Bryan Bunch's Blog: S.T.E.M. History Update - Posts Tagged "artemis"
Bringing in a Goddess
When I was planning Before Eureka! , I wanted from the beginning to contrast purely rational thinking—on the part of Archimedes—with mystical experiences. Once reason was that I noticed that books for young readers these days often have a strong fantasy component, and I wanted to be at least a little bit trendy; but I also had wanted to write for a long time about how what we observe can often be viewed either as part of the natural order or as some supernatural intervention.
When I looked for a god to embody the supernatural, it was easy to think of Artemis. First of all, I knew that Archimedes was killed as a direct result of a festival for Artemis in Syracuse. The citizens got drunk during the celebration and the Roman general Marcellus took advantage of the situation to complete his invasion of the city. And, as I began to research Syracuse, one of the first things I encountered was the story of how Artemis had turned the nymph Arethusa into the fresh-water fountain that encouraged the formation of a Greek colony on the site. Later I also learned that in some versions of the legend, Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo, were born in what later became Syracuse.
While writing Before Eureka! I read all of a good modern translation of both the Odyssey and the Iliad. I knew the stories fairly well from summaries and excerpts and many references in literature, but I had not read the originals from start to finish. In both, but especially in the Odyssey, I found how the Greeks saw the gods interacting with humans. It was not clear why Athena favored Odysseus so strongly, but she just did. When she appeared to help him, she usually showed up disguised as a human that he might otherwise know. I took a similar path with Artemis and Archimedes in my novel. Artemis favors Archimedes and intervenes in his life by appearing in human form (and also appears to Archimedes’ friend Phyllis in dreams).
Choosing Artemis might have seemed like a small thing, but ultimately it affected the entire plot of the novel. I did not have much in mind for the character of Phyllis; I just pictured a thin, tomboy who would be a friend of Archimedes, partly because I had personally had some friends in my childhood who were girls, about as many as close friends who were boys. To make Archimedes more rational, I choose to have his family be Pythagoreans, which had the added benefit that the Pythagoreans not only did not believe in Greek gods and revered number instead, but also they had been persecuted by other Greeks, so that could be a motivation for a villain. I had no idea originally that Artemis would control the story of my book, but then I know that She works in ways that are not always visible to us humans.
When I looked for a god to embody the supernatural, it was easy to think of Artemis. First of all, I knew that Archimedes was killed as a direct result of a festival for Artemis in Syracuse. The citizens got drunk during the celebration and the Roman general Marcellus took advantage of the situation to complete his invasion of the city. And, as I began to research Syracuse, one of the first things I encountered was the story of how Artemis had turned the nymph Arethusa into the fresh-water fountain that encouraged the formation of a Greek colony on the site. Later I also learned that in some versions of the legend, Artemis and her twin brother, Apollo, were born in what later became Syracuse.
While writing Before Eureka! I read all of a good modern translation of both the Odyssey and the Iliad. I knew the stories fairly well from summaries and excerpts and many references in literature, but I had not read the originals from start to finish. In both, but especially in the Odyssey, I found how the Greeks saw the gods interacting with humans. It was not clear why Athena favored Odysseus so strongly, but she just did. When she appeared to help him, she usually showed up disguised as a human that he might otherwise know. I took a similar path with Artemis and Archimedes in my novel. Artemis favors Archimedes and intervenes in his life by appearing in human form (and also appears to Archimedes’ friend Phyllis in dreams).
Choosing Artemis might have seemed like a small thing, but ultimately it affected the entire plot of the novel. I did not have much in mind for the character of Phyllis; I just pictured a thin, tomboy who would be a friend of Archimedes, partly because I had personally had some friends in my childhood who were girls, about as many as close friends who were boys. To make Archimedes more rational, I choose to have his family be Pythagoreans, which had the added benefit that the Pythagoreans not only did not believe in Greek gods and revered number instead, but also they had been persecuted by other Greeks, so that could be a motivation for a villain. I had no idea originally that Artemis would control the story of my book, but then I know that She works in ways that are not always visible to us humans.
S.T.E.M. History Update
The history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics has been my main reading and writing interest for most of my life, now enriched by adding a novel, "Before Eureka!," to many works that
...more
- Bryan Bunch's profile
- 3 followers
