Descriptions.

Descriptions of Cerberus vary, including the number of his heads. Cerberus was usually three-headed, though not always. Cerberus had several multi-headed relatives. His father was the multi snake-headed Typhon, and Cerberus was the brother of three other multi-headed monsters, the multi-snake-headed Lernaean Hydra; Orthrus, the two-headed dog who guarded the Cattle of Geryon; and the Chimera, who had three heads: that of a lion, a goat, and a snake. And, like these close relatives, Cerberus was, with only the rare iconographic exception, multi-headed.  In the earliest description of Cerberus, Hesiod's "Theogony" (c. 8th – 7th century BC), Cerberus has fifty heads, while Pindar (c. 522 – c. 443 BC) gave him one hundred heads. However, later writers almost universally give Cerberus three heads. An exception is the Latin poet Horace's Cerberus which has a single dog head, and one hundred snake heads. Perhaps trying to reconcile these competing traditions, Apollodorus's Cerberus has three dog heads and the heads of "all sorts of snakes" along his back, while the Byzantine poet John Tzetzes (who probably based his account on Apollodorus) gives Cerberus fifty heads, three of which were dog heads, the rest being the "heads of other beasts of all sorts".  In art Cerberus is most commonly depicted with two dog heads (visible), never more than three, but occasionally with only one. On one of the two earliest depictions (c. 590–580 BC), a Corinthian cup from Argos (see below), now lost, Cerberus was shown as a normal single-headed dog. The first appearance of a three-headed Cerberus occurs on a mid-sixth-century BC Laconian cup (see below).  Horace's many snake-headed Cerberus followed a long tradition of Cerberus being part snake. This is perhaps already implied as early as in Hesiod's "Theogony", where Cerberus' mother is the half-snake Echidna, and his father the snake-headed Typhon. In art Cerberus is often shown as being part snake, for example the lost Corinthian cup showed snakes protruding from Cerberus' body, while the mid sixth-century BC Laconian cup gives Cerberus a snake for a tail. In the literary record, the first certain indication of Cerberus' serpentine nature comes from the rationalized account of Hecataeus of Miletus (fl. 500–494 BC), who makes Cerberus a large poisonous snake. Plato refers to Cerberus' composite nature, and Euphorion of Chalcis (3rd century BC) describes Cerberus as having multiple snake tails, and presumably in connection to his serpentine nature, associates Cerberus with the creation of the poisonous aconite plant. Virgil has snakes writhe around Cerberus' neck, Ovid's Cerberus has a venomous mouth, necks "vile with snakes", and "hair inwoven with the threatening snake", while Seneca gives Cerberus a mane consisting of snakes, and a single snake tail.  Cerberus was given various other traits. According to Euripides, Cerberus not only had three heads but three bodies, and according to Virgil he had multiple backs. Cerberus ate raw flesh (according to Hesiod), had eyes which flashed fire (according to Euphorion), a three-tongued mouth (according to Horace), and acute hearing (according to Seneca).

The Twelfth Labour of Heracles.

Cerberus' only mythology concerns his capture by Heracles. As early as Homer we learn that Heracles was sent by Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, to bring back Cerberus from Hades the king of the underworld. According to Apollodorus, this was the twelfth and final labour imposed on Heracles. In a fragment from a lost play "Pirithous", (attributed to either Euripides or Critias) Heracles says that, although Eurystheus commanded him to bring back Cerberus, it was not from any desire to see Cerberus, but only because Eurystheus thought that the task was impossible.  Heracles was aided in his mission by his being an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Euripides has his initiation being "lucky" for Heracles in capturing Cerberus. And both Diodorus Siculus and Apollodorus say that Heracles was initiated into the Mysteries, in preparation for his descent into the underworld. According to Diodorus, Heracles went to Athens, where Musaeus, the son of Orpheus, was in charge of the initiation rites, while according to Apollodorus, he went to Eumolpus at Eleusis.  Heracles also had the help of Hermes, the usual guide of the underworld, as well as Athena. In the "Odyssey", Homer has Hermes and Athena as his guides. And Hermes and Athena are often shown with Heracles on vase paintings depicting Cerberus' capture. By most accounts, Heracles made his descent into the underworld through an entrance at Tainaron, the most famous of the various Greek entrances to the underworld. The place is first mentioned in connection with the Cerberus story in the rationalized account of Hecataeus of Miletus (fl. 500–494 BC), and Euripides, Seneca, and Apolodorus, all have Heracles descend into the underworld there. However Xenophon reports that Heracles was said to have descended at the Acherusian Chersonese near Heraclea Pontica, on the Black Sea, a place more usually associated with Heracles' exit from the underworld (see below). Heraclea, founded c. 560 BC, perhaps took its name from the association of its site with Heracles' Cerberian exploit.

Theseus and Pirithous.

While in the underworld, Heracles met the heroes Theseus and Pirithous, where the two companions were being held prisoner by Hades for attempting to carry off Hades' wife Persephone. Along with bringing back Cerberus, Heracles also managed (usually) to rescue Theseus, and in some versions Pirithous as well. According to Apollodorus, Heracles found Theseus and Pirithous near the gates of Hades, bound to the "Chair of Forgetfulness, to which they grew and were held fast by coils of serpents", and when they saw Heracles, "they stretched out their hands as if they should be raised from the dead by his might", and Heracles was able to free Theseus, but when he tried to raise up Pirithous, "the earth quaked and he let go."  The earliest evidence for the involvement of Theseus and Pirithous in the Cerberus story, is found on a shield-band relief (c. 560 BC) from Olympia, where Theseus and Pirithous (named) are seated together on a chair, arms held out in supplication, while Heracles approaches, about to draw his sword. The earliest literary mention of the rescue occurs in Euripides, where Heracles saves Theseus (with no mention of Pirithous). In the lost play "Pirithous", both heroes are rescued, while in the rationalized account of Philochorus, Heracles was able to rescue Theseus, but not Pirithous. In one place Diodorus says Heracles brought back both Theseus and Pirithous, by the favor of Persephone, while in another he says that Pirithous remained in Hades, or according to "some writers of myth" that neither Theseus, nor Pirithous returned. Both are rescued in Hyginus.

Capture.

There are various versions of how Heracles accomplished Cerberus' capture. According to Apollodorus, Heracles asked Hades for Cerberus, and Hades told Heracles he would allow him to take Cerberus only if he "mastered him without the use of the weapons which he carried", and so, using his lion-skin as a shield, Heracles squeezed Cerberus around the head until he submitted.  In some early sources Cerberus' capture seems to involve Heracles fighting Hades. Homer ("Iliad" 5.395–397) has Hades injured by an arrow shot by Heracles. A scholium to the "Iliad" passage, explains that Hades had commanded that Heracles "master Cerberus without shield or Iron". Heracles did this, by (as in Apollodorus) using his lion-skin instead of his shield, and making stone points for his arrows, but when Hades still opposed him, Heracles shot Hades in anger. Consistent with the no iron requirement, on an early-sixth-century BC lost Corinthian cup, Heracles is shown attacking Hades with a stone, while the iconographic tradition, from c. 560 BC, often shows Heracles using his wooden club against Cerberus.  Euripides, has Amphitryon ask Heracles: "Did you conquer him in fight, or receive him from the goddess [i.e. Persephone]? To which, Heracles answers: "In fight", and the "Pirithous" fragment says that Heracles "overcame the beast by force". However, according to Diodorus, Persephone welcomed Heracles "like a brother" and gave Cerberus "in chains" to Heracles. Aristophanes, has Heracles seize Cerberus in a stranglehold and run off, while Seneca has Heracles again use his lion-skin as shield, and his wooden club, to subdue Cerberus, after which a quailing Hades and Persephone, allow Heracles to lead a chained and submissive Cerberus away. Cerberus is often shown being chained, and Ovid tells that Heracles dragged the three headed Cerberus with chains of adamant.

Exit from the underworld.

There were several locations which were said to be the place where Heracles brought up Cerberus from the underworld. The geographer Strabo (63/64 BC – c. AD 24) reports that "according to the myth writers" Cerberus was brought up at Tainaron, the same place where Euripides has Heracles enter the underworld. Seneca has Heracles enter and exit at Tainaron. Apollodorus, although he has Heracles enter at Tainaron, has him exit at Troezen. The geographer Pausanias tells us that there was a temple at Troezen with "altars to the gods said to rule under the earth", where it was said that, in addition to Cerberus being "dragged" up by Heracles, Semele was supposed to have been brought up out of the underworld by Dionysus.  Another tradition had Cerberus brought up at Heraclea Pontica (the same place which Xenophon had earlier associated with Heracles' descent) and the cause of the poisonous plant aconite which grew there in abundance. Herodorus of Heraclea and Euphorion said that when Heracles brought Cerberus up from the underworld at Heraclea, Cerberus "vomited bile" from which the aconite plant grew up. Ovid, also makes Cerberus the cause of the poisonous aconite, saying that on the "shores of Scythia", upon leaving the underworld, as Cerberus was being dragged by Heracles from a cave, dazzled by the unaccustomed daylight, Cerberus spewed out a "poison-foam", which made the aconite plants growing there poisonous. Seneca's Cerberus too, like Ovid's, reacts violently to his first sight of daylight. Enraged, the previously submissive Cerberus struggles furiously, and Heracles and Theseus must together drag Cerberus into the light.  Pausanias reports that according to local legend Cerberus was brought up through a chasm in the earth dedicated to Clymenus (Hades) next to the sanctuary of Chthonia at Hermione, and in Euripides' "Heracles", though Euripides does not say that Cerberus was brought out there, he has Cerberus kept for a while in the "grove of Chthonia" at Hermione. Pausanias also mentions that at Mount Laphystion in Boeotia, that there was a statue of Heracles Charops ("with bright eyes"), where the Boeotians said Heracles brought up Cerberus. Other locations which perhaps were also associated with Cerberus being brought out of the underworld include, Hierapolis, Thesprotia, and Emeia near Mycenae.

Presented to Eurystheus, returned to Hades.

In some accounts, after bringing Cerberus up from the underworld, Heracles paraded the captured Cerberus through Greece. Euphorion has Heracles lead Cerberus through Midea in Argolis, as women and children watch in fear, and Diodorus Siculus says of Cerberus, that Heracles "carried him away to the amazement of all and exhibited him to men." Seneca has Juno complain of Heracles "highhandedly parading the black hound through Argive cities" and Heracles greeted by laurel-wreathed crowds, "singing" his praises.  Then, according to Apollodorus, Heracles showed Cerberus to Eurystheus, as commanded, after which he returned Cerberus to the underworld. However, according to Hesychius of Alexandria, Cerberus escaped, presumably returning to the underworld on his own.

Principal sources.

The earliest mentions of Cerberus (c. 8th – 7th century BC) occur in Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", and Hesiod's "Theogony". Homer does not name or describe Cerberus, but simply refers to Heracles being sent by Eurystheus to fetch the "hound of Hades", with Hermes and Athena as his guides, and, in a possible reference to Cerberus' capture, that Heracles shot Hades with an arrow. According to Hesiod, Cerberus was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, was fifty-headed, ate raw flesh, and was the "brazen-voiced hound of Hades", who fawns on those that enter the house of Hades, but eats those who try to leave.  Stesichorus (c. 630 – 555 BC) apparently wrote a poem called "Cerberus", of which virtually nothing remains. However the early-sixth-century BC-lost Corinthian cup from Argos, which showed a single head, and snakes growing out from many places on his body, was possibly influenced by Stesichorus' poem. The mid-sixth-century BC cup from Laconia gives Cerberus three heads and a snake tail, which eventually becomes the standard representation.  Pindar (c. 522 – c. 443 BC) apparently gave Cerberus one hundred heads. Bacchylides (5th century BC) also mentions Heracles bringing Cerberus up from the underworld, with no further details. Sophocles (c. 495 – c. 405 BC), in his "Women of Trachis", makes Cerberus three-headed, and in his "Oedipus at Colonus", the Chorus asks that Oedipus be allowed to pass the gates of the underworld undisturbed by Cerberus, called here the "untamable Watcher of Hades". Euripides (c. 480 – 406 BC) describes Cerberus as three-headed, and three-bodied, says that Heracles entered the underworld at Tainaron, has Heracles say that Cerberus was not given to him by Persephone, but rather he fought and conquered Cerberus, "for I had been lucky enough to witness the rites of the initiated", an apparent reference to his initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries, and says that the capture of Cerberus was the last of Heracles' labors. The lost play "Pirthous" (attributed to either Euripides or his late contemporary Critias) has Heracles say that he came to the underworld at the command of Eurystheus, who had ordered him to bring back Cerberus alive, not because he wanted to see Cerberus, but only because Eurystheus thought Heracles would not be able to accomplish the task, and that Heracles "overcame the beast" and "received favour from the gods". Plato (c. 425 – 348 BC) refers to Cerberus' composite nature, citing Cerberus, along with Scylla and the Chimera, as an example from "ancient fables" of a creature composed of many animal forms "grown together in one". Euphorion of Chalcis (3rd century BC) describes Cerberus as having multiple snake tails, and eyes that flashed, like sparks from a blacksmith's forge, or the volcaninc Mount Etna. From Euphorion, also comes the first mention of a story which told that at Heraclea Pontica, where Cerberus was brought out of the underworld, by Heracles, Cerberus "vomited bile" from which the poisonous aconite plant grew up.  According to Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), the capture of Cerberus was the eleventh of Heracles' labors, the twelfth and last being stealing the Apples of the Hesperides. Diodorus says that Heracles thought it best to first go to Athens to take part in the Eleusinian Mysteries, "Musaeus, the son of Orpheus, being at that time in charge of the initiatory rites", after which, he entered into the underworld "welcomed like a brother by Persephone", and "receiving the dog Cerberus in chains he carried him away to the amazement of all and exhibited him to men."  In Virgil's "Aeneid" (1st century BC), Aeneas and the Sibyl encounter Cerberus in a cave, where he "lay at vast length", filling the cave "from end to end", blocking the entrance to the underworld. Cerberus is described as "triple-throated", with "three fierce mouths", multiple "large backs", and serpents writhing around his neck. The Sybyl throws Cerberus a loaf laced with honey and herbs to induce sleep, enabling Aeneas to enter the underworld, and so apparently for Virgil—contradicting Hesiod—Cerberus guarded the underworld against entrance. Later Virgil describes Cerberus, in his bloody cave, crouching over half-gnawed bones. In his "Georgics", Virgil refers to Cerberus, his "triple jaws agape" being tamed by Orpheus' playing his lyre.  Horace (65 – 8 BC) also refers to Cerberus yielding to Orphesus' lyre, here Cerberus has a single dog head, which "like a Fury's is fortified by a hundred snakes", with a "triple-tongued mouth" oozing "fetid breath and gore".  Ovid (43 BC – AD 17/18) has Cerberus' mouth produce venom, and like Euphorion, makes Cerberus the cause of the poisonous plant aconite. According to Ovid, Heracles dragged Cerberus from the underworld, emerging from a cave "where 'tis fabled, the plant grew / on soil infected by Cerberian teeth", and dazzled by the daylight, Cerberus spewed out a "poison-foam", which made the aconite plants growing there poisonous. Seneca, in his tragedy "Hercules Furens" gives a detailed description of Cerberus and his capture. Seneca's Cerberus has three heads, a mane of snakes, and a snake tail, with his three heads being covered in gore, and licked by the many snakes which surround them, and with hearing so acute that he can hear "even ghosts". Seneca has Heracles use his lion-skin as shield, and his wooden club, to beat Cerberus into submission, after which Hades and Persephone, quailing on their thrones, let Heracles lead a chained and submissive Cerberus away. But upon leaving the underworld, at his first sight of daylight, a frightened Cerberus struggles furiously, and Heracles, with the help of Theseus (who had been held captive by Hades, but released, at Heracles' request) drag Cerberus into the light. Seneca, like Diodorus, has Heracles parade the captured Cerberus through Greece.  Apollodorus' Cerberus has three dog-heads, a serpent for a tail, and the heads of many snakes on his back. According to Apollodorus, Heracles' twelfth and final labor was to bring back Cerberus from Hades. Heracles first went to Eumolpus to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Upon his entering the underworld, all the dead flee Heracles except for Meleager and the Gorgon Medusa. Heracles drew his sword against Medusa, but Hermes told Heracles that the dead are mere "empty phantoms". Heracles asked Hades (here called Pluto) for Cerberus, and Hades said that Heracles could take Cerberus provided he was able to subdue him without using weapons. Heracles found Cerberus at the gates of Acheron, and with his arms around Cerberus, though being bitten by Cerberus' serpent tail, Heracles squeezed until Cerberus submitted. Heracles carried Cerberus away, showed him to Eurystheus, then returned Cerberus to the underworld.  In an apparently unique version of the story, related by the sixth-century AD Pseudo-Nonnus, Heracles descended into Hades to abduct Persephone, and killed Cerberus on his way back up.

Iconography.

The capture of Cerberus was a popular theme in ancient Greek and Roman art. The earliest depictions date from the beginning of the sixth century BC. One of the two earliest depictions, a Corinthian cup (c. 590–580 BC) from Argos (now lost), shows a naked Heracles, with quiver on his back and bow in his right hand, striding left, accompanied by Hermes. Heracles threatens Hades with a stone, who flees left, while a goddess, perhaps Persephone or possibly Athena, standing in front of Hades' throne, prevents the attack. Cerberus, with a single canine head and snakes rising from his head and body, flees right. On the far right a column indicates the entrance to Hades' palace. Many of the elements of this scene— Hermes, Athena, Hades, Persephone, and a column or portico— are common occurrences in later works. The other earliest depiction, a relief "pithos" fragment from Crete (c. 590–570 BC), is thought to show a single lion-headed Cerberus with a snake (open-mouthed) over his back being led to the right.  A mid-sixth-century BC Laconian cup by the Hunt Painter adds several new features to the scene which also become common in later works: three heads, a snake tail, Cerberus' chain and Heracles' club. Here Cerberus has three canine heads, is covered by a shaggy coat of snakes, and has a tail which ends in a snake head. He is being held on a chain leash by Heracles who holds his club raised over head.  In Greek art, the vast majority of depictions of Heracles and Cerberus occur on Attic vases. Although the lost Corinthian cup shows Cerberus with a single dog head, and the relief "pithos" fragment (c. 590–570 BC) apparently shows a single lion-headed Cerberus, in Attic vase painting Cerberus usually has two dog heads. In other art, as in the Laconian cup, Cerberus is usually three-headed. Occasionally in Roman art Cerberus is shown with a large central lion head and two smaller dog heads on either side.  As in the Corinthian and Laconian cups (and possibly the relief "pithos" fragment), Cerberus is often depicted as part snake. In Attic vase painting, Cerberus is usually shown with a snake for a tail or a tail which ends in the head of a snake. Snakes are also often shown rising from various parts of his body including snout, head, neck, back, ankles, and paws.  Two Attic amphoras from Vulci, one (c. 530–515 BC) by the Bucci Painter (Munich 1493), the other (c. 525–510 BC) by the Andokides painter (Louvre F204), in addition to the usual two heads and snake tail, show Cerberus with a mane down his necks and back, another typical Cerberian feature of Attic vase painting. Andokides' amphora also has a small snake curling up from each of Cerberus' two heads.  Besides this lion-like mane and the occasional lion-head mentioned above, Cerberus was sometimes shown with other leonine features. A pitcher (c. 530–500) shows Cerberus with mane and claws, while a first-century BC sardonyx cameo shows Cerberus with leonine body and paws. In addition, a limestone relief fragment from Taranto (c. 320–300 BC) shows Cerberus with three lion-like heads.  During the second quarter of the 5th century BC the capture of Cerberus disappears from Attic vase painting. After the early third century BC, the subject becomes rare everywhere until the Roman period. In Roman art the capture of Cerberus is usually shown together with other labors. Heracles and Cerberus are usually alone, with Heracles leading Cerberus.

Etymology.

The etymology of Cerberus' name is uncertain. Ogden refers to attempts to establish an Indo-European etymology as "not yet successful". It has been claimed to be related to the Sanskrit word सर्वरा "sarvarā", used as an epithet of one of the dogs of Yama, from a Proto-Indo-European word *"k̑érberos", meaning "spotted". Lincoln (1991), among others, critiques this etymology. Lincoln notes a similarity between Cerberus and the Norse mythological dog Garmr, relating both names to a Proto-Indo-European root "*ger-" "to growl" (perhaps with the suffixes "-*m/*b" and "-*r"). However, as Ogden observes, this analysis actually requires "Kerberos" and "Garmr" to be derived from two "different" Indo-European roots (*"ker-" and *"gher-" respectively), and so does not actually establish a relationship between the two names.  Though probably not Greek, Greek etymologies for Cerberus have been offered. An etymology given by Servius (the late-fourth-century commentator on Virgil)—but rejected by Ogden—derives Cerberus from the Greek word "creoboros" meaning "flesh-devouring". Another suggested etymology derives Cerberus from "Ker berethrou", meaning "evil of the pit".

Cerberus rationalized.

At least as early as the 6th century BC, some ancient writers attempted to explain away various fantastical features of Greek mythology; included in these are various rationalized accounts of the Cerberus story. The earliest such account (late 6th century BC) is that of Hecataeus of Miletus. In his account Cerberus was not a dog at all, but rather simply a large poisonous snake, which lived on Tainaron. The serpent was called the "hound of Hades" only because anyone bitten by it died immediately, and it was this snake that Heracles brought to Eurystheus. The geographer Pausanias (who preserves for us Hecataeus' version of the story) points out that, since Homer does not describe Cerberus, Hecataeus' account does not necessarily conflict with Homer, since Homer's "Hound of Hades" may not in fact refer to an actual dog.  Other rationalized accounts make Cerberus out to be a normal dog. According to Palaephatus (4th century BC) Cerberus was one of the two dogs who guarded the cattle of Geryon, the other being Orthrus. Geryon lived in a city named Tricranium (in Greek "Tricarenia," "Three-Heads"), from which name both Cerberus and Geryon came to be called "three-headed". Heracles killed Orthus, and drove away Geryon's cattle, with Cerberus following along behind. Molossus, a Mycenaen, offered to buy Cerberus from Eurystheus (presumably having received the dog, along with the cattle, from Heracles). But when Eurystheus refused, Molossus stole the dog and penned him up in a cave in Tainaron. Eurystheus commanded Heracles to find Cerberus and bring him back. After searching the entire Peloponnesus, Heracles found where it was said Cerberus was being held, went down into the cave, and brought up Cerberus, after which it was said: "Heracles descended through the cave into Hades and brought up Cerberus."  In the rationalized account of Philochorus, in which Heracles rescues Theseus, Perithous is eaten by Cerberus. In this version of the story, Aidoneus (i.e., "Hades") is the mortal king of the Molossians, with a wife named Persephone, a daughter named Kore (another name for the goddess Persephone) and a large mortal dog named Cerberus, with whom all suiters of his daughter were required to fight. After having stolen Helen, to be Theseus' wife, Theseus and Perithous, attempt to abduct Kore, for Perithous, but Aidoneus catches the two heroes, imprisons Theseus, and feeds Perithous to Cerberus. Later, while a guest of Aidoneus, Heracles asks Aidoneus to release Theseus, as a favor, which Aidoneus grants.  A 2nd-century AD Greek known as Heraclitus the paradoxographer (not to be confused with the 5th-century BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus) – claimed that Cerberus had two pups that were never away from their father, which made Cerberus appear to be three-headed.

Cerberus allegorized.

Servius, a medieval commentator on Virgil's "Aeneid", derived Cerberus' name from the Greek word "creoboros" meaning "flesh-devouring" (see above), and held that Cerberus symbolized the corpse-consuming earth, with Heracles' triumph over Cerberus representing his victory over earthly desires. Later the mythographer Fulgentius, allegorizes Cerberus' three heads as representing the three origins of human strife: "nature, cause, and accident", and (drawing on the same flesh-devouring etymology as Servius) as symbolizing "the three ages—infancy, youth, old age, at which death enters the world." The Byzantine historian and bishop Eusebius wrote that Cerberus was represented with three heads, because the positions of the sun above the earth are three — rising, midday, and setting.  The later Vatican Mythographers repeat and expand upon the traditions of Servius and Fulgentius. All three Vatican Mythographers repeat Servius' derivation of Cerberus' name from "creoboros". The Second Vatican Mythographer repeats (nearly word for word) what Fulgentius had to say about Cerberus, while the Third Vatican Mythographer, in another very similar passage to Fugentius', says (more specifically than Fugentius), that for "the philosophers" Cerberus represented hatred, his three heads symbolizing the three kinds of human hatred: natural, causal, and casual (i.e. accidental).  The Second and Third Vatican Mythographers, note that the three brothers Zeus, Poseidon and Hades each have tripartite insignia, associating Hades' three headed Cerberus, with Zeus' three-forked thunderbolt, and Poseidon's three-pronged trident, while the Third Vatican Mythographer adds that "some philosophers think of Cerberus as the tripartite earth: Asia, Africa, and Europe. This earth, swallowing up bodies, sends souls to Tartarus."  Virgil described Cerberus as "ravenous" ("fame rabida"), and a rapacious Cerberus became proverbial. Thus Cerberus came to symbolize avarice, and so, for example, in Dante's "Inferno," Cerberus is placed in the Third Circle of Hell, guarding over the gluttons, where he "rends the spirits, flays and quarters them," and Dante (perhaps echoing Servius' association of Cerbeus with earth) has his guide Virgil take up handfuls of earth and throw them into Cerberus' "rapacious gullets."

Constellation.

In the constellation Cerberus introduced by Johannes Hevelius in 1687, Cerberus is drawn as a three-headed snake, held in Hercules' hand (previously these stars had been depicted as a branch of the tree on which grew the Apples of the Hesperides).

Snake genus.

In 1829 French naturalist Georges Cuvier gave the name "Cerberus" to a genus of Asian snakes, which are commonly called "dog-faced water snakes" in English.

In Greek mythology, Cerberus (; "Kérberos" ), often referred to as the hound of Hades, is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. Cerberus was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, and is usually described as having three heads, a serpent for a tail, and snakes protruding from multiple parts of his body. Cerberus is primarily known for his capture by Heracles, one of Heracles' twelve labours.

Dans la mythologie grecque, Cerbère (en grec ancien ) est le chien à trois têtes gardant l'entrée des Enfers, empêchant les morts de s'échapper de l'antre d'Hadès et des vivants de venir récupérer certains morts.


Early life.

Marcus Junius Brutus was the son of Marcus Junius Brutus and Servilia of the Servilii Caepiones. He was a member of the gens Junia, one of the most celebrated families in Rome. His ancestor, Lucius Junius Brutus, led the revolt that overthrew the Etruscan King of Rome, and was dubbed "the founder of the Roman Republic" by the Romans. Marcus Brutus belonged to the last generation of Roman "nobiles" who came of age and began a political career before the collapse of the Republic. His peers included Mark Antony, Publius Licinius Crassus, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Brutus' father was killed by Pompey the Great in dubious circumstances after he had taken part in the rebellion of Lepidus; his mother was the half-sister of Cato the Younger, and later Julius Caesar's mistress. Some sources refer to the possibility of Caesar being his real father, despite Caesar being only fifteen years old when Brutus was born.  Brutus' uncle, Quintus Servilius Caepio, adopted him posthumously in about 59 BC, and Brutus was known officially for a time as Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus before he reverted to using his birth-name. Following Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Brutus revived his adoptive name in order to illustrate his links to another famous tyrannicide, Gaius Servilius Ahala, from whom he was descended.  Brutus held his uncle in high regard and his political career started when he became an assistant to Cato, during his governorship of Cyprus. During this time, he enriched himself by lending money at high rates of interest. Brutus was also active in the province of Cilicia, in the year before Marcus Tullius Cicero was proconsul there; Cicero documents how Brutus profited from money lending to the provincials in his "Letters". He returned to Rome a rich man, where he married Claudia Pulchra. From his first appearance in the Senate, Brutus aligned with the Optimates (the conservative faction) against the First Triumvirate of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, and Gaius Julius Caesar.

Military career.

When Caesar's Civil War broke out in 49 BC between Pompey and Caesar, Brutus followed his old enemy and the present leader of the Optimates, Pompey. When the Battle of Pharsalus began on August 9, Caesar ordered his officers to take Brutus prisoner if he gave himself up voluntarily, but to leave him alone and do him no harm if he persisted in fighting against capture. Caesar's concern, given that he and Brutus' mother Servilia had been lovers in their youth, was that Brutus might be his biological son. Indeed, he and Brutus enjoyed a close relationship at this time. Even when Brutus joined Pompey the Great to fight with Caesar and his soldiers, Caesar's main focus was Pompey, but he demanded Brutus be captured alive.  After the defeat of the Optimates at the Battle of Pharsalus, Brutus surrendered and wrote to Caesar with apologies. Caesar immediately forgave him. Caesar then accepted him into his inner circle and made him governor of Gaul when he left for Africa in pursuit of Cato and Metellus Scipio. In 45 BC, Caesar nominated Brutus to serve as urban praetor for the following year.  Also, in June 45 BC, Brutus divorced his wife and married his first cousin, Porcia Catonis, Cato's daughter. According to Cicero the marriage caused a semi-scandal as Brutus failed to state a valid reason for his divorce from Claudia other than he wished to marry Porcia. The marriage also caused a rift between Brutus and his mother, who was resentful of the affection Brutus had for Porcia.

Assassination of Julius Caesar.

Around this time many senators began to fear Caesar's growing power, following his appointment as dictator in perpetuity. The other senators persuaded Brutus to join the conspiracy against Caesar. Eventually, Brutus decided to move against Caesar after Caesar's alleged king-like behavior prompted him to take action. His wife was the only woman privy to the plot.  The conspirators planned to carry out their plot on the Ides of March (March 15) that same year. On that day, Caesar was delayed going to the Senate because his wife Calpurnia tried to convince him not to go. The conspirators feared the plot had been found out. Brutus persisted, however, waiting for Caesar at the Senate, and allegedly still chose to remain even when a messenger brought him news that would otherwise have caused him to leave.  When Caesar finally did come to the Senate, he was distracted by Tillius Cimber, who presented Caesar with a request to free his exiled brother. Caesar dismissed him, and Cimber subsequently grabbed his toga. "Why this violence?" Caesar asked. At this, the conspirators attacked Caesar. Publius Servilius Casca Longus was allegedly the first to attack him, with a stab to the shoulder, which Caesar blocked. However, upon seeing Brutus was with the conspirators, Caesar covered his face with his toga and resigned himself to his fate. The conspirators attacked in such numbers that they even wounded one another. Brutus is said to have been wounded in the hand and in the legs.  After the assassination, the Senate passed an amnesty on the assassins. This amnesty was proposed by Caesar's friend and co-consul Mark Antony. Nonetheless, uproar among the population against the assassins caused Brutus and the conspirators to leave Rome. Brutus settled in Crete from 44 to 42 BC.

Liberators' civil war.

In 43 BC, after Octavian received his consulship from the Roman Senate, one of his first actions was to have the people who had assassinated Julius Caesar declared murderers and enemies of the state. Cicero, angry at Octavian, wrote a letter to Brutus explaining that the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony were divided. Antony had laid siege to the province of Gaul, where he wanted a governorship. In response to this siege, Octavian rallied his troops and fought a series of battles, culminating in the Battle of Mutina, in which Antony was defeated.  Upon hearing that neither Mark Antony nor Octavian had an army large enough to defend Rome, Brutus rallied his troops, which totalled about 17 legions. When Octavian heard that Brutus was on his way to Rome, he made peace with Antony. Their armies, which together totalled about 19 legions, marched to meet Brutus and his ally, fellow assassin Gaius Cassius Longinus, thus beginning the Liberators' civil war. The two sides met in two engagements known as the Battle of Philippi. The first was fought on October 3, 42 BC, in which Brutus defeated Octavian's forces, although Cassius was defeated by Antony's forces, and subsequently committed suicide. The second engagement was fought on October 23, and ended in Brutus' defeat.  After the defeat, he fled into the nearby hills with only about four legions. Knowing his army had been defeated and that he would be captured, Brutus committed suicide by running into his own sword being held by two of his own men. Among his last words were, according to Plutarch, "By all means must we fly; not with our feet, however, but with our hands". Brutus also uttered the well-known verse calling down a curse upon Antony (Plutarch repeats this from the memoirs of Publius Volumnius): "Forget not, Zeus, the author of these crimes" (in the Dryden translation this passage is given as "Punish, great Jove, the author of these ills"). Plutarch wrote that, according to Volumnius, Brutus repeated two verses, but Volumnius was only able to recall the one quoted.  Mark Antony, as a show of great respect, ordered Brutus' body to be wrapped in Antony's most expensive purple mantle (this was later stolen, and Antony had the thief executed). Brutus was cremated, and his ashes were sent to his mother, Servilia. His wife Porcia was reported to have committed suicide upon hearing of her husband's death, although, according to Plutarch (Brutus 53 para 2), there is some dispute as to whether this is the case: Plutarch states that there was a letter in existence that was allegedly written by Brutus mourning the manner of her death.

Legacy.

Influence.

The phrase "Sic semper tyrannis!" ["thus, ever (or always), to tyrants!"] is attributed to Brutus at Caesar's assassination. The phrase is also the official motto of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  In 1787, the Anti-Federalist Papers were written under the pseudonym "Brutus" in reference to Caesar's assassin who tried to preserve the Republic.  John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, claimed to be inspired by Brutus. Booth's father, Junius Brutus Booth, was named for Brutus, and Booth (as Mark Antony) and his brother Edwin (as Brutus) had performed in a production of "Julius Caesar" in New York City just six months before the assassination. On the night of the assassination, Booth is alleged to have shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" while leaping to the stage of Ford's Theater. Lamenting the negative reaction to his deed, Booth wrote in his journal on April 21, 1865, while on the run, "[W]ith every man's hand against me, I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for... And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat." Booth was also known to be greatly attracted to Caesar himself, having played both Brutus and Caesar upon various stages.

Marcus Junius Brutus (; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman senator and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by an uncle, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, but subsequently returned to his birth name.

Marcus Junius Brutus Cæpio (vers 85 av. J.-C. - 23 octobre 42 av. J.-C.) est un sénateur romain, juriste et philosophe de la fin de la République romaine, fils de Servilia, la maîtresse de Jules César, auquel il porta le dernier coup, en le poignardant le


Symbols.

Heraldry.

Current arms:  "Gules, a single-towered open castle Or, windowed and masoned sable."  Under the Ancien Régime: "Per fess, gules and azure, 3 fleurs de lys Or."  During the First French Empire: "Gules, a single-towered castle Or, a chief of Good Imperial Cities (gules, 3 bees Or)."

Motto.

Today, Caen has no motto, but it used to have one, which did not survive the French Revolution. As a result, its spelling is archaic and has not been updated:  This motto is reflected in a notable old Chant royal.

Code.

Caen's home port code is CN.

History.

Early history.

Caen was known in Roman times as 'Catumagos', from the Gaulish roots "magos" meaning 'field' and "catu" meaning 'combat'. It remained a minor settlement throughout the Roman period and began to see major development commence in the 10th century, under the patronage of the Dukes of Normandy. Around 1060, William the Conqueror began construction of the Château de Caen, which became the centre of the ducal court. Duchess Matilda of Flanders also founded the Benedictine Abbey of Sainte-Trinité, Caen around the same time, eventually being buried in the abbey. Caen succeeded Bayeux as the capital of Lower Normandy, complementing the second ducal capital of Rouen.  Caen fell to Philip II of France on 21 May 1204, and was incorporated along with the remainder of Normandy into the Kingdom of France.

Hundred Years' War.

In 1346, King Edward III of England led his army against the city, hoping to loot it. It was expected that a siege of perhaps several weeks would be required, but the army took the city in less than a day, on 26 July 1346, storming and sacking it, killing 3,000 of its citizens, and burning much of the merchants' quarter on the Ile Ste-Jean. Only the castle of Caen held out, despite attempts to besiege it. A few days later, the English left, marching to the east and on to their victory at the Battle of Crécy. It was later captured following a siege by Henry V in 1417 and treated harshly for being the first town to put up any resistance to his invasion. In 1450 towards the end of the war, French forces recaptured Caen.

Second World War.

During the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War, Caen was liberated from the Nazis in early July, a month after the Normandy landings, particularly those by British I Corps on 6 June 1944. British and Canadian troops had intended to capture the town on D-Day. However they were held up north of the city until 9 July, when an intense bombing campaign during Operation Charnwood destroyed 70% of the city and killed 2,000 French civilians. The Allies seized the western quarters, a month later than Field Marshal Montgomery's original plan. During the battle, many of the town's inhabitants sought refuge in the "Abbaye aux Hommes" ("Men's Abbey"), built by William the Conqueror some 800 years before. The spire of the Church of Saint-Pierre, Caen and the university were destroyed by the British and Canadian bombing.

Post-war.

Post-Second World War work included the reconstruction of complete districts of the city and the university campus. It took 14 years (1948–1962) and led to the current urbanization of Caen. Having lost many of its historic quarters and its university campus in the war, the city does not have the atmosphere of a traditional Normandy town such as Honfleur, Rouen, Cabourg, Deauville and Bayeux.  The Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit filmed the D-Day offensive and Orne breakout several weeks later, then returned several months later to document the city's recovery efforts. The resulting film, "You Can't Kill a City", is preserved in the National Archives of Canada.

Etymology.

The very first mentions of the name of Caen are found in different acts of the dukes of Normandy: "Cadon" 1021/1025, "Cadumus" 1025, "Cathim" 1026/1027. Year 1070 of the Parker manuscript of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" refers to Caen as "Kadum", and year 1086 of the Laud manuscript gives the name as "Caþum". Despite a lack of sources as to the origin of the settlements, the name Caen would seem to be of Gaulish origin, from the words "catu-", referring to military activities and "magos", field, hence meaning "manoeuvre field" or "battlefield". In Layamon's "Brut", the poet asserts that King Arthur named the city in memory of Sir Kay.

Geography.

Caen is in an area of high humidity. The Orne River flows through the city, as well as small rivers known as "les Odons", most of which have been buried under the city to improve urban hygiene. Caen has a large flood zone, named "La prairie", located around the hippodrome, not far from the River Orne, which is regularly submerged.  Caen is from the Channel. A canal (Canal de Caen à la Mer) parallel to the Orne was built during the reign of Napoleon III to link the city to the sea at all times. The canal reaches the English Channel at Ouistreham. A lock keeps the tide out of the canal and lets large ships navigate up the canal to Caen's freshwater harbours.

Climate.

Caen has an oceanic climate that is somewhat ameliorated due to its slightly inland position. In spite of this, summers are still cool by French standards and the climate is typically maritime in terms of high precipitation, relatively modest sunshine hours and mild winters.

Main sights.

Castle.

The castle, "Château de Caen", built circa 1060 by William the Conqueror, who successfully conquered England in 1066, is one of the largest medieval fortresses of Western Europe. It remained an essential feature of Norman strategy and policy. At Christmas 1182, a royal court celebration for Christmas in the aula of Caen Castle brought together Henry II and his sons, Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland, receiving more than a thousand knights. Caen Castle, along with all of Normandy, was handed over to the French Crown in 1204. The castle saw several engagements during the Hundred Years' War (1346, 1417, 1450) and was in use as a barracks as late as the Second World War. Bullet holes are visible on the walls of the castle where members of the French Resistance were shot during the Second World War. Today, the castle serves as a museum that houses the "Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen" (Museum of Fine Arts of Caen) and "Musée de Normandie" (Museum of Normandy) along with many periodical exhibitions about arts and history. (See )

Abbeys.

In repentance for marrying his cousin Mathilda of Flanders, William ordered two abbeys to be built on the Pope's encouragement:

Administration.

Mayors of Caen have included:  In 1952, the small commune of Venoix became part of Caen.  In 1990, the agglomeration of Caen was organized into a district, transformed in 2002 into a "Communauté d'agglomération" ("Grand Caen" (Greater Caen), renamed Caen la Mer in 2004), gathers 29 towns and villages, including Villons-les-Buissons, Lion-sur-Mer, Hermanville-sur-Mer, which joined the Communauté d'agglomération in 2004. The population of the "communauté d'agglomération" is around 220000 inhabitants.  In the former administrative organisation, Caen was a part of 9 cantons, of which it was the chief town. These cantons contained a total of 13 towns. Caen gave its name to a 10th canton, of which it was not part. Since the 2015 canton reorganization, Caen is part of the cantons of Caen-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Transport.

Formerly, Caen had guided bus system—built by Bombardier Transportation and modelled on its Guided Light Transit technology. Faced with the residents' anger against the project, the municipality had to pursue the project with only 23% of the population in favour of the new form of transport. The road layout of the city centre was deeply transformed and the formerly traffic-jam-free centre's problems are still unresolved. The system was closed in 2017 to make way for a new tram network that was opened in 2019. The new tramway was inaugurated in 27 July 2019.  Caen also has a very efficient network of city buses, operated under the name Twisto. The city is connected to the rest of the Calvados département by the Bus Verts du Calvados bus network.  Caen - Carpiquet Airport is the biggest airport in Normandy considering the number of passengers and flights that it serves every year. Most flights are operated by HOP! and Chalair Aviation, Volotea and the French national airline Air France operates three daily flights to the French cities of Lyon and Marseille. In the summer there are many flights to Spain, Germany, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.  Caen is served by the large port of Ouistreham, lying at the mouth of the Caen Canal where it meets the English Channel. A cruise/ferry service operates between Portsmouth, England, and Caen/Ouistreham running both standard roll-on-roll-off car ferries and supercat fast ferries, with the latter making crossing from March to November. The ferry terminal is from Caen with a daytime shuttle bus service for foot passengers. There's also a cyclist road from Caen to Ouistreham.  Caen is connected to the rest of France by motorways to Paris (A13), Brittany and Southern France (A84) and to Le Mans and central France (A88–A28). The A13 and A88 are toll roads while the A84 is a toll-free motorway. The city is encircled by the N814 ring-road (Boulevard Périphérique) that was completed in the late 1990s. The N13 connects Caen to Cherbourg and to Paris. A section of the former N13 (Caen-Paris) is now D613 (in Calvados) following road renumbering. The Boulevard Périphérique includes an impressive viaduct called the Viaduc de Calix that goes over the canal and River Orne. The canal links the city to the sea to permit cargo ships and ferries to dock in the port of Caen. Ferries which have docked include the "Quiberon" and the "Duc de Normandie".  Although a fraction of what it used to be remains, Caen once boasted an extensive rail and tram network. From 1895 until 1936, the "Compagnie des Tramways Electriques de Caen" (Electrical Tramway Company of Caen) operated all around the city. Caen also had several main and branch railway lines linking Caen railway station to all parts of Normandy with lines to Paris, Vire, Flers, Cabourg, Houlgate, Deauville, Saint-Lô, Bayeux and Cherbourg. Now only the electrified line of Paris-Cherbourg, Caen-Le Mans and Caen-Rennes subsist with regular services.

Economy.

The agricultural and food-processing Agrial cooperative has its head office on Caen. Agrial group processes vegetables, cider apples, milk, poultry and meat with the help of its 12,000 employees and all its partners.

Music and theatre.

The Théâtre de Caen (1963) is the home of the Baroque musical ensemble Les Arts Florissants. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979 and derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Notable Caennais.

Caen was the birthplace of:  Saint John Eudes, the forerunner of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, died here.

International relations.

Twin towns – sister cities.

Caen is twinned with:

Sport.

From 1947 to 2006, Caen was a stage of the Tour de France a total of 15 times. Further, Caen was one of the hosts of the EuroBasket 1983. The city has a football team, SM Caen. In 2014, Caen was the location of the 2014 FEI World Equestrian Games.

Caen (, ; ) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 108,365 inhabitants (), while its urban area has 420,000, making Caen the largest city in former Lower Normandy. It is also the third largest municipality in all of Normandy after Le Havre and Rouen and the third largest city proper in Normandy, after Rouen and Le Havre. The metropolitan area of Caen, in turn, is the second largest in Normandy after that of Rouen, the 21st largest in France.

Caen ( ) est une commune française du Nord-Ouest de la France en Normandie. Préfecture du département du Calvados, elle était jusqu'au le chef-lieu de l'ancienne région Basse-Normandie. Depuis 2016, elle est le siège du conseil régional de Normandie et donc la capitale politique de la région tandis que Rouen avec le siège de la préfecture (chef-lieu) est la capitale administrative. La Normandie présente donc, à l'instar de la Bourgogne - Franche-Comté, la particularité de posséder une gouvernance « bicéphale ».


Gameplay.

"Dungeon Siege" is an action role-playing game set in a pseudo-medieval high fantasy world, presented in 3D with a third-person virtual camera system under the control of the player, in which the player characters navigate the terrain and fight off hostile creatures. The player chooses the gender and customizes the appearance of the main character of the story prior to the start of the game and typically controls them. The main character is joined by up to seven other characters, which are controlled via artificial intelligence; the player may switch which character they are controlling at any time. The other characters move in relation to the controlled character according to the formation and level of aggression towards enemies chosen by the player. The additional characters can be removed from the group and re-recruited at any given time.  The game world is not broken up into levels, but is instead one large area not separated by loading screens. As the player journeys through the largely linear world, they encounter numerous monsters and enemies of varying types that attack whenever the party of player characters approach. The party defends themselves and attacks enemies using melee and ranged weapons, and nature and combat magic. The player does not select a character class for the characters, unlike other role-playing video games; instead, using weapons or magic of a particular type increases the character's skill with them over time. Whenever a player gains enough experience points from killing enemies and reaches a new level in that weapon type, they gain some number of points in their strength, dexterity, or intelligence statistics, which in turn relate to the number of health points and mana that they have, and damage that they do with weapons.  Characters can equip weapons, armor, rings, and amulets, which provide attack or defense points, or give bonuses to some other statistic. There are also usable items such as potions to restore a character's health or mana. Weapons, armor, and other items are found by killing enemies, breaking containers, or by purchase from vendors. Each character has an inventory, represented as a fixed grid, with each item depicted by a shape taking up spaces on the grid. One character type, the mule, cannot use weapons or magic, but has a much larger inventory.  "Dungeon Siege" has both a single-player and multiplayer mode. The single-player mode consists of a single story and world; players can either create a new character when starting the story or use one created in a prior playthrough. The cooperative multiplayer mode allows for up to eight players to play through either the single-player storyline or in the multiplayer map, which features a central town hub with increasingly difficult enemies as players move away from it. Multiplayer games can be set to different difficulty levels, allowing accommodation of higher-leveled characters. Additional maps can be created by players that can allow for competitive multiplayer instead. Multiplayer matches can be created and joined via local area networks, direct IP addresses, and, prior to its closure in 2006, through the Microsoft Zone matchmaking service.

Plot.

"Dungeon Siege" is set in the Kingdom of Ehb, a varied region on the continent of Aranna containing deserts, swamps, forests, and mountains, created three centuries earlier at the dissolution of the Empire of Stars. At the beginning of the game, the player character's farming village is attacked by a race of creatures named the Krug. The main character, a farmer with no given background who is named by the player, journeys through the Krug forces to the town of Stonebridge. Upon breaking the siege of the town, and gaining their first companion, the player character is tasked by the town's garrison leader Gyorn with journeying to the town of Glacern and alerting the Ehb military forces, called the 10th Legion, of the incursion and defeating any forces they encounter along the way. After journeying through crypts, mines, and mountains, the player character reaches Glacern, where they are informed that the Krug invasion happened the same day that the Grand Mage Merik disappeared, and are charged with traveling over the mountains to Fortress Kroth to assist the legion there. In the mountains they find Merik, who informs them that the Krug invasion is part of a larger invasion by the Seck, who destroyed the Empire of Stars before being imprisoned underneath Castle Ehb, and who have escaped and taken the castle. Merik asks the player to help recover the Staff of Stars from the Goblins. Prior to its theft, the Staff had kept the Seck imprisoned in the Vault of Eternity.  The player fights through monsters and bandits in crystal caves, a forest, a swamp, and an underground Goblin fortress filled with mechanical war machines. After recovering the Staff from the Goblins, the player character meets a division of the 10th Legion and is pointed towards Fortress Kroth, which has been overrun with undead. After clearing the fortress and fighting monsters and a dragon in the Cliffs of Fire, they march on Castle Ehb. The player characters then storm the castle and fight through the Seck forces to rescue King Konreid. He informs the party that the Seck's leader, Gom, is seeking the magical weapons from the Empire of Stars stored in the Chamber of Stars, and that the characters must secure the weapons and then defeat the remaining Seck. The player character collects the weapons and fights through lava caves and the Vault of Eternity where the Seck had been imprisoned. The player character kills Gom, defeating the Seck and saving the kingdom.

Development.

Gas Powered Games was founded in May 1998 by Chris Taylor, then known for the 1997 real-time strategy game "Total Annihilation". Joined by several of his coworkers from Cavedog Entertainment, Taylor wanted to create a different type of game than before, and after trying several concepts the team decided to make an action role-playing game as their first title. As well as helping create the initial concept, Taylor served as one of the designers for the game, joined by Jacob McMahon as the game's other lead designer and producer and Neal Hallford as the game's lead story and dialogue writer. Hallford was brought onto the project after it had already started; Taylor had devised the start and end of the game but left the intervening details and background story to him. The game's music was composed by Jeremy Soule, who had also worked on "Total Annihilation". The development team included around thirty people during development, with changes over time, and reached forty at the project's conclusion. The development of the game took over four years, though it was initially planned to take only two.  "Dungeon Siege" was inspired by prior role-playing games such as "Baldur's Gate" and the "Ultima" series, but primarily by "Diablo", which Taylor admired for having an experience that "concentrated on action" that players could jump into without first researching the gameplay details and settings. Taylor wanted to expand that concept into a streamlined, immersive, and action-heavy role-playing game that removed common elements of the genre that he found boring, frustrating, or slow. Taylor also wanted to make the gameplay itself simpler than contemporary role-playing games, so as to appeal to a wider audience. To that end, he asked Hallford to craft a narrative that was also fast and streamlined; he had him write a detailed backstory for the game, which would not be presented to players but would inform and inspire the developers, leaving the in-game text restrained to keep players engaged with the action. Hallford described the process of writing for the game as similar to other game projects, besides a greater emphasis on brevity, though he has said that he was brought onto the project much later than he usually is, which meant that he had to create a story that worked as a background to the set pieces that had already been developed. The plot of the game was intended by Taylor to be subordinate to the gameplay; to that end, he was unconcerned that his overall story arc was considered, even by the development team, to be somewhat of a cliché, as he felt that journeying to defeat an "ultimate evil" was very motivating to players. Taylor and Hallford discussed producing a "Dungeon Siege" novel to explore Hallford's story, though it never came to fruition.  Taylor wanted to further improve on the "Diablo" role-playing game formula by removing the concept of picking a character class at all and omitting "Diablo"s long loading times. The development team also tried to make the game more streamlined by removing the need to backtrack to previously visited towns to sell items, by adding inventories to companion characters and pack mules. At one point in development, they planned to have a "helper" character who would pick up items dropped by enemies to let the player avoid doing so themselves. The developers also changed some elements that were standard in role-playing games that Taylor and the other developers found frustrating, such as letting players resell items to vendors for the same price that they were bought for instead of a steep discount, and "sipping" or only partially using potions instead of always using up the whole item.  Gas Powered Games included their game development tool, called the Siege Editor, as a tool for players to mod the game. Having seen the output of players creating mods for "Total Annihilation", Taylor wanted to "take that to the extreme" and provide a full set of tools to foster a community of players enhancing and changing the game after release. He felt that the tools, which could allow players to make new game worlds, characters, and gameplay, would help support a large, long-term community of players around the game. Gas Powered Games hoped that providing what Daily Radar called "one of the most comprehensive level toolsets we've ever seen" would allow players to quickly and easily create small game regions, as well as allow more serious modders the ability to develop entire parallel games using the "Dungeon Siege" game engine. They also hoped that this modding community would be able to enhance and extend the multiplayer gameplay beyond what they could release. Taylor attributed his enthusiasm for releasing their own development tools for modding to both his enjoyment of seeing mods for "Total Annihilation" produced years after its release as well as the lack of negative consequences to John Carmack and id Software's historical tendency to release the entire source code to their games. Taylor later estimated that the company spent around twenty percent of their budget on developing the modding tools.  After the first year of development, Gas Powered Games found that they were not going to be able to finish the game within the planned two years; not only was the seamless world without loading screens harder to create than they had thought, but, according to lead developer Bartosz Kijanka, they had been overambitious in choosing how many innovative features they could put into the game's custom engine, such as the wide range through which the virtual camera system could zoom in and out. Other features supported and later dropped included allowing up to ten characters at once—and therefore maintaining up to ten areas of the single-player world—instead of the final maximum of eight, and a weather system that included wind blowing projectiles off course. According to Kijanka, the developers also spent a lot of time changing technologies mid-development, such as building a custom animation editor before moving to a licensed one, and starting with the OpenGL graphics library only to switch to Direct3D. As a result, the team was required to work 12–14 hour days and weekends for most of the development time in order to complete the game within four years. In a 2011 interview, Taylor stated that in retrospect the final cost in development time of the seamless world may have been too high, and also that the team tried to make too large of a game for their budget; he believed that a game with closer to 35 hours of playtime instead of 70 would have been a better and more polished experience given their constraints.  By 2000, Gas Powered Games had begun to search for a publisher for the game. Taylor claims that multiple publishers were interested in the game, but he was convinced by Ed Fries to partner with the newly established Microsoft PC publishing group. Although Microsoft's publishing wing was established in part to publish games for the newly announced Xbox console, Gas Powered Games and Microsoft did not strongly consider bringing the game to the console. Taylor believes that this was due to the size of the game itself, as well as the small market for role-playing games on consoles at the time. "Dungeon Siege" was initially planned for release in the third quarter of 2001, before being delayed to the following year, and Gas Powered Games spent the added time tuning and polishing the game and expanding the game's items and multiplayer features. "Dungeon Siege" was released for Microsoft Windows on April 5, 2002, by Microsoft, and for Mac OS X on May 2, 2003, by Destineer.

Reception.

"Dungeon Siege" was commercially successful, selling over 1.7 million copies. According to the NPD Group, preorders of the game in the month before its release made it the eighth-best selling computer game of March 2002, and upon release in the following month it rose to second-best selling, after "The Sims: Vacation". It fell to seventh and then thirteenth place the following two months, and finished in 14th place for the year overall. By August 2006, it had sold 360,000 copies and earned $14.5 million in the United States alone. This led "Edge" to declare it the country's 44th-best selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. By September 2002, "Dungeon Siege" had also received a "Gold" certification from the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD), indicating sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  The game was highly rated by critics upon release; it is listed by review aggregator Metacritic as the third-highest rated computer role-playing game of 2002, behind "Neverwinter Nights" and "", and the twenty-first-highest computer game overall for the year. The graphics were highly praised; Dan Adams of IGN called it "ridiculously pretty to watch", while reviewers for GameSpot and "GamePro" praised the environments as being detailed and varied. Robert Coffey of "Computer Gaming World" and Greg Vederman of "PC Gamer" similarly lauded the detailed environments, while Andy McNamara and Kristian Brogger of "Game Informer" and GameSpy's Peter Suciu called out the seamless world without loading screens as especially worthy of note. Suciu further praised how the freeform, seamless map was used to create areas that were not shaped like rectangular regions with a winding path filling up the space, as was typical with other role-playing games of the time. The IGN and "GamePro" reviewers commended the sound effects as excellent and for helping to create the atmosphere of the game, while the IGN and GameSpot reviewers also praised the "ambient orchestral score".  The gameplay was similarly lauded; the "GamePro" review claimed that ""Dungeon Siege"s gameplay is perhaps its biggest and most transparent improvement over previous titles in the genre." Several reviewers compared it favorably to "Diablo II" (2000), then one of the most popular computer action role-playing games, with Adams of IGN claiming that it was very similar to "Diablo II" with some changes and improvements, and Coffey of "Computer Gaming World" stating that the only thing keeping it from being directly rated as better was that the shift to a more tactical gameplay made it too different of a game to directly compare. "PC Gamer"s Vederman, "Computer Gaming World"s Coffey, and the GameSpot reviewer praised the gameplay as being streamlined and accessible; they liked the tactical nature of controlling a party of adventurers who improved according to how they were used rather than directly controlling their actions and statistics. IGN's Adams, however, said that the gameplay could get monotonous, Vederman of "PC Gamer" felt that the gameplay combat choices were somewhat limited, and GameSpy's Suciu disliked the linearity of the single-player game. Adams further added that many of the tactical choices in the game were inconsequential, as all battles quickly devolved into brawls, and that the freeform system of leveling was essentially the same as four character classes as pursuing multiple tracks was ineffective.  The multiplayer content received mixed reviews: Adams praised the amount of additional content, while Suciu and the GameSpot reviewer noted that the multiplayer gameplay could easily become unbalanced between different players. The single-player plot was generally dismissed as inconsequential: the "GamePro" reviewer termed it "skeletal" and the "Game Informer" reviewers "lackluster", and the GameSpot reviewer called it "bland and forgettable" and concluded that players who wanted a "deeper role-playing game" would be disappointed. Overall, Vederman of "PC Gamer" called "Dungeon Siege" "one of the best, most enjoyable games of the year" and "GamePro"s reviewer claimed it "walks all over its competition with almost effortless grace", while Adams of IGN concluded that it was entertaining but had "untapped potential".

Legacy.

After it was showcased at E3 2000, "Dungeon Siege" proceeded to win the Best RPG award from Game Revolution and Most Immersive Role-playing Game award from GameSpot. After release, it was nominated for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences's 2003 Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in the Computer Role-Playing Game of the Year and Innovation in Computer Gaming categories, though it did not win either, losing to "Neverwinter Nights" and "Battlefield 1942", respectively. The game was also a nominee for "PC Gamer US"s "2002 Best Roleplaying Game" award, but lost again to "Neverwinter Nights". It did win the Best PC Game Graphics award from IGN.  Gas Powered Games' release of the Siege Editor did spark the rise of a modding community around the game; even before release several modding groups announced intentions to use the engine to create large-scale mods remaking games from the "Ultima" series of role playing games. After the game's release, numerous mods were created, including several "total conversion" mods that made wholly new games and stories such as "The Lands of Hyperborea" and "Elemental". Gas Powered Games released one mod of their own in July 2002 titled "Yesterhaven", created by six designers over six weeks, which provided a short multiplayer storyline for low-level characters wherein they defended a town from three thematic plagues of monsters. It was followed up by "Legends of Aranna", a full expansion pack developed by Mad Doc Software and released on November 11, 2003 for Windows and Mac OS X by Microsoft. The expansion pack added little new gameplay besides new terrains, creatures, and items, but featured an entirely separate story from the original game. In "Legends", the player controls another unnamed farmer; after the Staff of Stars is stolen by a creature called the Shadowjumper, they set off to retrieve it. After fighting their way through monsters in icy hills, jungles, and islands, the player arrives at the mystical Great Clock, a giant artifact which controls Aranna's seasons. There they defeat the Shadowjumper and retrieve the Staff of Stars. It received generally less positive reviews than the original, with critics praising the amount of content but criticizing the lack of changes to the base gameplay.  Several other games have been released in the "Dungeon Siege" series, beginning with "Dungeon Siege II" (2005). That game received its own expansion pack, "" (2006), and was followed by a spinoff PlayStation Portable game titled "" (2006) and a third main title, "Dungeon Siege III" (2011). A movie directed by Uwe Boll and inspired by the original game, "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale", was released in theaters in 2007; it has been described as being "loosely based" on the game, and was a commercial and critical failure. It was followed by the home video sequels "" (2011) and "" (2014).

Dungeon Siege is an action role-playing game developed by Gas Powered Games and published by Microsoft in April 2002, for Microsoft Windows, and the following year by Destineer for Mac OS X. Set in the pseudo-medieval kingdom of Ehb, the high fantasy game follows a young farmer and his companions as they journey to defeat an invading force. Initially only seeking to warn the nearby town of the invasion of a race of creatures named the Krug, the farmer and the companions that join him along the way are soon swept up in finding a way to defeat another race called the Seck, resurgent after being trapped for 300 years. Unlike other role-playing video games of the time, the world of "Dungeon Siege" does not have levels but is a single, continuous area without loading screens that the player journeys through, fighting hordes of enemies. Also, rather than setting character classes and manually controlling all of the characters in the group, the player controls their overall tactics and weapons and magic usage, which direct their character growth.

Dungeon Siege est un jeu vidéo d'action/aventure (et plus précisément, un hack and slash) de fantasy, développé par Chris Taylor chez Gas Powered Games et édité par Microsoft.


Geography.

Northern Europe might be defined roughly to include some or all of the following areas: British Isles, Fennoscandia, the peninsula of Jutland, the Baltic plain that lies to the east and the many islands that lie offshore from mainland Northern Europe and the main European continent. In some cases, Greenland is also included.  The area is partly mountainous, including the northern volcanic islands of Iceland and Jan Mayen, and the mountainous western seaboard, Scotland and Scandinavia, and also often includes part of the large plain east of the Baltic sea.  The entire region's climate is at least mildly affected by the Gulf Stream. From the west climates vary from maritime and maritime subarctic climates. In the north and central climates are generally subarctic or Arctic and to the east climates are mostly subarctic and temperate/continental.  Just as both climate and relief are variable across the region, so too is vegetation, with sparse tundra in the north and high mountains, boreal forest on the north-eastern and central regions temperate coniferous forests (formerly of which a majority was in the Scottish Highlands and south west Norway) and temperate broadleaf forests growing in the south, west and temperate east.

Classifications.

Various definitions of Northern Europe often include the Nordic countries, and may also include some or all of the Baltic states, the British Isles, northern Germany, northern Belarus and northwest Russia.

"CIA World Factbook".

In the "CIA World Factbook", the description of each country includes information about "Location" under the heading "Geography", where the country is classified into a region. The following countries are included in their classification "Northern Europe": as well as the dependent areas In this classification, stagnant since the Cold War era, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are classified as being in Eastern Europe, while the UK and Ireland are included in Western Europe.

EuroVoc.

EuroVoc is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, giving definitions of terms for official use. In the definition of "Northern Europe", the following countries are included: as well as the dependent area  In this classification, the UK and Ireland are included in Western Europe.

Demographics.

Countries in Northern Europe generally have developed economies and some of the highest standards of living in the world. They often score highly on surveys measuring quality of life, such as the Human Development Index. Aside from the United Kingdom, they generally have a small population relative to their size, most of whom live in cities. Most peoples living in Northern Europe are traditionally Protestant Christians, although many are non-practicing. There are also growing numbers of non-religious people and people of other religions, especially Muslims, due to immigration. In the United Kingdom, there are also significant numbers of Indian religions such as Hindus and Sikhs, due to the large South Asian diaspora. The quality of education in much of Northern Europe is rated highly in international rankings, with Estonia and Finland topping the list among the OECD countries in Europe. The Hansa group in the European Union comprises most of the Northern European states.

Northern Europe is the geographical region in Europe roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54°N. Narrower definitions may be based on other geographical factors such as climate and ecology. A broader definition would include the area north of the Alps.

Dans un sens restreint, l’Europe du Nord désigne généralement des pays nordiques de langues scandinaves (Norvège, Danemark, Suède et Islande) et de langues fenniques (Finlande et Estonie). Dans une vision plus large, l'Europe du Nord désigne toute la moitié nord de l'Europe.


Writing system.

The modern hiragana syllabary consists of 46 base characters:  These are conceived as a 5×10 grid ("gojūon",, "Fifty Sounds"), as illustrated in the adjacent table, read and so forth, with the singular consonant appended to the end. Of the 50 theoretically possible combinations, "yi" and "wu" do not exist in the language and "ye", "wi" and "we" are obsolete (or virtually obsolete) in modern Japanese. "wo" (を) is usually pronounced as a vowel ("o") in modern Japanese and is preserved in only one use, as a particle.  Romanization of the kana does not always strictly follow the consonant-vowel scheme laid out in the table. For example, ち, nominally "ti", is very often romanised as "chi" in an attempt to better represent the actual sound in Japanese.  These basic characters can be modified in various ways. By adding a "dakuten" marker ( ゙), a voiceless consonant is turned into a voiced consonant: "k"→"g", "ts/s"→"z", "t"→"d", "h"→"b" and "ch"/"sh"→"j". For example, か ("ka") becomes が ("ga"). Hiragana beginning with an "h" can also add a "handakuten" marker ( ゚) changing the "h" to a "p". For example, は ("ha") becomes ぱ ("pa").  A small version of the hiragana for "ya", "yu", or "yo" (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively) may be added to hiragana ending in "i". This changes the "i" vowel sound to a glide (palatalization) to "a", "u" or "o". For example, き ("ki") plus ゃ (small "ya") becomes ("kya"). Addition of the small "y" kana is called "yōon".  A small "tsu" っ, called a "sokuon", indicates that the following consonant is geminated (doubled). In Japanese this is an important distinction in pronunciation; for example, compare, "saka", "hill" with, "sakka", "author". The "sokuon" also sometimes appears at the end of utterances, where it denotes a glottal stop, as in (, Ouch!). However, it cannot be used to double the "na", "ni", "nu", "ne", "no" syllables' consonants – to double these, the singular "n" (ん) is added in front of the syllable, as in みんな ("minna", "all").  Hiragana usually spells long vowels with the addition of a second vowel kana; for example, おかあさん ("o-ka-a-sa-n", "mother"). The "chōonpu" (long vowel mark) (ー) used in katakana is rarely used with hiragana, for example in the word, "rāmen", but this usage is considered non-standard in Japanese; the Okinawan language uses chōonpu with hiragana. In informal writing, small versions of the five vowel kana are sometimes used to represent trailing off sounds (, "haa",, "nee"). Standard and voiced iteration marks are written in hiragana as ゝ and ゞ respectively.

Table of hiragana.

The following table shows the complete hiragana together with the Hepburn romanization and IPA transcription in the "gojūon" order. Hiragana with "dakuten" or "handakuten" follow the "gojūon" kana without them, with the "yōon" kana following. Obsolete and normally unused kana are shown in brackets and. Those in bold do not use the initial sound for that row. For all syllables besides ん, the pronunciation indicated is for word-initial syllables, for mid-word pronunciations see below.

Spelling–phonology correspondence.

In the middle of words, the "g" sound (normally ) may turn into a velar nasal or velar fricative. An exception to this is numerals; 15 "jūgo" is considered to be one word, but is pronounced as if it was "jū" and "go" stacked end to end:.  In many accents, the "j" and "z" sounds are pronounced as affricates ( and, respectively) at the beginning of utterances and fricatives in the middle of words. For example, "sūji" 'number', "zasshi"'magazine'.  In archaic forms of Japanese, there existed the "kwa" ( ) and "gwa" ( ) digraphs. In modern Japanese, these phonemes have been phased out of usage and only exist in the extended katakana digraphs for approximating foreign language words.  The singular "n" is pronounced before "t", "ch", "ts", "n", "r", "z", "j" and "d", before "m", "b" and "p", before "k" and "g", at the end of utterances, and some kind of high nasal vowel before vowels, palatal approximants ("y"), fricative consonants "s", "sh", "h", "f" and "w".  In kanji readings, the diphthongs "ou" and "ei" are today usually pronounced (long o) and (long e) respectively. For example, (lit. "toukyou") is pronounced 'Tokyo', and "sensei" is 'teacher'. However, "tou" is pronounced 'to inquire', because the "o" and "u" are considered distinct, "u" being the verb ending in the dictionary form. Similarly, "shite iru" is pronounced 'is doing'.  For a more thorough discussion on the sounds of Japanese, please refer to Japanese phonology.

Obsolete Kana.

Ye.

An early, now obsolete, hiragana-esque form of "ye" may have existed (<unk> ) in pre-Classical Japanese (prior to the advent of kana), but is generally represented for purposes of reconstruction by the kanji 江, and its hiragana form is not present in any known orthography. In modern orthography, "ye" can also be written as いぇ (イェ in katakana).  It is true that in early periods of kana, hiragana and katakana letters for "ye" were used, but soon after the distinction between /ye/ and /e/ went away, and letters and glyphs were not established.

Yi.

Though "ye" did appear in some textbooks during the Meiji period along with another kana for "yi" in the form of cursive 以. Today it is considered a Hentaigana by scholars and was encoded in Unicode 10 (<unk>).

Wu.

Hiragana "wu" also appeared in different Meiji textbooks () utilizing the cursive form of 汙. It was never commonly used.

Spelling rules.

With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (normally "ha", "wo", and "he", but instead pronounced as "wa", "o", and "e", respectively), and a few other arbitrary rules, Japanese, when written in kana, is phonemically orthographic, i.e. there is a one-to-one correspondence between kana characters and sounds, leaving only words' pitch accent unrepresented. This has not always been the case: a previous system of spelling, now referred to as historical kana usage, differed substantially from pronunciation; the three above-mentioned exceptions in modern usage are the legacy of that system.  There are two hiragana pronounced "ji" (じ and ぢ) and two hiragana pronounced "zu" (ず and づ), but to distinguish them, particularly when typing Japanese, sometimes "ぢ" is written as "di" and "づ" is written as "du". These pairs are not interchangeable. Usually, "ji" is written as じ and "zu" is written as ず. There are some exceptions. If the first two syllables of a word consist of one syllable without a "dakuten" and the same syllable with a "dakuten", the same hiragana is used to write the sounds. For example, "chijimeru" ('to boil down' or 'to shrink') is spelled ちぢめる and "tsuzuku" ('to continue') is. For compound words where the dakuten reflects "rendaku" voicing, the original hiragana is used. For example, "chi" ( 'blood') is spelled ち in plain hiragana. When "hana" ('nose') and "chi" ('blood') combine to make "hanaji" ( 'nose bleed'), the sound of changes from "chi" to "ji". So "hanaji" is spelled according to ち: the basic hiragana used to transcribe. Similarly, "tsukau" (; 'to use') is spelled in hiragana, so "kanazukai" (; 'kana use', or 'kana orthography') is spelled in hiragana.  However, this does not apply when kanji are used phonetically to write words that do not relate directly to the meaning of the kanji (see also ateji). The Japanese word for 'lightning', for example, is "inazuma" (). The component means 'rice plant', is written in hiragana and is pronounced: "ina". The component means 'wife' and is pronounced "tsuma" (つま) when written in isolation—or frequently as "zuma" when it features after another syllable. Neither of these components have anything to do with 'lightning', but together they do when they compose the word for 'lightning'. In this case, the default spelling in hiragana rather than is used.  Officially, ぢ and づ do not occur word-initially pursuant to modern spelling rules. There were words such as "jiban" 'ground' in the historical kana usage, but they were unified under じ in the modern kana usage in 1946, so today it is spelled exclusively. However, "zura" 'wig' (from "katsura") and "zuke" (a sushi term for lean tuna soaked in soy sauce) are examples of word-initial づ today. Some people write the word for hemorrhoids as ぢ (normally じ) for emphasis.  No standard Japanese words begin with the kana ん ("n"). This is the basis of the word game shiritori. ん "n" is normally treated as its own syllable and is separate from the other "n"-based kana ("na", "ni" etc.). A notable exception to this is the colloquial negative verb conjugation; for example "wakaranai" meaning "[I] don't understand" is rendered as "wakaran". It is however not a contraction of the former, but instead comes from the classic negative verb conjugation ぬ "nu" ( "wakaranu").  ん is sometimes directly followed by a vowel ("a", "i", "u", "e" or "o") or a palatal approximant ("ya", "yu" or "yo"). These are clearly distinct from the "na", "ni" etc. syllables, and there are minimal pairs such as "kin'en"'smoking forbidden', "kinen" 'commemoration', "kinnen"'recent years'. In Hepburn romanization, they are distinguished with an apostrophe, but not all romanization methods make the distinction. For example, past prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's first name is actually "Jun'ichirō" pronounced  There are a few hiragana that are rarely used. ゐ "wi" and ゑ "we" are obsolete outside of Okinawan orthography. <unk> "e" was an alternate version of え "e" before spelling reform, and was briefly reused for "ye" during initial spelling reforms, but is now completely obsolete. <unk> "vu" is a modern addition used to represent the /v/ sound in foreign languages such as English, but since Japanese from a phonological standpoint does not have a /v/ sound, it is pronounced as /b/ and mostly serves as a more accurate indicator of a word's pronunciation in its original language. However, it is rarely seen because loanwords and transliterated words are usually written in katakana, where the corresponding character would be written as ヴ.,, for "ja"/"ju"/"jo" are theoretically possible in rendaku, but are practically never used. For example, 'throughout Japan' could be written, but is practically always  The "myu" kana is extremely rare in originally Japanese words; linguist Haruhiko Kindaichi raises the example of the Japanese family name Omamyūda and claims it is the only occurrence amongst pure Japanese words. Its katakana counterpart is used in many loanwords, however.

History.

Hiragana developed from "man'yōgana", Chinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice that started in the 5th century. The oldest examples of Man'yōgana include the Inariyama Sword, an iron sword excavated at the Inariyama Kofun in 1968. This sword is thought to be made in the year (most commonly taken to be A.D. 471). The forms of the hiragana originate from the cursive script style of Chinese calligraphy. The figure below shows the derivation of hiragana from manyōgana via cursive script. The upper part shows the character in the regular script form, the center character in red shows the cursive script form of the character, and the bottom shows the equivalent hiragana. The cursive script forms are not strictly confined to those in the illustration.  Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.  Originally, for all syllables there was more than one possible hiragana. In 1900, the system was simplified so each syllable had only one hiragana. The deprecated hiragana are now known as.  The pangram poem "Iroha-uta" ("ABC song/poem"), which dates to the 10th century, uses every hiragana once (except "n" ん, which was just a variant of む before the Muromachi era).

Stroke order and direction.

The following table shows the method for writing each hiragana character. It is arranged in the traditional way, beginning top right and reading columns down. The numbers and arrows indicate the stroke order and direction respectively. <br>

Unicode.

Hiragana was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.  The Unicode block for Hiragana is U+3040–U+309F:  The Unicode hiragana block contains precomposed characters for all hiragana in the modern set, including small vowels and yōon kana for compound syllables, plus the archaic ゐ "wi" and ゑ "we" and the rare <unk> "vu"; the archaic <unk> "ye" is included in plane 1 at U+1B001 (see below). All combinations of hiragana with "dakuten" and "handakuten" used in modern Japanese are available as precomposed characters, and can also be produced by using a base hiragana followed by the combining dakuten and handakuten characters (U+3099 and U+309A, respectively). This method is used to add the diacritics to kana that are not normally used with them, for example applying the dakuten to a pure vowel or the handakuten to a kana not in the h-group.  Characters U+3095 and U+3096 are small か ("ka") and small け ("ke"), respectively. U+309F is a ligature of より ("yori") occasionally used in vertical text. U+309B and U+309C are spacing (non-combining) equivalents to the combining dakuten and handakuten characters, respectively.  Historic and variant forms of Japanese kana characters were first added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2010 with the release of version 6.0, with significantly more added in 2017 as part of Unicode 10.  The Unicode block for Kana Supplement is U+1B000–U+1B0FF, and is immediately followed by the Kana Extended-A block (U+1B100–U+1B12F). These blocks include mainly hentaigana (historic or variant hiragana):  The Unicode block for Small Kana Extension is U+1B130–U+1B16F:  In the following character sequences a kana from the /k/ row is modified by a "handakuten" combining mark to indicate that a syllable starts with an initial nasal, known as "bidakuon". As of Unicode 13.0, these character combinations are explicitly called out as Named Sequences:

Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each sound in the Japanese language (strictly, each mora) is represented by one character (or one digraph) in each system. This may be either a vowel such as ""a"" (hiragana あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as ""ka"" (か) or ""n"" (ん), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English "m", "n" or "ng" () when syllable-final or like the nasal vowels of French. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of ん "n"), the kana are referred to as syllabic symbols and not alphabetic letters.

Les sont un syllabaire japonais et une des quatre écritures du japonais avec les katakanas, les rōmajis et les kanjis.