In Greek mythology, Ichnaea (Ikhnaia) (Greek: Ιχναίη), "the tracker" was an epithet that could be applied to Themis, as in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo,[1] or to Nemesis, who was venerated at Ichnae, a Greek city in Macedon.
Mythology[edit]
At the birth of Apollo on Delos according to the Homeric hymn, the goddesses who bear witness to the rightness of the birth are the great goddesses of the old order: Dione, Rhea, the Ichnaean goddess, Themis, and the sea-goddess "loud-moaning" Amphitrite.[2] While, Strabo, in his Geographica, says that the "Ichnaean Themis" is worshipped at the town of Ichnae,[3] and William Smith suggests that the name "may have been derived" from the town.[4]
Lycophron evokes her in Alexandra: "...like Guneus, a doer of justice and arbiter of the Sun's daughter of Ichnae".[5]
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, 96; Gantz, p. 52.
- ^ Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, 95–100.
- ^ Strabo, Geographica 9.5.14 (Hamilton and Falconer's translation; Jones' translation) Hamilton and Falconer translate it as "Ichnæ, where the Ichnæan Themis is worshipped", while Jones translates it as "Ichnae, where the Ichnaean Themis is held in honor".
- ^ Smith, s.v. Ichnaea.
- ^ Lycophron, Alexandra 128 ff
References[edit]
- Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
- Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Strabo, Geography, edited and translated by H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., London, George Bell & Sons, 1903. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Strabo, Geography, Volume IV: Books 8-9, translated by Horace Leonard Jones, Loeb Classical Library No. 196, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1927. ISBN 978-0-674-99216-0. Online version at Harvard University Press. Online version by Bill Thayer. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Lycophron, Alexandra (or Cassandra) in Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921.