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Deucalion

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File:Deucalion.jpg
Deucalion from Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum

In Greek mythology, Deucalion (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx) was the son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene, Hesione, or Pronoia.<ref>The scholia to Odyssey 10.2 names Clymene as the commonly identified mother, along with Hesione (citing Acusilaus, FGrH 2 F 34) and possibly Pronoia.</ref><ref name="Pronoia">A scholium to Odyssey 10.2 (=Catalogue fr. 4) reports that Hesiod called Deucalion's mother "Pryneie" or "Prynoe", corrupt forms which Dindorf believed to conceal Pronoea's name. The emendation is considered to have "undeniable merit" by A. Casanova (1979) La famiglia di Pandora: analisi filologica dei miti di Pandora e Prometeo nella tradizione esiodea. Florence, p. 145.</ref> He is closely connected with a flood myth in Greek mythology.

EtymologyEdit

According to folk etymology, Deucalion's name comes from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, deukos, a variant of {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, gleucos, i.e. "sweet new wine, must, sweetness"<ref name=LSJ>Template:LSJ</ref><ref name=LSJ1>Template:LSJ</ref> and from {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, haliéus, i.e. "sailor, seaman, fisher".<ref name=LSJ2>Template:LSJ</ref> His wife Pyrrha's name derives from the adjective {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, -ά, -όν, pyrrhós, -á, -ón, i.e. "flame-colored, orange".<ref name=LSJ3> Template:LSJ </ref>

FamilyEdit

Of Deucalion's birth, the Argonautica<ref>Apollonius Rhodius, 3.1404-1408</ref> (from the 3rd century BC) stated:

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There [in Achaea, i.e. Greece] is a land encircled by lofty mountains, rich in sheep and in pasture, where Prometheus, son of Iapetus, begat goodly Deucalion, who first founded cities and reared temples to the immortal gods, and first ruled over men. This land the neighbours who dwell around call Haemonia [i.e. Thessaly].{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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According to Bibliotheca,<ref name=":1">Apollodorus, 1.7.2</ref> Deucalion and Pyrrha had at least two children, Hellen<ref>Thucydides, 1.3.2; Apollodorus, 1.7.2 where some account states that Hellen’s father is instead Zeus</ref> and Protogenea,<ref>Pherecydes, fr. 3F23; Hyginus, Fabulae 155</ref> and possibly a third, Amphictyon.<ref>Apollodorus, 3.14.6 where in some traditions, he was called an autochthonous (son of the soil); Pseudo-Scymnos, Circuit de la terre 587 ff.</ref> Another account, adds a daughter Melanthea to the list of the couple’s progeny.<ref>Hesiod, Catalogue of Women fr. 5 Most, pp. 46, 47 [= fr. 4 Merkelbach-West, p. 5 = Scholia on Homer's Odyssey 10.2 (Dindorf, p. 444)]</ref> This daughter, also called Melantho, became the mother of Delphus by Poseidon.<ref>Tzetzes ad Lycophron, 208 (Gk. text)</ref>Template:AI-generated source

Deucalion’s and Pyrrha’s children are apparently named in one of the oldest texts, Catalogue of Women, include daughters Pandora and Thyia, and at least one son, Hellen.<ref>Hes. Catalogue fr. 2, 5 and 7; cf. M.L. West (1985) The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Oxford, pp. 50–2, who posits that a third daughter, Protogeneia, who was named at (e.g.) Pausanias, 5.1.3, was also present in the Catalogue.</ref> Their descendants were said to have dwelt and ruled in Thessaly.<ref>Hesiod, Ehoiai fr. 5 as cited in Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, 4.265–426</ref>

One source mentioned three sons of Deucalion and his wife: Orestheus, Marathonios and Pronous (father of Hellen).<ref name=":2">Hecateus, fr. 1F13 (Gantz, p. 167)</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Lastly, Deucalion sired a son, no mention of the mother, Candybus who gave his name to the town of Candyba in Lycia.<ref>Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Kandyba (Κάνδυβα)</ref> Template:Chart top Template:Chart/start Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart Template:Chart/end Template:Chart bottom

Comparative table of Deucalion's family
Relation Names Sources
Homer Hesiod Hellan. Acus. Apollon. Diod. Diony. Ovid Strabo Apollod. Harp. Hyg. Paus. Lact. Steph. Suda Tzet.
Sch. Ody. Cat. Arg. Sch. Met. Lex. Fab. Div. Ins. Lyco.
Parentage Prometheus and Clymene ✓ ✓
Prometheus and Hesione ✓ ✓
Prometheus and Pronoia ✓ ✓
Prometheus ✓ ✓
Spouse Pyrrha ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Children Hellen ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Pandora ✓
Thyia ✓
Orestheus ✓ ✓
Marathonius ✓
Pronous ✓
Amphictyon ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Protogeneia ✓ ✓ ✓
Candybus ✓
Melantho ✓

MythologyEdit

File:Virgil Solis - Deucalion Pyrrha.jpg
Deucalion and Pyrrha from a 1562 version of Ovid's Metamorphoses

Deluge accountsEdit

The flood in the time of Deucalion was caused by the anger of Zeus, ignited by the hubris of Lycaon and his sons, descendants of Pelasgus. According to this story, King Lycaon of Arcadia had sacrificed a boy to Zeus, who, appalled by this offering, decided to put an end to the "Bronze" Age by unleashing a deluge. During this catastrophic flood, the rivers ran in torrents and the sea flooded the coastal plain, engulfing the foothills with spray, and washing everything clean.

Deucalion, with the aid of his father Prometheus, was saved from this deluge by building a chest.<ref name="When the Great Abyss Opened">Template:Cite book</ref> Like the biblical Noah and the Mesopotamian counterpart Utnapishtim, he used this device to survive the great flood with his wife, Pyrrha.

The most complete accounts are given by Ovid, in his Metamorphoses (late 1 BCE to early 1 CE), and by the mythographer Apollodorus (1st or 2nd century CE).<ref name=":1" /> Deucalion, who reigned over the region of Phthia,<ref>Strabo, 9.5.6</ref> had been forewarned of the flood by his father Prometheus. Deucalion was to build a chest and provision it carefully (no animals are rescued in this version of the flood myth), so that when the waters receded after nine days, he and his wife Pyrrha, daughter of Epimetheus, were the one surviving pair of humans. Their chest touched solid ground on Mount Parnassus,<ref>Pindar, Olympian Odes 9.43; cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses I.313–347</ref> or Mount Etna in Sicily,<ref>Hyginus, Fabulae 153</ref> or Mount Athos in Chalkidiki,<ref>Servius' commentary on Virgil's Bucolics 6.41</ref> or Mount Othrys in Thessaly.<ref>Hellanicus, FGrH 4F117, quoted by the scholia to Pindar, Olympia 9.62b: "Hellanicus says that the chest didn't touch down on Parnassus, but by Othrys in Thessaly.</ref>

Hyginus mentioned the opinion of a Hegesianax that Deucalion is to be identified with Aquarius, "because during his reign such quantities of water poured from the sky that the great Flood resulted."<ref>Hyginus, De astronomica 2.29.1</ref>

Once the deluge was over and the couple had given thanks to Zeus, Deucalion (said in several of the sources to have been aged 82 at the time) consulted an oracle of Themis about how to repopulate the earth. He was told to "cover your head and throw the bones of your mother behind your shoulder". Deucalion and Pyrrha understood that "mother" was Gaia, the mother of all living things, and the "bones" to be rocks. They threw the rocks behind their shoulders and the stones formed people. Pyrrha's became women; Deucalion's became men.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> These people were later called the Leleges who populated Locris.<ref>Hesiod, Ehoiai fr. 234; Strabo, 7.7.2</ref> This can be related to Pindar's account that recounted "Pyrrha and Deucalion came down from Parnassus and made their first home, and without the marriage-bed they founded a unified race of stone offspring, and the stones gave the people their name."<ref>Pindar, Olympian Odes 9.43–46</ref>

The 2nd-century AD writer Lucian gave an account of the Greek Deucalion in De Dea Syria that seems to refer more to the Near Eastern flood legends: in his version, Deucalion (whom he also calls Sisythus)<ref>The manuscripts transmit scythea, "Scythian", rather than Sisythus, which is conjectural.</ref> took his children, their wives, and pairs of animals with him on the ark, and later built a great temple in Manbij (northern Syria), on the site of the chasm that received all the waters; he further describes how pilgrims brought vessels of sea water to this place twice a year, from as far as Arabia and Mesopotamia, to commemorate this event.<ref>Lucian, De Dea Syria 12–13; H. Strong & J. Garstang, p. 50–51</ref>

Variant storiesEdit

On the other hand, Dionysius of Halicarnassus stated Deucalion's parents to be Prometheus and Clymene, daughter of Oceanus, and mentioned nothing about a flood but instead named him as commander of those from Parnassus who drove the "sixth generation" of Pelasgians from Thessaly.<ref name=":0">Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 1.17.3</ref>

One of the earliest Greek historians, Hecataeus of Miletus, was said to have written a book about Deucalion, but it no longer survived. The only extant fragment of his to mention Deucalion does not mention the flood either, but named him as the father of Orestheus, king of Aetolia.<ref name=":2" /> The much later geographer Pausanias, following on this tradition, named Deucalion as a king of Ozolian Locris and father of Orestheus.

Plutarch mentioned a legend that Deucalion and Pyrrha had settled in Dodona, Epirus;<ref>Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus 1</ref> while Strabo asserted that they lived at Cynus, and that her grave was still to be found there, while his may be seen at Athens.<ref>Strabo, 9.4.2</ref> This can be related to an account that after the deluge, Deucalion, founder and king of Lycoreia in Mt. Parnassus<ref>Parian Chronicle 3; St. Jerome, Chronicon B1535</ref> was said to have fled from his kingdom to Athens with his sons Hellen and Amphictyon during the reign of King Cranaus. Shortly thereafter, Deucalion died there and was said to have been buried near Athens.<ref>Pausanias, 1.18.8; Eusebius, Chronicle 2, p. 26; Parian Chronicle 4-7</ref> During his stay in there, he was credited with having built the ancient sanctuary of Olympian Zeus.<ref>Pausanias, 1.18.8; Parian Chronicle 5</ref> Additionally, Strabo mentioned a pair of Aegean islands named after the couple.<ref>Strabo, 9.5.14</ref>

InterpretationEdit

Mosaic accretionsEdit

The 19th-century classicist John Lemprière, in Bibliotheca Classica, argued that as the story had been re-told in later versions, it accumulated details from the stories of Noah: "Thus Apollodorus gives Deucalion a great chest as a means of safety; Plutarch speaks of the pigeons by which he sought to find out whether the waters had receded; and Lucian of the animals of every kind which he had taken with him. &c."<ref>Lemprière, Bibliotheca Classica p. 475</ref> However, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains each of the three elements identified by Lemprière: a means of safety (in the form of instructions to build a boat), sending forth birds to test whether the waters had receded, and stowing animals of every kind on the boat. These facts were unknown to Lemprière because the Assyrian cuneiform tablets containing the Gilgamesh Epic were not discovered until the 1850s.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This was 20 years after Lemprière had published his "Bibliotheca Classica". The Gilgamesh epic is widely considered to be at least as old as Genesis, if not older.<ref name="George2003">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Rendsburg, Gary. "The Biblical flood story in the light of the Gilgamesh flood account" in Gilgamesh and the world of Assyria, eds Azize, J & Weeks, N. Peters, 2007, p. 117</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Given the prevalence of religious syncretism in the ancient Greek world, these three elements may already have been known to some Greek-speaking peoples in popular oral variations of the flood myth, long before they were recorded in writing. The most immediate source of these three particular elements in the later Greek versions is unclear.

Dating by early scholarsEdit

For some time during the Middle Ages, many European Christian scholars continued to accept Greek mythical history at face value, thus asserting that Deucalion's flood was a regional flood, that occurred a few centuries later than the global one survived by Noah's family. On the basis of the archaeological stele known as the Parian Chronicle, Deucalion's Flood was usually fixed as occurring some time around 1528 BC. Deucalion's flood may be dated in the chronology of Saint Jerome to Template:Circa 1460 BC. According to Augustine of Hippo (City of God XVIII,8,10,&11), Deucalion and his father Prometheus were contemporaries of Moses. According to Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata, "in the time of Crotopus occurred the burning of Phaethon, and the deluges of Deucalion."<ref name="Book1">The Stromateis (Book 1), Chapter 21.</ref>

NotesEdit

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SourcesEdit

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External linksEdit

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