Note 275.3 — Chapter III · NOTES

The lovers, Melanippos and Komaitho, sin in the temple of Artemis Triklaria of the Ionians in Achaia; the whole community is visited with the divine wrath, and the sinners are offered up as a piacular sacrifice (Paus., 7, 19, 3); according to Euphorion, Laokoon’s fate was due to a similar trespass committed with his wife before the statue of Apollo (Serv. Aen., 2, 201). It may be that such legends faintly reflect a very early ἱερὸς γάμος once performed in temples by the priest and priestess: if so, they also express the repugnance of the later Hellene to the idea of it; and in any case this is not the institution that is being discussed.