[112] The story of the wrath of the Hero of Anagyros is told, with a few variations in detail, by Jerome ap. Suid. Ἀνάγ. δαίμων = Apostol. ix, 79; Dgn., Prov. iii, 31 (in cod. Coisl., p. 219 f. Götting.); cf. Zenob. ii, 55 = Dgn. i, 25. Similar stories of a δαίμων Κιλίκιος, Αἴνειος, are implied but not related by Macarius, iii, 18 (ii, p. 155 Gött.).
[113] The story in Suid. goes back to Hieron. Rhod. περὶ τραγῳδιοποιῶν (fr. 4 Hill.), who compared the story with the theme of the Euripides Phoenix.
[114] According to Paus. the ghost was explained to be one of the companions of Odysseus. Strabo says more particularly Polites, who was one of these. But a copy of an ancient picture representing the adventure called the daimon Lykas and made him black and grim-looking and dressed in a wolf-skin. The last is probably merely symbolic and represents full wolf-shape such as belonged to the Athenian Hero Lykos: Harp. δεκάζων. Wolf-shape given to a death-bringing spirit of the underworld, as often: cf. Roscher, Kynanth. 60–1. This must have been the more ancient form of the legend and the daimon was only subsequently changed into a Hero.
[115] The story in its general outline recalls esp. the other Greek legends in which similar rescues occur; we are reminded not merely of the stories of Perseus and Andromeda or Herakles and Hesione, but also of the fight of Herakles with Thanatos for the sake of Alkestis, [154] in Eurip., Alc., and of Koroibos’ struggle with the Ποίνη in Argos. But the story of Euthymos and the Hero of Temesa agrees even in its details with a story coming from a far distant locality, Krisa at the foot of Mt. Parnassos, where lived the monster Lamia, or Sybaris, who was overthrown by Eurybatos—as it is told in Nikander’s Ἑτεροιούμενα, ap. Ant. Lib. viii—and is even to this day related as a fairy-tale; see B. Schmidt. Gr. Märchen, 142, 246 f. It is unnecessary to suppose imitation of either legend by the other; both independently reproduce the same fairy-tale motif, which is in fact very common everywhere. The monster overcome by the champion is regularly a chthonic being, a fiend from below: Thanatos, Poine, Lamia (which is the generic name, Σύβαρις being apparently the special name of this particular Lamia) and the ghostly “Hero” of Temesa.
[116] Paus. 6, 6, 7–11, the main source; Str. 255; Ael., VH. viii, 18; Plut. Paroem. ii, 31; Suid. Εὔθυμος. The “translation” occurs in Paus. Ael., and Suid. According to Aelian he went to the River Kaikinos near his old home Locri and disappeared: ἀφανισθῆναι. (The river-god Kaikinos is regarded as his real father: Paus. 6, 6, 4.) Perhaps the heroön of Euthymos may have been near the river. “Heroizing” of Euthymos by a flash of lightning is confirmed by his statue: Callim., fr. 399; Pliny, NH. 7, 152; Schol. Paus. Hermes, 29, 148. Inscription on base of statue of E. at Olympia: Arch. Zeit., 1878, p. 82.
[117] Paus. 6, 11, 2–9; D. Chr. 31, 340 M. [i, 247 Arn.]. Cf. Oinom. ap. Eus. PE. 5, 34, p. 231–2 V. Oinomaos 232 C refers to a similar legend of the pentathlos Euthykles and his statue, at Locri.
[118] The story of Mitys (or Bitys) in Argos is known from Arist. Po. 9, p. 1452a, 7 ff. (Mirab. 156). A few more such stories are recorded in Wyttenbach, Plu. M. vii, p. 316 (Oxon.); cf. also Theoc. 23. Just as in the story of Theagenes, the statue was punished as responsible for the murder, so, too, the attribution of a fetichistic personality to inanimate objects lies at the bottom of the ancient customs observed in the Athenian murder laws, by which judgment was given in the Prytaneion περὶ τῶν ἀψύχων τῶν ἐμπεσόντων τινὶ καὶ ἀποκτεινάντων: Poll. viii, 120, after Dem. 23, 76, cf. Arist. Ἀθπ. 57, 4. Such judgments cannot originally have been merely symbolical in meaning.
[119] Luc., D. Conc. 12; Paus. 6, 11, 9.
[120] Luc., l.c. On Polydamas see Paus. 6, 5, and among many others Eus. Chron. Olympionic., Ol. 93, p. 204 Sch.
[121] His victory was won in Ol. 6 (see also Eus. Chron., Ol. 6, p. 196); the statue erected to him only in Ol. 80; Paus. 7, 17, 6.