Phorcys
| Phorcys | |
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| Greek deities series |
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| Water deities |
In
Karl Kerenyi conflated Phorcys with the similar sea gods Nereus and Proteus.[1] His wife was Ceto, and he is most notable in myth for fathering by Ceto a host of monstrous children. In extant Hellenistic-Roman mosaics, Phorcys was depicted as a fish-tailed merman
with crab-claw legs and red, spiky skin.
According to Servius, commentator on the Aeneid, who reports a very ancient version already reflected in Varro, distinct from the Greek vulgate:[2] Phorcos was once king of Sardinia and Corsica; annihilated in a naval battle in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and then shot down by King Atlas with a large part of his army, his companions imagined him transformed into a marine deity, perhaps a monster, half man and half sea ram.[3]
Parents
According to
Thaumus, Ceto, and Eurybia.[4] In a genealogy from Plato's dialogue Timaeus, Phorcys, Cronus and Rhea are the eldest offspring of Oceanus and Tethys.[5]
Offspring
Medusa),[6] probably Echidna (though the text is unclear on this point)[7] and Ceto's "youngest, the awful snake who guards the apples all of gold in the secret places of the dark earth at its great bounds",[8] also called the Drakon Hesperios ("Hesperian Dragon", or dragon of the Hesperides) or Ladon. These children tend to be consistent across sources, though Ladon is often cited as a child of Echidna by Typhon and therefore Phorcys and Ceto's grandson.[9]
According to
Phorkys).[10] Apollonius of Rhodes has Scylla as the daughter of Phorcys and a conflated Crataeis-Hecate. According to a fragment of Sophocles, Phorcys is the father of the Sirens.[11]
The scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes cites Phorcys and Ceto as the parents of the Hesperides, but this assertion is not repeated in other ancient sources.
Homer refers to Thoosa, the mother of Polyphemus, as a daughter of Phorcys, with no mother specified.[12]
Notes
- ^ Kerenyi pp. 42–43.
- ^ «Rex fuit Forcus Corsicae et Sardiniae qui cum ab Atlante rege navali certamine cum magna exercitus parte fuisset victus et obrutus finxerunt soci eius eum in deum marinum esse conversum»
- ^ Attilio Mastino, Eracle nel Giardino delle Esperidi e le Ninfe della Sardegna nell’Occidente Mediterraneo mitico, “Archivio Storico Sardo”, 2020
- ^ Gantz, p. 16; Hesiod, Theogony 233–9 (Most, pp. 20–3).
- ^ Gantz, p. 11; Kerenyi, p. 42; Plato, Timaeus 40d–e (pp. 86, 87).
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony, 270–276.
- Herbert Jennings Rose says simply that it is "not clear which parents are meant", Athanassakis, p. 44, says that Phorcys and Ceto are the "more likely candidates for parents of this hideous creature who proceeded to give birth to a series of monsters and scourges". The problem arises from the ambiguous referent of the pronoun "she" in line 295 of the Theogony. While some have read this "she" as referring to Callirhoe (e.g. Smith "Echidna"; Morford, p. 162), according to Clay, p. 159 n. 32, "the modern scholarly consensus" reads Ceto, see for example Gantz, p. 22; Caldwell, pp. 7, 46 295–303; Grimal, s.v. Echidna, p. 143.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony, 333–335.
- .
- .
- ^ Fowler 2013, p. 31; Sophocles, fr. 861 Lloyd-Jones, pp. 376, 377.
- ^ Smith, s.v. Phorcus, Phorcys; Homer, Odyssey 1.71–3.
References
- Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- ISBN 978-0-8018-7984-5.
- Caldwell, Richard, Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). ISBN 978-0-941051-00-2.
- ISBN 978-0-521-82392-0.
- Fowler, R. L. (2000), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 1: Text and Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0198147404.
- Fowler, R. L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0198147411.
- Freeman, Kathleen, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente Der Vorsokratiker, Harvard University Press, 1983. ISBN 9780674035010.
- Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3(Vol. 2).
- .
- .
- Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd., 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
- Kerenyi, Karl1951 (1980). The Gods of the Greeks.
- Morford, Mark P. O., Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology, Eighth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-530805-1.
- Ogden, Daniel (2013), Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford University Press, 2013. .
- .
- Rose, Herbert Jennings, "Echidna" in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Hammond and Scullard (editors), Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-19-869117-3
- Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873).
- .
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