No abstract

The article offers a new interpretation of the Greek myth of Alpheus and Arethusa, which it is believed emerged as a description of latitude‐sailing between the Peloponnese and Sicily during the Bronze Age. The author discusses the stars which could have assisted navigation on this route. This is followed by a discussion on the ancient practice of determining latitude by observing the altitude of the lower culmination of the last circumpolar star. Some sea‐routes are suggested which could have been traversed using the latitude‐sailing technique, and the stars that could have been used as navigation aids on such voyages. © 2008 The Author

Various mythical 'exiles', gods (Cronus), heroes (Cadmus), and other individuals (Ophion, Typhon, Ogygus, Briareus) or groups (Cyclopes) were conceived as exiled for various reasons, hut mainly because of a struggle with Zeus. Locations of their mythical exile were regularly conceived as distant, extreme, inaccessible, and, sometimes, out of this world. Consequently, the terms sometimes associated with tnose mythical exiles are i^syoaa., àicpoç, and 7t£pcxTa. Most of the exiles were at some point placed in Tartarus, a term more or less applicable to a section of Hades; hut they were regularly conceived as continuing their existence by the shore of the mythical Oceanus, most probably in the farthest West. In a number of cases, both versions of the story existed, and they probably referred to the same thing: one can be at the taycna., ¿ixpoç, or 7:épaTa both under earth and at its western extremity. This fact is explained hy the existence of two mythical models accounting for the diurnal solar movement.

Literary testimonies for the Greek concept of Apollo’s swan chariot and the accompanying set of ideas were often discussed alongside some comparable Central and North European iconographic representations. This study approaches the problem by collating, with a help of structural analysis, a number of highly specific complex prehistoric iconographic arrangements (most notably the Dupljaja chariot), which suggest a similar concept was indeed current in the tradition of some European pre-literate societies. The principles employed here in the iconographic analysis of complex symbolic structures, offered a sound methodological basis for comparing literary with iconographic sources. It is concluded that their underlying muthos represents an account of the annual solar movement in terms of anthropomorphic causation.

The mythical narrative of Apollo’s northern voyage and the place of his festivals in several Greek calendars, reflected also in local ritual practice, seems to reflect certain elements in his nature best explained through his association with the sun, more precisely, the annual solar movement. The association was noted long ago, but a selective analysis will show that both the narrative and the ritual reflect the model of annual solar motion expressed in terms of a suspended reference, a mythical metaphor, a linear narrative defined both by the very nature of language and the celestial phenomenon it is describing. The analysis of various Greek calendars supports the notion of the solstices as the most important defining moments in the annual solar motion, and their connection with Apollo reflects precisely this fact.