Gordian knot

History

The tradition Macedonian locates the history at Telmissus, the capital antique of Phrygie, located in the oriental party of Phrygie which became part of the Galatie. A oracle declared with Phrygian, temporarily private of a legitimate king, that the first man to be penetrated in the city by leading a cart drawn by oxen should become their king. Gordias, a poor peasant, entered the city with his wife, by carrying out a cart drawn by oxen, and was proclaimed king of the Phrygian ones. In thanks, it dedicated its cart and its oxen with the Phrygian god Sabazios, compared to Zeus by the Greeks, and attached them using an inextricable wood node of Cornouiller. A prophecy declared whereas that which could demolish this node would become king of the Asia.

In 333 av. J. - C., Alexandre Large the tried to demolish the node. Not being able to find an end to demolish it, it sliced it of a blow of sword (the “solution of Alexandre”). Another interpretation affirms that he asked for the one his soldiers of slice it. Alexandre continued then his conquests in Asia, but prophecy could be only a Propagande invented later on its behalf.

The vegetable cart of Gordias became the emblem of the capacity and an army always ready with the combat, exposed to the palate of the kings of Phrygie to Gordion, reduced to fourth century BC with a Satrapie Perse.

The node could in makes have been a religious Code secret preserved by the priests of Gordion. Robert Low registers, in his work the Greek Myths , suggests that it could symbolize the prohibited name of Dionysos coded in a message, and who would have been transmitted through the generations of priests and reveal only to the Phrygian kings.

Today, the expression “Gordian knot” applies to an apparently insoluble problem which requires an original and daring solution.

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