7. 3. 15. 8 (p. 138)
And there, after Pasiphae had conceived a passion for the bull of Poseidon, he assisted her by constructing a wooden cow, and he built the Labyrinth, to which the Athenians sent seven boys and as many girls every year to serve as food for the Minotaur.
8. Epitome 5. 2 (p. 154)
Hippolyte was the mother of Hippolytos; she is also called Glauce and Melanippe. When Phaedra’s marriage was being celebrated, Hippolyte arrived under arms with her fellow Amazons and said that she would kill those who were sharing the hospitality of Theseus. So a battle took place, and she was killed, whether accidentally by her ally Penthesileia, or by Theseus, or because the companions of Theseus, seeing the onset of the Amazons, closed the door with all speed catching her inside, and killed her.
Comments
1. A further explanation of the kibisisor wallet referred to in the sentence preceding the interpolation. The verse quotation, from Hes. Shield223–4, is incomplete and has been corrected by two additions from the surviving text of the poem. There is no reference to the kibisisin the surviving works and fragments of Pindar. The Shieldgoes on to say that the kibisiswas wondrous to behold and was made of silver with golden tassels; it would need to be strong to carry the Gorgon’s head and prevent it from exercising its powers of petrifaction. The etymology for kibisis, a weak effort even by the usual standards, seems to appeal to the keiand thesounds in keisthai ekei estheta, ‘clothes placed there’.
2. It is said that Heracles and later the Dioscuri were the first non-citizens to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries (Xenophon Hellenica6. 3. 6); each had to be adopted beforehand by a local citizen, Heracles by Pylios, and the Dioscuri by Aphidnas (Plut. Thes. 33).
3. Although it is present in the Epitome also, this sentence interrupts the narrative. The thought is a commonplace; compare in particular Thucydides 1. 4.
4. This passage contains two verse citations (or possibly three, depending on whether the isolated line at the end forms part of the second), apparently of different origin, for different names are given for the first dogs to attack Actaion’s body. In saying that the attack was instigated by Zeus the second passage follows the tradition reported for Acousilaos in 3. 4. 4 that Zeus was angry with Actaion for courting Semele. It is now known that this was the account offered in the Hesiodic Catalogue(fr. 217a in Hesiod OCT, 1983 edn.), and some have argued that the second passage at least comes from the Catalogue(but it is not included by Merkelbach and West). The more familiar story that Actaion died because he saw Artemis naked was of later origin; see p. 102 and note. The remedy for human sorrows in the final line is presumably wine, as bestowed by Dionysos, Semele’s son by Zeus. The verses are cited for the information that they offer on the names of Actaion’s dogs, a matter of some interest to later authors, as witnessed by the catalogues in Collectanea Alexandrina 71–2, Ov. Met. 3. 155 ff., and Hyg. Fab. 181. (The passage is poorly preserved; Wagner’s text, which is somewhat different from that of Frazer, has been followed in the translation. In the second citation, Actaion’s name appears in an alternative and presumably early form as Actaios.)
5. A citation from the Melampodeia, an early epic devoted primarily to the seer Melampous and his family. The ancients ascribed the poem to Hesiod (other testimonies relating to the present passage can be found under Hes. fr. 275). This is Teiresias’ judgement on the relative pleasure that men and women derive from love-making (see p. 110). It should be noted that Teiresias’ verdict in these lines from the Melampodeiais not the same as that ascribed to him in Apollodorus’ text; for here he says that a man enjoys one part and a woman ten(on the same scale of ten), while in the text he is reported to have said that a man enjoys one part and a woman nine(as if there were ten available ‘points’ to be divided between them). The nine-to-one division can also be found in a collection of Wonders by Phlegon (cited under Hes. fr. 275), an author of the second century AD, whose account of the episode is certainly not derived from Apollodorus. (As it happens, the manuscripts give Apollodorus’ ratio as nine to ten rather than nine to one; but this is improbable in itself, and it is generally accepted that it can be corrected on the evidence of Tzetz. sc. Lycophr. 638 and the passage from Phlegon.)
6. The fact that this passage is introduced in the first person, which is unparalleled in the Library, confirms that it is a later gloss. It contains a standard list, recorded in four other sources (Philodemus On Piety45b, Gomperz 1865: Sextus Empiricus Adv. Math. 1. 260–2; sc. Eur. Ale. 1; sc. Pind. Pyth. 3, 96); and because it was cited by Philodemus, who wrote in the first century BC, we can be sure that the author of the Librarywas not responsible for its compilation. The first two names are of Argive leaders who fell in the First Theban War (for Capaneus, see p. 110; the present Lycourgos would be the son of Pronax, and nephew of Adrastos, mentioned on p. 47, who is said to have fought with Amphiaraos during the war, Paus. 3. 18. 12, although he is not included in any surviving list of the seven champions). For the death of Hippolytos, see p. 142; this becomes the prime example in the literature on the mythology of the constellations (to explain how Asclepios came to die and be transferred to the sky as the constellation Ophiouchos or the Serpent-Holder, Catast. 6, cf. Hyg. Astr. 2. 14). The most likely occasion for the death and revival of Tyndareus was Heracles’ campaign against Hippocoon, pp. 87 f. Hymenaios was a god of marriage, specially associated with the wedding procession and hymns. For this account of the revival of Glaucos, cf. Hyg. Astr. 2. 14; Apollodorus offers a conflicting account on pp. 99 f.
7. This merely repeats matter from 3. 1. 4 and shortly before in the same paragraph.
8. According to Epitome 5. 1, Penthesileia, the Amazon, came to Troy to be purified after accidentally killing Hippolyte. The present paragraph (5. 2, found only in the Vatican epitome) offers an explanation of who this Hippolyte was, and how Penthesileia came to kill her. This, we are told, was the Hippolyte abducted by Theseus, and Penthesileia killed her—or may have killed her—when the Amazons invaded Attica after Theseus had put Hippolyte aside in favour of Phaedra (see p. 141). But this attempt to explain an event that took place in the final year of the Trojan War by an incident at Theseus’ wedding involves a gross anachronism (for it was universally agreed from Homer onwards that Menestheus was king of the Athenians during the Trojan War and that Theseus must have died some time before it began). So can this paragraph be accepted as a reliable report on Apollodorus’ text? Even a brief comparison with 1. 17 (in the Sabbaitic epitome only), which is largely the same, will suggest that it cannot. It seems, rather, that the Vatican epitomist wrongly assumed that the present Hippolyte could be identified with the Amazon of that name associated with Theseus, and reworked material from earlier in the Libraryto put over the point; and crucially, the phrase stating that Theseus’ Hippolyte may have been killed ‘accidentally by her ally Penthesileia’ is almost certainly the epitomist’s own contribution. For this is not stated as one of the alternatives in 1. 17, and there is a marked awkwardness in the way in which the text (as summarized above) has been rearranged to allow for its insertion.
The alternative names for Hippolyte in 5. 2 do not correspond with those in the Sabbaitic epitome at 1. 16 (as translated in the main text). The corresponding passage in the Vatican epitome mentions the names Glauce and Melanippe (though not, as it happens, Hippolyte).