ВОЙНАТА КАТО НЕСЛУЧИЛА СЕ СВАТБА: ВЪОРЪЖЕНАТА КОЛИЗИЯ КАТО НЕУСПЕШНО РОДНИНСКО СВЪРЗВАНЕ В АНТИЧНАТА МИТОГРАФСКА ТРАДИЦИЯ
WAR AS AN UNFULFILLED MARRIAGE: THE MARTIAL CONFLICT AS AN UNSUCCESSFUL FAMILY BONDING IN ANCIENT MYTHOGRAPHIC TRADITION

Summary/Abstract: The mythological treatment of wars usually presents them as a personal conflict between two or more warriors. Even the most conspicuous war campaign of the distant past – the Trojan war – is thought of as a family issue, reaching unexpectedly large dimensions. The mythological narratives regarding war use a stock motives and often share a common structure. One particular motif is the love of a local maiden which leads to betrayal of her family home, city or of the whole country. The first part of the analysis focuses on the most representative among such stories: the myth of princess Ariadna and her beloved Theseus. 262 Deprived of its mythological elements this story appears to reflect the collision between the Cretan royal court, i.e. between the Minoans and the continental Greeks, personalized by the figure of the young Athenian ephebe. The famous monster Minotaur basically: 1. Is the son of the queen and the bull – the sacred animal of the Minoans, probably the zoomorphic code of the king himself. 2. Has the name of the king as part of its name. 3. Lives in the so called Labyrinth. Despite its contemporary meaning, the word etymologically means “a place where the labrys is kept”. The Minoan labrys is a sacred tool often represented graphically and in sculpture, hence is a symbol of the royal court, too. That makes the Labyrinth of the myth nothing more than the royal palace. Being a descendant of the queen, bearing the name of the king and living in the royal palace makes the monster Minotaur the actual Cretan prince. The whole monster-themed myth based itself on the later miscomprehension of the sacred tools and, probably, myths surrounding the royal rituals on the island. The second part of the analysis is dedicated to rather unknown stories of unfulfilled marriage between a Greek hero and a foreign maiden/princess. The stories are to be found mostly in Hellenistic mythographers or in the works of their Roman successors: Nikander (i.e. Antoninus Liberalis), Parthenius, Ps.-Apollodorus, Hygin, etc.

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