1. Third, he slew at Crommyon the sow that was called Phaea after the old woman who bred it;1 that sow, some say, was the offspring of Echidna and Typhon. [2] Fourth, he slew Sciron, the Corinthian, son of Pelops, or, as some say, of Poseidon. He in the Megarian territory held the rocks called after him Scironian, and compelled passers-by to wash his feet, and in the act of washing he kicked them into the deep to be the prey of a huge turtle. [3] But Theseus seized him by the feet and threw him into the sea.2 Fifth, in Eleusis he slew Cercyon, son of Branchus and a nymph Argiope. This Cercyon compelled passers-by to wrestle, and in wrestling killed them. But Theseus lifted him up on high and dashed him to the ground.3 [4] Sixth, he slew Damastes, whom some call Polypemon.4 He had his dwelling beside the road, and made up two beds, one small and the other big; and offering hospitality to the passers-by, he laid the short men on the big bed and hammered them, to make them fit the bed; but the tall men he laid on the little bed and sawed off the portions of the body that projected beyond it.

So, having cleared the road, Theseus came to Athens. [5] But Medea, being then wedded to Aegeus, plotted against him5 and persuaded Aegeus to beware of him as a traitor. And Aegeus, not knowing his own son, was afraid and sent him against the Marathonian bull. [6] And when Theseus had killed it, Aegeus presented to him a poison which he had received the selfsame day from Medea. But just as the draught was about to be administered to him, he gave his father the sword, and on recognizing it Aegeus dashed the cup from his hands.6 And when Theseus was thus made known to his father and informed of the plot, he expelled Medea. [7]

And he was numbered among those who were to be sent as the third tribute to the Minotaur; or, as some affirm, he offered himself voluntarily.7 And as the ship had a black sail, Aegeus charged his son, if he returned alive, to spread white sails on the ship.8 [8] 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. Theseus having agreed on oath to do so, she besought Daedalus to disclose the way out of the labyrinth. [9] And at his suggestion she gave Theseus a clue when he went in; Theseus fastened it to the door, and, drawing it after him, entered in.9 And having found the Minotaur in the last part of the labyrinth, he killed him by smiting him with his fists; and drawing the clue after him made his way out again. And by night he arrived with Ariadne and the children10 at Naxos. There Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off;11 and having brought her to Lemnos he enjoyed her, and begat Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.12 [10]

In his grief on account of Ariadne, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship when he stood for port; and Aegeus, seeing from the acropolis the ship with a black sail, supposed that Theseus had perished; so he cast himself down and died.13 [11] But Theseus succeeded to the sovereignty of Athens, and killed the sons of Pallas, fifty in number;14 likewise all who would oppose him were killed by him, and he got the whole government to himself. [12]

On being apprized of the flight of Theseus and his company, Minos shut up the guilty Daedalus in the labyrinth, along with his son Icarus, who had been borne to Daedalus by Naucrate, a female slave of Minos. But Daedalus constructed wings for himself and his son, and enjoined his son, when he took to flight, neither to fly high, lest the glue should melt in the sun and the wings should drop off, nor to fly near the sea, lest the pinions should be detached by the damp. [13] But the infatuated Icarus, disregarding his father's injunctions, soared ever higher, till, the glue melting, he fell into the sea called after him Icarian, and perished.15 But Daedalus made his way safely to Camicus in Sicily. [14] And Minos pursued Daedalus, and in every country that he searched he carried a spiral shell and promised to give a great reward to him who should pass a thread through the shell, believing that by that means he should discover Daedalus. And having come to Camicus in Sicily, to the court of Cocalus, with whom Daedalus was concealed, he showed the spiral shell. Cocalus took it, and promised to thread it, and gave it to Daedalus; [15] and Daedalus fastened a thread to an ant, and, having bored a hole in the spiral shell, allowed the ant to pass through it. But when Minos found the thread passed through the shell, he perceived that Daedalus was with Cocalus, and at once demanded his surrender.16 Cocalus promised to surrender him, and made an entertainment for Minos; but after his bath Minos was undone by the daughters of Cocalus; some say, however, that he died through being drenched with boiling water.17 [16]

Theseus joined Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons and carried off Antiope, or, as some say, Melanippe; but Simonides calls her Hippolyte.18 Wherefore the Amazons marched against Athens, and having taken up a position about the Areopagus19 they were vanquished by the Athenians under Theseus. And though he had a son Hippolytus by the Amazon, [17] Theseus afterwards received from Deucalion20 in marriage Phaedra, daughter of Minos; and when her marriage was being celebrated, the Amazon that had before been married to him appeared in arms with her Amazons, and threatened to kill the assembled guests. But they hastily closed the doors and killed her. However, some say that she was slain in battle by Theseus. [18] And Phaedra, after she had borne two children, Acamas and Demophon, to Theseus, fell in love with the son he had by the Amazon, to wit, Hippolytus, and besought him to lie with her. Howbeit, he fled from her embraces, because he hated all women. But Phaedra, fearing that he might accuse her to his father, cleft open the doors of her bed-chamber, rent her garments, and falsely charged Hippolytus with an assault. [19] Theseus believed her and prayed to Poseidon that Hippolytus might perish. So, when Hippolytus was riding in his chariot and driving beside the sea, Poseidon sent up a bull from the surf, and the horses were frightened, the chariot dashed in pieces, and Hippolytus, entangled in the reins, was dragged to death. And when her passion was made public, Phaedra hanged herself.21 [20]

Ixion fell in love with Hera and attempted to force her; and when Hera reported it, Zeus, wishing to know if the thing were so, made a cloud in the likeness of Hera and laid it beside him; and when Ixion boasted that he had enjoyed the favours of Hera, Zeus bound him to a wheel, on which he is whirled by winds through the air; such is the penalty he pays. And the cloud, impregnated by Ixion, gave birth to Centaurus.22 [21]

“ And Theseus allied himself with Pirithous,23 when he engaged in war against the centaurs. For when Pirithous wooed Hippodamia, he feasted the centaurs because they were her kinsmen. But being unaccustomed to wine, they made themselves drunk by swilling it greedily, and when the bride was brought in, they attempted to violate her. But Pirithous, fully armed, with Theseus, joined battle with them, and Theseus killed many of them.

Zenobius, Cent. v. 33.
[22]

Caeneus was formerly a woman, but after that Poseidon had intercourse with her, she asked to become an invulnerable man; wherefore in the battle with the centaurs he thought scorn of wounds and killed many of the centaurs; but the rest of them surrounded him and by striking him with fir trees buried him in the earth.24 [23]

Having made a compact with Pirithous that they would marry daughters of Zeus, Theseus, with the help of Pirithous, carried off Helen from Sparta for himself, when she was twelve years old,25 and in the endeavor to win Persephone as a bride for Pirithous he went down to Hades. And the Dioscuri, with the Lacedaemonians and Arcadians, captured Athens and carried away Helen, and with her Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, into captivity;26 but Demophon and Acamas fled. And the Dioscuri also brought back Menestheus from exile, and gave him the sovereignty of Athens.27 [24] But when Theseus arrived with Pirithous in Hades, he was beguiled; for, on the pretence that they were about to partake of good cheer, Hades bade them first be seated on the Chair of Forgetfulness, to which they grew and were held fast by coils of serpents. Pirithous, therefore, remained bound for ever, but Hercules brought Theseus up and sent him to Athens.28 Thence he was driven by Menestheus and went to Lycomedes, who threw him down an abyss and killed him.29 2.

Tantalus is punished in Hades by having a stone impending over him, by being perpetually in a lake and seeing at his shoulders on either side trees with fruit growing beside the lake. The water touches his jaws, but when he would take a draught of it, the water dries up; and when he would partake of the fruits, the trees with the fruits are lifted by winds as high as the clouds. Some say that he is thus punished because he blabbed to men the mysteries of the gods, and because he attempted to share ambrosia with his fellows.30 [2]

Broteas, a hunter, did not honor Artemis, and said that even fire could not hurt him. So he went mad and threw himself into fire.31 [3]

Pelops, after being slaughtered and boiled at the banquet of the gods, was fairer than ever when he came to life again,32 and on account of his surpassing beauty he became a minion of Poseidon, who gave him a winged chariot, such that even when it ran through the sea the axles were not wet.33 [4] Now Oenomaus, the king of Pisa, had a daughter Hippodamia,34 and whether it was that he loved her, as some say, or that he was warned by an oracle that he must die by the man that married her, no man got her to wife; for her father could not persuade her to cohabit with him, and her suitors were put by him to death. [5] For he had arms and horses given him by Ares, and he offered as a prize to the suitors the hand of his daughter, and each suitor was bound to take up Hippodamia on his own chariot and flee as far as the Isthmus of Corinth, and Oenomaus straightway pursued him, in full armour, and if he overtook him he slew him; but if the suitor were not overtaken, he was to have Hippodamia to wife. And in this way he slew many suitors, some say twelve;35 and he cut off the heads of the suitors and nailed them to his house.36 [6]

So Pelops also came a-wooing; and when Hippodamia saw his beauty, she conceived a passion for him, and persuaded Myrtilus, son of Hermes, to help him; for Myrtilus was charioteer to Oenomaus. [7] Accordingly Myrtilus, being in love with her and wishing to gratify her, did not insert the linchpins in the boxes of the wheels,37 and thus caused Oenomaus to lose the race and to be entangled in the reins and dragged to death; but according to some, he was killed by Pelops. And in dying he cursed Myrtilus, whose treachery he had discovered, praying that he might perish by the hand of Pelops. [8]

Pelops, therefore, got Hippodamia; and on his journey, in which he was accompanied by Myrtilus, he came to a certain place, and withdrew a little to fetch water for his wife, who was athirst; and in the meantime Myrtilus tried to rape her.38 But when Pelops learned that from her, he threw Myrtilus into the sea, called after him the Myrtoan Sea, at Cape Geraestus39; and Myrtilus, as he was being thrown, uttered curses against the house of Pelops. [9] When Pelops had reached the Ocean and been cleansed by Hephaestus,40 he returned to Pisa in Elis and succeeded to the kingdom of Oenomaus, but not till he had subjugated what was formerly called Apia and Pelasgiotis, which he called Peloponnesus after himself.41 [10]

The sons of Pelops were Pittheus, Atreus, Thyestes, and others.42 Now the wife of Atreus was Aerope, daughter of Catreus, and she loved Thyestes. And Atreus once vowed to sacrifice to Artemis the finest of his flocks; but when a golden lamb appeared, they say that he neglected to perform his vow, [11] and having choked the lamb, he deposited it in a box and kept it there, and Aerope gave it to Thyestes, by whom she had been debauched. For the Mycenaeans had received an oracle which bade them choose a Pelopid for their king, and they had sent for Atreus and Thyestes. And when a discussion took place concerning the kingdom, Thyestes declared to the multitude that the kingdom ought to belong to him who owned the golden lamb, and when Atreus agreed, Thyestes produced the lamb and was made king. [12] But Zeus sent Hermes to Atreus and told him to stipulate with Thyestes that Atreus should be king if the sun should go backward; and when Thyestes agreed, the sun set in the east; hence the deity having plainly attested the usurpation of Thyestes, Atreus got the kingdom and banished Thyestes.43 [13] But afterwards being apprized of the adultery, he sent a herald to Thyestes with a proposal of accommodation; and when he had lured Thyestes by a pretence of friendship, he slaughtered the sons, Aglaus, Callileon, and Orchomenus, whom Thyestes had by a Naiad nymph, though they had sat down as suppliants on the altar of Zeus. And having cut them limb from limb and boiled them, he served them up to Thyestes without the extremities; and when Thyestes had eaten heartily of them, he showed him the extremities, and cast him out of the country.44 [14] But seeking by all means to pay Atreus out, Thyestes inquired of the oracle on the subject, and received an answer that it could be done if he were to beget a son by intercourse with his own daughter. He did so accordingly, and begot Aegisthus by his daughter. And Aegisthus, when he was grown to manhood and had learned that he was a son of Thyestes, killed Atreus, and restored the kingdom to Thyestes.45 [15] “ But46 the nurse took Agamemnon and Menelaus
to Polyphides, lord of Sicyon,47
who again sent them to Oeneus, the Aetolian.
Not long afterwards Tyndareus brought them back again,
and they drove away Thyestes to dwell in Cytheria,
after that they had taken an oath of him at the altar of Hera, to which he had fled.
And they became the sons-in-law of Tyndareus by marrying his daughters,
Agamemnon getting Clytaemnestra to wife,
after he had slain her spouse Tantalus, the son of Thyestes,
together with his newborn babe, while Menelaus got Helen.
” [16]

And Agamemnon reigned over the Mycenaeans and married Clytaemnestra, daughter of Tyndareus, after slaying her former husband Tantalus, son of Thyestes, with his child.48 And there were born to Agamemnon a son Orestes, and daughters, Chrysothemis, Electra, and Iphigenia.49 And Menelaus married Helen and reigned over Sparta, Tyndareus having ceded the kingdom to him.50 3.

But afterwards Alexander carried off Helen, as some say, because such was the will of Zeus, in order that his daughter might be famous for having embroiled Europe and Asia; or, as others have said, that the race of the demigods might be exalted. [2] For one of these reasons Strife threw an apple as a prize of beauty to be contended for by Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite; and Zeus commanded Hermes to lead them to Alexander on Ida in order to be judged by him. And they promised to give Alexander gifts. Hera said that if she were preferred to all women, she would give him the kingdom over all men; and Athena promised victory in war, and Aphrodite the hand of Helen. And he decided in favour of Aphrodite51; and sailed away to Sparta with ships built by Phereclus.52 [3] 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 off53 with him. And she abandoned Hermione, then nine years old, and putting most of the property on board, she set sail with him by night.54 [4] But Hera sent them a heavy storm which forced them to put in at Sidon. And fearing lest he should be pursued, Alexander spent much time in Phoenicia and Cyprus.55 But when he thought that all chance of pursuit was over, he came to Troy with Helen. [5] But some say that Hermes, in obedience to the will of Zeus, stole Helen and carried her to Egypt, and gave her to Proteus, king of the Egyptians, to guard, and that Alexander repaired to Troy with a phantom of Helen fashioned out of clouds.56 [6]

When Menelaus was aware of the rape, he came to Agamemnon at Mycenae, and begged him to muster an army against Troy and to raise levies in Greece. And he, sending a herald to each of the kings, reminded them of the oaths which they had sworn,57 and warned them to look to the safety each of his own wife, saying that the affront had been offered equally to the whole of Greece. And while many were eager to join in the expedition, some repaired also to Ulysses in Ithaca. [7] But he, not wishing to go to the war, feigned madness. However, Palamedes, son of Nauplius, proved his madness to be fictitious; and when Ulysses pretended to rave, Palamedes followed him, and snatching Telemachus from Penelope's bosom, drew his sword as if he would kill him. And in his fear for the child Ulysses confessed that his madness was pretended, and he went to the war.58 [8]

Having taken a Phrygian prisoner, Ulysses compelled him to write a letter of treasonable purport ostensibly sent by Priam to Palamedes; and having buried gold in the quarters of Palamedes, he dropped the letter in the camp. Agamemnon read the letter, found the gold, and delivered up Palamedes to the allies to be stoned as a traitor.59 [9]

Menelaus went with Ulysses and Talthybius to Cinyras in Cyprus and tried to persuade him to join the allies. He made a present of breastplates to the absent Agamemnon,60 and swore he would send fifty ships, but he sent only one, commanded by the son of Mygdalion, and the rest he moulded out of earth and launched them in the sea.61 [10]

The daughters of Anius, the son of Apollo, to wit, Elais, Spermo, and Oeno, are called the Wine-growers: Dionysus granted them the power of producing oil, corn, and wine from the earth.62 [11]

The armament mustered in Aulis. The men who went to the Trojan war were as follows63:— Of the Boeotians, ten leaders: they brought forty ships. Of the Orchomenians, four: they brought thirty ships. Of the Phocians, four leaders: they brought forty ships. Of the Locrians, Ajax, son of Oeleus: he brought forty ships. Of the Euboeans, Elephenor, son of Chalcodon and Alcyone: he brought forty ships. Of the Athenians, Menestheus: he brought fifty ships. Of the Salaminians, Telamonian Ajax: he brought twelve ships. [12] Of the Argives, Diomedes, son of Tydeus, and his company: they brought eighty ships. Of the Mycenaeans, Agamemnon, son of Atreus and Aerope: a hundred ships. Of the Lacedaemonians, Menelaus, son of Atreus and Aerope: sixty ships. Of the Pylians, Nestor, son of Neleus and Chloris: forty ships. Of the Arcadians, Agapenor: seven ships. Of the Eleans, Amphimachus and his company: forty ships. Of the Dulichians, Meges, son of Phyleus: forty ships. Of the Cephallenians, Ulysses, son of Laertes and Anticlia: twelve ships. Of the Aetolians, Thoas, son of Andraemon and Gorge: he brought forty ships. [13] Of the Cretans, Idomeneus, son of Deucalion: forty ships. Of the Rhodians, Tlepolemus, son of Hercules and Astyoche: nine ships. Of the Symaeans, Nireus, son of Charopus: three ships. Of the Coans, Phidippus and Antiphus, the sons of Thessalus: thirty ships. [14] Of the Myrmidons, Achilles, son of Peleus and Thetis: fifty ships. From Phylace, Protesilaus, son of Iphiclus: forty ships. Of the Pheraeans, Eumelus, son of Admetus: eleven ships. Of the Olizonians, Philoctetes, son of Poeas: seven ships. Of the Aeanianians, Guneus, son of Ocytus: twenty-two ships. Of the Triccaeans, Podalirius:thirty ships. Of the Ormenians, Eurypylus: forty ships. Of the Gyrtonians, Polypoetes, son of Pirithous: thirty ships. Of the Magnesians, Prothous, son of Tenthredon: forty ships. The total of ships was one thousand and thirteen; of leaders, forty-three; of leaderships, thirty. [15]

When the armament was in Aulis, after a sacrifice to Apollo, a serpent darted from the altar beside the neighboring plane-tree, in which there was a nest; and having consumed the eight sparrows in the nest, together with the mother bird, which made the ninth, it was turned to stone. Calchas said that this sign was given them by the will of Zeus, and he inferred from what had happened that Troy was destined to be taken in a period of ten years.64 And they made ready to sail against Troy. [16] So Agamemnon in person was in command of the whole army, and Achilles was admiral,65 being fifteen years old. [17]

But not knowing the course to steer for Troy, they put in to Mysia and ravaged it, supposing it to be Troy.66 Now Telephus son of Hercules, was king of the Mysians, and seeing the country pillaged, he armed the Mysians, chased the Greeks in a crowd to the ships, and killed many, among them Thersander, son of Polynices, who had made a stand. But when Achilles rushed at him, Telephus did not abide the onset and was pursued, and in the pursuit he was entangled in a vine-branch and wounded with a spear in the thigh. [18] Departing from Mysia, the Greeks put to sea, and a violent storm coming on, they were separated from each other and landed in their own countries.67 So the Greeks returned at that time, and it is said that the war lasted twenty years.68 For it was in the second year after the rape of Helen that the Greeks, having completed their preparations, set out on the expedition and after their retirement from Mysia to Greece eight years elapsed before they again returned to Argos and came to Aulis. [19]

Having again assembled at Aulis after the aforesaid interval of eight years, they were in great perplexity about the voyage, because they had no leader who could show them the way to Troy. [20] But Telephus, because his wound was unhealed, and Apollo had told him that he would be cured when the one who wounded him should turn physician, came from Mysia to Argos, clad in rags, and begged the help of Achilles, promising to show the course to steer for Troy. So Achilles healed him by scraping off the rust of his Pelian spear. Accordingly, on being healed, Telephus showed the course to steer,69 and the accuracy of his information was confirmed by Calchas by means of his own art of divination. [21]

But when they had put to sea from Argos and arrived for the second time at Aulis, the fleet was windbound, and Calchas said that they could not sail unless the fairest of Agamemnon's daughters were presented as a sacrifice to Artemis; for the goddess was angry with Agamemnon, both because, on shooting a deer, he had said, “ Artemis herself could not ( do it better),”70 and because Atreus had not sacrificed to her the golden lamb. [22] On receipt of this oracle, Agamemnon sent Ulysses and Talthybius to Clytaemnestra and asked for Iphigenia, alleging a promise of his to give her to Achilles to wife in reward for his military service. So Clytaemnestra sent her, and Agamemnon set her beside the altar, and was about to slaughter her, when Artemis carried her off to the Taurians and appointed her to be her priestess, substituting a deer for her at the altar; but some say that Artemis made her immortal.71 [23]

After putting to sea from Aulis they touched at Tenedos. It was ruled by Tenes, son of Cycnus and Proclia, but according to some, he was a son of Apollo. He dwelt there because he had been banished by his father.72 [24] For Cycnus had a son Tenes and a daughter Hemithea by Proclia, daughter of Laomedon, but he afterwards married Philonome, daughter of Tragasus; and she fell in love with Tenes, and, failing to seduce him, falsely accused him to Cycnus of attempting to debauch her, and in witness of it she produced a flute-player, by name Eumolpus. [25] Cycnus believed her, and putting him and his sister in a chest he set them adrift on the sea. The chest was washed up on the island of Leucophrys, and Tenes landed and settled in the island, and called it Tenedos after himself. But Cycnus afterwards learning the truth, stoned the flute-player to death and buried his wife alive in the earth. [26]

So when the Greeks were standing in for Tenedos, Tenes saw them and tried to keep them off by throwing stones, but was killed by Achilles with a sword-cut in the breast, though Thetis had forewarned Achilles not to kill Tenes, because he himself would die by the hand of Apollo if he slew Tenes.73 [27] and as they were offering a sacrifice to Apollo, a water-snake approached from the altar and bit Philoctetes; and as the sore did not heal and grew noisome, the army could not endure the stench, and Ulysses, by the orders of Agamemnon, put him ashore on the island of Lemnos, with the bow of Hercules which he had in his possession; and there, by shooting birds with the bow, he subsisted in the wilderness.74 [28]

Putting to sea from Tenedos they made sail for Troy, and sent Ulysses and Menelaus to demand the restoration of Helen and the property. But the Trojans, having summoned an assembly, not only refused to restore Helen, but threatened to kill the envoys. [29] These were, however, saved by Antenor;75 but the Greeks, exasperated at the insolence of the barbarians, stood to arms and made sail against them. Now Thetis charged Achilles not to be the first to land from the ships, because the first to land would be the first to die. Being apprized of the hostile approach of the fleet, the barbarians marched in arms to the sea, and endeavored by throwing stones to prevent the landing. [30] Of the Greeks the first to land from his ship was Protesilaus, and having slain not a few of the barbarians, he fell by the hand of Hector.76 His wife Laodamia loved him even after his death, and she made an image of him and consorted with it. The gods had pity on her, and Hermes brought up Protesilaus from Hades. On seeing him, Laodamia thought it was himself returned from Troy, and she was glad; but when he was carried back to Hades, she stabbed herself to death.77 [31]

On the death of Protesilaus, Achilles landed with the Myrmidons, and throwing a stone at the head of Cycnus, killed him.78 When the barbarians saw him dead, they fled to the city, and the Greeks, leaping from their ships, filled the plain with bodies. and having shut up the Trojans, they besieged them; and they drew up the ships. [32] The barbarians showing no courage, Achilles waylaid Troilus and slaughtered him in the sanctuary of Thymbraean Apollo,79 and coming by night to the city he captured Lycaon.80 Moreover, taking some of the chiefs with him, Achilles laid waste the country, and made his way to Ida to lift the kine of Aeneas. But Aeneas fled, and Achilles killed the neatherds and Nestor, son of Priam, and drove away the kine.81 [33] He also took Lesbos82 and Phocaea, then Colophon, and Smyrna, and Clazomenae, and Cyme; and afterwards Aegialus and Tenos, the so-called Hundred Cities; then, in order, Adramytium and Side; then Endium, and Linaeum, and Colone. He took also Hypoplacian Thebes83 and Lyrnessus,84 and further Antandrus, and many other cities. [34]

A period of nine years having elapsed, allies came to join the Trojans:85 from the surrounding cities, Aeneas, son of Anchises, and with him Archelochus and Acamas, sons of Antenor, and Theanus, leaders of the Dardanians; of the Thracians, Acamas, son of Eusorus; of the Cicones, Euphemus, son of Troezenus; of the Paeonians, Pyraechmes; of the Paphlagonians, Pylaemenes, son of Bilsates; [35] from Zelia, Pandarus, son of Lycaon; from Adrastia, Adrastus and Amphius, sons of Merops; from Arisbe, Asius, son of Hyrtacus; from Larissa, Hippothous, son of Pelasgus;86 from Mysia, Chromius87 and Ennomus, sons of Arsinous; of the Alizones, Odius and Epistrophus, sons of Mecisteus; of the Phrygians, Phorcys and Ascanius, sons of Aretaon; of the Maeonians, Mesthles and Antiphus, sons of Talaemenes; of the Carians, Nastes and Amphimachus, sons of Nomion; of the Lycians, Sarpedon, son of Zeus, and Glaucus, son of Hippolochus. 4.

Achilles did not go forth to the war, because he was angry on account of Briseis, ... the daughter of Chryses the priest.88 Therefore the barbarians took heart of grace and sallied out of the city. And Alexander fought a single combat with Menelaus; and when Alexander got the worst of it, Aphrodite carried him off.89 And Pandarus, by shooting an arrow at Menelaus, broke the truce.90 [2]

Diomedes, doing doughty deeds, wounded Aphrodite when she came to the help of Aeneas;91 and encountering Glaucus, he recalled the friendship of their fathers and exchanged arms.92 And Hector having challenged the bravest to single combat, many came forward, but the lot fell on Ajax, and he did doughty deeds; but night coming on, the heralds parted them.93 [3]

The Greeks made a wall and a ditch to protect the roadstead,94 and a battle taking place in the plain, the Trojans chased the Greeks within the wall.95 But the Greeks sent Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax as ambassadors to Achilles, begging him to fight for them, and promising Briseis and other gifts.96 [4] And night coming on, they sent Ulysses and Diomedes as spies; and these killed Dolon, son of Eumelus, and Rhesus, the Thracian ( who had arrived the day before as an ally of the Trojans, and having not yet engaged in the battle was encamped at some distance from the Trojan force and apart from Hector); they also slew the twelve men that were sleeping around him, and drove the horses to the ships.97 [5] But by day a fierce fight took place; Agamemnon and Diomedes, Ulysses, Eurypylus, and Machaon were wounded, the Greeks were put to flight98 Hector made a breach in the wall and entered99 and, Ajax having retreated, he set fire to the ships.100 [6]

But when Achilles saw the ship of Protesilaus burning, he sent out Patroclus with the Myrmidons, after arming him with his own arms and giving him the horses. Seeing him the Trojans thought that he was Achilles and turned to flee. And having chased them within the wall, he killed many, amongst them Sarpedon, son of Zeus, and was himself killed by Hector, after being first wounded by Euphorbus.101 [7] And a fierce fight taking place for the corpse, Ajax with difficulty, by performing feats of valor, rescued the body.102 And Achilles laid aside his anger and recovered Briseis. And a suit of armour having been brought him from Hephaestus, he donned the armour103 and went forth to the war, and chased the Trojans in a crowd to the Scamander, and there killed many, and amongst them Asteropaeus, son of Pelegon, son of the river Axius; and the river rushed at him in fury. But Hephaestus dried up the streams of the river, after chasing them with a mighty flame.104 And Achilles slew Hector in single combat, and fastening his ankles to his chariot dragged him to the ships.105 And having buried Patroclus, he celebrated games in his honor, at which Diomedes was victorious in the chariot race, Epeus in boxing, and Ajax and Ulysses in wrestling.106 And after the games Priam came to Achilles and ransomed the body of Hector, and buried it.107 5.

Penthesilia, daughter of Otrere and Ares, accidentally killed Hippolyte and was purified by Priam. In battle she slew many, and amongst them Machaon, and was afterwards herself killed by Achilles, who fell in love with the Amazon after her death and slew Thersites for jeering at him.108 [2]

Hippolyte was the mother of Hippolytus; she also goes by the names of Glauce and Melanippe. For when the marriage of Phaedra was being celebrated, Hippolyte appeared in arms with her Amazons, and said that she would slay the guests of Theseus. So a battle took place, and she was killed, whether involuntarily by her ally Penthesilia, or by Theseus, or because his men, seeing the threatening attitude of the Amazons, hastily closed the doors and so intercepted and slew her.109 [3]

Memnon, the son of Tithonus and the Dawn, came with a great force of Ethiopians to Troy against the Greeks, and having slain many of the Greeks, including Antilochus, he was himself slain by Achilles.110 Having chased the Trojans also, Achilles was shot with an arrow in the ankle by Alexander and Apollo at the Scaean gate. [4] A fight taking place for the corpse, Ajax killed Glaucus, and gave the arms to be conveyed to the ships, but the body he carried, in a shower of darts, through the midst of the enemy, while Ulysses fought his assailants.111 [5] The death of Achilles filled the army with dismay, and they buried him with Patroclus in the White Isle, mixing the bones of the two together.112 It is said that after death Achilles consorts with Medea in the Isles of the Blest.113 And they held games in his honor, at which Eumelus won the chariot-race, Diomedes the footrace, Ajax the quoit match, and Teucer the competition in archery.114 [6] Also his arms were offered as a prize to the bravest, and Ajax and Ulysses came forward as competitors. The judges were the Trojans or, according to some, the allies, and Ulysses was preferred. Disordered by chagrin, Ajax planned a nocturnal attack on the army. And Athena drove him mad, and turned him, sword in hand, among the cattle, and in his frenzy he slaughtered the cattle with the herdsmen, taking them for the Achaeans. [7] But afterwards he came to his senses and slew also himself.115 And Agamemnon forbade his body to be burnt; and he alone of all who fell at Ilium is buried, in a coffin.116 His grave is at Rhoeteum. [8]

When the war had already lasted ten years, and the Greeks were despondent, Calchas prophesied to them that Troy could not be taken unless they had the bow and arrows of Hercules fighting on their side. On hearing that, Ulysses went with Diomedes to Philoctetes in Lemnos, and having by craft got possession of the bow and arrows he persuaded him to sail to Troy. So he went, and after being cured by Podalirius, he shot Alexander.117 [9] After the death of Alexander, Helenus and Deiphobus quarrelled as to which of them should marry Helen; and as Deiphobus was preferred, Helenus left Troy and abode in Ida.118 But as Chalcas said that Helenus knew the oracles that protected the city, Ulysses waylaid and captured him and brought him to the camp; [10] and Helenus was forced to tell how Ilium could be taken,119 to wit, first, if the bones of Pelops were brought to them; next, if Neoptolemus fought for them; and third, if the Palladium,120 which had fallen from heaven, were stolen from Troy, for while it was within the walls the city could not be taken. [11]

On hearing these things the Greeks caused the bones of Pelops to be fetched, and they sent Ulysses and Phoenix to Lycomedes at Scyros, and these two persuaded him to let Neoptolemus go.121 On coming to the camp and receiving his father's arms from Ulysses, who willingly resigned them, Neoptolemus slew many of the Trojans. [12] Afterwards, Eurypylus, son of Telephus, arrived to fight for the Trojans, bringing a great force of Mysians. He performed doughty deeds, but was slain by Neoptolemus.122 [13] And Ulysses went with Diomedes by night to the city, and there he let Diomedes wait, and after disfiguring himself and putting on mean attire he entered unknown into the city as a beggar. And being recognized by Helen, he with her help stole away the Palladium, and after killing many of the guards, brought it to the ships with the aid of Diomedes.123 [14]

But afterwards he invented the construction of the Wooden Horse and suggested it to Epeus, who was an architect.124 Epeus felled timber on Ida, and constructed the horse with a hollow interior and an opening in the sides. Into this horse Ulysses persuaded fifty ( or, according to the author of the Little Iliad, three thousand) of the doughtiest to enter,125 while the rest, when night had fallen, were to burn their tents, and, putting to sea, to lie to off Tenedos, but to sail back to land after the ensuing night. [15] They followed the advice of Ulysses and introduced the doughtiest into the horse, after appointing Ulysses their leader and engraving on the horse an inscription which signified, “ For their return home, the Greeks dedicate this thank—offering to Athena.” But they themselves burned their tents, and leaving Sinon, who was to light a beacon as a signal to them, they put to sea by night, and lay to off Tenedos. [16]

And at break of day, when the Trojans beheld the camp of the Greeks deserted and believed that they had fled, they with great joy dragged the horse, and stationing it beside the palace of Priam deliberated what they should do. [17] As Cassandra said that there was an armed force in it, and she was further confirmed by Laocoon, the seer, some were for burning it, and others for throwing it down a precipice; but as most were in favour of sparing it as a votive offering sacred to a divinity,126 they betook them to sacrifice and feasting. [18] However, Apollo sent them a sign; for two serpents swam through the sea from the neighboring islands and devoured the sons of Laocoon.127 [19] And when night fell, and all were plunged in sleep, the Greeks drew near by sea from Tenedos, and Sinon kindled the beacon on the grave of Achilles to guide them.128 And Helen, going round the horse, called the chiefs, imitating the voices of each of their wives. But when Anticlus would have answered, Ulysses held fast his mouth.129 [20] and when they thought that their foes were asleep, they opened the horse and came forth with their arms. The first, Echion, son of Portheus, was killed by leaping from it; but the rest let themselves down by a rope, and lighted on the walls, and having opened the gates they admitted their comrades who had landed from Tenedos. [21] And marching, arms in hand, into the city, they entered the houses and slew the sleepers. Neoptolemus slew Priam, who had taken refuge at the altar of Zeus of the Courtyard.130 But when Glaucus, son of Antenor, fled to his house, Ulysses and Menelaus recognized and rescued him by their armed intervention.131 Aeneas took up his father Anchises and fled, and the Greeks let him alone on account of his piety.132 [22] But Menelaus slew Deiphobus and led away Helen to the ships133; and Aethra, mother of Theseus, was also led away by Demophon and Acamas, the sons of Theseus; for they say that they afterwards went to Troy.134 And the Locrian Ajax, seeing Cassandra clinging to the wooden image of Athena, violated her; therefore they say that the image looks to heaven.135 [23]

And having slain the Trojans, they set fire to the city and divided the spoil among them. And having sacrificed to all the gods, they threw Astyanax from the battlements136 and slaughtered Polyxena on the grave of Achilles.137 And as special awards Agamemnon got Cassandra, Neoptolemus got Andromache, and Ulysses got Hecuba.138 But some say that Helenus got her, and crossed over with her to the Chersonese139; and that there she turned into a bitch, and he buried her at the place now called the Bitch's Tomb.140 As for Laodice, the fairest of the daughters of Priam, she was swallowed up by a chasm in the earth in the sight of all.141 When they had laid Troy waste and were about to sail away, they were detained by Calchas, who said that Athena was angry with them on account of the impiety of Ajax. And they would have killed Ajax, but he fled to the altar and they let him alone.142 6.

After these things they met in assembly, and Agamemnon and Menelaus quarrelled, Menelaus advising that they should sail away, and Agamemnon insisting that they should stay and sacrifice to Athena. When they put to sea, Diomedes, Nestor, and Menelaus in company, the two former had a prosperous voyage, but Menelaus was overtaken by a storm, and after losing the rest of his vessels, arrived with five ships in Egypt.143 [2]

But Amphilochus, and Calchas, and Leonteus, and Podalirius, and Polypoetes left their ships in Ilium and journeyed by land to Colophon, and there buried Calchas the diviner144; for it was foretold him that he would die if he met with a wiser diviner than himself. [3] Well, they were lodged by the diviner Mopsus, who was a son of Apollo and Manto, and he wrangled with Calchas about the art of divination. A wild fig-tree grew on the spot, and when Calchas asked, “ How many figs does it bear?” Mopsus answered, “ Ten thousand, and a bushel, and one fig over,” and they were found to be so. [4] And when Mopsus asked Calchas concerning a pregnant sow, “ How many pigs has she in her womb, and when will she farrow?” Calchas answered, “ Eight.” But Mopsus smiled and said,“ The divination of Calchas is the reverse of exact; but I, as a son of Apollo and Manto, am extremely rich in the sharp sight which comes of exact divination, and I divine that the number of pigs in the womb is not eight, as Calchas says, but nine, and that they are all male and will be farrowed without fail tomorrow at the sixth hour.” So when these things turned out so, Calchas died of a broken heart and was buried at Notium.145 [5]

After sacrificing, Agamemnon put to sea and touched at Tenedos. But Thetis came and persuaded Neoptolemus to wait two days and to offer sacrifice; and he waited. But the others put to sea and encountered a storm at Tenos; for Athena entreated Zeus to send a tempest against the Greeks; and many ships foundered. [6]

And Athena threw a thunderbolt at the ship of Ajax; and when the ship went to pieces he made his way safe to a rock, and declared that he was saved in spite of the intention of Athena. But Poseidon smote the rock with his trident and split it, and Ajax fell into the sea and perished; and his body, being washed up, was buried by Thetis in Myconos.146 [7]

The others being driven to Euboea by night, Nauplius kindled a beacon on Mount Caphareus; and they, thinking it was some of those who were saved, stood in for the shore, and the vessels were wrecked on the Capherian rocks, and many men perished.147 [8] For Palamedes, the son of Nauplius and Clymene daughter of Catreus, had been stoned to death through the machinations of Ulysses.148 And when Nauplius learned of it,149 he sailed to the Greeks and claimed satisfaction for the death of his son; [9] but when he returned unsuccessful ( for they all favoured King Agamemnon, who had been the accomplice of Ulysses in the murder of Palamedes), he coasted along the Grecian lands and contrived that the wives of the Greeks should play their husbands false, Clytaemnestra with Aegisthus, Aegialia with Cometes, son of Sthenelus, and Meda, wife of Idomeneus, with Leucus. [10] But Leucus killed her, together with her daughter 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, Leucus drove him out.150 [11] These were the earlier contrivances of Nauplius; but afterwards, when he learned that the Greeks were on their way home to their native countries, he kindled the beacon fire on Mount Caphereus, which is now called Xylophagus; and there the Greeks, standing in shore in the belief that it was a harbor, were cast away. [12]

After remaining in Tenedos two days at the advice of Thetis, Neoptolemus set out for the country of the Molossians by land with Helenus, and on the way Phoenix died, and Neoptolemus buried him;151 and having vanquished the Molossians in battle he reigned as king and begat Molossus on Andromache. And [13] Helenus founded a city in Molossia and inhabited it, and Neoptolemus gave him his mother Deidamia to wife.152 And when Peleus was expelled from Phthia by the sons of Acastus153 and died, Neoptolemus succeeded to his father's kingdom. [14] And when Orestes went mad, Neoptolemus carried off his wife Hermione, who had previously been betrothed to him in Troy154; and for that reason he was slain by Orestes at Delphi. But some say that he went to Delphi to demand satisfaction from Apollo for the death of his father, and that he rifled the votive offerings and set fire to the temple, and was on that account slain by Machaereus the Phocian.155 [15]

After their wanderings the Greeks landed and settled in various countries, some in Libya, some in Italy, others in Sicily, and some in the islands near Iberia, others on the banks of the Sangarius river; and some settled also in Cyprus. And of those that were shipwrecked at Caphereus, some drifted one way and some another.156 Guneus went to Libya; Antiphus, son of Thessalus, went to the Pelasgians, and, having taken possession of the country, called it Thessaly. Philoctetes went to the Campanians in Italy; Phidippus with the Coans settled in Andros, Agapenor in Cyprus,157 and others elsewhere. [15a]

“ Apollodorus and the rest158 say as follows. Guneus left his own ships, and having come to the Cinyps river in Libya he dwelt there.159 But Meges and Prothous, with many others, were cast away at Caphereus in Euboea160... and when Prothous was shipwrecked at Caphereus, the Magnesians with him drifted to Crete and settled there.

Tzetzes, Scholia on Lycophron, 902
[15b]

“ After the sack of Ilium,161 Menestheus, Phidippus and Antiphus, and the people of Elephenor, and Philoctetes sailed together as far as Mimas. Then Menestheus went to Melos and reigned as king, because the king there, Polyanax, had died. And Antiphus the son of Thessalus went to the Pelasgians, and having taken possession of the country he called it Thessaly.162 Phidippus with the Coans was driven first to Andros, and then to Cyprus, where he settled. Elephenor died in Troy,163 but his people were cast away in the 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. ...The people of Protesilaus were cast away on Pellene near the plain of Canastrum.164 And Philoctetes was driven to Campania in Italy, and after making war on the Lucanians, he settled in Crimissa, near Croton and Thurium165; and, his wanderings over, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo the Wanderer (Alaios), to whom also he dedicated his bow, as Euphorion says.166

Tzetzes, Scholia on Lycophron, 911
[15c]

“ Navaethus is a river of Italy.167 It was called so, according to Apollodorus and the rest, because after the capture of Ilium the daughters of Laomedon, the sisters of Priam, to wit, Aethylla, Astyoche, and Medesicaste, with the other female captives, finding themselves in that part of Italy, and dreading slavery in Greece, set fire to the vessels; whence the river was called Navaethus and the women were called Nauprestides; and the Greeks who were with the women, having lost the vessels, settled there.168

Tzetzes, Scholia on Lycophron, 921
[16]

Demophon with a few ships put in to the land of the Thracian Bisaltians,169 and there Phyllis, the king's daughter, falling in love with him, was given him in marriage by her father with the kingdom for her dower. But he wished to depart to his own country, and after many entreaties and swearing to return, he did depart. And Phyllis accompanied him as far as what are called the Nine Roads, and she gave him a casket, telling him that it contained a sacrament of Mother Rhea, and that he was not to open it until he should have abandoned all hope of returning to her. [17] And Demophon went to Cyprus and dwelt there. And when the appointed time was past, Phyllis called down curses on Demophon and killed herself; and Demophon opened the casket, and, being struck with fear, he mounted his horse and galloping wildly met his end; for, the horse stumbling, he was thrown and fell on his sword. But his people settled in Cyprus. [18]

Podalirius went to Delphi and inquired of the oracle where he should settle; and on receiving an oracle that he should settle in the city where, if the encompassing heaven were to fall, he would suffer no harm, he settled in that place of the Carian Chersonnese which is encircled by mountains all round the horizon.170 [19]

Amphilochus son of Alcmaeon, who, according to some, arrived later at Troy, was driven in the storm to the home of Mopsus; and, as some say, they fought a single combat for the kingdom, and slew each other.171 [20]

The Locrians regained their own country with difficulty, and three years afterwards, when Locris was visited by a plague, they received an oracle bidding them to propitiate Athena at Ilium and to send two maidens as suppliants for a thousand years. The lot first fell on Periboea and Cleopatra. [21] And when they came to Troy they were chased by the natives and took refuge in the sanctuary. And they did not approach the goddess, but swept and sprinkled the sanctuary; and they did not go out of the temple, and their hair was cropped, and they wore single garments and no shoes. [22] And when the first maidens died, they sent others; and they entered into the city by night, lest, being seen outside the precinct, they should be put to the sword; but afterwards they sent babes with their nurses. And when the thousand years were passed, after the Phocian war they ceased to send suppliants.172 [23]

After Agamemnon had returned to Mycenae with Cassandra, he was murdered by Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra; for she gave him a shirt without sleeves and without a neck, and while he was putting it on he was cut down, and Aegisthus reigned over Mycenae.173 And they killed Cassandra also.174 [24] But Electra, one of Agamemnon's daughters, smuggled away her brother Orestes and gave him to Strophius, the Phocian, to bring up; and he brought him up with Pylades, his own son.175 And when Orestes was grown up, he repaired to Delphi and asked the god whether he should take vengeance on his father's murderers. [25] The god gave him leave, so he departed secretly to Mycenae in company with Pylades, and killed both his mother and Aegisthus.176 And not long afterwards, being afflicted with madness and pursued by the Furies, he repaired to Athens and was tried in the Areopagus. He is variously said to have been brought to trial by the Furies, or by Tyndareus, or by Erigone, daughter of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra; and the votes at his trial being equal he was acquitted.177 [26]

When he inquired how he should be rid of his disorder, the god answered that he would be rid of it if he should fetch the wooden image that was in the land of the Taurians.178 Now the Taurians are a part of the Scythians, who murder strangers179 and throw them into the sacred fire, which was in the precinct, being wafted up from Hades through a certain rock.180 [27] So when Orestes was come with Pylades to the land of the Taurians, he was detected, caught, and carried in bonds before Thoas the king, who sent them both to the priestess. But being recognized by his sister, who acted as priestess among the Taurians, he fled with her, carrying off the wooden image.181 It was conveyed to Athens and is now called the image of Tauropolus.182 But some say that Orestes was driven in a storm to the island of Rhodes, ... and in accordance with an oracle the image was dedicated in a fortification wall.183 [28] and having come to Mycenae, he united his sister Electra in marriage to Pylades,184 and having himself married Hermione, or, according to some, Erigone, he begat Tisamenus,185 and was killed by the bite of a snake at Oresteum in Arcadia.186 [29]

Menelaus, with five ships in all under his command, 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 Egypt, he collected much treasure.187 And according to some, he discovered Helen at the court of Proteus, king of Egypt; for till then Menelaus had only a phantom of her made of clouds.188 And after wandering for eight years he came to port at Mycenae, and there found Orestes, who had avenged his father's murder. And having come to Sparta he regained his own kingdom,189 and being made immortal by Hera he went to the Elysian Fields with Helen.190 7.

Ulysses, as some say, wandered about Libya, or, as some say, about Sicily, or, as others say, about the ocean or about the Tyrrhenian Sea. [2]

And putting to sea from Ilium, he touched at Ismarus, a city of the Cicones, and captured it in war, and pillaged it, sparing Maro alone, who was priest of Apollo.191 And when the Cicones who inhabited the mainland heard of it, they came in arms to withstand him, and having lost six men from each ship he put to sea and fled. [3] And he landed in the country of the Lotus-eaters,192 and sent some to learn who inhabited it, but they tasted of the lotus and remained there; for there grew in the country a sweet fruit called lotus, which caused him who tasted it to forget everything. When Ulysses was informed of this, he restrained the rest of his men, and dragged those who had tasted the lotus by force to the ships. And having sailed to the land of the Cyclopes, he stood in for the shore. [4]

And having left the rest of the ships in the neighboring island, he stood in for the land of the Cyclopes with a single ship, and landed with twelve companions.193 And near the sea was a cave which he entered, taking with him the skin of wine that had been given him by Maro. Now the cave belonged to Polyphemus, who was a son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa, a huge, wild, cannibal man, with one eye on his forehead. [5] And having lit a fire and sacrificed some of the kids, they feasted. But the Cyclops came, and when he had driven in his flocks, he put a huge stone to the door, and perceiving the men he ate some of them. [6] But Ulysses gave him of Maro's wine to drink, and when he had drunk, he asked for another draught, and when he had drunk the second, he inquired his name; and when Ulysses said that he was called Nobody, he threatened to devour Nobody last and the others first, and that was the token of friendship which he promised to give him in return. And being overcome by wine, he fell asleep. [7] But Ulysses found a club lying there, and with the help of four comrades he sharpened it, and, having heated it in the fire, he blinded him. And when Polyphemus cried to the Cyclopes round about for help, they came and asked who was hurting him, and when he said, “ Nobody,” they thought he meant that he was being hurt by nobody, and so they retired. [8] And when the flocks sought their usual pasture, he opened the cave, and standing at the doorway spread out his hands and felt the sheep. But Ulysses tied three rams together, ... and himself getting under the bigger, and hiding under its belly, he passed out with the sheep. And having released his comrades from the sheep, he drove the animals to the ships, and sailing away shouted to the Cyclops that he was Ulysses and that he had escaped out of his hands. [9] Now the Cyclops had been forewarned by a soothsayer that he should be blinded by Ulysses; and when he learned the name, he tore away rocks and hurled them into the sea, and hardly did the ship evade the rocks. From that time Poseidon was wroth with Ulysses. [10]

Having put to sea with all his ships, he came to the island of Aeolia, of which the king was Aeolus.194 He was appointed by Zeus keeper of the winds, both to calm them and to send them forth. Having entertained Ulysses, he gave him an oxhide bag in which he had bound fast the winds, after showing what winds to use on the voyage and binding fast the bag in the vessel. And by using suitable winds Ulysses had a prosperous voyage; and when he was near Ithaca and already saw the smoke rising from the town,195 he fell asleep. [11] But his comrades, thinking he carried gold in the bag, loosed it and let the winds go free, and being swept away by the blasts they were driven back again. And having come to Aeolus, Ulysses begged that he might be granted a fair wind; but Aeolus drove him from the island, saying that he could not save him when the gods opposed. [12]

So sailing on he came to the land of the Laestrygones,196 and ... his own ship he moored last. Now the Laestrygones were cannibals, and their king was Antiphates. Wishing, therefore, to learn about the inhabitants, Ulysses sent some men to inquire. But the king's daughter met them and led them to her father. [13] And he snatched up one of them and devoured him; but the rest fled, and he pursued them, shouting and calling together the rest of the Laestrygones. They came to the sea, and by throwing stones they broke the vessels and ate the men. Ulysses cut the cable of his ship and put to sea; but the rest of the ships perished with their crews. [14]

With one ship he put in to the Aeaean isle. It was inhabited by Circe, a daughter of the Sun and of Perse, and a sister of Aeetes; skilled in all enchantments was she.197 Having divided his comrades, Ulysses himself abode by the ship, in accordance with the lot, but Eurylochus with two and twenty comrades repaired to Circe. [15] At her call they all entered except Eurylochus; and to each she gave a tankard she had filled with cheese and honey and barley meal and wine, and mixed with an enchantment. And when they had drunk, she touched them with a wand and changed their shapes, and some she made wolves, and some swine, and some asses, and some lions.198 [16] But Eurylochus saw these things and reported them to Ulysses. And Ulysses went to Circe with moly,199 which he had received from Hermes, and throwing the moly among her enchantments, he drank and alone was not enchanted. Then drawing his sword, he would have killed her, but she appeased his wrath and restored his comrades. And when he had taken an oath of her that he should suffer no harm, Ulysses shared her bed, and a son, Telegonus, was born to him.200 [17] Having tarried a year there, he sailed the ocean, and offered sacrifices to the souls,201 and by Circe's advice consulted the soothsayer Tiresias,202 and beheld the souls both of heroes and of heroines. He also looked on his mother Anticlia203 and Elpenor, who had died of a fall in the house of Circe.204 [18]

And having come to Circe he was sent on his way by her, and put to sea, and sailed past the isle of the Sirens.205 Now the Sirens were Pisinoe, Aglaope, and Thelxiepia, daughters of Achelous and Melpomene, one of the Muses. One of them played the lyre, another sang, and another played the flute, and by these means they were fain to persuade passing mariners to linger; [19] and from the thighs they had the forms of birds.206 Sailing by them, Ulysses wished to hear their song, so by Circe's advice he stopped the ears of his comrades with wax, and ordered that he should himself be bound to the mast. And being persuaded by the Sirens to linger, he begged to be released, but they bound him the more, and so he sailed past. Now it was predicted of the Sirens that they should themselves die when a ship should pass them; so die they did.207 [20]

And after that he came to two ways. On the one side were the Wandering Rocks,208 and on the other side two huge cliffs, and in one of them was Scylla,209 a daughter of Crataeis and Trienus or Phorcus,210 with the face and breast of a woman, but from the flanks she had six heads and twelve feet of dogs. [21] And in the other cliff was Charybdis, who thrice a day drew up the water and spouted it again. By the advice of Circe he shunned the passage by the Wandering Rocks, and in sailing past the cliff of Scylla he stood fully armed on the poop. But Scylla appeared, snatched six of his comrades, and gobbled them up. [22] And thence he came to Thrinacia, an island of the Sun, where kine were grazing, and being windbound, he tarried there.211 But when his comrades slaughtered some of the kine and banqueted on them, for lack of food, the Sun reported it to Zeus, and when Ulysses put out to sea, Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt.212 [23] And when the ship broke up, Ulysses clung to the mast and drifted to Charybdis. And when Charybdis sucked down the mast, he clutched an overhanging wild fig-tree and waited, and when he saw the mast shot up again, he cast himself on it, and was carried across to the island of Ogygia.213 [24]

There Calypso, daughter of Atlas, received him, and bedding with him bore a son Latinus. He stayed with her five years, and then made a raft and sailed away.214 But on the high sea the raft was broken in pieces by the wrath of Poseidon, and Ulysses was washed up naked on the shore of the Phaeacians.215 [25] Now Nausicaa, the daughter of king Alcinous, was washing the clothes, and when Ulysses implored her protection, she brought him to Alcinous, who entertained him, and after bestowing gifts on him sent him away with a convoy to his native land.216 But Poseidon was wroth with the Phaeacians, and he turned the ship to stone and enveloped the city with a mountain.217 [26]

And on arriving in his native land Ulysses found his substance wasted; for, believing that he was dead, suitors were wooing Penelope.218 From Dulichium came fifty-seven: [27] Amphinomus, Thoas, Demoptolemus, Amphimachus, Euryalus, Paralus, Evenorides, Clytius, Agenor, Eurypylus, Pylaemenes, Acamas, Thersilochus, Hagius, Clymenus, Philodemus, Meneptolemus, Damastor, Bias, Telmius, Polyidus, Astylochus, Schedius, Antigonus, Marpsius, Iphidamas, Argius, Glaucus, Calydoneus, Echion, Lamas, Andraemon, Agerochus, Medon, Agrius, Promus, Ctesius, Acarnan, Cycnus, Pseras, Hellanicus, Periphron, Megasthenes, Thrasymedes, Ormenius, Diopithes, Mecisteus, Antimachus, Ptolemaeus, Lestorides, Nicomachus, Polypoetes, and Ceraus. [28] And from Samethere came twenty—three:— Agelaus, Pisander, Elatus, Ctesippus, Hippodochus, Eurystratus, Archemolus, Ithacus, Pisenor, Hyperenor, Pheroetes, Antisthenes, Cerberus, Perimedes, Cynnus, Thriasus, Eteoneus, Clytius, Prothous, Lycaethus, Eumelus, Itanus, Lyammus. [29] And from Zacynthos came forty—four: Eurylochus, Laomedes, Molebus, Phrenius, Indius, Minis, Liocritus, Pronomus, Nisas, Daemon, Archestratus, Hippomachus, Euryalus, Periallus, Evenorides, Clytius, Agenor, Polybus, Polydorus, Thadytius, Stratius, Phrenius, Indius, Daesenor, Laomedon, Laodicus, Halius, Magnes, Oloetrochus, Barthas, Theophron, Nissaeus, Alcarops, Periclymenus, Antenor, Pellas, Celtus, Periphus, Ormenus, Polybus and Andromedes. [30] And from Ithaca itself the suitors were twelve, to wit:— Antinous, Pronous, Liodes, Eurynomus, Amphimachus, Amphialus, Promachus, Amphimedon, Aristratus, Helenus, Dulicheus, and Ctesippus. [31]

These, journeying to the palace, consumed the herds of Ulysses at their feasts.219 And Penelope was compelled to promise that she would wed when the shroud of Laertes was finished, and she wove it for three years, weaving it by day and undoing it by night. In this way the suitors were deceived by Penelope, till she was detected.220 [32] And Ulysses, being apprized of the state of things at home, came to his servant Eumaeus in the guise of a beggar,221 and made himself known to Telemachus,222 and arrived in the city. And Melanthius, the goatherd, a servant man, met them, and scorned them.223 On coming to the palace Ulysses begged food of the suitors,224 and finding a beggar called Irus he wrestled with him.225 But he revealed himself to Eumaeus and Philoetius, and along with them and Telemachus he laid a plot for the suitors.226 [33] Now Penelope delivered to the suitors the bow of Ulysses, which he had once received from Iphitus; and she said that she would marry him who bent the bow.227 When none of them could bend it, Ulysses took it and shot down the suitors, with the help of Eumaeus, Philoetius, and Telemachus.228 He killed also Melanthius, and the handmaids that bedded with the suitors,229 and he made himself known to his wife and his father.230 [34]

And after sacrificing to Hades, and Persephone, and Tiresias, he journeyed on foot through Epirus, and came to the Thesprotians, and having offered sacrifice according to the directions of the soothsayer Tiresias, he propitiated Poseidon.231 But Callidice, who was then queen of the Thesprotians, urged him to stay and offered him the kingdom; [35] and she had by him a son Polypoetes. And having married Callidice, he reigned over the Thesprotians, and defeated in battle the neighboring peoples who attacked him. But when Callidice died he handed over the kingdom to his son and repaired to Ithaca, and there he found Poliporthes, whom Penelope had borne to him.232 [36] When Telegonus learned from Circe that he was a son of Ulysses, he sailed in search of him. And having come to the island of Ithaca, he drove away some of the cattle, and when Ulysses defended them, Telegonus wounded him with the spear he had in his hands, which was barbed with the spine of a sting-ray, and Ulysses died of the wound.233 [37] But when Telegonus recognized him, he bitterly lamented, and conveyed the corpse and Penelope to Circe, and there he married Penelope. And Circe sent them both away to the Islands of the Blest. [38]

But some say that Penelope was seduced by Antinous and sent away by Ulysses to her father Icarius, and that when she came to Mantinea in Arcadia she bore Pan to Hermes.234 [39] However others say that she met her end at the hands of Ulysses himself on account of Amphinomus,235 for they allege that she was seduced by him. [40] And there are some who say that Ulysses, being accused by the kinsfolk of the slain, submitted the case to the judgment of Neoptolemus, king of the islands off Epirus; that Neoptolemus, thinking to get possession of Cephallenia if once Ulysses were put out of the way, condemned him to exile;236 and that Ulysses went to Aetolia, to Thoas, son of Andraemon, married the daughter of Thoas, and leaving a son Leontophonus, whom he had by her,237 died in old age.


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 MegaraPausanias, 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” (ἔκλυτος ἐγένετο) is peculiar. If the text is sound (see Critical Note), the words must be equivalent to ἐξελύθη, “was relaxed, unstrung, or unnerved.” Compare Aristot. Prob. 862b 2ff., κατεψυγμένου παντὸς τοῦ σώματος καὶ ἐκλελυμένου πρὸς τοὺς πόνους. Aristotle also uses the adjective ἔκλυτος 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,ἕως ἂν ἐκλύσωσιναὐτούς, “until they relax or weaken them” (Aristot. Hist. anim. 9.610a 27). Isocrates speaks of a mob ὄχλοςπρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἐκλελυμένοςIsoc. 4.150). The verb ἐκλύειν 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 MegaraPaus. 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. Λίσποι; 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 ElisPliny, 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 PisaOlympia) 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 ἐξερυπάρου τὸ εἴδωλον διὰ πυρός we should perhaps read ἐξεπύρου τὸ εἴδωλον διὰ πυρός, “he burned the body to ashes with fire,” εἴδωλον 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. Ἀπία. The term Pelasgiotis seems not to occur elsewhere as a name for Peloponnese. However, Euripides uses Pelasgia apparently as equivalent to ArgolisEur. 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. 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 OlympiaPaus. 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 ἀπαγαγεῖν, a rare use of ἀπάγειν, which, however, occurs in the common phrase, ἄπαγε,“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 and 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 ἐλαία, “an olive,” could produce olive oil; Spermo, who took her name from σπέρμα, “seed,” could produce corn; and Oeno, who took her name from οἶνος, “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, οὐδὲ Ἄρτεμις οὕτως ἂν ἐτόξευσε, “Not even Artemis could have shot like that.” The elliptical phrase is wrongly interpreted by the Sabbaitic scribe. See the Critical Note.

71 This account of the attempted sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis and the substitution of a doe agrees with the narrative of the same events in the epic Cypria as summarized by Proclus (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19). It is also in harmony with the tragedy of Euripides on the same subject. See Eur. IA 87ff.; Eur. IA 358ff.; Eur. IA 1541ff. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 183; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 1.108; Hyginus, Fab. 98; Ov. Met. 12.24-38; Dictys Cretensis i.19-22; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 6ff., 141 (First Vatican Mythographer 20; Second Vatican Mythographer 202). Some said that Iphigenia was turned by the goddess into a bear or a bull (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 183). Dictys Cretensis dispenses with the intervention of Artemis to save Iphigenia; according to him it was Achilles who rescued the maiden from the altar and conveyed her away to the Scythian king.

72 The following story of Tenes, his stepmother's calumny, his banishment, and his elevation to the throne of Tenedos, is similarly told by Paus. 10.14.2-4; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 232; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 1.38; Eustathius on Hom. Il. i.38, p. 33. Eustathius and the Scholiast on Homer call Tenes's sister Leucothea, and give Polyboea as an alternative name of their stepmother. According to Pausanias, the first wife of Cycnus was a daughter of Clytius, not of Laomedon. As to the names, Tzetzes agrees with Apollodorus, whom he probably copied. A rationalized version of the story is told by Diod. 5.83. According to him, Tenes was worshipped after his death as a god by the people of Tenedos, who made a precinct for him and offered sacrifices to him down to late times. No flute-player was allowed to enter the precinct, because a flute-player had borne false witness against Tenes; and the name of Achilles might not be mentioned within it, because Achilles had killed Tenes. Compare Plut. Quaest. Graec. 28.

73 Compare Plut. Quaest. Graec. 28. Plutarch mentions the warning given by Thetis to Achilles not to kill Tenes, and says that the goddess specially charged one of Achilles's servants to remind her son of the warning. But in scouring the island Achilles fell in with the beautiful sister of Tenes and made love to her; Tenes defended his sister against her seducer, and in the brawl was slain by Achilles. When the slayer discovered whom he had slain, he killed the servant who ought to have warned him in time, and he buried Tenes on the spot where the sanctuary was afterwards dedicated to his worship. This version of the story clearly differs from the one followed by Apollodorus.

74 This story of the exposure and desertion of Philoctetes in Lemnos appears to have been told in the epic Cypria, as we may judge by the brief summary of Proclus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19. According to Proclus, the Greeks were feasting in Tenedos when Philoctetes was bitten by a water-snake. This is not necessarily inconsistent with the statement of Apollodorus that the accident happened while the Greeks were sacrificing to Apollo, for the feast mentioned by Proclus may have been sacrificial. According to another version of the story, which Sophocles followed in his Philoctetes, the accident to Philoctetes happened, not in Tenedos, but in the small island of Chryse, where a goddess of that name was worshipped, and the serpent which bit Philoctetes was the guardian of her shrine. See Soph. Phil. 263-270; Soph. Phil. 1326-1328. Later writers identified Chryse with Athena, and said that Philoctetes was stung while he was cleansing her altar or clearing it of the soil under which it was buried, as Tzetzes has it. See Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.722; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 911; Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.724, p. 330. But this identification is not supported by Sophocles nor by the evidence of a vase painting, which represents the shrine of Chryse with her name attached to her image. See Jebb's Soph. Ph., p. xxxviii, section 21.; Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, iii.1326, fig. 1325. The island of Chryse is no doubt the “desert island near Lemnos” in which down to the first century B.C. were to be seen “an altar of Philoctetes, a bronze serpent, a bow, and a breastplate bound with fillets, the memorial of his sufferings” (Appian, Mithridat. 77). The island had sunk in the sea before the time of Pausanias in the second century of our era (Paus. 8.33.4). According to a different account, the unfortunate encounter of Philoctetes with the snake took place in Lemnos itself, the island where he was abandoned by his comrades. See Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.724, p. 330 and Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.724, p. 330; Scholiast on Soph. Ph. 270; Hyginus, Fab. 102. Philoctetes was commonly supposed to have received the bow and arrows of Hercules from that hero as a reward for his service in kindling the pyre on Mount Oeta. See Soph. Phil. 801-803; Diod. 4.38.4; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.724; Hyginus, Fab. 102; Ov. Met. 9.229-234. According to one account, which Servius has preserved, it was from these arrows, envenomed with the poison of the hydra, and not from a serpent, that Philoctetes received his grievous hurt. It is said that Hercules on the pyre solemnly charged his friend never to reveal the spot where his ashes should repose. Philoctetes promised with an oath to observe the wish of his dying friend, but afterwards he betrayed the secret by stamping with his foot on the grave. Hence on his way to the war one of the poisoned arrows fell upon and wounded the traitor foot. See Serv. Verg. A. 3.402; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 21, 132 (First Vatican Mythographer 59; Second Vatican Mythographer 165). Homer speaks of Philoctetes marooned by the Greeks in Lemnos and suffering agonies from the bite of the deadly water-snake (Hom. Il. 2.721-725), but he does not say how or where the sufferer was bitten. Sophocles represents Lemnos as a desert island (Soph. Phil. 1ff.). The fate of the forlorn hero, the ancient Robinson Crusoe, dwelling for ten years in utter solitude on his lonely isle, was a favourite theme of tragedy. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides all composed plays on the subject under the title of Philoctetes. See Dio Chrysostom lii; Jebb's Introduction to Soph. Ph., pp. xiiiff.; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 79ff., 613ff.

75 As to the embassy of Ulysses and Menelaus to Troy to demand the surrender of Helen, see Hom. Il. 3.205ff.; Hom. Il. 11.138ff.; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19; Bacch. 14(15), ed. Jebb; Hdt. 2.118; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 154ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.206. According to the author of the epic Cypria, as reported by Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19, the embassy was sent before the first battle, in which Protesilaus fell (see below); according to Tzetzes, it was sent before the Greek army assembled at Aulis; according to the Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.206, it was despatched from Tenedos. Herodotus says that the envoys were sent after the landing of the army in the Troad. Sophocles wrote a play on the subject of the embassy, called The Demand for the Surrender of Helen. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 171ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 121ff. Libanius has bequeathed to us two imaginary speeches, which are supposed to have been delivered by the Greek ambassadors, Menelaus and Ulysses, to the Trojan assembly before the opening of hostilities, while the Greek army was encamped within sight of the walls of Troy. See Libanius, Declam. iii. and iv. (vol. v. pp. 199ff., ed. R. Foerster).

76 Compare Hom. Il. 2.698-702; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 245; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.759ff.; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 221ff.; Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.701, p. 325, and on Od. xi.521, p. 1697; Paus. 4.2.5; Hyginus, Fab. 103; Dictys Cretensis ii.11. The common tradition, followed by Apollodorus, was that Protesilaus fell by the hand of Hector; but according to others, his slayer was Aeneas, or Achates, or Euphorbus. See Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.701, p. 325, and on Od. xi.521, p. 1697; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 230ff. The Greeks had received an oracle that the first of their number to leap from the ships would be the first to perish. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 245; Hyginus, Fab. 113; Ovid, Her. xiii.93ff. Protesilaus was reckoned by Paus. 1.34.2 among the men who after death received divine honours from the Greeks. He was buried in the Thracian Chersonese, opposite the Troad, and was there worshipped as a god (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 532). His grave at Elaeus, or Eleus, in the peninsula was enclosed in a sacred precinct, and his worshippers testified their devotion by dedicating to him many vessels of gold and silver and bronze, together with raiment and other offerings; but when Xerxes invaded Greece, these treasures were carried off by the Persians, who desecrated the holy ground by sowing it with corn and turning cattle loose on it to graze (Hdt. 9.116). Tall elms grew within the sacred precinct and overshadowed the grave; and it is said that the leaves of the trees that looked across the narrow sea to Troy, where Protesilaus perished, burgeoned early but soon faded and fell, like the hero himself, while the trees that looked away from Troy still kept their foliage fresh and fair. See Philostratus, Her. iii.1. Others said that when the elms had shot up so high that Troy could be seen from them away across the water, the topmost boughs immediately withered. See Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vii.408ff.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi.238.

77 According to the author of the epic Cypria the name of Protesilaus's wife was Polydora, daughter of Meleager (Paus. 4.2.7). Later writers, like Apollodorus, called her Laodamia. As to her tragic tale, see Lucian, Dial. Mort. xxiii. (who does not name her); Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.701, p. 325; Scholiast on Aristides, vol. iii. pp. 671ff., ed. Dindorf; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.763ff.; Prop. i.19.7-10; Hyginus, Fab. 103, 104; Ovid, Her. xiii; Serv. Verg. A. 6.447; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 51, 147 (First Vatican Mythographer 158; Second Vatican Mythographer 215). According to Hyginus, Fab. 103, Laodamia had prayed that Protesilaus might be restored to her for only three hours; her prayer was granted, but she could not bear the grief of parting with him, and died in his arms (Servius, l.c.). A rationalistic version of the story ran that Laodamia had made a waxen image of her dead husband and secretly embraced it, till her father ordered it to be burned, when she threw herself into the fire and perished with the image (Hyginus, Fab. 104). According to Ovid, Laodamia made the waxen image of her absent lord and fondled it even in his lifetime. Her sad story was the theme of a tragedy of Euripides (TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 563ff.), as it is of a well-known poem of Wordsworth (Laodameia).

78 Compare Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19; Pind. O. 2.82(147); Aristot. Rh. 2.1396b 16-18; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iv.468ff.; Tzetzes, Antehomerica 257ff.; Scholiast on Theocritus xvi.49; Ov. Met. 12.70-140; Dictys Cretensis ii.12. Cycnus was said to be invulnerable (Aristot. Rh. 2.1396b 16-18): hence neither the spear nor the sword of Achilles could make any impression on his body, and the hero was reduced to the necessity of throttling him with the thongs of his own helmet. So Ovid tells the tale, adding that the seagod, his father Poseidon, changed the dead Cycnus into a swan, whose name (Cygnus, κύκνος) he had borne in life.

79 Compare Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xxiv.257 (where for ὀχευθῆναι it has been proposed to read λοχηθῆναι or λογχευθῆναι); Eustathius on Hom. Il. xxiv.251,p. 1348; Dio Chrysostom xi. vol. i. p. 189, ed. L. Dindorf; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 307-313; Verg. A. 1.474ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 1.474; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 66 (First Vatican Mythographer 210). Troilus is represented as a youth, but the stories concerning his death are various. According to Eustathius, the lad was exercising his horses in the Thymbraeum or sanctuary of the Thymbraean Apollo, when Achilles killed him with his spear. Tzetzes says that he was a son of Hecuba by Apollo, though nominally by Priam, that he fled from his assailant to the temple of Apollo, and was cut down by Achilles at the altar. There was a prophecy that Troy could not be taken if Troilus should live to the age of twenty (so the First Vatican Mythographer). This may have been the motive of Achilles for slaying the lad. According to Dictys Cretensis iv.9, Troilus was taken prisoner and publicly slaughtered in cold blood by order of Achilles. The indefatigable Sophocles, as usual, wrote a tragedy on the subject. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 253ff.

80 Compare Hom. Il. 11.34ff.; Hom. Il. 13.746ff. Lycaon was captured by Achilles when he was cutting sticks in the orchard of his father Priam. After being sold by his captor into slavery in Lemnos he was ransomed and returned to Troy, but meeting Achilles in battle a few days later, he was ruthlessly slain by him. The story seems to have been told also in the epic Cypria. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20.

81 Compare Hom. Il. 20.90ff.; Hom. Il. 20.188ff.; Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 20.

82 Compare Hom. Il. 9.129; Dictys Cretensis ii.16.

83 Compare Hom. Il. 2.691; Hom. Il. 6.397.

84 It was at the sack of Lyrnessus that Achilles captured his concubine Briseis after slaying her husband. See Hom. Il. 2.688ff., Hom. Il. 19.60; Hom. Il. 19. 291ff.; Hom. Il. 20.92; Hom. Il. 20.191ff. Compare Dictys Cretensis ii.17.

85 With the following list of the Trojans and their allies, compare Hom. Il. 2.816-877.

86 Compare Hom. Il. 2.842ff., where the poet describes Hippothous as the son of the Pelasgian Lethus. Apollodorus, misunderstanding the passage, has converted the adjective Pelasgian into a noun Pelasgus.

87 Homer calls him Chromis (Hom. Il. 2.858).

88 Compare Hom. Il. 1.1ff. From this point Apollodorus follows the incidents of the Trojan war as related by Homer.

89 Compare Hom. Il. 3.15-382.

90 Compare Hom. Il. 4.85ff.

91 Compare Hom. Il. 5.1-417.

92 Compare Hom. Il. 6.119-236.

93 Compare Hom. Il. 7.66-312.

94 Compare Hom. Il. 7.436-441.

95 Compare Hom. Il. 8.53-565.

96 The embassy of Ulysses, Phoenix, and Ajax to Achilles is the subject of the ninth book of the Iliad. Hom. Il. 9. Libanius composed an imaginary reply to the speech of Ulysses (Libanius, Declam. v., vol. v. pp. 303-360, ed. R. Foerster).

97 These events are narrated in the tenth book of the Iliad . Hom. Il. 10. They form the subject of Euripides's tragedy Rhesus, the only extant Greek drama of which the plot is derived from the action of the Iliad .

98 These events are told in the eleventh book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 11).

99 Compare Hom. Il. 12.436ff.

100 Compare Hom. Il. 15.716ff.

101 These events are narrated in the sixteenth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 16).

102 These events are the subject of the seventeenth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 17).

103 These events are narrated in the eighteenth (Hom. Il. 18) and nineteenth (Hom. Il. 19) books of the Iliad .

104 These events are related in the twentieth (Hom. Il. 20) and twenty-first (Hom. Il. 21) books of the Iliad . As to the slaying of Asteropaeus by Achilles, see Hom. Il. 21.139-204. As to the combat of Achilles with the river Scamander, and the drying up of the streams of the river by the fire-god Hephaestus, see Hom. Il. 21.211-382. The whole passage affords a striking example of the way in which the Greeks conceived rivers as personal beings, endowed with human shape, human voice, and human passions. Incidentally (Hom. Il. 21.130-132) we hear of sacrifices of bulls and horses to a river, the horses being thrown alive into the stream.

105 The combat of Achilles with Hector, and the death of Hector, form the subject of the twenty-second book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 22).

106 The burial of Patroclus and the funeral games celebrated in his honour, are described in the twenty-third book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 23).

107 These events are narrated in the twenty-fourth book of the Iliad , (Hom. Il. 24).

108 These events were narrated in the Aethiopis of Arctinus, as we learn from the summary of that poem drawn up by Proclus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 33. Compare Diod. 2.46.5; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica i.18ff., 227ff., 538ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 6ff., 100ff., 136ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 999; Dictys Cretensis iv.2ff. Quintus Smyrnaeus explains more fully than Apollodorus the reason why Penthesilia came to TroyPosthomerica i.18ff.). Aiming at a deer in the chase, she had accidentally killed her sister Hippolyte with her spear, and, haunted by the Furies of the slain woman, she came to Troy to be purified from her guilt. The same story is told more briefly by Diodorus Siculus. According to Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 999, Thersites excited the wrath of Achilles, not only by his foul accusations, but by gouging out the eyes of the beautiful Amazon. In the Aethiopis it was related how, after killing the base churl, Achilles sailed to Lesbos and was there purified from the guilt of murder by Ulysses, but not until he had offered sacrifice to Apollo, Artemis, and Latona. See Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 33. The mother of Penthesilia is named Otrere (Otrera) by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 997 and Hyginus, Fab. 112, in agreement with Apollodorus. Machaon is usually said to have been killed by Eurypylus, and not, as Apollodorus says, by Penthesilia. See Paus. 3.26.9; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vi.390ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 520ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 113. From Paus. 3.26.9 we learn that Eurypylus, not Penthesilia, was represented as the slayer in the Little Iliad of Lesches.

109 See above, Apollod. E.1.17. The two passages are practically duplicates of each other. The former occurs in the Sabbaitic, the latter in the Vatican Epitome of Apollodorus. The author of the one compendium preferred to relate the incident in the history of Theseus, the other in the history of Troy.

110 These events were narrated in the Aethiopis of Arctinus, as we learn from the summary of Proclus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 33. Compare Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica ii.100ff., 235ff., 452ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 234ff.; Dictys Cretensis iv.6. The fight between Memnon and Achilles was represented on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae, and on the chest of Cypselus at OlympiaPaus. 3.18.12; Paus. 5.19.1). It was also the subject of a group of statuary, which was set up beside the Hippodamium at OlympiaPaus. 5.22.2). Some fragments of the pedestal which supported the group have been discovered: one of them bears the name MEMNON inscribed in archaic letters. See Die Inschriften von Olympia 662; and Frazer, commentary on Pausanias, vol. iii. pp. 629ff. Aeschylus wrote a tragedy on the subject called Psychostasia, in which he described Zeus weighing the souls of the rival heroes in scales. See Plut. De audiendis poetis 2; Scholiast on Hom. Il. viii.70; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 88ff. A play of Sophocles, called The Ethiopians, probably dealt with the same theme. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 22ff. The slaying of Antilochus by Memnon is mentioned by Hom. Od. 4.187ff.

111 The death of Achilles was similarly related in the Aethiopis of Arctinus. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 33ff. Compare Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.26-387; Hyginus, Fab. 107. All these writers agree with Apollodorus in saying that the fatal wound was inflicted on the heel of Achilles. The story ran that at his birth his mother Thetis made Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the water of Styx; but his heel, by which she held him, was not wetted by the water and so remained vulnerable. See Serv. Verg. A. 6.57; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.134; Lactantius Placidus, Narrat. Fabul. xii.6; Fulgentius, Mytholog. iii.7. Tradition varied as to the agent of Achilles's death. Some writers, like Arctinus and Apollodorus, say that the hero was killed by Apollo and Paris jointly. Thus in Hom. Il. 22.359ff.) the dying Hector prophesies that Achilles will be slain by Paris and Apollo at the Scaean gate; and the same prophecy is put by Homer more darkly into the mouth of the talking horse Xanthus, who, like Balaam's ass, warns his master of the danger that besets his path (Hom. Il. 19.404ff.). According to Virgil and Ovid, it was the hand of Paris that discharged the fatal arrow, but the hand of Apollo that directed it to the mark. See Verg. A. 6.56-58; Ov. Met. 12.597-609. According to Hyginus, it was Apollo in the guise of Paris who transfixed the mortal heel of Achilles with an arrow (Hyginus, Fab. 107). But in one passage (Hom. Il. 21.277ff.) homer speaks of the death of Achilles as wrought by the shafts of Apollo alone; and this version was followed by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.60ff. and apparently by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Horace. See Plat. Rep. 2.383a-b; Soph. Phil. 334ff.; Hor. Carm. 4.6.1ff. Other writers, on the contrary, speak of Paris alone as the slayer of Achilles. See Eur. And. 655; Eur. Hec. 387ff.; Plut. Quaest. Conviv. ix.13.2; Plut. Lys. 4. A very different version of the story connected the death of Achilles with a romantic passion he had conceived for Polyxena, daughter of Priam. It is said that Priam offered her hand in marriage to Achilles on condition that the siege of Troy was raised. In the negotiations which were carried on for this purpose Achilles went alone and unarmed to the temple of Thymbraean Apollo and was there treacherously assassinated, Deiphobus clasping him to his breast in a pretended embrace of friendship while Paris stabbed him with a sword. See Tzetzes, Posthomerica 385-423; Philostratus, Her. xx.16ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 110; Dictys Cretensis iv.10ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 6.57; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.134; Dares Phrygius, De excidio Trojae 34; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 13, 143 (First Vatican Mythographer 36; Second Vatican Mythographer 205). Of these writers, the Second Vatican Mythographer tells us that Achilles first saw Polyxena, Hector's sister, when she stood on a tower in the act of throwing down bracelets and earrings with which to ransom Hector's body, and that when Achilles came to the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo to ratify the treaty of marriage and peace, Paris lurked behind the image of the god and shot the confiding hero with an arrow. This seems to be the account of the death which Serv. Verg. A. 6.57 and Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.134 followed in their briefer narrative. Compare Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 62, p. 382.

112 According to Arctinus in the Aethiopis, when the body of Achilles was lying in state, his mother Thetis came with the Muses and her sisters and mourned over her dead son; then she snatched it away from the pyre and conveyed it to the White Isle; but the Greeks raised a sepulchral mound and held games in honour of the departed hero. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 34. Compare Hom. Od. 24.43-92; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iii.525-787 (the laying-out of the body, the lamentation of Thetis, the Nereids, and the Muses, and the burning of the corpse); Tzetzes, Posthomerica 431-467; Dictys Cretensis iv.13, 15. Homer tells how the bones of Achilles, after his body had been burnt on the pyre, were laid with the bones of his friend Patroclus in a golden urn, made by Hephaestus, which Thetis had received from Dionysus. The urn was buried at the headland of Sigeum, according to Tzetzes and Dictys Cretensis. In Quintus Smyrnaeus, iii.766-780 we read how Poseidon comforted Thetis by assuring her that Achilles, her sorrow, was not dead, for he himself would bestow on the departed hero an island in the Euxine Sea where he should be a god for evermore, worshipped with sacrifices by the neighbouring tribes. The promised land was the White Isle mentioned by Apollodorus. It is described as a wooded island off the mouth of the Danube. In it there was a temple of Achilles with an image of him; and there the hero was said to dwell immortal with Helen for his wife and his friends Patroclus and Antilochus for his companions. There he chanted the verses of Homer, and mariners who sailed near the island could hear the song wafted clearly across the water; while such as put in to the shore or anchored off the coast, heard the trampling of horses, the shouts of warriors, and the clash of arms. See Paus. 3.19.11-13; Philostratus, Her. xx.32-40. As the mortal remains of Achilles were buried in the Troad, and only his immortal spirit was said to dwell in the White Isle, the statement of Apollodorus that the Greeks interred him in the White Isle must be regarded as erroneous, whether the error is due to Apollodorus himself, or, as is more probable, either to his abbreviator or to a copyist. Perhaps in the original form of his work Apollodorus followed Arctinus in describing how Thetis snatched the body of Achilles from the pyre and transported it to the White Isle.

113 Compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.810ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 174. According to the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.815, the first to affirm that Achilles married Medea in the Elysian Fields was the poet Ibycus, and the tale was afterwards repeated by Simonides. The story is unknown to Homer, who describes the shade of Achilles repining at his lot and striding alone in the Asphodel Meadow (Hom. Od. 11.471-540).

114 The funeral games in honour of Achilles are described at full length, in the orthodox manner, by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iv.88-595. He agrees with Apollodorus in representing Teucer and Ajax as victorious in the contests of archery and quoit-throwing respectively (Posthomerica iv.405ff., 436ff.); and he seems to have described Eumelus as the winner of the chariot-race (Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica iv.500ff.), but the conclusion of the race is lost through a gap in the text.

115 These events were narrated in the Little Iliad of Lesches. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 36; compare Aristot. Poet. 1459b 4ff.. The contest between Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achilles was also related in the Aethiopis of Arctinus. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 34. It was known to Hom. Od. 11.542ff., who tells us that the Trojans and Pallas Athena acted as judges and awarded the arms to Ulysses. A Scholiast on Hom. Od. 11.547 informs us that Agamemnon, unwilling to undertake the invidious duty of deciding between the two competitors, referred the dispute to the decision of the Trojan prisoners, inquiring of them which of the two heroes had done most harm to the Trojans. The prisoners decided that Ulysses was the man, and the arms were therefore awarded to him. According to another account, which was adopted by the author of the Little Iliad, the Greeks on the advice of Nestor sent spies to the walls of Troy to overhear the Trojans discussing the respective merits of the two champions. They heard two girls debating the question, and thinking that she who gave the preference to Ulysses reasoned the better, they decided accordingly. See Scholiast on Aristoph. Kn. 1056. According to Pind. N. 8.26(45)ff., it was the Greeks who by secret votes decided in favour of Ulysses. The subject was treated by Aeschylus in a lost play called The Decision of the Arms. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 57ff. The madness and suicide of Ajax, consequent on his disappointment at not being awarded the arms, are the theme of Sophocles's extant tragedy Ajax. As to the contest for the arms, see further Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica v.121ff.; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 481ff.; Zenobius, Cent. i.43; Hyginus, Fab. 107; Ov. Met. 12.620-628, xiii.1-398. Quintus Smyrnaeus and Tzetzes agree in representing the Trojan captives as the judges in the dispute, while Ovid speaks of the Greek chiefs sitting in judgment and deciding in favour of Ulysses. According to Zenobius, Cent. i.43, Ajax in his frenzy scourged two rams, believing that he was scourging Agamemnon and Menelaus. This account is based on the description of the frenzy of Ajax in Soph. Aj. 97-110, Soph. Aj. 237-244).

116 Similarly the author of the Little Iliad said that the body of Ajax was not burned, but placed in a coffin “on account of the wrath of the king.” See Eustathius on Hom. Il. ii.557, p. 285. Philostratus tells us that the body was laid in the earth by direction of the seer Calchas, “because suicides may not lawfully receive the burial by fire” (Philostratus, Her. xiii.7). This was probably the true reason for the tradition that the corpse was not cremated in the usual way. For the ghosts of suicides appear to be commonly dreaded; hence unusual modes of disposing of their bodies are adopted in order to render their spirits powerless for mischief. For example, the Baganda of Central Africa, who commonly bury their dead in the earth, burn the bodies of suicides on waste land or at crossroads in order to destroy the ghosts; for they believe that if the ghost of a suicide is not thus destroyed, it will tempt other people to imitate its example. As an additional precaution everyone who passed the place where the body of a suicide had been burnt threw some grass or a few sticks on the spot, “so as to prevent the ghost from catching him, in case it had not been destroyed.” For the same reason, if a man took his life by hanging himself on a tree, the tree was torn up by the roots and burned with the body; if he had killed himself in a house, the house was pulled down and the materials consumed with fire; for “people feared to live in a house in which a suicide had taken place, lest they too should be tempted to commit the same crime.” See J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 1911), pp. 20ff., 289. Similar customs prevailed among the Banyoro, a neighbouring nation of Central Africa. “It was said to be necessary to destroy a tree upon which a person had hanged himself and to burn down a house in which a person had committed suicide, otherwise they would be a danger to people in general and would influence them to commit suicide.” See J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 24ff. (where, however, the burning of the body is not expressly mentioned). In like manner the Hos of Togoland, in West Africa, are much afraid of the ghost of a suicide. They believe that the ghost of a man who has hanged himself will torment the first person who sees the body. Hence when the relations of such a man approach the corpse they protect themselves against the ghost by wearing magical cords and smearing their faces with a magical powder. The tree on which a man hanged himself is cut down, and the branch on which he tied the fatal noose is lopped off. To this branch the corpse is then tied and dragged ruthlessly through the woods, over stones and through thorny bushes, to the place where “men of blood,” that is, all who die a violent death, are buried. There they dig a shallow grave in great haste and throw the body in. Having done so they run home; for they say that the ghosts of “men of blood” fling stones at such as do not retreat fast enough, and that he who is struck by one of these stones must die. The houses of such men are broken down and burnt. A suicide is believed to defile the land and to prevent rain from falling. Hence the district where a man has killed himself must be purified by a sacrifice offered to the Earth-god. See J. Spieth, Die Ewe-Stämme (Berlin, 1906), pp. 272, 274, 276ff. 756, 758. As to the special treatment of the bodies of suicides, see R. Lasch, “Die Behandlung der Leiche des Selbstmorders,” Globus, lxxvi. (Brunswick, 1899, pp. 63-66). In the Ajax of Sophocles the rites of burial are at first refused, but afterwards conceded, to the dead body of Ajax; and though these ceremonies are not described, we may assume that they included the burning of the corpse on a pyre. This variation from what appears to be the usual tradition may have been introduced by Sophocles out of deference to the religious feelings of the Athenians, who worshipped Ajax as a hero, and who would have been shocked to think of his remains being denied the ordinary funeral honours. See Jebb's Introduction to his edition of the Ajax(Cambridge, 1896), pp. xxix.ff. As to the worship of Ajax at Athens, see Paus. 1.35.3; Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum ii. 467-471; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 717, vol. ii. p. 370. From these inscriptions we learn that the Athenian youths used to sail across every year to Salamis and there sacrifice to Ajax.

117 These events are related in precisely the same way, though with many poetic embellishments, by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica ix.325-479 (the fetching of Philoctetes from Lemnos and the healing of him by Podalirius), Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica x.206ff. (Paris wounded to death by the arrows of Philoctetes). The story was told somewhat differently by Lesches in the Little Iliad. According to him, the prophecy that Troy could not be taken without the help of Philoctetes was uttered, not by Calchas, but by the Trojan seer Helenus, whom Ulysses had captured; Philoctetes was brought from Lemnos by Diomedes alone, and he was healed, not by Podalirius, but by Machaon. The account of Tzetzes, Posthomerica 571-595 agrees with that of Lesches in respect of the prophecy of Helenus and the cure by Machaon. Sophocles also followed the Little Iliad in putting the prophecy in the mouth of the captured Trojan seer Helenus (Soph. Phil. 604-613). Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 911. In their plays on the subject (see above, note on Apollod. E.3.27) Euripides and Sophocles differed as to the envoys whom the Greeks sent to bring the wounded Philoctetes from Lemnos to Troy. According to Euripides, with whom Apollodorus, Quintus Smyrnaeus, and Hyginus, Fab. 103 agree, the envoys were Ulysses and Diomedes; according to Sophocles, they were Ulysses and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. See Dio Chrysostom lii. vol. ii. p. 161, ed. L. Dindorf; Jebb's Introduction to his edition of Sophocles, Philoctetes (Cambridge, 1898), pp. xvff.; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 613ff. However, while Sophocles diverges from what seems to have been the usual story by representing Neoptolemus instead of Diomedes as the companion of Ulysses on this errand, he implicitly recognizes the other version by putting it in the mouth of the merchant (Soph. Phil. 570-597). A painting at the entrance to the acropolis of Athens represented Ulysses or Diomedes (it is uncertain which) in the act of carrying off the bow of Philoctetes. See Paus. 1.22.6, with Frazer's commentary (vol. ii. pp. 263ff.). The combat between Philoctetes and Paris is described by Malalas, Chr. v. pp. 110ff., ed. L. Dindorf.

118 Compare Conon 34; Serv. Verg. A. 2.166. The marriage of Deiphobus to Helen after the death of Paris was related in the Little Iliad. See Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 36. Compare Tzetzes, Posthomerica 600ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on. Lycophron, 143, 168; Eur. Tro. 959ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 24.251, and on Od. iv.276; Dictys Cretensis iv.22. The marriage was seemingly known to Hom. Od. 4.276.

119 As to the capture of Helenus and his prophecy, see Soph. Phil. 604ff.; Soph. Phil. 1337ff.; Conon 34; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 571-579; Tzetzes, Chiliades vi.508-515; Serv. Verg. A. 2.166; Dictys Cretensis ii.18. The mode of his capture and the substance of his prophecies were variously related. The need of fetching the bones of Pelops is mentioned by Tzetzes among the predictions of Helenus; and the necessity of obtaining the Palladium is recorded by Conon and Servius. According to Paus. 5.13.4, it was a shoulder-blade of Pelops that was brought from Pisa to Troy; on the return from Troy the bone was lost in a shipwreck, but afterwards recovered by a fisherman.

120 As to the Palladium, see above, Apollod. 3.12.3.

121 As to the fetching of Neoptolemus from Scyros, see Hom. Od. 11.506ff.; the Little Iliad of Lesches, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 36ff.; Pind. Pa. 6.98ff.; Soph. Phil. 343-356; Philostratus Junior, Im. 2; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica vi.57-113, vii.169- 430; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 523-534. Apollodorus agrees with Sophocles in saying that the Greek envoys who fetched Neoptolemus from Scyros were Ulysses and Phoenix. According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, they were Ulysses and Diomedes. Ulysses is the only envoy mentioned by Homer, Lesches, and Tzetzes; and Phoenix is the only envoy mentioned by Philostratus. Pindar speaks vaguely of “messengers.” In this passage I have adopted Wagner's conjecture πείθουσι < αὐ> τὸν νεοπτόλεμον προέσθαι, “persuaded him to let Neoptolemus go.” If this conjecture is not accepted, we seem forced to translate the passage “persuaded Neoptolemus to venture.” But I cannot cite any exact parallel to such a use of the middle of προΐημι. When employed absolutely, the verb seems often to convey a bad meaning. Thus Demosthenes uses it in the sense of “throwing away a chance,” “neglecting an opportunity” (Dem.19.150, 152, μὴ πρόεσθαι, οὐ προήσεσθαι). Iphicrates employed it with the same significance (quoted by Aristot. Rh. 2.1397b διότι προεῖτο). Aristotle applied the verb to a man who had “thrown away” his health (Aristot. Nic. Eth. 3.1114a 15, τότε μὲν οὖν ἐξῆν αὐτῷ μὴ νοσεῖν, προεμένῳ δ᾽ οὐκέτι, ὥσπερ οὐδ᾽ ἀφέντι λίθον ἔτ᾽ αὐτὸν δυνατὸν ἀναλαβεῖν). However, elsewhere Aristotle uses the word to describe the lavish liberality of generous men (Aristot. Rh. 1.1366b, εἶτα ἐλευθεριότης: προΐενται γὰρ καὶ οὐκ ἀνταγωνίζονται περὶ τῶν χρημάτων, ὧν μάλιστα ἐφίενται ἄλλοι). In the present passage of Apollodorus, if Wagner's emendation is not accepted, we might perhaps read <μὴ>πρόεσθαι and translate, “persuaded Neoptolemus not to throw away the chance.” But it is better to acquiesce in Wagner's simple and probable correction.

122 As to the single combat of Eurypylus and Neoptolemus, and the death of Eurypylus, see Hom. Od. 11.516-521; the Little Iliad of Lesches, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 37; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica viii.128-220; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 560-565; Dictys Cretensis iv.17. Eurypulus was king of Mysia. At first his mother Astyoche refused to let him go to the Trojan war, but Priam overcame her scruples by the present of a golden vine. See Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.520. The brief account which Apollodorus gives of the death of Eurypylus agrees closely with the equally summary narrative of Proclus. Sophocles composed a tragedy on the subject, of which some very mutilated fragments have been discovered in Egypt. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 146ff.; A. S. Hunt, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta Papyracea nuper reperta (Oxford; no date, no pagination).

123 These events were narrated in the Little Iliad of Lesches, as we learn from the summary of Proclus (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 37), which runs thus: “And Ulysses, having disfigured himself, comes as a spy to Troy, and being recognized by Helen he makes a compact with her concerning the capture of the city; and having slain some of the Trojans he arrives at the ships. And after these things he with Diomedes conveys the Palladium out of Ilium.” From this it appears that Ulysses made two different expeditions to Troy: in one of them he went by himself as a spy in mean attire, and being recognized by Helen concerted with her measures for betraying Troy to the Greeks; in the other he went with Diomedes, and together the two stole the Palladium. The former of these expeditions is described by Homer in the OdysseyHom. Od. 4.242ff.), where Helen tells how Ulysses disfigured himself with wounds, and disguising himself in mean attire came as a beggar to Troy; how she alone detected him, wormed the secrets of the Greeks out of him, and having sworn not to betray him till he had returned in safety to the ships, let him go free, whereupon on his way back he killed many Trojans. Euripides also relates this visit of Ulysses to Troy, adding that Helen revealed his presence to Hecuba, who spared his life and sent him out of the country (Eur. Hec. 239-250). These two quite distinct expeditions of Ulysses have been confused and blended into one by Apollodorus. As to the joint expedition of Ulysses and Diomedes to Troy, and the stealing of the Palladium, see further Conon 34; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica x.350-360; Scholiast on Hom. Il. vi.311; Malalas, Chr. v. pp. 109, 111ff., ed. L. Dindorf; Zenobius, Cent. iii.8; Apostolius, Cent. vi.15; Suidas, s. vv. Διομήδειος ἀνάγκη and Παλλάδιον; Hesychius, s.v. Διομήδειος ἀνάγκη; Eustathius on Hom. Il. x.531, p. 822; Scholiast on Plat. Rep. 6, 493b; Verg. A. 2.162-170; Serv. Verg. A. 2.166; Dictys Cretensis v.5, 8ff. The narrative of Apollodorus suggests that Ulysses had the principal share in the exploit. But according to another and seemingly more prevalent tradition it was Diomedes who really bore off the image. This emerges particularly from Conon's account. Diomedes, he tells us, mounted on the shoulders of Ulysses, and having thus scaled the wall, he refused to draw his comrade up after him, and went in search of the Palladium. Having secured it, he returned with it to Ulysses, and together they retraced their steps to the Greek camp. But by the way the crafty Ulysses conceived the idea of murdering his companion and making himself master of the fateful image. So he dropped behind Diomedes and drew his sword. But the moon shone full; and as he raised his arm to strike, the flash of the blade in the moonlight caught the eye of the wary Diomedes. He faced round, drew his sword, and, upbraiding the other with his cowardice, drove him before him, while he beat the back of the recreant with the flat of his sword. This incident gave rise to the proverb, “Diomedes's compulsion,” applied to such as did what they were forced to do by dire necessity. The proverb is similarly explained by the other Greek proverb-writers and lexicographers cited above, except that, instead of the flash of the sword in the moonlight, they say it was the shadow of the sword raised to strike him which attracted the attention of Diomedes. The picturesque story appears to have been told in the Little IliadHesychius, s.v. Διομήδειος ἀνάγκη). According to one account, Diomedes and Ulysses made their way into the Trojan citadel through a sewer (Serv. Verg. A. 2.166), indeed a narrow and muddy sewer, as Sophocles called it in the play which he composed on the subject. See Julius Pollux, ix.49; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.36, frag. 367. Some affirmed that the Palladium was treacherously surrendered to the Greek heroes by Theano, the priestess of the goddess (Scholiast on Hom. Il. vi.311; Suidas, s.v. Παλλάδιον); to this step she was said to have been instigated by her husband Antenor (Malalas, Chr. v. p. 109, ed. L. Dindorf; Dictys Cretensis v.5, 8). As to Theano in her capacity of priestess, see Hom. Il. 6.297ff. The theft of the Palladium furnished a not infrequent subject to Greek artists; but the artistic, like the literary, tradition was not agreed on the question whether the actual thief was Diomedes or Ulysses. See Frazer on Paus. 1.22.6 (vol. ii. pp. 264 sq.).

124 As to the stratagem of the Wooden Horse, by which Troy is said to have been captured, see Hom. Od. 4.271-289; Hom. Od. 8.492-515; Hom. Od. 11.523-532; Lesches, Little Iliad, summarized by Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 37; Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 49; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xii.23-83, 104-156, 218-443, 539-585, xiii.21-59; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 57-541; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 629-723; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 930; Verg. A. 2.13-267; Hyginus, Fab. 108; Dictys Cretensis v.9, 11ff. The story is only alluded to by Homer, but was no doubt fully told by Lesches and Arctinus, though of their narratives we possess only the brief abstracts of Proclus. The accounts of later writers, such as Virgil, Quintus Smyrnaeus, Tryphiodorus, Tzetzes, and Apollodorus himself, are probably based on the works of these early cyclic poets. The poem of Arctinus, if we may judge by Proclus's abstract, opened with the deliberations of the Trojans about the Wooden Horse, and from the similarity of the abstract to the text of Apollodorus we may infer that our author followed Arctinus generally, though not in all details; for instance, he differed from Arctinus in regard to the affair of Laocoon and his sons. See below. With the stratagem of the Wooden Horse we may compare the stratagem by which, in the war of Independence waged by the United Provinces against Spain, Prince Maurice contrived to make himself master of Breda. The city was then held by a Spanish garrison, which received its supply of fuel by boats. The master of one of these boats, Adrian Vandenberg by name, noticed that in the absence of the governor there was great negligence in conducting the examination to which all boats were subjected before they were allowed to enter the town. This suggested to Vandenberg a plan for taking the citadel by surprise. He communicated his plan to Prince Maurice, who readily embraced it. Accordingly the boat was loaded in appearance with turf as usual; but the turf was supported by a floor of planks fixed at the distance of several feet from the bottom; and beneath this floor seventy picked soldiers were placed under the command of an able officer named Harauguer. The boat had but a few miles to sail, yet through unexpected accidents several days passed before they could reach Breda. The wind veered against them, the melting ice (for it was the month of February) retarded their course, and the boat, having struck upon a bank, was so much damaged that the soldiers were for some time up to their knees in water. Their provisions were almost spent, and to add to their anxieties one of their number was seized with a violent cough, which, if it had continued, would inevitably have betrayed them to the enemy. The man generously entreated his comrades to kill him, offering them his own sword for the purpose; but they as generously refused, and happily the soldier's cough left him before they approached the walls. Even the leak in the boat was stopped by some accident. On reaching the fortifications the boat was searched, but only in the most superficial manner. Still the danger was great, for the turf was immediately purchased and the soldiers of the garrison set to work to unload it. They would soon have uncovered the planks and detected the ambush, if the ready-witted master of the boat had not first amused them with his discourse and then invited them to drink wine with him. The offer was readily accepted. The day wore on, darkness fell, and the Spanish soldiers were all drunk or asleep. At dead of night Harauguer and his men issued from the boat, and dividing into two bodies they attacked the guards and soon made themselves masters of two gates. Seized with a panic, the garrison fled the town. Prince Maurice marched in and took possession of the citadel. These events happened in the year 1590. See Robert Watson, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, 4th ed. (London, 1785), bk. xxi. vol. iii. pp. 157-161.

125 According to Tzetzes the number of men who entered into the Wooden Horse was twenty-three, and he gives the names of them all (Posthomerica 641-650). Quintus Smyrnaeus gives the names of thirty, and he says that there were more of them (Posthomerica xii.314-335). He informs us that the maker of the horse, Epeus, entered last and drew up the ladder after him; and knowing how to open and shut the trapdoor, he sat by the bolt. To judge by Homer's description of the heroes in the Horse (Hom. Od. 11. 526ff.), the hearts of most of them failed them, for they blubbered and their knees knocked together; but Neoptolemus never blenched and kept fumbling with the hilt of his sword.

126 As to these deliberations of the Trojans, compare Hom. Od. 8.505ff.; Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 49; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 250ff.

127 Compare Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 49; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. i.48.2; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xii.444-497; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 347; Verg. A. 2.199-227; Hyginus, Fab. 135; Serv. Verg. A. 2.201; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 144ff. (Second Vatican Mythographer 207). According to Arctinus, our oldest authority for the tragedy of Laocoon, the two serpents killed Laocoon himself and one of his sons. According to Virgil, Hyginus, and Servius, they killed Laocoon and both his sons. According to Quintus Smyrnaeus, the serpents killed the two sons but spared the father, who lived to lament their fate. This last seems to have been the version followed by Apollodorus. The reason of the calamity which befell Laocoon is explained by Servius on the authority of Euphorion. He tells us that when the Greek army landed in the Troad, the Trojans stoned the priest of Poseidon to death, because he had not, by offering sacrifices to the sea god, prevented the invasion. Accordingly, when the Greeks seemed to be departing, it was deemed advisable to sacrifice to Poseidon, no doubt in order to induce him to give the Greeks a stormy passage. But the priesthood was vacant, and it was necessary to choose a priest by lot. The lot fell on Laocoon, priest of the Thymbraean Apollo, but he had incurred the wrath of Apollo by sleeping with his wife in front of the divine image, and for this sacrilege he perished with his two sons. This narrative helps us to understand the statement of Apollodorus that the two serpents were sent by Apollo for a sign. According to Tzetzes, the death of Laocoon's son took place in the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo, the scene of the crime thus becoming the scene of the punishment. Sophocles wrote a tragedy on the subject of Laocoon, but though a few fragments of the play have survived, its contents are unknown. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 211ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 38ff. In modern times the story of Laocoon is probably even better known from the wonderful group of statuary in the Vatican than from the verses of Virgil. That group, the work of three Rhodian sculptors, graced the palace of the emperor Titus in the time of Pliny, who declared that it was to be preferred to any other work either of sculpture or painting (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi.37). Lessing took the group for the text of his famous essay on the comparative limitations of poetry and art.

128 The beacon-light kindled by the deserter and traitor Sinon to guide the Greeks across the water to the doomed city is a regular feature in the narratives of the taking of Troy; but the only other writer who mentions that it shone from the grave of Achilles is Tryphiodorus, who adds that all night long there blazed a light like the full moon above Helen's chamber, for she too was awake and signalling to the enemy, while all the town was plunged in darkness and silence; the sounds of revelry and music had died away, and not even the barking of a dog broke the stillness of the summer night. See Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 487-521. That the poet conceived the fall of Troy to have happened in the summer time is shown by his describing how the Trojans wreathed the mane of the Wooden Horse with flowers culled on river banks, and how the women spread carpets of roses under its feet (Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 316ff., 340-344). For these flowers of fancy Tryphiodorus is severely taken to task by the pedantic Tzetzes on the ground that Troy fell at midwinter; and he clinches the lesson administered to his predecessor by observing that he had learned from Orpheus, “who had it from another man,” never to tell a lie. Such was the state of the Higher Criticism at Byzantium in the twelfth century of our era. See Tzetzes, Posthomerica 700-707.

129 This incident is derived from Hom. Od. 4.274-289. It is copied and told with fuller details by Tryphiodorus, who says that Anticlus expired under the iron grip of Ulysses (Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 463-490).

130 As to the death of Priam at the altar, compare Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 49; Eur. Tro. 16ff.; Eur. Tro. 481-483; Eur. Hec. 22-24; Paus. 4.17.4; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.220-250; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 634-639; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 732ff.; Verg. A. 2.533-558; Dictys Cretensis v.12. According to Lesches, the ruthless Neoptolemus dragged Priam from the altar and despatched him at his own door. See Paus. 10.27.2, with Frazer's note (vol. v. p. 371). The summary account of Proclus agrees almost verbally with the equally summary account of Apollodorus.

131 Ulysses and Menelaus were bound by ties of hospitality to Antenor; for when they went as ambassadors to Troy to treat of the surrender of Helen, he entertained them hospitably in his house. See Hom. Il. 3.203-207. Moreover, Antenor had advocated the surrender of Helen and her property to the Greeks. See Hom. Il. 3.347-353. According to Lesches, one of Antenor's sons, Lycaon, was wounded in the sack of Troy, but Ulysses recognized him and carried him safe out of the fray. See Paus. 10.26.8. Sophocles composed a tragedy on the subject of Antenor and his sons, in which he said that at the storming of Troy the Greeks hung a leopard's skin in front of Antenor's house in token that it was to be respected by the soldiery. See Strab. 13.1.53. In Polygnotus's great picture of the sack of Troy, which was one of the sights of Delphi, the painter depicted the house of Antenor with the leopard's skin hung on the wall; in front of it were to be seen Antenor and his wife, with their children, including Glaucus, while beside them servants were lading an ass, to indicate the long journey which the exiles were about to undertake. See Paus. 10.27.3ff. According to Roman tradition, Antenor led a colony of Enetians to the head of the Adriatic, where the people were thenceforth called Venetians (Livy i.1). As to Sophocles's play, The Antenorids, see TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), p. 160; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 86ff.

132 Compare Xen. Cyn. 1.15; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.315-327; Verg. A. 2.699ff.

133 Compare Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 49; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.354ff.; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 627-633; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 729-731; Dictys Cretensis v.12. Deiphobus had married Helen after the death of Paris. See above, Apollod. E.5.8.9.

134 Compare Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 50; Paus. 10.25.8; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.496-543; Scholiast on Eur. Hec. 123 and Scholiast on Eur. Tro. 31; Dictys Cretensis v.13. Homer mentions Aethra as one of the handmaids of Helen at TroyHom. Il. 3.53). Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.496-543 has described at length the recognition of the grandmother by the grandsons, who, according to Hellanicus, went to Troy for the purpose of rescuing or ransoming her (Scholiast on Eur. Hec. 123). The recognition was related also by Lesches (Paus. 10.25.8). Aethra had been taken prisoner at Athens by Castor and Pollux when they rescued their sister Helen. See above, Apollod. 3.7.4, Apollod. E.1.23. On the chest of Cypselus at Olympia the artist portrayed Helen setting her foot on Aethra's head and tugging at her handmaid's hair. See Paus. 5.19.3; Dio Chrysostom xi. vol. i. p. 179, ed. L. Dindorf.

135 As to the violence offered to Cassandra by Ajax, compare Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 49ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66, referring to Callimachus; Paus. 1.15.2; Paus. 5.11.6; Paus. 5.19.5; Paus. 10.26.3; Paus. 10.31.2; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.420-429; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 647-650; Verg. A. 2.403-406; Dictys Cretensis v.12; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 55 (First Vatican Mythographer 181). Arctinus described how, in dragging Cassandra from the image of Athena, at which she had taken refuge, Ajax drew down the image itself. This incident was carved on the chest of Cypselus at OlympiaPaus. 5.19.5), and painted by Polygnotus in his great picture of the sack of Troy at DelphiPaus. 10.26.3). The Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66 and Quintus Smyrnaeus describe how the image of Athena turned up its eyes to the roof in horror at the violence offered to the suppliant.

136 Compare Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 50; Eur. Tro. 719-739, Eur. Tro. 1133-1135; Eur. And. 8-11; Paus. 10.26.9; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.251-257; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 644-646; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1263; Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 10; Ov. Met. 13.415-417; Hyginus, Fab. 109; Seneca, Troades 524ff., 1063ff. While ancient writers generally agree that Astyanax was killed by being thrown from a tower at or after the sack of Troy, they differ as to the agent of his death. Arctinus, as reported by Proclus, says merely that he was killed by Ulysses. Tryphiodorus reports that he was hurled by Ulysses from a high tower. On the other hand, Lesches in the Little Iliad said that it was Neoptolemus who snatched Astyanax from his mother's lap and cast him down from the battlements (Tzetzes and Paus. 10.26.9). According to Euripides and Seneca, the murder of the child was not perpetrated in hot blood during the sack of Troy but was deliberately executed after the capture of the city in pursuance of a decree passed by the Greeks in a regular assembly. This seems to have been the version followed by Apollodorus, who apparently regarded the death of Astyanax as a sacrifice, like the slaughter of Polyxena on the grave of Achilles. But the killing of Astyanax was not thus viewed by our other ancient authorities, unless we except Seneca, who describes how Astyanax leaped voluntarily from the wall while Ulysses was reciting the words of the soothsayer Calchas and invoking the cruel gods to attend the rite.

137 As to the sacrifice of Polyxena on the grave of Achilles, see Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 50; Eur. Hec. 107ff.; Eur. Hec. 218ff.; Eur. Hec. 391-393; Eur. Hec. 521-582; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.210-328; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 686ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 323; Hyginus, Fab. 110; Ov. Met. 13.439-480; Seneca, Troades 168ff., 938-944, 1118-1164; Dictys Cretensis v.13; Serv. Verg. A. 3.322. According to Euripides and Seneca, the ghost of Achilles appeared above his grave and demanded the sacrifice of the maiden. Others said that the spirit of the dead showed himself in a dream to Neoptolemus (so Quintus Smyrnaeus) or to Agamemnon (so Ovid). In Quintus Smyrnaeus the ghost threatens to keep the Greeks wind-bound at Troy until they have complied with his demand, and accordingly the offering of the sacrifice is followed by a great calm. Euripides seems to have contemplated the sacrifice, in primitive fashion, as a means of furnishing the ghost with the blood needed to quench his thirst (Eur. Hec. 391-393; Eur. Hec. 536ff.); but Seneca represents the ghost as desiring to have Polyxena as his wife in the Elysian Fields (Seneca, Troades 938-944). A more romantic turn is given to the tradition by Philostratus, who says that after the death of Achilles, and before the fall of Troy, the amorous Polyxena stole out from the city and stabbed herself to death on the grave of Achilles, that she might be his bride in the other world. See Philostratus, Her. xx.18; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. iv.16.4. According to the usual tradition, it was Neoptolemus who slew the maiden on his father's tomb. Pictures of the sacrifice were to be seen at Athens and PergamusPaus. 1.22.6; Paus. 10.25.10). Sophocles wrote a tragedy on the theme. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 161ff.

138 Compare Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.20-23, who agrees with Apollodorus as to the partition of these captive women among the Greek leaders.

139 This is the version of the story adopted by Dares Phrygius, who says that Helenus went to the Chersonese along with Hecuba, Andromache, and Cassandra (Dares Phrygius, De excidio Trojae 43).

140 As to the transformation of Hecuba into a bitch, compare Eur. Hec. 1259-1273; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.347-351; Dio Chrysostom xxxii. vol. ii. p. 20, ed. L. Dindorf; Agatharchides, De Erythraeo Mari, in Photius, Bibliotheca, p. 442a, ll. 23ff., ed. Bekker; Julius Pollux, v.45; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 315, 1176; Excidium Ilii, Tusc. Disp. iii.26.63; Ov. Met. 13.565-571; Hyginus, Fab. 111; Serv. Verg. A. 3.6; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. G.H.Bode, i. p. 145 (Second Vatican Mythographer 209). A rationalistic version of the story is told by Dictys Cretensis v.16. We may conjecture that the fable of the transformation originated in the resemblance of the name Hecuba to the name Hecate; for Hecate was supposed to be attended by dogs, and Hecuba is called an attendant of Hecate (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1176).

141 Compare Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.544-551; Tryphiodorus, Excidium Ilii 660-663; Tzetzes, Posthomerica 736; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 314.

142 Compare Arctinus, Ilii Persis, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 49ff. Ulysses advised the Greeks to stone Ajax to death for his crime against Cassandra (Paus. 10.31.2).

143 Compare Hom. Od. 3.130ff., Hom. Od. 3.276ff.; Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53.

144 Compare Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Strab. 14.1.27; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 427-430, 980.

145 Compare Strab. 14.1.27; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 427-430, 980. From Strabo we learn that the riddle of Calchas concerning the wild fig-tree was recorded by Hesiod, and that the riddle of Mopsus concerning the sow was recorded by Pherecydes. Our authorities vary somewhat in regard to the latter riddle. According to Pherecydes, the true answer was, “Three little pigs, and one of them a female.” According to Tzetzes, Calchas could not solve the riddle, so Mopsus solved it by saying that the sow would farrow ten little pigs, of which one would be a male. Strabo also tells us that the oracle which doomed Calchas to death whenever he should meet a diviner more skilful than himself, was mentioned by Sophocles in his play The Demand for Helen. As to that play, see The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 121ff. A different story of the rivalry of the two seers is told by Conon 6.

146 As to the shipwreck and death of the Locrian Ajax, compare Hom. Od. 4.499-511; Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.530-589; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 365, 387, 389, 402; Verg. A. 1.39-45; Hyginus, Fab. 116; Seneca, Agamemnon 532-556; Dictys Cretensis vi.1. In his great picture of the underworld, which Polygnotus painted at Delphi, the artist depicted Ajax as a castaway, the brine forming a scurf on his skin (Paus. 10.31.1). According to the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66 Ajax was cast up on the shore of Delos, where Thetis found and buried him. But as it was unlawful to be buried or even to die in DelosThuc. 3.104), the statement of Apollodorus that Ajax was buried in Myconus, a small island to the east of Delos, is more probable. It is said that on hearing of his death the Locrians mourned for him and wore black for a year, and every year they laded a vessel with splendid offerings, hoisted a black sail on it, and, setting the ship on fire, let it drift out to sea, there to burn down to the water's edge as a sacrifice to the drowned hero. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 365. Sophocles wrote a tragedy, The Locrian Ajax, on the crime and punishment of the hero. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 8ff.

147 As to the false lights kindled by Nauplius to lure the Greek ships on to the breakers, see above, Apollod. 2.1.5; Eur. Hel. 766ff.; Eur. Hel. 1126ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 432; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.611-628; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 384; Prop. v.1.115ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 116; Seneca, Agamemnon 557-575; Dictys Cretensis vi.1; Serv. Verg. A. 11.260; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.93; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 46, 141 (First Vatican Mythographer 144; Second Vatican Mythographer 201). The story was probably told by Hagias in his epic The Returns (Nostoi), though in the abstract of that poem there occurs merely a mention of “the storm at the Capherian Rocks.” See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53. The wrecker Nauplius was the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 80ff.

148 As to the death of Palamedes, see above, Apollod. E.3.8.

149 This passage, down to the end of Section 12, is quoted with some slight verbal changes, but without citing his authority, by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 384-386; compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1093.

150 See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The vow of Idomeneus.”

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 EuboeaStephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἰκός), 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 AndromacheEur. 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 SpartaHom. 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.P 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 (ἁρπάζειν) 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 (διαρπάζοντας) 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. φάρμακος; 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 PallenePellene) 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 ThessalyHom. 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 (Ναύαιθος) as the form of the name. Apollodorus derives the name from ναῦς, “a ship,” and αἴθω, “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 πέταλα before, were ever after called φύλλα 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. Σύρνα. 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 LocrisPolybius 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. κατεγήρασαν). 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. ποινή (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 (τὰς δὲ λοκρίδας πεμφθῆναι περσῶν ἤδη κρατούντων συνέβη). 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. Αἰώρα, 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

Ὀρέστης
τάφος δὲ ποῖος δέξεταί μ᾽, ὅταν θάνω;

Ἰφιγένεια
πῦρ ἱερὸν ἔνδον χάσμα τ᾽ εὐρωπὸν πέτρας.

Compare

“ h)/dh tw=n ce/nwn kath/rcato,
a)du/tois t' e)n a(gnoi=s sw=ma la/mpontai puri/;

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 (καθοσιωθῆναι, 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 (Κόμανα from κόμη). 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 (Ἀμανός, from μανία“madness” and 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 OdysseyHom. 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 TripolisScylax, 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 (πυρπολέοντας); 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 (φάρμακα) 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 φάρμακα 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. 19.136-158; 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 (τρυγών), 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.

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