Epitome

Apollodorus

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

But when they had put to sea from Argos and arrived for the second time at Aulis, the fleet was windbound, and Calchas said that they could not sail unless the fairest of Agamemnon's daughters were presented as a sacrifice to Artemis; for the goddess was angry with Agamemnon, both because, on shooting a deer, he had said, “ Artemis herself could not ( do it better),”[*](Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 183. The full expression is reported by the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 1.108, οὐδὲ ἡ Ἄρτεμις οὕτως ἂν ἐτόξευσε, “Not even Artemis could have shot like that.” The elliptical phrase is wrongly interpreted by the Sabbaitic scribe. See the Critical Note.) and because Atreus had not sacrificed to her the golden lamb.

On receipt of this oracle, Agamemnon sent Ulysses and Talthybius to Clytaemnestra and asked for Iphigenia, alleging a promise of his to give her to Achilles to wife in reward for his military service. So Clytaemnestra sent her, and Agamemnon set her beside the altar, and was about to slaughter her, when Artemis carried her off to the Taurians

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and appointed her to be her priestess, substituting a deer for her at the altar; but some say that Artemis made her immortal.[*](This account of the attempted sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis and the substitution of a doe agrees with the narrative of the same events in the epic Cypria as summarized by Proclus (Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, p. 19). It is also in harmony with the tragedy of Euripides on the same subject. See Eur. IA 87ff.; Eur. IA 358ff.; Eur. IA 1541ff. Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 183; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 1.108; Hyginus, Fab. 98; Ov. Met. 12.24-38; Dictys Cretensis i.19-22; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 6ff., 141 (First Vatican Mythographer 20; Second Vatican Mythographer 202). Some said that Iphigenia was turned by the goddess into a bear or a bull (Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 183). Dictys Cretensis dispenses with the intervention of Artemis to save Iphigenia; according to him it was Achilles who rescued the maiden from the altar and conveyed her away to the Scythian king.)

After putting to sea from Aulis they touched at Tenedos. It was ruled by Tenes, son of Cycnus and Proclia, but according to some, he was a son of Apollo. He dwelt there because he had been banished by his father.[*](The following story of Tenes, his stepmother's calumny, his banishment, and his elevation to the throne of Tenedos, is similarly told by Paus. 10.14.2-4; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 232; Scholiast on Hom. Il. 1.38; Eustathius on Hom. Il. i.38, p. 33. Eustathius and the Scholiast on Homer call Tenes's sister Leucothea, and give Polyboea as an alternative name of their stepmother. According to Pausanias, the first wife of Cycnus was a daughter of Clytius, not of Laomedon. As to the names, Tzetzes agrees with Apollodorus, whom he probably copied. A rationalized version of the story is told by Diod. 5.83. According to him, Tenes was worshipped after his death as a god by the people of Tenedos, who made a precinct for him and offered sacrifices to him down to late times. No flute-player was allowed to enter the precinct, because a flute-player had borne false witness against Tenes; and the name of Achilles might not be mentioned within it, because Achilles had killed Tenes. Compare Plut. Quaest. Graec. 28.)

For Cycnus had a son Tenes and a daughter Hemithea by Proclia, daughter of Laomedon, but he afterwards married Philonome, daughter of Tragasus; and she fell in love with Tenes, and, failing to seduce him, falsely accused him to Cycnus of attempting to debauch her, and in witness of it she produced a flute-player, by name Eumolpus.