Pseudanor

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Pseudanor (Greek: Ψευδάνωρ pseudo- + anēr false man) was a Macedonian epithet,apellation to Dionysus.Other Macedonian appellations to the God were Ἄγριος[1] Agrios wild , Κρυπτός Kryptos hidden and Ἐρίκρυπτος Erikryptos totally hidden.All the above names of Dionysus are attested in four inscriptions from Beroea 248-264 AD[2].

However the history of Pseudanor goes back to 7th century BC.The Macedonian historian Polyaenus(2th c.AD) relates the below Macedonian stratagem:

In the reign of Argaeus, the Illyrian Taulantii under Galaurus invaded Macedonia.Argaeus, whose force was very small, directed the Macedonian virgins (parthenoi), as the enemy advanced, to show themselves from mount Ereboea ( Ἐρέβοια ). They accordingly did so; and in a numerous body they poured down , covered by wreaths, and brandishing their thyrsi instead of spears. Galaurus, intimidated by the numbers of those, whom instead of women he supposed to be men, sounded a retreat; whereupon the Taulantii, throwing away their weapons, and whatever else might retard their escape, abandoned themselves to a precipitate flight. Argaeus, having thus obtained a victory without the hazard of a battle, erected a temple to Dionysus Pseudanor; and ordered the priestesses of the god, who were before called Klοdones Κλώδωνες[3] by the Macedonians, to ever afterwards be distinguished by the title of Mimallones Μιμαλλόνες (imitators of men)[4].

Klodones and Mimallones are also mentioned by Plutarch in his Parallel Lives on Alexander the Great[5].The above myth may have originated or been adapted in Aitia Causes of Callimachus, but points both to Dionysos' ambivalent sexuality and to the manlike qualities of the Maenads, who in Euripides's Bacchae (tragedy written in Macedon) easily defeat the armed men sent against them.


[edit] References

  1. ^ Agrionia also, Boeotian festival to Dionysus
  2. ^ Epigraphical Database [1][2][3][4]
  3. ^ Klothes, κλώθω klotho to spin (spinners)?
  4. ^ Etym. Mag. (587.53)
  5. ^ The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives by Plutarch