General Notes

[FAMILY.FTW]

ACRAEA (1) was a daughter of the river-god Asterion near Mycenae, who together with her sisters Euboea and Prosymna, acted as nurse to Hera. A hill called Acraea opposite the temple of Hera near Mycenae derived its name from her. [Pausanias 2.17.2.]

ACRAEA (2) was an attribute given to several goddesses whose temple were situated upon hills, including Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, and Artemis. The male counterpart was Acraeus. Acraea was a designation used for Athena as protectress of towns, fortresses, and harbors, particularly during wartime. When abandoned by Jason, Medea killed her children by him and fled to Athens in a chariot drawn by winged dragons. Previous to her flight, she placed her younger children on the alter of Hera Acraea as suppliants, but the Corinthians took them away and put them to death. [Apollodorus 1.9.16.]

ADMETE (2) was the daughter of Eurystheus and Antimache or Admete. Eurystheus, cousin of Heracles, succeede to the throne of Mycenae by being born before Heracles through Hera's manipulation. He also was in charge of selecting the labors Heracles had to perform as penance for the murder of Megara and his children by her. It was at the insistence of Admete that Heracles was required to perform his ninth labor. Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons, posessed a magnificent girdle, or belt, given to her by Ares. Admete had heard about this splendid belt and had always longed to own it, so she persuaded Eurystheus to have it brought to her as one of Heracles' labors. Heracles was therefore sent to fetch it and, accompanied by a number of volunteers, he sailed out. According to one writer, Admete accompanied him on this expedition. In another tradition, Admete was originally a priestess of Hera at Argos. She fled with the image of the goddess to Samos. The Argives hired pirates to bring the image back, but the ship on which they loaded the image would not move out of the harbor. They unloaded it and left. When the Samians found it, they tied it to a tree, but Admete purified the image and restored it to the temple of Samos. The Samians celebrated an annual festival, Tonea, to commemorate this event. It is likely that this story was invented by the Argives to prove their worship of Hera was older than that of Samos. It is curious that Admete was selected as the motivator, unless her status as a princess gave a special prestige to the Argive claim. In other respects, the office of priestess seems incongruous with an obviously spoi8led daughter who sent a cousin on a perilous mission for the sake of personal vanity. [Tzetzes on Lycophron 1327; Athenaeus 15.447.]

AEDON (2) was, according to Antoninus Liberalis (11), the wife of Polytechnus, an artist of Colophon. When she boasted that she lived more happily with her husband than Hera with Zeus, in revenge Hera ordered Eris, the goddess of discord, to induce Aedon to enter into a contest with her husband. Polytechnus was at that time engaged in making a chariot and Aedon a piece of embroidery, and they agreed that whoever finished their work first would receive from the other a female slave as the prize. When Aedon won the contest, Polytechnus went to his wife's father and told him that Aedon was eager to see her sister Chelidonis, and took her with him. On his way home he raped her, dressed her in slave's attire, threatened her into absolute silence, and gave her to his wife as the promised prize. After some time, thinking she was alone, Chelidonis lamented her fate. She was overheard by Aedon, and the two sisters conspired against Polytechnus. They killed his son Itys, whom they served to Polytechnus for dinner. Aedon fled with Chelidonis to her father who, when Polytechnus came in pursuit, had him bound, smeared with honey, and exposed to ants and other insects. Aedon then took pity on him, and her relatives were about to kill her for her display of mercy. About this time, Zeus changed Polytechnus into a pelican, her father into a sea eagle, Chelidonis into a swallow, and Aedon herself into a nightingale. This story is almost identical to that of Procne and Philomela.

AEGOPHAGOS, Goat-Eater, was a surname of Hera at Sparta. In his campaign against the sons of Hippocoon, Heracles did not receive the usual interference from Hera, so he built a shrine to her at Sparta. Having no other victim at hand, he sacrificed goats to her. Sparta was the only place giving this surname to Hera.

ELECTRA was a daughter of Atlas and Pleione, and one of the seven Pleiades. Her story is a confusing one. Zeus fell in love with her and carried her to Olympus, a rather daring thing to do, considering the perennial jealousy of Hera. He succeeded in raping her, but she managed to escape in midrape and as a suppliant embraced the sacred Palladium, which Athena had establishe. Since she had been sullied, the divinity of her attacker notwithsanding, she was considered a defiler of the sacred object, and it was hurled from Olympus to land in Ilium (Troy), where it was revered as the city's principal security. Through her unwelcome encouter with the father of the gods, she became the mother of Iasion and Dardanus. They must have been twins, although this fact was never particularly emphasized. (According to an Italian version of her story, she was the wife of Corythus, king of Tuscia, and had Iasion by him and Dardanus later by Zeus.) When Dardanus and Iasion migrated to Samothrace from Arcadia (or Italy or Crete), they carried the Palladium with them. This is contrary to the story of its celestial origin, but there might have been two such images. Electra appears to have followed or accompanied her sons, for we find her on Samothrace. She was even said to have been the mother of Harmonia by Zeus in Samothrace, although Harmonia is nearly always called the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. In keeping, though, with the accounts of the origin of the Samothracian mysteries, the presence of Harmonia appeared to be called for in establishing a connection between the Samothracian and Theban Cabeiri. It seems hardly likely that Electra voluntarily would have submitted Zeus after her first unfortunate experience with him. Thoroughly instructed in the mysteries by Demeter, his lover, Iasion passed on their knowledge to numerous heroes. He later married Cybele, according to some. Dardanus went to the Troad and was hospitably received by Teucer, the king of the region, who gave him part of the kingdom and his daughter Bateia. He built the city of Dardania (later Troy) and initiated the inhabitants into the mysteries of the gods of Samothrace. He introduce3d the cult of Cybele into Phrygia. Electra went with him to the Troad, and she brought the Palladium along from Samothrace. Again we have a conflicting account. Here is the very person who allegedly contaminated the Olympian Palladium, so that it was cast out of heaven, now bringing it to the city whose site was determined by the landing place in the earlier account. Apparently there needed to be an explanation fror the introduction of the mysteries into Troy. Although the Palladium was connected with Athena, who had no strong role in the mysteries, its function of guaranteeing the safety of the city was perhaps given more credibility by having Dardanus and Electra heavily involved in worship of the Cabeiri. Electra remained in Troy until its fall, according to some writers. Even though the Pleiades had a kind of second-class immortality, being daughters of a Titan, this would have made Electra well over 100 years old. According to the story, she watched the city founded by her son perishing in flames and tore out her hair in grief; she was placed among the stars as a comet. Other accounts say she and her sisters were already among the stars as the seven Pleiades and that Electra's brilliancy dimmed when Ilium was destroyed. [Apollodorus 3.10.1, 12.1.3; Servius on Virgil's Aeneid 1.32,384, 2.325, 3.167, 7.207, 10.272; Tzetzes on Lycophron 29; Diodorus Siculus 5.48; Scholiast on Euripides' Phoenician Maidens 1136; Eustathius on Homer's Iliad 1155.]