Note 941 — Chapter XVI · GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, FELT AND INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES.

Thucyd. ii. 29. Καὶ τὸ ἔργον τὸ περὶ τὸν Ἴτυν αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν τῇ γῇ ταύτῃ ἔπραξαν· πολλοῖς δὲ καὶ τῶν ποιητῶν ἐν ἀηδόνος μνήμῃ Δαυλιὰς ἡ ὄρνις ἐπωνόμασται. Εἰκὸς τε καὶ τὸ κῆδος Πανδίονα ξυνάψασθαι τῆς θυγατρὸς διὰ τοσούτου, ἐπ᾽ ὠφελείᾳ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους, μᾶλλον ἢ διὰ πολλῶν ἡμερῶν ἐς Ὀδρύσας ὁδοῦ. The first of these sentences would lead us to infer, if it came from any other pen than that of Thucydidês, that the writer believed the metamorphosis of Philomêla into a nightingale: see above, ch. xi. p. 270.

The observation respecting the convenience of neighborhood for the marriage is remarkable, and shows how completely Thucydidês regarded the event as historical. What would he have said respecting the marriage of Oreithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, with Boreas, and the prodigious distance which she is reported to have been carried by her husband? Ὑπέρ τε πόντον πάντ᾽, ἐπ᾽ ἔσχατα χθονὸς, etc. (Sophoklês ap. Strabo. vii. p. 295.)

From the way in which Thucydidês introduces the mention of this event, we see that he intended to correct the misapprehension of his countrymen, who having just made an alliance with the Odrysian Têrês, were led by that circumstance to think of the old mythical Têreus, and to regard him as the ancestor of Têrês.