The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics) (45 page)

slaughtered Polyxene
: a daughter of Priam and Hecuba not mentioned by Homer. This episode was portrayed in the
Sack of Troy
(Procl.); according to Euripides
Hecuba
37 ff, the ghost of Achilles appeared above his grave and claimed her as his prize of honour. His son Neoptolemos slaughtered her (Ibycus, in sc. Eur.
Hec
. 40, presumably following early epic).

Hecuba was awarded. . . Bitch’s Tomb
: this curious story is referred to in Eur.
Hecuba
1260 ff. and in a lyric fragment of earlier date (PMG fr. 965) and is thus no late invention. In Euripides it is prophesied that she will turn into a dog, disappear into the sea, and her grave, Cynossema (the dog’s tomb), will become a landmark for sailors. It lay at the entrance to the Hellespont on the Thracian bank (Strabo 13. 1. 28, cf. Thuc. 8. 104). Others say that she was stoned rather than drowned (e.g. Ov.
Met
. 13. 565 ff.). There was an alternative tradition that she was conveyed to Lycia by Apollo (P. 10. 27. 2, reporting Stesichorus).

the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters
: cf.
Il
. 3. 122 ff., where she is the wife of Antenor’s son Helicaon. The earliest surviving source for the present story is Lycophron 316 ff, fourth century. See also QS 13. 544 ff.

took refuge by the altar
: that of Athene, which he had defiled (cf. Procl.); this action, and the consequent failure of the Greeks to punish him, merely increases Athene’s anger.

the Greeks gathered. . . sacrifice to Athene
: to appease her for the defilement of her statue. According to
Od
. 3. 136 ff., and the
Returns
(Procl.), the next poem in the epic cycle, this quarrel was incited by Athene; and it was conducted in an ill-tempered manner in front of the army while the troops were the worse for drink.

Diomedes. . . with only five ships
: see
Od
. 3. 153 ff. and 276 ff; for the subsequent history of Menelaos, see p. 164.

Mopsos.. . Manto
: with this daughter of the seer Teiresias (p. 112) as his mother and Apollo as his father, Mopsos might be expected to surpass even Calchas as a diviner; his kingdom of Colophon lay south of the Troad in Lydia.

When Calchas replied. . . without a doubt
: following the Sabbaitic epitome. The Vatican epitome reads, ‘when he [Calchas] made no reply, he himself [Mopsos] said that she was carrying ten piglets, and that one of them was male, and that she would bring them to birth on the following day.’ On this duel between the diviners, see also Strabo 14. 1. 27, where it is indicated that the fig-tree question came from Hes.
Cat
. (= fr. 278), and that the pig question was reported by Pherecydes (in a different form again, that the sow would give birth to three piglets, and one would be male).

Thetis
: the goddess was his grandmother. In the
Returns
(Procl.) it was she who advised him to travel overland (see below), and the shade of Achilles tried to restrain Agamemnon and his followers from departing (for Agamemnon’s sacrifice was insufficient to appease Athene and they would meet with storms at sea).

Athene hurled... was killed
: cf.
Od
. 4. 499 ff., where Poseidon drives his ships on to the Gyraean Rocks, which are located by later authors either at the island of Tenos in the southern Aegean (the place of the storm in the present account), where there was a Mount Gyraios (Hesych.), or more commonly, at Cape Caphereus in southern Euboea (e.g. Serv.
on Aen
. 1. 45, QS 14. 568 ff); here Aias was presumably wrecked at Tenos (for he was washed ashore at Myconos nearby), but in the
Returns
he was wrecked at the Capherides Rocks (Procl.). In the
Odyssey
Poseidon wrecked Aias, rescued him from the waves, but then killed him as here. Eur.
Troades
75 ff. is the first surviving source for Athene’s use of her father Zeus’ thunderbolt.

Nauplios
: see p. 62 and note; the earliest surviving source for this episode is Eur.
Helen
766 f. and 1126 ff.

the intrigues of Odysseus
: see p. 147.

Aigialeia
: the wife of Diomedes, p. 43, king of Argos; her infidelity was also attributed to the anger of Aphrodite (e.g. Ov.
Met
. 14. 476 ff.), who was wounded by Diomedes during the fighting at Troy (
Il
. 5. 330 ff.).

wife of Idomeneus
: the king of Crete, see p. 99 and note.

Xylophagos
: literally ‘Eater of Wood’, i.e. of ships.

the country of the Molossians
: Epirus, in north-western Greece. See also P. 1. 11. 1 f, and 2. 23. 6.

his father’s kingdom
: that of Peleus, at Phthia in Thessaly, which his father Achilles would have inherited if he had survived.

when Orestes went mad
: after killing Clytemnestra and Aigisthos, see p. 163.

Hermione. . . at Troy
: an allusion to the story that Menelaos had given Hermione to Orestes, but afterwards offered her to Neoptolemos if he captured Troy (see Eur.
Andromache
967 ff.; some explain this as an accident, saying that Hermione had been given to Orestes by her grandfather Tyndareus at Sparta, and that Menelaos, who was away at Troy, remained unaware of it, e.g. sc.
Od
. 4. 4).

for the death of his father
: Apollo, together with Paris, had killed Achilles, see p. 154, cf.
Il
. 22. 359 f.

by Machaireus
: a name surely suggested by the
machaira
, or short sword (cf. Pind.
Nem
. 7. 42) used to kill him. It was also said (ibid. 40 ff.) that he was killed in an argument over the meat from his sacrifice (he objected to the Delphians appropriating such meat, according to Pherecydes in sc. Eur.
Or
. 1655). He was buried at Delphi and honoured there as a presiding hero (Pind.
Nem
. 7. 44 ff, P. 10. 24. 5).

Gouneus. . . settled there
: there is a gap in the text here. This passage, which is prefaced, ‘Apollodorus and the rest say this’, is taken from Tzetzes sc. Lycophr. 902; the next two paragraphs are taken from ibid. 911 and 921 respectively. There too Apollodorus is probably Tzetzes’ main source; he is referred to explicitly in the second passage.

Navaithos.. . Nauprestides
: Navaithos is derived here from
naus
, ship,
aitkein
, burning. Similarly, the Nauprestides were burners (from
pimpremi)
of ships. Cf. Strabo 6. 1. 12.

Demophon
: a son of Theseus; the following story, of relatively late origin, was also associated with his brother Acamas (e.g. Aeschines
Defals. leg
. 31, apparently the earlier tradition).

Nine Ways
: the earlier name of Amphipolis (Thuc. 4. 103); said to have been given that name because she ran down to the shore nine times when Demophon failed to return on the appointed day (Hyg. 59).

terror-struck
: the reason is unclear; Tzetzes (sc. Lycophr. 495, following Ap.) says that he was ‘overcome by a phantom’ rather than struck by terror, but that may well be a mistake. The basket would have contained sacred objects used in the Mysteries of Rhea.

Amphilochos . , . killed one another
: on this Amphilochos, a relatively late invention, see p. 114 and note. This story of a double killing was surely based on a similar story told about Amphilochos, son of Amphiaraos (Strabo 14. 5. 16, cf. Tzetzes sc. Lycophr. 440): after founding Mallos (in Cilicia) with Mopsos, he went to Amphilochian Argos for a year, and when Mopsos refused to accept him back as joint ruler on his return, they fought and killed one another in a duel (thus explaining the origin of the famous oracle at Mallos, in which both were involved, see Plut.
Moralia
434d).

Locris was struck by a plague
: yet another disaster provoked by the Locrian Aias’ desecration of Athene’s image, p. 158; the need to propitiate Athene provides a mythical explanation for the strange custom of the Locrian tribute, which is well attested (e.g. Polybius 12. 5. 7; the girls were chosen by lot from the hundred foremost families).

after the Phocian War
: it ended in 346
BC;
this could only mark the end of the thousand years if the Trojan War took place at an earlier period than the Greeks commonly assumed; see also Strabo 13. 1. 40.

was killed by Aigisthos and Clytemnestra
: in the
Odyssey
, 3. 193 ff. and 4. 529 ff., Aigisthos kills him, in Aesch.
Agamemnon
1373 ff., Clytemnestra; thereafter in tragedy they are often mentioned together, e.g. Soph.
Electra
97 ff. Ap. is probably following the
Returns
here (for Proclus also reports that he was killed by both in his summary of the poem); if so, it is possible that the motif of the tunic, first mentioned in Aesch.
Ag
. 1382 ff., may also have originated in early epic. Aigisthos, the son of Thyestes, p. 146, came to Mycenae while Agamemnon was away at Troy and seduced Clytemnestra,
Od
. 3. 263 ff. In Aesch.
Ag
. Clytemnestra’s
action is provoked by Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigeneia (1414 ff.) and his infidelity with the Trojan captive women Chryseis and Cassandra (1439 ff.).

they killed Cassandra too
: cf.
Od
. 11. 421–3; there she is killed by Clytemnestra alone, and that is the usual account (e.g. Pind.
Pyth
. 11. 17 ff.).

left Mycenae . . . killed his mother and Aigisthos
: cf.
Od
. 1. 298 ff. and 3. 305 ff. There is no mention of Pylades in Homer, but in the
Returns
the murder of Agamemnon was ‘avenged by Orestes and Pylades’ (Procl.). On the whole affair, see Aesch.
Choephoroi
, and Soph, and Eur.
Electra
.

indicted by the Furies. . . acquitted
: following Aesch.
Eumenides;
when the votes are evenly divided, he is acquitted on Athene’s instructions (752 f).

the land of the Taurians
: the Crimea. Hereafter Ap. follows Eur.
Iphigeneia in Tauris;
for a divergent account of how the Taurians dealt with their victims, see Hdt. 4. 103.

he himself married. . .father of Tisamenos
: such is the text of the Epitome, but Tzetzes (sc. Lycophr. 1374) states the alternative rather differently, reporting that he either married Hermione and had a son, Tisamenos, by her, or, according to some, he married Erigone and became the father of
Penthilos
(cf. P. 2. 18. 6, where he is said to have had an illegitimate son, Penthilos, by Erigone in addition to Tisamenos, his legitimate son by Hermione). The suggestion here that Erigone may have been the mother of Tisamenos almost certainly misrepresents the original text. This Erigone was the daughter of Aigisthos and Clytemnestra, p. 163 (not to be confused with the Athenian Erigone on p. 133). On Hermione, see p. 121. Tisamenos succeeded Orestes (who became king of Argos, and later succeeded Menelaos on the Spartan throne also), and he remained the most powerful ruler in the Peloponnese until he was killed and displaced by the returning Heraclids (see p. 94) and the Pelopid line was brought to an end.

Menelaos . . . treasure
: see
Od
. 3. 276 ff.

only a phantom
: see p. 147 and note.

went to the Elysian Fields with Helen
: thus fulfilling the prophecy of Proteus in
Od
. 4. 561 ff.; they were sent there because Helen was a daughter of Zeus. Elysium was much like the Isles of the Blessed, a home for immortalized human beings vaguely situated ‘at the ends of the world’, ibid. 563 (although in the later tradition it came to be regarded as a region of the Underworld).

wolves . . . pigs, or asses, or lions
: in the
Odyssey
they are turned into pigs alone (10. 239, although some of her previous victims were turned into wolves and lions, 212).

moly
: a mythical plant with white flowers,
Od
. 10. 302 ff., sometimes identified as a variety of wild onion; the details on Odysseus’ use of it are not derived from the
Odyssey
.

Telegonos
: important for his role in the
Telegonia
, the last epic in the Trojan cycle, as summarized in Epitome 7. 34–7; not in Homer.

The Sirens
: cf.
Od
. 12. 49 ff. and 165 ff., where there are only two; their names, the statement that they were half bird, and the prophecy regarding their death are not derived from the
Odyssey
.

cattle
: owned by the Sun and not subject to a natural death, see
Od
. 12. 127 ff.; Circe had warned that they should not be killed.

Latinos
: not in Homer; in
Theog
. 1013 (part of a later addition to Hesiod’s text, probably sixth century), he is Odysseus’ son by Circe, and ruler of the Tyrsenians (i.e. Etruscans) with his brother Agrios. In the Roman tradition, where he is usually a son of Faunus, Latinus becomes an important figure as the king of the aboriginal inhabitants of central Italy when Aeneas arrived (e.g. Verg.
Aen
. 7 ff.).

for five years
: in
Od
. 7. 259, seven years.

suitors
: there is no catalogue of suitors in the
Odyssey
, although many are mentioned individually, and numbers are given for the suitors from each place (16. 246 ff.; only in the case of Ithaca does the number coincide with the total here).

he wrestled with him
: in
Od
. 18. 88 ff., a boxing match, settled by Odysseus with a single blow.

the land of the Thesprotians
: in Epirus, in north-western Greece.

propitiated Poseidon
: for killing his son, the Cyclops Polyphemos, p. 165.

Teiresias. . . in his prophecy
: see
Od
. 11. 119 ff.; Teiresias told him to travel inland until he found a people who had no knowledge of the sea and mistook an oar for a winnowing fan, and then offer up a ram, a bull, and a boar. But afterwards he was to return home to Ithaca and offer sacrifices there to all the gods (ibid. 132 ff.). In the
Telegonia
, however, the epic that took up the story of Odysseus where the
Odyssey
left off, the journey inland provided the occasion for a new series of foreign adventures.