Trojan War & Carthage

[Pygmalion]

 

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Appian, Punic Wars 1 
The Phoenicians settled Carthage, in Libya, fifty years before the capture of Troy. Its founders were either Zorus and Carchedon, or, as the Romans and the Carthaginians themselves think, Dido, a Tyrian woman, whose husband had been slain clandestinely by Pygmalion, the ruler of Tyre. 

 

Appian opens his chapter with this statement, putting the founding of Carthage fifty years before the capture of Troy. The Romans think it was founded by Dido, but the Aeneid makes her contemporary and consort to Aeneas, a veteran of the Trojan War and thus a chronological contradiction. 

Aeneid also makes Aeneas the founder of Rome so that both Carthage and Rome were founded at the same time. 

There is also the problem with Cádiz (Gádeira, Gādes) and how it fits into the founding myths of Carthage and Rome. The traditional founding of Cádiz is dated to 1100 BCE, but this falls within the Bronze Age collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean, so it could not have been founded by Tyre at that time and how could Cádiz be founded before Carthage?

 

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Plutarch, Numa 1.3
Numa was of Sabine descent, and the Sabines will have it that they were colonists from Lacedaemon.

Plutarch, Numa 3
In consequence he had a great name and fame, so that Tatius, the royal colleague of Romulus at Rome, made him the husband of his only daughter, Tatia.

Numa Pompilius is an alternative founder of Rome, of Sabine descent said to be colonists from Lacedaemon, this name is used interchangeably with Sparta and situated on the Peloponnese.  The Trojan War was a war between Peloponnesians and Trojans and so there is a Trojan founder and a Peloponnesian founder of Rome. 

Pompilius resembles the name Pummay on the Nora Stone, which mentions a war with the Sardinians, the Trojans are also called Dardanians and so could this be the same way?

Trojans are the antagonists of the Iliad and so why would the Trojans be made into the founders of Rome instead of the Greek heroes?

 

 

 

[Pygmalion]

 

This vase depicts Orestes mourning his father Agamemnon, instead of a tomb there is a pillar (στήλη, κιών, σταθμός) on a raised platform (βωμός)

 

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Homer, Iliad. 24.776
The bones they took and placed in a golden urn, covering them over with soft purple robes, and quickly laid the urn in a hollow grave, and covered it over with great close-set stones.

ἐς λάρνακα θῆκαν ἑλόντες πορφυρέοις πέπλοισι καλύψαντες μαλακοῖσιν. αἶψα δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐς κοίλην κάπετον θέσαν, αὐτὰρ ὕπερθε πυκνοῖσιν λάεσσι κατεστόρεσαν μεγάλοισι:

 

This verse reveals that the Peloponnesians cremated the dead and placed the ashes or bones into an urn, so similar fashion to Romans, cf. cremation of Julius Caesar. 
 

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Sophocles, Electra 1119

Orestes
We come bearing his scanty remains in a small urn, as you see.

Electra
Oh, the misery! Here, at last, my eyes look for certain, it seems, upon that grievous burden in your hand.

Orestes
If your tears are for any of Orestes' tribulations, know that this vessel is his body's home.

Electra
Ah, sir, if this urn indeed contains him, then allow me, by the gods, to take it in my hands, so that I may weep and wail, not for these ashes alone, but for myself and for all our house with them!

Orestes
To the attendants.
Take it and give it to her, whoever she may be. For she asks this for herself not as if with hostile intent,  but like one who is his friend, or a kinswoman by blood.The urn is placed in Electra's hands.

 

So here Orestes was also cremated and his ashes were put into a small urn.

 

These are the ancient ruins of Mycenae and there is a doorway, like a Torii, entrance to the Necropolis and there is a single pillar. 

 

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Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosopher 6.2.78
Hence, it is said, arose a quarrel among his disciples as to who should bury him : nay, they even came to blows ; but, when their fathers and men of influence arrived, under their direction he was buried beside the gate leading to the Isthmus. Over his grave they set up a pillar and a dog in Parian marble upon it.

Ἔνθα καὶ στάσις, ὥς φασιν, ἐγένετο τῶν γνωρίμων, τίνες αὐτὸν θάψουσιν: ἀλλὰ καὶ μέχρι χειρῶν ἦλθον. ἀφικομένων δὲ τῶν πατέρων καὶ τῶν ὑπερεχόντων, ὑπὸ τούτοις ταφῆναι τὸν ἄνδρα παρὰ τῇ πύλῃ τῇ φερούσῃ εἰς τὸν 

 

Here is another example of a pillar-grave, this is placed beside the gate leading to the Isthmus, which is associated with Melikertes (Μελικέρτης) also known as Palaemon and Portunus. 

 

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Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.8
Then it was that she fled to the sea and cast herself and her son from the Molurian Rock. The son, they say, was landed on the Corinthian Isthmus by a dolphin, and honors were offered to Melicertes, then renamed Palaemon, including the celebration of the Isthmian games.

τότε δὲ φεύγουσα ἐς θάλασσαν αὑτὴν καὶ τὸν παῖδα ἀπὸ τῆς πέτρας τῆς Μολουρίδος ἀφίησιν, ἐξενεχθέντος δὲ ἐς τὸν Κορινθίων ἰσθμὸν ὑπὸ δελφῖνος ὡς λέγεται τοῦ παιδός, τιμαὶ καὶ ἄλλαι τῷ Μελικέρτῃ δίδονται μετονομασθέντι Παλαίμονι καὶ τῶν Ἰσθμίων ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ τὸν ἀγῶνα ἄγουσι.

 

 

Here the associated with Isthmus (probably from σταθμός) with Melicertes, Palaemon hence also Portunus, Melqart and Hercules.

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Plutarch, De Herodoti malignitat 39
Their cenotaph in the Isthmus
τὸ δ᾽ ἐν Ἰσθμῷ κενοτάφιον ἐπιγραφὴν ἔχει ταύτην

This is very important context for the word κενοτάφιον means "empty-tomb" and are made to honour those perished at sea, hence unable to recover the bodies for cremation and burial, hence the connection with Melicertes who died at sea. 

 

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Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1125
Ah, ah, see there, see there! Keep the bull from his mate! She has caught him in the robe and gores him with the crafty device of her black horn! He falls in a vessel of water! It is of doom wrought by guile in a murderous bath that I am telling you.

ἆ ἆ, ἰδοὺ ἰδού
ἄπεχε τῆς βοὸς τὸν ταῦρον
ἐν πέπλοισι μελαγκέρῳ λαβοῦσα μηχανήματι τύπτει
πίτνει δ᾽ ἐν ἐνύδρῳ τεύχει.
δολοφόνου λέβητος τύχαν σοι λέγω.

 

This is from Aeschylus on the death of Agamemnon and its clear the poetry here is cryptic and uses similar vocabulary in regards to Melicertes who is placed in a λέβης which was thrown into the sea, it also reads πίτνει δ᾽ ἐν ἐνύδρῳ τεύχει "He falls in a vessel of water" and so this maybe interpreted that Agamemnon died at sea, hence why in epigraphy it depicts a pillar-tomb or a cenotaph.

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Apollodorus, Library 3.4
Ἰνὼ δὲ τὸν Μελικέρτην εἰς πεπυρωμένον λέβητα ῥίψασα, εἶτα βαστάσασα μετὰ νεκροῦ τοῦ παιδὸς ἥλατο κατὰ βυθοῦ. καὶ Λευκοθέα μὲν αὐτὴν καλεῖται, Παλαίμων δὲ ὁ παῖς, οὕτως ὀνομασθέντες ὑπὸ τῶν πλεόντων; τοῖς χειμαζομένοις γὰρ βοηθοῦσιν

Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron then carrying it with the dead child she sprang into the deep. And she herself is called Leucothea, and the boy is called Palaemon, such being the names they get from sailors; for they succour storm-tossed mariners.

 

 Melicertes dies at sea. 

This is a depiction of Herakles and he is inside a tub with the sea inside of it, this affirms my theory that Agamemnon and Herakles are one and the same, one similarity is that Herakles killed his family, where-as Agamemnon kills his daughter.  Herakles  was killed by his wife, Deianeira when she gave him a poisoned robe stained with the blood of the centaur and in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1125, Agamemnon is killed by his wife Clytemnestra by goring him with a robe. 

This is Bāal Hammōn depicted as if he were a pillar and this is also Agamemnon.

Ἀγαμ > Γἀαμ > Βάαλ = Bāal  
έμνων > έμμων = Hammon

Bāal is the Phoenician sun god, same as Sol and Ἥλιος (ἠέλιος, ἀβέλιος, ἀέλιος, ἄλιος) and in Homer, Ἥλιος is paired with Ὑπερίων "Hyperion" which is 𐤏𐤋𐤉𐤅𐤍 in Phoenician, but this proper Phoenician noun is translated into ὕψιστος so that Ἥλιος Ὑπερίων is perverted into Ἥλιος Ὕψιστος becoming both Heliogabalus and Zeus Hypistos and the Romans built temples for these in Syria, probable origin of Sol Invictus.   

Hammon Bāal might be the same as the name Hannibal meaning Ἥλιος ἐγέννησε (Ἥλιογενής) "Sun begat" and also Ζεύς ἐγέννησε (Διογενής)  "Zeus begat", although some interpret Hammon to mean κάμινος oven, furnace.

cf. Apollodorus, Library 3.4 - Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron

 

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[Pygmalion]

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Aeschylus, Agamemnon 825-828
Young horse, shield bearing people
leap, dash around the setting Pleiades
'leaped the tower of the savage lion
lick up one's fill of the blood of tyranny

 ἵππου νεοσσός, ἀσπιδοστρόφος λεώς
πήδημʼ ὀρούσας ἀμφὶ Πλειάδων δύσιν
ὑπερθορὼν δὲ πύργον ὠμηστὴς λέων
ἄδην ἔλειξεν αἵματος τυραννικοῦ

The young-horse here is the same as the Trojan Horse and it makes its leap when the Pleiades sets.

The Pleiades constellation is important to ancient Mediterranean sailors as its setting marked the season of sailing, when Pleiades sets below the north-western horizon around Sprin , the little-horse (Equuleus, Eculeus) launches its leap, this constellation is also adjacent to the Delphinus constellation, maybe the reason why the dolphin-horse or hippocampus is a symbol of sailing.  

In Aeschylus the word leap, πήδημα is 𐤌𐤐𐤎𐤇 or 𐤐𐤎𐤇 in Phoenician, that derives Pascha, so originally a Phoenician rite at the beginning of the sailing season, the Persian modified Phoenician mythology producing the myth of Moses basing him on Cambyses and changing the whole meaning, but the Red Sea in context is the Mediterranean Sea adjacent to Phoenicia, which is called Pamphylian Sea in Josephus.

 

 

 

[Pygmalion]

Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων) ressembles Memnon (Μέμνων) King of Aeithiopia. 

In the myth of Perseus, he goes to Aeithiopia and takes away Andromeda, by comparision, Paris goes to the Peloponnese and takes away Helen, as if the Myth of Perseus is in opposition to the Trojan War.

Peloponnese (Πελοπόννησος) means Πέλοπος νῆσος "dark-face Island" and so Αἰθιοπία is a synonym and the rocks in which Andromeda where chained are the Scironian rocks in the Isthmus and also the naming was transposed to the dangerous rocks near Joppa, Phoenicia, hence also interpreted to be Aeithiopia. 

Edited April 24 by Pygmalion

[Pygmalion]

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Appian, Punic Wars 1

The Phoenicians settled Carthage, in Africa, fifty years before the capture of Troy. Its founders were either Zorus and Carchedon, or, as the Romans and the Carthaginians themselves think, Dido, a Tyrian woman, whose husband had been slain clandestinely by Pygmalion, the ruler of Tyre. The murder being revealed to her in a dream, she embarked for Africa with her property and a number of men who desired to escape from the tyranny of Pygmalion, and arrived at that part of Africa where Carthage now stands. Being repelled by the inhabitants, they asked for as much land for a dwelling place as they could encompass with an ox-hide. The Africans laughed at this frivolity of the Phoenicians and were ashamed to deny so small a request. Besides, they could not imagine how a town could be built in so narrow a space, and wishing to unravel the mystery they agreed to give it, and confirmed the promise by an oath. The Phoenicians, cutting the hide round and round in one very narrow strip, enclosed the place where the citadel of Carthage now stands, which from this affair was called Byrsa (a hide).

Proceeding from this start and getting the upper hand of their neighbors, as they were more adroit, and engaging in traffic by sea, like the Phoenicians, they built a city around Byrsa.
 

Καρχηδόνα τὴν ἐν Λιβύῃ Φοίνικες ᾤκισαν ἔτεσι πεντήκοντα πρὸ ἁλώσεως Ἰλίου, οἰκισταὶ δ᾽ αὐτῆς ἐγένοντο Ζῶρός τε καὶ Καρχηδών, ὡς δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι καὶ αὐτοὶ Καρχηδόνιοι νομίζουσι, Διδὼ γυνὴ Τυρία, ἧς τὸν ἄνδρα κατακαίνει Πυγμαλίων Τύρου τυραννεύων, καὶ τὸ ἔργον ἐπέκρυπτεν. ἡ δὲ ἐξ ἐνυπνίου τὸν φόνον ἐπέγνω, καὶ μετὰ χρημάτων πολλῶν καὶ ἀνδρῶν, ὅσοι Πυγμαλίωνος τυραννίδα ἔφευγον, ἀφικνεῖται πλέουσα Λιβύης ἔνθα νῦν ἔστι Καρχηδών. ἐξωθούμενοι δ᾽ ὑπὸ τῶν Λιβύων ἐδέοντο χωρίον ἐς συνοικισμὸν λαβεῖν, ὅσον ἂν βύρσα ταύρου περιλάβοι. τοῖς δὲ ἐνέπιπτε μέν τι καὶ γέλωτος ἐπὶ τῇ τῶν Φοινίκων μικρολογίᾳ, καὶ ᾐδοῦντο ἀντειπεῖν περὶ οὕτω βραχυτάτου: μάλιστα δ᾽ ἠπόρουν ὅπως ἂν πόλις ἐν τηλικούτῳ διαστήματι γένοιτο, καὶ ποθοῦντες ἰδεῖν ὅ τι ἔστιν αὐτοῖς τοῦτο τὸ σοφόν, συνέθεντο δώσειν καὶ ἐπώμοσαν. οἱ δὲ τὸ δέρμα περιτεμόντες ἐς ἱμάντα ἕνα στενώτατον, περιέθηκαν ἔνθα νῦν ἔστιν ἡ Καρχηδονίων ἀκρόπολις: καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦδε Βύρσα ὀνομάζεται.
[2] χρόνῳ δ᾽, ἐντεῦθεν ὁρμώμενοι καὶ τῶν περιοίκων ἀμείνους ὄντες ἐς χεῖρας ἐλθεῖν, ναυσί τε χρώμενοι καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν οἷα Φοίνικες ἐργαζόμενοι, τὴν πόλιν τὴν ἔξω τῇ Βύρσῃ περιέθηκαν.

 

 

Appian uses the word Byrsa (βύρσα) to describe the hill where the citadel of Carthage stood, this is not mentioned in Strabo, instead he uses that word to describe the shape of Spain.
 

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Strabo, Geography 2.1.30
For example, Sicily to a triangle, Spain to an ox-hide, or the Peloponnesus to a plane-leaf

ὡς τὴν Σικελίαν τριγώνῳ, ἢ τῶν ἄλλων γνωρίμων τινὶ σχημάτων, οἷον τὴν Ἰβηρίαν βύρσῃ, τὴν Πελοπόννησον πλατάνου φύλλῳ

Strabo, Geography 2.5.27
We will now describe separately the various countries into which it is divided. The first of these on the west is Iberia, which resembles the hide of an ox [spread out]; the eastern portions, which correspond to the neck, adjoining the neighbouring country of Gaul. 

κατὰ μέρος δ᾽ ἐστὶ πρώτη πασῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ἑσπέρας ἡ Ἰβηρία, βύρσῃ βοείᾳ παραπλησία, τῶν ὡς ἂν τραχηλιμαίων μερῶν ὑπερπιπτόντων εἰς τὴν συνεχῆ Κελτικήν

Strabo, Geography 3.1.3
In shape it resembles a hide stretched out in length from west to east

εοικε γὰρ βύρσῃ τεταμένῃ κατὰ μῆκος μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς ἑσπέρας ἐπὶ τὴν ἕω τὰ πρόσθια ἐχούσῃ μέρη πρὸς τῇ ἕῳ
 

They are three instances in Strabo of βύρσα (Býrsa) being used to describe the geography of Spain and Strabo does not use βύρσα in reference to Carthage.  Then technically Spain could be called Býrsa.

In Latin the word for is βύρσα is pellis;

Pellis tanned hide, leather, skin, a drum
βύρσα skin stripped off, hide, a drum.

In Latin pelles tensa would be "stretched hide".

The Citadel of Carthage is the βύρσα and the Citadel of Troy in Homer is called πτολίεθρον and πέργαμα in Euripides.
 cf. πύργος . Βύρσα, πέργαμος, βᾶρις, φρούριον, ἐρυμνός. 

πύργος in Latin is turris (τύρρις., τύρσις) and also example of dialectic exchange of the letters.

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Middle Lexicon
Doric π for τ; τέσσαρες πέμπε for τέτορες πέντε.
Doric κ for τ; ὅκα ἄλλοκα τῆνος for ὅτε ἄλλοτε κεῖνος

In Arabic and Phoenician the letter π rarely corresponds to 𐤐 that is most often aspirated, for example in 𐤐𐤋𐤔𐤕 in Exodus 15:14 is Φυλιστιιμ in the Septuagint, Philisthim in the Vulgate, even though the correct way is  Παλαιστίνα (Palestina), without an aspiration. In Arabic there is no π sound and always transliterated B or F. 

Another example is the word Pūnicus for Φοῖνιξ, the Φ- exchanges with the Pū- that together constitutes a single consonant.

The verb ἀμφιάζω is written 𐤄𐤋𐤁𐤉𐤔 in Phoenician, the φ into 𐤁 and 𐤄𐤋𐤁𐤉𐤔 was loaned back into Greek under καλύφωνή in Latin is vox and also tonus τω, the 𐤁 into π.  φ > 𐤁 > π

The noun φωνή is written 𐤒𐤅𐤋𐤄 in Phoenician, the φ exchanges with 𐤒 and this letter derives φ, φωνή in Latin is vox and also tonus.

Φοῖνιξ is also written 𐤒𐤉𐤍, even though 𐤒 is kin to the Latin letter Q.  

This is important stuff since both Latin and Greek utilise the Phoenician script. 

 

[guidoLaMoto]

Nice dissertation....But, like Marlowe. I know little Latin and less Greek, so I'll have to take your word for it. Good effort outlining the linguistic evidence of the evolution there.

According to Dionysius of Halocanarsus, a Greek writing for Greeks, all of the western Mediterranean was settled by Greek colonists- even the Trojans were originally Greeks....kinda reminiscent of old Soviet propaganda history.