http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27114/27114-h/27114-h.html#toc29
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Among the most ancient was the legend relating to the
Danaides, which invest the early history of Argos
with peculiar interest. Inachus, who reigned 1986
B.C., according to ancient chronology, is also the name of
the river flowing beneath the walls of the ancient city, situated
in the eastern part of the Peloponnesus. In the reign of
[pg 159]
Krotopos, one of his descendants, Danaus came with his fifty
daughters from Egypt to Argos in a vessel of fifty oars, in
order to escape the solicitations of the fifty sons of Ægyptos,
his brother, who wished to make them their wives. Ægyptos
and the sons followed in pursuit, and Danaus was compelled
to assent to their desires, but furnished each of his
daughters with a dagger, on the wedding night, who thus
slew their husbands, except one, whose husband, Lynceus,
ultimately became king of Argos. From Danaus was derived
the name of Danai, applied to the people of the Argeian
territory, and to the Homeric Greeks generally. We hence
infer that Argos—one of the oldest cities of Greece, was settled
in part by Egyptians, probably in the era of the shepherd
kings, who introduced not only the arts, but the religious
rites of that ancient country. Among the regal descendants
of Lynceus was Danae, whose son Perseus performed marvelous
deeds, by the special favor of Athene, among which
he brought from Libya the terrific head of the Gorgon
Medusa, which had the marvelous property of turning every
one to stone who looked at her. Stung with remorse for the
accidental murder of his grandfather, the king, he retired
from Argos, and founded the city of Mycenæ, the ruins of
whose massive walls are still to be seen—Cyclopean works,
which seem to show that the old Pelasgians derived their
architectural ideas from the Egyptian Danauns. The Perseids
of Mycenæ thus boasted of an illustrious descent, which
continued down to the last sovereign of Sparta.
the grand-daughter of Perseus was Alcmena, whom mythology
represents as the mother of Hercules by
Jupiter. The labors of Hercules are among the
most interesting legends of pagan antiquity, since they are
types of the endless toils of a noble soul, doomed to labor
for others, and obey the commands of worthless persecutors.
But the hero is finally rewarded by admission to the family
of the gods, and his descendants are ultimately restored to
the inheritance from which they were deprived by the wrath
and jealousy of Juno. A younger branch of the Perseid
[pg 160]
family reigned in Lacedæmon—Eurystheus, to whom Hercules
was subject; but he, with all his sons, lost their lives
in battle, so that the Perseid family was represented only by
the sons of Hercules—the Heracleids, or Heraclidæ. They
endeavored to regain their possessions, and invaded the Peloponnesus,
from which they had been expelled. Hyllos, the
oldest son, proposed to the army of Ionians, Achæans, and
Arcadians, which met them in defense, that the combat should
be decided between himself and any champion of the invading
army, and that, if he were victorious, the Heracleids
should be restored to their sovereignty, but if defeated, should
forego their claim for three generations. Hyllos was vanquished,
and the Heracleids retired and resided with the
Dorians. When the stipulated period had ended, they,
assisted by the Dorians, gained possession of the Peloponnesus.
Hence the great Dorian settlement of Argos, Sparta,
and Messenia, effected by the return of the Heracleids.
Deucalion
and the deluge,
shed
light on the different races that colonized Greece.
a terrible rain laid the whole of Greece under water,
except a few mountain tops. Deucalion was saved in an
ark
the children
of Japhet, from whom the Greeks descended, and who, after
many wanderings and migrations, settled in Greece.
...
ubstitute Deucalion for Noah,
Greece for Armenia, and Dorus, Æolus, and Xuthus for Shem,
Ham, and Japhet, and we see a reproduction of the Mosaic
account of the second settlement of mankind.
Among his sons was Salmoneus, whose daughter, Tyro,
became enamored of the river Eneipus, and frequenting its
banks, the god Poseidon fell in love with her. The fruits of
this alliance were the twin brothers, Pelias and
Neleus, who quarreled respecting the possession
of Iolchos, situated at the foot of Mount Pelion, celebrated
afterward as the residence of Jason. Pelias prevailed, and
Neleus returned into Peloponnesus and founded the kingdom
of Pylos. His beautiful daughter, Pero, was sought in
marriage by princes from all the neighboring countries, but
he refused to entertain the pretensions of any of them, declaring
that she should only wed the man who brought him
the famous oxen of Iphiklos, in Thessaly. Melampus, the
nephew of Neleus, obtained the oxen for his brother Bias,
who thus obtained the hand of Pero. Of the twelve sons of
Neleus, Nestor was the most celebrated. It was he who
assembled the various chieftains for the siege of Troy, and
was pre-eminent over all for wisdom.
Tantalus resided, at a remote antiquity, near Mount Sipylus,
in Lydia, and was a man of immense wealth,
and pre-eminently favored both by gods and
men. Intoxicated by prosperity, he stole nectar and ambrosia
from the table of the gods, and revealed their secrets, for
which he was punished in the under world by perpetual
hunger and thirst, yet placed with fruit and water near him,
which eluded his grasp when he attempted to touch them.
He had two children, Pelops and Niobe. The latter was
blessed with seven sons and seven daughters, which so inflamed
her with pride that she claimed equality with the
goddesses Latona and Diana, who favored her by their friendship.
This presumption so incensed the goddesses, that they
killed all her children, and Niobe wept herself to death, and
was turned into a stone, a striking image of excessive grief.
Pelops was a Lydian king, but was expelled from Asia by
Ilus, king of Troy, for his impieties. He came to
Greece, and beat Hippodamenia, whose father was
king of Pisa, near Olympia, in Elis, in a chariot race, when
death was the penalty of failure. He succeeded by the favor
of Poseidon, and married the princess, and became king
of Pisa. He gave his name to the whole peninsula, which
he was enabled to do from the great wealth he brought from
Lydia, thus connecting the early settlements of the Peloponnesus
with Asia Minor. He had numerous children, who
[pg 165]
became the sovereigns of different cities and states in Argos,
Elis, Laconia, and Arcadia. One of them, Atreus, was king
of Mycenæ, who inherited the sceptre of Zeus, and whose
wealth was proverbial. The sceptre was made by Hephæstus
(Vulcan) and given to Zeus; he gave it to Hermes;
Hermes presented it to Pelops; and Pelops gave it to Atreus,
the ruler of men. Atreus and his brother, Thyestes,
bequeathed it to Agamemnon, who ruled at Mycenæ, while
his brother, Menelaus, reigned at Sparta. It was the wife
of Menelaus, Helen, who was carried away by Paris, which
occasioned the Trojan war. Agamemnon was killed on his
return from Troy, through the treachery of his wife Clytemnestra,
who was seduced by Ægisthus, the son of Thyestes.
His only son, Orestes, afterward avenged the murder, and
recovered Mycenæ. Hermione, the only daughter of Menelaus
and Helen, was given in marriage to the son of Achilles,
Neoptolemas, who reigned in Thessaly. Mycenæ maintained
its independence to the Persian invasion, and is rendered
immortal by the Iliad and Odyssey. On the subsequent
ascendency of Sparta, the bones of Orestes were brought
from Tegea, where they had reposed for generations, in a
coffin seven cubits long.
Deluge, a happened
during the reign of Ogyges, 1796 years B.C., and
1020 before the first Olympiad. After a long
interval, Cecrops, half man and half serpent, became king of
the country. By some he is represented as a Pelasgian, by
others, as an Egyptian. He introduced the first elements of
civilized life—marriage, the twelve political divisions of Attica,
Cadmus, the son of
Agenor, king of Phœnicia, leaves his country
in search of his sister Europa, with whom Zeus, in the form
of a bull, had fallen in love, and carried on his back to Crete.
He first goes to Thrace, and thence to Delphi, to learn tidings
of Europa, but the god directs him not to prosecute his
search; he is to follow the guidance of a cow, and to found a
[pg 167]
city where the animal should lie down. The cow stops at the
site of Thebes. He marries Harmonia, the daughter of Ares
and Aphrodite, after having killed the dragons which guarded
the fountain Allia, and sowed their teeth. From these armed
men sprang up, who killed each other, except five. From
these arose the five great families of Thebes, called Sparti.
One of the Sparti marries a daughter of Cadmus,
whose issue was Pentheus, who became king. It
was in his reign that Dionysus appears as a god in Bœotia,
the giver of the vine, and obtains divine honors in Thebes.
Among the descendants of Cadmus was Laius. He is forewarned
by an oracle that any son he should beget would
destroy him, and hence he caused the infant Œdipus to be
exposed on Mount Cithanon. Here the herdsmen of Polybus,
king of Corinth, find him, and convey him to their lord
who brings him up as his own child. Distressed by the
taunts of companions as to his unknown parentage, he goes to
Delphi, to inquire the name of his real father. He is told not
to return to his own country, for it was his destiny to kill his
father and become the husband of his mother. Knowing no
country but Corinth, he pursues his way to Bœotia, and meets
Laius in a chariot drawn by mules. A quarrel ensues from
the insolence of attendants, and Œdipus kills Laius. The
brother of Laius, Creon, succeeds to the throne of Thebes.
The country around is vexed with a terrible monster,
with the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the
tail of a lion, called the Sphinx, who has learned from the
Muses a riddle, which she proposed to the Thebans, and on
every failure to resolve it one of them was devoured. But
no person can solve the riddle. The king offers his crown
and his sister Jocasta, wife of Laius, in marriage to any one
who would explain the riddle. Œdipus solves it,
and is made king of Thebes, and marries Jocasta.
A fatal curse rests upon him. Jocasta, informed by the gods
of her relationship, hangs herself in agony. Œdipus endures
great miseries, as well as his children, whom he curses, and
who quarrel about their inheritance, which quarrel leads to
[pg 168]
the siege of Thebes by Adrastus, king of Argos, who seeks to
restore Polynices—one of the sons of Œdipus, to the throne
of which he was dispossessed. The Argetan chieftains
readily enter into the enterprise, assisted by numerous auxiliaries
from Arcadia and Messenia. The Cadmeans, assisted
by the Phocians, march out to resist the invaders, who are
repulsed, in consequence of the magnanimity of a generous
youth, who offers himself a victim to Ares. Eteocles then
proposed to his brother, Polynices, the rival claimants, to
decide the quarrel by single combat. It resulted in the death
of both, and then in the renewal of the general contest, and
the destruction of the Argeian chiefs, and Adrastus's return
to Argos in shame and woe.
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