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

by Apollodorus

  Temenos spurned his sons, Agelaos, Eurypylos, and Callias, and relied instead on his daughter Hyrnetho and her husband Deiphontes.* As a result, his sons bribed some men from Titana*] to murder their father. After the murder had taken place, however, the army decided that the kingdom rightly belonged to Hyrnetho and Deiphontes.

  Cresphontes had been ruling in Messene for only a short time when he was assassinated* with two of his sons. Polyphontes, who was one of the Heraclids, succeeded him as king, and forced Merope, the widow of the murdered king, to become his wife. But he too was killed; for Merope had a third son, called Aipytos, whom she had given to her father to bring up. When he reached manhood, he returned in secret and killed Polyphontes, and so recovered his father’s kingdom.

  BOOK III

  6. Cretan and Theban mythology (the Inachids, Agenorid line)

  The abduction of Europa to Crete, and dispersal of the sons of Agenor

  1 Having now reached the point in our account of the family

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  of Inachos where we have covered the descendants of Belos as far as the Heraclids, we must proceed next to the line of Agenor. As we have said,* Libya had two sons by Poseidon named Belos and Agenor: Belos became king of Egypt and fathered the sons who were mentioned above, but Agenor went away to Phoenicia, where he married Telephassa and had a daughter, Europa, and three sons, Cadmos, Phoenix, and Cilix. (It is said by some,* however, that Europa was not Agenor’s daughter, but a daughter of Phoenix.) Zeus fell in love with Europa, and taking the form of a docile bull whose breath smelled of roses,* he took her on his back and carried her across the sea to Crete. There he had intercourse with her, and she gave birth to Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys (though according to Homer,* Sarpedon was a son of Zeus by Laodameia, daughter of Bellerophon).

  When Europa disappeared, her father Agenor sent his sons in search of her, telling them not to return until they had found her. Her mother, Telephassa, joined them in the search, as did Thasos, son of Poseidon, or according to Pherecydes, of Cilix. But when they had searched high and low and were still unable to find her, they abandoned any thought of returning home, and each of them settled in a different place. Phoenix settled in Phoenicia, and Cilix in its vicinity, giving the name Cilicia to all the land that lay under his control near the River Pyramos. Cadmos and Telephassa went to live in Thrace, as did Thasos, who founded the city of Thasos in Thrace* and settled there.

  Minos and his brothers

  2 Europa became the wife of Asterios, ruler of the Cretans, who raised her children. When they grew up, they quarreled with one another,* for they fell in love with the same boy, who was called Miletos and was a son of Apollo by Areia, daughter of Cleochos. When the boy responded more favourably to Sarpedon, Minos went to war and gained the upper hand. The others fled. Miletos landed in Caria* and founded a city there, naming it Miletos after himself; and in return for a share of the territory, Sarpedon became an ally of Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians, and he became king of Lycia. And Zeus granted him the privilege of living for three generations. According to some accounts, however, the brothers fell in love with Atymnios, son of Zeus and Cassiepeia, and it was over him that they quarrelled.

  Rhadamanthys laid down laws for the islanders,* but later fled to Boeotia and married Alcmene;* and following his death, he sits as a judge with Minos in Hades.*

  Minos lived in Crete, where he enacted laws, and married Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun and Perseis (though according to Asclepiades his wife was Crete, daughter of Asterios). His sons were Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucos, and Androgeos, and his daughters Acalle, Xenodice, Ariadne, and Phaedra. By a nymph, Pareia, he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses, and Philolaos, and by Dexithea, a son, Euxanthios.

  Minos, Pasiphae, and the origin of the Minotaur

  3 When Asterios died without offspring, Minos wanted to become king of Crete, but he encountered opposition. So he claimed that the kingdom had been granted to him by the gods, and to make people believe him, he said that whatever he prayed for would come to pass. And during a sacrifice to Poseidon, he prayed that a bull should appear from the deep, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared. When Poseidon responded by sending up a magnificent bull, Minos acquired the kingdom; but he sent the bull away to join his herds and sacrificed another.† 4 Poseidon, angry with Minos for having failed to sacrifice the bull, turned it savage, and caused Pasiphae to conceive a desire for it. Becoming infatuated with the bull, Pasiphae enlisted the help of Daidalos, an architect who had been exiled from Athens for murder.* He built a wooden cow, mounted it on wheels, hollowed it out, sewed round it the hide from a cow that he had skinned, and placing it in the meadow where the bull habitually grazed, he made Pasiphae climb inside. The bull came up to it and had intercourse with it as if it were a genuine cow. As a result, she gave birth to Asterios, who was called the Minotaur;* he had the face of a bull, but the rest of his body was human. In obedience to some oracles, Minos kept him enclosed in the Labyrinth. This Labyrinth, which Daidalos had constructed, was a building ‘that with a maze of winding ways confused the passage out’.* As for the tale of the Minotaur, and Androgeos, and Phaedra, and Ariadne, we will speak of that later* in our account of Theseus.

  Catreus and Althaimenes

  1 Catreus, son of Minos, had three daughters, Aerope,

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  Clymene, and Apemosyne, and a son, Althaimenes. When he consulted the oracle* to discover how his life would come to an end, the god said that he would die at the hand of one of his children. He tried to keep the oracles secret, but Althaimenes came to hear of them, and fearing that he would become his father’s murderer, he sailed away from Crete with his sister Apemosyne; and coming to land at a place in Rhodes, he took possession of it and named it Cretinia. After climbing the mountain known as Atabyrion,* he surveyed the surrounding islands; and catching sight of Crete also and remembering the gods of his fathers, he erected an altar to Atabyrian Zeus. Not long afterwards, he became the murderer of his sister. For Hermes had conceived a passion for her, but when she fled from him and he was unable to catch her because she was so much faster on her feet, he spread hides from freshly skinned animals across her path, and she slipped on them as she returned from the spring, and was raped by him; and she informed her brother of what had happened, but he took the god to be merely an excuse, and kicked her, causing her death.

  2 Catreus gave Aerope and Clymene to Nauplios,* to be sold in foreign lands. Pleisthenes married one of the sisters, Aerope,* and fathered two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaos, while Nauplios married Clymene and became the father of Oiax and Palamedes.

  Later, when he was gripped by old age, Catreus was anxious to transfer the kingdom to his son Althaimenes, and travelled to Rhodes with that in mind. When he disembarked, however, with the Cretans at a desolate spot on the island, he was driven back by the cowherds, who thought that pirates had landed. When he tried to tell them the truth of the matter, they were unable to hear him because of the barking dogs, and as they were pelting him, Althaimenes arrived and killed him with a javelin throw, not realizing that he was Catreus. Afterwards, when he discovered what had happened, he was swallowed up by a chasm in answer to his prayer.

  Polyidos and the revival of Glaucos

  l To Deucalion were born Idomeneus* and Crete, and an illegitimate

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  son, Molos.

  Now Glaucos,* when he was still a young child, fell into a jar of honey while he was chasing a mouse, and was drowned. After his disappearance, Minos conducted a thorough search and consulted diviners about how he could find him. The Curetes told him that in his herds he had a three-coloured cow, and that the person who could suggest the best image to describe its colours would also be able to return his son to him alive. When the diviners were assembled, Polyidos,* son of Coiranos, compared the cow’s colouring to a blackberry,* and when he was made to search for the child, he discovered him by a certain kind of divination.* Minos declared, however, that he wanted him back alive, and Pol
yidos was shut in with the dead body. When he was at his wit’s end, he saw a snake approach the body; and fearing that he himself would be killed if any harm came to the body, he threw a stone at the snake and killed it. But then another snake appeared, and seeing that the first one was dead, it went off and then came back again carrying a herb, which it applied to the whole body of its fellow. No sooner was the herb applied than the first snake came back to life. Viewing all this with wonderment, Polyidos applied the same herb to the body of Glaucos and brought him back to life. 2 Minos had now recovered his son, but all the same, he would not allow Polyidos to depart to Argos until he had taught Glaucos the art of divination. So under compulsion, Polyidos taught him; but as Polyidos was sailing off, he told Glaucos to spit into his mouth, and when Glaucos did so, he forgot all knowledge of divination. As regards the descendants of Europa, this is where we must call a halt.

  Cadmos and the foundation of Thebes

  1 When Telephassa died, Cadmos saw to her burial, and after

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  receiving hospitality from the Thracians, went to Delphi to enquire about Europa. The god told him that he should not worry about Europa, but should take a cow to guide him, and found a city at the place where it fell down exhausted. After receiving this oracle, he travelled through Phocis, and coming across a cow from the herds of Pelagon,* he followed in its footsteps. It passed through Boeotia, and sank to the earth where the city of Thebes now lies. Wishing to sacrifice the cow to Athene, he sent some of his companions to draw water from the spring of Ares; but the spring was guarded by a dragon, which was said by some to be the offspring of Ares, and it killed most of those who were sent for the water. Angered by this, Cadmos killed the dragon, and then, following the advice of Athene, sowed its teeth. No sooner were they sown than fully armed men sprang up from the earth, who were called the Spartoi* They killed one another, some entering into conflict deliberately,* and some out of ignorance. According to Pherecydes, however, when Cadmos saw fully armed men springing up from the earth, he hurled stones at them, and they, believing that they were being pelted by one another, fought amongst themselves. Five of them survived, namely, Echion, Oudaios, Chthonios, Hyperenor, and Peloros. 2 To atone for the killing, Cadmos served Ares as a labourer for an everlasting year* (for a year in those times lasted eight of our own).

  After the completion of his servitude, Athene consigned the kingdom to him, and Zeus gave him Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite and Ares, as a wife. And all the gods left the sky to take part in the wedding feast on the Cadmeia* and join in the singing. Cadmos gave his wife a robe and the necklace fashioned by Hephaistos, which according to some accounts had been given to him by Hephaistos himself, though according to Pherecydes it was given to him by Europa, who had received it from Zeus. Cadmos had four daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, and Agave, and a son, Polydoros. Ino became the wife of Athamas, Autonoe the wife of Aristaios, and Agave the wife of Echion.

  Semele and Dionysos; the death ofActaion

  3 As for Semele, Zeus fell in love with her, and slept with her in secret from Hera. Now Zeus had engaged to do whatever Semele asked, and as the result of a deception by Hera,* she asked him to come to her just as he had come when he was courting Hera. Unable to refuse, Zeus came to her bedchamber in a chariot to the accompaniment of lightning and thunder, and hurled a thunderbolt. Semele died of fright, but Zeus snatched her aborted sixth-month child from the fire, and sewed it into his thigh. (After Semele’s death, the other daughters of Cadmos spread the tale that Semele had slept with a mortal but falsely laid the blame on Zeus, and that she had been struck down with a thunderbolt because of that.*) When the appropriate time arrived, Zeus brought Dionysos to birth by untying the stitches, and handed him over to Hermes, who took him to Ino and Athamas, and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl. But Hera in her fury drove them mad,* and Athamas hunted his eldest son Learchos in the belief he was a deer and killed him, while Ino threw Melicertes into a cauldron of boiling water, and carrying it with her dead child inside, leaped into the sea. She is known as Leucothea* and her son is known as Palaimon—these were the names given to them by mariners, who receive help from them when they are caught in storms. The Isthmian Games were founded in honour of Melicertes* on the orders of Sisyphos.

  As for Dionysos, Zeus rescued him from the anger of Hera by turning him into a kid; and Hermes gathered him up and took him to some nymphs who lived at Nysa in Asia, those whom Zeus later turned into a constellation, naming them the Hyades.*

  4 Autonoe and Aristaios had a son, Actaion, who was brought up by Cheiron to be a hunter and was later devoured on Cithairon by his own dogs. According to Acousilaos, he met such a death because Zeus was angry with him for courting Semele, but most authors ascribe it to the fact that he saw Artemis bathing.* The goddess, they say, transformed him instantly into a deer and drove his pack of fifty dogs into a frenzy, causing them to devour him without recognizing who he was. Once he was dead, the dogs searched for their master, howling all the while, until their search brought them to the cave of Cheiron, who made an image of Actaion, which brought their grief to an end†

  1 After his discovery of the vine, Dionysos was driven mad

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  by Hera* and roamed around Egypt and Syria. He was welcomed first by Proteus, king of the Egyptians, but then arrived at Cybela in Phrygia, and after he had been purified by Rhea and learned the rites of initiation,* and had received the [initiate’s] robe from her, he hurried through Thrace to attack the Indians. Lycourgos,* son of Dryas, the ruler of the Edonians, who live by the River Strymon, was the first to insult and expel him. Dionysos sought refuge in the sea with Thetis, daughter of Nereus, while the Bacchai* were taken prisoner along with the crowd of Satyrs* who followed in his train. But later the Bacchai were suddenly set free, and Lycourgos was driven mad by Dionysos. During his madness, Lycourgos, believing that he was pruning a vine branch,* killed his son Dryas with blows from his axe and had cut off his limbs by the time he recovered his senses. When the land remained barren, the god declared in an oracle that it would become fruitful again if Lycourgos were put to death. On hearing this, the Edonians took him to Mount Pangaion and tied him up, and there he died through the will of Dionysos, killed by horses.

  2 After travelling through Thrace and the whole of India, where he set up pillars,* he arrived in Thebes,* where he forced the women to desert their houses and abandon themselves to Bacchic frenzy on Mount Cithairon. But Pentheus, a son of Echion by Agave, who had inherited the throne from Cadmos, tried to put an end to these practices, and when he went to Mount Cithairon to spy on the Bacchai, he was torn to pieces by his mother Agave, who, in her frenzy, took him for a wild beast. Having shown the Thebans that he was a god, he went to Argos, and there again, when they failed to honour him, he drove the women mad, and they carried their unweaned children into the mountains and feasted on their flesh.

  3 Wanting to make the sea-passage from Icarios to Naxos, he chartered a pirate ship with a crew of Tyrrhenians. When they had him on board,* however, they sailed past Naxos and pressed on towards Asia hoping to sell him. But he changed the mast and oars into snakes and filled the craft with ivy and the sound of flutes; and the pirates went mad, and jumped into the sea, where they turned into dolphins.

  In this way, men came to know that he was a god and paid due honour to him; and after he had brought his mother up from Hades and named her Thyone, he ascended to heaven in her company.

  Successors and usurpers at Thebes

  4 Cadmos left Thebes with Harmonia and went to the land of the Encheleans.* Now the Encheleans were being attacked by the Illyrians, and the god had revealed to them in an oracle that they would obtain victory over the Illyrians if they had Cadmos and Harmonia as their leaders. In obedience to the god, they engaged them as their leaders against the Illyrians, and gained the upper hand. Cadmos became king of the Illyrians and had a son, Illyrios. Later he was turned into a snake* together with Harmonia, and sent to the Elysian Fields by
Zeus.

  5 When Polydoros became king of Thebes, he married Nycteis, the daughter of Nycteus, [son of] Chthonios, and had a son, Labdacos, who lost his life after Pentheus because he thought in much the same way* as him. He left a one-year-old child, Laios, but Lycos, the brother of Nycteus, seized control of the government as long as Laios remained a child.* The two brothers had fled [from Euboea] because they had kilted Phlegyas, son of Ares and Dotis the Boeotian, and had settled at Hyria;* and [from there, they had moved to Thebes,*] where they became citizens as a result of their friendship with Pentheus. So it came to pass that Lycos, after being chosen as polemarch* by the Thebans, seized supreme power, and ruled for twenty years until he was murdered by Zethos and Amphion, for the following reason.

  Antiope was a daughter of Nycteus; and Zeus had intercourse with her. When she turned out to be pregnant and her father threatened her, she ran away to Epopeus* in Sicyon, and became his wife. Nycteus was thrown into such despondency that he killed himself,* ordering Lycos to punish Epopeus and Antiope. So Lycos marched against Sicyon, killed Epopeus, and took Antiope prisoner. On the way back, she gave birth to two sons at Eleutherai in Boeotia. They were exposed, but a cowherd discovered them and brought them up, calling one of them Zethos and the other Amphion. Zethos devoted himself to cattle-rearing, while Amphion practised singing to the lyre (for he had been given a lyre by Hermes). As for Antiope, Lycos and his wife Dirce kept her in confinement and ill-treated her. One day, however, without her jailers knowing it, her bonds untied themselves of their own accord, and she made her way to her sons’ farmhouse, hoping to find refuge with them. Recognizing her as their mother, they killed Lycos, and bound Dirce to a bull, and then, when she was dead, hurled her body into the spring that bears the name of Dirce on her account.