Athens, National Museum 11765. Cretan bronze fibula plate. Herakles, Moliones.
♠ Pindar, Olympian 10.34-38
And indeed it was not much later before the man who betrayed his friend, [35] the king of the Epeians, saw his land with all its possessions, his own city, sink into a deep channel of destruction beneath unyielding fire and blows of iron. Greek Text
♠ Pherekydes 3F79 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 81-82, ed. F. Jacoby. 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.2.1-2
Heracles accomplished no brilliant feat in the war with Augeas. For the sons of Actor were in the prime of courageous manhood, and always put to flight the allies under Heracles, until the Corinthians proclaimed the Isthmian truce, and the sons of Actor came as envoys to the meeting. Heracles set an ambush for then, at Cleonae and murdered them. As the murderer was unknown, Moline, more than any of the other children, devoted herself to detecting him. [2] When she discovered him, the Eleans demanded satisfaction for the crime from the Argives, for at the time Heracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refused them satisfaction, the Eleans as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to exclude the Argive people from the Isthmian games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the Isthmian festival. The curses of Moline are respected right down to the present day, and no athlete of Elis is wont to compete in the Isthmian games. Greek Text
♠ ApB 2.7.2 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
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. Greek Text
♠ Pindar, Olympian 10.55-59
Time moved forward and told the clear and precise story, how Heracles divided the gifts of war and sacrificed the finest of them, and how he established the four years’ festival with the first Olympic games and its victories. Greek Text
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, November 2023
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