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The Shield of Heracles and the legend of Cycnus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. Janko
R. Janko
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Columbia University
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Extract

Much has been written on the genesis of the pseudo-hesiodic Shield of Heracles — so much, that true progress is difficult to discern among the welter of theories. But some has been made, although the conclusions that have been reached must be regarded as likely hypotheses rather than proven facts. In this article I propose to proceed from some of these conclusions, ensuring that they are as firmly grounded as possible, to an assessment of how this poem's version of the combat of Heracles and Cycnus relates to the likely circumstances and occasion of its original performance. This will involve considering the legend's variants (including one from the Cycle that has not been discussed in relation to the Aspis), and a new look at the first half of the Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 38 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 The following will be referred to by author's name only:

Andersen, L., ‘The Shield of Heracles — problems of genesis’, C&M 30 (1969), 10–26Google Scholar

Fontenrose, J., Python: a Study of Delphic Myth and its Origins, Berkeley, 1959Google Scholar

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2 Those of Andersen and Vara Donado. There is certainly enough linguistic evidence to exclude Hesiodic authorship, as Edwards, G. P. showed (The Language of Hesiod in its Traditional Context, Oxford, 1970, esp. 196f.)Google Scholar. Neither Vara Donado's extensive list of Hesiodic and post-Homeric forms in the poem, nor Andersen's quantification of its formulae and formular expressions, can prove Hesiod its author.

3 See Cohen, I. M., The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (Diss. Toronto, 1983), esp. Ch. VIIGoogle Scholar; Janko 85–7, 221ff.; and now West, M. L., The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (Oxford, 1985), 125ffGoogle Scholar.

4 Hyp. A 1ff. Vara Donado's argument (315f.) that there is a prima facie case for authenticity, since nobody else challenged the poem in antiquity, is not cogent: Apollonius Rhodius is also responding to such a challenge (Schwartz 459 with n. 8).

5 Cf. Förstel 272–84; Burkert, W., ‘Kynaithos, Polycrates and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo’, in Arktouros: Hellenic Studies presented to B. M. W. Knox (Berlin/New York, 1979), 53–62Google Scholar; Janko 109–14 with nn. (both independently dating this event to 523/2 b.c.). On the intercalary verses at the juncture, 55f., cf. van Groningen, B. A., La Composition littéraire archaïque grecque (ed. 2, Amsterdam, 1960), 110f.Google Scholar, and Förstel 144f. on Hy. Ap. 179ff.

6 So Wilamowitz, , Hermes 40 (1905), 122Google Scholar; contra, Bethe, E., Homer: Dichtung und Sage (Leipzig/Berlin, 1914), i. 9nGoogle Scholar. For further controversy see van Groningen loc. cit. Schwartz 461ff. wishes to exclude 15–46 from the Ehoie, on the grounds that they are inconsistent with the continuation, but cf. Guillon 29–38, esp. 36.

7 Fr. Solmsen, , Hesiodi Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Mazon, P., Hésiode (Paris, 1928), 121Google Scholar; van Groningen, op. cit. 118; West on Hesiod, Th. 590–1; Förstel 123–8; Janko 2ff.

9 Shapiro has now demonstrated wide knowledge of the poem among the (mainly Attic) vase-painters who portrayed this subject some 120 times between c. 565 and 480; on possible political reasons for its popularity, see the same scholar's ‘Herakles, Kyknos and Delphi’, in Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Ancient Greek and Related Pottery, Allard Pierson Series, 5 (Amsterdam, forthcoming 1985/1986)Google Scholar. I am most grateful to the author for a preview of this article.

10 298 is found only in two MSS which omit 283; one deletes it anyway. It is a mélange of 282a and 283b, created because of the homoearchon in those lines, then omitted and reinserted in the wrong place. Rzach, Mazon and Russo, but not Solmsen, sweep it into the outer darkness it deserves.

11 Cf. Russo 15f. Solmsen follows Wilamowitz, art. cit. 117, in excising the line. On this passage see also Mazon ad loc.; Gigante, M., Athenaeum 33 (1955), 337–42Google Scholar; Merkelbach, , SIFC 27–8 (1956), 300f.Google Scholar; van der Valk, ‘Bouclier’ 462f.

12 ‘Bouclier’ passim. See Andersen 21f. for a refutation of van Groningen's hesitant exclusion of 237–317.

13 Cf. Russo 14f.

14 So Russo 32. If West, , ap. CQ 55 (1961), 140Google Scholar, is right to conjecture Μίμαν τε at 186, Clitias was correct; but this does not diminish the probability that the poem influenced the vase-painter, since the combat of Heracles and Cycnus begins to appear on vases very soon afterwards. Stewart, A., in ‘Stesichorus and the François Vase’ in Ancient Greek Art and Iconography, ed. Moon, W. G. (Wisconsin, 1983)Google Scholar, argues from the unparalleled substitution of ‘Stesichore’ for the Muse Terpsichore that Clitias was influenced by Stesichorus, whose influence on Attic vase-painting from c. 550 onward is beyond doubt. But Clitias is often inaccurate with names (cf. Neils, J., AJA 88 [1984], 609CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Stewart does not mention the Aspis. His proposal would be easier with an early dating of Stesichorus, but this is problematic: cf. West, , ‘Stesichorus’, CQ 21 (1971), 302–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who after a thorough survey of the evidence favours a floruit of c. 570–40. For authorities supporting a date of c. 600, cf. Stewart, art. cit. 56nn.

15 See n. 9.

16 Cf. Davison, J. A., Eranos 53 (1955), 137f.Google Scholar; Schwartz 551f., and Ducat, R., REG 77 (1964), 283f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, both also sceptical; Guillon 14ff.; van der Valk, ‘Bouclier’ 450ff.; Andersen 10ff.

17 For such a pious fraud the addition of the Pythian section to the Hymn to Delian Apollo, certainly thought Homeric because of its sphragis, provides an obvious parallel: the first part of each poem confers a spurious legitimacy on the second. Cf. above n. 5.

18 References to earlier poets (but not to the names of their poems) occur in choral lyric more commonly than is recognised: cf. Simonides, PMG 564.4Google Scholar (Homer, Stesichorus; Simonides' words are quoted to prove that the Ἆθλα ⋯π⋯ Πελίᾳ was genuinely by Stesichorus); Pratinas 713 (Olympus, Thales, Xenodamus); Bacch. 5.192 (Hesiod), fr. 48 (Homer); Pindar, , Py. 4.277Google Scholar, Nem. 7.21, Is. 4.41, Pae. 7b.11, frr. 264f. (Homer), Is. 6.67 (Hesiod); Corinna, PMG 664(a) (Myrtis, Pindar)Google Scholar; Timotheus, , Persae 225 (Terpander)Google Scholar.

19 So Russo 29; Vürtheim 23f.

20 Cf. Andersen 15; López Eire 329–33 and below.

21 See Bux, P.-W.RE xv. 124f.Google Scholar, s.v. Megakleides, where Hyp. A. is unmentioned; and the Scholia to Homer, Il. 5.640, 10.274, 16.140, 21.195 (not in Bux), 22. 36, 205, Od. 6.206.

22 Page, on PMG 269Google Scholar ascribes the emendation to G. F. Schoemann (1869).

23 211; so too West, , CQ 21 (1971), 305Google Scholar.

24 See above, n. 14.

25 But see Hooker, J. T., The Language and Text of the Lesbian Poets (Innsbruck, 1977), 80ffGoogle Scholar.

26 ‘Bouclier’ 466f.

27 See below, and also Janko 225–8.

28 Cf. ibid. 248 n. 38; for the standard view see now West, , The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 130ffGoogle Scholar. On this Ehoie see further Janko, , ‘Hesiod's Catalogue on the death of Actaeon’, Phoenix 39 (1985)Google Scholar. Additional evidence for the northern Greek provenience of Cyrene, a minor deity even before she became a colony, is that a Cyrene was the mother of Thracian Diomedes by Ares ([Apollod.] 2.5.8.), unless Malten is right to emend the name to Pyrene, (Kyrene, Berlin, 1911, 65)Google Scholar.

29 Janko 85–7, and for the statistical method on which these conclusions depend, Chs 3–4 in general. Lest I be thought to be relying too much on this author's conclusions, see the review of Fowler, R. L., Phoenix 37 (1983), 345ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Cf. Guillon 21.

31 See Janko 77ff.

32 Russo 34 n. 37.

33 Cf. Janko 76, 78. Another linguistic feature, found only here in the extant epos, is the use of non-Attic-Ionic forms of the nom. plur. of the demonstrative pronoun ⋯ in line-initial position throughout the poem, except for a portion containing several doublets. Thus τοί and ταί occur at 176, 239, 278, 282 = 283 [ = 298], 345, οἱ and αἱ at 280, 291 = 293, 292 = 296, 301, 310 and 405. This is not an accident due to a Renaissance editor, but represents the paradosis, as checking of Paris MSS gr. 2763, 2772, 2773, 2833 and Suppl. 663 revealed. Evidently there is no direct relation to the problem of doublets; we cannot determine whether the fluctuation represents partial normalisation by an early rhapsode or editor (perhaps after insertion of doublets by a bard who used oἱ/αἱ), or an effort to be ‘correct’ by the poet himself, who had initially forgotten to use οἱ/αἱ, or a mixture of both processes.

34 ‘The date of the Hesiodic Shield’, CQ 31 (1937), 204–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 ‘Hesiod's “Shield of Herakles”: its structure and workmanship’, JHS 61 (1941), 17–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 22–35; cf. Guillon 20f.

37 Guillon 52; Russo (ed. 2, 212) has retracted his theory (34f.) that the poet was Attic, not Boeotian.

38 Hymn to Pythian Apollo 230ff., Hymn to Hermes 186; cf. Schol. b on Il. 2.506.

39 On the historical context of this alliance cf. Jeffery 74f.

40 Cf. ‘The structure of the Homeric Hymns: a study in genre’, Hermes 109 (1981), 9–24, esp. 14fGoogle Scholar.

41 Ap. P.-W., RE xviii. 2304Google Scholar, s.v. Pagasai (followed by Andersen 15). This is supposed to have happened when the lords of Pherae brought the shrine into prominence and close contact with Delphi after their victorious participation in the First Sacred War: cf. Stählin, F., Meyer, E. & Heidner, A., Pagasai and Demetrias (Berlin, 1934), 169Google Scholar. Farnell, L. R., The Cults of the Greek States (Oxford, 1907), 272ff.Google Scholar, thought Cycnus belonged to a class of warlike priests associated with human sacrifices to Apollo.

42 ‘Herakles, Kyknos and Delphi’, sup. cit. (n. 9).

43 Cf. Hdt. 1.61.3; Shapiro, art. cit. with nn. 29–34. If Thebes was on the side of Crisa in the First Sacred War, we might expect the Theban to favour the anti-Alcmeonid faction of Pisistratus in his bid for power. Though shadowy, the picture is at least coherent.

44 Mnem. 18 (1965), 414Google Scholar. Guillon's theory is taken seriously by Chamoux, F., RPh 39 (1965), 307f.Google Scholar; cf. also Ducat, R., REG 77 (1964), 283–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Forrest, W. G., JHS 86 (1966), 173CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 ‘The myth of the First Sacred War’, CQ 28 (1978), 38–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Historia 29 (1980), 242–6Google Scholar. The key evidence is surely the end of the Hymn to Pythian Apollo, which has yet to be satisfactorily explained by other means.

47 Cf. Forrest, , BCH 80 (1956), 33–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jeffery 73ff.

48 Cf. Janko 128, with nn. 47f. In fact the main story in the first half of the Hymn evinces hostility towards Boeotia: see below on Apollo's conduct towards Telphousa, consort of Poseidon Hippios.

49 Cf. Defradas, J., Les Thèmes de la propagande delphique (Paris, 1954), 144Google Scholar; Parke, H. W. & Boardman, J., ‘The struggle for the Tripod and the First Sacred War’, JHS 77 (1957), 276–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sordi, M., ‘Mitologia e propaganda nella Beozia antica’, Atene e Roma 11 (1966), 15–24, esp. 17Google Scholar. Williams, D. J. R., in Image et céramique grecque, ed. Lissarrague, F. & Thelamon, F. (Rouen, 1983), 136f.Google Scholar, refers the myth to Alcmeonid propaganda of the 560s; Shapiro (art. cit., n. 9), noting that the struggle ended in reconciliation, to Pisistratid propaganda during the period of the tyranny. It may have been used variously at different times; these suggestions are not mutually exclusive.

50 So Forrest, , JHS 86 (1966), 173CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 18f. This is rebutted by Ducat, art. cit. 286.

52 Cf. P.-W., RE xi. 286fGoogle Scholar. s.v. Keressos (Bölte). Jeffery 76, and Buck, R. G., A History of Boeotia (Edmonton, 1979), 107–12Google Scholar, date the battle to not long before 480, also on the evidence of Plutarch (Mor. 866f, = de Hdt. mal. 33), who unquestionably contradicts himself. But in the latter passage Plutarch has a real axe to grind, and therefore indulges in rhetorical exaggeration; in the other he mentions the battle only in passing. The unreliability of the de Herodoti malignitate is only too well established. Cf. Guillon 69 n. 83, and also below n. 62.

53 This dating is accepted by Russo 34; Solmsen, , Hermes 93 (1965), 19Google Scholar; Jeffery 74f.

54 Russo may, however, be right to excise 398–401 as a doublet (ad loc.).

55 Hermes 40 (1905), 119Google Scholar, followed by Mazon, op. cit. (n. 8) 124f. Jeffery (74) ascribes the poem to a Boeotian summer festival, Guillon (101) to one at Pagasae.

56 Schol. Pind. ad Ol. 7.153 Dr., 9.148, Py. 9.156, Nem. 4.32, Is. 1.11, 79, equate the two; contrast Didymus ap. Schol. Nem. 4.32. Cf. Nilsson, M. P., Griechische Feste von religiösei Bedeutung (Leipzig, 1906), 446f.Google Scholar; Wilamowitz, , Pindaros (Berlin, 1922), 47Google Scholar.

57 IG iv. 801 (= Hansen, , CEG 138Google Scholar). Jeffery, (The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, Oxford, 1961, 176)Google Scholar refers it to the latter festival, Nilsson (loc. cit.) to the former.

58 Schol. Pind. Ol. 7.153 Dr.

59 So, forcefully, Guillon 47.

60 Cf. [Archilochus] fr. 324 West.

61 The events apparently included boxing (Pi. Ol. 7.84), wrestling (Ol. 9.98f., Nem. 4.19ff.), the race in armour (Py. 9.87ff.), the chariot-race (Is. 1.10f., 55), the horse-race (Is. 4.68ff.), and doubtless running (? Bacch. 10.30).

62 The games for Megara's dead children were held outside the Electran gate; their graves were close to those of Iolaus and Amphitryon before the Proetidian gate (cf. Nilsson loc. cit.). A guess as to the poem's exact occasion occurs to me, which is so hypothetical that I hesitate to record it, though I suspect it is at least partly correct: that the Heracleia were instituted to celebrate the victory of Ceressus, and that the Aspis was composed for the inauguration, to which unusual circumstance we owe its preservation.

63 Greek Lyric Poetry (ed. 2, Oxford, 1961), 80fGoogle Scholar.

64 Cf. van der Valk, ‘Bouclier’ 451f. Paley (ad loc.) noted how odd it is that Heracles spends time at so critical a moment telling his helper such disagreeable facts about the latter's father. The poet's apologetic aims have taken precedence over any desire for consistency here.

65 Cf. Wilamowitz, , Der Glaube der Hellenen, i. 316nGoogle Scholar. Russo 30f. has further arguments for the heavy influence on Iliad 5 on the poem.

66 ‘Mythological paradeigma in the Iliad’, CQ 14 (1964), 141–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Cf. Sch. bT on Il. 7.445; Sch. Q on 13.152; Sch. V on Od. 13.185; Eust. 1737.12ff.; and Richardson, N. J., ‘Recognition scenes in the Odyssey and ancient literary criticism’, ARCA (Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar) 4 (1983), 232fGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Scodel, R., HSCP 86 (1982), 33–50Google Scholar.

68 So Bond, G. W., Euripides: Heracles (Oxford, 1981)Google Scholar, ad loc. Cf. Stählin, F., Das hellenische Thessalien (Stuttgart, 1924), 66f.Google Scholar; Meyer, E., P.-W., RE xviii. 2304f.Google Scholar, s.v. Pagasai.

69 ‘Stesichorus fr. 207 P.’, PCPhS 18 (1972), 28–30Google Scholar.

70 Dittenberger, W., Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (ed. 3, Leipzig, 1915–1924), no. 751Google Scholar; cf. W. M. Calder III, The Inscription from Temple G at Selinus, GRBS Monograph 4, and GRBS 5 (1964), 113–19Google Scholar; Meiggs, R. & Lewis, D., A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1969), no. 38Google Scholar.

71 Abel, E., Scholia recentia in Pindari Epinicia, i (no more published) (Budapest/Berlin, 1891)Google Scholar.

72 Wernicke, ap. P.-W., RE i. 2340Google Scholar s.v. Antaios, sees a further parallel in the story that Antaeus' grave was destroyed, like Cycnus', by flood-waters, but relies on a misreading of Pomponius Mela 3.106, who expressly says that the tumulus of Antaeus still exists! Magrath, W. T., TAPA 107 (1977), 203–24Google Scholar, has conclusively proved that the Antaeus whose daughter's suitors race for her hand in Py. 9 is the same figure.

73 οἱ δ⋯ νεώτεροι Ποσειδ⋯νος κα⋯ Ἁρπνίας αὺτ⋯ν (sc. Ἀρίονα) γενεαλογο⋯σιν, οί δ⋯ ⋯ν τῷ Κύκλῳ Ποσειδ⋯νος κα⋯ Ἐρινύος. κα⋯ Ποσειδ⋯ν μ⋯ν αὺτ⋯ν Κοπρεῖ τῷ Ἁλιαρτίῳ δίδωσιν, ⋯ δ⋯ Κοπρεὺς Ἡρακλεῖ, ‹ὃς› κα⋯ Κύκνον ⋯νεῖλεν ⋯ν Παγασαῖς ⋯π' αὺτο⋯ μαχ⋯μενος. ἔπειτα αὐτ⋯ν δίδωσιν ’Aδράστω. Eust. 1304.55ff. derives from this.

74 The text is constituted from the following: Venetus A and B, from the edition of Dindorf, W., Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Oxford, 1875–1877)Google Scholar; D, from Scholia in Homeri Iliadem, quae vocantur Didymi, ed. Lascaris, J. (Rome, 1517, reprinted by F. Asulanus, Venice, 1521)Google Scholar; Gen, from Nicole, J., Les Scholies Genevoises de l'Iliade (Geneva, 1891)Google Scholar; I have also consulted MS Parisinus gr. 2766 (saec. xiv), which is close to D.

75 Heinrich's emendation Τραχῖνι is followed by van der Valk, , Researches 330Google Scholar n. 107, and Fontenrose, 30n. Jacoby (on FGH 316F 5) deems Τροιζ⋯νι a relic of the Peloponnesian version of the myth (see below n. 88). But van der Valk is surely right to reject the entire clause as a clarificatory supplement by D: cf. P. Hamburg 199 col. i 5f., where the equivalent D-Scholia have added an indication (sometimes incorrect) of where Pisa is (Kramer, B. & Hagedorn, D., Griechische Papyri der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg [III], Papyrologische Texte und Untersuchungen 31, Bonn, 1984, 25–34Google Scholar). For the same reason I also bracket π⋯λεως Βοιωτίας.

76 Thebanische Heldenlieder (Leipzig, 1891), 90fGoogle Scholar. So too Severyns 220f., and Burkert, W., ‘Seven against Thebes’, in I Poemi epici rapsodici non omerici e la tradizione oraler, ed. Brillante, C., Cantilena, M. & Pavese, C. O. (Padua, 1981), 29 n. 4Google Scholar; id., Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, 1979), 127.

77 Researches 330, 367f.; similarly Vürtheim 25. The scholium was originally impugned by Schwartz, E.(De Scholiis homericis ad Historiam Fabularem pertinentibus, Jahrb. für class. Phil. Suppl. 12, Leipzig, 1880, 457)Google Scholar, on the ground that the subscription is only an inference from the T-scholium. He is followed by Panzer, J., De Mythographo homerico restituendo (Diss. Greifswald, 1892), 47f.Google Scholar; and cf. Wilamowitz i. 393n.

78 So van der Valk, Ibid. 318ff., 324.

79 Ibid. 367.

80 The papyri reveal that originally, in the early Empire, the ‘Mythographus homericus’ composed a continuous hypomnema, with Homeric lemmata, myths succinctly told, and subscriptions; the order of the historiae followed Homer's text. Thus the subscriptions are not a later addition, as has been held. Cf. Montanari, F., ‘Gli Homerica su papiro: per una distinzione di generi’, Ricerche di Filologia Classics 2 (1984), 125–38, esp. 129–31Google Scholar; id., ‘Revision di P. Berol. 13282. Le historiae fabulares omeriche su papiro’, Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia (Naples, 19–26 05 1983, forthcoming); and now P. Hamburg 199 (above n. 75), all with further bibliography and lists of papyri. On the reliability of the subscriptions, cf. Lünstedt, P., Untersuchungen zu den mythologischen Abschnitten der D-Scholien (Diss. Hamburg, 1961, unpublished)Google Scholar; van der Valk, , Researches 352ff.Google Scholar; Montanari, , Studi di Filologia omerica antica (Pisa, 1979), i. 14f.Google Scholar, who remarks on ‘la sostanziale attendibilità delle sottoscrizioni indicanti la fonte e the attribuiscono le varie ἱστορίαι a molti dei più importanti autori dell'antichità, rivendicando di conseguenza a queste parti degli Scholia D una nobile origin nell'ambito della più autorevole ricerca filologica su Omero e quindi in età antica'. For earlier scepticism see the works cited in n. 77.

81 Cf. Lünstedt, op. cit. 35f.; , van der Valk, Researches 305, 348ffGoogle Scholar.

82 Ibid. 333, 367, on AD 1.5, AD 16.140 (Cypria: both correct); AD 3.242, D 5.126, AD 18.486, D 19.331, AD 23.346, 660 (Cycle). The problem is too complex to be dealt with fully here. Schol. 3.242 is ascribed to Hellanicus, on no very firm grounds (Ibid. 351f.); it could come from the Cypria. 5.126 is ascribed to Pherecydes by bT, but surely the Mythographus could have named two authorities; van der Valk rejects it, on the supposition that the Cycle is cited because the story concerned someone who was mentioned therein (in this case Tydeus) — the Mythographus wanted to give a false appearance of erudition. He rejects 18.486 and 23.346, 660 for the same reason, but largely defends 19.331, although its content is not in Proclus' summary of the Cycle (369ff.). He assumes that the chariot-race in the schol. on 23.346 is an error, and uses this as a prime piece of evidence against the subscription; but we shall see that it is an old detail, not a confusion.

83 Researches 368 n. 226; so too Wilamowitz i. 393.

84 Van der Valk (Ibid. 333 n. 119) thinks Pausanias was trying to appear learned, and had not in fact read the Cycle anyway.

85 ‘The Epic Cycle and the uniqueness of Homer’, JHS 97 (1977), 39–53, esp. 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 So also Wilamowitz i. 392.

87 Simonides, PMG 564Google Scholar, citing Stesichorus and Homer (i.e. the Thebaid??). Cycnus is linked with Pelias by marriage at Nic. Damasc. FGH 90 F 54; in Apollod. 2.7.7 the Peliad Pelopia is his mother. On the Chest of Cypselus, Heracles was judge of the games, and lolaus victor with the chariot, while the daughters of Pelias looked on (Paus. 5.17.9–11); the victory of Iolaus is also attested by Hyginus (273). Cf. P.-W., RE xix. 323 (K. Scherling)Google Scholar; Malten, , Kyrene 308Google Scholar.

88 The successive owners are Oncus or Oncius (cf. Athena Onca of Thebes), Heracles and Adrastus: cf. Paus. 8.25.8–10; Antimachus fr. 33 Wyss; Ariaethus of Tegea, , FGH 316FGoogle Scholar 5 Jacoby. Wilamowitz i. 394 believes that the Boeotian version was modelled on the Arcadian, by a local historian of Boeotia, since neither Poseidon nor Demeter had any place at Telphousa's spring; the historian observed the similarity between the names of the two regions, and invented Copreus from 15.639. This is echoed by van der Valk, (Researches 368 n. 226)Google Scholar, who concedes however that the Boeotian version must antedate the Aspis, since Heracles owns Arion there. Burkert, assigning the Boeotian variant to the Thebaid, implies that it appeared before the Arcadian (Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual 127).

89 See P.-W., RE xi. 1363fGoogle Scholar. (W. Kroll); van der Valk, Ibid.

90 Schol. vet. Soph. Ant. 126; Paus. 8.25.8–10; Callim. fr. 652 with Pfeiffer's n.; P.-W., RE viA 1045ffGoogle Scholar. (Ernst Wüst); Roscher, W. H., Ausführliches Lexikon der gr. u. röm. Mythologie (Leipzig, 1884–1886), i. 475f.Google Scholar; Wilamowitz i. 391ff.; Fontenrose 366ff.; Burkert, op. cit. 127f. with n. 15; id., Griechische Religion (Stuttgart, 1977), 218. The horse's name may be a patronymic of Ares, but appears as Erion on coins of Thelpusa in Arcadia (cf. Erinys? Erichthonius, owner of magical horses?). A shrine of the Praxidikai (evidently the Erinyes under another name), near Mount Tilphusius at Haliartus, was still there in Pausanias' time (9.33.3). A new identification of the spring is proposed by Fontenrose (TAPA 100 [1969], 119–31Google Scholar); a chapel of St Nicolas, usual successor-saint to Poseidon, now occupies the site (Ibid. 129).

91 The inconsistency was noted by Fontenrose, art. cit. 126; it is hard to explain unless there is a polemical intent.

92 Thus should we interpret his phrase Ἄρεος το⋯ντον ⋯κδικο⋯ντον (Fontenrose 31 n. 3). This Cycnus is the same as the Lycaon, son of Ares and Pyrene, whom Heracles kills on his way to the Hesperides, at Eur. Alc. 501ffGoogle Scholar. (cf. Fontenrose 30, and above n. 28).

93 Both were the subject of lost Hesiodic poems: cf. Merkelbach, R. & West, M. L., RhM 108 (1965), 300–17Google Scholar; Huxley, G. L., Greek Epic Poetry (London, 1969), 106ffGoogle Scholar. The Aspis draws on this Hesiodic ‘Cycle’ for its setting.

94 Cf. Shapiro 524 with nn. 8–11.

95 Cf. Robert, C., Die griechische Heldensage (ed. 4, Berlin, 1924), 81f.Google Scholar; Wilamowitz i. 316n.

96 Shapiro 527 n. 55.

97 See Ibid. 529 with nn. 75–7 for this and other proposals.

98 See Fontenrose 40 n. 19. The Peloponnesian equivalent is the labour of the Stymphalian birds. It is surely no coincidence that Ceyx is also a bird (Wilamowitz, loc. cit.).

99 Ap. Paus. 9.9.5 (by an obvious emendation of ΚΑΛΑΙΝΟΣ); Davison, J. A., Eranos 53 (1955), 126, 136Google Scholar, is unnecessarily sceptical.

100 Shapiro 523 n. 5.

101 Greek Lyric Poetry 81; cf. Vürtheim 25.

102 E.g. the Arimaspea; cf. Bolton, J. D. P., Aristeas of Proconnesus(Oxford, 1962), 78, 180f.Google Scholar, and Pearson on Soph. fr. 473 (= fr. 432N.). For further parallels see Onians, R. B., The Origins of European Thought(Cambridge, 1951), 100ff.Google Scholar; E. R. Dodds on Eur. Ba. 1214.

103 Cf. Page, , JHS 93 (1973), 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

104 The journey was set in the north, near the Eridanus, by Pherecydes of Athens (FGH3F 16 Jacoby, with comm.); he is one of Apollodorus' main sources here (, van der Valk, ‘On Apollodori Bibliotheca’, REG 71 [1958], 123f.Google Scholar). In some representations Iolaus went too (Robert, , Die griechische Heldensage 492Google Scholar).

105 πάροδος can mean ‘narrow entrance or approach’, e.g. Thermopylae (LSJ s.v., II), but also ‘way past’ (Ibid. I). Thus this point cannot be pressed.

106 Cf. Shapiro 525 with n. 28.

107 On the date of the introduction of the lionskin see now Brize, P., Die Geryoneis des Stesichoros and die frühe griechische Kunst (Würzburg, 1980), 25fGoogle Scholar.

108 Recently a consensus has emerged that the Mycenaeans used chariots as seen in Homer, i.e. for transporting infantry to and from the fighting: see Littauer, M. A., AJA 76 (1972), 145–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Åkeström, Å., Opuscula Atheniensia 12 (1978), 37Google Scholar; Crouwel, J. H., Chariots and Other Means of Land Transport in Bronze Age Greece (Amsterdam, 1981), 119–51Google Scholar. Yet Nestor's proposal that chariots be used for mass fighting, as by the men of old (Il. 4.301–9), may, as G. S. Kirk says ad loc., suggest dim memories of a technique closer to that used both in the Near East, and in S.W. Anatolia by Attariššiyas the ‘man of Abbiya’ around 1400 b.c. (on whether he was an Achaean see now Güterbock, H. C., AJA 87 [1983], 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar). For evidence for Mycenaean chariot-racing, see Crouwel, op. cit. 142.

109 Myrtilus is possibly a name of W. Anatolian origin (cf. Hittite Muršiliš) — the same area from which Pelops is supposed to have come; the importance of charioteers in diplomatic contacts between the Hittites and the Abbiyawa has lately been reemphasised (Mellink, M. J., AJA 87 [1983], 140Google Scholar).

110 So Wilamowitz i. 316n.

111 So Wilamowitz, loc. cit.

112 Russo 30f.; ‘Bouclier’ 452.

113 Shapiro 524 n. 11.

114 See the app. crit. of Solmsen's ed. Van der Valk, , Mnem. 22 (1969), 432f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, thinks there is no lacuna, but an aposiopesis; nor does Mazon posit a lacuna, but takes λιπών as a suppressed protasis of an unfulfilled conditional sentence, translating ‘s'il avait laissé…’. The latter may be right; if so, it is still implied that someone intervened.

115 Art. cit. (n. 66), esp. 145f.

116 I am most grateful to the Columbia University Council for Research in the Humanities for a travel grant which enabled me to work on this article in the libraries of Cambridge University and at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. I must also thank a seminar audience at Columbia, an anonymous reader, and the editors, for valuable and constructive criticism; Prof. Shapiro for an advance view of his forthcoming article; and Prof. J. S. Rusten for invaluable help with bibliography on the D-Scholia.