Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/338

 306 HISTOflY OF GREECE. in the Elysian fields. She was worshipped as a goddess with her brothers the Dioskuri and her hushand, having her temple, statue and altar at Therapnas and elsewhere, and various examples of her miraculous interventions were cited among the Greeks. 1 The lyric poet Stesichorus had ventured to denounce her, conjointly with her sister Klytaemnestra, in a tone of rude and plain-spoken severity, resembling that of Euripides and Lycophron afterwards, but strikingly opposite to the delicacy and respect with which she is always handled by Homer, who never admits reproaches against her except from her own lips. 2 He was smitten with blindness, Androm. 600-629 ; Helen. 75-120 ; Troad. 890-1057 ; compare also the fine lines in the JEneid, ii. 567-588). 1 See the description in Herodot. vi. 61, of the prayers offered to her, and of the miracle which she -wrought, to remove the repulsive ugliness of a little Spartan girl of high family. Compare also Pindar, Olymp. iii. 2, and the Scholia at the beginning of the ode; Eurip. Helen. 1662, and Orest. 1652- 1706; Isokrat. Encom. Helen, ii. p. 368, Auger; Dio Chrysost. Or. xi. p. 311. -&edf hon'iadr) irapa rolg "EMijai ; Theodectes ap. Aristot. Pol. i. 2, 19 Qeiuv air' ufiyoiv eayovov pi^ufiuruv. 2 Euripid. Troad. 982 set/.; Lycophron ap. Stcph. Byz. v. A.lyvf, Ste- sichorus ap. Schol. Eurip. Orest. 239 ; Fragm. 9 and 10 of the ' ITiiov Schneidewin : Ovveica Tvvdupeue pi^uv anusi i?oZf fiidc Actfer ' KimptSof Ksiva 6s Tvvdupeu Kovpawi Atyu/iovc Kat MireGitv Further ' EAevj; knova ' amjpe, etc. He had probably contrasted her with other females carried away by force. Stesichorus also affirmed that Iphigeneia was the daughter of Helen, by Theseus, born at Argos before her marriage with Menelaus and made over to Klytaemnestra : this tale was perpetuated by the temple of Eileithyia at Argos, which the Argeians affirmed to have been erected by Helen (Pausan. ii. 22, 7). The ages ascribed by Hellanikus and other logographcrs (Hellan. Fr. 74) to Theseus and Helen he fifty years of age and she a child of seven when he carried her off to Aphidnae, can never have been the original form of any poetical legend : these ages were probably imagined in order to make the mythical chronology run smoothly; for Theseus belongs to the genera- tion before the Trojan war. But we ought always to recollect that Helen never grows old (rrjv ytlp (j>arcf Ifiuev' 1 uyijpu Quint. Smyrn. x. 312), and that her chronology consists only with an immortal being. Servins observes ("ad ^Eneid. ii. 601 ) " Helenam immortalem fuisse indicat tempus. Nam constat fratres ejus cum Argonantis fuisse. Argonautarum filii cum Theba- His ("Thebano Eteoclis et Polynicis bello) dimicavcrunt. Item illorum filii