Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Sapientia. Cumhuriyetin Yüzüncü Yılında Prof. Dr. Güngör Varınlıoğlu ve Prof. Dr. Ender Varinlioğlu Onuruna Yazılar, F. Gül Özaktürk,U. Fafo Telatar,Güray Ünver, Editör, Ankara Üniversitesi, Ankara, ss.178-219, 2024
Many modern scholars suggest that the golden maidens (amphipoloi) in Hephaestus’ workshop in Iliad 18 were imagined as robots, and associate them with artificial intelligence. This claim is widely accepted. The aim of this study is to rediscuss the meaning and function of the golden maidens, and to analyze them as metaphors. In the study, it is firstly shown that the skills of moving, speaking and thinking of the golden girls are also found in the lifelike figures on Achilles’ shield, and it is pointed out that this aliveness (enargeia) giving rise to the modern idea that the golden girls were imagined as robots, is the most important feature of the Homeric description style (ecphrasis). Then, it is explained that Hephaestus’ tumble down to the earth left permanent damage on his body, causing him to lose his divine speed and slow down like a human being. Based on this, it is suggested that the golden girls that help the god to overcome his human-specific slowness, could be objects that we barely think of, such as cnemides (greaves), if there were inspiring originals on earth. Divine cnemides was considered as an alternative due to the similarity in the formulas of the verses depicting the golden girls and the god’s weak legs, and fantastic features of them that almost give wings to whoever wears them, and the found examples of human-shaped cnemides dating back to the Archaic Age. Finally, the golden girls, who eliminated the human slowness of Hephaestus and gave his legs divine speed, were analyzed as a metaphor and it has been concluded that they were the Muses who helped the Iliadic bard to equate his weak human memory with the divine one.