Apollodorus, Epitome
Sir James George Frazer, Ed.

1 This Broteas, mentioned by Apollodorus between Tantalus and Pelops, is probably the Broteas, son of Tantalus, who was said to have carved the ancient rock-hewn image of the Mother of the Gods which is still to be seen on the side of Mount Sipylus, about three hundred feet above the plain. See Paus. 3.22.4, with Frazer, note on v.13.7 （vol. iii. pp. 553ff.）. Ovid mentions a certain Broteas, who from a desire of death burned himself on a pyre （ Ovid, Ibis 517ff.）, and who is probably to be identified with the Broteas of Apollodorus, though the Scholiasts on Ovid describe him either as a son of Jupiter （Zeus）, or as a son of Vulcan （Hephaestus） and Pallas （Athena）, identical with Erichthonius. According to one of the Scholiasts, Broteas, son of Zeus, was a very wicked man, who was blinded by Zeus, and loathing his life threw himself on a burning pyre. According to another of the Scholiasts, Broteas, son of Hephaestus and Athena, was despised for his ugliness, and this so preyed on his mind that he preferred death by fire. See Ovid, Ibis, ed. R. Ellis, p. 89. It seems not improbable that this legend contains a reminiscence of a human sacrifice or suicide by fire, such as occurs not infrequently in the traditions of western Asia. See K. B. Stark, Niobe und die Niobiden （Leipsig, 1863）, pp. 437ff.; and for the Asiatic traditions of a human sacrifice or suicide by fire, see Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed., i.172ff.