Acmon (father of Uranus)

For other mythological figures of the same name, see Acmon.

In Greek mythology, Acmon (Ancient Greek: Ἄκμων) is in some sources the father of Uranus, the personification of the sky, with no mother mentioned. A fragment of Alcman is the first attestation of this parentage, and fragments of several later authors refer to Uranus as Akmonídēs ('son of Acmon'). In another genealogy, incorrectly attributed to Hesiod, Acmon is the son of Gaia, and in some sources he is identified with Uranus himself.

One scholar believes that Acmon featured in the early theogony, and another holds that he may have been the same as a different father of Uranus mentioned in an early epic poem. Acmon's name is Proto-Indo-European in origin, and several etymological explanations of his role as Uranus's father are given by ancient authors.

Etymology

In Ancient Greek, the word ákmōn (ἄκμων) means 'anvil' or 'meteoric stone'.[1] It derives from the Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ-mon- ('stone, heaven'), and is cognate with the Sanskrit áśman-, Avestan asman-, Old Persian asman-, and Lithuanian akmuō.[2] An ancient derivation of ákmōn from akámatos (ἀκάματος, 'unwearying') is mentioned by the 12th-century AD Byzantine writer Eustathius, in his commentary on the Iliad: Acmon's place as the father of Uranus is explained by the heavens' propensity to be "unwearying" in their motion.[3] According to the 1st-century AD philosopher Cornutus, "some poets" attribute the genealogy to the heavens' inability to be destroyed or exhausted.[4]

Father of Uranus

Acmon is described by multiple ancient authors as the father of Uranus,[5] the personification of the sky, who in other sources is the offspring of Gaia, Aether, or Nyx;[6] this genealogy places Acmon among the earliest deities.[7] In sources which mention this parentage, no mother is given.[5] The earliest attestation of this genealogy is a fragment of the 7th-century BC poet Alcman, transmitted by Eustathius.[8] As preserved in fragments, the patronymic Akmonídēs (Ἀκμονίδης, 'son of Acmon') was used by the poet Antimachus (writing in the early 4th century BC), and later by Callimachus, and Simmias of Rhodes, to refer to Uranus.[9] According to a scholium (a marginal note in the manuscript of a text) on the fragment of Simmias, Acmon was the offspring of Gaia and the father of Uranus in a poem by Hesiod;[10] this ascription, however, is erroneous.[11]

Fritz Graf believes that Acmon appeared as Uranus's parent in an early theogony,[12] and Miles Beckwith describes him as "apparently an ancient sky god".[13] According to Robin Hard, his name may initially have been an epiclesis of Uranus (that is, an epithet used in cult).[14] In the Titanomachy, a lost epic poem which dates to the late 7th century BC or afterwards,[15] Uranus's father was Aether, who Victor J. Matthews believes might here have been the same as Acmon.[16] According to Christos Tsagalis, an identification of Acmon and a "fiery" Aether may have been linked to the Idaean Dactyl named Acmon.[17]

While Acmon is usually described as Uranus's father, he is identified by some ancient authors with Uranus himself:[18] one passage of Eustathius's commentary states that Acmon is the name of the father of Cronus (who was usually the son of Uranus), and the lexicon by the 5th- or 6th-century AD grammarian Hesychius gives ouranós (οὐρανός) as one gloss of ákmōn.[19] Hesychius also seems to refer to Acmon as the father of Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, though it is uncertain whether this genealogy appeared in Hesychius's original text, owing to the possibility of textual corruption.[20]

Notes

  1. ^ Beekes, s.v. ἄκμων, p. 52.
  2. ^ Beekes, s.v. ἄκμων, p. 52; Beckwith, pp. 93–94.
  3. ^ Hard, p. 32; Eustathius, on Iliad 18.476 (van der Valk, p. 218).
  4. ^ Edmonds; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae compendium 1.11 (Torres, p. 1).
  5. ^ a b Tsagalis, p. 51.
  6. ^ Grimal, s.v. Uranus, p. 463.
  7. ^ Edmonds.
  8. ^ Davies, p. 14 (genealogy); Matthews, p. 180 (earliest attestation); PMG 61 (Page, p. 53) [= Eustathius, on Iliad 18.476 (van der Valk, p. 218)].
  9. ^ Faber 2012, pp. 419–420 with n. 25; Antimachus, fr. 51 Matthews (p. 178); Callimachus, fr. 498 Pfeiffer (p. 368); Simmias of Rhodes, Wings fr. 24 Powell (p. 116).
  10. ^ Hoefer, para. 1; Scholia on Simmias of Rhodes, Wings 1 (Faber 2017, p. 446). A scholium on another fragment of Callimachus repeats the genealogy that Uranus is Acmon's son (Faber 2017, p. 446).
  11. ^ Whitman, p. 40; Faber 2017, p. 445. Gantz, p. 12 writes that the attribution to Hesiod is "probably a mistake based on manuscript corruption".
  12. ^ Graf, para. 1. Similarly, Whitman, p. 40 writes that Acmon was present in a theogony.
  13. ^ Beckwith, p. 93.
  14. ^ Hard, p. 32. Hard compares this to how Helios sometimes bears the epithet "Hyperion", at times the name of his father.
  15. ^ West, p. 109.
  16. ^ Matthews, p. 180; Titanomachy frr. 1A, 1B Tsagalis (p. 18). For further discussion of this fragment, and how it may relate to Acmon and an early belief that the sky was composed of stone, see Davies, p. 14.
  17. ^ Tsagalis, p. 51. Tsagalis writes that the poet of the Titanomachy may have chosen to place Aether as Uranus's father over Acmon as way of emphasising Uranus's "fiery" aspect.
  18. ^ Matthews, p. 180 with n. 282 on p. 181.
  19. ^ Eustathius, on the Iliad 18.410 (van der Valk, p. 206); Hesychius, s.v. ἄκμων (Cunningham, p. 116). For Cronus as the son of Uranus, see Grimal, s.v. Cronus, p. 115.
  20. ^ Sourvinou-Inwood, p. 308 n. 28; Hesychius, s.v. Ἀκμονίδης (Cunningham, p. 116).

References

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  • Beekes, Robert S. P., Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden, Brill, 2009. ISBN 9789004174184. Internet Archive.
  • Cunningham, Ian C., Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon. Volumen I: A–Δ, Berlin and Boston, De Gruyter, 2018. ISBN 9783110542813. doi:10.1515/9783110547405.
  • Davies, Malcolm, The Greek Epic Cycle, London, Bristol Classical Press, 1989. ISBN 1853990396.
  • Edmonds, Radcliffe, "They Might Be Giants: The Attendants of Dionysus in Sin. ar. NF 66", in Discovering Dionysus in the Hexameters of ›Sinai Palimpsest Ar NF 66‹: New Mysteries of the Ancient Orphica?, edited by Radcliffe Edmonds, Anne-France Morand, and Luisina Abrach, Berlin and Boston, De Gruyter, 2026. ISBN 9783111635576.
  • Faber, Riemer A. (2012), "The Ekphrasis in Naevius' Bellum Punicum and Hellenistic Literary Aesthetics", in Hermes, Vol. 140, No. 4, pp. 417–426, 2012. JSTOR 43652905.
  • Faber, Riemer A. (2017), "Ekphrasis, Emasculation, and Epic Tradition in the Thebaid of Antimachus", in The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 138, No. 3, pp. 435–460, 2017. JSTOR 48545429.
  • Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN 080184410X.
  • Graf, Fritz, "Acmon (2)", in Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 1, A – Ari, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, Leiden, Brill, 2002. ISBN 9004122583.
  • Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Malden, Oxford, and Carlton, Blackwell Publishing, 1986. ISBN 0631201025. Internet Archive.
  • Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", London and New York, Routledge, 2004. ISBN 020344633X. doi:10.4324/9780203446331.
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