Library

Apollodorus

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

And Catreus gave Aerope and Clymene to Nauplius to sell into foreign lands; and of these two Aerope became the wife of Plisthenes, who begat Agamemnon and Menelaus; and Clymene became the wife of Nauplius, who became the father of Oeax and Palamedes. But afterwards in the grip of old age Catreus yearned to transmit the kingdom to his son Althaemenes, and went for that purpose to Rhodes. And having landed from the ship with the heroes at a desert place of the island, he was chased by the cowherds, who imagined that they were pirates on a raid. He told them the truth, but they could not hear him for the barking of the dogs, and while they pelted him Althaemenes arrived

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and killed him with the cast of a javelin, not knowing him to be Catreus. Afterwards when he learned the truth, he prayed and disappeared in a chasm.

To Deucalion were born Idomeneus and Crete and a bastard son Molus.[*](Compare Diod. 5.79.4.) But Glaucus, while he was yet a child, in chasing a mouse fell into a jar of honey and was drowned.[*](Glaucus was a son of Minos and Pasiphae. See above, Apollod. 3.1.2. For the story of his death and resurrection, see Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 811; Apostolius, Cent. v.48; Palaephatus, De incredib. 27; Hyginus, Fab. 136; Hyginus, Ast. ii.14. Sophocles and Euripides composed tragedies on the subject. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 216ff., 558ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 56ff. ) On his disappearance Minos made a great search and consulted diviners as to how he should find him. The Curetes told him that in his herds he had a cow of three different colors, and that the man who could best describe that cow's color would also restore his son to him alive.[*](The cow or calf (for so Hyginus describes it) was said to change colour twice a day, or once every four hours, being first white, then red, and then black. The diviner Polyidus solved the riddle by comparing the colour of the animal to a ripening mulberry, which is first white, then red, and finally black. See Hyginus, Fab. 136; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 811; Sophocles, quoted by Athenaeus ii.36, p. 51 D, and Bekker's Anecdota Graeca, i. p. 361, lines 20ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.60, frag. 395.) So when the diviners were assembled, Polyidus, son of Coeranus, compared the color of the cow to the fruit of the bramble, and being compelled to seek for the child he found him by means of a sort of divination.[*](He is said to have discovered the drowned boy by observing an owl which had perched on a wine-cellar and was driving away bees. See Hyginus, Fab. 136. Compare Ael., Nat. Anim. v.2, from which it would seem that Hyginus here followed the tragedy of Polyidus by Euripides.) But Minos declaring that he must recover him alive, he was shut up with the dead body. And while he was in great perplexity, he saw a serpent going towards the corpse. He threw a stone and killed it, fearing to be killed himself if

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any harm befell the body.[*](Accepting Bekker's emendation of the text. See Critical Note.) But another serpent came, and, seeing the former one dead, departed, and then returned, bringing a herb, and placed it on the whole body of the other; and no sooner was the herb so placed upon it than the dead serpent came to life. Surprised at this sight, Polyidus applied the same herb to the body of Glaucus and raised him from the dead.[*](According to another account, Glaucus was raised from the dead by Aesculapius. See below, Apollod. 3.10.3; Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96); Hyginus, Fab. 49; Hyginus, Ast. ii.14. In a Tongan tradition a dead boy is brought to life by being covered with the leaves of a certain tree. See Père Reiter, “Traditions Tonguinnes,” Anthropos, xii.-xi (1917-1918), pp. 1036ff.; and Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “The Resurrection of Glaucus.”)

Minos had now got back his son, but even so he did not suffer Polyidus to depart to Argos until he had taught Glaucus the art of divination. Polyidus taught him on compulsion, and when he was sailing away he bade Glaucus spit into his mouth. Glaucus did so and forgot the art of divination.[*](It is said that when Cassandra refused to grant her favours to Apollo in return for the gift of prophecy which he had bestowed on her, he spat into her mouth and so prevented her from convincing anybody of the truth of her prophecies. See Serv. Verg. A. 2.247. On ancient superstitions about spittle, see Pliny, Nat. Hist. 28.35ff.; C. de Mensignac, Recherches Ethnographiques sur la Salive et le Crachat (Bordeaux, 1892), pp. 41ff. ) Thus much must suffice for my account of the descendants of Europa.

When Telephassa died, Cadmus buried her, and after being hospitably received by the Thracians he came to Delphi to inquire about Europa. The god told him not to trouble about Europa, but to be guided by a cow, and to found a city wherever

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she should fall down for weariness.[*](With this story of the foundation of Thebes by Cadmus compare Paus. 9.12.1ff., Paus. 9.19.4; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.494; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 638 (who quotes the oracle at full length); Scholiast on Aesch. Seven 486; Hyginus, Fab. 178; Ov. Met. 3.6ff. The Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.494 agrees almost verbally with Apollodorus, and cites as his authorities the Boeotica of Hellanicus and the third book of Apollodorus. Hence we may suppose that in this narrative Apollodorus followed Hellanicus. According to Pausanias, the cow which Cadmus followed bore on each flank a white mark resembling the full moon; Hyginus says simply that it had the mark of the moon on its flank. Varro says (Varro, Re Rust. iii.1) that Thebes in Boeotia was the oldest city in the world, having been built by King Ogyges before the great flood. The tradition of its high antiquity has been recently confirmed by the discovery of many Mycenaean remains on the site. See A. D. Keramopoullos, in *)arxaiologiko\n *delti/on (Athens, 1917), pp. 1ff. ) After receiving such an oracle he journeyed through Phocis; then falling in with a cow among the herds of Pelagon, he followed it behind. And after traversing Boeotia, it sank down where is now the city of Thebes. Wishing to sacrifice the cow to Athena, he sent some of his companions to draw water from the spring of Ares. But a dragon, which some said was the offspring of Ares, guarded the spring and destroyed most of those that were sent. In his indignation Cadmus killed the dragon, and by the advice of Athena sowed its teeth. When they were sown there rose from the ground armed men whom they called Sparti.[*](That is, “sown.” Compare Eur. Ph. 939ff. For the story of the sowing of the dragon's teeth, see Paus. 9.10.1; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.494; Hyginus, Fab. 178; Ov. Met. 3.26-130. Similarly, Jason in Colchis sowed some of the dragon's teeth which he had received from Athena, and from the teeth there sprang up armed men, who fought each other. See Apollod. 1.9.23. As to the dragon-guarded spring at Thebes, see Eur. Ph. 930ff.; Paus. 9.10.5, with my note. It is a common superstition that springs are guarded by dragons or serpents. Compare The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii.155ff. ) These slew each other, some in a chance brawl, and some in ignorance. But Pherecydes says that when Cadmus saw armed men growing up out of the ground, he flung stones
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at them, and they, supposing that they were being pelted by each other, came to blows. However, five of them survived, Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelorus.[*](The names of the five survivors of the Sparti are similarly reported by Paus. 9.5.3; the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1179; and Hyginus, Fab. 179. From the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.1179, we learn that their names were given in like manner by Pherecydes as indeed we might have inferred from Apollodorus's reference to that author in the present passage. Ov. Met. 3.126 mentions that five survived, but he names only one (Echion).)

But Cadmus, to atone for the slaughter, served Ares for an eternal year; and the year was then equivalent to eight years of our reckoning.[*](The “eternal year” probably refers to the old eight years' cycle, as to which and the period of a homicide's banishment, see the note on Apollod. 2.5.11.) After his servitude Athena procured for him the kingdom, and Zeus gave him to wife Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. And all the gods quitted the sky, and feasting in the Cadmea celebrated the marriage with hymns.[*](As to the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, see Pind. P. 3.88(157)ff.; Eur. Ph. 822ff.; Theognis 15-18; Diod. 4.2.1, Diod. 5.48.5, Diod. 5.49.1; Paus. 3.18.12; Paus. 9.12.3; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 101 (Second Vatican Mythographer 78), (who calls the wife Hermiona).) Cadmus gave her a robe and the necklace wrought by Hephaestus, which some say was given to Cadmus by Hephaestus, but Pherecydes says that it was given by Europa, who had received it from Zeus.[*](According to another account, this golden necklace was bestowed by Aphrodite on Cadmus or on Harmonia. See Diod. 4.65.5; Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.94(167); Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 71. But, according to yet another account, the necklace and robe were both bestowed by Athena. See Diod. 5.49.1. Second Vatican Mythographer 78 (see preceding note) says that the necklace was made by Vulcan (Hephaestus) at the instigation of Minerva (Athena), and that it was bestowed by him on Harmonia at her marriage.) And to Cadmus were born daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, Agave, and a son Polydorus.[*](Compare Hes. Th. 975-978ff.; Diod. 4.2.1. As to the daughters Semele and Ino, compare Pind. O. 2.22(38)ff. ) Ino was married to Athamas, Autonoe to Aristaeus, and Agave to Echion.

But Zeus loved Semele and bedded with her unknown to

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Hera.[*](For the loves of Zeus and Semele and the birth of Dionysus, see Hes. Th. 940-942; Eur. Ba. 1ff.; Eur. Ba. 242ff.; Eur. Ba. 286ff.; Diod. 4.2.2ff.; Diod. 5.52.2; Philostratus, Im. i.13; Paus. 3.24.3; Paus. 9.5.2; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiv.325 (who copies Apollodorus without mentioning him); Scholiast on Pind. O. 2.25(44); Lucian, Dial. Deorum ix.; Nonnus and Nicetas, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, lxxi. p. 385; Ov. Met. 3.259ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 167, 179; Fulgentius, Mytholog. ii.15; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.12; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 38ff., 102 (First Vatican Mythographer 120; Second Vatican Mythographer 79).) Now Zeus had agreed to do for her whatever she asked, and deceived by Hera she asked that he would come to her as he came when he was wooing Hera. Unable to refuse, Zeus came to her bridal chamber in a chariot, with lightnings and thunderings, and launched a thunderbolt. But Semele expired of fright, and Zeus, snatching the sixth-month abortive child[*](So the infant Dionysus is described by the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xiv.325, who however may be copying Apollodorus, though he refers to the Bacchae of Euripides. But Lucian, Dial. Deorum. ix.2 and Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, p. 385, speak of the infant as a seventh-month child at birth.) from the fire, sewed it in his thigh. On the death of Semele the other daughters of Cadmus spread a report that Semele had bedded with a mortal man, and had falsely accused Zeus, and that therefore she had been blasted by thunder. But at the proper time Zeus undid the stitches and gave birth to Dionysus, and entrusted him to Hermes. And he conveyed him to Ino and Athamas, and persuaded them to rear him as a girl.[*](So Achilles is said to have been dressed in his youth as a girl at the court of Lycomedes, king of Scyros. See below, Apollod. 3.13.8 note. These traditions may embody reminiscences of an old custom of dressing boys as girls in order to avert the evil eye. See “Frazer, The Youth of Achilles,” The Classical Review, vii. (1893), pp. 292.ff., and Frazer, note on Paus. i.22.6.) But Hera indignantly drove them mad, and Athamas hunted his elder son Learchus as a deer and killed him,[*](Compare Paus. 1.44.7; Paus. 9.34.7; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 229; Scholiast on Hom. Od. v.334; Hyginus, Fab. 2, 4; Ovid, Fasti vi.489ff.; Ov. Met. 4.512ff.; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.12; Serv. Verg. A. 5.241; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 102 (Second Vatican Mythographer 79).) and Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling
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cauldron,[*](Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 229; Scholiast on Pind. I., Arg. p. 514, ed. Boeckh.) then carrying it with the dead child she sprang into the deep. And she herself is called Leucothea, and the boy is called Palaemon, such being the names they get from sailors; for they succour storm-tossed mariners.[*](On Ino and Melicertes see also Paus. 1.42.6, Paus. 1.44.7ff., Paus. 2.1.3, Paus. 4.34.4; Zenobius, Cent. iv.38; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 107, 229-231; Scholiast on Hom. Il. viii.86, Od. v.334; Scholiast on Eur. Med. 1284; Hyginus, Fab. 2, 4; Ov. Met. 4.519-542; Ovid, Fasti vi.491ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 5.241; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.12; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 102 (Second Vatican Mythographer 79).) And the Isthmian games were instituted by Sisyphus in honor of Melicertes.[*](On the foundation of the Isthmian games in honour of Melicertes, see Paus. 1.44.8, Paus. 2.1.3; Scholiasts on Pind. I., Arg. pp. 514, 515, ed. Boeckh; Scholiasts on Eur. Med. 1284; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.34, p. 29, ed. Potter; Zenobius, Cent. iv.38; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 107, 229-231; Hyginus, Fab. 2.) But Zeus eluded the wrath of Hera by turning Dionysus into a kid,[*](Dionysus bore the title of Kid. See Hesychius, s.v. Ἔριφος ὁ Διόνυσος ; Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἀκρώρεια . When the gods fled into Egypt to escape the fury of Typhon, Dionysus is said to have been turned into a goat. See Ant. Lib. 28; Ov. Met. 5.39; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 29 (First Vatican Mythographer 86). As a god of fertility, Dionysus appears to have been conceived as embodied, now in the form of a goat, now in the form of a bull; and his worshippers accordingly entered into communion with him by rending and devouring live goats and bulls. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i.12ff., ii.1ff. The goat was the victim regularly sacrificed in the rites of Dionysus, because the animal injured the vine by gnawing it; but the reason thus alleged for the sacrifice may have been a later interpretation. See Verg. G. 2.380-384, who refers the origin both of tragedy and of comedy to these sacrifices of goats in honour of the wine-god. Compare Varro, Re. Rust. i.2.19; Ovid, Fasti i.353ff.; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium 30; Serv. Verg. A. 3.118.) and Hermes took him and brought him to the nymphs who dwelt at Nysa in Asia, whom Zeus afterwards changed into stars and named them the Hyades.[*](Apollodorus seems here to be following Pherecydes, who related how the infant Dionysus was nursed by the Hyades. See the Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.486; Hyginus, Ast. ii.21; Scholiast on Germanicus, Aratea (in Martianus Capella, ed. Fr. Eyssenhardt, p. 396); Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Müller, i.84. Frag. 46. Nothing could be more appropriate than that the god of the vine should be nursed by the nymphs of the rain. According to Diod. 3.59.2, Diod. 3.64.5, Diod. 3.65.7, Diod. 3.66.3, Nysa, the place where the nymphs reared Dionysus, was in Arabia, which is certainly not a rainy country; but he admits (Diod. 3.66.4, Diod. 3.67.5) that others placed Nysa in Africa, or, as he calls it, Libya, away in the west beside the great ocean. Herodotus speaks of Nysa as “in Ethiopia, above Egypt” (Hdt. 2.146), and he mentions “the Ethiopians who dwell about sacred Nysa and hold the festivals in honor of Dionysus” ( Hdt. 3.97). But in fact Nysa was sought by the ancients in many different and distant lands and was probably mythical, perhaps invented to explain the name of Dionysus. See Stephanus Byzantius and Hesychius, s.v. Νύσα ; A. Wiedemann on Herodotus, ii.146; T. W. Allen and E. E. Sikes on HH to Dion. i.8, p. 4.)
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Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son Actaeon, who was bred by Chiron to be a hunter and then afterwards was devoured on Cithaeron by his own dogs.[*](As to Actaeon and his dogs, see Diod. 4.3-5; Nonnus, Dionys. v.287ff.; Palaephatus, De incredib. 3; Nonnus, in Westermann's Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, 6, p. 360; Hyginus, Fab. 181; Ov. Met. 3.138ff.; Fulgentius, Mytholog. iii.3; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 103 (Second Vatican Mythographer 81). Hyginus and Ovid give lists of the dogs' names.) He perished in that way, according to Acusilaus, because Zeus was angry at him for wooing Semele; but according to the more general opinion, it was because he saw Artemis bathing. And they say that the goddess at once transformed him into a deer, and drove mad the fifty dogs in his pack, which devoured him unwittingly. Actaeon being gone, the dogs sought their master howling lamentably, and in the search they came to the cave of Chiron, who fashioned an image of Actaeon, which soothed their grief.

  1. [ The names of Actaeon's dogs from the . . . . So
  2. Now surrounding his fair body, as it were that of a beast,
  3. The strong dogs rent it. Near Arcena first.
  4. 325
    . . . . after her a mighty brood,
  5. Lynceus and Balius goodly-footed, and Amarynthus. —
  6. And these he enumerated continuously by name.
  7. And then Actaeon perished at the instigation of Zeus.
  8. For the first that drank their master's black blood
  9. Were Spartus and Omargus and Bores, the swift on the track.
  10. These first ate of Actaeon and lapped his blood.
  11. And after them others rushed on him eagerly . . . .
  12. To be a remedy for grievous pains to men. ]
unknown

Dionysus discovered the vine,[*](As to the discovery of the vine by Dionysus and the wanderings of the god, see Diod. 3.62ff., Diod. 4.1.6ff., Diod. 4.2.5ff.; Strab. 15.1.7-9 The story of the rovings of Dionysus, and in particular of his journey to India, was probably suggested by a simple observation of the wide geographical diffusion of the vine. Wherever the plant was cultivated and wine made from the grapes, there it would be supposed that the vine-god must have tarried, dispensing the boon or the bane of his gifts to mortals. There seems to be some reason to think that the original home of the vine was in the regions to the south of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Sea, where the plant still grows wild “with the luxuriant wildness of a tropical creeper, clinging to tall trees and producing abundant fruit without pruning or cultivation.” See A. de Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants (London, 1884), pp. 191ff. Compare A. Engler, in Victor Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Ubergang aus Asien (Berlin, 1902), pp. 85ff. But these regions are precisely those which Dionysus was supposed to have traversed on his journeys. Certainly the idea of the god's wanderings cannot have been suggested, as appears to be sometimes imagined, by the expedition of Alexander the Great to India (see F. A. Voigt, in W. H. Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i.1087), since they are described with geographical precision by Euripides, who died before Alexander the Great was born. In his famous play, The Bacchae (Eur. Ba. 13-20), the poet introduces the god himself describing his journey over Lydia, Phrygia, Bactria, Media, and all Asia. And by Asia the poet did not mean the whole continent of Asia as we understand the word, for most of it was unknown to him; he meant only the southern portion of it from the Mediterranean to the Indus, in great part of which the vine appears to be native.) and being driven mad by Hera[*](Compare Eur. Cyc. 3ff. ) he roamed about Egypt and

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Syria. At first he was received by Proteus, king of Egypt,[*](The visit of Dionysus to Egypt was doubtless invented to explain the close resemblance which the ancients traced between the worships of Osiris and Dionysus. See Hdt. 2.42; Hdt. 2.49, and Hdt. 2.144; Diod. 1.11.3, Diod. 1.13.5, Diod. 1.96.5, Diod. 4.1.6; Plut. Isis et Osiris 28, 34, and 35; Tibullus 1.7.29ff. For the same reason Nysa, the place where Dionysus was supposed to have been reared, was by some people believed to be in the neighbourhood of Egypt. See HH Dion. 8ff.; Diod. 1.15.6, Diod. 4.2.3.) but afterwards he arrived at Cybela in Phrygia.[*](For the association of Dionysus with Phrygia, see Eur. Ba. 58ff.; Eur. Ba. 78ff., where the chorus of Bacchanals is represented escorting Dionysus from the mountains of Phrygia to Greece. According to one account, Dionysus was reared by the great Phrygian goddess Rhea (Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Μάσταυρα.) These legends were probably intended to explain the resemblances between the Bacchic and the Phrygian religions, especially in respect of their wild ecstatic and orgiastic rites.) And there, after he had been purified by Rhea and learned the rites of initiation, he received from her the costume and hastened through Thrace against the Indians. But Lycurgus, son of Dryas, was king of the Edonians, who dwell beside the river Strymon, and he was the first who insulted and expelled him.[*](For the story of the hostility of Lycurgus to Dionysus, see Hom. Il. 6.129ff., with the Scholia; Soph. Ant. 955ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 273; Hyginus, Fab. 132; Serv. Verg. A. 3.14; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 39 (First Vatican Mythographer 122). According to Sophocles, it would seem that Lycurgus suffered nothing worse at the hands of his subjects than imprisonment in a cave, where his frenzy gradually subsided. According to Hyginus, Servius, and the First Vatican Mythographer, the furious king, in attempting to cut down the vines, lopped off one of his own feet or even both his legs. It appears to be a common belief that a woodman who cuts a sacred tree with an axe wounds himself in so doing. See W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, pp. 36ff. It is said that when the missionary Jerome of Prague was preaching to the heathen Lithuanians and persuading them to cut down their sacred woods, one of the converts, moved by his exhortation, struck at an ancient oak with an axe, but wounded himself in the legs and fell to the ground. See Aeneas Sylvius, Opera (Basel, 1571), p. 418 [wrongly numbered 420]. The accident to this zealous convert closely resembles the one which is said to have befallen the Edonian king in a similar attempt on the sacred vine.) Dionysus took refuge in the sea with Thetis, daughter of Nereus, and the Bacchanals were taken prisoners together with the multitude of Satyrs that attended him. But afterwards the Bacchanals were suddenly released, and Dionysus drove Lycurgus mad. And in his madness he struck his son Dryas dead with an axe, imagining that he was lopping a branch of a vine, and when he had cut off
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his son's extremities,[*](Greek murderers used to cut off the extremities, such as the ears and noses, of their victims, fasten them on a string, and tie the string round the necks and under the armpits of the murdered men. One motive assigned for this custom, and probably the original one, was the wish by thus mutilating the dead man to weaken him so that he, or rather his ghost, could not take vengeance on his murderer (ἵνα, φασίν, ἀσθενὴς γένοιτο πρὸς τὸ ἀντιτίσασθαι τὸν φονέα, Scholiast on Soph. El. 445; διὰ τούτων ὥσπερ τὴν δύναμιν ἐκείνων [scil. τῶν ἀναιρεθέντων] ἀφαιρούμενοι, διὰ τὸ μὴ παθεῖν ἐς ὕστερόν τι δεινὸν παρʼ ἐκείνων, Suidas, s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι). On this barbarous custom see the Scholiast on Soph. El. 445; Suidas, s.v. μασχαλισθῆναι); Hesychius and Photius, Lexicon, s.v. μασχαλίσματα; ; Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.477. According to one account (Scholiast on Soph. El. 445), the murderer fastened the extremities of his victim about his own person, but the better attested and more probable account is that he tied them about the mutilated body of his victim. Compare E. Rohde, Psyche(3), i.322-326; Jebb on Soph. El. 445, with the Appendix, pp. 211ff. The practice is perhaps illustrated by an original drawing in the Ambrosian manuscript of the Iliad, which represents the Homeric episode of Dolon (Hom. Il. 10.314ff.); in the drawing the corpse of the slain Dolon is depicted shorn of its feet and hands, which lie beside it, while Ulysses holds Dolon's severed head in his hand. See Annali dell' Instituto di Correspondenza Archeologica (Rome, 1875), tav. d'agg. R.; Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, i.460ff., fig. 506. It appears to be a widespread belief that the ghost of one who has died a violent death is dangerous to his slayer, but that he can be rendered powerless for mischief by maiming his body in such a way as would have disabled him in life. For example, some of the Australian aborigines used to cut off the thumbs of the right hands of dead enemies to prevent their ghosts from throwing spears. See A. Oldfield, “The Aborigines of Australia,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, iii. (1865) p. 287. In Travancore the spirits of murderers who have been hanged are thought to be very mischievous; hence, in order to prevent them from doing harm, it used to be customary to cut off the heels of the criminal with a sword or to hamstring him as he swung on the gallows. See S. Mateer, The Land of Charity (London, (1871), pp. 203ff. In Armenia, when a person falls sick soon after the death of a member of the family, it is supposed that the sickness is caused by the dead man, who cannot rest in his grave until he has drawn away one of his kinsfolk to the spirit land. To prevent this catastrophe, the body of the deceased is disinterred and decapitated, and to make assurance doubly sure the head is smashed or a needle is stuck into it and into the heart. See Manuk Abeghian, Der armenische Volksglaube (Leipsig, 1899), p. 11. In some parts of West Africa it is similarly customary to disinter and decapitate a corpse of a person whose ghost is supposed to be causing sickness, “because the deceased, having his head cut off, will not have the same strength as before, and consequently will not be in a position to trouble him (the patient).” See J. B. Labat, Relation Historique de l'Ethiopie Occidentale (Paris, 1732), i.208.) he recovered his senses.[*](So Orestes, driven mad by the Furies of his murdered mother, is said to have recovered his senses on biting off one of his own fingers (Paus. 8.34.2). By the sacrifice he may be supposed to have appeased the anger of his mother's ghost, who was thought to be causing his madness. Compare Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, iii.240ff. ) But the land remaining barren, the god declared oracularly that it would bear fruit if Lycurgus were put to death. On hearing that, the Edonians led him to
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Mount Pangaeum and bound him, and there by the will of Dionysus he died, destroyed by horses.[*](The king thus done to death was perhaps supposed to die in the character of the god; for Dionysus himself was said to have been rent in pieces by the Titans. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed. ii.98ff.; Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i.24ff. )