Note 35 — Chapter III · CAVE DEITIES: SUBTERRANEAN TRANSLATION

κὰδ δ’ ἐν Ἀθήνῃσ’ εἶσεν, ἑῷ ἐνὶ πίονι νηῷ. These words may be kept in mind in order to explain the mysterious narrative in Hesiod Th. 987 ff. of Phaethon whom Aphrodite ὦρτ’ ἀνερειψαμένη καί μιν ζαθέοις ἐνὶ νήοις νηοπόλον μύχιον ποιήσατο, δαίμονα δῖον. Aphr., in fact. “translated” Phaethon alive and made him immortal—within her own temple just as Athene had Erechtheus. Perhaps Phaethon was translated beneath the ground under the temple—the adj. μύχιον may mean this. θεοὶ μύχιοι are those that rule over the μυχός of a house, e.g. over the θάλαμος as the inmost chamber: thus Ἀφροδίτη μυχία (Ael., HA. x, 34). Λητὼ μυχία (Plu. ap. Eus., PE. iii, 1, 3, p. 84 c.). A goddess called simply Μυχία, ins. fr. Mytilene, GDI. 255. But μύχιοι could also mean dwellers in the depths of the earth (μυχῷ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης, Hes., Th. 119; more commonly in the plural μυχοὶ χθονός, see Markland on Eur., Sup. 545; cf. Ἄϊδος μυχός, AP. vii, 213, 6 (Archias); also μυχὸς εὐσεβέων, ἀθανάτων under the earth, Epigr. Gr. 241 a, 18; 658 a; Rh. Mus. 34, 192). Thus (of the Erinyes) Orph. H. 69, 3, μύχιαι, ὑπὸ κεύθεσιν οἰκί’ ἔχουσαι ἄντρῳ ἐν ἠερόεντι. Phot. 274, 18, μυχόπεδον· γῆς βάθος, Ἅιδης.