Alexandria

← back

Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica

Hesiod and Homer (attrib.); tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White · 8th-6th century BCE (composed); translation 1914 primary

passage 132 of 159 · (132/158)

↪ you wandered here via “Cypria Venus worship Cyprus” — the connecting lines are tinted below

in brief
A brief report says the epic Cypria was composed by Stasinus and that Homer gave it to him as a dowry, or vice versa depending on the tradition cited.

Fragment #7—Clement of Alexandria, Protrept ii. 30. 5: ‘Castor was mortal, and the fate of death was destined for him; but Polydeuces, scion of Ares, was immortal.’

Fragment #8—Athenaeus, viii. 334 B: ‘And after them she bare a third child, Helen, a marvel to men. Rich-tressed Nemesis once gave her birth when she had been joined in love with Zeus the king of the gods by harsh violence. For Nemesis tried to escape him and liked not to lie in love with her father Zeus the Son of Cronos; for shame and indignation vexed her heart: therefore she fled him over the land and fruitless dark water. But Zeus ever pursued and longed in his heart to catch her. Now she took the form of a fish and sped over the waves of the loud-roaring sea, and now over Ocean’s stream and the furthest bounds of Earth, and now she sped over the furrowed land, always turning into such dread creatures as the dry land nurtures, that she might escape him.’

Fragment #9—Scholiast on Euripides, Andr. 898: The writer 3003 of the Cyprian histories says that (Helen’s third child was) Pleisthenes and that she took him with her to Cyprus, and that the child she bore Alexandrus was Aganus.

Fragment #10—Herodotus, ii. 117: For it is said in the Cypria that Alexandrus came with Helen to Ilium from Sparta in three days, enjoying a favourable wind and calm sea.

Fragment #11—Scholiast on Homer, Il. iii. 242: For Helen had been previously carried off by Theseus, and it was in consequence of this earlier rape that Aphidna, a town in Attica, was sacked and Castor was wounded in the right thigh by Aphidnus who was king at that time. Then the Dioscuri, failing to find Theseus, sacked Athens. The story is in the Cyclic writers.

Plutarch, Thes. 32: Hereas relates that Alycus was killed by Theseus himself near Aphidna, and quotes the following verses in evidence: ‘In spacious Aphidna Theseus slew him in battle long ago for rich-haired Helen’s sake.’ 3004

Fragment #12—Scholiast on Pindar, Nem. x. 114: (ll. 1-6) ‘Straightway Lynceus, trusting in his swift feet, made for Taygetus. He climbed its highest peak and looked throughout the whole isle of Pelops, son of Tantalus; and soon the glorious hero with his dread eyes saw horse-taming Castor and athlete Polydeuces both hidden within a hollow oak.’

Philodemus, On Piety: (Stasinus?) writes that Castor was killed with a spear shot by Idas the son of Aphareus.

Fragment #13—Athenaeus, 35 C: ‘Menelaus, know that the gods made wine the best thing for mortal man to scatter cares.’

Fragment #14—Laurentian Scholiast on Sophocles, Elect. 157: Either he follows Homer who spoke of the three daughters of Agamemnon, or—like the writer of the Cypria—he makes them four, (distinguishing) Iphigeneia and Iphianassa.

Fragment #15—3005 Contest of Homer and Hesiod: ‘So they feasted all day long, taking nothing from their own houses; for Agamemnon, king of men, provided for them.’

Fragment #16—Louvre Papyrus: ‘I never thought to enrage so terribly the stout heart of Achilles, for very well I loved him.’

Fragment #17—Pausanias, iv. 2. 7: The poet of the Cypria says that the wife of Protesilaus—who, when the Hellenes reached the Trojan shore, first dared to land—was called Polydora, and was the daughter of Meleager, the son of Oeneus.

Fragment #18—Eustathius, 119. 4: Some relate that Chryseis was taken from Hypoplacian 3006 Thebes, and that she had not taken refuge there nor gone there to sacrifice to Artemis, as the author of the Cypria states, but was simply a fellow townswoman of Andromache.

Fragment #19—Pausanias, x. 31. 2: I know, because I have read it in the epic Cypria, that Palamedes was drowned when he had gone out fishing, and that it was Diomedes and Odysseus who caused his death.

Fragment #20—Plato, Euthyphron, 12 A: ‘That it is Zeus who has done this, and brought all these things to pass, you do not like to say; for where fear is, there too is shame.’

← previous passage read in the full work → next passage →

topics: history and the writing of history · poetry and the poets

Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica · Hesiod and Homer (attrib.); tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White · 750–550 BCE