Tyros (nymph)

Hercules' Dog Discovers Purple Dye by Theodoor van Thulden, c. 1636.

In Greek mythology, Tyros (Ancient Greek: Τύρος, romanized: Túros), also romanised Tyrus, is a Phoenician nymph, the civic personification of the ancient city of Tyre, in modern Lebanon. In myth, Tyros becomes a lover of the Theban hero Heracles and is associated with the creation of tyrian purple, the rare and expensive dye Tyre was renowned for in antiquity.

Etymology

Tyros got her name from Τύρος, the Greek exonym of the Phoenician city,[1][2] which in the Phoenician language was called 𐤑𐤓 (Ṣūr).

Mythology

According to the legend, Tyros was a Phoenician nymph dwelling by the Levantine shore near Tyre. Her exact parentage is not known, but she came to be courted by the divine hero Heracles, the son of Zeus and Alcmene.

One day Heracles brought his dog along on his way to meet her, as was custom. The dog got hungry, and attacked a sea creature protruding from a shell on the beach, and ate it.[3] The blood and flesh of the murex snail stained the dog’s mouth red and purple.[4][5]

When Heracles finally reached Tyros, she took a look at the dog’s reddish purple snout, and was thrilled by the brilliance and vibrancy of the magnificent colour. She declared to Heracles that she would not have him unless he brought her a gown dyed with that same colour. Heracles then tracked down the sea snails, extracted the pigment, and gave Tyros a splendid purple gown as a gift.[6] Thereafter, he was forever honoured as the inventor of the tyrian purple dye.[3][7]

In an alternative account of the legend, Heracles brought the dye to King Phoenix of Tyre, who then decreed that no man bar the king himself was allowed to wear such virtuous clothing worth only of royalty.[8]

Significance

A Phoenician coin depicting the legend of the dog biting the sea snail.

In antiqutiy, the city of Tyre was famours for its industrial production of tyrian purple, an extremely rare and expensive dye;[9] tyrian purple was renowned for its unique beauty and lightfast qualities.[10] It was particularly cherised because the colour did not fade easily, but in fact became even brighter with weathering and sunlight.[11][12] Thousands of Murex trunculus and Murex brandaris shellfish were needed to produce one gram of the dye.

The rare colour was reserved for royalty and nobility use only, as exhibited in the version with king Phoenix.[13] By the fourth century AD, only the Roman emperors were permitted to wear Tyrian purple,[12] and its production was greatly strictened in the succeeding Eastern Roman Empire, where a child born to a reigning emperor was dubbed porphyrogenitus, literally translating to "born in the purple".[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ Liddell & Scott 1940, s.v. Τύρος.
  2. ^ Woodhouse 1910, p. 1029.
  3. ^ a b Silver 2017, p. 106.
  4. ^ St. John 1842, pp. 224-225.
  5. ^ Nonnus 40.300–309
  6. ^ Julius Pollux 1.4
  7. ^ Liwak, Rüdiger (October 1, 2006). "Tyrus". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill's New Pauly. Berlin: Brill Reference Online. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1223820. ISSN 1574-9347. Retrieved December 1, 2024.
  8. ^ John Malalas 2.32
  9. ^ La Boda 1994, p. 711.
  10. ^ Jidejian 2018, pp. 278–304.
  11. ^ "Pigments: Causes of Color". WebExhibits.org. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  12. ^ a b St. Clair 2016, pp. 162–164.
  13. ^ Mourad, Bariaa (1998). Du Patrimoine à la Muséologie: Conception d'un musée sur le site archéologique de Tyr [From Heritage to Museology: Design of a museum on the archaeological site of Tyre.] (Thesis) (in French). Paris: Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Secteur de la Culture, Division du Patrimoine Culturel.
  14. ^ "Porphyrogennetos". The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. New York and Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 1991. p. 1701. ISBN 0-195-04652-8.

Bibliography