Editing Leuce (mythology) (section)

==Mythology of the poplar==
[[File:Populus alba leaf.jpg|thumb|left|The two sides of the white poplar leaf]]
Maurus [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]] Honoratus identifies the tree as the [[Populus alba|white poplar]], the leaf of which is distinctively two-sided, one white and one dark. The double color, Servius says, made a wreath that represented the duality of the hero's [[Labours of Hercules|labors]] in both the upper and the underworld.<ref>''Qua corona usus, duplici colore foliorum geminos labores (superorum) inferorumque testatus est.'' See also [[Isidore of Seville]], ''[[Etymologiae]]'' 17.4.45: "The white poplar is named because its leaves are white on one side and green on the other. It is therefore two-colored, having marks as if of day and night, which correspond to the times of the rising and setting of the sun" (translation by [https://books.google.com/books?id=6jjsJ9NP6hYC&dq=%22white+poplar%22&pg=PT222 Priscilla Throop]).</ref> The association of white poplar leaves with Herakles is also attested by archaeological remains, such as the poplar-leaf motif carved on a statue base found in a small sanctuary to Herakles (Roman [[Hercules]]) along the [[Tiber river]].<ref>Paul Zanker, ''The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus'' (University of Michigan Press, 1988, 199), p. 118</ref>  It has been suggested<ref>David Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," in ''Myth in Indo-European Antiquity'' (University of California Press, 1974), p. 116.</ref> that behind the vague outlines of this tale lurks an older myth having to do with Herakles' encounter with the river deity [[Achelous]], who had [[chthonic]] associations and whose name was the subject of speculative theological etymology among the Greeks, in this case involving ''acherōïs'', another Greek word for "poplar."  In a [[founding myth]] of the 1st century BC, Herakles is supposed to have established the [[Arverni]]an ''[[oppidum]]'' of [[Alesia (city)|Alesia]],<ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]] 4.19; Nico Roymans, ''Ethnic Identity and Imperial Powers: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire'' (Amsterdam University Press, 2004), p. 241.</ref> the name of which likely derives from the [[Gaulish language|Gaulish]] word for poplar.<ref>Entry on "Alder," ''Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture'' (Taylor & Francis, 1997), p. 11; Xavier Delamarre, ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise'' (Éditions Errance, 2003).</ref>

Celebrants of the [[Dionysian mysteries|Bacchic rites]] wore a wreath of poplar leaves to honor the chthonic aspect of [[Dionysus]].<ref>Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets'' (Brill, 2008), pp. 93 and 125, citing [[Harpocration]].</ref>

At [[Ancient Elis|Elis]], white poplar was the only wood used in sacrifices to [[Zeus]], according to [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], because Herakles imported the tree and used it to burn the thigh bones of sacrificial victims at [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]]. The oak is the customary sacred tree of Zeus, and the substitution among the Eleans may simply reflect the more widespread growth habit of the poplar there.<ref>Evans, "Dodona, Dodola, and Daedala," p. 114, citing [[Arthur Bernard Cook]], "Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak," ''Classical Review'' 17 (1903), p. 273.</ref> The hero was supposed to have discovered the tree growing on the banks of the upperworld Acheron in [[Thesprotia]].
Pausanias says this is [[aition|the reason]] for the [[Homeric epithet]] ''Acherōïda'' for the white poplar,<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''[[Description of Greece]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D14%3Asection%3D2 5.14.2]; ''[[Iliad]]'' 13.389, and 16.482. See also Servius, note to ''Eclogue'' 7.61, on ''Acherōïda'', where the underworld river seems meant. The [[English Renaissance]] poet [[Edmund Spenser]] alludes in ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (Book 2, Canto V, stanza 31) to an association of "Olympick [[Jove]]" and the white poplar instead of his conventional [[oak]].</ref> which was also called ''leukē'' in Greek.<ref>Arthur Calvert, ''P. Vergili Maronis. Aeneidos Liber V'' (Cambridge University Press, 1879), p. 48.</ref>

The white poplar might be worn as a crown at athletic contests in honor of Herakles, a patron of the [[ancient Olympic games|Olympic games]]. Its infernal origin made it appropriate for [[funeral games (antiquity)|funeral games]],<ref>Calvert, ''P. Vergili Maronis. Aeneidos Liber V'', p. 48.</ref> which played an important role in the development of Greek athletics.<ref>Donald G. Kyle, ''Athletics in Ancient Athens'' (Brill, 1987, 1993), pp. 10–15.</ref>

The white poplar was also sacred to [[Persephone]], for whom Leuce seems to be a doublet or [[epithet]], as a goddess of regeneration.{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}} [[Robert Graves]] used the myth of Leuce in developing his poetic theories of mythology. Graves, for instance, holds that the back of the poplar leaf was turned white by the sweat of Herakles.<ref>[[Robert Graves]], (1955). ''[[The Greek Myths]] I'' (London: Penguin, 1955, revised edition 1960), pp. 121, 124-125, and ''The Greek Myths II'', p. 154.</ref> In ''[[The White Goddess]]'', he names the white poplar as one of the "three trees of resurrection", along with alder and cypress.<ref>[[Robert Graves]], ''The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth'' (New York, 1948, 1975, 1999 printing), p. 171. The basis for Graves' assertion that Herakles bound his head with white poplar after killing [[Cacus]] (p. 193) is unclear.</ref>