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

by Apollodorus

  the city of Thasos in Thrace: the island of Thasos, which contained a city of the same name, lay off the coast of Thrace; this is poorly expressed, if not corrupt. Thasos is said to have founded the original settlement on the island with Phoenician followers (cf. Hdt. 6. 46 f. and P. 5. 25. 12, where Thasos is described as a son of Phoenix and of Agenor respectively).

  they quarrelled with one another: not all three of them, for it appears from the following narrative that the conflict over Miletos involved Minos and Sarpedon alone (which is consistent with the account in AL 30, following Nicander, where there is no mention of Rhadamanthys). The present story is probably of Hellenistic origin; Herodotus (1. 173) speaks merely of a fight for the throne, in which Minos gained the upper hand and expelled Sarpedon and his followers.

  Miletos landed in Caria: in the south-west corner of Asia Minor; Lycia lay south-east of it, and Cilicia to the east of that. For the foundation of Miletos, cf. P. 7. 2. 3.

  for the islanders: although somewhat ambiguous, this is probably a reference to the tradition that he laid down laws for the Aegean islanders (cf. DS 5. 79). The Cretan constitution (which bore some resemblance to that of Sparta and was highly regarded) was attributed either to Rhadamanthys (DS 4. 60, Strabo 10. 4. 8) or to Minos (e.g. DS 4. 78).

  married Alcmene: Heracles’ mother, see p. 72. The reason for his flight is unclear.

  sits as a judge with Minos in Hades: first attested by Plato in the fourth century (Apol. 41a, probably referring to an earlier tradition, associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries); in Homer, Minos judges in Hades, continuing his earthly function amongst the shades (Od. 11. 568 ff.), while Rhadamanthys lives for ever in Elysium (Od. 4. 563 f.) on the earth’s surface. See also Pind. ol. 2. 75 ff.

  exiled from Athens for murder: see p. 138.

  the Minotaur: the ‘Minos-bull’. See also DS 4. 77.

  with a maze. . . passage out: a verse fragment of unknown origin (Tr. Adesp. 34 Nauck).

  me will speak of that later: see p. 140.

  he consulted the oracle: according to the other main source, DS 5. 59. 1 ff., the oracle was revealed to Althaimenes himself when he was enquiring about other things; this would make Catreus’ subsequent search for him more intelligible.

  Atabyrion: the tallest mountain in Rhodes, over 4,000 feet; the cult there was very ancient, perhaps of Phoenician origin. Cf. DS 5. 59. 2.

  Nauplios: see p. 62 and note; a great traveller who is enlisted else where to perform such services, see p. 88.

  Pleisthenes married. . . Aerope: following Hes. Cat. (fr. 194–5, where Pleisthenes is the son of Atreus); Agamemnon and Menelaos were more generally regarded as her children by Atreus, see also p. 146 and note.

  Idomeneus: he succeeded Catreus as king of Crete, was one of Helen’s suitors, p. 121, and led the Cretans in the Trojan War. Traditions vary as to whether he recovered his throne after the war (as Od. 3. 191 seems to suggest) or was expelled by Leucos, p. 160.

  Glaucos: a son of Minos and Pasiphae, see p. 97.

  Polyidos: a descendant of the seer Melampous (either a great-grandson or a great-great-grandson, P. 1. 43. 5 and sc. Il. 13. 63 respectively); he is particularly associated with Corinth (Il. 13. 663, cf. Pind. ol. 13. 75).

  compared the cow’s colouring to a blackberry: according to Hyg. 136, the cow was not dappled, as one might suppose, but changed colour three times a day, and the colours were white, red, and black; a blackberry passes through that sequence of colours as it ripens.

  by a certain kind of divination: Hyg., ibid., reports that while Polyidos was observing omens, he saw an owl (glaux, suggesting Glaucos) sitting over the wine-cellar and putting bees (suggesting honey) to flight.

  a cow from the herds of Pelagon: according to the oracle as reported by sc. Eur. Phoen. 638, he was told to seek for this herds man. This was no ordinary cow; on each flank it had a white mark like the full moon (P. 9. 12. 1).

  Spartoi: ‘Sown Men’.

  deliberately: the reading in the Epitome, hekousion, is surely preferable to akousion, ‘involuntarily’, in the manuscripts. Otherwise the antithesis is lost.

  for an everlasting year: to atone for the killing of Ares’ dragon (not the death of the Spartoi); the text may well be corrupt here, because Hellanicos, who is almost certainly Ap.’s source for this story, says that Cadmos served Ares for a (normal) year (sc. Il. 2. 494, where we are also told that Ares initially wanted to kill him, but Zeus prevented it). The phrase explaining what an everlasting or ‘great’ year means seems to be a gloss.

  the Cadmeia: the eminence dominating Thebes and site of the citadel.

  a deception by Hera: Hera assumed the form of her nurse, Beroe, and appealed to her vanity: if Zeus really loved her, she should ask him to come to her as he would to a goddess (Hyg. 179, VM 2. 79; see also Ov. Met. 3. 259 ff., this would also serve as a test that he is not merely pretending to be a god).

  daughters ofCadmos . . . because of that: see Eur. Bacchae 23 ff. and 242 ff.; the slander is central to the plot of the Bacchae, because it is this that provokes Dionysos to demonstrate his powers in Thebes and drive the women mad, as described below, p. 102.

  Hera . . . drove them mad: see also p. 43 and note.

  Leucothea: she became the ‘White Goddess’, who had a general Mediterranean cult as a deity who protected seafarers. It was she who saved Odysseus when Poseidon sent a storm against him after he had left Calypso, Od. 5. 333 ff.

  Isthmian Games. . . in honour of Melicertes: his body was cast ashore on the Isthmus of Corinth; he is often said to have been carried there by a dolphin, see P. 1. 44. 11. These games were held at Corinth. For Sisyphos, king of Ephyra/Corinth, see p. 44. His hero-cult as Palaimon was centred in this area (see e.g. P. 2. 2. 3).

  the Hyades: seven stars in the constellation Taurus, outlining the face of the bull; it was commonly said that Zeus placed them there for delivering Dionysos safely to Ino (ascribed to Pherecydes in Hyg. PA 21).

  saw Artemis bathing: this story, which first appears in Callimachus (Hymn 5. 107 ff.; cf. Hyg. 181), is generally accepted in the later tradition; hunting on a hot day on Mount Cithairon in Boeotia, he fell asleep by a spring, and awoke to see Artemis bathing. It displaces the earlier tradition, as represented in Hes. Cat. (see note on Appendix, 4) and Stesichorus (P. 9. 2. 3) that the anger of Zeus led to his death. Or according to Eur. Bacchae 339 ff., she killed him because he boasted that he was a better hunter.

  driven mad by Hera: because he was a son of Zeus by another woman.

  learned the rites of initiation: the rites of Cybele, the great mother-goddess of Phrygia, who was worshipped with ecstatic rites and mountain wandering, came to be identified with those of Rhea in Crete. Accordingly, Dionysos is taught his ecstatic rites by Rhea at Cybele’s home in north-western Asia Minor.

  Lycourgos: for his hostility and the flight of Dionysos, cf. Il. 6. 130 ff.; the land of the Edonians lay in north-eastern Macedonia, bordering Thrace.

  Bacchai: the women seized by Bacchic frenzy.

  Satyrs: daemons who attended Dionysos. They had a thick tail like that of a horse, and in many depictions, the lower half of their body is like that of a goat or a horse and they are ithyphallic. The behaviour of the Satyr on pp. 60–1 is characteristic.

  believing that he was pruning a vine branch: he was trying to eliminate the vines as a source of intoxication associated with Dionysos; it is also said that he mutilated himself (Hyg. 132, VM 1. 122; Carriere suggests a slight alteration in the text to give that meaning here).

  and the whole of India . . . pillars: marking the eastern limits of the inhabited world, corresponding to the pillars of Heracles in the west, see p. 80 and note. Some regard this phrase as an interpolation.

  he arrived in Thebes: the following is a summary of Eur. Bacchae, which contains much of interest on Dionysos.

  When they had him on board: see the fuller version of the following story in the first Homeric Hymn to Dionysos; there he frightened the sailors by causing a bear to
appear and turning himself into a lion (and it is not stated that the oars and mast were changed into snakes). See also Ov. Met. 3. 605 ff.

  Cadmos left Thebes. . . the Encheleans: resigning the throne to Pentheus; the reason for his departure is unclear. The Encheleans, like the Illyrians, lived in the western Balkans, north of Epirus.

  into a snake: in hero-cult, a snake would often symbolize the hero or represent the form in which he supposedly manifested himself; but in late sources (e.g. Hyg. 6, cf. Ov. Met. 4. 562 ff.) it was suggested that the metamorphosis was a punishment for the murder of Ares’ dragon.

  thought in much the same way: with regard to the Bacchants, presumably; but there is no record of that elsewhere. Polydoros became king after Pentheus was killed in the way described above, and he was succeeded by Labdacos. According to P. 9. 5. 2, Labdacos was a child when he came to the throne, and was placed under the guardianship of Nycteus and then of Lycos, but ruled briefly in his own right when he came of age (no reason is given for his death); and Lycos then became guardian of the young Laios.

  as long as Laios remained a child: but Lycos never restored the throne to Laios, and the suggestion of a guardianship conflicts with the previous statement (confirmed below) that Lycos usurped the throne; perhaps a clumsy way of saying that Lycos initially took power as Laios’ guardian.

  from Euboea . . . settled at Hyria: a problematic passage. Ap. gives two genealogies for Lycos and Nycteus. The present story is irreconcilable with that given just above, for if they were sons of Chthonios, a ‘Sown Man’ (see p. 100), they would be native-born Thebans and their presence in Thebes would need no explanation. But if they were sons of Hyrieus (as on p. 117, of Atlantid descent), they would have been born in Hyria (near Aulis in Boeotia) because their father was the eponymous king of the city, and would not have come there from elsewhere. Furthermore, since Phlegyas, whom they are said to have killed, was king of Orchomenos (P. 9. 36. 1), which lies on the mainland in Boeotia, and the brothers themselves had no known connection with Euboea, it is not clear why their killing of Phlegyas should have made them flee from Euboea. (Perhaps in the original story this explained why they left their native Hyria. There is a Euboean Lycos in Eur. Heracles.)

  from there. . . to Thebes: following a suggestion by Heyne to fill a short gap in the text.

  polemarch: military commander.

  to Epopeus: a son of Aiolos’ daughter, Canace, p. 38, who left Thessaly for Sicyon (in the north-eastern Peloponnese near the Isthmus of Corinth), where he became king when the previous ruler died without children, see P. 2. 6. 1 ff.

  killed himself: or according to P. 2. 6. 2, he himself attacked Epopeus, but was wounded, and gave the following orders before he died.

  the stones followed. . . Amphion’s lyre: cf. AR 1. 735 ff. and P. 9. 5. 3 f. Homer tells of their fortification of Thebes, Od. 11. 260 ff., but not of the power of Amphion’s music; similar stories were told of Orpheus’ music, p. 30. These were the famous walls with the seven gates.

  Homer: he gives the essentials of the following story in Il. 24. 602 ff., although the details vary greatly within the subsequent tradition.

  Amphion alone survived: presumably the father of the children rather than a Niobid not mentioned above.

  Chloris: see P. 2. 21. 10 (where this Chloris is identified with Meliboia below; her name was changed to Chloris, ‘pale’, because she went pale with fear and remained so ever afterwards). Ap. wrongly identifies this Chloris, the daughter of Amphion of Thebes, with the daughter of Amphion of Orchomenos who married Neleus (see Od. 11. 281 ff, P. 10. 29. 2).

  transformed into a stone: Homer records that she became a stone (Il. 24. 614 ff.) without explaining how. The rock, on Mount Sipylos (in Lydia, Asia Minor), bore no resemblance to a woman when viewed close at hand, but if the visitor drew back, he could make out the image of a weeping woman bowed in grief (according to Pausanias, who claims to have seen it, 1. 21. 5, cf. QS 1. 299 ff.).

  the death ofAmphion: he is said to have reacted to the death of his children by killing himself (Ov. Met. 6. 271), or by trying to storm the temple of Apollo, provoking the god to shoot him (Hyg. 9). For the death of Zethos, see P. 9. 5. 5.

  others Epicaste: as in Od. 11. 271, when Odysseus meets her in Hades; but Iocaste (Jocasta) is general in later writers.

  called him Oedipus: the name Oidipous is derived from oidein, to swell, and pous, a foot (a valid etymology); but the familiar Latinized form of his name is used in the translation. For further details on all the following see Ap.’s main sources, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonos.

  supposititious child: i.e. as one who was not the child of his supposed parents, but is passed off as being their child.

  a certain narrow track: the ‘Cleft Way’, a mountain track leading to Delphi, see P. 10. 5. 1 ff.

  Creon, son of Menoiceus: and thus the great-grandson of Pentheus, and a member of the Theban royal line. He was the brother of Iocaste and uncle of Oedipus.

  Hera sent the Sphinx: in Theog. 326, the daughter of Orthos and Chimaira. In the absence of a settled tradition, different sources point to various episodes in Theban history that might have caused a deity to send her. Ap. may be referring to the tradition that Hera sent her in anger at Laios’ abduction of Chrysippos, p. 104 (sc. Eur. Phoen. 1760); but it was also said that Ares sent her, still angry at the murder of his dragon, p. 100 (Arg. Eur. Phoen.), or Dionysos (sc. Theog. 326), angry at his rejection by Pentheus, p. 103.

  a single voice: an obscure indication that the same being is involved in each case.

  by Euryganeia: according to Pherecydes (sc. Eur. Phoen. 53), he first married Iocaste, who bore him two sons, Phrastos and Leonytos, but he put her aside after his descent was revealed and married Euryganeia, who bore him the sons ascribed elsewhere to Iocaste. She was the mother of his children in the Oedipodia, an early epic (P. 9. 5. 5).

  cursing his sons: it was also said that he cursed them for setting the silver table and golden goblet of Cadmos before him, so reminding him of his birth (Athenaeus 465e f.), and for serving him meat from the haunch, considered a less honourable portion, rather than the shoulder (sc. Soph. Oed. Col. 1375, both quoting the Thebais, an early epic).

  Arriving. . . at Colonos: following Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonos. In early sources, he continued to rule in Thebes (Od. 11. 274 ff., cf. Il. 23. 678 ff., Hes. Cat. fr. 192); this is also implied in the traditions from early epic mentioned in the previous two notes. Colonos (Sophocles’ birthplace) lay a mile north of Athens.

  the Eumenides: ‘the gracious ones’, a euphemism for the Erinyes (Furies). On their sanctuary, see Soph. Oed. Col. 36 ff.; they had another by the Areiopagos (P. 1. 28. 6).

  Eteocles . . . refused to give up the throne: cf. Eur. Phoenissae 67 ff.; this is the dominant tradition in later sources, but the names of the brothers suggest that Polyneices, ‘the man of many quarrels’ (cf. Aesch. Seven against Thebes 658), rather than Eteocles (‘true glory’), was originally the guilty party. Pherecydes and Hellanicos offered conflicting accounts (sc. Eur. Phoen. 71), the one saying that Polyneices was expelled by force, and the other that Polyneices was offered a choice between the throne and the Cadmeian treasures and chose the latter, but then tried to seize the throne as well.

  Adrastos, son of Talaos: and thus a grandson of Bias, p. 47, while Amphiaraos is a descendant of the seer Melampous (cf. Od. 15. 223 ff).

  Tydeus. . . had fled there from Calydon: see p. 42 and note.

  a boar. . . a lion: the emblem on Tydeus’ shield refers to the Calydonian boar, and that on Polyneices’ to the lion-faced Sphinx expelled by his father Oedipus (according to sc. Eur. Phoen. 409). On this episode see also Eur. Phoenissae 408 ff. and Suppliants 132 ff.

  went to Iphis: an Argive king descended from Proitos. Polyneices may have wanted the benefit of his local knowledge; or perhaps this is connected with the tradition that Eriphyle was the daughter of Iphis (sc. Il. 11. 326).