[374] It is noted by Herodotus and others as a remarkable fact, that no mules were ever bred in the Eleian territory: an Eleian who wished to breed a mule sent his mare for the time out of the region. The Eleians themselves ascribed this phænomenon to a disability brought on the land by a curse from the lips of Œnomaus (Herod. iv. 30; Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 303).
[375] Paus. v. 1, 1; Sophok. Elektr. 508; Eurip. Orest. 985, with Schol., Plato, Kratyl. p. 395.
[376] Apollod. ii. 4, 5. Pausan. ii. 30, 8; 26, 3; v. 8, 1. Hesiod. ap. Schol. ad Iliad. xx. 116.
[377] Thucyd. i. 5.
[378] We find two distinct legends respecting Chrysippus: his abduction by Laius king of Thêbes, on which the lost drama of Euripidês called Chrysippus turned (see Welcker, Griech. Tragödien, ii. p. 536), and his death by the hands of his half-brothers. Hyginus (f. 85) blends the two together.
[379] Thucyd. i. 9. λέγουσι δὲ οἱ τὰ Πελοποννησίων σαφέστατα μνήμῃ παρὰ τῶν πρότερον δεδεγμένοι. According to Hellanikus, Atreus the elder son returns to Pisa after the death of Pelops with a great army, and makes himself master of his father’s principality (Hellanik. ap Schol. ad Iliad, ii. 105). Hellanikus does not seem to have been so solicitous as Thucydidês to bring the story into conformity with Homer. The circumstantial genealogy given in Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 5. makes Atreus and Thyestês reside during their banishment at Makestus in Triphylia: it is given without any special authority, but may perhaps come from Hellanikus.
[380] Æschyl. Agamem. 1204, 1253, 1608; Hygin. 86; Attii Fragm. 19. This was the story of the old poem entitled Alkmæônis; seemingly also of Pherekydês, though the latter rejected the story that Hermês had produced the golden lamb with the special view of exciting discord between the two brothers, in order to avenge the death of Myrtilus by Pelops (see Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 996).
A different legend, alluded to in Soph. Aj. 1295 (see Schol. ad loc.), recounted that Aeropê had been detected by her father Katreus in unchaste commerce with a low-born person; he entrusted her in his anger to Nauplius, with directions to throw her into the sea: Nauplius however not only spared her life, but betrothed her to Pleisthenês, father of Agamemnôn and son of Atreus.
The tragedy entitled Atreus of the Latin poet Attius, seems to have brought out, with painful fidelity, the harsh and savage features of this family legend (see Aul. Gell. xiii. 2, and the fragments of Attius now remaining, together with the tragedy called Thyestês, of Seneca).
[381] Hygin. fab. 87-88.