CHAPTER VI.
And Corax dying childless, about this time Epopeus came from Thessaly and obtained the kingdom. In his reign first (they say) did a hostile army ever come into their country, as they had heretofore in all time lived in peace. And the origin of the war was this. Antiope the daughter of Nycteus had a great reputation for beauty among the Greeks, and there was a rumour about her that she was the daughter of Asopus, the river that forms the boundary between Thebes and Platæa, and not the daughter of Nycteus. I know not whether Epopeus asked her in marriage, or carried her off with more audacious designs from the beginning. But the Thebans came with an army, and Nycteus was wounded, and Epopeus too (though he won the victory). Nycteus though very bad they took back to Thebes, and, when he was on the point of death, he gave orders that Lycus his brother should be ruler of the Thebans for the present: for Nycteus himself was Regent for Labdacus, (the son of Polydorus, the son of Cadmus), who was still a child, and now he left the Regency to Lycus. He also begged Lycus to go with a larger force to Ægialea and punish Epopeus, and even to illtreat Antiope if he could get hold of her. And Epopeus at first offered sacrifices for his victory and built a temple to Athene, and when it was finished prayed that the goddess would shew by some sign if it was to her mind, and after the prayer they say oil trickled in front of the temple. But afterwards Epopeus chanced to die of his wound which had been originally neglected, so Lycus had no longer any need of war, for Lamedon (the son of Coronus) the king after Epopeus gave Antiope up. And she, as she was being conducted to Thebes, gave birth to a child on the road near Eleutheræ. And it is in reference to this event that Asius the son of Amphiptolemus has written the lines, “Antiope, the daughter of the deep-eddying river Asopus, bare Zethus and divine Amphion, being pregnant both by Zeus, and Epopeus shepherd of his people.”
But Homer[14] has given them a finer pedigree, and says that they first built Thebes, distinguishing as it seems to me the lower city from the city built by Cadmus. And King Lamedon married a wife from Athens, Pheno the daughter of Clytius: and afterwards, when there was war between him and Archander and Architeles, the sons of Achæus, he invited Sicyon from Attica to help him, and gave him his daughter Zeuxippe in marriage, and when he became king the region got called after him Sicyonia, and the town Sicyon instead of Ægialea. And the Sicyonians say that Sicyon was not the son of Marathon the son of Epopeus, but the son of Metion the son of Erechtheus. And Asius agrees with them. But Hesiod has represented Sicyon as the son of Erechtheus, and Ibycus says he was the son of Pelops. However Sicyon had a daughter Chthonophyle, who is said to have had a son Polybus by Hermes: and afterwards Phlias the son of Dionysus married her, and she had a son Androdamas. And Polybus gave his daughter Lysianassa to Talaus, the son of Bias, the king of the Argives: and when Adrastus fled from Argos he went to Polybus at Sicyon, and after Polybus’ death he obtained the chief power at Sicyon. But when Adrastus was restored to Argos, then Ianiscus the descendant of Clytius, the father in law of Lamedon, came from Attica and became king, and on his death Phæstus, who was reputed to be one of the sons of Hercules. And Phæstus having migrated to Crete in accordance with an oracle, Zeuxippus, the son of Apollo and the nymph Syllis, is said to have become king. And after the death of Zeuxippus Agamemnon led an army against Sicyon and its king Hippolytus, the son of Rhopalus, the son of Phæstus. And Hippolytus fearing the invading army agreed to be subject to Agamemnon and Mycenæ. And this Hippolytus had a son Lacestades. And Phalces, the son of Temenus, having seized Sicyon by night in conjunction with the Dorians, did no harm to Lacestades (as being himself also a descendant of Hercules), but shared the royal power with him.