Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/188

 158 HISTORY OF GREECE. ing is most efficacious in furthering the process of acquisition, whether by theft or by accelerated multiplication of flocks and herds. 1 The wealth and princely character of the Atreids were proverbial among the ancient epic poets. Paris not only carries away Hellen, but much property along with her : 2 the house of Menelaus, when Telemachus visits it in the Odyssey, is so re- splendent with gold and silver and rare ornament, 3 as to strike the beholder with astonishment and admiration. The attributes assigned to Tantalus, the father of Pelops, are in conformity with the general idea of the family superhuman abundance and en- joyments, and intimate converse with the gods, to such a degree that his head is turned, and he commits inexpiable sin. But though Tantalus himself is mentioned, in one of the most suspi- cious passages of the Odyssey (as suffering punishment in the under-world), he is not announced, nor is any one else announced, as father of Pelops, unless we are to construe the lines in the Iliad as implying that the latter was son of Hermes. In the con- ception of the author of the Iliad, the Pelopids are, if not of di- vine origin, at least a mortal breed specially favored and enno- bled by the gods beginning with Pelops, and localized at My- kenae. No allusion is made to any connection of Pelops either with Pisa or with Lydia. The legend which connected Tantalus and Pelops with Mount Sipylus may probably have grown out of the JEolic settlements at Magnesia and Kyme. Both the Lydian origin and the Pisatic sovereignty of Pelops are adapted to times later than the Iliad, when the Olympic games had acquired to themselves the general reverence of Greece, and had come to serve as the religious and recreative centre of the Peloponnesus and when the Lydian 1 Iliad, xiv. 491. Hcsiod. Theog. 444. Homer, Hymn. Mercur. 52G-56S 'QAfjov Kal jr/lovrov 6uou TrepiKuTi^ea pufSSov. Compare Eustath. ad Iliad, xvi. 182. CFrngm. 55. p. 43, Diintzer) : 'KT^KTjv ftev yup eduntv 'OTiVfimo f AJ.aKt6-yaiv, Novv (5' 'Afivdaovidatf, TT^OVTOV J' 7rop' 'Arpettfym. Again, Tyrtseus, Fragm. 9, 4. Oid' el Tavro/lWeu IleAoTroj Pacifairfpof elif, etc.
 * Iliad, iii. 72 ; vii. 363. In the Hcsiodic Eoiai was the followin couplet
 * Odvss. iv. 45-71.