The remarks which Schubart makes (p. 35) upon Petit-Radel’s Chronological Tables will be assented to by those who follow the unceasing string of contradictions, without any sufficient reason to believe that any one of them is more worthy of trust than the remainder, which he has cited:—“Videant alii, quomodo genealogias heroicas, et chronologiæ rationes, in concordiam redigant. Ipse abstineo, probe persuasus, stemmata vera, historiæ fide comprobata, in systema chronologiæ redigi posse: at ore per sæcula tradita, a poetis reficta, sæpe mutata, prout fabula postulare videbatur, ab historiarum deinde conditoribus restituta, scilicet, brevi, qualia prostant stemmata—chronologiæ secundum annos distributæ vincula semper recusatura esse.”
[193] Apollod. ii. 1. The Supplices of Æschylus is the commencing drama of a trilogy on this subject of the Danaïdes,—Ἱκετίδες, Αἰγύπτιοι, Δαναΐδες. Welcker, Griechisch. Tragödien, vol. i. p. 48: the two latter are lost. The old epic poem called Danaïs or Danaïdes, which is mentioned in the Tabula Iliaca as containing 5000 verses, has perished, and is unfortunately very little alluded to: see Düntzer, Epic. Græc. Fragm. p. 3; Welcker, Der Episch. Kyklus, p. 35.
[194] Apollod. 1. c.; Pherekyd. ap. Schol. Hom. Odyss. xv. 225; Hesiod, Fragm. Marktsch. Fr. 36, 37, 38. These Fragments belong to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Apollodôrus seems to refer to some other of the numerous Hesiodic poems. Diodôrus (iv. 68) assigns the anger of Dionysos as the cause.
[195] Odyss. xv. 240-256.
[196] Herod. ix. 34; ii. 49: compare Pausan. ii. 18, 4. Instead of the Prœtides, or daughters of Prœtos, it is the Argeian women generally whom he represents Melampus as having cured, and the Argeians generally who send to Pylus to invoke his aid: the heroic personality which pervades the primitive story has disappeared.
Kallimachus notices the Prœtid virgins as the parties suffering from madness, but he treats Artemis as the healing influence (Hymn. ad Dianam 235).
[197] The beautiful fragment of Simonidês (Fragm. vii. ed. Gaisford. Poet. Min.), describing Danaê and the child thus exposed, is familiar to every classical reader.
[198] Paus. ii. 15, 4; ii. 16, 5. Apollod. ii. 2. Pherekyd. Fragm. 26, Dind.
[199] Odyss. ii. 120. Hesiod. Fragment. 154. Marktscheff.—Akusil. Fragm. 16. Pausan. ii. 16, 4. Hekatæus derived the name of the town from the μύκης of the sword of Perseus (Fragm. 360, Dind.). The Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 1247, mentions Mykêneus as son of Spartôn, but grandson of Phêgeus the brother of Phorôneus.
[200] Pausan. ii. 18, 4.