Rhenus (personification)

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"Father Rhine" as a fountain figure in the Hortus Palatinus , between 1614 and 1620
Modern depiction of Rhenus from 1750
Baroque sculpture of the "Father Rhine" in the park of Schwetzingen Castle , 18th century
Frieze of the museum on Augustinergasse in Basel: The Basel city ​​allegory Basilea , to the right of it the god Rhenus , around 1849
National romantic symbolism in the Niederwald monument : In the group of figures shown below, "Father Rhine" presents his daughter, the Moselle , with the watchman's horn - an allegorical reference to the theme of the watch on the Rhine and the meanings that go with it .
"Father Rhine" in the apotheosis of the empire , triptych by Hermann Wislicenus in the imperial palace of Goslar , around 1880
"Rhine River", relief on the town hall of Duisburg , Friedrich Ratzel , 1896–1902

As a river god, Rhenus is the personification of the river of the same name, today's Rhine (Latin Rhenus , Celtic Rênos , ie . H 1 reiH- , "rinnen, flow"). In inscriptions he is also called Rhenus Pater ("Father Rhine") and is associated with the Roman water god Neptunus . In addition to the horned deity of the Danube ( Danuvius ), Rhenus is described as a bull-shaped (?) "Father of all nymphs and rivers" ( Nympharum pater amniumque , Martial ). Because of his horns he was called by the Romans "double-horned Rhenus" ( Rhenus bicornis , Virgil ) or - as an allegory of the Roman subjugation of the " barbarian peoples " on the Rhine - "Rhenus with the broken horns" ( Rhenus cornibus fractis , Ovid ).

Early representations of Greek art usually show the river god as a hybrid being , a bull with a human upper body, the face framed by flowing hair and a beard. Since the 5th century BC, the human figure replaced the animal body in the representations, only the horns on the forehead reminded of the original bull shape. The river was called Bicornis , two-horned, and bicornis was also the name of a river whose mouth into the sea forked, so like the Rhine forms an estuary or river delta . The Hellenistic art showed the river god in human form with bull protomes , lying on the bottom of the river, surrounded by waves. He often leaned on an urn that was draining water. Other attributes were reeds, ears of corn or cornucopia , an allusion to his function as a fertility deity .

Several times, authors from late antiquity and Byzantine report that the Celts and Germanic peoples dipped newborn babies into the cold water of the Rhine to see whether they were married, or even just to harden them. It is also reported that Romans, Celts and Germanic tribes sacrificed their river gods .

Roman consecration stones

Several Roman consecration stones have been found to this day, which call the Rhenus:

Location country directory inscription
Eschenz , Tasgætium Switzerland CIL 13,5255 [F] LVM RHENO PRO SALVTE ...
Strasbourg, Argentorate France AE 1969/70, 434 RHENO PATRI
Remagen , Rigomagus Germany CIL 13, 7790 IOM ET GENIO LOCI ET RHENO ...
Remagen, Rigomagus Germany CIL 13, 7791 IOM […] GENIO LOCI [FL] VMINI RHE [NO] ...
Vechten , Fectio Netherlands CIL 13, 8810 IOM DIS PATRIIS ET PRAESIDIBVS HVIVS LOCI OCEANIQUE ET RENO
Vechten, Fectio Netherlands CIL 13, 8811 ... IVNONI REGINAE ET MINERVAE SANCTAE GENIO HVIVSQUE LOCI NEPTVNO OCEANO ET RHENO DIS OMNIBVS DEABVSQUE ...

"Father Rhine" as a popular and political motif

The motif of the "Father Rhine" was taken up many times in the course of the Rhine Romanticism , for example in the 19th century by Karl Janssen and Josef Tüshaus in the monument Father Rhine and his daughters , in the Wrangel fountain by Hugo Hagen , in the Niederwald monument by Johannes Schilling , in the father Rhine fountain by Adolf von Hildebrand , as a small sculpture in the centerpiece Father Rhine by Ludwig Brunow for the wedding of the German Crown Prince Wilhelm or in a frieze of the Nibelungen Grotto created in 1880 in the park of Villa Hammerschmidt .

From 1810 to 1812 Clemens Brentano wrote Die Mährchen vom Rhein , four stories in which the fictional narrators entertain the "Father Rhine" with a fairy tale each in order to get back loved ones who have drowned and sunk in the Rhine. The Rheinmärchen was not published until 1846.

In the satirical verse epic Germany. The Winter's Tale (1844) was Heinrich Heine , referring to the him chauvinistic appearing Rhine song by Nikolaus Becker , that the Rhine crisis reflected between France and the German Confederation, speaking his "Father Rhine", the following words:

At Biberich I swallowed stones,
Truly, they don't taste good!
but the verses of Niklas Becker are heavier in my stomach
.

In the apotheosis of the empire , a central triptych created around 1880 to glorify the founding of the German Empire in 1871 , the painter Hermann Wislicenus used the personifications of the Rhine and history flanking the imperial eagle coat of arms to symbolically indicate the Rhineland as the historical landscape of the German Empire. In 1911 Emil Cauer the Younger created the figure of “Father Rhine” for the Siegfriedbrunnen on Rüdesheimer Platz in Berlin. In 1912, Rhenus Transport GmbH used the name and the motif to illustrate a symbolic reference to its trade in shipping on the Rhine . In 1900, Paul Lincke composed the Father Rhine Festival March for his operetta Fräulein Loreley .

In 1960, Heinz Korn wrote the carnival hit I saw Father Rhine in his bed, humorously using the father-Rhine motif . With the line “Say Good Bye to the Rhine Father”, the GDR singer Ernst Busch endeavored in his song Ami - go home! the Father Rhine motif in the Cold War to call on the United States to withdraw from Germany.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martial 10: 7.
  2. ↑ Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 689 f.
  3. ↑ Horst Johannes Tümmers: The Rhine. A European river and its history . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-44823-2 , pp. 24, 25 and Fig. 7
  4. ↑ Horst-Johannes Tümmers, p. 25
  5. ↑ z. B. Iulianus , epist. 191; Libanios , orat. 12, 48; Claudius Claudianus , in Rufin. 2, 112; Nonnos , Dionysiacs etc.
  6. ↑ See for example: Ortwin Reich: Vom Beatusberg zum Fort Konstantin: Church, Monastery, Fortress , short version, Koblenz 1997, p. 7, PDF file in the portal oreich.de , accessed on February 3, 2013.
  7. ↑ See illustration of the consecration stone of the legate Oppius Severus in Legio VIII Augusta , article in the portal imperiumromanum.com , accessed on February 3, 2013.
  8. ^ Rheinromantik between Cologne and Bingen: A Myth and Symbol of Europe , article in the portal nrw-stiftung.de , accessed on February 3, 2013
  9. ↑ Allusion to the Nebeljungenstreich
  10. ↑ Caput V, para. 5.

Web links

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