- Alastor
Alastor (English translation: "avenger") can refer to a number of people and concepts related to
Greek mythology :Citation | last = Schmitz | first = Leonhard | author-link = | contribution = Alastor | editor-last = Smith | editor-first = William | title =Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | volume = 1 | pages = 89 | publisher =Little, Brown and Company | place = Boston | year = 1867 | contribution-url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0098.html ]*Alastor was an
epithet of the Greek godZeus , according toHesychius of Alexandria and the "Etymologicum Magnum ", which described him as the avenger of evil deeds, specifically, familial bloodshed. As the personification of a curse, it was also an epithet of theErinyes .Citation | last = Rose | first = Herbert Jennings | author-link = H. J. Rose | contribution = Alastor | editor-last = Hornblower | editor-first = Simon | title =Oxford Classical Dictionary | volume = | pages = | publisher =Oxford University Press | place = Oxford | year = 1996 | contribution-url = ] The name is also used, especially by the tragic writers, to designate any deity or demon who avenges wrongs committed by men. [Pausanias, "Description of Greece" viii. 24. § 4] [Plutarch , "De Defectu Oraculorum" 13, &c.] [Aeschylus , "Agamemnon" 1479, 1508, "The Persians " 343] [Sophocles , "The Trachiniae " 1092] [Euripides , "Phoenician Women " 1550, &c.] InEuripides ' play "Elecktra",Orestes questions an oracle who calls upon him to kill his mother, and wonders if the oracle was not fromApollo , but some malicious "alastor". [Euripides , "Elecktra" 979] There was an altar to Zeus Alastor just outside the city walls ofThasos . [Citation | first = Susan Guettel | last = Cole | author-link = | first2 = | last2 = | author2-link = | editor-last = Herman Hansen | editor-first = Mogens | editor2-last = | editor2-first = | contribution = Civic Cult and Civic Identity | contribution-url = | title = Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State: Symposium August, 24-27 1994 | year = 1994 | pages = 310 | place = Copenhagen | publisher =Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=y-c56ta4BKwC | doi = | id = ]
**By the time of the4th century BC , "alastor" in Greek had degraded to a generic type of insult, with the approximate meaning of "scoundrel".
*Alastor, a son ofNeleus andChloris . WhenHeracles tookPylos , Alastor and his brothers, exceptNestor , were killed by him. [Apollodorus , i. 9. § 9] [Scholiast onApollonius of Rhodes , i. 156] According toParthenius of Nicaea , he was to be married toHarpalyce , who, however, was taken from him by her fatherClymenus . [Parthenius of Nicaea , c. 13]
*Alastor, aLycia n, who was a companion ofSarpedon , and was slain byOdysseus . [Homer , "Iliad " v. 677] [Ovid , "Metamorphoses " xiii. 257]
**"Alastorides" is apatronymic form given byHomer to Tros, who was probably a son of the Lycian Alastor mentioned above. [Homer , "Iliad " xx. 463]
*Another, unrelated Alastor is mentioned in the "Iliad " ofHomer . [Homer , "Iliad " viii. 333, xiii. 422]
*Alastor, in Christiandemonology , came to be considered a kind of possessing entity.cite book | last = Sorenson | first = Eric | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity | publisher = Mohr Siebeck | date = 2002 | location = | pages = 78 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=zh4o4LijeQkC | doi = | id = | isbn = 3-16-147851-7] He was likened to Nemesis. The name Alastor was also used as a generic term for a class ofevil spirits . Edward Alexander Crowley, 20th century ceremonial magician, changed his first name to Aleister. The difference in spelling can be attributed to the fact that 'Alastor Crowley' does not add up to 666 in any kind of Englishgematria .ee also
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