75 The two centaurs who attempted to rape Atalanta in the wilderness of Arcadia and who were killed by their intended victim (Apollod iii.9.2; Ael, Var Hist xiii.1; Callim, Hymn iii.222–4).
76 Phlegon of Tralles's Perithaumasiai cites ‘Apollonius’ (Historiai Thaumasiai, MS Palatinus Graecus 398) on the discovery of Idas's grave in Messene. Its exhumation yielded gigantic bones, three skulls, and two sets of teeth. Pausanias reports that the grave was claimed by Sparta (iii.13.1) but thinks Messenia a more likely location.
77 Labros, Methepon, Egertes, Eubolos, Corax, Marpsas, Ormenos (François krater, Florence Mus Arch 4209); Leukios, Charon, Gorgas, Thera (qua ‘Theron’: dinos, Athens Agora P334), Podes (band cup, Munich Antikensamml 2243); Loraos (neck amphora, Tarquinia Mus Naz RC5564). The inscriptions on two cups (Malibu 86.AE.154, 156) are meaningless. Xenophon recommends short names, ‘so as to be able to call them easily’, and offers a list of examples (Cyn 7.5).
78 The incident is confusing and perhaps confused. To Aristophanes, Meilanion is a byword for misogyny (Lys 782ff.), while to Xenophon he is the image of uxoriousness, eventually capturing his beloved through ‘love of labour’ (Cyn 1.7), which Ovid glosses as carrying her equipment while hunting (Ars Amat ii.185–92). The Meilanions of other writers range accordingly from affectionate to hostile, cf. n. 60.
79 Meleager is ‘fair-haired’ (or ‘yellow-haired') according to Homer, albeit also dead (Il ii.643); his shade tells Heracles the story of how he came to be so (Bacch v. 79–170; Apollod ii.5.12). He was the son of Oeneus, King of Kalydon, and Althaia, daughter of Thestius, King of Pleuron (Hom, Il ix.543, xiv.115–18; Apollod i.9.16). According to other authorities (Apollod i.8.2; Zen, Cent v.33; fort. Hes, Cat fr.98.5 ap. P Berlin 9777; Eur, Mel fr. ap. Plut, Mor 312a) the father was Ares or, according to Hyginus (Fab clxi), both Ares and Oeneus. Other references render Meleager as insensitive to others’ sensitivities (Antiphon Mel. fr. ap. Aristot, Rhet 1379b), as a suitably patriotic exemplar for Strepsiades of Thebes (Pind, Isth vii. 26–33), as susceptible to his wife's properly organised argument (Antiphon Mel. fr. ap. Aristot, Rhet 1365a), as cleverer than his (half-)brother Tydeus (Eur, Suppl 904, although the passage is emended), as the husband of Kleopatra, and thus the nephew of Idas, and the father of the wife of the first man to die in the Trojan War (Paus iv.2.7). He was taught to hunt by the centaur Chiron, as were Atalanta and Meilanion (Xen, Cyn 1.2). His iconography typically consists in a spear, a dog, a dead boar and a head of curly hair (sardonyx, Munich Antikensamml A3174; carnelian, Munich Antikensamml A2084; statue, Vatican Mus 490, attrib. Skopas, and numerous copies of which one found at Kalydon; dinos fr. Athens Agora P334; dinos, Vatican Mus 306; exaleiptron, Munich Antikensamml 8600; neck amphora fr. Tarquinia Mus Naz RC5564; amphora, Bari Mus Naz 872; stamnos, Perugia Mus Civ (uncatalogued); bronze mirror, Berlin-Charlottenburg Staatl Mus fr. 146; bronze mirror, Paris Louvre ED2837 inv. 1041; bronze mirror, Indiana Art Mus 62.251; bronze mirror, Munich Antikensamml 3654; wall painting, Naples Mus Naz 8980; wall painting, Pompeii VI.9.2(1), Casa di Meleagro; opus tessellatum, Cardenagimeno, Burgos vid. B. Arraiza, unpublished; wall painting (lost), ex Pompeii VI.2.22.c Casa delle Danzatrici; Chalcidian amphora, Paris Louvre E802; caeretan hydria, Paris Louvre E696); pelike, St Petersburg Herm B4528, inter alia).
80 Odysseus appears to string the bow used to kill the suitors of Penelope while sitting down (Hom, Od xxi.243–5). The suitors, however, attempt the same feat standing up (Hom, Od xxi.143–51) as does Pandarus (Hom, Il iv.112–14). Herodotus describes bowstringing as a show of strength among both the Ethiopians (iii.21–3) and, more predictably, the Scythians (iv.9–10), albeit at the instigation of Heracles. Plato argues the converse (Nic ix.3). The bow itself is present here, in the possession of Eurytus, who received it from his father Hippocoon. Eurytus will give it to his own son, Iphitus, who will in turn give it to Odysseus. It is, or was, composite (Hom, Od xxi.12); its ‘hum’ is, or will be, remarked by Odysseus (Hom, Od xxi.410–12), who strings it as though it were a lyre.
81 The Thargelia followed the grain harvest in the latter half of May, the ‘Thargelos’ being ‘the first loaf made after the carrying home of the harvest’, according to Crates (cit. ap. Athen iii. 52), or a yet more primitive ‘pot full of seeds’, according to Hesychius (s.v. ‘Thargelos'). The Thargelia and Thalusia were practically synonymous (Athen iii.52; Eustathius ad Hom, Il ix.534); both were ancient rites (Aristot, Nic Eth 1160a) whose typical offerings grew more sophisticated over time and culminated, through ignorance and fear, in ‘the luxury of flesh’ (Porphyr, De abstinentia ii.20). By the time Nestor came to sacrifice to Athena after his return from Troy, the offering of grain was already an affectation of earlier, simpler habit (Eustathius ad Hom, Od iii.440, et vid. Plut, Quaest Gr vi). The offering of vegetal and carnal offerings together (Eur, Elec 804–5) signals a later confusion, or even conflict (Pind, Ol vii.47 et schol.), between the different orders of gods. Chthonic deities were necessarily vegetarians. Their Olympian successors preferred meat.
82 ‘It would seem that in days of old the beasts were much more formidable to men,’ notes Pausanias (i.27.9). Atalanta carries the cadavers of her centaurs (q.v. n. 75), Theseus his sow (Apollod, Ep 1.1; Bacch xvii.23ff.; Diod Sic iv.59.4; Plut, Thes 9ff.; Paus ii.1.3; Hyg, Fab xxxviii) and Minotaur (Diod Sic iv. 77.1–5; Plut, Thes 15ff. et Eur cit. ap. ibid.; Hyg, Fab xl; Apollod iii.1.4; Schol. (Lact, Plac) ad Statius, Achill 192; Schol. ad Eur, Hipp 887), Jason his bronze-hoofed bulls (Apollod i.9.24) and fertile-toothed dragon (Apollod i.9.16; Ap Rhod ii.1268–70, iv.123ff.). Peleus reduced his trophies to a bag of tongues (Apollod iii.13.3).
83 So Apollodorus (iii.9.2). Theognis has her fleeing when a woman rather than abandoned as an infant (Theog 1287–94). She shares with Paris the fact of her exposure and an infantile taste for bear's milk (Apollod iii.12.5).
84 Callisto, daughter of Lycaon of Arcadia and mother of Areas, from whom the Arcadians traced their lineage, followed the huntswomen of Artemis until impregnated by Zeus (Apollod iii.8.2; Hes, Ast fr. 3 ap. Eratosthenes Catast fr. 1; Eur, Hel 375–80; Ov, Met ii.401–530, Fas ii.155–92; Serv ad Virg, Georg i.138; Hyg, Fab clxxvii), whereupon she was turned into a bear, either by Zeus, fearful of Hera's anger, or by Artemis, angry at her follower's incontinence – so angry that in some versions she shoots the transformed Callisto dead. The metamorphosis was performed at Nonacris in Northern Arcadia (Araethus cit. ap. Hyg, Ast ii.1). In other versions, Zeus further transforms her into a constellation of stars (Hyg, Fab 155, 176; Schol. ad Lyc, Alex 481; Schol. ad Statius, Theb iii.685). Surviving fragments of Asius (PEG fr. 14), Pherecydes (FrGrHist III fr. 157), ‘Epimenides’ (FrVk III fr. B16), Amphis (cit. ap. Hyg, Astron ii.1 et vid. Schol ad Arat, Phaen xxxviii aut CAF fr. 47), an allusion to Eumelos (PEG fr. 14) and a scholium to Euripides (ad Or 1646) add nothing but confusion. Callimachus (fr. 632 ap. schol. ad Callim fr. 487 ap. Choerob ad Theod, Can iv.1) has Hera ordering Artemis to shoot Callisto; Pausanias has a similar version (i.25.1, viii.3.6). Palaephatus disbelieves them all (De Incred fr. xiii). Her son Areas's and father Lycaon's later transformations into wolves are loosely linked to these events. More latterly, the Arcadians’ wearing of bearskins is noted (Paus iv.11.3). The cult of Brauronian Artemis reunites the elements of Callisto's story. Young girls would dress in bearskins and dance for the goddess (Aristoph, Lys, 645 et schol.), whose offerings included blood drawn from a man's throat and the robes worn by women who had died in childbirth (Eur, Iph Taur 1458–67). The goddess's image was supposedly brought by Iphigenia in flight from her immolation at Aulis (Paus i.33.1, iii.16.7) and later removed by Xerxes as a trophy (Paus viii-46.3). Zeus's role seems to have been unwittingly played by the Pelasgians of Lemnos, who, ‘since they well knew the time of the Athenian festivals, acquired fifty-oared ships and set an ambush for the Athenian women celebrating the festival of Artemis at Brauron. They seized many of the women, then sailed away with them and brought them to Lemnos to be their concubines’ (Hdt vi.138.1, iv.142.2).
The inclusion of Callisto's father among the heroes of the present expedition to Kalydon is troublesome: Callisto was Atalanta's great-great-great-great grandmother.
85 Simon, Antandros, Kimon.
86 The orchards of antiquity begin with this one (Hom, Il ix.534, xii.312–15). One of those present, Podargos, will return to Troy to plant the next, and be renamed ‘Priam’ after his ransom. Lycaon will be captured there by Achilles while gathering sticks (Hom, Il xi.34ff., xiii.746ff.; Apollod, Ep iii.32), later sold, ransomed, returned to Troy, and killed by his original captor, who was himself raised ‘as a tree in a rich orchard’ (Hom, Il xviii. 58) by his mother Thetis. The most idyllic orchard was that of Alcinous (Hom, Od vii. 112–21), the most tantalising that of Zeus (Hom, Od xi.589). Odysseus's remembrance of the apple trees given him in his youth by his father was one of the signs by which he identified himself to Laertes (Hom, Od xxiv.328–45); the other was the mark of the boar (ibid.).
87 A fair ‘Xanthos’ and a dark ‘Melanthos’ contended in single combat, although the dispute was over territory rather than a woman (Ephorus cit. ap. Harpocration s.v. apatouria, FrGHist 70F22; Hellanicus cit. ap. schol. ad Plat, Sym 208d). There, and then, ‘Melanthos’ won by trickery according to an oracle quoted by Polyaenus and others (cit. ap. Strategemata i.19; Frontinus cit. ap. Strategemata ii.5.41), or through the intervention of Zeus (Lexica Segueriana s.v. apatouria), or Dionysus, who dons a black goatskin to aid his dark champion (Plut, Quaest Conviv vi. 7.2.692e; cf. schol. ad Aristoph, Ach 146; schol. ad Aelius Aristides Oratio Panathenaia 118.20. Nonnus, Dionys xxvii.301–7).
88 Summer, even late summer, is not autumn. An apple is not a quince. The Greek term encompasses both ‘apple’ and ‘quince’ (and ‘sheep’, ‘goats’ and ‘small cattle’ in Homer, and ‘a girl's breasts’ in Theocritus), the former tree blossoming later than the latter, hence the synonyms for and confusion between ‘spring apples’ (Androtion cit. ap. Athen 82c, distinguished there from ‘apricots') and ‘winter apples’ (Phylotimus cit. ap. Athen 81c). The ‘pomegranate’ (Euphorion fr. 11 ap. Athen 82a; Nicander fr. 50 ibid.) adds a needless complication. It is plain that the orchard is mixed, the fallen fruit are quinces, and the trees still in blossom (Hom, Il ix.542–4) bear apples, or would do had they not been destroyed.
89 The precedents for gifts of apples were unfortunate. According to Pherecydes, the golden apples given by Ge to Hera on her wedding day so delighted the wife of Zeus that she planted them in the garden of the Hesperides beside Mount Atlas, whose daughters promptly began to steal them (frs ap. Eratos, Cat iii; ap. Hyg, Fab xxx; ap. schol. ad Ap Rhod iv.1369ff. et vid. Hes, Theog 215ff.; Eur, Here 394ff.; Diad Sic iv.26; Paus v.11.6, v.18.4, vi.19.8; Ov, Met iv.637ff., ix.190; Hyg, Ast ii.3). Thus angered, Hera set a serpent to guard them. Heracles killed the former and stole the latter, or tricked Atlas into doing so in his stead (Ap Rhod iv.1396ff. et schol.; Apollod ii.5.11). A golden apple, inscribed ‘To the fairest’ (Schol. ad Lyc, Alex 93) and thrown among the guests at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis was to lead, eventually, to tire Trojan war (Hom, Il xxiv.25ff.; Cypria fr. 1 ap. Proc, Chrest i; Eur, Tro 924ff., Iph Aul 1290ff., Hel 23ff., Andr 274ff., Apollod, Ep iii.2; Isoc x.41; Lucian, Dial Deorum xx; Hyg, Fab lxxxxiii). Further golden apples, supplied by Aphrodite from either Cyprus 10v, Met x.644ff.) or the garden of the Hesperides (Serv ad Virg, Aen iii.113), were to trick the Boeotian Atalanta into marriage with Hippomenes (Hes, Cat fr. 14 ap. P Petrie pl.III.3; Apollod iii.9.2), which union ends with both condemned to pull the chariot of Cybele, having been transformed into lions (Pal, De Incred fr. xiii; Ov, Met x.681–704).
90 Formerly the Lykormas (Strab vii.7.8, x.2.5; Bacch xi.34), renamed the Evenus after the son of Porthaon and father of Marpessa. Evanus challenged each of his daughter's suitors to a chariot race and, when they lost, cut off their heads and nailed them to the wall of his house (Bacch xv.1–12; Simonides fr. 213 ap. Schol. ad Hom, Il ix.557; Eustathius cit. ap. ibid.). Idas, furnished with a winged chariot by Poseidon, carried off Marpessa. Outraged at his daughter's abduction, Evenus pursued the lovers as far as this river, where, despairing of catching them, he slaughtered his horses and threw himself into the waters (Hyg, Fab ccxlii; Schol. ad Lyc, Alex 561–3; Paus v.18.2, quoting an inscription on the chest of Kypselos). Strabo offers an unverifiable account of the course of the Evenus (x.2.5) and Hesiod appears to assert that it received its name from Tethys (Theog 345).
91 The Alpheus rose at Phylace in Arcadia (Paus viii.54.1–2), where stone lions marked its source (Paus viii.44–3), then sank underground for ten stadia (Polybius xvi.17) to rise again near Asea (Strab viii.3.12), after which it shared the course of the Eurotas for twenty stadia. Both rivers disappeared underground and separated there, Alpheus reappearing at Pegae and continuing north-west through Arcadia, Elis and past Olympia for eighty stadia (Strab viii.3.12) until falling into the Ionian Sea. The waters of its ‘untiring’ (Bacch v.180) and ‘beautiful stream’ (Bacch xi.26) were ‘wide-whirling’ (Bacch iii.7; v.37) or ‘silver-whirling’ (Bacch viii.27, xii.42, although the latter text is mutilated) or ‘wide-flowing’ (Pind, Ol v.18), particularly in the river's lower course (Hom, Il v.545). Its eddies were deep (Hom, Hymn i.3), but it was fordable at Thryon, near its mouth (Hom, Il ii.592–4; Hymn iii.423), which was choked with rushes (Strab viii.3.24), and also upstream by the shrines of Pelops (Pind, Ol i.90–4) and Zeus (Eur, Elec 782, Hipp 535–9), and again at Olympia (Pind, Ol ii.13; Paus v.13.2), eddies notwithstanding (Ephorus cit. ap. Strab x.3.2). On its banks Hermes discovered the art of fire (Hom, Hymn 105–9), Apollo made love to both Evadne (Pind, Ol vi.31–5) and Melampus (Apollod i.9.11), the Olympic Games were held (Bacch xii.191; Eur, Elec 863; Pind, Isth i.67, Ol i.21; Anon. ap. Cy, Epig i.28, inter alia) and the first wild olive trees grew (Paus v.14.3) from which were fashioned the wreaths crowning the victors (Paus v.15.3). Heracles's diversion of the Alpheus to clean Augeus's stables is little-attested (Diod Sic iv.13.3) and the addition of the Peneus (Apollod ii.5.5) geographically implausible. Among its tributaries may be noticed the Cladaus (Xen, Hell vii.4.29; Paus v.7.1, vi.20.6, vi.21.3), the Brentheates (Paus v.7.1, viii.28.7), the Naliphus and an Acheloos (Paus viii.38.9–10), the Helisson (Paus v.7.1, viii.3.3, viii.29.5, viii.30.12), the Buphagus (Paus v.7.1, viii.26.8, viii.27.17), the Aminius (Paus, viii.29.5), the Celadus (Paus viii.38.9), the Gatheatus (Paus viii.34.5), the Malus (Paus viii.35.1), the Mylaon and Nus (Paus viii.36.1–2, viii.38.9), the Gortynius (Paus v.7.1, also called ‘Lusius'), which joined the Alpheus at Rhaeteae (Paus viii.28.4), the Scyrus (Paus viii.35.1), the Thius (Paus viii.35.3), and most notably the Erymanthus (Strab viii.3.12; Paus viii.24.4 et vid. n. 93) and the Ladon (Paus viii.25.12 et vid. n. 92). As a river-god, Alpheus was the would-be seducer of Artemis (Telesilla fr. 1 ap. Hephaestion lxvii), who disguised herself by smearing her face with mud, and of the nymph Aiethusa, who was pursued by Alpheus under the ocean as far as Ortygia (Pind, Nem i.1; Paus v.7.2–3, viii.54.3; Ibycus fr. 24 ap. schol. ad Theocr i.117). Nestor's ships carried ensigns showing Alpheus, conventionally enough, as a bull(Eur, Iph Aul 273–6) and a bull was a sacrifice appropriate to the river-god (Hom, Il xi.726–7).
92 The Ladon rose midway between Lycuria and Kleitor (Paus vii.20.1–21.1), disappeared underground at Pheneus (Diod Sic xv.49.5), then reappeared at Leucasium, flowed past Mesoboa, Nasi, Oryx, Thaliades, Thelpusa (Paus viii.25.2) and Onceium, where Demeter bathed after the rape by Poseidon (Paus viii 25.4). The Tuthoa joined it at Heraea, and the Ladon itself fell into the Alpheus at the Island of Crows (Paus viii.25.12). There was no better river (Paus viii.25.13) nor more beautiful waters (Paus viii.20.1). Heracles shot the Cerynitian hind as it crossed the Ladon (Apollod ii.5.3; sed vid. Pind, Ol iii.53ff. et schol; Eur, Here 375ff.; Diod Sic iv.13.1; Hyg, Fab xxx), slowed perhaps by reeds (Corinna fr. 34 ap. Theod, Can s.v. ‘Declension of Barytones in -on'). Act and locale were to inspire at least one imitator (Antipater Anth Gr vi.111): Leucippus, the would-be lover of Daphne, was killed by her and her companions w
hen discovered as a man while bathing there (Paus viii.20.2–4; Parth, Er Path xv.4; pseudo-Pal, De Incred fr. xxxxix). Like all river-gods, Ladon was the son of Tethys and Oceanus (Hes, Theog 344).
93 In the texts, as in the topography: Mount Erymanthus overshadowed its eponymous river and also formed its source (Paus v.7.1), the particular peak being Mount Lampeia (Paus viii.24.4). Thereafter, the Erymanthus ‘passing through Arcadia, with Mount Pholoe on the right and the district of Thelpusa on the left, flows into the Alpheus’ (Paus ibid.; Strab viii.3.12). There was a crossing-point at Saurus, just upstream of the confluence (Paus vi.21.3–4). In Pausanias's account, Heracles's capture of the Erymanthian boar took place at this river (v.26.7). Apollodorus seems to agree (ii.5.4).
94 The bankside flora of the Eurotas included reeds (Theognis 783–8), rushes (Callim, Aet lxxv.23), flowers (loutrophorus, Malibu 86.AE.680) and mint (Callim, Hec fr. 284a.16). The latter attracted horses (ibid.) and the horses attracted Castor and Pollux (Callim, Hymn v.24; Aristoph, Lys 1300; Eur, Hel 205–11). It was hard to cross in winter (Diad Sic xv.65.2), but there were fords between Amyclae and Therapne (Paus iii.19.4–7; Xen, Hell vi.5.30), at Pitana (Pind, Ol vi.28), and later, when the latter settlement was incorporated into Sparta, a bridge there (Xen, Hell vi.5.27). Rising at a spring next to the source of the Alpheus, then sinking with the latter at Asea (q.v. n. 91) ‘the Eurotas reappears where the district called Bleminatis begins, and then flows past Sparta itself, traverses a long glen near Helus and empties between Gythium, the naval station of Sparta, and Acraea’ (Strab viii.3.12). Its name derived from the creator of its lower course (Paus iii.1.1), which was first conceived as a drainage project, although ‘Eurotas’ can be translated as ‘the fair-flowing’ and the drainage was ineffective (Paus iii.13.8). It was synonymous with Laconia, whence Helen was abducted by Paris (Eur, Hel passim, Tro.133–5). The ‘youthful labours’ (Eur, Hel 210–11) supposed to take place on its (inevitably) ‘reed-fringed’ banks (ibid., 349, 493, Iph Aul 181–2) remain obscure.
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