IV. ARCTOPHYLAX.
De hoc fertur ut sit Arcas nomine, Callistus et Iouis filius, quem dicitur Lycaon, cum Iuppiter ad eum in hospitium uenisset, cum alia carne concisum pro epulis apposuisse. studebat enim scire, si deus esset, qui suum hospitium desideraret; quo facto non minore poena est affectus. nam statim Iuppiter, mensa proiecta, domum eius fulmine incendit; ipsum autem in lupi figuram conuertit. at pueri membra collecta et composita in unum dedit cuidam Aetolorum alendum. qui adolescens factus in siluis cum uenaretur, inscius uidit matrem in ursae speciem conuersam; quam interficere cogitans persequutus est in Iouis Lycaei templum, quo ei qui accessisset, mors poena erat Arcadum lege. itaque cum utrumque necesse esset interfici, Iuppiter eorum misertus, ereptos inter sidera collocauit, ut ante diximus. hic autem e facto sequens Ursam perspicitur, et Arctum seruans Arctophylax est appellatus.
IV. Arctophylax
Of this one it is told that he is Arcas by name, son of Callisto and Zeus, whom Lycaon is said to have served up, cut into pieces together with other meat, in place of a banquet, when Zeus had come to him as a guest. For he was eager to know whether he who sought his hospitality was a god; and for this act he was visited with no lesser penalty. For Zeus at once overturned the table and burned his house with a thunderbolt, and turned Lycaon himself into the shape of a wolf. But the limbs of the boy, gathered and put together into one, he gave to one of the Aetolians to rear. When he had grown up and was hunting in the woods, he unwittingly saw his mother changed into the shape of a bear; thinking to kill her, he pursued her into the temple of Zeus Lycaeus, where death was the penalty, by Arcadian law, for anyone who entered. And so, since both would necessarily be put to death, Zeus, taking pity on them, rescued them and placed them among the stars, as we said before. This one, following the Bear as a result of that event, is seen there, and, guarding Arctos, he is called Arctophylax.
nonnulli hunc Icarum Erigones patrem dixerunt, cui propter iustitiam et pietatem existimatur Liber pater uinum et uitem et uuam tradidisse, ut ostenderet hominibus, quomodo sereretur, et quid ex eo nasceretur; et cum esset natum, quomodo id uti oporteret. qui cum seuisset uitem, et diligentissime administrando floridam falce fecisset, dicitur hircus in uineam se coniecisse, et quae ibi tenerrima folia uideret, decerpsisse. quo facto Icarum irato animo tulisse eumque interfecisse, et ex pelle eius utrem fecisse, ac uento plenum praeligasse, et in medium proiecisse suosque sodales circum eum saltare coegisse. itaque Eratosthenes ait: Ἰκαρίου ποσὶ πρῶτα περὶ τράγον ὠρχήσαντο.
Some have said that he is Icarus, father of Erigone, to whom, on account of his justice and piety, Dionysus (Liber Pater) is thought to have given wine and the vine and the grape, so as to show men how it should be planted and what would come of it; and when it had grown, how it ought to be used. When he had planted the vine and, by tending it most carefully with the pruning-knife, had made it flourish, a he-goat is said to have thrown itself into the vineyard and nibbled whatever tender leaves it saw there. At this Icarus, taking it in anger, is said to have killed it, and from its skin to have made a wineskin, and, filled with wind, to have tied it tight and thrown it into the middle of the place, and to have made his companions dance around it. And so Eratosthenes says: Ἰκαρίου ποσὶ πρῶτα περὶ τράγον ὠρχήσαντο ('Of Icarius, first on their feet around the goat they danced') [?].
alii dicunt Icarum, cum a Libero patre uinum accepisset, statim utres plenos in plaustrum inposuisse; hac re etiam Booten appellatum. qui cum perambulans Atticorum fines, pastoribus ostenderet, nonnulli eorum auiditate pleni, nouo genere potionis inducti, somno consopiuntur, atque alius aliam se in partem reiciunt. ut semimortua membra iactantes, alia ac decebat loquebantur, reliqui eorum arbitrati uenenum ab Icaro datum pastoribus, ut eorum pecora abigeret in suos fines, Icarum interfectum in puteum deiecerunt, sed ut alii demonstrant secundum arborem quandam defoderunt. qui autem obdormierant, experrecti cum se numquam melius quiesse faterentur, ac requirerent Icarum, ut pro beneficio munerarentur, interfectores eius animi conscientia permoti, statim se fugae mandauerunt et in insulam Ceorum peruenerant; a quibus ut hospites recepti, domicilia sibi constituerunt.
Others say that Icarus, when he had received wine from Dionysus, at once loaded full skins onto a wagon; and that for this reason too he was called Bootes. When he was travelling through the territory of the Athenians and showing it to shepherds, some of them, filled with greed and led on by the novelty of the drink, were overcome by sleep and tossed themselves this way and that, thrashing their half-dead limbs and speaking as was not seemly; the rest of them, thinking that poison had been given to the shepherds by Icarus so that he might drive off their flocks into his own territory, killed Icarus and threw him into a well, or, as others report, buried him beneath a certain tree. But those who had slept, waking, since they declared that they had never rested better, asked for Icarus, so that they might reward him for his kindness; and his murderers, struck by guilt of conscience, at once took to flight and arrived at the island of the Ceans; received by them as guests, they established homes for themselves.
at Erigone Icari filia, permota desiderio parentis, cum eum non redire uideret ac persequi conaretur, canis Icari, cui Maera fuit nomen, ululans ut uideretur obitum domini lacrimare, rediit ad Erigonen. cui non minimam cogitatae mortis suspitionem ostendit; neque enim puella timida suspicari debebat nisi patrem interfectum, qui tot dies ac menses abesset. at canis uestem eius tenens dentibus, perducit ad cadauer. quod filia simul ut uidit, desperata spe, solitudine ac pauperie oppressa, multis miserata lacrimis in eadem arbore, sub qua parens sepultus uidebatur, suspendio sibi mortem consciuit, cui canis mortuae spiritu suo parentauit. nonnulli enim hunc in puteum se deiecisse dixerunt, Anigrum nomine; quare postea neminem ex eo puteo bibisse memoriae tradiderunt. quorum casum Iuppiter miseratus, in astris corpora eorum deformauit. itaque complures Icarum Booten, Erigonen Uirginem nominauerunt, de qua posterius dicemus; canem autem sua appellatione et specie Caniculam dixerunt. quae a Graecis, quod ante maiorem Canem exoritur, Procyon appellatur. alii hos a Libero patre figuratos inter sidera dicunt.
But Erigone, Icarus's daughter, moved by longing for her father, when she saw that he did not return, and tried to follow him — Icarus's dog, whose name was Maera, howling as if seen to weep for its master's death, came back to Erigone, and showed her no slight suspicion of the death she had imagined; for the timid girl could suspect nothing but that her father, who had been absent so many days and months, had been killed. The dog, holding her father's garment in its teeth, led her to the corpse. When the daughter saw this, her hope gone, overwhelmed by loneliness and poverty, and pitying him with many tears, she hanged herself from the very tree beneath which her father was seen to be buried; and the dog, when she was dead, made funeral offering to her with its own life. Some, indeed, said that it threw itself into a well, Anigrus by name; whence they have handed down that afterwards no one drank from that well. Zeus, pitying their fate, shaped their bodies among the stars. And so very many have called Icarus Bootes, and Erigone the Virgin, of whom we shall speak later; and the dog, by its own name and shape, they called the Little Dog (Canicula), which is called Procyon by the Greeks, because it rises before the Greater Dog. Others say that these were set among the stars by Dionysus.
Interim cum in finibus Atheniensium multae uirgines sine causa suspendio sibi mortem consciscerent, quod Erigone moriens fuerat precata, ut eodem leto filiae Atheniensium adficerentur, quo ipsa foret obitura, nisi Icari mortem persecuti et eum forent ulti: itaque cum id euenisset, ut ante diximus, petentibus eis Apollo dedit responsum, si uellent euentu liberari, satisfacerent Erigonae. qui quod ea se suspenderat, instituerunt, uti tabula interposita pendentes funibus se iactarent, ut qui pendens uento mouetur. quod sacrificium sollemne instituerunt. itaque et priuatim et publice faciunt, et id aletidos appellant, quod eam patrem persequentem cum cane, ut ignotam et solitariam oportebat, mendicam appellabant, quas Graeci ἀλήτιδας nominant.
Meanwhile, when in the territory of the Athenians many maidens were bringing about their own death by hanging, without cause — because Erigone, dying, had prayed that the daughters of the Athenians should be visited with the same death as she herself was about to suffer, unless they should pursue Icarus's death and avenge him — when this had happened, as we said before, Apollo, when they consulted him, gave the response that, if they wished to be freed from the misfortune, they should make satisfaction to Erigone. Because she had hanged herself, they instituted that, with a board set between, they should swing themselves hanging by ropes, like one who, hanging, is moved by the wind. This they instituted as a solemn sacrifice; and so they do it both privately and publicly, and they call it aletidos, because they used to call her, as she pursued her father with the dog, a beggar-woman, as befitted an unknown and solitary woman, those whom the Greeks call ἀλήτιδας.
Praeterea Canicula exoriens aestu Ceorum loca et agros fructibus orbabat et ipsos morbo adfectos poenas Icaro cum dolore sufferre cogebat, quod latrones recepissent. quorum rex Aristaeus Apollinis et Cyrenes filius, Actaeonis pater, petiit a parente, quo facto calamitate ciuitatem posset liberare. quem deus iubet multis hostiis expiare Icari mortem, et ab Ioue petere, ut, quo tempore Canicula exoriretur, dies XL uentum daret, qui aestum Caniculae mederetur. quod iussum Aristaeus confecit et ab Ioue impetrauit ut etesiae flarent. quas nonnulli etesias dixerunt, quod quotannis certo tempore exoriuntur (ἔτος enim graece annus est latine); nonnulli etiam aetesias appellauerunt, quod expostulatae sunt ab Ioue et ita concessae. sed de hoc in medio relinquetur, ne nos omnia praeripuisse existimemur.
Moreover, the Dog-star, rising, with its heat deprived the places and fields of the Ceans of their crops, and forced the people themselves, afflicted with disease, to suffer painfully the penalty owed to Icarus, because they had received his murderers. Their king Aristaeus, son of Apollo and Cyrene, father of Actaeon, asked his father by what act he could free the state from the calamity. The god bids him expiate Icarus's death with many sacrificial victims, and ask Zeus that at the time when the Dog-star rose he should give a wind for forty days, to remedy the heat of the Dog-star. Aristaeus carried out the order and obtained from Zeus that the etesian winds should blow. Some have called them 'etesiae' because they rise every year at a fixed time (for ἔτος in Greek is 'year' in Latin); some have also called them 'aetesiae' because they were asked for from Zeus and thus granted. But this will be left undecided, lest we seem to have anticipated everything.
Sed ut ad propositum reuertamur, Hermippus qui de sideribus scripsit, ait Cererem cum Iasione Thusci filio concubuisse, quamobrem fulmine percussum conplures cum Homero dixerunt. ex his, ut Petellides Gnosius historiarum scriptor demonstrat, nascuntur filii duo, Philomelus et Plutus; quos negant inter se conuenisse. nam Plutum, qui ditior fuerit, nihil fratri suo de bonis concessisse; Philomelum autem necessario adductum, quodcumque habuerit ex eo boues duos emisse, et ipsum primum plaustrum fabricatum esse. itaque arando et colendo agros ex eo se aluisse; cuius matrem inuenta miratam, ut arantem eum inter sidera constituisse et Booten appellasse. ex hoc autem Parianta demonstrant natum, qui de suo nomine Parios et oppidum Parion appellauit.
But to return to our theme: Hermippus, who wrote on the stars, says that Demeter lay with Iasion, son of Thuscus [?], on account of which many, with Homer, have said that he was struck by lightning. From them, as Petellides of Cnossus, the historian, relates, two sons were born, Philomelus and Plutus; and these, they say, did not agree with each other. For Plutus, who was the richer, conceded nothing of his goods to his brother; Philomelus, driven by necessity, with whatever he had bought two oxen, and was himself the first to build a wagon. And so by ploughing and cultivating fields he supported himself from this; his mother, wondering at his invention, set him among the stars as one ploughing, and called him Bootes. From him, they say, was born Parias, who from his own name called the Parians, and the town Parion.
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