{"id":46717,"date":"2023-01-27T12:13:28","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T12:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cupblog.bluefusesystems.com\/?p=46717"},"modified":"2023-01-27T12:13:30","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T12:13:30","slug":"mighty-hermes-and-his-shining-light-a-greek-god-illuminated-through-ancient-iranian-and-indian-parallels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2023\/01\/27\/mighty-hermes-and-his-shining-light-a-greek-god-illuminated-through-ancient-iranian-and-indian-parallels\/","title":{"rendered":"Mighty Hermes and his shining light: a Greek god illuminated through ancient Iranian and Indian parallels"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Napoleon once said that \u2018there are only two powers in the world, the sword and the spirit\u2019 and that \u2018in the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.\u2019 The results of this study, which delves into the etymology and phraseology of Greek terms belonging to the semantic sphere of power, agree with the Emperor\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Greek power-word kr\u00e1tos<\/em> expresses the idea of possessing or obtaining superiority, often with the use of brute force. After all, Kratos is the brother of Bia, \u2018Violence\u2019, according to Hesiod\u2019s Theogony<\/em>, and that same pair are the ruthless enactors of Zeus\u2019s will in the tragedy Prometheus Bound<\/em>. Yet the use of the adjective krat\u00fas<\/em> in the Iliad<\/em> and Odyssey<\/em> tells a different story. Krat\u00fas<\/em> is an epithet of Hermes, the most guileful and the least warlike of the Olympian gods. With his cunning tricks and his elusiveness, Hermes is the divine embodiment of intelligence. Since ancient times he has been regarded as a benevolent god, who starts quarrels for fun, but does not really like to fight. Nor does the association of krat\u00fas<\/em> with the epithet Argeiph\u00f3nt\u0113s<\/em>, which is regularly applied to Hermes, offer any clue. Argeiph\u00f3nt\u0113s<\/em> was interpreted in antiquity as \u2018killer of Argus\u2019, but its meaning is actually obscure, with recent analyses pointing towards the sense \u2018shining (-ph\u00f3nt\u0113s<\/em>) with white light (argei-<\/em>)\u2019. Thus the discrepancy between Hermes\u2019 character and the meaning of krat\u00fas<\/em> stands. What can we do about it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To solve this issue, my article<\/a> invokes the help of diachronic linguistics. It examines kr\u00e1tos, krat\u00fas<\/em> and other linguistic relatives under the lens of historical linguistics and compares the Greek terms with two related terms in ancient Indo-Iranian, a language family which, like Greek, descended from the lost proto-language which today we call \u2018Indo-European\u2019. Greek kr\u00e1tos<\/em> and krat\u00fas<\/em> show great formal resemblance to two Indo-Iranian words, namely Vedic kr\u00e1tu-<\/em> \u2018purpose, will\u2019 and Avestan xratu- <\/em>\u2018guiding intellect\u2019. Both nouns denote qualities which allow their possessor to achieve victory, success, and prosperity. Their semantics thus resemble those of Greek kr\u00e1tos<\/em>. At the same time, Vedic kr\u00e1tu-<\/em> \u2018mighty\/endowed with superior purpose\u2019 (cf. Greek krat\u00fas<\/em>) is used as an adjective of different deities, including the fire-god Agni, who shares a variety of traits with Hermes. Among other common features, Agni is the only god who receives the epithet bh\u0101\u0301r\u0325j\u012bka- <\/em>\u2018shining of white appearance\u2019 in the Rigveda<\/em>, the most ancient religious book of India. Vedic bh\u0101\u0301r\u0325j\u012bka-<\/em> is built with the same lexical material as Greek Argeiph\u00f3nt\u0113s<\/em>: Vedic bh\u0101\u0301<\/em>– goes back to the same root as Greek –ph\u00f3nt\u0113s<\/em>, and Vedic –r\u0325j\u012bka<\/em>– contains the same root as argei-<\/em>. Other Vedic passages describe kr\u00e1tu-<\/em> as a quality providing distinction to its possessor. Whoever possesses kr\u00e1tu-<\/em> can, literally, \u2018shine widely.\u2019 Both Agni and Hermes are thus imagined as gods endowed with superior might and the capacity to shine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This linguistic and comparative analysis therefore changes the semantic nuances of some Greek terms for \u2018power\u2019, by bringing to light the link between kr\u00e1tos<\/em> and purposefulness, as well as with intellectual superiority. Hermes\u2019 might, this study confirms, does not rely upon the sword. On the contrary, Hermes triumphs and shines thanks to the superiority of his intelligence \u2013 or, to put it in terms which Napoleon would have recognised, of his resolute spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read the associated article A COMPARATIVE LENS ON \u039a\u03a1\u0391\u03a4\u03a5\u03a3 \u0391\u03a1\u0393\u0395\u03aa\u03a6\u039f\u039d\u03a4\u0397\u03a3: MEANING, ETYMOLOGY AND PHRASEOLOGY<\/a> – out in The Classical Quarterly<\/em> now. Access is free until the end of March 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Napoleon once said that \u2018there are only two powers in the world, the sword and the spirit\u2019 and that \u2018in the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.\u2019 The results of this study, which delves into the etymology and phraseology of Greek terms belonging to the semantic sphere of power, agree with the Emperor\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":823,"featured_media":46726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,6],"tags":[7088,212,7085,1897,56],"coauthors":[9626],"class_list":["post-46717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classics","category-humanities","tag-caq","tag-classical-association","tag-classical-quarterly","tag-classical-studies","tag-classics-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/823"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46717"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52002,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46717\/revisions\/52002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46717"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=46717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}