Notes on the current edition
Library
1.
Compare
Diod. 4.72.4
;
Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 110, 175, 451
. In the second of these passages (
175, vol. i. p. 444, ed. Muller
) Tzetzes agrees closely with Apollodorus and probably follows him. A somewhat different version of the legend was told by Hesiod. According to him the snake was reared by Cychreus, but expelled from
Salamis by Eurylochus because of the ravages it committed in the island; and after its expulsion it was received at
Eleusis by Demeter, who made it one of her attendants. See
Strab. 9.1.9
. Others said that the snake was not a real snake, but a bad man nicknamed Snake on account of his cruelty, who was banished by Eurylochus and took refuge at
Eleusis, where he was appointed to a minor office in the sanctuary of Demeter. See
Stephanus Byzantius, s.v.
Κυχρεῖος πάγος
;
Eustathius, Commentary on Dionysius Perieg. 507 (Geographi Graeci Minores, ed. C. Müller, vol. ii. p. 314)
. Cychreus was regarded as one of the guardian heroes of
Salamis, where he was buried with his face to the west. Sacrifices were regularly offered at his grave, and when Solon desired to establish the claim of
Athens to the possession of the island, he sailed across by night and sacrificed to the dead man at his grave. See
Plut. Sol. 9
. Cychreus was worshipped also at
Athens (
Plut. Thes. 10
). It is said that at the battle of
Salamis a serpent appeared among the Greek ships, and God announced to the Athenians that this serpent was the hero Cychreus (
Paus. 1.36.1
). The story may preserve a reminiscence of the belief that kings and heroes regularly turn into serpents after death. The same belief possibly explains the association of Erichthonius or Erechtheus and Cecrops with serpents at
Athens. See
The Dying God, pp. 86ff.
On account of this legendary serpent Lycophron called
Salamis the Dragon Isle (
Lycophron, Cassandra 110
).
2.
Compare
Xen. Cyn. i.9
;
Scholiast on Hom. Il. xvi.14
. According to
Diod. 4.72.7
, Telamon first married Glauce, daughter of Cychreus, king of
Salamis, and on her death he wedded the Athenian Eriboea, daughter of Alcathous, by whom he had Ajax. Pindar also mentions Eriboea as the wife of Telamon: see
Pind. I. 6.45(65)
.
3.
As to the prayer of Herakles and the appearance of the eagle in answer to the prayer, see
Pind. I. 6.35(51)ff.
;
Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 455-461
. Pindar followed by Apollodorus and Tzetzes, derived the name Ajax from
αἰετός “an eagle.” A story ran that Herakles wrapt the infant Ajax in the lion's skin which he himself wore, and that Ajax was thus made invulnerable except in the armpit, where the quiver had hung, or, according to others, at the neck. Hence, in describing the suicide of the hero, Aeschylus told how, when he tried to run himself through the body, the sword doubled back in the shape of a bow, till some spirit showed the desperate man the fatal point to which to apply the trenchant blade. See
Scholiast on Soph. Aj. 833
;
Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 455-461
;
Scholiast on Hom. Il. 23.821
. Plato probably had this striking passage of the tragedy in his mind when he made Alcibiades speak of Socrates as more proof against vice than Ajax against steel (
Plat. Symp. 219e
).
4.
See above,
Apollod. 2.6.4
. As Hesione, the mother of Teucer, was not the lawful wife of Telamon, Homer speaks of Teucer as a bastard (
Hom. Il. 8.283ff.
, with the
Scholiast on Hom. Il. 8.284
). According to another account, it was not Telamon but his brother Peleus who went with Herakles to the siege of
Troy. The poets were not consistent on this point. Thus, while in two passages (
Pind. N. 4.25(40)
;
Pind. I. 6.27(39)ff.
) Pindar assigns to Telamon the glory of the adventure, in another he transfers it to Peleus (quoted by the
Scholiast on Eur. Andr. 796
;
Pind. Fr. 172
). Euripides was equally inconsistent. See his
Eur. Tro. 804ff.
(Telamon), contrasted with his
Eur. And. 796ff.
(Peleus).
