Translation:Mythographus Vaticanus I/Book 1

by Vatican mythographers

Story of Prometheus

1. It is said that after humans had been made by him, Prometheus climbed up into the sky with the help of Minerva, held a little torch up to the wheel of the sun, and stole its fire, which he revealed to the humans. 2. Because of this, the gods were angry introduced to bad things into the world: fevers (i.e. poverty) and sickness. 3. They had Mercury bind Prometheus himself to a rock on a mountain in the Caucasus, and an eagle was brought to devour his heart. 5. Since Prometheus was a very clever man, from that spot he first revealed astrology to the Assyrians, which he came to understand very well while he was in the Caucasus. 6. But it is said that the eagle would eat his heart; that is, having been afflicted with exceptional anxiety [about the future], he had discovered the motion of the stars. 7. And because he did this with intelligence, it is said that he was bound to a rock by lord Mercury, who is the god of intelligence and reason. 8. Moreover, he discovered the reason for lightening and revealed it, so it is said that he stole heavenly fire, for fire from above was once brought forth using this skill that he had demonstrated. 9. This benefited mortals as long as they used it well, but afterwards it was turned to evil by humans' bad practice, just as is written by Livy on Tullius Hostilius, who was consumed by this fire along with his whole family. 10. Thus it is that it is said that disease was inflicted on humans by spirits who were angry about the theft of fire.

Story of Neptune and Minerva

1. When Neptune and Minerva were competing for the name of Athens, the gods decided to call it by the name of whichever one of them ffered the best gift to mortals. 2. Then Neptune split open the shore and brought out a horse, an animal adapted for war, while Minerva threw her spear and created the olive, which was acknowledge to be a better thing and a symbol of peace. 3. Thus the city was called Athens, from the name of Minerva, which is said to be Athena in Greek.

Story of Scylla

1. There were two Scyllas. 2. One was the daughter of Phorcus and Cretaeis. Glaucus, a sea god, loved her, while he in turn was loved by Circe whom he despised. Angry, she infused the spring where Scylla used to bathe with poison. When the girl went into it, her midriff was transformed into wild beasts.

3. However, another Scylla was the daughter of Nisus, king of the Megarians. When Minos fought against them after he had conquered the Athenians, on account of the murder of his son Androgeus, whom the Athenians and Megarians had ambushed and killed. He was loved by Scylla the daughter of Nisus. 4. In order to please her enemy, she offered him her father's purple hair off, which she had cut off, which Nisus had made sacred, such that as long as he kept it uncut, he would rule the kingdom. 5. Afterwards, Scylla, who was despised by Minos, was transformed into a bird by grief and the dead Nisus was changed into the form of a bird, as a result of the sympathy of the gods. Today these birds still burn with a great hatred for one another.

Story of Tereus and Progne

1. Tereus was king of the Thracians. When he had married the daughter of Pandion, the king of Athens, who was named Progne, he was asked by her after a while to bring her sister Philomela to see her. So he went to Athens and abducted the girl, raped her on the journey and cut out her tongue so that she could not reveal the deed. 2. But she drew the act on her clothes with her blood and sent it to her sister. When she learnt about what had happened, Progne killed her son Itys and served him up to his father for dinner. 3. Afterwards, all of them were changed into birds: Tereus into the hoopoe, Itys into the ringdove, Progne into the swallow, Philomela into the nightingale.

Story of Cyclops and Acis

It is said that Cyclops fell in love with the nymph Galatea, who was in love with Acis the shepherd and spurned Polyphemus, so he got angry and killed Acis. 2. After this, he was turned into a spring by Galatea's misery, which is still called Acilius today.

Story of Silvanus and Cyparissus

1. Silvanus is the god of woods. 2. He fell in love with a boy named Cyparissus, who had a very tame pet deer. Silvanus didn't know about this and killed it, and the boy died of sadness. 3. His divine lover turned him into a cypress tree with his name, which is said to endure on account of his grief.

Story of Ceres and Proserpina

1. After her daughter Proserpina had been kidnapped by Pluto, Ceres searched for her for a long time, but at some point, she learnt that she was in the world beneath, because she had been kidnapped by Pluto (also called Orcus), the brother of Jupiter. 2. When she begged Jupiter for help with this matter, he responded that she could return if she had not tasted anything in the world beneath. 3. But she had tasted the seeds of a pomegranate in Elysium, which Ascalaphus the son of Styx gave him, so Proserpina could not return to the world above. 4. Later, of course, it is said the Ceres secured that Proserpina would spend six months with her mother and six with her husband. 5. This was invented because Proserpina herself is the moon, which grows for six months of the whole year, and decreases for six months (indeed, in individual months every fifteen days), so that when it grows it seems to be in the world above and when it decreases to be in the world beneath.

Story of Celeus and Triptolemus

1. Eleusis is a settlement in the region of Attica, not far from Athens. 2. When Celeus reigned there, he took Ceres in when she was searching for her daughter and hosted her sumptuously. As repayment, she showed him every kind of agriculture. 3. She also warmed his newborn son Triptolemus in the fire during the night; during the day, she nourished nourished him with divine milk and put him on top of winged snakes and sent him through the whole world to show people the use of grain.

Story of Ceyx and Alcyone

1. Ceyx, son of Lucifer, had a wife Alcyone. 2. When he went to consult Apollo on the state of his kingdom, despite having been told not to by her, he died in a shipwreck. When his body had been brought to his wife Alcyone, she threw herself into the sea. 3. Afterwards, because of Thetis and Lucifer's misery, they were both turned into seabirds, which are called kingfishers (alcyones). 4. Actually, these birds make their nests in the middle of the sea in the winter, on those days when it is so calm that nothing at all is able to move on the sea, as a result of which these are called alcyon days.

Story of Ceres and the Lycians

1. When Ceres was searching for her daughter Proserpina, she went to a spring to relieve her thirst. 2. Then some Lycian country people refused to let her drink and muddied up the water with their feet. While they were making foul noises at her, she got angry and <turned them into frogs, which even now croak in imitation of that sound. 3. Later> she turned <Lycus, king> of Scythia, who had wanted to kill Triptolemus, into a wild lynx.

Story of the giant Titans

1. Earth (that is Ceres) was angry because ---- who pressed against her, and gave birth to the Titans (giants) with scorn, on her own, against Saturn and later against Jupiter, but also to drive out all the gods in revenge. 2. By carrying and piling mountains on top of mountains up, they wished to climb up into the sky and overthrow them. 3. To fight against them, Jupiter called together all the gods, and Liber Pater, Vulcan, the satyrs, the Sileni, came with the rest, riding on little donkeys. 4. Of course when all the confused clamour of these terrified little donkeys was heard by the giants, the Titans were terrified and fled, 5. although previously the gods themselves by the appearance of the giant Typhoeus and had transformed into various monsters and animals as they fled. 6. But with the help of the eagle which served him by carrying his thunderbolt, Jupiter defeated them and shut them up in Aetna, except for one Titan, that is the Sun.

Story of Tantalus

1. Tantalus, father of Pelops, was a giant. In order to test the divinity of the gods, he served his own son Pelops to them for dinner. 2. For this outrage he was condemned to stand in the river Eridanus while dying of thirst and suffering from hunger while able to see but not reach fruit which were on the banks of the aforementioned river. 3. Later, when Tantalus begged the gods to recall his son from the world below and they decided to do so, Ceres, who had eaten one of Pelops' arms at the dinner, while all the other gods abstained, gave him in ivory army as a replacement. 4. This was invented because Ceres is actually the earth, which consumes flesh completely, but preserves the bones.

Story of Tityus

1. Tityus was one of the giants. 2. When he sought to sleep with Lato, he was killed by the arrows of Apollo and Diana and condemned in the world below to have two vultures placed beside him which would consume his liver one after the other, forever reborn for renewed punishment.

Story of Ixion

1. Ixion was a giant who sought to sleep with Juno; a cloud was placed in front of him, which he slept with. 2. When he started boasting as if he had slept with Juno, he was condemned for this statement to roll a wheel fastened together with snakes against a mountain in the world below forever.

Story of Circe and Ulixes

1. Circe, daughter of the Sun, sat on the island of Maeonia and transformed those who were driven there into wild animals. 2. When Ulixes happened to be driven to this island, he sent Eurylochus with twenty two of his friends, whom she transformed from humans [into animals], but Eurylochus escaped from there and told Ulixes. 2. He went to her alone, but on the journey Mercury gave him some medicine and showed him how to overcome Circe. 4. Subsequently he came to her and when he took the cup from her, he mixed in Mercury's medicine then drew his sword and forced her to restore his friends. 5. Then Circe sensed that he could not have done this against the will of the gods, and she promised to restore his friends and did so. 6. He actually slept with her and had a son by her, Telegonos, 7 by whose hand he was later struck and killed.

Story of Tiresias

1. While Tiresias was going through the forest, he saw two snakes having sex. When he whacked the female one, he was transformed into a woman. 2. Eight years later, when he again saw two snakes sleeping together and whacked them again, he was restored to his original form. 3. So when there was a quarrel between Jupiter and Juno on which sex had the most sexual pleasure, he was summoned to be judge, since he had experience of both sexes. When he was asked, he said that the woman's pleasure is three times the man's. 4. Because she was angry about this, Juno removed his sight, so it was as if he had been gratifying to Jupiter and injurious to himself. For this injury, although he was blind, Jupiter gave him foreknowledge of future events.

Story of Lycaon

1. Jupiter was sick of human evil so he took on the appearance of a human and went to Lycaon, king of Arcadia who plotted a death for him as if he were a mortal and served him human flesh to eat. 2. Afterwards, when Jupiter realised this, he did not completely destory him, but did not ignore the observation of punishment either, so he changed his form to that of a wolf, which even now maintains his habits in its wildness and the name of Lyacaon in its name.^[1]

3. That same Lycaon had a daughter, Callisto. When Jupiter ravished her, Juno turned her into a bear. Later, since Jupiter pitied her, he transferred into a constellation in the sky.

Story of Io and Argus

1. Io daughter of Inachus the king (or the river) surpassed her peers in appearance such that Jupiter fell deeply in love with her and through the application of prayers he fulfilled his desire and, to protect the girl from Juno's anger, she was transformed into a cow by her rapist. 2. When Juno realised his trick, she requested that Jupiter give her the cow as a gift, so that her herd would be more beautiful than any other; rather than revealing her by refusing, Jupiter actually handed the girl over. 3. But, so that Jupiter's mistress would no longer control Jupiter, Juno stationed Argus who had a hundred eyes to guard her, until Mercury killed him on Jupiter's order. 4. Since he had died as a result of serving as a guard for her, Juno transformed Argus into a peacock, took him under her possession, and decorated him with feathers which indicated his lost eyes. 5. Io was pursued by the Furies and fled through the whole world until she was finally driven to Egypt. There Juno was placated by Jupiter, so Io received her old shape and was named Isis.

Story of Icarus and Erigone

1. When Icarus, the father of Erigone, showed the wine which he had received from Liber Pater to mortals, he was killed by farmers who had gotten drunk after drinking more than reasonable and believed that they had been given poison. 2. His dog returned to Erigone his daughter who attended to the burial of his remains when she reached her father's corpse and then ended her own life with a noose. 3. Out of pity, the gods placed her among the stars, where she is called Virgo; her dog was placed with her in the stars. 4. But some time later, a sickness struck the Athenians such that their own girls were compelled by some madness to hang themselves and the oracle said that this plague could be ended if the bodies of Erigone and Icarus were found. 5. When they searched for them for a long time and found nothing, in order to show their devotion, so that they would seem to be searching for them in a strange element, the Athenians hung a rope from the trees, held on to it and were pushed about all over the place, so that they almost seemed to be searching in the air for the bodies. 6. But when many people were dying from this, it was decided to make models in imitation of their faces, hang them instead of themselves and move them about. As a result, they are called oscillators from the fact that in this rites the faces are oscillated - that is moved.

Story of Iphigenia, Orestes, and Pylades

1. When the Greeks were going to Troy and had come to the island called Aulis, King Agamemnon wanted to practice the bow and saw a deer of Diana. Unaware of who it belonged to, he killed it. 2. But when they were held there by contrary winds for a long time, an answer was given by the oracle of Apollo to Agamemnon, saying that the winds could be calmed by blood. 3. Then, Ulixes (since he was the most cunning) returned home and brought Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, back with him as if for a wedding. 4. But at the moment when she was brought there to be burnt up, Minerva took pity on her, blocked the view of the bystanders with a cloud, and replaced her with a deer (so it is said). 5. But she was carried over to the Tauric region of the Scythians and handed over to King Thoas. 6. And after she had been made priest of Dictynna Diana, when the deity was placated according to the established custom with human blood, especially that of guests, she recognised her brother Orestes who had gone to Colchus with his most faithful friend Pylades to free himself from the Furies, after he had received an oracle. 7. After they killed Thoas, they took the statue with them, hidden in a bundle of sticks (from which it is called a fascellis - not from the torch^[2] which it is painted with), and carried it off to Aricia.

Story of Hippodame

1. Hippodame was the daughter of Oenomaus, King of Elis and Pisa; he had horses that were very fast, since they had been begotten by the breath of the winds. 2. He murdered many suitors of his daughter, who had been tempted into a chariot race on the condition that if he lost he would hand over his daughter, but if they lost he would kill them. 3. Later, when she had fallen in love with Pelops, Hippodamia bribed Myrtilus, her father's charioteer, by agreeing to sleep with him first. 4. He installed wax axles, and when Pelops was victorious he demanded the reward that had been promised by the girl, but he was thrown by her husband into the sea, to which he gave his name - it is called the Myrtetan sea after him.

Story of Myrtilus, Atreus, and Thyestes

1. Mercury was angry with Pelops for throwing his son Myrtilus into the sea and depriving him of his life by law; he sought vengeance in order to make up for the death. 2. So he incited Pelops' sons, Atreus and Thyestes, to such discord that they smashed the bond of kinship. 3. So, when they were ruling the kingdom in turns, since Thyestes knew that the kingdom was fated to remain in the hands of the one who had the ram with the golden fleece (which Atreus had been in possession of since he had received the kingdom), he seduced Europa, his brother's wife, in the hope of getting it for himself. 4. When Atreus learnt of this, he exiled him and his two sons. Later he pretended to be sorry, sent for him, and served him his own sons whom he had summoned, and killed in order to feast on them. After the feast, he presented Thyestes' sons heads to him to reveal the meal's morbid nature. 5. When Thyestes begged for revenge for this from the oracle, it responded that certain revenge would come through a child of himself and his daughter Pelopia. 6. So he quickly grabbed and raped his daughter, who gave birth to a son, whom she cast out in the woods because of her shame at the incest; he was nourished by the udders of a goat and therefore took the name 'Aegisthus'.^[3] 7. In vindication of his father, when he grew up, he did in fact kill Atreus. 8. In addition, he also killed Agamemnon, after he had seduced his wife Clytemnestra. 9. Later, he was killed by Orestes the son of Agamemnon, along with the woman he had seduced.

Story of Phrixus and Helle

1. Phrixus and Helle were brother and sister, children of King Athamas and Neobole. 2. When they were struck with insanity by Liber and went roving around in the woods, their mother Neobola is said to have shown them the ram with the golden fleece, commanded her children to climb onto it, cross over to King Oeta in Colchi and sacrifice the ram there. 3. Or alternatively: 4. When Neobole who was also called Cloud, was driven insane by Father Liber and spurred into the woods to prevent her from attacking her husband's household god, Athamas brought in a stepmother for their children Phrixus and Helle, whose name was Ino. 5. She plotted the demise of the children with stepmotherly hatred, asking the women to destroy the grain before it was planted. As a result, a famine came about. 6. When the community sent to Apollo for guidance, Ino bribed the man who was sent so that he would report that he had been told by the oracle that the children of Cloud must be sacrificed; she also said that they had burnt up the grain. 7. Their father was afraid of the people's fury and surrendered his children to the will of their step-mother, but secretly he gave them a solution. 8. He secretly sent Phrixus, who was unaware of his impending death, to get the ram with the golden fleece; by the will of Juno, he was warned to escape with his sister and he immediately saved himself from death, along with her. 9. Then they clung onto the ram and swum across the sea, but the girl, Helle fell into the sea giving her name to body of water - the Hellespont is named after her. 10. Phrixus was carried to Colchi, where he sacrificed the ram and dedicated its golden fleece in a temple dedicated to Mars, which was guarded by a monstrous snake. 11. King Oeta welcomed Phrixus happily and gave him his daughter as a wife. 12. When he had had children with her, Oeta was afraid that he would be driven out of his kingdom (since he had received an omen to this effect) by a foreigner, a descendant of Aeolis. 13. Fearing death, he killed Phrixus. 14. But when his children boarded his boat in order to travel to their grandfather Athamas, Aeson intercepted and sank them. Later, Jason came to Colchi to take the golden fleece, killed the snake and took the fleece.

History of Pelias and Jason

1. Pelias (or Peleus), King of the Pelopontes, was brother of Aeson and Aeson had a son named Jason. 2. So, Peleas had received a prediction of the future and feared his brother's son because of his valour and honour, fearing that he would drive him out of his kingdom. For this reason he sent him to Colchi to bring back the golden fleece on which Jove ascended to heaven; because he thought this would lead to Jason's death. 4. But Argos built a ship which was named Argo after him, from which Jason and his friends were called the Argonauts. 5. Tiphys actually was its steersman, when the sailed to Colchi and visited Troy on the way. 6. Laomedon, king of Troy would not let them pass into Pontus. 7. Then they returned, reporting what Laomedon King of Troy had done to them. 8. For this reason, Peleas and Hercules went to Troy; it was conquered by them and Laomedon was killed.

Story of Jason

1. When Jason headed for Colchi following an oracle of Apollo, in order to steal the golden fleece, which Phrixus had dedicated to Mars, in order to achieve that he first had to yoke the untamable bulls that lived in Colchi, and 2. Medea, the greatest of sorcerers, was astounded by his beauty and guided him with her sorcery to yoke the bulls and kill the snake guarding the fleece. 3. After he killed it, he sowed its teeth using the bulls which breathed Vulcan's fire, from which armoured men were born who attacked Jason at first, but were thwarted, then wounded and killed each other. 4. But King Aetes had imposed these terms on him, since Apollo had given him an oracle that he would reign as long as the fleece remained in the temple. 5. Later, after Jason had got the golden fleece, he married Medea. 6. But when he took in a concubine called Glauce, daughter of Creon, Medea gave the concubine a tunic that had been soaked in poisons and garlic; when she put it on, she began to burn up in flames. 7. Then Medea could not bear Jason's hostile attitude to her and fled on winged serpent.

Story of Orithyia

Orithyia - daughter of Erectes, king of the Athenians, and Penthesilea - was a very beautiful girl. She was adored by Aquilo the North Wind, married him and had two sons with him, Zetus and Calais, winged youths. They were among the Argonauts with Jason and chased the Harpies away from Phineus.

Story of Phineus

Phineus was King of Arcadia; he introduced a step-mother to his children and blinded them at her instigation. As a result of this, the gods were furious - they took away his sight and set the Harpies on him. When they had been snatching his food from him for a long time, he received Jason, who was heading to Colchi for the golden fleece, with hospitality and gave him guidence. The Argonauts were enticed by this good deed to send Zetus and Calais, sons of the North Wind and Orithyia, winged youths, to drive off the Harpies. With swords drawn they chased them out of Arcadia, all the way to the islands which were called Plotae and although they wanted to go further, they were warned by Iris to stop chasing Jupiter's dogs, so they turned around; this turn or strophe gave the islands their name.^[4]. But the reason that they are said to be Jupiter's dogs is because they are said to be the Furies; whence greedy men are also made to encounter the Furies, who separate them from their possessions. Properly, they are called Furies and dogs in the underworld, Dire ones and birds in heaven, and in the world between they are actually called Harpies. From this, images made of them are double figures.

Story of Leander and Hero

Sestus and Abydus were neighbouring cities, split by narrow stretch of sea flowing between them. One of them was famous and stood out because of Leander, a very beautiful young man - the other for Hero, a very beautiful woman. Although they were apart, love lit up their deepest souls; but the young man was unable to bear the flame and sought every means of pressing up against the girl. Since he did not find any way to Hero by land, he was impelled by fever and daring, to cross by sea, so each night he swam across to the girl. Her devotion was displayed by the light aimed from a tower, which guided his nocturnal journey to her. But then one night an unusually sharp wind put out the torch, lost and uncertain which way to go, he died. When Hero saw his body was thrown up onto the shore by the currents the next day, she was driven by the pain to throw herself from a cliff. So it was by the same thing allotted her a fate of worldly pleasure that she was brought this fatally sharp pain.

Story of Cleobis and Bito

When it was customary for the Argive priestess to go in an ox cart to the temple of Juno and on the assigned day oxen could not be found (for there was a plague which had passed through Attica and consumed the world), the two sons of the priestess, Cleobis and Bito placed themselves under the yoke and pulled their mother to the temple. Juno was impressed by their religiosity and offered to their mother whatever she wanted to ask for her sons. She gave a pious response that whatever the goddess knew to be beneficial for mortals would be best. So the next day, the priestess' boys were found dead, which demonstrated that nothing is better than death.

Story of Amulius and Numitor

Amulius and Numitor were brothers. Amulius expelled his brother from rule and killed his son. He made his daughter Ilia the priestess of Vesta, to remove any hope of offspring by which he might experience retribution. She, many say, had sex with Mars and Remus and Romus were born as a result. Amulius ordered them to be thrown into the Tiber with their mother. Then, some say, Anien made Ilia his wife; others say Amnen. The children were actually exposed by the river. They were found by a shepherd called Faustus, whose wife was a former prostitute called Acca Larentia and she fed the children when they were taken in. Later, they killed Amulius and recalled their grandfather Numitor to the kingdom. Since the rule of Alba with their grandfather seemed to small for them, they left and founded a city after taking the auguries. Remus saw six vultures beforehand, while Romus saw twelve afterwards, which caused a conflict between them, in which Remus was killed. And the Romans are named after Romus, but he came to be called Romulus rather than Romus as a kind of friendliness, because the diminutive form is pleasant. That they were fed by a wolf, is a made-up story to hide the shameful origins of the ancestors of the Roman race. It is not an irrational invention, since we also called prostitutes wolves (which is also where we get the term "wolves' den"^[5] for brothel) and this animal is certainly under the protection of Mars.

Story of Lyncus

Lyncus was King of Scythia. When Triptolemus was sent by Ceres to provide grain to everyone, he received him with hospitality but plotted to kill him, in order to transfer his great glory to himself. As a result, Ceres was angry and turned him into a lynx - a creature of varying colour, as he had shown himself to be of varying mind.

Story of Oenopion

King Oenopion did not have any children. Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune, who had enjoyed his hospitality, encouraged him to ask something of them, and he asked them to grant him children. They urinated in the hide of a bull that had been sacrificed to them and told him to cover it over with earth and uncover it when the maternal months had passed. When he did this, he discovered a boy, whose name was derived from the urine - he was called Orion. He later became a hunter, but when he wanted to sleep with Diana, according to Horace, he was killed by her arrow; according to Lucan, a scorpion was sent against him and he died, and because of the gods' sadness, he was carried off and placed among the stars.

Story of Amaracus

Amaracus was a royal perfumer, who slipped by chance while he was carrying the perfumes and created a better smell from the mixture, as a result of which, the best perfumes are called amaracina. After this he was turned into marjoram, which they now also call amaracus.

Notes

1. Because lykos is Greek for wolf
2. face
3. Since aix / aigos is Greek for goat
4. They are the Strophades
5. lupanar