Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/182

 150 HISTORY OF GREECE. We have yet another female in the family of (Eneus, vhos name the legend has immortalized. His daughter Deianeira was sought in marriage by the river Achelous, who presented himself in various shapes, first as a serpent and afterwards as a bulL From the importunity of this hateful suitor she was rescued be the arrival of Herakles, who encountered Achelous, vanquished him and broke off one of his horns, which Achelous ransomed by surrendering to him the horn of Amaltheia, endued with the miraculous property of supplying the possessor with abundance of any food or drink which he desired. Herakles was rewarded for his prowess by the possession of Deianeira, and he made over the horn of Amaltheia as his marriage-present to CEneus. 1 Compelled to leave the residence of CEneus in consequence of having in a fit of anger struck the youthful attendant Eunomus, and involuntarily killed him, 2 Herakles retired to Trachin, cross- ing the river Euenus at the place where the Centaur Nessus was historical basis can neither be affirmed nor denied respecting them, we es cape the necessity of such inconvenient stratagems. The test of identity is then to be sought in the attributes, not in the legal description, in the predicates, not in the subject. Atalanta, whether born of one father or another, whether belonging to one place or another, is beautiful, cold, re- pulsive, daring, swift of foot and skilful with the bow, these attributes constitute her identity. The Scholiast on Theocritus (iii. 40), in vindicating his supposition that there were two Atalantas, draws a distinction founded upon this very principle : he says that the Boeotian Atalanta was rofortf, and the Arcadian Atalanta ipo^aia. But this seems an over-refinement : both the shooting and the running go to constitute an accomplished huntress. In respect to Parthenopacus, called by Euripides and by so many others the son of Atalanta, it is of some importance to add, that Apollodorns, Aristarchus, and Antimachus, the author of the Thebaid, assigned to him a pedigree entirely different, making him an Argeian, the son of Talaos and Lysimache, and brother of Adrastus. (Apollodor. i. 9, 13 ; Aristarch. ap. Schol. Soph. GEd. Col. 1320; Antimachus ap. Schol. JEschyl. Sep. Theb. 532; and Schol. Supplem. ad Eurip. Phceniss. t. viii. p. 461, ed. Matth. Apollodorus is in fact inconsistent with himself in another passage). 1 Sophokl. Trachin. 7. The horn of Amaltheia was described by Phere- kyd6s (Apollod. ii. 7,5); see also Strabo, x. p. 458 and Diodor. iv. 35, who cites an interpretation of the fables (ol ekufovrtf /?" avrtiv Tatties) to th effect that it was symbolical of an embankment of the unruly river by He"- rnkles, and consequent recovery of very fertile land. tut works, called the attendant by two different names.
 * Hellanikus (ap. Athen. ix. p. 410) mentioning this incident, in two differ