[7]
And
journeying by way of Troezen, he lodged with
Pittheus, son of Pelops, who, understanding the oracle, made him drunk and caused him to
lie with his daughter Aethra. But in the same night Poseidon also had connexion with her.
Now Aegeus charged Aethra that, if she gave birth to a male child, she should rear it,
without telling whose it was; and he left a sword and sandals under a certain rock, saying
that when the boy could roll away the rock and take them up, she was then to send him away
with them.
But he himself came to Athens and celebrated
the games of the Panathenian festival, in which Androgeus, son of Minos, vanquished all
comers. Him Aegeus sent against the bull of Marathon, by which he was destroyed. But some
say that as he journeyed to Thebes
to take part in the games in honor of Laius, he was waylaid and murdered by the jealous
competitors.1 But when the tidings of his
death were brought to Minos, as he was sacrificing to the Graces in Paros, he threw away the garland from his head and stopped
the music of the flute, but nevertheless completed the sacrifice; hence down to this day
they sacrifice to the Graces in Paros without
flutes and garlands.
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1 This account of the murder of Androgeus is repeated almost verbally by the Scholiast on Plat. Minos 321a. Compare Diod. 4.60.4ff.; Zenobius, Cent. iv.6; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.590. All these writers mention the distinction won by Androgeus in the athletic contests of the Panathenian festival as the ultimate ground of his undoing. Serv. Verg. A. 6.14 and Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. 192 say that, as an eminent athlete who beat all competitors in the games, Androgeus was murdered at Athens by Athenian and Megarian conspirators. Paus. 1.27.10 mentions the killing of Androgeus by the Marathonian bull. According to Hyginus, Fab. 41, Androgeus was killed in battle during the war which his father Minos waged with the Athenians.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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