Talk:Patroclus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Greece; If you would like to join us, please visit the project page; if you have any questions, please consult the FAQ.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
Additional information: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject LGBT studies, which tries to ensure comprehensive and factual coverage of all LGBT related issues on Wikipedia. For more information, or to get involved, visit the project page.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class.

WikiProject Echo has identified Patroclus as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the French language Wikipedia.

[edit] What was he then?!

It seems to me that the Greek heroes had attained a level of divinity which set them apart from ordinary mortals - even though the Greeks saw them also as historical personages. I am sure that you are aware that at times these heroes, formally known as "divine heroes" were even referred to as "gods" in a casual use of the word. Since to us they are even less historical then they were to the Greeks, what would you call them if not deities (a term which encompasses supernatural personages of ranks below that of the gods)?! Haiduc 12:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "deity" is a significantly wider concept than "god". There certainly isn't a meaningful distinction here. (I'd also be interested to see an example of a hero — besides figures like Heracles and Asclepius, who were actually considered as both heroes and gods — being described as θεός.)

As for the specifics of the Greek divine heroes, I think that incorporating them into the term "deity" muddies the waters unnecessarily. Although heroes were widely worshipped in hero cults, there's still a distinction drawn between heroes and gods, both in ancient writings (Homer) and contemporary scholarship (for example, the Oxford Classical Dictionary, which says in its hero-cult entry, "Heroes... were a class of beings worshipped by the Greeks, generally conceived of as the powerful dead, and often forming a class intermediate between gods and men"). I think that incorporating gods and heroes into a single category of "deities" isn't really very useful for Wikipedia's purposes. If, as seems to be the case, the scholars regard gods and heroes as different categories, we should do the same. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you have a point here - I have modified the name of the category to accomodate this understanding of the definitions. Haiduc 04:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] therapon?

An anonymous user added the redlinked word "therapon" to the introduction. I wasn't familiar with this word in English, and I couldn't find it in an English-language dictionary, the Oxford Classical Dictionary or even in Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. I eventually found it in a Homeric lexicon (meaning "squire", roughly). It's apparently also used in koine to mean "servant" or "attendant" (so used in the New Testament, in the letter to the Hebrews), but I'm not familiar with the word's meaning in a Homeric or classical sense. I assume it's derived from ϑέρὰπεία ("service, attendance, medical treatment or cure"). Is this a term that should be recognized? I don't think that a casual reader should have to hunt for the meaning as I did. If it's not a widely known word, and the link remains red, it's not very helpful to have it in the description of Patroclus. Anyone object to removal? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your removal of "therapon" from the article, but it may be interesting to know a bit more about the significance of the word: it seems to derive from an Anatolian word that meant "ritual substitute". By calling Patroklos the therapon of Achilles, the Iliad indicates that Patroklos' death is a substitute for Achilles' death, and a foreshadowing of it. A good place to look for the significance of the word is Ch. 2, section 8 of Gregory Nagy's The Best of the Achaeans, conveniently placed online by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

This is a bit specialized for a general encyclopedic article, however. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Josiah, I got your message. Yes, therapon means "ritual substitute". I actually like including specifics in the encyclopedia - I think that's what's exciting about Wikipedia, that with continual updating you can (theorhetically) find information that is always up to date or being improved. Anyway, no biggie. 131.194.232.14 02:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)131.194.232.14

Thanks to both of you. I think that if a therapon article is created, we can mention it here, or we can add a bit to the article about Homer's use of the word and its applicability to Patroclus. I was just worried about the addition of the word without any context or explanation readily available to the lay reader. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)