37 Other gods of horse and chariot, such as Poseidon, Helios, and Phaeton are also associated with the area of our interest. The god Poseidon is associated with eastern Asia Minor and the Caucasus by name and by attributes. Greek mythologists regard Poseidon as a foreign god whose name does not explain easily in Greek. Caucasiologists such as Mikeladze and Allen derive the root of the name Poseidon from pse ( "water" in Georgian and Circassian, Allen, "Ex Ponto V", p. 87; Mikeladze further connects Poseidon with the fish-shaped stone stelae (vishaps) found in south Caucasia); see also J. Karst, Mythologie, pp. 168-72. According to Homer and Hesiod, Poseidon was a god of earthquakes, the sea and horses. By striking his trident on a rock, Poseidon created the first horse; he gave to Pelops a flying chariot drawn by the immortal horses Balios and Xanthos; he himself was the father of two horses: the winged horse Pegasus, and the fabulously swift Arion, Heracles' mount [M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 33, 44, 75, 79, 101,105, 117n72; Handbook p. 101; W. Fox, "Greek and Roman Mythology" in Mythology of All Races (New York, 1964; repr. of 1916 ed.) vol. 1, p. 213]. He was a friend of the Centaurs, creatures with the body and legs of a horse and the torso, head, and arms of a man. Poseidon is also related to a number of mythical figures connected to eastern Asia Minor and the Caucasus. For example, he was the father of the ram with the Golden Fleece (Handbook, p. 494). The Cyclops, Polyphemus, was his son, as was Orion the hunter and the Argonauts Butes, Euphemus, Ancaeus and Erginus. Poseidon was also associated with Pasiphae, sister of Aeetes and Circe.

In Prometheus Bound Prometheus is credited with being the first to yoke horses to a chariot. Poseidon, too, as god of horses, is portrayed as riding his chariot through the waves, and giving chariots as gifts. There are, however, two other deities closely associated with the chariot, Helios (the Sun) and his son, Phaeton. Both of them also have other ties with eastern Asia Minor. Helios was conceived of as driving his four-horse chariot through the sky from his magical palace in the East to the West each day (Handbook, p. 268). As the father of Aeetes, Circe and Pasiphae, Helios sometimes took them along in his chariot. He also lent a chariot, drawn by winged dragons, to his granddaughter, Medea, Aeetes' daughter, which she used in her travels in Greece.

Phaeton was Helios' son by a goddess, Clymene, mother of Prometheus and Atlas. To learn the truth about his heritage, Phaeton traveled to Helios' palace in the East, and convinced his reluctant father to let him drive the sun-chariot for one day. Phaeton's sisters, the Heliades, yoked the horses, and the unskilled young god set out. But he was unable to control the horses, who jumped up (creating the Milky Way), then charged so close to the earth that the planet was almost consumed in flames. Seeing the danger, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at Phaeton, killing him. In their grief, his sisters turned into poplars weeping amber by the banks of the river in which Phaeton's flaming body fell. The image of Helios and his son Phaeton was adopted by Apollonius of Rhodes in his description of Aeetes and his son, Apsyrtus. Apollonius actually uses Phaeton ("Shining One") as an epithet for Absyrtus:

"At daybreak too, Aeetes put on his breast the stiff cuirass which Ares had given him after slaying Mimas with his own hands in the field of Phlegra; and on his head he set his golden helmet with its four plates, bright as the Sun's round face when he rises fresh from Ocean Stream...Phaeton was close at hand, holding his father's swift horses and well-built chariot in readiness." (Argo, III.1225-45, p. 141-42).

38 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, M. Griffith, ed. (Cambridge, 1983), lines 435-505; M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 37, 66, 126 n.38.

39 Hesiod, Theogony, 508-70, pp. 18-20.

40 Handbook, pp. 499-501. Prometheus' son, Deucalion, also has ties to eastern Asia Minor. Warned by his father about Zeus' plan to detroy humanity in a flood, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrah (a daughter of Pandora) board a boat full of provisions. They float on the water for nine days before landing on a mountain. Deucalion and Pyrrah then repeople the land by throwing stones behind them, over their shoulders. Men sprang up from the stones Deucalion threw, women, from Pyrrha's stones. The motif of rock-born beings is known from Hurrian and Indo-Iranian myths (see in text ). Deucalion's grandson set out from this land to occupy Greece, which was his allotted portion. M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 65, 87, p. 127 n.40; Pindar, Olympia 9.44-46; Apollodorus 1.7. 1-2; Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.318-415; Handbook, p. 199; Dalley, Myths, pp. 7-8.

41 Prometheus Bound, lines 300-308; see Griffith's commentary, ibid. pp. 160-61, 170-71, 173-74, 176, 213-14, 217-18, 228, 230-31.

42 Griffith, pp. 14-15. In Athens, both gods shared an altar in the Academy, Griffith, p. 85.

43 Homer, Iliad 1.571-608, pp. 63-64, 18.368-617, pp. 318-23, 20.73-74, p. 335, 21.328-382, pp. 353-54; Odyssey, 8.266-366, pp. 93-95; Hesiod, Theogony, 570-572,p. 20, 927-929 p. 30, 945-946, p.31; Argo, Book I.202-205, p. 41, I.850-860, p. 59.

44 Hesiod,Theogony, 570-612, pp. 20-21; Works and Days, 47-105, pp. 38-40; M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 2, 7-8, 13-14, 59-62, 78, 83, 95, 106, 111 n.12,117n.76,126n.38.

45 Pindar, Pythia 1. 15-60 pp. 46-48.

46 Hesiod, Theogony, 853-69, p. 28; Iliad, II.781-83, pp. 81-82.

47 West, Theogony, p. 67 n. 304; S. T. Eremyan, "Hayeri tseghayin miut'yune Arme-Shupria erkrum [Tribal Union of the Armenians in the land of Arme-Shupria"], Patma-banasirakan handes 3(1958) pp. 59-72. Eremyan suggested that the Arimi were the Urumi mentioned along with the Mushki and Apeshlai in the Assyrian annals, but see I. M. Diakonoff, The Pre-history of the Armenian People (Delmar, N.Y., 1984) pp. 120-21 and the same author's Phyrgian (Delmar, N.Y., 1985) pp. xi, xvii n. 9.

48 West, Theogony, p. 70 n. 860.

49 While there are conflicting traditions about the Cyclopes, they appear to have been originally outside the Olympian tradition, and only later integrated into it. They were Titans, occasionally imprisoned in Tartarus, but finally released by Zeus. They became the smiths of Zeus, constructing his thunderbolts. They also made Poseidon's trident and Hades' cap of invisibility. In Homer's Odyssey, Book IX.116-566, pp. 102-111, the Cyclopes are depicted as pastoralists living in caves on an island later equated with Sicily. Later tradition makes the Cyclopes Hephaestus' craftsmen. T'ork', a god known among the Armenians, has important parallels to the Cyclops Polyphemus, see M. Ananikian," Armenian Mythology" in Mythology of All Races, vol. 7 (New York, 1964, repr. of 1925 ed.) pp. 85-86, 98-100; N. Adontz, "Tarkhou chez les anciens armeniens", Revue des etudes armeniennes 7(1927) pp. 185-94; Toumanoff, Studies, pp. 299-303. Hephaestus was associated with Mihr (Mithra) by later Armenian tradition, Ananikian, p. 33. On Prometheus-like figures among the Georgians and Armenians see Ananikian, pp. 42-46, and the Georgian references in note 4 above. Allen, "Ex Ponto V", p. 86 suggested a connection, possibly etymological, between Hephaestus and the Circassian god of metallurgy, Tleps, known from the Sinope and Trebizond area.

50 Hesiod, Theogony, 295-332, p.12.

51 R. D. Barnett, "Ancient Oriental Influences on Archaic Greece", in The Aegean and the Near East, Saul S. Weinberg, ed. (Locust Valley, N.Y.,1956) p. 231. The mythical griffin, a favorite with Urartian metalworkers, may have influenced stories of the Arimaspi, a one-eyed people who fought with griffins for possession of the gold in their neighborhood, Herodotus 3.116, 4.13, 4.27.

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