Menoiceus. . . as a sacrifice to Ares: see Eur. Phoenissae930 ff.; to gain the favour of Ares, a descendant of one of the Sown Men must offer his life to atone for the murder of Ares’ dragon (see p. 100).

Zeus struck him down: as retribution for his impious arrogance, for Capaneus boasted that he would sack the town whether Zeus wished it or not, and said that the thunder and lightning of Zeus were no worse than the midday sun (Aesch. Seven against Thebes Allff., cf. Eur. Suppl. 496 ff.). Or he climbed the ladder with two torches, saying that one was thunder and the other lightning (sc. Eur. Phoen. 1173), behaving rather like Salmoneus on p. 45. A descendant of Proitos, Capaneus was a member of the native royal line in Argos.

for Tydeus. . . killed Melanippos: in all other sources, Amphiaraos himself killed him (e.g. sc. Il. 5. 126, referring to Pherecydes). This may well be an interpolation.

Zeus made him immortal: he was worshipped as a healer god and had an oracle at Oropos (latterly in Attica, but previously in Boeotia). See P. 1. 34. 2 (and, for the site of his disappearance, 9. 8. 2).

after having intercourse with him in the likeness of a Fury: but see P. 8. 25. 4 ff. Poseidon wanted to have intercourse with her while she was searching for her daughter; she turned herself into a mare, but Poseidon responded by turning himself into a stallion, and so achieved his desire; and she received the title of Fury (Erinys) because of her anger afterwards (hence the cult of Demeter Erinys at Thelpusa). It was this intercourse in horse-form that led Demeter to give birth to Adrastos’ horse, Areion. On Areion see also Il. 23. 346 f.

Creon . . . to the Theban throne: thus in Sophocles’ Antigone, Ap.’s source for the following; but the tradition that he was acting as regent until Eteocles’ son Laodamas came of age (P. 1. 39. 2 and 9. 10. 3) is easier to reconcile with other elements in the mythology of this period. It will be seen that Laodamas was king of the Thebans when the Epigoni invaded (and there was indeed a tradition that it was he who caused the death of Antigone, and her sister Ismene too, Arg. Soph. Ant.).

suppliant’s bough: an olive bough, placed on an altar as a symbolic gesture when claiming divine protection. For the present altar, see p. 92 and note.

captured the city: it may be doubted that Theseus was ever said to have captured the city, in the strict sense. He either forced the Thebans to surrender the bodies by defeating them in a battle, or persuaded them to do so by negotiation (see Plut. Thes. 29, P. 1. 39. 2, and cf. Eur. Suppliants653 ff.).

the Epigoni: ‘the afterborn’, used as a proper name when referring to these sons of the Argive leaders who mounted a second, and now successful, expedition against Thebes.

Eriphyle, . . persuaded her sons also to take part: a reduplication of the story of Eriphyle and Amphiaraos on p. 108; but it should be noted that she does not have the same hold on her sons as she had on her husband, and far from being fated to die, her sons will survive as leading figures in a successful expedition. Amphiaraos had indeed ordered them to mount such an expedition, p. 108. The story of the Second Theban War was told in an early epic, the Alcmaionis;and there (sc. Od. 11. 326) Alcmaion kills his mother before departing, leaving no place for the present story.

killed Aigialeus: just as Adrastos was the only leader to survive on the first expedition, his son Aigialeus is the only leader to be killed on the second (thus giving his life in place of his father, as Hyg. 71 explicitly states).

Hestiaia: in Thessaly; but they are also said to have travelled further north, to Illyria (Hdt. 5. 61; P. 9. 5. 7).

the Fury of his mother’s murder: those who shed blood, especially within their own family, were liable to be pursued by an Erinys, or avenging spirit.

a land. . . by the Sun: since the text is hopelessly corrupt at this point, I follow Carriere’s example and simply give the content of the oracle as reported by Thucydies (2. 102). He must seek a land that did not exist when the position was incurred (cf. P. 8. 24. 8). From Aetolia, he travels to me Thesprotians in Epirus in north-western Greece, and thence to the springs of the River Acheloos (also in Epirus) but founds his city much further south at its mouth, by the entrance to the Corinthian Gulf (at Oiniadai in Acarnania, Thuc. 2. 102). Acheloos functions both as a person and a river. On Acheloos see also p. 88 and note.

had been informed by an oracle: although one might infer from the present narrative that Alcmaion is inventing this, he is said to have received such an oracle (Athenaeus 232d ff. tells how it supposedly ran).

founded Acarnania: to the west of Aetolia facing the Ionian Sea; see also P. 8. 24. 9.

Euripides: in his lost tragedy Alcmaion in Corinth.

founded Amphilochian Argos: Thucydides’ report (2. 68) that it was founded by his uncle Amphilochos, son of Amphiaraos, on his return from Troy reflects the older tradition; the present Amphilochos was apparently invented by Euripides, and his late entry into the family causes nothing but confusion, cf. p. 162 and note.

as me observed above: see p. 58 and note. Pelasgos, the Arcadian ‘first man’, becomes the father of Lycaon, the founder of the common cult of the Arcadian communities, that of Zeus Lycaios on Mount Lycaion.

fifty sons: for the most part eponymous founders of Arcadian towns. See also P. 8. 3. The list is one name short.

a child. . . into the sacrifices: according to a similar account by Nicolaus of Damascus, first century BC (see Frazer i. 390 n. 1 for a translation), the pious Lycaon warned his subjects that Zeus made constant visits to inspect their behaviour; and one day, when he offered a sacrifice saying that the god was about to visit, some of his sons performed the present action to check whether the god really did come (for if he did, he would surely recognize what they had done). There is a conflicting version of this story in which Lycaon himself (angered by Zeus’ seduction of Callisto, see below) served his grandson Areas to Zeus, who reacted by overturning the table and transforming Lycaon into a wolf (see under Hes. Cat. fr. 163, and Hyg. PA4). See also P. 8. 2. 1 ff. for the local tradition, and Ovid’s portrait of a wicked Lycaon in Met. 1. 196 ff.