Category Archives: Harmony
Homonoia
Alternate Spelling: Ὁμόνοια
Simply put, in Greek myth and religion, Homonoia is a minor goddess of concord, unanimity and like-mindedness.
As a concept, Homonoia is the term used by the Ancient Greeks to create unity in their politics to govern themselves.
Parentage And Family
Parents
Father – Soter, a savior daimon.
Mother – Praxidike, the goddess of judicial punishment and vengeance.
Alternatively, the mythical king Ogygos and a goddess by the name of Thebes are sometimes placed as Homonoia’s parents.
Siblings
Arete – Goddess of Personifying Virtue
Ktesios – A minor God of the Household.
Praxidikai
Both Arete and Homonoia together are referred to as Praxidikai after their mother.
Basically, with their mother, they formed a trio of goddess or daimones responsible for extracting justice, which actually sounds a lot like the Erinyes, but not quite. The Erinyes went for retribution and vengeance whereas the Praxidikai, go for the straight up justice that’s coming and being meted out.
Sometimes, the Praxidikai will be mentioned as the divine daughters of Ogygos, a primeval king and Titan who rules the land of Boeotia where the city of Thebes would later be founded. Ogygos would be married to a goddess known as Thebes.
You Called Her A Daimon!
Yes, as in the Greek term and meaning for the word spirit. It is Christianity that takes and twists the word and meaning to Demon, for an evil spirit or being.
Among the ancient Greeks, the word daimon means spirit or “replete with knowledge.” They recognized both good (eudemons) and bad (cacodemons). The word or term daimon also means “divine power,” “fate,” or “god.” And in Greek mythology, daimons could also include deified heroes. This seems to be the case for Homonoia if she was seen more as a concept personified and not really a goddess in her own right.
Daimons functioned as messengers or intermediary spirits between men and gods. The good daimons were viewed as guardian spirits who gave guidance and protection to those they watched over. The bad daimons, naturally, weren’t so nice and could mislead people, getting them into trouble.
Grecian Politics
Homonoia’s role for unity and concord were used by the Greeks with how they shaped the politics of Classical Greece. It really came into wide usage under Alexander the Great’s rule when he adopted these principles for ruling his Empire.
For the Greeks, the principles of Homonoia meant no factional or infighting amongst themselves. Outside cultures were viewed as barbarians or savages.
Aristotle had told his young student Alexander the Great to treat Greeks as friends and non-Greeks as animals.
The scholar Isocrates is the first one to try taking this concept beyond the Greek people. While Isocrates didn’t believe that savages could ever be equal with Greeks, he did believe that such savages could be made to adopt Greek ideals and thus be on par with them.
I.e. You are not ever going to be Greek, but you can learn how to think like a Greek and adopt Greek culture and ideals.
Isocrates believed that being Grecian was a matter of nurture versus nature. During his time in the court of Philip II of Macedon, Isocrates found a receptive audience to teach his ideas and concepts to.
However, being Macedonian, Philip II viewed Isocrates’ ideas as being something reserved only for the Greeks, no matter how much he liked the ideas. Philip II did use the ideas and concepts for creating the Corinthian League, an alliance that proved useful to unite the Greek States against the Persian Empire.
After Philip II was assassinated, his son, Alexander the Great would become the next King of Macedonia and utilize the concepts of Homonoia. While yeah, Aristotle was a young Alexander’s tutor and told him to treat non-Greeks as animals, Alexander would ignore these teachings and instead, for the most part, treat people of other cultures as people.
By adopting Isocrates’ expanded ideals and concepts of Homonoia, Alexander the Great was able to successfully rule his Empire, that at the time, covered most of the known world (as the Greeks knew it).
The ideas of Homonoia allowed Alexander to rule over the Greeks, Egyptians, and Persians. He would adopt various customs and cultures from those conquered such as the Persian dress and courtly etiquette like proskynesis which is the kissing of the hand or prostrating oneself on the ground before superiors. Alexander the Great would also have his Grecian officers take Persian wives to further unite differing cultures.
Ultimately, Alexander wanted to create a new Greco-Oriental Empire instead of one where the ruling class would be the conquerors over the subjugated. After Alexander’s death, many of his reforms continued on.
Kissing the hand and prostrating on the ground? Not just the medieval era.
Roman Politics
Now, for those familiar with the Romans, they were very good with adopting many aspects of Grecian culture, not just their mythologies and deities. Romans also used the concepts of Homonoia. Though this is recognized more as Pax Romana to unite the various regions and territories for peace and stability.
The Social Contract
The Romans and Greeks went for trying to make their system of Homonia or Pax Romana a caste system or hierarchy to it where everyone knew their place. Break that social contract and down comes Homonia in her role as a Praxidikai to mete out justice.
If we are to translate the concept of Homonoia to modern times, this would be the Social Contract. The social agreements we have with each other in society and civilization. Humans are natural pack or herd animals; we are prone to gathering in groups and working together. With these groups, come social norms and rules, whether spoken or unspoken of how we interact with and treat each other. Rules and norms that are generally agreed upon by the whole with taking care of everyone. The larger a group gets, the hard it can be to get the whole in agreement and there end up being lots of sub groups, further making it harder for everyone to connect and realize that at the end of the day, if we want a functioning society, we need to work together.
With the modern theory of Social Contract, as introduced by the likes of Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf and John Locke, it proposes that everyone is equal and has fundamental freedoms. Keeping it to an extreme nutshell, one person’s freedom ends where another’s begins. No person has a right to force or exercise power over others unless it is agreed upon to keep government functioning and working for people. Yes, this is noted as a liberal political theory for determining moral and political rules of behavior.
Harmonia – Greek Goddess
Harmonia is a more familiar goddess of harmony, concord, notably marital harmony. As the concept ideas of harmony have changed for what both Harmonia and Homonoia mean, the two have become nearly identical in purpose.
Furthering this connection, Homonoia’s father is sometimes given to be Ogygos, a mythical King of Boeotia and married to a goddess by the name of Thebes who would have the city that Cadmus founded, named for her.
Concordia – Roman Goddess
The Roman goddess of Harmony and Unity who is often equated with Harmonia and Homonoia.
Polar Twins
Just like Harmonia, Homonoia’s polar opposite is Eris; who is often cited as the goddess of chaos with her Roman counterpart being Discordia.
Harmonia
Pronunciation: Har-mo-nia
Alternate Spelling: Ἁρμονια
Etymology: Harmony
Harmonia is best known in Greek mythology as the wife to the culture hero Cadmus. She is a minor goddess herself of harmony and the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.
Surprisingly, there is one other figure in mythology, a nymph by the same name who also had an affair with Ares.
Parentage and Family
Parents
Father – Ares, the Greek god of War
Mother – Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Love
Alternatively, if we are using the Samothracian connection, Harmonia’s parents are Zeus and Electra.
Siblings
Iasion – Harmonia’s brother through the Samothracian connection, he is the founder of the mystical rites native to this island.
Anteros – A brother through Ares and Aphrodite.
Deimos – A brother through Ares and Aphrodite.
Eros – A brother through Ares and Aphrodite.
Hedylogos – A half-brother.
Hermaphroditus – A half-brother.
Himeros – A brother through Ares and Aphrodite.
Phobos – A brother through Ares and Aphrodite.
Pothos – A half-brother
This is the list as far as siblings whose parentage are Aphrodite and Ares go or whom Harmonia is a half-sister to with her mother.
The list gets much longer if I try to include all those whom Ares is to have fathered and with whom Harmonia would be a half-sister to.
Sister-In-Law
Psyche – Through her marriage with Eros.
Consort
Cadmus – The culture hero who founded the city of Thebes.
Children
Agave – Daughter, with her sisters Autonoe and Ino, she unknowingly killed her son Pentheus. She marries first the Spartoi Echion and then later King Lycotherses of Illyria whom she also murders in order to hand over the kingdom to her father.
Autonoe – Daughter, her son, Actaeon was killed by his hounds.
Illyrius – Youngest son and child born, from whom the Illyrians are descended.
Ino – Daughter, was driven mad by Hera leapt to her death to the sea with her only surviving son. Instead of dying, Ino becomes a sea goddess.
Polydorus – Eldest son, inherits the throne in Thebes, carrying on the family dynasty.
Semele – Daughter, she is killed later by Hera after a liaison with Zeus. In some stories, she is the mother of Dionysus. The controversy will say that Semele was raped from an unknown assailant and the blame is placed on Zeus in an effort to try keeping some dignity
Cults & Worship
As a minor goddess, Harmonia is the local goddess of Thebes. In Pausanias’ Description of Greece, he notes that there are the ruins of the bridal chamber that belonged to Harmonia. Also, there are three wooden statues of Aphrodite that are reputed to be so old that they may have been votive offerings to Harmonia. Pausanias goes on to explain that these statues may have once been the figureheads for the ships that Cadmus sailed in during his time of wandering while searching for his sister Europa.
These three statues also had names as follows:
Ourania – Urania or Heavenly, a name that Harmonia is to have given Aphrodite to represent a pure love free of lust.
Pandemos – Common or sexual intercourse.
Apostrophia – For humans to rejects unlawful passions and sinful acts.
Wedding Bells – The First Marriage
Harmonia typically enters Greek myths within the greater whole of Cadmus’ story where she is given away in marriage to the erstwhile hero.
Now, there are two versions of Harmonia and Cadmus’ marriage. The first happens as the final chapter of Cadmus’ Founding of Thebes.
Originally, Cadmus, along with his brothers have been sent out by their father, King Agenor of Tyre to find and bring home their sister Europa who has been seduced by Zeus and carried away to the island of Crete.
As Cadmus and none of his brothers knew where to search, each eventually gave up their searches and would go on to settle in other places. After Cadmus’ mother Telephassa died of grief, he consults with the Oracle of Delphi. The oracle tells him to follow a cow and that wherever this bovine settles down at, Cadmus is to build a town.
That sounds easy enough and the cow eventually lays down of exhaustion. With plans to make an offering to Athena, Cadmus sends his companions Deileon and Seriphus to get some water from the Ismenian spring. While the two were there, the guardian of the spring, a water-dragon belonging to Ares rose up and slew both Deileon and Seriphus.
There’s an entire episode of Cadmus coming to slay the dragon to avenge his friends, the birth of the Spartoi who will become some of the founding members of Thebes and of course, Ares the god whom the dragon belonged too not being very happy.
As punishment, Cadmus is to serve Ares for an everlasting year, meaning eight years. At the end of this period, to signify peace and an end to the grievances, Ares gives his daughter Harmonia to the repentant hero in marriage.
Wedding Bells – The Samothracian Connection
The island of Samothrace is one of the places that Cadmus, his mother, and nephew are said to have stopped at in their search for a missing Europa.
Samothrace is one of two locations where Cadmus and Harmonia are wed when Zeus and Electra are placed as Harmonia’s parents. The connection seems to stick a little better when Harmonia is given a brother Iasion who is the founder of the mystical rites native to this island.
A quick note, in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, when Aphrodite and Ares had their affair that resulted in the birth of Harmonia, this source has Aphrodite giving up the baby to Electra to be raised.
I mentioned when writing about Cadmus, how he’s a descendant of Poseidon and that his story very likely dates back to the Mycenaean Greek era. Zeus’ insertion to the story of Cadmus and Harmonia comes about as a potential theological take over to push Zeus to prominence as the head of the Greek pantheon, thus replacing Poseidon. Plus, there is a lot of equating local gods (whose names often survive as epitaphs) with the main Grecian deities.
Marriage Symbolism
I think it’s safe to say that the marriage of Cadmus with Harmonia is very symbolic too. For the longest time, marriages were how alliances between different houses and kingdoms were formed.
Then the idea that a hero or king weds the goddess of the land to symbolize the prosperity of the land. This would fit with mistaking Cadmus’ name with a local Samothracian fertility god, Kadmilus.
Plus, the changes of when Zeus becomes the head of the Greek pantheon, replacing Poseidon of whom Cadmus is descendant from. There may have been an idea to show an easier transition of power. Or not.
The ideas and seeds are there that this is may be what the ancient Greeks revising all these local myths into one were thinking of.
Bridal Gifts With A Curse
This marriage is a huge deal, it is the first one to be conducted on earth and all the gods, any god who is anyone, is coming. This is a thing not to be missed. All of these guests bring gifts, the muses sing, Athena brings a dress and Hephaestus brings a necklace.
Some of Harmonia’s bridal gifts were a peplos (a type of dress) gifted by Athena and a necklace made by Hephaestus. This necklace will become known as the Necklace of Harmonia and it would bring misfortune to anyone who had possession of it. Sure, the necklace will make any woman who wears it eternally young and beautiful.
Necklace of Harmonia – It is generally described as being made of gold with two snakes intertwining and jewels decorating it.
Following a timeline for after Cadmus’ eight years of servitude to Ares and then marrying Harmonia with both Ares and Aphrodite as her parents seems far more likely the correct lineage. It would explain too, so much better why Hephaestus would gift Harmonia a cursed necklace.
Knowing the backstory between Hephaestus, Aphrodite and Ares, the cursed necklace that is given to Harmonia makes more sense. Hephaestus was angry at Aphrodite for her affair with Ares and yes, he makes the necklace a means to punish Aphrodite’s infidelity by placing a curse on the child that resulted from hers and Ares’ affair.
Thus, all the misfortunes that Cadmus and Harmonia suffer are from the necklace, not slaying the dragon. After all, Cadmus had already paid penance to Ares and then is rewarded his daughter for marriage. It’s even in Harmonia’s name, harmony, there was to be an end to the strife and conflicts.
Gift-Giver Variations – Slight variations of who Harmonia received the necklace from are the gods in general, her mother Aphrodite, Hera and Europa herself. Given that Europa is missing, it seems unusual that she would show up here as she was the whole reason in the first place that Cadmus went wandering.
Another variation that that all of Harmonia’s godly powers for peace stem from the necklace and that it’s a robe “dripped in crime” given to her either by Athena or by Hephaestus and Hera that caused all of the misfortunes that Cadmus and Harmony would face.
I think the necklace is more likely cursed given there’s a lineage and history of who receives the necklace and the misfortunes that befall each of them before the necklace just vanishes from history.
Generational Curse – Well, only in as far as Harmonia’s necklace kept getting passed on from one descendant to the next or when it changes hands to a different owner.
After Hamornia and Cadmus’ misfortune, Polynices inherits the necklace and gives it to Eriphyle. The necklace than changes hands to Eriphyle’s son Alcmaeon and on to Arsinoe (or Alphesiboea) and to their sons Phegeus, Pronous and Agenor, and lastly into those of the sons of Alcmaeon, Amphoterus and Acarnan who dedicated a temple to Athena at Delphi.
When the necklace got stolen by Phayllus, he gave it to his mistress, the wife of Ariston. She wore it for a while only to see her youngest son, became seized by madness and set fire to the house. It’s here that the necklace gets lost to history or myth as there’s no further mention of it.
Every possessor and owner of the necklace saw mischief and mishaps of one kind, or another befall them.
Maybe it means peace doesn’t last and you have to work at it, or it could, just no one knew about the curse laid on it. I can assume that someone took it to an Oracle and found out, which is why there is mention of it in the myths at all.
Something Rotten In Thebes
Married and the City of Thebes founded, no matter how divinely ordained this was, peace and harmony wouldn’t last.
Due to the cursed necklace that Harmonia received, she and Cadmus’ family would soon see misfortune befall them and a series of civil unrest. Eventually, Cadmus would abdicate his throne to his grandson, Pentheus.
Cadmus would go with Harmonia to Illyria to fight a war brewing over there as they took the side of the Enchelii. From there, Cadmus would go on and found the city of Lychnidus and Bouthoe.
Draconic Transformation
Despite leaving Thebes and establishing other cities, misfortune continued to plague and follow both Cadmus and Harmonia. It got so bad that Cadmus cried out that all this had to because of his slaying Ares’ dragon, if the gods were so obsessed with its death, why not turn him into one.
At that pronouncement, Cadmus begins to grow scales and to change into a serpent. Horrified by this transition of her husband, Harmonia begged the gods to change her too so she could share in Cadmus’ fate.
A slight variation is a distraught Harmonia strips herself and pleads for Cadmus to come to her. Embracing her serpentine husband, Harmonia sits in a pool of wine. It is out of mercy that the gods turn Harmonia into a snake as they couldn’t bare to see her in such a state.
Variations to this ending are that both Cadmus and Harmonia are changed into snakes when they died. Both snakes watched over their tombs while their souls were sent by Zeus to the Elysian Fields.
Famous Grecian playwright Euripides’ in his The Bacchae, has Cadmus given a prophecy from Dionysus that both he and his wife will be turned into snakes before getting to enjoy an eternity of bliss in the Elysian Fields.
Zeus Versus Typhon
This episode ties back to the Samothracian connection for Cadmus and Harmonia’s wedding.
This version is found in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca where he recounts the story of Zeus battling the monstrous serpentine monster known as Typhon. Zeus asks the hero Cadmus to help him by recovering his lightning bolts by playing his pipes, to play a tune. Zeus promises Cadmus that if he helps, that he will receive the hand of Harmonia in marriage.
The Dionysiaca is written in the 5th century C.E. and reflects there having been plenty of time to have rewritten the myths. This is the only myth to involve Cadmus with Pan, playing the pipes to distract Typhon so this fearsome monster can be defeated.
Earlier versions of this story have where it is Hermes and Aeigipan (Pan) stealing back Zeus’ tendons and there’s no mention of the thunderbolts.
Once again, if we are confusing Cadmus with Kadmilus, the Samothracian deity identified with Hermes. I can see the confusion if you can’t keep it straight.
Goddess Of Harmony
Harmonia is a goddess, even if she ended up being perceived as minor or a local goddess of the city state Cadmeia, later Thebes. Among the Greeks and Romans, she was viewed as the goddess of harmony and concord. This could extend from marital harmony, easing tensions and strife. For the Romans this went further to mean cosmic balance.
Nymph
As I previously mentioned earlier, there is a nymph who also went by the name of Harmonia. These two should not be confused.
According to Apollonius of Rhodes in the Argonautica, this Harmonia is a naiad from the Akmonian Woods and with Ares, she would be the mother of the Amazons.
In the same book, the Argonautica, the Argonauts while on the island of Thynias swore an oath to each other to stand together no matter what. The Argonauts built a temple of Harmonia that marks where they swore their oath.
Homonoia – Greek Goddess
Another minor Greek goddess who is similar to Harmonia in concept. She embodies the concepts of concord, unity and like-mindedness. The ideas of Harmony have changed so much over time, that the two are nearly identical.
Like Harmonia, her opposite goddess is Eris.
Concordia – Roman Goddess
She is very simply the Roman version of Harmonia.
Polar Twins
If Harmonia is the goddess of peace, then there must be a polar opposite. This honor falls to Eris, often cited as the goddess of chaos; with her Roman counterpart being Discordia.
Brickthology 