Listed 100 (total found 788) sub titles with search on: Mythology for wider area of: "PELOPONNISOS Region GREECE" .
ARKADIA (Ancient area) PELOPONNISOS
The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first inhabitant of this land. It is natural
to suppose that others accompanied Pelasgus, and that he was not by himself; for
otherwise he would have been a king without any subjects to rule over. However,
in stature and in prowess, in beauty and in wisdom, Pelasgus excelled his fellows,
and for this reason, I think, he was chosen to be king by them. Asius the poet
says of him: "The godlike Pelasgus on the wooded mountains Black earth gave
up, that the race of mortals might exist".
Pelasgus on becoming king invented huts that humans should not shiver, or be soaked
by rain, or oppressed by heat. Moreover; he it was who first thought of coats
of sheep-skins, such as poor folk still wear in Euboea and Phocis. He too it was
who checked the habit of eating green leaves, grasses, and roots always inedible
and sometimes poisonous. But he introduced as food the nuts of trees, not those
of all trees but only the acorns of the edible oak. Some people have followed
this diet so closely since the time of Pelasgus that even the Pythian priestess,
when she forbade the Lacedaemonians to touch the land of the Arcadians, uttered
the following verses: "In Arcadia are many men who eat acorns, Who will prevent
you; though I do not grudge it you".
It is said that it was in the reign of Pelasgus that the land was called Pelasgia. (Paus. 8.1.4)
This extract is from: Pausanias. Description of Greece (ed. W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., & H.A. Ormerod, 1918). Cited April 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Pelasgus, (Pelasgos). The mythical ancestor of the Pelasgi,
by some regarded as sprung from the earth, but by others described as the son
of Zeus; or of Phoroneus, or of Poseidon and Larissa.
Cyllene (Kullene), a nymph, who became the mother of Lycaon by Pelasgus. (Apollod. iii. 8.1). According to others, she was the wife of Lycaon. (Dionys. Hal. A. R. i. 13.)
FENEOS (Ancient city) FENEOS
An aboriginal of Arcadia.
LAKEDEMON (Ancient country) PELOPONNISOS
Lelex: A son of the soil, an aboriginal, first king of Laconia, rules the Leleges, the people called Leleges after him, shrine of Lelex at Sparta.
Cleocharia: A Naiad nymph, wife of Lelex.
Sons:
Myles, king of Lacedaemon, invented a mill
Eurotas, father of Sparta
Polycaon, marries Messene, daughter of Triopas. Establishes himself in Messenia
Daugthers:
Therapne, city Therapne named after her
Commentary: Megarians say that Lelex arrived from Egypt and became king, and that in his reign the tribe Leleges received its name.
Lelex. One of the original inhabitants of Laconia which was called after him, its first king, Lelegia. He was married to the Naiad Cleochareia, by whom he became the father of Myles, Polycaon, and Eurotas. He had a heroum at Sparta. (Apollod. iii 10.3; Paus. iii. 1.1. 12.4, iv. 1.2). Some call his wife Peridia, and his children Myles, Polyclon, Bomolochus, and Therapne; while Eurotas is represented as a son of Myles and a grandson of Lelex (Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 615). In other traditions, again, Lelex is described as a son of Spartus, and as the father of Amyclas (Steph. Byz. s. v. Lakedaimon).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2006 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
An ancient race, frequently mentioned with the Pelasgians as the prehistoric inhabitants of Greece. The Leleges were described as a warlike and migratory race, who first took possession of the coasts and the islands of Greece, and afterwards penetrated into the interior. Piracy was probably their chief occupation; and they are represented as the ancestors of the Teleboans and the Taphians, who were notorious for their piracies. The name of the Leleges was derived by the Greeks from an ancestor, Lelex, who is called king of either Megaris or Lacedaemon (Pausan. iii. 1, 1). They must be regarded as a branch of the great Indo-Germanic race, who became gradually incorporated with the Hellenes, and thus ceased to exist as an independent people. They are spoken of as inhabiting Acarnania and Aetolia, and afterwards Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, Megaris, Elis, and Laconia, which last was originally called Lelegia; also (in Asia Minor) Ionia, the southern part of the Troad, and Caria ( Herod.i. 171).
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Apr 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Conteporary of Lelex, hiw shrine at Sparta (Paus. 3.12.5)
SIKYONIA (Ancient area) CORINTHIA
An aboriginal, gives his name to Aegialus, builds Aegialea in plain.
AKROKORINTHOS (Castle) KORINTHOS
A legend of the Corinthians about their land is not peculiar to them, for I believe that the Athenians were the first to relate a similar story to glorify Attica. The Corinthians say that Poseidon had a dispute with Helius (Sun) about the land, and that Briareos arbitrated between them, assigning to Poseidon the Isthmus and the parts adjoining, and giving to Helius the height above the city.
AMYKLES (Ancient sanctuary) SPARTI
Son of King Amyclas, of Amyclae in Laconia, and of Diomedes.
He was beloved for his beauty by Apollo and Zephyrus. As Apollo was one day teaching
the boy how to play at quoits, on the banks of the river Eurotas, the wind-god
in his jealousy drove the quoit with such violence against the head of Hyacinthus
that the blow killed him. From his blood Apollo caused a flower of the same name
to spring up, with the exclamation of woe, AI, AI, marked upon its petals. (See
Aiax.) Hyacinthus, like Adonis, is a personification of vegetation, which flourishes
in the spring-time, but is scorched and killed by the glowing heat of the summer
sun, which is symbolized by the quoit or discus.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Hyacinthus (Hyacinthos). The youngest son of the Spartan king Amyclas and Diomede (Apollod. iii. 10.3; Paus. iii. 1.3, 19.4), but according to others a son of Pierus and Clio, or of Oebalus or Eurotas (Lucian, Dial. Deor. 14; Hygin. Fab. 271). He was a youth of extraordinary beauty, and beloved by Thamyris and Apollo, who unintentionally killed him during a game of discus (Apollod. i. 3.3). Some traditions relate that he was beloved also by Boreas or Zephrus, who, from jealousy of Apollo, drove the discus of the god against the head of the youth, and thus killed him (Lucian, l. c; Serv. ad Virg. Eelog. iii. 63; Philostr. Imag. i.24; Ov. Met. x. 184). From the blood of Hyacinthus there sprang the flower of the same name (hyacinth), on the leaves of which there appeared the exclamation of woe AI, AI, or the letter U, being the initial of Huakinthos. According to other traditions, the hyacinth (on the leaves of which, howeve those characters do not appear) sprang from the blood of Ajax (Schol. ad Theocrit. x. 28; comp. Ov. Met. xiii. 395, who combines both legends; Plin. H. N. xxi. 28). Hyacinthus was worshipped at Amyclae as a hero, and a great festival, Hyacinthia, was celebrated in his honour. (Dict. of Ant. s. r.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Daughters of Hyacinth, slain by the Athenians: Aegleis, Antheis.
ARGOS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
Reigning over the Egyptians Epaphus married Memphis, daughter of Nile,
founded and named the city of Memphis after her, and begat a daughter Libya, after
whom the region of Libya was called. Libya had by Poseidon twin sons, Agenor and
Belus. Agenor departed to Phoenicia and reigned there, and there he became the
ancestor of the great stock; hence we shall defer our account of him. But Belus
remained in Egypt, reigned over the country, and married Anchinoe, daughter of
Nile, by whom he had twin sons, Egyptus and Danaus, but according to Euripides,
he had also Cepheus and Phineus. Danaus was settled by Belus in Libya, and Egyptus
in Arabia; but Egyptus subjugated the country of the Melampods and named it Egypt
< after himself>. Both had children by many wives; Egyptus had fifty sons, and
Danaus fifty daughters. As they afterwards quarrelled concerning the kingdom,
Danaus feared the sons of Egyptus, and by the advice of Athena he built a ship,
being the first to do so, and having put his daughters on board he fled. And touching
at Rhodes he set up the image of Lindian Athena. Thence he came to Argos and the
reigning king Gelanor surrendered the kingdom to him;< and having made himself
master of the country he named the inhabitants Danai after himself>. But the country
being waterless, because Poseidon had dried up even the springs out of anger at
Inachus for testifying that the land belonged to Hera, Danaus sent his daughters
to draw water. One of them, Amymone, in her search for water threw a dart at a
deer and hit a sleeping satyr, and he, starting up, desired to force her; but
Poseidon appearing on the scene, the satyr fled, and Amymone lay with Poseidon,
and he revealed to her the springs at Lerna.
But the sons of Egyptus came to Argos, and exhorted Danaus to lay
aside his enmity, and begged to marry his daughters. Now Danaus distrusted their
professions and bore them a grudge on account of his exile; nevertheless he consented
to the marriage and allotted the damsels among them. First, they picked out Hypermnestra
as the eldest to be the wife of Lynceus, and Gorgophone to be the wife of Proteus;
for Lynceus and Proteus had been borne to Egyptus by a woman of royal blood, Argyphia;
but of the rest Busiris, Enceladus, Lycus, and Daiphron obtained by lot the daughters
that had been borne to Danaus by Europe, to wit, Automate, Amymone, Agave, and
Scaea. These daughters were borne to Danaus by a queen; but Gorgophone and Hypermnestra
were borne to him by Elephantis. And Istrus got Hippodamia; Chalcodon got Rhodia;
Agenor got Cleopatra; Chaetus got Asteria; Diocorystes got Hippodamia; Alces got
Glauce; Alcmenor got Hippomedusa; Hippothous got Gorge; Euchenor got Iphimedusa;
Hippolytus got Rhode. These ten sons were begotten on an Arabian woman; but the
maidens were begotten on Hamadryad nymphs, some being daughters of Atlantia, and
others of Phoebe. Agaptolemus got Pirene; Cercetes got Dorium; Eurydamas got Phartis;
Aegius got Mnestra; Argius got Evippe; Archelaus got Anaxibia; Menemachus got
Nelo. These seven sons were begotten on a Phoenician woman, and the maidens on
an Ethiopian woman. The sons of Egyptus by Tyria got as their wives, without drawing
lots, the daughters of Danaus by Memphis in virtue of the similarity of their
names; thus Clitus got Clite; Sthenelus got Sthenele; Chrysippus got Chrysippe.
The twelve sons of Egyptus by the Naiad nymph Caliadne cast lots for the daughters
of Danaus by the Naiad nymph Polyxo: the sons were Eurylochus, Phantes, Peristhenes,
Hermus, Dryas, Potamon, Cisseus, Lixus, Imbrus, Bromius, Polyctor, Chthonius;
and the damsels were Autonoe, Theano, Electra, Cleopatra, Eurydice, Glaucippe,
Anthelia, Cleodore, Evippe, Erato, Stygne, Bryce. The sons of Egyptus by Gorgo,
cast lots for the daughters of Danaus by Pieria, and Periphas got Actaea, Oeneus
got Podarce, Egyptus got Dioxippe, Menalces got Adite, Lampus got Ocypete, Idmon
got Pylarge. The youngest sons of Egyptus were these: Idas got Hippodice; Daiphron
got Adiante ( the mother who bore these damsels was Herse); Pandion got Callidice;
Arbelus got Oeme; Hyperbius got Celaeno; Hippocorystes got Hyperippe; the mother
of these men was Hephaestine, and the mother of these damsels was Crino.
When they had got their brides by lot, Danaus made a feast and
gave his daughters daggers; and they slew their bridegrooms as they slept, all
but Hypermnestra; for she saved Lynceus because he had respected her virginity:
wherefore Danaus shut her up and kept her under ward. But the rest of the daugters
of Danaus buried the heads of their bridegrooms in Lerna and paid funeral honors
to their bodies in front of the city; and Athena and Hermes purified them at
the command of Zeus. Danaus afterwards united Hypermnestra to Lynceus; and bestowed
his other daughters on the victors in an athletic contest.
Amymone had a son Nauplius by Poseidon. This Nauplius lived to a great
age, and sailing the sea he used by beacon lights to lure to death such as he
fell in with. It came to pass, therefore, that he himself died by that very death.
But before his death he married a wife; according to the tragic poets, she was
Clymene, daughter of Catreus; but according to the author of The Returns,(1)
she was Philyra; and according to Cercops she was Hesione. By her he had Palamedes,
Oeax, and Nausimedon.
Commentary:
1. Nostoi, an epic poem describing the return of the Homeric
heroes from Troy.
This extract is from: Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer, 1921). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Danaides, the fifty daughters of Danaus, whose names are given by Apollodorus (ii. 1.5) and Hyginus (Fab. 170), though they are not the same in both lists. They were betrothed to the fifty sons of Aegyptus, but were compelled by their father to promise him to kill their husbands, in the first night, with the swords which he gave them. They fulfilled their promise, and cut off the heads of their husbands with the exception of Hypermnestra alone, who was married to Lynceus, and who spared his life (Pind. Nem. x. 7). According to some accounts, Amymone and Berbyce also did not kill their husbands (Schol. ad find. Pyth. ix. 200; Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg. 805). Hypermnestra was punished by her father with imprisonment, but was afterwards restored to her husband Lynceus. The Danaides buried the corpses of their victims, and were purified from their crime by Hermes and Athena at the command of Zeus. Danaus afterwards found it difficult to obtain husbands for his daughters, and he invited men to public contests, in which his daughters were given as prizes to the victors (Pind. Ryth. ix. 117). Pindar mentions only forty-eight Danaides as having obtained husbands in this manner, for Hypermnestra and Amymone are not included, since the former was already married to Lynceus and the latter to Poseidon. Pausanias (vii. 1.3. Comp. iii. 12.2; Herod. ii. 98) mentions, that Automate and Scaea were married to Architeles and Archander, the sons of Achaeus. According to the Scholiast on Euripides (Hecub. 886), the Danaides were killed by Lynceus together with their father. Notwithstanding their purification mentioned in the earlier writers, later poets relate that the Danaides were punished for their crime in Hades by being compelled everlastingly to pour water into a vessel full of holes (Ov. Met. iv. 462, Heroid. xiv.; Horat. Carm. iii. 11. 25; Tibull. i. 3. 79; Hygin. Fab. 168; Serv. ad Aen. x. 497). Strabo (viii. p. 371 ) and others relate, that Danaus or the Danaides provided Argos with water, and for this reason four of the latter were worshipped at Argos as divinities; and this may possibly be the foundation of the story about the punishment of the Danaides. Ovid calls them by the name of the Belides, from their grandfather, Belus; and Herodotus (ii. 171), following the titles of the Egyptians, says, that they brought the mysteries of Demeter Thesmophoros from Egypt to Peloponnesus, and that the Pelasgian women there learned the mysteries from them.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Pdysadeia (Phusadeia), a daughter of Danaus, from whom the well of Physadeia near Argos, was believed to have derived its name. (Callim. Hymn. in Pall. 47)
Io. The beautiful daughter of Inachus, and the first priestess of Here at Argos. As Zeus loved her, she was changed by the jealousy of Here into a white heifer, and Argus of the hundred eyes was appointed to watch her. When Hermes, at the command of Zeus, had killed Argus, Here maddened the heifer by sending a gad-fly which perpetually pursued her. Io thus wandered through the continents of Europe and Asia, by land and by sea. Each of the different straits she swam across was named after her Bosporus, or Ox-ford. At last in Egypt she recovered her original shape, and bore Epaphus to Zeus. Libya, the daughter of Epaphus, became by Poseidon the mother of Belus, who in turn was father of Aegyptus, Danaus, Cepheus, and Phineus. The Greek legend of Io's going to Egypt is probably to be explained by her having been identified with the Egyptian goddess Isis, who is always represented with cow's horns. Io ("the wanderer") is generally explained as a moon-goddess wandering in the starry heavens, symbolized by Argus of the hundred eyes; her transformation into a horned heifer representing the crescent moon.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Io. The traditions about this heroine are so manifold, that it is impossible
to give any goneral view of them without some classification we shall therefore
give first the principal local traditions, next the wanderings of Io, as they
are described by later writers, and lastly mention the various attempts to explain
the stories about her.
Local traditions The place to which the legends of lo belong,
and where she was closely connected with the worship of Zeus and Hera, is Argos.
The chronological tables of the priestesses of Hera at Argos placed Io at the
head of the list of priestesses, under the name of Callirhoe, or Callithyia (Preller,
de Hellan. Lesb. p. 40). She is commonly described as a daughter of Inachus,
the founder of the worship of Hera at Argos, and by others as a daughter of Iasus
or Peiren. Zeus loved Io, but on account of Hera's jealousy, he metamorphosed
her into a white cow. Hera thereupon asked and obtained the cow from Zeus, and
placed her under the care of Argus Panoptes, who tied her to an olive tree in
the grove of Hera at Mycenae.
But Hermes was commissioned by Zens to deliver Io, and carry her off. Hermes being
guided by a bird (hierax, pikon), who was Zeus himself (Suid. s. v. Io), slew
Argus with a stone. Hera then sent a gad-fly which tormented Io, and persecuted
her through the whole earth, until at length she found rest on the banks of the
Nile (Apollod. ii. 1.2; Hygin.
Fab. 145; comp. Virg. Georg. iii. 148, & c.). This is the common story, which
appears to be very ancient, since Homer constantly applies the epithet of Argeiphontes
(the siaver of Argus) to Hermes. But there are some slight modifications of the
story in the different writers. Some, for example, place the scene of the murder
of Argus at Nemea (Lucian,
Dial. Deor. 3; Etymol. Mag. s. v. Aphesios). Ovid (Met. i. 722) relates that Hermes
first sent Argus to sleep by the sweetness of his music on the flute, and that
he then cut off the head of Argus, whose eyes Hera transferred to the tail of
the peacock, her favourite bird (Comp. Moschus, Idyll. ii. 59). A peculiar mournfill
festival was celebrated in honour of Io at Argos, and although we have no distinct
statement that she was worshipped in the historical ages of Greece, still it is
not improbable that she was (Suid. l. c.; Palaephat. p. 43; Strab. xiv.). There
are indeed other places, besides Argos, where we meet with the legends of Io,
but they must be regarded as importations from Argos, either through colonies
sent by the latter city, or they were transplanted with the worship of Hera, the
Argive goddess. We may mention Euboea,
which probably derived its name from the cow Io, and where the spot was shown
on which Io was believed to have been killed, as well as the cave in which she
had given birth to Epaphus (Strab vii.; Steph. Byz. l. s. Argoura; Etymol. Mag.
s. v. Euboia). Another place is Byzantium,
in the foundation of which Argive colonists had taken part, and where the Bosporus
derived its name, from the cow Io having swam across it. From the Thracian Bosporus
the story then spread to the Cimmerian
Bosporus and Panticapaeum.
Tarsus and Antioch
likewise had monuments to prove that Io had been in their neighbourhood, and that
they were colonies of Argos. Io was further said to have been at Joppa and in
Aethiopia, together with
Perseus and Medusa (Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 835, &c.); but it was more especially the
Greeks residing in Egypt, who maintained that Io had been
in Egypt, where she was said to have given birth to Epaphus, and to have introduced
the worship of Isis, while Epaphus became the founder of a family from which sprang
Danaus, who subsequently returned to Argos. This part of the story seems to have
arisen from certain resemblances of religious notions, which subsequently even
gave rise to the identification of Io and Isis. Herodotus (i. l, & c., ii. 41)
tells us that Isis was represented like the Greek Io, in the form of a woman,
with cows' horns.
The wanderings of Io. The idea of Io having wandered about after
her metamorphosis appears to have been as ancient as the mythus respecting her,
but those wanderings were extended and poetically embellished in proportion as
geographical knowledge increased. The most important passage is in the Prometheus
of Aeschylus (705, & c.), although it is almost impossible to reconcile the poet's
description with ancient geography, so far as we know it. From Argos Io first
went to Molossis and the
neighbourhood of Dodona,
and from thence to the sea, which derived from her the name of the Ionian.
After many wanderings through the unknown regions of the north, she arrived in
the place where Prometheus was fastened to a rock. As the Titan prescribes to
her the course she has yet to take, it is of importance to ascertain the spot
at which he begins to describe her course; but the expressions of Aeschylus are
so vague, that it is a hopeless attempt to determine that spot. According to the
extant play, it is somewhere in European Scythia,
perhaps to the north of the river Istrus;
but in the last play of the Trilogy, as well as in other accounts, the Caucasus
is mentioned as the place where the Titan endured his tortures, and it remains
again uncertain in what part of the Caucasus we have to conceive the suffering
Titan. It seems to be the most probable supposition, that Aeschylus himself did
not form a clear and distinct notion of the wanderings he describes, for how little
he cared about geographical accuracy is evident from the fact, that in the Supplices
(548, & c.) he describes the wanderings of Io in a very diffent manner from that
adopted in the Prometheus. If, however, we place Prometheus somewhere in the north
of Europe, the course he prescribes may be conceived in the following manner.
Io has first to wander towards the east, through unknown countries, to the Scythian
nomades (north of Olbia),
whom, however, she is to avoid, by travelling through their country along the
sea-coast; she is then to have on her left the Chalybes, against whom she must
likewise be on her guard. These Chalybes are probably the Cimmerians,
who formerly inhabited the Crimea
and the adjacent part of Scythia,
and afterwards the country about Sinope. From thence she is to arrive on the river
Hybristes (the Don or Cuban), which she is to follow up to its sources, in the
highest parts of Mount Caucasus, in order there to cross it. Thence she is to
proceed southward, where she is to meet the Amazons (who at that time are conceived
to live in Colchis, afterwards
in Themiscyra, on the river
Thermodon), who are to conduct her to the place where the Salmydessian
rock endangers all navigation. This latter point is so clear an allusion to the
coast north of the mouth of the Bosporus,
that we must suppose that Aeschylus meant to describe Io as crossing the Thracian
Bosporus from Asia into Europe.
From thence he leads her to the Cimmerian
Bosporus, which is to receive its name from her, and across the palus Maeotis.
In this manner she would in part touch upon the same countries which she had traversed
before. After this she is to leave Europe and go to Asia, according to which the
poet must here make the Maeotis
the boundary between Europe and Asia, whereas elsewhere he makes the Phasis
the boundary. The description of the wanderings of Io is taken up again at verse
788. She is told that after crossing the water separating the two continents,
she is to arrive in the hot countries situated under the rising sun. At this point
in the description there is a gap, and the last passage probably described her
further progress through Asia. Io then has again to cross a sea,after which she
is to come to the Gorgonaean plains of Cisthenes (which, according to the scholiast,
is a town of Aethiopia or
Libya), and to meet the Graeae
and Gorgones. The sea here mentioned is probably the so-called Indian Bosporus
(Steph. Byz. s. v. Bosporos; Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieg. 143), where the extremities
of Asia and Libya, India and Aethiopia, were conceived to be close to each other,
and where some writers place the Gorgones (Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. x. 72). The mention,
in the verses following, of the griffins and Arimaspae, who are generally assigned
to northern regions, creates some difficulty, though the poet may have mentioned
them without meaning to place them in the south, but only for the purpose of connecting
the misfortunes of Io with the best-known monsters. From the Indian Bosporus,
Io is to arrive in the country of the black people, dwelling around the well of
the sun, on the river Aethiops, that is, the upper part of the Nile or the Niger.
She is to follow the course of that river, until she comes to the cataracts of
the Nile, which river she is again to follow down to the Delta, where delivery
awaits her (Comp. Eurip. Iphig. Taur. 382, & c.; Apollod. ii. 1.3; Hygin. Fab.
145).
The mythus of Io is one of the most ancient, and at the same time
one of the most difficult to explain. The ancients believed Io to be the moon,
and there is a distinct tradition that the Argives called the moon Io (Eustath.
ad Dionys. Perieg. 92; Suid. and IIesych. s. v. Io). This opinion has also been
adopted by some modern critics, who at the same time see in this mythus a confirmation
of the belief in an ancient connection between the religions of Greece and Egypt
(Buttmann, Mytholog. vol. ii. p. 179, & c.; Welcker, Die Aeschyl. Trilog. p. 127,
& c.; Schwenk, Etymol. Mythol. Andeutungen, p. 62, & c.; Mytholog. der Griech.
p. 52, & c. ; Klausen, in the Rhein. Museum, vol. iii. p. 293, & c.; Voelcker,
Mythol Geogr. der Griech. u. Rom. vol. i). That Io is identical with the moon
cannot be doubted (comp. Eurip. Phoen, 1123; Macrob. Sat. i. 19), and the various
things related of her refer to the phases and phenomena of the moon, and are intimately
connected with the worship of Zeus and Hera at Argos. Her connection with Egypt
seems to be an invention of later times, and was probably suggested by the resemblance
which was found to exist between the Argive Io and the Egyptian Isis.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
The Persian learned men say that the Phoenicians ... they came to
Argos, which was at that time preeminent in every way among the people of what
is now called Hellas. The Phoenicians came to Argos, and set out their cargo.
On the fifth or sixth day after their arrival, when their wares were almost all
sold, many women came to the shore and among them especially the daughter of the
king, whose name was Io (according to Persians and Greeks alike), the daughter
of Inachus. As these stood about the stern of the ship bargaining for the wares
they liked, the Phoenicians incited one another to set upon them. Most of the
women escaped: Io and others were seized and thrown into the ship, which then
sailed away for Egypt. In this way, the Persians say (and not as the Greeks),
was how Io came to Egypt, and this, according to them, was the first wrong that
was done. Next, according to their story, some Greeks (they cannot say who) landed
at Tyre in Phoenicia and carried off the king's daughter Europa. These Greeks
must, I suppose, have been Cretans. So far, then, the account between them was
balanced Such is the Persian account...
... But the Phoenicians do not tell the same story about Io as the Persians. They
say that they did not carry her off to Egypt by force. She had intercourse in
Argos with the captain of the ship. Then, finding herself pregnant, she was ashamed
to have her parents know it, and so, lest they discover her condition, she sailed
away with the Phoenicians of her own accord.
This extract is from: Herodotus. The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley, 1920), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Phoronis, a surname of Io, being according to some a descendant, and according to others a sister of Phoroneus. (Ov. Met. i. 668 ; Hygin. Fab. 145.)
Inachia (Inachis, Inacheie, Inachione), frequently occur as surnames of Io, the daughter of Inachus. (Virg. Georg. iii. 153; Ov. Fast. iii. 658, Met. ix. 686; Aeschyl. Prom. 591; Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 254.) Epaphus, a grandson of Inachus, bears the same surname (Ov. Met. i. 753); and so also Perseus, merely because he was born at Argos, the city of Inachus. (Ov. Met. iv. 719.)
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Argus, surnamed Panoptes. His parentage is stated differently, and his father is called Agenor, Arestor, Inachus, or Argus, whereas some accounts described him as an Autochthon (Apollod. ii. 1, 2; Ov. Met. i. 264). He derived his surname, Panoptes, the all-seeing, from his possessing a hundred eyes, some of which were always awake. He was of superhuman strength, and after he had slain a fierce bull which ravaged Arcadia, a Satyr who robbed and violated persons, the serpent Echidna, which rendered the roads unsafe, and the murderers of Apis, who was according to some accounts his father, Hera appointed him guardian of the cow into which Io had been metamorphosed (Comp. Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 1151, 1213). Zeus commissioned Hermes to carry off the cow, and Hermes accomplished the task, according to some accounts, by stoning Argus to death, or according to others, by sending him to sleep by the sweetness of his play on the flute and then cutting off his head. Hera transplanted his eyes to the tail of the peacock, her favourite bird (Aeschyl. Prom.; Apollod. Ov. ll. cc).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Ismene. A daughter of Asopus and Metope, and wife of Argus, by whom she became the mother of Iasus and Io. (Apoiiod. ii. 1 Β 3.)
Falx dim. Falcula (harpe, kopis, drepanon, poet. drepane, dim. drepanion), a sickle;
a scythe; a pruning-knife, or pruning-hook; a bill; a falchion; a halbert.
As culter
denoted a knife with one straight edge, falx signified any similar instrument,
the single edge of which was curved. (Drepanon eukampes, Hom. Od. xviii. 368;
curvae falces, Verg. Georg. i. 508; curvamine falcis aenae, Ovid, Met. vii. 227;
adunca falce, xiv. 628.) By additional epithets the various uses of the falx were
indicated, and its corresponding varieties in form and size. Thus the sickle,
because it was used by reapers, was called falx messoria; the scythe, which was
employed in mowing hay, was called falx fenaria; the pruning-knife and the bill,
on account of their use in dressing vines, as well as in hedging and in cutting
off the shoots and branches of trees, were distinguished by the appellation of
falx putatoria, vinitoria, arboraria, or silvatica (Cato, de Re Rust. 10, 11;
Pallad. i. 43; Colum. iv. 25), or by the diminutive falcula (Colum. xii. 18)....
...The edge of the falx was often toothed or serrated (harpen karcharodonta, Hesiod,
Theog. 175, 179; denticulata, Colum. de Re Rust. ii. 21). The indispensable process
of sharpening these instruments (harpen charassemenai, Hesiod, Op. 573; harpen
eukampe neothegea, Apoll. Rhod. iii. 1387) was effected by whetstones which the
Romans obtained from Crete and other distant places, with the addition of oil
or water which the mower (fenisex) carried in a horn upon his thigh (Plin. H.
N. xviii.261).
Numerous as were the uses to which the falx was applied in agriculture
and horticulture, its employment in battle was almost equally varied, though not
so frequent. The Geloni were noted for its use (Claudian, de Laud. Stil. i. 110).
It was the weapon with which Jupiter wounded Typhon (Apollod. i. 6); with which
Hercules slew the Lernaean Hydra (Eurip. Ion, 192); and with which Mercury
cut off the head of Argus (falcato ense, Ovid, Met. i. 717; harpen Cyllenida,
Lucan ix.661-667). Perseus, having received the same weapon from Mercury, or,
according to other authorities, from Vulcan, used it to decapitate Medusa and
to slay the sea-monster (Apollod. ii. 4; Eratosth. Cataster. 22; Ovid, Met. iv.
666, 720, 727, v. 69; Anth. Pal. xi. 52). From the passages now referred to, we
may conclude that the falchion was a weapon of the most remote antiquity; that
it was girt like a dagger upon the waist; that it was held in the hand by a short
hilt; and that, as it was in fact a dagger or sharp-pointed blade, with a proper
falx projecting from one side, it was thrust into the flesh up to this lateral
curvature (curvo tenus abdidit hamo). In the following woodcut, four examples
are selected from works of ancient art to illustrate its form. One of the four
cameos here copied represents Perseus with the falchion in his right hand, and
the head of Medusa in his left. The two smaller figures are heads of Saturn with
the falx in its original form; and the fourth cameo, representing the same divinity
at full length, was probably engraved in Italy at a later period than the others,
but early enough to prove that the scythe was in use among the Romans, while it
illustrates the adaptation of the symbols of Saturn (Kronos: senex falcifer, Ovid,
Fast. v. 627; Ibis, 216) for the purpose of personifying Time (Chronos).
If we imagine the weapon which has now been described to be attached
to the end of a pole, it would assume the form and be applicable to all the purposes
of the modern halbert. Such must have been the asseres falcati used by the Romans
at the siege of Ambracia (Liv. xxxviii. 5; cf. Caes. B. G. vii. 22, 86; Q. Curt.
iv. 19). Sometimes the iron head was so large as to be fastened, instead of the
ram's head, to a wooden beam, and worked by men under a testudo (Veget. iv. 14).
Lastly, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Medes, and the Syrians in Asia (Xen.
Cyrop. vi. 1, § 30, 2,7; Anab. i. 8,10;--Diod. ii. 5, xvii. 53; Polyb. v. 53;
Q. Curt. iv. 9, 12, 13; Gell. v. 5; 2 Mace. xiii. 2; Veget. iii. 24; Liv. xxxvii.
41), and the Gauls and Britons in Europe, made themselves formidable on the field
of battle by the use of chariots with scythes, fixed at right angles (eis plagion)
to the axle and turned downwards; or inserted parallel to the axle into the felly
of the wheel, so as to revolve, when the chariot was put in motion, with more
than thrice the velocity of the chariot itself; and sometimes also projecting
from the extremities of the axle.
Hymen or Hymeneus (Hgmen or Hgmenaios), the god of marriage, was conceived as
a handsome youth, and invoked in the hymeneal or bridal song. The names originally
designated the bridal song itself, which was subsequently personified. The first
trace of this personification occurs in Euripides (Troad. 31 1), or perhaps in
Sappho ( Fragm. 73, p. 80, ed. Neue). The poetical origin of the god Hymen or
Hymenaeus is also implied in the fact of his being described as the son of Apollo
and a Muse, either Calliope, Urania, or Terpsichore. (Catull. lxi. 2; Nonn. Dionys.
xxxiii. 67; Schol. Vatic. ad Eurip. Rhes. 895, ed. Dindorf; Schol. ad Pind. Pyth.
iv. 313; Alciphron, Epist. i. 13; Tzetz. Chil. xiii. 599.) Hence he is mentioned
along with the sons of the Muses, Linus and Ialemus, and with Orpheus. Others
describe him only as the favourite of Apollo or Thamyris, and call him a son of
Magnes and Calliope, or of Dionysus and Aphrodite. (Suid. s. v. Thamurris; Anton.
Lib. 23; Serv. ad Aen. iv. 127, ad Virg. Eclog. viii. 30.)
The ancient traditions, instead of regarding the god as a personification
of the hymeneal song, speak of him as originally a mortal, respecting whom various
legends were related. According to an Argive tradition, Hymenaeus was
a youth of Argos, who, while sailing along the coast of Attica, delivered
a number of Attic maidens from the violence of some Pelasgian pirates, and was
afterwards praised by them in their bridal songs, which were called, after him,
hymeneal songs (Eustath. ad Horn. p. 1157).
The Attic legends described him as a youth of such delicate beauty,
that he might be taken for a girl. He fell in love with a maiden, who refused
to listen to him; but in the disguise of a girl he followed her to Eleusis to
the festival of Demeter. He, together with the other girls, was carried off by
robbers into a distant and desolate country. On their landing, the robbers laid
down to sleep, and were killed by Hymenaeus, who now returned to Athens, requesting
the citizens to give him his beloved in marriage, if he restored to them the maidens
who had been carried off by the robbers. His request was granted, and his marriage
was extremely happy. For this reason he was invoked in the hymeneal songs (Serv.
ad Aen. i. 655, ad Virg. Eclog. viii. 30).
According to others he was a youth, and was killed by the breaking
down of his house on his wedding-day whence he was afterwards invoked in bridal
songs, in order to be propitiated (Serv. l. c.); and some related that at the
wedding of Dionysus and Ariadne he sang the bridal hymn, but lost his voice (Serv.
l. c.; comp. Scriptor Rerum Mythic. pp. 26, 148, 229; Ov. Met. ii. 683, who makes
him a son of Argus and Perimele; Terent. Adelph. v. 7, 8.)
According to the Orphic legends, the deceased Hymenaeus was called
to life again by Asclepius (Apollod. iii. 10.3). He is represented in works of
art as a youth, but taller and with a more serious expression than Eros, and carrying
in his hand a bridal torch. (Hirt, Mythol. Bilderb. ii. p. 224.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Tantalus (Tantalos) . . . All traditions agree in stating that he was a wealthy king, but while some call him king of Lydia. of Sipylus in Phrygia or Paphlagonia, others describe him as king of Argos or Corinth.
Broteas, the father of Tantalus, who had been married to Clytaemnestra before Agamemnon. The common account, however, is, that Thyestes was the father of this Tantalus. (Paus. ii. 22.4)
Chloris. A daughter of the Theban Amphion and Niobe. According to an Argive tradition, her original name was Meliboea, and she and her brother Amyclas were the only children of Niobe that were not killed by Apollo and Artemis. But the terror of Chloris at the death of her brothers and sisters was so great, that she turned perfectly white, and was therefore called Chloris. She and her brother built the temple of Leto at Argos, which contained a statue of Chloris also (Paus. ii. 21.10). According to an Olympian legend, she once gained the prize in the footrace during the festival of Hera at Olympia (Paus. v. 16.3). Apollodorus (iii. 5.6) and Hyginus (Fab. 10, 69) confound her with Chloris, the wife of Neleus.
Chloris. The wife of Zephyrus, and the goddess of flowers, so that she is identical with the Roman Flora. (Ov. Fast. v. 195.) There are two more mythical personages of the name of Chloris. (Hygin. Fab. 14; Anton. Lib. 9.)
DORION (Prehistoric settlement) TRIFYLIA
A Thracian or Odrysian, dealt with in poem Minyad, son of Philammon and Argiope, a great minstrel, engages in a musical contest with the Muses, is beaten and blinded by them, wins prize for singing at Pythian games, boasts he can vanquish the Muses, loses his sight and is punished in hell, throws away his lyre.
FENEOS (Ancient city) FENEOS
The legend says that Heracles and Apollo had a fight, once, about the tripod of Delphi, which they both wanted. Heracles took the tripod to Pheneos and the inhabitants claim that Apollo punished them for receiving it by blocking the two cesspools and causing a flood.
Behind the temple is the grave of Myrtilus. He was the son of Hermes, and served as charioteer to Oenomaus. Whenever a man arrived to woo the daughter of Oenomaus, Myrtilus craftily drove on the mares, while Oenomaus on the course shot down the wooer when he came near. Myrtilus was in love with Hippodameia, but his courage failing him he shrank from the competition. At last, he proved a traitor to Oenomaus, being induced there to by an oath sworn by Pelops that he would let him be with Hippodameia for one night. So when reminded of his oath Pelops threw him out of the ship. The body of Myrtilus was cast ashore by the tide, the people of Pheneos buried it, and every year they sacrifice to him by night as to a hero. Pelops did not make a long coasting voyage. So the Sea of Myrto is not named after Myrtilus, as it begins at Euboea and reaches the Aegaean. I think that a probable account is given by the antiquarians of Euboea, who say that the sea is named after a woman called Myrto.
INOI (Ancient city) LYRKIA
As a third labour he (Eurystheus) ordered him (Heracles) to bring the Cerynitian
hind alive to Mycenae. Now the hind was at Oenoe; it had golden horns and was
sacred to Artemis; so wishing neither to kill nor wound it, Hercules hunted it
a whole year. But when, weary with the chase, the beast took refuge on the mountain
called Artemisius, and thence passed to the river Ladon, Hercules shot it just
as it was about to cross the stream, and catching it put it on his shoulders and
hastened through Arcadia. But Artemis with Apollo met him, and would have wrested
the hind from him, and rebuked him for attempting to kill her sacred animal. Howbeit,
by pleading necessity and laying the blame on Eurystheus, he appeased the anger
of the goddess and carried the beast alive to Mycenae. (Apoll. 2.5.3)
Commentary:
1. Later Greek tradition, as we see from Apollodorus, did not place the native
land of the hind so far away. Oenoe was a place in Argolis. Mount Artemisius is
the range which divides Argolis from the plain of Mantinea. The Ladon is the most
beautiful river of Arcadia, if not of Greece. The river Cerynites, from which
the hind took its name, is a river which rises in Arcadia and flows through Achaia
into the sea. The modern name of the river is Bouphousia.
2. (see also http://www.gtp.gr/AncientCeryneia
)
IREON (Ancient sanctuary) ARGOS - MYKINES
ISTHMIA (Ancient sanctuary) LOUTRAKI-PERACHORA
Ino; Daughter of Cadmus, second wife of Athamas, leaps with her son Melicertes into sea, becomes a sea-goddess called Leucothea.
Melicertes; Son of Athamas and Ino, leaps into sea, landed by a dolphin, his name changed to Palaemon as a seagod.
Ino. The daughter of Cadmus, and wife of Athamas. Being followed by the latter after he had been seized with madness, she fled to the cliff Moluris, between Megara and Corinth, and there threw herself into the sea with her infant son Melicertes. At the isthmus, however, mother and child were carried ashore by a dolphin, and, from that time forward, were honoured as marine divinities along the shores of the Mediterranean, especially on the coast of Megara and at the Isthmus of Corinth. Ino was worshipped at Leucothea, and Melicertes as Palaemon. They were regarded as divinities who aided men in peril on the sea. As early as Homer, we have Ino mentioned as rescuing Odysseus from danger by throwing him her veil ( Od.v. 333-353). Among the Romans Ino was identified with Matuta
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Melicertes, (Melikertes). In Greek mythology the son of Athamas and Ino, and changed after his death by drowning into the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. His name (=Melkart), however, shows him to have been originally a Phoenician god. Like Ino-Leucothea, he was worshipped on all the coast of the Mediterranean, especially on that of Megara and at the Isthmus of Corinth, where he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon that the Isthmian Games, originally instituted in honour of this god, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes. The Romans regarded him as a beneficent god of the sea, and identified him with Portunus, the god of harbours.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Perseus Project Index. Total results on 18/7/2001: 148 for Ino, 31 for leucothea, 5 for Leukothea, 27 for Melicertes, 4 for Melikertes, 48 for Palaemon,
Ibycus. A Greek lyric and erotic poet of Rhegium in Lower Italy, who flourished about B.C. 530. Like Anacreon, he led a roving life, and spent much of his time at the court of Polycrates of Samos. According to his epitaph, he died in his native town; but according to the legend made familiar by Schiller's poem, he was slain on a journey to Corinth, and his murderers were discovered by means of a flock of cranes, which, as he died, he had invoked as his avengers. The story goes that, after his murder, when the Corinthians were gathered in the theatre, the cranes appeared; whereupon one of the assassins who was present cried out, "See the avengers of Ibycus!" thus giving a clue to their detection. Hence arose the expression used of the cranes, Ibukou geranoi. His poems, which were collected into seven books, survive in scanty fragments only. They dealt partly with mythological themes in the metres of Stesichorus and partly with love-songs in the spirit of Aeolic lyric poetry, full of glowing passion and sensibility. It was mainly to the latter that he owed his fame.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
...Heracles accomplished no brilliant feat in the war with Augeas. For the sons
of Actor were in the prime of courageous manhood, and always put to flight the
allies under Heracles, until the Corinthians proclaimed the Isthmian truce, and
the sons of Actor came as envoys to the meeting. Heracles set an ambush for then,
at Cleonae and murdered them. As the murderer was unknown, Moline, more than any
of the other children, devoted herself to detecting him. When she discovered him,
the Eleans demanded satisfaction for the crime from the Argives, for at the time
Heracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refused them satisfaction, the
Eleans as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to exclude the Argive
people from the Isthmian games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said
to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the Isthmian
festival. The curses of Moline are respected right down to the present day, and
no athlete of Elis is wont to compete in the Isthmian games. There are two other
accounts, differing from the one that I have given. According to one of them Cypselus,
the tyrant of Corinth, dedicated to Zeus a golden image at Olympia. As Cypselus
died before inscribing his own name on the offering, the Corinthians asked of
the Eleans leave to inscribe the name of Corinth on it, but were refused. Wroth
with the Eleans, they proclaimed that they must keep away from the Isthmian games.
But how could the Corinthians themselves take part in the Olympic games if the
Eleans against their will were shut out by the Corinthians from the Isthmian games?
The other account is this. Prolaus, a distinguished Elean, had two sons, Philanthus
and Lampus, by his wife Lysippe. These two came to the Isthmian games to compete
in the boys' pancratium, and one of them intended to wrestle. Before they entered
the ring they were strangled or done to death in some other way by their fellow
competitors. Hence the curses of Lysippe on the Eleans, should they not voluntarily
keep away from the Isthmian games. But this story too proves on examination to
be silly. For Timon, a man of Elis, won victories in the pentathlum at the Greek
games, and at Olympia there is even a statue of him, with an elegiac inscription
giving the crowns he won and also the reason why he secured no Isthmian victory.
The inscription sets forth the reason thus:--
But from going to the land of Sisyphus he was hindered by a quarrel
About the baleful death of the Molionids.
This extract is from: Pausanias. Description of Greece (ed. W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., & H.A. Ormerod, 1918). Cited Oct 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
KORINTHOS (Ancient city) PELOPONNISOS
Chimera was a monster living in Lycia. Iobates, the king of Lycia, asked Bellerophontes to kill it. Bellerophontes asked for a divination and learned that he had to take Pegasus with him, in order to kill the monster and come back alive. Athina helped Bellerophontes with Pegasus, he went for Chimera riding it and he managed to kill it and go back unharmed.
Pegasus (Pegasos). The celebrated winged horse, whose origin is thus related: When Perseus struck off the head of Medusa, with whom Poseidon had had intercourse in the form of a horse or a bird, there sprang from her Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus. The latter received this name because he was believed to have made his appearance near the sources (pegai) of Oceanus. He ascended to the seats of the immortals, and afterwards lived in the palace of Zeus, for whom he carried thunder and lightning. According to this view, which is apparently the most ancient, Pegasus was the thundering horse of Zeus; but later writers describe him as the horse of Eos, and place him among the stars.
Pegasus also acts a prominent part in the combat of Bellerophon against the Chimaera. In order to kill the Chimaera, it was necessary for Bellerophon to obtain possession of Pegasus. For this purpose the soothsayer Polyidus at Corinth advised him to spend a night in the temple of Athene. As Bellerophon was asleep in the temple, the goddess appeared to him in a dream commanding him to sacrifice to Poseidon, and gave him a golden bridle. When he awoke he found the bridle, offered the sacrifice, and caught Pegasus while he was drinking at the well Pirene. According to some, Athene herself tamed and bridled Pegasus, and surrendered him to Bellerophon. After he had conquered the Chimaera he endeavoured to rise up to heaven upon his winged horse, but fell down upon the earth.
Pegasus was also regarded as the horse of the Muses, and in this connection is more celebrated in modern times than in antiquity; for with the ancients he had no connection with the Muses, except producing with his hoof the inspiring fountain Hippocrene. The story about this fountain runs as follows: When the nine Muses engaged in a contest with the nine daughters of Pierus on Mount Helicon, all became darkness when the daughters of Pierus began to sing; whereas, during the song of the Muses, heaven, the sea, and all the rivers stood still to listen, and Helicon rose heavenward with delight, until Pegasus, on the advice of Poseidon, stopped its ascent by kicking it with his hoof. From this kick there arose Hippocrene, the inspiring well of the Muses, on Mount Helicon, which, for this reason, Persius calls fons caballinus. Others, again, relate that Pegasus caused the well to gush forth because he was thirsty. Pegasus is often seen represented in ancient works of art with Athene and Bellerophon.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited September 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Further information concerning Chimaera can be found in Lycia .
Mermerus and Pheres are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians owing to the gifts which legend says they brought to Glauce. But as their death was violent and illegal, the young babies of the Corinthians were destroyed by them until, at the command of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were established in their honour and a figure of Terror was set up. This figure still exists, being the likeness of a woman frightful to look upon but after Corinth was laid waste by the Romans and the old Corinthians were wiped out, the new settlers broke the custom of offering those sacrifices to the sons of Medea, nor do their children cut their hair for them or wear black clothes.
Creusa (Kreousa). A daughter of Creon , king of Corinth, and wife of Iason. She received from Medea, as bridal presents, a diadem and a robe, both of which had been prepared with magic art and saturated with deadly poisons. On arraying herself in these, flames burst forth and destroyed her. Creon , the father of the princess, perished in a similar way, having thrown himself upon the body of his dying daughter, and being afterwards unable to extricate himself from the embrace of the corpse. According to the scholiast, she was also called Glauce.
Alcimenes. One of the sons of Jason and Medeia. When Jason subsequently anted to marry Glauce, his sons Alcimenes and Tisander were murdered by Medeia, and were afterwards buried by Jason in the sanctuary of Hera at Corinth. (Diod. iv. 54, 55.)
Euripides says that in the time of his madness Alcmaeon begat two children, Amphilochus and a daughter Tisiphone, by Manto, daughter of Tiresias, and that he brought the babes to Corinth and gave them to Creon, king of Corinth, to bring up; and that on account of her extraordinary comeliness Tisiphone was sold as a slave by Creon's spouse, who feared that Creon might make her his wedded wife. But Alcmaeon bought her and kept her as a handmaid, not knowing that she was his daughter, and coming to Corinth to get back his children he recovered his son also.
This extract is from: Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer, 1921). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
KROMYON (Ancient city) CORINTHIA
Now the Crommyonian sow, which they called Phaea, was no insignificant creature, but fierce and hard to master. This sow he went out of his way to encounter and slay, that he might not be thought to perform all his exploits under compulsion, and at the same time because he thought that while the brave man ought to attack villainous men only in self defence, he should seek occasion to risk his life in battle with the nobler beasts. However, some say that Phaea was a female robber, a woman of murderous and unbridled spirit, who dwelt in Crommyon, was called Sow because of her life and manners, and was afterwards slain by Theseus.
KYLLINI (Mountain) CORINTHIA
Ischus, a son of Elatus, and the beloved of Coronis at the time when she was with child (Asclepius) by Apollo. The god wishing to punish her faithlessness, caused Artemis to kill her, together with Ischys.
LADON (River) ARCADIA
Once upon a time Apollo questioned the power of Eros, who decided to show him exactly what it was that he could do. To do that, he made two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. The first, that he stuck into Apollo’s heart, had the ability to make people love madly whereas the other, that he sent to the nymph Daphne, made her abhor any idea of loving. The combination led to a continuous chase of Daphne by Apollo, which ended in an unexpected way; Daphne was the daughter of Ladon or of Peneus, who, as river-gods, had the ability of transformation. So when, finally, Apollo caught her, she had nothing else to do than ask her father to transform her. Her request was taken into account and suddenly she started to change into a laurel tree. Since then, Apollo has the laurel tree as his sacred plant.
The Ladon is the most lovely river in Greece, and is also famous for the legend of Daphne that the poets tell. Oenomaus, prince of Pisa, had a son Leucippus. Leucippus fell in love with Daphne, but despaired of winning her to be his wife by an open courtship, as she avoided all the male sex. The following trick occurred to him by which to get her. Leucippus was growing his hair long for the river Alpheius. Braiding his hair as though he were a maiden, and putting on woman's clothes, he came to Daphne and said that he was a daughter of Oenomaus, and would like to share her hunting. As he was thought to be a maiden, surpassed the other maidens in nobility of birth and skill in hunting, and was besides most assiduous in his attentions, he drew Daphne into a deep friendship. Forthwith Daphne and the other maidens conceived a longing to swim in the Ladon, and stripped Leucippus in spite of his reluctance. Then, seeing that he was no maid, they killed him with their javelins and daggers.
There are many references of mythology to the river Ladonas. This is where the myth of Levkippos who dressed up as a woman in order to be close to his beloved nymph Daphne (an action which he paid with his life when he was revealed) took place. Here is also the place where Dimitra used to wash her hair, Artemis , the goddess of hunting used to hunt, the goatfooted god Pan used to roam. The latter, when going after the beautiful nymph Syringe approached her and transformed her to a reed of which he made his well-known pipe, which was named syringe. Here after a successful chase, Hercules caught the deer. In this place, in the beautiful mountains of Soronas, previously referred to as Aphrodisio Mountain, Aphrodite used to meet her Lover, god Mars (today there are ruins of an ancient temple and the baths of Eurikine Aphrodite).
LAKEDEMON (Ancient country) PELOPONNISOS
One of king Dion of Laconia and queen Iphitea's three daughters. When
Iphitea had shown hospitality to Apollo, the god rewarded this by giving the gift
of prophecy to the three daughters under the condition that they would not try
to know forbidden things or betray the gods.
When Dionysus visited the court he fell in love with Carya, and she
with him. He then left, but came back to be with her. Carya's sisters tried to
keep him from her, and he then pointed out that they were betraying a god. They
still would not let him near Carya, and Dionysus struck them with madness.
They then went up on Mt.
Tagyetus and became rocks. Carya turned into a walnut tree.
This text is cited Sept 2003 from the In2Greece URL below.
LERNA (Prehistoric settlement) ARGOLIS
The second labor of Hercules was to kill the Lernean Hydra. From the
murky waters of the swamps near a place called Lerna, the hydra would rise up
and terrorize the countryside. A monstrous serpent with nine heads, the hydra
attacked with poisonous venom. Nor was this beast easy prey, for one of the nine
heads was immortal and therefore indestructible.
Hercules set off to hunt the nine-headed menace, but he did not go
alone. His trusty nephew, Iolaus, was by his side. Iolaus, who shared many adventures
with Hercules, accompanied him on many of the twelve labors. Legend has it that
Iolaus won a victory in chariot racing at the Olympics and he is often depicted
as Hercules' charioteer. So, the pair drove to Lerna and by the springs of Amymone,
they discovered the lair of the loathsome hydra.
First, Hercules lured the coily creature from the safety of its den
by shooting flaming arrows at it. Once the hydra emerged, Hercules seized it.
The monster was not so easily overcome, though, for it wound one of its coils
around Hercules' foot and made it impossible for the hero to escape. With his
club, Hercules attacked the many heads of the hydra, but as soon as he smashed
one head, two more would burst forth in its place! To make matters worse, the
hydra had a friend of its own: a huge crab began biting the trapped foot of Hercules.
Quickly disposing of this nuisance, most likely with a swift bash of his club,
Hercules called on Iolaus to help him out of this tricky situation.
Each time Hercules bashed one of the hydra's heads, Iolaus held a
torch to the headless tendons of the neck. The flames prevented the growth of
replacement heads, and finally, Hercules had the better of the beast. Once he
had removed and destroyed the eight mortal heads, Hercules chopped off the ninth,
immortal head. This he buried at the side of the road leading from Lerna to Elaeus,
and for good measure, he covered it with a heavy rock. As for the rest of the
hapless hydra, Hercules slit open the corpse and dipped his arrows in the venomous
blood.
Eurystheus was not impressed with Hercules' feat, however. He said
that since Iolaus had helped his uncle, this labor should not count as one of
the ten. This technicality didn't seem to matter much to anyone else: the ancient
authors still give Hercules all of the credit. Even so, Pausanias did not think
that this labor was as fantastic as the myths made it out to be: to him, the fearsome
hydra was just, well, a big water snake.
This text is cited July 2004 from Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Heracles. 2. Fights against the Lernean hydra. This monster, like the lion, was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, and was brought up by Hera. It ravaged the country of Lernae near Argos, and dwelt in a swamp near the well of Amymone: it was formidable by its nine heads, the middle of which was immortal. Heracles, with burning arrows, hunted up the monster, and with his club or a sickle he cut off its heads; but in the place of the head he cut off, two new ones grew forth each time, and a gigantic crab came to the assistance of the hydra, and wounded Heracles. However, with the assistance of his faithful servant Iolaus, he burned away the heads of the hydra, and buried the ninth or immortal one under a huge rock. Having thus conquered the monster, he poisoned his arrows with its bile, whence the wounds inflicted by them became incurable. Eurystheus declared the victory unlawful, as Heracles had won it with the aid of Iolaus. (Hes. Theog. 313, &c.; Apollod. ii. 5.2; Diod. iv. 11; Eurip. Herc. Fur. 419, 1188, Ion, 192; Ov. Met. ix. 70; Virg. Aen. viii. 300; Paus. ii. 36.6, 37.4, v. 5.5; Hygin. Fab. 30.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MAINALON (Ski centre) ARCADIA
This man's daughter, Phialo, had connection, say the Phigalians, with Heracles. When Alcimedon realized that she had a child, he exposed her to perish on the mountain, and with her the baby boy she had borne, whom the Arcadians call Aechmagoras. On being exposed the baby began to cry, and a jay heard him wailing and began to imitate his cries. It happened that Heracles, passing along that road, heard the jay, and, thinking that the crying was that of a baby and not of a bird, turned straight to the voice. Recognizing Phialo he loosed her from her bonds and saved the baby.
MANTINIA (Ancient city) ARCADIA
When Medea reached Iolcus, she immediately began to plot against Pelias. She promised the daughters of Pelias that, if they wished, she would restore his youth to their father, now a very old man. Having butchered in some way a ram, she boiled his flesh with drugs in a pot, by the aid of which she took out of the pot a live lamb. So she took Pelias and cut him up to boil him, but what the daughters received was not enough to bury. This result forced the women to change their home to Arcadia, and after their death mounds were made there for their tombs. No poet, so far as I have read, has given them names, but the painter Micon inscribed on their portraits Asteropeia and Antinoe.
MAVRO (Mountain) XYLOKASTRO
Adjoining Cyllene is another mountain, Chelydorea, where Hermes is said to have found a tortoise, taken the shell from the beast, and to have made therefrom a harp.
Bacchae, (Bakchai).
(1) The female followers of Bacchus or Dionysus in his wanderings
through the East, and represented as crowned with vine-leaves, wearing fawn-skins,
and carrying the thyrsus in their hands. They are also known as Maenades (from
mainomai, to rave) and Thyiades (from thuo, to sacrifice).
(2) Priestesses of Bacchus or Dionysus.
Maenades (Mainades). A name of the Bacchantes, from mainomai,
"to rave," because they were frenzied in the worship of Dionysus.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MYCENAE (Mycenean palace) ARGOLIS
Given by Aerope to Thyestes, who produces it and is made king of Mycenae
Electryon married Anaxo, daughter of Alcaeus, and begat a daughter Alcmena, and sons, to wit, Stratobates, Gorgophonus, Phylonomus, Celaeneus, Amphimachus, Lysinomus, Chirimachus, Anactor, and Archelaus; and after these he had also a bastard son, Licymnius, by a Phrygian woman Midea.
When Electryon reigned over Mycenae, the sons of Pterelaus came with some Taphians and claimed the kingdom of Mestor, their maternal grandfather, and as Electryon paid no heed to the claim,they drove away his kine; and when the sons of Electryon stood on their defence, they challenged and slew each other.
But of the sons of Electryon there survived Licymnius, who was still young; and of the sons of Pterelaus there survived Everes, who guarded the ships.
Wishing to avenge his sons' death, Electryon purposed to make war on the Teleboans, but first he committed the kingdom to Amphitryon along with his daughter Alcmena, binding him by oath to keep her a virgin until his return.
NEMEA (Ancient sanctuary) CORINTHIA
Initially, Hercules was required to complete ten labors, not twelve.
King Eurystheus decided Hercules' first task would be to bring him the skin of
an invulnerable lion which terrorized the hills around Nemea
Setting out on such a seemingly impossible labor, Hercules came to
a town called Cleonae, where he stayed at the house of a poor workman-for-hire,
Molorchus. When his host offered to sacrifice an animal to pray for a safe lion
hunt, Hercules asked him to wait 30 days. If the hero returned with the lion's
skin, they would sacrifice to Zeus, king of the gods. If Hercules died trying
to kill the lion, Molorchus agreed to sacrifice instead to Hercules, as a hero.
When Hercules got to Nemea and began tracking the terrible lion, he
soon discovered his arrows were useless against the beast. Hercules picked up
his club and went after the lion. Following it to a cave which had two entrances,
Hercules blocked one of the doorways, then approached the fierce lion through
the other. Grasping the lion in his mighty arms, and ignoring its powerful claws,
he held it tightly until he'd choked it to death.
Hercules returned to Cleonae, carrying the dead lion, and found Molorchus
on the 30th day after he'd left for the hunt. Instead of sacrificing to Hercules
as a dead man, Molorchus and Hercules were able to sacrifice together, to Zeus.
When Hercules made it back to Mycenae, Eurystheus was amazed that
the hero had managed such an impossible task. The king became afraid of Hercules,
and forbade him from entering through the gates of the city. Furthermore, Eurystheus
had a large bronze jar made and buried partway in the earth, where he could hide
from Hercules if need be. After that, Eurystheus sent his commands to Hercules
through a herald, refusing to see the powerful hero face to face.
Many times we can identify Hercules in ancient Greek vase paintings
or sculptures simply because he is depicted wearing a lion skin. Ancient writers
disagreed as to whether the skin Hercules wore was that of the Nemean lion, or
one from a different lion, which Hercules was said to have killed when he was
18 years old.
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Heracles. 1. The fight with the Nemean lion. The mountain valley of Nemea, between Cleonae and Phlius, was inhabited by a lion, the offspring of Typhon (or Orthrus) and Echidna. (Hes. Theog. 327; Apollod. ii. 5.1; comp. Aelian, H. A. xii. 7, Serv. ad Aen. viii. 295.) Eurystheus ordered Heracles to bring him the skin of this monster. When Heracles arrived at Cleonac, he was hospitably received by a poor man called Molorchus. This man was on the point of offering up a sacrifice, but Heracles persuaded him to delay it for thirty days until he should return from his fight with the lion, in order that then they might together offer sacrifices to Zeus Soter; but Heracles added, that if he himself should not return, the man should offer a sacrifice to him as a hero. The thirty days passed away, and as Heracles did not return, Molorchus made preparations for the heroic sacrifice; but at that moment Heracles arrived in triumph over the monster, which was slain, and both sacrificed to Zeus Soter. Heracles, after having in vain used his club and arrows against the lion, had blocked up one of the entrances to the den, and entering by the other, he strangled the animal with his own hands. According to Theocritus (xxv. 251, &c.), the contest did not take place in the den, but in the open air, and Heracles is said to have lost a finger in the struggle. (Ptolem. Heph. 2.) He returned to Eurystheus carrying the dead lion on his shoulders; and Eurystheus, frightened at tile gigantic strength of the hero, took to flight, and ordered him in future to deliver the account of his exploits outside the gates of the town. (Diod. iv. 11; Apollod., Theocrit. ll. cc.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
OGION (Ancient city) TROPEA
A horse, offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, or of Earth, ridden by Herakles, and given by him to Adrastus.
Arion, a fabulous horse, which Poseidon begot by Demeter; for in order to escape from the pursuit of Poseidon, the goddess had metamorphosed herself into a mare, and Poseidon deceived her by assuming the figure of a horse. Demeter afterwards gave birth to the horse Arion, and a daughter whose name remained unknown to the uninitiated (Paus. viii. 25.4) According to the poet Antimachus this horse and Caerus were the offspring of Gaea; whereas, according to other traditions, Poseidon or Zephyrus begot the horse by a Harpy (Eustath. ad Hom; Quint. Smyrn. iv. 570). Another story related, that Poseidon created Arion in his contest with Athena (Serv. ad Virg. Georg. i. 12). From Poseidon the horse passed through the hands of Copreus, Oncus, and Heracles, from whom it was received by Adrastus (Paus.; Hesiod. Scut. Here. 120).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter, she was followed, it is
said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So she turned, the story runs, into a
mare, and grazed with the mares of Oncius; realizing that he was outwitted, Poseidon
too changed into a stallion and enjoyed Demeter. At first, they say, Demeter was
angry at what had happened, but later on she laid aside her wrath and wished to
bathe in the Ladon. So the goddess has obtained two surnames, Fury because of
her avenging anger, because the Arcadians call being wrathful "being furious,"
and Bather (Lusia) because she bathed in the Ladon.
PRASSIES (Ancient city) LEONIDION
The inhabitants have a story, found nowhere else in Greece, that Semele, after giving birth to her son by Zeus, was discovered by Cadmus and put with Dionysus into a chest, which was washed up by the waves in their country. Semele, who was no longer alive when found, received a splendid funeral, but they brought up Dionysus. For this reason the name of their city, hitherto called Oreiatae, was changed to Brasiae after the washing up of the chest to land.
PYRRICHOS (Ancient city) ANATOLIKI MANI
A wood-deity, his alleged capture in the "garden of Midas" in Macedonia, caught by Midas, brought up at Malea, husband of Nais, father of the centaur Pholus, called Pyrrhichus, stone on which Silenus sat, well given by Silenus, temple of Silenus at Elis, Marsyas called Silenus, elderly Satyrs called Silenuses, Silenuses mortal, graves of Silenuses at Pergamus and in land of Hebrews.
Silenos, Silenus or Marsyas: Perseus Project
STYMFALIA (Lake) CORINTHIA
After Hercules returned from his success in the Augean stables, Eurystheus
came up with an even more difficult task. For the sixth Labor, Hercules was to
drive away an enormous flock of birds which gathered at a lake near the town of
Stymphalos.
Arriving at the lake, which was deep in the woods, Hercules had no
idea how to drive the huge gathering of birds away. The goddess Athena came to
his aid, providing a pair of bronze krotala, noisemaking clappers similar to castanets.
These were no ordinary noisemakers. They had been made by an immortal craftsman,
Hephaistos, the god of the forge.
Climbing a nearby mountain, Hercules clashed the krotala loudly, scaring
the birds out of the trees, then shot them with bow and arrow, or possibly with
a slingshot, as they took flight.
Some versions of the legend say that these Stymphalian birds were
vicious man-eaters. The 2nd century A.D. travel writer, Pausanias, trying to discover
what kind of birds they might have been, wrote that during his time a type of
bird from the Arabian desert was called "Stymphalian," describing them
as equal to lions or leopards in their fierceness. He speculated that the birds
Hercules encountered in the legend were similar to these Arabian birds.
"These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them
with their beaks. All armor of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the
birds; but if they weave a garment of thick cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian
birds are caught in the cork garment... These birds are of the size of a crane,
and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like
that of the ibis" (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8.22.5)
Pausanias also saw and described the religious sanctuary built by the Greeks of
Stymphalos and dedicated to the goddess Artemis. He reported that the temple had
carvings of the Stymphalian birds up near its roof. Standing behind the temple,
he saw marble statues of maidens with the legs of birds.
This text is cited July 2004 from Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Heracles. 6. The Stymphalian birds. They were an innumerable swarm of voracious birds, the daughters of Stymphalus and Ornis. They had brazen claws, wings, and beaks, used their feathers as arrows, and ate human flesh. They had been brought up by Ares, and were so numerous, that with their secretions and feathers they killed men and beasts, and covered whole fields and meadows. From fear of the wolves, these birds had taken refuge in a lake near Stymphalus, from which Heracles was ordered by Eurvstheus to expel them. When Heracles undertook the task, Athena provided him with a brazen rattle, by the noise of which he startled the birds, and, as they attempted to fly away, he killed them with his arrows. According to some accounts, he did not kill the birds, but only drove them away, and afterwards they appeared again in the island of Aretias, whither they had fled, and where they were found by the Argonauts. (Apollod. ii. 5.6; Hygin. Fab. 30; Paus. viii. 22.4, &c.; Serv. ad Aen. viii. 300; Apollon. Rhod. ii. 1037, with the Schol.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
STYMFALOS (Ancient city) CORINTHIA
Perseus Encyclopedia
Stymphalian birds : Various WebPages
The story has it that in the old Stymphalus dwelt Temenus, the son of Pelasgus, and that Hera was reared by this Temenus, who himself established three sanctuaries for the goddess, and gave her three surnames when she was still a maiden, Girl; when married to Zeus he called her Grown-up; when for some cause or other she quarrelled with Zeus and came back to Stymphalus, Temenus named her Widow.
This extract is from: Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Harvard University Press
Cited Sept. 2002 from Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Passing by Tegea, Hercules debauched Auge, not knowing her to be a daughter of
Aleus.1 And she [p. 255] brought forth her babe secretly and deposited it in the
precinct of Athena. But the country being wasted by a pestilence, Aleus entered
the precinct and on investigation discovered his daughter's motherhood. So he
exposed the babe on Mount Parthenius, and by the providence of the gods it was
preserved: for a doe that had just cast her fawn [p. 257] gave it suck, and shepherds
took up the babe and called it Telephus.2 And her father gave Auge to Nauplius,
son of Poseidon, to sell far away in a foreign land; and Nauplius gave her to
Teuthras, the prince of Teuthrania, who made her his wife.
Commentary
As to the story of Herakles, Auge, and Telephus, see Apollod. 3.9.1;
Diod. 4.33.7-12; Strab. 13.1.69; Paus. 8.4.9, Paus. 8.47.4, Paus. 8.48.7, Paus.
8.54.6, Paus. 10.28.8; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 206; Hyginus, Fab. 99ff.
The tale was told by Hecataeus (Paus. 8.4.9, Paus. 8.47.4), and was the theme
of tragedies by Sophocles and Euripides. Different versions of the story were
current among ancient writers and illustrated by ancient artists. One of these
versions, which I omitted to notice in that place, ran as follows. On a visit
to Delphi, king Aleus of Tegea was warned by the oracle that his daughter would
bear a son who would kill his maternal uncles, the sons of Aleus. To guard against
this catastrophe, Aleus hurried home and appointed his daughter priestess of Athena,
declaring that, should she prove unchaste, he would put her to death. As chance
would have it, Herakles arrived at Tegea on his way to Elis, where he purposed
to make war on Augeas. The king entertained him hospitably in the sanctuary of
Athena, and there the hero, flushed with wine, violated the maiden priestess.
Learning that she was with child, her father Aleus sent for the experienced ferryman
Nauplius, father of Palamedes, and entrusted his daughter to him to take and drown
her. On their way to the sea the girl (Auge) gave birth to Telephus on Mount Parthenius,
and instead of drowning her and the infant the ferryman sold them both to king
Teuthras in Mysia, who, being childless, married Auge and adopted Telephus. See
Alcidamas, Od. 14-16, pp. 179ff., ed. Blass (appended to his edition of Antiphon).
This version, which represents mother and child as sold together to Teuthras,
differs from the version adopted by Apollodorus, according to whom Auge alone
was sold to Teuthras in Mysia, while her infant son Telephus was left behind in
Arcadia and reared by herdsmen (Apollod. 3.9.1). The sons of Aleus and maternal
uncles of Telephus were Cepheus and Lycurgus (Apollod. 3.9.1). Ancient writers
do not tell us how Telephus fulfilled the oracle by killing them, though the murder
is mentioned by Hyginus, Fab. 244 and a Greek proverb-writer (Paroemiographi Graeci,
ed. Leutsch and Schneidewin, i. p. 212). Sophocles appears to have told the story
in his lost play, The Mysians; for in it he described how Telephus came, silent
and speechless, from Tegea to Mysia (Aristot. Poet. 1460a 32">P">Aristot. Poet.
1460a 32), and this silence of Telephus seems to have been proverbial. For the
comic poet Alexis, speaking of a greedy parasite who used to gobble up his dinner
without exchanging a word with anybody, says that, "he dines like speechless
Telephus, answering all questions put to him only with nods" (Athenaeus x.18,
p. 421 D). And another comic poet, Amphis, describing the high and mighty airs
with which fish-mongers treated their customers in the market, says that it was
a thousand times easier to get speech of a general than of a fish-monger; for
if you addressed one of these gentry and, pointing to a fish, asked "How
much?" he would not at first deign to look at you, much less speak to you,
but would stoop down, silent as Telephus, over his wares; though in time, his
desire of lucre overcoming his contempt of you, he would slap a bloated octopus
and mutter meditatively, as if soliloquizing, "Sixpence for him, and a bob
for the hammerfish." This latter poet explains incidentally why Telephus
was silent; he says it was very natural that fish-mongers should hold their tongue,
"for all homicides are in the same case," thus at once informing us
of a curious point in Greek law or custom and gratifying his spite at the "cursed
fish-mongers," whom he compares to the worst class of criminals. See Athenaeus
vi.5, p. 224 DE. As Greek homicides were supposed to be haunted by the ghosts
of their victims until a ceremony of purification was performed which rid them
of their invisible, but dangerous, pursuers, we may conjecture that the rule of
silence had to be observed by them until the accomplishment of the purificatory
rite released them from the restrictions under which they laboured during their
uncleanness, and permitted them once more to associate freely with their fellows.
As to the restrictions imposed on homicides in ancient Greece, see Psyche's Task,
2nd ed. pp. 113ff.; Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.80, 83ff. The motive of
the homicide's silence may have been a fear lest by speaking he should attract
the attention, and draw down on himself the vengeance, of his victim's ghost.
Similarly, among certain peoples, a widow is bound to observe silence for some
time after her husband's death, and the rule appears to be based on a like dread
of exciting the angry or amorous passions of her departed spouse by the sound
of the familiar voice.
This extract is from: Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer, 1921). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Auge or Augeia, a daughter of Aleus and Neaera, was a priestess of Athena, and having become by Heracles the mother of a son, she concealed him in the temple of the goddess. In consequence of this profanation of the sanctuary, the country was visited by a scarcity; and when Aleus was informed by an oracle that the temple of Athena was profaned by something unholy, he searched and found the child in it, and ordered him to be exposed on mount Parthenion, where he was suckled by a stag (elaphos), whence the boy derived the name of Telephus. Auge was surrendered to Nauplius, who was to kill her, but he gave her to Teuthras, king of the Mysians, who made her his wife (Apollod. ii. 7.4, iii. 9.1). The same story is related with some modifications by Pausanias (viii. 4.6, 48.5), Diodorus (iv. 33), Hyginus (Fab. 99), and Tzetzes (ad Lycoph. 206;). Respecting her subsequent meeting with her son Telephus, see Telephus. Her tomb was shewn in the time of Pausanias (viii. 4.6) at Pergamus in Mysia. Auge was represented by Polygnotus in the Lesche of Delphi. (x. 28.4). Another mythical personage of this name, one of the Horae, occurs in Hyginus (Fab. 183).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Apollo and Artemis, they say, throughout every land visited with punishment all the men of that time who, when Leto was with child and in the course of her wanderings, took no heed of her when she came to their land. So when the divinities came to the land of Tegea, Scephrus, they say, the son of Tegeates, came to Apollo and had a private conversation with him. And Leimon, who also was a son of Tegeates, suspecting that the conversation of Scephrus contained a charge against him, rushed on his brother and killed him. Immediate punishment for the murder overtook Leimon, for he was shot by Artemis. At the time Tegeates and Maera sacrificed to Apollo and Artemis, but afterwards a severe famine fell on the land, and an oracle of Delphi ordered a mourning for Scephrus. At the feast of the Lord of Streets rites are performed in honor of Scephrus, and in particular the priestess of Artemis pursues a man, pretending she is Artemis herself pursuing Leimon.
ARGOS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
In the passage of Aeschylus before referred to (Suppl. 250) Argos is called Pelasgian; the king of Argos is also called anaz Pelasgon (v. 327), and throughout the play the words Argive and Pelasgian are used indiscriminately. So, too, in the Prometheus Vinctus (v. 860), Argolis is called the Pelasgian land. In a fragment of Sophocles (Inachus) the king is addressed as. lord of Argos and of the Tyrrheni Pelasgi.
LAS (Ancient city) GYTHIO
As for Las, the story goes, the Dioscuri once captured it by siege, and it was from this fact that they got the appellation "Lapersae."
ZARAX (Ancient city) ZARAKAS
Deprived of his kingship Cleonymus became violently angry, and the ephors tried to soothe his feelings by bestowing upon him various honors, especially the leadership of the armies, so as to prevent his becoming one day an enemy of Sparta. But at last he committed many hostile acts against his fatherland, and induced Pyrrhus the son of Aeacides to invade Laconia.
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