© 1998 Bernard SUZANNE | Last updated December 13, 1998 |
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This page is part of the "tools" section of a site, Plato and his dialogues, dedicated to developing a new interpretation of Plato's dialogues. The "tools" section provides historical and geographical context (chronology, maps, entries on characters and locations) for Socrates, Plato and their time. By clicking on the minimap at the beginning of the entry, you can go to a full size map in which the city or location appears. For more information on the structure of entries and links available from them, read the notice at the beginning of the index of persons and locations.
Peninsula in northern Black Sea (today's Crimea), part of Scythia
(area 8).
Tauris is the region where, according to legends, Iphigenia, the daughter of
Agamemnon, was led by Artemis who had saved
her at the last minute from death in Aulis, after her
father had ordered her sacrificed to propitiate the goddess and bring wind on
the area where the Greek fleet was waiting to sail toward Troy.
There, Iphigenia became priestess of Artemis at the court of king Thoas and
had to sacrifice foreigners landing on the shore until one day, she recognized
in two foreigners her brother Orestes and his friend Pylades, sent there by
the oracle of Delphi to bring back the statue of Artemis.
Iphigenia then helped them steal the statue and fled with them (see Euripides'
Iphigeneia
in Tauris).
A description of Tauris is provided by Herodotus
in his Histories at IV,
99-100. At IV,
103, he describes their mores, especially their habit of sacrificing Greek
prisonners to a goddess they identify with Iphigenia herself.