The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (38 page)

Tlepolemos. . . killed Licymnios
: cf.
Il
. 2. 653 ff, Pind.
ol
. 7. 27 ff., where the killing is not accidental as here; and see Strabo 14. 8. 6 ff. for the place of Tlepolemos in Rhodian mythology. On Licymnios, Alcmene’s brother, see p. 69; the incident took place at Argos, where his grave was shown (P. 2. 22. 8).

with his army
: the narrative is now interrupted by a gap in the text. Hyllos must certainly have been defeated and killed. It was generally accepted that he challenged the Peloponnesians to settle the matter by single combat; and that when Echemos, king of Tegea, took up the challenge and killed Hyllos, the Heraclids withdrew in accordance with the agreed terms (Hdt. 9. 26. cf. DS 4. 58. 2–4, and P. 8. 5. 1; but we cannot be sure that Ap. told the story in this way, because he talks of a ‘further battle’ in the next invasion). And then, according to Eusebius
(Prep. Evang
. 5. 20), Aristomachos, the son of Cleodaios and grandson of Hyllos, consulted the oracle about how they should invade the Peloponnese, and was told that they would be victorious if they travelled by the narrow route. So he invaded by the Isthmus of Corinth, only to be defeated and killed (as Ap. reports when the text resumes). This oracle, so disastrously misinterpreted by Aristomachos, must have been mentioned in the missing passage because it is referred to without explanation shortly below.

Tisamenos. . . was king of the Peloponnesians
: as the last Pelopid, ruling both Argos and Lacedaimon, Tisamenos was the most important king in the Peloponnese, but by no means the only king (cf. P. 2. 18. 7).

Aristomachos
: in the manuscripts, Cleolaos, a mistake for Cleodaios, the son of Hyllos and father of Aristomachos, but Cleodaios was killed during Hyllos’ invasion and Aristomachos during the next, so the final return will be led by the sons of Aristomachos, Temenos and Cresphontes (Aristodemos, his other son, being killed beforehand), as we will see below. There must surely have been an account of the Heraclid line from Hyllos onwards in the missing passage just above.

by the narrows, the broad-bellied sea
: this is not as perverse as it sounds. They had thought that the oracle meant a narrow stretch of land, the Isthmus of Corinth, but it really meant the Gulf of Corinth (which is to the right of the Isthmus from the perspective of Delphi, to the north of it), which stretches a great distance from east to west (and is in that sense broad-bellied) but is very narrow if one is crossing from its northern shore to the Peloponnese at the south.

Naupactos
: the name is said to be derived from
naus epexato
(cf. P. 10. 38. 5). Naupactos lies in western Locris, where the Corinthian Gulf is at its narrowest before it widens again at the entrance.

Aristodemos
: one of the three sons of Aristomachos; for another account of his death, see P. 3. 1. 6. According to the Lacedaimonian tradition he survived to lead the conquest of Sparta (Hdt. 6. 52, Xenophon
Agesilaos
8. 7).

because of the diviner
: these disasters were caused by the anger of Apollo, who had inspired the seer (named by Pausanias as Carnos, an Acarnanian) with his gift of prophecy (P. 3. 13. 4).

Oxylos
: compare P. 5. 3. 5 ff, where he is said to have been the son of Haimon, son of Thoas, son of Andraimon; he had accidentally killed his brother Thermios (or a certain Alcidocos, son of Scopios) when throwing a discus.

Pamphylos and Dymas, the sons of Aigimios
: see pp. 89–90. The Heraclids were leading a Dorian army together with the descendants of their king Aigimios (himself the son of Doros, eponym of the Dorians). These sons of Aigimios (now allies of the great-great-grandsons of Heracles!) were the eponymous ancestors of the Pamphyloi and Dymanes, two of the three tribes into which the
Dorians were divided in most of their communities, the third, the Hylleis, being named after Hyllos (regarded as an adopted son of Aigimios).

a clod of earth
: cf. P. 4. 3. 4 f, essentially the same story, although the stratagem is slightly different. There was rich agricultural land in Messenia (which was conquered in the eighth to seventh centuries by the Spartans, who reduced its inhabitants to serfdom).

Temenos spurned. . . Deiphontes
: see P. 2. 19. 1 and 2. 28. 3 ff.

some men from Titana
: reading
Titanious
for
titanas;
Titana lay near Sicyon. Or perhaps simply
tinas
, ‘some men’.

Cresphontes. . . was assassinated
: presumably Polyphontes is responsible, as in Hyg. 137; but in P. 4. 3. 7, where there is no mention of Polyphontes, he is killed by the men of property because he has been ruling in the interest of the common people, and Aipytos, the son of Cresphontes who escaped, is placed on the throne by the Arcadians and other Dorian kings when he grows up.

As we have said
: see p. 60.

It is said by some
: including Homer,
Il
. 14. 321 f. There was much disagreement on these genealogies.

whose breath smelled of roses
: reading
rhodou apopneon (apopleon
in the manuscripts). This may seem strange, but Hes.
Cat
. fr. 140 refers to an odour of saffron coming from the bull’s mouth. Carriere points to. Eustathius on
Il
. 14. 321, where it is further stated that Europa came to love the bull because it smelt of roses.

according to Homer
: see
Il
. 6. 198 f; but Homer’s Sarpedon lived at a much later period, for he commanded the Lycians during the Trojan War. Ap. claims below that the present Sarpedon was granted an exceptionally long life by Zeus, while according to DS (5. 78. 3), the Sarpedon at Troy was a separate figure, the grandson of the present Sarpedon (who will settle in Lycia, see below); such were the alternative ways in which the mythographers resolved chronological problems of this kind.

the city of Thasos in Thrace
: the island of Thasos, which contained a city of the same name, lay off the coast of Thrace; this is poorly expressed, if not corrupt. Thasos is said to have founded the original settlement on the island with Phoenician followers (cf. Hdt. 6. 46 f. and P. 5. 25. 12, where Thasos is described as a son of Phoenix and of Agenor respectively).

they quarrelled with one another
: not all three of them, for it appears from the following narrative that the conflict over Miletos involved
Minos and Sarpedon alone (which is consistent with the account in AL 30, following Nicander, where there is no mention of Rhadamanthys). The present story is probably of Hellenistic origin; Herodotus (1. 173) speaks merely of a fight for the throne, in which Minos gained the upper hand and expelled Sarpedon and his followers.

Miletos landed in Caria
: in the south-west corner of Asia Minor; Lycia lay south-east of it, and Cilicia to the east of that. For the foundation of Miletos, cf. P. 7. 2. 3.

for the islanders
: although somewhat ambiguous, this is probably a reference to the tradition that he laid down laws for the Aegean islanders (cf. DS 5. 79). The Cretan constitution (which bore some resemblance to that of Sparta and was highly regarded) was attributed either to Rhadamanthys (DS 4. 60, Strabo 10. 4. 8) or to Minos (e.g. DS 4. 78).

married Alcmene
: Heracles’ mother, see p. 72. The reason for his flight is unclear.

sits as a judge with Minos in Hades
: first attested by Plato in the fourth century
(Apol
. 41a, probably referring to an earlier tradition, associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries); in Homer, Minos judges in Hades, continuing his earthly function amongst the shades
(Od
. 11. 568 ff.), while Rhadamanthys lives for ever in Elysium
(Od
. 4. 563 f.) on the earth’s surface. See also Pind.
ol
. 2. 75 ff.

exiled from Athens for murder
: see p. 138.

the Minotaur
: the ‘Minos-bull’. See also DS 4. 77.

with a maze. . . passage out
: a verse fragment of unknown origin (Tr. Adesp. 34 Nauck).

me will speak of that later
: see p. 140.

he consulted the oracle
: according to the other main source, DS 5. 59. 1 ff., the oracle was revealed to Althaimenes himself when he was enquiring about other things; this would make Catreus’ subsequent search for him more intelligible.

Atabyrion
: the tallest mountain in Rhodes, over 4,000 feet; the cult there was very ancient, perhaps of Phoenician origin. Cf. DS 5. 59. 2.

Nauplios
: see p. 62 and note; a great traveller who is enlisted else where to perform such services, see p. 88.

Pleisthenes married. . . Aerope
: following Hes.
Cat
. (fr. 194–5, where Pleisthenes is the son of Atreus); Agamemnon and Menelaos
were more generally regarded as her children by Atreus, see also p. 146 and note.

Idomeneus
: he succeeded Catreus as king of Crete, was one of Helen’s suitors, p. 121, and led the Cretans in the Trojan War. Traditions vary as to whether he recovered his throne after the war (as
Od
. 3. 191 seems to suggest) or was expelled by Leucos, p. 160.

Glaucos
: a son of Minos and Pasiphae, see p. 97.

Polyidos
: a descendant of the seer Melampous (either a great-grandson or a great-great-grandson, P. 1. 43. 5 and sc.
Il
. 13. 63 respectively); he is particularly associated with Corinth (
Il
. 13. 663, cf. Pind.
ol
. 13. 75).

compared the cow’s colouring to a blackberry
: according to Hyg. 136, the cow was not dappled, as one might suppose, but changed colour three times a day, and the colours were white, red, and black; a blackberry passes through that sequence of colours as it ripens.

by a certain kind of divination
: Hyg., ibid., reports that while Polyidos was observing omens, he saw an owl
(glaux
, suggesting Glaucos) sitting over the wine-cellar and putting bees (suggesting honey) to flight.

a cow from the herds of Pelagon
: according to the oracle as reported by sc. Eur.
Phoen
. 638, he was told to seek for this herds man. This was no ordinary cow; on each flank it had a white mark like the full moon (P. 9. 12. 1).

Spartoi
: ‘Sown Men’.

deliberately
: the reading in the Epitome,
hekousion
, is surely preferable to
akousion
, ‘involuntarily’, in the manuscripts. Otherwise the antithesis is lost.

for an everlasting year
: to atone for the killing of Ares’ dragon (not the death of the Spartoi); the text may well be corrupt here, because Hellanicos, who is almost certainly Ap.’s source for this story, says that Cadmos served Ares for a (normal) year (sc.
Il
. 2. 494, where we are also told that Ares initially wanted to kill him, but Zeus prevented it). The phrase explaining what an everlasting or ‘great’ year means seems to be a gloss.

the Cadmeia
: the eminence dominating Thebes and site of the citadel.

a deception by Hera
: Hera assumed the form of her nurse, Beroe, and appealed to her vanity: if Zeus really loved her, she should ask him to come to her as he would to a goddess (Hyg. 179, VM 2. 79; see also Ov.
Met
. 3. 259 ff., this would also serve as a test that he is not merely pretending to be a god).

daughters ofCadmos . . . because of that
: see Eur.
Bacchae
23 ff. and 242 ff.; the slander is central to the plot of the
Bacchae
, because it is this that provokes Dionysos to demonstrate his powers in Thebes and drive the women mad, as described below, p. 102.

Hera . . . drove them mad
: see also p. 43 and note.

Leucothea
: she became the ‘White Goddess’, who had a general Mediterranean cult as a deity who protected seafarers. It was she who saved Odysseus when Poseidon sent a storm against him after he had left Calypso,
Od
. 5. 333 ff.

Isthmian Games. . . in honour of Melicertes
: his body was cast ashore on the Isthmus of Corinth; he is often said to have been carried there by a dolphin, see P. 1. 44. 11. These games were held at Corinth. For Sisyphos, king of Ephyra/Corinth, see p. 44. His hero-cult as Palaimon was centred in this area (see e.g. P. 2. 2. 3).

the Hyades
: seven stars in the constellation Taurus, outlining the face of the bull; it was commonly said that Zeus placed them there for delivering Dionysos safely to Ino (ascribed to Pherecydes in Hyg.
PA
21).

saw Artemis bathing
: this story, which first appears in Callimachus
(Hymn
5. 107 ff.; cf. Hyg. 181), is generally accepted in the later tradition; hunting on a hot day on Mount Cithairon in Boeotia, he fell asleep by a spring, and awoke to see Artemis bathing. It displaces the earlier tradition, as represented in Hes.
Cat
. (see note on Appendix, 4) and Stesichorus (P. 9. 2. 3) that the anger of Zeus led to his death. Or according to Eur.
Bacchae
339 ff., she killed him because he boasted that he was a better hunter.

driven mad by Hera
: because he was a son of Zeus by another woman.

learned the rites of initiation
: the rites of Cybele, the great mother-goddess of Phrygia, who was worshipped with ecstatic rites and mountain wandering, came to be identified with those of Rhea in Crete. Accordingly, Dionysos is taught his ecstatic rites by Rhea at Cybele’s home in north-western Asia Minor.

Lycourgos
: for his hostility and the flight of Dionysos, cf.
Il
. 6. 130 ff.; the land of the Edonians lay in north-eastern Macedonia, bordering Thrace.

Bacchai
: the women seized by Bacchic frenzy.

Satyrs
: daemons who attended Dionysos. They had a thick tail like that of a horse, and in many depictions, the lower half of their body is like that of a goat or a horse and they are ithyphallic. The behaviour of the Satyr on pp. 60–1 is characteristic.