his transformation into a serpent have led some writers, as Movers and Baudissin, to regard him as a Phoenician serpent-god. See Movers, Die Phoenizier, 1. p. 513 sqq.; Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, 1. pp. 272-275. 5. 5. The sequel of the story, how Nycteus died etc. 6. 1 sqq. See ii. 5. 6. named it Thebes, because of their relationship to Thebe. Thebe, daughter of the Asopus (Paus. ii. 5. 2, v. 22. 6), was the wife of Zethus (Apollodorus, iii. 5. 6). 5. 7. attested by Homer in the Odyssey. See Od. xi. 263 sqq. 5. 7. Amphion built the wall to the music of his lyre. See Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut. i. 736 sqq.; Apollodorus, iii. 5. 5; Horace, Odes, iii. 11. 2 ; id., Ars poetica, 394 sqq.; Propertius, i. 9. 10. Cp. Paus. ix. 17. 7. the lyre. According 5. 7. he added three new strings to to another legend Amphion invented the lyre (Pliny, Nat. hist. vii. 204). 5. 8. The author of the poem on Europa. This poem is ascribed to Eumelus by a scholiast on Homer (Iliad, vi. 131, ed. Bekker). But Pausanias thought it was not by Eumelus. See iv. 4. I. Clement of Alexandria seems to have been of the same opinion, for in quoting a couple of lines from the poem, he simply speaks of "the author of the poem Europia" (Strom. i. 24, § 164, p. 419, ed. Potter). Cp. Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta, ed. Kinkel, p. 192 sq. 5. 9. the son of Zethus. His name was Neis (ix. 8. 4). 5. 10. While Laius sat on the throne etc. The legend of Oedipus, here told in outline by Pausanias, clearly resembles a popular tale current in Finland. The Finnish story is as follows: Two wise men spent a night at a farmhouse. Now it chanced that night at the farm that a ewe dropt a lamb and the farmer's wife gave birth to a boy at the same time. The wise men foretold that the lamb would be devoured by a wolf, and that the boy would kill his father and marry his mother. The lamb was killed and was about to be served up at table, when a wolf ate it all up. Seeing how the first prophecy had been fulfilled, the father proposed to kill his child; however, at the mother's entreaty the infant was tied to a board and flung into the sea, but not before he had received a cut with a knife on his breast. The board with the babe was cast ashore and found by an abbot, who brought up the boy. When he grew up, the lad went out into the world and took service on a farm. Here, being set to watch a field of turnips, he one night shot the farmer himself, who had come to fetch an apronful of turnips. Some time afterwards the widow married the servant-lad, but one day she discovered by the scar on his breast that he was her son. Despair seized the son, but a monk told him that he and his mother would be forgiven if he could bring water out of a rock and if a (black?) sheep should turn white. Both marvels came about, so his sin was forgiven. See Gustave Meyer's introduction to E. Schreck's Finnische Märchen (Weimar, 1887), p. xxv. Some of the features of the Oedipus legend occur in a Cyprian tale. A certain lord has a daughter named Rose. On the night of her marriage a phantom appears to the bridegroom and warns him to have nothing to do with Rose, as she is fated to have a son by her father and to marry her own son. So he divorces her. To escape her destiny Rose causes her father to be murdered; but an apple-tree grows from his grave, Rose eats of the apples, and becomes pregnant. When her child is born, she stabs it in the breast, puts it in a box, and flings it into the sea. The child is picked up by a ship, and when he has grown to manhood, he comes to Rose's country and marries her. One day she recognises him by the scar on his breast, and in despair flings herself from a high place and dies. See L. Constans, La légende d'Oedipe étudiée dans l'antiquité, au moyen-âge et dans les temps modernes (Paris, 1881), p. 110 sq. An Albanian story combines features of the Oedipus and the Perseus legends. A certain king, who had two daughters, was warned that he would be killed by a grandson yet unborn. So he flung into the sea all his daughters' children as fast as they were born. However the third man-child was washed ashore alive and found by herdsmen who brought him up. When he was twelve years old it happened that in his father's kingdom there appeared a monster, who caused all the water to dry up, and it was foretold that the monster would not allow the water to flow till he had eaten up the king's daughter. Hence the princess was exposed to the monster, but rescued by the king's grandson, who killed it with his club. So the lad received the princess to wife, and at the marriage he accidentally killed the king by throwing his club. Thus the prophecy was fulfilled. (It is not said whether the princess whom the lad marries was his mother or his aunt.) See J. G. v. Hahn, Griechische und albanesische Märchen, 2. p. 114 sq. (No. 98). In the Middle Ages Judas Iscariot became the hero of a tale very like that of Oedipus. The story appears in 'The Golden Legend'; it is doubtless the work of a monk or clerk who had read the Oedipus legend. See L. Constans, op. cit. p. 95 sqq. Cp. Comparetti, Edipo e la mitologia comparata (Pisa, 1867), p. 83 sqq. On the Oedipus legend in antiquity see (in addition to the works of Constans and Comparetti) F. W. Schneidewin, 'Die Sage von Ödipus,' Abhandlungen d. könig. Gesell. d. Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 5 (1851 and 1852), pp. 159-206; E. Bethe, Thebanische Heldenlieder (Leipzig, 1891), pp. 1 sqq., 158 sqq. 5. 10. Homer 271 sqq. 5. 11. the mother of his children was Euryganea. According to Pherecydes (quoted by a scholiast on Euripides, Phoenissae, 53) Oedipus had two sons, Phrastor and Laonytus, by his mother Jocasta (or Epicaste, as Homer calls her, Od. ix. 271); but he afterwards married Euryganea, daughter of Periphas, by whom he had two daughters Antigone and Ismene, and two sons Eteocles and Polynices. Pisander also stated that after Jocasta's death Oedipus married Eurygane (sic), by whom he had the four children (Schol. on Euripides, Phoenissae, 1760). The common legend, however, was that Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles and Polynices, were the offspring of Oedipus by his mother Jocasta (Euripides, Phoenissae, 55 sqq.; Apollodorus, iii. 5. 8; Diodorus, iv. 64; Hyginus, Fab. 67). 5. II. the poem they call the Oedipodia. This poem is said to have been composed by Cinaethon (see ii. 3. 9 note) in the third or fourth Olympiad. But the author's name and the date and place of the composition of the poem appear to be very uncertain. See L. Constans, La légende d'Oedipe, p 13; E. Bethe, Thebanische Heldenlieder, pp. 1 sqq., 191 sqq.; Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta, ed. Kinkel, p. 8 sq. Laodamas killed Aegialeus. See i. 44. 5. 13. at Glisas 4; ix. 8. 6; ix. 9. 4; ix. 19. 2. He settled among the 5. 13. Laodamas set out for Illyria etc. Illyrian tribe of Encheleans, among whom Cadmus and Harmonia had settled before. See § 3; viii. 8. 6; Herodotus, v. 61. 5. 14. When the host of Agamemnon on its way to Troy etc. The epitome of Apollodorus, discovered a few years ago in the Vatican, thus describes these events: "Agamemnon was the leader of the whole host, and Achilles was the admiral at the age of fifteen. Not knowing the course to steer for Troy, they landed in Mysia and laid it waste, thinking it was Troy. Telephus, a son of Hercules, was king of the Mysians, and seeing the country laid waste he armed the Mysians, chased the Greeks to their ships, and slew many, and amongst them Thersander son of Polynices, who had stood his ground. But when Achilles rushed at him, Telephus did not wait for him but fled pursued by Achilles, and getting entangled in a vine-shoot he received a spearthrust in the thigh. Departing from Mysia, the Greeks put to sea, and a furious storm coming on they were parted from each other and returned to their own countries. By reason of the return of the Greeks it is said that the war lasted twenty years; for it was in the second year after the rape of Helen that the Greeks set out on their expedition; and after their return from Mysia eight years elapsed before they again assembled at Argos and proceeded to Aulis" (Epitoma Vaticana ex Apollodori Bibliotheca, ed. R. Wagner (Leipsic, 1891), p. 63; Apollodorus, ed. R. Wagner, p. 193). Dictys Cretensis also says (ii. 9) that eight years elapsed between the first and the second expedition of the Greeks against Troy. He describes the Mysian campaign in detail (ii. 1-7). Cp. Philostratus, Heroica, ii. § 28 sqq.; Schol. on Homer, II. i. 59, ed. Bekker. The combat of Telephus with Achilles in the plain of Caicus was represented by Scopas in the eastern gable of the temple of Athena at Tegea (viii. 45. 7 note). Cp. i. 4. 6. 5. 14. His tomb consists of a stone etc. of tombs in market-places see note on i. 43. 3. For other examples This is mentioned 5. 15. Peneleus was killed by Eurypylus. also by Dictys Cretensis (iv. 17). Homer only says that he was slightly wounded by Pulydamas (Iliad, xvii. 597 sqq.) 5. 15. The Furies of Laius and Oedipus. There was a sanctuary of the Furies of Laius and Oedipus at Sparta. It was founded by the Aegid tribe in obedience to an oracle, because their children died young. The remedy was effectual, for the children who were afterwards born survived. See Herodotus, iv. 149. When the Furies are thus spoken of as attaching themselves to a particular person, they seem to be the avenging spirits who fulfil his curses. Cp. viii. 34. 4; Homer, Iliad, xxi. 412; Sophocles, Oedipus Colon. 1299; and Stein's note on Herodotus, l.c. 6. I. They were defeated by the Athenians etc. See Herodotus, vi. 107. This was at the great This battle was 6. 1. They sustained a second reverse etc. battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. See Herodotus, ix. 67. 6. 3. a victory over the Athenians at Delium. fought in 424 B.C. See Thucydides, iv. 93-101. 6. 4. They were defeated at Corinth and Coronea. defeats took place in 394 B.C. See iii. 9. 13; Xenophon, Hellenica, iv. Plutarch, Agesilaus, 18 sq. Sacred War. See x. 2 sq. 2. 9 sqq.; id., iv. 3. 10 sqq.; 6. 4. the Phocian, or 6. 5. I have already said etc. See i. 25. 3. These 6. 5. the Thebans contrived to overpower the garrison etc. Pausanias certainly seems to imply that the Thebans succeeded in capturing the Macedonian garrison who held the Cadmea. Here, however, he is wrong, for we learn from the historians that the Thebans merely besieged the garrison in the Cadmea, surrounding it with palisades and ditches, and that when the Macedonian army stormed the city it was joined by the garrison. See the references in the following note. 6. 5. God foreshadowed to them etc. The prodigies which were said to have preceded and announced the destruction of Thebes by Alexander are described by Diodorus (xvii. 10) and Aelian (Var. hist. xii. 57). They tell the story of the spiders' webs somewhat differently from Pausanias. According to Aelian, a spider wove its web over the face of the image of Demeter. According to Diodorus, the spider's web in the sanctuary of Demeter was as large as a cloak and resplendent in all the hues of the rainbow. Thebes was destroyed by Alexander in 335 B.C. (Arrian, Anabasis, i. 7 sq.; Diodorus, xvii. 8-14; Plutarch, Alexander, 11; Justin, xi. 2-4). 6. 6. Sulla engaged them in the war etc. of Athens by Sulla, see i. 20. 4-7; Plutarch, Mithrid. 30-39. On the siege and sack Sulla, 12-14; Appian, 7. I. The Thebans were afterwards restored by Cassander. Cp. iv. 27. 10; vii. 6. 9; ix. 3. 6. Thebes was restored in the summer of 315 B.C., twenty years after its destruction by Alexander. The greater part of the walls was built by the Athenians, who wore garlands on their heads in token of joy. See Diodorus, xvii. 53 sq.; Plutarch, Praecept. gerend. reipub. xvii. 9; Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, 2.3 p. 186. Some years afterwards Thebes revolted from Demetrius, who besieged and captured it (Plutarch, Demetrius, 39, 40; Diodorus, frag. xxi. 14). Diodorus says that Demetrius "having destroyed the walls by siege operations carried the city by storm” (πολιορκίᾳ τὰ τείχη καθελὼν τὴν πόλιν κατὰ Kрáтos eiλe). From this statement Prof. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff appears to infer (Hermes, 26 (1891), p. 203 sq.) that Demetrius razed the whole circuit of the walls to the ground. But as, in Diodorus's narrative, the destruction of the walls precedes the storming of the city, it would seem that Demetrius merely made a breach in the wall with siege-engines, then stormed the breach and captured the city. But no sure inference can be based on this passage of Diodorus, as it is not merely a fragment but an abridgment, and an ungrammatical abridgment to boot. Plutarch mentions the huge unwieldy batteringengine employed by Demetrius, but he does not say that Demetrius razed the walls to the ground. 7. 2. he flung Olympias to the infuriated Macedonians etc. Cp. Diodorus, xix. 51, and Justin, xiv. 6, who implies that she was not stoned but stabbed to death. Cp. Paus. i. II. 4. 7. 3. Alexander invoked the aid of Demetrius etc. See Plutarch, Demetrius, 36; Diodorus, xxi. 7. 7. 4. when Sulla invaded Boeotia etc. The whole of Boeotia, with the exception of Thespiae, had declared for Mithridates. But as soon as Sulla entered the country, the Boeotians, with a few exceptions, shifted over to the side of the Romans. "Even the great city of Thebes," says Appian, "which had with great fickleness chosen to side with Mithridates instead of with Rome, went over to Sulla with even greater celerity and without striking a blow" (Mithrid. 29 sq.) 7. 5. he took away half their territory etc. Cp. Appian, Mithrid. 54; and for Sulla's mode of raising money by plundering the Greek temples, see also Plutarch, Sulla, 12. Sulla sent an agent to the Amphictyons at Delphi with a request that they would be so good as to let him have the treasures of the god, as he would either guard them better or make good what he spent. When the message was brought to the Amphictyons in council, some of them said they heard the twangling of a lyre in the sanctuary. This was reported to Sulla in the hope of working on his superstitious fears; but the Roman general wrote in reply that the music was a clear proof how pleased the god was to give his treasures, so they might send them without scruple. 7. 6. the lower city was all deserted etc. Cp. viii. 33. 2. Even in Strabo's time, about a hundred and fifty years before Pausanias, Thebes was not so large as a respectable village (Strabo, ix. p. 403). The description of Thebes by Dio Chrysostom, who died about the time Pausanias was born, agrees with that of Pausanias. Dio says that the Cadmea was inhabited but the rest of the city deserted; in the old market-place one solitary image stood among the ruins (Or. vii. vol. 1. p. 136, ed. Dindorf). It is interesting to compare an earlier description of Thebes contained in a geographical work which is commonly ascribed to Dicaearchus, the contemporary of Aristotle, but which seems to be the work of a later writer named Heraclides, the Critic, who wrote between 260 and 230 B.C. This writer says: "Thence (from Plataea) to Thebes the distance is 80 furlongs. The road is level and through a plain the whole way. The city stands in the middle of Boeotia with a circumference of 70 furlongs. It is altogether flat, its shape is round, the soil is a dark loam. In spite of its antiquity the streets are new, because, as the histories tell us, the city has been thrice razed to the ground on account of the overbearing and insolent character of the people. It is excellent for the breeding of horses, it is all well watered, green, and with a deep soil, and it has more gardens than any other |