Calydonian Boar

The Calydonian Hunt shown on a Roman frieze (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)[1]

The Calydonian Boar is one of the monsters of Greek mythology that had to be overcome by heroes of the Olympian age. Sent by Artemis to ravage the region of Calydon in Aetolia because its king failed to honor her in his rites to the gods, it was killed in the Calydonian Hunt, in which many male heroes took part, but also a powerful woman, Atalanta, who won its hide by first wounding it with an arrow. This outraged some of the men, with tragic results. Strabo[2] was under the impression that the Calydonian Boar was an offspring of the Crommyonian Sow vanquished by Theseus.

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Importance in Greek mythology and art

The Calydonian Boar is one of the chthonic monsters in Greek mythology, each set in a specific locale. Sent by Artemis to ravage the region of Calydon in Aetolia, it met its end in the Calydonian Hunt, in which all the heroes of the new age pressed to take part, with the exception of Heracles, who vanquished his own Goddess-sent boar separately(see Erymanthian Boar). Since the mythic event drew together numerous heroes[3]—among whom were many who were venerated as progenitors of their local ruling houses among tribal groups of Hellenes into Classical times—the Calydonian Boar hunt offered a natural subject in classical art, for it was redolent with the web of myth that gathered around its protagonists on other occasions, around their half-divine descent and their offspring. Like the quest for the Golden Fleece (Argonautica) or the Trojan War that took place the following generation, the Calydonian Hunt is one of the nodes in which much Greek myth comes together.

Tondo of a Laconian black-figure cup by the Naucratis Painter, ca. 555 BCE (Louvre)

Both Homer[4] and Hesiod and their listeners were aware of the details of this myth, but no surviving complete account exists: some papyrus fragments found at Oxyrhynchus are all that survive of Stesichorus' telling;[5] the myth repertory called Bibliotheke ("The Library") contains the gist of the tale, and before that was compiled the Roman poet Ovid told the story in some colorful detail in his Metamorphoses.[6]

Hunt

King Oeneus ("wine man") of Calydon, an ancient city of west-central Greece north of the Gulf of Patras, held annual harvest sacrifices to the gods on the sacred hill. One year the king forgot to include Great "Artemis of the Golden Throne" in his offerings[7] Insulted, Artemis, the "Lady of the Bow", loosed the biggest, most ferocious boar imaginable on the countryside of Calydon. It rampaged throughout the countryside, destroying vineyards and crops, forcing people to take refuge inside the city walls (Ovid), where they began to starve.

Oeneus sent messengers out to look for the best hunters in Greece, offering them the boar's pelt and tusks as a prize.[8]

Roman marble sarcophagus from Vicovaro, carved with the Calydonian Hunt (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome)
Meleager et Atalanta, after Giulio Romano.

Among those who responded were some of the Argonauts, Oeneus' own son Meleager, and, remarkably for the Hunt's eventual success, one woman— the huntress Atalanta, the "indomitable", who had been suckled by Artemis as a she-bear and raised as a huntress, a proxy for Artemis herself (Kerenyi; Ruck and Staples). Artemis appears to have been divided in her motives, for it was also said that she had sent the young huntress because she knew her presence would be a source of division, and so it was: many of the men, led by Kepheus and Ankaios, refused to hunt alongside a woman. It was the smitten Meleager who convinced them.[9] Nonetheless it was Atalanta who first succeeded in wounding the boar with an arrow, although Meleager finished it off, and offered the prize to Atalanta, who had drawn first blood. But the sons of Thestios, who considered it disgraceful that a woman should get the trophy where men were involved, took the skin from her, saying that it was properly theirs by right of birth, if Meleagros chose not to accept it. Outraged by this,[10] Meleagros slew the sons of Thestios and again gave the skin to Atalanta (Bibliotheke). Meleager's mother, sister of Meleager's slain uncles, took the fatal brand from the chest where she had kept it (see Meleager) and threw it once more on the fire; as it was consumed, Meleager died on the spot, as the Fates had foretold. Thus Artemis achieved her revenge against King Oeneus.

Woodcut illustration for Raphael Regius's edition of Metamorphoses, Venice, ca. 1518

During the hunt, Peleus accidentally killed his host Eurytion. In the course of the hunt and its aftermath, many of the hunters turned upon one another, contesting the spoils, and so the Goddess continued to be revenged (Kerenyi, 114): "But the goddess again made a great stir of anger and crying battle, over the head of the boar and the bristling boar's hide, between Kouretes and the high-hearted Aitolians" (Homer, Iliad, ix.543).

The boar's hide that was preserved in the Temple of Athena Alae at Tegea in Laconia was reputedly that of the Calydonian Boar, "rotted by age and by now altogether without bristles" by the time Pausanias saw it in the second century CE. He noted that the tusks had been taken to Rome as booty from the defeated allies of Mark Anthony by Augustus; "one of the tusks of the Calydonian boar has been broken", Pausanias reports, "but the remaining one, having a circumference of about half a fathom, [11] was dedicated in the Emperor's gardens, in a shrine of Dionysos".[12] The Calydonian Hunt was the theme of the temple's main pediment.

Hunters

The heroes who participated assembled from all over Hellas, according to Homer;[13] Bacchylides called them "the best of the Hellenes".[14]

The table lists:

Hero Tegea Hyginus Ovid Notes
Acastus YesY "a splendid javelin- thrower" (Ovid, VIII, 306).
Admetus YesY YesY the son of Pheres, from Pherae
Alcon YesY YesY one of three sons of Hippocoon or Ares from Amykles in Thrace
Amphiaraus YesY YesY the son of Oicles, from Argos; "As yet unruined by his wicked wife" (Ovid).
Ancaeus YesY YesY YesY "from Parrhasia" (Ovid), son of Lycurgus, killed by the boar. In Ovid's account Ancaeus wielded a two-headed axe but he was undone by his boastfulness which gave the boar time enough to charge him: Ancaeus was speared on the boar's tusks at the upper part of the groin and guts burst forth from the gashes it had made.
Asclepius YesY son of Apollo
Atalanta YesY YesY YesY called Tegeaea ("of Tegea") by Ovid, the daughter of Skoineus, from Arcadia
Caeneus YesY YesY son of Elatus; Ovid notes that Caeneus was "now no longer a woman" (VIII, 305).
Castor and Pollux YesY YesY YesY the Dioscuri, sons of Zeus and Leda, from Lacedaemon
Cteatus YesY brother of Eurytus, son of Actor.
Deucalion, son of Minos YesY
Dryas of Calydon YesY YesY son of Ares (Hyginus notes him as "son of Iapetus")
Echion YesY YesY son of Mercurius (Hermes); Ovid says "the first spear ... was launched from Echion's shoulder." (VIII, 345).
Enaesimus YesY YesY one of three sons of Hippocoon or Ares from Amykles in Thrace
Epokhos YesY
Euphemus YesY son of Poseidon
Eurypylus
Eurytion YesY accidentally run through with the javelin of Peleus
Eurytus YesY son of Mercurius (Hermes)
Hippasus, son of Eurytus YesY YesY
Hippothous YesY YesY YesY the son of Kerkyon, son of Agamedes, son of Stymphalos
Hyleus YesY killed by the boar
Iason YesY YesY Aeson’s son, from Iolkos
Idas YesY YesY and Lynceus, sons of Aphareus, from Messene
Iolaus YesY YesY YesY son of Iphicles, beloved of Heracles
Iphicles the twin of Heracles, who took no part, Amphitryon’s mortal son, from Thebes
Kepheus, from Arcadia
Kometes and Prothous YesY YesY the sons of Thestios, Meleager's uncles
Laertes YesY son of Arcesius, Odysseus' father
Lelex YesY of Naryx in Locria
Leucippus YesY YesY one of three sons of Hippocoon or Ares from Amykles in Thrace
Lynceus and Idas YesY YesY
Meleager YesY YesY YesY son of Ooineus
the Moliones or Actorides YesY
Mopsus YesY YesY son of Ampycus
Nestor YesY "Still in his prime" Ovid says.
Panopeus YesY
Peleus YesY YesY YesY son of Aiakos, father of Achilles from Phthia
Phoenix YesY YesY son of Amyntor
Phyleus YesY from Elis
Pirithous YesY YesY son of Ixion, from Larissa, the friend of Theseus
Plexippus YesY YesY brother of Toxeus, slain by Meleager
Polydeuces YesY YesY YesY
Prothous and Kometes YesY YesY the sons of Thestios, Meleager's uncles
Telamon YesY YesY YesY son of Aeacus
Theseus of Athens YesY YesY YesY faced another dangerous chthonic creature, the dusky wild Crommyonian Sow, on a separate occasion. Strabo (Geography 8.6.22) reckoned she was the mother of the Calydonian Boar, but there are no hints within the myths to link the two and suggest Strabo might have been right.
Toxeus YesY brother of Plexippus, slain by Meleager

The states which sent help to Oeneus

Notes

  1. ↑ Ex-collection the textiles merchant Sir Francis Cook, assembled in Victorian times at Doughty House, in Richmond, south-west London.
  2. ↑ Strabo, Geography viii.6.22
  3. ↑ Bibliotheke1.8.2
  4. ↑ Phoinix's long digression on Meleager and the war before Calydon embodies many parallels with the War of Troy: they are identified and analyzed by S. C. R. Swain, "A Note on Iliad 9.524-99: The Story of Meleager", The Classical Quarterly New Series, 38.2 (1988), pp. 271-276.
  5. ↑ Strabo, referring to events of the Hunt, does remark "as the poet says" (Geography 10.3.6).
  6. ↑ Xenophon, Cynegetica x provides some details of boar-hunting in reality; other classical sources related to boar hunting are assembled in J. Aymard, Essai sur les chasses romaines (Paris 1951) pp 297-329.
  7. ↑ Iliad ix.933; the poet's concern is with Meleager's role in the battle begun over the boar's carcass, which embroiled Meleager and the Curetes, who were attacking his city of Calydon, rather than with the hunt itself, which he swiftly summarizes in a handful of lines.
  8. ↑ The pelt remained a trophy at the temple of Tegea, which was enriched with prominent reliefs of the Calydonian Hunt, in which the Boar took the central place in the composition. The temple, however, was dedicated not to Artemis, but to that other Virgin Goddess, Athena Alea
  9. ↑ Euripides, fragment 520, noted by Kerenyi p. 119 and note 673.
  10. ↑ "He had honoured a stranger woman above them and set kinship aside", Diodorus Siculus noted.
  11. ↑ A Greek fathom—orgyia—was the equivalent of six podes each of 29.6 centimeters; the circumference of the relic at its base was about 89 centimeters; a tusk that was over 29 centimeters through could only have been a mammoth tusk or that of one of the recently-extinct European Straight-tusked Elephants. Adrienne Mayor, in The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology In Greek and Roman Times, has suggested that fossils like tusks of Deinotherium found in Greece helped generate myths of archaic giant beings.
  12. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece viii.47.2.
  13. ↑ Homer, Iliad ix.544.
  14. ↑ Bacchylides, Epinikia 5.111.

Bibliography