μήτηρ Ἰοκάστη, θυγατέρες, παῖδες τίνες·
τί πείσεθ᾽ οὗτος, τί πεποίηκεν. Ἂν πάλιν
εἴπῃ τις Ἀλκμαίωνα, καὶ τὰ παιδία
πάντ᾽ εὐθὺς εἴρηχ᾽, ὅτι μανεὶς ἀπέκτονε
τὴν μήτερ᾽· ἀγανακτῶν δ᾽ Ἄδραστος εὐθέως
ἥξει, πάλιν δ᾽ ἄπεισιν, etc.
The first pages of the eleventh Oration of Dio Chrysostom contain some striking passages both as to the universal acquaintance with the mythes, and as to their extreme popularity (Or. xi. p. 307-312, Reisk). See also the commencement of Heraklidês, De Allegoriâ Homericâ (ap. Scriptt. Myth. ed. Gale, p. 408), about the familiarity with Homer.
The Lydê of the poet Antimachus was composed for his own consolation under sorrow, by enumerating the ἡρωϊκὰς συμφοράς (Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollôn. c. 9. p. 106: compare Æschines cont. Ktesiph. c. 48): a sepulchral inscription in Thêra, on the untimely death of Admêtus, a youth of the heroic gens Ægidae, makes a touching allusion to his ancestors Pêleus and Pherês (Boeckh, C. I. t. ii. p. 1087).
A curious passage of Aristotle is preserved by Dêmêtrius Phalereus (Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας, c. 144),—Ὅσῳ γὰρ αὐτίτης καὶ μονώτης εἰμὶ, φιλομυθότερος γέγονα (compare the passage in the Nikomachean Ethics, i. 9, μονώτης καὶ ἄτεκνος). Stahr refers this to a letter of Aristotle written in his old age, the mythes being the consolation of his solitude (Aristotelia, i. p. 201).
For the employment of the mythical names and incidents as topics of pleasing and familiar comparison, see Menander, Περὶ Ἐπιδεικτῖκ. § iv. capp. 9 and 11, ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. t. ix. pp. 283-294. The degree in which they passed into the ordinary songs of women is illustrated by a touching epigram contained among the Chian Inscriptions published in Boeckh’s Collection (No. 2236):—