Taphians
Encyclopedia
In Homeric Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

, the islands of Taphos (Τάφος) lay in the Ionian Sea
Ionian Sea
The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...

 off the coast of Acarnania
Acarnania
Acarnania is a region of west-central Greece that lies along the Ionian Sea, west of Aetolia, with the Achelous River for a boundary, and north of the gulf of Calydon, which is the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. Today it forms the western part of the prefecture of Aetolia-Acarnania. The capital...

 in northwestern Greece, home of sea-going and piratical inhabitants, the Taphians (Τάφιοι). Penelope mentions the Taphian sea-robbers when she rebukes the chief of her suitors, and it is disguised as Mentes
Mentes
In Greek mythology, Mentes is the name of two different Trojan War leaders, the King of the Cicones and the King of the Taphians and the son of Antiloches ....

, "lord of the Taphian men who love their oars," that Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...

 accepts the hospitality of Telemachus
Telemachus
Telemachus is a figure in Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and a central character in Homer's Odyssey. The first four books in particular focus on Telemachus' journeys in search of news about his father, who has been away at war...

 and speeds him on his journey from Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...

 to Pylos
Pylos
Pylos , historically known under its Italian name Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It was the capital of the former...

. The Taphians dealt in slaves.

By the time of Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

, the islands were identified with the Echinades
Echinades
thumb|300px|The EchinadesThe Echinades are a group of islands in the Ionian Islands, off the coast of Acarnania, Greece...

: in Euripedes' Iphigeneia at Aulis
Iphigeneia at Aulis
Iphigenia in Aulis is the last extant work of the playwright Euripides. Written between 408, after the Orestes, and 406 BC, the year of Euripides's death, the play was first produced the following year by his son or nephew, Euripides the Younger, and won the first place at the Athenian city...

(405 BCE), the chorus of women from Chalcis have spied the Hellenes' fleet and seen Eurytus who "led the Taphian warriors with the white oar-blades, the subjects of Meges, son of Phyleus, who had left the isles of the Echinades, where sailors cannot land." Modern scholars, such as the editors of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World is a large-format English language atlas of ancient Europe, Asia, and North Africa, edited by Richard Talbert. The time period depicted is roughly from archaic Greek civilization through Late Antiquity . The atlas was published by Princeton...

, identify the island of Taphos as the island of Meganissi (Meganísi) just east of the larger island Lefkada
Lefkada
Lefkada, or Leucas or Leucadia , is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea on the west coast of Greece, connected to the mainland by a long causeway and floating bridge. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Lefkada . It is situated on the northern part of the island,...

 (Leucas).

The Taphians accounted themselves the descendants of Perseus
Perseus
Perseus ,Perseos and Perseas are not used in English. the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians...

, for the mother of Taphius
Taphius
In Greek mythology, Taphius founded the city Taphos on the island of the same name, and was its king. He also gave his name to the Taphians, a people that inhabited Taphos and nearby islands, which formed part of Odysseus's kingdom at the time of the Trojan War. According to one genealogy,...

, their eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

ous colonizer, was a granddaughter of Perseus and lay with Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...

 to beget the heroic founder. Another tradition holds that Taphius was one of the Leleges
Leleges
The Leleges were one of the aboriginal peoples of southwest Anatolia , who were already there when the Indo-European Hellenes emerged. The distinction between the Leleges and the Carians is unclear. According to Homer the Leleges were a distinct Anatolian tribe Homer...

, and grandson of Lelex
Lelex
In Greek mythology, Lelex was a King of Laconia. He was married to the Naiad nymph, Cleochareia. He had several sons, including Myles, Polycaon, Pterelaus, and Cteson. The parentage of Lelex is variously stated...

. Their most noted king was Pterelaos, rendered immortal by Poseidon by the single golden hair among the hairs of his head, but undone by his faithless daughter (Comaetho
Comaetho
In Greek mythology, Comaetho is a name that may refer to:*The daughter of Pterelaos and princess of the Taphians. The Taphians were at war with Thebes, led by Amphitryon, whom Comaetho fell in love with. The Taphians remained invincible until Comaetho out of love for Amphitryon cut off her...

) who plucked it while he slept, so that the Mycenaean adventurer Amphitryon
Amphitryon
Amphitryon , in Greek mythology, was a son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis.Amphitryon was a Theban general, who was originally from Tiryns in the eastern part of the Peloponnese. He was friends with Panopeus....

 of Tiryns
Tiryns
Tiryns is a Mycenaean archaeological site in the prefecture of Argolis in the Peloponnese, some kilometres north of Nauplion.-General information:...

 could overcome and kill him and retrieve the cattle Pterelaos' sons had rustled from Mycenae, with much spoils besides. As he was returning with his spoils to his bride at Thebes
Thebes, Greece
Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others...

, Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

 preceded him by one night: taking Amphitryon's shape, and brandishing a Taphian cup as a sign of his success, the king of gods fathered Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

.

Sources

  • Richard Talbert
    Richard Talbert
    Richard John Alexander Talbert is a contemporary British-American ancient historian and classicist on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor of Ancient History and Classics. Talbert is a leading scholar of ancient geography...

    . Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
    Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World
    The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World is a large-format English language atlas of ancient Europe, Asia, and North Africa, edited by Richard Talbert. The time period depicted is roughly from archaic Greek civilization through Late Antiquity . The atlas was published by Princeton...

    , p. 54. ISBN 0-691-03169-X

External links



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Pla taphian are the fish (pla) of plaited bamboo with which the Thais traditionally celebrate the birth of a child.
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