Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/177

 KALYDONIAN BOAR. 14ft death of her brother. She then cast it into the fire, and as soon as it was consumed the life of Meleager was brought to a close. We know, from the sharp censure of Pliny, that Sophokles heightened the pathos of this subject by his account of the mourn- ful death of Meleager's sisters, who perished from excess of grief. They were changed into the birds called Meleagrides, and their never-ceasing tears ran together into amber. 1 But in the hands of Euripides whether originally through him or not, 2 we can- not tell Atalanta became the prominent figure and motive of the piece, while the party convened to hunt the Kalydonian boar was made to comprise all the distinguished heroes from every quarter of Greece. In fact, as Heyne justly remarks, this event is one of the four aggregate dramas of Grecian heroic life, 3 along with the Argonautic expedition, the siege of Thebes, and the Tro- jan war. To accomplish the destruction of the terrific animal which Artemis in her wrath had sent forth, Meleager assembled not merely the choice youth among the Kuretes and ^Etolians (as we fine in the Iliad), but an illustrious troop, including Kastor and Pollux, Idas and Lynkeus, Peleus and Telamon, Theseus and Peirithous, Ankaeus and Kepheus, Jason, Amphiaraus, Admetus, Eurytion and others. Nestor and Phoenix, who appear as old men before the walls of Troy, exhibited their early prowess as auxiliaries to the suffering Kalydonians. 4 Conspicuous amidst them all stood the virgin Atalanta, daughter of the Arcadian 1 Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 2, 11. 2 There was a tragedy of JSschylus called 'Ara^av-rj, of which nothing remains (Bothe, ^Eschyli Fragm. ix. p. 18). Of the more recent dramatic writers, several selected Atalanfci as their subject ("See Brandstater, Geschichtc JEtoliens, p. 65). 3 There was a poem of Stesichorus, 'Zvo&rjpai ( Stesichor. Fragm. 1 5. p 72> 4 The catalogue of these heroes is in Apollodor. i. 8, 2 ; Ovid, Metamor. via. 300 ; Hygin. fab. 173. Euripides, in his play of Meleager, gave an enu- meration and description of the heroes ("see Fragm. 6 of that play, ed. Matth.J. Nestor, in this picture of Ovid, however, does not appear quite so invincible as in his own speeches in the Iliad. The mythographers thought it neces- sary to assign a reason why Herakles was not present at the Kalydonian adventure : he was just at that time in servitude with Omphale" in Lydia CApollod. ii. 6, 3). This seems to have been the idea of Ephorus, and it is much in Ins style of interpretation (see Ephor. Fragm. 9. ed. Didot.). i. 7 lOoc.