why would i read all this? do you believe i can learn from it?
. you say there was someone but you don't bother to tell us who. how can one learn from this?
its a poor intellect that doesn't follow the first best lead and until you prove otherwise pindar still owns this title.
ps i did say the junction of sava and danube [springs of ister]. that is the middle danube basin where was okeanos [pelagos of atlas]. i get the impression you think i mean the black sea area. you do know what a pelagos was at the time of plato i hope. no more wiki based scholarship please. if you can't use it as a reference in university it shouldn't be an acceptable source in any serious conversation.
pps herodotus also mentions the pillars of heracles up the danube but struggles with the story because he had no idea a pelagos had filled the midde danube basin [okeanos]. thats 2 sources.
I guess that I was a tad bit too frank and not politically correct when I wrote you off in my last post before this one. The reason that I'm addressing your concerns and accusations, are the same as Plato, as I do not want to sound as a mere man of "words." I guess I should have a little more patience with little ones like you.
You say to me: "
please tell all of us who wrote about the pillars of heracles before pindar." Is that not rather childish to ask that of me, or to anyone who has read Plato? You have read Plato, I assume? Well, even though the subject and main point was to find another ancient source, besides Plato, to corroborate the mainstream opinion that the pillars of Heracles are the present day strait of Gibraltar, for which I provided it to you initially, along with the clear indication that the expertise was being provided by Aristotle, and I identified his work that provided the corroboration, and also I stated that there were others before Aristotle and Plato/Socrates that have mentioned the "pillars of Heracles," yet you still did not understand, and continued to admonish me. I tried a second time, with a rather lengthy try, adding my rationale as to your mistaken ideas and knowledge of Pindar, and still to no avail. I had hoped that a third try would have done the trick, but as in baseball, I struck out in making you understand. Therefore I relied on more descriptive words. We will see if that will convince you, yet.
But I digress, as you wanted to know who before Pindar mentioned the pillars. And as Socrates asked; do you want the one drachma discourse or the 50 drachma discourse? But I think for you, since you alluded to the fact that you don't like to read much, at least what I wrote to you, I mean, then I will give the one drachma. Also because like Socrates, I don't have 50 drachma to give, just in case some Etruscans want to know.
Why my dear Para, of course it was not Pindar who first mentions the pillars, but before we get to the first, which will be a great ordeal, since much of ancient literature has been lost, I will at least, just to prove you wrong, give you one source older than Pindar. How is that, will you accept it? I know many here will, if they choose to chime in. So like it or not, here it goes. If we can believe Plato, or as some wanted here, if we can believe the priests, then it was Solon, who before Pindar mentions them. Pindar was only born around 522 BC, whereas Solon already died in 558 BC. Are you good with math? And as far the Herculean labors cited by Pindar in his odes, and which I tried to explain to you, are nothing other than a borrowing and an embellishment, almost a plagiarism of sort, really, by Pindar from his Boeotian countryman, Hesiod. Now we all know that Hesiod was even much older than Solon, and if you carefully expand your eyes wide open, and get a little knowledge, by perusing his Theogony, provided that can really read, you will notice the similarity. Albeit, Hesiod was a man of poor roots and means, and tendered to the people of the streets, by being plain, whereas Pindar was of aristocratic root, and liked to rub elbows with rich and powerful tyrants, especially the Sicilian ones, and gladly flattered them, such as in the ode you cited, which are very poetic and full of worthless and needless words. The myth is the central piece of Pindar's odes, and Hesiod writings are a wealth and flowing springs of myths galore. Pindar was perfectly familiar with Hesiod, and for this, we can see Pindar quoting Hesiod by name. Why did Pindar use Heracles so much in his poetry? Plain enough, Pindar was a Theban too, need I more to say?
Well so long friend. Hesiod sends you his regards too:
And now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand. Thus said the hawk to the nightingale with speckled neck, while he carried her high up among the clouds, gripped fast in his talons, and she, pierced by his crooked talons, cried pitifully. To her he spoke disdainfully: “Miserable thing, why do you cry out? One far stronger than you now holds you fast, and you must go wherever I take you, songstress as you are. And if I please, I will make my meal of you, or let you go. He is a fool who tries to withstand the stronger, for he does not get the mastery and suffers pain besides his shame.” So said the swiftly flying hawk, the long-winged bird.
And mighty Heracles, the valiant son of neat-ankled Alcmena, when he had finished his grievous toils, made Hebe the child of great Zeus and goldshod Hera his shy wife in snowy Olympus. Happy he! For he has finished his great work and lives amongst the undying gods, untroubled and unaging all his days.
And again, Ceto bore to Phorcys the fair-cheeked Graiae, sisters grey from their birth: and both deathless gods and men who walk on earth call them Graiae, Pemphredo well-clad, and saffron-robed Enyo, and the Gorgons who dwell beyond glorious Ocean in the frontier land towards Night where are the clear-voiced Hesperides, Sthenno, and Euryale, and Medusa who suffered a woeful fate: she was mortal, but the two were undying and grew not old. With her lay the Dark-haired One1in a soft meadow amid spring flowers. And when Perseus cut off her head, there sprang forth great Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus who is so called because he was born near the springs of Ocean; and that other, because he held a golden blade3in his hands. Now Pegasus flew away and left the earth, the mother of flocks, and came to the deathless gods: and he dwells in the house of Zeus and brings to wise Zeus the thunder and lightning. But Chrysaor was joined in love to Callirrhoe, the daughter of glorious Ocean, and begot three-headed Geryones. Him mighty Heracles slew in sea-girt Erythea by his shambling oxen on that day when he drove the wide-browed oxen to holy Tiryns, and had crossed the ford of Ocean and killed Orthus and Eurytion the herdsman in the dim stead out beyond glorious Ocean.
But these sons whom he begot himself great Heaven used to call Titans （Strainers） in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards. And Night bore hateful Doom and black Fate and Death, and she bore Sleep and the tribe of Dreams. And again the goddess murky Night, though she lay with none, bare Blame and painful Woe, and the Hesperides who guard the rich, golden apples and the trees bearing fruit beyond glorious Ocean.
Men say that Typhaon the terrible, outrageous and lawless, was joined in love to her, the maid with glancing eyes. So she conceived and brought forth fierce offspring; first she bore Orthus the hound of Geryones, and then again she bore a second, a monster not to be overcome and that may not be described, Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong. And again she bore a third, the evil-minded Hydra of Lerna, whom the goddess, white-armed Hera nourished, being angry beyond measure with the mighty Heracles. And her Heracles, the son of Zeus, of the house of Amphitryon, together with warlike Iolaus, destroyed with the unpitying sword through the plans of Athena the spoil driver. She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion, another of a goat, and another of a snake, a fierce dragon; in her forepart she was a lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay; but Echidna was subject in love to Orthus and brought forth the deadly Sphinx which destroyed the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera, the good wife of Zeus, brought up and made to haunt the hills of Nemea, a plague to men. There he preyed upon the tribes of her own people and had power over Tretus of Nemea and Apesas: yet the strength of stout Heracles overcame him. And Ceto was joined in love to Phorcys and bore her youngest, the awful snake who guards [335] the apples all of gold in the secret places of the dark earth at its great bounds. This is the offspring of Ceto and Phorcys
Now Iapetus took to wife the neat-ankled maid Clymene, daughter of Ocean, and went up with her into one bed. And she bore him a stout-hearted son, Atlas: also she bore very glorious Menoetius and clever Prometheus, full of various wiles, and scatter-brained Epimetheus who from the first was a mischief to men who eat bread; for it was he who first took of Zeus the woman, the maiden whom he had formed. But Menoetius was outrageous, and farseeing Zeus struck him with a lurid thunderbolt and sent him down to Erebus because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride. And Atlas through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms, standing at the borders of the earth before the clear-voiced Hesperides; for this lot wise Zeus assigned to him. And ready-witted Prometheus he bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long-winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day. That bird Heracles, the valiant son of shapely-ankled Alcmene, slew; and delivered the son of Iapetus from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction—not without the will of Olympian Zeus who reigns on high, that the glory of Heracles the Theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth. This, then, he regarded, and honored his famous son; though he was angry, he ceased from the wrath which he had before because Prometheus matched himself in wit with the almighty son of Cronos.
And Pindar also wants to say something more on the pillars:
The hymn will have a pleasant toil, to be the glory of the land where the ancient Myrmidons lived, whose marketplace, famous long ago, Aristocleides, through your ordinance, did not stain with dishonor by proving himself too weak in the strenuous course of the pancratium. But in the deep plain of Nemea, his triumph-song brings a healing cure for wearying blows. Still, if the son of Aristophanes, who is beautiful, and whose deeds match his looks, embarked on the highest achievements of manliness, it is not easy to cross the trackless sea beyond the pillars of Heracles, which that hero and god set up as famous witnesses to the furthest limits of seafaring. [/b] He subdued the monstrous beasts in the sea, and tracked to the very end the streams of the shallows, where he reached the goal that sent him back home again,
and he made the land known. My spirit, towards what foreign headland are you turning my voyage? I bid you to summon the Muse in honor of Aeacus and his race; consummate justice attends the precept, “praise the noble.”
