Classical Wisdom Litterae - October 2021

Litterae/47 Alexander the Great is one of the most famous people that ever lived. He was a remarkable general and he changed the history of the world. Naturally, such a larger-than-life figure inspired many stories, and these morphed into myths over time. One of the most fascinating is the myth about his sister the mermaid. Mermaids in Ancient Greek Mythology From the race of primordial race of giants came the Cyclopes and Oceanus, the god or the embodiment of the Ocean and monstrous figures like Scylla and the three Gorgons. The most famous Gorgon is Medusa. Her two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, were transformed by Athena into sea monsters. In some accounts, they became sea-mermaids. To the ancient Greeks, therefore, mermaids were often demonic sea- beings. They were thought to lure seamen to their death. In many myths, they are associated with the sirens, half-women and half-birds, whose singing lured many sailors to the rocks and death by drowning as in Homer’s Odyssey . The modern world has a favorable conception of mermaids, but in the ancient world they were malign sea figures often blamed for tragedies at sea. It was widely believed that they could cause storms at sea. They were depicted in folk art as a female demon, with a woman’s form from the waist up and a giant fishtail from the waist down. The Myth of the Mermaid Thessaloniki According to a popular Greek legend, there lived a mermaid in the Aegean Sea for centuries by the name of Thessaloniki. She was reputedly the half-sister of Alexander the Great. It was told that Alexander’s father Phillip of Macedon had married the mother of Thessaloniki. Phillip was notorious for his many marriages. According to this popular legend, Alexander went searching for the Fountain of Youth while in Asia and found it. After facing many dangers, he was able to fill a flask with the waters of immortality. Alexander washed his sister’s hair in the precious waters and made her immortal. The great conqueror did not drink the waters and died in Babylon in 323 BC. Thessaloniki was left grief-stricken and never recovered. Heartbroken, she decided to kill herself but after she threw herself into the waters of the Aegean, she was transformed into a mermaid. A tragic figure, Thessaloniki was also dangerous. Whenever she saw a passing ship, she would ask the sailors if Alexander was alive or dead. Their answers could doom them to a A Mermaid, John WilliamWaterhouse, Royal Academy of Arts