Messing With Homer and Hesiod: Plutarch on Peisistratean Interpolations

“There are many other accounts reported about these things and about Ariadne too, but there isn’t any agreement. For some say that she killed herself after Theseus abandoned her; others say that after she was brought to Naxos by the sailors she lived with Dionysus’ priest Onaros there.

And they add that she was left by Theseus because he loved another, as Hesiod says “A terrible love for Aiglê, the daughter of Panopeus plagued him” (fr. 105). For Hereas the Megarian says that Peisistratus deleted this line from Hesiod just as he inserted the following into Homer’s Nekyia: “Theseus and Peirithoos, the outstanding children of the gods.”

Πολλοὶ δὲ λόγοι καὶ περὶ τούτων ἔτι λέγονται καὶ περὶ τῆς ᾿Αριάδνης, οὐδὲν ὁμολογούμενον ἔχοντες. οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀπάγξασθαί φασιν αὐτὴν ἀπολειφθεῖσαν ὑπὸ τοῦ Θησέως, οἱ δ’ εἰς Νάξον ὑπὸ ναυτῶν κομισθεῖσαν ᾿Ωνάρῳ τῷ ἱερεῖ τοῦ Διονύσου συνοικεῖν·

ἀπολειφθῆναι δὲ τοῦ Θησέως ἐρῶντος ἑτέρας: “Δεινὸς γάρ μιν ἔτειρεν ἔρως Πανοπηίδος Αἴγλης”. τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ ἔπος ἐκ τῶν ῾Ησιόδου (fr. 105 Rz.) Πεισίστρατον ἐξελεῖν φησιν ῾Ηρέας ὁ Μεγαρεύς (FGrH 486 F 1), ὥσπερ αὖ πάλιν ἐμβαλεῖν εἰς τὴν ῾Ομήρου νέκυιαν (Od. 11, 631) “τὸ Θησέα Πειρίθοόν τε θεῶν ἀριδείκετα τέκνα” χαριζόμενον ᾿Αθηναίοις·

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