1. Glaucus, surnamed Pontius, a sea divinity. Originally a fisherman and diver of Anthedon in Boeotia, having eaten of a certain magical herb sown by Cronus, he leapt into the sea, where he was changed into a god, and endowed with the gift of unerring prophecy. According to others he sprang into the sea for love of the sea-god Melicertes, with whom he was often identified (Athenaeus vii. 296). He was worshipped not only at Anthedon, but on the coasts of Greece, Sicily and Spain, where fishermen and sailors at certain seasons watched for his arrival during the night in order to consult him (Pausanias ix. 22). In art he is depicted as a vigorous old man with long hair and beard, his body terminating in a scaly tail, his breast covered with shells and seaweed. He was said to have been the builder and pilot of the Argo, and to have been changed into a god after the fight between the Argonauts and Tyrrhenians. He assisted the expedition in various ways (Athenaeus, loc. cit.; see also Ovid, Metam. xiii. 904). Glaucus was the subject of a satyric drama by Aeschylus. He was famous for his amours, especially those with Scylla and Circe.
See the exhaustive monograph by R. Gaedechens, Glaukos der Meergott (1860), and article by the same in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; and for Glaucus and Scylla, E. Vinet in Annali dell’ Instituto di Correspondenza archeologica, xv. (1843).
2. Glaucus, usually surnamed Potnieus, from Potniae near Thebes, son of Sisyphus by Merope and father of Bellerophon. According to the legend he was torn to pieces by his own mares (Virgil, Georgics, iii. 267; Hyginus, Fab. 250, 273). On the isthmus of Corinth, and also at Olympia and Nemea, he was worshipped as Taraxippus (“terrifier of horses”), his ghost being said to appear and frighten the horses at the games (Pausanias vi. 20). He is closely akin to Glaucus Pontius, the frantic horses of the one probably representing the stormy waves, the other the sea in its calmer mood. He also was the subject of a lost drama of Aeschylus.
3. Glaucus, the son of Minos and Pasiphaë. When a child, while playing at ball or pursuing a mouse, he fell into a jar of honey and was smothered. His father, after a vain search for him, consulted the oracle, and was referred to the person who should suggest the aptest comparison for one of the cows of Minos which had the power of assuming three different colours. Polyidus of Argos, who had likened it to a mulberry (or bramble), which changes from white to red and then to black, soon afterwards discovered the child; but on his confessing his inability to restore him to life, he was shut up in a vault with the corpse. Here he killed a serpent which was revived by a companion, which laid a certain herb upon it. With the same herb Polyidus brought the dead Glaucus back to life. According to others, he owed his recovery to Aesculapius. The story was the subject of plays by the three great Greek tragedians, and was often represented in mimic dances.
See Hyginus, Fab. 136; Apollodorus iii. 3. 10; C. Höck, Kreta, iii. 1829; C. Eckermann, Melampus, 1840.
4. Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, and grandson of Bellerophon, mythical progenitor of the kings of Ionia. He was a Lycian prince who, along with his cousin Sarpedon, assisted Priam in the Trojan War. When he found himself opposed to Diomedes, with whom he was connected by ties of hospitality, they ceased fighting and exchanged armour. Since the equipment of Glaucus was golden and that of Diomedes brazen, the expression “golden for brazen” (Iliad, vi. 236) came to be used proverbially for a bad exchange. Glaucus was afterwards slain by Ajax.
All the above are exhaustively treated by R. Gaedechens in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie.
GLAZING.—The business of the glazier may be confined to the mere fitting and setting of glass (q.v.), even the cutting up of the plates into squares being generally an independent art, requiring a degree of tact and judgment not necessarily possessed by the building artificer. The tools generally used by the glazier are the diamond for cutting, laths or straight edges, tee square, measuring rule, glazing knife, hacking knife and hammer, duster, sash tool, two-foot rule and a glazier’s cradle for carrying the glass. Glaziers’ materials are glass, putty, priming or paint, springs, wash-leather or india-rubber for door panels, size, black. The glass is supplied by the manufacturer and cut to the sizes required for the particular work to be executed. Putty is made of whiting and linseed oil, and is generally bought in iron kegs of ½ or 1 cwt.; the putty should always be kept covered over, and when found to be getting hard in the keg a little oil should be put on it to keep it moist. Priming is a thin coat of paint with a small amount of red lead in it. In the majority of cases after the sashes for the windows are fitted they are sent to the glazier’s and primed and glazed, and then returned to the job and hung in their proper positions. When priming sashes it is important that the rebates be thoroughly primed, else the putty will not adhere. All wood that is to be painted requires before being primed to have the knots coated with knotting. When the priming is dry, the glass is cut and fitted into its place; each pane should fit easily with about 1⁄16th in. play all round. The glazier runs the putty round the rebates with his hands, and then beds the glass in it, pushing it down tight, and then further secures it by knocking in small nails, called glaziers’ sprigs, on the rebate side. He then trims up the edges of the protruding putty and bevels off the putty on the rebate or outside of the sash with a putty knife. The sash is then ready for painting. Large squares and plate glass are usually inserted when the sashes are hung to avoid risks of breakage. For inside work the panes of glass are generally secured with beads (not with putty), and in the best work these beads are fixed with brass screws and caps to allow of easy removal without breaking the beads and damaging the paint, &c. In the case of glass in door panels where there is much vibration and slamming, the glass is bedded in wash-leather or india-rubber and secured with beads as before mentioned.