The name — though κολωνός was so familiar a word — is traced in the usual Greek fashion to a hero Colonus, the ἐπώνυμος of the deme; and, to justify the epithet of the place, ἵππιος, he is called ἱππότης, horseman, or knight. In the roads about Colonus (“ταῖσδε...ἀγυιαῖς” 715) men first learned to use Poseidon's gift of the horse. With τόνδ᾽ cp. 65 “τοῦδε τοῦ θεοῦ”. In the case of the tribes, at least, statues of eponymi were familiar to Athenians (cp. Aristoph. Pax 1183 “τὸν ἀνδριάντα τὸν Πανδίονος”). A statue of the hero Colonus on the stage would be an effective device for giving greater vividness to the local legend. The speaker could point to it with dramatic fitness, since Antigone is with her blind father.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part II: The Oedipus Coloneus. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1899.
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