[134\4: Hdt. vi, 69. Thus, too, the Theagenes mentioned above was regarded in Thasos not as the son of Timosthenes, ~tou= Theage/nous de\ tê=| mêtri\ Hêrakle/ous suggene/sthai pha/sma eoiko\s Timosthe/nei~, Paus. 6, 11, 2.--Everyone will be reminded, too, of the fable of Zeus and Alkmene. But it should be noticed how near such stories as that so naively told by Herod. approach the risky novel-plot in which some profane mortal visits in disguise an unsuspecting woman and plays the part of a god or spirit-lover. That in Greece, too, such stories were current we may perhaps deduce from Eur., _Ion_, 1530 ff. Ov., _M._ iii, 281; says outright: multi nomine divorum thalamos iniere pudicos. An adventure of this sort is told by the writer of [Aeschines] _Ep._ 10, and he is able to produce two similar cases which he certainly has not invented himself (8-9).--In more recent times both western and Oriental nations have delighted in telling such stories; a typical Oriental example is the story of "the Weaver as Vishnu" in the Panchatantra (see Benfey, _Pantsch._ i, § 56); in the West there is the story of Boccaccio dealing with Alberto of Imola as the angel Gabriel, _Decam._ iv, 2--Very suspicious, too, seems the account of a miracle that occurred in Epidauros: a barren woman comes to the temple of Asklepios to seek advice by ~egkoi/mêsis~. A big snake approaches her and she has a child. ~Eph. Arch.~ 1885, pp. 21-2, l. 129 ff.] [135\4: ~ek tou= hêrôi/ou tou= para\ tê=|si thu/rê|si **tê=|si aulei/ê|si hidrume/nou~, Hdt. vi, 69.] [136\4: Hero ~epi\ prothu/rô|~, Callim., _Ep._ 26; a Hero ~pro\ pu/lais, pro\ do/moisin~, late epigram from Thrace, _Epigr. Gr._ 841; ~hê/rôas plêsi/on tê=s tou= ido/ntos oiki/as hidrume/nous~, Artemid. iv, 79, p. 248, 9 H. This, too, is how Pindar's words about the Hero Alkmaion as his ~gei/tôn~ are to be understood: _Pyth._ viii, 57, see above, n. 105. An Aesopian fable dealing with the relations of a man with his neighbour-Hero begins ~hê/rôa/ tis epi\ tê=s oiki/as e/chôn tou/tô| polutelô=s e/thuen~, 161 Halm.; cf. also Babr. 63.--A similar idea is at work when a son put up a monument to his father at the doorway of his house--see the fine lines of Eur., _Hel._ 1165 ff.] [137\4: ~Ku/prô| e/ntha Teu=kros _apa/rchei_~. Aias ~_e/chei_~ Salamis and Achilles his island in the Pontus; ~The/tis de\ _kratei=_ Phthi/a|~, and so, too, Neoptolemos in Epirus: Pi., _N._ iv, 46-51; ~_amphe/pei_~ used of a Hero, _P._ ix, 70; ~toi=s theoi=s kai\ hê/rôsi toi=s _kate/chousi_ tê\n po/lin kai\ tê\n chô/ran tê\n Athênai/ôn~: Dem. 18, 184.] [138\4: Cf. Alabandus whom the inhabitants of Alabanda sanctius colunt quam quemquam nobilium deorum: Cic., _ND._ iii, 50 (in connexion with an anecdote relating to the fourth century)--Tenem, qui apud Tenedios sanctissimus deus habetur, Cic., _V._ ii, 1, 49.] {{156}} CHAPTER V THE CULT OF SOULS