previous next


καὶ ἀμφότεροι, ‘both sides’ (καί giving emphasis (i. 74. 3)); one would not have expected it of Persians. The Iamidae, who traced their descent from Iamus, son of Apollo (Pind. Ol. vi. 35-72; Paus. vi. 2. 5), were the most famous of the great families of soothsayers in Elis. They took auspices at the altar of Zeus at Olympia (Pind. Ol. vi. 5, 70; viii. 2, quoted viii. 133 n.) and furnished soothsayers to many Greek states (v. 44. 2; Paus. iv. 16. 1, vi. 2. 5, viii. 10. 5). They had a family tomb in Sparta (Paus. iii. 12. 8). Κλυτιάδην here is a late gloss, and does not occur in Paus. iii. 11. 6, a passage obviously derived from this. Further, Cicero plainly distinguishes the Iamidae and the Clytidae; De Div. i. 41. 91 ‘Elis in Peloponneso familias duas certas habet, Iamidarum unam, alteram Clytidarum, haruspicinae nobilitate praestantes’; Philostratus (Apollonius of Tyana, v. 25) agrees, adding the Telliadae (ch. 37. 1). Again Pausanias, who traces the Iamidae to Iamus and Apollo (vi. 25), makes Clytius, the ancestor of the Clytids, a descendant of Melampus (vi. 17. 1), as does Homer (Od. xv. 241) though with a different pedigree.

λεωσφέτερον: a ἅπαξλεγόμενον, probably derived from λεώς, meaning full citizen (§ 4).

περὶ γόνου. Probably, being childless, he adopted his brother's son (§ 5), for Pausanias (iii. 11. 5) says that his grandson Hegias was with Lysander at Aegospotami as seer.

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: