152 HISTORY OF GREECE. We have not yet exhausted the eventful career of CEneus and his family ennobled among the .ZEtolians especially, both bj religious worship and by poetical eulogy and favorite themei not merely in some of the Hesiodic poems, but also in other ancient epic productions, the Alkmasenis and the Cyclic Thebais. 1 By another marriage, CEneus had for his son Tydeus, whose poetical celebrity is attested by the many different accounts given both of the name and condition of his mother. Tydeus, having slain his cousins, the sons of Melas, who were conspiring against CEneus, was forced to become an exile, and took refuge at Argos with Adrastus, whose daughter Deipyle he married. The issue of this marriage was Diomedes, whose brilliant exploits in the siege of Troy were not less celebrated than those of his father at the siege of Thebes. After the departure of Tydeus, CEneus was deposed by the sons of Agrios, and fell into extreme poverty and wretchedness, from which he was only rescued by his grand- son Diomedes, after the conquest of Troy. 2 The sufferings of this ancient warrior, and the final restoration and revenge by Diomedes, were the subject of a lost tragedy of Euripides, which even the ridicule of Aristophanes demonstrates to have been eminently pathetic. 3 Though the genealogy just given of CEneus is in part Ho- meric, and seems to have been followed generally by the mytho- graphers, yet we find another totally at variance with it in Hekataeus, which he doubtless borrowed from some of the old poets : the simplicity of the story annexed to it seems to attest its antiquity. Orestheus, son of Deukalion, first passed into her daughter of Dexamenos : his account of her marriage with Herakle's is in every respect at variance with Apollodorus. In the latter, Mnesimach6 is the daughter of Dexamenos ; Heraklcs rescues her from the importunities of the Centaur Eurytion (ii. 5, 5). 1 See the references in Apollod. i, 8, 45. Pindar, Isthm. iv. 32. Me/lerav 5e aofiaraif Atdf IKOTI irpoafiakov ce^L^ofievoi 'Ev [lev AiraZuv ftvoiaiai ^ocvvatf OiveiSai uparepol, etc.
- Hekat. Fragm. 341, Didot. In this story CEneus is connected with tho
first discovery of the vine and the making of wine (olvoc) : compare Hygin. f. 129, and Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. i. 9.
- See Welcker (Griechisch. Tragod. ii. p. 583) on the lost tragedy called
CEneus.
