᾿Ορχόμενον φιλέοισαι, ἀπεχθόμενόν ποκα Θήβαις.
The scholiast gives a sense to these words much narrower than they really bear. See Diodôr. xv. 79; Pausan. ix. 15. In the oration which Isokratês places in the mouth of a Platæan, complaining of the oppressions of Thêbes, the ancient servitude and tribute to Orchomenos is cast in the teeth of the Thêbans (Isokrat. Orat. Plataic. vol. iii. p. 32, Auger).
[305] Pausan. ix. 34, 5. See also the fourteenth Olympic Ode of Pindar, addressed to the Orchomenian Asopikus. The learned and instructive work of K. O. Müller, Orchomenos und die Minyer, embodies everything which can be known respecting this once-memorable city; indeed the contents of the work extends much farther than its title promises.
[306] Apollodôr. i. 7, 4. A. Kêyx,—king of Trachin,—the friend of Hêraklês and protector of the Hêrakleids to the extent of his power (Hesiod, Scut. Hercul. 355-473: Apollodôr. ii. 7, 5; Hekatæ. Fragm. 353, Didot.).
[307] Canacê, daughter of Æolus, is a subject of deep tragical interest both in Euripidês and Ovid. The eleventh Heroic Epistle of the latter, founded mainly on the lost tragedy of the former called Æolus, purports to be from Canacê to Macareus, and contains a pathetic description of the ill-fated passion between a brother and sister: see the fragments of the Æolus in Dindorf’s collection. In the tale of Kaunos and Byblis, both children of Milêtos, the results of an incestuous passion are different but hardly less melancholy (Parthenios, Narr. xi.).
Makar, the son of Æolus, is the primitive settler of the island of Lesbos (Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 37): moreover in the Odyssey, Æolus son of Hippotês, the dispenser of the winds, has six sons and six daughters, and marries the former to the latter (Odyss. x. 7). The two persons called Æolus are brought into connection genealogically (see Schol. ad Odyss. l. c., and Diodôr. iv. 67), but it seems probable that Euripidês was the first to place the names of Macareus and Canacê in that relation which confers upon them their poetical celebrity. Sostratus (ap. Stobæum, t. 614, p. 404) can hardly be considered to have borrowed from any older source than Euripidês. Welcker (Griech. Tragöd. vol. ii. p. 860) puts together all that can be known respecting the structure of the lost drama of Euripidês.
[308] Iliad, v. 386; Odyss. xi. 306; Apollodôr. i. 7, 4. So Typhôeus, in the Hesiodic Theogony, the last enemy of the gods, is killed before he comes to maturity (Theog. 837). For the different turns given to this ancient Homeric legend, see Heyne, ad Apollodôr. l. c, and Hyginus, f. 28. The Alôids were noticed in the Hesiodic poems (ap. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. i. 482). Odysseus does not see them in Hadês, as Heyne by mistake says; he sees their mother Iphimêdea. Virgil (Æn. vi. 582) assigns to them a place among the sufferers of punishment in Tartarus.
Eumêlus, the Corinthian poet, designated Alôeus as son of the god Hêlios and brother of Æêtês, the father of Mêdea (Eumêl. Fragm. 2, Marktscheffel). The scene of their death was subsequently laid in Naxos (Pindar, Pyth. iv. 88): their tombs were seen at Anthêdôn in Bœôtia (Pausan. ix. 22, 4). The very curious legend alluded to by Pausanias from Hegesinoos, the author of an Atthis,—to the effect that Otos and Ephialtês were the first to establish the worship of the Muses in Helicôn, and that they founded Ascra along with Œoklos, the son of Poseidôn,—is one which we have no means of tracing farther (Pausan. ix. 29, I).
The story of the Alôids, as Diodôrus gives it (v. 51, 52), diverges on almost every point: it is evidently borrowed from some Naxian archæologist, and the only information which we collect from it is, that Otos and Ephialtês received heroic honors at Naxos. The views of O. Müller (Orchomenos, p. 387) appear to me unusually vague and fanciful.
Ephialtês takes part in the combat of the giants against the gods (Apollodôr. t. 6, 2), where Heyne remarks, as in so many other cases, “Ephialtês hic non confundendus cum altero Alôei filio;” an observation just indeed, if we are supposed to be dealing with personages and adventures historically real, but altogether misleading in regard to these legendary characters; for here the general conception of Ephialtês and his attributes is in both cases the same; but the particular adventures ascribed to him cannot be made to consist, as facts, one with the other.