Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/178

 146 HISTORY OF GREECE. Schceneus ; beautiful and matchless for swiftness of foot, but living in the forest as a huntress and unacceptable to Aphrodite. 1 Seve- ral of the heroes were slain by the boar, others escaped by va- rious stratagems : at length Atalanta first shot him in the back, next Amphiaraus in the eye, and, lastly, Meleager killed him. Enamoured of the beauty of Atalanta, Meleager made over to her the chief spoils of the animal, on the plea that she had inflicted the first wound. But his uncles, the brothers of Thestius, took them away from her, asserting their rights as next of kin, 2 if Me- leager declined to keep the prize for himself: the latter, exaspe- rated at this behavior, slew them. Althosa, in deep sorrow for her brothers and wrath against her son, is impelled to produce the fatal brand which she had so long treasured up, and consign it to the flames. 3 The tragedy concludes with the voluntary death both of Althaea and Kleopatra. Interesting as the Arcadian huntress, Atalanta, is in herself, she is an intrusion, and not a very convenient intrusion, into the Homeric story of the Kalydonian boar-hunt, wherein another female Kleopatra, already occupied the foreground. 4 But the more recent version became accredited throughout Greece, and 1 Eurijiid. Mclcag. Fragm. vi. Matt. KvTtpidof 6e fiiar]fj. 'Ap/alf 'Ara/lavr?/, Kvvaf "Kal TO? exovaa, etc. There was a drama " Meleager " both of Sophokles and Euripides : of the former hardly any fragments remain, a few more of the latter. 3 Diodor, iv. 34. Apollodorus (i. 8 ; 2-4) gives first the usual narrative, in- cluding Atalanta; next, the Homeric narrative with some additional circum- stances, but not including either Atalanta or the fire-brand on which Melea- ger's life depended. He prefaces the latter with the words oi 6e <paai, etc Antoninus Liberalis gives this second narrative only, without Atalanta, from Nicander ("Narrat. 2). The Latin scenic poet, Attius, had devoted one of his tragedies to this subject, taking the general story as given by Euripides : " Remanet gloria apud me : exnvias dignavi Atalantae dare," seems to be the speech of Melea- ger. (Attii Fragm. 8, ap. Poet. Seen. Lat. ed. Bothe, p. 215). The readers of the JEneid will naturally think of the swift and warlike virgin Camilla, aj the parallel of Atalanta. 4 The narrative of Apollodoras reads awkwardly McAeaypof fyw* yvvatKa Kfaoirifpav, /?on Ao/WTOf <5e Kal 'Ara/lavnff TEKVoiroif/ffaada 1 ., etc (i. 8, 2).
 * Hyginus, fab. 229.