#Photius

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Καρηβαρῶν: τὴν κεφαλὴν βαρούμενος ἀπὸ μέθης οἴνου

- Photius

“Heavy in the head”: Weighing down your head from drinking wine.

Photo: Eva Green by Gilles Bensimon, 2005.

[thedailyvio]

Day 8 & 9

WIP Below:

[finelythreadedsky]

1st century mythographers are so nice, we should use these in intro/intermediate latin and greek more

[babyrdie]

Any Patroclus headcanon?

Okay, I don't know how common this headcanon is, but I like reversing Achilles and Patroclus' roles in their childhood. Since Patroclus doesn't have much content about his childhood, I suppose I'll fill in the blanks with headcanons!

I like to think that, as a child, Patroclus was more impatient and aggressive and so an accident over something silly like dice resulted in Clysonimus' death (I'm combining different versions in this).

Reading The Iliad, it seemed to me that Patroclus used to be royalty (he's called a prince), while reading Pindar I got the impression that Menoetius was a noble since it's said that his family wasn't originally from Opus, but the king of Opus valued them and gave them part of the land. He's also one of Helen's suitors in more than one source, and I imagine most of those who dared to be there or send their sons there at least had status to offer. I generally prefer the idea that he was a prince, but regardless…in both cases, Patroclus was raised in a high-status household. Mentions of his sister Myrto (in Aristides) and his brother Abderos (in the Photius' Bibliotheca) are both late, which makes me think that it's possible that for a long time Patroclus was established as an only child. Can you imagine what it was like to be an only child of high status? Let's be honest, I don't believe someone like that would be a docile and humble child.

So I think that Patroclus as a child was really what you would expect from a prince/son of a noble who is an only child and can most likely get away with the trouble he causes easily. I can imagine someone like that getting angry enough over dices to accidentally kill someone. I think being exiled to Phithia hit him hard, not because he was sad but because he felt offended. So Patroclus wasn't really good company when he arrived on Phithia. If anything, he was irritated to see Achilles in the position he used to be in, even more irritated because they're cousins ​​and used to have similar privileges and now it was as if Patroclus was just like any other of the servants there. Ironically Achilles, having been raised mainly by Chiron, used to be much more humble and controlled than Patroclus just as Peleus expected (yes, I was inspired by Iphigenia at Aulis here. Also, in my chronology, Achilles in Pelion is before Patroclus because Hesiod justifies Achilles' absence among Helen's suitors with the explanation that he was in Pelion at the time and The Iliad implies that Patroclus wasn't in Pelion, since it says that Achilles learned to heal from Chiron and then passed this on to Patroclus rather than Patroclus learning it together)

I like to think that Patroclus' personality change happened on Phithia. He no longer had the status to protect him from her bad attitude like he once did. In some ways, Peleus was still lenient with him. Peleus used to be prince of Aegina and also lost his status when he was exiled because of someone's death (his half-brother Phocus. However, unlike Patroclus, in most versions Phocus' death wasn't accidental), and he was only able to have a good life again because the king of Phithia, to which Peleus fled, at the time was a generous host to him. Peleus wished to be something similar to Patroclus, even more so because they were also related (here I am considering the version in which they're related by Aegina, which makes Patroclus cousin once removed to Achilles. But, of course, there are other versions of the blood relationship). Still, Peleus wasn't as indulgent as Menoetius (who was lenient enough to have gotten to that point).

Patroclus's relationship with Achilles was initially turbulent. Achilles was raised by someone as wise as Chiron, but in the end he was still mostly raised away from other humans being taught by a centaur teacher and looked after by nymphs (inspired by Argonautica). As such, he was simply very bad at understanding common mortals, which was the case with Patroclus. It took him a while to realize that Patroclus was angry with him because he had resentment and envy, and when he did he wasn't really…err sensitive about it. He was like "oh you envy me" in a surprised tone, which only made Patroclus even more irritated. For Patroclus, it didn't make sense for someone so oblivious to be a prince and, consequently, to be destined to lead people. How could Achilles be a good leader if he cannot understand those who serve him at all? The idea of ​​swearing loyalty to someone like that seemed absurd.

Because Achilles saw how different Peleus and Phoenix acted towards Patroclus compared to the other servants, he became interested. The problem is that, having almost no emotional or social awareness, everything Achilles did only seemed to make Patroclus' temper worse. Meanwhile, Patroclus tried his best to restrain himself, after all he knew that a servant couldn't deal with a prince. Unfortunately, his temper sometimes won, which caused him to fight with Achilles. Every now and then, even physically, which later developed into them sparring together. But in the end Achilles would still go after him, sometimes trying to please him with things like offering an expensive delicacy that Patroclus supposedly should no longer be entitled to, and Achilles even taught him things he learned in Pelion (yes, inspired by The Iliad).. Achilles was so oblivious that he insisted on continuing to call Patroclus a prince, which to Patroclus seemed like a mockery of his current status (it wasn't. And yes, inspired by The Iliad).

However, seeing how Achilles remains much more controlled than him made Patroclus feel even worse. And so, he felt that reacting aggressively would lead to nothing in the end. Achilles wasn't being affected by this, and Patroclus just seemed like an idiot who wouldn't stop complaining. He knew he was lucky that Achilles saw him as a weird kind of entertainment. Otherwise, Achilles might have taken offense and used his status as a prince to make his life unbearable. He was already getting away with Peleus' indulgence, and now he was getting away with Achilles' curiosity. Having gradually become friends with other servants and seeing how they noticed the privileges Patroclus still had over them, Patroclus realized the situation. While his friends were trying so hard and were hardly improving their lives, Patroclus was doing everything wrong and still having a better life than them. It didn't seem fair, and now that he was living closely with the servants it became evident. He wasn't so angry anymore, he was embarrassed.

If he was going to get away with not doing the work and if he was going to continue to experience the expensive things that Achilles kept offering him while his friends continued to stagnate despite their best efforts, then Patroclus felt he should at least earn it. Otherwise, how could he look at others who were supposedly in the same position as him? It wasn't even about Peleus being disappointed or Achilles being confused, it was really about the other servants, people that Patroclus didn't often think about when he was the one being served. In particular, Patroclus became very good at taking care of horses, animals he was interested in and even rode in Opus but never needed to take care of (after all, he had servants who did that for him).

In Phithia, Patroclus' main reference was Phoenix. Phoenix used to be a prince (son of King Amyntor) and also became a vassal when he sought protection in Phithia, where Peleus accepted him just as he accepted Patroclus (I like to think that Peleus did this precisely because of the hospitality he received from the previous king of Phithia during his exile, as I already said). Phoenix was an advisor and, being Patroclus' main reference, that's why Patroclus later also became a kind of advisor to Achilles. Wishing to be as respectful as Phoenix was despite no longer being a prince, Patroclus tried to become more controlled, mature, and wise. He might not have had the wise centaur mentor to teach him like Achilles had, but Patroclus had something that Achilles didn't and that was normal interaction with other people.

No matter how hard Achilles tried, he was still distant. He was too much strict, too much aloof, too much polite, too much divine, someone like that hardly seemed spontaneous in the eyes of other people, especially other children his age (inspired by his characterization in Iphigenia at Aulis). But Patroclus, being so spontaneous and humanly flawed and having even changed because of his friends, became more and more popular. He was a "man of the people", so to speak.

And then it was Achilles' turn to envy him. Because Achilles could have a divine mother, still be a prince, have superhuman speed and strength, have an exceptional education, but he couldn't become as loved as Patroclus, who didn't have a divine mother, was no longer a prince, wasn't superhuman and didn't have a Pelion education. While Patroclus once envied how different Achilles was from other mortals, Achilles envied how much Patroclus was just like other mortals. Patroclus then began trying to help him with this, sometimes acting as his intermediary. They became complementary, with Achilles making Patroclus better in his fighting skills and knowledge while Patroclus helped him to deal better with other people.

When Patroclus met Thetis, he was absolutely impressed. Looking at her, he was able to see everything in her that reminded him of Achilles, which only reminded him of Achilles' divine blood, which he had forgotten about because of their friendship (it's a little hard to remember that your best-friend is a prophetized demigod when he's younger than you and acts insecure when it comes to making friends). And yet, what Patroclus felt was not fear, but admiration. Thetis, wishing the best possible for her son, was happy to see that Achilles had someone to help him understand mortals. After all, this role Thetis could never play, nor did she want to (she certainly didn't have good memories of mortals and didn't miss it when she still lived in Phithia. Returning to the sea was a decision she never regretted).

Over the years, Patroclus and Achilles reversed. Patroclus, raised as someone of high status who could get away with his bad temper, went from being a selfish and impulsive person to being patient and empathetic. On the other hand, Achilles, raised far from the evil of the world, went from an extremely innocent child to someone who would seek and maintain his glory at any cost. They remained complementary, but in opposite directions to how they began.

And the reason Patroclus tried to console Briseis is precisely because of the slaves he befriended in Phithia (which, mind you, didn't stop him from accepting Iphis when Achilles gave her to him). In turn, Achilles planned for Patroclus to take care of Neoptolemus after his death (not my invention, it's in The Iliad) because he admired Patroclus' evolution and how well he took care of him, and he couldn't help but wish Neoptolemus had someone like this. Of course, unfortunately that didn't happen.

In Book 16 of The Iliad, Zeus is an agent of Patroclus' death in order to make him disobey Achilles' order not to come too close to Troy (because Achilles was afraid that one of the gods on the Trojan side would kill him). I like to think that the bloodthirsty, petty, debauched and mocking personality we see in Book 16, so different from how he is portrayed in the rest of The Iliad, was Zeus resurfacing in Patroclus who he used to be. It's not that it's not Patroclus, but that it's a part of him that he had learned to control. At his death, Patroclus used his last words to mock Hector (for those who don't remember, he says that Hector only won because of Zeus and Apollo, that Patroclus would have beaten several Hectors if it weren't for that and that Achilles will kick his ass), ignoring the part of him that had learned not to be too proud and thus dying without denying himself (no matter how flawed he was).

Ironically, it was this behavior that made his disguise as Achilles more believable, since he behaved similarly to Achilles when on the battlefield. Because their completeness wasn't just about their differences, but about the similarities they had. Patroclus was only able to be Achilles because, deep inside, they had some essence that made them similar (although not all the time, since in The Iliad eventually the Trojans recognize him. Yes, contrary to what is generally said, Patroclus wasn't only recognized when the armor was removed from him). If someone had asked, for example, Antilochus to do this, I doubt it would have worked even for a short time.

So basically that's my headcanon about the evolution of Patroclus's personality. But of course, that's just a headcanon!

[littlesparklight]

These Trojan war characters have something in common:

Achilles, Patroklos, Agamemnon, Paris, Deiphobos, Sarpedon, Helenos, and Priam.

Sources which give them male lovers.

Achilles and Patroklos of course, though not in explicitly in the Iliad - later, however, they were certainly explicitly considered to be so. Achilles also was attracted to Troilos in some versions, accounted for in Lykophron's Alexandra (earlier texts fragmentary or lost), and references in surviving art (hares or cocks in conjunction with Achilles and Troilos). I'm not counting Troilos himself because he is always represented as rejecting Achilles, so whether he might otherwise have had mutual affection with a male lover, it's certainly not Achilles. (Tzetzes' commentary on Lykophron: "§ 307  "Alas, alas, I groan, alas, alas, I groan" and your fresh and well-nurtured age, my brother Troilus, "O cub" and most royal offspring, delightful entanglement of the brothers who, having wounded Achilles with the erotic arrow of your beauty, that is, having attracted him so as to fall in love with you, you not having fallen in love with him[...]") (I'll touch on Patroklos separate from Achilles below.)

Agamemnon; Argynnus! Either unrequited and thus (attempted) sexual assault, or apparently perfectly mutual, depending on our two sources. Probably a rather late addition, given our (surviving!) sources, but we can't know exactly, of course. Plutarch's Moralia:

And then in Athenaios' Deipnosophists:

Paris and Deiphobos will be accounted and counted for together, because they have the same love interest, whose name is Antheus (a son of Antenor). We only have it accounted for in Lycophron's Alexandra, and only for Paris, explicitly, there. Deiphobos is accounted for in Tzetzes' commentary:

Some form of the story would be Hellenistic, and probably earlier, but, again, of course we can't know.

Sarpedon "only" counts if we're going with Sarpedon as a long-lived son of Zeus and Europa, and not the Iliad's genealogy where he's the son of Zeus and Laodameia. Sarpedon's two potential male lovers ( it'd be either or of them, given how the story goes) are Atymnius or Miletos and would be part of the reason why he (and the boy) flees Crete and ends up in Lycia. Apollodoros' Bibliotheke: 3.1.2 "But when they were grown up, they quarrelled with each other; for they loved a boy called Miletus, son of Apollo by Aria, daughter of Cleochus. As the boy was more friendly to Sarpedon, Minos went to war and had the better of it, and the others fled." and, further in the same section, "But some say that they loved Atymnius, the son of Zeus and Cassiepea, and that it was about him that they quarrelled."

Helenos and Priam's come from the same (rather suspect; doesn't mean it can't be used, but we have no idea what might be genuine or not) source, Ptolemaeus Chennus/Hephaestion's New/Strange History, surviving only in Photius' summarizing Biblioteca.

This is where Helenos as Apollo's lover comes from! (And is, to my surprise, the only source for it.) And it's also where Priam is apparently beloved by Zeus (and is given the golden vine that otherwise is one of the potential gifts Zeus gave Ganymede's father).

"Priam was beloved by Zeus and received from him the golden vine plant of which he made a gift to Eurypyles, son of Telephos, as the price of his alliance." and "Helenus, son of Priam, was beloved of Apollo and received from him the silver bow with which he wounded Achilles in the hand."

This is also the source that accounts for Patroklos as the lover of Poseidon: "Homer calls Patroclus the first horseman because he learned from Poseidon, who loved him, the art of riding horses."

[hermesmoly]

Hello! from one lover of ZeusxHera to another, I would like to share with you a little piece that caught my attention while I was looking for Adonis content in case you didn't know yet!

Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History Book 7 (summary from Photius, Myriobiblon 190) : "Those who dive from the top of the rock [of Leukade on the island of Leukos in Western Greece] were, it is said, freed from their love and for this reason: after the death of Adonis, Aphrodite, it is said, wandered around searching for this. She found it in Argos, a town of Kypros, in the sanctuary of Apollon Erithios and ‘l'emporta’ after having told Apollon in confidence the secret of her love for Adonis. And Apollon brought her to the rock of Leukade and ordered her to throw herself from the top of the rock; she did so and was freed from her love. When she sought the reason of this, Apollon told her, it is said, in his capacity as a soothsayer, he knew that Zeus, always enamored of Hera, had sat on this rock and been delivered from his love." - theoi.com

Another translation: Photius Bibliotheca. 152-153. Bekker - Those who leapt off the cliff are said to have freed themselves from erotic desire. And this is the story that lies behind it: it is said that, after the death of Adonis, Aphrodite wandered about in search of him until she found him in the city of Argos in Cyprus in the sanctuary of Apollo Erithios. She carried him away [for a funeral], having told Apollo about her love for Adonis. Apollo took her to the Leucadic Rock and ordered her to jump off the cliff. As she leapt, she freed herself of her love. They say that when she inquired about the reason, Apollo replied that as a seer he knew that whenever Zeus felt desire for Hera, he would come to the rock, sit there and free himself from the desire.

Interesting, right? I realize that it seems like a convenient way to justify Zeus' adultery, though I admit that I enjoy the interpretation of Zeus as a hopeless romantic who falls in love but still loves and stays with Hera. However, I also like the interpretation of Zeus fulfilling his role as the Father of Gods and that his love for Hera hinders that, that it is so great that he must let go of it. Like it matters to him, like his love for her is his hidden weakness. Much like Hera's weakness is also Zeus, when he doesn't listen to her, cheats on her or forgets to treat her as an equal.

the Leucadic rock! ❤️ I think I've read this once here on tumblr, but I wasn't sure it was true until now! Thank you for sharing the sources :>

I think it's Quite Interesting that Zeus keeps the whole "throw my love away" a secret (Apollo only knows because he's a seer). I mean on paper it makes sense, Hera might not take it lightly as a wife ("Is my love that disposable?") but on the other, it could resolve most of Zeus and Hera's issues if he was just honest. But then again, duty. The way Zeus and Hera function- Zeus creates heroes and gods and Hera challenges them, and Hera's jealousy is a main motivator to all this. Could she challenge Heracles and Dionysus if she wasn't jealous? Would Artemis and Apollo be born on Delos if Hera didn't declared Leto to not give birth on terra firma? It's a lot to think about.

And to your last point, I agree so much. Funny how we get a prime example of Hera being Zeus' weakness in the Iliad where the Trojans start losing thanks to Zeus being distracted by his wife and had sex with her with more passion than the first time they did it together.

[hexjulia]

"the lover of a Cretan youth gives him the offspring of a serpent. He nursed and cared for it until the serpent grew large and inspired fear in the locals. They in turn forced the young man to abandon the beast in the desert, and he did so with much weeping. Later, when the young man went out hunting and fell into the hands of pirates, the serpent recognized his voice when he was calling for help and destroyed the pirates, coiling around each of them, while indicating his old feeling for the boy, and was freed of suspicion."

Codices 186-222 about Conon's (63 BC – 14 AD) Narrations preserved in Photius 9th century Bibliotheca.

https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/photius_copyright/photius_05bibliotheca.htm

[sabakos]

Also I know it's dumb to get mad at people on the internet, but I hate the persistent myth that the medieval Byzantines somehow intentionally destroyed the canonical works of the classical poets and philosophers who came before them, because it was obscene or non-Christian or whatever. This sends me into a near-blind rage not only because it is not remotely true, but because all evidence implies that the Byzantines tried so hard to preserve as much of it as the possibly could; everything that survives, all of the anthologies and epitomes and collections of extracts imply a deep and concerted attempt to do so, even as they were running out of the resources for it. They saved what they could, even as it became more expensive to do so and the pressures to spend that diminishing wealth elsewhere mounted as the empire declined.

And they barely got any recognition for it! They got the thanks for preserving the common intellectual heritage of both the West and medieval Islam by having their city ransacked and burned by the both of them, destroying an unknown amount of works whose titles can only be approximated by reading the likes of Photius (9th century) or Michael Psellos (11th century), an exercise in madness as you slowly realize what almost survived. And to top it all off, after the fall of Constantinople, the Renaissance philosophers and historians in the West immediately started inventing baseless tales of how the lost works of Sappho or Aeschylus must have been burned on purpose by overzealous Byzantines obsessed with purging heresy, in order to deny their own countries' shared responsibility for the bulk of the loss.

[sarafangirlart]

Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History Book 2 (summary from Photius, Myriobiblon 190) (trans. Pearse) (Greek mythographer C1st to C2nd A.D.) : "It was Aphrodite who, because of Adonis whom both she and Herakles loved, taught Nessos the Kentauros (Centaur) the trap with which to snare Herakles."

Bruh Heracles was hated by EVERYBODY

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

The Vikings who attacked the Byzantine capital in the summer of 860 were hardly unknown to Photius and his contemporaries. The patriarch called them Rus’, like the members of the Rus’ embassy of 838. He even stated that they were subjects of Byzantium but left it to subsequent generations of scholars to figure out the details. Who were they? The search for an answer has spanned the last two and a half centuries, if not longer. Most scholars today believe that the word “Rus” has Scandinavian roots. Byzantine authors, who wrote in Greek, most probably borrowed it from the Slavs, who in turn borrowed it from the Finns, who used the term “Ruotsi” to denote the Swedes – in Swedish, the word meant “men who row.” And row they did. First across the Baltic Sea into the Gulf of Finland, then on through Lakes Ladoga, Ilmen, and Beloozero to the upper reaches of the Volga – the river that later became an embodiment of Russia and at the time formed an essential part of the Saracen (Muslim) route to the Caspian Sea and the Arab lands.

The Rus’ Vikings, a conglomerate of Norwegian, Swedish, and probably Finnish Norsemen, first came to eastern Europe mainly as traders, not conquerors, as there was little to pillage in the forests of the region. The real treasures lay in the Middle East, beyond the lands through which they needed only the right of passage. But judging by what we know about the Rus’ Vikings, they never thought of trade and war – or, rather, trade and violence – as incompatible. After all, they had to defend themselves en route, since the local tribes did not welcome their presence. And the trade in which they engaged involves coercion, for they dealt not only in forest products – furs and honey – but also in slaves. To obtain them, the Vikings had to establish some kind of control over the local tribes and collect as tribute products that they could ship along the Saracen route. They exchanged these in the Caspian markets for Arab silver dirhams, troves of which subsequent archaeologists have discovered. They punctuate the Viking trade route from Scandinavia to the Caspian Sea.

Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine

[orthodoxydaily]

SAINTS&READING: SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2024

august 12_august 25

MARTYRS ANICATUS and PHOTIUS OF NICOMEDIA and THOSE WITH THEM (305)

The Martyrs Anicetus and Photius (his nephew) were natives of Nicomedia. Anicetus, a military official, denounced the emperor Diocletian (284-305) for setting up in the city square an implement of execution for frightening Christians. The enraged emperor ordered Saint Anicetus to be tortured, and later condemned him to be devoured by wild beasts. But the lions they set loose became gentle and fawned at his feet.

Suddenly there was a strong earthquake, resulting in the collapse of the pagan temple of Hercules, and many pagans perished beneath the demolished city walls. The executioner took up a sword to cut off the saint’s head, but he fell down insensible. They tried to break Saint Anicetus on the wheel and burn him with fire, but the wheel stopped and the fire went out. They threw the martyr into a furnace with boiling tin, but the tin became cold. Thus the Lord preserved His servant for the edification of many.

The martyr’s nephew, Saint Photius, saluted the sufferer and turned to the emperor, saying, “O idol-worshipper, your gods are nothing!” The sword, held over the new confessor, struck the executioner instead. Then the martyrs were thrown into prison.

After three days Diocletian urged them, “Worship our gods, and I shall give you glory and riches.” The martyrs answered, “May you perish with your honor and riches!” Then they tied them by the legs to wild horses. Though the saints were dragged along the ground, they remained unharmed. They did not suffer in the heated bath house, which fell apart. Finally, Diocletian ordered a great furnace to be fired up, and many Christians, inspired by the deeds of Saints Anicetus and Photius, went in themselves saying, “We are Christians!” They all died with a prayer on their lips. The bodies of Saints Anicetus and Photius were not harmed by the fire, and even their hair remained whole. Seeing this, many of the pagans came to believe in Christ. This occurred in the year 305.

Saints Anicetus and Photius are mentioned in the prayers for the Blessing of Oil and the Lesser Blessing of Water (Book of Needs 1987, p. 230).

Source: Orthodox Church in America_OCA

HIEROMARTYRS AND MARTYRS OF PERM MONASTERY (1919)

In January, 1897, sixty kilometres from the city of Kungur, in one of the most picturesque places in Perm province, the missionary monastery of St. Nicholas was opened on the White Mountain (Belaya Gora), Osinsk uyezd. The opening and building of this monastery was accompanied by clear signs of God's help. The superior was Archimandrite Barlaam, a man of deep faith and a great ascetic, to whom people thirsting for salvation came from all corners of Perm province.

Hierodeacon Euthymius was born Vladimir Trophimovich Korotkov on July 27, 1882 in a peasant family from Osinsk uyezd, Perm province. On December 8, 1903 he and his brother Alexis entered the Belogorsk monastery. And then came their father. He liked the place so much that he decided to stay and lived there until his death, before which he received the monastic tonsure. On November 10, 1905 Vladimir was numbered among the decreed novices. On December 5, 1905 he was vested in the ryasa, and on October 14, 1912 he was tonsured. On March 29, 1913 he was ordained to the diaconate, and was then appointed to serve in the monastery's podvorye in Perm. At the beginning of the First World War, Alexis was enrolled in the standing army and spent the whole war in the army, taking part in many battles; he was awarded the St. George Cross for bravery. In February, 1918 he was disbanded and went home. >From the train he went straight to the monastery podvorye. The joy of the brothers' meeting for a time eclipsed their worried premonitions about the anarchy that was raging around them. The news reached Perm that Soviet power had passed a law nationalising church property. Everywhere there were rumours about the attacks of armed bands on churches and monasteries. The brothers had only two days in which to rejoice; on the third day calamity struck the community.

The Belogorsk monastery was basically a missionary institution; missionary activity was conducted not only against the errors of the Old Believers and sectarians, but also against the materialist teachings of the West. That is why the Bolsheviks hated the Belogorsky monastery more than all, and immediately they had collected an armed band they set out to destroy it. On February 9 (21, according to another source) they burst into the podvorye. They entered the cells, turned everything upside-down and took whatever pleased them. The people began to murmur. Then the Korotkov brothers, among others, were arrested. They took them out to the bank of the river Kama and began to torture them. The passion-bearers behaved with great courage. They were tortured and killed, and their mutilated bodies were exposed on the ice to frighten the populace.

On February 25 they were buried. As the bell of the Belogorsky podvorye tolled, all Orthodox Perm came out for the funeral. Thousands of candles surrounded the biers. One pannikhida after another was performed. The grace of God touched the hearts of the worshippers, and everyone saw that two new stars in the firmament of the Perm martyrs had risen. Shortly after the martyric death of the brothers, their mother and sister received the monastic tonsure.

The Korotkov brothers laid the beginning to the martyric exploit of the Belogorsk monastery. But there were many others.

In March, 1919 Bishop Boris (Shipulin) of Perm visited the once flourishing monastery. He saw the bodies of some of those monks who had been killed six months before, which had been thrown into pits and covered with rubbish. When they were cleaned, it turned out that they had not been subject to corruption, as if the dead had only fallen asleep the day before. On the basis of this the bishop said that God was glorifying those who had been pleasing to Him.

Working together with Hieromonk Joseph, temporary administrator of the Belogorsky St. Nicholas monastery, Bishop Boris compiled a list containing the names of 42 Orthodox Christians, including 36 monks, who had been tortured and shot by the Bolsheviks. Pravitel'stvennij Vestnik for May 3, 1919, quoted the following from Bishop Boris' article Permskiye Vedomosti: "The most fevered imagination cannot represent that which the Perm diocese suffered during the Bolshevik terror, the mindless savageries and most refined tortures that the Bolshevik genius thought up. Of the best of the pastors, those who were most popular and beloved by the people, some were shot, others were buried alive in the earth, a third group were skinned after their arms had been cut off, and a fourth group were drowned in the rivers, frozen in the ice. For weeks and months they were languished starving in the prisons... The times of Diocletian and Decius pale into significance by comparison with the time our Church had to live through in 1918."

Here are some details about the martyrs:-

Archimandrite Barlaam was born Basil Efimovich Konoplev on April 18, 1858 in Yugo-Osikinsk zavod, Osinsk uyezd, South Knuafa voloist, into a mineworking peasant family belonging to the priestless Old Believers. After long searchings for the truth the young Basil was united to the Orthodox Church in the following way. On June 18, 1893, Bishop Peter of Perm consecrated the foundation-stone of the St. Nicholas monastery. There was a prolonged drought in the region at that time, and it occurred to the Old Believers that if this, most Orthodox bishop could by his prayers bring rain to the region, they would join the Orthodox Church. On the day of the consecration a gentle rain fell, followed by a downpour. Basil publicly brought bread and honey to the bishop, who then prophesied that he would not long remain in the darkness of schism. On October 17, 1893, Bishop Peter united Basil to the Church, and on November 5 he became a novice in the Perm Hierarchical House, being vested in the ryasa the next day. Six months later he became a monk with the name Barlaam. On February 2, 1894 he was ordained to the diaconate, and on February 22 - to the priesthood. On January 30, 1897 he was appointed superior of the Belogorsk monastery, and on June 24, 1902 was raised to the rank of igumen. In that month the foundation-stone of the Exaltation cathedral, one of the finest in Russia, was consecrated. The cathedral was finished in 1914. From 1905 to 1907 he worked with the patriots of the "Union of the Russian People". In 1907 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On May 8, 1910 he was raised to the rank of archimandrite. On December 8, 1910 he was given an audience with the Tsar, gave him some icons and spoke to him about the patriotic article of the Belogorsk igumen Fr. Seraphim, "An Appeal to the strengthening of Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland". In January, 1914 he was awarded the order of St. Anna, third class. At about the same time the Tsar thanked him for being president of the congress of the "Union of the Russian People" in Motovihila. He was elected an honorary member of the provincial section of the Union, and spoke at meetings and served molebens for the health of the members of the Union. In May, 1916 he was awarded the order of St. Anna, second class. On June 10, 1917 he went to the All-Russian Monastic Congress in the Trinity - St. Sergius Lavra. From August 15, 1917 he was a participant in the first session of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. In October he returned to Belogorsk, and on November 7, "being invited deceitfully to a meeting in Yugo-Osokinsky zavod (now the village of Kalinino), he was arrested together with the spiritual father of the monastery, Hieromonk Vyacheslav. He was sent to the town of Osa and after being bestially tortured was cast...Continue reading St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church

1 CORINTHIANS 3:9-17

9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building. 10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17 If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

MATTHEW 14:22-34

22 Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. 23 And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. 24 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. 25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out for fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." 28 And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." 29 So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" 31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, "Truly You are the Son of God." 34 When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret.

[finelythreadedsky]

Hi so I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to find this. Do you know which source mentions Helen as a daughter Clytemnestra and Aegisthus? I see it mentioned everywhere with even extra info about how she is killed as an infant by Orestes but it’s like never cited. I’ve gone through every source that mentions Erigone and Aletes and still cannot find her. It kept pointing to Hyginus but I didn’t find her there. Maybe I just have translations that wrote her out or I missed it but I don’t know. Sorry this has just been bugging me and I needed to ask someone

i had never heard of that before but after some searching it looks like the (only?) surviving source for this is the bibliotheca of photius, 190.30, which lists mythic and legendary women named helen and begins:

Ὅτι ἀπὸ τῶν Ἰλιακῶν ὀνομασταὶ γεγόνασιν Ἑλέναι ἡ Αἰγίσθου καὶ Κλυταιμνήστρας θυγάτηρ, ἣν ἀνεῖλεν Ὀρέστης... "[they say] that at the time of the Trojan [War] there were multiple women named Helen: the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, whom Orestes killed (or seized/married)..."

so photius probably had a (much earlier) text or tradition in which the figure usually known in extant ancient sources as erigone is instead called helen, probably with the idea that clytemnestra would have named her daughter after her sister. i'm not familiar enough with using photius as a source to know whether we might be able to identify a specific text or the source that transmitted it to photius, but i think we generally do take his comments on myth as reflecting much more ancient traditions even though he's from the ninth century.

(other interesting 'lesser-known helens' that photius lists are a woman who ate three goats a day, an athenian woman whom homer got the story of the trojan war from and who also owned a lamb with two tongues, and an aetolian woman who nearly beat achilles in single combat. so what i'm getting from this is that i need to read more photius.)

[andijaart]

+++🙏🏻God Bless🕊️+++

St. Photius of Moscow, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia

MEMORIAL DAY JULY 15

Obedient to the words of the Gospel and caring for Divine teachings, a wise mentor, always reflecting on the fear of the Lord, rushing to God in prayers, blocking the mouths of those who distort the word of the Orthodox faith, the successor of the apostles, the affirmator of the faith of Christ, the announcer of prophecies, St. Photius, pray to Christ God to give peace to the whole world and save our souls.

💫International Orthodox Art Corporation Andcross May the blessing of the Lord be upon you!

[babyrdie]

I was thinking about how Poseidon was actually being a nice great-grandfather to Antilochus in The Iliad, and then I realized that that version of Ptolemy Hephaestion where Patroclus was Poseidon's lover implies the idea of Antilochus being friends with a guy who fucked his great-grandfather. And not just "hey, you're cool, I guess" friend, but "I was asked to tell Achilles about your death and I cried when I heard about your death, so I ran to Achilles crying, I kept crying while I told Achilles, I cried after I told him to Achilles, I became the closest to Achilles after you, my ashes are in the same place as the ashes of both of you and there is a temple to Achilles in which he, me, you and Big Ajax have monuments" friend.

I know that this version of Patroclus being Poseidon's lover is considerably later and isn't even very attested, but now that I'm thinking about Antilochus I can't help but find it hilarious lol

Context: Nestor is Neleus' son, Neleus is Poseidon and Tyro's son. Also, this version of Hephaestion in Photius' Bibliotheca. The thing about monuments is in Strabo's Geography.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (July 17)

The universal Church celebrates the life of St. Leo IV on July 17.

Both a Roman and the son of Radoald, Leo was unanimously elected to succeed Sergius II as pope. 

At the time of his election, there was an alarming attack of the Saracens on Rome in 846, which caused the people to fear the safety of the city.

Because of the tension of the situation, Leo was consecrated on 10 April 847 without the consent of the emperor.

Leo received his early education at Rome in the monastery of St. Martin, near St. Peter's Basillica.

His pious behaviour drew the attention of Gregory IV, who made him a subdeacon. He was later created cardinal-priest of the church of the Quatuor Coronati by Sergius II.

As soon as Leo, much against his will, became pope, he began to take precautions against a repetitious acts of the Saracen raid of 846.

He began a project to put the walls of the city into a thorough state of repair, entirely rebuilding fifteen of the great towers.

He was the first to enclose the Vatican hill by a wall. In order to do this, he received money from the emperor and help from all the cities and agricultural colonies (domus cultae) of the Duchy of Rome.

The work took him four years to accomplish, and the newly fortified portion was called the Leonine City, after him.

In 852, the fortifications were completed and were blessed by the Pope with great solemnity.

It was by this Pope that the church of S. Maria Nova was built to replace S. Maria Antiqua, which the decaying Palace of the Caesars threatened to engulf, and of which the ruins have recently been brought to light.

In 850, Leo associated with Lothair in the empire of his son Louis by imposing on him the imperial crown.

Three years later, "he hallowed the child Alfred to king [says an old English historian] by anointing; and receiving him for his own child by adoption, gave him confirmation, and sent him back [to England] with the blessing of St. Peter the Apostle."

In the same year, 853, he held an important synod in Rome in which various decrees were passed for the furtherance of ecclesiastical discipline and learning, and for the condemnation of the refractory Anastasius, cardinal of St. Marcellus and sometime librarian of the Roman Church.

Equally rebellious conduct on the part of John, Archbishop of Ravenna, forced Leo to undertake a journey to that city to inspire John and his accomplices with respect for the law.

It was during his engaging endeavour to inspire another archbishop, Hincmar of Reims, with this same reverence that Leo died.

He was buried in St. Peter's on 17 July 855.

He is credited with being a worker of miracles both by his biographer and by the Patriarch Photius. His name is found in the Roman Martyrology.

[hermesmoly]

Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History Book 7 (summary from Photius, Myriobiblon 190) : "And Apollon brought her to the rock of Leukade and ordered her to throw herself from the top of the rock; she did so and was freed from her love. When she sought the reason of this, Apollon told her, it is said, in his capacity as a soothsayer, he knew that Zeus, always enamored of Hera, had sat on this rock and been delivered from his love."

Sorry but why does it sound like Zeus was just like...jerking off and not actually getting rid of his love for Hera? 😭 Because you have to jump from the rock. Zeus didn't. He just sat there and was "delivered from his love"? Very sus.

HELP ANON DONT PHRASE IT LIKE THAT 😭

I think its implied that he’s sitting on the rock after jumping on it, in afterthought of the ordeal (since its like Apollo’s vision maybe he doesn’t see him jump)

or maybe in weird Zeus fashion the rules don’t apply to him and he just has to sit on the rock to rid his love of Hera idk