Melicertes
Encyclopedia
In Greek mythology
, Melicertes (ancient Greek
Μελικέρτης, sometimes Melecertes, later called Palaemon Παλαίμων) is the son of the Boeotia
n prince Athamas
and Ino
, daughter of Cadmus
.
Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera
because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus
, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara
and Corinth, Both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea
, noted by Homer, Melicertes as Palaemon. The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin
to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree. Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus
, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the Nereids instituted the Isthmian Games
and sacrifices in his honour.
Palaemon appears for the first time in Euripides
Iphigeneia in Tauris
, where he is already the "guardian of ships". The paramount identification in the Latin poets of the Augustan age is with Portunus
, the Roman god of safe harbours, memorably in Virgil
's Georgics
. Ovid
twice told the story of Ino's sea-plunge with Melicertes in her arms.
Ovid's treatment in Fasti identifies for the first time as the location the Isthmus
without literally naming it:
In later Latin poets there are numerous identifications of Palaemon with the sanctuary at the Isthmus, where no archaeological evidence was found for a pre-Augustan cult. In the late 2nd century CE, within the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia, Pausanias
saw a temple of Palaemon,
In company with Leucothea, Melicertes/Palaemon was widely invoked for protection from dangers at sea.
There seems considerable doubt whether or not the cult of Melicertes was of foreign, probably Phoenician
, origin, and introduced by Phoenician navigators on the coasts and islands of the Aegean
and Mediterranean. For the Hellenes he is a native of Boeotia, where Phoenician influences were strong; at Tenedos he was propitiated by the sacrifice of children which seems to point to his identity with Melqart
. The premature death of the child in the Greek form of the legend is probably an allusion to this.
The Romans identified Palaemon with Portunus
(the harbour god). No satisfactory origin of the name Palaemon has been given. It has been suggested that it means the "wrestler" or "struggler" and is an epithet of Heracles
, with whom Melqart is identified by interpretatio graeca
and referred to as the Tyrian Herakles
, but there does not appear to be any traditional connection between Heracles and Palaemon. Melicertes being Phoenician, Palaemon also has been explained as the "burning lord" (Baal-haman), but there seems little in common between a god of the sea and a god of fire.
In 1956 excavations at Isthmia by the University of Chicago under the direction of Oscar Broneer uncovered the small sanctuary of Palaimon, which eventually had a tiny Roman round temple in the Corinthian order, which appeared on coins of Corinth in the 2nd century CE; it was the successor to two previous more modest architectural phases of the sanctuary. The foundations of the temple were found to lie over the starting-line of a late 5th or early 4th century BCE stadium. Worship was characterized by the dedication of hundreds of wheelmade oil lamps of a distinct type. A cult of Melicertes of great antiquity, possibly based on pre-Hellenic figures of Ino and Melicertes, was posited by Edouard Will just previous to the site's discovery and refuted by John Hawthorne in 1958.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, Melicertes (ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
Μελικέρτης, sometimes Melecertes, later called Palaemon Παλαίμων) is the son of the Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...
n prince Athamas
Athamas
The king of Orchomenus in Greek mythology, Athamas , was married first to the goddess Nephele with whom he had the twins Phrixus or Frixos and Helle. He later divorced Nephele and married Ino, daughter of Cadmus. With Ino, he had two children: Learches and Melicertes...
and Ino
Ino
-Arts and music:*"I'm Not Okay" , a 2004 song by American alternative rock band My Chemical Romance*I-No, a character in the Guilty Gear series of video games*Ino , a queen of Thebes in Greek mythology...
, daughter of Cadmus
Cadmus
Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...
.
Ino, pursued by her husband, who had been driven mad by Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
because Ino had brought up the infant Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
, threw herself and Melicertes into the sea from a high rock between Megara
Megara
Megara is an ancient city in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King...
and Corinth, Both were changed into marine deities: Ino as Leucothea
Leucothea
In Greek mythology, Leucothea , "white goddess") was one of the aspects under which an ancient sea goddess was recognized, in this case as a transformed nymph....
, noted by Homer, Melicertes as Palaemon. The body of the latter was carried by a dolphin
Dolphins in mythology
Dolphins appear in a number of Greek myths, invariably as helpers of humankind. Dolphins also seem to have been important to the Minoans, judging by artistic evidence from the ruined palace at Knossos....
to the Isthmus of Corinth and deposited under a pine tree. Here it was found by his uncle Sisyphus
Sisyphus
In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity...
, who had it removed to Corinth, and by command of the Nereids instituted the Isthmian Games
Isthmian Games
The Isthmian Games or Isthmia were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were named after the isthmus of Corinth, where they were held...
and sacrifices in his honour.
Palaemon appears for the first time in Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
Iphigeneia in Tauris
Iphigeneia in Tauris
Iphigenia in Tauris is a drama by the playwright Euripides, written between 414 BC and 412 BC. It has much in common with another of Euripides's plays, Helen, and is often described as a romance, a melodrama or an escape play.-Background:...
, where he is already the "guardian of ships". The paramount identification in the Latin poets of the Augustan age is with Portunus
Portunus
Portunus is a genus of crab which includes several important species for fisheries, such as the blue swimming crab, Portunus pelagicus and the Gazami crab, P. trituberculatus . The genus Portunus contains more than 90 extant species and over 40 further species known only from fossils ....
, the Roman god of safe harbours, memorably in Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's Georgics
Georgics
The Georgics is a poem in four books, likely published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. It is a poem that draws on many prior sources and influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present...
. Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
twice told the story of Ino's sea-plunge with Melicertes in her arms.
Ovid's treatment in Fasti identifies for the first time as the location the Isthmus
Isthmus
An isthmus is a narrow strip of land connecting two larger land areas usually with waterforms on either side.Canals are often built through isthmuses where they may be particularly advantageous to create a shortcut for marine transportation...
without literally naming it:
A land there is, shrunk within narrow bounds, which repels twin seas, and single in itself, is lashed by two-fold waters.
In later Latin poets there are numerous identifications of Palaemon with the sanctuary at the Isthmus, where no archaeological evidence was found for a pre-Augustan cult. In the late 2nd century CE, within the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia, Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
saw a temple of Palaemon,
with images in it of Poseidon, Leucothea and Palaemon himself. There is also what is called his Holy of Holies, and an underground descent to it, where they say that Palaemon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Corinthian or stranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape from his oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes upon it.
In company with Leucothea, Melicertes/Palaemon was widely invoked for protection from dangers at sea.
There seems considerable doubt whether or not the cult of Melicertes was of foreign, probably Phoenician
Phoenician languages
Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew, to...
, origin, and introduced by Phoenician navigators on the coasts and islands of the Aegean
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
and Mediterranean. For the Hellenes he is a native of Boeotia, where Phoenician influences were strong; at Tenedos he was propitiated by the sacrifice of children which seems to point to his identity with Melqart
Melqart
Melqart, properly Phoenician Milk-Qart "King of the City", less accurately Melkart, Melkarth or Melgart , Akkadian Milqartu, was tutelary god of the Phoenician city of Tyre as Eshmun protected Sidon. Melqart was often titled Ba‘l Ṣūr "Lord of Tyre", the ancestral king of the royal line...
. The premature death of the child in the Greek form of the legend is probably an allusion to this.
The Romans identified Palaemon with Portunus
Portunes
In Roman mythology, Portunes was a god of keys, doors and livestock. He protected the warehouses where grain was stored...
(the harbour god). No satisfactory origin of the name Palaemon has been given. It has been suggested that it means the "wrestler" or "struggler" and is an epithet of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
, with whom Melqart is identified by interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca is a Latin term for the common tendency of ancient Greek writers to equate foreign divinities to members of their own pantheon. Herodotus, for example, refers to the ancient Egyptian gods Amon, Osiris and Ptah as "Zeus", "Dionysus" and "Hephaestus", respectively.-Roman...
and referred to as the Tyrian Herakles
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
, but there does not appear to be any traditional connection between Heracles and Palaemon. Melicertes being Phoenician, Palaemon also has been explained as the "burning lord" (Baal-haman), but there seems little in common between a god of the sea and a god of fire.
In 1956 excavations at Isthmia by the University of Chicago under the direction of Oscar Broneer uncovered the small sanctuary of Palaimon, which eventually had a tiny Roman round temple in the Corinthian order, which appeared on coins of Corinth in the 2nd century CE; it was the successor to two previous more modest architectural phases of the sanctuary. The foundations of the temple were found to lie over the starting-line of a late 5th or early 4th century BCE stadium. Worship was characterized by the dedication of hundreds of wheelmade oil lamps of a distinct type. A cult of Melicertes of great antiquity, possibly based on pre-Hellenic figures of Ino and Melicertes, was posited by Edouard Will just previous to the site's discovery and refuted by John Hawthorne in 1958.