Here I am in beautiful Rose Bay, Nova Scotia, flipping through post-Christmas sale flyers. In the BestBuy flyer I find a large ad for logitech gaming accessories, and I am amused and provoked by the names of three components: the G810 Orion Spectrum RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, the G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse, and the G933 Artemis Spectrum Wireless 7.1 Gaming Headset. A visit to the logitech website yields much technical information about these components, but I could find no reason for the mythological designations. You may know Orion as a constellation easily visible in the northeastern United States all winter; a mythological giant, Orion was also a famous hunter. A user of an Orion gaming keyboard would feel like a giant, able to control as if with a giant’s eye-view. Proteus was a mythological sea-being, able to prophesy the future to anyone who could catch and hold him. We still use the adjective protean in English to describe something that changes its shape or is difficult to hold. A Proteus mouse changes its configuration shape "to help gamers maximize their victory potential." Artemis, known in Latin as Diana, was the Greek goddess of the hunt, the twin sister of Apollo. She remained unmarried, and she was a powerful huntress, exacting terrible punishments with her bow. A user of an Artemis headset would feel powerful indeed.
Also on the logitech website was a link to PAX, an acronym standing for Penny Arcade (E)xpo(sition), an annual gaming show that attracts tens of thousands of participants. If you’re a gamer, the next PAX East is approaching in Boston, March 10-12, 2017! I am not a gamer, but I appreciate gaming culture, much of which involves the ancient world. Games are built around ancient civilizations like Rome, and many game and technology developers, like logitech, seek product names from mythology, Greek, and Latin. I am secretly delighted that video games, many of which involve vicarious danger and war, have a conference whose name is the same as the Latin word pax meaning “peace.”
