Hellen (bottom, centre-right), being presented with the twinsAeolus andBoeotus by a shepherd, in a depiction of the story ofMelanippe fromEuripides' lost playMelanippe Wise, on anApulianvolute krater, dating from the late fourth century BC.[1]
TheCatalogue of Women (sixth century BC?)[2] is a fragmentary poem attributed toHesiod;[3] the work is structured around a large genealogy of mortals, Hellen's family being described in Book 1 of the poem. According to ascholion onApollonius of Rhodes'Argonautica, Hellen, in the poem, is called the son of Pyrrha, by either Deucalion, or alternatively, byPrometheus (who is called the father of Deucalion in the same passage).[4] The latter parentage, however, it seems was not a part of theCatalogue, but rather a mistake on the part of the scholion.[5] A scholion on theOdyssey similarly calls Hellen a son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, giving his siblings asAmphictyon,Protogeneia, andMelanthea (Melantho). The scholion, however, also states that "some say that Hellen was the son of Zeus by birth but was said to be the son of Deucalion",[6] leadingM. L. West to consider Hellen's real father in theCatalogue to in fact be Zeus, and Deucalion only, in West's words, his "nominal father".[7]
Plutarch, in hisMoralia, quotes a passage from theCatalogue in which Hellen is the father of three sons,Dorus,Xuthus, andAeolus.[8] He does not, however, give the source of the passage;[9] it is instead the Byzantine poetJohn Tzetzes who attributes it to theCatalogue.[10] Though no mother is specified in the passage, West suggests that she was one "Othryis", the nymph ofMount Othrys, based upon the mothers given byApollodorus and a scholion onPlato'sSymposium (see below).[11]
A scholion onThucydides'History of the Peloponnesian War attributes toHecataeus (c. 550 BC – c. 476 BC) a very different genealogy of Hellen, in which he is not the son of Deucalion but rather the grandson, being the son of one "Pronous", himself the son of Deucalion, alongside "Orestheus" and "Marathonius".[12] According to a scholion onPlato'sSymposium citingHellanicus (fl. late fifth century BC), Hellen "was born to Deukalion and Pyrrha, or according to some, to Zeus and Pyrrha", and was the father, by "Othreis", of Dorus, Xuthus, Aeolus, and in addition a daughter, namedXenopatra.[13]
Conon (before 444 BC – after 394 BC), in hisNarrations, similarly considers Hellen to be the son of Deucalion, and the father of Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus, though he also notes that "some" say he is the son of Zeus.[14] A scholion onPindar, in contrast, makes Deucalion the brother of Hellen (rather than the father), and them both sons of Prometheus.[15]
Hyginus (c. 64 BC – AD 17), in hisFabulae, at one point calls Hellen the son of Zeus by Pyrrha,[18] while later, he is listed among the sons ofPoseidon, where he is called his son byAntiope (the son ofAeolus, who is usually Hellen's descendant), and the brother ofBoeotus.[19]
According to the mythographerApollodorus (first or second century AD), Hellen's parents are Deucalion and Pyrrha, and his siblings Amphictyon and Protogeneia, or according to "some", his parents are Zeus and Pyrrha.[20] Apollodorus, similarly to theCatalogue and other sources, calls him the father of Dorus, Xuthus and Aeolus; however, he specifies the nymphOrseis (rather than Othreis) as their mother.[21]
According to the Byzantine chroniclerJohn Malalas (c. 491 – 578), Hellen was the son of "Picus Zeus",[22] and the father (rather than son) of Deucalion.[23] According toStephanus of Byzantium (fl. 6th century AD), the historianArchinus had Hellen as the father of one "Neonus", father of "Dotus", the latter of which gave his name to Dotium in Thessaly.[24]
Hellen wasThessalian.[25]Homer, in the part of theIliad known as theCatalogue of Ships, mentions theHellenes (Ἕλληνες) as a small tribe in ThessalicPhthia, among those commanded byAchilles.[26] Similarly, according to a scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes, Hecataeus and "Hesiod" considered Deucalion's descendants to be Thessalian.[27] According toThucydides,Achaea Phthiotis, as the birthplace of Hellen,[28] was the home of the Hellenes; he says that before Hellen the name "Hellas" (Ἑλλάς) didn't exist, but rather there were various tribes which went under different names, particularly "Pelasgian".[29] It was only when Hellen and his sons "grew strong in Phthiotis" that they allied with various cities in war and these cities, one by one, through their association with Hellen and his sons, came to be called "Hellenes", though it was a long time before the name came to be applied to all.[30]
Though primarily genealogical in importance,[31] Hellen does feature briefly inEuripides' lost playMelanippe Wise (c. 420 BC). In the play,Melanippe, the daughter ofAeolus (and thus the granddaughter of Hellen),[32] becomes byPoseidon the mother of twins,Aeolus andBoeotus. They are placed in a cowshed, leading Aeolus to think they are the "unnatural offspring of a cow",[33] and Hellen convinces Aeolus to burn the twins.[34] This story is depicted on anApulianvolute krater dating to the late 4th century BC, in which a shepherd shows the twins to Hellen, in the presence of Melanippe, Aeolus, and Aeolus' sonCretheus.[35]
^According to West 1985, p. 136, "the composition of theCatalogue ... may be assigned to sometime between 580 and 520", and "the range may perhaps be narrowed to c. 540–520", while West 1999,p. 380, says it was "certainly in the sixth century, and perhaps between 540 and 520". Fowler 1998,p. 1 n. 4 dates it to "about 580", while Hirschberger, p. 49 gives the period of 630 to 590. Janko, p. 200, figure 4, in contrast, places it roughly around 675 and 690.
^For an extensive discussion of theCatalogue, see West 1985.
^West 1985, p. 51 says that "it seems hard to resist the conclusion that Deukalion, not Prometheus, was his father [in theCatalogue]", and that "Prometheus' name must have been accidentally repeated [by the scholion] from the line before". While, according to Gantz, p. 164 the scholion "has probably garbled something in transmission", and "it seems better to presume miscopying and emend the scholion". See also Caduff,p. 86.
^Hunter, p. 283; Cardin and Pontani, p. 257 n. 57.
^Cardin and Pontani, p. 257 with nn. 54–7;Tzetzes onLycophron, 286 (Cardin and Pontani, p. 257 n. 54; Scheer, p. 121) [= Scholia onLycophron'sAlexandra, 286 (Cardin and Pontani, p. 257 n. 54; Leone, p. 58) =Hesiod,Catalogue of Womenfr. 9 Most, pp. 48, 49]. Tzetzes takes the passage from a scholion onLycophron'sAlexandra, and quotes it several times in different works: once in his own commentary onLycophron'sAlexandra, and twice in hisExegesis of the Iliad (Papathomopoulos, pp. 94–5, 430). The scholion only attributes the passage to "Hesiod", whereas Tzetzes specifies the work.
^Bury, p. 226;Thucydides,1.3.2. Thucydides uses the mention of the Hellenes in theIliad to support his argument here, as there they refer only to the group in Phthia (who Thucydides calls the "original Hellenes").
^Gantz, p. 167: "The immediate offspring of Deukalion and Pyrrha, including indeed several generations, are primarily eponymous ancestors or intermediate place-holders rather than actors in any real narratives".
^LIMC64 Hellen (S) 1,image 1 of 1;Michael C. Carlos Museum1994.001; Bing, p. 13; Oakley,p. 619, figure 18. For an extensive discussion of the vase, see Bing, pp. 13–6; see also Gantz, pp. 734–5; Collard and Cropp,p. 570. The only iconographic representation of Hellen, Bing, p. 14 describes him here as a "hooded, grizzled old man" and Gantz, p. 735 as "grim".
Asquith, Helen, "From genealogy toCatalogue: the Hellenistic adaptation of the Hesiodic catalogue form", inThe HesiodicCatalogue of Women: Constructions and Reconstructions, edited byRichard Hunter, Cambridge University Press, 2005.ISBN978-0-521-83684-5.
Bing, Peter, "Afterlives of a Tragic Poet: Anecdote, Image and Hypothesis in the Hellenistic Reception of Euripides", inAntike Und Abendland, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 1–17.Online version at De Gruyter.
Cufalo, Domenico,Scholia Graeca in Platonem, I: Scholia ad Dialogos Tetralogiarumi - VII Continens, Roma, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2007.ISBN978-8-884-98353-4.
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Fowler, R. L. (1998), "Genealogical thinking, Hesiod'sCatalogue, and the Creation of the Hellenes", inProceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, Vol. 44, pp. 1–19.JSTOR44696765.
Hall, Jonathan M., "The Role of Language in Greek Ethnicities", inProceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, Vol. 41, pp. 83–100.JSTOR44696719.
Hard, Robin,The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004.ISBN9780415186360.Google Books.
Hirschberger, Martina,Gynaikōn Katalogos und Megalai Ēhoiai: Ein Kommentar zu den Fragmenten zweier hesiodeischer Epen, Munich and Leipzig, K. G. Saur Verlag, 2004.ISBN978-3-598-77810-0.
Solinus, "Gaius Iulius Solinus and his Polyhistor", translated by Arwen Elizabeth Apps, Ph.D. dissertation, Macquarie University, 2011.Online version at ToposText.
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