[256] These funeral games in honor of Pelias were among the most renowned of the mythical incidents: they were celebrated in a special poem by Stesichorus, and represented on the chest of Kypselus at Olympia. Kastôr, Meleager, Amphiaraos, Jasôn, Pêleus, Mopsos, etc. contended in them (Pausan. v. 17. 4; Stesichori Fragm. 1. p. 54, ed. Klewe; Athên. iv. 172). How familiar the details of them were to the mind of a literary Greek is indirectly attested by Plutarch, Sympos. v. 2, vol. iii. p. 762, Wytt.

[257] Hesiod, Theogon. 998.

[258] According to the Schol. ad Eurip. Mêd. 20, Jasôn marries the daughter of Hippotês the son of Kreôn, who is the son of Lykæthos. Lykæthos, after the departure of Bellerophôn from Corinth, reigned twenty-seven years; then Kreôn reigned thirty-five years; then came Hippotês.

[259] Apollodôr. i. 9, 27; Diodôr. iv. 54. The Mêdea of Euripidês, which has fortunately been preserved to us, is too well known to need express reference. He makes Mêdea the destroyer of her own children, and borrows from this circumstance the most pathetic touches of his exquisite drama. Parmeniskôs accused him of having been bribed by the Corinthians to give this turn to the legend; and we may regard the accusation as a proof that the older and more current tale imputed the murder of the children to the Corinthians (Schol. Eurip. Mêd. 275, where Didymos gives the story out of the old poem of Kreophylos). See also Ælian, V. H. v. 21; Pausan. ii. 3, 6.

The most significant fact in respect to the fable is, that the Corinthians celebrated periodically a propitiatory sacrifice to Hêrê Akræa and to Mermerus and Pherês, as an atonement for the sin of having violated the sanctuary of the altar. The legend grew out of this religious ceremony, and was so arranged as to explain and account for it (see Eurip. Mêd. 1376, with the Schol. Diodôr. iv. 55).

Mermerus and Pherês were the names given to the children of Mêdea and Jasôn in the old Naupaktian Verses; in which, however, the legend must have been recounted quite differently, since they said that Jasôn and Mêdea had gone from Iôlkos, not to Corinth, but to Corcyra; and that Mermerus had perished in hunting on the opposite continent of Epirus. Kinæthôn again, another ancient genealogical poet, called the children of Mêdea and Jasôn Eriôpis and Mêdos (Pausan. ii. 3, 7). Diodôrus gives them different names (iv. 34). Hesiod, in the Theogony, speaks only of Medeius as the son of Jasôn.

Mêdea does not appear either in the Iliad or Odyssey: in the former, we find Agamêdê, daughter of Augeas, “who knows all the poisons (or medicines) which the earth nourishes” (Iliad, xi. 740); in the latter, we have Circê, sister of Æêtês, father of Mêdea, and living in the Ææan island (Odyss. x. 70). Circê is daughter of the god Hêlios, as Mêdea is his grand-daughter,—she is herself a goddess. She is in many points the parallel of Mêdea; she forewarns and preserves Odysseus throughout his dangers, as Mêdea aids Jasôn: according to the Hesiodic story, she has two children by Odysseus, Agrius and Latinus (Theogon. 1001).

Odysseus goes to Ephyrê to Ilos the son of Mermerus, to procure poison for his arrows: Eustathius treats this Mermerus as the son of Mêdea (see Odyss. i. 270, and Eust.). As Ephyrê is the legendary name of Corinth, we may presume this to be a thread of the same mythical tissue.

[260] See Euripid. Æol.—Fragm. 1, Dindorf; Dikæarch. Vit. Græc. p. 22.

[261] Respecting Sisyphus, see Apollodôr. i. 9, 3; iii. 12, 6. Pausan. ii. 5, 1. Schol. ad Iliad. i. 180. Another legend about the amour of Sisyphus with Tyrô, is in Hygin. fab. 60, and about the manner in which he overreached even Hadês (Pherekydês ap. Schol. Iliad. vi. 153). The stone rolled by Sisyphus in the under-world appears in Odyss. xi. 592. The name of Sisyphus was given during the historical age to men of craft and stratagem, such as Derkyllidês (Xenoph. Hellenic. iii. 1, 8). He passed for the real father of Odysseus, though Heyne (ad Apollodôr. i. 9, 3) treats this as another Sisyphus, whereby he destroys the suitableness of the predicate as regards Odysseus. The duplication and triplication of synonymous personages is an ordinary resource for the purpose of reducing the legends into a seeming chronological sequence.

Even in the days of Eumêlus a religious mystery was observed respecting the tombs of Sisyphus and Nêleus,—the latter had also died at Corinth,—no one could say where they were buried (Pausan. ii. 2, 2).

Sisyphus even overreached Persephonê, and made his escape from the under-world (Theognis, 702).

[262] Pausan. ii. 1, 1; 3, 10. Schol. ad Pindar, Olymp. xiii. 74. Schol. Lycoph. 174-1024. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 1212.

[263] Simonid. ap. Schol. ad Eurip. Mêd. 10-20; Theopompus, Fragm. 340, Didot; though Welcker (Der Episch. Cycl. p. 29) thinks that this does not belong to the historian Theopompus. Epimenidês also followed the story of Eumêlus in making Æêtês a Corinthian (Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. iii. 242).

[264] Περὶ δὲ τῆς εἰς Κόρινθον μετοικήσεως, Ἵππυς ἐκτίθεται καὶ Ἑλλάνικος· ὅτι δὲ βεβασίλευκε τῆς Κορίνθου ἡ Μήδεια, Εὔμηλος ἱστορεῖ καὶ Σιμωνίδης· Ὅτι δὲ καὶ ἀθάνατος ἦν ἡ Μήδεια, Μουσαῖος ἐν τῷ περὶ Ἰσθμίων ἱστορεῖ, ἅμα καὶ περὶ τῶν τῆς Ἀκραίας Ἥρας ἑορτῶν ἐκτιθείς. (Schol. Eurip. Mêd. 10). Compare also v. 1376 of the play itself, with the Scholia and Pausan. ii. 3, 6. Both Alkman and Hesiod represented Mêdea as a goddess (Athenagoras, Legatia pro Christianis, p. 54, ed. Oxon.).

[265] Pausan. ii. 3, 10; Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xiii. 74.

[266] Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xiii. 32-74; Plutarch, De Herodot. Malign. p. 871.

[267] Pindar, Olymp. xiii. 98. and Schol. ad 1; Schol. ad Iliad, vi. 155; this seems to be the sense of Iliad, vi. 191.

The lost drama called Iobatês of Sophoklês, and the two by Euripidês called Sthenebœa and Bellerophôn, handled the adventures of this hero. See the collection of the few fragments remaining in Dindorf, Fragm. Sophok. 280; Fragm. Eurip. p. 87-108; and Hygin. fab. 67.

Welcker (Griechische Tragöd. ii. p. 777-800) has ingeniously put together all that can be divined respecting the two plays of Euripidês.

Völcker seeks to make out that Bellerophôn is identical with Poseidôn Hippios,—a separate personification of one of the attributes of the god Poseidôn. For this conjecture he gives some plausible grounds (Mythologie des Japetisch. Geschlechts, p. 129 seq.).

[268] Iliad, vi. 155-210.

[269] Hesiod, Theogon. 283.

[270] Pausan. ii. 2, 4. See Pindar, Olymp. xiii. 90, addressed to Xenophôn the Corinthian, and the Adoniazusæ of the Syracusan Theocritus, a poem in which common Syracusan life and feeling are so graphically depicted, Idyll xv. 91.—

[271] Pausan. ii. 4, 3.

[272] Eurip. Mêd. 1250, with the Scholia, according to which story Inô killed both her children:—

Compare Valckenaer, Diatribe in Eurip.; Apollodôr. i. 9, 1-2; Schol. ad Pindar. Argum. ad Isthm. p. 180. The many varieties of the fable of Athamas and his family may be seen in Hygin. fab. 1-5; Philostephanus ap. Schol. Iliad, vii. 86: it was a favorite subject with the tragedians, and was handled by Æschylus, Sophoklês and Euripidês in more than one drama (see Welcker, Griechische Tragöd. vol. i. p. 312-332; vol. ii. p. 612). Heyne says that the proper reading of the name is Phrixus, not Phryxus,—incorrectly, I think: Φρύξος connects the name both with the story of roasting the wheat (φρύγειν), and also with the country Φρυγία, of which it was pretended that Phryxus was the Eponymus. Inô, or Leukothea, was worshipped as a heroine at Megara as well as at Corinth (Pausan. i. 42, 3): the celebrity of the Isthmian games carried her worship, as well as that of Palæmôn, throughout most parts of Greece (Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii. 16). She is the only personage of this family noticed either in the Iliad or Odyssey: in the latter poem she is a sea-goddess, who has once been a mortal, daughter of Kadmus; she saves Odysseus from imminent danger at sea by presenting to him her κρήδεμνον (Odyss. v. 433; see the refinements of Aristidês, Orat. iii. p. 27). The voyage of Phryxus and Hellê to Kolchis was related in the Hesiodic Eoiai: we find the names of the children of Phryxus by the daughter of Æêtês quoted from that poem (Schol. ad Apollôn. Rhod. ii. 1123) both Hesiod and Pherekydês mentioned the golden fleece of the ram (Eratosthen. Catasterism. 19; Pherekyd. Fragm. 53, Didot).

Hekatæus preserved the romance of the speaking ram (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. i. 256) but Hellanikus dropped the story of Hellê having fallen into the sea: according to him she died at Pactyê in the Chersonesus (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 1144).

The poet Asius seems to have given the genealogy of Athamas by Themistô much in the same manner as we find it in Apollodôrus (Pausan. ix. 23, 3).

According to the ingenious refinements of Dionysius and Palæphatus (Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. ii. 1144; Palæphat. de Incred. c. 31) the ram of Phryxus was after all a man named Krios, a faithful attendant who aided in his escape; others imagined a ship with a ram’s head at the bow.

[273] Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 38. p. 299. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 655.

[274] Of the Athamas of Sophoklês, turning upon this intended, but not consummated sacrifice, little is known, except from a passage of Aristophanês and the Scholia upon it (Nubes, 258).—

Athamas was introduced in this drama with a garland on his head, on the point of being sacrificed as an expiation for the death of his son Phryxus, when Hêraklês interposes and rescues him.

[275] Herodot. vii. 197. Plato, Minôs, p. 315.

[276] Plato, Minôs, c. 5. Καὶ οἱ τοῦ Ἀθάμαντος ἔκγονοι, οἵας θυσίας θύουσιν, Ἕλληνες ὄντες. As a testimony to the fact still existing or believed to exist, this dialogue is quite sufficient, though not the work of Plato.

Μόνιμος δ᾽ ἱστορεῖ, ἐν τῇ τῶν θαυμασίων συναγωγῇ, ἐν Πέλλῃ τῆς Θετταλίας Ἀχαιὸν ἄνθρωπον Πηλεῖ καὶ Χείρωνι καταθύεσθαι. (Clemens Alexand. Admon. ad Gent. p. 27, Sylb.) Respecting the sacrifices at the temple of Zeus Lykæus in Arcadia, see Plato, Republ. viii. p. 565. Pausanias (viii. p. 38, 5) seems to have shrunk, when he was upon the spot, even from inquiring what they were—a striking proof of the fearful idea which he had conceived of them. Plutarch (De Defectu Oracul. c. 14) speaks of τὰς πάλαι ποιουμένας ἀνθρωποθυσίας. The Schol. ad Lycophron. 229, gives a story of children being sacrificed to Melikertês at Tenedos; and Apollodôrus (ad Porphyr. de Abstinentiâ, ii. 55, see Apollod. Fragm. 20, ed. Didot) said that the Lacedæmonians had sacrificed a man to Arês—καὶ Λακεδαιμονίους φησὶν ὁ Ἀπολλόδωρος τῷ Ἄρει θύειν ἄνθρωπον. About Salamis in Cyprus, see Lactantius, De Falsâ Religione, i. c. 21. “Apud Cypri Salaminem, humanam hostiam Jovi Teucrus immolavit, idque sacrificium posteris tradidit: quod est nuper Hadriano imperante sublatum.”

Respecting human sacrifices in historical Greece, consult a good section in K. F. Hermann’s Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen (sect. 27). Such sacrifices had been a portion of primitive Grecian religion, but had gradually become obsolete everywhere—except in one or two solitary cases, which were spoken of with horror. Even in these cases, too, the reality of the fact, in later times, is not beyond suspicion.

[277] Pausan. ix. 34, 4.

[278] Pausan. ix. 34, 5.

[279] Ephorus, Fragm. 68, Marx.

[280] Pausan. ix. 36, 1-3. See also a legend, about the three daughters of Minyas, which was treated by the Tanagræan poetess Korinna, the contemporary of Pindar (Antonin. Liberalis, Narr. x.).

[281] This exile of Hyêttus was recounted in the Eoiai. Hesiod, Fragm. 148, Markt.

[282] Pausan. ix. 37, 2. Apollod. ii. 4, 11. Diodôr. iv. 10. The two latter tell us that Erginus was slain. Klymenê is among the wives and daughters of the heroes seen by Odysseus in Hadês: she is termed by the Schol. daughter of Minyas (Odyss. xi. 325).

[283] Pausan. ix. 37, 1-3. Λέγεται δὲ ὁ Τροφώνιος Ἀπόλλωνος εἶναι, καὶ οὐκ Ἐργίνου· καὶ ἐγώ τε πείθομαι, καὶ ὅστις παρὰ Τροφώνιον ἦλθε δὴ μαντευσόμενος.

[284] Plutarch, De Defectu Oracul. c. 5, p. 411. Strabo, ix. p. 414. The mention of the honeyed cakes, both in Aristophanês (Nub. 508) and Pausanias (ix. 39, 5), indicates that the curious preliminary ceremonies, for those who consulted the oracle of Trophônius, remained the same after a lapse of 550 years. Pausanias consulted it himself. There had been at one time an oracle of Teiresias at Orchomenos: but it had become silent at an early period (Plutarch. Defect. Oracul. c. 44, p. 434).

[285] Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 296. Pausan. ix. 11, 1.

[286] Pausan. ix. 37, 3. A similar story, but far more romantic and amplified, is told by Herodotus (ii. 121), respecting the treasury vault of Rhampsinitus, king of Egypt. Charax (ap. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 508) gives the same tale, but places the scene in the treasury-vault of Augeas, king of Elis, which he says was built by Trophônius, to whom he assigns a totally different genealogy. The romantic adventures of the tale rendered it eminently fit to be interwoven at some point or another of legendary history, in any country.

[287] Pausan. ix. 38, 6; 29, 1.

[288] Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. i. 230. Compare Schol. ad Lycophron. 873.

[289] Schol. Pindar, Olymp. xiv. 5.

[290] Schol. Pindar, Isthm. i. 79. Other discrepancies in Schol. Vett. ad Iliad. ii. Catalog. 18.

[291] Odyss. xi. 283. Pausan. ix. 36, 3.

[292] Iliad, ii. 5, 11. Odyss. xi. 283. Hesiod, Fragm. Eoiai, 27, Düntz. Ἴξεν δ᾽ Ὀρχόμενον Μινυήϊον. Pindar, Olymp. xiv. 4. Παλαιγόνων Μινυᾶν ἐπίσκοποι. Herodot. i. 146. Pausanias calls them Minyæ even in their dealings with Sylla (ix. 30, 1). Buttmann, in his Dissertation (Über die Minyæ der Ältesten Zeit, in the Mythologus, Diss. xxi. p. 218), doubts whether the name Minyæ was ever a real name; but all the passages make against his opinion.

[293] Schol. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 1186. i. 230. Σκήψιος δὲ Δημήτρός φησι τοὺς περὶ τὴν Ἰωλκὸν οἰκοῦντας Μινύας καλεῖσθαι; and i. 763. Τὴν γὰρ Ἰωλκὸν οἱ Μίνυαι ᾤκουν, ὥς φησι Σιμωνίδης ἐν Συμμικτοῖς: also Eustath. ad Iliad. ii. 512. Steph. Byz. v. Μινύα. Orchomenos and Pylos run together in the mind of the poet of the Odyssey, xi. 458.

[294] Pherekyd. Fragm. 56, Didot. We see by the 55th Fragment of the same author, that he extended the genealogy of Phryxos to Pheræ in Thessaly.

[295] Herodot. iv. 145. Strabo, viii. 337-347. Hom. Iliad, xi. 721. Pausan. v. 1, 7. ποταμὸν Μινυήϊον, near Elis.

[296] Iliad, ix. 381.

[297] See the description of these channels or Katabothra in Colonel Leake’s Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ii. c. 15, p. 281-293, and still more elaborately in Fiedler, Reise durch alle Theile des Königreichs Griechenlands, Leipzig, 1840. He traced fifteen perpendicular shafts sunk for the purpose of admitting air into the tunnel, the first separated from the last by about 5900 feet: they are now of course overgrown and stopped up (vol. i. p. 115).

Forchhammer states the length of this tunnel as considerably greater than what is here stated. He also gives a plan of the Lake Kôpaïs with the surrounding region, which I have placed at the end of the second volume of this History. See also infra, vol. ii. ch. iii. p. 391.

[298] We owe this interesting fact to Strabo, who is however both concise and unsatisfactory, viii. p. 406-407. It was affirmed that there had been two ancient towns, named Eleusis and Athênæ, originally founded by Cecrôps, situated on the lake, and thus overflowed (Steph. Byz. v. Ἀθῆναι Diogen. Laërt. iv. 23. Pausan. ix. 24, 2). For the plain or marsh near Orchomenos, see Plutarch, Sylla, c. 20-22.

[299] Diodôr. iv. 18. Pausan. ix. 38, 5.

[300] Strabo, viii. p. 374. Ἦν δὲ καὶ Ἀμφικτυονία τις περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν τοῦτο, ἕπτα πόλεων αἳ μετεῖχον τῆς θυσίας· ἦσαν δὲ Ἑρμιὼν, Ἐπίδαυρος, Αἴγινα, Ἀθῆναι, Πρασιεῖς, Ναυπλιεῖς, Ὀρχόμενος ὁ Μινύειος. Ὑπὲρ μὲν οὖν τῶν Ναυπλιέων Ἀργεῖοι, ὑπὲρ Πρασιέων δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ξυνετέλουν.

[301] Pausan. ix. 17, 1; 26, 1.

[302] See Müller, Orchomenos und die Minyer, p. 214. Pausan. ix. 23, 3; 24, 3. The genealogy is as old as the poet Asios.

[303] Herod. i. 146. Pausan. vii. 2, 2.

[304] Theocrit. xvi. 104.—

The scholiast gives a sense to these words much narrower than they really bear. See Diodôr. xv. 79; Pausan. ix. 15. In the oration which Isokratês places in the mouth of a Platæan, complaining of the oppressions of Thêbes, the ancient servitude and tribute to Orchomenos is cast in the teeth of the Thêbans (Isokrat. Orat. Plataic. vol. iii. p. 32, Auger).

[305] Pausan. ix. 34, 5. See also the fourteenth Olympic Ode of Pindar, addressed to the Orchomenian Asopikus. The learned and instructive work of K. O. Müller, Orchomenos und die Minyer, embodies everything which can be known respecting this once-memorable city; indeed the contents of the work extends much farther than its title promises.

[306] Apollodôr. i. 7, 4. A. Kêyx,—king of Trachin,—the friend of Hêraklês and protector of the Hêrakleids to the extent of his power (Hesiod, Scut. Hercul. 355-473: Apollodôr. ii. 7, 5; Hekatæ. Fragm. 353, Didot.).

[307] Canacê, daughter of Æolus, is a subject of deep tragical interest both in Euripidês and Ovid. The eleventh Heroic Epistle of the latter, founded mainly on the lost tragedy of the former called Æolus, purports to be from Canacê to Macareus, and contains a pathetic description of the ill-fated passion between a brother and sister: see the fragments of the Æolus in Dindorf’s collection. In the tale of Kaunos and Byblis, both children of Milêtos, the results of an incestuous passion are different but hardly less melancholy (Parthenios, Narr. xi.).

Makar, the son of Æolus, is the primitive settler of the island of Lesbos (Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 37): moreover in the Odyssey, Æolus son of Hippotês, the dispenser of the winds, has six sons and six daughters, and marries the former to the latter (Odyss. x. 7). The two persons called Æolus are brought into connection genealogically (see Schol. ad Odyss. l. c., and Diodôr. iv. 67), but it seems probable that Euripidês was the first to place the names of Macareus and Canacê in that relation which confers upon them their poetical celebrity. Sostratus (ap. Stobæum, t. 614, p. 404) can hardly be considered to have borrowed from any older source than Euripidês. Welcker (Griech. Tragöd. vol. ii. p. 860) puts together all that can be known respecting the structure of the lost drama of Euripidês.

[308] Iliad, v. 386; Odyss. xi. 306; Apollodôr. i. 7, 4. So Typhôeus, in the Hesiodic Theogony, the last enemy of the gods, is killed before he comes to maturity (Theog. 837). For the different turns given to this ancient Homeric legend, see Heyne, ad Apollodôr. l. c, and Hyginus, f. 28. The Alôids were noticed in the Hesiodic poems (ap. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. i. 482). Odysseus does not see them in Hadês, as Heyne by mistake says; he sees their mother Iphimêdea. Virgil (Æn. vi. 582) assigns to them a place among the sufferers of punishment in Tartarus.

Eumêlus, the Corinthian poet, designated Alôeus as son of the god Hêlios and brother of Æêtês, the father of Mêdea (Eumêl. Fragm. 2, Marktscheffel). The scene of their death was subsequently laid in Naxos (Pindar, Pyth. iv. 88): their tombs were seen at Anthêdôn in Bœôtia (Pausan. ix. 22, 4). The very curious legend alluded to by Pausanias from Hegesinoos, the author of an Atthis,—to the effect that Otos and Ephialtês were the first to establish the worship of the Muses in Helicôn, and that they founded Ascra along with Œoklos, the son of Poseidôn,—is one which we have no means of tracing farther (Pausan. ix. 29, I).

The story of the Alôids, as Diodôrus gives it (v. 51, 52), diverges on almost every point: it is evidently borrowed from some Naxian archæologist, and the only information which we collect from it is, that Otos and Ephialtês received heroic honors at Naxos. The views of O. Müller (Orchomenos, p. 387) appear to me unusually vague and fanciful.

Ephialtês takes part in the combat of the giants against the gods (Apollodôr. t. 6, 2), where Heyne remarks, as in so many other cases, “Ephialtês hic non confundendus cum altero Alôei filio;” an observation just indeed, if we are supposed to be dealing with personages and adventures historically real, but altogether misleading in regard to these legendary characters; for here the general conception of Ephialtês and his attributes is in both cases the same; but the particular adventures ascribed to him cannot be made to consist, as facts, one with the other.

[309] Hesiod, Akusilaus and Pherekydês, ap. Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. iv, 57. Ἴν δ᾽ αὐτῷ θανάτου ταμίης. The Scholium is very full of matter, and exhibits many of the diversities in the tale of Endymiôn: see also Apollodôr i. 7, 5; Pausan. v. 1, 2; Conôn. Narr. 14.

[310] Theocrit. iii. 49; xx. 35; where, however, Endymiôn is connected with Latmos in Caria (see Schol. ad loc.).

[311] Pausan. v. 1. 3-6; Apollodôr. i. 7, 6.

[312] Apollodôr. ii. 5, 5; Schol. Apoll. Rhod. i. 172. In all probability, the old legend made Augeas the son of the god Hêlios: Hêlios, Augeas and Agamêdê are a triple series parallel to the Corinthian genealogy, Hêlios, Æêtês and Mêdia; not to mention that the etymology of Augeas connects him with Hêlios. Theocritus (xx. 55) designates him as the son of the god Hêlios, through whose favor his cattle are made to prosper and multiply with such astonishing success (xx. 117).

[313] Iliad, xi. 670-760; Pherekyd. Fragm. 57, Didot.

[314] Diodôr. iv. 13. Ὕβρεως ἕνεκεν Εὐρυσθεὺς προσέταξε καθᾶραι· ὁ δὲ Ἡρακλῆς τὸ μὲν τοῖς ὤμοις ἐξενεγκεῖν αὐτὴν ἀπεδοκίμασεν, ἐκκλίνων τὴν ἐκ τῆς ὕβρεως αἰσχύνην, etc. (Pausan. v. 1. 7; Apollodôr. ii. 5, 5).

It may not be improper to remark that this fable indicates a purely pastoral condition, or at least a singularly rude state of agriculture; and the way in which Pausanias recounts it goes even beyond the genuine story: ὡς καὶ τὰ πολλὰ τῆς χώρας αὐτῷ ἤδη διατελεῖν ἀργὰ ὄντα ὑπὸ τῶν βοσκημάτων τῆς κόπρου. The slaves of Odysseus however know what use to make of the dung heaped before his outer fence (Odyss. xvii. 299); not so the purely carnivorous and pastoral Cyclôps (Odyss. ix. 329). The stabling into which the cattle go from their pasture, is called κόπρος in Homer,—Ἐλθούσας ἐς κόπρον, ἐπὴν βοτανῆς κορέσωνται (Odyss. x. 411): compare Iliad, xviii. 575—Μυκηθμῷ δ᾽ ἀπὸ κόπρου ἐπεσσεύοντο πέδονδε.

The Augeas of Theocritus has abundance of wheat-land and vineyard, as well as cattle: he ploughs his land three or four times, and digs his vineyard diligently (xx. 20-32).

[315] The wrath and retirement of Phyleus is mentioned in the Iliad (ii. 633), but not the cause of it.

[316] These singular properties were ascribed to them both in the Hesiodic poems and by Pherekydês (Schol. Ven. ad II. xi. 715-750, et ad II. xxiii. 638), but not in the Iliad. The poet Ibykus (Fragm. 11, Schneid. ap. Athenæ. ii. 57) calls them ἅλικας ἰσοκεφάλους, ἐνιγυίους, Ἀμφοτέρους γεγαῶτας ἐν ὠέῳ ἀργυρέῳ.

There were temples and divine honors to Zeus Moliôn (Lactantius. de Falsâ Religione, i. 22).

[317] Pausan. v. 2, 4. The inscription cited by Pausanias proves that this was the reason assigned by the Eleian athlêtes themselves for the exclusion; but there were several different stories.

[318] Apollodôr. ii. 7, 2. Diodôr. iv. 33. Pausan. v. 2, 2; 3, 2. It seems evident from these accounts that the genuine legend represented Hêraklês as having been defeated by the Molionids: the unskilful evasions both of Apollodôrus and Diodôrus betray this. Pindar (Olymp. xi. 25-50) gives the story without any flattery to Hêraklês.

[319] Pausan. v. 4, 1.

[320] The Armenian copy of Eusebius gives a different genealogy respecting Elis and Pisa: Aëthlius, Epeius, Endymiôn, Alexinus; next Œnomaus and Pêlops, then Hêraklês. Some counted ten generations, others three, between Hêraklês and Iphitus, who renewed the discontinued Olympic games (see Armen. Euseb. copy c. xxxii. p. 140).

[321] Iliad, ii. 615-630.

[322] Pausan. v. 3, 4.

[323] Schol. Pindar, Olymp. ix. 86.

[324] Schol. Ven. ad II. xi. 687; Conôn, Narrat. xv. ap. Scriptt. Mythogr. West p. 130.

[325] Pindar, Olymp. ix. 62: Schol. ibid. 86. Ὀποῦντος ἠν θυγάτηρ Ἠλείων βασιλέως, ἣν Ἀριστοτέλης Καμβύσην καλεῖ.

[326] Ἑκαταῖος δὲ ὁ Μιλήσιος ἑτέρους λέγει τῶν Ἠλείων τοὺς Ἐπείους· τῷ γοῦν Ἡρακλεῖ συστρατεῦσαι τοὺς Ἐπείους καὶ συνανελεῖν αὐτῷ τόν τε Αὐγέαν καὶ τὴν Ἦλιν (Hekat. ap. Strab. viii. p. 341).

[327] Ephorus said that Ætôlus had been expelled by Salmôneus king of the Epeians and Pisatæ (ap. Strabo. viii. p. 357): he must have had before him a different story and different genealogy from that which is given in the text.

[328] Apollodôr. i. 7, 6. Dôrus, son of Apollo and Phthia, killed by Ætôlus, after having hospitably received him, is here mentioned. Nothing at all is known of this; but the conjunction of names is such as to render it probable that there was some legend connected with them: possibly the assistance given by Apollo to the Kurêtes against the Ætôlians, and the death of Meleager by the hand of Apollo, related both in the Eoiai and the Minyas (Pausan. x. 31, 2), may have been grounded upon it. The story connects itself with what is stated by Apollodôrus about Dôrus son of Hellên (see supra, p. 136).

[329] According to the ancient genealogical poet Asius, Thestius was son of Agênôr the son of Pleurôn (Asii Fragm. 6, p. 413, ed. Marktsch.). Compare the genealogy of Ætôlia and the general remarks upon it, in Brandstäter, Geschichte des Ætol. Landes, etc., Berlin, 1844, p. 23 seq.

[330] Respecting Lêda, see the statements of Ibykus, Pherekydês, Hellanikus, etc. (Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. i. 146). The reference to the Corinthiaca of Eumêlus is curious: it is a specimen of the matters upon which these old genealogical poems dwelt.

[331] Apollodôr. i. 8, 1; Euripidês, Meleager, Frag. 1. The three sons of Portheus are named in the Iliad (xiv. 116) as living at Pleurôn and Kalydôn. The name Œneus doubtless brings Dionysus into the legend.

[332] Ἢ λάθετ᾽, ἢ οὐκ ἐνόησεν· ἀάσατο δὲ μέγα θυμῷ. (Iliad, ix. 533). The destructive influence of Atê is mentioned before, v. 502. The piety of Xenophôn reproduces this ancient circumstance,—Οἴνεως δ᾽ ἐν γήρᾳ ἐπιλαθομένου τῆς θεοῦ, etc. (De Venat. c. i.)

[333] These priests formed the Chorus in the Meleager of Sophoklês (Schol. ad Iliad. ib. 575).

[334] Iliad, ix. 525-595.

[335] Iliad, ii. 642.

[336] Pausan. x. 31. 2. The Πλευρώνιαι, a lost tragedy of Phrynichus.

[337] Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 2, 11.

[338] There was a tragedy of Æschylus called Ἀταλάντη, of which nothing remains (Bothe, Æschyli Fragm. ix. p. 18).

Of the more recent dramatic writers, several selected Atalanta as their subject (See Brandstäter, Geschichte Ætoliens, p. 65).

[339] There was a poem of Stesichorus, Συόθηραι (Stesichor. Fragm. 15. p. 72).

[340] The catalogue of these heroes is in Apollodôr. i. 8, 2; Ovid, Metamor. viii. 300; Hygin. fab. 173. Euripidês, in his play of Meleager, gave an enumeration and description of the heroes (see Fragm. 6 of that play, ed. Matth.). Nestôr, in this picture of Ovid, however, does not appear quite so invincible as in his own speeches in the Iliad. The mythographers thought it necessary to assign a reason why Hêraklês was not present at the Kalydônian adventure: he was just at that time in servitude with Omphalê in Lydia (Apollod. ii. 6, 3). This seems to have been the idea of Ephorus, and it is much in his style of interpretation (see Ephor. Fragm. 9. ed. Didot.).

[341] Euripid. Meleag. Fragm. vi. Matt.—

There was a drama “Meleager” both of Sophoklês and Euripidês: of the former hardly any fragments remain,—a few more of the latter.