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[34]

And after sacrificing to Hades, and Persephone, and Tiresias, he journeyed on foot through Epirus, and came to the Thesprotians, and having offered sacrifice according to the directions of the soothsayer Tiresias, he propitiated Poseidon.1 But Callidice, who was then queen of the Thesprotians, urged him to stay and offered him the kingdom;


1 Tiresias had warned Ulysses that, after slaying the suitors, he must journey inland till he came to a country where men knew not the sea, and where a wayfarer would mistake for a winnowing-fan the oar which Ulysses was carrying on his shoulder. There Ulysses was to sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Poseidon, the god whom he had offended. See Hom. Od. 11.119-131. But the journey itself and the sacrifice are not recorded by Homer. In a little island off Cos a Greek skipper told Dr. W. H. D. Rouse a similar story about the journey inland of the prophet Elias. The prophet, according to this account, was a fisherman who, long buffeted by storms, conceived a horror of the sea, and, putting an oar on his shoulder, took to the hills and walked till he met a man who did not know what an oar was. There the prophet planted his oar in the ground, and there he resolved to abide. That is why all the prophet's chapels are on the tops of hills. This legend was published by Dr. Rouse in The Cambridge Review under the heading of “A Greek skipper.” This and the remaining part of Apollodorus are probably drawn from the epic poem Telegony, a work by Eugammon of Cyrene, of which a short abstract by Proclus has been preserved. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 57ff. The author of the abstract informs us that after the death and burial of the suitors “Ulysses sacrificed to the nymphs and sailed to Elis to inspect the herds. And he was entertained by Polyxenus and received a present of a bowl. And after that followed the episodes of Trophonius, and Agamedes, and Augeas. Then he sailed home to Ithaca and offered the sacrifices prescribed by Tiresias. And after these things he went to the Thesprotians and married Callidice, queen of the Thesprotians. Then the Thesprotians made war on the Brygians, under the leadership of Ulysses. There Ares put Ulysses and his people to flight, and Athena engaged him in battle; but Apollo reconciled them. And after Callidice's death, Polypoetes, son of Ulysses, succeeded to the kingdom, and Ulysses himself went to Ithaca. Meanwhile Telegonus, sailing in search of his father, landed in Ithaca and ravaged the island; and marching out to repel him Ulysses was killed by his son in ignorance. Recognizing his error, Telegonus transported his father's body, and Telemachus, and Penelope to his mother, and she made them immortal. And Telegonus married Penelope, and Telemachus married Circe.” The tradition, mentioned also by Hyginus, Fab. 127, that one son of Ulysses (Telegonus) married his father's widow (Penelope), and that another son (Telemachus) married his father's concubine (Circe), is very remarkable, and may possibly point to an old custom according to which a son inherited his father's wives and concubines, with the exception of his own mother. Compare Apollod. 2.7.7, with Frazer's note (vol. i. p. 269). Apollodorus mentions the marriage of Telegonus to Penelope (see below), but not the marriage of Telemachus to Circe.

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