[2]
But afterwards Athamas was bereft also of the children of Ino through the wrath of Hera;
for he went mad and shot Learchus with an arrow, and Ino cast herself and Melicertes into
the sea.1 Being banished from Boeotia, Athamas inquired of the god where he should dwell, and on receiving
an oracle that he should dwell in whatever place he should be entertained by wild beasts,
he traversed a great extent of country till he fell in with wolves that were devouring
pieces of sheep; but when they saw him they abandoned their prey and fled. So Athamas
settled in that country and named it Athamantia after himself;2 and
he married Themisto, daughter of Hypseus, and begat Leucon, Erythrius, Schoeneus, and
Ptous.
1 Compare Zenobius, Cent. iv.38; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 229; Scholiast on Hom. Il. vii.86; Eust. on Hom. Il. vii.86, p. 667; Eust. on Hom. Od. v.339, p. 1543; Paus. 1.44.7ff.; Paus. 9.34.7; Ov. Met. 4.481-542; Hyginus, Fab. 4, 5. Euripides wrote a tragedy, Ino, of which a number of fragments remain. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 482ff. It is said that Hera drove Athamas mad because she was angry with him for receiving from Hermes the infant Dionysus and bringing him up as a girl. See Apollod. 3.4.3; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 22.
2 Compare Scholiast on Plat. Minos 315c; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 22; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἀθαμάντιον, p. 24.10. According to the last of these writers, Athamantia was a plain in Thessaly.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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