Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/143

 NESTOR AND THE NELEIDS. HI defcncB. Eleven of the sons of Neleus perished by his hand, while Nestor, then a youth, was preserved only by his accidental absence at Gerena, away from his father's residence. 1 The proud house of the Neleids was now reduced to Nestor ; but Nestor singly sufficed to sustain its eminence. He appeara not only as the defender and avenger of Pylos against the inso- lence and rapacity of his Epeian neighbors in Elis, but also as aiding the Lapithaa in their terrible combat against the Centaurs, and as companion of Theseus, Peirithous, and the other great legendary heroes who preceded the Trojan war. In extreme old age his once marvellous power of handling his weapons has in- deed passed away, but his activity remains unimpaired, and his sagacity as well as his influence in counsel is greater than ever. He not only assembles the various Grecian chiefs for the arma- ment against Troy, perambulating the districts of Hellas along with Odysseus, but takes a vigorous part in the siege itself, and is of preeminent service to Agamemnon. And after the conclu- sion of the siege, he is one of the few Grecian princes who re- turns to his original dominions, and is found, in a strenuous and honored old age, in the midst of his children and subjects, sit- ting with the sceptre of authority on the stone bench before k's house at Pylos, offering sacrifice to Poseidon, as his fath-jr Neleus had done before him, and mourning only over the de&th 1 Hesiod, Catalog, ap. Schol. Ven. ad Iliad, ii. 336 ; and Steph. Byz. v. Tepijvia; Homer, II. v. 392 ; xi. 693; Apollodor. ii. 7, 3 ; Hesiod, Scut. Here. 360 ; Pindar, 01. ix. 32. According to the Homeric legend, Neleus himself was not killed by He- rakles : subsequent poets or logographers, whom Apollodorus follows, seem to have thought it an injustice, that the offence given by Neleus himself should have been avenged upon his sons and not upon himself ; they there- fore altered the legend upon this point, and rejected the passage in the Iliad as spurious (see Schol. Ven. ad Iliad, xi. 682). The refusal of purification by Neleus to Herakles is a genuine legendary cause : the commentators, who were disposed to spread a coating of history over these transactions, introduced another cause, Neleus, as king of Pylos, had aided the Orchomenians in their war against Herakles and the Thobans (see Sch. Ven. ad Iliad, xi. 689). The neighborhood of Pylos was distinguished for its ancient worship both of Poseidon and of Hades : there were abundant local legends respecting them (see Strabo, viii. pp. 344, 345).