokaste could already emerge from a statement by Homer, according to which Oedipus ρφαρ's maternal marriage and patricide were exposed . How ἂφαρ , which can mean “soon” or “very soon”, but also “suddenly”, is to be interpreted, has been controversial since ancient times; In modern research, too, it is often argued that this (time) indication excludes the possibility that children could arise from the marriage, since Epicastes / Iokastes died too soon after the marriage. The variant in which Iocaste is the mother of the four well-known Oedipus children can only be grasped with certainty in the Attic tragedies of the classical period (e.g. the seven against Thebes by Aeschylus and in Antigone by Sophocles ). It is disputed whether the text fragments of the Lille papyrus , which apparently reproduce a version of the Stesichoros , indicate that Iokaste is considered the birth mother.

literature

annotation

  1. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 11, 271 f.
  2. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 9,26,3.
  3. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 11, 275-280
  4. ↑ Scholion to Euripides , The Phoenicians 13.
  5. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 11, 271-81
  6. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 9,26,3.
  7. ^ Morris Silver: Taking Ancient Mythology Economically. Brill, Leiden 1992, p. 197.
  8. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 11, 277-279.
  9. ↑ after Homer, Iliad 23,679f. if he falls in a battle - according to the prevailing interpretation - and funeral games are held in his honor.
  10. ↑ cf. on this already Friedrich Adolf Voigt : Euryganeia . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, column 1423 ( digitized version ).
  11. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 3, 5, 11
  12. ↑ Pherekydes in the Scholion to Eurypides, Phoinissen 53.
  13. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 11,274
  14. ↑ s. in detail: Christiane Zimmermann : The Antigone myth in ancient literature and art (= Classica Monacensia. Munich studies on classical philology. Volume 5). Narr, Tübingen 1993, p. 61ff., With further evidence.
  15. ↑ Christiane Zimmermann: The Antigone myth in ancient literature and art (= Classica Monacensia. Munich studies on classical philology. Volume 5). Narr, Tübingen 1993, pp. 71-78.