The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (34 page)

a competition developed
: again explaining a local custom, see AR 4. 1765 ff. (cf. Callimachus fr. 198; Hellenistic scholars, and scholar-poets, were much interested in local material of this kind).

put Aison to death
: if Jason is dead, Pelias can safely consolidate his rule by eliminating Jason’s father Aison, who has a legitimate claim to the throne as the son of Cretheus.

bull’s blood
: the Greeks believed that bull’s blood was dangerous to drink because its rapid coagulation would cause the drinker to choke; there was a famous tale that Themistocles committed suicide by drinking it (see Plut.
Them
. 31).

So she went to the palace. . . boiled him
: cf. P. 8. 11. 2 f. and Ov.
Met
. 7. 297 ff.; Medea had power enough as a magician to rejuvenate Pelias if she wished, but in his case she failed to put the necessary potions into the cauldron. She is said to have made Jason young again by boiling him (Arg. Eur.
Med
., reporting Simonides and Pherecydes).

Creon
: the son of Lycaithos, and his successor as king of Corinth; not to be confused with Creon, son of Menoiceus, the king or regent of Thebes, p. 111. His father ruled Corinth at the time of Bellerophon’s departure (sc. Eur.
Med
. 19). According to an earlier tradition, ascribed to the Corinthian epic poet Eumelos, who was probably the inventor of the genealogical scheme underlying it, Medea was invited to Corinth to become queen in her own right (sc. Eur.
Med
. 19, quoting Simonides to the same effect).

a raging fire
: see Eur.
Medea
1167 ff. She is said to have thrown herself into a fountain named after her in Corinth (P. 2. 3. 6).

received from the Sun a chariot
: following Eur.
Medea
(1317 ff., with Arg.; and for the murder of her two children, 1236 ff.). It
should be remembered that her father Aietes was a son of the Sun, p. 43.

the Corinthians forced them away
: the local Corinthian tradition, see P. 2. 3. 6; they stoned the children because they had carried the fatal gifts to Glauce, but as a result of this murder the young children of Corinth began to die. The Corinthians were ordered by the oracle to offer sacrifices in their honour each year (which were continued until the city was destroyed by the Romans in 146
BC)
and to raise an altar to Fear.

she married Aigeus
: Aigeus had difficulty fathering children, p. 136, and he is said to have married Medea when she promised to cure the problem by her spells (Plut.
Thes
. 12). For her expulsion see p. 139.

a son, Medos
: either directly (P. 2. 3. 7) or through her son, she becomes the eponym of the Medes, whose empire south-west of the Caspian Sea was later absorbed into the Persian Empire. According to another tradition, Medea bore Medos to an Asian king after her expulsion from Athens, DS 4. 55. 7, and he then succeeded to his father’s kingdom.

she killed Perses
: or Medos killed him and conquered Media thereafter (DS 4. 56. 1, cf. Hyg. 27).

Inachos
: as one of the most prominent features in the landscape, rivers often appear at an early stage in local genealogies. The statement that the river was named after him presents the matter in a rationalized form; Inachos would originally have been the river itself, which, in myth, can function as a person at the same time, cf. Acheloos on p. 113.

Phoroneus and Aigialeus
: in the mythology of their particular areas each would be seen as the local earth-born ‘first man’, Phoroneus in Argos, and Aigialeus in Aigialeia to the north of Argos (in the region of Sicyon; compare his position in the local genealogies as reported by P. 2. 5. 5). Here they are absorbed into a broader genealogical scheme.

was called Sarapis
: the cult of Sarapis, which was encouraged by the Hellenistic kings of Egypt, developed from the cult of Apis, the sacred bull worshipped at Memphis. The Argive Apis is here identified with the Egyptian Apis, and thence with Sarapis, who became the chief god in the cult of the Egyptian gods as celebrated outside Egypt.

Pelasgos
: the ‘first man’ in Arcadia, in the central Peloponnese; that he was born from the earth was the local tradition. Ap. will return to Pelasgos and the mythology of Arcadia on p. 114.

Pelasgians
: also used in a more general sense to refer to the aboriginal inhabitants of various parts of Greece, notably Thessaly.

calling the Peloponnese Argos
: this continues a pattern in which regional names are said to have originated as names for the whole Peloponnese. (According to the context, the name Argos can refer either to the Argolid, as a region in the north-east Peloponnese, or to Argos, as the main city within it.)

eyes all over his body
: as with the hydra’s heads, the numbers vary according to the fancy of the author. That he had eyes ‘all over’ may have been wrongly inferred from his title Panoptes. In Pherecydes (sc. Eur.
Phoen
. 1116) he had only a single extra eye, on the back of his head, granted to him by Hera, who also made him sleepless.

Echidna
: a fearsome monster and progenitor of monsters, who lived in a cave in a hollow of the earth and feasted on raw flesh, see
Theog
. 295 ff.

Peiren
: a son of the first Argos and Evadne; he can be identified with Peiras two paragraphs previously.

Zeus seduced Io
: for all the following, cf. Aesch.
Suppliants
291 ff; there Io is transformed by Hera. See also [Aesch.]
PV
561 ff. and Ov.
Met
. 1. 583 ff.

betrayed by Hierax
: otherwise unknown. Since
hierax
means a hawk, perhaps associated with a transformation story (as with another Hierax in AL 3).

Argeiphontes
: an ancient title (e.g.
Od
. 8. 338) of uncertain origin, here interpreted as meaning ‘Argos-slayer’.

Ionian Gulf
: the Adriatic; for this explanation of its name, cf. [Aesch.] PV 836 ff.

Bosporos
: ‘the cow’s strait’, or ‘ox ford’; a valid etymology.

Hera asked the Curetes . . . discovered Epaphos
: as Ap. remarks, the Greeks identified Io with the Egyptian goddess Isis, and the present story is based on the tale of Isis’ search for the lost Osiris; for a Greek account of the latter, see Plutarch’s
Isis and Osiris
355 ff. Osiris was washed ashore at Byblos. In view of the Curetes’ previous services to him, p. 28, it seems ungrateful of Zeus to kill them.

until later
: see pp. 96 ff. for Agenor and the Cretan/Theban line.

Belos
: the name is derived from the Phoenician Baal, strictly a god, but often taken by the Greeks to be an early eastern king.

Melampodes
: ‘Blackfeet’, an epithet for the Egyptians found in late authors only.

the first man to do so
: but the
Argo
, p. 49, was more commonly regarded as the first ship (which is why it was turned into a constellation by Athene,
Catast
. 35). In either case, the ship was built with Athene’s help.

Gelanor. . . surrendered the throne to him
: according to P. 2. 16. 1, Gelanor, son of Sthenelas, was a great-grandson of Agenor, Io’s uncle (or on p. 58, her great-grandfather); and Danaos too had a legitimate claim as a descendant of Io. Pausanias gives the local tradition (P. 2. 19. 3 f.). The Argives found their claims so evenly balanced that they deferred the decision until the following day; and early the next morning, a wolf attacked a herd of cattle grazing outside the walls and killed the bull. So the Argives ceded the throne to Danaos, taking this to be a sign from the gods (with the wolf representing Danaos, the outsider). And Danaos, believing that Apollo had sent the wolf, founded the most important cult in the city of Argos, that of Apollo Lycaios (‘Wolfish’ Apollo).

After he . . . Danaans after himself
: included with the preceding lines in sc.
Il
. 1. 42, as part of a citation from the second book of Apollodorus; not accepted by all editors.

Poseidon . . . belonged to Hera
: see p. 130 for a similar dispute at Athens; these were in effect contests for special cultic honours from the inhabitants. For further details, see P. 2. 15. 5; this explains why the Argive rivers (including the Inachos) run dry in summer, except at Lerna.

Lerna
: there was a stream there called Amymone, p. 74, cf. P. 2. 37. 1. Lerna has more sinister associations as the home of the hydra, p. 74.

Hypermnestra . . . spared Lynceus
: they will be the ancestors of the Argive royal line thereafter. See also P. 2. 25. 4 and 2. 19. 6.

they were purified
: but in late sources the Danaids are listed amongst those who suffer punishment in Hades (e.g. Ov.
Met
. 4. 462, Horace
Odes
3. 11. 28 ff.), where they attempt endlessly to fill perforated vessels with water.

at an athletic contest
: see Pind.
Pyth
. 9. 112 ff.

Amymone bore. . . in that very manner
: Nauplios was conceived at Lerna, p. 61. Since Nauplios’ activities as a wrecker took place so much later (after the Trojan War, see p. 159), this would mean that he lived to an improbable age; some resolved the problem by claiming that the wrecker was a descendant of the Nauplios born
to Amymone (in AR 1. 134 ff., he is a great-great-great-grandson). Seneca records that he was cast into the deep
(Medea
658 f.), but nothing is known of the exact circumstances.

Homer calk Anteia
: in
Il
. 6. 160; on Stheneboia see also p. 64, and p. 115 where she is said to have been the daughter of Apheidas, an Arcadian.

fortified. . . by the Cyclopes
: imagining that the monumental architecture of the Mycenaeans was beyond the power of man, the Greeks supposed that the fortifications of Tiryns and their like must be the work of giants or ‘Cyclopes’ (cf. P. 2. 25. 7). In view of the popular origin of this tradition, there is little point in asking exactly who these Cyclopes were, but the ancient mythographers (e.g. sc.
Theog
. 139) thought that they should be distinguished from the primordial Hesiodic Cyclopes on p. 27, and also from the primitive pastoral Cyclopes of Homer, p. 165.

Acousilaos. . . Hera
: the anger of Hera was generally regarded as the cause of their madness. According to Bacch. 2. 47 ff., they were sent mad for boasting in the precinct of Hera that their father was wealthier than the goddess; the present story that they mocked her primitive cultic image
(xoanon)
is probably of somewhat later origin. In Bacch. (2. 95 ff.) they were cured by Artemis after their father prayed to her and vowed twenty oxen, but in Hes.
Cat
. by Melampous (frs. 131 ff., cf. fr. 37).

the other women
: the women of Argos, cf. p. 47, where the madness was attributed to Dionysos; the story was doubtless of separate origin from that of the daughters of Proitos. Herodotus (9. 34) is the only other source for the raising of the fee (but there the daughters of Proitos are not involved). Some date the madness of the Argive women to a later period, when Anaxagoras, a grandson of Proitos, was on the throne (DS 4. 68. 4; P. 2. 18. 4).

agreed to the cure on these terms
: this introduces a further complexity into the pattern of rule in the Argolid. There are separate lines within the Inachid royal family, relating to a division of the territory between Tiryns and Argos, pp. 62 f. (and later, Mycenae); and now an additional Deucalionid royal family is inserted (which will be the most important at the time of the Theban Wars, see p. 107 and note). These complexities are the result of the mythographers’ efforts to impose a modicum of order on an inherited mass of largely irreconcilable myth. The threefold division of Argos does not reflect a peculiarity in Argive institutions comparable to the dual monarchy in Sparta; and one soon finds that it is impossible
to trace clear lines of descent linking each of the main centres to each family or branch of a family.

killed his brother
: or a Corinthian nobleman named Belleros (sc. Lycophr. 17, sc.
Il
. 6. 155), hence his name Bellerophon (or ‘Belleros-slayer’, cf. Hermes ‘Argeiphontes’ on p. 59).

to be purified
: this is a recurring pattern in these myths. A person who spills another’s blood becomes polluted, and thus a danger to his native community (because he is liable to become the cause of barrenness, plague, and the like). He must therefore go into exile and be purified. That he is purified by a king rather than a priest reflects in part the sacral character of early kingship, and in part the social function of purification in enabling the polluted man to be integrated into the community of the king who purifies him.

Stheneboia fell in love with him
: the following accords with
Il
. 6. 154 ff. (except that Homer calls her Anteia, as remarked above).

to Iobates
: Proitos’ father-in-law, see above, who lived in Lycia, in the south-western corner of Asia Minor.

a third head in the middle
: we are to understand that the dragon’s tail has a head at the end, cf.
Theog
. 321 ff., and that this middle head is on a neck that grows from the monster’s back.

Amisodaros
: see
Il
. 16.328 ff. A Lycian like Iobates (who is not named by Homer), and the father of two sons in Sarpedon’s company.

as Hesiod records
:
Theog
. 319 f. (but Hesiod’s text is ambiguous and he may have meant that the Lernaean hydra was its mother).

climbed on to . . . Pegasos
: as in
Theog
. 325 and Hes.
Cat
. fr. 43a, 84 ff.; there is no mention of him in Homer’s account,
Il
. 6. 179 ff. For the story of his birth, see p. 66 and
Theog
. 278 ff. He was given to Bellerophon by Poseidon (sc.
Il
. 6. 155), or by Athene, who had tamed and bridled him with her own hands (P. 2. 4. 1); or according to Pind.
ol
. 13. 63 ff, Bellerophon bridled Pegasos himself after obtaining advice from a seer on how to obtain divine favour for the enterprise. It was said that Bellerophon was killed when he tried to fly to Olympos on Pegasos, Pind.
Isth
. 7. 44 ff.