Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/217

 JEAKTJS AND HIS DESCENDANTS. ISA ron, JEakus had for his sons Peleus and Telamon : by the Nereid Psamathe, he had Phokus. A monstrous crime had then recently been committed by Pelops, in killing the Arcadian prince, Stym- phalus, under a simulation of friendship and hospitality : for this the gods had smitten all Greece with famine and barrenness. The oracles affirmed that nothing could relieve Greece from this intolerable misery except the prayers of -ZEakus, the most pious of mankind. Accordingly envoys from all quarters flocked to ^Egina, to prevail upon yEakus to put up prayers for them : on his supplications the gods relented, and the suffering immediately ceased. The grateful Greeks established in .ZEgina the temple and worship of Zeus Panhellenius, one of the lasting monuments and institutions of the island, on the spot where -ZEakus had offered up his prayer. The statues of the envoys who had come to solicit him were yet to be seen in the JEakeium, or sacred edifice of JEakus, in the time of Pausanias : and the Athenian Isokrates, in his eulogy of Evagoras, the despot of Salamis in Cyprus (who traced his descent through Teukrus to JEakus), enlarges upon this signal miracle, recounted and believed by other Greeks as well as by the JEginetans, as a proof both of the great qualities and of the divine favor and patronage dis- played in the career of the JEakids. 1 .^Eakus was also employed to aid Poseidon and Apollo in building the walls of Troy. 2 Peleus and Telamon, the sons of JEakus, contracting a jeal- that Zeus raised men from the earth, at the prayer of JEakus (ii. 29, 2) : other authors retained the etymology of Myrmidons from fivppqKef, but gave a different explanation (Kallimachus, Fragm. 114, Ddntzer). Mvpfudovuv iffar/va (Strabo, viii. p. 375). 'Eaaqv, 6 omcmfc (Hygin. fab. 52). According to the Thessalian legend, Myrmidon was the son of Zeus by Eurymedusa, daughter of Kletor ; Zeus having assumed the disguise of an ant (Clemens Alex. Admon. ad Gent. p. 25. Sylb.). 1 Apollod. iii. 12, 6. Isokrat. Evagor. Encom. vol. ii. p. 278, Auger. Pau- san. i. 45, 13; ii. 29, 6. Schol. Aristoph. Equit. 1253. So in the 106th Psalm, respecting the Israelites and Phinees, v. 29, " They provoked the Lord to anger by their inventions, and the plague was great among them;" "Then stood up Phinees and prayed, and so the plague ceased ; " " And that was counted unto him for righteousness, among all posterities for evermore." story in any other poet older than Pindar
 * Pindar, Olymp. viii. 41, with the Scholia. Didymu? did not find thil