| Semele | |
|---|---|
Princess ofThebes Goddess of the Bacchic frenzy | |
| Member of the Theban Royal Family | |
 Semele and Dionysus on a black-figure hydria, ca. 520-500 BC, Antikensammlung Berlin | |
| Other names | Thyone |
| Abode | Thebes,Mount Olympus |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents | Cadmus andHarmonia |
| Siblings | Autonoë,Agave,Ino andPolydorus |
| Consort | Zeus |
| Children | Dionysus |
InGreek mythology,Semele (/ˈsɛmɪli/;Ancient Greek:Σεμέλη,romanized: Semélē), orThyone (/θaɪˈoʊni/;Ancient Greek:Θυώνη,romanized: Thyṓnē), was the youngest daughter ofCadmus andHarmonia, and the mother ofDionysus byZeus (her own great-grandfather).[1]
Certain elements of the cult of Dionysus and Semele came from thePhrygians.[2] These were modified, expanded, and elaborated by the IonianGreek colonists.Doric Greek historianHerodotus (c. 484–425 BC), born in the city ofHalicarnassus under theAchaemenid Empire, who gives the account of Cadmus, estimates that Semele lived either 1,000 or 1,600 years prior to his visit toTyre in 450 BC at the end of theGreco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC) or around 2050 or 1450 BC.[3][4] In Rome, the goddessStimula was identified as Semele.
Semele was the subject of the now losttragedy byAeschylus calledSemele (Σεμέλη) orThe Water Carriers (Ὑδροφόροι).[5]
According to some linguists the name Semele isThraco-Phrygian,[6] derived from aPIE root meaning 'earth'. APhrygian inscription refers todiōs zemelō (διως ζεμελω). The first word corresponds toGreekZeus (genit. Dios) and the second toearth in someIndo-European languages.[7]Julius Pokorny reconstructs her name from the PIE root*dgem- meaning 'earth' and relates it withThracianZemele, 'mother earth'.[8] CompareŽemyna (derived from žemė – earth), the goddess of the earth (mother goddess) inLithuanian mythology, and Zeme, also referred to asZemes-mãte, aSlavic andLatvian goddess of the earth.[9][10]
Mallory and Adams suggest that, although Semele is "etymologically related" to other mother Earth/Earth goddess cognates, her name might be a borrowing "from anotherIE source", not inherited as part of the Ancient Greek lexicon.[11] Burkert says that while Semele is "manifestly non-Greek", "it is no more possible to confirm that Semele is aThraco-Phrygian word for earth than it is to prove the priority of theLydianbaki- overBacchus as a name forDionysos".[12]M.L.West derives thePhrygianzemelo, OldSlavoniczemlya,Lithuanianzēmē from the Indo-European name *dʰéǵʰōm (earth). Semele seems to be aThracian name of the earth goddess fromgʰem-elā. The pronunciation was probably Zemelā.[13]
Etymological connections ofThraco-PhrygianSemele withBalto-Slavic earth deities have been noted, since an alternate name for BalticZemyna isŽemelė,[14][15] and inSlavic languages, the wordseme (Semele) means 'seed', andzemlja (Zemele) means 'earth'.[16] Thus, according to Borissoff, "she could be an important link bridging the ancient Thracian and Slavonic cults (...)".[17]
.jpg)
In one version of the myth, Semele was a priestess of Zeus, and on one occasion was observed by Zeus as she slaughtered a bull at his altar and afterwards swam in the riverAsopus to cleanse herself of the blood. Flying over the scene in the guise of an eagle, Zeus fell in love with Semele and repeatedly visited her secretly.[18]
Zeus's wife,Hera, a goddess jealous of usurpers, discovered his affair with Semele when she later became pregnant. Appearing as an oldcrone,[19] Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that her lover was actually Zeus. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele's mind. Curious, Semele asked Zeus to grant her a boon. Zeus, eager to please his beloved, promised on theRiver Styx to grant her anything she wanted. She then demanded that Zeus reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his divinity. Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he was forced by his oath to comply. Zeus tried to spare her by showing her the smallest of his bolts and the sparsest thunderstorm clouds he could find. Mortals, however, cannot look upon the gods without incinerating, and she perished, consumed in a lightning-ignited flame.[20]
Zeus rescued the fetalDionysus, however, by sewing him into his thigh (whence theepithet Eiraphiotes, 'insewn', of theHomeric Hymn). A few months later, Dionysus was born. This leads to his being called "the twice-born".[21]
When he grew up, Dionysus rescued his mother fromHades,[22] and she became a goddess onMount Olympus, with the new nameThyone, presiding over the frenzy inspired by her son Dionysus.[23] At a later point in the epicDionysiaca, Semele, now resurrected, boasts to her sister Ino how Cronida ('Kronos's son', that is, Zeus), "the plower of her field", carried on the gestation of Dionysus and now her son gets to join the heavenly deities in Olympus, while Ino languishes with a murderous husband (since Athamas tried to kill Ino and her son), and a son that lives with maritime deities.[24]
.jpg)
There is a story in theFabulae 167 ofGaius Julius Hyginus, or a later author whose work has been attributed to Hyginus. In this, Dionysus (called Liber) is the son ofJupiter andProserpina, and was killed by theTitans. Jupiter gave his torn up heart in a drink to Semele, who became pregnant this way. But in another account, Zeus swallows the heart himself, in order to beget his seed on Semele. Hera then convinces Semele to ask Zeus to come to her as a god, and on doing so she dies, and Zeus seals the unborn baby up in his thigh.[25]As a result of this Dionysus "was also called Dimetor [of two mothers] ... because the twoDionysoi were born of one father, but of two mothers"[26]
Still another variant of the narrative is found inCallimachus[27] and the 5th century CE Greek writerNonnus.[28] In this version, the first Dionysus is calledZagreus. Nonnus does not present the conception as virginal; rather, the editor's notes say that Zeus swallowed Zagreus' heart, and visited the mortal woman Semele, whom he seduced and made pregnant. Nonnus classifies Zeus's affair with Semele as one in a set of twelve, the other eleven women on whom he begot children beingIo,Europa,Pluto,Danaë, Aigina,Antiope,Leda,Dia,Alcmene, Laodameia, the mother ofSarpedon, andOlympias.[29]
The most usual setting for the story of Semele is the palace that occupied the acropolis ofThebes, called theCadmeia.[30] WhenPausanias visited Thebes in the 2nd century CE, he was shown the very bridal chamber where Zeus visited her and begat Dionysus. Since an Oriental inscribed cylindrical seal found at the palace can be dated 14th-13th centuries,[31] the myth of Semele must beMycenaean or earlier in origin. At theAlcyonian Lake near the prehistoric site ofLerna, Dionysus, guided byProsymnus or Polymnus, descended toTartarus to free his once-mortal mother. Annual rites took place there in classical times; Pausanias refuses to describe them.[32]
Though the Greek myth of Semele was localized inThebes, the fragmentaryHomeric Hymn to Dionysus makes the place where Zeus gave a second birth to the god a distant one, and mythically vague:
Semele was worshipped at Athens at theLenaia, when a yearling bull, emblematic of Dionysus, was sacrificed to her. One-ninth was burnt on the altar in the Hellenic way; the rest was torn and eaten raw by the votaries.[33]
A unique tale, "found nowhere else in Greece" and considered to be a local version of her legend,[34] is narrated by geographerPausanias in hisDescription of Greece:[35] after giving birth to her semi-divine son,Dionysus, fathered byZeus, Semele was banished from the realm by her fatherCadmus. Their sentence was to be put into a chest or a box (larnax) and cast in the sea. Luckily, the casket they were in washed up by the waves atPrasiae.[36][37] However, it has been suggested that this tale might have been a borrowing from the story of Danaë and Perseus.[38][39]
Semele was a tragedy byAeschylus; it has been lost, save a few lines quoted by other writers, and apapyrus fragment from Oxyrhynchus, P. Oxy. 2164.[40]
Semele is attested with the Etruscan name formSemla, depicted on the back of abronze mirror from the fourth century BC.[41]
Inancient Rome, a grove(lucus) nearOstia, situated between theAventine Hill and the mouth of theTiber River,[42] was dedicated to a goddess namedStimula.W.H. Roscher includes the nameStimula among theindigitamenta, thelists of Roman deities maintained by priests to assure that the correct divinity was invoked in public rituals.[43] In his poem on theRoman calendar,Ovid (d. 17 CE) identifies this goddess with Semele:
|
.jpg)
Augustine notes that the goddess is named afterstimulae, 'goads, whips,' by means of which a person is driven to excessive actions.[45] The goddess's grove was the site of the Dionysian scandal[46] that led toofficial attempts to suppress the cult. The Romans viewed the Bacchanals with suspicion, based on reports of ecstatic behaviors contrary toRoman social norms and the secrecy of initiatory rite. In 186 BC, theRoman senate took severe actions to limit the cult, without banning it. Religious beliefs and myths associated with Dionysus were successfully adapted and remained pervasive in Roman culture, as evidenced for instance by the Dionysian scenes of Roman wall painting[47] and onsarcophagi from the 1st to the 4th centuries AD.
The Greek cult of Dionysus had flourished among theEtruscans in the archaic period, and had been made compatible withEtruscan religious beliefs. One of the main principles of the Dionysian mysteries that spread toLatium and Rome was the concept of rebirth, to which the complex myths surrounding the god's own birth were central.Birth and childhood deities were important toRoman religion; Ovid identifies Semele's sisterIno as the nurturing goddessMater Matuta. This goddess had a major cult center atSatricum that was built 500–490 BC. The female consort who appears with Bacchus in theacroterial statues there may be either Semele or Ariadne. The pair were part of theAventine Triad in Rome asLiber andLibera, along withCeres. The temple of the triad is located near the Grove of Stimula,[48] and the grove and its shrine(sacrarium) were located outside Rome's sacred boundary(pomerium), perhaps as the "dark side" of the Aventine Triad.[49]
In thelater mythological tradition of theChristian era, ancient deities and their narratives were often interpreted allegorically. In theNeoplatonic philosophy ofHenry More (1614–1687), for instance, Semele was thought to embody "intellectual imagination", and was construed as the opposite ofArachne, "sense perception".[50]
In the 18th century, the story of Semele formed the basis for threeoperas of the same name,the first byJohn Eccles (1707, to a libretto byWilliam Congreve),another byMarin Marais (1709), anda third byGeorge Frideric Handel (1742). Handel's work, based on Congreve's libretto but with additions, while an opera to its marrow, was originally given as anoratorio so that it could be performed in aLenten concert series; it premiered on February 10, 1744.[51] The German dramatist Schiller produced asingspiel entitledSemele in 1782. Victorian poetConstance Naden wrote a sonnet in the voice of Semele, first published in her 1881 collectionSongs and Sonnets of Springtime.[52]Paul Dukas composed a cantata,Sémélé.
But from the birth ofDionysus, the son of Semele, daughter ofCadmus, to the present day is a period of about 1000 years only; ...
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
| Tribes (List) | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kings |
| ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Wars with the Roman Empire |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Roman Dacia /Free Dacians |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Research | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
