Chapter 13: Herakles
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♠ Ibykos 285 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 148, ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
Athen. 2 57 F-58 A
Ibykos in the fith book of poems says about the children of Molione:
I slew the youths of the white horses, the children of Molione, of the same age, an equal number of heads, one in limbs, both born from a silver egg. (Transl. T. Gantz)
♠ ΣA Il 11.709 – Scholia A to Homer, Iliad – Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem 2, p. 407, ed. W. Dindorf and E. Maass. Oxford 1875.
♠ ApB 2.7.2 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
Not long afterwards he collected an Arcadian army, and being joined by volunteers from the first men in Greece he marched against Augeas. But Augeas, hearing of the war that Hercules was levying, appointed Eurytus and Cteatus generals of the Eleans. They were two men joined in one, who surpassed all of that generation in strength and were sons of Actor by Molione, though their father was said to be Poseidon; now Actor was a brother of Augeas. But it came to pass that on the expedition Hercules fell sick; hence he concluded a truce with the Molionides. But afterwards, being apprized of his illness, they attacked the army and slew many. On that occasion, therefore, Hercules beat a retreat; but afterwards at the celebration of the third Isthmian festival, when the Eleans sent the Molionides to take part in the sacrifices, Hercules waylaid and killed them at Cleonae, and marching on Elis took the city. And having killed Augeas and his sons, he restored Phyleus and bestowed on him the kingdom. He also celebrated the Olympian games and founded an altar of Pelops, and built six altars of the twelve gods. Greek Text
♠ Paus 5.1.11 – Pausanias, Description of Greece
Actor and his sons had a share in the kingdom and were natives of the country. For the father of Actor was Phorbas, son of Lapithus, and his mother was Hyrmina, daughter of Epeius. Greek Text
♠ Paus 8.14.9 – Pausanias, Description of Greece
As you go down from the acropolis of Pheneus you come to a stadium, and on a hill stands a tomb of Iphicles, the brother of Heracles and the father of Iolaus. Iolaus, according to the Greek account, shared most of the labours of Heracles, but his father Iphicles, in the first battle fought by Heracles against the Eleans and Augeas, was wounded by the sons of Actor, who were called after their mother Moline. In a fainting condition he was carried by his relatives to Pheneus, where he was carefully nursed by Buphagus, a citizen of Pheneus, and by his wife Promne, who also buried him when he died of his wound. Greek Text
♠ DS 4.33.1-4 – Diodoros Siculus, Library of History
After this Heracles returned to Peloponnesus and set out against Augeas, since the latter had defrauded him of his reward. It came to a battle between him and the Eleans, but on this occasion he had no success and so returned to Olenus to Dexamenus. The latter’s daughter Hippolytê was being joined in marriage to Azan, and when Heracles, as he sat at the wedding feast, observed the Centaur Eurytion acting in an insulting manner towards Hippolytê and endeavouring to do violence to her, he slew him. [2] When Heracles returned to Tiryns, Eurystheus charged him with plotting to seize the kingdom and commanded that he and Alcmenê and Iphicles and Iolaüs should depart from Tiryns. Consequently he was forced to go into exile along with these just mentioned and made his dwelling in Pheneus in Arcadia. [3] This city he took for his headquarters, and learning once that a sacred procession had been sent forth from Elis to the Isthmus in honour of Poseidon and that Eurytus, the son of Augeas, was at the head of it, he fell unexpectedly upon Eurytus and killed him near Cleonae, where a temple of Heracles still stands. [4] After this he made war upon Elis and slew Augeas its king, and taking the city by storm he recalled Phyleus, the son of Augeas, and gave the kingdom into his hands; for the son had been exiled by his father at the time when he had served as arbitrator between his father and Heracles in the matter of the reward and had given the decision to Heracles. Greek Text
Paris, Musee de Louvre A519. Attic krater. The Moliones.
Athens Agora Museum P4885. Attic oinochoe. The Moliones.
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Artistic sources edited by R. Ross Holloway, Elisha Benjamin Andrews Professor Emeritus, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown Univ., and Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, September, 2017
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, April 2022
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