Kolaxes
Kolaxes ( Greek Κολάξης , Latinized Colaxes) is the first king of the Scythians in Greek mythology .
Herodotus reports the emergence of the Scythians through the appearance of a man named Targitaos , who is said to have been the son of Zeus and a nymph of the river god Borysthenes and who had the three sons Lipoxais, Arpoxais and the youngest son Kolaxes. Together they ruled the land until various objects made of gold fell from the sky. When the two older sons tried to pick up the items, they went up in flames. Only Kolaxes was able to collect them, after which the royal power was transferred to him by his siblings.
In the Argonautica of Gaius Valerius Flaccus , Colaxes is the son of Jupiter and the snake nymph Hora , who intervenes as a military leader of the Bisalter in the battle between Aietes and his brother Perses . To commemorate his ancestry, the army wields Jupiter's thunderbolt in its shield.
The lineage reported by Flaccus is probably based on a combination of two lineages of Herodotus: According to the one named above, Kolaxes is the first king of the Scythians, according to the other is Scythes , the ancestor of the Scythians, the youngest of three sons, Heracles with a being who was half girl, half snake.
literature
- Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll : Kolaxes . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.1, Leipzig 1894, column 1268 ( digitized version ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herodotus 4, 5. ( Online )
- ↑ Scythian dragon in the Theoi Project (English)
- ↑ Gaius Valerius Flaccus Argonautica 6, 48. ( Online )
- ↑ Herodotus 4: 9f