APOLLODORUS FOOTNOTES 3A

APOLLODURS, THE LIBRARY BOOK 3 FOOTNOTES BY J. G. FRAZER

1. See above, Apollod. 2.1.4.

2. The ancients were not agreed as to the genealogies of these mythical ancestors of the Phoenicians, Cilicians, and Thebans. See the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.178, iii.1186. Among the authorities whose divergent views are reported in these passages by the Scholiast are Hesiod, Pherecydes, Asclepiades, and Antimachus. Moschus ii.40, 42 agrees with Apollodorus that the mother of Europa was Telephassa, but differs from him as to her father (see below). According to Hyginus, Fab. 6, 178, the mother who bore Cadmus and Europa to Agenor was not Telephassa but Argiope. According to Euripides, Agenor had three sons, Cilix, Phoenix, and Thasus. See Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 6. Pausanias agrees with regard to Thasus, saying that the natives of Thasos were Phoenicians by descent and traced their origin to this Thasus, son of Agenor (Paus. 5.25.12). In saying this, Pausanias followed Herodotus, who tells us that the Phoenician colonists of Thasos discovered wonderful gold mines there, which the historian had visited (Hdt. 6.46ff.), and that they had founded a sanctuary of Herakles in the island (Hdt. 2.44). Herodotus also (Hdt. 7.91) represents Cilix as a son of the Phoenician Agenor, and he tells us (Hdt. 4.147) that Cadmus, son of Agenor, left a Phoenician colony in the island of Thera. Diodorus Siculus reports (Diod. 5.59.2ff.) that Cadmus, son of Agenor, planted a Phoenician colony in Rhodes, and that the descendants of the colonists continued to hold the hereditary priesthood of Poseidon, whose worship had been instituted by Cadmus. He mentions also that in the sanctuary of Athena at Lindus, in Rhodes, there was a tripod of ancient style bearing a Phoenician inscription. The statement has been confirmed in recent years by the discovery of the official record of the temple of Lindian Athena in Rhodes. For in this record, engraved on a marble slab, there occurs the following entry: “Cadmus (dedicated) a bronze tripod engraved with Phoenician letters, as Polyzalus relates in the fourth book of the histories.” See Chr. Blinkenberg, La Chronique du temple Lindien (Copenhagen, 1912), p. 324. However, from such legends all that we can safely infer is that the Greeks traced a blood relationship between the Phoenicians and Cilicians, and recognised a Phoenician element in some of the Greek islands and parts of the mainland. If Europa was, as seems possible, a personification of the moon in the shape of a cow (see The Dying God, p. 88), we might perhaps interpret the quest of the sons of Agenor for their lost sister as a mythical description of Phoenician mariners steering westward towards the moon which they saw with her silver horns setting in the sea.

3. Europa was a daughter of Phoenix, according to Hom. Il. 14.321ff.; Bacch. 16.29ff. p. 376, ed. Jebb, and Moschus ii.7. So, too, the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xii.292 calls Europa a daughter of Phoenix. The Scholiast on Plat. Tim. 24e speaks of Europa as a daughter of Agenor, or of Phoenix, or of Tityus. Some said that Cadmus also was a son, not of Agenor, but of Phoenix (Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1186).

4. Compare Moschus ii.77ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xii.292; Diod. 5.78.1; Lucian, Dial. Marin. xv.; id. De dea Syria 4; Ov. Met. 2.836ff.; Ovid, Fasti v.603ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 178; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 47, 100 (First Vatican Mythographer 148; Second Vatican Mythographer 76). The connexion which the myth of Zeus and Europa indicates between Phoenicia and Crete receives a certain confirmation from the worship at Gaza of a god called Marnas, who was popularly identified with the Cretan Zeus. His name was thought to be derived from a Cretan word marna, meaning “maiden”; so that, as Mr. G. F. Hill has pointed out, marnas might signify “young man.” The city is also said to have been called Minoa, after Minos. See Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Gaza. The worship of Marnas, “the Cretan Zeus,” persisted at Gaza till 402 A.D., when it was finally suppressed and his sanctuary, the Marneion, destroyed. See Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza, 64-71, pp. 73-82, G. F. Hill's translation (Oxford, 1913). From this work (ch. 19, p. 24) we learn that Marnas was regarded as the lord of rain, and that prayer and sacrifice were offered to him in time of drought. As to the god and his relation to Crete, see G. F. Hill's introduction to his translation, pp. xxxii.-xxxviii.

5. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. xii.292; Hyginus, Fab. 178.

6. Hom. Il. 2.198ff.

7. According to some writers, Thasus was a son of Agenor. See Frazer on Apollod. 3.1.1.

8. Apollodorus probably meant to say that Thasus colonized the island of Thasos. The text may be corrupt. See Critical Note. For the traces of the Phoenicians in Thasos, Apollod. 3.1.1 note.

9. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. 12.292; Diod. 4.60.3 (who calls the king Asterius). On the place of Asterion or Asterius in Cretan mythology, see A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.543ff.

10. With the following legend of the foundation of Miletus compare Ant. Lib. 30; Paus. 7.2.5; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.186.

11. Compare Hdt. 1.173; Diod. 5.79.3; Strab. 12.8.5; Paus. 7.3.7. Sarpedon was worshipped as a hero in Lycia. See Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae 552 vol. ii. p. 231.

12. Compare Diod. 5.79.1ff.

13. See above, Apollod. 2.4.11 note.

14. Daughter of the Sun; compare Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.999; Paus. 3.26.1, Paus. 5.25.9; Ant. Lib. 41; Mythographi Graeci, ed. Westermann, Appendix Narrationum, p. 379; Ov. Met. 9.736. Pausanias interpreted Pasiphae as the moon (Paus. 3.26.1), and this interpretation has been adopted by some modern scholars. The Cretan traditions concerning the marriage of Minos and Pasiphae seem to point to a ritual marriage performed every eight years at Cnossus by the king and queen as representatives respectively of the Sun and Moon. See The Dying God, pp. 70ff.; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.521ff. (who holds that Europa was originally a Cretan Earth-goddess responsible for the vegetation of the year).

15. Compare Paus. 8.53.4.

16. Compare Diod. 4.77.2; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.479ff. (who seems to follow Apollodorus); Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. v.431, according to whom the bull was sent, in answer to Minos's prayer, not by Poseidon but by Jupiter (Zeus).

17. Compare Hdt. 1.171; Thuc. 1.4 and Thuc. 1.8.

18. Here Apollodorus seems to be following Euripides, who in a fragment of his drama, The Cretans, introduces Pasiphae excusing herself on the ground that her passion for the bull was a form of madness inflicted on her by Poseidon as a punishment for the impiety of her husband Minos, who had broken his vow by not sacrificing the bull to the sea-god. See W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Griechische Dichterfragmente, ii. (Berlin, 1907), pp. 74ff.

19. See below, Apollod. 3.15.8.

20. In the Greek original these words are seemingly a quotation from a poem, probably a tragedy --perhaps Sophocles's tragedy Daedalus, of which a few fragments survive. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 167ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 110ff. As to the Minotaur and the labyrinth, compare Diod. 4.77.1-5; Plut. Thes. 15ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 40; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. 192. As to the loves of Pasiphae and the bull, see also Scholiast on Eur. Hipp. 887; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.479ff.; Verg. Ecl. 6.45ff.; Ovid, Ars Am. i.289ff.

21. See below, Apollod. 3.15.7-9; Apollod. E.1.7-11.

22. The tragic story of the involuntary parricide of Althaemenes is similarly told by Diod. 5.59.1-4, who says that this murderer of his father and of his sister was afterwards worshipped as a hero in Rhodes.

23. As to Atabyrian Zeus and his sanctuary on Mount Atabyrium, Atabyrum, or Atabyris, the highest mountain in Rhodes, see Pind. O. 7.87(159)ff.; Polybius vii.27.7, ed. L. Dindorf; Appian, Mithridat. 26; Strab. 14.2.12; Diod. 5.59.2; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i.22. Diodorus Siculus tells us that the sanctuary, crowning a lofty peak, was highly venerated down to his own time, and that the island of Crete was visible from it in the distance. Some rude remains of the temple, built of grey limestone, still exist on a summit a little lower than the highest. See H. F. Tozer, The Islands of the Aegean (Oxford, 1890), pp. 220ff.; Cecil Torr, Rhodes in Ancient Times, (Cambridge, 1885), pp. 1, 75. Atabyrian Zeus would seem to have been worshipped in the form of a bull; for it is said that there were bronze images of cattle on the mountain, which bellowed when some evil was about to befall the state, and small bronze figures of bulls are still sometimes found on the mountain. See Tzetzes, Chiliades iv.390ff.; Scholiast on Pind. O. 7.87(159); Cecil Torr, op. cit. p. 76, with plate 4. Further, we know from Greek inscriptions found in the island that there was a religious association which took its name of The Atabyriasts from the deity; and one of these inscriptions (No. 31) records a dedication of oxen or bulls (tous bous) to the god. See Inscriptiones Graecae Insularum Rhodi, Chalces, Carpathi, cum Saro Casi, ed. F. Hiller de Gaertringen (Berlin, 1895), Nos. 31, 161, 891. The oxen so dedicated were probably bronze images of the animals, such as are found in the island, though Dittenberger thought that they were live oxen destined for sacrifice. See his paper, De sacris Rhodiorum Commentatio altera (Halle, 1887), pp. viii.ff. The worship of Atabyrian Zeus may well have been of Phoenician origin, for we have seen that there was a Phoenician colony in Rhodes (see above, Apollod. 3.1.1 note), and the name Atabyrian is believed to be Semitic, equivalent to the Hebrew Tabor. See Encyclopaedia Biblica, s. v. “Tabor,” vol. iii. col. 4881ff. Compare A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.642ff.

24. Compare Diod. 5.79.4.

25. Glaucus was a son of Minos and Pasiphae. See above, Apollod. 3.1.2. For the story of his death and resurrection, see Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 811; Apostolius, Cent. v.48; Palaephatus, De incredib. 27; Hyginus, Fab. 136; Hyginus, Ast. ii.14. Sophocles and Euripides composed tragedies on the subject. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 216ff., 558ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 56ff.

26. The cow or calf (for so Hyginus describes it) was said to change colour twice a day, or once every four hours, being first white, then red, and then black. The diviner Polyidus solved the riddle by comparing the colour of the animal to a ripening mulberry, which is first white, then red, and finally black. See Hyginus, Fab. 136; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 811; Sophocles, quoted by Athenaeus ii.36, p. 51 D, and Bekker's Anecdota Graeca, i. p. 361, lines 20ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.60, frag. 395.

27. He is said to have discovered the drowned boy by observing an owl which had perched on a wine-cellar and was driving away bees. See Hyginus, Fab. 136. Compare Ael., Nat. Anim. v.2, from which it would seem that Hyginus here followed the tragedy of Polyidus by Euripides.

28. Accepting Bekker's emendation of the text. See Critical Note.

29. According to another account, Glaucus was raised from the dead by Aesculapius. See below, Apollod. 3.10.3; Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96); Hyginus, Fab. 49; Hyginus, Ast. ii.14. In a Tongan tradition a dead boy is brought to life by being covered with the leaves of a certain tree. See Père Reiter, “Traditions Tonguinnes,” Anthropos, xii.-xi (1917-1918), pp. 1036ff.; and Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The Resurrection of Glaucus.”

30. It is said that when Cassandra refused to grant her favours to Apollo in return for the gift of prophecy which he had bestowed on her, he spat into her mouth and so prevented her from convincing anybody of the truth of her prophecies. See Serv. Verg. A. 2.247. On ancient superstitions about spittle, see Pliny, Nat. Hist. 28.35ff.; C. de Mensignac, Recherches Ethnographiques sur la Salive et le Crachat (Bordeaux, 1892), pp. 41ff.

31. With this story of the foundation of Thebes by Cadmus compare Paus. 9.12.1ff., Paus. 9.19.4; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.494; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 638 (who quotes the oracle at full length); Scholiast on Aesch. Seven 486; Hyginus, Fab. 178; Ov. Met. 3.6ff. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.494 agrees almost verbally with Apollodorus, and cites as his authorities the Boeotica of Hellanicus and the third book of Apollodorus. Hence we may suppose that in this narrative Apollodorus followed Hellanicus. According to Pausanias, the cow which Cadmus followed bore on each flank a white mark resembling the full moon; Hyginus says simply that it had the mark of the moon on its flank. Varro says (Varro, Re Rust. iii.1) that Thebes in Boeotia was the oldest city in the world, having been built by King Ogyges before the great flood. The tradition of its high antiquity has been recently confirmed by the discovery of many Mycenaean remains on the site. See A. D. Keramopoullos, in Archaiologikon Deltion (Athens, 1917), pp. 1ff.

32. That is, “sown.” Compare Eur. Ph. 939ff. For the story of the sowing of the dragon's teeth, see Paus. 9.10.1; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.494; Hyginus, Fab. 178; Ov. Met. 3.26-130. Similarly, Jason in Colchis sowed some of the dragon's teeth which he had received from Athena, and from the teeth there sprang up armed men, who fought each other. See Apollod. 1.9.23. As to the dragon-guarded spring at Thebes, see Eur. Ph. 930ff.; Paus. 9.10.5, with my note. It is a common superstition that springs are guarded by dragons or serpents. Compare The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii.155ff.

33. The names of the five survivors of the Sparti are similarly reported by Paus. 9.5.3; the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1179; and Hyginus, Fab. 179. From the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1179, we learn that their names were given in like manner by Pherecydes as indeed we might have inferred from Apollodorus's reference to that author in the present passage. Ov. Met. 3.126 mentions that five survived, but he names only one (Echion).

34. The “eternal year” probably refers to the old eight years' cycle, as to which and the period of a homicide's banishment, see the note on Apollod. 2.5.11.

35. As to the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, see Pind. P. 3.88(157)ff.; Eur. Ph. 822ff.; Theognis 15-18; Diod. 4.2.1, Diod. 5.48.5, Diod. 5.49.1; Paus. 3.18.12; Paus. 9.12.3; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 101 (Second Vatican Mythographer 78), (who calls the wife Hermiona).

36. According to another account, this golden necklace was bestowed by Aphrodite on Cadmus or on Harmonia. See Diod. 4.65.5; Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.94(167); Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 71. But, according to yet another account, the necklace and robe were both bestowed by Athena. See Diod. 5.49.1. Second Vatican Mythographer 78 (see preceding note) says that the necklace was made by Vulcan (Hephaestus) at the instigation of Minerva (Athena), and that it was bestowed by him on Harmonia at her marriage.

37. Compare Hes. Th. 975-978ff.; Diod. 4.2.1. As to the daughters Semele and Ino, compare Pind. O. 2.22(38)ff.

38. For the loves of Zeus and Semele and the birth of Dionysus, see Hes. Th. 940-942; Eur. Ba. 1ff.; Eur. Ba. 242ff.; Eur. Ba. 286ff.; Diod. 4.2.2ff.; Diod. 5.52.2; Philostratus, Im. i.13; Paus. 3.24.3; Paus. 9.5.2; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiv.325 (who copies Apollodorus without mentioning him); Scholiast on Pind. O. 2.25(44); Lucian, Dial. Deorum ix.; Nonnus and Nicetas, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, lxxi. p. 385; Ov. Met. 3.259ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 167, 179; Fulgentius, Mytholog. ii.15; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.12; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 38ff., 102 (First Vatican Mythographer 120; Second Vatican Mythographer 79).

39. So the infant Dionysus is described by the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiv.325, who however may be copying Apollodorus, though he refers to the Bacchae of Euripides. But Lucian, Dial. Deorum. ix.2 and Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 385, speak of the infant as a seventh-month child at birth.

40. So Achilles is said to have been dressed in his youth as a girl at the court of Lycomedes, king of Scyros. See below, Apollod. 3.13.8 note. These traditions may embody reminiscences of an old custom of dressing boys as girls in order to avert the evil eye. See “Frazer, The Youth of Achilles,” The Classical Review, vii. (1893), pp. 292.ff., and Frazer, note on Paus. i.22.6.

41. Compare Paus. 1.44.7; Paus. 9.34.7; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 229; Scholiast on Hom. Od. v.334; Hyginus, Fab. 2, 4; Ovid, Fasti vi.489ff.; Ov. Met. 4.512ff.; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.12; Serv. Verg. A. 5.241; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 102 (Second Vatican Mythographer 79).

42. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 229; Scholiast on Pind. I., Arg. p. 514, ed. Boeckh.

43. On Ino and Melicertes see also Paus. 1.42.6, Paus. 1.44.7ff., Paus. 2.1.3, Paus. 4.34.4; Zenobius, Cent. iv.38; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 107, 229-231; Scholiast on Hom. Il. viii.86, Od. v.334; Scholiast on Eur. Med. 1284; Hyginus, Fab. 2, 4; Ov. Met. 4.519-542; Ovid, Fasti vi.491ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 5.241; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.12; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 102 (Second Vatican Mythographer 79).

44. On the foundation of the Isthmian games in honour of Melicertes, see Paus. 1.44.8, Paus. 2.1.3; Scholiasts on Pind. I., Arg. pp. 514, 515, ed. Boeckh; Scholiasts on Eur. Med. 1284; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.34, p. 29, ed. Potter; Zenobius, Cent. iv.38; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 107, 229-231; Hyginus, Fab. 2.

45. Dionysus bore the title of Kid. See Hesychius, s.v. Eriphos ho dionusos; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Akrôreia. When the gods fled into Egypt to escape the fury of Typhon, Dionysus is said to have been turned into a goat. See Ant. Lib. 28; Ov. Met. 5.39; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 29 (First Vatican Mythographer 86). As a god of fertility, Dionysus appears to have been conceived as embodied, now in the form of a goat, now in the form of a bull; and his worshippers accordingly entered into communion with him by rending and devouring live goats and bulls. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i.12ff., ii.1ff. The goat was the victim regularly sacrificed in the rites of Dionysus, because the animal injured the vine by gnawing it; but the reason thus alleged for the sacrifice may have been a later interpretation. See Verg. G. 2.380-384, who refers the origin both of tragedy and of comedy to these sacrifices of goats in honour of the wine-god. Compare Varro, Re. Rust. i.2.19; Ovid, Fasti i.353ff.; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium 30; Serv. Verg. A. 3.118.

46. Apollodorus seems here to be following Pherecydes, who related how the infant Dionysus was nursed by the Hyades. See the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.486; Hyginus, Ast. ii.21; Scholiast on Germanicus, Aratea (in Martianus Capella, ed. Fr. Eyssenhardt, p. 396); Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, i.84. Frag. 46. Nothing could be more appropriate than that the god of the vine should be nursed by the nymphs of the rain. According to Diod. 3.59.2, Diod. 3.64.5, Diod. 3.65.7, Diod. 3.66.3, Nysa, the place where the nymphs reared Dionysus, was in Arabia, which is certainly not a rainy country; but he admits (Diod. 3.66.4, Diod. 3.67.5) that others placed Nysa in Africa, or, as he calls it, Libya, away in the west beside the great ocean. Herodotus speaks of Nysa as “in Ethiopia, above Egypt” (Hdt. 2.146), and he mentions “the Ethiopians who dwell about sacred Nysa and hold the festivals in honor of Dionysus” ( Hdt. 3.97). But in fact Nysa was sought by the ancients in many different and distant lands and was probably mythical, perhaps invented to explain the name of Dionysus. See Stephanus Byzantius and Hesychius, s.v. Nusa; A. Wiedemann on Herodotus, ii.146; T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes on HH to Dion. i.8, p. 4.

47. As to Actaeon and his dogs, see Diod. 4.3-5; Nonnus, Dionys. v.287ff.; Palaephatus, De incredib. 3; Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, 6, p. 360; Hyginus, Fab. 181; Ov. Met. 3.138ff.; Fulgentius, Mytholog. iii.3; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 103 (Second Vatican Mythographer 81). Hyginus and Ovid give lists of the dogs' names.

48. As to the discovery of the vine by Dionysus and the wanderings of the god, see Diod. 3.62ff., Diod. 4.1.6ff., Diod. 4.2.5ff.; Strab. 15.1.7-9 The story of the rovings of Dionysus, and in particular of his journey to India, was probably suggested by a simple observation of the wide geographical diffusion of the vine. Wherever the plant was cultivated and wine made from the grapes, there it would be supposed that the vine-god must have tarried, dispensing the boon or the bane of his gifts to mortals. There seems to be some reason to think that the original home of the vine was in the regions to the south of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Sea, where the plant still grows wild “with the luxuriant wildness of a tropical creeper, clinging to tall trees and producing abundant fruit without pruning or cultivation.” See A. de Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants (London, 1884), pp. 191ff. Compare A. Engler, in Victor Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Ubergang aus Asien (Berlin, 1902), pp. 85ff. But these regions are precisely those which Dionysus was supposed to have traversed on his journeys. Certainly the idea of the god's wanderings cannot have been suggested, as appears to be sometimes imagined, by the expedition of Alexander the Great to India (see F. A. Voigt, in W. H. Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i.1087), since they are described with geographical precision by Euripides, who died before Alexander the Great was born. In his famous play, The Bacchae (Eur. Ba. 13-20), the poet introduces the god himself describing his journey over Lydia, Phrygia, Bactria, Media, and all Asia. And by Asia the poet did not mean the whole continent of Asia as we understand the word, for most of it was unknown to him; he meant only the southern portion of it from the Mediterranean to the Indus, in great part of which the vine appears to be native.

49. Compare Eur. Cyc. 3ff.

50. The visit of Dionysus to Egypt was doubtless invented to explain the close resemblance which the ancients traced between the worships of Osiris and Dionysus. See Hdt. 2.42; Hdt. 2.49, and Hdt. 2.144; Diod. 1.11.3, Diod. 1.13.5, Diod. 1.96.5, Diod. 4.1.6; Plut. Isis et Osiris 28, 34, and 35; Tibullus 1.7.29ff. For the same reason Nysa, the place where Dionysus was supposed to have been reared, was by some people believed to be in the neighbourhood of Egypt. See HH Dion. 8ff.; Diod. 1.15.6, Diod. 4.2.3.

51. For the association of Dionysus with Phrygia, see Eur. Ba. 58ff.; Eur. Ba. 78ff., where the chorus of Bacchanals is represented escorting Dionysus from the mountains of Phrygia to Greece. According to one account, Dionysus was reared by the great Phrygian goddess Rhea (Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Mastaura). These legends were probably intended to explain the resemblances between the Bacchic and the Phrygian religions, especially in respect of their wild ecstatic and orgiastic rites.

52. For the story of the hostility of Lycurgus to Dionysus, see Hom. Il. 6.129ff., with the Scholia; Soph. Ant. 955ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 273; Hyginus, Fab. 132; Serv. Verg. A. 3.14; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 39 (First Vatican Mythographer 122). According to Sophocles, it would seem that Lycurgus suffered nothing worse at the hands of his subjects than imprisonment in a cave, where his frenzy gradually subsided. According to Hyginus, Servius, and the First Vatican Mythographer, the furious king, in attempting to cut down the vines, lopped off one of his own feet or even both his legs. It appears to be a common belief that a woodman who cuts a sacred tree with an axe wounds himself in so doing. See W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, pp. 36ff. It is said that when the missionary Jerome of Prague was preaching to the heathen Lithuanians and persuading them to cut down their sacred woods, one of the converts, moved by his exhortation, struck at an ancient oak with an axe, but wounded himself in the legs and fell to the ground. See Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Basel, 1571), p. 418 [wrongly numbered 420]. The accident to this zealous convert closely resembles the one which is said to have befallen the Edonian king in a similar attempt on the sacred vine.

53. Greek murderers used to cut off the extremities, such as the ears and noses, of their victims, fasten them on a string, and tie the string round the necks and under the armpits of the murdered men. One motive assigned for this custom, and probably the original one, was the wish by thus mutilating the dead man to weaken him so that he, or rather his ghost, could not take vengeance on his murderer (hina, phasin, asthenês genoito pros to antitisasthai ton phonea, Scholiast on Soph. El. 445; dia toutôn hôsper tên dunamin ekeinôn [scil. tôn anairethentôn] aphairoumenoi, dia to mê pathein es husteron ti deinon par' ekeinôn, Suidas, s.v. maschalisthênai. On this barbarous custom see the Scholiast on Soph. El. 445; Suidas, s.v. maschalisthênai; Hesychius and Photius, Lexicon, s.v. maschalismata; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.477. According to one account (Scholiast on Soph. El. 445), the murderer fastened the extremities of his victim about his own person, but the better attested and more probable account is that he tied them about the mutilated body of his victim. Compare E. Rohde, Psyche(3), i.322-326; Jebb on Soph. El. 445, with the Appendix, pp. 211ff. The practice is perhaps illustrated by an original drawing in the Ambrosian manuscript of the Iliad, which represents the Homeric episode of Dolon (Hom. Il. 10.314ff.); in the drawing the corpse of the slain Dolon is depicted shorn of its feet and hands, which lie beside it, while Ulysses holds Dolon's severed head in his hand. See Annali dell' Instituto di Correspondenza Archeologica (Rome, 1875), tav. d'agg. R.; Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, i.460ff., fig. 506. It appears to be a widespread belief that the ghost of one who has died a violent death is dangerous to his slayer, but that he can be rendered powerless for mischief by maiming his body in such a way as would have disabled him in life. For example, some of the Australian aborigines used to cut off the thumbs of the right hands of dead enemies to prevent their ghosts from throwing spears. See A. Oldfield, “The Aborigines of Australia,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, iii. (1865) p. 287. In Travancore the spirits of murderers who have been hanged are thought to be very mischievous; hence, in order to prevent them from doing harm, it used to be customary to cut off the heels of the criminal with a sword or to hamstring him as he swung on the gallows. See S. Mateer, The Land of Charity (London, (1871), pp. 203ff. In Armenia, when a person falls sick soon after the death of a member of the family, it is supposed that the sickness is caused by the dead man, who cannot rest in his grave until he has drawn away one of his kinsfolk to the spirit land. To prevent this catastrophe, the body of the deceased is disinterred and decapitated, and to make assurance doubly sure the head is smashed or a needle is stuck into it and into the heart. See Manuk Abeghian, Der armenische Volksglaube (Leipsig, 1899), p. 11. In some parts of West Africa it is similarly customary to disinter and decapitate a corpse of a person whose ghost is supposed to be causing sickness, “because the deceased, having his head cut off, will not have the same strength as before, and consequently will not be in a position to trouble him (the patient).” See J. B. Labat, Relation Historique de l'Ethiopie Occidentale (Paris, 1732), i.208.

54. So Orestes, driven mad by the Furies of his murdered mother, is said to have recovered his senses on biting off one of his own fingers (Paus. 8.34.2). By the sacrifice he may be supposed to have appeased the anger of his mother's ghost, who was thought to be causing his madness. Compare Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, iii.240ff.

55. The king thus done to death was perhaps supposed to die in the character of the god; for Dionysus himself was said to have been rent in pieces by the Titans. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed. ii.98ff.; Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i.24ff.

56. Compare Tzetzes, Chiliades viii.582ff.

57. In these lines Apollodorus has summarized the argument of the Bacchae of Euripides; for the death of Pentheus, see Eur. Ba. 1043ff. Compare Hyginus, Fab. 184; Ov. Met. 3.511ff., especially 701ff.; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 103 (Second Vatican Mythographer 83). Aeschylus wrote a tragedy on the subject of Pentheus (TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 60ff.).

58. The reference is to the madness of the daughters of Proetus. See above, Apollod. 2.2.2 note.

59. The story of Dionysus and the pirates is the theme of the HH Dion. Compare Ov. Met. 3.581ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 134; Hyginus, Ast. ii.17; Serv. Verg. A. 1.67; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 39, 133 (First Vatican Mythographer 123; Second Vatican Mythographer 171).

60. Compare Diod. 4.25.4. Dionysus is said to have gone down to hell to fetch up his mother Semele at Lerna, where he plunged into the Alcyonian Lake, a pool which was supposed to be bottomless and therefore to afford an easy access to the nether world. See Paus. 2.37.5; and for a description of the pool as it is at the present time, see Frazer's commentary on Pausanias, vol. v. pp. 604ff. Never having been in hell before, Dionysus did not know how to go there, and he was reduced to the necessity of asking the way. A certain Prosymnus pointed it out to the deity on condition of receiving a certain reward. When Dionysus returned from the lower world, he found that his guide had died in the meantime; but he punctually paid the promised reward to the dead man at his grave with the help of a branch of fig wood, which he whittled into an appropriate shape. This story was told to explain the similar implements which figured prominently in the processions of Dionysus. See Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.34, pp. 29ff., ed. Potter; Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, xxii.1, p. 368; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 212; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes v.28; Hyginus, Ast. ii.5. Pausanias calls the god's guide Polymnus, unless that form of the name is the mistake of a copyist for Prosymnus, as seems to be suggested by the epithet Prosymna, which was applied to Demeter in the sacred grove at Lerna, where Dionysus also had an image. See Paus. 2.37.1. However, Hyginus gives Hypolipnus as the name of the guide to hell. Every year the descent of the god through the deep water was celebrated with nocturnal rites on the reedy margin of the pool (Paus. 2.37.6). The pious Pausanias shrank from divulging the nature of the rites; but from Plutarch we learn that a lamb was thrown into the lake as an offering to the warder of hell, while on trumpets hidden in the god's leafy emblems the buglers blew blasts which, startling the stillness and darkness of night, were believed to summon up the lost Dionysus from the watery depths. See Plut. Isis et Osiris 35. Perhaps in answer to this bugle call an actor, dressed in the vine-god's garb, may have emerged dripping from the pool to receive the congratulations of the worshippers on his rising from the dead. However, according to others, the resurrection of Dionysus and his mother took place, not in the gloomy swamp at Lerna, but on the beautiful, almost landlocked, bay of Troezen, where nowadays groves of oranges and lemons, interspersed with the dark foliage of tall cypresses, fringe the margin of the calm blue water at the foot of the rugged mountains. See Paus. 2.31.2. Plutarch has drawn a visionary picture of the scene of the ascension. It was, he says, a mighty chasm like the caves sacred to Bacchus, mantled with woods and green grass and blooming flowers of every sort, and exhaling a delicious, an intoxicating, perfume, while all about it the souls of the departed circled and stooped upon the wing like flights of birds, but did not dare to cross its tremendous depth. It was called the Place of Forgetfulness. See Plut. De sera numinis vindicta 22, pp. 565ff. A pretty story was told of the device by which Dionysus induced the grim warden of the dead to release the soul of his mother from the infernal gaol. It is said that Hades consented to set her free provided that her son would send of his best beloved to replace her shade in the world of shadows. Now of all the things in the world the dearest to Dionysus were the ivy, the vine, and the myrtle; so of these he sent the myrtle, and that is why the initiated in his rites wreathed their brows with myrtle leaves. See Scholiast on Aristoph. Frogs 330. The harrying of hell is the theme of Aristophanes's amusing comedy The Frogs.

61. As to the departure of Cadmus and Harmonia to Illyria and their transformation into snakes in that country, where their tomb was shown in later ages, see Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.516ff.; Dionysius, Perieg. 390ff., with the commentary of Eustathius, Comm. on Dionysius Perieg. v.391; Strab. 1.2.39, Strab. 7.7.8; Paus. 9.5.3; Athenaeus xi.5, p. 462 B; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Durrachion; Tzetzes, Chiliades iv.393ff.; Ov. Met. 4.563-603; Hyginus, Fab. 6; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.290; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 48 (First Vatican Mythographer 150). Euripides mentions the transformation of the couple into snakes, but without speaking of their banishment to Illyria (Eur. Ba. 1530ff.), probably because there is a long lacuna in this part of the text. According to Hyginus, the transformation of the two into serpents was a punishment inflicted by Ares on Cadmus for killing his sacred dragon which guarded the spring at Thebes, which Hyginus absurdly calls the Castalian spring. It is a common belief, especially among the Bantu tribes of South Africa, that human beings at death are turned into serpents, which often visit the old home. There is some reason to think that the ancestors of the Greeks may have shared this widespread superstition, of which the traditional transformation of Cadmus and Harmonia would thus be an isolated survival. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed. i.82ff.

62. Compare Eur. Ph. 8; Paus. 2.6.2, Paus. 9.5.4ff. Apollodorus implies that Labdacus was murdered by the Bacchanals because he set himself against the celebration of their orgiastic rites. But there seems to be no express mention of his violent death in ancient writers.

63. That is, the two brothers Lycus and Nycteus.

64. This Phlegyas is supposed to be Phlegyas, king of Orchomenus, whom Paus. 9.36.1 calls a son of Ares and Chryse. If this identification is right, the words “from Euboea” appear to be wrong, as Heyne pointed out, since Orchomenus is not in Euboea but in Boeotia. But there were many places called Euboea, and it is possible that one of them was in Boeotia. If that was so, we may conjecture that the epithet “Boeotian,” which, applied to Dotis, seems superfluous, was applied by Apollodorus to Euboea and has been misplaced by a copyist. If these conjectures are adopted, the text will read thus: “Both of them fled from Euboea in Boeotia because they had killed Phlegyas, son of Ares and Dotis, and they took up their abode at Hyria.” As to the various places called Euboea, see Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Euboia; W. Pape, Wörterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen, s.v. Euboia.

65. With the following story of Antiope and Dirce compare Paus. 2.6.1ff., Paus. 9.25.3; Malalas, Chr. ii. pp. 45-49, ed. L. Dindorf; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.1090; Nicolaus Damascenus, frag. 11, in Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, iii.365ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 7, 8; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 32, 99ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 97; Second Vatican Mythographer 74). Euripides wrote a tragedy Antiope, of which Hyginus, Fab. 8 gives a summary. Many fragments of the play have been preserved. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 410ff. In his version of the story Apollodorus seems to have followed Euripides. The legend is commemorated in the famous group of statuary called the Farnese bull, which is now in the museum at Naples. See Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, i.107, fig. 113.

66. Compare Paus. 9.5.7ff. The two brothers are said to have quarrelled, the robust Zethus blaming Amphion for his passionate addiction to music and urging him to abandon it for what he deemed the more manly pursuits of agriculture, cattle-breeding and war. The gentle Amphion yielded to these exhortations so far as to cease to strum the lyre. See Dio Chrysostom lxxiii. vol. ii. p. 254, ed. L. Dindorf; Hor. Epist. i.18.41-44; TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 414-416, frag. 184-188. The discussion between the two brothers, the one advocating the practical life and the other the contemplative or artistic, seems to have been famous. It is illustrated by a fine relief in which we see Amphion standing and holding out his lyre eagerly for the admiration of his athletic brother, who sits regarding it with an air of smiling disdain. See W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griech, und röm. Mythologie, i.311.

67. Compare Hom. Od. 11.260-265 (who does not mention the miracle of the music); Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.735-741; Paus. 9.5.6-8; Prop. i.9.10, iv.2.3ff.; Hor. Carm. 3.11.2, Aristot. Poet. 394-396. Apollonius represents Zethus staggering under the load of a mountain, while Amphion strolls along drawing a cliff twice as large after him by singing to his golden lyre. He seems to have intended to suggest the feebleness of brute strength by comparison with the power of genius.

68. As to the banishment and restoration of Laius, see Paus. 9.5.6; Paus. 9.5.9; Hyginus, Fab. 9.

69. Compare Athenaeus xiii.79, pp. 602ff., who says that Laius carried off Chrysippus in his chariot to Thebes. Chrysippus is said to have killed himself for shame. See the Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1760.

70. For the story of Niobe and her children, see Hom. Il. 24.602ff.; Diod. 4.74; Paus. 1.21.3; Paus. 2.21.9; Paus. 5.11.2; Paus. 5.16.4; Paus. 8.2.5; Paus. 8.2.7; Tzetzes, Chiliades iv.416ff.; Ov. Met. 6.146ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 9, 11; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.191; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 50 (First Vatican Mythographer 156). Great diversity of opinion prevailed among the ancients with regard to the number of Niobe's children. Diodorus, Ovid, Hyginus, Lactantius Placidus, and the First Vatican Mythographer agree with Apollodorus as to the seven sons and seven daughters of Niobe, and from the Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 159, we learn that Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes in lost plays adopted the same numbers, but that Pherecydes agreed with Homer in reckoning six sons and six daughters, while Hellanicus allowed the lady no more than four sons and three daughters. On the other hand, Xanthus the Lydian, according to the same Scholiast, credited her with a score of children, equally divided between the two sexes. Herein he probably followed the authority of Hesiod (see Apollodorus, below), and the same liberal computation is said to have been accepted by Bacchylides, Pindar, and Mimnermus, while Sappho reduced the figure to twice nine, and Alcman to ten all told (Aulus Gellius xx.70; Ael., Var. Hist. xii.36). Aeschylus and Sophocles each wrote a tragedy Niobe, of which some fragments remain. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 50ff., 228ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.94ff., frag. 442-451. The subject is rendered famous by the fine group of ancient statuary now in the Uffizi gallery at Florence. See Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, iii.1674ff. Antiquity hesitated whether to assign the group to Scopas or Praxiteles (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi.28), and modern opinion is still divided on the question. See Frazer on Paus. ii.29.9 (vol. iii. p. 201). The pathetic character of the group may perhaps be held to speak in favour of Scopas, who seems to have excelled in the portrayal of the sterner, sadder emotions, while Praxiteles dwelt by preference on the brighter, softer creations of the Greek religious imagination. This view of the sombre cast of the genius of Scopas is suggested by the subjects which he chose for the decoration of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea (Paus. 8.45.5-7), and by the scanty remains of the sculptures which have been found on the spot. See Frazer, commentary on Pausanias, vol. iv. pp. 426ff. However, the late historian of Greek sculpture, Professor M. Collignon, denied that the original of this famous group, which he regarded as a copy, was either by Scopas or Praxiteles. He held that it belongs to an Asiatic school of sculpture characterized by picturesque grouping, and that it could not have been executed before the third century B.C. To the same school he would assign another famous group of sculpture, that of Dirce and the bull (above, Frazer on Apollod. 3.5.5). See M. Collignon, Histoire de la Sculpture Grecque (Paris, 1892-1897), ii.532ff. The tomb of the children of Niobe was shown at Thebes (Paus. 9.16.7; compare Eur. Ph. 159ff.); but according to Statius, Theb. vi.124ff. the Mater Dolorosa carried the ashes of her dead children in twice six urns to be buried on her native Mount Sipylus. Thus the poet dutifully follows Homer in regard to the number of the children.

71. Compare Paus. 2.21.9, Paus. 5.16.4, according to whom Meliboea was the original name of Chloris; but she turned pale with fear at the slaughter of her brothers and sisters, and so received the name of Chloris, that is, the Pale Woman. As to the marriage of Chloris with Neleus, see Hom. Od. 11.281ff.

72. The ancients differed as to the death of Amphion. According to one account, he went mad (Lucian, De Saltatione 41), and in attempting to attack a temple of Apollo, doubtless in order to avenge the death of his sons on the divine murderer, he was shot dead by the deity (Hyginus, Fab. 9). According to Ov. Met. 6.271ff., he stabbed himself for grief.

73. For the tragic story of Laius, Jocasta or Epicasta, and their son Oedipus, see Hom. Od. 11.271-280, with the Scholiast on Hom. Od. 11.271; Eur. Ph. 1-62; Diod. 4.64; Paus. 9.2.4; Paus. 9.5.10ff.; Paus. 10.5.3ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1760; Hyginus, Fab. 66, 67. In Homer the mother of Oedipus is named Epicasta; later writers call her Jocasta. The mournful tale of Oedipus is the subject of Sophocles's two great tragedies, the Oedipus Tyrannus and the Oedipus Coloneus. It is also the theme of Seneca's tragedy Oedipus. From the Scholiast on Hom. Od. 11.271-280 we learn that the story was told by Androtion. Apollodorus's version of the legend closely follows Sophocles and is reproduced by Zenobius, Cent. ii.68 in a somewhat abridged form with certain verbal changes, but as usual without acknowledgment. Some parallel stories occur in the folklore of other peoples. See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The Oedipus Legend.”

74. Sophocles calls her Merope (Soph. OT 775), and so does Seneca, Oedipus 272, 661, 802. But, according to Pherecydes, the wife of Polybus was Medusa, daughter of Orsilochus (Scholiast on Soph. OT 775).

75. The name Oedipus was interpreted to mean “swollen foot.” As to the piercing of the child's ankles, see Soph. OT 718; Eur. Ph. 26ff.; Diod. 4.64.1; Paus. 10.5.3; Hyginus, Fab. 66; Seneca, Oedipus 812.

76. The “narrow road” is the famous Cleft Way (Paus. 10.5.3ff.) now called the Crossroad of Megas (Stavrodromi tou Mega), where the road from Daulis and the road from Thebes and Lebadea meet and unite in the single road ascending through the long valley to Delphi. At this point the pass, shut in on either hand by lofty and precipitous mountains, presents one of the wildest and grandest scenes in all Greece; the towering cliffs of Parnassus on the northern side of the valley are truly sublime. Not a trace of human habitation is to be seen. All is solitude and silence, in keeping with the tragic memories of the spot. Compare Frazer, commentary on Paus. 10.5.3 (vol. v. pp. 231ff.) As to the Cleft Way or Triple Way, as it was also called, and the fatal encounter of the father and son at it, see Soph. OT 715ff.; Soph. OT 1398ff.; Eur. Ph. 37ff.; Seneca, Oedipus 276ff.

77. Compare Paus. 9.5.4.

78. As to the Sphinx and her riddle, see Hes. Th. 326ff. (who says that she was the offspring of Echidna and Orthus); Soph. OT 391ff.; Eur. Ph. 45ff.; Diod. 4.64.3ff.; Paus. 9.26.2-4; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 45; Hyginus, Fab. 67; Seneca, Oedipus 92ff. The riddle is quoted in verse by several ancient writers. See Athenaeus x.81, p. 456 B; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 7; Anth. Pal. xiv.64; Argument to Soph. OT, p. 6, ed. R. C. Jebb; Argument to Eur. Ph.; and Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 50 (Scholia in Euripiden, ed. E. Schwartz, vol. i. pp. 243ff. 256). Outside of Greece the riddle seems to be current in more or less similar forms among various peoples. Thus it is reported among the Mongols of the Selenga (R. G. Latham, Descriptive Ethnology, i.325), and in Gascony (J. F. Bladé, Contes populaires de la Gascogne, i.3-14). Further, it has been recently recorded, in a form precisely similar to the Greek, among the tribes of British Central Africa: the missionary who reports it makes no reference to the riddle of the Sphinx, of which he was apparently ignorant. See Donald Fraser, Winning a primitive people (London, 1914) p. 171, “What is it that goes on four legs in the morning, on two at midday, and on three in the evening? Answer: A man, who crawls on hands and knees in childhood, walks erect when grown, and with the aid of a stick in his old age.”

79. Compare Eur. Ph. 55ff.; Diod. 4.64.4; Hyginus, Fab. 67.

80. This account is adopted by Paus. 9.5.10ff.; and by the Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 1760, who cites Pisander as his authority. According to another version, Oedipus, after losing Jocasta, married Astymedusa, who falsely accused her stepsons of attempting her virtue. See Scholiast on Hom. Il. iv.376; Eust. on Homer, Il. iv.376, p. 369; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 53.

81. Compare Hom. Od. 11.277ff.; Soph. OT 1235ff. According to Seneca, in one passage (Sen. Oedipus, 1034ff.), Jocasta stabbed herself to death on the discovery of her incest. But Euripides makes Jocasta survive her two sons and stab herself to death on their dead bodies. See Eur. Ph. 1455-1459. Herein he was perhaps followed by Seneca in his tragedy, for in the fragments of that play (Seneca, Oedipus 443ff.) Seneca represents Jocasta attempting to make peace between Eteocles and Polynices on the battlefield; but the conclusion of the play is lost. Similarly Statius describes how Jocasta vainly essayed to reconcile her warring sons, and how she stabbed herself to death on learning that they had fallen by each other's hands. See Statius, Theb. vii.474ff., xi.634ff.

82. A curious and probably very ancient legend assigned a different motive for the curses of Oedipus. It is said that his sons used to send him as his portion the shoulder of every sacrificial victim, but that one day by mistake they sent him the haunch (ischion) instead of the shoulder, which so enraged him that he cursed them, praying to the gods that his sons might die by each other's hands. This story was told by the author of the epic Thebaid. See Scholiast on Soph. OC 1375; Zenobius, Cent. v.43. A different cause of his anger is assigned by Athenaeus xi.14, pp. 465ff., also on the authority of the author of the Thebaid.

83. The coming of Oedipus and Antigone to Colonus Hippius in Attica, together with the mysterious death of Oedipus, are the subject of Sophocles's noble tragedy, Oedipus Coloneus. As to the sanctuary of the Eumenides, see that play, Soph. OC 36ff. The knoll of Colonus is situated over a mile from Athens, and it is doubtful whether the poet intended to place the death and burial of Oedipus at Colonus or at Athens itself, where in later times the grave of Oedipus was shown in a precinct of the Eumenides, between the Acropolis and the Areopagus (Paus. 1.28.7). See Frazer, notes on Paus. i.28.7, i.30.2, vol. ii. pp. 366ff., 393ff.; R. C Jebb on Soph. OC pp. xxx.ff.

84. That is, they were to reign in alternate years. Compare Eur. Ph. 69ff.; Eur. Ph. 473ff.; Diod. 4.65.1; Zenobius, Cent. i.30; Hyginus, Fab. 67; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 48ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 152). In this and the sequel Zenobius, Cent. i.30 closely follows Apollodorus and probably copied from him.

85. That is, the necklace and the robe which Cadmus had given to Harmonia at their marriage. See above, Apollod. 3.4.2.

86. See above Apollod. 1.8.5.

87. Adrastus received the oracle from Apollo. See Eur. Ph. 408ff.; Eur. Supp. 132ff. In these passages the poet describes the nocturnal brawl between the two exiled princes at the gate of the palace, and their reconciliation by Adrastus. Compare Zenobius, Cent. i.30; Hyginus, Fab. 69; and the elaborate description of Statius, Theb. i.370ff. The words of the oracle given to Adrastus are quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 409. According to one interpretation the boar on the shield of Tydeus referred to the Calydonian boar, while the lion on the shield of Polynices referred to the lion-faced sphinx. Others preferred to suppose that the two chieftains were clad in the skins of a boar and a lion respectively. See Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 409; Hyginus, Fab. 69.

88. As to the devices which the Greeks painted on their shields, as these are described by ancient writers or depicted in vase-paintings, see G. H. Chase, “The Shield Devices of the Greeks,” HSCP, vol. xiii. pp. 61-127. From the evidence collected in this essay (pp. 98, 112ff.) it appears that both the boar and the lion are common devices on shields in vase-paintings.

89. Compare Diod. 4.65.3; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 409; Hyginus, Fab. 69; Statius, Theb. ii.201ff.

90. For the story of the treachery of Eriphyle to her husband Amphiaraus, see also Diod. 4.65.5ff.; Paus. 5.17.7ff.; Paus. 9.41.2; Scholiast on Hom. Od. 11.326 (who refers to Asclepiades as his authority); Hyginus, Fab. 73; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 49 (First Vatican Mythographer 152). The story is alluded to but not told by Hom. Od. 11.326ff.; Hom. Od. 15.247; Soph. Elec. 836ff.), and Hor. Carm. 3.16.11-13. Sophocles wrote a tragedy Eriphyle, which was perhaps the same as his Epigoni. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 129ff.

91. Compare Diod. 4.65.6; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.326; Scholiast on Pind. N. 9.13(30). As the sister of Adrastus (see above, Apollod. 1.9.13) and the wife of Amphiaraus, the traitress Eriphyle might naturally seem well qualified to act as arbiter between them.

92. For lists of the seven champions who marched against Thebes, see Aesch. Seven 375ff.; Soph. OC 1309ff.; Eur. Ph. 1090ff. and Eur. Supp. 857ff.; Diod. 4.65.7; Hyginus, Fab. 70.

93. The place of Eteocles among the Seven Champions is recognized by Aesch. Seven 458ff., Soph. OC 1316, and Euripides in one play (Eur. Supp. 871ff.), but not in another (Eur. Ph. 1090ff.); and he is omitted by Hyginus, Fab. 70. His right to rank among the Seven seems to have been acknowledged by the Argives themselves, since they included his portrait in a group of statuary representing the Champions which they dedicated at Delphi. See Paus. 10.10.3.

94. Brother of Adrastus. See Apollod. 1.9.13.

95. As to the meeting of the Seven Champions with Hypsipyle at Nemea, the death of Opheltes, and the institution of the Nemean games, see Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. pp. 424ff. ed. Boeckh; Bacch. 8.10ff. [9], ed. Jebb; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.34, p. 29, ed. Potter, with the Scholiast; Hyginus, Fab. 74, 273; Statius, Theb. iv.646-vi.; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.717; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode. vol. i. p. 123 (Second Vatican Mythographer 141). The institution of the Nemean games in honour of Opheltes or Archemorus was noticed by Aeschylus in a lost play. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), p. 49. The judges at the Nemean games wore dark-coloured robes in mourning, it is said, for Opheltes (Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. p. 425, ed. Boeckh); and the crown of parsley bestowed on the victor is reported to have been chosen for the same sad reason (Serv. Verg. Ecl. 6.68). However, according to another account, the crowns at Nemea were originally made of olive, but the material was changed to parsley after the disasters of the Persian war (Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. p. 425). The grave of Opheltes was at Nemea, enclosed by a stone wall; and there were altars within the enclosure (Paus. 2.15.3). Euripides wrote a tragedy Hypsipyle, of which many fragments have recently been discovered in Egyptian papyri. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 594ff.; A. S. Hunt, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta Papyracea nuper reperta (Oxford, no date, no pagination). In one of these fragments (col. iv.27ff.) it is said that Lycurgus was chosen from all Asopia to be the warder (Klêdouchos) of the local Zeus. There were officials bearing the same title (kleidouchoi) at Olympia (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 1021, vol. ii. p. 168) in Delos (Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, vol. i. p. 252, No. 170), and in the worship of Aesculapius at Athens (E. S. Roberts and E. A. Gardner, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, Part ii. p. 410, No. 157). The duty from which they took their title was to keep the keys of the temple. A fine relief in the Palazzo Spada at Rome represents the serpent coiled round the dead body of the child Opheltes and attacked by two of the heroes, while in the background Hypsipyle is seen retreating, with her hands held up in horror and her pitcher lying at her feet. See W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i.473; Baumeister, Denkmaler des klassichen Altertums, i.113, fig. 119. The death of Opheltes or Archemorus is also the subject of a fine vase-painting, which shows the dead boy lying on a bier and attended by two women, one of whom is about to crown him with a wreath of myrtle, while the other holds an umbrella over his head to prevent, it has been suggested, the sun's rays from being defiled by falling on a corpse. Amongst the figures in the painting, which are identified by inscriptions, is seen the mother Eurydice standing in her palace between the suppliant Hypsipyle on one side and the dignified Amphiaraus on the other. See E. Gerhard, “Archemoros,” Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Berlin, 1866- 1868) i.5ff., with Abbildungen, taf. i.; K. Friederichs, Praxiteles und die Niobegruppe (Leipzig, 1855), pp. 123ff.; Baumeister, op. cit. i.114, fig. 120.

96. See above, Apollod. 1.9.17.

97. That is, “beginner of doom”; hence “ominous,” “foreboding.” The name is so interpreted by Bacch. 8.14, ed. Jebb, sama mellontos phonou, by the Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. pp. 424ff. ed. Boeckh, and by Lactantius Placidus in his commentary on Statius, Theb. iv 717.

98. For the embassy of Tydeus to Thebes and its sequel, see Hom. Il. 4.382-398; Hom. Il. 5.802-808, with the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 4.376; Diod. 4.65.4; Statius, Theb. ii.307ff.

99. The siege of Thebes by the Argive army under the Seven Champions is the subject of two extant Greek tragedies, the Seven against Thebes of Aeschylus, and the Phoenissae of Euripides. In both of them the attack on the seven gates by the Seven Champions is described. See the Aesch. Seven 375ff.; Eur. Ph. 105ff.; Eur. Ph. 1090ff. The siege is also the theme of Statius's long-winded and bombastic epic, the Thebaid. Compare also Diod. 4.65.7-9; Paus. 1.39.2; Paus. 2.20.5; Paus. 8.25.4; Paus. 10.10.3; Hyginus, Fab. 69, 70. The war was also the subject of two lost poems of the same name, the Thebaid of Callinus, an early elegiac poet, and the Thebaid of Antimachus, a contemporary of Plato. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 9ff., 275ff. As to the seven gates of Thebes, see Paus. 9.8.4-7, with Frazer, commentary (vol. iv. pp. 35ff.). The ancients were not entirely agreed as to the names of the gates.

100. That is, “the Highest Gate.”