APOLLODORUS FOOTNOTES EC

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

151. Compare Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 902, quoting “Apollodorus and the rest.” According to Serv. Verg. A. 2.166, it was the soothsayer Helenus who, foreseeing the shipwreck of the Greek leaders, warned Neoptolemus to return home by land; hence in gratitude for this benefit Neoptolemus at his death bequeathed Andromache to Helenus to be his wife (Serv. Verg. A. 3.297). Neoptolemus was on friendly terms with Helenus, because the seer had revealed to the Greeks the means by which Troy could be taken, and because in particular he had recommended the fetching of Neoptolemus himself from Scyros. See above, Apollod. E.5.10. A different tradition is recorded by Eustathius on Hom. Od. 3.189, p. 1463. He says that Neoptolemus sailed across the sea to Thessaly and there burned his ships by the advice of Thetis; after which, being directed by the soothsayer Helenus to settle wherever he should find a house with foundations of iron, walls of wood, and roof of wool, he marched inland till he came to the lake Pambotis in Epirus, where he fell in with some people camping under blankets supported by spears, of which the blades were stuck into the earth. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Od. iii.188, who adds that, “having laid waste Molossia, he begot Molossus by Andromache, and from Molossus is descended the race of the kings of Molossia, as Eratosthenes relates.” The lake Pambotis is believed to be what is now called the lake of Joannina, near which Dodona was situated. Paus. 1.11.1 mentions that Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus) settled in Epirus “in compliance with the oracles of Helenus,” and that he had Molossus, Pielus, and Pergamus by Andromache.

152. As to Deidamia, mother of Neoptolemus, see above, Apollod. 3.13.8. The marriage of Helenus to Deidamia appears not to be mentioned by any other ancient writer.

153. According to Eur. Tro. 1126-1130, while Neoptolemus was still at Troy, he heard that his grandfather Peleus had been expelled by Acastus; hence he departed for home in haste, taking Andromache with him. The Scholiast on this passage of Euripides (1128) says that Peleus was expelled by Acastus's two sons, Archander and Architeles, and that the exiled king, going to meet his grandson Neoptolemus, was driven by a storm to the island of Cos, where he was entertained by a certain Molon and died. As to an early connexion between Thessaly and Cos, see W. R. Paton and E. L. Hicks, The Inscriptions of Cos, pp. 344ff. A different and much more detailed account of the exile of Peleus is furnished by Dictys Cretensis vi.7-9. According to it, when Neoptolemus was refitting his shattered ships in Molossia, he heard that Peleus had been deposed and expelled by Acastus. Hastening to the aid of his aged grandfather, he found him hiding in a dark cave on the shore of one of the Sepiades Islands, where he eagerly scanned every passing sail in hopes that one of them would bring his grandson to his rescue. By disguising himself Neoptolemus contrived to attack and kill Acastus's two sons, Menalippus and Plisthenes, when they were out hunting. Afterwards, disguising himself as a Trojan captive, he lured Acastus himself to the cave and would have slain him there, if it had not been for the intercession of Thetis, who had opportunely arrived from the sea to visit her old husband Peleus. Happy at his escape, Acastus resigned the kingdom on the spot to Neoptolemus, and that hero at once took possession of the realm in company with his grandfather, his divine grandmother Thetis, and the companions of his voyage. This romantic narrative may be based on a lost Greek tragedy, perhaps on the Peleus of Sophocles, a play in which the dramatist appears to have dealt with the fortunes of Peleus in his old age. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 140ff. The statement of Dictys Cretensis that Peleus took refuge in one of the Sepiades Islands suggests that in the Scholium on Eur. Tro. 1126-1130 the name Icos should be read instead of Cos, as has been argued by several scholars (A. C. Pearson, op. cit. ii.141); for Icos was a small island near Euboea (Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ikos), and would be a much more natural place of refuge for Peleus than the far more distant island of Cos. Moreover, we have the positive affirmation of the poet Antipater of Sidon that Peleus was buried in Icos (Anth. Pal. vii.2.9ff.). The connexion of Peleus with the Sepiades Islands is further supported by Euripides; for in his play Andromache (Eur. And. 1253-1269) he tells how Thetis bids her old husband Peleus tarry in a cave of these islands, till she should come with a band of Nereids to fetch him away, that he might dwell with her as a god for ever in the depths of the sea. In the same play (Eur. And. 22ff.) Euripides says that Neoptolemus refused to accept the sceptre of Pharsalia in the lifetime of his grandfather Peleus.

154. In this passage Apollodorus appears to follow the account given by Euripides in his Andromache, (Eur. And. 967-981). According to that account, Menelaus gave his daughter Hermione in marriage to her cousin Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra. But in the Trojan war he afterwards promised the hand of Hermione to Neoptolemus, if Neoptolemus should succeed in capturing Troy. Accordingly on his return from the war Neoptolemus claimed his bride from her husband Orestes, who was then haunted and maddened by the Furies of his murdered mother Clytaemnestra. Orestes protested, but in vain; Neoptolemus insolently reproached him with his crime of matricide and with the unseen avengers of blood by whom he was pursued. So Orestes was obliged to yield up his wife to his rival, but he afterwards took his revenge by murdering Neoptolemus at Delphi. This version of the legend is followed also by Hyginus, Fab. 123. An obvious difficulty is presented by the narrative; for if Menelaus had given his daughter in marriage to Orestes, how could he afterwards have promised her to Neoptolemus in the lifetime of her first husband? This difficulty was met by another version of the story, which alleged that Hermione was betrothed or married to Orestes by her grandfather Tyndareus in the absence of her father Menelaus, who was then away at the Trojan war; that meantime, in ignorance of this disposal of his daughter, Menelaus had promised her hand to Neoptolemus before Troy, and that on his return from the war Neoptolemus took her by force from Orestes. See Eustathius on Hom. Od. iv.3, p. 1479; Scholiast on Hom. Od. iv.4; Ovid, Her. viii.31ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 3.330, compare on 297. According to the tragic poet Philocles, not only had Hermione been given in marriage by Tyndareus to Orestes, but she was actually with child by Orestes when her father afterwards married her to Neoptolemus. See Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 32. This former marriage of Hermione to Orestes, before she became the wife of Neoptolemus, is recognized by Verg. A. 3.330, and Ovid, Heroides, viii. passim, but it is unknown to Homer. On the other hand, Homer records that Menelaus betrothed Hermione to Neoptolemus at Troy, and celebrated the marriage after his return to Sparta (Hom. Od. 4.1-9). Sophocles wrote a tragedy Hermione, the plot of which seems to have resembled that of the Andromache of Euripides. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 141ff. Euripides does not appear to have been consistent in his view that Neoptolemus forcibly deprived Orestes of Hermione and married her himself; for in his play Orestes (Eur. Or. 1653-1657) he makes Apollo prophesy to Orestes that he shall wed Hermione, but that Neoptolemus shall never do so.

155. The murder of Neoptolemus at Delphi, as Apollodorus observes, was variously related. According to Euripides, Neoptolemus paid two visits to Delphi. On the first occasion he went to claim redress from Apollo, who had shot his father Achilles at Troy (see above, Apollod. E.5.3). On the second occasion he went to excuse himself to the god for the rashness and impiety of which he had been guilty in calling the deity to account for the murder; and it was then that Orestes, enraged at having been robbed of his wife Hermione by Neoptolemus, waylaid and murdered his rival in the temple of Apollo, the fatal blow being struck, however, not by Orestes but by “a Delphian man.” See Eur. And. 49-55, Eur. And. 1086-1165; compare Eur. Or. 1656ff. This is the version of the story which Apollodorus appears to prefer. It is accepted also by Hyginus, Fab. 123, Velleius Paterculus i.1.3, Serv. Verg. A. 3.297, 330, and somewhat ambiguously by Dictys Cretensis vi.12ff. The murder of Neoptolemus by Orestes is mentioned, but without any motive assigned, by Heliodorus ii.34 and Justin xvii.3.7. A different account is given by Pindar. He says that Neoptolemus went to consult the god at Delphi, taking with him first-fruit offerings of the Trojan spoil; that there he was stabbed to death by a man in a brawl concerning the flesh of the victim, and that after death he was supposed to dwell within the sacred precinct and to preside over the processions and sacrifices in honour of heroes. See Pind. N. 7.34(50)-47(70); compare Pind. Pa. 6.117ff. The Scholiast on the former of these passages of Pindar, Scholiast on Pind. Pa. 42(62), explains the brawl by saying that it was the custom of the Delphians to appropriate (harpazein) the sacrifices; that Neoptolemus attempted to prevent them from taking possession of his offerings, and that in the squabble the Delphians despatched him with their swords. This explanation seems to be due to Pherecydes, for a Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1655 quotes the following passage from that early historian: “When Neoptolemus married Hermione, daughter of Menelaus, he went to Delphi to inquire about offspring; for he had no children by Hermione. And when at the oracle he saw the Delphians scrambling for (diarpazontas) the flesh, he attempted to take it from them. But their priest Machaereus killed him and buried him under the threshold of the temple.” This seems to have been the version of the story followed by Pausanias, for he mentions the hearth at Delphi on which the priest of Apollo slew Neoptolemus (Paus. 10.24.4), and elsewhere he says that “the Pythian priestess ordered the Delphians to kill Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus), son of Achilles” (Paus. 1.13.9; compare Paus. 4.17.4). That the slayer of Neoptolemus was called Machaereus is mentioned also by a Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 53 and by Strab. 9.3.9, who says that Neoptolemus was killed “because he demanded satisfaction from the god for the murder of his father, or, more probably, because he had made an attack on the sanctuary.” Indeed, Asclepiades, in his work Tragodoumena, wrote as follows: “About his death almost all the poets agree that he was killed by Machaereus and buried at first under the threshold of the temple, but that afterwards Menelaus came and took up his body, and made his grave in the precinct. He says that Machaereus was a son of Daetas.” See Scholiast on Pind. N. 7.42(62). The story that Neoptolemus came to Delphi to plunder the sanctuary, which is noticed by Apollodorus and preferred by Strabo, is mentioned by Paus. 10.7.1 and a Scholiast on Pind. N. 7.58, Boeckh. It is probably not inconsistent with the story that he went to demand satisfaction from, or to inflict punishment on, the god for the death of his father; for the satisfaction or punishment would naturally take the shape of a distress levied on the goods and chattels of the defaulting deity. The tradition that the slain Neoptolemus was buried under the threshold of Apollo's temple is remarkable and, so far as I remember, unique in Greek legend. The statement that the body was afterwards taken up and buried within the precinct agrees with the observation of Paus. 10.24.6 that “quitting the temple and turning to the left you come to an enclosure, inside of which is the grave of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. The Delphians offer sacrifice to him annually as to a hero.” From Pind. N. 7.44(65)ff. we learn that Neoptolemus even enjoyed a preeminence over other heroes at Delphi, being called on to preside over the processions and sacrifices in their honour. The Aenianes of Thessaly used to send a grand procession and costly sacrifices to Delphi every fourth year in honour of Neoptolemus. The ceremony fell at the same time as the Pythian games. See Heliodorus, Aeth. ii.34-iii.6. It is a little difficult to understand how a man commonly accused of flagrant impiety and sacrilege should have been raised to such a pitch of glory at the very shrine which he was said to have attacked and robbed. The apparent contradiction might be more intelligible if we could suppose that, as has been suggested, Neoptolemus was publicly sacrificed as a scapegoat, perhaps by being stoned to death, as seems to have been the fate of the human victims at the Thargelia, whose sacrifice was justified by a legend that the first of their number had stolen some sacred cups of Apollo. See Harpocration, s.v. pharmakos; and as to the suggestion that Neoptolemus may have been sacrificed as a scapegoat, see J. Toepffer, “Thargelienbrauche,” Beiträge zur griechischen Altertumswissenschaft (Berlin, 1897), pp. 132ff., who points out that according to Eur. And. 1127ff. Neoptolemus was stoned as well as stabbed at the altar of Apollo. As to the custom of burying the dead under a threshold, see Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, iii.13ff.

156. The wanderings described in the remainder of this paragraph, except those of Agapenor, are resumed and told somewhat more fully in the following three paragraphs (15a, 15b, 15c), which do not occur in our text of the Epitome, but are conjecturally restored to it from the Scholiast on Lycophron of Tzetzes, who probably had before him the full text of Apollodorus, and not merely the Epitome.

157. Compare Paus. 8.5.2, who says that, driven by the storm to Cyprus, Agapenor founded Paphos and built the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Old Paphos. Compare Aristot. Peplos 30(16), in Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ii.654.

158. This paragraph is quoted from Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 902.

159. According to another account, Guneus was drowned at sea. See Aristot. Peplos 32(37), in Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ii.654.

160. Epitaphs on these two drowned men are ascribed to Aristot. Peplos 25(19) and 28(38). See Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ii.653, 654. Meges was leader of the Dulichians, and Prothous was leader of the Magnesians. See Apollod. E.3.12 and Apollod. E.14.

161. This paragraph is quoted from Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 911.

162. Compare Strab. 9.5.23.

163. Elephenor was killed in battle by Agenor. See Hom. Il. 4.463-472. Compare Aristot. Peplos 33(4), in Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ii.654.

164. Canastrum, or Canastra, is the extreme southern cape of the peninsula of Pallene (Pellene) in Macedonia. See Hdt. 7.123; Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.599, with the Scholiast; Strab. 7 Fr. 25; Apostolius, Cent. ii.20; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 526; Livy xxx.45.15, xliv.11.3.

165. It is said that in a sedition Philoctetes was driven from his city of Meliboea in Thessaly (Hom. Il. 2.717ff.), and fled to southern Italy, where he founded the cities of Petilia, Old Crimissa, and Chone, between Croton and Thurii. See Strab. 6.1.3, who, after recording the foundation of Petilia and Old Crimissa by Philoctetes, proceeds as follows: “And Apollodorus, after mentioning Philoctetes in his Book of the Ships, says that some people relate how, on arriving in the country of Croton, he founded Crimissa on the headland and above it the city of Chone, from which the Chonians hereabout took their name, and how men sent by him to Sicily fortified Segesta near Eryx with the help of Aegestes the Trojan.” The book from which Strabo makes this quotation is not the Library of our author, but the Catalogue of the Ships, a work on the Homeric Catalogue by the Athenian grammarian Apollodorus. According to Strab. 8.3.6, Apollodorus borrowed most of his materials for this work from Demetrius of Scepsis. For the fragments of the work see Heyne's Apollodorus (Second Edition, 1803), vol. i. pp. 417ff.; Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, i.453ff.

166. Compare Aristot. Mir. 107(115): “It is said that Philoctetes is worshipped by the Sybarites; for on his return from Troy he settled in the territory of Croton at the place called Macalla, which they say is distant a hundred and twenty furlongs, and they relate that he dedicated the bow of Hercules in the sanctuary of the Halian Apollo. But they say that in the time of their sovereignty the people of Croton fetched the bow from there and dedicated it in the sanctuary of Apollo in their country. It is said, too, that when he died he was buried beside the river Sybaris; for he had gone to the help of the Rhodians under Tlepolemus, who had been carried out of their course to these regions and had engaged in battle with the barbarous inhabitants of that country.” This war with the barbarians is no doubt the “war on the Lucanians,” in which Apollodorus, or at all events, Tzetzes here tells us that Philoctetes engaged after his arrival in Italy.

167. This paragraph is quoted from Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 921.

168. The same story is told by Strabo, who calls the river Neaethus (Strab. 6.1.12). Stephanus Byzantius agrees with Apollodorus in giving Navaethus (Nauaithos) as the form of the name. Apollodorus derives the name from naus, “a ship,” and aithô, “to burn.” Virgil tells a similar tale of the founding of Segesta or, as he calls it, Acesta in Sicily. See Verg. A. 5.604-771.

169. Demophon and his brother Acamas, the sons of Theseus, had gone to Troy to rescue their grandmother Aethra from captivity. See above, Apollod. E.5.22. The following story of the loves and sad fate of Demophon and Phyllis is told in almost the same words by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 495, except that for the name of Demophon he substitutes the name of his brother Acamas. Lucian also couples the names of Acamas and Phyllis (Lucian, De saltatione 40). A pretty story is told of the sad lovers by Servius. He says that Phyllis, despairing of the return of Demophon, hanged herself and was turned into a leafless almond tree; but that when Demophon came and embraced the trunk of the tree, it responded to his endearments by bursting into leaf; hence leaves, which had been called petala before, were ever after called phulla in Greek. See Serv. Verg. Ecl. 5.10. Compare Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 51, 146ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 159; Second Vatican Mythographer 214). The story is told in a less romantic form by Hyginus, Fab. 59, compare 243. He says that when Phyllis died for love, trees grew on her grave and mourned her death at the season when their leaves withered and fell.

170. The same story is told, nearly in the same words, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 1047), who probably copied Apollodorus. As to the settlement of Podalirius in Caria, compare Paus. 3.26.10; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Surna. Podalirius was worshipped as a hero in Italy. He had a shrine at the foot of Mount Drium in Daunia, and the seer Calchas was worshipped in a shrine on the top of the same mountain, where his worshippers sacrificed black rams and slept in the skins of the victims for the purpose of receiving revelations in dreams. See Strab. 6.3.9; Lycophron, Cassandra 1047ff. Hence Lycophron said that Podalirius was buried in Italy, and for so saying he was severely taken to task by his learned but crabbed commentator Tzetzes, who roundly accused him of lying (Scholiast on Lycophron 1047).

171. This passage is quoted from Apollodorus, with the author's name, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 440-442), who says that according to the usual tradition Amphilochus and Mopsus had gone together to Cilicia after the capture of Troy. This statement is confirmed by the testimony of Strab. 14.5.16, who tells us that Amphilochus and Mopsus came from Troy and founded Mallus in Cilicia. The dispute between Amphilochus and Mopsus is related more fully both by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 440-442) and Strab. 14.5.16 According to them, Amphilochus wished to go for a time to Argos (probably Amphilochian Argos; see above, Apollod. 3.7.7). So he departed after entrusting the kingdom or priesthood to Mopsus in his absence. Dissatisfied with the state of affairs at Argos, he returned in a year and reclaimed the kingdom or priesthood from Mopsus. But, acting on the principle Beati possidentes, the viceroy refused to cede the crown or the mitre to its proper owner; accordingly they had recourse to the ordeal of battle, in which both combatants perished. Their bodies were buried in graves which could not be seen from each other; for the people built a tower between them, in order that the rivals, who had fought each other in life, might not scowl at each other in death. However, their rivalry did not prevent them working an oracle in partnership after their decease. In the second century of our era the oracle enjoyed the highest reputation for infallibility (Paus. 1.34.3). The leading partner of the firm was apparently Amphilochus, for he is usually mentioned alone in connexion with the oracle; Plut. De defectu oraculorum 45 is the only ancient writer from whom we learn that Mopsus took an active share in the business though Cicero mentions the partners together (Cicero, De divinatione i.40.88). According to Plutarch and Dio Cassius lxxii.7, the oracles were communicated in dreams; but Lucian says (Philopseudes 38) that the inquirer wrote down his question on a tablet, which he handed to the prophet. The charge for one of these infallible communications was only two obols, or about twopence halfpenny. See Lucian, Alexander 19; Lucian, Deorum concilium 12. The ancients seem to have been divided in opinion on the important question whether the oracular Amphilochus at Mallus was the son or the grandson of Amphiaraus. Apollodorus calls him the son of Alcmaeon, which would make him the grandson of Amphiaraus, for Alcmaeon was a son of Amphiaraus. But Tzetzes, in reporting what he describes as the usual version of the story, calls Amphilochus the son, not the grandson of Amphiaraus (Scholiast on Lycophron 440-442). Compare Strab. 14.1.27; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.365-369. Lucian is inconsistent on the point; for while in one passage he calls Amphilochus the son of Amphiaraus (Lucian, Alexander 19), in another passage he speaks of him sarcastically as the noble son of an accurst matricide, by whom he means Alcmaeon (Quintus Smyrnaeus, Deorum concilium 12). Elsewhere Apollodorus mentions both Amphilochus, the son of Amphiaraus, and Amphilochus, the son of Alcmaeon. See above, Apollod. 3.7.2 and Apollod. 3.7.7.

172. The story of the custom of propitiating Athena at Troy by sending two Locrian virgins to her every year is similarly told by Tzetzes, who adds some interesting particulars omitted by Apollodorus. From him we learn that when the maidens arrived, the Trojans met them and tried to catch them. If they caught the maidens, they killed them and burned their bones with the wood of wild trees which bore no fruit. Having done so, they threw the ashes from Mount Traron into the sea. But if the maidens escaped from their pursuers, they ascended secretly to the sanctuary of Athena and became her priestesses, sweeping and sprinkling the sacred precinct; but they might not approach the goddess, nor quit the sanctuary except by night. Tzetzes agrees with Apollodorus in describing the maidens during their term of service as barefoot, with cropped hair, and clad each in a single tunic. He refers to the Sicilian historian Timaeus as his authority for the statement that the custom was observed for a thousand years, and that it came to an end after the Phocian war (357-346 B.C.). See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1141. The maidens were chosen by lot from the hundred noblest families in Locris (Polybius xii.5); and when they escaped death on landing, they served the goddess in the sanctuary for the term of their lives (Plut. De sera numinis vindicta 12), or, at all events, till their successors arrived (Suidas, s.v. kategêrasan). For other references to this very remarkable custom, which appears to be well authenticated, see Strab. 13.1.40; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66; Iamblichus, De Pythagorica vita, viii.42; Suidas, s.v. poinê (quoting Aelian); Serv. Verg. A. 1.41. Servius, in contradiction to our other authorities, says that only one maiden was sent annually. Strabo appears to affirm that the custom originated as late as the Persian period (tas de lokridas pemphthênai persôn êdê kratountôn sunebê. This view is accepted by Clinton, who accordingly holds that the custom lasted from 559 B.C. to 346 B.C.(Fasti Hellenici, i.134ff.).

173. As to the murder of Agamemnon, see Hom. Od. 3.193ff.; Hom. Od. 303-305; Hom. Od. 4.529-537; Hom. Od. 11.404-434; Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Aesch. Ag. 1379ff.; Aesch. Eum. 631-635; Soph. Elec. 95-99; Eur. El. 8-10; Eur. Or. 25ff.; Paus. 2.16.6; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1108, 1375; Hyginus, Fab. 117; Seneca, Agamemnon 875-909; Serv. Verg. A. 11.268; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 47, 126, 141ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 147; Second Vatican Mythographer 147, 202); Dictys Cretensis vi.2. According to Homer and the author of the Returns, with whom Pausanias agrees, it was Aegisthus who killed Agamemnon; according to Aeschylus, it was Clytaemnestra. Sophocles and Euripides speak of the murder being perpetrated by the two jointly. The sleeveless and neckless garment in which Clytaemnestra entangled her husband, while she cut him down, is described with tragic grandiloquence and vagueness by Aeschylus, but more explicitly by later writers (Tzetzes, Seneca, Servius and the Vatican Mythographers).

174. As to the murder of Cassandra, see Hom. Od. 11.421-423; Pind. P. 11.19(29)ff.; Philostratus, Im. ii.10; Athenaeus xiii.3, p. 556 C; Hyginus, Fab. 117. According to Hyginus, both Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus had a hand in the murder of Cassandra; according to the other writers, she was despatched by Clytaemnestra alone.

175. Compare Pind. P. 11.34(52)ff.; Soph. Elec. 11ff.; Eur. El. 14ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 117. Pindar tells how, after the murder of his father Agamemnon, the youthful Orestes was conveyed to the aged Strophius at the foot of Parnassus; but he does not say who rescued the child and conveyed him thither. According to Sophocles and Euripides, it was an old retainer of the family who thus saved Orestes, but Sophocles says that the old man had received the child from the hands of Electra. Hyginus, in agreement with Apollodorus, relates how, after the murder of Agamemnon, Electra took charge of (sustulit) her infant brother Orestes and committed him to the care of Strophius in Phocis.

176. This vengeance for the murder of Agamemnon is the theme of three extant Greek tragedies, the Choephori of Aeschylus, the Electra of Sophocles, and the Electra of Euripides. It was related by Hagias in his epic, the Returns, as we learn from the brief summary of Proclus (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53). Compare Pind. P. 11.36ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 119. Homer briefly mentions the murder of Aegisthus by Orestes (Hom. Od. 1.29ff.; Hom. Od. 1.298-300; Hom. Od. 3.306ff.); he does not expressly mention, but darkly hints at, the murder of Clytaemnestra by her son (Hom. Od. 3.309ff.).

177. The trial and acquittal of Orestes in the court of the Areopagus at Athens is the subject of Aeschylus's tragedy, the Eumenides, where the poet similarly represents the matricide as acquitted because the votes were equal (Aesch. Eum. 752ff.). The Parian Chronicle also records the acquittal on the same ground, and dates it in the reign of Demophon, king of Athens. See Marmor Parium 40ff. (Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, i.546). Compare Eur. IT 940-967; Eur. IT 1469-1472; Eur. Or. 1648-1652; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374; Paus. 1.28.5; Paus. 8.34.4; Dictys Cretensis vi.4. In the Eumenides the accusers of Orestes are the Furies. According to the Parian Chronicler, it was Erigone, the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra, who instituted the prosecution for the murder of her father; the chronicler does not mention the murder of Clytaemnestra as an article in the indictment of Orestes. According to the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Aiôra, p. 42, the prosecution was conducted at Athens jointly by Erigone and her grandfather Tyndareus, and when it failed, Erigone hanged herself. Peloponnesian antiquaries, reported by Paus. 8.34.4, alleged that the accuser was not Tyndareus, who was dead, but Perilaus, a cousin of Clytaemnestra. According to Hyginus, Fab. 119, Orestes was accused by Tyndareus before the people of Mycenae, but was suffered to retire into banishment for the sake of his father. As to the madness of Orestes, caused by the Furies of his murdered mother, see Eur. Or. 931ff.; Paus. 3.22.1; Paus. 8.34.1-4. The incipient symptoms of madness, showing themselves immediately after the commission of the crime, are finely described by Aesch. Lib. 1021ff.

178. As to the oracle, compare Eur. IT 77-92; Eur. IT 970-978; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374; Hyginus, Fab. 120.

179. The Taurians inhabited the Crimea. As to their custom of sacrificing castaways and strangers, see Hdt. 4.103; Eur. IT 34-41; Diod. 4.44.7; Paus. 1.43.1; Orphica, Argon. 1075ff., ed Abel; Ovid, Ex Ponto iii.2.45-58; Mela ii.11; Ammianus Marcellinus xxii.8.34. According to Herodotus, these Taurians sacrificed human beings to a Virgin Goddess, whom they identified with Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon. The victims were shipwrecked persons and any Greeks on whom they could lay hands. They were slaughtered by being knocked on the head with a club, after which their heads were set up on stakes and their bodies thrown down a precipice into the sea or buried in the ground; for reports differed in regard to the disposal of the corpses, though all agreed as to the setting of the heads on stakes. Ammianus Marcellinus says that the native name of the goddess was Orsiloche.

180. This account of the disposal of the bodies of the victims is based on Eur. IT 625ff.:-- Orestês taphos de poios dexetai m', hotan thanô; Iphigeneia pur hieron endon chasma t' eurôpon petras. Thus Apollodorus differs from the account which Herodotus gives of the disposal of the bodies. See the preceding note.

181. This account of the expedition of Orestes and Pylades to the land of the Taurians, and their escape with the image of Artemis, is the subject of Euripides's play Iphigenia in Tauris, which Apollodorus seems to have followed closely. The gist of the play is told in verse by Ovid, Ex Ponto iii.2.43-96 and in prose by Hyginus, Fab. 120. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 141ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 20; Second Vatican Mythographer 202).

182. In saying that the image of the Tauric Artemis was taken to Athens our author follows Euripides. See Eur. IT 89-91; Eur. IT 1212-1214. But according to Euripides the image was not to remain in Athens but to be carried to a sacred place in Attica called Halae, where it was to be set up in a temple specially built for it and to be called the image of Artemis Tauropolus or Brauronian Artemis (Eur. IT 1446-1467). An old wooden image of Artemis, which purported to be the one brought from the land of the Taurians, was shown at Brauron in Attica as late as the second century of our era; Iphigenia is said to have landed with the image at Brauron and left it there, while she herself went on by land to Athens and afterwards to Argos. See Paus. 1.23.7, Paus. 1.33.1. But according to some the original image was carried off by Xerxes to Susa, and was afterwards presented by Seleucus to Laodicea in Syria, where it was said to remain down to the time of Pausanias in the second century of our era (Paus. 3.16.8; Paus. 8.46.3). Euripides has recorded, in the form of prophecy, two interesting features in the ritual of Artemis at Halae or Brauron. In sacrificing to the goddess the priest drew blood with a sword from the throat of a man, and this was regarded as a substitute for the sacrifice of Orestes, of which the goddess had been defrauded by his escape. Such a custom is explained most naturally as a mitigation of an older practice of actually sacrificing human beings to the goddess; and the tradition of such sacrifices at Brauron would suffice to give rise to the story that the image of the cruel goddess had been brought from the land of ferocious barbarians on the Black Sea. For similar mitigations of an old custom of human sacrifice, see The Dying God, pp. 214ff. The other feature in the ritual at Brauron which Euripides notices was that the garments of women dying in child-bed used to be dedicated to Iphigenia, who was believed to be buried at Brauron. See Eur. IT 1458-1467. As to Brauron and Halae, see Paus. 1.33.1 with Frazer's note (vol. ii. pp. 445ff.). But other places besides Brauron claimed to possess the ancient idol of the Tauric Artemis. The wooden image of Artemis Orthia at Sparta, at whose altar the Spartan youths were scourged to the effusion of blood, was supposed by the Lacedaemonians to be the true original image brought by Iphigenia herself to Sparta; and their claim was preferred by Pausanias to that of the Athenians (Paus. 3.16.7-10). Others said that Orestes and Iphigenia carried the image, hidden in a bundle of faggots, to Aricia in Italy. See Servius on Virgil, ii.116, vi.136; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 7, 142 (First Vatican Mythographer 20; Second Vatican Mythographer 202); compare Strab. 5.3.12. Indeed, it was affirmed by some people that on his wanderings Orestes had deposited, not one, but many images of Artemis in many places (Aelius Lampridius, Heliogabalus 7). Such stories have clearly no historical value. In every case they were probably devised to explain or excuse a cruel and bloody ritual by deriving it from a barbarous country.

183. This drifting of Orestes to Rhodes seems to be mentioned by no other ancient writer. The verb (kathosiôthênai), which I have taken to refer to the image and have translated by “dedicated,” may perhaps refer to Orestes; if so, it would mean “purified” from the guilt of matricide. According to Hyginus, Fab. 120, Orestes sailed with Iphigenia and Pylades to the island of Sminthe, which is otherwise unknown. Another place to which Orestes and Iphigenia were supposed to have come on their way from the Crimea was Comana in Cappadocia; there he was said to have introduced the worship of Artemis Tauropolus and to have shorn his hair in token of mourning. Hence the city was said to derive its name Komana from komê. See Strab. 12.2.3. According to Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374, Orestes was driven by storms to that part of Syria where Seleucia and Antioch afterwards stood; and Mount Amanus, on the borders of Syria and Cilicia, was so named because there the matricide was relieved of his madness (Amanos, from mania “madness” and a privative). Such is a sample of Byzantine etymology.

184. As to the marriage of Electra to Pylades, see Eur. El. 1249; Eur. Or. 1658ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 122.

185. As to the marriage of Orestes and Hermione, see above, Apollod. E.5.14, with the note. According to Paus. 2.18.6, Orestes had by Hermione a son Tisamenus, who succeeded his father on the throne of Sparta. But Pausanias also mentions a tradition that Orestes had a bastard son Penthilus by Erigone, daughter of Aegisthus, and for this tradition he cites as his authority the old epic poet Cinaethon. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1474.

186. Compare Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1645, quoting Asclepiades as his authority; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374. In the passage of Euripides on which the Scholiast comments (Eur. Or. 1643-1647), Orestes is bidden by Apollo to retire to Parrhasia, a district of Arcadia, for the space of a year, after which he is to go and stand his trial for the murder of his mother at Athens. This year to be spent in Arcadia is no doubt the year of banishment to which homicides had to submit before they were allowed to resume social intercourse with their fellows. See Frazer's note above on Apollod. 2.5.11 (vol. i. pp. 218ff.). The period is so interpreted by a Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1645. As to Oresteum in Arcadia, see Paus. 8.3.1ff., who says that it was formerly called Oresthasium. A curious story of the madness of Orestes in Arcadia is told by Paus. 8.34.1-4. He says that, when the Furies were about to drive him mad, they appeared to him black, but that he bit off one of his own fingers, whereupon they appeared to him white, and he immediately recovered his wits. The grave of Orestes was near Tegea in Arcadia; from there his bones were stolen by a Spartan and carried to Sparta in compliance with an oracle, which assured the Spartans of victory over their stubborn foes the Tegeans, if only they could get possession of these valuable relics. See Hdt. 1.67ff.; Paus. 3.3.5ff.; Paus. 3.11.10; Paus. 8.54.3.

187. For the wanderings of Menelaus on the voyage from Troy, see Hom. Od. 3.276-302; compare Paus. 10.25.2.

188. As to the real and the phantom Helen, see above, Apollod. E.3.5, with the note.

189. The return of Menelaus to his home was related by Hagias in the Returns, as we learn from the brief abstract of that poem by Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53.

190. Homer in the Odyssey (Hom. Od. 4.561-569) represents Proteus prophesying to Menelaus that he was fated not to die but to be transported by the gods to the Elysian Fields, there to dwell at ease where there was neither snow, nor storm, or rain, because he had married Helen and was thereby a in-law of Zeus. Compare Eur. Hel. 1676-1679.

191. As to the adventures of Ulysses with the Cicones, see Hom. Od. 9.39-66. The Cicones were a Thracian tribe; Xerxes and his army marched through their country (Hdt. 7.110). As to Maro, the priest of Apollo at Ismarus, see Hom. Od. 9.196-211. He dwelt in a wooded grove of Apollo, and bestowed splendid presents and twelve jars of red honey-sweet wine, in return for the protection which he and his wife received at the hands of Ulysses.

192. As to the adventures of Ulysses with the Lotus-eaters, see Hom. Od. 9.82-104; Hyginus, Fab. 125. The Lotus-eaters were a tribe of northern Africa, inhabiting the coast of Tripolis (Scylax, Periplus 110; Pliny, Nat. Hist. v.28). As to the lotus, see Hdt. 4.177; Polybius xii.2.1, quoted by Athenaeus xiv.65, p. 651 DF; Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. iv.3.1ff. The tree is the Zizyphus Lotus of the botanists. Theophrastus says that the tree was common in Libya, that is, in northern Africa, and that an army marching on Carthage subsisted on its fruit alone for several days. The modern name of the tree is ssodr or ssidr. A whole district in Tripolis is named Ssodria after it. See A. Wiedemann, Herodots Zweites Buch, p. 385, note on Herodotus, ii.96.

193. As to the adventures of Ulysses and his companions among the Cyclopes, see Hom. Od. 9.105-542; Hyginus, Fab. 125. The story is a folk-tale found in many lands. See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “Ulysses and Polyphemus.”

194. As to the adventures of Ulysses with Aeolus, the Keeper of the Winds, see Hom. Od. 10.1-76; Hyginus, Fab. 125; Ov. Met. 14.223-232.

195. Homer says (Hom. Od. 10.30) they were so near land that they could already see the men tending the fires (purpoleontas); but whether the fires were signals to guide the ship to port, or watchfires of shepherds tending their flocks on the hills, does not appear.

196. As to the adventures of Ulysses and his comrades among the Laestrygones, see Hom. Od. 10.80-132; Hyginus, Fab. 125; Ov. Met. 14.233-244.

197. As to the adventures of Ulysses and his comrades with the enchantress Circe, see Hom. Od. 10.133-574; Hyginus, Fab. 125; Ov. Met. 14.246-440. The word (pharmaka) here translated “enchantments” means primarily drugs; but in the early stages of medicine drugs were supposed to be endowed with magical potency, partly in virtue of the spells, that is, the form of words, with which the medical practitioner administered them to the patient. Hence druggist and enchanter were nearly synonymous terms. As Circe used her knowledge of drugs purely for magical purposes, without any regard to the medical side of the profession, it seems better to translate her pharmaka by “enchantments” or “charms” rather than “drugs,” and to call her an enchantress instead of a druggist.

198. In Hom. Od. 10.237ff. the companions of Ulysses are turned into swine only; nothing is said about a transformation of them into wolves, lions, and asses, though round about the house of the enchantress they saw wolves and lions, which stood on their hind legs, wagged their tails, and fawned upon them, because they were men enchanted (Hom. Od. 10.210-219).

199. As to moly, see Hom. Od. 10.302-306. Homer says that it was a plant dug up from the earth, with a black root and a white flower. According to Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. ix.15.7, moly resembled Allium nigrum, which was found in the valley of Pheneus and on Mount Cyllene in northern Arcadia; he says it had a round root, like an onion, and a leaf like a squill, and that it was used as an antidote to spells and enchantments. But probably the moly of Homer grew on no earthly hill or valley, but only in “fairyland forlorn.”

200. Telegonus is unknown to Homer, who mentions no offspring of Ulysses by the enchantress Circe. He is named as a son of Ulysses and Circe by Hesiod in a line which is suspected, however, of being spurious (Hes. Th. 1014). He was recognized by Hagias in his epic, The Returns, and by another Cyclic poet Eugammon of Cyrene; indeed Eugammon composed an epic called the Telegony on the adventures of Telegonus, but according to him Telegonus was a son of Ulysses by Calypso, not by Circe. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 56, 57ff.; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xvi.118, p. 1796. According to Hyginus, Fab. 125, Ulysses had two sons, Nausithous and Telegonus, by Circe. As to Telegonus, see also below, Apollod. E.7.36ff.

201. The visit of Ulysses to the land of the dead is the theme of the eleventh book of the Odyssey. Compare Hyginus, Fab. 125. The visit was the subject of one of the two great pictures by Polygnotus at Delphi. See Paus. 10.28-31.

202. As to the consultation with Tiresias, see Hom. Od. 11.90-151.

203. As to the interview of Ulysses with his mother, see Hom. Od. 11.153-224.

204. In the hot air of Circe's enchanted isle Elpenor had slept for coolness on the roof of the palace; then, suddenly wakened by the noise and bustle of his comrades making ready to depart, he started up and, forgetting to descend by the ladder, tumbled from the roof and broke his neck. In his hurry to be off, Ulysses had not stayed to bury his dead comrade; so the soul of Elpenor, unwept and unburied, was the first to meet his captain on the threshold of the spirit land. See Hom. Od. 10.552-560; Hom. Od. 11.51-83.

205. As to the return of Ulysses to the isle of Circe, and his sailing past the Sirens, see Hom. Od. 12.1-200; Hyginus, Fab. 125. Homer does not name the Sirens individually nor mention their parentage, but by using the dual in reference to them (Hom. Od. 12.52; Hom. Od. 12.167) he indicates that they were two in number. Sophocles, in his play Ulysses, called the Sirens daughters of Phorcus, and agreed with Homer in recognizing only two of them. See Plut. Quaest. Conviv. ix.14.6; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, iii.66, frag. 861. Apollonius Rhodius says that the Muse Terpsichore bore the Sirens to Achelous (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.895ff.). Hyginus names four of them, Teles, Raidne, Molpe, and Thelxiope (Hyginus, Fab. praefat. p. 30, ed. Bunte), and, in agreement with Apollodorus, says that they were the offspring of Achelous by the Muse Melpomene. Tzetzes calls them Parthenope, Leucosia, and Ligia, but adds that other people named them Pisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepia, and that they were the children of Achelous and Terpsichore. With regard to the parts which they took in the bewitching concert, he agrees with Apollodorus. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 712. According to a Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon.iv.892, their names were Thelxiope, or Thelxione, Molpe, and Aglaophonus. As to their names and parents see also Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12. p. 1709, Scholiast on Hom. Od. xii.39, who mention the view that the father of the Sirens was Achelous, and that their mother was either the Muse Terpsichore, or Sterope, daughter of Porthaon.

206. Similarly Apollonius Rhodius (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.898ff.) describes the Sirens as partly virgins and partly birds. Aelian tells us (Ael., Nat. Anim. xvii.23) that poets and painters represented them as winged maidens with the feet of birds. Ovid says that the Sirens had the feet and feathers of birds, but the faces of virgins; and he asks why these daughters of Achelous, as he calls them, had this hybrid form. Perhaps, he thinks, it was because they had been playing with Persephone when gloomy Dis carried her off, and they had begged the gods to grant them wings, that they might search for their lost playmate over seas as well as land. See Ov. Met. 5.552-562. In like manner Hyginus describes the Sirens as women above and fowls below, but he says that their wings and feathers were a punishment inflicted on them by Demeter for not rescuing Persephone from the clutches of Pluto. See Hyginus, Fab. 125, 141. Another story was that they were maidens whom Aphrodite turned into birds because they chose to remain unmarried. See Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12.47, p. 1709. It is said that they once vied with the Muses in singing, and that the Muses, being victorious, plucked off the Siren's feathers and made crowns out of them for themselves (Paus. 9.34.3). In ancient art, as in literature, the Sirens are commonly represented as women above and birds below. See Miss J. E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey (London, 1882), pp. 146ff. Homer says nothing as to the semi-bird shape of the Sirens, thus leaving us to infer that they were purely human.

207. This is not mentioned by Homer, but is affirmed by Hyginus, Fab. 125, 141). Others said that the Sirens cast themselves into the sea and were drowned from sheer vexation at the escape of Ulysses. See Scholiast on Hom. Od. xii.39; Eustathius on Hom. Od. 12.167, p. 1709; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 712; compare Strab. 6.1.1.

208. As to Ulysses and the Wandering Rocks, see Hom. Od. 12.52-72; Hom. Od. 12.201-221. The poet mentions (Hom. Od. 12.70-72) the former passage of the Argo between the Wandering or Clashing Rocks, as to which see above Apollod. 1.9.22, with the note. It has been suggested that in the story of the Wandering Rocks we have a confused reminiscence of some sailor's story of floating icebergs. See Merry, on Homer, Od. xii.61.

209. As to the passage of Ulysses between Scylla and Charybdis, see Hom. Od. 12.73-126; Hom. Od. 12.222-259; Hyginus, Fab. 125, 199.

210. Homer mentions Crataeis as the mother of Scylla, but says nothing as to her father (Hom. Od. 12.124ff.). According to Stesichorus, the mother of Scylla was Lamia. See Scholiast on Hom. Od. 12.124; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714. Apollonius Rhodius represents Scylla as a daughter of Phorcus by the night-wandering hag Hecate (Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.828ff.), and this parentage has the support of Acusilaus, except that he named her father Phorcys instead of Phorcus (Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.828; compare Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714). Hyginus calls her a daughter of Typhon and Echidna (Hyginus, Fab. 125, 151, and praefat. p. 31, ed. Bunte). A Scholiast on Plat. Rep. 9, 588c, who may have copied the present passage of Apollodorus, calls Scylla a daughter of Crataeis and Tyrrhenus or Phorcus, adding that she had the face and breasts of a woman, but from the flanks six heads of dogs and twelve feet. Some said that the father of Scylla was Triton (Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714); and perhaps the name Triton should be read instead of Trienus in the present passage of Apollodorus. See the Critical Note.

211. As to the adventures of Ulysses in Thrinacia, the island of the Sun, see Hom. Od. 12.127-141; Hom. Od. 12.260-402.

212. See Hom. Od. 12.403-425.

213. See Hom. Od. 12.426-450, compare Hom. Od. 5.128-135.

214. As to the stay of Ulysses with Calypso in the island of Ogygia, and his departure in a boat of his own building, see Hom. Od. 5.13-281; Hom. Od. 7.243-266; Hyginus, Fab. 125. According to Hom. Od. 7.259, Ulysses stayed seven years with Calypso, not five years, as Apollodorus says. Hyginus limits the stay to one year. Homer does not mention that Calypso bore a son to Ulysses. In the Theogony of Hesiod (Hes. Th. 1111ff.) it is said that Circe (not Calypso), bore two sons, Agrius and Latinus, to Ulysses; the verses, however, are probably not by Hesiod but have been interpolated by a later poet of the Roman era in order to provide the Latins with a distinguished Greek ancestry. The verses are quoted by the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.200. Compare Joannes Lydus, De mensibus i.13, p. 7, ed. Bekker. Eustathius says (Eustathius on Hom. Od. xvi.118, p. 1796) that, according to Hesiod, Ulysses had two sons, Agrius and Latinus, by Circe, and two sons, Nausithous and Nausinous, by Calypso.

215. See Hom. Od. 5.282-493; Hyginus, Fab. 125.

216. See Hom. Od. 6; Hom. Od. 7; Hom. Od. 8; Hom. Od. 12.1-124; Hyginus, Fab. 125.

217. See Hom. Od. 12.125-187. “Poseidon does not propose to bury the city, but to shut it off from the use of its two harbours (cp. Hom. Od. 6.263) by some great mountain mass” (Merry on Hom. Od. 12.152).

218. The number of the suitors, according to Homer, was one hundred and eight, namely, fifty-two from Dulichium, twenty-four from Same, twenty from Zacynthus, and twelve from Ithaca. See Hom. Od. 16.245-253. Apollodorus gives the numbers from these islands as fifty-seven, twenty-three, forty-four, and twelve respectively, or a hundred and thirty-six in all. Homer does not give a regular list of the names, but mentions some of them incidentally.

219. As to the reckless waste of the suitors, see Hom. Od. 14.80-109.

220. As to Penelope's web, see Hom. Od. 29.136-158; Hyginus, Fab. 126.

221. As to the meeting of Ulysses and Eumaeus, see Hom. Od. 14.1-492; Hyginus, Fab. 126.

222. As to the meeting and recognition of Ulysses and Telemachus, see Hom. Od. 16.1-234.

223. See Hom. Od. 17.184-253.

224. See Hom. Od. 17.360-457.

225. See Hom. Od. 18.1-107; Hyginus, Fab. 126. In Homer it is in a boxing-match, not in a wrestling-bout, that Ulysses vanquishes the braggart beggar Irus. Hyginus, like Apollodorus, substitutes wrestling for boxing.

226. See Hom. Od. 21.188-244.

227. See Hom. Od. 21.1-82; Hyginus, Fab. 126.

228. See Hom. Od. 21.140-434, Hom. Od. 22.1-389; Hyginus, Fab. 126.

229. See Hom. Od. 22.417-477.

230. See Hom. Od. 22.153-297; Hom. Od. 24.205-348.

231. Tiresias had warned Ulysses that, after slaying the suitors, he must journey inland till he came to a country where men knew not the sea, and where a wayfarer would mistake for a winnowing-fan the oar which Ulysses was carrying on his shoulder. There Ulysses was to sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Poseidon, the god whom he had offended. See Hom. Od. 11.119-131. But the journey itself and the sacrifice are not recorded by Homer. In a little island off Cos a Greek skipper told Dr. W. H. D. Rouse a similar story about the journey inland of the prophet Elias. The prophet, according to this account, was a fisherman who, long buffeted by storms, conceived a horror of the sea, and, putting an oar on his shoulder, took to the hills and walked till he met a man who did not know what an oar was. There the prophet planted his oar in the ground, and there he resolved to abide. That is why all the prophet's chapels are on the tops of hills. This legend was published by Dr. Rouse in The Cambridge Review under the heading of “A Greek skipper.” This and the remaining part of Apollodorus are probably drawn from the epic poem Telegony, a work by Eugammon of Cyrene, of which a short abstract by Proclus has been preserved. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 57ff. The author of the abstract informs us that after the death and burial of the suitors “Ulysses sacrificed to the nymphs and sailed to Elis to inspect the herds. And he was entertained by Polyxenus and received a present of a bowl. And after that followed the episodes of Trophonius, and Agamedes, and Augeas. Then he sailed home to Ithaca and offered the sacrifices prescribed by Tiresias. And after these things he went to the Thesprotians and married Callidice, queen of the Thesprotians. Then the Thesprotians made war on the Brygians, under the leadership of Ulysses. There Ares put Ulysses and his people to flight, and Athena engaged him in battle; but Apollo reconciled them. And after Callidice's death, Polypoetes, son of Ulysses, succeeded to the kingdom, and Ulysses himself went to Ithaca. Meanwhile Telegonus, sailing in search of his father, landed in Ithaca and ravaged the island; and marching out to repel him Ulysses was killed by his son in ignorance. Recognizing his error, Telegonus transported his father's body, and Telemachus, and Penelope to his mother, and she made them immortal. And Telegonus married Penelope, and Telemachus married Circe.” The tradition, mentioned also by Hyginus, Fab. 127, that one son of Ulysses (Telegonus) married his father's widow (Penelope), and that another son (Telemachus) married his father's concubine (Circe), is very remarkable, and may possibly point to an old custom according to which a son inherited his father's wives and concubines, with the exception of his own mother. Compare Apollod. 2.7.7, with Frazer's note (vol. i. p. 269). Apollodorus mentions the marriage of Telegonus to Penelope (see below), but not the marriage of Telemachus to Circe.

232. Compare Paus. 8.12.6, from whom we learn that the birth of this son Poliporthes or Ptoliporthes, as Pausanias calls him, was mentioned in the epic poem Thesprotis.

233. Compare Oppian, Halieut. ii.497-500; Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam, ed. G. Dindorf, vol. i. p. 6; Hom. Od. 11.134; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.133, p. 1676; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. vi.32; Philostratus, Her. iii.42; Parthenius, Narrat. 3; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 794; Scholiast on Aristoph. Plutus 303; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii.21.48ff.; Hor. Carm. 3.29.8; Hyginus, Fab. 127; Ovid, Ibis 567ff.; Dictys Cretensis vi.14ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 2.44. The fish (trugôn), whose spine is said to have barbed the fatal spear, is the common stingray (Trygon pastinaca), as I learn from Professor D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, who informs me that the fish is abundant in the Mediterranean and not uncommon on our southern coasts. For ancient descriptions of the fish he refers me to Oppian, Halieut. ii.470ff. (the locus classicus); Ael., Nat. Anim. i.56; Nicander, Ther. 828ff. According to Aelian, the wound inflicted by the stingray is incurable. Hercules is said to have lost one of his fingers by the bite of a stingray (Ptolemy Hephaest., Nov. Hist. ii. in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 184). Classical scholars, following Liddell and Scott, sometimes erroneously identify the fish with the roach. The death of Ulysses through the wound of a stingray is foreshadowed in the prophecy of Tiresias that his death would come from the sea (Hom. Od. 11.134ff.). According to a Scholiast on Hom. (Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam, ed. G. Dindorf, vol. i. p. 6), Hyginus, and Dictys Cretensis, Ulysses had been warned by an oracle or a dream to beware of his son, who would kill him; accordingly, fearing to be slain by Telemachus, he banished him to Cephallenia (Dictys Cretensis vi.14). But he forgot his son Telegonus, whom he had left behind with his mother Circe in her enchanted island. The death of Ulysses at the hands of his son Telegonus was the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 105ff.

234. A high mound of earth was shown as the grave of Penelope at Mantinea in Arcadia. According to the Mantinean story, Ulysses had found her unfaithful and banished her the house; so she went first to her native Sparta, and afterwards to Mantinea, where she died and was buried. See Paus. 8.12.5ff. The tradition that Penelope was the mother of Pan by Hermes (Mercury) is mentioned by Cicero, De natura deorum iii.22.56. According to Duris, the Samian, Penelope was the mother of Pan by all the suitors (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 772). The same story is mentioned also by Serv. Verg. A. 2.44, who says that Penelope was supposed to have given birth to Pan during her husband's absence, and that when Ulysses came home and found the monstrous infant in the house, he fled and set out afresh on his wanderings.

235. Amphinomus was one of the suitors of Penelope; his words pleased her more than those of the other suitors, because he had a good understanding. See Hom. Od. 16.394-398. He was afterwards killed by Telemachus (Hom. Od. 12. 89ff.). The suspicion that Penelope was unfaithful to her husband has no support in Homer.

236. Compare Plut. Quaest. Graec. 14. According to Plutarch's account, the kinsmen of the slain suitors rose in revolt against Ulysses; but Neoptolemus, being invited by both parties to act as arbitrator, sentenced Ulysses to banishment for bloodshed, and condemned the friends and relatives of the suitors to pay an annual compensation to Ulysses for the damage they had done to his property. The sentence obliged Ulysses to withdraw not only from Ithaca, but also from Cephallenia and Zacynthus; and he retired to Italy. The compensation exacted from the heirs of the suitors was paid in kind, and consisted of barley groats, wine, honey, olive oil, and animal victims of mature age. This payment Ulysses ordered to be made to his son Telemachus.

237. These last recorded doings of Ulysses appear to be mentioned by no other ancient writer.