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Nicolaus Damascenus (F. H. G. iii. 383) calls Candaules ‘Sadyattes’. Hesychius (s. v. Κυνάγχη) says that Κανδαύλας = Hermes or Heracles (cf. Hipponax, fr. 1, Ἑρμῆ κυνάγχα, Μῃονιστὶ κανδαῦλα); in this case ‘C.’ may be a cult-name, assumed by the king in addition to his own (cf. the new names taken by Popes).

Hall (J. H. S. xxix. 19) points out that the name Μυρσίλος (‘Mursil’) has been found by Winckler at Boghaz Keui as that of a Hittite king. He suggests that the name, which is that of Pelops' charioteer, tends to confirm the old tradition that Pelops was an immigrant into Greece, and to show that perhaps in the fourteenth century B. C., Greece was subject to a Hittite dynasty.

Σαρδίων. H. almost always follows (cf. iii. 120. 1 n.) the Persian usage in calling the Lydian satrapy by the name of its capital.

Ἀλκαίου. H. is the only writer who mentions Alcaeus as the son of Heracles, though both the grandfather of Heracles and Heracles himself (Diod. i. 24) are sometimes called Alcaeus.

The Greeks identified the Asiatic Bel, in Cilicia (Meyer, i. 484) and perhaps in Lydia called ‘Sandon’ (cf. i. 71. 2), with Heracles, because he was a lion-tamer and a bow-bearer; he was probably a sun-god, though Meyer (v. s.) makes him a vegetation-god.

H.'s list, then, may be a piece of genuine native tradition with Graecized names; at the head of it appear two great deities, Heracles and Omphale, representing the sun-god and Ashtoreth. But H. is inconsistent in vii. 61, where he makes Perseus, an ancestor of Heracles, rescue Andromeda, the granddaughter of Belus. It is more probable, however, that Heracles has no proper place in the genealogy, and is brought in by a piece of Greek syncretism, because the δούλη (§ 4) was supposed to be Omphale. The genealogy itself seems hopelessly confused; the (otherwise unknown, v. s.) son of a Greek hero is father of a Babylonian god and grandfather of the eponymous hero of Nineveh.

While, however, the form in which the genealogy is presented is Greek, it may represent a real tradition of early connexion with the East. This can hardly have been with the great kingdoms of the Euphrates valley, for Assurbanipal states that when the ambassadors of ‘Gugu of Luddi’ arrived at Nineveh (R. P. i.1 68), ‘the king's very fathers had not heard speak of its name’; but it may have been with the Hittite empire in Asia Minor, as was suggested by Sayce (ad loc.) as long ago as 1883. Hogarth says (I. and E., p. 75): ‘it may well be that the rock monuments near Smyrna are memorials of a definite political occupation by the power of the Hatti.’ Garstang too (p. 63) is disposed to accept H.'s traditions as having elements of truth in them.

Ninus was, according to the Greeks (Ctes. Ass. ii, p. 390), the founder of Nineveh; but his name does not appear on the monuments.

Belus is properly a common name, ‘lord,’ but became identified with the chief god of Babylonia (cf. Hastings' D. of B., s. v. Baal).


This dynasty traced back its descent to the god Μήν (J. H. S. xix. 80); it has a more genuine sound than that of the Heracleids above. The dynasty was

If Cotys be rightly connected with the Thracian goddess Cotytto, whose rites (Strabo, 470) were like those of the Phrygian Cybele, then the genealogy may represent the combination of the European (Cotys) and the Asiatic (Atys) elements (App. I. 4); but all this is most uncertain.

Μηίων. For ‘Maeonians’ cf. App. I. 8. Homer only knows this name (Il. ii. 864; x. 431, &c.); the earliest occurrence of ‘Lydian’ in a Greek author is in Xanthus, fr. 1. The identification of Maeonians with Lydians was not always accepted (Strabo, 572). Assuming its truth, however, it may be conjectured that the Lydians represent rather the European element in the people, the Maeonian the Asiatic. Radet (p. 59) thinks that the statement on the monuments of Assurbanipal (u. s.) means only that the Luddi were unknown by that name; he therefore connects ‘Lydian’ with the rise of Gyges; but this is very doubtful. ‘Maeonian’ survived as a tribal name (vii. 77), and as the name of a city (Plin. N. H. v. 111) and a district on the upper Hermus (Strabo, 576, 628), including the Κατακεκαυμένη.


δούλης. The usual story (Apollod. ii. 6. 3) is unknown to H.; it called Omphale a daughter of Iardanus (whose name may be Semitic, cf. ‘Jordan’), and made Hercules her bought slave. Later writers, especially the Roman poets, make him assume women's dress and do women's work. Meyer (i. 487) considers that this story is based upon the special Anatolian rites of the great nature-goddess, in which her worshippers cut themselves in sympathy with her sorrows, and even unsexed themselves (cf. story of Attis); so, too, maidens sacrificed their chastity to her (cf. 93. 4; 199 nn.). But if this is the origin of the myth, it is curious that its special feature, the woman's dress, &c., appears only in late versions. It seems better, therefore, to compare the story of Hercules serving Omphale with that of Apollo serving Admetus, and to explain both as a sort of atonement by service; the price of blood shed is worked off in this way.

Whence H. derived the figure 505 is a puzzle. According to some it is a calculation based on the average length of a reign; if a generation was taken at 33 1/3 years (ii. 142. 2), a reign might average 22 1/2. R. Schubert (Kön. von Lyd., p. 8) adds the five generations of the Mermnadae (c. 13) to the 22 here, and allows an average of 25 years per generation, thus getting (27 x 25 =) 675 for the total. Deductig the 170 years of the Mermnadae, he gets the 505 given to the Heraclidae (cf. App. XIV. 5). This is plausible, but only one thing is certain, that the figures have no historic value.

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hide References (4 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (4):
    • Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library, 2.6.3
    • Homer, Iliad, 2.864
    • Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 5.30
    • Diodorus, Historical Library, 1.24
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