The Ῥιζότομοι of Sophoklês seems also to have turned upon the same catastrophe (see Fragm. 479, Dindorf.).
[255] The kindness of Hêrê towards Jasôn seems to be older in the legend than her displeasure against Pelias; at least it is specially noticed in the Odyssey, as the great cause of the escape of the ship Argô: Ἀλλ᾽ Ἥρη παρέπεμψεν, ἐπεὶ φίλος ἦεν Ἰήσων. (xii. 70). In the Hesiodic Theogony Pelias stands to Jasôn in the same relation as Eurystheus to Hêraklês,—a severe taskmaster as well as a wicked and insolent man,—ὑβριστὴς Πελίης καὶ ἀτάσθαλος, ὀβριμόεργος. (Theog. 995). Apollônius Rhodius keeps the wrath of Hêrê against Pelias in the foreground, i. 14; iii. 1134; iv. 242; see also Hygin, f. 13.
There is great diversity in the stories given of the proximate circumstances connected with the death of Pelias: Eurip. Mêd. 491; Apollodôr. i. 9, 27; Diodôr. iv. 50-52; Ovid, Metam. vii. 162, 203, 297, 347; Pausan. viii. 11, 2; Schol. ad Lycoph. 175.
In the legend of Akastus and Pêleus as recounted above, Akastus was made to perish by the hand of Pêleus. I do not take upon me to reconcile these contradictions.
Pausanias mentions that he could not find in any of the poets, so far as he had read, the names of the daughters of Pelias, and that the painter Mikôn had given to them names (ὀνόματα δ᾽ αὐταῖς ποιητὴς μὲν ἔθετο οὐδεὶς, ὅσα γ᾽ ἐπελεξάμεθα ἡμεῖς, etc., Pausan. viii. 11, 1). Yet their names are given in the authors whom Diodôrus copied; and Alkêstis, at any rate, was most memorable. Mikôn gave the names Asteropeia and Antinoê, altogether different from those in Diodôrus. Both Diodôrus and Hyginus exonerate Alkêstis from all share in the death of her father (Hygin. f. 24).
The old poem called the Νόστοι (see Argum. ad Eurip. Mêd., and Schol. Aristophan. Equit. 1321) recounted, that Mêdea had boiled in a caldron the old Æsôn, father of Jasôn, with herbs and incantations, and that she had brought him out young and strong. Ovid copies this (Metam. vii. 162-203). It is singular that Pherêkydês and Simonidês said that she had performed this process upon Jasôn himself (Schol. Aristoph. l. c.). Diogenes (ap. Stobæ. Florileg. t. xxix. 92) rationalizes the story, and converts Mêdea from an enchantress into an improving and regenerating preceptress. The death of Æsôn, as described in the text, is given from Diodôrus and Apollodôrus. Mêdea seems to have been worshipped as a goddess in other places besides Corinth (see Athenagor. Legat. pro Christ. 12; Macrobius, i. 12, p. 247, Gronov.).
[256] These funeral games in honor of Pelias were among the most renowned of the mythical incidents: they were celebrated in a special poem by Stesichorus, and represented on the chest of Kypselus at Olympia. Kastôr, Meleager, Amphiaraos, Jasôn, Pêleus, Mopsos, etc. contended in them (Pausan. v. 17. 4; Stesichori Fragm. 1. p. 54, ed. Klewe; Athên. iv. 172). How familiar the details of them were to the mind of a literary Greek is indirectly attested by Plutarch, Sympos. v. 2, vol. iii. p. 762, Wytt.
[257] Hesiod, Theogon. 998.
[258] According to the Schol. ad Eurip. Mêd. 20, Jasôn marries the daughter of Hippotês the son of Kreôn, who is the son of Lykæthos. Lykæthos, after the departure of Bellerophôn from Corinth, reigned twenty-seven years; then Kreôn reigned thirty-five years; then came Hippotês.
[259] Apollodôr. i. 9, 27; Diodôr. iv. 54. The Mêdea of Euripidês, which has fortunately been preserved to us, is too well known to need express reference. He makes Mêdea the destroyer of her own children, and borrows from this circumstance the most pathetic touches of his exquisite drama. Parmeniskôs accused him of having been bribed by the Corinthians to give this turn to the legend; and we may regard the accusation as a proof that the older and more current tale imputed the murder of the children to the Corinthians (Schol. Eurip. Mêd. 275, where Didymos gives the story out of the old poem of Kreophylos). See also Ælian, V. H. v. 21; Pausan. ii. 3, 6.