Fama

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Fama on the dome of the octagon of the Dresden Art Academy

In Roman mythology, Fama is the deity of both fame and rumor. The Fama equivalent in Greek mythology the Pheme ( Greek  Φήμη ). The Roman personification of fame is still glory .

Pheme and Ossa

In Homer, Pheme appears as an ossa ( Ὄσσα ). One time - in the Iliad - the expression "Pheme" means the fame that accompanies the Greek army as the messenger of Zeus , the other time - in the Odyssey - it embodies the rumor.

Originally, Pheme - related in linguistic history to phemi, "to speak" - simply referred to a message or a hint of unclear origin, in contrast to a message from a known source. This became the pheme, the rumor, the appearance - but also the sign and the omen. In Sophocles ' drama King Oedipus , she is a child of Elpis , hope personified.

In Hesiod's works and days she is described as an allegory and quasi-deity:

Pheme is evil by nature, light, oh so easy to pick up, but difficult to carry and hard to take off. She never completely disappears once she is talked about by the crowd. In fact, she is some kind of goddess.

There are few descriptive representations of the figure in mythological texts. Pheme appears several times in Nonnos of Panopolis ; there she is described as a winged and many-tongued being, which corresponds to her allegorical character. She lacks a personal contour and there seems to be no cult either. Only Aeschines reports of an altar of the Pheme erected by the Athenians after the battle of Eurymedon , which is mentioned by Pausanias as a curiosity and evidence that the Athenians simply erect an altar for everyone. Aischines distinguishes between Pheme as something by itself Appearing and the individual belang end Diabole (Διαβολή "slander"). In contrast, in Achilleus Tatios "the pheme" is a daughter of the diabole :

Rumor [Pheme] is the daughter of defamation [Diabole]. Slander is sharper than a sword, stronger than fire, and more animated than the song of the siren. The rumor runs faster than water, runs faster than the wind, and flies faster than any bird.

Fama

Louis de Silvestre: personification of Fama. Detail of a ceiling painting in the mathematical-physical salon of the Dresden Zwinger

In Latin literature, the Fama is found first in Virgil and Ovid . She also appears in Gaius Valerius Flaccus , where she is used by Aphrodite to punish the Lemnian women . The rumor that their husbands wanted to leave them incites the women to murder them. Although she appears to be a demonic being, Fama is described here quite ambiguously: she belongs neither to heaven nor to hell, it is said, but hovers between. Whoever hears them laughs at them first, but never gets rid of them until cities trembled under the clap of chatty tongues. In the Thebais of Publius Papinius Statius , Fama appears as a kind of fury and companion of the god Mars .

Fama in the Aeneid

In Virgil's Aeneid , Fama is a daughter of Gaia and a giantess . At first it is small, but when it moves it swells to gigantic size until it fills every space between heaven and earth. Under each feather of its two wings is a torn eye, a chattering mouth and a pointed ear. At night it rushes up and down between earth and sky, similar to the squirrel Ratatöskr , which scurries back and forth in the world ash tree Yggdrasil to assist in the exchange of venom between the eagle dwelling in the top and the dragon Nidhöggr, which gnaws at the roots . She doesn't care what Fama spreads; she is equally fond of the preacher of the truth and the slanderer. This can also be seen in the way she spreads the (correct) news of the tryst of Aeneas and the Carthaginian queen Dido (mythology) in the country: A Trojan prince had come, the queen had become a slave to him and the two were spending the winter in Lust frenzy and forget about government affairs.

Fama Castle near Ovid

Also Ovid developed in his Metamorphoses a complex allegory of Fama: In the center of the world, between heaven and earth, between land and sea, just near and far alike, is located a place seen from which everything and monitored heard every voice and every word will be recorded. There Fama built her castle on a high summit, a doorless watchtower with a thousand openings, made entirely of echoing ore that doubles and doubles every sound. Inside there is never any silence, but neither is there a clear word, just murmurs and half-understandable hissing. Here is the home of Credulitas , the "gullibility", of the error , the "mistake", of Laetitia , the "arrogance", of Susurri , the "whisper", and of Seditio , the "discord". In modern times, Fama appears primarily as a personification of fame. Her attribute is a trumpet with which she loudly spreads the glorious deed.

reception

In the performing arts (examples)

A statue of Fama stands on the dome of the octagon of the Dresden Art Academy - a gilded copper work that was designed by the Dresden sculptor Robert Henze (1890), started by Hermann Heinrich Howaldt from Braunschweig and Paul Rinckleben , also from Dresden, completed in 1893 . Your laurel wreath embodies the artist's fame.

In Bayreuth there is a fountain in the pedestrian zone, created by the artist Elias Räntz in 1708. In its center is the Fama figure made from sandstone . The fountain is listed .

In fiction

Fama is a character in Christoph Ransmayr's novel The Last World , as Tomi's shopkeeper and mother of the traitor and compulsive babbler Battus , she spreads rumors.

literature

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Homer Iliad 2.93ff
  2. ↑ Homer Odyssey 2.216ff, 24.412ff
  3. ^ Wilhelm Pape Greek-German Concise Dictionary. Vol. 2, Braunschweig 1914, pp. 1267f, sv Φήμη
  4. ↑ Sophocles : King Oedipus 151
  5. ↑ Hesiod Works and Days 760ff
  6. ↑ Nonnos Dionysiaka 5.370ff, 18.1f, 44.123ff, 47.1ff
  7. ↑ Aeschines in Timarchum 128 with Scholien and de falsa legatione 144f
  8. ↑ Pausania's description of Greece 1.17.1
  9. ↑ Achilles Tatios October 6, 4-5
  10. ↑ Valerius Flaccus Argonautika 2.115ff
  11. ↑ Statius Thebais 2.205ff, 4.32ff, 9.32ff
  12. ↑ Virgil Aeneid 4.174ff
  13. ↑ Ovid Metamorphoses 12:39-63