Evenor

For the fantasy collection by George MacDonald, see Evenor (collection).

Evenor (Ancient Greek: Εὐήνωρ) is the name of a character from the myth of Atlantis and of several historical figures.

Myth

In the Critias, a work of the Greek philosopher Plato, a man named Evenor is described as the ancestor of the kings who ruled the legendary island of Atlantis. According to the account given by Plato's character Critias, Evenor was among the original inhabitants of Atlantis born from the earth (autochthons). He lived with his wife Leucippe on a low hill in the centre of the island, about fifty stadia from the sea. The couple had one daughter, Cleito. When Cleito reached marriageable age, her parents died, but the god Poseidon slept with her and she became mother of five pairs of twin sons. Her oldest son, Atlas, became the first king of Atlantis, with the other sons as subordinate governors.[1]

History

One Evenor was a Greek painter who flourished around 420 BC, the father and teacher of the better-known painter Parrhasius of Ephesus.[2] Another was a Greek surgeon and medical author who lived in or before the 3rd century BC and apparently wrote about fractures and joint dislocations; if he is the same as an Evenor quoted by Pliny the Elder, he also wrote about the medicinal properties of plants.[3][4]

References

  1. ↑ Plato, Critias 113c–114c.
  2. ↑ Philip Smith (1867). "Evenor". In William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology 2. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 84. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  3. ↑ William Alexander Greenhill (1867). "Evenor". In William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology 2. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 84. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
  4. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 20.73, 21.105.