Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/318

 286 HISTORY OF treachery oy a sea-monster, whom Poseidon sent to ravage hii fields and to destroy his subjects. Laomedon publicly offered the immortal horses given by Zeus to his father Tros, as a reward to any one who would destroy the monster. But an oracle declared that a virgin of noble blood must be surrendered to him, and the lot fell upon Hesione, daughter of Laomedon himself. Herakles arriving at this critical moment, killed the monster by the aid of a fort built for him by Athene and the Trojans, 1 so as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people ; but Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal horses in place of the matchless ani- mals which had been promised. Thus defrauded of his due, Ilera- kles equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy and killed Laomedon, 1 * giving Hesione to his friend and auxiliary Telamon, to whom she bore the celebrated archer Teukros. 3 A painful sense of this expedition was preserved among the inhabitants of the historical town of Ilium, who offered no worship to Hera- Lie's.* Among all the sons of Laomedon, Priam 5 was the only one who had remonstrated against the refusal of the well-earned guerdon of Herakles ; for which the hero recompensed him by placing him on the throne. Many and distinguished were his sons and daughters, as well by his wife Hekabe, daughter of Kisseus, as by other women. 6 Among the sons were Hector, 7 Paris, Deipho- 1 Iliad, xx. 145 ; Dionys. Hal. i. 52. 2 Iliad, v. 640. Menekles (ap. Schol. Venet. ad loc.) affirmed that this expedition of Hurakles was a fiction ; but Dikaearchus gave, besides, other exploits of the hero in the same neighborhood, at Thebe Hypoplakie (Seh?!. Iliad, vi. 396). 3 Diodor. iv. 32-49. Compare Venet. Schol. ad Iliad, viii. 284. 4 Strabo, xiii. p. 596. 6 As Dardanus, Tros and Ilus are respectively eponyms of Dardania Troy and Ilium, so Priam is eponym of the acropolis Pergamum. llpiapo is in the JEolic dialect Heppa^of (Hesychius) : upon which Ahrens remarks, " Ceeterum ex hac JEolici nominis form apparet, Priamum non minus arcis Hepyu.ji.uv eponymum cssc, quam Hum urbis, Troem populi : Hepyapa enim a ~lepiafj.a natum est, i in y mutato." (Ahrens, De Dialecto JEoic&, 8, 7. p. 5C: compare ibid. 28, 8. p. 150,7r^/V tiTruTiu). 6 Iliad, vi. 245 ; xxiv. 495. 7 Hector was affirmed, both by Steisichoras and Ihykus, to be the son of Apollo (Stesichorus, ap. Schol. Ven. ad Iliad, xxiv. 259; Ibyki Frngm. xir