Britomartis ( / b r ɪ t oʊ ˈ m ɑːr t ɪ s / ; Ancient Greek : Βριτόμαρτις ) was a Greek goddess of mountains and hunting, who was primarily worshipped on the island of Crete . She was sometimes believed to be an oread , a mountain nymph , but she was often conflated or syncretized with Artemis and Aphaea , the "invisible" patroness of Aegina . She is also known as Dictynna or as a daughter of Dictynna (Δίκτυννα).
47-532: [REDACTED] Look up dicte in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Dicte may refer to: Dicte or Diktynna, alternative names for Britomartis , the Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting Dicte (moth) , fairy longhorn moth genus Dicte (musician) , Danish musician and songwriter Dicte (TV series) , a Danish TV series starring Iben Hjejle Dikti or Dicte,
94-407: A noa-name . The goddess was frequently portrayed on Cretan coinage, either as herself or as Diktynna, the goddess of Mount Dikte, Zeus' birthplace. As Diktynna, she was depicted as a winged goddess with a human face, standing atop her ancient mountain, grasping an animal in each hand, in the guise of Potnia Theron , the mistress of animals. By Hellenistic and Roman times, Britomartis was given
141-605: A consequence of his time spent in Nysa with Aristodemus. At around the age of 21, Strabo moved to Rome, where he studied philosophy with the Peripatetic Xenarchus , a highly respected tutor in Augustus's court. Despite Xenarchus's Aristotelian leanings, Strabo later gives evidence to have formed his own Stoic inclinations. In Rome, he also learned grammar under the rich and famous scholar Tyrannion of Amisus . Although Tyrannion
188-728: A descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime. Although the Geographica was rarely used by contemporary writers, a multitude of copies survived throughout the Byzantine Empire . It first appeared in Western Europe in Rome as a Latin translation issued around 1469. The first printed edition was published in 1516 in Venice . Isaac Casaubon , classical scholar and editor of Greek texts, provided
235-573: A genealogical setting that cast her into a Classical context: Britomartis, who is also called Dictynna, the myths relate, was born at Caeno in Crete of Zeus and Carmê , the daughter of Eubulus who was the son of Demeter ; she invented the nets (dictya) which are used in hunting. The third hymn to Artemis by Callimachus tells how she was pursued by Minos and, as Diktynna , "Lady of the Nets", threw herself into fishermen's nets to escape him; thus rescued, she
282-505: A mountain in Crete Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Dicte . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dicte&oldid=756432486 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
329-487: A valuable source of information on the ancient world of his day, especially when this information is corroborated by other sources. He travelled extensively, as he says: "Westward I have journeyed to the parts of Etruria opposite Sardinia; towards the south from the Euxine [Black Sea] to the borders of Ethiopia; and perhaps not one of those who have written geographies has visited more places than I have between those limits." It
376-518: A very rocky mountain, called the Trojan mountain; beneath it there are caves, and near the caves and the river a village called Troy, an ancient settlement of the captive Trojans who had accompanied Menelaus and settled there. Strabo commented on volcanism ( effusive eruption ) which he observed at Katakekaumene (modern Kula , Western Turkey). Strabo's observations predated Pliny the Younger who witnessed
423-416: A wooden cult statue, of Britomartis, allegedly carved by Daedalus , sat in the temple of Olous . In Chersonesos and Olous, she was often portrayed on coins, showing that she was worshipped in those cities; the festival Britomarpeia was held in her honor. As Diktynna, her face was pictured on Cretan coins of Kydonia , Polyrrhenia and Phalasarna as the nurse of Zeus. On Crete, she was connected with
470-569: Is "... pro-Roman throughout the Geography. But while he acknowledges and even praises Roman ascendancy in the political and military sphere, he also makes a significant effort to establish Greek primacy over Rome in other contexts." In Europe , Strabo was the first to connect the Danube (which he called Danouios) and the Istros – with the change of names occurring at "the cataracts," the modern Iron Gates on
517-525: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Britomartis In the 16th century, the naming of a character identified with English military prowess as "Britomart" in Edmund Spenser 's knightly epic The Faerie Queene led to a number of appearances by "Britomart" figures in British art and literature. According to Solinus , the name 'Britomartis'
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#1732851926607564-540: Is from a Cretan dialect; he also says that her name means virgo dulcis , or "sweet virgin". Solinus also identifies her explicitly as the Cretan Artemis. Hesychius of Alexandria also equates the Cretan word βριτύ ( britý ) with Greek γλυκύ ( glyký ) 'sweet'. Other scholars have argued that Britomartis ("sweet maid") is an epithet that does not reveal the goddess's name, nor her character, instead arguing that it may be
611-508: Is little record of his travels until AD 17. It is not known precisely when Strabo's Geography was written, though comments within the work itself place the finished version within the reign of Emperor Tiberius . Some place its first drafts around 7 BC, others around AD 17 or AD 18. The latest passage to which a date can be assigned is his reference to the death in AD ;23 of Juba II , king of Maurousia ( Mauretania ), who
658-423: Is not a probable story that the goddess should ever have got into so helpless a state that she would have required the aid that men can give, being as she is the daughter of the greatest one of the gods. Strabo notes she was venerated as Diktynna only in western Crete, in the region of Cydonia , where there was a Diktynnaion , or temple of Diktynna. "Oupis [Artemis], O queen, fairfaced Bringer of Light, thee too
705-484: Is not known when he wrote Geographica , but he spent much time in the famous library in Alexandria taking notes from "the works of his predecessors". A first edition was published in 7 BC and a final edition no later than 23 AD, in what may have been the last year of Strabo's life. It took some time for Geographica to be recognized by scholars and to become a standard. Alexandria itself features extensively in
752-431: Is proper,' he observes in continuation, ' to derive our explanations from things which are obvious, and in some measure of daily occurrences, such as deluges, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and sudden swellings of the land beneath the sea; for the last raise up the sea also, and when the same lands subside again, they occasion the sea to be let down. And it is not merely the small, but the large islands also, and not merely
799-718: Is said to have died "just recently". He probably worked on the Geography for many years and revised it steadily, but not always consistently. It is an encyclopaedic chronicle and consists of political, economic, social, cultural, and geographic descriptions covering almost all of Europe and the Mediterranean: Britain and Ireland, the Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, Germania, the Alps, Italy, Greece, Northern Black Sea region, Anatolia, Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. The Geography
846-445: Is the only extant work providing information about both Greek and Roman peoples and countries during the reign of Augustus. On the presumption that "recently" means within a year, Strabo stopped writing that year or the next (AD 24), at which time he is thought to have died. He was influenced by Homer , Hecataeus and Aristotle . The first of Strabo's major works, Historical Sketches ( Historica hypomnemata ), written while he
893-503: The Aiginetans ." Antoninus Liberalis wrote that after escaping Minos, she arrived at Aegina, but a local fisherman named Andromedes tried to lay hands on her, so she jumped off her boat, and became known as Aphaea , a local Aeginetan goddess, whose name Antoninus interprets as 'she who disappeared'. In Britomartis's place, a statue appeared in a temple of Artemis in Aegina. A xoanon ,
940-566: The Mithridatic Wars . As the war drew to a close, Strabo's grandfather had turned several Pontic fortresses over to the Romans. Strabo wrote that "great promises were made in exchange for these services", and as Persian culture endured in Amaseia even after Mithridates and Tigranes were defeated, scholars have speculated about how the family's support for Rome might have affected their position in
987-514: The Aristotelian Xenarchus and Tyrannion who preceded him in teaching Strabo, Athenodorus was a Stoic and almost certainly the source of Strabo's diversion from the philosophy of his former mentors. Moreover, from his own first-hand experience, Athenodorus provided Strabo with information about regions of the empire which Strabo would not otherwise have known about. Strabo is best known for his work Geographica ("Geography"), which presented
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#17328519266071034-552: The Euxine [Black Sea] was so great, that its bed must be gradually raised, while the rivers still continued to pour in an undiminished quantity of water. He therefore conceived that, originally, when the Euxine was an inland sea, its level had by this means become so much elevated that it burst its barrier near Byzantium, and formed a communication with the Propontis [Sea of Marmara], and this partial drainage had already, he supposed, converted
1081-567: The Kretans name after that Nymph," Callimachus says. "She passed her time in the company of Artemis, this being the reason why some men think Diktynna and Artemis are one and the same goddess," Diodorus Siculus (5.76.3) suggested. In the second century CE, the Greek writer Pausanias describes Britomartis saying, "She was made a goddess by Artemis, and she is worshipped, not only by the Cretans, but also by
1128-664: The Roman war god. In Spenser's allegory, Britomart connotes the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I of England . In his retelling of the King Arthur legends, Arthur Rex , author Thomas Berger suggests that Queen Guinevere may have become a powerful female knight known as Britomart after the death of the King. Strabo Strabo ( / ˈ s t r eɪ b oʊ / ; Greek : Στράβων Strábōn ; 64 or 63 BC – c. 24 AD )
1175-649: The Romanian/Serbian border. In India , a country he never visited, Strabo described small flying reptiles that were long with snake-like bodies and bat-like wings (this description matches the Indian flying lizard Draco dussumieri ), winged scorpions, and other mythical creatures along with those that were actually factual. Other historians, such as Herodotus , Aristotle , and Flavius Josephus , mentioned similar creatures. Charles Lyell , in his Principles of Geology , wrote of Strabo: He notices, amongst others,
1222-574: The eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August AD 79 in Pompeii : …There are no trees here, but only the vineyards where they produce the Katakekaumene wines which are by no means inferior from any of the wines famous for their quality. The soil is covered with ashes, and black in colour as if the mountainous and rocky country was made up of fires. Some assume that these ashes were the result of thunderbolts and subterranean explosions, and do not doubt that
1269-531: The explanation of Xanthus the Lydian, who said that the seas had once been more extensive, and that they had afterwards been partially dried up, as in his own time many lakes, rivers, and wells in Asia had failed during a season of drought. Treating this conjecture with merited disregard, Strabo passes on to the hypothesis of Strato , the natural philosopher, who had observed that the quantity of mud brought down by rivers into
1316-448: The first critical edition in 1587. Although Strabo cited the classical Greek astronomers Eratosthenes and Hipparchus , acknowledging their astronomical and mathematical efforts covering geography, he claimed that a descriptive approach was more practical, such that his works were designed for statesmen who were more anthropologically than numerically concerned with the character of countries and regions. As such, Geographica provides
1363-638: The island of Aegina , where the temple "Athena Aphaea" stood. A temple dedicated to her also existed at the Aspropyrgos on the outskirts of Athens. Britomart figures in Edmund Spenser 's knightly epic The Faerie Queene , where she is an allegorical figure of the virgin Knight of Chastity , representing English virtue—in particular, English military power—through a folk etymology that associated Brit-, as in Briton , with Martis , here thought of as "of Mars ",
1410-412: The islands, but the continents, which can be lifted up together with the sea; and both large and small tracts may subside, for habitations and cities, like Bure, Bizona, and many others, have been engulfed by earthquakes.' Strabo commented on fossil formation mentioning Nummulite (quoted from Celâl Şengör ): One extraordinary thing which I saw at the pyramids must not be omitted. Heaps of stones from
1457-464: The last book of Geographica , which describes it as a thriving port city with a highly developed local economy. Strabo notes the city's many beautiful public parks, and its network of streets wide enough for chariots and horsemen. "Two of these are exceeding broad, over a plethron in breadth, and cut one another at right angles ... All the buildings are connected one with another, and these also with what are beyond it." Lawrence Kim observes that Strabo
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1504-728: The left side into marshy ground, and that, at last, the whole would be choked up with soil. So, it was argued, the Mediterranean had once opened a passage for itself by the Columns of Hercules into the Atlantic, and perhaps the abundance of sea-shells in Africa, near the Temple of Jupiter Ammon , might also be the deposit of some former inland sea, which had at length forced a passage and escaped. But Strabo rejects this theory as insufficient to account for all
1551-458: The legendary story of Typhon takes place in this region. Ksanthos adds that the king of this region was a man called Arimus. However, it is not reasonable to accept that the whole country was burned down at a time as a result of such an event rather than as a result of a fire bursting from underground whose source has now died out. Three pits are called "Physas" and separated by forty stadia from each other. Above these pits, there are hills formed by
1598-511: The local community, and whether they might have been granted Roman citizenship as a reward. Strabo's life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush , as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and the time he spent in Rome . Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes,
1645-506: The master of rhetoric Aristodemus , who had formerly taught the sons of the Roman general who had taken over Pontus. Aristodemus was the head of two schools of rhetoric and grammar, one in Nysa and one in Rhodes . The school in Nysa possessed a distinct intellectual curiosity in Homeric literature and the interpretation of the ancient Greek epics. Strabo was an admirer of Homer 's poetry, perhaps as
1692-504: The mountain where Zeus was said to have been born— Mount Dikte . On some early Britomartis coins of Kydonia, the coin was manufactured as an overstrike of specimens manufactured by Aegina . Temples dedicated to her existed in Athens , Sparta , Massalia and between Ambrosus and Anticyra in Phocis, where, as Artemis Diktynna, her cult object was a black stone worked by Aeginetans , but she
1739-401: The phenomena, and he proposes one of his own, the profoundness of which modern geologists are only beginning to appreciate. 'It is not,' he says, 'because the lands covered by seas were originally at different altitudes, that the waters have risen, or subsided, or receded from some parts and inundated others. But the reason is, that the same land is sometimes raised up and sometimes depressed, and
1786-417: The quarries lie in front of the pyramids. Among these are found pieces which in shape and size resemble lentils. Some contain substances like grains half peeled. These, it is said, are the remnants of the workmen's food converted into stone; which is not probable. For at home in our country (Amaseia), there is a long hill in a plain, which abounds with pebbles of a porous stone, resembling lentils. The pebbles of
1833-401: The sea also is simultaneously raised and depressed so that it either overflows or returns into its own place again. We must, therefore, ascribe the cause to the ground, either to that ground which is under the sea, or to that which becomes flooded by it, but rather to that which lies beneath the sea, for this is more moveable, and, on account of its humidity, can be altered with great celerity. It
1880-449: The sea-shore and of rivers suggest somewhat of the same difficulty [respecting their origin]; some explanation may indeed be found in the motion [to which these are subject] in flowing waters, but the investigation of the above fact presents more difficulty. I have said elsewhere, that in sight of the pyramids, on the other side in Arabia, and near the stone quarries from which they are built, is
1927-449: The writings of other authors. Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (in present-day Cappadocia ) in around 64 BC. His family had been involved in politics since at least the reign of Mithridates V . Strabo was related to Dorylaeus on his mother's side. Several other family members, including his paternal grandfather, had served Mithridates VI during
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1974-558: Was a Greek geographer , philosopher , and historian who lived in Asia Minor during the transitional period of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire . He is best known for his work Geographica ("Geography"), which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime. Additionally, Strabo authored historical works, but only fragments and quotations of these survive in
2021-427: Was also a Peripatetic, he was more relevantly a respected authority on geography, a fact of some significance considering Strabo's future contributions to the field. The final noteworthy mentor to Strabo was Athenodorus Cananites , a philosopher who had spent his life since 44 BC in Rome forging relationships with the Roman elite. Athenodorus passed onto Strabo his philosophy, his knowledge and his contacts. Unlike
2068-724: Was in Rome ( c. 20 BC ), is nearly completely lost. Meant to cover the history of the known world from the conquest of Greece by the Romans, Strabo quotes it himself and other classical authors mention that it existed, although the only surviving document is a fragment of papyrus now in the possession of the University of Milan (renumbered [Papyrus] 46). Strabo studied under several prominent teachers of various specialities throughout his early life at different stops during his Mediterranean travels. The first chapter of his education took place in Nysa (modern Sultanhisar , Turkey) under
2115-560: Was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, until at least 31 BC. In 29 BC, on his way to Corinth (where Augustus was at the time), he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until he reached Philae , after which point there
2162-458: Was primarily a goddess of local importance in Western Crete, such as Lysos and West of Kydonia . Her temples were said to be guarded by vicious dogs stronger than bears. A temple dedicated to the goddess was erected in ancient times on Mount Tityros near Cydonia. Another name, Pipituna, found on Linear B may be another form of Diktynna. Britomartis was worshipped as Aphaea primarily on
2209-407: Was taken by the fishermen to mainland Greece. She was also known as Dicte . This myth element "explains" the spread of the Cretan goddess's cult to Greece. Diodorus Siculus found it less than credible: But those men who tell the tale that she has been named Dictynna because she fled into some fishermen's nets when she was pursued by Minos, who would have ravished her, have missed the truth; for it
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