ARGOS VS CYCLOPS

ARGOS

Argus Panoptes (All-seeing) (Ancient Greek: Ἄργος Πανόπτης) or Argos (Ancient Greek: Ἄργος) is a many-

eyed giant in Greek mythology. The figure is known for having generated the saying "the eyes of Argus", as in to be
"followed by", "trailed by", "watched by", et cetera, the eyes; the saying is used to describe being subject to strict scrutiny
in one's actions to an invasive, distressing degree. The monstrous entity has been either directly included or indirectly
alluded to in a wide variety of works influenced by Greco-Roman thought over the past several centuries.

Argus Panoptes (Ἄργος Πανόπτης), guardian of the heifer-nymph Io and son of Arestor[1] and probably Mycene,[2] was a

primordial giant whose epithet, "Panoptes", "all-seeing", led to his being described with multiple, often one hundred, eyes.
The epithet Panoptes was applied to the Titan of the Sun, Helios, and was taken up as an epithet by Zeus, Zeus
Panoptes. "In a way," Walter Burkert observes, "the power and order of Argos the city are embodied in Argos
the neatherd, lord of the herd and lord of the land, whose name itself is the name of the land."[3]
The epithet Panoptes, reflecting his mythic role, set by Hera as a very effective watchman of Io, was described in a
fragment of a lost poem Aigimios, attributed to Hesiod:[4]
And set a watcher upon her, great and strong Argus, who with four eyes looks every way. And the goddess stirred in him
unwearying strength: sleep never fell upon his eyes; but he kept sure watch always.

In the 5th century and later, Argus' wakeful alertness was explained for an increasingly literal culture as his having so
many eyes that only a few of the eyes would sleep at a time: there were always eyes still awake. In the 2nd century
AD Pausanias noted at Argos, in the temple of Zeus Larissaios, an archaic image of Zeus with a third eye in the center of
his forehead, allegedly Priam's Zeus Herkeios purloined from Troy.[5]
Argus was Hera's servant. His great service to the Olympian pantheon was to slay the chthonic serpent-legged
monster Echidna as she slept in her cave.[6] Hera's defining task for Argus was to guard the white heifer Io from Zeus, who
was attracted to her, keeping her chained to the sacred olive tree at the Argive Heraion.[7] She charged him to "Tether this
cow safely to an olive-tree at Nemea". Hera knew that the heifer was in reality Io, one of the many nymphs Zeus was
coupling with to establish a new order. To free Io, Zeus had Argus slain by Hermes. The messenger of the Olympian
gods, disguised as a shepherd, first put all of Argus' eyes asleep with spoken charms, then slew him by hitting him with a
stone, the first stain of bloodshed among the new generation of gods.[8]
The sacrifice of Argus liberated Io and allowed her to wander the earth, although tormented by a gadfly sent by Hera, until
she reached the Ionian Sea, named after her, from where she swam to Egypt and gave birth to a love child of Zeus,
according to some versions of the myth.
According to Ovid, to commemorate her faithful watchman, Hera had the hundred eyes of Argus preserved forever, in
a peacock's tail.[9][10]
The myth makes the closest connection of Argus, the neatherd, with the bull. In the Library of pseudo-Apollodorus, "Argos
killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia, then clothed himself in its skin."[11]

CYCLOPS

In Greek mythology, the Cyclopes (/saɪˈkloʊpiːz/ sy-KLOH-peez; Ancient Greek: Κύκλωπες, Kýklōpes, "Circle-eyes" or

"Round-eyes";[1] singular Cyclops /ˈsaɪklɒps/ SY-klops; Κύκλωψ, Kýklōps), were giant one-eyed creatures.[2] Three
groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's Theogony, they are the brothers: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who
provided Zeus with his weapon the thunderbolt. In Homer's Odyssey, they are an uncivillized group of shepherds, the
brethren of Polyphemus encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also famous as the builders of the Cyclopean
walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.
The fifth-century BC playwright Euripides wrote a satyr play entitled Cyclops, about Odysseus' encounter with
Polyphemus. Mentions of the Hesiodic and the wall-builder Cyclopes also figure in his plays. The third-century BC
poet Callimachus makes the Hesiodic Cyclopes the assistants of smith-god Hephaestus. So does Virgil in his Latin
epic Aeneid, where he seems to equate the Hesiodic and Homeric Cyclopes.
From at least the fifth-century BC, Cyclopes have been associated with the island of Sicily, and the volcanic Aeolian
islands.

ANTHROMORPHISM
Anthropomorphism-when animals or non-human characters are given human characteristics. Anthropomorphism is
slightly different from personification, which is describing an object using human characteristics. Anthropomorphism is
actually having the animal or object behave as if it is human.
Examples of Anthropomorphism:
In the Disney film, Beauty and the Beast, the clock (Cogsworth), candlestick (Lumier), and the teapot (Mrs. Pots) all act
and behave as if they are human beings.
In the novel Animal Farm, by George Orwell, the characters are all animals. For example, old Major, a pig, has a dream
where all animals are free from the tyranny of the farmer.
Many classic Disney characters are anthropomorphized:
 Mickey and Minnie Mouse
  Donald and Daisy Duck
 Goofy and Pluto
In the Beatrix Potter tale of Peter Rabbit, Peter lives with his mother and sisters in a "home," he wears clothing, he cries
when he is trapped in Mr. McGregor's garden, and his mother punishes him by not giving him good things to eat for
dinner.
*****Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics, emotions, and behaviors to animals or other non-
human things (including objects, plants, and supernatural beings). Some famous examples of anthropomorphism include
Winnie the Pooh, the Little Engine that Could, and Simba from the movie The Lion King.
Some additional key details about anthropomorphism:
 A character is anthropomorphic if they are not human but behave like a human. 
 Anthropomorphism can occur in many kinds of stories, but it is especially common in folktales, fantasy, and
children's stories. 
 Anthropomorphism is related to, but distinct from personification, in which things are described figuratively (rather
than literally) as having human characteristics. 
 Anything physical can be anthropomorphized. While animals are perhaps the most commonly
anthropomorphized creatures, anthropomorphism can be used to turn other kinds of objects and beings into
characters with human-like qualities, too. For example, the french fairytale and Disney film, The Beauty and the
Beast, is full of anthropomorphic furniture like clocks and wardrobes that walk and talk.
 The degree to which anthropomorphic characters act like humans can also vary. For example, in Shel
Silverstein's The Giving Tree,  a tree cares for a boy over the course of its life in the same way a human would,
and although the tree is limited in the ways it can express its love for the boy—it can't walk or talk, for example,
because it's a tree—it is nevertheless anthropomorphic because it feels human emotions.
 Humans and anthropomorphic characters can exist side-by-side. Just because a story uses
anthropomorphism to bring non-human things to life doesn't mean those stories won't have human characters, as
well. Some stories, like Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the film Ratatouille, use
anthropomorphism to create non-human characters who behave in human ways, and who interact with humans in
the world of the story. In other stories,  anthropomorphic characters stand in for humans. For example, in the
picture book and children's television show Arthur,  the title character is an aardvark who lives in a world entirely
populated by anthropomorphic animals. Some of Arthur's friends are anthropomorphic dogs, rabbits, and so on—
but the audience is meant to understand that in the world of the story, these animals are people.

 Personification is a type of figurative language in which non-human things are described as having human
attributes, as in the sentence, "The rain poured down on the wedding guests, indifferent to their plans." Describing
the rain as "indifferent" is an example of personification, because rain can't be "indifferent," nor can it feel any
other human emotion. However, saying that the rain feels indifferent poetically emphasizes the cruel timing of the
rain. Personification can help writers to create more vivid descriptions, to make readers see the world in new
ways, and to more powerfully capture the human experience of the world (since people really do often interpret
the non-human entities of the world as having human traits).

And here are the key differences between the two terms:

 In anthropomorphism, the human qualities assigned to non-human things are not just figurative ways of

describing them, as they are in personification.
 Rather, in anthropomorphism the non-human entities actually do human things like talking, falling in love, wiggling
their eyebrows, and generally behaving like people behave.

POSEIDON
Poseidon was god of the sea, earthquakes, storms, and horses and is considered one of the most bad-tempered, moody
and greedy Olympian gods. He was known to be vengeful when insulted.
He is the son of Cronus and Rhea and was swallowed by his father along with HADES, DEMETER, HESTIA and HERA.
However, in some folklore stories it is believed that Poseidon, like ZEUS, was not swallowed by Cronus because his
mother Rhea who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have given birth to a colt, which was devoured
by CRONUS instead.
After the gods defeated the Titans, the world was divided into three and Zeus, Hades and Poseidon drew straws to decide
which they would rule. Zeus drew the skies, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the seas. There is only one reference to
this divide, by Homer in the Iliad.

Facts about Poseidon

 Poseidon was most notably the God of the sea and the protector of all waters; sailors relied upon him for safe
passage.
 Poseidon was allotted his dominion after the fall of the Titans.
 Zeus and Hades were his brothers.
  It stands to reason that, because of his influence on the waters, he was worshipped in connection with navigation.
 Poseidon was worshipped as a fertility god.
 His name is Greek for “husband.”
 He wielded the trident or three-pronged spear, and this image of him is reflected in art.
 Poseidon could strike the ground with his trident to produce an earthquake. This earned him the nickname “Earth-
shaker.”
 Poseidon possessed a palace, made of gems and coral, located on the ocean floor. He was at Mount Olympus
more often than his palace.
 Poseidon was moody by nature: his temperament was unstable at best, and his emotional fluctuations often
resulted in violence.
 He was similar to Zeus in that he liked to exert power over women and flaunt his rugged masculinity. At times,
however, his efforts were appreciated. Poseidon saved Amymone from a satyr.
 His primary means of transportation was a chariot pulled by horses.
 Poseidon assisted the Greeks in the Trojan war. However, Zeus commanded him to withdraw from the battlefield,
and he reluctantly obeyed.
 His grudge against Odysseus is one theme in the Odyssey.
 Poseidon was the husband of Amphitrite, a Nereid. Their union produced TRITON, who was half-human, half-fish.
 He and Medusa conceived the FLYING HORSE, PEGASUS – one of many MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES.
 He was also the biological father of Orion, Polyphemus, Pelias, and many others.
 One of his most notable dalliances involved his sister Demeter. She refused his advances by turning herself into a
mare. He then transformed into a stallion and pursued her. Their relations produced a horse, Arion.
 He and Athena competed for possession of the city of Athens. To sway the people in his favor, Poseidon made it
spring at the Acropolis. Athena, on the other hand, gave them the olive tree. With it, she won the contest.
 Despite Poseidon’s connection to chariots and ships, Athena was the first to make one of each.

OVID
The first major Roman poet to begin his career during the reign of Augustus, Ovid is today best known for the
Metamorphoses, a 15-book continuous mythological narrative written in the meter of epic, and for works in elegiac
couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti.
Ovid aims to influence the Roman people that they do not need the gods to succeed, but rather, self-reliance is the most
important in helping their empire to flourish. This is seen throughout the epic when a mortal is wrongly persecuted by
a god, to which the god claims is “their will.”
Ovid, the Latin poet of the Roman Empire, was banished in 8 AD from Rome to Tomis (now Constanţa, Romania) by
decree of the emperor Augustus. ... Ovid wrote that the cause of his exile was carmen et error: "a poem and an error",
probably the Ars Amatoria; and a personal indiscretion or mistake.
What is the theme of Ovid's Metamorphoses?
Hubris is the theme which counteracts the theme of love as the universal equalizer. On the one hand, Ovid shows that
gods and mortals are not so different from each other: they both fall in love, with often disastrous and disappointing
results.
PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY
PLATO’S MYTHS
What the ancient Greeks—at least in the archaic phase of their civilization—called muthos was quite different from what
we and the media nowadays call “myth”. For them a muthos was a true story, a story that unveils the true origin of the
world and human beings. For us a myth is something to be “debunked”: a widespread, popular belief that is in fact false.
In archaic Greece the memorable was transmitted orally through poetry, which often relied on myth. However, starting
with the beginning of the seventh century BC two types of discourse emerged that were set in opposition to poetry: history
(as shaped by, most notably, Thucydides) and philosophy (as shaped by the peri phuseōs tradition of the sixth and fifth
centuries BC). These two types of discourse were naturalistic alternatives to the poetic accounts of things. Plato broke to
some extent from the philosophical tradition of the sixth and fifth centuries in that he uses both traditional myths and
myths he invents and gives them some role to play in his philosophical endeavor. He thus seems to attempt to overcome
the traditional opposition between muthos and logos.
There are many myths in Plato’s dialogues: traditional myths, which he sometimes modifies, as well as myths that he
invents, although many of these contain mythical elements from various traditions. Plato is both a myth teller and a myth
maker. In general, he uses myth to inculcate in his less philosophical readers noble beliefs and/or teach them various
philosophical matters that may be too difficult for them to follow if expounded in a blunt, philosophical discourse. More and
more scholars have argued in recent years that in Plato myth and philosophy are tightly bound together, in spite of his
occasional claim that they are opposed modes of discourse.
********SOCRATES
Socrates, believed to have been born in Athens in the 5th century BCE, marks a watershed in ancient Greek philosophy.
Athens was a center of learning, with sophists and philosophers traveling from across Greece to teach rhetoric,
astronomy, cosmology, geometry, and the like. The great statesman Pericles was closely associated with this new
learning and a friend of Anaxagoras, however, and his political opponents struck at him by taking advantage of a
conservative reaction against the philosophers; it became a crime to investigate the things above the heavens or below
the earth, subjects considered impious. Anaxagoras is said to have been charged and to have fled into exile when
Socrates was about twenty years of age.[40] There is a story that Protagoras, too, was forced to flee and that the
Athenians burned his books.[41] Socrates, however, is the only subject recorded as charged under this law, convicted,
and sentenced to death in 399 BCE (see Trial of Socrates). In the version of his defense speech presented by Plato, he
claims that it is the envy he arouses on account of his being a philosopher that will convict him.
While philosophy was an established pursuit prior to Socrates, Cicero credits him as "the first who brought philosophy
down from the heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged it to examine into life and morals, and
good and evil."[42] By this account he would be considered the founder of political philosophy.[43] The reasons for this
turn toward political and ethical subjects remain the object of much study.[44][45]
The fact that many conversations involving Socrates (as recounted by Plato and Xenophon) end without having reached a
firm conclusion, or aporetically,[46] has stimulated debate over the meaning of the Socratic method.[47] Socrates is said
to have pursued this probing question-and-answer style of examination on a number of topics, usually attempting to arrive
at a defensible and attractive definition of a virtue.
While Socrates' recorded conversations rarely provide a definite answer to the question under examination, several
maxims or paradoxes for which he has become known recur. Socrates taught that no one desires what is bad, and so if
anyone does something that truly is bad, it must be unwillingly or out of ignorance; consequently, all virtue is knowledge.
[48][49] He frequently remarks on his own ignorance (claiming that he does not know what courage is, for example). Plato
presents him as distinguishing himself from the common run of mankind by the fact that, while they know nothing noble
and good, they do not know that they do not know, whereas Socrates knows and acknowledges that he knows nothing
noble and good.[50]
Numerous subsequent philosophical movements were inspired by Socrates or his younger associates. Plato casts
Socrates as the main interlocutor in his dialogues, deriving from them the basis of Platonism (and by extension,
Neoplatonism). Plato's student Aristotle in turn criticized and built upon the doctrines he ascribed to Socrates and Plato,
forming the foundation of Aristotelianism. Antisthenes founded the school that would come to be known as Cynicism and
accused Plato of distorting Socrates' teachings. Zeno of Citium in turn adapted the ethics of Cynicism to articulate
Stoicism. Epicurus studied with Platonic and Pyrrhonist teachers before renouncing all previous philosophers (including
Democritus, on whose atomism the Epicurean philosophy relies). The philosophic movements that were to dominate the
intellectual life of the Roman empire were thus born in this febrile period following Socrates' activity, and either directly or
indirectly influenced by him. They were also absorbed by the expanding Muslim world in the 7th through 10th centuries
AD, from which they returned to the West as foundations of Medieval philosophy and the Renaissance, as discussed
below.
PLATO

Plato was an Athenian of the generation after Socrates. Ancient tradition ascribes thirty-six dialogues and
thirteen letters to him, although of these only twenty-four of the dialogues are now universally recognized as authentic;
most modern scholars believe that at least twenty-eight dialogues and two of the letters were in fact written by Plato,
although all of the thirty-six dialogues have some defenders.[51] A further nine dialogues are ascribed to Plato but were
considered spurious even in antiquity.[52]

Plato's dialogues feature Socrates, although not always as the leader of the conversation. (One dialogue, the Laws,
instead contains an "Athenian Stranger.") Along with Xenophon, Plato is the primary source of information about Socrates'
life and beliefs and it is not always easy to distinguish between the two. While the Socrates presented in the dialogues is
often taken to be Plato's mouthpiece, Socrates' reputation for irony, his caginess regarding his own opinions in the
dialogues, and his occasional absence from or minor role in the conversation serve to conceal Plato's doctrines.[53] Much
of what is said about his doctrines is derived from what Aristotle reports about them.

The political doctrine ascribed to Plato is derived from the Republic, the Laws, and the Statesman. The first of these
contains the suggestion that there will not be justice in cities unless they are ruled by philosopher kings; those responsible
for enforcing the laws are compelled to hold their women, children, and property in common; and the individual is taught to
pursue the common good through noble lies; the Republic says that such a city is likely impossible, however, generally
assuming that philosophers would refuse to rule and the people would refuse to compel them to do so.[54]

Whereas the Republic is premised on a distinction between the sort of knowledge possessed by the philosopher and that
possessed by the king or political man, Socrates explores only the character of the philosopher; in the Statesman, on the
other hand, a participant referred to as the Eleatic Stranger discusses the sort of knowledge possessed by the political
man, while Socrates listens quietly.[54] Although rule by a wise man would be preferable to rule by law, the wise cannot
help but be judged by the unwise, and so in practice, rule by law is deemed necessary.

Both the Republic and the Statesman reveal the limitations of politics, raising the question of what political order would be
best given those constraints; that question is addressed in the Laws, a dialogue that does not take place in Athens and
from which Socrates is absent.[54] The character of the society described there is eminently conservative, a corrected or
liberalized timocracy on the Spartan or Cretan model or that of pre-democratic Athens.[54]

Plato's dialogues also have metaphysical themes, the most famous of which is his theory of forms. It holds that non-
material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through our physical
senses, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.
Plato often uses long-form analogies (usually allegories) to explain his ideas; the most famous is perhaps the Allegory of
the Cave. It likens most humans to people tied up in a cave, who look only at shadows on the walls and have no other
conception of reality.[55] If they turned around, they would see what is casting the shadows (and thereby gain a further
dimension to their reality). If some left the cave, they would see the outside world illuminated by the sun (representing the
ultimate form of goodness and truth). If these travelers then re-entered the cave, the people inside (who are still only
familiar with the shadows) would not be equipped to believe reports of this 'outside world'.[56] This story explains the theory
of forms with their different levels of reality, and advances the view that philosopher-kings are wisest while most humans
are ignorant.[57] One student of Plato (who would become another of the most influential philosophers of all time) stressed
the implication that understanding relies upon first-hand observation.

ARISTOTLE

Aristotle moved to Athens from his native Stageira in 367 BC and began to study philosophy (perhaps even rhetoric,
under Isocrates), eventually enrolling at Plato's Academy.[58] He left Athens approximately twenty years later to
study botany and zoology, became a tutor of Alexander the Great, and ultimately returned to Athens a decade later to
establish his own school: the Lyceum.[59] At least twenty-nine of his treatises have survived, known as the corpus
Aristotelicum, and address a variety of subjects
including logic, physics, optics, metaphysics, ethics, rhetoric, politics, poetry, botany, and zoology.

Aristotle is often portrayed as disagreeing with his teacher Plato (e.g., in Raphael's School of Athens). He criticizes
the regimes described in Plato's Republic and Laws,[60] and refers to the theory of forms as "empty words and poetic
metaphors."[61] He is generally presented as giving greater weight to empirical observation and practical concerns.

Aristotle's fame was not great during the Hellenistic period, when Stoic logic was in vogue, but
later peripatetic commentators popularized his work, which eventually contributed heavily to Islamic, Jewish, and medieval
Christian philosophy.[62] His influence was such that Avicenna referred to him simply as "the
Master"; Maimonides, Alfarabi, Averroes, and Aquinas as "the Philosopher."