Cinyras

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Myrrha and Cinyras. Engraving by Virgil Solis for Ovid's Metamorphoses

In

Ugaritic deity Kinnaru, the god of the lyre.[2][3] The city Cinyreia on Cyprus was believed to have taken its name from Cinyras.[4] According to Strabo, he had previously ruled in the city of Byblos in Phoenicia.[5]

Biography

The name Cinyras does not appear again until he is mentioned by Pindar as "beloved of Apollo," and the priest of Aphrodite.[6] Pindar mentions Cinyras as being fabulously rich in Nemean Ode 8 line 18.[7]

Later, in Greek and Roman literature and in the Christian fathers such as Clement of Alexandria, the story of Cinyras is elaborated. They say that on Cyprus, Cinyras was revered as the creator of art and of musical instruments, such as the flute. In one source, he is also noted for his physical beauty.[8] It is believed that his name comes from the Phoenician word kinnor (Greek: κινύρα) – an eastern string instrument. It is quite possible that it was a deliberate play on words, because the legend says that Cinyras was a singer and he posed a musical challenge to Apollo and tested his abilities, for which the god Mars took his life.[9]

If Cinyras was the Cinyra, mentioned by Pliny, who was the son of Agriopas and a Cyprian, he was credited with inventing tiles and discovering copper-mines, both of which were found in the island. He was also regarded as the inventor of tongs, the hammer, the lever, and the anvil.[10]

Family

According to the

Metharme, daughter of King Pygmalion of Cyprus. His children according to Pseudo-Apollodorus were Adonis and Oxyporos, and also daughters Braesia, Laogora and Orsedice. These maidens, by reason of the wrath of Aphrodite, cohabited with foreigners, and ended their life in Egypt. Another daughter, Laodice who married Elatus, son of Arcas, and had by him two sons Stymphalus and Pereus.[11]

Tzetzes writes that Teucer married Eune "daughter of Cyprus".[14]

Amathous, the oldest city of Cyprus, received its name.[15] Stephanus also mentions three otherwise unknown children of Cinyras: a daughter Cyprus, who had the island named after her, and two sons, Koureus and Marieus, eponyms of the towns Kourion and Marion respectively.[16]

tamarisk tree.[21]

Another son,

Servius.[22]

Comparative table of Cinyras family
Relation Names Source
Scholia on Pindar Apollodorus Ovid Pausanias Hyginus Stephanus Hesychius
Parentage Eurymedon and Paphia ✓
Sandocus and Pharnace ✓
Paphos ✓ ✓
Amathousa ✓
Apollo ✓
Consort Metharme ✓
Cenchreis ✓
Children Adonis ✓ ✓
Oxyporos ✓
Braesia ✓
Laogora ✓
Orsedice ✓
Laodice ✓
Myrrha ✓
a daughter, consort of Teucer ✓
Cyprus ✓
Koureus ✓
Marieus ✓

Mythology

Trojan War

In the earliest testimony for this character in ancient Greek literature (the account of Homer), Cinyras was a ruler on Cyprus who gave a corselet to Agamemnon as a guest-gift when he heard that the Greeks were planning to sail to Troy.[23] Eustathius in his commentary on this passage relates that Cinyras promised assistance to Agamemnon, but did not keep his word: having promised to send fifty ships, he actually sent only one commanded by the son of Mygdalion, while the rest were sculpted from earth, with figures of men (also made of earth) imitating the crew. He was cursed by Agamemnon and subsequently punished by Apollo, who beat him in a musical contest (similar to that between Apollo and Marsyas, to see who was a better musician with a lyre) and killed him, whereupon Cinyras' fifty daughters threw themselves into the sea and were changed into sea birds (alcyones).[24]

Myrrha

According to Ovid, Cinyras' daughter Myrrha, impelled by an unnatural lust for her own father (in retribution for her mother Cenchreis' hubris), slept with him, became pregnant, and asked the gods to change her into something other than human; she became a tree from whose bark myrrh drips.[20] From this incestuous union sprang the child Adonis. Cinyras was said to have committed suicide over the matter.[25] Other authors equate Cinyras and Myrrha with king Theias of Assyria and his daughter Smyrna, and relate the same story of them.[26] Hyginus uses the name Cinyras for the father, but Smyrna for the daughter.[27]

Priesthood of Paphian Aphrodite

Clement of Alexandria in his Protrepticus talks about the "Cyprian Islander Cinyras, who dared to bring forth from night to the light of day the lewd orgies of Aphrodite in his eagerness to deify a strumpet of his own country."

In his Histories, Tacitus relates the account of divination rites at the famous Temple of Venus at Paphos; according to traditional tales, this temple was founded by King Aerias, but others say Cinyras consecrated the temple, which was built right on the spot where the goddess had first stepped on the land after her birth from the sea. Here Tacitus describes him as having come to Cyprus from Cilicia, whence he introduced the worship of Paphian Aphrodite. The divination practices at the temple are said to have been introduced by Tamiras of Cilicia. The office of priesthood became hereditary in the families of both Cinyras (Cinyradae) and Tamiras, but the descendants of the latter were eventually displaced by those of the former; in the times of Tacitus, only the priest of Cinyras' line was consulted.[28][29][30] The footnotes to this story also state that Cinyras is "Another mythical king of Cyprus. Hesychius calls him a son of Apollo, and Ovid makes him the father of Adonis."

See also

  • Kothar wa-Khasis

Notes

  1. ^ Zimmerman, J. E. (1964). Dictionary of Classical Mythology. New York: Harper & Row. p. 63.
  2. doi:10.1093/jss/10.2.197
    .
  3. ^ Albright, William Foxwell (1968). Yahweh and the Gods and Canaan. London: School of Oriental and African Studies. pp. 136, 280–84.
  4. ^ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13.451; Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 5.35.1
  5. ISBN 9781139814706
    .
  6. ^ Pindar, Pythian Ode 2 lines 15-17 with scholia
  7. ^ So does Plato in Laws, 660e (quoting Tyrtaeus): "…though he be richer even 'than Cinyras or Midas'…”; see also Libanius, Autobiography 273.
  8. Hyginus
    , Fabulae 270
  9. ^ "Diccionari de mitologia grega i romana - 9788496061972 - ATRIL - La Central - 2020". www.lacentral.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-10-14.
  10. ^ Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 7.56.3
  11. ^ Apollodorus, 3.14.3, 3.9.1.
  12. ^ Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 1.3.2
  13. Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid
    1.619–621
  14. Tzetzes on Lycophron
    , Alexandra 450
  15. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica s.v. Amathous
  16. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica s.v. Kypros, Kourion, Marion
  17. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, s. v. Kinyras; also scholia on Theocritus, Idyll 1. 109
  18. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 58, 242 & 275
  19. ^ Scholia on Pindar, Pythian Ode 2.28
  20. ^ a b Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.294–559 & 708–739 Myrrha
  21. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria s.v. μυρίκη
  22. Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 1.693
  23. ^ Homer, Iliad 11.20–23
  24. ^ Eustathius on Iliad p. 87; cf. also scholia on the same passage
  25. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 242
  26. ^ Apollodorus, 3.14.4; Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 34
  27. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 58
  28. ^ Tacitus, Histories 2.3
  29. ^ Pindar, Pythian Ode 2.26
  30. ^ Scholia ad Theocritus, 1.109

References

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