Apollodorus Library 3.7.5

ed. Sir James George Frazer

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Library. Apollodorus. ed. Sir James George Frazer. Cambridge, MA. 1921.

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Current edition Perseus

Library (English) (Apollodorus. The Library, Vol 1-2. Frazer, James George, Sir, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.)

Editions (1)
Βιβλιοθήκη Perseus (Apollodorus. The Library, Vol 1-2. Frazer, James George, Sir, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.) — 3.7.5 focus

Notes on the current edition

Library

1. That is, as well as to the undoing of his father Amphiaraus. See above, Apollod. 3.6.2 .
2. Compare Thuc. 2.102.7ff. ; Diod. 4.65.7 ; Paus. 8.24.7ff. ; Ov. Met. 9.407ff. ; Hyginus, Fab. 73 . Sophocles and Euripides both wrote tragedies called Alcmaeon, or rather Alcmeon, for that appears to be the more correct spelling of the name. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 153ff., 379ff. ; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 68ff.
3. Oicles was the father of Amphiaraus, and therefore the grandfather of Alcmaeon. See Apollod. 1.8.2 .
4. Paus. 8.24.8 and Prop. i.15.19 call her Alphesiboea.
5. So Greece is said to have been afflicted with a dearth on account of a treacherous murder committed by Pelops. See below, Apollod. 3.12.6 . Similarly the land of Thebes was supposed to be visited with barrenness of the soil, of cattle, and of women because of the presence of Oedipus, who had slain his father and married his mother. See Soph. OT 22ff. ; Soph. OT 96ff. ; Hyginus, Fab. 67 . The notion that the shedding of blood, especially the blood of a kinsman, is an offence to the earth, which consequently refuses to bear crops, seems to have been held by the ancient Hebrews, as it is still apparently held by some African peoples. See Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.82ff.
6. The text is here uncertain. See the Critical Note.
7. Achelous here seems to be conceived partly as a river and partly as a man, or rather a god.
8. Compare Thuc. 2.102.7ff. ; Paus. 8.24.8ff. As to the formation of new land by the deposit of alluvial soil at the mouth of the Achelous, compare Hdt. 2.10 .
9. According to Ephorus, or his son Demophilus, this oracle was really given to Alcmaeon at Delphi. See Athenaeus vi.22, p. 232 DF , where the words of the oracle are quoted.
10. His grave was overshadowed by tall cypresses, called the Maidens, in the bleak upland valley of Psophis. See Paus. 8.24.7 . A quiet resting-place for the matricide among the solemn Arcadian mountains after the long fever of the brain and the long weary wanderings. The valley, which I have visited, somewhat resembles a Yorkshire dale, but is far wilder and more solitary.