12.
Electra, daughter of Atlas, had two sons, Iasion and Dardanus, by Zeus.1 Now Iasion loved Demeter, and in an attempt to
defile the goddess he was killed by a thunderbolt.2 Grieved at his brother's
death, Dardanus left Samothrace and came to the
opposite mainland. That country was ruled by a king, Teucer, son of the river Scamander
and of a nymph Idaea, and the inhabitants of the country were called Teucrians after
Teucer. Being welcomed by the king, and having received a share of the land and the king's
daughter Batia, he built a city Dardanus, and
when Teucer died he called the whole country Dardania.3
[2]
And he had sons born to him, Ilus and
Erichthonius, of whom Ilus died childless,4 and
Erichthonius succeeded to the kingdom and marrying Astyoche, daughter of Simoeis, begat
Tros.5 On succeeding to the kingdom, Tros called the country Troy after himself, and marrying Callirrhoe, daughter of
Scamander, he begat a daughter Cleopatra, and sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymede.6 This Ganymede, for the sake of his
beauty, Zeus caught up on an eagle and appointed him cupbearer of the gods in heaven;7 and Assaracus had by his wife Hieromneme, daughter of Simoeis, a
son Capys; and Capys had by his wife Themiste, daughter of Ilus, a son Anchises, whom
Aphrodite met in love's dalliance, and to whom she bore Aeneas8 and Lyrus, who died childless.
[3]
But Ilus went to Phrygia, and finding games held there by the king, he was victorious in
wrestling. As a prize he received fifty youths and as many maidens, and the king, in
obedience to an oracle, gave him also a dappled cow and bade him found a city
wherever the animal should lie down; so he followed the cow. And when she was come to what
was called the hill of the Phrygian Ate, she lay down; there Ilus built a city and called
it Ilium.9 And having prayed to Zeus that a sign might be
shown to him, he beheld by day the Palladium, fallen from heaven, lying before his tent.
It was three cubits in height, its feet joined together; in its right hand it held a spear
aloft, and in the other hand a distaff and spindle.10
The story told about the Palladium is as follows:11 They say
that when Athena was born she was brought up by Triton,12 who had a daughter Pallas; and that both girls practised the arts
of war, but that once on a time they fell out; and when Pallas was about to strike a blow,
Zeus in fear interposed the aegis, and Pallas, being startled, looked up, and so fell
wounded by Athena. And being exceedingly grieved for her, Athena made a wooden image in
her likeness, and wrapped the aegis, which she had feared, about the breast of it, and set
it up beside Zeus and honored it. But afterwards Electra, at the time of her
violation,13 took refuge at the image, and Zeus threw the Palladium along
with Ate14 into the Ilian country; and Ilus
built a temple for it, and honored it. Such is the legend of the Palladium.
And Ilus married Eurydice, daughter of Adrastus, and begat Laomedon,15 who
married Strymo, daughter of Scamander; but according to some his wife was Placia, daughter
of Otreus, and according to others she was Leucippe; and he begat five sons, Tithonus,
Lampus, Clytius, Hicetaon, Podarces,16 and three daughters, Hesione, Cilla, and Astyoche; and by a nymph Calybe
he had a son Bucolion.17
[4]
Now the Dawn snatched away Tithonus for love and brought him to Ethiopia, and there consorting with him she bore two sons,
Emathion and Memnon.18
[5]
But after that Ilium was captured by Hercules, as we have related a little before,19 Podarces, who was called Priam, came to the throne, and he married
first Arisbe, daughter of Merops, by whom he had a son Aesacus, who married Asterope,
daughter of Cebren, and when she died he mourned for her and was turned into a bird.20 But Priam handed over Arisbe to Hyrtacus and married a
second wife Hecuba, daughter of Dymas, or, as some say, of Cisseus, or, as others say, of
the river Sangarius and Metope.21 The first son born to her was Hector; and when a second babe was about to be born Hecuba dreamed she had brought forth a firebrand, and that the
fire spread over the whole city and burned it.22 When Priam learned of the dream from Hecuba, he
sent for his son Aesacus, for he was an interpreter of dreams, having been taught by his
mother's father Merops. He declared that the child was begotten to be the ruin of his
country and advised that the babe should be exposed. When the babe was born Priam gave it
to a servant to take and expose on Ida; now the servant was named Agelaus. Exposed by him,
the infant was nursed for five days by a bear; and, when he found it safe, he took it up,
carried it away, brought it up as his own son on his farm, and named him
Paris. When he grew to be a young man,
Paris excelled many in beauty and strength, and was
afterwards surnamed Alexander, because he repelled robbers and defended the flocks.23 And not long afterwards he discovered his parents.
After him Hecuba gave birth to daughters, Creusa, Laodice,24
Polyxena, and Cassandra. Wishing to gain Cassandra's favours, Apollo promised to teach her
the art of prophecy; she learned the art but refused her favours; hence Apollo deprived
her prophecy of power to persuade.25 Afterwards Hecuba bore sons,26 Deiphobus, Helenus, Pammon, Polites, Antiphus, Hipponous, Polydorus, and
Troilus: this last she is said to have had by Apollo.
By other women Priam had sons, to wit, Melanippus, Gorgythion, Philaemon, Hippothous,
Glaucus, Agathon, Chersidamas, Evagoras, Hippodamas, Mestor, Atas, Doryclus, Lycaon,
Dryops, Bias, Chromius, Astygonus, Telestas, Evander, Cebriones, Mylius, Archemachus,
Laodocus, Echephron, Idomeneus, Hyperion, Ascanius, Democoon, Aretus, Deiopites, Clonius,
Echemmon, Hypirochus, Aegeoneus, Lysithous, Polymedon; and daughters, to wit, Medusa,
Medesicaste, Lysimache, and Aristodeme.
[6]
Now Hector married Andromache, daughter of Eetion,27 and Alexander
married Oenone, daughter of the river Cebren.28 She had learned from Rhea the art of prophecy, and warned Alexander not
to sail to fetch Helen; but failing to persuade him, she told him to come to her if he
were wounded, for she alone could heal him. When he had carried off Helen from Sparta and Troy was besieged, he was shot by Philoctetes with the bow of Hercules, and
went back to Oenone on Ida. But she, nursing her grievance, refused to heal him. So
Alexander was carried to Troy and died. But
Oenone repented her, and brought the healing drugs; and finding him dead she hanged
herself.
The Asopus river was a son of Ocean and Tethys, or, as Acusilaus says, of
Pero and Poseidon, or, according to some, of Zeus and
Eurynome. Him Metope, herself a daughter of the river
Ladon, married and bore two sons, Ismenus and Pelagon, and twenty daughters,
of whom one, Aegina, was carried off by
Zeus.29 In search of her Asopus came to Corinth, and learned from Sisyphus that the ravisher
was Zeus.30 Asopus pursued him, but
Zeus, by hurling thunderbolts, sent him away back to his own streams;31 hence coals are fetched to this day from the
streams of that river.32 And having conveyed
Aegina to the island then named Oenone, but now called
Aegina after her, Zeus cohabited with her and
begot a son Aeacus on her.33 As Aeacus was alone in the island, Zeus made the ants
into men for him.34 And Aeacus married Endeis, daughter of Sciron, by whom he
had two sons, Peleus and Telamon.35 But Pherecydes says that Telamon was a friend, not a brother of
Peleus, he being a son of Actaeus and Glauce, daughter of Cychreus.36 Afterwards Aeacus cohabited with Psamathe, daughter of
Nereus, who turned herself into a seal to avoid his embraces, and he begot a son
Phocus.37
Now Aeacus was the most pious of men. Therefore, when Greece suffered from infertility on account of Pelops, because in a war with
Stymphalus, king of the Arcadians, being unable to conquer Arcadia, he slew the king under a pretence of friendship, and scattered his
mangled limbs, oracles of the gods declared that Greece would be rid of its present calamities if Aeacus would offer prayers
on its behalf. So Aeacus did offer prayers, and Greece was delivered from the dearth.38 Even after his death Aeacus is honored in
the abode of Pluto, and keeps the keys of Hades.39
As Phocus excelled in athletic sports, his brothers Peleus and Telamon plotted against
him, and the lot falling on Telamon, he killed his brother in a match by throwing a quoit
at his head, and with the help of Peleus carried the body and hid it in a wood. But the
murder being detected, the two were driven fugitives from Aegina by Aeacus.40
[7]
And Telamon betook himself to Salamis, to the court of Cychreus, son of Poseidon and
Salamis, daughter of Asopus. This Cychreus
became king of Salamis through killing a snake
which ravaged the island, and dying childless he bequeathed the kingdom to Telamon.41 And
Telamon married Periboea, daughter of Alcathus,42 son of Pelops, and called his son Ajax, because when Hercules had
prayed that he might have a male child, an eagle appeared after the prayer.43 And having gone with Hercules on his
expedition against Troy, he received as a prize
Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, by whom he had a son Teucer.44
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1 This account of the parentage of Iasion had the authority of Hellanicus （Scholiast on Hom. Od. v.125）. Compare Diod. 5.48.2.
2 Compare Conon 21; Strab. 7 Fr. 50, ed. Meineke; Hyginus, Ast. ii.4. A different turn is given to the story by Homer, who represents the lovers meeting in a thrice-ploughed field （Hom. Od. 5.125-128）. To the same effect Hes. Th. 969-974 says that the thrice-ploughed field where they met was in a fertile district of Crete, and that Wealth was born as the fruit of their love. Compare Diod. 5.77.1ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 270. The Scholiast on Hom. Od. v.125, attempts to rationalize the myth by saying that Iasion was the only man who preserved seed-corn after the deluge.
3 As to the migration of Dardanus from Samothrace to Asia and his foundation of Dardania or Dardanus, see Diod. 5.48.2ff.; Conon 21; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Δάρδανος; compare Hom. Il. 20.215ff. According to one account he was driven from Samothrace by a flood and floated to the coast of the Troad on a raft. See Lycophron, Cassandra 72ff., with the scholia of Tzetzes; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xx.215. As to his marriage with Batia, daughter of Teucer, and his succession to the kingdom, compare Diod. 4.75.1. According to Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Δάρδανες, Batia, the wife of Dardanus, was a daughter of Tros, not of Teucer.
4 Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29. As to Erichthonius, son of Dardanus, see Hom. Il. 20.219ff.; Diod. 4.75.2. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. i.50.3) the names of the two sons whom Dardanus had by his wife Batia were Erichthonius and Zacynthus.
5 Compare Hom. Il. 20.230, who does not mention the mother of Tros. She is named Astyoche, daughter of Simoeis, by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29 in agreement with Apollodorus.
6 Compare Hom. Il. 20.231ff.; Diod. 4.75.3. The name of the wife of Tros is not mentioned by Homer and Diodorus. She is called Callirrhoe, daughter of Scamander, by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29 and the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 20.231, who refers to Hellanicus as his authority. See Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem Townleyana, ed. E. Maass, vol. ii. p. 321.
7 Compare Hom. Il. 20.232-235; HH Aphr. 202ff. These early versions of the myth do not mention the eagle as the agent which transported Ganymede to heaven. The bird figures conspicuously in later versions of the myth and its representation in art. Compare Lucian, Dial. Deorum iv.1; Verg. A. 5.252ff.; Ov. Met. 10.155ff.; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 56, 139, 162, 256 (First Vatican Mythographer 184; Second Vatican Mythographer 198; Third Vatican Mythographer 3.5, 15.11).
8 Compare Hom. Il. 20.239ff.; Diod. 4.75.5. Neither writer names the wives of Assaracus and Capys. As to the love of Aphrodite for Anchises, and the birth of Aeneas, see Hom. Il. 2.819-821; Hom. Il. 5.311-313; Hes. Th. 1008-1010ff.
9 This legend of the foundation of Ilium by Ilus is repeated by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 29. The site of Thebes is said to have been chosen in obedience to a similar oracle. See above, Apollod. 3.4.1. Homer tells us （Hom. Il. 20.215ff.） that the foundation of Dardania on Mount Ida preceded the foundation of Ilium in the plain. As to the hill of Ate, compare Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἴλιον.
10 As to the antique image of Pallas, known as the Palladium, see Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. i.68ff., ii.66.5; Conon 34; Paus. 1.28.9; Paus. 2.23.5; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. iv.47, p. 42, ed. Potter; Malalas, Chr. v. pp. 108ff., ed. L. Dindorf; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 355; Suidas, s.v. Παλλάδιον; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Παλλάδιον, p. 649-50; Scholiast on Hom. Il. vi.311; Verg. A. 2.162ff.; Ovid, Fasti vi.417-436; Ov. Met. 13.337-349; Silius Italicus, Punic. xiii.30ff.; Dictys Cretensis v.5; Serv. Verg. A. 2.166; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 14ff., 45 (First Vatican Mythographer 40, 142). The traditions concerning the Palladium which have come down to us are all comparatively late, and they differ from each other on various points; but the most commonly received account seems to have been that the image was a small wooden one, that it had fallen from heaven, and that so long as it remained in Troy the city could not be taken. The Greek tradition was that the Palladium was stolen and carried off to the Greek camp by Ulysses and Diomedes （see Apollod. E.5.10 and Apollod. E.5.13）, and that its capture by the Greeks ensured the fall of Troy. The Roman tradition was that the image remained in Troy till the city was taken by the Greeks, when Aeneas succeeded in rescuing it and conveying it away with him to Italy, where it was finally deposited in the temple of Vesta at Rome. These two traditions are clearly inconsistent with each other, and the Roman tradition further conflicts with the belief that the city which possessed the sacred image could not be captured by an enemy. Hence in order to maintain the genuineness of the image in the temple of Vesta, patriotic Roman antiquaries were driven to various expedients. They said, for example, that an exact copy of the Palladium had been publicly exposed at Troy, while the true one was carefully concealed in a sanctuary, and that the unsuspicious Greeks had pounced on the spurious image, while the knowing Aeneas smuggled away the genuine one packed up with the rest of his sacred luggage （Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. i.68ff.）. Or they affirmed that the thief Diomedes had been constrained to restore the stolen image to its proper owners （First Vatican Mythographer 40, 142）; or that, warned by Athena in a dream, he afterwards made it over to Aeneas in Italy （Silius Italicus, Punic. xiii.30ff.）. But the Romans were not the only people who claimed to possess the true Palladium; the Argives maintained that it was with them （Paus. 2.23.5）, and the Athenians asserted that it was to be seen in their ancient court of justice which bore the very name of Palladium. See Paus. 1.28.8ff.; Harpocration, s.vv. βουλεύσεως and ἐπὶ παλλαδίῳ; Suidas, s.v. ἐπὶ παλλαδίῳ; Julius Pollux viii.118ff.; Scholiast on Aeschin. 2.87, p. 298, ed, Schultz; Bekker's Anecdota Graeca, i. p. 311, lines 3ff. The most exact description of the appearance of the Palladium is the one given by Apollodorus in the present passage, which is quoted, with the author's name, by Tzetzes （Scholiast on Lycophron 355）. According to Dictys Cretensis v.5, the image fell from heaven at the time when Ilus was building the temple of Athena; the structure was nearly completed, but the roof was not yet on, so the Palladium dropped straight into its proper place in the sacred edifice. Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. iv.47, p. 42, ed. Potter, mentions a strange opinion that the Palladium “was made out of the bones of Pelops, just as the Olympian （image of Zeus was made） out of other bones of an Indian beast,” that is, out of ivory. Pherecydes discussed the subject of palladia in general; he described them as “shapes not made with hands,” and derived the name from πάλλειν, which he considered to be equivalent to βάλλειν, “to throw, cast,” because these objects were cast down from heaven. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 355; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Παλλάδιον, p. 649.50. Apollodorus as usual confines himself to the Greek tradition; he completely ignores the Romans and their claim to possess the Palladium.
11 The following account of the origin of the Palladium was regarded as an interpolation by Heyne, and his view has been accepted by Hercher and Wagner. But the passage was known to Tzetzes, who quotes it （Scholiast on Lycophron 355） immediately after his description of the image, which he expressly borrowed from Apollodorus.
12 Apparently the god of the river Triton, which was commonly supposed to be in Libya, though some people identified it with a small stream in Boeotia. See Hdt. 4.180; Paus. 9.33.7; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 519; compare Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.109.
13 See above, Apollod. 3.12.1.
14 Homer tells （Hom. Il. 19.126-131） how Zeus in anger swore that Ate should never again come to Olympus, and how he seized her by the head and flung her from heaven.
15 Compare Hom. Il. 20.236. Homer does not mention the mother of Laomedon. According to one Scholiast on the passage she was Eurydice, daughter of Adrastus, as Apollodorus has it; according to another she was Batia, daughter of Teucer. But if the family tree recorded by Apollodorus is correct, Batia could hardly have been the wife of Ilus, since she was his great-grandmother.
16 Compare Hom. Il. 20.237ff., with whom Apollodorus agrees as to Laomedon's five sons. Homer does not mention Laomedon's wife nor his daughters. According to a Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.250, his wife's name was Zeuxippe or Strymo; for the former name he cites the authority of the poet Alcman, for the latter the authority of the historian Hellanicus. Apollodorus may have followed Hellanicus, though he was acquainted with other traditions. According to Tzetzes （Scholiast on Lycophron 18）, Priam and Tithonus were sons of Laomedon by different mothers; the mother of Priam was Leucippe, the mother of Tithonus was Strymo or Rhoeo, daughter of Scamander. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.1, speaks of Tithonus as a son of Laomedon by Strymo, daughter of Scamander.
17 Compare Hom. Il. 6.23ff., who says that Bucolion was the eldest son of Laomedon, but illegitimate and one of twins.
18 As to the love of Dawn （Eos） for Tithonus, see the HH Aphr. 218ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 18; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 11.1; Prop. ii.18.7-18, ed. Butler. Homer speaks of Dawn （Aurora） rising from the bed of Tithonus （Hom. Il. 11.1ff.; Hom. Od. 5.1ff.）. According to the author of the Homeric hymn, Dawn obtained from Zeus for her lover the boon of immortality; according to the Scholiast on Homer, it was Tithonus himself who asked and obtained the boon from the loving goddess. But the boon turned to be a bane; for neither he nor she had remembered to ask for freedom from the infirmities of age. So when he was old and white-headed and could not stir hand or foot, he prayed for death as a release from his sufferings; but die he could not, for he was immortal. Hence the goddess in pity either shut him up in his chamber and closed the shining doors on him, leaving him to lisp and babble there eternally, or she turned him into a grasshopper, the most musical of insects, that she might have the joy of hearing her lover's voice sounding for ever in her ears. The former and sadder fate is vouched for by the hymn writer, the latter by the Scholiast. Tzetzes perhaps lets us into the secret of the transformation when he tells us Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 18 that “the grasshoppers, like the snakes, when they are old, slough their old age” （τὸ γῆρας, literally “old age,” but applied by the Greeks to the cast skins of serpents）. It is a widespread notion among savages, which the ancestors of the Greeks apparently shared, that creatures which cast their skins, thereby renew their youth and live for ever. See Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.66ff. The ancient Latins seem also to have cherished the same illusion, for they applied the same name （senecta or senectus） to old age and to the cast skins of serpents.
19 See above, Apollod. 2.6.4.
20 Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 224, who seems to follow Apollodorus. The bird into which the mourner was transformed appears to have been a species of diver. See Ov. Met. 11.749-795; Serv. Verg. A. 4.254, Serv. Verg. A. 5.128.
21 According to Hom. Il. 16.718ff. Hecuba was a daughter of Dymas, “who dwelt in Phrygia by the streams of Sangarius.” But Eur. Hec. 3 represents her as a daughter of Cisseus, and herein he is followed by Verg. A. 7.320, x.705. The mythographers Hyginus and Tzetzes leave it an open question whether Hecuba was a daughter of Cisseus or of Dymas. See Hyginus, Fab. 91, 111, 249; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron, Introd. p. 266, ed. Muller. Compare the Scholiast on Eur. Hec. 3: “Pherecydes writes thus: And Priam, son of Laomedon, marries Hecuba, daughter of Dymas, son of Eioneus, son of Proteus, or of the river Sangarius, by a Naiad nymph Evagora. But some have recorded that Hecuba's mother was Glaucippe, daughter of Xanthus. But Nicander, in agreement with Euripides, says that Hecuba was a daughter of Cisseus.” The Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.718, says that according to Pherecydes the father of Hecuba was Dymas and her mother was a nymph Eunoe, but that according to Athenion her father was Cisseus and her mother Teleclia. Thus it would appear that after all we cannot answer with any confidence the question with which the emperor Tiberius loved to pose the grammarians of his time, “Who was Hecuba's mother?” See Suetonius, Tiberius 70.
22 For Hecuba's dream and the exposure of the infant Paris, see Pind. Pa. 8; Scholiast on Hom. Il. iii.325; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 86; Cicero, De divinatione i.21.42; Hyginus, Fab. 91; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 139 （Second Vatican Mythographer 197）. The dream is alluded to, though not expressly mentioned, by Eur. Tro. 919ff. and Verg. A. 7.319ff. The warning given by the diviner Aesacus is recorded also by Tzetzes （Scholiast on Lycophron 224）, according to whom the sage advised to put both mother and child to death. Eur. And. 293ff. represents Cassandra shrieking in a prophetic frenzy to kill the ill-omened babe. The suckling of the infant Paris for five days by a she-bear seems to be mentioned only by Apollodorus.
23 Apollodorus apparently derives the name Alexander from ἀλέξω “to defend” and ἀνδρός, the genitive of “man.” As the verb was somewhat archaic, he explains it by the more familiar βοηθῶ, if indeed the explanation be not a marginal gloss. See the Critical Note.
24 Laodice is mentioned by Homer as the fairest of Priam's daughters and the wife of Helicaon （Hom. Il. 3.122ff.; Hom. Il. 6.252）.
25 Compare Aesch. Ag. 1202-1212; Hyginus, Fab. 93; Serv. Verg. A. 2.247; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 55, 139 (First Vatican Mythographer 180; Second Vatican Mythographer 196). According to Serv. Verg. A. 2.247, Apollo deprived Cassandra of the power of persuading men of the truth of her prophecies by spitting into her mouth. We have seen that by a similar procedure Glaucus was robbed of the faculty of divination. See above, Apollod. 3.3.2. An entirely different account of the way in which Cassandra and her twin brother Helenus acquired the gift of prophecy is given by a Scholiast on Hom. Il. vii.44. He says that when the festival in honour of the birth of the twins was being held in the sanctuary of the Thymbraean Apollo, the two children played with each other there and fell asleep in the temple. Meantime the parents and their friends, flushed with wine, had gone home, forgetting all about the twins whose birth had given occasion to the festivity. Next morning, when they were sober, they returned to the temple and found the sacred serpents purging with their tongues the organs of sense of the children. Frightened by the cry which the women raised at the strange sight, the serpents disappeared among the laurel boughs which lay beside the infants on the floor; but from that hour Cassandra and Helenus possessed the gift of prophecy. For this story the Scholiast refers to the authority of Anticlides. In like manner Melampus is said to have acquired the art of soothsaying through the action of serpents which licked his ears. See above, Apollod. 1.9.11.
26 Compare Hom. Il. 14.248ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 90.
27 See Hom. Il. 6.395ff., where it is said that Eetion was king of Thebe in Cilicia.
28 For the loves of Paris and Oenone, and their tragic end, compare Conon 23; Parthenius, Narrat. 4; Ovid, Her. v.
29 As to the river-god Asopus and his family, see Diod. 4.72.1-5; Paus. 2.5.1ff.; Paus. 5.22.6. According to Diodorus, Asopus was a son of Ocean and Tethys; he married Metope, daughter of the Ladon, by whom he had two sons and twelve daughters. Asopus, the father of Aegina, is identified by Diodorus and Pausanias with the Phliasian or Sicyonian river of that name; but the patriotic Boeotian poet Pindar seems to claim the honour for the Boeotian Asopus （Pind. I. 8.16(35)ff., and he is naturally supported by his Scholiast （Scholiast on Pind. I. 8.17(37)）, as well as by Statius vii.315ff.） and his Scholiast, Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. vii.424. The Phliasians even went so far as to assert that their Asopus was the father of Thebe, who gave her name to the Boeotian Thebes; but this view the Thebans could not accept （Paus. 2.5.2）.
30 Compare above, Apollod. 1.9.3; Paus. 2.5.1.
31 Compare Callimachus, Hymn to Delos 78; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.117.
32 According to Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. vii.315, live coals were to be found in the Asopus, and Statius, in his windy style （Statius, Theb. vii.325ff.）, talks of the “brave river blowing ashes of thunderbolts and Aetnaean vapours from its panting banks to the sky,” which may be a poetical description of river-mists. But both the poet and his dutiful commentator here refer to the Boeotian Asopus, whereas Apollodorus probably refers to the Phliasian river of that name.
33 Compare Diod. 4.72.5; Paus. 2.29.2; Hyginus, Fab. 52. As to Oenone, the ancient name of Aegina, compare Pind. N. 4.46(75); Pind. N. 5.16(29); Pind. N. 8.7(12); Pind. I. 5.34(44); Hdt. 8.46; Strab. 8.6.16; Hyginus, Fab. 52. Another old name for Aegina was Oenopia. See Pind. N. 8.21(45); Ov. Met. 7.472ff.
34 As to the transformation of the ants into men see Hesiod, quoted by the Scholiast on Pind. N. 3.13(21); and by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 176; Scholiast on Hom. Il. i.180; Strab. 8.6.16; Hyginus, Fab. 52; Ov. Met. 7.614ff.; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 23, 142 (First Vatican Mythographer 67; Second Vatican Mythographer 204). The fable is clearly based on the false etymology which derived the name Myrmidons from μύρμηκες, “ants.” Strab. 8.6.16 attempted to rationalize the myth.
35 Compare Plut. Thes. 10; Paus. 2.29.9; Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687. According to another account, Endeis, the mother of Telamon and Peleus, was a daughter of Chiron. See Scholiast on Pind. N. 5.7(12); Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.14; Hyginus, Fab. 14.
36 This account of the parentage of Telamon, for which we have the authority of the old writer Pherecydes （about 480 B.C.）, is probably earlier than the one which represents him as a son of Aeacus. According to it, Telamon was a native, not of Aegina, but of Salamis, his mother Glauce being a daughter of Cychreus, king of Salamis （as to whom see below, Apollod. 3.12.7）. It is certain that the later life of Telamon was associated with Salamis, where, according to one account （Diod. 4.72.7）, he married Glauce, daughter of Cychreus, king of Salamis, the very woman whom the other and perhaps later version of the legend represented as his mother. See Jebb, Sophocles, Ajax （Cambridge, 1896）, Introduction, Section 4, pp. xviiff.
37 Compare Hes. Th. 1003ff.; Pind. N. 5.12(21); Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687, who mentions the transformation of the sea-nymph into a seal. The children of Phocus settled in Phocis and gave their name to the country. See Paus. 2.29.2, Paus. 10.1.1, Paus. 10.30.4. Thus we have an instance of a Greek people, the Phocians, who traced their name and their lineage to an animal ancestress. But it would be rash to infer that the seal was the totem of the Phocians. There is no evidence that they regarded the seal with any superstitious respect, though the people of Phocaea, in Asia Minor, who were Phocians by descent （Paus. 7.3.10）, put the figure of a seal on their earliest coins. But this was probably no more than a punning badge, like the rose of Rhodes and the wild celery (σέλινον) of Selinus. See George Macdonald, Coin Types （Glasgow, 1905）, pp. 17, 41, 50.
38 Compare Isoc. 9.14ff.; Diod. 4.61.1ff.; Paus. 2.29.7ff.; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. vi.3.28, p. 753; Scholiast on Pind. N. 5.9(17). Tradition ran that a prolonged drought had withered up the fruits of the earth all over Greece, and that Aeacus, as the son of the sky-god Zeus, was deemed the person most naturally fitted to obtain from his heavenly father the rain so urgently needed by the parched earth and the dying corn. So the Greeks sent envoys to him to request that he would intercede with Zeus to save the crops and the people. “ Complying with their petition, Aeacus ascended the Hellenic mountain and stretching out pure hands to heaven he called on the common god, and prayed him to take pity on afflicted Greece. And even while he prayed a loud clap of thunder pealed, and all the surrounding sky was overcast, and furious and continuous showers of rain burst out and flooded the whole land. Thus was exuberant fertility procured for the fruits of the earth by the prayers of Aeacus” （Clement of Alexandria, Strom. vi.3.28, p. 753）. In gratitude for this timely answer to his prayers Aeacus is said to have built a sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Panhellenius in Aegina （Paus. 2.30.4）. No place could well be more appropriate for a temple of the rain-god; for the sharp peak of Mount Panhellenius, the highest mountain of Aegina, is a conspicuous landmark viewed from all the neighbouring coasts of the gulf, and in antiquity a cloud settling on the mountain was regarded as a sign of rain （Theophrastus, De signis tempestat. i.24）. According to Apollodorus, the cause of the dearth had been a crime of Pelops, who had treacherously murdered Stymphalus, king of Arcadia, and scattered the fragments of his mangled body abroad. This crime seems not to be mentioned by any other ancient writer; but Diodorus Siculus in like manner traces the calamity to a treacherous murder. He says （Diod. 4.61.1） that to punish the Athenians for the assassination of his son Androgeus, the Cretan king Minos prayed to Zeus that Athens might be afflicted with drought and famine, and that these evils soon spread over Attica and Greece. Similarly Alcmaeon's matricide was believed to have entailed a failure of the crops. See above, Apollod. 3.7.5 with the note.
39 In some late Greek verses, inscribed on the tomb of a religious sceptic at Rome, Aeacus is spoken of as the warder or key-holder （κλειδοῦχος） of the infernal regions; but in the same breath the poet assures us that these regions, with all their inmates, were mere fables, and that of the dead there remained no more than the bones and ashes. See Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, vol. iii. p. 933, No. 6298; G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta 646. Elsewhere Pluto himself was represented in art holding in his hand the key of Hades. See Paus. 5.20.3. According to Isoc. 9.15, Aeacus enjoyed the greatest honours after death, sitting as assessor with Pluto and Proserpine. Plato represents him as judging the dead along with Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Triptolemus （Plat. Apol. 41a）, it being his special duty to try the souls of those who came from Europe, while his colleague Rhadamanthys dealt with those that came from Asia （Gorgias 79, p. 524A）; apparently no provision was made for African ghosts. Lucian depicts Aeacus playing a less dignified part in the lower world as a sort of ticket-collector or customhouse officer （τελώνης）, whose business it was to examine the ghostly passengers on landing from the ferryboat, count them, and see that they had paid the fare. See Lucian, Cataplus 4; Charon 2. Elsewhere he speaks of Aeacus as keeping the gate of Hades （Lucian, Dialog. Mort. xx.1）.
40 As to the murder of Phocus and the exile of Peleus and Telamon, see Diod. 4.72.6ff. （who represents the death as accidental）; Paus. 2.29.9ff.; Scholiast on Pind. N. 5.14(25); Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687 （quoting verses from the Alcmaeonis）; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.14; Ant. Lib. 38; Plut. Parallela 25; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 175 （vol. i. pp. 444, 447, ed. Muller）; Hyginus, Fab. 14; Ov. Met. 11.266ff.; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. ii.113, vii.344, xi.281. Tradition differed on several points as to the murder. According to Apollodorus and Plutarch the murderer was Telamon; but according to what seems to have been the more generally accepted view he was Peleus. （So Diodorus, Pausanias, the Scholiast on Homer, one of the Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 687, Ovid, and in one passage Lactantius Placidus）. If Pherecydes was right in denying any relationship between Telamon and Peleus, and in representing Telamon as a Salaminian rather than an Aeginetan （see above）, it becomes probable that in the original tradition Peleus, not Telamon, was described as the murderer of Phocus. Another version of the story was that both brothers had a hand in the murder, Telamon having banged him on the head with a quoit, while Peleus finished him off with the stroke of an axe in the middle of his back. This was the account given by the anonymous author of the old epic Alcmaeonis; and the same division of labour between the brothers was recognized by the Scholiast on Pindar and Tzetzes, though according to them the quoit was handled by Peleus and the cold steel by Telamon. Other writers （Antoninus Liberalis and Hyginus） lay the murder at the door of both brothers without parcelling the guilt out exactly between them. There seems to be a general agreement that the crime was committed, or the accident happened, in the course of a match at quoits; but Dorotheus （quoted by Plut. Parallela 25） alleged that the murder was perpetrated by Telamon at a boar hunt, and this view seems to have been accepted by Lactantius Placidus in one place （Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. ii.113）, though in other places （Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. vii.344 and xi.281） he speaks as if the brothers were equally guilty. But perhaps this version of the story originated in a confusion of the murder of Phocus with the subsequent homicide of Eurytion, which is said to have taken place at a boar-hunt, whether the hunting of the Calydonian boar or another. See below, Apollod. 3.13.2 with the note. According to Pausanias the exiled Telamon afterwards returned and stood his trial, pleading his cause from the deck of a ship, because his father would not suffer him to set foot in the island. But being judged guilty by his stern sire he sailed away, to return to his native land no more. It may have been this verdict, delivered against his own son, which raised the reputation of Aeacus for rigid justice to the highest pitch, and won for him a place on the bench beside Minos and Rhadamanthys in the world of shades.
41 Compare Diod. 4.72.4; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 110, 175, 451. In the second of these passages （175, vol. i. p. 444, ed. Muller） Tzetzes agrees closely with Apollodorus and probably follows him. A somewhat different version of the legend was told by Hesiod. According to him the snake was reared by Cychreus, but expelled from Salamis by Eurylochus because of the ravages it committed in the island; and after its expulsion it was received at Eleusis by Demeter, who made it one of her attendants. See Strab. 9.1.9. Others said that the snake was not a real snake, but a bad man nicknamed Snake on account of his cruelty, who was banished by Eurylochus and took refuge at Eleusis, where he was appointed to a minor office in the sanctuary of Demeter. See Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Κυχρεῖος πάγος; Eustathius, Commentary on Dionysius Perieg. 507 （Geographi Graeci Minores, ed. C. Müller, vol. ii. p. 314）. Cychreus was regarded as one of the guardian heroes of Salamis, where he was buried with his face to the west. Sacrifices were regularly offered at his grave, and when Solon desired to establish the claim of Athens to the possession of the island, he sailed across by night and sacrificed to the dead man at his grave. See Plut. Sol. 9. Cychreus was worshipped also at Athens （Plut. Thes. 10）. It is said that at the battle of Salamis a serpent appeared among the Greek ships, and God announced to the Athenians that this serpent was the hero Cychreus （Paus. 1.36.1）. The story may preserve a reminiscence of the belief that kings and heroes regularly turn into serpents after death. The same belief possibly explains the association of Erichthonius or Erechtheus and Cecrops with serpents at Athens. See The Dying God, pp. 86ff. On account of this legendary serpent Lycophron called Salamis the Dragon Isle （Lycophron, Cassandra 110）.
42 Compare Xen. Cyn. i.9; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.14. According to Diod. 4.72.7, Telamon first married Glauce, daughter of Cychreus, king of Salamis, and on her death he wedded the Athenian Eriboea, daughter of Alcathous, by whom he had Ajax. Pindar also mentions Eriboea as the wife of Telamon: see Pind. I. 6.45(65).
43 As to the prayer of Herakles and the appearance of the eagle in answer to the prayer, see Pind. I. 6.35(51)ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 455-461. Pindar followed by Apollodorus and Tzetzes, derived the name Ajax from αἰετός “an eagle.” A story ran that Herakles wrapt the infant Ajax in the lion's skin which he himself wore, and that Ajax was thus made invulnerable except in the armpit, where the quiver had hung, or, according to others, at the neck. Hence, in describing the suicide of the hero, Aeschylus told how, when he tried to run himself through the body, the sword doubled back in the shape of a bow, till some spirit showed the desperate man the fatal point to which to apply the trenchant blade. See Scholiast on Soph. Aj. 833; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 455-461; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 23.821. Plato probably had this striking passage of the tragedy in his mind when he made Alcibiades speak of Socrates as more proof against vice than Ajax against steel （Plat. Symp. 219e）.
44 See above, Apollod. 2.6.4. As Hesione, the mother of Teucer, was not the lawful wife of Telamon, Homer speaks of Teucer as a bastard （Hom. Il. 8.283ff., with the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 8.284）. According to another account, it was not Telamon but his brother Peleus who went with Herakles to the siege of Troy. The poets were not consistent on this point. Thus, while in two passages （Pind. N. 4.25(40); Pind. I. 6.27(39)ff.） Pindar assigns to Telamon the glory of the adventure, in another he transfers it to Peleus （quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 796; Pind. Fr. 172）. Euripides was equally inconsistent. See his Eur. Tro. 804ff. （Telamon）, contrasted with his Eur. And. 796ff. （Peleus）.
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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