which it is founded only prevailed in the heroic age. Its chief object seems to have been to inspire horror for the violation of the duties of hospitality on the part of those who, having committed homicide, were admitted to the house and table of the prince, who consented to perform the rites by which the guilt of the offender was supposed to be removed. The most extreme case is given by making Ixíón, that is the Suppliant,1 and the first shedder of kindred blood as he is expressly called2 (the Cain of Greece), act with such base ingratitude toward the king of the gods himself, who, according to the simple earnestness of early mythology, is represented like an earthly prince receiving his suppliant to his house and board. The punishment inflicted was suitable to the offence, and calculated to strike with awe the minds of the hearers; for we should always remember that these ancient mythes were articles of real and serious belief."

Κένταυροι καὶ Λαπίθαι. Centauri et Lapithæ.

The Kentaurs and Lapiths are two mythic tribes which are always mentioned together. The former are spoken of twice in the Ilias under the name of Wild-men (pipes), and once under their proper name.1 We also find the name Kentaurs in the Odyssey. They seem to have been a rude mountain-tribe, dwelling on and about Mount Pelion. There is no ground for supposing that Homer and Hésiod conceived them to be of a mingled form, as they were subsequently represented. In the fight of the Kentaurs and Lapiths on the shield of Héraklés, the latter appear in panoply fighting with spears, while the former wield pine-clubs." Pindar is the earliest poet extant who describes them as semiferine. According to him the offspring of Ixíón and the cloud was a son named Kentauros, who when grown up wandered about the foot of Pelion, where he copulated with the Magnésian mares, who brought forth the Kentaurs, a race partaking of the form of both parents, their lower parts resembling their dams, the upper

their sire.

7

By his wife Dia, Ixíón had a son named Peirithoos, who mar

From Ikw, to come to, to supplicate: see Welcker, Tril. 549 note. Müller, Eumen. 144; the father given him by Eschylos, Antión (àvriάw, to entreat), and by Pherekýdés, Peisión (πelow, to persuade), fully answers to this character; his other sire to the other side of it.

2 Pind. Pyth. ii. 31 (57). Æschyl. Eumen. 718.

3 See Welcker, Tril. 547 seq. Müller, Eumen. 144 seq.

Il. i. 268; ii. 742; xi. 832.

5 Od. xxi. 303.

ried Hippodameia daughter of Adrastos king of Argos. The chiefs of his own tribe, the Lapiths, were all invited to the wedding, as were also the Kentaurs, who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Pelion; Théseus, Nestór, and other strangers, were likewise present. At the feast, Eurytión, one of the Kentaurs, becoming intoxicated with wine, attempted to offer violence to the bride; the other Kentaurs followed his example, and a dreadful conflict arose, in which several of them were slain. The Kentaurs were finally driven from Pelion, and obliged to retire to other regions.1

3

According to the earliest version of this legend, Eurytión the Kentaur, being invited to the house of Peirithoos, got drunk and behaved so ill, that the heroes rose and dragging him to the door cut off his ears and nose, which was the occasion of 'strife between the Kentaurs and men.'2 In the Catalogue it is said that Hippodameia bore Polypœtés to Peirithoos, the son of Zeus, on the day that he drove the 'shaggy Wild-men' from Pelion to the land of the Ethikans; and Nestór says that he came from Pylos at the invitation of the Lapith chiefs to aid them against the Wild-men, whom they routed with great slaughter. From all this we may collect the tradition of a protracted conflict between the rude Kentaurs and the more civilized Lapiths, which ended in the expulsion of the former. When Héraklés was on his way to hunt the Erymanthian boar, he was entertained by the Kentaur Pholos; and this gave rise to a conflict between him and the other Kentaurs, which terminated in the total discomfiture of the latter.5

One of the most celebrated of the Lapiths was Kæneus, who was said to have been originally a maiden named Kænis. Poseidón having violated her, she prayed him as a compensation to turn her into a man, and grant that she should be invulnerable." The god assented, and in the fight between the Kentaurs and Lapiths, the former finding it impossible to wound Kæneus kept striking him with green pines,' and the earth finally opened and swallowed him." It is also said that Kæneus, filled with confidence

6

1 Ov. Met. xii. 210 seq. He seems to have followed the drama of Eschylos named the Perrhæbian Women. Diodór. iv. 70. 4 Il. i. 269 seq.

2 Od. xxi. 295 seq.

3 Il. ii. 742 seq.

5 See below, chap. iv. Héraklés.

6 Ov. Met. xii. 189 seq. Verg. En. vi. 448. (Serv. in loc.) Eudocia, 249. Ὁ δὲ χλωραῖς ἐλάταισι τυπεὶς

ᾤχεθ ̓ ὑπὸ χθόνα Καινεὺς, σχίσας ὀρθῷ ποδὶ γᾶν.

Pind. Fr. Incert. 148.

Apoll. Rh. i. 59 seq. Orph. Argonaut. 168 seq. It was probably from this

in his strength and invulnerability, set up his spear in the market and ordered the people to worship it as a god; for which act of impiety Zeus punished him by the hands of the Kentaurs.1

4

3

The most renowned of the Kentaurs was Cheirón, the son of Kronos by the nymph Philyra." He is called by Homer the most upright of the Kentaurs.' He reared Iasón and his son Médeios, Aktæón, Héraklés, Asklépios, and Achilleus, and was famous for his skill in surgery, which he taught the two last heroes. But having been accidentally wounded by one of Héraklés' poisoned arrows, he suffered extreme pain, till, on his prayer to Zeus for relief, he was raised to the sky and made the constellation of the Bowman.5

It is the opinion of Buttmann that the Kentaurs and the Lapiths are two purely poetic names, used to designate two opposite races of men; the former, the rude horse-riding tribes which tradition records to have been spread over the north of Greece; the latter, the more civilised race, which founded towns, and gradually drove their wild neighbours back into the mountains. He therefore thinks the exposition of Kentaurs as Air-piercers (from kevтeîv tηv aűpav) not an improbable one, for that very idea is suggested by the figure of a Cossack leaning forward with his protruded lance as he gallops along. But he regards the idea of κένταυρος having been in its origin simply κέντωρ" as much more probable. Lapiths may, he thinks, have signified Stonepersuaders (from λâas Teißew), a poetic appellation for the builders of towns. He supposes Hippodameia, as her name seems to intimate, to have been a Kentauress, married to the prince of the Lapiths, and thus accounts for the Kentaurs having been at the wedding.

9

Müller 10 regards the Lapiths as being the same people with the Phlegyans, shortly to be described.

circumstance that the father of Kæneus is named Elatos; his own name (from Kaivòs, new) refers to his metamorphose.

1 Sch. Il. i. 264. Eudocia, 249.

2 Above, p. 62.

4 Χειρουργία : the name Χείρων plainly comes from χείρ. 5 Ov. Fast. v. 379 seq. Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 38.

6 Mythologus, ii. 22.

3 Il. xi. 832.

7 Like διάκτορος, ἀλάστορος. He holds the word λάσταυρος, which he regards as a corruption of Adorwp (from λav to desire), to be perfectly parallel to KÉVτavρos. Welcker (Kret. Kol. 34 note) approves of this etymon. See above, p. 15.

8 The Dioskuri were for an opposite reason called Aarépoa (Frag. Soph. See Sch. Od. xxi. 303. 10 Orchom. 195.

apud Stob.).

Kýüş kaì ’Aλkvóvŋ. Céÿx et Alcyone.

Kéyx was the son of Morning-star ('Ewopópos), and king of Trachis. He married Alkyoné a daughter of Eolos the son of Deukalión. Pride, it is said, caused the ruin of both. He called his wife Héra, and was by her styled Zeus in return. Zeus indignant at their impiety turned them both into birds, of their own names.1

Another version of this legend' says, that Kéyx going to Claros to consult the oracle of Apolló perished by shipwreck, and that his wife on finding his lifeless body on the strand cast herself into the sea. The gods out of compassion changed them both into the birds called Halkyóns. During seven days of winter the Halkyón sits on her eggs, and during seven more she feeds her young on the surface of the sea, which then is calm and free from storm, and these are called the Halkyón-days.

3

In this legend and in all (except the preceding one) relating to him, Kéyx, we may observe, bears a gentle and amiable char

acter.

Kéyx is introduced into the mythe of Héraklés, whose friend he is said to have been. The Wedding of Kéyx (Táμos Kýüкos) was a celebrated event in that hero's history, and the subject of a poem ascribed to Hésiod. The splendid robe also, which when poisoned by Déianeira caused the death of the hero, was the gift of that prince.

5

It is probable that in the original conception of Kéyx in the mythology of Héraklés he was simply the Brilliant or Illustrious Prince, expressive of his rank or his munificence. With this accords the name of his sire, as also that of his brother Dædalión and his niece Chioné." But as there was a sea-bird whose name resembled his," a later age fabled that he was converted into this

1 Apollod. i. 7, 4. Sch. Aristoph. Birds, 251, 300. 2 Ov. Met. xi. 410 seq. Hygin. 65.

3 Eup. Iph. Taur. 1089 seq. Sch. Aristoph. ut sup. Sch. Theocr. vii. 57. Eudocia and Suidas, v. àλкvwv. μep. Plut. de Sol. Anim. 35. Plin. Nat. Hist. ii. 47. 4 See Müller, Dor. i. 542.

5 From κów, kαíw: see below, chap. v. Kadmos.

6 See above, p. 146. Dædalion may come from daíw, to burn.

7 Khs, sea-gull. The Scholiast on Aristophanés (ut sup.) says he was turned into the bird named кηρúλos, which, he adds, Antigonos said was the male of the Halkyón. He further informs us from him that when the males grow old the females carry them on their wings. It is very difficult to say what birds these were, most certainly not kingfishers. In all probability they were sea-gulls, whose cry is mournful. Moschos (iii. 40) makes the male Halkyon different from the inpuλos: see Verg. Geor. iii. 338.

bird, and then assigned him Alkyoné, the name of another seabird, as his spouse, and invented the legends given above to account for their transformation.

CHAPTER III.

MYTHES OF ETOLIA.

THE hero princes of Kalydón in Ætólia derived their origin from Zeus by Prótogeneia the daughter of Deukalión. Her son, who was named Aëthlios,1 had come at the head of a colony of the Eolids to E'lis; where he was the father of Endymión, who enjoyed the love of the goddess Seléné. Ætólos, one of the sons of Endymión by a Naïs, having accidentally killed Apis the son of Phoróneus or Iasón, fled to Kurétis which he named after himself Etólia. His sons were Pleurón and Kalydón, who built towns of their own name. Agénór the son of Pleurón had by Epikasté (the daughter of Kalydón) a son and a daughter named Portháón and Démoníké; and Portháón was by Euryté (grand-daughter of the river-god Achelóos) the father of Agrios, Melas, and Eneus.2

From this genealogy may, we think, be collected the tradition of E'lis having in ancient times received a colony from Thessaly, and also of E'leians, or Epeians as they were named, having migrated to Etólia. This last however may be only a late fiction, to give a colour of right to the Ætólian conquest of E'lis at the time of the Dórian Migration. We may observe that the genuine mythic legends of Kalydón have been connected with the ethnographic genealogy.

Οινεύς. neus.

Eneus the son of Portháón married Althæa daughter of Thestios, a son of Démoníké by the god Arés. By her he had four sons, Toxeus, Thyreus, Klymenos, and Meleagros, and two daughters, Gorgé and Déianeira.

Eneus was devoted to agriculture, and it was said that the god Dionysos gave him a vine-plant and taught him the mode of its culture; in reward it was added for his allowing the god's

1 Aëthlios is the personification of the Olympic games.

2 Il. xiv. 115 seq.; for the above genealogy see Apollod. i. 7, 5 seq. Paus.

v. 1.

3 The relation between the Epeians and the Ætólians seems to be intimated in I. xxiii. 632 seq.

Apollod. ut sup. Hygin. 129. Compare Athén. ii. 35, and Servius and Probus on Geor. i. 9.