Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/131

 THE GREEK HEROES 117 Geryones : Ovid, Her. ix. 92 ; Vergil, Aen. vii. 662, viii. 202. Hippolyte : Apollod. ii. 6, 9 ; Diodor. Sic. iv. 16 ; Vergil, Aen. xi. 661 ; Chaucer, Knight's Tale 10. Hesperides : Ovid, Met. iv. 637 sq. ; Vergil, Aen. iv. 483 sq. ; Milton, Par. L. iv. 249 : Others whose fruit burnisht with golden rind Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true. Antaeus : Ovid, Met. ix. 183 ; Hyginus, Fab. xxxi. Omphale : Ovid, Fast. ii. 305 sq. ; Hyginus, Fab. xxxii. Philoctetes : Sophocles, Philoctetes ; Ovid, Met. xiii. 329 ; Hyginus, Fab. cii. 6. THESEUS 150. The lonians, a trading people, who worshiped Poseidon, had their principal homes in Euboea, the east- ern coast of Attica, and Argolis, and on the islands that formed the connecting link with the Ionian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor. They forced their way into Athens from the east and south; therefore Ion, their mythological ancestor, is really foreign to Athens, and only through his mother, Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, is connected with the native ruling family of Cecrops. Of a more primitive character than this unworshiped ancestor of the Ionian race is Theseus, who, being espe- cially an Ionian, was developed, like Hercules among the Dorians, into the ideal Ionian hero. His home, prop- erly, was Troezen in Argolis, a city which must probably be regarded as a very ancient center of the unification of the Ionian race ; for the temple of Poseidon that served as the federate sanctuary of an old Ionian Amphictyonic league (sacrificial confederacy) was situated on the island Calauria, which is off the coast of Troezen. 151. Sometimes Poseidon himself, and sometimes king Aegeus of Athens, who is only a representative of this