Editing Minyans (section)

==Classical Greek uses of "Minyans"==
[[file:De mulieribus claris (BnF Français 599) f.26r - Wives of Minyans.jpeg|thumb|Wives of the Minyans in Boccaccio's ''[[De mulieribus claris]]'']]
Greeks did not always clearly distinguish the Minyans from the [[Pelasgian]] cultures that had preceded them. Greek mythographers gave the Minyans an [[eponym]]ous founder, [[Minyas (mythology)|Minyas]], perhaps as legendary as [[Pelasgus]] (the founding father of the Pelasgians), which was a broader category of pre-Greek Aegean peoples. These Minyans were associated with Boeotian [[Orchomenus (Boeotia)|Orchomenus]], as when [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] relates that "[[Teos]] used to be inhabited by Minyans of Orchomenus, who came to it with [[Athamas]]"<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece'', 7.3.6.</ref> and may have represented a ruling dynasty or a tribe later located in [[Boeotia]].

[[Herodotus]] asserts several times that Pelasgians dwelt in the distant past with the Athenians in Attica, and that those Pelasgians driven from Attica in turn drove the Minyans out of Lemnos.<ref>Herodotus. ''Histories'', 1.57, 2.51.7, 2.51.12.</ref> The same historian also states that Minyans from Amyklai settled on the island of [[Thera]] in 800 BC.<ref>Herodotus. ''Histories'', 4.145ff.</ref>

[[Heracles]], the hero whose exploits always celebrate the new Olympian order over the old traditions, came to [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]], one of the ancient Mycenaean cities of Greece, and found that the Greeks were paying tribute of 100 cattle (a ''[[hecatomb]]'') each year to [[Erginus (king of Minyans)|Erginus]], king of the Minyans.<ref>''[[Bibliotheca historica|Bibliotheke]]'' 2.4.11 records the origin of the Theban tribute as recompense for the mortal wounding of [[Clymenus]], king of the Minyans, with a cast of a stone by a charioteer of [[Menoeceus]] in the precinct of Poseidon at Onchestus; the myth is reported also by [[Diodorus Siculus]], 4.10.3.</ref> Heracles attacked a group of emissaries from the Minyans, and cut off their ears, noses, and hands. He then tied them around their necks and told them to take those for tribute to Erginus. Erginus made war on Thebes, but Heracles defeated the Minyans with his fellow Thebans after arming them with weapons that had been dedicated in temples.<ref>Heracles' behavior showed that Bronze Age rules of social decorum were over: "the deeds of Heracles," Carlo Pavese observed in another context, "can scarcely be adduced as an apt paradigm of the customary" (Pavese, "The New Heracles Poem of Pindar", ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'' '''72''' (1968:47-88) p. 54.</ref> Erginus was killed and the Minyans were forced to pay double the previous tribute to the Thebans. Heracles was also credited with the burning of the palace at Orchomenus: "Then appearing unawares before the city of the Orchomenians and slipping in at their gates he burned the palace of the Minyans and razed the city to the ground."<ref>Diodorus Siculus. ''Bibliotheke'', 4.10.5.</ref>

The [[Argonauts]] were sometimes referred to as "Minyans" because [[Jason]]'s mother came from that line, and several of his cousins joined in the adventure.<ref>[[Apollonius of Rhodes]], ''[[Argonautica]]'' [https://archive.org/stream/argonautica00apoluoft#page/18/mode/2up 1.228&ndash;233]; {{harvnb|Ovid|More|1922}}, ''Metamorphoses'', [http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses7.html 7]: "The Minyans were stark with fear"; {{harvnb|Valerius Maximus|Walker|2004|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=5imDC6VN-FcC&q=Minyans&pg=PP1 146–147]}}.</ref>