Antiope

“ Again, in the lost Antiope there is a scene where the tyrant is inveigled into a hut by murderers; he manages to dash out and appeals to the Chorus of old men for help. But they are not really old men; they are only ancient echoes or voices of Justice, who speak his doom upon him, standing moveless while the slayers come. ”

“ ANTIOPE, Queen of the Amazons.
That such a people did exist, among the Scythians, there is little reason to doubt; but, whether they consisted of a separate society of women, or, that the girls of those districts were brought up in a hardy manner, and instructed in warlike exercises, may be disputed; but the last opinion seems the most probable. Much historical mention is made of their queens, particularly of Antiope. ”

“ The Amazons then attacked Athens, and penetrated into the heart of the city, but were finally driven out. Shortly after this Theseus married the queen, Antiope,104 and a son was born to them whom the delighted father named Hippolytus. When, later on, the Amazons again made an invasion into the country under the pretext of rescuing their queen, Antiope was killed by an arrow sent at random into the court of the palace.
The next adventure in which Theseus engaged was to lead the Athenian army against Pirithous, king of the Lapithæ, who had been secretly carrying off some of his herds. ”

“ But afterwards Epopeus chanced to die of his wound which had been originally neglected, so Lycus had no longer any need of war, for Lamedon (the son of Coronus) the king after Epopeus gave Antiope up. And she, as she was being conducted to Thebes, gave birth to a child on the road near Eleutheræ. And it is in reference to this event that Asius the son of Amphiptolemus has written the lines, “Antiope, the daughter of the deep-eddying river Asopus, bare Zethus and divine Amphion, being pregnant both by Zeus, and Epopeus shepherd of his people.” ”

“ They figure rather as a sorry measure of the luck of the female sex in taking a hard natural law into their own hands, and by abnegation of all tender companionship making shift with bare independence, as a kind of second-best—the best practicable by them in the imperfect actual condition of things. But the heart-strings would ache still where the breast had been cut away. The sisters of Antiope had come, not immediately, but in careful array of battle, to bring back the captive. ”

“ AMPHION Amphion was the son of Jupiter and Antiope, queen of Thebes. With his twin brother Zethus he was exposed at birth on Mount Cithaeron, where they grew up among the shepherds, not knowing their parentage. Mercury gave Amphion a lyre, and taught him to play upon it, and his brother occupied himself in hunting and tending the flocks. Meanwhile Antiope, their mother, who had been treated with great cruelty by Lycus, the usurping king of Thebes, and by Dirce, his wife, found means to inform her children of their rights, and to summon them to her assistance. ”

“ The story goes that Antiope was ill-treated by this Dirce, and therefore the children of Antiope put Dirce to death. Crossing the river you reach the ruins of the house of Pindar, and a sanctuary of the Mother Dindymene. Pindar dedicated the image, and Aristomedes and Socrates, sculptors of Thebes, made it. Their custom is to open the sanctuary on one day in each year, and no more. It was my fortune to arrive on that day, and I saw the image, which, like the throne, is of Pentelic marble. ”

“ The names are still preserved of about 20 tragedies of Pacuvius—Anchises, Antiope, Armorum Judicium, Atalanta, Chryses, Dulorestes, Hermione, Iliona, Medus, Medea, Niptra, Orestes et Pylades, Paulus, Peribœa, Tantalus, Teucer, Thyestes. Of these the Antiope was one of the most distinguished. It was regarded by Cicero as a great national tragedy, and an honour to the Roman name.—“Quis enim,” says he, “tam inimicus pene nomini Romano est, qui Ennii Medeam, aut Antiopam Pacuvii, spernat, aut rejiciat?” ”

“ And there are other precincts there sacred to Aphrodite: and in them first is the statue of Antiope. For they say her sons were born at Sicyon, and this is the connection with Antiope. Next is the temple of Aphrodite. None may enter into it but a maiden Sacristan, who must never marry, and another maiden who performs the annual rites. This maiden they call bath-carrier. All others alike must only look at the goddess from the porch and worship her there. ”

“ For the account which the author of the poem called the Theseid gives of this rising of the Amazons, how Antiope, to revenge herself upon Theseus for refusing her and marrying Phædra, came down upon the city with her train of Amazons, whom Hercules slew, is manifestly nothing else but fable and invention. It is true, indeed, that Theseus married Phædra, but that was after the death of Antiope, by whom he had a son called Hippolytus, or, as Pindar writes, Demophon. ”

“ Phaedra, the true wife, was there, peeping suspiciously at her arrival; and even as Antiope yielded to her lord's embraces the thought had come that a male child might be the instrument of her anger, and one day judge her cause.
[163] In one of these doomed, decaying villages, then, King Theseus placed the woman and her babe, hidden, yet secure, within the Attic border, as men veil their mistakes or crimes. They might pass away, they and their story, together with the memory of other antiquated creatures of such places, who had had connubial dealings with the stars. ”

“ They do great mischief to young trees and fences, which they never respect. Yet when arrested for doing mischief they are protected by the sympathies of the Greeks, who hate all coercion, however reasonable.91.Colonel Leake already felt these difficulties, and moves Eleutheræ a few miles to the south-west. But Œnoe and Eleutheræ must have been close together, from the allusion in the Antiope of Euripides. ”

“ She accidentally sought shelter in the Kithairon, with the twin brothers, now grown up. The shepherd reveals to the youths the fact that Antiope is their mother. Thereupon they cruelly kill Dirke, and deprive Lykos of the rulership.
The remaining twin sagas, [58] which are extremely numerous, cannot be discussed in detail in this connection. Possibly they represent a complication of the birth myth by another very ancient and widely distributed myth complex, that of the hostile brothers, the detailed discussion of which belongs elsewhere. ”

“ After what has been said touching the 26Farnese Bull, it is not necessary to point out again the part played in the Dirke monuments by Euripides’ Antiope.
A glance at this brief sketch of ancient paintings on tragic subjects cannot but impress one with the permanent and far-reaching influence of the tragic poet over the painter. The striking fact that stands out prominently before all others is the firm hold exercised by Euripides. Note the following subjects—Andromeda, Dirke, Hippolytos, Iphigeneia at Aulis, Medeia. ”

“ In each of the four corners chubby heads, with winged temples and swollen puffy cheeks, proclaim themselves to be the four winds. On the floor of the next apartment, Theseus and the Minotaur are engaged in deadly combat in the Labyrinth, the winding mazes of which, by a graceful treatment, form as it were a frame for the group depicted within. Neptune and Antiope figure in the third room; the fourth exhibits a man of colossal size, in a state of the most intense nervous agitation. ”

“ Some relate that she was slain fighting by the side of Theseus by a javelin hurled by one Molpadia, and that the column which stands beside the temple of Olympian Earth is sacred to her memory. It is not to be wondered at that history should be at fault when dealing with such ancient events as these, for there is another story at variance with this, to the effect that Antiope caused the wounded Amazons to be secretly transported to Chalkis, where they were taken care of, and some of them were buried there, at what is now called the Amazoneum. ”

“ Angerbode, giant prophetess, mother of Fenris, Hela and the Midgard Serpent
Anglesey, a Northern British island, refuge of Druids fleeing from Romans
Antæus, giant wrestler of Libya, killed by Hercules, who, finding him stronger when thrown to the earth, lifted him into the air and strangled him
Antea, wife of jealous Proetus
Antenor, descendants of, in Italy
Anteros, deity avenging unrequited love, brother of Eros (Cupid)
Anthor, a Greek
Antigone, daughter of Ædipus, Greek ideal of filial and sisterly fidelity
Antilochus, son of Nestor
Antiope, Amazonian queen. ”

“ La Cibot shut the bedroom door behind her, and Pons' suspicions awoke again at once.
She found Magus standing motionless before the four pictures. His immobility, his admiration, can only be understood by other souls open to ideal beauty, to the ineffable joy of beholding art made perfect; such as these can stand for whole hours before the Antiope—Correggio's masterpiece—before Leonardo's Gioconda, Titian's Mistress, Andrea del Sarto's Holy Family, Domenichino's Children Among the Flowers, Raphael's little cameo, or his Portrait of an Old Man—Art's greatest masterpieces. ”

“ ANTIGONE The poems and histories of legendary Greece often relate, as has been seen, to women and their lives. Antigone was as bright an example of filial and sisterly fidelity as was Alcestis of connubial devotion. She was the daughter of OEdipus and Jocasta, who, with all their descendants, were the victims of an unrelenting fate, dooming them to destruction. OEdipus in his madness had torn out his eyes, and was driven forth from his kingdom Thebes, dreaded and abandoned by all men, as an object of divine vengeance. ”

“ He was followed by Menippus, who asserted that the best thing for all the peoples of Greece and Asia would have been for Antiochus to have intervened whilst Philip's power was still unimpaired, everyone would then have kept what belonged to him, and everything would not have been completely at the mercy of Rome. "Even now," he continued, "if only you resolutely carry out the designs you have formed, he will be able with the help of the gods and the assistance of the Aetolians to restore the fortunes of Greece, drooping though they are, to their old place in the world. ”

“ For thou hast shamed me and my horses, putting thine own in front, which are, of a truth, much worse than they. Judge, therefore, between us, ye chiefs of the Greeks. And thou, Antilochus, stand before thy chariot and thy horses, as the custom is, holding in one hand thy whip, and laying the other hand on thine horses, and swear by Poseidon that thou didst not hinder my chariot by fraud."
To him Antilochus made reply: "Bear with me, Menelaus, for I am younger than thou, and thou knowest how young men go astray, for their judgment is hasty and their wit small. ”

“ He told him that Antiochus had already landed in Europe and would soon be in Greece, he would cover sea and land with arms and men; the Romans would find out that it was not with Philip that they had to deal; the numbers of his infantry and cavalry and ships could not be counted; the mere sight of the line of elephants would bring the war to a close. He assured him that the Aetolians were prepared to go to Lacedaemon with the whole of their army when circumstances demanded, but they wanted Antiochus to see a considerable body of their troops on his arrival. ”

“ Thoas, the foremost man amongst them, happened to return from his mission to Antiochus just at this time, bringing with him an envoy from the king in the person of Menippus. Before the meeting of the national council these two men had filled all ears with descriptions of the land and sea forces which Antiochus had collected. They declared that a great host of infantry and cavalry were on their way, elephants had been brought from India and - what they thought would most of all impress the popular mind - he was bringing gold enough to buy up the Romans themselves. ”

“ Archelaus had been designated king by Herod, with Judea, Samaria, and Idumea as his kingdom; but the emperor allowed him only the territory, with the title ethnarch. Antipas was named a tetrarch by Herod, and his territory was Galilee and the land east of the Jordan to the southward of the Sea of Galilee, called Perea. Antipas was the Herod under whose sway Jesus lived in Galilee, and who executed John the Baptist. He was a man of passionate temper, with the pride and love of luxury of his father. ”

“ But Antinous said, "Old man, wine hath done thee harm; still it is well to drink yet more than to strive with men who are thy betters." Then said Penelope, "What dost thou fear, Antinous? Vex not thyself with the thought that the beggar will lead me away as his bride, even if he should be able to stretch the bow of Odysseus." ”

“ But Œdipus and his daughter know nothing of the sacred character of the spot to which they have wandered; and Antigone cannot even tell her father the name of the stately city, whose "diadem of towers" is seen in the distance. The aged king, wearied by his journey, sits down to rest his limbs on a rough unhewn stone within the sacred precinct of the goddesses. Then there enters a wayfarer from Athens, who, horror-struck at the apparent profanation, bids him leave a spot where "man neither comes nor dwells." ”

“ Another new deity was added to the number with great [55] religious pomp in Egypt, and was near being so in Greece by the king of the Romans, who deified Antinous, whom he loved as Zeus loved Ganymede, and whose beauty was of a very rare order: for lust is not easily restrained, destitute as it is of fear; and men now observe the sacred nights of Antinous, the shameful character of which the lover who spent them with him knew well. Why reckon him among the gods, who is honoured on account of uncleanness? ”