Mount Helicon and the Hippocrene: Where the Muses Lived

Greek gods were rarely abstract. They had homes, haunts and favorite springs, and the Muses had more addresses than most. Read a few ancient poems and you will meet them on Mount Helicon, on Olympus, in Pieria, bathing in named streams and drinking from a spring struck open by a horse's hoof.

This guide sorts out those places: what the oldest sources say about each one, what a later traveler actually saw there, and where the stories disagree. It quotes public-domain translations only, with each translator named.

Helicon in Hesiod

The Theogony of Hesiod begins on Helicon. In Hugh G. Evelyn-White's 1914 translation, the first line reads: "From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon."

Hesiod fills the mountain with detail. The Muses "dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos," and after they have "washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius," they "make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon." At night they go out "veiled in thick mist" and sing of the gods.

That gives you the core vocabulary of the Muses' landscape:

• Helicon, the mountain itself.
• Permessus and Olmeius, streams where the Muses bathe.
• The Horse's Spring, which later writers call by its Greek name, Hippocrene.

It was also Hesiod's own neighborhood. In the Works and Days he says his father "settled near Helicon in a miserable hamlet, Ascra, which is bad in winter, sultry in summer, and good at no time." Evelyn-White's introduction places Ascra "near Thespiae in Boeotia." And it was "under holy Helicon," Hesiod says, that the Muses found him shepherding lambs and taught him to sing.

Olympus and Pieria

Helicon was not the Muses' only home. Hesiod also calls them "the Muses of Olympus" and says they were born "in Pieria," "a little way from the topmost peak of snowy Olympus," where "there are their bright dancing-places and beautiful homes." The Works and Days opens with a call to the "Muses of Pieria who give glory through song."

So when you see the epithets Heliconian, Olympian or Pierian in a poem, they are all pointing to the same goddesses, seen from different places.

Pieria also carries a rival story. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, in Brookes More's 1922 translation, the Muse Urania tells of nine sisters, daughters of "Pierus," who challenged the Muses to a singing contest, lost and became magpies. Pausanias, in W. H. S. Jones's 1918 translation, records different versions: that Pierus, "a Macedonian, after whom the mountain in Macedonia was named," came to Thespiae and "established nine Muses," and that some said Pierus "himself had nine daughters" with the same names as the goddesses. The name Pierides can therefore mean the Muses or their rivals, depending on whose story you are reading.

The Hippocrene: two accounts of a spring

The most famous of the Muses' springs is the Hippocrene, the Horse's Fountain. Two ancient writers explain its name a little differently.

Pausanias says that about twenty stades up from the Muses' grove "is what is called the Horse's Fountain (Hippocrene). It was made, they say, by the horse of Bellerophon striking the ground with his hoof."

Ovid tells the story through the goddess Minerva, who flies to Helicon because she has heard of "a new-made fountain—gift of Pegasus, that fleet steed, from the blood of dread Medusa sprung—it opened when his hard hoof struck the ground." Urania confirms it: "this fountain is the work of Pegasus." Minerva then admires the groves, grottoes and flowers, and judges the place a fitting home for "the studious days of those Mnemonian Maids."

Both writers agree that a horse's hoof opened the spring. Pausanias identifies the horse through its rider, Bellerophon; Ovid names the horse, Pegasus, and ties its birth to Medusa.

What Pausanias saw on Helicon

Pausanias toured the area and described it in detail, which makes him a useful guide to what the Muses' mountain looked like in practice. Among the things he reports:

• The spring Aganippe, "on the left as you go to the grove of the Muses," said to be a daughter of a river that flows round Helicon.
• A relief portrait of Eupheme, called "the nurse of the Muses," and an image of Linus on a small rock shaped like a cave; the locals sacrificed to Linus "every year" before sacrificing to the Muses.
• Statues of the Muses by several sculptors: one set of all nine by Cephisodotus, and groups of three by Cephisodotus, Strongylion and Olympiosthenes.
• Statues of poets and musicians, including Thamyris "when already blind, with a broken lyre in his hand," and Hesiod holding a harp, which Pausanias thought wrong, since Hesiod's verses show "he sang holding a laurel wand."
• Dedicated tripods, "of which the oldest is the one which it is said Hesiod received for winning the prize for song at Chalcis." Hesiod himself, in the Works and Days, says he won a tripod there and "dedicated to the Muses of Helicon, in the place where they first set me in the way of clear song."
• A festival held by the people of Thespiae, "and also games called the Museia."

He also notes how little remained of Hesiod's village: "Of Ascra in my day nothing memorable was left except one tower."

Parnassus and other haunts

The Muses travel in later poetry. In Ovid's story they are on their way to "the Temples of Parnassus" when a tyrant named Pyrenaeus tries to trap them, and they escape by spreading their wings. Pausanias reports that people near Mount Pieria and the city of Dium showed a pillar said to hold the bones of Orpheus. Many Greeks believed Orpheus was a son of the Muse Calliope, though Pausanias counts that among the "many untruths believed by the Greeks."

The geography is not consistent from one author to the next, and it does not need to be. Each place marks a community that claimed a special bond with the Muses and told stories to back it up.

How to use this when you read

When a poem mentions a mountain, spring or river, it is often telling you which Muses are meant and which tradition the poet is drawing on. A quick checklist:

• Helicon, Aganippe or the Hippocrene points to Boeotia and to Hesiod.
• Olympus or Pieria points to the Muses as daughters of Zeus, near the gods' home.
• Pierides may mean the Muses or their mortal rivals, so check the story.
• A horse's hoof means the Hippocrene, whichever name the author gives the horse.

Key takeaways

• Hesiod sets the Muses on Helicon, bathing in Permessus, Olmeius and the Horse's Spring, and also makes them born in Pieria near Olympus.
• Hesiod's home, Ascra, lay near Helicon; Pausanias found only one tower left.
• Pausanias credits the Hippocrene to "the horse of Bellerophon"; Ovid says Pegasus opened it.
• Pausanias describes the Muses' grove on Helicon, with statues, tripods and the Museia games.
• The name Pierides can refer to the Muses or to the mortal sisters who challenged them.

Sources

• Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, in Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica (1914), Project Gutenberg eBook #348
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.29, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1918), Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.30, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1918), Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.31, trans. W. H. S. Jones (1918), Perseus Digital Library
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5, trans. Brookes More (1922), Perseus Digital Library