APPENDIX ONE THE STEPMOTHER MYfHS
A. The Murderous Stepmother
1. /no (Euripides, Phrixus I and II, TGF2 F 819-838, POxy XXVII no. 2455 fr. 14 col xvi, fr. 17 col. xix, POxy LIi no 3652 1., Apollod., 1.9.1-2; cf. Ov., Fast. 3.853 with Bomer ad loc., Tzetz. Lye., 22 etc.; K. Schauenburg, "Phrixos", RhM 101 (1958), 41-50, llMC II.I 950f. s.v. Athamas.) Jealous of the children of Nephele, Athamas' first wife, lno invents a cunning plot to get rid of them. She induces the women to roast the wheat-seeds, thus causing a failure of the crops. Next, she bribes the messenger sent by Athamas to consult the Delphic Oracle to bring back a false response demanding the sacrifice of the king's first-born son Phrixus. At the altar Phrixus, along with his sister Helle, is saved from this fate by the intervention of his mother Nephele, who sends a golden ram to transport them across the sea.2 Helle falls off on the way and is drowned, giving her name to the Hellespont; Phrixus, on arriving at Colchis, sacrifices the ram and gives the fleece to Aeetes, whose daughter he marries, thus providing, in the form of the Golden Fleece, the starting-point for the Argonautic legend. Ino eventually meets her fate when Athamas is driven mad by Hera (in revenge for their nursing of the infant Dionysus); he kills their first child, Learchus; lno jumps into the sea with the second child, Melicertes, in her arms and is transformed into the sea goddess Leucothoe.
Main variants Nephele concubine rather than wife: Eur., TGF 2 F 824 (attributed to Phrixus); Nonn., Dion. 10.11 7.
1 Both plays dealt with the machinations of Ino: see especially POxy Lil (1984) no 3652 with the comments of H.M. Cockle (the papyrus gives the hypothesis to Phrixus I and mentions Ino's plot, thus disproving Webster's suggestion (1967), 131, that the Phrixu.r I dealt with a different subject). See also Turner (1958), 12-15. Sophocles wrote two Athamas plays and a Phrixus, but little is known of their contents. The Ino story may have been treated. 2 Originally the ram swam, later it was thought of as flying: see D.S. Robertson, "The Flight of Phrixus", CR 54 (1940) 1-8. 224 APPENDIX ONE
Nephele second wife, Ino first (divorced by Athamas in favour of Nephele): Eur., Phrixus II (?)3, Schol. Hom., Iliad 7.86, Tzetz. Lye., 22. Themisto first wife, Ino second: Herodorus, FGrH 31 F 38 omits Nephele and has Themisto as mother of Phrixus and Helle. Phrixus plotted against by Athamas together with lno: Hdt., 7.197. lno's guilt is revealed by a servant while Phrixus stands at the altar: she is saved by Dionysus whom she had nursed; he also drives Phrixus and Helle mad; it is while they are wandering in the forest about to be attacked by Maenads that Nephele comes to them with the ram on which they make their escape: Eur., Phrixus 11., Hyg., Fab. 3., Lact. Plac. ad Stat., Theb. 2.281. Suicide of lno (originally a separate myth: cf. Hom., Od. 5.353ff.) linked to the plot against Phrixus and Helle: Nonn., Dwn. 10.96ff. (Athamas' madness and lno's suicide attributed by lno to Nephele as an act of revenge for plot against her children); Schol. Hom., Iliad 7 .86 (Athamas kills Learchus on learning of Ino's plot and she es• capes punishment by jumping into the sea with Melicertes).
2. 1hemisto (Euripides, /no, TGF2 F 398-427: plot summarised by Hyg., Fab. 4; cf. Athen., 13.560D., Opp., Cyn. 3.248., Nonn., Dwn. 9.320f.; Webster ( 196 7) 98-101.) Ino being absent, presumed dead, Athamas takes another wife, Themisto, by whom he has twin sons. On discovering lno to be still alive (she has gone off to Parnassus to take part in Bacchanalian rites), Athamas has her brought back secretly. Themisto, learning of lno's return but ignorant of her whereabouts, now plans to kill the children of lno, ironically employing as her accomplice a captive servant who is none other than Ino herself in disguise. To prepare the way for the murder, this 'servant' is instructed to cover Themisto's children with white garments and lno's with black; when lno, realising Themisto's intentions, switches the colours, the latter murders her own children, and on discovering her mistake, commits suicide.
3 This depends on the reading 1Tp0<7f'YEVVT)