The Argonauts on Mount Dindymon: Myth, History, and Politics in Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica

What is it about?

In this article, I try to show how a well-known mythical Greek story could be reworked by a Greek-speaking poet of the 3rd century B.C. involving sensitive themes for the culture of his time. In particular, I deal with the foundation of the cult of the goddess Cybele on Mount Dindymon in Anatolia (modern Turkey) by the Greek heroes known as Argonauts, as narrated by Apollonius of Rhodes in the first book of his epic poem, the Argonautica. My thesis is that the differences between the traditional myth on the one hand and the poet's reworking of it on the other are due to the desire to include a new and crucial theme for Apollonius' audience,, namely the presence of the god Dionysus as the tutelary deity of the Greek ruling house of Egypt, the Ptolemies. In this way, a mythological story apparently distant in time shows all its topicality and reveals the importance of knowledge of the past for understanding and shaping contemporary reality.

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Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This work follows the prevailing contemporary trend of interpreting Hellenistic literary texts not as creations divorced from their historical and political context, but as texts that address important themes for the culture of the time. In particular, reading this article will provide a better understanding of how themes concerning religion and politics could be discussed in Antiquity. In this way, literary dynamics can be explored that are also of great importance for understanding a cosmopolitan and complex civilisation such as the Hellenistic one, which shows many points of contact with our own.

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