There’s always an epilogue in Italy

I have been following Polyphanes’ development of a system of Greek kampala with some interest but in a post made today, this quote by Hyginus stood out for me:

The Parcae, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos invented seven Greek letters – A B H T I Y. Others say that Mercury invented them from the flight of cranes, which, when they fly, form letters. Palamedes, too, son of Nauplius, invented eleven letters; Simonides, too, invented four letters – Ó E Z PH; Epicharmus of Sicily, two – P and PS. The Greek letters Mercury is said to have brought to Egypt, and from Egypt Cadmus took them to Greece. Cadmus in exile from Arcadia, took them to Italy, and his mother Carmenta changed them to Latin to the number of 15. Apollo on the lyre added the rest.

Lots of interesting tid-bits there but what caused me to cock a brow was the connection of Kadmos with Italy and the attestation of Carmenta as his mother.

As far as I was aware Kadmos’ mother was Telephassa daughter of Neilos the Egyptian river; Carmenta the Cimmerian sibylla was the mother of Evander (who was responsible for introducing the Lykaia into Rome as the Lupercalia.) And as for Kadmos I’d always assumed that he ended his days an exile in Illyria, whereupon Dionysos transformed him into an immortal serpent, which is kind of ironic since all of Kadmos’ bad luck was the result of slaying the dragon of Ares.

However one thing I’ve learned through my study of the history and myths of Magna Graecia is that no story ever truly ends – there’s always an epilogue in Italy. So it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to discover that Hyginus was drawing on some obscure local tradition that put Kadmos in Italy, even if I hadn’t yet come across it. That would be especially meaningful considering Dionysos’ strong ties to the place.

However a couple hours of fervent searching turned up nothing.

At least as far as an Italian Kadmos goes. But I did discover that I’ve been wrong about something kind of significant – Akoites isn’t Italian after all.

The Homeric Hymn to Dionysos describes the pirates who abduct the young god while out on one of his walkabouts as Tyrsenoi, a variant of Tyrrhenoi which we English as Etruscans. (Hence why I put the Hymn in the section for Populonia at Greater Greece. Technically Etruria is outside the orbit of Magna Graecia, both geographically and culturally, but this was a city named after Fufluns Pachie which is probably my favorite allonym for Dionysos and a lot of fun to say plus there are some neat and relevant texts related to Etruscan religion I’d like to throw up there eventually. The good thing about setting the rules is that I can arbitrarily break them. Fufluns Pachie!)

So anyway, Homer calls the pirates Tyrsenoi but the helmsman is nowhere named in the remaining fragments of that Hymn. For that we have to turn to Ovid’s Metamorphoses which, after recounting the story told in the Hymn, goes on to have Acoetes (who has visited Thebes as a missionary of the Bacchic faith) engage in a verbal sparring match with Pentheus. This is a notable departure from Euripides’ Bakchai where Dionysos announces in the prologue that he has disguised himself as a mortal man, a vagabond priest from Lydia, and proceeds to troll everyone to much lulz. (And bloodshed.)

Something I’d never noticed before is that Ovid describes Acoetes (I prefer the Greek transliteration Akoites because it’s sexier even though this name only ever appears in Latin) as a Maeonian.

Meaning that he’s a kinsman of Arachne and Omphale. Interestingly one of the children that Herakles sired through Omphale is credited with leading the Lydian colonists to Etruria, which I suppose brings us full circle.

Oh, and this last photo is a Ptolemaic limestone stela with snake-bodied figures of Isis-Ermouthi and Dionysos Sardanapalos from the 1st century BCE. Isis-Ermouthi wears the Egyptian Crown with cow’s horns, the Sun disc, the double feathers and ears of corn, and a Greek polos; Dionysos wears the Egyptian Hemhemet Crown with three uraei (fire-breathing cobras) and a polos.