Apollodorus, Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer), book E (search)
t scarlet, which, by contrast with the blue
sea, would have caught the eye almost as easily as a white sail at a great distance.
And when he came to Crete, Ariadne, daughter of Minos, being amorously disposed to him, offered
to help him if he would agree to carry her away to Athens and have her to wife. Theseur
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
Apollodorus, Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer), book E (search)
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
Apollodorus, Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer), book E (search)
hat the business had been carried on in the
family for three generations. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 97.
For nine days he was entertained by Menelaus; but on the
tenth day, Menelaus having gone on a journey to Crete to perform the obsequies of his mother's father Catreus, Alexander
persuaded Helen to go offThe Greek for “to go
off” is a)pagagei=n, a rare use of a)pa/gein, which, however, occurs in the common phrase,
a)/page,“Be off wit him. And she abandoned
Hermione, then nine years old, and putting most of the property on board, she
set sail with him by night.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<
Apollodorus, Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer), book E (search)
ghter Clisithyra, who had taken refuge in the temple; and having detached ten
cities from Crete he made himself tyrant of them;
and when after the Trojan war Idomeneus landed in Crete, Crete, Leucus drove him out.See Frazer's
Appendix to Apollodorus, “The vow of Idomeneus.”
These were the earlier contrivances of Nauplius; but
afterwards, when he learned that the Gree when Prothous was shipwrecked at Caphereus, the Magnesians with him drifted to
Crete and settled there.
Tzetzes, Scholia on Lycophron, 902
Ionian gulf and inhabited Apollonia in Epirus. And the people of Tlepolemus touched at
Crete; then they were driven out of their
course by winds and settled in the Iberian islands put in at Sunium, a headland of
Attica; and being again driven thence by winds
to Crete he drifted far away, and wandering up
and down Libya, and Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and
Text
The MS. begins here.
of Myron, solemnly sworn in,Lit. 'having taken an oath over the sacred victims.' selected according to noble birth. The charge of sacrilege having been confirmed by the verdict, the bodies of the guilty men themselves were cast out of their tombs, and their family was sentenced to everlasting banishment. Thereupon Epimenides of Crete purified the city.
nd madmen face things
rushing on them, or grasp snakes. Another is the courage caused by
hope, which often makes those who have had a stroke of luck endure
dangers,and those who
are intoxicated—for wine makes men sanguine. Another is due to some
irrational emotion, for example love or passion. For if a man is in
love he is more daring than cowardly, and endures many dangers, like
the manUnknown. who
murdered the tyrant at Metapontium and the person in Crete in the storyUnknown; and similarly if a
man is under the influence of anger and passion, for passion is a
thing that makes him beside himself. Hence wild boars are thought to
be brave, though they are not really, for they are so when they are
beside themselves, but otherwise they are variable, like daring men.
But nevertheless
the courage of passion is in the highest degree natural; passion is a
thing that does not know defeat, owing to which the young are
But inasmuch as happiness is a certain activity of soul in conformity with perfect
virtue, it is necessary to examine the nature of virtue. For this will probably assist us
in our investigation of the nature of happiness. Also,
the true statesman seems to be one who has made a special study of goodness, since his aim
is to make the citizens good and law-abiding men—witness the lawgivers of Crete and Sparta, and the other great legislators of history;
but if the study of virtue falls within the province of
Political Science, it is clear that in investigating virtue we shall be keeping to the
plan which we laid down at the outset.
Now the goodness that we have to consider is clearly human virtue, since the good or
happiness which we set out to seek is human good and human happiness. But human virtue means in our view excellence of soul, not excellence of
body; also our definition of happiness is an activity of the soul. Now if this i
umption was incorrect. It is certain that in a way both the
household and the state should be a unit, but they should not be so in every
way. For in one way the state as its unification proceeds will cease to be a
state, and in another way, though it continues a state, yet by coming near to
ceasing to be one it will be a worse state, just as if one turned a harmony into
unison or a rhythm into a single foot. The proper thing is for the state, while being a
multitude, to be made a partnership and a unity by means of education, as has
been said before and it is strange that the very philosopher who intends to
introduce a system of education and thinks that this will make the city morally
good should fancy that he can regulate society by such measures as have been
mentioned instead of by manners and culture and laws, just as the legislator
introduced community of property in Sparta and Crete by
the institution of public messes.
r only certain people? for there is a great difference between
these alternatives. Therefore let us abandon this inquiry for the present, since
it belongs to other occasions.On the subject of the constitution of
Sparta and that of Crete, and virtually in regard to the other
forms of constitution also, the questions that arise for consideration are two,
one whether their legal structure has any feature that is admirable or the
reverse in comparison with the best syng admitted
that a state that is to be well governed must be provided with leisure from
menial occupations; but how this is to be provided it is not easy to ascertain.
The serf class in Thessaly repeatedly
rose against its masters, and so did the Helots at Sparta, where they are like an enemy
constantly sitting in wait for the disasters of the Spartiates. Nothing of the kind has hitherto occurred
in Crete, the reason perhaps being that
the neighboring cities,
can make the kings men of high character: at all events he distrusts
them as not being persons of sufficient worth owing to which the Spartans used
to send kings who were enemies as colleagues on embassies, and thought that the
safety of the state depended on division between the kings. Also the regulations for the the public mess-tables
called Phiditia have been badly laid down by their originator. The revenue for
these ought to come rather from public funds, as in Crete; but among the Spartans everybody has to contribute,
although some of them are very poor and unable to find money for this charge, so
that the result is the opposite of what the lawgiver purposed. For he intends
the organization of the common tables to be democratic, but when regulated by
the law in this manner it works out as by no means democratic; for it is not
easy for the very poor to participate, yet their ancestral regulation of the
citizenship is that it
