Скачать или смотреть June 29: International Fisherman Day

The job of a Greek seer wasn’t an easy one. Predicting the future from looking at the flight of birds, disecting an animal to decide whether or not to go to war, deciphering a divine message in someone’s dream, and of course, explaining all kinds of omens, from trivial to totally weird. Like what happened when king Aretus was preparing for his wedding night. While he was sacrificing to Aphrodite, a pig gave birth to five fishes. What could this mean? Did Aretus offend a sea god in some way? Should he embark on a ship? Was there a flood coming? After some debate, the prophets agreed that the omen referred to future children. It was clear that there would be five sons, as no god would bother to send an omen about girls, right? So, what about them? Would they become good swimmers, fishermen maybe? No, far too obvious. The sons of course, would be… mute, “as all creatures of the sea”. They were indeed, until Dionysos “untied the knot around their tongue”. So far for Aretus’ myth, thank you for listening. I will now not take any questions.