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Maciste ((:maˈtʃiste)) is one of the oldest recurring characters in cinema, created by Gabriele d'Annunzio and Giovanni Pastrone. He cuts a heroic figure throughout the history of the cinema of Italy from the 1910s to the mid-1960s. He is usually depicted as a Hercules-like figure, utilizing his massive strength to achieve heroic feats that ordinary men cannot. Many of the 1960s Italian films featuring Maciste were retitled in other countries, substituting more popular names in the titles (such as Hercules, Goliath or Samson). ==Name== The name of Maciste ultimately comes from a sentence in Strabo's ''Geography'' (Book 8, Chapter 3, Section 21), in which he writes: — "And in the middle is the temple of the Macistian Heracles, and the river Acidon." The epithet Μακίστιος (Makistios, Latinized as ''Macistius'') is generally understood to be an adjective referring to a town called Μάκιστος (Makistos) in the province of Triphylia in Elis.〔According to William Smith's ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman mythology'', ''Macistus'' (Μάκιστος) was "A surname of Heracles, who had a temple in the neighbourhood of the town of Macistus in Triphylia."〕 However, in the first volume of the ''Dizionario universale archeologico-artistico-technologico'' (1858) ''Macistius'' is given as one among several epithets of Hercules (''Ercole'').〔(Dizionario universale archeologico-artistico-technologico, contenente: Archeologia .... Belle arti .... Arti e mestieri ... ), Luigi Rusconi, Tip. G. Favale e comp., 1859, p. 607〕 In the second volume of the same dictionary (1864) this name appears Italianized as ''Maciste'', defined as ''uno dei soprannomi d'Ercole'' ("one of the nicknames of Hercules").〔(Dizionario universale archeologico-artistico-technologico, contenente: Archeologia .... Belle arti .... Arti e mestieri ... ), Luigi Rusconi, Tip. G. Favale e comp., 1861, p. 914〕 Makistos was also the third child of Athamas and Nephele, according to the Greek mythology. In the original draft outline of the 1914 film ''Cabiria'' by director Giovanni Pastrone, the muscular hero's name had been ''Ercole''.〔(Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film ), Benjamin Robert Brewster, Lea Jacobs, Oxford University Press, 1998〕〔(The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology ), Roger D. Woodard, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 477〕 In the revised script, writer Gabriele d'Annunzio gave the character the name ''Maciste'', which he understood (based on the above or similar sources) to be an erudite synonym for Hercules. By later writers using the character the original etymology was generally forgotten, and a folk etymology was constructed based on the name's superficial similarity to the Italian word ''macigno'' "large stone"; in the first of the 1960s films, Maciste tells another character in the film that his name means "born of the rock".〔 Maggie Günsberg in ''Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre'' claims that d'Annunzio used two sources: one from ancient Greek, ''makistos'', meaning "longer," (though Doric Greek μάκιστος actually means "greatest", "tallest", or "longest in time") and the second from a supposed Latin word ''macis'' meaning "rock". No such word as ''macis'' exists in Latin. The Italian word ''macigno'' ultimately derives from Latin ''machina'' used in the sense of "millstone".〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Maciste」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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