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gingermintpepper · 8 days

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As usual I read your tags always and so you said Apollo did not ask for resurrection of Asclepius and Hyacinthus so i just wanted to share this. About Asclepius death I read it on theoi.com, that earlier authors don't make him resurrect as a god but that's a later development mentioned only by Roman authors like Cicero, Hyginus and Ovid. But still Apollo has a role in Ovid's version

Ovid, Fasti 6. 735 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : Clymenus [Haides] and Clotho resent the threads of life respun and death's royal rights diminished. Jove [Zeus] feared the precedent and aimed his thunderbolt at the man who employed excessive art. Phoebus [Apollon], you whined. He is a god; smile at your father, who, for your sake, undoes his prohibitions [i.e. when he obtains immortality for Asklepios].

So here it is actually because of Apollo the decision was taken to resurrect him as god. And with Hyacinthus, I don't think I've read about Artemis playing the primary role. I know in Sparta there was a picture of Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite carrying Hyacinthus and his sister to heaven.

This is not on theoi.com but I saw on Tumblr it's from Dionysiaca by Nonnus

Second, my lord Oiagros wove a winding lay, as the father of Orpheus who has the Muse his boon companion. Only a couple of verses he sang, a ditty of Phoibos, clearspoken in few words after some Amyclaian style: Apollo brought to life again his longhaired Hyacinthos: Staphylos will be made to live for aye by Dionysos.

So since he is singing inspired by amyclean stories it probably means in that place it was believed Apollo was the one to bring back his lover to life.

Apollo as god of order was very important so i think it shows how special these people (and admetus too) were to him that he decided to go against the order for them 🥺

ANON!! Shakes you like a bottle of ramune!! BELOVED ANON!!!!! I'm littering your face with kisses, I'm anointing you with olive oil and honey - you absolutely made my night with this because, not only did I get the pure serotonin shot of having someone interact with my tags (yippee, wahoo!!) I also got to have that wonderful feeling of "oh wow, have I misunderstood something that was integral to my understanding of this myth/figure this whole time or is this a case of interpretational differences?" which is imo vital for my aims and interests as someone who enjoys mythological content and literature.

I'll preface my response with this: Hyacinthus is by far the hardest of these to get accounts for because his revival itself, as you very astutely point out, is generally accounted for in painting/ritual format which muddies the waters on who interceded for what. I wasn't actually familiar with that passage from the Argonautica - and certainly didn't remember it so thank you very much for bringing it to my attention!

That said, what I've come to understand, both about Hyacinthus and about Asclepius is that in the accounts of their deaths, Apollo's position is startlingly clear.

For Hyacinthus, it is established time and again that Apollo would have sacrificed everything for him - his status, his power, his very own immortality and divinity. Ovid writes that Apollo would have installed him as a god if only he had the time:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses. Book X. trans. Johnston)

Many other writers too speak of how Apollo abandoned his lyre and his seat at Delphi to spend his days with Hyacinthus, but they also all agree that when it came to his death - he was powerless. Ovid gives that graphic account of Apollo's desperation as he tries all his healing arts to save him to no avail:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book X. Apollo me boy, methinks him dead. trans Johnston)

Bion, in one of his fragments, writes that Apollo was "dumb" upon seeing Hyacinthus' agony:

(Bion, The Bucolic Poets. Fragment XI. trans Edmonds)

Even Nonnus in the Dionysiaca speaks constantly of Apollo's helplessness in the face of Hyacinthus' fate where he writes that the god still shivers if a westward wind blows upon an iris:

and when Zephyros breathed through the flowery garden, Apollo turned a quick eye upon his young darling, his yearning never satisfied; if he saw the plant beaten by the breezes, he remembered the quoit, and trembled for fear the wind, so jealous once about the boy, might hate him even in a leaf...

(Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Book 3. trans Rouse)

And the point here is just that - Apollo, at least as far as I've read, cannot avert someone's death. He simply can't. Once they're already dead - once Fate has cut their string - all Apollo's power is gone and he can do nothing no matter how much he wants to. And this is, as far as I know, supported with the accounts of Asclepius as well!

Since you specifically brought up Ovid's account, I'll also stick only to Ovid's account but in Metamorphoses when we get Ovid's version of Coronis' demise, he writes that Apollo intensely and immediately regrets slaughtering Coronis. He regrets it so intensely that he, like he does with Hyacinthus, does his best to resuscitate her:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo's regret)

And like Hyacinthus, when it becomes clear that what has happened cannot be undone, Apollo wails:

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo wept.)

Unlike his mother, Asclepius in her womb had not yet died and so, with the last of Apollo's strength, he does manage, at least, to save him.

(Ovid, Metamorphoses Book Two. Apollo puts the 'tearing out' in Asclepius.)

But it goes further than even that because Ocyrhoe, Chiron's daughter, a prophetess who unduly gained the ability to directly proclaim the secrets of the Fates, upon seeing the baby Asclepius, immediately prophesies his glory, his inevitable death and then his fated ascension:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book Two. Ocyrhoe's prophecy. trans Johnston)

Before she too succumbs to her hubris and is transformed by the Fates into a horse so she can no longer speak secrets that aren't hers to share.

These things ultimately are important because it establishes two very important things: 1) Apollo can't do anything in the face of the ultimate Fate of mortals, which is, of course, death and 2) even when Apollo is Actively Devastated, regretful, yearning, mournful, guilty or some unholy combination of all of the above, when someone is dead, he accepts that they are gone. Even if he is devastated by it, even if he'll cry all the rest of his days about it - if they're dead? Apollo lets them go. In Fasti, when Zeus brings Asclepius back, he does not say Apollo asked him to - Zeus, or well, in this case Jove, brings Asclepius back because he wants Apollo to stop being mad at him.

(Ovid, Fasti VI. Apollo please come home your father misses you. trans. A.S Kline)

Even Boyle's translation which you used above in your findings hints that Zeus made Asclepius a god because he wanted Apollo to stop grieving. (i.e 'smile at your father', 'for your sake [he] undoes his prohibitions')

And like, Apollo was deeply upset by Asclepius' death - apart from killing the Cyclops in anger, in book 4 of the Argonautica, Apollonius writes that the Celts believe the stream of Eridanus to be the tears Apollo shed over the death of Asclepius when he left for Hyperborea after being chastised by Zeus for killing his Cyclops:

But the Celts have attached this story to them, that these are the tears of Leto's son, Apollo, that are borne along by the eddies, the countless tears that he shed aforetime when he came to the sacred race of the Hyperboreans and left shining heaven at the chiding of his father, being in wrath concerning his son whom divine Coronis bare in bright Lacereia at the mouth of Amyrus.

It all paints a very clear picture to me. Apollo did not ask for either of them to be brought back. Though bringing them back certainly pleased and delighted him, they are actions of other gods who are moved by Apollo's grief and mourning and seek to mollify him. Him not asking doesn't mean he didn't want them back which I think is a very important distinction by the by, but it simply means that Apollo knows the natural order of things and, even if it hurts, he isn't going to press his luck about it.

Which, of course, brings us to Admetus. And I'm really not going to overcomplicate this, Admetus is different because, very vitally, Admetus is not dead. Apollo can't do a thing once Fate has been carried out and Death has claimed a mortal but you know what he absolutely can do? Bargain like hell with the Fates before that point of inevitability. And that's what he does, ultimately for Admetus and Alcestis. He sought to prolong Admetus' life, not revive him from death or absolve him from death altogether and even after getting the Fates drunk, he's still only able to organise a sacrifice - a life for a life - something completely contingent on whether some other mortal would be willing to die in Admetus' place and not at all controllable by Apollo's own power.

All of these things, I think come back to that point you made - that Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore these people are very special to him if it means he's willing to go against that order but, I also wish to challenge that opinion if you'd let me. Apollo's place as a god of order is very important and therefore, I would argue, that it is even more important that it is shown that he does not break the divine order, especially for the people that mean the most to him. The original context of my comments which started this conversation were on this lovely, lovely post by @hyacinthusmemorial which contemplated upon Asclepius from the perspective of an Emergency Medical personnel and included, in their tags, the very poignant lines "there's something about Apollo letting go when Asclepius couldn't that eats my heart away" and "you do what you can, you do your best, but you don't ever reach too far" and I think that's perfectly embodied with the Apollo-Asclepius dichotomy. Apollo grieves. He wails, he cries, he does his best each and every time to save that which is precious to him but he does not curse their nature, he does not resent that they are human and ultimately, he accepts that that which is mortal must inevitably die. There is nothing that so saliently proves that those who uphold rules are also their most staunch followers - if Apollo wants to delight in his place as Fate's mouthpiece, he cannot undo Fate. And, if even the god of healing and order himself cannot undo death, what right does Asclepius, mortal as he is, talented as he is, have to disrespect it?

The beauty of these stories isn't that Apollo loved them enough to bring them back. The beauty is that Apollo loved them enough to let them go.

#this is such a long ass post oh my god #ginger answers asks #This totally got away from me but I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS AAAA #Anon beloved anon I hope you don't take this as me shutting you down or anything because that really isn't what I'm trying to do #I'm definitely going to dig more into the exactness of 'who petitioned for Hyacinthus to be revived actually?"#I always stuck to the belief that it was Artemis because of the depictions of his revival + his procession is usually devoid of Apollo #I know some renaissance paintings have him and Apollo reuniting but that's usually In The Heavens y'know #I genuinely couldn't think of any accounts that have Apollo Asking for anyone to be revived #Apollo does intercede sometimes but that's usually for immortals like Prometheus #Or even when he's left to preside over Zagreus' revival and repair in orphic tradition #Concerning Asclepius there's like a ton to talk about tbh #There's the fact that in some writings (in quite a lot actually) the reason Asclepius was killed wasn't necessarily that he brought someone #back - it was that he accepted money for it #Pindar wrote about it and Plato talks about how if Asclepius really did accept gold for a miracle then he was never a son of Apollo #It's a whole thing really #I think it's very important that it's Asclepius in his mortal folly that tests the boundaries of life and death tbh #The romanticisation of going to any length to bring back a loved one is nice and all #But sometimes the kindest and most lovely thing you can do for someone is to accept it #Just accept that they're gone - accept that there was nothing that could be done and even if the grief is heavy - keep living #Maybe we won't all get our lost loves back #But there are definitely always more people worth loving if you just live long enough to find them #apollo #asclepius #zeus #admetus #greek mythology #ovid #oh my god so much ovid #hyacinthus #coronis

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batsplat · 3 months

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kind of recently clocked that marc took caseys honda seat coming into 2013 (not saying he didn’t deserve a factory seat immediately bc he obviously did, kid went and podiumed his first and won his second ever race on that bike but it somehow never crossed my mind and it’s kind of insane to imagine now that a rookie would get it) and i was wondering if there was something To Know about that mid to end 2012 season, about vale back to yamaha and casey retiring and casey and danis teammateship and how dani reacted to marc getting that seat etc i love love love your rambles so if you got thoughts please share?

y'know what. let's do this one with bullet points

at the start of 2012, retirement rumours were swirling around two riders. one was casey stoner.... the other was valentino rossi

valentino was entering year two of a miserable stint at ducati, trapped on a bike that was *checks notes* shit and that was still several years away from making the kinds of improvements that could make it championship-winning machinery in anyone's hands (remember, even casey wasn't anywhere close to fighting for the title in 2010). it had also been a rough couple of years injury-wise for valentino, with 2010 bringing the shoulder injury courtesy of a motocross accident, followed by him breaking the leg at mugello. the painful shoulder problems persisted even upon his return from the leg injury, not exactly helped by his decision to delay shoulder surgery until the end of the year, and he remained hampered in 2011 while he was trying to adapt to the new bike

probably the main reason for the retirement rumours, however, was the death of simoncelli in an accident valentino had been involved in. the rumours basically started the day after the accident, and did not stop even when he showed up at valencia and raced (for about one corner until he was caught up in an ugly multi-rider pile up... kinda set off by dovi but anyways)

the rumours persisted in 2012. valentino became increasingly irritable about them.... meant that both valentino and casey were going into round three at estoril having to address the retirement talk. casey denied that he was planning to retire in the estoril pre-event presser (and he'd already kinda hinted to honda he was ready to sign a new contract)

this all led to some pretty silly drama, where the journalists were less than impressed when casey did announce his retirement two weeks later at le mans and casey went 'well I hadn't decided to retire yet back then!'

anyway, more important is the retirement announcement itself. casey made a statement at the very start of the le mans presser. here's the text:

he was the championship leader at this point, and the favourite to defend his title. of course he took a bunch of questions at the presser about the announcement, and cited several other reasons for his decision to retire, like people's reactions to his mystery illness in 2009, or too many people criticising the current racing being boring, or how they let CRT riders into parc fermé (let's not get into that)

now it's important to note that this was round four. which meant that the entire rider market was about to be spiced up... so let's backtrack a bit and talk silly season: historical edition!

okay, so marc could have feasibly moved up to motogp a year earlier, and for a large chunk of 2011 there was pretty frenzied speculation he was going to do exactly that. in october, between the phillip island and sepang rounds (where he had the crash that gave him diplopia and prematurely ended both his season and his championship bid), he finally announced he was going to stay in moto2

so, in late 2011, speculation was already of course starting for what the grid would look like in 2013, with a lot of big name contracts expiring at the end of 2012. both factory yamahas, hondas, ducatis, amongst others... you know how it goes. the expectation was broadly that casey would stick with honda and dani would be protected for at least another year by the rookie rule (more on that in a second), that jorge would stick with yamaha and... well. at this point, it was plausible valentino might sign at least a one year contract extension with ducati, with just enough glimmers of progress and signs that things might be headed in the right direction for him to want to continue building that project up

early 2012, around the time of the first race, and actually it's looking plausible that none of the six big factory seats are going to be changing hands. jorge and casey seemed the most certain ones, valentino too committed to ducati, and dani likely to sign a one year deal until marc swoops in at the end of 2013 to take his place

then casey announces his retirement, and silly season properly kicks off

first order of priority is of course the vacant repsol honda seat. now, the main thing stopping marc from getting that repsol honda seat was never actually going to be a lack of space - it was the 'rookie rule'. in 2010, a rule was introduced to stop rookies from joining the factory team. the idea was basically to help out satellite teams by giving them the chance to house a young star rider, give them publicity and results and so on (face it, how much would any of us be talking about tech3 this year without the pedro acosta factor?)

this was likely never to really work like it was supposed to, because if you're one of the factories, you can basically set up... teams that are only very theoretically 'independent'. another factory team in all but name. remember how valentino technically won his first title at a satellite team? well, that was essentially a shell team set up as a way to have somewhere to put valentino for two years while repsol honda was full. not the same team (and indeed, valentino and jb did sometimes look over at the chaos at repsol and go. good lord. what's going on there) but full factory support

in spring 2012, dorna was still adamant this rule would remain in place:

should also help explain why the general reaction to suzuki suddenly pulling out in 2022 was 'shocked but not that shocked' lol

but of course by mid-2012 this rule was facing another serious test: where do you put marc marquez, especially with this vacant repsol honda seat just sitting there? now, the valentino model did seem like a reasonable one in this situation, where you put him into an existing satellite team with heavy factory backing or even just create a new one to house him. which is something valentino himself talked about:

except, it wasn't quite that straightforward, because from 2013 onward manufacturers were limited to supplying bikes for four riders, two in a factory team and two in satellites - so you'd have to take away one of the bikes from the existing two honda satellite teams, gresini or lcr

one of the reasons why putting him in one of the existing satellite teams was a bit of an issue was that he was already backed by repsol, which could have caused sponsorship conflicts if he'd been housed with one of those other teams. but also, by this point ezpeleta was sounding rather less committed to the whole thing. from june 2012:

which.

my man

if you KNOW that the most prominent rookies can be put into shell satellites anyway and you are openly joking about it then WHAT was the POINT of any of this

by the end of the month, they gave up on the whole thing. as it happens, it wasn't even repsol honda who asked for the rule to be dropped - it was the satellite honda teams who were like 'yeah we don't actually want this kid for our team, way too stressful to make this all work for a single year before losing him anyway'

not a universally popular decision, it has to be said

it's quite likely that if casey had stayed and the rookie rule had still been dropped that hrc would have immediately taken in marc and not renewed dani's contract, which would have been a wee bit awkward given dani's late season form, but. you know. so it goes. anyway honda didn't end up having to make any tough calls

about two weeks after the rookie rule is dropped, hrc announces the two year contract with marc

by this point, valentino has had another miserable start to the season with ducati, save for a fun little wet podium at le mans - you know, the race where casey announced his retirement... they had their last ever duel there, with valentino snatching second place from casey on the last lap

photo abbove not representative of the general tone they used to discuss each other in that time period

anyhow, these rare bright spots weren't going to be enough for valentino

"There was a lot of expectation from me and from Ducati to win, but unfortunately I didn't have a good feeling with the bike, especially with the front," he said some years later. "When you are in that situation it's very difficult because you lose motivation and you lose the joy of going racing. When you start the weekend you are already in a negative way, so it's difficult, because if you don't have fun on the bike everything becomes heavier: leaving your home, all the travelling, speaking with journalists, everything. Also it becomes difficult to sleep. You are in a tunnel. When I was with Ducati I thought about stopping many times, but in the end it was a very good decision not to give up. Because if you stop and you don't have a bike then it's very easy to find yourself out of the business." - from Oxley's 'Valentino Rossi: All His Races'

he began openly talking about a return to yamaha in 2012 to replace the underperforming ben spies (though as late as july, publicly he was still talking up the chances of him sticking with ducati)... which was not a prospect welcomed by all in the factory - who saw his initial move to ducati as displaying a lack of loyalty. there was also of course the issue of yamaha wanting to avoid a repeat in the dramatics with jorge, which was certainly a topic in the negotiations. valentino's new deal with yamaha was eventually announced in august

so yes, obviously pretty qualified enthusiasm from jorge's side. it helped that it was made clear that, at the start of 2013, this was very much jorge's team, something which valentino had to work to change as a result of his level of performance (after 2013)

which left dovi to take the ducati factory seat. though he too maybe had to do a little bit of... smoothing over past comments in the negotiation process:

and that's that! there was a brief period in which honda and valentino rumours were a thing... always unlikely, given the long-standing mutual animosity there, and valentino claims he was never in contact with them. dani's contract was signed when marc's was, so that put an end to that. there was also serious speculation jorge would take casey's seat at honda, which was ended by him signing for another two years at yamaha in june. everyone sorted

dani and casey had a pretty cordial teammate relationship - though of course by this point it was already no longer really a team organised around dani as it had been in the late noughties. from late 2011 (shortly before simoncelli's passing):

and from the mind games post:

he also says the following in that passage: "some days [dani] beat us but to be honest I always felt like I had the measure of him over the course of a season"

more to be said about that relationship, of course, but it was basically harmonious on both sides, and they parted on good terms. as for dani's response to marc's signing, it wasn't like he was in a place within the team to complain too much - though his position was strengthened by his late 2012 form, where he won six of the last eight races. both of them mostly just stick to saying the standard respectful pr stuff about each other

though this is pretty funny in retrospect:

"I know nothing about pedrosa's goals" my man I think you can probably guess

#valentino talking about the ducati years vs marc talking about his last few years at honda #funniest early 2012 story remains dani being arrested for cheating on his yachtmaster exam and publicly apologising for it #couldn't really integrate it but a lot of the background for why things were Like That in '12 was 'guys there's a massive financial crisis'#suzuki withdrawing? reduced grid? crt bikes? factories having less money available for rider contracts? the sport was in troUBLE back then #motogp #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #heretic tag #thing is the marc signing probably feels quite unusual from the pov of today but this was very much the done thing back then #minus the brief aberration of the rookie rule. dani immediately went to repsol in 2006 jorge to yamaha in 2008 #valentino was in an ''''independent team'''' but. yeah. barely counts #since then there's not really been any rookies who have had quite that level of hype and expectation attached to them... except pedro #who is in a satellite outfit yes but that is one that gets a *lot* of factory support. and of course is moving up anyway next year #of course there's been really good rookies since marc other than pedro #but the other really notable one is fabio where it was a bit of a shock just how good he turned out to be #motogp teams love chasing young talent... firing dani after 2012 for a rookie would've been very harsh but that's how it goes

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