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67.
In doing this, to my thinking, this Cleisthenes was imitating his own mother's father, Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon,1 for Cleisthenes, after going to war with the Argives, made an end of minstrels' contests at Sicyon by reason of the Homeric poems, in which it is the Argives and Argos which are primarily the theme of the songs. Furthermore, he conceived the desire to cast out from the land Adrastus son of Talaus, the hero whose shrine stood then as now in the very marketplace of Sicyon because he was an Argive.
[2]
He went then to Delphi, and asked the oracle if he should cast Adrastus out, but the priestess said in response: “Adrastus is king of Sicyon, and you but a stone thrower.” When the god would not permit him to do as he wished in this matter, he returned home and attempted to devise some plan which might rid him of Adrastus. When he thought he had found one, he sent to Boeotian Thebes saying that he would gladly bring Melanippus son of Astacus into his country, and the Thebans handed him over.
[3]
When Cleisthenes had brought him in, he consecrated a sanctuary for him in the government house itself, where he was established in the greatest possible security. Now the reason why Cleisthenes brought in Melanippus, a thing which I must relate, was that Melanippus was Adrastus' deadliest enemy, for Adrastus had slain his brother Mecisteus and his son-in-law Tydeus.
[4]
Having then designated the precinct for him, Cleisthenes took away all Adrastus' sacrifices and festivals and gave them to Melanippus. The Sicyonians had been accustomed to pay very great honor to Adrastus because the country had once belonged to Polybus, his maternal grandfather, who died without an heir and bequeathed the kingship to him.
[5]
Besides other honors paid to Adrastus by the Sicyonians, they celebrated his lamentable fate with tragic choruses in honor not of Dionysus but of Adrastus. Cleisthenes, however, gave the choruses back to Dionysus and the rest of the worship to Melanippus.
1 Cleisthenes ruled at Sicyon from 600 to 570.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (39 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900), 2.572
- Cross-references to this page
(14):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.3
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.6.1
- Harper's, Heros
- Harper's, Rhapsōdus
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), TYRANNUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), SI´CYON
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter IV
- William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter VI
- Smith's Bio, Adrastus
- Smith's Bio, Clei'sthenes
- Smith's Bio, Home'rus
- Smith's Bio, Mecisteus
- Smith's Bio, Melanippus
- Smith's Bio, Pra'tinas
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Apollodorus, Library, Apollod. 3.6
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(23):
- LSJ, Ὁμήρ-ειος
- LSJ, δή
- LSJ, ἀγων-ίζομαι
- LSJ, ἀποδείκ-νυ_μι
- LSJ, ἀποκτείνω
- LSJ, ἐπάγω
- LSJ, φροντ-ίζω
- LSJ, γεραίρω
- LSJ, λευστήρ
- LSJ, μεγα^λ-ωστί
- LSJ, μι_μ-έομαι
- LSJ, πᾶς
- LSJ, παραδίδωμι
- LSJ, παύω
- LSJ, πολύς
- LSJ, πρός
- LSJ, θυ^γατρ-ι^δοῦς
- LSJ, ῥαψῳδ-ός
- LSJ, τρα^γι^κ-ός
- LSJ, τύραννος
- LSJ, ὑμν-έω
- LSJ, χορός
- LSJ, χρηστηριάζω
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