Epitome

Podalirius went to Delphi and inquired of the oracle where he should settle; and on receiving an oracle that he should settle in the city where, if the encompassing heaven were to fall, he would suffer no harm, he settled in that place of the Carian Chersonnese which is encircled by mountains all round the horizon.[*](The same story is told, nearly in the same words, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 1047), who probably copied Apollodorus. As to the settlement of Podalirius in Caria, compare Paus. 3.26.10; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Σύρνα . Podalirius was worshipped as a hero in Italy. He had a shrine at the foot of Mount Drium in Daunia, and the seer Calchas was worshipped in a shrine on the top of the same mountain, where his worshippers sacrificed black rams and slept in the skins of the victims for the purpose of receiving revelations in dreams. See Strab. 6.3.9; Lycophron, Cassandra 1047ff. Hence Lycophron said that Podalirius was buried in Italy, and for so saying he was severely taken to task by his learned but crabbed commentator Tzetzes, who roundly accused him of lying (Scholiast on Lycophron 1047).)

Amphilochus son of Alcmaeon, who, according to some, arrived later at Troy, was driven in the storm to the home of Mopsus; and, as some say, they fought a single combat for the kingdom, and slew each other.[*](This passage is quoted from Apollodorus, with the author's name, by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 440-442), who says that according to the usual tradition Amphilochus and Mopsus had gone together to Cilicia after the capture of Troy. This statement is confirmed by the testimony of Strab. 14.5.16, who tells us that Amphilochus and Mopsus came from Troy and founded Mallus in Cilicia. The dispute between Amphilochus and Mopsus is related more fully both by Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 440-442) and Strab. 14.5.16 According to them, Amphilochus wished to go for a time to Argos (probably Amphilochian Argos; see above, Apollod. 3.7.7). So he departed after entrusting the kingdom or priesthood to Mopsus in his absence. Dissatisfied with the state of affairs at Argos, he returned in a year and reclaimed the kingdom or priesthood from Mopsus. But, acting on the principle Beati possidentes, the viceroy refused to cede the crown or the mitre to its proper owner; accordingly they had recourse to the ordeal of battle, in which both combatants perished. Their bodies were buried in graves which could not be seen from each other; for the people built a tower between them, in order that the rivals, who had fought each other in life, might not scowl at each other in death. However, their rivalry did not prevent them working an oracle in partnership after their decease. In the second century of our era the oracle enjoyed the highest reputation for infallibility (Paus. 1.34.3). The leading partner of the firm was apparently Amphilochus, for he is usually mentioned alone in connexion with the oracle; Plut. De defectu oraculorum 45 is the only ancient writer from whom we learn that Mopsus took an active share in the business though Cicero mentions the partners together (Cicero, De divinatione i.40.88). According to Plutarch and Dio Cassius lxxii.7, the oracles were communicated in dreams; but Lucian says (Philopseudes 38) that the inquirer wrote down his question on a tablet, which he handed to the prophet. The charge for one of these infallible communications was only two obols, or about twopence halfpenny. See Lucian, Alexander 19; Lucian, Deorum concilium 12. The ancients seem to have been divided in opinion on the important question whether the oracular Amphilochus at Mallus was the son or the grandson of Amphiaraus. Apollodorus calls him the son of Alcmaeon, which would make him the grandson of Amphiaraus, for Alcmaeon was a son of Amphiaraus. But Tzetzes, in reporting what he describes as the usual version of the story, calls Amphilochus the son, not the grandson of Amphiaraus (Scholiast on Lycophron 440-442). Compare Strab. 14.1.27; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiv.365-369. Lucian is inconsistent on the point; for while in one passage he calls Amphilochus the son of Amphiaraus (Lucian, Alexander 19), in another passage he speaks of him sarcastically as the noble son of an accurst matricide, by whom he means Alcmaeon (Quintus Smyrnaeus, Deorum concilium 12). Elsewhere Apollodorus mentions both Amphilochus, the son of Amphiaraus, and Amphilochus, the son of Alcmaeon. See above, Apollod. 3.7.2 and Apollod. 3.7.7.)

The Locrians regained their own country with difficulty, and three years afterwards, when Locris was visited by a plague, they received an oracle bidding them to propitiate Athena at Ilium and to send two maidens as suppliants for a thousand years. The lot first fell on Periboea and Cleopatra.

And when they came to Troy they were chased by the natives and took refuge in the sanctuary. And they did not approach the goddess, but swept and sprinkled the sanctuary; and they did not go out of the temple, and their hair was cropped, and they wore single garments

And when the first maidens died, they sent others; and they entered into the city by night, lest, being seen outside the precinct, they should be put to the sword; but afterwards they sent babes with their nurses. And when the thousand years were passed, after the Phocian war they ceased to send suppliants.[*](The story of the custom of propitiating Athena at Troy by sending two Locrian virgins to her every year is similarly told by Tzetzes, who adds some interesting particulars omitted by Apollodorus. From him we learn that when the maidens arrived, the Trojans met them and tried to catch them. If they caught the maidens, they killed them and burned their bones with the wood of wild trees which bore no fruit. Having done so, they threw the ashes from Mount Traron into the sea. But if the maidens escaped from their pursuers, they ascended secretly to the sanctuary of Athena and became her priestesses, sweeping and sprinkling the sacred precinct; but they might not approach the goddess, nor quit the sanctuary except by night. Tzetzes agrees with Apollodorus in describing the maidens during their term of service as barefoot, with cropped hair, and clad each in a single tunic. He refers to the Sicilian historian Timaeus as his authority for the statement that the custom was observed for a thousand years, and that it came to an end after the Phocian war (357-346 B.C.). See Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1141. The maidens were chosen by lot from the hundred noblest families in Locris (Polybius xii.5); and when they escaped death on landing, they served the goddess in the sanctuary for the term of their lives (Plut. De sera numinis vindicta 12), or, at all events, till their successors arrived (Suidas, s.v. κατεγήρασαν ). For other references to this very remarkable custom, which appears to be well authenticated, see Strab. 13.1.40; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiii.66; Iamblichus, De Pythagorica vita, viii.42; Suidas, s.v. ποινή (quoting Aelian); Serv. Verg. A. 1.41. Servius, in contradiction to our other authorities, says that only one maiden was sent annually. Strabo appears to affirm that the custom originated as late as the Persian period (τὰς δὲ λοκρίδας πεμφθῆναι περσῶν ἤδη κρατούντων συνέβἠ. This view is accepted by Clinton, who accordingly holds that the custom lasted from 559 B.C. to 346 B.C.(Fasti Hellenici, i.134ff.).)

After Agamemnon had returned to Mycenae with Cassandra, he was murdered by Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra; for she gave him a shirt without sleeves and without a neck, and while he was putting it on he was cut down, and Aegisthus reigned over Mycenae.[*](As to the murder of Agamemnon, see Hom. Od. 3.193ff.; Hom. Od. 303-305; Hom. Od. 4.529-537; Hom. Od. 11.404-434; Hagias, Returns, summarized by Proclus, in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53; Aesch. Ag. 1379ff.; Aesch. Eum. 631-635; Soph. Elec. 95-99; Eur. El. 8-10; Eur. Or. 25ff.; Paus. 2.16.6; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1108, 1375; Hyginus, Fab. 117; Seneca, Agamemnon 875-909; Serv. Verg. A. 11.268; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 47, 126, 141ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 147; Second Vatican Mythographer 147, 202); Dictys Cretensis vi.2. According to Homer and the author of the Returns, with whom Pausanias agrees, it was Aegisthus who killed Agamemnon; according to Aeschylus, it was Clytaemnestra. Sophocles and Euripides speak of the murder being perpetrated by the two jointly. The sleeveless and neckless garment in which Clytaemnestra entangled her husband, while she cut him down, is described with tragic grandiloquence and vagueness by Aeschylus, but more explicitly by later writers (Tzetzes, Seneca, Servius and the Vatican Mythographers).) And they killed Cassandra

But Electra, one of Agamemnon's daughters, smuggled away her brother Orestes and gave him to Strophius, the Phocian, to bring up; and he brought him up with Pylades, his own son.[*](Compare Pind. P. 11.34(52)ff.; Soph. Elec. 11ff.; Eur. El. 14ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 117. Pindar tells how, after the murder of his father Agamemnon, the youthful Orestes was conveyed to the aged Strophius at the foot of Parnassus; but he does not say who rescued the child and conveyed him thither. According to Sophocles and Euripides, it was an old retainer of the family who thus saved Orestes, but Sophocles says that the old man had received the child from the hands of Electra. Hyginus, in agreement with Apollodorus, relates how, after the murder of Agamemnon, Electra took charge of (sustulit) her infant brother Orestes and committed him to the care of Strophius in Phocis.) And when Orestes was grown up, he repaired to Delphi and asked the god whether he should take vengeance on his father's murderers.

The god gave him leave, so he departed secretly to Mycenae in company with Pylades, and killed both his mother and Aegisthus.[*](This vengeance for the murder of Agamemnon is the theme of three extant Greek tragedies, the Choephori of Aeschylus, the Electra of Sophocles, and the Electra of Euripides. It was related by Hagias in his epic, the Returns, as we learn from the brief summary of Proclus (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53). Compare Pind. P. 11.36ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 119. Homer briefly mentions the murder of Aegisthus by Orestes (Hom. Od. 1.29ff.; Hom. Od. 1.298-300; Hom. Od. 3.306ff.); he does not expressly mention, but darkly hints at, the murder of Clytaemnestra by her son (Hom. Od. 3.309ff.).) And not long afterwards, being afflicted with madness and pursued by the Furies, he repaired to Athens and was tried in the Areopagus. He is variously said to have been brought to trial by the Furies, or by Tyndareus, or by Erigone, daughter of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra; and the votes at his trial being equal he was acquitted.[*](The trial and acquittal of Orestes in the court of the Areopagus at Athens is the subject of Aeschylus's tragedy, the Eumenides, where the poet similarly represents the matricide as acquitted because the votes were equal (Aesch. Eum. 752ff.). The Parian Chronicle also records the acquittal on the same ground, and dates it in the reign of Demophon, king of Athens. See Marmor Parium 40ff. (Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, i.546). Compare Eur. IT 940-967; Eur. IT 1469-1472; Eur. Or. 1648-1652; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374; Paus. 1.28.5; Paus. 8.34.4; Dictys Cretensis vi.4. In the Eumenides the accusers of Orestes are the Furies. According to the Parian Chronicler, it was Erigone, the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra, who instituted the prosecution for the murder of her father; the chronicler does not mention the murder of Clytaemnestra as an article in the indictment of Orestes. According to the author of the Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Αἰώρα, p. 42, the prosecution was conducted at Athens jointly by Erigone and her grandfather Tyndareus, and when it failed, Erigone hanged herself. Peloponnesian antiquaries, reported by Paus. 8.34.4, alleged that the accuser was not Tyndareus, who was dead, but Perilaus, a cousin of Clytaemnestra. According to Hyginus, Fab. 119, Orestes was accused by Tyndareus before the people of Mycenae, but was suffered to retire into banishment for the sake of his father. As to the madness of Orestes, caused by the Furies of his murdered mother, see Eur. Or. 931ff.; Paus. 3.22.1; Paus. 8.34.1-4. The incipient symptoms of madness, showing themselves immediately after the commission of the crime, are finely described by Aesch. Lib. 1021ff. )

When he inquired how he should be rid of his disorder, the god answered that he would be rid of it if he should fetch the wooden image that was in the land of the Taurians.[*](As to the oracle, compare Eur. IT 77-92; Eur. IT 970-978; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374; Hyginus, Fab. 120.) Now the Taurians are a part of the Scythians, who murder strangers[*](The Taurians inhabited the Crimea. As to their custom of sacrificing castaways and strangers, see Hdt. 4.103; Eur. IT 34-41; Diod. 4.44.7; Paus. 1.43.1; Orphica, Argon. 1075ff., ed Abel; Ovid, Ex Ponto iii.2.45-58; Mela ii.11; Ammianus Marcellinus xxii.8.34. According to Herodotus, these Taurians sacrificed human beings to a Virgin Goddess, whom they identified with Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon. The victims were shipwrecked persons and any Greeks on whom they could lay hands. They were slaughtered by being knocked on the head with a club, after which their heads were set up on stakes and their bodies thrown down a precipice into the sea or buried in the ground; for reports differed in regard to the disposal of the corpses, though all agreed as to the setting of the heads on stakes. Ammianus Marcellinus says that the native name of the goddess was Orsiloche.) and throw them into the sacred fire, which was in the precinct, being wafted up from Hades through a certain rock.[*](This account of the disposal of the bodies of the victims is based on Eur. IT 625ff.:—*)ore/sthsta/fos de\ poi=os de/cetai/ m', o(/tan qa/nw;*)ifige/neiapu=r i(ero\n e)/ndon xa/sma t' eu)rwpo\n pe/tras.Compare Eur. IT 1154ff.:—h)/dh tw=n ce/nwn kath/rcato,a)du/tois t' e)n a(gnoi=s sw=ma la/mpontai puri/;Thus Apollodorus differs from the account which Herodotus gives of the disposal of the bodies. See the preceding note.)

So when Orestes was come with

and having come to Mycenae, he united his sister Electra in marriage to Pylades,[*](As to the marriage of Electra to Pylades, see Eur. El. 1249; Eur. Or. 1658ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 122.) and having himself married Hermione, or, according to some, Erigone, he begat Tisamenus,[*](As to the marriage of Orestes and Hermione, see above, Apollod. E.5.14, with the note. According to Paus. 2.18.6, Orestes had by Hermione a son Tisamenus, who succeeded his father on the throne of Sparta. But Pausanias also mentions a tradition that Orestes had a bastard son Penthilus by Erigone, daughter of Aegisthus, and for this tradition he cites as his authority the old epic poet Cinaethon. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1474.) and was killed by the bite of a snake at Oresteum in Arcadia.[*](Compare Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1645, quoting Asclepiades as his authority; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 1374. In the passage of Euripides on which the Scholiast comments (Eur. Or. 1643-1647), Orestes is bidden by Apollo to retire to Parrhasia, a district of Arcadia, for the space of a year, after which he is to go and stand his trial for the murder of his mother at Athens. This year to be spent in Arcadia is no doubt the year of banishment to which homicides had to submit before they were allowed to resume social intercourse with their fellows. See Frazer's note above on Apollod. 2.5.11 (vol. i. pp. 218ff.). The period is so interpreted by a Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1645. As to Oresteum in Arcadia, see Paus. 8.3.1ff., who says that it was formerly called Oresthasium. A curious story of the madness of Orestes in Arcadia is told by Paus. 8.34.1-4. He says that, when the Furies were about to drive him mad, they appeared to him black, but that he bit off one of his own fingers, whereupon they appeared to him white, and he immediately recovered his wits. The grave of Orestes was near Tegea in Arcadia; from there his bones were stolen by a Spartan and carried to Sparta in compliance with an oracle, which assured the Spartans of victory over their stubborn foes the Tegeans, if only they could get possession of these valuable relics. See Hdt. 1.67ff.; Paus. 3.3.5ff.; Paus. 3.11.10; Paus. 8.54.3.)

Menelaus, with five ships in all under his command, put in at Sunium, a headland of Attica; and being again driven thence by winds to Crete he drifted far away, and wandering up and down Libya, and Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Egypt, he collected much treasure.[*](For the wanderings of Menelaus on the voyage from Troy, see Hom. Od. 3.276-302; compare Paus. 10.25.2.) And according to some, he discovered Helen at the court of Proteus, king of Egypt; for till then Menelaus had only a phantom of her made of clouds.[*](As to the real and the phantom Helen, see above, Apollod. E.3.5, with the note.) And after wandering for eight years he came to port at Mycenae, and there found Orestes, who had avenged his father's murder. And having come to Sparta he regained his own kingdom,[*](The return of Menelaus to his home was related by Hagias in the Returns, as we learn from the brief abstract of that poem by Proclus in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 53.) and being made immortal by Hera he went to the Elysian Fields with Helen.[*](Homer in the Odyssey (Hom. Od. 4.561-569) represents Proteus prophesying to Menelaus that he was fated not to die but to be transported by the gods to the Elysian Fields, there to dwell at ease where there was neither snow, nor storm, or rain, because he had married Helen and was thereby a in-law of Zeus. Compare Eur. Hel. 1676-1679.)