Peleus

[3.13.1] Peleus fled to Phthia to the court of Eurytion, son of Actor, and was purified by him, and he received from him his daughter Antigone and the third part of the country.250 And a daughter Polydora was born to him, who was wedded by Borus, son of Perieres.251

[3.13.2] Thence he went with Eurytion to hunt the Calydonian boar, but in throwing a dart at the hog he involuntarily struck and killed Eurytion. Therefore flying again from Phthia he betook him to Acastus at Iolcus and was purified by him.252

[3.13.3] And at the games celebrated in honor of Pelias he contended in wrestling with Atalanta.253 And Astydamia, wife of Acastus, fell in love with Peleus, and sent him a proposal for a meeting254; and when she could not prevail on him she sent word to his wife that Peleus was about to marry Sterope, daughter of Acastus; on hearing which the wife of Peleus strung herself up. And the wife of Acastus falsely accused Peleus to her husband, alleging that he had attempted her virtue. On hearing that, Acastus would not kill the man whom he had purified, but took him to hunt on Pelion. There a contest taking place in regard to the hunt, Peleus cut out and put in his pouch the tongues of the animals that fell to him, while the party of Acastus bagged his game and derided him as if he had taken nothing. But he produced them the tongues, and said that he had taken just as many animals as he had tongues.255 When he had fallen asleep on Pelion, Acastus deserted him, and hiding his sword in the cows’ dung, returned. On arising and looking for his sword, Peleus was caught by the centaurs and would have perished, if he had not been saved by Chiron, who also restored him his sword, which he had sought and found.

[3.13.4] Peleus married Polydora, daughter of Perieres, by whom he had a putative son Menesthius, though in fact Menesthius was the son of the river Sperchius.256

[3.13.5] Afterwards he married Thetis, daughter of Nereus,257 for whose hand Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals; but when Themis prophesied that the son born of Thetis would be mightier than his father, they withdrew.

But some say that when Zeus was bent on gratifying his passion for her, Prometheus declared that the son borne to him by her would be lord of heaven259; and others affirm that Thetis would not consort with Zeus because she had been brought up by Hera, and that Zeus in anger would marry her to a mortal.260 Chiron, therefore, having advised Peleus to seize her and hold her fast in spite of her shape-shifting, he watched his chance and carried her off, and though she turned, now into fire, now into water, and now into a beast, he did not let her go till he saw that she had resumed her former shape.

He married her on Pelion, and there the gods celebrated the marriage with feast and song.262 And Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear,263 and Poseidon gave him horses, Balius and Xanthus, and these were immortal.

[3.13.6] When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia.265 But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis, thus prevented from accomplishing her purpose, forsook her infant son and departed to the Nereids.266 Peleus brought the child to Chiron, who received him and fed him on the inwards of lions and wild swine and the marrows of bears,267 and named him Achilles, because he had not put his lips to the breast268; but before that time his name was Ligyron.

[3.13.7] After that Peleus, with Jason and the Dioscuri, laid waste Iolcus; and he slaughtered Astydamia, wife of Acastus, and, having divided her limb from limb, he led the army through her into the city.269

[3.13.8] When Achilles was nine years old, Calchas declared that Troy could not be taken without him; so Thetis, foreseeing that it was fated he should perish if he went to the war, disguised him in female garb and entrusted him as a maiden to Lycomedes.270 Bred at his court, Achilles had an intrigue with Deidamia, daughter of Lycomedes, and a son Pyrrhus was born to him, who was afterwards called Neoptolemus. But the secret of Achilles was betrayed, and Ulysses, seeking him at the court of Lycomedes, discovered him by the blast of a trumpet.271 And in that way Achilles went to Troy.

He was accompanied by Phoenix, son of Amyntor. This Phoenix had been blinded by his father on the strength of a false accusation of seduction preferred against him by his father’s concubine Phthia. But Peleus brought him to Chiron, who restored his sight, and thereupon Peleus made him king of the Dolopians.272

Achilles was also accompanied by Patroclus, son of Menoetius273 and Sthenele, daughter of Acastus; or the mother of Patroclus was Periopis, daughter of Pheres, or, as Philocrates says, she was Polymele, daughter of Peleus. At Opus, in a quarrel over a game of dice, Patroclus killed the boy Clitonymus, son of Amphidamas, and flying with his father he dwelt at the house of Peleus274 and became a minion of Achilles. . . .

[3.14.1] Cecrops, a son of the soil, with a body compounded of man and serpent, was the first king of Attica, and the country which was formerly called Acte he named Cecropia after himself.275 In his time, they say, the gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive his own peculiar worship. So Poseidon was the first that came to Attica, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the acropolis, he produced a sea which they now call Erechtheis.276 After him came Athena, and, having called on Cecrops to witness her act of taking possession, she planted an olive tree, which is still shown in the Pandrosium.277 But when the two strove for possession of the country, Zeus parted them and appointed arbiters, not, as some have affirmed, Cecrops and Cranaus, nor yet Erysichthon, but the twelve gods.278 And in accordance with their verdict the country was adjudged to Athena, because Cecrops bore witness that she had been the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself, and Poseidon in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attica under the sea.279

[3.14.2] Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus, and had a son Erysichthon, who departed this life childless; and Cecrops had daughters, Agraulus, Herse, and Pandrosus.280 Agraulus had a daughter Alcippe by Ares. In attempting to violate Alcippe, Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon and a nymph Euryte, was detected and killed by Ares.281 Impeached by Poseidon, Ares was tried in the Areopagus before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.282

[3.14.3] Herse had by Hermes a son Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off,283 and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon,284 who had a son Astynous, who had a son Sandocus, who passed from Syria to Cilicia and founded a city Celenderis, and having married Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, begat Cinyras.285 This Cinyras in Cyprus, whither he had come with some people, founded Paphos; and having there married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, he begat Oxyporus and Adonis,286 and besides them daughters, Orsedice, Laogore, and Braesia. These by reason of the wrath of Aphrodite cohabited with foreigners, and ended their life in Egypt.

[3.14.4] And Adonis, while still a boy, was wounded and killed in hunting by a boar through the anger of Artemis.287 Hesiod, however, affirms that he was a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea; and Panyasis says that he was a son of Thias, king of Assyria, who had a daughter Smyrna.

In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honor the goddess, this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the complicity of her nurse she shared her father’s bed without his knowledge for twelve nights.

But when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and pursued her, and being overtaken she prayed to the gods that she might be invisible; so the gods in compassion turned her into the tree which they call smyrna (myrrh).289 Ten months afterwards the tree burst and Adonis, as he is called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while he was still an infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted to Persephone.

But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him back. The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and the god ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the year, with Persephone for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remainder.290 However Adonis made over to Aphrodite his own share in addition; but afterwards in hunting he was gored and killed by a boar.

[3.14.5] When Cecrops died, Cranaus came to the throne291; he was a son of the soil, and it was in his time that the flood in the age of Deucalion is said to have taken place.292 He married a Lacedaemonian wife, Pedias, daughter of Mynes, and begat Cranae, Menaechme, and Atthis; and when Atthis died a maid, Cranaus called the country Atthis.293

[3.14.6] Cranaus was expelled by Amphictyon,294 who reigned in his stead; some say that Amphictyon was a son of Deucalion, others that he was a son of the soil; and when he had reigned twelve years he was expelled by Erichthonius.

Some say that this Erichthonius was a son of Hephaestus and Atthis, daughter of Cranaus, and some that he was a son of Hephaestus and Athena, as follows: Athena came to Hephaestus, desirous of fashioning arms. But he, being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena, and began to pursue her; but she fled. When he got near her with much ado (for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess. In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced.

Him Athena brought up unknown to the other gods, wishing to make him immortal; and having put him in a chest, she committed it to Pandrosus, daughter of Cecrops, forbidding her to open the chest.

But the sisters of Pandrosus opened it out of curiosity, and beheld a serpent coiled about the babe; and, as some say, they were destroyed by the serpent, but according to others they were driven mad by reason of the anger of Athena and threw themselves down from the acropolis.297 Having been brought up by Athena herself in the precinct,298 Erichthonius expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens; and he set up the wooden image of Athena in the acropolis,299 and instituted the festival of the Panathenaea,300 and married Praxithea, a Naiad nymph, by whom he had a son Pandion.

[3.14.7] When Erichthonius died and was buried in the same precinct of Athena,301 Pandion302 became king, in whose time Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica.303 But Demeter was welcomed by Celeus at Eleusis,304 and Dionysus by Icarius, who received from him a branch of a vine and learned the process of making wine. And wishing to bestow the god’s boons on men, Icarius went to some shepherds, who, having tasted the beverage and quaffed it copiously without water for the pleasure of it, imagined that they were bewitched and killed him; but by day305 they understood how it was and buried him. When his daughter Erigone was searching for her father, a domestic dog, named Maera, which had attended Icarius, discovered his dead body to her, and she bewailed her father and hanged herself.306

[3.14.8] Pandion married Zeuxippe, his mother’s sister,307 and begat two daughters, Procne and Philomela, and twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes. But war having broken out with Labdacus on a question of boundaries, he called in the help of Tereus, son of Ares, from Thrace, and having with his help brought the war to a successful close, he gave Tereus his own daughter Procne in marriage.308 Tereus had by her a son Itys, and having fallen in love with Philomela, he seduced her also saying that Procne was dead, for he concealed her in the country. Afterwards he married Philomela and bedded with her, and cut out her tongue. But by weaving characters in a robe she revealed thereby to Procne her own sorrows. And having sought out her sister, Procne killed her son Itys, boiled him, served him up for supper to the unwitting Tereus, and fled with her sister in haste. When Tereus was aware of what had happened, he snatched up an axe and pursued them. And being overtaken at Daulia in Phocis, they prayed the gods to be turned into birds, and Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow. And Tereus also was changed into a bird and became a hoopoe.