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[260] Ἀντιόπην. Here again we have Boeotian legend; the Asopus flowing between the territories of Thebes and Plataeae. Homer calls the river ( Il.4. 383) “βαθύσχοινον λεχεποίην”. Amphion and Zethus, the two sons of Antiope by Zeus, are represented here as the first builders and fortifiers of Thebes. This is an earlier account than the common story of the foundation of Thebes by Cadmus. The Scholl. attempt to reconcile the two forms of the legend, by representing Eurymachus, king of the Phlegyae, as having sacked the newly settled town after the death of Amphion and Zethus, so that Cadmus had to found it anew. But Apollodorus, following the older logographers, places Cadmus first, and introduces Amphion and Zethus at a later point in the series, representing them as having built the lower city of Thebes at the foot of the citadel Cadmeia. So Pausan. 9. 5, 6“τὴν πόλιν τὴν κάτω προσῴκισαν τῇ Καδμείᾳ”. To this later stage of the legend belong the stories of Lycus , Dirce, and Nycteus, in connection with Antiope, and of the walls of Thebes rising to the sound of Amphion's lyre. Grote notices on this legend that the logographers, having by their connecting artifices, opened a vacant place for it in the descending series of Theban myths, ‘have proceeded in a way not usual with them. For whereas they are generally fond of multiplying entities, and supposing different historical personages of the same name, in order to introduce an apparent smoothness in the chronology —they have here blended into one person Amphion the son of Antiope, and Amphion the father of Chloris (inf. 283), who seem clearly distinguished from each other in the Odyssey,’ vol. 1. cap. 14. The analogy of the Theban Amphion and Zethus to the Lacedaemonian Dioscuri is worth notice. Euripides (Phoeniss. 606) calls them “θεοὶ λευκόπωλοι”, and in Aristoph. ( Aristoph. Ach.906) the Boeotian swears “νὴ τὼ σιώ”, where see Bergk, ‘Iurat per Amphionem et Zethum tanquam Thebanus. Cum Lacon aliquis aut Lacaena iurat “ναὶ τὼ σιώ” intellegit Castorem et Pollucem.’ Later mythology regarded Zethus as the son of Epopeus, and therefore mortal and inferior to Amphion the son of Zeus. Similarly in the case of Castor and Polydeuces, of Iphicles and Heracles, the former in each pair was the inferior mortal of human parentage.

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

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  • Commentary references from this page (2):
    • Homer, Iliad, 4.383
    • Aristophanes, Acharnians, 906
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