[472] Upon this story of Iôn is founded the tragedy of Euripidês which bears that name. I conceive many of the points of that tragedy to be of the invention of Euripidês himself: but to represent Iôn as son of Apollo, not of Xuthus, seems a genuine Attic legend. Respecting this drama, see O. Müller, Hist. of Dorians, ii. 2. 13-15. I doubt however the distinction which he draws between the Ionians and the other population of Attica.
[473] Apollodôr. iii. 15, 2; Plato, Phædr. c. 3; Sophok. Antig. 984; also the copious Scholion on Apollôn. Rhod. i. 212.
The tale of Phineus is told very differently in the Argonautic expedition as given by Apollônius Rhodius, ii. 180. From Sophoklês we learn that this was the Attic version.
The two winged sons of Boreas and their chase of the Harpies were noticed in the Hesiodic Catalogue (see Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. ii. 296). But whether the Attic legend of Oreithyia was recognized in the Hesiodic poems seems not certain.
Both Æschylus and Sophoklês composed dramas on the subject of Oreithyia (Longin. de Sublimit. c. 3). “Orithyia Atheniensis, filia Terrigenæ, et a Borea in Thraciam rapta.” (Servius ad Virg. Æneid. xii. 83). Terrigenæ is the γηγενὴς Ἐρεχθεύς. Philochorus (Fragm. 30) rationalized the story, and said that it alluded to the effects of a violent wind.
[474] Herodot. vii. 189. Οἱ δ᾽ ὦν Ἀθηναῖοί σφι λέγουσι βοηθήσαντα τὸν Βορῆν πρότερον, καὶ τότε ἐκεῖνα κατεργάσασθαι· καὶ ἱρὸν ἀπελθόντες Βορέω ἱδρύσαντο παρὰ ποταμὸν Ἴλισσον.
[475] Herodot. l. c. Ἀθηναῖοι τὸν Βορῆν ἐκ θεοπροπίου ἐπεκαλέσαντο, ἐλθόντος σφι ἄλλου χρηστηρίου, τὸν γαμβρὸν ἐπίκουρον καλέσασθαι. Βορῆς δὲ, κατὰ τὸν Ἑλλήνων λόγον ἔχει γυναῖκα Ἀττικὴν, Ὠρειθυίην τὴν Ἐρεχθῆος. Κατὰ δὴ τὸ κῆδος τοῦτο, οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, συμβαλλεόμενοί σφι τὸν Βορῆν γαμβρὸν εἶναι, etc.
[476] Suidas and Photius, v. Πάρθενοι: Protogeneia and Pandôra are given as the names of two of them. The sacrifice of Pandôra, in the Iambi of Hippônax (Hippônact. Fragm. xxi. Welck. ap. Athen. ix. p. 370), seems to allude to this daughter of Erechtheus.
[477] Apollodôr. iii. 15, 3; Thucyd. ii. 15; Isokratês (Panegyr. t. i. p. 206; Panathenaic. t. ii. p. 560, Auger), Lykurgus, cont. Leocrat. p. 201, Reiske, Pausan. i. 38, 3; Euripid. Erechth. Fragm. The Schol. ad. Soph. Œd. Col. 1048 gives valuable citations from Ister, Akestodôrus and Androtiôn: we see that the inquirers of antiquity found it difficult to explain how the Eumolpids could have acquired their ascendant privileges in the management of the Eleusinia, seeing that Eumolpus himself was a foreigner.—Ζητεῖται, τί δήποτε οἱ Εὐμολπίδαι τῶν τελετῶν ἐξάρχουσι, ξένοι ὄντες. Thucydidês does not call Eumolpus a Thracian: Strabo’s language is very large and vague (vii. p. 321): Isokratês says that he assailed Athens in order to vindicate the rights of his father Poseidôn to the sovereign patronage of the city. Hyginus copies this (fab. 46).
[478] Pausan. i. 38. 3. Ἐλευσίνιοί τε ἀρχαῖοι, ἅτε οὐ προσόντων σφισι γενεαλόγων, ἄλλα τε πλάσασθαι δεδώκασι καὶ μάλιστα ἐς τὰ γένη τῶν ἡρώων. See Heyne ad Apollodôr. iii. 15, 4. “Eumolpi nomen modo communicatum pluribus, modo plurium hominum res et facta cumulata in unum. Is ad quem Hercules venisse dicitur, serior ætate fuit: antiquior est is de quo hoc loco agitur ... antecessisse tamen hunc debet alius, qui cum Triptolemo vixit,” etc. See the learned and valuable comments of Lobeck in his Aglaophamus, tom. i. p. 206-213: in regard to the discrepancies of this narrative he observes, I think, with great justice (p. 211), “quo uno exemplo ex innumerabilibus delecto, arguitur eorum temeritas, qui ex variis discordibusque poetarum et mythographorum narratiunculis, antiquæ famæ formam et quasi lineamenta recognosci posse sperant.”