No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Meges and Otus of Cyllene
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Meges, ruler of the men of Dulichium and the Echinades, is a personage who has occasioned some trouble to the commentators on the Iliad. The difficulties are stated fully, perhaps over-fully, by Walter Leaf (Homer and History, London, 1915, pp. 161 f.):
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Classical Association 1968
References
page 195 note 1 Iliad 2. 625 ff.Google Scholar
page 195 note 2 This is Leaf's name for the short catalogue in the passage Iliad 13. 685 ff.Google Scholar
page 195 note 3 i.e. the Catalogue of Ships, , Iliad 2. 494–759.Google Scholar
page 195 note 4 The Epeians (Iliad 13. 692, 15. 518Google Scholar). Page, D. L., History and the Homeric Iliad, Berkeley, 1959, p. 127, refers to this ‘violent conflict’.Google Scholar
page 195 note 5 Iliad 15. 518.Google Scholar
page 195 note 6 i.e. the ‘Boeotia’ and the ‘Ionia’.
page 195 note 7 The scholium on Iliad 15. 518 refers 
to the naval station of Elis.Google Scholar
page 195 note 8 Leaf gives references to Pausanias 6.26. 4 (with Frazer's note), 8. 5. R; Strabo, 8. 3. 4Google Scholar; Thucydides, 1. 30, 2. 84, 6. 88, etc.Google Scholar
page 195 note 9 Iliad 2. 615 ff.Google Scholar
page 195 note 10 This is an error for ‘Nestor’.
page 195 note 11 Read ‘Amarynkeus’.
page 195 note 12 Otus would then be of the generation of Phyleus (who, it seems, was a young man at the time of the visit of Heracles to Elis and his own exile). Like his other contemporary, Nestor, he would surely be useless in battle? But, if Otus came to Dulichium a generation later than Phyleus, it is difficult to explain how he became a chieftain.
page 195 note 13 The view has often been expressed that Dulichium does not represent a real island—e.g. ‘Dulichion ist im Schiffskatalog eine sicher fixierte Insel: die der Odyssee ist nirgend zu finden; hier widersprechen sich die Gedichte aber auch in betreff des Herrschers’, Wilamowitz, , Archdologischer Anzeiger, 1903 (1), 43Google Scholar. But the Homeric poems seem to me to be fairly well acquainted with the geography of the Western Peloponnesus—how could so little be known about islands visible from Elis? Cf. the sensible remarks on this question by Leaf, , H. & H., p. 157.Google Scholar
page 196 note 1 Philippson, A., Die griechischen Landschaften (Frankfurt am Main, 1950–1959), iii. 328Google Scholar, doubts the placing of Cyllene to the north-east of Glarentza in accordance with this tradition, and inclines to favour Glarentza itself (cf. ibid., p. 330).
page 196 note 2 Bull. Con. Hell, lxxxv (1961), 123–61.Google Scholar
page 196 note 3 Commentary (first edition) on Iliad 2. 629Google Scholar (cf. Allen, T. W., The Homeric Catalogue of Ships, [Oxford, 1921], p. 84, n. 1). But Leaf in his second edition changed his views: ‘In N 692, O 519 Meges is still king of the Epeians; the legend of his migration northwards to the coast of Aitolia [yet on 2. 626 Leaf writes ‘Dulichion cannot be identified’] looks like a reflex of the migration of the Aitolians S. to Elis. Such invasions were commonly justified as bringing back an expelled family to their old realm.’Google Scholar
page 196 note 4 Wilamowitz, , Homerische Vntersuchungen (= Philolog. Unters. vii [1884]), p. 185, n. 28Google Scholar, expresses the position more accurately: Dulichium in the Odyssey ‘zum reiche des Odysseus zu gehören scheint’ (my italics). Acastus (Od. 14. 336Google Scholar) is mentioned as basileus of Dulichium; Nisus, son of Aretius, was, or had been, anax in the same island (Od. 16. 396 and 18. 127Google Scholar). Both terms are too vague to show the independence of Dulichium from Odysseus. It is, perhaps, just worth remark that a late epigram (‘Aristotle’, Peplus 25 (19)Google Scholar= Bergk, PLG ii 4, p. 349) states Meges was lost at sea (presumably on his return voyage from Troy) and honoured with a cenotaph in Dulichium.Google Scholar
page 196 note 5 The main sources are Diodorus, 4. 33. 4Google Scholar, Apollodorus, Bibl. 2. 7. 2Google Scholar, and Pausanias cited below. Further notices in the scholiasts are listed in Roscher's, Ausführ. Lex. d. griech. u. röm. Mythologie, s. vv. ‘Augeias’ and ‘Phyleus.’.Google Scholar
page 196 note 6 Pausanias, 5. 3. 1. and 3.Google Scholar
page 197 note 1 Agasthenes was one of the sons of Augeas (Iliad 2. 624Google Scholar). The following argument may also be considered: if the version in Pausanias, 5. 3. 1Google Scholar was written to harmonize with the Catalogue, then perhaps the story of Amarynceus aiding Augeas is a similar fabrication, inspired by Iliad 2. 622Google Scholar (cf. Pausanias, 5. 1. 10 and 5. 3. 4).Google Scholar
page 197 note 2 My colleague, Mr. M. J. Vickers, has drawn to my attention the paper (‘La site helladique de Khélmoutsi et l’Hyrminé homérique)’ of Servais, J. in Bull. Con. Hell. lxxxviii (1964), 9 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which shows that Apollodorus (ap. Strabo, 8. 3. 10Google Scholar) almost certainly identified Chlemutsi, the highest point of Chelonatas, with the Homeric Hyrmine (Iliad 2. 616). If this identification by Apollodorus be correct (a question that seems to me to be open) then, of course, Chelonatas cannot have been Dulichium.Google Scholar