Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer)

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[4]  Alcyone was married by Ceyx, son of Lucifer.¹ [p. 59] These perished by reason of their pride; for he said that his wife was Hera, and she said that her husband was Zeus.² But Zeus turned them into birds; her he made a kingfisher ( alcyon) and him a gannet ( ceyx).³

Canace had by Poseidon Hopleus and Nireus and Epopeus and Aloeus and Triops. Aloeus wedded Iphimedia, daughter of Triops; but she fell in love with Poseidon, and often going to the sea she would draw up the waves with her hands and pour them into her lap. Poseidon met her and begat two sons, Otus and Ephialtes, who are called the Aloads.⁴ These grew every year a cubit in breadth and a fathom in height; and when they were nine years old,⁵ being nine cubits broad and nine fathoms high, they resolved to fight against the gods, and they set Ossa on Olympus, and having set Pelion on Ossa they threatened by means of these mountains to ascend up to heaven, and they said that by filling up the sea with the mountains they would make it dry land, and the land they would make sea. And Ephialtes wooed Hera, and Otus wooed Artemis; moreover they put Ares in bonds.⁶ However, Hermes [p. 61] rescued Ares by stealth, and Artemis killed the Aloads in Naxos by a ruse. For she changed herself into a deer and leaped between them, and in their eagerness to hit the quarry they threw their darts at each other.⁷

¹ According to Ov. Met. 11.271ff., Ceyx reflected his father's brightness in his face.

² Compare Scholiast on Aristoph. Birds 250; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ix.562; Eustathius on Hom. Il. ix.562. p. 776. The story may be a reminiscence of an ancient Greek custom, in accordance with which kings are said to have been regularly called Zeus. See Tzetzes, Antehomerica 102ff.; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.474; A. B. Cook, “The European Sky-god,” Folklore, xv. (1904), pp. 299ff.

³ Compare Lucian, Halcyon 1; Scholiast on Aristoph. Birds 250; Ov. Met. 11.410ff., especially 710ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 65. The identification of the seabird ceyx is doubtful. See D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Glossary of Greek Birds (Oxford, 1895), p. 81.

⁴ As to the Aloads, see Hom. Od. 11.305ff.; Verg. A. 6.582ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 28.

⁵ This answers to the enneôroi of Homer (Hom. Od. 11.31), the meaning of which has been disputed. See Merry, on Hom. Od. x.19. Hyginus, Fab. 28 understood enneôroi in the same way as Apollodorus (“cum essent annorum novem”).

⁶ They are said to have imprisoned him for thirteen months in a brazen pot, from which he was rescued, in a state of great exhaustion, by the interposition of Hermes. See Hom. Il. 5.385ff. Compare my note, “Ares in the brazen pot,” The Classical Review, ii. (1888) p. 222.

⁷ Compare Hyginus, Fab. 28.

Cross references from Thomas W. Allen, E. E. Sikes, Commentary on the Homeric Hymns:
* [HYMN TO APOLLO]

Cross references from Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898):
triopas [Triŏpas]

This text is based on the following book(s):
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
OCLC: 28280131
ISBN: 0674991354, 0674991362

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