Download Diapositiva 1

Prof. Lo Nigro and
Ivan Quatra 4D
Liceo “E. BASILE”
A.S. 07/08
Zeus was the god of the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods.
Zeus overthew his Father Cronus. He then drew lots
with his brothers Poseidon and Hades. Zeus won the
draw and became the supreme ruler of
the gods. He is lord of the sky, the rain god.
His weapon is a thunderbolt which he
hurls at those who displease him.
He is married to Hera but, is famous
for his many affairs. He is also known to
punish those that lie or break oaths.
He was the rain god, and the cloud
gatherer, who wielded the terrible
thunderbolt.
His breastplate was the aegis, his bird
the eagle, his tree the oak.
He is represented as the god of
justice and mercy, the protector
of the weak, and the punisher of
the wicked.
As the sky god Zeus had easy
access to the women of the world
and took full advantage of it.
Also, his power as a supreme
god made him difficult to resist.
Europa was one of the god Zeus's many love interests
in Greek mythology. She was a beautiful mortal woman,
and the noble daughter of a King Agenor.
She had the continent of Europe named for her.
The legend of Europa and Zeus begins when the ruler of
the Olympian gods glimpses the young woman one day.
At first sight of Europa, Zeus is instantly overcome by
her beauty and grace. Not being one to ignore his
desires, the god immediately comes up with a plan.
One night Europa had a dream. In this dream two
continents, which were in the forms of women were
arguing over Europa. Asia maintained that since Europa
had been born in Asia she belonged to it.
The other continent, which was nameless, said that her
birth was not important, that Zeus It was early morning,
disturbed by the dream Europa did not go back to sleep.
She summoned her companions, who were all
daughters of nobility and of her age. It was a beautiful
day and they went off gathering flowers by the sea.
Zeus noticed this charming group, particularly Europa,
who was the prettiest of the maidens. Some say that
Eros, induced him into action with one of his darts.
Although, Zeus often made due with self motivation. In any case, Zeus
appeared to the group as a white bull. A white bull more beautiful then
any other. A bull that smelled of flowers, and lowed musically. A bull so
obviously gentle that all the maidens rushed to stroke and pet it. The bull
laid down in front of Europa. She Slid on to its back. Instantly, the bull
charged off, plunging into the sea, and began to swim rapidly from the
shore. Europa saw that a procession had joined them, Nereids riding
dolphins, Triton blowing his horn, even Poseidon. From this she realized
that the bullmust be a god. She pleaded with him to pity her. Zeus spoke
to her and explained his love. He took her to Create, where
he had been raised. It was said that Zeus so loved Europa that he gave her three priceless presents.
The first was Talos, a magical man made of bronze, who served as a guard on Crete. The second
was Laelaps, a dog that excelled at the hunt. And the third and final gift was a javelin that always hit
its target. In addition, as a last poetic touch, it is worth mentioning that the bull that "stars" in this
story was transformed into the constellation Taurus. Europa gives birth to a trio of sons: Minos,
Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. Next, Zeus arranged the marriage of Europe to the Cretan King
Asterion (or Asterio), who appointed Europe's and Zeus’ sons as his
successors. The gods loved Minos because his father, Zeus, honored him
above all. They presented him with a wife, Pasiphae, daughter of Helios (Sun)
and Persida, and sister of Circe, the sorceress, Kalypso and Aete, and aunt
of Mideia, the grand sorceress. There is talk of eight children for Minos and
Pasiphae: Androgeos, Katrefs, Defkalion, Glafkos, Akali (or Akakalis),
Xenodiki, Ariadne and Phaedra. Once, wanting to offer a sacrifice in honor of
his uncle Poseidon, Minos asked Poseidon to send the best bull he could find
from the sea. The bull was so beautiful that Minos didn't sacrifice him, but
instead kept him with his flock (or in the palace gardens). To revenge Minos for not keeping hispromise,
Poseidon made the bull so ferocious and dangerous that his eventual capture in Crete became one of
the twelve feats of Hercules (Cretan Bull).
When Pasiphae, his immortal wife, saw the bull she fell in love and
coupled with him. She was able to couple with him with the help of
Daedalus, who constructed a wooden likeness of a cow, in
which Pasiphae hid. From this union the monster Minotaur was born, a
humanoid being with a bull's head, which Minos promptly jailed in the
Labyrinth, an enormous construction in Knossos. Minos, as ruler of the
greatest naval kingdom of that time, undertook many journeys and
military expeditions. His best known aggressive expedition was against
Athens to avenge the murder of his first born son, Androgeos.
When the siege of Athens continued for too long of a period, Minos
asked his father, Zeus, for help, and Zeus unleashed a terrible epidemic.
Following the instructions of the Oracle, the Athenians were forced to
surrender and accept all of Minos' terms of submission.
The most onerous condition of the surrender was the blood tribute.
This called for Athens to provide every year (or every three or nine
years) seven young men and seven young women as food for the
monster Minotaur for as long as he lived.
When the last group of young men and
women arrived from Athens,
prince Theseus, son of Poseidon
and the successor of King Aegeas
of Athens, among them.
The princess of Knossos, Ariadne, fell in love with the brave youth from Athens, and helped him escape.
She devised a plan and gave Theseus a ball of yarn (mitos) so he could find his way through the Labyrinth
and kill the monster Minotaur. After the killing, Ariadne departed Crete together with Theseus. However,
along the way Theseus deserted her. During Minos' reigning years, Daedalus, from Athens , took up
residence in Knossos, after he was exiled to Crete for committing a crime in his own country. In Crete he
eventually became the official architect and sculptor for Minos. In Knossos he built the Palace, the
Labyrinth, the wooden likeness ofa cow for Pasiphae, and even helped Ariadne and Thiseas kill the
horrible Minotaur. When Minos became disillusioned with him, he jailed Daedalus together with his son,
Icarus. The brilliant engineer didn't stay long - he made a pair of wings for himself and Icarus and they
flew away. The wings were made of feathers held together with wax. Daedalus warned his son not to fly
too close to the sun, as it would melt
his wings, and not too close to the
sea, as it would dampen them and
make it hard to fly.
They successfully flew from Crete,
but Icarus grew exhilarated by the
thrill of flying and began getting
careless. Flying too close to the
sun, the wax holding together his
wings melted from the heat and he
fell to his death, drowning in the sea.
The Icarian Sea, where he fell, was
named after him. Daedalus lamented
his dead son and then continued
to Sicily, where he came to stay at
the court of Cocalus in a place
called Camicus. Of Daedalus' many
ingenious works, the most famous
was the Labyrinth - the gigantic palace
comprised of clusters of rooms
and corridors so complex and
convoluted that only Daedalus
himself was able to find the way out
again. It was in this Labyrinth that
the Minotaur, the horrible creature
who was the love- child of
Pasiphae's perverse affair with the bull from the sea - was kept.
A descendant of Greek royalty, Daedalus (Daedalos), whose
Greek name means "cunning worker," was born in Athens.
Accounts vary as to his parentage, but Metion and Alcippe are often
mentioned. As a great craftsman, he was trained by Athena, but Talus,
his nephew and apprentice, proved to be more talented, inventing the
compass and other tools, and this provoked rabid jealousy in Daedalus.
Myths tell us that this was not the only reason Daedalus attempted to
murder the young man by pushing him off the Acropolis. Athena intervened
by turning Talus into a partridge during his fall. For his crime, the master
was exiled to the court of King Minos on Crete, but Daedalus eventually
angered his new patron. In a typically bizarre incident, he constructed a
wooden bull for the Queen, who Poseidon had enamored of one of the real
bulls in the King's stables. Despite this, the queen continued to practice
bestiality with the live bull, and bore the minotaur, its infamous semi-bovine offspring. An angry Minos
ordered Daedalus to construct a labyrinth to contain the half human beast. He later imprisoned Daedalus
there for aiding thehero Theseus in outwitting the minotaur and escaping the labyrinth. Daedalus was
accompanied by a son, Icarus, whose mother was a court slave. Minos' queen, Pasiphae, freed them
from the labyrinth, but the embittered king imprisoned the two in a tower. At this point Daedalus decided
to flee. To do so, he constructed two pairs of wings out of feathers and wax. His idea, obviously, was that
he and his son would simply fly away. Before embarking on their voyage, the master gave his son the
now famous advice: "My son, do not fly too high lest the sun melt the wax, nor too low lest the sea's
spray weigh down the feathers." Sadly, the excited Icarus flew too high, far beyond the sound of his
father's calls to descend. The sun's rays melted the wax holding the wings together and the boy fell into
the sea. It is a tragic story. By some accounts, a partridge watched as the boy drowned. This clearly
alludes to the murdered Talus being reborn as a partridge. The boy's body washed ashore on Doliche,
renamed Icaria. Daedalus flew to Sicily and dedicated his wings to Apollo, constructing a magnificent
temple here bearing a gold roof. He met King Cocalus (Kokalos) of the Sicans and lived among the
Sicanians at Inycus. Diodorus Siculus (90-21 BC), the Sicilian writer who recounts this part of the myth,
is not considered a very reliable historian or storyteller, and the historical existence of Kokalos has
never been proven. In fact, the Sicanians, a "native" Sicilian people, may have been amalgamated with
the colonizing Greeks by the time the mythological Daedalus would have landed in Sicily. Camicus
(Kamicos), the mountainous region around Agrigento, is usually identified as the place where Daedalus
met Kokalos and the other Sicans. Camicum was also the name of the old Sican district of Akragas, the
ancient city of Agrigento founded by Greeks around 582 BC on the slopes of what has been called Mount
Camicos.
Camicus (Kamicos), the mountainous region
around Agrigento, is usually identified as the
place where Daedalus met Kokalos and the
other Sicans. Camicum was also the name of
the old Sican district of Akragas, the ancient
city of Agrigento founded by Greeks around
582 BC on the slopes of what has been
called Mount Camicos.
Several places in Sicily are linked to
Daedalus in Greece and Sicily a number
of works are attributed to Daedalus,
including (in Sicily) the thermal baths at
Selinus (Selinunte), the aqueduct at Camicos,
the temple of Apollo (Cumae), the reservoir at
Hybla (Ragusa), a wall and fortifications at
Camicos, and a retaining wall near King
Minos sought Daedalus, sailing around the
Mediterranean hoping to prompt the master
out of hiding with a puzzle. He offered a reward to the first the Temple of Aphrodite (Agrigento).
The inventive Athenian achieved this by boring a tiny hole at the point of the shell and placing a drop
of honey there, then tying a fine thread to an ant which wound its way through the inside of the shell
until he reached the opening. Kokalos claimed the reward, meeting with Minos, who was then in Sicily,
but the Cretan king demanded Daedalus. Daedalus enjoyed the complete loyalty of the Sicanians, and
with the aid of one of Kokalos' daughters he devised a pipe that he inserted into the roof of Minos'
bath, through which the girl poured boiling oil upon the Cretan king as he was bathing. The Sicanians
told the Cretans that Minos' death was accidental.
The Sicanian connection may
have been a narrative device to
avoid associating the eventual
death of the Greek Minos
with the Siceliots (Sicilian Greeks).
Daedalus spent the rest of his
days in Sardinia as a guest of
Iolaos, nephew of Heracles
(Hercules). One doubts whether
minotaurs ever walked the Earth,
but the figures of Daedalus and
Kokalos may indeed have been
based on historical personages.
It has even been theorized that an
ancient figure identified with
Daedalus could indeed
have created an apparatus, similar
to a hang glider, for achieving
flight. More generally, Daedalus is
the epitome and patron of ancient craftsmen, inventors and architects. Archimedes comes to mind.
Several places in Sicily have long been associated with Kokalos or Daedalus. The River Platani
(Halykos), which winds its way through the Sicanian "Kamicos" Mountains to a mouth midway between
Agrigento and Sciacca, was part of his realm. Ancient Eraclea Minoa, near Montallegro and the mouth of
this river, bears a name that implies a foundation by Minos, who the imaginative Diodorus claimed was
buried here. This idea at least has the virtue of being a very old one, though in fact this town was
probably founded by Selinians (i.e. from Selinunte) and named for the Greek island Minoa near Megara
Nisea. At Mount Kronio, near Sciacca, archeological finds linked to Sicanian civilization have been
discovered. Evidence of Sicanian culture abounds across Sicily. It has been suggested that Kokalos
spent some time outside Naro, to the east of Agrigento, in the so-called "Palace of Kokalos." Far less
credible is the late twentieth-century theory that Kokalos, the legendary Sicanian king, ruled from a town
near what is now either Sant'Angelo Muxaro or Caltabellotta (depending on who one believes), a scheme
hatched to increase tourism in these areas.