Library

Apollodorus

Apollodorus. The Library. Frazer, James George, Sir, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

Let us now return to Pelasgus, who, Acusilaus says, was a son of Zeus and Niobe, as we have supposed,[*](See above, Apollod. 2.1.1.) but Hesiod declares him to have been a son of the soil. He had a son Lycaon[*](The following passage about Lycaon and his sons, down to and including the notice of Deucalion's flood, is copied, to a great extent verbally, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 481), who mentions Apollodorus by name as his authority. For another and different list of Lycaon's sons, see Paus. 8.3.1ff., who calls Nyctimus the eldest son of Lycaon, whereas Apollodorus calls him the youngest (see below). That the wife of Pelasgus and mother of Lycaon was Cyllene is affirmed by the Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1645.) by Meliboea, daughter of Ocean or, as others say, by a nymph Cyllene; and Lycaon, reigning over the Arcadians, begat by many wives fifty sons, to wit: Melaeneus, Thesprotus, Helix, Nyctimus, Peucetius, Caucon, Mecisteus, Hopleus, Macareus, Macednus, Horus, Polichus, Acontes, Evaemon, Ancyor, Archebates, Carteron, Aegaeon, Pallas, Eumon, Canethus, Prothous, Linus, Coretho, Maenalus, Teleboas, Physius, Phassus, Phthius, Lycius, Halipherus, Genetor, Bucolion, Socleus, Phineus, Eumetes, Harpaleus, Portheus, Plato, Haemo, Cynaethus, Leo, Harpalycus, Heraeeus, Titanas, Mantineus, Clitor, Stymphalus, Orchomenus, --- These exceeded all men in pride

391
and impiety; and Zeus, desirous of putting their impiety to the proof, came to them in the likeness of a day-laborer. They offered him hospitality and having slaughtered a male child of the natives, they mixed his bowels with the sacrifices, and set them before him, at the instigation of the elder brother Maenalus.[*](With this and what follows compare Nicolaus Damascenus, Frag. 43 (Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, iii.378; Suidas, s.v. Λυκάων ): “Lycaon, son of Pelasgus and king of Arcadia, maintained his father's institutions in righteousness. And wishing like his father to wean his subjects from unrighteousness he said that Zeus constantly visited him in the likeness of a stranger to view the righteous and the unrighteous. And once, as he himself said, being about to receive the god, he offered a sacrifice. But of his fifty sons, whom he had, as they say, by many women, there were some present at the sacrifice, and wishing to know if they were about to give hospitality to a real god, they sacrificed a child and mixed his flesh with that of the victim, in the belief that their deed would be discovered if the visitor was a god indeed. But they say that the deity caused great storms to burst and lightnings to flash, and that all the murderers of the child perished.” A similar version of the story is reported by Hyginus, Fab. 176, who adds that Zeus in his wrath upset the table, killed the sons of Lycaon with a thunderbolt, and turned Lycaon himself into a wolf. According to this version of the legend, which Apollodorus apparently accepted, Lycaon was a righteous king, who ruled wisely like his father Pelasgus before him (see Paus. 8.1.4-6), but his virtuous efforts to benefit his subjects were frustrated by the wickedness and impiety of his sons, who by exciting the divine anger drew down destruction on themselves and on their virtuous parent, and even imperilled the existence of mankind in the great flood. But according to another, and perhaps more generally received, tradition, it was King Lycaon himself who tempted his divine guest by killing and dishing up to him at table a human being; and, according to some, the victim was no other than the king's own son Nyctimus. See Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.36, p. 31, ed. Potter; Nonnus, Dionys. xviii.20ff.; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes iv.24. Some, however, said that the victim was not the king's son, but his grandson Arcas, the son of his daughter Callisto by Zeus. See Eratosthenes, Cat. 8; Hyginus, Ast. ii.4; Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 387 (in Martianus Capella, ed. Fr. Eyssenhardt). According to Ov. Met. 1.218ff., the victim was a Molossian hostage. Others said simply that Lycaon set human flesh before the deity. See Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. xi.128; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i.5 (First Vatican Mythographer 17). For this crime Zeus changed the wicked king into a wolf, according to Hyginus, Ovid, the Scholiast on Caesar Germanicus, and the First Vatican Mythographer; but, on the other hand, Clement of Alexandria, Nonnus, Eratosthenes, and Arnobius say nothing of such a transformation. The upsetting of the table by the indignant deity is recorded by Eratosthenes, Cat. 8 as well as by Hyginus, Ast. ii.4 and Apollodorus. A somewhat different account of the tragical occurrence is given by Pausanias, who says (Paus. 8.2.3) that Lycaon brought a human babe to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, after which he was immediately turned into a wolf. These traditions were told to explain the savage and cruel rites which appear to have been performed in honour of Lycaean Zeus on Mount Lycaeus down to the second century of our era or later. It seems that a human victim was sacrificed, and that his inward parts (σπλάγχνον), mixed with that of animal victims, was partaken of at a sort of cannibal banquet by the worshippers, of whom he who chanced to taste of the human flesh was believed to be changed into a wolf and to continue in that shape for eight years, but to recover his human form in the ninth year, if in the meantime he had abstained from eating human flesh. See Plat. Rep. 8.565d-e; Paus. 8.2.6. According to another account, reported by Varro on the authority of a Greek writer Euanthes, the werewolf was chosen by lot, hung his clothes on an oak tree, swam across a pool, and was then transformed into a wolf and herded with wolves for nine years, afterwards recovering his human shape if in the interval he had not tasted the flesh of man. In this account there is no mention of cannibalism. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.81; Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.17. A certain Arcadian boxer, named Damarchus, son of Dinnytas, who won a victory at Olympia, is said to have been thus transformed into a wolf at the sacrifice of Lycaean Zeus and to have been changed back into a man in the tenth year afterwards. Of the historical reality of the boxer there can be no reasonable doubt, for his statue existed in the sacred precinct at Olympia, where it was seen by Pausanias; but in the inscription on it, which Pausanias copied, there was no mention made of the man's transformation into a wolf. See Paus. 6.8.2. However, the transformation was recorded by a Greek writer, Scopas, in his history of Olympic victors, who called the boxer Demaenatus, and said that his change of shape was caused by his partaking of the inward parts of a boy slain in the Arcadian sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus. Scopas also spoke of the restoration of the boxer to the human form in the tenth year, and mentioned that his victory in boxing at Olympia was subsequent to his experiences as a wolf. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.82; Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.17. The continuance of human sacrifice in the rites of Lycaean Zeus on Mount Lycaeus is hinted at by Paus. 8.38.7 in the second century of our era, and asserted by Porphyry, (De abstinentia ii.27: Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelii, iv.16.6) in the third century. From these fragmentary notices it is hardly possible to piece together a connected account of the rite; but the mention of the transformation of the cannibal into a wolf for eight or nine years suggests that the awful sacrifice was offered at intervals either of eight or of nine years. If the interval was eight years, it would point to the use of that eight years' cycle which played so important a part in the ancient calendar of the Greeks, and by which there is reason to think that the tenure of the kingship was in some places regulated. Perhaps the man who was supposed to be turned into a wolf acted as the priest, or even as the incarnation, of the Wolf God for eight or nine years till he was relieved of his office at the next celebration of the rites. The subject has been learnedly discussed by A. B. Cook (Zeus, i.63-99);. He regards Lycaean Zeus as a god of light rather than of wolves, and for this view there is much to be said. See Frazer on Paus. 8.38.7 (vol. iv. pp. 385ff.). The view would be confirmed if we were sure that the solemn sacrifice was octennial, for the octennial period was introduced in order to reconcile solar and lunar time, and hence the religious rites connected with it would naturally have reference to the great celestial luminaries. As to the octennial period, see the note on Apollod. 2.5.11. But with this view of the festival it is difficult to reconcile the part played by wolves in the myth and ritual. We can hardly suppose with some late Greek writers, that the ancient Greek word for a year, λυκάβας, was derived from λύκος, “a wolf,” and βαίνω, “to walk.” See Ael., Nat. Anim. x.26; Artemidorus, Onirocrit. ii.12; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xiv.161, p. 1756.) But Zeus in disgust upset the
393
table at the place which is still called Trapezus,[*](As to the town of Trapezus, see Paus. 8.3.3; Paus. 8.5.4; Paus. 8.27.4-6; Paus. 8.29.1; Paus. 8.31.5. The name is derived by Apollodorus from the Greek τράπεζα, “a table.” Compare Eratosthenes, Cat. 8.) and blasted Lycaon and his sons by thunderbolts, all but Nyctimus, the youngest; for Earth was quick enough
395
to lay hold of the right hand of Zeus and so appease his wrath.

But when Nyctimus succeeded to the kingdom, there occurred the flood in the age of Deucalion;[*](See above, Apollod. 1.7.2.) some said that it was occasioned by the impiety of Lycaon's sons. But Eumelus and some others say that Lycaon had also a daughter Callisto;[*](As to the love of Zeus for Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, her transformation into a bear, and finally into the constellation of the Bear, see Paus. 1.25.1; Paus. 8.3.6ff.; Eratosthenes, Cat. 1; Libanius, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, 34, p. 374; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 481; Hyginus, Fab. 155, 176, and 177; Ov. Met. 2.409-507; Serv. Verg. G. 1.138; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.685; Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 381, ed. F. Eyssenhardt (in his edition of Martianus Capella); Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 5 (First Vatican Mythographer 17; vol. ii. p. 94, Second Vatican Mythographer 58). The transformation of Callisto into a bear is variously ascribed to the amorous Zeus himself, to the jealous Hera, and to the indignant Artemis. The descent of the Arcadians from a bear-woman through a son Arcas, whose name was popularly derived from the Greek ἄρκτος, “a bear,” has sometimes been adduced in favour of the view that the Arcadians were a totemic people with the bear for their totem. See Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion (London, 1887), ii.211ff. ) though Hesiod says she was one of the nymphs, Asius that she was a daughter of Nycteus, and Pherecydes that she was a daughter of Ceteus.[*](The Tegean historian Araethus also described the mother of Arcas as the daughter of Ceteus; according to him she was the granddaughter, not the daughter, of Lycaon, and her name was Megisto, not Callisto. But he agreed in the usual tradition that the heroine had been transformed into a bear, and he seems to have laid the scene of the transformation at Nonacris in northern Arcadia. See Hyginus, Ast. ii.1. According to a Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1646, Callisto, mother of Arcas, was a daughter of Ceteus by Stilbe.) She was a companion of Artemis in the chase, wore the same garb, and swore to her to remain a maid. Now Zeus loved her and, having assumed the likeness, as some say, of Artemis, or, as others say, of Apollo, he shared her bed against her will, and wishing to escape the notice of Hera, he turned her into a bear. But Hera persuaded Artemis to shoot her down as a wild beast. Some say, however, that Artemis shot her down because she did not keep her

397
maidenhood. When Callisto perished, Zeus snatched the babe, named it Arcas, and gave it to Maia to bring up in Arcadia; and Callisto he turned into a star and called it the Bear.

Arcas had two sons, Elatus and Aphidas, by Leanira, daughter of Amyclas, or by Meganira, daughter of Croco, or, according to Eumelus, by a nymph Chrysopelia.[*](As to the sons of Arcas, and the division of Arcadia among them, see Paus. 8.4.1ff. According to Pausanias, Arcas had three sons, Azas, Aphidas, and Elatus by Erato, a Dryad nymph; to Azas his father Arcas assigned the district of Azania, to Aphidas the city of Tegea, and to Elatus the mountain of Cyllene.) These divided the land between them, but Elatus had all the power, and he begat Stymphalus and Pereus by Laodice, daughter of Cinyras, and Aphidas had a son Aleus and a daughter Stheneboea, who was married to Proetus. And Aleus had a daughter Auge and two sons, Cepheus and Lycurgus, by Neaera, daughter of Pereus. Auge was seduced by Hercules[*](For the story of Auge and Telephus, see above, Apollod. 2.7.4.) and hid her babe in the precinct of Athena, whose priesthood she held. But the land remaining barren, and the oracles declaring that there was impiety in the precinct of Athena, she was detected and delivered by her father to Nauplius to be put to death, and from him Teuthras, prince of Mysia, received and married her. But the babe, being exposed on Mount Parthenius, was suckled by a doe and hence called Telephus. Bred by the neatheards of Corythus, he went to Delphi in quest of his parents, and on information received from the god he repaired to Mysia and became an adopted son of Teuthras, on whose death he succeeded to the princedom.

399

Lycurgus had sons, Ancaeus, Epochus, Amphidamas, and Iasus,[*](Compare Paus. 8.4.10, who mentions only the first two of these four sons.) by Cleophyle or Eurynome. And Amphidamas had a son Melanion and a daughter Antimache, whom Eurystheus married. And Iasus had a daughter Atalanta[*](For the story of Atalanta, and how her suitor won her by the bait of the golden apples, see Theocritus ii i.40-42; Hyginus, Fab. 185; Ov. Met. 10.560-680; Serv. Verg. A. 3.113; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 14, 91 (First Vatican Mythographer 39; Second Vatican Mythographer 47). As Apollodorus points out, there was a difference of opinion as to the name of Atalanta's father. According to Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 215 and the First and Second Vatican Mythographers (Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 54, 124), he was Iasius; according to Ael., Var. Hist. xiii.1, he was Iasion. Prop. i.1.10 seems to agree with Apollodorus that her father was Iasus, for he calls Atalanta by the patronymic Iasis. But according to Diod. 4.34.4, Diod. 4.65.4, Paus. 8.35.10, Hyginus, and Ovid, her father was Schoeneus. Hesiod also called him Schoeneus (see Apollodorus, below), and the later writers just mentioned probably accepted the name on his authority. According to Euripides, as we learn from Apollodorus (see below), the name of the heroine's father was Maenalus. The suckling of Atalanta by the bear, and the unsuccessful assault on her by the two centaurs, Hylaeus and Rhoecus, are described, with a wealth of picturesque detail, by Aelian (Ael., Var. Hist. xiii.1), who does not, however, mention her wedding race. The suitor who won the coy maiden's hand by throwing down the golden apples is called Hippomenes by most writers (Theocritus, Hyginus, Ovid, Servius, First and Second Vatican Mythographers). Herein later writers may have followed Euripides, who, as we learn from Apollodorus (see below), also called the successful suitor Hippomanes. But by Prop. i.1.9 and Ovid, Ars Am. ii.188 the lover is called Milanion, which nearly agrees with the form Melanion adopted by Apollodorus. Pausanias seems also to have agreed with Apollodorus on this point, for he tells us (Apollod. 3.12.9) that Parthenopaeus, who was a son of Atalanta (see below), had Melanion for his father.) by Clymene, daughter of Minyas. This Atalanta was exposed by her father, because he desired male children; and a she bear came often and gave her suck, till hunters found her and brought her up among themselves. Grown to womanhood, Atalanta kept herself a virgin, and hunting in the wilderness she remained always under arms. The centaurs Rhoecus and Hylaeus tried to force her, but were shot down and killed by her. She went moreover with the chiefs to hunt the Calydonian boar, and at the games held in honor of Pelias she wrestled with

401
Peleus and won. Afterwards she discovered her parents, but when her father would have persuaded her to wed, she went away to a place that might serve as a racecourse, and, having planted a stake three cubits high in the middle of it, she caused her wooers to race before her from there, and ran herself in arms; and if the wooer was caught up, his due was death on the spot, and if he was not caught up, his due was marriage. When many had already perished, Melanion came to run for love of her, bringing golden apples from Aphrodite,[*](According to Ov. Met. 10.644ff. the goddess brought the golden apples from her sacred field of Tamasus, the richest land in Cyprus; there in the midst of the field grew a wondrous tree, its leaves and branches resplendent with crackling gold, and from its boughs Aphrodite plucked three golden apples. But, according to others, the apples came from the more familiar garden of the Hesperides. See Serv. Verg. A. 3.113; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 14 (First Vatican Mythographer 39).) and being pursued he threw them down, and she, picking up the dropped fruit, was beaten in the race. So Melanion married her. And once on a time it is said that out hunting they entered into the precinct of Zeus, and there taking their fill of love were changed into lions.[*](The sacrilege and its punishment are recorded also by Hyginus, Fab. 185; Serv. Verg. A. 3.113; and the First Vatican Mythographer (Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 14, (Fab. 39). The reason why the lovers were turned into a lion and a lioness for their impiety is explained by the ancient mythographers to be that lions do not mate with each other, but with leopards, so that after their transformation the lovers could never repeat the sin of which they had been guilty. For this curious piece of natural history they refer to Pliny's Natural History; but all that Pliny, in the form in which he has come down to us, appears to affirm on this subject is, that when a lioness forgot her dignity with a leopard, her mate easily detected and vigorously punished the offence (Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.43). What would have happened if the lion had similarly misbehaved with a leopardess is not mentioned by the natural historian.) But Hesiod and some others have said that Atalanta was not a daughter of Iasus, but of Schoeneus; and Euripides
403
says that she was a daughter of Maenalus, and that her husband was not Melanion but Hippomenes.[*](See above, note on p. 399. It may have been in his lost tragedy, Meleager, that Euripides named the father and husband of Atalanta. She is named in one of the existing fragments (No. 530) of the play. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 525ff. ) And by Melanion, or Ares, Atalanta had a son Parthenopaeus, who went to the war against Thebes.[*](See above, Apollod. 3.6.3. According to others, the father of Parthenopaeus was neither Melanion nor Ares, but Meleager. See Hyginus, Fab. 70, 99, and 270; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 54, 125 (First Vatican Mythographer 174; Second Vatican Mythographer 144).)

3
Atlas and Pleione, daughter of Ocean, had seven daughters called the Pleiades, born to them at Cyllene in Arcadia, to wit: Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete, and Maia.[*](As to the Pleiades, see Aratus, Phaenomena 254-268; Eratosthenes, Cat. 23; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.551ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.486; Scholiast on Pind. N. 2.10(16); Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.226; Hyginus, Ast. ii.21; Hyginus, Fab. 192; Ovid, Fasti iii.105, iv.169-178; Serv. Verg. G. 1.138, and Serv. Verg. A. 1.744; Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 397, ed. F. Eyssenhardt (in his edition of Martianus Capella); Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 73 (First Vatican Mythographer 234). There was a general agreement among the ancients as to the names of the seven Pleiades. Aratus, for example, gives the same names as Apollodorus and in the same order. However, with the exception of Maia, a different list of names is given by the Scholiast on Theocritus xiii.25, who tells us further, on the authority of Callimachus, that they were the daughters of the queen of the Amazons. As their father was commonly said to be Atlas, they were sometimes called Atlantides (Apollodorus, below; Diod. 3.60.4; compare Hes. WD 382). But there was much diversity of opinion as to the origin of the name Pleiades. Some derived it from the name of their mother Pleione; but the most probable view appears to be that the name comes from πλεῖν, “to sail,” because in the Mediterranean area these stars were visible at night during the summer, from the middle of May till the beginning of November, which coincided with the sailing season in antiquity. This derivation of the name was recognized by some of the ancients (Serv. Verg. G. 1.138). With regard to the number of the Pleiades, it was generally agreed that there were seven of them, but that one was invisible, or nearly so, to the human eye. Of this invisibility two explanations were given. Some thought that Electra, as the mother of Dardanus, was so grieved at the fall of Troy that she hid her face in her hands; the other was that Merope, who had married a mere man, Sisyphus, was so ashamed of her humble, though honest, lot by comparison with the guilty splendour of her sisters, who were all of them paramours of gods, that she dared not show herself. These alternative and equally probable theories are stated, for example, by Ovid and Hyginus. The cause of the promotion of the maidens to the sky is said to have been that for seven or even twelve years the hunter Orion pursued them with his unwelcome attentions, till Zeus in pity removed pursuer and pursued alike to heaven, there to shine as stars for ever and to continue the endless pursuit. The bashful or mournful Pleiad, who hid her light, is identified by modern astronomers with Celaeno, a star of almost the seventh magnitude, which can be seen now, as in antiquity, in clear moonless nights by persons endowed with unusually keen sight. See A. von Humboldt, Cosmos, translated by E. Sabine, iii.47ff. ) Of these,
5
Sterope was married to Oenomaus,[*](Compare Paus. 5.10.6. According to another account, Sterope or Asterope, as she is also called, was not the wife but the mother of Oenomaus by the god Ares. See Eratosthenes, Cat. 23; Hyginus, Ast. ii.21; Hyginus, Fab. 84, 159; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 73 (First Vatican Mythographer 234).) and Merope to Sisyphus. And Poseidon had intercourse with two of them, first with Celaeno, by whom he had Lycus, whom Poseidon made to dwell in the Islands of the Blest, and second with Alcyone, who bore a daughter, Aethusa, the mother of Eleuther by Apollo, and two sons Hyrieus and Hyperenor. Hyrieus had Nycteus and Lycus by a nymph Clonia; and Nycteus had Antiope by Polyxo; and Antiope had Zethus and Amphion by Zeus.[*](See above, Apollod. 3.5.5.) And Zeus consorted with the other daughters of Atlas.

Maia, the eldest, as the fruit of her intercourse with Zeus, gave birth to Hermes in a cave of Cyllene.[*](The following account of the birth and youthful exploits of Hermes is based, whether directly or indirectly, on the beautiful Homeric Hymn to Hermes, though it differs from the hymn on a few minor points, as to which Apollodorus may have used other sources. Compare The Homeric Hymns, ed. T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes, pp. 130ff. Among the other literary sources to which Apollodorus may have had recourse was perhaps Sophocles's satyric play Ichneutae, or The Trackers. See below.) He was laid in swaddling-bands on the winnowing fan,[*](Compare the HH Herm. 21; HH Herm. 63; HH Herm. 150ff.; HH Herm. 254; HH Herm. 290; HH Herm. 358; Sophocles, Ichneutae 269 (The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.258). So Dionysus at birth is said to have been laid on a winnowing-fan (Serv. Verg. G. 1.166): hence he got the surname of “He of the Winnowing-fan” (Λικνίτης, Plut. Isis et Osiris 35). These traditions as to the gods merely reflected an ancient Greek custom of placing newborn children in winnowing-fans “as an omen of wealth and fruitfulness” (πλοῦτον καὶ καρποὺς οἰωνιζόμενοι). See the Scholiast on Callimachus, Hymn 1.48 (Callimachea, ed. O. Schneider, i.109). As to the symbolism of the custom, see W. Mannhardt, “Kind und Korn,” Mythologische Forschungen, pp. 351-374; Miss J. E. Harrison, “Mystica Vannus Iacchi,” JHS xxiii. (1903), pp. 292-324. The custom was not confined to ancient Greece, but has been widely practised in India and other parts of the east down to modern times. The motives assigned or implied for it are various. Sometimes it seems to have been intended to ensure the wealth and prosperity of the infant, sometimes to guard it against the evil eye and other dangerous influences. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i.5-11. To quote a single example, among the Brahuis of Baluchistan, “most good parents keep their babe for the first six days in a chaj, or winnowing-basket, that God may vouchsafe them full as many children as the basket can hold grain . . . But some folk will have nothing to do with a winnowing-basket; it harbours epilepsy, they say, though how or why I am at a loss to think. So they lay the child in a sieve, that good luck may pour upon him as abundantly as grain pours through a sieve” (Denys Bray, The Life-History of a BrāhūīLondon, 1913, p. 13). The substitution of a corn-sieve for a winnowing-fan seems to be common elsewhere.) but he slipped out and made his way to Pieria

7
and stole the kine which Apollo was herding.[*](Compare HH Herm. 22ff.; Ant. Lib. 23; Ov. Met. 2.680ff. The theft of cattle by the infant Hermes was the subject of Sophocles's satyric drama Ichneutae, or The Trackers, of which some considerable fragments have been discovered in recent years. The scene of the play is laid on Mount Cyllene. Apollo appears and complains of the loss of the cattle, describes how he has come from Thessaly and through Boeotia in search of them, and offers a reward to anyone who will help him to find the missing beasts. The proclamation reaches the ears of Silenus, who hurries to the scene of action and warmly proffers the services of himself and his Satyrs in the search, only stipulating that the reward shall take the solid shape of cash down. His offer being accepted, the Satyrs at once open on the scent like sleuth-hounds and soon discover confused tracks of cattle pointing in different directions. But in the very heat of this discovery they are startled by a strange sound, the like of which they had never heard before. It is, in fact, the muffled sound of the lyre played by the youthful Hermes in the cave. At this point the nymph Cyllene issues from the cavern and upbraids the wild creatures with the hubbub they are raising in the stillness of the green wooded hills. The Satyrs tender a humble apology for their intrusion, but request to know the meaning of the strange sounds that proceed from the bowels of the earth. In compliance with their request the nymph explains how Zeus had secretly begotten Hermes on Maia in the cave, how she herself was acting temporarily as nurse to the child, how the infant grew at an astonishing and even alarming rate, and how, being detained in the cave by his father's orders, he devoted his leisure hours to constructing out of a dead beast a curious toy which emitted musical notes. Being pressed for a fuller explanation she describes how Hermes made the lyre out of a tortoise shell, how the instrument was “his only balm of grief, his comforter,” and how the child was transported with delight at the ravishing sweetness of the tones which spoke to him from the dead beast. Unmoved by this touching description, the Satyrs at once charge the precocious infant with having stolen the cattle. His nurse indignantly repels the charge, stoutly declaring that the poor child had inherited no propensity to thieving either from its father or from its mother, and recommending his accusers to go and look for the thief elsewhere, since at their age, with their long beards and bald heads, they ought to know better than to trump up such ridiculous accusations, for which they may yet have to smart. The nurse's passionate defence of her little charge makes no more impression on the Satyrs than her previous encomium on his musical talent: indeed their suspicions are quickened by her reference to the hides which the infant prodigy had used in the construction of the lyre, and they unhesitatingly identify the skins in question with those of the missing cattle. Strong in this conviction, they refuse to budge till the culprit has been made over to them. At this point the Greek text begins to fail; we can just catch a few disjointed fragments of a heated dialogue between the nurse and the satyrs; the words “cows,” “thief,” “rascal,” and so forth, occur with painful iteration, then all is silence. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 224-270. From this seemingly simple piece of mild buffoonery Miss J. E. Harrison would extract a ritual of serious and indeed solemn significance, of which, however, she admits that the author of the play was himself probably quite unconscious. See her learned essay in Essays and Studies presented to William Ridgeway, ed. E. C. Quiggin (Cambridge, 1913), pp. 136ff. ) And lest he should be detected by the tracks, he put
9
shoes on their feet and brought them to Pylus, and hid the rest in a cave; but two he sacrificed and nailed the skins to rocks, while of the flesh he boiled and ate some,[*](In the HH Herm. 115ff. we are told that Hermes roasted the flesh of two oxen and divided it into twelve portions (for the twelve gods), but that in spite of hunger he ate none of it himself.) and some he burned. And quickly he departed to Cyllene. And before the cave he found a tortoise browsing. He cleaned it out, strung the shell with chords made from the kine he had sacrificed, and having thus produced a lyre he invented also a plectrum.[*](Compare Sophocles, Ichneutae 278ff. (The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.259). In the HH Herm. 22ff., the invention of the lyre by Hermes precedes his theft of the cattle.) But Apollo came to Pylus[*](In the HH Herm. 185ff. it is to Onchestus in Boeotia, not to Pylus, that Apollo goes at first to inquire after the missing cattle.) in search of the kine, and he questioned the inhabitants. They said that they had seen a boy driving cattle, but could not say whither they had been driven, because they could find no track. Having discovered the thief by divination,[*](Compare the HH Herm. 213ff., where it is said that Apollo discovered Hermes to be the thief through observing a certain long-winged bird.) Apollo came to Maia at Cyllene and accused Hermes. But she showed him the child in his swaddling-bands. So Apollo brought him to Zeus, and claimed the kine; and when Zeus bade him restore them, Hermes denied that he had them, but not being believed he led Apollo to Pylus and restored the kine. Howbeit, when Apollo heard the lyre, he gave the kine in exchange for it. And while Hermes pastured them, he again made himself a shepherd's pipe and piped on it.[*](Compare the HH Herm. 511ff., where, however, nothing is said about an attempt of Apollo to get the pipes from Hermes, or about an exchange of the pipes for the golden wand. However, there is a lacuna in the hymn after verse 526, and the missing passage may have contained the exchange in question and the request of Hermes for the gift of divination, both of which are mentioned by Apollodorus but omitted in the hymn as it stands at present. See Allen and Sikes on the HH Herm. 526ff., in their edition of the Homeric Hymns, p. 190.) And
11
wishing to get the pipe also, Apollo offered to give him the golden wand which he owned while he herded cattle.[*](For the gift of the golden wand, see HH Herm. 527ff. ) But Hermes wished both to get the wand for the pipe and to acquire the art of divination. So he gave the pipe and learned the art of divining by pebbles.[*](Compare the HH Herm. 552ff. The reference is to the divining pebbles called θρίαε, which were personified as three winged sisters who dwelt on Parnassus, and are said to have been the nurses of Apollo. See Zenobius, Cent. v.75; Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo 45, with the Scholiast; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Θρία, p. 455.45; Hesychius, s.v. θριαί ; Anecdota Graeca, ed. Bekker, i.265.11, s.vΘριάσιον πεδίον. . According to one account, the divining pebbles were an invention of Athena, which so disgusted Apollo that Zeus caused that mode of divination to fall into discredit, though it had been in high repute before; and Apollo vented his spite at the practitioners of a rival art by saying that “There be many that cast pebbles, but few prophets.” See Zenobius, Cent. v.75; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Θρία . This tradition may perhaps be accepted as evidence that in time the simple mode of divination by pebbles went out of fashion, being cast into the shade by the far more stately and imposing ritual of the frenzied prophetesses at Delphi, whose wild words were accepted as the very utterances of the deity. However, we are informed that in the temple at Delphi there were divining pebbles in a bowl on a tripod, and that when an inquirer applied to the oracle, the pebbles danced about in the bowl, while the inspired priestess prophesied. See Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 67, p. 384; Suidas, s.v. Πυθώ . As to Greek divination by pebbles, see A. Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité, i.192,ff.; and Frazer, note on Paus. 7.25.10 (vol. iv. pp. 172ff.) ) And Zeus appointed him herald to himself and to the infernal gods.

Taygete had by Zeus a son Lacedaemon, after whom the country of Lacedaemon is called.[*](Compare Paus. 3.1.2; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 626.) Lacedaemon and Sparta, daughter of Eurotas ( who was a son of Lelex,[*](According to Paus. 3.1.1, Eurotas was a son of Myles, who was a son of Lelex.) a son of the soil, by a Naiad nymph Cleocharia), had a son Amyclas and a daughter Eurydice, whom Acrisius married. Amyclas and Diomede, daughter of Lapithus, had sons, Cynortes and Hyacinth.[*](Compare Paus. 3.1.3.) They say that this Hyacinth was beloved of Apollo and killed by him involuntarily with the

13
cast of a quoit.[*](See above, Apollod. 1.3.3; Nicander, Ther. 901ff., with the Scholiast on Lycophron 902; Paus. 3.1.3; Paus. 3.19.5; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.241ff.; Ov. Met. 10.161-219; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxi.66; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 37, 135ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 117; Second Vatican Mythographer 181). The tomb of Hyacinth was shown at Amyclae under the great image of Apollo; a bronze door opened into the tomb, and sacrifices were there offered to him as a hero. See Paus. 3.19.3. Compare Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed., i.313ff. ) Cynortes had a son Perieres, who married Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus, as Stesichorus says, and she bore Tyndareus, Icarius, Aphareus, and Leucippus.[*](See above, Apollod. 1.9.5, where Apollodorus represents Perieres as the son of Aeolus (compare Apollod. 1.7.3), though he adds that many people regarded him as the son of Cynortas. See below Apollod. 3.10.4 note.) Aphareus and Arene, daughter of Oebalus, had sons Lynceus and Idas and Pisus; but according to many, Idas is said to have been gotten by Poseidon. Lynceus excelled in sharpness of sight, so that he could even see things underground.[*](Compare Pind. N. 10.62(116); Paus. 4.2.7 (who seems to have misunderstood the foregoing passage of Pindar); Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 553; Hyginus, Fab. 14, p. 42, ed. Bunte.) Leucippus had daughters, Hilaira and Phoebe: these the Dioscuri carried off and married.[*](See below, Apollod. 3.11.2.) Besides them Leucippus begat Arsinoe: with her Apollo had intercourse, and she bore Aesculapius. But some affirm that Aesculapius was not a son of Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus, but that he was a son of Coronis, daughter of Phlegyas in Thessaly.[*](The ancients were divided with regard to the mother of Aesculapius, some maintaining that she was a Messenian woman Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus, others that she was a Thessalian woman Coronis, daughter of Phlegyas. See the Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.8(14), who quotes authorities on both sides: amongst the champions of Arsinoe were Asclepiades and an Argive writer named Socrates. The claims of the Messenian Arsinoe were naturally supported by patriotic Messenians, who looked on the god and his sons as in a sense their fellow countrymen. See Paus. 2.26.3-7; Paus. 4.3.2; Paus. 4.31.12. Apollodorus apparently accepted the Messenian view. But on the other side a long array of authorities declared in favour of Coronis, and her claim to be the mother of the god had the powerful support of the priesthood of Aesculapius at Epidaurus, one of the principal seats of the worship of the healing god. See the HH Ascl.; Pind. P. 3.8(14)ff.; Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.616ff.; Diod. 4.71.1, Diod. 5.74.6; Paus. 2.26.3-7; Hyginus, Fab. 202; Hyginus, Ast. ii.40; Serv. Verg. A. 6.617; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.506; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 17, 37 (First Vatican Mythographer 46, 115). Pausanias, who expressly rejects the claim of Arsinoe, quotes in favour of Coronis a Delphic oracle, which he regards as decisive: for who should know the true mother of Aesculapius better than his own father Apollo? The testimony of the deity for once was quite unambiguous. It ran thus:— “O born to be the world's great joy, Aesculapius, Offspring of love, whom Phlegyas' daughter, fair Coronis, bore to me in rugged Epidaurus.” See Paus. 2.26.7. In modern times the stones of Epidaurus, if we may say so, have risen up to testify to the truth of this oracle. For in the course of the modern excavations at the great Epidaurian sanctuary of Aesculapius there was discovered a limestone tablet inscribed with a hymn in honour of Apollo and Aesculapius, in which the family tree of the junior god is set out with the utmost precision, and it entirely confirms the Delphic oracle. The author of the hymn was a certain native of Epidaurus, by name Isyllus, a man of such scrupulous accuracy that before publishing his hymn he took the precaution of submitting it to the fount of knowledge at Delphi with an inquiry whether the god would sanction its publication. The deity granted his permission in very cordial terms; hence we may look on the hymn as an authentic document bearing the imprimatur of the Delphic Apollo himself. In it the pedigree of Aesculapius is traced as follows: Father Zeus bestowed the hand of the Muse Erato on Malus in holy matrimony (ὁσίοισι γάμοις.) The pair had a daughter Cleophema, who married Phlegyas, a native of Epidaurus; and Phlegyas had by her a daughter Aegla, otherwise known as Coronis, whom Phoebus of the golden bow beheld in the house of her grandfather Malus, and falling in love he got by her a child, Aesculapius. See Ἐφημερὶς a)rxaiologikh/, iii. (1885) coll. 65ff.; H. Collitz and F. Bechtel, Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, iii.1, pp. 162ff., No. 3342.)
15
And they say that Apollo loved her and at once consorted with her, but that she, against her father's judgment, preferred and cohabited with Ischys, brother of Caeneus. Apollo cursed the raven that brought the tidings and made him black instead of white, as he had been before; but he killed Coronis. As she was burning, he snatched the babe from the pyre and brought it to Chiron, the centaur,[*](The story how Coronis played her divine lover false and was killed by him, and how the god rescued his child from the burning pyre and carried him to Chiron, is told by Pind. P. 3.8(14)ff. Compare the Scholiast on this passage of Pindar, especially 27(48); Paus. 2.26.6 (according to whom it was Hermes, not Apollo, who snatched the child from the burning pyre); Hyginus, Fab. 202; Hyginus, Ast. ii.40; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iii.506; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 17, 37, and 118 (First Vatican Mythographer 46, 115; Second Vatican Mythographer 128). All these writers, except Pindar and Pausanias, relate the story of the tell-tale raven and his punishment. The story is also told by Ov. Met. 2.534ff. and Ant. Lib. 20, but neither of them mentions Aesculapius. It was narrated by Pherecydes, who may have been the source from which the other writers drew their information. See Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.34(59). The name of the human lover of Coronis is given as Ischys, son of Elatus, by Pindar and Pausanias in agreement with Apollodorus. But Antoninus Liberalis calls him Alcyoneus; Lactantius Placidus and the Second Vatican Mythographer call him Lycus; and the First Vatican Mythographer describes him (Hyginus, Fab. 115) simply as the son of Elatus. As to the connexion of Coronis with the raven or the crow in Greek legendary lore, see Frazer, note on Paus. ii.17.11 (vol. iii. pp. 72ff.). Compare D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Glossary of Greek Birds, p. 93.) by
17
whom he was brought up and taught the arts of healing and hunting. And having become a surgeon, and carried the art to a great pitch, he not only prevented some from dying, but even raised up the dead; for he had received from Athena the blood that flowed from the veins of the Gorgon, and while he used the blood that flowed from the veins on the left side for the bane of mankind, he used the blood that flowed from the right side for salvation, and by that means he raised the dead.[*](Compare Zenobius, Cent. i.18, who probably copied Apollodorus. According to Eur. Ion 999ff., Pallas gave Erichthonius two drops of the Gorgon's blood, one of them a deadly poison, the other a powerful medicine for the healing of diseases.) I found some who are reported to have been raised by him,[*](For other lists of dead men whom Aesculapius is said to have restored to life, see Sextus Empiricus, p. 658, ed. Bekker; Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96); Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1. These two Scholiasts mention that according to Pherecydes the people who died at Delphi were raised from the dead by Aesculapius. To the list of dead men whom Aesculapius restored to life, Propertius adds Androgeus, son of Minos (Prop. ii.1.61ff.).) to wit, Capaneus and Lycurgus,[*](The resurrection of these two men by the power of Aesculapius is mentioned also, on the authority of Stesichorus, by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, and the Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96). Otherwise the event is apparently not noticed by ancient writers, and of the many legendary persons who bore the name of Lycurgus we do not know which is referred to. Heyne conjectured that the incident took place in the war of the Epigoni against Thebes, when Capaneus, one of the original Seven against Thebes, and Lycurgus, son of Pronax (as to whom see Apollod. 1.9.13) may have been restored to life by Aesculapius. This conjecture is confirmed by a passage of Sextus Empiricus (p. 658 ed. Bekker), where we read: “Stesichorus in his Eriphyle says that he (Aesculapius) raised up some of those who fell at Thebes.”) as Stesichorus says in the Eriphyle; Hippolytus,[*](As to the restoration of Hippolytus to life by Aesculapius see Pind. P. 3.54(96)ff., with the Scholiast; Sextus Empiricus, p. 658, ed. Bekker (who quotes as his authority Staphylus in his book on the Arcadians); Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1 (who quotes Apollodorus as his authority); Eratosthenes, Cat. 6; Hyginus, Fab. 49; Hyginus, Ast. ii.14; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.434, vi.353(375). After his resurrection Hippolytus is said to have gone to dwell at Aricia, on the Alban Hills, near Rome, where he reigned as a king and dedicated a precinct to Diana. See Paus. 2.27.4; Verg. A. 7.761ff., with the commentary of Servius; Ovid, Fasti iii.263ff., v.735ff.; Ov. Met. 15.297ff.; Scholiast on Persius, Sat. vi.56, pp. 347ff., ed. O. Jahn; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i.17; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 118 (Second Vatican Mythographer 128). The silence of Apollodorus as to this well-known Italian legend, which was told to account for the famous priesthood of Diana at Aricia, like his complete silence as to Rome, which he never mentions, tends to show that Apollodorus either deliberately ignored the Roman empire or wrote at a time when there was but little intercourse between Greece and that part of Italy which was under Roman rule.) as the author of the Naupactica
19
reports; Tyndareus, as Panyasis says;[*](For the raising of Tyndareus from the dead by Aesculapius see also Sextus Empiricus, p. 658, ed. Bekker; Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1 (both these writers cite Panyasis as their authority); Lucian, De saltatione 45; Zenobius, Cent. i.47; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxix.3.) Hymenaeus, as the Orphics report; and Glaucus, son of Minos,[*](See above, Apollod. 3.3.1.) as Melesagoras relates.