The most significant fact in respect to the fable is, that the Corinthians celebrated periodically a propitiatory sacrifice to Hêrê Akræa and to Mermerus and Pherês, as an atonement for the sin of having violated the sanctuary of the altar. The legend grew out of this religious ceremony, and was so arranged as to explain and account for it (see Eurip. Mêd. 1376, with the Schol. Diodôr. iv. 55).
Mermerus and Pherês were the names given to the children of Mêdea and Jasôn in the old Naupaktian Verses; in which, however, the legend must have been recounted quite differently, since they said that Jasôn and Mêdea had gone from Iôlkos, not to Corinth, but to Corcyra; and that Mermerus had perished in hunting on the opposite continent of Epirus. Kinæthôn again, another ancient genealogical poet, called the children of Mêdea and Jasôn Eriôpis and Mêdos (Pausan. ii. 3, 7). Diodôrus gives them different names (iv. 34). Hesiod, in the Theogony, speaks only of Medeius as the son of Jasôn.
Mêdea does not appear either in the Iliad or Odyssey: in the former, we find Agamêdê, daughter of Augeas, “who knows all the poisons (or medicines) which the earth nourishes” (Iliad, xi. 740); in the latter, we have Circê, sister of Æêtês, father of Mêdea, and living in the Ææan island (Odyss. x. 70). Circê is daughter of the god Hêlios, as Mêdea is his grand-daughter,—she is herself a goddess. She is in many points the parallel of Mêdea; she forewarns and preserves Odysseus throughout his dangers, as Mêdea aids Jasôn: according to the Hesiodic story, she has two children by Odysseus, Agrius and Latinus (Theogon. 1001).
Odysseus goes to Ephyrê to Ilos the son of Mermerus, to procure poison for his arrows: Eustathius treats this Mermerus as the son of Mêdea (see Odyss. i. 270, and Eust.). As Ephyrê is the legendary name of Corinth, we may presume this to be a thread of the same mythical tissue.
[260] See Euripid. Æol.—Fragm. 1, Dindorf; Dikæarch. Vit. Græc. p. 22.
[261] Respecting Sisyphus, see Apollodôr. i. 9, 3; iii. 12, 6. Pausan. ii. 5, 1. Schol. ad Iliad. i. 180. Another legend about the amour of Sisyphus with Tyrô, is in Hygin. fab. 60, and about the manner in which he overreached even Hadês (Pherekydês ap. Schol. Iliad. vi. 153). The stone rolled by Sisyphus in the under-world appears in Odyss. xi. 592. The name of Sisyphus was given during the historical age to men of craft and stratagem, such as Derkyllidês (Xenoph. Hellenic. iii. 1, 8). He passed for the real father of Odysseus, though Heyne (ad Apollodôr. i. 9, 3) treats this as another Sisyphus, whereby he destroys the suitableness of the predicate as regards Odysseus. The duplication and triplication of synonymous personages is an ordinary resource for the purpose of reducing the legends into a seeming chronological sequence.
Even in the days of Eumêlus a religious mystery was observed respecting the tombs of Sisyphus and Nêleus,—the latter had also died at Corinth,—no one could say where they were buried (Pausan. ii. 2, 2).
Sisyphus even overreached Persephonê, and made his escape from the under-world (Theognis, 702).
[262] Pausan. ii. 1, 1; 3, 10. Schol. ad Pindar, Olymp. xiii. 74. Schol. Lycoph. 174-1024. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iv. 1212.
[263] Simonid. ap. Schol. ad Eurip. Mêd. 10-20; Theopompus, Fragm. 340, Didot; though Welcker (Der Episch. Cycl. p. 29) thinks that this does not belong to the historian Theopompus. Epimenidês also followed the story of Eumêlus in making Æêtês a Corinthian (Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. iii. 242).