Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/216

 184 HISTORY OF GREECE CHAPTER X. jEAKUS AND HIS DESCEND ANTS. -.EGINA, SALAMIS, AND PHTfflA. THE memorable heroic genealogy of the JEakids establishes a fabulous connection between JEgina, Salamis, and Phthia, which we can only recognize as a fact, without being able to trace ita origin. jEakus was the son of Zeus, born of ^Egina, daughter of Aso- pus, whom the god had carried off and brought into the island to which he gave her name : she was afterwards married to Aktor, and had by him Menoetius, father of Patroclus. As there were two rivers named Asopus, one between Phlius and Sikyon, and another between Thebes and Plataea so the JEginetan heroic genealogy was connected both with that of Thebes and with that of Phlius : and this belief led to practical consequences in the minds of those who accepted the legends as genuine history. For when the Thebans, in the 68th Olympiad, were hard-pressed in war by Athens, they were directed by the Delphian oracle to ask assistance of their next of kin : recollecting that Thebe and JEgina had been sisters, common daughters of Asopus, they were induced to apply to the JEginotans as their next of kin, and the JEgine'tans gave them aid, first by sending to them their common heroes, the JEakids, next by actual armed force. 1 Pindar dwells emphatically on the heroic brotherhood between Thebes, his native city, and JEgina. 2 JEakus was alone in JEgina: to relieve him from this solitudti, Zeus changed all the ants in the island into men, and thus pro- vided him with a numerous population, who, from their origin, were called Myrmidons. 3 By his wife Endeis, daughter of Chei- 1 Herodot. v. 81. 2 Ncm. iv. 22. Isthm. vii. 16. 3 This tale, respecting the transformation of the ants into men, is as old as the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. See Diintzer, Fragm. Epicc. 21. p. 34 ; evidently an etymological tale from the name Myrmidones. Pausanias throws aside both the etymology and the details of the miracle : he says