APOLLODORUS FOOTNOTES 3C

APOLLODURS, THE LIBRARY BOOK 3 FOOTNOTES BY J. G. FRAZER

181. The resurrection of these two men by the power of Aesculapius is mentioned also, on the authority of Stesichorus, by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, and the Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96). Otherwise the event is apparently not noticed by ancient writers, and of the many legendary persons who bore the name of Lycurgus we do not know which is referred to. Heyne conjectured that the incident took place in the war of the Epigoni against Thebes, when Capaneus, one of the original Seven against Thebes, and Lycurgus, son of Pronax (as to whom see Apollod. 1.9.13) may have been restored to life by Aesculapius. This conjecture is confirmed by a passage of Sextus Empiricus (p. 658 ed. Bekker), where we read: “Stesichorus in his Eriphyle says that he (Aesculapius) raised up some of those who fell at Thebes.”

182. As to the restoration of Hippolytus to life by Aesculapius see Pind. P. 3.54(96)ff., with the Scholiast; Sextus Empiricus, p. 658, ed. Bekker (who quotes as his authority Staphylus in his book on the Arcadians); Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1 (who quotes Apollodorus as his authority); Eratosthenes, Cat. 6; Hyginus, Fab. 49; Hyginus, Ast. ii.14; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.434, vi.353(375). After his resurrection Hippolytus is said to have gone to dwell at Aricia, on the Alban Hills, near Rome, where he reigned as a king and dedicated a precinct to Diana. See Paus. 2.27.4; Verg. A. 7.761ff., with the commentary of Servius; Ovid, Fasti iii.263ff., v.735ff.; Ov. Met. 15.297ff.; Scholiast on Persius, Sat. vi.56, pp. 347ff., ed. O. Jahn; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i.17; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 118 (Second Vatican Mythographer 128). The silence of Apollodorus as to this well-known Italian legend, which was told to account for the famous priesthood of Diana at Aricia, like his complete silence as to Rome, which he never mentions, tends to show that Apollodorus either deliberately ignored the Roman empire or wrote at a time when there was but little intercourse between Greece and that part of Italy which was under Roman rule.

183. For the raising of Tyndareus from the dead by Aesculapius see also Sextus Empiricus, p. 658, ed. Bekker; Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1 (both these writers cite Panyasis as their authority); Lucian, De saltatione 45; Zenobius, Cent. i.47; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxix.3.

184. See above, Apollod. 3.3.1.

185. This account of the death of Aesculapius, the revenge of Apollo, and his servitude with Admetus is copied almost verbally by Zenobius, Cent. i.18, but as usual without acknowledgment. Compare Pherecydes, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1; Pind. P. 3.54(96)ff.; Eur. Alc. 1ff.; Eur. Alc. 123ff.; Diod. 4.71.1-3; Hyginus, Fab. 49; Serv. Verg. A. 7.761; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 17 (First Vatican Mythographer 46). According to Diod. 4.71.1-3 Aesculapius as a physician was so successful in his practice that the death-rate was perceptibly lowered, and Hades accused the doctor to Zeus of poaching on his preserves. The accusation angered Zeus, and he killed Aesculapius with a thunderbolt. According to Pherecydes, with whom Apollodorus agrees, the period of Apollo's servitude with Admetus was one year; according to Servius and the First Vatican Mythographer it was nine years. This suggests that the period may have been what was called a “great” or “eternal” year, which included eight ordinary years. See above, Apollod. 3.4.2, with the note on Apollod. 2.5.11. According to one account the motive for Apollo's servitude was his love for Admetus. See Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo 45ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, quoting Rhianus as his authority. Apollo is said to have served Branchus as well as Admetus (Philostratus, Epist. 57), and we have seen that he served Laomedon. See above, Apollod. 2.5.9 note.

186. According to Pherecydes, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, it was not the Cyclopes but their sons whom Apollo slew. The passage of Pherecydes, as quoted by the Scholiast, runs as follows: “To him” (that is, to Admetus) “came Apollo, to serve him as a thrall for a year, at the command of Zeus, because Apollo had slain the sons of Brontes, of Steropes, and of Arges. He slew them out of spite at Zeus, because Zeus slew his son Aesculapius with a thunderbolt at Pytho; for by his remedies Aesculapius raised the dead.”

187. See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “Apollo and the Kine of Admetus.”

188. As to these genealogies see above, Apollod. 1.7.3; Apollod. 1.9.5; Apollod. 2.4.5; Apollod. 3.10.3; Paus. 2.21.7; Paus. 3.1.3ff.; Paus. 4.2.2 and Paus. 4.2.4; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 284, 511. Pausanias consistently represents Perieres as the son of Aeolus, and this tradition had the support of Hesiod (quoted by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 284). On the other hand Tzetzes represents Perieres as the son of Cynortes (Scholiast on Lycophron 511). Apollodorus here and elsewhere (Apollod. 1.9.5) mentions both traditions without deciding between them. In two passages (Apollod. 1.7.3; Apollod. 1.9.5) he asserts or implies that the father of Perieres was Aeolus; in another passage (Apollod. 3.10.3) he asserts that the father of Perieres was Cynortes. In the present passage he seems to say that according to one tradition there were two men of the name of Perieres: one of them was the son of Aeolus and father of Aphareus and Leucippus; the other was the son of Cynortes and father of Oebalus, who married the nymph Batia and became by her the father of Tyndareus, Hippocoon, and Icarius. Pausanias says that Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus, first married Perieres and had by him two sons, Aphareus and Leucippus, and that after his death she married Oebalus, son of Cynortas (Cynortes), and had by him a son Tyndareus. See Paus. 2.21.7; Paus. 3.1.4; Paus. 4.2.4. Apollodorus, on the other hand, represents Perieres as the father not only of Aphareus and Leucippus, but also of Tyndareus and Icarius by Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus. See above, Apollod. 1.9.5; Apollod. 3.10.3. Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 511) agrees with him as to the sons, but makes Perieres the son of Cynortas instead the son of Aeolus. Thus there were two traditions as to the father of Tyndareus; according to one, his father was Perieres, according to the other, he was Oebalus. But the two traditions were agreed as to the mother of Tyndareus, whom they represented as Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus. According to another account, which may have been intended to reconcile the discrepant traditions as to the father of Tyndareus, Oebalus was the son of Perieres and the father of Tyndareus, Icarius, Arene, and the bastard Hippocoon, whom he had by Nicostrate. See Scholiast on Eur. Or. 457; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.581. This account is mentioned, but apparently not accepted, by Apollodorus in the present passage, though he says nothing about the daughter Arene and the bastardy of Hippocoon. If we accept this last version of the genealogy, Tyndareus was descended both from Oebalus and Perieres, being the son of Oebalus and the grandson of Perieres. In a recently discovered fragment of the Catalogues of Hesiod, that poet calls Tyndareus an Oebalid, implying that his father was Oebalus. See Griechische Dichterfragmente, i., Epische und elegische Fragmente, bearbeitet von W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Berlin, 1907), p. 30, line 38 (Berliner Klassikertexte 1); Hes. Frag. 68.38.

189. As to the banishment of Tyndareus and his restoration by Herakles, see Diod. 4.33.5; Paus. 2.18.7; Paus. 3.1.4ff.; Paus. 3.21.4; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 457; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.581. According to the Scholiasts on Euripides and Homer, Icarius joined Hippocoon in driving his brother Tyndareus out of Sparta.

190. See above, Apollod. 2.7.3.

191. According to the Scholiast on Hom. Od. xv.16, the wife of Icarius was Dorodoche, daughter of Ortilochus; but he adds that according to Pherecydes she was Asterodia, daughter of Eurypylus.

192. Perileos (Perilaus), son of Icarius, is said to have accused the matricide Orestes at the court of the Areopagus. See Paus. 8.34.4.

193. Compare Paus. 3.12.1; Paus. 3.20.10ff. According to the former of these passages, Ulysses won her hand in a footrace. As to races for brides, see Apollod. 3.9.2; Apollod. E.2.5; and note on Apollod. 1.7.8.

194. Compare Paus. 8.5.1.

195. Compare Eur. Hel. 16ff.; Lucian, Dial. Deorum xx.14; Lucian, Charidemus 7; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.298; Hyginus, Fab. 77; Hyginus, Ast. ii.8; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 27, 64, 119ff., 163 (First Vatican Mythographer 78, 204; Second Vatican Mythographer 132; Third Vatican Mythographer 3.6). As the fruit of her intercourse with the swan, Leda is said to have laid an egg, which in the time of Pausanias was still to be seen hanging by ribbons from the roof of the temple of Hilaira and Phoebe at Sparta. See Paus. 3.16.1. According to one account (First Vatican Mythographer 78), Castor, Pollux, and Helen all emerged from a single egg; according to another account (First Vatican Mythographer 204), Leda laid two eggs, one of which produced Castor and Pollux, and the other Clytaemnestra and Helen. In heaven the twins Castor and Pollux had each, if we may believe Lucian, half an egg on or above his head in token of the way in which he had been hatched. See Lucian, Dial. Deorum xxvi.1. For the distinction between Pollux and Castor, the former being regarded as the son of Zeus and the latter as the son of Tyndareus, see Pind. N. 10.79(149)ff. According to Hesiod, both Pollux and Castor were sons of Zeus. See Scholiast on Pind. N. 10.80(150).

196. With this variant story of the birth of Helen compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 88 (who may have followed Apollodorus); Eratosthenes, Cat. 25; Paus. 1.33.7ff.; Scholiast on Callimachus; Hyginus, Ast. ii.8. According to Eratosthenes and the Scholiast on Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, 232, the meeting between Zeus and Nemesis, in the shape respectively of a swan and a goose, took place at Rhamnus in Attica, where Nemesis had a famous sanctuary, the marble ruins of which may still be seen in a beautiful situation beside the sea. The statue of the goddess at Rhamnus was wrought by the hand of Phidias, and on the base he represented Leda bringing the youthful Helen to her mother Nemesis. In modern times some of these marble reliefs have been found on the spot, but they are too fragmentary to admit of being identified. See Paus. 1.33.2-8, with Frazer's, commentary, vol. ii. pp. 455ff.

197. As to the captivity of Helen at Aphidnae, and her rescue by her brothers Castor and Pollux, see Apollod. E.1.23; Hdt. 9.73; Strab. 9.1.17; Diod. 4.63.2-5; Plut. Thes. 31ff.; Paus. 1.17.5; Paus. 1.41.3; Paus. 2.22.6; Paus. 3.18.4ff.; compare Paus. 5.19.3; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 503; Hyginus, Fab. 79. The story was told by the historian Hellanicus (Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.144), and in part by the poet Alcman (Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.242).

198. For another list of the suitors of Helen, see Hyginus, Fab. 81. Hesiod in his Catalogues gave a list of the suitors of Helen, and of this list considerable fragments have been discovered in recent years. They include the names of Menelaus, the two sons of Amphiaraus (Alcmaeon and Amphilochus), Ulysses, Podarces, son of Iphiclus, Protesilaus, son of Actor, , son of Peteos, Ajax of Salamis, Elephenor, son of Chalcodon, and Idomeneus, son of Minos. Thus the list only partially agrees with that of Apollodorus, for it comprises the names of Podarces and Idomeneus, which are omitted by Apollodorus, who also mentions only one son of Amphiaraus, namely Amphilochus. Hyginus includes Idomeneus, but not Podarces, nor the sons of Amphiaraus. In these recently discovered fragments Hesiod does not confine himself to a bare list of names; he contrives to hit off the different characters of the suitors by describing the different manners of their wooing. Thus the canny and thrifty Ulysses brought no wedding presents, because he was quite sure he had no chance of winning the lady. On the other hand, the bold Ajax was extremely liberal with his offer of other people's property; he promised to give magnificent presents in the shape of sheep and oxen which he proposed to lift from the neighbouring coasts and islands. Idomeneus sent nobody to woo the lady, but came himself, trusting apparently to the strength of his personal attractions to win her heart and carry her home with him a blooming bride. See Griechische Dichterfragmente, i., Epische und elegische Fragmente, bearbeitet von W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Berlin, 1907), pp. 28ff. (Berliner Klassikertexte 1); Hes. Frag. 68.

199. Compare Hesiod, in Epische und elegische Fragmente, ed. W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, p. 33; Hes. Frag. 68.89ff.; Eur. IA 57ff.; Thuc. 1.9; Paus. 3.20.9; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 2.339; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 202. According to Paus. 3.20.9 the suitors took the oath standing on the severed pieces of a horse. As to the custom of standing on the pieces of a sacrificial victim or passing between them at the making of solemn covenants, see Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.392ff.

200. Homer definitely affirms (Hom. Od. 4.12-14; compare Hom. Il. 3.174ff.) that Helen had only one child, her daughter Hermione. But according to Hesiod, whose verses are quoted by the Scholiast on Soph. El. 539, Helen afterwards bore a son Nicostratus to Menelaus. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Od. iv.11, who tells us further that according to more recent writers Helen had a son Corythus or Helenus by Alexander (Paris). According to Dictys Cretensis v.5, Helen had three sons by Alexander, namely, Bunomus, Corythus, and Idaeus, who were accidentally killed at Troy through the collapse of a vaulted roof. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.175, says that the Lacedaemonians worshipped two sons of Helen, to wit, Nicostratus and Aethiolas. He further mentions, on the authority of Ariaethus, that Helen had by Menelaus a son Maraphius, from whom the Persian family of the Maraphions was descended. See Dindorf's edition of the Scholiast on the Iliad vol. i. pp. 147ff., vol. iii. p. 171. According to one account, Helen had a daughter by Theseus before she was married to Menelaus; this daughter was Iphigenia; Helen entrusted her to her sister Clytaemnestra, who reared the child and passed her off on her husband Agamemnon as her own offspring. This account of the parentage of Iphigenia was supported by the authority of Stesichorus and other poets. See Paus. 2.22.6ff.; Ant. Lib. 27. Sophocles represents Menelaus as having two children before he sailed for Troy (Soph. Elec. 539ff.).

201. Compare Hom. Od. 4.10-12.

202. Compare Hom. Il. 3.237; Hom. Od. 11.300.

203. That is, “striplings of Zeus.”

204. The usual tradition seems to have been that Idas and Lynceus, the sons of Aphareus, were engaged to be married to the daughters of Leucippus, who were their cousins, since Aphareus and Leucippus were brothers (see above, Apollod. 3.10.3). They invited to their wedding Castor and Pollux, who were cousins both to the bridegrooms and the brides, since Tyndareus, the human father of Castor and Pollux (see above, Apollod. 3.10.7), was a brother of Aphareus and Leucippus (see above, Apollod. 3.10.3). But at the wedding Castor and Pollux carried off the brides, and being pursued by the bridegrooms, Idas and Lynceus, they turned on their pursuers. In the fight which ensued, Castor and Lynceus were slain, and Idas was killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt. See Theocritus xxii.137ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.243; Scholiast on Pind. N. 10.60(112); Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 546; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.686ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 80; Ovid, Fasti v.699ff.; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 27 (First Vatican Mythographer 77). According to Apollodorus, however, the fight between the cousins was occasioned by a quarrel arising over the division of some cattle which they had lifted from Arcadia in a joint raid. This seems to have been the version of the story which Pindar followed; for in his description of the fatal affray between the cousins (Pind. N. 10.60(112)ff.) he speaks only of anger about cattle as the motive that led Idas to attack Castor. The rape of the daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux was a favourite subject in art. See Paus. 1.18.1; Paus. 3.17.3; Paus. 3.18.11; Paus. 4.31.9. The names of the damsels, as we learn from Apollodorus, were Phoebe and Hilaira. Compare Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Aphidna; Prop. i.2.15ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 80. At Sparta they had a sanctuary, in which young maidens officiated as priestesses and were called Leucippides after the goddesses. See Paus. 3.16.1. From an obscure gloss of Hesychius, s.v. pôlia, we may perhaps infer that these maiden priestesses, like the goddesses, were two in number, and that they were called “the colts of the Leucippides.” Further, since the name of Leucippus, the legendary father of the goddesses, means simply “White Horse,” it is tempting to suppose that the Leucippides, like their priestesses, were spoken of and perhaps conceived as white horses. More than that, Castor and Pollux, who carried off these white-horse maidens, if we may call them so, were not only constantly associated with horses, but were themselves called White Horses (leukopôloi) by Pind. P. 1.66(126) and “White Colts of Zeus” by Euripides in a fragment of his lost play the Antiope. See S. Wide, Lakonische Kulte (Leipsig, 1893), pp. 331ff.; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.442. These coincidences can hardly be accidental. They point to the worship of a pair of brother deities conceived as white horses, and married to a pair of sister deities conceived as white mares, who were served by a pair of maiden priestesses called White Colts, assisted apparently by a boy priest or priests; for a Laconian inscription describes a certain youthful Marcus Aurelius Zeuxippus as “priest of the Leucippides and neatherd (? bouagor) of the Tyndarids,” that is, of Castor and Pollux. See P. Cauer, Delectus Inscriptionum Graecarum propter dialectum memorabilium, p. 17, No. 36; H. Collitz und F. Bechtel, Sammlung der griechischen DialektInschriften, iii.2, pp. 40ff., No. 4499.

205. Compare Hom. Od. 11.298-304; Pind. N. 10.55(101)ff., 75(141)ff.; Pind. P. 11.61(93)ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.302; Lucian, Dial. Deorum xxvi.; Verg. A. 6.121ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 80; Hyginus, Ast. ii.22; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 120 (Second Vatican Mythographer 132). The last of these writers explains the myth to mean that when the star of the one twin is setting, the star of the other is rising. It has been plausibly argued that in one of their aspects the twins were identified with the Morning and Evening Stars respectively, the immortal twin (Pollux) being conceived as the Morning Star, which is seen at dawn rising up in the sky till it is lost in the light of heaven, while the mortal twin (Castor) was identified with the Evening Star, which is seen at dusk sinking into its earthy bed. See J. G. Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre, i.606ff.; Rendel Harris, The Dioscuri in the Christian Legends (London, 1903), pp. 11ff. It would seem that this view of the Spartan twins was favoured by the Spartans themselves, for after their great naval victory of Aegospotami, at which Castor and Pollux were said to have appeared visibly in or hovering over the Spartan fleet, the victors dedicated at Delphi the symbols of their divine champions in the shape of two golden stars, which shortly before the fatal battle of Leuctra fell down and disappeared, as if to announce that the star of Sparta's fortune was about to set for ever. See Cicero, De divinatione i.34.75, ii.32.68. The same interpretation of the twins would accord well with their white horses (see the preceding note), on which the starry brethren might be thought to ride through the blue sky.

206. This account of the parentage of Iasion had the authority of Hellanicus (Scholiast on Hom. Od. v.125). Compare Diod. 5.48.2.

207. Compare Conon 21; Strab. 7 Fr. 50, ed. Meineke; Hyginus, Ast. ii.4. A different turn is given to the story by Homer, who represents the lovers meeting in a thrice-ploughed field (Hom. Od. 5.125-128). To the same effect Hes. Th. 969-974 says that the thrice-ploughed field where they met was in a fertile district of Crete, and that Wealth was born as the fruit of their love. Compare Diod. 5.77.1ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 270. The Scholiast on Hom. Od. v.125, attempts to rationalize the myth by saying that Iasion was the only man who preserved seed-corn after the deluge.

208. As to the migration of Dardanus from Samothrace to Asia and his foundation of Dardania or Dardanus, see Diod. 5.48.2ff.; Conon 21; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Dardanos; compare Hom. Il. 20.215ff. According to one account he was driven from Samothrace by a flood and floated to the coast of the Troad on a raft. See Lycophron, Cassandra 72ff., with the scholia of Tzetzes; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xx.215. As to his marriage with Batia, daughter of Teucer, and his succession to the kingdom, compare Diod. 4.75.1. According to Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Dardanes, Batia, the wife of Dardanus, was a daughter of Tros, not of Teucer.

209. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29. As to Erichthonius, son of Dardanus, see Hom. Il. 20.219ff.; Diod. 4.75.2. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. i.50.3) the names of the two sons whom Dardanus had by his wife Batia were Erichthonius and Zacynthus.

210. Compare Hom. Il. 20.230, who does not mention the mother of Tros. She is named Astyoche, daughter of Simoeis, by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29 in agreement with Apollodorus.

211. Compare Hom. Il. 20.231ff.; Diod. 4.75.3. The name of the wife of Tros is not mentioned by Homer and Diodorus. She is called Callirrhoe, daughter of Scamander, by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29 and the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 20.231, who refers to Hellanicus as his authority. See Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem Townleyana, ed. E. Maass, vol. ii. p. 321.

212. Compare Hom. Il. 20.232-235; HH Aphr. 202ff. These early versions of the myth do not mention the eagle as the agent which transported Ganymede to heaven. The bird figures conspicuously in later versions of the myth and its representation in art. Compare Lucian, Dial. Deorum iv.1; Verg. A. 5.252ff.; Ov. Met. 10.155ff.; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 56, 139, 162, 256 (First Vatican Mythographer 184; Second Vatican Mythographer 198; Third Vatican Mythographer 3.5, 15.11).

213. Compare Hom. Il. 20.239ff.; Diod. 4.75.5. Neither writer names the wives of Assaracus and Capys. As to the love of Aphrodite for Anchises, and the birth of Aeneas, see Hom. Il. 2.819-821; Hom. Il. 5.311-313; Hes. Th. 1008-1010ff.

214. This legend of the foundation of Ilium by Ilus is repeated by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29. The site of Thebes is said to have been chosen in obedience to a similar oracle. See above, Apollod. 3.4.1. Homer tells us (Hom. Il. 20.215ff.) that the foundation of Dardania on Mount Ida preceded the foundation of Ilium in the plain. As to the hill of Ate, compare Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ilion.

215. As to the antique image of Pallas, known as the Palladium, see Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. i.68ff., ii.66.5; Conon 34; Paus. 1.28.9; Paus. 2.23.5; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. iv.47, p. 42, ed. Potter; Malalas, Chr. v. pp. 108ff., ed. L. Dindorf; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 355; Suidas, s.v. Palladion; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Palladion, p. 649-50; Scholiast on Hom. Il. vi.311; Verg. A. 2.162ff.; Ovid, Fasti vi.417-436; Ov. Met. 13.337-349; Silius Italicus, Punic. xiii.30ff.; Dictys Cretensis v.5; Serv. Verg. A. 2.166; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 14ff., 45 (First Vatican Mythographer 40, 142). The traditions concerning the Palladium which have come down to us are all comparatively late, and they differ from each other on various points; but the most commonly received account seems to have been that the image was a small wooden one, that it had fallen from heaven, and that so long as it remained in Troy the city could not be taken. The Greek tradition was that the Palladium was stolen and carried off to the Greek camp by Ulysses and Diomedes (see Apollod. E.5.10 and Apollod. E.5.13), and that its capture by the Greeks ensured the fall of Troy. The Roman tradition was that the image remained in Troy till the city was taken by the Greeks, when Aeneas succeeded in rescuing it and conveying it away with him to Italy, where it was finally deposited in the temple of Vesta at Rome. These two traditions are clearly inconsistent with each other, and the Roman tradition further conflicts with the belief that the city which possessed the sacred image could not be captured by an enemy. Hence in order to maintain the genuineness of the image in the temple of Vesta, patriotic Roman antiquaries were driven to various expedients. They said, for example, that an exact copy of the Palladium had been publicly exposed at Troy, while the true one was carefully concealed in a sanctuary, and that the unsuspicious Greeks had pounced on the spurious image, while the knowing Aeneas smuggled away the genuine one packed up with the rest of his sacred luggage (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. i.68ff.). Or they affirmed that the thief Diomedes had been constrained to restore the stolen image to its proper owners (First Vatican Mythographer 40, 142); or that, warned by Athena in a dream, he afterwards made it over to Aeneas in Italy (Silius Italicus, Punic. xiii.30ff.). But the Romans were not the only people who claimed to possess the true Palladium; the Argives maintained that it was with them (Paus. 2.23.5), and the Athenians asserted that it was to be seen in their ancient court of justice which bore the very name of Palladium. See Paus. 1.28.8ff.; Harpocration, s.vv. bouleuseôs and epi palladiôi; Suidas, s.v. epi palladiôi; Julius Pollux viii.118ff.; Scholiast on Aeschin. 2.87, p. 298, ed, Schultz; Bekker's Anecdota Graeca, i. p. 311, lines 3ff. The most exact description of the appearance of the Palladium is the one given by Apollodorus in the present passage, which is quoted, with the author's name, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 355). According to Dictys Cretensis v.5, the image fell from heaven at the time when Ilus was building the temple of Athena; the structure was nearly completed, but the roof was not yet on, so the Palladium dropped straight into its proper place in the sacred edifice. Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. iv.47, p. 42, ed. Potter, mentions a strange opinion that the Palladium “was made out of the bones of Pelops, just as the Olympian (image of Zeus was made) out of other bones of an Indian beast,” that is, out of ivory. Pherecydes discussed the subject of palladia in general; he described them as “shapes not made with hands,” and derived the name from pallein, which he considered to be equivalent to ballein, “to throw, cast,” because these objects were cast down from heaven. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 355; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Palladion, p. 649.50. Apollodorus as usual confines himself to the Greek tradition; he completely ignores the Romans and their claim to possess the Palladium.

216. The following account of the origin of the Palladium was regarded as an interpolation by Heyne, and his view has been accepted by Hercher and Wagner. But the passage was known to Tzetzes, who quotes it (Scholiast on Lycophron 355) immediately after his description of the image, which he expressly borrowed from Apollodorus.

217. Apparently the god of the river Triton, which was commonly supposed to be in Libya, though some people identified it with a small stream in Boeotia. See Hdt. 4.180; Paus. 9.33.7; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 519; compare Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.109.

218. See above, Apollod. 3.12.1.

219. Homer tells (Hom. Il. 19.126-131) how Zeus in anger swore that Ate should never again come to Olympus, and how he seized her by the head and flung her from heaven.

220. Compare Hom. Il. 20.236. Homer does not mention the mother of Laomedon. According to one Scholiast on the passage she was Eurydice, daughter of Adrastus, as Apollodorus has it; according to another she was Batia, daughter of Teucer. But if the family tree recorded by Apollodorus is correct, Batia could hardly have been the wife of Ilus, since she was his great-grandmother.

221. Compare Hom. Il. 20.237ff., with whom Apollodorus agrees as to Laomedon's five sons. Homer does not mention Laomedon's wife nor his daughters. According to a Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.250, his wife's name was Zeuxippe or Strymo; for the former name he cites the authority of the poet Alcman, for the latter the authority of the historian Hellanicus. Apollodorus may have followed Hellanicus, though he was acquainted with other traditions. According to Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 18), Priam and Tithonus were sons of Laomedon by different mothers; the mother of Priam was Leucippe, the mother of Tithonus was Strymo or Rhoeo, daughter of Scamander. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.1, speaks of Tithonus as a son of Laomedon by Strymo, daughter of Scamander.

222. Compare Hom. Il. 6.23ff., who says that Bucolion was the eldest son of Laomedon, but illegitimate and one of twins.

223. As to the love of Dawn (Eos) for Tithonus, see the HH Aphr. 218ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 18; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 11.1; Prop. ii.18.7-18, ed. Butler. Homer speaks of Dawn (Aurora) rising from the bed of Tithonus (Hom. Il. 11.1ff.; Hom. Od. 5.1ff.). According to the author of the Homeric hymn, Dawn obtained from Zeus for her lover the boon of immortality; according to the Scholiast on Homer, it was Tithonus himself who asked and obtained the boon from the loving goddess. But the boon turned to be a bane; for neither he nor she had remembered to ask for freedom from the infirmities of age. So when he was old and white-headed and could not stir hand or foot, he prayed for death as a release from his sufferings; but die he could not, for he was immortal. Hence the goddess in pity either shut him up in his chamber and closed the shining doors on him, leaving him to lisp and babble there eternally, or she turned him into a grasshopper, the most musical of insects, that she might have the joy of hearing her lover's voice sounding for ever in her ears. The former and sadder fate is vouched for by the hymn writer, the latter by the Scholiast. Tzetzes perhaps lets us into the secret of the transformation when he tells us Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 18 that “the grasshoppers, like the snakes, when they are old, slough their old age” (to gêras, literally “old age,” but applied by the Greeks to the cast skins of serpents). It is a widespread notion among savages, which the ancestors of the Greeks apparently shared, that creatures which cast their skins, thereby renew their youth and live for ever. See Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.66ff. The ancient Latins seem also to have cherished the same illusion, for they applied the same name (senecta or senectus) to old age and to the cast skins of serpents.

224. See above, Apollod. 2.6.4.

225. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 224, who seems to follow Apollodorus. The bird into which the mourner was transformed appears to have been a species of diver. See Ov. Met. 11.749-795; Serv. Verg. A. 4.254, Serv. Verg. A. 5.128.

226. According to Hom. Il. 16.718ff. Hecuba was a daughter of Dymas, “who dwelt in Phrygia by the streams of Sangarius.” But Eur. Hec. 3 represents her as a daughter of Cisseus, and herein he is followed by Verg. A. 7.320, x.705. The mythographers Hyginus and Tzetzes leave it an open question whether Hecuba was a daughter of Cisseus or of Dymas. See Hyginus, Fab. 91, 111, 249; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron, Introd. p. 266, ed. Muller. Compare the Scholiast on Eur. Hec. 3: “Pherecydes writes thus: And Priam, son of Laomedon, marries Hecuba, daughter of Dymas, son of Eioneus, son of Proteus, or of the river Sangarius, by a Naiad nymph Evagora. But some have recorded that Hecuba's mother was Glaucippe, daughter of Xanthus. But Nicander, in agreement with Euripides, says that Hecuba was a daughter of Cisseus.” The Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.718, says that according to Pherecydes the father of Hecuba was Dymas and her mother was a nymph Eunoe, but that according to Athenion her father was Cisseus and her mother Teleclia. Thus it would appear that after all we cannot answer with any confidence the question with which the emperor Tiberius loved to pose the grammarians of his time, “Who was Hecuba's mother?” See Suetonius, Tiberius 70.

227. For Hecuba's dream and the exposure of the infant Paris, see Pind. Pa. 8; Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.325; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 86; Cicero, De divinatione i.21.42; Hyginus, Fab. 91; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 139 (Second Vatican Mythographer 197). The dream is alluded to, though not expressly mentioned, by Eur. Tro. 919ff. and Verg. A. 7.319ff. The warning given by the diviner Aesacus is recorded also by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 224), according to whom the sage advised to put both mother and child to death. Eur. And. 293ff. represents Cassandra shrieking in a prophetic frenzy to kill the ill-omened babe. The suckling of the infant Paris for five days by a she-bear seems to be mentioned only by Apollodorus.

228. Apollodorus apparently derives the name Alexander from alexô “to defend” and andros, the genitive of “man.” As the verb was somewhat archaic, he explains it by the more familiar boêthô, if indeed the explanation be not a marginal gloss. See the Critical Note.

229. Laodice is mentioned by Homer as the fairest of Priam's daughters and the wife of Helicaon (Hom. Il. 3.122ff.; Hom. Il. 6.252).

230. Compare Aesch. Ag. 1202-1212; Hyginus, Fab. 93; Serv. Verg. A. 2.247; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 55, 139 (First Vatican Mythographer 180; Second Vatican Mythographer 196). According to Serv. Verg. A. 2.247, Apollo deprived Cassandra of the power of persuading men of the truth of her prophecies by spitting into her mouth. We have seen that by a similar procedure Glaucus was robbed of the faculty of divination. See above, Apollod. 3.3.2. An entirely different account of the way in which Cassandra and her twin brother Helenus acquired the gift of prophecy is given by a Scholiast on Hom. Il. vii.44. He says that when the festival in honour of the birth of the twins was being held in the sanctuary of the Thymbraean Apollo, the two children played with each other there and fell asleep in the temple. Meantime the parents and their friends, flushed with wine, had gone home, forgetting all about the twins whose birth had given occasion to the festivity. Next morning, when they were sober, they returned to the temple and found the sacred serpents purging with their tongues the organs of sense of the children. Frightened by the cry which the women raised at the strange sight, the serpents disappeared among the laurel boughs which lay beside the infants on the floor; but from that hour Cassandra and Helenus possessed the gift of prophecy. For this story the Scholiast refers to the authority of Anticlides. In like manner Melampus is said to have acquired the art of soothsaying through the action of serpents which licked his ears. See above, Apollod. 1.9.11.

231. Compare Hom. Il. 14.248ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 90.

232. See Hom. Il. 6.395ff., where it is said that Eetion was king of Thebe in Cilicia.

233. For the loves of Paris and Oenone, and their tragic end, compare Conon 23; Parthenius, Narrat. 4; Ovid, Her. v.

234. As to the river-god Asopus and his family, see Diod. 4.72.1-5; Paus. 2.5.1ff.; Paus. 5.22.6. According to Diodorus, Asopus was a son of Ocean and Tethys; he married Metope, daughter of the Ladon, by whom he had two sons and twelve daughters. Asopus, the father of Aegina, is identified by Diodorus and Pausanias with the Phliasian or Sicyonian river of that name; but the patriotic Boeotian poet Pindar seems to claim the honour for the Boeotian Asopus (Pind. I. 8.16(35)ff., and he is naturally supported by his Scholiast (Scholiast on Pind. I. 8.17(37)), as well as by Statius Theb. vii.315ff.) and his Scholiast, Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. vii.424. The Phliasians even went so far as to assert that their Asopus was the father of Thebe, who gave her name to the Boeotian Thebes; but this view the Thebans could not accept (Paus. 2.5.2).

235. Compare above, Apollod. 1.9.3; Paus. 2.5.1.

236. Compare Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 78; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.117.

237. According to Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. vii.315, live coals were to be found in the Asopus, and Statius, in his windy style (Statius, Theb. vii.325ff.), talks of the “brave river blowing ashes of thunderbolts and Aetnaean vapours from its panting banks to the sky,” which may be a poetical description of river-mists. But both the poet and his dutiful commentator here refer to the Boeotian Asopus, whereas Apollodorus probably refers to the Phliasian river of that name.

238. Compare Diod. 4.72.5; Paus. 2.29.2; Hyginus, Fab. 52. As to Oenone, the ancient name of Aegina, compare Pind. N. 4.46(75); Pind. N. 5.16(29); Pind. N. 8.7(12); Pind. I. 5.34(44); Hdt. 8.46; Strab. 8.6.16; Hyginus, Fab. 52. Another old name for Aegina was Oenopia. See Pind. N. 8.21(45); Ov. Met. 7.472ff.

239. As to the transformation of the ants into men see Hesiod, quoted by the Scholiast on Pind. N. 3.13(21); and by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 176; Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.180; Strab. 8.6.16; Hyginus, Fab. 52; Ov. Met. 7.614ff.; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 23, 142 (First Vatican Mythographer 67; Second Vatican Mythographer 204). The fable is clearly based on the false etymology which derived the name Myrmidons from murmêkes, “ants.” Strab. 8.6.16 attempted to rationalize the myth.

240. Compare Plut. Thes. 10; Paus. 2.29.9; Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687. According to another account, Endeis, the mother of Telamon and Peleus, was a daughter of Chiron. See Scholiast on Pind. N. 5.7(12); Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.14; Hyginus, Fab. 14.

241. This account of the parentage of Telamon, for which we have the authority of the old writer Pherecydes (about 480 B.C.), is probably earlier than the one which represents him as a son of Aeacus. According to it, Telamon was a native, not of Aegina, but of Salamis, his mother Glauce being a daughter of Cychreus, king of Salamis (as to whom see below, Apollod. 3.12.7). It is certain that the later life of Telamon was associated with Salamis, where, according to one account (Diod. 4.72.7), he married Glauce, daughter of Cychreus, king of Salamis, the very woman whom the other and perhaps later version of the legend represented as his mother. See Jebb, Sophocles, Ajax (Cambridge, 1896), Introduction, Section 4, pp. xviiff.

242. Compare Hes. Th. 1003ff.; Pind. N. 5.12(21); Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687, who mentions the transformation of the sea-nymph into a seal. The children of Phocus settled in Phocis and gave their name to the country. See Paus. 2.29.2, Paus. 10.1.1, Paus. 10.30.4. Thus we have an instance of a Greek people, the Phocians, who traced their name and their lineage to an animal ancestress. But it would be rash to infer that the seal was the totem of the Phocians. There is no evidence that they regarded the seal with any superstitious respect, though the people of Phocaea, in Asia Minor, who were Phocians by descent (Paus. 7.3.10), put the figure of a seal on their earliest coins. But this was probably no more than a punning badge, like the rose of Rhodes and the wild celery (selinon) of Selinus. See George Macdonald, Coin Types (Glasgow, 1905), pp. 17, 41, 50.

243. Compare Isoc. 9.14ff.; Diod. 4.61.1ff.; Paus. 2.29.7ff.; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. vi.3.28, p. 753; Scholiast on Pind. N. 5.9(17). Tradition ran that a prolonged drought had withered up the fruits of the earth all over Greece, and that Aeacus, as the son of the sky-god Zeus, was deemed the person most naturally fitted to obtain from his heavenly father the rain so urgently needed by the parched earth and the dying corn. So the Greeks sent envoys to him to request that he would intercede with Zeus to save the crops and the people. “Complying with their petition, Aeacus ascended the Hellenic mountain and stretching out pure hands to heaven he called on the common god, and prayed him to take pity on afflicted Greece. And even while he prayed a loud clap of thunder pealed, and all the surrounding sky was overcast, and furious and continuous showers of rain burst out and flooded the whole land. Thus was exuberant fertility procured for the fruits of the earth by the prayers of Aeacus” (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. vi.3.28, p. 753). In gratitude for this timely answer to his prayers Aeacus is said to have built a sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Panhellenius in Aegina (Paus. 2.30.4). No place could well be more appropriate for a temple of the rain-god; for the sharp peak of Mount Panhellenius, the highest mountain of Aegina, is a conspicuous landmark viewed from all the neighbouring coasts of the gulf, and in antiquity a cloud settling on the mountain was regarded as a sign of rain (Theophrastus, De signis tempestat. i.24). According to Apollodorus, the cause of the dearth had been a crime of Pelops, who had treacherously murdered Stymphalus, king of Arcadia, and scattered the fragments of his mangled body abroad. This crime seems not to be mentioned by any other ancient writer; but Diodorus Siculus in like manner traces the calamity to a treacherous murder. He says (Diod. 4.61.1) that to punish the Athenians for the assassination of his son Androgeus, the Cretan king Minos prayed to Zeus that Athens might be afflicted with drought and famine, and that these evils soon spread over Attica and Greece. Similarly Alcmaeon's matricide was believed to have entailed a failure of the crops. See above, Apollod. 3.7.5 with the note.

244. In some late Greek verses, inscribed on the tomb of a religious sceptic at Rome, Aeacus is spoken of as the warder or key-holder (kleidouchos) of the infernal regions; but in the same breath the poet assures us that these regions, with all their inmates, were mere fables, and that of the dead there remained no more than the bones and ashes. See Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, vol. iii. p. 933, No. 6298; G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta 646. Elsewhere Pluto himself was represented in art holding in his hand the key of Hades. See Paus. 5.20.3. According to Isoc. 9.15, Aeacus enjoyed the greatest honours after death, sitting as assessor with Pluto and Proserpine. Plato represents him as judging the dead along with Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Triptolemus (Plat. Apol. 41a), it being his special duty to try the souls of those who came from Europe, while his colleague Rhadamanthys dealt with those that came from Asia (Gorgias 79, p. 524A); apparently no provision was made for African ghosts. Lucian depicts Aeacus playing a less dignified part in the lower world as a sort of ticket-collector or customhouse officer (telônês), whose business it was to examine the ghostly passengers on landing from the ferryboat, count them, and see that they had paid the fare. See Lucian, Cataplus 4; Charon 2. Elsewhere he speaks of Aeacus as keeping the gate of Hades (Lucian, Dialog. Mort. xx.1).

245. As to the murder of Phocus and the exile of Peleus and Telamon, see Diod. 4.72.6ff. (who represents the death as accidental); Paus. 2.29.9ff.; Scholiast on Pind. N. 5.14(25); Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687 (quoting verses from the Alcmaeonis); Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.14; Ant. Lib. 38; Plut. Parallela 25; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175 (vol. i. pp. 444, 447, ed. Muller); Hyginus, Fab. 14; Ov. Met. 11.266ff.; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. ii.113, vii.344, xi.281. Tradition differed on several points as to the murder. According to Apollodorus and Plutarch the murderer was Telamon; but according to what seems to have been the more generally accepted view he was Peleus. (So Diodorus, Pausanias, the Scholiast on Homer, one of the Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687, Ovid, and in one passage Lactantius Placidus). If Pherecydes was right in denying any relationship between Telamon and Peleus, and in representing Telamon as a Salaminian rather than an Aeginetan (see above), it becomes probable that in the original tradition Peleus, not Telamon, was described as the murderer of Phocus. Another version of the story was that both brothers had a hand in the murder, Telamon having banged him on the head with a quoit, while Peleus finished him off with the stroke of an axe in the middle of his back. This was the account given by the anonymous author of the old epic Alcmaeonis; and the same division of labour between the brothers was recognized by the Scholiast on Pindar and Tzetzes, though according to them the quoit was handled by Peleus and the cold steel by Telamon. Other writers (Antoninus Liberalis and Hyginus) lay the murder at the door of both brothers without parcelling the guilt out exactly between them. There seems to be a general agreement that the crime was committed, or the accident happened, in the course of a match at quoits; but Dorotheus (quoted by Plut. Parallela 25) alleged that the murder was perpetrated by Telamon at a boar hunt, and this view seems to have been accepted by Lactantius Placidus in one place (Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. ii.113), though in other places (Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. vii.344 and xi.281) he speaks as if the brothers were equally guilty. But perhaps this version of the story originated in a confusion of the murder of Phocus with the subsequent homicide of Eurytion, which is said to have taken place at a boar-hunt, whether the hunting of the Calydonian boar or another. See below, Apollod. 3.13.2 with the note. According to Pausanias the exiled Telamon afterwards returned and stood his trial, pleading his cause from the deck of a ship, because his father would not suffer him to set foot in the island. But being judged guilty by his stern sire he sailed away, to return to his native land no more. It may have been this verdict, delivered against his own son, which raised the reputation of Aeacus for rigid justice to the highest pitch, and won for him a place on the bench beside Minos and Rhadamanthys in the world of shades.

246. Compare Diod. 4.72.4; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 110, 175, 451. In the second of these passages (175, vol. i. p. 444, ed. Muller) Tzetzes agrees closely with Apollodorus and probably follows him. A somewhat different version of the legend was told by Hesiod. According to him the snake was reared by Cychreus, but expelled from Salamis by Eurylochus because of the ravages it committed in the island; and after its expulsion it was received at Eleusis by Demeter, who made it one of her attendants. See Strab. 9.1.9. Others said that the snake was not a real snake, but a bad man nicknamed Snake on account of his cruelty, who was banished by Eurylochus and took refuge at Eleusis, where he was appointed to a minor office in the sanctuary of Demeter. See Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Kuchreios pagos; Eustathius, Commentary on Dionysius Perieg. 507 (Geographi Graeci Minores, ed. C. Müller, vol. ii. p. 314). Cychreus was regarded as one of the guardian heroes of Salamis, where he was buried with his face to the west. Sacrifices were regularly offered at his grave, and when Solon desired to establish the claim of Athens to the possession of the island, he sailed across by night and sacrificed to the dead man at his grave. See Plut. Sol. 9. Cychreus was worshipped also at Athens (Plut. Thes. 10). It is said that at the battle of Salamis a serpent appeared among the Greek ships, and God announced to the Athenians that this serpent was the hero Cychreus (Paus. 1.36.1). The story may preserve a reminiscence of the belief that kings and heroes regularly turn into serpents after death. The same belief possibly explains the association of Erichthonius or Erechtheus and Cecrops with serpents at Athens. See The Dying God, pp. 86ff. On account of this legendary serpent Lycophron called Salamis the Dragon Isle (Lycophron, Cassandra 110).

247. Compare Xen. Cyn. i.9; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.14. According to Diod. 4.72.7, Telamon first married Glauce, daughter of Cychreus, king of Salamis, and on her death he wedded the Athenian Eriboea, daughter of Alcathous, by whom he had Ajax. Pindar also mentions Eriboea as the wife of Telamon: see Pind. I. 6.45(65).

248. As to the prayer of Herakles and the appearance of the eagle in answer to the prayer, see Pind. I. 6.35(51)ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 455-461. Pindar followed by Apollodorus and Tzetzes, derived the name Ajax from aietos “an eagle.” A story ran that Herakles wrapt the infant Ajax in the lion's skin which he himself wore, and that Ajax was thus made invulnerable except in the armpit, where the quiver had hung, or, according to others, at the neck. Hence, in describing the suicide of the hero, Aeschylus told how, when he tried to run himself through the body, the sword doubled back in the shape of a bow, till some spirit showed the desperate man the fatal point to which to apply the trenchant blade. See Scholiast on Soph. Aj. 833; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 455-461; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 23.821. Plato probably had this striking passage of the tragedy in his mind when he made Alcibiades speak of Socrates as more proof against vice than Ajax against steel (Plat. Symp. 219e).

249. See above, Apollod. 2.6.4. As Hesione, the mother of Teucer, was not the lawful wife of Telamon, Homer speaks of Teucer as a bastard (Hom. Il. 8.283ff., with the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 8.284). According to another account, it was not Telamon but his brother Peleus who went with Herakles to the siege of Troy. The poets were not consistent on this point. Thus, while in two passages (Pind. N. 4.25(40); Pind. I. 6.27(39)ff.) Pindar assigns to Telamon the glory of the adventure, in another he transfers it to Peleus (quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 796; Pind. Fr. 172). Euripides was equally inconsistent. See his Eur. Tro. 804ff. (Telamon), contrasted with his Eur. And. 796ff. (Peleus).

250. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175 (vol. i. pp. 444ff., 447, ed. Muller); Ant. Lib. 38; Diod. 4.72.6; Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1063; Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.684, p. 321. There are some discrepancies in these accounts. According to Tzetzes and the Scholiast on Aristophanes, the man who purified Peleus for the murder of Phocus was Eurytus (not Eurytion), son of Actor. According to Antoninus Liberalis, he was Eurytion, son of Irus. According to Diodorus, he was Actor, king of the country, who died childless and left the kingdom to Peleus. Eustathius agrees that the host of Peleus was Actor, but says that he had a daughter Polymela, whom he bestowed in marriage on Peleus along with the kingdom. From Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron pp. 444ff. we learn that the purification of Peleus by Eurytus (Eurytion) was recorded by Pherecydes, whom Apollodorus may here be following.

251. See Hom. Il. 16.173-178, who says that Polydora, daughter of Peleus, had a son Menesthius by the river Sperchius, though the child was nominally fathered on her human husband Borus, son of Perieres. Compare Heliodorus, Aeth. ii.34. Hesiod also recognized Polydora as the daughter of Peleus (Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.175). Homer does not mention the mother of Polydora, but according to Pherecydes she was Antigone, daughter of Eurytion (Scholiast on Hom. Il. 16.173-178). Hence it is probable that here, as in so many places, Apollodorus followed Pherecydes. According to Staphylus, in the third book of his work on Thessaly, the wife of Peleus and mother of Polydora was Eurydice, daughter of Actor (Scholiast on Hom. Il. 16.173-178). A little later on (Apollod. 3.13.4) Apollodorus says that Peleus himself married Polydora, daughter of Perieres, and that she had a son Menesthius by the river Sperchius, though the child was nominally fathered on Peleus. In this latter passage Apollodorus seems to have fallen into confusion in describing Polydora as the wife of Peleus, though in the present passage he had correctly described her as his daughter. Compare Hofer, in W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iii.2641ff.

252. As to this involuntary homicide committed by Peleus and his purification by Acastus, see above, Apollod. 1.8.2; Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1063; Ant. Lib. 38; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175 (vol. i. p. 447, ed. Muller). The Scholiast on Aristophanes, calls the slain man Eurytus, not Eurytion. Antoninus Liberalis and Tzetzes describe him as Eurytion, son of Irus, not of Actor. They do not mention the hunt of the Calydonian boar in particular, but speak of a boar-hunt or a hunt in general.

253. See above, Apollod. 3.9.2.

254. The following romantic story of the wicked wife, the virtuous hero, and his miraculous rescue from the perils of the forest, in which his treacherous host left him sleeping alone and unarmed, is briefly alluded to by Pind. N. 4.54(88)ff.; Pind. N. 5.25(46)ff. It is told more explicitly by the Scholiast on Pind. N. 4.54(88) and 59(95); the Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1063; and the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.224. But the fullest and clearest version of the tale is given by Apollodorus in the present passage. Pindar calls the wicked wife Hippolyta or Hippolyta Cretheis, that is, Hippolyta daughter of Cretheus. His Scholiast calls her Cretheis; the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, calls her Cretheis or Hippolyte; and the Scholiast on Aristophanes, calls her first Hippolyte and afterwards Astydamia. The sword of Peleus, which his faithless host hid in the cows' dung while the hero lay sleeping in the wood, was a magic sword wrought by the divine smith Hephaestus and bestowed on Peleus by the pitying gods as a reward for his chastity. With this wondrous brand the chaste hero, like a mediaeval knight, was everywhere victorious in the fight and successful in the chase. Compare Zenobius, Cent. v.20. The episode of the hiding of the sword was told by Hesiod, some of whose verses on the subject are quoted by the Scholiast on Pind. N. 4.59(95). The whole story of the adventures of Peleus in the house of Acastus and in the forest reads like a fairy tale, and we can hardly doubt that it contains elements of genuine folklore. These are well brought out by W. Mannhardt in his study of the story. See his W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte (Berlin, 1877), pp. 49ff.

255. In fairy tales the hero often cuts out the tongues of a seven-headed dragon or other fearsome beast, and produces them as evidence of his prowess. See W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, pp. 53ff.; Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.269.

256. See above, note on Apollod. 3.13.1.

257. Compare Hom. Il. 18.83ff.; Hom. Il. 18.432ff.; Pind. N. 4.61(100)ff.; Eur. IA 701ff.; Eur. IA 1036ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.805ff.; Catul. 64; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 65, 142ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 207, 208; Second Vatican Mythographer 205).

258. See Pind. I. 8.27(58)ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.790ff.; Ov. Met. 11.217ff., who attributes the prophecy to Proteus. The present passage of Apollodorus is quoted, with the author's name, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 178).

259. Compare Aesch. PB 908ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.519; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica v.338ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 54; Hyginus, Ast. ii.15. According to Hyginus, Zeus released Prometheus from his fetters in gratitude for the warning which the sage had given him not to wed Thetis.

260. Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.790-798, a passage which Apollodorus seems here to have had in mind.

261. As to the various shapes into which the reluctant Thetis turned herself in order to evade the grasp of her mortal lover, see Pind. N. 4.62(101)ff.; Scholiast on Pind. N. 3.35(60); Scholiast on Pind. N. 4.62(101); Paus. 5.18.5; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.618-624; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175, 178 (vol. i. pp. 446, 457, ed. Muller); Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.582; Ov. Met. 11.235ff. She is said to have changed into fire, water, wind, a tree, a bird, a tiger, a lion, a serpent, and a cuttlefish. It was when she had assumed the form of a cuttlefish (sepia) that Peleus at last succeeded in seizing her and holding her fast (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175, 178 (vol. i. pp. 446, 457, ed. Muller)). With the transformations which Thetis underwent in order to escape from the arms of her lover we may compare the transformations which her father Nereus underwent in order to escape from Herakles (above, Apollod. 2.5.11), the transformations which the river-god Achelous underwent in his tussle with the same doughty hero (above, Apollod. 2.7.5, note), and the transformations which the sea-god Proteus underwent in order to give the slip to Menelaus (Hom. Od. 4.354ff.). All these stories were appropriately told of water-spirits, their mutability reflecting as it were the instability of the fickle, inconstant element of which they were born. The place where Peleus caught and mastered his sea-bride was believed to be the southeastern headland of Thessaly, which hence bore the name of Sepia or the Cuttlefish. The whole coast of the Cape was sacred to Thetis and the other Nereids; and after their fleet had been wrecked on the headland, the Persians sacrificed to Thetis on the spot (Hdt. 7.191). See further, Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis.”

262. The Muses sang at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, according to Pind. P. 3.89(159)ff. Catullus describes the Fates singing on the same occasion, and he has recorded their magic song (Catul. 64.305ff.).

263. Compare Hom. Il. 16.140-144, with the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 16.140, according to whom Chiron felled the ash-tree for the shaft, while Athena polished it, and Hephaestus wrought (the blade). For this account the Scholiast refers to the author of the epic Cypria.

264. Compare Hom. Il. 16.148ff.

265. This account of how Thetis attempted to render Achilles immortal, and how the attempt was frustrated by Peleus, is borrowed from Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.869ff. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 178 (vol. i. p. 458, ed. Muller). According to another legend, Thetis bore seven sons, of whom Achilles was the seventh; she destroyed the first six by throwing them into the fire or into a kettle of boiling water to see whether they were mortal or to make them immortal by consuming the merely mortal portion of their frame; and the seventh son, Achilles, would have perished in like manner, if his father Peleus had not snatched him from the fire at the moment when as yet only his anklebone was burnt. To supply this missing portion of his body, Peleus dug up the skeleton of the giant Damysus, the fleetest of all the giants, and, extracting from it the anklebone, fitted it neatly into the ankle of his little son Achilles, applying drugs which caused the new, or rather old, bone to coalesce perfectly with the rest. See Ptolemy Hephaest., Nov. Hist. vi in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 195; Lycophron, Cassandra 178ff., with scholium of Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 178 (vol. i. pp. 455ff.); Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.37; Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 1068, p. 443, ed. Fr. Dubner; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.816. A similar story is told of Demeter and the infant son of Celeus. See above, Apollod. 1.5.1, with the note.

266. Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.875ff., who says that when Thetis was interrupted by Peleus in her effort to make Achilles immortal, she threw the infant screaming on the floor, and rushing out of the house plunged angrily into the sea, and never returned again. In the Iliad Homer represents Thetis dwelling with her old father Nereus and the sea-nymphs in the depths of the sea (Hom. Il. 1.357ff.; Hom. Il. 18.35ff.; Hom. Il. 14.83ff.), while her forlorn husband dragged out a miserable and solitary old age in the halls (Hom. Il. 18.434ff.). Thus the poet would seem to have been acquainted with the story of the quarrel and parting of the husband and wife, though he nowhere alludes to it or to the painful misunderstanding which led to their separation. In this, as in many other places, Homer passes over in silence features of popular tradition which he either rejected as incredible or deemed below the dignity of the epic. Yet if we are right in classing the story of Peleus and Thetis with the similar tales of the marriage of a man to a mermaid or other marine creature, the narrative probably always ended in the usual sad way by telling how, after living happily together for a time, the two at last quarrelled and parted for ever.

267. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.37. According to Statius (Achill. ii.382ff.), Chiron fed the youthful Achilles not on ordinary victuals, but on the flesh and marrows of lions. Philostratus says that his nourishment consisted of honeycombs and the marrows of fawns (Philostratus, Her. xx.2), while the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Achilleus, p. 181 says that he was nurtured on the marrows of deer. Compare Eustathius on Hom. Il. 1.1, p. 14. The flesh and marrows of lions, wild boars, and bears were no doubt supposed to impart to the youthful hero who partook of them the strength and courage of these animals, while the marrows of fawns or deer may have been thought to ensure the fleetness of foot for which he was afterwards so conspicuous. It is thus that on the principle of sympathetic magic many races seek to acquire the qualities of certain animals by eating their flesh or drinking their blood; whereas they abstain from eating the flesh of other animals lest they should, by partaking of it, be infected with the undesirable qualities which these creatures are believed to possess. For example, in various African tribes men eat the hearts of lions in order to become lionhearted, while others will not eat the flesh of tortoises lest they should become slow-footed like these animals. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.138ff. On the same principle the ancients believed that men could acquire the art of divination by eating the hearts of ravens, moles, or hawks, because these creatures were supposed to be endowed with prophetic powers. See Porphyry, De abstinentia ii.48; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx.19. So Medea is said to have restored the aged Aeson to youth by infusing into his veins a decoction of the liver of a long-lived stag and of the head of a crow that had survived nine generations of men. See Ov. Met. 7.273ff.

268. Apollodorus absurdly derives the name Achilles from a (privative) and cheilê, “lips,” so that the word would mean “not lips.” Compare Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Achilleus, p. 181,; Eustathius on Hom. Il. i.1, p. 14.

269. As to the wicked behaviour of Astydamia to Peleus, see above, Apollod. 3.13.3. But it is probable that the cutting of the bad woman in pieces and marching between the pieces into the city was more than a simple act of vengeance; it may have been a solemn sacrifice or purification designed to ensure the safety of the army in the midst of a hostile people. In Boeotia a form of public purification was to cut a dog in two and pass between the pieces. See Plut. Quaest. Rom. 111. A similar rite was observed at purifying a Macedonian army. A dog was cut in two: the head and fore part were placed on the right, the hinder part, with the entrails, was placed on the left, and the troops in arms marched between the pieces. See Livy xli.6; Quintus Curtius, De gestis Alexandri Magni x.9.28. For more examples of similar rites, and an attempt to explain them, see Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.391ff. To the instances there cited may be added another. When the Algerine pirates were at sea and in extreme danger, it was their custom to sacrifice a sheep, cut off its head, extract its entrails, and then throw them, together with the head, overboard; afterwards “with all the speed they can (without skinning) they cut the body in two parts by the middle, and then throw one part over the right side of the ship, and the other over the left, into the sea, as a kind of propitiation.” See Joseph Pitts, A true and faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans (Exon. 1704), p. 14. As to the capture of Iolcus by Peleus, see Pind. N. 3.34(59); Pind. N. 4.54(89)ff. In the former of these passages Pindar says that Peleus captured Iolcus single-handed; but the Scholiast on the passage affirms, on the authority of Pherecydes, that he was accompanied by Jason and the Tyndarids (Castor and Pollux). As this statement tallies with the account given by Apollodorus, we may surmise that here, as often elsewhere, our author followed Pherecydes. According to the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.224, Peleus on his return to Iolcus put to death Acastus himself as well as his wicked wife.

270. As to Achilles disguised as a girl at the court of Lycomedes in Scyros, see Bion ii.5ff.; Philostratus Junior, Im. 1; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ix.668; Hyginus, Fab. 96; Statius, Achill. i.207ff. The subject was painted by Polygnotus in a chamber at the entrance to the acropolis of Athens (Paus. 1.22.6). Euripides wrote a play called The Scyrians on the same theme. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 574ff. Sophocles composed a tragedy under the same title, which has sometimes been thought to have dealt with the same subject, but more probably it was concerned with Neoptolemus in Scyros and the mission of Ulysses and Phoenix to carry him off to Troy. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 191ff. The youthful Dionysus, like the youthful Achilles, is said to have been brought up as a maiden. See above, Apollod. 3.4.3, with the note. One of the questions which the emperor Tiberius used solemnly to propound to the antiquaries of his court was: What was the name of Achilles when he lived as a girl among girls? See Suetonius Tiberius, 70. The question was solemnly answered by learned men in various ways: some said that the stripling's female name was Cercysera, others that it was Issa, and others that it was Pyrrha. See Ptolemy Hephaest., Nov. Hist. i. in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 183.