Epitome

After these things they met in assembly, and Agamemnon and Menelaus quarrelled, Menelaus advising that they should sail away, and Agamemnon insisting that they should stay and sacrifice to Athena. When they put to sea, Diomedes, Nestor, and Menelaus in company, the two former had a prosperous voyage, but Menelaus was overtaken by a storm, and after losing the rest of his vessels, arrived with five ships in Egypt.[*](Compare Hom. Od. 3.130ff., Hom. Od. 3.276ff.; Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53.)

But Amphilochus, and Calchas, and Leonteus, and Podalirius, and Polypoetes left their ships in Ilium and journeyed by land to Colophon, and there buried Calchas the diviner[*](Compare Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Strab. 14.1.27; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 427-430, 980.); for it was foretold him that he would die if he met with a wiser diviner than himself.

Well, they were lodged by the diviner Mopsus, who was a son of Apollo and Manto, and he wrangled with Calchas about the art of divination. A wild fig-tree grew on the spot,

And when Mopsus asked Calchas concerning a pregnant sow, “ How many pigs has she in her womb, and when will she farrow?” Calchas answered, “ Eight.” But Mopsus smiled and said,“ The divination of Calchas is the reverse of exact; but I, as a son of Apollo and Manto, am extremely rich in the sharp sight which comes of exact divination, and I divine that the number of pigs in the womb is not eight, as Calchas says, but nine, and that they are all male and will be farrowed without fail tomorrow at the sixth hour.” So when these things turned out so, Calchas died of a broken heart and was buried at Notium.[*](Compare Strab. 14.1.27; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 427-430, 980. From Strabo we learn that the riddle of Calchas concerning the wild fig-tree was recorded by Hesiod, and that the riddle of Mopsus concerning the sow was recorded by Pherecydes. Our authorities vary somewhat in regard to the latter riddle. According to Pherecydes, the true answer was, “Three little pigs, and one of them a female.” According to Tzetzes, Calchas could not solve the riddle, so Mopsus solved it by saying that the sow would farrow ten little pigs, of which one would be a male. Strabo also tells us that the oracle which doomed Calchas to death whenever he should meet a diviner more skilful than himself, was mentioned by Sophocles in his play The Demand for Helen. As to that play, see The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 121ff. A different story of the rivalry of the two seers is told by Conon 6.)

After sacrificing, Agamemnon put to sea and touched at Tenedos. But Thetis came and persuaded Neoptolemus to wait two days and to offer sacrifice; and he waited. But the others put to sea and encountered a storm at Tenos; for Athena entreated Zeus to send a tempest against the Greeks; and many ships foundered.

And Athena threw a thunderbolt at the ship of Ajax; and when the ship went to pieces he made his way safe to a rock, and declared that he was saved in spite of the intention of Athena. But Poseidon smote the rock with his trident and split it, and Ajax fell into the sea and perished; and his body, being washed up, was buried by Thetis in Myconos.[*](As to the shipwreck and death of the Locrian Ajax, compare Hom. Od. 4.499-511; Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.530-589; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 365, 387, 389, 402; Verg. A. 1.39-45; Hyginus, Fab. 116; Seneca, Agamemnon 532-556; Dictys Cretensis vi.1. In his great picture of the underworld, which Polygnotus painted at Delphi, the artist depicted Ajax as a castaway, the brine forming a scurf on his skin (Paus. 10.31.1). According to the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66 Ajax was cast up on the shore of Delos, where Thetis found and buried him. But as it was unlawful to be buried or even to die in Delos (Thuc. 3.104), the statement of Apollodorus that Ajax was buried in Myconus, a small island to the east of Delos, is more probable. It is said that on hearing of his death the Locrians mourned for him and wore black for a year, and every year they laded a vessel with splendid offerings, hoisted a black sail on it, and, setting the ship on fire, let it drift out to sea, there to burn down to the water's edge as a sacrifice to the drowned hero. See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 365. Sophocles wrote a tragedy, The Locrian Ajax, on the crime and punishment of the hero. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 8ff. )

The others being driven to Euboea by night, Nauplius kindled a beacon on Mount Caphareus; and they, thinking it was some of those who were saved, stood in for the shore, and the vessels were wrecked on the Capherian rocks, and many men perished.[*](As to the false lights kindled by Nauplius to lure the Greek ships on to the breakers, see above, Apollod. 2.1.5; Eur. Hel. 766ff.; Eur. Hel. 1126ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 432; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.611-628; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 384; Prop. v.1.115ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 116; Seneca, Agamemnon 557-575; Dictys Cretensis vi.1; Serv. Verg. A. 11.260; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. i.93; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 46, 141 (First Vatican Mythographer 144; Second Vatican Mythographer 201). The story was probably told by Hagias in his epic The Returns (Nostoi), though in the abstract of that poem there occurs merely a mention of “the storm at the Capherian Rocks.” See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53. The wrecker Nauplius was the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 80ff. )

For Palamedes, the son of Nauplius and Clymene daughter of Catreus, had been stoned to death through the machinations of Ulysses.[*](As to the death of Palamedes, see above, Apollod. E.3.8.) And when Nauplius learned of it,[*](This passage, down to the end of Section 12, is quoted with some slight verbal changes, but without citing his authority, by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 384-386; compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1093.) he sailed to the Greeks and claimed satisfaction for the death of his son;

but when he returned unsuccessful ( for they all favoured King Agamemnon, who had been the accomplice of Ulysses in the murder of Palamedes), he coasted along the Grecian lands and contrived that the wives of the Greeks should play their husbands false, Clytaemnestra with Aegisthus, Aegialia with Cometes, son of Sthenelus, and Meda, wife of Idomeneus, with Leucus.

But Leucus killed her, together with her daughter Clisithyra, who had taken refuge in the temple; and having detached ten cities from Crete he made himself tyrant of them; and when after the Trojan war Idomeneus landed in Crete, Leucus drove him out.[*](See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The vow of Idomeneus.”)

These were the earlier contrivances of Nauplius; but afterwards, when he learned that the Greeks were on their way home to their native countries, he kindled the beacon fire on Mount Caphereus, which is now called Xylophagus; and there the Greeks, standing in shore in the belief that it was a harbor, were cast away.

After remaining in Tenedos two days at the advice of Thetis, Neoptolemus set out for the country of the Molossians by land with Helenus, and on the way Phoenix died, and Neoptolemus buried him;[*](Compare Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 902, quoting “Apollodorus and the rest.” According to Serv. Verg. A. 2.166, it was the soothsayer Helenus who, foreseeing the shipwreck of the Greek leaders, warned Neoptolemus to return home by land; hence in gratitude for this benefit Neoptolemus at his death bequeathed Andromache to Helenus to be his wife (Serv. Verg. A. 3.297). Neoptolemus was on friendly terms with Helenus, because the seer had revealed to the Greeks the means by which Troy could be taken, and because in particular he had recommended the fetching of Neoptolemus himself from Scyros. See above, Apollod. E.5.10. A different tradition is recorded by Eustathius on Hom. Od. 3.189, p. 1463. He says that Neoptolemus sailed across the sea to Thessaly and there burned his ships by the advice of Thetis; after which, being directed by the soothsayer Helenus to settle wherever he should find a house with foundations of iron, walls of wood, and roof of wool, he marched inland till he came to the lake Pambotis in Epirus, where he fell in with some people camping under blankets supported by spears, of which the blades were stuck into the earth. Compare Scholiast on Hom. Od. iii.188, who adds that, “having laid waste Molossia, he begot Molossus by Andromache, and from Molossus is descended the race of the kings of Molossia, as Eratosthenes relates.” The lake Pambotis is believed to be what is now called the lake of Joannina, near which Dodona was situated. Paus. 1.11.1 mentions that Pyrrhus (Neoptolemus) settled in Epirus “in compliance with the oracles of Helenus,” and that he had Molossus, Pielus, and Pergamus by Andromache.) and having vanquished the Molossians in battle he reigned as king and begat Molossus on Andromache. And

Helenus founded a city in Molossia and inhabited it, and Neoptolemus gave him his mother Deidamia to wife.[*](As to Deidamia, mother of Neoptolemus, see above, Apollod. 3.13.8. The marriage of Helenus to Deidamia appears not to be mentioned by any other ancient writer.) And when Peleus was expelled from Phthia by the sons of Acastus[*](According to Eur. Tro. 1126-1130, while Neoptolemus was still at Troy, he heard that his grandfather Peleus had been expelled by Acastus; hence he departed for home in haste, taking Andromache with him. The Scholiast on this passage of Euripides (1128) says that Peleus was expelled by Acastus's two sons, Archander and Architeles, and that the exiled king, going to meet his grandson Neoptolemus, was driven by a storm to the island of Cos, where he was entertained by a certain Molon and died. As to an early connexion between Thessaly and Cos, see W. R. Paton and E. L. Hicks, The Inscriptions of Cos, pp. 344ff. A different and much more detailed account of the exile of Peleus is furnished by Dictys Cretensis vi.7-9. According to it, when Neoptolemus was refitting his shattered ships in Molossia, he heard that Peleus had been deposed and expelled by Acastus. Hastening to the aid of his aged grandfather, he found him hiding in a dark cave on the shore of one of the Sepiades Islands, where he eagerly scanned every passing sail in hopes that one of them would bring his grandson to his rescue. By disguising himself Neoptolemus contrived to attack and kill Acastus's two sons, Menalippus and Plisthenes, when they were out hunting. Afterwards, disguising himself as a Trojan captive, he lured Acastus himself to the cave and would have slain him there, if it had not been for the intercession of Thetis, who had opportunely arrived from the sea to visit her old husband Peleus. Happy at his escape, Acastus resigned the kingdom on the spot to Neoptolemus, and that hero at once took possession of the realm in company with his grandfather, his divine grandmother Thetis, and the companions of his voyage. This romantic narrative may be based on a lost Greek tragedy, perhaps on the Peleus of Sophocles, a play in which the dramatist appears to have dealt with the fortunes of Peleus in his old age. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 140ff. The statement of Dictys Cretensis that Peleus took refuge in one of the Sepiades Islands suggests that in the Scholium on Eur. Tro. 1126-1130 the name Icos should be read instead of Cos, as has been argued by several scholars (A. C. Pearson, op. cit. ii.141); for Icos was a small island near Euboea (Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἰκός ), and would be a much more natural place of refuge for Peleus than the far more distant island of Cos. Moreover, we have the positive affirmation of the poet Antipater of Sidon that Peleus was buried in Icos (Anth. Pal. vii.2.9ff.). The connexion of Peleus with the Sepiades Islands is further supported by Euripides; for in his play Andromache (Eur. And. 1253-1269) he tells how Thetis bids her old husband Peleus tarry in a cave of these islands, till she should come with a band of Nereids to fetch him away, that he might dwell with her as a god for ever in the depths of the sea. In the same play (Eur. And. 22ff.) Euripides says that Neoptolemus refused to accept the sceptre of Pharsalia in the lifetime of his grandfather Peleus.) and died, Neoptolemus

And when Orestes went mad, Neoptolemus carried off his wife Hermione, who had previously been betrothed to him in Troy [*](In this passage Apollodorus appears to follow the account given by Euripides in his Andromache, (Eur. And. 967-981). According to that account, Menelaus gave his daughter Hermione in marriage to her cousin Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra. But in the Trojan war he afterwards promised the hand of Hermione to Neoptolemus, if Neoptolemus should succeed in capturing Troy. Accordingly on his return from the war Neoptolemus claimed his bride from her husband Orestes, who was then haunted and maddened by the Furies of his murdered mother Clytaemnestra. Orestes protested, but in vain; Neoptolemus insolently reproached him with his crime of matricide and with the unseen avengers of blood by whom he was pursued. So Orestes was obliged to yield up his wife to his rival, but he afterwards took his revenge by murdering Neoptolemus at Delphi. This version of the legend is followed also by Hyginus, Fab. 123. An obvious difficulty is presented by the narrative; for if Menelaus had given his daughter in marriage to Orestes, how could he afterwards have promised her to Neoptolemus in the lifetime of her first husband? This difficulty was met by another version of the story, which alleged that Hermione was betrothed or married to Orestes by her grandfather Tyndareus in the absence of her father Menelaus, who was then away at the Trojan war; that meantime, in ignorance of this disposal of his daughter, Menelaus had promised her hand to Neoptolemus before Troy, and that on his return from the war Neoptolemus took her by force from Orestes. See Eustathius on Hom. Od. iv.3, p. 1479; Scholiast on Hom. Od. iv.4; Ovid, Her. viii.31ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 3.330, compare on 297. According to the tragic poet Philocles, not only had Hermione been given in marriage by Tyndareus to Orestes, but she was actually with child by Orestes when her father afterwards married her to Neoptolemus. See Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 32. This former marriage of Hermione to Orestes, before she became the wife of Neoptolemus, is recognized by Verg. A. 3.330, and Ovid, Heroides, viii. passim, but it is unknown to Homer. On the other hand, Homer records that Menelaus betrothed Hermione to Neoptolemus at Troy, and celebrated the marriage after his return to Sparta (Hom. Od. 4.1-9). Sophocles wrote a tragedy Hermione , the plot of which seems to have resembled that of the Andromache of Euripides. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 141ff. Euripides does not appear to have been consistent in his view that Neoptolemus forcibly deprived Orestes of Hermione and married her himself; for in his play Orestes (Eur. Or. 1653-1657) he makes Apollo prophesy to Orestes that he shall wed Hermione, but that Neoptolemus shall never do so.); and for that reason he was slain by Orestes

After their wanderings the Greeks landed and settled in various countries, some in Libya, some in Italy, others in Sicily, and some in the islands near Iberia, others on the banks of the Sangarius river; and some settled also in Cyprus. And of those that were shipwrecked at Caphereus, some drifted one way and some another.[*](The wanderings described in the remainder of this paragraph, except those of Agapenor, are resumed and told somewhat more fully in the following three paragraphs (15a, 15b, 15c), which do not occur in our text of the Epitome, but are conjecturally restored to it from the Scholiast on Lycophron of Tzetzes, who probably had before him the full text of Apollodorus, and not merely the Epitome.) Guneus went to Libya; Antiphus, son of Thessalus, went to the Pelasgians, and, having taken possession of the country, called it Thessaly. Philoctetes went to the

Apollodorus and the rest[*](This paragraph is quoted from Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 902.) say as follows. Guneus left his own ships, and having come to the Cinyps river in Libya he dwelt there.[*](According to another account, Guneus was drowned at sea. See Aristot. Peplos 32(37), in Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ii.654.) But Meges and Prothous, with many others, were cast away at Caphereus in Euboea [*](Epitaphs on these two drowned men are ascribed to Aristot. Peplos 25(19) and 28(38). See Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ii.653, 654. Meges was leader of the Dulichians, and Prothous was leader of the Magnesians. See Apollod. E.3.12 and Apollod. E.14.)... and when Prothous was shipwrecked at Caphereus, the Magnesians with him drifted to Crete and settled there.

After the sack of Ilium,[*](This paragraph is quoted from Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 911.) Menestheus, Phidippus and Antiphus, and the people of Elephenor, and Philoctetes sailed together as far as Mimas. Then Menestheus went to Melos and reigned as king, because the king there, Polyanax, had died. And Antiphus the son of Thessalus went to the Pelasgians, and having taken possession of the country he called it Thessaly.[*](Compare Strab. 9.5.23.) Phidippus with the Coans was driven first to Andros, and then to Cyprus, where he settled. Elephenor died in Troy,[*](Elephenor was killed in battle by Agenor. See Hom. Il. 4.463-472. Compare Aristot. Peplos 33(4), in Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ii.654.) but his people were cast away in the Ionian gulf and inhabited Apollonia in Epirus. And the people of Tlepolemus touched

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at Crete; then they were driven out of their course by winds and settled in the Iberian islands. ...The people of Protesilaus were cast away on Pellene near the plain of Canastrum.[*](Canastrum, or Canastra, is the extreme southern cape of the peninsula of Pallene (Pellene) in Macedonia. See Hdt. 7.123; Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.599, with the Scholiast; Strab. 7 Fr. 25; Apostolius, Cent. ii.20; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 526; Livy xxx.45.15, xliv.11.3.) And Philoctetes was driven to Campania in Italy, and after making war on the Lucanians, he settled in Crimissa, near Croton and Thurium [*](It is said that in a sedition Philoctetes was driven from his city of Meliboea in Thessaly (Hom. Il. 2.717ff.), and fled to southern Italy, where he founded the cities of Petilia, Old Crimissa, and Chone, between Croton and Thurii. See Strab. 6.1.3, who, after recording the foundation of Petilia and Old Crimissa by Philoctetes, proceeds as follows: “And Apollodorus, after mentioning Philoctetes in his Book of the Ships, says that some people relate how, on arriving in the country of Croton, he founded Crimissa on the headland and above it the city of Chone, from which the Chonians hereabout took their name, and how men sent by him to Sicily fortified Segesta near Eryx with the help of Aegestes the Trojan.” The book from which Strabo makes this quotation is not the Library of our author, but the Catalogue of the Ships, a work on the Homeric Catalogue by the Athenian grammarian Apollodorus. According to Strab. 8.3.6, Apollodorus borrowed most of his materials for this work from Demetrius of Scepsis. For the fragments of the work see Heyne's Apollodorus (Second Edition, 1803), vol. i. pp. 417ff.; Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, i.453ff. ); and, his wanderings over, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo the Wanderer (Alaios), to whom also he dedicated his bow, as Euphorion says.[*](Compare Aristot. Mir. 107(115): “It is said that Philoctetes is worshipped by the Sybarites; for on his return from Troy he settled in the territory of Croton at the place called Macalla, which they say is distant a hundred and twenty furlongs, and they relate that he dedicated the bow of Hercules in the sanctuary of the Halian Apollo. But they say that in the time of their sovereignty the people of Croton fetched the bow from there and dedicated it in the sanctuary of Apollo in their country. It is said, too, that when he died he was buried beside the river Sybaris; for he had gone to the help of the Rhodians under Tlepolemus, who had been carried out of their course to these regions and had engaged in battle with the barbarous inhabitants of that country.” This war with the barbarians is no doubt the “war on the Lucanians,” in which Apollodorus, or at all events, Tzetzes here tells us that Philoctetes engaged after his arrival in Italy.)

Navaethus is a river of Italy.[*](This paragraph is quoted from Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 921.) It was called so, according to Apollodorus and the rest, because after the capture of Ilium the daughters of Laomedon, the

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sisters of Priam, to wit, Aethylla, Astyoche, and Medesicaste, with the other female captives, finding themselves in that part of Italy, and dreading slavery in Greece, set fire to the vessels; whence the river was called Navaethus and the women were called Nauprestides; and the Greeks who were with the women, having lost the vessels, settled there.[*](The same story is told by Strabo, who calls the river Neaethus (Strab. 6.1.12). Stephanus Byzantius agrees with Apollodorus in giving Navaethus (Ναύαιθος) as the form of the name. Apollodorus derives the name from ναῦς, “a ship,” and αἴθω, “to burn.” Virgil tells a similar tale of the founding of Segesta or, as he calls it, Acesta in Sicily. See Verg. A. 5.604-771.)

Demophon with a few ships put in to the land of the Thracian Bisaltians,[*](Demophon and his brother Acamas, the sons of Theseus, had gone to Troy to rescue their grandmother Aethra from captivity. See above, Apollod. E.5.22. The following story of the loves and sad fate of Demophon and Phyllis is told in almost the same words by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 495, except that for the name of Demophon he substitutes the name of his brother Acamas. Lucian also couples the names of Acamas and Phyllis (Lucian, De saltatione 40). A pretty story is told of the sad lovers by Servius. He says that Phyllis, despairing of the return of Demophon, hanged herself and was turned into a leafless almond tree; but that when Demophon came and embraced the trunk of the tree, it responded to his endearments by bursting into leaf; hence leaves, which had been called πέταλα before, were ever after called φύλλα in Greek. See Serv. Verg. Ecl. 5.10. Compare Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 51, 146ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 159; Second Vatican Mythographer 214). The story is told in a less romantic form by Hyginus, Fab. 59, compare 243. He says that when Phyllis died for love, trees grew on her grave and mourned her death at the season when their leaves withered and fell.) and there Phyllis, the king's daughter, falling in love with him, was given him in marriage by her father with the kingdom for her dower. But he wished to depart to his own country, and after many entreaties and swearing to return, he did depart. And Phyllis accompanied him as far as what are called the Nine Roads, and she gave him a casket, telling him that it contained a sacrament of Mother Rhea, and that he was not to open it until he

And Demophon went to Cyprus and dwelt there. And when the appointed time was past, Phyllis called down curses on Demophon and killed herself; and Demophon opened the casket, and, being struck with fear, he mounted his horse and galloping wildly met his end; for, the horse stumbling, he was thrown and fell on his sword. But his people settled in Cyprus.