Saturday, December 11, 2010

Myths and Legends: Diomedes and Glaucus

Diomedes and Glaucus. To find out more about the exchange of Diomedes and Glaucus, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

Notes: The exchange between Diomedes and Glaucus, an episode from Book 6 of Homer's Iliad which you can read about here in Wikipedia (and also in the article about Glaucus). The exchange is famously unfair: the two warriors swapped armor, but Diomedes gave Glaucus armor made of bronze, while Glaucus gave Diomedes armor made of gold. Blame it on Zeus! That's what Homer does anyway, when he tells us that it was Zeus who made Glaucus lose his wits and agree to such an unequal exchange. The figure on the right in the funny-looking clothes is Glaucus; he was a Lycian, an ally of the Trojans. Diomedes is on the left. You can read Homer's Iliad online in English here at the Internet Classics Archive.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of December 11-17 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.