[117] Homer, Hymn. Vener. 248, 286; Homer, Iliad, v. 320, 386.
[118] A large proportion of the Hesiodic epic related to the exploits and adventures of the heroic women,—the Catalogue of Women and the Eoiai embodied a string of such narratives. Hesiod and Stesichorus explained the conduct of Helen and Klytæmnêstra by the anger of Aphroditê, caused by the neglect of their father Tyndareus to sacrifice to her (Hesiod, Fragm. 59, ed. Düntzer; Stesichor. Fragm. 9, ed. Schneidewin): the irresistible ascendency of Aphroditê is set forth in the Hippolytus of Euripidês not less forcibly than that of Dionysos in the Bacchæ. The character of Daphnis the herdsman, well-known from the first Idyll of Theocritus, and illustrating the destroying force of Aphroditê, appears to have been first introduced into Greek poetry by Stesichorus (see Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, vol. i. pp. 526-529). Compare a striking piece among the Fragmenta Incerta of Sophoklês (Fr. 63, Brunck) and Euripid. Troad. 946, 995, 1048. Even in the Opp. et Di. of Hesiod, Aphroditê is conceived rather as a disturbing and injurious influence (v. 65).
Adonis owes his renown to the Alexandrine poets and their contemporary sovereigns (see Bion’s Idyll and the Adoniazusæ of Theocritus). The favorites of Aphroditê, even as counted up by the diligence of Clemens Alexandrinus, are however very few in number. (Admonitio ad Gent. p. 12, Sylb.)
[119] Ἀνδροθέᾳ δῶρον ... Ἀθάνᾳ Simmias Rhodius; Πέλεκυς, ap. Hephæstion. c. 9. p. 54, Gaisford.
[120] Apollodôr. ap. Schol. ad Sophokl. Œdip. vol. 57; Pausan. i. 24, 3; ix. 26, 3; Diodôr. v. 73; Plato, Legg. xi. p. 920. In the Opp. et Di. of Hesiod, the carpenter is the servant of Athênê (429): see also Phereklos the τέκτων in the Iliad, v. 61: compare viii. 385; Odyss. viii. 493; and the Homeric Hymn, to Aphroditê, v. 12. The learned article of O. Müller (in the Encyclopædia of Ersch and Gruber, since republished among his Kleine Deutsche Schriften, p. 134 seq.), Pallas Athênê, brings together all that can be known about this goddess.
[121] Iliad, ii. 546; viii. 362.
[122] Apollodôr. iii. 4, 6. Compare the vague language of Plato, Kritias, c. iv., and Ovid, Metamorph. ii. 757.
[123] Herodot. iv. 103; Strabo, xii. p. 534; xiii. p. 650. About the Ephesian Artemis, see Guhl, Ephesiaca (Berlin, 1843), p. 79 sqq.; Aristoph. Nub. 590; Autokrates in Tympanistis apud Ælian. Hist. Animal. xii. 9; and Spanheim ad Kallimach. Hymn. Dian. 36. The dances in honor of Artemis sometimes appear to have approached to the frenzied style of Bacchanal movement. See the words of Timotheus ap. Plutarch. de Audiend. Poet. p. 22, c. 4, and περὶ Δεισιδ. c. 10, p. 170, also Aristoph. Lysist. 1314. They seem to have been often celebrated in the solitudes of the mountains, which were the favorite resort of Artemis (Kallimach. Hymn. Dian. 19), and these ὀρειβάσιαι were always causes predisposing to fanatical excitement.
[124] Strabo, iv. p. 179.
[125] Iliad, ix. 529.