Tell me of Telemachus, Muse, and the tawdry tales
of his trio of tender-ankled temptresses
Hesiod, Fr. 221 (Eustathius in Hom. (π 117—20) p. 1796. 38)
“Well-belted Polycaste, the youngest daughter of Nestor Neleus’ son, gave birth to Persepolis after having sex with Telemachus Thanks to golden Aphrodite.”
“And then Telegonos went sailing in search of his father; once he stopped in Ithaca he was trashing the island. Odysseus shouted out and was killed by his child because of ignorance.
Once Telegonos understood his mistake he returned the body of his father along with Penelope and Telemachus to his own mother. She made them immortal. Then he lived with Penelope and Telemachus lived with Kirke.
“He was asking to marry the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters without a bridegift”
This is also foreign. For we can find no place in Greece where they go to war for pay and posit before that they will not be allies without a contract. Also, consider the payment. For he came, asking for the girl, not because she was royal, but because she was the most beautiful. Certainly the most intemperate suitors among the Greeks “strive because of [her] excellence” [Od 2.366] But “without bridegifts” [Il.13.366] is cheap: even the most unjust suitors offer bridegifts to Penelope.”
“There, though his hair was partly grey, Idomeneus called
Out to the Danaans and drove the Trojans to retreat as he leapt.
For he killed Othryoneus who was there from Kabesos—
He had just arrived in search of the fame of war.
He asked for the most beautiful of Priam’s daughter’s
Kassandra, without a marriage-price, and he promised a great deed,
That he would drive the sons of the Achaians from Troy unwilling.
Old Priam promised this to him and nodded his head
That he would do this. Confident in these promises, he rushed forth.”
Agamemnon makes a similar promise to Achilles in book 9.145–6=287–8 (Χρυσόθεμις καὶ Λαοδίκη καὶ ᾿Ιφιάνασσα, / τάων ἥν κ’ ἐθέλῃσι φίλην ἀνάεδνον ἀγέσθω; offering any of three daughters without a bride gift). When Apollo is described as taking Stratonikê thus at Hes. Fr. 26.23 (βῆ δὲ φέ[ρ]ων ἀνάε̣[δ]ν̣[ον ἐύζωνον ]Στ[ρ]α̣[τ]ον̣ί̣κ̣ην) it would be fair to say that the ‘extra-ritual’ act is clearly rape.
Plutarch, Advice to Bride and Groom (Moralia138a-146a : Conjugalia Praecepta)
“These kinds of studies, foremost, distract woman from inappropriate matters. For, a wife will be ashamed to dance when she is learning geometry. And she will not receive spells of medicine if she is charmed by Platonic dialogues and the works of Xenophon. And if anyone claims she can pull down the moon, she will laugh at the ignorance and simplicity of the women who believe these things because she herself is not ignorant of astronomy and she has read about Aglaonikê. She was the daughter of Hêgêtor of Thessaly because she knew all about the periods of the moon and eclipses knew before everyone about the time when the moon would be taken by the shadow of the earth. She tricked the other women and persuaded them that she herself was causing the lunar eclipse.”
Socrates is famous in ancient anecdotes for his struggles with his wife Xanthippe. In this Roman anecdote, he dispenses some wonderful advice about marriage.
Valerius Maximus, Memorable Sayings and Deeds 7.6 ext 1b-c
“[Socrates] used to say that those who act as so that they become as they would wish to seem finish short and well-known roads to glory. With this saying he was clearly warning that humans should drink virtue itself rather than follow its shadow.
Socrates also, when asked by a certain young man whether he should take a wife or abstain from matrimony altogether, said that whichever he did he would regret it. “From second option, you will experience loneliness, childlessness, the end of your family, and a foreign heir; from the other option, you will have perpetual annoyance, a weaving of complaints, questions about the dowry, the down-turned brows of inlaws, a talkative mother-in-law, a hunter for other people’s marriages, and the uncertain bearing of children.’ He would not endure that the youth believe he was making a choice of happy material in the context of harsh matters.”
Idem expedita et compendiaria via eos ad gloriam pervenire dicebat qui id agerent ut quales videri vellent, tales etiam essent. qua quidem praedicatione aperte monebat ut homines ipsam potius virtutem haurirent quam umbram eius consectarentur.
Idem, ab adulescentulo quodam consultus utrum uxorem duceret an se omni matrimonio abstineret, respondit utrum eorum fecisset, acturum paenitentiam. ‘hinc te’ inquit ‘solitudo, hinc orbitas, hinc generis interitus, hinc heres alienus excipiet, illinc perpetua sollicitudo, contextus querellarum, dotis exprobratio, adfinium grave supercilium, garrula socrus lingua, subsessor alieni matrimonii, incertus liberorum eventus.’ non passus est iuvenem in contextu rerum asperarum quasi laetae materiae facere dilectum.
“The strongest marriage for a wise man
Is to take a woman of noble character—
This dowry alone safeguards a home.
[But whoever takes a fancy woman home…]
<sees his house fall into ruin>
The wise man has a partner instead of a mistress
A woman with a good mind, reliable for a lifetime.”
This fragment has missing lines and a textual problem in line four. But it is clear that it is similar in sentiment to ideas expressed about marriage in Hesiod and other archaic poets (see below for two characteristic passages from Hesiod). I made up an English line to fill out the general idea of the missing Greek. There’s nothing pretty about it!
(Any myth that has to do with Apollo’s ‘lovers’ is probably deserves trigger warnings)
In an earlier post I mentioned the account of Pausanias who discusses the birth of Asclepius after the death of his mother Korônis. Pausanias mentions alternate traditions where Asclepius is made the son of Asinoê instead—locating him among the Messenians in the Peloponnese rather than among the Thessalians.
In the tradition mentioned below, Korônis ‘cheats’ on Apollo with Ischys, the son of Elatus, a king of the Lapiths (Thessaly). Pindar’s version of the narrative (below) locates Ischys in Arcadia (in the Peloponnese) and the death of Korônis near a town called Lakeria which is in Thessaly near Dotium.
The earlier material I cited clearly seems to be negotiating between rival local claims to Asclepius—but Pindar’s account gives the story additional geographical range by making Ischys Arcadian. By the classical period, one of Asclepius’ most important cult sites was in Epidauros. So, it seems that the mythical narratives that develop strain to square its claim to be the god’s birth place with the narrative traditions that place him elsewhere.
The earliest mentions of the tale seem to have the core components:
H. Apollo, 209-211
“Shall I sing of your wooing and sex—
How you went courting Azan’s daughter
Along with godlike Iskhus, the son of well-horsed Elatus.”
Apart from the cryptic “Azan’s daughter”, this is clearly about Koronis. As Allen notes in his commentary on the hymns (1904, 93) Azanida may mean “Arcadian”). Others have suggestion that the text is corrupt and should be Abantida (from Abae, hence Phocian) or Atlantida (referring perhaps instead to the tale of Arsinoe whose father Leucippus was descended from Atlas). This may point to a different father or genealogy, however. According to a scholion to Pindar (Schol Pind O9 78d) there was a child of Lykaon named Azan who caused all the trouble with Zeus leading to the deluge (οἱ δὲ διὰ <τὸ περὶ> τὸν Λυκάονος παῖδα ῎Αζανα ἀσέβημα ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Λυκάονος, τοῦ Διὸς βουλομένου πάντα τῆς γῆς ἀποκαθᾶραι ἀσεβήματα). Of course, Lykaon is also from Arcadia….
In a fragment from Hesiod, we find the kernel of the popular aetiological narrative where the crow reports the deed—Korônis having sex with someone else—to Apollo:
Hes. Fr. 60
“Then a crow came as a messenger from the sacred feast
To fertile Pythia and announced the reckless deeds
To Apollo of the uncut hair that Iskhus married Korônis
The son of Eilatês, married the daughter of god-related Phlegyas”
But the most disturbing and prolonged account from early Greece is presented by Pindar who blames and shames Korônis in a fashion that is entirely disturbing. Whereas both Apollo and Iskhus are suitors of Korônis in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo,in Pindar, Korônis is pregnant and takes a new husband without telling the father. The result? Her and her townspeople are killed. Read this in horror:
Pindar, Pythian 3.8-44
“…Before the daughter of the well-horsed Phlegyas
Came to term with the mother-helper Eilethuia
Struck by the golden
Arrows of Artemis in her bedroom
She went down to Hades according to Apollo’s plans.
The rage of Zeus’ children is no light burden.
But she spurned him in the weaving of her thoughts
And sought a different husband without her father knowing.
Even though she had sex with Phoibos
And was bearing the god’s unsullied seed.
She did not wait for the bride’s banquet to come,
Nor the echo of the many-voiced marriage hymns
So sweet that maidens often sing them at night
To their girlfriends. But she longed for
Absent things—a suffering many have shared.
Among men we find the most foolish tribe
Who shame what is nearby in looking far afield,
Hunting empty things with hopes that go unrealized.
And willful, fine-robed Korônis certainly
Contracted that great delusion
When she stretched out in the bed
Of a man who came from Arcadia.
But she did escape her guard. Even though
Loxias was in flock-bearing Pytho as
King of his temple, he knew it—
Relying on the report from his truest companion,
His all-knowing mind.
He does not touch lies—no god or mortal
Can evade him in deeds or plans.
When he knew that of her
Shared bed and criminal deceit
With Elatos’ son Iskhus,
He sent his sister rushing with
Unquenchable force
To Lakeria, since the maiden was lived there
Near the shore of Lake Boibiades.
A changeful spirit
turned her to evil and damned her—many neighbors
shared her punishment and died with her,
Fire may leap from one flame on a mountain
And burn a great forest.
But when her relatives set the girl
In a wooden circle and the flickering flame
Of Hephaistos rushed around it, then Apollo said:
“I will not endure in my heart that my child
Should perish in this most pitiful death with his mother’s heavy suffering.”
So he said. With one stride he approached and ripped the child
From the corpse as the burning flame split for him.
For the past two weeks I have been traveling in India for a family wedding. It has been busy, but jetlag and odd hours didn’t keep me from reading about India in Greek sources. There is a surprising amount of material–most of it positioning India as ‘exotic’ and ‘mystic’ the way many Western stereotypes do. I barely touched the fragments of Megasthenes; I didn’t cite much from Strabo; and I didn’t even begin to introduce Roman sources (Pliny the Elder has a lot to say).
To be honest, there is a lot more material on India from the ancient world than I expected even without Roman accounts and the fantastic Alexander romance. I am surprised that there isn’t a monograph already published on the subject! But I suspect that other than being chock-full of titillating details, a monograph couldn’t say much more than India is the exotic other in the Greco-Roman mind: a binary, rather than polar, opposite, occupying a space between the fantasy and reality, between history and fiction. In a way, ‘India’ in the Greco-Roman mind might not be qualitatively different from ‘India’ in Western pop-culture today.
Here’s another dose:
Photius, Bilbiotheca, 72. 46b (=Ctesias of Cnidos)
“[Ctesias says that] in the middle of India there are black men who are called Pygmies and have the same language as other Indians, but they are really small. The tallest of them are only two cubits, but most of them only one and a half. They have extremely long hair, down to their knees and lower, and the largest beards of all men. When they grow their beards long, they don’t wear clothing anymore, but they wrap their hair around them from their head and fasten it below their knees and arrange their beard in the front down near their feet, essentially using their hair to cover their bodies instead of clothing.”
Note: This may be the worst story I have ever read about Herakles
Arrian, Historia Indica, 9
“In this land, where Herakles’ daughter ruled, women come to the age of marriage when they are six years old, while the men live to be forty years at the most. There is also a story circulated about this among the Indians. They say that Herakles, who had this daughter when he was late in years, learned that his own death was near. Because he could not find any man near he considered worthy to marry his daughter, he had sex with her himself when she was seven so that he would leave a race of Indian kings descended through her. And he made this the age of marriage for those descended from her. And from that time Pandaia ruled over this whole race, which took this right from her through Herakles.
It seems to me that since Herakles did many amazing things he would have been able to make himself lover-lived so that he might have sex with his child at a more appropriate time. But if these details about the age of marriage for women there are true, then it seems that they accord in some way with the age of men who die at the oldest in their forties. For old age comes more quickly to them and death follows old age. Therefore, I guess, the peak of life blooms more rapidly, by this logic. So, a month them, men of thirty would, I guess, be like old men; twenty-somethings would be like men in their prime, and the peak of youth would come around age 15. By this logic, the age of marriage for women would appropriately come around age 7—since Megasthenes says that in this land fruit ripens more quickly than in other places and turns rotten quickly as well.”
In conversations with the great Festus about the historicity of an Athenian decree to increase the ravaged population by allowing men to have two wives, I was directed to look at the minor orator Andocides. I didn’t finish or truly start my fact-finding mission because I was came upon the following anecdote.
But look at the way that his child—whom he thought better to have assigned to the daughter of Epilykos—was born and how he [Kallias] fathered him. For this is really worth hearing, men. First, he married the daughter of Isomakhos. After living with her for not even a year, he took her mother as a lover and this most wicked of all men lived with mother and daughter—he was priest for both mother and daughter and he had them both in his home.
And this man was not ashamed enough to fear the god. But Isomakhos’ daughter, when she understood what was happening, decided to die rather than live. She was rescued in the middle of hanging herself and when she survived, she left, kicked out of his house: the mother drove out the daughter! But when he had his fill of her, he drove the mother out too! But she claimed she was pregnant by him. And he swore that the child did not come from him.”
While entertaining banter about Socrates’ ugliness and his two wives, I got a bit interested in the assertion in Diogenes Laertius that the Athenians had passed a law permitting bigamy to increase the population and cope with the “lack of men”. As an aside, I learned a new word during this leipandria (“lack of men”; and not humans, but males specifically).
[Euripides] is reported to have hated women in a rather serious way, either because he despised the company of women by nature or because he had two wives at the same time (which was the law made by Athenian decree) and was worn down by his marriages. Aristophanes also memorializes his hatred in the first version of the Thesmophoriazusae:
Now, then, I address and advise all women
To punish this man for many reasons:
He has accosted us with bitter evils,
This man raised on a garden’s bitter harvest.
And Alexander the Aitolian composed these lines about Euripides:
The strident student of strong Anaxagoras, the mirth-hater,
Addressed me and never got used to making jokes while drinking.
But what he wrote, honey or a Siren could have made.”
6 Mulieres fere omnes in maiorem modum exosus fuisse dicitur, sive quod natura abhorruit a mulierum coetu sive quod duas simul uxores habuerat, cum id decreto ab Atheniensibus facto ius esset, quarum matrimonii pertaedebat. 7 Eius odii in mulieres Aristophanes quoque meminit en tais proterais Thesmophoriazousais in his versibus:
This account is interesting for its echo of the tale about Socrates (or perhaps a source for it? Diogenes Laertius was later) and for its attempt to explain Euripides’ antipathy towards women. But I don’t know if it makes me think there was an actual decree.
Festus is more convinced, and I am hoping he will write something about it.
