The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 546 pages of information about The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1.

The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 546 pages of information about The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1.
hear of Podalerius both in Italy and on the coast of Caria; of Acamas, son of Theseus, at Amphipolus in Thrace, at Soli in Cyprus, and at Synnada in Phrygia; of Guneus, Prothous, and Eurypylus, in Crete as well as in Libya.  The obscure poem of Lycophron enumerates many of these dispersed and expatriated heroes, whose conquest of Troy was indeed a “Cadmean” victory (according to the proverbial phrase of the Greeks), wherein the sufferings of the victor were little inferior to those of the vanquished.  It was particularly among the Italian Greeks, where they were worshipped with very special solemnity, that their presence as wanderers from Troy was reported and believed.

I pass over the numerous other tales which circulated among the ancients, illustrating the ubiquity of the Grecian and Trojan heroes as well as that of the Argonauts—­one of the most striking features in the Hellenic legendary world.  Among them all, the most interesting, individually, is Odysseus, whose romantic adventures in fabulous places and among fabulous persons have been made familiarly known by Homer.  The goddesses Calypso and Circe; the semi-divine mariners of Phaeacia, whose ships are endowed with consciousness and obey without a steersman; the one-eyed Cyclopes, the gigantic Laestrygones, and the wind-ruler AEolus; the Sirens, who ensnare by their song, as the Lotophagi fascinate by their food,—­all these pictures formed integral and interesting portions of the old epic.  Homer leaves Odysseus reestablished in his house and family.  But so marked a personage could never be permitted to remain in the tameness of domestic life; the epic poem called the Telegonia ascribed to him a subsequent series of adventures.  Telegonus, his son by Circe, coming to Ithaca in search of his father, ravaged the island and killed Odysseus without knowing who he was.  Bitter repentance overtook the son for his undesigned parricide:  at his prayer and by the intervention of his mother Circe, both Penelope and Telemachus were made immortal:  Telegonus married Penelope, and Telemachus married Circe.

We see by this poem that Odysseus was represented as the mythical ancestor of the Thesprotian kings, just as Neoptolemus was of the Molossian.

It has already been mentioned that Antenor and AEneas stand distinguished from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam and a sympathy with the Greeks, which was by Sophocles and others construed as treacherous collusion,—­a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though emphatically repelled, by the AEneas of Vergil.  In the old epic of Arctinus, next in age to the Iliad and Odyssey, AEneas abandons Troy and retires to Mount Ida, in terror at the miraculous death of Laocoon, before the entry of the Greeks into the town and the last night battle:  yet Lesches, in another of the ancient epic poems, represented him as having been carried away captive by Neoptolemus.  In a remarkable passage of the Iliad, Poseidon describes

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.