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τὰ πάθεα: especially in the expeditions against Thebes. In the first he lost all his companions, escaping himself by a miracle; in the second, only his son Aegialeus fell. Perhaps the story grew from the names Talaus (‘wretched’) and Adrastus, ‘the inevitable might of Fate.’

χοροὺς μέν: for the omission of the article cf. ix. 88. 1; i. 194. 4; ii. 402, &c. The worship of Dionysus was popular with the common people and favoured by the tyrants. Pisistratus founded the city Dionysia at Athens, or at least the dramatic performances. Periander of Corinth was the patron of Arion, the great maker of choric song (i. 23 n.).

ἀπέδωκε (cf. reddidit) here means ‘assigned to D., to whom they of right belonged’. There is no reason to think that at Sicyon the chorus had first been given to Dionysus, then transferred to Adrastus, and now restored to D., nor can this have been true of the sacrifice now assigned to Melanippus. Choruses would be appropriate to Adrastus, whether as originally a Chthonian deity (Welcker) or as a guardian hero. For the connexion of tragic choruses with the worship of the dead cf. Ridgeway, Origin of Tragedy, pp. 26-39; and for the change of ‘heroes’ Thuc. v. 11.

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