Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/317

 LEGEND OF TROY. 285 though even the oldest tales which we possess those contained in the Iliad evidently presuppose others of prior date. The primitive ancestor of the Trojan line of kings is Dardanus, son of Zeus, founder and eponymus of Dardania i 1 in the account of later authors, Dardanus was called the son of Zeus by Elektra, daughter of Atlas, and was further said to have come from Samo- thrace, or from Arcadia, or from Italy ; 2 but of this Homer men- tions nothing. The first Dardanian town founded by him was in a lofty position on the descent of Mount Ida ; for he was not yet strong enough to establish himself on the plain. But his son Erichthonius, by the favor cf Zeus, became the wealthiest of man- kind. His flocks and herds having multiplied, he had in his pas- tures three thousand mares, the offspring of some of whom, by Boreas, produced horses of preternatural swiftness. Tros, the son of Erichthonius, and the eponym of the Trojans, had three sons Dus, Assaracus, and the beautiful Ganymedes, whom Zeus stole away to become his cup-bearer in Olympus, giving to his father Tros, as the price of the youth, a team of immortal horses. From Ilus and Assaracus the Trojan and Dardanian lines di- verge ; the former passing from Ilus to Laomedon, Priam and Hector; the latter from Assaracus to Capys, Anchises and ^Eneas. Ilus founded in the plain of Troy the holy city of Ilium; Assaracus and his descendants remained sovereigns of Dardania. 4 It was under the proud Laomedon, son of Hus, that Poseidon and Apollo underwent, by command of Zeus, a temporary servi- tude ; the former building the walls of the town, the latter tending the flocks and herds. When their task was completed and the penal period had expired, they claimed the stipulated reward ; but Laomedon angrily repudiated their demand, and even threat- ened to cut off their ears, to tie them hand and foot, and to sell them in some distant island as slaves. 5 He was punished for this 1 Iliad, xx. 215. 2 Hellanik. Fragm. 129, Didot; Pionys. Hal. i. 50-61 ; Apollodor. iii. 12, 1 ; Schol. Iliad, xviii. 486 ; Varro, ap. Servium ad Virgil. ^Encid. iii 167- Kephalon. Gergithius ap. Steph. Byz. v. 'Apiaftrj. 3 Iliad, T. 265 ; Hellanik. Fr. 146 ; Apcllod. ii. 5, 9. 4 Iliad, xx. 236. 5 Iliad, vii. 451 ; xxi. 456. Hesiod. ap. Schol. Lycophr. 393