Dactyl (mythology)
Encyclopedia
In Greek mythology
, the Dactyls (from Greek
Δάκτυλοι "finger
s") were the archaic mythical race of small phallic
male beings associated with the Great Mother
, whether as Cybele
or Rhea
. Their numbers vary, but often they were ten spirit-men so like the three Curetes
, the Cabiri or the Korybantes
that they were often interchangeable. The Dactyls were both ancient smiths and healing magicians. In some myths, they are in Hephaestus
' employ, and they taught metalworking, mathematics, and the alphabet to humans.
When Rhea, the mother of the gods, knew her time of delivery was come, she went to the sacred cave on Mount Ida
. As she squatted in labor she dug her fingers into the earth (Gaia
), which brought forth these daktyloi Idaioi (Δάκτυλοι Ἰδαῖοι "Idaean fingers"), thus often ten in number, or sometimes multiplied into a race of ten tens. Three is just as often given as their number. They are sometimes instead numbered as thirty-three.
When Greeks offered a most solemn oath, often they would press their hands against the earth as they uttered it.
invented the art of working metals into usable shapes with fire; Walter Burkert
surmises that, as the societies of lesser gods mirrored actual cult associations, guilds of smiths corresponded to the daktyloi in real life. They also discovered iron. Three Phrygian Dactyls, in the service of the Great Mother as Adraste (Ἀδράστη), are usually named Acmon
(the anvil
), Damnameneus (the hammer
), and Celmis (casting
). Of Celmis, Ovid
(in Metamorphoses
iv) made a story that when Rhea was offended at this childhood companion of Zeus
, she asked Zeus to turn him to diamond-hard adamant
, like a tempered blade. Zeus obliged.
Later Greek attempts to justify and rationalize the relationships of Dactyls, Curetes and Corybantes were never fully successful. Strabo
says of the mythographers:
"And they suspect that both the Kouretes and the Korybantes were offspring of the Daktyloi Idaioi; at any rate, the first hundred men born in Crete were called Idaian Daktyloi, they say, and these were born of nine Kouretes, for each of these begot ten children who were called Idaian Daktyloi." (Strabo, Geography 10.3.22)
The Cabiri (Kabeiroi) whose sacred place was on the island of Samothrace, were understood by Diodorus Siculus
to have been Idaean dactyls who had come west from Phrygia and whose magical practices had made local converts to their secret cult.
An Idaean dactyl named Herakles (perhaps the earliest embodiment of the later hero
) originated the Olympic Games
by instigating a race among his four "finger" brothers. This Herakles was the "thumb"; his brothers were Aeonius (forefinger), Epimedes (middle finger), Jasius (ring finger/healing finger), and Idas (little finger).
were the name given to similar chthonic
men, nine in number, remembered by Greeks as dangerous Underworld
smiths and magicians, and multiplied into an entire autochthonous race that had reared Poseidon
but had been supplanted by Apollo
in his Helios
role.
), Epimedes, and Iasios. It was said that they had introduced the smithing of copper and iron. Of Iasion
it was told (Hesiod
, Theogony 970) that he lay with Demeter
, a stand-in for Rhea, in a thrice-ploughed field and the Goddess brought forth Ploutos
, "wealth", in the form of a bountiful harvest. Zeus struck down this impious archaic figure with a thunderbolt
. This is all of the public version of this myth that survives. Doubtless, initiates must have known more.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, the Dactyls (from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
Δάκτυλοι "finger
Finger
A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....
s") were the archaic mythical race of small phallic
Phallus
A phallus is an erect penis, a penis-shaped object such as a dildo, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. Any object that symbolically resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as being phallic...
male beings associated with the Great Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
, whether as Cybele
Cybele
Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...
or Rhea
Rhea (mythology)
Rhea was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth, in Greek mythology. She was known as "the mother of gods". In earlier traditions, she was strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, the Great Goddess, and was later seen by the classical Greeks as the mother of the Olympian...
. Their numbers vary, but often they were ten spirit-men so like the three Curetes
Korybantes
The Corybantes were the armed and crested dancers who worshipped the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. They are also called the Kurbantes in Phrygia, and Corybants in an older English transcription. The Kuretes were the nine dancers who venerate Rhea, the Cretan counterpart of...
, the Cabiri or the Korybantes
Korybantes
The Corybantes were the armed and crested dancers who worshipped the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. They are also called the Kurbantes in Phrygia, and Corybants in an older English transcription. The Kuretes were the nine dancers who venerate Rhea, the Cretan counterpart of...
that they were often interchangeable. The Dactyls were both ancient smiths and healing magicians. In some myths, they are in Hephaestus
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...
' employ, and they taught metalworking, mathematics, and the alphabet to humans.
When Rhea, the mother of the gods, knew her time of delivery was come, she went to the sacred cave on Mount Ida
Mount Ida
In Greek mythology, two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida, the "Mountain of the Goddess": Mount Ida in Crete; and Mount Ida in the ancient Troad region of western Anatolia which was also known as the Phrygian Ida in classical antiquity and is the mountain that is mentioned in the Iliad of...
. As she squatted in labor she dug her fingers into the earth (Gaia
Gaia (mythology)
Gaia was the primordial Earth-goddess in ancient Greek religion. Gaia was the great mother of all: the heavenly gods and Titans were descended from her union with Uranus , the sea-gods from her union with Pontus , the Giants from her mating with Tartarus and mortal creatures were sprung or born...
), which brought forth these daktyloi Idaioi (Δάκτυλοι Ἰδαῖοι "Idaean fingers"), thus often ten in number, or sometimes multiplied into a race of ten tens. Three is just as often given as their number. They are sometimes instead numbered as thirty-three.
When Greeks offered a most solemn oath, often they would press their hands against the earth as they uttered it.
Idaean Dactyls
The Dactyls of Mount Ida in PhrygiaPhrygia
In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...
invented the art of working metals into usable shapes with fire; Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert
Walter Burkert is a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult.An emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States...
surmises that, as the societies of lesser gods mirrored actual cult associations, guilds of smiths corresponded to the daktyloi in real life. They also discovered iron. Three Phrygian Dactyls, in the service of the Great Mother as Adraste (Ἀδράστη), are usually named Acmon
Acmon (Dactyl)
Acmon in Greek mythology was one of the Dactyls, associated with the anvil, or perhaps the Corybantes. He was the son of Socus and Combie....
(the anvil
Anvil
An anvil is a basic tool, a block with a hard surface on which another object is struck. The inertia of the anvil allows the energy of the striking tool to be transferred to the work piece. In most cases the anvil is used as a forging tool...
), Damnameneus (the hammer
Hammer
A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
), and Celmis (casting
Casting
In metalworking, casting involves pouring liquid metal into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowing it to cool and solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process...
). Of Celmis, Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
(in Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)
Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
iv) made a story that when Rhea was offended at this childhood companion of Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, she asked Zeus to turn him to diamond-hard adamant
Adamant
Adamant and similar words are used to refer to any especially hard substance, whether composed of diamond, some other gemstone, or some type of metal. Both adamant and diamond derive from the Greek word αδαμας , meaning "untameable"...
, like a tempered blade. Zeus obliged.
Later Greek attempts to justify and rationalize the relationships of Dactyls, Curetes and Corybantes were never fully successful. Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
says of the mythographers:
"And they suspect that both the Kouretes and the Korybantes were offspring of the Daktyloi Idaioi; at any rate, the first hundred men born in Crete were called Idaian Daktyloi, they say, and these were born of nine Kouretes, for each of these begot ten children who were called Idaian Daktyloi." (Strabo, Geography 10.3.22)
The Cabiri (Kabeiroi) whose sacred place was on the island of Samothrace, were understood by Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
to have been Idaean dactyls who had come west from Phrygia and whose magical practices had made local converts to their secret cult.
An Idaean dactyl named Herakles (perhaps the earliest embodiment of the later hero
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
) originated the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
by instigating a race among his four "finger" brothers. This Herakles was the "thumb"; his brothers were Aeonius (forefinger), Epimedes (middle finger), Jasius (ring finger/healing finger), and Idas (little finger).
Rhodian Dactyls
On Rhodes, TelchinesTelchines
In Greek mythology, the Telchines were the original inhabitants of the island of Rhodes, and were known in Crete and Cyprus....
were the name given to similar chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
men, nine in number, remembered by Greeks as dangerous Underworld
Underworld
The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...
smiths and magicians, and multiplied into an entire autochthonous race that had reared Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
but had been supplanted by Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
in his Helios
Helios
Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...
role.
Cretan Dactyls
In Crete, three Dactyls bore names suggestive of healing: Paionios (later associated with AsclepiusAsclepius
Asclepius is the God of Medicine and Healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
), Epimedes, and Iasios. It was said that they had introduced the smithing of copper and iron. Of Iasion
Iasion
In Greek mythology, Iasion or Iasus was usually the son of Electra and Zeus and brother of Dardanus. Iasion founded the mystic rites on the island of Samothrace. With Demeter, he was the father of twin sons named Ploutos and Philomelus, and another son named Korybas...
it was told (Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
, Theogony 970) that he lay with Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
, a stand-in for Rhea, in a thrice-ploughed field and the Goddess brought forth Ploutos
Plutus
Ploutos , usually Romanized as Plutus, was the god of wealth in ancient Greek religion and myth. He was the son of Demeter and the demigod Iasion, with whom she lay in a thrice-ploughed field. In the theology of the Eleusinian Mysteries he was regarded as the Divine Child...
, "wealth", in the form of a bountiful harvest. Zeus struck down this impious archaic figure with a thunderbolt
Thunderbolt
A thunderbolt is a discharge of lightning accompanied by a loud thunderclap or its symbolic representation. In its original usage the word may also have been a description of meteors, or, as Plato suggested in Timaeus, of the consequences of a close approach between two planetary cosmic bodies,...
. This is all of the public version of this myth that survives. Doubtless, initiates must have known more.