complete defeat of the Amazons in Attica.[418] Nor can there be any
doubt that these legendary glories were both recited by the speakers,
and heard by the listeners, with profound and undoubting faith, as well
as with heart-stirring admiration.
[417] There were other local genealogies of Tegea deduced from
Lykurgus: Bôtachus, eponym of the Dême Bôtachidæ at that place,
was his grandson (Nicolaus ap. Steph. Byz. v. Βωταχίδαι).
[418] Herodot. ix. 27. Echemus is described by Pindar (Ol. xi.
69) as gaining the prize of wrestling in the fabulous Olympic
games, on their first establishment by Hêraklês. He also found
a place in the Hesiodic Catalogue as husband of Timandra, the
sister of Helen and Klytæmnêstra (Hesiod, Fragm. 105, p. 318,
Marktscheff.).
One other person there is—Ischys, son of Elatus and grandson of
Arkas—in the fabulous genealogy of Arcadia whom it would be improper to
pass over, inasmuch as his name and adventures are connected with the
genesis of the memorable god or hero Æsculapius, or Asklêpius. Korônis,
daughter of Phlegyas, and resident near the lake Bœbëis in Thessaly,
was beloved by Apollo and became pregnant by him: unfaithful to the
god, she listened to the propositions of Ischys son of Elatus, and
consented to wed him: a raven brought to Apollo the fatal news, which
so incensed him that he changed the color of the bird from white, as it
previously had been, into black.[419] Artemis, to avenge the wounded
dignity of her brother, put Korônis to death; but Apollo preserved the
male child of which she was about to be delivered, and consigned it to
the Centaur Cheirôn to be brought up. The child was named Asklêpius or
Æsculapius, and acquired, partly from the teaching of the beneficent
leech Cheirôn, partly from inborn and superhuman aptitude, a knowledge
of the virtues of herbs and a mastery of medicine and surgery, such
as had never before been witnessed. He not only cured the sick, the
wounded, and the dying, but even restored the dead to life. Kapaneus,
Eriphylê, Hippolytus, Tyndareus and Glaukus were all affirmed by
different poets and logographers to have been endued by him with a new
life.[420] But Zeus now found himself under the necessity of taking
precautions lest mankind, thus unexpectedly protected against sickness
and death, should no longer stand in need of the immortal gods: he
smote Asklêpius with thunder and killed him. Apollo was so exasperated
by this slaughter of his highly-gifted son, that he killed the Cyclôpes
who had fabricated the thunder, and Zeus was about to condemn him to
Tartarus for doing so; but on the intercession of Latôna he relented,
and was satisfied with imposing upon him a temporary servitude in the
house of Admêtus at Pheræ.
[419] Apollodôr. iii. 10, 3; Hesiod, Fragm. 141-142,
Marktscheff.; Strab. ix. p. 442; Pherekydês, Fragm. 8; Akusilaus,
Fragm. 25, Didot.
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