Note 652 — Chapter XIV · LEGENDS OF THEBES.
Reading edition
The story recounted that the head of Melanippus was brought to Tydeus as he was about to expire of his wound, and that he gnawed it with his teeth, a story touched upon by Sophoklês (apud Herodian. in Rhetor. Græc. t. viii. p. 601, Walz.).
The lyric poet Bacchylidês (ap. Schol. Aristoph. Aves, 1535) seems to have handled the story even earlier than Sophoklês.
We find the same allegation embodied in charges against real historical men: the invective of Montanus against Aquilius Regulus, at the beginning of the reign of Vespasian, affirmed, “datam interfectori Pisonis pecuniam a Regulo, appetitumque morsu Pisonis caput” (Tacit. Hist. iv. 42).