Argonautica - Part I - Epic Storytelling in the Age of Heroes

Beginning with thee, O Phoebus, I will recount the famous deeds of men of old, who, at the behest of King Pelias, down through the mouth of Pontus and between the Cyanean rocks, sped well-benched Argo in quest of the golden fleece. (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica)

Thus begins one of the most famous and influential stories to come out of ancient Greece. The story of Jason and the Argonauts has captured peoples’ imaginations for ages, and to this day it is held up as the supreme example of ancient epic.

Today, the story has been retold in cartoons, comics, movies, and television adaptations. Its grip on the popular psyche is firm, and its archetypes reverberate throughout western culture.

The Argonautica isn’t just another fanciful story, it’s a well thought-out tale, carefully crafted, enriched with geographic, ethnographic, and religious details that other ancient stories lack.

And to the ancient world, this WAS history! The lines of this tale are a who’s who of gods, goddesses and heroes whom the reader (or listener) meets in unusually candid moments.

Before I go any further, I have a confession to make.

Until just a few weeks ago, I had never read the text of the Argonautica.

Like most people, I suspect, my knowledge of the tale of Jason and the Argonauts came from popular movies, mainly the Ray Harryhausen and Hallmark productions of Jason and the Argonauts. Those two film and television movies were fantastically entertaining and I highly recommend them both.

However, they differ from the original text in many ways.

In this series of blog posts, I’m going to talk a bit about my experience reading the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, what elements stand out for me, and how it differs from the popular image of the story.

Before we get started, who was Apollonius of Rhodes?

A Hellenistic Bestseller

Apollonius was actually born in Ptolemaic Alexandria sometime between 296 and 260 B.C. He was a student of Callimachus, a famed poet and scholar at the Library of Alexandria.

Alexandria, during the Hellenistic age, was the centre of the world as far as education, research and the scholarly pursuits. Anyone who was anyone wanted to be there.

Apollonius composed and recited the Argonautica when he was a youth in Alexandria. Unfortunately, the poem was condemned on the Alexandrian scene, and some say that Callimachus was one of its slanderers, for he and his student, Apollonius, had a massive falling out.

Alexandria's Canopic Way

In Alexandria, it seemed that poetics was much more highly regarded than epics, which is what the Argonautica is. Kind of like the battle today between literary and genre fiction. Apollonius probably couldn’t stand his academic critics any longer, and so he moved to Rhodes where the Argonautica received much acclamation.

From then on, Apollonius considered himself a Rhodian.

Some other sources say that later in life, he returned to Alexandria where the poem received the credit it deserved, and that he even became head of the Alexandrian Library.

Like many writers, Apollonius had his own sources, oral and written, for his story. It seems that he may have drawn mainly on Pindar’s fourth Pythian Ode. But that is a much shorter work than the Argonautica.

Being from a more academic school, Apollonius did a lot of research and indeed he had access to a lot of sources in Alexandria.

When I set out to read the Argonautica, my main question was this: How does it differ from the modern film and television interpretations that had captivated me so?

I had my answer almost right away. It’s quite different.

Pelias in the Wings

Pelias

The movies (film and TV) make much of the murder of Jason’s father, his fostering with Chiron the centaur, and of his return to Thessalian Iolclus to reclaim his birthright from his treacherous uncle, Pelias. He shows up at Pelias’ court wearing one sandal, fulfilling the prophecy Pelias so fears.

Argonautica makes very little of these things. There is only passing reference. The same is true of Pelias’ obsession with the Golden Fleece; in the Argonautica the search for the Fleece is more of an impossible task that Pelias hopes will end in Jason’s death, so that he never comes back to Iolclus.

Pelias’ real motive is to destroy Jason, not to obtain the Golden Fleece.

A Ship Full of Heroes

As with most ancient and medieval heroic epics, there is a list of the men involved at the beginning of the Argonautica. But this is no ordinary list of heroes, and Apollonius gives not just the names of the men, but also their lineage and deeds.

Some of the Argonauts

I won’t go through all fifty-odd names but there are some you might recognize…

First mentioned is Orpheus, the son of the Muse, Calliope. There is Polyphemus who had fought bravely in the war between the Lapiths and Centaurs, and Erytus and Echion the sons of Hermes. Mopsus is there to play a role, as he learned augury from Apollo himself.

Peleus, the father of Achilles, is a part of the crew, as well as Telamon and Argus, the ship builder whom the Argo is named after and who received help from the goddess Athena in building it.

Phlias the son of Dionysus is there, and Nauplius, Erginus, and Ancaeus, all three the sons of Poseidon.

Brian Thompson as Hercules
Hallmark production

Most famously of all perhaps, is that Herakles is a part of the crew. He is accompanied by his good friend and bow-carrier, Hylas. Other sons of Zeus that are there include Polydeuces and Castor from Sparta; they are the Dioscouri, or the Gemini, who were later remembered in the stars. Their mother is Leda.

Augeias, the son of Helios, Lernus, the son of Hephaestus, and Zetes and Calais, the sons of the wind Boreas, are all a part of the crew too. Jason is also joined by Acastus, the son of Pelias. Much is made of the latter in the movies, but in the Argonautica he is one of the lesser characters.

These are just a few of the heroes who make up the crew of the Argo. You can see that their lineage is nothing to spit at, and it’s no wonder the people of Iolclus (modern-day Volos) are in awe of them as they assemble on the strand beside Argo where they “shone like gleaming stars among the clouds”.

Iolclus - modern Volos, Greece

This is a story of the glory of youth, and of valour. When these heroes are setting out, there is a sense of excitement, anticipation, and of danger. The men are keen, but the women of Iolclus are weeping and praying to the gods, foreshadowing the potential doom.

The thing that really strikes me, and perhaps this is the genius of it, is that among all these heroes who are proven in battle and skill, divine descendants or not, Jason seems to be the only one (apart from Acastus) with no deeds to his name.

Jason is youth. Though he is surrounded by proven men, Argonautica, to my mind, is mainly about his own personal hero’s journey.

When all the supplies are loaded and the expedition is ready to sail, Jason turns to the men and says that all that remains is to choose a leader:

…and the young heroes turned their eyes towards bold Herakles sitting in their midst, and with one shout they all enjoined upon him to be their leader; but he, from the place where he sat, stretched forth his right hand and said: “Let no one offer this honour to me. For I will not consent, and I will forbid any other to stand up. Let the hero who brought us together, himself be the leader of the host.” Thus he spake with high thoughts, and they assented, as Herakles bade; and warlike Jason himself rose up, glad at heart… (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica)

As is common throughout the tale, the heroes pay their respects to the gods, in this case Apollo, by sacrificing and building an altar before finally leaving the land of Hellas behind.

Lemnian Women are Lovely

Hypsipyle

Apollonius displays his knowledge of geography, detailing the sights that the crew sees as they sail east, past the peninsula of Athos and the Thracian coast on the way to their first port – Lemnos. 

The episode on Lemnos is one that popular retellings often include. It is the island of Queen Hypsipyle who, along with all her female subjects, has killed all the men. But that is where the commonalities between the Argonautica and Hollywood end.

In popular culture, Hypsipyle and her women are demonized, portrayed as savage man-haters who seek to trick and kill the Argonauts.

However, Apollonius portrays the Lemnian women as more sympathetic. Turns out they killed their war-mongering husbands who shunned them all in favour of the slaves they had taken on raids. The Lemnian women live in fear of retribution if word should get out as to what happened to their men – they do all the work required to live, including ploughing the fields.

When the Argonauts arrive, Hypsipyle welcomes them, offering food and supplies so that they can leave the island. They have no wish to kill the Argonauts. Hypsipyle falls in love with Jason and wonders if she could get him and his crew to stay so that they could have children again, and be protected against the Thracians.

The Argonauts linger for a time until Herakles chides them for hanging about with women instead of pursuing their quest. Jason decides they should leave and tells Hypsipyle that should she have a son by him, she should send him to Iolclus to be raised by his own parents, both of whom are still alive.

It’s actually a touching parting, without animosity, and the Argonauts set sail once more.

Stay tuned for the next post as we continue our epic journey through the Argonautica.

Thank you for reading. 

The Nine Muses – Creativity and the Higher Realm

And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song while he was shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon, and this word first the goddesses said to me – the Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis: "Shepherds of the wilderness, wretched things of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things.”

So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus, and they plucked and gave me a rod, a shoot of sturdy laurel, a marvellous thing, and breathed into me a divine voice to celebrate things that shall be and things there were aforetime; and they bade me sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally, but ever to sing of themselves both first and last. (Hesiod, Theogeny)

Hesiod

Sometime between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. the poet Hesiod created his Theogeny, a work outlining the birth and genealogy of the Gods.

At the beginning of this epic poem, Hesiod talks about how, as a shepherd, he was caring for his flock on the slopes of Mt. Helicon, in the region of Boeotia. While there, Hesiod says that the Muses came to him and inspired him to create the Theogeny, a work that to this day provides the basis for ancient Greek religion.

Hesiod, before that, had not discovered his artistic self. He was a shepherd, the son of a farmer.

And yet, while on the slopes of this sacred mountain, the goddesses, the Muses, came to him and inspired him to bring forth his great first work.

Mt. Helicon (1829)

Hesiod does not say he invented the contents of his work, or that he gathered existing tales from all over the Hellenic world.

The Gods gave him that song to sing. They inspired it in him, and he heard them.

We may scoff at this sort of thing today, our modern, media-driven minds too dense and distracted to hear anything beyond the ping of a mobile, but in the ancient world, and later ages of faith, the greatest artists and creators were those that paid attention to divine inspiration.

In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, creativity and artistic endeavour were the realm of the Nine Muses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, or ‘Memory’.

Tell me, Muse, the story of that resourceful man who was driven to wander far and wide after he had sacked the holy citadel of Troy. He saw the cities of many people and he learnt their ways. He suffered great anguish on the high seas in his struggles to preserve his life and bring his comrades home. But he failed to save those comrades, in spite of all his efforts. It was their own transgression that brought them to their doom, for in their folly they devoured the oxen of Hyperion the Sun-god and he saw to it that they would never return. Tell us this story, goddess daughter of Zeus, beginning at whatever point you will. (Homer, The Odyssey)

I’ve just finished reading a book called The War of Art, by historical fiction author, Steven Pressfield.

This is a wonderful book that every person with a measure of artistic inkling should read and re-read. It is about doing the things that you love and were meant to do without giving in to any excuses, or ‘Resistance’, as Pressfield calls the artist’s enemy.

But Pressfield also reminded me of something that I forget from time to time.

Creativity should never be taken for granted. If you feel that there is something creative you want to do, or be, it is your sacred duty to do or become that. When you feel those urges, you have to fight ‘Resistance’ and rationalization with all of your might so that you can bring those things you were meant to create to fruition.

Those urges are the Muses speaking to you, telling you it’s time. If you ignore them, it’s to the detriment of your own soul.

Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitable and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. (Steven Pressfield, The War of Art)

Homer

In ancient eyes, those who ignored the Gods didn’t do too well.

Hesiod and Homer knew that it was their duty to honour the Muses, they knew that they could not have created the works that they did without the goddesses’ help. Hubris was not a good thing in the ancient world.

But it was not just Hesiod and Homer who called on these goddesses for help. Throughout history, some of the greatest poets and other artists did so too.

Tell me, Muse, the causes of her anger. How did he [Aeneas] violate the will of the Queen of the Gods? What was his offence? Why did she drive a man famous for his piety to such endless hardship and such suffering? Can there be so much anger in the hearts of the heavenly gods? (Virgil, The Aeneid)

Praxiteles' Hermes
and Dionysos

The artist who called on the Muses for aid and blessing was the one that was listening.

We know of writers and poets who have called on the Muses in their work because they have been written down, but I imagine that painters and sculptors would have done so too. What might Praxiteles have done before he broke the surface of a piece of marble? Or Michelangelo before he put his brush to the ceiling of the Cappella Sistina? What went through Mozart’s head before the first heavenly notes of his Clarinet Concerto in A major came to him?

Before an ancient singer breathed those first notes, or before the lyre player plucked that first string at the Panathenaea or the Pythian Games, you can be sure that some inner prayer, conscious or unconscious, was sent up to their own Muse.

You can also be sure that for the artist whose heart was open to this, the Muses spoke back.

…and I alone was there, Preparing to sustain war, as well Of the long way as also of the pain, Which now unerring memory will tell. Oh Muses! O high Genius, now sustain! O Memory who wrote down what I did see, Here thy nobility will be made plain. (Dante, Inferno)

But who were the Muses? Early traditions said there were three, but that eventually turned to nine, and that is the number that has been given for ages. Their leader was Apollo, the God of Art, Light and Prophecy, and in this particular capacity he was known as ‘Apollo Mousagetes’, or ‘Apollo Muse-leader’.

Each one of these goddesses was responsible for a particular art form, and so, individual artists may have called on certain Muses. The names of these goddesses and their assigned art are as follows:

Calliope – Epic Poetry

Clio – History

Erato – Lyric Poetry

Euterpe – Song and Elegaic Poetry

Melpomene – Tragedy

Polyhymnia – Hymns

Terpsichore – Dance

Thalia – Comedy

Urania – Astronomy

I will begin with the Muses and Apollo and Zeus. For it is through the Muses and Apollo that there are singers upon the earth and players upon the lyre; but kings are from Zeus. Happy is he whom the Muses love: sweet flows speech from his lips. Hail, children of Zeus! Give honour to my song! And now I will remember you and another song also. (Homeric Hymn to the Muses and Apollo)

Some of the arts assigned to the Muses might not seem like ‘art’ to us today – I’m thinking of Astronomy and History in particular. However, to the ancients, this made perfect sense. Astronomy involved philosophy and the understanding of the Heavens; it required great imagination and thought.

Mnemosyne - 'Memory'
by Rosetti

And History? Well, to me that is ‘Mnemosyne’. History is the record of human achievement in all areas, including art. History, poetry, and storytelling go arm in arm.

It must have been a humbling experience for ancient artists to know that the Muses were looking over their shoulders as they carried out the work they were inspired to do.

It must also have been a wonder-full experience to feel that, to know that you were not alone.

My hope is that we have not totally lost this today – artists, writers, athletes, inventors, creators of all kinds will find themselves in what we call ‘The Zone’. Many will thank ‘God’ for their successes, they will be exhilarated after a good session.

As a writer, I know that when I sit down and have a fantastic writing time, even after the worst of days, there must be something more at work. I feel like I’ve had help that day. I feel like I have done justice to the art that I love.

If you are a creator of something, anything, it behoves you to acknowledge the help that you have had, especially if that help is Heaven-sent.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! (William Shakespeare, Henry V)

Thank you for reading.

Mars - God of War and Defender of Agriculture

Mars

This weekend in Canada is Thanksgiving Weekend.

Hard to believe harvest time is upon us. The seasons turn so quickly, especially the warm ones.

Harvest time was an important time of year for many ancient cultures including Greek, Roman and Celtic societies.

As a result, there are many gods and goddesses, major and minor, who are associated with crops, agriculture and the harvest. 

I was going to write a post on Demeter (Ceres) or Cronus (Saturn) who were both associated with agriculture.

Instead, today's written offering will go to Mars.

Yes, the Roman God of War who was second to none other than Jupiter himself in the Roman Pantheon.

The Romans were a warlike people after all, and so Mars always figured prominently.

Octavian (later the Emperor Augustus) vowed to build a temple to Mars in 42 B.C. during the battle of Philippi in which he, Mark Antony and Lepidus finally defeated the murderers of Julius Caesar. When Augustus built his forum in 20 B.C. the Temple of Mars Ultor (the Avenger) was the centrepiece.

"On my own ground I built the temple of Mars Ultor and the Augustan Forum from the spoils of war." (Res Gestae Divi Augusti)

Artist's representation of the
Temple of Mars Ultor

People often think that Mars was the Roman name given to Ares, the Greek God of War, as was the case with many other gods in Roman religion. This is not exactly true.

In the Greek Pantheon, Ares was simply God of War, brutal, dangerous and unforgiving. To give oneself over to Ares was to give in to savagery and the animalistic side of war. Fear and Terror were his companions. Most Greeks preferred Athena as Goddess of War, Strategy and Wisdom.

Mars was a very different god from Ares, a uniquely Roman god. He was the father of the Roman people.

Mars was the God of War, but also a god of agriculture. Just as he protected the Roman people in battle, so too did Mars guard their crops, their flocks and their lands.

War and agriculture were closely linked in the Roman Republic. Most Romans who fought in the early legions were farmers who had set aside their plows and scythes to pick up their gladii and scuta when called upon to defend their lands. One of the most cited examples of this is Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BC – 430 BC), one of the early Patrician heroes of Rome.

In his work De Agri Cultura, Marcus Porcius Cato (234 BC– 149 BC) speaks at length about the tradition of the suovetaurilia, a sacrifice that was made roughly every five years and occasionally at other times. This ceremony was a form of purification, or lustratio.

Relief of a suovetaurilia being performed

The highly sacred suovetaurilia was dedicated to Mars with the intent of blessing and purifying lands.

It involved the sacrifice of a pig, a sheep, and a bull – all to Mars. The sacrifice was done after the animals were led around the land while asking the god to purify the farm and land.

Cato describes the prayer that is uttered to Mars once the sacrifices have been made:

 "Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee that thou be gracious and merciful to me, my house, and my household; to which intent I have bidden this suovetaurilia to be led around my land, my ground, my farm; that thou keep away, ward off, and remove sickness, seen and unseen, barrenness and destruction, ruin and unseasonable influence; and that thou permit my harvests, my grain, my vineyards, and my plantations to flourish and to come to good issue, preserve in health my shepherds and my flocks, and give good health and strength to me, my house, and my household. To this intent, to the intent of purifying my farm, my land, my ground, and of making an expiation, as I have said, deign to accept the offering of these suckling victims; Father Mars…"

(Cato the Elder; De Agri Cultura)

This is not a prayer to the bloodthirsty god of war that Ares was.

The words and actions above evoke a wish from a child to a supreme father and protector. We see the fears that would have occupied the minds of the Roman people. No matter how mighty in war they may have been, if crops failed and disease spread, they would have been lost.

Romans prayed to Ceres and Saturn for the success of their crops, for abundance.

But it was Mars who held Rome’s enemies, and those of its land, at bay.

In war and in peace, Mars was always the guardian of his people.

Happy Harvest and Ave Mars!