APOLLODORUS FOOTNOTES EA

APOLLODURS, THE LIBRARY EPITOME FOOTNOTES BY J. G. FRAZER

1. Compare Bacch. 17(18).23ff., ed. Jebb; Diod. 4.59.4; Plut. Thes. 9; Paus. 2.1.3; Hyginus, Fab. 38, who calls the animal a boar. Plutarch notices a rationalistic version of the story, which converted the sow Phaea into a female robber of that name. No ancient writer but Apollodorus mentions the old woman Phaea who nursed the sow, but she appears on vase paintings which represent the slaughter of the sow by Theseus. See Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, iii. pp. 1787ff., 1789, fig. 1873; Hofer, in W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, ii.1450ff.

2. Compare Bacch. 17(18).24ff., ed. Jebb; Diod. 4.59.4; Plut. Thes. 10; Paus. 1.44.8; Scholiast on Eur. Hipp. 979; Scholiast on Lucian, Jupiter Tragoedus 21, p. 65, ed. H. Rabe; Ov. Met. 7.443ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 38; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.333; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 52, 117 (First Vatican Mythographer 167; Second Vatican Mythographer 127). Curiously enough, the Second Vatican Mythographer attributes the despatching of Sciron, not to Theseus, but to the artist Daedalus. The Megarians, as we learn from Plutarch, indignantly denied the defamatory reports current as to the character and pursuits of their neighbour Sciron, whom they represented as a most respectable man, the foe of robbers, the friend of the virtuous, and connected by marriage with families of the highest quality; but their efforts to whitewash the blackguard appear to have been attended with little success. The Scironian Rocks, to which Sciron was supposed to have given his name, are a line of lofty cliffs rising sheer from the sea; a narrow, crumbling ledge about half way up their face afforded a perilous foothold, from which the adventurous traveller looked down with horror on the foam of the breakers far below. The dangers of the path were obviated about the middle of the nineteenth century by the construction of a road and railway along the coast. See Frazer's note on Paus. 1.44.6 (vol. ii. pp. 546ff. ).

3. Compare Bacch. 17(18).26ff., ed. Jebb; Diod. 4.59.5; Plut. Thes. 11; Paus. 1.39.3; Scholiast on Lucian, Jupiter Tragoedus 21, p. 65, ed. H. Rabe; Ov. Met. 7.439; Hyginus, Fab. 38, who calls Cercyon a son of Vulcan (Hephaestus). The place associated with the story, known as the wrestling-school of Cercyon, was near Eleusis, on the road to Megara (Pausanias, 1.39.3). The Scholiast on Lucian, l.c. says that it was near Eleutherae, but he is probably in error; for if the place were near Eleutherae, it must have been on the road from Eleusis to Thebes, which is not the road that Theseus would take on his way from the Isthmus of Corinth to Athens.

4. More commonly known as Procrustes. See Bacch. 17(18).27ff., ed. Jebb; Diod. 4.59.5; Plut. Thes. 11; Paus. 1.38.5; Scholiast on Eur. Hipp. 977; Ov. Met. 7.438; Hyginus, Fab. 38. Ancient authorities are not agreed as to the name of this malefactor. Apollodorus and Plutarch call him Damastes; but Apollodorus says that some people called him Polypemon, and this latter name is supported by Pausanias, who adds that he was surnamed Procrustes. Ovid in two passages (Ov. Met. 7.438, Her. ii.69) calls him simply Procrustes, but in a third passage (Ovid, Ibis 407) he seems to speak of him as the son of Polypemon. The Scholiast on Eur. Hipp. 977 wrongly names him Sinis. The reference of Bacchylides to him is difficult of interpretation. Jebb translates the passage: “The mighty hammer of Polypemon has dropt from the hand of the Maimer [Prokoptes], who has met with a stronger than himself.” Here Jebb understands Prokoptes to be another name for Procrustes, who received the hammer and learned the use of it from Polypemon, his predecessor, perhaps his father. But other translations and explanations have been proposed. See the note in Jebb's Appendix, pp. 490ff.; W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iii.2683, 2687ff. The hammer in question was the instrument with which Procrustes operated on the short men, beating them out till they fitted the long bed, as we learn from the Scholiast on Euripides as well as from Apollodorus; a handsaw was probably the instrument with which he curtailed the length of the tall men. According to Apollodorus, with whom Hyginus agrees, Procrustes had two beds for the accommodation of his guests, a long one for the short men, and a short one for the long men. But according to Diodorus Siculus, with whom the Scholiast on Euripides agrees, he had only one bed for all comers, and adjusted his visitors to it with the hammer or the handsaw according to circumstances.

5. That Theseus was sent against the Marathonian bull at the instigation of Medea is affirmed also by the First Vatican Mythographer. See Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 18, (First Vatican Mythographer, Fab. 48). Compare Plut. Thes. 14; Paus. 1.27.10; Ov. Met. 7.433ff. As to Medes at Athens, see above, Apollod. 1.9.28.

6. Compare Plut. Thes. 12; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.741; Ov. Met. 7.404-424. According to Ovid, the poison by which Medea attempted the life of Theseus was aconite, which she had brought with her from Scythia. The incident seems to have been narrated by Sophocles in his tragedy Aegeus. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 15ff.

7. Compare Plut. Thes. 17; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.320, p. 1688; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.322, and Il. xviii.590; Hyginus, Fab. 41; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. 192. The usual tradition seems to have been that he volunteered for the dangerous service; but a Scholiast on Hom. Il. 18.590 speaks as if the lot had fallen on him with the other victims. According to Hellanicus, cited by Plut. Thes. 17, the victims were not chosen by lot, but Minos came to Athens and picked them for himself, and on this particular occasion Theseus was the first on whom his choice fell.

8. As to the black and white sails, see Diod. 4.61.4; Plut. Thes. 17 and Plut. Thes. 22; Paus. 1.22.5; Catul. 64.215-245; Hyginus, Fab. 41, 43; Serv. Verg. A. 3.74. According to Simonides, quoted by Plut. Thes. 22, the sail that was to be the sign of safety was not white but scarlet, which, by contrast with the blue sea, would have caught the eye almost as easily as a white sail at a great distance.

9. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.322, Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.590; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.320, p. 1688; Diod. 4.61.4; Plut. Thes. 19; Hyginus, Fab. 42; Serv. Verg. A. 6.14, and on Georg. i.222; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. xii.676; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 16, 116ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 43; Second Vatican Mythographer 124). The clearest description of the clue, with which the amorous Ariadne furnished Theseus, is given by the Scholiasts and Eustathius on Homer l.c.. From them we learn that it was a ball of thread which Ariadne had begged of Daedalus for the use of her lover. He was to fasten one end of the thread to the lintel of the door on entering into the labyrinth, and holding the ball in his hand to unwind the skein while he penetrated deeper and deeper into the maze, till he found the Minotaur asleep in the inmost recess; then he was to catch the monster by the hair and sacrifice him to Poseidon; after which he was to retrace his steps, gathering up the thread behind him as he went. According to the Scholiast on the Odyssey (l.c.), the story was told by Pherecydes, whom later authors may have copied.

10. That is, the boys and girls whom he had rescued from the Minotaur.

11. Compare Diod. 4.61.5; Plut. Thes. 20; Paus. 1.20.3; Paus. 10.29.4; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.997; Scholiast on Theocritus ii.45; Catul. 64.116ff.; Ovid, Her. x.; Ovid, Ars Am. i.527ff.; Ov. Met. 8.174ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 43; Serv. Verg. G. 1.222; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 116ff. (Second Vatican Mythographer 124). Homer's account of the fate of Ariadne is different. He says (Hom. Od. 11.321-325) that when Theseus was carrying off Ariadne from Crete to Athens she was slain by Artemis in the island of Dia at the instigation of Dionysus. Later writers, such as Diodorus Siculus identified Dia with Naxos, but it is rather “the little island, now Standia, just off Heraclaion, on the north coast of Crete. Theseus would pass the island in sailing for Athens” (Merry on Hom. Od. xi.322). Apollodorus seems to be the only extant ancient author who mentions that Dionysus carried off Ariadne from Naxos to Lemnos and had intercourse with her there.

12. Compare Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.997. Others said that Ariadne bore Staphylus and Oenopion to Theseus (Plut. Thes. 20).

13. Compare Diod. 4.61.6ff.; Plut. Thes. 22; Paus. 1.22.5; Hyginus, Fab. 43; Serv. Verg. A. 3.74; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 117 (Second Vatican Mythographer 125). The three Latin writers say that Aegeus threw himself into the sea, which was hence called the Aegean after him. The Greek writers say that he cast himself down from the rock of the acropolis. Pausanius describes the exact point from which he fell, to wit the lofty bastion at the western end of the acropolis, on which in after ages the elegant little temple of Wingless Victory stood and still stands. It commands a wonderful view over the ports of Athens and away across the sea to Aegina and the coast of Peloponnese, looming clear and blue through the diaphanous Attic air in the far distance. A better look out the old man could not have chosen from which to watch, with straining eyes, for the white or scarlet sail of his returning son.

14. Pallas was the brother of Aegeus (see above, Apollod. 3.15.5); hence his fifty sons were cousins to Theseus. So long as Aegeus was childless, his nephews hoped to succeed to the throne; but when Theseus appeared from Troezen, claiming to be the king's son and his heir apparent, they were disappointed and objected to his succession, on the ground that he was a stranger and a foreigner. Accordingly, when Theseus succeeded to the crown, Pallas and his fifty sons rebelled against him, but were defeated and slain. See Plut. Thes. 3 and Plut. Thes. 13; Paus. 1.22.2; Paus. 1.28.10; Scholiast on Eur. Hipp. 35, who quotes from Philochorus a passage about the rebellion. In order to be purified from the guilt incurred by killing his cousins, Theseus went into banishment for a year along with his wife Phaedra. The place of their exile was Troezen, where Theseus had been born; and it was there that Phaedra saw and conceived a fatal passion for her stepson Hippolytus, and laid the plot of death. See Eur. Hipp. 34ff.; Paus. 1.22.2. According to a different tradition, Theseus was tried for murder before the court of the Delphinium at Athens, and was acquitted on the plea of justifiable homicide (Paus. 1.28.10).

15. Compare Strab. 14.1.19; Lucian, Gallus 23; Arrian, Anabasis vii.20.5; Zenobius, Cent. iv.92; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.498ff.; Severus, Narr. 5, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, 32. p. 373; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.145; Ov. Met. 8.183-235; Hyginus, Fab. 40; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 16, 117 (First Vatican Mythographer 43, Second Vatican Mythographer 125). According to one account, Daedalus landed from his flight at Cumae, where he dedicated his wings to Apollo. See Verg. A. 6.14ff.; Juvenal iii.25. The myth of the flight of Daedalus and Icarus is rationalized by Diod. 4.77.5ff. and Paus. 9.11.4ff. According to Diodorus, the two were provided by Pasiphae with a ship in which they escaped, but in landing on a certain island Icarus fell into the sea and was drowned. According to Pausanias, father and son sailed in separate ships, scudding before the wind with sails, which Daedalus had just invented and spread for the first time to the sea breeze. The only writer besides Apollodorus who mentions the name of Icarus's mother is Tzetzes; he agrees with Apollodorus, whom he may have copied, in describing her as a slave woman named Naucrate.

16. The story of the quaint device by which Minos detected Daedalus is repeated by Zenobius, Cent. iv.92, who probably copied Apollodorus. The device was mentioned by Sophocles in a lost play, The Camicians, in which he dealt with the residence of Daedalus at the court of Cocalus in Sicily. See Athenaeus iii.32, p. 86 CD; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.3ff.

17. Compare Zenobius, Cent. iv.92; Diod. 4.79.2; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.508ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.145; Scholiast on Pind. N. 4.59(95); Ovid, Ibis 289ff., with the Scholia. The account of Zenobius agrees closely with that of Apollodorus, except that he makes the daughters of Cocalus pour boiling pitch instead of boiling water on the head of their royal guest. The other authorities speak of boiling water. The Scholiast on Pindar informs us that the ever ingenious Daedalus persuaded the princesses to lead a pipe through the roof, which discharged a stream of boiling water on Minos while he was disporting himself in the bath. Other writers mention the agency of the daughters of Cocalus in the murder of Minos, without describing the mode of his taking off. See Paus. 7.4.6; Conon 25; Hyginus, Fab. 44. Herodotus contents himself with saying (Hdt. 7.169ff.) that Minos died a violent death at Camicus in Sicily, whither he had gone in search of Daedalus. The Greek expression which I have translated “was undone” (eklutos egeneto) is peculiar. If the text is sound (see Critical Note), the words must be equivalent to exeluthê, “was relaxed, unstrung, or unnerved.” Compare Aristot. Prob. 862b 2ff., katepsugmenou pantos tou sômatos kai eklelumenou pros tous ponous. Aristotle also uses the adjective eklutos to express a supple, nerveless, or effeminate motion of the hands (Aristot. Physiog. 80a 14); and he says that tame elephants were trained to strike wild elephants,heôs an eklusôsin autous, “until they relax or weaken them” (Aristot. Hist. anim. 9.610a 27). Isocrates speaks of a mob ochlos pros ton polemon eklelumenos (Isoc. 4.150). The verb ekluein is used in the sense of making an end of something troublesome or burdensome (Soph. OT 35ff. with Jebb's note); from which it might perhaps be extended to persons regarded as troublesome or burdensome. We may compare the parallel uses of the Latin dissolvere, as applied both to things (Hor. Carm. 1.9.5, dissolve frigus) and to persons (Sallust, Jugurtha 17, plerosque senectus dissolvit).

18. As to Theseus and the Amazons, see Diod. 4.28; Plut. Thes. 26-28; Paus. 1.2.1; Paus. 1.15.2; Paus. 1.41.7; Paus. 2.32.9; Paus. 5.11.4 and Paus. 5.11.7; Zenobius, Cent. v.33. The invasion of Attica by the Amazons in the time of Theseus is repeatedly referred to by Isocrates (Isoc. 4.68, 70, 4.42, 7.75, 12.193). The Amazon whom Theseus married, and by whom he had Hippolytus, is commonly called Antiope (Plut. Thes. 26; Plut. Thes. 28; Diod. 4.28; Paus. 1.2.1; Paus. 1.41.7; Seneca, Hippolytus 927ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 30). But according to Clidemus, in agreement with Simonides, her name was Hippolyte (Plut. Thes. 27), and so she is called by Isocrates (Isoc. 12.193). Pausanias says that Hippolyte was a sister of Antiope (Paus. 1.41.7). Tzetzes expressly affirms that Antiope, and not Hippolyte, was the wife of Theseus and mother of Hippolytus (Scholiast on Lycophron 1329). The grave of Antiope was shown both at Athens and Megara (Paus. 1.2.1; Paus. 1.41.7).

19. According to Diod. 4.28.2, the Amazons encamped at the place which was afterwards called the Amazonium. The topography of the battle seems to have been minutely described by the antiquarian Clidemus, according to whom the array of the Amazons extended from the Amazonium to the Pnyx, while the Athenians attacked them from the Museum Hill on one side and from Ardettus and the Lyceum on the other. See Plut. Thes. 27.

20. This Deucalion was a son of Minos and reigned after him; he was thus a brother of Phaedra. See above, Apollod. 3.1.2; Diod. 4.62.1. He is not to be confounded with the more famous Deucalion in whose time the great flood took place. See above, Apollod. 1.7.2.

21. The guilty passion of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus and the tragic end of the innocent youth, done to death by the curses of his father Theseus, are the subject of two extant tragedies, the Hippolytus of Euripides, and the Hippolytus or Phaedra of Seneca. Compare also Diod. 4.62; Paus. 1.22, Paus. 1.22.1ff., Paus. 2.32.1-4; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.321, citing Asclepiades as his authority; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1329; Tzetzes, Chiliades vi.504ff.; Scholiast on Plat. Laws 9, 931b; Ov. Met. 15.497ff.; Ovid, Her. iv; Hyginus, Fab. 47; Serv. Verg. A. 6.445, and vii.761; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 17, 117ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 46; Second Vatican Mythographer 128). Sophocles composed a tragedy Phaedra, of which some fragments remain, but little or nothing is known of the plot. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 294ff. Euripides wrote two tragedies on the same subject, both under the title of Hippolytus: it is the second which has come down to us. In the first Hippolytus the poet, incensed at the misconduct of his wife, painted the character and behaviour of Phaedra in much darker colours than in the second, where he has softened the portrait, representing the unhappy woman as instigated by the revengeful Aphrodite, but resisting the impulse of her fatal passion to the last, refusing to tell her love to Hippolytus, and dying by her own hand rather than endure the shame of its betrayal by a blabbing nurse. This version of the story is evidently not the one here followed by Apollodorus, according to whom Phaedra made criminal advances to her stepson. On the other hand the version of Apollodorus agrees in this respect with that of the Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.321: both writers may have followed the first Hippolytus of Euripides. As to that lost play, of which some fragments have come down to us, see the Life of Euripides in Westermann's Vitarum Scriptores Graeci Minores, p. 137; the Greek Argument to the extant Hippolytus of Euripides vol. i.163, ed. Paley; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 491ff. Apollodorus says nothing as to the scene of the tragedy. Euripides in his extant play lays it at Troezen, whither Theseus had gone with Phaedra to be purified for the slaughter of the sons of Pallas (Eur. Hipp. 34ff.). Pausanias agrees with this account, and tells us that the graves of the unhappy pair were to be seen beside each other at Troezen, near a myrtle-tree, of which the pierced leaves still bore the print of Phaedra's brooch. The natural beauty of the spot is in keeping with the charm which the genius of Euripides has thrown over the romantic story of unhappy love and death. Of Troezen itself only a few insignificant ruins remain, overgrown with weeds and dispersed amid a wilderness of bushes. But hard by are luxuriant groves of lemon and orange with here and there tall cypresses towering like dark spires above them, while behind this belt of verdure rise wooded hills, and across the blue waters of the nearly landlocked bay lies Calauria, the sacred island of Poseidon, its peaks veiled in the sombre green of the pines. A different place and time were assigned by Seneca to the tragedy. According to him, the events took place at Athens, and Phaedra conceived her passion for Hippolytus and made advances to him during the absence of her husband, who had gone down to the nether world with Pirithous and was there detained for four years (Eur. Hipp. 835ff.). Diodorus Siculus agrees with Euripides in laying the scene of the tragedy at Troezen, and he agrees with Apollodorus in saying that at the time when Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus she was the mother of two sons, Acamas and Demophon, by Theseus. In his usual rationalistic vein Diodorus omits all mention of Poseidon and the sea-bull, and ascribes the accident which befell Hippolytus to the mental agitation he felt at his stepmother's calumny.

22. Compare Pind. P. 2.21(39)-48(88), with the Scholiast on 21(39); Diod. 4.69.4ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1185; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xxi.303; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.62; Hyginus, Fab. 62; Serv. Verg. A. 6.286 (who does not mention the punishment of the wheel); Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.539; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 4, 110ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 14; Second Vatican Mythographer 106). Tzetzes flatly contradicts Pindar and substitutes a dull rationalistic narrative for the poet's picturesque myth (Tzetzes, Chiliades vii.30ff.). According to some, the wheel of Ixion was fiery (Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1185); according to the Vatican Mythographer it was entwined with snakes. The fiery aspect of the wheel is supported by vase paintings. From this and other evidence Mr. A. B. Cook argues that the flaming wheel launched through the air is a mythical expression for the Sun, and that Ixion himself “typifies a whole series of human Ixions who in bygone ages were done to death as effete embodiments of the sungod.” See his book Zeus, i.198-211.

23. This passage concerning the fight of Theseus with the centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous does not occur in our text of Apollodorus, but is conjecturally restored to it from Zenobius, Cent. v.33, or rather from his interpolator, who frequently quotes passages of Apollodorus without acknowledgment. The restoration was first proposed by Professor C. Robert before the discovery of the Epitome; and it is adopted by R. Wagner in his edition of Apollodorus. See C. Robert, De Apollodori Bibliotheca, pp. 49ff.; R. Wagner, Epitoma Vaticana ex Apollodori Bibliotheca, p. 147. As Pirithous was a son of Ixion (see above, Apollod. 1.8.2), the account of his marriage would follow naturally after the recital of his father's crime and punishment. As to the wedding of Pirithous, see further Diod. 4.70.3; Plut. Thes. 30; Paus. 5.10.8; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xxi.295; Hyginus, Fab. 33; Ov. Met. 12.210-535; Serv. Verg. A. 7.304; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 51, 111 (First Vatican Mythographer 162; Second Vatican Mythographer 108). The wife of Pirithous is called Deidamia by Plutarch, but Hippodamia by Diodorus Siculus, Hyginus, and the Second Vatican Mythographer, as well as by Hom. Il. 2.742. Ovid calls her Hippodame. The scene of the battle of the Lapiths with the centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous was sculptured in the western gable of the temple of Zeus at Olympia; all the sculptures were discovered, in a more or less fragmentary state, by the Germans in their excavations of the sanctuary, and they are now exhibited in the museum at Olympia. See Paus. 5.10.8, with my commentary ( Frazer, Paus. vol. iii. pp. 516ff.).

24. As to Caeneus, his change of sex and his invulnerability, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.57-64, with the Scholiast on v. 57; Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.264; Plut. Stoic. absurd. 1; Plut. De profectibus in virtute 1; Lucian, Gallus 19; Lucian, De saltatione 57; Apostolius, Cent. iv.19; Palaephatus, De incredib. 11; Ant. Lib. 17; Verg. A. 6.448ff.; Ov. Met. 12.459-532; Hyginus, Fab. 14, pp. 39ff., ed. Bunte; Serv. Verg. A. 6.448; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. 264; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 49, 111ff., 189 (First Vatican Mythographer 154; Second Vatican Mythographer 108; Third Vatican Mythographer 6.25). According to Servius and the Vatican Mythographers, after his death Caeneus was changed back into a woman, thus conforming to an observation of Plato or Aristotle that the sex of a person generally changes at each transmigration of his soul into a new body. Curiously enough, the Urabunna and Waramunga tribes of Central Australia agree with Plato or Aristotle on this point. They believe that the souls of the dead transmigrate sooner or later into new bodies, and that at each successive transmigration they change their sex. See Sir. Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (London, 1904), p. 148. According to Ov. Met. 12.524ff., a bird with yellow wings was seen to rise from the heap of logs under which Caeneus was overwhelmed; and the seer Mopsus explained the bird to be Caeneus transformed into that creature. Another tradition about Caeneus was that he set up his spear in the middle of the marketplace and ordered people to regard it as a god and to swear by it. He himself prayed and sacrificed to none of the gods, but only to his spear. It was this impiety that drew down on him the wrath of Zeus, who instigated the centaurs to overwhelm him. See the Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.264; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.57. The whole story of the parentage of Caeneus, his impiety, his invulnerability, and the manner of his death, is told by the old prose-writer Acusilaus in a passage quoted by a Greek grammarian, of whose work some fragments, written on papyrus, were discovered some years ago at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. See The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, part xiii. (London, 1919), pp. 133ff. Apollodorus probably derived his account of Caeneus from Acusilaus, whom he often refers to (see Index). The fortunate discovery of this fragment of the ancient writer confirms our confidence in the excellence of the sources used by Apollodorus and in the fidelity with which he followed them. In his complete work he may have narrated the impiety of Caeneus in setting up his spear for worship, though the episode has been omitted in the Epitome.

25. See above, Apollod. 3.10.7, with the note. Diod. 4.63.2 says that Helen was ten years old when she was carried off by Theseus and Pirithous.

26. Compare Diod. 4.63.3, 5; Plut. Thes. 32 and Plut. Thes. 34; Paus. 1.17.5; Paus. 2.22.6. According to these writers, it was not Athens but Aphidna (Aphidnae) that was captured by the Dioscuri.

27. Menestheus was one of the royal family of Athens, being a son of Peteos, who was a son of Orneus, who was a son of Erechtheus. See Plut. Thes. 32; Paus. 2.25.6. That he was restored and placed on the throne by Castor and Pollux during the absence of Theseus is mentioned also by Paus. 1.17.6 and Ael., Var. Hist. iv.5. Compare Plut. Thes. 32ff.

28. As to Theseus and Pirithous in hell, and the rescue of Theseus by Hercules, see above, Apollod. 2.5.12 with the note. The great painter Polygnotus painted the two heroes seated in chairs, Theseus holding his friend's sword and his own, while Pirithous gazed wistfully at the now useless blades, that had done such good service in the world of light and life. See Paus. 10.29.9. No ancient author, however, except Apollodorus in the present passage, expressly mentions the Chair of Forgetfulness, though Horace seems to allude to it (Hor. Carm. 4.7.27ff.), where he speaks of “the Lethaean bonds” which held fast Pirithous, and which his faithful friend was powerless to break. But when Apollodorus speaks of the heroes growing to their seats, he may be following the old poet Panyasis, who said that Theseus and Pirithous were not pinioned to their chairs, but that the rock growing to their flesh held them as in a vice (Paus. 10.29.9). Indeed, Theseus stuck so fast that, on being wrenched away by Hercules, he left a piece of his person adhering to the rock, which, according to some people, was the reason why the Athenians ever afterwards were so remarkably spare in that part of their frame. See Suidas, s.v. Lispoi; Scholiast on Aristoph. Kn. 1368; compare Aulus Gellius x.16.13.

29. Compare Plut. Thes. 35; Paus. 1.17.6; Diod. 4.62.4.

30. As to the punishment of Tantalus, see Hom. Od. 11.582-592, who describes only the torments of hunger and thirst, but says nothing about the overhanging stone. But the stone is often mentioned by later writers. See Archilochus, quoted by Plutarch, Praecept. Ger. Reipub. 6, and by the Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.60(97); Pind. O. 1.55(87)ff. with the Scholia on 60(97); Pind. I. 8.10(21); Eur. Or. 4-10; Plat. Crat. 395d-e; Hyp. Fr. 176, ed. Blass; Antipater, in Anth. Pal., Appendix Planudea, iv.131.9ff.; Plut. De superstitione 11; Lucian, Dial. Mort. 17; Paus. 10.31.10; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. iii.25; Apostolius, Cent. vii.60, xvi.9; Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 73, p. 386; Athenaeus vii.14, p. 281 BC; Lucretius iii.980ff.; Cicero, De finibus i.18.60; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv.16.35; Hor. Epod. 17, 65ff.and Sat. i.1.68ff.; Ov. Met. 4.458ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 82. Ovid notices only the torments of hunger and thirst, and Lucian only the torment of thirst. According to another account, Tantalus lay buried under Mount Sipylus in Lydia, which had been his home in life, and on which his grave was shown down to late times (Paus. 2.22.3, 5.13.7). The story ran that Zeus owned a valuable watchdog, which guarded his sanctuary in Crete; but Pandareus, the Milesian, stole the animal and entrusted it for safekeeping to Tantalus. So Zeus sent Hermes to the resetter to reclaim his property, but Tantalus impudently denied on oath that the creature was in his house or that he knew anything about it. Accordingly, to punish the perjured knave, the indignant Zeus piled Mount Sipylus on the top of him. See the Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.60(97); Scholiast on Hom. Od. xix.518, xx.66. In his lost play Tantalus Sophocles seems to have introduced the theft of the dog, the errand of Hermes to recover the animal, and perhaps the burial of the thief under the mountain. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 209ff.

31. This Broteas, mentioned by Apollodorus between Tantalus and Pelops, is probably the Broteas, son of Tantalus, who was said to have carved the ancient rock-hewn image of the Mother of the Gods which is still to be seen on the side of Mount Sipylus, about three hundred feet above the plain. See Paus. 3.22.4, with Frazer, note on v.13.7 (vol. iii. pp. 553ff.). Ovid mentions a certain Broteas, who from a desire of death burned himself on a pyre (Ovid, Ibis 517ff.), and who is probably to be identified with the Broteas of Apollodorus, though the Scholiasts on Ovid describe him either as a son of Jupiter (Zeus), or as a son of Vulcan (Hephaestus) and Pallas (Athena), identical with Erichthonius. According to one of the Scholiasts, Broteas, son of Zeus, was a very wicked man, who was blinded by Zeus, and loathing his life threw himself on a burning pyre. According to another of the Scholiasts, Broteas, son of Hephaestus and Athena, was despised for his ugliness, and this so preyed on his mind that he preferred death by fire. See Ovid, Ibis, ed. R. Ellis, p. 89. It seems not improbable that this legend contains a reminiscence of a human sacrifice or suicide by fire, such as occurs not infrequently in the traditions of western Asia. See K. B. Stark, Niobe und die Niobiden (Leipsig, 1863), pp. 437ff.; and for the Asiatic traditions of a human sacrifice or suicide by fire, see Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed., i.172ff.

32. The story was that at a banquet of the gods, to which he had been invited, Tantalus served up the mangled limbs of his young son Pelops, which he had boiled in a kettle. But the murdered child was restored to life by being put back into the kettle and then drawn out of it, with an ivory shoulder to replace the shoulder of flesh which Demeter or, according to others, Thetis had unwittingly eaten. See Pind. O. 1.24(37)ff., with the Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.37; Lucian, De saltatione 54; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 152; Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 57, p. 380; Serv. Verg. A. 6.603, and on Verg. G. 3.7; Hyginus, Fab. 83; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 109, 186 (Second Vatican Mythographer 102; Third Vatican Mythographer vi.21). The ivory shoulder of Pelops used afterwards to be exhibited at Elis (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii.34); but it was no longer to be seen in the time of Pausanias (Paus. 1.13.6).

33. Compare Pind. O. 1.37(60)ff., Pind. O. 1.71(114)ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156. Pindar describes how Pelops went to the shore of the sea and prayed to Poseidon to give him a swift chariot, and how the god came forth and bestowed on him a golden chariot with winged steeds. On the chest of Cypselus at Olympia the horses of Pelops in the chariot race were represented with wings (Paus. 5.17.7).

34. The following account of the wooing and winning of Hippodamia by Pelops is the fullest that has come down to us. Compare Pind. O. 1.67(109)ff.; Diod. 4.73; Paus. 5.10.6ff.; Paus. 5.14.6; Paus. 5.17.7; Paus. 6.20.17; Paus. 6.21.6-11; Paus. 8.14.10ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.104; Scholiast on Pind. O. 1.71(114); Scholiast on Soph. El. 504; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 982, 990; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.752; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156; Hyginus, Fab. 84; Serv. Verg. G. 3.7, ed. Lion; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 125 (First Vatican Mythographer 21; Second Vatican Mythographer 146). The story was told by Pherecydes, as we learn from the Scholiasts on Sophocles and Apollonius Rhodius (ll.cc.). It was also the theme of two plays called Oenomaus, one of them by Sophocles, and the other by Euripides. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 233ff.,539ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 121ff. The versions of the story given by Tzetzes and the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 990 agree closely with each other and with that of Apollodorus, which they may have copied. They agree with him and with the Scholiast on Pindar in alleging an incestuous passion of Oenomaus for his daughter as the reason why he was reluctant to give her in marriage; indeed they affirm that this was the motive assigned for his conduct by the more accurate historians, though they also mention the oracle which warned him that he would perish at the hands of his in-law. The fear of this prediction being fulfilled is the motive generally alleged by the extant writers of antiquity. Diodorus Siculus mentions some particulars which are not noticed by other authors. According to him, the goal of the race was the altar of Poseidon at Corinth, and the suitor was allowed a start; for before mounting his chariot Oenomaus sacrificed a ram to Zeus, and while he was sacrificing the suitor drove off and made the best of his way along the road, until Oenomaus, having completed the sacrifice, was free to pursue and overtake him. The sacrifice was offered at a particular altar at Olympia, which some people called the altar of Hephaestus, and others the altar of Warlike Zeus (Paus. 5.14.6). In the eastern gable of the temple of Zeus at Olympia the competitors with their chariots and charioteers were represented preparing for the race in the presence of an image of Zeus; among them were Hippodamia and her mother Sterope. These sculptures were found, more or less mutilated, by the Germans in their excavation of Olympia and are now exhibited in the local museum. See Paus. 5.10.6ff. with (Frazer, commentary vol. iii. pp. 504ff.) Curiously enough, the scene of the story is transposed by the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 990, who affirms that Oenomaus reigned in Lesbos, though at the same time he says, in accordance with the usual tradition, that the goal of the race was the Isthmus of Corinth. The connexion of Oenomaus with Lesbos is to a certain extent countenanced by a story for which the authority cited is Theopompus. He related that when Pelops was on his way to Pisa (Olympia) to woo Hippodamia, his charioteer Cillus died in Lesbos, and that his ghost appeared to Pelops in a dream, lamenting his sad fate and begging to be accorded funeral honours. So Pelops burned the dead man's body, buried his ashes under a barrow, and founded a sanctuary of Cillaean Apollo close by. See the Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.38 (where for exeruparou to eidôlon dia puros we should perhaps read exepurou to eidôlon dia puros, “he burned the body to ashes with fire,” eidôlon being apparently used in the sense of “dead body”). Strabo describes the tomb of Cillus or Cillas, as he calls him, as a great mound beside the sanctuary of Cillaean Apollo, but he places the grave and the sanctuary, not in Lesbos, but on the opposite mainland, in the territory of Adramyttium, though he says that there was a Cillaeum also in Lesbos. See Strab. 13.1.62-63. Professor C. Robert holds that the original version of the legend of Oenomaus and Hippodamia belonged to Lesbos and not to Olympia. See his Bild und Lied, p. 187 note.

35. The number of the slain suitors was twelve according to Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156 and the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 990; but it was thirteen according to Pindar and his Scholiasts. See Pind. O. 1.79(127)ff., with the Scholia on 79(127), where the names of the suitors are given. A still longer list of their names is given by Paus. 6.21.7, who says that they were buried under a high mound of earth, and that Pelops afterwards sacrificed to them as to heroes every year.

36. According to Hyginus, Fab. 84, when Pelops saw the heads of the unsuccessful suitors nailed over the door, he began to repent of his temerity, and offered Myrtilus, the charioteer of Oenomaus, the half of the kingdom if he would help him in the race.

37. According to another account, which had the support of Pherecydes, Myrtilus substituted linchpins of wax for linchpins of bronze. See Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.752; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 998; Serv. Verg. G. 3.7, ed. Lion, where for aereis we should read cereis (the text in Thilo and Hagen's edition of Servius is mutilated and omits the passage); Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 125 (First Vatican Mythographer 21; Second Vatican Mythographer 146).

38. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.104. The latter writer says, somewhat absurdly, that the incident took place when Pelops and Hippodamia were crossing the Aegean Sea, and that, Hippodamia being athirst, Pelops dismounted from the chariot to look for water in the desert.

39. Compare Eur. Or. 989ff.

40. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 156; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 990.

41. As to Apia, the old name of Peloponnese, see above, Apollod. 2.1.1; Paus. 2.5.7; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Apia. The term Pelasgiotis seems not to occur elsewhere as a name for Peloponnese. However, Euripides uses Pelasgia apparently as equivalent to Argolis (Eur. Or. 960).

42. According to Pindar, Pelops had six sons by Hippodamia, and three different lists of their names are given by the Scholiasts on the passage. All the lists include the three mentioned by Apollodorus. See Pind. O. 1.89(144), with the Scholia. Three sons, Hippalcimus, Atreus, and Thyestes, are named by Hyginus (Fab. 84). Besides his legitimate sons Pelops is said to have had a bastard son Chrysippus, who was born to him before his marriage with Hippodamia. His fondness for this love-child excited the jealousy of his wife, and at her instigation Atreus and Thyestes murdered Chrysippus by throwing him down a well. For this crime Pelops cursed his two sons and banished them, and Hippodamia fled to Argolis, but her bones were afterwards brought back to Olympia. See Thuc. 1.9; Paus. 6.20.7; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.415ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.105; Hyginus, Fab. 85. Euripides wrote a tragedy Chrysippus on this subject. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 632ff. The tragedy is alluded to by Cicero (Tusc. Disp. iv.33.71). As to Chrysippus, see also above, Apollod. 3.5.5.

43. This story of the golden lamb, and of the appeal made to its possession by the two brothers in the contest for the kingdom, is told in substantially the same way by Tzetzes, Chiliades i.425ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.106; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 811, 998. Tzetzes records the vow of Atreus to sacrifice the best of his flock to Artemis, and he cites as his authority Apollonius, which is almost certainly a mistake for Apollodorus. Probably Tzetzes and the Scholiasts drew on the present passage of Apollodorus, or rather on the passage as it appeared in the unabridged text instead of in the Epitome which is all that we now possess of the last part of the Library. Euripides told the story allusively in much the same way. See Eur. El. 699ff.; Eur. Or. 996ff. Compare Plat. Stat. 12; Paus. 2.18.1; Lucian, De astrologia 12; Dio Chrysostom lxvi. vol. ii. p. 221, ed. L. Dindorf; Accius, quoted by Cicero, De natura deorum iii.27.68; Seneca, Thyestes 222-235; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.306; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 125ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 22; Second Vatican Mythographer 147). From these various accounts and allusions it would seem that in their dispute for the kingdom, which Atreus claimed in right of birth as the elder (Tzetzes, Chiliades i.426), it was agreed that he who could exhibit the greatest portent should be king. Atreus intended to produce the golden lamb, which had been born in his flocks; but meanwhile the lamb had been given by his treacherous wife Aerope to her paramour Thyestes, who produced it in evidence of his claim and was accordingly awarded the crown. However, with the assistance of Zeus, the rightful claimant Atreus was able to exhibit a still greater portent, which was the sun and the Pleiades retracing their course in the sky and setting in the east instead of in the west. This mighty marvel, attesting the divine approbation of Atreus, clinched the dispute in his favour; he became king, and banished his rival Thyestes. According to a different account, which found favour with the Latin poets, the sun reversed his course in the sky, not in order to demonstrate the right of Atreus to the crown, but on the contrary to mark his disgust and horror at the king for murdering his nephews and dishing up their mangled limbs to their father Thyestes at table. See Tzetzes, Chiliades i.451; Statyllius Flaccus, in Anth. Pal. ix.98.2; Hyginus, Fab. 88, 258; Ovid, Tristia ii.391ff.; Ovid, Ars Am. i.327ff.; Seneca, Thyestes 776ff.; Martial iii.45.1ff. From the verses of Statyllius Flaccus we may infer that this latter was the interpretation put on the backward motion of the sun by Sophocles in his tragedy Atreus. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, i.93. In later times rationalists explained the old fable by saying that Atreus was an astronomer who first calculated an eclipse, and so threw his less scientific brother into the shade (Hyginus, Fab. 158; Serv. Verg. A. 1.568), or who first pointed out that the sun appears to revolve in a direction contrary to the motion of the stars. See Strab. 1.2.15; Lucian, De astrologia 12. A fragment of Euripides appears to show that he put in the mouth of Atreus this claim to astronomical discovery. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), p. 639, frag. 861. A still more grandiose explanation of the myth was given by Plato l.c., who adduced it, with grave irony, as evidence that in alternate cycles of vast duration the universe revolves in opposite directions, the reversal of its motion at the end of each cycle being accompanied by a great destruction of animal life. This magnificent theory was perhaps suggested to the philosopher by the speculations of Empedocles, and it bears a resemblance not only to the ancient Indian doctrine of successive epochs of creation and destruction, but also to Herbert Spencer's view of the great cosmic process as moving eternally in alternate and measureless cycles of evolution and dissolution. See Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 12th ed. (London, 1875), i.7, quoting the Laws of Manu; Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 3rd ed. (London, 1875), pp. 536ff. Compare Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.303ff.

44. As to the famous, or infamous, Thyestean banquet, see Aesch. Ag. 1590ff.; Paus. 2.18.1; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.447ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 88; Seneca, Thyestes 682ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 1.568, xi.262; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.306; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 126, 209 (First Vatican Mythographer 22; Second Vatican Mythographer 147; Third Vatican Mythographer viii.16). Sophocles wrote at least two tragedies on the fatal feud between the brothers, one of them being called Atreus and the other Thyestes. The plots of the plays are not certainly known, but it is thought probable that in the former he dealt with the cannibal banquet, and in the latter with the subsequent adventures and crimes of Thyestes. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 91ff., 185ff. Euripides also wrote a tragedy called Thyestes. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 480ff. Tzetzes agrees with Apollodorus as to the names of the three murdered sons of Thyestes, except that he calls one of them Callaus instead of Callileon. Only two, Tantalus and Plisthenes, are named by Seneca and Hyginus.

45. The later history of Thyestes, including his incest with his daughter Pelopia, is narrated much more fully by Hyginus, Fab. 87, 88, who is believed to have derived the story from the Thyestes of Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 185ff. The incest and the birth of Aegisthus, who is said to have received his name because he was suckled by a goat, are told more briefly by Lactantius Placidus (on Statius, Theb. iv.306) and the First and Second Vatican Mythographers (Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7ff., 126). The incest is said to have been committed at Sicyon, where the father and daughter met by night without recognizing each other; the recognition occurred at a later time by means of a sword which Pelopia had wrested from her ravisher, and with which, on coming to a knowledge of her relationship to him, she stabbed herself to death.

46. The passage translated in this paragraph does not occur in our present text of Apollodorus, which is here defective. It is found in Tzetzes, Chiliades i.456-465, who probably borrowed it from Apollodorus; for in the preceding lines Tzetzes narrates the crimes of Atreus and Thyestes in agreement with Apollodorus and actually cites him as his authority, if, as seems nearly certain, we should read Apollodorus for Apollonius in his text (see above p. 164). The restoration of the passage to its present place in the text of Apollodorus is due to the German editor R. Wagner. Here after describing how Aegisthus had murdered Atreus and placed his own father Thyestes on the throne of Mycenae, Apollodorus tells us how the nurse of Atreus's two children, Agamemnon and Menelaus, saved the lives of her youthful charges by conveying them to Sicyon. The implied youthfulness of Agamemnon and Menelaus at the time of the death of their father Atreus is inconsistent with the narrative of Hyginus, Fab. 88, who tells how Atreus had sent his two sons abroad to find and arrest Thyestes.

47. Polyphides is said to have been the twenty-fourth king of Sicyon and to have reigned at the time when Troy was taken. See Eusebius, Chronic. vol. i. coll. 175, 176, ed. A. Schoene.

48. As to Tantalus, the first husband of Clytaemnestra, and his murder by Agamemnon, see Eur. IA 1148ff.; Paus. 2.18.2, Paus. 2.22.2ff. According to Pausanias, he was a son of Thyestes or of Broteas, and his bones were deposited in a large bronze vessel at Argos.

49. In Hom. Il. 9.142ff. Agamemnon says that he has a son Orestes and three daughters, Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa (Iphigenia), and he offers to give any one of his daughters in marriage to Achilles without a dowry, if only that doughty hero will forgive him and fight again for the Greeks against Troy. Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon, who figures so prominently in Greek tragedy, is unknown to Homer, and so is the sacrifice of Agamemnon's third daughter, Iphigenia.

50. See above, Apollod. 3.11.2.

51. As to the judgment of Paris (Alexander), see Hom. Il. 24.25ff.; Cypria, in Proclus, Chrestom. i. (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 16ff.); Eur. Tro. 924ff.; Eur. IA 1290ff.; Eur. Hel. 23ff.; Eur. And. 274ff.; Isoc. 10.41; Lucian, Dial. Deorum 20, Dial. marin. 5; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 93; Hyginus, Fab. 92; Serv. Verg. A. 1.27; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 65ff., 142ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 208; Second Vatican Mythographer 205). The story ran that all the gods and goddesses, except Strife, were invited to attend the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and that Strife, out of spite at being overlooked, threw among the wedding guests a golden apple inscribed with the words, “Let the fair one take it,” or “The apple for the fair.” Three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, contended for this prize of beauty, and Zeus referred the disputants to the judgment of Paris. The intervention of Strife was mentioned in the Cypria according to Proclus, but without mention of the golden apple, which first appears in late writers, such as Lucian and Hyginus. The offers made by the three divine competitors to Paris are recorded with substantial agreement by Eur. Tro. 924ff., Isocrates, Lucian, and Apollodorus. Hyginus is also in harmony with them, if in his text we read fortissimum for the formissimum of the MSS., for which some editors wrongly read formosissimum. The scene of the judgment of Paris was represented on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae and on the chest of Cypselus at Olympia (Paus. 3.8.12; Paus. 5.19.5).

52. Compare Hom. Il. 5.59ff., from which we learn that the shipbuilder was a son of Tecton, who was a son of Harmon. The names of his father and grandfather indicate, as Dr. Leaf observes, that the business had been carried on in the family for three generations. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 97.

53. The Greek for “to go off” is apagagein, a rare use of apagein, which, however, occurs in the common phrase, apage,“Be off with you!”

54. With this account of the hospitable reception of Paris in Sparta, the departure of Menelaus for Crete, and the flight of the guilty pair, compare Proclus, Chrestom. i., in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 17; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 96-134. As to the death of Catreus, the maternal grandfather of Menelaus, see above, Apollod. 3.2.1ff.

55. The voyage of Paris and Helen to Sidon was known to Hom. Il. 6.289ff., with the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 6.291. It was also recorded in the epic Cypria, according to Proclus, who says that Paris captured the city (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 18). Yet according to Hdt. 2.117, the author of the Cypria described how Paris and Helen sailed in three days from Sparta to Ilium with a fair wind and a smooth sea. It seems therefore that Herodotus and Proclus had different texts of the Cypria before them. Dictys Cretensis tells how, driven by the winds to Cyprus, Paris sailed with some ships to Sidon, where he was hospitably entertained by the king, but basely requited his hospitality by treacherously murdering his host and plundering the palace. In embarking with his booty on his ships, he was attacked by the Sidonians, but, after a bloody fight and the loss of two ships, he succeeded in beating off his assailants and putting to sea with the rest of his vessels. See Dictys Cretensis i.5.

56. Compare Eur. Hel. 31-51; Eur. Hel. 582ff.; Eur. Hel. 669ff.; Eur. El. 1280ff. In the Helen the dramatist says that Hera, angry with Paris for preferring Aphrodite to her, fashioned a phantom Helen which he wedded, while the real Helen was transported by Hermes to Egypt and committed to the care of Proteus. In the Electra the poet says that it was Zeus who sent a phantom Helen to Troy, in order to stir up strife and provoke bloodshed among men. A different account is given by Hdt. 2.112-120. According to him, Paris carried the real Helen to Egypt, but there king Proteus, indignant at the crime of which Paris had been guilty, banished him from Egypt and detained Helen in safekeeping until her true husband, Menelaus, came and fetched her away. Compare Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. iv.16; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 147ff. Later writers accepted this view, adding that instead of the real Helen, whom he kept, Proteus conjured up by magic art a phantom Helen, which he gave to Paris to carry away with him to Troy. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 113; Serv. Verg. A. 1.651, ii.592. So far as we know, the poet Stesichorus in the sixth century before our era was the first to broach the theory that Helen at Troy, for whom the Greeks and Trojans fought and died, was a mere wraith, while her true self was far away, whether at home in Sparta or with Proteus in Egypt; for there is nothing to show whether Stesichorus shared the opinion that Paris had spirited her away to the East before he returned, with or without her, to Troy. This view the poet propounded by way of an apology to Helen for the evil he had spoken of her in a former poem; for having lost the sight of his eyes he ascribed the loss to the vengeance of the heroine, and sought to propitiate her by formally retracting all the scandals he had bruited about concerning her. See Plat. Phaedrus 243a-b; Plat. Rep. 9.586c; Isoc. 10.64; Paus. 3.19.13; Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ed. Th. Bergk, iii.980ff.

57. As to these oaths, see above, Apollod. 3.10.9.

58. As to the madness which Ulysses feigned in order to escape going to the Trojan war, see Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 18; Lucian, De domo 30; Philostratus, Her. xi.2; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 818; Cicero, De officiis iii.26.97; Hyginus, Fab. 95; Serv. Verg. A. 2.81; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.93; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 12, 140ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 35; Second Vatican Mythographer 200). The usual story seems to have been that to support his pretence of insanity Ulysses yoked an ox and a horse or an ass to the plough and sowed salt. While he was busy fertilizing the fields in this fashion, the Greek envoys arrived, and Palamedes, seeing through the deception, laid the infant son of Ulysses in front of the plough, whereupon the father at once checked the plough and betrayed his sanity. However, Lucian agrees with Apollodorus in saying that Palamedes threatened the child with his sword, though at the same time, by mentioning the unlike animals yoked together, he shows that he had the scene of the ploughing in his mind. His description purports to be based on a picture, probably a famous picture of the scene which was still exhibited at Ephesus in the time of Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv.129. Sophocles wrote a play on the subject, called The Mad Ulysses. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 115ff.

59. The Machiavellian device by which the crafty Ulysses revenged himself on Palamedes for forcing him to go to the war is related more fully by a Scholiast on Eur. Or. 432 and Hyginus, Fab. 105. According to the Scholiast, a servant of Palamedes was bribed to secrete the forged letter and the gold under his master's bed, where they were discovered and treated as damning evidence of treason. According to Hyginus, Ulysses had recourse to a still more elaborate stratagem in order to bury the gold in the earth under the tent of Palamedes. Compare Serv. Verg. A. 2.81; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.93; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 12, 140ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 35; Second Vatican Mythographer 200). An entirely different account of the plot against Palamedes is told by Dictys Cretensis ii.15. He says that Ulysses and Diomede induced him to descend into a well, and then buried him under rocks which they hurled down on the top of him.

60. Compare Hom. Il. 11.19ff., who describes only one richly decorated breastplate.

61. Compare Eustathius on Hom. Il. 11.20, p. 827, who says that, according to some people, Cinyras “swore to Menelaus at Paphos that he would send fifty ships, but he despatched only one, and the rest he fashioned of earth and sent them with earthen men in them; thus he cunningly evaded his oath by keeping it with an earthenware fleet.” Compare the Townley Scholiast on Hom. Il. 11.20, ed. E. Maass (Oxford, 1887), vol. i. p. 378. Wagner may be right in supposing that this ruse of the Cyprian king was recorded in the epic Cypria, though it is not mentioned in the brief summary of the poem compiled by Proclus. See R. Wagner, Epitoma Vaticana ex Apollodori Bibliotheca, pp. 181ff. A different account of the Greek embassy to Cinyras is given by Alcidamas, Od. 20ff., pp. 181ff., ed. Blass. He says that Cinyras bribed the Greek envoy Palamedes to relieve him from military service, and that, though he promised to send a hundred ships, he sent none at all.

62. As to these three women, the Winegrowers (Oinotrophoi, or Oinotropoi) see Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 29ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 570, 581; Scholiast on Hom. Od. vi.164; Ov. Met. 13.632-674; Serv. Verg. A. 3.80; Dictys Cretensis i.23. Each of the Winegrowers received from Dionysus the power of producing the thing from which she derived her name; thus Elais, who took her name from elaia, “an olive,” could produce olive oil; Spermo, who took her name from sperma, “seed,” could produce corn; and Oeno, who took her name from oinos, “wine,” could produce wine. According to Apollodorus, the women elicited these products from the ground; but according to Ovid and Servius, whatever they touched was turned into olive-oil, corn, or wine, as the case might be. Possessing these valuable powers, the daughters of Anius were naturally much sought after. Their father, a son of Apollo, was king of Delos and at the same time priest of his father Apollo (Verg. A. 3.80), and when Aeneas visited the island on his way from Troy, the king, with pardonable pride, dwelt on his daughters' accomplishments and on the income they had brought him in (Ov. Met. 13.650ff.) It is said by Tzetzes that when the Greeks sailed for Troy and landed in Delos, the king, who had received the gift of prophecy from his divine sire (Diod. 5.62.2), foretold that Troy would not be taken for ten years, and invited them to stay with him for nine years, promising that his daughters would find them in food all the time. This hospitable offer was apparently not accepted at the moment; but afterwards, when the Greeks were encamped before Troy, Agamemnon sent for the young women and ordered them peremptorily to feed his army. This they did successfully, if we may believe Tzetzes; but, to judge by Ovid's account, they found the work of the commissariat too exacting, for he says that they took to flight. Being overtaken by their pursuers, they prayed to Dionysus, who turned them into white doves. And that, says Servius, is why down to this day it is deemed a sin to harm a dove in Delos. From Tzetzes we learn that the story of these prolific damsels was told by Pherecydes and by the author of the epic Cypria, from whom Pherecydes may have borrowed it. Stesichorus related how Menelaus and Ulysses went to Delos to fetch the daughters of Anius (Scholiast on Hom. Od. vi.164). If we may judge from the place which the brief mention of these women occupies in the Epitome of Apollodorus, we may conjecture that in his full text he described how their services were requisitioned to victual the fleet and army assembling at Aulis. The conjecture is confirmed by the statement of Dictys Cretensis, that before the Greek army set sail from Aulis, it had received a supply of corn, wine, and other provisions from Anius and his daughters. It may have been in order to ensure these supplies that Menelaus and Ulysses repaired to Delos for the purpose of securing the persons of the women.

63. As to list of the Greek forces which mustered at Aulis, see Hom. Il. 2.494-759; Eur. IA 253ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 97; Dictys Cretensis i.17. The numbers of the ships and leaders recorded by Apollodorus do not always tally with those of Homer. For example, he gives the Boeotians forty ships, while Homer (Hom. Il. 5.509) gives them fifty; and he says that the Phocians had four leaders, whereas Homer (Hom. Il. 5.517) mentions only two. The question of the catalogue of the Greek forces, and its relation to Homer and history, are fully discussed by Dr. Walter Leaf in his Homer and History (London, 1915). He concludes that the catalogue forms no part of the original but was added to it at a later time by a patriotic Boeotian for the purpose of glorifying his people by claiming that they played a very important part in the Trojan war, although this claim is inconsistent with the statement of Thuc. 1.12 that the Boeotians did not migrate into the country henceforth known as Boeotia until sixty years after the capture of Troy. I agree with Dr. Leaf in the belief, which he energetically maintains in this book, that the Trojan war was not a myth, but a real war, “fought out in the place, and at least generally in the manner, described in Homer,” and that the principal heroes and heroines recorded by Homer were not “faded gods” but men and women of flesh and blood, of whose families and fortunes the memory survived in Greek tradition, though no doubt in course of time many mythical traits and incidents gathered round them, as they have gathered round the memories of the Hebrew patriarchs, of Alexander the Great, of Virgil, and of Charlemagne.

64. Compare Hom. Il. 2.299-330; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 18; Cicero, De divinatione ii.30.63-65; Ov. Met. 12.11-23.

65. No other ancient writer mentions that Achilles was high admiral of the fleet, though as son of a sea-goddess he was obviously fitted for the post. Dictys Cretensis, however, tells us (Dictys Cretensis i.16) that Achilles shared the command of the ships with Ajax and Phoenix, while that of the land forces was divided between Palamedes, Diomedes, and Ulysses.

66. With the following account of the landing of the Greeks in Mysia and their encounter with Telephus, compare Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 18ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.59. The accounts of both these writers agree, to some extent verbally, with that of Apollodorus and are probably drawn from the same source, which may have been the epic Cypria summarized by Proclus. The Scholiast tells us that it was Dionysus who caused Telephus to trip over a vine-branch, because Telephus had robbed the god of the honours that were his due. The incident is alluded to by Pind. I. 8.48(106)ff. The war in Mysia is narrated in more detail by Philostratus, Her. iii.28-36 and Dictys Cretensis ii.1-7. Philostratus, Her. 35 says that the wounded were washed in the waters of the hot Ionian springs, which the people of Smyrna called the springs of Agamemnon.

67. Compare Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19, according to whom Achilles, on this return voyage, landed in Scyros and married his youthful love Deidamia, daughter of Lycomedes. See above, Apollod. 3.13.8.

68. Compare Hom. Il. 24.765ff., where Helen at Troy says that it was now the twentieth year since she had quitted her native land. The words have puzzled the Scholiasts and commentators, but are explained by the present passage of Apollodorus.

69. This account of how Telephus steered the Greek fleet to Troy after being healed of his grievous wound by Achilles, is probably derived from the epic Cypria; since it agrees on these points with the brief summary of Proclus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.59; Dictys Cretensis ii.10. As to the cure of Telephus's wound by means of the rust of the spear, see also Hyginus, Fab. 101; Prop. ii.1.63ff.; Ovid, Ex Ponto ii.2.6. Pliny describes a painting in which Achilles was represented scraping the rust from the blade of his spear with a sword into the wound of Telephus (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxv.42, xxxiv.152). The spear was the famous one which Chiron had bestowed on Peleus, the father of Achilles; the shaft was cut from an ash-tree on Mount Pelion, and none of the Greeks at Troy, except Achilles, could wield it. See Hom. Il. 16.140-144; Hom. Il. 19.387-391; Hom. Il. 22.133ff. The healing of Telephus's wound by Achilles is also reported, though without mention of the spear, by Dictys Cretensis ii.10, a Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.59 and a Scholiast on Aristoph. Cl. 919. The subject was treated by Sophocles in a play called The Assembly of the Achaeans, and by Euripides in a play called Telephus. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, i.94ff.; Griechische Dichterfragmente. ii. Lyrische und dramatische Fragmente, ed. W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Berlin, 1907), pp. 64ff.; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 161ff., 579ff. Aristophanes ridiculed the rags and tatters in which Telephus appeared on the stage in Euripides's play (Aristoph. Acharn. 430ff.). Apollodorus may have had the passage of Euripides or the parody of Aristophanes in mind when he describes Telephus as clad in rags. The cure of a wound by an application to it of rust from the weapon which inflicted the hurt is not to be explained, as Pliny supposed, by any medicinal property inherent in rust as such, else the rust from any weapon would serve the purpose. It is clearly a folklore remedy based on the principle of sympathetic magic. Similarly Iphiclus was cured of impotence by the rust of the same knife which had caused the infirmity. See Apollod. 1.9.12. The proverbial remedy for the bite of a dog “the hair of the dog that bit you,” is strictly analogous in principle; for it is not the hair of any dog that will work the cure, but only the hair of the particular dog that inflicted the bite. Thus we read of a beggar who was bitten by a dog, at the vicarage of Heversham, in Westmoreland, and went back to the house to ask for some of the animal's hair to put on the wound. See W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England (London, 1879), p. 160, note 1. A precisely similar remedy for similar hurts appears to be popular in China; for we hear of a missionary who travelled about the province of Canton accompanied by a powerful dog, which bit children in the villages through which his master passed; and when a child was bitten, its mother used to run after the missionary and beg for a hair from the dog's tail to lay on the child's wound as a remedy. See N. B. Dennys, The Folklore of China (London and Hongkong, 1876), p. 52. For more examples of supposed cures based on the principle of sympathy between the animal who bites and the person who is bitten, see W. Henderson, l.c.; W. G. Black, Folk-Medicine (London, 1883), pp. 50ff.; W. Gregor, Notes on the Folklore of the North-East of Scotland (London, 1881), p. 127.

70. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 183. The full expression is reported by the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 1.108, oude hê Artemis houtôs an etoxeuse, “Not even Artemis could have shot like that.” The elliptical phrase is wrongly interpreted by the Sabbaitic scribe. See the Critical Note.