TFBT: The Phliasians and Aegina

The Attican Study Group over at the Kosmos Society was translating Pausanias 10.13.6;

“The Phliasians brought to Delphi a bronze Zeus, and with the Zeus an image of Aegina.” Pausanias 10.13.6

We wondered why the Phliasians would have an image of the eponymous nymph of the far-away island of Aegina.  We looked to Greg Nagy for further information on the nymph.  

“According to Pindar’s retelling, the nymph Aegina is the twin sister of a nymph named Thebe local goddess of Thebes in Boeotia. The name of this sister nymph is significant, since the name of the place that is Thebe is the elliptic plural of the name of the nymph that is Thebes.  According to the narrative of this Aeginetan ode of Pindar, Aegina and Thebe are twin nymphs, the youngest of the daughters of Asopus, who is the god of the river Asopus that waters the land of Thebes. The myth tells how Zeus took Aegina away from this land and relocated her in another land. This other land, in Pindar’s retelling, was an island once known as Iononē, which was thereafter renamed as Aegina. And it is here in Aegina that Zeus impregnated Aegina, who gave birth to Ayako’s. So goes the myth as retold in Pindar’s Isthmian 8."  (Asopus and his multiple daughters: Traces of pre-classical epic in the Aeginetan Odes of Pindar Nagy)

And here is where we found the connection between the Phliasians and Aegina;

"Asopus made his home in Polios (Phil’s), where he married Merope, the daughter of Laden, to whom were born two sons, Pelages and Simenon, and twelve daughters, Corcyra and Salamis, also Aegina,”.  (Deodars Sic ulus, Library of History 4. 72. 1)  

Other Notes;

·      Philias;  Philistia near Sicyon is called after him. Philias was son either of Dionysus 2 and Ariadne, or of Lycaeus, or of (according to the Argives, but they are not trusted) Cisus and Araethyrea. Philias married Chthonophyle (also loved by Hermes) and had by her a son Androdamas (Arg.1.20ff; Hyg.Fab14; Pau.2.6.6, 2.12.6; Val.1.412).

·      Asopus, a river of Peloponnesus, rising in the mountains of Phil’s, and flowing through Scyonia into the Corinthian gulf. Hence the plain of Sicyonia was called Asopis or Asopia.   Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.

·      Cleonae was conquered by the Dorians, whereupon some of its inhabitants fled, together with those of the neighboring town of Phil’s, are said to have moved to Clazomenae in Asia Minor.   Dictionary of G&R