Fig. 54.—Niobe. Florence.
“Apollo and Artemis are to be supposed outside the group; they have accomplished their work of vengeance and destruction from an invisible position in the heavens. This is denoted by each movement of the flying figures, who either gaze upwards in affright towards the heavens, or seek to cover themselves with their garments. One of the sons is already stretched dead on the earth; another leans in mortal agony against a rock, fixing his eyes, already glazed in death, on the spot whence destruction has overtaken him. A third brother is striving in vain to protect with his robe his sister, who has fallen wounded at his feet, and to catch her in his arms; another has sunk on his knees, and clutches in agony at the wound in his back; whilst his preceptor is endeavouring to shield the youngest boy. All the others are fleeing instinctively to their mother, thinking, doubtless, that she who had so often afforded protection could save them also from the avenging arrows of the gods. Thus from either side the waves of this dreadful flight rush towards the centre, to break on the sublime figure of Niobe as upon a rock. She alone stands unshaken in all her sorrow, mother and queen to the last. Clasping her youngest daughter, whose tender years have not preserved her, in her arms, and bending over as though to shield the child, she turns her own proud head upwards, and, before her left hand can cover her sorrow-stricken face with her robe, she casts towards the avenging goddess a look in which bitter grief is blended with sublime dignity of soul (Fig. 54). In this look there is neither defiance nor prayer for mercy, but a sorrowful and yet withal lofty expression of heroic resignation to inexorable fate that is worthy of a Niobe. This admirable figure, then, is pre-eminently the central point of the composition, since it expresses an atonement which, in a scene of horror and annihilation, stirs the heart to the deepest sympathy.”
Zethus was not more fortunate than Amphion in his domestic affairs. He married Aëdon (nightingale), the daughter of Pandareos. Pandareos was the friend and companion of Tantalus, for whom he stole a living dog made of brass from the temple of Zeus in Crete, and was on that account turned into stone.
Aëdon was jealous of the good-fortune of Niobe in having so many beautiful children; she herself having only one son, Itylus. She resolved, one night, to slay the eldest son of Niobe, but she killed, in mistake, her own child instead. Zeus took compassion on her, and changed her into a nightingale. In this guise she still continues to bewail her loss in long-drawn mournful notes. Tradition says nothing as to the death of Zethus, although the common grave of the Theban Dioscuri was pointed out in Thebes. After his death, Laius, the son of Labdacus and grandson of Polydorus, restored in his person the race of Cadmus to the throne of Thebes. (See the legend of the Labdacidæ later on.)
3. Corinthian Legend.—1. Sisyphus.—Corinth, or Ephyra, as it was formerly called, was said to have been founded by Sisyphus, the son of Æolus. Its inhabitants, on account of the position of their city between two seas, were naturally inclined to deify that element, and it is not improbable that Sisyphus was merely an ancient symbol of the restless, ever-rolling waves of the sea. This interpretation, however, is by no means certain; and the idea of Sisyphus in the lower world ever rolling a huge stone to the top of a mountain might equally well refer to the sun, which, after attaining its highest point in the heavens at the time of the summer solstice, glides back again, only to begin its career anew on the shortest day. In any case, the rolling of the stone does not appear to have been originally a punishment. It was only later—after people had become familiar with the idea of retribution in the lower world—that it assumed this character. In order to account for it, a special crime had to be found for Sisyphus. According to some, he was punished at the instance of Zeus, because he had revealed to the river-god Asopus the hiding-place of his daughter Ægina, whom Zeus had secretly carried off from Phlius. According to another tradition, he used to attack travellers, and put them to death by crushing them with great stones. The Corinthians being crafty men of business, it was natural that they should accredit their mythical founder with a refined cunning. Of the numerous legends which existed concerning him, none was more celebrated than that of the cunning mode in which he succeeded in binding Death, whom Ares had to be despatched to release.
2. Glaucus.—Tradition describes Glaucus as a son of Sisyphus by Merope. He also appears to have had a symbolic meaning, and was once identical with Poseidon, though he was afterwards degraded from the rank of a god to that of a hero. He is remarkable for his unfortunate end. On the occasion of some funeral games, celebrated in Iolcus in honour of Pelias, he took part in the chariot race, and was torn in pieces by his own horses, which had taken fright.
3. Bellerophon and the Legend of the Amazons.—The third national hero of Corinth was Bellerophon, or Bellerophontes. Here the reference to the sun is so obvious, that the signification of the myth is unmistakeable. He was termed the son of Poseidon or Glaucus, and none could appreciate this genealogy better than the Corinthians, who daily saw the sun rise from the sea. We must first, however, narrate the substance of the story. Bellerophon was born and brought up at Corinth, but was obliged from some cause or other to leave his country. That he killed Bellerus, a noble of Corinth, is nothing but a fable arising from an unfortunate misinterpretation of his name. He was hospitably received by Prœtus, king of Tiryns, whose wife at once fell in love with the handsome, stately youth. Finding, however, that Bellerophon slighted her passion, she slandered him to her husband, and Prœtus forthwith sent him to his father-in-law, Iobates, king of Lycia, with a tablet, mysterious signs on which bade Iobates put the bearer to death. At this juncture the heroic career of Bellerophon begins. Iobates sought to fulfil the command of Prœtus by involving his guest in all kinds of desperate adventures. He first sent him to destroy the Chimæra, a dangerous monster that devastated the land. The fore part of its body was that of a lion, the centre that of a goat, and the hinder part that of a dragon. According to Hesiod, it had three heads—that of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. According to the same poet, the Chimæra was a fire-breathing monster of great swiftness and strength, the daughter of Typhon and Echidna. Bellerophon destroyed the monster by raising himself in the air on his winged horse Pegasus, and shooting it with his arrows. Pegasus was the offspring of Poseidon and Medusa, from whose trunk it sprung after Perseus had struck off her head. Bellerophon captured this wonderful animal as it descended at the Acro-Corinthus to drink of the spring of Pirene. In this he was assisted by the goddess Athene, who also taught him how to tame and use it. Here, then, he appears to have already possessed the horse at Corinth; though another tradition relates that Pegasus was first sent to him when he set out to conquer the Chimæra. The origin of the story is ascribed to a fiery mountain in Lycia; but, as all dragons and suchlike monsters of antiquity are represented as breathing forth fire and flames, we are perhaps scarcely justified in having recourse to a volcano. This characteristic is, in fact, merely a common symbol of the furious and dangerous character of these monsters. The contest of Bellerophon is far more likely to be a picture of the drying up, by means of the sun’s rays, of the furious mountain torrents which flood the corn-fields. Others, again, have thought that the Chimæra represents the storms of winter conquered by the sun.
The next adventure in which Iobates engaged Bellerophon was an expedition against the Solymi, a neighbouring but hostile mountain tribe. After he had been successful in subduing them, Iobates sent him against the warlike Amazons, hoping that among them he would be certain to meet his death. We here, for the first time, come across this remarkable nation of women, with whom other Greek heroes, such as Heracles and Theseus, are said to have fought; and it will not, therefore, be foreign to our object to dwell here on their most important features.
