Diana and Actaeon the role of the Satyr, with Lydia Ivanova as Diana and Nicholas Efimov as Endymion. In 1886, Petipa incorporated a new "pas de deux," set to music by Riccardo Drigo, into his production of Pugni's "La Esmeralda" for the Maryinsky Ballet, as the Imperial Russian Ballet had come to be called. This "pas de deux" was based on the Greek myth of Artemis (predecessor to the Roman Diana), in her aspect of virgin goddess of the hunt, and Actaeon, a Theban hero. According to Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Actaeon, out on a hunt, stumbled upon Artemis while she was bathing at a
Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons play a significant role in Greek mythology. The word dragon derives from the Greek δράκων (drakōn) and its Latin cognate draco. Ancient Greeks applied the term to large, constricting snakes. Daniel Ogden speaks of three ways to explain the origins of Greek dragon myths: as "vertical" evolution from (reconstructed) Proto-Indo-European mythology, as "horizontal" adaptation from Ancient Near Eastern mythology, or as sitting within "the cloud of international folktale". Regarding theories of vertical transmission, Ogden argues that they carry "an unspoken assumption that prior to such a transfer the Greeks' own myth-world was a "tabula rasa"",