M/M: Agamemnon and Argynnus, Propertius 3.7.61-64

 

Name:  Propertius Date:  50 – 15 BCE Region:   Assisium [modern Italy] Citation:    Elegies 3.7.61-64

This shore is a monument to Agamemnon’s grief;

it testifies to Argynnus’ suffering.

When this youth died, Agamemnon forbade his fleet to set sail,

and the delay* caused the death of Iphigenia.

*According to Trojan War myth:  while the Achaean forces were assembling at Aulis, Agamemnon shot a deer sacred to Artemis. In retaliation, Artemis refused to allow adequate sailing weather unless the king sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia.  In Propertius' version of the myth, Agamemnon's mourning caused the Achaean ships to miss the sailing season, but were able to resume their sailing with the sacrifice of Iphigenia.

sunt Agamemnonias testantia litora curas,
    quae notat Argynni poena Athamantiadae.
[hoc iuvene amisso classem non solvit Atrides,
    pro qua mactatast* Iphigenia mora.]

 *mactatast = mactata est

 

 

  Propertius [Sextus Propertius; 50-15 BCE, modern Italy] was an Italian-born Roman lyric poet whose love poetry provides insight into the customs of Augustan Rome. Like Catullus and Tibullus, Propertius used a pseudonym for the object of his attention; many of his love poems were addressed to “Cynthia.”

M/M: The Heroic Sacrifices of Cratinus and Aristodemus, Athenaeus Deip. XIII.78

This myth mirrors the Roman myth of Marcus Curtius.

The story of Athenian Cratinus is also famous. According to Neanthes of Cyzicus’ second book of On Sacrifical Rites, when Epimenides was using human blood to expiate Athens, Cratinus was a stunning young man who sacrificed himself in order to save the one who raised him [Athens]. After he died, his lover Aristodemus also died, and the sacrifice was fulfilled.

Celebratum etiam est Cratini factum Atheniensis: qui cum formosus esset adolescentulus, quo tempore Epimenides Atticam humano sanguine lustravit ob vetusta quaeda piacula, ut tradit Neanthes Cyzicenus secundo libro DE Initiationibus, ulto se ipsum pro patria obtulit: cuius post mortem Aristodemus etiam, amator eius, sponte vitam finivit, & cessavit malum

διαβόητα δ᾽ ἐστὶν καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ Κρατίνῳ τῷ Ἀθηναίῳ γενόμενα: ὃς μειράκιον ὢν εὔμορφον, Ἐπιμενίδου καθαίροντος τὴν Ἀττικὴν ἀνθρωπείῳ αἵματι διά τινα μύση παλαιά, ὡς ἱστορεῖ Νεάνθης ὁ Κυζικηνὸς ἐν β᾽ περὶ Τελετῶν, ἑκὼν αὑτὸν ἐπέδωκεν ὁ Κρατῖνος ὑπὲρ τῆς θρεψαμένης: ᾧ καὶ ἐπαπέθανεν ὁ ἐραστὴς Ἀριστόδημος, λύσιν τ᾽ ἔλαβε τὸ δεινόν

--Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae XIII.78; Translated in to Latin by Iohannes Schweighaeuser (1805) 

 

 Athenaeus was a scholar who lived in Naucratis (modern Egypt) during the reign of the Antonines. His fifteen volume work, the Deipnosophists, are invaluable for the amount of quotations they preserve of otherwise lost authors, including the poetry of Sappho.