Muses

The Muses are a group of goddesses who were thought to be the source of knowledge of literature, arts, and science in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology.

History

Regarded as the nine daughters of the Greek god Zeus and the goddess Mnemosyne, in the 1st century BCE Egypt the Muses were said to have been recruited by the Egyptian god Osiris. Their names were Kalliope, Kleio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania.

Influence

The Mouseion of Alexandria was an institution commissioned by Ptolemy I Soter and dedicated to the Muses. During the Peloponnesian War, the Spartan misthios Kassandra visited the sanctuary dedicated to the Muses in the Reborn Hills of Boeotia, Greece.

Colloquially the term muse has come to mean anyone or anything that inspires one's work and is, as such, used as a compliment. This has been the habit at least since the Peloponnesian War, when the actor Thespis was needed for an Aristophanes production designed to ridicule and humiliate the Athenian general Kleon, yet he refused to do it without the presence of the hetaerae Aikaterine, who he referred to as his ‘muse’. It should be noted, however, that according to Aikaterine, “half the girls have been his muse at one time or another”, which undermines the usage of this term here.

Four centuries later, in Alexandria, Egypt, Phanos the Younger mentioned to the Medjay Bayek of Siwa how his home was "the perfect place for artist and muse to meet!" Later, Bayek investigated a string of murders in Cyrene to exonerate his friend, a Greek merchant known as the Mouse who had been accused of the crime. A note on the body of Roman moneylender Paulus Aurelius named the muse Melpomene, in reference to a warning that an actor would be killed next.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Origins (mentioned only)
• Discovery Tour: Ancient Egypt
• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (mentioned only)