Klytia (mistress of Apollo)

Klytia ( ancient Greek Κλυτία Klytía , also Klytie, Latin Clytia ) is the lover of Apollo in Greek mythology . Clytia appears for the first time with its own story in the Roman poet Ovid . According to an anonymous writer who wrote in Greek in an unknown period, she was the daughter of King Orchomenus, who can be identified with the Orchamos of her story passed down by Ovid.

It is possible that her name was taken over from the daughter of the same name of Oceanus , provided that she is not to be thought of as identical with this one.

Clytia with Ovid

The Roman poet Ovid mentions Clytia in his 4th Book of Metamorphoses : Apollon had spurned Clytia, whom he had previously loved, and turned to Leukothoe , the daughter of King Orchamos and the Eurynome. The jealous Clytia informed the strict father Orchamos about his daughter's affair. To erase the shame, Orchamos had his daughter Leukothoe buried alive. Then Clytia tried again to win Apollon's love; but his heart was hardened against her because of the betrayal. Thereupon Clytia sat down naked on a rock, ate or drank nothing, stared at the sun and lamented her misfortune. After nine days her heartache turned yellow and brown; it became a "sunflower", which always turns its flower after Apollon's sun chariot .

Scientific background

Since today's sunflowers of the Helianthus genus were not imported from America until 1530 and were unknown in antiquity , the Ovid story refers to a different genus of plants. However, it remains uncertain whether Ovid even had a particular plant in mind. Ovid writes that Klytia has partly turned into a 'bloodless herb' (exsangues […] in herbas) , had a red part and covered the face with a flower (violaeque simillimus […] flos) which is very similar to the violet . The plants that one wanted to associate with the metamorphosis of Clytia based on this description include species of the solstice , whose name is literally translated from the Greek heliotropion because it turns conspicuously according to the course of the sun. In addition, the red sun rose , the cyclamen , but above all the chicory are mentioned in this context.

Marble bust

In the British Museum to London is an ancient female bust made of marble , which became very popular in the 19th century reproductions. Because it was believed that the wreath from which the bust grows was composed of the petals of the sunflower, the sculpture was named Clytias, the admirer of Apollo who, according to Ovid, was transformed into a sunflower. It was also assumed that it could be a portrait bust from Roman times showing either Antonia minor , the daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor , or Agrippina maior . In a 2016 study, the archaeologist Stefan Lehmann came to the conclusion that the marble bust was a work from the 18th century, possibly by the hand of the English sculptor Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823).

literature

• Hans von Geisau : Klytia 2. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XI, 1, Stuttgart 1921, Col. 893 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Otto Höfer : Klytia 3 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.1, Leipzig 1894, Col. 1245 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Stephan Lehmann : Goethe's very dearest Klytia - Metamorphoses of a woman bust (=  catalogs and writings of the Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University . Volume 6 ). Halle (Saale) 2016, ISBN 978-3-95741-046-7 .
• Katharina Waldner: Klytia, Klytie 3. In: Der Neue Pauly (DNP). Volume 6, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01476-2 , Sp. 612.

Web links

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

• Ovid, Metamorphoses: Leukothoe and Sol
• So-called "Clytia" in the British Museum
• Photos of depictions of the clytia in art, in the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ovid , Metamorphosen 4,206–270; German-Latin edition of the Ovid text on gottwein.de.
2. ^ Anton Westermann : Mythographi Graeci. Braunschweig 1843, p. 348, lines 5-10 ( digitized version ); see also Ernst Maass : Commentatio mythographica part 2 (= Index scholarum in Universitate litteraria gryphiswaldensi per semestre aestivum anni 1894 ). Greifswald 1894, p. 13 f.
3. ↑ Otto Höfer : Orchomenos 4 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.1, Leipzig 1902, column 939 ( digitized version ).
4. ^ Wilhelm Mannhardt : Klytia (= collection of commonly understood scientific lectures. Issue 239). Habel, Berlin 1875, p. 22; overall, compare Carus Sterne : Heliotropism and the artists. In: Westermannsmonthshefte . Volume 28, 1870, pp. 438-444, here pp. 440-442.
5. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.262 to 269.
6. ^ Johann Heinrich Dierbach : Flora mythologica, or botany in relation to mythology and symbolism of the Greeks and Romans. Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main 1833, p. 163.
7. ^ Wilhelm Mannhardt: Klytia (= collection of commonly understood scientific lectures. Issue 239). Habel, Berlin 1875, p. 22 f.
8. ↑ Carus Sterne: Heliotropism and the Artists. In: Westermannsmonthshefte . Volume 28, 1870, pp. 438-444, here p. 441.
9. ↑ Stephan Lehmann : Goethe's very dearest Klytia - Metamorphoses of a woman bust . 2016.