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