Ptolemy Chenus

New History

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Read Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History, intended for scholarship in six books, a work really
useful for those who undertake to attempt erudition in history; it can, in fact, give the method
to know in a short time connected elements, whereas a long life would be consumed in the
effort of locating them in the books through which they are scattered. It abounds in
extraordinary and badly imagined information; and the peak of absurdity is that he attempts,
for certain trivial fables, to explain the reasons for their appearance.

As for the collector who has assembled these stories, he is a somewhat credulous spirit,
inclined to boastfulness and who has no other distinction in his language. He dedicates his
work to a certain Tertulla whom he celebrates as his "lady" and whose love for letters and
scholarship he praises. He attacks some of his detractors whom he accuses of having
approached the subject in an unhealthy way. In any case, the majority of his stories which
are free of things impossible to believe, offer a knowledge above the ordinary, but which is
not unpleasing.

The first book contains a story on the death of Sophocles and, before this, one on that of
Protesilas. Then comes that of Heracles, who killed himself by fire because he was unable
at the age of fifty to draw his bow (?) ; a story about Croesus saved from the pyre, one on the
death of Achilles, and on the courtesan Lais, who choked on an olive-stone. In treating each
of these subjects, he pretends that his detractors have committed errors when they learned
them and passed them on.

He then recounts concerning king Alexander that when he saw at Ephesus a picture which
represented Palamedes assassinated by a ruse, he was troubled because the victim resembled
Aristonicus, the partner of Alexander when playing ball-games; such was in fact the character
of Alexander, full of goodwill and kindness for his companions. He then pretends that the
sense of the passage discussed by Euphorion in his Hyacinth, "Only Cocytus washed the
wounds of Adonis", was as follows: Cocytus was the name of a pupil to whom Chiron had
taught medicine and who cared for Adonis when he was wounded by the wild boar.

He says that the person in the first book of Herodotus' Histories who was killed by Adrastus,
son of Gordias, was called Agathon and that he was killed in the course of a quarrel about a
quail. He says that Cadmus and Harmonius were changed into lions and that Tiresias
underwent seven metamorphoses, and he explains why the Cretans call him daughter of
Phorbas. Erymanthos, son of Apollo, was punished because eh had seen Aphrodite after her
union with Adonis and Apollo, irritated, changed himself into a wild boar and killed Adonis
by striking through his defenses.

He explains why the poet made doves the servants of the gods at their meals, and he reports
what king Alexander and Aristotle said to each other above; he speaks also of Homer and the
doves. He says that the poet Epicharmus was descended from Achilles, son of
Peleus. Homer calls Patroclus the first horseman because he learned from Poseidon, who
loved him, the art of riding horses.

Odysseus was first called "Outis" because he had large ears, but, he says, during a day of rain
his mother who carried him was unable to stop him lying down at the side of the road and
that is the reason why he was given the name of Odysseus.
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An Arcadian named Peritanos committed adultery with Helen when she lived with Alexander
in Arcadia; Alexander, to punish him for this adultery emasculated him and it is since then
that the Arcadians call eunuchs "peritanoi".

Aristonicus of Tarentum said that Achilles, when he lived among the young girls at the house
of Lycomedes, was called Cercysera; he was also called Issa and Pyrrha and Aspetos and
Prometheus. Botryas of Mindos says that all the children of Niobe were killed by
Apollo. The father of Odysseus gave him a monitor caled Muiscos, a Cephallenian, to
accompany him. Achilles was also accompanied by a monitor called Noemon, of
Carthaginian origin, and Patrocles had Eudorus. And Antipater of Acanthe says that Dares,
who wrote the Iliad before Homer, was the monitor of Hector and got him to promise not to
kill the companion of Achilles. He says that the monitor of Protesilas was Dardanus, of
Thessalian origin, and that Antilochus Chalcon was appointed rider and monitor by his father,
Nestor. These are the subjects treated in the first book.

The second treats of Heracles who after his spell of madness was cured with hellebore by
Anticyreus who had discovered the remedy for this in Phocidus, where it was abundant;
others each give a different version of this cure. He says that Nestor was loved by Heracles;
that it was not Philoctetes but the Trachinian Morsimos who lit the pyre of Heracles; that
Heracles, after the Nemean lion had bitten off one of his fingers had only nine and that there
exists a tomb erected for this detached finger; other authors say that he lost his finger
following a blow by a dart of a stingray and one can see at Sparta a stone lion erected on the
tomb of the finger and which is the symbol of the power of the hero. It is since then that
stone lions have likewise been erected on the tombs of other important people; other authors
give different explications of the lion statues. From the pyre of Heracles a swarm of locusts
flew out which ravaged the countryside like a plague before they were destroyed.

It was Aphrodite who, because of Adonis whom both she and Heracles loved, taught Nessus
the centaur the trap with which to snare Heracles. Nireus of Syme, who was loved by
Heracles, helped him to beat down the lion of Helicon; others say that Nireus was the son of
Heracles.

Who are the Charites referred to by the poet to whom he compared the hair of
Euphorbus? Heracles, says the author, was called Nilos at his birth; then, when he saved
Hera in killing the nameless giant with the fiery breath who attacked her, he changed his
name because he had escaped the danger of Hera. Abderos, beloved of Heracles, was killed
by Theseus when he came to announce the episode of the pyre.

Aristonicus of Tarentum says that the middle head of the hydra was of gold. Alexander of
Mindos says that a serpent born of earth fought with Heracles against the Nemean lion; fed
by Heracles, it accompagnied him to Thebes and stayed in a tent; it was this that ate small
sparrows and was changed to stone.

The Argo was constructed by Heracles on Ossa in Thessaly; her name was given because of
Argos, son of Jason, who was loved by Heracles; it is becase of him that he undertook the
voyage with Jason to Scythia. He recounts that Hera who fought on the side of Geryon was
wounded on her right by Heracles and all that followed him. Corythos, an Iberian, who was
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also beloved of Heracles, was the first to manufacture a helmet; it is from this, says the author,
that this piece of armour takes its name.

The tomb which passes for that of Zeus in Crete is that of Olympos of Crete, who received
Zeus son of Cronos, raised him and taught divine things to him; but Zeus, he says, struck
down his foster-parent and master because he had pushed the giants to attack him in his turn;
but when he had struck, before his body he was full of remorse and, since he could appease
his sorrow in no other way, he gave his own name to the tomb of his victim.

Of which author of verse did Alexander son of Philip say: "Proteus, well, drink wine now
that you have eaten human flesh"? And he spoke justly of Proteus. Which song was
Alexander accustomed to sing and whose were the words? On who did the same Alexander
son of Philip write a funeral chant? Such are the chapters of the second book.

The third is devoted to Hyllos son of Heracles; he had a little horn on the right side of his
face and Epopeus of Sicyon seized it after having killed Hyllos in single combat; he filled it
with water of the Styx and became king of the country. Concerning the water of the Styx in
Arcadia he recounts the following: while Demeter was mourning for her daughter, Poseidon
intruded on her sorrow and she in anger metamorphosed into a mare; she arrived at a fountain
in this form and detesting it she made the water black.

Hecale and all those who took this name. Alexander's father was not Philip but a man called
Draco and of Arcadian origina; this was the origin of the legend of the serpent. He speaks of
Ptolemy's dog; it fought by the side of its master; it was opened when it died and found to
have a hairy heart; it was of the Molossian race and was called Briareus.

This concerns Polydamas. What do these words of the poet mean: "Daughter of Pandareus,
'la chanteuse verdière'...(?)", etc? He speaks of the Palladium which Diomedes and Odysseus
went together to steal, of the reed which repeated that Midas had the ears of an ass, of the
acestalian birds which were sought in Stesichorus, of the raft of Gigo which is at the edge of
the Ocean, which can only be moved with an asphodel and remains immovable by
force. Rhopalus was the son of Heracles; the same day, he rendered to his father the honours
due to a hero and sacrificed to him as a god. Ampbiarus received this name because the
parents of his mother had both prayed that she would give birth without grief.

Who wrote the hymn which is chanted at Thebes in honour of Heracles and where he is called
son of Zeus and Hera? Then those who composed hymns in different cities are discussed. He
says that the poet Philosthephanos of Mantinea never used a coat since he was born and that
Matris the Theban, an author of hymns, lived all his life on myrtle leaves. Eupompus of
Samos raised, incredible wonder, a wild serpent; it was, it was said, a son to him; it was called
Draco and had very piercing sight and could easily see at twenty stades; he placed it in the
service of Xerxes for a thousand talents and, sat with him under the golden plane tree it
described to him what it saw of the naval combat between the Greeks and barbarians and the
exploit of Artemisus. Plesirrhous the Thessalian, author of hymns, was loved by Herodotus
and was his heir; it is he who composed the introduction of the first book of Herodotus of
Halicarnassus; the authentic beginning of the Histories of Herodotus is in fact : "Those of the
Persians who are knowledgeable say that the Phoenicians were the cause of the
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conflict". Polyzelus of Cyrene never laughed, from which his surname of Agelastus. The
man who overrode everyone with his piety was, according to some, Antigonus of Ephesus,
according to others Lucias of Hermione, of whom Theophrastus speaks in his
letters. Achilles and Deidamia had two children: Neoptolemus and Oneiros; Oneiros was
killed by Orestes, who didn't recognise him, while fighting with him Phocidus for a place to
pitch a tent.

The author then deals with coincidence in history. At the tomb of Amycus there grows a red
laurel and those who have tasted it have taken prizes in boxing; Antodoros, who had eaten
some, gained thirteen crowns; all the same he was conquered by Dioscorus of Thera in his
fourteenth combat, just as Amycus himself, it is said, had fallen to one of the
Dioscurides. Croesus, it is said, was conceived during a festival of Aphrodite, during which
the Lydians have a procession for her decorating the goddess with all their wealth. The father
of Themistocles sacrificed a bull when the birth of his son was announced; he drank the blood
of the victim and died. Darius, son of Hystapes, exposed by his mother, was fed on mares
milk by a horse-guardian, Spargapises, and he became king thanks to the 'hennissement' of a
horse. A servitor of the lyric poet Ibycos, who was called Heracles, was burned alive for
conspiring with brigands against his master.

Orestes came into the world during the festival of Demeter Erinys. Philip as an child
attempted in the evenings to strike shooting stars with his arrows and the divine Diognetus
predicted that the infant would become master of many peoples; Aster was also the name of
one who lost an eye to an arrow that way. Marsyas the flutist, the one who was flayed, was
born during a festival of Apollo, where the skins of all those victims one has flayed are
offered to the god.

The author speaks of Tityos, who attempted to ambush Alexander. The mother of Claudius,
while pregnant, desired some of those mushrooms called boletus and ate some, and Claudius
died from eating some of the same which had been poisoned. He speaks of the centaur
Lamios who, caught in adultery, was murdered according to some by the eunch Peirithos,
according to others by Theseus; such are the numerous effects of coincidence in these
stories. Thus ends the third book.

The fourth recounts that Helen was the first to imagine drawing lots with the fingers and that
she won at chance with Alexander; she was the daughter of Aphrodite. There was born of
Helen and Achilles in the fortunate isles a winged child named Euphorion after the fertility
of this land; Zeus caught him and with a blow knocked him to earth in the isle of Melos,
where he continued the pursuit and changed the nymphs there into frogs because they had
given him burial. Some say that Helen was taken away by Alexander when she hunted on
the mount of the Virgin; struck by his beauty, she followed him like a dog.

The author speaks of the embroidered belt which Hera received from Aphrodite and gave to
Helen: it was stolen by Helen's servant, Astyanassa and recovered from her by Aphrodite.

What is the significance of what Helen says in Homer: "Each imitating the voice of their
spouse"? Helen was the daughter of Helios and Leda and she was called Leonte; this was, it
is said, following the resentment of Aphrodite against Menelaus who had arranged the
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abduction of Helen: he had promised a hecatomb to Aphrodite as the price of the marriage,
and didn't offer it.

The Helen-flower grows in Rhodes; it received its name from her, because it grew under the
tree on which Helen hanged herself; those who ate of it inevitably come to quarrel. It was
Helen who was taken by Menelaus and so married him.

Some authors report that Helen, arrived in Scythia Tauris with Menelaus in search of Orestes,
was immolated to Artemis with Menelaus by Iphigenia; others say that she was removed
during the voyage of the Greeks home by Thetis, metamorphosed into a seal.

It is said that Helen was called by her real name Echo because of her ability to imitate voices;
her name of Helen came from the fact that Leda brought her into the world in a marshy
place. The place called Sandalion at Sparta takes its name from the sandal of Helen who fell
in this place while Alexander pursued here. Helen had a daughter by Alexander; they
disagreed about the name to hive here; he wanted to call her Alexandra, she wanted to call
her Helen; Helen carried her in a 'partie d'osselets' and the infant received the same name as
her mother; this daught was killed, it is said, by Hecuba when Troy was taken.

In the time of the Trojan war, there were many celebrated Helens: the daughter of Aegistheus
and Clytemnestra that Orestes killed; the one who assisted Aphrodite in her union with
Adonis, the daughter of an inhabitant of Epidamnos, whom the people of that town honour
under the attributes of Aphrodite because she distributed silver during a famine; the daughter
of Faustulus who was the foster-father of Remus and Romulus. The woman who ate three
dogs a day was also called Helen, as well as the sister of Dicearcus, son of Telesinos, and
eighteen others of which the Helen before Homer, daughter of the Athenian Museum and
who recounted the war of Troy; it is of her, it is said, that Homer obtained the subject of his
poem and it is her who had a lamb that could speak two languages; also among them, the
daughter of the Aetolian Tityrus: she provoked Achilles to single combat and gave him a
head-wound which was not mortal, but it was she who fell under his blows.

Helen the female painter also belongs to the list; she was the daughter of Timon the Egyptian:
she painted the battle of Issus at the time when she was at the height of her poweres; the
picture was displayed in the temple of Peace under Vespasian. Archelaus of Cyprus says that
there was a Helen of Himera who was the love of the poet Stesichorus; she was the daughter
of Micythos; she left Stesichorus and went to live with Bougpalos. The poet, wishing to
defend himself from being a fool, wrote that Helen had left at his own wish, and the story
that Stesichorus became blind is false.

The plant "moly" of which Homer speaks; this plant had, it is said, grown from the blood of
the giant killed in the isle of Circe; it has a white flower; the ally of Circe who killed the giant
was Helios; the combat was hard (mâlos) from which the name of this plant.

Dionysius was loved by Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances, the bacchic rites
and initiations. The author speaks of the "Taraxippos" of Olympus and of the Myrtilloi,
father and son. Neoptolemus Makiotes was the only one to learn from Aithos, a Delphian,

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the oracle of 'Phemonoe'. It is of this Aithos that Herodotus says, in the first book of his
Histories: "although I know his name I will not quote him".

The author speaks of double appellations in Homer; one is that used among the gods, the
other current among men; the Xantho is the only river which is a son of Zeus. He treats of
other double names. There is, he says, in the Tyrrhenian country a tower called Tower of the
Sea, of the name of "Sea", a Tyrrhenian poisoner; she worked for Circe and fled from her
mistress. It was to her, says the author, that Odysseus came; with the aid of her drugs, she
changed him into a horse and kept him with her until he died of old age. Thanks to this
anecdote, the difficulty of the Homeric text is resolved: "Then the sea will send you the softest
of deaths". Thus ends the fourth book.

It is said in the fifth book that it is reported that it was Jason and not Pollux who fought
against Amycus and the place they fought witnesses this by its name, "Spear of Jason", and
a spring appears near there which is called Helen. Thanks to these facts, the sense of an
epigram of Crinagoras is clarified. "And the mares of Proclus will eat the green
psalacanthus", a verse unknown to Callimachus, is a spoof of the comic Eubulus on
Dionysius. The author also deals with the parody of this verse. As for the "psalacanthus",
it's an Egyptian plant which gains health and victory when used to decorate horses. It is said,
on the other hand, that Psalacantha was a nympth of the isle of Icarus who, captured by
Dionysius, helped him to obtain Ariane on the condition that he should also belong to her,
and Dionysius refused; Psalacantha took herself to Ariane and the irritated god turned her
into a plany; then, feeling remorse, he wanted to honour this plant by placing it in the crown
of Ariane, who took her place among the celestial constellations. As for the plant, some say
it resembles the 'armoise', others the melilot.

He reports that Athenodorus of Eretria, in the eighth book of his commentaries, says that
Thetis and Medea had a dispute in Thessaly as to which was the most beautiful; their judge
was Idomeneus, who gave the victory to Thetis; Medea in anger said that the Cretans were
always liars and in revenge she made the curse that he would never speak the truth, just as he
had lied in his judgement; it is from that, he says, that Cretans pass as liars. Athenodorus
cites as author of this story Antiochus in his second book of Legends of the town.

Ilus, the father of Laomedon, had, he says, a plume of horsehair and, among the sons of
Priam, Melanippos and Idaios likewise. Xanthe and Balios, the horses of Achilles, once
belonged to giants and they were the only ones to fight alongside the gods against their
brothers. When Odysseus had a shipwreck close to Thyla in Sicily, the shield of Achilles
was thrown ashore near the monument of Ajax; placed next to the monument, it was struck
by lightening the next day.

Heracles did not wear the skin of the Nemean lion, but that of a certain Lion, one of the giants
killed by Heracles whom he had challenged to single combat. The dragon which guarded the
golden apples was the brother of the Nemean lion. Irus, who appears in Homer, was a
Boetian. The wife of Candaulus, whose name isn't mentioned in Herodotus, was called
Nysai; she acquired double pupils and a very piercing sight when she obtained the stone of
the serpent; it was thanks to this gift that she saw Gyges leaving through the door; others say
that she was called Tudun, and others Clytia; Abas says that she was called Abro. The wife's
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name was, it is said, passed over in silence by Herodotus because Plesirrhous, whom
Herodotus loved, was taken with a woman called Nysia and who was of a family of
Halicarnassus, and that he hanged himself when he was unsuccesful with her. It is for this
reason that Herodotus does not mention the name of Nysia which was odious to him.

The centaurs who fled from Heracles through Tyrsenia perished of hunger, ensnared by the
soft song of the sirens. Abderos, who was loved by Heracles, was the brother of
Patroclus. Epipole of Carystos, daughter of Traction, hid her sex to go on campaign with the
Greeks; denounced by Palamedes, she was stoned by the Greeks. When Alexander abducted
Helen, Menelaus offered a hecatomb to Zeus at Gortyne in Crete. Palamedes commanded
the Greeks in place of Agamemnon, in fact, at his arrival at Aulis, Agamemnon shot with an
arrow wild goat sacred to Artemis; the Greeks finding it impossible to set sail, Calchas
predicted that the prodigy would cease if Agamemnon sacrified his daughter Iphigenia to
Poseidon; when he refused, the angry Greeks removed his command and nominated
Palamedes king.

Philoctetes died bitten by a serpent and Alexander was killed by Menelaus with a blow of the
spear in his thigh. After the death of Demetrius of Scepsis, next to his head was found the
book of Tellis, and the Divers of Alcmeon were found, it is said, next to the head of
Tyronichos of Chalcis; the Violaters of Justice of Eupolis next to the head of Ephialtes and
Cratinus, Eunides next to that of Alexander king of Macedon, and the Works and Days of
Hesiod next to that of Seleucus Nicator. And the legislator of Arcadia, Cercidas, ordered that
books I and II of the Iliad should be buried with him. And Pompey the Great never went to
war without reading book XI of the Iliad because he was an admirer of Agamemnon. And
the Roman Cicero was beheaded while being carried in his litter where he was reading
Euripides Medea.

Diognetus the Cretan boxer, winner in a competition, did not receive the crown but was even
attacked by the Eleans because the adversary whom he had defeated and killed was called
Heracles like the hero. This Diognetus is honoured as a hero by the Cretans. The line of
Homer, at the moment where Menelaus is wounded: "You neither, Menelaus, you are not
forgotten by the blessed immortals", has been parodied by the pythian god who substituted
Menedernus for Menelaus. During a festival given by the emperor Augustus, the question
was asked: "Which verse of Homer was parodied by the oracle, and who is the personage of
whom this oracle spoke?" Menedemus the Elean, son of Bounias, showed to Heracles how
to clean the stables of Augias by diverting a river; it is said also that he fought alongside
Heracles in his fight with Augias; he was killed and buried in Lepreon close to a
pine. Heracles instituted games in his honour and he fought against Theseus; as the combat
was equal, the spectators declared that Theseus was a second Heracles.

Phantasia, a woman of Memphis, daughter of Nicarchus, composed before Homer a tale of

the Trojan War and of the adventures of Odysseus. The books were deposited, it is said, at
Memphis; Homer went there and obtained copies from Phanites, the temple scribe, and he
composed under their inspiration. Adonis, having become androgynous, behaved as a man
for Aphrodite and as a woman for Apollo.

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As a hommage to the river Alpheus, after a victory at Olympia, Heracles called with his name
the letter "alpha" which he placed at the head of the alphabet.

Our mythographer, in emitting his twaddle, says that Moses the legislator of the Hebrews
was called Alpha because he had a white scab on his body. Galerius Crassus, who was a
military tribune under Tiberius, was called Beta because he liked to eat white beet which the
Romans called "betacium". Horpullis, the courtesan of Cyzicus, was called Gamma and
Antenor, author of the History of Crete, was called Delat because he was good and loved his
city, because the Cretans called him rightly "Delton". And Apollonius, who made himself
famous in the time of Philopator for his knowledge of astronomy, was called Epsilon because
the form of this letter matched the contours of the mooth, in the knowledge of which he was
very skilled. Satyros the friend of Aristarchus was called Zeta because of his love for
research and Aesop, it is said, was called Theta by Idmon, his master, because he was of a
servile and changing character; indeed slaves are called thetes. The mother of Cypselos, who
was lame, was called Lambda by the god of Delphi. And Democydos says that Pythagoras,
who described all the numbers, was designated by the third letter. Such is the content of the
fifth book.

The sixth contains the following chapters.

Achilles, killed by Penthesileus, was resuscitated at the request of his mother Thetis to return
to Hades once he had killed Penthesileus. In the Alexandra which Lycophron wrote: "What
sterile nightingale killer of centaurs...", these are the sirens who he called killers of
centaurs. Helenus, son of Priam, was beloved of Apollo and received from him the silver
bow with which he wounded Achilles in the hand.

It was with Andromache and her sons that Priam came to beg Achilles for the bones of
Hector. Thetis burned in a secret place the children she had by Peleus; six were born; when
she had Achilles, Peleus noticed and tore him from the flames with only a burnt foot and
confided him to Chiron. The latter exhumed the body of the giant Damysos who was buried
at Pallene -- Damysos was the fastest of all the giants -- removed the 'astragale' and
incorporated it into Achilles' foot using 'ingredients'. This 'astragale' fell when Achilles was
pursued by Apollo and it was thus that Achilles, fallen, was killed. It is said, on the other
hand, that he was called Podarkes by the Poet, because, it is said, Thetis gave the newborn
child the wings of Arce and Podarkes means that his feet had the wings of Arce. And Arce
was the daughter of Thaumas and her sister was Iris; both had wings, but, during the struggle
of the gods against the titans, Arce flew out of the camp of the gods and joined the
titans. After the victory Zeus removed her wings before throwing her into Tartarus and, when
he came to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, he brought these wings as a gift for
Thetis. Peleus, it is said, received on the occasion of his marriage a sword from Hephaestus,
from Aphrodite a piece of jewelry on which was engraved a Love, from Poseidon some
horses, Xanthe and Balios, from Hera a 'chlamyde', from Athena a flute, from Nereus a basket
of the salt called 'divine; and which has an irresistable virtue for the appetite, the taste of food
and their digestion, whence the expression "...she poured the divine salt".

The author speaks of the Achilles son of the earth and of all the Achilles who have been
celebrated since Trojan times; it is this son of the earth who, when Hera fled from the union
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with Zeus, received her in his cave and persuaded her to marry Zeus, and it is said that this
was the first marriage of Zeus and Hero, and Zeus promised Achilles that he would make
famouse all who bore his namel it is for that reason that Achilles son of Thetis is famous. The
master of Chiron was called Achilles and it of him that the name came which Chiron gave to
the son of Peleus. The promoter of ostracism at Athens was called Achilles, this was the son
of Lyso; it is said that there was born also a son of Zeus and the Lamia called Achilles; he
was of an irresistable beauty and like others was the object of a competition, he carried it
than to the judgement of Pan. Aphrodite was irritated and placed in the heart of Pan the love
of Echo and she made him become as ugly and unattractive as he had been beautiful. And
the son of a certain Galates was called Achilles and the author says that he had grey hair from
birth; and there are still forty other Achilles who were famous and two among them were
dogs and their behaviour as dogs was astonishing.

Priam was beloved by Zeus and received from him the golden vine plant of which he made
a gift to Eurypyles, son of Telephos, as the price of his alliance. Aesop, killed by the people
of Delphi, resuscited and fought alongside the Greeks at Thermopylae. Philoctetes, at
Lemnos, was cured by Pylios son of Hephaestus, from whom he learned how to draw the
bow; the river Scamander had a son, Melos, who was beautiful; it is said that Hera, Athena
and Aphrodite quarrelled on his account; who would have him as a priest; Alexander judged
that Aphrodite carried it; it is for this reason the fable of the apple circulates. Hypermenes,
in his History of Chios, says that Homer had a servitor called Skindapsos; he was fined a
thousand drachmas by the people of Chios because he hadn't burned the body of his master;
and the man who invented an instrument with the name of this person, the skindapsos, was
a man of Eretria, son of the flute-player Poicius. Such is the sixth book.

In the seventh, it is found that Theodore of Samothrace says that Zeus, after his birth, didn't
stop laughing for seven days and that this is the reason why the number seven is considered
perfect. Achilles, because he was saved from the fire that his mother had lit to burn him, was
called "saved from fire" and it is because one of his lips was burned that he was called
Achilles by his father. Telemachus was put to death by the Sirens when they learned that he
was the son of Odysseus. Odysseus, in the land of the Tyrrhenians, took part in the flute-
playing competition which he won; he played the Fall of Illium by Demodocos. Stichios the
Aetolian, who was beloved of Heracles, was opened and found to have a hairy heart; he had
been killed by Heracles himself when, in his madness, he killed his own children and it is
said that he was the only one the hero lamented.

Hermes, beloved of Pollux, one of the Dioscurides, made him a gift of Dotor, the Thessalian
horse. Apollo organised funeral games in honour of Python; Hermes contributed to it, like
Aphrodite; she won and accepted as prize a zither which she gave as a gift to Alexander. It
is of her that Homer says : "But what could help bring your zither to you..." In Bacchylides,
what is the word attributed to Silenus and to whom did he address it?

The rock of Leucade received its name from Leucos, the companion of Odysseus, who was
originally from Zacynthos and who was, says the Poet, killed by Antiphos; this is the person,
it is said, who raised the temple of Apollo Leukates. Thus those who dive from the top of
the rock were, it is said, freed from their love and for this reason: after the death of Adonis,
Aphrodite, it is said, wandered around searching for this. She found it in Argos, a town of
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Cyprus, in the sanctuary of Apollo Erithios and ' l'emporta' after having told Apollo in
confidence the secret of her love for Adonis. And Apollo brought her to the rock of Leucade
and ordered her to throw herself from the top of the rock; she did so and was freed from her
love. When she sought the reason of this, Apollo told her, it is said, in his capacity as a
soothsayer, he knew that Zeus, always enamoured of Hera, had sat on this rock and been
delivered from his love.

And many others, men and women, suffering from the evil of love, were delivered from their
passion in jumping from the top of the rock, such as Artemesa, daughter of Lygdamis, who
made war with Persia; enamoured of Dardarnus of Abydos and scorned, she scratched out
his eyes while he slept but as her love increased under the inflence of divine anger, she came
to Leucade at the instruction of an oracle, threw herself from the top of the rock, killed herself
and was buried. Hippomedon of Epidamnos, says the author, was enamoured of a young boy
of his land and, unable to obtain any success as the boy had a penchant for another, he killed
him, then went to Leucade, jumped and killed himself. And the comic poet Nicostratus, in
love with Tetigidaia of Mirina, jumped and was cured of his love. Maces of Buthrotum was,
it is said, surnamed "White rock" because he had been cured of the evils of love after he
jumped from the rock four times.

A crowd of other people pass to be relieved in this way. Boulagoras the Phanagorite,
enamoured of the flutist Diodorus, threw himself from the rock and was killed at an advanced
age. Rhodope of Amisene killed herself also in jumping for the love of two twin lads who
belonged to the guards of king Antiochus and were called Antiphon and Cyrus. And
Charinus, a iambic poet, was in love with the eunuch Eros, Eupator's butler; trusting the
legend of the rock he jumped, broke his leg, and died of pain while making these iambics:

"To the devil with you, deceptive and murderous rock of Leukos!
Charinus, alas! alas! this iambic muse,
You have turned to cinders by your vain words of hope.
Can Eupator suffer so much for Eros."

And Nireus of Catana, in love with Athena of Athens, came to the rock and jumped and was
delivered of his pain. In jumping he fell into the net of a fishman in which when he was
pulled out was also found a box filled with gold. He went to law with the fisherman for the
gold, but Apollo appeared to him in the night in a dream and told him to desist since he should
give thanks for his safety and he threatened him; it was not right in addition to try to
appropriate gold which belonged to others.

The pan is, it is said, a sea fish of the whale family and of which the appearance reminds one
of Pan; in his body is found a stone, the "asterite" which, exposed to the sun, catches fire; it
is useful otherwise to make a charm. Helen was in possession of this stone, which carried
graven on it the image of the pan fish itself, and she used it as a seal. Such are the chapters
of the seventh book of the New History for the use of scholars of Ptolemy Hephaestion.
1
Many of the people and details given may be the invention of Ptolemy Hephaestion (also
known as Ptolemy Chennos or Chennus) himself, rather than the product of his
research. According to the Suda, this fantasist lived in the times of Trajan and Hadrian. For
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more details, R. HERCHER, Ueber die Glaubwürdigkeit der neuen Geschichte des
Ptolemaeus Chennus, Jahrbuch für Kl. Philol., Suppl., Bd. I (1855-6), pp.269-293.

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