«EIKASMÓS» VII (1996)

Callimachean Istrus: the Trambelus and Apriate Myth

To the modem reader the story of Trambelus and Apriate is not one of the better known Greek myths. Yet, certainly, it was popular in Hellenistic times, and it was extensively treated by the Hellenistic writers. For us, however, there re- mains only a scholiast's note on an indirect reference to Trambelus in Lycophron's Alexandra, a brief mention of him in Athenaeus, and short references to both Trambelus and Apriate in a fragment of Euphorion's Thrax, a work which was partially followed by Parthenius. The scholiast on Lycophron tells us that when Lycophron refers to Trambelus' brother he means . There then follows a brief account of the life of Trambelus (1 [Tzetz.] ad Lycophr. 467 = Istros FGrH 334 F57):

TpapfJrjXou Kaoiv] xòv TEUKpov ÀiyEi. p£xà yàp xf)v ÌA.ÌOU àA-cooiv xr\v y£vopévr|v urcò 'HpaKÀiouc; T£A.apcòv EÀ-afte yépaqècjaipExov ©EavEipav [[xr)v Kai 'Hoióvrjv]], eòe; "Ioxpoc; èv IvppiKXoig ejirioiv. auxrj SE EK XOU T£A.apcovoc; èyKUOc; y£vopévr| àrcéSpaoEv EK xf]q VECÓC,, Kai T\XQEV EÌq MÌAT|XOV, Siavricjapévr) xx)v pExacjù 0aA.aaoav [[Kai Aéopov. èyeò Sé còvr)6£iod tbriLii rcapà Llpidpou]]. èpaoi?i£U£ 8è xóx£ xfjc; MiÀfjxou 'Apieov, oc; aùxf)v èv \>Xr\ KEKpuppévrjv EÙpcòv SiéoeoaE Kai xòv ècj aùxfjqyEvópEvov uiòv Tpdp(3r)A.ov òvopaoOévxa dvé9p£\|/£v CÒQÌSIOV uiòv. xfjc; 5è èrci "IAAOV oxpax£ia<; yEvopévrn; 'Axi^EÙq Eiq MÌATIXOV rcapEyévExo, Eixa xòv TpdpPriÀ,ov dvxioxdvxa drcÉKXEivE- Gaupdoac; SE aùxoù dv5p<£>iav Kai pa9còv òxi èK TE^apcovóq èoxiv, £0a\i/£v aùxòv Kai péxpi xivòt; eoe; ouyyEvfj £KÀ,aUO£. «After the capture of by took as his special prize Theaneira, [[whom they also cali ]], as Istrus says in his Symmikta. But she, after becoming pregnant by Telamon, escaped from the ship and arrived at Miletus, swimming through the sea between [[and Lesbos. But, I say, she was bought by ]]. Arion, who was then the king of Miletus, found her hidden in a wood and saved her and raised the child born of her as his own son calling him Trambelus. When the army marched against Ilium arrived in Miletus and killed Trambelus who opposed him. Surprised at his bravery, and then learning that he was a son of Telamon, Achilles buried Trambelus and went so far as weeping for him like a relative».

There are, it seems, some difficulties here. The ship from which the scholiast 150 JACKSON tells us Hesione made her escape cannot have been part of the fleet taking Heracles and Telamon away from Troy (i.e. to Cos: see Nem. 4, 26; Isthm. 6, 31)', since this scenario would render impossible the birth of Telamon and Hesione's other child Teucer. This apparent inconsistency on the part of the scholiast, and also the additions made to the originai scholion by Tzetzes (which are given here in parenthesis), have led some scholars, among them Mùller (FHG I p. 421, fr. 22), to believe that the quotation should be restricted to the first sentence2. But, as Jacoby points out3, there is every reason to believe that Istrus of Cyrene, the amanuensis of Callimaehus, would have told the whole story of Trambelus, such was the painstaking and comprehensive nature of his work. Rather, Tzetzes' ad­ ditions corroborate the idea that the whole quotation pertains to Istrus' account. In the first of his additions, Tzetzes recalls the traditional name Hesione, signi- fying, presumably, that it is specifically Istrus who calls her Theaneira (the reason for which, incidentally, we do not know). And in the second, Tzetzes refers to an episode in Trambelus' life which was connected with Lesbos but which was missing in the originai scholion, whereas Istrus, we may reasonably assume, had referred to it in his account. The remaining words of this second addition by Tzetzes are explained by Tzetzes' own respective entries at E Lycophron 34 (p. 29, 22f. Scheer):

a zxax ov av XÓXE SE 'HpaKÀ.fjc; xfj 'Hoióvr) x 9^ GéÀr) xeov aìxpa^cóxcov còvfjoaoGai KXÀ,. and at I Lycophron 337 (p. 132, 21-23 Scheer):

èrcpiaxo aùxóv, ÒGEV èKA.T]Gr| Llpiapoc;, Kai KaxÉA.irc£v aùxòv èv xfj rcaxpiSi, èÀJtii/)uoa aùxfjv ùrc' aùxou dvaoxaGfjvai, ò Kai yéyovEV4.

The story goes (Apollod. Bibl. II 6, 4) that after his storming of Troy and slaugh-

See also Apollodorus II 7,1, probably after Pherecydes who, acc. to the scholiast on //. XIV 255, told the story of Heracles in Cos. A Hesiodic source (F 43a, 55 ff. M.-W.) speaks of the Eoia Mestici who bore King Eurypylus to in Cos and of Eurypylus' sons Chalcon and Antagoras who were in power there when Heracles sacked the island (see M.L. West, The Hesiodic Catalogue ofWomen, Oxford 1985, 68 and 161 ; also S.M. Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos, Gòttingen 1978, 17 and 306 ff.). Cp., too, Quintilian Vili 6, 71; also Ovid Mei. VII 363. A daughter of Eurypylus, Chalciope, married Heracles after he had subdued the Meropians (I //. B 677. See also H. Dibbelt, o.c. 21 and 25; and M.P. Nilsson. Griechische Feste, Stuttgart 1906. 45 lf.). 2 See Pfister, Roseli. Le.x. V 1094f. 3 FGrH 334 F 57 Suppl. I 656. See also Hoefer, Roseli. Lex. V 544f. Cp. Hyginus Fab. 89: Pollarci, filio eius infanti, regnimi dedit, qui postea Priamus est appellatus, ano TOO 7tpiao6ai. (For the bestowal by Heracles of the kingdom on the youthful Priam, cp. Seneca Troades 7181T.). Callimachean Istrus: the Trambelus and Apriate Myth ici ter of king and ali his sons except for Podarces, Heracles allowed Laomedon's daughter Hesione, now assigned as a prize to Telamon, to take with her whomsoever of the captives she wished5. When she chose her brother Podarces, Heracles said that Podarces must first be a slave, and then be ransomed, or re- deemed, by her. So, when he was being sold, she removed her head-veil and gave it as a ransom: hence Podarces was called Priam. Now, we know from (//. Vili 283ff.)that Teucer was a bastard son of Telamon raised by his naturai father in his own house. Pindar (Nem. 4, 48) tells us that this was at Salamis. Teucer's mother was Hesione (Apollod. Bibl. Ili 12, 7; I //. Vili 284). So, Trambelus must have been the second son of Telamon and Hesione, and it was on some later occasion that Hesione jumped ship and escaped to Miletus. The scholiast, whose comments must necessarily be somewhat synco- pated, quite sensibly omitted to mention Teucer's birth and history which were not relevant to his note. But, on the other hand, he may reasonably be expected to have included the episode on Lesbos which was. The fact that Tzetzes adds "Lesbos" to the originai scholion, but not "Salamis", tends to confirm that the episode on Lesbos was missing in the scholion. It also tends to confirm that Istrus discussed the episode on Lesbos in his account, for almost certainly Tzetzes had Istrus' narrative before him. Our earliest extant version of the Lesbian episode in Trambelus' life appears in a fragment of the Thrax, one of at least three curse-poems of Euphorion6, which is, to an extent, summarised in prose by Parthenius (Erot. Patii. 26 = CA Euphor. 27 = SH 415). According to the Parthenian version, Trambelus, while in Lesbos, fell in love with a Lesbian girl called Apriate. She refused his advances and he tried to force himself upon her in an ambush. In his anger at her continuing struggle he threw her into the sea, and she drowned. According to Euphorion, having duly cursed Trambelus and wished a "Leipephile" or a "Semiramis" upon him as a wife, Apriate hurled herself from the cliff-top into the sea, where dol- phins appeared and may, or may not, have rescued her. The text here is too corrupt to say for certain whether she was saved (SH 415, 15-17) :

5 Traditionally, this story had nothing to do with the Argonautic saga, but we know that Dionysius Scytobrachion was the first to include the rescue of Hesione in the Argonauts' adventures (P. Mich. inv. 1316v, 11. 5-8 [Rusten, eh. 3, pp. 53-64] = SH 339 A, pp. 159-161), followed later by Hyginus Fab. 89 and Val. Flacc. II 451-578. According to I Verg. Georg. I 502 = F 698 Pf., Callimaehus also told of the rescue of Hesione, but, as Pfeiffer says. there is no reason to believe (as did Robert, Heldensage 555) that Callimaehus' story had any connection with the Argonauts or Scytobrachion. H. Lloyd-Jones («ZPE» XIII [1974] 209ff.) suggests that the Callimachean account is preserved in the Archebulean verses of P. Mieli, inv. 3499. 6 The others being Curses (or the Goblet Thief) and Chiliades. For the texts see L.C. Watson, Arae: the Curse Poetry of Antiquity. Leeds 1991, 223-227. 7 See also Watson, o.c 84 and 97f. 152 JACKSON

.] [,']xi rcvEio. [ ] IT|1.. [ S£A.<})ìv£<; rcriycrio S[i' u5]axo<; èyKovÉEOKOV, auGiqiv' à£iqcop£v d[e))]ópSiov ixGùo[i] Kup[

But the probability is that she was not rescued and was carried off by the dolphins already a corpse8.The words ex[<|)]c5p8iov ixGùo[i] KUp[ suggest as much. Euphorion next appears to refer to the death of Trambelus at the hands of Achilles, although we cannot be certain of this either9. H. Lloyd-Jones and P. Parsons (SH 415,12- 18, p. 202) believe that Parthenius drew very little from Euphorion. This is prob- ably correct in that the Euphorion account of the Trambelus / Apriate story ap­ pears in curse-poetry and concentrates on the curses of Apriate against Trambelus. Moreover, the story is clearly only one of a number of myths referred to in the poem and it is treated by Euphorion with an economy not present in Parthenius' version10. It is likely that Parthenius turned more to Aristocritus who, agreeing with Euphorion", tells us in his History of Miletus (FGrH 493 F 2) that, rather than being pushed by Trambelus, Apriate jumped off the cliff. A marginai note in the Parthenian MS (yp. 'ApioxÓKpixoc; èv xoiqnepi MiXrjxov)12, tends to suggest that this was so. In any case, the Parthenian version goes on to say that, soon, divine vengeance overtook Trambelus. For, when Achilles was ravaging Lesbos, Trambelus went out to meet him in battle with some of the inhabitants of the island. Achilles duly killed him. But when he learned that he was the son of Telamon Achilles mourned him as a relative and piled up a great barrow for him on the beach, a barrow which can stili be seen in Lesbos and which is called "the hero Trambelus' mound". As we can see from our fragment, however, Istrus placed Trambelus' death at Miletus. In this, according to Athenaeus, he follows Aristobulus of Casandria (FGrH 139 F 6 = Athenaeus II 43d) who talks about a spring, or krene, in Miletus called Achilles' Well, with the water of which, so the Milesians say, Achilles purified himself after he had killed Trambelus the king of the Leleges.

Plutarch (Mor. 163a) speaks of «puella Lesbia a delphinis servatur», but the story of Enalus has nothing whatsoever to do with Apriate, see my Myrsilus of Methymna and the Tales of the Dolphins, «LCM» XVIII 6 (1993) 82-85. And my Myrsilus of Methymna: Hellenistic Paradoxographer, Amsterdam 1995, 44-52. 9 See SH 415,19, p. 203. For discussion of the economy with which the individuai episodes in Euphorion's curse-poetry are sketched, see Watson, o.c. 97f. For the contrast between the treatment of Euphorion and that of Parthenius, see V. Bartoletti, Euforione e Partenio, «RFIC» XXVI (1948) 26-36; and L.C. Watson, Cinna and Euphorion, «SIFC» LIV (1982) 93-110. Aristocritus may be considered a prose follower of the Alexandrian poets. Ali we can say for certain of his floruit is that he wrote before Parthenius who made good use of him. 12 Which may reasonably be taken as a continuation of the information given in the title CIoTopei Eò(|)opictìv ©pocKi). Callimachean Istrus: the Trambelus and Apriate Myth

It would seem reasonable to suggest, therefore, that, although Istrus discussed the Lesbian episode, he rejected it as part of the originai legend, probably attri buting the claim that Trambelus had been killed in Lesbos to a later concoction by locai historians, which, in turn, others followed13. But why was Istrus discussing Trambelus and Apriate at ali here? To attempi to answer this, one must examine the nature of the Symmikta, the work in which the story appears. If we accept Jacoby's theory (FGrH 334 F 57 Suppl. I 655) that FF 57 (Symmikta), 58 (Hypomnemata) and 69-73 (Fragmente unbekannter Herkunft) should ali be taken together inasmuch as they constitute comments and discussion on the , then we may see the reason. If Istrus' account of the Trambelus / Apriate story was indeed part of a dis­ cussion of a Homeric problem, then it most likely centred on line ninety-nine of the first book of the Iliad:

oùS' ò y£ rcpiv Aavaoìoiv à£iKéa Xoiyòv àrccóoEi, rcpiv y' arcò rcaxpi cj)ÌA.cp SópEvai ÉÀiKoirciSa Koùprjv àrcpiaxriv àvdrcoivov, dy£iv 6' ÌEpr)v £Kaxóp(3r)v èq Xpuorjv XÓXE KÉV piv itaxooàpEvoi rc£rciGoip£v. (//. I 97-100)14.

The issue under debate is the word drcpidxr|v. Is it an adjective or is it an adverb15, or is it a proper name Apriate? The comment from scholiast A (T) ad l. reads:

òxi où Kaxà rcpoariyopiav xrjv 'Arcpiàxrjv ÀéyEi, àXX' àvxì xoù àrcpaxi, Kai rcapdA.À.r)À.ov xò àvdrcoivov xò yàp aùxò Si' dpeJioxEpeov 5r|Xoùxai. SiaoxaÀ/réov SE ppaxù ànp\àxr\v, àvàrcoivov, OXIKXÉOV 8' Èq Xpùorjv, èrcEi KOIVÒV Kaxà rcdvxeov xò rcpiv. xò àrcpiàxr|v èrcippripaxiKcòc; ÓKOÙEI 'ArcoA.A.cóvio<; àvxi xoù àrcpidSr|v.

Merkel has shown that the Apollonius mentioned by the scholiast certainly is the Rhodian16, and, clearly, Apollonius rejected the view that Apriate was the proper name of Chryseis17. Presumably Istrus, who records Trambelus' death as having occurred at Miletus, and not at Lesbos, would have agreed with Apollonius and

13 Among them, possibly, Aristocritus and, through him, Parthenius. 14 A verse, incidentally, rejected by Istrus' contemporary Aristarchus (Arn/A). See also the long debate on the meaning of the ÉAIK- element: Callimach. F 299, 1 Pf., and G.S. Kirk, The Iliad: a Commentary, I. bks 1-4, Cambridge 1985, 63 n. 98. 15 According to Aristarchus it is an adverb as at Od. XIV 317, but Kirk (o.c. 63 n. 99) thinks that the parallelism with àvarcoivov suggests rather that it is adjectival here. 16 Prolegg. ad Apoll. Rhod., p. 76. 17 See Tiimpel RE II (1895) 269f., but see also FGrH 334 F 57, Suppl. II 521 n. 3. 154 JACKSON rejected the interpretation of drcpidxr|v as the name of Chryseis1*. Here, perhaps, we see Istrus the antiquarian and Apollonius the scholar19 contemplating the same problem. In summary, we may, I think, reasonably assume that this whole quotation pertains to Istrus' account, and not just the first sentence as some scholars have believed. Tzetzes' additions tend to corroborate rather than refute this notion. If the Symmikta, the work in which the Istrian account appears, was indeed con- cerned with Homeric problems, then Istrus, donning his antiquarian cap, may well have related the story of Trambelus and Apriate to reject the interpretation of drcpidxn,v as the name of Chryseis. It is even possible that Istrus the antiquarian and Apollonius the scholar discussed the matter together. One would like to think so.

Durban (South Africa) STEVEN JACKSON

Some called her Astynome: Dict. Cret. II 17. Presumably in his work Against Zenodotus where he took issue with his predecessor on Homeric problems.