Epitome

Apollodorus

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

Menelaus went with Ulysses and Talthybius to Cinyras in Cyprus and tried to persuade him to join the allies. He made a present of breastplates to the absent Agamemnon,[*](Compare Hom. Il. 11.19ff., who describes only one richly decorated breastplate.) and swore he would send fifty ships, but he sent only one, commanded by the son of Mygdalion, and the rest he moulded out of earth and launched them in the sea.[*](Compare Eustathius on Hom. Il. 11.20, p. 827, who says that, according to some people, Cinyras “swore to Menelaus at Paphos that he would send fifty ships, but he despatched only one, and the rest he fashioned of earth and sent them with earthen men in them; thus he cunningly evaded his oath by keeping it with an earthenware fleet.” Compare the Townley Scholiast on Hom. Il. 11.20, ed. E. Maass (Oxford, 1887), vol. i. p. 378. Wagner may be right in supposing that this ruse of the Cyprian king was recorded in the epic Cypria, though it is not mentioned in the brief summary of the poem compiled by Proclus. See R. Wagner, Epitoma Vaticana ex Apollodori Bibliotheca, pp. 181ff. A different account of the Greek embassy to Cinyras is given by Alcidamas, Od. 20ff., pp. 181ff., ed. Blass. He says that Cinyras bribed the Greek envoy Palamedes to relieve him from military service, and that, though he promised to send a hundred ships, he sent none at all.)

The daughters of Anius, the son of Apollo, to wit,

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Elais, Spermo, and Oeno, are called the Wine-growers: Dionysus granted them the power of producing oil, corn, and wine from the earth.[*](As to these three women, the Winegrowers (Oinotrophoi, or Oinotropoi) see Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 29ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 570, 581; Scholiast on Hom. Od. vi.164; Ov. Met. 13.632-674; Serv. Verg. A. 3.80; Dictys Cretensis i.23. Each of the Winegrowers received from Dionysus the power of producing the thing from which she derived her name; thus Elais, who took her name from ἐλαία, “an olive,” could produce olive oil; Spermo, who took her name from σπέρμα, “seed,” could produce corn; and Oeno, who took her name from οἶνος, “wine,” could produce wine. According to Apollodorus, the women elicited these products from the ground; but according to Ovid and Servius, whatever they touched was turned into olive-oil, corn, or wine, as the case might be. Possessing these valuable powers, the daughters of Anius were naturally much sought after. Their father, a son of Apollo, was king of Delos and at the same time priest of his father Apollo (Verg. A. 3.80), and when Aeneas visited the island on his way from Troy, the king, with pardonable pride, dwelt on his daughters' accomplishments and on the income they had brought him in (Ov. Met. 13.650ff.) It is said by Tzetzes that when the Greeks sailed for Troy and landed in Delos, the king, who had received the gift of prophecy from his divine sire (Diod. 5.62.2), foretold that Troy would not be taken for ten years, and invited them to stay with him for nine years, promising that his daughters would find them in food all the time. This hospitable offer was apparently not accepted at the moment; but afterwards, when the Greeks were encamped before Troy, Agamemnon sent for the young women and ordered them peremptorily to feed his army. This they did successfully, if we may believe Tzetzes; but, to judge by Ovid's account, they found the work of the commissariat too exacting, for he says that they took to flight. Being overtaken by their pursuers, they prayed to Dionysus, who turned them into white doves. And that, says Servius, is why down to this day it is deemed a sin to harm a dove in Delos. From Tzetzes we learn that the story of these prolific damsels was told by Pherecydes and by the author of the epic Cypria, from whom Pherecydes may have borrowed it. Stesichorus related how Menelaus and Ulysses went to Delos to fetch the daughters of Anius (Scholiast on Hom. Od. vi.164). If we may judge from the place which the brief mention of these women occupies in the Epitome of Apollodorus, we may conjecture that in his full text he described how their services were requisitioned to victual the fleet and army assembling at Aulis. The conjecture is confirmed by the statement of Dictys Cretensis, that before the Greek army set sail from Aulis, it had received a supply of corn, wine, and other provisions from Anius and his daughters. It may have been in order to ensure these supplies that Menelaus and Ulysses repaired to Delos for the purpose of securing the persons of the women.)

The armament mustered in Aulis. The men who went to the Trojan war were as follows[*](As to list of the Greek forces which mustered at Aulis, see Hom. Il. 2.494-759; Eur. IA 253ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 97; Dictys Cretensis i.17. The numbers of the ships and leaders recorded by Apollodorus do not always tally with those of Homer. For example, he gives the Boeotians forty ships, while Homer (Hom. Il. 5.509) gives them fifty; and he says that the Phocians had four leaders, whereas Homer (Hom. Il. 5.517) mentions only two. The question of the catalogue of the Greek forces, and its relation to Homer and history, are fully discussed by Dr. Walter Leaf in his Homer and History (London, 1915). He concludes that the catalogue forms no part of the original but was added to it at a later time by a patriotic Boeotian for the purpose of glorifying his people by claiming that they played a very important part in the Trojan war, although this claim is inconsistent with the statement of Thuc. 1.12 that the Boeotians did not migrate into the country henceforth known as Boeotia until sixty years after the capture of Troy. I agree with Dr. Leaf in the belief, which he energetically maintains in this book, that the Trojan war was not a myth, but a real war, “fought out in the place, and at least generally in the manner, described in Homer,” and that the principal heroes and heroines recorded by Homer were not “faded gods” but men and women of flesh and blood, of whose families and fortunes the memory survived in Greek tradition, though no doubt in course of time many mythical traits and incidents gathered round them, as they have gathered round the memories of the Hebrew patriarchs, of Alexander the Great, of Virgil, and of Charlemagne.):— Of the

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Boeotians, ten leaders: they brought forty ships. Of the Orchomenians, four: they brought thirty ships. Of the Phocians, four leaders: they brought forty ships. Of the Locrians, Ajax, son of Oeleus: he brought forty ships. Of the Euboeans, Elephenor, son of Chalcodon and Alcyone: he brought forty ships. Of the Athenians, Menestheus: he brought fifty ships. Of the Salaminians, Telamonian Ajax: he brought twelve ships.

Of the Argives, Diomedes, son of Tydeus, and his company: they brought eighty ships. Of the Mycenaeans, Agamemnon, son of Atreus and Aerope: a hundred ships. Of the Lacedaemonians, Menelaus, son of Atreus and Aerope: sixty ships. Of the Pylians, Nestor, son of Neleus and Chloris: forty ships. Of the Arcadians, Agapenor: seven ships. Of the Eleans, Amphimachus and his company: forty ships. Of the Dulichians, Meges, son of Phyleus: forty ships. Of the Cephallenians, Ulysses, son of Laertes and Anticlia: twelve ships. Of the Aetolians, Thoas, son of Andraemon and Gorge: he brought forty ships.