#apemosyne

[deathlessathanasia]

The myth of Apemosyne seems awfully cruel, even compared to other cases of sexual misconduct in the Bibliotheca. Unlike other cases of gods raping mortal women, the princess didn't even bear a hero to Hermes, since she was beaten to death by her own brother soon afterwards. Is this another case of different set of values regarding godly rape, or is this myth supposed to be an intentionally bleak counter-example of how male relatives should react to violence against their family?

I'm really not sure. It is interesting because Althaemenes comes across as a rather noble figure, especially in the account of Diodoros of Sicily (59.1-4): he leaves his home out of concern for his father, founds a temple, is held in high regard by the inhabitants of Rhodes, dies of grief after accidentally killing his father and later is honoured as a hero because of an oracle.

The account from the Library of Apollodoros also has some of these details, but complicates Althaemenes by mentioning his treatment of his sister. Given how unambiguous the sexual assault is and the fact that Apemosyne is killed without the god intervening in any way makes it unlikely to me that Hermes' conduct would have been considered anything but negative. As for the way the brother reacted, it seems very harsh even if his sister had engaged in sex out of marriage of her own accord, but Aeschines (Against Timarchus 182) brings up a legend in which a young woman is locked up in a house together with a horse that is meant to end up killing her by her father as punishment for having a lover before marriage. The punishment is not presented as a bad thing, but as a demonstration of the intolerance of shameful conduct among the Athenians. Immediately after this he describes a law of Solon according to which women guilty of moicheia were not allowed to adorn themselves or attend public sacrifices; if caught doing so, any man was permitted to humiliate and even physically abuse them, short of murder or maiming.

So I don't know. It might have been considered tragic that Althaemenes killed his sister for a crime she didn't actually commit. What we can say is that he suffers no consequences for that act. He just ends up fulfilling the prophecy he was trying to avoid, similar to other figures and unrelated to his prior actions.

[sarafangirlart]

Did Kaos even explain why the three humans “destined to destroy Zeus/the Gods” are specifically Eurydice, Caeneus and Ariadne? Because if they really wanted a “we hate the gods” story shouldn’t the chosen three be. severely wronged or abandoned by the gods / the fates?

Like Oedipus? Lamia? Cassandra? Daphne? Arachne? Callisto? Hell I’d even watch a smackdown of Clytemnestra vs Artemis or Menelaus and Helen vs Aphrodite any time then watch a whole other boring show following the same bad story tropes.

They don’t really explain it no, but I was so eager for it to be over I likely missed it, this show seems surprising hesitant to show the more gruesome side of mythology, if they adapted the story that Caeneus was raped by Poseidon and they show how angry and miserable he is about it I would’ve totally been on board, tho someone mentioned that considering the current social environment is especially hostile towards trans ppl nowadays, having someone transition after assault could be bad “pr” so to speak, tho I don’t think we should bend a knee to transphobes/terfs and make representation that’s more palatable and presentable, human experience is messy and we shouldn’t shy away from that in an attempt to make bigots less hostile towards minorities bc they will always be hostile.

If they show Eurydice being angry about Aristaeus not facing any consequences for trying to assault her I’d understand that too mythology Eurydice has zero beef with Hera, but she could feel resentment towards Aristaeus and by extension Apollo (since he’d likely defend his son), gods rarely face consequences for assaulting mortals, Euripides’s Ion tackles that subject way better than all of these “Gods bad” modern retelling (tho I wish Creusa didn’t forgive Apollo bc that mf didn’t even have the balls to show his face).

Instead of Ariadne, who usually gets a happy ending and becomes a goddess herself, how about going with Apemosyne? Another Cretan princess. Her story is extremely depressing, she’s screwed over by a god and her own family, considering that half the show takes place in the underworld she’d fit right in. Considering she’ll be “coworkers” with Hermes it would especially suck for her. But considering that Dionysus is made to be one of the “good ones” even tho in mythology he brainwashed women into slaughtering their families, they’d probably portray Hermes as such too, since he’s usually simply the comic relief in adaptations anyway.

That’s another thing, they water down the gods who are supposed to be good guys and make the “bad guy” worse, in this version Hades never kidnapped Persephone that’s just propaganda in universe. The Fates and Furies are goddesses but in this show they’re against the gods bc of that meander water thing? Don’t they drink it too?

I think they realized that their hesitancy means that they won’t be showing us bad things the gods actually did and so they make up random bullshit like Hera owning tongueless priestesses and Zeus killing a kitten. Cassandra is in the show but she’s more of an exposition machine tho it’s hinted she’ll play a bigger role in season 2, but why couldn’t she be one of the three humans destined to destroy Zeus? Why aren’t any of the Trojans destined to destroy Zeus? Why do they have to be saved by Greeks? Sure Zeus in mythology had a soft spot for them but he still planned the destruction of their city (could be a decent metaphor for an abuser who says that they love their victim while still abusing them imo) but Kaos Zeus doesn’t have that goodwill towards the Trojans so why not have them rightfully take him down? In the final episode Andromache and Ariadne team up and agree to fight against Olympus, tho that reminds me of Acrisius in the Clash of the Titans remake being more of a dumb dumb than he is in the myths and started a war against Mount Olympus only to unsurprisingly fail.

I really dislike how the Trojans are portrayed in the show, clearly they are supposed to be allegory for modern middle eastern refugees in Europe yet all the main Trojan characters are played by white actors. They have such a racially diverse cast but they seem uninterested in actually representing the diversity of the Mediterranean and mythology as a whole.

[hermesmoly]

Your least favourite myth about Hermes?

Hmmm good question anon.

As a Hermes fan I take all of his myths with stride, but if I have to choose myths about him that I don’t like or do not prefer:

It would be the Apemosyne and Crocus myths, for very different reasons. Apemosyne because Hermes Did That (poor girl) and he is painted in a very negative light, and the Crocus myth is just a copy paste of the Apollo Hyacinthus myth 😭 no unrequited love like Zephyrus but the dead boyfriend killed by a discus and becoming a flower is just too on the nose for me

[lesbodysseus]

Do you have some thoughts (or hc) about Apemosyne?

APEMOSYNE DAUGHTER OF CATREUS MENTION hi yes I love the children of Catreus

Random hcs: Apemosyne was always very close to Althaemenes, they were always each other's favourite sibling growing up, they'd constantly play with each other when they were kids, they were always together and they never kept secrets from each other. and that's why I like to think Althaemenes took her with him when he left and Apemosyne trusted him to tell him about what Hermes did to her, only for him to accuse her of lying about being raped and beat her to death when she thought he'd comfort her.

Apemosyne loved hanging around Pasiphaë a lot when she was a kid she was her grandma's little precious baby girl, I don't see Apemosyne as being very close with her father but I do like the idea of her being close with her grandma.

Apemosyne is very athletic and sporty she'd often beg Althaemenes to let her train with him he'd refuse at first because "she's a girl and she shouldn't be participating in sports" but then would eventually give in and relent and let her train with him, she's an insanely fast runner too.

Apemosyne and Aerope would often fight over the most random things idk why I can just see them doing that they are peak sisterisms, their arguments would always start with Aerope rage baiting Apemosyne and Apemosyne falling for the rage bait, and they're like 8 years apart too so it just looks embarrassing for Apemosyne because then you'd have 15 year old Apemosyne beefing with a 7 year old Aerope and Clymene would ALWAYS be the one having to break up their fights and be the peacemaker cause Althaemenes found it too hilarious to do anything about it.

Apemosyne is the second eldest out of Catreus' children, to me Althaemenes is the eldest, then Apemosyne, then Clymene, then Aerope as the youngest.

[theycallmepspshh]

Greek Gods playing tag game: a compilation

Zeus & Aegina; Zeus & Ganymedes

Poseidon & Asteria; Poseidon & Amymone

Poseidon and Amphitrite

Hermes & Tanagra, Poseidon & Salamis

Hermes & Apemosyne; Hermes & Herse

Eos & Cephalus; Eos & Tithonus

Apollo & Daphne

Pan & some random youth

Boreas & Oreithyia

Zephyrus & Hyacinthus

[sarafangirlart]

So Caeneus should’ve been Leucippus of Crete

Eurydice should’ve been Hermione of Sparta

Ariadne should’ve been Apemosyne

Dionysus should’ve been Angelos

Damn I’m finding new reasons to be annoyed with this show.

[sarafangirlart]

Apemosyne would decide that you are a monster Hermes 😐

[sarafangirlart]

Can we talk about how Apemosyne,a literally mortal, outran a god? And not just any god but Hermes who’s known to be really fast. Like ppl only talk about this myth to talk about how shitty Hermes can be but we seem to brush off the fact that Apemosyne outran him???