Legendary Passages #0061 - Thebes Mythical History -
Kings Ogygys to Xanthus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
Last time we covered several daughters of Thebes. This time we examine it's peoples and it's many kings.
The first Boeotians were the Ectenes, ruled by king Ogygys, who were driven extinct by a plague. Second were the Hyantes, who fled the Phoenicians; and third were the Aones, who joined with them.
King Cadmus invaded Boeotia with his Phoenician army, and constructed Cadmeia, the heart of Thebes. Cadmus' daughter Agave married Echion, the best of the Sparti, born of the dragon's teeth. Their son Pentheus became king, and after running afoul of Dionysus, his son Polydorus took the throne.
When Polydorus died, his son Labdacus was still too young, so his grandfather Nycteus ruled as regent, followed by Nycteus' brother Lycus. Nycteus' daughter Antiope had sons Amphion and Zethus, who overthrew Lycus and ruled together.
Amphion's power was in his song and his harp, and he imbued the very walls of Thebes with his music. Amphion married Niobe, and Zethus married Thebe, and when both families were destroyed by fate, Labdacus' son Laius became king.
An oracle told Laius that his own son would kill him, so when his wife Iocasta or Epicaste gave birth to Oedipus, the babe was exposed. Eventually Oedipus grew up, killed Laius, and married his mother. They had sons Polyneices and Eteocles who dueled for the throne, and slew each-other.
Many ruled Thebes thereafter. Creon ruled as regent until Laodamas, son of Eteocles became King. Thebes was conquered by the Argives, and Thersander, son of Polynices, ruled as king until his death in the Trojan War. Peneleos ruled briefly as regent, and then Tisamenus, the son of Thersander, assumed the throne. His son Autesion went to the Dorians, so Damasichthon, grandson of Peneleos, was chosen to be king. After Damasichthon's grandson Xanthus cheated in a duel, the Thebans chose not to be ruled by one man ever again.
Next time, our segment on Thebes comes to an end with the tale of Jocasta's Children.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9A.html#4
Thebes Mythical History,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[9.4.4] - [9.5.15]
SCOLUS & THE RIVER ASOPUS
On the road from Plataea to Thebes is the river Oeroe, said to have been a daughter of the Asopus. Before crossing the Asopus, if you turn aside to lower ground in a direction parallel to the river, after about forty stades you come to the ruins of Scolus. The temple of Demeter and the Maid among the ruins is not finished, and only half-finished are the images of the goddesses. Even to-day the Asopus is the boundary between Thebes and Plataea.
THEBES (MYTHICAL HISTORY)
The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and not foreigners.
When the Phoenician army under Cadmus invaded the land these tribes were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Cadmus to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Cadmus built the city which even at the present day is called Cadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Cadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes. Cadmus made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek legend says, he indeed took to wife a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.
In the time of Cadmus, the greatest power, next after his, was in the hands of the Sparti, namely, Chthonius, Hyperenor, Pelorus and Udaeus; but it was Echion who, for his great valor, was preferred by Cadmus to be his son-in-law. As I was unable to discover anything new about these men, I adopt the story that makes their name result from the way in which they came into being. When Cadnius migrated to the Illyrian tribe of the Encheleans, Polydorus his son got the kingdom.
Now Pentheus the son of Echion was also powerful by reason of his noble birth and friendship with the king. Being a man of insolent character who had shown impiety to Dionysus, he was punished by the god. Polydorus had a son, Labdacus. When Polydorus was about to die, Labdacus was still a child, and so he was entrusted, along with the government, to the care of Nycteus.
The sequel of this story, how Nycteus died, and how the care of the boy with the sovereignty of Thebes devolved on Lycus, the brother of Nycteus, I have already set forth in my account of Sicyon. When Labdacus grew up, Lycus handed over to him the reins of government; but Labdacus too died shortly afterwards, and Lycus again became guardian, this time to Laius, the son of Labdacus.
While Lycus was regent for the second time, Amphion and Zethus gathered a force and came back to Thebes. Laius was secretly removed by such as were anxious that the race of Cadmus should not be forgotten by posterity, and Lycus was overcome in the fighting by the sons of Antiope. When they succeeded to the throne they added the lower city to the Cadmeia, giving it, because of their kinship to Thebe, the name of Thebes.
What I have said is confirmed by what Homer says in the Odyssey:–
Who first laid the foundation of seven-gated Thebe,
And built towers about it, for without towers they could not
Dwell in wide-wayed Thebe, in spite of their strength.
Hom. Od. 11.263
Homer, however, makes no mention in his poetry of Amphion's singing, and how he built the wall to the music of his harp. Amphion won fame for his music, learning from the Lydians themselves the Lydian mode, because of his relationship to Tantalus, and adding three strings to the four old ones.
The writer of the poem on Europa says that Amphion was the first harpist, and that Hermes was his teacher. He also says that Amphion's songs drew even stones and beasts after him. Myro of Byzantium, a poetess who wrote epic and elegiac poetry, states that Amphion was the first to set up an altar to Hermes, and for this reason was presented by him with a harp. It is also said that Amphion is punished in Hades for being among those who made a mock of Leto and her children.
The punishment of Amphion is dealt with in the epic poem Minyad, which treats both of Amphion and also of Thamyris of Thrace. The houses of both Amphion and Zethus were visited by bereavement; Amphion's was left desolate by plague, and the son of Zethus was killed through some mistake or other of his mother. Zethus himself died of a broken heart, and so Laius was restored by the Thebans to the kingdom.
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When Laius was king and married to Iocasta, an oracle came from Delphi that, if Iocasta bore a child, Laius would meet his death at his son's hands. Whereupon Oedipus was exposed, who was fated when he grew up to kill his father; he also married his mother. But I do not think that he had children by her; my witness is Homer, who says in the Odyssey:–
And I saw the mother of Oedipodes, fair Epicaste,
Who wrought a dreadful deed unwittingly,
Marrying her son, who slew his father and
Wedded her. But forthwith the gods made it known among men.
Hom. Od. 11.271
How could they “have made it known forthwith,” if Epicaste had borne four children to Oedipus? But the mother of these children was Euryganeia, daughter of Hyperphas. Among the proofs of this are the words of the author of the poem called the Oedipodia; and moreover, Onasias painted a picture at Plataea of Euryganeia bowed with grief because of the fight between her children.
Polyneices retired from Thebes while Oedipus was still alive and reigning, in fear lest the curses of the father should be brought to pass upon the sons. He went to Argos and married a daughter of Adrastus, but returned to Thebes, being fetched by Eteocles after the death of Oedipus. On his return he quarrelled with Eteocles, and so went into exile a second time. He begged Adrastus to give him a force to effect his return, but lost his army and fought a duel with Eteocles as the result of a challenge.
Both fell in the duel, and the kingdom devolved on Laodamas, son of Eteocles; Creon, the son of Menoeceus, was in power as regent and guardian of Laodamas. When the latter had grown up and held the kingship, the Argives led their army for the second time against Thebes. The Thebans encamped over against them at Glisas. When they joined in battle, Aegialeus, the son of Adrastus, was killed by Laodamas but the Argives were victorious in the fight, and Laodamas, with any Theban willing to accompany him, withdrew when night came to Illyria.
The Argives captured Thebes and handed it over to Thersander, son of Polyneices. When the expedition under Agamemnon against Troy mistook its course and the reverse in Mysia occurred, Thersander too met his death at the hands of Telephus. He had shown himself the bravest Greek at the battle; his tomb, the stone in the open part of the market-place, is in the city Elaea on the way to the plain of the Caicus, and the natives say that they sacrifice to him as to a hero.
On the death of Thersander, when a second expedition was being mustered to fight Alexander at Troy, Peneleos was chosen to command it, because Tisamenus, the son of Thersander, was not yet old enough. When Peneleos was killed by Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, Tisamenus was chosen king, who was the son of Thersander and of Demonassa, the daughter of Amphiaraus. The Furies of Laius and Oedipus did not vent their wrath on Tisamenus, but they did on his son Autesion, so that, at the bidding of the oracle, he migrated to the Dorians.
On the departure of Autesion, Damasichthon was chosen to be king, who was a son of Opheltes, the son of Peneleos. This Damasichthon had a son Ptolemy, who was the father of Xanthus. Xanthus fought a duel with Andropompus, who killed him by craft and not in fair fight. Hereafter the Thebans thought it better to entrust the government to several people, rather than to let everything depend on one man.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9A.html#4
Greek and Roman mythology from the original sources, from Atlantis to Hercules to the Trojan War. Email: LegendaryPassages@gmail.com
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
LP0060 - The Daughters of Thebes - Semele, Agave, Antiope & Niobe, from The Library of Apollodorus
Legendary Passages #0060 - The Daughters of Thebes -
Semele, Agave, Antiope & Niobe, from The Library of Apollodorus.
Last time we reviewed many fables of love concerning Thebes. This time we cover the myths of Dionysus, Cadmus & Harmonia, and Zethus & Amphion.
Cadmus and Harmonia had a son Polydorus, and four daughters: Agave, Ino, Autonoe, and Semele. Now Zeus loved Semele, and was tricked into killing her while she was pregnant with Dionysus, but Zeus saved him.
Dionysus was raised as a girl by his aunt Ino, and her husband Athamas. Hera drove them all mad, and after Ino jumped off a cliff, she became the sea goddess Leucothea. Family tragedy was commonplace, for Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son named Acteon, who was killed by his own hounds.
Dionysus wandered near and far, spreading madness in his wake, eventually returning to Thebes. There ruled his cousin Pentheus, who was savagely killed by his mother Agave in a fit of madness. After wreaking havoc on land and sea, Dionysus achieved godhood, and rescued his mother Semele from Hades, and she became the goddess Thyone.
Cadmus and Harmonia were transformed into serpents, and their son Polydorus married Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus, and they had a son Labdacus, father of Laius. When Polydorus and Labdacus were dead, and Laius was but an infant, Nycteus ruled as King.
Now Nycteus had another daughter named Antiope, whom Zeus had gotten with child, and she ran off and married another without his blessing. Heartbroken, Nycteus died, charging his brother Lycus with the throne, and demanded he punish Antiope. Lycus killed her husband, exposed her twin sons, and threw her in a dungeon.
Antiope's sons survived, and Zethus became a cowboy, and Amphion became a bard. They killed Lycus and his wife Dirce, and ruled as kings. Zethus married Thebe, and Amphion married Niobe. Foolishly, Niobe boasted of their dozen children, and all died, save one or two. Overcome with grief, Niobe was changed into a weeping stone.
Next time, we return to Laius and Oedipus, and Thebes Mythic History.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#4
The Daughters of Thebes,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Library of Apollodorus,
translated by J. G. Frazer.
[3.4.2] - [3.5.9]
And to Cadmus were born daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, Agave, and a son Polydorus. Ino was married to Athamas, Autonoe to Aristaeus, and Agave to Echion.
But Zeus loved Semele and bedded with her unknown to Hera. Now Zeus had agreed to do for her whatever she asked, and deceived by Hera she asked that he would come to her as he came when he was wooing Hera. Unable to refuse, Zeus came to her bridal chamber in a chariot, with lightnings and thunderings, and launched a thunderbolt. But Semele expired of fright, and Zeus, snatching the sixth-month abortive child from the fire, sewed it in his thigh. On the death of Semele the other daughters of Cadmus spread a report that Semele had bedded with a mortal man, and had falsely accused Zeus, and that therefore she had been blasted by thunder. But at the proper time Zeus undid the stitches and gave birth to Dionysus, and entrusted him to Hermes.
And he conveyed him to Ino and Athamas, and persuaded them to rear him as a girl. But Hera indignantly drove them mad, and Athamas hunted his elder son Learchus as a deer and killed him, and Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron, then carrying it with the dead child she sprang into the deep. And she herself is called Leucothea, and the boy is called Palaemon, such being the names they get from sailors; for they succour storm-tossed mariners. And the Isthmian games were instituted by Sisyphus in honor of Melicertes. But Zeus eluded the wrath of Hera by turning Dionysus into a kid, and Hermes took him and brought him to the nymphs who dwelt at Nysa in Asia, whom Zeus afterwards changed into stars and named them the Hyades.
Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son Actaeon, who was bred by Chiron to be a hunter and then afterwards was devoured on Cithaeron by his own dogs. He perished in that way, according to Acusilaus, because Zeus was angry at him for wooing Semele; but according to the more general opinion, it was because he saw Artemis bathing. And they say that the goddess at once transformed him into a deer, and drove mad the fifty dogs in his pack, which devoured him unwittingly. Actaeon being gone, the dogs sought their master howling lamentably, and in the search they came to the cave of Chiron, who fashioned an image of Actaeon, which soothed their grief.
[Here the text is corrupt]
Dionysus discovered the vine, and being driven mad by Hera he roamed about Egypt and Syria. At first he was received by Proteus, king of Egypt, but afterwards he arrived at Cybela in Phrygia. And there, after he had been purified by Rhea and learned the rites of initiation, he received from her the costume and hastened through Thrace against the Indians.
But Lycurgus, son of Dryas, was king of the Edonians, who dwell beside the river Strymon, and he was the first who insulted and expelled him. Dionysus took refuge in the sea with Thetis, daughter of Nereus, and the Bacchanals were taken prisoners together with the multitude of Satyrs that attended him. But afterwards the Bacchanals were suddenly released, and Dionysus drove Lycurgus mad. And in his madness he struck his son Dryas dead with an axe, imagining that he was lopping a branch of a vine, and when he had cut off his son's extremities, he recovered his senses. But the land remaining barren, the god declared oracularly that it would bear fruit if Lycurgus were put to death. On hearing that, the Edonians led him to Mount Pangaeum and bound him, and there by the will of Dionysus he died, destroyed by horses.
Having traversed Thrace and the whole of India and set up pillars there, he came to Thebes, and forced the women to abandon their houses and rave in Bacchic frenzy on Cithaeron. But Pentheus, whom Agave bore to Echion, had succeeded Cadmus in the kingdom, and he attempted to put a stop to these proceedings. And coming to Cithaeron to spy on the Bacchanals, he was torn limb from limb by his mother Agave in a fit of madness; for she thought he was a wild beast. And having shown the Thebans that he was a god, Dionysus came to Argos, and there again, because they did not honor him, he drove the women mad, and they on the mountains devoured the flesh of the infants whom they carried at their breasts.
And wishing to be ferried across from Icaria to Naxos he hired a pirate ship of Tyrrhenians. But when they had put him on board, they sailed past Naxos and made for Asia, intending to sell him. Howbeit, he turned the mast and oars into snakes, and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes. And the pirates went mad, and leaped into the sea, and were turned into dolphins. Thus men perceived that he was a god and honored him; and having brought up his mother from Hades and named her Thyone, he ascended up with her to heaven.
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But Cadmus and Harmonia quitted Thebes and went to the Encheleans. As the Encheleans were being attacked by the Illyrians, the god declared by an oracle that they would get the better of the Illyrians if they had Cadmus and Harmonia as their leaders. They believed him, and made them their leaders against the Illyrians, and got the better of them. And Cadmus reigned over the Illyrians, and a son Illyrius was born to him. But afterwards he was, along with Harmonia, turned into a serpent and sent away by Zeus to the Elysian Fields.
Polydorus, having become king of Thebes, married Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus, son of Chthonius, and begat Labdacus, who perished after Pentheus because he was like-minded with him. But Labdacus having left a year-old son, Laius, the government was usurped by Lycus, brother of Nycteus, so long as Laius was a child. Both of them had fled [from Euboea] because they had killed Phlegyas, son of Ares and Dotis the Boeotian, and they took up their abode at Hyria, and thence having come to Thebes, they were enrolled as citizens through their friendship with Pentheus. So after being chosen commander-in-chief by the Thebans, Lycus compassed the supreme power and reigned for twenty years, but was murdered by Zethus and Amphion for the following reason.
Antiope was a daughter of Nycteus, and Zeus had intercourse with her. When she was with child, and her father threatened her, she ran away to Epopeus at Sicyon and was married to him. In a fit of despondency Nycteus killed himself, after charging Lycus to punish Epopeus and Antiope. Lycus marched against Sicyon, subdued it, slew Epopeus, and led Antiope away captive. On the way she gave birth to two sons at Eleurethae in Boeotia. The infants were exposed, but a neatherd found and reared them, and he called the one Zethus and the other Amphion.
Now Zethus paid attention to cattle-breeding, but Amphion practised minstrelsy, for Hermes had given him a lyre. But Lycus and his wife Dirce imprisoned Antiope and treated her despitefully. Howbeit, one day her bonds were loosed of themselves, and unknown to her keepers she came to her sons cottage, begging that they would take her in. They recognized their mother and slew Lycus, but Dirce they tied to a bull, and flung her dead body into the spring that is called Dirce after her.
And having succeeded to the sovereignty they fortified the city, the stones following Amphion's lyre; and they expelled Laius. He resided in Peloponnese, being hospitably received by Pelops; and while he taught Chrysippus, the son of Pelops, to drive a chariot, he conceived a passion for the lad and carried him off.
Zethus married Thebe, after whom the city of Thebes is named; and Amphion married Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, who bore seven sons, Sipylus, Eupinytus, Ismenus, Damasichthon, Agenor, Phaedimus, Tantalus, and the same number of daughters, Ethodaia (or, as some say, Neaera), Cleodoxa, Astyoche, Phthia, Pelopia, Astycratia, and Ogygia, But Hesiod says that they had ten sons and ten daughters; Herodorus that they had two male children and three female; and Homer that they had six sons and six daughters.
Being blessed with children, Niobe said that she was more blessed with children than Latona. Stung by the taunt, Latona incited Artemis and Apollo against them, and Artemis shot down the females in the house, and Apollo killed all the males together as they were hunting on Cithaeron. Of the males Amphion alone was saved, and of the females Chloris the elder, whom Neleus married. But according to Telesilla there were saved Amyclas and Meliboea, and Amphion also was shot by them. But Niobe herself quitted Thebes and went to her father Tantalus at Sipylus, and there, on praying to Zeus, she was transformed into a stone, and tears flow night and day from the stone.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#4
Semele, Agave, Antiope & Niobe, from The Library of Apollodorus.
Last time we reviewed many fables of love concerning Thebes. This time we cover the myths of Dionysus, Cadmus & Harmonia, and Zethus & Amphion.
Cadmus and Harmonia had a son Polydorus, and four daughters: Agave, Ino, Autonoe, and Semele. Now Zeus loved Semele, and was tricked into killing her while she was pregnant with Dionysus, but Zeus saved him.
Dionysus was raised as a girl by his aunt Ino, and her husband Athamas. Hera drove them all mad, and after Ino jumped off a cliff, she became the sea goddess Leucothea. Family tragedy was commonplace, for Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son named Acteon, who was killed by his own hounds.
Dionysus wandered near and far, spreading madness in his wake, eventually returning to Thebes. There ruled his cousin Pentheus, who was savagely killed by his mother Agave in a fit of madness. After wreaking havoc on land and sea, Dionysus achieved godhood, and rescued his mother Semele from Hades, and she became the goddess Thyone.
Cadmus and Harmonia were transformed into serpents, and their son Polydorus married Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus, and they had a son Labdacus, father of Laius. When Polydorus and Labdacus were dead, and Laius was but an infant, Nycteus ruled as King.
Now Nycteus had another daughter named Antiope, whom Zeus had gotten with child, and she ran off and married another without his blessing. Heartbroken, Nycteus died, charging his brother Lycus with the throne, and demanded he punish Antiope. Lycus killed her husband, exposed her twin sons, and threw her in a dungeon.
Antiope's sons survived, and Zethus became a cowboy, and Amphion became a bard. They killed Lycus and his wife Dirce, and ruled as kings. Zethus married Thebe, and Amphion married Niobe. Foolishly, Niobe boasted of their dozen children, and all died, save one or two. Overcome with grief, Niobe was changed into a weeping stone.
Next time, we return to Laius and Oedipus, and Thebes Mythic History.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#4
The Daughters of Thebes,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Library of Apollodorus,
translated by J. G. Frazer.
[3.4.2] - [3.5.9]
And to Cadmus were born daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, Agave, and a son Polydorus. Ino was married to Athamas, Autonoe to Aristaeus, and Agave to Echion.
But Zeus loved Semele and bedded with her unknown to Hera. Now Zeus had agreed to do for her whatever she asked, and deceived by Hera she asked that he would come to her as he came when he was wooing Hera. Unable to refuse, Zeus came to her bridal chamber in a chariot, with lightnings and thunderings, and launched a thunderbolt. But Semele expired of fright, and Zeus, snatching the sixth-month abortive child from the fire, sewed it in his thigh. On the death of Semele the other daughters of Cadmus spread a report that Semele had bedded with a mortal man, and had falsely accused Zeus, and that therefore she had been blasted by thunder. But at the proper time Zeus undid the stitches and gave birth to Dionysus, and entrusted him to Hermes.
And he conveyed him to Ino and Athamas, and persuaded them to rear him as a girl. But Hera indignantly drove them mad, and Athamas hunted his elder son Learchus as a deer and killed him, and Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron, then carrying it with the dead child she sprang into the deep. And she herself is called Leucothea, and the boy is called Palaemon, such being the names they get from sailors; for they succour storm-tossed mariners. And the Isthmian games were instituted by Sisyphus in honor of Melicertes. But Zeus eluded the wrath of Hera by turning Dionysus into a kid, and Hermes took him and brought him to the nymphs who dwelt at Nysa in Asia, whom Zeus afterwards changed into stars and named them the Hyades.
Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son Actaeon, who was bred by Chiron to be a hunter and then afterwards was devoured on Cithaeron by his own dogs. He perished in that way, according to Acusilaus, because Zeus was angry at him for wooing Semele; but according to the more general opinion, it was because he saw Artemis bathing. And they say that the goddess at once transformed him into a deer, and drove mad the fifty dogs in his pack, which devoured him unwittingly. Actaeon being gone, the dogs sought their master howling lamentably, and in the search they came to the cave of Chiron, who fashioned an image of Actaeon, which soothed their grief.
[Here the text is corrupt]
Dionysus discovered the vine, and being driven mad by Hera he roamed about Egypt and Syria. At first he was received by Proteus, king of Egypt, but afterwards he arrived at Cybela in Phrygia. And there, after he had been purified by Rhea and learned the rites of initiation, he received from her the costume and hastened through Thrace against the Indians.
But Lycurgus, son of Dryas, was king of the Edonians, who dwell beside the river Strymon, and he was the first who insulted and expelled him. Dionysus took refuge in the sea with Thetis, daughter of Nereus, and the Bacchanals were taken prisoners together with the multitude of Satyrs that attended him. But afterwards the Bacchanals were suddenly released, and Dionysus drove Lycurgus mad. And in his madness he struck his son Dryas dead with an axe, imagining that he was lopping a branch of a vine, and when he had cut off his son's extremities, he recovered his senses. But the land remaining barren, the god declared oracularly that it would bear fruit if Lycurgus were put to death. On hearing that, the Edonians led him to Mount Pangaeum and bound him, and there by the will of Dionysus he died, destroyed by horses.
Having traversed Thrace and the whole of India and set up pillars there, he came to Thebes, and forced the women to abandon their houses and rave in Bacchic frenzy on Cithaeron. But Pentheus, whom Agave bore to Echion, had succeeded Cadmus in the kingdom, and he attempted to put a stop to these proceedings. And coming to Cithaeron to spy on the Bacchanals, he was torn limb from limb by his mother Agave in a fit of madness; for she thought he was a wild beast. And having shown the Thebans that he was a god, Dionysus came to Argos, and there again, because they did not honor him, he drove the women mad, and they on the mountains devoured the flesh of the infants whom they carried at their breasts.
And wishing to be ferried across from Icaria to Naxos he hired a pirate ship of Tyrrhenians. But when they had put him on board, they sailed past Naxos and made for Asia, intending to sell him. Howbeit, he turned the mast and oars into snakes, and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes. And the pirates went mad, and leaped into the sea, and were turned into dolphins. Thus men perceived that he was a god and honored him; and having brought up his mother from Hades and named her Thyone, he ascended up with her to heaven.
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But Cadmus and Harmonia quitted Thebes and went to the Encheleans. As the Encheleans were being attacked by the Illyrians, the god declared by an oracle that they would get the better of the Illyrians if they had Cadmus and Harmonia as their leaders. They believed him, and made them their leaders against the Illyrians, and got the better of them. And Cadmus reigned over the Illyrians, and a son Illyrius was born to him. But afterwards he was, along with Harmonia, turned into a serpent and sent away by Zeus to the Elysian Fields.
Polydorus, having become king of Thebes, married Nycteis, daughter of Nycteus, son of Chthonius, and begat Labdacus, who perished after Pentheus because he was like-minded with him. But Labdacus having left a year-old son, Laius, the government was usurped by Lycus, brother of Nycteus, so long as Laius was a child. Both of them had fled [from Euboea] because they had killed Phlegyas, son of Ares and Dotis the Boeotian, and they took up their abode at Hyria, and thence having come to Thebes, they were enrolled as citizens through their friendship with Pentheus. So after being chosen commander-in-chief by the Thebans, Lycus compassed the supreme power and reigned for twenty years, but was murdered by Zethus and Amphion for the following reason.
Antiope was a daughter of Nycteus, and Zeus had intercourse with her. When she was with child, and her father threatened her, she ran away to Epopeus at Sicyon and was married to him. In a fit of despondency Nycteus killed himself, after charging Lycus to punish Epopeus and Antiope. Lycus marched against Sicyon, subdued it, slew Epopeus, and led Antiope away captive. On the way she gave birth to two sons at Eleurethae in Boeotia. The infants were exposed, but a neatherd found and reared them, and he called the one Zethus and the other Amphion.
Now Zethus paid attention to cattle-breeding, but Amphion practised minstrelsy, for Hermes had given him a lyre. But Lycus and his wife Dirce imprisoned Antiope and treated her despitefully. Howbeit, one day her bonds were loosed of themselves, and unknown to her keepers she came to her sons cottage, begging that they would take her in. They recognized their mother and slew Lycus, but Dirce they tied to a bull, and flung her dead body into the spring that is called Dirce after her.
And having succeeded to the sovereignty they fortified the city, the stones following Amphion's lyre; and they expelled Laius. He resided in Peloponnese, being hospitably received by Pelops; and while he taught Chrysippus, the son of Pelops, to drive a chariot, he conceived a passion for the lad and carried him off.
Zethus married Thebe, after whom the city of Thebes is named; and Amphion married Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, who bore seven sons, Sipylus, Eupinytus, Ismenus, Damasichthon, Agenor, Phaedimus, Tantalus, and the same number of daughters, Ethodaia (or, as some say, Neaera), Cleodoxa, Astyoche, Phthia, Pelopia, Astycratia, and Ogygia, But Hesiod says that they had ten sons and ten daughters; Herodorus that they had two male children and three female; and Homer that they had six sons and six daughters.
Being blessed with children, Niobe said that she was more blessed with children than Latona. Stung by the taunt, Latona incited Artemis and Apollo against them, and Artemis shot down the females in the house, and Apollo killed all the males together as they were hunting on Cithaeron. Of the males Amphion alone was saved, and of the females Chloris the elder, whom Neleus married. But according to Telesilla there were saved Amyclas and Meliboea, and Amphion also was shot by them. But Niobe herself quitted Thebes and went to her father Tantalus at Sipylus, and there, on praying to Zeus, she was transformed into a stone, and tears flow night and day from the stone.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#4
Saturday, December 31, 2016
LP0059 - The Fables of Love - Asterie to Oedipus, from Hyginus' Fabulae
Legendary Passages #0059 - The Fables of Love -
Asterie to Oedipus, from Hyginus' Fabulae.
Last time we covered parallel stories from Greece and Rome.
This time we cover Asterie, Thetis, and Tityus; Busiris, Stheneboea, and Smyrna; Phyllis, Sisyphus and Salmoneus; Danae, Andromeda, and Alcyone; and finally Laius and his son Oedipus.
Next time, the tragic tales of The Daughters of Thebes.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae2.html#53
The Fables of Love,
a Legendary Passage,
from Hyginus' Fabulae,
translated by Mary Grant.
[53] - [67]
LIII. ASTERIE
Though Jove loved Asterie, daughter of Titan, she scorned him. Therefore she was transformed into the bird ortux, which we call a quail, and he cast her into the sea. From her an island sprang up, which was named Ortygia. This was floating. Later Latona was borne there at Jove’s command by the wind Aquilo, at the time when the Python was pursuing her, and there, clinging to an olive, she gave birth to Apollo and Diana. This island later was called Delos.
LIV. THETIS
A prediction about Thetis, the Nereid, was that her son would be greater than his father. Since no one but Prometheus knew this, and Jove wished to lie with her, Prometheus promised Jove that he would give him timely warning if he would free him from his chains. And so when the promise was given he advised Jove not to lie with Thetis, for if one greater than he were born he might drive Jove from his kingdom, as he himself had done to Saturn. And so Thetis was given in marriage to Peleus, son of Aeacus, and Hercules was sent to kill the eagle which was eating out Prometheus’ heart. When it was killed, Prometheus after thirty thousand years was freed from Mount Caucasus.
LV. TITYUS
Because Latona had lain with Jove, Juno ordered Tityus, a creature of immense size, to offer violence to her. When he tried to do this he was slain by the thunderbolt of Jove. He is said to lie stretched out over nine acres in the Land of the Dead, and a serpent is put near him to eat out his liver, which grows again with the moon.
LVI. BUSIRIS
In Egypt in the land of Busiris, son of Neptune, when there was a famine, and Egypt had been parched for nine years, the king summoned augurs from Greece. Thrasius, his brother Pygmalion’s son, announced that rains would come if a foreigner were sacrificed, and proved his words when he himself was sacrificed.
LVII. STHENEBOEA
When Bellerophon had come as an exile to the court of King Proetus, Stheneboea, the King’s wife, fell in love with him. On his refusal to lie with her, she falsely told her husband she had been forced by him. But Proetus, hearing this, wrote a letter about it, and sent him to Iobates, Stheneboea’s father. After reading the letter, Iobates was reluctant to kill such a hero, but sent him to kill the Chimaera, a three-formed creature said to breathe forth fire. [Likewise: forepart lion, rearpart snake, middle she-goat.] This he slew, riding on Pegasus, and he is said to have fallen in the Aleian plains and have dislocated his hip. But the king, praising his valor, gave him his other daughter in marriage, and Stheneboea, hearing of it, killed herself.
LVIII. SMYRNA
Smyrna was the daughter of Cinyras, King of the Assyrians, and Cenchreis. Her mother Cenchreis boasted proudly that her daughter excelled Venus in beauty. Venus, to punish the mother, sent forbidden love to Smyrna so that she loved her own father. The nurse prevented her from hanging herself, and without knowledge of her father, helped her lie with him. She conceived, and goaded by shame, in order not to reveal her fault, hid in the woods. Venus later pitied her, and changed her into a kind of tree from which myrrh flows; Adonis, born from it, exacted punishment for his mother's sake from Venus.
LIX. PHYLLIS
Demophoon, Theseus’ son, came, it is said, to Thrace to the hospitality of Phyllis, and was loved by her. When he wanted to return to his country, he promised to return to her. He did not come on the appointed day; she is said to have run down to the shore nine times that day, and from her (story) the place was named in Greek Ennea Hodoi. Phyllis, however, out of longing for Demophoon died. Her parents made her a tomb, and trees sprang up there which at a certain season grieve for her death, the leaves growing dry and blowing away. From her name, leaves in Greek are called phylla.
LX. SISYPHUS AND SALMONEUS
Sisyphus and Salmoneus, sons of Aeolus, hated each other. Sisyphus asked Apollo how he might kill his enemy, meaning his brother, and the answer was given that if he had children from the embrace of Tryo, daughter of his brother Salmoneus, they would avenge him. When Sisyphus followed this advice, two sons were born, but their mother slew them when she learned of the prophecy. But when Sisyphus found out . . .
Because of his impiety he now, it is said, in the Land of the Dead rolls a stone, shouldering it up a mountain, but when he has pushed it to the highest point, it rolls down again after him.
LXI. SALMONEUS
Because Salmoneus, son of Aeolus, brother of Sisyphus, by riding in a four-horse chariot and . . . carrying glowing torches [to terrify] the people, was imitating the thunder and lighting of Jove, he was smitten by the thunderbolt of Jove.
LXII. IXION
Ixion, son of Leonteus, attempted to embrace Juno. Juno, by Jove’s instructions, substituted a cloud, which Ixion believed to be the likeness of Juno. From this the Centaurs were born. But Mercury, by Jove’s instructions, bound Ixion in the Land of the Dead to a wheel, which is said to be still turning there.
LXIII. DANAE
Danaë was the daughter of Acrisius and Aganippe. A prophecy about her said that the child she bore would kill Acrisius, and Acrisius, fearing this, shut her in a stone-walled prison. But Jove, changing into a shower of gold, lay with Danaë, and from this embrace Perseus was born. Because of her sin her father shut her up in a chest with Perseus and cast it into the sea. By Jove’s will it was borne to the island of Seriphus, and when the fisherman Dictys found it and broke it open, he discovered the mother and child. He took them to King Polydectes, who married Danaë and brought up Perseus in the temple of Minerva. When Acrisius discovered they were staying at Polydectes’ court, he started out to get them, but at his arrival Polydectes interceded for them, and Perseus swore an oath to his grandfather that he would never kill him. When Acrisius was detained there by a storm, Polydectes died, and at his funeral games the wind blew a discus from Perseus’ hand at Acrisius’ head which killed him. Thus what he did not do of his own will was accomplished by the gods. When Polydectes was buried, Perseus set out for Argos and took possession of his grandfather’s kingdom.
LXIV. ANDROMEDA
Cassiope claimed that her daughter Andromeda’s beauty excelled the Nereids’. Because of this, Neptune demanded that Andromeda, Cepheus’ daughter, be offered to a sea-monster. When she was offered, Perseus, flying on Mercury’s winged sandals, is said to have come there and freed her from danger. When he wanted to marry her, Cepheus, her father, along with Agenor, her betrothed, planned to kill him. Perseus, discovering the plot, showed them the head of the Gorgon, and all were changed from human form into stone. Perseus with Andromeda returned to his country. When Polydectes saw that Perseus was so courageous, he feared him and tried to kill him be treachery, but when Perseus discovered this he showed him the Gorgon’s head, and he was changed from human form into stone.
LXV. ALCYONE
When Ceyx, son of Hesper (also called Lucifer) and Philonis, had perished in a shipwreck, Alcyone his wife, daughter of Aeolus and Aegiale, on account of her love for him, threw herself into the sea. By the pity of the gods both were changed into birds which are called halcyons. These birds have their nests, eggs, and young on the sea for seven days in the winter. The sea is calm for those days, and sailors call them “halcyon days."
LXVI. LAIUS
The oracle of Apollo warned Laius, son of Labdacus, that he should beware of death at his son’s hands, and so when his wife Jocasta bore a son, he ordered him to be exposed. Periboea, wife of King Polybus, found the child as she was washing garments at the shore, and rescued him. With Polybus’ consent, since they were childless, they brought him up as their son, and because he had pierced feet they named him Oedipus.
LXVII. OEDIPUS
After Oedipus, son of Laeius and Jocasta, had come to manhood, he was courageous beyond the rest, and through envy his compnaionns taunted him with not being Polybus’ son, since Polybus was so mild, and he so assertive. Oedipus felt that the taunt was true. And so he set out for Delphi to inquire [about his parents. In the meantime] it was revealed to Laeius by prodigies that death at his son’s hands were near. When he was going to Delphi, Oedipus met him, and when servants bade him give way to the King, he refused. The King urged on his horses, and a wheel grazed Oedipus’ foot. Enraged, he dragged his father from the chariot, not knowing who he was, and killed him.
After Laius’ death, Creon, son of Menoeceus, ruled; in the meantime the Sphinx, offspring of Typhon, was sent into Boeotia, and was laying waste the fields of the Thebans. She proposed a contest to Creon, that if anyone interpreted the riddle which she gave, she would depart, but that she would destroy whoever failed, and under no other circumstances would she leave the country. When the king heard this, he made a proclamation throughout Greece. He promised that he would give the kingdom and his sister Jocasta in marriage to the person solving the riddle of the Sphinx. Many came out of greed for the kingdom, and were devoured by the Sphinx, but Oedipus, son of Laius, came and interpreted the riddle. The Sphinx leaped to her death. Oedipus received his father’s kingdom, and Jocasta his mother as wife, unwittingly, and begat on her Eteocles, Polynices, Antigona, and Ismene.
Meanwhile barrenness of crops and want fell on Thebes because of the crimes of Oedipus, and Tiresias, questioned as to why Thebes was so harassed, replied that if anyone from the dragon’s blood survived and died for his country, he would free Thebes from plague. Then Menoeceus [father of Jocasta] threw himself from the walls. While these things were taking place in Thebes, at Corinth Polybus died, and Oedipus took the news hard, thinking his father had died. But Periboea revealed his adoption, and Menoetes, too, the old man who had exposed him, recognized him as the son of Laius by the scars on his feet and ankles. When Oedipus heard this and realized he had committed such atrocious crimes, he tore the brooches from his mother’s garment and blinded himself, gave the kingdom to his sons for alternate years, and fled from Thebes, his daughter Antigona leading him.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae2.html#53
Asterie to Oedipus, from Hyginus' Fabulae.
Last time we covered parallel stories from Greece and Rome.
This time we cover Asterie, Thetis, and Tityus; Busiris, Stheneboea, and Smyrna; Phyllis, Sisyphus and Salmoneus; Danae, Andromeda, and Alcyone; and finally Laius and his son Oedipus.
Next time, the tragic tales of The Daughters of Thebes.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae2.html#53
The Fables of Love,
a Legendary Passage,
from Hyginus' Fabulae,
translated by Mary Grant.
[53] - [67]
LIII. ASTERIE
Though Jove loved Asterie, daughter of Titan, she scorned him. Therefore she was transformed into the bird ortux, which we call a quail, and he cast her into the sea. From her an island sprang up, which was named Ortygia. This was floating. Later Latona was borne there at Jove’s command by the wind Aquilo, at the time when the Python was pursuing her, and there, clinging to an olive, she gave birth to Apollo and Diana. This island later was called Delos.
LIV. THETIS
A prediction about Thetis, the Nereid, was that her son would be greater than his father. Since no one but Prometheus knew this, and Jove wished to lie with her, Prometheus promised Jove that he would give him timely warning if he would free him from his chains. And so when the promise was given he advised Jove not to lie with Thetis, for if one greater than he were born he might drive Jove from his kingdom, as he himself had done to Saturn. And so Thetis was given in marriage to Peleus, son of Aeacus, and Hercules was sent to kill the eagle which was eating out Prometheus’ heart. When it was killed, Prometheus after thirty thousand years was freed from Mount Caucasus.
LV. TITYUS
Because Latona had lain with Jove, Juno ordered Tityus, a creature of immense size, to offer violence to her. When he tried to do this he was slain by the thunderbolt of Jove. He is said to lie stretched out over nine acres in the Land of the Dead, and a serpent is put near him to eat out his liver, which grows again with the moon.
LVI. BUSIRIS
In Egypt in the land of Busiris, son of Neptune, when there was a famine, and Egypt had been parched for nine years, the king summoned augurs from Greece. Thrasius, his brother Pygmalion’s son, announced that rains would come if a foreigner were sacrificed, and proved his words when he himself was sacrificed.
LVII. STHENEBOEA
When Bellerophon had come as an exile to the court of King Proetus, Stheneboea, the King’s wife, fell in love with him. On his refusal to lie with her, she falsely told her husband she had been forced by him. But Proetus, hearing this, wrote a letter about it, and sent him to Iobates, Stheneboea’s father. After reading the letter, Iobates was reluctant to kill such a hero, but sent him to kill the Chimaera, a three-formed creature said to breathe forth fire. [Likewise: forepart lion, rearpart snake, middle she-goat.] This he slew, riding on Pegasus, and he is said to have fallen in the Aleian plains and have dislocated his hip. But the king, praising his valor, gave him his other daughter in marriage, and Stheneboea, hearing of it, killed herself.
LVIII. SMYRNA
Smyrna was the daughter of Cinyras, King of the Assyrians, and Cenchreis. Her mother Cenchreis boasted proudly that her daughter excelled Venus in beauty. Venus, to punish the mother, sent forbidden love to Smyrna so that she loved her own father. The nurse prevented her from hanging herself, and without knowledge of her father, helped her lie with him. She conceived, and goaded by shame, in order not to reveal her fault, hid in the woods. Venus later pitied her, and changed her into a kind of tree from which myrrh flows; Adonis, born from it, exacted punishment for his mother's sake from Venus.
LIX. PHYLLIS
Demophoon, Theseus’ son, came, it is said, to Thrace to the hospitality of Phyllis, and was loved by her. When he wanted to return to his country, he promised to return to her. He did not come on the appointed day; she is said to have run down to the shore nine times that day, and from her (story) the place was named in Greek Ennea Hodoi. Phyllis, however, out of longing for Demophoon died. Her parents made her a tomb, and trees sprang up there which at a certain season grieve for her death, the leaves growing dry and blowing away. From her name, leaves in Greek are called phylla.
LX. SISYPHUS AND SALMONEUS
Sisyphus and Salmoneus, sons of Aeolus, hated each other. Sisyphus asked Apollo how he might kill his enemy, meaning his brother, and the answer was given that if he had children from the embrace of Tryo, daughter of his brother Salmoneus, they would avenge him. When Sisyphus followed this advice, two sons were born, but their mother slew them when she learned of the prophecy. But when Sisyphus found out . . .
Because of his impiety he now, it is said, in the Land of the Dead rolls a stone, shouldering it up a mountain, but when he has pushed it to the highest point, it rolls down again after him.
LXI. SALMONEUS
Because Salmoneus, son of Aeolus, brother of Sisyphus, by riding in a four-horse chariot and . . . carrying glowing torches [to terrify] the people, was imitating the thunder and lighting of Jove, he was smitten by the thunderbolt of Jove.
LXII. IXION
Ixion, son of Leonteus, attempted to embrace Juno. Juno, by Jove’s instructions, substituted a cloud, which Ixion believed to be the likeness of Juno. From this the Centaurs were born. But Mercury, by Jove’s instructions, bound Ixion in the Land of the Dead to a wheel, which is said to be still turning there.
LXIII. DANAE
Danaë was the daughter of Acrisius and Aganippe. A prophecy about her said that the child she bore would kill Acrisius, and Acrisius, fearing this, shut her in a stone-walled prison. But Jove, changing into a shower of gold, lay with Danaë, and from this embrace Perseus was born. Because of her sin her father shut her up in a chest with Perseus and cast it into the sea. By Jove’s will it was borne to the island of Seriphus, and when the fisherman Dictys found it and broke it open, he discovered the mother and child. He took them to King Polydectes, who married Danaë and brought up Perseus in the temple of Minerva. When Acrisius discovered they were staying at Polydectes’ court, he started out to get them, but at his arrival Polydectes interceded for them, and Perseus swore an oath to his grandfather that he would never kill him. When Acrisius was detained there by a storm, Polydectes died, and at his funeral games the wind blew a discus from Perseus’ hand at Acrisius’ head which killed him. Thus what he did not do of his own will was accomplished by the gods. When Polydectes was buried, Perseus set out for Argos and took possession of his grandfather’s kingdom.
LXIV. ANDROMEDA
Cassiope claimed that her daughter Andromeda’s beauty excelled the Nereids’. Because of this, Neptune demanded that Andromeda, Cepheus’ daughter, be offered to a sea-monster. When she was offered, Perseus, flying on Mercury’s winged sandals, is said to have come there and freed her from danger. When he wanted to marry her, Cepheus, her father, along with Agenor, her betrothed, planned to kill him. Perseus, discovering the plot, showed them the head of the Gorgon, and all were changed from human form into stone. Perseus with Andromeda returned to his country. When Polydectes saw that Perseus was so courageous, he feared him and tried to kill him be treachery, but when Perseus discovered this he showed him the Gorgon’s head, and he was changed from human form into stone.
LXV. ALCYONE
When Ceyx, son of Hesper (also called Lucifer) and Philonis, had perished in a shipwreck, Alcyone his wife, daughter of Aeolus and Aegiale, on account of her love for him, threw herself into the sea. By the pity of the gods both were changed into birds which are called halcyons. These birds have their nests, eggs, and young on the sea for seven days in the winter. The sea is calm for those days, and sailors call them “halcyon days."
LXVI. LAIUS
The oracle of Apollo warned Laius, son of Labdacus, that he should beware of death at his son’s hands, and so when his wife Jocasta bore a son, he ordered him to be exposed. Periboea, wife of King Polybus, found the child as she was washing garments at the shore, and rescued him. With Polybus’ consent, since they were childless, they brought him up as their son, and because he had pierced feet they named him Oedipus.
LXVII. OEDIPUS
After Oedipus, son of Laeius and Jocasta, had come to manhood, he was courageous beyond the rest, and through envy his compnaionns taunted him with not being Polybus’ son, since Polybus was so mild, and he so assertive. Oedipus felt that the taunt was true. And so he set out for Delphi to inquire [about his parents. In the meantime] it was revealed to Laeius by prodigies that death at his son’s hands were near. When he was going to Delphi, Oedipus met him, and when servants bade him give way to the King, he refused. The King urged on his horses, and a wheel grazed Oedipus’ foot. Enraged, he dragged his father from the chariot, not knowing who he was, and killed him.
After Laius’ death, Creon, son of Menoeceus, ruled; in the meantime the Sphinx, offspring of Typhon, was sent into Boeotia, and was laying waste the fields of the Thebans. She proposed a contest to Creon, that if anyone interpreted the riddle which she gave, she would depart, but that she would destroy whoever failed, and under no other circumstances would she leave the country. When the king heard this, he made a proclamation throughout Greece. He promised that he would give the kingdom and his sister Jocasta in marriage to the person solving the riddle of the Sphinx. Many came out of greed for the kingdom, and were devoured by the Sphinx, but Oedipus, son of Laius, came and interpreted the riddle. The Sphinx leaped to her death. Oedipus received his father’s kingdom, and Jocasta his mother as wife, unwittingly, and begat on her Eteocles, Polynices, Antigona, and Ismene.
Meanwhile barrenness of crops and want fell on Thebes because of the crimes of Oedipus, and Tiresias, questioned as to why Thebes was so harassed, replied that if anyone from the dragon’s blood survived and died for his country, he would free Thebes from plague. Then Menoeceus [father of Jocasta] threw himself from the walls. While these things were taking place in Thebes, at Corinth Polybus died, and Oedipus took the news hard, thinking his father had died. But Periboea revealed his adoption, and Menoetes, too, the old man who had exposed him, recognized him as the son of Laius by the scars on his feet and ankles. When Oedipus heard this and realized he had committed such atrocious crimes, he tore the brooches from his mother’s garment and blinded himself, gave the kingdom to his sons for alternate years, and fled from Thebes, his daughter Antigona leading him.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae2.html#53
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
LP0058 - Laius & Chrysippus - Greek & Roman tales, from Plutarch's Parallel Stories
Legendary Passages #0058 - Laius & Chrysippus -
Greek & Roman tales, from Plutarch's Parallel Stories.
Last time we heard tales of Theseus & his son Hippolytus, Helen of Troy & Persephone, and King Laius & his son Oedipus.
This time we shall hear many of those tales again, as well as new ones, paired with Roman stories.
Next time, more Oedipus and the Sphinx, and Fables of Love.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchParallelStories.html#33
Laius & Chrysippus,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plutarch's Parallel Stories,
translated by F. C. Babbitt.
[33] - [41]
CHRYSIPPUS and FIRMUS
Pelops, the son of Tantalus and Euryanassa, married Hippodameia and begat Atreus and Thyestes; but by the nymph Danaïs he had Chrysippus, whom he loved more than his legitimate sons. But Laïus the Theban conceived a desire for him and carried him off; and, although he was arrested by Thyestes and Atreus, he obtained mercy from Pelops because of his love.
But Hippodameia tried to persuade Atreus and Thyestes to do away with Chrysippus, since she knew that he would be a contestant for the kingship; but when they refused, she stained her hands with the pollution. For at dead of night, when Laïus was asleep, she drew his sword, wounded Chrysippus, and fixed the sword in his body.
Laïus was suspected because of the sword, but was saved by Chrysippus, who, though half-dead, acknowledged the truth. Pelops buried Chrysippus and banished Hippodameia. So Dositheüs in his Descendants of Pelops.
Ebius Tolieix married Nuceria and had from her two sons; and he had also, from a freedwoman, Firmus, conspicuous for his beauty, whom he loved more than his legitimate sons. Nuceria was disposed to hate her stepson and tried to persuade her sons to kill him; but when they righteously refused, she herself effected the murder. By night she drew the sword of Firmus's body-guard and mortally wounded the boy as he slept, leaving the sword behind in his body. The guard was suspected, but the boy told the truth. Ebius buried his son and banished his wife. So Dositheüs in the third book of his Italian History.
HIPPOLYTUS and COMMINIUS
Theseus, who was actually the son of Poseidon, begat a son Hippolytus from Hippolytê the Amazon and took a second wife, Phaedra, the daughter of Minos, who thus became a stepmother. Phaedra fell in love with her stepson, and sent her nurse to him; but he left Athens and, coming to Troezen, devoted himself to hunting. But when the wanton woman failed to obtain her cherished desire, she indited a false letter against the chaste youth and ended her life with a halter.
Theseus believed the letter and asked from Poseidon the destruction of Hippolytus as fulfilment of one of the three wishes which he had as a concession from Poseidon. The god sent a bull to confront Hippolytus as he was driving along the shore in his chariot and terrified the horses, which crushed Hippolytus.
Comminius Super of Laurentum begat a son Comminius from the nymph Egeria and took a second wife Gidica, who thus became a stepmother. She fell in love with her stepson and, failing to obtain her desire, put an end to her life with a halter, leaving behind her a lying letter. Comminius read the accusations, believed the invidious charge, and called upon Neptune, who placed a bull in the youth's path as he was riding in a chariot; and the young man's horses ran away with him and killed him. So Dositheüs in the third book of his Italian History.
HELEN and VALERIA LUPERCA
When a plague had overspread Sparta, the god gave an oracle that it would cease if they sacrificed a noble maiden each year. Once when Helen had been chosen by lot and had been led forward adorned for the sacrifice, an eagle swooped down, snatched up the sword, carried it to the herds of cattle, and let it fall on a heifer; wherefore the Spartans refrained from the slaying of maidens. So Aristodemus in his Third Collection of Fables.
When a plague had gained a wide hold on the city of Falerii, and many perished of it, an oracle was given that the terror would abate if they sacrificed a maiden to Juno each year. This superstitious practice persisted and once, as a maiden chosen by lot, Valeria Luperca, had drawn the sword, an eagle swooped down, snatched it up, and placed a wand tipped with a small hammer upon the sacrificial offerings; but the sword the eagle cast down upon a certain heifer which was grazing near the shrine.
The maiden understood the import: she sacrificed the heifer, took up the hammer, and went about from house to house, tapping the sick lightly with her hammer and rousing them, bidding each of them to be well again; whence even to this day this mystic rite is performed. So Aristeides in the nineteenth book of his Italian History.
PHYLONOME and ILIA
Phylonomê, the daughter of Nyctimus and Arcadia, was wont to hunt with Artemis; but Ares, in the guise of a shepherd, got her with child. She gave birth to twin children and, fearing her father, cast them into the Erymanthus; but by some divine providence they were borne round and round without peril, and found haven in the trunk of a hollow oak-tree. A wolf, whose den was in the tree, cast her own cubs into the stream and suckled the children. A shepherd, Gyliphus, was witness of this event and, taking up the children, reared them as his own, and named them Lycastus and Parrhasius, the same that later succeeded to the throne of Arcadia. So Zopyrus of Byzantium in the third book of his Histories.
Amulius, being despotically disposed toward his brother Numitor, killed his brother's son Aenitus in hunting, and his daughter Silvia, or Ilia, he made a priestess of Juno. But Mars got Silvia with child. She gave birth to twins and acknowledged the truth to the despot; he became frightened and threw both the children into the water by the banks of the Tiber. But they found a haven at a place where was the den of a wolf which had recently whelped. She abandoned her cubs and suckled the children. A shepherd Faustus was witness of this event and reared the children; he named them Remus and Romulus, who became the founders of Rome. So Aristeides the Milesian in his Italian History.
ORESTES and PETRONIUS FABRICIANUS
After the capture of Troy Agamemnon together with Cassandra was slain. But Orestes was reared in the house of Strophius, and took vengeance on the murderers of his father. So Pyrander in the fourth book of his Peloponnesian History.
Fabius Fabricianus, a kinsman of Fabius Maximus, sacked Tuxium, the chief city of the Samnites, and sent to Rome the statue of Venus Victrix, which was held in honour among the Samnites. His wife Fabia, debauched by a certain handsome youth whose name was Petronius Valentinus, slew her husband by treachery. But a daughter Fabia rescued from danger her brother Fabricianus, who was still a young child, and sent him away secretly to be reared elsewhere. When he reached manhood he slew his mother and her lover, and was absolved from guilt by the senate. This Dositheüs relates in the third book of his Italian History.
BUSIRIS and FAUNUS
Busiris, the son of Poseidon and Anippê, daughter of the Nile, with treacherous hospitality was wont to sacrifice such persons as passed his way. But there came upon him vengeance for those that had perished by his hand. For Heracles attacked him with his club and slew him. So Agathon of Samos.
When Hercules was driving through Italy the cattle of Geryon, he was entertained by king Faunus, the son of Mercury, who was wont to sacrifice his guests to the god that was his father. But when he attacked Hercules, he was slain. So Dercyllus in the third book of his Italian History.
PHALARIS and AEMILIUS CENSORINUS
Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum, used to inflict most cruel torture upon the strangers that passed his way. Perillus, a bronze-founder by trade, made a bronze heifer and gave it to the king that he might burn the strangers in it alive. But Phalaris on this one occasion proved himself a just man and threw into it the artisan; the heifer seemed to give forth a sound of bellowing. So in the second book of Causes.
In Segesta, a city of Sicily, there lived a certain cruel despot, Aemilius Censorinus, who used to reward with gifts those who invented more novel forms of torture; and a certain Arruntius Paterculus constructed a horse of bronze and gave it as a gift to the aforesaid that he might cast the citizens therein. But on this occasion, for the first time, the despot behaved in a just manner and thrust first the giver of the gift into the horse, so that he himself should be the first to experience the torment which he had devised for others. Then he seized the man and hurled him from the Tarpeian Rock. It is believed that those who rule with great cruelty are called Aemilii from this Aemilius. So Aristeides in the fourth book of his Italian History.
EVENUS and ANNIUS
Evenus, the son of Ares and Steropê, married Alcippê, the daughter of Oenomaüs, and begat a daughter Marpessa, whom he endeavoured to keep a virgin. Idas, the son of Aphareus, seized her from a band of dancers and fled. Her father gave chase; but, since he could not capture them, he hurled himself into the Lycormas river and became immortal. So Dositheüs in the first book of his Aetolian History.
Annius, king of the Etruscans, had a beautiful daughter named Salia, whom he endeavoured to keep a virgin. But Cathetus, one of the nobles, saw the maiden at play and fell in love with her; nor could he control his passion, but seized her and set out with her for Rome. Her father gave chase, but since he could not capture them, he leaped into the river Pareüsium, and from him its name was changed to Anio. And Cathetus consorted with Salia and begat Latinus and Salius, from whom the most noble patricians traced their descent. So Aristeides the Milesian, and also Alexander Polyhistor in the third book of his Italian History.
HEGESISTRATUS and TELEGONUS
Hegesistratus, an Ephesian, having murdered one of his kinsmen, fled to Delphi, and inquired of the god where he should make his home. And Apollo answered: "Where you shall see rustics dancing, garlanded with olive-branches." When he had come to a certain place in Asia and had observed farmers garlanded with olive-leaves and dancing, there he founded a city and called it Elaeüs. So Pythocles the Samian in the third book of his Treatise on Husbandry.
When Telegonus, the son of Odysseus and Circê, was sent to search for his father, he was instructed to found a city where he should see farmers garlanded and dancing. When he had come to a certain place in Italy, and had observed rustics garlanded with twigs of oak (prininoi) and diverting themselves with dancing, he founded a city, and from the coincidence named it Prinistum, which the Romans, by a slight change, call Praenestê. So Aristocles relates in the third book of his Italian History.
THE END
http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchParallelStories.html#33
Greek & Roman tales, from Plutarch's Parallel Stories.
Last time we heard tales of Theseus & his son Hippolytus, Helen of Troy & Persephone, and King Laius & his son Oedipus.
This time we shall hear many of those tales again, as well as new ones, paired with Roman stories.
Next time, more Oedipus and the Sphinx, and Fables of Love.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchParallelStories.html#33
Laius & Chrysippus,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plutarch's Parallel Stories,
translated by F. C. Babbitt.
[33] - [41]
CHRYSIPPUS and FIRMUS
Pelops, the son of Tantalus and Euryanassa, married Hippodameia and begat Atreus and Thyestes; but by the nymph Danaïs he had Chrysippus, whom he loved more than his legitimate sons. But Laïus the Theban conceived a desire for him and carried him off; and, although he was arrested by Thyestes and Atreus, he obtained mercy from Pelops because of his love.
But Hippodameia tried to persuade Atreus and Thyestes to do away with Chrysippus, since she knew that he would be a contestant for the kingship; but when they refused, she stained her hands with the pollution. For at dead of night, when Laïus was asleep, she drew his sword, wounded Chrysippus, and fixed the sword in his body.
Laïus was suspected because of the sword, but was saved by Chrysippus, who, though half-dead, acknowledged the truth. Pelops buried Chrysippus and banished Hippodameia. So Dositheüs in his Descendants of Pelops.
Ebius Tolieix married Nuceria and had from her two sons; and he had also, from a freedwoman, Firmus, conspicuous for his beauty, whom he loved more than his legitimate sons. Nuceria was disposed to hate her stepson and tried to persuade her sons to kill him; but when they righteously refused, she herself effected the murder. By night she drew the sword of Firmus's body-guard and mortally wounded the boy as he slept, leaving the sword behind in his body. The guard was suspected, but the boy told the truth. Ebius buried his son and banished his wife. So Dositheüs in the third book of his Italian History.
HIPPOLYTUS and COMMINIUS
Theseus, who was actually the son of Poseidon, begat a son Hippolytus from Hippolytê the Amazon and took a second wife, Phaedra, the daughter of Minos, who thus became a stepmother. Phaedra fell in love with her stepson, and sent her nurse to him; but he left Athens and, coming to Troezen, devoted himself to hunting. But when the wanton woman failed to obtain her cherished desire, she indited a false letter against the chaste youth and ended her life with a halter.
Theseus believed the letter and asked from Poseidon the destruction of Hippolytus as fulfilment of one of the three wishes which he had as a concession from Poseidon. The god sent a bull to confront Hippolytus as he was driving along the shore in his chariot and terrified the horses, which crushed Hippolytus.
Comminius Super of Laurentum begat a son Comminius from the nymph Egeria and took a second wife Gidica, who thus became a stepmother. She fell in love with her stepson and, failing to obtain her desire, put an end to her life with a halter, leaving behind her a lying letter. Comminius read the accusations, believed the invidious charge, and called upon Neptune, who placed a bull in the youth's path as he was riding in a chariot; and the young man's horses ran away with him and killed him. So Dositheüs in the third book of his Italian History.
HELEN and VALERIA LUPERCA
When a plague had overspread Sparta, the god gave an oracle that it would cease if they sacrificed a noble maiden each year. Once when Helen had been chosen by lot and had been led forward adorned for the sacrifice, an eagle swooped down, snatched up the sword, carried it to the herds of cattle, and let it fall on a heifer; wherefore the Spartans refrained from the slaying of maidens. So Aristodemus in his Third Collection of Fables.
When a plague had gained a wide hold on the city of Falerii, and many perished of it, an oracle was given that the terror would abate if they sacrificed a maiden to Juno each year. This superstitious practice persisted and once, as a maiden chosen by lot, Valeria Luperca, had drawn the sword, an eagle swooped down, snatched it up, and placed a wand tipped with a small hammer upon the sacrificial offerings; but the sword the eagle cast down upon a certain heifer which was grazing near the shrine.
The maiden understood the import: she sacrificed the heifer, took up the hammer, and went about from house to house, tapping the sick lightly with her hammer and rousing them, bidding each of them to be well again; whence even to this day this mystic rite is performed. So Aristeides in the nineteenth book of his Italian History.
PHYLONOME and ILIA
Phylonomê, the daughter of Nyctimus and Arcadia, was wont to hunt with Artemis; but Ares, in the guise of a shepherd, got her with child. She gave birth to twin children and, fearing her father, cast them into the Erymanthus; but by some divine providence they were borne round and round without peril, and found haven in the trunk of a hollow oak-tree. A wolf, whose den was in the tree, cast her own cubs into the stream and suckled the children. A shepherd, Gyliphus, was witness of this event and, taking up the children, reared them as his own, and named them Lycastus and Parrhasius, the same that later succeeded to the throne of Arcadia. So Zopyrus of Byzantium in the third book of his Histories.
Amulius, being despotically disposed toward his brother Numitor, killed his brother's son Aenitus in hunting, and his daughter Silvia, or Ilia, he made a priestess of Juno. But Mars got Silvia with child. She gave birth to twins and acknowledged the truth to the despot; he became frightened and threw both the children into the water by the banks of the Tiber. But they found a haven at a place where was the den of a wolf which had recently whelped. She abandoned her cubs and suckled the children. A shepherd Faustus was witness of this event and reared the children; he named them Remus and Romulus, who became the founders of Rome. So Aristeides the Milesian in his Italian History.
ORESTES and PETRONIUS FABRICIANUS
After the capture of Troy Agamemnon together with Cassandra was slain. But Orestes was reared in the house of Strophius, and took vengeance on the murderers of his father. So Pyrander in the fourth book of his Peloponnesian History.
Fabius Fabricianus, a kinsman of Fabius Maximus, sacked Tuxium, the chief city of the Samnites, and sent to Rome the statue of Venus Victrix, which was held in honour among the Samnites. His wife Fabia, debauched by a certain handsome youth whose name was Petronius Valentinus, slew her husband by treachery. But a daughter Fabia rescued from danger her brother Fabricianus, who was still a young child, and sent him away secretly to be reared elsewhere. When he reached manhood he slew his mother and her lover, and was absolved from guilt by the senate. This Dositheüs relates in the third book of his Italian History.
BUSIRIS and FAUNUS
Busiris, the son of Poseidon and Anippê, daughter of the Nile, with treacherous hospitality was wont to sacrifice such persons as passed his way. But there came upon him vengeance for those that had perished by his hand. For Heracles attacked him with his club and slew him. So Agathon of Samos.
When Hercules was driving through Italy the cattle of Geryon, he was entertained by king Faunus, the son of Mercury, who was wont to sacrifice his guests to the god that was his father. But when he attacked Hercules, he was slain. So Dercyllus in the third book of his Italian History.
PHALARIS and AEMILIUS CENSORINUS
Phalaris, the tyrant of Agrigentum, used to inflict most cruel torture upon the strangers that passed his way. Perillus, a bronze-founder by trade, made a bronze heifer and gave it to the king that he might burn the strangers in it alive. But Phalaris on this one occasion proved himself a just man and threw into it the artisan; the heifer seemed to give forth a sound of bellowing. So in the second book of Causes.
In Segesta, a city of Sicily, there lived a certain cruel despot, Aemilius Censorinus, who used to reward with gifts those who invented more novel forms of torture; and a certain Arruntius Paterculus constructed a horse of bronze and gave it as a gift to the aforesaid that he might cast the citizens therein. But on this occasion, for the first time, the despot behaved in a just manner and thrust first the giver of the gift into the horse, so that he himself should be the first to experience the torment which he had devised for others. Then he seized the man and hurled him from the Tarpeian Rock. It is believed that those who rule with great cruelty are called Aemilii from this Aemilius. So Aristeides in the fourth book of his Italian History.
EVENUS and ANNIUS
Evenus, the son of Ares and Steropê, married Alcippê, the daughter of Oenomaüs, and begat a daughter Marpessa, whom he endeavoured to keep a virgin. Idas, the son of Aphareus, seized her from a band of dancers and fled. Her father gave chase; but, since he could not capture them, he hurled himself into the Lycormas river and became immortal. So Dositheüs in the first book of his Aetolian History.
Annius, king of the Etruscans, had a beautiful daughter named Salia, whom he endeavoured to keep a virgin. But Cathetus, one of the nobles, saw the maiden at play and fell in love with her; nor could he control his passion, but seized her and set out with her for Rome. Her father gave chase, but since he could not capture them, he leaped into the river Pareüsium, and from him its name was changed to Anio. And Cathetus consorted with Salia and begat Latinus and Salius, from whom the most noble patricians traced their descent. So Aristeides the Milesian, and also Alexander Polyhistor in the third book of his Italian History.
HEGESISTRATUS and TELEGONUS
Hegesistratus, an Ephesian, having murdered one of his kinsmen, fled to Delphi, and inquired of the god where he should make his home. And Apollo answered: "Where you shall see rustics dancing, garlanded with olive-branches." When he had come to a certain place in Asia and had observed farmers garlanded with olive-leaves and dancing, there he founded a city and called it Elaeüs. So Pythocles the Samian in the third book of his Treatise on Husbandry.
When Telegonus, the son of Odysseus and Circê, was sent to search for his father, he was instructed to found a city where he should see farmers garlanded and dancing. When he had come to a certain place in Italy, and had observed rustics garlanded with twigs of oak (prininoi) and diverting themselves with dancing, he founded a city, and from the coincidence named it Prinistum, which the Romans, by a slight change, call Praenestê. So Aristocles relates in the third book of his Italian History.
THE END
http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchParallelStories.html#33
Thursday, October 27, 2016
LP0057 - Theseus & Oedipus - Endings & beginnings, from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History
Legendary Passages #0057 - Theseus & Oedipus -
Endings & beginnings, from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History.
For the next six episodes we shall explore the stories of Thebes, focusing on King Laius, his son Oedipus, and the riddle of the Sphinx. But first we shall review the stories of King Theseus, his son Hippolytus, and the abductions of Helen and Persephone.
King Laius married Jocasta and ruled the kingdom of Thebes. An oracle foretold that his son would bring misfortune on his house, so Laius ordered him to be abandoned. But little Oedipus was raised instead in Corinth, and after visiting the oracle himself, slew his own father unknowingly.
Meanwhile, the monstrous Sphinx ravaged the countryside of Thebes, killing all who could not answer her riddle. Queen Jocasta and the Kingdom itself were awarded to Oedipus for solving the riddle and ending her terror.
Thus, Oedipus married his mother Jocasta, and together they had twin sons Eteocles and Polyneices, and daughters Ismene and Antigone.
Next time, we hear an anthology of stories, including that of Laius & Chrysippus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4D.html#6
Theseus & Oedipus,
a Legendary Passage,
from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History,
translated by C. H. Oldfather.
[4.61.8] - [4.64.4]
KINGSHIP OF THESEUS
After Aegeus had died, Theseus, succeeding to the kingship, ruled over the masses in accordance with the laws and performed many deeds which contributed to the aggrandizement of his native land.
The most notable thing which he accomplished was the incorporation of the demes, which were small in size but many in number, into the city of Athens; since from that time on the Athenians were filled with pride by reason of the importance of their state and aspired to the leadership of the Greeks.
But for our part, now that we have set forth these facts at sufficient length, we shall record what remains to be said about Theseus.
PHAEDRA AND HIPPOLYTUS
Deucalion, the eldest of the sons of Minos, while he was ruler of Crete, formed an alliance with the Athenians and united his own sister Phaedra in marriage to Theseus. After the marriage Theseus sent his son Hippolytus, who had been born to him by the Amazon, to Troezen to be reared among the brothers of Aethra, and by Phaedra he begat Acamas and Demophon.
A short time after this Hippolytus returned to Athens for the celebration of the mysteries, and Phaedra, becoming enamoured of him because of his beauty, at that time, after he had returned to Troezen, erected a temple of Aphroditê beside the acropolis at the place whence one can look across and see Troezen, but at a later time, when she was stopping together with Theseus at the home of Pittheus, she asked Hippolytus to lie with her. Upon his refusal to do so Phaedra, they say, was vexed, and on her return to Athens she told Theseus that Hippolytus had proposed lying with her.
And since Theseus had his doubts about the accusation, he sent for Hippolytus in order to put him to the test, whereupon Phaedra, fearing the result of the examination, hanged herself; as for Hippolytus, who was driving a chariot when he heard of the accusation, he was so distraught in spirit that the horses got out of control and ran away with him, and in the event the chariot was smashed to bits and the youth, becoming entangled in the leather thongs, was dragged along till he died.
Hippolytus, then, since he had ended his life because of his chastity, received at the hands of the Troezenians honours equal to those offered to the gods, but Theseus, when after these happenings he was overpowered by a rival faction and banished from his native land, met his death on foreign soil.
The Athenians, however, repenting of what they had done, brought back his bones and accorded him honours equal to those offered to the gods, and they set aside in Athens a sacred precinct which enjoyed the right of sanctuary and was called after him the Theseum.
THESEUS AND HELEN
Since we have duly set forth the story of Theseus, we shall discuss in turn the rape of Helen and the wooing of Persephonê by Peirithoüs; for these deeds are interwoven with the affairs of Theseus. Peirithoüs, we are told, the son of Ixion, when his wife Hippodameia died leaving behind her a son Polypoetes, came to visit Theseus at Athens.
And finding on his arrival that Phaedra, the wife of Theseus was dead, he persuaded him to seize and carry off Helen, the daughter of Leda and Zeus, who was only ten years of age, but excelled all women in beauty. When they arrived in Lacedaemon with a number of companions and had found a favourable occasion, they assisted each other in seizing Helen and carrying her off to Athens.
Thereupon they agreed among themselves to cast lots, and the one who had drawn the lot was to marry Helen and aid the other in getting another woman as wife, and in so doing to endure any danger. When they had exchanged oaths to this effect they cast lots, and it turned out that by the lot Theseus won her. Theseus, then, got the maiden for his own in the manner we have described; but since the Athenians were displeased at what had taken place, Theseus in fear of them got Helen off safely to Aphidna, one of the cities of Attica. With her he stationed his mother Aethra and the bravest men among his friends to serve as guardians of the maiden.
PEIRITHOUS AND PERSEPHONE
Peirithoüs now decided to seek the hand of Persephonê in marriage, and when he asked Theseus to make the journey with him Theseus at first endeavoured to dissuade him and to turn him away from such a deed as being impious; but since Peirithoüs firmly insisted upon it Theseus was bound by the oaths to join with him in the deed.
And when they had at last made their way below to the regions of Hades, it came to pass that because of the impiety of their act they were both put in chains, and although Theseus was later let go by reason of the favour with which Heracles regarded him, Peirithoüs because of the impiety remained in Hades, enduring everlasting punishment; but some writers of myths say that both of them never returned.
DIOSCURI RESCUE HELEN
While this was taking place, they say that Helen’s brothers, the Dioscori, came up in arms against Aphidna, and taking the city razed it to the ground, and that they brought back Helen, who was still a virgin, to Lacedaemon and along with her, to serve as a slave, Aethra, the mother of Theseus.
OEDIPUS AND LAÏUS
Since we have spoken on these matters at sufficient length, we shall now give the account of The Seven against Thebes, taking up the original causes of the war. Laïus, the king of Thebes, married Jocastê, the daughter of Creon, and since he was childless for some time he inquired of the god regarding his begetting of children. The Pythian priestess made reply that it would not be to his interest that children should be born to him, since the son who should be begotten of him would be the murderer of his father and would bring great misfortunes upon all the house; but Laïus forgot the oracle and begat a son, and he exposed the babe after he had pierced its ankles through with a piece of iron, this being the reason why it was later given the name Oedipus.
But the household slaves who took the infant were unwilling to expose it, and gave it as a present to the wife of Polybus, since she could bear no children. Later, after the boy had attained to manhood, Laïus decided to inquire of the god regarding the babe which had been exposed, and Oedipus likewise, having learned from someone of the substitution which had been made in his case, set about to inquire of the Pythian priestess who were his true parents. In Phocis these two met face to face, and when Laïus in a disdainful manner ordered Oedipus to make way for him, the latter in anger slew Laïus, not knowing that he was his father.
OEDIPUS AND THE SPHINX
At this very time, the myths go on to say, a sphinx, a beast of double form, had come to Thebes and was propounding a riddle to anyone who might be able to solve it, and many were being slain by her because of their inability to do so. And although a generous reward was offered to the man who should solve it, that he should marry Jocastê and be king of Thebes, yet no man was able to comprehend what was propounded except Oedipus, who alone solved the riddle. What had been propounded by the Sphinx was this: What is it that is at the same time a biped, a triped, and a quadruped?
And while all the rest were perplexed, Oedipus declared that the animal proposed in the riddle was “man,” since as an infant he is a quadruped, when grown a biped, and in old age a triped, using, because of his infirmity a staff.
At this answer the sphinx, in accordance with the oracle which the myth recounts, threw herself down a precipice, and Oedipus then married the woman who, unknown to himself, was his mother, and begat two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, and two daughters, Antigonê and Ismenê.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4D.html#6
Endings & beginnings, from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History.
For the next six episodes we shall explore the stories of Thebes, focusing on King Laius, his son Oedipus, and the riddle of the Sphinx. But first we shall review the stories of King Theseus, his son Hippolytus, and the abductions of Helen and Persephone.
King Laius married Jocasta and ruled the kingdom of Thebes. An oracle foretold that his son would bring misfortune on his house, so Laius ordered him to be abandoned. But little Oedipus was raised instead in Corinth, and after visiting the oracle himself, slew his own father unknowingly.
Meanwhile, the monstrous Sphinx ravaged the countryside of Thebes, killing all who could not answer her riddle. Queen Jocasta and the Kingdom itself were awarded to Oedipus for solving the riddle and ending her terror.
Thus, Oedipus married his mother Jocasta, and together they had twin sons Eteocles and Polyneices, and daughters Ismene and Antigone.
Next time, we hear an anthology of stories, including that of Laius & Chrysippus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4D.html#6
Theseus & Oedipus,
a Legendary Passage,
from Diodorus Siculus' Library of History,
translated by C. H. Oldfather.
[4.61.8] - [4.64.4]
KINGSHIP OF THESEUS
After Aegeus had died, Theseus, succeeding to the kingship, ruled over the masses in accordance with the laws and performed many deeds which contributed to the aggrandizement of his native land.
The most notable thing which he accomplished was the incorporation of the demes, which were small in size but many in number, into the city of Athens; since from that time on the Athenians were filled with pride by reason of the importance of their state and aspired to the leadership of the Greeks.
But for our part, now that we have set forth these facts at sufficient length, we shall record what remains to be said about Theseus.
PHAEDRA AND HIPPOLYTUS
Deucalion, the eldest of the sons of Minos, while he was ruler of Crete, formed an alliance with the Athenians and united his own sister Phaedra in marriage to Theseus. After the marriage Theseus sent his son Hippolytus, who had been born to him by the Amazon, to Troezen to be reared among the brothers of Aethra, and by Phaedra he begat Acamas and Demophon.
A short time after this Hippolytus returned to Athens for the celebration of the mysteries, and Phaedra, becoming enamoured of him because of his beauty, at that time, after he had returned to Troezen, erected a temple of Aphroditê beside the acropolis at the place whence one can look across and see Troezen, but at a later time, when she was stopping together with Theseus at the home of Pittheus, she asked Hippolytus to lie with her. Upon his refusal to do so Phaedra, they say, was vexed, and on her return to Athens she told Theseus that Hippolytus had proposed lying with her.
And since Theseus had his doubts about the accusation, he sent for Hippolytus in order to put him to the test, whereupon Phaedra, fearing the result of the examination, hanged herself; as for Hippolytus, who was driving a chariot when he heard of the accusation, he was so distraught in spirit that the horses got out of control and ran away with him, and in the event the chariot was smashed to bits and the youth, becoming entangled in the leather thongs, was dragged along till he died.
Hippolytus, then, since he had ended his life because of his chastity, received at the hands of the Troezenians honours equal to those offered to the gods, but Theseus, when after these happenings he was overpowered by a rival faction and banished from his native land, met his death on foreign soil.
The Athenians, however, repenting of what they had done, brought back his bones and accorded him honours equal to those offered to the gods, and they set aside in Athens a sacred precinct which enjoyed the right of sanctuary and was called after him the Theseum.
THESEUS AND HELEN
Since we have duly set forth the story of Theseus, we shall discuss in turn the rape of Helen and the wooing of Persephonê by Peirithoüs; for these deeds are interwoven with the affairs of Theseus. Peirithoüs, we are told, the son of Ixion, when his wife Hippodameia died leaving behind her a son Polypoetes, came to visit Theseus at Athens.
And finding on his arrival that Phaedra, the wife of Theseus was dead, he persuaded him to seize and carry off Helen, the daughter of Leda and Zeus, who was only ten years of age, but excelled all women in beauty. When they arrived in Lacedaemon with a number of companions and had found a favourable occasion, they assisted each other in seizing Helen and carrying her off to Athens.
Thereupon they agreed among themselves to cast lots, and the one who had drawn the lot was to marry Helen and aid the other in getting another woman as wife, and in so doing to endure any danger. When they had exchanged oaths to this effect they cast lots, and it turned out that by the lot Theseus won her. Theseus, then, got the maiden for his own in the manner we have described; but since the Athenians were displeased at what had taken place, Theseus in fear of them got Helen off safely to Aphidna, one of the cities of Attica. With her he stationed his mother Aethra and the bravest men among his friends to serve as guardians of the maiden.
PEIRITHOUS AND PERSEPHONE
Peirithoüs now decided to seek the hand of Persephonê in marriage, and when he asked Theseus to make the journey with him Theseus at first endeavoured to dissuade him and to turn him away from such a deed as being impious; but since Peirithoüs firmly insisted upon it Theseus was bound by the oaths to join with him in the deed.
And when they had at last made their way below to the regions of Hades, it came to pass that because of the impiety of their act they were both put in chains, and although Theseus was later let go by reason of the favour with which Heracles regarded him, Peirithoüs because of the impiety remained in Hades, enduring everlasting punishment; but some writers of myths say that both of them never returned.
DIOSCURI RESCUE HELEN
While this was taking place, they say that Helen’s brothers, the Dioscori, came up in arms against Aphidna, and taking the city razed it to the ground, and that they brought back Helen, who was still a virgin, to Lacedaemon and along with her, to serve as a slave, Aethra, the mother of Theseus.
OEDIPUS AND LAÏUS
Since we have spoken on these matters at sufficient length, we shall now give the account of The Seven against Thebes, taking up the original causes of the war. Laïus, the king of Thebes, married Jocastê, the daughter of Creon, and since he was childless for some time he inquired of the god regarding his begetting of children. The Pythian priestess made reply that it would not be to his interest that children should be born to him, since the son who should be begotten of him would be the murderer of his father and would bring great misfortunes upon all the house; but Laïus forgot the oracle and begat a son, and he exposed the babe after he had pierced its ankles through with a piece of iron, this being the reason why it was later given the name Oedipus.
But the household slaves who took the infant were unwilling to expose it, and gave it as a present to the wife of Polybus, since she could bear no children. Later, after the boy had attained to manhood, Laïus decided to inquire of the god regarding the babe which had been exposed, and Oedipus likewise, having learned from someone of the substitution which had been made in his case, set about to inquire of the Pythian priestess who were his true parents. In Phocis these two met face to face, and when Laïus in a disdainful manner ordered Oedipus to make way for him, the latter in anger slew Laïus, not knowing that he was his father.
OEDIPUS AND THE SPHINX
At this very time, the myths go on to say, a sphinx, a beast of double form, had come to Thebes and was propounding a riddle to anyone who might be able to solve it, and many were being slain by her because of their inability to do so. And although a generous reward was offered to the man who should solve it, that he should marry Jocastê and be king of Thebes, yet no man was able to comprehend what was propounded except Oedipus, who alone solved the riddle. What had been propounded by the Sphinx was this: What is it that is at the same time a biped, a triped, and a quadruped?
And while all the rest were perplexed, Oedipus declared that the animal proposed in the riddle was “man,” since as an infant he is a quadruped, when grown a biped, and in old age a triped, using, because of his infirmity a staff.
At this answer the sphinx, in accordance with the oracle which the myth recounts, threw herself down a precipice, and Oedipus then married the woman who, unknown to himself, was his mother, and begat two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, and two daughters, Antigonê and Ismenê.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/DiodorusSiculus4D.html#6
Saturday, October 1, 2016
LP0056 - Thebes & Thespius - Legends of Boetia, from Pausanias' Description of Greece
Legendary Passages #0056 - Thebes & Thespius -
Legends of Boetia, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
Last time we reviewed various fables of Heracles. This time we finish our section on him and cover several myths of Boetia, including Thebes, the Cabeirium, Mt. Phix, Onchestus, and Thespiae.
Near the Neistan Gate of Thebes is an image of Heracles the Nose-docker, commemorating his infamous attack on the Minyans.
The Cabeirium is a sanctuary near a grove of Demeter; its peoples have long histories. Nearby is a sanctuary of Heracles, commemorating his taking of the horses from the army of Orchomenus.
Mt. Phix is where the Sphinx originated. She was either the leader of a pirate fleet based there on the mountain, or one of the children of Laius by concubines and slew all of her brothers, save Oedipus.
Thespiae lies at the foot of Mt. Helicon, and was named after a daughter of Asopus, or Thespius of Athens. They worship Love most of all. Heracles lay with the fifty daughters of Thestius, save one, and they all bore him sons.
Next time we begin a new section on the stories of Laius and his son Oedipus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9B.html#7
Thebes & Thespius,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[9.25.4] - [9.27.8]
Along the road from the Neistan gate are three sanctuaries. There is a sanctuary of Themis, with an image of white marble; adjoining it is a sanctuary of the Fates, while the third is of Zeus of the Market. Zeus is made of stone; the Fates have no images. A little farther off in the open stands Heracles, surnamed Nose-docker; the reason for the name is, as the Thebans say, that Heracles cut off the noses, as an insult, of the heralds who came from Orchomenus to demand the tribute.
THE CABEIRIUM
Advancing from here twenty-five stades you come to a grove of Cabeirean Demeter and the Maid. The initiated are permitted to enter it. The sanctuary of the Cabeiri is some seven stades distant from this grove. I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honor of them and of the Mother.
But there is nothing to prevent my declaring to all what the Thebans say was the origin of the ritual. They say that once there was in this place a city, with inhabitants called Cabeiri; and that Demeter came to know Prometheus, one of the Cabeiri, and Aetnaelis his son, and entrusted something to their keeping. What was entrusted to them, and what happened to it, seemed to me a sin to put into writing, but at any rate the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Cabeiri.
At the time of the invasion of the Epigoni and the taking of Thebes, the Cabeiri were expelled from their homes by the Argives and the rites for a while ceased to be performed. But they go on to say that afterwards Pelarge, the daughter of Potnieus, and Isthmiades her husband established the mysteries here to begin with, but transferred them to the place called Alexiarus.
But because Pelarge conducted the initiation outside the ancient borders, Telondes and those who were left of the clan of the Cabeiri returned again to Cabeiraea. Various honors were to be established for Pelarge by Telondes in accordance with an oracle from Dodona, one being the sacrifice of a pregnant victim. The wrath of the Cabeiri no man may placate, as has been proved on many occasions.
For certain private people dared to perform in Naupactus the ritual just as it was done in Thebes, and soon afterwards justice overtook them. Then, again, certain men of the army of Xerxes left behind with Mardonius in Boeotia entered the sanctuary of the Cabeiri, perhaps in the hope of great wealth, but rather, I suspect, to show their contempt of its gods; all these immediately were struck with madness, and flung themselves to their deaths into the sea or from the tops of precipices.
Again, when Alexander after his victory wasted with fire all the Thebaid, including Thebes itself, some men from Macedonia entered the sanctuary of the Cabeiri, as it was in enemy territory, and were destroyed by thunder and lightning from heaven.
So sacred this sanctuary has been from the beginning. On the right of the sanctuary is a plain named after Tenerus the seer, whom they hold to be a son of Apollo by Melia; there is also a large sanctuary of Heracles surnamed Hippodetus (Binder of Horses). For they say that the Orchomenians came to this place with an army, and that Heracles by night took their chariot-horses and bound them tight.
MT PHIX
Farther on we come to the mountain from which they say the Sphinx, chanting a riddle, sallied to bring death upon those she caught. Others say that roving with a force of ships on a piratical expedition she put in at Anthedon, seized the mountain I mentioned, and used it for plundering raids until Oedipus overwhelmed her by the superior numbers of the army he had with him on his arrival from Corinth.
There is another version of the story which makes her the natural daughter of Laius, who, because he was fond of her, told her the oracle delivered to Cadmus from Delphi. No one, they say, except the kings knew the oracle. Now Laius (the story goes on to say) had sons by concubines, and the oracle delivered from Delphi applied only to Epicaste and her sons. So when any of her brothers came in order to claim the throne from the Sphinx, she resorted to trickery in dealing with them, saying that if they were sons of Laius they should know the oracle that came to Cadmus.
When they could not answer she would punish them with death, on the ground that they had no valid claim to the kingdom or to relationship. But Oedipus came because it appears he had been told the oracle in a dream.
ONCHESTUS
Distant from this mountain fifteen stades are the ruins of the city Onchestus. They say that here dwelt Onchestus, a son of Poseidon. In my day there remained a temple and image of Onchestian Poseidon, and the grove which Homer too praised.
THESPIAE
Taking a turn left from the Cabeirian sanctuary, and advancing about fifty stades, you come to Thespiae, built at the foot of Mount Helicon. They say that Thespia was a daughter of Asopus, who gave her name to the city, while others say that Thespius, who was descended from Erechtheus, came from Athens and was the man after whom the city was called.
In Thespiae is a bronze image of Zeus Saviour. They say about it that when a dragon once was devastating their city, the god commanded that every year one of their youths, upon whom the lot fell, should be offered to the monster. Now the names of those who perished they say that they do not remember. But when the lot fell on Cleostratus, his lover Menestratus, they say, devised a trick.
He had made a bronze breastplate, with a fish-hook, the point turned outwards, upon each of its plates. Clad in this breastplate he gave himself up, of his own free will, to the dragon, convinced that having done so he would, though destroyed himself, prove the destroyer of the monster. This is why the Zeus has been surnamed Saviour. The image of Dionysus, and also that of Fortune, and in another place that of Health . . . But the Athena Worker, as well as Wealth, who stands beside her, was made by. . . .
Of the gods the Thespians have from the beginning honored Love most, and they have a very ancient image of him, an unwrought stone. Who established among the Thespians the custom of worshipping Love more than any other god I do not know. He is worshipped equally by the people of Parium on the Hellespont, who were originally colonists from Erythrae in Ionia, but to-day are subject to the Romans.
Most men consider Love to be the youngest of the gods and the son of Aphrodite. But Olen the Lycian, who composed the oldest Greek hymns, says in a hymn to Eileithyia that she was the mother of Love. Later than Olen, both Pamphos and Orpheus wrote hexameter verse, and composed poems on Love, in order that they might be among those sung by the Lycomidae to accompany the ritual. I read them after conversation with a Torchbearer. Of these things I will make no further mention. Hesiod, or he who wrote the Theogony fathered on Hesiod, writes, I know, that Chaos was born first, and after Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Love.
Sappho of Lesbos wrote many poems about Love, but they are not consistent. Later on Lysippus made a bronze Love for the Thespians, and previously Praxiteles one of Pentelic marble. The story of Phryne and the trick she played on Praxiteles I have related in another place. The first to remove the image of Love, it is said, was Gaius the Roman Emperor; Claudius, they say, sent it back to Thespiae, but Nero carried it away a second time.
At Rome the image perished by fire. Of the pair who sinned against the god, Gaius was killed by a private soldier, just as he was giving the password; he had made the soldier very angry by always giving the same password with a covert sneer. The other, Nero, in addition to his violence to his mother, committed accursed and hateful crimes against his wedded wives. The modern Love at Thespiae was made by the Athenian Menodorus, who copied the work of Praxiteles.
Here too are statues made by Praxiteles himself, one of Aphrodite and one of Phryne, both Phryne and the goddess being of stone. Elsewhere too is a sanctuary of Black Aphrodite, with a theater and a market-place, well worth seeing. Here is set up Hesiod in bronze. Not far from the market-place is a Victory of bronze and a small temple of the Muses. In it are small images made of stone.
-
At Thespiae is also a sanctuary of Heracles. The priestess there is a virgin, who acts as such until she dies. The reason of this is said to be as follows. Heracles, they say, had intercourse with the fifty daughters of Thestius, except one, in a single night. She was the only one who refused to have connection with him. Heracles, thinking that he had been insulted, condemned her to remain a virgin all her life, serving him as his priest.
I have heard another story, how Heracles had connection with all the virgin daughters of Thestius in one and the same night, and how they all bore him sons, the youngest and the eldest bearing twins. But I cannot think it credible that Heracles would rise to such a pitch of wrath against a daughter of a friend. Moreover, while he was still among men, punishing them for insolence, and especially such as were impious towards the gods, he would not himself have set up a temple and appointed a priestess to himself, just as though he were a god.
As a matter of fact this sanctuary seemed to me too old to be of the time of Heracles the son of Amphitryon, and to belong to Heracles called one of the Idaean Dactyls, to whom I found the people of Erythrae in Ionia and of Tyre possessed sanctuaries. Nevertheless, the Boeotians were not unacquainted with this name of Heracles, seeing that they themselves say that the sanctuary of Demeter of Mycalessus has been entrusted to Idaean Heracles.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9B.html#7
Legends of Boetia, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
Last time we reviewed various fables of Heracles. This time we finish our section on him and cover several myths of Boetia, including Thebes, the Cabeirium, Mt. Phix, Onchestus, and Thespiae.
Near the Neistan Gate of Thebes is an image of Heracles the Nose-docker, commemorating his infamous attack on the Minyans.
The Cabeirium is a sanctuary near a grove of Demeter; its peoples have long histories. Nearby is a sanctuary of Heracles, commemorating his taking of the horses from the army of Orchomenus.
Mt. Phix is where the Sphinx originated. She was either the leader of a pirate fleet based there on the mountain, or one of the children of Laius by concubines and slew all of her brothers, save Oedipus.
Thespiae lies at the foot of Mt. Helicon, and was named after a daughter of Asopus, or Thespius of Athens. They worship Love most of all. Heracles lay with the fifty daughters of Thestius, save one, and they all bore him sons.
Next time we begin a new section on the stories of Laius and his son Oedipus.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9B.html#7
Thebes & Thespius,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[9.25.4] - [9.27.8]
Along the road from the Neistan gate are three sanctuaries. There is a sanctuary of Themis, with an image of white marble; adjoining it is a sanctuary of the Fates, while the third is of Zeus of the Market. Zeus is made of stone; the Fates have no images. A little farther off in the open stands Heracles, surnamed Nose-docker; the reason for the name is, as the Thebans say, that Heracles cut off the noses, as an insult, of the heralds who came from Orchomenus to demand the tribute.
THE CABEIRIUM
Advancing from here twenty-five stades you come to a grove of Cabeirean Demeter and the Maid. The initiated are permitted to enter it. The sanctuary of the Cabeiri is some seven stades distant from this grove. I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honor of them and of the Mother.
But there is nothing to prevent my declaring to all what the Thebans say was the origin of the ritual. They say that once there was in this place a city, with inhabitants called Cabeiri; and that Demeter came to know Prometheus, one of the Cabeiri, and Aetnaelis his son, and entrusted something to their keeping. What was entrusted to them, and what happened to it, seemed to me a sin to put into writing, but at any rate the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Cabeiri.
At the time of the invasion of the Epigoni and the taking of Thebes, the Cabeiri were expelled from their homes by the Argives and the rites for a while ceased to be performed. But they go on to say that afterwards Pelarge, the daughter of Potnieus, and Isthmiades her husband established the mysteries here to begin with, but transferred them to the place called Alexiarus.
But because Pelarge conducted the initiation outside the ancient borders, Telondes and those who were left of the clan of the Cabeiri returned again to Cabeiraea. Various honors were to be established for Pelarge by Telondes in accordance with an oracle from Dodona, one being the sacrifice of a pregnant victim. The wrath of the Cabeiri no man may placate, as has been proved on many occasions.
For certain private people dared to perform in Naupactus the ritual just as it was done in Thebes, and soon afterwards justice overtook them. Then, again, certain men of the army of Xerxes left behind with Mardonius in Boeotia entered the sanctuary of the Cabeiri, perhaps in the hope of great wealth, but rather, I suspect, to show their contempt of its gods; all these immediately were struck with madness, and flung themselves to their deaths into the sea or from the tops of precipices.
Again, when Alexander after his victory wasted with fire all the Thebaid, including Thebes itself, some men from Macedonia entered the sanctuary of the Cabeiri, as it was in enemy territory, and were destroyed by thunder and lightning from heaven.
So sacred this sanctuary has been from the beginning. On the right of the sanctuary is a plain named after Tenerus the seer, whom they hold to be a son of Apollo by Melia; there is also a large sanctuary of Heracles surnamed Hippodetus (Binder of Horses). For they say that the Orchomenians came to this place with an army, and that Heracles by night took their chariot-horses and bound them tight.
MT PHIX
Farther on we come to the mountain from which they say the Sphinx, chanting a riddle, sallied to bring death upon those she caught. Others say that roving with a force of ships on a piratical expedition she put in at Anthedon, seized the mountain I mentioned, and used it for plundering raids until Oedipus overwhelmed her by the superior numbers of the army he had with him on his arrival from Corinth.
There is another version of the story which makes her the natural daughter of Laius, who, because he was fond of her, told her the oracle delivered to Cadmus from Delphi. No one, they say, except the kings knew the oracle. Now Laius (the story goes on to say) had sons by concubines, and the oracle delivered from Delphi applied only to Epicaste and her sons. So when any of her brothers came in order to claim the throne from the Sphinx, she resorted to trickery in dealing with them, saying that if they were sons of Laius they should know the oracle that came to Cadmus.
When they could not answer she would punish them with death, on the ground that they had no valid claim to the kingdom or to relationship. But Oedipus came because it appears he had been told the oracle in a dream.
ONCHESTUS
Distant from this mountain fifteen stades are the ruins of the city Onchestus. They say that here dwelt Onchestus, a son of Poseidon. In my day there remained a temple and image of Onchestian Poseidon, and the grove which Homer too praised.
THESPIAE
Taking a turn left from the Cabeirian sanctuary, and advancing about fifty stades, you come to Thespiae, built at the foot of Mount Helicon. They say that Thespia was a daughter of Asopus, who gave her name to the city, while others say that Thespius, who was descended from Erechtheus, came from Athens and was the man after whom the city was called.
In Thespiae is a bronze image of Zeus Saviour. They say about it that when a dragon once was devastating their city, the god commanded that every year one of their youths, upon whom the lot fell, should be offered to the monster. Now the names of those who perished they say that they do not remember. But when the lot fell on Cleostratus, his lover Menestratus, they say, devised a trick.
He had made a bronze breastplate, with a fish-hook, the point turned outwards, upon each of its plates. Clad in this breastplate he gave himself up, of his own free will, to the dragon, convinced that having done so he would, though destroyed himself, prove the destroyer of the monster. This is why the Zeus has been surnamed Saviour. The image of Dionysus, and also that of Fortune, and in another place that of Health . . . But the Athena Worker, as well as Wealth, who stands beside her, was made by. . . .
Of the gods the Thespians have from the beginning honored Love most, and they have a very ancient image of him, an unwrought stone. Who established among the Thespians the custom of worshipping Love more than any other god I do not know. He is worshipped equally by the people of Parium on the Hellespont, who were originally colonists from Erythrae in Ionia, but to-day are subject to the Romans.
Most men consider Love to be the youngest of the gods and the son of Aphrodite. But Olen the Lycian, who composed the oldest Greek hymns, says in a hymn to Eileithyia that she was the mother of Love. Later than Olen, both Pamphos and Orpheus wrote hexameter verse, and composed poems on Love, in order that they might be among those sung by the Lycomidae to accompany the ritual. I read them after conversation with a Torchbearer. Of these things I will make no further mention. Hesiod, or he who wrote the Theogony fathered on Hesiod, writes, I know, that Chaos was born first, and after Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Love.
Sappho of Lesbos wrote many poems about Love, but they are not consistent. Later on Lysippus made a bronze Love for the Thespians, and previously Praxiteles one of Pentelic marble. The story of Phryne and the trick she played on Praxiteles I have related in another place. The first to remove the image of Love, it is said, was Gaius the Roman Emperor; Claudius, they say, sent it back to Thespiae, but Nero carried it away a second time.
At Rome the image perished by fire. Of the pair who sinned against the god, Gaius was killed by a private soldier, just as he was giving the password; he had made the soldier very angry by always giving the same password with a covert sneer. The other, Nero, in addition to his violence to his mother, committed accursed and hateful crimes against his wedded wives. The modern Love at Thespiae was made by the Athenian Menodorus, who copied the work of Praxiteles.
Here too are statues made by Praxiteles himself, one of Aphrodite and one of Phryne, both Phryne and the goddess being of stone. Elsewhere too is a sanctuary of Black Aphrodite, with a theater and a market-place, well worth seeing. Here is set up Hesiod in bronze. Not far from the market-place is a Victory of bronze and a small temple of the Muses. In it are small images made of stone.
-
At Thespiae is also a sanctuary of Heracles. The priestess there is a virgin, who acts as such until she dies. The reason of this is said to be as follows. Heracles, they say, had intercourse with the fifty daughters of Thestius, except one, in a single night. She was the only one who refused to have connection with him. Heracles, thinking that he had been insulted, condemned her to remain a virgin all her life, serving him as his priest.
I have heard another story, how Heracles had connection with all the virgin daughters of Thestius in one and the same night, and how they all bore him sons, the youngest and the eldest bearing twins. But I cannot think it credible that Heracles would rise to such a pitch of wrath against a daughter of a friend. Moreover, while he was still among men, punishing them for insolence, and especially such as were impious towards the gods, he would not himself have set up a temple and appointed a priestess to himself, just as though he were a god.
As a matter of fact this sanctuary seemed to me too old to be of the time of Heracles the son of Amphitryon, and to belong to Heracles called one of the Idaean Dactyls, to whom I found the people of Erythrae in Ionia and of Tyre possessed sanctuaries. Nevertheless, the Boeotians were not unacquainted with this name of Heracles, seeing that they themselves say that the sanctuary of Demeter of Mycalessus has been entrusted to Idaean Heracles.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias9B.html#7
Thursday, September 22, 2016
LP0055 - The Fables of Hercules - The life & death of a hero, from The Fables of Hyginus
Legendary Passages #0055 - The Fables of Hercules -
The life & death of a hero, from The Fables of Hyginus.
Last time we reviewed the Stymphalian Birds and the Erymanthian Boar. This passage covers the whole story of Hercules, from his conception and birth to his apotheosis.
But first, the myth of the Aloadae, twin giants named Otos and Ephialtes. Sons or grandsons of Neptune, they dared challenge the gods, and planned to marry Juno and Diana. They were either killed by Apollo, or by each other.
Anyway, Alcimena welcomed home her dear husband Amphitryon from his conquest of Oechalia. But it was in fact Jupiter, king of the gods, who extended the night and together they conceived Hercules.
Next, a quick overview of the serpents in his crib and his twelve labors. Then a list of his other adventures: Antaeus, Busiris, Cygnus, Hesion, Prometheus, Lycus, Achelous, Neleus, Eurytus, Nessus, and the centaur Eurytion.
Euyrtion desired to marry Dejanira, daughter of King Dexamenus, but Hercules killed him and married Dejanira himself.
Then the centaur Nessus carried off Dejanira, but Hercules shot him with his hydra arrows. Dying, Nessus gave her a robe soaked in the hydra blood, and said the robe would keep her husband faithful.
Finally, the beautiful princess Iole was captured by Hercules. Jealous, Dejanira gave the robe to her husband, discovering too late that it was poisoned, and Hercules began to burn.
Water gave no relief, so a wooden pyre was built. In exchange for his hydra arrows, Philoctetes set the wood aflame. The mortal form of Hercules was burned away. And his wife Dejanira, succumbed to grief.
Next time, the stories of Thebes and Thespius.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#28
The Fables of Hercules,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Fables of Hyginus,
translated by Mary Grant.
Fables [28] - [36]
XXVIII. OTOS AND EPHIALTES
Otos and Ephialtes, sons of Aloeus and Iphimede, . . . daughter [of Neptune], are said to have been of extraordinary size. They each grew nine inches every month, and so when they were nine years old, they tried to climb into heaven. They began this way: they placed Mount Ossa on Pelion (from this Mount Ossa is also called Pelion), and were piling up other mountains. But they were discovered by Apollo and killed.
Other writers, however, say that they were invulnerable sons of Neptunus and Iphimede. When they wished to assault Diana, she could not resist their strength, and Apollo sent a deer between them. Driven mad by anger in trying to kill it with javelins, they killed each other.
In the Land of the Dead they are said to suffer this punishment: they are bound by serpents to a column, back to back. Between them is a screech-owl, sitting on the column to which they are bound.
XXIX. ALCIMENA
When Amphitryon was away subduing Oechalia, Alcimena, thinking Jove was her husband, received him in her chamber. When he had entered her room, and told her what he had done in Oechalia, she lay with him, thinking he was her husband. He lay with her with so much pleasure that he spent one day and doubled two nights, so that Alcimena wondered at such a long night.
Later when the word came to her that her husband was at hand, a victor, she showed no concern, because she thought she had already seen her husband. When Amphitryon came into the palace, and saw her carelessly unconcerned, he began to wonder and to complain that she did not welcome him when he appeared. Alcimena replied: You already came and lay with me, and told me what you had done in Oechalia.
When she had given him all the evidence, Amphitryon realized that some divinity had assumed his form, and from that day did not lie with her. But she, from the embrace of Jove, bore Hercules.
XXX. TWELVE LABORS OF HERCULES ORDERED BY EURYSTHEUS
When he was an infant, he strangled with his two hands the two snakes which Juno had sent – whence his name, Primigenius.
The Nemean Lion, an invulnerable monster, which Luna had nourished in a two-mouthed cave, he slew and took the pelt for defensive covering.
He killed at the spring of Lerna the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra, offspring of Typhon. This monster was so poisonous that she killed men with her breath, and if anyone passed by when she was sleeping, he breathed her tracks and died in the greatest torment. Under Minerva’s instructions he killed her, disembowelled her, and dipped his arrows in her gall; and so whatever later he hit with his arrows did not escape death, and later he himself perished in Phrygia from the same cause.
He killed the Erymanthian Boar.
The wild stag with golden horns in Arcadia he brought alive to show Eurystheus.
He killed with his arrows on the island of Mars the Stymphalian Birds which shoot their feathers out as arrows.
He cleaned in one day the ox dung of King Augeas, Jove helping him for the most part. By letting in a river he washed away all the dung.
The bull with which Pasiphaë lay he brought alive from the island of Crete to Mycenae.
Diomede, King of Thrace, and his four horses which fed on human flesh he killed along with the slave Abderus. The horses’ names were Podargus, Lampon, Xanthus, and Dinus.
[He slew] Hippolyte, daughter of Mars and Queen Otrera, and took from her the belt of the Amazon Queen; then he presented Antiopa as captive to Theseus.
The triple-bodied Geryon, son of Chrysaor, he killed with a single weapon.
The huge dragon, Typhon’s son, which used to guard the golden apples of the Hesperides, he killed near Mount Atlas, and brought the apples to King Eurystheus.
He brought from the Lower World for the king to see, the dog Cerberus, offspring of Typhon.
XXXI. INCIDENTAL LABORS OF THE SAME HERCULES
He slew Antaeus, son of Earth, in Libya. This man would compel visitors to wrestle with him, and when they were exhausted would kill them. He slew them in wrestling.
[He slew] in Egypt, Busiris, whose custom it was to sacrifice visitors. When Hercules heard of his customary practice, he allowed himself to be led to the altar with the fillet of sacrifice, but when Busiris was about to invoke the gods, Hercules with his club killed him and the attendants at the sacrifice as well.
He killed Cygnus, son of Mars, conquering him by force of arms. When Mars came there, and wanted to contend with him in arms because of his son, Jove hurled a thunderbolt between them.
He killed at Troy the sea-monster to whom Hesione was offered. Laomedon, Hesione’s father, he killed with arrows because he did not give her back.
The shining eagle which was eating out the heart of Prometheus he killed with arrows.
He killed Lycus, son of Neptune, because he was planning to kill his wife Megara, daughter of Creon, and their sons Therimachus and Ophites.
The River Achelous used to change himself into all sorts of shapes. When he fought with Hercules to win Dejanira in marriage, he changed himself into a bull. Hercules tore of his horn, presenting it to the Hesperides or the Nymphs, and the goddesses filled it with fruits and called it Cornucopia.
He killed Neleus and his ten sons for refusing to cleanse him or purify him at the time when he had killed his wife Megara, daughter of Creon, and his sons Therimachus and Ophites.
He killed Eurytus because he refused him when he sought his daughter Iole in marriage.
He killed the centaur Nessus because he tried to violate Dejanira.
He killed Eurytion the Centaur because he wooed Dejanira, daughter of Dexamenus, his hoped-for bride.
XXXII. MEGARA
When Hercules had been sent for the three-headed dog by King Eurystheus, and Lycus, son of Neptune, thought he had perished, he planned to kill his wife Megara, daughter of Creon, and his sons, Therimachus and Ophites, and seize the kingdom. Hercules prevented him and killed Lycus.
Later, when madness was sent upon him by Juno, he killed Megara and his sons Therimachus and Ophites. When he came to his right mind, he begged Apollo to give him an oracular reply on how to expiate his crime. Because Apollo was unwilling, Hercules wrathfully carried off the tripod from his shrine.
Later, at the command of Jove, he returned it, and bade him give the reply, though unwilling. Hercules because of this offence was given in servitude to Queen Omphale by Mercury.
XXXIII. CENTAURS
When Hercules had come to the court of King Dexamenus and had violated his daughter Dejanira, promising he would marry her, Eurytion a centaur, son of Ixion and Nubes, after his departure sought Dejanira as a wife. Her father, fearing violence, promised her to him. On the appointed day he came with his brothers to the wedding. Hercules intervened, and killed the Centaur, and led home his betrothed.
Likewise at another marriage, when Pirithous was taking Hippodamia, daughter of Adrastus, Centaurs, full of wine, attempted to carry off the wives of the Lapithae. The Centaurs killed many of them, but by them perished.
XXXIV. NESSUS
Nessus, son of Ixion and Nubes, a centaur, was asked by Dejanira to carry her across the river Evenus, but as he was carrying her, in the very river he tried to ravish her. When Hercules came there, and Dejanira implored his aid, he pierced Nessus with his arrows.
As he died, Nessus, knowing how poisonous the arrows were, since they had been dipped in the gall of the Lernaean Hydra, drew out some of his blood and gave it to Dejanira, telling her it was a love-charm. If she wanted her husband not to desert her, she should have his garments smeared with this blood. Dejanira, believing him, kept it carefully preserved.
XXXV. IOLE
Hercules, when he had sought in marriage Iole, daughter of Eurytus, and had been refused, attacked Oechalia. In order to bend the girl to his will[?], he threatened to kill her relatives in her presence. She, with resolute mind, suffered them to be slain before her eyes. When he had killed them all, he sent Iole as captive before him to Dejanira.
XXXVI. DEJANIRA
When Dejanira, daughter of Oeneus and wife of Hercules, saw the captive Iole, a maiden of remarkable beauty, arrive, she feared that she would steal her marriage. So mindful of the instructions of Nessus, she sent a servant named Lichas to take to Hercules a robe dipped in the blood of the centaur. A little of it fell to the earth, and when the sun touched it, it began to burn. When Dejanira saw this, she knew that Nessus had spoken falsely, and sent a man to recall the one to whom she had given the garment.
Hercules had already put it on, and it started at once to blaze; when he leaped into a stream to put out the blaze, still greater flames burst forth; when he tried to take off the garment the flesh came with it. Then Hercules, whirling Lichas, who had brought the garment, round and round, threw him into the sea, and at the place where he fell a rock appeared which is called Lichas.
Then Philoctetes, son of Poeas, is said to have built a pyre for Hercules on Mount Oeta, and he mounted it . . . [and cast off his] mortality. For this service he gave Philoctetes his bow and arrows.
But Dejanira, because of what had happened to Hercules, killed herself.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#28
The life & death of a hero, from The Fables of Hyginus.
Last time we reviewed the Stymphalian Birds and the Erymanthian Boar. This passage covers the whole story of Hercules, from his conception and birth to his apotheosis.
But first, the myth of the Aloadae, twin giants named Otos and Ephialtes. Sons or grandsons of Neptune, they dared challenge the gods, and planned to marry Juno and Diana. They were either killed by Apollo, or by each other.
Anyway, Alcimena welcomed home her dear husband Amphitryon from his conquest of Oechalia. But it was in fact Jupiter, king of the gods, who extended the night and together they conceived Hercules.
Next, a quick overview of the serpents in his crib and his twelve labors. Then a list of his other adventures: Antaeus, Busiris, Cygnus, Hesion, Prometheus, Lycus, Achelous, Neleus, Eurytus, Nessus, and the centaur Eurytion.
Euyrtion desired to marry Dejanira, daughter of King Dexamenus, but Hercules killed him and married Dejanira himself.
Then the centaur Nessus carried off Dejanira, but Hercules shot him with his hydra arrows. Dying, Nessus gave her a robe soaked in the hydra blood, and said the robe would keep her husband faithful.
Finally, the beautiful princess Iole was captured by Hercules. Jealous, Dejanira gave the robe to her husband, discovering too late that it was poisoned, and Hercules began to burn.
Water gave no relief, so a wooden pyre was built. In exchange for his hydra arrows, Philoctetes set the wood aflame. The mortal form of Hercules was burned away. And his wife Dejanira, succumbed to grief.
Next time, the stories of Thebes and Thespius.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#28
The Fables of Hercules,
a Legendary Passage,
from The Fables of Hyginus,
translated by Mary Grant.
Fables [28] - [36]
XXVIII. OTOS AND EPHIALTES
Otos and Ephialtes, sons of Aloeus and Iphimede, . . . daughter [of Neptune], are said to have been of extraordinary size. They each grew nine inches every month, and so when they were nine years old, they tried to climb into heaven. They began this way: they placed Mount Ossa on Pelion (from this Mount Ossa is also called Pelion), and were piling up other mountains. But they were discovered by Apollo and killed.
Other writers, however, say that they were invulnerable sons of Neptunus and Iphimede. When they wished to assault Diana, she could not resist their strength, and Apollo sent a deer between them. Driven mad by anger in trying to kill it with javelins, they killed each other.
In the Land of the Dead they are said to suffer this punishment: they are bound by serpents to a column, back to back. Between them is a screech-owl, sitting on the column to which they are bound.
XXIX. ALCIMENA
When Amphitryon was away subduing Oechalia, Alcimena, thinking Jove was her husband, received him in her chamber. When he had entered her room, and told her what he had done in Oechalia, she lay with him, thinking he was her husband. He lay with her with so much pleasure that he spent one day and doubled two nights, so that Alcimena wondered at such a long night.
Later when the word came to her that her husband was at hand, a victor, she showed no concern, because she thought she had already seen her husband. When Amphitryon came into the palace, and saw her carelessly unconcerned, he began to wonder and to complain that she did not welcome him when he appeared. Alcimena replied: You already came and lay with me, and told me what you had done in Oechalia.
When she had given him all the evidence, Amphitryon realized that some divinity had assumed his form, and from that day did not lie with her. But she, from the embrace of Jove, bore Hercules.
XXX. TWELVE LABORS OF HERCULES ORDERED BY EURYSTHEUS
When he was an infant, he strangled with his two hands the two snakes which Juno had sent – whence his name, Primigenius.
The Nemean Lion, an invulnerable monster, which Luna had nourished in a two-mouthed cave, he slew and took the pelt for defensive covering.
He killed at the spring of Lerna the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra, offspring of Typhon. This monster was so poisonous that she killed men with her breath, and if anyone passed by when she was sleeping, he breathed her tracks and died in the greatest torment. Under Minerva’s instructions he killed her, disembowelled her, and dipped his arrows in her gall; and so whatever later he hit with his arrows did not escape death, and later he himself perished in Phrygia from the same cause.
He killed the Erymanthian Boar.
The wild stag with golden horns in Arcadia he brought alive to show Eurystheus.
He killed with his arrows on the island of Mars the Stymphalian Birds which shoot their feathers out as arrows.
He cleaned in one day the ox dung of King Augeas, Jove helping him for the most part. By letting in a river he washed away all the dung.
The bull with which Pasiphaë lay he brought alive from the island of Crete to Mycenae.
Diomede, King of Thrace, and his four horses which fed on human flesh he killed along with the slave Abderus. The horses’ names were Podargus, Lampon, Xanthus, and Dinus.
[He slew] Hippolyte, daughter of Mars and Queen Otrera, and took from her the belt of the Amazon Queen; then he presented Antiopa as captive to Theseus.
The triple-bodied Geryon, son of Chrysaor, he killed with a single weapon.
The huge dragon, Typhon’s son, which used to guard the golden apples of the Hesperides, he killed near Mount Atlas, and brought the apples to King Eurystheus.
He brought from the Lower World for the king to see, the dog Cerberus, offspring of Typhon.
XXXI. INCIDENTAL LABORS OF THE SAME HERCULES
He slew Antaeus, son of Earth, in Libya. This man would compel visitors to wrestle with him, and when they were exhausted would kill them. He slew them in wrestling.
[He slew] in Egypt, Busiris, whose custom it was to sacrifice visitors. When Hercules heard of his customary practice, he allowed himself to be led to the altar with the fillet of sacrifice, but when Busiris was about to invoke the gods, Hercules with his club killed him and the attendants at the sacrifice as well.
He killed Cygnus, son of Mars, conquering him by force of arms. When Mars came there, and wanted to contend with him in arms because of his son, Jove hurled a thunderbolt between them.
He killed at Troy the sea-monster to whom Hesione was offered. Laomedon, Hesione’s father, he killed with arrows because he did not give her back.
The shining eagle which was eating out the heart of Prometheus he killed with arrows.
He killed Lycus, son of Neptune, because he was planning to kill his wife Megara, daughter of Creon, and their sons Therimachus and Ophites.
The River Achelous used to change himself into all sorts of shapes. When he fought with Hercules to win Dejanira in marriage, he changed himself into a bull. Hercules tore of his horn, presenting it to the Hesperides or the Nymphs, and the goddesses filled it with fruits and called it Cornucopia.
He killed Neleus and his ten sons for refusing to cleanse him or purify him at the time when he had killed his wife Megara, daughter of Creon, and his sons Therimachus and Ophites.
He killed Eurytus because he refused him when he sought his daughter Iole in marriage.
He killed the centaur Nessus because he tried to violate Dejanira.
He killed Eurytion the Centaur because he wooed Dejanira, daughter of Dexamenus, his hoped-for bride.
XXXII. MEGARA
When Hercules had been sent for the three-headed dog by King Eurystheus, and Lycus, son of Neptune, thought he had perished, he planned to kill his wife Megara, daughter of Creon, and his sons, Therimachus and Ophites, and seize the kingdom. Hercules prevented him and killed Lycus.
Later, when madness was sent upon him by Juno, he killed Megara and his sons Therimachus and Ophites. When he came to his right mind, he begged Apollo to give him an oracular reply on how to expiate his crime. Because Apollo was unwilling, Hercules wrathfully carried off the tripod from his shrine.
Later, at the command of Jove, he returned it, and bade him give the reply, though unwilling. Hercules because of this offence was given in servitude to Queen Omphale by Mercury.
XXXIII. CENTAURS
When Hercules had come to the court of King Dexamenus and had violated his daughter Dejanira, promising he would marry her, Eurytion a centaur, son of Ixion and Nubes, after his departure sought Dejanira as a wife. Her father, fearing violence, promised her to him. On the appointed day he came with his brothers to the wedding. Hercules intervened, and killed the Centaur, and led home his betrothed.
Likewise at another marriage, when Pirithous was taking Hippodamia, daughter of Adrastus, Centaurs, full of wine, attempted to carry off the wives of the Lapithae. The Centaurs killed many of them, but by them perished.
XXXIV. NESSUS
Nessus, son of Ixion and Nubes, a centaur, was asked by Dejanira to carry her across the river Evenus, but as he was carrying her, in the very river he tried to ravish her. When Hercules came there, and Dejanira implored his aid, he pierced Nessus with his arrows.
As he died, Nessus, knowing how poisonous the arrows were, since they had been dipped in the gall of the Lernaean Hydra, drew out some of his blood and gave it to Dejanira, telling her it was a love-charm. If she wanted her husband not to desert her, she should have his garments smeared with this blood. Dejanira, believing him, kept it carefully preserved.
XXXV. IOLE
Hercules, when he had sought in marriage Iole, daughter of Eurytus, and had been refused, attacked Oechalia. In order to bend the girl to his will[?], he threatened to kill her relatives in her presence. She, with resolute mind, suffered them to be slain before her eyes. When he had killed them all, he sent Iole as captive before him to Dejanira.
XXXVI. DEJANIRA
When Dejanira, daughter of Oeneus and wife of Hercules, saw the captive Iole, a maiden of remarkable beauty, arrive, she feared that she would steal her marriage. So mindful of the instructions of Nessus, she sent a servant named Lichas to take to Hercules a robe dipped in the blood of the centaur. A little of it fell to the earth, and when the sun touched it, it began to burn. When Dejanira saw this, she knew that Nessus had spoken falsely, and sent a man to recall the one to whom she had given the garment.
Hercules had already put it on, and it started at once to blaze; when he leaped into a stream to put out the blaze, still greater flames burst forth; when he tried to take off the garment the flesh came with it. Then Hercules, whirling Lichas, who had brought the garment, round and round, threw him into the sea, and at the place where he fell a rock appeared which is called Lichas.
Then Philoctetes, son of Poeas, is said to have built a pyre for Hercules on Mount Oeta, and he mounted it . . . [and cast off his] mortality. For this service he gave Philoctetes his bow and arrows.
But Dejanira, because of what had happened to Hercules, killed herself.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/HyginusFabulae1.html#28
Thursday, September 8, 2016
LP0054 - The Birds & The Boar - Stymphalus & Erymanthus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece
Legendary Passages #0054 - The Birds & The Boar -
Stymphalus & Erymanthus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
Last time we reviewed the early labors of Heracles. This time we explore the regions of Stymphalus, Alea, Condylea, Psophis, and Mount Erymanthus.
Stymphalus is a land of many legends, including Temenus, the son of Pelasgus; Heracles and the Stymphalian Birds; and a great chasm that floods and drains the Stymphalian plain.
Alea was named after Aleus, son of Apheidas. Condylea, the Strangled Lady, is so named because some children tied a rope around an image of Artemis. Psophis was named after a grandson of Erymanthus, or a daughter of Eryx who had relations with Heracles.
Lastly, Erymanthus was descended from Aristas, Parthaon, Periphetes, and Nyctimus. In the sanctuary of Apollo, the Cumae People claim to still have the tusks of the Eyrmanthian Boar.
Next time, from beginning to end, the complete Fables of Hercules.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8B.html#5
The Birds & The Boar,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[8.22.1] - [8.24.5]
STYMPHALUS
My narrative returns to Stymphalus and to Geronteium, as it is called, the boundary between Stymphalus and Pheneus. The Stymphalians are no longer included among the Arcadians, but are numbered with the Argive League, which they joined of their own accord. That they are by race Arcadians is testified by the verses of Homer, and Stymphalus their founder was a grandson of Arcas, the son of Callisto. It is said that it was originally founded on another site, and not on that of the modern city.
The story has it that in the old Stymphalus dwelt Temenus, the son of Pelasgus, and that Hera was reared by this Temenus, who himself established three sanctuaries for the goddess, and gave her three surnames when she was still a maiden, Girl; when married to Zeus he called her Grown-up; when for some cause or other she quarrelled with Zeus and came back to Stymphalus, Temenus named her Widow. This is the account which, to my own knowledge, the Stymphalians give of the goddess.
The modern city contains none of these sanctuaries, but I found the following notable things. In the Stymphalian territory is a spring, from which the emperor Hadrian brought water to Corinth. In winter the spring makes a small lake in Stymphalus, and the river Stymphalus issues from the lake; in summer there is no lake, but the river comes straight from the spring. This river descends into a chasm in the earth, and reappearing once more in Argolis it changes its name, and is called Erasinus instead of Stymphalus.
There is a story current about the water of the Stymphalus, that at one time man-eating birds bred on it, which Heracles is said to have shot down. Peisander of Camira, however, says that Heracles did not kill the birds, but drove them away with the noise of rattles. The Arabian desert breeds among other wild creatures birds called Stymphalian, which are quite as savage against men as lions or leopards.
These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them with their beaks. All armour of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the birds; but if they weave a garment of thick cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian birds are caught in the cork garment, just as the wings of small birds stick in bird-lime. These birds are of the size of a crane, and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like that of the ibis.
Whether the modern Arabian birds with the same name as the old Arcadian birds are also of the same breed, I do not know. But if there have been from all time Stymphalian birds, just as there have been hawks and eagles, I should call these birds of Arabian origin, and a section of them might have flown on some occasion to Arcadia and reached Stymphalus. Originally they would be called by the Arabians, not Stymphalian, but by another name. But the fame of Heracles, and the superiority of the Greek over the foreigner, has resulted in the birds of the Arabian desert being called Stymphalian even in modern times.
In Stymphalus there is also an old sanctuary of Stymphalian Artemis, the image being of wood, for the most part gilded. Near the roof of the temple have been carved, among other things, the Stymphalian birds. Now it was difficult to discern clearly whether the carving was in wood or in gypsum, but such evidence as I had led me to conclude that it was not of gypsum but of wood. There are here also maidens of white marble, with the legs of birds, and they stand behind the temple.
Even in our own day the following miracle is said to have occurred. The festival of Stymphalian Artemis at Stymphalus was carelessly celebrated, and its established ritual in great part transgressed. Now a log fell into the mouth of the chasm into which the river descends, and so prevented the water from draining away, and (so it is said) the plain became a lake for a distance of four hundred stades.
They also say that a hunter chased a deer, which fled and plunged into the marsh, followed by the hunter, who, in the excitement of the hunt, swam after the deer. So the chasm swallowed up both the deer and her pursuer. They are said to have been followed by the water of the river, so that by the next day the whole of the water was dried up that flooded the Stymphalian plain. Hereafter they put greater zeal into the festival in honor of Artemis.
ALEA
After Stymphalus comes Alea, which too belongs to the Argive federation, and its citizens point to Aleus, the son of Apheidas, as their founder. The sanctuaries of the gods here are those of Ephesian Artemis and Athena Alea, and there is a temple of Dionysus with an image. In honor of Dionysus they celebrate every other year a festival called Sciereia, and at this festival, in obedience to a response from Delphi, women are flogged, just as the Spartan lads are flogged at the image of the Orthian goddess.
In my account of Orchomenus, I explained how the straight road runs at first beside the gully, and afterwards to the left of the flood water. On the plain of Caphyae has been made a dyke of earth, which prevents the water from the Orchomenian territory from doing harm to the tilled land of Caphyae. Inside the dyke flows along another stream, in size big enough to be called a river, and descending into a chasm of the earth it rises again at Nasi, as it is called. The place where it reappears is called Rheunus; the stream having risen here, hereafter the water forms an ever-flowing river, the Tagus.
The name of the city is clearly derived from Cepheus, the son of Aleus, but its form in the Arcadian dialect, Caphyae, is the one that has survived. The inhabitants say that originally they were from Attica, but on being expelled from Athens by Aegeus they fled to Arcadia, threw themselves on the mercy of Cepheus, and found a home in the country. The town is on the border of the plain at the foot of some inconsiderable mountains. The Caphyatans have a sanctuary of the god Poseidon, and one of the goddess Artemis, surnamed Cnacalesia.
They have also a mountain called Cnacalus, where every year they celebrate mysteries in honor of their Artemis. A little beyond the city is a spring, and by the spring grows a large and beautiful plane tree. They call it Menelais, saying that the plane was planted by the spring by Menelaus, who came to the spot when he was collecting his army against Troy. To-day they give the name Menelais to the spring as well as to the plane.
If I am to base my calculations on the accounts of the Greeks in fixing the relative ages of such trees as are still preserved and flourish, the oldest of them is the withy growing in the Samian sanctuary of Hera, after which come the oak in Dodona, the olive on the Acropolis and the olive in Delos. The third place in respect of age the Syrians would assign to the bay-tree they have in their country. Of the others this plane-tree is the oldest.
CONDYLEA
About a stade distant from Caphyae is a place called Condylea, where there are a grove and a temple of Artemis called of old Condyleatis. They say that the name of the goddess was changed for the following reason. Some children, the number of whom is not recorded, while playing about the sanctuary found a rope, and tying it round the neck of the image said that Artemis was being strangled.
The Caphyans, detecting what the children had done, stoned them to death. When they had done this, a malady befell their women, whose babies were stillborn, until the Pythian priestess bade them bury the children, and sacrifice to them every year as sacrifice is made to heroes, because they had been wrongly put to death.
The Caphyans still obey this oracle, and call the goddess at Condyleae, as they say the oracle also bade them, the Strangled Lady from that day to this.
ROAD TO PSOPHIS
Going up about seven stades from Caphyae you will go down to what is called Nasi. Fifty stades farther on is the Ladon. You will then cross the river and reach a grove called Soron, passing through Argeathae, Lycuntes, as it is called, and Scotane.
Now the road to Psophis passes by way of Soron, which, like other Arcadian groves, breeds the following beasts- wild boars, bears, and tortoises of vast size. One could of the last make harps not inferior to those made from the Indian tortoise. At the end of Soron are the ruins of the village Paus, and a little farther what is called Seirae; this Seirae forms a boundary between Cleitor and Psophis.
PSOPHIS, MYTHICAL HISTORY
The founder of Psophis, according to some, was Psophis, the son of Arrhon, the son of Erymanthus, the son of Aristas, the son of Parthaon, the son of Periphetes, the son of Nyctimus. Others say that Psophis was the daughter of Xanthus, the son of Erymanthus, the son of Arcas.
Such are the Arcadian traditions concerning their kings, but the most accurate version is that Eryx, the despot of Sicania, had a daughter named Psophis, whom Heracles, though he had intercourse with her, refused to take to his home, but left with child in the care of his friend Lycortas, who lived at Phegia, a city called Erymanthus before the reign of Phegeus. Having been brought up here, Echephron and Promachus, the sons of Heracles and the Sicanian woman, changed the name of Phegia to Psophis, the name of their mother.
MT ERYMANTHUS
Psophis is also the name of the Zacynthian acropolis, because the first man to sail across to the island was Zacynthus, the son of Dardanus, a Psophidian who became its founder. From Seirae it is thirty stades to Psophis, by the side of which runs the river Aroanius, and a little farther away the river Erymanthus.
The Erymanthus has its source in Mount Lampeia, which is said to be sacred to Pan. One might regard Lampeia as a part of Mount Erymanthus. Homer says that in Taygetus and Erymanthus . . . hunter . . . so . . . of Lampeia, Erymanthus, and passing through Arcadia, with Mount Pholoe on the right and the district of Thelpusa on the left, flows into the Alpheius.
There is also a legend that Heracles at the command of Eurystheus hunted by the side of the Erymanthus a boar that surpassed all others in size and in strength. The people of Cumae among the Opici say that the boar's tusks dedicated in their sanctuary of Apollo are those of the Erymanthian boar, but the saying is altogether improbable.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8B.html#5
Stymphalus & Erymanthus, from Pausanias' Description of Greece.
Last time we reviewed the early labors of Heracles. This time we explore the regions of Stymphalus, Alea, Condylea, Psophis, and Mount Erymanthus.
Stymphalus is a land of many legends, including Temenus, the son of Pelasgus; Heracles and the Stymphalian Birds; and a great chasm that floods and drains the Stymphalian plain.
Alea was named after Aleus, son of Apheidas. Condylea, the Strangled Lady, is so named because some children tied a rope around an image of Artemis. Psophis was named after a grandson of Erymanthus, or a daughter of Eryx who had relations with Heracles.
Lastly, Erymanthus was descended from Aristas, Parthaon, Periphetes, and Nyctimus. In the sanctuary of Apollo, the Cumae People claim to still have the tusks of the Eyrmanthian Boar.
Next time, from beginning to end, the complete Fables of Hercules.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8B.html#5
The Birds & The Boar,
a Legendary Passage,
from Pausanias' Description of Greece,
translated by W. H. S. Jones.
[8.22.1] - [8.24.5]
STYMPHALUS
My narrative returns to Stymphalus and to Geronteium, as it is called, the boundary between Stymphalus and Pheneus. The Stymphalians are no longer included among the Arcadians, but are numbered with the Argive League, which they joined of their own accord. That they are by race Arcadians is testified by the verses of Homer, and Stymphalus their founder was a grandson of Arcas, the son of Callisto. It is said that it was originally founded on another site, and not on that of the modern city.
The story has it that in the old Stymphalus dwelt Temenus, the son of Pelasgus, and that Hera was reared by this Temenus, who himself established three sanctuaries for the goddess, and gave her three surnames when she was still a maiden, Girl; when married to Zeus he called her Grown-up; when for some cause or other she quarrelled with Zeus and came back to Stymphalus, Temenus named her Widow. This is the account which, to my own knowledge, the Stymphalians give of the goddess.
The modern city contains none of these sanctuaries, but I found the following notable things. In the Stymphalian territory is a spring, from which the emperor Hadrian brought water to Corinth. In winter the spring makes a small lake in Stymphalus, and the river Stymphalus issues from the lake; in summer there is no lake, but the river comes straight from the spring. This river descends into a chasm in the earth, and reappearing once more in Argolis it changes its name, and is called Erasinus instead of Stymphalus.
There is a story current about the water of the Stymphalus, that at one time man-eating birds bred on it, which Heracles is said to have shot down. Peisander of Camira, however, says that Heracles did not kill the birds, but drove them away with the noise of rattles. The Arabian desert breeds among other wild creatures birds called Stymphalian, which are quite as savage against men as lions or leopards.
These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them with their beaks. All armour of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the birds; but if they weave a garment of thick cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian birds are caught in the cork garment, just as the wings of small birds stick in bird-lime. These birds are of the size of a crane, and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like that of the ibis.
Whether the modern Arabian birds with the same name as the old Arcadian birds are also of the same breed, I do not know. But if there have been from all time Stymphalian birds, just as there have been hawks and eagles, I should call these birds of Arabian origin, and a section of them might have flown on some occasion to Arcadia and reached Stymphalus. Originally they would be called by the Arabians, not Stymphalian, but by another name. But the fame of Heracles, and the superiority of the Greek over the foreigner, has resulted in the birds of the Arabian desert being called Stymphalian even in modern times.
In Stymphalus there is also an old sanctuary of Stymphalian Artemis, the image being of wood, for the most part gilded. Near the roof of the temple have been carved, among other things, the Stymphalian birds. Now it was difficult to discern clearly whether the carving was in wood or in gypsum, but such evidence as I had led me to conclude that it was not of gypsum but of wood. There are here also maidens of white marble, with the legs of birds, and they stand behind the temple.
Even in our own day the following miracle is said to have occurred. The festival of Stymphalian Artemis at Stymphalus was carelessly celebrated, and its established ritual in great part transgressed. Now a log fell into the mouth of the chasm into which the river descends, and so prevented the water from draining away, and (so it is said) the plain became a lake for a distance of four hundred stades.
They also say that a hunter chased a deer, which fled and plunged into the marsh, followed by the hunter, who, in the excitement of the hunt, swam after the deer. So the chasm swallowed up both the deer and her pursuer. They are said to have been followed by the water of the river, so that by the next day the whole of the water was dried up that flooded the Stymphalian plain. Hereafter they put greater zeal into the festival in honor of Artemis.
ALEA
After Stymphalus comes Alea, which too belongs to the Argive federation, and its citizens point to Aleus, the son of Apheidas, as their founder. The sanctuaries of the gods here are those of Ephesian Artemis and Athena Alea, and there is a temple of Dionysus with an image. In honor of Dionysus they celebrate every other year a festival called Sciereia, and at this festival, in obedience to a response from Delphi, women are flogged, just as the Spartan lads are flogged at the image of the Orthian goddess.
In my account of Orchomenus, I explained how the straight road runs at first beside the gully, and afterwards to the left of the flood water. On the plain of Caphyae has been made a dyke of earth, which prevents the water from the Orchomenian territory from doing harm to the tilled land of Caphyae. Inside the dyke flows along another stream, in size big enough to be called a river, and descending into a chasm of the earth it rises again at Nasi, as it is called. The place where it reappears is called Rheunus; the stream having risen here, hereafter the water forms an ever-flowing river, the Tagus.
The name of the city is clearly derived from Cepheus, the son of Aleus, but its form in the Arcadian dialect, Caphyae, is the one that has survived. The inhabitants say that originally they were from Attica, but on being expelled from Athens by Aegeus they fled to Arcadia, threw themselves on the mercy of Cepheus, and found a home in the country. The town is on the border of the plain at the foot of some inconsiderable mountains. The Caphyatans have a sanctuary of the god Poseidon, and one of the goddess Artemis, surnamed Cnacalesia.
They have also a mountain called Cnacalus, where every year they celebrate mysteries in honor of their Artemis. A little beyond the city is a spring, and by the spring grows a large and beautiful plane tree. They call it Menelais, saying that the plane was planted by the spring by Menelaus, who came to the spot when he was collecting his army against Troy. To-day they give the name Menelais to the spring as well as to the plane.
If I am to base my calculations on the accounts of the Greeks in fixing the relative ages of such trees as are still preserved and flourish, the oldest of them is the withy growing in the Samian sanctuary of Hera, after which come the oak in Dodona, the olive on the Acropolis and the olive in Delos. The third place in respect of age the Syrians would assign to the bay-tree they have in their country. Of the others this plane-tree is the oldest.
CONDYLEA
About a stade distant from Caphyae is a place called Condylea, where there are a grove and a temple of Artemis called of old Condyleatis. They say that the name of the goddess was changed for the following reason. Some children, the number of whom is not recorded, while playing about the sanctuary found a rope, and tying it round the neck of the image said that Artemis was being strangled.
The Caphyans, detecting what the children had done, stoned them to death. When they had done this, a malady befell their women, whose babies were stillborn, until the Pythian priestess bade them bury the children, and sacrifice to them every year as sacrifice is made to heroes, because they had been wrongly put to death.
The Caphyans still obey this oracle, and call the goddess at Condyleae, as they say the oracle also bade them, the Strangled Lady from that day to this.
ROAD TO PSOPHIS
Going up about seven stades from Caphyae you will go down to what is called Nasi. Fifty stades farther on is the Ladon. You will then cross the river and reach a grove called Soron, passing through Argeathae, Lycuntes, as it is called, and Scotane.
Now the road to Psophis passes by way of Soron, which, like other Arcadian groves, breeds the following beasts- wild boars, bears, and tortoises of vast size. One could of the last make harps not inferior to those made from the Indian tortoise. At the end of Soron are the ruins of the village Paus, and a little farther what is called Seirae; this Seirae forms a boundary between Cleitor and Psophis.
PSOPHIS, MYTHICAL HISTORY
The founder of Psophis, according to some, was Psophis, the son of Arrhon, the son of Erymanthus, the son of Aristas, the son of Parthaon, the son of Periphetes, the son of Nyctimus. Others say that Psophis was the daughter of Xanthus, the son of Erymanthus, the son of Arcas.
Such are the Arcadian traditions concerning their kings, but the most accurate version is that Eryx, the despot of Sicania, had a daughter named Psophis, whom Heracles, though he had intercourse with her, refused to take to his home, but left with child in the care of his friend Lycortas, who lived at Phegia, a city called Erymanthus before the reign of Phegeus. Having been brought up here, Echephron and Promachus, the sons of Heracles and the Sicanian woman, changed the name of Phegia to Psophis, the name of their mother.
MT ERYMANTHUS
Psophis is also the name of the Zacynthian acropolis, because the first man to sail across to the island was Zacynthus, the son of Dardanus, a Psophidian who became its founder. From Seirae it is thirty stades to Psophis, by the side of which runs the river Aroanius, and a little farther away the river Erymanthus.
The Erymanthus has its source in Mount Lampeia, which is said to be sacred to Pan. One might regard Lampeia as a part of Mount Erymanthus. Homer says that in Taygetus and Erymanthus . . . hunter . . . so . . . of Lampeia, Erymanthus, and passing through Arcadia, with Mount Pholoe on the right and the district of Thelpusa on the left, flows into the Alpheius.
There is also a legend that Heracles at the command of Eurystheus hunted by the side of the Erymanthus a boar that surpassed all others in size and in strength. The people of Cumae among the Opici say that the boar's tusks dedicated in their sanctuary of Apollo are those of the Erymanthian boar, but the saying is altogether improbable.
http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias8B.html#5
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