Library

Apollodorus

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

When Hercules was sailing from Troy, Hera sent grievous storms,[*](See Hom. Il. 14.249ff., Hom. Il. 15.24ff. ) which so vexed Zeus that he hung her from Olympus.[*](See Apollod. 1.3.5.) Hercules sailed to Cos,[*](With the following account of Herakles's adventures in Cos, compare the Scholiasts on Hom. Il. i.590, xiv.255; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.445; Ov. Met. 7.363ff. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiv.255 tells us that the story was found in Pherecydes, whom Apollodorus probably follows in the present passage.) and the Coans, thinking he was leading a piratical squadron, endeavored to prevent his approach by a shower of stones. But he forced his way in and took the city by night, and slew the king, Eurypylus, son of Poseidon by Astypalaea. And Hercules was wounded in the battle by Chalcedon; but Zeus snatched him away, so that he took no harm. And having laid waste Cos, he came through Athena's agency to Phlegra, and sided with the gods in their victorious war on the giants.[*](See Apollod. 1.6.1ff. )

249

Not long afterwards he collected an Arcadian army, and being joined by volunteers from the first men in Greece he marched against Augeas.[*](For the expedition of Herakles against Augeas, see Diod. 4.33.1; Paus. 5.1.10ff.; Paus. 5.2.1; Paus. 6.20.16; Scholiast on Pind. O. 9.31(40).) But Augeas, hearing of the war that Hercules was levying, appointed Eurytus and Cteatus[*](As to Eurytus and Cteatus, who were called Actoriones after their father Actor, and Moliones or Molionides, after their mother Molione, see Hom. Il. 2.621, Hom. Il. 11.709ff.,Hom. Il. 11.751ff., Hom. Il. 13.638; Paus. 5.1.10ff.; Paus. 5.2.1ff. and Paus. 5.2.5ff. According to some, they had two bodies joined in one (Scholiast on Hom. Il. 13.638, 639). According to others, they had each two heads four hands, and four feet but only one body (Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.709). Compare Eustathius on Hom. Il. xi.749, p. 882. The poet Ibycus spoke of them as twins, born of a silver egg and “with equal heads in one body” (ἰσοκεφάλους ἑνιγυίους). See Athenaeus ii.50, pp. 57ff. Their story was told by Pherecydes (Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.709), whom Apollodorus may have followed in the present passage.) generals of the Eleans. They were two men joined in one, who surpassed all of that generation in strength and were sons of Actor by Molione, though their father was said to be Poseidon; now Actor was a brother of Augeas. But it came to pass that on the expedition Hercules fell sick; hence he concluded a truce with the Molionides. But afterwards, being apprized of his illness, they attacked the army and slew many. On that occasion, therefore, Hercules beat a retreat; but afterwards at the celebration of the third Isthmian festival, when the Eleans sent the Molionides to take part in the sacrifices, Hercules waylaid and killed them at Cleonae,[*](Compare Pind. O. 10.26(32)ff.; Diod. 4.33.3; Paus. 2.15.1, Paus. 5.2.1.) and marching on Elis took the city. And having killed Augeas and his sons, he restored Phyleus and bestowed on him the kingdom.[*](Compare Pind. O. 10.34(43)ff.; Diod. 4.33.4; Paus. 5.3.1; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.700.) He also celebrated the Olympian games[*](Herakles is said to have marked out the sacred precinct at Olympia, instituted the quadriennial Olympic festival, and celebrated the Olympic games for the first time. See Pind. O. 3.3ff., Pind. O. 6.67ff., Pind. O. 10.43(51)ff.; Diod. 4.14.1ff., Diod. 5.64.6; Paus. 5.7.9; Paus. 5.8.1 and Paus. 5.8.3ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 41; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xi.700; Hyginus, Fab. 273.) and

251
founded an altar of Pelops,[*](Apollodorus is probably mistaken in speaking of an altar of Pelops at Olympia. The more accurate Pausanias describes (Paus. 5.13.1ff.) a precinct of Pelops founded by Herakles at Olympia and containing a pit, in which the magistrates annually sacrificed a black ram to the hero: he does not mention an altar. As a hero, that is, a worshipful dead man, Pelops was not entitled to an altar, he had only a right to a sacrificial pit. For sacrifices to the dead in pits see Hom. Od. 11.23ff.; Philostratus, Her. xx.27; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 274; Paus. 9.39.6; Fr. Pfister, Der Reliquienkult im Altertum, pp. 474ff. ) and built six altars of the twelve gods.[*](As to the six double altars, each dedicated to a pair of deities, see Pind. O. 5.4(8)ff.; Pind. O. 10.24(30); Scholiast on Pind. O. 5.4(8) and Pind. O. 5.5(10), who cites Herodorus on the foundation of the altars by Herakles.)

After the capture of Elis he marched against Pylus,[*](As to the war of Herakles on Pylus, see Hom. Il. 5.392ff.; Hom. Il. 11.690ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.396; Paus. 2.18.7; Paus. 3.26.8; Paus. 5.3.1; Paus. 6.22.5; Paus. 6.25.2ff.; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.451; Ov. Met. 12.549ff. ) and having taken the city he slew Periclymenus, the most valiant of the sons of Neleus, who used to change his shape in battle.[*](See Apollod. 1.9.9, with the note.) And he slew Neleus and his sons, except Nestor; for he was a youth and was being brought up among the Gerenians. In the fight he also wounded Hades, who was siding with the Pylians.[*](See Hom. Il. 5.395ff.; Paus. 6.25.2ff. In the same battle Herakles is said to have wounded Hera with an arrow in the right breast. See Hom. Il. 5.392ff.; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.36, p. 31, ed. Potter, from whom we learn that Panyasis mentioned the wounding of the goddess by the hero. Again, in the same fight at Pylus, we read that Herakles gashed the thigh of Ares with his spear and laid that doughty deity in the dust. See Hes. Sh. 359ff. ) Having taken Pylus he marched against Lacedaemon, wishing to punish the sons of Hippocoon,[*](As to the war of Herakles with Hippocoon and his sons, see Diod. 4.33.5ff.; Paus. 2.18.7, Paus. 3.10.6, Paus. 3.15.3-6, Paus. 3.19.7, Paus. 8.53.9.) for he was angry with them, both because they fought for Neleus, and still angrier because they had killed the son of Licymnius. For when he was looking at the palace of Hippocoon, a hound of the Molossian breed ran out and rushed at him, and he threw a stone and hit the dog, whereupon the Hippocoontids

253
darted out and despatched him with blows of their cudgels. It was to avenge his death that Hercules mustered an army against the Lacedaemonians. And having come to Arcadia he begged Cepheus to join him with his sons, of whom he had twenty. But fearing lest, if he quitted Tegea, the Argives would march against it, Cepheus refused to join the expedition. But Hercules had received from Athena a lock of the Gorgon's hair in a bronze jar and gave it to Sterope, daughter of Cepheus, saying that if an army advanced against the city, she was to hold up the lock of hair thrice from the walls, and that, provided she did not look before her, the enemy would be turned to flight.[*](Compare Paus. 8.47.5.) That being so, Cepheus and his sons took the field, and in the battle he and his sons perished, and besides them Iphicles, the brother of Hercules. Having killed Hippocoon and his sons and subjugated the city, Hercules restored Tyndareus and entrusted the kingdom to him.

Passing by Tegea, Hercules debauched Auge, not knowing her to be a daughter of Aleus.[*](As to the story of Herakles, Auge, and Telephus, see Apollod. 3.9.1; Diod. 4.33.7-12; Strab. 13.1.69; Paus. 8.4.9, Paus. 8.47.4, Paus. 8.48.7, Paus. 8.54.6, Paus. 10.28.8; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 206; Hyginus, Fab. 99ff. The tale was told by Hecataeus (Paus. 8.4.9, Paus. 8.47.4), and was the theme of tragedies by Sophocles and Euripides. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 146ff., 436ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles. ed. A. C. Pearson, i. 46ff., ii.70ff. Different versions of the story were current among ancient writers and illustrated by ancient artists. See Frazer, note on Paus. 1.4.6 (vol. ii. pp. 75ff.). One of these versions, which I omitted to notice in that place, ran as follows. On a visit to Delphi, king Aleus of Tegea was warned by the oracle that his daughter would bear a son who would kill his maternal uncles, the sons of Aleus. To guard against this catastrophe, Aleus hurried home and appointed his daughter priestess of Athena, declaring that, should she prove unchaste, he would put her to death. As chance would have it, Herakles arrived at Tegea on his way to Elis, where he purposed to make war on Augeas. The king entertained him hospitably in the sanctuary of Athena, and there the hero, flushed with wine, violated the maiden priestess. Learning that she was with child, her father Aleus sent for the experienced ferryman Nauplius, father of Palamedes, and entrusted his daughter to him to take and drown her. On their way to the sea the girl (Auge) gave birth to Telephus on Mount Parthenius, and instead of drowning her and the infant the ferryman sold them both to king Teuthras in Mysia, who, being childless, married Auge and adopted Telephus. See Alcidamas, Od. 14-16, pp. 179ff., ed. Blass (appended to his edition of Antiphon). This version, which represents mother and child as sold together to Teuthras, differs from the version adopted by Apollodorus, according to whom Auge alone was sold to Teuthras in Mysia, while her infant son Telephus was left behind in Arcadia and reared by herdsmen (Apollod. 3.9.1). The sons of Aleus and maternal uncles of Telephus were Cepheus and Lycurgus (Apollod. 3.9.1). Ancient writers do not tell us how Telephus fulfilled the oracle by killing them, though the murder is mentioned by Hyginus, Fab. 244 and a Greek proverb-writer (Paroemiographi Graeci, ed. Leutsch and Schneidewin, i. p. 212). Sophocles appears to have told the story in his lost play, The Mysians; for in it he described how Telephus came, silent and speechless, from Tegea to Mysia (Aristot. Poet. 1460a 32">P">Aristot. Poet. 1460a 32), and this silence of Telephus seems to have been proverbial. For the comic poet Alexis, speaking of a greedy parasite who used to gobble up his dinner without exchanging a word with anybody, says that, “he dines like speechless Telephus, answering all questions put to him only with nods” (Athenaeus x.18, p. 421 D). And another comic poet, Amphis, describing the high and mighty airs with which fish-mongers treated their customers in the market, says that it was a thousand times easier to get speech of a general than of a fish-monger; for if you addressed one of these gentry and, pointing to a fish, asked “How much?” he would not at first deign to look at you, much less speak to you, but would stoop down, silent as Telephus, over his wares; though in time, his desire of lucre overcoming his contempt of you, he would slap a bloated octopus and mutter meditatively, as if soliloquizing, “ Sixpence for him, and a bob for the hammerfish.” This latter poet explains incidentally why Telephus was silent; he says it was very natural that fish-mongers should hold their tongue, “for all homicides are in the same case,” thus at once informing us of a curious point in Greek law or custom and gratifying his spite at the “cursed fish-mongers,” whom he compares to the worst class of criminals. See Athenaeus vi.5, p. 224 DE. As Greek homicides were supposed to be haunted by the ghosts of their victims until a ceremony of purification was performed which rid them of their invisible, but dangerous, pursuers, we may conjecture that the rule of silence had to be observed by them until the accomplishment of the purificatory rite released them from the restrictions under which they laboured during their uncleanness, and permitted them once more to associate freely with their fellows. As to the restrictions imposed on homicides in ancient Greece, see Psyche's Task, 2nd ed. pp. 113ff.; Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.80, 83ff. The motive of the homicide's silence may have been a fear lest by speaking he should attract the attention, and draw down on himself the vengeance, of his victim's ghost. Similarly, among certain peoples, a widow is bound to observe silence for some time after her husband's death, and the rule appears to be based on a like dread of exciting the angry or amorous passions of her departed spouse by the sound of the familiar voice. See Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, iii.71ff. ) And she

255
brought forth her babe secretly and deposited it in the precinct of Athena. But the country being wasted by a pestilence, Aleus entered the precinct and on investigation discovered his daughter's motherhood. So he exposed the babe on Mount Parthenius, and by the providence of the gods it was preserved: for a doe that had just cast her fawn
257
gave it suck, and shepherds took up the babe and called it Telephus.[*](Apollodorus seems to derive the name Telephus from θηλή, “a dug,” and ἔλαφος, “a doe.”) And her father gave Auge to Nauplius, son of Poseidon, to sell far away in a foreign land; and Nauplius gave her to Teuthras, the prince of Teuthrania, who made her his wife.