Notes on the current edition
Library
1.
Compare
Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium 28, pp. 53ff. ed. C. Lang
;
Ovid, Fasti iv.559ff.
;
Ovid, Tristia iii.8. (9) 1ff.
;
Hyginus, Fab. 147
;
Hyginus, Ast. ii.14
;
Serv. Verg. G. 1.19, 163
;
Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. ii.382
;
Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 3, 107 (First Vatican Mythographer 8; Second Vatican Mythographer 97)
. The dragon-car of Triptolemus was mentioned by Sophocles in his lost tragedy
Triptolemus. See
TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), p. 262, frag. 539
;
The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, ii.243, frag. 596
. In Greek vase-paintings Triptolemus is often represented in his dragon-car. As to the representations of the car in ancient art, see
Stephani, in
Compte Rendu (St. Petersburg) for 1859, pp. 82ff.
;
Frazer, note on Paus. vii.18.3 (vol. iv. pp. 142ff.)
; and especially
A. B. Cook,
Zeus, i. (Cambridge, 1914), pp. 211ff.
, who shows that on the earlier monuments Triptolemus is represented sitting on a simple wheel, which probably represents the sun. Apparently he was a mythical embodiment of the first sower. See
Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i.72ff.
2.
The accounts given of the parentage of Triptolemus were very various (
Paus. 1.14.2ff.
), which we need not wonder at when we remember that he was probably a purely mythical personage. As to
Eleusis, the equally mythical hero who is said to have given his name to
Eleusis, see
Paus. 8.38.7
. He is called Eleusinus by
Hyginus, Fab. 147
and
Serv. Verg. G. 1.19
.
