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{{Short description|Trojan sailor in Virgil's ''Aeneid''}}
{{For|the genus of orchids|Bletia}}
{{For|the genus of harvestmen|Gyas (harvestman)}}
{{For|the hundred-handed giant Gyas, Gyes or Gyges|Hecatoncheires}}
'''Gyas''', a character in [[Virgil]]'s [[The Aeneid | ''Aeneid'']], features most extensively as one of the captains in the boat race in Book 5. He also appears (briefly) in Books 1 and 12. He was claimed as the eponymous ancestor of the [[Gegania gens]], a patrician family of the [[Roman Republic]].

==Occurrences==
===Book 1===
Gyas is introduced to the reader after [[Aeneas]] has landed on the coast of Libya, after the storm dispersed and, he fears, wrecked his fleet. "Intrepid Gyas" is one of the captains whose presumed death he mourns (''Aeneid'' 1.222).

===Book 5===
Gyas is one of the four captains in the boat race in Book 5 of the ''Aeneid''; he commands the ''Chimaera'', and after gaining an early lead, at the halfway point he orders Menoetes, his helmsman, to steer in tightly, but Menoetes, afraid of hitting the reef, takes a wider turn and the ''Chimaera'' is passed on the inside by Cloanthus in the ''Scylla''. In anger, Gyas throws Menoetes overboard, to the amusement of the spectators.

<poem>
Gyas flew out to see first, slipping by others
in all the noise and confusion.
... 
...Reaching the marker,
the leading captain, Gyas, seawater swirling
around him, called to the ship's helmsman, Menoetes:
"Why so far to starboard? Alter your course there,
hug that rock....
...
...he grabbed a fretful Menoetes,
forgot good grace and the safety of crewmen,
and threw him headlong down from the high stern in the water. (''Aeneid'' 5.151-152; 159-63; 173-175.)
</poem>

====Commentary====
Gyas, through his "extraordinary" and "ill-considered" action, forces himself to take up two roles: captain and helmsman. In doing so, he prefigures [[Aeneas]], who will have to do the same thing at the end of Book 5, after [[Palinurus]] falls overboard and drowns.<ref>Ganiban, p. 383.</ref> According to Joseph Farrell, the comparison favors Aeneas.<ref>Farrell, p. 231.</ref>

The swimming ability of "old man" Menoetes to swim to shore fully clothed, and without the assistance of a magical veil, contrasts with [[Odysseus]]'s swim to shore and avoidance of the sort of rocks at [[Phaeacia]] that Menoetes clambered up onto unaided.{{sfn|McManamon|2021|pp=44&ndash;45}}

Gyas was considered the eponymous ancestor of the [[Gegania gens]] (the link was  made by [[Maurus Servius Honoratus]], a fifth-century grammarian and commentator of Virgil{{sfn|Fratantuono|Smith|2015|p=221}}), but Virgil lists the other three captains ([[Mnestheus]], [[Sergestus]], Cloanthus) along with the families they supposedly founded (the [[Memmia gens]], the [[Sergia gens]], and the Cluentians, respectively), the Gegania, which would have been much less familiar to Virgil's audience than the other families,<ref>Fratantuono and Smith, 221.</ref> get no such credit, which [[John Conington]] found "singular".<ref>Conington, note on 118.</ref> David Ross, professor of classics at the [[University of Michigan]], also noted Gyas was not directly connected to a gens, and also characterized the description of the Chimaera as "decidedly odd", seeming to be "an [[aircraft carrier]], racing against [[destroyer]]s".{{sfn|Ross|2008|p=97}}

[[Joseph Addison]] wrote in issue 279 of ''[[The Spectator (1711)|The Spectator]]'' that "Sentiments which raise laughter can very seldom be admitted with any decency into an heroic poem [...] I remember but one laugh in the whole ''Aeneid'', which rises in the fifth book upon Menoetes, where he is represented as thrown overboard, and drying himself upon a rock.".{{sfn|Harper|Miller|1892|p=267}}{{sfn|Haan|2005|p=101}} David Ross observed that it is, however, "the laughter of mockery and derision".{{sfn|Ross|2008|p=97}} Professor of Latin at [[University College London]] M. M. Willcock concurred that it is "insensitive" and that "[t]o laugh at the unmerited misfortune of another human being is not the highest moral reaction", observing that Menoetes had done nothing deserving of such a reaction from spectators.{{sfn|Willcock|1988|p=10}} Addison's recollection notwithstanding, a second instance of the same mocking laughter occurs when Sergestus brings his boat in.{{sfn|Ross|2008|p=97}}{{sfn|Willcock|1988|p=10}}

===Book 10, possibly===
Through the word "[[wikt:clavus#Latin|clavus"]] meaning both tiller and club, the "huge" namesake in 10.317&ndash;322 who lays his foes low with a club that belongs to Hercules is linked by scholars to the ship's captain.{{sfn|Lowe|2015|pp=205&ndash;206}}

===Book 12===
In Book 12.460, Gyas beheads [[Ufens]] (''Aeneid'' 12.460).

==Later commentary and references==
*[[List of minor planets: 5001&ndash;6000#637|Minor planet 5637]] was discovered by [[C. S. Shoemaker]] and [[E. M. Shoemaker]] in 1988 and named for Gyas.{{sfn|Schmadel|2013|p=719}}
*[[Edwin Arlington Robinson]]'s sonnet titled "Menoetes", first published in the ''Harvard Advocate'' of 1892-03-15, is based upon this incident:{{sfn|Gale|2006|p=128}} "Who is this fellow floundering in the wave / Flung from the Trojan galley thundering by?"{{sfn|Robinson|1975|p=172}}
*[[Richard Anthony Salisbury]] chose Gyas as the name for a botanical [[genus]], naming orchid species such as ''Gyas verecunda'',{{sfn|Salisbury|1812|p=299}} ''Gyas florida'',{{sfn|Salisbury|1812|p=299}} and ''Gyas humilis''.{{sfn|Salisbury|1812|p=300}} However, this was superseded by [[Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)|Robert Brown]]'s name ''[[Bletia]]''.{{sfn|Drapiez|1853|p=281}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
{{Wikisource|1=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Gegania Gens|2="Gegania Gens"}} 

{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book |first=John |last=Conington |authorlink=John Conington |title=Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid |volume=1 |location=London |publisher=Whittaker and Co |year=1876 |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=BE6A22622B3352B87EE69A3101F7F772?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0050%3Abook%3D5%3Acommline%3D118}}
* {{cite dictionary|article=Gyas|dictionary=Les trois règnes de la nature: dictionnaire classique des sciences naturelles|volume=5|language=fr|author1-first=Pierre-Auguste-Joseph|author1-last=Drapiez|publisher=Meline, Cans et Ce, libraires-éditeurs|year=1853|location=Brussels}}
*{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6-APEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA231 |title=Juno's Aeneid: A Battle for Heroic Identity |volume=1 |series=Martin Classical Lectures |first=Joseph |last=Farrell |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2021 |isbn=9780691211176}}
*{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rSRACgAAQBAJ&pg=PA221 |title=Virgil, Aeneid 5: Text, Translation and Commentary; Mnemosyne, Supplements |first1=Lee M. |last1=Fratantuono |first2=R. Alden |last2=Smith |publisher=Brill |year=2015 |isbn=9789004301283}}
* {{cite encyclopaedia|encyclopaedia=An Edwin Arlington Robinson Encyclopedia|author1-first=Robert L.|author1-last=Gale|publisher=McFarland & Company|year=2006|isbn=9780786422371|article=Meonoetes}}
*{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ET5wBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA383 |title=Aeneid 1–6 |series=The Focus Vergil Aeneid Commentaries |editor1-first=Randall T. |editor1-last=Ganiban |publisher=Hackett |year=2013 |isbn=9781585106387}}
* {{cite book|title=Vergilius Redivivus: Studies in Joseph Addison's Latin Poetry|volume=95|series=Transactions of the American Philosophical Society|issn=0065-9746|author1-first=Estelle|author1-last=Haan|publisher=American Philosophical Society|year=2005|isbn=9780871699527}}
* {{cite book|title=Six books of the Aeneid of Vergil|editor1-first=William Rainey|editor1-last=Harper|editor2-first=Frank Justus|editor2-last=Miller|publisher=American Book Company|year=1892|chapter=Book V}}
* {{cite book|title=Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry|author1-first=Dunstan|author1-last=Lowe|publisher=University of Michigan Press|year=2015|isbn=9780472119516}}
* {{cite book|title="Neither Letters nor Swimming": The Rebirth of Swimming and Free-diving|series=Brill's Studies in Maritime History|author1-first=John M.|author1-last=McManamon|publisher=Brill|year=2021|isbn=9789004446199}}
* {{cite book|title=Uncollected Poems and Prose of Edwin Arlington Robinson|author1-first=Edwin Arlington|author1-last=Robinson|author1-link=Edwin Arlington Robinson|editor1-first=Richard|editor1-last=Cary|publisher=Colby College Press|year=1975|isbn=9780910394130}}
* {{cite book|title=Virgil's Aeneid: A Reader's Guide|author1-first=David O.|author1-last=Ross|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=2008|isbn=9780470777312|chapter=Virgil's Troy}}
* {{cite journal|journal=Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London|volume=1|publisher=Horticultural Society of London|title=On the cultivation of rare plants, especially such as have been introduced since the death of Mr Philip Miller|pages=299&ndash;300|author1-first=R. A.|author1-last=Salisbury|author1-link=Richard Anthony Salisbury|date=1812-03-03}}
* {{cite book|title=Dictionary of Minor Planet Names|author1-first=Lutz D.|author1-last=Schmadel|edition=3rd|publisher=Springer Science + Business Media|year=2013|isbn=9783662066157|doi=10.1007/978-3-540-29925-7_5342}}
*{{cite book |title=The Aeneid |author=Virgil |translator-first=Edward |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WWGyJAOSQnkC |translator-last=McCrorie |publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=1995 |isbn=9780472065950}}
* {{cite book|title=Proceedings of the Virgil Society|volume=19|chapter=Homer's Chariot Race and Virgil's Boat Race|url=http://digitalvirgil.co.uk/pvs/1988/full.pdf|year=1988|author1-first=M. M.|author1-last=Willcock|editor1-first=Herbert H.|editor1-last=Huxley}}

{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite web|title=Filial Piety and Menoetes' Fall in Aeneid 5|author1-first=Hannah|author1-last=Sorscher|url=https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/152/abstract/filial-piety-and-menoetes-fall-aeneid-5|date=2021-01-08|work=2021 Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies}}

{{Aeneid}}
[[Category:Characters in the Aeneid]]
[[Category:Fictional helmsmen]]