previous next


The element common to this story and that of Tellus is ‘the glorious end’, but there is a note of pessimism in this one; this may be characteristic, not of Solon, but of H. himself (cf. Intr. p. 49 and L. Campbell, Religion in Gk. Literature, p. 183). But cf. Solon, fr. 17 πάντῃ δ᾽ ἀθανάτων ἀφανὴς νόος ἀνθρώποισι, and also fr. 14 οὐδὲ μάκαρς οὐδεὶς πέλεται βροτός, ἀλλὰ πονηροὶ πάντες ὅσους θνητοὺς ἠέλιος καθορᾷ.

For Greek pessimism in general cf. ib. pp. 113, 115, 275-6.

For Cleobis and Bito cf. Paus. ii. 20. 3, and Frazer iii. 193 for other references.

For the Heraeum cf. Paus. ii. 17. The site has been explored by the American School since 1892 (cf. Waldstein's The Argive Heraeum, and a summary in Frazer, P. iii. 165 seq.). It stood on the road from Argos to Mycenae, about three miles south of the latter. The temple was burned in 423 (Thuc. iv. 133). As the site is a rocky terrace above the plain, the feat of strength was considerable; but H. avoids the absurdity of making Bito on another occasion carry a bull on his shoulders (Paus. ii. 19. 5).

Creative Commons License
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.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: