The History of Ancient Greece

 

[Stra. 8.1.2] There have been many tribes in Greece, but those which go back to the earliest times are only as many in number as the Greek dialects which we have learned to distinguish. But though the dialects themselves are four in number, we may say that the Ionic is the same as the ancient Attic, for the Attic people of ancient times were called Ionians, and from that stock sprang those Ionians who colonized Asia and used what is now called the Ionic speech; and we may say that the Doric dialect is the same as the Aeolic, for all the Greeks outside the Isthmus, except the Athenians and the Megarians and the Dorians who live about Parnassus, are to this day still called Aeolians. And it is reasonable to suppose that the Dorians too, since they were few in number and lived in a most rugged country, have, because of their lack of intercourse with others, changed their speech and their other customs to the extent that they are no longer a part of the same tribe as before. And this was precisely the case with the Athenians; that is, they lived in a country that was both thin-soiled and rugged, and for this reason, according to Thucydides,  their country remained free from devastation, and they were regarded as an indigenous people, who always occupied the same country, since no one drove them out of their country or even desired to possess it. This, therefore, as one may suppose, was precisely the cause of their becoming different both in speech and in customs, albeit they were few in number. And just as the Aeolic element predominated in the parts outside the Isthmus, so too the people inside the Isthmus were in earlier times Aeolians; and then they became mixed with other peoples, since, in the first place, Ionians from Attica seized the Aegialus, and, secondly, the Heracleidae brought back the Dorians, who founded both Megara and many of the cities of the Peloponnesus. The Ionians, however, were soon driven out again by the Achaeans, an Aeolic tribe; and so there were left in the Peloponnesus only the two tribes, the Aeolian and the Dorian. Now all the peoples who had less intercourse with the Dorians--as was the case with the Arcadians and with the Eleians, since the former were wholly mountaineers and had no share in the allotments of territory, while the latter were regarded as sacred to the Olympian Zeus and hence have long lived to themselves in peace, especially because they belonged to the Aeolic stock and had admitted the army which came back with Oxylus  about the time of the return of the Heracleidae--these peoples, I say, spoke the Aeolic dialect, whereas the rest used a sort of mixture of the two, some leaning more to the Aeolic and some less. And, I might almost say, even now the people of each city speaks a different dialect, although, because of the predominance which has been gained by the Dorians, one and all are reputed to speak the Doric. Such, then, are the tribes of the Greeks, and such in general terms is their ethnographical division. Let me now take them separately, following the appropriate order, and tell about them.

 

1786 BC

 

[Paus. 9.27.2] Hesiod, or he who wrote the Theogony fathered on Hesiod, writes, I know, that Chaos was born first, and after Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Eros.

 

1769 BC

 

Gia gave brith to Ouranos.

 

1750 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.1.1] Ouranos was the first who ruled over the whole world. And having wedded Earth, he begat first the Hundred-handed, as they are named: Briareus, Gyes, Cottus, who were unsurpassed in size and might, each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads.

 

[2]  After these, Earth bore him the Cyclopes, to wit, Arges, Steropes, Brontes, of whom each had one eye on his forehead. But them Ouranos bound and cast into Tartarus, a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky. 

 

[3]  And again he begat children by Earth, to wit, the Titans as they are named: Ocean, Coeus, Hyperion, Crius, Iapetus, and, youngest of all, Cronus; also daughters, the Titanides as they are called: Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, Thia.

 

1715 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.1.4] But Earth, grieved at the destruction of her children, who had been cast into Tartarus, persuaded the Titans to attack their father and gave Cronus an adamantine sickle. And they, all but Ocean, attacked him, and Cronus cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea; and from the drops of the flowing blood were born Furies, to wit, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. And, having dethroned their father, they brought up their brethren who had been hurled down to Tartarus, and committed the sovereignty to Cronus.

 

[5] But he again bound and shut them up in Tartarus, and wedded his sister Rhea; and since both Earth and Ouranos foretold him that he would be dethroned by his own son, he used to swallow his offspring at birth. His firstborn Hestia he swallowed, then Demeter and Hera, and after them Pluto and Poseidon.

 

1703 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.1.6] Enraged at this, Rhea repaired to Crete, when she was big with Zeus, and brought him forth in a cave of Dicte. She gave him to the Curetes and to the nymphs Adrastia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to nurse.

 

[7]  So these nymphs fed the child on the milk of Amalthea; and the Curetes in arms guarded the babe in the cave, clashing their spears on their shields in order that Cronus might not hear the child's voice. But Rhea wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus to swallow, as if it were the newborn child.

 

1687 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.2.1] But when Zeus was full-grown, he took Metis, daughter of Ocean, to help him, and she gave Cronus a drug to swallow, which forced him to disgorge first the stone and then the children whom he had swallowed, and with their aid Zeus waged the war against Cronus and the Titans. They fought for ten years, and Earth prophesied victory to Zeus if he should have as allies those who had been hurled down to Tartarus. So he slew their jailoress Campe, and loosed their bonds. And the Cyclopes then gave Zeus thunder and lightning and a thunderbolt, and on Pluto they bestowed a helmet and on Poseidon a trident. Armed with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-handers their guards; but they themselves cast lots for the sovereignty, and to Zeus was allotted the dominion of the sky, to Poseidon the dominion of the sea, and to Pluto the dominion in Hades.

 

[2] Now to the Titans were born offspring: to Ocean and Tethys were born Oceanids, to wit, Asia, Styx, Electra, Doris, Eurynome, Amphitrite, and Metis; to Coeus and Phoebe were born Asteria and Latona; to Hyperion and Thia were born Dawn, Sun, and Moon; to Crius and Eurybia, daughter of Sea ( Pontus ), were born Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses;

 

[3] to Iapetus and Asia was born Atlas, who has the sky on his shoulders, and Prometheus, and Epimetheus, and Menoetius, he whom Zeus in the battle with the Titans smote with a thunderbolt and hurled down to Tartarus.

 

[4]  And to Cronus and Philyra was born Chiron, a centaur of double form; and to Dawn and Astraeus were born winds and stars; to Perses and Asteria was born Hecate; and to Pallas and Styx were born Victory, Dominion, Emulation, and Violence.

 

[5]  But Zeus caused oaths to be sworn by the water of Styx, which flows from a rock in Hades, bestowing this honor on her because she and her children had fought on his side against the Titans.

 

[6] And to Sea ( Pontus ) and Earth were born Phorcus, Thaumas, Nereus, Eurybia, and Ceto. Now to Thaumas and Electra were born Iris and the Harpies, Aello and Ocypete; and to Phorcus and Ceto were born the Phorcides and Gorgons, of whom we shall speak when we treat of Perseus.

 

[7]  To Nereus and Doris were born the Nereids, whose names are Cymothoe, Spio, Glauconome, Nausithoe, Halie, Erato, Sao, Amphitrite, Eunice, Thetis, Eulimene, Agave, Eudore, Doto, Pherusa, Galatea, Actaea, Pontomedusa, Hippothoe, Lysianassa, Cymo, Eione, Halimede, Plexaure, Eucrante, Proto, Calypso, Panope, Cranto, Neomeris, Hipponoe, Ianira, Polynome, Autonoe, Melite, Dione, Nesaea, Dero, Evagore, Psamathe, Eumolpe, Ione, Dynamene, Ceto, and Limnoria.

 

1684 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.7.1] Prometheus moulded men out of water and earth and gave them also fire, which, unknown to Zeus, he had hidden in a stalk of fennel. But when Zeus learned of it, he ordered Hephaestus to nail his body to Mount Caucasus, which is a Scythian mountain. On it Prometheus was nailed and kept bound for many years. Every day an eagle swooped on him and devoured the lobes of his liver, which grew by night. That was the penalty that Prometheus paid for the theft of fire until Hercules afterwards released him, as we shall show in dealing with Hercules.

 

[Paus 2.14.4] Ara[i]s, they say, was a contemporary of Prometheus, the son of Iapetus, and three generations of men older than Pelasgus the son of Arcas and those called at Athens aboriginals.

 

[Paus 2.15.4] [Apoll. 2.1.1a] The oldest tradition in the region now called Argolis is that when Inachus the son of Ocean and Tethys was king he named the river after himself and sacrificed to Hera. He and Melia, daughter of Ocean, had sons, Phoroneus, and Aegialeus.

 

[Paus 2.15.5] Another legend says that Phoroneus was the first inhabitant of this land, and that Inachus, the father of Phoroneus, was not a man but the river. This river, with the rivers Cephisus and Asterion, judged concerning the land between Poseidon and Hera. They decided that the land belonged to Hera, and so Poseidon made their waters disappear. For this reason neither Inachus nor either of the other rivers I have mentioned provides any water except after rain. In summer their streams are dry except those at Lerna.

 

1675 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.3.1] Now Zeus wedded Hera and begat Hebe, Ilithyia, and Ares, but he had intercourse with many women, both mortals and immortals. By Themis, daughter of Sky, he had daughters, the Seasons, to wit, Peace, Order, and Justice; also the Fates, to wit, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropus; by Dione he had Aphrodite; by Eurynome, daughter of Ocean, he had the Graces, to wit, Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia; by Styx he had Persephone; and by Memory ( Mnemosyne ) he had the Muses, first Calliope, then Clio, Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato, Terpsichore, Urania, Thalia, and Polymnia.

 

[4]  Euterpe had by the river Strymon a son Rhesus, whom Diomedes slew at Troy; but some say his mother was Calliope. Thalia had by Apollo the Corybantes; and Melpomene had by Achelous the Sirens, of whom we shall speak in treating of Odysseus.

 

[Apoll. 1.3.5] Hera gave birth to Hephaestus without intercourse with the other sex, but according to Homer he was one of her children by Zeus. ...

 

[6] Zeus had intercourse with Metis, who turned into many shapes in order to avoid his embraces. When she was with child, Zeus, taking time by the forelock, swallowed her, because Earth said that, after giving birth to the maiden who was then in her womb, Metis would bear a son who should be the lord of heaven. From fear of that Zeus swallowed her. And when the time came for the birth to take place, Prometheus or, as others say, Hephaestus, smote the head of Zeus with an axe, and Athena, fully armed, leaped up from the top of his head at the river Triton.

 

[Apoll. 1.4.1] Of the daughters of Coeus, Asteria in the likeness of a quail flung herself into the sea in order to escape the amorous advances of Zeus, and a city was formerly called after her Asteria, but afterwards it was named Delos. But Leto for her intrigue with Zeus was hunted by Hera over the whole earth, till she came to Delos and brought forth first Artemis, by the help of whose midwifery she afterwards gave birth to Apollo.

 

[Apoll. 1.4.5] ... Poseidon wedded Amphitrite, daughter of Ocean, and there were born to him Triton and Rhode, who was married to Helius.

 

1667 BC

 

[Apoll. 2.1.3] Zeus seduced Io the daughter of Inachus while she held the priesthood of Hera, but being detected by Hera he by a touch turned Io into a white cow and swore that he had not known her; wherefore Hesiod remarks that lover's oaths do not draw down the anger of the gods. But Hera requested the cow from Zeus for herself and set Argus the All-seeing to guard it. Pherecydes says that this Argus was a son of Arestor; but Asclepiades says that he was a son of Inachus, and Cercops says that he was a son of Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus; but Acusilaus says that he was earth-born. He tethered her to the olive tree which was in the grove of the Mycenaeans. But Zeus ordered Hermes to steal the cow, and as Hermes could not do it secretly because Hierax had blabbed, he killed Argus by the cast of a stone; whence he was called Argiphontes. Hera next sent a gadfly to infest the cow, and the animal came first to what is called after her the Ionian gulf. Then she journeyed through Illyria and having traversed Mount Haemus she crossed what was then called the Thracian Straits but is now called after her the Bosphorus. And having gone away to Scythia and the Cimmerian land she wandered over great tracts of land and swam wide stretches of sea both in Europe and Asia until at last she came to Egypt, where she recovered her original form and gave birth to a son Epaphus beside the river Nile. Him Hera besought the Curetes to make away with, and make away with him they did. When Zeus learned of it, he slew the Curetes; but Io set out in search of the child. She roamed all over Syria, because there it was revealed to her that the wife of the king of Byblus was nursing her son; and having found Epaphus she came to Egypt and was married to Telegonus, who then reigned over the Egyptians. And she set up an image of Demeter, whom the Egyptians called Isis, and Io likewise they called by the name of Isis.

 

The annalist Castor and many of the tragedians allege that Io was a daughter of Inachus; and Hesiod and Acusilaus say that she was a daughter of Piren. Others say Argus and Ismene, daughter of Asopus, had a son Iasus, who is said to have been the father of Io.

 

1658 BC

 

[Paus. 7.1.1] [Apoll. 2.1.1b] [Paus 2.5.6] The land between Elis and Sicyonia, reaching down to the eastern sea, is now called Achaia after the inhabitants, but of old was called Aegialus and those who lived in it Aegialians. According to the Sicyonians the name is derived from Aegialeus the son of Inachus who was its first aboriginal inhabitant and was king reigning in what is now Sicyonia; others say that it is from the land, the greater part of which is coast ( aigialos ). Aegialeus founded the city Aegialea on the plain. The citadel, was where is now the sanctuary of Athena. They say Aegialeus begat Europs, Europs Telchis, and Telchis Apis. Others say that Aegialeus died childless and that Europs was his succesor.

 

[Paus 2.15.5] [Apoll. 2.1.1b] Phoroneus, the son of Inachus, was the first to gather together the inhabitants of the land afterwards named Peloponnese, who up to that time had been scattered and living as isolated families. The place into which they were first gathered was named the City of Phoroneus. Phoroneus begat Apis and Niobe by a nymph Teledice. 

 

1645 BC

 

[Apoll. 2.1.4a] 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.

 

1644 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.6.1] ... But Earth, vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth the giants, whom she had by Ouranos. These were matchless in the bulk of their bodies and invincible in their might; terrible of aspect did they appear, with long locks drooping from their head and chin, and with the scales of dragons for feet. They were born, as some say, in Phlegrae, but according to others in Pallene. And they darted rocks and burning oaks at the sky. Surpassing all the rest were Porphyrion and Alcyoneus, who was even immortal so long as he fought in the land of his birth. He also drove away the cows of the Sun from Erythia. Now the gods had an oracle that none of the giants could perish at the hand of gods, but that with the help of a mortal they would be made an end of. Learning of this, Earth sought for a simple to prevent the giants from being destroyed even by a mortal. But Zeus forbade the Dawn and the Moon and the Sun to shine, and then, before anybody else could get it, he culled the simple himself, and by means of Athena summoned Hercules to his help. Hercules first shot Alcyoneus with an arrow, but when the giant fell on the ground he somewhat revived. However, at Athena's advice Hercules dragged him outside Pallene, and so the giant died.

 

[2]  But in the battle Porphyrion attacked Hercules and Hera. Nevertheless Zeus inspired him with lust for Hera, and when he tore her robes and would have forced her, she called for help, and Zeus smote him with a thunderbolt, and Hercules shot him dead with an arrow. As for the other giants, Ephialtes was shot by Apollo with an arrow in his left eye and by Hercules in his right; Eurytus was killed by Dionysus with a thyrsus, and Clytius by Hecate with torches, and Mimas by Hephaestus with missiles of red-hot metal. Enceladus fled, but Athena threw on him in his flight the island of Sicily ; and she flayed Pallas and used his skin to shield her own body in the fight. Polybotes was chased through the sea by Poseidon and came to Cos; and Poseidon, breaking off that piece of the island which is called Nisyrum, threw it on him. And Hermes, wearing the helmet of Hades, slew Hippolytus in the fight, and Artemis slew Gration. And the Fates, fighting with brazer clubs, killed Agrius and Thoas. The other giants Zeus smote and destroyed with thunderbolts and all of them Hercules shot with arrows as they were dying.

 

1628 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.6.1] When the gods had overcome the giants, Earth, still more enraged, had intercourse with Tartarus and brought forth Typhon in Cilicia, a hybrid between man and beast. In size and strength he surpassed all the offspring of Earth. As far as the thighs he was of human shape and of such prodigious bulk that he out-topped all the mountains, and his head often brushed the stars. One of his hands reached out to the west and the other to the east, and from them projected a hundred dragons' heads. From the thighs downward he had huge coils of vipers, which when drawn out, reached to his very head and emitted a loud hissing. His body was all winged :unkempt hair streamed on the wind from his head and cheeks; and fire flashed from his eyes. Such and so great was Typhon when, hurling kindled rocks, he made for the very heaven with hissings and shouts, spouting a great jet of fire from his mouth. But when the gods saw him rushing at heaven, they made for Egypt in flight, and being pursued they changed their forms into those of animals. However Zeus pelted Typhon at a distance with thunderbolts, and at close quarters struck him down with an adamantine sickle, and as he fled pursued him closely as far as Mount Casius, which overhangs Syria. There, seeing the monster sore wounded, he grappled with him. But Typhon twined about him and gripped him in his coils, and wresting the sickle from him severed the sinews of his hands and feet, and lifting him on his shoulders carried him through the sea to Cilicia and deposited him on arrival in the Corycian cave. Likewise he put away the sinews there also, hidden in a bearskin, and he set to guard them the she-dragon Delphyne, who was a half-bestial maiden. But Hermes and Aegipan stole the sinews and fitted them unobserved to Zeus. And having recovered his strength Zeus suddenly from heaven, riding in a chariot of winged horses, pelted Typhon with thunderbolts and pursued him to the mountain called Nysa, where the Fates beguiled the fugitive; for he tasted of the ephemeral fruits in the persuasion that he would be strengthened thereby. So being again pursued he came to Thrace, and in fighting at Mount Haemus he heaved whole mountains. But when these recoiled on him through the force of the thunderbolt, a stream of blood gushed out on the mountain, and they say that from that circumstance the mountain was called Haemus. And when he started to flee through the Sicilian sea, Zeus cast Mount Etna in Sicily upon him. That is a huge mountain, from which down to this day they say that blasts of fire issue from the thunderbolts that were thrown. So much for that subject.

 

[Apoll. 1.7.2] Prometheus had a son Deucalion. He reigning in the regions about Phthia, married Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, the first woman fashioned by the gods. And when Zeus would destroy the men of the Bronze Age, Deucalion by the advice of Prometheus constructed a chest, and having stored it with provisions he embarked in it with Pyrrha. But Zeus by pouring heavy rain from heaven flooded the greater part of Greece, so that all men were destroyed, except a few who fled to the high mountains in the neighborhood. It was then that the mountains in Thessaly parted, and that all the world outside the Isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. But Deucalion, floating in the chest over the sea for nine days and as many nights, drifted to Parnassus, and there, when the rain ceased, he landed and sacrificed to Zeus, the god of Escape. And Zeus sent Hermes to him and allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to get men. And at the bidding of Zeus he took up stones and threw them over his head, and the stones which Deucalion threw became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. Hence people were called metaphorically people ( laos ) from laas, " a stone. "

 

[Paus 2.5.7] [Apoll. 2.1.1c] Apis the son of Phoroneus reached such a height of power before Pelops came to Olympia that all the territory south of the Isthmus was called after him Apia. Apis converted his power into a tyranny; but being a stern tyrant he was conspired against and slain by Thelxion and Telchis. He left no child, and being deemed a god was called Sarapis. But Niobe had by Zeus (and she was the first mortal woman with whom Zeus cohabited ) a son Argus, and also, so says Acusilaus, a son Pelasgus, after whom the inhabitants of the Peloponnese were called Pelasgians. However, Hesiod says that Pelasgus was a son of the soil.

 

1610 BC

 

[Hdts. 1.94.1] The Lydians have very nearly the same customs as the Greeks, with the exception that these last do not bring up their girls in the same way. So far as we have any knowledge, they were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin, and the first who sold goods by retail. They claim also the invention of all the games which are common to them with the Greeks. These they declare that they invented about the time when they colonised Tyrrhenia, an event of which they give the following account. In the days of Atys, the son of Manes, there was great scarcity through the whole land of Lydia. For some time the Lydians bore the affliction patiently, but finding that it did not pass away, they set to work to devise remedies for the evil. Various expedients were discovered by various persons; dice, and huckle-bones, and ball, and all such games were invented, except tables, the invention of which they do not claim as theirs. The plan adopted against the famine was to engage in games one day so entirely as not to feel any craving for food, and the next day to eat and abstain from games. In this way they passed eighteen years. Still the affliction continued and even became more grievous. So the king determined to divide the nation in half, and to make the two portions draw lots, the one to stay, the other to leave the land. He would continue to reign over those whose lot it should be to remain behind; the emigrants should have his son Tyrrhenus for their leader. The lot was cast, and they who had to emigrate went down to Smyrna, and built themselves ships, in which, after they had put on board all needful stores, they sailed away in search of new homes and better sustenance. After sailing past many countries they came to Umbria, where they built cities for themselves, and fixed their residence. Their former name of Lydians they laid aside, and called themselves after the name of the king's son, who led the colony, Tyrrhenians.

 

1607 BC

 

[Paus. 2.16.1] [Apoll. 2.1.2] [Apoll. 2.1.2d] Argus, the grandson of Phoroneus, succeeding to the throne [not long] after Phoroneus, gave his name to the land (of the Peloponnese). Having married Evadne, daughter of Strymon and Neaera, he begat Ecbasus, Pira[nta]s or Peirasus, Epidaurus, and Criasus, who succeeded to the kingdom. Argus also begat Phorbas who reigned after Criasus. He also avenged the murder of Apis by putting the guilty to death.

 

1596 BC

 

[Apoll. 2.1.4b] 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.

 

1572 BC

 

Criasus the son of Argus become king of Argos and was succeeded by Phorbas who fathered Triopas.

 

1557 BC

 

[Paus 2.5.7] Apis begat Thelxion, Thelxion Aegyrus, the Thurimachus, and Thurimachus Leucippus. Leucippus had no male issue, only a daughter Calchinia. There is a story that this Calchinia mated with Poseidon; her child was reared by Leucippus, who at his death handed over to him the kingdom. His name was Peratus.

 

1548 BC

 

Aeolus seduced Cheirons daughter Thea or Thetis the hunting companion of Artemis. Her virginity being vilated she was disguised as a mare called Euippe by Poseidon so as to escape suspicion and gave birth to Melanippe who was renamed Arne.

 

1530 BC

 

Arne the daughter of Aeolus was brought up by Desmontes who was then childless. When she came of age she was seduced by Poseidon and gave birth to twins Aeolus and Boeotus. These children were brought up by Metapontus the king of Icaria whose wife Theano was barren. After Theano conceived twins by Metapontus she sent them to kill Aeolus and Boeotus as if by accident in the hunt, but the plot failed and her sons were killed instead. Aeolus and Boeotus fled to Poseidon and rescued Arne who married Metapontus. After Metapontus discarded Arne, Aeolus and Boeotus killed Autolyte, his new wife and were forced to flee the land. Boeotus went to the palace of Aeolus and was given the southern part of his grandfathers kingdom and the people took the name Boeotians and Aeolus set sail for the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrennian Sea. On Lippara he had six sons and six daughters. When he discovered that the youngest Macareus has been sleeping with his sister Canache he threw the fruit of this incest to the dogs. Then he learned his older children were also incestuous and not wishing to offend the gods he broke up the unions and ordered four of his sons to emigrate. They went to Sicily and Italy and founded kingdoms, but his eldest son remained behind and became Aeolus successor.

 

1527 BC

 

[Paus 3.1.1] According to the tradition of the Lacedaemonians themselves, Lelex, an aboriginal was the first king in this land, after whom his subjects were named Leleges. Lelex had a son Myles, and a younger one Polycaon.

 

[Paus 1.44.1] There is a citadel here [in Nisaea], which also is called Nisaea. Below the citadel near the sea is the tomb of Lelex, who they say arrived from Egypt and became king, being the son of Poseidon and of Libya, daughter of Epaphus.

 

[Stra 7.7.1] Now Hecataeus of Miletus says of the Peloponnesus that before the time of the Greeks it was inhabited by barbarians. Yet one might say that in the ancient times the whole of Greece was a settlement of barbarians, if one reasons from the traditions themselves: Pelops brought over peoples from Phrygia to the Peloponnesus that received its name from him; and Danaüs from Egypt; whereas the Dryopes, the Caucones, the Pelasgi, the Leleges, and other such peoples, apportioned among themselves the parts that are inside the isthmus--and also the parts outside, for Attica was once held by the Thracians who came with Eumolpus, Daulis in Phocis by Tereus, Cadmeia by the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, and Boeotia itself by the Aones and Temmices and Hyantes. According to Pindar,

 

“there was a time when the Boeotian tribe was called “Syes.”

 

Moreover, the barbarian origin of some is indicated by their names--Cecrops, Godrus, Aïclus, Cothus, Drymas, and Crinacus. And even to the present day the Thracians, Illyrians, and Epeirotes live on the flanks of the Greeks (though this was still more the case formerly than now); indeed most of the country that at the present time is indisputably Greece is held by the barbarians--Macedonia and certain parts of Thessaly by the Thracians, and the parts above Acarnania and Aetolia by the Thesproti, the Cassopaei, the Amphilochi, the Molossi, and the Athamanes--Epeirotic tribes.

 

c.1511 BC

 

[Paus. 8.1.4] 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.

 

[5] 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. [6] 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.

 

[Apoll. 2.1.2] Ecbasus had a son Agenor, and Agenor had a son Argus, the one who is called the All-seeing. He had eyes in the whole of his body, and being exceedingly strong he killed the bull that ravaged Arcadia and clad himself in its hide; and when a satyr wronged the Arcadians and robbed them of their cattle, Argus withstood and killed him. It is said, too, that Echidna, daughter of Tartarus and Earth, who used to carry off passers-by, was caught asleep and slain by Argus.

 

1504 BC

 

[Paus. 4.43.7] The Megarians have also the grave of Coroebus. The poetical story of him, although it equally concerns Argos, I will relate here. They say that in the reign of Crotopus at Argos, Psamathe, the daughter of Crotopus, bore a son to Apollo, and being in dire terror of her father, exposed the child. He was found and destroyed by sheepdogs of Crotopus, and Apollo sent Vengeance to the city to punish the Argives. They say that she used to snatch the children from their mothers, until Coroebus to please the Argives slew Vengeance. Whereat as a second punishment plague fell upon them and stayed not. So Coroebus of his own accord went to Delphi to submit to the punishment of the god for having slain Vengeance. [8] The Pythia would not allow Coroebus to return to Argos, but ordered him to take up a tripod and carry it out of the sanctuary, and where the tripod should fall from his hands, there he was to build a temple of Apollo and to dwell himself. At Mount Gerania the tripod slipped and fell unawares. Here he dwelt in the village called the Little Tripods. The grave of Coroebus is in the market-place of the Megarians. The story of Psamathe and of Coroebus himself is carved on it in elegiac verses and further, upon the top of the grave is represented Coroebus slaying Vengeance. These are the oldest stone images I am aware of having seen among the Greeks.

 

[Paus. 3.20.2] Going on from here in the direction of Taygetus you come to a place called Alesiae (Place of Grinding ) they say that Myles (Mill-man ) the son of Lelex was the first human being to invent a mill, and that he ground corn in this Alesiae.

 

[Paus. 4.1.1] The frontier between Messenia and that part of it which was incorporated by the emperor in Laconia towards Gerenia is formed in our time by the valley called Choerius. They say that this country, being unoccupied, received its first inhabitants in the following manner: On the death of Lelex, who ruled in the present Laconia, then called after him Lelegia, Myles, the elder of his sons, received the kingdom. Polycaon was the younger and for this reason a private person, until he took to wife Messene, the daughter of Triopas, son of Phorbas, from Argos. [2] Messene, being proud of her origin, for her father was the chief of the Greeks of his day in reputation and power, was not content that her husband should be a private person. They collected a force from Argos and from Lacedaemon and came to this country, the whole land receiving the name Messene from the wife of Polycaon. Together with other cities, they founded Andania, where their palace was built. [3] Before the battle which the Thebans fought with the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, and the foundation of the present city of Messene under Ithome, I think that no city had the name Messene.

 

I base this conclusion principally on Homer's lines. In the catalogue of those who came to Troy he enumerated Pylos, Arene and other towns, but called no town Messene. In the Odyssey he shows that the Messenians were a tribe and not a city by the following:--

 

For Messenian men carried away sheep from Ithaca.

 

[4] He is still more clear when speaking about the bow of Iphitus:--

 

They met one another in Messene

in the dwelling of Ortilochus.

 

By the dwelling of Ortilochus he meant the city of Pherae in Messene, and explained this himself in the visit of Peisistratus to Menelaus:--

 

They came to Pherae to the house of Diocleus,

son of Ortilochus.

 

[5] The first rulers then in this country were Polycaon, the son of Lelex, and Messene his wife. It was to her that Caucon, the son of Celaenus, son of Phlyus, brought the rites of the Great Goddesses from Eleusis. Phlyus himself is said by the Athenians to have been the son of Earth, and the hymn of Musaeus to Demeter made for the Lycomidae agrees.

 

[Paus. 4.2.1] As I was extremely anxious to learn what children were born to Polycaon by Messene, I read the poem called Eoeae and the epic Naupactia, and in addition to these all the genealogies of Cinaethon and Asius. However, they made no reference to this matter, although I know that the Great Eoeae says that Polycaon, the son of Butes, married Euaichme, the daughter of Hyllus, son of Heracles, but it omits all reference to the husband of Messene and to Messene herself.

 

1503 BC

 

[Apoll. 2.1.4b] 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.

 

1488 BC

 

[Paus 8.2.1] Lycaon the son of Pelasgus devised the following plans, which were more clever than those of his father. He founded the city Lycosura on Mount Lycaeus, gave to Zeus the surname Lycaeus and founded the Lycaean games. My view is that Lycaon was contemporary with Cecrops, the king of Athens, but that they were not equally wise in matters of religion. [3] For Cecrops was the first to name Zeus the Supreme god, and refused to sacrifice anything that had life in it, but burnt instead on the altar the national cakes which the Athenians still call pelanoi. But Lycaon brought a human baby to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, and sacrificed it, pouring out its blood upon the altar, and according to the legend immediately after the sacrifice he was changed from a man to a wolf (Lycos ). [4] I for my part believe this story; it has been a legend among the Arcadians from of old, and it has the additional merit of probability. For the men of those days, because of their righteousness and piety, were guests of the gods, eating at the same board ;the good were openly honored by the gods, and sinners were openly visited with their wrath. All through the ages, many events that have occurred in the past, and even some that occur to-day, have been generally discredited because of the lies built up on a foundation of fact. It is said, for instance, that ever since the time of Lycaon a man has changed into a wolf at the sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus, but that the change is not for life; if, when he is a wolf, he abstains from human flesh, after nine years he becomes a man again, but if he tastes human flesh he remains a beast for ever.

 

1484 BC

 

[Paus 2.5.8] What is reported of Plemnaeus, the son of Peratus, seemed to me very wonderful. All the children borne to him by his wife died the very first time they wailed. At last Demeter took pity on Plemnaeus, came to Aegialea in the guise of a strange woman, and reared for Plemnaeus his son Orthopolis.

 

1483 BC

 

[Apoll. 3.14.1] Cecrops, a son of the soil, with a body compounded of man and serpent, was the first king of Attica, and the country which was formerly called Acte he named Cecropia after himself. In his time, they say, the gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive his own peculiar worship. So Poseidon was the first that came to Attica, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the acropolis, he produced a sea which they now call Erechtheis. After him came Athena, and, having called on Cecrops to witness her act of taking possession, she planted an olive tree, which is still shown in the Pandrosium. But when the two strove for possession of the country, Zeus parted them and appointed arbiters, not, as some have affirmed, Cecrops and Cranaus, nor yet Erysichthon, but the twelve gods. And in accordance with their verdict the country was adjudged to Athena, because Cecrops bore witness that she had been the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself, and Poseidon in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attica under the sea.

 

[2] Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus, and had a son Erysichthon, who departed this life childless; and Cecrops had daughters, Agraulus, Herse, and Pandrosus. Agraulus had a daughter Alcippe by Ares. In attempting to violate Alcippe, Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon and a nymph Euryte, was detected and killed by Ares. Impeached by Poseidon, Ares was tried in the Areopagus before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.

 

[3] Herse had by Hermes a son Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off, and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon, who had a son Astynous, who had a son Sandocus, who passed from Syria to Cilicia and founded a city Celenderis, and having married Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, begat Cinyras. This Cinyras in Cyprus, whither he had come with some people, founded Paphos; and having there married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, he begat Oxyporus and Adonis, and besides them daughters, Orsedice, Laogore, and Braesia. These by reason of the wrath of Aphrodite cohabited with foreigners, and ended their life in Egypt.

 

1480 BC

 

[Hdts. 2.52.1] In early times the Pelasgi, as I know by information which I got at Dodona, offered sacrifices of all kinds, and prayed to the gods, but had no distinct names or appellations for them, since they had never heard of any. They called them gods (Theoi, disposers), because they disposed and arranged all things in such a beautiful order. After a long lapse of time the names of the gods came to Greece from Egypt, and the Pelasgi learnt them, only as yet they knew nothing of Dionysus, of whom they first heard at a much later date. Not long after the arrival of the names they sent to consult the oracle at Dodona about them. This is the most ancient oracle in Greece, and at that time there was no other. To their question, "Whether they should adopt the names that had been imported from the foreigners?" the oracle replied by recommending their use. Thenceforth in their sacrifices the Pelasgi made use of the names of the gods, and from them the names passed afterwards to the Greeks.

 

[2.54.1] The following tale is commonly told in Egypt concerning the oracle of Dodona in Greece, and that of Ammon in Libya. My informants on the point were the priests of Zeus at Thebes. They said "that two of the sacred women were once carried off from Thebes by the Phoenicians, and that the story went that one of them was sold into Libya, and the other into Greece, and these women were the first founders of the oracles in the two countries." On my inquiring how they came to know so exactly what became of the women, they answered, "that diligent search had been made after them at the time, but that it had not been found possible to discover where they were; afterwards, however, they received the information which they had given me."

 

[2.55.1] This was what I heard from the priests at Thebes; at Dodona, however, the women who deliver the oracles relate the matter as follows:- "Two black doves flew away from Egyptian Thebes, and while one directed its flight to Libya, the other came to them. She alighted on an oak, and sitting there began to speak with a human voice, and told them tha| on the spot where she was, there should henceforth be an oracle of Zeus. They understood the announcement to be from heaven, so they set to work at once and erected the shrine. The dove which flew to Libya bade the Libyans to establish there the oracle of Ammon." This likewise is an oracle of Zeus. The persons from whom I received these particulars were three priestesses of the Dodonaeans, the eldest Promeneia, the next Timarete, and the youngest Nicandra- what they said was confirmed by the other Dodonaeans who dwell around the temple.

 

[2.56.1] My own opinion of these matters is as follows:- I think that, if it be true that the Phoenicians carried off the holy women, and sold them for slaves, the one into Libya and the other into Greece, or Pelasgia (as it was then called), this last must have been sold to the Thesprotians. Afterwards, while undergoing servitude in those parts, she built under a real oak a temple to Zeus, her thoughts in her new abode reverting- as it was likely they would do, if she had been an attendant in a temple of Zeus at Thebes- to that particular god. Then, having acquired a knowledge of the Greek tongue, she set up an oracle. She also mentioned that her sister had been sold for a slave into Libya by the same persons as herself.

 

[2.57.1] The Dodonaeans called the women doves because they were foreigners, and seemed to them to make a noise like birds. After a while the dove spoke with a human voice, because the woman, whose foreign talk had previously sounded to them like the chattering of a bird, acquired the power of speaking what they could understand. For how can it be conceived possible that a dove should really speak with the voice of a man? Lastly, by calling the dove black the Dodonaeans indicated that the woman was an Egyptian. And certainly the character of the oracles at Thebes and Dodona is very similar. Besides this form of divination, the Greeks learnt also divination by means of victims from the Egyptians.

 

1472 BC

 

[Apoll. 2.1.4f] 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.

 

[Paus. 2.19.3] The most famous building in the city of Argos is the sanctuary of Apollo Lycius (Wolf-god ). The modern image was made by the Athenian Attalus, but the original temple and wooden image were the offering of Danaus. I am of opinion that in those days all images, especially Egyptian images, were made of wood. The reason why Danaus founded a sanctuary of Apollo Lycius was this. On coming to Argos he claimed the kingdom against Gelanor, the son of Sthenelas. Many plausible arguments were brought forward by both parties, and those of Sthenelas were considered as fair as those of his opponent; so the people, who were sitting in judgment, put off, they say, the decision to the following day. [4] At dawn a wolf fell upon a herd of oxen that was pasturing before the wall, and attacked and fought with the bull that was the leader of the herd. It occurred to the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull and Danaus like the wolf, for as the wolf will not live with men, so Danaus up to that time had not lived with them. It was because the wolf overcame the bull that Danaus won the kingdom. Accordingly, believing that Apollo had brought the wolf on the herd, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo Lycius. [5] Here is dedicated the throne of Danaus, and here Is placed a statue of Biton, in the form of a man carrying a bull on his shoulders. According to the poet Lyceas, when the Argives were holding a sacrifice to Zeus at Nemea, Biton by sheer physical strength took up a bull and carried it there. Next to this statue is a fire which they keep burning, calling it the fire of Phoroneus. For they do not admit that fire was given to mankind by Prometheus, but insist in assigning the discovery of fire to Phoroneus.

 

1469 BC

 

[Apoll. 1.7.4] Canace had by Poseidon Hopleus and Nireus and Epopeus and Aloeus and Triops. Aloeus wedded Iphimedia, daughter of Triops; but she fell in love with Poseidon, and often going to the sea she would draw up the waves with her hands and pour them into her lap. Poseidon met her and begat two sons, Otus and Ephialtes, who are called the Aloads. These grew every year a cubit in breadth and a fathom in height; and when they were nine years old, being nine cubits broad and nine fathoms high, they resolved to fight against the gods, and they set Ossa on Olympus, and having set Pelion on Ossa they threatened by means of these mountains to ascend up to heaven, and they said that by filling up the sea with the mountains they would make it dry land, and the land they would make sea. And Ephialtes wooed Hera, and Otus wooed Artemis; moreover they put Ares in bonds. However, Hermes rescued Ares by stealth, and Artemis killed the Aloads in Naxos by a ruse. For she changed herself into a deer and leaped between them, and in their eagerness to hit the quarry they threw their darts at each other.

 

[Paus. 9.27.1] The first to sacrifice on Helicon to the Muses and to call the mountain sacred to the Muses were, they say, Ephialtes and Otus, who also founded Ascra. To this also Hegesinus alludes in his poem Atthis:--

 

And again with Ascra lay Poseidon Earth-shaker,

Who when the year revolved bore him a son

Oeoclus, who first with the children of Aloeus founded

Ascra, which lies at the foot of Helicon, rich in springs.

 

[2] This poem of Hegesinus I have not read, for it was no longer extant when I was born. But Callippus of Corinth in his history of Orchomenus uses the verses of Hegesinus as evidence in support of his own views, and I too have done likewise, using the quotation of Callippus himself. Of Ascra in my day nothing memorable was left except one tower. The sons of Aloeus held that the Muses were three in number, and gave them the names of Melete (Practice ), Mneme (Memory ) and Aoede (Song ). [3] But they say that afterwards Pierus, a Macedonian, after whom the mountain in Macedonia was named, came to Thespiae and established nine Muses, changing their names to the present ones.

 

1464 BC

 

[Paus. 3.1.1] On the death of Myles his son Eurotas succeeded to the throne. He led down to the sea by means of a trench the stagnant water on the plain, and when it had flowed away, as what was left formed a river-stream, he named it Eurotas.

 

1460 BC

 

[Apoll. 3.8.1] Let us now return to Pelasgus, who, Acusilaus says, was a son of Zeus and Niobe, as we have supposed, but Hesiod declares him to have been a son of the soil. He had a son Lycaon by Meliboea, daughter of Ocean or, as others say, by a nymph Cyllene; and Lycaon, reigning over the Arcadians, begat by many wives fifty sons, to wit: Melaeneus, Thesprotus, Helix, Nyctimus, Peucetius, Caucon, Mecisteus, Hopleus, Macareus, Macednus, Horus, Polichus, Acontes, Evaemon, Ancyor, Archebates, Carteron, Aegaeon, Pallas, Eumon, Canethus, Prothous, Linus, Coretho, Maenalus, Teleboas, Physius, Phassus, Phthius, Lycius, Halipherus, Genetor, Bucolion, Socleus, Phineus, Eumetes, Harpaleus, Portheus, Plato, Haemo, Cynaethus, Leo, Harpalycus, Heraeeus, Titanas, Mantineus, Clitor, Stymphalus, Orchomenus, ... These exceeded all men in pride and impiety; and Zeus, desirous of putting their impiety to the proof, came to them in the likeness of a day-laborer. They offered him hospitality and having slaughtered a male child of the natives, they mixed his bowels with the sacrifices, and set them before him, at the instigation of the elder brother Maenalus. But Zeus in disgust upset the table at the place which is still called Trapezus, and blasted Lycaon and his sons by thunderbolts, all but Nyctimus, (who some say was) the youngest; for Earth was quick enough to lay hold of the right hand of Zeus and so appease his wrath.

 

[Paus 8.3.1] In the third generation after Pelasgus the land increased in the number both of its cities and of its population. For Nyctimus, who was the eldest son of Lycaon, possessed all the power, while the other sons founded cities on the sites they considered best. Thus Pallantium was founded by Pallas, Oresthasium by Orestheus and Phigalia by Phigalus. [2] Pallantium is mentioned by Stesichorus of Himera in his Geryoneid. Phigalia and Oresthasium in course of time changed their names, Oresthasium to Oresteium after Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, Phigalia to Phialia after Phialus, the son of Bucolion. Cities were founded by Trapezeus also, and by Daseatas, Macareus, Helisson, Acacus and Thocnus. The last founded Thocnia, and Acacus Acacesium. It was after this Acacus, according to the Arcadian account, that Homer made a surname for Hermes. [3] Helisson has given a name to both the town and the river so called, and similarly Macaria, Dasea, and Trapezus were named after the sons of Lycaon. Orchomenus became founder of both the town called Methydrium and of Orchomenus, styled by Homer "rich in sheep." Hypsus and... founded Melaeneae and Hypsus, and also Thyraeum and Haemoniae. The Arcadians are of opinion that both the Thyrea in Argolis and also the Thyrean gulf were named after this Thyraeus. [4] Maenalus founded Maenalus, which was in ancient times the most famous of the cities of Arcadia, Tegeates founded Tegea and Mantineus Mantineia. Cromi was named after Cromus, Charisia after Charisius, its founder, Tricoloni after Tricolonus, Peraethenses after Peraethus, Asea after Aseatas, Lycoa after...4 and Sumatia after Sumateus. Alipherus also and Heraeus both gave their names to cities. [5] But Oenotrus, the youngest of the sons of Lycaon, asked his brother Nyctimus for money and men and crossed by sea to Italy; the land of Oenotria received its name from Oenotrus who was its king. This was the first expedition despatched from Greece to found a colony, and if a man makes the most careful calculation possible he will discover that no foreigners either emigrated to another land before Oenotrus.

 

[Apoll. 3.8.2] It was when Nyctimus succeeded to the kingdom of his father that there occurred the flood in the age of Deucalion; some said that it was occasioned by the impiety of Lycaon's sons.

 

[Paus 8.3.5] [Apoll. 3.8.2] In addition to all this male issue, Lycaon had a daughter Callisto. She was a companion of Artemis in the chase, wore the same garb, and swore to her to remain a maid. This Callisto (I repeat the current Greek legend ) was loved by Zeus and, having assumed the likeness, as some say, of Artemis, or, as others say, of Apollo, he shared her bed against her will and mated with her and wishing to escape the notice of Hera, he turned her into a bear. When Hera detected the intrigue some say it was she that turned Callisto into a bear, and Artemis to please Hera was persuaded to shoot shot the bear down as a wild beast. Some say, however, that Artemis shot her down because she did not keep her maidenhood. Zeus sent Hermes with orders to save the child that Callisto bore in her womb when she perished. Zeus took the babe, named it Arcas, and gave it to Maia to bring up in Arcadia; and Callisto he turned into the constellation known as the Great Bear, which is mentioned by Homer in the return voyage of Odysseus from Calypso:--

 

Gazing at the Pleiades and late-setting Bootes,

And the Bear, which they also call the Wain.

 

But it may be that the constellation is merely named in honor of Callisto, since her grave is pointed out by the Arcadians.

 

Eumelus and some others say that Callisto was the daughter of Lycaon; though Hesiod says she was one of the nymphs, Asius that she was a daughter of Nycteus, and Pherecydes that she was a daughter of Ceteus.

 

1459 BC

 

[Apoll. 3.14.5] When Cecrops died, Cranaus came to the throne ; he was a son of the soil, and it was in his time that the flood in the age of Deucalion is said to have taken place. He married a Lacedaemonian wife, Pedias, daughter of Mynes, and begat Cranae, Menaechme, and Atthis; and when Atthis died a maid, Cranaus called the country Atthis.

 

[Stra 9.1.20] It suffices, then, to add thus much: According to Philochorus, when the country was being devastated, both from the sea by the Carians, and from the land by the Boeotians, who were called Aonians, Cecrops first settled the multitude in twelve cities, the names of which were Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Deceleia, Eleusis, Aphidna (also called Aphidnae, in the plural), Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia. And at a later time Theseus is said to have united the twelve into one city, that of today.

 

[Stra.9.4.2] Deucalion is said to have lived in Cynus; and the grave of Pyrrha is to be seen there, though that of Deucalion is to be seen at Athens. Cynus is about fifty stadia distant from Mount Cnemis.

 

[Stra. 9.5.6] As for Phthia, some say that it is the same as Hellas and Achaea, and that these constitute the other, the southern, of the two parts into which Thessaly as a whole was divided; but others distinguish between Hellas and Achaea. The poet seems to make Phthia and Hellas two different things when he says,

 

"and those who held Phthia and Hellas,"

 

as though there were two, and when he says,

 

"And then (I fled) far away through spacious Hellas, and I came to Phthia,"

 

and,

 

"There are many Achaean women throughout Hellas and Phthia."

 

So the poet makes them two, but he does not make it plain whether they are cities or countries. As for later authorities, some, speaking of Hellas as a country, say that it stretches from Palaepharsalus to Phthiotic Thebes. In this country also is the Thetideium, near both Pharsaluses, both the old and the new; and they infer from the Thetideium that this country too is a part of that which was subject to Achilles. As for those, however, who speak of Hellas as a city, the Pharsalians point out at a distance of sixty stadia from their own city a city in ruins which they believe to be Hellas, and also two springs near it, Messeïs and Hypereia, whereas the Melitaeans say that Hellas was situated about ten stadia distant from themselves on the other side of the Enipeus, at the time when their own city was named Pyrrha, and that it was from Hellas, which was situated in a low-lying district, that the Hellenes migrated to their own city; and they cite as bearing witness to this the tomb of Hellen, son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, situated in their marketplace. For it is related that Deucalion ruled over Phthia, and, in a word, over Thessaly. The Enipeus, flowing from Othrys past Pharsalus, turns aside into the Apidanus, and the latter into the Peneius. Thus much, then, concerning the Hellenes.

 

[23] So much, then, for the several parts of Thessaly. But speaking of it as a whole, I may say that in earlier times it was called Pyrrhaea, after Pyrrha the wife of Deucalion, and Haemonia after Haemon, and Thessaly after Thessalus the son of Haemon. But some writers, dividing it into two parts, say that Deucalion obtained the portion towards the south and called it Pandora after his mother, and that the other part fell to Haemon, after whom it was called Haemonia, but that the former name was changed to Hellas, after Hellen the son of Deucalion, and the latter to Thessaly, after the son of Haemon. Some, however, say that descendants of Antiphus and Pheidippus, the sons of Thessalus the son of Heracles, invaded the country from Thesprotian Ephyra and named it after Thessalus, their own ancestor. And it has been said that the country too was once named Nessonis, like the lake, after Nesson the son of Thessalus.

 

[Paus. 10.6.1] They say that the oldest city [in the region of Locris] was founded here by Parnassus, a son of Cleodora, a nymph. Like the other heroes, as they are called, he had two fathers; one they say was the god Poseidon, the human father being Cleopompus. After this Parnassus were named, they say, both the mountain and also the Parnassian glen. Augury from flying birds was, it is said, a discovery of Parnassus. [2] Now this city, so the story goes on, was flooded by the rains that fell in the time of Deucalion. Such of the inhabitants as were able to escape the storm were led by the howls of wolves to safety on the top of Parnassus, being led on their way by these beasts, and on this account they called the city that they founded Lycoreia (Mountainwolf-city ). [3] Another and different legend is current that Apollo had a son Lycorus by a nymph, Corycia, and that after Lycorus was named the city Lycoreia, and after the nymph the Corycian cave.

 

1457 BC

 

[Apoll. 2.1.5] 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 on Catreus; but according to the author of The Returns, she was Philyra; and according to Cercops she was Hesione. By her he had Palamedes, Oeax, and Nausimedon.

 

[Paus. 7.1.6] The history of the Ionians in relation to the Achaeans I will give as soon as I have explained the reason why the inhabitants of Lacedaemon and Argos were the only Peloponnesians to be called Achaeans before the return of the Dorians. Archander and Architeles, sons of Achaeus, came from Phthiotis to Argos, and after their arrival became sons-in-law of Danaus, Architeles marrying Automate and Archander Scaea. A very clear proof that they settled in Argos is the fact that Archander named his son Metanastes ( settler ).

 

[Paus. 7.1.7] When the sons of Achaeus came to power in Argos and Lacedaemon, the inhabitants of these towns came to be called Achaeans. The name Achaeans was common to them; the Argives had the special name of Danai.

 

[Hdts. 2.97.1] [In Egypt] when the Nile overflows, the country is converted into a sea, and nothing appears but the cities, which look like the islands in the Egean. At this season boats no longer keep the course of the river, but sail right across the plain. On the voyage from Naucratis to Memphis at this season, you pass close to the pyramids, whereas the usual course is by the apex of the Delta, and the city of Cercasorus. You can sail also from the maritime town of Canobus across the flat to Naucratis, passing by the cities of Anthylla and Archandropolis.

 

[2.98.1] The former of these cities, which is a place of note, is assigned expressly to the wife of the ruler of Egypt for the time being, to keep her in shoes. Such has been the custom ever since Egypt fell under the Persian yoke. The other city seems to me to have got its name of Archandropolis from Archander the Phthian, son of Achaeus, and son-in-law of Danaus. There might certainly have been another Archander; but, at any rate, the name is not Egyptian.

 

[2.171.1] … with regard to the mysteries of Demeter, which the Greeks term "the Thesmophoria," The daughters of Danaus brought these rites from Egypt, and taught them to the Pelasgic women of the Peloponnese. Afterwards, when the inhabitants of the peninsula were driven from their homes by the Dorians, the rites perished. Only in Arcadia, where the natives remained and were not compelled to migrate, their observance continued.

 

1440 BC

 

[Apoll. 3.12.1] Electra, daughter of Atlas, had two sons, Iasion and Dardanus, by Zeus. Now Iasion loved Demeter, and in an attempt to defile the goddess he was killed by a thunderbolt. Grieved at his brother's death, Dardanus left Samothrace and came to the opposite mainland. That country was ruled by a king, Teucer, son of the river Scamander and of a nymph Idaea, and the inhabitants of the country were called Teucrians after Teucer. Being welcomed by the king, and having received a share of the land and the king's daughter Batia, he built a city Dardanus, and when Teucer died he called the whole country Dardania.

 

[Apoll. 1.7.2] And Deucalion had children by Pyrrha, first Hellen, whose father some say was Zeus, and second Amphictyon, who reigned over Attica after Cranaus; and third a daughter Protogenia, who became the mother of Aethlius by Zeus.

 

[Stra 8.7.1] They say that Hellen was the son of Deucalion, and that he was lord of the people between the Peneius and the Asopus in the region of Phthia and gave over his rule to the eldest of his sons, but that he sent the rest of them to different places outside, each to seek a settlement for himself. One of these sons, Dorus, united the Dorians about Parnassus into one state, and at his death left them named after himself; another, Xuthus, who had married the daughter of Erechtheus, founded the Tetrapolis of Attica, consisting of Oenoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorynthus. One of the sons of Xuthus, Achaeus, who had committed involuntary manslaughter, fled to Lacedaemon and brought it about that the people there were called Achaeans;

 

[Apoll. 1.7.3] Hellen had Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus by a nymph Orseis. Those who were called Greeks he named Hellenes after himself, and divided the country among his sons. Xuthus received Peloponnese and begat Achaeus and Ion by Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, and from Achaeus and Ion the Achaeans and Ionians derive their names. Dorus received the country over against Peloponnese and called the settlers Dorians after himself. Aeolus reigned over the regions about Thessaly and named the inhabitants Aeolians. He married Enarete, daughter of Deimachus, and begat seven sons, Cretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and five daughters, Canace, Alcyone, Pisidice, Calyce, Perimede.

 

Perimede had Hippodamas and Orestes by Achelous; and Pisidice had Antiphus and Actor by Myrmidon.

 

[4]  Alcyone was married by Ceyx, son of Eosphoros. These perished by reason of their pride; for he said that his wife was Hera, and she said that her husband was Zeus. But Zeus turned them into birds; her he made a kingfisher ( alcyon ) and him a gannet ( ceyx ).

 

[Paus. 10.38.1] The territory of the Locrians called Ozolian adjoins Phocis opposite Cirrha. I have heard various stories about the surname of these Locrians, all of which I will tell my readers. Orestheus, son of Deucalion, king of the land, had a bitch that gave birth to a stick instead of a puppy. Orestheus buried the stick, and in the spring, it is said, a vine grew from it, and from the branches (ozoi ) of the stick the people got their name. [2] Others believe that Nessus, ferrying on the Evenus, was wounded by Heracles, but not killed on the spot, making his escape to this country; when he died his body rotted unburied, imparting a foul stench to the atmosphere of the place. The third story says that the exhalations from a certain river, and its very water, have a peculiar smell; the fourth, that asphodel grows in great abundance and when in flower...because of the smell. [3] Another story says that the first dwellers here were aboriginals, but as yet not knowing how to weave garments they used to make themselves a protection against the cold out of the untanned skins of beasts, turning outwards the shaggy side of the skins for the sake of a good appearance. So their own skins were sure to smell as badly as did the hides.

 

1438 BC

 

[Apoll. 3.1.1] Having now run over the family of Inachus and described them from Belus down to the Heraclids, we have next to speak of the house of Agenor. For as I have said, Libya had by Poseidon two sons, Belus and Agenor. Now Belus reigned over the Egyptians and begat the aforesaid sons; but Agenor went to Phoenicia, married Telephassa, and begat a daughter Europa and three sons, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix. But some say that Europa was a daughter not of Agenor but of Phoenix. Zeus loved her, and turning himself into a tame bull, he mounted her on his back and conveyed her through the sea to Crete. There Zeus bedded with her, and she bore Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthys; but according to Homer, Sarpedon was a son of Zeus by Laodamia, daughter of Bellerophon. On the disappearance of Europa her father Agenor sent out his sons in search of her, telling them not to return until they had found Europa. With them her mother, Telephassa, and Thasus, son of Poseidon, or according to Pherecydes, of Cilix, went forth in search of her. But when, after diligent search, they could not find Europa, they gave up the thought of returning home, and took up their abode in diverse places; Phoenix settled in Phoenicia; Cilix settled near Phoenicia, and all the country subject to himself near the river Pyramus he called Cilicia; and Cadmus and Telephassa took up their abode in Thrace and in like manner Thasus founded a city Thasus in an island off Thrace and dwelt there.

 

1437 BC

 

[Apoll 3.4.1] When Telephassa died, Cadmus buried her, and after being hospitably received by the Thracians he came to Delphi to inquire about Europa. The god told him not to trouble about Europa, but to be guided by a cow, and to found a city wherever she should fall down for weariness. After receiving such an oracle he journeyed through Phocis; then falling in with a cow among the herds of Pelagon, he followed it behind. And after traversing Boeotia, it sank down where is now the city of Thebes. Wishing to sacrifice the cow to Athena, he sent some of his companions to draw water from the spring of Ares. But a dragon, which some said was the offspring of Ares, guazded the spring and destroyed most of those that were sent. In his indignation Cadmus killed the dragon, and by the advice of Athena sowed its teeth. When they were sown there rose from the ground armed men whom they called Sparti. These slew each other, some in a chance brawl, and some in ignorance. But Pherecydes says that when Cadmus saw armed men growing up out of the ground, he flung stones at them, and they, supposing that they were being pelted by each other, came to blows. However, five of them survived, Echion, Udaeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor, and Pelorus.

 

[2]  But Cadmus, to atone for the slaughter, served Ares for an eternal year; and the year was then equivalent to eight years of our reckoning.

 

[Paus 9.5.1] [Apoll. 3.4.2] The first to occupy the land on Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and not foreigners. After Cadmus servitude Athena procured for him the kingdom. When the Phoenician army under Cadmus invaded the land these tribes were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Cadmus to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Cadmus built the city which even at the present day is called Cadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Cadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes.

 

Cadmus made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek legend says, Zeus gave him to wife Harmonia, daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. And all the gods quitted the sky, and feasting in the Cadmea celebrated the marriage with hymns. Cadmus gave her a robe and the necklace wrought by Hephaestus, which some say was given to Cadmus by Hephaestus, but Pherecydes says that it was given by Europa, who had received it from Zeus. And to Cadmus were born daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele, Agave, and a son Polydorus. Ino was married to Athamas, Autonoe to Aristaeus, and Agave to Echion. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.

 

In the time of Cadmus, the greatest power, next after his, was in the hands of the Sparti, namely, Chthonius, Hyperenor, Pelorus and Udaeus; but it was Echion who, for his great valor, was preferred by Cadmus to be his son-in-law. As I was unable to discover anything new about these men, I adopt the story that makes their name result from the way in which they came into being.

 

[Hdts. 5.58.1] Now the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus, and to whom the Gephyraei belonged, introduced into Greece upon their arrival a great variety of arts, among the rest that of writing, whereof the Greeks till then had, as I think, been ignorant. And originally they shaped their letters exactly like all the other Phoenicians, but afterwards, in course of time, they changed by degrees their language, and together with it the form likewise of their characters. Now the Greeks who dwelt about those parts at that time were chiefly the Ionians. The Phoenician letters were accordingly adopted by them, but with some variation in the shape of a few, and so they arrived at the present use, still calling the letters Phoenician, as justice required, after the name of those who were the first to introduce them into Greece. Paper rolls also were called from of old "parchments" by the Ionians, because formerly when paper was scarce they used, instead, the skins of sheep and goats- on which material many of the barbarians are even now wont to write.

 

[Paus 9.12.1] The Thebans in ancient days used to sacrifice bulls to Apollo of the Ashes. Once when the festival was being held, the hour of the sacrifice was near but those sent to fetch the bull had not arrived. And so, as a wagon happened to be near by, they sacrificed to the god one of the oxen, and ever since it has been the custom to sacrifice working oxen. The following story also is current among the Thebans. As Cadmus was leaving Delphi by the road to Phocis, a cow, it is said, guided him on his way. This cow was one bought from the herdsmen of Pelagon, and on each of her sides was a white mark like the orb of a full moon. [2] Now the oracle of the god had said that Cadmus and the host with him were to make their dwelling where the cow was going to sink down in weariness. So this is one of the places that they point out. Here there is in the open an altar and an image of Athena, said to have been dedicated by Cadmus. Those who think that the Cadmus who came to the Theban land was an Egyptian, and not a Phoenician, have their opinion contradicted by the name of this Athena, because she is called by the Phoenician name of Onga, and not by the Egyptian name of Sais. [3] The Thebans assert that on the part of their citadel, where to-day stands their market-place, was in ancient times the house of Cadmus. They point out the ruins of the bridal-chamber of Harmonia, and of one which they say was Semele's into the latter they allow no man to step even now. Those Greeks who allow that the Muses sang at the wedding of Harmonia, can point to the spot in the market-place where it is said that the goddesses sang. [4] There is also a story that along with the thunderbolt hurled at the bridalchamber of Semele there fell a log from heaven. They say that Polydorus adorned this log with bronze and called it Dionysus Cadmus. Near is an image of Dionysus; Onasimedes made it of solid bronze. The altar was built by the sons of Praxiteles.

 

[Paus 9.16.3] At Thebes are three wooden images of Aphrodite, so very ancient that they are actually said to be votive offerings of Harmonia, and the story is that they were made out of the wooden figure-heads on the ships of Cadmus. They call the first Heavenly, the second Common, and the third Rejecter. Harmoina gave to Aphrodite the surname of Heavenly [4] to signify a love pure and free from bodily lust; that of Common, to denote sexual intercourse; the third, that of Rejecter, that mankind might reject unlawful passion and sinful acts. For Harmonia knew of many crimes already perpetrated not only among foreigners but even by Greeks, similar to those attributed later by legend to the mother of Adonis, to Phaedra, the daughter of Minos, and to the Thracian Tereus.

 

[Stra. 9.2.3] Be that as it may, Boeotia in earlier times was inhabited by barbarians, the Aones and the Temmices, who wandered thither from Sunium, and by the Leleges and the Hyantes. Then the Phoenicians occupied it, I mean the Phoenicians with Cadmus, the man who fortified the Cadmeia  and left the dominion to his descendants. Those Phoenicians founded Thebes in addition to the Cadmeia, and preserved their dominion, commanding most of the Boeotians until the expedition of the Epigoni. On this occasion they left Thebes for a short time, but came back again.

 

c.1430 BC

 

[Paus 2.5.8] [At Aigialea] Orthopolis had a daughter Chrysorthe, who is thought to have borne a son named Coronus to Apollo. Coronus had two sons, Corax and a younger one Lamedon.

 

1420 BC

 

[Paus 1.38.1] The streams called Rheiti are rivers only in so far as they are currents, for their water is sea water. It is a reasonable belief that they flow beneath the ground from the Euripus of the Chalcidians, and fall into a sea of a lower level. They are said to be sacred to the Maid and to Demeter, and only the priests of these goddesses are permitted to catch the fish in them. Anciently, I learn, these streams were the boundaries between the land of the Eleusinians and that of the other Athenians, [2] and the first to dwell on the other side of the Rheiti was Crocon, where at the present day is what is called the palace of Crocon. This Crocon the Athenians say married Saesara, daughter of Celeus. Not all of them say this, but only those who belong to the parish of Scambonidae. I could not find the grave of Crocon, but Eleusinians and Athenians agreed in identifying the tomb of Eumolpus.

 

[Apoll. 1.5.1] Hades fell in love with Persephone and with the help of Zeus carried her off secretly. But Demeter went about seeking her all over the earth with torches by night and day, and learning from the people of Hermion that Hades had carried her off, she was wroth with the gods and quitted heaven, and came in the likeness of a woman to Eleusis. And first she sat down on the rock which has been named Laughless after her, beside what is called the Well of the Fair Dances ; thereupon she made her way to Celeus, who at that time reigned over the Eleusinians. Some women were in the house, and when they bade her sit down beside them, a certain old crone, Iambe, joked the goddess and made her smile. For that reason they say that the women break jests at the Thesmophoria.

 

But Metanira, wife of Celeus, had a child and Demeter received it to nurse, and wishing to make it immortal she set the babe of nights on the fire and stripped off its mortal flesh. But as Demophon -- for that was the child's name-- grew marvelously by day, Praxithea watched, and discovering him buried in the fire she cried out; wherefore the babe was consumed by the fire and the goddess revealed herself.

 

[2]  But for Triptolemus, the elder of Metanira's children, she made a chariot of winged dragons, and gave him wheat, with which, wafted through the sky, he sowed the whole inhabited earth. But Panyasis affirms that Triptolemus was a son of Eleusis, for he says that Demeter came to him. Pherecydes, however, says that he was a son of Ocean and Earth.

 

[3] But when Zeus ordered Hades to send up the Maid, Hades gave her a seed of a pomegranate to eat, in order that she might not tarry long with her mother. Not foreseeing the consequence, she swallowed it; and because Ascalaphus, son of Acheron and Gorgyra, bore witness against her, Demeter laid a heavy rock on him in Hades. But Persephone was compelled to remain a third of every year with Hades and the rest of the time with the gods.

 

[Apoll. 1.6.1] VI. Such is the legend of Demeter.

 

[Paus 9.25.5] Advancing from here twenty-five stades you come to a grove of Cabeirean Demeter and the Maid. The initiated are permitted to enter it. The sanctuary of the Cabeiri is some seven stades distant from this grove. I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honor of them and of the Mother. [6] But there is nothing to prevent my declaring to all what the Thebans say was the origin of the ritual. They say that once there was in this place a city, with inhabitants called Cabeiri; and that Demeter came to know Prometheus, one of the Cabeiri, and Aetnaelis his son, and entrusted something to their keeping. What was entrusted to them, and what happened to it, seemed to me a sin to put into writing, but at any rate the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Cabeiri.

 

[Paus. 8.4.1] After the death of Nyctimus, Arcas the son of Callisto came to the throne. He introduced the cultivation of crops, which he learned from Triptolemus, and taught men to make bread, to weave clothes, and other things besides, having learned the art of spinning from Adristas. After this king the land was called Arcadia instead of Pelasgia and its inhabitants Arcadians instead of Pelasgians. [2] His wife, according to the legend, was no mortal woman but a Dryad nymph. For they used to call some nymphs Dryads, others Epimeliads, and others Naiads, and Homer in his poetry talks mostly of Naiad nymphs. This nymph they call Erato, and by her they say that Arcas had Azan, Apheidas and Elatus. Previously he had had Autolaus, an illegitimate son.

 

[Apoll. 3.9.1] [Others say] Arcas [begat his] two sons, Elatus and Aphidas, by Leanira, daughter of Amyclas, or by Meganira, daughter of Croco, or, according to Eumelus, by a nymph Chrysopelia.

 

[Apoll. 3.14.4] And Adonis, while still a boy, was wounded and killed in hunting by a boar through the anger of Artemis. Hesiod, however, affirms that he was a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea; and Panyasis says that he was a son of Thias, king of Assyria, who had a daughter Smyrna. In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honor the goddess, this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the complicity of her nurse she shared her father's bed without his knowledge for twelve nights. But when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and pursued her, and being overtaken she prayed to the gods that she might be invisible; so the gods in compassion turned her into the tree which they call smyrna ( myrrh ). Ten months afterwards the tree burst and Adonis, as he is called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while he was still an infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted to Persephone. But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him back. The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and the god ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the year, with Persephone for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remainder. However Adonis made over to Aphrodite his own share in addition; but afterwards in hunting he was gored and killed by a boar.

 

1419 BC

 

[Apoll. 3.4.3] But Zeus loved Semele and bedded with her unknown to Hera. Now Zeus had agreed to do for her whatever she asked, and deceived by Hera she asked that he would come to her as he came when he was wooing Hera. Unable to refuse, Zeus came to her bridal chamber in a chariot, with lightnings and thunderings, and launched a thunderbolt. But Semele expired of fright, and Zeus, snatching the sixth-month abortive child from the fire, sewed it in his thigh. On the death of Semele the other daughters of Cadmus spread a report that Semele had bedded with a mortal man, and had falsely accused Zeus, and that therefore she had been blasted by thunder. But at the proper time Zeus undid the stitches and gave birth to Dionysus, and entrusted him to Hermes. And he conveyed him to Ino and Athamas, and persuaded them to rear him as a girl. But Hera indignantly drove them mad, and Athamas hunted his elder son Learchus as a deer and killed him, and Ino threw Melicertes into a boiling cauldron, then carrying it with the dead child she sprang into the deep. And she herself is called Leucothea, and the boy is called Palaemon, such being the names they get from sailors; for they succour storm-tossed mariners. And the Isthmian games were instituted by Sisyphus in honor of Melicertes. But Zeus eluded the wrath of Hera by turning Dionysus into a kid, and Hermes took him and brought him to the nymphs who dwelt at Nysa in Asia, whom Zeus afterwards changed into stars and named them the Hyades.

 

c.1418 BC

 

[Apoll. 3.1.2] [Hdts. 1.173.1] [Paus. 7.2.5] The Lycians are in good truth anciently from Crete; which island, in former days, was wholly peopled with barbarians.

 

Now Asterius, prince of the Cretans, married Europa and brought up her children. But when they were grown up, they quarrelled with each other as to which of them should be king; for they loved a boy called Miletus, son of Apollo by Aria, daughter of Cleochus. As the boy was more friendly to Sarpedon, Minos went to war and his party had the better of it, and Sarpedon and his followers were driven into banishment.

 

The exiles sailed to Asia, and landed on the Milyan territory. Milyas was the ancient name of the country now inhabited by the Lycians: the Milyae of the present day were, in those times, called Solymi.

 

Sarpedon allied himself with Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians, and having stipulated for a share of the country, he became king of Lycia. And Zeus granted him to live for three generations. But some say that they loved Atymnius, the son of Zeus and Cassiepea, and that it was about him that they quarrelled.

 

So long as Sarpedon reigned, his followers kept the name which they brought with them from Crete, and were called Termilae, as the Lycians still are by those who live in their neighbourhood. 

 

Miletus and his men, fleeing from Minos, landed in Caria and the Carians, the former inhabitants of the land, united with the Cretans and there Miletus founded a city which he called Miletus after himself.

 

The Milesians themselves give the following account of their earliest history. For two generations, they say, their land was called Anactoria, during the reigns of Anax, an aboriginal, and of Asterius his son; but when Miletus landed with an army of Cretans both the land and the city changed their name to Miletus.

 

Rhadamanthys legislated for the islanders but afterwards he fled to Boeotia and married Alcmena ; and since his departure from the world he acts as judge in Hades along with Minos. Minos, residing in Crete, passed laws, and married Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun and Perseis; but Asclepiades says that his wife was Crete, daughter of Asterius. He begat sons, to wit, Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, and Androgeus: and daughters, to wit, Acalle, Xenodice, Ariadne, Phaedra; and by a nymph Paria he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, Chryses, and Philolaus; and by Dexithea he had Euxanthius.

 

1417 BC

 

[Paus. 3.1.2] [Apoll. 3.10.3] Eurotas ( who was a son of Lelex, a son of the soil, by a Naiad nymph Cleocharia ), having no male issue, he left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygete, after whom the mountain was named, while according to report his father was none other than Zeus. Lacedaemon was wedded to Sparta, a daughter of Eurotas and had a son Amyclas and a daughter Eurydice, whom Acrisius married.. When he came to the throne, he first changed the names of the land and its inhabitants, calling them after himself, and next he founded and named after his wife a city, which even down to our own day has been called Sparta.

 

[Hdts. 1.56.1] ... {The modern Lacedaemonians and the Athenians} held from very, early times the most distinguished place in Greece, the (one) being a Pelasgic, the other a Hellenic people, and the one having never quitted its original seats, while the other had been excessively migratory; for during the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was the country in which the Hellenes dwelt, but under Dorus, the son of Hellen, they moved to the tract at the base of Ossa and Olympus, which is called Histiaeotis; forced to retire from that region by the Cadmeians, they settled, under the name of Macedni, in the chain of Pindus. Hence they once more removed and came to Dryopis; and from Dryopis having entered the Peloponnese in this way, they became known as Dorians.

 

[1.57.1] What the language of the Pelasgi was I cannot say with any certainty. If, however, we may form a conjecture from the tongue spoken by the Pelasgi of the present day- those, for instance, who live at Creston above the Tyrrhenians, who formerly dwelt in the district named Thessaliotis, and were neighbours of the people now called the Dorians- or those again who founded Placia and Scylace upon the Hellespont, who had previously dwelt for some time with the Athenians- or those, in short, of any other of the cities which have dropped the name but are in fact Pelasgian; if, I say, we are to form a conjecture from any of these, we must pronounce that the Pelasgi spoke a barbarous language. If this were really so, and the entire Pelasgic race spoke the same tongue, the Athenians, who were certainly Pelasgi, must have changed their language at the same time that they passed into the Hellenic body; for it is a certain fact that the people of Creston speak a language unlike any of their neighbours, and the same is true of the Placianians, while the language spoken by these two people is the same; which shows that they both retain the idiom which they brought with them into the countries where they are now settled.

 

[1.58.1] The Hellenic race has never, since its first origin, changed its speech. This at least seems evident to me. It was a branch of the Pelasgic, which separated from the main body, and at first was scanty in numbers and of little power; but it gradually spread and increased to a multitude of nations, chiefly by the voluntary entrance into its ranks of numerous tribes of barbarians. The Pelasgi, on the other hand, were, as I think, a barbarian race which never greatly multiplied.

 

[Paus. 9.34.6] Over against Mount Laphystius is Orchomenus, as famous a city as any in Greece. Once raised to the greatest heights of prosperity, it too was fated to fall almost as low as Mycenae and Delos. Its ancient history is confined to the following traditions. They say that Andreus, son of the river Peneius, was the first to settle here, and after him the land Andreis was named.

 

[Paus. 9.34.8] According to the report of the citizens, Eteocles was the son of the river Cephisus, wherefore some of the poets in their verses called him Cephisiades.

 

[Paus. 9.34.10] When this Eteocles became king, he let the country be still called after Andreus, but he established two tribes, naming one Cephisias, and the other after himself. When Almus, the son of Sisyphus, came to him, he gave him to dwell in a little of the land, and a village was then called Almones after this Almus. Afterwards the name of the village that was generally adopted was Olmones.

 

[Paus. 9.35.1] The Boeotians say that Eteocles was the first man to sacrifice to the Graces. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Graces, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them. The Lacedaemonians, however, say that the Graces are two, and that they were instituted by Lacedaemon, son of Taygete, who gave them the names of Cleta and Phaenna. [2] These are appropriate names for Graces, as are those given by the Athenians, who from of old have worshipped two Graces, Auxo and Hegemone. Carpo is the name, not of a Grace, but of a Season. The other Season is worshipped together with Pandrosus by the Athenians, who call the goddess Thallo. [3] It was from Eteocles of Orchomenus that we learned the custom of praying to three Graces. And Angelion and Tectaus, sons of Dionysus, who made the image of Apollo for the Delians, set three Graces in his hand. Again, at Athens, before the entrance to the Acropolis, the Graces are three in number; by their side are celebrated mysteries which must not be divulged to the many. [4] Pamphos was the first we know of to sing about the Graces, but his poetry contains no information either as to their number or about their names. Homer (he too refers to the Graces ) makes one the wife of Hephaestus, giving her the name of Grace. He also says that Sleep was a lover of Pasithea, and in the speech of Sleep there is this verse:--

 

Verily that he would give me one of the younger Graces.

 

Hence some have suspected that Homer knew of older Graces as well. [5] Hesiod in the Theogony (though the authorship is doubtful, this poem is good evidence ) says that the Graces are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, giving them the names of Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia. The poem of Onomacritus agrees with this account. Antimachus, while giving neither the number of the Graces nor their names, says that they are daughters of Aegle and the Sun. The elegiac poet Hermesianax disagrees with his predecessors in that he makes Persuasion also one of the Graces. [6] Who it was who first represented the Graces naked, whether in sculpture or in painting, I could not discover. During the earlier period, certainly, sculptors and painters alike represented them draped. At Smyrna, for instance, in the sanctuary of the Nemeses, above the images have been dedicated Graces of gold, the work of Bupalus; and in the Music Hall in the same city there is a portrait of a Grace, painted by Apelles. At Pergamus likewise, in the chamber of Attalus, are other images of Graces made by Bupalus; [7] and near what is called the Pythium there is a portrait of Graces, painted by Pythagoras the Parian. Socrates too, son of Sophroniscus, made images of Graces for the Athenians, which are before the entrance to the Acropolis. All these are alike draped; but later artists, I do not know the reason, have changed the way of portraying them. Certainly to-day sculptors and painters represent Graces naked.

 

1415 BC

 

[Paus 2.30.5] ... Bordering on Epidauria are the Troezenians, unrivalled glorifiers of their own country. They say that Orus was the first to be born in their land. Now, in my opinion, Orus is an Egyptian name and utterly un-Greek; but they assert that he became their king, and that the land was called Oraea after him and that Althepus, the son of Poseidon and of Leis, the daughter of Orus, inheriting the kingdom after Orus, named the land Althepia. [6] During his reign, they say, Athena and Poseidon disputed about the land, and after disputing held it in common, as Zeus commanded them to do. For this reason they worship both Athena, whom they name both Polias (Urban ) and Sthenias (Strong ), and also Poseidon, under the surname of King. And moreover their old coins have as device a trident and a face of Athena.

 

1404 BC

 

[Paus 1.2.5] [Apoll. 3.14.6] At Athens after the precinct of Apollo is a building that contains earthen ware images, Amphictyon, king of Athens, feasting Dionysus and other gods. Here also is Pegasus of Eleutherae, who introduced the god to the Athenians. Herein he was helped by the oracle at Delphi, which called to mind that the god once dwelt in Athens in the days of Icarius. Amphictyon won the kingdom thus. It is said that Actaeus was the first king of what is now Attica. When he died, Cecrops, the son-in-law of Actaeus, received the kingdom, and there were born to him daughters, Herse, Aglaurus and Pandrosus, and a son Erysichthon. This son did not become king of the Athenians, but happened to die while his father lived, and the kingdom of Cecrops fell to Cranaus, the most powerful of the Athenians. They say that Cranaus had daughters, and among them Atthis; and from her they call the cou