Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History

by Charlotte M. Yonge

to tear out her eyes, when Orestes appeared, and the sisters were made known to each other. A temple was built for the image near Marathon, in Attica, and Iphigenia spent the rest of her life as priestess there. Orestes, in the meantime, married Hermione—after, as some say, killing Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, to whom she was either promised or married—and reigned over both Mycenæ and Sparta until the hundred years’ truce with the Heracleids, or grandsons of Hercules, had come to an end, and they returned with a party of Dorians and conquered Sparta, eighty years after the Trojan war.

This is the last of the events of the age of heroes, when so much must be fable, though there may be a germ of historical truth which no one can make out among the old tales that had come from the East, and the like of which may be found among the folk-lore of all nations. These are the most famous of the stories, because they joined all Greeks together, and were believed in by all Greeks alike in their main circumstances; but every state had its own story, and one or two may be told before we end this chapter of myths, because they are often heard of, and poetry has been written about some of them.

At Thebes, in Bœotia, the king, Laius, was told that his first child would be his death. So as soon as it was born he had its ancles pierced, and put it out in a wood to die; but it was found by a shepherd, and brought to Corinth, where the queen named it Œdipus, or Swollen Feet, and bred it up as her own child. Many years later Œdipus set out for the Delphic oracle, to ask who he was; but all the answer he received was that he must shun his native land, for he would be the slayer of his own father. He therefore resolved not to return to Corinth, but on his journey he met in a narrow pass with a chariot going to Delphi. A quarrel arose, and in the fight that followed he slew the man to whom the chariot belonged, little knowing that it was Laius, his own father.

He then went on through Bœotia. On the top of a hill near Thebes sat a monster called the Sphinx, with

a women’s head, a lion’s body, and an eagle’s wings. She had been taught riddles by the Muses, and whoever failed to answer them she devoured upon the spot. Whoever could answer her was to marry the king’s sister, and share the kingdom. Œdipus went bravely up to her, and heard her question, “What is the animal that is at first four-legged, then two-legged, then three-legged?” “Man,” cried Œdipus. “He creeps as a babe on all-fours, walks upright in his prime, and uses a staff in his old age.” Thereupon the Sphinx turned to stone, and Œdipus married the princess, and reigned many years, till there was a famine and pestilence, and the oracle was asked the cause. It answered that the land must be purified from the blood of Laius. Only then did Œdipus find out that it was Laius whom he had slain; and then, by the marks on his ancles, it was proved that he was the babe who had been exposed, so that he had fulfilled his fate, and killed his own father. To save Thebes, he left the country, with his eyes put out by way of expiation, and wandered about, only attended by his faithful daughter Antigone, till he came to Athens, where, like Orestes, he was sheltered, and allowed to expiate his crime. After his death, Antigone came back to Thebes, where her two brothers Eteocles and Polynices had agreed to reign each a year by turns; but when Eteocles’ year was over he would not give up to his brother, and Polynices, in a rage, collected friends, among whom were six great chiefs, and attacked Thebes. In the battle called “The

Seven Chiefs against Thebes,” all were slain, and Eteocles and Polynices fell by each other’s hands. Their uncle Creon forbade that the bodies of men who had so ruined their country should receive funeral honours from anyone on pain of death, thus condemning their shades to the dreary flitting about on the banks of the Styx, so much dreaded. But their sister Antigone, the noblest woman of Greek imagination, dared the peril, stole forth at night, and gave burial alone to her two brothers. She was found out, and put to death for her sisterly devotion, though Creon’s own son killed himself for grief and love of her. This happened in the generation before the Trojan war, for Tydeus, the father of Diomed, was one of the seven chiefs.

Macedon, the country northward of Greece, had one very droll legend. Midas, king of the Bryges, at the foot of Mount Bermion, had a most beautiful garden, full of all kinds of fruit. This was often stolen, until he watched, and found the thief was old Silenus, the tutor of Bacchus. Thereupon he filled with wine the fount where Silenus was used to drink after his feast, and thus, instead of going away, the old god fell asleep, and Midas caught him, and made him answer all his questions. One was, “What is best for man?” and the answer was very sad, “What is best for man is never to have been born. The second best is to die as soon as may be.” At last Silenus was released, on condition that he would grant one wish, and this was that all that Midas touched should turn to gold; and

so it did, clothes, food, and everything the king took hold of became solid gold, so that he found himself starving, and entreated that the gift might be taken away. So he was told to bathe in the river Pactolus, in Lydia, and the sands became full of gold dust; but, in remembrance of his folly, his ears grew long like those of a donkey. He hid them by wearing a tall Phrygian cap, and no one knew of them but his barber, who was told he should be put to death if ever he mentioned these ears. The barber was so haunted by the secret, that at last he could not help relieving himself, by going to a clump of reeds and whispering into them, “King Midas has the ears of an ass;” and whenever the wind rustled in the reeds, those who went by might always hear them in turn whisper to one another, “King Midas has the ears of an ass.” Some accounts say that it was for saying that Pan was a better musician than Apollo that Midas had his ass’s ears, and that it was Lydia of which he was king; and this seems most likely, for almost as many Greeks lived in the borders of Asia Minor as lived in Greece itself, and there were many stories of the hills, cities, and rivers there, but I have only told you what is most needful to be known—not, of course, to be believed, but to be known.