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Lycurgus had sons, Ancaeus, Epochus, Amphidamas, and Iasus,[*](Compare Paus. 8.4.10, who mentions only the first two of these four sons.) by Cleophyle or Eurynome. And Amphidamas had a son Melanion and a daughter Antimache, whom Eurystheus married. And Iasus had a daughter Atalanta[*](For the story of Atalanta, and how her suitor won her by the bait of the golden apples, see Theocritus ii i.40-42; Hyginus, Fab. 185; Ov. Met. 10.560-680; Serv. Verg. A. 3.113; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 14, 91 (First Vatican Mythographer 39; Second Vatican Mythographer 47). As Apollodorus points out, there was a difference of opinion as to the name of Atalanta's father. According to Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 215 and the First and Second Vatican Mythographers (Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 54, 124), he was Iasius; according to Ael., Var. Hist. xiii.1, he was Iasion. Prop. i.1.10 seems to agree with Apollodorus that her father was Iasus, for he calls Atalanta by the patronymic Iasis. But according to Diod. 4.34.4, Diod. 4.65.4, Paus. 8.35.10, Hyginus, and Ovid, her father was Schoeneus. Hesiod also called him Schoeneus (see Apollodorus, below), and the later writers just mentioned probably accepted the name on his authority. According to Euripides, as we learn from Apollodorus (see below), the name of the heroine's father was Maenalus. The suckling of Atalanta by the bear, and the unsuccessful assault on her by the two centaurs, Hylaeus and Rhoecus, are described, with a wealth of picturesque detail, by Aelian (Ael., Var. Hist. xiii.1), who does not, however, mention her wedding race. The suitor who won the coy maiden's hand by throwing down the golden apples is called Hippomenes by most writers (Theocritus, Hyginus, Ovid, Servius, First and Second Vatican Mythographers). Herein later writers may have followed Euripides, who, as we learn from Apollodorus (see below), also called the successful suitor Hippomanes. But by Prop. i.1.9 and Ovid, Ars Am. ii.188 the lover is called Milanion, which nearly agrees with the form Melanion adopted by Apollodorus. Pausanias seems also to have agreed with Apollodorus on this point, for he tells us (Apollod. 3.12.9) that Parthenopaeus, who was a son of Atalanta (see below), had Melanion for his father.) by Clymene, daughter of Minyas. This Atalanta was exposed by her father, because he desired male children; and a she bear came often and gave her suck, till hunters found her and brought her up among themselves. Grown to womanhood, Atalanta kept herself a virgin, and hunting in the wilderness she remained always under arms. The centaurs Rhoecus and Hylaeus tried to force her, but were shot down and killed by her. She went moreover with the chiefs to hunt the Calydonian boar, and at the games held in honor of Pelias she wrestled with

Peleus and won. Afterwards she discovered her parents, but when her father would have persuaded her to wed, she went away to a place that might serve as a racecourse, and, having planted a stake three cubits high in the middle of it, she caused her wooers to race before her from there, and ran herself in arms; and if the wooer was caught up, his due was death on the spot, and if he was not caught up, his due was marriage. When many had already perished, Melanion came to run for love of her, bringing golden apples from Aphrodite,[*](According to Ov. Met. 10.644ff. the goddess brought the golden apples from her sacred field of Tamasus, the richest land in Cyprus; there in the midst of the field grew a wondrous tree, its leaves and branches resplendent with crackling gold, and from its boughs Aphrodite plucked three golden apples. But, according to others, the apples came from the more familiar garden of the Hesperides. See Serv. Verg. A. 3.113; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 14 (First Vatican Mythographer 39).) and being pursued he threw them down, and she, picking up the dropped fruit, was beaten in the race. So Melanion married her. And once on a time it is said that out hunting they entered into the precinct of Zeus, and there taking their fill of love were changed into lions.[*](The sacrilege and its punishment are recorded also by Hyginus, Fab. 185; Serv. Verg. A. 3.113; and the First Vatican Mythographer (Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 14, (Fab. 39). The reason why the lovers were turned into a lion and a lioness for their impiety is explained by the ancient mythographers to be that lions do not mate with each other, but with leopards, so that after their transformation the lovers could never repeat the sin of which they had been guilty. For this curious piece of natural history they refer to Pliny's Natural History; but all that Pliny, in the form in which he has come down to us, appears to affirm on this subject is, that when a lioness forgot her dignity with a leopard, her mate easily detected and vigorously punished the offence (Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii.43). What would have happened if the lion had similarly misbehaved with a leopardess is not mentioned by the natural historian.) But Hesiod and some others have said that Atalanta was not a daughter of Iasus, but of Schoeneus; and Euripides says that she was a daughter of Maenalus, and that her husband was not Melanion but Hippomenes.[*](See above, note on p. 399. It may have been in his lost tragedy, Meleager, that Euripides named the father and husband of Atalanta. She is named in one of the existing fragments (No. 530) of the play. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 525ff. ) And by Melanion, or Ares, Atalanta had a son Parthenopaeus, who went to the war against Thebes.[*](See above, Apollod. 3.6.3. According to others, the father of Parthenopaeus was neither Melanion nor Ares, but Meleager. See Hyginus, Fab. 70, 99, and 270; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 54, 125 (First Vatican Mythographer 174; Second Vatican Mythographer 144).)

Atlas and Pleione, daughter of Ocean, had seven daughters called the Pleiades, born to them at Cyllene in Arcadia, to wit: Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete, and Maia.[*](As to the Pleiades, see Aratus, Phaenomena 254-268; Eratosthenes, Cat. 23; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica xiii.551ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xviii.486; Scholiast on Pind. N. 2.10(16); Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.226; Hyginus, Ast. ii.21; Hyginus, Fab. 192; Ovid, Fasti iii.105, iv.169-178; Serv. Verg. G. 1.138, and Serv. Verg. A. 1.744; Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 397, ed. F. Eyssenhardt (in his edition of Martianus Capella); Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 73 (First Vatican Mythographer 234). There was a general agreement among the ancients as to the names of the seven Pleiades. Aratus, for example, gives the same names as Apollodorus and in the same order. However, with the exception of Maia, a different list of names is given by the Scholiast on Theocritus xiii.25, who tells us further, on the authority of Callimachus, that they were the daughters of the queen of the Amazons. As their father was commonly said to be Atlas, they were sometimes called Atlantides (Apollodorus, below; Diod. 3.60.4; compare Hes. WD 382). But there was much diversity of opinion as to the origin of the name Pleiades. Some derived it from the name of their mother Pleione; but the most probable view appears to be that the name comes from πλεῖν, “to sail,” because in the Mediterranean area these stars were visible at night during the summer, from the middle of May till the beginning of November, which coincided with the sailing season in antiquity. This derivation of the name was recognized by some of the ancients (Serv. Verg. G. 1.138). With regard to the number of the Pleiades, it was generally agreed that there were seven of them, but that one was invisible, or nearly so, to the human eye. Of this invisibility two explanations were given. Some thought that Electra, as the mother of Dardanus, was so grieved at the fall of Troy that she hid her face in her hands; the other was that Merope, who had married a mere man, Sisyphus, was so ashamed of her humble, though honest, lot by comparison with the guilty splendour of her sisters, who were all of them paramours of gods, that she dared not show herself. These alternative and equally probable theories are stated, for example, by Ovid and Hyginus. The cause of the promotion of the maidens to the sky is said to have been that for seven or even twelve years the hunter Orion pursued them with his unwelcome attentions, till Zeus in pity removed pursuer and pursued alike to heaven, there to shine as stars for ever and to continue the endless pursuit. The bashful or mournful Pleiad, who hid her light, is identified by modern astronomers with Celaeno, a star of almost the seventh magnitude, which can be seen now, as in antiquity, in clear moonless nights by persons endowed with unusually keen sight. See A. von Humboldt, Cosmos, translated by E. Sabine, iii.47ff. ) Of these, Sterope was married to Oenomaus,[*](Compare Paus. 5.10.6. According to another account, Sterope or Asterope, as she is also called, was not the wife but the mother of Oenomaus by the god Ares. See Eratosthenes, Cat. 23; Hyginus, Ast. ii.21; Hyginus, Fab. 84, 159; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 73 (First Vatican Mythographer 234).) and Merope to Sisyphus. And Poseidon had intercourse with two of them, first with Celaeno, by whom he had Lycus, whom Poseidon made to dwell in the Islands of the Blest, and second with Alcyone, who bore a daughter, Aethusa, the mother of Eleuther by Apollo, and two sons Hyrieus and Hyperenor. Hyrieus had Nycteus and Lycus by a nymph Clonia; and Nycteus had Antiope by Polyxo; and Antiope had Zethus and Amphion by Zeus.[*](See above, Apollod. 3.5.5.) And Zeus consorted with the other daughters of Atlas.