Note 469 — Chapter XI · ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES.

Thucyd. ii. 29. He makes express mention of the nightingale in connection with the story, though not of the metamorphosis. See below, chap. xvi. p. 544, note 2. So also does Pausanias mention and reason upon it as a real incident: he founds upon it several moral reflections (i. 5, 4; x. 4, 5): the author of the Λόγος Ἐπιτάφιος, ascribed to Demosthenês, treats it in the same manner, as a fact ennobling the tribe Pandionis, of which Pandiôn was the eponymus. The same author, in touching upon Kekrops, the eponymus of the Kekropis tribe, cannot believe literally the story of his being half man and half serpent: he rationalizes it by saying that Kekrops was so called because in wisdom he was like a man, in strength like a serpent (Demosth. p. 1397, 1398, Reiske). Hesiod glances at the fable (Opp. Di. 566), ὀρθογόη Πανδιονὶς ὦρτο χελιδών; see also Ælian., V. H. xii. 20. The subject was handled by Sophoklês in his lost Têreus.