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ArchivesAttn. Greek freaks! Help with a Greek expression
"ho bythios drakon" - this expression refers to the emperor Diocletian. I found it here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06453a.htm
"This episode of the dragon is in fact a very late development, which cannot be traced further back than the twelfth or thirteenth century. It is found in the Golden Legend (Historia Lombardic of James de Voragine and to this circumstance it probably owes its wide diffusion. It may have been derived from an allegorization of the tyrant Diocletian or Dadianus, who is sometimes called a dragon (ho bythios drakon) in the older text ..."
I was wondering what exactly is meant by "bythios". My Greek dictionary says "in/from the depth". A dragon from below? Underworld? Leviathan from the depth of the sea?
"This episode of the dragon is in fact a very late development, which cannot be traced further back than the twelfth or thirteenth century. It is found in the Golden Legend (Historia Lombardic of James de Voragine and to this circumstance it probably owes its wide diffusion. It may have been derived from an allegorization of the tyrant Diocletian or Dadianus, who is sometimes called a dragon (ho bythios drakon) in the older text ..."
I was wondering what exactly is meant by "bythios". My Greek dictionary says "in/from the depth". A dragon from below? Underworld? Leviathan from the depth of the sea?
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Replies
Indeed, bythios os related to bythos, meaning the "lowest depth" , particularly of the sea. If follows that any creature that is "bythion" hangs out somewhere where the sun dont shine!
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Thanks, Greek Freak!
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related question
Slightly off topic, but does anyone know the history of the concept of a `dragon from the deep'? I ask because I was struck by an ancient (and rare) concept of ahirbudhnyA that appears in Indian literature (the Rgveda). It is usually translated as the `serpent of the deep', but linguistically its Greek cognate is ophis python, which, if I am not mistaken, could refer to the mythological Echidna. The root budhna does literally mean ground (or base), and not deep, in the language, just as the etymological connection would suggest. The serpent is of course a drakaina, so my placement of the question in this thread.
Slightly off topic, but does anyone know the history of the concept of a `dragon from the deep'? I ask because I was struck by an ancient (and rare) concept of ahirbudhnyA that appears in Indian literature (the Rgveda). It is usually translated as the `serpent of the deep', but linguistically its Greek cognate is ophis python, which, if I am not mistaken, could refer to the mythological Echidna. The root budhna does literally mean ground (or base), and not deep, in the language, just as the etymological connection would suggest. The serpent is of course a drakaina, so my placement of the question in this thread.
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And now for something completely putrid
Python may be related to the ancient Greek "pytho" meaning "to rot".
According to a Homeric Hymn, Apollo was also mnown as "Pythian" because he killed a nasty dragoness who then rotted away.
(http://www.perseus.org/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0138:hymn=3:line=349)
Python may be related to the ancient Greek "pytho" meaning "to rot".
According to a Homeric Hymn, Apollo was also mnown as "Pythian" because he killed a nasty dragoness who then rotted away.
(http://www.perseus.org/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0138:hymn=3:line=349)
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