Gordian Knot
The cutting of the Gordian Knot is an
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter— Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47
Legend
The
The ox-cart still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at
Sources from antiquity agree that Alexander the Great was confronted with the challenge of the knot, but his solution is disputed. Both
Alexander the Great later went on to conquer Asia as far as the
Interpretations
The knot may have been a religious knot-cipher guarded by priests and priestesses. Robert Graves suggested that it may have symbolised the ineffable name of Dionysus that, knotted like a cipher, would have been passed on through generations of priests and revealed only to the kings of Phrygia.[7]
Unlike popular
The ox-cart suggests a longer voyage, rather than a local journey, perhaps linking Alexander the Great with an attested origin-myth in Macedon, of which Alexander is most likely to have been aware.[8] Based on this origin myth, the new dynasty was not immemorially ancient, but had widely remembered origins in a local, but non-priestly "outsider" class, represented by Greek reports equally as an eponymous peasant[9] or the locally attested, authentically Phrygian[10] in his ox-cart. Roller (1984) separates out authentic Phrygian elements in the Greek reports and finds a folk-tale element and a religious one, linking the dynastic founder (with the cults of "Zeus" and Cybele).[11]
Other Greek myths legitimize dynasties by right of conquest (compare Cadmus), but in this myth the stressed legitimising oracle suggests that the previous dynasty was a race of priest-kings allied to the unidentified oracular deity.
See also
Explanatory notes
- ^ The ox-cart is often depicted in works of art as a chariot, which made it a more readily legible emblem of power and military readiness. His position had also been predicted earlier by an eagle landing on his cart, a sign to him from the gods.
- ^ Arrian and Plutarch are secondary sources; Aristobolus' text is lost.
References
- Anabasis Alexandri(Αλεξάνδρου Ανάβασις), Book ii.3): "καὶ τὴν ἅμαξαν τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν τῇ ἄκρᾳ ἀναθεῖναι χαριστήρια τῷ Διὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀετοῦ τῇ πομπῇ." which means "and he offered his father's cart as a gift to king Zeus as gratitude for sending the eagle".
- ^ History. Archivedfrom the original on 21 January 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
- The Campaigns of Alexander. Translated by de Sélincourt, Aubrey(Revised, Enlarged ed.). Penguin Group. p. 105.
- ISBN 978-0812971330.
- S2CID 162250370. citing Tarn, W.W. 1948
- ^ The four sources are given in Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (1973) 1986: Notes to Chapter 10, p. 518; Fox recounts the anecdote, pp. 149–151.
- ^ a b Graves, Robert (1960) [1955]. "Midas". The Greek Myths (PDF) (Revised ed.). Penguin Books. pp. 168–169. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 January 2018.
- ^ "Surely Alexander believed that this god, who established for Midas the rule over Phrygia, now guaranteed to him the fulfillment of the promise of rule over Asia", (Fredricksmeyer, 1961, p 165).
- ^ Trogus apud Justin, Plutarch, Alexander 18.1; Curtius 3.1.11 and 14.
- ^ Arrian
- JSTOR 25010818. Both Roller and Fredricksmeyer (1961) offer persuasive arguments that the original name associated with the wagon is "Midas", "Gordias" being a Greek back-formation from the site name Gordion, according to Roller.
External links
- Media related to Gordian Knot at Wikimedia Commons
- The dictionary definition of Gordian knot at Wiktionary