(i) origins;
(ii) love, desire, sex, and sexual violence;
(iii) battles, fighting and martial violence;
(iv) horses;
(v) religious rituals;
(vi) the re-telling of a myth, or a myth within a myth (this is peculiar to Lucian).
Violence is a strong motif in the two categories that include the most information on Wind mythology, but we should not be surprised by this, as it is a reflection in mythological literature on the strength and force of the meteorological winds. Horses are closely linked to battles, and again, this should come as no surprise when dealing with the ancient world, where the charioteers and cavalry occupied an important place both on the battlefield and in social prestige. The link is so close between these two themes that they will at times be grouped together in the following discussion.
(i) Origins
The earliest extant mention of the origin of the Winds in literature comes from Hesiod’s Theogony, where at l.378ff he names Boreas, Zephyrus and Notus as the children of Astraeus (‘Starry Sky’) and Eos, the dawn (489). Their siblings are Eosphorus (Lucifer, the Morning Star), and the stars of the night sky. At l.869ff, Eurus and the ‘bad’ winds "rage with evil gusts; they blow at different times, scattering ships and drowning sailors", and these winds are reported to have been the offspring, or emission, of the dying serpent-tailed giant Typhon, who was crushed to death beneath Mount Etna by Zeus.
The personified forces of Hesiod’s Theogony were later reflected upon by the Presocratics and by Aristotle, who believed that earthquakes were caused by ‘bad wind’ trapped in the bowels of the earth, a kind of earthly flatulence (490), which would also agree with the analogy of Typhon, lord of Tartarus, who rules a region described by Hesiod as:
a vast chasm, whose floor a man would not reach in a whole year if once he got inside the gates, but stormwind upon terrible stormwind would carry him hither and thither (491).Winds were also considered to have their origin in the heavens, which is very close to the meteorological truth: Aristotle, in his Problems XXVI.12-13 addresses the cause of the southerly winds and the Etesians (meltemi) as being related to the rising of the Dog-Star, Sirius - the change in atmosphere following the rising of this star prompts the cold Etesians to blow in opposition to the hot southerlies.
While we shall examine Presocratic philosophy in a following section, many of the philosophers explained their beliefs in mythological terms rather than the scientific, particularly the cosmologists such as Pherecydes of Samos, who wrote the first prose theogony (which has been given many titles: Heptamychos, Theocrasia, Theogonia). In this work, he comments on the realms of Tartarus, stating that:
its guardians are the daughters of Boreas, the Harpies and the Storm-Wind (Whirlwind) (492).In Hesiodic lore, the Harpies are named as Aeollo and Ocypete, children of Electra and Thaumas, and sisters to Iris (493), and they are thus second cousins to the Winds, rather than the direct offspring of one Wind. Whirlwind is also attributed by Hesiod to the death of Typhon (l.869ff), but it exists independently within Tartarus (l.739ff). Pherecydes’ allegory of creation begins with the marriage of Zas (Zeus) and Chthonia (Gaia) in the presence of Cronos. Zas becomes Eros to unite the warring elements, thus creating the Titans, who are led by the serpent Ophion. Zas defeats the Titans and banishes them to Tartarus. In Pherecydes, Boreas may be an incarnation of Ophion, who in Pelasgian myth came into being when the goddess Eurynome (Chaos) danced, thus creating a wind with her movement. This wind-serpent was banished to the Underworld in both Pherecydes and in Pelasgian myth, which may account for the linking of Tartarean winds with Boreas. The introduction of Homeric elements - the equation of the Harpies with the Storm-Winds (compare Iliad VI.346; Odyssey I.241 and XX.61-82) and their relationship to the Winds (compare Iliad XVI.148-157) - is interesting, if indeed Pherecydes was using Homer. The simplest allegorical explanation for these links is to consider that Storm-Winds/Harpies and Whirlwinds always occur during periods of excessive meteorological violence, and the one wind most responsible for such violence is Boreas, the North Wind - therefore he is their ‘father’ in the most literal sense.
The origin of the Winds after the theogonies of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. became a subject for scientific discussion by the Presocratic philosophers rather than cosmologists, and so we find only passing references in mythology to their inception. The only extant Roman author to attempt to construct a cosmology was Ovid, in his Metamorphoses I.61ff, as part of his grand design for the book on various myths. He describes how ‘God’ assigns to each Wind a separate area of the world, to stop them from squabbling amongst themselves; there is a poetic description of the compass points ‘ruled’ by the four Winds, then later, at I.262ff, Zeus punishes the people of the earth by unleashing Notus the South Wind to bring Deucalion’s Flood (see 2.3.1 above). This represents Notus’ first and only foray into the limelight of Wind mythology. The marvellous portrayal of the god is an apt description of the sirocco, which is identified as all southerly winds between Notus (true south) and Lips-Africus (south-west). It enters the southern Mediterranean with a hot blast of air from the African littoral, then becomes moist, drizzly and foggy as it travels across the sea. Ovid, who travelled in Asia Minor and Sicily, may have experienced these conditions himself, or he must have heard or read about them - Aristotle’s descriptions of the winds and their effects in Problems and De Meteorologica may have sufficed for the poet.
(ii) Love, desire, sex, and sexual violence
This is the largest category of our seven themes, concerning the major myths attached to Boreas, Zephyrus, and their mates and offspring. Homer is the first of our authors to mention the Winds in terms of mythology as well as metaphor, and in the first two examples we also have the equine theme related to sexual violence rather than martial violence. In the Iliad XVI.148-151, he describes the ‘wind-swift’ horses of Achilles, Xanthus and Ballius, as being the offspring of Zephyrus and the Harpy Podarge, who was raped as she grazed "the lush green grass along the Ocean’s tides." At Iliad XX.223, Homer tells of Boreas mating with the mares of King Erichthonius to produce twelve colts with such delicate feet that they could run amongst the fields and not snap a single stalk of corn. In XXIII.192ff, Iris, the rainbow goddess and messenger of the Pantheon, is sent to "stormy Zephyr’s halls" where all the Winds are gathered "to share his brawling banquet". The Winds, on seeing Iris, clamour for her to sit beside them; she refuses and delivers her message, which is that the winds should come at once to fan the flames of Patroclus’ funeral pyre.
A cursory examination of these three appearances hints at a penchant for violence; again, this comes as no surprise given the nature of these deities, as in Homer the West Wind is not the gentle breeze of later periods, but a blustery stormy wind with as much force as his brother the North Wind. The first two examples are related to horses, these animals being the offspring of both Boreas and Zephyrus, and the Harpy Podarge (a Homeric Harpy, not included in Hesiod’s Theogony) is depicted as horse-like as she grazes in the meadow - see below for more details. Padel notes that the scene with Iris is "rowdily male" as the Winds "catcall" to the goddess (494), trying to attract her attention.
(a) Boreas and OreithuiaWith the Presocratic Acusilaus of Argos comes the earliest of the literary sources concerning Oreithuia, the house of Erechtheus, and Boreas. Acusilaus’ prose work, the Genealogies, displays an interest in myths pertaining to the Winds: the golden apples of the Hesperidae are guarded by Harpies (frg. B5); the Boreads Zetes and Calaïs were killed by Hercules on Tinos (frg. B19); and he holds that there are only three Winds: Boreas, Zephyrus and Notus (thus in agreement with Hesiod; B30). In B35, Acusilaus states:
Oreithuia, daughter of Erechtheus, was carried away by Boreas as she walked in procession to Athena Polias. Boreas took her to Thrace, where she bore Zetes and Calaïs, who sailed with the Argonauts.These two short sentences were to form the basis for centuries of discussion. This myth, supremely useful in terms of Athenian self-aggrandisement after the Cape Sepias incident in the Persian Wars (Herodotus VII.189; see above 2.1), has a somewhat murky past. The procession to Athena Polias probably refers to the Panathenaea, a festival already celebrated in Acusilaus’ time (495) and possibly in Homeric times (see Iliad II.549-551). Socrates would later provide a rationalising explanation for the myth (Plato, Phaedrus 229b), and indeed, the simplest reading of the myth would make it an allegory of the north-east wind, which does blow from Thrace, striking Athens during the meltemi season (in Hecatombeon, the month of the Panathenaea) before returning to its original source.
But a more complicated interpretation is offered by Loeschcke (496) on the basis of the appearance of Boreas and Oreithuia on the Chest of Cypselus at Olympia (Pausanias V.17.5-19.10; fig.2), a piece of archaic Corinthian art and the earliest depiction of the subject in the pictorial record, which at first sight would suggest that the myth cannot be restricted to Athens alone. We have discussed this above, but it is worth refreshing our memory, for the argument is complex. Loeschcke proposes that the Nereid Oreithuia (Iliad XVIII.39) is synonymous with the Athenian princess, whose father Erechtheus was originally a sea-deity, as he has the name Poseidon as an epithet and was worshipped in conjunction with the god of the sea on the Acropolis. Loeschcke’s argument is intended to show that the Boreas-Oreithuia myth is not indigenous to Attica, but rather, it proves the opposite: the worship of Poseidon-Erechtheus is strictly Athenian, and appears to have arisen in order to reconcile the two diverse elements present on the Acropolis: that of the sea (the salt-water spring gifted to the Athenians by Poseidon in the battle for the city), and of the rock (Erechtheus is seen as one of the autochthonic hero-kings of Athens). However, whether the myth is indigenous or not, Oreithuia, and therefore Boreas, are connected to Poseidon. This provides a third, and similarly complex, reading of the myth: the continuing battle for control of Athens between Poseidon and Athena (see genealogical table 2).
Poseidon fought with Athena for possession of the city, and Athena won, earning the title of Athena Polias (‘of the city’). Erechtheus is sometimes confused with Erichthonius, who was raised by Athena; Erechtheus fought against his great-grandson Eumolpus, child of Chione and Poseidon (497), in the war between Eleusis and Athens, in which Eumolpus claimed Athens as his birthright. Erechtheus is pro-Athena; Boreas is an outsider from Thrace (a land ruled by Eumolpus) and is a subject of Poseidon’s realm, although he remains separate from the god of the sea. He is also tamed by his love for Oreithuia, daughter of Erechtheus and so also pro-Athena. Boreas and Oreithuia’s daughter Chione is loved by Poseidon, resulting in Eumolpus, who is both the threat to Athens and the second challenge to Athena from Poseidon over the rights to the city. In the space of three generations we have presented to us an on-going battle for the domination of the city of Athens, which gives a win for Athena, followed by a stalemate, then a win for Poseidon. Naturally, the Erechtheid house wins the day, led by Ion, and Poseidon’s descendants are conquered and become subject to Athenian rule.
By the time of the Cean poet Simonides, Acusilaus’ myth was firmly entrenched in Athenian lore and now had a new function: it provided the focus for Athenian civic pride. Simonides, writing during the Persian Wars, was commissioned to compose a victory-ode (or prayer-song) in the shape of a melic poem, entitled On the Sea-Fight Off Artemision. This song was either performed in response to the oracle mentioned by Herodotus (VII.189), that the Athenians pray to their ‘son-in-law’, Boreas (498), or was written afterwards to celebrate the great victory, perhaps being delivered in Boreas’ honour at the founding of his shrine on the Ilissus (499). It is more likely that it was composed after the event, rather than before, due to the considerations of the war and also because Herodotus writes of a shrine set up on the banks of the Ilissus to Boreas and Oreithuia; so Simonides’ song would be more appropriate later rather than sooner. In any case, it is not extant, but the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius writes:
Simonides says that Oreithuia was carried off from Brilessos and taken to the Sarpedonian Rock in Thrace... Oreithuia was the daughter of Erechtheus, and Boreas carried her off from Attica, took her to Thrace, had intercourse with her there and fathered Zetes and Calaïs...(500)
The Scholiast also adds that Simonides writes about the island of Sciathos in conjunction with the naval battle (501): this is the island at the entrance to the gulf that divides Euboea from the mainland, and it stands directly opposite Cape Sepias to the north-west and Artemision to the south: its inclusion was probably in reference to the Sepias incident, the wrecking of the Persian fleet. The basic story here has not changed, but two new features have been added: Oreithuia is taken from the mountainside in Attica and raped on another mountainside, the Sarpedonian Rock. Mount Brilessos lies to the north-east of Athens (see map 3), directly in the path of the meteorological wind from Thrace before it hits Athens, and it is presumably for this reason only that the location has moved from riverbank to mountainside. What Oreithuia could conceivably be doing on the slopes of a mountain so far from her city-walls is a difficult problem to address, although we should not forget that Oreithuia’s name means ‘rushing from the mountains’ (502), which may have had some impact on Simonides. Later poets like Choerilos of Samos, and Plato, placed Oreithuia gathering flowers or playing with her friends, but this was beside the city walls. Herodotus, writing after Simonides, states that an altar was erected on the banks of the Ilissus, which is the spot also named by Plato as the scene of the rape. The change from river to mountain, Ilissus to Brilessos, must be related to the direction of the Thracian North Wind; similarly, the Sarpedonian Rock (Cape Sarpedon, now called Cape Gramea or Paxi) lies on an almost perfect north-easterly alignment from Athens to Thrace.Simonides is mentioned by the mid-fourth century A.D. rhetorician Himerius, and it would appear that the Sea-Fight was performed at the festival of the Panathenaea in perpetua, in remembrance of the aid sent by Boreas to the Athenians:
The cables of the ship will be untied by an ode, the ode which a holy chorus of Athenians chants, summoning the wind to the boat, bidding it to be present and fly in company with the sacred vessel; and the wind, doubtless recognising its very own ode which Simonides sang to it after the sea-fight, at once obeys the music and blowing hard astern, drives the ship with its blast on a prosperous voyage (503).The ship referred to is the ship which carried the peplos to the cult statue of Athena in the Parthenon; this ship was mounted on wheels to facilitate its journey along the Panathenaic Way and up the side of the Acropolis. For Himerius to record this at such a late date would strongly suggest that Simonides’ song became an integral part of the Panathenaea after 480 B.C. - and here we may recall that Boreas (in the form of the meltemi) rose during the most important day of the eight-day Panathenaic festival following the sighting of Sirius (see above, section 2.2.1). This means that for very nearly a millennium (504), Boreas was worshipped along with his father-in-law Erechtheus in the festival to Athena Polias.
Herodotus confirms and supports the evidence of Simonides. In his account of the Persian Wars, he makes reference to the oracles that were delivered to the Athenians. There were two concerning the Winds, but it is the one at VII.189 that we are most interested in at present. The oracle tells the Athenians to pray to their son-in-law, Boreas, who subsequently wrecks the Persian fleet at anchor off Cape Sepias. Herodotus is sceptical about divine aid. The incident occurred in early August, in meltemi season, and the Persians were quite foolish to anchor their fleet in an area prone to wind-funnelling, although it was to prove most fortunate to the Athenians, who consequently built an altar to Boreas and Oreithuia in thanks. As we have seen from the artistic evidence, this was the one incident that raised the profile of this myth in Athens to the point where it became a symbol of pride and civic self-aggrandisement. This would explain the tragedians’ interest in the life of Oreithuia and her offspring as the basis for their plays: Aeschylus (505) and Sophocles (506) both wrote plays entitled Oreithuia, as did the poet Choerilos of Samos (507), while Aristonymos wrote a comedy (508). None of these plays are now extant; however, a fragment of Choerilos reveals that he set the scene of the rape on the banks of the Cephissus (outside the city walls, west of the Acropolis), where Oreithuia was picking flowers. Both Aeschylus and Sophocles wrote plays on Phineus or The Children of Phineus, with Sophocles penning two versions. He also refers to Oreithuia’s daughter Cleopatra in his Antigone, where at l.966-987 the unfortunate daughter-sister of Oedipos is likened to Cleopatra and her sons. Cleopatra had married Phineus, a king of Thrace, and they had two sons. Cleopatra was then put aside in favour of Idaia, who killed the grandsons of Boreas. For condoning (or taking part in) this cruel deed, Phineus was blinded and tormented by the Harpies (509). In this state, driven into exile, Phineus was discovered by the Argonauts and his (former) brothers-in-law, the Boreads, chased away the Harpies. Sophocles chooses to write of the killing of the young princes, and tells of Cleopatra being of
and off in caverns half the world away
born of the wild North Wind
she sprang on her father’s gales
racing stallions up leaping cliffs (510).
By the end of the fifth and into the fourth century, philosophers, notably the Sophists, were questioning the commonly-held belief systems of the times, and challenging the existence of the gods. While Socrates (through the writings of Plato) does not discount the existence of the gods, he does not specifically believe in them, either. In Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus (written towards the end of his life, between 360-348 B.C.) (512), there is a lengthy preamble to the main debate on the issue of Ideal Love that includes an ironic take on the Boreas-Oreithuia myth. The position occupied by this tale in the dialogue is, I believe, crucial to the structure of the subsequent discussion, and therefore it is worth making a somewhat lengthy excursus into the realms of Socratic philosophy as seen in the Phaedrus.
The Phaedrus is light-hearted and jocular, one could almost say playful, in tone, with Socrates spending some time abusing the sophoi - in this case, the rationalists, or allegorists. Plato may have had a particular sophist in mind: Metrodorus of Lampascus, a contemporary of Euripides. Metrodorus believed that Homer’s work was purely allegorical, assigning physical substances and elements to different Olympians (513), and during the late fifth century this type of rationalisation became very influential: indeed, it would not have been surprising to find a rationalist specialising in Attic myths. Plato’s (and Socrates’) attitude to the allegorists is simple, as Tate explains: the ‘hidden meanings’ that the rationalists seek to uncover are too numerous, with a wide diversity of interpretations available, and with no method of deciding which is the correct meaning. Therefore, there is no point in discussing it (514). Socrates does not entirely reject the use of allegory, however, as he mythologises his own logoi which includes an amount of allegorising in order to clarify issues rather than to deconstruct them.Now let us turn to the Boreas-Oreithuia myth. As de Vries notes, the use of the personal articles at 229b 5, o B o r e a V t h n O r e i q u i a n , indicate that Boreas and Oreithuia are well-known (515) - doubtless through the artistic and literary records we are engaged in examining - but what is the relevance of this myth to the rest of the dialogue, or does it only have a connection with the introductory remarks? Hackforth puts forward the view that its inclusion is to "preclude any questions that might arise later on about the local divinities who inspire Socrates" (516) - in other words, Phaedrus and we ourselves should not attempt to rationalise the myths that Plato puts into Socrates’ mouth any more than we should follow the rationalising of the Boreas-Oreithuia myth. However, we can rationalise Socrates’ rationalising: in previous versions of this myth, Boreas at first tried by force of words - rhetoric - to win over, to persuade, his beloved’s father to accept his suit: we may imagine that he spoke in the same terms as Lysias’ speech (230e 5-234d). Boreas then abandons rhetoric and relies on his own physical force to carry off Oreithuia, which neatly illustrates the point of the first of the Socratic speeches: Love is bad because it stems from Desire, forsaking Reason, which leads to acts of mania - like rape. The third part of the myth is unusual in Classical mythology as we have already noted, as Oreithuia ends her time happily as a satisfied wife and mother. This ties in with Socrates’ second speech, that erotic mania is sent by the gods (and can be felt by the gods), and that Love can lead to great happiness, which to Plato’s mind is the stability of the Soul in Reason, and to Oreithuia was a happy marriage.
To return to the text: Socrates mentions two locations for the rape - the Ilissus and the Areopagus. At the opening of the dialogue, Phaedrus and the philosopher decide to walk along the Ilissus as it is a sunny day. Says Phaedrus,Our easiest way is to get our feet wet and walk in the stream. Pleasant enough, too, at this hour and time of year (229b).
The Ilissus is one of Athens’ two main rivers, although Phaedrus’ description of it as a ‘stream’ is far more accurate (fig.125); it runs to the south-east of the Classical city walls. Socrates wants to sit down and talk, so Phaedrus points out a plane tree which provides enough shade for them to be comfortable. Since Phaedrus is in a rustic mood, he wonders about "the story that Boreas abducted Oreithuia from somewhere here", noting that the water of the Ilissus is "delightfully fresh and clear, just the place for girls to play". When Phaedrus asks Socrates if he seriously believes the legend of Boreas and Oreithuia, the philosopher replies thus:
The hoi sophoi reject it, so if I rejected it too then I should be in good company. In that case I should rationalise the legend by explaining that the North Wind blew Oreithuia down the neighbouring rocks when she was playing with Pharmaceia, and that her dying in this way was the origin of the legend that she was abducted by Boreas. Or else she fell from the Areopagus, for according to one version the abduction took place from the Areopagus, not from here.This raises several points. Firstly, although the summer meltemi in Athens can reach a wind speed of 10-20 knots during an afternoon, this is not the kind of force that would push a young girl onto some rocks, and if it were, it would not be enough to kill her considering the path of the Ilissus (fig.125). Secondly, the name of her companion, Pharmaceia, is interesting. Many of the writers, and indeed a number of the pottery painters that deal with this myth, relate that Oreithuia was accompanied by her friends or her sisters prior to the rape. It is only in Plato that we are given the name of one specific friend: Pharmaceia is popularly identified as a nymph of the spring that joins the Ilissus (517), but she could be much more than that. Her name means "of drugs, poison, or spells", and it is a name strongly associated with witchcraft. On one level, the power to control the winds was seen as being peculiar to sorcerers and witches, the best examples being Circe in Odyssey X, and Medea in Ovid’s Metamorphoses VII.200ff, both of whom can call up breezes at will. Is Socrates punning on the combination of Oreithuia’s death by being blown by a mysteriously strong wind and by her friend’s name, which happens to encapsulate control of the winds via magic?
Another reading of Pharmaceia’s name can be based on the root pharmakos, which again means ‘sorcerer’, but has the secondary significance of ‘scapegoat’. Erechtheus’ youngest daughter Otiona gave her life in sacrifice for Athens, and was joined by two of her sisters who committed suicide. The ritual sacrifice of a human being - in mythology, usually a young virgin of noble blood (compare Iphigenia, for example, as another maiden killed in connection with the winds) - serves to act as a scapegoat for the city, thus ensuring the safety of the polis. With Pharmaceia, the allusion works on two levels: Socrates could be punning on the scapegoat aspect, suggesting that Oreithuia’s death was also for the good of Athens, as were the deaths of her sisters in the other legend. This carries more force if we recall the Persian Wars and the aid given to the Athenians by Boreas, husband of Oreithuia - the city once again benefited from the ‘sacrifice’ of a noble maiden. The pun also works if we look at it from a more social angle: Oreithuia, initially the victim of a rape (which distances a female from her family in terms of marriageability and social standing), and then as a bride in Thrace (far from the civilised world of Athens) would be, to all intents and purposes, dead to the Hellenised world if she had been a real woman.
The second location given by Socrates as the scene for the rape is the Areopagus, and a number of commentators believe that the sentence mentioning the Areopagus is an intruded gloss, stating that it hangs rather oddly off the end of the preceding sentence (518). There are, of course, several reasons as to why this should be so: Ast believed it was a sarcastic comment included to show the arbitrary nature of the rationalists’ interpretations (519), while Verdenius writes that it is there to "emphasise the uncertainty and unreliability of mythological traditions" (520). De Vries adds that Socrates is showing just how little he cares about Phaedrus’ question on the myth’s reality by tossing in a variant tradition during what amounts to a textual aside (521). Certainly, we have no other source but Plato for this version of the myth, so could we not put forward the suggestion that Socrates is being humorous again? On the most basic level, it would make rather more sense for the wind to blow Oreithuia off the Areopagus, which is a more likely scenario and one that would result in death upon the rocks below. Then there is the matter of the word Areopagus (‘Hill of Ares’) itself: there is a well-established bond between Ares and Boreas - both gods had similar violent temperaments, both hailed from Thrace, being close neighbours; according to Callimachus, Ares stabled his horses beside the seven-chambered cave in which Boreas lived on Mount Haemus (522). A final consideration is that it was the seat of the supreme murder court, and given that under Athenian law, inanimate things (rocks, trees, and presumably winds) could be tried, and convicted, for manslaughter - then, given that Oreithuia was murdered on, or from, the supreme court, it would strongly suggest that Socrates was being somewhat ironic in his choice of location.
One final point will show that the Boreas-Oreithuia story should be considered as integral with the main body of the dialogue. At 255c 1-2, during the discussion of mania, Socrates describes the act of falling in Love, beginning with the lover simply being in the company of the beloved, then moving to the physical (but non-sexual) contact; then, says Socrates, "the springs of that stream which Zeus as lover of Ganymede named ‘Desire’ flow in abundance upon the lover...". De Vries notes that Socrates seems to be being humorous again, as Zeus was the god most invoked by philosophers in their brand of religion, and here is mentioned the myth which shows that even Zeus breaks with the tenets of Reason to yield to those of Passion when confronted with a youth of outstanding beauty, like Ganymede - actions which Socrates has already criticised (523). Rowe comments that, as far as this dialogue is concerned, Ganymede is the male equivalent of Oreithuia (524), which would seem to be the case: the use of the simile of Desire as a stream does rather lead one back to the banks of the Ilissus and the Desire of Boreas that led to Oreithuia’s rape. The discussion on mania which includes the Ganymede myth effectively closes the first section of the Phaedrus, just as the myth of Boreas and Oreithuia opens the discussion. Thus, as we have seen, the myth relates to the main body of the text in an integral manner, as well as showing that the tale of Boreas and Oreithuia was still recounted a century after events at Cape Sepias; and here we end our Socratic excursus.
By the late third century, the variant myths set out by Herodotus, Plato and Simonides seem to have been reconciled, at least in Apollonius Rhodius. The consequent adoption of the Ilissus as the location of the rape was most likely due to the altar sited on the river following Artemision: a permanent structure to Boreas would ensure the association with the location of the shrine. Simonides’ ode is elaborated upon by Apollonius Rhodius in Argonautica I.211-223:
Next came Zetes and Calaïs, children of the North Wind, whom Oreithuia daughter of Erechtheus had borne to Boreas in the wintry borderland of Thrace. It was from Attica that Thracian Boreas brought her there. She was whirling in the dance on the banks of the Ilissus when he snatched her up and carried her far away to a place called Sarpedon’s Rock, near the flowing waters of Erginus, where he wrapped her in a dark cloud and overcame her.Apollonius’ interest is largely in the Argonaut Boreads, so their parentage is mentioned only this once and briefly referred to again at l.1300-1308. The poet expands the tale, writing that Oreithuia was dancing prior to her rape - a harmless enough past-time for a young girl, to be sure, just like gathering flowers - but dancing also has a ritual or erotic significance, depending upon the context of its performance. Whether Apollonius intended any reference to the festival of Athena Polias by including the dancing rather than flower-gathering is a matter of conjecture, and is of little importance. The Sarpedonian Rock reappears, described as being close to the River Erginus (Erigon), a tributary of the great Axius (Vardar) River in western Macedonia - note that Apollonius Rhodius, who attempts to include precise directions to the voyage of the Argo from Pagasae to Colchis, has gotten his geography hopelessly muddled here: the Sarpedonian Rock is some five hundred miles to the east of the Erginus!
Roman writers approached myths of the Winds with a more pragmatic view, often rewriting the Greek tales to include a more meteorological slant. Ovid and Statius provide good examples of this shift in perception to depict the Winds as elemental deities as well as mythological godlings - certainly the Greeks never felt the need to underline this former aspect. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses VI.682 we read of the rape of Oreithuia. Boreas, rejected by Erechtheus as a suitor, indulges in a monologue in which he reproaches himself for "making humble prayers, quite unsuited to my character [when] violence is natural to me". The description of Boreas’ violence, which "freeze[s] the snow, and lash[es] the earth with hail" is as accurate as the poet’s earlier description of Notus-sirocco: here is Boreas as the vicious winter bora described so well in Hesiod’s Works and Days 504-518. Statius’ Thebaid XII.630 tells of the "Elisos [Ilissus], who, privy to Oreithuia’s rape, concealed beneath his banks the Thracian lover" - this could possibly be influenced by the phenomenon seen along river-banks in the early morning, especially in the summer, when clouds lie low, forming mist. The wind, once risen in late morning, will blow away these clouds. Statius’ line does, therefore, have more than poetic significance.
Strabo uses the myth to touch upon natural history and geography, even quoting a line from Sophocles’ lost play Oreithuia:
It is because of men’s ignorance of these regions that any heed has been given to those who created the mythical... ‘Hyperboreans’... So then, these men should be disregarded. In fact, if even Sophocles, when in his role as tragic poet he speaks of Oreithuia, tells of how she was snatched up by ‘Boreas’ and carried "over the whole sea to the ends of the earth and to the sources of the night and to the unfoldings of heaven and to the ancient gardens of Phoebus", his story can have no bearing on the present enquiry, but should be disregarded, just as it is disregarded by Socrates in the Phaedrus.Strabo, like so many of the ancient writers, heaps scorn upon his predecessors who foolishly believed in beings and regions which are, to Strabo, blatantly ridiculous. This is less to do with sophistry, as he would have us believe, and more to do with pride in one’s own achievements. He casually dismisses the Hyperboreans, a staple component of any work written about far-off places (Herodotus IV.33ff; Pindar Olympian Odes III.3; Callimachos To Delos I.281ff), but fortunately preserves one line of Sophocles, in which the poet tells of Oreithuia’s journey with Boreas to the north (‘ends of the earth’), south (‘sources of the night’), east (‘unfoldings of heaven’) and west (‘gardens of Phoebus’), before her actual rape in Thrace. Although this single line cannot aid us much in the reconstruction of the play, it does show that Sophocles had in mind the sheer power of the North Wind, his force being enough to blow the girl in all compass directions and to the very reaches of the earth.
Finally, Lucian puts forth a similar view in his work The Lover of Lies 3, when Tychiades says:
If any man, however, does not think that these silly stories are true, but sanely puts them to the proof and holds that only a Coroebus and a Margites can believe... that Oreithuia was carried off by Boreas, they consider that man a sacrilegious fool for doubting facts so evident and genuine; to such an extent does falsehood prevail.This sounds similar to Strabo’s views, only in reverse. Tychiades, like Strabo, considers that the myths of the gods are pure invention; yet there were still those superstitious or devout enough (i.e. the lovers of lies) to class the unbelievers as sacrilegious. The inclusion of Boreas and Oreithuia in this section of the speech does suggest that Lucian was thinking specifically of Strabo, or perhaps even Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus, since he is attacking the rationalist viewpoint.
(b) Zephyrus
Zephyrus appears most often in the Roman literary sources rather than the Greek, and he is generally regarded as a gentle, favourable wind, the antithesis of the blustery force presented by Homer. When the poets are not discussing the specific myth of Zephyrus-Hyacinthus, they tend to refer to other Wind-gods, particularly Boreas, as a template model for the reader to judge Zephyrus against.
Alcaeus, the Lesbian poet contemporary with Sappho, wrote in praise of Eros, giving his parentage as Iris and Zephyrus:
...thee, awfullest of Gods, sandalled Iris bore to Zephyr of the golden hair (525).Eros is one of the first gods and one of the last gods to be born: in Orphic and Presocratic creation myths, Eros was hatched from the Universal Egg, because without Desire, then there would be no procreation and no other gods. He was also seen as the child of Aphrodite (sexual love) by Ares (violence and war), Hermes (originally god of fertility), or Zeus (power). Any combination of these gods with Aphrodite provides a sound explanation for Eros’ nature and deeds. Compared to these august deities, the coupling of Iris and Zephyrus to create Eros seems a little tame. As Graves notes, it can be no more than a "lyrical fancy" (526): the Rainbow and the West Wind creating the god of Love. This does, of course, have its reverse side: Alcaeus may have had the more pleasant aspects of both Iris and Zephyrus in mind, but one should take into account the fact that, in order for a rainbow to appear, there must be a rainstorm; and that on the evidence from Homer as well as from meteorology, the West Wind is not always favourable but is very often violent.
This violence against loved ones is explored in the case of Hyacinthus and Chloris-Flora. The addition of Zephyrus to the Apollo-Hyacinthus myth is first recorded in the literary sources by Palaiphatos (527), a poet of the fourth century B.C., but was not developed until the Roman imperial period, when the myth seemingly became quite popular as a subject for paintings. Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods 14 is a conversation between Hermes and Apollo; the latter is mournful at the death of Hyacinthus, and Hermes asks: "Who was so insensible to charm as to kill that lovely boy?". When Apollo admits that it was he himself, Hermes is shocked: "What! Were you mad, Apollo?" The god explains:
[Hyacinthus] was learning to throw the quoit, and I was throwing it with him, when Zephyrus did it - curse that wind above them all! - Zephyrus, too, had been in love with him for a long time, but the boy wouldn’t look at him, and he couldn’t stand his contempt. Well, I threw my quoit as usual, and Zephyrus blew down from Taygetus, and dashed it down on the boy’s head. Blood poured out where it hit him, and he died on the spot, poor lad. I shot back at Zephyrus with my arrows, and chased him hard, all the way back to the mountain.Taygetus is both the mountain range that divides Laconia from Messenia and also its highest summit (2404m); it lies to the west of Sparta and down-draughts from the range affect the Eurotas valley - so Lucian’s description is well-grounded in meteorological reality.
The Imagines of Philostratus the Elder and Younger both record the myth from a pictorial standpoint. Philostratus the Elder describes the painting (528):
A lout is Zephyrus, who was angry with Apollo and caused the quoit to strike the youth, and the scene seems a laughing matter to the wind, and he taunts the god from his look-out. You can see him, I think, with his winged temples and his delicate form; and he wears a crown of all kinds of flowers, and will soon weave the hyacinth in amongst them (529).Philostratus the Younger, grandson to the Elder, describes the (or a different) painting thus:
Hyacinthus is standing beside Apollo, who is about to throw the quoit] and Zephyrus, who just shows his savage eye from his place of look-out - by all this the painter suggests the death of the youth, and as Apollo makes his cast, Zephyrus, by breathing athwart its course, will cause the quoit to strike Hyacinthus (530).The myth can generally be regarded as an allegory of fertility, as Apollo turns the dying Hyacinthus into a flower. The Spartans (and indeed, all the Dorian cities) celebrated the month of Hyacinthia which is equivalent to our month of July (531), and thus also equivalent to the Athenian month of Hecatombeon. The Hyacinthia was therefore a New Year festival, as was the Panathenaea. Zephyrus’ involvement in the myth is clearly a later tradition (532) (especially as it is a subject that appears firstly on pottery, approximately a century before it is first noted in the extant literary record), as was the inclusion of Apollo in the original Dorian myth of (a mature) Hyacinthus (533); Zephyrus as harbinger of Spring and of the flowers is therefore the agent of Hyacinthus’ death and also his rebirth, and in this capacity becomes just as important as Apollo is in his role as sun-god.
Zephyrus’ connection with flowers continues with his relationship with Chloris-Flora. Ovid’s Fasti is the only extant source that partners the two deities, at V.195ff, the section of the calendar devoted to Flora, goddess of the Springtime and of Flowers. Her festival in Rome was celebrated from 28th April to the 3rd May. Ovid makes her describe herself: she "was once called Chloris. The Greek spelling of my name became corrupted by the Latin pronunciation". She tells of her great beauty and of how, when walking in a meadow in the spring, Zephyrus happened to see her:
I walked on; he followed me; I fled, but he proved stronger. Boreas too had given his brother a full penchant for violence, when he dared to carry off his prize from the house of Erechtheus. Yet he made amends for his violence by giving me the name of wife, and in my marriage bed I have no cause for complaint.Flora was originally an Italian deity before she was equated with Chloris; the union between this goddess and Zephyrus is based upon the gentle side of the West Wind, harbinger of Spring and fertility: Flora’s dowry is a garden, which "my husband has filled with flowers of the choicest kind", and she herself states that she is happy in the marriage, especially the sexual side (534). This is presented to be at odds with Oreithuia’s lot: Boreas is the more violent Wind-god since Zephyrus, although having a capability for violence in passion, was willing to make amends afterwards by marriage (535).
(c) The Aeolids and the Winds
The interest in sexual and domestic violence is expanded by Ovid to include the Aeolids, who lived on the bronze island Aeolia under the sway of their king and father, Aeolus. We shall encounter Aeolus later in this section; for the moment, his daughter Canace is our focus. In Heroides XI.9-14, Canace writes in despair to her brother-lover Macareus after their father has discovered their incestuous relationship. Canace has fallen pregnant, and has been ordered to kill herself:
Fierce as [Aeolus] is, far harsher than his own east winds, he would look dry-eyed upon my wounds. Surely, something comes from a life with savage winds - his temper is like that of his subjects. It is Notus, and Zephyrus, and Sithonian Boreas, over whom he rules, and over thy pinions, wanton Eurus. He rules the winds, alas! but his swelling wrath he does not rule, and the realms of his possession are less wide than his faults.Here again is the agreed convention that Eurus the east wind is an evil wind; likewise, Ovid follows Homer in assigning violence to all the winds, including Zephyrus. Aeolus the master is also mastered by his wards, according to his daughter; this is at variance with the descriptions of Homer and Virgil, who represent Aeolus as the soul of discretion, who obeys the gods above all else (536). Granted, in the case of Canace and Macareus, Aeolus feared that he had offended the gods, whose prerogative it was to freely commit incest: Ovid is again at variance with Homer, who states (Odyssey X.5-6) that Aeolus’ six sons married the six daughters, in the Olympian tradition. Here the poet must be following Euripides, whose lost tragedy Aeolus is based on the premise that the fall of the House of Aeolus was due to incest (537).
The Aeolids are also mentioned in Ovid’s Metamorphoses XI.431ff, the story of Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus, and Ceyx, son of Eosphorus (Lucifer). Ceyx leaves on a voyage which will lead to his death, and Alcyone begs him not to leave her, telling him that once Aeolus has released the winds, nothing can stand in their way:
Every land and all the waters are at their mercy, and they even harry the clouds in heaven, striking out fiery lightning flashes by their fierce collisions. The more I know them (and I do know them, and often saw them, when I was a little girl in my father’s house), the more I think they are to be feared.This is an interesting speech, insinuating as it does that Aeolus’ control over the Winds only applies when they are imprisoned in Aeolia. However, this is a topic we shall be returning to; the other information we can glean from this tale of Ovid’s is the meteorological references both real and mythical. The line which describes the winds harrying the clouds in heaven and causing the lightning through collision is very reminiscent of Socrates’ account of storms in Aristophanes’ comedy The Clouds (l.370ff - see below for further discussion), which in turn owes much to the Presocratic philosophers such as Heracleitus (538). The final outcome of this tragic tale ends with the drowning of Ceyx, and the grieving Alcyone throws herself into the sea, only to be transformed into a halcyon bird (sea kingfisher). This bird apparently guards her floating nest for seven days before the winter solstice, and for seven days after it; for these fifteen days, the winds are held in check by Aeolus, so this period is known as the Halcyon Days. It goes without saying that no real bird would be nesting upon the ocean between 15th-29th December, but the myth may have arisen from a period of calm that may have been experienced when an anticyclone moved through a zone that should have been gripped by cyclonic activity. This is not a frequent event, particularly in the dead of winter, but the weather is unpredictable at the best of times - so this could well be an instance of myth functioning as aetiology.
(d) Miscellaneous Wind myths
Two more literary sources will serve to bring this section on passion and sexual violence to a close. The first is Hyginus Mythographus, whose collection of Fabulae includes several tales pertaining to the myths we have discussed above. However, at both LIII and CXL there comes the tale of Leto’s flight from the Python. Zeus orders Boreas to carry Leto to Ortygia (Delos), a floating island which will be fixed to the sea-bed on the command of Poseidon. Hyginus was writing in the late first century B.C., and it is probable that this myth belonged to a much earlier tradition, possibly dating from the fifth century - the Athenian interest in Delos as the site of their treasury and focal point of the military league against the Persians, coupled with the iconographic evidence of the Boreas and Oreithuia acroterion on the Temple of the Athenians on Delos - suggests an origin for this myth of Leto and Boreas (539). Alternatively, it could yet be an even older tradition dating back to the Ionic colonisation of the island in the late 10th-early 9th century, when the worship of Apollo, Artemis and Leto was first instituted. Certainly the Homeric hymn To Apollo (mid 8th century), at l.25-8, tells of the "shrill winds" that howl about Delos and whip the sea landwards, but it does not specify which wind carried Leto to Ortygia - although, if we take modern wind patterns as our model, then the ‘shrill winds’ were most likely northerlies.
Our final example is from the Roman fifth century A.D. poet Nonnos, whose epic Dionysiaca brings together the many disparate strands of mythology to weave them into a pleasing, if somewhat occasionally baffling, whole. At XLVII.302ff, he tells of Ariadne abandoned on Naxos, and of her prayers:
If it should be Boreas blowing, I appeal to Oreithuia; but Oreithuia hates me, because she has the blood of Marathon, whence beloved Theseus came. If Zephyrus torments me, tell Iris the bride of Zephyrus and mother of Desire, to behold Ariadne maltreated. If it is Notus, if bold Eurus, I appeal to Eos and reproach the mother of the blustering Winds, lovelorn herself!Here Nonnos brings together all the diverse elements from other myths, including Alcaeus’ lyrical fancy of Zephyrus and Iris. Eos is cast as lovelorn as she was forever pursuing handsome youths (Cephalus and Tithonos, for example) and losing them. Nonnos, then, is the ideal author with whom to close this section.
(iii) Martial violence and battle
The use of the Wind-gods to emphasise a martial twist in a tale, or to describe a battle sequence, is mainly through the employment of metaphor, as will be seen later (below, section 3.8.), but occasionally they (or their mythology) are used for other purposes. For example, Virgil, in referring to the battle between Aeneas’ and Turnus’ armies at Aeneid X.345ff, writes: "Clasus also laid low three Thracians of the most exalted line of Boreas". In a war it became important to identify oneself, not only with one’s own side, but with a mythological or legendary figure who would act as a patron deity for the soldiers. Here the Thracians, understandably, trace their lineage to Boreas, the most famous warlike Thracian. This was a subject touched on by later writers, notably Silius Italicus, whose Punic Wars records a city’s legendary founder at VIII.513ff:
No less zealous were the natives of Sidicinum, whose mother-city is Cales. Cales had no mean founder - even Calaïs, who, as legend tells, was nurtured in Thracian caves by Oreithuia, when she was carried off by the blast of wanton Boreas through the sky.While this adds nothing new to the original Boreas-Oreithuia legend, it does show the importance of the hero-cult to a city (540), especially in a combat situation: Calaïs was an Argonaut as well as being the Thracian son of Boreas, so he was a good founder-hero to emulate.
(iv) Horses
Horses were extremely important in antiquity to both the Greeks and Romans, being both a symbol of wealth (541) and necessary for the battlefield; the second class of Athenian citizens was called the hippeis, the knights (the Roman equivalent was the equites), as they had sufficient money to provide for the upkeep of a horse. Owning a thoroughbred and fleet horse would be considered a mark of distinction, in much the same way that owning a fast and expensive sportscar would be considered a mark of distinction today. Horses were the sign of nobility: in fourth century Sparta, the breeding of horses for chariot-racing was undertaken only by the wealthy (542), and the same applied in Athens for the breeding of race-horses (543). Their cost must have fluctuated depending upon the market, availability and bloodstock, but it is clear from the sources that the prices were expressed in terms of minae (one hundred drachmas) or talents (sixty minae): for example, Alcibiades’ Olympic-winning team was valued at five talents (544), and Alexander the Great’s horse Bucephalus was valued at up to sixteen talents (545).
The Olympian god who is considered to have created horses, and who is their protector, is Poseidon, supreme god of the sea. Homer specifically mentions that the Harpy Podarge was beside the ocean when Zephyrus raped her (Iliad XVI.148-151), and this is the first of a series of tales that link Poseidon to the Winds, sometimes through horses, sometimes through blood-ties (see above, the Aeolid connection). Horses and battle are a favourite topic with regards to the Winds, however, with the relationship emphatically drawn by Callimachos in his Hymn to Delos, l.65ff:
The space of the continent did bold Ares watch, sitting armed on the high top of Thracian Haemus, and his horses were stalled by the seven-chambered cave of Boreas.Here is the almost inevitable link between Ares, god of violence and war, who himself hails from Thrace, and Boreas, the violent north wind who originates from Thrace (Mount Haemus being one of the mythological homes of Boreas, along with the River Strymon). Later tradition will make Ares’ horses the children of Boreas, but for now they are content to be stabled close by his home. Winds were often thought to live in caves - Aeolia is riddled with caves which the Winds inhabit, and even Pliny speaks of a place called ‘The Earth’s Door-Bolt’, a cave from whence the north wind rises (546) - and the seven chambers may well be an echo of the Presocratic belief that the cosmos was ordered into seven chambers.
Valerius Flaccus’ incomplete version of the Argonautica draws a finer parallel between Winds and horses at l.609ff, when Boreas asks permission from Aeolus to raise a storm:
Then did Hippotades drive against the mighty door with a whirling blast. Joyfully from the prison burst the Thracian horses, Zephyrus and Notus of the night-dark pinions with all the sons of the storms, and Eurus, his hair dishevelled with the blasts, and tawny with much sand...Here Aeolus is referred to by his epithet ‘Hippotades’, and is clearly Aeolus son of Poseidon (see genealogical table 4), and in addition, the Winds are specifically called ‘Thracian horses’ - although, strictly speaking, only one of the Winds was Thracian. Quintus of Smyrna, however, is our best linking source. In his epic The Fall of Troy at I.167ff, the Amazon warrior-queen Penthesilea rides a special horse into battle, an animal given to her by Oreithuia as a host-gift, "a steed whose flying feet could match the Harpies’ wings". This not only underlines the connection between Winds and horses, it also serves to remind the reader of the place of horses as valuable commodities: Oreithuia’s gift was a rich one, and unusual from one woman to another, which suggests the martial nature of the Amazons. The link continues at IV.569ff, which describes a horse’s lineage as descending from Arion, "the foal begotten by the loud-piping Zephyrus upon a Harpy". Arion is generally regarded as being the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter; Quintus of Smyrna was presumably using the Homeric example of Zephyrus and Podarge from Iliad XVI.148ff in the furtherance of a generation of wind-swift horses. Another example of this comes at VIII.241ff, where Boreas is said to be the father, by the Harpy Erinnys, of Ares’ four fire-breathing horses, named (appropriately enough) Red-Fire, Flame, Tumult and Panic-Fear.
Nonnos’ Dionysiaca continues in the same vein, when at XXXVIII.155, Erechtheus harnesses his horses Bayard and Swiftfoot to his chariot before going to war. These horses were the offspring of Boreas and a Harpy, "and the Wind gave them as love-price to his father-in-law Erechtheus when he stole Attic Oreithuia for his bride". Again we have the notion of horses as valuable gifts, given in exchange for a woman, this time in recompense for a rape. It is interesting to note that often, the mother of these wind-swift horses is a Harpy; the variant traditions surrounding the nature of the Harpies makes it impossible for us to know what manner of creature the poets were envisaging - the foul scavengers of the Argonautica, chased (and sometimes killed) by the Boreads, or the demonic storm-winds of Presocratic and Homeric belief. Quintus of Smyrna actually credits Boreas as being the father of the Gales (i.e. Harpies) at I.684 before his later statement about the parentage of Ares’ horses, which would suggest that some sort of Aeolid-type incest was going on - but it is unlikely that Quintus of Smyrna intended such a reference!
(v) Religious rite
In Lucian’s The Dance, the Cynic philosopher Crato is converted by Lycinus to an enjoyment of dancing. Dances were performed in masks and appropriate costumes to the accompaniment of music and a spoken dialogue, which was read over the action as it happened. Lycinus lists the subjects suitable for dances, including at 40, the story of Boreas and Oreithuia, and at 45, the story of Hyacinthus, Apollo and Zephyrus. These dances would be primarily religious, not just being concerned with a sacred subject, but they would be performed at an appropriate occasion, such as a public festival to Dionysus. It is interesting to compare Crato’s pleasure in the dance with the words of Philostratus, who wrote in 217 A.D. in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana of the Pythagorean’s scorn for dances, particularly those he saw performed at the City Dionysia:
Nay more, I hear that you turn yourselves into winds, and wave your shirts, and pretend you are ships bellying their sails aloft. But surely you might at least have some respect for the winds that were once your allies and once blew mightily to protect you, instead of turning Boreas who was your patron, and who of all the winds is the most masculine, into a woman; for Boreas would never have become the lover of Oreithuia if he had seen her executing, like you, a skirt dance.This returns to the idea first recorded by Apollonius Rhodius, that Oreithuia was dancing when Boreas seized her: was it innocent play or religious ceremony? Alternatively, it could mean that Oreithuia was not dancing when Boreas saw her, and thus the fact that men should be dancing now is quite outrageous to Apollonius. The dancing that Crato initially dislikes, and that Apollonius of Tyana rails against, is seen by both men as being immodest: Crato because he is a (stereotypical) Cynic, and Apollonius because he is disgusted that the Athenians are commemorating their heroic predecessors in such an effeminate way. Presumably the type of dancing had altered over the years - the dancing performed in Apollonius Rhodius’ time would be different to the dances seen by Apollonius of Tyana; Lucian’s dances are retrospective and satirical, but have their basis in a real practice. In any case, the dancing that Apollonius of Tyana objects to is apparently ‘womanly’ because of the way the (male) dancers wave and whirl and jig so that their clothes flutter in the air. This is more of a comment on social decline, the ‘softness’ of the Athenian men at this time (under Roman overlordship) when compared to the previous ‘hard men’ image of the Persian Wars, that they should decline so much as to dance like women. The comment on Boreas and Oreithuia is amusing if we imagine that Apollonius of Tyana is taking umbrage at a performance of the Simonides ode On the Sea-Fight Off Artemision, which was performed at the Panathenaea.
(vi) Myths within myths / re-telling of myths
Here we are mainly concerned with the writings of Lucian; the Winds feature several times in his prodigious literary output, particularly in the Dialogues of the Sea-Gods, which provides an opportunity for the writer to re-tell a particular myth with a satirical twist. Two of the dialogues feature the Winds as speakers: Notus and Zephyrus, in 7 and 15. The two Winds are presented as gossips, with the unfortunate Notus always missing some fine sight so that Zephyrus has to give him the details. They are ‘sea-gods’, which are inferior to the (Olympian) gods of the other series of Lucian’s dialogues; therefore the sole purpose of the Winds is to stir up the ocean at the will of the Olympians. Dialogue 7 deals with the myth of Io and her epic swim across to Egypt while she was in the form of a heifer. This in itself is an interesting story as Lucian draws parallels between Egyptian and Greek deities, equating Io with Isis-Hathor, and Hermes, who is accompanying Io, with Anubis (547). Zephyrus tells Notus some of the background regarding the affair between Io and Zeus, who is still in love with her with her, even though she has the form of a cow. The Winds have their orders:
Zephyrus: [Zeus has] told us that he doesn’t want any rough seas, until she swims across, so that, when she has her baby there - she’s expecting at the moment - both mother and child may become gods.Isis-Hathor was associated with the sky and heavens (548), although she had no control over the Winds (Shu) in Egyptian mythology, as they are autonomous elemental beings with no fixed anthropomorphic shape. Still, given the syncretism between the different religions of the Empire by the second century A.D., and the popularity of the Isis cult, it is unsurprising that Io-Isis-Hathor should be thought of as playing the role of Aeolus. The second dialogue (15) concerns the rape of Europa. Zephyrus tells Notus of a "magnificent pageant", the likes of which he had not seen "since I began to live and blow". Notus has once again missed out on the spectacle, so Zephyrus describes how Zeus turned himself into a bull and played upon the beach with Europa and her friends until she climbed upon his back, whereupon he swam into the sea, and was accompanied by Nereids, Tritons, Poseidon, Amphritite, Aphrodite and Erotes all the way to Crete. This dialogue has more of a feel of gossiping friends to it: Notus remarks that he’s "known for ages" when Zephyrus tells him of Zeus’ love for Europa. Zephyrus is also a little salacious in his details, as he describes the "pretty well half-naked" Nereids on their dolphins; indeed, the entire dialogue is coyly erotic in its overtones, with the inclusion of Aphrodite and the Erotes "singing the marriage-hymn". Zephyrus’ last line in the dialogue: "But we each assailed a different part of the sea, and stirred up the waves", follows the arrival of Zeus and Europa on Crete, where the blushing girl is led off to a cave on Mount Dicte, and seems to be the literary equivalent of the cinematic surging sea symbolising sexual union. The use of elements in turmoil is an accepted metaphor for the sexual act: see, for example, the consummation of Dido and Aeneas’ passion in a cave during a storm in Virgil’s Aeneid IV.160ff. Another point of interest is where Notus was whilst all this was going on: "Well, I was at work about the Red Sea, and I blew also over the parts of India near the coast..." This is technically the south-east wind (also known as Eurus). Lucian, his sense of the absurd persisting, makes Notus add: "All I saw was griffins and elephants and black men". While two of these things may be found on the Red Sea littoral and in India, griffins were generally regarded as living in Scythia (549)!Notus: The heifer a god?
Zephyrus: Indeed she will be. According to Hermes, she’ll have power over those at sea and be our mistress, choosing for herself which one of us to send out or stop from blowing.Notus: In that case we’d better be attentive to her, if she’s now our mistress. Then we’ll be sure of her good-will.
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