Enorchus (Ancient Greek: Ἐνόρχης) or Enorches (Enorchês) is a figure from Greek mythology for whom the only surviving sources are scholia on the Alexandra of Lycophron.
According to the scholia, Enorchus was a son of Thyestes by his sister Daeta (or Daesa) and was born out of an egg. He built a temple to Dionysus, which is given as the explanation for the fact that Enorches is also an epithet of Dionysus.[1] According to the scholia it is his epithet at Lesbos,[1] though Hesychius states – without giving a reason or mentioning the son of Thyestes – that the place was Samos.[2][3]
Depiction
editEnorchus is possibly represented on an oil jar (lekythos) from around 430–425 BCE. The image depicts an altar on which rests an egg, within which is an infant – naked except for a necklace of amulets – who reaches towards a woman standing to the right as she stares at the altar.[4]
The identification is, however, heavily contested, with Helen of Troy being offered as a more probable identification (the woman thus being Leda).[5] In favour of the identification as Enorchus, Lesley Beaumont points out that the hairstyle of the infant matches the common representation of that of infant boys on red-figure iconograpy, and Gratia Berger-Doer argues that the amulet necklace around his neck identifies him as a so-called 'temple boy'.[6][4]
Nina Zimmermann-Elseify, however, argues that the fact that this type of figure on oenochoae is usually a male infant can be explained by the painter not having access to a pattern for painting female infants.[5] Lilly Kahil and Noëlle Icard further note that it is more likely to be Helen based on the far greater popularity of the myths surrounding Helen's birth from an egg.[7]
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ a b Scheer (1881) Lycophronis Alexandra. Vol. 2 : Scholia Continens, Σ 212.
- ^ Hesychius. Lexicon s.v. Ἐνόρχης = ε2355.
- ^ Hornblower (2015) p.170.
- ^ a b Berger-Doer (1986) s.v. Enorches (= LIMC III-1, p.744–745).
- ^ a b Zimmermann-Elseify (2023) p. 72.
- ^ Beaumont (1995) 354.
- ^ Kahil and Icard (1986) s.v. Helene (=LIMC IV-1, p.503).
References
edit- Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae : Atherion – Eros. Vol. 3. Artemis & Winkler Verlag. 1986.
- Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae : Eros (in Etruria) - Herakles. Vol. 4. Artemis & Winkler Verlag. 1988.
- Beaumont, Lesley (1995). "Mythological Childhood: A Male Preserve? An Interpretation of Classical Athenian Iconography in Its Socio-Historical Context". The Annual of the British School at Athens. 90: 339–361. ISSN 0068-2454.
- Hesychius (1867). Schmidt, Mauritz (ed.). Lexicon. Sumptibus Hermanni Dufftii.
- Hornblower, Simon (2015). Lykophron: Alexandra. Greek Text, Translation, Commentary, & Introduction (First ed.). Oxford University Press.
- Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1940. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Scheer, Eduard, ed. (1881). Lycophronis Alexandra, Vol 2: Scholia Continens. Weidmann.
- Zimmermann-Elseify, Nina, ed. (2013). Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum : Attisch rotfigurige Lekythen (PDF). Vol. 13. München: C. H. Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-64873-1.
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