Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/231

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ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES 199 die Delphian oracle to inquire for a remedy. The god presents to them Ion, and desires them to adopt him as their son : their eon Achfeus is afterwards born to them, and Ion and Achasus become the eponyms of the lonians and Achoeans. 1 Oreithyia, the third daughter of Erechtheus, was stolen away by the god Boreas while amusing herself on the banks of the Hissus, and carried to his residence in Thrace. The two sons of this marriage, Zetes and Kalais, were born with wings : they took part in the Argonautic expedition, and engaged in the pur- suit of the Harpies : they were slain at Tenos by Heraklea. Kleopatra, the daughter of Boreas and Oreithyia, was married to Phineus, and had two sons, Plexippus and Pandion ; but Phineus afterwards espoused a second wife, Idaaa, the daughter of Darda- nus, who. detesting the two sons of the former bed, accused them falsely of attempting her chastity, and persuaded Phineus in his wrath to put out the eyes of both. For this cruel proceeding he was punished by the Argonauts in the course of their voyage. 2 On more than one occasion the Athenians derived, or at least believed themselves to have derived, important benefits from this marriage of Boreas with the daughter of their primaeval hero : one inestimable service, rendered at a juncture highly critical for 1 Upon this story of Ion is founded the tragedy of Euripides which bears that name. I conceive many of the points of that tragedy to be of the in- vention of Euripides himself: but to represent Ion as son of Apollo, not of Xuthus, seems a genuine Attic legend. Respecting this drama, see 0. Miil- ler, Hist of Dorians, ii. 2. 13-15. I doubt however the distinction which he draws between the lonians and the other population of Attica.

  • Apollodor. iii. 15, 2 ; Plato, Phaadr. c. 3 ; Sophok. Antig. 984 ; also the

copious Scholion on Apollon. Rhod. i. 21 2. The tale of Phineus is told very differently in the Argonautic expedition as given by Apollonius Rhodius, ii. 180. From Sophokles we learn that this was the Attic version. The two winged sons of Boreas and their chase of the Harpies were no- ticed in the Hesiodic Catalogue (see Schol. Apollon. Rhod. ii. 296). But whether the Attic legend of Oreithyia was recognized in the Hesiodic poems seems not certain. Both JEschylus and Sophokles composed dramas on the subject of Orei- thyia (Longin. de Sublimit. c. 3). " Orithyia Atheniensis, filia Terrigenae, et a Borea in Thraciam rapta." (Servius ad Virg. jEneid. xii. 83). Ter- rigena is the yrj-yevr/c 'Epexdevf. Philochorus (Fragm. 30) rationalized the itory, and said that it alluded to the effects of a violent wind.