After the death of Pandion his sons marched against Athens, expelled the Metionids, and divided the government in four; but Aegeus had the whole power.[*](Compare Paus. 1.5.4, Paus. 1.39.4, according to whom Aegeus, as the eldest of the sons of Pandion, obtained the sovereignty of Attica, while his brother Nisus, relinquishing his claim to his elder brother, was invested with the kingdom of Megara. As to the fourfold partition of Attica among the sons of Pandion, about which the ancients were not agreed, see Strab. 9.1.6; Scholiast on Aristoph. Lys. 58, and on Wasps 1223.) The first wife whom he married was Meta, daughter of Hoples, and the second was Chalciope, daughter of Rhexenor.[*](Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 494, who may have copied Apollodorus.) As no child was born to him, he feared his brothers, and went to Pythia and consulted the
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oracle concerning the begetting of children. The god answered him:
- The bulging mouth of the wineskin, O best of men,
- Loose not until thou hast reached the height of Athens.[*](As to the oracle, the begetting of Theseus, and the tokens of his human paternity, see Plut. Thes. 3 and Plut. Thes. 6; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 494; Hyginus, Fab. 37. As to the tokens, compare Diod. 4.59.1, 6; Paus. 1.27.8; Paus. 2.32.7. Theseus is said to have claimed to be a son of Poseidon, because the god had consorted with his mother; and in proof of his marine descent he dived into the sea and brought up a golden crown, the gift of Amphitrite, together with a golden ring which Minos had thrown into the sea in order to test his claim to be a son of the sea-god. See Bacch. 16(17).33ff. , ed. Jebb; Paus. 1.17.3; Hyginus, Ast. ii.5. The picturesque story was painted by Micon in the sanctuary of Theseus at Athens Paus. 1.17.3, and is illustrated by some Greek vase-paintings. See Frazer, commentary on Pausanias; vol. ii. pp. 157ff. )
Not knowing what to make of the oracle, he set out on his return to Athens.
And journeying by way of Troezen, he lodged with Pittheus, son of Pelops, who, understanding the oracle, made him drunk and caused him to lie with his daughter Aethra. But in the same night Poseidon also had connexion with her. Now Aegeus charged Aethra that, if she gave birth to a male child, she should rear it, without telling whose it was; and he left a sword and sandals under a certain rock, saying that when the boy could roll away the rock and take them up, she was then to send him away with them. But he himself came to Athens and celebrated the games of the Panathenian festival, in which Androgeus, son of Minos, vanquished all comers. Him Aegeus sent against the bull of Marathon, by which he was destroyed. But some say that as he journeyed
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to Thebes to take part in the games in honor of Laius, he was waylaid and murdered by the jealous competitors.
[*](This account of the murder of Androgeus is repeated almost verbally by the Scholiast on Plat. Minos 321a. Compare Diod. 4.60.4ff.; Zenobius, Cent. iv.6; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.590. All these writers mention the distinction won by Androgeus in the athletic contests of the Panathenian festival as the ultimate ground of his undoing. Serv. Verg. A. 6.14 and Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. 192 say that, as an eminent athlete who beat all competitors in the games, Androgeus was murdered at Athens by Athenian and Megarian conspirators. Paus. 1.27.10 mentions the killing of Androgeus by the Marathonian bull. According to Hyginus, Fab. 41, Androgeus was killed in battle during the war which his father Minos waged with the Athenians.) But when the tidings of his death were brought to Minos, as he was sacrificing to the Graces in Paros, he threw away the garland from his head and stopped the music of the flute, but nevertheless completed the sacrifice; hence down to this day they sacrifice to the Graces in Paros without flutes and garlands.
But not long afterwards, being master of the sea, he attacked Athens with a fleet and captured Megara, then ruled by king Nisus, son of Pandion, and he slew Megareus, son of Hippomenes, who had come from Onchestus to the help of Nisus.[*](Compare Paus. 1.39.5, who calls Megareus a son of Poseidon, and says that Megara took its name from him.) Now Nisus perished through his daughter's treachery. For he had a purple hair on the middle of his head, and an oracle ran that when it was pulled out he should die; and his daughter Scylla fell in love with Minos and pulled out the hair. But when Minos had made himself master of Megara, he tied the damsel by the feet to the stern of the ship and drowned her.[*](With this story of the death of Nisus through the treachery of his daughter Scylla, compare Aesch. Lib. 612ff.; Paus. 1.19.5; Paus. 2.34.7; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 650; Scholiast on Eur. Hipp. 1200; Prop. iv.19(18) 21ff.; [Virgil], Ciris, 378ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 198; Ov. Met. 8.6ff.; Serv. Verg. Ecl. 6.74; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.333, vii.261; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 2, 116 (First Vatican Mythographer 3; Second Vatican Mythographer 121). A similar tale is told of Pterelaus and his daughter Comaetho. See above, Apollod. 2.4.5; Apollod. 2.4.7.)
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When the war lingered on and he could not take Athens, he prayed to Zeus that he might be avenged on the Athenians. And the city being visited with a famine and a pestilence, the Athenians at first, in obedience to an ancient oracle, slaughtered the daughters of Hyacinth, to wit, Antheis, Aegleis, Lytaea, and Orthaea, on the grave of Geraestus, the Cyclops; now Hyacinth, the father of the damsels, had come from Lacedaemon and dwelt in Athens.
[*](Compare Diod. 17.15.2; Hyginus, Fab. 238 (who seems to mention only one daughter; but the passage is corrupt); Harpocration, s.v. Ὑακινθίδες , who says that the daughters of Hyacinth the Lacedaemonian were known as the Hyacinthides. The name of one of the daughters of Hyacinth is said to have been Lusia (Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Λουσία ). Some people, however, identified the Hyacinthides with the daughters of Erechtheus, who were similarly sacrificed for their country (above, Apollod. 3.15.4). See Dem. 60.27; Suidas, s.v. παρθένοι . According to Phanodemus in the fifth book of his Atthis (cited by Suidas, s.v. παρθένοι), the daughters of Erechtheus were called Hyacinthides because they were sacrificed at the hill named Hyacinth. Similarly, as Heyne pointed out in his note on the present passage, the three daughters of Leos, namely, Praxithea, Theope, and Eubule, are said to have sacrificed themselves voluntarily, or to have been freely sacrificed by their father, for the safety of Athens in obedience to an oracle. A precinct called the Leocorium was dedicated to their worship at Athens. See Ael., Var. Hist. xii.28; Dem. 40.28; Paus. 1.5.2, with Frazer's note (vol. ii. p. 78); Apostolius, Cent. x.53; Aristides, Or. xiii. vol. i. pp. 191ff., ed. Dindorf; Cicero, De natura deorum iii.19.50. So, too, in Boeotia the two maiden daughters of Orion are said to have sacrificed themselves freely to deliver their country from a fatal pestilence or dearth, which according to an oracle of the Gortynian Apollo could be remedied only by the voluntary sacrifice of two virgins. See Ant. Lib. 25; Ov. Met. 13.685-699. The frequency of such legends, among which the traditional sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis may be included, suggests that formerly the Greeks used actually to sacrifice maidens in great emergencies, such as plagues and prolonged droughts, when ordinary sacrifices had proved ineffectual.) But when this was of no avail, they inquired of the oracle how they could be delivered; and the god answered them that they should give Minos whatever satisfaction he might choose. So they sent to Minos and left it to him to claim satisfaction. And Minos ordered them to send seven youths and the same number of damsels without weapons to be fodder for the Minotaur.
[*](Compare Diod. 4.61.1-4; Plut. Thes. 15; Paus. 1.27.10; Scholiast on Plat. Minos 321a; Verg. A. 6.20ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 6.14; Hyginus, Fab. 41; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Achill. 192.) Now the Minotaur was confined
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in a labyrinth, in which he who entered could not find his way out; for many a winding turn shut off the secret outward way.
[*](As to the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, see above, Apollod. 3.1.4.) The labyrinth was constructed by Daedalus, whose father was Eupalamus, son of Metion, and whose mother was Alcippe;
[*](Compare Tzetzes, Chiliades i.490, and the Scholiast on Plat. Ion 121a, both of whom name the father and mother of Daedalus in agreement with Apollodorus. The father of Daedalus is called Eupalamus also by Suidas (s.v. Πέρδικος ἱερόν), the Scholiast on Plato (Rep. 7. 529d), Hyginus, Fab. 39, 244, and 274, and Servius on Virgil, vi.14. He is called Palamaon by Paus. 9.3.2, and Metion, son of Eupalamus, son of Erechtheus, by Diod. 4.76.1. Our oldest authority for the parentage of Daedalus is Pherecydes, who says that the father of Daedalus was Metion, son of Erechtheus, and that his mother was Iphinoe (Scholiast on Soph. OC 472); and this tradition as to the father of Daedalus is supported by Plat. Ion 533a. According to Clidemus, cited by Plut. Thes. 19, Daedalus was a cousin of Theseus, his mother being Merope, daughter of Erechtheus. On the whole, tradition is in harmony with the statement of Paus. 7.4.5 “that Daedalus came of the royal house of Athens, the Metionids.” Compare J. Toepffer, Attische Genealogie, pp. 165ff. Through the clouds of fable which gathered round his life and adventures we may dimly discern the figure of a vagabond artist as versatile as Leonardo da Vinci and as unscrupulous as Benvenuto Cellini.) for he was an excellent architect and the first inventor of images. He had fled from Athens, because he had thrown down from the acropolis Talos, the son of his sister Perdix;
[*](As to Daedalus's murder of his nephew, his trial, and flight, compare Diod. 4.76.4-7; Paus. 1.21.4; Paus. 1.26.4; Paus. 7.4.5; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.490ff.; Suidas and Photius, Lexicon, s.v. Πέρδικος ἱερόν ; Apostolius, Cent. xiv.17; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1648; Ov. Met. 8.236-259; Hyginus, Fab. 39, 244; Serv. Verg. G. 1.143 and Serv. Verg. A. 6.14; Isidore, Orig. xix.19.9. The name of the murdered nephew is commonly given as Talos, but according to Paus. 1.21.4 and Suidas and Photius, Lexicon, s.v. Πέρδικος ἱερόν; it was Calos. On the other hand Sophocles, in his lost play The Camicians (cited by Suidas and Photius,ll.cc.) called him Perdix, that is, Partridge; and this name is accepted by Ovid, Hyginus, Servius, and Isidore. But according to a different tradition, here followed by Apollodorus, Perdix (“Partridge”) was the name, not of the murdered nephew, but of his mother, the sister of Daedalus, who hanged herself in grief at the death of her son; the Athenians worshipped her and dedicated a sanctuary to her beside the acropolis (so Apostolius, Suidas and Photius, ll.cc.). The grave of Talos or Calos was shown near the theatre, at the foot of the acropolis, probably on the spot where he was supposed to have fallen from the battlements (Paus. 1.21.4). The trial of Daedalus before the Areopagus is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus and the Scholiast on Euripides l.c..) for Talos was his pupil, and Daedalus feared that with his talents he might surpass himself, seeing that he had sawed a thin stick
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with a jawbone of a snake which he had found.
[*](He is said to have improved the discovery by inventing the iron saw in imitation of the teeth in a serpent's jawbone. See Diod. 4.76.5; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.494ff. Latin writers held that the invention was suggested to him by the backbone of a fish. See Ov. Met. 8.244ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 274; Serv. Verg. A. 6.14; Isidore, Orig. xix.19.9. According to these Latin writers, the ingenious artist invented the compass also. As to Talos or Perdix and his mechanical inventions, see A. B. Cook, Zeus, i.724ff. ) But the corpse was discovered; Daedalus was tried in the Areopagus, and being condemned fled to Minos. And there Pasiphae having fallen in love with the bull of Poseidon, Daedalus acted as her accomplice by contriving a wooden cow, and he constructed the labyrinth, to which the Athenians every year sent seven youths and as many damsels to be fodder for the Minotaur.