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Apollodorus

Apollodorus. The Library. Frazer, James George, Sir, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

After these, Earth bore him the Cyclopes,

to wit, Arges, Steropes, Brontes,[*](Compare Hes. Th. 139ff. ) of whom each had one eye on his forehead. But them Sky bound and cast into Tartarus, a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky.[*](Compare Hes. Th. 617ff. and for the description of Tartarus, Hes. Th. 717ff. According to Hesiod, a brazen anvil would take nine days and nights to fall from heaven to earth, and nine days and nights to fall from earth to Tartarus.)

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.[*](Compare Hes. Th. 132ff. who agrees in describing Cronus as the youngest of the brood. As Zeus, who succeeded his father Cronus on the heavenly throne, was likewise the youngest of his family (Hes. Th. 453ff.), we may conjecture that among the ancient Greeks or their ancestors inheritance was at one time regulated by the custom of ultimogeniture or the succession of the youngest, as to which see Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.429ff. In the secluded highlands of Arcadia, where ancient customs and traditions lingered long, King Lycaon is said to have been succeeded by his youngest son. See Apollod. 3.8.1.)

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.[*](Compare Hes. Th. 156-190. Here Apollodorus follows Hesiod, according to whom the Furies sprang, not from the genitals of Sky which were thrown into the sea, but from the drops of his blood which fell on Earth and impregnated her. The sickle with which Cronus did the deed is said to have been flung by him into the sea at Cape Drepanum in Achaia (Paus. 7.23.4). The barbarous story of the mutilation of the divine father by his divine son shocked the moral sense of later ages. See Plat. Rep. 2, 377e-378a; Plat. Euthyph. 5e-6a; Cicero, De natura deorum ii.24.63ff. Andrew Lang interpreted the story with some probability as one of a worldwide class of myths intended to explain the separation of Earth and Sky. See Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth (London, 1884), pp. 45ff., and as to myths of the forcible separation of Sky and Earth, see E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i.322ff. ) And, having dethroned their father, they brought up their

brethren who had been hurled down to Tartarus, and committed the sovereignty to Cronus.

But he again bound and shut them up in Tartarus, and wedded his sister Rhea; and since both Earth and Sky 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.[*](Compare Hes. Th. 453-467ff. )

Enraged at this, Rhea repaired to Crete, when she was big with Zeus, and brought him forth in a cave of Dicte.[*](According to Hesiod, Rhea gave birth to Zeus in Crete, and the infant god was hidden in a cave of Mount Aegeum (Hes. Th. 468-480). Diod. 5.70 mentions the legend that Zeus was born at Dicte in Crete, and that the god afterwards founded a city on the site. But according to Diodorus, or his authorities, the child was brought up in a cave on Mount Ida. The ancients were not agreed as to whether the infant god had been reared on Mount Ida or Mount Dicte. Apollodorus declares for Dicte, and he is supported by Verg. G. 4.153, Serv. Verg. A. 3.104, and the Vatican Mythographers (Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 34, 79, First Vatican Mythographer 104; Second Vatican Mythographer 16). On the other hand the claim of Mount Ida is favoured by Callimachus, Hymn i.51; Ovid Fasti 4.207; and Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.784. The wavering of tradition on this point is indicated by Apollodorus, who, while he calls the mountain Dicte, names one of the god's nurses Ida.) She gave him to the Curetes and to the nymphs Adrastia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to nurse.

So these nymphs fed the child on the milk of Amalthea;[*](As to the nurture of Zeus by the nymphs, see Callimachus, Hymn 1.46ff.; Diod. 5.70.2ff.; Ovid, Fasti v.111ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 139; Hyginus, Ast. ii.13; Serv. Verg. A. 3.104; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.784; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 34, 79 (First Vatican Mythographer 104; Second Vatican Mythographer 16). According to Callimachus, Amalthea was a goat. Aratus also reported, if he did not believe, the story that the supreme god had been suckled by a goat (Strab. 8.7.5), and this would seem to have been the common opinion (Diod. 5.70.3; Hyginus, Ast. ii.13; Second Vatican Mythographer 16). According to one account, his nurse Amalthea hung him in his cradle on a tree “in order that he might be found neither in heaven nor on earth nor in the sea” (Hyginus, Fab. 139). Melisseus, the father of his nurses Adrastia and Ida, is said to have been a Cretan king (Hyginus, Ast. ii.13); but his name is probably due to an attempt to rationalize the story that the infant Zeus was fed by bees. See Virgil, Geo. 1.149ff. with the note of Serv. Verg. G. 1.153; First Vatican Mythographer 104; Second Vatican Mythographer 16.) 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.[*](As to the Curetes in their capacity of guardians of the infant Zeus, see Callimachus, Hymn i.52ff.; Strab. 10.3.11; Diod. 5.70, 2-4; Lucretius ii.633-639; Verg. G. 3.150ff.; Ovid, Fasti iv.207ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 139; Serv. Verg. A. 3.104; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.784; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 34, 79 (First Vatican Mythographer 104; Second Vatican Mythographer 16). The story of the way in which they protected the divine infant from his inhuman parent by clashing their weapons may reflect a real custom, by the observance of which human parents endeavoured to guard their infants against the assaults of demons. See Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, iii.472ff. ) But Rhea wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus to swallow, as if it were the newborn child.[*](As to the trick by which Rhea saved Zeus from the maw of his father Cronus, see Hes. Th. 485ff.; Paus. 8.36.3; 9.2.7; 9.41.6; 10.24.6; Ovid, Fasti iv.199-206; Hyginus, Fab. 139; Serv. Verg. A. 3.104; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.784; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 34, 79 (First Vatican Mythographer 104; Second Vatican Mythographer 16). The very stone which Cronus swallowed and afterwards spewed out was shown at Delphi down to the second century of our era; oil was daily poured on it, and on festival days unspun wool was laid on it (Paus. 10.24.6). We read that, on the birth of Zeus's elder brother Poseidon, his mother Rhea saved the baby in like manner by giving his father Cronus a foal to swallow, which the deity seems to have found more digestible than the stone, for he is not said to have spat it out again (Paus. 8.8.2). Phalaris, the notorious tyrant of Agrigentum, dedicated in the sanctuary of Lindian Athena in Rhodes a bowl which was enriched with a relief representing Cronus in the act of receiving his children at the hand of Rhea and swallowing them. An inscription on the bowl set forth that it was a present from the famous artist Daedalus to the Sicilian king Cocalus. These things we learn from a long inscription which was found in recent years at Lindus: it contains an inventory of the treasures preserved in the temple of Athena, together with historical notes upon them. See Chr. Blinkenberg, La Chronique du temple Lindien (Copenhagen, 1912), p. 332 (Académie Royale des Sciences et des Lettres de Danemark, Extrait du Bulletin de l'annèe 1912, No. 5-6).)

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,[*](As to the disgorging of his offspring by Cronus, see Hes. Th. 493ff., who, however, says nothing about the agency of Metis in administering an emetic, but attributes the stratagem to Earth (Gaia).) and with their aid Zeus waged the war against Cronus and the Titans.[*](As to the war of Zeus on the Titans, see Hes. Th. 617ff.; Hor. Carm. 3.4.42ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 118.) They fought for

ten years, and Earth prophesied victory[*](The most ancient oracle at Delphi was said to be that of Earth; in her office of prophetess the goddess was there succeeded by Themis, who was afterwards displaced by Apollo. See Aesch. Eum. 1ff.; Paus. 10.5.5ff. It is said that of old there was an oracle of Earth at Olympia, but it no longer existed in the second century of our era. See Paus. 5.14.10. At Aegira in Achaia the oracles of Earth were delivered in a subterranean cave by a priestess, who had previously drunk bull's blood as a means of inspiration. See Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii.147; compare Paus. 7.25.13. In the later days of antiquity the oracle of Earth at Delphi was explained by some philosophers on rationalistic principles: they supposed that the priestess was thrown into the prophetic trance by natural exhalations from the ground, and they explained the decadence of the oracle in their own time by the gradual cessation of the exhalations. The theory is scouted by Cicero. See Plut. De defectu oraculorum 40ff.; Cicero, De divinatione i.19.38, i.36.79, ii.57.117. A similar theory is still held by wizards in Loango, on the west coast of Africa; hence in order to receive the inspiration they descend into an artificial pit or natural hollow and remain there for some time, absorbing the blessed influence, just as the Greek priestesses for a similar purpose descended into the oracular caverns at Aegira and Delphi. See Die Loango Expedition, iii.2, von Dr. E. Pechuel Loesche (Stuttgart, 1907), p. 441. As to the oracular cavern at Delphi and the inspiring exhalations which were supposed to emanate from it, see Diod. 16.26; Strabo 9.3.5; Paus. 10.5.7; Justin xxiv.6.6-9. That the Pythian priestess descended into the cavern to give the oracles appears from an expression of Plutarch (De defectu oraculorum, 51, κατέβη μὲν εἰς τὸ μαντεῖον). As to the oracles of Earth in antiquity, see A. Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire de la Divination dans l'Antiquité, ii.251ff.; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, iii.8ff. ) 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,[*](Compare Hes. Th. 501-506ff. ) 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;[*](Compare Hes. Th. 717ff. ) 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.[*](Compare Hom. Il. 15.187ff.; Plat. Gorg. 523a.)

Now to the Titans were born offspring: to Ocean and Tethys were born Oceanids, to wit, Asia, Styx,

Electra, Doris, Eurynome, Amphitrite, and Metis;[*](Compare Hes. Th. 346-366, who mentions all the Oceanids named by Apollodorus except Amphitrite, who was a Nereid. See Apollod. 1.2.7; Hes. Th. 243.) to Coeus and Phoebe were born Asteria and Latona;[*](As to the offspring of Coeus and Phoebe, see Hes. Th. 404ff. ) to Hyperion and Thia were born Dawn, Sun, and Moon;[*](As to the offspring of Hyperion and Thia, see Hes. Th. 371ff. ) to Crius and Eurybia, daughter of Sea ( Pontus), were born Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses;[*](As to the offspring of Crius and Eurybia, see Hes. Th. 375ff. )

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.[*](As to the offspring of Iapetus and Asia, see Hes. Th. 507-520ff. )

And to Cronus and Philyra was born Chiron, a centaur of double form;[*](It is said that Cronus assumed the shape of a horse when he consorted with Philyra, and that, we are told, was why Chiron was born a centaur, half-man, half-horse. See Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.554.) and to Dawn and Astraeus were born winds and stars;[*](As to the offspring of Dawn and Astraeus, see Hes. Th. 378ff. ) to Perses and Asteria was born Hecate;[*](As to this parentage of Hecate, see Hes. Th. 409ff. But the ancients were not agreed on the subject. See the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iii.467. He tells us that according to the Orphic hymns, Hecate was a daughter of Deo; according to Bacchylides, a daughter of Night; according to Musaeus, a daughter of Zeus and Asteria; and according to Pherecydes, a daughter of Aristaeus.) and to Pallas and Styx were born Victory, Dominion, Emulation, and Violence.[*](For this brood of abstractions, the offspring of Styx and Pallas, see Hes. Th. 383ff.; Hyginus, Fab. p. 30, ed. Bunte.)