Phalanx (mythology)

In Liddell & Scott the Greek word {{lang|grc|Φάλαγξ}}, usually used to mean the phalanx (a clustered mass of infantry),{{cite web | website = Logeion.com | title = Phalanx | publisher = University of Chicago | access-date = December 4, 2024 | url = https://logeion.uchicago.edu/phalanx}} can refer among other things to beams, the bone between joints in fingers and toes, round pieces of wood, trunk or logs and generally beam-shaped objects (like a spider's legs).A Greek-English Lexicon s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=fa/lagc {{lang|grc|φάλαγξ}}] It is related to the word {{lang|grc|φαλάγγιον}} (phalángion, literally 'little phalanx') which is the ancient Greek word for the venomous barrel{{cite encyclopedia | last = Hünemörder | first = Christian | location = Hamburg | date = 2006 | url = https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/arachnids-e1119400 | doi = 10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1119400 | title = Arachnids | encyclopedia = Brill's New Pauly | publisher = Brill Reference Online | editor-first1 = Hubert | editor-last1 = Cancik | editor-first2 = Helmuth | editor-last2 = Schneider | translator = Christine F. Salazar | access-date = August 3, 2023}} spider.A Greek-English Lexicon s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aalphabetic+letter%3D*f%3Aentry+group%3D3%3Aentry%3Dfala%2Fggion {{lang|grc|φαλάγγιον}}] According to Robert Beekes the ending formation in -nx (also found in the words {{lang|grc|φάραγξ}}, {{lang|grc|σῆραγξ}}, and {{lang|grc|φάρυγξ}}) points to a pre-Greek origin for the word.{{sfn|Beekes|2010|pages=[https://archive.org/details/etymological-dictionary-of-greek/page/1548/mode/2up?view=theater 1548-1549]}}

Phalanx was the brother of Arachne, thus possibly the son of Idmon, a famous purple dyer from Colophon. Through his sister he had a nephew named Closter ("spinner", the son of spider).Pliny the Elder, Natural History [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/pliny_elder-natural_history/1938/pb_LCL352.639.xml 7.196]

File:Arachne.jpg's 1868 illustration for Dante's Purgatorio.]]

In the most known and traditional version of the tale, recorded in Ovid's Metamorphoses, the Lydian maiden Arachne is the (apparently brotherless) child of Idmon. An exceptional Tyrian purple dyer and weaver, she boasts of being even more talented than Athena, the goddess of weaving. The goddess challenges the girl to a weaving match, and though Arachne's weaving work is without a flaw, Athena is enraged at its subject, as Arachne wove the male gods seducing and tricking mortal women. Athena rips the work to shreds, and Arachne in distress hangs herself. In pity, Athena changes her into a spider, so she can live again, and still practice her art.Ovid, Metamorphoses [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ovid-metamorphoses/1916/pb_LCL042.289.xml 6.1]-[https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ovid-metamorphoses/1916/pb_LCL042.299.xml 6.145]Smith s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DA%3Aentry+group%3D35%3Aentry%3Darachne-bio-1 Arachne]

But in a much more obscure version, saved by a scholiast on Nicander and attributed to Theophilus, a writer of the school of Zenodotus who lived during the third century BC,{{sfn|Overduin|1977|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LedTBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 181]}} Arachne was an Attic maiden instead who had a brother named Phalanx. Athena taught Phalanx the art of war, and Arachne the art of weaving.{{sfn|Johnston|2009|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ufmTU599Bf8C&pg=PA1 1]}}{{cite web | title = Μορφές και Θέματα της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Μυθολογίας: Φάλαγγας | trans-title = Figures and Themes of Ancient Greek Mythology: Phalanx | url = https://www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/mythology/lexicon/metamorfoseis/page_261.html | first = Demetra | last = Metta | language = Greek | website = www.greek-language.gr | access-date = May 4, 2024}} But when the two siblings engaged in an incestuous relationship and laid with each other, they disgusted Athena, who turned them into 'animals doomed to be eaten by their own young',{{sfn|Forbes Irving|1990|pages=308–9}} presumably spiders given the more popular tale and the meaning of Phalanx and Arachne's names.Scholiast on Nicander 12.a{{sfn|Salzman-Mitchell|2005|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Sfz9GZIYPcsC&pg=PA228 228]}}{{cite web | first = M. Rosemary | last = Wright | title = A Dictionary of Classical Mythology: Summary of Transformations | website = mythandreligion.upatras.gr | url = http://mythandreligion.upatras.gr/english/m-r-wright-a-dictionary-of-classical-mythology | access-date = January 3, 2023 | publisher = University of Patras}}

Ovid's original Greek source for this tale remains unknown;{{cite encyclopedia | last = Graf | first = Fritz| location = Columbus, OH | date = 2006 | url = https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/arachne-e131080 | doi = 10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e131080 | title = Arachne | encyclopedia = Brill's New Pauly | publisher = Brill Reference Online | editor-first1 = Hubert | editor-last1 = Cancik | editor-first2 = Helmuth | editor-last2 = Schneider | translator = Christine F. Salazar | access-date = November 24, 2023}} it is known that he drew a lot from Nicander's now lost works for his Metamorphoses, but if he had heard of this twist in Arachne's character, he chose to omit it. Perhaps he did so because that particular version of the myth might not have been familiar enough among a predominately Roman audience.{{sfn|Salzman-Mitchell|2005|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Sfz9GZIYPcsC&pg=PA228 228]}} That being said, there is no evidence to suggest that Nicander himself knew about this version either.{{sfn|Overduin|1977|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LedTBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 181]}}

This tale, typical of the sort of Nicander's myths that Antoninus Liberalis collected, explains how a particular animal came to be from a transformed human, but also how some of said animals' most prominent features mirror the behaviour exhibited by the humans before their eventual transformation.{{sfn|Johnston|2009|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ufmTU599Bf8C&pg=PA3 3]}} The main aition of this story is the explanation for the old common belief that spiders eat their mothers.{{sfn|Forbes Irving|1990|pages=308–9}} Unlike Ovid's telling, which places Arachne in Asia Minor, in this version she is given a home in Attica. This is probably because, while phalangion was used everywhere to mean 'spider', the non-diminutive form phalanx was applied to spiders only in Attica.{{sfn|Johnston|2009|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ufmTU599Bf8C&pg=PA3 3]}}

In the story, Phalanx serves as a failed representative of Athenian young men, just as Arachne is a failed representative of Athenian maidens and their potential; weaving and military skills were seen as the proper pursuits for youth of each gender, as was a properly controlled sexual urge. Phalanx and Arachne fail not because of any lack of skill on their parts, but rather because they could not control themselves.{{sfn|Johnston|2018|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=qyt0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA201 201]}}

The male sibling being taught about the craft of war provides an aetiological connection to the phalanx (as in the military formation), while the female one being instructed in the art of weaving provides a similar connection to spiders weaving their webs.{{sfn|Overduin|1977|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=LedTBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 181]}} Salzman-Mitchell suggested that perhaps the moral of this myth is that masculine arts (war) should not be mixed with feminine ones (weaving).{{sfn|Salzman-Mitchell|2005|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Sfz9GZIYPcsC&pg=PA228 228]}}

{{portal|Mythology|Ancient Greece|Ancient Rome}}

• Byblis
• Gale
• Ictinus
• Proetus

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• {{cite book | author-link = Robert S. P. Beekes | last = Beekes | first = Robert S. P. | url = https://archive.org/details/etymological-dictionary-of-greek/mode/ | title = Etymological Dictionary of Greek | location = Leiden, the Netherlands | publisher = Brill Publications | date = 2010 | volume = ΙΙ | isbn = 978-90-04-17419-1 | series = Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series | editor = Lucien van Beek}}
• {{cite book | title = Bell's New Pantheon; Or, Historical Dictionary of the Gods, Demi-gods, Heroes, and Fabulous Personages of Antiquity | location = London, UK | publisher = British Library, John Bell | volume = II | date = 1790 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=e-pKDDNMf0AC | last = Bell | first = John | author-link = John Bell (publisher)}}
• {{cite book | title = Metamorphosis in Greek Myths | first = Paul M. C. | last = Forbes Irving | publisher = Clarendon Press | date = 1990 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=URvXAAAAMAAJ | isbn = 0-19-814730-9}}
• {{cite book | author-link = Pierre Grimal | last = Grimal | first = Pierre | title = The Dictionary of Classical Mythology | date = 1986 | publisher = Wiley-Blackwell | ISBN = 0-631-13209-0 | url = https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofclas00grim/mode/2up?view=theater | location = Oxford, UK | translator = A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop}}
• {{cite book | chapter = A New Web for Arachne | first = Sarah Iles | last = Johnston | title = Antike Mythen: Medien, Transformationen und Konstruktionen | editor1 = Ueli, Dill | editor2 = Walde, Christine | location = Germany | publisher = De Gruyter | date = 2009 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ufmTU599Bf8C | isbn = 978-3-11-020909-9}}
• {{cite book | publisher = Harvard University Press | first = Sarah Iles | last = Johnston | title = The Story of Myth | location = Cambridge, London | date = December 3, 2018 | isbn = 978-0-674-98955-9 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qyt0DwAAQBAJ}}
• {{cite book | first1 = Henry George | last1 = Liddell | first2 = Robert | last2 = Scott | title = A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie | location = Oxford | publisher = Clarendon Press | date = 1940 | author1-link = Henry Liddell | author2-link = Robert Scott (philologist)}} [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057 Online version at Perseus.tufts project.]
• {{cite book | last = Overduin | first = Floris | title = Nicander of Colophon's Theriaca: A Literary Commentary | date = 1977 | isbn = 978-90-04-27121-0 | publisher = Brill Publications | location = Leiden, the Netherlands | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=LedTBQAAQBAJ}}
• {{cite book | author = Ovid | author-link = Ovid | title = Metamorphoses | volume = I, Books 1-8 | translator = Frank Justus Miller, revised by G. P. Goold | location = Cambridge, MA | publisher = Harvard University Press | series = Loeb Classical Library 42 | date = 1916}}
• {{cite book | author = Pliny the Elder | title = Natural History | volume = II: Books 3-7 | translator = H. Rackham | series = Loeb Classical Library 352 | location = Cambridge, MA | publisher = Harvard University Press | date = 1942}}
• {{cite book | title = A Web of Fantasies: Gaze, Image, and Gender in Ovid's Metamorphoses | first = Patricia B. | last = Salzman-Mitchell | publisher = Ohio State University Press | date = 2005 | isbn = 0-8142-0999-8 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Sfz9GZIYPcsC}}
• {{cite book | first = William | last = Smith | author-link = William Smith (lexicographer) | title = A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | location = London | editor = John Murray | publisher = Spottiswoode and Co. | publication-place = New-Street Square and Parliament Street | date = 1873}}

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{{Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology}}

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Category:Metamorphoses into arthropods in Greek mythology

Category:Deeds of Athena

Category:Mythological people from Attica

Category:Mythological spiders

Category:Mythological people involved in incest