Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/85

67 or stop those riotous proceedings, went himself to mount Cithaoron, but was torn to pieces there by his own mother Agave, who in her frenzy believed him to be a wild beast. (Apollod. iii. 5. § 2 ; Ov. Met. iii. 725 ; comp. .) Hyginus (Fab. 240, 254) makes Agave, after this deed, go to Illyria and marry king Lycotherses, whom however she afterwards killed in order to gain his kingdom for her father Cadmus. This account is manifestly transplaced by Hyginus, and must have belonged to an earlier part of the story of Agave.

 2. [.]

 AGDISTIS, a mythical being connected with the Phrygian worship of Attes or Atys. Pausanias (vii. 17. § 5) relates the following story about Agdistis. On one occasion Zeus unwittingly begot by the Earth a superhuman being which was at once man and woman, and was called Agdistis. The gods dreaded it and unmanned it, and from its severed there grew up an almond-tree. Once when the daughter of the river-god Sangarius was gathering the fruit of this tree, she put some almonds into her bosom; but here the almonds disappeared, and she became the mother of Attes, who was of such extraordinary beauty, that when he had grown up Agdistis fell in love with him. His relatives, however, destined him to become the husband of the daughter of the king of Pessinus, whither he went accordingly. But at the moment when the hymeneal song had commenced, Agdistis appeared, and Attes was seized by a fit of madness, in which he unmanned himself; the king who had given him his daughter did the same. Agdistis now repented her deed, and obtained from Zeus the promise that the body of Attes should not become decomposed or disappear. This is, says Pausanias, the most popular account of an otherwise mysterious affair, which is probably part of a symbolical worship of the creative powers of nature. A hill of the name Agdistis in Phrygia, at the foot of which Attes was believed to be buried, is mentioned by Pausanias. (i. 4. § 5.) According to Hesychius (s. v.) and Strabo (xii. p. 567; comp. x. p. 469), Agdistis is the same as Cybele, who was worshipped at Pessinus under that name. A story somewhat different is given by Arnobius. (Adv. Gent. ix. 5. § 4; comp. Minuc. Felix, 21.)

 AGE'LADAS, a native of Argos (Pausan. iv. 8 § 4, vii. 24. § 2, x. 10. § 3 , preeminently distinguished as a statuary. His fame is enhanced by his having been the instructor of the three great masters, Phidias (Suidas, s.v. Schol. ''ad Aristoph. Ran. 504; Tzetzes, Chiliad.'' vii. 154, viii. 191—for the names and  are unquestionably merely corruptions of, as was first observed by Meursius, with whom Winckelmann, Thiersch, and Müller agree), Myron, and Polycletus. (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8, s. 19.) The determination of the period when Ageladas flourished, has given rise to a great deal of discussion, owing to the apparently contradictory statements in the writers who mention the name. Pausanias (vi. 10. § 2) tells us that Ageladas cast a statue of Cleosthenes (who gained a victory in the chariot-race in the 66th Olympiad) with the chariot, horses, and charioteer, which was set up at Olympia. There were also at Olympia statues by him of Timasitheus of Delphi and Anochus of Tarentum. Now Timasitheus was put to death by the Athenians, for his participation in the attempt of Isagoras in Ol. lxviii. 2 ({smaller|B. C.}} 507); and Anochus (as we learn from Eusebius) was a victor in the games of the 65th Ol. So far everything is clear; and if we suppose Ageladas to have been born about B. C. 540, he may very well have been the instructor of Phidias. On the other hand Pliny (l.c.) says that Ageladas, with Polycletus, Phradmon, and Myron, flourished in the 87th Ol. This agrees with the statement of the scholiast on Aristophanes, that at Melite there was a statue of, the work of Ageladas the Argive, which was set up during the great pestilence. (Ol. lxxxvii. 3. 4.) To these authorities must be added a passage of Pausanias (iv. 33. § 3), where he speaks of a statue of Zeus made by Ageladas for the Messenians of Naupactus. This must have been after the year B. C. 455, when the Messenians were allowed by the Athenians to settle at Naupactus. In order to reconcile these conflicting statements, some suppose that Pliny's date is wrong, and that the statue of Hercules had been made by Ageladas long before it was set up at Melite : others (as Meyer and Siebelis) that Pliny's date is correct, but that Ageladas did not make the statues of the Olympic victors mentioned by Pausanias till many years after their victories ; which in the case of three persons, the dates of whose victories are so nearly the same, would be a very extraordinary coincidence. The most probable solution of the difficulty is that of Thiersch, who thinks that there were two artists of this name; one an Argive, the instructor of Phidias, born about B. C. 540, the other a native of Sicyon, who flourished at the date assigned by Pliny, and was confounded by the scholiast on Aristophanes with his more illustrious namesake of Argos. Thiersch supports this hypothesis by an able criticism on a passage of Pausanias. (v. 24. § 1.) Sillig assumes that there were two artists of the name of Ageladas, but both Argives. Ageladas the Argive executed one of a group of three Muses, representing respectively the presiding geniuses of the diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic styles of Greek music. Canachus and Aristocles of Sicyon made the other two. (Antipater, Anth. Pal. Plan. 220; Thiersch, Epoch. d. bild. Kunst. pp. 158—164.)

 AGELA'US. 1. A son of Heracles and Omphale, and the founder of the house of Croesus. (Apollod. ii. 7. § 8.) Herodotus (i. 7) derives the family of Croesus from one Alcaeus, and. Diodorus (iv. 31) from one Cleolaus, while he calls the son of Heracles and Omphale Larmus, and others Laomedes. (Ant. Lib. 2; Palaephat. de Incred. 45.)

 2. A son of Damastor, and one of the suitors of Penelope. (Hom. Od. xx. 321.) In the struggle of Odysseus with the suitors, and after many of them had fallen, Agelaus encouraged and headed those who survived (xxii. 131, 241), until at last he too was struck dead by Odysseus Avith a javelin. (xxii. 293.)

 3. A slave of Priam, who exposed the infant Paris on mount Ida, in consequence of a dream of his mother. When, after the lapse of five days, the slave found the infant still alive and suckled by a bear, he took him to his own house and brought him up. (Apollod. iii. 12. § 4 ; compare .) There are several other mythical personages of the name of Agelaus, concerning whom no particulars are known. (Apollod. ii 8. § 5 ; Antonin.