Leucippides in Greek myth: abductions, rituals and weddings
View/ Open
Date
29/11/2019Author
Baldassi, Claudia
Metadata
Abstract
This project focuses on the myth of the Leucippides. The two daughters of the
Messenian king Leucippus, occasionally identified as Phoibe and Hilaeira, are mostly
known for being abducted by the Dioscuri in a secondary episode of the Dioscuri’s
life. Their story is short and lacking in details, but it has a huge potential for an
interdisciplinary approach meant to highlight the relevance and diversity of uses of an
allegedly minor myth.
The sources available are limited in number but span the sixth – possibly seventh
– century BC to the Imperial age and are spread throughout Greece and Magna
Graecia. It is doubtless a persistent and widespread myth. I have chosen an innovative
transversal approach, rarely used in the field, to pursue the clearest and most complete
picture of the Leucippides possible given the current state of knowledge. All primary
sources – ranging from poetry to historiography, epigraphy, visual arts and
archaeology – have been considered. Every source has been analysed in its
individuality, against its cultural backdrop and, finally, in relation to the others.
This research pursues a better understanding of the story of the Leucippides. At
its core, my study aims to take a step further than the mere collection and description
of all sources available; my goal is the identification of the meanings and ways of use
of our myth in different contexts in the Greek world and, where possible, the
recognition of larger trends that bypassed geographical boundaries. In particular, the
present research investigates the relationship between the myth of the Leucippides and
its wider social and cultural context, inside the society in which it appears, taking into
due account the different times and places. I analyse a series of points of interest that
isolate the Leucippides from the backdrop of similar myths. The story of the
Leucippides, in fact, contributes to the discussion of female identity-making processes
in Greece, of active relationships between myth and society, of the cultural and
exemplary nature of abduction stories and their connection to marriage, and of the
transmission, geographical expansion and reception of myth in different contexts.
This study is innovative in its approach to the entirety of sources available and
unique in its reconstruction of a long-neglected myth and of its interaction with more
articulated questions concerning society and culture. Given the large number of
secondary characters in Greek myth and the limited pool of studies devoted to them so
far, studies such as mine could serve as a model for others to follow. This study will
be a stepping stone for further studies on the Dioscuri and Helen through the family
and the thematic connections tying them to the Leucippides, but also for comparative
approaches to abduction and related Indo-European myths.
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
“Is all Greek, grief to me” Ancient Greek sophistry and the poetics of Charles Bernstein
Herd, Colin James (The University of Edinburgh, 2014-11-25)This thesis reads the poetry and poetics of Charles Bernstein in relation to his interest in sophistry and sophistics. Taking his 1987 volume The Sophist as a central text, the influence of a sense of sophistics is ... -
Comparative study of the Greek and Indian perfect tenses with special reference to Homeric Greek
Banerjee, Satya Ranjan (The University of Edinburgh, 1972)