The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)

by Apollodorus

  The landing at Troy, and the first nine years of the war

  The wrath of Achilles (a summary of the Iliad)

  Penthesileia the Amazon; Memnon and the death of Achilles; the suicide of Aias

  Philoctetes and the death of Paris; conditions for the fall of Troy

  The wooden horse

  The sack of Troy

  14. The. Returns

  Menelaos and Agamemnon quarrel; Calchas and Mopsos

  Agamemnon sails with the main fleet; the storm at Tenos, and Nauplios the wrecker

  The fate of Neoptolemos; various wanderings and returns

  The later history of the Pelopids

  The return of Odysseus (a summary of the Odyssey)

  The later history of Odysseus

  GENEALOGICAL TABLES

  The following tables cover the six main families, as follows:

  I The Deucalionids

  A The early Deucalionids

  B The Aetolian line

  C The sons of Aiolos and their descendants

  II The Inachids

  A The early Inachids in Argos and the east

  B The Belid line in Argos

  C The Agenorid line: the descendants of Europa in Crete

  D The Agenorid line: the descendants of Cadmos in Thebes

  III The Atlantids

  A The Laconian royal line, and the usurpers at Thebes

  B The Trojan royal line

  IV The Asopids (the family of Achilles and Aias)

  V The Athenian royal line

  VI The Pelopids (the family of Agamemnon and Menelaos)

  Most of these tables depict the mythical royal line in one of the main centres in Greece. Only one of the six families covered by the tables, namely the Athenian, conforms to the simplest possible pattern, in which a single family provides the ruling line in a single city. Generally the genealogical system is more economical, and the ruling lines in two or more cities are traced to a common ancestor and so united within the same family. Thus separate branches of the Inachid family provide the royal families of both Argos and Thebes, the two greatest centres in mythical Greece, and also of Crete. Accordingly, the family trees of the first three families, which are the largest and are divided in this way between different centres, have been subdivided in the tables.

  Although the adventures of various members of these families take them to many different parts of the Mediterranean world, it is natural that the main centres of rule associated with the great families should be located in the heartland of Greece. There are two major exceptions, namely, Crete, as would be expected since it was a very ancient centre of civilization which had connections with Mycenaean Greece, and Troy, in north-western Asia Minor, for its connection with the Trojan War, the culminating adventure in the mythical history of Greece. Although the Trojans themselves were usually regarded as a non-Hellenic people, the ruling family was traced back to Greek origins through an Atlantid ancestor. Otherwise the places associated with these various families can be located on the accompanying map.

  The mainland of Greece is divided into two by the Gulf of Corinth, which separates the Peloponnese from the rest of Greece, being joined to it only by the narrow Isthmus of Corinth. Starting immediately north of the Gulf, the swathe of land extending from Aetolia across to Thessaly in the northeast is the area primarily associated with the first family, the Deucalionids. Although this was an important area in early myth, there were many separate centres, and these tended to be associated with major heroic myths for only a generation or two. Furthermore, many members of this family moved to fresh areas at various stages and established new dynasties, whether in the north, or in the western Peloponnese and the south. As a result, the structure of this family is rather complex, and we do not find extensive lines within individual centres as in most of the following families. The Aetolian royal line covered in the second table (IB) was descended from a daughter of Aiolos; the most important town in Aetolia was Calydon, the site of the first great adventure which drew heroes from all parts of Greece, the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. The descendants of the sons of Aiolos covered in the third table (IC) were primarily associated with Thessaly (but also with the western Peloponnese and elsewhere); here Iolcos, the home of Pelias and Jason, and Pherae, the home of Admetos and Alcestis, are the most significant towns.

  South of the Gulf of Corinth, in the Peloponnese, the most important region was not Laconia (Sparta) as in historical times, but Argos with its great Mycenaean cities, Mycenae, Argos, and Tiryns. Here the second family, the Inachids, provided the main ruling line. Although it was of Argive origin (the Inachos was the largest river in Argos), other branches of this family ruled in Crete and in Thebes. Passing north from Argos and then across the Isthmus of Corinth, Boeotia, with Thebes as its main city, lies to the left, and Attica to the right. In mythical history Thebes ranked with Argos as the most important centre.

  Of the Atlantids, two main lines are covered in the following tables, the earliest royal line in the second main centre in the Peloponnese, Laconia, and the Trojan royal line.

  The Asopid family tree is exceptional, as it was developed to account for the common descent of the two greatest heroes of the Trojan War, Achilles and Aias (who came from different areas) as grandsons of Aiacos (who reigned in a different area again). This was a relatively late development; in the Iliad the pair are not related. Aiacos was the first king of Aegina, a small island in the Saronic Gulf, which lies between Attica and the Peloponnese. Both of his sons were exiled. Telamon, father of Aias, went to the island of Salamis, not far to the north; Peleus eventually arrived in Thessaly where he became the father of Achilles by the goddess Thetis.

  This leaves the Athenian royal line and the Pelopids. The Athenian genealogies were systematized at a relatively late period, and none of the figures before Aigeus and Theseus are associated with major heroic myth. The first four kings were earth-born. The Pelopids provided the second royal line in each of the main centres of the Peloponnese, Argos and Laconia; for Agamemnon, who ruled in Mycenae at the time of the Trojan War, and Menelaos, who ruled in Sparta, did not belong to the original ruling families covered in tables IIB and in IIIA, but were descended from Tantalos, who lived in Asia Minor, and his son Pelops, who became king of Pisa in the north-western Peloponnese. The Pelopids were displaced when Tisamenos, who ruled in both Argos and Laconia, was killed by the returning Heraclids (who were of Inachid descent).

  In the following tables:

  The parentage of children is indicated by swung dashes (~); where both parents are mortals, these will usually indicate a marriage also.

  The names of successive kings within each centre are set in bold type, and the order of succession is indicated by small letters before their names (a, b, c, etc.). The order of succession is not indicated for the Argive line in IIB because of the complexities which arise after the kingdom is divided between Proitos and Acrisios.

  In IC only the Iolcian line is indicated, and in v only the Mycenaean. For the Laconian succession after Amyclas, in IIIA, the account in 3.10.4 is followed; 3.10.3 should be consulted for alternative genealogies.

  Where it has been necessary to divide family trees into two or more tables, the names of pivotal figures who appear in more than one table are enclosed in boxes.

  NB. There was disagreement on many genealogies. These tables show the main lines as presented in the text of the Library, without indicating alternative traditions recorded in other sources, or variants mentioned within the Library itself.

  The purpose of these tables is to give a clear picture of the descent and interrelationship of the more important figures, and they are by no means complete. In particular, many marriages yielded more children than are named in the tables, and the fact that names have been omitted is not always indicated; and for reasons of clarity, the names of mothers have sometimes been omitted, and children are not always presented in their order of birth. For the full picture, the text should be consulted.

 
; The tables for the Deucalionids and Atlantids do not cover all branches of the family.

  BOOK I

  1. Theogony

  Ouranos, Ge, and the birth of the Titans

  1 OURANOS was the first ruler of the universe. He married

  1

  Ge,* and fathered as his first children the beings known as the Hundred-Handers, Briareus, Cottos, and Gyes, who were unsurpassable in size and strength, for each had a hundred hands and fifty heads. After these, Ge bore him the Cyclopes,* namely, Arges, Steropes, and Brontes, each of whom had a single eye on his forehead. But Ouranos tied these children up and hurled them into Tartaros (a place of infernal darkness in Hades,* as distant from the earth as the earth from the sky);3 and he then fathered by Ge some sons called the Titans, namely, Oceanos, Coios, Hyperion, Creios, Iapetos, and the youngest of all, Cronos, and some daughters called the Titanides, namely, Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, and Theia.

  The revolt of the Titans and rule of Cronos

  4. But Ge, angered by the loss of her children who had been thrown into Tartaros,* persuaded the Titans to attack their father, and gave an adamantine* sickle to Cronos; and they all attacked him, apart from Oceanos, and Cronos severed his father’s genitals and threw them into the sea. (From the drops of blood that flowed out* the Furies were born: Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaira.) When they had driven their father from power, they brought back their brothers who had been thrown down to Tartaros, and entrusted the sovereignty to Cronos.

  5 But he bound them once again and imprisoned them in Tartaros, and married his sister Rhea; and since both Ge and Ouranos had prophesied to him that he would be stripped of his power by his own son, he swallowed his children as they were born. He swallowed his first-born, Hestia, and then Demeter and Hera, and after them, Pluto and Poseidon.

  The birth of Zeus and his war against Cronos and the Titans

  6 Angered by this, Rhea went to Crete while she was pregnant with Zeus, and brought him to birth in a cave on Mount Dicte.* She gave him to the Curetes* and to the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to rear. 7 So the nymphs fed the child on the milk of Amaltheia* while the Curetes, fully armed, guarded the baby in the cave, beating their spears against their shields to prevent Cronos from hearing the child’s voice. And Rhea wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and passed it to Cronos to swallow as if it were the newborn child.

  1 When Zeus was fully grown, he enlisted the help of

  2

  Metis,* the daughter of Oceanos, and she gave Cronos a drug to swallow, which forced him to disgorge first the stone and then the children whom he had swallowed; and with their aid, Zeus went to war against Cronos and the Titans. When they had been fighting for ten years, Ge prophesied that the victory would go to Zeus if he took as his allies those who had been hurled down to Tartaros. So he killed Campe, who was guarding them, and set them free. And the Cyclopes then gave Zeus thunder, lightning, and a thunderbolt, and they gave a helmet* to Pluto, and a trident to Poseidon. Armed with these weapons, they overpowered the Titans, and imprisoned them in Tartaros, appointing the Hundred-Handers as their guards; and they shared power* between themselves by casting lots. Zeus was allotted sovereignty over the heavens, Poseidon over the sea, and Pluto over the halls of Hades.*

  Descendants of the Titans

  2 The Titans had the following offspring: to Oceanos and Tethys were born the Oceanids,* Asia, Styx, Electra, Doris, Eurynome, [Amphitrite,] and Metis; to Coios and Phoebe were born Asteria and Leto; to Hyperion and Theia were born Dawn and the Sun and Moon; to Creios and Eurybia, daughter of Pontos, were born Astraios, Pallas, and Perses; 3 and to Iapetos and Asia were born Atlas who bears the sky on his shoulders, and Prometheus, and Epimetheus, and Menoitios, whom Zeus struck with a thunderbolt during the battle with the Titans and hurled down to Tartaros. 4 To Cronos and Philyra, Cheiron was born, a Centaur of twofold form. To Dawn and Astraios were born the winds and stars, and to Perses and Asteria, Hecate; and to Pallas and Styx were born Nice, Cratos, Zelos, and Bia.*

  5 Zeus caused oaths* to be sworn by the waters of Styx, which flow from a rock in Hades. He bestowed this honour on Styx in return for the help that she and her children had brought to him in his war against the Titans.

  Descendants of Pontos and Ge

  6 To Pontos* and Ge were born Phorcos, Thaumas, Nereus, Eurybia, and Ceto. To Thaumas and Electra were born Iris and the Harpies, Aello and Ocypete; and to Phorcos and Ceto, the Phorcides and the Gorgons, who will be considered below when we tell the story of Perseus. 7 To Nereus and Doris were born the Nereids,* whose names are Cymothoe, Speio, Glauconome, Nausithoe, Halie, Erato, Sao, Amphitrite, Eunice, Thetis, Eulimene, Agave, Eudore, Doto, Pherousa, Galatea, Actaie, Pontomedousa, Hippothoe, Lysianassa, Cymo, Eione, Halimede, Plexaure, Eucrante, Proto, Calypso, Panope, Cranto, Neomeris, Hipponoe, Ianeira, Polynome, Autonoe, Melite, Dione, Nesaie, Dero, Evagore, Psamathe, Eumolpe, lone, Dynamene, Ceto, and Limnoreia.

  Various children of Zeus and Hera; children of the Muses

  1 Zeus married Hera and fathered Hebe, Eileithuia, and Ares;*

  3

  but he had intercourse with many other women, both mortal and immortal. By Themis, daughter of Ouranos he had some daughters, the Seasons, namely, Eirene, Eunomia, and Dice,* and the Fates, namely, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; by Dione he had Aphrodite;* by Eurynome, daughter of Oceanos, the Graces, namely, Aglaie, Euphrosyne, and Thaleia; by Styx,Persephone;* and by Mnemosyne the Muses, firstly Calliope, and then Cleio, Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato, Terpsichore, Ourania, Thaleia, and Polymnia.

  2 Calliope bore to Oiagros—or really, it is said, to Apollo— a son, Linos,* who was killed by Heracles, and Orpheus, who practised the art of singing to the lyre, and set rocks and trees in motion by his singing. When his wife, Eurydice, died from a snake-bite, he went down to Hades in the hope of bringing her up, and persuaded Pluto* to send her back to earth. Pluto promised to do so, provided that on the way up Orpheus never looked round until he had arrived back at his house. But Orpheus failed to obey him, and turning round, he caught sight of his wife, and she had to return below. Orpheus also in vented the mysteries of Dionysos. He was torn apart by the Maenads,* and is buried in Pieria.

  3 Cleio fell in love with Pieros, son of Magnes, through the anger of Aphrodite (for Cleio had reproached her for her love of Adonis*); and she had intercourse with him and bore him a son, Hyacinthos, who aroused the passion of Thamyris, son of Philammon and a nymph Argiope, the first man to love other males.* But Hyacinthos later died at the hand of Apollo, who became his lover and killed him accidentally when throwing a discus.* And Thamyris, who was exceptional for his beauty and his skill in singing to the lyre, challenged the Muses* to a contest in music, on the agreement that if he proved to be the better, he could have intercourse with them all, but if he were defeated, they could deprive him of anything they wished. The Muses proved to be superior, and deprived him both of his eyes and his skill in singing to the lyre.

  4 Euterpe bore to the River Strymon a son Rhesos, who was killed by Diomedes at Troy;* but according to some accounts, his mother was Calliope. To Thaleia and Apollo were born the Corybantes;* and to Melpomene and Acheloos, the Sirens, who will be considered below in our account of Odysseus.

  The births of Hephaistos and Athene

  5 Hera gave birth to Hephaistos without prior intercourse (though Homer describes him as another of her children by Zeus).* Zeus threw him down from heaven for coming to the aid of his mother when she was put in chains; for Zeus had suspended Hera from Olympos for sending a storm against Heracles when he was sailing home after capturing Troy. Hephaistos fell to earth on Lemnos and was lamed in both his legs, but Thetis came to his rescue.*

  6 Zeus had intercourse with Metis, although she changed into many different forms in the hope of escaping it. While she was pregnant, Zeus forestalled future developments by swallowing her; for [Ge]* declared that after having the girl who was due to be born to her, Metis would give birth t
o a son who would become the ruler of heaven. It was for fear of this that he swallowed her down. When the time arrived for the child to be born, Prometheus, or according to others, Hephaistos, struck the head of Zeus with an axe and from the top of his head, near the River Triton,* leapt Athene, fully armed.

  Artemis and Apollo

  1 One of Coios’ daughters, Asteria, took the form of a quail

  5

  and threw herself into the sea to escape the embraces of Zeus; and a city was named Asteria after her, for this was the former name of what was later called Delos.* His other daughter, Leto, had intercourse with Zeus, and was chased all over the earth by Hera until she arrived at Delos, where she gave birth first to Artemis, and then, with the aid of Artemis as a midwife, to Apollo.

  Artemis devoted herself to hunting and remained a virgin, while Apollo learned the art of divination from Pan, son of Zeus and Hybris, and went to Delphi where, at that time, the oracles were delivered by Themis;* and when the guardian of the oracle, the serpent Python, tried to prevent him from approaching the chasm,* he killed it and took possession of the oracle.

  Not long afterwards, he killed Tityos also, who was the son of Zeus and Elare, daughter of Orchomenos; for after making love with Elare, Zeus had hidden her under the earth for fear of Hera, and had brought up to light the child that she was carrying in her womb, the enormous Tityos. Now when Leto came to Pytho,* she was seen by Tityos, who was overcome by desire and seized her in his arms; but she called her children to her aid, and they shot him down with their arrows. Tityos suffers punishment* even after his death, for vultures feed on his heart in Hades.

  2 Apollo also killed Marsyas, the son of Olympos; for Marsyas had discovered the flute that Athene had thrown away because it disfigured her face,* and he challenged Apollo to a musical contest. They agreed that the victor should do what he wished with the loser, and when the test was under way, Apollo played his lyre upside down and told Marsyas to do the same;* and when he was unable to, Apollo was recognized as the victor, and killed Marsyas by suspending him from a lofty pine tree and flaying him.