DAEDALus

 (Cunningly Wrought) Greek A leg-endary Athenian, descendant of the god HEPHAEsTus, who was known as “the divine artificer.” Daedalus was a great craftsman, architect, sculptor, and inventor. His nephew, TALus, was also a gifted craftsman and became the apprentice of Daedalus. When the boy invented the saw, Daedalus became jealous, murdered his nephew, and fled from ATHENs to the island of CRETE.

Daedalus entered the service of King MiNOs of Crete, for whom he constructed the amazing LABY-RiNTH, or maze, in which the MiNOTAuR lived, The Minotaur, or monster, was half human, half BuLL, and was the offspring of Minos’s wife PAsiPHAË and a bull.

Once the Labyrinth was completed, Minos kept Daedalus prisoner so that he could not reveal the secret of the maze to anyone. Daedalus made wings from the feathers of birds and wax and escaped from Crete with his son, ICARus. Icarus ignored his father’s advice and flew too near the Sun, which melted the wax and rendered the wings useless. Icarus fell into the sea and drowned.

Daedalus landed in Sicily and entered the court of King Cocalus, where he constructed beautiful and imaginative toys for the king’s daughters.

Minos went in search of Daedalus. He carried with him a triton shell and a piece of linen thread, saying that he would reward the person who could thread the linen through the shell. Minos knew that only the talented Daedalus could find a way to do this impossible task. Sure enough, when he reached Sicily, King Cocalus boasted of the wonderful inventor at his court and asked Daedalus to perform the task. Daedalus did this by boring a minute hole in the triton shell, smearing it with honey, and sending an ant, harnessed to the thread, through the hole and all the way through the shell’s spirals to its opening.

Minos demanded the surrender of Daedalus, but with the help of Cocalus’s daughters, Daedalus contrived for Minos a horrid death in a hot bathtub.

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42 DApHNIs

embraced the tree and adopted it as his sacred tree and emblem. The poet OvID tells Daphne’s story.

In some legends, Leucippus, a mortal man, loved Daphne. He disguised himself as a girl to pursue the nymph, but she discovered him to be a man when he went bathing with the maidens. The angry nymphs tore Leucippus to pieces.

DApHNiS Greek The son of HERMES and a Sicil-ian NYMPH; inventor of simple, countrylike poetry. In one account, Daphnis was untrue to the nymph, Nomia, who loved him, so she blinded him in revenge. After that, Daphnis sang the sad but beautiful songs that are associated with pastoral music. His father, Hermes, at last took pity on his son and led him up to OLYMPUS. Another account has it that Daphnis was incapable of love, a fact that made APHRODITE, goddess of love, so angry that she afflicted him with everlasting sadness and longing.

Some say that PAN taught Daphnis to play the pipes, and that Daphnis was a love interest of APOLLO and hunted with ARTEMIS, though other accounts have it that it was Daphnis’s father, Hermes, who enjoyed these privileges.

DARDANELLES Greek The strait between Europe and Asian Turkey, connecting the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara. It is 40 miles long and one to five miles wide. In ancient times, it was called the HELLESPONT, which means “bridge to the HELLENES,” or GREECE.

DARDANuS Greek The founder of the city of TROY, according to HOMER. Dardanus was the son of ZEUS. His son was ERICHTHONIUS (2), the richest king on Earth, who owned thousands of horses. The son of Erichthonius was Tros, who had three sons: Ilus, GANYMEDE, and Assaracus. King PRIAM of Troy was a descendant of Ilus.

DEiANiRA Greek Daughter of OENEUS, king of CALYDON, sister of MELEAGER. She became the second wife of the hero HERACLES and unwittingly caused his death. Deianira killed herself in despair at what she had done to Heracles.

DEiDAMiA Greek The wife of the Greek hero ACHILLES, though some experts suggest the two were never married.

Deidamia was the daughter of King Lycomedes, of the island of Skyros. When Achilles’ mother, THE-TIS, a sea NYMPH, asked Lycomedes to hide her son to protect him from having to fight in the TROJAN WAR,

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female serpent-dragon, Python, guarded the shrine. The young god Apollo slew Python and commanded her spirit to be his oracle at Delphi.

Delphi was in fact Apollo’s chosen land. Having killed the serpent Python, he built an altar in the sacred grove. According to one legend, Apollo was looking for priests to minister to his shrine when he saw a ship manned by Cretans, an ancient race (see CRETE). Apollo turned himself into a dolphin and sped after the ship. He captured the ship and persuaded the sailors to guard his temple, which they then called Delphi in honor of the dolphin (Greek delphin).

The decline of Delphi and its oracle is paralleled by the decline of Greece and of the justice and moral excellence represented by Apollo. Some efforts were made to restore Delphi’s influence but finally, in A.D. 385, the Emperor Theodosius, a Christian, closed the site in the name of Christianity.

DEMETER Greek Daughter of CRONUS and RHEA, one of the 12 great deities of OLYMPUS. With her brother ZEUS, she became the mother of PERSEPHONE. Demeter was goddess of Earth, agriculture, and crops, especially corn, who, in ancient rites, presided over the harvest. Her Roman name is CERES.

Demeter and Persephone Demeter is most famous for her suffering over the loss of her daughter Persephone. Unbeknownst to Demeter, Zeus had promised Persephone to HADES, god of the UNDER-wORLD. One day, when the maiden was gathering flowers in the fields of Nysa, the Earth opened and Hades seized Persephone and dragged her under­ground.

Demeter suffered great grief at the loss of her daughter. She wandered the Earth, searching for her child, until at last HELIOS (the Sun, who sees everything) told her what had happened. In anger and grief at the treachery of Zeus, Demeter left Olympus and went to live among mortals, disguised as an old woman. Demeter’s sojourn at ELEUSIS was the chief episode in the course of her wanderings on Earth.

Meanwhile, the Earth suffered from Demeter’s grief and bore no fruit. Finally Zeus sent HERMES into the kingdom of Hades to bring Persephone back to her mother. Before leaving the underworld, Persephone had been persuaded to eat four seeds of a pomegranate. In ancient mythology, to eat the fruit of one’s captor meant that one would have to return to that captor or country, so Persephone was doomed to return to the underworld for four months of the year. She was allowed to spend the remaining two-thirds of the year with her EARTH MOTHER, Demeter.

44 DEMoNs oF THE KIlNs

idea of a more perfect life after death, and thus helped to lay the groundwork for the coming of Christianity, which upholds the idea of everlasting life.

DEMoNs oF THE kiLNs (DAiMONEs KERAMi-KOi; Ceramics Demons; Potter’s Demons) Greek Potters were very important in Greek culture, for the func-tional ware they produced as well as for the artistic pottery they crafted that celebrated the gods and the stories of their interactions with human cultures.

So important was success to these artisans that they recognized a separate group of pesky semi-gods, or demons, that they prayed to before firing a new batch of pottery. When things went wrong, potters blamed these demons for the damage to the pottery and then appeased them with more prayers to ensure that the next firing went well.

Each demon was named for the damage he cre-ated in the kiln. They were:

Asbetus (Asbetos) – Char – who burned pottery; Sabactes (Sabaktes) – Crash – who broke pottery; Smaragus (Smaragon) – Smash – who dropped

pottery;

Suntrobus (Suntrobos) – Shatter – who exploded clay;

Omodamus (Omodamos) – Crudebake – who caused pottery to harden poorly.

As a wild force from the heavens, this troop of demons would also come to destroy the kiln of an unfair, unworthy potter.

The daimones keramikoi are best known from the poetry of HOMER, who wrote a prayer for potters, calling upon ATHENA, who, among other things, was the goddess of pottery. He asked her to help potters if they were fair and honest, but he threatened the pot-ters with destruction by these demons if the potters cheated customers or acted unfairly.

DEMopHoN Greek The son of Metaneira and King CELEUS of ELEUSIS. DEMETER, the sorrowing mother of PERSEPHONE, found refuge at the court of the king and his wife, who asked her to look after their infant son, Demophon. This Demeter did, performing some goddesslike magic along the way.

DEucALioN Greek A son of PROMETHEUS, the TITAN champion of humankind. Prometheus warned Deucalion that ZEUS was so angry with the evils of humanity that he was plotting its annihilation. Deu­calion, the Greek equivalent of the Old Testament’s Noah, built an ark. After nine days of rain, the ark

landed safely on Mount PARNASSUS. Deucalion and his wife, PYRRHA, gave sacrifice to Zeus. The spirit of the Titan THEMIS told them to repeople the Earth. This they did by casting stones (the bones of GAIA) behind them. Those cast by Pyrrha became women; those cast by Deucalion became men. HELLEN, the eldest son, was the patriarch of the race of HELLENES, later called the Greeks.

Scholars say that the deluge in this myth is undoubt-edly the same as the flood quoted in the Old Testament and the Gilgamesh epic of Babylon, and reflects a dim memory common to the peoples of the Mediterranean.

DiANA (Bright) Roman An ancient Roman, per-haps Etruscan, goddess of the Moon. In the Roman PANTHEON, Diana was the daughter of JUPITER and the twin sister of APOLLO.

Diana’s name means “bright” and comes from the Latin word for “god.” With such a name, she was also considered the goddess of light, woodlands, women, and childbirth. Diana also protected wild animals. Women worshiped her in groves and woods, in temples on the Aventine Hill in ROME, and in EPHESUS, an ancient city in ASIA MINOR. Slaves and members of the lower classes of Roman society were particularly attracted to the worship of Diana.

With her special attachment to wild areas, Diana was portrayed carrying a bow and arrows and in the company of hunting dogs.

As early as 600 B.C., Diana, though keeping her Roman name, took on the stories and characteristics of the Greek goddess ARTEMIS.

DicTyNNA (Lady of the Nets) Greek An ancient Cretan goddess, perhaps the goddess of Mount Dicte, which was later known as the birthplace of the Greek god ZEUS. She was the EARTH MOTHER of CRETE, later associated with BRITOMARTIS, the huntress and patron of navigators.

DicTys Greek The fisherman, some say the brother of POLYDECTES, who rescued the hero PERSEUS and his mother, DANAE, from the sea. Dictys took the mother and child to the court of King Polydectes of the island of SERIPHOS, in the Aegean Sea. Later he res-cued Danae once again, this time from the unwelcome attentions of Polydectes. Perseus turned Polydectes into stone with the head of MEDUSA as his weapon, and Dictys became the new king of Seriphos.

DiDo Greek The founder and queen of CARTHAGE, also known as Elisa. She was the daughter of the Tyrian

king Belus, and sister of PYGMALIoN. According to the Roman poet VIRGIL, ANNA PERENNA was also Dido’s sister. Dido was married to her wealthy uncle Acerbas. After Pygmalion murdered Acerbas, Dido fled to Carthage. Here she was allowed to purchase as much land as could be enclosed with the hide of a BuLL. Dido cleverly had the hide cut up into narrow strips so that the area they enclosed was great. Her citadel was called Byrsa, and the city of Carthage arose around it more.

The best-known story about Dido is Virgil’s account of her love for the hero AENEAs, told in the AENEiD. In it, she hears tales of the adventures of the hero and falls in love with him. Aeneas deserts her to pursue his destiny and Dido kills herself. The story of Dido, dating back at least to the second century B.C., is much older than the Aeneid, which was written in the first century B.C.

DikE (DiCE; Justice) Greek The personification of justice, particularly under the law. Dike was a daughter of ZEus and THEMIs. As one of the three HoRAE, guardians of the seasons, Dike was the sister of EIRENE (Peace) and EuNoMIA (Order). She was the mother of Hesychia (Quiet, Tranquility).

Dike was the avowed enemy of falsehood and protected the fair treatment of people by the laws of society. She often served as an emissary and counselor for the great god Zeus. He would send her among mankind to watch them closely and report back to him on their crimes, their poor behavior, and their injustice to one another. After hearing of their indiscretions, Zeus would punish them. Dike watched judges very carefully and sought the help of Zeus in punishing them for acts of unfairness. She carried a sword with which to pierce the hearts of the unjust. Her counterpart was Adicia (Injustice), whom Dike is often portrayed as beating with a club.

As a member of the Horae, Dike helped watch over the four seasons, aiding farmers, helping them meet the agricultural needs of society, bringing prosperity to mankind. The sisters’ names all relate to social order and the development of lawfulness, a concept that was closely related to farming in classical mythology, showing the importance of agriculture to society.

Some modern scholars identify Dike as the same as the goddess AsTRAEA, for both ruled over justice. However, others see Dike as distinct from Astraea, with distinct stories for each in Greek mythology.

46 DIoMEDEs (1)

DioMEDEs (1) Greek Son of Tydeus and suc-cessor of ADRASTuS as king of ARGOS. Diomedes sailed against TROY in the TROJAN WAR, and was, next to ACHILLES, the bravest of the Greeks. The war god-dess ATHENE favored him.

DioMEDEs (2) Greek A son of ARES; king of the Bistones in Thrace. Diomedes raised maneating mares, which HERACLES carried off and tamed after he killed Diomedes and fed him to the mares.

DioNE Greek An obscure, ancient divinity of prehistoric GREECE, said to be a daughter of OCEANuS and TETHYS, closely associated with the cult of the god ZEuS. Scholars point out that her name is a feminine form of the name Zeus. Homer said that she was the mother, with Zeus, of the goddess APHRODITE, though most sources say that Aphrodite, goddess of love and fertility, was born from URANuS and GAIA. Dione was venerated at DODONA as the consort of Zeus.

DioNysus Greek A fertility god, god of vegeta-tion, especially the vine, god of wine and later of the pleasures of civilization. Son of ZEuS; his mother is variously thought to be SEMELE, DEMETER, PERSE-PHONE, or Io, DIONE, or LETHE. The most common myth identifies his mother as Semele. The Romans called him BACCHuS.

In early times, Dionysus was associated with orgi-astic rites and generally wild behavior. As the cultiva-tion of grape vines spread throughout GREECE, so did the worship of Dionysus and the ensuing orgies, called Dionysian or Bacchic festivals. Later, however, Dionysus was also celebrated as a cultivator of the soil, a lawgiver, a peacemaker, and a patron of tragic art.

Among his followers were the CENTAuRS, MAE-NADS, SATYRS, and sileni, all of whom were depicted in ancient art as enthusiastically—sometimes frighten-ingly—demented, carrying staffs and wearing animal skins and crowns of ivy and grape leaves.

The young Dionysus was not honored as a god and he was forced to flee from Greece. He traveled through Europe, ASIA MINOR, and North Africa. Many adventures marked his passage as he spread his knowledge of the cultivation of the vine and the making of wine. Dionysus learned to use the divine power he had inherited from his father, Zeus. He inspired devotion, especially among women, and finally returned to Greece in triumph as a true god. APOLLO, the beautiful god of the arts, admitted Dio-nysus to his shrine at DELPHI. Thus Dionysus joined the OLYMPIAN GODS.

DRyADs 47

DIOSCURI (Sons of Zeus) Greek A title used in Greek and Roman mythology for the twin brothers CASTOR and Polydeuces, whose Roman name was Pollux. They were the sons of the mortal woman, LEDA, who was married to Tyndareus, king of Lace-daemonia (SPARTA).

There are several legends about the parentage of these two favorite characters. One says that ZEUS seduced Leda and conceived Polydeuces on the same night that she and her husband conceived Castor. Polydeuces was thus a god and immortal and Castor was a mortal. In some of the legends, Castor and Polydeuces are the brothers of HELEN of TROY and CLYTEMNESTRA. In others, neither Leda or Zeus is their parent.

In Greek myths, the twins rescued Helen from the hero THESEUS and took part in the expeditions of JASON and the ARGONAUTS. POSEIDON, god of the sea, is said to have given Castor and Polydeuces special powers, after which mariners and sailors honored the twins as their guardians.

One story, told by the Greek poet PINDAR, says that Castor was mortally wounded in battle. Poly-deuces begged his father, Zeus, to allow him to share his brother’s suffering. Zeus granted them a single life, to be shared and lived on alternate days. To keep them together forever, Zeus put them in the sky as the constellation Gemini in the northern celestial hemisphere. CASTOR and POLLUx are the two very bright stars that form the heads of the constellation.

The Dioscuri do not enter into the stories of the TROJAN WAR, though the abduction of their sister Helen started the conflict, for Zeus had made them divine and placed them in the heavens before the war began.

DIS (DIS PATER, DISPATER) Roman The richest of the ancient Roman gods; a god or king of the UNDERWORLD (2), the realm of the dead. Dis’s wealth came from his possession of the precious metals and gemstones hidden beneath the Earth’s surface, part of the kingdom of the underworld.

Dis was the husband of PROSERPINA, goddess or queen of the underworld. They were honored together in hymns, songs, and ceremonies that featured singing by 27 virgins. The people of ROME held athletic games once a century to honor Dis and to bring protection against pestilence, plague, and death.

One popular story tells of a father who went out in search of the gods to help his children, who had fallen seriously ill from a plague. In his journeys, the father found a hot spring flowing near the Tiber River. When