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

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[4]  But Zeus, fearing that men might acquire the healing art from him and so come to the rescue of each other, smote him with a thunderbolt.¹ Angry on that account, Apollo slew the Cyclopes who had fashioned the thunderbolt for Zeus.² But Zeus would have hurled him to Tartarus; [p. 21] however, at the intercession of Latona he ordered him to serve as a thrall to a man for a year. So he went to Admetus, son of Pheres, at Pherae, and served him as a herdsman, and caused all the cows to drop twins.³

But some say that Aphareus and Leucippus were sons of Perieres, the son of Aeolus, and that Cynortes begat Perieres, and that Perieres begat Oebalus, and that Oebalus begat Tyndareus, Hippocoon, and Icarius by a Naiad nymph Batia.⁴

¹ This account of the death of Aesculapius, the revenge of Apollo, and his servitude with Admetus is copied almost verbally by Zenobius, Cent. i.18, but as usual without acknowledgment. Compare Pherecydes, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1; Pind. P. 3.54(96)ff.; Eur. Alc. 1ff.; Eur. Alc. 123ff.; Diod. 4.71.1-3; Hyginus, Fab. 49; Serv. Verg. A. 7.761; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 17 (First Vatican Mythographer 46). According to Diod. 4.71.1-3 Aesculapius as a physician was so successful in his practice that the death-rate was perceptibly lowered, and Hades accused the doctor to Zeus of poaching on his preserves. The accusation angered Zeus, and he killed Aesculapius with a thunderbolt. According to Pherecydes, with whom Apollodorus agrees, the period of Apollo's servitude with Admetus was one year; according to Servius and the First Vatican Mythographer it was nine years. This suggests that the period may have been what was called a “great” or “eternal” year, which included eight ordinary years. See above, Apollod. 3.4.2, with the note on Apollod. 2.5.11. According to one account the motive for Apollo's servitude was his love for Admetus. See Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo 45ff.; Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, quoting Rhianus as his authority. Apollo is said to have served Branchus as well as Admetus (Philostratus, Epist. 57), and we have seen that he served Laomedon. See above, Apollod. 2.5.9 note.

² According to Pherecydes, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, it was not the Cyclopes but their sons whom Apollo slew. The passage of Pherecydes, as quoted by the Scholiast, runs as follows: “To him” (that is, to Admetus) “came Apollo, to serve him as a thrall for a year, at the command of Zeus, because Apollo had slain the sons of Brontes, of Steropes, and of Arges. He slew them out of spite at Zeus, because Zeus slew his son Aesculapius with a thunderbolt at Pytho; for by his remedies Aesculapius raised the dead.”

³ See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “Apollo and the Kine of Admetus.”

⁴ As to these genealogies see above, Apollod. 1.7.3; Apollod. 1.9.5; Apollod. 2.4.5; Apollod. 3.10.3; Paus. 2.21.7; Paus. 3.1.3ff.; Paus. 4.2.2 and Paus. 4.2.4; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 284, 511. Pausanias consistently represents Perieres as the son of Aeolus, and this tradition had the support of Hesiod (quoted by Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 284). On the other hand Tzetzes represents Perieres as the son of Cynortes (Scholiast on Lycophron 511). Apollodorus here and elsewhere (Apollod. 1.9.5) mentions both traditions without deciding between them. In two passages (Apollod. 1.7.3; Apollod. 1.9.5) he asserts or implies that the father of Perieres was Aeolus; in another passage (Apollod. 3.10.3) he asserts that the father of Perieres was Cynortes. In the present passage he seems to say that according to one tradition there were two men of the name of Perieres: one of them was the son of Aeolus and father of Aphareus and Leucippus; the other was the son of Cynortes and father of Oebalus, who married the nymph Batia and became by her the father of Tyndareus, Hippocoon, and Icarius. Pausanias says that Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus, first married Perieres and had by him two sons, Aphareus and Leucippus, and that after his death she married Oebalus, son of Cynortas (Cynortes), and had by him a son Tyndareus. See Paus. 2.21.7; Paus. 3.1.4; Paus. 4.2.4. Apollodorus, on the other hand, represents Perieres as the father not only of Aphareus and Leucippus, but also of Tyndareus and Icarius by Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus. See above, Apollod. 1.9.5; Apollod. 3.10.3. Tzetzes (Scholiast on Lycophron 511) agrees with him as to the sons, but makes Perieres the son of Cynortas instead the son of Aeolus. Thus there were two traditions as to the father of Tyndareus; according to one, his father was Perieres, according to the other, he was Oebalus. But the two traditions were agreed as to the mother of Tyndareus, whom they represented as Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus. According to another account, which may have been intended to reconcile the discrepant traditions as to the father of Tyndareus, Oebalus was the son of Perieres and the father of Tyndareus, Icarius, Arene, and the bastard Hippocoon, whom he had by Nicostrate. See Scholiast on Eur. Or. 457; Scholiast on Hom. Il. ii.581. This account is mentioned, but apparently not accepted, by Apollodorus in the present passage, though he says nothing about the daughter Arene and the bastardy of Hippocoon. If we accept this last version of the genealogy, Tyndareus was descended both from Oebalus and Perieres, being the son of Oebalus and the grandson of Perieres. In a recently discovered fragment of the Catalogues of Hesiod, that poet calls Tyndareus an Oebalid, implying that his father was Oebalus. See Griechische Dichterfragmente, i., Epische und elegische Fragmente, bearbeitet von W. Schubart und U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Berlin, 1907), p. 30, line 38 (Berliner Klassikertexte 1); Hes. Frag. 68.38.

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

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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