The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (35 page)

the Solymoi
: they lived in southern Asia Minor to the west of Lycia (see Strabo 14. 3. 9).

in youthful vigour
: following Zenobius 2. 87; the text is problematic.

some say by Proitos
: although this variant (apparently derived from Pindar, sc.
Il
. 14. 319) is cited first, it was generally accepted that Perseus was a son of Zeus; for the quarrel between the twins, see pp. 62 f.

when Acrisios learned
: according to Pherecydes (sc. AR 4. 1091) he heard the voice of the child while he was at play at three or four years of age, and had Danae brought up from the chamber with the child’s nurse, whom he killed.

Polydectes. . . Dictys
: for their birth and origin, see p. 44.

a marriage-offering
: as in Homer, the bride would be purchased from her father with a bride-gift,
hedna
, which was often substantial (e.g.
Il
. 11. 243 ff). For Hippodameia, see p. 144.

did not take the horses of Perseus
: this seems to be Ap.’s meaning (rather than that he failed to receive any horses from him, as in Frazer’s translation), as in the clearer account reported from Pherecydes (in sc. AR. 4. 1515a; when Dictys asks him for a horse, Perseus replies hyperbolically that he would give him the Gorgon’s head, and the following day, he refuses to accept Perseus’ horse alone, holding him instead to his ‘promise’).

the daughters of Phonos
: the Graiai (Old Women). In
Theog
. 270 ff., there are only two, and although they were grey-haired from birth, they are said to be fair-cheeked and beautifully robed. The shared eye and tooth first appear in Pherecydes sc. AR 4. 1515a and[Aesch.]
PV
795f.

winged sandals
: belonging to Hermes, which Perseus needs to reach the Gorgons, and then escape from them (the tradition that he escaped on Pegasos, e.g. Ov.
Amatoria
3. 12. 24, found little favour in antiquity). On the
kibisis
, see Appendix, 1 and note.

of Hades
: inserted by Heyne, but not necessarily in the original, as the reader could be expected to know (as in P. 3. 17. 3). The leather helmet or cap belongs to Hades because his name suggests invisibility
(a-ides)
. The notion that he was ‘armed’ with it by the Cyclopes, p. 28, is a fancy from a relatively late period.

conceived them previously by Poseidon
: she had slept with him in a spring meadow, see
Theog
. 278 ff.

Cassiepeia
: the form Cassiopeia, familiar from the constellation, never appears in ancient writings; it seems to have originated as a hybrid between this and the ancient variant Cassiope (Ov.
Met
. 4. 738 etc.).

Ammon
: he had an oracle at the oasis of Siwa in Egypt, which was regarded by the Greeks as an oracle of Zeus.

claimed to rival the goddess in beauty
: this may seem surprising, but we have seen that she was once attractive to Poseidon; according to Ov.
Met
. 4. 798 ff, Athene transformed her into her familiar
Gorgonic form because she had slept with Poseidon in the goddess’ sanctuary.

what the oracle had predicted
: that he would be killed by his daughter’s son, pp. 64 f.

king of Larissa
: this lay in the land of the (Thessalian) Pelasgians, and we should understand that Acrisios went to stay with Teutamides. In Pherecydes’ account (sc. AR 4. 1091) Perseus went there specifically to find Acrisios, and became involved in the games by chance.

on the foot, killing him
: this seems odd—the incident on p. 76, which involves a poisoned arrow, is not comparable—but it accords with Pherecydes’ account in sc. AR 4. 1091. In Hyg. 63, the wind blows the discus from his hand at Acrisios’ head, so fulfilling the will of the gods. Some said that Perseus himself invented the discus, and was using the occasion to demonstrate his skill with it (P. 2. 16. 2).

fortified. . . Mycenae
: Perseus was commonly seen as its founder (cf. P. 2. 16. 3). Henceforth it will be one of the three great centres in the Argolid with Argos and Tiryns.

gone far: telou ebe
: hence Teleboans. The etymology is forced; the name probably means ‘those whose (war-)
cries
can be heard from
afar’
.

descendant of Perseus. . . about to be born
: Zeus means Heracles (see p. 70), his own son by Alcmene, the wife of Amphitryon, grandson of Perseus; but Hera’s stratagem will ensure that Eurystheus, a grandson of Perseus, will be born before Heracles, and thus rule at Mycenae in accordance with this declaration by Zeus. Hera is always jealous of Zeus’ children by other women. (As is usual in mythical history, Heracles’ divine parentage does not exclude him from the lineage of his putative mortal father; he is also descended from Perseus through his mother.)

the Eileithuiai
: there was a goddess Eileithuia specifically associated with childbirth, cf. p. 29, but the name was also used in the plural as a generic term to refer to other divine beings in so far as they helped (or hindered) childbirth. The story is told by Homer,
Il
. 19. 96 ff.; compare P. 9. 11. 2 and Ov.
Met
. 9. 292 ff. for later developments. In Homer, Hera merely restrains the Eileithuiai
(Il
. 19. 119) from helping Alcmene, but in the later tradition they actively hinder the birth.

of their maternal grandfather
: the text is confused. For the basis of their claim, see p. 68; the succession runs: Perseus—Mestor—
Hippothoe—Taphios—Pterelaos—the sons of Pterelaos. Earlier in the sentence I have kept the manuscript reading ‘with Taphios’ (cf. Tzetz. sc. Lycophr. 932; as against ‘with some Taphians’ following Heyne’s emendation); the fact that the sons of Pterelaos are seeking to regain the kingdom of the maternal grandfather of
Taphios
could well explain the original meaning of the text, or the proper reference of the problematic phrase if it is a gloss. Note that Electryon, a son of Perseus, is involved in a dispute with the great-great-great-grandsons of Perseus! The islands of the Teleboans lay opposite Acarnania near the entrance to the Corinthian Gulf.

striking him dead
: by accident, but there is also an early tradition that they argued over the cattle and Amphitryon killed him in a fit of anger (see Hes.
Shield
11 f. and 82). This gives Sthenelos a pretext to take power in Mycenae, and Hera’s stratagem will ensure that his son Eurystheus rules there after him; and the expulsion of Amphitryon and Alcmene explains why Heracles will start his life in exile at Thebes.

she would marry him
: this corresponds with the account attributed to Pherecydes in sc.
Il
. 14. 323 and sc.
Od
. 11. 266, but in Hes.
Shield
14 ff. (in lines taken from Hes.
Cat.)
they were already married (as one might well infer from the previous paragraph) and she makes the
consummation
of the marriage conditional on the vengeance. (Without a small emendation by Wagner, the passage would read, ‘she would marry the person who avenged . . .’)

the vixen
: the Teumessian fox, which had its lair on Mount Teumessos in Boeotia; Dionysos is said to have sent it (P. 9. 19. 1) but we are not told why. (Perhaps because he was rejected by Pentheus, p. 103.) Here the Cadmeia clearly means the territory of Thebes (rather than just the citadel).

Cephalos, son of Deioneus
: for his birth, see p. 44 (Deioneus can be identified with Deion).

the dog
: its name was Lailaps, ‘Hurricane’ (e.g. Hyg. 189); for how Cephalos came to possess it, see also p. 134.

Zeus turned. . . them to stone
: this divine intervention was needed to resolve, or at least remove, the intolerable contradiction which arose when a beast that was fated to catch its prey was set in pursuit of a beast that was fated never to be caught. In astral mythology Zeus turns the dog into a constellation (Canis Major,
Catast
. 33).

put Comaitho to death
: he is unwilling to accept the love of one who has betrayed her father and city; compare the story of Scylla on p. 137.

Heracles
: the only other complete life history to survive from antiquity is that of Diodorus of Sicily (4. 8–39), which follows a similar pattern, and should be consulted on all the following.

killed the serpents
: cf. Pind.
Nem
. 1. 39 ff.

Linos had struck him
: after losing patience at his ‘sluggishness of soul’, DS 3. 67. 2. Surviving accounts are late, although the episode is depicted in fifth-century vase-paintings.

Rhadamanthys
: the Cretan lawmaker who became a judge in Hades, see p. 97.

should all conceive children by Heracles
: he is impressed by his extraordinary strength and expects him to father fine children, cf. DS 4. 29. 3. According to the temple legend at Thespiai, P. 9. 27. 5, he slept with all but one, who became his priestess at the temple, and did so in a single night.

dressed in its skin
: but according to some, it was the Nemean lion, p. 73, who provided the skin (e.g. Theocritus 25. 163 ff.; as the skin of an invulnerable beast, it had the advantage of being impenetrable—Heracles had to use the lion’s own claws to cut it).

the Minyans
: here the inhabitants of Orchomenos in north-western Boeotia (cf.
Il
. 2. 511).

charioteer of Menoiceus
: his master, a grandson of Pentheus, was a member of the Theban royal family; the killing was also attributed to a group of Thebans (P. 9. 37. 1 f.).

by Eurytos
: in the manuscripts,
autou
, ‘by him’, referring to Rhadamanthys. Because this seems unlikely in itself, and Ap. said above that Heracles was taught archery by Eurytos, most editors favour the present emendation; but it is possible that there is a more extensive corruption. In DS 4. 14. 3 he is taught archery by Apollo.

the Pythia
: the priestess who delivered the oracles at Delphi.

ten labours
: corrected from twelve in the manuscripts (Hercher). According to the following account, Heracles was due to perform ten labours, but he has to perform two extra labours (making up the canonic twelve) because Eurystheus refuses to accept the second and fifth.

be immortal
: referring to his apotheosis, which takes place some time after the completion of the labours, and is a relatively late element in the tradition, see p. 91 and note.

invulnerable beast fathered by Typhon
: in
Theog
. 326 f., the son of Orthos, son of Typhon and Echidna; it was reared by Hera. There
is another tradition, also of early origin, that it grew up on the Moon, who shook it down to earth (Epimenides, fr. 2 DK, cf. Hyg. 30). In these mythical contexts, invulnerability means quite literally insusceptibility to wounds; if such a being can be killed by a means that does not entail the piercing of its body, it is not immune to death (hence the strangling). Pindar is the earliest author to refer to its invulnerability
(Isth
. 6. 47 f.; Bacch. 13. 50 ff. is more explicit).

sacrifice. . . as a hero
: exceptional men, legendary but also historical, who were thought to exercise power after their death, were worshipped in a special cult; sacrifices to the gods above and those to the heroized dead were performed according to a different ritual (which is reflected in the use of different words here,
thuein
and
enagizein
respectively).

Copreus
: cf.
Il
. 15. 639 f. His name is suggestive of
kopros
, dung.

the Lernaean hydra
: see
Theog
. 313 ff., a child of Echidna and Typhon, raised by Hera to be an adversary for Heracles; hydra, meaning a water-serpent, is not a proper name (although the Lernaean hydra came to be thought of as ‘the’ hydra).

nine heads
: Hesiod, ibid., does not say that the hydra has more than one head. Although Pausanias, 2. 37. 4, claims that Peisandros, the seventh-sixth-century author of an epic poem on Heracles, was the first to give the hydra many heads, the artistic evidence shows that he was not the inventor of the theme, for such representations can be traced to about 700. The number of heads varies according to the fancy of the poet or artist; already in early lyric, Alcaeus gives it nine heads, and Simonides fifty (sc. Hes.
Theog
. 313). The immortality of the middle head is unattested elsewhere.

of Amymone
: see p. 61.

Iolaos
: the son of Heracles’ half-brother Iphicles, p. 72; he accompanied Heracles on several of his adventures, acting as his charioteer.

sacred to Artemis
: when Zeus wanted to rape Taygete, daughter of Atlas, Artemis rescued her by turning her into a deer; on returning to human form she dedicated the present deer to Artemis, and attached an inscription to it stating this (Pind.
ol
. 3. 29 f., with sc. to 53).

struck it with an arrow
: to bring it down without harming it. According to other accounts he used nets to trap it, or overpowered it when it was asleep or exhausted (DS 4. 13. 1).

the common property of the Centaurs
: according to another tradition, Dionysos left the jar with Pholos to be opened when Heracles arrived four generations later, and the local Centaurs were driven into a frenzy by the scent of the wine (DS 4. 12. 3 f.).

Cheiron . . . by the Lapiths
: he was driven out of Thessaly with the other Centaurs by this Thessalian people under the command of their king, Peirithoos (see also p. 142). Malea was a promontory at the south-east corner of the Peloponnese, far to the south of Pholoe in Arcadia.

Only when Prometheus. . . able to die
: see p. 83 with note.

killing him instantly
: it will be remembered that Heracles dipped his arrows in the hydra’s gall; the virulence of the poison explains both their effect on the Centaurs and why Cheiron’s wound is incurable.

he refused to pay the reward
: thus far he had some justification, as he could reasonably claim that he had been deceived when he was asked to pay for a task that Heracles had to perform anyhow as an unpaid service to Eurystheus.