The Journey to Troy: Philoktetes and Tennes (page 590, with art)

Chapter 16, The Trojan War

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♠ DP 59 – Dion Chrysostomos of Prusa

[9] Phil. Oh thou who hast refrained from naught most cruel, thou utter villain both word and deed, Odysseus, once more how fine the man thou hast destroyed, of no less value to the allied host than thou, methinks, inventing and devising the best and sagest plans! Just so in fact didst thou make me a castaway, when for the salvation and the victory of us all I met with this disaster, because I showed them Chrysê’s altar, where they must first make sacrifice if they would overcome the foe; else, I declared, our expedition was being made in vain. Yet what hast thou to do with Palamedes’ lot? Greek Text Continue Reading

♠ Ph 263-70 – Sophokles, Philoktetes

I am he whom the two marshalls and the Cephallenian king [265] shamelessly hurled to this solitude which you see, when I was wasting with a fierce disease, stricken by the savage bite of the murderous serpent. With that plague for my sole companion, boy, those men put me out [270] here alone and left, after they landed here with their fleet from sea-washed Chryse. Greek Text

♠ Ph 1326-28 – Sophokles, Philoktetes

you suffer this plague’s affliction in accordance with god-sent fate, because you came near to Chryse‘s guardian, the serpent who secretly watches over her home and guards her roofless sanctuary. Greek Text

♦ Paris, Louvre G413: Attic red-figure stamnos by Hermonax, with statue of Chryse with snake at base and Agamemnon with scepter, wounded Philoktetes and youth, behind whom are Achilleus with spit and alarmed Diomedes

Photos Louvre, by Hervé Lewandowski

Beazley Archive Pottery Database

♠ Paus 8.33.4 – Pausanias, Description of Greece

No long sail from Lemnos was once an island Chryse, where, it is said, Philoctetes met with his accident from the water-snake. But the waves utterly overwhelmed it, and Chryse sank and disappeared in the depths. Greek Text

♠ ΣA Il 2.722 – Scholia to Homer, Iliad – Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem I, pp. 127-28, ed. W. Dindorf and E. Maass. Oxford 1875.

Greek Text

♠ Fab 102 – Hyginus, Fabulae

PHILOCTETES: When Philoctetes, son of Poeas and Demonassa, was on the island of Lemnos, a snake struck his foot. Juno had sent it, angry with him because he alone rather than the others had dared to build the funeral pyre of Hercules when his human body was consumed and he was raised to immortality. Because of the favour Hercules gave him his marvellous arrows. But when the Achaeans could not endure the offensive odour of the wound, by Agamemnon’s order he was left on Lemnos together with the marvellous arrows. A shepherd of King Actor, named Iphimachus, son of Dolops, cared for the abandoned man. Later an oracle was given to them that Troy could not be taken without the arrows of Hercules. Then Agamemnon sent Ulysses and Diomede as scouts to visit him. They persuaded him to be reconciled and to help in attacking Troy, and took him off with them. Latin Text

♠ ApE 3.27 – Apollodoros, Epitome

and as they were offering a sacrifice to Apollo, a water-snake approached from the altar and bit Philoctetes; and as the sore did not heal and grew noisome, the army could not endure the stench, and Ulysses, by the orders of Agamemnon, put him ashore on the island of Lemnos, with the bow of Hercules which he had in his possession; and there, by shooting birds with the bow, he subsisted in the wilderness. Greek Text

♠ Σ Aen 3.402 – Servius, scholia to Vergil, Aeneid – Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii Carmina commentarii: Aeneis, ed G. Thilo and H. Hagen 1 pt. 1, pp. 413-14. Leipzig 1881.

Latin Text

♠ VM I 59 – Vatican Mythographer I – Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini tres Romae nuper reperti 1, p. 21, ed. G. H. Bode. Celle 1834.

Latin Text

♠ VM II 165 – Vatican Mythographer II – Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini tres Romae nuper reperti 1, pp. 131-32, ed. G. H. Bode. Celle 1834.

Latin Text

♠ Σ Lyk 911 – Scholia to Lychophron, Alexandra – Lykophronis Alexandra 2, pp. 293-94, ed. E. Scheer. Berlin 1908.

Greek Text

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