The death of Theseus is commonly agreed to have taken place in the following manner:—He had been deprived of the sovereignty of Athens by Menestheus, who was aided by the Dioscuri; and then withdrew to the island of Scyros. Here he was at first hospitably received, but subsequently murdered in a treacherous manner by Lycomedes, the ruler of the island. Demophoön, the son of Theseus, is said to have afterwards recovered his father’s kingdom. At a still later period the bones of the hero were brought to Athens by Cimon, at the command of the Delphic oracle. Cimon is also supposed to have caused the erection of the temple of Theseus, which still exists in Athens, and serves as an art museum. The eighth day of every month was held sacred to Theseus, besides which he had a special festival, called the Thesea, on the eighth of Pyanepsion.

Art has followed the example of the poets and mythologists in depicting Theseus as a second Heracles. Here, however, the characteristic differences that existed between the Doric and Ionic races become apparent. Just as the latter race surpassed the former in elasticity, both of mind and body, so their national hero gives token not only of a higher intellectual being, but also of a body more lithe, and capable of greater swiftness and dexterity, than that of the Doric hero. The slighter and more elegant form of Theseus lacks, perhaps, the sheer brute strength of Heracles, but is compensated by the possession of a far greater degree of activity and adroitness. The expression of face is more amiable and the hair less bristling than that of Heracles, while there is generally no beard. Such is Theseus as depicted by Greek art at the epoch of its full development; later art strove to render the form of the body still more lithe and graceful. The costume of Theseus consists, like that of his prototype Heracles, of a lion’s skin and club; sometimes also of the chlamys and petasus of the Attic youth. Existing art monuments are far less numerous in his case than in that of Heracles. If the explanation is correct, the British Museum possesses a Theseus of priceless value. Among the statues of the Parthenon which have been preserved, there is one of a figure negligently reclining on a lion’s skin, which, with the exception of the nose, hands, and feet, is in a tolerably good state of preservation (Fig. 59). It belonged to the great group of the east gable, which represented the first appearance of the new-born Athene to the astonished gods. It is the figure of a youth in his prime, somewhat larger than life, and altogether a perfect ideal of manly beauty.

A representation of the conflict of Theseus with the invading army of the Amazons still exists on a large piece of frieze-work, which, together with the representations of the battle of the Lapithæ and Centaurs (which have been already mentioned), formerly decorated the walls of the shrine of Apollo’s temple in Phigalia, and is now the property of the British Museum. Among the Greek warriors Theseus may be easily recognised by his lion’s skin and the club, which he is in the act of swinging against a mounted Amazon, probably the leader of the hostile army. We give an engraving of the scene where Theseus obtained the sword and sandals of his father from beneath the rock, after a relief in the Villa Albani (Fig. 60).

8. Cretan Legend.—1. Minos and the Minotaur.—Cretan myths are both obscure and difficult of interpretation, because Phœnician and Phrygian influences made themselves felt at a very early period, and native sources fail us. Minos is commonly supposed to have been the first king of the country. He was the son of Zeus and Europa, who is called in Homer a daughter of Phœnix. This Phœnix was subsequently made into Agenor, a Phœnician, king of Sidon; and the story then arose that Zeus, in the form of a white bull, had carried off Europa, and arrived with his lovely prey in Crete. Europa is there said to have given birth to Minos, Rhadamanthys (Rhadamanthus), and some say Sarpedon. She afterwards married Asterion, who brought up the sons of Zeus as his own children, and, at his death, left the kingdom to Minos. He, after expelling his brothers Sarpedon and Rhadamanthus, became sole king of Crete. Of his brothers, Sarpedon went to Lycia, whilst the pious Rhadamanthus found a refuge in Bœotia. Minos next married Pasiphaë, a daughter of Helios and Perseïs, by whom he became the father of Catreus, who succeeded him, Deucalion, Glaucus, and Androgeos, besides several daughters, of whom the most celebrated are Ariadne and Phædra. Minos gave wise laws to his people, and became supreme at sea among the isles of the Ægean Sea, and even as far as Attica. In his name we find the same root (meaning “to think”) which we have seen in Minerva, and which appears in the name of the Indian lawgiver Manu.

In order to vindicate his right to the crown, Minos besought Poseidon to send him a bull out of the sea, which he was then to sacrifice to the god. Poseidon granted his prayer, but Minos was induced by the beauty of the animal to place it among his own herds. As a punishment of his perfidy, Poseidon kindled in the breast of Pasiphaë an unnatural love for the bull, and the fruit of their connection was the Minotaur. This was a monster, half man and half bull, which Minos shut up in the labyrinth that had been made by the skill of Dædalus. The food of the monster consisted of human beings, who were partly criminals and partly youths and maidens, sent as tribute from the subjugated countries. This lasted until Theseus came to Crete, and, with the aid of Ariadne and Dædalus, destroyed the Minotaur. Such is the substance of this perplexing mythical tradition, of which the simplest interpretation is that the Minotaur was originally an ancient idol of the Phœnician sun-god Baal, which had the form of a bull, and to which human sacrifices were offered. The destruction of the Minotaur by Theseus is a symbol of the triumph of the higher Greek civilisation over Phœnician barbarism, and the consequent abolition of human sacrifices.

Closely connected with the royal family of Crete we find Dædalus, the most celebrated artist of the legendary period. He is said to have been a son of Metion, and a descendant of Erechtheus, and to have fled from Athens to Crete after murdering his nephew Talus in a fit of professional jealousy. During his residence in Crete he constructed the Labyrinth, an underground building with an endless maze of passages, as a dwelling-place for the Minotaur; besides many other wonderful works of art. For having aided Theseus in his combat with the Minotaur, Dædalus and his son Icarus were both imprisoned in the Labyrinth of Minos. The story of his flight, which he accomplished by means of the artificial wings that he made for himself and his son, is well known from the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Icarus fell into the sea that is named after him, and was drowned, but Dædalus reached Cumæ in safety. From this place he passed over to Sicily, where he was hospitably received by Cocalus. When Minos, however, pursued the fugitive and demanded his surrender, not only was his request refused, but he was even put to death by the contrivance of the king’s daughters.

Of the other sons of Minos, Deucalion is celebrated as having taken part in the Calydonian boar hunt, and also as the father of the hero Idomeneus, who fought against Troy. Glaucus was killed, while yet a boy, by falling into a cask of honey as he was pursuing a mouse. He is reported, however, to have been restored to life by the Corinthian augur Polyidus, or, according to others, by Asclepius himself.

2. Talos.—The legend of Talos, the brazen man, betrays likewise a Phœnician origin, and refers to the cruel practice of offering human sacrifices. This Talos was made of brass, and was invulnerable. Hephæstus, or, as others say, Zeus gave him to Minos as guardian of the island of Crete, round which he travelled thrice a-day. If he perceived any strangers approach he would spring into the fire, and, after becoming red-hot, he would clasp them to his breast, until they expired beneath the sardonic chuckle of the demon. He attempted to drive off the Argonauts with stones, but was destroyed by the skill of Medea. Talos had a single vein, which ran from his head to his feet, and was closed at the top with a nail. This nail Medea cleverly succeeded in extracting, in consequence of which Talos bled to death.

IV.—COMBINED UNDERTAKINGS OF THE LATER HEROIC AGE.

1. The Calydonian Hunt.—The story of Meleager and the Calydonian boar hunt was undoubtedly, in its origin, nothing more than a provincial myth based on natural phenomena, like other myths that we have already explained. In this case the physical significance involved in the myth soon disappeared, owing to the treatment it received at the hands of the epic and dramatic poets. The poets, in fact, succeeded in introducing some striking ethical conceptions, which absorbed all higher interest.

Œneus, king of Calydon in Ætolia, on the occasion of a great festival which was celebrated after a successful vintage, had accidentally or purposely omitted to sacrifice to Artemis. To punish this neglect she sent a huge wild boar, which devastated the fields of Calydon, and seemed invincible by any ordinary means on account of its vast size. Meleager, the brave and heroic son of Œneus, therefore assembled men and hounds in great number to slay it. The boar was slain; but Artemis stirred up strife over the head and hide between the Ætolians and the Curetes of Pleuron. At first the former were victorious; but when Meleager withdrew in wrath from the battle because his mother had cursed him for the death of her brother, they were no longer able to keep the field, and soon saw their city closely invested by their enemies. In vain did the elders and priests of Calydon beseech Meleager; in vain did his father, sisters, and even mother beseech him to aid his hard-pressed countrymen. Like Achilles in the Trojan war, when he was wroth with Agamemnon on account of the loss of Briseis, Meleager long refused to stir. At last his wife—the beautiful Cleopatra—succeeded in moving him. He donned his armour, and put himself at the head of his countrymen for a sally against the besiegers. Brilliant, indeed, was the victory of the men of Calydon; but the hero Meleager did not return from the battle, for the cruel Erinyes, who had heard his mother’s curse, destroyed him with the arrows of Apollo.

Such is the earliest form of the legend, as it exists in the Iliad. In time, however, Meleager was said to have called together against the boar all the renowned heroes of Greece. Among others there came the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux; Theseus and his friend Pirithoüs; Idas and Lynceus, the sons of Aphareus; Admetus of Pheræ; Jason, from Iolcus; Iphicles and Iolaüs, from Thebes; Peleus, the father of Achilles; Telamon, from Salamis; Ancæus and the beautiful huntress Atalante (Atalanta), from Arcadia; besides the soothsayer Amphiaraüs, from Argos. After Œneus had entertained his guests royally for nine days, the hunt began, and the huge beast, which was as large as an ox, was surrounded and driven from its lair. Atalante, the swift huntress, was the first to inflict a wound. Ancæus then advanced with his battle-axe, but the enraged beast, with one stroke of his dreadful tusks, tore open his body and killed him on the spot. At length the monster received a mortal wound from a spear hurled by the powerful arm of Meleager, and was soon despatched by the rest. Meleager received as his due the head and hide of the slaughtered animal, but resigned the prize to Atalante, of whom he was enamoured, on the ground that she was the first to wound the boar. This act excited the bitter jealousy of Plexippus and Toxeus, the sons of Thestius, king of Pleuron, and brothers of Althæa, the mother of Meleager. They accordingly lay in wait for Atalante, and robbed her of the present. Enraged at this, Meleager slew them both. But Meleager’s death, though caused by the wrath of his mother, was worked out differently in the time of the tragic poets. The Fates had appeared to Althæa, soon after the birth of Meleager, and informed her that her son would only live until a certain brand, which was then burning on the fire, was consumed. Althæa immediately snatched the brand from the flames and carefully treasured it up. After Meleager had slain her brothers, in the first outburst of grief and indignation against her son, she placed the brand again in the fire, and thus cut off the noble hero in the prime of his youth and beauty. Althæa, on learning the unhappy fate of her son, full of sorrow for her hasty deed, put an end to her own life.

2. The Argonauts.—The story of the Argonauts experienced a similar fate to that of the Calydonian hunt. It was originally nothing but a myth based on natural phenomena; but in the hands of the poets it swelled to a mass of legends common to all the tribes of Greece, the nucleus of which was the history of the golden fleece. Athamas, the son of Æolus, was king of the Minyæ. He put away his first wife, Nephele (cloud), in order to marry Ino, the daughter of Cadmus; though he still kept Phrixus (rain-shower) and Helle (ray of light), his children by Nephele, with him. By Ino he had two other children, Learchus and Melicertes, whom their mother naturally preferred to her stepchildren, and for whose sake she endeavoured to drive the latter from their father’s house. Soon afterwards, either at the command of Nephele, whom some represent as a goddess, or in consequence of her prayers for the punishment of Athamas, the land was visited with a long drought, and Ino persuaded her husband to sacrifice Phrixus as a sin-offering to Zeus, in order to put an end to the calamity. Whether Helle was to have shared her brother’s fate we cannot tell, for, before Ino could accomplish her purpose, Nephele came to the assistance of her children, and gave them a winged ram with a golden fleece, which Hermes had presented to her for that purpose. Seated on this ram they fled over the sea to Colchis. On the way Helle fell into that part of the sea which bears her name, and was drowned, but Phrixus arrived safely in Colchis (Æa), where he sacrificed the ram to Zeus, who had preserved him in his flight. The fleece he hung up in the grove of Ares as a sacred treasure, setting over it a terrible, ever-watchful dragon as its guardian. To fetch this treasure from a foreign land, and thereby to release the country and people of the Minyæ from the calamity with which they were oppressed, was the task of the heroes of the race of Æolus. Athamas was so grieved at the evil he had brought on his country that he became insane, and sought to slay Ino and her children. He did, indeed, kill Learchus by dashing him against a rock, but Ino succeeded in saving herself and her younger child Melicertes by leaping into the sea (cf. Ino Leucothea). Athamas then fled to Epirus, and the kingdom devolved on his brother Cretheus. Cretheus married Tyro, the daughter of his younger brother Salmoneus, king of Elis. Tyro bore him three sons, the eldest of whom, Æson, succeeded his father in the kingdom, but was soon after expelled by his step-brother Pelias, who is described as a son of Tyro and Poseidon. Æson with difficulty managed to rescue his little son Jason from the hands of Pelias, and brought him to the Centaur Chiron to be educated. In Chiron’s cave the young hero grew up, a favourite with gods and men. After completing his twentieth year, he betook himself to Iolcus to demand of his uncle his rightful inheritance. Pelias, not daring to use violence to the sturdy youth, endeavoured to get rid of his unwelcome guest by involving him in a most dangerous adventure. He declared that he would gladly resign the crown if Jason would recover the golden fleece from Colchis. Jason, like a true hero, at once accepted the perilous adventure. In the harbour of Iolcus he caused a large ship with fifty oars to be constructed, which he called the “Argo,” after its builder, Argus. He then called together the heroes, who had consented at his invitation to take part in the expedition. In the original version of the story, the expedition was stated to have been undertaken only by the heroes of the race of the Minyæ—such as Acastus, Admetus, and Periclymenus. At a later period, however—when the date of the expedition had been fixed at one generation before the Trojan war—no hero of any note was allowed to be absent from the undertaking. In this manner were added the Dioscuri, the sons of Boreas, Calaïs and Zetes, Telamon, Peleus, Meleager, Tydeus, Iphitus, Theseus, Orpheus, Amphiaraüs, and even Heracles. In the last case, the incongruity of allowing the hero to play only a subordinate part was soon felt, and his name was withdrawn. He was said to have been left behind in Mysia, where he had landed in order to search for his favourite Hylas, who had been carried off by the Naiads. The number of the Argonauts was finally computed at fifty, tallying with the number of oars.

The expedition proceeded from Iolcus to Lemnos, and thence through the Hellespont to Cyzicus, where they were kindly received by the Doliones. From Cyzicus they proceeded to Bithynia, where they were opposed by the Bebryces, whose king, Amycus, was slain by Pollux in a boxing match. Their greatest difficulty lay in the passage of the Bosporus, there being at the entrance of the Pontus (Black Sea) two terrible rocks, which were in constant motion—now retreating to the shore on either side, now hastily dashing together again; whence they were called the Symplegades. This occurred so rapidly that even the swiftest vessel had not time enough to get through. The Argonauts were in great perplexity. At length the blind seer Phineus, who dwelt in Thracian Salmydessus, and whose gratitude they won by delivering him from the Harpies who had tormented him, assisted them with his advice. By means of a stratagem he recommended they were enabled to bring the Argo through without any considerable damage, after which the Symplegades remained stationary. After this they stood along the south coast towards their destination, which, in the original legend, appears to have been the utterly fabulous Æa, subsequently converted into Colchis. This was the residence of the mighty king Æetes, a son of the sun-god. To rob him, either by craft or by violence, of the golden fleece was the task of Jason, the leader of the Argonauts.

The second prominent character in the story, Medea, the daughter of Æetes, now makes her appearance. It was, in fact, only through her love that Jason was enabled to surmount the vast obstacles which stood between him and the possession of the golden fleece. When the hero demanded the fleece of Æetes, the latter declared that he would deliver it up to him after he had accomplished two tasks. The first was to harness two brazen-footed, fire-breathing bulls, which Æetes had received from Hephæstus, to a plough, and with them to till an uncultivated field. The second was to sow in the furrows the dragon’s teeth that Æetes would give him, and to destroy the armed men which would then spring up. Jason’s heart failed him on hearing these conditions, but Medea, who was an enchantress and priestess of Hecate, was equal to the occasion. She gave the hero a magic salve to protect him against the fiery breath of the bulls and to endow him with invincible strength, which enabled him to accomplish his first task successfully. In the case of the armed men who sprang from the dragon’s teeth, by the advice of Medea he followed the example of Cadmus, and cast among them a heavy stone, whereupon in blind fury they turned their arms against each other, and were all destroyed.

The conditions imposed upon him by Æetes were thus accomplished; but the king, who perceived that Jason had only succeeded through the aid of his daughter, made this a pretext for refusing to surrender the fleece. Jason then removed it by night from the grove of Ares, after Medea had, by means of her enchantments, lulled the watchful dragon to sleep. That same night the Argonauts embarked on board their ship and put to sea, Medea accompanying them as the future wife of Jason. The wrathful Æetes attempted to overtake the fugitives, but Medea succeeded in staying the pursuit by slaying her younger brother Apsyrtus, whom she had brought with her, and scattering his limbs in the sea.

The most diverse accounts exist as to the road taken by the Argonauts on their homeward journey. Some say that they sailed up the Phasis to the Eastern Sea, and then, passing through the Red Sea and Libyan desert, over which they had to carry the Argo twelve days’ journey, came to Lake Tritonis, and thence to the Mediterranean. According to another account, they sought to pass through the Ister (Danube) and Eridanus (Po) to the Western Ocean; but the object of this account was manifestly to subject them to the same vicissitudes and adventures as Odysseus and his companions.

At length Jason landed happily in Iolcus, and delivered the golden fleece into the hands of his uncle. Pelias, however, still refused to surrender the kingdom to Jason, and Medea therefore determined to make away with him by craft. Having persuaded the daughters of Pelias that she possessed a means of making the old man young again, she directed them to slay their father, cut him in pieces, and boil the limbs in a cauldron filled with all manner of herbs; this they did in the vain expectation of seeing him restored to youth. Jason now took possession of his father’s kingdom, but was soon afterwards expelled by Acastus, the son of Pelias, and took refuge in Corinth. His subsequent misfortunes are well known. Thinking to better his condition, he was about to marry Creüsa, the daughter of the king of Corinth, when he was arrested by the fearful vengeance of his first wife. Medea sent the bride a poisoned garment, which caused her to die an agonising death, and then slew her own children by Jason; after which she fled in her chariot drawn by winged dragons to Athens, where she long found protection at the court of Ægeus. Jason either put an end to his own life, or was killed by the fall of a rotten beam of the Argo.

In the history of the golden fleece we have one of the most widely spread myths of all, namely, that of the loss and recovery of a treasure. In Teutonic tradition we have the treasure of the Nibelungs, in which the very name is almost identical; and if we include the stories of women carried off and rescued, the list becomes endless. And the treasure of all those stories has been interpreted to be the golden clouds. The Dragon which guards the treasure again appears in the story of the apples of the Hesperides, and is closely allied to the Sphinx.

3. The Theban Cycle.—The highly tragic history of the Theban house of the Labdacidæ, teeming as it does with important characters and events, has at all times furnished subjects for Greek art and poetry, and has given birth to a whole series of epic and dramatic works. The former, which would have conduced far more to an exact acquaintance with the legend, have, unfortunately, perished, with the exception of a few unimportant fragments; although many important works of the great tragic poets, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, relating to the subject, still remain. The common account runs thus:—Laius, a great-grandson of Cadmus, was warned by the oracle to beget no children, as he was doomed to perish by the hands of his son, who would then marry his mother. When his wife Iocaste gave birth to a son, Laius accordingly exposed the child, with its feet pierced, on Mount Cithæron. The child, called Œdipus from the swelling of its feet, did not die, but was found by some Corinthian shepherds, who brought it to Polybus, king of Corinth. Polybus, having no children of his own, adopted Œdipus, who grew up in the belief that Polybus and Merope were his real parents, until one day a taunt of his companions as to his mysterious origin raised doubts in his mind. In order to solve his misgivings, he went to consult the oracle of Delphi, but he here received only the obscure direction not to return to his country, since, if he did, he would kill his father and marry his mother. Fearing on this account to return to Corinth, he took the road to Thebes, and thus, by his presumptuous prudence, brought about the very consequences he was so anxious to avoid. On the road he was met by Laius, who was on his way to the oracle to ask its advice concerning the Sphinx. A quarrel arose, in a narrow defile, between Laius and Œdipus; and Œdipus slew his father without knowing who he was. On arriving at Thebes he succeeded in delivering the country from the Sphinx. This monster, which had the combined form of a woman and a lion, had been sent by Hera, whom Laius had in some way offended, from Ethiopia to devastate the land of Thebes. Seated on a rock close to the town, she put to every one that passed by a riddle, and whoever was unable to solve it, she cast from the rock into a deep abyss. This calamity induced Creon, on the death of his brother-in-law Laius, to proclaim that whoever solved the riddle should obtain the crown and the hand of Iocaste. Œdipus succeeded in solving it, and thus delivered the country from the monster, who cast herself into the abyss.

The Sphinx belongs to the same family as many of the monsters we have spoken of already; she is called by Hesiod the child of Orthros and Chimæra, whom we have seen to be the daughter of Typhon and Echidna. It would seem, therefore, probable that the contest between her and her opponent may be interpreted in the same way as that of Bellerophon and the Chimæra, or of Zeus and Typhon. In support of this, the following considerations may be adduced. Since we know that thunder was supposed to be a warning or encouragement to men, it is easy to see in it the mysterious voice of the cloud, only intelligible to the wisest of men. Hence the conqueror of the cloud was called the man who understood her language. (It would not a little help this idea, that Œdipus might seem derived from a word meaning “to know.”) Then the death of the Sphinx will be the cloud falling upon the earth in the shape of rain. Œdipus, on the other hand, will be the same antagonist as we have before seen victorious over the cloud dragons; the sun, born helpless, rising to take the kingdom after the slaughter of his enemies, yet at last sinking blinded into an unknown grave. This, however, does not cover the crimes laid to his charge. But they have been explained in this way: that when people lost consciousness of the real meaning of the misfortunes of Œdipus, they cast about for some adequate cause, and found one in the two great crimes of incest and parricide. We have seen something similar to this in the case of Ixion. Further, the names of the wives assigned by various writers to Œdipus are connected with the light, and the name Laius has been interpreted as “enemy” of the light. Sphinx itself signifies “throttler.”

In art, the Sphinx had the form of a lion, generally in a recumbent position, with the breast and upper part of a beautiful woman. When the Greeks saw similar figures in Egypt, they naturally gave them the name of Sphinx. But name, family, and meaning of the Sphinx are alike Greek, although the Egyptian statues have taken too firm possession of the name ever to lose it. Ancient Egyptian art revelled in the creation of colossal Sphinxes, which were carved out of granite. A notable example of this kind exists in the giant Sphinx near the Pyramids of Gizeh, which is eighty-nine feet long. From such monstrous figures as these, Greek art held aloof.

Œdipus was rewarded with the sovereignty of Thebes and the hand of Iocaste; and for several years he enjoyed uninterrupted happiness, surrounded by four blooming children, the fruit of his incestuous marriage. By the secret agency of the goddess, the dreadful truth was at length discovered. Iocaste hanged herself, and Œdipus, in despair, put out his own eyes. Not content with this voluntary penance, the hard-hearted Thebans compelled him besides to leave their city and country, while his sons Eteocles and Polynices, who were now grown up, refused to stir a foot in their father’s behalf. Œdipus, after invoking bitter curses on their heads, withdrew, and, guided by his faithful daughter Antigone, at last found an asylum in the grove of the Eumenides at Colonus, near Athens. His grave there was regarded, in consequence of an ancient response of the oracle, as a national treasure.

The curse of their father took effect on his unnatural sons. The elder, Eteocles, drove out his brother Polynices, who then sought the assistance of Adrastus, king of Argos. Adrastus was a grandson of Bias, of the race of the Amythaonidæ, and by his marriage with the daughter of the wealthy Polybus acquired the sovereignty of Sicyon. He not only hospitably received the fugitive Polynices, but gave him his daughter in marriage, and promised to assist him in recovering the crown of Thebes. In this expedition Adrastus sought to gain the aid of the other Argive heroes. They all declared their readiness to accompany him, with the exception of Amphiaraüs, his brother-in-law, who was equally renowned for his wisdom and courage. Amphiaraüs was a great-grandson of the celebrated seer Melampus, and inherited from him the gift of prophecy. He was thus enabled to perceive the disastrous termination of the war, and strove to hinder it. But Polynices and the fiery Tydeus—likewise a son-in-law of Adrastus—were so unceasing in their entreaties, that he at length sought to escape their importunity by flight. Polynices, however, bribed his wife Eriphyle, by the present of a magnificent necklace, which had formerly been given to Harmonia on the occasion of her marriage with Cadmus, to betray his place of concealment. Hereupon Amphiaraüs was obliged unwillingly to join the expedition, which ended as he had prophesied. The attack on Thebes was not only repulsed, but all the Argive leaders, with the exception of Adrastus, who was saved by the fleetness of his horse, were slain. Polynices and Eteocles fell in single combat with each other. The flight of Adrastus to Attica, where he procured the assistance of Theseus in compelling the Thebans to grant the fallen heroes a solemn burial, is a feature unknown to the original legend, and may be ascribed to the patriotic impulses of the Athenian dramatists. The celebrated tragedy of Sophocles, called Antigone, is based on the assumption that Creon, the new king of Thebes, allowed the burial of the other heroes, but left Polynices to lie unburied on the field like a dog, and condemned Antigone to death because she ventured to bury her brother in despite of his command. Creon was destined to meet with a dreadful retribution, for his own son, who was betrothed to Antigone, killed himself in grief at her fate.

Ten years later, the sons of the fallen heroes are said to have combined with Ægialeus, the son of Adrastus, to avenge their fathers’ defeat. This expedition has therefore been called the war of the Epigoni (descendants), and not being undertaken, like that of their fathers, in manifest opposition to the will of the gods, proved successful. Laodamas, the savage son of Eteocles, who was now king of Thebes, was defeated in a decisive battle near Thebes, and, after Ægialeus had fallen by his hands, was himself slain by Alcmæon, the son of Amphiaraüs. The Thebans were unable any longer to hold their city, and, following the advice of the blind seer Tiresias, they withdrew under the cover of darkness and mist. The aged Tiresias expired on the road, at the fountain of Tilphusa; of the rest, some took refuge in Thessalia, and some sought other lands. The victorious Argives, after plundering and partly destroying the city, dedicated a great portion of the booty—among which was Manto, the daughter of Tiresias—to the oracle of Delphi. They then made Thersander, the son of Polynices, king of Thebes; upon which many of the fugitive inhabitants returned. Thersander subsequently took part in the Trojan war, and there perished.

4. The Trojan Cycle.—We now come to the Trojan war, the fourth and most celebrated of the common undertakings of the later heroic age. Here the sources of our information are far more plentiful than in any former period of mythic history, because both the grand national epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are commonly ascribed to Homer, relate to the Trojan war. As the contents of these immortal poems are probably well known to our readers, we shall only dwell on the most essential features of the story.

I. The Heroic Races of the Trojan War.—1. The Dardanidæ, or race of Dardanus.—The royal family of Troy were descended from Dardanus, a son of Zeus by Electra, a daughter of Atlas. Dardanus is said to have emigrated from Samothrace, or, according to others, from Italy to Arcadia, to the north-west portion of Asia Minor, between the range of Ida and the Hellespont, where he received from king Teucer some land to form a settlement. By a daughter of the river-god Simoïs, or, as others say, of Scamander, Dardanus had a son called Tros, from whom the Trojans derived their name. Tros had three sons—Assaracus, Ilus, and Ganymedes. The last, who, like all the scions of the race of Dardanus, was possessed of wonderful beauty, was raised by Zeus to the dignity of cupbearer to the gods, and thus became immortal. Ilus and Assaracus became the founders of two different branches of the Dardanian race. The latter remained in his native settlement of Dardania, where he became the father of Capys and the grandfather of Anchises, the father of Æneas. Ilus, on the other hand, emigrated to the plains of the Scamander, where he founded the city of Ilium, or Troy. After completing the town, he begged Zeus to bestow on him a sign of his favour. The next morning he found in front of his tent the celebrated Palladium—an image of Pallas Athene, carved in wood. On the possession of this depended the fortune and welfare of the city. After the death of Ilus, his son Laomedon became king of Troy. At his request, Poseidon and Apollo built the citadel of Pergamum. We have already related how this king, by his faithless conduct provoked the wrath of Heracles, and the first capture of the city. Of his sons only Priam remained; in him the race of Dardanus flourished afresh, for by his wife Hecuba and by his concubines he had a great number of sons and daughters.

2. The Pelopidæ, or race of Pelops.—The Pelopidæ, who were chiefly instrumental in the destruction of Troy, were descended from the Phrygian king Tantalus, who was renowned alike for his unexampled good fortune and his subsequent unhappy fate. He was the son of Zeus and Pluto (rich plenty), and inhabited a citadel on Mount Sipylus, whence his rich pasture-lands and fruitful corn-fields extended twelve days’ journey, as far as Ida and the Propontis. The very gods honoured him with their friendship, and lived on such intimate terms that they invited him to eat at their table. This unheard-of good fortune, however, begot in the puny mortal such presumption, that he began to indulge in the grossest outrages on gods and men. At length he went so far as to cut his son Pelops in pieces to boil them, and set them before the gods in order to test their omniscience. The cup of his iniquity now seemed full, and the gods brought down a heavy retribution on the head of the criminal by his well-known punishment in the lower world, where, though surrounded by the most delicious fruits, and standing up to his neck in water, he was nevertheless condemned to suffer the pangs of continual hunger and thirst. Another tradition relates that he was kept in constant anxiety by a huge rock which was suspended over his head. (See pp. 149, 150.)

The children of Tantalus were Pelops and Niobe. The unhappy fate of the latter has already been described in the mythic history of Thebes. Pelops was restored to life by the art of Hermes; and a portion of his shoulder, which had been consumed by Demeter, was replaced by the gods with a piece of ivory. Pelops is said to have grown up in Olympus, amongst the blessed gods. On being restored to earth, he proceeded to Elis, where he became a suitor for the hand of Hippodamia, the beautiful daughter of the king Œnomaüs. The latter had promised his daughter to the man who should vanquish him in a chariot race: whoever failed was obliged to expiate his temerity with his life, as Œnomaüs transfixed him with his unerring lance as he passed. Thirteen noble youths had already suffered this fate, when Pelops appeared to undergo the dangerous ordeal. By means of the untiring winged horses which had been given him by Poseidon, and also by bribing Myrtilus, the King’s charioteer—who, before starting, withdrew the linch-pins from his master’s chariot or replaced them with wax—he came off victorious. Œnomaüs either was killed by the breaking down of his chariot, or put an end to his own life on seeing himself vanquished. Pelops now obtained both Hippodamia and the kingdom of Elis; but he ill rewarded Myrtilus, who had rendered him such valuable service, by casting him into the sea, in order to release himself from his obligations. Hermes, whose son he is reputed to have been, set him amongst the stars as charioteer.

The sons of Pelops by Hippodamia were Atreus and Thyestes, whose history, which is full of the most revolting crimes, formed a favourite subject with the tragic poets. First, Atreus and Thyestes murdered their step-brother Chrysippus, and were compelled to leave their country in company with their mother. They were hospitably received at Mycenæ by their brother-in-law Sthenelus, the son of Perseus, or by his son Eurystheus. On Eurystheus’ death, they inherited the sovereignty of the Persidæ in Argos, and Atreus now took up his residence in the proud capital of Mycenæ, whence, strange to say, the most ancient specimen of Greek sculpture has come down to us in the so-called Gate of Lions. Soon an implacable enmity arose between the two brothers, and Thyestes, in consequence, was banished from Argos. He took with him, in revenge, Pleisthenes, the young son of Atreus, brought him up as his own son, and despatched him, later, to Mycenæ to kill Atreus. His design was discovered, and he expiated his intended crime with his life. When Atreus learned that it was his own son whom he had condemned to death, he determined on a dreadful revenge. Pretending to be reconciled, he recalled Thyestes and his children to Mycenæ; and Thyestes, trusting to his brother’s word, returned. Atreus then privately seized the two young sons of Thyestes, slew them, and set this horrible food before their father. Horror-struck at this inhuman cruelty, the sun turned his chariot and went back in his course. Thyestes, uttering fearful curses against his brother and the whole race of the Pelopidæ, again escaped, and took refuge with Thesprotus, king of Epirus. Later, he succeeded, with the help of his only remaining son Ægisthus, in avenging himself on his brother. Atreus was slain by Ægisthus whilst offering up a sacrifice on the sea-shore, and Thyestes now acquired the sovereignty of Mycenæ. The sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaüs, fled from their barbarous uncle to Sparta, where Tyndareüs, the king, received them kindly, and gave them his daughters, Clytæmnestra and Helen, in marriage. With his aid Agamemnon recovered his father’s kingdom, slew Thyestes, and drove out Ægisthus. Menelaüs remained in Sparta—where he succeeded Tyndareüs—until the carrying off of his wife Helen by Paris gave rise to the Trojan war.

3. The Æacidæ, or race of Æacus.—After the sons of Atreus, the Æacidæ play the most important part in the Trojan war; in fact, we are almost justified in saying that the war was an exploit of these two races of heroes and their peoples, the Achæans of Argos and the Hellenes of Phthia. The ancestor of the Æacidæ was Æacus, who was renowned alike for his wisdom and justice, and on this account subsequently made a judge in the lower world. Æacus was a son of Zeus by Ægina, a daughter of the river-god Asopus. He ruled over the island of Ægina, and married Endeïs, the daughter of the wise Centaur Chiron. She bore him two sons, Peleus and Telamon. On reaching manhood they were compelled to leave their country, because, like the sons of Pelops, they had murdered, in a fit of jealousy, a step-brother who was a favourite with their father. Peleus betook himself to Phthia, where he was kindly received by Eurytion, who bestowed on him the hand of his daughter and a third part of his kingdom. Peleus afterwards took part in the boar hunt of Calydon, on which occasion he had the misfortune to kill his father-in-law. In consequence of this, he left Phthia and proceeded to Iolcus, where he took part in the funeral games which Acastus was celebrating in honour of his father Pelias, who had perished by the treachery of Medea. Here he experienced a similar fate to that of Bellerophon at the court of Prœtus. Astydameia, the wife of Acastus, finding herself unable to seduce him, slandered him to her husband, who thereupon sought to take his life. After hunting on Pelion one day, Peleus fell asleep, and was left thus unprotected by Acastus, who hoped by this means to get rid of him. He would, indeed, have been murdered by the Centaurs, if the gods had not taken pity on him, and sent him by Hermes a sword of wonderful power, with which he was enabled to repel the assaults of the wild inhabitants of the forest. Peleus, with the help of the Dioscuri, subsequently took Iolcus, and put the treacherous Acastus and his wife to death. As a reward for his chastity, the gods gave him the goddess Thetis—a beautiful daughter of Nereus—to wife. She bore him one son, Achilleus (Achilles), the greatest and bravest hero of the Trojan war. A later tradition asserts that Thetis left her husband soon after the birth of Achilles, because he had disturbed her when she was about to render her child immortal in the fire, just as Demeter intended to do to the child of Celeüs; but this story is unknown to Homer. According to a still later legend, she plunged her son into the Styx, and thereby rendered him invulnerable in every part except the heel by which she held him. Like all noble heroes, Achilles was instructed by Chiron, under whom he acquired such wonderful skill in all feats of strength and agility that he soon surpassed all his contemporaries. In addition to Chiron, Homer names Phœnix, the son of Amyntor, as the instructor of the youthful hero. Achilles proceeded to the Trojan war with cheerful determination, although he knew beforehand that he was not fated to return alive. The story that his mother Thetis, in order to avert his fate, sent him, disguised in women’s clothes, to the court of Lycomedes, king of Scyros, where he was discovered by the craft of Odysseus, is a post-Homeric invention.

From Telamon, the second son of Æacus, was descended Aias or Ajax, a hero of but little less importance. Telamon, after his flight from Ægina, found a new home in Salamis, where he married the daughter of the king Cychreus. On the decease of Cychreus, he succeeded to the crown. After the death of his first wife, he married Peribœa, a daughter of Alcathoüs, king of Megara, who bore him Ajax. Tradition tells us much of the intimate friendship of Heracles and Telamon, who took part in the Trojan expedition of his mighty friend. Heracles, in return, gave him Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, by whom he became the father of a second son, Teucer. Like every celebrated hero of antiquity, he is said to have taken part in the Calydonian hunt and the expedition of the Argonauts. Nothing inferior to this brave and doughty father was his son Ajax, on whom the mighty hero Heracles had invoked the blessing of his father Zeus, when as a child he held him in his arms. He was of greater size and strength than any of the other heroes; though he appears somewhat uncouth and clumsy when contrasted with the swift and agile form of Achilles. His mighty shield was as characteristic of him as the ponderous deadly spear was of Achilles. Beside him, his brother Teucer ranks as the best archer among the Greeks.

4. Nestor, the Locrian Ajax, Diomedes, and Odysseus.—Associated with the heroes of the race of Pelops and Æacus were some other renowned chieftains. First among them was the aged Nestor, of Pylus, whose wise counsels were as indispensable to the Greeks before Troy as the dauntless courage of an Achilles or an Ajax. Nestor was the youngest of the twelve sons of Neleus, who was himself a son of Poseidon and Tyro, and twin-brother of Pelias. Neleus, having been driven out by Pelias, took refuge in Messenia, where he became the founder of a new kingdom. Later, however, both his sovereignty and the glory of his house were well-nigh extinguished by the hostility of Heracles, who slew all the sons of Neleus except Nestor. When quite young, Nestor defeated the neighbouring tribes of the Epei and Arcadians, and restored the dominions of his father to their former extent. He likewise took part in the contest between the Lapithæ and the Centaurs, in the Calydonian boar hunt, and in the expedition of the Argonauts. Though so far advanced in years—having ruled over three generations of men—he could not withstand the desire to take part in the Trojan war.

The Locrian Ajax—also called the Lesser Ajax, to distinguish him from his mighty namesake—was a son of the Locrian king Oïleus, of whom nothing more is known than that he took part in the expedition of the Argonauts. Ajax was renowned among the Greeks for his skill in hurling the spear and for his great fleetness, in which he was surpassed only by Achilles. He always appears in a linen corslet, and his followers, the Opuntian Locrians, are also light-armed troops.

Diomedes was a member of the oft-mentioned race of the Æolian Amythaonidæ. His father was the hot-headed Tydeus, who was killed in the war of the Seven against Thebes. Diomedes, who inherited no small portion of his father’s wild, untameable disposition, of course took part in the war of the Epigoni, and subsequently succeeded his grandfather Adrastus in his Argive sovereignty at Sicyon. He also restored his paternal grandfather, the aged Ætolian king Œneus, who had been dethroned by the sons of his brother Agrius, to his kingdom. In the Iliad he appears as a special favourite of Pallas Athene, and Homer makes him play an important part in the contests of the Greeks before the walls of Troy. In post-Homeric story he is represented as having carried off the Trojan Palladium.

Finally, Odysseus (Ulysses), the most popular of the Greek heroes of the Trojan war, was a son of Laërtes, king of Ithaca, by Anticlea, the daughter of Autolycus. Autolycus inhabited a district on Mount Parnassus, and was renowned for his cunning. His grandson seems to have inherited no small part of his grandfather’s disposition. Through his noble and virtuous wife Penelope, Odysseus was closely related to the Atridæ; Penelope being the daughter of Icarius, who was a brother of the Spartan king Tyndareüs. He was therefore obliged—though much against his will—to comply with the request of Menelaüs, and join the expedition against Troy. On account of his wisdom and eloquence, his dexterity in all feats of strength, and his dauntless valour in the midst of danger, he also was a special favourite of Pallas.

II. The War.—The Iliad of Homer, the most important source of our information with regard to the Trojan war, does not deal with the events of the first nine years; and of those of the tenth and last year it only gives such episodes as relate to the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. Of the origin of the war, and the events of the first nine years, it speaks only incidentally, for the sake of explanation. The gap has to be filled up from the works of those writers who had access to other epic poems of the Trojan cycle, which are now no longer extant.

Eris, the goddess of discord, not having been invited to the marriage festivities of Peleus and Thetis, avenged herself by casting into the assembly a golden apple, with the inscription—“To the fairest.” The three rival goddesses—Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite—each claimed the apple for herself, but were referred by Zeus to the decision of Paris. Paris was a son of Priam, the Trojan king. Immediately after birth, he was exposed on Mount Ida, in consequence of an ill-omened dream which his mother Hecuba had during her pregnancy. He was found, however, and brought up by some shepherds. He decided in favour of Aphrodite, who had promised him the most beautiful woman on earth as his wife. Soon afterwards, at some games given by the king, the youth, who was equally distinguished for his handsome person and his bodily dexterity, after having wrested the prize from all his brethren, was recognised by the prophetess Cassandra, and received into his father’s favour. He next undertook a journey across the sea to Greece, and, among other places, visited the court of Menelaüs, king of Sparta, by whom he was hospitably received and entertained. Aphrodite kindled in the breast of the young wife of Menelaüs a fatal love for their handsome guest, who dazzled her as much by the beauty of his person as by the oriental splendour of his appearance. While Menelaüs was absent in Crete, and her brothers, the Dioscuri, were engaged in their strife with the sons of Aphareus, Helen fled with her seducer to Troy. On the refusal of the king of Troy to surrender Helen, Menelaüs succeeded in rousing the whole of Greece to a war of revenge. This task was the more easy, as most of the Grecian chieftains had been suitors of Helen, and had bound themselves by an oath to Tyndareüs to unite in support of the husband whom Helen should choose, in the event of his ever being injured or attacked. The well-manned ships of the Greeks assembled in the Bœotian port of Aulis. Their number amounted to eleven hundred and eighty-six, according to Homer; of which Agamemnon, who had been chosen leader of the expedition, alone furnished over one hundred. Agamemnon, however, having offended Artemis by killing a hind sacred to the goddess, the departure of the expedition was delayed by continuous calms, until at length, at the command of the priest Calchas, Agamemnon determined to appease the wrath of the goddess by sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia on her altar. At the fatal moment Artemis rescued the victim, and, after substituting a hind in her stead, conveyed Iphigenia to Tauris, where she became a priestess in the temple of the goddess. The fleet now sailed with a fair wind. The expedition first stopped at Tenedos, opposite the coast of Troy. Here, on the occasion of a banquet, Philoctetes, who possessed the bow and arrows of Heracles on which the conquest of Troy depended, was bitten in the foot by a serpent, and on account of his cries and the offensive smell of the wound was carried to Lemnos, and there left to his fate. The Greeks next effected a landing on the coast of Troy, in spite of the opposition of Hector and Æneas; for Protesilaüs devoted himself to death for the Greeks, and sprang first on the Trojan shore. Even Cycnus, the mighty son of Poseidon, who was king of Colonæ in Troas, and came to the assistance of the Trojans, was unable to stem the advance of the Greeks; and his body being invulnerable, he was strangled by Achilles by means of a thong twisted round his neck.

After the Greeks had made a station for their ships, the war began in earnest. Several of their attacks on the town having been successfully repelled by the Trojans, the Greeks now confined themselves to making inroads and plundering excursions into the surrounding country, in which Achilles was always the most prominent actor. The first nine years of the war were by no means fruitful in important events, and the wearisome monotony of the siege was broken only by the single combat between Achilles and Troïlus, the youngest son of Priam, in which Troïlus was slain, and by the fall of Palamedes of Eubœa, the head of the Greek peace-party, which was brought about by the treachery of Odysseus. At length, in the tenth year of the war, a quarrel broke out between Achilles and Agamemnon respecting a female slave who had been taken captive, and gave for the time quite another aspect to affairs. It is at this point that the Iliad commences. Achilles, in his wrath, retired to his tent, and refused to take any further part in the war; whilst the Trojans, who feared him more than all the other Greeks, became bolder, and no longer kept to the protection of their walls. Zeus, at the request of Thetis, gave them the victory in their first engagement with the Greeks. Hector drove the latter back to their ships, and was already about to set them on fire, when Achilles consented to allow his friend Patroclus to don his armour and lead his Myrmidons to the assistance of the Greeks. The Trojans were now driven back, but Patroclus, in the ardour of pursuit, was slain by Hector, and deprived of his armour, and Menelaüs, with the help of the greater Ajax and other heroes, only succeeded in rescuing his corpse after a bloody and obstinate struggle. The wrath of Achilles was now entirely diverted by the desire of avenging on Hector the death of his much-loved friend Patroclus. He was scarcely willing even to wait for the new armour which his goddess-mother procured him from the workshop of Hephæstus. No sooner was he in possession of it than he again appeared on the field, and Hector—the bulwark of Troy—soon succumbed to his furious onslaught. Achilles, however, was generous enough to surrender his corpse to the entreaties of Priam. The Iliad concludes with the solemn funeral of Hector.

The succeeding events, up to the death of Achilles and the contest for his arms, were narrated in the Æthiopis of Arctinus of Miletus, with the contents of which we have some slight acquaintance, although the work itself is lost. All kinds of brilliant exploits are reported to have been performed by Achilles before the walls of Troy, which were manifestly unknown to the earlier story. In the first place, immediately after Hector’s death, Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons, came to the assistance of the Trojans, and fought so bravely at the head of her army that the Greeks were hard pressed. Achilles at length overcame the heroic daughter of Ares. After her fall, a new ally of the Trojans appeared in Memnon, king of Æthiopia, who is called a son of Eos, because the Æthiopians were supposed to dwell in the far East. Among those who fell by the hand of this handsome and courageous hero was Antilochus, the valiant son of Nestor. When Memnon, however, ventured to meet the invincible Achilles, he also was vanquished, after a brave struggle. The fresh morning dew, which springs from the tears of Eos, proves that she has never ceased to lament her heroic son. But death was soon to overtake him before whom so many heroes had bitten the dust. In an assault on the Scæan gate, Achilles was killed, at the head of his Myrmidons, by an arrow of Paris, which was directed by Apollo. According to later writers, whose accounts were followed by the tragic poets, he was treacherously murdered here on the occasion of his betrothal to Polyxena, the beautiful daughter of Priam. A furious contest, lasting the whole day, took place for the possession of his corpse and armour: at length Odysseus and Ajax succeeded in conveying it to a place of safety. Mourning and confusion reigned among the Greeks at his death. During seventeen days and nights Thetis, with the whole band of Nereids, bewailed his untimely fate in mourning melodies, so sad and touching that neither gods nor men could refrain from tears.