[302] See Müller, Orchomenos und die Minyer, p. 214. Pausan. ix.
23, 3; 24, 3. The genealogy is as old as the poet Asios.
The great power of Orchomenos was broken down, and the city reduced to
a secondary and half-dependent position by the Bœôtians of Thêbes; at
what time, and under what circumstances, history has not preserved. The
story, that the Thêban hero, Hêraklês, rescued his native city from
servitude and tribute to Orchomenos, since it comes from a Kadmeian
and not from an Orchomenian legend, and since the details of it were
favorite subjects of commemoration in the Thêbian temples,[303]
affords a presumption that Thêbes was really once dependent on
Orchomenos. Moreover the savage mutilations inflicted by the hero on
the tribute-seeking envoys, so faithfully portrayed in his surname
Rhinokoloustês, infuse into the mythe a portion of that bitter feeling
which so long prevailed between Thêbes and Orchomenos, and which led
the Thêbans, as soon as the battle of Leuctra had placed supremacy in
their hands, to destroy and depopulate their rival.[304] The ensuing
generation saw the same fate retorted upon Thêbes, combined with
the restoration of Orchomenos. The legendary grandeur of this city
continued, long after it had ceased to be distinguished for wealth
and power, imperishably recorded both in the minds of the nobler
citizens and in the compositions of the poets; the emphatic language of
Pausanias shows how much he found concerning it in the old epic.[305]
[303] Herod. i. 146. Pausan. vii. 2, 2.
[304] Theocrit. xvi. 104.—
Ὦ ᾿Ετεόκλειοι θύγατρες θεαὶ, αἱ Μινύειον
᾿Ορχόμενον φιλέοισαι, ἀπεχθόμενόν ποκα Θήβαις.
The scholiast gives a sense to these words much narrower than
they really bear. See Diodôr. xv. 79; Pausan. ix. 15. In the
oration which Isokratês places in the mouth of a Platæan,
complaining of the oppressions of Thêbes, the ancient servitude
and tribute to Orchomenos is cast in the teeth of the Thêbans
(Isokrat. Orat. Plataic. vol. iii. p. 32, Auger).
[305] Pausan. ix. 34, 5. See also the fourteenth Olympic Ode
of Pindar, addressed to the Orchomenian Asopikus. The learned
and instructive work of K. O. Müller, Orchomenos und die
Minyer, embodies everything which can be known respecting this
once-memorable city; indeed the contents of the work extends much
farther than its title promises.
SECTION II.—DAUGHTERS OF ÆOLUS.
With several of the daughters of Æolus memorable mythical pedigrees and
narratives are connected. Alcyonê married Kêyx, the son of Eôsphoros,
but both she and her husband displayed in a high degree the overweening
insolence common in the Æolic race. The wife called her husband Zeus,
while he addressed her as Hêrê, for which presumptuous act Zeus
punished them by changing both into birds.[306]
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