Chapter 1: The Early Gods
Previous Page Table of Contents Next Page
♠ Homer, Odyssey 11.326-27
“And Maera and Clymene I saw, and hateful Eriphyle, who took precious gold as the price of the life of her own lord.” Greek Text
♠ ApB 1.8.5 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
When Tydeus had grown to be a gallant man he was banished for killing, as some say, Alcathous, brother of Oeneus; but according to the author of the Alcmaeonidhis victims were the sons of Melas who had plotted against Oeneus, their names being Pheneus, Euryalus, Hyperlaus, Antiochus, Eumedes, Sternops, Xanthippus, Sthenelaus; but as Pherecydes will have it, he murdered his own brother Olenias. Greek Text
♦ Berlin, Antikensammlung 4841: Attic black-figure neck amphora with Alkmaion and Eriphyle
F. Hauser, “Eine Tyrrhenische Amphora der Sammlung Bourguignon,” Jahrbuch des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 8 (1893), pl. IA
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
♦ Paestum, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, metope from Heraion alla Foce del Sele: Orestes and Erinys as snake
Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio per le provincie di Salerno e Avellino
♠ ApB 3.7.5 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
After the capture of Thebes, when Alcmaeon learned that his mother Eriphyle had been bribed to his undoing also, he was more incensed than ever, and in accordance with an oracle given to him by Apollo he killed his mother. Some say that he killed her in conjunction with his brother Amphilochus, others that he did it alone. But Alcmaeon was visited by the Fury of his mother’s murder, and going mad he first repaired to Oicles in Arcadia, and thence to Phegeus at Psophis. And having been purified by him he married Arsinoe, daughter of Phegeus, and gave her the necklace and the robe. But afterwards the ground became barren on his account, and the god bade him in an oracle to depart to Achelous and to stand another trial on the river bank. At first he repaired to Oeneus at Calydon and was entertained by him; then he went to the Thesprotians, but was driven away from the country; and finally he went to the springs of Achelous, and was purified by him, and received Callirrhoe, his daughter, to wife. Moreover he colonized the land which the Achelous had formed by its silt, and he took up his abode there. Greek Text
♠ Pindar, Olympian 2.38-42
In such a way does Fate, who keeps their pleasant fortune to be handed from father to son, bring at another time some painful reversal together with god-sent prosperity, since the destined son met and killed Laius, and fulfilled the oracle of Pytho, spoken long before. But the sharp-eyed Erinys saw it, and destroyed his warlike sons through mutual slaughter. Greek Text
Vergil, Aeneid 6.570-72
There, armed forever with her vengeful scourge,
Tisiphone, with menace and affront,
The guilty swarm pursues; in her left hand
She lifts her angered serpents, while she calls
A troop of sister-furies fierce as she. Latin Text
Vergil, Aeneid 7.324-26
and [Juno] called from gloom of hell
Alecto, woeful power, from cloudy throne
among the Furies, where her heart is fed
with horrid wars, wrath, vengeance, treason foul,
and fatal feuds. Latin Text
Vergil, Aeneid 12.845-48
Two plagues there be, called Furies, which were spawned
at one birth from the womb of wrathful Night
with dread Megaera, phantom out of hell;
and of their mother’s gift, each Fury wears
grim-coiling serpents and tempestuous wings. Latin Text
ApB 1.1.4 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
But Earth, grieved at the destruction of her children, who had been cast into Tartarus, persuaded the Titans to attack their father and gave Cronus an adamantine sickle. And they, all but Ocean, attacked him, and Cronus cut off his father’s genitals and threw them into the sea; and from the drops of the flowing blood were born Furies, to wit, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. Greek Text
Previous Page Table of Contents Next Page
Tags:
Artistic sources edited by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, October 2017
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, University of Georgia, July 2020
1,239 total views, 4 views today