Acusilaus of Argos: Fragments

Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente
der Vorsokratiker by Kathleen Freeman. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press [1948]
This text is in the public domain in the US because its copyright was not renewed in a timely fashion as
required by law at the time. The chapters are numbered as in the Fifth Edition of Diels, Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker. The numbers in brackets are those of the Fourth Edition.
Acusilus of Argos lived probably in the sixth century B.C.
He wrote a prose work on the origins of Gods and men, called Genealogies.
1. (Chaos was the first principle, and after it the pair, Erebus the male and Night the female; from their
union sprang Nether, Eros and Mtis; and the other gods are derived from these).
2. (Plato, Symposium 178B: Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod that Chaos came first, and after Chaos Earth
and Eros).
3. (Eros the son of Night and Aether).
4. (Koios: among names of male and female Titans).
5. (Iris is the messenger of all the gods. The Harpies guard the apples of the Hesperides).
6. (Cerberus is the son of Echidn and Typho; also other monsters, including the eagle that eats the liver
of Prometheus).
7. (Typho attacked the kingdom of Zeus).
8. (Phorcys was the son of Eidothea and father of the Graeae. Proteus and Tithonus, though old, were
immortal. There are two generations of goddesses: the older married, and the younger unmarried, like
Artemis and Athene, Peace and Justice).
9. (Asclepius was killed by Zeus).
9a. (Ouranos flung the Hundred-armed Giants into Tartarus, fearing that they would prevail, and knowing
their sins).
9b. (Acusilaus like Homer briefly tells the story of the giants).
9c. (Heracles died in the fire).
10. (Apollo was about to be flung into Tartarus by Zeus, but on the supplication of Leto he was allowed to
serve a man, Admetus, instead).
11. (Pelasgus, son of Niobe and Zeus, gave his name to the Pelasgians of the Peloponnese).
12. (Io the daughter of Peirn).
13. (Argus was earthborn).
14. (The daughters of Proetus were driven mad because they had disparaged the wooden statue of
Hera).
15. (The Cretan bull, capture of which formed the seventh labour of Heracles, was the bull that ferried
Europa across the sea).
16. (Actaeon, eaten on Cithaeron by his own dogs, was punished by madness for having wooed Semele).
17. (Menelaus had a son Megapenths by Tris).
18. (The river Aspus is the son of Pr and Poseidon).
19. (Zts and Calais were destroyed by Heracles near Tenos).
20. (Phorneus was the first man. When he was king in Argos, the Great Flood occurred in Attica).
21. (Achelos is the oldest of the rivers): Ocean marries Tethys his own sister; from them spring three
thousand rivers, but Achelos is the oldest and most honoured.
22. (The Homeridae are a clan in Chios).
23. (The men of old lived for a thousand years).
24. (Mycnae was named after Mycneus son of Spartn, who was a son of Phorneus).
25. (The sons of Phrixus had as their mother Iophss daughter of Aets).
26. (Story of Endymion).
27. (Scylla daughter of Phorcys and Hecat).
28. (The Phaeacians sprang from blood that dripped from Ouranos to earth on his castration).
29. (The Fleece was not golden, but dyed purple by the sea).
30. (There are three winds, Borras, Zephyr, Notos; the epithet 'bright' applies only to Zephyr).
31. (Version of the Trojan War: Aphrodite, hearing an oracle that the throne of Priam would fall and the
descendants of Anchises would rule Troy, united with Anchises in his old age and bore Aeneas; wishing
to bring about the downfall of the house of Priam she inspired Paris with a passion for Helen; and after
the abduction she pretended to be fighting on the Trojan side, whereas she was glossing over their
defeat, in order that they should not fall into despair and hand over Helen).
32. (Anchises son of Cleonymus, Echeplus son of Anchises).
33. (The mother of Deucalion was Hsion daughter of Ocean, and his father was Prometheus).
34. (Eurypylus was the son of Astyoch and Tlephus. Priam bribed Astyoch with a golden vine to allow
her son to go to the war).
35. (reithyia, daughter of Erechtheus, was carried away by Boreas as she walked in the procession to
Athene Polias. Boreas took her to Thrace, where she bore Zts and Calais, who sailed with the
Argonauts).
36. (Ithaca and its mountain Nriton were named after Ithacus and Nritus, descendants of Zeus, who
settled first in Cephallenia and then on Ithaca).
37. (All creatures that sting come from the blood of Typho).
38. (Deucalion and Pyrrha made men by throwing stones behind them).
39. (Cornis preferred Ischys to Apollo, because she feared to be despised by a god and wished to
marry a mortal).
40. (From Cabr and Hephaestus sprang Camillus, from him the three Cabri, . . . three Nymphs, the
Cabiridae).
40a. Poseidon united with Caen daughter of Elatus. Afterwards, since she did not wish to have a child
by him or anyone else, Poseidon turned her into a man (Caeneus) invulnerable, having strength greater
than that of all the men of his day; and whenever anyone tried to wound him with iron or bronze, he was
at once held fast. This Caeneus became king of the Lapithae and used to make war on the Centaurs.
Later he set up a javelin in the market-place, and demanded to be accounted a god. This was
displeasing to the gods, and Zeus seeing him doing this threatened him and sent the Centaurs against
him, and they cut him down to the ground where he stood, and set a rock above as a grave-stone, and
he died.
Doubtful
41. (Scholiast on Pindar, Olympian, VII. 42: Pindar appears to have used the ancient historiographer in
his genealogy of Amyntor).