Chapter 14: Thebes
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♠ Nem 9.9 Pindar, Nemean Odes
But we will the shouting lyre and the flute in honor of the very pinnacle of horse-contests, which Adrastus established for Phoebus by the streams of the Asopus. Greek Text
♠ Hypothesis to Nemean Odes – Scholia vetera in Pindari carmina 3, pp. 1-5, ed. A.B Drachman. Leipzig 1927.
♠ Euripides, Hyrpsipyle N² – Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, pp. 594-99, ed. A. Nauck, 2nd ed. Leipzig 1889.
♠ ApB 3.6.4 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
Having come to Nemea, of which Lycurgus was king, they sought for water; and Hypsipyle showed them the way to a spring, leaving behind an infant boy Opheltes, whom she nursed, a child of Eurydice and Lycurgus. For the Lemnian women, afterwards learning that Thoas had been saved alive, put him to death and sold Hypsipyle into slavery; wherefore she served in the house of Lycurgus as a purchased bondwoman. But while she showed the spring, the abandoned boy was killed by a serpent. When Adrastus and his party appeared on the scene, they slew the serpent and buried the boy; but Amphiaraus told them that the sign foreboded the future, and they called the boy Archemorus. They celebrated the Nemean games in his honor. Greek Text
♠ Fab 74 – Hyginus, Fabulae
HYPSIPYLE: The seven chieftains on their way to attack Thebes came to Nemea, where Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, as a slave, was caring for the boy Archemorus or Ophites, son of King Lycus. He had been warned by an oracle not to put the child on the ground until he could walk. When the seven leaders who were going to Thebes came to Hypsipyle in their search for water, and asked her to show them some, she, fearing to put the boy on the ground, . . . [found] some very thick parsley near the spring, and placed the child in it. But while she was giving them water, a dragon, guardian of the spring, devoured the child. Adrastus and the others killed the dragon, and interceded for Hypsipyle to Lycus, and established funeral games in honour of the boy. They take place every fifth year, and the victors receive a wreath of parsley. Latin Text
♠ Hypothesis to Nemean Odes – Scholia vetera in Pindari carmina 3, pp. 1-5, ed. A.B Drachman. Leipzig 1927.
♠ Paus 3.18.12 – Pausanias, Description of Greece
Adrastus and are staying the fight between Amphiaraus and Lycurgus the son of Pronax. Greek Text
Olympia Museum, B 1654. Bronze shield-strap, Adrastos between warriors, Amphiaraos and Lykougos (?).
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Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2020
