From lockyert@mweb.co.za Sun Sep 3 03:21:35 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id DAA48892 for ; Sun, 3 Sep 2000 03:21:33 -0700 Received: from jhb-proxy.mweb.co.za (jhb-proxy.mweb.co.za [196.2.48.243]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id DAA20387 for ; Sun, 3 Sep 2000 03:21:30 -0700 Received: from default ([196.30.234.178]) by jhb-proxy.mweb.co.za (Sun Internet Mail Server sims.3.5.2000.03.23.18.03.p10) with SMTP id <0G0B007C135QH6@jhb-proxy.mweb.co.za> for classics@u.washington.edu; Sun, 3 Sep 2000 12:15:28 +0200 (GMT-2) Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 12:14:26 +0200 From: Terrence Lockyer Subject: RE:Baby Oedipus & Atalanta To: Classics List Reply-to: Terrence Lockyer Message-id: <000901c0158f$d971e2c0$b2ea1ec4@default> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 X-Priority: 3 On 02 Sep 00, John Thorburn wrote: : I vaguely recall Atalanta being exposed and suckled by a she-bear? Apollodoros 3.9.2 records that Atalanta, daughter of Iasos (not Skhoineus), was exposed by her father, who wanted male offspring, and suckled by a she-bear. Theognis (somewhere about 1290 - I have only a translation) names her father as Iasios and says that she left her his house and went into the mountains to avoid marriage, which version may be connected with the exposure story. Gantz (Early Greek Myth [Baltimore & London 1993] Vol. 1, p. 335) distinguishes between an Arkadian Atalanta (daughter of Iasos or Iasios), who is the one exposed and suckled by a bear, and a Boiotian Atalanta, daughter of Skhoineus, who is not. The distinction is not accepted by all. Interestingly, at the end of 3.9.2, Apollodoros cites Hesiod and others for Skhoineus as Atalanta's father, and Euripides for Mainalos (who is not mentioned at all in Gantz) as her father and Hippomenes, rather than Melanion, as her husband. Clearly Apollodoros was faced with a number of competing traditions. I have heard (but know no references for) an opinion that he cites authors by name usually in order to disagree with them, and this seems to be the case here, as the citations follow the Apollodoran account and refer to details that conflict with it. The various versions seem sufficiently consistent for there to have been only one Atalanta about whom different (regional?) stories were known, rather than several about whom similar stories were told, assuming that that is a meaningful distinction. Terrence Lockyer Johannesburg, South Africa .