Plankton
Plankten or planktai ( Greek Πλαγκταί [πέτραι] "Irrfelsen", Latin planctae ) is the name used by the gods in Greek mythology for two rocks floating in the sea, the overhanging cliffs of which are wrapped in flames and heavily surrounded by sand.
They were considered dangerous obstacles for seafarers, whose passage by ship was actually impossible, because not even the doves of Zeus managed to fly between them unscathed. Only the Argo , the famous ship of the Argonauts saga , was able to sail through the rocks with the help of Heras . Odysseus, on the other hand, avoided the rocks during his adventurous journey home and followed the advice of Kirke . Instead, he took the route between Scylla and Charybdis .
A distinction must be made between the Plankten and the "Klappfelsen" known as the Symplegaden , even if ancient authors such as Pliny mixed the two together. Most of the planktas were identified with the Kyaneai , two small rock islands in the area where the Thracian Bosporos joins the Black Sea . She located other ideas on the Strait of Messina , near the Aeolian Islands , near the columns of Heracles or near Gades .
swell
- Homer , Odyssey 12, 55-72.
- Herodotus , Histories 4, 85.
- Apollonios of Rhodes , Argonautika 2, 597-598; 4, 859-958.
- Pliny , Naturalis historia 6, 32.
- Pomponius Mela , De situ orbis 2, 99.
- Strabon , Geography 3, 149, 170.
- Libraries of Apollodorus 1, 9, 22; Epitome 7, 20.
- Scholion to Euripides , Medea 2.
literature
- Hans von Geisau : Planktai. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, column 889.