Who was the hero Eunostus in Tanagra, and
why may no women enter his grove?
Eunostus was the son of Elieus, who was the son of
Cephisus, and Scias. They relate that he acquired
his name because he was brought up by the nymph
Eunosta. Handsome and righteous as he was, he was
no less virtuous and ascetic. They say that Ochnê,
his cousin, one of the daughters of Colonus, became
enamoured of him ; but when Eunostus repulsed her
advances and, after upbraiding her, departed to
accuse her to her brothers, the maiden forestalled
him by doing this very thing against him. She incited
her brothers, Echemus, Leon, and Bucolus, to kill
Eunostus, saying that he had consorted with her
by force. They, accordingly, lay in ambush for the
young man and slew him. Then Elieus put them in
bonds ; but Ochnê repented, and was filled with
trepidation and, wishing to free herself from the
torments caused by her love, and also feeling pity for
her brothers, reported the whole truth to Elieus, and
he to Colonus. And when Colonus had given judgement, Ochnê's brothers were banished, and she
threw herself from a precipice, as Myrtis,1 the lyric
poetess of Anthedon, has related.
But the shrine and the grove of Eunostus were
so strictly guarded against entry and approach by
women that, often, when earthquakes or droughts
or other signs from heaven occurred, the people
of Tanagra were wont to search diligently and to
be greatly concerned lest any woman might have
approached the place undetected ; and some relate,
among them Cleidamus, a man of prominence, that
Eunostus met them on his way to the sea to bathe
[p. 229]
because a woman had set foot within the sacred
precinct. And Diocles2 also, in his treatise upon the
Shrines of Heroes, quotes a decree of the people of
Tanagra concerning the matters which Cleidamus
reported.