Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae

---

---

Εὐβοίς: 74 n. The northwestern extremity of Euboea is a small peninsula, which runs out westward just opposite the mouth of the Malian Gulf. It ends in the promontory once called “Κήναιον”, and now Cape Litháda. Zeus “Κήναιος” was worshipped on the neighbouring hill-tops (upwards of 2800 ft. in height), as on so many other summits (cp. Ph.1040 n.): Aesch. fr. 29 “Εὐβοῖδα κάμπτων ἀμφὶ Κηναίου Διὸς” | “ἀκτήν”. The legendary Oechalia, which Heracles sacked, was not near Cenaeum, but some 50 miles S. E. of it, in the territory of Eretria (Hecataeus ap. Paus.4. 2. 3: Strabo 10 p. 448). Sophocles shows his knowledge of this tradition by his reference to the hero's march from Oechalia to Cenaeum (750 “εἷρπε”).

ὁρίζεται βωμοὺς: the verb denotes properly the act of tracing the temenos in which the altars were to stand. Cp. Her.3. 142“Διὸς...βωμὸν ἱδρύσατο καὶ τέμενος περὶ αὐτὸν οὔρισε”. In v. 754 the act. “ὁρίζει” is used: the midd. occurs in Xen. An.7. 5. 13“στήλας ὁρισάμενοι”. The plur. βωμοὺς (as in 754, 993) might be used of a single altar (cp. Ant.1006), but here prob. denotes several,—the sacrifice being on so great a scale (760 ff.).

τέλη τ᾽ ἔγκαρπα, tributes (or dues) of fruits; i.e., the revenues derived from a temenos containing fruit-trees or capable of yielding crops. The poet can say, “ὁ ρίζεται τέλη ἔγκαρπα”, because he is thinking of the temenos itself (cp. 754). Such lands were sometimes cultivated under the direct control of the priests; sometimes they were let to tenants: cp. Plat. Legg 759 E “ταμίας...καὶ τεμενῶν καὶ καρπ<*> τούτων καὶ μισθώσεων κυρίους”. C. I. G. 4474 (a “κώμη” is attached to a shrine of Zeus), “ὅπως ἡ ἀπὸ ταύτης πρόσοδος ἀναλ<*> σκηται εἰς τὰς κατὰ μῆνας συντελουμέν<*> θυσίας καὶ τἄλλα τὰ πρὸς αὔξησιν τοῦ ἱεροί συντείνοντα κ.τ.λ.”