LYSIAS on Patreon

There will be more #Lysias educational excerpts in PDF format available from the #metousia #patreon this week !

Here's what one sculptor thought he looked like.

I will be posting the Amazons passage from Lysias's Funeral Oration on the Patreon that runs parallel to this blog. Watch twitter for updates.

THETIS

#thetis #greekart #nereid #seagoddess #greekceramics

Greek artists often depicted Thetis as accompanied by dolphins, sea horses or Tritones.

So the female figure riding a sea horse in these two mosaics may very well be Thetis however another popular theme was her Wedding to Peleus.

As Thetis like other sea gods had shapeshifting powers the lion on her shoulder would tell a Greek viewer this is Peleus the mortal father of Achilles wrestling with the goddess.

One aspect of the story rarely pointed out that would explain her resistance  is that Peleus killed her nephew and she seems to have had mixed feelings about her marriage to a mere mortal though given the other choices were being ravished by Zeus or Poseidon ... 

Passive secrets

#greeknewtestament #biblestudy #futurepassive #classicalgreek #luke #gospel

LUKE 12:2

A lot of people are fascinated by this verse because they think it hints at Gnostic mysteries or encourages mysticism or is about prophecies and various other explanations.

Another aspect of interest are the verb forms

ouden de sugkekalmmenon estin ho ouk apokaluphtheesetai kai krupton ho ou gnoostheesetai

nothing (there) is and which has been hidden perfect passive participle of sugkaluptoo

note the the removal of too and the change and doubling of the p to m
note that pi + mu becomes double mu

then ho with an accent so who or which not FUTURE PASSIVE will be revealed
teh pi changes again to a phi befor ethe theta that marks passive
and  secret which will be known ginooskoo has a sigma before the passive marker as the actual stem is gnoo

Note which in Greek not that

Note the future passive

Lets reverse that without changing the meaning more than slightly

If Jesus had spoken modern English he might have said everything that is hidden or covered up or secret will become revealed or known.

I think Luke was not just bilingual or multilingual and not only retains the parallelism we see in Hebrew texts but enhances this with prose rhythm being a speaker of Koine Greek who probably also read some classical Greek literature.

So this verse tells us something about secrets and about posibly about Luke as a person and writer.

Consider next what verse 3 says that things said in the dark will be heard in the light and private whisperings proclaimed in public.

No more secrets.

and 3 very good examples of the passive and sound changes caused by adding theta to a stem

Tritones 3 - a medley and mix

#tritons #hippocampoi #seahorses #ichthyocentaurs

I've shown you in prior posts the oldest #GREEK depictions of #Tritons show an eel like body with fins but no forelegs

#hippocampi or #seahorses were depicted with similar eel like finned bodies.

The Romans evolved this further probably from lost hellenistic works

This work has tritones has with snaky eeel like tails and small forelegs 

however in this work the Triton has forefins !

though the Romans don't seemed to have been able to decide on a definite form 

Horses' forelegs and fins !

Why the wavering between forms ?

Note the sea horse above 

I think someone decided to combine seahorses with tritons leading to ichthyocentaurs !

Triton,Hippocampi, and other Marine Chimera - Two

#Triton #Hippocampus #hippocampi

These are some of  the earliest renderings of Triton I could find.

Heracles wrestling Triton whose body is a blend of eel and fish.

Triton carrying a boy accompanied by a dolphin

Note again the almost snake like lower body

note again the long body 

now look at this image of Poseidon with a  seahorse

a tritons body with a horse'd forelegs and head 

and this Roman Mosaic of a Sea Horse / Hippocampus 

Next time Tritons become Ichthyocentaurs

Triton, Hippocampoi, and other Marine Chimeras - One

Someone on #Classicstwitter was asking about #Ichthyocentaurs. This Roman example while labelled a Triton is very similar to an Ichthyocentaur 

Here's another example !

So how as a visual art theme did the snake or eel bodied Tritons we see on Greek ceramics become these chimeras of three creatures?

Starting with Early depictions I will show over the next couple of posts how I think it happened.

Note this image features tritons and hippocampoi - merhorses! 

I think someone decided to fuse both which I'll discuss in greater detail next time ! 

LEFT IS BEST AND BETTER

#classicalgreek #left #aristeros

LEFT IS BEST AND BETTER

There are 2 words that I know of that are translated as LEFT into ENGLISH

One is Laios cognate to Latin laevus and the other is ARISTEROS

I've given it the feminine form here but more importantly look at the structure and see how odd it is?

ARISTOS acts as the superlative to AGATHOS but here we have a suffix used to mark comparative forms - teros attached to  ...its like who coined this was trying to say lefthanded was NOT unlucky or a kind of weakness but BETTER THAN THE BEST !