Cercopes

They were proverbial as liars, cheats, and accomplished knaves.Lucian, [http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/lucian_alexander.htm Alexander the false prophet]. They once stole Heracles' weapons, during the time he was the penitent servant of Omphale in Lydia.Pseudo-Apollonius, Bibliotheke ii.6.3. He seized and bound them at Ephesus and punished them by tying them to a shoulder pole he slung over his shoulder with their faces pointing downwards, the only way they appear on Greek vases. Their mother, Theia, begged Heracles to let her sons go.{{cite book |last1=Sudias |editor1-last=Whitehead |editor1-first=David |title=Suda |url=https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-html/ |access-date=9 August 2020}} This particular myth is depicted on a metope at Temple C at Selinus. According to Pherecydes, the Cercopes were turned to stone.{{ cite book |author-link=James George Frazer |first=James George |last=Frazer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eFmQCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT134 |title=The Library of Apollodorus |date=13 February 2016 |publisher=Delphi Classics |isbn=9781786563712 |at=Footnote 176 |quote=See Scholiast on Lucian, Alexander 4, ed. H. Rabe.}}

In another myth,{{Cite book|title=A new classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography, mythology and geography : partly based upon the Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology.|last=Smith, William, Sir, 1813-1893.|date=2000|publisher=Making of America|oclc=612127868}} designed to explain their name ("tail-men" in Greek), Zeus changed the Cercopes into monkeys. This story inspired modern zoologists to name the genus of monkeys depicted in Minoan frescoes as Cercopithecus.

Monkeys figure in four Minoan frescos at Akrotiri, most famously in the crocus-gathering Xeste 3 fresco, where the monkey's ritual aspect, attending an enthroned female, is interpreted by Nanno Marinatos as servants of the divinity, acting as intermediary between humanity and the divine world.{{cite book |author=Marinatos, N. |editor1=Hägg, R. |editor2=Marinatos, N. |title=The Function of the Minoan Palaces |place=Stockholm |year=1987 |pages=124–130}}{{cite web |author=Vanschoonwinkel, J. |url=http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/art/animalrepresentationsintheranandotheraegeanarts |title=Animal Representations in Theran and Other Aegean Arts |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011060116/http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/art/animalrepresentationsintheranandotheraegeanarts |archive-date=11 October 2008}} gives a summary of the depiction of monkeys in Minoan and Theran art, with bibliographical references. Green monkeys appear in Crete itself in the "House of the Frescoes" at Knossos,{{cite journal |first=M.A.S. |last=Cameron |title=Unpublished paintings from the 'House of Frescoes' at Knossos |journal=BSA |volume=63 |year=1968 |at=pages 1–31 and figure 13}} shows a restored image.{{full citation|issue=Need full name of journal BSA.|date=November 2019}} Monkeys are absent from Greek art. In Minoan art, it is assumed that they were exotic pets: "... the monkeys, which were imported to Crete, were pets that would have been placed where they could be seen and used by their owners, rather than simply abandoned in the countryside," concluded Shaw (1993).{{cite journal |first=Maria C. |last=Shaw |title=The Aegean Garden |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |volume=97 |issue=4 |date=October 1993 |pages=661–685, esp. 668–670|doi=10.2307/506717 |jstor=506717 }} When Greek mythographers attempted to account for the name Pithecusae (“Ape Islands”) given to Ischia and Procida by the Bay of Naples, where no monkeys had been seen within human memory, they were reduced to alleging that they must have been deceitful men whom Zeus punished by turning them into apes. When scholars attempted to account for this exotic image they have been forced to search farther afield:

The story of Herakles and the Cercopes has been interpreted as a reminiscence of Phoenician traders bringing apes to Greek markets. See O. Keller, Thiere des classischen Alterthums (Innsbruck, 1887), p. 1. The interpretation may perhaps be supported by an Assyrian bas-relief which represents a Herculean male figure carrying an ape on his head and leading another ape by a leash, the animals being apparently brought as tribute to a king. See O. Keller, op. cit., p. 11, fig. 2.{{cite book |first=James George, Sir |last=Frazer |title=Apollodorus, Library and Epitome |at=ii.6.3, note |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022;query=section%3D%23111;layout=;loc=2.6.2 |website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}

Cline identified the monkey species in 1991{{cite journal |first=E.H. |last=Cline |author-link=Eric H. Cline |title=Monkey business in the Bronze Age Aegean: the Amenhotep II faience figurines at Mycenae and Tiryns |journal=Annual of the British School at Athens |volume=86 |year=1991 |pages=29–42|doi=10.1017/S0068245400014878 |s2cid=163960806 }} as guenons, or blue monkeys, which have bluish fur over their green skins. Scholars generally assume that the appearance of the blue monkey in Aegean iconography was due to the import of the actual animal from north Africa; they were iconic religious animals in Egypt

Further references to the Cercopes can be found by the following classical authors:

• {{cite book |author-link=Diodorus Siculus |author=Diodorus Siculus |title=Bibliotheca Historia |at=4.31.7}}
• {{cite book |author-link=Nonnus |author=Nonnus |title=Mythographi Graeci |editor=Westermann, A. |at=Appendix Narrationum, 39, p. 375}}{{full citation|date=November 2019}}
• {{cite book |author-link=John Tzetzes |first=Johannes |last=Tzetzes |title=Chiliades |at=ii.431, vv. 73 ff}}{{full citation|date=November 2019}}
• {{cite book |author-link=Zenobius |author=Zenobius |title=Cent. v. 10, Ovídio, Metamorphosis |at=book XIV, vv. 75–100}}{{full citation|date=November 2019}}

{{reflist|25em}}

• Graves, Robert, 1955. The Greek Myths, section 136.c–d and references
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070311190659/http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/xphrase.pl?keyword=achemon Probert Encyclopedia article on Cercopes]

{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology}}

Category:Greek legendary creatures

Category:Metamorphoses into animals in Greek mythology

Category:Mythology of Heracles

Category:Mythological monkeys

Category:Metamorphoses into inanimate objects in Greek mythology