“In the verses we attribute to Epimenides, the rest [of creation] comes from Air and night. But Homer says that Okeanos produced the younger generation of gods from Tethys (“Okeanos and birth of the gods and their mother Tethys”, [Il. 14.201]). Yet, Abaris thinks it was Kronos and Rhea, while others claim that Zeus and Hera are father and mother of the gods. Pindar thinks that they come from mother Kybele when he sings “queen Kybele, mother…”
1 Epimenides of Crete is said to have been sent by his father and uncles to the field to bring sheep to the city. Once night came upom him he varied his custom and slept for 57 years as many others have written and Theopompos records this in his histories about amazing things in regions.
After this it happened that Epimenides’ family believed he was dead in the intervening years. When he woke from sleep he went in search of the sheep he had been sent for. When he did not find it he went to the field. He was imagining that he had woken on the same day on which he went to sleep. When he came upon a ruined field and a a decaying shelter, he went to the city. After he arrived at he home he recognized everyone there among those who were there in the time when he disappeared.
The Cretans claim—as Theopompos says—that he lived 150 years and then died. There are not a few other impossible stories told about the same man.”
2 “It is said that Aristeas the Prokonnesian died on some early morning in Prokennesos and on that same day and hour was seen by many in Sicily teaching reading. From there, because this sort of thing occurred with him and he appeared over many years and the phenomenon grew more frequent, the Sicilians built a temple to him an sacrificed to him as a god.”
4 “Abaris was from the Hyperboreans and he himself was a theologer. He also composed oracles as he traveled around the lands, and these survive even to our times. That guy also prophesied earthquakes and famines and similar things and events in the sky.
It is said that he appeared in Lakedaimon and told the Lakonians to make some preventive sacrifices to the gods. And from that time on there was no famine in Lakedaimon.”
5 “Some tales like the following are presented concerning Pherecydes. Once on the island Suros when he was thirsty he asked for water from one of his relatives. While he was drinking, he said that there would be an earthquake on the island on the third day. Because this happened, the man earned great fame.
When he was returning to Samos to see the temple of Hera and his ship was being taken into the harbor, he said to his fellow passengers that the ship would not make it into the harbor. As he was still saying this, the darkness fell all around and finally the ship disappeared.”
“Hesiod seems to me in his account to have made Khaos the first element, and then he developed Gaia [earth] first from there. But Acusilaos, as I understand it, posited that it was unknown in most places that Khaos was the first principle. And [he added] that two things came after this single beginning: Erebos [darkness, which was male, and Night, which was female. From these two having sex, he claimed that Aithera [sky/air], Erôs [sex] and Mêtis [wisdom] were born. According to the account of Eudêmos, [he claims] a great number of the rest of the gods were born in addition to these from those first [parents] too.”
“Zeus was first born, Zeus with bright lightning was born last.
Zeus is the head, the middle, and from him all things come.
Zeus is the breath of all things and is the fate of all things.
Zeus is the king. Zeus of bright lightning is the ruler of everything.”
Procl. Comm. On Plato’s Rep. v.1-1= fr. 111f Benarbé
“Time [Khronos], that ageless, imperishable wit, gave birth to Sky [Aithêr]
And then great Void [Khasm], a monster here and there,
There was no boundary, no floor, nor any foundation.”
“The story is not mine, but from my mother:
Sky and Earth were once a single form.
When they were split apart from one another
They created and delivered all things to the light:
Trees, birds, beasts the sea supports
And the race of mortal men.”
Euripides wrote more than one play about Melanippe. If this cosmogonic account sounds familiar, it is close to some ancient Indic traditions–everyone say Hiranyagarbha!
