On the Early Kings of Attica. 355 do not pretend to explain all the relations in which these per- sons are placed to each other, as having a mythical meaning, much less the connexions in which Pelops and his family are said to have stood to other personages of the heroic age; such additions and variations were absolutely necessary in order to make the original mythus into poetry, and much more into history, and therefore however numerous they may be, they cannot bring the mythic origin into doubt. But the mythical circumstances are such as no poet nor historian would have invented, and this character cannot be affected by any incongruous additions which have been made to them. Traces of the early diflFusion of that Asiatic religion, of which Sipylus was the seat, where the legends of Tantalus and Niobe were connected with the worship of the mother of the gods (Paus. 5. 13. 3. 22.) are found in other parts of Greece. Niobe appears in the oldest legends of Sicyon and ^gialeia. We must not allow ourselves to be misled by the circumstance that in this connexion Niobe is made the daughter of Phoroneus ; other things show clearly the Asiatic origin of the fable. Apis the brother of Niobe is said to have been murdered by Telchin, but the Telchines belonged to the worship of the mother of the gods, and they were the same with the Idaei Dactyli of Crete and Phrygia. These the author of the ancient epic poem ^opwvk calls (Schol. Ap. Rhod. 1. 1131). (XTrdXafxvoL OepairovTe^ opeirjs AoprjaTelrj^' but Adrastea was only another name of Rhea, under the character of Nemesis, Harpocr. 'ASpdaTeia^ and from her the fountain Adrastea (Paus. 2. 15.) was named; and all the Adrasti who appear in Argive, Sicyonian, Trojan, and curious to look back on the history of the fable. There existed a lake under Sipylus called the lake of Tantalus i. e. the lake of the earthquake ; but when the meaning of the word was lost, it was supposed to have derived its name from an ancient king, whose city had been overwhelmed and a lake formed in its stead. As great calamities were conceived to imply great crimes, some offence must be devised, by which Tantalus had offended the gods; the revelation of the mysteries offered a ready explanation, and lie was made to suffer in Hades, what the volcano and the earthquake had inflicted on iiis country. Being once established as an ancient khig of Phrygia or Lydia, the traces of a worship allied to the Phrygian and Lydian were referred by mythologists to him and his family.
