🪷 11 March is a major feast of #Hercules. This statue is #Antinous as #Herakles with lion skin at the Louvre. Like Hercules, #Antinoos is a divine hero who slew a lion. Hercules slew the #Nemean lion. Antinous slew a man-eater in Egypt. 🪷
It's the Day of Zeus / Jupiter's Day / #Thursday! ⚡
Meet Etruscan #Zeus or #Tinia watch his adult son #Hercle being breastfed by his wife #Uni [Hera] as a sign of adoption. #Aplu [#Apollon] and another god and goddess are present to witness the ritual too.
🏛️ #Hera breastfeeding #Herakles, drawing of an #Etruscan mirror case engraving from Volterra, 4th century BCE, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, #Florence
Ares-Mars embraced by his love Aphrodite-Venus with a dog at their feet. The club in his hand is usually part of the iconography of #Herakles so it could also be a fresco depicting #Hercules and Megaera or Deïaneira. Does anyone know if it's Mars of Hercules?
Have a beautiful Day of Aphrodite aka Venus' Day aka Frigg's Day aka Friday 🌹
Neoclassical statue of #Aphrodite and her lover #Adonis. Adonis was loved not only by Aphrodite but also by Persephone, Apollon, Dionysos, and #Herakles. In fact, Herakles' death was orchastrated by Aphrodite in revenge for the hero stealing her man!
🏛️ Venus and Adonis by Antonio Canova, dated ca. 1794 CE
This week's #MythologyMonday theme is artworks featuring mythology. There are, of course, countless depictions of mythological scenes from ancient times. Some myths, in fact, are ONLY known through artwork, for example the drinking contest between #Herakles and #Dionysos.
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This week's #MythologyMonday theme is healing. The God of Healing is #Apollon but there are other gods who share in a subset of his power. Apollon's son #Asklepios famously brought dead people back to life. Deified after his untimely death by Zeus' thunderbolt, he received a cult of his own, the Temples of Asklepios serving as hospitals. Asklepios had children of his own, among them Panacea (Cure-all), and Hygieia (Health).
But he is not the only healing god associated with Apollon.
An older god of healing who appears in the #Iliad as the Healer of the Gods is #Paian. In the Iliad, Paian heals #Ares after the latter is injured by #Diomedes and #Athena through medicine that produces instant relief. #Hades is healed in a similar fashion after #Herakles' arrow (thankfully without hydra blood) pierces him.
Paian is later reduced to an epithet of both #Apollon and his son #Asklepios.
A god that is not usually associated with medicine but has a healing aspect is #Dionysos.
Daddy Dionysos and #Herakles enjoying each other's company at a symposion. Note the chest hair! Both Dionysos and Herakles were demigod sons of Zeus who were deified and ascended to Olympos later in life. #Dionysos was born before Herakles and thus was a god when he was still mortal.
🏛️ Red-figure vase painting. Today in the British Museum.
A myth told with emojis for #MythologyMonday and #WorldEmojiDay:
🧔♂️⚖️1️⃣ 2️⃣ 👷
🧔♂️🆚🦁
🧔♂️🆚🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲
🧔♂️🆚🦌
🧔♂️🆚🐗
🧔♂️🆚🧼🏚️
🧔♂️🆚🐦 🐦 🐦 🐦 🐦 🐦
🧔♂️🆚🐂
🧔♂️🆚🐴🐴🐴🐴
🧔♂️🆚🩱
🧔♂️🆚🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄🐄
🧔♂️🆚🍎🍎🍎
🧔♂️🆚🐶🐶🐶
🧔♂️👍
Can you guess what it is?
Nemean Lion 🦁
Hydra 🐲 🐲 🐲
Cerynian Hind 🦌
Boar 🐗
Stables of Augias (genius! 😁) 🧼 🏚️
Stymphalian Birds 🐦
Cretan Bull 🐂
Flesh-eating Mares of Diomedes 🐴
Girdle of Hippolyta 😁 🩱
Cattle of Geryon 🐄
Apples of the Hesperides 🍎
Fetching Cerberus from the Underworld 🐶
Have a beautiful Day of Aphrodite aka Venus' Day aka Frigg's Day aka Friday 🌹
Relief of #Aphrodite with her lover #Adonis. He really got around. One version of the death of #Herakles says that Aphrodite was behind it because Herakles had seduced her man. Like Dionysos, Apollon & Persephone.
🏛️ Aphrodite & Adonis, Greek Plaster Relief, 3rd–2nd century BCE
"The Sacred Band of [#Thebes], we are told, was first formed by #Gorgidas, of 300 chosen men, to whom the city furnished exercise and maintenance and who encamped in the Kadmeia. But some say that this band was composed of lovers and beloved."
"#Iolaos, who shared the labours of #Herakles and fought by his side, was beloved of him and Aristotle says that even in his day lovers plighted their faith at Iolaos' tomb.
It was natural, then, that the band should also be called sacred, because even #Plato calls the lover a divine friend."
There are several stories of the #GreekGods turning mortals into birds. One of them is about Askalaphos, the keeper of #Hades' orchard: He saw #Persephone eat the pomegranate seeds and testified against her so she had to return to the underworld every year. In anger, #Demeter trapped him below a giant boulder. When #Herakles came to fetch Kerberos, he rolled the boulder away, freeing Askalaphos. Demeter then turned the gardener into an eagle #owl.