Theseus+and+the+Minotaur

in vacuo: in a vacuum; in emptiness, without considering other factors in utero: in the womb

evacuate: to make empty

vacuous: full of emptiness; a vacuous expression

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Minoan Civilization Crete, the largest island in Greece, was home to the first civilization in Europe. Dubbed the 'Minoans' by the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, who discovered them, these people lived a remarkably sophisticated life nearly 4000 years ago on this Greek island. Towns, harbours and palaces have been unearthed and are now on display to the public. Any visitor to Crete should take some time to visit the ruins of one of the Minoan palaces and also the museum in the capital, Iraklion, where all the artifacts recovered from the ruins have been assembled for viewing. They were not Greek, and do not appear to have even been closely related, but they did really influence Greek civilization. They are a Bronze Age people which means really, really old. http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/greece/gr1020e.shtml

12/16 pro persona ( p.p.) for the person; when a letter or legal document is signed by someone else who is legally able to do so.

referenda: things being carried back ( to the people); sometimes it is referred to ( hey! there's that word again!) as "referendum"; it is a vote on a single issue by the electorate

persona: the way you behave, talk, etc., with other people that causes them to see you as a particular kind of person : the image or personality that a person presents to other people

ritual :a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order

Minoan Religion: Religion played an important role in Minoan Crete and many activities, and artistic products revolved around religious cult. As evidence in the art of the period, the Minoans deified the natural world and found in it a logical order that allowed man to live in harmony with the natural environment. Ritual celebrations usually took place in sacred caves, on sanctuaries on mountain peaks, and in the palaces and villas which all had their own sanctuaries. Animal and bloodless sacrifices, along with processions were part of ritual worship of the great female nature goddess, and during these festivities worshipers used music, dance, and prayer to achieve a state of religious ecstasy that put them in touch with the supernatural.

The sacrifice of the bull, and games like the "taurokatharpsia" that revolved around the animal, were central part of the Minoan religious festivals, symbolizing perhaps man's interaction with powerful natural elements, and ultimately his triumph over them through skill and power. Some of the ritual objects that have been unearthed during excavations around Crete include the bull mask, the double axe, and the bull horns.





bull leaping barcelona

That is money.

So, if they have games and jewelry and relatively sophisticated rituals, what does that tell us?

They have money, and to have money( wealth) there needs to be a source of wealth, and a way to protect it.

Thucydides wrote that Minos was the first to build a navy: ‘The first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies… and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.’

Crete's location kept it fairly isolated, but well suited for trade. The navy defended both the island itself, and trading routes. Thus, in this area of the world, at this time, they had a thalassocracy, rule over the sea.



“As a maritime trading civilization, it is unsurprising that the Minoans left us some beautiful fresco images of their ships, wooden sailing vessels superior to any others on the Mediterranean. Perhaps because of this fleet and the protecting seas, military images are unusual in Minoan art. Until the attacks by the Mycenaeans in 1450 BC, there is no real evidence that the Minoans fought wars with any other culture. This is in stark contrast to their contemporaries: the city states of Mesopotamia were constantly at war, celebrating their exploits on such works as the[|Stele of the Vultures], and Egypt covered tomb walls with images of military pomp. The Minoans preferred leisurely scenes or sports. They loved to decorate walls with murals of dolphins, flowers and fish. Their art has a grace, movement and exuberance distinct from the art of Egypt and Sumer, and… their craftsmanship is second to none.”

Eugene Hirschfeld comments, writing on // “ [|Grace in the Aegean: the art of the Minoans] ”. //

http://ancient-greece.org/culture/minoan-cult.html

http://peripluscd.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/chronicle-2-minoan-cretan-thalassocracy-2/

12/18 panem et circenses: bread and circuses; not of any substance or gravity ...while ISIS is marauding through the Mid East, Russia is making moves in Eastern Europe, Ebola is ravaging parts of Africa and seeping into our borders, the economic recovery is anemic, our illustrious leaders offer us bread and circuses, worrying about the name of a football team and raising the minimum wage. pericula in mora: danger in delay; describing something that must be dealt with immediately ; like letting ISIS grow more powerful...they need to be squashed like a bug.

moratorium: a delay; like a building moratorium or a moratorium on the death penalty imperil: to put in harm's way; to endanger

The palace of Knossos was undoubtedly the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. It appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and storerooms close to a central square. An approximate graphic view of some aspects of Cretan life in the Bronze Age is provided by restorations of the palace's indoor and outdoor murals, as it is also by the decorative motifs of the pottery and the insignia on the seals and ceilings.

Knossos was undeniably the capital of Minoan Crete. It is grander, more complex, and more flamboyant than any of the other palaces known to us, and it is located about twenty minutes south of the modern port town of Iraklio.

Knossos was inhabited for several thousand years, beginning with a neolithic settlement sometime in the seventh millennium BC, and was abandoned after its destr uction in 1375 BC which marked the end of Minoan civilization. The first palace on the low hill beside the Krairatos river was built around 1900 BC on the ruins of previous settlements. It was destroyed for the first time along with the other Protopalatial palaces around Crete at 1700 BC, probably by a large earthquake or foreign invaders. It was immediately rebuilt to an even more elaborate complex and until its abandonment was damaged several times during earthquakes, invasions, and in 1450 BC by the colossal volcanic eruption of Thera, and the invasion of Mycenaeans who used it as their capital as they ruled the island of Crete until 1375 BC.

“The Minoans were skilled and sensitive architects, and the palaces count amongst their greatest works of art. The most famous is the palace at Knossos, often called the ‘Palace of Minos’. A multi-storey complex of corridors, rooms and staircases built around a central courtyard, the palace boasted impressive plumbing as well as lovely frescos, columns and gardens. Visitors found its ‘agglutinative’ architecture of over 1000 rooms so confusing that it is thought to have inspired the myth of the Minotaur’s Labyrinth. Knossos was an entire community, a centre for religion, pottery production and storage of trade goods, and a venue for festivals. For this reason the term ‘palace’ is not adequate for describing these Minoan complexes.” Eugene Hirschfeld comments, writing on // “ [|Grace in the Aegean: the art of the Minoans] ”. //





Scholars believe that this palace was the inspiration for the Labyrinth; the maze-like prison/dungeon where the Minotaur was held.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos

1/5

in vino veritas: in wine ( there is) truth

vox populi : the voice of the people ; vox pop; man on the street reporting; vox populi 9/11

verily: truly populous: full of people; crowded

Ok, so that is what we think is reality. What about the myth?

King Minos, the king of Crete, was the son of Zeus and Europa. Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus desired. When she and her little friends were out in a field picking flowers Zeus appeared as a docile and good smelling bull. He allowed the girls to take turns riding him. When it was Europa's turn, he ran off her, all the way to Crete. She has three sons by Zeus, Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. Rembrandt

Titian

Pompeii

1/6 quot homines tot sententiae: as many men, so many opinions

de gustibus non disputandum est: about taste, there is no dispute ; one likes what one likes

sentient: capable of thought and feeling dissent: thinking apart from everyone (dis=apart); thinking differently

Here's a horrifying story: A dispute over the sovereignty of Crete led Minos to ask Poseidon for help. He asked the god to send an offering as a sign of his true kingship. The god of the sea sent a gleaming pure white bull, which emerged miraculously from the waves. This confirmed to all concerned that Minos was their true king. However, as soon as King Minos saw this magnificent beast he refused to sacrifice it to Poseidon, and replaced it with another. Poseidon in retaliation sent Pasiphae, the wife of Minos into uncontrollable lust for this huge beast. So much so that she had the urge to mate with this huge animal. To do this she requested the help of Daedalus, a craftsman and inventor, who built a hollow wooden cow. Pasiphae hid inside, the amorous bull mounted the wooden cow and as a result Pasiphae conceived its child, or rather a creature which was half man and half bull, which became known as the Minotaur (Minotauros, "the bull of Minos"). media type="file" key="Cow-SoundBible.com-868293659.wav" width="300" height="50"

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/minos.html

[|clash of the gods the minotaur]

1/8 genius loci: the spirit of a place The unique, distinctive aspects or atmosphere of a place, such as those celebrated in art, stories, folk tales, and festivals. The genius loci of New Orleans...

sub rosa: under the rose; in secret ; a sub rosa meeting ( oohlala)

ingenious: cleverly inventive or resourceful

genius: a very spirited person, either via talent or intellect

So, there was the incident with the bull, and the birth of the Minotaur, who was then locked in the Labyrinth. What about our hero, Theseus, the slayer of the Minotaur ?

Family of Theseus
Theseus was the son of Aegeus, the king of Athens, and his wife Aethra. Aegeus, concerned that he had reached a certain age without having descendants, went to Delphi to consult the Delphic oracle, but he received a prophecy he could not understand. Her cryptic words were "Do not loosen the bulging mouth of the wineskin until you have reached the height of Athens, lest you die of grief." So, on his way back home, he decided to stop by at the city of Troezen and ask its King Pittheus who was renown for his ability to understand oracles for advice.

However, Instead of supporting him, Pittheus rather tricked Aegeus to lie with his daughter Aethra, in the hope that Aethra would conceive a child. But in the same night, Aethra had been previously seduced by the Greek god Poseidon. This way, Theseus was considered to have had two divine origins.

After Aethra became pregnant, Aegeus decided to return to Athens. Before leaving, however, he buried his sandals and sword under a huge rock and told Aethra that when their son grew up, he should move the rock, if he were heroic enough, and take the tokens for himself as evidence of his royal parentage. In Athens, Aegeus was joined by Medea, who had left Corinth after slaughtering the children she had borne, and had taken Aegeus as her new consort. Priestess and consort together represented the old order in Athens.

Thus Theseus was raised in his mother's land. When Theseus grew up and became a brave young man, he moved the rock and recovered his father's tokens. His mother then told him the truth about his father's identity and that he must take the sword and sandals back to king Aegeus to claim his birthright. To journey to Athens, Theseus could choose to go by sea (which was the safe way) or by land, following a dangerous path around the Saronic Gulf, where he would encounter a string of six entrances to the Underworld, each guarded by a chthonic ( our fancy word!!!!!) enemy. Young, brave, and ambitious, Theseus decided to go alone by the land route and defeated a great many bandits along the way.

11/24

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: Who will guard the guardians?

made famous by the Roman Poet Juvenal in his satires.

Contextually it referred to the notion that male guards should not guard women against sexual assault as they themselves are capable of committing such crimes, the only solution would be to have the women guarded by eunuchs.

Generally though it is considered the embodiment of the philosophical question as to where ultimate power should reside. It can be attributed as the basis, or at least the summarization, of the United States' concept of division of political power. At any given moment a watchman is watched by two watchmen thus eliminating the possibility of corruption. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Who+will+watch+the+watchmen%3F

Ph.D. (Philosophiae Doctor): Doctor of Philosophy; a teacher of philosophy ( doceo, docere : to teach)

indoctrinate: to teach or instruct someone uncritically; to teach what to think, not how to think procrustean: (especially of a framework or system) enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality.

On his journey to Athens, Theseus had six labors. .


 * At the Isthmian entrance to the Underworld was a robber named Sinis, often called "Pityokamptes " (Greek: Πιτυοκάμπτης, "he who bends Pinetrees"). He would capture travelers, tie them between two pine trees that were bent down to the ground, and then let the trees go, tearing his victims apart. Theseus killed him by his own method. He then became intimate with Sinis's daughter, Perigune, fathering the child Melani[|ppus]. [[image:Corinth_Isthmus.jpg width="576" height="767"]]Isthmus of Corinth[[image:duxfemina/Theseus_Sinis_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_8771.jpg width="543" height="435"]]


 * The last bandit was Procrustes the Stretcher, who had two beds, one of which he offered to passers-by in the plain of Eleusis. He then made them fit into it, either by stretching them or by cutting off their feet. Since he had two beds of different lengths, no one would fit. Theseus turned the tables on Procrustes, cutting off his legs and decapitating him with his own axe.

1/14 onus probandi: the burden of proof res iudicata ( judicata): the judged matter; a settled legal affair

adjudicate: to make a formal judgement about a problem or a dispute onerous: burdensome

When Theseus arrived at Athens, he did not reveal his true identity immediately. Aegeus gave him hospitality but was suspicious of the young, powerful stranger's intentions. Aegeus's wife Medea recognized Theseus immediately as Aegeus' son and worried that Theseus would be chosen as heir to Aegeus' kingdom instead of her son Medus. She tried to arrange to have Theseus killed by asking him to capture the Marathonian Bull(aka the Cretan Bull...yes, that one), an emblem of Cretan power.media type="file" key="Cow-SoundBible.com-868293659.wav" width="300" height="50"

When Theseus returned victorious to Athens, where he sacrificed the Bull, Medea tried to poison him. At the last second, Aegeus recognized the sandals, shield, and sword, and knocked the poisoned wine cup from Theseus's hand. Theseas father and son were reunited, and Medea, it was said, fled to Asia.

Pasiphae, wife of King Minos of Crete, had several children before the Minotaur. The eldest of these, Androgeus, set sail for Athens to take part in the Pan-Athenian games, which were held there every four years. Being strong and skillful, he did very well, winning some events outright. He soon became a crowd favorite, much to the resentment of the Pallantides, and they assassinated him, incurring the wrath of Minos.

When King Minos had heard of what befell his son, he ordered the Cretan fleet to set sail for Athens. Minos asked Aegeus for his son's assassins, and if they were to be handed to him, the town would be spared. However, not knowing who the assassins were, King Aegeus surrendered the whole town to Minos' mercy. His retribution was that, at the end of every Great Year (seven solar years), the seven most courageous youths and the seven most beautiful maidens were to board a boat and be sent as tribute to Crete, never to be seen again.

In another version, King Minos had waged war with the Athenians and was successful. He then demanded that, at nine-year intervals, seven Athenian boys and seven Athenian girls were to be sent to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster that lived in the Labyrinth created by Daedalus.

1/19

aut neca aut necare: either kill or be killed ( this really describes the predicament our young Theseus finds himself in)

barba non facit philosophum: A beard does not make one a philosopher ( looking the part is not enough)

pernicious ( per+necare): insidiously destructive rebarbative : repulsive ( what does this have to do with beard, you ask....)





On the third occasion, Theseus volunteered to slay the monster to stop this horror. He took the place of one of the youths and set off with a black sail, promising to his father, Aegeus, that if successful he would return with a white sail. Like the others, Theseus was stripped of his weapons when they sailed. On his arrival in Crete, Ariadne, King Minos' daughter, fell in love with Theseus and, on the advice of Daedalus, gave him a ball of thread or [|clue], so he could find his way out of the Labyrinth.[|[11]] That night, Ariadne escorted Theseus to the Labyrinth, and Theseus promised that if he returned from the Labyrinth he would take Ariadne with him. As soon as Theseus entered the Labyrinth, he tied one end of the ball of string to the door post and brandished his sword which he had kept hidden from the guards inside his tunic. Theseus followed Daedalus' instructions given to Ariadne; go forwards, always down and never left or right. Theseus came to the heart of the Labyrinth and also upon the sleeping Minotaur. The beast awoke and a tremendous fight then occurred. Theseus overpowered the Minotaur with his strength and stabbed the beast in the throat with his sword (according to one scholium on Pindar's Fifth Nemean Ode, Theseus strangled it).

After decapitating the beast, Theseus used the string to escape the Labyrinth and managed to escape with all of the young Athenians and Ariadne as well as her younger sister Phaedra.

12/8 Gladiator in arena consilium capit -(Seneca) :The gladiator is formulating his plan in the arena; or essentially "Too late."

Abyssus abyssum invocat - Hell calls hell; one misstep leads to another

abyss: a bottomless chasm

invoke: to call upon, to call in

Slaying the Minotaur was very brave, and we have to give our friend Theseus credit where credit is due, but, in my opinion, after that, he starts really messing up badly. The first thing he does that shows questionable character and judgement is that he abandons Ariadne on the island of Knaxos, and after all she did for him...what a lout! And, to add insult to injury, he marries her sister, Phaedra( but not for a while). Then, he forgets to change the sail, and his poor father, when he sees the black sail on the horizon, hurls himself into the sea which henceforth bears his name ( the Aegean).

It seems to me that Theseus is very careless with others...this is not exactly admirable.

He abducted Helen of Troy when she was a child, intending to keep her until she was old enough to marry. He hid her with his mother, Aethra, but Helen's brothers, the DIOSCURI ( the GEMINI), Castor and Pollux rescued their sister. Aethra was then Helen's slave until after the Trojan War.



and here is the latest allusion in the Hunger Games/Castor & Pollux

Later, Theseus has a son, Hippolytus, his child with the Amazon queen Hippolyte. He was a devotee of Artemis and was not suitably reverent of Aphrodite. So, Aphrodite curses Phaedra, causing her to fall hopelessly in love with her stepson. He rejected her, and she hangs herself, leaving a note that she is doing so because Hippolytus had raped her, which is a total fabrication. Hippolytus swears up and down that this is not true, that he didn't rape her or anybody else, but Theseus does not believe his son's protestations. So, he called upon Poseidon to scare Hippolytus' horses during a chariot race and the boy was killed. There are a couple of variations of this story, one is that Phaedra did not kill herself, but simply told Theseus the rape story, and Theseus killed Hippolytus himself in a rage. After which, Phaedra does kill herself out of guilt, as she had not intended for the boy to die.

A cult grew up around Hippolytus, associated with the cult of Aphrodite. Girls who were about to be married offered locks of their hair to him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus

Hippolytus and Phaedra Phaedra accuses...Hippolytus