Note 420 — Chapter IX · ARCADIAN GENEALOGY.

Schol. Eurip. Alkêst. 1; Diodôr. iv. 71; Apollodôr. iii. 10, 3; Pindar, Pyth. iii. 59; Sextus Empiric. adv. Grammatic. i. 12. p. 271. Stesichorus named Eriphylê—the Naupaktian verses, Hippolytus—(compare Servius ad Virgil. Æneid. vii. 761); Panyasis, Tyndareus; a proof of the popularity of this tale among the poets. Pindar says that Æsculapius was “tempted by gold” to raise a man from the dead, and Plato (Legg. iii. p. 408) copies him: this seems intended to afford some color for the subsequent punishment. “Mercede id captum (observes Boeckh. ad Pindar. l. c.) Æsculapium fecisse recentior est fictio; Pindari fortasse ipsius, quem tragici secuti sunt: haud dubie a medicorum avaris moribus profecta, qui Græcorum medicis nostrisque communes sunt.” The rapacity of the physicians (granting it to be ever so well-founded, both then and now) appears to me less likely to have operated upon the mind of Pindar, than the disposition to extenuate the cruelty of Zeus, by imputing guilty and sordid views to Asklêpius. Compare the citation from Dikæarchus, infrà, p. 249, note 1.