Tyros (nymph)
{{short description|Nymph in Greek mythology}}
File:Theodoor van Thulden - The Discovery of Purple.jpg by Theodoor van Thulden, c. 1636.]]
In Greek mythology, Tyros ({{langx|grc|Τύρος|Túros}}), also romanised Tyrus, is a Phoenician nymph, the civic personification of the ancient city of Tyre, in modern Lebanon. In myth, Tyros becomes a lover of the Theban hero Heracles and is associated with the creation of tyrian purple, the rare and expensive dye Tyre was renowned for in antiquity.
Etymology
Tyros got her name from {{lang|grc|Τύρος}}, the Greek exonym of the Phoenician city,{{sfn|Liddell|Scott|1940|loc=s.v. [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=*tu/ros Τύρος]}}{{sfn|Woodhouse|1910|page=[https://artflsrv03.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/efts/sqldbs/WOODHOUSE/woodhouse.py?pageturn=1&pagenumber=1029 1029]}} which in the Phoenician language was called 𐤑𐤓 (Ṣūr).
Mythology
According to the legend, Tyros was a Phoenician nymph dwelling by the Levantine shore near Tyre. Her exact parentage is not known, but she came to be courted by the divine hero Heracles, the son of Zeus and Alcmene.
One day Heracles brought his dog along on his way to meet her, as was custom. The dog got hungry, and attacked a sea creature protruding from a shell on the beach, and ate it.{{sfn|Silver|2017|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TMrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA106 106]}} The blood and flesh of the murex snail stained the dog’s mouth red and purple.{{sfn|St. John|1842|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=dtsaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA224 224-225]}}Nonnus [https://topostext.org/work/529#40.281 40.300–309]
When Heracles finally reached Tyros, she took a look at the dog’s reddish purple snout, and was thrilled by the brilliance and vibrancy of the magnificent colour. She declared to Heracles that she would not have him unless he brought her a gown dyed with that same colour. Heracles then tracked down the sea snails, extracted the pigment, and gave Tyros a splendid purple gown as a gift.Julius Pollux [https://archive.org/details/onomasticon01polluoft/page/n125/mode/2up?view=theater 1.4] Thereafter, he was forever honoured as the inventor of the tyrian purple dye.{{sfn|Silver|2017|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=3TMrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA106 106]}}{{cite encyclopedia | encyclopedia = Brill's New Pauly | publisher = Brill Reference Online | url = https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/NPOE/e1223820.xml | doi = 10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1223820 | last = Liwak | first = Rüdiger | location = Berlin | title = Tyrus | date = October 1, 2006 | editor-first1 = Hubert | issn = 1574-9347 | editor-last1 = Cancik | editor-first2 = Helmuth | editor-last2 = Schneider | access-date = December 1, 2024}}
In an alternative account of the legend, Heracles brought the dye to King Phoenix of Tyre, who then decreed that no man bar the king himself was allowed to wear such virtuous clothing worth only of royalty.John Malalas [https://topostext.org/work/793#2.32 2.32]
Significance
File:OldGreekPhoenikianCoinPurpur2000.jpgn coin depicting the legend of the dog biting the sea snail.]]
In antiqutiy, the city of Tyre was famours for its industrial production of tyrian purple, an extremely rare and expensive dye;{{sfn|La Boda|1994|page=711}} tyrian purple was renowned for its unique beauty and lightfast qualities.{{sfn|Jidejian|2018|pages=278–304}} It was particularly cherised because the colour did not fade easily, but in fact became even brighter with weathering and sunlight.{{cite web |url=https://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/7.html |title=Pigments: Causes of Color |website=WebExhibits.org |access-date=2016-06-10 |df=dmy-all}}{{sfn|St. Clair|2016|pages=162–164}} Thousands of Murex trunculus and Murex brandaris shellfish were needed to produce one gram of the dye.
The rare colour was reserved for royalty and nobility use only, as exhibited in the version with king Phoenix.{{cite thesis | first = Bariaa | last = Mourad | title = Du Patrimoine à la Muséologie: Conception d'un musée sur le site archéologique de Tyr | institution = Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Secteur de la Culture, Division du Patrimoine Culturel | location = Paris | date = 1998 | language = French | trans-title = From Heritage to Museology: Design of a museum on the archaeological site of Tyre.}} By the fourth century AD, only the Roman emperors were permitted to wear Tyrian purple,{{sfn|St. Clair|2016|pages=162–164}} and its production was greatly strictened in the succeeding Eastern Roman Empire, where a child born to a reigning emperor was dubbed porphyrogenitus, literally translating to "born in the purple".{{cite book |article=Porphyrogennetos |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York and Oxford, UK |year=1991 |page=1701 |isbn=0-195-04652-8}}
See also
{{portal|Mythology|Ancient Greece|Phoenicia}}
References
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{Cite book| title = TYRE Through The Ages | last = Jidejian | first = Nina | publisher = Librairie Orientale | year = 2018 |isbn = 9789953171050 | edition = 3rd | location = Beirut}}
- John Malalas, Chronography, Books 1-7 and 10-18, with a high-speed, pseudo-literal translation by Brady Kiesling, 2019. [https://topostext.org/work/793 Text available online on Topos Text.]
- Julius Pollux, Onomasticon, volume 1 edited by Wilhelm Dindorf, Leipzig: 1824. [https://archive.org/details/onomasticon01polluoft/mode/2up?view=theater Online text at Internet Archive.]
- {{cite book | last = La Boda | first = Sharon | date = 1994 | title = International Dictionary of Historic Places: Middle East and Africa | volume = 4 | location = Chicago and London | publisher = Fitzroy Dearborn | isbn = 1-884964-03-6}}
- {{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.]
- Nonnus, Dionysiaca; translated by Rouse, W H D, III Books XXXVI-XLVIII. Loeb Classical Library No. 346, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940. [https://archive.org/stream/dionysiaca03nonnuoft#page/n5/mode/2up Internet Archive].
- {{Cite book | title = The Secret Lives of Colour | last = St. Clair | first = Kassia | publisher = John Murray | year = 2016 |isbn = 9781473630819 | location = London | oclc = 936144129}}
- {{cite book | first = James Augustus | last = St. John | date = 1842 | volume = III | title = The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece | publisher = Richard Bentley | location = London | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=dtsaAAAAYAAJ}}
- {{cite book | last = Woodhouse | first = Sidney Chawner | date = 1910 | title = English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language | location = London | publisher = Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited}}
- {{cite book | last = Silver | first = Larry | date = 2017 | title = Rubens, Velázquez, and the King of Spain | publisher = Routledge | isbn = 9781351550390 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=3TMrDwAAQBAJ}}