Actaion

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aktaion ( ancient Greek Ἀκτέων or Ἀκταίων , Latin Actaeon ) is a hero of Greek mythology .

According to Diodorus his father was Aristaios , a son of Apollo and the Thessalian nymph Cyrene , according to Pausanias his mother was Autonoë , a daughter of Kadmos , the founder and king of Thebes and Harmonia , the daughter of Ares . He was brought up by the centaur Cheiron , who especially instructed him in the art of hunting . The best-known version of the Aktaion saga comes from Ovid : He tells how Aktaion surprised the goddess Artemis in a bath while hunting , whereupon she turns him into a deer and he is torn to pieces by his own dogs.

Aktaion with his dogs
Sculpture of Aktaion with his dogs in the Caserta cascades , Campania
family tree

Ancient lore

Hesiod

According to Hesiod, Aktaion freed his aunt Semele , the daughter of Kadmos, and thus became a competitor of Zeus himself, who was not on the best of terms with the family or the men of the family anyway. After his death, his dogs looked for him and only calmed down when the Centaur Cheiron made a statue of their master.

Stesichoros and Pausanias

In the first book of his “Description of Greece”, Pausanias , following Stesichoros , reports that Artemis had transformed Aktaion in order to prevent him from marrying his aunt Semele , who eventually became the lover of Zeus and the mother of Dionysus before she fell victim to Heras' jealousy fell, an event that Ovid describes immediately after the fate of Aktaion. His mother Autonoë collected Aktaion's bones and then wandered aimlessly. She eventually ended up in the Megaris , where her grave was shown.

In Orchomenos, Aktaion acted like a ghost and pelted the residents with stones. Following an oracle, they finally nailed a bronze image of the hero to a rock, which ended the apparition.

According to a lost poem by Stesichoros (Europeia?), Which is only known from the account of Pausanias, Actaion tried, however, to offend Semele .

Euripides

From verse 337 onwards, Euripides describes in Bacchae the envy of the goddess of the hunt for the successes of Actaion, which led to his shameful end. His dogs gathered in a cave after his terrible end. His mother Autonoë finally went to the cave to end her enchantment ( lyssa ), only now do the dogs understand that they have mauled their own master. They are now entrusted to the newborn Dionysus, a cousin of Aktaion. According to Euripides, the place of his death was in the mountains of Kithairon.

Apollodorus

According to the library of Apollodorus , Aktaion observed the goddess Artemis while hunting in a valley near Platää , who was bathing in the Parthenian spring with her nymphs . It was discovered and splashed with the water of the spring by the goddess, whereupon Actaion, transformed into a deer, was hunted by his own dogs and torn to pieces on Mount Kithairon. Howling, the dogs then searched for their master all over the country and were only appeased in Cheiron's cave, where they saw his picture. His bones were eventually picked up by his mother Autonoë.

Diodor

Diodoros Sikilos, however, reports that Aktaion consecrated Artemis deer or their hooves and heads ( akrotiria ) - the prey of a hunt - and then tried to seduce them in the sanctuary or to induce them to marry.

ovid

Actaeon surprising Diana when bathing by Titian

The representation may go back to Callimachus , but it may also take up the story of the seer Teiresias . Aktaion was a grandson of Kadmos . After a successful hunt, he had sent his companions home with the spears and nets at lunchtime until the following morning. Diana, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis , had set up a spring in a sacred grove in Gargaphia in Boeotia , in which she used to bathe after a successful hunt. One of the nymphs takes her hunting weapons from her, crocals from Thebes straighten her hair, while her colleagues Nephele , Hyale, Rhanis, Psekas and Phiale wet the goddess from water jugs.

Strolling carefree through the forest, Aktaion enters the grotto and surprises the bathers. The nymphs try to cover the nakedness of the goddess with their bodies, which she however towers above her head and blushes glowingly under the gaze of the mortal. Deprived of her bow, she sprinkles Aktaion with the water of the spring and calls to him: "Now say, if you can, you saw me naked!" Then Aktaion grows antlers from the middle of his forehead, his ears are getting longer and longer, Hands and feet change to split hooves and a piebald fur covers his body. He takes flight and is astonished at his rapid run. When he finally sees his reflection in the water, he tries to exclaim in amazement, but his human voice has faded and only a groan escapes his throat.

The only thing that remains unchanged is his mind, wondering what to do with tears streaming down his furry face. Shame keeps him away from his father's palace, fear from the thick forests of the area. While he is still pondering, his dogs spot him and pursue him, spurred on by his friends, who only regret that Aktaion himself missed this hunt. They call for him and do not notice how the deer is still listening to the name while his own dogs tear him apart.

Ovid is the first poet to describe the transformation into a deer, earlier pictorial representations show Actaion exclusively in human form. It seems that originally only the dogs were bewitched and believed that they were looking at a deer.

In the Metamorphoses, 35 names of his dogs are given as follows: Aello , Agre , Agriodus , Alce , Asbolus , Conace , Dorceus , Dromas , Harpalos , Harpyia , Hylactor , Hyläus , Ichnobates , Labros , Lachne , Lacon , Ladon , Laelaps , Leucon , Lysice , Melampus , Melanchaetes , Melaneus , Nape , Nebrophonus , Oresitrophus , Oribasus , Pamphagus , Poemenis , Pterelas , Stilbe , Theridamas , Theron , Thous , Tigris .

Hyginus

Hyginus mentions 81 names of the dogs. You are here: Aeon , Aethon , Agre , Agriodus , Agrius , Alce , Arcas , Arethusa , Argo , Aura , Borax , Boreas , Canache , Charops , Chediaetros , Corax , Cyllo , Cyllopotes , Cyprius , Dinomache , Dioxippe , Dorceus , Draco ( "Dragon"), Dromas , Dromius , Echidna , Echnobas , Elion , Eudromus , Gorgo , Haemon , Harpalus , Harpalycus , Harpyia , Hylactor , Hylaeus , Ichneus , Ichnobates , Labros , Lacaena , Lacon , Ladon , Lalaps , Lampus , Leane , Lycisce , Lyncaeste , Machimus , Melampus , Melanchaetes , Melaneus , Nape , Nebrophonus , Obrimos , Ocydrome , Ocydromus , Ocypote , Ocythous , Omelympus , Oresitrophus , Oria , Oribasus , Oxyroe , Pachitos , Pamphagus , Poemenus , Pterelas , Sagnos , Stilbe , Stilbon , Syrus , Theriope , Theriphone , Therodamas , Therodapanis , Theron , Thous , Tigris , Urania , Volatos , Zephyrus .

Compared to Ovid, 24 names are the same and six are very similar.

Other sources

cult

In Plataiai Aktaion was the heros archegetes . He was also venerated in Orchomenos .

interpretation

Aktaion's father Aristaios had introduced a sacrifice to Sirius , the dog star, whose appearance heralds the time of the greatest midday heat. Friedrich Marx therefore considers Aktaion to be a mountain god whose image should ward off the heat of the dog days . Jane Ellen Harrison, on the other hand, sees him as a representative of an older chthonic Pelasgic religion, the demon Enaitos , who every year renews the fertility of nature through his death.

S. Kramer equates him with the Sumerian Dumuzi and puts his death in the context of a deadly holy wedding ( hieros gamos ). What is interesting about Aktaion is the mixture of the roles of shepherd, the usual consort and sacrifice of the great goddess (here his father Aristaios) and hunter. Also Inanna / Ishtar / Atargatis is replaced by the chaste Artemis, even not consummated the marriage. According to the classical philologist Ernst Curtius , Artemis goes back to oriental / Phoenician origins.

Aktaion's end is reminiscent of the Thracian Orpheus , who was also torn apart by wild animals because of the envy of the gods. He is connected to this through his father Aristeion, who was also in love with the nymph Eurydice and was unintentionally guilty of her death.

While Actaion is a harmless youth in Ovid who comes to a terrible end out of the blue and through no fault of his own, it is clear from the other stories, which have only survived in fragments, that he was originally a far more powerful figure. His father Aristaios is interpreted as an "old peasant god of blessing", who was also venerated as Zeus Aristeios and Apollo Nomios and who, in later tradition, sank to an immortal hero. Aktaion himself is a grandson of Apollo and thus Artemis's great-nephew, as well as a great-grandson of Ares on his mother's side .

Several versions of the saga mention the difficulty of controlling his dogs after his death, which is so important that Ovid reports the names and characteristics of each one. Presumably the dogs indicate a connection to the underworld (hellhounds) and place Aktaion in the vicinity of other horned chthonic deities such as the Celtic Arawn , the lord of the Cŵn Annwn and the Syrian Reshef . It can be assumed that Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, was originally his wife, not his opponent. The connection to Dionysus, who also stands with spotted animals such as the fawn and the leopard, is also interesting (via Semele). Perhaps this god is the original son of Actaion before he was replaced by Zeus from a much younger generation of gods. After all, according to Euripides, he takes control of the dogs after the death of his mortal cousin. His mother Autinoë was the leader of the maenads after Euripides . Noteworthy is an adaptation of the legend in which the goddess hurls one of her arrows at Actaion, this interpretation also taken up by the Viennese poet Johann Mayrhofer around 1820.

Representation in art

The bath of Diana with Actaeon and Callisto by Rembrandt
The death of Actaeon by Vasyl Ryabchenko

The visual arts have treated the story of his transformation and death with a certain fondness. A famous example is Rembrandt's painting The Bath of Diana with Actaeon and Callisto, completed in 1634 . A small group of ancient marble (found in 1774) is in the British Museum in London. The nymph scene is also shown on the Actäon chimney in Neuhaus Castle near Paderborn .

literature

  • Michael Bischoff: Diana and Actaeon - an iconographic success story in Venice, Rome and Prague. In: Heiner Borggrefe, Vera Lüpkes, Lubomír Konečný, Michael Bischoff (eds.): Hans Rottenhammer (1564–1625). Results of the international symposium held in cooperation with the Institute for Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences at the Weser Renaissance Museum at Brake Castle. Jonas, Marburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-89445-395-4 , pp. 73-88.
  • Walter Burkert : Homo necans. Interpretations of ancient Greek sacrificial rites and myths. 2nd Edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-11-015099-9 , pp. 125-132.
  • Wolfgang Cziesla: Aktaion polypragmon. Variations on an ancient theme in the European Renaissance (= literary studies. Volume 2). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1989, ISBN 3-631-42431-0 .
  • Samuel Noah Kramer: The sacred marriage rite. Bloomington, Indiana 1969.
  • Lamar Ronald Lacy: Actaion and a Lost “Bath of Artemis”. In: Journal of Hellenic Studies. Volume 110, 1990, ISSN  0075-4269 , pp. 26-42.
  • Maria Moog-Grünewald: Actaion. In: Maria Moog-Grünewald (Ed.): Mythenrezeption. The ancient mythology in literature, music and art from the beginnings to the present (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 5). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-476-02032-1 , pp. 41-52.
  • Ludwig Radermacher: Myth and legend among the Greeks. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1968 (reprint of the Munich 1943 edition).
  • Konrad Schauenburg: Actaion in Italian vase painting. In: Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute. Volume 34, 1969, ISSN  0931-7007 .
  • Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll : Aktaion 1) . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1.1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 214-217 ( digitized version ).
  • Georg Wentzel : Actaion 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Sp. 1209-1211.
  • Beat Wismer, Sandra Badelt, Jean-Christophe Bally: Diana and Actaeon. The forbidden look at nudity. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757-2357-2 (on the exhibition Diana and Actaeon - The Forbidden View of Nudity , Museum Kunstpalast , Düsseldorf, October 25, 2008 to February 15, 2009).

Web links

Commons : Aktaion  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Diodorus 4, 81, 1-3
  2. ^ Pausanias 10:17 , 3
  3. ^ Ovid: Metamorphosen 3, 138-252
  4. ↑ Hesiod, Fragments, POxy 2509; Apollodorus n.8
  5. ↑ Pausanias 1:44, 5
  6. ↑ Pausanias 9:38, 5
  7. ↑ Plutarch : Aristeides 11, 3
  8. ↑ Fragment 59 in Poetae melici graeci (PMG) = Pausanias 9, 2, 3-4
  9. ↑ Euripides: Bacchae 1290-2
  10. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus 3, 4, 4
  11. ↑ Diodorus 4, 81, 3-5
  12. ^ Hyginus: Fabulae 180, 181
  13. ↑ Apollonios Rhodios 2, 500
  14. ^ Ovid: Metamorphoses 15, 359
  15. ↑ Hans von Geisau : Aristaios . In: Der Kleine Pauly I, Sp. 551
  16. ↑ Johann Mayrhofer: The angry Diana