Текст книги "The Library of Greek Mythology"

Автор книги: Apollodorus

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a son, Medos: either directly (P. 2. 3. 7) or through her son, she becomes the eponym of the Medes, whose empire south-west of the Caspian Sea was later absorbed into the Persian Empire. According to another tradition, Medea bore Medos to an Asian king after her expulsion from Athens, DS 4. 55. 7, and he then succeeded to his father’s kingdom.

she killed Perses: or Medos killed him and conquered Media thereafter (DS 4. 56. 1, cf. Hyg. 27).

Inachos: as one of the most prominent features in the landscape, rivers often appear at an early stage in local genealogies. The statement that the river was named after him presents the matter in a rationalized form; Inachos would originally have been the river itself, which, in myth, can function as a person at the same time, cf. Acheloos on p. 113.

Phoroneus and Aigialeus: in the mythology of their particular areas each would be seen as the local earth-born ‘first man’, Phoroneus in Argos, and Aigialeus in Aigialeia to the north of Argos (in the region of Sicyon; compare his position in the local genealogies as reported by P. 2. 5. 5). Here they are absorbed into a broader genealogical scheme.

was called Sarapis: the cult of Sarapis, which was encouraged by the Hellenistic kings of Egypt, developed from the cult of Apis, the sacred bull worshipped at Memphis. The Argive Apis is here identified with the Egyptian Apis, and thence with Sarapis, who became the chief god in the cult of the Egyptian gods as celebrated outside Egypt.

Pelasgos: the ‘first man’ in Arcadia, in the central Peloponnese; that he was born from the earth was the local tradition. Ap. will return to Pelasgos and the mythology of Arcadia on p. 114.

Pelasgians: also used in a more general sense to refer to the aboriginal inhabitants of various parts of Greece, notably Thessaly.

calling the Peloponnese Argos: this continues a pattern in which regional names are said to have originated as names for the whole Peloponnese. (According to the context, the name Argos can refer either to the Argolid, as a region in the north-east Peloponnese, or to Argos, as the main city within it.)

eyes all over his body: as with the hydra’s heads, the numbers vary according to the fancy of the author. That he had eyes ‘all over’ may have been wrongly inferred from his title Panoptes. In Pherecydes (sc. Eur. Phoen. 1116) he had only a single extra eye, on the back of his head, granted to him by Hera, who also made him sleepless.

Echidna: a fearsome monster and progenitor of monsters, who lived in a cave in a hollow of the earth and feasted on raw flesh, see Theog. 295 ff.

Peiren: a son of the first Argos and Evadne; he can be identified with Peiras two paragraphs previously.

Zeus seduced Io: for all the following, cf. Aesch. Suppliants291 ff; there Io is transformed by Hera. See also [Aesch.] PV561 ff. and Ov. Met. 1. 583 ff.

betrayed by Hierax: otherwise unknown. Since hieraxmeans a hawk, perhaps associated with a transformation story (as with another Hierax in AL 3).

Argeiphontes: an ancient title (e.g. Od. 8. 338) of uncertain origin, here interpreted as meaning ‘Argos-slayer’.

Ionian Gulf: the Adriatic; for this explanation of its name, cf. [Aesch.] PV 836 ff.

Bosporos: ‘the cow’s strait’, or ‘ox ford’; a valid etymology.

Hera asked the Curetes . . . discovered Epaphos: as Ap. remarks, the Greeks identified Io with the Egyptian goddess Isis, and the present story is based on the tale of Isis’ search for the lost Osiris; for a Greek account of the latter, see Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris355 ff. Osiris was washed ashore at Byblos. In view of the Curetes’ previous services to him, p. 28, it seems ungrateful of Zeus to kill them.

until later: see pp. 96 ff. for Agenor and the Cretan/Theban line.

Belos: the name is derived from the Phoenician Baal, strictly a god, but often taken by the Greeks to be an early eastern king.

Melampodes: ‘Blackfeet’, an epithet for the Egyptians found in late authors only.

the first man to do so: but the Argo, p. 49, was more commonly regarded as the first ship (which is why it was turned into a constellation by Athene, Catast. 35). In either case, the ship was built with Athene’s help.

Gelanor. . . surrendered the throne to him: according to P. 2. 16. 1, Gelanor, son of Sthenelas, was a great-grandson of Agenor, Io’s uncle (or on p. 58, her great-grandfather); and Danaos too had a legitimate claim as a descendant of Io. Pausanias gives the local tradition (P. 2. 19. 3 f.). The Argives found their claims so evenly balanced that they deferred the decision until the following day; and early the next morning, a wolf attacked a herd of cattle grazing outside the walls and killed the bull. So the Argives ceded the throne to Danaos, taking this to be a sign from the gods (with the wolf representing Danaos, the outsider). And Danaos, believing that Apollo had sent the wolf, founded the most important cult in the city of Argos, that of Apollo Lycaios (‘Wolfish’ Apollo).

After he . . . Danaans after himself: included with the preceding lines in sc. Il. 1. 42, as part of a citation from the second book of Apollodorus; not accepted by all editors.

Poseidon . . . belonged to Hera: see p. 130 for a similar dispute at Athens; these were in effect contests for special cultic honours from the inhabitants. For further details, see P. 2. 15. 5; this explains why the Argive rivers (including the Inachos) run dry in summer, except at Lerna.

Lerna: there was a stream there called Amymone, p. 74, cf. P. 2. 37. 1. Lerna has more sinister associations as the home of the hydra, p. 74.

Hypermnestra . . . spared Lynceus: they will be the ancestors of the Argive royal line thereafter. See also P. 2. 25. 4 and 2. 19. 6.

they were purified: but in late sources the Danaids are listed amongst those who suffer punishment in Hades (e.g. Ov. Met. 4. 462, Horace Odes3. 11. 28 ff.), where they attempt endlessly to fill perforated vessels with water.

at an athletic contest: see Pind. Pyth. 9. 112 ff.

Amymone bore. . . in that very manner: Nauplios was conceived at Lerna, p. 61. Since Nauplios’ activities as a wrecker took place so much later (after the Trojan War, see p. 159), this would mean that he lived to an improbable age; some resolved the problem by claiming that the wrecker was a descendant of the Nauplios born to Amymone (in AR 1. 134 ff., he is a great-great-great-grandson). Seneca records that he was cast into the deep (Medea658 f.), but nothing is known of the exact circumstances.

Homer calk Anteia: in Il. 6. 160; on Stheneboia see also p. 64, and p. 115 where she is said to have been the daughter of Apheidas, an Arcadian.

fortified. . . by the Cyclopes: imagining that the monumental architecture of the Mycenaeans was beyond the power of man, the Greeks supposed that the fortifications of Tiryns and their like must be the work of giants or ‘Cyclopes’ (cf. P. 2. 25. 7). In view of the popular origin of this tradition, there is little point in asking exactly who these Cyclopes were, but the ancient mythographers (e.g. sc. Theog. 139) thought that they should be distinguished from the primordial Hesiodic Cyclopes on p. 27, and also from the primitive pastoral Cyclopes of Homer, p. 165.

Acousilaos. . . Hera: the anger of Hera was generally regarded as the cause of their madness. According to Bacch. 2. 47 ff., they were sent mad for boasting in the precinct of Hera that their father was wealthier than the goddess; the present story that they mocked her primitive cultic image (xoanon)is probably of somewhat later origin. In Bacch. (2. 95 ff.) they were cured by Artemis after their father prayed to her and vowed twenty oxen, but in Hes. Cat. by Melampous (frs. 131 ff., cf. fr. 37).

the other women: the women of Argos, cf. p. 47, where the madness was attributed to Dionysos; the story was doubtless of separate origin from that of the daughters of Proitos. Herodotus (9. 34) is the only other source for the raising of the fee (but there the daughters of Proitos are not involved). Some date the madness of the Argive women to a later period, when Anaxagoras, a grandson of Proitos, was on the throne (DS 4. 68. 4; P. 2. 18. 4).

agreed to the cure on these terms: this introduces a further complexity into the pattern of rule in the Argolid. There are separate lines within the Inachid royal family, relating to a division of the territory between Tiryns and Argos, pp. 62 f. (and later, Mycenae); and now an additional Deucalionid royal family is inserted (which will be the most important at the time of the Theban Wars, see p. 107 and note). These complexities are the result of the mythographers’ efforts to impose a modicum of order on an inherited mass of largely irreconcilable myth. The threefold division of Argos does not reflect a peculiarity in Argive institutions comparable to the dual monarchy in Sparta; and one soon finds that it is impossible to trace clear lines of descent linking each of the main centres to each family or branch of a family.

killed his brother: or a Corinthian nobleman named Belleros (sc. Lycophr. 17, sc. Il. 6. 155), hence his name Bellerophon (or ‘Belleros-slayer’, cf. Hermes ‘Argeiphontes’ on p. 59).

to be purified: this is a recurring pattern in these myths. A person who spills another’s blood becomes polluted, and thus a danger to his native community (because he is liable to become the cause of barrenness, plague, and the like). He must therefore go into exile and be purified. That he is purified by a king rather than a priest reflects in part the sacral character of early kingship, and in part the social function of purification in enabling the polluted man to be integrated into the community of the king who purifies him.

Stheneboia fell in love with him: the following accords with Il. 6. 154 ff. (except that Homer calls her Anteia, as remarked above).

to Iobates: Proitos’ father-in-law, see above, who lived in Lycia, in the south-western corner of Asia Minor.

a third head in the middle: we are to understand that the dragon’s tail has a head at the end, cf. Theog. 321 ff., and that this middle head is on a neck that grows from the monster’s back.

Amisodaros: see Il. 16.328 ff. A Lycian like Iobates (who is not named by Homer), and the father of two sons in Sarpedon’s company.

as Hesiod records: Theog. 319 f. (but Hesiod’s text is ambiguous and he may have meant that the Lernaean hydra was its mother).

climbed on to . . . Pegasos: as in Theog. 325 and Hes. Cat. fr. 43a, 84 ff.; there is no mention of him in Homer’s account, Il. 6. 179 ff. For the story of his birth, see p. 66 and Theog. 278 ff. He was given to Bellerophon by Poseidon (sc. Il. 6. 155), or by Athene, who had tamed and bridled him with her own hands (P. 2. 4. 1); or according to Pind. ol. 13. 63 ff, Bellerophon bridled Pegasos himself after obtaining advice from a seer on how to obtain divine favour for the enterprise. It was said that Bellerophon was killed when he tried to fly to Olympos on Pegasos, Pind. Isth. 7. 44 ff.

the Solymoi: they lived in southern Asia Minor to the west of Lycia (see Strabo 14. 3. 9).

in youthful vigour: following Zenobius 2. 87; the text is problematic.

some say by Proitos: although this variant (apparently derived from Pindar, sc. Il. 14. 319) is cited first, it was generally accepted that Perseus was a son of Zeus; for the quarrel between the twins, see pp. 62 f.

when Acrisios learned: according to Pherecydes (sc. AR 4. 1091) he heard the voice of the child while he was at play at three or four years of age, and had Danae brought up from the chamber with the child’s nurse, whom he killed.

Polydectes. . . Dictys: for their birth and origin, see p. 44.

a marriage-offering: as in Homer, the bride would be purchased from her father with a bride-gift, hedna, which was often substantial (e.g. Il. 11. 243 ff). For Hippodameia, see p. 144.

did not take the horses of Perseus: this seems to be Ap.’s meaning (rather than that he failed to receive any horses from him, as in Frazer’s translation), as in the clearer account reported from Pherecydes (in sc. AR. 4. 1515a; when Dictys asks him for a horse, Perseus replies hyperbolically that he would give him the Gorgon’s head, and the following day, he refuses to accept Perseus’ horse alone, holding him instead to his ‘promise’).

the daughters of Phonos: the Graiai (Old Women). In Theog. 270 ff., there are only two, and although they were grey-haired from birth, they are said to be fair-cheeked and beautifully robed. The shared eye and tooth first appear in Pherecydes sc. AR 4. 1515a and[Aesch.] PV795f.

winged sandals: belonging to Hermes, which Perseus needs to reach the Gorgons, and then escape from them (the tradition that he escaped on Pegasos, e.g. Ov. Amatoria3. 12. 24, found little favour in antiquity). On the kibisis, see Appendix, 1 and note.

of Hades: inserted by Heyne, but not necessarily in the original, as the reader could be expected to know (as in P. 3. 17. 3). The leather helmet or cap belongs to Hades because his name suggests invisibility (a-ides). The notion that he was ‘armed’ with it by the Cyclopes, p. 28, is a fancy from a relatively late period.

conceived them previously by Poseidon: she had slept with him in a spring meadow, see Theog. 278 ff.

Cassiepeia: the form Cassiopeia, familiar from the constellation, never appears in ancient writings; it seems to have originated as a hybrid between this and the ancient variant Cassiope (Ov. Met. 4. 738 etc.).

Ammon: he had an oracle at the oasis of Siwa in Egypt, which was regarded by the Greeks as an oracle of Zeus.

claimed to rival the goddess in beauty: this may seem surprising, but we have seen that she was once attractive to Poseidon; according to Ov. Met. 4. 798 ff, Athene transformed her into her familiar Gorgonic form because she had slept with Poseidon in the goddess’ sanctuary.

what the oracle had predicted: that he would be killed by his daughter’s son, pp. 64 f.

king of Larissa: this lay in the land of the (Thessalian) Pelasgians, and we should understand that Acrisios went to stay with Teutamides. In Pherecydes’ account (sc. AR 4. 1091) Perseus went there specifically to find Acrisios, and became involved in the games by chance.

on the foot, killing him: this seems odd—the incident on p. 76, which involves a poisoned arrow, is not comparable—but it accords with Pherecydes’ account in sc. AR 4. 1091. In Hyg. 63, the wind blows the discus from his hand at Acrisios’ head, so fulfilling the will of the gods. Some said that Perseus himself invented the discus, and was using the occasion to demonstrate his skill with it (P. 2. 16. 2).

fortified. . . Mycenae: Perseus was commonly seen as its founder (cf. P. 2. 16. 3). Henceforth it will be one of the three great centres in the Argolid with Argos and Tiryns.

gone far: telou ebe: hence Teleboans. The etymology is forced; the name probably means ‘those whose (war-) criescan be heard from afar’.

descendant of Perseus. . . about to be born: Zeus means Heracles (see p. 70), his own son by Alcmene, the wife of Amphitryon, grandson of Perseus; but Hera’s stratagem will ensure that Eurystheus, a grandson of Perseus, will be born before Heracles, and thus rule at Mycenae in accordance with this declaration by Zeus. Hera is always jealous of Zeus’ children by other women. (As is usual in mythical history, Heracles’ divine parentage does not exclude him from the lineage of his putative mortal father; he is also descended from Perseus through his mother.)

the Eileithuiai: there was a goddess Eileithuia specifically associated with childbirth, cf. p. 29, but the name was also used in the plural as a generic term to refer to other divine beings in so far as they helped (or hindered) childbirth. The story is told by Homer, Il. 19. 96 ff.; compare P. 9. 11. 2 and Ov. Met. 9. 292 ff. for later developments. In Homer, Hera merely restrains the Eileithuiai (Il. 19. 119) from helping Alcmene, but in the later tradition they actively hinder the birth.

of their maternal grandfather: the text is confused. For the basis of their claim, see p. 68; the succession runs: Perseus—Mestor– Hippothoe—Taphios—Pterelaos—the sons of Pterelaos. Earlier in the sentence I have kept the manuscript reading ‘with Taphios’ (cf. Tzetz. sc. Lycophr. 932; as against ‘with some Taphians’ following Heyne’s emendation); the fact that the sons of Pterelaos are seeking to regain the kingdom of the maternal grandfather of Taphioscould well explain the original meaning of the text, or the proper reference of the problematic phrase if it is a gloss. Note that Electryon, a son of Perseus, is involved in a dispute with the great-great-great-grandsons of Perseus! The islands of the Teleboans lay opposite Acarnania near the entrance to the Corinthian Gulf.

striking him dead: by accident, but there is also an early tradition that they argued over the cattle and Amphitryon killed him in a fit of anger (see Hes. Shield11 f. and 82). This gives Sthenelos a pretext to take power in Mycenae, and Hera’s stratagem will ensure that his son Eurystheus rules there after him; and the expulsion of Amphitryon and Alcmene explains why Heracles will start his life in exile at Thebes.

she would marry him: this corresponds with the account attributed to Pherecydes in sc. Il. 14. 323 and sc. Od. 11. 266, but in Hes. Shield14 ff. (in lines taken from Hes. Cat.)they were already married (as one might well infer from the previous paragraph) and she makes the consummationof the marriage conditional on the vengeance. (Without a small emendation by Wagner, the passage would read, ‘she would marry the person who avenged . . .’)

the vixen: the Teumessian fox, which had its lair on Mount Teumessos in Boeotia; Dionysos is said to have sent it (P. 9. 19. 1) but we are not told why. (Perhaps because he was rejected by Pentheus, p. 103.) Here the Cadmeia clearly means the territory of Thebes (rather than just the citadel).

Cephalos, son of Deioneus: for his birth, see p. 44 (Deioneus can be identified with Deion).

the dog: its name was Lailaps, ‘Hurricane’ (e.g. Hyg. 189); for how Cephalos came to possess it, see also p. 134.

Zeus turned. . . them to stone: this divine intervention was needed to resolve, or at least remove, the intolerable contradiction which arose when a beast that was fated to catch its prey was set in pursuit of a beast that was fated never to be caught. In astral mythology Zeus turns the dog into a constellation (Canis Major, Catast. 33).

put Comaitho to death: he is unwilling to accept the love of one who has betrayed her father and city; compare the story of Scylla on p. 137.

Heracles: the only other complete life history to survive from antiquity is that of Diodorus of Sicily (4. 8–39), which follows a similar pattern, and should be consulted on all the following.

killed the serpents: cf. Pind. Nem. 1. 39 ff.

Linos had struck him: after losing patience at his ‘sluggishness of soul’, DS 3. 67. 2. Surviving accounts are late, although the episode is depicted in fifth-century vase-paintings.

Rhadamanthys: the Cretan lawmaker who became a judge in Hades, see p. 97.

should all conceive children by Heracles: he is impressed by his extraordinary strength and expects him to father fine children, cf. DS 4. 29. 3. According to the temple legend at Thespiai, P. 9. 27. 5, he slept with all but one, who became his priestess at the temple, and did so in a single night.

dressed in its skin: but according to some, it was the Nemean lion, p. 73, who provided the skin (e.g. Theocritus 25. 163 ff.; as the skin of an invulnerable beast, it had the advantage of being impenetrable—Heracles had to use the lion’s own claws to cut it).

the Minyans: here the inhabitants of Orchomenos in north-western Boeotia (cf. Il. 2. 511).

charioteer of Menoiceus: his master, a grandson of Pentheus, was a member of the Theban royal family; the killing was also attributed to a group of Thebans (P. 9. 37. 1 f.).

by Eurytos: in the manuscripts, autou, ‘by him’, referring to Rhadamanthys. Because this seems unlikely in itself, and Ap. said above that Heracles was taught archery by Eurytos, most editors favour the present emendation; but it is possible that there is a more extensive corruption. In DS 4. 14. 3 he is taught archery by Apollo.