In Greek mythology, Pallene (/pəˈliːniː/, pə-LEE-nee; Ancient Greek: Παλλήνη, romanized: Pallḗnē) is a Macedonian or Thracian princess, the daughter of King Sithon who ruled over Odomantice, an ancient region right where Macedonia meets Thrace. Pallene saw may of her potential suitors die at the hands of her father, who decreed that only whoever beat him in fight would wed Pallene and rule the kingdom, until one day the life of the suitor she was in love with was at stake, forcing her to take the situation in her own hands. In other stories, she consorts with Dionysus, the god of festivity and wine.
The westernmost of the three Macedonian peninsulas (now known as Kassandra) and an ancient city were named in antiquity Pallene after her,[1] while the middle took the name Sithonia.
Etymology
editIn the Macedonian dialect, the name was also spelled Ballene (Βαλλήνη).[2]
Family
editPallene was the daughter of King Sithon by a nymph named Mendeis[3] or Achiroe.[4] In some versions, she has a sister named Rhoetea.[4] Pallene's homeland was situated in either Macedonia or Thrace, regions in southeast Europe which overlapped in some areas. Sithon was said to be king of Odomantice[5] (roughly equivalent with the plain of Serres) or the Thracian Cherronesus (the modern Gallipoli peninsula).[3]
Mythology
editPallene was a very beautiful and graceful princess, and her reputation travelled far, so that suitors from many places including the faraway lands of Illyria and Tanais flocked to ask for her hand.[6] Sithon decreed that only whoever defeated him in fight could marry Pallene and inherit his kingdom.[5] He beat and killed many potential grooms but in time he decided to make the suitors fight each other to death instead, either because his strengh was failing him as he grew older,[5] or because he realised he would have no son-in-law at all if he kept up the practice of slaughtering them.[7]
After this change of rules, next in line to the fight were Dryas and Clitus. Secretly from everyone else, Pallene was in love with Clitus and did not wish to see him die.[8] She decided to rig the competition, or alternatively her desperate crying drew the attention of a sympathetic male slave, who comforted her at first and then heavily bribed Dryas' chariot-driver to undo the axle-pins of the chariot's wheels.[5] When the day arrived for Dryas and Clitus' battle, Dryas charged against him but the wheels of his chariot came off, making it easy for Clitus to overpower and kill him.[9]
But Sithon did not remain long in the dark about Pallene's cheating.[6] When he arranged the funeral pyre and lifted the body of Dryas, he also attacked Pallene in rage and tried to slay her.[10] Aphrodite then, the goddess of love who often paid visits to the Odomanti at night, intervened to save the unfortunate girl by snatching Pallene out of harm's way.[3][7] In other authors a great downpour occured at the time, which Sithon interpreted as a message to let Clitus marry Pallene and let everyone celebrate a wedding.[5][10] When Sithon eventually died, Pallene and Clitus inherited the realm,[3] which was called Pallene after her.[11][12]
In a different version appearing in the Dionysiaca by Nonnus, the girl's victorious suitor is supplanted by the god Dionysus. Sithon desired his daughter carnally, and employed all sort of methods to postpone and hinder her marriage, thus in the end he simply killed the potential husbands. Dionysus wished to punish Sithon for the many unlawful murders of the suitors, so he pretended he had come for Pallene's hand in marriage, bringing many gifts. Sithon announced that the maiden's hand would be decided in a wrestling match, and led Dionysus to the ring, where he was to fight the maiden herself, almost nude and covered in oil.[13] In the presence of Aphrodite and Eros Pallene fought the god earnestly, but he took hold of her fast; his gentle movements and were more fitting to a lover than a fighter. In the end Sithon declared Dionysus the winner, and Dionysus responded by striking him dead with his thyrsus. As he rolled in the dust dying, he handed the thyrsus to his daughter. Pallene mourned her father as Dionysus comforted her.[13] They celebrated their marriage and had sex, but Dionysus soon left to resume his adventures.
Culture
editCoins from the ancient Greek city of Potidaea on the Pallene peninsula (in Macedonia) depict a nymph who has been identified with Pallene. Another city in Pallene, Aphytis, had a cult devoted to the nymphs and Dionysus.[14]
See also
edit
- Hippodamia and Pelops
- [[
References
edit- ^ Tzetzes on Lycophron 126
- ^ Liddell & Scott 1940, s.v. Παλλήνη.
- ^ a b c d Conon, Narrations 10
- ^ a b Tzetzes on Lycophron 1161
- ^ a b c d e Parthenius of Nicaea 6
- ^ a b Smith 1873, s.v. Sithon.
- ^ a b Bell 1991, s.v. Pallene 1.
- ^ Grimal 1987, p. 324.
- ^ Smith 1873, s.v. Cleitus 4.
- ^ a b Antoni, Silke (October 1, 2006). "Pallene". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly. Kiel: Brill Reference Online. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e904740. ISSN 1574-9347. Retrieved October 1, 2024.
- ^ Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Παλλήνη
- ^ Smith 1873, s.v. Pallene 1.
- ^ a b Calasso 2019, p. 22.
- ^ Larson 2001, p. 170.
Bibliography
edit- Bell, Robert E. (1991). Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary. ABC-Clio. ISBN 9780874365818.
- Calasso, Roberto (July 25, 2019). The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. UK: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-141-99075-0.
- Conon, Narrations, surviving as one-paragraph summaries in the Bibliotheca (Library) of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, translated from the Greek by Brady Kiesling. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Grimal, Pierre (1987). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-13209-0.
- John Tzetzes, Scholia to Lycophron's Alexandra, marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannes Tzetzes and others, from the Greek edition of Eduard Scheer (Weidmann 1881) (downloadable at archive.org, translated by CHATGPT 4.0 with more speed than accuracy, with prompts and work-arounds by Bruce Hartzler and a few manual improvements (?) by Brady Kiesling.
- Larson, Jennifer (2001). Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512294-1.
- Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Online version at Perseus.tufts project.
- Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca. Volume III, W.H.D. Rouse. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1940-1942. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Parthenius, Love Romances translated by Sir Stephen Gaselee (1882-1943), S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 69. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1916. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
- Smith, William (1873). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London, UK: John Murray, printed by Spottiswoode and Co. Online version at the Perseus.tufts library.
- Stephanus of Byzantium, Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Category:Mythology of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) Category:Mythological Thracian women Category:Princesses in Greek mythology Category:Consorts of Dionysus Category:Deeds of Aphrodite Category:Queens in Greek mythology