CYNEGEIRUS ~ THE SYMBOL OF SELF- SACRIFICE IN THE BATTLE OF MARATHON

 

Cynegeirus or Cynaegeirus was an ancient Greek hero of Athens and brother of the famous playwright Aeschylus.

He was the son of Euphorion from Eleusis and member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica.In 490 BCE, Cynegeirus and his brother Aeschylus, fought to defend Athens against Darius's invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon. Despite the numerical superiority of the Persians, they were routed and fled to their ships. 

The Athenians pursued the Persians back to their ships, and Cynegeirus, in his attempt to detain a Persian ship with his bare hands, had his hand cut off at the wrist.When Cynaegyrus lost his right hand, he grasped the enemy's vessel with his left. Here the hero, having successively lost both his hands, hangs on by his teeth, and even in his mutilated state fought desperately with the last mentioned weapons, " like a rabid wild beast!"

The incident of the heroic death of Cynegeirus became an emblem of cultural memory in ancient Greece and was described in literature in order to inspire patriotic feelings to future generations.It was also painted by Polygnotus on the Stoa Poikile in Athens in 460 BCE, while the ancient traveler and geographer Pausanias described the painting in his 2nd century CE work.

The following video is a short narrative of Cynegeirus' accomplishments . It is in the Greek language. 

The heroic actions of Cynegeirus still inspire  to this day. An example of this is the Greek Taekwondo Club called Cynegeirus, which bears the image of the fearless Greek hero in  the act that made him immortal throughout Greek and global history. 

Source : YouTube ( Yiorgos Konstantinopoulos Channel )

LAYERS OF INDO~GREEK CITY DISCOVERED IN SWAT VALLEY, PAKISTAN

Large layers associated with both the Indo-Greek city and the pre-Greek Mauryan settlement, together with a large number of everyday objects, have been discovered at the archaeological site of Bazira, around 1.5 kilometers from the city of Barikot in the southern end of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. One of Pakistan’s most important archaeological sites, Bazira rivals Taxila (in Rawalpindi District in Punjab Province) in significance.

In 326 BCE, the area was besieged by Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) during his invasion of Central Asia and India. The Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius (r. c. 205–171 BCE) later invaded areas of modern Pakistan and Afghanistan, creating a Hellenistic kingdom of Indo-Greeks that was in fact a number of various dynastic polities. Collectively, the Indo-Greeks left an important mark on the culture and art of early Buddhism, with a fascinating exchange of art and culture between the Greeks and the Buddhists.The Indo-Greeks disappeared as a political entity around 10 CE. Bazira was founded as a small town and developed into a city during the rule of the Kushan empire (30–375 CE).

Dr. Luca Maria Olivieri, head of the visiting Italian Archaeological Mission (which has been excavating Bazira since 1984), told the Pakistan news website Dawn: “I foresee that in the future, Barikot will become one of the largest and long-lasting excavation projects in Pakistan (30 years so far) if not in the entire sub-continent. It already represents the only Indo-Greek city excavated at that scale, and one of the few examples of a Kushan urban settlement scientifically excavated in South Asia.”

The team that discovered the city layers comprised both Italian and Pakistani archaeologists, including Elisa Iori of Bologna University, Cristiano Moscatelli of Naples University, and Amanullah Afridi and Syed Niaz Ali Shah of the KP Directorate of Archaeology And Museums

Olivieri also told Dawn that a large late-Kushan temple with four pillars had recently been discovered on the northern part of the excavated area (3rd century CE). “This is the third coeval public cultic space found in the late city, and it is confirming the existence of Buddhist architecture, which has nothing to do with the mainstream stupa-cum-viharas layout of the contemporary Buddhist complexes. Vice-versa, these new architecture have more in common with Central Asian coeval [contemporary] examples and antecedents,” he said.

A Gandharan double-dome vihara built during Kushan rule in the 2nd century CE, considered one of the most important finds in Pakistan’s Buddhist history, was found just five kilometers from Bazira. Dr. Olivieri told Dawn on 10 July, “The site is featured by the landmark monument of the Great Shrine, the oldest example of double-dome Gandharan architecture. Chronology of the site is supported by radiocarbon dating one wooden beam of the shrine (palosa wood or acacia modesta) back to the end of first century or the middle of second century CE. The shrine with its cella, corridor and double dome is astonishingly well preserved for the standards of Gandharan architecture.”

According to Olivieri, the vihara is the only double-dome structure of the ancient Buddhist era left in South Asia. Dawn reported that this site was first visited by Hungarian-British archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein in 1926 and then hastily excavated by Burger and Wright in 1938. Smugglers, treasure hunters, and vandals looted it for more than a century before it became a protected site. The monastery is now part of a 12-kilometer tourist trail, which crosses two valleys and passes several rock painting and carving sites.

Source : https://www.buddhistdoor.net/