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to Agamemnon in Mycenae: as king of Mycenae he was the richest and most powerful king in Greece, and undisputed leader of the expedition. According to the Homeric catalogue he ruled the north-eastern corner of the Pelopo
the oaths: most of the Greek kings had been suitors for Helen’s hand, and had sworn to help the one who was chosen as her husband if he should be wronged with regard to his marriage, see p. 121.
pretended to be mad: he is said to have yoked an ox with a horse (Hyg. 95), and sown the land with salt (VM 1. 35).
drew his sword: or he placed the child in front of Odysseus’ plough (Tzetz. sc. Lycophr. 818). Procl. is vague: he picked up the child ‘to punish it’.
after capturing. . . as a traitor: this is Odysseus’ later revenge for his ignominious exposure. It was also said that Odysseus killed Palamedes because he was envious of his cleverness (Xen. Mem. 4. 2. 33), or that Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Diomedes plotted against him because they were jealous of his popularity with the army for his inventions etc. (sc. Eur. Orest. 432). In the Cypria, Odysseus and Diomedes drowned him while he was fishing (P. 10. 31. 1).
a breastplate: in the manuscripts, ‘breastplates’, but this is surely a reference to the magnificent breastplate described in Il. 11. 19 ff., a personal gift from one king to another rather than a practical contribution to the expedition. The ruse of the earthenware ships, absent from Homer, may go back to the Cypria(although Procl. makes no mention of it). For Cinyras, see p. 131.
Elais, Spermo, and Oino: their names refer to the oil, grain, and wine elicited by them. They lived with their father, Anios, on Delos. Ap.’s account in the original text was probably comparable with that in Dictys of Crete, Trojan War1. 23, where they send provisions to the Greeks at Aulis. It was also said that Anios, who knew that Troy could not be taken until the tenth year, offered to maintain the Greek army at Delos for the intervening period, using his daughters to feed them (Tzetz. sc. Lycophr. 570, reporting the Cypriaand Pherecydes), or that his daughters came to help the Greeks when they were suffering from hunger at Troy (ibid. 580, reporting Callimachus).
Those who took part: compare Homer’s catalogue, Il. 2. 494 ff.; some of the names and numbers diverge.
a snake . . . after ten years: cf. Il. 2. 308 ff. The nine birds eaten by the snake represent nine years of war; Troy will be captured in the tenth.
Mysia: in the north-western corner of Asia Minor; historically the Troad lay within the province of that name.
Telephos, son of Heracles: see pp. 88 and 116.
entangled in a vine branch: through the anger of Dionysos, because Telephos had deprived him of his cult (sc. Il. 1. 59); hence the vine, which is emblematic of the god.
lasted twenty years: this is clearly problematic, as the war would then end twenty (rather than ten) years after the portent of the sparrows (which is said to have been revealed at the firstmuster by both Ap. above and Procl.). But there are indications that this was not a fancy of late origin. In the Cypria(Procl.) and Little Iliad(sc. Il. 19. 326) Achilles married Deidameia (and thus fathered Neoptolemos) on his way back from Mysia, and Neoptolemos must have had time to grow to fighting age before joining the Greeks in the final year of the war (see p. 156); and there is the anomalous statement by Helen in Il. 24. 765 f, where she says that it is the twentieth year since she left her homeland.
scraping rust from his Pelian spear: following the principle of sympathetic magic noted for Iphiclos’ knife on p. 47, that what inflicts harm can cure it. The Pelian spear was the ashwood spear cut on Mount Pelion by Cheiron as a wedding present for Peleus, see p. 129 with Il. 16. 143 f.
Not even Artemis: following the Vatican epitome, where the meaning of this is left to the reader’s understanding; I have completed the sentence following sc. Il. 1. 108 (cf. sc. Eur. Orest. 658). The reading in the Sabbaitic epitome, ‘it could not escape alive even if Artemis wanted it to,’ is surely a misinterpretation of the statement in its abbreviated form.
Agamemnon brought her. . . at the altar: as in the Cypria(Procl.). See also Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulisand the introductory speech of his Iphigeneia in Tauris.
Cycnos: not the adversary of Heracles (pp. 82, 90) but a son of Poseidon who ruled at Colonai in the Troad (cf. P. 10. 14. 1 ff). Tenedos was a small island lying off the coast of the Troad.
While. . . offering a sacrifice to Apollo: on Tenedos, following the Cypria(Procl.). Homer mentions the water-snake, hydros, as the cause of his wound, Il. 2. 723. The later tradition varies; in Soph. Philoct. Milf, he is bitten on Chryse, an island near Lemnos, by a serpent guarding the local temple of Athene; or he is bitten where his comrades abandon him, on Lemnos (e.g. Hyg. 102).
the bow of Heracles: Heracles gave it to his father Poias (or to Philoctetes himself) for lighting his pyre, see p. 91 and note.
sending Odysseus and Menelaos: cf. Il. 3. 205 ff.
first. . . to disembark: cf. Il. 2. 701 f., where his killer is a nameless Dardanian (as against Hector in the Cypria, see Procl.); that Protesilaos would be the first to enter battle is suggested in his name.
Laodameia: there seems to have been some coverage of her story in the Cypria(P. 4. 2. 7; there she was described as Polydora, daughter of Meleager, but the present name is general in later authors). The pathetic tale appealed to later sentiment and was much developed and varied. Protesilaos was to be released from Hades for a limited period only. (See also Ovid Heroides18. and Hyg. 103 and 104. In Hyg. 103, Laodameia prays to be allowed three hours with him, and is unable to endure the sorrow when he dies for a second time.)
by hurling a stone at his head: Cycnos (the father of Tenes, see above) was said to be invulnerable except in his head (sc. Lcophr. 232). There was another tradition that he was wholly invulnerable and Achilles had to strangle him as Heracles strangled the Nemean lion (e.g. Ov. Met. 12. 144, with the thong of his helmet).