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The Greek epic poet Nonnus (Greek "Nonnos"), a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid, probably lived at the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century AD. Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. ...
Akhmim, or Ekhmim, ia a town of Upper Egypt, on the right bank of the Nile, 67 mi by river south of Assiut, and 4 mi above Suhag, on the opposite side of the river where there is railway communication with Cairo and Assuan. ...
He produced the Dionysiaca, an epic tale of the god Dionysus, a paraphrase of the Gospel of John, and two poems which are lost: the Battle of the Giants and the Bassarica. Bacchus by Caravaggio The god Dionysus is occasionally confused with one of several historical figures named Dionysius, a theophoric name that simply means [servant] of Dionysus. ...
The Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the sequence of the canon as printed in the New Testament, and scholars agree it was the fourth to be written. ...
Works
Nonnus' principal work is the Dionysiaca, an epic in forty-eight books, the main subject of which is the expedition of Dionysus to India and his return. The earlier portions treat of the rape of Europa, the battle of the giants, the mythical history of Thebes, and it is not until the eighth book that the birth of the god is described. Other poets had already treated the subject, and since the time of Alexander it had gained popularity from the favourite comparison of the king with the god and of his enemies with the giants. Bacchus by Caravaggio The god Dionysus is occasionally confused with one of several historical figures named Dionysius, a theophoric name that simply means [servant] of Dionysus. ...
This article is not about the daughter of Tityus and mother of Euphemus (by Poseidon), who was also named Europa. ...
For the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, see Thebes, Egypt. ...
Alexander the Great fighting the Persian king Darius (Pompeii mosaic, from a 3rd century BC original Greek painting, now lost). ...
In its vast and formless luxuriance, its beautiful but artificial versification, its delineation of action and passion to the entire neglect of character, the poem resembles the epics of India. Like his countryman Claudian, Nonnus is a writer of copious learning and still more copious fancy, whose faults are those of the age in which he lived. His chief merit consists in the systematic perfection to which he brought the Homeric hexameter. But the very correctness of the versification renders it monotonous. His influence on the vocabulary of his successors was likewise very considerable. Claudius Claudianus, Anglicized as Claudian, was the court poet to the Emperor Honorius and Stilicho. ...
Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ...
Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ...
We also possess under his name a paraphrase of the Gospel of John, which is chiefly interesting as apparently indicating that Nonnus in his later years converted to Christianity. The style is not inferior to that of his epic, but since it embellishes further the already embellished narrative of the evangelist, it produces an impression of extreme bombast and want of taste. The Gospel of John is the fourth gospel in the sequence of the canon as printed in the New Testament, and scholars agree it was the fourth to be written. ...
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. ...
At least two other works by Nonnus are lost. Only four lines of the Bassarica (also on the subject of Dionysus) have been preserved in a commentary by Stephanus of Byzantium, and according to an epigram in the Palatine Anthology (ix. 198), Nonnus was the author of a work titled the Battle of the Giants. Stephanus Byzantinus (Stephanus of Byzantium), the author of a geographical dictionary entitled Εθνικα (Ethnica), of which, apart from some fragments, we possess only the meagre epitome of one Hermolaus. ...
Bibliography Editio Princeps (1569); H Kochly ("Teubner" series, with critical introduction and full index of names, 1858); the most generally useful edition is that by the comte de Marcellus (1856), with notes and prolegomena, and a French prose translation.
On the metre, see J.G. Hermann, Orphica (1805), p. 690; A. Ludwich, Beitrage zur Kritik des Nonnus (1873), critical, grammatical and metrical; C. Lehrs, Quaestiones epicae (1837), pp. 255-302, chiefly on metrical questions.
On the sources, see R. Kohler, Uber die Dionysiaka des Nonnus (1853), a short and connected analysis of the poem, with a comparison of the earlier and later myths; see also I. Negrisoli, Studio critico ... Nonnus Panopolita, with short bibliography (1903).
The paraphrase on St John (editio princeps, c. 1505) is edited by F. Passow (1834) and A. Scheindler (1881), with complete index.
See also Kalamos is a Greek word meaning reed, from which comes stories of the Greek mythological figure Kalamos, the son of Maiandros (aka Meander), god of the Meander River. ...
Karpos (or Carpus) was a Greek mythological figure, whose name in Greek means fruit. He is the son of Zephyros (the west wind) and Khloris (spring, or new vegetation), together forming a natural metaphor — the west wind comes with the new growth of spring, which later bears fruit. ...
External links - R.F. Newbold summarizes his work on Dionysiaca
This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain. Supporters contend that the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) represents the sum of human knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century; indeed, it was advertised as such. ...
The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...
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