No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Across the fascinating, if somewhat flamboyant, pictures of the Doloneia there shoots a meteor like Goethe's Sternschuppe:— Aus der Höhe schoss ich her Im Stern- und Feuerscheine, Liege nun im Grase quer: Wer hilft mir auf die Beine?
Rhesos appears in shining armour—or rather, we are told that he appears, for we never see him or hear him. We learn only that on the very night of his entry into the Trojan ranks he is slain in his sleep without a blow. His entry has not been prepared, his exit is forgotten; there is no word of him before or after the tenth book of the Iliad.
1 ᾿Ηῖονεύς is a stock name in mythology. In Homer it is given to an otherwise unknown Greek in Il. vii. 11: to a grandson of Aiolos in Paus. vi. 21, 11: to a son of Proteus, grandfather of Hekabe, in Pherekydes ap. schol. Eur. Hec. 3: to the father of Dia wife of Ixion, in schol. Ap. Rhod. iii. 62. There is thus little ground for connecting it with the Strymon, because there was at the mouth of the river a town ᾿Ηϊών That is merely the name given by Greek traders to the ‘beach’ at which they traded before Amphipolis was founded. There were indeed two other places so called in Thrace and Macedonia, according to Eustathios and Steph. Byz. The name is little more than the modern ‘Scala.’ Thus when Konon says that ᾿Ηϊονεύς was the ancient name of the Strymon, we must needs be incredulous; the assertion is patently a conjecture to reconcile the genealogy of Homer with that of the Rhesus. Had there been any ground for so interesting and important an identification, we should certainly have heard of it from some of the reputable authors who dealt with Greek geography and genealogy.
2 Hipponax, fr. 39 (42) actually names Ainos as his home:
ἐπ᾿ ἀρμάτων τε καὶ Θρηϊκίων πώλων
λευκῶν ίὼν κατ᾿ ἐηηὺς ᾿ Ιλίου πύργων
ἀπηναρίσθη ῾ Ρῆσος Αἰνίων πάλμυς
(MS. Αἰνειῶν corr. Brink.) Cf. Troy, p. 271. So in Serv. on Aen. i. 469 he is made the son of the Hebros.
3 Parth. 36 (Erotici Gr., Teubner ed., p. 32).
4 Her. 681.
5 That there was no fixed tradition about his mother appears from the choice given by later authors between Terpsichore, Kleio, Kalliope and Euterpe; Roscher, , Lex. iv. pp. 106–7.Google Scholar
6 Il. xii. 20.
7 Psyche, p. 151, note 2.
8 E.g. Bethe s.v. ‘Diomedes’ in Pauly-Wissowa, v. 818; Pfister, , Reliquienkult, p. 198.Google Scholar
9 Itaque Achillen Astypalaeenses insulani sanctissime colunt. Qui si deus est, et Orpheus et Rhesus dii sunt, Musa matre nati: nisi forte maritimae nuptiae terrenis anteponuntur. Si hi dii non sunt, quia nusquam coluntur, quo modo sunt? Vide igitur ne uirtutibus hominum isti honores habeantur, non immortalitatibus.—De Nat. D. iii. 45.
10 This I take to be the meaning of the last clause, σοφιστὴν δ᾿ ἄλλον οὐκ ἐπάξομαι I cannot help fancying that it contains an allusion to debates in the Assembly at Athens on the Amphipolis question.
11 Possibly Rohde is one of those who read ὄστε for ὤστε in 972 (Βάκχου προφήτης ὤστε Παγγαίου πέτραν ὤικησε σεμνὸς τοῖσιν εἰδόσιν θεός thus identifying the spokesman with Rhesos himself. This seems to me impossible, not on any grammatical ground, but because the aorist ὤικησε is dramatically unthinkable as part of the prophecy.
12 See Miss Harrison, Prolegomena, ch. v.
13 It seems to me beside the question to argue against Maass, as Perdrizet does, on questions of local Pangaian mythology and geography. I do not see the least ground for supposing that the author of the Rhesus knew anything about such matters; that Orpheus went to live at Pangaios only means that he was adopted into the Dionysiac system at a place which for the particular purpose is highly convenient.
14 Thuc. iv. 102; Herod. vii. 114.
15 Marsyas ap. schol. Eur. Rhes. 347.
16 Strat. vi. 53. I quote the whole passage, so far as it refers to Rhesos. ᾿´ Αγνων ᾿ Αττικὴν ἀποικίαν ἤγαγεν οἰκίσαι βουλόμενος τὰς καλου μένας ᾿ Εννέα ὁδοὺς ἐπὶ τῶι Στρυμόνι ἦν γὰρ καὶ λόγιον ᾿Αθηναίοις τοιόνδε
τίπτε νέως κτισσαι πολύπουν μενεαίνετε χῶρον
κοῦροι ᾿ Αθηναίων χαλεπὸν δὲ θεῶν ἄτερ ὔμμιν οὐ γὰρ θέσφατόν ἐστι, πρὶν ἄν κομίσητ᾿ ἀπὸ Τροίης
῾ Ρήσου ἀνευρόντες καλάμην πατρίηι δέ τ᾿ ἀρούρηι κρύψητ᾿ εὐαγέως τότε δ᾿ ἄν τότε κῦδος ἀ.ροισθε
ταῦτα τοῦ θεοῦ χρήσαντος ὁ στρατηγὸς ῾´ Αγνων ἐς Τροίην ἔπεμψεν ἄνδρας οϊ τὸ ῾ Ρήσου σῆμα νύκτωρ ἀνορύξαντες ἀνείλοντο τὰ ὀστᾶ καὶ καταθέντες τὰ ὀστᾶ ἐς χλαμύδα πορφυρᾶν κομίζουσιν ἐπὶ τὸν Στρυμόνα οἰ μὲν δὴ κατέχοντες βάρβαροι τὴν χώραν διαβαίνειν τὸν ποταμὸν ἐκώλυον ᾿´ Αγνων δὲ σπονδὰς ποιησάμενος τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀπέπεμψε τούς βαρβάρους καὶ διὰ τῆς νυκτὸς τὸν Στρυμόνα μετὰ τοῦ στρατεύματος διελθὼν τὰ τε ὀστᾶ τοῦ ῾ Ρήσου κατώρυξε παρὰ τὸν ποταμὸν καὶ τὸ χωρίον ἀποτα φρεύσας ἐτείχιζε πρὸς τὴν σελήνην ἡμέρας δὲ οὐκ εἰργάζοντο Rohde, followed by Jessen in Resecher's Lexikon, thinks that though the narrative is true, the details may be ‘fabelhaft ausgeschmückt.’ I should have thought the story was matter-of-fact and bald enough to suit the austerest taste.
17 See Il. xvi. 174–178.
18 Il. ii. 595.
19 This was a comparatively recent achievement, and fresh in men's minds; it had probably taken place under the Peisistratidai.—Miss Harrison, Prolegomena, p. 473.
20 Frazer, , Paus. vol. ii. p. 164.Google Scholar
21 Miss Harrison reminds me that Euripides had an ancestral interest in mystic rites; he was born at Phlya, which had curious Orphic mysteries of its own. See her Prolegomena, Pref. p. xii. and 641–646.
22 Thuc. v. 11.