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Mythological Scraps
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The Gods and Typhon.—The story of how the gods took bestial shape to hide from the fury of Typhon is several times told in Hellenistic and Latin authors. There seems no room for doubt that it is an aetiological myth, intended to explain the cult of beasts in Egypt, and also, in one or two versions, the sacredness of fish in Syria. That in one form, that given by Antoninus Liberalis, it goes back to Nikandros (presumably the Ετεροιούμενα) is reasonably certain. The doubtful point, to my mind, is whether it can be traced much further, and, in particular, whether it was known to Pindar, as is commonly assumed. The authority for supposing that he knew and referred to it is a single passage of Porphyry, de abstinentia III. 16 (= Pindar, frag. 91, Bergk). It runs: Πίνδαρος δὲ ἐν προσοδίοις παντας τοὺς θεοὺς ἐποίησεν ὃτε ύπὸ Τυϕῶνος ἐδιώκοντα οủκ ἀνθρώποις όμοιωθέντας ἀλλὰ τοις ἂλοις (ἀλόγοις Wesseling) ζῴοις έρασθέντα δἐ Πασιϕάης Δία γενέσθαι μἐν ταῦρον νῦν δὲ ἀετὸν και κύκνον.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1930
References
page 107 note 1 Ovid, , Metam. V. 321 sqq.Google Scholar; I. 41; Anton. Liber. 28; Hyginus, , fabul. 96Google Scholar.
page 107 note 2 By a number of modern authorities, as Bergk in his editions of Pindar and various others, down to Malten, L. in Jahrb. d. deutschen arch. Inst., 1928, p.92Google Scholar. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf says: ‘Dem Porphyrios sind wir gehalten, was er als pindarisch angibt, zu glauben. … Wunderbar ist nur, dass Pindar eine solche Geschichte erzähit hat (as that of Pasiphae). Ebenso wunderbar, was Porphyrios berichtet, dass er die Götter von Typhon fliehed sich in allerhand Tiere verwandeln liess’ (Pindaros, pp. 225, note 1, 324, note 2).
page 107 note 3 See his article in Philologus LIX. (= N.F XIII.), pp. 344 sqq.
page 108 note 1 Olymp. I. 40 sqq.; Pyth. III. 25 sqq., IX. 4 sqq.
page 108 note 2 See Pyth. I. 13 sqq.
page 108 note 3 Olymp. I. 53. Note that Ovid, loc. nt., putsthe Story in a series of discreditable and scandalous tales sung by the Pierides in their contest with the Muses.
page 108 note 4 See Notiz. d. Scavi, 1928, pp. 156–7
page 108 note 5 Fairly respectable MS. tradition corrupts this name; thus cod. Vatic. 3852 of pseudo-Tertullian, de exsecr. gentium dis, 6 (tenth century), makes him into Egyppam; See Bickel's, E. critical edition of that work, Rhien. Mus., 1927, pp. 404 sqqGoogle Scholar. His presence in a Dionysiac scene is natural enough.