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[5] καὶ δώδεκα παῖδες. These words take up “ἔνθα δ᾽ ἔναιεν Αἴολος”, ‘Aeolus lived there . . and there are twelve children besides in his halls.’ γεγάασιν means no more than “εἰσί”, as in Od.6. 62; 5.35; 19.279; Il.4. 325.According to Schol. H. Q. Aeolus had to wife Telepatra “τὴν Λαιστρυγόνου [̣ Λαιστρυγόνος”]; and the same authority tells us that the allegorising interpreters made Aeolus symbolise the year, and saw in his six sons the six sterner and colder months of the year, and in his six daughters the warmer and sunnier months. On the marriage between these brothers and sisters the Schol. B.Q. remarks, “ἀρχαῖον ἔθος τὸ συνοικίζειν ἀδελφούς . . καὶ ὁ Ζεὺς ἀδελφῇ οὔσῃ συνοικεῖ τῇ Ἥρᾳ”, and he then goes on to expatiate on the blessedness of such a union of conjugal and fraternal love, which must be intended as a piece of flattery for the Ptolemies, whose custom was to wed their sisters, or at any rate half-sisters, “ὁμοπάτριοι”. The consanguinity between full brothers and sisters was regarded as far closer, “πρῶτα δὲ Αἴολον ὁμομητρίας κόρας ἀδελφοῖς συνοικίσαι”. Cp. 2 Sam. 13. 13.The fact of such marriages in the isle of Aeolus points to no special eustom of any age or country, but serves to give an idea of the loneliness of the island, and the scanty intercourse its inhabitants enjoyed with the rest of mankind. The brothers married the sisters because there were no other women (except, perhaps, female slaves) to marry.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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