μηδὲν πρόσθεν, sc. “ποιῶμεν”: cp. Ant. 497 n. τὰ Λοξίου, his commands, v. 51. ἀρχηγετεῖν (a verb which occurs only here), not merely=“ἄρχεσθαι”, but rather ‘to make an auspicious beginning’ (Lat. auspicari), as “ἀρχηγέτης” denoted the god or hero to whom a city or family traced its origin (O.C. 60 n.). This title was given especially to Apollo: “Φοῖβος γὰρ ἀεὶ πολίεσσι φιληδεῖ ι κτιζομένῃς” (Callim. Hym. Apoll. 54) . The Chalcidians of Euboea, when they founded Naxos in Sicily, placed an altar of Apollo “Ἀρχηγέτης” before the city ( Thuc. 6. 3: cp. Appian Bell. Civ. 5. 109). Pindar speaks of “ὁ...ἀρχαγέτας”:..“Ἀπόλλων” in connection with the founding of Cyrene by Battus.
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VI: The Electra. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1894.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.