Yesterday I lingered for a while in the Middle East - see my photo 'Sunny Yellow' - and today I returned again. This time my thoughts went to Ancient History when I saw that Tiny Masked Bee, a Hylaeus.
Hylaeus in Greek mythology is a famous Centaur - lechery caused his downfall. His name brought to mind a wonderful bit of Xenophon's (c.430-354 BCE) Anabasis. In that book - quite a read! - he tells of the famous 'March of the 10,000' - 10,000 Greek mercenary soldiers among whom he himself. They'd been part of Cyrus the Younger's army with which he had tried to wrest control of Persia from his brother Artaxerxes II. To the north of present-day Baghdad they'd been defeated at the Battle of Cunaxa (401 BCE) on the left banks of the Euphrates, and their only way home was to cut through then-Armenia to the Black Sea, a march full of hardships. The area that I described for my photo posting yesterday is more or less at the beginning of this strenuous route..
Well - are you still with me? - in that Anabasis Xenophon tells us about one of Cyrus's favorites, his counselor Chrysantas. A small and diminiutive man, Chrysantas in his enthusiasm exclaims that he's like a centaur, 'free and independent when I please'.
Our Bee-Hylaeus, too, is very small and independent but on occasion eusocial. Here its companion is the ubiquitous Thick-Thighed Hoverfly, Syritta pipiens. Both were seen on that Cinquefoil, Golden even in the Drizzle. Speaking of water: yes! that's what they exclaimed, those 10,000, when they near today's Trabzon finally saw the Black Sea, of one accord: 'The Sea! The Sea!'
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